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Date: Thu, 1 Oct 87 03:17:22 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8710011017.AA01416@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #0

SPACE Digest                                        Volume 8 : Issue 0

Today's Topics:
		 Administrivia: Happy Fiscal New Year
			Moon position program
	   StarChart software (+ Re: Moon position program)
			 Meeting announcement
		     space news from Aug 17 AW&ST
		   Re: World satellite launch sites
	       Re: Offshore corporate launch facilities
		   Re: World satellite launch sites
	       Japanese POW camp cemetary in Australia
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Wed, 30 Sep 87 18:35:20 PDT
From: ota@galileo.s1.gov
Subject: Administrivia: Happy Fiscal New Year

I'd like to welcome you all to a new fiscal year and to Volume 8 of the
Space Digest.  Although not everyone calculates new years from October
1st the US Government does.  Since money and politics control the pace
of space development the Space Digest honors the Free World's largest
source of both by revolving in phase with the US Government.

I hope your next year is proserous and sucessful.
	Ad Astra,
	Ted Anderson

------------------------------

Date: 23 Sep 87 13:17:07 GMT
From: eagle!has@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (H.A.Shaw)
Subject: Moon position program

Does anybody have a program for producing the RA and DEC of the moon? 
I have the starchart porgram from the net of some time ago, so the
Kepler parameters should be enough for me to generate a program.  I
wish to add this to the starchart software and would like to hear from
the original author ( Alan Paeth, awpaeth@watcgl are you out there ??)
since I have made modifications to the programs that he might like to
hear about.  I am, at the moment trying to modify a satilite
prediction program to work with starchart.  Finally are any of the
catalogues (Messier or NGC for example) available in machine readable
form?, because, as useful as the starchart programs are, they only
show the positions of the planets, while I am interested in
photography of nebulae and galaxies.  I have access to the 12"
Newtonian Reflector in th Physics Dept.  here, and take, develop and
print my own colour photographs.  I am just starting in this field,
but already have promising pictures of the Moon, Jupiter, Saturn, and
the Ring Nebula M57.  When the Orion nebula system turns up as the
year moves around I hope to get pitcures of that.  Anybody interested??

Howard Shaw,
Physics Dept.
University of Kent,
Canterbury,
England.

has@ukc.ac.uk
	-or-
has@uk.ac.ukc
	-or even, if you are very old-
...!ukc!has

------------------------------

Date: 27 Sep 87 02:59:04 GMT
From: decvax!watmath!watcgl!awpaeth@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Alan W. Paeth)
Subject: StarChart software (+ Re: Moon position program)

In article <3320@eagle.ukc.ac.uk> has@eagle.ukc.ac.uk (H.A.Shaw) writes:
>Does anybody have a program for producing the RA and DEC of the moon?
>I wish to add this to the starchart software and would like to hear
>from the original author ( Alan Paeth, awpaeth@watcgl are you out there
>??)  ...catalogues (Messier or NGC for example) available in machine
>readable form?

Watch this space!

I plan to repost StarChart by 1 Oct to the moderator of net.sources.
Changes include a list of Messier objects, new symbols for non-stellar
objects, Greek Bayer letters for bright stars, totally reworked (but
back-compatable) command interface, and mnemonic constellation finder.
I've also included software to change epochs (all StarChart data will be
released in E2000.0), and have code in the works to perform plotting of
asteroids and lunar profiles.

If anyone else wishes to add any last-minute features, please e-mail me
in the next few days, as I'm completing the integration of features and
bug fixes sent in by many of you.

    /Alan Paeth

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 30 Sep 87 10:39:11 PDT
From: Eugene Miya <miya@lll-crg.arpa>
Subject: Meeting announcement

Next CPSR/Palo Alto meeting

Video Tape:
Company Loyality and Whistle Blowing: Ethical Decisions and the Space
Shuttle Disaster

Roger Boisjoly
Morton Thiokol

Wednesday, Oct. 14, 1987
7:30 PM
1140 Cowper Street Palo Alto, CA

Roger Boisjoly headed a group at Morton Thiokol in charge of
investigating space shuttle joints, including O-rings that failed
catastrophically on the Challenger.  He was one of the engineers who
argued against launch.  In this videotape of a talk he gave at MIT in
January, he describes the events leading up to the Challenger disaster,
including the last evening of the decision making, and the Congressional
and other investigations afterward.  He also discusses the effects of
these events on him and other Morton Thiokol engineers.

------------------------------

Date: 29 Sep 87 00:05:17 GMT
From: linus!utzoo!henry@husc6.harvard.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Aug 17 AW&ST

[Let's see.  After Spaceflight and Space World, there is no clear third
place in space periodicals to my mind.  There are several that address
different needs.  So this week's plug goes to JBIS, known more fully as
the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society.  This is a formal
technical journal more than a magazine, and sometimes it does get rather
mathematical, but much (not all) of the content is intelligible to the
informed laycreature.  And it publishes the most marvellous papers.  A
special issue on antimatter propulsion.  Frequent contributions on SETI
and the Fermi paradox.  History of spaceflight.  A special issue on the
future of solar-system exploration, with papers on things like a probe
that would get down within a few million km of the Sun.  A paper by the
Voyager mission planners on how long the Voyagers will last and where
they will be thousands of years from now.  All manner of fascinating
stuff (with some dreck mixed in, of course), often written by the people
who are actually *doing* it, not some babytalking reporter.  Address is
the same as that for Spaceflight; JBIS is an extra-cost add-on to BIS
membership, costing another US$30 or so (don't remember exactly).  Well
worthwhile.]

[Oh yes, an add-on to the Space World recommendation: despite the damn
stupid name, the National Space Society is open to non-USAnians.  This
sort of misunderstanding (I mention it because I've gotten a bit of mail
about this) is one reason why the name needs changing.]

[If you're wondering about "USAnian", "American" properly refers to a
pair of continents rather than the second-largest nation on one of
them.]

Rockwell is working on a payload-deployment gadget for payloads that
nearly fill the shuttle cargo bay or push the weight limit.  It will
rotate big payloads out of the cargo bay, while weighing only 170 lb
against the shuttle arm's 1300 lb.

There are currently too few technical experts on NASA's space station HQ
staff to handle the thousands of pages of paperwork that need doing
between now and the major program review in March.

NASA assessment finds NASA manpower generally inadequate for rebuilding
the space program, perhaps another 2000 needed soon.

Fletcher to meet with CEOs of 25 top NASA contractors to brief them on
plans and get their views.

[Prediction: their views will be "spend lots more money".]

Intelsat signs with Martin Marietta for commercial Titan 3 launches of
two Intelsat 6s, in 1989 and 1990.  Redundancy in launchers is explicit
Intelsat policy; they already have several Ariane contracts.  The two
Intelsat 6s were originally meant to go on the shuttle.  Proton was
considered but "unresolved technical issues and other uncertainties"
[translation: the US State Dept.'s objections] ruled it out.

Japan stacks H-1 booster for ETS-5 engineering test satellite launch on
Aug 20.  [Successful.]

Army approves hurry-up neutral-particle-beam program at Los Alamos.  A
shuttle-borne experiment will fly in the early 1990s.  Picture of
McDonnell- Douglas mockup of the experiment package: three satellites,
two of them small (target and monitoring unit), the third filling most
of the shuttle cargo bay (accelerator).

SDIO faces major delays and possible termination of ongoing projects due
to budget cuts.  Of particular note is that the SP-100 space-qualified
nuclear-reactor project will probably be delayed or cancelled.

NASA prepares to issue $30M RFP for space-station crew-escape studies.
Formal new-start funding request will follow in FY1990.  The vehicle
will carry six or more crew; the station will have two, to permit a
partial return for medical emergencies.  Reentry testing by mid-1995
would be needed if space station manned operations are to start late in
1995.  The test would be done from the shuttle, and might be manned.
Three types of vehicle are under consideration:

	- Winged.  Low G-loads on reentry, possibly important for
	medical evacuation, and more choice of landing site, but high
	cost and complexity.  Langley has studied an 8-man lifting body
	resembling the Soviet mini-spaceplane.

	- Lifting capsule, resembling Apollo.  G-loads would be higher
	but still could be modest.  Landing by parachute in water; KSC
	is looking at recovery issues.  Rockwell has studied existing
	Apollo hardware to determine whether it could be refurbished.
	NASA thinks that is unlikely (for one thing, Apollo hardware is
	built for a low-pressure pure-oxygen atmosphere, unlike the
	station's), but agrees it is worth looking at.

	- Ballistic capsule.  Cheapest, but G-loads would be high.

Study contractors will get NASA's conclusions on the G-load issue early
in the 15-month contract term, since it will have a major effect.

Aft exit cone on SRB nozzle being assembled for full-scale test flunks
leak check.  This area has never had a leak-check capability before.
The problem is thought to be a side effect of horizontal assembly, and
to be unimportant.  [The test was successful.]

Alexander Laveikin, the cosmonaut who was brought down from Mir early
due to a heart irregularity, appears to be in good health (allowing for
the usual side effects of 174 days in space).  The Soviets say that
treatment with drugs was rejected due to possible side effects, often
seen even on Earth.

USSR announces that an Afghan cosmonaut will fly on a Soyuz within the
next few years.  [There is also talk that an Austrian might fly on
Soyuz.]

NASA awards five nine-month study contracts for improved SRB designs.

NASA studies say that Mach 2-5 is viable for supersonic commercial
transports and higher speeds are not.  High costs, logistics, and
environmental issues make trouble, and above Mach 6 or so the
productivity gain falls off as the technological challenge rises.
Boeing says that about Mach 4 is the cutoff; beyond that, one needs
cryogenic fuels and new airport facilities.  NASA and other companies
disagree about the exact cutoff but agree there is one.  None of the
parties involved -- airports, airlines, fuel companies -- wants to spend
the money for the facilities and training needed for new fuels.
Boeing's studies go up to Mach 25 [orbital speed], and reject it: "The
Earth is not big enough for a Mach 25 airplane in terms of trying to
take advantage of those speeds and have a commercial operation..."

Letter from Bruce Murray (Caltech planetary scientist of note) blames
White House, not Fletcher, for current woes.  "The buck stops at the
White House.  That is where our response should be targeted."

Letter from John Keil, Tacoma:

	"You state that the US must respond aggressively to Soviet space
	efforts or `forfeit its international leadership role in space'.
	...the US already has lost its position as the world leader in
	space development, and comments like that only tend to disguise
	the problem.

	"The Soviets have launched more spacecraft per year than the US
	every year since 1962.  They launched more satellites in the
	first three weeks of July than we have managed to launch all
	year.

	"...our space vehicles are more sophisticated than their Soviet
	counterparts.  However, such a large disparity in the number of
	launches is difficult to counter with technological advantages.
	And, of course, all our technical expertise does little good
	sitting in a warehouse."

Letter from Name Withheld By Request, pointing out that DoD is upset
about military uses of Mir while loudly insisting that it has no
military use for the US space station:

	"The only explanation for this contradictory behavior is the
	Defense Dept's fear that it could lose a billion or so from its
	gigantic $300 billion yearly budget if it appears in the least
	supportive..."

"There's a lot more to do in space   |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
than sending people to Mars." --Bova | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 25 Sep 87 17:19:05 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: World satellite launch sites

> How many launch sites are there in the world from which satellites
> have been sent up? ...

I was hoping that somebody with references handy would answer this.
Just off the top of my head:

US	- Cape Canaveral (east central Florida):  main site
	- Vandenberg (California coast north of LA):  polar orbit
	- Wallops Island (Virginia coast):  small stuff, e.g. Scout

USSR	- Baikonur (aka Tyuratam):  manned and big launches in particular
	- at least one more, primarily military (memory fails me here)

China	- the main one in NW China
	- a new polar-orbit site, near Beijing I think

Britain	- used Woomera, Australia once

ESA	- Kourou in French Guiana (NE coast of South America)

India	- one site somewhere

Japan	- Tanegashima for big stuff
	- Tsushima for small scientific work
	(I may have spellings wrong and/or names reversed)

US+Italy(!)
	- San Marco platform, off coast of Kenya:  small stuff on Scout

I have probably missed some.

"There's a lot more to do in space   |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
than sending people to Mars." --Bova | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 27 Sep 87 03:34:07 GMT
From: tektronix!reed!percival!bucket!leonard@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Offshore corporate launch facilities

In article <2444@drivax.UUCP> macleod@drivax.UUCP (MacLeod) writes:
<Having shot themselves in the foot long enough to give themselves lead
<poisoning, the bureaucrats are anxious to pee in all available
<punchbowls.  They have the legislative ability to block US access to
<Soviet launch facilities, but they cannot stop a Seychelles or Ivory
<Coast corporation from doing the same.

As I recall the proposed regulations, they can prevent _US_citizens_
from having anything to do with a space launch or facility that they
don't approve of.

I'm not quite ready to give up me citizenship yet....

Leonard Erickson		...!tektronix!reed!percival!bucket!leonard

------------------------------

Date: 28 Sep 87 17:08:48 GMT
From: idacrd!mac@princeton.edu  (Bob McGwier)
Subject: Re: World satellite launch sites

in article <8659@utzoo.UUCP>, henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) says:
> USSR	- Baikonur (aka Tyuratam):  manned and big launches in particular
> 	- at least one more, primarily military (memory fails me here)
    Plesetsk primarily for polar orbits (Eye in the sky etc. :-) )

Somewhere in Texas, the Conestoga I was launched :-) (give 'em hell
Deke) and there a few thousand launch sites for really big ones in the
midwestern U.S. and in Siberia :-(

[Matagordo Island. -Ed]

Bob

------------------------------

Date: 29 Sep 1987 17:33-EDT 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Japanese POW camp cemetary in Australia

D Gary Grady: Maybe there is some hope for this mudball after all.
Thank you for sharing that historical footnote.

					Dale Amon

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #0
*******************



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Date: Wed, 14 Oct 87 14:03:02 PDT
From: ota%galileo.s1.gov@mordor.s1.gov
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To: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: [ota: SPACE Digest V8 #1]

Date: Fri, 2 Oct 87 03:03:38 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #1

SPACE Digest                                        Volume 8 : Issue 1

Today's Topics:
		  Re: The Rocket Team #8 - In Orbit
	     Re: Condemnation of Private Sensing Policies
	     Re: Condemnation of Private Sensing Policies
		 FOBS (was BMD & Announcing Launches)
			    SR71 sighting
		     Re: Mir Elements, 3 Sep 1987
	  Re: PC's East, was Space Digest more international
		 Re: Space Digest more international
		 Re: Space Digest more international
			Re: Things aint so bad
			Re: Translation of Mir
			 News item about Mir
	       Re: Things aint so bad (soviet shuttle)
			Re: Translation of Mir
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 27 Sep 87 00:07:40 GMT
From: ihnp4!edsel!dxa@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (DR Anolick)
Subject: Re: The Rocket Team #8 - In Orbit

   (History of Explorer 1 Launch deleted)

>  At the communications center, von Braun and Pickering waited
>  impatiently.  The tracking station on Antigua Island had reported the
>  fourth stage had fired and the satellite had passed over it.  But von
>  Braun wanted confir-

   (Other stuff deleted)

>  [from The Rocket Team, by Frederick Ordway and Mitchell Sharpe, MIT Press,
>   1979, ISBN 0-262-65013-4, $9.95 (paper) ]
>  				Dave Newkirk, ihnp4!ihlpm!dcn

Does anyone know what became of the tracking station on Antigua?  Is it
still in use?  If not, was it torn down, or does it still exist?

I may be in Antigua this March, and am always interested in visiting
space history sites.  Even if there is nothing really exciting to see.

Please Email any information you might have.
-- 
droyan				David ROY ANolick
ihnp4!edsel!droyan		^     ^^^ ^^

------------------------------

Date: 24 Sep 87 22:07:00 GMT
From: spdcc!m2c!ulowell!apollo!arnold@husc6.harvard.edu  (Ken Arnold)
Subject: Re: Condemnation of Private Sensing Policies

In article <2007@kitty.UUCP> Larry Lippman writes:
>In article <630@its63b.ed.ac.uk>, Bob Gray writes:
>> If I buy these high resolution images from the French or Russian
>> agencies selling them, then publish a book with these images in it,
>> how can this possibly be a Federal crime? I don't even live in the
>> country.

>Well, it's not a crime unless (1) you publish or otherwise disseminate
>the photographs _in_ the United States; and (2) the photographs depict
>defense installations which are designated "vital" (many of them).

Oh, this is great.  What this means is that it is illegal for me to
possess data which people outside the US are legally allowed to have.
In other words, a Frenchman can get those pictures, or even a Russian,
but me, a red-blooded American-type, can't.  Doesn't this seem silly?

I understand that Israel has a overriding rule for its censorship --
that it can only be suppressed if it *hasn't* been published elsewhere.
In other words, the Israeli people are not allowed to be *less* well
informed about their own affairs than people in other countries.  Even
if this *isn't* true, it makes a lot of sense (please only mail
corrections if I'm wrong -- this is the wrong newsgroup to get into a
debate about what Israel's policy is in detail).

Sometimes the illogic of that National Security paranoids is downright
bizarre...

		Ken Arnold

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 25 Sep 87 22:31:25 pdt
From: Eugene Miya N. <eugene@ames-pioneer.arpa>
Subject: Re: Condemnation of Private Sensing Policies
Newsgroups: sci.space

>In article <2007@kitty.UUCP> Larry Lippman writes:
>>	Well, it's not a crime unless (1) you publish or otherwise
>>disseminate the photographs _in_ the United States; and (2) the photographs
>>depict defense installations which are designated "vital" (many of them).
>
>Sometimes the illogic of that National Security paranoids is downright
>bizarre...
>		Ken Arnold

Oh, I see that Ken wrote this, so I will send it to the net.  I was in a
security meeting the other month.  I won't mention names, but we had
this guy from Washington DC who also worked in another agency, not the
NSA, or CIA, but close.  He asked if when remote sensing missions like
the TR-2, U-2, TR-1, Q-3, Lear, DC-8 (used to be CV-990) overflew
"sensitive" installations, whether anyone would check about photography
or imaging of the area.  The man was particular concern about certain
areas in the Deep South.  The answer was "Typically NO."  This did not
sit well.

I had problems with this fellow's opinions, needless to say.

--eugene

Santa Barbara, CA: where else do you know where Jane Fonda and
Ronald Reagan can have homes in the same county? ;-)

------------------------------

Date: 28 Sep 87 16:19:45 GMT
From: miq%psuvm.bitnet@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Jim Maloy)
Subject: FOBS (was BMD & Announcing Launches)

In article <495@esunix.UUCP>, bpendlet@esunix.UUCP (Bob Pendleton) says:
>>>  If our trackers can't tell the diff between an ICBM on a ballistic
>>>  trajectory and a launch vehicle & payload headed for orbit, we're
>>>  in bad trouble.

>> Unless the Soviets are using ICBMs that take off at orbital speeds
>> and then retrothrust to suborbital, this mixup should never occur.
     
>FOBS Fractional Orbit Bombing System. One of the things that gives me
>nightmares is an FOBS MIRV. The idea is to do exactly what you said.
>Put a number of bombs in low earth orbit and deorbit them just a short
>distance from their targets.
     
     Cringe.  And I thought I had a decent hyperbole there.  Looks like
I'd better read AW & ST more often.  (I wonder... would our air-launched
ASAT be quick enough to stop these?  My engineering sense tells me
"probably not", but I don't like that answer.)
     
     This brings up another question that's been on my mind awhile now.
What exactly is the restriction on nuclear power/weapons in space?  I
know that natural radiation can be used as a power source, but is
fission/fusion permitted?  How far are orbital and suborbital nuclear
weapons restricted?
     
James D. Maloy
Bitnet: MIQ@PSUECL, MIQ@PSUVM

------------------------------

Date: 30 Sep 87 02:34:25 GMT
From: nysernic!weltyc@rutgers.edu  (Christopher A. Welty)
Subject: SR71 sighting

Just a little anectdote to share....

	I was on my way to Oregon last Thursday on an American Airlines
707, gazing out into space as I often do (there is this voice that keeps
caliing me...), when I notices this black spec in the distance with a
rather long white trail behind it.  The thing was cooking (NY for moving
fast).  Then the intercom came on and the captain (in a rather calm
voice I thought) said, "Here's something you don't see every day.  On
the left side of our aircraft passing over head at about 50,000 ft is
the Blackbird super-spy jet, one of the fastest in the world."  I was
just plain (obvious pun potential resisted) impressed, that's probably
as close as I'll ever get.... All I could say was: "Sheesh".
	The guy behind me made some comment about how fast it was going,
and I turned around in my seat, practically bursting with all the
knowledge I had cleverly gained from this very newsgroup, desperately
wanting to show off the fact that I knew more about this plane than was
declassified [what's wrong???  everyone else says that!].  Just as I was
about to spew out juicy tidbits of information he said, "That looked
like the same plane they used in `Top Gun'".  It was like a gag had been
shoved into my mouth, and I just sank into my seat in utter desperation.
	Well, at least *I* appreciated the sighting...

Christopher Welty - Asst. Director, RPI CS Labs
weltyc@cs.rpi.edu       ...!seismo!rpics!weltyc

------------------------------

Date: 22 Sep 87 04:23:39 GMT
From: pbox!romed!svo!cseg!davids@rutgers.edu  (David W. Summers)
Subject: Re: Mir Elements, 3 Sep 1987

In article <163400029@uiucdcsb>, kenny@uiucdcsb.cs.uiuc.edu writes:
> Satellite:			Mir
> Catalog ID:			16609
> Epoch day:			87245.82572306
> Inclination:			51.6299		degrees
> Right ascension of node:	117.4562	degrees
> Eccentricity:			0.0036501
> Argument of periapsis:		92.1879		degrees
> Mean anomaly at epoch:		268.3426	degrees
> Mean motion at epoch:		15.79658282	revs / day
> Acceleration of mean motion:	0.00020303	revs / day**2
> 
> Source: NASA Goddard via Henry Vanderbilt of NSS

Would someone please tell me how to read this or if there is a program
that does something with this data?  Also please tell me what "MIR" is.
If I were guessing, I would say that it is probably the name of the
Russian Space Station.  Is this correct?  Please forgive me if this is
information is repetitive, but I'm new on the net and this is my very
first posting.

                            Thanks alot!

                            - David Summers

------------------------------

Date: 23 Sep 87 02:38:32 GMT
From: sonia!khayo@locus.ucla.edu  (Erazm J. Behr)
Subject: Re: PC's East, was Space Digest more international

In article <1344@unc.cs.unc.edu> symon@unc.cs.unc.edu (James Symon) writes:
>A Polish national who recently visited here had gone back to Poland a
>year ago after getting his Phd in comp. sci. He took a Macintosh with
>him. His was the 13th in all of Poland. He said there are about 50 - 60
>now.
   Macs, you mean - not PC's in general. IBM PC clones abound there (&
are perfectly legal), but the price of a PC XT/HD system amounts to 20
months worth of above-average salary. I have no idea what the story is
in SU, but I expect you need a permit of some kind there (as you do for
even a lowest-power walkie-talkie in Poland, as well as for a satellite
TV system - they've recently begun issuing those.)
   Private copiers are not permitted (as of 3 yrs ago, I don't think
*this* has changed since then), and the ones used by institutions etc.
are very strictly controlled. I strongly suspect that it's the same (or
worse) in the SU.

khayo@math.ucla.edu

------------------------------

Date: 22 Sep 87 17:22:20 GMT
From: adelie!infinet!rhorn@xn.ll.mit.edu  (Rob Horn)
Subject: Re: Space Digest more international

The following is directly from a person who worked in the Soviet Union
as a news-writer:

All requests to use the copier must first be approved in writing by the
news editor.  The editor needs to know what will be copied and why.  The
copier staff then makes the copies and logs what was copied.

This does not mean that a little ``na levo'' does not take place.  With
the right bribes/cajoling/persuasion a few unauthorized copies do get
made.  This must be kept to a small amount so that the copy count and
paper usage do not disagree too much from the official logs.  In
practice these copies are logged as paper jams, bad copies, etc.

The conjecture concerning personal ownership:

Legal if you have the proper third-party authorization and logging
procedures in place.  Catch-22 unless you have the money to bribe the
inspectors into approving your authorization and logging procedures.

				Rob  Horn

------------------------------

Date: 22 Sep 87 00:28:05 GMT
From: rosevax!kksys!bird@uunet.uu.net  (Mike Bird)
Subject: Re: Space Digest more international

In article <74700023@uiucdcsp> jenks@uiucdcsp.cs.uiuc.edu writes:
>I've been corrected by E-mail ... 
>possession of a
>PC, Xerox, or mimeograph is not ILLEGAL in USSR, ...
>        -- Ken Jenks

Well, I remember a Channel 3, Moscow segment last year in which a new,
Russian-built PC was being advertised on Russian TV.  I also read a book
on High-Tech smuggling in which they mention that the Russians are
finally manufacturing their own PC, based upon the Intel 8086, and the
original IBM PC, which they have copied.

Mike Bird

------------------------------

Date: 24 Sep 87 01:09:20 GMT
From: rocky!andy@labrea.stanford.edu  (Andy Freeman)
Subject: Re: Things aint so bad

Mir means many things.  The Russian-English dictionaries I looked in
mentioned peace, land, treaty, and others.  Funny, peace has a lot
of meanings too.

Andy Freeman
ARPA:  andy@sushi.stanford.edu

------------------------------

Date: 24 Sep 87 05:19:51 GMT
From: sonia!khayo@locus.ucla.edu  (Erazm J. Behr)
Subject: Re: Translation of Mir

   "Mir" has two by far most popular meanings: "peace" & "world". This
ambiguity has been employed in many word-play slogans, like "Mir for the
mir" etc. I doubt if the intention was to name the craft either
"village" or "land".

  khayo@math.ucla.edu

------------------------------

Date: 23 Sep 87 19:42:00 GMT
From: spdcc!m2c!frog!john@husc6.harvard.edu  (John Woods, Software)
Subject: News item about Mir

>From the 23 September 1987 Boston Globe:

Cargo spacecraft supplies cosmonauts

Reuters

   MOSCOW - An unmanned cargo spacecraft separated from the Mir space
station yesterday after bringing supplies of fuel, food, water,
equipment and mail, the official agency Tass said.

   Progress-31 docked with mir August 7 with supplies for cosmonauts
Yuri Romanenko and Alexander Alexandrov.

   Romanenko, 43, who blasted into space February 6, is set to match the
world space endurance record at the end of the month.  The record, 237
days, was set September 6, 1984, by three Soviet cosmonauts aboard Mir's
predecessor, the Salyut 7 space station.  Alexandrov, 44, has been
aboard Mir since July.

John Woods, Charles River Data Systems, Framingham MA, (617) 626-1101
...!decvax!frog!john, ...!mit-eddie!jfw, jfw@eddie.mit.edu

------------------------------

Date: 23 Sep 87 16:58:18 GMT
From: ulysses!sfmag!sfsup!sfmin!lmg@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (L.M.Geary)
Subject: Re: Things aint so bad (soviet shuttle)

> On the contrary, the next launch of Energia will probably be carrying
> "Shuttleski".  Satellite photos of Tyuratam have shown shuttle
> vehicles for years.  Looks like they're ready to launch.

			.  .  .

>  Anyway, Energia is a Saturn V-class launcher (ignoring the minor
>  detail that the only Saturn Vs left are being used as lawn ornaments)
>  and can put a hell of a lot more payload up than can Shuttle.  Or, it
>  can put the Russian Shuttle and payload up.

Just how much is known about the Soviet shuttle?  Is it an all purpose
human/cargo vehicle like the US shuttle, or a smaller human carrier with
little cargo capacity like the European projects?

The Energia launch configuration - payload hanging on the side - leads
me to an interesting speculation: Perhaps Energia will carry a small,
reusable shuttle on one side and an expendable cargo module on the other
side in one launch. This would give them the same capabilities as a
large, US style shuttle, but without the engineering compromises
required to cram crew and cargo into one reusable vehicle.

					Larry Geary
					ihnp4!attunix!lmg

------------------------------

Date: 24 Sep 87 17:40:50 GMT
From: concertina!fiddler@sun.com  (Steve Hix)
Subject: Re: Translation of Mir

In article <8299@shemp.UCLA.EDU>, khayo@sonia.cs.ucla.edu (Erazm J. Behr) writes:
> "Mir" has two by far most popular meanings: "peace" & "world". This
> ambiguity has been employed in many word-play slogans, like "Mir for
> the mir" etc. I doubt if the intention was to name the craft either
> "village" or "land".

If "Mir" doesn't refer to a frontier outpost, what are you gonna call a
space station?  The station is in a very real way the first permanent
outpost in a new frontier.  (And Russians, as well as Americans, have
strong feelings about frontiers and pioneers.)

	seh

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #1
*******************

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Date: Sat, 3 Oct 87 03:16:18 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8710031016.AA05234@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #2

SPACE Digest                                        Volume 8 : Issue 2

Today's Topics:
			Re: Things aint so bad
			Re: Things aint so bad
	       Re: PC's East, was Space Digest more in
		 Re: Space Digest more international
		     Re: Mir Elements, 3 Sep 1987
			 Does Salyut 7 spin?
			 Re: Energia payload
		 Re: Space Digest more international
		   Mir Elements, 24 September 1987
			   Read it and weep
		 Re: Mir Elements, 24 September 1987
		       Re: Does Salyut 7 spin?
			      FTL travel
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 25 Sep 87 08:15 EDT
From: Chris Jones <clj@sapsucker.scrc.symbolics.com>
Subject: Re: Things aint so bad

    Date: 17 Sep 87 15:38:03 GMT
    From: clyde!watmath!utgpu!utzoo!dciem!nrcaer!cognos!geovision!alastair@rutgers.edu  (Alastair Mayer)

    In article <474@eplrx7.UUCP> lad@eplrx7.UUCP (Lawrence Dziegielewski) writes:
    >The Soviets do not have the capability of transporting payloads into
    >space and returing with other payloads.  They do not have the
	       ^
    Certainly they do.  The Progress vehicles (essentially unmanned
    Soyuzs) used to resupply Salyut and Mir have been bringing back down
    film packages, expermental data, zero-G processed materials (not
    just experimental results, the Sovs are using zero-G processed
    crystals for sensors in military hardware) etc for years.

Actually, I believe the Progress vehicles are burned up in the
atmosphere.  I think they are loaded with garbage before they are sent
back.  The other items you mention are probably returned by the Soyuzes
that come back with the visiting crews.

------------------------------

Date: 25 Sep 87 03:02:18 GMT
From: nuchat!splut!stu@uunet.uu.net  (Stewart Cobb)
Subject: Re: Things aint so bad

In article <402@nysernic>, weltyc@nic.nyser.net (Christopher A. Welty) writes:
> <excerpts>
> >> I don't know where you're getting your information...
> >> but the Soviets have NOTHING that can compare to the shuttle...
> >> There is nothing on the pad anywhere in the Soviet Union that even
> >> remotely resembles the shuttle...

James Oberg [Red Star in Orbit, etc.] thinks that the Russians have no
real plans for a shuttle.  What we're seeing (in Soviet Military Power
and such) is a product of

1) American arrogance (of _course_ they're trying to copy us!)
2) Soviet disinformation
3) intell people misinterpreting very limited data.

I don't necessarily agree, but I thought I'd pass it along.  He goes
through it all in an article in Aerospace America (the AIAA member
magazine) June 1987, pages 24-28.

The Energia booster is clearly useful with or without a shuttle attached.

Stewart Cobb

------------------------------

Date: 24 Sep 87 03:58:00 GMT
From: cca!mirror!ishmael!inmet!janw@husc6.harvard.edu
Subject: Re: PC's East, was Space Digest more in

[khayo@sonia.UUCP ]
>Private copiers are not permitted (as of 3 yrs ago, I don't think
>*this* has changed since then), and the ones used by institutions etc.
>are very strictly controlled. I strongly suspect that it's the same (or
>worse) in the SU.

So people who have left SU a year or so ago tell me.  Private copiers
are illegal under severe penalties; office copiers are few and
authorisation is hard to get.  A usual way of producing intra-office
copies is still typewriter.

Samizdat is all typewritten or (sometimes) photographed with a camera.

Private PC's are legal but few and largely unusable for lack of this and
that.

		Jan W.

------------------------------

Date: 25 Sep 87 05:56:42 GMT
From: hobbes!root@unix.macc.wisc.edu  (John Plocher)
Subject: Re: Space Digest more international

In a FidoNews about 3 weeks ago there was an anouncement welcoming the
first FidoNet BBS behind the Iron Curtain.  This BBS is located in
Poland, and is connected to FidoNet (and thus Usenet) thru the European
FidoNet backbone.

(FidoNet is a network of PCs running BBS software.  There are many Fido
operators on Usenet, and there are several Fidonet <-> Usenet gateways.)


John Plocher uwvax!geowhiz!uwspan!plocher  plocher%uwspan.UUCP@uwvax.CS.WISC.EDU

------------------------------

Date: 24 Sep 87 21:11:00 GMT
From: jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Re: Mir Elements, 3 Sep 1987

> Would someone please tell me how to read this or if there is a program
> that does something with this data?

The data given were the orbital parameters of the Mir Space Station.  It
only really means anything if one knows something about what the
parameters are.  I encourage you to find a text on orbital mechanics.
This will explain what an "inclination" is, etc.

There are computer programs which deal with this kind of data.  What do
you want the program to do?

> Also please tell me what "MIR" is.  If I were guessing, I would say
> that it is probably the name of the Russian Space Station.

Correct!  My Russian TA told us that MIR means "peace".  It also means
"world".  When Russians say, "we want peace", they're using the same
phrase that means "we want the world".

> Is this correct?  Please forgive me if this is information is
> repetitive, but I'm new on the net and this is my very first posting.

Welcome!  Don't be shy -- we don't byte here.

>                             - David Summers

        -- Ken Jenks, Univ. of Illinois, Urbana/Champaign

jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu

------------------------------

Date: 24 Sep 87 18:01:00 GMT
From: kenny@b.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Does Salyut 7 spin?

	While watching a Salyut 7 overflight last night, I noticed an
odd phenomenon.  In addition to the usual variation in brightness
(spacecraft brightens as it approaches, dims as it recedes), there
seemed to be a periodic variation on the order of a minute or so.  It
was enough that at one point I lost the object in the twilight, yet a
few seconds later was saying, ``how could I have lost anything THAT
bright?''

	Does anyone know whether the Soviets maintain attitude control
when the station is powered down?  If the station is tumbling, that
would explain it.  If the station isn't tumbling, has anyone an
alternate explanation?  (Don't tell me clouds -- the night was clear
enough that half an hour later I was seeing Uranus with the naked eye
[yes, Virginia, it is possible] in roughly the same part of the
heavens).

Kevin	kenny@b.cs.uiuc.edu	{ihnp4,pur-ee,convex}!uiucdcs!kenny

------------------------------

Date: 22 Sep 87 15:46:50 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!its63b!bob@uunet.uu.net  (ERCF08 Bob Gray)
Subject: Re: Energia payload

In article <8625@utzoo.UUCP> henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) writes:
>system, which failed.  It was also rather thin.  Given that Energia is
>the launcher for the Soviet shuttle, which does not have its own large
>engines, it must be capable of taking a hefty payload into orbit
>without an upper stage.  What would be the role of an upper stage?  It
>might be for putting heavy payloads into Clarke orbit, but that is
>stretching things a bit -- the Soviets don't seem to have any pressing
>need for such large payloads in that orbit, except possibly for
>power-satellite experiments.  What it *might* be is a heavy upper stage
>for planetary missions.

My own suspicion is that it is the Russian's lunar landing vehicle.
Given the long testing times they have for new hardware and the numerous
test launches (Failures?) to get the bugs out before any manned
launches, I would not expect a manned mission before mid 1988 or '89.

Unless as a publicity stunt for the 70th. anniversary of the Russian
revolution. But not unless they are VERY ready.

Publicity stunts are one thing. Publicity stunts that go wrong are
annother.
	Bob.

------------------------------

Date: 23 Sep 87 11:01:29 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!its63b!bob@uunet.uu.net  (ERCF08 Bob Gray)
Subject: Re: Space Digest more international

This is getting a little away from space, But the following article
appeared on the Channel 4 science teletext pages.

I reproduce it here for the readers of this news group.
---------------------------------------------------------
COMMUNIST COMPUTER COMMUNICATIONS. By Simon Hardeman

Computer users in Europe, the US, and Japan take the existance of
communications networks for granted. They speed up the exchange of
scientific and technical ideas and expertise both within and between
countries.

But the USSR and the other communist countries within their sphere of
influence have little or no such facilities. Both the computers and
organisation neccesary for them are sadly lacking.

Mikhail Gorbachev plans to have developed science and technology
information systems by the year 2000, and the first stirrings of
computers mushrooming behind the iron curtain are now being detected.

Pravda - the Czechoslovak version - has revealed plans for a computer
network taking in nine capitals. Called ADONIS (automatic dialogue
orginisational scientific information system - and I know that spells
ADOSIS in English!), the project has been under development for two
years already.  Mr Gorbachev has been in place for two and a half years.

The computer network in Czech Pravda mentions the existing computer
communications between Moscow, other Eastern European capitals, and Cuba
and Mongolia.

Problems have prevented at least one far eastern link, and even delayed
communications between Prague and Warsaw - relativley near to each
other.

In the future, five large technilogical institutes in Moscow are
expected to oversee research and development. Perhaps they'll help iron
out the snags.

----------------------------------------------------------------

It seems that the Russians are between ten and twenty years behind the
west in developing computer networks for scientific institutions. They
still don't allow any public networks.

It would be nice to have a Russian on the net, in spite of the
inevitable flame wars, but I don't see it happening in the near future.

Unless we hear from kremvax again, of course :-)
	Bob.

------------------------------

Date: 27 Sep 87 19:20:00 GMT
From: kenny@b.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Mir Elements, 24 September 1987


Note: There are fairly substantial changes presumably resulting from
the resupply mission conducted on 22 September.  Predictions
calculated from earlier element sets should be recalculated.

Epoch day: 87266.94590211
Inclination: 51.6269 degrees
RA of node: 7.9551 degrees
Eccentricity: 0.0046058
Argument of periapsis: 188.7210 degrees
Mean anomaly: 171.3265 degrees
Mean motion: 15.81832075 revs/day
Mean motion acceleration: 0.00035669 revs/day/day

Source: NASA Goddard via Henry Vanderbilt of NSS

------------------------------

Date: 29 Sep 1987 18:48-EDT 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Read it and weep

Space Calendar, 9/23 p 4:

ENERGIYA HEAVY-LIFT LAUNCH VEHICLE, TYURATAM KAZAKHSTAN USSR: Opening a
new era in the exploration and exploitation of space. The 200-foot
Energiya rocket will be able to lift payloads into orbit nine times as
large as those lifted by the US Space Shuttle. It could cut launch costs
by a factor of ten, and all its elements are reusable. Energiya consists
of a central core surrounded by four to eight rocket boosters.  The
four-booster Energiya will be used to launch the Soviet version of the
Space Shuttle.

The six-to-eight-booster Energiya will be used to launch large items
such as a laboratory or factory modules weighing more than 250 Tons.
The Energiya has opened up vast possibilities for the Soviet space
program. The rocket will be capable of launching the following: 1) a Mir
space station to a 22,500-mile geostationary orbit or into lunar orbit;
2) a series of Apollo-style Moon landings at any time; 3) a manned
fly-by misssion to Mars or its moons, Phobos and Deimos; 4) a Mir space
station placed in Mars orbit; and eventually 5) manned missions to the
asteroids or the moons of Jupiter or Saturn.

	(sketches with the following caption)

Energiya Family: The four-booster version of Energiya will be used for
launching payloads up to 60-90 tons in weight. The six-booster version
will be used for payloads up to 230 tons, and the eight booster version
will be used for payloads up to 270 tons.


PS: I highly recommend subscribing to this publication, particularly for
those who haven't time to pore over each issue of AW&ST. Also, although
stories are just short news briefs, there are more of them because it
covers ONLY space science, business, movement, conferences, etc. It is
primarily a 'what is supposed to happen this week' newsletter, rather
than a 'what happened last month' magazine.

------------------------------

Date: 29 Sep 87 20:56:13 GMT
From: faline!karn@bellcore.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: Mir Elements, 24 September 1987

For those of you who haven't tried it yet, hearing MIR on its 143.625
Mhz downlink frequency is easy! It's probably the strongest signal I've
ever heard from space. A pass the other night that reached a maximum
elevation of only 20 deg or so had them S9+10db on my IC271A (no preamp)
and KLM 14C satellite array.  They should be audible on a 2m HT too.
Remember that they operate on Moscow time, so the best time to listen is
after midnight Eastern time.  I understand they communicate through a
tracking ship near Sable Island (Canada) so stations outside the
northeast may be out of luck unless there's another tracking ship within
range of MIR when they are above your horizon.

That frequency seems to be in use by an FM repeater (US Govt? MARS?)  in
the New York area. I wonder what went through their minds the first time
they heard strong Russian voices on their frequency... :-)

Phil

------------------------------

Date: 29 Sep 87 21:36:26 GMT
From: nbires!isis!scicom!wats@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Bruce Watson)
Subject: Re: Does Salyut 7 spin?

In article <163400031@uiucdcsb>, kenny@uiucdcsb.cs.uiuc.edu writes:
> 	Does anyone know whether the Soviets maintain attitude control

When the last crew left Salyut 7 it was powered` down and left to drift
as a sort of 'long duration facility' for the study of spacecraft
systems degradation over long periods.

I haven't noticed the periodic variation that you describe, but I have
noticed that since it is in a higher orbit than when it was it is +3
magnitude when before it could get to +1.  Also the specular surfaces
may have corroded.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Sep 87 00:45:21 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" <KFL@ai.ai.mit.edu>
Subject: FTL travel

There are several ways around the relativistic paradoxes for FTL:

1) There may be an absolute frame of reference.  Speeds up to infinite
   would be possible only in that frame of reference.  In other frames
   of references, the speed limit might vary from, say -2c (!) to 2c,
   depending on direction.  No trajectory would ever get you back to
   your starting point before you left.

2) It may be that the speed of light can be increased in a region of
   space, somehow.

3) It may be that causality CAN be violated.  Doing so simply causes a
   new universe to branch off.  This would allow time travel as well as
   space travel, though time travelers might have a hard time returning
   home.  See, for instance, F.M. Busby's _All These Earths_ and Paul
   Preuss' _Re-Entry_.

4) Same as 3, except that causality violations would cause history to
   start over from that point, wiping out the "previous" future.  Like
   restoring a file system to a previous state.  See, for instance,
   James Hogan's _Thrice Upon a Time_.

Of course none of these gives us any hint as to how to go about building
an FTL drive.  But it isn't obvious that it is impossible.

And, of course, we can get to the stars just fine even without FTL.
Just be patient while traveling to a nearby star.  Or use generation
ships, suspended animation, life extention, or relativistic time
contraction, to name just a few possibilities.
								...Keith

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #2
*******************


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Date: Wed, 14 Oct 87 14:03:36 PDT
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To: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: [ota: SPACE Digest V8 #3]

Date: Sun, 4 Oct 87 03:02:46 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #3

SPACE Digest                                        Volume 8 : Issue 3

Today's Topics:
		   Re: Life in Space, continued...
		   Re: Life in Space, continued...
  how to determine whether FTL is at all possible, research proposal
		   Re: Life in Space, continued...
		   Re: Life in Space, continued...
		     Shuttleparts/Flyback Booster
		   Re: Shuttleparts/Flyback Booster
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 23 Sep 87 23:49:11 GMT
From: ganelon.usc.edu!robiner@oberon.usc.edu  (Steve)
Subject: Re: Life in Space, continued...

In article <19951@cca.CCA.COM> g-rh@CCA.CCA.COM.UUCP (Richard Harter) writes:
>In article <256496.870917.KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU> KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU ("Keith F. Lynch") writes:
>>
>
>"Ladies and Gentlemen.  You are given a magic black box space drive.  It
>is the size of a bread basket.  It applies a unidirectional force to
>everything in a sphere 100 meters in radius about it.  The strength of
 ^^^^^^^^^^
>the force is controlled by a simple knob.  At full strength the gismo
>will accelerate 1000000 tonnes with a force of 1G.

Simple, 'everything' solves your problem for you.  All you need is the
black box, some compressed air ( that's easy to make now that you have
this magic box ) and lots-o-food.  Just get yourself 100 meters off the
ground, by say jumping off a cliff, then activate your box and away you
go.  Anything that enters your sphere of infleuence will be accelerated
with you so you don't have to worry about oxygen or meterites.

=Steve=

Nice Box, eh...

------------------------------

Date: 24 Sep 87 16:41:57 GMT
From: linus!utzoo!henry@husc6.harvard.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Life in Space, continued...

> Assume that this gismo was available on Earth in the year 1800.
> Design a space ship using this gismo and the technology available at
> that time.  The ship must be capable of sustained interplanetary
> flight.  Include specifications for navigation, take off and landing
> procedure, and a life support system capable of supporting life for
> one year in space.

Actually, I suspect this is doable.  For one thing, if you stipulate
1800 technology but allow today's design smarts, the limitations are not
as severe as you think: the V-2 could probably have been built in 1800
if people had known what to do and been willing to try hard.  For
another thing, several of these problems are not so hard with the
postulated "gismo".

Navigation can practically be done by the seat of the pants if you have
unlimited propulsion and you are heading for something you can see, e.g.
a planet.  It may take some backing and filling to end up in the right
place with roughly zero relative velocity, but if your propulsion system
is up to it, why not?

Takeoffs and landings, again, are no problem if you have unlimited
maneuvering and can afford to proceed slowly and cautiously.

Life support too is not that bad.  Food and water can be solved by the
brute-force approach: take plenty along.  Remember, the "gismo" gives
essentially unlimited payload.  Air is the only tricky part, and green
plants and sunlight will handle a lot of that.  Make the ship big, with
lots of air space, and you can ride out substantial periods of darkness
without even bothering with things like compressed air.

> Part II: Given the ship, design a space station, using only pre 1800's
> technology.

No big deal if you are willing to employ brute force in place of
subtlety.  A harder question, actually, might be finding uses for a
space station with pre-1800s technology.  Astronomy and earth
observation are the only really obvious things, and even earth
observation might be of rather limited use.

> Part III: Assume that the gismo also has a 'jump' button.  When the
> button is pressed everything in the sphere will 'jump' in the
> direction of the force.  The length of the jump is is proportional to
> the force.  The maximum jump is one parsec.  Describe a viable scheme
> for interstellar navigation using pre 1800's technology.

Once again, I see no grave problem (risks, yes, but not insuperable
problems) if you can see where you're going.  Jump, look around for your
destination, estimate its distance, aim a little to the side just in
case, jump again, and proceed by successive approximation.  When close
enough to the star, dig out your telescope and start looking for
planets.  If this isn't the first visit to that solar system,
astronomical data and a chronometer will give you a fair idea of where
to look.  Once you find a planet, go there.

> Extra Credit:  Replace 1800 by 1650."

Hmmm...  Various things get harder, but it might still be possible.
Risks would be higher, though; I hope you have a good supply of gismos,
not just one!  (In fact that comment applies to 1800 as well.)

> I don't think I could pass the course, but I sure would like one of
> the gismos!

I think I could pass, and I'll take a dozen, please!

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 25 Sep 87 13:24:55
From: Robert Elton Maas <REM%IMSSS@sail.stanford.edu>
Subject: how to determine whether FTL is at all possible, research proposal

<KFL> Date: Thu, 17 Sep 87 22:24:33 EDT
<KFL> From: "Keith F. Lynch" <KFL@ai.ai.mit.edu>

<KFL> How would one go about researching FTL?

My suggestion would be first to determine whether "tachyons",
faster-than-light particles, actually exist and can be generated within
our current technology. The two likely terrestrial sources would be
thermonuclear detonations (Nevada) and particle accelerators (Stanford
et al). Set up a particle detector near the detonation or accelerator,
but sufficiently far that you can determine whether the detection
occurred before a slower-than-light particle could possibly reach the
detector. Then carefully and patiently accumulate statistics to
determine whether there is undue coincidence of particles simultaneously
with detonations of warheads or with zaps of targets in accelerator. If
such undue coincidence is found, further study is warranted. If not,
then probably studying tachyons if they exist is beyond our current
technology.

------------------------------

Date: 26 Sep 87 03:51:00 GMT
From: PT!unh.cs.cmu.edu!agn@cs.rochester.edu  (Andreas Nowatzyk)
Subject: Re: Life in Space, continued...

I think Henry Spencer gets an "F" for this assignment:

> ... the V-2 could probably have been built in 1800 if people had known
> what to do and been willing to try hard

This is not so because the technological infrastructure is missing:
where do you get the materials (aluminum, highly heat resistant alloys),
vacuum tubes (or a good vacuum for that matter), other electronic parts,
precision tools, gyros, batteries. If you postulate the knowledge to
build all the tools, the tools for the tools, etc.  - then it is 1940's
technology and not the one of 1800. If you just assume knowledge about a
few fundamental inventions, you will find that this is not helping much
because you are lacking the resources to make use of that knowledge. In
any event, this is cheating given the context of this assignment.

> Navigation can practically be done by the seat of the pants ...

No way. The drive acts on all objects, so you are in 0-G once you leave
earth behind. Even near a planet, orbital mechanics is vital to fast
moving objects.  Judging orbital velocities by eyesight is plain
hopless. Say you think that you are stationary 300Km above earth, but
you have no way of telling if you are falling (other than watching the
apparent size of the earth). By the time you notice anything, it is too
late: 1G acceleration doesn't help you if you are approaching the
atmosphere with 5Km/sec. Try flying a plane without instruments over
unknown terrain. Even with a reasonable map, you get lost in no time and
this is trivial compared to maintaining orientation in 3D space with no
gravity, no feel for acceleration, vast dimensions and speeds measured
in tens of Km/s. Estimating large distances and speeds is virtually
impossible and inertia/gravity are still with you. Trying to reenter
atmosphere in these conditions is plain fatal: Once the wall gets hot,
it's too late to break.

Due to lack of communication, subsequent crews can't learn from previous
mistakes.

Navigation at larger range is even less feasable: without an stabilized
platform (which would require gyros and electronics), astronomical
measurements become, hmm... interesting, but not too precise. Now add
your paper and pencil computer and try to figure out how many light
years are between you and civilization after you pressed the jump
button.

> Life support: Air is the only tricky part, and green plants ...

This is not the only tricky part and plants don't help for an
inter-stellar journey. Building a big ship that does not leak or burst
in vacuum is not trivial (think iron-plates and rivets). Some 10000 m**3
volume seems necessary for a 10 man crew and 2 weeks in space. I don't
think that 1800 technology could build a vacuum tight sphere of 27 m
diameter that could withstand the pressure (the gizmo accelerates all
air, but the does nothing to prevent the air from blowing out of the
gismo operation range). Tons of minor problems like doors, optical
quality windows, thermal stress, ...

Next problem: heat. For most of the trip, the ship will cool via
radiation (3K background...). Things become interesting when the air is
turning liquid on the wall. Thermal management is also not trivial when
there is a sun around. Then there is the fun of human waste in 0G.

   --  Andreas Nowatzyk  (DC5ZV)
Arpa-net:   agn@unh.cs.cmu.edu

------------------------------

Date: 27 Sep 87 05:01:52 GMT
From: clash.rutgers.edu!masticol@rutgers.edu  (Stephen P. Masticola)
Subject: Re: Life in Space, continued...

In article <4515@oberon.USC.EDU> robiner@ganelon.usc.edu (Steve) writes:

> >"Ladies and Gentlemen.  You are given a magic black box space drive.  It
> >is the size of a bread basket.  It applies a unidirectional force to
> >everything in a sphere 100 meters in radius about it.
>  ^^^^^^^^^^

> Simple, 'everything' solves your problem for you.  All you need is the
> black box, some compressed air ( that's easy to make now that you have
> this magic box ) and lots-o-food.

That's a _lot_ of compressed air (not less than a million CF per person
for a one-year flight, at 25 cf/person/hr [others are entitled to
correct this.] Assuming 1800 technology, you can't recycle the air - you
don't even know what oxygen is.

This also doesn't say anything about generating heat inside the
spacecraft. You could take plenty of firewood (and pay a much greater
oxygen penalty for burning it), or insulate the thing well enough to let
body heat do the trick. But you don't know about black-body radiation,
so you likely wouldn't get that right. Chilly times ahead...

OK, assuming that you had 1800 technology *plus* knowledge of 1987
science might make things somewhat easier. But you'd still end up
importing or developing some new things - likely candidates include
biospheres, electrical power (reasonably easy to generate, assuming you
have _two_ of these thruster gadgets - use one to spin the rotor),
inertial guidance systems, etc, etc, and a whole lot of etc. You'd end
up with a 1987 technology.

Doing the problem the pure way (assuming no technical knowledge later
than 1800) is tough enough to be a real annoyance.

------------------------------

Date: 21 Sep 87 17:16:31 GMT
From: tikal!sigma!uw-nsr!brett@beaver.cs.washington.edu  (Brett Van Steenwyk)
Subject: Shuttleparts/Flyback Booster

    Okay, so I am reasonably convinced that, aside from the solid fuel
boosters, little to nothing from the shuttle can be salvaged into a more
useful design.  In general, I would like to see some sort of standard
evolve in terms of a rocket design so that it would not take so much new
tooling and other development to get it into the air.  It would seem
that if one could build an assembly-line rocket engine that could be
used in numerous vehicles, this would bring down costs.  This idea could
be generalized to other components.  Does the idea of standardized parts
work for rockets, or does each component have to be so optimized for the
particular mission that they must be particular to the vehicle?  It
seems that for the shuttle, we optimized so much that engineering
tolerances were forgotten.  How far can we go the other way?
    One other comment: by "big dumb booster", I mean that it is
basically a rocket without the frills--yet can be safe for human
payloads (i.e., not too "dumb").
    So much for that.  The main purpose for this outburst is the flyback
booster, and here I need to clairify a few underlying principles of its
use (at least from my point of view).  This can best be considered as a
mission to get a large payload (make it several tons of whatever
vehicle) up to 70,000 feet or more, and take whatever velocity we can
get.  A balloon would not be too bad if it didn't have to be so big and
that you didn't get any velocity out of it.  It would certainly be one
of the cheapest ways.  There are lots of planes that can fly that high
but this will cost more-- but perhaps extra of some translational
velocity parallel to the surface of the Earth would be worth it.  A
rocket would be by far the most EXPENSIVE way of getting there.  This is
reflected by the fact that when people want to look at the upper
atmosphere, they generally use balloons and planes.  A rocket is good
only when: 1.You want it to go up there and come back FAST; 2.You want
to go so high only a rocket will go there; 3.You've already spent your
research money on rockets.  A rocket is best when you are using it to
directly convert the thrust into the velocity of your craft--changing
from one orbit to another in the vacuum of space.  At the opposite
extreme, it works poorly in trying to directly oppose the pull of
gravity: it would be much more expensive suspending something 5 feet in
the air by a rocket than it would be to simply use a high countertop!
Since the thrust is expensive, you won't want to be wasting much in
opposing air friction (or "dynamic pressure").  In a ground launch, one
wants to go straight up to get out of the thick atmosphere, yet for this
stage there is no buildup toward an orbital velocity--the rocket moves
over toward this attitude as it goes higher.  One is sort of caught
between two damnations.
    What can a flyback booster do for all of this?  Well, first of all I
am not proposing a rocket-propelled hoser with wings taped on it.  This
critter need not stand on its tail on the way up to be useful.  We can
carry large payloads up to 70,000 feet on jet engines that aren't
especially optimum in terms of a thrust to weight ratio--let the wings,
not the engines, lift the plane.  If we're going to have to live with
getting through ~67 miles of atmosphere to get to space (and I do hope
it stays this way :-), we might as well adjust to the fact and use the
atmosphere as far as we can in getting our payloads up
there--air-breathing engines and wings.  (I know it isn't very
romantic.)  Anyway, consider the launching of the "true" rocket stage
from a flyback booster at 70,000 feet (and whatever velocity we can get)
vs a traditional staging operation at that altitude--is there some
quality of a flyback to rocket staging that makes it exceptionally
difficult?  I would think that one could avoid the wake of the rocket
without too much difficulty.  At this altitude, the rate of atmospheric
drag decrease with altitude is dramatic, and the rocket could be
spending most of its time putting its thrust "in the bank" (converting
it to orbital velocity) rather than getting off the ground or fighting
friction.  The original parameters I had mentioned: Mach 3 at 70,000
feet, represented only about 10-15% of the energy needed to attain
orbit, yet a rocket expends a much greater proportion of its energy to
get to this point.  A jet could get you to this point much more easily
and cheaply, and you wouldn't have to throw it away after each use.

		--Brett Van Steenwyk
		  U.W. BioEngineering   uw-beaver!uw-nsr!brett
					brett@nsr.acs.washington.edu

Usual disclaimers, and comments welcome.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Sep 87 10:45:07 pdt
From: Eugene Miya N. <eugene@ames-pioneer.arpa>
Subject: Re: Shuttleparts/Flyback Booster
Newsgroups: sci.space

Brett asks about standardizing boosters.

It's a nice goal, but designing engines, boosters, and spacecraft is
largely an art and craft, and marginally engineering.  Read this to mean
"We don't really know how to do it."  I had this as a private discussion
with Henry Spencer and Robert Maas in the past.  Let me summarize.
There is (was) a concept of the "common spacecraft `bus'" floating
around and other ideas.

Conventional engineering problems: material science, etc. form one
series of problems, tell an aerospace engineer you would be using
ceramics 40 years ago for high speeds and they would have laughed
(although testing was in use in some areas).  "Ceramics for
superconductivity?" ;-)

Anyway, like computers which are more than that the sum of their chips,
launch vehicles had a diverse set of requirements placed on them:
different orbital characteristics, etc.  You want things to fly back,
how, well safely, etc.  Well you can put a microprocessor on board now,
but it has to survive lots of things: the engineering problem, but
technology changes and lags far behind.  You have to think about
building things mean to last (in design) 20 years.  Imagine freezing
your technology for 20 years, society could assimiliate ;-).  We could
still be programming..... 6502s, no PDP-8s, ..... Anyways, technology is
expanding exponentially, and this is why while we want Big Dumb Booster,
we also want to the latest gizmos.  Think about designing something to
last 20 years and you can't touch after that.  We couldn't build a
Voyager craft from scratch because lots of it isn't made anymore.  Right
now the general feeling is to incorporate bells and whistles, they are
useful.  A good story to read is the President's letter in CACM on the
`Princess's new clothes' (pure allegory).  Freeze technology, can you
can do it.  This part is not a pure engineering problem, but an
engineering management problem.

--eugene

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #3
*******************

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Subject: [ota: SPACE Digest V8 #4]

Date: Mon, 5 Oct 87 03:04:09 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #4

SPACE Digest                                        Volume 8 : Issue 4

Today's Topics:
     Re: Can someone confirm seemingly brilliant Phoenix design?
		       Ablative nozzle cooling
		   Re: Shuttleparts/Flyback Booster
      Re: [gaserre%ATHENA.MIT:EDU:Xerox: Re: Can someone confirm
		   Re: Shuttleparts/Flyback Booster
     Re: Can someone confirm seemingly brilliant Phoenix design?
			   Space resources
			      Asteroids
			    Re: Asteroids
		       Re: Space Station Design
				Pluto
			      Re: Pluto
			   G, how measured
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 23 Sep 87 15:04:01 PDT (Wednesday)
Subject: Re: Can someone confirm seemingly brilliant Phoenix design?
From: "Ron_Fischer.AISNorth"@xerox.com

>oxygen rich flame will literally burn the walls off your combustion
>chamber

You could take the approach give by ablative re-entry technology, put
something on the walls that you don't care about burning off, but this
would probably not work because the chamber would change shape.  One of
the plasma coating processes might be able to produce a resistant
material.  Diamond comes to my mind, but I understand this crystal
structure isn't distinguished by oxidation resistance under high heat
and pressure.

How about a porous chamber surface that maintained a layer of gas or
fluid as a barrier?  Problem here is the pressure in the combustion
chamber is quite high and likely to back up almost any such system.

The one idea that seems more likely would be carefully contolled flow,
such that a hot core of burning oxygen rich fuel could be surrounded by
a layer of gas that remained (due to flow constraints) against the
walls, protecting them.

(ron)

------------------------------

Date: 25 Sep 87 16:50 PDT
forwarded-by: Fischer.pa@xerox.com
Subject: Ablative nozzle cooling
From: <gaserre@ATHENA.MIT.EDU>

I don't know anything about the Phoenix, but I do know that that
ablative cooling can be used in solid rocket engines.  The material is a
porous silica-based ceramic in polymeric matrix.  During operation, the
polymer evaporates and boils out of the material, thus providing cooling
and also creating a boundary layer on the surface.  The ceramic remains
behind to retain the shape of the surface.

For a better explanation, see _Elements of Rocket Propulsion_ by Sutton.

Thought you might like to know.

--Glenn Serre 
gaserre.athena.mit.edu

------------------------------

Date: 24 Sep 87 22:55:00 GMT
From: jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Re: Shuttleparts/Flyback Booster


[...deleted...]
> Does the idea of standardized parts work for rockets, or does each
> component have to be so optimized for the particular mission that they
> must be particular to the vehicle?
[...]

There is a method of determining the thrust of each stage of a rocket
called "optimal staging".  The theory is that each stage should supply
the same delta vee (change in velocity).  "Optimal" is a relative
concept.  In this case, it means "most efficient in terms of thrust for
a multi-stage rocket to get a given payload to a given orbit".  A
standardized rocket engine would never be "optimal" in this manner, but
it would be a good idea.

(I realize from your article that you know more about rocketry and
propulsion than I do -- this is aimed at the large audience.)

        -- Ken Jenks
jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu

------------------------------

Date: 27 Sep 87 05:52:37 GMT
From: super.upenn.edu!eecae!crlt!russ@rutgers.edu  (Russ Cage)
Subject: Re: [gaserre%ATHENA.MIT:EDU:Xerox: Re: Can someone confirm

In article <870925-165109-17284@Xerox>, Fischer.pa@XEROX.COM writes:
>From: <gaserre@ATHENA.MIT.EDU>
>Subject: Re: Can someone confirm seemingly brilliant Phoenix design?

>I don't know anything about the Phoenix, but I do know that that ablative
>cooling can be used in solid rocket engines. . . .

That offers two choices for combustion chamber protection for Phoenix
during the oxygen-rich combustion phase:

1.)	Use a refractory oxide as a facing material (can't burn), and/or
2.)	Protect the chamber wall with a layer of gas which keeps the
	oxygen-rich mixture away from the wall.  This gas layer could
	just as well be fuel (hydrogen), thus solving the problem of how
	the gas layer is produced (wouldn't want an expendable chamber
	wall for a vehicle which has to turn around quickly).

Does anyone know what the spec *actually* calls for, or is it decided?

Russ Cage, Robust Software Inc.		    ihnp4!itivax![m-net!rsi,crlt!russ]

------------------------------

Date: 27 Sep 87 20:56:51 GMT
From: telesoft!roger@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu  (Roger Arnold @prodigal)
Subject: Re: Shuttleparts/Flyback Booster

A quick comment on the referenced posting by Brett Van Steenwyk: winged 
boosters that use a horizontal launch mode are not necessarily cheaper 
or more efficient than those that use a verticle launch mode.  A fully 
fueled booster with upper stage will be a good ten times heavier than 
the same booster returning empty.  That means that it needs wings that 
are much larger and heavier than those needed for a booster that uses
verticle launch.  Wings are actually not a mass-efficient means to
provide lift--especially for large vehicles--and they represent very
expensive structure to develop and build.  

HTO can make sense if you look at relatively small vehicles, and couple 
HTO with airbreathing propulsion to hypersonic velocities (the German 
Saenger Project or the British Hotol), or if you're talking about
taking advantage of an existing aircraft that's large enough to serve
as a booster for a small spaceplane (Teledyne Brown proposal).  But if
the 747 did not already exist, it wouldn't make sense to try to develop 
it just for use as a spaceplane launcher.

- Roger Arnold				..sdcsvax!telesoft!roger

------------------------------

Date: 27 Sep 87 20:07:57 GMT
From: ucsdhub!jack!man!crash!telesoft!roger@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu  (Roger Arnold @prodigal)
Subject: Re: Can someone confirm seemingly brilliant Phoenix design?

> You could take the approach give by ablative re-entry technology, put
> something on the walls that you don't care about burning off, but this
> would probably not work because the chamber would change shape.  ...
> [description of other possibilities deleted]

For anyone out there who is convinced that it is would be impossible to
invent an oxy-hydrogen engine capable of operating operating oxygen
rich, I've got news for you: it's already been done.  The engine in
question is none other than the faithful RL-10.  I am told that during
development, it was regularly tested in oxygen-rich mode, around 10:1.
Combustion at 10:1 isn't very much hotter than combustion at 6:1, and
the rate of thermal transfer is comparable, due to the higher average
molecular weight.

I don't have any data on the duration of test firings at 10:1, and I
don't know if they resulted in erosion of the combustion chamber walls
at a rate that would be a problem for reusability.  But considering that
the RL-10 was designed for use at a 5:1 ratio, the fact that it could be
operated successfully at 10:1 suggestes to me that it's not a difficult
problem.

- Roger Arnold				..sdcsvax!telesoft!roger

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 24 Sep 87 01:04:22 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" <KFL@ai.ai.mit.edu>
Subject: Space resources
To: eugene@ames-pioneer.arpa
Cc: KFL@ai.ai.mit.edu, Space@angband.s1.gov

> From: Eugene Miya N. <eugene@ames-pioneer.arpa>

> Hum, I don't think we will get much O2 from asteroids.

Not from the iron-nickel ones.  But most stones are largely oxygen.
This is true even on the moon - so an oxidizing environment is not a
necessity.  But we knew this already from meteorites.

Hydrogen and nitrogen are bigger problems.  They can be gotten from
carbonaceous chondrites - which are rare among meteorites probably
because they disintegrate more easily, not because they are rare in
space - or from cometary or outer-moon material.

>> Then nobody on this list could discuss space. :-)

> Well, maybe I so go for the Corps.

I don't think anyone on this list has actually been to space.

>>> I would debate this statement as well.

> You do need insulation.  Apollo 13 was kept at 35 deg. F during the
> return (very uncomfortable).

Are you sure this wasn't deliberate, to keep leakage down?

Keeping cool will almost certainly be a bigger problem than keeping
warm, even in interstellar space, given that thermal radiation is the
only way one can lose heat in space without throwing away mass.

								...Keith

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 24 Sep 87 01:07:26 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" <KFL@ai.ai.mit.edu>
Subject: Asteroids
To: eugene@ames-pioneer.arpa
Cc: KFL@ai.ai.mit.edu, Space@angband.s1.gov

> From: Eugene Miya N. <eugene@ames-pioneer.arpa>

> We have photographed the moons of Mars.  You are right, we need more
> data, but I don't think they are quite loose.  P and D are fairly
> intact things.

It is hard to tell with such large objects.  What was the resolution of
those photogaphs?  They might be made of boulders just smaller than the
resolution.

If they are not captured asteroids, their composition has no bearing on
the asteroid question.  If they ARE captured asteroids - whatever
process captured them would probably fragment any loose conglomerations
so only non-loose ones survive as moons.

We really have to look at the asteroids themselves to be sure one way
or the other.  I will volunteer for the one-way mission, if I can bring
twenty tons of equipment and supplies of my own choosing along with me.

								...Keith

------------------------------

Date: 24 Sep 87 22:33:38 GMT
From: unc!leech@mcnc.org  (Jonathan Leech)
Subject: Re: Asteroids

In article <259359.870924.KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU> KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU ("Keith F. Lynch") writes:
>It is hard to tell with such large objects.  What was the resolution of
>those photogaphs?  They might be made of boulders just smaller than the
>resolution.

    Looking at pictures of crater Stickney, which is 1/4 the diameter of
Phobos or thereabouts, seems to provide ample evidence that the body is
NOT an aggregate - how could such craters exist if that were the case?

    I believe that observations of asteroid magnitude as a smoothly
varying function of phase angle (the angle formed by the vectors
Asteroid->Sun, Asteroid->Observer) may also support this interpretation,
but I wouldn't bet on it - I haven't thought out the geometry yet. [This
is an interesting research topic with some applications to computer
graphics lighting models, incidentally.]

    In any case, the Soviet mission should resolve the issue with
respect to Phobos & Deimos.

    Jon Leech (leech@cs.unc.edu || ...mcnc!unc!leech)
    __@/

------------------------------

Date: 23 Sep 87 20:22:12 GMT
From: fluke!ssc-vax!eder@beaver.cs.washington.edu  (Dani Eder)
Subject: Re: Space Station Design

In article <1340@unc.cs.unc.edu>, leech@unc.cs.unc.edu (Jonathan Leech) writes:
> How will they move it? Does the Station include manuevering thrusters?
> Figuring out how much thrust a large structure like that can
> withstand, and where to apply it as the structure changes
> configuration, sounds like one of the harder problems involved.
>     Jon Leech (leech@cs.unc.edu || ...mcnc!unc!leech)
>     __@/

  From a presentation entitled "Findings of the Critical Evaluation Task
Force" dated 30 September 1986:

[note: since the preliminary design review for the Space Station is 18
months away, changes are expected.]

A tank farm is brought to orbit pressurized to 3000 psi with gaseous
hydrogen and oxygen, on delivery flights 1,3 and 4. It takes 8 flights
with the Space Shuttle to reach 'permanent manned capability'.  1300 lb
of water are transferred each flight from the shuttle to a water
electrolyzer system.  The water is generated onboard the orbiter in a
fuel cell from liquid oxygen and hydrogen.  Why not just transfer the
liquids directly?  Because water is easier to store than cryogens.  The
thrusters are fed from the gaseous storage tanks, which are replenished
(kept at 3000 psi) by the electrolyzer.  All of this is powered by the
solar array.  The first flight consists of 1/2 of the horizontal truss,
18.75 kW of solar array, and a pressurized node with the smarts to
control the semi-built station.
 
For reboost or altitude changes, you thrust through the station center
of gravity with a combined 200-300 lb of thrust.  Thus it may take on
the order of an hour of thrusting to go from 190 miles to 220 miles.

Figuring out the structural loads is one of those things us engineers
get paid for.  Since the station structure is a truss, and most of the
masses and forces act through point-like connections, the structural
analysis is actually fairly straightforward.

Dani Eder/Boeing/Advanced Space Transportation

------------------------------

Date:         Thu, 24 Sep 1987 08:22 EDT
From: Ray Lauff <RAY%TEMPLEVM.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu>
Subject: Pluto

The question once again has come up here during lunchtime discussion as
to whether or not Pluto is indeed a planet or a moon of Neptune.  Can
anyone inform me of the latest thinking about this distant rockey world?

------------------------------

Date: 24 Sep 87 17:30:14 GMT
From: cfa!mink@husc6.harvard.edu  (Doug Mink)
Subject: Re: Pluto

I heard Clyde Tombaugh (Pluto's discoverer) at a lunch seminar
yesterday, and Brian Marsden, who several years ago made an off-the-cuff
remark about Pluto being an asteroid, profusely apologized for
belittling Clyde's planet.  As I understand it, the current thinking is
that Pluto and Charon make up what is ALMOST a double planet system.
Pluto MAY be just big enough to have some sort of atmosphere; there is a
debate going on in the literature (Science and Nature) about the
interpretation of some IRAS infrared data which point in that direction.
Kelly Beatty reviewed the current state of Plutology in the September
Sky and Telescope.  Mutual eclipses of Pluto and Charon over the past
two years have greatly increased our knowledge of these two most
interesting bodies.  My only complaint is that we still don't know where
they are accurately enough to predict occultations of stars by them.

Doug Mink, aging hippy astronomer and amateur Plutologist
mink@cfa.harvard.edu
{ihnp4|seismo}!harvard!cfa!mink

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 26 Sep 87 02:57:23 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" <KFL@ai.ai.mit.edu>
Subject: G, how measured
To: jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu
Cc: KFL@ai.ai.mit.edu, Space@angband.s1.gov, Physics@unix.sri.com

> From: jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu
 
> Does anybody know where the data for G come from experimentally?  The
> only things I can think of to measure have to do with Gm, where m is
> the mass of a large body.  Is there a way to measure G seperate from
> m, or, failing that, is there a way to measure m seperate from G then
> work backwards?

Yes, but HOW large a body?

In Newton's day, G was known VERY roughly, based on an estimate of the
mass of the Earth based on a very rough guess for its density.

The way it was finally MEASURED was as follows: Start with a long wire
dangling from a tall ceiling, and see how much torque it takes to rotate
it through a given angle.  For small angles, the angle is proportional
to the torque, so now you know, given any angle, what the torque is.
Next, making sure there are no stray air currents, etc, hang a long
horizontal bar from the thread, and mount two large weights on the ends
of the rod, like a barbell.  Mount a mirror on the rod where it
intersects the wire.  Shine a ray of light on the mirror, and see where
the reflection lands on the wall a great distance away.

Now, being careful not to touch the rod, mirror, weights, or wire, put
two large weights close to the two dangling weights, at a known
distance, and in the directions from the dangling weights that would
cause any attraction to rotate the rod.  Wait for any air currents to
settle down, and then see how far the spot of light on the wall has
moved.  From measuring the displacement of the light, you can easily
tell how many seconds of arc the rod has rotated.  And since you know
the ratio between rotation and torque, you know the torque the
attraction between weights exerted.  And since you know the length of
the moment arm, you know the actual force exerted.  And since you now
know the force, the distance, and the mass, G falls right out.

This ingenious experiment was first conducted about 200 years ago. (!)
It was done by Cavendish, the same person who discovered hydrogen.

As far as I know, it's done the same way today.  I can't see any better
way to measure G except in outer space.

I wonder if there are any proposals to measure G in space, preferably in
the outer solar system billions of miles from any planet or the Sun.
Measuring G on Earth is like doing infrared astronomy in the middle of a
raging fire.  Perhaps two heavy masses could be set side by side in the
outer solar system, and one could track the other with a low power
laser?
								...Keith

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #4
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU;  6 Oct 87 06:20:41 EDT
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA09834; Tue, 6 Oct 87 03:18:09 PDT
	id AA09834; Tue, 6 Oct 87 03:18:09 PDT
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 87 03:18:09 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8710061018.AA09834@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #5

SPACE Digest                                        Volume 8 : Issue 5

Today's Topics:
			 Re: G, how measured
			      Questions
		     Satellite Plotting Programs
			Re: Things aint so bad
		      Space Station via Proton?
			Launch Price Supports
       Let Japan give us below-cost launch until they go broke
			    Oxygen Supply
			    Several things
		  Re: Reply to a government employee
			 Re: Space resources
			 Re: Space resources
			   Britain in space
			 Re: Space resources
		   Re: space news from Aug 10 AW&ST
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 27 Sep 87 22:35:07 GMT
From: newton.physics.purdue.edu!clt@ee.ecn.purdue.edu  (Carrick Talmadge)
Subject: Re: G, how measured

In article <260499.870926.KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU> KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU ("Keith F. Lynch") writes:
>Now, being careful not to touch the rod, mirror, weights, or wire, put
>two large weights close to the two dangling weights, at a known
>distance, and in the directions from the dangling weights that would
>cause any attraction to rotate the rod.  [rest of good discussion
>edited out]

This is essentially the modern experiment.  The principle differences
involve chosing a better mass configuration so that the signature due to
gravity is distinct from expected systematics.  This usually involves
getting the net gravitational torque as close to zero as possible at the
equilibrium position of the torsion fiber, and then measuring the
frequency shift in the oscillation period of the torsion bar [this
frequency shift is approximately maximized when the net torque is zero].
This methodology was first employed by Eotvos back in 1896 and is
essentially the same method used in the modern experiments.  The other
big difference is putting the torsion bar and torsion fiber in a vacuum
-- not doing so turns out to be far too noisy.

>As far as I know, it's done the same way today.  I can't see any better
>way to measure G except in outer space. ...
>							...Keith

The anwser is yes, there are a who bunch of them.  The recent review of
gravity literature by George Gillies at the University of Virginia
[Metrologia 24 (suppl), 1 (1987)], which is without a doubt the most
complete review of its type in this century, gives a [nearly] complete
listing of such proposed experiments.  Also, there are measurements of G
at the geophysical scale which show promise in obtaining high accuracy,
of which I know of at least two which are being performed separately by
Frank Stacey and by Keith Runcorn.

Carrick Talmadge

------------------------------

Date:     Mon, 28 Sep 87 16:27 EST
From: <11SSTEIN%GALLUA.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu>
Subject:  Questions

Hello, I wonder if you have any idea whom I can subscribe about
astronomy events? I am looking for a computer mailing system that will
keep me informed about the stars and planets. Rise and set times and
mags and stuff are also desired.

Do you think that the Hubble Space Telescope will FINALLY go in the air
on December 89???

------------------------------

Date:     Wed, 30 Sep 87 9:59:47 MDT
From: John Shaver Modernization Office <steep-mo-m@huachuca-em.arpa>
Subject:  Satellite Plotting Programs

I would like to find a program for the IBM PC which would plot orbits in
both a Mercator projection and a 3-d version showing the earth etc.
Does anyone have an idea where I might get such a program?  Thanks John

------------------------------

Date: 24 Sep 87 13:17:34 GMT
From: miq%psuvm.bitnet@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Jim Maloy)
Subject: Re: Things aint so bad

In article <7405@sri-unix.ARPA>, larson@sri-unix.ARPA (Alan Larson) says:
     
>Am I the only one who is having trouble with this first claim?  There
>were a large number of items (I think they called them criticality-1
>items) which, if any one of the failed, would lead to catastrophe.
     
     The question is not the number of these items, but the likelihood
of them going bad.  Even if there are thousands of such items, if the
odds of any one going bad were less than a million to one, the risk
would still be acceptable.  Further, there's little being done about
them because there's little that *can* be done.  There will always be
some systems for which failure means disaster.  This is true of any
vehicle or device, not just the Shuttle.
     
     The human body has *loads* of criticality-1 items (ask a nursing or
a med student), but it averages over 70 years before catastrophic
failure (assuming proper maintenance).  :-)

James D. Maloy
Bitnet: MIQ@PSUECL, MIQ@PSUVM

------------------------------

Date: 24 Sep 1987 18:39-EDT 
From: Dale.Amon@cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Space Station via Proton?

Henry: No WONDER I've been having so much trouble getting Art Dula to
call back!!!

------------------------------

Date:         Fri, 25 Sep 87 13:20:32 GMT
From: "Michael J. Hammel" <SNHAM%TTUVM1.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu>
Subject: Launch Price Supports

Robert Elton Maas writes:

>...Should we, for the next launch vehicle, simply guarentee launch
>business?

Thats a tough question. Wouldn't the idea of letting private industry
develop a new launch vehicle (or upgraded old versions) fall into the
category of the F-20 (or whatever fighter it was that was designed and
built without government funding, and gov't turned it down, despite its
apparent advantages)? I would think that many companies would be afraid
of the loss they would incur for such development. Of course, if they
could be guaranteed that if the U.S. govt.  doesn't buy it, the company
could sell it to some other buyer, then maybe the possibility of such
losses would be reduced.

This, of course, is just an opinion. Please, no flames. I'm just a
hacker with a hobby.

Michael
Bitnet: SNHAM@TTUVM1

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 29 Sep 87 17:14:09
From: Robert Elton Maas <REM%IMSSS@sail.stanford.edu>
Subject: Let Japan give us below-cost launch until they go broke

Some people have complained that it's difficult for private launch
services to compete with government-subsidized services here and
elsewhere. We can stop our own subsidy, but we can't stop Japan or ESA,
so what do we do about the problem? I suggest draining them dry.  If
they are offering services below cost, then they are operating at a
loss. I suggest we take full advantage of their services, putting lots
and lots of DOD satellites on foreign rockets. If the subsidy continues,
if they continue to operate at a loss, it should help our balance of
payments, raid their pockets and feed ours. If they stop the subsidy,
then the original problem goes away, our private launch services can be
competitive. Either way we win something. Rebuttal anyone?

------------------------------

Date: 23 Sep 87 21:24:26 GMT
From: amdahl!oliveb!intelca!mipos3!sundar@ames.arpa  (abcd)
Subject: Oxygen Supply

Yesterday (Sep 22) there was a broadcast from KQED (PBS) in the bay
area on the national space program and the Galileo Mission.  Probably
some of you have seen it before.  The program presented a view of the
current status that put the blame on the Congress armed with budget
trimmers and the poor choice of a space policy that chose to rely on
one space vehicle for the future of the US space program.  It also
pointed out the current administration's preoccupation with non-space
activities that stand in the way of renewed space exploration.  I hope
more people would watch this show to increase their understanding of
the current Space problems.

At one instance, there was a remark by someone (I couldn't read the
name: my TV blanks out the bottom 1/5 of the screen) about the
availability of oxygen for extended stay in space.  This problem must
have been solved years ago, but I don't have any knowledge of the
solution: do astronauts carry all their oxygen supply or is the oxygen
chemically generated?

--sri

sundar@mipos3.intel.com

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 24 Sep 87 09:32:01 pdt
From: Eugene Miya N. <eugene@ames-pioneer.arpa>
Subject: Several things

There's been a lot postings lately, and I've really got to bone down on
research.  I'm thinking about getting a Public Information Officier to
read SPACE. I'll still read, but he or she will have to answer
questions.  I'll still post the yearly next-summer jobs thing in
December, but this time I'm going to take it out of the hands of friends
and put people in direct touch with Recruiting and Personnel people.
(Several readers were hired last year).

Last evening, I finally got around to seeing the Nova on Galileo, Gawd!
Shades of old Project Reviews.  Saw several JPL friends, saw R. Eddy who
is an Ames Dep. Director who didn't get is name mentioned, saw the
Cafeteria Meeting room where I used to sit in Reviews, etc.  In large
part that episode did capture what those meetings are like Andy
Ingersoll trying to get "atmosphere" time (he's like that most of the
time).  Hope viewers get an appreciation of the tradeoffs which are
inherent in projects.  Negatives--Nova's overview of the Space Station
was over-simplified.  Mark et al wanted a Shuttle AND a Station as Mars
stepping stones ($20G 1970$$) and other minor things.

Back to the salt mines.  P.S. If you guys decide to abolish NASA and
take us all outside to shoot us, I won't need a blindfold.

--eugene

------------------------------

Date: 24 Sep 87 15:47:13 GMT
From: shafto@AMES-AURORA.ARPA  (Michael Shafto)
Subject: Re: Reply to a government employee

In article <259364.870924.KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU> KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU ("Keith F. Lynch") writes:
>> From: Eugene Miya N. <eugene@ames-pioneer.arpa>
>
>> Interesting points.  Sometimes I wonder if it would not be better (for
>> the sake of a better space program) to have a totalitarian society, at
>> least it would make the launches run on time.
>
>Smile when you say that.

Let's see, now.
IF we had a totalitarian society, 
   THEN the launches would run on time.
IF the launches ran on time,
   THEN we would have a better space program.
THEREFORE, 
IF we had a totalitarian society,
   THEN we would have a better space program.

This is the kind of logic that will put/keep AI out of business.

(By the way, you have to know Eugene Miya to realize that
the :-) is always there by default.

Mike

>								...Keith

------------------------------

Date: 24 Sep 87 17:32:32 GMT
From: concertina!fiddler@sun.com  (Steve Hix)
Subject: Re: Space resources

In article <259357.870924.KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>, KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU ("Keith F. Lynch") writes:
> > You do need insulation.  Apollo 13 was kept at 35 deg. F during the
> > return (very uncomfortable).
> 
> Are you sure this wasn't deliberate, to keep leakage down?

Since the fuel cell had gone south (sort of) Apollo 13 had severe
limits to usable power, and to avoid running down the batteries,
all non-essential equipment was shut down as long as possible.

Since the craft had been designed to reflect as much heat as 
possible, expecting significant heating from on-board equipment,
it got pretty cold.  I seem to remember some concern about the
crew's drinking water supply freezing...

> Keeping cool will almost certainly be a bigger problem than keeping
> warm, even in interstellar space, given that thermal radiation is the
> only way one can lose heat in space without throwing away mass.

Make your vessel shiny, spin it, use lots of CMOS and superconductors,
and don't forget to turn off the lights in your bedroom, and you should
not have too much trouble staying cool. :]

	seh

------------------------------

Date: 25 Sep 87 15:21:47 GMT
From: ihnp4!mmm!allen@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Kurt Allen)
Subject: Re: Space resources

In article <259357.870924.KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU> KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU ("Keith F. Lynch") writes:
>> You do need insulation.  Apollo 13 was kept at 35 deg. F during the
>> return (very uncomfortable).
>
>Are you sure this wasn't deliberate, to keep leakage down?

	Apollo 13, according to my sources, was so cool on the return
	from the moon because the electrical systems were turned off
	whenever possible to save electricity. (electricity was
	generated in the fuel cells, and used oxygen).

	The main control panel for Apollo 13 was shut down. This had
	never been done on any previous mission. There was some concern
	about problems powering it back up. As we all know, however, all
	turned out well.
-- 
	Kurt W. Allen
	3M Center
	ihnp4!mmm!allen

------------------------------

Date: 22 Sep 87 12:19:01 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!its63b!bob@uunet.uu.net  (ERCF08 Bob Gray)
Subject: Britain in space

I am re-posting the following items which appeared on the Channel Four
teletext service's weekly space news pages "In Orbit" (page 618 for
those who can get C4).

They are posted as a followup to my earlier postings on the same
subject.

Both items were written by and should only be credited to the ITV space
correspondant, Dr David Whitehead.
	Bob.
-------------------------------------------

BRITAIN IN SPACE

This week several UK companies set up a firm called Space Ventures plc.
as part of a rearguard action to try to persuade the Goverment that
space is worth funding. This follows the summer fiasco between the
Goverment and the British National Space Centre which led to the
Director of the BNSC resigning.

--------------------------------------------

BRITISH SPACE FUNDING.

A newspaper report that the UK may be asked to leave the European Space
Agency because of lack of commitment to space has been hotly denied. But
there's no doubt that with big talk and little action the rest of Europe
feels pretty fed up with us.

As "In Orbit" has said before, compromise upon wooly compromise is worse
than doing nothing.

We either decide to be part of the space game pull out and do something
else. But then that means deciding something...

------------------------------

Date: 26 Sep 87 21:17:25 GMT
From: faline!karn@bellcore.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: Space resources

> 	Apollo 13, according to my sources, was so cool on the return
> 	from the moon because the electrical systems were turned off
> 	whenever possible to save electricity. (electricity was
> 	generated in the fuel cells, and used oxygen).

The limiting factor during the return was the amount of water available
for cooling the LM systems. Oxygen was no problem at all; they finished
with half the original amount on the LM. 20% of the LM's original
battery capacity was left because they cut power consumption down to a
fifth of normal levels.  Only 9% of the water remained, and this only
because of the drastic cut in power consumption (and heat dissipation).

Source: James A. Lovell in NASA SP-350.

Phil

------------------------------

Date: 24 Sep 87 16:14:47 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!dciem!nrcaer!cognos!geovision!alastair@uunet.uu.net  (Alastair Mayer)
Subject: Re: space news from Aug 10 AW&ST

In article <8644@utzoo.UUCP> henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) writes:
 > [...]  I also applaud the idea that backups
 >which aren't needed as backups should be *flown*, perhaps on a different
 >mission, rather than being donated to the Smithsonian.  If you think the
 >Viking and the Voyager in the Smithsonian look realistic, it's because
 >they *are* real.] 

    Yeah!  If the Smithsonian really wants them for museum pieces,
let them finance an expedition to go out and retrieve them *after*
the vehicles have flown their intended (or backup) missions.
    Heh heh.   
-- 
 Alastair JW Mayer     BIX: al
                      UUCP: ...!utzoo!dciem!nrcaer!cognos!geovision!alastair

 "What we really need is a good 5-cent/gram launch vehicle."

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #5
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU;  7 Oct 87 13:52:44 EDT
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA00701; Wed, 7 Oct 87 10:45:11 PDT
	id AA00701; Wed, 7 Oct 87 10:45:11 PDT
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 87 10:45:11 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8710071745.AA00701@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #6

SPACE Digest                                        Volume 8 : Issue 6

Today's Topics:
		   Re: space news from Aug 10 AW&ST
      Re: Alternate information from NASA on shuttle activities
		   Re: space news from Aug 10 AW&ST
		 putting backup spacecraft in museums
	   Objects for the Smithsonian (was: Space News...)
			 Re: Space resources
		   Re: space news from Aug 10 AW&ST
			 Re: Space resources
	   Early Apollo capsules and Soviet ICBM launches.
	  Humorous quote from Air&Space/Smithsonian magazine
	       Response to Comments on Newspeak Article
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 27 Sep 87 19:11:29 GMT
From: cbmvax!grr@rutgers.edu  (George Robbins)
Subject: Re: space news from Aug 10 AW&ST

Come on - the Smithsonian takes what they are given - they don't exactly
wander around NASA looking mission capable hardware to carry off.  Now
if NASA was to go off and to recover some nice historic space or even
lunar debris, I'm sure the Smithsonian would love to put it on display.
Unfortunatly, I suspect all the well known "historic" satellites have
long since reentered.  Anyone want to start a pool on the first manned
mission to geo-synchronous orbit?

BTW, has anyone ever seen a fairly complete list of the disposition of
the Mercury/Gemini/Apollo capsules, leaving what constitutes a "real"
capsule and open issue?

-- 
George Robbins - now working for,	uucp: {ihnp4|rutgers|allegra}!cbmvax!grr
but no way officially representing	arpa: out to lunch...
Commodore, Engineering Department	fone: 215-431-9255 (only by moonlite)

------------------------------

Date: 24 Sep 87 01:49:19 GMT
From: rosevax!kksys!bird@uunet.uu.net  (Mike Bird)
Subject: Re: Alternate information from NASA on shuttle activities

Well, near then end of the Challenger disaster, my local cable company
was using one of it's "local programming" channels to carry the NASA
feed direct and uncut.  We actually had the entire feed that the
networks did, straight from the NASA editors in Houston!  I used to tape
the stuff all day (most of it was dreadfully boring) and fast-forward
through it at a speed ratio of 6 to 1 (the rate of the "scan" feature on
my VCR.  If something caught my eye (payload deployment, talks on the
mission by the ground-based specialists, etc) I'd stop the tape, rewind
and watch on 1:1 speed.  Check with your cable company.  They've got
lots of free bandwidth, they should be able to accomodate the
"space-nuts".

Mike Bird

------------------------------

Date: 28 Sep 87 08:28:39 GMT
From: faline!karn@bellcore.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: space news from Aug 10 AW&ST

> Now if NASA was to go off and to recover some nice historic space or
> even lunar debris, I'm sure the Smithsonian would love to put it on
> display.

Among the items on display at the Air & Space Museum:

The Apollo 11 command module
the faulty electronics box removed from Solar Max
the TV camera from Surveyor III, removed during the Apollo 12 mission
moon rocks

Phil

------------------------------

Date: 28 Sep 87 14:47:54 GMT
From: faline!thumper!mike@bellcore.bellcore.com  (Michael Caplinger)
Subject: putting backup spacecraft in museums

The cost of building a spacecraft is only a fraction of the total
mission cost, especially for very long term, unmanned missions like
Voyager.  A look at how much Galileo is costing just sitting at JPL is
instructive in this regard.

So to claim that a backup spacecraft now sitting in a museum could as
easily have been launched is an emotionally appealing but fiscally
untrue claim.

Besides, there is an instance already of a spacecraft being taken *out*
of a museum to be flown (Polar BEAR satellite).

	Mike Caplinger
	mike@bellcore.com
	{decvax,ihnp4}!thumper!mike

------------------------------

Date: 28 Sep 87 14:19:13 GMT
From: ihnp4!homxb!homxc!maw@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (M.WEINSTEIN)
Subject: Objects for the Smithsonian (was: Space News...)

In article <2395@cbmvax.UUCP>, grr@cbmvax.UUCP (George Robbins) writes:
> if NASA was to go off and to recover some nice historic space or even
> lunar debris, I'm sure the Smithsonian would love to put it on
> display.  Unfortunatly, I suspect all the well known "historic"
> satellites have long since reentered.  Anyone want to start a pool on
> the first manned mission to geo-synchronous orbit?

There is a document available from the government (published by NASA, I
think) called "Satellite Situation Report" which is a list of all the
objects being tracked in space.  There are still some golden-oldies on
the list.

Michael A. Weinstein

------------------------------

Date: 28 Sep 87 22:15:48 GMT
From: concertina!fiddler@sun.com  (Steve Hix)
Subject: Re: Space resources

In article <1433@faline.bellcore.com>, karn@faline.bellcore.com (Phil R. Karn) writes:
> The limiting factor during the return was the amount of water
> available for cooling the LM systems. Oxygen was no problem at all;
> they finished with half the original amount on the LM. 20% of the LM's
> original battery capacity was left because they cut power consumption
> down to a fifth of normal levels.  Only 9% of the water remained, and
> this only because of the drastic cut in power consumption (and heat
> dissipation).
> 
> Source: James A. Lovell in NASA SP-350.

Didn't the fuel cells used by Apollo also produce water as
a waste byproduct of generating power?

	seh

------------------------------

Date: 28 Sep 87 23:20:00 GMT
From: cybvax0!frog!john@eddie.mit.edu  (John Woods, Software)
Subject: Re: space news from Aug 10 AW&ST

In article <5260@milano.UUCP>, wex@milano.UUCP writes:
> In article <8644@utzoo.UUCP>, henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) writes:
> > ... backups which aren't needed as backups should be *flown*,
> I don't disagree with Henry, just thought some readers might not know
> these facts (courtesy of NPR's All Things Considered):...
>     All exhibits in the A&S museum are in *working order*.  It's one
>     of their conditions for accepting an exhibit.

I think this statement must be a tad strong: I don't think I'd want to
fly in the Apollo capsule that they had on display, and I think it would
be *real hard* to put it back in working order.

On the other hand, it WAS in working order when it went up :-).

John Woods

------------------------------

Date: 30 Sep 87 04:32:51 GMT
From: faline!karn@bellcore.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: Space resources

> Didn't the fuel cells used by Apollo also produce water as
> a waste byproduct of generating power?

Yes, but only the service module used fuel cells. The LM used batteries,
so water had to be carried for cooling and drinking.

Phil

------------------------------

Date:         Wed, 30 Sep 87 13:05:26 CDT
From: Mark D Hiatt <UCPL130%UNLVM.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu>
Subject:      Early Apollo capsules and Soviet ICBM launches.

A couple of things related to recent discussion of Apollo and USSR ICBM/
Sat launches.

First, from todays Daily Nebraskan, the daily newspaper of the
University of Nebraska at Lincoln:

Morrill Hall space capsule to be refurbished
                     by Victoria Ayotte - Staff Reporter

  Renovation grounded the Apollo space capsule outside Morrill Hall
early this week.
  The space capsule was taken off its base Monday so a new base could be
built.
  The new base is the first step in refurbishing the capsule, said Hugh
Genoways, director of Morrill Hall.  The capsule was the first Apollo
module launched by NASA.  On February 26th, 1966, Apollo 009 was a
suborbital test to determine the reliability of the capsule and the heat
shield in relation to further manned flight.
  The capsule was donated by NASA after a letter-writing campaign by UNL
fraternities and soroities, Genoways said Behlen Manufacturing Company
paid to have the capsule brought to the campus.
  In February 1973, Apollo XVII astronauts Eugene Cernan, Ronald Evans
and Harrison Schmitt came to UNL to dedicate the spacecraft.  Building a
glass or plexiglass done over the capsule to protect it from the weather
is the final step in the restoration process, Genoways said.  The
capsule needs protection that won't block the view of it.  We want to
have it free to the space and keep the open appearance, Genoways said.
  The estimated cost of the total project is $50,000.00.  The Kansas
Cosmosphere space museum in Emporia, Kansas, will do the refurbishing.
Genoways said the original capsule had an instrument panel that was
removed by NASA because it was made of gold.  A different instrument
panel, similar to the original, will be installed.
  University maintenence workers are rebuilding the base this week at a
cost of about $1,000.00, maintenence manager Jerry Delhay said.  Delhay
said the old base was meant to be temporary, but has supported the
capsule ever since it was installed in the early 1970s.  An article in
the February 14th, 1973, Lincoln Star newspaper said, "A permanent
instalation will be constructed in the near future."  Genoways said the
base looked like it was made of plywood.  "I was afraid it would crumble
and dump the space capsule," he said.  The new capsule base will be
filled with concrete, and will be "more permanent," Genoways said.
Maintenence also is constructing new lights to be put underneath the
capsule.
  Genoways said the old base was "an eyesore" and he thinks it's
important to keep the capsule from deteriorating because of the weather.
  In the age of reusable spacraft, NASA isn't generating artifacts like
these anymore, Genoways said.  And the market for items like the space
capsule has gone up since the Challenger accident, he said.  "The space
capsule is an important artifact of our space program which we have here
at our museum," he said.

So, that's what happened to 009 - and btw, does it look sad!

Also, I used to work for a guy who sold Control Data CYBERs to the Air
Force, and he told me that we know the difference between ICBMs and all
the other Soviet launches by the radar signitures picked up in the South
Pacific.  It seems that before any Soyuz, etc. launch -- at least
forty-five minutes to an hour before, in his words -- they fire up their
radar stations downrange of the launch.  Presumably this gives them time
to find and correct any errors in calibration or any malfunctions.  I
would also presume that this would be unnecessary in the event of an
ICBM launch.

                          Mark D Hiatt
                        UCPL130  @ UNLVM       (BitNet)

------------------------------

Date: 24 Sep 87 19:01:00 GMT
From: spdcc!m2c!frog!john@husc6.harvard.edu  (John Woods, Software)
Subject: Humorous quote from Air&Space/Smithsonian magazine

  From the October/November 1987 Air&Space magazine, in an article on
Project Vanguard entitled "The Day the Rocket Died":

...[after the announcement of Vanguard]... Secretary of Defense Charles
Wilson (the same "Engine Charlie" who once told the Senate, "[F]or years
I've thought that what was good for our country was good for General
Motors, and vice versa," probably an accurate analysis) was asked
whether the Russians might beat the Americans into orbit.  "I wouldn't
care if they did," he responded.  (It was later claimed that Wilson
favored the development of the automatic transmission so that he could
drive with one foot in his mouth.)

John Woods, Charles River Data Systems, Framingham MA, (617) 626-1101
...!decvax!frog!john, ...!mit-eddie!jfw, jfw@eddie.mit.edu

"Cutting the space budget really restores my faith in humanity.  It
eliminates dreams, goals, and ideals and lets us get straight to the
business of hate, debauchery, and self-annihilation."
		-- Johnny Hart

------------------------------

Date: 25 Sep 87 03:36:21 GMT
From: ihnp4!homxb!mtuxo!mtgzz!dls@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (d.l.skran)
Subject: Response to Comments on Newspeak Article

Response to "Newspeak in Orbit" Comments
by Dale L. Skran Jr.


Rather than take various persons to task on a line by line basis, I
intend to respond to the general line of comment used by various people.
This seems especially appropriate since most tacks were echoed by
several voices.

I discerned the following general sorts of comments:

1) I was being unfair to the media, over-generalizing, etc.

2) I was supportive of the space shuttle, which is perceived by some as
the major problem with NASA's space program.

3) The article may not have been the best, but it got people thinking
about space, which is a good thing.


Unfairness to the Media

I wrote this in a frenzy as I was leaving for a vacation, and yes, it
does sound a bit over-blown upon my return. I don't adequately support
the points I make, and I do over-generalize.  I also may have been taken
as saying more (and worse) than I intended.

First off, "the media" is too simple a construct. You will note that I
added the qualifier, "especially the NY Times" but that still leaves me
open.

There is a lot of material out there on space, including many
well-informed articles by expert reporters. These stories typically
appear in magazines like Aviation Week and Space Technology, Discover,
Spaceflight, etc.

In addition, there appear to be several other rough categries:

"Gee Whiz" science reporting -- esp. Popular Science and US News and
World Report, but on occasion many others. Did any of you see the cover
of Time on room-temperature super-conductors?

"Pro-science" organs -- Scientific American, Science, Bulletin of the
Atomic Scientists, Planetary Report, etc. These magazines feature well
written articles that echo a well-defined "left-of-center-scientist
party line" that is extremely predictable.  For example: Scientific
American is pro-nuclear power, anti-SDI, pro-arms-control, and
anti-space-station. Their articles are of the highest quality -- except
on these subjects.  Never do articles taking the opposite side of these
issues appear, and frequently the "Science and the Citizen" column
reflects these biases as well.

The general print and TV media -- the Networks, the big city newspapers,
Time & Newsweek, etc. -- With certain exceptions (USA Today) as near as
I can tell except for brief reports of "breakthroughs" or "scandals" the
quantity of their space reporting is low. It is here that the Soviet
achievements have been ignored. When an editorial policy exists, it is
usually that we should get together with the Soviets and press on to
Mars.  The major example is the NY Times (until very recently).

Some seemed to think that I am unqualified to make any statement about
media bias. In the sense that I haven't read every paper published, this is
true. But, I do attempt to follow all sorts of media, and to read a wide
range of space-related articles. Based on that experience, I contend
that the "general media" has to a large extent ignored or misreported
space in recent times.  I would further characterize what does appear as
over-stating our achievements and under-stating the Soviet's.

Space reporting also suffers from the frequently anti-military bias of
many reporters, who apparently believe that NASA is little more than an
adjunct to the air force. These same reporters are also frequently
anti-large-corporation, and since most space money goes to large
corporations, they look at it cross-eyed.

Finally, reporters are generally not technically educated. Some respond
to this by uncriticlly accepting technological claims while others
are fanatically paranoid about them. Both attitudes work against quality
unbiased reporting. I was once interviewed by a reporter who did not
know what an "integrated circuit" was. 

So yes, I think there is bias in the media, and that it works against
the space program. However, it is not the strongest force working
against the space program, nor is it only biased on this issue.
Further, the uncritical acceptance and glorification of certain aspects
of the space program has been just as harmful as the "it's all a waste
of money" attitude. Both approaches leave the fundamental agruements and
ideas of space advocates such as Gerard O'Neill unpresented to the
general public.

I further think that the media is extremely powerful in our society.  My
reference to it as the "5th Branch of Governement," the other four being
Congress, the Executive, the Courts, and the bureaucracy is completely
serious. Talk of the "agonizing decisions" made in the media ignores the
reality that a fairly small number of people decide what we are going to
see on the Network news every night. I'm sure they agonize, but I'm also
sure that the results have any number of biases. For example, any news
related to America is much over-reported in proporation to its global
significances. 10,000 can die in the Iran-Iraq war with hardly a ripple
in the American media.

As to whether "the Martzs" have hurt space more than "the Proxmires,"
who knows? This is not an objective statement, nor is it easy to
quantify. In any case, the Martzs and the Proxmires are just different
breeds of the same animal -- "homo-lookus-backus."  In the short run
they'll always be right. In the long run they come off looking silly.

It is not my intention to criticize the many dedicated hard working
reporters in this country. It is my intention to criticze bias presented
as fact, or even as educated opionion.

Martz's article was so strongly anti-space and so empty of an
alternative program to the one he attacks that I doubt his offered
pro-space statements. His failure to present or even discuss the case
for a space station reveals his true colors. It is one thing to oppose
NASA's space station. It is quite another to oppose the whole idea.


The article got people thinking about space:

To some extent Dale Amon has converted me over to this view. Both
articles taken together are probably on the whole positive. However, the
second article is much more constructive and better informed than
Martz's article.

This covers my comments on (1) and (2) above. I will produce another
posting to respond to the "Shuttle Bashers" and the advocates of the Big
Dumb Booster."


Thanks for all comments. I would like to acknowledge a number of postive
comments that were emailed to me; I will consider your suggestions.


As a postscript, I acknowledge that the NYTimes is apparently changing
its previous policies and has started to more fully report Soviet
achievements. I was astounded when they printed the "Soviet SPS"
article.


Dale L. Skran Jr.
mtgzz!dls

PS: Please, before flaming me further about my generlizations on media
categories, go out and read some space articles from each example I
cite, and then we can talk about it.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #6
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU;  8 Oct 87 06:18:47 EDT
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	id AA02094; Thu, 8 Oct 87 03:16:32 PDT
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 87 03:16:32 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8710081016.AA02094@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #7

SPACE Digest                                        Volume 8 : Issue 7

Today's Topics:
	Re: Humorous quote from Air&Space/Smithsonian magazine
			Ride Commission Report
		     TIME: Moscow Takes the Lead
		   Re: TIME: Moscow Takes the Lead
		Re: Here is how to get the Ride Report
		      New Summary of Ride Report
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 27 Sep 87 02:33:11 GMT
From: ihnp4!alberta!mnetor!lsuc!sq!msb@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Mark Brader)
Subject: Re: Humorous quote from Air&Space/Smithsonian magazine

> ...[after the announcement of Vanguard]... Secretary of Defense
> Charles Wilson ... was asked whether the Russians might beat the
> Americans into orbit.  "I wouldn't care if they did," he responded.

Why is this funny?  Is it supposed to make a difference who was first?

Mark Brader

------------------------------

Date: 1 Oct 87 21:26:59 GMT
From: unc!leech@mcnc.org  (Jonathan Leech)
Subject: Ride Commission Report

    My request to the NASA Office of Exploration last month did not
produce a copy of the Ride Commission's report (titled "Leadership &
America's Future in Space"), but I saw an ad in the current AW&ST and
plan to order it that way. The report can by obtained by sending $14.95
to:

    The Ride Report (A128)
    Aviation Week & Space Technology
    PO Box 5505
    Peoria, Il. 61601

    It is probably a wise idea to include a note specifying what you're
asking for if you can't get a copy of the order coupon from AW&ST.
Disclaimer: I haven't yet ordered the report, but AW&ST can probably be
considered a reputable source :-)

    Jon Leech (leech@cs.unc.edu || ...mcnc!unc!leech)
    __@/

------------------------------

Date: 1 Oct 87 14:25:56 GMT
From: ihnp4!homxb!mtuxo!mtgzz!dls@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (d.l.skran)
Subject: TIME: Moscow Takes the Lead

I strongly urge that you all read the cover article of the October 5,
1987 issue of TIME, titled "Moscow Takes the Lead."

It is the first large article I've read in a major national media organ
that dares to look honestly at Soviet successes and the decline of the
American space program.

Unlike Martz's unconstructive and anti-space article in NEWSWEAK(sic),
here we have some commentary that while not rabidly pro-space at least
asks most of the correct questions.

I am now hopeful that elements of the major mass media are starting to
wake up to the reality that we have fumbled the ball in a big way due to
our weak and vacillating support of the space program.

To those who doubt the existance of media bias, I can point out specific
articles in TIME that down-played MIR and pooh-poohed the then L5
Society's contention that the launch of MIR meant the Soviets were
ahead.

Nothing much has changed over the last year except the attitude of the
editorial staff of TIME.

Dale L. Skran Jr.

PS: this article contains facts and interviews available nowhere else.

------------------------------

Date: 4 Oct 87 18:12:00 GMT
From: jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Re: TIME: Moscow Takes the Lead


The only major item I disagreed with in the Time article was the title.

It should have read in the past tense.
        -- Ken Jenks
jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu
{ihnp4!pur-ee}uiucdcs!uiucdcsp!jenks

------------------------------

Date: 5 Oct 87 15:55:00 GMT
From: jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Re: Here is how to get the Ride Report


Regarding another subject, I got this bit of E-mail from 
	willner%cfa@harvard.harvard.edu (Steve Willner):

> You definitely need to get a copy of the Ride report, and you will
> probably want to get some of the references in it.  (She gives a
> fairly extensive list.)  I've had no luck getting a copy from OE, but
> SSI sent me a Xerox copy. (Box 82, Princeton, NJ 08540.  Send a few
> dollars with your request; they're a non-profit org. with a limited
> budget.  Better yet, send a big contribution. :-) ) I'll be posting a
> summary of the report "soon", but you need to get a copy of the whole
> thing.

Thanks, Steve!  I hope you don't mind my posting this; it might help
somebody else seeking Dr. Ride's report.  "A few dollars" is a heck of a
lot cheaper than $14.95!

        -- Ken Jenks
jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu
{ihnp4!pur-ee}uiucdcs!uiucdcsp!jenks

------------------------------

Date: 6 Oct 87 16:24:59 GMT
From: cfa!willner@husc6.harvard.edu  (Steve Willner)
Subject: New Summary of Ride Report

Thanks to the Space Studies Institute, I've finally received a copy of
"Leadership and America's Future in Space" (the Ride report).  Since
some earlier summaries seemed to me inaccurate, incomplete, or to have
misplaced emphases, here is some additional information.  Indented
material is quoted from the report.  [If you disagree with the accuracy
of this summary or its choice of topics, by all means complain to - or
about - me.  But if you disagree with the conclusions reported, complain
to Ride, Fletcher, or your elected leaders.]

First of all, what is the nature of the report?  On page 1, in big type,
are the words "A Report to the Administrator by Dr. Sally K.  Ride."  At
the end of the report, in tiny type, are the names of 3 staff members, 4
"initiative advocates" (See below.), and 39 "workshop participants,
reviewers, and consultants."  I conclude that the report is meant to be
one individual's opinions and recommendations.  Since the individual is
well-known, well-informed, and (at the time of the report's release)
high-ranking, these opinions will carry great weight and will be
impossible to ignore, but they are NOT official policy.  Moreover, the
report itself says:

    The goals of the civilian space program must be carefully chosen to
    be consistent with the national interest and also to be consistent
    with NASA's capabilities. ... It is not NASA's role to determine the
    strategy for the civilian space program.  But it is NASA's role to
    lead the debate, to propose technically feasible options, and to
    make thoughtful recommendations.

Thus, as always, space policy will be made by elected officials.

Second, what did the report try to do?  Most attention has been focussed
on four "major initiatives".  Contrary to most public statements,
however, these initiatives were not intended to be the only
possibilities for NASA, nor was the Ride report intended only to set
priorities among them.  Instead, the initiatives were intended to
represent a range of possible programs for NASA.

    ...there is no one "correct" strategy; rather, there are many
    distinct strategic options.  Clearly, each nation should choose and
    pursue a strategy which is consistent with its own national
    objectives.

    ...it was important to choose a set of initiatives which spanned a
    broad spectrum of content and complexity.

In preparing the report, an advocate studied each initiative in enough
detail to be able to determine likely schedules, missions, and costs.
(Some initiatives could draw on a wealth of previous studies, and the
report contains an excellent bibliography.)  Some requirements were that
1) each initiative reach "major milestones" within 20 years; 2) all the
initiatives be _in addition_ to current NASA programs; 3) each
initiative be considered independently; and 4) no international
cooperation be assumed.  The advocates presented the best case for each
initiative, and Ride and her advisors then compared costs, benefits, and
resources likely to be available.  On this basis, Ride made her
recommendations.

Another contribution of the Ride report - perhaps even the most
important - has received no publicity whatsoever.  This part consists of
recommendations that are separate from the major initiatives and that
should be carried out in any case.

What are NASA's goals?  The report adopts a statement by "NASA Senior
Management's Strategic Planning Council", containing:
    1) Advance scientific knowledge of the planet Earth, the solar
       system, and the universe beyond.
    2) Expand human presence beyond the Earth into the solar system.
    3) Strengthen aeronautics research and develop technology toward
       promoting US leadership in civil and military aviation.

So what are Ride's recommendations?  There are several that are
independent of the major initiatives.  One, surprisingly, is for better
education.
    An informed public is essential to both the near- and long-term
    interests of the nation's civilian space program.

    "While up to 90 percent of high school graduates in other countries
    enjoy a proficiency in math and science, a mere 6 percent of US
    graduates attain the same aptitudes...This challenge exists at every
    level from elementary through graduate education." [quoted from
    "Pioneering the Space Frontier"]

A second recommendation is in the area of transportation requirements.
    ...we must regain regular and assured access to space and expand
    launch capability based on expendable and reusable vehicles.

A third is for increased effort in developing advanced technology.  
    Rebuilding the nation's technology base is essential for the
    successful achievement of any long-term space goal. ... Project
    Pathfinder...would provide... technology for autonomous systems and
    robotics, for ...advanced propulsion systems, and for extraction of
    useful materials from Lunar or planetary sources.... [and for] human
    ability to live and work in space.

Other recommendations are for increased life sciences research (i.e.
space medicine), planning for evolution of the Space Station based on
the missions it is to support, and "adequate support" for the Office of
Exploration (of which she was director when the report was written.)

What of the major initiatives?  Perhaps the most important
recommendation is in the conclusion section:

    It would not be good strategy, good science, or good policy for the
    US to select a single initiative, then pursue it single-mindedly.
    The pursuit of a single initiative to the exclusion of all others
    results in leadership in only a limited range of space endeavor.

Within that context, Ride does make some recommendations.  To review,
the four initiatives are "Exploration of the Solar System", "Mission to
Planet Earth", "Outpost on the Moon", and "Humans to Mars".  [They are
listed here in order of estimated cost, although the first two are
nearly the same.]  Ride states that all four initiatives represent very
desirable things to do in space, and all are fully consistent with
NASA's stated goals.  The questions about the initiatives are costs,
schedules, and priorities.  However, her recommendations are not quite
as have been reported: The first two initiatives are unequivocally
recommended.

    NASA should embrace the core program [of the Solar System
    Exploration Committee.  As regards additional activities:] Although
    not necessarily at the pace suggested in this initiative, planetary
    exploration must be solidly supported through the 1990's.

    NASA should embrace Mission to Planet Earth.  This initiative is
    responsive, time-critical, and shows a recognition of our
    responsibility to our home planet.

The last initiative is unequivocally recommended to be deferred.  

    ...we should avoid a "race to Mars". [danger of turning into]
    another one shot spectacular.  Such a dead-end venture does _not_
    have the support of most NASA personnel.  [But:] Settling Mars
    should be our eventual goal... We should adopt a strategy of natural
    progression which leads, step by step, in an orderly, unhurried way,
    inexorably toward Mars.

I can find no recommendation at all on the Lunar outpost; it is
presented as a feasible and desirable program, but Ride recognizes that
any such program will be a major effort and will require full commitment
from citizens and political authorities.  [Undoubtedly presidential
leadership --SW]

    The Lunar initiative is a logical part of a long-range strategy for
    human exploration... it requires a national commitment that spans
    decades... this initiative is quite flexible.  Its pace can be
    controlled...  designed to be evolutionary, not revolutionary ...the
    Moon has not been fully explored ...fits beautifully into a natural
    progression.... We should explore the Moon....

[And write your Congressman and favorite presidential candidate. --SW]

Finally, what are the implications for Space Station?  Although the
report takes Phase 1 as given, it does examine the likely uses and
requirements.  The Mission to Planet Earth makes little use of Space
Station as such, although it makes extensive use of unstaffed
co-orbiting and polar orbiting platforms.  The Planetary Exploration
initiative uses Space Station only to house an isolation lab for
returned Mars samples.  [Seems like grasping at straws to me; the
equivalent Lunar Receiving Lab was in Houston. --SW] On the other hand,
the Lunar outpost initiative makes extensive use of Space Station for
vehicle assembly, and usage will increase dramatically if Lunar oxygen
is used to fuel vehicles in orbit.  Furthermore, Space Station would be
essential for testing long-term life support systems.  Therefore, if a
Lunar outpost program is adopted, the Space Station will have to be
designed for vehicle assembly and fueling as well as material
processing.

Steve Willner            Phone 617-495-7123          Bitnet: willner@cfa2
60 Garden St.            FTS:      830-7123           UUCP:   willner@cfa
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA                     ARPA: willner@cfa.harvard.edu

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #7
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU;  9 Oct 87 06:21:01 EDT
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA04259; Fri, 9 Oct 87 03:19:00 PDT
	id AA04259; Fri, 9 Oct 87 03:19:00 PDT
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 87 03:19:00 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8710091019.AA04259@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #8

SPACE Digest                                        Volume 8 : Issue 8

Today's Topics:
			      1987 CSAW
		    AMateur radio SATellite group
		   AIAA October Event: UFO seminar
		     space news from Aug 24 AW&ST
			  Planetary Society
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Posted-Date: Thu, 08 Oct 87 07:19:52 PDT
From: Craig Milo Rogers <Rogers@venera.isi.edu>
Reply-To: Rogers@venera.isi.edu
Subject: 1987 CSAW
Date: Thu, 08 Oct 87 07:19:52 PDT
Sender: rogers@venera.isi.edu

	CSAW is the 1987 California Space Activists Workshop.  It will
be held October 9 through 11 at All Seasons Resort in Incline Village,
Nevada (Lake Tahoe).  This is a change from the originally announced
location.

	CSAW is the annual conference of the California Space
Development Council (CSDC), an organization of some (but not all) of the
NSS chapters in California.  This year's focus will be the development
of activist and leadership skills and their application to space
advocacy.  It is not a "come meet the big names" event, nor is there a
technical program planned.

	Friday will feature the CSDC business meeting and the pep talk
"It's Up to You".  Saturday's sessions are titled "Space
Entrepreneurship" and "Cultivating Your Local Politician"; attendees
will practice tactical skills (listening, questioning, presentation, and
judgement) through role-playing exercises.  Sunday is titled "Pinning
Ourselves Down to Action", in which we try to establish:  where we are,
where we're going, how we plan to get their, and what we're going to do
about it.  Workshop leaders are Loyd Case, jr., Terry C. Savage, and Tim
Kyger.

	My apologies for not getting this to the net sooner.  If anyone
reads this message (in time) and wants to participate, leave a message
for us at the resort, (702) 831-2311.  There will not be published
proceedings of the conference per se, although there will be minutes of
the CSDC business meeting.  The goal of the Sunday session is to produce
a "white paper" suitable for distribution.

					Craig Milo Rogers

------------------------------

Subject: AMateur radio SATellite group
Date:     Fri,  2 Oct 1987 14:27:10.26 CDT
From: <klett%shsu.bitnet@wiscvm.wisc.edu>
Sender: ota@galileo.s1.gov

Being new on the "net", I don't know if the readers are aware of a group
known as AMSAT. It is an organization, worldwide, of amateur radio
operators who build honest to goodness communication satellites,
including satellites which are scientific and include voice telemetry,
slow scan tv television pictures of the earth, etc.

The group has numerous tracking programs for the various satellites,
amateur and other, which run on various pcs- from the Timex-sinclair
(remember them) to the IBM etc style.

Currently in operation are UO-9, UO-11, AO-10, RS-8, RS-6, (I think),
and the new RS-11,12. (UO is British designed and build- from U of
Surrey, AO is American and West German joint venture, and RS series are
Russian).

While the satellites are used by hams in "transponder" type
communication cross band with each other (say 2meters up, 435 mhz down),
the satellites spit out wonderful telemetry on temperatures, radiation,
etc etc. The UO series are scientific, but yet simple enough that on
Wednesday the satellites broadcast their telemetry in "voice" via a
digispeaker.

Amsat is short for Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation (not to be
confused with COMSAT), 850 Sligo Avenue, Suite 601 Silver Spring, MD
20910; phone: 301-589-6062

They publish semiweekly newsletters, technical journals which are
fantastic deal ing with the satellites, telemetry, tracking,
communications, etc.

I will be pleased to answer any question I can about the organization.
Just to l et you know, the satellites are launched (or have been
launched) on space availa ble (ballast) type positions in the US
launchers and ESA series, Kuru. Most are 110 minute orbit periods (or
there about) in a generally polar orbit. The AO-10 is in eliptical
orbit, once every 12 hours.

I am going on and on, but I forgot to mention that Japan is also part of
this series, with JA-1; a transponder and digital satellite. That's
right, you can access this bird with your computer. Its rather
incredible.

Taylor

------------------------------

Subject: AIAA October Event: UFO seminar
Date: 6 Oct 87 14:51:00 PDT
From: "DSS::BOLD" <bold%dss.decnet@AFSC-SD.ARPA>
Sender: ota@galileo.s1.gov

S P A C E  D I V I S I O N 

                   I N T E R O F F I C E   M E M O R A N D U M

                                        Date:      6-Oct-1987 14:36 PST
                                        From:      Kevin W. Bold 
                                        Tel No:    (213)643-1540/AV833-

Subject: AIAA October Event

AIAA is sponsoring a seminar on UFOs featuring William L. Moore,
Saturday, 24 Oct 1987, at the TRW Forum in Redondo Beach.  Registration
begins at 0830 and the seminar runs from 0900 to 1200.  Admission fee,
which includes coffee and rolls, is $6.00.

     Compton Blvd
  ____________________________________________
    |                                       |
  A |                                       | F
  v |          				    | r            N
  i |                                       | e          W   E
  a |      R1    R3     Pkng                | e            S
  t |                                       | m
  i |      R2    E1     S (Seminar          | a
  o |                      location)        | n
  n |_______________________________________|
       Space Park Drive
  
For more information or to make reservations call (213) 429-3713.
(They may even have more complete maps!)

------------------------------

Date: 7 Oct 87 21:59:32 GMT
From: decvax!linus!utzoo!henry@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Aug 24 AW&ST

[Next in the multi-way tie for third place in space-related periodicals
is a pair: Planetary Encounter and World Spaceflight News.  These are
for people who want the nitty-gritty details.  No glossy color photos or
quotations from Chairman Carl to be found here, just page after page of
real hard solid information.  PE covers planetary missions, WSN covers
near-Earth spaceflight.  Aviation Leak spent one paragraph discussing
Joe Kerwin's medical report on the deaths of the Challenger crew; WSN
printed the whole thing.  The NRC report on shuttle flight frequencies
etc. got about one column in AW&ST; WSN printed the whole thing.  The
so-called International Comet Explorer got some polite coverage in
various journals (no exciting photos to be had, since it had no camera);
PE spent an entire issue on it, with diagrams, lists of experiments, an
interview with the mission director, etc.  When the shuttle was flying
regularly, WSN printed things like payload manifests, activity
schedules, and post-mission assessment reports for EVERY mission.  The
same crew also puts out a succession of extra-cost "special reports",
containing things like NASA technical documents on related topics.
(Example: although I think they may have had second thoughts due to poor
sales on this, at one point they were going to put out a multi-volume
special report reprinting the entire Critical Items List from the
shuttle.)  Highly recommended if you are tired of the babytalk in
newsstand magazines and want to know the gory details.  PE and WSN are
at Box 98, Sewell NJ 08080.  Each is nominally monthly, although in fact
they've been coming out less frequently for the last year or so due to
lack of news.  Each is $30 for 12 issues sent First Class to the US or
Canada, elsewhere $45 for 12 issues sent Air Mail.]

Editorial commending the Ride report, and urging that it not get buried
in the White House bureaucracy.  The National Commission on Space is
re-submitting its report in hopes that it will get attention this time.

Intelsat prepares for RFP for Intelsat 7 series.  They will be smaller
than the enormous Intelsat 6s.  The first 2-3 will be for the Pacific,
for launch in 1992-3, with possibly more for the Atlantic 3-4 years
later.

Predictions of shortage of engineering talent in the Washington DC area
as NASA's space station contracts start hiring hundreds.

[*Just* what the space program needs, more bureaucrats.....]

Oops: the Shuttle-C shuttle-derived heavylift launcher may end up in
competition for funds with the advanced-SRB project.

Official release of the Ride report, calling for aggressive action and
[gasp] planning.  "Without an eye toward the future, we flounder in the
present."  NASA is giving it a lukewarm reception at best.  NASA people
have been ordered to downplay it, and there was debate over whether it
should be released at all.  (NASA is afraid of the reaction from the
Office of Mismanagement and Beancounting.)

Ride report endorses shuttle and station, but as tools rather than
goals.  Shuttle-derived cargo vehicle should be developed immediately.
Strong consideration of a new *manned* expendable urged, for station
logistics.  Strong emphasis on technology development, notably the
Pathfinder program.

Ride report says US could return to Moon by 2000, base by 2005-2010.
Mars would take longer.  Mars is clearly the ultimate near-future goal,
but "...we should avoid a `race to Mars'.  There is a very real danger
that if the US announces a human Mars initiative at this time, it could
escalate into another space race.  This could turn an initiative that
envisions the ultimate deployment of a habitable outpost into another
one-shot spectacular...  Settling Mars should be our eventual goal, but
it should not be our next goal... We should adopt a strategy of natural
progression which leads step-by-step, in an orderly unhurried way...
towards Mars.  Exploring and prospecting the Moon... would provide the
experience and expertise necessary for further human exploration of the
solar system.  [We found] considerable sentiment that Apollo was a
dead-end venture, and that we have little to show for it.  Although this
task force found some who dismissed [the lunar] initiative because
`we've been to the Moon', it found more people who feel that this
generation should continue the work begun by Apollo."

Meanwhile, the Soviet Union plans to launch by the mid-1990s one or more
dedicated asteroid missions with surface probes.

SDI's Innovative Science and Technology group to launch first space
experiment on sounding rocket in November, looking at problems of using
high-power electrical equipment in space.  IST is looking at the "small
satellites" ideas and lightweight launchers, although it isn't funding
them yet.  Advanced propulsion work includes a proposal to replace the
inert binder in solid rockets with a combustible fuel, and another to
make solid fuels with continuous rather than batch processes.  Materials
work is looking at thin-film diamond as a semiconductor (it might be
better than gallium arsenide) and as a tough coating for optical
surfaces.

Arianespace delays Ariane launch four days to give the launch teams some
rest.  [Launch successful.]

Launch of Japanese H-1 booster carrying engineering test satellite slips
four days due to valve problem in second stage.  [Launch successful.]

Chinese reentry capsule, carrying French experiment package, recovered
after five days in orbit.  [Also, I made a mistake in reporting this
one: the capsule was of the type used for film-recovery spysats, but
this particular mission was all scientific.]

Inmarsat planning R&D program on navigation satellites.

AW&ST is running a multi-part series on South American aerospace,
including:

Chilean space activity is modest but significant.  Prominent in it is
the shuttle emergency-landing runway on Easter Island; this involved
extending the airport's runway and adding approach lights and landing
aids.  Chile hopes to fly an astronaut on the shuttle eventually.  Also
of note are an ozone-depletion experiment done jointly with the US and
UK, and the first South American ground station for the Sarsat (search
and rescue) program.

Brazil's larger space program continues progress on building its own
launcher (roughly Scout-class), environmental and Earth-resources
satellites to go up on it, and a near-equatorial launch site for it.
First launch tentatively 1989.

ESA awards contract to British Aerospace for feasibility study of mobile
communications satellite system, possibly using Molniya orbits for good
coverage at high latitudes.

"Mir" means "peace", as in           |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
"the war is over; we've won".        | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 6 Oct 87 15:47:22 GMT
From: uop!robert@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu  (Robert McCaul--The Equalizer)
Subject: Planetary Society

the following is the questionaire i was mailed by the Planetary Society
of course, i am not a member....but i thought maybe the net could answer
the PS on this...

---

NATIONAL PRIORITIES SURVEY, UNITED STATES SPACE PROGRAM

Please answer the following questions and return this form within 10
days to the Research and Policy committee of the Planetary Society.

1. Since the United States established the goal of a manned landing
   on the Moon in the 1960's under the presidency of John F. Kennedy,
   space research and planetary exploration have been significant
   componants of our nation's collective dreams and scientific advance-
   ment.  Would you like to see the President take a similar leadership
   role in establishing a specific new goal for America's civilian space
   program??

   ___Yes		___No		___No opinion

2. The tragic loss of the space shuttle Challenger has led to cancel- 
   ation of subsequent space shuttle flights, leaving U.S. planetary
   missions without a launch vehicle.  Either missions will have to be
   scrubbed or compromised, or funds will have to be spent for a new
   expendable launch vehicle.  Would you like to see the U.S. space
   program develop and maintain new launch vehicles adequate for 
   planetary missions??

   ___Yes		___No		___No opinion

3. Proposals for a U.S.-launched and maintained space station have been
   made.  Even if it required a change in the previously announced plan,
   would you be in favor of the United States re-orienting its space 
   station to study long stays by humans in the space environment, and
   as a launching platform for future manned or unmanned planetary
   exploration??

   ___Yes		___No		___No opinion

   (Whatever its goals, the space station may cost one to two billion
    dollars a year over the next 30 years--20% of NASA's budget, .5%
    of the Defense budget.) 

4. Should human exploration of Mars be a goal of U.S. space policy in
   the next two decades, either alone or in conjunction with other
   spacefaring nations??

   ___Yes		___No		___No opinion

5. In 1988, the Soviet Union is planning to send two ambitious research
   spacecraft to Mars and its inner moon Phobos.  Should the United
   States seek to actively participate in this project, and cooperate
   with the Soviet Union on future Mars exploration??

   ___Participate	___Not participate   ___No opinion

6. Would you want to see increased U.S. government spending for the 
   Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence?

   ___Yes		___No		___No opinion

7. The Moon may be a place for an eventual scientific base, and even
   for engineering resources. Setting up a base or mining experiment
   will cost tens of billions of dollars in the next century.  Should
   the United States pursue further manned and unmanned scientific
   research projects on the surface of the Moon?

   ___Yes		___No		___No opinion

8. Planetary scientists have long been attracted to Saturn's moon,
   Titan, with an atmosphere filled with complex organic molecules and
   with a possible surface ocean.  A U.S.-European mission has been
   proposed to explore Titan in the 1990's, but to do it requires
   developement of a new U.S. spacecraft--the Mariner Mark II.  Would
   you like to see the United States establish an unmanned Titan-probe
   mission as a space research priority in this century?

   ___Yes		___No		___No opinion

9. Please check and prioritize (1=highest priority) those items which
   you think should become U.S. planetary goals in the near future:

   ___Exploration of Titan

   ___Human exploration of Mars

   ___Human base on the moon

   ___A mission to return cometary matter to Earth

   ___Unmanned exploration of Venus

   ___Other (Please name) ___________________________________________

   __________________________________________________________________ 

10. Would you be willing to spend as little as six cents a day to help
    see that these priorities become part of the U.S. civilian space
    program??

    ___Yes		___No

    If your answer is "Yes", Carl Sagan, Bruce Murray and I invite you
    to become a member of the Planetary Society, the largest space
    interest group in the world.  Simply check the appropriate box
    below, and return this form with your annual membership dues today.


    Enroll me as the newest member of the Planetary Society and use my
    dues to help carry on your important work.  I understand my member-
    ship dues entitle me to recieve The Planetary Report, the Society's
    colorful and informative bimonthly publication, as well as discounts
    on books, prints, posters, maps and charts of interest to Society
    members.  Plus my personal membership card and invitations to
    conferences, lectures, slide and film shows, seminars and other
    Society-sponsored events.

    ___My $20 annual dues payment is enclosed

    ___Please bill me

    THE PLANETARY SOCIETY
    RESEARCH AND POLICY COMMITTEE
    P.O. BOX 40185
    SANTA BARBARA, CA. 93140-0185


    ----------------------------------------end of questionaire


it is interesting to note the above address is on the envelope that came
with the questionaire (complete with another drivel-filled letter i
won't bother to nauseate you with)...but the envelope says

"membership department" while the questionaire is labelled as the
"research and policy committee"

what are they really interested in??  :-)

this ought to provide some net-wars for awhile...

at least those who want to join now have it within thier means...

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #8
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 10 Oct 87 06:14:37 EDT
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA05666; Sat, 10 Oct 87 03:12:44 PDT
	id AA05666; Sat, 10 Oct 87 03:12:44 PDT
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 87 03:12:44 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8710101012.AA05666@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #9

SPACE Digest                                        Volume 8 : Issue 9

Today's Topics:
		    Re: New Summary of Ride Report
			Re: Planetary Society
		       What is the Moon Treaty
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 6 Oct 87 21:47:14 GMT
From: beta!ryg@NYU.ARPA  (Richard S Grandy)
Subject: Re: New Summary of Ride Report

Having just finished the Ride Report, two points really struck me:

1) A major emphasis of the report was on developing a national strategy
   for the space program rather than just advocating one or more
   specific programs.
  
        "Without a coherent formulation of the United States' intentions
	 and priorities, there is no context in which to evaluate the
	 relevance or the improtance of any proposed initiatives."  [pg
	 15]
      
        "The intent is not to choose one initiative and discard the
	 other three, but to rather to use the four candidate
	 initiatives as a basis for discussion."  [pg 21]

2) The (first two paragraphs of the) conclusion:
      
      "Over the last 25 years, as a result of the success of programs
       like Apollo, Skylab, Viking, Voyager, and the Space Shuttle, the
       American public has come to expect this country to lead the world
       in space science, space exploration, and space enterprise.  But
       during the 1980s, membership in the once-exclusive club of
       spacefaring nations has grown, and our leadership is being
       challenged in many areas.

       In today's world, America clearly cannot be the leader in all
       space endeavors.  But we will be the leader in very few unless we
       move promptly to develop a strategy to regain and retain
       leadership in those areas we deem important."  [pg 57]

  Now if the general public just understood that......

		    Rick Grandy             ryg@lanl.gov
		    Boeing Computer Service (509)943-3295

------------------------------

Date: 7 Oct 87 22:58:07 GMT
From: unc!leech@mcnc.org  (Jonathan Leech)
Subject: Re: Planetary Society

In article <579@uop.UUCP> robert@uop.UUCP (Robert McCaul--The Equalizer) writes:
>NATIONAL PRIORITIES SURVEY, UNITED STATES SPACE PROGRAM

    This survey has some interesting attitudes about money... here's my
two cents worth:

>   (Whatever its goals, the space station may cost one to two billion
>    dollars a year over the next 30 years--20% of NASA's budget, .5%
>    of the Defense budget.)

    I read this in conjunction with the question as "Spending this
amount on projects we like is fine, but otherwise unjustified".

>4. Should human exploration of Mars be a goal of U.S. space policy in
>   the next two decades, either alone or in conjunction with other
>   spacefaring nations??
>
>7. The Moon may be a place for an eventual scientific base, and even
>   for engineering resources. Setting up a base or mining experiment
>   will cost tens of billions of dollars in the next century.	Should
>   the United States pursue further manned and unmanned scientific
>   research projects on the surface of the Moon?

    Reasonable questions, but a tad loaded.  I suspect the answers would
be different if we make the following slight change:

    4. The Moon may eventually be used as a center for scientific
       research and commercial mining and manufacturing. Should the
       establishment of a permanently occupied human settlement on the
       Moon be a goal of U.S. space policy?

    7. Sending men to Mars in the next two decades will cost tens or
       even hundreds of billions of dollars.  Should the United
       States pursue the goal of a manned landing on Mars (similar to
       the Apollo Project), either alone or in conjunction with other
       spacefaring nations?

    People as smart as Sagan & Murray are certainly capable of
designing a survey with very little bias, and given the fundamental
importance of the Mars/Moon controversy in forming American space
policy (if any), they should feel obligated to do so. Their choice to
load the survey so badly reflects poorly on the Planetary Society and
its goals, in my opinion (actually my opinion is a good deal more
vehement, but I don't want to start more flame wars).

    Jon Leech (leech@cs.unc.edu || ...mcnc!unc!leech)
    __@/

------------------------------

Date: 22 Sep 87 12:25:37 GMT
From: mcvax!enea!ttds!draken!sics!pd@uunet.uu.net  (Per Danielsson)
Subject: What is the Moon Treaty

In article <8470@utzoo.UUCP> henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) writes:
>>   For that matter,  how did we escape the Moon Treaty?  I'm truly

>The credit for this one goes 100% to the L5 Society.  For this its name

What is the significance of the Moon Treaty? I have a vague memory of it
banning commercial development of the moon, but I really don't know.
Could someone fill me in? Also, which countries have signed the treaty?

Per Danielsson          UUCP: {mcvax,decvax,seismo}!enea!sics!pd
Swedish Institute of Computer Science

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #9
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 11 Oct 87 06:38:33 EDT
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA06891; Sun, 11 Oct 87 03:19:33 PDT
	id AA06891; Sun, 11 Oct 87 03:19:33 PDT
Date: Sun, 11 Oct 87 03:19:33 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8710111019.AA06891@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #10

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 10

Today's Topics:
			  new space BBS list
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 24 Sep 87 21:29:27 GMT
From: nbires!isis!scicom!rwb@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Robert Brumley)
Subject: new space BBS list

Here is the latest update of my space-oriented BBS list.  There are
quite a few new boards, as well as some number changes.

Special thanks is owed to Kelly Beatty and _Sky and Telescope_ for this
update to the space BBS list.  Almost all of the new information was
provided either directly or indirectly by him.  Kelly's efforts are
greatly appreciated.


========================== cut here ===================================

Permission is given for the unlimited reproduction
and distribution of this list provided that credit
is given to Robert Brumley and The Space Network.


    ++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 -*> Directory of Space BBSes <*-
    ++++++++++++++++++++++++++


Last update: 9/23/87


From: The Space Network, Alpha, and The Comm-post

Compiled by: Robert Brumley

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

BBS: Alpha
PHONE: (303) 367-1935
HOURS: 24 hrs/ 7 dys
BAUD: 300/1200/2400
 (Hit <Ctrl> @ <Return> for 2400 baud, or <Return> for 300 baud.)
SYSOP: Cyro Lord, Robert Galyen,
 Bill McGuire, Mark Felton, Robert Brumley
SPONSOR: Alpha SCINET
SYSTEM: Tandy 68000 under Xenix 3.01.02 w/ UNaXcess Conferencing
 ver. 1.00.02
COMMENTS: allows read access to space and ham related sections of the
 UNIX network (which has over 11,000 sites worldwide, incl. USA, Canada,
 Europe, Great Britain and Australia). Type 'alpha' at login.  Only
 serious users accepted, no fake id's.  Also space and ham radio
 discussions within site.
LOCATION: Colorado
VERIFIED: Ok

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

BBS: Amsat BBS
PHONE: (515) 961-3325
HOURS: 24 hours/ 7 dys
BAUD: 300/1200/2400
SYSOP: Ralph (W0RPK)
SPONSOR: Radio Amateur Satellite Corp
SYSTEM: ??
COMMENTS: Use 'amsat' for password.  Amsat news service bulletins,
 orbital elements, UOSAT news, NASA's 1986 -- The Year in Review, and
 proceedings from PHASE-4 meetings.
LOCATION: Indianola, Iowa
VERIFIED: Ok

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

BBS: Apple Astronomy
PHONE: (713) 526-5671
HOURS: 24 hrs/ 7 dys
BAUD: 300/1200
SYSOP: ?
SPONSOR: The Houston Museum of Natural History
SYSTEM: ?
COMMENTS: Sections include: space novel, physics/scientific, visual
 guide to the sky, what's new in space, experimental/cosmology, online
 astro news.  Many informative files in each section.
LOCATION: Houston, Texas
VERIFIED: Ok

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

BBS: Astro BBS
PHONE: (202) 547-4418
HOURS: 24 hrs/ 7 dys
BAUD: 300/1200
SYSOP: Kurt Riegel
SPONSOR: ??
SYSTEM: ?? w/ RBBS-PC ver CPC14.1D
COMMENTS: Astronomy-oriented board with message base and many files and
 programs (all in ARC format).  Very friendly board.
LOCATION: Arlington, Virginia
VERIFIED: Ok

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

BBS: Black Hole BBS
PHONE: (305) 260-6397 (2nd node available by subscription)
HOURS: 24 hrs/ 7 dys
BAUD: 300/1200/2400
SYSOP: Clint Labarthe
SPONSOR: ??
SYSTEM: ?? w/ PCBoard ver 11.8A/E3 and 65 megs online
COMMENTS: Supports all computers but MS-DOS stressed.  Astronomy, adult,
 music, sci-fi, games, AT&T PC's, sports, and sysop conferences.
 Program downloads of all types, many of which are astronomy oriented.
 Lots of great functions.  Super ANSI color graphics are supported.
 Menus are difficult to read if your term is not 100% ASCII compatible.
LOCATION: Florida
VERIFIED: Ok

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

BBS: Celestial RCP/M
PHONE: (512) 892-4180
HOURS: 24 hrs/ 7 dys
BAUD: 300/1200 (8 Data/1 Stop/No Parity)
SYSOP: TS Kelso
SPONSOR: None
SYSTEM: TRS-80 Model 12
COMMENTS: Caters to all areas of the Space Sciences including Astronomy,
 Astrodynamics, Celestial Mechanics, and Satellite Tracking.  Carries
 the MOST current NASA Prediction Bulletins (orbital elements) for 40+
 satellites along with AMSAT Newsletters and message system. Over two
 megabytes of space-related software and databases available for
 downloading.  While intended primarily for CP/M and MSDOS systems,
 source code is available for most programs.
LOCATION: Austin, Texas
VERIFIED: Ok

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

BBS: The Comm-post
PHONE: (303) 534-4646
HOURS: 24 hrs/ 7 dys
BAUD: 300/1200/2400
SYSOP: Brian Bartee
SPONSOR: Boulevard Insurance Services
SYSTEM: IMS 10Hz 286 w/ TBBS ver 2.0s w/ 110 mB online
COMMENTS: SIG's include Astronomy, Tandy 1000, Tandy 2000, TI-Pro.
 Message sections include: Critic's Corner, Eats, Jokes, and Open-forum
 discussion.  Astronomy and PC/MS-DOS programs available for download.
 International Astronomical Union circulars are available online for
 download.
LOCATION: Denver, Colorado
VERIFIED: Ok

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

BBS: Datalink RBBS
PHONE: (214) 340-5850
HOURS: 24 hrs/ 7 dys
BAUD: 300/1200
SYSOP: Jeff Wallach
SPONSOR: The L-5 Society
SYSTEM: ? w/ Fido version 14.1
COMMENTS: specializes in topics relating to amateur radio, satellite
 tracking, decoding of telemetry of N.O.A.A. weather satellites.  Also
 dedicated to furthering the public's understanding and interest in the
 space program.  Supports color/graphics, doors, conferences.
LOCATION: Dallas, TX
VERIFIED: Down?

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

BBS: Day's End
PHONE: (303) 650-5636
HOURS: 24 hrs/ 7 dys
BAUD: 300/1200/2400
SYSOP: Chris Day
SPONSOR: ?
SYSTEM: Epson Equity I PC w/ 20 meg and Fido version 11W
COMMENTS: Astronomy SIG with many astronomy programs and files.  Also
 many other programs and MS-DOS utilities.
LOCATION: Westminster, CO
VERIFIED: Ok

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

BBS: Digital Newsletter
PHONE: (612) 291-0567
HOURS: 24 hrs/ 7 dys
BAUD: 300/1200
SYSOP: ?
SPONSOR: ?
SYSTEM: ? w/ Information Retrieval System (I.R.S.) v 10.00.05
COMMENTS: Supports space and amateur radio news.  Space: Soviet space
 news, NASA/USA space news, space shuttle audio information. Radio:
 GEARVAKF news, W5YI report, ARLL newsletter, packet radio newsletter.
 During space shuttle missions up-to-the-day schedules and general
 info.
LOCATION: St. Paul, Minnesota
VERIFIED: Ok

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

BBS: EPOCH 2000.0 Astronomy BB
PHONE: (303) 531-6172
HOURS: 24 hrs/ 7 dys
BAUD: 300/1200/2400
SYSOP: Phil Somers
SPONSOR: Weston Comp Observatory (??)
SYSTEM: IBM PC and 30 megs w/ OPUS
COMMENTS: Fido node 128/21.  This board is 100% devoted to astronomy.
 Many astronomy files and programs, with Turbo Pascal stressed as the
 programming language.  Allows read access to selected portions of the
 USENET computer network (see Alpha listing).  Information on local
 clubs and activities.
LOCATION: Colorado Springs, CO
VERIFIED: Ok

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

BBS: Howard's Notebook
PHONE: (816) 331-5868
HOURS: 24 hrs/ 7 dys
BAUD: 300/1200/2400
SYSOP: Jim Howard
SPONSOR: ??
SYSTEM: ?? w/ SEAdog 4.00
COMMENTS: Astro SIG (Tom Martinez section sysop) w/ messages and
 astronomy text files.  Frequented by members of the Kansas City
 Astronomical Society.  Also Bicycle, Beyond Peace, Freethought, IBM,
 Peace Alert, Shortwave, Tandy 1000, and UFO SIGs.
LOCATION: Raymore, Missouri
VERIFIED: Ok

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

BBS: GAS-NET/ NASA
PHONE: (301) 344-9156
HOURS: 24 hrs/ 7 dys
BAUD: ?
SYSOP: ?
SPONSOR: Goddard Space Flight Center
SYSTEM: ?
COMMENTS: Primarily for Get Away Special (GAS) projects.  Non-GAS
 participants may browse.
LOCATION: Maryland
VERIFIED: Down until the shuttle is back up.

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

BBS: Kalamazoo Astronomical Society RCP/M
PHONE: (616) 342-4062
HOURS: 24 hrs/ 7 dys
BAUD: 300/1200 (?)
SYSOP: ??
SPONSOR: Kalamazoo Astronomy Society
SYSTEM: Ampro Little Board Plus under CP/M w/ 20 megs of storage (or it
 soon will be operating under this system.)
COMMENTS: Dedicated to the exchange of programs and information relating
 to astronomy, meteorology, geology, and oceanography.  Many text files,
 incl. a weekly sky report, a feature article, local museum information,
 planetary information and more.  Also several on-line astronomy-related
 programs.
LOCATION: Kalamazoo, Michigan
VERIFIED: Ok

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

BBS: Killer BBS
PHONE: (214) 827-4670, 827-1994, 821-0390, 824-7881
BAUD: 300/1200
SYSOP: Charles F. Boykin
SPONSOR: The Unix (tm) Connection Public Bulletin Board
SYSTEM: AT&T 3B2/400 w/ UNIX SVR2.0.5 Rls 2
COMMENTS: This is a free system.  Allows access to the USENET community
 (see Alpha listing) and the Unix shell w/ the capability to program
 online in many different languages.
LOCATION: Bedford, TX
VERIFIED: Ok

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

BBS: L-5 Galesburg, Il (Magie)
PHONE: (309) 343-3799
HOURS: 24 hrs/ 7 dys
BAUD: 300/1200
SYSOP: ?
SPONSOR: Prairieland Computer Club of Knox County and the Midwest
 Information Systems of Galesburg, Illinois
SYSTEM: ?
COMMENTS: several different SIGs.  Network access to Telenet, Tymnet,
 C-serve, Genie, many others.  Various computer SIGs and L-5 info.
LOCATION: Galesburg, Illinois
VERIFIED: Ok

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

BBS: L-5 Gateway (MYCROFTXXX Fido)
PHONE: (412) 667-3984
HOURS: 24 hrs/ 7 dys
BAUD: 300/1200/2400
SYSOP: Jim McHale
SPONSOR: The L5 Society
SYSTEM: PC clone w/ Fido version 11W and 10 MB hard disk.
COMMENTS: supports western PA space activist organizations. Information
 from the Space Studies Institute, the National Space Society and the
 L-5 Society.
LOCATION: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
VERIFIED: Down?

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

BBS: L-5 Minnesota
PHONE: (612) 920-5566, (612) 927-9743 (voice)
HOURS: 24 hrs/ 7 dys
BAUD: 300/1200/2400
SYSOP: Scott Shjeffte/ others
SPONSOR: L-5 Society
SYSTEM: ? Leading Edge w/ RBBS-PC
COMMENTS: color/graphics supported.  Conferences. Many space bulletins.
 Sub directories: L-5 Minnesota, NASA press releases, AP news, ESA &
 Ariane space press releases, satellite info, shuttle status reports and
 more.  Files intended from Genie Spaceport can be sent from here.
LOCATION: Minneapolis, Minnesota
VERIFIED: Ok

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

BBS: L-5 SpaceNET
PHONE: (408) 262-7177
HOURS: 24 hrs/ 7 dys
BAUD: 300/1200
SYSOP: Bill Dale
SPONSOR: California Space Development Council and the L-5 Society.
SYSTEM: RBBS/ Molecular Kulge/ ZCMD
COMMENTS: Supports desktop publishing for all space and astronomy
 organizations with source text in the public domain.  Many online files
 with the latest developments on space-enthusiast organizations.  Also
 several BBS lists.
LOCATION: Milpitas, California
VERIFIED: Ok

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

BBS: M-net
PHONE: (313) 994-6333
HOURS: 24 hrs/ 7 dys
BAUD: 300/1200
SYSOP: Mike Myers
SPONSOR: Public Access Unix
SYSTEM: ?? w/ Unix
COMMENTS: Allows public access to the USENET community (see Alpha
 listing).  If you have more info, please let us know.
LOCATION: Ann Arbor, MI
VERIFIED: Busy

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

BBS: Naval Observatory BBS
PHONE: (202) 653-1079
HOURS: 24 hrs/ 7 dys
BAUD: 300/1200
SYSOP: ??
SPONSOR: Naval Observatory (?)
SYSTEM: ??
COMMENTS: Requires even parity (Format: 7/E/2).  All commands must have
 a '@' as the first character in the line.  Many files and functions.
 Strange format but very interesting.
LOCATION: near Washington D.C.
VERIFIED: Ok

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

BBS: NOAA BBS
PHONE: (303) 497-5000
HOURS: 24 hrs/ 7 dys
BAUD: 300/1200 (??)
SYSOP: ??
SPONSOR: NOAA Space Environment Laboratory
SYSTEM: ?? w/ SEL PBBS ver 2.4
COMMENTS: This is an experimental BBS.  It offers daily information on
 geophysical and solar activity.  Information on high-frequency radio
 propagation is updated every 6 hours.
LOCATION: Boulder, CO
VERIFIED: Ok

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

BBS: PERMANENT BBS
PHONE: (703) 450-2732 (PC Pursuit users use area code 202)
HOURS: 24 hrs/ 7 dys
BAUD: 300/1200/2400
SYSOP: Mark Prado
SPONSOR: PERMANENT, Ltd.
SYSTEM: IBM PC clone w/ 30 megs and TCOMM ver. 2.1a
COMMENTS: PERMANENT is an acronym for Program to Employ Resources of the
 Moon and Asteroids Near Earth in the Near Term.  Much info on utilizing
 materials of the moon and asteroids for large products in orbit and for
 settlements.  The BBS provides the following services and products on
 the PERMANENT program: an executive summary and specific briefs; a
 database on current research and organizations; bibliographies; mail
 conferences; and products you can order such as viewgraph briefings,
 videocassettes, slides, prints, drawings, and flowcharts.  This BBS is
 only for action-oriented people, and is free.
LOCATION: Arlington, Virginia
VERIFIED: Ok

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

BBS: Pittsburgh L5 BBS
PHONE: (412) 464-1397
HOURS: 24 hrs/ 7 dys
BAUD: 300/1200/2400
SYSOP: Steve Shulik
SPONSOR: Pittsburgh L5 Society
SYSTEM: Apple Lisa 2 w/ Profile 5 meg hard disk and Red Ryder software.
COMMENTS: Soon to be reorganized.  The first L5 BBS.  Monthly sky
 events; planetary, comet, asteroid, lunar, and stellar data; recent
 developments; natural and artificial satellite data; extraterrestrial
 biology.  Info on local science centers and the Pittsburgh L5 society.
 Also info on the Sixth Space Development Conference, and much more.
LOCATION: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
VERIFIED: Ok

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

BBS: Scooter's Scientific Exchange
PHONE: (215) 922-2541
HOURS: 24 hrs/ 7 dys
BAUD: 300/1200
SYSOP: ?
SPONSOR: ?
SYSTEM: Tandy 1000 PC w/ 384 K ram, 2 360K disk drives and 20 meg. hard
 drive.  Running COLLIE Bulletin Board Software ver. 1.20.
COMMENTS: Collie Net Node 804/9.  Designed to serve as a forum for the
 scientific community, incl. General, Biology, Chemistry, Medicine,
 Mathematics, and Physics.  Offers a science conference which is
 networked to other boards.  Many computer programs that are helpful to
 scientists and researchers.
LOCATION: ?
VERIFIED: Down?

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

BBS: Silent Side
PHONE: (602) 962-7698
HOURS: 24 hours/day
BAUD: 300/1200
SYSOP: Chris Mitchell
SPONSOR: ??
SYSTEM: IBM PC w/ RBBS-PC
COMMENTS: Astronomy information posted by the Saguaro Astronomical Club.
 Info includes monthly astronomy events and info on the Saguaro
 Astronomical Club.  Also several interesting and different text files.
LOCATION: Arizona
VERIFIED: Ok

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

BBS: Space Development Information Clearinghouse BBS (formerly NorthCal
 L-5 BBS)
PHONE: (408) 778-3531
HOURS: 24 hrs/ 7 dys
BAUD: 300/1200
SYSOP: Chris Winter
SPONSOR: ?
SYSTEM: Morrow MD-3 (CP/M w/ Z80-A) w/ Winterware BBS ver. 6.10
COMMENTS: The purpose of SDI Clearinghouse is "to distribute information
 pertaining to the human exploration and development of space --
 humanity's next frontier."  Many space news bulletins.  L5 society
 information, Mars Underground newsletter, list of space interest
 groups, list of periodical publications on space, shuttle manifest,
 aerospace database, and much more.
LOCATION: Morgan Hill, California
VERIFIED: Ok

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

BBS: The Space Network
PHONE: (303) 494-8446
HOURS: 24 hrs/ 7 dys
BAUD: 300/1200/2400
SYSOP: Tom Meyer
SPONSOR: The Mars Institute of the Planetary Society, organized by The
 Boulder Center for Science and Policy
SYSTEM: PC clone w/ TBBS ver. 2.0 and 10 mB (soon to be 40 mB)
COMMENTS: Space exploration and development.  Mars missions, science,
 research, education, and contest.  Information from the Space Studies
 Institute, National Space Society, Mars Underground, World Space
 Foundation, NASA Ames Research Center, Jet Propulsion Lab International
 Planetarium Society, CALTECH, Mars Institute of the Planetary Society.
 Also the publication list from the American Astronautical Society,
 information on the third Case for Mars conference (July 18-22), this
 BBS list, and more.
LOCATION: Colorado
VERIFIED: Ok

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

BBS: Star Board
PHONE: (303) 455-3113
HOURS: 24 hours/day
BAUD: 300/1200
SYSOP: Mark Johnson
SPONSOR: Mark Johnson
SYSTEM: TRS Model III w/ TBBS
COMMENTS: Several astronomy related boards and publications.
 Astronomy-related computer programs.  Additional information is posted
 by the Denver Astronomical Society.
LOCATION: Denver, Colorado
VERIFIED: Temporarily down

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

BBS: Star-net
PHONE: (612) 681-9520
HOURS: 24 hrs/ 7 dys
BAUD: 300/1200/2400
SYSOP: Chuck Cole
SPONSOR: ??
SYSTEM: ?? w/ RBBS-PC 15.1A
COMMENTS: Star-Net is a not-for-profit scientific information exchange
 society.  Includes: astro, technology, management, and general interest
 sigs, many professionals in the interest area, a massive library of
 public domain astronomy software, major astronomy databases,
 observational alerts of comets, novae, etc., on-line prediction
 programs and astrophoto aids, and instruments (telescopes, etc.) under
 develoment for on-line access.  Many, many more features and
 capabilities.  Users are required to pay $30/yr, but a new user may
 look around before he is required to pay.  More info on star-net is
 available on The Space Network, path: I-8.
LOCATION: Minneapolis, MN
VERIFIED: Ok

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

BBS: StarPort
PHONE: (203) 698-0588
HOURS: 24 hrs/ 7 dys
BAUD: 300-9600 (USR HST modem)
SYSOP: Jim Bolster
SPONSOR: none
SYSTEM: IBM PC XT -- 60 megabytes WILDCAT! BBS software
COMMENTS: All computers welcome.  Astronomy, Space, Science Fiction,
 ParaNet: UFO's, Ham Radio/Satellite, Future World, S.E.T.I., The Ocean,
 Dinosaurs.
LOCATION: Old Greenwich, CT
VERIFIED: Ok

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

BBS: Well BBS
PHONE: (415) 332-6106
HOURS: 24 hrs/ 7 dys
BAUD: 300/1200/2400
SYSOP: E.M. Richards and A.S. Beals
SPONSOR: Whole Earth Lectronic Link
SYSTEM: DEC VAX-11/750; 4.2 BSD UNIX
COMMENTS: Allows full access to the USENET community (see Alpha
 listing).  Cost is $8/month.
LOCATION: Sausalito, CA
VERIFIED: Ok

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

BBS: Yokohama Science Center BBS
PHONE: (045) 832-1177  (in Japan)
DTE ADDRESS: 440881406100
HOURS: 24 hrs/ 7 dys
BAUD: 300/1200  (8/1/0)
SYSOP: Yoshiro Yamada (?)
SPONSOR: Yokohama Science Center
SYSTEM: ??
COMMENTS: Satellite orbital elements list (some 50 satellites) and other
 space/astronomy news.
LOCATION: Yokohama, Japan
VERIFIED: ??


=====================================

I would like to thank all those who have contributed information to this
list.

If you know of any additional boards, or have any additional
information, please let me know.  Address messages to:


      Robert Brumley

POST: 4661 S. Vivian St.
      Morrison, CO 80465
      (303) 978-1838

UUCP: (isis,hao)!scicom!rwb

Thanks.

=====================================

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #10
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 12 Oct 87 23:44:38 EDT
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA01083; Mon, 12 Oct 87 20:17:16 PDT
	id AA01083; Mon, 12 Oct 87 20:17:16 PDT
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 87 20:17:16 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8710130317.AA01083@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #11

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 11

Today's Topics:
		      NASTRAN Biginners Workshop
			  Shuttle Jumpsuits
		     MIR Elements 1 October 1987
			 space calendar info
		   Re: World satellite launch sites
		      Planetary Society Address
		     The Rocket Team #9 - The End
		 Reusable hydrocarbon rocket engines
	       Re: FOBS (was BMD & Announcing Launches)
		   Re: BMD and Announcing Launches
	       Re: FOBS (was BMD & Announcing Launches)
       Re: TRW OMV, ban on space-based mass-destruction weapons
		   Re: Orbits, Phobos, Venus, . . .
    TV reports 48-states only, why expect special space treatment?
	       Re: FOBS (was BMD & Announcing Launches)
	  Re: Tesla-effect weapons sabotage on U.S. Launches
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date:         Fri, 09 Oct 87 09:12:00 EDT
From: Al Lester <ALESTER%UGA.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu>
Subject:      NASTRAN Biginners Workshop

COSMIC announces the one-week NASTRAN Beginners Workshop, taught by
Myles Hurwitz, lecturer and consultant. He has been involved with
NASTRAN since 1970 and has taught more than 30 introductory and advanced
classes.

The workshop is scheduled for November 2-6, 1987 on the University of
Georgia campus in Athens.

The course is designed to allow participants as much hands-on experence
with NASTRAN as possible; one-third of the sessions are devoted to
workshops with participants setting up and solving problems.

For additional information please contact Nan Hull at COSMIC, the NASA
Software Management and Information Center. Phone: 404-542-3265.

------------------------------

Date: 9 Oct 87 14:58:48 GMT
From: pyrdc!netxcom!rkolker@uunet.uu.net  (rich kolker)
Subject: Shuttle Jumpsuits

For those of you who ordered the shuttle jumpsuits, they and I are in
the same place (this was not as easy as it might seem) and will be in
the mail this weekend (well, by Monday).

++rich
 +--------------------------------------------------------------------^-------+
 |  Rich Kolker                 The work goes on...                 A|W|A     |
 |  8519 White Pine Drive        The cause endures...               H|T|H     |
 |  Manassas Park, VA 22111        The hope still lives...          /|||\     |
 |  (703)361-1290 (h)           And the dream shall never die.     /_|T|_\    |
 |  (703)749-2315 (w)  (..uunet!netxcom!rkolker)                    " W "     |
 +------------------------------------------------------------------V---V-----+

------------------------------

Date: 10 Oct 87 17:35:00 GMT
From: kenny@b.cs.uiuc.edu
Sender: ota@galileo.s1.gov
Subject: MIR Elements 1 October 1987

Satellite: MIR
Catalog number: 16609
Epoch: 87273.83205260
Inclination: 51.6291 degrees
RA of node: 332.1715 degrees
Eccentricity: 0.0044397
Argument of periapsis: 214.7379 degrees
Mean anomaly: 145.0563 degrees
Mean motion: 15.81893528 revs/day
Mean motion acceleration: 0.00030999 * 2 revs / day / day

Source NASA Goddard via Henry Vanderbilt of the National Space Society.

------------------------------

Date:  1 Oct 1987 13:30-EDT 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: space calendar info

This is a reply to Kurt Reisler. His return address bounced
(hadron!klr@Sun.COM) back to me, and the info might be useful to others
anyway:

$59/yr. If you are a member of NSS or some other space society, first
year is $49.

408-988-0592
Space Age Publishing Company
3210 Scott Blvd
Santa Clara, CA 95054-0975

Approximately 8 page newsletter, arrives once per week.

Lists all upcoming launches, most space related conferences, NASA
RFP's, major events in commerce, space movement, etc.

------------------------------

Date: 2 Oct 87 18:09:46 GMT
From: linus!utzoo!henry@husc6.harvard.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: World satellite launch sites

>India	- one site somewhere

I'm told that the Indian site is at Sriharikota, in southern India near
the Bay of Bengal.
-- 
PS/2: Yesterday's hardware today.    |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
OS/2: Yesterday's software tomorrow. | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 5 Oct 87 00:30:51 GMT
From: ihnp4!dhp@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Price)
Subject: Planetary Society Address

Due to mailer troubles, and since it is of general interest, the address
of the Planetary Society is:

	The Planetary Society
	P.O. Box 3599
	Pasadena, CA 91103

Douglas H. Price

------------------------------

Date: 1 Oct 87 14:32:05 GMT
From: ihnp4!ihlpm!dcn@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Dave Newkirk)
Subject: The Rocket Team #9 - The End

    Werner von Braun left Huntsville in February 1970, enthusiastically
looking forward to the challenge of his new position at NASA
Headquarters as Deputy Associate Administrator of Planning. ...
    Prior to his arrival on the Washington scene, the White House had
indicated to Paine that President Nixon wanted a bold, new space project
with which his name could be associated, much as President Kennedy's had
been with Apollo.  The only feasible space exploit that could top Apollo
appeared to be the landing of man on Mars. ...

    First from his Huntsville base and later from Washington, von Braun
argued for a program that would include a Mars landing before the end of
the 1980 decade.  Leading to that event would be the development of
bases on the Moon and of a permanent manned space station supported by
an Earth-to-orbit shuttle system.  Other than the reusable shuttle, a
nuclear Earth orbit-lunar orbit transfer stage and a highly maneuv-
erable space `tug' for interorbital tasks were recommended, along with a
lunar orbital station to support base activities below.
    As the months went by, von Braun discovered that his arguments for
an aggressive and well-conceived post-Apollo space program were being
met with polite interest but no real enthusiasm or indication of
support.  Despite his unique combination of imagination, drive,
practicality and loquacious wit, so effective in the past, he and his
NASA associates could not affect a changing tide.  Nixon was losing
interest, and even some of NASA's top administrators were beginning to
show a general lack of enthusiasm.
    The reasons why the United States failed to undertake an energetic
space program based on the splendid Saturn-Apollo-Skylab foundation
established in the 1960s and early 1970s are varied and complex.  But
one factor was dominant: the post Apollo climate was not propitious for
another great surge into space.  America's priorities were shifting.
    ...
    To some within the NASA hierarchy, von Braun was on the road to
becoming a non-person at the agency, whose only alternative was to
retire or resign. ... In post-Apollo NASA, von Braun was like the fleet
admiral back from the glories of victory at sea who suddenly finds
himself walking dazedly along the Pentagon corridors with nothing
important to do.  The trials and triumphs of Raketenflugplatz,
Kummersdorf, Peenemunde, Fort Bliss, Huntsville, and Cape Canaveral were
over.  The space horizon had suddenly clouded.
    Thus, when Wernher von Braun announced his retirement from NASA on
June 10, 1972, no one was surprised.  He simply could not work within
what had become an essentially holding operation.


[This is the last posting from The Rocket Team, by Frederick Ordway and
 Mitchell Sharpe, MIT Press, 1979, ISBN 0-262-65013-4, $9.95 (paper) ]

				Dave Newkirk, ihnp4!ihlpm!dcn

------------------------------

Date: 9 Oct 87 20:50:32 GMT
From: gaserre@athena.mit.edu  (Glenn A. Serre)
Subject: Reusable hydrocarbon rocket engines

I've read postings which implied that reusable hydrocarbon rocket
engines do not yet exist, and that there are engineering problems that
need to be overcome before any such engines can be built.  Just what are
these problems?

The only problems over and above those encountered in designing LOX -
liquid hydrogen engines that I can think of (with my limited knowledge)
would be problems caused by the heating of the fuel in the cooling
jackets of the nozzle and combustion chamber (carbon deposits,
corrosion, maybe? ).

Thanks in advance.


                          --Glenn Serre
                            gaserre@athena.mit.edu

------------------------------

Date: 30 Sep 87 01:27:17 GMT
From: super.upenn.edu!eecae!crlt!russ@rutgers.edu  (Russ Cage)
Subject: Re: FOBS (was BMD & Announcing Launches)

Reactors aren't weapons of mass destruction, and thus aren't covered by
treaties.  (Indeed, it's hard to think of a reactor being any more
dangerous than the Skylab film vault; the best way to kill something
with one is to de-orbit it onto its head...)  We've flown several
reactors under the SNAC program, and the Soviets have used reactors to
power quite a few satellites (including the Cosmos that came down in
Canada a few years back, scattering radioisotopes over quite a few acres
of tundra).  Dirty, but not a weapon.

Russ Cage, Robust Software Inc.		    ihnp4!itivax![m-net!rsi,crlt!russ]

------------------------------

Date: 1 Oct 87 16:25:47 GMT
From: linus!utzoo!henry@husc6.harvard.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: BMD and Announcing Launches

> >   ... _Red Storm Rising_  by Clancy.
> 
> If anyone is interested in the technology of warfare, as currently
> deployed this is the best place to start.  Clancy not only writes a
> VERY good story, but also does his homework - the technology
> descriptions are right on target.

Well, no, he does make occasional mistakes that I spotted, and people
with access to classified information would probably spot more... but I
agree that he generally does fairly well.
-- 
"There's a lot more to do in space   |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
than sending people to Mars." --Bova | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 1 Oct 87 19:20:45 GMT
From: linus!utzoo!henry@husc6.harvard.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: FOBS (was BMD & Announcing Launches)

There is no restriction on power systems.  Mass-destruction weapons in
orbit are banned by treaty.  There is no restriction on suborbital
weapons (more's the pity).  Last I heard, FOBS is legitimate because it
does not make a complete orbit.
-- 
PS/2: Yesterday's hardware today.    |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
OS/2: Yesterday's software tomorrow. | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 1 Oct 87 20:13:41 GMT
From: linus!utzoo!henry@husc6.harvard.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: TRW OMV, ban on space-based mass-destruction weapons

> Give it a break Henry. You're working so hard at contradicting positive
> statements made in this net that you are starting to contradict yourself.

Who, me?  Never.  Well, hardly ever. :-)

> What you see as a vicious circle I see as the disorderly, but natural,
> progress of a new technology.

My point was:  *what* progress?  LGAS is a great idea precisely because
it breaks the vicious circle of unproven-technology-can't-fly-and-thus-
never-gets-proven.  LGAS will do this by an end run around the system, not
through "natural progress".  I think it's got a good chance.
-- 
PS/2: Yesterday's hardware today.    |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
OS/2: Yesterday's software tomorrow. | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 6 Oct 87 13:06:53 GMT
From: steinmetz!nyfca1!brspyr1!miket@uunet.uu.net  (Mike Trout)
Subject: Re: Orbits, Phobos, Venus, . . .

In article <175@pembina.UUCP>, andrew@alberta.UUCP (Andrew Folkins) writes:

>    As I recently heard, only three great nations in the world still
>    use the English system of measurement : Burma, Brunei and the
>    United States.  :-)

I believe Brunei has recently switched as well.  So whatinhell's the
matter with Burma?  Is Burma run by some bizarre totalitarian/Marxist
cabal that's so obsessed with impossibly idealistic governmental
theories that they can't see reality?  Of course, we KNOW what the
problem is with the other country...

"Burbank, California ... where toy guns are illegal but real guns are OK."

Michael Trout (miket@brspyr1)

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 8 Oct 87 01:29:24
From: Robert Elton Maas <REM%IMSSS@sail.stanford.edu>
Subject: TV reports 48-states only, why expect special space treatment?

<DLS> Date: 25 Sep 87 03:36:21 GMT
<DLS> From: ihnp4!homxb!mtuxo!mtgzz!dls@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (d.l.skran)
<DLS> Subject: Response to Comments on Newspeak Article

<DLS> ... For example, any news related to America is much over-reported
<DLS> in proporation to its global significances. 10,000 can die in the
<DLS> Iran-Iraq war with hardly a ripple in the American media.

(I assume by "America" you mean "The United States of America", as
contrasted with all of North&South America.) But it's even more serious,
our two non-contiguous states (Hawaii & Alaska) and our territories
(Puerto Rico, Guam, etc.) are generally excluded from TV news too. Look
at the satellite weather reports for a graphic example. You see an
overlay showing the boundaries of the 48 contiguous states, but
everything else is just the amorphous outside and hardly mentionned
except for tropical storms.

Given this inclusion of contiguous 48 states to exclusion of even our
neighbors of Canada and Mexico, it's rather arrogant of us to expect the
media to make an exception in the case of our favorite topic, space. If
they hardly mention an earthquake that kills 100 people in China, but
extensively cover an earthquake that kills 6 in Los Angeles, why are we
surprized when they hardly mention a permanent manned space station put
up by the USSR, choosing instead to have live coverage of a test of the
SRB for STS?

Perhaps we should admit that to get uniform worldwide coverage of any
particular special interest we have, we must read the technical
literature, and accept the fact that the TV and other mass media
specialize in the USA (48 states thereof) to the exclusion of the rest
of the world?

(Note, coverage of Persian Gulf etc. is no exception. We hear minutae
only about what affects the USA via its military force, virtually
nothing about what the Soviet ships are encountering in the gulf, and
just tidbits of the really big war that is going on.)

------------------------------

Date: 7 Oct 87 00:25:49 GMT
From: nuchat!sugar!peter@uunet.uu.net  (Peter da Silva)
Subject: Re: FOBS (was BMD & Announcing Launches)

Didn't the soviets deorbit a nuclear device into Canada?

(joke: they lost a nuc-powered satellite and it crashed in Canada)

(maybe not a joke. cringe yourself)
-- 
-- Peter da Silva  `-_-'  ...!hoptoad!academ!uhnix1!sugar!peter
-- Disclaimer: These U aren't mere opinions... these are *values*.

------------------------------

Date: 9 Oct 87 22:58:22 GMT
From: mike@AMES.ARPA  (Mike Smithwick)
Subject: Re: Tesla-effect weapons sabotage on U.S. Launches

In article <1872@brspyr1.BRS.Com> bob@brspyr1.BRS.Com (Bob Armao) writes:
>For those interested in the life of Tesla, Smithsonian Magazine had
>an article on him in the June 1986 issue.  I'm going to dig it out
>and re-read it myself if I can locate it in my "pile".

I just finished reading a Tesla biography. It should be required reading
for anyone with the slightest interest in technological history. The
book is called "Tesla: Man Out of Time", by Margaret Chaney.

I usually heard of Tesla mentioned only in obscure references to early
particle-beam weapons work, but never new that he was the one who gave
us 60hz ac in our wall sockets, or that he demonstrated a
radio-controlled boat in 1896, or that the Supreme Court decreed that he
is the real Father of Radio, and not Marconi.

*** mike (powered by M&Ms) smithwick ***

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #11
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 13 Oct 87 06:19:09 EDT
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA01939; Tue, 13 Oct 87 03:17:11 PDT
	id AA01939; Tue, 13 Oct 87 03:17:11 PDT
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 87 03:17:11 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8710131017.AA01939@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #12

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 12

Today's Topics:
			 Re: Read it and weep
			Re: Translation of Mir
			Re: Translation of Mir
		       Re: Does Salyut 7 spin?
		   Re: TIME: Moscow Takes the Lead
			 Re: Read it and weep
			  Duration in Orbit
			    More about Mir
			Re: Translation of Mir
			Re: Translation of Mir
			Re: Things aint so bad
			Re: Things aint so bad
			   Superconductors
		       Re: Universe As Hologram
		       Re: Universe As Hologram
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 1 Oct 87 12:28:40 GMT
From: ihnp4!homxb!homxc!brt@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (B.REYTBLAT)
Subject: Re: Read it and weep

In article <559954088.amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU>, Dale.Amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU writes:
> Space Calendar, 9/23 p 4:
> 
> ENERGIYA HEAVY-LIFT LAUNCH VEHICLE, TYURATAM KAZAKHSTAN USSR: Opening
> a new era in the exploration and exploitation of space. The 200-foot
> Energiya rocket will be able to lift payloads into orbit nine times as
> large as those lifted by the US Space Shuttle. It could cut launch
> costs by a factor of ten,

Compared to what other system? Where did Space Calendar get the numbers?
What costs are being accounted for?

> and all its elements are reusable.

Including the core module (STS ET-equivalent) ?  AW&ST did think that
part was reusable. They throw away 4 STS SSME-equivalents every launch.

> Energiya consists of a central core surrounded by four to eight rocket
> boosters.

4 I've seen, 6 I'll believe, but 8 would be hard to fit around the
central core.  Is the last configuration a guess, or has it been
announced by Glavcosmos?

> The four-booster Energiya will be used to launch the Soviet version of
> the Space Shuttle.
> 
> The six-to-eight-booster Energiya will be used to launch large items
> such as . . .

Sounds great. I hope they get to do all of those missions. Maybe then
the congress will wake up.

Ben Reytblat
ihnp4!homxc!brt

------------------------------

Date: 26 Sep 87 05:28:00 GMT
From: cca!mirror!ishmael!inmet!janw@husc6.harvard.edu
Subject: Re: Translation of Mir

Quite right. "Mir" does not mean "land" at all - somebody made a
mistake.  It doesn't mean "village" either, but it used to mean the
village commune - a sort of peasant self-government - in far-gone times.
The meaning is completely out of use. The two meanings "world" and
"peace" exist (and the word used to be spelled differently in these two
senses). It seems obvious to me that the meaning intended for the space
station name is "peace", not "world". E.g. "Progress docked with Mir."
Got it? Peace, Progress, motherhood, applepie. "World" doesn't belong
here.

------------------------------

Date: 1 Oct 87 19:02:00 GMT
From: linus!utzoo!henry@husc6.harvard.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Translation of Mir

>    "Mir" has two by far most popular meanings: "peace" & "world"...

I have been told -- perhaps some of the scholarly types can confirm
this, my Russian is minimal -- that the "peace" meaning of "mir" is not
quite what modern English-speakers associate with "peace".  The English
meaning might be expressed more specifically as "peace through harmony",
while the Russian one apparently would translate better as "peace
through absence of opposition", or more colloquially "we beat the
bastards".  Alexei Leonov, who is now high up in the Soviet space
program [head of manned spaceflight?  don't remember for sure] is
reported to have laughed and laughed and laughed when he heard the name.
-- 
PS/2: Yesterday's hardware today.    |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
OS/2: Yesterday's software tomorrow. | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 1 Oct 87 12:35:44 GMT
From: miq%psuvm.bitnet@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Jim Maloy)
Subject: Re: Does Salyut 7 spin?

In article <298@idacrd.UUCP>, mac@idacrd.UUCP (Bob McGwier) says:
     
>> Also the specular surfaces may have corroded.
     
>What would the mechanism for corrosion be?  Not much water and the
>metal would not change its reflective properties much even under the
>bombardment of the sun in this short a time.
     
     Most likely it was ionized oxygen from the upper atmosphere.  Far
more reactive than water or solar radiation.
     
James D. Maloy                  The Pennsylvania State University
Bitnet: MIQ@PSUECL, MIQ@PSUVM   Aerospace Engineering, '87
UUCP  : {akgua,allegra,cbosgd,ihnp4}!psuvax1!psuvma.bitnet!miq

------------------------------

Date: 2 Oct 87 15:11:04 GMT
From: uop!robert@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu  (Robert McCaul--The Equalizer)
Subject: Re: TIME: Moscow Takes the Lead

is there any way to watch soviet and european or japanese launches?
it must be propagated across a bird somewhere!!

------------------------------

Date: 1 Oct 87 14:14:33 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!its63b!bob@uunet.uu.net  (ERCF08 Bob Gray)
Subject: Re: Read it and weep

In article <559954088.amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU> Dale.Amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU writes:
>Space Calendar, 9/23 p 4:
>
>The Energiya has opened up vast possibilities for the Soviet space
>program. The rocket will be capable of launching the following: 1) a
>Mir space station to a 22,500-mile geostationary orbit or into lunar
>orbit; 2) a series of Apollo-style Moon landings at any time; ......

It is nice to see that I am not the only one who thinks that this is
comming. The moon is the soviet's next target.

<Start speculation>

My suspicion is that a Mir or salyut space station will be put in lunar
orbit first as a staging post and fuel dump for later manned lunar
landings. The lunar landings will be for periods up to a couple of weeks
and may eventually involve setting up some sort of living quarters on
the lunar surface.

All good practice for a later trip to mars, using the same vehicles and
techniques to get there, and a derivitave of the lunar lander and base
for surface exploration.

Comments?
	Bob.

------------------------------

Date: 5 Oct 87 19:49:54 GMT
From: concertina!fiddler@sun.com  (Steve Hix)
Subject: Duration in Orbit

Maybe I've missed it on the net, but hasn't Yuri Romanenko (I think)
passed the old record for continuous time in orbit?

Do you think he'd mind three cheers?

	seh

p.s.  How long before another astronaut (from wherever) breaks his
record...

------------------------------

Date: 6 Oct 87 19:05:35 GMT
From: ritcv!moscom!de@cs.rochester.edu  (Dave Esan)
Subject:  More about Mir

In article <2404@calmasd.GE.COM> jnp@calmasd.GE.COM (John Pantone) writes:
>> Mir ("Land", NOT "Peace")
>
>My dictionary also gives the alternative translation of Mir as Village.

Sorry this posting is relatively late to the article, it has taken me a
while to catch up on news.

Perhaps this will help lay the question of the translation of Mir to
rest?

Before the October Revolution (which took place in November 1917) the
Russian language had two vowels that had the sound "ee".  One looked
like an i, the other like a u.  In some far off time these two sounds
were pronounced differently, but over time they both became "ee".  The
Soviet government decided that it was a good time to update the Russian
orthography (they were right, the population was basically illiterate,
there were not too many books printed in Russian at the time) and
eliminated the duplicate vowels, replacing them with the single vowel
that looks like the letter u. (They also eliminated several other
characters at the time.)

Mir before the revolution was written "mir" or "mur".  One meant the
world the other meant peace.  Furthermore, just to confuse the issue,
"mir" (the world) had taken on an additional meaning.  Russian peasantry
were in serfdom until the mid-1860's, and even their emancipation, did
not really free them from the land.  They were confined to their
particular farms and villages, which to them became their world, or
their "mir".  While this meaning is not rooted in the Slavonic root
languages like world and peace, it had a profound effect on the Russian
language, and added a third meaning.

Any other meanings found in a dictionary are attempts to add shades of
meaning, a difficult undertaking to say the least.

The space station Mir could actually mean any of the three variations.
It could be a propaganda ploy meaning Peace, a propaganda ploy meaning
world, or used in the third sense, it could be the area that the
cosmonauts are confined.

Whew! I knew that degree in Russian studies would come in handy someday.

               rochester \
David Esan                | moscom ! de
                    ritcv/

------------------------------

Date: 3 Oct 87 07:02:00 GMT
From: cca!mirror!ishmael!inmet!janw@husc6.harvard.edu
Subject: Re: Translation of Mir

[henry@utzoo.UUCP ]
>>"Mir" has two by far most popular meanings: "peace" & "world"...

>I have been told -- perhaps some of the scholarly types can  con-
>firm  this,  my Russian is minimal -- that the "peace" meaning of
>"mir" is not quite what modern  English-speakers  associate  with
>"peace". The English meaning might be expressed more specifically
>as "peace through harmony",  while  the  Russian  one  apparently
>would  translate better as "peace through absence of opposition",
>or more colloquially "we beat the bastards". Alexei  Leonov,  who
>is now high up in the Soviet space program [head of manned space-
>flight?  don't remember for sure] is reported to have laughed and
>laughed and laughed when he heard the name.

Well, yes and no (I don't claim to be scholarly but my Russian is
good). The usage of *mir*, before the word was pre-empted by pro-
paganda, was much the same as the usage of  *peace*  in  English.
E.g.,  the  proverb:  "khudoy  mir  luchshe dobroy ssory" - a bad
peace is better than a good quarrel.

However, the word is now a propaganda  staple,  inextricably  con-
nected with such words as "Party", *People* (e.g., "the Party and
the People are One"); "Communism". The word  is  usually  coupled
with  "Struggle":  "Struggle  for  Peace." In that struggle, "the
forces of peace and socialism" are continuously  overcoming  "the
warmongers",  "the  Zionists",  the  "American  imperialists" and
sometimes the "West German revanchists." A typical joke: Q:  Will
there be war? A: No, but the struggle for peace will be so inten-
sive that probably no one will survive."

			Jan Wasilewsky

------------------------------

Date: 6 Oct 87 13:07:04 GMT
From: mcvax!enea!liuida!yngla@uunet.uu.net  (Yngve Larsson)
Subject: Re: Translation of Mir

In article <8688@utzoo.UUCP> henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) writes:
>Alexei Leonov, who is now high up in the Soviet space program [head of
>manned spaceflight?  don't remember for sure]

I belive he is commander of the USSR "Space City" where all the
kosmonauts live and train. If this is the right man, he is the one who
made the first EVA (did he have a problem getting back inside?).

Yngve Larsson
 Internet: yla@ida.liu.se
 Linkoping University, Sweden

------------------------------

Date: 12 Oct 87 05:38:11 GMT
From: ssvs!cray@mimsy.umd.edu  (Robert Cray)
Subject: Re: Things aint so bad

In article <163@splut.UUCP> stu@splut.UUCP (Stewart Cobb) writes:
>James Oberg [Red Star in Orbit, etc.] thinks that the Russians have no
>real plans for a shuttle.  What we're seeing (in Soviet Military Power
>and such)

I was looking through Soviet Life (I realize its all propoganda, but I
am taking Russian, and was looking in the library for *anything* in
Russian), anyway, there was an article in the October issue about a
Soviet "shuttle", I didn't pay very much attention, but I think there
was a picture...should be in any university library.

					--robert

------------------------------

Date: 7 Oct 87 17:23:22 GMT
From: ihnp4!alberta!mnetor!utzoo!dciem!nrcaer!cognos!geovision!alastair@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Alastair Mayer)
Sender: ota@galileo.s1.gov
Subject: Re: Things aint so bad


In article <163@splut.UUCP> stu@splut.UUCP (Stewart Cobb) writes:
>James Oberg [Red Star in Orbit, etc.] thinks that the Russians have no
>real plans for a shuttle.  What we're seeing (in Soviet Military Power
>and such)

James Oberg, for all his good work, has been known to be wrong before.
In cases like this I trust the opinions of people like Charlie Vick and
Art Bozlee.  The big one is definitely a shuttle.  The small one photo'd
when it splashed down in the Indian Ocean may have been a scale test
model.  It may also have been a full size test of a highly manoeverable
reentry vehicle for weapons.  But Shuttleski almost certainly exists.

 Alastair JW Mayer

------------------------------

Date:         Thu, 08 Oct 87 11:03:22 EDT
From: Jeffrey R Kell <JEFF%UTCVM.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu>
Subject: Superconductors

Quick question... some weeks ago we saw several postings regarding new
superconductor research, and I *thought* I had tracked the *real* stuff
down to near 0C.  Then I see two further articles (one I don't recall,
another in 10/5/87 "ComputerWorld") that don't mention anything near it;
and the SPACE 8.6 mention of Time cover regarding 'room-temperature' (I
didn't see that one).

Just where *are* we, and *where* is it documented, and has it been
reliably reproduced or just transient luck?

The best confirmed record I have is the 2/87 finding by Paul Chu at the
University of Houston, yttrium/barium/copper oxide at 98K.

<Jeff>

------------------------------

Date: 1 Oct 87 20:04:54 GMT
From: amdahl!chuck@ames.arpa  (Charles Simmons)
Subject: Re: Universe As Hologram

In article <7402@ism780c.UUCP> jimh@ism780c.UUCP (Jim Hori) writes:
>Aspect and his team discovered that under certain circumstances
>subatomic particles such as electrons are able to instantaneously
>communicate with each other regardless of the distance separating
>them. It doesn't matter whether they are 10 feet or 10 billion
>miles apart. Somehow each particle always seems to know what the
>other is doing.

Actually, this stuff has been popularized in a few books that are quite
accessible to those of us who aren't physicists.  I recommend "Quantum
Realities", "In Search of Shroedinger's Cat", "In Search of the Big
Bang", and "The Tao of Physics".  I don't remember the authors of these
books, but you should be able to find them in the Science or Nature
section of a good bookstore (no, not Crown).

-- Chuck

------------------------------

Date: 1 Oct 87 19:57:31 GMT
From: clash.rutgers.edu!masticol@rutgers.edu  (Stephen P. Masticola)
Subject: Re: Universe As Hologram

In article <7402@ism780c.UUCP> jimh@ism780c.UUCP (Jim Hori) writes:
	[ Verbiage deleted ]

> Aspect and his team discovered that under certain circumstances
> subatomic particles such as electrons are able to instantaneously
> communicate with each other regardless of the distance separating
> them. It doesn't matter whether they are 10 feet or 10 billion miles
> apart. Somehow each particle always seems to know what the other is
> doing. The problem with this feat is that it violates Einstein's
> long-held tenet that no communication can travel faster than the speed
> of light.

I'd like to hear about a reference to this, and would especially like to
know whether anyone has confirmed Aspect's results. Also whether Talbot
interpreted them correctly. (The _Village Voice_ doesn't usually make it
to the top of the journal pile in most physicists' libraries, but since
I'm not an expert, I'm willing to listen to those who do know.)

There are certain phenomena that propogate faster than light -
travelling waves in a waveguide are one of them, I believe. But you
can't transmit information over them. My guess is that Aspect might
really have been reporting something along these lines. Or his results
might be screwy.

In any case, Michael Talbot has leapt to some really grandiose
conclusions, which might go over big with the harmonic convergence
crowd, but not with a properly skeptical researcher. Such conclusions
(as is proper in French justice) stand suspect until proven true. And I
don't see any proof.

If anyone out in sci.research has heard of Aspect's result, and
interprets it as giving someone the ability to instantaneously transmit
energy or information, please let us know.

- Steve

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #12
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 13 Oct 87 23:18:21 EDT
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA03459; Tue, 13 Oct 87 20:16:20 PDT
	id AA03459; Tue, 13 Oct 87 20:16:20 PDT
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 87 20:16:20 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8710140316.AA03459@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #13

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 13

Today's Topics:
		      Mailing list announcement
		   Re: MIR Elements 1 October 1987
		       Re: Universe As Hologram
		       Re: Universe As Hologram
			     SPACE DRIVE
			   Re: SPACE DRIVE
		       High Isp Fission Rocket
			   Re: SPACE DRIVE
			   Re: SPACE DRIVE
			   Re: SPACE DRIVE
			   Re: SPACE DRIVE
			   Re: SPACE DRIVE
			   Re: SPACE DRIVE
			   Re: SPACE DRIVE
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 6 Oct 87 16:07:46 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!mupsy!mucs!arnold@uunet.uu.net  (Toby Howard)
Sender: ota@galileo.s1.gov
Subject: Mailing list announcement

A mailing list has been set up for those interested in a skeptical
approach to the investigation of claims of paranormal phenomena,
pseudoscience, fringe medicine etc. If you're interested email

       thoward%cgu.cs.man.ac.uk@nss.cs.ucl.ac.uk (Toby Howard, Europe) or
       lippard%multics.mit.edu (James Lippard, USA/Canada)

[This is a shared account. Please ignore the From: field, and reply to
 the following address. Thanks]

Toby Howard      Computer Graphics Unit, Manchester University, UK.
                 janet: thoward@uk.ac.man.cs.cgu
                 internet: thoward%cgu.cs.man.ac.uk@nss.cs.ucl.ac.uk

------------------------------

Date: 12 Oct 87 14:10:00 GMT
From: jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Re: MIR Elements 1 October 1987

My wife read a story in the local paper about a particularly bright Mir
sighting.  The Soviet Station is to be visible on Tuesday, Oct 13
(tomorrow!) at 7:55 to 8:00 PM CST from here in the now-harvested corn
fields of Illinois.  It is supposed to be very bright (magnitude -1 or
so) in the western sky.

I'll be at a meeting for General Dynamics interviews from 7 - 9, but I
intend to duck out for a few minutes to see *the* space station.

Too bad we don't have one up there.

        -- Ken Jenks
jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu

------------------------------

Date: 2 Oct 87 12:43:36 GMT
From: phoenix!aalanm@princeton.edu  (A Alan Middleton)
Subject: Re: Universe As Hologram
 
I don't have time to give a complete answer (mine and, I believe, that
of most physicists) to this, so I'll give a super quick incomplete
contribution that will add to the immense piles of verbiage on all of
this -

1)  Aspect's results are believed.  The experiment was the culmination
    of a whole bunch of similar experiments to test QM.

2)  The results CONFIRM quantum mechanics and rule out most any hidden
    variable theory that is local (i.e., no faster than light).  As most
    people other than Bohm expected.

3)  You MAY NOT send signals faster than light using this method.  No
    way.  I repeat, no information is sent faster than the speed of
    light (as far as anyone knows, of course, as always; maybe wrong
    someday -the point is as it is understood consistently: no way).  If
    you like the Copenhagen interpretation (I don't), the wave function
    "collapses" instantaneously over all space, but it doesn't mean
    anything (like waveguides, or swinging flashlights at Andromeda).

4)  The Village Voice is fun to read (my opinion only) and this article
    was a blast to read.  Great laughs.  (One example: holograms are in
    the whole plate, sure, but they get fuzzier images if you chop them
    up.)  Aspect's results are in some boring journal; I forget which
    one.

------------------------------

Date: 2 Oct 87 18:14:46 GMT
From: iuvax!bsu-cs!dhesi@rutgers.edu  (Rahul Dhesi)
Subject: Re: Universe As Hologram

In article <1441@clash.rutgers.edu> masticol@clash.rutgers.edu (Stephen P. 
Masticola) writes:
>If anyone out in sci.research has heard of Aspect's result, and interprets
>it as giving someone the ability to instantaneously transmit energy or
>information, please let us know.

The Aspect experiment was discussed at length in sci.physics some time
ago.  Two particles can align themselves as if they were connected by a
faster-than-light communications path, but the end result is that there
is no actual FTL transfer of information from one end to the other.
-- 
Rahul Dhesi         UUCP:  <backbones>!{iuvax,pur-ee,uunet}!bsu-cs!dhesi

------------------------------

Date: 29 Sep 87 12:01:17 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!stc!peter@uunet.uu.net  (The Dark Lord)
Subject: SPACE DRIVE

I read an article in a Sunday newspaper the other week about a British
inventor, now resident in Australia, who has invented a very viable form
of space drive. So much so that an Australian research organisation is
providing virtually unlimited finance and experienced research
assistants to aid him with his work.

Unfortunately, I have lost the article and cannot remember the man's
name. Only the practical methods used were given - nothing resembling a
formula. Maybe somebody out there can throw some light on the physics
involved.

The device that the inventor managed to produce overcomes the basic
problem associated with any form of space drive - that of having to
expel matter from the craft in order to accelerate it. His drive works
by converting rotational energy into linear energy.

-This is done by placing two gyroscopes, one at each end of a solid rod.
The rod is in turn rotated about its own central axis (like a fan) I am
not sure about the attitudes of the gyroscopes, but it was said that the
combined rotational motion of the complete device produces a linear pull
- again in an unspecified direction.

Such a drive could be powered by electricity generated by a nuclear
power source and would in theory make inter-planetary travel much more
economical; and inter-stellar travel more practical.

Has anybody heard any more of this story?  Is it feasable? -I hear the
Australian researchers are now able to fit formulas to the phenomenon
which do not 'defy the laws of physics', what are they?

------------------------------

Date: 3 Oct 87 21:02:26 GMT
From: brun@husc4.harvard.edu  (todd brun)
Subject: Re: SPACE DRIVE

In article <1368@byte.tcom.stc.co.uk>, peter@tcom.stc.co.uk writes:

> I read an article in a Sunday newspaper the other week about a
> British inventor, now resident in Australia, who has invented a
> very viable form of space drive...

Well, I haven't read that article, but I can assure you that unless the
basic laws of physics have been repealed overnight the Australians are
doing no such thing.  What you are describing is essentially turning
angular momentum into linear momentum, which any physicist (or physics
student, for that matter) will tell you is "No Can Do."  To do that
you'd have to toss out both Newton and Einstein, violate TWO major
conservation laws (conservation of momentum and conservation of Angular
Momentum), and toss out common sense, as well.

This is essentially a variant of the "pull on your bootstraps and away
you go" system, made slightly more complicated so as to make it less
obvious that it won't work.  What those two gyroscopes would do depends
on which way they point and which way they spin, but they'd either
rotate normally, flip around and THEN rotate normally (if possible), or
precess in a complicated (but very stationary) way.  Inventions that
violate conservation laws (.e.g.  Perpetual Motion machines) aren't
worth a second glance.  I'm afraid that, in the space department,
rockets are still the only way to go.

--Todd

Todd Brun, Physics Department, Harvard University
"Eureka!" -- Archimedes  "Did I say around the SUN?" -- Galileo
Disclaimer:  "Employer?  What employer?"

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 3 Oct 87 21:25 EDT
From: "Paul F. Dietz" <DIETZ%sdr.slb.com@relay.cs.net>
Subject: High Isp Fission Rocket

Science News (9/26/87, page 205) mentioned a fission rocket concept by
George Chapline of LLNL. The idea is to arrange the fuel so that fission
fragments can escape without losing too much energy. The ionized fragments
are then caught in a magnetic mirror and ejected out the back of the
rocket. Isp is up to 1 million seconds. Chapline proposes to use 200 tons
of americium (which isotope, the article didn't say; americium is said to
be more efficient than plutonium) arranged in layers of thin wires. The
americium wires are placed on wheels and rotated through a 10 by 10 by 1
meter volume where fission occurs. The wheels are necessary to prevent the
wires from melting. This rocket could accelerate an interstellar probe to
one eighth the speed of light in 25 years, reaching Alpha Centauri in 50
years.

The four paragraph article also said Chapline doesn't think fusion rockets
are possible. I assume this means fusion rockets for interstellar flight as
in Project Daedalus, not lower Isp rockets for interplanetary flight as
designed at LLNL.

------------------------------

Date: 4 Oct 87 01:45:25 GMT
From: gwyn@smoke.brl.mil  (Doug Gwyn )
Subject: Re: SPACE DRIVE

Sounds like the Dean drive all over again.  Since the inventor seems to
claim to be exploiting properties of classical mechanics, it is
appropriate to note that application of classical mechanics to his
overall system shows that it cannot continuously translate itself.

------------------------------

Date: 5 Oct 87 13:20:47 GMT
From: firth@sei.cmu.edu  (Robert Firth)
Subject: Re: SPACE DRIVE

This sounds like the famous 'Dean Drive', popularised in the '60s by
John W Campbell's magazine Astounding Science Fiction.  Yes, a device
that converted energy into linear thrust would indeed be a viable space
drive; technically it's called a "reactionless drive".

It is easy to work out the advantages.  For example, if you could
convert electricity directly into gravitational potential energy, the
cost of getting stuff up to low earth orbit is a few cents a pound.
Similarly, if you can convert electricity directly into kinetic energy,
acceleration is very cheap.

The only problem with the reactionless drive is that it doesn't exist.
Such a drive would violate Newton's Third Law.  Very few people believe
that Dean had such a machine, and this is not a case of "scoff, scoff!
we scoffed at Galileo and we scoff at you!" A lot of scientists and
engineers tried to duplicate the Drive and failed; many people tried to
investigate Dean's machine and had trouble with its rather paranoid
inventor.  The patent on the device, by Dean's own admission, does not
accurately describe the machine.  Dead end.

I still have the copies of Astounding; I'll try to dig up some
references.  Perhaps someone could post more about this anonymous
Briton?

------------------------------

Date: 5 Oct 87 17:06:43 GMT
From: cca!g-rh@husc6.harvard.edu  (Richard Harter)
Subject: Re: SPACE DRIVE

	Stine did a followup on the Dean Drive.  In essence nobody ever
really established that it worked or that it did not work.  Dean may
have had something -- but what exactly is not known (and apparently will
never be known.)

	It is likely that the British inventor is simply a crank and
that the newspaper report is full of it.  On the other hand ...  While
the laws of physics do indeed forbid converting angular momentum into
linear momentum in a closed system (i.e. a standalone device) there is
nothing that says that we can't transfer momentum.  We are not, as one
poster suggested, restricted to using rockets.  Thus the various linear
accelerator schemes.

	The transfer of momentum from a ship to a large body is a
familiar trick.  There may be technologies that do this in a more useful
and general way -- offhand I haven't the slightest idea what they are.
In any case, I rather suspect the Sunday newspaper article is ... a
Sunday newspaper article.

	Richard Harter, SMDS  Inc.

------------------------------

Date: 5 Oct 87 19:11:28 GMT
From: concertina!fiddler@sun.com  (Steve Hix)
Subject: Re: SPACE DRIVE
  
This sounds like a variant of the Dean Drive that
John Campbell was so fond of plugging a few years
ago in Astounding/Analog.

Which Sunday Newpaper was it?  One of Mr Murdoch's?

	seh

------------------------------

Date: 5 Oct 87 17:35:14 GMT
From: linus!utzoo!henry@husc6.harvard.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: SPACE DRIVE

Claims like this surface regularly.  Great caution must be used in
evaluating them.  They appear to violate the laws of physics as said
laws are currently understood; this does not mean the claims are false,
but it does mean that the burden of proof is on the claimant and the
rest of us are justified in being skeptical in the absence of ironclad
evidence.

It is all too easy to build a widget that looks like an antigravity
machine when measured on a bathroom scale.  The trouble is that such
scales, and most others based on complex mechanical linkages, are not
built to give accurate readings of fluctuating loads.  It's not hard to
set up resonances in the scale mechanism that will produce false
readings.  The real test for such a "space drive" is to put it on the
end of a simple pendulum (e.g. hang it on a piece of string) and see
whether it manages to consistently deflect the pendulum to one side.

There is no doubt that one can get complex phenomena from rapidly-
rotating machinery.  Vibration, gyroscopic effects, etc. can combine to
do odd things.  There are moderately-credible reports of behavior that
is not easy to explain.  The most plausible explanation is complex
combinations of well-known effects; it remains to be seen whether this
is in fact the correct explanation, or whether something new is needed.
To date, as far as I know, nobody has built anything that can pass the
pendulum test.

(What do I think personally?  I think it would be worth spending a
*small* amount of money investigating known anomalies.  I doubt very
much that anything would come out of it except a better understanding of
complex mechanical phenomena.  That in itself might be useful, and the
potential payoff if there's something deeper going on is high enough to
make a small speculative investment worthwhile.  Not a large one,
though.)

PS/2: Yesterday's hardware today.    |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
OS/2: Yesterday's software tomorrow. | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 5 Oct 87 20:00:19 GMT
From: phoenix!kpmancus@princeton.edu  (Keith P. Mancus)
Subject: Re: SPACE DRIVE

  I think you meant "Converting rotational momentum into linear
momentum".  Energy is not the problem.

  Devices of this sort...excuse me, devices that CLAIM to be of this
sort have been around for years, but nobody's gotten one to work yet.  A
guy named Davis worked out something called "Davis Mechanics" which
allows reactionless drives to exist, but there's no evidence to support
his theories.  I'll believe this latest guy when I see his device lift
itself off the ground under controlled conditions.

  Still, we shouldn't rule out the idea of a drive that doesn't use
reaction mass.  It has always seemed to me that the ideal space drive is
purely gravitic.  It doesn't dump anything overboard, and it violates no
conservation laws.  What's needed is a way to generate gravitational
fields without the prescence of matter; ideally, we should be able to
generate fields that don't obey the inverse square law.
  There's no evidence that this is possible, but neither does it violate
any fundamental laws.  We really need a unified field theory ASAP;
perhaps that will show us how.  There's no guarantee, but research in
that direction would be far more useful than messing around with Dean
drives.

  -Keith Mancus

  Be careful how you apply Clarke's First Law.

  <kpmancus@phoenix.princeton.edu>

------------------------------

Date: 6 Oct 87 02:39:49 GMT
From: gwyn@smoke.brl.mil  (Doug Gwyn )
Subject: Re: SPACE DRIVE

In article <8710@utzoo.UUCP> henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) writes:
>...  The real test for such a "space drive" is to put it on the end of
>a simple pendulum (e.g. hang it on a piece of string) and see whether
>it manages to consistently deflect the pendulum to one side.

At least one realization of the Dean drive passed this test.  It
actually pumped air across the faces of its container by its unusual
vibration duty cycle.  It wouldn't do this in a vacuum, obviously.

Conservation of linear momentum is a direct consequence of the
invariance of physical "law" under translation.  If someone claims to be
able to violate this conservation principle, then he is in effect
claiming a much bigger breakthrough than a measly space drive.  A Nobel
prize was awarded to the people who (supposedly) showed a violation of
the corresponding conservation principle related to spatial reflection.
It showed up only when the "weak force" was involved, not under normal
mechanical/chemical circumstances.

The invariance under question is backed by "billions and billions" of
experiments and experience.  While it MAY happen that someone has found
an exception to it, it would be MOST surprising.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #13
*******************

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	id AA04150; Wed, 14 Oct 87 03:17:01 PDT
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 87 03:17:01 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8710141017.AA04150@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #14

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 14

Today's Topics:
		       Re: Universe As Hologram
			   Re: SPACE DRIVE
			   Re: SPACE DRIVE
			   Re: SPACE DRIVE
			     SPACE DRIVE
			   Re: SPACE DRIVE
			   Re: SPACE DRIVE
			     SPACE DRIVE
		      Starwisp - .25c in 4 days
			   Re: SPACE DRIVE
			   Re: SPACE DRIVE
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 6 Oct 87 15:16:22 GMT
From: trex.rutgers.edu!masticol@rutgers.edu  (Stephen P. Masticola)
Subject: Re: Universe As Hologram

I'm posting the following on behalf of Michael Paddon in Australia, who
doesn't have post access to sci.space. Thanks for the contribution (and
hopefully the clarification), Michael!

- Steve Masticola.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

The Aspect experiment consisted of measuring the polarization of photons
that had previously interacted. He found that the polarization of the
quanta were linked no matter what the distance was between them.  The
interesting aspect (:-)) was that this interaction manifested itself in
a instantaneous fashion (or as closely as could be measured). The
interaction was definitely faster than a signal could travel between the
particles at light speed.

The thing to note is that no information transfer is implied in these
results. If you could measure the polarization on one of the photons
(without affecting it -- Heisenberg's theory raises its ugly head here)
while the other photon was having its polarization manipulated, all you
would see is a different RANDOM pattern of polarization than what would
have happened otherwise!

If you could predict what the polarization would be on the photon, then
you could transfer information by this means. Unfortunately the word
RANDOM is the cornerstone of quantum interactions and unless this
element can be removed from the theory then faster than light
communication/travel is still an open question.

The Aspect experiment used light polarization as a convenient measure.
If I remember rightly, this result has been confirmed by a few other
researchers though I'd have to look up references to find the details.
Theoretically, this effect should manifest itself on other measurable
quanitities of various quanta. The important conclusions to be drawn
relate to the nature of reality particularily in the light of these FTL
interactions between quanta with no obvious means to interact.  Some of
the opinions which have been aired on the net seem a bit light on
justification, however. It seems it takes more than the "Village Voice"
to sucessfully challenge Einstein's relativity :-).

If you are interested I can post to you some references and more details
which I don't have at hand just now.

Caveat Netperson:
=================
Please take my ramblings as those of a computer scientist with a casual
interest in physics.
					Michael Paddon
					==============

=================
UUCP:	{seismo,mcvax,ukc,ubc-vision}!munnari!mwp
ARPA:	mwp%munnari.oz@seismo.css.gov
CSNET:	mwp%munnari.oz@australia

------------------------------

Date: 6 Oct 87 21:31:32 GMT
From: mcvax!lambert@uunet.uu.net  (Lambert Meertens)
Subject: Re: SPACE DRIVE

(Concerning a device allegedly converting angular momentum into linear
momentum:)

) Bill Ferrier was working on a mathemetical formulation of the device
) and was close to success when he died in early 1986.

My theory is that the underlying physical principle is obvious once you
see it, except that the very act of understanding it causes
instantaneous death, reason why it remains unpublished.  So don't think
about it.  Just an advice.

Lambert Meertens, CWI, Amsterdam; lambert@cwi.nl

------------------------------

Date: 6 Oct 87 15:03:37 GMT
From: uop!robert@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu  (Robert McCaul--The Equalizer)
Subject: Re: SPACE DRIVE


well, if you take some high energy plasma and rotate it, then get
it to...nah, you would'nt beleive me without the sources...

i'll post later, can you say, "Pine Gap Austrailia"??

------------------------------

Date: 5 Oct 87 11:06:00 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!its63b!bob@uunet.uu.net  (ERCF08 Bob Gray)
Subject: Re: SPACE DRIVE

This man was the subject of a 1/2 hour documentary film made by Grampian
television. (Independant TV company broadcasting to the part of scotland
north of the river tay).

The programme is called "The man who wants to change the world" It was
made in the middle of last year before he moved to Australia, so some of
the technical details had not been fully worked out.

I watched my copy of the programme and made the following notes.

The man's name is Sandy Kidd. At the time the programme was made he was
living in Dundee. He is an ex-RAF engineer with an interest in space
travel and science fiction.

He used to work with gyroscopes of the type used in aircraft, became
imprerssed with the amount of power they could store, and decided that
they could be used to build a "space drive" to power a space vehicle.

(Those of you thinking "Not annother von neuman" please keep reading).

He started building the machine in his garage in 1982.  He knew the
design of machine he wanted, and built a number of unsuccesful
prototypes.

Eventually, on the 21st November 1984, he produced a machine which
produced the effect he wanted.

The machine weighing seven pounds, could produce a vertical thrust of
twelve ounces. (No metric units here :-))

The device was powered by a 6 1/2 cc water cooled model aircraft engine
running at 16,000 rpm.

The device was tested by balancing it with a counterweight and measuring
the lift the running device could produce.

The programme shows this testing, and the running machine in lengthy
detail.

The next step was to contact Professor Eric Laithwaite at Imperial
college, London (Whose series of Christmas lecture 10 years ago gave
Sandy the original idea), and arrange a demonstration. The professor
concluded that the machine worked.

Some professional advice on what to do next led him to a university
consultancy post at Dundee University, where the engineering and physics
departments took the machine apart to try and find out how it worked.

Dr. Ian Davidson headed the investigation team and concluded that it was
"an interesting phenomenon" but that he had no clear idea of what the
machine was doing.

Senior physicist Bill Ferrier was not so hesitant. He examined tha
machine and produced a written endorsement saying

"There is no doubt that the machine does produce vertical lift....

I am fully satisfied that this devide needs further research and
development. I have expressed myself willing to help Mr Kidd whose
engineering ability is beyond question and for whom I have the greatest
respect.

..... I do not as yet understand why this device works, But it does
work!

The technological posibilities of such a device are enormous its
commercial exploitation must be worth millions"

(More than a slight under-estimate)

Bill ferrier was working on a mathemetical formulation of the device and
was close to success when he died in early 1986.

The device is supposed to be able to directly convert angular momentum
into linear momentum.

Funding for the research ran out in 1986, and Sandy Kidd took up an
offer to continue the research in Australia. The programme ends before
this last event, It was presumably made as a last effort to get funding
for further research.

And the big question. Does the device really work?

I don't know. The programme certainly shows a device which is apparently
able to lift itself when balanced by a counterweight. The professors and
lecturers can't all have been fooled all the time they were taking tha
machine to bits.

But Mars in 34 hours? seems too good to be true.

But then again, we Scots have invented practically everything, why not a
space drive :-)
	Bob.

------------------------------

Date: 6 Oct 87 14:45:35 GMT
From: necntc!culdev1!drw@eddie.mit.edu  (Dale Worley)
Subject: SPACE DRIVE

Well, he's got a way to violate conservation of momentum.  Given that
the conservation of momentum is one of the best-tested laws of physics,
it seems more than a bit unlikely.  Not knowing the details, I can't
debunk it solidly, but I'll bet it is a form of "putting a fan on your
boat to improve the wind".

I'd start by looking at the question "Who's going to rotate the rod,
when you're in deep space and don't have anything solid to stand on?"

However, if he can produce a convincing demonstration, I'm willing to
throw 300 years of physics out the window.  Hang his device at one end
of a long string, and see if it can keep the string at a non-vertical
angle.  If the device does what is claimed, it can do so, and if present
physical theories are right, it can't.  QED.

Dale
-- 
Dale Worley    Cullinet Software      ARPA: culdev1!drw@eddie.mit.edu
UUCP: ...!seismo!harvard!mit-eddie!culdev1!drw
Give me money or kill me!

------------------------------

Date: 7 Oct 87 17:20:16 GMT
From: mit-caf!jtkung@media-lab.media.mit.edu  (Joseph Kung)
Subject: Re: SPACE DRIVE

In article <671@its63b.ed.ac.uk> bob@its63b.ed.ac.uk (ERCF08 Bob Gray) writes:

>But Mars in 34 hours? seems too good to be true.
>
>But then again, we Scots have invented practically everything,
>why not a space drive :-)
>	Bob.


Mr. Scott "The Miracle Worker" would certainly agree with this last
statement. "Warp 8 Captain? She can't take it anymore....."

- Joe

------------------------------

Date: 7 Oct 87 18:42:31 GMT
From: brun@husc4.harvard.edu  (todd brun)
Subject: Re: SPACE DRIVE

All this about the space-drive is very interesting, but as I pointed out
in my last posting, it just doesn't work!  Unless centuries of
observations and predictions are completely wrong, this device couldn't
produce enough force to raise a feather.  It is simply impossible to
convert angular momentum to linear momentum.  Despite the unfortunate
coincidence of their similar names, angular momentum and linear momentum
have almost nothing in common; they are different things; they have
different units; they obey separate and independent conservation laws.
Before I toss out all the physics since Newton, I want to see this
machine fly in through my window and bring me coffee.  :-)

Thanks to the people who posted more information.

Todd
-----------------------------
Todd Brun, Physics Department, Harvard University
Disclaimer:  "Employer?  What employer?"

------------------------------

Date: 8 Oct 87 15:23:23 GMT
From: necntc!culdev1!drw@husc6.harvard.edu  (Dale Worley)
Subject: SPACE DRIVE

bob@its63b.ed.ac.uk (ERCF08 Bob Gray) writes:
> The device was powered by a 6 1/2 cc water cooled model aircraft
> engine running at 16,000 rpm.

Yow!  Think of the volume and velocity of the exhaust that mother
produced!  6.5 cc times 266 strokes a second is... 1729 cc (almost two
liters) of exhaust per second.  Personally, I'd be much more pleased if
it used an electric motor.  That exhaust stream could produce a *lot* of
force.

Dale Worley    Cullinet Software      ARPA: culdev1!drw@eddie.mit.edu

------------------------------

Date: 9 Oct 87 20:58:39 GMT
From: ihnp4!homxb!mtuxo!tee@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (T.EBERSOLE)
Subject: Starwisp - .25c in 4 days

A recent lecture at RCA-Astro near Princeton, NJ, proposed the use of
the backup Mars Observer, in the event of a successful launch of the
original, for lunar geochemical surveying. An interesting remark was
made about a "design study" by Robert Forward and Freeman Dyson. They
have concluded that one 50 MW solar-power satellite could use microwaves
aimed at a sail to accelerate a probe to .25c in 4 days. The sail would
be much smaller than a solar sail. Deceleration would be accomplished by
shedding concentric outer rings of the sail, which would speed on ahead
and reflect the microwaves backward to brake the probe. No details were
known on probe mass, or how extensive the study was. I would tend to
believe even back-of-the-envelope approximations from Forward and Dyson
to have some validity, though.

Does anyone have any information on this proposal, which they called
Starwisp?

Tim Ebersole ...!ihnp4!mtuxo!tee

------------------------------

Date: 9 Oct 87 18:21:05 GMT
From: hp-pcd!uoregon!omepd!mipos3!cpocd2!howard@hplabs.hp.com  (Howard A. Landman)
Subject: Re: SPACE DRIVE

In article <1368@bute.tcom.stc.co.uk> peter@tcom.stc.co.uk (The Dark Lord) writes:
>The device that the inventor managed to produce overcomes the basic
>problem associated with any form of space drive - that of having to
>expel matter from the craft in order to accelerate it. His drive works
>by converting rotational energy into linear energy.

Without having seen the article, I can't really comment, but here is a
related idea.

Suppose you have particles traveling clockwise around a path with
semicircular ends connected by straight segments:
	 ____
	(____)

Along the upper part of the path, the particles are traveling to the
right, and are accelerated to the right.  Thus they are traveling
(relatively) fast when they are deflected around the half circle at the
right end.  Then, they are decelerated during their trip back through
the lower straight segment, so that they take the left curve at a
relatively lower speed.

Now, we can break up the forces acting on the path into two components:
that due to the curved parts, and that due to the straight parts.  The
curved parts will tend to drive the path to the right, since the
momentum change is greater when the particles move faster.  The straight
parts will push the path to the left, since they are always pushing the
particles to the right (both during acceleration and deceleration).  At
non-relativistic speeds, these forces will exactly cancel.

Now, I haven't done the calculations, but I once heard someone claim
that at relativistic speeds, the forces no longer cancel exactly, and it
is possible to get some net acceleration of the path.  If you embed such
an accelerator (or several) in a spacecraft, voila!

Would anyone care to confirm or deny the claim?  If confirming, be sure
to explain how conservation of energy is satisfied, and what direction
the acceleration takes.

	Howard A. Landman
	...!{oliveb,...}!intelca!mipos3!cpocd2!howard	<- works
	howard%cpocd2%sc.intel.com@RELAY.CS.NET		<- recently flaky

------------------------------

Date: 10 Oct 87 05:27:52 GMT
From: gwyn@smoke.brl.mil  (Doug Gwyn )
Subject: Re: SPACE DRIVE

In article <1625@culdev1.UUCP> drw@culdev1.UUCP (Dale Worley) writes:
-bob@its63b.ed.ac.uk (ERCF08 Bob Gray) writes:
-> The device was powered by a 6 1/2 cc water cooled model aircraft
-> engine running at 16,000 rpm.
-Think of the volume and velocity of the exhaust that mother produced!

Hmm, I wonder if the machine that "converts rotational energy
to linear energy" looks anything like a propellor?

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #14
*******************


Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 14 Oct 87 23:46:43 EDT
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA05676; Wed, 14 Oct 87 20:17:59 PDT
	id AA05676; Wed, 14 Oct 87 20:17:59 PDT
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 87 20:17:59 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8710150317.AA05676@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #15

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 15

Today's Topics:
			   Re: SPACE DRIVE
			   Re: SPACE DRIVE
			   Re: SPACE DRIVE
		       Re: Universe as Hologram
			     SPACE DRIVE
		  SPACE DRIVE in SPACE Digest V8 #13
     Re: Can someone confirm seemingly brilliant Phoenix design?
		   Re: Shuttleparts/Flyback Booster
		   Re: Shuttleparts/Flyback Booster
		   Re: Shuttleparts/Flyback Booster
     Re: Can someone confirm seemingly brilliant Phoenix design?
		   Re: Shuttleparts/Flyback Booster
		   Re: Shuttleparts/Flyback Booster
     Re: Can someone confirm seemingly brilliant Phoenix design?
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 6 Oct 87 20:06:30 GMT
From: cbmvax!snark!eric@rutgers.edu  (Eric S. Raymond)
Subject: Re: SPACE DRIVE

In article <1368@bute.tcom.stc.co.uk>, peter@tcom.stc.co.uk writes:
> -This is done by placing two gyroscopes, one at each end of a solid
> rod. The rod is in turn rotated about its own central axis (like a
> fan) I am not sure about the attitudes of the gyroscopes, but it was
> said that the combined rotational motion of the complete device
> produces a linear pull - again in an unspecified direction.

Uh oh, looks like somebody reinvented the Dean Drive. John Campbell, the
editor of _Analog_ magazine, hyped this one big in the mid-sixties.
There were some promising experimental results, and a guy named Davis
came up with a consistent physical theory to explain them (it introduced
a 'reactance' term into the Newtonian equations of motion that expressed
the idea that you can't get a system's velocity to change in zero time).
But the project was defunded and no one ever picked up the work.

Hoax? Crackpot idea? Genuine breakthrough? I don't think anyone really
knows.  I wish I did.

      Eric S. Raymond
      UUCP:  {{seismo,ihnp4,rutgers}!cbmvax,sdcrdcf!burdvax,vu-vlsi}!snark!eric
      Post:  22 South Warren Avenue, Malvern, PA 19355    Phone: (215)-296-5718

------------------------------

Date: 11 Oct 87 05:55:45 GMT
From: cca!g-rh@husc6.harvard.edu  (Richard Harter)
Subject: Re: SPACE DRIVE

>Uh oh, looks like somebody reinvented the Dean Drive. John Campbell,
>the editor of _Analog_ magazine, hyped this one big in the mid-sixties.
>There were some promising experimental results, and a guy named Davis
>came up with a consistent physical theory to explain them (it
>introduced a 'reactance' term into the Newtonian equations of motion
>that expressed the idea that you can't get a system's velocity to
>change in zero time). But the project was defunded and no one ever
>picked up the work.

Sorry, this isn't quite right.  Davis independently developted a system
of mechanics with a third order term.  His development was not motivated
by the 'Dean drive' and had nothing to do with it.  Indeed, the
purported results of the Dean device were not consistent with Davis
mechanics.

Davis was doing some straightforward theoretical work which was, in
principle, an extension of Newtonian mechanics.  The theory made
testable predictions which were not confirmed in practice.

Dean was a crank inventor who a gismo that appeared to create linear
thrust.  He had a patent, but the patent did not match his gismo, and no
one was ever able to duplicate the gismo.  The claimed results were not
consistent with either classical mechanics or Davis mechanics.  At this
point in time no one knows for sure what the gismo actually did or
whether the experimental results were valid.  [Davis died and the gismo
was never reconstructed.]

The only connection between them was that Campbell hyped both of them,
along with a lot of other interesting odds and ends.

	Richard Harter, SMDS  Inc.

------------------------------

Date: 11 Oct 87 17:19:03 GMT
From: ihnp4!homxb!mtuxo!mtune!codas!usfvax2!pdn!alan@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Alan Lovejoy)
Subject: Re: SPACE DRIVE

In article <6552@brl-smoke.ARPA> gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) <gwyn>) writes:
>Hmm, I wonder if the machine that "converts rotational energy
>to linear energy" looks anything like a propellor?

Naw, it looks like one of man's most important inventions:  the wheel.

Seriously, though, I wouldn't rule out the possibility that someday
someone will find a way to break some local symmetry and convert
rotational energy into linear energy in a way that could be used in a
spaceship drive.  Perhaps we'll eventually learn how to change physical
laws locally/temporarily?

--alan@pdn

------------------------------

Subject: Re: Universe as Hologram
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 87 12:20:21 -0400
From: Fred Baube <fbaube@note.nsf.gov>

  The Village Voice article was fascinating but seemed to accept the
thesis that quantum mechanics contradicts relativity.

  Am.J.Phys. 55(8) Aug 87 has an article, "Bell's Theorem: Does Quantum
Mechanics Contradict Relativity ?".  I wish someone who knows QM would
read it and explain it to me.  It speaks in terms of "relativistic
locality", "predictive completeness", etc. etc.

  Here is their conclusion, to whet the appetite :-) :-) "We have shown
that strong locality, which is the form of locality used to derive
Bell's Theorem and its generalizations, is logically equivalent to the
conjunction of simple locality and predictive completeness of the state
description.  Simple locality is the condition that a spin correlation
measurement must obey in order to satisfy the relativistic prohibition
of superluminal communication.  Quantum mechanics obeys simple locality,
so there is no contradiction between quantum mechanics and special
relativity.  The violation of Bell-type inequalities by quantum
mechanics is due to the failure of predictive completeness...  [T]his
`incompleteness' is, in some sense, a property of nature."

  And y'all thought that the Voice was just some pinko com-symp agitprop
:-) ;-)

------------------------------

Date: 13 Oct 87 17:15:58 GMT
From: decvax!linus!necntc!culdev1!drw@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Dale Worley)
Subject: SPACE DRIVE

g-rh@cca.CCA.COM (Richard Harter) writes:
> Sorry, this isn't quite right.  Davis independently developted a
> system of mechanics with a third order term.  His development was not
> motivated by the 'Dean drive' and had nothing to do with it.  Indeed,
> the purported results of the Dean device were not consistent with
> Davis mechanics.

Davis mechanics is based on the law:

	F = ma + D da/dt

Where D is a constant with the units of time.  If you play around with
this for a while, you discover that any object in orbital motion gains
energy (as measured by the usual formula).  The rate (actually,
logarithmic derivative) at which it gains energy is proportional to D
and to the accelleration the object undergoes.  The best place to apply
this in the nucleus of atoms -- D must be less than something like
10^-30 sec in order that atoms don't explode today.  This, of course,
renders the Davis term unmeasurable in macroscopic physics, which is
where Davis claimed to discover the phenomenon in the first place.

Dale Worley    Cullinet Software      ARPA: culdev1!drw@eddie.mit.edu

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1987  01:33 EDT
From: MINSKY%OZ.AI.MIT.EDU@xx.lcs.mit.edu
Subject: SPACE DRIVE in SPACE Digest V8 #13

Henry Spencer hit the nail on the head, about the bathroom scale.  In
fact, when the article on the Dean Drive was published in Astounding
Science Fiction, the article included a photograph of the thing on a
bathroom scale.  I managed to blow up the picture well enough to
identify it as a Sears Roebuck model and rushed out to buy that very
scale.  It contained a mechanical diode between the platform and
mechanisms and, sure enough, if you stood on it and moved your arm up
and down at about 4 Hz the scale would nicely lose quite a few pounds.

I sent a good natured letter to John Campbell (I got Shannon to sign
it, too).  He wrote back about how establishment scientists were
always trying to suppress discoveries that upset the old beliefs.  I
wrote back pointing out that every real scientist would sacrifice an
arm, leg, or gonad cheerfully to be able to PROVE that all the others
were wrong.  It went on and one, with Ron Hubbard's Dianetics, too,
and a silly machine that work just as well when you replaced the
hardware by a circuit diagram of it.

This was, I think, in the early 1950's.  The quarrel with Campbell
went on for years and I was always sort of mad at him.  But looking
back, ah, those were great times.  The crackpots just don't seem as
inventive now!

------------------------------

Date: 1 Oct 87 16:20:57 GMT
From: linus!utzoo!henry@husc6.harvard.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Can someone confirm seemingly brilliant Phoenix design?

> You could take the approach give by ablative re-entry technology, put
> something on the walls that you don't care about burning off, but this
> would probably not work because the chamber would change shape...

Ablative cooling for rocket engines is routine practice, especially for
small engines and for the throats and nozzles of solid rockets.  I
imagine there are some tricky fine points, but it does work.
-- 
"There's a lot more to do in space   |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
than sending people to Mars." --Bova | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 1 Oct 87 18:55:20 GMT
From: linus!utzoo!henry@husc6.harvard.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Shuttleparts/Flyback Booster

> ... It would seem that if one could build an assembly-line rocket
> engine that could be used in numerous vehicles, this would bring down
> costs...

True.  Note, though, that "numerous vehicles" doesn't necessarily have
to mean "numerous *kinds* of vehicles".  The classic example is the
Soviet "A" booster.  It launched Sputnik 1, it launched Vostok 1, and it
is still the backbone of the Soviet space program today -- for example,
both Soyuz and Progress launches use it.  Over 1000 of them have been
launched.  If you look at the first stage, it has a total of 20
identical engines, four in the core and four in each of four strap-ons.
That is over 20,000 engines, which is volume production by anyone's
standards.  Surprise surprise, it is pretty cheap.
-- 
PS/2: Yesterday's hardware today.    |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
OS/2: Yesterday's software tomorrow. | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 6 Oct 87 19:42:35 GMT
From: nbires!isis!scicom!wats@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Bruce Watson)
Subject: Re: Shuttleparts/Flyback Booster

In article <8687@utzoo.UUCP>, henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) writes:
> > ... It would seem that if one could build an assembly-line rocket
> > engine that could be used in numerous vehicles, this would bring
> > down costs...
> 
> and Progress launches use it.  Over 1000 of them have been launched.
> If you look at the first stage, it has a total of 20 identical
> engines, four in the core and four in each of four strap-ons.  That is
> over 20,000 engines,

And since they land on the Russian Steppe some parts may be reusable.
Certainly the expensive raw materials are.

------------------------------

Date: 7 Oct 87 15:31:53 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!dciem!nrcaer!cognos!geovision!alastair@uunet.uu.net  (Alastair Mayer)
Subject: Re: Shuttleparts/Flyback Booster

In article <8687@utzoo.UUCP> henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) writes:
>[...]  The classic example is the Soviet "A" booster. 
> ...
>you look at the first stage, it has a total of 20 identical engines,
>four in the core and four in each of four strap-ons.  That is over
>20,000 engines,

I hesitate to contradict Henry's usually expert opinion, but what
*looks* like four engines in each of the strap-ons and the core is
actually a *single* engine that happens to have four combustion chambers
and nozzles.  Each set of four combustors is fed fuel from a single set
of pumps, plumbing, etc, and each set of four gimbals (where so mounted)
as a single unit.
  The economics of scale still apply - that's still 20,000 combustion
chambers and nozzles, if only 5000 sets of turbopumps.  (Since the
turbopumps are more complex, that actually makes a lot of sense).

 Alastair JW Mayer     BIX: al
                      UUCP: ...!utzoo!dciem!nrcaer!cognos!geovision!alastair

 "What we really need is a good 5-cent/gram launch vehicle."

------------------------------

Date: 7 Oct 87 15:21:52 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!dciem!nrcaer!cognos!geovision!alastair@uunet.uu.net  (Alastair Mayer)
Subject: Re: Can someone confirm seemingly brilliant Phoenix design?

In article <8684@utzoo.UUCP> henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) writes:
 >> You could take the approach give by ablative re-entry technology,
 >> put something on the walls that you don't care about burning off,
 >> but this would probably not work because the chamber would change
 >> shape...
 >Ablative cooling for rocket engines is routine practice, especially
 >for small engines and for the throats and nozzles of solid rockets.  I
 >imagine there are some tricky fine points, but it does work.

You can also use transpiration cooling - the surface you want to cool is
finely perforated and you pump a fluid through it which boils off -
essentially a self-renewing ablative.  I believe the Space Shuttle Main
Engine uses this method to cool the injector and/or combustion chamber.
Since the SSME runs fuel-rich, they just use LH2 as the coolant.  In the
Phoenix, which varies from oxidizer-rich to fuel-rich, you'd want
something inert (much easier than changing the coolant in mid burn),
maybe liquid argon or neon.  (Liquid helium is expensive and requires
more complex storage, liquid nitrogen is not inert where high
temperature oxygen and hydrogen are concerned.)

 Alastair JW Mayer     BIX: al
                      UUCP: ...!utzoo!dciem!nrcaer!cognos!geovision!alastair

 "What we really need is a good 5-cent/gram launch vehicle."

------------------------------

Date: 11 Oct 87 02:47:32 GMT
From: ihnp4!alberta!mnetor!utzoo!henry@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Shuttleparts/Flyback Booster

> [discussion of the A booster]
> And since they land on the Russian Steppe some parts may be reusable.

There has been speculation, in fact, that the Soviets may be recovering
the strap-on boosters these days.
-- 
"Mir" means "peace", as in           |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
"the war is over; we've won".        | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 11 Oct 87 03:13:42 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Shuttleparts/Flyback Booster

> I hesitate to contradict Henry's usually expert opinion, but what *looks*
> like four engines in each of the strap-ons and the core is actually
> a *single* engine that happens to have four combustion chambers ...

I knew about this, actually, but it's a question of terminology "on which
reasonable men may differ".

There was speculation that this peculiar arrangement was the result of the
Soviets having trouble building big engines, but Energia would appear to
have refuted *that* fairly decisively...
-- 
"Mir" means "peace", as in           |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
"the war is over; we've won".        | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 11 Oct 87 03:09:21 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Can someone confirm seemingly brilliant Phoenix design?

> You can also use transpiration cooling - the surface you want to cool
> is finely perforated and you pump a fluid through it which boils off -
> essentially a self-renewing ablative.  I believe the Space Shuttle
> Main Engine uses this method to cool the injector...

This technique too is fairly old; the V-2 used film cooling (as it is
also called -- if there is a significant distinction I've missed it) for
its engine throat.

> ... In the Phoenix, which varies from oxidizer-rich to fuel-rich,
> you'd want something inert (much easier than changing the coolant in
> mid burn), maybe liquid argon or neon...

I suspect chemical inertness is not a big need, given that the coolant
film on the surface is being renewed constantly.  Bear in mind, for that
matter, that argon and neon are not completely inert.

At least one of the proposals for a new big hydrocarbon engine uses
liquid hydrogen for cooling.  (It does get injected and burned, but the
performance boost from this is relatively modest.)  Cooling with
hydrocarbon fuel at high pressures and temperatures does not work too
well -- the stuff tends to react chemically and form solid goop in the
plumbing.  The F-1 engine largely avoided this problem by not pushing
performance too hard, but of course most everybody is convinced that the
next big engine has to have the ultimate maximum performance possible.
[When will they learn...?]  Liquid hydrogen is a *great* coolant, and
the amounts needed for that don't require the enormous tankage needed to
use it as the primary fuel.
-- 
"Mir" means "peace", as in           |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
"the war is over; we've won".        | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #15
*******************

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	id AA06475; Thu, 15 Oct 87 03:17:02 PDT
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 87 03:17:02 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8710151017.AA06475@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #16

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 16

Today's Topics:
		   Re: Shuttleparts/Flyback Booster
			  Re: Oxygen Supply
		     Orbits, Phobos, Venus, . . .
			 Deflecting asteroids
		   Re: Prospecting for Lunar Oxygen
			  Re: Oxygen Supply
		     Do we need a Space Station?
			Free angular momentum?
		      Re: Free angular momentum?
		  Space Station orbital inclination
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 12 Oct 87 18:09:10 GMT
From: ihnp4!ihlpa!animal@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (D. Starr)
Subject: Re: Shuttleparts/Flyback Booster

In article <197@geovision.UUCP>, alastair@geovision.UUCP (Alastair Mayer) writes:
> In article <8687@utzoo.UUCP> henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) writes:
> >[...]  The classic example is the Soviet "A" booster. 
> > ...
> >you look at the first stage, it has a total of 20 identical engines,
> >four in the core and four in each of four strap-ons.  That is over
> >20,000 engines,
> 
> I hesitate to contradict Henry's usually expert opinion, but what
> *looks* like four engines in each of the strap-ons and the core is
> actually a *single* engine that happens to have four combustion
> chambers and nozzles.  Each set of four combustors is fed fuel from a
> single set of pumps, plumbing, etc, and each set of four gimbals
> (where so mounted) as a single unit.

Almost...the four main thrust chambers aren't gimballed; there are
twelve smaller steering "engines" (fed, I assume, by the one turbopump)
for guidance (two each on the boosters, four in the core).

As I understand it, the Soviet designers chose a "four-cylinder" engine
rather than a big single thrust chamber or four smaller pump/thrust
chamber assemblies because they did not know how to scale up the
combustion chamber and nozzle (they were afraid of turbulence problems),
but they did know how to build a big pump, which had certain
efficiencies.  When you think about it, the assumption of a 1:1
relationship between pumps/thrust chambers/gimbals is a rather limiting
concept...

It will be interesting to see what combination of components Energia
uses...

------------------------------

Date: 1 Oct 87 16:29:46 GMT
From: linus!utzoo!henry@husc6.harvard.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Oxygen Supply

> ... do astronauts carry all their oxygen supply or is the oxygen
> chemically generated?

At the moment, it is all carried along as liquid oxygen.  There is no
point in chemically generating it from some other compound, because that
just means hauling along whatever else is in the compound too.  (If you
can get said compound -- e.g. asteroidal rock -- without hauling it along
from Earth, that's another story.)  As far as I know, there has been no
real attempt at oxygen recycling in space yet.
-- 
"There's a lot more to do in space   |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
than sending people to Mars." --Bova | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 2 Oct 87 06:21:24 GMT
From: ihnp4!alberta!andrew@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Andrew Folkins)
Subject: Orbits, Phobos, Venus, . . .

Many things :

1) I don't read sci.space for almost three weeks, and this silly English
   vs.  metric discussion is still going on.  As I recently heard, only
   three great nations in the world still use the English system of
   measurement : Burma, Brunei and the United States.  :-)

2) I was recently at a lecture at the local Edmonton Space Sciences
   Centre, and was playing with an exhibit modelling a spacecraft in
   orbit.  The object was to try to get the thing into geosynchonous
   orbit.  "Hey", I thought, "this would be a neat thing to program".
   The question : anyone out there have any references for determining
   an orbit given an object's location and velocity vector?  I've done
   this dynamically, but I want to be able to determine such things as
   apogee and perigee altitude & speed, eccentricity, etc.

3) The above mentioned lecture was by Brian O'Leary pushing his book
   "Mars 1999".  He's a former astronaut, so I guess he knows a bit
   about this.  His talk basically described a joint US-USSR mission to
   Mars, consisting of two ships, a "base" on Phobos, teleoperated
   robots to do most of the exploring on the Martian surface along with
   a one-day two-man trip to plant various flags and say that men had
   actually landed.  From this scenario, I get a real impression of a
   one-shot Apollo-type mission, except that Mr. O'Leary stated that a
   water-processing plant would be set up on Phobos, to create hydrogen
   & oxygen for use in the Earth-Moon system.  His justification for
   this was that from a fuel perspective, Phobos is the easiest place to
   get to in the Solar System, and the (probably) abundant volatiles
   there would make it a very valuable place.  I have a couple of
   questions about this : Is Phobos really easier to reach than, say
   near-Earth asteroids?  How well would it stand up against a lunar
   mass driver (as an oxygen source, anyway)?  What effects would the
   nine-month transit time have?  That's by big concern - the travel
   time to get the stuff here may more than offset any fuel savings.

4) Oh, in case no one noticed : last September 29 was the 25th
   anniversay of the launch of Canada's first satellie, Alouette 1.
   Many people don't believe it, but Canada was the third nation to join
   in space exploration.  Now, if could have kept that American flag out
   the shuttle bay, everyone would have though *it* was Canadian, too!
   :-)
 
5) A late-night thought : What kind of space programs would we have if
   Venus was an Earth-type planet?

Andrew Folkins        ...ihnp4!alberta!andrew    
The University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada      

"There's an Earth out tonight,
 Shining big and bright"         -- The John Hall Band

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 5 Oct 87 13:55:54
From: Robert Elton Maas <REM%IMSSS@sail.stanford.edu>
Subject: Deflecting asteroids

<KFL> Date: Fri, 18 Sep 87 22:41:48 EDT
<KFL> From: "Keith F. Lynch" <KFL@ai.ai.mit.edu>

<KFL> It is generally believed that most asteroids are loose aggregates - like
<KFL> piles of rocks rather than like individual rocks.  Of course nobody
<KFL> knows for sure, yet.

We need to find out. <Mr. Rogers joke> Can you say "CRAF"?

If they indeed are fragile, it'll be easy to break them up and then
individually move the pieces to Earth vicinity. Maybe we can just
detonate a bomb in such a way that the center of mass would be in
Earth-crossing orbit, then if it breaks up the centermost parts will be
Earth-crossing and can be harvested immediately while the rest can get
transponders attached to them so we can find them years later (they'll
be too small to track by direct telescopy).

------------------------------

Date: 6 Oct 87 18:13:32 GMT
From: cfa!willner@husc6.harvard.edu  (Steve Willner)
Subject: Re: Prospecting for Lunar Oxygen

About a month ago, I posted a summary of the Ride report from
CANOPUS.  The CANOPUS reporter said that an early phase of the
"Outpost on the Moon" initiative would be "an unmanned search for
ideal landing sites rich in oxygen-bearing ores." 

Robert Elton Maas <REM%IMSSS@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> questioned the need
for such a search, pointing out that all Moon rocks are abundant in 
oxygen.

In fact, the relevant section of the Ride report talks about
prospecting for _volatiles_, saying that their presence would be
extremely important in deciding where to site a base.  Later on, the
report says that one of the first products of the Lunar base will be
oxygen extracted from lunar rock and/or soil.  My guess is that the
CANOPUS reporter, in too much haste, concatenated the two sections
and came up with prospecting for oxygen.  The Ride report itself has
no such idea.  I guess the lesson is the value of what historians
call "primary sources".
-- 
Steve Willner            Phone 617-495-7123          Bitnet: willner@cfa2
60 Garden St.            FTS:      830-7123           UUCP:   willner@cfa
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA                     ARPA: willner@cfa.harvard.edu

------------------------------

Date: 6 Oct 87 20:07:35 GMT
From: ucsdhub!hp-sdd!ncr-sd!crash!gryphon!mhnadel@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu  (Miriam Nadel)
Subject: Re: Oxygen Supply

In article <8686@utzoo.UUCP> henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) writes:
>> ... do astronauts carry all their oxygen supply or is the oxygen
>> chemically generated?
>
>At the moment, it is all carried along as liquid oxygen.  There is no
>point in chemically generating it from some other compound, because
>that just means hauling along whatever else is in the compound too.
>(If you can get said compound -- e.g. asteroidal rock -- without
>hauling it along from Earth, that's another story.)  As far as I know,
>there has been no real attempt at oxygen recycling in space yet.

True, though there has been talk of biologically generating oxygen.
This is an essential part of the CELSS concept (Closed Ecological Life
Support Systems, though some say Controlled and some say Environmental).
The break even point has been estimated at 5 years.  That is, for
missions of more than 5 years it would become more economical to grow
plants to supply food and oxygen and recycle human wastes to supply
plant nutrients, than to carry all the food, water and oxygen you'd need
(water would be produced in the recycling process.)  The 5 year figure
was computed by Boeing, but has also been confirmed by Soviet estimates
(about as independent as we can get!).

To date, there have obviously been no CELSS experiments in space.  NASA
has planned a ground based demonstration for the mid-1990's but what
with funding cuts and some general administrative boondoggles, I
wouldn't hold my breath.  The only Soviet experiment I know of with this
was unsuccessful - they were unable to keep the carbon dioxide
concentration in the air down low enough for the air to be breathable
(this is as of 2 years ago.  Since I'm still on the CELSS mailing list
for papers and workshops and such I think I would have heard of any
successful experiments.)

Miriam Nadel
mhnadel@gryphon.CTS.COM

------------------------------

Date: 1 Oct 87 22:42:00 GMT
From: jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Do we need a Space Station?

Here's a question that's sure to generate some discussion:
	Do we really need a space station?

Now, before you jump all over me, I didn't think this one up.  I'm
trying to sign up for a graduate-level special problems course, and the
professor and I are mulling over possible topics related to manned space
travel.  (The course is independent study.)

I'd like to do something (I don't know what) with life support.  [Any
suggestions on topics would be appreciated.  I'm taking 0.5 Units, or 2
semester hours, of credit in this course.  Please E-mail.]  Since Dr.
Conway has no knowledge of life support, he'd rather I do a project on
something nearer and dearer to his heart.

He mentioned that there was quite a lot of debate in the scientific
community on the actual, scientific (NOT POLITICAL) need for a space
station.  He said that some scientists think that space exploration
could be done better and more efficiently by unmanned vehicles and
platforms.

I'm an advocate of manned space travel in general and the space station
in particular, myself, but for mostly emotional reasons.  I'd be
interested in some discussion on the true, objective need for a manned
space station as opposed to unmanned, free-flying experiments launched
by expendible boosters.

        -- Ken Jenks
jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu
{ihnp4!pur-ee}uiucdcs!uiucdcsp!jenks

------------------------------

Date: 5 Oct 87 15:27:00 GMT
From: jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Free angular momentum?


I just read an old David Brin short story in which an External Tank
Farm-style space station with a tether/gravity gradient system
providing artificial "gravity" puts a current through their tether to
provide an angular momentum change by electomagnetic interaction with
Earth's magnetic field.

That's kinda confusing.  A diagram follows.


                  (======)   an External Tank collection
                     ||
                     ||
              __--   ||      a strong, conducting tether
          <---       ||
 < orbital motion    ||
                  (======)   another External Tank collection







           EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
     EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE    Everybody's favorite planet

		(NOT TO SCALE)



The space station was stabilized by the gravity gradient torque, which
tries to align the axis with the largest moment of inertia with the
orbital radius vector.  This would keep such a station always
perpendicular to the flight path.  (This always makes me chuckle when I
see "artist's renditions" of the Space Station.  Gravity gradient is a
serious force.)

Brin said that by putting a current through the tether, the VxB
(Lorentz's?) force would cause an increase in angular momentum for the
space station, hence a higher orbit.

According to Dr. Lee Sentman, Aero/Astro Engr Professor speciallizing in
environmental effects on satellites here at the Univ. of Illinois, the
use of an electrical field interacting with the Earth's magnetic field
could *not* produce a force on the space station because the Earth's
field is not a dipolar field.

Who is right, Brin or Sentman?

        -- Ken Jenks
jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu
{ihnp4!pur-ee}uiucdcs!uiucdcsp!jenks

------------------------------

Date: 7 Oct 87 01:44:57 GMT
From: tektronix!tekcae!vice!keithl@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Keith Lofstrom)
Subject: Re: Free angular momentum?

In article <74700035@uiucdcsp>, jenks@uiucdcsp.cs.uiuc.edu writes:
> I just read an old David Brin short story in which an External Tank
> . . .
> Who is right, Brin or Sentman?

They both are right, because Brin is not using an electrical field, but
a current.  The current loop is completed with an electron gun at one
end and an ion gun at the other (I forget which, but it DOES matter!).
A vertical current crossed with the Earth's horizontal B (magnetic)
field generates a forwards force, increasing orbital speed and raising
the orbit.

Newton's laws are satisfied, because the added charges shot off the top
charge the region around the top, and these added charges, plus the much
larger number already there, drift slowly downwards to complete the
circuit.  All the charged particles are gently forced backwards as they
drift down through the B field (as are the oppositely charged particles
drifting up).  The net effect is that all the charged particles in a
large area around the station are pushed backwards.  It's more like a
jet engine than a rocket.

Energetically, it's much better to push many particles slowly than a few
particles fast in order to get momentum, as long as you don't have to
carry the particles with you.

-----

My question would be, how long would the tether have to be such that
there would be significant interaction between the charged particles
from the particle guns and the charged particles in the ionosphere?
Without such interaction, you might as well just use an ion engine.

My wild guess would be that the tether would have to be many times the
mean free path at that altitude; at 200 km altitude, the mean free path
is only a few hundred meters, so a 2 km tether should do the job.  At
1000 km altitude, the mean free path is about 2000 km (it gets mighty
thin up there), requiring perhaps a 10000 km tether, which would
probably break from the gravity gradient.

Would anyone who understands charged gasses care to elucidate?

Keith Lofstrom   ...!tektronix!vice!keithl   keithl@vice.TEK.COM
MS 59-316, Tektronix, PO 500, Beaverton OR 97077  (503)-627-4052

------------------------------

Date: 6 Oct 87 19:50:40 GMT
From: nbires!isis!scicom!wats@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Bruce Watson)
Subject: Space Station orbital inclination

My earlier two postings concerning the space station inclination of 28.5
degrees (not 32, sorry) and the world launch sites' latitudes and
longitudes had to do with the truly international aspect of the space
station.  Knowing that nations whose launch sites are at latitudes
closer to the poles than the Cape cannot launch, economically, to the
station, then they must transport their equipment to other launch sites.
This is a disincentive towards contribution to the station.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #16
*******************

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	id AA01537; Fri, 16 Oct 87 03:17:50 PDT
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 87 03:17:50 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8710161017.AA01537@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #17

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 17

Today's Topics:
		     space news from Aug 31 AW&ST
		       Thanks for your support
			Re: propulsion method
		      Re: Free angular momentum?
		   Re: Do we need a Space Station?
		Re: Space Station orbital inclination
		      Re: Free angular momentum?
			    Space Fitness
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 13 Oct 87 23:10:48 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Aug 31 AW&ST

[I'm running out of periodicals to recommend.  Next time I will start on
books, I think, but here's one last periodical.  "Astronomy" is worth
getting.  It is not highly technical; "Sky and Telescope" is where the
real telescope hackers hang out.  "Astronomy" is aimed a bit more at a
general audience and at those who are more interested in the results
than the process.  It runs frequent reports on planetary science and
other space news.  This is the place to go for lots of glossy photos of
everything from planets to star clusters.  Visually appealing and the
words are (by and large) well done too.  Astronomy, 1027 North Seventh
St., Milwaukee, WI 53233 USA.  New-subscriber rate $21 for 12 issues;
outside US add $5.]

China has reservations or preliminary orders from over 10 customers in
the US and elsewhere for scientific piggyback payloads on Long March;
many of these were meant to fly as secondary payloads on the shuttle.

JPL is modifying the wide-field camera from the Hubble telescope to head
off trouble from water outgassing from a composite frame.

USAF will ask for $5-6G for 27 more Titan 4s and competitive development
of a new Atlas-Centaur-class expendable.  Official reason is need for
more expendable capacity as a result of shuttle delays, weight limits,
and the constraints imposed by planetary-mission launch windows.  Of
course, there is also the small matter that the expendables would be run
entirely by the USAF.

[Aha.  The USAF has given Delta a nice new subsidy by buying it for
Navstar (despite it being too small, thus requiring developing a new
version for this "off-the-shelf" buy!).  And the Titan is busy as the
heavy launcher for DoD.  Which booster hasn't got a pork-barrel subsidy
yet?  Why, the Atlas- Centaur!  So, of course, we need a new
Atlas-Centaur-class booster!  Anyone want to bet that an Atlas-Centaur
derivative *won't* win this "competitive" development?]

NASA formally apologizes to Congress for illegal lobbying activity.
Some NASA underlings asked contractors for lobbying help on the space
station, and were stupid enough to do so in writing.  (This sort of
thing happens all the time, but it's usually done over the phone to
avoid leaving a formal record.)  NASA is not supposed to use public
funding for lobbying.

NASA finishes dismantling the last Atlas-Centaur, the one with the
crumpled hydrogen tank.  There are no other usable tanks, and NASA
doesn't want the expense of keeping the facilities and crews operational
for two years for the sake of one last (USAF) payload.  NASA will
probably try to sell the hardware back to General Dynamics and lease the
facilities to them as well.

Space station facing uphill funding battle in Senate.  Proxmire wants to
kill it.  Some other former supporters are no longer considered
reliable, since the alternative may be killing things with larger
constituencies.  Jake Garn will lead the pro-station forces, although
his influence on space matters has declined because of his shuttle
junket.  [Last I heard, Proxmire appears to have lost this battle.]

Morton-Thiokol Castor 4A, the souped-up strap-on for the new Delta
variant, fails during test at Marshall.  Case ruptured.  First launch is
supposed to be about a year away, and there is hope that it may stay on
schedule.

DoD says the Soviet Union may have flown its small spaceplane again last
week.

Full-scale SRB test postponed two days due to minor equipment problems.
[Successful after delays.]

Hercules tests a filament-wound SRB casing to destruction, successfully,
as part of its filament-wound-SRB contract.  [The future of the f-w SRB
is most uncertain, as it is considered riskier than the steel-cased ones
and it no longer has a USAF mission requirement pushing it.]

British Aerospace, Rolls-Royce, and the British government reach
agreement on interim funding of space projects to keep them alive until
a major government program review is complete.

Japan launches second H-1 booster from Tanegashima, carrying engineering
test satellite ETS-5 into transfer orbit.  First use of new Nissan solid
third stage.

Rocketdyne and Pratt&Whitney win contracts to investigate air-breathing
engines for the spaceplane.  (GE loses.)

The current Mir crew will stay up until the end of the year, giving Yuri
Romanenko a new duration record; he passes the current Salyut 7 record
on Oct 1.

[And that's it.  A light news week -- staff on vacation?]

"Mir" means "peace", as in           |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
"the war is over; we've won".        | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 7 Oct 87 19:57:00 GMT
From: jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Thanks for your support

Thanks to all of you who contributed comments on my note about whether
or not we have a scientific need for the space station.  When I have
enough responses (E-mail or otherwise) and enough data from the library,
I'll post two notes: Pro and Con.

If anybody else has anything to contribute to the question, please send
me whatever you feel is appropriate and I'll summarize.

(There's a distinct lack of "Con" messages.  Maybe Prof. Conway is wrong
and we really do need a space station.  I hope so!)

        -- Ken Jenks
jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu

------------------------------

Date: 8 Oct 87 01:19:09 GMT
From: ssc-vax!eder@beaver.cs.washington.edu  (Dani Eder)
Subject: Re: propulsion method

In article <74700035@uiucdcsp>, jenks@uiucdcsp.cs.uiuc.edu writes:
> I just read an old David Brin short story in which an External Tank
> Farm-style space station with a tether/gravity gradient system
> providing artificial "gravity" puts a current through their tether to
> provide an angular momentum change by electomagnetic interaction with
> Earth's magnetic field.
> . . . 

This propulsion concept is referred to as 'electrodynamic'.  The key to
making this concept work is to have a uni-directional current flowing
through an insulated conductor.  The current loop is closed through the
ionosphere.  Now, a current carrying wire in a magnetic field (circa
0.35x10E-4 Tesla for the Earth) experiences a force

F = IL cross B, 

where I is the current in amperes, L is the length in meters, and B is
the field in Tesla.  Then F is in Newtons.  I and B are vectors.  The
resultant force has a magnitude I times L times B, and a direction
perpendicular to I and B.

Now, when you design such a system, you have to have devices at each end
to make electrical contact with the ionosphere, and a power source, such
as a photovoltaic array, to push the current through the wire.  The
primary loss in the system is the I squared R resistance loss in the
wire.  When you optimize for the most thrust per mass, you actually get
a rather short, fat cable, rather than a long thin one.

Dani Eder/Boeing/Advanced Space Transportation

------------------------------

Date: 7 Oct 87 17:09:21 GMT
From: ihnp4!upba!eecae!crlt!russ@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Russ Cage)
Subject: Re: Free angular momentum?

In article <74700035@uiucdcsp>, jenks@uiucdcsp.cs.uiuc.edu writes:
>I just read an old David Brin short story in which an External Tank
> . . .
>Who is right, Brin or Sentman?

[_Tank Farm Dynamo_, is the name of the story]

[The force is actually IxB; the induced voltage is l*VxB]

Both of them are.  Brin states that a *current flow* through the tether
(with the circuit closed via the plasma around the earth) would cause a
force to be exerted on the tether and thus the space station.  This is
second-semester physics.

Sentman is equally correct when he states that *the electrical field*
does not, in itself, create a propulsive force.  However, Sentman is
ignoring the current carried by the tether.  The net effect of that
current is to provide a forward thrust to the tether and a backward
thrust to the near-earth plasma which carries the return current.

Russ Cage, Robust Software Inc.		    ihnp4!itivax![m-net!rsi,crlt!russ]

------------------------------

Date: 9 Oct 87 22:44:51 GMT
From: pitstop!sundc!hqda-ai!cos!smith@sun.com  (Steve Smith)
Subject: Re: Do we need a Space Station?

In article <74700031@uiucdcsp> jenks@uiucdcsp.cs.uiuc.edu writes:
>
>	Do we really need a space station?

Hmm.  The usual justifications for the space station are things like
scientific and industrial research.  There is another use that might be
even more important.

Consider an unmanned launch.  First, during the launch, you've got heavy
g-forces (burn your fuel low in the gravity well so you don't have to
lift it) and some of the all time nasty vibration.  Anything that is
more delicate than an I-beam has to be protected.  When you get to your
basic orbit, you have to separate out the packages on the launch unless
they are all going to the same orbit.  When your package is in its final
orbit, you have to switch from "launch" mode to "deployed" mode.  The
shipping restraints come off the instruments, the solar panels fold out,
whatever.  You run checks from the ground, and, if everything works, you
are off and running.  If not ...

Now consider a heavy-launch vehicle.  It can launch a LOT of small to
medium packages at once, making for a relatively low price per package.
Now, how do you get all those satellites into their proper orbits
without having them running into each other.  It's going to take a lot
of fancy gadgets to keep everything sorted out.

Enter the Space Station.  The heavy-launch vehicle unloads into the
station.  The techs (they will, of course, have appropriately
polysyllabic titles :-) take the circuit boards out of the Styrofoam
shipping containers and plug them into the backplane.  Similarly, they
unpack the solar panels and hang them on the mounting brackets.  They
push the "test" button.  If something doesn't check out, they put it
aside until a replacement gets sent up.  If it is OK (or if spares are
on hand) it gets put on the "bus" that takes it to its proper orbit.
Since it doesn't have to worry about an atmosphere, the "bus" can use
low-acceleration, high efficiency drives, so the satellite doesn't have
to have the "doomsday" protection needed for a direct launch.  Also,
bulk isn't a problem.

The result:  Not only are the launch costs lowered by the heavy-launch
vehicle, but the satellites themselves become much cheaper.  Reliability
increases, both because of the lack of deployment gizmos and because of
the in-orbit checkout.  The "bus" can also bring satellites back to the
station for repair, refills, upgrades, etc.

Eventually, the station could simply stock standard solar panels,
computers, telemetry gear, etc, and build stellites in orbit, with only
specialized instruments needing to be launched specifically for a
special - purpose satellite.  So the main "manufactured in space" items
might turn out to be satellites.

How to reduce costs even further?  Hint: There's lots of silicon, iron,
and oxygen on the Moon ...

 -- Steve
smith@cos.com

------------------------------

Date: 11 Oct 87 02:58:47 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Space Station orbital inclination

> ... Knowing that nations whose launch sites are at latitudes closer to
> the poles than the Cape cannot launch, economically, to the station,
> then they must transport their equipment to other launch sites...

In practice this matters little at the moment, because the only likely
contributors with boosters powerful enough to launch useful payloads to
the station are the US and ESA.  The US uses the Cape, and ESA's site at
Kourou is nearly on the equator and can reach any orbit.  In practice
the US is lukewarm (at best) about anybody but the US launching payloads
to the immediate vicinity of the station, so the point is moot.  The
current plan (subject to change, especially if NASA gets a heavylift
booster) calls for the shuttle to do all the work anyway.

"Mir" means "peace", as in           |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
"the war is over; we've won".        | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 12 Oct 87 23:23:32 GMT
From: telesoft!roger@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu  (Roger Arnold @prodigal)
Subject: Re: Free angular momentum?

> Who is right, Brin or Sentman?

Both, sort of.  There's a lot of confusion on this point, and it shows
up even in some of the technical literature that I've seen.  Brin (and
others) analyze the system in terms of the I x B force (not V x B;
that's the induced electric field) integrated over the length of the
current-carrying tether, ignoring the inevitable current return path.
That makes it look as if the tether is reacting against the earth
directly, through the earth's magnetic field.  That's an illusion.

When you include the return current in the analysis, the net torque
applied to the earth's magnetic field is zero.  So professor Sentman is
right.  But Brin is also right, because the return path is through a
medium that is detached from the space station/tether system--viz.  the
low density ion soup that permeates near-orbit space.  The I x B force
of the return current in that medium results in a net force applied to
the medium that is equal but opposite to the net force on the tether.
So what the current-carrying tether is actually reacting against is the
ion medium of near-orbit space.

There are plenty of professionals--including some who have written
articles about current-carrying tethers--who don't appreciate that last
point.  As a result, their analyses of the system are deficient.  They
don't include anything dealing with the acceleration of the ion medium,
and the resulting space-charge effects.  I presume that competent
analysis has, in fact, been done.  I know that NASA takes the concept of
current-carrying tethers seriously.  I haven't seen any analyses that
impressed me as competent, but then, I haven't really looked.

- Roger Arnold				..sdcsvax!telesoft!roger

------------------------------

Date: 14 OCT 87 14:52-JAN
From: clopez%UCIVMSA.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu
Subject: Space Fitness

Date: Wed, 14 Oct 87 14:14:22 -0700
From: Carlos A. Lopez <clopez@orion.cf.uci.edu>


   Astronaut William Thornton, M.D. recently gave a lecture here on
campus about the "Development of Fitness Equipment for the Space
Shuttle."  Dr. Thornton was selected as an scientist-astronaut in August
1967 and has flown on both Skylab and Spacelab.  He developed the
Shuttle treadmill for inflight exercises and several other on-board
devices.

   His lecture started with a short film showing life in space to
demonstrate how little exertion is needed for movement, and the almost
impractical need for legs.  He contrasted this with the almost
continuous use of the legs and lower back on Earth.  For example, every
time we stand or sit, we are applying a load of 1g to our legs.  Walking
actually applies a load of up to 3g's.  And running can develop loads of
up to 10g's on the legs and lower back.  (It has to do with the body
under acceleration hitting the ground.  He showed a diagram of the leg
as set of levers and how these forces are generated.  Sorry I don't
remember more.)

   He went on to a slide presentation showing results of fitness tests
from the three Skylab missions.  The primary source of exercise at this
time was the cycle.  First test results showed that there was little
loss of efficiency of the cardiovascular system, some loss of strength
in the upper body, and severe loss of strength in the legs and lower
back.  Dr.  Thronton then devised a kind of treadmill that is really a
sheet of teflon that an astronaut in socks walks on.  Of course the
astronaut is held in place by a harness.  This is where the "space
treadmill" was used for the first time.  Later test results showed
significant improvement in lack of muscle atrophy in the legs.  But the
treadmill was awkward and uncomfortable and only developed loads of 1g
(body weight), so he redesigned one for the space shuttle.

   Dr. Thornton explained that his research suggests the key to space
fitness in not the amount of exercise, but the amount of loads applied
during exercise.  He said the cosmonauts do about 2 hours of a variety
of exercises a day, but are still carried off the return craft because
they aren't using sufficient loads during exercise.

   He gave a short description of the space station "gym" currently
under study.  He showed four main pieces of equipment in a "stick"
drawing.  First was what looked like a water ski handle coming down from
the ceiling.  Since it was intended for upper body exercise, I assume it
was a resistance pully with footstops on the floor.  Second was
basically the same device on a wall above two footstops to simulate a
rowing type muscular exercise mainly for variety from the first device.
Third was the cycle for cardiovascular exercise.  Fourth was a newly
designed treadmill for legs and cardiovascular exercise.  This new
treadmill was slimmer than the shuttle one and supposed to provide more
of a load on the user.

   Dr. Thorton finished by saying he believed than man will be able to
go anywhere that his (man) machines can take him.  He does not believe
the problems of space fitness will limit man's ability to explore space.

   If you get a chance to hear Dr. Thorton speak, I highly recommend
going.  His lecture was well prepared and touched upon some real science
research, but he did not tax his audience.  And I could here a distinct
tone of "Boy, I love doing this" in his voice.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Carlos A. Lopez       (clopez@ucivmsa) | Project: Cutting a record to show the
Computer Science Student Extraordinare |          world I can't sing.
University of California at Irvine     | Plan: To be the "Don Johnson" of CS.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #17
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 17 Oct 87 06:19:20 EDT
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA03212; Sat, 17 Oct 87 03:16:31 PDT
	id AA03212; Sat, 17 Oct 87 03:16:31 PDT
Date: Sat, 17 Oct 87 03:16:31 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8710171016.AA03212@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #18

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 18

Today's Topics:
			  Re: Tethered Tanks
		    CELSS and oxygen regeneration
			      Re: Pluto
			     Star Program
			      Re: Pluto
		 Re: Mir Elements, 24 September 1987
			  Astronomy software
		   Re: Orbits, Phobos, Venus, . . .
		      NASA Prediction Bulletins
			   Planetary motion
			Aircraft and lightning
	    Re: Tesla-effect weapons sabotage US launches?
			  Re: SR71 sighting
			  Re: SR71 sighting
			Aircraft and lightning
			  Re: SR71 sighting
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 15 Oct 1987 12:42-EDT 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: Tethered Tanks

Don't remember it being mentioned, but another useful feature of having
two ET's tethered, as in the Brin story, is a bit of gravity. Only the
center of mass is in free fall. An outward force is felt in each tank
('outwards' in the upper, 'inwards' in the lower) that is proportional
to the distance from the C.O.M.

So the beauty of the system is that you get a free low gravity, a stable
orientation and reboost capability using 'dumb' systems that require no
volatiles resupply. There are no critical high tech systems involved
other than the 'guns' and in this day and age these are nearly stone age
technology, at least at the quality required for reboost capabilities.

The Brin story, as I remember hearing from a physicist, is about a group
that homesteads the tanks and lives essentially self-sufficiently: a
modern version of the pioneer farm that uses very little that can't be
fixed, rebuilt or manufactured at the local quilting bee...

The way things SHOULD be done.

------------------------------

Date: 15 Oct 87  8:41 -0600
From: bradley thompson <thompson%arc.cdn%ubc.csnet@relay.cs.net>
Subject: CELSS and oxygen regeneration

In reference to the general comments regarding conrolled ecolocical life
support systems:
 1- the American program has sputtered along for almost 30 years now.
Early 60's work, done mainly under Air Force sponsership, concentrated
on algal regeneration of oxygen and the use of organisms like
Alcaligenes [Hydrogenomonas] sp. for food production and concurrent
carbon dioxide regeneration. The following NASA programs have been sparten
but it appears as if a major gear up is in the works. For more information
talk to Bob MacElroy at NASA-Ames.
 2- our Soviet friends have conducted successful ground based tests
of non-optimized systems using CELSS technology. The longest test that
I am aware of that was sucessful was 6 months. No problems of any great
nature. Their goals appear to be a minimum 2 year system. Mars?
 3- the Japanese are gearing up to establish their own program, as are
the Europians.
 4- Canadian participation is at this point limited to my group. We are
concentrating on microgravity fermentor design.

In general CELSS technology development is limited in the west by our
common problem of lack of routine access to space. I am limited at the
moment to KC135 flights, or worse, drop tower experiments to test
hardware out. Biological system testing obviously is out of the question
using these systems. Hardware testing is bad enough in a KC135. Try
getting good data in 20s of milligravity at a shot while all you can think
about is emptying your guts out

Brad Thompson, Biotechnology Department, Alberta Research Council

------------------------------

Date: 1 Oct 87 20:09:58 GMT
From: linus!utzoo!henry@husc6.harvard.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Pluto

> The question once again has come up here during lunchtime discussion
> as to whether or not Pluto is indeed a planet or a moon of Neptune.
> Can anyone inform me of the latest thinking about this distant rockey
> world?

Pluto's small size and weird orbit have persistently led people to
speculate that it might be an escaped moon of Neptune.  One particularly
interesting idea was that it and Triton had a very near miss, leaving
Triton in its circular retrograde orbit (VERY hard to explain otherwise)
and expelling Pluto completely.  There are some serious difficulties
with the idea, though, notably the fact that Pluto's orbit does not
intersect Neptune's nowadays.  (They look like they intersect on a flat
drawing, but they don't in 3D.)

Possibly the fatal blow to the idea is the existence of Pluto's moon
Charon.  It's difficult to come up with a way to eject Pluto from orbit
around Neptune that is gentle enough not to break up the Pluto-Charon
system.

My understanding is that the idea is not taken very seriously nowadays.
-- 
PS/2: Yesterday's hardware today.    |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
OS/2: Yesterday's software tomorrow. | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date:     Fri, 2 Oct 87 06:07 EST
From: <11SSTEIN%GALLUA.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu>
Subject:  Star Program

    Any of you got a star locator program for the VAX? I would
appericate it if you would send me the file along with instructions. I
really want an astronony program on my VAX but do not know how to form
one. Graphics and printable programs would be the most appreicated.
     See ya.

Scott Steinbrink
11SSTEIN@GALLUA.BITNET

------------------------------

Date: 3 Oct 87 04:51:24 GMT
From: tektronix!zeus!tekla!dant@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Dan Tilque;1893;92-789;LP=A;60RC)
Subject: Re: Pluto


In addition to the Sky & Telescope article mentioned in an earlier 
posting, there is an article in the Sept. 26 Science News about
Pluto.

---
Dan Tilque
dant@tekla.tek.com  or dant@tekla.UUCP

------------------------------

Date: 2 Oct 87 16:14:00 GMT
From: kenny@b.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Re: Mir Elements, 24 September 1987

I just had pointed out to me that the figure I post as the ``mean motion
acceleration'' (and advertised as such in the NORAD element sets) is
actually ONE-HALF the acceleration of the mean motion.  Future postings
will warn about this, for those of you with your own programs.

One of the AMSAT programs takes this into account, as do SPACETRACK and
SGP4.  I've already sent mail about this fact to the author of the other
program.

Also, to the person who inquired via email about the interpretation of
the mean motion (sorry, I've already flushed the message and have lost
your name and address):

The mean motion includes the first-order-secular perturbation of the
mean anomaly (from the second harmonic of the Earth's gravitational
potential).  The semimajor axis must be corrected for this.  Mean motion
also includes some corrections for short-period perturbations.

kBk

------------------------------

Date:     Tue, 6 Oct 87 09:56 EST
From: <11SSTEIN%GALLUA.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu>
Subject:  Astronomy software

I wonder if you know anyone who has an astronomy software/source code
for the VAX/VMS? I would like something to report data on
constellations, where I can find stars and a given time and place. If
you have it, please send me a copy of it and I will appericate it.

Scott A. Steinbrink
"Wizard"

Also, for your information, I found a unnamed star in the constellation
Taurus and I have named it after my girlfriend, Cecilia Ziegler.  It's
offically registered by the United States Government.

------------------------------

Date: 7 Oct 87 02:10:49 GMT
From: ihnp4!homxb!mtuxo!mtune!codas!cpsc6a!rtech!llama!wong@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (J. Wong)
Subject: Re: Orbits, Phobos, Venus, . . .

In article <175@pembina.UUCP> andrew@alberta.UUCP (Andrew Folkins) writes:
>2) ... and was playing with an exhibit modelling a spacecraft in orbit.
>   The object was to try to get the thing into geosynchonous orbit.
>   "Hey", I thought, "this would be a neat thing to program".  The
>   question : anyone out there have any references for determining an
>   orbit given an object's location and velocity vector?  I've done
>   this dynamically, but I want to be able to determine such things as
>   apogee and perigee altitude & speed, eccentricity, etc.
 
When I was a Reed, Prof. Richard Crandall wrote a program that given
initial coordinates and velocity displayed the orbit of an object in a
two-body system supposed to represent the Earth/Moon system.

(As it turned out, it was damn hard to get any stable orbits.  The
satellites would always end up crashing into one of the two bodies.
Perusing the code I discovered that the ratio of the masses of the two
bodies was 1/6 ...  Unfortunately, although that is the ratio of surface
gravity for the Earth/Moon it is not the ratio of their masses.  The
mass ratio is something like .012 (my memory is bad; I may be off by an
order of magnitude.)

So, the model really was of a binary star system with very few stable
orbits.  With the correct mass ratio, getting a stable orbit was much
easier.)
				J. Wong		ucbvax!mtxinu!rtech!wong

------------------------------

Date: 12 Oct 87 22:21:36 GMT
From: tskelso@ngp.utexas.edu  (TS Kelso)
Subject: NASA Prediction Bulletins

For those of you who are interested in satellite tracking, the most
current orbital elements from the NASA Prediction Bulletins are carried
on the Celestial RCP/M, (512) 892-4180, and are updated several times
weekly.  As a service to the amateur satellite community, the most
current of these elements are uploaded weekly to rec.ham-radio.  The
Celestial RCP/M may be accessed 24 hours/day at 300 or 1200 baud using 8
data bits, 1 stop bit, no parity.

TS Kelso                                ARPA: tskelso@ngp.utexas.edu
The Center for Space Research
The University of Texas at Austin       UUCP: {ihnp4,seismo,sally}!ngp!tskelso

------------------------------

Date:     Mon, 12 Oct 87 22:50 CDT
From: <MWF8191%TAMVENUS.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu>
Sender: ota@galileo.s1.gov
Subject:  Planetary motion


I am writing a program that calculates the planet's orbits from the
gravitational field.  Would someone recommend a reference book that has
each planet's orbital radius and velocity at perihelion.  I already have
a reference that has a table of orbital inclination, longitude of
perihelon, mean longitude at epoc, 15.0 Jan. 85.  It also has the
longitude of Node but I don't know what this is.  Thanks in advance.


                                   Mark Fischer
                                   BITNet: mwf8191@tamsigma

------------------------------

Date: 30 Sep 1987 14:56-EDT 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
To: Emanuel.henr@xerox.com, space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: Aircraft and lightning

This is the effect of lightning strikes on metal skinned aircraft.
Sometimes it doesn't even make a hole. Sometimes breakers will trip
also, but it's no big deal (at least according to all the pilots who
landed afterwards!). However, this is an issue that worries the FAA
about certificating composite aircraft. The lack of conductivity could
allow local heating to damage composites by delamination. I've heard
suggestions for including wire meshes, or some other conductive material
in the airframe.

There's someone who posts to SpaceDigest who was involved in the Rutan
Voyager project, maybe he can comment or get info on Rutan's approach to
lightning safety in composite craft.

------------------------------

Date: 30 Sep 87 18:10:40 GMT
From: steinmetz!nyfca1!brspyr1!miket@uunet.uu.net  (Mike Trout)
Subject: Re: Tesla-effect weapons sabotage US launches?

In article <543@uop.UUCP>, robert@uop.UUCP (Townsend Brown) writes:
> ok, so maybe it was lightning...but why such an even hole and not a
> jagged rip??

Lightning damage to airplane skin comes in all shapes, sizes, and
flavors.  It ranges from tiny holes that are barely visible to the naked
eye, to jagged, burned gaping wounds.  Lightning comes in a variety of
stroke frequencies and voltage intensities.  The amount of time the
stroke impacts on the surface, its intensity, and the orientation of the
bolt axis to the plane's line of travel all have major effects on what
type of damage is done.  The most common damage is tiny holes, or
pitting that does not penetrate the skin.  Often these are not even
discovered for some time after they occur.  Jagged rips are
comparatively rare.

> does anyone have an archive of the discussion?

Not me.

Michael Trout (miket@brspyr1)

------------------------------

Date: 30 Sep 87 21:25:48 GMT
From: sdcc6!calmasd!jnp@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu  (John Pantone)
Subject: Re: SR71 sighting

This last August we here in San Diego were treated to a dynamite
air-show at Miramar NAS.  On display (among many others) was an SR-71
(roped off) in all it's glory.

The most wonderful part of this was, though, the day before the show.  A
co-worker and I were leaving work, and heard a much louder-than-usual
jet engine noise.  We looked up, and turning onto what looked to be a
left-hand downwind, at a VERY low altitude was the Blackbird! I almost
jumped out of my skin! That plane - even at low altitude, and low speed
is the damnedest looking airplane I've ever seen.

My Kingdom for another look!

John M. Pantone
          jnp@calmasd.GE.COM

------------------------------

Date: 30 Sep 87 18:33:40 GMT
From: steinmetz!nyfca1!brspyr1!miket@uunet.uu.net  (Mike Trout)
Subject: Re: SR71 sighting

In article <437@nysernic>, weltyc@nysernic (Christopher A. Welty) writes:

> I was on my way to Oregon last Thursday on an American Airlines 707,

Sorry, Christopher, I hate to flame a fellow RPI person (I'm a part-time
student), BUT...

Unless you were in some kind of time warp, you were not in a 707.
American retired its last 707 in (roughly) 1981.  They sold them to the
Air Force, who designated them C-18A.  With certain exceptions, airline
passenger use of the Boeing 707 was banned in the USA effective midnight
December 31, 1983 (noise regulations).  I had the privilege of seeing a
Lufthansa 707 at ORD at 10 pm on that date; it was preparing for its
last US departure.

A quick check of my AA timetable shows the following American Airlines
and American Eagle aircraft serving PDX, EUG, and LMT, in Oregon:

Boeing 727
McDonnell Douglas MD-80
Swearingen Metro

However, my timetable does not reflect the AA/AirCal merger, so
AirKill's Boeing 737s and British Aerospace BAe 146s may be added to the
list.

Michael Trout (miket@brspyr1)

------------------------------

Date: 2 Oct 87 18:41:59 GMT
From: devvax!jplpro!des@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov  (David Smyth)
Subject: Aircraft and lightning

In article <560026600.amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU> Dale.Amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU writes:
>This is the effect of lightning strikes on metal skinned aircraft.
> . . .  The lack of conductivity could
>allow local heating to damage composites by delamination. 

Carbon fiber is a very good conductor.  I sincerly doubt that any
airframe built today or in the future would not contain alot of carbon
fiber.  Therefore, no problem.

------------------------------

Date: 1 Oct 87 20:35:49 GMT
From: tektronix!zeus!tekla!dant@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Dan Tilque;1893;92-789;LP=A;60RC)
Subject: Re: SR71 sighting

Christopher A. Welty writes:
>Just a little anectdote to share....
>
> that's probably as close as I'll ever get [to the SR-71]

Try looking for the SR-71 at military airshows.  Here's my closest
approach to the Blackbird:

Every year in May, Fairchild AFB (near Spokane, WA) has an annual open
house and air show.  I stopped going to these a while back (I used to
live in the Spokane area) but in 1980 they advertised that a SR-71 was
going to be there.  The airshow that year was held on May 18 (some of
you may already be anticipating what happened.)

I decided to go see the Blackbird and was about half way out to the base
(stuck in a lot of traffic, a lot of other people were going out there
too) when the radio announced that the open house was cancelled and said
something about Mount St. Helens errupting (this didn't make sense to
me; Mt. St. Helens is about 200 miles from Spokane).  However, I also
noticed a dark cloud on the horizon to the Southwest; it looked a lot
like a thunder storm (it was a warm and clear spring day).

Anyway, they had to get the SR-71 out of there in a hurry and a lot of
the other planes on exhibit were stuck there for some time.  The Spokane
area was coated with a layer of pulverised rock about 3 cm in depth
(I'll leave to your imagination what that would do to an aircraft
engine).

So I didn't get to see the Blackbird, but who knows, it may show up at
an airshow near you but not if you live anywhere close to an active
volcano.

Dan Tilque
dant@tekla.tek.com  or dant@tekla.UUCP

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #18
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 18 Oct 87 06:18:22 EDT
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA04605; Sun, 18 Oct 87 03:16:44 PDT
	id AA04605; Sun, 18 Oct 87 03:16:44 PDT
Date: Sun, 18 Oct 87 03:16:44 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8710181016.AA04605@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #19

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 19

Today's Topics:
			Aircraft and lightning
			  Re: SR71 sighting
	  Re: Re: Tesla-effect weapons sabotage US launches?
			  Re: SR71 sighting
			  Re: SR71 sighting
			  Re: SR71 sighting
			  Re: SR71 sighting
			  Re: SR71 sighting
			  "microwave plane"
		   USAF Museum (was SR71 sighting)
		   Re: space news from Aug 24 AW&ST
			     Next shuttle
     Re: Let Japan give us below-cost launch until they go broke
	       Re: Offshore corporate launch facilities
     Re: Let Japan give us below-cost launch until they go broke
     Re: Let Japan give us below-cost launch until they go broke
     Not a dumb idea using Soviet launch capability in short term
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 4 Oct 87 05:00:11 GMT
From: super.upenn.edu!eecae!crlt!russ@rutgers.edu  (Russ Cage)
Subject: Aircraft and lightning

Graphite does not conduct as well as aluminum, which already gets holes
burned in it as a result of lightning strikes.  Further, the entire
aircraft is not graphite; the epoxy between cloth layers and Kevlar
cloth are both insulators, and would be heated greatly by current surges
which went through them (Kevlar, which is much tougher than graphite,
will be used on the aft fuselage sections of propfan aircraft so that a
thrown blade will bounce off instead of coming through the skin at sonic
speeds).  If the epoxy in, say, the wing spar box were suddenly heated
to the point where it was plastic as a result of a strike which hit one
wingtip and left the other, catastrophic failure of the spar could
result.  This is not good.  It would be much easier to heat a
high-resistance piece of graphite to epoxy's plastic point than to heat
a piece of low-resistance aluminum to its much higher melting point.

I have seen that Kevlar and graphite cloth with vapor-deposited aluminum
coatings, for lightning protection, are either already available or will
soon be.  *This* will (help) eliminate the problem.

Russ Cage, Robust Software Inc.		    ihnp4!itivax![m-net!rsi,crlt!russ]

------------------------------

Date: 5 Oct 87 18:52:54 GMT
From: trwrb!aero!venera.isi.edu!rod@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Rodney Doyle Van Meter III)
Subject: Re: SR71 sighting


	I hate to make you jealous, but two years ago at an airshow east
of here (I forget the name) they had an SR-71. We couldn't get close to
it because they were preparing to fly it -- and fly it they did! It made
several low passes, one with the landing gear down, nice and slow, and
another with the afterburners roaring. They demonstrated how that bird
could MOVE, too. The pilot really kicked it in gear and was lost in the
distance in a matter of seconds. They also demonstrated its rate of
climb, which was phenomenal. Amazing!

	--Rod

------------------------------

Date: 5 Oct 87 15:18:36 GMT
From: uplherc!esunix!bpendlet@gr.utah.edu  (Bob Pendleton)
Subject: Re: Re: Tesla-effect weapons sabotage US launches?

I have no documented evidence for holes burned in modern aircraft. But,
books I've read on the history of the Zeppelin airships report that
lightning burned several holes through the fabric covering the airships.
This must have been very exciting in hydrogen filled ships.

Note that these ships had a doped fabric covering over an aluminum alloy
frame.  They were not covered with sheet metal like modern airliners.

		Bob Pendleton

Bob Pendleton @ Evans & Sutherland
UUCP Address:  {decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4,allegra}!decwrl!esunix!bpendlet
Alternate:     {ihnp4,seismo}!utah-cs!utah-gr!uplherc!esunix!bpendlet
        I am solely responsible for what I say.

------------------------------

Date: 7 Oct 87 18:24:44 GMT
From: fred!anderson@ames.arpa  (Douglas T. Anderson)
Subject: Re: SR71 sighting

In article <2436@calmasd.GE.COM> jnp@calmasd.GE.COM (John Pantone) writes:
>
>My Kingdom for another look!

Join us at the Reno Air Races next year!  On 9/20 of this year I
attended the Reno Air Races and got some GREAT photos of the Blackbird
at abt 1500 AGL doing a fly-by.

Fortuneately I have an auto winder on my camera and just held the switch
down.. He was there and gone in less then 30 seconds.

For about 5 minutes before his fly-by he was stooging around at about 7k
feet waiting for a race to end (P-51's, P-47's f-8's and a Sea Fury or
two in the air WITH a SR-71, amazing).  He was too far to get a picture
of but he really impressed me with his manuverability.

That plane should be a fighter/bomber (I know there was an interceptor
version) I just looks so sinister!

While the SR-71 was flying by a P-38 was taxing getting ready for its
demo flight.  I have this photo of a SR-71 overflying a F-14 and a P-38
on the ground.

All and all a GREAT race.  (BTW, Tsunami, the first home built unlimited
air-racer crashed on landing after this race.  Seems he had blown his
engine and pranged it a little hard on landing.  The good news is the
pilot walked away.)

Douglas T Anderson

------------------------------

Date: 7 Oct 87 15:12:45 GMT
From: sundc!hadron!klr@seismo.css.gov  (Kurt L. Reisler)
Subject: Re: SR71 sighting

At the Wright Paterson AFB museum in Dayton OH, they have (had?) a SR-71
in on of the back exhibit hangers.  You could get close to it.  You
could even TOUCH it.  Let me tell you that it is a little strange
touching somthing that is that black.

If you are ever within 200 miles of Wright Paterson, an extended trip to
the museum is worth it.

------------------------------

Date: 8 Oct 87 15:00:16 GMT
From: ihnp4!ihlpa!ifly2@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Laib)
Subject: Re: SR71 sighting

In article <648@hadron.UUCP>, klr@hadron.UUCP (Kurt L. Reisler) writes:
> At the Wright Paterson AFB museum in Dayton OH, they have (had?) a SR-71
> in on of the back exhibit hangers.  You could get close to it.  You could
> even TOUCH it.  Let me tell you that it is a little strange touching
> somthing that is that black.
> 
> If you are ever within 200 miles of Wright Paterson, an extended trip to
> the museum is worth it.

    Having been there, and having kissed the 71 on the nose, I can
attest that the color is actually deep BLUE.  A specialized coating
with properties of heat dissipation and radar absorption.
Beautifully sinister.

------------------------------

Date: 8 Oct 87 12:59:50 GMT
From: spdcc!m2c!ulowell!cg-atla!weber@husc6.harvard.edu  (Jeff Weber X7026)
Subject: Re: SR71 sighting

FYI---

	NOVA (PBS science program) is advertizing a show on spy aircraft
	for next week.  Aired in Boston (WGBH) Tuesday at 2000 and again
	on Sunday (early pm).

						Jeff

------------------------------

Date: 9 Oct 87 15:56:44 GMT
From: ncr-sd!randall@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu  (Randall Rathbun)
Subject: Re: SR71 sighting

FYI,
     The aircraft at the annex building at Wright-Patterson that looks
like a SR-71 is actually a YF-12A. Have been there twice, yet still get
goose-bumps looking at it. It's huge, and yes, very dark blue-black. The
SR-71 came from the YF-12A. Those GE J-58 Engines are enormous.

------------------------------

Date: 8 Oct 87 16:58:07 GMT
From: ubc-vision!alberta!ers!pma@beaver.cs.washington.edu  (Paul Martin)
Subject: "microwave plane"

I saw in the news the other night that the Canadian "micro wave" plane
is flying. The plane uses battery power to fly to a point where the dish
can begin to beam the power at it. The flight lasted 20 minutes in less
than ideal weather (they considered cancelling the flight due to winds)
and ended when the plane was landed. The actual craft flown was a 1/8
scale prototype of the full size plane.  The commentators mentioned the
potential for these planes to replace communications satallites. The
planes would fly "indefinitley" at an altitude of ~ 70 000 ft. Some of
the advantages:

1) no worries about launch windows
2) lower cost
3) This is the biggy - if something goes wrong with the communications
   system the plane is carrying, you just land it, fix it, and send 'er
   back up again
4) The plane uses no fuel

Seems like a good deal to me

------------------------------

Date: 11 Oct 87 19:18:12 GMT
From: pixar!good@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  ("He who attacks must vanquish. He who defends must merely survive.")
Sender: ota@galileo.s1.gov
Subject: USAF Museum (was SR71 sighting)


In article <648@hadron.UUCP> klr@hadron.UUCP (Kurt L. Reisler) writes:
:At the Wright Paterson AFB museum in Dayton OH, they have (had?) a
:SR-71 in on of the back exhibit hangers.
:
:If you are ever within 200 miles of Wright Paterson, an extended trip
:to the museum is worth it.

Funny you should mention it!  I was just there yesterday.  As has been
mentioned, it is really a YF-12 on display.  It is currently parked
outside the annex next to the B-1A.  Truly an impressive bird, it
doesn't have the bumpy, black radar-absorbtive paint of the SR-71.  I
was able to stand up (sort of) inside the wheel-wells.  There were
fittings, guages and instructions for filling the radar and missile
components with nitrogen.  The insulated drum the tires fit into was
also pretty neat.

I second the notion that a trip to the museum is worth it.  I got a good
eye-full of some of my favorite all-time airplanes (besides the YF-12):
XB-70 Valkyrie, P-61 Black Widow, B-58 Hustler, B-17 Flying Fortress,
and even a nice Me-262.  They also have the one-and-only X-3 Stilleto
(the best-looking dog of an airplane in history: although the research
did prove quite useful it never performed as well as it looked) parked
near an X-15 and a Bell X-1.

I could go on and on.  I suggest you go yourself.  While in Dayton, the
birth place of aviation, check out Carrillon Park and see a replica of
the Wright brothers' bike shop, and some other neat stuff.

		--Craig
		...{ucbvax,sun}!pixar!good

------------------------------

Date: 8 Oct 87 15:30:34 GMT
From: crowl@cs.rochester.edu  (Lawrence Crowl)
Subject: Re: space news from Aug 24 AW&ST

In article <8727@utzoo.UUCP> henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) writes:
)Aviation Leak spent one paragraph discussing Joe Kerwin's medical report on
)the deaths of the Challenger crew; WSN printed the whole thing.

I missed this.  Can anyone post a short summary of what it said?
-- 
  Lawrence Crowl		716-275-9499	University of Rochester
		      crowl@cs.rochester.edu	Computer Science Department
...!{allegra,decvax,rutgers}!rochester!crowl	Rochester, New York,  14627

------------------------------

Date:     Mon, 12 Oct 87 06:25 EST
From: "RON PICARD" <PICARD@gmr.com>
Subject:  Next shuttle

Since we are obviously not mass producing all our shuttle componants,
how hard would it be to tailor the next shuttle?  In particular, what
would be the cost savings, weight reduction and functional capabilities
of making the next shuttle without the Canadarm?  Could we make this our
'heavy lift' orbiter?  Are there any other componants we could do
without on one fourth of the fleet to get the payload capability up?
 
Ron Picard                            | You get what you pay for
General Motors Research Labs          | unless you pay for it with taxes

------------------------------

Date: 30 Sep 87 15:26:08 GMT
From: aimt!breck@uunet.uu.net  (Robert Breckinridge Beatie)
Subject: Re: Let Japan give us below-cost launch until they go broke

First, is there any guarantee that "they will go broke?"  It seems
possible that a government could go on subsidizing launches just enough
to beat our best price as long as it wants.  Second, while they're
making launch after launch they are getting experience.  They are
working out bugs.  They will learn how to operate more cheaply than we
can operate, with or without subsidy.

Hope I'm not too far off base.
-- 
Breck Beatie
uunet!aimt!breck

------------------------------

Date: 30 Sep 87 19:10:31 GMT
From: ulysses!sfmag!sfsup!glg@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (G.Gleason)
Subject: Re: Offshore corporate launch facilities

In article <535@bucket.UUCP> leonard@bucket.UUCP (Leonard Erickson) writes:
<In article <2444@drivax.UUCP> macleod@drivax.UUCP (MacLeod) writes:
<<They have the legislative ability to block US access to Soviet launch
<<facilities, but they cannot stop a Seychelles or Ivory Coast
<<corporation from doing the same.

<As I recall the proposed regulations, they can prevent _US_citizens_
<from having anything to do with a space launch or facility that they
<don't approve of.

<I'm not quite ready to give up me citizenship yet....

I have some questions.  On what basis would they make these regulations?
Are there any constitutional principles that would prevent this type of
regulation?

It seem pretty ridiculous to me for them to be able to make this type of
regulation.  (Of course that doesn't mean they won't).

Gerry Gleason

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 1 Oct 87 09:18:32 pdt
From: Eugene Miya N. <eugene@ames-pioneer.arpa>
Subject: Re: Let Japan give us below-cost launch until they go broke
Newsgroups: sci.space

It depends on your perspective: where you wish to go and how you wish to
go into space versus space at all costs.  Do you want the US Government
to run a trucking Agency?  [If not NASA, and it does not, then who?]
Frankly, I can't see JSA `dumping' launches like chips.  It's much too
resource intensive, and Japan is quite resource poor.  Manned space is
the furtherest thing on their minds.  Unmanned space [unperson'ed space,
<clear throat>] is interesting to them.  That's why their Halley
missions were interesting.  It boils down to how pure a capitalist you
are.

If you are willing to be really pure, and you don't mind
internationalism, then you should not object.  You won't be putting many
people out of work since there is little free enterprise space industry
(the vast majority is non-competitive military).  If you desire to look
over "national" interests, then you had best be prepared to compromise
"free enterprise" and and sink money into what many people (space
critics) regard as a black hole (private space).  I'm not endorsing
either, just pointing out the options.  You had best also consider the
diversity of the space community: communications, sensing,
manufacturing, exploration, and who does each as well as fund each
(since they are all vastly different).

P.S. On SR-71s.  If you want to see them, like walk up to one, visit
Beale AFB on their open house.  They fly them during as well.  Just
another reason to visit California.  There will be an Open House at EAFB
in November and hopefully I would like to see the phase 2 X-29A flying.
There might be an SR-71 fly over there.

P.P.S. I spoke to my Division's PIO.  Ames is really swamped, we have a
tiny PI office, so you are stuck with me, but I have to cut back reading
news.

>From the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:

--eugene miya
  NASA Ames Research Center
  eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA

------------------------------

Date: 1 Oct 87 09:05:17 GMT
From: eagle!sph@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (S.P.Holmes)
Subject: Re: Let Japan give us below-cost launch until they go broke

I see no real obection. You'd be encouraging a larger launch traffic
than normal, and it'd probably be worth it to take the loss in return
for added practical experience. Launch costs are likely to fall with
bulk use.
    In any case, If it increases the traffic into space, some benefits
should result.

Steve.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 5 Oct 87 12:39:04
From: Robert Elton Maas <REM%IMSSS@sail.stanford.edu>
Subject: Not a dumb idea using Soviet launch capability in short term

<KFL> Date: Fri, 18 Sep 87 23:05:19 EDT
<KFL> From: "Keith F. Lynch" <KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
<KFL> Subject: Dumb idea of the month [sic]

<KFL> Just what we need - to depend on the USSR for access to space.
<KFL> Why not turn over all border stations, shipyards, and airlines to
<KFL> them while we are at it?

I was not suggesting we turn anything over to the USSR, merely that we
rent their services until we have enough of our own. If we had no
shipyards of our own, it might be reasonable to contract for use of
neighbor's shipyards if they had surplus capacity they were eager to
sell.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #19
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 19 Oct 87 06:18:59 EDT
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA05938; Mon, 19 Oct 87 03:17:22 PDT
	id AA05938; Mon, 19 Oct 87 03:17:22 PDT
Date: Mon, 19 Oct 87 03:17:22 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8710191017.AA05938@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #20

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 20

Today's Topics:
			 Below-cost launches
	       Re: Offshore corporate launch facilities
	       Re: Offshore corporate launch facilities
	Commercial Space Transportation and US Competitiveness
			 Re: Space resources
		       Re: Meeting announcement
			 Re: Space resources
		       Proxmire effort fails...
   Reply from Alan Cranston, including NASA info, re Mars Observer
			  Museum Spacecraft
			Re: Museum Spacecraft
			Re: Museum Spacecraft
			   Golden oldies...
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 6 Oct 87 07:50:16 CDT
From: steve@ncsc.arpa (Mahan)
Subject: Below-cost launches

Robert Elton Maas (v8.5) writes:
  
 > . . . We can stop our own subsidy, but we can't stop Japan or ESA, so
 > what do we do about the problem? I suggest draining them dry. . . .
  
     This is a classic example of monopolistic business practices; i.e.
run your business at a loss and undercut all competitors until they lose
enough business to become unprofitable and drop out of the marketplace.
After all competitors are gone from the marketplace you have a monopoly
and may then set prices to suit yourself.  Because of the long lead
times and high expenditures necessary to develop boosters and launch
facilities it would take a very large incentive in the way of cost
savings for another entity to enter the marketplace (not to mention the
historical spectre of the way former competitors were treated).

      We can only speculate about the intentions of other governments
and agencies (and this is only speculation).  However, please note that
(1) the abovementioned approach to competition requires massive
    financial resources
(2) which nations today enjoy the most favorable balance of payments.

				-steve

------------------------------

Date: 7 Oct 87 04:12:27 GMT
From: tektronix!reed!psu-cs!qiclab!leonard@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Offshore corporate launch facilities

In article <2132@sfsup.UUCP> glg@/guest4/glgUUCP (xmpj20000-G.Gleason) writes:
<I have some questions.  On what basis would they make these
<regulations?  Are there any constitutional principles that would
<prevent this type of regulation?
<
<It seem pretty rediculous to me for them to be able to make this type
<of regulation.  (Of course that doesn't mean they won't).

As I understand it, we sign a treaty that (among other stupidities)
makes the _US_Goverment_ responsible for anything done by its citizens
or corporations/etc in space. This should be contrasted with the way
airplanes are regulated. The goverment is responsible for registration,
licensing, and certification. If the aircraft owner screws up it's _his_
problem.

Under the treaty, if your satellite malfunctions and hits a Soviet one
the US is responsible. Thus (after much departmental infighting) the
Department of Commerce wound up in charge of regulating all US
non-military & non-government space activities. And there is a clause in
the final regulations (which became law after being published in the
Federal Register), that says something like "any activities not deemed
to be in the national interest may be prohibited".

We all know who will be deciding what constitutes "the national
interest", don't we. 

Leonard Erickson		...!tektronix!reed!percival!bucket!leonard

------------------------------

Date: 8 Oct 87 00:08:52 GMT
From: ssc-vax!eder@beaver.cs.washington.edu  (Dani Eder)
Subject: Re: Offshore corporate launch facilities

> Having shot themselves in the foot long enough to give themselves lead
> poisoning, the bureaucrats are anxious to pee in all available
> punchbowls.  They have the legislative ability to block US access to
> Soviet launch facilities, but they cannot stop a Seychelles or Ivory
> Coast corporation from doing the same.
> 
> It will be consummate irony if US space policy causes a "brain drain"
> from the US and the Eugene Miyas and Dani Eders go elsewhere.

I've always WANTED to go elsewhere...like the Moon, for starters.
Transient pit stops on the surface of the Earth mean about as much as
which streets I use to get to the airport...the real voyage begins after
leaving the Earth.

As an aside, Australia looks like a likely home for ex-patriate launch
companies.

Dani Eder/Boeing/Advanced Space Transportation

------------------------------

Posted-Date: Sat, 17 Oct 87 08:34:12 PDT
To: BBoard@venera.isi.edu, Space@angband.s1.gov
From: Craig Milo Rogers <Rogers@venera.isi.edu>
Subject: Commercial Space Transportation and US Competitiveness
Date: Sat, 17 Oct 87 08:34:12 PDT

	America's space program is in a shambles.  How can we recover in
a rapid, safe, efficient manner?  Can we regain our share of the growing
commercial market in space?  Mr. James C. Bennett, Vice President of the
American Rocket Company, will discuss these themes in a lecture starting
at 8:00 PM in the meeting room of the Glendale Federal Savings and Loan
building, 21821 Devonshire Street (near the corner of Devonshire and
Vassar) in Chatsworth, California (in the San Fernando Valley of LA).

     Commercial development of space resources depends upon frequent,
reliable, low-cost transportation to and from space.  Americans do not
have this capability at present, despite the expenditure of large
amounts of government funds.  Establishment of a private commercial
launch industry, free from bureaucratic slugishness and political
interference, offers the best opportunity for recovery.

     American Rocket Company (AMROC) is a privately funded US company
located in Camarillo, CA.  It is currently developing a family of
Industrial Launch Vehicles for commercial space transportation service.
The recent development progress of the company will be discussed,
including the issues currently being negociated with the United States
Government.

     James. C. Bennett is Vice President, External Relations for AMROC,
and was one of the three founders of the company, along with George A.
Koopman, the President, and Bevi C. McKinney, the Chief Designer.  He
has been involved in private space commercial projects since 1978,
inclusing the Sabre Foundation Earthport Project, Arc Technologies
(later Starstruck, Inc.), and has been with AMROC since its founding in
May 1985.  Mr. Bennett is the author of numerous articles and
professional publications, including most recently "Privitising Space
Transportation", a special report of the Reason Foundation, and is a
member of the AIAA.  He has been active in the L5 Society (now part of
the National Space Society) since 1977.

     This lecture is one of many activities sponsored by the
Organization for the Advancement of Space Industrialization and
Settlement (OASIS).  The organization is a non-profit educational group
which promotes space development.  It is the Los Angeles Chapter of the
National Space Society.

     The public is invited; there is no admission charge.  For more
information about this lecture or other OASIS activities call the OASIS
Message Machine at (213) 374-1381, or contact Craig Rogers
<Rogers@ISI.Edu>.

------------------------------

Date: 30 Sep 87 21:37:57 GMT
From: ghostwheel!milano!mcc-pp!rsb@sally.utexas.edu  (Richard S. Brice)
Subject: Re: Space resources


>Didn't the fuel cells used by Apollo also produce water..

Yes, but I remember a fuel cell failure as the cause of the explosion
which damaged the Apollo Service Module.  The result was no more
power and no more water.

------------------------------

Date: 1 Oct 87 19:29:28 GMT
From: linus!utzoo!henry@husc6.harvard.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Meeting announcement

> Roger Boisjoly headed a group at Morton Thiokol in charge of
> investigating space shuttle joints, including O-rings that failed
> catastrophically on the Challenger.  He was one of the engineers who
> argued against launch...

Temporarily.  When told to change his hat, he changed his opinion too.

Anyone who goes to see this videotape should bear in mind that Boisjoly
was probably in the single best position -- senior engineer in the area
where the danger was -- to make a stink and halt the launch.  He didn't.
-- 
PS/2: Yesterday's hardware today.    |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
OS/2: Yesterday's software tomorrow. | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 1 Oct 87 21:28:06 GMT
From: amdahl!dlb!auspyr!sci!daver@ames.arpa  (Dave Rickel)
Subject: Re: Space resources


I seem to remember something from way back in grade school (would have
been either Gemini or Apollo) about them not being able to drink the water
produced by the fuel cells--some contaminant or another.  I don't know if
they got this fixed or not.


david rickel
decwrl!sci!daver

------------------------------

Date:  4 Oct 1987 19:43-EDT 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Proxmire effort fails...

According to my sources on Capitol Hill, the Proxmire effort to zero the
space station budget has failed. As I understand it, he zeroed it in
committee but the full funding was restored Thursday. The only furthur
hurdle is now on the full HUD and Independant Agencies budget level, re:
Gramm-Rudman.  However, it is to be expected that the fiscal year
funding level will be between ~500 and ~700M, most likely towards the
upper end.

For those of you who helped with cards, letters, phonecalls, mailgrams
or whatever, thanks.

						Dale Amon

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 6 Oct 87 13:47:58
From: Robert Elton Maas <REM%IMSSS@sail.stanford.edu>
Subject: Reply from Alan Cranston, including NASA info, re Mars Observer

Recently I have sent several letters to my elected officials &
representatives re space and arms control. One of them expressed my
desire for the Mars Observer and displeasure that it was being delayed.
(The general idea is to write in favor of the missions I like, and avoid
knocking the competing missions.) A few days ago I received a reply from
Senator Alan Cranston (Calif.), which consisted of a brief original
covering letter plus an enclosed one-page NASA report on MARS OBSERVER
dated April 1987. Launch is being delayed from 1990 to 1992 for the
following reason: (quoted except parts in brockets) <After Challenger
accident> There are a limited number of launch opportunities for
planetary science missions through 1990. In addition to the Mars
Observer, NASA has three other approved planetary missions:
  Magellan <map surface of Venus, sched 1988, now sched 1989>
  Galileo <Jupiter biggie, sched 1986, now sched 1989>
  Ulyssis <joint ESA, study Sun, sched 1986, now sched 1990>

While no work of a major nature had started on the Mars Observer
mission, the <other 3> were well underway or almost complete. Therefore,
it was NASA's decision that the Mars Observer was the only missin on
which money could be saved by slipping the launch date.

<FY 1988 has no funds request for M.O., 1992 launch is program baseline>
(end of partial quote, partial paraphrase)

I.e. there are VERY few planetary-mission slots upcoming, currently all
three of them are already filled, no room for a new start such as M.O.,
it would cost lots of extra money to postpone the other three already
well underway, while it wouldn't cost extra to postpone M.O. (however I
don't see how postponing M.O. can actually save money, unless somehow it
can use cheaper technology not yet ready to use now; postponing M.O.
saves money only by not wasting money mothballing the three other
missions, unless it is ultimately cancelled; pessismistic opinion of
REM).

We sure could use another orbiter or two, plus other launch capability...

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 7 Oct 87 16:21:39 EDT
From: subar%mwcamis@mitre.arpa
Subject: Museum Spacecraft
     
John Woods brought up a good point:
     
> I don't think I'd want to fly in the Apollo capsule that they had on
> display, and I think it would be *real hard* to put it back in working
> order.
     
It turns out that the spacecraft and aircraft in the Air and Space
Museum are not in working order, nor are they meant to be.  Only their
appearance is preserved (and restored, if need be), not their
functionality.  It would take a great deal of money to bring the space
vehicles to their original condition, not to mention the bucks needed to
retrofit them with more recent technologies ( eg computer, control, life
support, etc.)
     
David Subar
subar@mitre.arpa

------------------------------

Date: 7 Oct 87 23:09:44 GMT
From: sag4.ssl.berkeley.edu!marchant@jade.berkeley.edu  (Will Marchant)
Subject: Re: Museum Spacecraft

In article <8710072021.AA02770@mitre.arpa> subar%mwcamis@MITRE.ARPA writes:
> . . .
>It turns out that the spacecraft and aircraft in the Air and Space
>Museum are not in working order, nor are they meant to be. . . .

>David Subar
>subar@mitre.arpa

I just wanted to expand a little on David's reply.

Here is a quote from "The Aircraft Treasures of Silver Hill: The behind
the scenes workshop of the National Air and Space Museum" written by
Walter J Boyne (Chief of Restoration and Preservation.)

	Each aircraft is fully restored in the sense
	that all wiring and hydraulics are hooked up,
	all controls properly connected, and gears,
	flaps, and other parts can be made to operate.
	It would be wasteful to spend time restoring
	such things as radar, radios, and instruments to
	full operating condition, inasmuch as they
	would never be used and some of them operate
	on frequencies no longer in existence. All the
	parts and components of such equipment are
	preserved and reinstalled, however; if it were
	necessary for some legal or scholarly reason to
	make them work, they could be brought to op-
	erational status.

The point is that the NASM would rather have a preserved original piece
in a display aircraft/spacecraft than to have a flight worthy replica.
For example: They leave the old hydraulic lines in 'cause they're the
originals, even though they might not hold pressure. I highly recommend
this book to people interested in learning about the restoration
process. The first 60 pages have a discussion of the restoration
facilities history and the process of restoration. The rest of the book
(about 200 pages) is a discussion of some of Boyne's favorite "classic"
aircraft in the museum.

Sorry this was so long.

------------------------------

Date: 8 Oct 87 12:44:01 GMT
From: amelia!msf@ames.arpa  (Michael S. Fischbein)
Subject: Re: Museum Spacecraft

In article <5350@jade.BERKELEY.EDU> marchant@sag3.ssl.berkeley.edu (Will Marchant) writes:
>Here is a quote from "The Aircraft Treasures of Silver Hill: The behind
>the scenes workshop of the National Air and Space Museum" written by
>Walter J Boyne (Chief of Restoration and Preservation.)
>
>	Each aircraft is fully restored in the sense
>	that all wiring and hydraulics are hooked up,
>	all controls properly connected, and gears,
>	flaps, and other parts can be made to operate.

Last fall sometime (I don't remember exactly when) I was visiting some
friends in the DC area.  We happened to notice that it was the annual
open house weekend for the restoration facilities.  That was an amazing
trip; if you get a chance to take it, do so.  You get to see what they
have in storage waiting to be restored; you see a lot of displays that
they don't have room for at the museum; and best of all, you can see the
stuff they are in the process of restoring and the processes and
priorities they have.

I was particularly interested in some WWII stuff: a few Bakas and the
mid section of either Enola Gay or Bock's Car (I can't remember which).
I was fascinated by all of it.

Michael Fischbein                 msf@prandtl.nas.nasa.gov

------------------------------

Date:  8 Oct 1987 17:05-EDT 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Golden oldies...

I seem to remember that Vanguard I was put in a 300 year orbit, so I
would think it is the oldest satellite orbiting the earth. The earliest
Sputniks were in very low orbits, as was Explorer I.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #20
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 20 Oct 87 06:19:26 EDT
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA08090; Tue, 20 Oct 87 03:17:50 PDT
	id AA08090; Tue, 20 Oct 87 03:17:50 PDT
Date: Tue, 20 Oct 87 03:17:50 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8710201017.AA08090@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #21

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 21

Today's Topics:
			      AMROC Talk
			Re: Museum Spacecraft
			Re: Museum Spacecraft
		Most Successful Space Missions Results
		    Re: NASTRAN Biginners Workshop
		    Re: DAILY NEWS IN BRIEF-10/14
			Re: Museum Spacecraft
		Re: Oldest artificial object in orbit
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Posted-Date: Mon, 19 Oct 87 10:22:50 PDT
To: BBoard@venera.isi.edu, Space@angband.s1.gov
From: Craig Milo Rogers <Rogers@venera.isi.edu>
Reply-To: Rogers@venera.isi.edu
Subject: AMROC Talk
Date: Mon, 19 Oct 87 10:22:50 PDT
Sender: rogers@venera.isi.edu

	America's space program is in a shambles.  How can we recover in
a rapid, safe, efficient manner?  Can we regain our share of the growing
commercial market in space?  Mr. James C. Bennett, Vice President of the
American Rocket Company, will discuss these themes in a lecture on
November 13 starting at 8:00 PM in the meeting room of the Glendale
Federal Savings and Loan building, 21821 Devonshire Street (near the
corner of Devonshire and Vassar) in Chatsworth, California (in the San
Fernando Valley of LA).

     Commercial development of space resources depends upon frequent,
reliable, low-cost transportation to and from space.  Americans do not
have this capability at present, despite the expenditure of large
amounts of government funds.  Establishment of a private commercial
launch industry, free from bureaucratic slugishness and political
interference, offers the best opportunity for recovery.

     American Rocket Company (AMROC) is a privately funded US company
located in Camarillo, CA.  It is currently developing a family of
Industrial Launch Vehicles for commercial space transportation service.
The recent development progress of the company will be discussed,
including the issues currently being negociated with the United States
Government.

     James. C. Bennett is Vice President, External Relations for AMROC,
and was one of the three founders of the company, along with George A.
Koopman, the President, and Bevi C. McKinney, the Chief Designer.  He
has been involved in private space commercial projects since 1978,
inclusing the Sabre Foundation Earthport Project, Arc Technologies
(later Starstruck, Inc.), and has been with AMROC since its founding in
May 1985.  Mr. Bennett is the author of numerous articles and
professional publications, including most recently "Privitising Space
Transportation", a special report of the Reason Foundation, and is a
member of the AIAA.  He has been active in the L5 Society (now part of
the National Space Society) since 1977.

     This lecture is one of many activities sponsored by the
Organization for the Advancement of Space Industrialization and
Settlement (OASIS).  The organization is a non-profit educational group
which promotes space development.  It is the Los Angeles Chapter of the
National Space Society.

     The public is invited; there is no admission charge.  For more
information about this lecture or other OASIS activities call the OASIS
Message Machine at (213) 374-1381, or contact Craig Rogers
<Rogers@ISI.Edu>.

------------------------------

Date: 9 Oct 87 23:24:43 GMT
From: mike@ames.arpa  (Mike Smithwick)
Subject: Re: Museum Spacecraft

>It turns out that the spacecraft and aircraft in the Air and Space
>Museum are not in working order, nor are they meant to be.  Only their
>appearance is preserved (and restored, if need be), not their
>functionality.  It would take a great deal of money to bring the space
>vehicles to their original condition, not to mention the bucks needed
>to retrofit them with more recent technologies ( eg computer, control,
>life support, etc.)

If you're talking about taking a flown Apollo or Gemini and refly it, 
forget it jack. :-), it ain't gonna work. This is because the spacecraft
you see are merely hollow shells of their former selves. After a mission
the module would be considered merely an engineering test unit, to be torn 
apart for studies. The various components would be tested, and if they
perform real well, they might end up in a later spacecraft. Apollo 17 
had so many reused modules that Ron Evans claimed (in jest, I'm sure)
that his Apollo was the first fully reused spacecraft and not the Colombia.

After all of the tests were completed, and if the unit wasn't passed on
for another mission, it would apparently be dumped after the serial
numbers were rubbed off. I know, I have an Apollo VHF radio in my closet
that was apparently flown. With no numbers I can't track down which
mission it is from though.

mike




-- 
				   *** mike (powered by M&Ms) smithwick ***
"ever felt like life was a game, and 
someone gave you the wrong instruction book?"
[discalimer : nope, I don't work for NASA, I take full blame for my ideas]

------------------------------

Date: 9 Oct 87 16:21:32 GMT
From: ulysses!faline!karn@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: Museum Spacecraft

> section of either Enola Gay or Bock's Car (I can't remember which).

Unless it has been recently moved, Bock's Car (the B-29 that dropped Fat
Man on Nagasaki) is in the Air Force museum at Wright-Patterson AFB near
Dayton, Ohio.  Behind it are spare casings for both types of atomic
bombs. (THESE are certainly NOT in working order!)

If you enjoyed the aviation half of the A&S Museum, you'll love the AF
Museum. It is physically *huge* (one of the *inside* exhibits is a B-36)
and the exhibits are well organized in historical progression. There is
some space stuff, but relatively little.  The place is both fascinating
and sobering, especially the section on nuclear weapons. One could
almost envision Major Kong riding down on one...

Phil

------------------------------

Date: 11 Oct 87 16:37:14 GMT
From: crowl@cs.rochester.edu  (Lawrence Crowl)
Sender: ota@galileo.s1.gov
Subject: Most Successful Space Missions Results

Here are the results of the "most successful space missions" survey.  As
was pointed out, my catagories and criteria were pretty loose.
Particularly, success can be interpreted as "got more done" or as
"biggest step".  As a result, I'll just summarize what was said without
identifying a "winner".

Earth Observation (i.e. for science; comsats and spysats are out)

Landsat was the most popular, providing the "best visuals of Earth and
resources that we have".  SPOT was also mentioned.  Also, "the first
weathersat that led to a hurricane evacuation as the most successful in
the sense of establishing remote sensing as something we'd never want to
live without again".

Manned Exploration (e.g. moon landings)

Some mentioned just Apollo.  But, near as I can tell, Apollo is the only
program that fits this catagory, so individual missions must be
compared.  Apollo 11 was the first and biggest step.  Apollo 14 showed
one could play golf on the moon.  Apollo 15 was the "first expedition to
carry the lunar rover.  Touched down in an extremely interesting area
(Hadley Rille) and drove over some highly mountainous terrain."  Apollo
17 got the most done and had the "most extensive explorations of any
Apollo mission and the only one with a geologist on site".

Manned Space Science (i.e. earth orbit)

Most chose Mir (and Salyut) for "establishing a world in which you get
up in the morning knowing that people are living and working in space".
Vostok I (?) was the "first demonstration that people could live and
function in space".  Skylab 4 was also mentioned.

Planetary Flyby

People liked Voyager, but split on which one they liked.  Voyager I
"introduced the satellites of Jupiter and Saturn as worlds, not just
points of light".  He puts Giotto in close second because it provided
the "first pictures of actual physical processes in comet nuclei".
Voyager 2 "performed all functions were, then was successfully
reprogrammed to rendezvous with two additional planets that were not
considered in the original mission profile.  Will eventually become the
fourth man-made object to leave the solar system".  The first Mariner
Mars fly-by proved "it could be done--would we have ever done Voyager if
Mariner had not worked?).  Giotto "was such a tough task)".

Planetary Observation (i.e. in orbit around something other than Earth)

The Viking orbiter was the favorite because of the interesting weather
and because it provided "evidence of water on Mars".  The Mariner 9
"redefined our picture of Mars almost totally".  The Venus radar mapper
was also mentioned.  The Lunar Orbiter was a second choice, "but we
really *knew* a fair amount about the moon before it flew".

Planetary Landing

Viking was most popular, it was "a soft lander on a planet suspected of
harboring life".  Venera I provided "direct proof of greenhouse effect
on Venus".  Also mentioned was a "Soviet lunar lander (forgotten name)
for "return of lunar soil samples to Earth".  Surveyor was chosen "for
being the first and for having to prove that a powered descent/landing
was possible (Viking was able to make some use of the atmosphere for
braking).  Also because we were able to go get some pieces of it (Apollo
12?) to see what spending a few years on the surface of the moon did to
its materials."

Astronomy (e.g. orbiting telescopes)

IRAS was the clear winner.  It provided the "first maps of infrared sky,
discovery of orbiting material around stars, ultra-high luminosity
galaxies, asteroid debris belts, and new comets and asteroids plus maps
and/or measurements of nearly every kind of astronomical object." Skylab
was also mentioned.  "Other candidates include Uhuru, Einstein,
Copernicus, IUE, as well as numerous solar telescopes".

Overall

Many people did not pick an overall winner.  The missions are too
disparate to have good evaluation critera.  However, there were some
nominations.  IRAS because "no other mission contributed so much to so
many different areas".  "Surveyor, because it was a difficult
engineering task, it returned a lot of useful information, and *most of
all* it paved the way for the next step of lunar exploration rather than
fizzling out in government waste and confusion.  When Surveyor 1
acutally landed on the moon and didn't disappear into the dust, I
remember feeling this great confidence that there really would be people
walking on the moon in a few years." Apollo 11 was also mentioned.

Some people mentioned other possible catagories.  I include them here.

Least Successful Manned Mission

"STS-25 blew up w/out ever leaving the atmosphere, killing six
astronauts and the first Teacher in Space candidate.  Grounded the
shuttle for 2 1/2 years and increased the already high deficit in U.S.
launch capability."

Least Successful Planetary Flyby

"The Ranger mission that failed to achieve escape velocity and fell back
to Earth."

Least Successful Planetary Lander

"Mars 3 was a Soviet probe that landed on Mars during a planet-wide dust
storm.  It transmitted twenty seconds of BLANK television picture and
then crashed."

Coping with Problems in Space

The "recovery of Apollo 13 and her crew intact as possibly the greatest
achievement of the space programme, in terms of finding the right
solutions to a series of unexpected problems under immense resource and
time constraints."  Skylab was also mentioned.

Most Important Use of Space

Comsats were mentioned.

  Lawrence Crowl		716-275-9499	University of Rochester
		      crowl@cs.rochester.edu	Computer Science Department
...!{allegra,decvax,rutgers}!rochester!crowl	Rochester, New York,  14627

------------------------------

Date: 10 Oct 87 19:22:20 GMT
From: pbox!romed!cseg!dws@rutgers.edu  (David W. Summers)
Sender: ota@galileo.s1.gov
Subject: Re: NASTRAN Biginners Workshop

Your article about NASTRAN sounds very interesting, but it doesn't give
a CLUE as to what NASTRAN is!  Could you (or someone in the know) tell
me what it is?
                            Thank you very much!
                            - David Summers

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 14 Oct 87 18:17:07 pdt
From: Eugene Miya N. <eugene@PIONEER.ARC.NASA.GOV>
Subject: Re: DAILY NEWS IN BRIEF-10/14
Newsgroups: nasa.telemail.larc

>NEW YORK TIMES, OCT. 14
>
>Opinion-Editorial, "NASA'S PIE IN THE SKY"  By Larry D. Spence  
>
>     Spence, an associate professor in Penn State University's
>science, technology and society program says, 'The 29-year-old
>National Aeronautics and Space Administration refuses to grow
>up.  According to published summaries, a 63-page report by the
>former astronaut Sally K. Ride on long-term goals in space is the
>latest example of NASA's immaturity."
>
>     Spence writes that the report has something "for every space
>bureaucrat, manufacturer, scientist and enthusiast."  He says
>that instead of priorities, the report offers a shopping list
>with prices deleted.
>
>     The article says the report is "wonderfully ambitious for an
>institution that has trouble getting anything off the ground."

This informed comment sounds interesting.  Could some one who gets the
Times send or post the complete letter.

>From the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:

--eugene miya  (immature SOB)  "You can get anything you want at Alice's
				restaurant..."
  NASA Ames Research Center
  eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA
  "You trust the `reply' command with all those different mailers out there?"
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."
  {hplabs,hao,ihnp4,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene

------------------------------

Date: 17 Oct 87 23:20:41 GMT
From: mike@AMES.ARPA  (Mike Smithwick)
Subject: Re: Museum Spacecraft

In article <1278@s.cc.purdue.edu> ain@s.cc.purdue.edu.UUCP (Patrick White) writes:
>Also, does anybody know which Shuttle is on display(?) just off one of
>the runways of Dulles airport in Washington DC?  I saw it as my plane
>took off, and was wondering which shuttle it was.  Thanks.
>
>-- Pat White

That would certainly be the Enterprise (Dum-de-dum, de-de-de-de-Dum).
There are only 2 non-flyable "shuttles", the Enterprise which you saw,
at the A&S Museum annex, and the Pathfinder (OV-100, I think), which is
in Japan, I believe.

By the way, has anyone heard rumors of a possible Smithsonian A&S Museum
West?? In the mid 70s they were seriously looking around at doing one
out here, and now I seem to recall hearing someone mention that they
were considering taking another stab at it.

*** mike (powered by M&Ms) smithwick ***

------------------------------

Date: 18 Oct 87 04:31:34 GMT
From: faline!karn@bellcore.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: Oldest artificial object in orbit

> > Objects left in low lunar orbit usually hit the moon before long.
> Which is why there are only three ascent modules, and not seven.

Not necessarily. Most of the later ascent modules were deliberately
crashed into the moon after use. This was done on Apollos 12, 14, 15 and
17. Due to a mistake by the crew the Apollo 16 LM did not execute its
deorbit burn and it remained in lunar orbit for a year before finally
decaying. Apollos 7 and 8 carried no LM, and the lunar modules on
Apollos 9 and 13 burned up in the earth's atmosphere. The Apollo 10
ascent stage was burned out of lunar orbit into solar orbit after use to
put the ascent engine through a full duration test (it didn't get much
of a workout starting from lunar descent orbit).

This leaves only Apollo 11's ascent stage, but it is very unlikely to
still be there.

Source: "The History of Manned Space Flight" by David Baker,
ISBN 0-517-54377X.

Phil

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #21
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 21 Oct 87 06:17:57 EDT
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA10977; Wed, 21 Oct 87 03:16:34 PDT
	id AA10977; Wed, 21 Oct 87 03:16:34 PDT
Date: Wed, 21 Oct 87 03:16:34 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8710211016.AA10977@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #22

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 22

Today's Topics:
		     space news from Sept 7 AW&ST
		    Re: New Summary of Ride Report
		    Re: New Summary of Ride Report
			Re: Planetary Society
			Re: Planetary Society
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 19 Oct 87 23:39:34 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Sept 7 AW&ST

The Chinese recoverable spacecraft that carried the Matra experiment
also carried Chinese materials-processing experiments.

NASA decides it's time to be brave: *both* CRAF (Comet Rendezvous /
Asteroid Flyby) and AXAF (Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility) are down
as new starts in the FY89 budget request.  Total request is for $13G.
The ball is now in the White House's court.  [Historically, NASA just
does not get two new starts in one year.  Will Reagan put his money
where his mouth is?  Stay tuned.]

First full-scale test of new SRB design successful.  Three more tests
are due before the June shuttle launch: DM-9 (November; fully
representative of the flight configuration) (this one was close but not
quite), QM-6 (Feb), and QM-7 (April, using the new variable-temperature
test stand, set for "summer" for starters).  QM-8 will follow (Sept,
thermostat set for "winter").  More firings may occur in late spring
1988, as "production verification" tests that will not be extensively
instrumented but will be dismantled and inspected afterward.
Tentatively there will be two of these per year from now on.  The
schedule for DM-9, QM-6, and QM-7 is tight for a June launch.

NASA turns down Spacehab Inc.'s request for a flight agreement, tells
the company "try again after we're flying again".  This is the result of
over a year of negotiations!  NASA has also discussed the idea of
cancelling other commercial agreements (e.g. 3M and Space Industries)
due to shuttle overbooking, but has decided that reneging on signed
agreements would be a bad idea.  Spacehab was told that new commercial
payloads would fly in 1995 at the earliest, and that its request for a
systems development agreement (in which payment for the launch would be
deferred on the grounds that the payload is a useful addition to shuttle
capabilities [which it is]) has been rejected.  High-level NASA support
for commercial space activity is weak these days.  A "NASA official in
the commercial space office" comments: "[management] would be happy to
fly astronauts up and down and nothing else.  Payloads are a nuisance
that they don't want to be bothered with."  This may be a mistake in the
long term, given that DoD is pulling its payloads off the shuttle
whenever possible and the payload glut may be a shortage by the mid-90s.
The rejection of Spacehab surprised many.  Spacehab comments: "NASA is
absolutely overwhelmed with getting the shuttle back... People can't
think beyond that."  Spacehab expects to sign up a customer with clout
(possibly DoD), which will force reconsideration of its requests.

NASA commercial space office's request for FY89 funding towards NASA use
of Spacehab and Space Industries facilities has been rejected by
management.  Apparently senior NASA managers feel that if the capability
is useful, NASA should develop it in house.

Morale in NASA in general and the commercial space office in particular
is very low.  NASA is not implementing official government
commercial-space policies, partly because neither NASA nor the White
House is pushing it.

US space station negotiators en route to Italy with a new draft of the
space station agreement with ESA.

Wespace, the Westinghouse subsidiary working on Space Industries'
Industrial Space Facility, will start buying hardware in early 1988 if a
major customer can be found by then.  SII and Wespace are a bit
disappointed at the low level of customer interest.  They are aiming at
DoD and NASA right now, in hopes of keeping the first launch on schedule
(late 1990).

Mir cosmonauts run emergency evacuation drill.

McDonnell Douglas rolls out first new Delta (customer: SDI).

Cosmos 1873 launched into an odd orbit, suggestive of strategic spysat.
Soviets say it is "analogous" to Cosmos 1871, which re-entered after a
few days in a polar orbit.  [It is unusual for the Soviets to comment
like this.]  There is speculation about a possible connection with the
spaceplane program.

USAF awards study contracts for space-based radar system, which might
start launching in 1993.

NASA tentatively signs with Boeing for another shuttle-carrier 747.
Rogers Commission and others have pointed out that a crash of the
existing carrier would essentially ground the shuttle.

House subcommittee orders work on the space-station crew-rescue vehicle
suspended due to runaway cost growth (from $15M next year to $30-45M
next year) before it even starts.  [!!!]

Shuttle engines for STS-26 begin acceptance-test firings.

Japanese engineering-test satellite reaches Clarke orbit.

Aussat will indeed specify delivery in orbit for its next satellites.
British Satellite Broadcasting already specified this in a deal with
Hughes, but BSB is a startup that could be expected to contract things
out, while Aussat is an experienced operator which has done things the
other way in the past.  There is speculation that Intelsat will do the
same next year for its next generation.  Aussat says that the main
reason was that the insurance companies won't quote prices until three
months before launch, which makes long-term planning difficult unless
somebody else (i.e., the satellite supplier) accepts the risk of
promising a firm price earlier.  The satellite business is slow due to
overcapacity and launcher failures, so the suppliers are willing to
consider such schemes.  One of Hughes' unsuccessful competitors on the
BSB deal is now in the position of having to scrap already-built
satellites due to lack of customers.  Hughes will go to the insurance
market for coverage on the BSB satellites, so it is mostly risking
having to pay more than it expects.  McDonnell-Douglas is talking about
providing Delta launch insurance itself, in hopes of selling more Deltas
that way, but details are not set; one complication is that the USAF's
launch-site-use rules seem to require outside insurance coverage.

A particular problem for US suppliers bidding on Aussat is that Aussat
has no objections to using Proton as the launcher, but US companies
probably cannot get export licenses for this.  Given that Proton is
pretty cheap, this might give European satellite builders a considerable
edge.  Hughes says that the US ban on Soviet launchers "could be
disastrous for the US satellite industry".  Aussat also considers Long
March acceptable, a further complication.

Insurance companies say that having satellite builders and launchers
take on some of the risk is reasonable.  Having the customer do it all
is a historical relic of days when the customers had more money than the
builders, they say.

There is still concern about liability coverage for private launches.  A
nasty worst case would be a launch from the Cape going wild and hitting
the Vertical Assembly Building while two shuttle orbiters are inside;
damages could be ten BILLION dollars.  Hitting a populated area is less
likely because the distances are longer, although one concern is the
possibility of toxic gas clouds from an explosion -- this was a problem
with the Titan failure at Vandenberg.

[Clearly, what the US launcher industry needs is a private launch
facility, somewhere out in the boondocks where there are no expensive
neighbors, and preferably outside the US.  This has actually been
obvious from the start -- did anyone really think that the USAF would be
reasonable about the matter?]

Non-US launchers appear to have an advantage on the insurance front as
well as raw cost, since their insurance is usually covered by their
governments and US insurers have no idea how to price insurance on them.

NASA is trying to encourage private participation in the space station.
Unfortunately, NASA has also announced restrictive policies on secondary
shuttle payloads, aimed at reducing the massive backlog of such
payloads.  This will hamper the very companies that might be interested
in the station.

Development of the rocket-boosted shuttle escape system is going slowly.
One problem is that the rockets to be used have been out of production
for years and rockets for testing have had to be obtained from the Royal
Thai Air Force!  They will be replaced as soon as the production line
restarts, and only new rockets would be used on real missions.  Aircraft
tests are to begin early in October, once the cause of a ground
malfunction is sorted out.  Decision on using the system on STS-26
scheduled for March.

NASA is looking at a new escape-system idea: a 21-foot metal pole
extending from the orbiter hatch, to guide crew members clear of the
wing.

[Essay question, for extra marks: Why wasn't this obviously superior
approach even included in the original list of methods, and what are its
chances of being accepted?]

The Naval Weapons Center is helping develop crew survival gear,
including possibly a partial-pressure suit and oxygen system.  NASA
hopes that such equipment might make a Challenger-type accident
survivable.

NASA Space Flight Safety Panel recommends that NASA look at restricting
access to witnesses' testimony after accidents, as DoD does already.
The concern is that fear of lawsuits might alter testimony.  NASA
already has some non-disclosure rules, which are not being enforced.
One difficulty is the Freedom of Information Act.  The Panel made
various other recommendations, including a suggestion that NASA managers
should have tours of duty within safety organizations, to bring systems
expertise into safety offices and export safety awareness.

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 8 Oct 87 22:13:33 GMT
From: k.cc.purdue.edu!l.cc.purdue.edu!cik@j.cc.purdue.edu  (Herman Rubin)
Subject: Re: New Summary of Ride Report

In article <10942@beta.UUCP>, ryg@beta.UUCP (Richard S Grandy) writes:
> Having just finished the Ride Report, two points really struck me:
> 
> 1) A major emphasis of the report was on developing a national
> strategy for the space program rather than just advocating one or more
> specific programs.

>        In today's world, America clearly cannot be the leader in all
>        space endeavors.  But we will be the leader in very few unless
>        we move promptly to develop a strategy to regain and retain
>        leadership in those areas we deem important."  [pg 57]
> 
>   Now if the general public just understood that......

The way to end up in a very bad shape is to have a governmental body, or
even a body composed of good scientists, say that we must concentrate
our resources in this direction.  There is not, there never was, and as
long as we remain human there never will be agreement on how to proceed
in space or in any other endeavor.  What we need is to unleash the
talents of people who believe in the various directions of space
development to put their talents to use, and to raise money from those
sources, governmental or not, which are willing to pay.

I believe that tens of millions of people believe that man belongs in
space, and that support for various activities can be found to support
activities _not_ hamstrung by the government.  I believe that the
evidence shows that, except for such things as the early government
involvement in the Apollo project, that government has only made a mess
of things.  I personally would be willing to contribute to programs with
the goal of having free people living in space being foremost.  Sagan
does not believe in that but would opt for unmanned exploration, and let
the USSR freeze us out of space.  I do not ask him to change his
priorities.  Get the bureaucracy off our backs!

Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907
Phone: (317)494-6054
hrubin@l.cc.purdue.edu (ARPA or UUCP) or hrubin@purccvm.bitnet

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 8 Oct 87 22:25:08 pdt
From: Eugene Miya N. <eugene@PIONEER.ARC.NASA.GOV>
Subject: Re: New Summary of Ride Report
Newsgroups: sci.space

Amazing, since writing to Jon Leech, I've tried phoning the Office of
Exploration (zilch!).

>The way to end up in a very bad shape is to have a governmental body,
>or even a body composed of good scientists, say that we must
>concentrate our resources in this direction.  There is not, there never
>was, and as long as we remain human there never will be agreement on
>how to proceed in space or in any other endeavor.  What we need is to
>unleash the talents of people who believe in the various directions of
>space development to put their talents to use, and to raise money from
>those sources, governmental or not, which are willing to pay.

You have to be extremely careful, hence you MUST concentrate your
resources.  About 8 years ago, I made my first serious trip for JPL to
NASA HQ.  We were discussing the problems of software: you know:
Requirements, Design, Code, Test, Blah blah.  The problem all have to
realize is that latter implementation details affects the choice of
requirements.  Consider, I gave the example: Let's go to Mars, okay,
just starting from scratch, let's suppose we didn't know how we wanted
to get there, but all methods are valid.  So one group builds rockets,
another sees Star Trek (made about 10 years earlier) and says lets build
matter transporters. At this stage, either method is valid, but suppose
you really wanted to get into space and viewed that latter as a waste.
Further suppose I gave more money to those people rather than you.
(Remember, I'm a dumb bureacrat, right?)

>I believe that tens of millions of people believe that man belongs in space,
	Sure.
>and that support for various activities can be found to support activities
>_not_ hamstrung by the government.  I believe that the evidence shows that,
>except for such things as the early government involvement in the Apollo
>project, that government has only made a mess of things.  I personally would
>be willing to contribute to programs with the goal of having free people living
>in space being foremost.  Sagan does not believe in that but would opt for
>unmanned exploration, and let the USSR freeze us out of space.  I do not ask

You are pushing Carl's opinions to an extreme beyond what he believes.
Carl doesn't represent the Agency either.  I can only suggest you sink
more money into private space.  I will oppose hindering efforts by
other bureacrats (excepting DOD, don't want to get involved with them)
if you put more money into private space.

>him to change his priorities.  Get the beaurocracy off our backs!  
	Bureaucracy!  Yes, please get it off my back.
>Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907

>From the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:

--eugene miya
  NASA Ames Research Center
  "Send physical mail, to your representatives..."
   Anti and pro NASA.

------------------------------

Date: 9 Oct 87 06:09:53 GMT
From: phoenix!kpmancus@princeton.edu  (Keith P. Mancus)
Subject: Re: Planetary Society

  I'm really curious about the survey.  I think the people on the net
are wise enough to see the bias and read it carefully.  I would be
interested to see just what the percentages are; how many support the
Moon base, how many support Mars, how many think both are a waste?
  Consequently, I'm asking all you net.readers out there (ESPECIALLY the
ones who never post anything) to send me email with your answers to the
survey questions.  If I get a significant response I'll tabulate the
data and post the results.

  -Keith Mancus <kpmancus@phoenix.princeton.edu>

------------------------------

Date: 8 Oct 87 18:48:40 GMT
From: ssc-vax!eder@beaver.cs.washington.edu  (Dani Eder)
Subject: Re: Planetary Society

Planetary Society Questionaire excerpts:
>    (Whatever its goals, the space station may cost one to two billion
>     dollars a year over the next 30 years--20% of NASA's budget, .5%
>     of the Defense budget.) 

Notice that the estimated cost is included for the space station
question

> 4. Should human exploration of Mars be a goal of U.S. space policy in
>    the next two decades, either alone or in conjunction with other
>    spacefaring nations??

Mars is probably more expensive than any of the other missions, but
no mention of cost.

> 6. Would you want to see increased U.S. government spending for the 
>    Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence?

Again, no mention of cost.

> 7. The Moon may be a place for an eventual scientific base, and even
>    for engineering resources. Setting up a base or mining experiment
>    will cost tens of billions of dollars in the next century.  Should
>    the United States pursue further manned and unmanned scientific
>    research projects on the surface of the Moon?

Cost of lunar mission is included in the question. 

> 8. Planetary scientistshave long been attracted to Saturn's moon,
>    Titan, with an atmosphere filled with complex organic molecules and
>    with a possible surface ocean.  A U.S.-European mission has been
>    proposed to explore Titan in the 1990's, but to do it requires
>    developement of a new U.S. spacecraft--the Mariner Mark II.  Would
>    you like to see the United States establish an unmanned Titan-probe
>    mission as a space research priority in this century?

No mention of cost.

As a working hypothesis that explains the observed data, when a mission
that advances planetary exploration is listed, the cost is not
mentioned.  A mission that expands permanent inhabitation of space has
it's cost mentioned.  This bias in the way the questions are asked
[begin hypothesis] was intended to produce poll results confirming the
pre-existing bias of the planetary society [end hypothesis].

Please don't infer that I am against planetary exploration, I am all for
it.  I want it to be relatively inexpensive to do, though, which is why
I work where I do.

Dani Eder/Boeing/Advanced Space Transportation

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #22
*******************

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Date: Thu, 22 Oct 87 03:17:32 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8710221017.AA13336@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #23

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 23

Today's Topics:
		    Re: New Summary of Ride Report
			     cooperation
			  The View from 1969
			Budgets (DoD vs. NASA)
		   Re: space news from Aug 24 AW&ST
			 Recent Nova (rerun?)
		Re: Recent Nova (espionage technology)
	     Re: Condemnation of Private Sensing Policies
	      Re: Spacedrive, ie: Scotty, beam me up...
		Re: Oldest artificial object in orbit
			       Physics
			   Re: Space Drive
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 8 Oct 87 19:48:15 GMT
From: udel!gatech!emcard!fedeva!csun!psivax!nrcvax!ihm@cs.rochester.edu  (Ian H. Merritt)
Subject: Re: New Summary of Ride Report

>Having just finished the Ride Report, two points really struck me:
>
>1) A major emphasis of the report was on developing a national strategy
>   for the space program rather than just advocating one or more
>   specific programs.
> . . .
>       In today's world, America clearly cannot be the leader in all
>       space endeavors.  But we will be the leader in very few unless we
>       move promptly to develop a strategy to regain and retain leadership 
>       in those areas we deem important."  [pg 57]
>
>  Now if the general public just understood that......

Now if only the general public ever even READ that.  Wouldn't it be nice
if the press would pick up something like the ride report and do a
special news program to expose the public to it and help them to
understand its significance instead of focusing their entire resources
on the scandals between various presidential candidates?

				--i

------------------------------

Date:         Mon, 19 Oct 87 19:36:07 EDT
From: mac <BS0825PM%UKCC.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu>
Subject:      cooperation

It will be impossible for man to explore the heavens without more
cooperation between all those members now involved.  The inefficiency
of the present venture is absurd.  The members of the exchange are
forced to guess at the success and failure of the most active
program in the world - CCCP.  Why are there no Soviet students and
scientists available to take part in this free exchange of thought?
The task at hand is too great and our human and inanimate resources
small.  To reach Mars and beyond there will have to be a unified effort.
Duplicating and triplicating our efforts is absurd.

I fully intend to take part in this quixotic adventure.  After medical
I'm off to study EE, physics, and ......RUSSIAN.

------------------------------

Date:     Monday, 19 October 1987 1950-EST
From: DAVID%PENNDRLS.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu (R. David Murray)
Subject:  The View from 1969

     On a vacation trip I happened into an antique store and noticed a
copy of LIFE, July 15th, 1969 (cover price 50 cents!) with the headline
"What's beyond our flag on the moon?".  Recalling several comments on
what the view had been like "way back then" I thought it would be
interesting to find out first hand what the popular press was saying at
the height of Apollo.  Turns out it's not *quite* the popular press
viewpoint: the text of the article is by Arthur Clarke.  I thought the
net might be interested in a few highlights from the article.

     "When a Saturn V soars spaceward on four thousand tons of thrust,
it signifies more than a triumph of technology.  It opens the next
chapter of Evolution.  No wonder that the drama of a launch engages our
emotions so deeply."

     "Once we have gained a foothold on our single natural satellite --
a world as large as Africa ... we will establish permanent bases there."

     "Yet our Moon's Greatest value may be as a stepping-stone to more
distant worlds.  Here, close to Mother Earth, we will perfect the skills
needed for the conquest of Mars and Mercury, and the many moons that
orbit giant Jupiter, ringed Saturn."

     "If the Moon did not exist, the Apollo program would still be
necessary -- to establish the manned "space stations" of the 1970's."

     "[the need for repairing satellites in orbit] . . . Such reuseable
vehicles (perhaps stubby, winged ships that can land at ordinary
airfields) are already on the drawing boards.  Then will be the DC-3's
of the Early Space Age -- for they will herald the true dawn of
interplanetary commerce."  [Accompanying this is a painting of a space
station made out of what I am fairly sure are meant to be Saturn V
booster stages.  In the background is a shuttle.  It looks only remotely
like the actual shuttle (prettier but less practical).  Ironically, it
bears the number "4" rather than a name.]

     There really isn't much to this piece.  It is printed in large type
and would seem to be more a vehicle for the (rather nice) three page
painting of the major figures in Apollo project.  All of Clarke's words
are as true today as they were in 1969, only the timetables have
changed.  Of course, we now have the problem that the Russians have a
more advanced time table . . . The only date Clarke attempts almost came
true: Skylab went up.  But then it came down.

                                   -- R. David Murray
                                      DRL Computing Facility
                                      University of Pennsylvania

------------------------------

Date: 21 Oct 87 11:50:00 PDT
From: "DSS::BOLD" <bold%dss.decnet@afsc-sd.arpa>
Subject: Budgets (DoD vs. NASA)
To: "space" <space@angband.s1.gov>
Reply-To: "DSS::BOLD" <bold%dss.decnet@afsc-sd.arpa>

I am more than a little "fed-up" with those individuals who constantly
complain about the size of NASA's budget compared with the Defense
Department's.

These people tend to forget three things:
	
	1.  A government dedicated to preserving the liberty of its
citizens must make defense of its nation's borders and interests its
first priority.  (I know there is some doubt about whether our
government fits that description, but that's another story.)

	2.  Adequate defense is more expensive than adequate space
exploration.  (It is also more expensive than adequate education,
another budget some frequently compare to the Defense Department's.)

	3.  Defense, like space, has great potential for "spinoff"
technologies.  Consider computers, which exist only because the military
saw their value for calculating projectile trajectories and code
breaking.  (Here is an example of the "spinoff" helping both space
exploration and education.)

The Planetary Society is not the only group to make this comparison; it
sometimes appeared in the L5 News.  (The Planetary Society Questionnaire
just made me think of it.)  As this comparison does nothing but reveal
the political leanings of the person who makes it, i.e., don't privatize
NASA + envy of some other department's funding level, it's time we
dropped it from our "argument repertoire."

Kevin W. Bold
(BOLD@AFSC-SD.ARPA)

------------------------------

Date: 13 Oct 87 19:43:00 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: space news from Aug 24 AW&ST

> ... feasibility study of mobile
> communications satellite system, possibly using Molniya orbits for good
> coverage at high latitudes.

I suppose I should explain this, since some people have asked about the
term.  Clarke (geostationary) orbit is the preferred one for comsats, but
it has problems for ground stations at high latitudes.  Clarke-orbit
satellites are low on the horizon for such stations, and in fact are below
the horizon for stations near the poles.  This causes various problems.

The Soviet solution to this is to use a different orbit for their Molniya
comsats.  The Molniyas are in highly elliptical orbits at high inclinations,
with apogee over the northern hemisphere.  This means that they spend most
of their time moving quite slowly across the northern sky (and incidentally
spend the low-altitude part of their orbits deep in the southern hemisphere,
away from hostile nations).  This isn't as good as Clarke orbit, since the
Molniyas do move and stations need to track them continuously, but for high
latitudes the results are better.  The Soviets do now make some use of
Clarke-orbit comsats as well, but the Molniyas remain important.  There are
a few other users of such orbits as well; I believe one of the upcoming
amateur-radio satellites will use such an orbit.
-- 
"Mir" means "peace", as in           |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
"the war is over; we've won".        | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: Fri 16 Oct 87 20:32:41-EDT
From: C. P. Yeske <CY13@te.cc.cmu.edu>
Subject: Recent Nova (rerun?)

	I just saw an excellent program on aerial, satellite, and
communication reconnaissance.  It was NOVA, produced on PBS.  They had a
good presentation of the implications of the technology, a good overview
of the hardware used, as well as a brief historical overview.  Topics
touched on included the SR-71 and U-2 spy planes, the Key-Hole and
Reolyte class satellites.

	If you would like a transcript of the program, send 4$ to "NOVA
Box 322, 'Spy Machines', Boston MA 02134."  For film footage for
educational purposes call "800-621-2131."


Curt Yeske
Technical Administrator
Carnegie Mellon Computing Services
CY13@te.cc.cmu.edu

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 19 Oct 87 14:02:50 pdt
From: Eugene Miya N. <eugene@PIONEER.ARC.NASA.GOV>
Subject: Re: Recent Nova (espionage technology)
Newsgroups: sci.space

I've not seen it, but I was told by another person in the know this was
not a good episode.  Let me suggest a better reference: not light
reading but interesting: "The Manual of Remote Sensing."  I can send
publisher and other information on request.  There are others.  I had
too much to do on both of those evenings and will have to catch the
rerun.  There are also some good grad and undergrad programs: U of Mich.,
UC Santa Barbara (which I took), and surprisingly, Pasadena City College
near Caltech has a good photogrammetry program.

>From the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:

--eugene miya
  NASA Ames Research Center
  eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA
  "You trust the `reply' command with all those different mailers out there?"
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."
  {hplabs,hao,ihnp4,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene

------------------------------

Date: 20 Oct 87 07:32:30 GMT
From: imagen!atari!portal!cup.portal.com!Charlie_Alan_Bounds@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Subject: Re: Condemnation of Private Sensing Policies

Just finished re-reading this thread of news (Re:Sensor policies etc).
It has strongly re-inforced my depressing opinion that the main business
of national security in the US is to prevent American citizens from
knowing what their own government is doing.  There is little doubt that
the Russians know everything classified SECRET or lower and most
everything classified TOP SECRET.  But ordinary citizens don't (and
can't find out)!

Stand up for your right to know what your country is up to!

Charlie Bounds                  Charlie@cup.portal.com
                                ...Sun!portal!cup.portal.com!Charlie

------------------------------

Date: 14 Oct 1987 15:48-EDT 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: Spacedrive, ie: Scotty, beam me up...

Bob Gray: Aye, And who betterrr to build and operate a wee space drive
than a Scotsman? I wouldn't feel secure conning a starship with any
other nationality in the engine room.

Hmmm. I might like a German as his assistant, and I'll take a French
chef. (I like Italian chefs too, but the mass of the crew would
increase beyond the capacity of even a reactionless drive)

Let's see, I'd want Japanese communication electronics, American
structural materials, computers and fabrication and how about an
Australian launch site?

If the ship needed an economist to help start a new colony, I wouldn't
allow anyone else on board but an Austrian who studied under Von Mises.

Now somebody get me the ship so we can leave...

			Yours truly, with tongue firmly glued to cheek,
				Captain DM Amon, Starship Black&Decker

------------------------------

Date: 17 Oct 87 16:05:42 GMT
From: oltz@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu  (Michael Oltz)
Subject: Re: Oldest artificial object in orbit

In article <1481@faline.bellcore.com>, karn@faline.bellcore.com (Phil R. Karn) writes:
> > The list shows three Lunar Module Ascent Modules still orbiting
> > and one Lunar Module Descent stage still orbiting.
> ...Lunar orbits are notoriously unstable.
> Objects left in low lunar orbit usually hit the moon before long.
Which is why there are only three ascent modules, and not seven.
-- 
Mike Oltz   oltz@tcgould.tn.cornell.UUCP  (607)255-8312
Cornell Computer Services
215 Computing and Communications Center
Ithaca NY  14853

------------------------------

Date:         Tue, 13 Oct 87 16:13:29 EDT
From: PH520003%BROWNVM.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu
Subject:      Physics

---just got back from eight weeks out at SERI (Solar Energy Research
Institute) and elsewhere.  This is not a permanent net address, but
mail here should get to me for a month or so, anyway.---

(1) "Room Temperature" superconductors.  The latest information I've
heard is that the reports of drops to superconductivity at 200-300
K are probably measurement artifacts having something to do with
the electrical contacts.

(2) Electrons "communicating" with other electrons instantaneously.
This is indeed an old effect, first considered in a "thought
experiment" by Einstein as a way to show that quantum mechanics
was an incomplete theory.  In the simplest form of the experiment,
a system ejects two particles with opposite polarization. (For the sake
of simplicity, let's say this is a positronium "atom" in the ground
state which decays into two photons in opposite directions with opposite
polarization; although just as easily it could be a system ejecting
electrons with opposite spins.)  Measure the polarization of one
photon, either one.  Say it's right polarized.  Now measure the other,
you will discover that, like magic, the polarization is
opposite: somehow the first one measured has somehow "communicated"
what its polarization was so that the other one could switch over to
left polarization before you measure it.
     This is not particularly paradoxical until you add in the fact that
(in the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics) a photon does
not have any polarization at all until it is measured.  It was the
measurement on the *first* photon that caused the second photon to
become left polarized, and the "information" that the first photon
was measured travelled to the second photon instantaneously.
     I can see of no way of encoding useful (to us) information
on this communication.  There's an even chance that the first
photon measured will be right or left, and the "information" passed
is that the other photon is opposite.
     There are other interpretations of quantum mechanics.  All
of them have some feature which is just as peculiar as this.
However, note that the *equations* of QM are straightforward and
(as far as anybody has ever measured) the predictions are correct.
It is only when you try to interpret the equations into common-sense
ideas that they seem to be peculiar.

     (Myself, I tend to go for a "hidden variable" interpretation of
QM, which is what Einstein was suggesting by proposing the EPR
thought experiment in the first place.  I like hidden variable
interpretations because the Schro"dinger formulation of QM is
*explicitly* a hidden variable theory, with the "hidden" variable
encoded in the phase of the wave function.  But I don't think
that hidden variable theories are particularly inconsistant with the
Copenhagen interpretation.)

                    --Geoffrey A. Landis, Brown University

------------------------------

Date: 14 Oct 1987 15:37-EDT 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: Space Drive

Just to keep the fun going, keep in mind that there are known strange
effects involving very long, very massive, rapidly rotating cylinders:
they wrap space time around themselves in such a way that 'orbiting'
the object is equivalent to time travel (forward or backwards depending
on direction relative to the rotation, and limited by the 'length' of
the object in time) because you are following 'time-like' lines through
space time. This has never been verified experimentally, but general
relativity has proven pretty accurate otherwise, so I see know reason
to doubt this any more than black holes and Einstein-Rosen bridges.  So
who knows? Maybe there is some funny business that can occur in smaller
rotating objects.

But I doubt it...

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #23
*******************

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From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8710231503.AA00469@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #24

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 24

Today's Topics:
	    FTL quantum effects (was Holographic Universe)
			   Re: Space Drive
			   Re: SPACE DRIVE
			   Re: SPACE DRIVE
      Electrical Equivalent of Dean Drive Or Crackpottery Lives!
			   Re: Space Drive
			   Re: SPACE DRIVE
			     SPACE DRIVE
		       Re: Universe As Hologram
		      Re: HOTOL engine for sale.
			asteroidal composition
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 14 Oct 87 04:21:02 GMT
From: trex.rutgers.edu!masticol@rutgers.edu  (Stephen P. Masticola)
Subject: FTL quantum effects (was Holographic Universe)

I'm posting the following article for Jayen Vaghani, who works with
Michael Paddon in Australia and has no direct post access to the net.
Thanks for your input, Jayen!

*******************************

Reading about the Aspect experiments in this newsgroup has reminded me
of John Gribbin's book "In Search of Schroedinger's Cat" which is a book
about the history and possible future of quantum mechanics in laymen
terms.

It also talks about the Aspect experiments and makes the same point that
no information can be transmitted this way.

However, later in the book it talks about a research team at Sussex
headed by a guy called Terry Clark. Apparently, in their experiments,
they set up a superconductor ring about 1 cm in diameter which was
"squashed in" at one position. This allowed them to circulating an
electron in the ring in a standing wave pattern. With this standing wave
pattern, it appears that the superconductor ring acts as a single boson
particle with some energy level.  Using electromagnetic fields, they can
manipulate the energy level on one side of the ring and measure the time
taken to respond at the other side.  The book says that there was no
measurable delay in response time on the other side of the ring. That is
the change in energy level seemed to be instantaneous.

The book goes on to say that while this has no use for long-range
communications, it is quite possible that computers could use this type
of communication removing any delay in communication between circuit
components.

The book finishes by mentioning that the team was now looking at
building a "macro-atom" from a 6 metre cylinder. Brian Josephson
(Josephson Injunction device) was mentioned as being part of the team.

Now the book is about 4 years old which is a long time in some research
fields. Does anyone know what has happened to these experiments? Are
they still underway? Have their been anymore results? Maybe this has
already been mentioned before as I have only just started reading
sci.space.

UUCP:	{seismo,ukc,ubc-vision,mcvax}!mulga.oz!jayen
ARPA:	jayen%mulga.oz@seismo.css.gov
CSNET:	jayen%mulga.oz@australia

------------------------------

Date: 9 Oct 87 16:38:27 GMT
From: uplherc!esunix!bpendlet@gr.utah.edu  (Bob Pendleton)
Subject: Re: Space Drive

I've been reading all this about a "new" space drive with a great deal
of pleasure. I spent a lot of time in junior high building these things
with my Erector set. I learned a lot of physics figuring out why they
didn't work. When I first saw the G. Harry Stine article in Astounding (
or was it Analog by then? ) I was truely enlightened.

Then someone comes along and says that the thing is generating an upward
force that can be measured on a balance scale. That shoots my smug self
assurance right in the foot. A spring scale is easy to fool, balance
scales aren't. My first thought was that the guy had his thumb on the
scale ( so to speak ), but I hate to assume someone is dishonest.

So how could it do the impossible? I actually hope it is doing the
impossible. I don't really care if it drives N physicists mad. But,
there is a plausible way for the device to generate lift without
converting angular momentum to linear momentum.

Everything I know about the device is taken from the net. So before I go
on I'm going to describe what I think the thing looks like.  The
description of the machine says it has two gyros ( fly wheels ) spinning
at opposite ends of a rotating bar. Looking something like this


    II           II
    II           II
    II-====|====-II
    II           II
    II           II

if looked at from the side. Imagine that the II things are fly wheels
and the | - are pivot points. As the thing rotates about the central
axis the two fly wheels will try to precess, but will not be allowed to
change their axis of rotation.

In my thirteen year old mind I thought that the precession force had two
components, one trying to push the fly wheel up out of the plain of
rotation, and one trying to push the fly wheel in toward the axis of
rotation. If this were true, then in a machine like this the inward
components of the force would cancel and the upward component would add.
Ta Da! a reactionless space drive. Oh yeah, you have to turn it against
something, so build two counter rotating machines. No problem.  Doesn't
work.

So how could an actual machine generate an actual force? How do you
throw a curve ball, a floater, or a sinker? A rotating cylinder or
sphere moving through the air will generate a force by interacting with
the air. There was a long discussion of this on the net not that long
ago. The fly wheels are cylinders. They are spinning rapidly. The fly
wheels are at the end of a rotating bar, so they are moving around in a
circle. I bet the tests were not performed in a vacuum. I think that
this "space drive" is realy a rather complex propeller.

Sorry for the length of this ramble. Tell me whats wrong with it.

Bob Pendleton @ Evans & Sutherland
UUCP Address:  {decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4,allegra}!decwrl!esunix!bpendlet

------------------------------

Date: 17 Oct 87 19:07:54 GMT
From: phoenix!kpmancus@princeton.edu  (Keith P. Mancus)
Subject: Re: SPACE DRIVE

In article <567@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU> you write:
>>Davis mechanics is based on the law:
>>
>>	F = ma + D da/dt
>>
>>............................................... The best place to
>>apply this in the nucleus of atoms -- D must be less than something
>>like 10^-30 sec in order that atoms don't explode today.  This, of
>>course, renders the Davis term unmeasurable in macroscopic physics,
>>which is where Davis claimed to discover the phenomenon in the first
>>place.
>	An upper bound of 10^-30 would suggest that D=0!

I don't believe in Davis mechanics, but this objection seems wrong to
me.  In the nucleus of an atom, particles behave according to the laws
of quantum mechanics.  Those laws restrict the energy levels of
particles to a very low number of possible states.  Moving up the scale
slightly, to electron orbitals, I know that you cannot add some randomly
determined amount of energy, and you *certainly* can't add energy as a
continuous process.  Since the electron must 'step up' in discrete
stages, it can't slowly acquire more energy, and may thus be immune to
Davis' "Law".  Since Davis claims his "law" exists in the macroworld, I
think it would be more legitimate to make objections based on the
macroworld.  There's no shortage of them!

  -Keith Mancus
   <kpmancus@phoenix.princeton.edu>

------------------------------

Date: 18 Oct 87 10:47:07 GMT
From: nuchat!sugar!peter@uunet.uu.net  (Peter da Silva)
Subject: Re: SPACE DRIVE

In article <1648@culdev1.UUCP>, drw@culdev1.UUCP (Dale Worley) writes:
> Davis mechanics is based on the law:
> 	F = ma + D da/dt
> Where D is a constant with the units of time... any object in orbital
> motion gains energy (as measured by the usual formula)...
> ...apply this in the nucleus of atoms -- D must be less than something
> like 10^-30 sec in order that atoms don't explode today.

Are you sure that this is applicable at the quantum scale? Orbital
motion becomes somewhat of a fuzzy concept down there.

-- Peter da Silva

------------------------------

From: bouldin@ceee-sed.arpa
Sender: ota@galileo.s1.gov
Date: 15 Oct 87 22:38:00 EST
Subject: Electrical Equivalent of Dean Drive Or Crackpottery Lives!
Reply-To: <bouldin@ceee-sed.arpa>


>From: MINSKY%OZ.AI.MIT.EDU@xx.lcs.mit.edu
>This was, I think, in the early 1950's.  The quarrel with Campbell went
>on for years and I was always sort of mad at him.  But looking back,
>ah, those were great times.  The crackpots just don't seem as inventive
>now!

This gets a little far from space news, but there is hope yet for
present-day crackpots. Here at NBS, tests were just completed on a
perpetual motion machine from some "inventor" in Mississippi (Don't
remember his name).  Complicated gadget with coils, voltages, etc. The
bottom line is that it is the electrical equivalent of the mechanical
Dean Drive. Rather than fooling a bathroom scale with mechanical
resonances, this thing fools voltmeters with rapidly varying voltages so
it can appear that you get out more energy than you put in. I guess this
means that crackpots are still much the same as in Dean's days.

------------------------------

Date: 19 Oct 87 16:21:56 GMT
From: clyde!watmath!watdcsu!magore@rutgers.edu  (Mike Gore, Institute Computer Research - ICR)
Subject: Re: Space Drive


Hello Bob,
[ This concerns the issue of how one might fool a balance scale ]

In article <522@esunix.UUCP> bpendlet@esunix.UUCP 
        (Bob Pendleton) '> ' writes:
[...]
>Then someone comes along and says that the thing is generating an
>upward force that can be measured on a balance scale. That shoots my
>smug self assurance right in the foot. A spring scale is easy to fool,
>balance scales aren't. My first thought was that the guy had his thumb
>on the scale ( so to speak ), but I hate to assume someone is
>dishonest.
[...]

Consider:

        Balance 
        Weight                                ^ 
        ==================X===============(O) |   Spin up or spin down
                         pivot      rotating  v   directions of rotation
                                     wheel

So the questions is now what happens _during_ spin up or spin down ? As
far as I can see a force will be acting on the balance arm during that
time. I understand that the spin rate was some 16000 rpm at full speed.

[ Now why do I feel that I am forgetting something obvious ???  Let's
  see ...  it's monday ... :-) ]

			Comments ???
Best Regards,

# Mike Gore

------------------------------

Date: 20 Oct 87 02:22:22 GMT
From: super.upenn.edu!eecae!crlt!russ@rutgers.edu  (Russ Cage)
Subject: Re: SPACE DRIVE

In article <6503@apple.UUCP>, ems@apple.UUCP (Mike Smith) writes:
>In article <1625@culdev1.UUCP>, drw@culdev1.UUCP (Dale Worley) writes:
>> bob@its63b.ed.ac.uk (ERCF08 Bob Gray) writes:
>> > The device was powered by a 6 1/2 cc water cooled model aircraft
>> > engine running at 16,000 rpm.

>> Yow!  Think of the volume and velocity of the exhaust that mother
>> produced!  [...] 1729 cc (almost two liters) of exhaust per second.
>> [...]  That exhaust stream could produce a
>> *lot* of force.

>Umm, isn't 1.7 liters about the same as a medium sized balloon?  Seems
>to me that I have filled one of them in a second or two.  Didn't seem
>like that much 'volume and velocity' to me ...

It wouldn't, because you aren't doing some things that the engine is:

1.)	You're not blowing high-pressure pulses through a small opening;
	this would increase the velocity and thus momentum and force.  A
	steady stream would move more slowly and have less momentum.

2.)	You're not heating your expelled air by combustion; the exhaust
	volume would be several times the 1700 cc/second displacement,
	due to its high temperature.  This increases the energy (and
	velocity, and momentum/force) even further over a cool stream.

It does look like the contribution of the exhaust to the thrust would be
substantial, and the credibility of the results from the experiments
with the device is pretty low.  Dean/whoever found a nice way to turn
glow fuel into thrust in air with even lower efficiency than a
propeller.  Show me one that works in vacuum and I'll stop being so
skeptical.

>E. Michael Smith  ...!sun!apple!ems
-- 
  The above are the official opinions and figures of Robust Software, Inc.
                      Forewarned is half an octopus.
Russ Cage, Robust Software Inc.		    ihnp4!itivax![m-net!rsi,crlt!russ]

------------------------------

Date: 20 Oct 87 15:18:56 GMT
From: culdev1!drw@xn.ll.mit.edu  (Dale Worley)
Subject: SPACE DRIVE

peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) writes:
> In article <1648@culdev1.UUCP>, drw@culdev1.UUCP (Dale Worley) writes:
> > [various argumentation involving effects of 'Davis mechanics' on
> > nucleons]
> Are you sure that this is applicable at the quantum scale? Orbital
> motion becomes somewhat of a fuzzy concept down there.

True.  But things get even more horrible than considering the
applicability of this method.  The essence of q.m. doesn't revolve
around the forces acting, but rather describes a formalism for computing
motions.  Sort of like the fact that one can say "Davis mechanics is
like Newtonian mechanics, just F=ma is changed a bit."; there's a lot
more to Newtonian mechanics than just the acceleration law.

Now, in q.m., the forces are described by a "Hamiltonian operator",
which is constructed (in simple cases) by a known derivation from the
expressions for potential and kinetic energy for a analogous system in
Newtonian mechanics.

The problem is that everywhere throughout q.m. (and Newtonian
mechanics), energy is assumed to have certain properties, most
particularly, being conserved.  This is not true in Davis mechanics,
using the standard definition of kinetic energy.  Thus, to construct a
quantum Davis mechanics will require a new definition of 'kinetic
energy', and will cause changes throughout q.m.  Presumably some of
these changes would cause experimentally observable results.

Dale Worley    Cullinet Software      ARPA: culdev1!drw@eddie.mit.edu

------------------------------

Date: 19 Oct 87 20:03:10 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!dciem!nrcaer!cognos!geovision!alastair@uunet.uu.net  (Alastair Mayer)
Subject: Re: Universe As Hologram

I was reading "In Search of Schrodinger's Cat" recently and came across
a reference to an experiment conducted by a Terry Clark at U of Sussex
around 1983.  It involved a superconducting ring about 5mm diameter with
a very narrow constriction at one point, creating a standing wave around
the ring.
  Apparently this standing wave allowed the whole ring to be treated
(even to act) as a single quantum 'particle'.  A detector set up on one
side of the ring detected changes in quantum states caused by a stimulus
on the other side.  What caught my attention was the remark that the
change in quantum state was _not_ observed to start at the stimulus and
propagate at C around the ring, rather it occurred simultaneously around
the whole ring at once.
  Now, that sounds like FTL to me, but perhaps that was phase velocity?
Does anyone have more knowledge (NOT wild-assed speculation, please)
about this experiment or followups to it?  (The Clark team apparently
had planned a meter-long setup next - did it ever get built?  What
results?)  Has the experiment been repeated?  Etc, etc...

 Alastair JW Mayer

------------------------------

Date: 15 Oct 87 07:25:17 GMT
From: tektronix!zeus!tekla!dant@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Dan Tilque;1893;92-789;LP=A;60RC)
Subject: Re: HOTOL engine for sale.

Bob Gray writes:
>Mr Bond said he would offer his work [on HOTOL] to the Europeans first
>and then to the Americans. The Japanese would be next on his list. He
>is fed up with his work being wasted. He wants to see his machine fly.

Then I suggest that he go straight to the group that's most likely to
give him the most long range support: the Japanese.  Then the Europeans
and lastly the Americans.  Or if he really wants support, the Russians
will probably give him all he wants.

(There should probably be a smiley in there somewhere, but I'm not sure
where.)

Dan Tilque
dant@tekla.tek.com  or dant@tekla.UUCP

------------------------------

Date: 15 Oct 1987 17:32-EDT 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: asteroidal composition

Organic Matter on Asteroid 130 Electra, D P Cruikshank and R H Brown,
Science Magazine, p183-184, 9-Oct-87

"Infrared absorption spectra of a low-albedo water-rich asteroid appear
 to show a weak 3.4 micrometer carbon-hydrogen stretching mode band,
 which suggests the presence of hydrocarbons on asteroid 130 Electra.
 The organic extract from the primitive carbonaceous chondrite Murchison
 meteorite shows similar spectral bands."

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #24
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 24 Oct 87 06:18:46 EDT
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA02057; Sat, 24 Oct 87 03:16:05 PDT
	id AA02057; Sat, 24 Oct 87 03:16:05 PDT
Date: Sat, 24 Oct 87 03:16:05 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8710241016.AA02057@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #25

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 25

Today's Topics:
			   Space's tobacco?
				FALCON
			      Re: CELSS
		  Re: CELSS and oxygen regeneration
		  Re: CELSS and oxygen regeneration
	How big does a space station have to be to rotate it?
		       CLESS: Biosphere project
			 Space Station teams
      Re: How big does a space station have to be to rotate it?
		  Re: CELSS and oxygen regeneration
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Thu, 15 Oct 87 21:12:49 PDT
From: John Sotos <SOTOS@sumex-aim.stanford.edu>
Subject: Space's tobacco?

There has been a lot of pining in the popular space community: "If only
space had a product like the New World had tobacco" (ie, a clear
economic benefit of settling remote territory).

Well, p 110 of the October 12 Aviation Week notes that "a possible key
area of lunar exploitation could be the transport to Earth of Helium-3
in the form of gas or liquid to support fusion power generation.... If
as little as 40,000 lb of He-3 could be transported to Earth and used in
a national array of fusion reactors, it could supply the energy needs of
the US for about a year."  This amount should be carryable in two
Moon-Earth trips, the article states; there are a few more details in
the article as well.

Support your local tokomak, eh?

John

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 21 Oct 87 20:46 EDT
From: "Paul F. Dietz" <DIETZ%sdr.slb.com@relay.cs.net>
Subject: FALCON

Aviation Week (10/19/87) had an article on FALCON (Fission Activated Laser
CONcept). This laser, being investigated at Sandia, uses fission fragments
from a pulsed nuclear reactor to directly excite a gaseous lasing medium.
According to the article, FALCON promises to be more compact than other
space based laser systems, and might generate millions of laser pulses
before requiring refueling.

The article says the system uses U235 as the fissionable material and
hydrogen gas as the lasing medium and coolant. Optical transmission
problems are cited as the most significant technical challenge to the
concept.  The concept has been tested using existing pulsed reactors,
and optical gain and lasing have been demonstrated (it was not said
what power level was achieved, nor what the efficiency was).

If FALCON can produce short pulses energetic enough to kill ICBMs, one
should be able to place it in low lunar orbit and do interactive sampling
of the lunar surface. The laser would focus onto a small spot to vaporize
material. Use optical and mass spectra to determine composition. Another
obvious use is a lunar laser launcher.

At what wavelength would hydrogen lase?

Paul F. Dietz
dietz@sdr.slb.com

------------------------------

Date: 17 Oct 1987 14:49-EDT 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: CELSS

Too my knowledge, the most advanced CELSS work in the world is being
done by a company called Space Biospheres Ventures in Arizona (NOT
under government contract or support. WHOLLY private capital). I was
told by a friend who was a commissioner on the National Commission on
Space that these people are 10 years ahead of NASA.

As a libertarian, I can only snicker and say, of course...

------------------------------

Date: 18 Oct 87 21:55:53 GMT
From: ucsdhub!hp-sdd!ncr-sd!crash!gryphon!mhnadel@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu  (Miriam Nadel)
Subject: Re: CELSS and oxygen regeneration

In article <37*thompson@arc.cdn> thompson@arc.CDN (bradley thompson) writes:
>In reference to the general comments regarding conrolled ecolocical
>life support systems:
> 1- the American program has sputtered along for almost 30 years now.
>Early 60's work, done mainly under Air Force sponsership, concentrated
>on algal regeneration of oxygen and the use of organisms like
>Alcaligenes [Hydrogenomonas] sp. for food production and concurrent
>carbon dioxide regeneration. The following NASA programs have been
>sparten but it appears as if a major gear up is in the works. For more
>information talk to Bob MacElroy at NASA-Ames.

My general impression at the CELSS workshop meetings I've been to (thus
about 2 years out of date) was that there was still a lot of talk about
algal regeneration of oxygen.  A good person to contact about those
aspects of CELSS is Mike Modell at MIT.

As I understand things Bob MacElroy is no longer running the CELSS
program at Ames.  There was some reshuffling a few years ago (say 3 1/2)
though I suppose they might have moved him back there.

As for a major gearup, the talk I heard was always about having a
ground-based demo in the '90s.  But it seems to have stayed mostly at
the talk level.  The only actual experimentation I knew of going on at
Ames was some stuff Steve Schwartzkopf and Mel Averner were doing
involving growing plants under low-g.  It turned out to be a harder
problem than they thought.  Stuff like oak trees did OK, but rice was
disastrous (roots not knowing where to grow or something like that).
Hence, algae were well thought of, despite palatability problems.

> 2- our Soviet friends have conducted successful ground based tests
>of non-optimized systems using CELSS technology. The longest test that
>I am aware of that was sucessful was 6 months. No problems of any great
>nature. Their goals appear to be a minimum 2 year system. Mars?

2 years wouldn't be worth it for a fully closed system.  Aside from
which, the 6 month tests were not remarkably successful; the atmosphere
kept creeping up to around 40% carbon dioxide.  Keeping a reasonable
atmosphere for 5 years (the breakeven point) is beyond their technology,
too.

Miriam Nadel
mhnadel@gryphon.CTS.COM       {philabs, trwrb}!cadovax!gryphon!mhnadel

------------------------------

Date: 19 Oct 87 01:18:20 GMT
From: beckenba@csvax.caltech.edu  (Joe Beckenbach)
Subject: Re: CELSS and oxygen regeneration

(====O====)    [space colonies are great models]

	If I rememeber correctly, OMNI magazine has for the past few
years been reporting irregularly on the New Alchemy Institute, a group
which is supposedly very concerned with the Earth's ecosystem. One of
the OMNI articles from several years back reported their methodology:
take a tub of ecosystem into a debilitated environment and let the
growth spread from the tub to the surrounding area. One spin-off OMNI
reported included a planned twelve-month eight-person closed ecosystem
experiment in the Arizona desert. I wish I had access to my brother's
back issues so I could refer to the three issues I remember specifically
mentioning the New Alchemy Institute- at least one issue has a contact
address in the continental United States for the NAI. The address (which
I have not written to, and is at least two years old) is:
	New Alchemy Institute
	237 Hatchville Road
	East Falmouth, MA 02536

If memeory serves me correctly, the magazine Mother Earth News also
mentioned them in passing in one of their major articles several years
back as well.  I'm sending them a letter right now, asking for various
pieces of information, any general news releases concerning them, and
anything else they want to tell me. If I get an answer, I'll summarize
and post. Any assistance here would be appreciated.
	Now if they had ecosystem simulations and mathematical models as
well, we could easily get somewhere fast.....

		-Joe Beckenbach (CS BS '88)

------------------------------

Date: 19 Oct 87 08:04:57 GMT
From: amdahl!drivax!macleod@AMES.ARPA  (MacLeod)
Subject: How big does a space station have to be to rotate it?

This is a pretty mundane question, but one I've wondered about.  

As far as I know, neither the US or the USSR has put up a space platform
and spun it about its axis for the benefit of the crewmen within.  (Of
course, I realize that zero gravity was the whole goal of much of the
research carried out on these platforms...).

What is the minimum structural diameter of a space station that was
designed to spin to provide a gravity-like acceleration?  It would have
to be something over four meters, for example, since at that diameter
your head would be near 0G regardless of how accelerated your feet were.
Some pretty novel effects possible, I'd imagine.

------------------------------

Date:     Mon, 19 Oct 87 7:51:39 MDT
From: John Shaver Modernization Office <steep-mo-m@huachuca-em.arpa>
Subject:  CLESS: Biosphere project

A firm is promoting a BIOSPHERE adjacent to Tucson.  They plan to put
people, plants and animals inside a sealed room to demonstrate that this
is a feasible activity over a long period.  It is slightly different in
Tucson that it would be in space, however, the self-containment aspects
can be studied.

------------------------------

Date: 18 Oct 87 23:14:00 GMT
From: jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Space Station teams


_High_Technology_ magazine (August 1987) had a story on the Station.

There are four "work packages" and thirty companies in 8 teams bidding
for them.  NASA is *supposed* to pick a team as of November to do the
work on each package.

In the following section, team leaders are in CAPITALS.  The teams are
in column form under the team leader.

The packages and teams are:

Segment I     Crew and lab modules                     ($2.5 billion)

   BOEING                     MARTIN MARIETTA
   Grumman Aerospace          General Electric, Astro Space Division
   Lockheed Missiles & Space  Hughes Aircraft
   Teledyne Brown Engineering United Technologies (Hamilton Standard)
   TRW                        USBI Booster Production
			      Wyle Laboratories
			      McDonnell Douglas Astronautics

Segment II    Framework (main boom)                    ($3.7 billion)

   ROCKWELL                   McDONNELL DOUGLAS
   Grumman Aerospace          Honeywell
   Harris                     IBM
   Intermetrics               Lockheed Missiles & Space
   Sperry                     RCA
   SRI International
   TRW

Segment III   Free-flying platform and research eqpt.  ($750 million)

   GENERAL ELECTRIC           RCA
   TRW                        Honeywell
			      IBM
			      Lockheed Missiles & Space
			      McDonnell Douglas
			      RCA (I don't know why it's here twice.)
			      Computer Sciences

Segment IV    Power system                             ($1.0 billion)

   ROCKETDYNE                 TRW
   Ford Aerospace & Commun.   Lockheed Missiles & Space (On both sides!)
   Garrett Fluid Systems      Planning Research Corp.
   General Dynamics           Analex
   Lockheed Missiles & Space  Teledyne Brown Engineering
   Sunstrand                  Eagle Engineering


The preceding was copied from _High_Technology completely without
permission.

Alphabetical Listing of Companies and Segments:

     Key:
          #1: Segment I     Crew and lab modules
          #2: Segment II    Framework (main boom)
          #3: Segment III   Free-flying platform and research eqpt.
          #4: Segment IV    Power system


        Analex, #4
        Boeing, #1
        Computer Sciences, #3
        Eagle Engineering, #4
        Ford Aerospace & Communications, #4
        General Electric, #3
        Garrett Fluid Systems, #4
        General Dynamics, #4
        General Electric, Astro Space Division, #1
        Grumman Aerospace, #1
        Grumman Aerospace, #2
        Harris, #2
        Honeywell, #2
        Honeywell, #3
        Hughes Aircraft, #1
        IBM, #2
        IBM, #3
        Intermetrics, #2
        Lockheed Missiles & Space, #1
        Lockheed Missiles & Space, #2
        Lockheed Missiles & Space, #3
        Lockheed Missiles & Space, #4
        Lockheed Missiles & Space, #4
        Martin Marietta, #1
        McDonnell Douglas Astronautics, #1
        McDonnell Douglas, #2
        McDonnell Douglas, #3
        Planning Research Corp., #4
        RCA, #2
        RCA, #3
        RCA, #3
        Rocketdyne, #4
        Rockwell, #2
        SRI International, #2
        Sperry, #2
        Sunstrand, #4
        TRW, #1
        TRW, #2
        TRW, #3
        TRW, #4
        Teledyne Brown Engineering, #1
        Teledyne Brown Engineering, #4
        USBI Booster Production, #1
        United Technologies (Hamilton Standard), #1
        Wyle Laboratories, #1

Through the course of my job interviewing, I have heard several
companies' representatives complain that their companies had "lost the
contract" with NASA for the Station.  I thought the results weren't due
until November.  It isn't always the best policy to question the
interviewer's source of information.  I wish I knew, however, what the
real status is on the Station bids.

Would someone who knows what NASA has done on these bids please let me
know?  I am putting special emphasis on these companies during my job
search.  If NASA has decided which teams will get the contracts, I want
to know.

        -- Ken Jenks
jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu

------------------------------

Date: 19 Oct 87 22:08:25 GMT
From: phoenix!kpmancus@princeton.edu  (Keith P. Mancus)
Subject: Re: How big does a space station have to be to rotate it?

In article <2612@drivax.UUCP> macleod@drivax.UUCP (MacLeod) writes:
>What is the minimum structural diameter of a space station that was
>designed to spin to provide a gravity-like acceleration?  It would have
>to be something over four meters, for example, since at that diameter
>your head would be near 0G regardless of how accelerated your feet
>were.  Some pretty novel effects possible, I'd imagine.

  Actually, those 'novel effects' must be avoided.  The Coriolis force
causes some really nasty problems; if the radius of rotation is too
small, a "water hammer" can be set up, and just turning one's head too
quickly in the wrong direction could be fatal.  Even somewhat larger
radii could make you quite sick.  The figure I heard quoted for minimum
usable radius was about 300 yards.  If you want your ship to be much
smaller (Apollo-sized?), you could build two and connect them with a 300
yards rod or cable.  (Warning: the stress in that rod is going to be
HIGH!)
  Anybody have more to add?  I really know very little about Coriolis
effects, and nothing at all about the water hammer.

  -Keith Mancus
   <kpmancus@phoenix.princeton.edu>

------------------------------

Date: 20 Oct 87 04:46:08 GMT
From: ihnp4!upba!eecae!crlt!russ@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Russ Cage)
Subject: Re: CELSS and oxygen regeneration

In <1965@gryphon.CTS.COM>, mhnadel@gryphon.CTS.COM (Miriam Nadel) writes:
>Aside from which, the 6 month tests were not remarkably successful; the
>atmosphere kept creeping up to around 40% carbon dioxide.  Keeping a
>reasonable atmosphere for 5 years (the breakeven point) is beyond their
>technology, too.

Forty percent, or four percent?  I recall that 4% is about the limit for
human tolerance, and it's mighty uncomfortable.

If you don't mind using a special atmosphere (CO2-enriched, at the
expense/to the benefit of your own breathing air) for growing your
plants, even this could work out.  Freezing CO2 out of air is a proven
technology.

I have read that many plants become very efficient photosynthesizers
when they are grown in a high-CO2 atmosphere, due to the reduced energy
needed to drive the concentration gradient.  Miriam, do you have any
figures on how much this might reduce biomass requirements?  It might
change the break-even point.

Russ Cage

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #25
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 26 Oct 87 15:48:25 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA04701; Mon, 26 Oct 87 03:24:37 PST
	id AA04701; Mon, 26 Oct 87 03:24:37 PST
Date: Mon, 26 Oct 87 03:24:37 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8710261124.AA04701@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #27

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 27

Today's Topics:
		   Long duration shuttle missions?
			   Re: Next shuttle
			   Re: Next shuttle
			    Re: AMROC Talk
			 Getting NASA patches
			Re: Museum Spacecraft
			Re: Museum Spacecraft
		Re: Oldest artificial object in orbit
		   Physical requirements for flight
		 Re: Physical requirements for flight
			 Apollo 13 "accident"
			Re: Museum Spacecraft
		       Re: Getting NASA patches
		       Re: Getting NASA patches
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Thu, 15 Oct 87 21:06:29 PDT
From: John Sotos <SOTOS@sumex-aim.stanford.edu>
Subject: Long duration shuttle missions?

On p 29 of the October 12 Aviation Week there is a mention that the
House Appropriations Committee may block space station hardware
contracts unless (among other things) NASA commits to "modifying one
orbiter so it can fly extended shuttle flights until the space station
becomes operational."

This is the first I have heard of such a modification.  What limits the
shuttle's time in orbit now?  Power?  Water?  Propellant?

John

------------------------------

Date: 15 Oct 87 15:16:20 GMT
From: ihnp4!alberta!mnetor!utzoo!dciem!nrcaer!cognos!geovision!alastair@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Alastair Mayer)
Subject: Re: Next shuttle

In article <8710121152.AA00779@angband.s1.gov> PICARD@gmr.COM ("RON PICARD") writes:
> [...] What would be savings, weight reduction and functional
>capabilities of making the next shuttle without the Canadarm?  Could we
>make this our 'heavy lift' orbiter?  Are there any other componants we
>could do without on one fourth of the fleet to get the payload
>capability up?

Well, you'd severly cripple the functional capabilities of the shuttle.
But more to the point, the Canadarm unbolts fairly easily from the
Orbiter - it isn't a structural component and can be (and has been) left
off to save weight if it isn't needed for a mission.  Indeed, there's
even a provision for blowing the thing off (I assume explosive bolts,
but perhaps something less violent) if it jams extended in such a way as
to prevent the cargo bay doors from being closed prior to reentry.
  It doesn't weight that much, either.  Don't have the exact figures,
but it's only some tubing and motors - it won't even support its own
weight in a 1-G field.
  You're going to have to look elsewhere for weight savings.  If you
really want heavy lift, think about removing the wings, fin, and crew
compartment.  Recover the engines by parachute...

 Alastair JW Mayer

------------------------------

Date: 19 Oct 87 20:21:35 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Next shuttle

> What would be the point of making the shuttle without the remote
> manipulating system (which is what I assume your Canadarm reference is
> to)? ...

More to the point, it does nothing for us, since the arm is removable.
It need not fly on missions where it is not needed.

And yes, the RMS's proper name (at least in some quarters) is "Canadarm".
-- 
"Mir" means "peace", as in           |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
"the war is over; we've won".        | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 19 Oct 87 22:00:20 GMT
From: hplabsz!kempf@hplabs.hp.com  (Jim Kempf)
Subject: Re: AMROC Talk

Could someone post a short summary of the talk to the net, if it
looks like there is some meat there? Some of us who are interested
might not be able to make it to LA. Thanks!

		Jim Kempf		kempf@hplabs.hp.com

------------------------------

Date: 19 Oct 87 13:22:39 GMT
From: sundc!hadron!netxcom!rkolker@seismo.css.gov  (rich kolker)
Subject: Getting NASA patches

Since the shuttle jumpsuits some of us ordered have gone out, I've
gotten several requests for information concerning where people can get
NASA mission and other patches for them.  Here's the information I have,
feel free to add to it.

Any major NASA facility (KSC,JSC, JPL, Headquarters, Goddard etc.) has a
gift shop.  Many of them mail order.  I know that HQ sells the real
patches (many sources sell good replicas) and that Goddard also has a
nice selection of Soviet patches.

The National Air and Space Museum, Washington, DC does mail order and
has most everything.

The Space Shop, The Space and Rocket Center, Huntsville, AL 35807
phone (800) 633-7280.  They definitely do take mail order, have most
everything going back to Gemini (everything before then was not a
real mission patch).  STS-26 patches are available.

As best I've been able to determine.  The pattern for sewing patches
onto the shutlle coverall is.
	Right shoulder - NASA "worm"
	Right chest    - Mission patch
	Left chest (under nametag) - NASA "meatball"
	Left shoulder - American flag

++rich

------------------------------

Date: 19 Oct 87 13:33:29 GMT
From: sundc!hadron!netxcom!rkolker@seismo.css.gov  (rich kolker)
Subject: Re: Museum Spacecraft

In article <3142@ames.arpa> mike@ames.UUCP (Mike Smithwick) writes:
>In article <1278@s.cc.purdue.edu> ain@s.cc.purdue.edu.UUCP (Patrick White) writes:
>>Also, does anybody know which Shuttle is on display(?) just off one of
>>the runways of Dulles airport in Washington DC?  I saw it as my plane
>>took off, and was wondering which shuttle it was.  Thanks.
>>-- Pat White

>That would certainly be the Enterprise (Dum-de-dum, de-de-de-de-Dum).
>There are only 2 non-flyable "shuttles", the Enterprise which you saw,
>at the A&S Museum annex, and the Pathfinder (OV-100, I think), which is
>in Japan, I believe.

The Pathfinder is currently on display at the Space and Rocket Cemter,
Huntsville, AL.  It is currently just sitting there (nicely restored)
but shortly will be mated with an External Tank and SRB casings to
create the only full shuttle stack on display.

For those of you who (like me) were unaware of the Pathfinder, it was
built by NASA (not Rockwell) as a test article to check fit on the
various shuttle servicing hardware.  It did spend some time as an
exhibit in Japan, before reaching its final home in Huntsville.

++rich

------------------------------

Date: 20 Oct 87 03:31:38 GMT
From: nuchat!splut!jay@uunet.uu.net  (Jay Maynard)
Subject: Re: Museum Spacecraft

In article <1278@s.cc.purdue.edu>, ain@s.cc.purdue.edu (Patrick White) writes:
> Years ago, when I was much smaller, I got a chance to see the Saturn V
> rocket on display.. (where?  faulty memories suck!).

Were you, perchance, at the Johnson Space Center (may have been the
Manned Spacecraft Center, if it was that long ago)? They have one on
display, in sections, horizontally.

> At that time, I noticed that one of the wire harness connectors
> between the lower and middle stages was missing.. apparently cut off
> the rocket by some souvenir seeker.

I'll have to go look at the one at JSC next time I'm on site.

> Also, does anybody know which Shuttle is on display(?) just off one of
> the runways of Dulles airport in Washington DC?  I saw it as my plane
> took off, and was wondering which shuttle it was.  Thanks.

I believe it's _Enterprise_. At least, that's what the one parked next
to the runway last time I flew out of Dulles claimed to be...I didn't
find out until I got back that that was the real thing, either
(#^%$$%^&*&^%!!!!)

Jay Maynard, K5ZC (@WB5BBW)...>splut!< | uucp: uunet!nuchat!splut!jay

------------------------------

Date: 19 Oct 87 01:08:34 GMT
From: miq%psuvm.bitnet@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Jim Maloy)
Subject: Re: Oldest artificial object in orbit

In article <5440@jade.BERKELEY.EDU>, marchant@sag4.BERKELEY.EDU
(Will Marchant) says:
     
>My current version of the NASA Satellite Situation Report (Dated June
>30, 1987) shows that the earliest launched artificial objects still
>left in orbit are the Vanguard 1 satellite and two associated objects
>(probably boosters, I will try to research this). These were launched
>on 17 March, 1958.
     
     What happened to Sputnik I and II?  When did they re-enter?  (Or
were they destroyed by a Soviet Tesla-effect weapons test? :-) )

James D. Maloy
Bitnet: MIQ@PSUECL, MIQ@PSUVM

------------------------------

Date: 19 Oct 87 17:25:00 GMT
From: jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Physical requirements for flight

What are the physical requirements for mission specialists on the
Shuttle?  What are they likely to be for the Station?

I'm especially concerned about such things as a hernia (surgically
repaired, no problem now), torn knee cartilidge (repaired, fine now),
and contact lens / glasses restrictions.

To whom can I write (in NASA or wherever) to get the official story?

        -- Ken Jenks, MS: AAE, BS: CS (Resume available on request)
jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu

------------------------------

Date: 20 Oct 87 11:52:59 GMT
From: sundc!netxcom!rkolker@seismo.css.gov  (rich kolker)
Subject: Re: Physical requirements for flight

In article <74700050@uiucdcsp> jenks@uiucdcsp.cs.uiuc.edu writes:
>What are the physical requirements for mission specialists on the
>Shuttle?  What are they likely to be for the Station?

The ability to pass a class II flight physical and 20/100 in each eye
correctable to 20/20.  At least that's what my application for the job
says.

I'm waiting to finish up my MS before applying.

Information can be obtained from (where else?) the personnel office at
JSC.

++rich

------------------------------

Date:     Mon, 19 Oct 1987 14:17:39.95 CDT
From: <ucs_mwk%SHSU.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu> (Mike Kent)
Sender: ota@galileo.s1.gov
Subject:  Apollo 13 "accident"

>>Didn't the fuel cells used by Apollo also produce water..

>Yes, but I remember a fuel cell failure as the cause of the explosion
>which damaged the Apollo Service Module.  The result was no more power
>and no more water.

The Apollo 13 "accident" was caused by a series of events. The fuel
cells did not have anything to do with the explosion.

As I remember it was caused by:

1) A drop of the O2 tank several inches in the tank cause a testing
	drain valve to be non functional.

2) Running too much voltage thru the heaters coils in the tank after a
	test to get the tank empty. The specs had been changed on tanks
	heaters and the subcontract built the tank to the old specs.
	The excess voltage served to weld the circuit breakers in the
	tank together.  The circuit breakers were temp.  activated.
	They could not open as designed when the tank go too hot and cut
	off the juice.  Once the heater activated, it continued to heat
	and build pressure until the tank exploded (half way to the
	moon).  The explosion put a small leak in the other O2 tank.  If
	it had been ruptured there would have been no time to power up
	the Lunar Module for its life boat scenario mission.

It was the combination of failures and freak accidents and mistakes that
caused the Apollo 13 "accident".  Does this sound familiar to a more
recent "accident" ?

This is how I remember the cause of the Apollo 13 from what I read.

Mike Kent UCS_MWK@SHSU Sam Houston State University, Huntsville Texas

------------------------------

Date: 20 Oct 87 11:50:11 GMT
From: ihnp4!ihlpf!swd@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Dawson)
Subject: Re: Museum Spacecraft

In article <452@ncspm.ncsu.edu>, jay@ncspm.ncsu.edu (Jay Smith) writes:
> In article <3142@ames.arpa> mike@ames.UUCP (Mike Smithwick) writes:
> >are only 2 non-flyable "shuttles", the Enterprise which you saw, at the

This past summer (June 1987) I was on vacation and had a chance to go
through Huntsville AL. If I remember correctly the PATHFINDER is on
permanent display at the Space Museum there. The display was pretty new.
I have some pictures that I have to find to verify this. By the way if
anyone gets the chance to go through this museum it is well worth it.

Steve Dawson
ihnp4!ihlpf!swd

------------------------------

Date: 21 Oct 87 16:22:19 GMT
From: ncsuvx!ncspm!jay@mcnc.org  (Jay Smith)
Subject: Re: Getting NASA patches

In article <440@netxcom.UUCP> rkolker@netxcom.UUCP (rich kolker) writes:
>Since the shuttle jumpsuits some of us ordered have gone out, I've
>gotten several requests for information concerning where people can get
>NASA mission and other patches for them.  Here's the information I
>have, feel free to add to it.

Well, what about the official NASA patch contractor, one of NC's proud
contributions to the space program, the A-B Emblem Company.

Write to:

A-B Emblem Division
Conrad Industries, Inc.
P.O. Box 695
Weaverville, NC 28787

and ask for the space emblem price list.  They sell other patches, too.
You can even get them to do a custom job if you want sufficient
quantities.  Inquire for more details.  Their Mercury and Gemini patches
go for $1.25, Apollos for $2.25, and STS for $3.50 (these are last
year's prices).  They also have Skylab, Apollo-Soyuz, NASA, and other
interesting patches like the Roadrunner Apollo 14 patch (can anyone
explain this one?).  And if you think your ordered patch has some faulty
stitching, then just send it back and they will fall all over themselves
apologizing in the letter they send with your replacement.

The Mercury and Gemini 3 and 4 patches sold are total fabrications.  But
there was a Gemini 3 patch (totally different from the one being sold)
that was imprinted on the cover of Gus Grissom's book GEMINI and worn by
John Young on his flightsuit as late as 1981.  It wasn't worn during the
actual mission, though, and I think it may have been designed later.  A
real space collectible, and I have no idea how to get one.  The real
Gemini patches were manufactured by the previous NASA patch contractor
(who was it?) and A-B Emblem claims total ignorance of any patches other
than the ones they sell.

Some inaccuracies in A-B's Gemini patches:

Gemini 5 -- "8 days or bust" was not on the patches worn during the
flight because NASA didn't want adverse publicity in case they didn't
meet the mission objectives (newspaper headline: "Astronauts Have To
Settle For Bust").  It was the original design, though.

The Gemini 9 patch they sell is inaccurate since the names were on a
separate patch below the main patch, and not amidst the design as they
have it now.

The Gemini 10 patch should have no names on it, and the "X" should
protrude beyond the borders of the patch.

The others are pretty close, except for some minor color variations.

BTW, does anyone know what patch John Young was wearing on the right
shoulder of his flightsuit during the months before STS-1?  I can't find
any pictures with a good view of it.  Does anyone know where I can get a
velcro Navy astronaut wings name tag?

Thanks in advance.

Jay Smith                     uucp:     ...!mcnc!ncsuvx!ncspm!jay
Domain:	jay@ncspm.ncsu.edu    internet: jay%ncspm@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu

------------------------------

Date: 21 Oct 87 21:07:32 GMT
From: jtk@mordor.s1.gov  (Jordan Kare)
Subject: Re: Getting NASA patches

In article <458@ncspm.ncsu.edu> jay@ncspm.UUCP (Jay Smith) writes:
>...Does anyone know where I can get a velcro Navy astronaut wings name
>tag?

Join the Velcro Navy and Stick to the World!	:-)

	Jordin (Ask not for whom the velcros -- it crows for thee) Kare

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #27
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 27 Oct 87 06:20:46 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA06427; Tue, 27 Oct 87 03:18:08 PST
	id AA06427; Tue, 27 Oct 87 03:18:08 PST
Date: Tue, 27 Oct 87 03:18:08 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8710271118.AA06427@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #28

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 28

Today's Topics:
		    Mir Elements, 20 October 1987
		 Re: Physical requirements for flight
		       Re: Getting NASA patches
		 Re: USAF Museum (was SR71 sighting)
		Re: Oldest Artificial Object in Space
		       Re: Getting NASA patches
			Re: Sputniks re-entry
			   Re: cooperation
		      Re: Budgets (DoD vs. NASA)
		      Re: Budgets (DoD vs. NASA)
			 International Space
		      Re: Budgets (DoD vs. NASA)
	      Great Depression II and the space station
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 23 Oct 87 21:40:00 GMT
From: kenny@b.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Mir Elements, 20 October 1987


Satellite:	MIR     
Catalog id:	16609
Epoch day:	87292.83862028
Inclination:	51.6271 degrees
RA of node:	233.2988 degrees
Eccentricity:	0.0041810
Argument of perigee:	289.3233 degrees
Mean anomaly at epoch:	70.2910 degrees
Mean motion:	15.83372545 revs/day
Mean motion acceleration:	0.00047079 * 2 revs/day/day

Source: NASA Goddard via Henry Vanderbilt of NSS.

The orbit remains substantially unaltered from the last element set.

------------------------------

Date: 21 Oct 87 16:47:48 GMT
From: linus!utzoo!henry@husc6.harvard.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Physical requirements for flight

> What are the physical requirements for mission specialists on the
> Shuttle?  What are they likely to be for the Station?

Not too severe.  Although I haven't seen the details, none of the things
you mention seem likely to be a big problem... except, remember, you
will be competing with many other people who won't have such minor
disadvantages.  Theoretically-irrelevant things (e.g. are you a pilot?)
are known to become quite relevant when the time comes to thin the ranks
of the applicants.  I don't know to what extent minor physical defects
are noticed at that point.

The odds of being selected will improve significantly if you work for
NASA in some other capacity for a few years first.  This is a known
bias.

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 22 Oct 87 12:53:42 GMT
From: pyrdc!netxcom!rkolker@uunet.uu.net  (rich kolker)
Subject: Re: Getting NASA patches

In article <458@ncspm.ncsu.edu> jay@ncspm.UUCP (Jay Smith) writes:
>interesting patches like the Roadrunner Apollo 14 patch (can anyone
>explain this one?).

It was the patch of the backup crew for Apollo 14 (I'm not sure who that
was, but in general, the rules in those days were backup flight x, fly
on flight x+3, so it might have been Cernan, Evans and Schmitt).  NASA
was (and maybe still is) big on using cartoon and comic characters for
such uses as color coding (Snoopy on Skylab) and the zero-defects
program (lots of BC and Wizard of Id posters...boy I'd love to have
one).  I do have a sticker version of a Wizard of ID Skylab patch with
Rodney and the Wizard in a wooden bucket in orbit, looking out with a
spyglass.

>Gemini 5 -- "8 days or bust" was not on the patches worn during the
>flight because NASA didn't want adverse publicity in case they didn't
>meet the mission objectives (newspaper headline: "Astronauts Have To
>Settle For Bust").  It was the original design, though.

My infomation was that some white parachute nylon was sewn over the
legend during the flight, so that Cooper/Conrad could tear it off after
the mission on the patches they flew with.

++rich

------------------------------

Date: 23 Oct 87 04:19:14 GMT
From: speedy!thurm@speedy.wisc.edu  (Matthew J. Thurmaier)
Subject: Re: USAF Museum (was SR71 sighting)

Just a quick note:
	In the 60th edition of FLYING magazine, there was an article
called "maching birds" which talked about hypersonic airplanes.  They
mentioned that there are LOTS of problems that comercial and private
builders haven't run into or thought of yet.  For example, the air force
spent >$1,000 just to find a paint for the decal that would not burn of
when the airplane is in cruse and the skin is super-hot.

Matthew J. Thurmaier
U of Wisc - Madison, Computer Systems Lab
matt@rsch.wisc.edu

------------------------------

Date: 24 Oct 87 16:41:08 GMT
From: ihnp4!chinet!hcfeams!aicchi!dbb@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Burch)
Subject: Re: Oldest Artificial Object in Space

I Hope that somebody can back me up on this one;

I recall reading long ago that, during the sounding rocket program at
White Sands back in the 1950's, a rocket was launched that contained a
high velocity gun in its nose section.  This gun was fired at apogee,
and the projectile was calculated to have reached earth escape velocity.
I realize that this is more of a stunt than a practical attempt at a
space launch.  IF it really happened, then that projectile is
undoubtedly the oldest artificial object in space.  (At least the oldest
one launched from Earth.)

-David B. (Ben) Burch
 Analysts International Corp.
 Chicago Branch (ihnp4!aicchi!dbb)

------------------------------

Date: 25 Oct 87 02:39:54 GMT
From: ssc-vax!eder@beaver.cs.washington.edu  (Dani Eder)
Subject: Re: Getting NASA patches

A company called "Action Packets" manufactures replica mission patches,
and a bunch of other space-related stuff, which is sold in museum and
gift shops.  The local L-5 (now NSS) chapters had a successful
fundraiser a few years ago by selling such patches at an airshow.  We
got them from Action Packets.  The wholesale price is about like so:

95 cents each for 3 inch mission patches, $1.89 each for 4 inch mission
patches, space shuttle program patch, 3 inch size $0.89 NASA 'worm' ,
red on white $0.85.

No minimum order, but minimum quantities of 5 patches of a type,
typically.  This is not a problem, since their price for 5 is about what
you pay for one at a museum shop.  Buy 5, and sell or give away the rest
to promote space.

Their address:
344 Cypress Road,
Ocala, FL 32672
Tel: 1-800-874-9853 (in Florida: 1-800-342-0150)

Dani Eder/Advanced Space Transportation/Boeing

------------------------------

Date: 26 Oct 1987 18:13-EST 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: Sputniks re-entry

The early sputniks, Liaka the dog included, were big, heavy and in very
low orbits. I don't think I & II stayed up more than a few years at
most.

By the way... Liaka was long dead when her capsule burned up.

------------------------------

Date: 21 Oct 87 16:40:18 GMT
From: linus!utzoo!henry@husc6.harvard.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: cooperation

> The task at hand is too great and our human and inanimate resources
> small.  To reach Mars and beyond there will have to be a unified
> effort.

Nonsense; the Soviets appear both willing and able to go it alone.  Oh,
they are interested in cooperation, but they are not depending on it.
Just as well, too.

PS/2: Yesterday's hardware today.    |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
OS/2: Yesterday's software tomorrow. | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 22 Oct 87 04:47:56 GMT
From: nysernic!weltyc@rutgers.edu  (Christopher A. Welty)
Subject: Re: Budgets (DoD vs. NASA)

In article <8710211857.AA12451@angband.s1.gov> "DSS::BOLD" <bold%dss.decnet@afsc-sd.arpa> writes:
>I am more than a little "fed-up" with those individuals who constantly
>complain about the size of NASA's budget compared with the Defense
>Department's.

And I with people saying the outrageous defense budget is warranted.

>	2.  Adequate defense is more expensive than adequate space
>exploration.  (It is also more expensive than adequate education,
>another budget some frequently compare to the Defense Department's.)

A matter of pure opinion - not fact as you seem to assert.  I could say
a lot about what I think we don't need to be spending money on that is
called "defense".  Our defense is more than adequate, it's overdone.
Many times over (I can assert opinions, too).

>	3.  Defense, like space, has great potential for "spinoff"
>technologies.  Consider computers, which exist only because the
>military saw their value for calculating projectile trajectories and
>code breaking.  (Here is an example of the "spinoff" helping both space
>exploration and education.)

Ha!  You aren't actually claiming that the military was responsible for
the existance of computers????  I hope not.  Military spending may have
produced many beneficial advances in science, but I claim that if that
money had been aimed at space development, much more would have been
accomplished, and the earth might be a more stable place....  [Of
course, you're probably one of those people who thinks that Russkys are
inherently evil and should be destroyed, else they would destroy us, so
maybe it wouldn't be so stable...]

Look, supporting the space program can easily be considered a defense
measure - even if there is no military use of it.  Unless we keep up
with our "enemies", we will soon be left in the shadow of their
technology, as they were in ours previously.  Many people don't believe
the Soviet Union would sit on a major technological advantage as we have
(I don't subscribe to that view, but some people with the "defend the
land from the commies" outlook do).  In fact the entire argument as to
why we should have so much money spent on defense can be turned right
into an argument for space: "We have to at least match them."

I beleive that we, as a race, should attempt to expand beyond this
planet, and I don't think any country should go it alone.  But if that
can't be done, I'm willing to settle for my own country.  If that can't
be done, I'm willing to settle for another, but I'd rather not.

Christopher Welty  ---  Asst. Director, RPI CS Labs
weltyc@cs.rpi.edu       ...!rutgers!nysernic!weltyc

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 87 13:51:18 pdt
From: Eugene Miya N. <eugene@PIONEER.ARC.NASA.GOV>
Subject: Re: Budgets (DoD vs. NASA)

>I am more than a little "fed-up" with those individuals who constantly
>complain about the size of NASA's budget compared with the Defense
>Department's.

And I, too, am a little annoyed about this posting.

>These people tend to forget three things:
>	1.  A government dedicated to preserving the liberty of its
>citizens must make defense of its nation's borders and interests its
>first priority.

Please spare us from "defense and liberty" as holier than thou.  People
can become wrapped up in the tyranny of defense as any other form of
tyranny.  What avail is liberty if the defense constraints all other
activity?  It makes us little better than the Soviet military.  Those we
are supposedly being protected from.  Do patriots have to place defense
first?

>	2.  Adequate defense is more expensive than adequate space
>exploration.  (It is also more expensive than adequate education,
>another budget some frequently compare to the Defense Department's.)

Do we do defense at the cost of education and or exploration?  I thought
we were trying to defend our way of life which includes education.  I
sometimes believe the education budget should be merged into the
military (they are the larger educator body in the world), then
education will become a matter of the National defense.  ;-) Don't
forget they were called the National Defense Student loans.  We are
eating our seed corn.  It is the ultimate paradox that we have such hi
tech weapons with people who can barely read.  This is part of the sad
state of our country and our economy.

What makes the United States of America free and strong are our ideas,
not just our technology.  Some people fear our ideas: learning is a
powerful weapon.  We didn't have to go conquer other nations like our
predecessors.

>	3.  Defense, like space, has great potential for "spinoff"
>technologies.  Consider computers, which exist only because the
>military saw their value for calculating projectile trajectories and
>code breaking.  (Here is an example of the "spinoff" helping both space
>exploration and education.)

While the spinoff arguments for space have toned down (they are not used
to justify the Program much), military science is increasing.  Yes to
quote Edward Abbey: "Cancer causes jobs."

Sometimes, when I get tired, I see three courses for the future:
 1) nuclear war now: go to win: if the human races ends, so be it:
Richardson, et al are fulfilled: not very pleasant for the young, and I
sit at a ground zero.  We can let you guys prove to us how good you are.
Species and civilizations don't live forever.  Perhaps the human animal
does not deserve to live?  We fail the Drake equation of those societies
which can survive their own technology.
 2) nuclear war in 20 years, impregnate all fertile women, build an huge
fighting force, build a militaristic empire [subsume all countries who
are with us: our interests], and fight in 20 years, again, not very
pleasant, for some.  Makes us little better than those we supposedily
hate.  P.S. this was what earlier empires did.
 3) start to resolve our differences now.  Peaceably.  [Irreconciliable
differences? always options 1 and 2.] Not easy.  Work on joint projects?
maybe.  But stabilizing.

I work for the Space Agency as a chance to work in high technology
without working on direct military connections (yes spinoffs).
Sometimes, the gap is small and other times the gap is much larger (like
exploration).  But there is more freedom of discussion and better chance
of spinoff here than there.

Needless to say these are my opinions and not those of NASA.

>From the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:

--eugene miya
  NASA Ames Research Center
  eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA
  "You trust the `reply' command with all those different mailers out there?"
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."
  {hplabs,hao,ihnp4,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene

------------------------------

Date:         Fri, 23 Oct 87 10:00:44 EDT
From: MAC <BS0825PM%UKCC.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu>
Subject: International Space

Italians, Frenchmen, Australians, Americans, Austrains, the list goes
on.  It would be easier to just write Earthmen.  Economics is forcing
the cooperation we should have started with 30 years ago.

------------------------------

Date: 23 Oct 87 03:45:43 GMT
From: pyramid!prls!mips!vanthof@hplabs.hp.com  (Dave Van't Hof)
Subject: Re: Budgets (DoD vs. NASA)

In article <8710211857.AA12451@angband.s1.gov> "DSS::BOLD" <bold%dss.decnet@afsc-sd.arpa> writes:
>I am more than a little "fed-up" with those individuals who constantly
>complain about the size of NASA's budget compared with the Defense
>Department's.

Me too, I'd like to see NASA's and the DOD's flipped.

...  lots of _stuff_ deleted   ...

>
>	3.  Defense, like space, has great potential for "spinoff" 
>technologies.  Consider computers, which exist only because the military 
                                                ^^^^  huh?
>saw their value for calculating projectile trajectories and code breaking.  
>(Here is an example of the "spinoff" helping both space exploration and 
>education.)

Isn't that a pretty strong statement?  Sorry, but I _don't_ believe
this.  There are many "spinoff" technologies from both NASA and the DOD,
many of which have done us (civilian types) much good, for which I am
thankful.  Of course there are others...

>The Planetary Society is not the only group to make this comparison; it
>sometimes appeared in the L5 News.  (The Planetary Society
>Questionnaire just made me think of it.)

I have gotten a few of those questionnaires from the Planetary Society
and promptly tossed them...  For some reason I get the feeling the
questions are 'loaded'.

Oh well, nuff said.
Vant
UUCP: {decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4,hplabs,sun,ames,prls}!decwrl!mips!vanthof
or    vanthof@mips.com     (really Dave Van't Hof)

------------------------------

Date: 24 Oct 87 20:51:33 GMT
From: nbires!isis!scicom!wats@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Bruce Watson)
Subject: Great Depression II and the space station

If the government mishandles the economy or if it is beyond anyones
control, the first thing, from historical analogy, is for a public works
spending program like the Hoover dam started in 1930 to be tried.  The
effort was too smallcause much of an effect to the economy but it was a
step in the right direction.  It was followed by a much larger
commitment to public spending programs.  Since the space program is
already in place it would seem that this would be a good place to start.
A disasterous downturn of the economy might be good for space station
prospects.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #28
*******************

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Date: Thu, 29 Oct 87 03:20:18 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8710291120.AA01948@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #30

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 30

Today's Topics:
			Re: Translation of Mir
			Beam me up, Scotty...
			     SPACE DRIVE
			Beam me up, Scotty...
	Re: Why are there so many new boosters in development?
	Re: Why are there so many new boosters in development?
      Re: How big does a space station have to be to rotate it?
      Re: How big does a space station have to be to rotate it?
				CELSS
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 25 Oct 87 05:02:58 GMT
From: livesey@sun.com  (Jon Livesey)
Subject: Re: Translation of Mir

In article <121400081@inmet>, janw@inmet.UUCP writes:

<    (He misquotes):

	Actually, I did a lot worse than misquoting.  I reduced a
definition that occupies most of a column down to SIX words.  That's why
I also supplied the full reference to the dictionary I used; so that
anyone could look it up for themselves, and see the full story.  That's
also why I included the Russian phrase used, so that anyone who objected
to my English could roll their own.  I am sorry Jan hates how I
condensed (*not* misquoted) it, but he is making a great deal of fuss
over very little.

> It says: 	(3) village *ucm* (...) village community.
> 
> (1) Mr. Livesey omitted what looks like *ucm* in italics: meaning
> *historical*. Too bad. The word is dead as a doornail.

	Thanks, I know what 'istoricheskii' means (actually, 'archaic'
is better here than 'historical') but I am not sure I understand why
that disqualifies this suggestion.  For words, 'historical' does not
mean 'dead', it often means 'in storage for later reuse'.  Consider how
many archaic words we use in English, especially when naming things.  Ye
Olde Tea Shoppe.  Ark Royal.  Cathedral Close.  Capitol.  Senate.  Add
your favourite example.

> (2) He omitted the word *community* after *village*. Even worse.

	Even worse.   Oh woe!

	A village *is* a community, Chum.  I omitted the word
'community' because 'village community' is redundant in English.  Hands
up all those who talk about their 'village community'.

 	 You actually never need to talk about your 'village community'
because 'village' covers it nicely.  According to my dictionary,
'village' means

	1. a group of buildings between a hamlet and a town in size.
	2. a community smaller than a town.
	3. the inhabitants of a village - villagers.

	Please notice that the dictionary is using community here as a
synonym for 'village' and also in the sense of a place.  Villages are
not exclusively places, and communities are not exclusively collections
of people: both are both.  Village is place, organization, and people.
To argue that a foreign word can *never* be translated 'village' because
it refers only to the people or the self-governing organization of a
rural community seems odd, since that sounds like a good reason why it
*can* be translated 'village'.  All bets are off if you are a social
historian attempting to classify exact communal organization, but that
is not the case here.

> Village here is an ADJECTIVE. Rural. By this method of quotation, the
> village idiot would become a village.

	Rubbish.  A village idiot is an idiot who lives in a village.  A
rural community is a village.  As for 'village community', if not
'village', then what does it mean, when 'village' includes the people
who live there?

> But "our *mir* has decided to collect an extra ruble per family to pay
> the landlord, and to flog the delinquent payers", that would have made
> sense back then.

	Oh, did they?  Our village raises money by charging for the use
of the Church Hall.  Our village will spend some of the loot celebrating
on Guy Fawkes Day.  With the remainder, our village is going on an
outing.  If the money runs out, our village has decided to incorporate,
and become a town.  Do I need to go on?  Please notice that in the
first, second and fourth example, I used 'village' in the sense of its
government, raising taxes and making decisions.  Does that sound like
'peasant self-government' to you?  It does to me.  Gee, maybe 'mir' and
'village' are not that far apart after all :-| (Now Jan will send to my
village to have me flogged for insolence, and if the village decides to
do it I may have to run away from the village).

> Sorry to occupy your attention with Russian linguistics so much; but I
> am encouraged by all those postings about Russian being a must for
> space buffs.

	I am encouraged too, and I certainly defer to Jan in his
knowledge of Russian.  We are all very lucky that we have him around to
clarify these somewhat technical matters for us.  If he says that 'mir'
is only used in the narrowly technical sense of the members of the
commune, or the commune itself, or the village commune, or the rural
community but has no connection with 'village' then that's good enough
for me.....

>It means *village* as little as *parliament* means Britain or
>*plebiscite* means France. It is not a *place*.

	.....I am entertained, though, that he thinks a word must mean a
*place* (his italics) in order to translate to 'village', since that is
simply not true.  It seems like poetic justice, somehow.

	By the way, 'parliament' is a very bad example, since in
Britain, we constantly interchange place and person there, too.
"Parliament has decided" and "I went past Parliament today".  It's a
little pedantic to insist on "Houses of Parliament" for the place, and
"Members of Parliament" for the people.  (Gee, now some pedant will call
me on that, too).  Same for 'Church', 'University', 'Crown',
'Chair'.....  makes you wonder if it isn't a general rule.

	More seriously, though, here is what lay behind my suggestion.
Russians today are very fond of making puns on the meanings of 'mir'.
They do it all the time.  The country is strewn with signs proclaiming
"Mir miru" (peace to the world), or at least it was when I lived there.
Why stop there?  The thought that crossed my mind was that some wit may
have made a sly little 3-pun here: "a village-world up in the sky
symbolising peace."  It has merit as a play on words, and they may also
have figured how much it would irritate Jan.

Jon.

------------------------------

Date: 22 Oct 87 15:14:00 PDT
From: "DSS::BOLD" <bold%dss.decnet@afsc-sd.arpa>
Subject: Beam me up, Scotty...
To: "space" <space@angband.s1.gov>
Reply-To: "DSS::BOLD" <bold%dss.decnet@afsc-sd.arpa>

Dale Amon's recent contributions to SPACE DIGEST reminded me of a
question I had while watching the otherwise enjoyable STAR TREK IV: THE
VOYAGE HOME.

After obtaining the whales, they returned to their century the same way
they travelled to the past.  Would it not have been easier, and more
credible, to simply travel in a large circle around the solar sytem at
just under light speed for a few minutes (their time) and let time
dilation take over?

I'm always eager to give Einstein a free plug.

Kevin "Mad Max" Bold
(BOLD@AFSC-SD.ARPA)

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1987  11:45 EDT
From: MINSKY%OZ.AI.MIT.EDU@xx.lcs.mit.edu
Subject: SPACE DRIVE

It is easy to fool a bathroom scale, but it may be easy to fool a
balance scale, too.  Imagine an oscillating device on one pan of the
balance and a passive counterweight on the other side.  The active
device first jerks straight up, driving the pan down.  The the active
device moves its weight down - but, this time, it also thrusts first
left and then right.  Repeat the cycle over and over.

On the up-stroke, the balance bearing has very low friction because
that's what it is designed for.  But on the down-stroke, there is a much
larger force on the pivot because of the alternating sideways thrust.
So the friction is larger during the intervals when the weight is moving
down.  The balance will not move so much.  The net result will be to
make the pan rise and give a false impression tat weight has been lost.
But no Newton Law is violated.

Moral.  Don't trust instruments under novel conditions.  A scale does
not measure weight.  It only does what physicsal laws dictate.  Caveat
experimentor!

------------------------------

Date: 23 Oct 87 16:38:05 GMT
From: ssrat@athena.mit.edu  (Mike Zraly)
Subject: Beam me up, Scotty...

>After obtaining the whales, they returned to their century the same way
>they travelled to the past.  Would it not have been easier, and more
>credible, to simply travel in a large circle around the solar sytem at
>just under light speed for a few minutes (their time) and let time
>dilation take over?

	I imagine 23d century materials would ahve to be plenty tough
but wouldn't it be better to avoid subjecting the hull to three hundred
years of bombardment by driving through dust at light speed?  Shields
you say?  Tsk tsk man, you'd have us do away with a fine bit o' drama
just so you can be sensible?  Ach, what a strange century.

	By the way, the very method you suggested was used in Joe
Haldeman's (you know, the MIT professotr who writes on the side ;-)
_Forever_War_, when one character wanted to wait for the other to return
without them both being separated irrevocably by the years.

#Michael S. Zraly		
#ssrat@athena.mit.edu		(insert pithy quote here)

------------------------------

Date: 22 Oct 87 12:28:29 GMT
From: k.cc.purdue.edu!l.cc.purdue.edu!cik@j.cc.purdue.edu  (Herman Rubin)
Subject: Re: Why are there so many new boosters in development?

In article <7519@reed.UUCP>, douglas@reed.UUCP (P Douglas Reeder) writes:
> What are the economics/politics that lead to there being seventeen
> zillion boosters in development by various countries and companies?
> How much is performance improved by new designs?  If we all know it
> would be more efficient to have only 15 different boosters, why do we
> have so many more?

If we knew enough to know which kind of booster, taking into account all
the costs (including launch costs, failure risks, development costs,
etc.), was best (or nearly so) for each type of space activity, we could
probably get by with five different boosters.  We might have nearly all
of the scientific information needed to make such decisions, but I doubt
that we have what is needed in the engineering knowledge.  After all,
hasn't practical solar energy on a basis which would make all other
types obsolete been just around the corner thirty years ago? :-) The
late Willy Ley pointed out that the German rocket program used no
scientific discovery later than 1906.

We need to use the talents of those individuals whose minds are
unfettered by "we know the best way" to come up with bright ideas.  We
need to fetter those "authorities" who wish to prevent it.  Let us
conquer space!

Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907
Phone: (317)494-6054
hrubin@l.cc.purdue.edu (ARPA or UUCP) or hrubin@purccvm.bitnet

------------------------------

Date: 25 Oct 87 03:04:16 GMT
From: ssc-vax!eder@beaver.cs.washington.edu  (Dani Eder)
Subject: Re: Why are there so many new boosters in development?

In article <7519@reed.UUCP>, douglas@reed.UUCP (P Douglas Reeder) writes:
> What are the economics/politics that lead to there being seventeen
> zillion boosters in development by various countries and companies?
> How much is performance improved by new designs?  If we all know it
> would be more efficient to have only 15 different boosters, why do we
> have so many more?

>                  -Doug Reeder,  Reed College

Reason number 1: organizational imperatives (i.e. protect your turf)

This is why the Air Force and NASA are both trying to develop a heavy
cargo rocket.  Neither wants to give up control of such a major, visible
program.

Reason number 2: national prestige

In the old days, the mark of a 'real' nation, rather than a 'hick'
nation was having a national airline.  Boeing has sold lots of airplanes
to small countries, complete with pilot training courses, who have no
need for their own airline as measured by the amount of traffic.  Today,
most countries have airlines.  The current 'status symbols' that mark an
advanced nation are a space program and having an atomic bomb.

Reason number 3: orbit mechanics and payload size

Payloads want to go to different orbit inclinations (same speed, but
different directions).  Thus , you cannot select from all the available
payloads to make up sets of equal mass cargoes.  There is usually a few
oddballs who want to go somewhere that noone else wants to go to.  These
come in different sizes, so a variety of cargo capacities for your
rockets is handy to have.

The cargo capacities of the existing and proposed US launchers are
roughly as follows to a low-altitude low-inclination orbit (the easiest
to get to):

Scout			   500 lb
Connestoga		   up to 2000 lb
Industrial Launch Vehicle  700 lb to several thousand lb
Titan II		   about 4000 lb
Delta II		   10,000 lb
Atlas-Centaur		   13,000 lb
Titan 4			   39,000 lb
Space Shuttle		   50,000 lb
ALS or Shuttle C	   100,000 lb

Dani Eder/Boeing/Advanced Space Transportation

------------------------------

Date: 21 Oct 87 12:25:00 GMT
From: pur-phy!hal@ee.ecn.purdue.edu  (Hal Chambers)
Subject: Re: How big does a space station have to be to rotate it?

When deciding how big the station has to be, don't overlook the
possibility the 1/3 to 1/2 g may be sufficient to provide an
efficient and safe long-term work environment.

Hal Chambers

------------------------------

Date: 23 Oct 87 04:04:05 GMT
From: tektronix!reed!percival!bucket!leonard@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: How big does a space station have to be to rotate it?

In article <2612@drivax.UUCP> macleod@drivax.UUCP (MacLeod) writes:
<What is the minimum structural diameter of a space station that was
<designed to spin to provide a gravity-like acceleration?  It would have
<to be something over four meters, for example, since at that diameter
<your head would be near 0G regardless of how accelerated your feet
<were.  Some pretty novel effects possible, I'd imagine.

Actually, the minimum workable diameter is more like _40_ meters than 4!
The Coriolis effect will scramble your inner ears every time you turn
or bend over.  This effect is reduced by increasing the radius (which
also decreases the spin rate).

The old "wheel" designs would actually be fairly workable. It would be
fairly easy to use shuttle external tanks for the rim....

Leonard Erickson		...!tektronix!reed!percival!bucket!leonard

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 87 17:56 EDT
From: "Paul F. Dietz" <DIETZ%sdr.slb.com@relay.cs.net>
Subject: CELSS

These proposals for CELSS with tanks of algae or greenhouses with higher
plants seem curiously old fashioned.  Photosynthesis isn't very
efficient, and although it is nice to have self-reproducing chemical
equipment, live organisms are difficult to control and produce poorly
characterized mixtures.

I suggest we look instead at chemical techniques. Energy can be put into
the system by electrolysis (of water) or thermal dissociation (of carbon
dioxide). To make food, I'll propose encapsulating enzymes in small,
semipermeable polymer bubbles. Enzymes can be made, on Earth, in large
quantities by genetically engineered microbes. Place the encapsulated
enzymes in continuous flow reactors, then circulate reagents. We can
separate enzymes with different pH, temperature or oxygen tolerances
into different vessels.  The goal is a system in which water, CO2,
nitrogen and lesser elements go in and oxygen, sugars, fats and
essential amino acids come out (we can import vitamins). That mixture
isn't terribly tasty, though; one should synthesize more complex
polymers and import or synthesize flavorings.

It's also necessary to break down complex waste products. This can be
done by reduction with electrolytically produced hydrogen
(interestingly, there are anaerobic bacteria that get their energy by
this process), or by oxidation.

This is probably all a lot harder than I make it sound, but it would be
interesting indeed if basic foodstuffs could be made synthetically.
Arthur C. Clark had an amusing story about the social problems of
totally artificial food (in the story, a spinoff of the space program).

Paul F. Dietz
dietz@sdr.slb.com

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #30
*******************

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Date: Fri, 30 Oct 87 03:17:37 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8710301117.AA03815@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #31

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 31

Today's Topics:
				CELSS
      Re: How big does a space station have to be to rotate it?
			 Space station teams
			Help on Station teams
		     How big space station; CELSS
	       Re: Recent Supernova: Lost opportunity?
			    STAR DATABASE
	       Re: Recent Supernova: Lost opportunity?
	       Re: Recent Supernova: Lost opportunity?
	       Re: Recent Supernova: Lost opportunity?
	       Re: Recent Supernova: Lost opportunity?
			      Supernova
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date:         Tue, 27 Oct 87 23:30:49 EDT
From: Steve Abrams <EXT768%UKCC.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu>
Subject: CELSS

In Space Digest V8, #25, Russ Cage writes: "Forty percent, or four
percent?  I recall that four percent is about the limit for human
tolerance and its mighty unconfortable."  As I work in a pulmonary
biophysics lab, I thought I could respond knowledgeably.  We are
currently involved in a study of alveolar ventilation that involves
studying ventilatory response to various CO2 level atmospheres.  Four to
five percent is the normal range of values for end-tidal CO2 (peakvalue
for each exhalation).  The subjects "re-breathe" the same volume of air,
while we use a chemical CO2 absorber to keep the CO2 concentration
low...ventilation remains the same.  We then replace the volume of air
with a mix of 93% O2 and 7% CO2 (room air has around 21% O2 and .03%
CO2).  This mix is re-breathed until the end-tidal CO2 is 8-9%.  Believe
me, these subjects are working to breathe at this point.  They are
sweating, getting wild-eyed, and seriously contemplating breaking our
injunction not to come off the mouthpiece.  I've tried it and
"uncomfortable" is an understatement.  Just for the heck of it, I
mixedup 20 liters of 70% O2 and 30% CO2 and tried breathing it.  I
lasted 45-50 seconds and had a headache the rest of the day.  I don't
think anyone is going to breathe a 40% CO2 mix for very long...unless
they have roots.  Perhaps excess CO2 can be frozen out of the "people"
modules, shoveled into the "plant" modules to perk them up?  Could
excess O2 be similarly frozen out (well, liquified) and piped back to
the "people" areas?  The farmers could "suit up" for a litttle IVA
(Intra-Vehicular Activity).

                                              Steve Abrams

------------------------------

Date: 27 Oct 87 06:25:46 GMT
From: stride!tahoe!bryson@gr.utah.edu  (Derry Bryson)
Subject: Re: How big does a space station have to be to rotate it?


It seems to me that if your diameter is too small your head will weigh enough
less than your feet (or midsection) that you will notice.  Also, if you are
moving too fast, won't you notice the difference when you change direction
while walking?


Derry Bryson

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 87 07:41:28 PDT
From: judice%unxa.DEC@decwrl.dec.com (Louis J. Judice)
Sender: ota@galileo.s1.gov
Subject: Space station teams


>>Segment III   Free-flying platform and research eqpt.  ($750 million)
>> 
>>   GENERAL ELECTRIC           RCA
>>   TRW                        Honeywell
>> 			        IBM
>>			        Lockheed Missiles & Space
>>			        McDonnell Douglas
>>			        RCA (I don't know why it's here twice.)
>>			         Computer Sciences
>>

GE vs. RCA does not sound like much of a competition, considering the
fact that RCA is a wholly owned subsidiary of GE.

/Lou

------------------------------

Date: 28 Oct 87 15:23:00 GMT
From: jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Help on Station teams

A while back, I posted a list of the teams of companies who bid on the
Space Station contracts.  I have the names and addresses of places to
contact in some of those companies (will E-mail if you're interested;
will post if enough interest).  However, I haven't been able to get in
touch with some of the companies involved, and I'd like some help
finding addresses and phone numbers.  I'd appreciate it if you would
E-mail me any of the following information on any of the companies
listed below: address, city & state, area code or phone number.  I'll
take it from there.

The list of "lost" companies follows:

Alphabetical Listing of Companies and Segments:
     Key:
          #1: Segment I     Crew and lab modules
          #2: Segment II    Framework (main boom)
          #3: Segment III   Free-flying platform and research eqpt.
          #4: Segment IV    Power system

Analex, #4
Computer Sciences, #3
Eagle Engineering, #4
Garrett Fluid Systems, #4
General Dynamics, #4
Grumman Aerospace, #1, #2	"Large piece" of Station awarded in July
Honeywell, #2, #3		Rumor says H is doing control systems
Intermetrics, #2		Phone: (800) 325-5235	(Never an answer)
Planning Research Corp., #4	Phone: (703) 734-1199   (Never an answer)
Rocketdyne, #4
Sunstrand, #4
USBI Booster Production, #1

Thanks!

-- Ken Jenks, MS: Aero/Astro Engineering, BS: Computer Science, UIUC

		Looking for job in space.  Help, anyone?

jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu		{ihnp4!pur-ee}uiucdcs!uiucdcsp!jenks

------------------------------

Date: 22 Oct 87 18:06:38 GMT
From: beckenba@csvax.caltech.edu  (Joe Beckenbach)
Subject: How big space station; CELSS

In article <915@pur-phy> hal@newton.physics.purdue.edu.UUCP
	 (Hal Chambers) writes:
>When deciding how big the station has to be, don't overlook the
>possibility the 1/3 to 1/2 g may be sufficient to provide an efficient
>and safe long-term work environment.

This is a good point; not only will it reduce the stress on the cross
members of a structure, but a larger structure can be built for a given
material - making sure that the whole thing is engineered with a
reasonable amount of safety.  L4 and L5 (two popular colony spots) would
need this extra safety margin, since they are outside the magnetosphere
and would thus need shielding.  Most of the stuff Gerard O'Neill did in
his colony book looks okay to me, but then I haven't done any serious
back-of-envelope calculating yet.
	Speaking of b.o.e.c., I've been toying around with the idea of
finding a (good) model of how a small ecosystem works, but I need
equations, rates of respiration and photosynthesis, etc etc. Is there
any good source of any of these items-- and other necessaries for the
simulation of a closed environment?  For Introduction to Environmental
Engineering class at Caltech last year, I tried simulation for one
assignment. ["What happens when we get rid of all the Brazilian
rainforest?" and using some back-of-envelope numbers.] Thanks to a bug
in the simulation I couldn't correct, the Earth died in seven years.
	Again, this was a buggy simulation. However, between learning
more on simulation and on models of ecosystems, good results could be
forthcoming. Is this what all those researchers are doing in CELSS
research, or do they go with the experimental approach? Any news
appreciated.
	USnail: Caltech 1-58 Pasadena CA 91125 USA

		-Joe Beckenbach (CS BS '88)

------------------------------

Date: 21 Oct 87 17:00:00 GMT
From: jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Re: Recent Supernova: Lost opportunity?

In a previous response, I wrote:

...
> > Did neutrinos from 1987A precede radiation from 1987A by hours?
> 
> This would not be entirely suprising.  The interstellar medium is not
> exactly a vacuum.  The speed of light might be reduced by a very small
> fraction in the interstellar goop intervening between us and the SN.
> Since neutrinos, from what I know, are not significantly slowed by
> interactions with matter, this might have caused the effect noted
> above.
> 
> Another possibility is that it takes a while for the light from a
> nuclear reaction in a star to reach the surface, while the neutrinos,
> again, would hardly be slowed at all.
> 
> Either of these would explain the difference in arrival time between
> the photons and the neutrinos.  The second one is more likely to be
> the Truth.
...

I received some E-mail from pur-ee!iuvax!inuxc!ihnp4!ihlpa!animal on
Wed Oct 21 08:13:40 1987 as follows:

> I saw that Nova show too, and they specifically said that the delay
> between the neutrino burst and the visible appearance of the supernova
> was caused by the amount of time it took the visible energy to get
> from the core to the surface.  So it would appear that (b) is the
> right answer.
> 
> Dan Starr
> AT&T Bell Laboratories, Naperville IL

I feel better about "(b)".  The speed of light in the interstellar gook
can't be *that* different from 100% c.

        -- Ken Jenks
jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu

------------------------------

Subject: STAR DATABASE
Date: Fri, 23 Oct 87 15:13:15 -0400
From: Fred Baube <fbaube@note.nsf.gov>

Does anyone know where to find a set of 3-D co-ordinates for the
neighborhood ? Say, the nearest hundred or so stars ?

------------------------------

Date: 23 Oct 87 12:13:36 GMT
From: super.upenn.edu!eecae!crlt!russ@rutgers.edu  (Russ Cage)
Subject: Re: Recent Supernova: Lost opportunity?

I had forgotten this until now.  Please forgive me, but I will try to
make up for it (even though I am falling asleep...)

The two proton-decay experiments have provided confirmation of the
neutrino signature of the core collapse precipitating a supernova.  But
what of gravity waves, which theory also predicts would be emitted in
copious quantities?

Guess what, folks.  When SN-1987A went off, all but *one* of the world's
gravity-wave detectors were out of service for one reason or another.
(Information courtesy Jim Loudon, staff astronomer of the University of
Michigan Exhibit Museum, (313) 426-5396.)  That one detector *did*
record impulses at the time in question.  Unfortunately, it records
pulses at random due to seismic and other disturbances, and there was no
other detector in operation at that time to provide a confirming signal,
so...

we *still* have no firm evidence for the existence or non-existence of
gravity waves, since THE INFORMATION COLLECTION APPARATUS WASN'T RUNNING
WHEN IT NEEDED TO HAVE BEEN!

Life's a bitch, eh?  Maybe next time (whenever *THAT* is).

Russ Cage, Robust Software Inc.              ihnp4!itivax![m-net!rsi,crlt!russ]

------------------------------

Date: 24 Oct 87 19:01:27 GMT
From: tybalt.caltech.edu!jeric@csvax.caltech.edu  (J. Eric Grove)
Subject: Re: Recent Supernova: Lost opportunity?

In article <971@crlt.UUCP> russ@crlt.UUCP (Russ Cage) writes:
>The two proton-decay experiments have provided confirmation of the
>neutrino signature of the core collapse precipitating a supernova.  But
>what of gravity waves, which theory also predicts would be emitted in
>copious quantities?
>
>Guess what, folks.  When SN-1987A went off, all but *one* of the
>world's gravity-wave detectors were out of service for one reason or
>another.
>
>we *still* have no firm evidence for the existence or non-existence of
>gravity waves, since THE INFORMATION COLLECTION APPARATUS WASN'T
>RUNNING WHEN IT NEEDED TO HAVE BEEN!

It is certainly true that the various gravitational-wave detectors were
not operating at the proper moment, but one must be extremely careful
about making statements like the above.  G-wave astronomy is very much
in its infancy.  The instruments are engineering prototypes, operating
as much for developing understanding of the physics and engineering
problems as for making physically interesting measurements.  These are
not robust, reliable devices.

In addition, even those who have a vested interest in such matters say
that SN1987a would have at best been marginally detectable by the best
present gravitational-wave instruments.  I have been told (although I
haven't done the calculation myself) that the noisy instrument which was
operating at the time should not have had the sensitivity to detect the
SN, according to reasonable models of SN explosions.

By all means, I think the various detectors should be running as much as
possible; who knows, maybe they'll see something and surprise us, but
one should be very careful about placing expectations which are too high
on a technology which is simply not yet ready.


		J. Eric Grove
		jeric@tybalt.caltech.edu
		...rutgers!cit-vax!tybalt.caltech.edu!jeric

------------------------------

Date: 25 Oct 87 17:59:50 GMT
From: nuchat!sugar!peter@uunet.uu.net  (Peter da Silva)
Subject: Re: Recent Supernova: Lost opportunity?

Paraphrased:
> Neutrinos travel faster than light in the interstellar medium, because
> light travels slower than C.

The second part is true, the speed of light is lower than 'C' in almost
wany real environment. The first part is false, because neutrinos travel
at the speed of light just like photons.

As a side issue: look up Cherenkov Radiation.

-- Peter da Silva  `-_-'  ...!hoptoad!academ!uhnix1!sugar!peter
-- Disclaimer: These U aren't mere opinions... these are *values*.

------------------------------

Date: 25 Oct 87 02:49:47 GMT
From: ulysses!sfmag!sfsup!glg@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (G.Gleason)
Subject: Re: Recent Supernova: Lost opportunity?

In article <971@crlt.UUCP> russ@crlt.UUCP writes:
>But what of gravity waves, which theory also predicts would be
>emitted in copious quantities?

>Life's a bitch, eh?  Maybe next time (whenever *THAT* is).

Are there any speculations about when it is likely to be?  It hasn't
really been that long that we have been able to detect this type of
event, and an even shorter time that we have been able to get decent
measurements.  Unless we have just been lucky that one happened at this
particular time, I would think that they are not extremely rare.  Are
there any ways to calculate an expected frequency?

Gerry Gleason

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 87 17:28 EDT
From: "Paul F. Dietz" <DIETZ%sdr.slb.com@relay.cs.net>
Subject: Supernova
To: jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu, space@angband.s1.gov

Ken Jenks said in a recent message about SN 1987A...

> The interstellar medium is not exactly a vacuum.  The speed of light
> might be reduced by a very small fraction in the interstellar goop
> intervening between us and the SN.

This effect is calculable.  It is insignificant for visible light.

> Another possibility is that it takes a while for the light from a
> nuclear reaction in a star to reach the surface, while the neutrinos,
> again, would hardly be slowed at all.

This is basically correct, although the energy in a type II SN is
thought to come from gravitational collapse of the core, not nuclear
reactions.

>> Can neutrino detectors determine the direction of detected neutrinos?

> Neutrino detectors work by tracking tiny flashes of light given off
> when the neutrinos interact with the molecules in a large vat of
> liquid (cleaning fluid is often used).  The direction of these tracks
> could be plotted and would give the general direction of the neutrino
> source.

Ken is confusing the solar neutrino experiment, which detects relatively
low energy neutrinos from the sun by detecting the radioactive argon
produced by inverse beta decay of chlorine (no light flashes involved,
and it's not real time), with the IMB and Kamiokande detectors. The
latter are very large pools of very pure water, with photomultiplier
tubes distributed to detect Cerenkov radiation from fast charged
particles. These detectors can find the direction of the neutrino *if*
it scatters off an electron, since the Cerenkov radiation of the
electron is emitted in a cone around the electron's direction of motion.
These cones did indeed point roughly towards SN 1987A (although the
electron scatters off at an angle, the scattering is biased toward the
direction in which the neutrino was travelling). Most of the neutrinos
from SN 1987A that were detected interacted with nuclei, and provided no
directional information.

>> Will future super nova eject detectable neutrinos?

> If our understanding of the fusion reactions is correct, yes.  Our
> understanding is incomplete, however.  Our detectors don't come up
> with anywhere near the number of neutrinos that theory says Sol should
> be putting out.  Either our detectors are bad or we don't understand
> the physics of Sol well enough.

First of all, fusion has little to do with type II SN's. In fact, in a
type II SN energy is thought to be removed from the shock wave by
nuclear photodisintegration. The energy that powers the explosion is
thought to come from the enormous gravitational binding energy of the
newly created neutron star. Recall that an object dropped onto a neutron
star liberates about 10% of its rest mass as energy -- much more
efficient than nuclear reactions.

Second, it's not clear to me what the "solar neutrino problem" has to do
with supernovas, although SN 1987A can rule out some explanations for
the problem. The neutrinos from SN 1987A were remarkably like what
theory had predicted. This is not to say that supernovas are well
understood.

>> Can we determine the direction to the predicted supernova?

> Yes, theoretically.  Well enough to aim a wide-angle camera.

Even better than that, eventually. Place several real time neutrino
detectors around the solar system (in asteroids, say). The arrival time
difference between two detectors lets us determine the angle between the
line connecting the detectors and the line from the detectors to the
supernova. Three detectors narrows the region down to two points in the
sky; a fourth detector narrows it further to one point. The accuracy
with which we can measure the position increases as the detectors are
spaced farther apart, and as the neutrino pulse gets narrower (and as
the count rates in the detectors increase, making the measurement of
timing differences more accurate). This technique is used today to
locate gamma ray bursters.

It would probably be easier to use widely spaced gravity wave detectors,
since they are less massive, and I suppose would have better temporal
resolution.

Paul F. Dietz
dietz@sdr.slb.com

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #31
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 31 Oct 87 06:55:50 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA05410; Sat, 31 Oct 87 03:16:14 PST
	id AA05410; Sat, 31 Oct 87 03:16:14 PST
Date: Sat, 31 Oct 87 03:16:14 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8710311116.AA05410@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #32

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 32

Today's Topics:
	     A New Age of Discovery -- The Space Frontier
	       Re: Recent Supernova: Lost opportunity?
	     New Yorker article and White Sands 'launch'
		       Re: SPACE Digest V8 #31
			    SR-71 Variants
		   Re: SR-71 Variants (Really D-21)
			grow your own shuttle?
		      Re: grow your own shuttle?
			   Re: Next shuttle
			 Old Shuttle Mockups
		Re: shuttle orbiter max time on orbit
		     Wood as structural material
			Shuttle Escape System
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Posted-Date: Fri, 30 Oct 87 15:19:01 PST
To: BBoard@venera.isi.edu, Space@angband.s1.gov
From: Craig Milo Rogers <Rogers@venera.isi.edu>
Reply-To: Rogers@venera.isi.edu
Subject: A New Age of Discovery -- The Space Frontier
Date: Fri, 30 Oct 87 15:19:01 PST
Sender: rogers@venera.isi.edu

	The Planetary Society and the Division of Planetary Science of
the American Astronomical Society invite you to attend a public lecture
by Dr. Thomas O. Paine, "A New Age of Discovery -- The Space Frontier",
introduced by Dr. Carl Sagan, President of The Planetary Society.

	The lecture is Monday, Nov 9, 1987, at 8:00 PM in the Kuiper
Room of the Pasadena Convention Center, 300 E. Green Street, Pasadena.

	Admission is free.  [Parking is not -- CMR]

	As humankind extends the boundaries of the space frontier, we
are poised on the edge of the next age of discovery.  Like the expansion
across the oceans of Earth five hundred years ago, our species is once
again beginning to feel the pull of the "exploration imperative" --
across the oceans of space.

	On this occasion Dr. Paine will share his vision of the destiny
of Earth's people, painting a vivid picture of where humankind will be
in the next century.

	Dr. Thomas O. Paine, member of the Board of Directors of The
Planetary Society [and active in the National Space Society, too], was
NASA Administrator between 1968-1970 when the first seven Apollo
missions flew.  As Chairman of the National Commission on Space, he led
the effort to create a "bold agenda to carry America's civilian space
enterprise into the 21st century".  The resulting Commission report,
"Pioneering the Space Frontier", presents a vision and a plan for our
next fifty years in space.

	[Editorial: Although the Commission completed its report in
1986, the President's staff refused to forward it to President Reagan
for consideration.]

	I just received this announcement in the mail, courtesy the
Planetary Society.

					Craig Milo Rogers

------------------------------

Date: 28 Oct 87 12:27:05 GMT
From: pur-phy!hal@ee.ecn.purdue.edu  (Hal Chambers)
Subject: Re: Recent Supernova: Lost opportunity?

In article <327@ur-tut.UUCP> jap2@tut.cc.rochester.edu.UUCP (The Mad Mathematician) writes:
>...unless neutrinos are massless they cannot travel at the speed of light...

  They are massless just as photons are.
  Various experiments have tried to determine a non-zero mass but have
only set an upper limit on the mass (I don't know the current value)
which is very small.

Hal Chambers

------------------------------

Date: 29 Oct 87 15:53:54 GMT
From: cfa!mink@husc6.harvard.edu  (Doug Mink)
Subject: New Yorker article and White Sands 'launch'

In article <865@thumperbellcore.com>, mike@thumperbellcore.com (Michael Caplinger) says:
 
> I think I read in SKY AND TELESCOPE some time back that it was proven
> that the White Sands launch couldn't possibly have put anything into
> solar orbit -- in fact, even orbital velocity was highly unlikely, and
> the objects have certainly come down by now.  Some fairly famous
> astrophysicist was in charge of this -- was it Zwicky, maybe?
 
It was Zwicky; there is a bit about him in this week's New Yorker in an
article which is primarily about Eugene and Carolyn Schumaker and their
search for asteroids.  Zwicky appeared in a diversion into the history
of Palomar Observatory.  This article seems to convey the spirit of
good, old-fashioned professional telescope observing quite well (I've
done a bit in my time, though I prefer the warmth of the telescope's
computer room to the cold telescope dome).  There are also interesting
bits about the history of the space program.  I recommend this article
highly, though I forgot who wrote it.

Doug Mink
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astophysics
Cambridge, Massachusetts
mink@cfa.harvard.edu  or
{seismo|ihnp4}!harvard!cfa!mink

------------------------------

Posted-From: The MITRE Corp., Bedford, MA
Cc: jrt@mitre-bedford.arpa
Subject: Re: SPACE Digest V8 #31 
Date: Fri, 30 Oct 87 09:12:36 EST
From: jrt@mitre-bedford.arpa

Greetings to the net...Ref. widely spaced neutrino, gravity detectors
for SN events...Good idea but how would one compare neutrino/gravity
wave arrival times given the time it would take to communicate with the
other detector sites?  Also, how about the difficulty in synchronizing
clocks?

------------------------------

Subject: SR-71 Variants
Date: Mon, 26 Oct 87 15:52:33 -0500
From: Fred Baube <fbaube@note.nsf.gov>

At the Air & Space Museum is one of those books laden with pictures,
about the SR-71 / YF-12 / A-11.  One of the more interesting shots is of
a drone variant that consisted of one of the engines, and not much more.
There is no information given about performance, but it must have set a
record or three !  Anyone know amy more about this ?

------------------------------

Date: 29 Oct 87 14:59:08 GMT
From: mcvax!unido!ecrcvax!johng@uunet.uu.net  (John Gregor)
Subject: Re: SR-71 Variants (Really D-21)

In article <8710261552.aa11421@note.nsf.gov> fbaube@NOTE.NSF.GOV (Fred Baube) writes:
>At the Air & Space Museum is one of those books laden with pictures,
>about the SR-71 / YF-12 / A-11.  One of the more interesting shots is
>of a drone variant that consisted of one of the engines, and not much
>more.  There is no information given about performance, but it must
>have set a record or three !  Anyone know amy more about this ?

The drone (D-21) sat piggy-back on an A-12.  It seperated from the
mother craft at speed on the edge of hostile airspace and was, via a
radio link, remotely piloted over the reconaissance collection area.  It
would then be flown back over a neutral area, discharge the tape, and
self destruct.

It did not use the J-58 engine.  It used a Marquardt RJ-43-MA-11 ramjet.
The inlet spike was fixed.  Judging from the angle, the bird probably
cruised at Mach 3.15 or so.

One of the early tests went very wrong though.  In 1966, using a fully
fueled D-21 for the first time and a new seperation procedure, the D-21
failed to clear the shockwave of the A-12.  It plowed into the tail of
the craft.  The A-12 pitched up and out of the envelope at Mach 3.  It
broke up in flight.  Pilot Bill Park and LCO Ray Torick ejected.  They
landed in the ocean.  Both survived the ejection, but Torick drowned
before recovery.

As an aside, there were several instances of bail-outs at cruise
altitude and speed.  Those S1030 pressure suits were tough suckers.

Kelly Johnson scrapped the A-12/D-21 project.  They tried hanging them
off of B-52's, but they needed a booster rocket in order for the ramjets
to operate.

Source: Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird
	Paul F. Crickmore
	Osprey Publishing Limited
	ISBN 0-85045-735-1
		    -653-3 (Paperback)

BTW, does anybody know of a way to get info out of Lockheed regarding
the A-11/A-12/SR-71.  I'm looking for pictures and any technical
documentation that has been declassified.

			Thanks
			   John Gregor

------------------------------

Date: 16 Oct 87 13:19:00 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!dcl-cs!nott-cs!pyr1!seefromline@uunet.uu.net
Subject: grow your own shuttle?

Subject: oak-panelled romper room in the shuttle?

	Can anyone offer up reasons why wood is not a suitable material
for use in space? Much is made of the new composites using carbon fibre
based products, all of which seem very complex and expensive.

I wondered why suitably treated wood is not used instead. It has many
admirable properties under variable loads, is wonderfully easy to
produce and machines well. If it works on sailing ships I think it aught
to fly well...

All anecdotes greatfully received...

	George Michaelson, University College London.

JANET:  george@uk.ac.ucl.cs

------------------------------

Date: 19 Oct 87 15:02:27 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!its63b!bob@uunet.uu.net  (ERCF08 Bob Gray)
Subject: Re: grow your own shuttle?

In article <44600006@pyr1> george@Cs.Ucl.ac.uk writes:
>	Can anyone offer up reasons why wood is not a suitable
>material for use in space?

Not really a structural use, but the chinese use oak to make
the re-entry heat shields of their recoverable experiment
capsules.
	Bob.

------------------------------

Date: 24 Oct 87 03:41:51 GMT
From: nuchat!splut!stu@uunet.uu.net  (Stu Cobb)
Subject: Re: Next shuttle

In article <74700041@uiucdcsp>, jenks@uiucdcsp.cs.uiuc.edu writes:
> Does anyone know what the changes would be if the orbiter were to be
> given a two-week duration instead of its present one-week flight
> duration?

Consumables are the major driver.  What are "consumables"?  Electrical
power, propellants, and atmospheric reconstitution.  Electricity
(actually, cryo H2 and O2 for the fuel cells) is probably the hardest.
There was a proposal a while back to launch a mini-station, consisting
mainly of a large solar cell wing, which could power the Shuttle
indefinitely.  Given power, they were considering thirty day missions.

Stu

------------------------------

Date:         Sun, 25 Oct 87 12:32:44 EDT
From: Steve Abrams <EXT768%UKCC.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu>
Subject: Old Shuttle Mockups

Re: Pathfinder

>  There are only 2 non-flyable "shuttles", the Enterprise which you
>  saw, at th e A&S Museum annex, and the Pathfinder (OV-100, I think),
>  which is in Japan, I believe.

>  *** mike (powered by M&Ms) smithwick ***

     When I was at the 1987 National Conference of Students for the
Exploration and Development of Space (SEDS) in Huntsville, AL in August,
the Pathfinder was at the Alabama Space & Rocket Museum/Space Camp/Space
Academy.  Unless it was just a mock-up (of a mock-up, yet) created for
use in the movie, "Space Camp."  If I'm wrong, then what's it doing in
Japan?  Just a display piece?  Anyone got any info?

            Steve (powered by STAR TREK re-runs) Abrams

------------------------------

Date: 25 Oct 87 02:13:15 GMT
From: ssc-vax!eder@beaver.cs.washington.edu  (Dani Eder)
Subject: Re: shuttle orbiter max time on orbit

In article <940@crlt.UUCP>, russ@crlt.UUCP (Russ Cage) writes:
> First and most obviously, consumables.  I believe that the current
> duration limit is set by the on-board oxygen and hydrogen supplies for
> running the fuel cells and keeping the atmosphere breathable.  The
> tanks for these are fixed in size (food and LiOH cannisters could be
> given another mid-deck locker).  Does the toilet have a limited tank
> capacity?  That could prove problematic as well.

Mr. Cage is correct about the fuel cells reactants being a limiter on
the orbiter time on orbit.  According to the "Shuttle Operational Data
Book" (Document number JSC-08934), the fuel cells produce 4 pounds of
water per hour at a power level of 5 kW, which is a typical value.  The
maximum sustained power output on the Orbiter is currently 7 kW, which
is set by the area of the radiators.  You can go up to 12 kW for short
(1/2 hr) periods of time, but then have to wait until all your systems
cool down again.

By conservation of matter, water produced=reactants (oxygen, hydrogen)
consumed.  An electrical power tank set carries 844 pounds of 
reactants.  Electricity generation would use 96 pounds per day.
The cabin leaks 2 pounds of oxygen per day, and each crew member
uses 2 pounds of oxygen per day.  These are supplied from the
tank sets also.  So, a tank set is good for about 7 days of
typical on-orbit operations, or about 5 days with material processing,
or some other full-bore power user and a large crew.  

The usual mission load is three tank sets, with sometimes one of the
three present but empty.  This provides a spare in case one of the units
fails.  With three full ones, you get two to three weeks of theoretical
stay time, and about 9 to 10 days of safe mission time, with allowance
for contingencies.

The cargo bay-under floor region is where the tank sets go.  There is
room for 7 sets, with plumbing installed for 5 sets.  If you made the
modifications and carried 7 sets, you would have a reasonable prospect
of a one month mission capability.  This is not an accident, the
original design specification called for a 28-day capabilty on orbit.

For longer missions, the now all-but-forgotten power extension package
could be used.  A solar array/battery combination providing equivalent
power would mass about 1500 lb, equal to one full tank set in mass.  It
would allow missions limited by other conditions, such as food,
malfunctions, etc.

This gives you what my boss describes as a 'ground based, partially
reuseable space station'.

Dani Eder/Boeing/Advanced Space Transportation

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 87 08:42:36 pst
From: Eugene Miya N. <eugene@ames-pioneer.arpa>
Subject: Wood as structural material

>Can anyone offer up reasons why wood is not a suitable material for use
>in space?

It has been used.  Balsa wood was used in certain parts of the 3rd stage
Saturn V.  It had several advantages: lightest weight for strength, very
good insulation (thermal), cheap, easily worked.  Problems: wood, since
it is grown has fixed length fibers, this can lead to discontinuties, so
consistency is a problem.

Aside from the fact that it does not appear as a high tech material, the
only thing stopping further use is our concept of "space-age" high tech
materials (are you willing to `insult' the materials science people?
they are very powerful in the Agency).  How you you expect to keep track
of all these technological advances? ;-)

>Subject: oak-panelled romper room in the shuttle?

I think you will have to settle for a poster as best due to liftoff
weight.

>From the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA
  "You trust the `reply' command with all those different mailers out there?"
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."
  {hplabs,hao,ihnp4,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene

------------------------------

Date:         Mon, 26 Oct 87 14:48:14 EDT
From: Jeffrey R Kell <JEFF%UTCVM.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu>
Subject: Shuttle Escape System

>Date: 19 Oct 87 23:39:34 GMT
>From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
>Subject: space news from Sept 7 AW&ST
>
>[....]
>NASA is looking at a new escape-system idea: a 21-foot metal pole
>extending from the orbiter hatch, to guide crew members clear of the
>wing.

Clear of the wing?  And then what?  Sounds more like a sheesh-kabob to
prepare you to barbequeue in the exhaust plume of the SRBs.  :-) But for
ground-detected failure modes it is indeed a simple solution.

>The Naval Weapons Center is helping develop crew survival gear,
>including possibly a partial-pressure suit and oxygen system.  NASA
>hopes that such equipment might make a Challenger-type accident
>survivable.

Survivable?  Even if you survived the blast and shrapnel, the wind shear
would be one heck of an experience...

It sounds like a publicity-seeking "warm fuzzy" to me.  Exploding in the
air can only rarely forecasted in certain failure modes, and if it does
blow, how can you expect to survive?  If there was any advance warning
it should be possible to separate the orbiter and try to coast back down
or at least get away from the explosion.  Is that a feasible escape
mode?

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #32
*******************

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Date: Sun, 1 Nov 87 03:17:02 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8711011117.AA06836@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #33

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 33

Today's Topics:
			Shuttle Escape System
		      Re: grow your own shuttle?
	   Re: White Sands 'launch' similar to private one
	   Re: White Sands 'launch' similar to private one
		       Re: A Commercial Launch
	    Re: Great Depression II and the Space Station
	  Computers and Military Technology (159 lines long)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 28 Oct 87 21:26:53 GMT
From: necntc!linus!utzoo!henry@AMES.ARPA  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Shuttle Escape System

> >NASA is looking at a new escape-system idea: a 21-foot metal pole
> >extending from the orbiter hatch, to guide crew members clear of the
> >wing.
> 
> Clear of the wing?  And then what?  Sounds more like a sheesh-kabob to
> prepare you to barbequeue in the exhaust plume of the SRBs.  :-)

Nope, you've missed the context.  This is an alternative to the escape-
rocket system, intended as a way of bailing out in controlled *gliding*
flight.  Assuming that major trouble strikes after SRB burnout and that
you can't reach a runway, right now you are *dead*, because the shuttle
is too fragile for a belly landing or ditching.  And unfortunately it
isn't enough to just pack parachutes along, because the shuttle hatch is
right in front of the wing and simply jumping out isn't safe.

> >hopes that such equipment might make a Challenger-type accident
> >survivable.                            ---------------
> 
> Survivable?  Even if you survived the blast and shrapnel, the wind
> shear would be one heck of an experience...

Since the Challenger crew *did* survive the blast and shrapnel, that
issue is irrelevant.  And the cabin would be falling at more or less
terminal velocity after a relatively brief period of deceleration,
making it no worse than bailing out of an aircraft... assuming you could
stay conscious to do it, which is the point of oxygen systems and
partial-pressure suits.

> ... Exploding in the air can only rarely forecasted in certain failure
> modes, and if it does blow, how can you expect to survive?

Joe Kerwin's medical report made it quite clear that the Challenger crew
definitely survived until water impact.  There is no possible dispute
that they were alive and conscious for at least a few seconds after
things came apart, since some of their emergency air packs had been
turned on manually.

> If there was any advance warning it should be possible to separate the
> orbiter and try to coast back down or at least get away from the
> explosion.  Is that a feasible escape mode?

Not while the SRBs are burning; the orbiter is too fragile and is
unlikely to survive either (a) separation from live SRBs or (b) shutting
down the SRBs [it is possible to shut down a big solid rocket, but it's
drastic and violent].

Is it too much to ask that people read the Rogers report before airing
their views on the issues to the entire net?

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 29 Oct 87 18:47:26 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: grow your own shuttle?

> ...  Aluminum and fiberglass have the advantage of not outgassing.

Obviously you haven't noticed the news items about the outgassing
problems with composite structures in one of the Hubble Telescope
instruments!  Aluminum, okay.  Fiberglass, not to be taken for granted.

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 27 Oct 1987 15:57-EST 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: White Sands 'launch' similar to private one

A similar launch was carried out by a rocketry club in the sixties. A
balloon was used to carry an amateur rocket to high altitude. The rocket
gained another 10 miles altitude and the nose cone exploded at apogee.
But not just any old explosion. It was a shaped charge of plastic
explosive that spit out a bead of molten aluminum at Earth escape
velocity. Thus they have the honor, whenever they wish to step forward
publicly and claim it, of being the FIRST private organization to place
an object in solar orbit.

Obviously it is impossible to VERIFY that a bead was so launched. But
their telemetry (and I believe some unofficial tracking assistance from
a NIKE site) showed that the charge exploded at the predicted altitude,
velocity and attitude.

I have all the details and particulars, but I'm afraid I can't give
them out without permission from the people who did it. I was not
involved and did not find out about this until about 5 years ago when I
was told about it and shown the archives of the project.

------------------------------

Date: 28 Oct 87 20:29:39 GMT
From: faline!thumper!mike@bellcore.bellcore.com  (Michael Caplinger)
Subject: Re: White Sands 'launch' similar to private one


I think I read in SKY AND TELESCOPE some time back that it was proven
that the White Sands launch couldn't possibly have put anything into
solar orbit -- in fact, even orbital velocity was highly unlikely,
and the objects have certainly come down by now.  Some fairly famous
astrophysicist was in charge of this -- was it Zwicky, maybe?

	Mike Caplinger

------------------------------

Date: 28 Oct 87 16:47:36 GMT
From: ece-csc!ncrcae!ncr-sd!ncrlnk!ncrwic!ensub!encad!mjohnson@mcnc.org  (Mark Johnson)
Subject: Re: A Commercial Launch

In article <343@ablnc.ATT.COM> rcpilz@ablnc.ATT.COM (Robert C. Pilz) writes:
>A private company, E-Prime Aerospace Inc., expects to launch a payload
>for the Air Force some time in November. E-Prime is a launch services
>company located in Titusville Fla. This will be their first rocket.
>This will be the first commercial launch from Cape Canaveral. The
>rocket will be called Loft-1. I do not know what kind of rocket it is
>yet, but it is manufactured or tested near Huntsville Ala. (Maybe

The Loft-1 vehicle is being built up by several different groups:
	- Univ. of Alabama/Huntsville Aero Engineering
	- An amateur radio group with 10 channels of assorted telemetry 
          relaying acceleration, velocity, altitude, and other flight
          parameters using the 28, 146, and 420 MHz amateur bands
	- North Coast Rocketry, a supplier of parts to 'advanced rocketry'
	  users (outgrowth of high power model rockets in the last 5 years)
	  They are building the flight vehicle itself.
	- Vulcan Systems, Inc., a supplier of solid rocket motors located in
 	  Colorado Springs, will be supplying the motor, which will have 
	  a thrust of 5000 nt (just over 1000 lb) for 5 seconds.
	- A high school in the suburban Atlanta area is providing a small
	  biological experiment.

The Loft-1 vehicle will be approximately 12 feet long, 6 inches in
diameter, weigh 85 lb at takeoff, and is expected to reach approximately
17000 feet.  The vehicle will be recovered by 2 large parachutes and
will be aimed to splash down in the Atlantic.

I know this sounds small - it is. Nonetheless, it is the first attempt
at flying a civilian vehicle at the Canaveral Air Force Station, and all
the coordination efforts by the various groups are just as extensive as
if they were launching something much bigger. To wit, the launch was
originally scheduled for Oct. 15th but the AF didn't get its end of the
paperwork completed, thus the delay into November.

If anyone wants it, I can supply exact telemetry frequencies and other
exact data about the vehicle...I have a copy of their press release.

My source for all information is reliable as it is the builder of the
biological experiment package. All components have been ground tested as
of Oct. 10th, and a duplicate flight vehicle was successfully flown in
Colorado in late September.

I will be glad to email text info or snailmail copies of the other info
to anyone interested...send email requests to address below.
-- 
Mark Johnson (mjohnson@ncrwic.UUCP)
NCR Engineering & Manufacturing-Wichita, KS  phone: (316)688-8189    
email:...!rutgers!hplabs!hp-sdd!ncr-sd!ncrwic!encad!mjohnson 
US snailnet: 3718 N. Rock Rd., Wichita, KS 67226

------------------------------

Subject: Re: Great Depression II and the Space Station
Date: Tue, 27 Oct 87 10:36:24 -0500
From: Fred Baube <fbaube@note.nsf.gov>

> Bruce Watson writes:
> If the government mishandles the economy or if it is beyond anyones
> control, the first thing, from historical analogy, is for a public
> works spending program like the Hoover dam started in 1930 to be tried
> ...  A disasterous downturn of the economy might be good for space
> station prospects.

There's a book "Report from Iron Mountain" from some years back, where a
committe examined what useful purposes are served by war and the
military, and how a society would duplicate them in war's absence. (I've
since been told it was written as a gag, but if so, it's a reasonably
thoughtful gag.)

They found that of all the purposes served by war and the military
(unity, technological spin-offs, Keynsian Black Hole for arbitrary
amounts of money [Hoover Dam in orbit :-)], national inventory-taking,
others), the space program fit the bill on all except the unity in the
face of a threat.  So, if the space station could address some bogeyman
(say, "competitiveness", or Secular Humanism, or Libyan Death Squads),
it would truly fit the bill in a timely way!

------------------------------

Date: 28 OCT 87 02:08-PST
Reply-to: clopez%UCIVMSA.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu
Subject: Computers and Military Technology (159 lines long)
From: Carlos A. Lopez <clopez@orion.cf.uci.edu>

>>      3.  Defense, like space, has great potential for "spinoff"
>>technologies.  Consider computers, which exist only because the
>>military saw their value for calculating projectile trajectories and
>>code breaking.  (Here is an example of the "spinoff" helping both
>>space exploration and education.)

>Ha!  You aren't actually claiming that the military was responsible for
>the existance of computers????  I hope not.  Military spending may have
>produced many beneficial advances in science, but I claim that if that
>money had been aimed at space development, much more would have been
>accomplished, and the earth might be a more stable place....  [Of

1) Yes, the existence of computers is HIGHLY related to there initial
military value.  While computers were an eventual technological
development, their rapid advances are due mainly to extensive military
funding.

2) Government, especially military, spending is primarily responsible
for the advancement in science in the last 40 years.

3) Space development is also a function of military funding and
scientific development.


   You don't believe me?  Let me share part of a paper I wrote for a
recent course in "Computers and Military Technology."  This should also
answer a few questions like why is the DoD so heavy involved in science
and the space program, how does the government fund science and
technology, and why is the U.S. so preoccupied with "high/advanced"
technology.

----------


   The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
founded in 1846 is one of the first organizations set up by scientists
to promote science.  A quote by Science magazine, published in 1885 by
the AAAS said, "There is little danger that the work of American
experiment stations will be rigidly scientific."  This is because basic
science does not usually pay off right away.  Yet, President Reagan said
in 1985 that "No nation depends as much as we do on the science base."
How did these very different views develop?

   If we look at the amount of money the government has spent on
research and development over time, we see that major changes occurred
during and after WWII (see table 1).

--------------------------------------------------------
1900   $2 million
1940   $70 million
1945   $700 million
1986   $70 billion with $60 billion more contributed mainly by industry

     Table 1: R&D expenditure in the United States
--------------------------------------------------------

   WWII moved research and development from being funded by industry and
foundations (like the Rockefeller Foundation) to being hugely funded by
federal government.  In summary, during the prewar period science kind
of marched along by itself.  Then in the second world war something
happened that turned science into big business.

   We will now look at the events that happened during and after WWII
which had such an impact on the government's role in the pursuit of
science and technology.  The central person is Vanenvar Bush, the
electrical engineer who built the differential analyser.  In 1938 he was
the President of the Carnigie Foundation in Washington, D.C.  He
realized that in the war just starting (WWII), it would be very
important for the government to use all scientific manpower available.
He felt an even larger scientific effort to that in WWI would be needed.
In WWI, Thomas Edison was head of commission to find way to fight german
submarines.  Bush persuaded Roosevelt to create the National Defense
Research Council in June 1940.

   Bush headed the council, which included among others, the presidents
of Harvard, MIT, and Cal Tech.  They looked for research that might be
important in the war effort.  This is where universities were brought
into the war effort for the first time.  For example, MIT built a radar
lab which was based on british radar developments at the time, the John
Hopkins lab built fuses for bombs, and the Moore school at the
University of Pennsylvania used differential analysers and people,
mostly women, to compute firing tables for ballistic trajectory charts.
Out of this project later came the ENIAC computer.  Cal Tech did radar
research also.  Money was given to universities, who then decided how to
spend it.  Before this, government (with the exception of the Dept. of
Agriculture and their "research stations") didn't support universities.
Universities were something only the states were involved in.  All of a
sudden, the government needed people to help in the war effort, and
those people were in universities.  This marks the change from
universities as ivory towers of academia, to major universities and
major takers of government monies.  All these places later became major
scientific centers.

   The most noticeable scientific project of the war was the Manhattan
Project which developed the first atomic bombs.  In 1938, Albert
Einstein wrote a letter to President Roosevelt saying that advances in
physics made nuclear bombs possible, that the Germans were looking into
this, and that we had to do something.  In 1941, Bush started a project
that spun off into the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos Laboratories.
Headed by J.  Robert Oppenheimer, scientists there eventually created
the fission bombs dropped on Japan in 1945.  There are many other
noticeable scientists, as well as technological and political issues
involved within the Manhattan Project, but they digress from the subject
at hand.

   Other important contributions of science to the war effort was made
by advancements in medical science.  For example, the rate of soldiers
dying by disease (instead of bullets) was reduced by a factor of 100
compared to WWI.  Also, the average life expectancy in the US was
increased from age 49 to age 65 over the first half of this century.

   Thus, WWII proved to the government and people that science is very
important to the nation, and the individual.  This set the stage for
Bush's report published to Roosevelt in 1945 called "Science, the
Endless Frontier."  In it he said that we must use science for national
defense and welfare, and blueprinted an organization called the National
Research Foundation which would be headed by scientists who would set
policy and decide what projects would be funded.  This eventually became
the National Science Foundation (NSF) in 1950, except it was controlled
by Congress.

   For the first time, permanent organizations to support science and
research were formed in the government, based on the power of science
demonstrated in WWII.  In 1946, the direction and finance of science was
controlled largely by the Department of Defense (DoD).  The Navy created
the Office of Naval Research, then with a budget of $40 million dollars.
Similar offices were later created by the Army and Air Force.  Later,
the NSF was created in 1950.  Then in 1957, spending by the government
was again increased after the Soviet launch of Sputnik.  The National
Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency (DARPA) were created by reaction to the
perceived threat to national security.  NASA headed America's space
program, and DARPA guided individual projects it felt important to
national defense.  Heavy spending by the government on universities
continued until about 1965 when the Vietnam war began draining
resources.

   The Vietnam war and turmoil of the the 60's raised questions about
the military-university relationship.  Most citizens did not like the
military funding what was considered pure scientific efforts.  And many
universities did not like having classified work in support of the war
being done on campus.  Congress responded with the Mansfield Amendment
in 1969 which said that military spending for research at universities
must have a clearly defined military oriented goal, but repealed it a
year later.  The end result was that most campuses refused to do
classified work.

   Present spending by federal organizations on research and
development:

Department of Defense (DoD) - $34 billion
National Science Foundation (NSF) - $1.5 billion
National Institute of Health (NIH) - $4.5 billion
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) - $13 billion

(There are many others, sorry I don't have the numbers for them.)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Carlos A. Lopez       (clopez@ucivmsa) |  Project: Cutting a record to show
Computer Science Student Extraordinare |           the world I can't sing.
University of California at Irvine     |  Plan: To be the "Don Johnson" of CS.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #33
*******************

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Date: Mon, 2 Nov 87 03:22:38 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8711021122.AA08322@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #34

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 34

Today's Topics:
		  Computers and Military Technology
	      Western Decadence 1,  Proletarian Values 0
		  Computers and Military Technology
			 Titan 34D Takes Off
		     Recent spy satellite launch
	Re: Vandenburg launch (was Re:Budgets (DoD vs. NASA))
			 Can't 86 Headers yet
	       Close Encounters of the Asteroidal Kind
			      Re: CELSS
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 28 Oct 87 20:09:10 GMT
From: tmca@ngp.utexas.edu  (Tim Abbott)
Subject: Computers and Military Technology

In article <8710281535.AA00305@angband.s1.gov>, clopez@UCIVMSA.BITNET writes:
> 
> 2) Government, especially military, spending is primarily responsible
> for the advancement in science in the last 40 years.
> 
> You don't believe me?  Let me share part of a paper I wrote for a
> recent course in "Computers and Military Technology."  This should
> also answer a few questions like why is the DoD so heavy involved in
> science and the space program, how does the government fund science
> and technology, and why is the U.S. so preoccupied with
> "high/advanced" technology.

[ . . . following is extensive treatise supposedly arguing that military
is good for science . . .]

You *consistently* confuse science with technology throughout your
article, listing a number of scientific achievments, made within the
*scientific* community and later used and developed by the military for
whatever *technological* ends they required.

Science is, or should, be pursued for science's sake, of itself it is
rarely directly useful to humanity.  Technology, however, is the practise
of making science useful.  The DoD undoubtedly spents vast sums of money
on technological development (though it's debatable as to whether they
are actually being of use to mankind) but they do not spend very much at
all on pure science, the universities do it for them, for free as far as
they're concerned.  The numbers at the end of your article say it all
  (unfortunately I wiped them before I realized I needed them, but from
   memory:)
R+D funding for 198?:
	NSF : $1.3 Billion
	DoD : $34  Billion

Isn't it amazing how much TECHNOLOGY you can get for so little SCIENCE?

By the way, you might think my point a trifle picky, this may be because
you're a technologist - I am a scientist.

------------------------------

Date: 29 Oct 87 14:25:00 PST
From: "DSS::BOLD" <bold%dss.decnet@afsc-sd.arpa>
Subject: Western Decadence 1,  Proletarian Values 0
To: "space" <space@angband.s1.gov>
Reply-To: "DSS::BOLD" <bold%dss.decnet@afsc-sd.arpa>

I caught a show on the Discovery Channel last Sunday which went
hand-in-hand with the cover story of the 26 Oct 87 issue of TIME.  The
subject of both was Life in the Soviet Union.

The Soviets have become so Westernized it isn't funny.  And to think
they were going to bury us!

If the world is to survive, the Soviets must admit that communism
doesn't work, wasn't worth trying, and then realize world domination is
not necessary for world influence.  Then, and only then, can we trust
them enough to join them in combined space ventures, let alone sign arms
reduction treaties.

Perhaps we could then implement the plan Buckminster Fuller described in
Critical Path, and construct a world wide electric power grid.  The only
change I would make is to fuel the grid with power from SPSs rather than
windmills.  (It's been a while since I read that book, so forgive me for
skimping on the details here.)

+++

I would like to thank all who responded to my observations on DoD and
NASA budgets; I had almost forgotten how easy it is to push a liberal's
buttons.

One thing these letters had in common was leaving out the part where,
after I said, "a government dedicated to the liberty of its citizens
must make [defense] its first priority," I acknowledged the room for
controversy about our government fitting in that category.  I would like
to acknowledge here an equally important controversy: are we getting our
money's worth from the defense budget?  If Sen Barry Goldwater thinks
we're spending too much on defense, then we probably are, but that does
not change the fact that societies are willing to be governed in order
to be defended, so defense should still remain the top priority of any
given government.  Providing, of course, you like to play the government
game.

Defense is going to be more expensive than education because it needs
more money for R&D.  It also needs more money to attract recruits if it
is to remain voluntary.  (I refer readers to Heinlein's observation on
conscription in "The Notebooks of Lazarus Long.")

Here's what I meant by giving the military credit for the existence of
computers: no one else had the clout to get the funding to have them
built!  Had the military not seen the computer's usefulness in
calculating trajectories and breaking enemy codes, the computer would at
worst still be an idea discussed only in advanced math classes or else,
at best, we would be building the computers of the 1940's today.

The average Soviet citizen, who probably isn't Russian, isn't evil, even
if he/she is Russian; as for the people who rule the USSR, well, the
fact they want to stay in power says it all.

Whatever governments touch, they ruin.  The Challenger tragedy proves my
point.  It's bad enough we have to trust ours with defense; space and
education, which I also mentioned in my letter on budgets, are much too
precious to leave in government hands. Instead of complaining about how
relatively little the government spends on them, let us work for their
privatization.

Kevin "Mad Max" Bold
(BOLD@AFSC-SD.ARPA)

------------------------------

Date: 29 Oct 87 21:54:12 GMT
From: hao!boulder!sunybcs!bingvaxu!leah!itsgw!nysernic!weltyc@ames.arpa  (Christopher A. Welty)
Subject: Computers and Military Technology

In article <8710281535.AA00305@angband.s1.gov> clopez@UCIVMSA.BITNET writes:
>>>      3.  Defense, like space, has great potential for "spinoff"
>>>technologies.  Consider computers, which exist only because the
>>>military saw their value for calculating projectile trajectories and
>>>code breaking.  (Here is an example of the "spinoff" helping both
>>>space exploration and education.)
>>
>>Ha!  You aren't actually claiming that the military was responsible
>>for the existance of computers????  I hope not.  Military spending may
>>have produced many beneficial advances in science, but I claim that if
>>that money had been aimed at space development, much more would have
>>been accomplished, and the earth might be a more stable place....  [Of
>
>1) Yes, the existence of computers is HIGHLY related to there initial
>military value.  While computers were an eventual technological
>development, their rapid advances are due mainly to extensive military
>funding.

	You just wasted 190 or so lines of text on me, pal, since you
clearly didn't read my message very carefully.  I am well aware of what
advances military spending is responsible for.  I do not challenge those
FACTS.  I challenge the way of thinking that concludes these advances
would not have occurred if the military hadn't spent the money.  If the
money had been spent in a peacful way to advance science, rather that to
get ahead of our enemies, then I claim many of the same advances of
significance (including computers) would not have been overlooked.  In
fact, I would say that if the money had been spent on the space program
instead of for the purposes of war, many far more significant advances
would have come about.  There is no telling what we could be doing right
now if we had space stations, lunar bases, visits to mars, etc.  There
is no question in my mind that these things would be possible -even
exisiting - today if we spent as much money on the space program as we
spent on the "defense" department.
	The "war is good because of the important technological
spinoffs" argument is ludicrous.  Of course, if it wasn't for the
Vietnamese War, we wouldn't have great movies like "Platoon", "Full
Metal Jacket", and "Top Gun", so maybe war is a worthwhile thing....
	I don't mean to sound like a pacifist - not that there's
anything wrong with being one.  I'm not, and I appreciate the value of a
strong defense.  But there is a great deal of difference between what we
have and a stong defense.  The ratio of money spent to useful result is
appalling (of course, NASA is no different).  And anyway, that's not my
point.  My point is, (to rereinterate) that the war creates spinoffs
argument is faulted.

Christopher Welty  ---  Asst. Director, RPI CS Labs
weltyc@cs.rpi.edu       ...!rutgers!nysernic!weltyc

------------------------------

Posted-Date: Wed, 28 Oct 87 10:49:54 PST
From: Craig Milo Rogers <Rogers@venera.isi.edu>
Reply-To: Rogers@venera.isi.edu
Subject: Titan 34D Takes Off
Date: Wed, 28 Oct 87 10:49:54 PST
Sender: rogers@venera.isi.edu

	According to an article in the New York Times, Tue 27 Oct 1987,
the Air Force successfully launched a Titan 34D from Vandenberg on
Monday.  This launch is being hailed as the most important
post-Challenger success.  Recall, the last two Titan 34Ds failed.

	The payload was not announced, but probably was a KH-11
reconnaissance satellite, considering that the only operational KH-11
prior to the launch has a remaining life expectancy of only 2 months.
The KH-11 is widely regarded as the mainstay of US imaging
reconnaissance.

	No advance announcement of the launch was made.

					Craig Milo Rogers

------------------------------

Date:     Wed, 28 Oct 87 14:14:56 CST
From: Will Martin -- AMXAL-RI <wmartin@almsa-1.arpa>
Subject:  Recent spy satellite launch

I heard a brief news item the other day about a successful US spy satellite
launch. Can anyone say if this was another KH-11 or if it was the new KH-12?

Will Martin

------------------------------

Date: 28 Oct 87 18:56:22 GMT
From: nosc!trout!ganzer@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu  (Mark T. Ganzer)
Subject: Re: Vandenburg launch (was Re:Budgets (DoD vs. NASA))

In article <1792@unc.cs.unc.edu>, leech@unc.cs.unc.edu (Jonathan Leech) writes:
>     Speaking of which, there was a 2 paragraph item in today's paper
> mentioning that the AF had successfully launched the first Titan 34D
> since the Vandenberg explosion in 1986. Payload was not described, but
> I imagine it was a spysat.

In the local San Diego paper, they said that it was indeed a KH-11 spysat
and that it was a ground test unit that had been refurbished. This is
supposed to hold us over until they can get a KH-12 up in a shuttle
launch.
-- 
MarK T. Ganzer                    Naval Ocean Systems Center, San Diego
Internet: ganzer@nosc.mil         UUCP: {ucbvax,hplabs}!sdcsvax!nosc!ganzer

------------------------------

Date: 30 Oct 87 12:38:00 PST
From: "DSS::SINDER" <sinder%dss.decnet@afsc-sd.arpa>
Subject: Can't 86 Headers yet
To: "space" <space@angband.s1.gov>
Reply-To: "DSS::SINDER" <sinder%dss.decnet@afsc-sd.arpa>

	In a private response to a query of mine, Ted said a
Needle/SkyHook arrangement might be feasible on MARS. Have there been
any "BREAKTHROUGHS" in materials science ((I'm an ex-animator making a
living as systems analyst for the Air Force via GSA. And I'm heavily
into Computer Graphics)) since I'm only aware of their inability to do
the job ( Skyhook-wise ) here on Earth.  How about the Moon? What are
the differences with Mars in relation to making the NEEDLE and SKYHOOK
work.  It sounds like a most fascinating topic to me.

	
Qualifying for NASA work on the Shuttle?
========================================

	Working for NASA being a good way of getting selected.  To the
Best of my knowledge, Dave Brin made the 2ND cut for being selected
(prior to the Challenger), and is working for NASA in the U.K.  I think
he has high expectations of being selected for a mission.

=============end==

Asking questions is one way to learn.

Thanks,

Alan Sinder at Air Force System Command - Space Division ( HQ SD )
(Sinder@afsc-sd.arpa)

------------------------------

Posted-Date: Thu, 29 Oct 87 08:55:34 PST
From: Craig Milo Rogers <Rogers@venera.isi.edu>
Reply-To: Rogers@venera.isi.edu
Subject: Close Encounters of the Asteroidal Kind
Date: Thu, 29 Oct 87 08:55:34 PST
Sender: rogers@venera.isi.edu

	I've recently been skimming "Asteroids", Tom Gehrels ed., Univ.
of Arizona Press 1979.  The article on p. 222 is titled "Exploration and
1994 Exploitation of Geographos", by Samuel Herrick.  This article was a
March 1971 preliminary draft for NASA publication, rejected as
"premature".

	It gives an overview of the 1994 close approach of Geographos
(an earth-crossing minor planet), explosive cleavage of a significant
part of Geographos, subsequent navigation to earth-rendezvous orbit, and
sample retrieval via terrestrial impact.

	The article mentions the numerous scientific benefits of an
asteroidal sample-and-return mission, and certain social and engineering
benefits commensurate with mission scale.  A new Central American canal
is proposed.

	Although Herrick specified a new canal through Columbia, I
imagine another site could be used, such as Nicaragua.  Also, the
eradication of minor debris approaching the earth would be an ideal test
for certain SDI systems.

	Unfortunately, there is a time constraint.  Cleavage and orbital
modification should being in 1989, and, I suppose, require a Saturn V
class launch vehicle (What?  the Energia?  nah...).

					Craig Milo Rogers

------------------------------

Date: 29 Oct 1987 14:31-EST 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: CELSS

Paul:
	It might well be possible at some point to create a CELSS as you
describe, but I suspect that long before then genetically tailored
organisms will be built to do the same job with less hardware and little
or no possibility of failure.

IN the long run we also have to deal with micro-ecologies on any
extended voyage. Life follows us wherever we go, and we need to balance
things to keep control. Already the russians ahve found problems with
algae or fungus growth on station interior surface. I believe they may
scrub walls down with disinfectants now and then (anyone who remembers
the precise details feel free to state them).

In addition, in a long term facility it is INEVITABLE that we will
collect mice, roaches, Dermestes, flies, gnats, fruitflies, rats... The
list goes on. An occasional atmospheric evacuation might kill them, but
can you imagine the effect of a week old dead rat in a space station?

That means cats, which means fleas...

Other life on board is also psychologically helpful. The russians have
found that tending growing plants on board is a favorite past time and
reduces stress on long tours of duty. It has also been found (recent
article in Science for corroboration) that pet ownership has a powerful
stress reducing effect and is recommended for heart patients. I would
suggest that the antics of a space station cat could be more effective
than a ground based team of the brightest psychiatrists on Earth.

I suggest cat because it could at some future date serve the dual
purpose of vermin removal just as old ships cats did. We may not get
rats for awhile, but eventually everything gets routine and someone
doesn't quite check the food container before putting it in the shipping
container...

Dogs are nice to have around also, but I'm not sure if they would adapt
as well to free fall as cats. Anyone who ever dropped a cat can see
that they are acrobats in free fall.

I also suggest that lots of green plants, probably flowering and food
producing will be needed for a splash of color, an occasional fresh
garnish to a freeze dried meal, and that indefinable freshness that
growing things give the air. (a combination of an earthy smell along
with extra O2, volatile plant oils, etc) Even if you could copy the
scent, the psychological effect would not be the same.

The main point is, we will take a wide spectrum of critters with us,
both as invited and uninvited guests, and we will have to be able to
balance these microecologies anyway, so we might as well incorporate
them in the design. Biology can be as effective as metal and plastic.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #34
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU;  3 Nov 87 06:20:50 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA10250; Tue, 3 Nov 87 03:17:52 PST
	id AA10250; Tue, 3 Nov 87 03:17:52 PST
Date: Tue, 3 Nov 87 03:17:52 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8711031117.AA10250@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #35

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 35

Today's Topics:
			 1987 AAS Conference
		      Re:  Help on Station teams
				CELSS
		     Station contractor addresses
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Posted-Date: Fri, 30 Oct 87 20:17:24 PST
From: Craig Milo Rogers <Rogers@venera.isi.edu>
Reply-To: Rogers@venera.isi.edu
Subject: 1987 AAS Conference
Date: Fri, 30 Oct 87 20:17:24 PST
Sender: rogers@venera.isi.edu

		 Space:  A New Community of Opportunity

	The 1987 AAS conference is in Houston, Texas, November 3-5.  It
consists of the usual opening and closing remarks, social evenings, and
panel discussions.  The panel discussions are led by NASA, Lockheed or
McDonnell Douglas representatives.  The panel topics are:

	governing policies and issues
	space utilization/application
	flight mechanics/guidance and control
	rocket propulsion
	astronomy, astrophysics and solar system exploration
	life sciences
	tracking and data systems
	structures and composite materials
	automation and robotics
	space station/large structures

	I received a copy of the conference brochure from SSI on 27 Oct
87.  If anyone on this list is going to this meeting, please send a
summary of it.  Thanks.

					Craig Milo Rogers

------------------------------

Date:     Fri, 30 Oct 87 10:02:35 CST
From: Will Martin -- AMXAL-RI <wmartin@almsa-1.arpa>
To: jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu
Cc: space@angband.s1.gov
Subject:  Re:  Help on Station teams

Well, here's your list, and I went thru the ELECTRONIC INDUSTRY
TELEPHONE DIRECTORY, '87/'88 issue and got all the listings below except
one, which came from the '86/'87 EEM (the EEM was fairly useless for
this search, by the way; only had Honeywell listed of all these firms!):

> Analex, #4

Nothing

> Computer Sciences, #3

There are a bunch of different states listed for this name; don't know
if these are different firms or branches of just one:
PO Box 21127  Kennedy Space Ctr, FL 32815   (305) 853-2484
8728 Colesville Rd  Silver Spring, MD 20910  (301) 589-1545
304 W Rt 38 / PO Box N  Moorestown, NJ 08057  (609) 234-1100
4835 University Sq Ste 8 Huntsville, AL 35816 (205) 830-1000
  (Applied Tech Div)
200 Sparkman Dr N W  Huntsville, AL 35805 (205) 837-7200
  (Defense Sys Div)
6565 Arlington Blvd  Falls Church, VA 22046 (703) 237-2000
  (Energy Resch Div)

> Eagle Engineering, #4

Nothing

> Garrett Fluid Systems, #4

Bunch of "Garrett"s, but no "Fluid Systems"

> General Dynamics, #4

Several listings:
General Dynamics Bldg  Ft. Worth, TX 76101  (817) 777-2000
Corp HQ - Pierre Laclede Ctr  St. Louis, MO 63105  (314) 889-8200 (Local
to me -- people are always picketing this office protesting nuke subs...)

> Grumman Aerospace, #1, #2	

Again several:
2852 Kelvin Ave  Irvine, CA 92714  (714) 660-4200
S Oyster Bay  Bethpage, NY 11714  (516) 575-3369
Grumman Blvd / MS F05-07  Calverton NY  (516) 575-0574

> Honeywell, #2, #3

Many, many listings; I include a couple:
Defense Sys Div - 5700 Smetana Dr M N O2-3380  Minnetonka, MN 55343
   (612) 936-3196
13350 US 19  Clearwater, FL 33546  (813) 531-4611
Also, the EEM lists:
Aerospace & Defense Grp - Honeywell Plaza  Minneapolis, MN 55408
  (612) 870-5186

> Intermetrics, #2		Phone: (800) 325-5235	(Never an answer)

Indl Sys Div - 733 Concord Av  Cambridge, MA 02138  (617) 661-0072

> Planning Research Corp., #4	Phone: (703) 734-1199   (Never an answer)

1500 Planning Research Dr  McLean, VA 22102  (703) 556-1000

> Rocketdyne, #4

Nothing

> Sunstrand, #4

Nothing

> USBI Booster Production, #1

How about "United Space Boosters / BPC"?
188 Spartman Dr / PO Box 1900  Huntsville, AL 35807 (205) 721-2400

The fine print is getting to me; I hope I copied all these numbers
correctly, and have tried to check. Msg me if you want me to re-check
any of them.

Regards,
Will Martin
wmartin@ALMSA-1.ARPA   (on USENET try ...!seismo!wmartin@ALMSA-1.ARPA )

------------------------------

Date: 29 Oct 87 22:01:54 GMT
From: ihnp4!upba!eecae!crlt!russ@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Russ Cage)
Subject: CELSS

In article <8710280500.AA07735@angband.s1.gov>, EXT768@UKCC.BITNET (Steve Abrams) writes:
[confirmation of human CO2 tolerance data that I recall from reading
 about WWII submarines.  Thanks, Steve!]

>Perhaps excess CO2 can be frozen out of the "people" modules, shoveled
>into the "plant" modules to perk them up?  Could excess O2 be similarly
>frozen out ( well, liquified) and piped back to the "people" areas?
>The farmers could "suit up" for a litttle IVA (Intra-Vehicular
>Activity) .

That's exactly what I had in mind; put the CO2 where it's wanted.  I got
the idea of freezing the CO2 out from an undersea habitat I recall
reading about (Cousteau?); I am not certain how well the freezing
process would work with low pressure O2-N2 as opposed to high-pressure
heliox, however.  Chemical absorbtion may be more workable, with thermal
or electrochemical decomposition of the resulting compound.

Getting excess O2 out of the plant modules while leaving the CO2 behind
would be much easier than moving the CO2 in the other direction.  O2
likes to dissolve in silicone polymers, and will diffuse through very
nicely; artificial gills and oxygen purifiers have been made using this
property of silicones.  A large area of silicone film with a pressure
differential will leak lots of O2 from one side to the other and has no
moving parts to break.

Suiting up for gardening would mean donning an oxygen mask, at the most.
Or, one could just purge the CO2 while people work, then refill the
module with the CO2-rich mixture after they're done.

Russ Cage, Robust Software Inc.              ihnp4!itivax![m-net!rsi,crlt!russ]

------------------------------

Date: 31 Oct 87 19:10:00 GMT
From: jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Station contractor addresses

There was enough E-mail asking me to mail out copies of the names,
addresses, and phone numbers of the Space Station contractors I've
gathered in my job search that I will post the (almost) complete list.
Please don't abuse this list -- I've gone through a lot of trouble and a
lot of phone money to compile this, and the folks at the other end have
been unfailingly cooperative.  I'd appreciate it if you didn't abuse
their generosity.

As you can see, the only contractors I know nothing about are Analex and
Eagle Engineering.  (Rocketdyne seems to be a division of Rockwell.
That's why it's so hard to find in company registries, etc.)

Please DO NOT mention my name or where you got the names and addresses
of these people if you contact them.  I don't want to be personally
responsible for these nice people getting hundreds of phone calls, but I
do want to get skilled people in touch with the appropriate places in
the Station project to enhance the nation's space program.  A dilemma:
personal desires vs. philosophical ideals.

Thanks to those of you in net.land who helped me compile this list.
With any luck, this will help some good people make some connections
they would otherwise miss in the space industry.

-- Ken Jenks, MS: Aero/Astro Engineering, BS: Computer Science, UIUC

		Looking for job in space.  Help, anyone?

jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu		{ihnp4!pur-ee}uiucdcs!uiucdcsp!jenks


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - TEAR HERE - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -


Alphabetical Listing of Companies and Segments:

     Key:
          #1: Segment I     Crew and lab modules
          #2: Segment II    Framework (main boom)
          #3: Segment III   Free-flying platform and research eqpt.
          #4: Segment IV    Power system


Analex, #4
	Address:
		TX or CA
	Phone:

Boeing, #1
	Address:
		The Boeing Company
		Employment Office
		PO Box 1470
		Huntsville, AL  35807
	Phone:

Computer Sciences, #3
	Address:
		PO Box 21127  Kennedy Space Ctr, FL 32815   	(305) 853-2484
		8728 Colesville Rd  Silver Spring, MD 20910  	(301) 589-1545
		304 W Rt 38 / PO Box N  Moorestown, NJ 08057  	(609) 234-1100
		4835 University Sq Ste 8  Huntsville, AL 35816 	(205) 830-1000
			(Applied Tech Div)
		200 Sparkman Dr N W  Huntsville, AL 35805 	(205) 837-7200
			(Defense Sys Div)
		6565 Arlington Blvd  Falls Church, VA 22046 	(703) 237-2000
			(Energy Resch Div)
	Phone:

Eagle Engineering, #4
	Address:
	Phone:

Ford Aerospace & Communications, #4
	Address:
	Phone: (301) 345-0250  Ask for Jim Furilla or Judy Kopetz

Garrett Fluid Systems, #4	Formerly Garrett Pneumatic Systems Division
	Address:
		Garrett Fluid Systems Company
		1300 W. Warner Rd, Box 22200
		Tempe, AZ 85282 
	Phone:

General Dynamics, #4
	Address:
		General Dynamics Bldg  Ft. Worth, TX 76101  	(817) 777-2000
	Phone:

General Electric, Astro Space Division, #1, #3
	Address:
		Attention: Mike Kavka
		Mail Stop 101
		Astro Space Division
		East Windsor
		POB 800
		Princeton, NJ 08543-0800

	Phone: (609) 426-3400

Grumman Aerospace, #1, #2	Large piece of Station awarded in July
	Address:
		2852 Kelvin Ave  Irvine, CA 92714  	(714) 660-4200
		S Oyster Bay  Bethpage, NY 11714  	(516) 575-3369
		Grumman Blvd / MS F05-07  Calverton NY  (516) 575-0574
	Phone:

Harris, #2
	Address:
	Phone: (303) 727-4000 Ask for GASD

Honeywell, #2, #3
	Address:
		W. R. Moore
		Mail Station 257-5
		Honeywell
		13350 US Highway 19
		Clearwater, FL  34624-7290

		Defense Sys Div
		5700 Smetana Dr
		M N O2-3380
		Minnetonka, MN 55343
		   (612) 936-3196

		Aerospace & Defense Grp
		Honeywell Plaza
		Minneapolis, MN 55408
		  (612) 870-5186
	Phone: (813) 539-3689

Hughes Aircraft, #1
	Address:
		Hughes Aircraft
		Radar Systems Group
		Engineering Employment
		POB 92426
		Los Angeles, CA  90009

		Hughes Aircraft
		Space Communications Group
		Attn: Employment Ofc. - College Relations
		909 N. Fepulveda
		El Segundo, CA  90009

	Phone: (213) 606-2111 (Radar Systems Group)
	       (213) 647-7177 (Space Communications Group)

IBM, #2, #3
	Address:
		IBM
		Personnel
		3700 Bay Area Bvd.
		Houston, TX  77058

	Phone: (713) 282-2300

Intermetrics, #2
	Address:
		Indl Sys Div - 733 Concord Av  Cambridge, MA 02138
	Phone: (800) 325-5235
	       (617) 661-0072

Lockheed Missiles & Space, #1, #2, #3, #4, #4
	Address:
			{Shuttle contract, not Station}
		Lockheed Space Operations Company
		Attn: Mr. Don Quirk
		110 Lockheed Way
		Titasville, FL  32780

	Phone: (305) 867-2765 (Kennedy Space Center)
	       (305) 383-2200 (Titasville switchboard)

Martin Marietta, #1
	Address:
	Phone: (504) 257-4716 (Sandy)

McDonnell Douglas Astronautics, #1, #2, #3
	Address:
		Richard B. Rout,
		Dept. 5900, Mail Code 11-3
		McDonnell Douglas
		Astronautics and Space Division
		5301 Bolsa Ave.
		Huntington Beach, CA  92647

	Phone: (714) 896-5633

Planning Research Corp., #4
	Address:
		1500 Planning Research Dr  McLean, VA 22102  (703) 556-1000
	Phone: (703) 734-1199

RCA, #2, #3, #3  (Subsumed by GE/Astro Space)
	Address: (See GE/Astro above)
	Phone:

Rocketdyne, #4
	Address:
	Phone:

Rockwell, #2		Actually, this guy works with Shuttle, not Station
	Address:
		Steve C. Hoefer
		Supervisor, Crew Activity Planning
		Rockwell Shuttle Operations Company
		Rockwell International Corporation
		600 Gemini Avenue
		Houston, TX  77058

	Phone: (713) 483-4438

SRI International, #2
	Address:
		SRI International
		Personnel Dept.
		333 Ravenswood Ave.
		Menlo Park, CA  94025

	Phone: (415) 859-3993  (Elizabeth Brackmann)

Sperry/UNISYS, #2		Changed name from Sperry to UNISYS
	Address:  (Eastern Time)
	Phone: (800) 645-3440

Sunstrand, #4
	Address:
		Sundstrand Energy Systems 
		Unit of Sundstrand Corp.
		4747 Harrison Ave, P.O. Box 7002
		Rockford, Ill. 61125

	Phone: (815) 226-6000

TRW, #1, #2, #3, #4
	Address:
		Jack Friedenthal
		Bldg. 135, Rm. 2823
		One Space Park
		Redondo Beach, CA  90278

		Penny Burkes
		Bldg. R2, Rm. 2130
		One Space Park
		Redondo Beach, CA  90278

	Phone: (213) 535-6027 (Penny Burkes)
	       (213) 297-8765 (Irwin Newman)

Teledyne Brown Engineering, #1, #4  (Did not actually bid on #4)
	Address:
		Teledyne Brown Engineering
		Attn: Mr. Tom Robinson
		Cummings Research Park
		Huntsville, AL  35807

	Phone: (800) 633-2090

USBI Booster Production, #1
	Address:
		United Space Boosters
		BPC
		188 Spartman Dr
		PO Box 1900
		Huntsville, AL 35807
	Phone: (205) 721-2400

United Technologies (Hamilton Standard), #1
	Address:
		Phil Beaudoin
		Hamilton Standard
		One Hamilton Road
		Windsor Locks, CT  06096

	Phone: (203) 654-6000
	       (203) 654-4601 (Personnel)

Wyle Laboratories, #1
	Address:
		Wyle Laboratories
		Personnel Department
		Attn: Mr. Gordon Bakken
		7800 Govenor's Drive West
		Huntsville, AL  35807

	Phone: (703) 834-1633 (Mr. Gordon Bakken in NJ)

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #35
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU;  4 Nov 87 06:32:22 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA12529; Wed, 4 Nov 87 03:20:51 PST
	id AA12529; Wed, 4 Nov 87 03:20:51 PST
Date: Wed, 4 Nov 87 03:20:51 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8711041120.AA12529@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #36

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 36

Today's Topics:
		    Mir Elements, 29 October 1987
		    space news from Sept 21 AW&ST
		    Re: Ecological experimentation
		   Re: Wood as structural material
			   Cats in space...
		    Re: Ecological experimentation
			Distributed Astronomy
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 2 Nov 87 23:38:00 GMT
From: kenny@b.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Mir Elements, 29 October 1987


Please accept my apologies for the error in the posting for 27
October.  There was a typo in the acceleration of mean motion that
was made before the data ever reached me.

Elements as of 29 October are:

Satellite: MIR        
Element set 889
Catalog id 16609
Epoch day: 87301.86217561
RA of node: 186.2823 degrees
Inclination:  51.6269 degrees
Eccentricity:  0.0042844
Argument of perigee: 324.3939 degrees
Mean anomaly at epoch:  35.4203 degrees
Mean motion: 15.83985948 revs/day
Mean motion acceleration: 0.00047310 * 2 revs/day/day
Epoch revolution:  9716

Source: NASA Goddard via T.S.Kelso's `Celestial RBBS', Austin, TX.

------------------------------

Date: 3 Nov 87 00:23:33 GMT
From: necntc!linus!utzoo!henry@AMES.ARPA  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Sept 21 AW&ST

Again the inside-front-cover two-page-spread ad with the Apollo photo
and the caption "It's time we raised our sights again", from United
Technologies.

Ariane launches two Clarke-orbit comsats successfully, restoring it to
operational service.

The Spartan shuttle-based free-flyer has been given four mission slots
through 1992.  (A Spartan Halley-imaging mission was one of the
Challenger payloads.)

US space-station negotiators return from Europe, progress nil, after
what was supposed to be the final bilateral meeting.  Military use and
the management structure remain unresolved.  An interim plan may be
needed to keep the international partners involved, because development
will start in November and agreement by then is unlikely.

USAF to hold competition in 1988 for a new expendable to carry ten
military comsats that used to be booked on the shuttle.  This will be an
Atlas-Centaur class launcher [and nobody will be surprised if the Atlas
Centaur wins, since it is the only major US expendable without a current
government subsidy, er um I meant contract].  A significant change is
that the USAF just might be willing to listen to companies selling
launch services rather than just hardware.

Parts of the next Ariane to start arriving at Kourou end of Sept.,
launch set for mid-Nov carrying German TV broadcast comsat.  The one
after that, V21, is scheduled for December with French and US comsats
(the US one will carry a piggyback Geostar package).  After that, in
1988, will be the first flight of an Ariane 4, carrying a European
metsat, a US comsat, and the latest Amsat amateur-radio satellite.

Security is being tightened up at Kourou, partly because of unrest in
the neighboring country of Surinam, partly as a dry run for later
military payloads, and partly because of Kourou's growing strategic
importance as an operational spaceport.  Antiaircraft weaponry was much
in evidence for the V19 launch, and press photography from above ground
(roofs etc.) was banned to ensure that security measures are not
revealed.  A segment of the country's #1 highway will be rerouted to
keep the road out of portable- weapon range of newer launch complexes.

As predicted, the call for tenders for Aussat's next generation of
satellites calls for delivery into orbit by the supplier, including up
to two replacement satellites in the event of launch failure.

Eutelsat is debating whether to drop its opposition to a competing
(private venture) broadcast-satellite venture, SES.  Eutelsat's director
recommends accepting the competition in the belief that SES won't
survive it.

FCC rejects Arinc's proposal to build a global aviation comsat system to
be owned by the airlines (as Arinc is).  The rejection was due to a
request for too much spectrum space (in conflict with the FCC's desire
to use some of that band for land-mobile communications) and inadequate
documentation of proper financial backing.  Arinc says the rejection was
groundless and will challenge it in court if necessary.

NASA officially declares the Aug 30 SRB test a success, with no hot gas
leaks and joint opening about a tenth of the old design's.

NRC reports on the space station, saying that the Phase One design is
okay, but there are problems with cost estimates, management structure,
and excessive reliance on the shuttle.  It recommends various
improvements but neither cancellation nor major changes.

NRC says shuttle performance improvement is needed.  "The current
shuttle is barely adequate for the limited purpose of deploying the
space station.  It is clearly inadequate to meet broader national needs
in space."  NRC recommends improving the SRBs right away, deferring
shuttle-derived heavylift developments, and pursuing later use of
expendables.  NRC stresses the need for another orbiter after the
Challenger replacement: "It is dangerous and misleading to assume that
there will be no shuttle losses and to fail to plan for such
possibilities."  At least one orbiter should be equipped for two-week
stays in space.  NASA should strengthen its backup hardware plans for
the station and include a crew-rescue vehicle, and should pursue a
man-rated expendable as a shuttle backup.

NRC says committing to Phase Two of the station is premature, especially
when the US has not set its long-term goals in space; NRC says that
setting said goals should have high priority.  NRC also questions
inclusion of the free-flying platforms in the station project, saying
that the polar platform in particular has nothing to do with the station
and should be evaluated on its own merits or lack thereof.

Jim Beggs, ex-administrator of NASA who oversaw early station
development, does not believe the $30G cost estimates some people are
citing, and says that the station has "been reviewed to death".

General Dynamics and Martin Marietta selected for small study contracts
for liquid-fuelled shuttle boosters.

Picture of Martin Marietta's design for the Awesomely Lucrative
Spacelauncher, er excuse me Advanced Launch System: looks like sort of a
fat Delta, with a bunch of solid strap-ons and a hydrogen-fuelled core.
The solids would be mass-produced as monolithic units (not segmented)
and would have fixed nozzles to make them cheaper.  The core would use
SSMEs for starters, with later cost reductions from redesign for
one-shot use.  For the later "objective" version, the solids might be
replaced by a flyback LOX/hydrocarbon booster that would drop off at
about Mach 3 (roughly the point at which conventional materials hit
their limits).  MM thinks that investing in cheaper production of non-
reusable systems is cheaper than complicating the systems to make them
reusable, but is pursuing both possibilities for the moment.

NASA names all-military crew for STS-27 (a military mission): Robert
Gibson, Guy Gardner, Richard Mullane, Jerry Ross, William Shepherd.

British aerospace industry calls on British government to reverse its
policy of reducing space R&D funding.

Weinberger re-affirms DoD policy that the space station must be
available for military use.

West Germany reserves a Titan 3 launch for its TVSat 2.  Hughes signs
for a Titan 3 launch for Japan's JCSat-2.

Interesting side note: Air France expects Concorde charter business to
pick up now that Ariane is flying again!  Arianespace frequently uses
Concorde to fly VIPs to Ariane launches.

"Aerospace Forum" piece by Dr. Thomas O. Paine, administrator of NASA
from 1968 to 1970 and chairman of the National Commission on Space,
criticizing the US for lack of coherent space objectives.  "After a
lifetime spent studying the rise and fall of great civilizations, the
historian Toynbee identified the critical factor as national response to
challenge...  We failed our first test.  In the 1950s, the US had the
technology base needed to launch an artificial satellite.
Forward-looking engineers discussed the project for a decade, but our
leaders lacked vision and decisiveness.  We were mere spectators in 1957
when Sputnik rocketed into orbit...  [NASA was created] with a charter
to place America at the forefront of space exploration.  But the US only
fell further behind as prominent scientists denounced Project Mercury.
Their argument collapsed in 1961 when Yuri Gagarin [flew].  Six weeks
later, John Kennedy responded with characteristic vigor...  The dramatic
lunar expeditions established the US as undisputed leader on the new
frontier.  NASA's triumphs were followed by 15 years of presidential
indecision and neglect... Hadn't we won the space race? ...  An aimless
NASA was a welcome target for short-sighted budget cutters.  Without
long-range objectives, investment to renew NASA's increasingly
obsolescent technology base could not be justified... The loss of
Challenger was only a symptom... By the mid-1980s, America's underfunded
civilian space program was exhibiting the lack of vision and direction
that had lost America the opportunity to lead humanity into space in
1957..."

"The year 1992 marks the 500th anniversary of Columbus, and the 75th
anniversary of the Russian Revolution.  Will it be celebrated in the
Soviet Union with TV images transmitted to Earth by cosmonauts orbiting
the Moon?  And in the US with a Santa Maria replica flying a pizza
company flag as it chugs up the Potomac?"

PS/2: Yesterday's hardware today.    |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
OS/2: Yesterday's software tomorrow. | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 1 Nov 87 02:23:34 GMT
From: decvax!linus!utzoo!henry@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Ecological experimentation

> ... Questions I personally would like to see or answer include: What
> sort of culture do these people set up? What kind of poetry or
> literature could come out of such an environment? Is eight people
> enough?

Don't expect detailed answers to some of these questions.  The people
involved in setting it up have declined at least one offer to run basic
psychological studies as part of the experiment.

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 1 Nov 87 16:39:41 GMT
From: ihnp4!aicchi!dbb@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Burch)
Subject: Re: Wood as structural material

The current configuration of the space shuttle has the external tank
covered with a cork insulator.  Cork is the bark of a certain type of
Oak found in the southern parts of Europe.

-David B. (Ben) Burch

------------------------------

Date: Mon,  2 Nov 87 12:03:25 est
From: kr0u+@andrew.cmu.edu (Kevin William Ryan)
Subject: Cats in space...

   Dale Amon recently mentioned cats in orbit.  Some time back I read
about an early experiment on this, I believe in _The Right Stuff_.  It's
been a while, so this is a paraphrase, but...

   Soon after the first experiments with zero-G in ballistic cargo
planes (late 50's, early 60's?) some whiz kid decided to test the
oft-asserted but never before tested theory that cats would do well in
zero gravity conditions.  This was not important enough to justify the
flight of the full scale cargo plane, so they sent a cat up in a fighter
with a camera mounted in the cockpit to monitor.  Most of the film shows
the pilot frantically trying to remove the cat from his arm.  At one
point the pilot succeeded in pulling the cat off and hanging it in
midair.  However (perhaps due to some unknown feline discipline, or
perhaps imperfect zero-G) the cat magically flew back to the pilots arm
and stayed for the rest of the flight, despite strenuous attempts to the
contrary.

   I would suggest that the first mission to include both cats and
people carry along a good supply of kitty Valium :->


kr0u@andrew.cmu.edu                         Kevin Ryan
"I am but a figment of your imagination!"

------------------------------

Date: 2 Nov 87 23:46:32 GMT
From: trwrb!cadovax!gryphon!mhnadel@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Miriam Nadel)
Subject: Re: Ecological experimentation

In article <4362@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu> beckenba@cit-vax.UUCP (Joe Beckenbach) writes:
>In article <562534315.amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU> Dale.Amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU writes:
>>IN the long run we also have to deal with micro-ecologies on any
>>extended voyage. Life follows us wherever we go, and we need to
>>balance things to keep control. [...]

>>Other life on board is also psychologically helpful. The russians have
>>found that tending growing plants on board is a favorite past time and
>>reduces stress on long tours of duty. [...cat stuff...]

>>I also suggest that lots of green plants, probably flowering and food
>>producing will be needed for a splash of color, an occasional fresh
>>garnish to a freeze dried meal, and that indefinable freshness that
>>growing things give the air. (a combination of an earthy smell along
>>with extra O2, volatile plant oils, etc) Even if you could copy the
>>scent, the psychological effect would not be the same.

>>The main point is, we will take a wide spectrum of critters with us,
>>both as invited and uninvited guests, and we will have to be able to
>>balance these microecologies anyway, so we might as well incorporate
>>them in the design. Biology can be as effective as metal and plastic.

Unfortunately the types of plants we've been able to grow at zero-G
don't do much but make nice scenery.  The experiments done on the
shuttle did OK with oak trees and pools of algae but were dramatically
unsuccessful with grain.  The existence of micro-organisms has led to a
design concept which more or less separates each species so you'd only
get to look at the other species under glass.  And, dearly as I love
cats, I think most of them are too neurotic to adjust well to space.

>NASA's director of Life Sciences Division is interested; I don't know
>what sort of involvement NASA has chosen, if any. This does have
>applications in settling the inner solar system, as the National
>Commission of Space said in its annual report. [So far, NASA has a
>single sphere which has survived sealed for 17 years- its occupants are
>one species of shrimp and three of algae.  However, nothing on a much
>grander scale has ever been attempted.]

Not quite true.  NASA has been focused more on the practical problems of
growing plants at zero-G and has been thinking about payload
considerations as well (i.e. keeping weight down).  But they do have
several small experimental setups, most of which are partially closed to
mass transfer (even the so-called fully closed scenarios that have been
studied have about 3% of the human food supply coming from stores,
presumably for micronutrients that might be deficient in an
all-vegetarian diet.)

>What sort of culture do these people set up? What kind of poetry or
>literature could come out of such an environment? Is eight people
>enough?  Can the structure actually survive the two years? How can I
>get in on this sort of experiment? [no smiley here, I want to be part
>of a landmark ecological experiment as much as I want to go in space]

The cultural question is probably not immediately relevant to either
this experiment (2 years is not enough time to develop a culture; the
U.S.  has had over 200 and is still trying :-)) or to near term space
applications (again thinking of maybe 5-10 years which doesn't give
people much time for culture invention.  The real development of a
unique culture to come out of humans in space will probably have to wait
until there are people who were born in space, who've lived most of
their lives off the earth.  Don't hold your breath.)

The psychological aspects are interestiing and there has been some
concern about them at NASA.  In particular, the psychological acceptance
of various diets which could practically be provided by a CELSS was a
minor topic of discussion at some of the CELSS workshops I've been to.
And it seems to come up in a paper or so every year at the Intersociety
Conference on Environmental Systems (next one is in June in San
Francisco, I think.  Check with AIAA if you're interested in going).

Personally I think that the personalities of the people who are involved
would be a major factor in the success of such an experiment.  If it
looks anything like our space missions, they may be so busy much of the
time that there is relatively little interaction.  Nonetheless,
considering how badly I get cabin fever during blizzards when I'm
skiing, I doubt I could stand spending two years in relatively confined
quarters with 7 other people always around.  Too little privacy seems
more likely to me than being too isolated.

Miriam [seeking my own bedroom on any spaceflight I'm on] Nadel

"Any road followed to its end leads precisely nowhere" - Princess Irulan

mhnadel@gryphon.CTS.COM       {philabs, trwrb}!cadovax!gryphon!mhnadel
      {hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, ihnp4, nosc}!crash!gryphon!mhnadel

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 31 Oct 87 18:15:48 EST
From: loeb@BOURBAKI.MIT.EDU
To: jrt@mitre-bedford.arpa
Cc: Space@angband.s1.gov, jrt@mitre-bedford.arpa
Subject: Distributed Astronomy

You wrote
   Date: Fri, 30 Oct 87 09:12:36 EST
   From: jrt@mitre-bedford.arpa

   Greetings to the net...Ref. widely spaced neutrino, gravity detectors
   for SN events...Good idea but how would one compare neutrino/gravity
   wave arrival times given the time it would take to communicate with
   the other detector sites?  Also, how about the difficulty in
   synchronizing clocks?


Most astronomical sites record there data on videotape along with pulses
generated by an atomic clock. This is done mainly for the purposes of
Very Long Baseline Inferometry, but it also makes the problems you were
talking about not problems at all.

Welcome to the net.

	Yours,
	Danny

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #36
*******************

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Date: Thu, 5 Nov 87 03:23:40 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8711051123.AA15109@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #37

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 37

Today's Topics:
			  Re: Neutrino mass
	       Re: Recent Supernova: Lost opportunity?
		     Why light bends in gravity.
		   Re: Why light bends in gravity.
		  Was it Jupiter, Saturn, or Xanth?
		 Sagan lecture: "Star Wars or Mars?"
			 Space Shuttle Escape
		      Kerwin's report pointers?
			Re: Wood in spacecraft
			    Escape systems
		   Re: Wood as structural material
			 Space Shuttle Escape
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 31 Oct 1987 14:38-EST 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: Neutrino mass

I think the upper limit of possible mass was set by the error bars in
the arrival times from SN1987A at <7-12ev. If someone has the paper
handy, correct me.

------------------------------

Date: 30 Oct 87 00:04:03 GMT
From: clyde!watmath!lasibley@rutgers.edu  (Lance)
Subject: Re: Recent Supernova: Lost opportunity?

I read in a recent (ie. within the last year - 1 1/2 yrs.) article that
two or more separate images of the same quasar were observed. It was
known that they were images of the same quasar because quasars are as
unique as fingerprints, ie. no two are exactly alike. The theory behind
this dual image is that the light coming from the quasar was bent by the
gravity of some extremely massive galaxy or other object between us and
the quasar, resulting in not only an image of the quasar where it should
have been, but an image where the light had been bent.  Question: if
light can be bent by gravity, then light has mass and can therefore not
travel at the speed of light. There's got to be a flaw here somewhere
that I'm missing; I'm not terribly familiar with relativity, as
rec.arts.startrek readers no doubt remember. Can someone please
straighten me out on this?

------------------------------

Date: 30 Oct 87 15:48:36 GMT
From: clyde!watmath!water!jmlang@rutgers.edu  (Jerome M Lang)
Subject: Why light bends in gravity.

In article <15304@watmath.waterloo.edu> lasibley@watmath.waterloo.edu (Lance) writes:
>  I read in a recent (ie. within the last year - 1 1/2 yrs.) article
>  that two or more separate images of the same quasar were observed.
>  [...]  The theory behind this dual image is that the light coming
>  from the quasar was bent by the gravity of some extremely massive
>  galaxy or other object between us and the quasar, [...]

The difficulty is in proving that they are from the same quasar. The
light from the quasar is split in two (or more, the number of beams has
to be an odd number -- see an article in Scientific american for a
readable article on that). Now those two beams follow different paths
that most likely will have different length. So: one of the images is of
the quasar as it was, say, 1 billion years ago, and the other one is
from the quasar as it was, say 1.2 billion years ago. During these 200
million years, the quasar has moved, has evolved, etc....

>  Question: if light can be bent by gravity, then light has mass and
>  can therefore not travel at the speed of light. There's got to be a
>  flaw here somewhere that I'm missing; [...]

Yes, there is something missing. The easiest way of looking at the
problem was given by A. Einstein, (yes, the same guy that worked on
relativity.)  The key point is that you cannot distinguish (locally, but
that is getting a bit picky) between a gravity field and an acceleration
field. This is known as the equivalence principle.  So, like Einstein
did, imagine yourself in an elevator that is accelerating upward.  Now
use a flashlight to send a horizontal beam of light.  Since the speed of
light is finite, and if you accelerate fast enough (many g's), then
you'll notice that the beam of light will curve downward.  The light
does not have to have mass, it is just a property of the space you are
in: the geometry.

Corollary: Imagine yourself in a very strong gravity field, such as near
an object of very great density.  Take the field to be spherical for
simplicity. Now take your flashlight and send a beam of light in any
direction. With the same reasoning as in the preceding paragraph, using
the equivalence principle, you will conclude that your beam is bent
towards the object. Now increase the gravity field (by increasing the
density of the object, or by getting closer, or whatever). The beam will
bend more. It may even bend so much that no matter where you point your
flashlight, the light will always go closer to the object than the point
where you are. Light will not escape. What you've got is a ... ta ...
la... a black hole.

Je'ro^me M. Lang	   ||    jmlang@water.bitnet        jmlang@water.uucp
Dept of Applied Math       ||			  jmlang%water@waterloo.csnet
U of Waterloo		   ||  	 jmlang%water%waterloo.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa

------------------------------

Date: 1 Nov 87 23:15:59 GMT
From: cfa!willner@husc6.harvard.edu  (Steve Willner)
Subject: Re: Why light bends in gravity.

In article <15304@watmath.waterloo.edu> lasibley@watmath.waterloo.edu
(Lance) writes: 
>  Question: if light can be bent by gravity, then light has mass and
>  can therefore not travel at the speed of light. There's got to be a
>  flaw here somewhere that I'm missing; [...]

One of the earliest tests of general relativity was to look for the
predicted bending of light by the Sun.  General relativity predicts a
bending exactly twice that given by a simplistic Newtonian calculation.
This prediction has been verified by radio observations to about 1%, if
memory serves.  The article referenced below gives a good argument for
why the bending must take place.  There is no implication of non-zero
rest mass for photons.

in article <1221@water.waterloo.edu>, jmlang@water.waterloo.edu 
(Jerome M Lang) says:
> The difficulty is in proving that [separate images on the sky] are
> from the same quasar. [and split by gravitational deflection from an
> intervening body.]  Now those two beams follow different paths that
> most likely will have different length. So: one of the images is of
> the quasar as it was, say, 1 billion years ago, and the other one is
> from the quasar as it was, say 1.2 billion years ago.

There are now five or six instances where quasar multiple images are
believed to be caused by gravitational lensing.  In some cases, but not
in others, the lensing object can be seen.  Theoretically, there are
always an odd number of images, but often two are so close together that
they cannot be distinguished.  The calculated time delays between
different paths are generally only a few years.  It should be possible
to verify the calculations by monitoring variability of the images; this
monitoring is now being done by Rudy Schild here at the Observatory.
For images separated by only a few arcseconds, though, there is hardly
any doubt that gravitational lensing is occurring.

Steve Willner            Phone 617-495-7123          Bitnet: willner@cfa2
60 Garden St.            FTS:      830-7123           UUCP:   willner@cfa
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA                     ARPA: willner@cfa.harvard.edu

------------------------------

Date: 2 Nov 87 06:59:22 GMT
From: imagen!atari!portal!cup.portal.com!Charlie_Alan_Bounds@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Subject: Was it Jupiter, Saturn, or Xanth?

Tonight (11/1) at about 10:00 pm PST my wife noticed an object in the
sky.  It was a very bright star some 20 degrees east of the moon (sorry
I don't have so much as a protractor to measure arc).  We watched it
with 10x binoculars and noticed that it had two dim points, one on each
side, and what may have been a line between them.  Our question is, did
we see Jupiter and a couple of its moons or was it Saturn (I think that
line was an optical illusion but my wife isn't so sure and she has been
right before).

Please reply by mail -- a query of this scope could generate a HUGE
flood of network traffic from you know-it-alls! :-)

Charlie Bounds           Charlie@cup.portal.com
                         ...sun!portal!cup.portal.com!charlie

(note: mailbox name is Charlie, NOT Charlie_Alan_Bounds.  Silly mailer).

------------------------------

Date: 02 November 87 22:51 EST
From: UUAJ%CORNELLA.BITNET@cu-arpa.cs.cornell.edu
Subject: Sagan lecture: "Star Wars or Mars?"

I'm sure this will be of interest to netters; I'm trying to post it
while it's still fresh in my mind.
     
Carl Sagan gave a lecture this evening here at Cornell attacking S.D.I.
and promoting the proposal for a joint US/Soviet initiative for the
exploration of Mars. I shall not repeat the many avenues of attack he
used on S.D.I., as I'm sure you all have heard similar arguments in one
form or another. I will say that my impression of his presentation of
the Mars initiative was that while it seemed to imply a long-term,
cooperative effort involving near-earth presence, there was no
substantive statement made to say, "Yes, let's also get a major presence
going that might have some application beyond this Mars proposal," ie.,
my impression was that you could read more positive things into his
remarks than were there.
     
I asked the following during the question period: "You propose a
long-term Mars US/USSR mission. Would not a similar major cooperative
mission of lunar exploration, including a permanent human lunar
presence, also fulfill the objectives you gave [eg, technologically
challenging but feasible, something that the populace could identify
with emotionally, visionary, etc.], plus have the added advantages of
possible near-term economic benefits such as return of resources to the
earth, as well as having greater psychological significance to the
populace, ie, the moon is something they can identify with rather than
being a red dot? Why do you not advocate a lunar mission, if only as a
way of building the infrastructure to help achieve an ultimate goal of
Mars?"
     
His repsonse went like this (this is of course not an exact quote but
I'm trying to convey its flavor as best I can): "Excellent question. The
reason is: rightly or wrongly, the American people don't identify with
the moon. They say, 'Yeah, we went to the moon, they brought some rocks
back, I saw one once, it looked just like a rock from Earth.' The moon
is inherently a dull place. There's no geologic activity there, there's
nothing there to stimulate our interest. We've been there already; it's
too easy: we need to try something harder." And immediately turned to
the next speaker, even though no speaking line had yet formed (I made
sure I was going to be first for questions!). I remained with the small
crowd after the talk but was unable to ask any follow-ups.
     
If anyone who reads this was there, perhaps they can provide additional
perspectives. As for flammage, please direct it to Dr. Sagan c/o Astro.
Dept., Space Sciences Building, Cornell, Ithaca NY 14853 or c/o
Planetary Soc., not me please.
     
Artie Samplaski
Wilson Synchrotron, Cornell
UUAJ%CORNELLA.BITNET @ CU-ARPA.CS.CORNELL.EDU

------------------------------

Date: 30 Oct 87 19:04:57 GMT
From: decvax!linus!utzoo!henry@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Space Shuttle Escape

> I was wondering if it would be feasible to redesign the shuttle so
> that the crew compartment was a separate entity that could be blown
> off in an emergency with say a parachute in the nose.  Is this just
> too expensive, not feasible or just plain silly? ...

The idea isn't silly, and things along those lines are being
investigated for possible long-term use.  It would undoubtedly cost a
lot, it does have some technical problems, and worst of all it would add
quite a bit of dead weight, every gram of which comes out of the payload
capacity.  One should also bear in mind that the sort of pyrotechnic
devices that would be used (explosive bolts etc. and small solid
rockets, presumably) are not 100% safe in their own right, so the safety
tradeoffs need very careful assessment.

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 31 Oct 87 05:50:39 GMT
From: sonia!khayo@locus.ucla.edu  (Erazm J. Behr)
Subject: Kerwin's report pointers?

 Hi, I have missed the medical report on the last minutes of
Challenger's crew and all the related materials (tapes?)  released a few
months ago. I would greatly appreciate any references to that - where
(if at all) the report & transcripts were published. Please e-mail:
khayo@math.ucla.edu. Thanks a lot!
                             Eric
        khayo@MATH.ucla.edu

------------------------------

Date: 31 Oct 1987 14:44-EST 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: Wood in spacecraft

I don't know if it is still true, but the USSR used wood like we use
plastic in their earlier spacecraft. I heard Jim Oberg call them
'Victorian spacecraft'.

I suspect one reason the US avoided wood was the use of low total
pressure/high partial O2 atmospheres used in the early days. Even velcro
burns spectacularly, as 3 now deceased astronauts discovered.  Not to
mention the cheapness, availability and 'high tech' aura of the
artificial substitute.

------------------------------

Date: 31 Oct 1987 14:54-EST 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
To: JEFF%UTCVM.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu, space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: Escape systems

Digest has been over this before.

At least 2 Challenger astronauts were alive after the blast. Judy Resnik
is thought to be the one who started her own emergency O2 and reached
over and turned on Mike Smith's. Amounts consumed indicated that both
breathed some.

However, these packages are only intended to supply O2 in a smoke or
hazardous fume environment for ground escape and do not supply the
pressure required at 40K+ feet. Unconciousness certainly followed within
minutes. Due to the rapid rate of fall, it is entirely possible that
conciousness may have been regained by one or more before impact.  NASA
has not discussed this issue, but it has happened to pilots who blacked
out at high altitude and awoke in time to recover from the dive.

The shuttle cannot seperate from the boosters prematurely. It is not
only not an option, it would be disastrous. The SRB exhaust plumes would
melt and rip the wings off on the way by, so you don't gain anything.

Bail out at MACH 1+ and high altitude is usually survivable with proper
equipment and a good bit of luck. Bailout was done from 100K+ feet from
a balloon in the 1950's. At that kind of altitude not only oxygen and
pressure must be supplied, but also protection from heat loss and
moderate protection against frictional heating as the denser lower
atmosphere is entered. Not quite a reentry, but still enough to warm
your seat.

One of the biggest problems in any bailout from a high speed aircraft
(assuming the canopy leaves before the ejection seat fires, and the seat
fires before the aircraft blows or come apart, and the acceleration
doesn't break your neck) is clearing the wings or empennage (tail to
nonaviation types). Thus the rod idea. Hitting a vertical stabilizer at
MACH 1 can ruin your whole week.

Hmmm. Just to give you all a good stomach churn: heard tell of a
mechanic that accidentally triggered the spring (not the main rockets)
of an ejection seat.  Made a real mess on the hanger ceiling...

What I am not clear on is whether the rods is sufficient to guarantee
clearance of the exhaust plume. One would presume that the SME's would
be throttled to make the safest possible exit (not necessarily zero:
think of the stresses on the struts). I just don't know. Maybe with a
rocket assist as was suggested sometime back. After all, the exiting
astronaut is in the same reference frame as the aircraft until he hits
the slipstream, and with rocket assist may well be able to clear the
danger zone before the SRB's pass by.

------------------------------

Date: 2 Nov 87 11:12:47 GMT
From: super.upenn.edu!eecae!crlt!russ@rutgers.edu  (Russ Cage)
Subject: Re: Wood as structural material

In article <991@aicchi.UUCP>, dbb@aicchi.UUCP (Burch) writes:
>The current configuration of the space shuttle has the external tank
>covered with a cork insulator.

Last I heard of, the ET was covered with SOFI (Spray-On Foam Insulator).
Its natural color is brown; it was painted white for the first few
launches (to look pretty), but is now left its natural color to save the
weight of the paint.

Russ Cage, Robust Software Inc.              ihnp4!itivax![m-net!rsi,crlt!russ]

------------------------------

Date: 2 Nov 87 17:56:10 GMT
From: tikal!sigma!uw-nsr!brett@beaver.cs.washington.edu  (Brett Van Steenwyk)
Subject: Space Shuttle Escape

In terms of using the fore section of the space shuttle as an escape
system, it is an idea with merit, unfortunately, the one experience I
have seen in implementing a similar system has been negative.  In the
original B-1 design, the nose section of the plane would blow off as an
escape capsule (perhaps even a fly-home was planned).  This system was
put in only the first two prototypes due to its expense and questionable
reliability.  It seemed that the frame separation would come reasonably
cleanly--the BIG problem was in cutting all of the cables--hydraulic as
well as electric!  They tried using these "explosive guillotines" to cut
them--they did not work the greatest.

Another problem with the space shuttle in particular is the hydrazine
tank in the nose used for the front RCS (I hope that is what they call
them) jets.  If I remember right, they identified the Challenger crew
cabin when it came out of the pall by the fact that this tank happened
to explode right then.  It would make placing a parachute rather
difficult.

			--Brett Van Steenwyk
			  <uw-beaver!uw-nsr!brett>

PS:  More flyback booster comment coming (soon, I hope!).

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #37
*******************

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Date: Fri, 6 Nov 87 03:20:43 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8711061120.AA17802@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #38

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 38

Today's Topics:
    LOFT-1 Private Launch Detailed Information (LONG - 160+ lines)
		      Re: Budgets (DoD vs. NASA)
		   Condensed CANOPUS - October 1987
	  RE: requirements for flight and wood on spacecraft
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 3 Nov 87 18:48:02 GMT
From: ucsdhub!hp-sdd!ncr-sd!ncrlnk!ncrwic!encad!mjohnson@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu  (Mark Johnson)
Subject: LOFT-1 Private Launch Detailed Information (LONG - 160+ lines)

I have had considerable trouble with bounced email messages on requests
for additional information on the LOFT-1 launch scheduled to fly at Cape
Canaveral Air Force Station about Nov. 15, thus for those whose mail has
been undeliverable, I am posting the whole works. It is rather lengthy,
for which I apologize.

Here is a detailed rundown on the LOFT-1 flight vehicle:

LOFT-1 (Launch Operations Flight Test - 1) Santa Maria

Length			144" overall
Fin to fin span		 42"
Diameter		  6"
Takeoff weight		 85 lb

Performance estimates
Projected Altitude	17000 ft
Coast to Apogee		   15 sec 
Burnout Velocity     Mach 1.9
Flight time		  420 sec
Downrange impact distance 1.5 miles

Vulcan Systems N5000-25 Motor specifications:
Burn time		  4.9 sec
Average thrust		 5000 Nt 
Total Impulse		25000 N-sec
Propellant		Vulcan "Smokey Sam" HTPB/Ammonium Perchlorate
			composite (produces copious quantities of BLACK
			smoke)

The remaining portion of this note is excerpted from a press release
from the University of Alabama/Huntsville, which is handling payload
integration for E-Prime Aerospace. The memo was issued by J. Wayne
McCain, 7/17/87

The payload for the E-Prime Aerospace LOFT-1 will consist of a sealed,
cylindrically shaped compartment containing experiments from three
sources - University of Alabama/Huntsville, QSI Corporation of Logan,
Utah, and the Air Force Astronautics Laboratory, Edwards AFB,
California. Individual experiments will be integrated and tested at UAH
by Industrial and Systems Engineering department volunteers under the
guidance of Dr. Jack Walker.

UAH will also construct and assemble the overall payload section. UAH
components will consist of three radio telemetry beacons to provide real
time flight data, recovery aids consisting of strobe lights, and
flotation/dye marker devices.  The primary onboard vehicle power supply
will be a group of 13.5 VDC, 4 AH, Nickel-Cadmium batteries. Data to be
relayed will include vehicle velocity, altitude, outside air
temperature, inside temperature, battery voltage, and battery current.
Velocity and altitude will be displayed real time and other data will be
recorded on multitrack tape for later study.

QSI Corporation will provide a self contained, sealed experiment module,
including power supply. This module will weigh 40% or less of the total
payload capacity. the unit is being adapted from a critical-cargo
monitoring system being developed by QSI to measure and record the
acceleration and temperature environment of sensitive aerospace items
during rail, truck, or air transportation. Accelerations along 3 axes
and temperature in two payload compartments will be measured and
recorded in solid-state RAM memory from liftoff to touchdown. A printout
of reduced data will be provided at some time after recovery.

The Air Force payload, tentatively to be provided by the newly formed
Air Force Astronautics Laboratory (AFAL), has not been totally defined
(this as of 7/17/87-msj), but will most likely consist of small samples
from ongoing advanced research with general propulsion or specific
defense applications. Several such programs are underway. The Air Force
payload has been allocated two pounds of the payload capacity

(End excerpt from press release. following paragraphs extracted from a
letter, dated 7/29/87, J.W. McCain to D. Babulski, reprinted with
permission of the recipient)

...a space has been reserved for the Brookwood High School Advanced
Biology Experiment on the E-Prime Aerospace LOFT-1 flight to be launched
from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

...

The ABE has been allotted a 2.5 pound, 5.900 inch diameter x 5.0 inch
long cylindrical space in the payload section. It must be self contained
and require no power interfacing. It must be sealed and watertight to at
least one atmosphere. In addition, ABE should be capable of withstanding
at least 20 g's and its module should have a crush strength of at least
200 pounds.

A mass-simulator drop test will be conducted in late August (measure
descent rate from 10,000 feet) and a full up telemetry drop test will be
conducted in mid September. For the September test, a high-fidelity
mockup of the ABE will be required.

(End excerpt from private communication. Begin excerpt from Brookwood
H.S.  Advanced Biology Experiment project proposal, jointly drafted by
D.J. Babulski and Debbie Roberts of Brookwood High School)

The hypothesis for the experiment is:

"Seeds in the class Angiospermae, subclass Monocotyledonae, families
Gramineae and Amaryllis and subclass Dicotyledoneae, families Cruciferae
and Leguminosae, when exposed to high energy solar radiation in the
Mid-Troposphere, at an altitude of three miles, will exhibit a greater
incidence of genetic defect or sterility as opposed to seeds of the same
Class, subclass, and families held in a control group at ground level".

After the payload section is recovered, the experimental canister and
the payload section will be separated. In a controlled environment, but
the control and flight experiment canisters will be opened and the seeds
removed.  Each seed will be assigned a numerical code. Seeds will then
be distributed to students in a double blind format. The students will
plant and nurture seeds to plant maturity, taking daily observations of
germination, growth rate, abnormalities, etc. When all plant data has
been accumulated, each of the Advanced Placement Biology students will
evaluate the data, and write a report of experimental results.

Additional Data: Transponder frequencies and telemetry data measurements
(all 3 beacons are multiplexed)

			Beacon #1	Beacon #2	Beacon #3
Frequency, MHz		27.355		145.550		425.250
Input power, watts	 5.0		  5.0		  5.0
Modulation type		 AM		  FM		  AM
Bandwidty, kHz		 5.0		 11.0		  5.0
Antenna type		1/4 wave	1/2 wave	1/4 wave
			base-load	stub		stub

Data measurements

Beacon #	Measurement	Samples/sec	Units
1		Vehicle Alt.	     5		feet
1		Vehicle velocity     5		ft/sec
2		Outside temp	     5          deg F
2		Inside temp	     5          deg F
2		Battery voltage      5		VDC
2		Battery current	     5		mA
3		First motion         cont. 	discrete signal
3		Separation           cont.      discrete signal
3		Impact		     cont.      discrete signal
3               Salt water detection cont.	discrete signal

(end excerpts)

Other Notes:

The drop tests were conducted as planned during September, with the
full-up mockup being dropped from an airplane and allowed to fall into a
lake from 10,000 feet altitude. As far as I'm aware, all drop tests were
successful. A flight test with a duplicate vehicle was performed in
Colorado about Oct. 5, it was a roaring success, according to reports.

The point of all this exercise isn't flying the vehicle-that's done
often enough by research groups and high-budget rocketry enthusiasts.
The point is that it's being done on an Air Force facility, by a private
company's launch crew, in a coordinated manner!

For those interested in seeing what the thing looks like, e-mail me a
postal address and I will ship out a copy of the drawings I have.
-- 
Mark Johnson (mjohnson@ncrwic.UUCP)
NCR Engineering & Manufacturing-Wichita, KS  phone: (316)688-8189    
email:...!rutgers!hplabs!hp-sdd!ncr-sd!ncrwic!encad!mjohnson 
US snailnet: 3718 N. Rock Rd., Wichita, KS 67226

------------------------------

Date: 30 Oct 87 18:59:50 GMT
From: decvax!linus!utzoo!henry@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Budgets (DoD vs. NASA)

> (are you forgetting Vandenburg launch facility)...

Why not forget it?  It's most unlikely that the shuttle will ever fly from it.
-- 
PS/2: Yesterday's hardware today.    |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
OS/2: Yesterday's software tomorrow. | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 4 Nov 87 17:27:58 GMT
From: cfa!willner@husc6.harvard.edu  (Steve Willner)
Subject: Condensed CANOPUS - October 1987

Here is the condensed CANOPUS for October 1987.  There were 5 articles,
two presented here by title only, one short one in full, and two in
condensed form.  Comments in {braces} are from me.  The unabridged
version has been sent to the mailing list.

CANOPUS is published by the American Institute of Aeronautics and
Astronautics.  Send correspondence about its contents to the executive
editor, William W. L. Taylor (taylor%trwatd.span@star.stanford.edu;
e-mail to canopus@cfa.uucp will probably be forwarded).  Send
correspondence about business matters to Mr. John Newbauer, AIAA, 1633
Broadway, NY, NY 10019.  Although AIAA has copyrighted CANOPUS and
registered its name, you are encouraged to distribute CANOPUS widely,
either electronically or as printout copies.  If you do, however, please
send a brief message to Taylor estimating how many others receive
copies.  CANOPUS is partially supported by the National Space Science
Data Center.

{Two articles by title only}
SUBORBITAL CONTRACTS - can10874.txt - 10/25/87 - {For Palestine, TX
balloon launch operations and for Black Brant rocket motors}
LEAD SCIENTISTS - can10875.txt - 10/25/87 {At Marshall and Langley}

{Three condensed articles}
GHOST STORIES - can10871.txt - 10/2/87 - {condensed} 
Contributed by Jo Ann Joselyn

Occasionally, peculiar features show up in otherwise reliable spacecraft
data sets.  For example, the ATS-5, launched in 1969, {showed} a strange
pattern in the behavior of the 50-eV to 50-keV particles near local
midnight (DeForest, J. Geophys. Res., 77 , 651, 1972).  After careful
analysis, it was found that ATS-5 was charging to potentials as high as
10,000 volts during spacecraft eclipse.  Other diverse reasons for
unusual effects in data and systems are cosmic rays hits on imaging
electronics, 'glinting' from adjacent spacecraft, physical contamination
from spacecraft outgassing or debris, offsets caused by improperly
shielded electronics, and simple instrument degradation caused by age
and/or radiation dose.

The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Technical
Committee on Space Sciences and Astronomy has formed a subcommittee to
maintain records and make them available.  {Concerned that future
generations of engineers may have to relearn the same lessons the hard
way.} If you can contribute examples, written or remembered, with or
without specific reference to living or departed satellites, please
contact Jo Ann Joselyn, NOAA R/E/SE2, 325 Broad way, Boulder, CO 80303.
Her SPAN address is CRYOEL::JOSELYN, and telephone calls are also
welcome at (303) 497-5147.

SUNLAB INSTRUMENT TO "FLY" ? - can10873.txt - 10/25/87 - {unabridged}

The solar telescope cluster flown on Spacelab 2 and once planned for
reflight as the Sunlab series may fly yet. Although post-Challenger
manifests have not shown any work for the instruments, "all sorts of
things are bobbling around that might offer a flight opportunity, but
it's all so tentative that we hate to talk about it publicly," Bohlin
said. One possibility is to fly the Solar Optical Universal Polarimeter
(SOUP) aboard a balloon during the 1991 solar maximum.

HRSO DOING WELL AFTER NEAR-CANCELLATION - can10872.txt - 10/25/87
{last article - condensed but long}

High-Resolution Solar Observatory (HRSO) is being studied as a
free-flier rather than a sortie payload mated to the Space Shuttle or
Space Station. The program was almost cancelled earlier this year, but
has a new lease on life, according to NASA Solar Physics Branch Chief
Dave Bohlin.  "HRSO is alive and well and it may be doing better than we
think," Bohlin said on Oct. 23, but it still faces some hurdles before
final work can begin.

HRSO started in the 1970s as the Solar Optical Telescope (SOT), a
1.1-meter solar white light/UV facility to be flown aboard the Space
Shuttle.  {This was when NASA was seeking to justify the Shuttle by
attaching to it all conceivable payloads. --SW} Because of the
anticipated cost, SOT's full funding was stymied by members of the House
of Representatives who believed it should be funded as a "new start"
rather than as a Spacelab line item. After several such rounds, NASA
reduced the scale of the facility, gave up the UV capability, and
renamed it HRSO. However, uncertainties about whether it would fly
aboard the Shuttle or Station led Leonard Fisk, associate administrator
for space science and applications, to consider cancelling it.

What helped save HRSO was the free-flier study effort started by
Astrophysics Division Chief Charles Pellerin. Since its inception as
SOT, HRSO has been managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.  "Of
course, their is culture free-fliers," Bohlin said, "and they jumped
right on it and were working weekends on it."

The result is a design that roughly resembles a cross between the Solar
Maximum Mission Satellite and the International Ultraviolet Explorer.
{Telescope 1-meter diameter built by Perkin Elmer, instrument package by
Lockheed} ...mounted atop a multi-mission modular spacecraft (MMS) like
Solar Max uses.  ...the spacecraft mainly would need electrical power
and attitude control modules, "pretty standard stuff," Bohlin said. A
Delta 2 would place HRSO in a sun-synchronous polar orbit.

Because the spacecraft would not be attached to a manned platform, the
detector will have to be charge-coupled devices rather than film as
originally planned. This will reduce the field of view slightly to
around 3 arc-min, and degrade resolution from 0.1 to 0.13 arc-sec.
{This gives an oddball CCD size of about 1400 pixels square; I wonder
what they're planning.  Maybe if Tektronix could produce their
long-promised 2048 pixel square chip, the resolution and field of view
could be restored. --SW}

[Three instruments - one from West Germany - will operate
simultaneously.]  ...needed to show the 3-D structure of solar magnetic
fields.

With HRSO being reconfigured as a free-flier, the possibility of
restoring its UV capability is being raised. Great Britain has expressed
an interest in providing a co-observing instrument strapped to the side
of the spacecraft. And the Department of Defense is interested in
combining HRSO with its long-delayed Solar Activities Monitor Experiment
(SAMX, formerly SAMSAT).  "If these can be done at little or no cost to
NASA," Bohlin said, "we're sure going to go for it. These strike right
at the heart of what HRSO is all about."  {All these attempted additions
are symptoms of the extreme lack of launch capability.  Otherwise, it
would probably be cheaper to do separate missions.  The problem is that
the endless cycle of increasing complication, delay, and expense leads
to even fewer missions, and there is ever more incentive to further
complicate those missions that exist.--SW}

Steve Willner            Phone 617-495-7123          Bitnet: willner@cfa2
60 Garden St.            FTS:      830-7123           UUCP:   willner@cfa
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA                     ARPA: willner@cfa.harvard.edu

------------------------------

Date: 4 Nov 87 16:48:20 GMT
From: nuchat!steve@uunet.uu.net  (Steve Nuchia)
Subject: RE: requirements for flight and wood on spacecraft

MY wife is a materials engineer working for one of the contractor firms
at JSC.  We found Eugene's comments about how powerful materials people
are within NASA a little humorous, but he was (of course) correct about
the reasons wood isn't used - unpredictable performance and outgassing.
He didn't mention flammability, which is probably the number one reason.

Apparently there is a small-scale war in progress between the materials
safety people and the astronauts.  If the astronauts had their way the
entire cabin would be covered in velcro - the materials people have very
strict rules designed to prevent flame propagation.  Something tells me
that using wood wouldn't go over very well, since you can't stick to it
and it would use some of the flammable materials budget.

Liz suggests that anyone wanting more info on flight requirements or
astronaut recruiting contact:
	Public Affairs Office
	NASA JSC
	Houston, Tx 77058

She said the PAO director's assistant's name is Raynell Perez and can be
reached at (713) 483 0229.

It is fairly common knowledge that one should be either a military pilot
or an employee of NASA with at least one PhD, and in perfect health.
Other than that its a snap, right?  Oh - I guess we should list persons
sponsored by a corporation or a foreign government as pretty good bets.

Steve Nuchia	  
uunet!nuchat!steve
(713) 334 6720

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #38
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU;  7 Nov 87 06:21:36 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA19769; Sat, 7 Nov 87 03:17:49 PST
	id AA19769; Sat, 7 Nov 87 03:17:49 PST
Date: Sat, 7 Nov 87 03:17:49 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8711071117.AA19769@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #39

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 39

Today's Topics:
			  Defense is not War
	Re: Vandenburg launch (was Re:Budgets (DoD vs. NASA))
		   Short Wavelength Chemical Laser
			    Lunar Skyhooks
			       Novices
			   Defending Henry?
	Re: Vandenburg launch (was Re:Budgets (DoD vs. NASA))
		  Soviet Antisatellite Weapon Tests
		   In Search of Schrodinger's Cat.
		 Re: In Search of Schrodinger's Cat.
		 Re: In Search of Schrodinger's Cat.
		 Re: In Search of Schrodinger's Cat.
			   Skyhooks on Mars
			     Solar Energy
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 2 Nov 87 08:44:00 PST
From: "DSS::BOLD" <bold%dss.decnet@afsc-sd.arpa>
Subject: Defense is not War
To: "space" <space@angband.s1.gov>

There seems to be some confusion in the controversy on defense R&D which
I'm sure will disappear with some definition of terms.  Since my letter
on budgets started it, it falls on me to clear it up.

*Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary* defines defense as
"...capability of resisting attack..." and "the military, governmental,
and industrial aggregate esp. in its capacity of authorizing arms
production..."  When I use the term, I refer to the former, although the
latter has bearing.  The same dictionary defines war as "a state of
usually open and declared armed hostile conflict between states or
nations."  Obviously, there is a difference.

The author of a letter to SPACE DIGEST (Vol 8:34, "Computers and
Military Technology") who stated "The 'war is good because of the
important technological spinoffs' is ludicrous" is right, it would be
ludicrous, but it's not the argument I or anyone else made.  I was
talking about DEFENSE R&D, which does have important spinoffs, not WAR,
which would kill the people who might otherwise enjoy them.

Defense is basic to survival; there is no point in having a strong space
program, privately operated or otherwise, if someone else can just waltz
right in and take it all away.  The whole idea of defense, which I'm
for, is to prevent war, which I'm against.  While we have the right,
nay, the DUTY to make sure we get our money's worth on defense spending
and make equally sure the government spends only what is necessary on
defense, please do not put words in someone's mouth, consciously or
otherwise, just because they have a different perspective than you do.


Kevin "Mad Max" Bold
(BOLD@AFSC-SD.ARPA)

------------------------------

Date: 1 Nov 87 00:38:14 GMT
From: mike@AMES.ARPA  (Mike Smithwick)
Subject: Re: Vandenburg launch (was Re:Budgets (DoD vs. NASA))

In article <585@trout.NOSC.MIL> ganzer@trout.NOSC.MIL (Mark T. Ganzer) writes:
(stuff about the Titan 34D launch)
>and that it was a ground test unit that had been refurbished. This is
>supposed to hold us over until they can get a KH-12 up in a shuttle
>launch.

Just a note about the KH-11. An epsode of Nova, called "Spy Machines", I
think, was aired locally last week. I urge everyone on the net to take a
look (except for Ivan), it's very interesting. They did talk about the
KH-11, and showed photos which were supposedly from one, the only such
pictures ever to make it out into the public. Quite impressive. (except
for the jerk who released the pictures in the first place).

*** mike (powered by M&Ms) smithwick ***

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 31 Oct 87 09:01 EDT
From: "Paul F. Dietz" <DIETZ%sdr.slb.com@relay.cs.net>
Subject: Short Wavelength Chemical Laser

I've just read that someone has come up with a chemically fueled laser
amplifier that operates in the visible spectrum.  Previously, chemical
lasers have operated in the infrared.  SDI would be very interested in a
short wavelength chemical laser, since smaller mirrors could be used.

The new system uses thallium excited by the reaction of silicon and
ozone.  Silicon and oxygen, at least, are ubiquitous on the moon.  The
report I read didn't indicate what were the efficiency or power output
of the experiment.

------------------------------

Date: 31 Oct 87 06:07:15 GMT
From: ihnp4!upba!eecae!crlt!russ@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Russ Cage)
Subject: Lunar Skyhooks

In article <8710302041.AA04666@angband.s1.gov>, sinder%dss.DECnet@AFSC-SD.ARPA ("DSS::SINDER") writes:
>In a private response to a query of mine, Ted said a Needle/SkyHook
>arrangement might be feasible on MARS. [...] How about the Moon?

I did some calculations about stationary skyhooks for Luna a while ago.
It appears that a sapphire/aluminum composite skyhook (both available
from lunar soil) would be possible but maybe marginal, while a graphite
fiber skyhook would be a piece of cake.  Take an elevator from Nearside
Station to L1 and a bit beyond, drop off on a tether, and go directly
into 2:1 synchronous orbit!  Another skyhook on Farside would provide
direct access to L2 and a place to put communications platforms that
could see a goodly fraction of the far side of Luna.

Needless to say, capital costs for a skyhook would be quite a bit bigger
than for a mass driver, and you'd need lots of traffic to justify one.

Russ Cage, Robust Software Inc.              ihnp4!itivax![m-net!rsi,crlt!russ]

------------------------------

Date: 2 Nov 87 09:02:56 GMT
From: imagen!atari!portal!cup.portal.com!Charlie_Alan_Bounds@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Subject: Novices

henry@utzoo.uucp writes:

>Is it too much to ask that people read the Rogers report before airing
>their views on the issues to the entire net?

Henry, Henry. . . Let us NEVER discourage the novice, and besides, some
of us have little or no access to assorted industry reports.

Thank you bunches for your opinions and your condensations of industry
reports.

Charlie Bounds           Charlie@cup.portal.com
                         ...sun!portal!cup.portal.com!charlie

------------------------------

Date: 3 Nov 87 18:29:59 GMT
From: pioneer!eugene@ames.arpa  (Eugene Miya N.)
Subject: Defending Henry?

In article <1236@cup.portal.com> Charlie_Alan_Bounds@cup.portal.com writes:
>henry@utzoo.uucp writes:
>
>>Is it too much to ask that people read the Rogers report before airing
>>their views on the issues to the entire net?
>
>Henry, Henry. . . Let us NEVER discourage the novice, and besides, some
>of us have little or no access to assorted industry reports.

Well, gee, coming to Henry's defense?  Well sort of...  Frankly, novices
should be tempered.  I would replace the word NEVER.  The discouraged
are either half-hearted or a few will go out and prove one wrong and do
it better (Seymour Cray, Gordon Bell, Steven Mather are good examples).
Those who go out into space will really try.

Not to let Henry off, I think, he asks too much of the average net
reader, but I would otherwise say so via Email, reading the RR is
unrealistic for most, but the question of report access which Charlie
mentions is a strawman.  I doubt many net readers would lift a phone to
determine the main number at NASA HQ (my estimate would be around 50
[out of Reid's estimate of 7,000 readers]).  I just tried something
similar on another group (zilch for the Pentagon's number).

When I was younger, I wrote more snail mail letters, most space
companies DON'T have email access.  There is a wealth of information
just by asking by mail or even telephone.  Sometimes little kids have
more access to power than most adults think.  Additionally, if Henry or
I get out of line: many pieces of Email or physical mail are more
effective than a single posting.  In some ways you readers have it too
easy.

>From the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA

------------------------------

Date: 4 Nov 87 18:54:59 GMT
From: crowl@cs.rochester.edu  (Lawrence Crowl)
Subject: Re: Vandenburg launch (was Re:Budgets (DoD vs. NASA))

In article <8877@utzoo.UUCP> henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) writes:
>...  He's in deep legal trouble for showing the world things that the
>KGB knew five years ago.  (The KGB got the user's manual for the KH-11
>out of an earlier spy episode -- how secret can its capabilities be any
>more?!?)

The security folks often play games like "they know, and we know they
know, but we will act like we do not know they know, so that they will
not know we know they know".  The security folks are probably upset that
"they know we know they know".  (I make no value judgements, so please,
no flames.)

  Lawrence Crowl
 crowl@cs.rochester.edu

------------------------------

Date: 2 Nov 87 19:06:24 GMT
From: miq%psuvm.bitnet@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Jim Maloy)
Subject: Soviet Antisatellite Weapon Tests

information confirmed.  To the best of my knowledge and sources, the
Soviets have conducted 20 tests of their co-orbital ASAT, with the most
recent being in 1982.
     
     My question: have the Soviets conducted any tests of this, or any
other ASAT since then?
     
     (Respond via e-mail if possible)
     
James D. Maloy                  The Pennsylvania State University
Bitnet: MIQ@PSUECL, MIQ@PSUVM   Aerospace Engineering, '87
UUCP  : {akgua,allegra,cbosgd,ihnp4}!psuvax1!psuvm.bitnet!miq

------------------------------

Date: 31 Oct 1987 15:21-EST 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: In Search of Schrodinger's Cat.

I wish to thank the person who mentioned this book. It is WELL worth
reading.

Yes folks, FTL information transfer may be for real. Experiments were
done a few years ago. The logic is as follows. A superconductor can act
as a single quantum particle. Collapse of the wave function when the
state of a quantum particle changes is instantaneous. Thus a change
imposed on the superconductor ring at one point appears SIMULTANEOUSLY
at all other points on the 'macroparticle'. It falls out of the strange
side of quantum mechanics that Einstein spent the rest of his life
trying to refute. And the Wheeler and Aspect experiments have proven the
worst fears of Einstein to be reality. Whatever reality means once you
accept that quantum reality is fact and causality as we know it is
unreal.

The Bell inequality has been PROVEN not to be true (and replicated three
ways to Sunday or Saturday), and this means that instantaneous action at
a distance is as real as the fact that things fall down.

What I would like to know, is if there is anyone on this net at the
University of Sussex who could contact Terry Clark and find out if the
attempt to build a 6 meter distance test of the FTL idea was successful?
The book is from 1984 and I have heard nothing of this.

Please note that the form of FTL is not (yet) a means like radio. It is
dependant on two points being physically close to a superconductor that
spans the distance between them. Of course with new superconductor power
cables spanning the continent in the early days of the next century...

By the way, the book also discusses time travel, multiple universes,
etc. Quantum theory has some very interesting things to say about them.
Of course we have long known how the design for a time machine, we just
don't have the technology to build a 100km long by 10km radius rod of
neutronium rotating once per .5ms.

Buy it, you'll like it!

------------------------------

Date: 1 Nov 87 23:25:20 GMT
From: cfa!willner@husc6.harvard.edu  (Steve Willner)
Subject: Re: In Search of Schrodinger's Cat.

in article <562710075.amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU>, Dale.Amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU says:
> I wish to thank the person who mentioned this book. It is WELL worth
> reading.  [further laudatory comments]

The author, John Gribben, is a deft but sensationalistic writer.  I
would be very cautious of his scientific explanations.  Remember the
"Jupiter Effect?"  And at least one of his "science fact" articles (the
one about "the astronomers' view of the greenhouse effect) in Analog was
simply wrong, and others have been dubious at best.  In any case,
quantum mechanics theory does not imply faster than light information
transfer.

Steve Willner            Phone 617-495-7123          Bitnet: willner@cfa2
60 Garden St.            FTS:      830-7123           UUCP:   willner@cfa
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA                     ARPA: willner@cfa.harvard.edu

------------------------------

Date: 2 Nov 87 03:24:20 GMT
From: phoenix!kpmancus@princeton.edu  (Keith P. Mancus)
Subject: Re: In Search of Schrodinger's Cat.

  Would someone please send me the journal name and issue ## that
contained the report of the FTL superconductor experiment?  I would love
to read the original report on this, but the previous poster did not
mention where and when it was published.  Thanks.

  -Keith "We'll get FTL somehow" Mancus <kpmancus@phoenix.princeton.edu>

------------------------------

Date: 2 Nov 87 16:05:31 GMT
From: uop!robert@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu  (Robert McCaul--The Equalizer)
Subject: Re: In Search of Schrodinger's Cat.

Some of john gribben's work might be considered questionable, but his
book on Schrodinger's cat is very worth reading.

It gives one a good general feel for what to expect when looking into
other books.

    "When freedom is outlawed, only outlaws will have freedom"
                                 ...sun!ptsfa!cogent! \
      ...mcvax!prlb2!philabs!princeton!rutgers!retix! --> uop!robert
                             ...uwvax!ucbvax!ucdavis! / 
uop!robert@ucdavis.arpa

------------------------------

Date:  4 Nov 1987 15:55-EST 
From: Hans.Moravec@rover.ri.cmu.edu
Subject: Skyhooks on Mars

       Mars' gravity well is much shallower than Earth's.  Because it
also has a high rotation rate, it's just possible to build a synchronous
skyhook (beanstalk) for it with Kevlar.  Building in a tensile safety
factor of two, a Mars beanstalk would have to taper to 16,000 times its
base area at its thickest point.  Its mass would be a million times the
payload it could support at any one time. Without the safety factor, or
with a material twice as strong for its weight, the taper would shrink
to 125, and the mass ratio to a reasonable 8000.

	A low orbit rolling skyhook, whose ends approach the ground like
spokes of a rolling wheel, can be made much smaller than a beanstalk.
The taper is minimized when the total length is 1/3 the radius of the
planet it orbits.  For many solar system bodies including Mars, rolling
skyhooks are very feasible with Kevlar, or even fiberglass or steel.
Here are the numbers for a few. A safety factor of two is included.
Taper is the ratio of area of the cable ends (the part that supports
payloads) divided into the cable middle (that has to bear the weight of
the rest of the cable as well as the payload).  Mass is the ratio of
cable mass to maximum payload. Note that many such payloads can be
lofted or lowered one after another, so in the long run a cable can
hoist many times its mass.
		-Fiberglass-		---Kevlar---
Body		Taper	Mass		Taper	Mass

Mercury		2,200	23,000		49	350
Venus		10^20	10^21		10^10	10^11
Earth		10^22	10^23		10^11	10^12
Mars		17,000	200,000		136	1,100

Luna		13	72		4	13
Ganymede	35	240		6	28
Titan		29	190		5	24

A little paper about this was in the August 1978 L5 News, if such
are archived.

------------------------------

Date:         Sat, 31 Oct 87 15:42:19 EST
From: ST401385%BROWNVM.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu
Subject:      Solar Energy

(Herman Rubin):
> After all, hasn't practical solar energy on a basis which would make
> all other types [of energy] obsolete been just around the corner
> thirty years ago? :-)

   I rather resent the tone of this comment.  Thirty years ago would
have been just three years after the *invention* of the silicon solar
cell [ref. 1], long before any details of manufacturing, economics, or
distribution could have been worked out, not to mention the era when
gasoline was virtually free and nuclear power was going to be "too cheap
to meter."  It's not surprising that solar energy did not materialize in
1957: nobody was funding it.  Nobody was interested.
    Predictions of the large-scale use of solar cells for production of
electricity date to approximately the energy crisis (ca. 1973) and said
that solar cells could be a significant source of energy *IF* research
to lower cost and increase efficiency was done.  In fact, however, the
solar research program initiated in 1976-77 by ERDA (which later became
DOE), has been effectively discontinued since about 1980.  The solar
research budget was cut when Reagan entered office.  Nobody is
interested in solar research right now, since oil is once again cheap.
  Nevertheless, some of us are still working on photovoltaics research,
and very significant advances in solar cell technology have been made
over the last ten years, and continue to be made.  The best single
crystal silicon solar cells have achieved efficiencies of 27 percent
under concentration; amorphous silicon, cadmium telluride, copper-indium
selenide and thin polycrystalline silicon have emerged as candidate
thin-film low-cost materials, electric utilities have begun to set up
large-scale demonstration facilities, and costs have dropped from
hundreds of dollars per watt to $2 (1987 dollars) per watt for large
concentration systems, very close to the value of about $1/watt where
arrays would become economical for large-scale utility power generation
applications.  If anybody were interested, solar energy really would be
"right around the corner."
  ("Right around the corner" having a relative meaning, of course.
Nothing happens at all until you build the factory to produce the cells,
and it would then take a while for the output to accumulate.)
  In fact, however, right now power plants of any sort, solar or
otherwise, simply are not being built.  General Electric recently closed
down its unit to manufacture Coal-fired power plants (and despite all
the hubub about other sources of energy, coal fired plants supply the
majority of power produced in the US.)

   (1) D.M. Chapin et. al., _J. Applied Physics_, 25, p. 676 (1954).

--Geoffrey A. Landis, Ph.D     BITNET: ST401385 at BROWNVM
    Brown University           ARPA:  ST401385%BROWNVM.BITNET@WISCVM.ARPA

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #39
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU;  8 Nov 87 20:09:26 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA00460; Sun, 8 Nov 87 15:49:33 PST
	id AA00460; Sun, 8 Nov 87 15:49:33 PST
Date: Sun, 8 Nov 87 15:49:33 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8711082349.AA00460@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #40

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 40

Today's Topics:
			    CELSS research
		     Mysterious Eagle Engineering
		       Gravity Lenses Question
		 Recent Supernova: Lost opportunity?
		     Re: Gravity Lenses Question
			  Re: Escape systems
	  Re: requirements for flight and wood on spacecraft
		   Re: Station contractor addresses
	       Re: Recent Supernova: Lost opportunity?
	Soviet manned missions; records made and future plans
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date:     Wed, 4 Nov 87 12:05 CDT
From: <BDW9359%TAMVENUS.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu>
Subject:  CELSS research

    The CELSS research program, contrary to what some people were
expressing in earlier mailings, is very active in this country.  The
reason you don't hear much about it is that watching a plant grow does
not excite the press in quite the same way as a rocket launch.  CELSS
research was very active in the 1960's, but, like many research areas in
the space program, has suffered from neglect for much of the past
decade.  The past few years, thanks to the efforts of Jim Bredt, the
CELSS research program director at NASA headquarters, it has gone
through a lot of changes.  He was able to grab the program by the heels
and give it a good shake.  A lot of loose change fell on the floor.  The
program has been reorganized and there is a lot of young blood with
fresh ideas involved in it.  Jim Bredt is retiring due to his health but
he deserves a lot of credit for rocking boat.

    One very significant project he started is called the CELSS
Breadboard Project.  It is a CELSS technology test bed in the Life
Science Support Facility at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida.  An old
vacuum chamber used to test the Mercury capsules for leaks has been
refurbished into a two story air-tight plant growth chamber.  As
universities and other NASA research centers develop ideas for CELSS,
they can be tested using this facility.  There are active CELSS research
programs at Cornell, U. of Wisconsin, Utah State, Texas A&M, EPCOT
Center (Yes, Disney is working with the folks at KSC.  These are very
competent engineers and plant scientists although they have to pay
attention to bells and whistles for the public.), U. of Florida, as well
as Johnson Space Center and Ames Research Center.  The point here, I
guess, is that there is a lot of work being done, but it is all done
quietly.

    There are a few more points I would like to comment on.  Carbon
dioxide toxicity for plants is reached at concentrations well below
human tolerance.  Although the effects vary with specie, I will suggest
a rough rule of thumb that one percent carbon dioxide (at atmospheric
pressure) is too high for plants to tolerate on a continuous basis.

    Reducing the oxygen content can also be injurious.  Studies on flood
tolerance of plants suggests that when the oxygen in the soil becomes
less than 19 percent the roots begin to respire anaerobically.  This can
cause the death of the plant within a few days.  Reducing the oxygen of
the atmosphere could produce the same effect in the roots during the day
cycle and in the entire plant during the night cycle.  Running the
lights continuously is not a solution. Photosynthetic efficiency drops
off drastically under those conditions. Also, many plants have
reproductive cycles which are very sensitive to day length.

    Adding machinery to do gas separations and all these other ideas
complicate a system which is hard enough to deal with as it stands.  We
do not need a Ferrari which will suffer in performance if it gets a
little out of tune.  We need a pickup truck which can get beat up a
little and still perform.  The solution to this problem lies in
simplicity and taking advantage of our knowledge of biological
processes.  We have to get those processes to do some of the work for us
rather than beat the problem to death with machinery.


Bruce Wright
Department of Agricultural Engineering
Texas A&M University
College Station, TX  77843-2117
(409) 845-3600

------------------------------

Date: 4 Nov 87 16:25:00 GMT
From: jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Mysterious Eagle Engineering

I've gotten a whole lot of E-mail from many people on the net.  Thanks
to everyone who sent things in to help me with my search for employment.
I'm working hard to keep the letters and resumes going out as fast as I
get addresses in.

One of my "problem companies" -- somebody who seemingly has no address
and does no advertising -- has been Eagle Engineering.  I had never
heard of them.  Nobody I knew had ever heard of them.  Then I received
the following.

(The following is quoted material, but I won't put those ">" things in.)


From: MATTHEWS%ASD.SPAN@STAR.STANFORD.EDU
Subject: Eagle Engineering
To: jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu
Status: R

I have before me the 1987 Eagle Engineering calendar, and on the bottom
of each page they give the following information:

Street Address:
   711 Bay Area Blvd., Suite 315      (only a couple of miles down the
   Webster, Texas 77598                   road from my apartment!)

Post Office Address:
   P.O. Box 891049
   Houston, TX 77289-1049

Phone Number:
   (713) 338-2682

In the back there's this blurb about the company (I'm quoting liberally,
without permission, but since this calendar is obviously an
advertisement for the company, I don't think they'll mind):

"Eagle Engineering is dedicated to providing clients with the highest
quality of consulting services and products in the aerospace field.
Eagle meets the need of each customer by providing experienced and
extremely talented people.  Assignments are accomplished by assembling
multidisciplinary teams tailored to meet the unique challenges of each
client. Team members are drawn from over one hundred officers,
employees, associates, and consultants who individually average over 25
years of experience. Their technical and managerial experience covers
virtually every aerospace discipline.

Projects include conceptual design of aerospace vehicles, future space
technology development, advanced space mission planning, failure
analysis and fault isolation, liability litigation, project feasibility
evaluation, proposal preparation, human factors engineering, operations
analysis, and general management consultation.  Meeting the daily
challenges of these activities keeps the Eagle staff on the leading edge
of aerospace technology."

The company is made up mostly of engineers retired from NASA and
contractors, which accounts for the high average experience.  In fact, I
don't think any of them have been in the space program less than 10
years (with the exception of a few very lucky co-ops).  They have been
mostly subcontractors to NASA and to major contractors in the JSC area,
but in recent years the expansion of the commercial space industry has
opened up many new opportunities for Eagle; they are the prime
engineering contractor for Space Services Incorporated of America
(Conestoga launch vehicle) and provide systems engineering support for
Space Industries, Incorporated (especially the Industrial Space Facility
project).

You can post this (or part of this, I know it's a little long and maybe
boring) if you want to.

Mike Matthews   (ARPAnet) MATTHEWS%ASD@STAR.STANFORD.EDU
                          MATTHEWS%LOCK@STAR.STANFORD.EDU

------------------------------

Date: 4 Nov 87 22:04:17 GMT
From: ganelon.usc.edu!robiner@oberon.usc.edu  (Steve)
Subject: Gravity Lenses Question

OK, I understand how gravity can bend light, but I don't understand why
there are several DISTINCT images. Why isn't the image 'smeared' or
elongated near the gravity lens.  I'll try a ascii drawing:



*-----------------------------------------       \|/ 
star                  ====================      --|--
                  @   --------____________    stretched image of star
            gravity   -----________               |
               lens                -------       /|\
                                                /   \


Why isn't this the case.  What causes distinct single images, and why
aren't they distorted enough so that we can tell for sure they must be
'refractions'.

=Steve Robiner=

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 5 Nov 87 11:44:31 EST
From: loeb@BOURBAKI.MIT.EDU
To: clyde!watmath!lasibley@rutgers.edu
Cc: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: Recent Supernova: Lost opportunity?

Lance was wondering why light is attracted by gravity. The answer is
very simple. Gravity attracts not only mass, but mass/energy. In other
words, something highly energetic feels more a higher gravitational
froce than something of equal mass but less energy.

Matter is merely another form that energy can take, and all forms of
energy attract each other via gravity.

	Yours,
	Danny

------------------------------

Date: 5 Nov 87 17:00:29 GMT
From: tybalt.caltech.edu!erc@csvax.caltech.edu  (Eric R. Christian)
Subject: Re: Gravity Lenses Question

In article <5025@oberon.USC.EDU> robiner@ganelon.usc.edu (Steve) writes:
>OK, I understand how gravity can bend light, but I don't understand
>why there are several DISTINCT images. Why isn't the image 'smeared'
>or elongated near the gravity lens.  I'll try a ascii drawing:

You get distinct images because the original sources are point sources.
These sources are usually (always?) QSOs (Quasi-Stellar Object or
quasars).  The diagram would look more like this:

Image 1 *------
               --------
                       --------
                               --------
                       --------        --------
               --------                        --------
QSO     *------                   @                    -------- observer
(not seen)     --------                        --------
                       --------        --------
                               --------
                       --------
               --------
Image 2 *------

In three dimensions, I would sort of expect to see a ring, but you
actually only see a finite (usually odd) number of discrete images.  I
don't understand the geometry that causes this.  The reason you can tell
they are from the same source is that the timing and spectrum of a QSO
is as distinctive as a fingerprint.  You should note that all of the
images are affected and that you don't see unbent light directly from
the source.

Eric R. Christian
erc@tybalt.caltech.edu.uucp

------------------------------

Date: 4 Nov 87 18:00:09 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Escape systems

> However, these packages are only intended to supply O2 in a smoke or
> hazardous fume environment for ground escape and do not supply the
> pressure required at 40K+ feet...

In fact they are not O2 packs at all, they are air packs, so they
wouldn't be a whole lot of help even at lower altitudes.

> ... Due to the rapid rate of fall, it is entirely possible that
> conciousness may have been regained by one or more before impact.

Kerwin's medical report said that if the cabin did lose pressure (which
is not certain -- it was too badly smashed up by the water impact for
the forensic people to be sure), it was unlikely that any of the
astronauts would regain consciousness in the time available before
impact.

> What I am not clear on is whether the rods is sufficient to guarantee
> clearance of the exhaust plume...

There is no exhaust plume in gliding flight, which is the only situation
that the rocket and rod concepts are meant for.

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 5 Nov 87 21:50:45 GMT
From: psuvax1!vu-vlsi!swatsun!leif@rutgers.edu  (Leif Kirschenbaum)
Subject: Re: requirements for flight and wood on spacecraft

I find the discussions of what materials may be used on spacecraft vis-a-vis
organic materials quite interesting, but what is outgassing?





Leif Kirschenbaum, Swarthmore College class '91

------------------------------

Date: 5 Nov 87 19:10:16 GMT
From: nuchat!steve@uunet.uu.net  (Steve Nuchia)
Subject: Re: Station contractor addresses

In article <74700059@uiucdcsp>, jenks@uiucdcsp.cs.uiuc.edu writes:
> 
> There was enough E-mail asking me to mail out copies of the names,
> addresses, and phone numbers of the Space Station contractors I've
> 
> As you can see, the only contractors I know nothing about are Analex
> and Eagle Engineering.  (Rocketdyne seems to be a division of Rockwell.

Eagle Engineering is a small Houston company providing engineering services
to JSC and presumably anyone else who can afford it.  If my info is correct
it was formed around some oldtimers who were in demand by name.

Anyway, the area code is definitely 713.  There is a listing in my
phone book for "Eagle Engineers" at 711 Bay Area Blvd, (713) 338 2682
which is probably them.
-- 
Steve Nuchia	    | [...] but the machine would probably be allowed no mercy.
uunet!nuchat!steve  | In other words then, if a machine is expected to be
(713) 334 6720	    | infallible, it cannot be intelligent.  - Alan Turing, 1947

------------------------------

Date: 6 Nov 87 03:25:12 GMT
From: faline!karn@bellcore.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: Recent Supernova: Lost opportunity?

> Lance was wondering why light is attracted by gravity...

Light isn't "attracted by gravity". Rather, objects with mass distort
space itself such that light follows what appear to be "curved" paths.
As far as the photon is concerned, it is following what it "thinks" is
a straight line.

Phil

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 6 Nov 87 10:53:51 EST
From: Glenn Chapman <glenn@ll-vlsi.arpa>
Subject: Soviet manned missions; records made and future plans

     For the Russians the October month started off by holding a three day 
international forum in Moscow to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Sputnik I's 
flight. This series of lectures, combined with the subsequent International 
Space Federation conference in Britain starting Oct. 12th, revealed a 
considerable amount of information about the Soviet's future plans.  First it 
was stated that their cosmonauts have been doing landing tests with their 
shuttle, using jet engines on the test vehicle.  There have been problems with 
the control system which will delay their first launch test until 1989. 
Apparently they will be doing about 4 unmanned launches first, much to the 
annoyance of the cosmonaut corps.  Also they have given a tentative schedule 
for their large Energyia launches, with the next one being planed for early 
next year (they want no repeat of the problems with the last launch). 
According to some reports that I got 3rd hand from visitors to both conferences 
the USSR is intending to launch some 70 Energyia class boosters between now 
and the end of this century, building up to 8-9 launches in 1999.  During the 
same period their space shuttle take offs will increase to 4 times annually. 
The Energyia is apperently designed to be a nearly fully reuseable launcher,
with the LH/LO engine section of the core stage being detachable to be returned
to earth by some means (possibly their shuttle).  Growth versions of Energyia
will move from the 4 strap-on, side cargo carrier version sent up this year,
to 6 and 8 strap-on, axial cargo launchers.  The largest version will carry
up to 215 Tonnes (according to an estimate in Flight International magazine).
One interesting point there is that when the Mars missions were being looked 
at by NASA in the early 1970's they settled on 180-200 Tonnes as the best size 
launcher for such missions.
   Their new very large space station core, called Novy Mir, will go up in 1996 
on the advanced version of Energyia (6-8 strap-ons with the payload on a 
vertical stack, which would suggest a core mass of 150-200 metric tonnes).  
Since Mir was said to have a 5 year design lifetime, and Soviet researchers 
have stated that there will be a Mir II, this suggests to me that in 1991-92
a replacement will be launched that will be similar to the current station. 
In addition they have talked about a second observer and technical Star module 
(the 10-20 tonne additions that fit on the side port of Mir), which will be 
operational concurrent with their older versions. This is consistent with them 
operating two Mir type stations in the early 1990's before the new system 
comes on stream.
     The Cosmos 1887 biological satellite, launched on Sep. 29, had an 
eventful 14 day mission.  During its flight one of the two monkey's on board 
managed to get one of its arms lose from the straps holding it, an began 
pushing all the buttons in sight.  By accident (and not the Russians assure us 
due to monkeying around) the Cosmos proceeded to land some 2000 miles off 
course, making some delay in the retrieving of the data.  The monkeys are in 
fine shape now.
     The first event in manned flight this month was the Oct. 24th breaking of 
the official space endurance record by Yuri Romanenko on board  Mir.  By 
exceeding 260 days he has currently been in orbit over 10% longer than the 
previous record holders: the Soyuz T-10B crew 237 mission on board Salyut 7 in 
Oct. 1984 (set by Leonid Kizim, Validimir Soloyev and Oleg Atkov).  On Oct. 
25th Romanenko exceeded one full year of accumulated time in orbit, while on 
Nov. 4th he  exceed Kizim's record for total space time.    Indeed the 
length of this mission is best illustrated by the 93 days Alexander Alexadrov 
has accumulated since he replaced Alexander Laveikin on July 29th.  That time, 
which exceeded the longest US mission to date (Skylab 4), is on top of the 
149 days he spent in the Soyuz T-9/Salyut 7 mission of 1983.
     Currently the crew has just finished unloading the Progress 32 cargo 
craft (the 13th vehicle to dock to Mir).  Sometime this winter the new air 
lock module will be launched. This will initially dock axially on Mir, but it 
has another port on its rear that will take a Soyuz, and also has the 
manipulator arm that will move it to the side port of the docking ball on Mir. 
Your editor personally feels that this will be used to move a Soyuz to the 
side port to allow a docking of three capsules to Mir at the same time. The 
Soviets have talked about the final growth version of Mir containing crews of 
6 to 9 people, which would require 3 Soyuzs.  Also that having the air lock 
dock axially means that it can stay there without blocking the front port until 
the second side docking module is ready.  This will minimize the time during 
which only one module is on the side of Mir - a relatively unstable situation.
     A rather strange happening occurred on Oct. 26th when the Soviets showed 
on Moscow TV a special program that detailed many of their past space 
failures. According to both the British Broadcast Corp. and Radio Moscow this 
program first reported the number of Soviet rocket scientists that were sent 
to Siberia and the damage that was done to their program by that event.  
Apparently they also showed a number of film clips of the earlier launch 
failures.  One interesting question that I would like to ask of anyone who saw
this program - did it show anything of the old 1970's G booster (their Saturn
class moon rocket that failed 3 times according to most researchers). 
This is all part of a series of programs that the Soviet Government 
has been giving in the past week revealing the darker pages of the past 70 
years of the USSR.  Maybe with this we can finally find out some of the things
we have always suspected about the Soviet program past operations (eg.1 did they
really have someone ready to beat Apollo 8 to lunar orbit in 1968).
     Sorry this report is both long and not as timely as I could wish.
Unfortunately our VAX has been having significant problems in the past month
making it impossible for me to send any reports out until now (and I was off
on some trips the month before).

                                               Glenn Chapman
                                               MIT Lincoln Lab

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #40
*******************

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Date: Mon, 9 Nov 87 03:15:39 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8711091115.AA00699@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #41

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 41

Today's Topics:
			National Space Society
			Space Station crewing
			 SPACE Digest V8 #39
			   escape capsules
	    Commercial plea for space station - effective!
	      Cost Optimized Launch Vehicles, circa 1965
		     Re: Gravity Lenses Question
			   Hypergolic fuels
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 6 Nov 87 21:59:35 GMT
From: cbmvax!eric@rutgers.edu  (Eric Cotton)
Subject: National Space Society

I recently got a mailing inviting me to become a member of the
National Space Society.  Is the NSS the result of the merger between
the L-5 Society and a second organization (whose name escapes me)?
Please e-mail if you know.  Thanks.

-- 
	Eric Cotton
	Commodore-Amiga

  *======================================================================*
 *=====     UUCP: {rutgers|ihnp4|allegra}!cbmvax!eric                =====*
*=====      FONE: (215) 431-9100                                      =====*
*=====      MAIL: 1200 Wilson Drive / West Chester, PA 19380          =====*
 *=====     PAUL: "I don't find this stuff amusing anymore."         =====*
  *======================================================================*

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 6 Nov 87 23:46:16 PST
From: John Sotos <SOTOS@sumex-aim.stanford.edu>
Subject: Space Station crewing



Having been off the net for a couple weeks, forgive me if this
is old news, but NASA has announced the scheme for crewing the
Space Station.  The standard crew number will be four:
one station commander responsible for safety and crew
coordination, two career astronauts, and one non-career 
astronaut.  One career astro will be called a station
scientist and the other a station operator, but both will
be cross-trained in the other's skills.  But which one will
be the simian feces monitor?

(All but the last sentence courtesy Aviation Week, Oct. 26.)
-------

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 7 Nov 1987  09:37 EST
From: MINSKY%OZ.AI.MIT.EDU@xx.lcs.mit.edu
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #39
Subject: Lunar Skyhooks


<Needless to say, capital costs for a skyhook would be quite a bit
<bigger than for a mass driver, and you'd need lots of traffic to justify one.

That isn't obvious.

------------------------------

Date: 6 Nov 87 22:17:12 GMT
From: decvax!linus!utzoo!henry@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: escape capsules

> ... the one experience I have seen in
> implementing a similar system [the B-1] has been negative...

It has been done successfully, notably for the F-111.  Not trivial, but
possible.  I would attribute the scrapping of the B-1's escape capsule
to a combination of the institutionalized incompetence of the US defence
industry, and financial pressures during the B-1's complicated history.
-- 
Those who do not understand Unix are |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
condemned to reinvent it, poorly.    | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 3 Nov 87 02:55:45 GMT
From: amdahl!drivax!macleod@ames.arpa  (MacLeod)
Subject: Commercial plea for space station - effective!

Has anyone else seen the (in my opinion) well-done commercial plea for 
renewed space activity from McDonnel-Douglas?  It goes like this -

(View from Earth orbit; earth to left.)

  Voice begins to ask if it would be good to have ongoing space research,
  a manned space station, and so on.

(From below camera angle, a long Skylab-like station begins to move past
 the camera, and you can hear muffled SSB-type voice transmissions in the
 background.  Obviously, this is a space station.)

  Voice asks several questions as the station passes by your POV, then
  says, "There is such a program, but it is not American" or words to that
  effect.

(The end of the station comes into view with a huge red star and a CCCP
on it.  The muffled SSB transmissions are louder and now clearly in Russian.
The station drifts onward.)
  
  The McDonnel-Douglas logo comes up and there is a request for support for
a renewed US space effort.  I may have some of this confused; I only saw it
once and I wasn't paying attention at the beginning.  It was quite moving, 
though, and I wish that they would run it every night during Nightline
or somewhere where it would do some good.  Has anybody else seen this?

Mike MacLeod

------------------------------

Date: 5 Nov 87 19:33:39 GMT
From: ihnp4!ihlpm!dcn@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Dave Newkirk)
Subject: Cost Optimized Launch Vehicles, circa 1965

[ This is an extract from U.S. Civilian Space Programs, 1958-1981,
  Vol. 1, published by the Congressional Research Service of the
  Library of Congress, Jan. 1981.  It seemed appropriate now that
  there are so many designs for new boosters around - dcn. ]

	Proposals for Large, Economical Rockets
	---------------------------------------

    While much of the research attention has focused on attempts
to squeeze extra percentages of efficiency out of propellants or
out of engines, and then, out of reusability of very expensive
vehicles, there was another design trend that showed up in proposals
which would have relaxed some of the design constraints and instead
aimed at economy so that while engineering abstract efficiency was
not attained, overall program costs were to be cut.  One kind of
label which was used in the mid-60s was `Big Dumb Booster.'  The
goal was to come up with a rocket which could be built in a shipyard
of ordinary steel, towed out to sea, filled with a pair of cheap
propellants and sent on its way.  In a sense, the OTRAG effort to
launch clustered simple rockets to orbit from Zaire has elements of
the same philosophy although the design approach was different. (1)
    There were many different plans offered by either established
aerospace companies or by newcomers who one way or another were
seeking a path to more nearly commercial applications of space
flight though cutting the costs of launching to Earth orbit.  It
is not possible to catalog all of these here, but a few quite
different vehicles have been described in brochures which are still
available for study.

			Roost
			-----

    Roost was a 1962 offering of Douglas Aircraft Co.  It called for
lifting  145,000 kg (320,000 lbs), or more, to a 555 km (345 mile)
orbit using a single stage.  It would have used a 15.2 meter (50 ft)
diameter tank 83 m (273 ft) long, and powered by 12 hydrogen-oxygen
engines of 4,448,455 Newtons (1,000,000 lbs) thrust each, possibly
a variant of the M-1 motor [would have been developed for the Nova
second stage - dcn].  Recovery was to include deployment of a
balloon cone-shaped element inflated with leftover hydrogen pro-
pellant or helium.  This was to be able to return a 13,600 kg (30,
000 lb) manned payload from orbit.  Obviously such a single-stage-
to-orbit rocket does not meet the definition of a `Big Dumb Booster,'
but through simplicity of design and reusability, the hope was to
bring the payload cost down to under $660 a kilogram ($300/lb)
for modest payloads, compared with $1,543 a kg ($700/lb) for the
Atlas Agena, and for large payloads to bring the cost down to $100
a kg ($45.50/lb), compared with $330 a kg ($150/lb) for the Saturn
V. (2)

			Sea Dragon
			----------

   The Sea Dragon proposal of 1965 from the Aerojet Company was
intended to outclass Nova in size in the same way that Nova out-
classed the Saturn V.  As far as weights were concerned, the Saturn
V had a liftoff weight of about 2,268,000 kg (5,000,000 lbs); the
Nova would have been about 4,536,000 kg (10,000,000 lbs); while the
Sea Dragon would have been in the 43,360,000 kg (100,000,000 lb)
class.  The promoters pointed out that the cost of liquid oxygen
and kerosene for putting a kg of payload in orbit is on the order
of $4.40 ($2.00 per lb).  But for some solid propellants the pro-
pellant cost for putting a kg of payload in orbit is more than $220
($100 per lb).  With some vehicles, the total cost of propellant
and airframe runs to total over $2,205 a kg ($1000 per lb).  But
if the vehicle could be used a 100 times, the airframe portion
of cost would drop from perhaps $2200 a kg ($998 per lb) to only
$22 a kg ($9.98/lb), because the vehicle itself is so expensive
compared with the propellants.
    The goal of Sea Dragon was to spread those costs of construc-
tion through reuse.  Sea Dragon was to be a two-stage vehicle,
treated like a ship, by being assembled in a dry dock, towed
to an ocean launch site, and fueled from tankers.  Tilted on
end, without the expense of gantry or other structure, the
rocket would rise toward orbit directly out of the water.
The rocket was also made simple by using pressure-fed motors.
The intention was to recover both stages without parachutes, wings
or retro-rockets, simply by hydrodynamic deceleration. (3)

    Cost Optimized Launch Vehicle (COLV - Big Dumb Booster)
    -------------------------------------------------------

    The COLV Big Dumb Booster of Boeing, also called Project
Scrimp, was developed as a concept in the years of 1967-1969.
The approach was to have a family of launch vehicles with cost
rather than performance the deciding design factor.  These
were in the lifting range of 450 kg (1000 lbs) to 45,360 kg
(100,000 lbs).  Engines were pressure-fed with no moving parts
other than valves.  Tanks were steel, and the pressurizing gas
was steam.  TRW and possibly other major liquid rocket motor
companies ran design studies and preliminary tests on the
propulsion required.  Funding at Boeing was mostly corporate,
although some Air Force money also was used.  While the goal
was to bring the cost of delivered payload down to $132 a kg
($60/lb), that attained in the design study was $190 a kg
($86/lb), still way below the prevailing costs of launching
on conventional rockets of the same period.

   In the end, the national decision was to go to reusable
vehicles rather than `Big Dumb Boosters.'  Initially, the
reusables have a higher cost per kilogram than these economical
expendable vehicles have shown in the paper studies.  But the
advantage of the reusable vehicles was seen to be a potential
for later generations to cut costs while the expendables
would reach a floor on cost savings sooner. (4)

(1) Space World, August-September 1978, pp 4-14.

(2) Douglas Report SM-41719.  A Conceptual Design for a Reusable
    One-Stage Orbital Space Truck.

(3) Aerojet General.  Sea Dragon, 9200-65.

(4) Aviation Week & Space Technology, May 27, 1968, p. 30;
    July 29, 1968, p.13.
-- 
				Dave Newkirk, ihnp4!ihlpm!dcn

------------------------------

Date: 6 Nov 87 15:56:51 GMT
From: linus!philabs!pwa-b!mmintl!franka@husc6.harvard.edu  (Frank Adams)
Subject: Re: Gravity Lenses Question

In article <5025@oberon.USC.EDU> robiner@ganelon.usc.edu (Steve) writes:
>OK, I understand how gravity can bend light, but I don't understand
>why there are several DISTINCT images. Why isn't the image 'smeared'
>or elongated near the gravity lens.

Star images are point sources in even the biggest telescopes.  At the
distances we are talking about for gravitational lenses, even galaxies are
point sources.  Thus, any distortion is not visible.

Multiple images come from the same image coming on different sides of the
lens.  If the lens were perfectly positioned between us and the source, and
perfectly symmetrical, we would see a ring of light.  Since neither of those
is the case, a finite number of images are seen.

As an approximate analogy, the effect is a bit like seeing multiple
reflections of the same object in a curved mirror.

-- 

Frank Adams                           ihnp4!philabs!pwa-b!mmintl!franka
Ashton-Tate          52 Oakland Ave North         E. Hartford, CT 06108

------------------------------

Date: 7 Nov 87 22:46:02 GMT
From: nosc!humu!uhmanoa!aloha1!islenet!scott@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu  (Scott Allen)
Subject: Hypergolic fuels

Can anyone describe what happens to hypergolic fuels contained in missile
tanks on SSBNs when they sink, pass crush depth, and are exposed to sea
water, as in the case of the Yankee SSBN which sank off the US East Coast
in October of 1986?

News pictures of the Yankee showed a tube door blown off and a brown gas
coming out of the tube. This was apparently fuel, and if it was hypergolic,
why was there no accompanying fire or explosion? The same brown gas was
present at the explosion of the Titan missile a few years ago. Is the 
brown gas fuel or a product of combustion? Does its presence mean that
all the fuel has been burned?

When the Yankee sank last year and its remaining missiles were crushed,
would they have exploded, or would the fuel have been dispersed in the
sea water?


-- 
Scott Allen             {ihnp4|dual|vortex}!islenet!scott
Honolulu, Hawaii	808-941-8500 808-947-3657 808-946-1919
Islenet

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #41
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 10 Nov 87 06:15:22 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA02345; Tue, 10 Nov 87 03:13:01 PST
	id AA02345; Tue, 10 Nov 87 03:13:01 PST
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 87 03:13:01 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8711101113.AA02345@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #42

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 42

Today's Topics:
		      Re: conciousness at impact
		     digitized (3D) shuttle data
	       Fletcher speech to World Affairs Council
	    "Spaceflight" 1976-87 available in Los Angeles
		     Re: Gravity Lenses Question
			     Definitions
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date:  9 Nov 1987 18:34-EST 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: conciousness at impact

I usually don't disagree with Henry, but I'll stand by my guns that
given the rate of fall from high altitude and the short time spent in
thin air, I feel the possibility of revival before impact is a strong
one.

Procedure for commercial aircraft on loss of pressurization is to DIVE
for low altitudes. Since there have been a few incidents of this type,
possibly there is some information on passenger revival time. I'm not
aware of any from FL400, although I think the one over the Med. a few
years back was somewhere around FL300 give or take 5K ft.

If there is anyone associated with NTSB out there, maybe we could get
some facts from real life.

------------------------------

Date: 5 Nov 87 20:29:31 GMT
From: super.upenn.edu!eecae!upba!mcdchg!clyde!watmath!utgpu!utcsri!uthub!ecf!apollo@rutgers.edu  (Vince Pugliese)
Subject: digitized (3D) shuttle data

    I am trying to find a source of a polygonal data base for the space
shuttle.  I am very interested in a very complete definition that
includes things like the cargo bay doors.  If anyone knows of such a
database please e-mail to me or post to the net as I'm sure there are
others who would be interested in the same.
                         Thanks in advance,
                         Vince Pugliese
                         apollo@ecf.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 9 Nov 87 19:40:35 GMT
From: cfa!willner@husc6.harvard.edu  (Steve Willner)
Subject: Fletcher speech to World Affairs Council

On November 6, NASA Administrator Fletcher gave a speech to the World
Affairs Council meeting in Los Angeles.  The NASA public information
office considered the speech of sufficient importance to distribute its
prepared text via NASAMAIL.  With page numbers and blank space edited
out, the speech and an accompanying press release run over 500 lines, so
I will not post it.  Normally, I might try to summarize, but I simply
cannot find in this speech any conclusions to extract.  If anyone else
would like to try, I will send a copy by e-mail.

Steve Willner            Phone 617-495-7123          Bitnet: willner@cfa2
60 Garden St.            FTS:      830-7123           UUCP:   willner@cfa
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA                     ARPA: willner@cfa.harvard.edu

------------------------------

Sender: "Bruce_A._Hamilton.OsbuSouth"@xerox.com
Date: 9 Nov 87 17:36:44 PST (Monday)
Subject: "Spaceflight" 1976-87 available in Los Angeles
From: "Bruce_Hamilton.OsbuSouth.OsbuSouth"@xerox.com
Cc: Hamilton.OsbuSouth@xerox.com
Reply-To: Hamilton.OsbuSouth@xerox.com

LOS ANGELES AREA SPACEFANZ:

Before my apartment fills up, I want to get rid of my more-or-less
complete collection of "Spaceflight" 1976-87.  "Spaceflight" is the
magazine of the British Interplanetary Society, and gives definitive
treatment of all world spacefaring events and programs.

Make an offer.  I won't be insulted by $0, but there might be a lot of
interest to outbid.  YOU MUST PICK UP THE MAGS in El Segundo; I'll work
out details with the high bidder.  Interest in the complete collection
preferred, but I'll consider breaking it up if necessary.

The stack of mags is roughly 2 or 3 feet high.

--Bruce

------------------------------

Date: 9 Nov 87 16:22:18 GMT
From: decvax!watmath!water!jmlang@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Jerome M Lang)
Subject: Re: Gravity Lenses Question

What a coincidence: Last Saturday, the Globe and Mail (Toronto) announced
in their regular science column that an Einstein 'ring' had been discovered.

In an Einstein ring, the gravitational field of a galaxy distorts
the image of another galaxy into a ring (instead of the multiple images
that we have been talking about in the last while).

Can anybody send me any technical journal references of that discovery?
                                          ^^^^^^^^^^ 
-- 
Je'ro^me M. Lang	   ||    jmlang@water.bitnet        jmlang@water.uucp
Dept of Applied Math       ||			  jmlang%water@waterloo.csnet
U of Waterloo		   ||  	 jmlang%water%waterloo.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa

------------------------------

Date: 10 Nov 87 03:46:13 GMT
From: ptsfa!pbhya!bwm@AMES.ARPA  (Bruce Mohler)
Subject: Definitions

Two questions from a novice:

What does the acronym 'CELSS' stand for?

What is the purpose of a 'skyhook'?

-----

Bruce Mohler
Pacific*Bell, San Diego, CA
pbhya!bwm

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #42
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 11 Nov 87 08:47:37 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA01669; Wed, 11 Nov 87 03:13:14 PST
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Date: Wed, 11 Nov 87 03:13:14 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8711111113.AA01669@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #43

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 43

Today's Topics:
		    Re: Ecological experimentation
			  When will we know?
			   Brazil in space
		      Re: National Space Society
			     Video disks
	  Re: Commercial plea for space station - effective!
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 10 Nov 87 03:01:47 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Ecological experimentation

> (even the so-called fully closed scenarios that have been studied have
> about 3% of the human food supply coming from stores, presumably for
> micronutrients that might be deficient in an all-vegetarian diet.)

You also want some outflow, or else you have to worry about buildup of
trace substances.  This is not a trivial issue -- something like 5 parts
per million of nickel, for example, is a hazardous waste.

Those who do not understand Unix are |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
condemned to reinvent it, poorly.    | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 9 Nov 87 02:47:00 GMT
From: jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: When will we know?

I've heard a lot of rumors, but I haven't heard any "hard facts".

When will NASA decide on the Space Station teams?  Please include a
reference to a real, live piece of paper.

All the rumors have said November, but have evenly spread between 11/1,
11/15, 11/30, and everything else.  Some have even said it might slip by
a month or two.

This is quite important to me, as I'm about to be employed by some lucky
company.  I'd like to know ASAP who wins the bidding on the Station's
four Work Packages.

-- Ken Jenks
jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu

------------------------------

Date: 9 Nov 87 16:23:55 GMT
From: steinmetz!nyfca1!brspyr1!miket@uunet.uu.net  (Mike Trout)
Subject: Brazil in space

Some time ago, I asked for information about science fiction works that
postulate Brazil as the big power in space.  There was considerable
posting on the subject, with quite a bit of disagreement about which
author "really" first came up with the idea of Brazil in space.  I also
got some e-mail on the subject.  For those that still care, I've
summarized the list.  The following is a list of all material that was
e-mailed to me as "Brazil in space" literature.  Errors and such will
probably exist; this is not my field.  Obviously, "Brazil in space" is
in some danger of becoming a science fiction cliche.


Poul Anderson      _Avatar_
                   various stories involving "Nick van Rijn"
                   various stories involving the "Polseotechnic League"


Ben Bova           _Privateers_


L. Sprague deCamp  various novels and short stories involving "Viagens
                   Interplanetarias" 


Frederick Pohl     _Gateway_
                   various sequels to _Gateway_


Michael Trout (miket@brspyr1) =-=-=-=-=-=-= UUCP:brspyr1!miket

------------------------------

Date: 10 Nov 87 03:04:25 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: National Space Society

> I recently got a mailing inviting me to become a member of the
> National Space Society.  Is the NSS the result of the merger between
> the L-5 Society and a second organization (whose name escapes me)?

I'm posting this on the grounds that it's of more general interest.
Yes, NSS is the combination of the L5 Society and the National Space
Institute.  It is a bit too early to tell what the flavor of the
combination will be, but it is worth your while to join nevertheless.

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 10 Nov 87 09:08:00 pst
From: Eugene Miya N. <eugene@PIONEER.ARC.NASA.GOV>
Subject: Video disks

The subject of space video disks was mentioned before on the net.  I ran
into several space archives while visiting a local record store in the
video section.  The contents are principally footage from previous
manned-missions up to 1983. The store was Tower Records, but I'll post
the address of the source if people are interested.  Just send me mail
to let me know (6 and I'll post, 5 or less, get mail).  This may be old
hat to some.

--eugene

------------------------------

Date: 9 Nov 87 23:57:03 GMT
From: ihnp4!homxb!mtuxo!mtgzz!dam@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (XMRN50000[sms]-d.a.morano)
Subject: Re: Commercial plea for space station - effective!


About the McDonald Douglas commercial for more - American - space
station research, I agree that the commercial was very effective.
I only saw the commercial once and I thought it was 
very well done.  I was totally caught off guard - just as the advertiser
intended - by first thinking that the commercial was for some
US satellite or for the old US SkyLab program.  I started at the 
beginning of the commercial thinking this is just another "Oh, Look
how much technology has been done in the US" type commercial.  But, as
the commercial progressed, I soon became enthralled with it for some
unknown reason (maybe the fact that it dealt with space itself ; 
I don't know !).  This caused me to watch further and pay attention, again
just what the advertiser was hoping for.  I hear the low background talking
and watch as the station passed over head.  I now started to see the red 
star and hear the voices more clearly, and then it hit me ; it was a Soviet 
space station !!!  And the cosmonauts start laughing, almost at us !

The commercial must have only been a few seconds,
maybe 15 seconds, but it had me captivated for its duration.
I hope that they can replay it for a while longer so that I can get
a second look at it.  After the commercial was over, I was thinking to myself,
"wow, that really had me going for a while."  I must admit that the advertising
firm which made this commercial really earned their fee.

Dave Morano	- AT&T Middletown, NJ

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #43
*******************

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Date: Thu, 12 Nov 87 03:13:40 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8711121113.AA03791@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #44

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 44

Today's Topics:
	  Re: Commercial plea for space station - effective!
	  Re: Commercial plea for space station - effective!
	  Re: Commercial plea for space station - effective!
	  Re: Commercial plea for space station - effective!
	   A Photon has Relativistic Mass but no Rest Mass
			   Re: Definitions
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 10 Nov 87 21:44:46 GMT
From: trwrb!aero!venera.isi.edu!rod@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Rodney Doyle Van Meter III)
Subject: Re: Commercial plea for space station - effective!

Re: the McDon-D commercial -- I've seen it, but also only once. I could
be way off base, but seems to me that I heard that someone (who
obviously didn't pay attention) was claiming that it was anti-American,
or not true, or something... and that either the networks didn't want to
run it or McDon-D backed out, fearing it was giving them a bad name.
Anybody have any details?

		--Rod

------------------------------

Date: 11 Nov 87 17:56:55 GMT
From: heurikon!lampman@speedy.wisc.edu  (Ray Lampman)
Subject: Re: Commercial plea for space station - effective!

If you only read one article today, please read this ...

> From: macleod@drivax.UUCP
> [At the end of the video] The McDonnel-Douglas logo comes up and there
> is a request for support for a renewed US space effort. I wish that
> they would run it every night during Nightline or somewhere where it
> would do some good. Has anybody else seen this?
>  Mike MacLeod

> From: dam@mtgzz.UUCP
> The commercial must have only been a few seconds, maybe 15 seconds,
> but it had me captivated for its duration. I hope that they can replay
> it for a while longer so that I can get a second look at it.
>  Dave Morano

How do we get this video aired on Nightline or (to quote Mike) somewhere
where it would do some good? There must be a way ...

By recent estimates there are about 12000 people who read this group.
Let's suppose they all have a phone number at NBC they can call. Let's
suppose they all call and promise to watch Nightline and the other
commercials (this is what NBC is really interested in, right? :-), if
NBC will run the McDonnell-Douglas commercial during Nightline. What do
you think might happen? Can this possibly succeed? Can 12000 people make
a difference? Can the people of sci.space accomplish something as a
group? Will the general population view the commercial and then call
their congress critters? Or will they call Nightline and ask for a show
explaining the meaning of "Mir"? "Mir" means "Peace", as in, the race is
over, we've [USSR] won (I really like that signature :-). This could
make an interesting Nightline.

                                        - Ray (lampman@heurikon.UUCP)

------------------------------

Date: 11 Nov 87 17:49:16 GMT
From: paul.rutgers.edu!masticol@rutgers.edu  (Stephen P. Masticola)
Subject: Re: Commercial plea for space station - effective!

In article <2677@drivax.UUCP> macleod@drivax.UUCP (MacLeod) writes:

 Flamers, please note before reading the following that I am not opposed
 to building the space station if it can be properly justified.

I haven't seen the commercial. It sounds well-done from the point of
being effective propoganda. (Especially considering that
McDonnell-Douglas stands to make a lot of money from Space Station
contracts, and so wants to develop favorable publicity.)

MdD's argument does not, however, make any objective sense at all, in
explaining why a space station will benefit the U.S.  more than spending
the money elsewhere (including other space projects such as BDB, solar
energy, planetary exploration, astronomy, etc.) Beating the Russians in
a propoganda race is not an acceptable reason to spend 20-40 billion
dollars.

The Russians have been successful in space because they have adopted a
policy of sustained effort, building upon past achievements, and
reasonably good cost control. The U.S. has tended to have one crash
program every ten years or so; the technology developed in previous
programs is discarded. The Saturn V was the heaviest-lift booster we
ever developed; in 1987, we can't build another Saturn V. We had Skylab
in orbit a long time before they launched Mir, but we couldn't build or
launch another one now. To succeed in the long run, we _must_ adopt the
attitude that we will do useful things, in a sustained effort, toward
long-term goals. Budgeting is a zero-sum game; we must make every
gigabuck count.

Although I'm not automatically opposed to the building of the Space
Station, I don't believe NASA has come up with a convincing reason for
building it other than sustaining NASA's budget. (And, of course, space
races with the Russians.) If NASA presents a clear, unambiguous reason
for building the station, and justifies the $20 billion (plus overruns
now being previewed) that it will cost, >>> showing why its cost would
be of greater long-term benefit to the United States than spending the
money elsewhere, in terms of concrete national goals, <<< then I'm all
for it. But I feel NASA has thus far failed to do this.

Before we build the space station, I think we should do the following:

- Launch Galileo, the Space Telescope, and any other satellites that are
sitting on the ground becoming obsolete.

- Fix the shuttle program and develop a realistic estimate of how many
flights we can launch with reasonable safety margins.

- Develop a Big Dumb Booster, preferably man-rated. In the interim,
reactivate production of existing small boosters.

- Develop plans for space exploration and exploitation that do not
involve boondoggles, and that we can be happy with for 30 years.

- If the Space Station can be proved to generate benefit commensurate
with its cost, the groundwork will then be laid for building it.

.-.-. Steve Masticola -.-

------------------------------

Date: 11 Nov 87 17:26:18 GMT
From: idacrd!mac@princeton.edu  (Bob McGwier)
Subject: Re: Commercial plea for space station - effective!

in article <3291@mtgzz.UUCP>, dam@mtgzz.UUCP (XMRN50000[sms]-d.a.morano) says:
> Summary: commercial plea for space effective - I agree !

> About the McDonald Douglas commercial for more - American - space
> station research, I agree that the commercial was very effective.

  etc.

I saw United Technologies last night.  It began with Saturn V liftoff,
Neil Armstrong's landing, Kennedy's speech, the bible verses "and God
said, let there be light", etc.  Ends with

"Isn't it time we looked up again?"

Again VERY effective and by God if emotional appeals will get the job
done, go for it.

Of course, these companies stand to make billions, I hope they do.

Bob McGwier

------------------------------

Date:         Wed, 11 Nov 87 13:18:13 EST
From: ST401385%BROWNVM.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu
Subject:      A Photon has Relativistic Mass but no Rest Mass

clyde!watmath!lasibley@rutgers.edu   >Question: if
>light can be bent by gravity, then light has mass and can therefore not
>travel at the speed of light. There's got to be a flaw here
>somewhere...

    The problem here is that when physicists use the word "mass", they
use it in two different ways.  A photon has no REST MASS, that is,
measured in its own reference frame, it would have no mass, or,
equivilently, if you could stop a photon and measure the mass, it would
be zero.  But you can't stop a photon (when you try, it disappears) and
you also can't reach its own reference frame, which is travelling at the
speed of light.  When it is important to distinguish which type of mass
a physicist is talking about, the symbol m_o is used for rest mass.
Rest mass is the term in the relativistically invariant quantity
E**2-(p*c)**2=(m_o*c**2)**2.  Setting momentum p to zero will reduce
this equation to the familiar E=mc**2.
    A photon does have RELATIVISTIC mass.  This is the ordinary mass
which is affected by gravity.  Relativistic mass is much less useful for
most physics first, because it is not relativistically invariant (it
depends on how fast the object is moving), and second, since
relativistic mass is the mass seen in the equation E=mc**2, it's just as
easy to refer to the energy instead of the mass anyway.  However, since
a photon does have energy, it must also have mass.
   The equation for mass (relativistic mass) of an object is
               m=m_o*gamma,
   where gamma is a function of velocity that goes to infinity at
velocity = c,
              gamma=SQRT(1-(v/c)**2).
   That's how a photon can have relativistic mass but zero rest mass:
since it only moves at c, gamma is infinity.  In this particular case,
it turns out that infinity times zero equals E/c**2.  Not only CAN a
photon travel at the speed of light, it MUST travel at the speed of
light (in vacuum).

--Geoffrey A. Landis, Ph.D     BITNET: ST401385 at BROWNVM
    Brown University           ARPA:  ST401385%BROWNVM.BITNET@WISCVM.ARPA

------------------------------

Date: 11 Nov 87 20:21:37 GMT
From: ucsdhub!jack!man!crash!gryphon!mhnadel@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu  (Miriam Nadel)
Subject: Re: Definitions

In article <5862@pbhya.UUCP> bwm@pbhya.UUCP (Bruce Mohler) writes:
>
>What does the acronym 'CELSS' stand for?
>
Closed Ecological Life Support System.  Some people claim the C really
stands for "controlled" but this doesn't make much sense since the fundamental
property of a CELSS is closure to mass transfer (though not heat transfer).
In addition, the term PCELSS is used for a partially closed system (e.g.
one in which say 50% of the food would be grown and 50% provided by resupply.
In fact, all of the so-called CELSS scenarios studied to date are really
PCELSS since they allow for about 3% resupply, primarily of micronutrients).

There is also an opinion that the "E" stands for "Environmental" not
"Ecological."  Not being a biologist type, I don't know if this distinction
has any significance at all - "environment" means something quite different
to us automation types.

The earliest reference I know of to closed life support systems is
"The Closed Life-Support System," Report on a conference at Ames Research
Center, April 14-15,1966, NASA SP-134.  The earliest use of the acronym
CELSS (at least in references I have) is in the paper "Technology
Requirements for Closed Ecology Life Support Systems Applicable to Space
Habitats," J.M. Spurlock and M.Modell, presented at the American
Astronautical Society Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA, Oct. 18-20, 1977.

Miriam Nadel
-- 
"Always a godmother - never a God" - Fran Liebowitz

mhnadel@gryphon.CTS.COM       {philabs, trwrb}!cadovax!gryphon!mhnadel
      {hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, ihnp4, nosc}!crash!gryphon!mhnadel

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #44
*******************

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Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA06037; Fri, 13 Nov 87 03:16:30 PST
	id AA06037; Fri, 13 Nov 87 03:16:30 PST
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 87 03:16:30 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8711131116.AA06037@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #45

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 45

Today's Topics:
		    Mir Elements, 7 November 1987
	  Re: Commercial plea for space station - effective!
			   Re: Definitions
	  Re: Commercial plea for space station - effective!
	  Re: Commercial plea for space station - effective!
	  Re: Commercial plea for space station - effective!
		     Brown Dwarf and media idiocy
		     Re: Dyson Sphere Discovered?
		     Re: Dyson Sphere Discovered?
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 11 Nov 87 21:09:00 GMT
From: kenny@b.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Mir Elements, 7 November 1987


Satellite: MIR        
Catalog id: 16609
Element set: 897
Epoch day: 87306.71935633
RA of node: 160.9565 degrees
Inclination:  51.6280 degrees
Eccentricity:  0.0042865
Argument of perigee: 342.4202 degrees
Mean anomaly:  17.0947 degrees
Mean motion: 15.84402800 revs/day
Mean motion acceleration: 0.00189276 * 2 revs/day/day

Source: NASA Goddard via T.S.Kelso

Still no reboost; the thing is continuing its fall out of the sky.

------------------------------

Date: 12 Nov 87 03:34:04 GMT
From: psuvax1!vu-vlsi!swatsun!leif@rutgers.edu  (Leif Kirschenbaum)
Subject: Re: Commercial plea for space station - effective!

In article <2171@steppenwolf.rutgers.edu> masticol@steppenwolf.rutgers.edu (Stephen P. Masticola) writes:
>In article <2677@drivax.UUCP> macleod@drivax.UUCP (MacLeod) writes:
>
>> Has anyone else seen the (in my opinion) well-done commercial plea
>> for renewed space activity from McDonnel-Douglas?
>
>MdD's argument does not, however, make any objective sense at all, in
>explaining why a space station will benefit the U.S.  more than
>spending the money elsewhere (including other space projects such as
>BDB, solar energy, planetary exploration, astronomy, etc.) Beating the
>Russians in a propoganda race is not an acceptable reason to spend
>20-40 billion dollars.
   Right now we spend much more than that on defense, much of which is
unecessarily spent.  Isn't this propaganda for the American people?  The
space station will (this may be somewhat innaccurate, or repetitive for
many readers)
 1) force us to invent new technology  
 2) give easier access to a space environment for vacuum, microgravity,
cold temperatures, etc.
 3) permit on-the-site supervision and *repair* (how many experiments
have failed in orbit that could be repaired by an astronaut) of various
experiments including the space telescope and other scientific packages
 4) allow us to put many of the satellites we currently use in one spot
thus consolidating power supply, and allowing us to more easily maintain
them. In addition micrometeorite protection would be easier with all the
instrument in one place. Another factor is limited room in orbit: if
every satellite needs 100 miles leeway (due to launch innacuracy and
other factors) and the U.S. wants many satellites, and they have to be
above the equator, smaller countries like Brazil or India may be pushed
aside in their quest for satellite space.
 5) be a launching platform for manned and unmanned missions
 6) be an assembly site for manned and unmanned missions. I would think
cleanliness would be easier in the vacuum or near-vacuum of space than
on Earth.

Leif Kirschenbaum '91 Swarthmore College

------------------------------

Date: 11 Nov 87 21:00:10 GMT
From: ssc-vax!eder@beaver.cs.washington.edu  (Dani Eder)
Subject: Re: Definitions

> What does the acronym 'CELSS' stand for?

"Closed Environment(al) Life Support System (Study)"
  This is the name of a program within NASA, as well as the generic name
for a life support system that closes one or more of the (air, water,
food) life support loops.

Tim Vinopal, who was mentioned in connection with a Boeing CELSS study,
happens to be a friend of mine.  If anyone has a detailed question about
the subject, I can pass the question on to him.

> What is the purpose of a 'skyhook'?

The purpose of a skyhook is to make it easier to get to and around in
space.  One way is by transferring momentum to a launch vehicle. The
momentum has been accumulated in the skyhook (with possibly an
associated ballast mass) using a high performance propulsion unit, such
as an ion engine.  While an ion engine is tens of times more efficient
than a chemical rocket, it cannot produce enough thrust to get off the
ground.  In space, however, the engine can be run continuously,
accumulating energy in the form of higher orbits for the skyhook.  This
energy can be transferred rapidly to a vehicle that attaches to the
shyhook.  Another advantage of a skyhook is that the energy transfer is
reversible.  So, the vehicle part (as opposed to the payload) can
temporarily borrow the energy to do its' mission, then return that
energy to the skyhook when done.  In this connection, the skyhook has
also been referred to as a 'momentum bank'.

Note that 'tether', 'orbital tether', 'beanstalk', and 'skyhook' are
synonymous.

Dani Eder/Boeing/Advanced Space Transportation

------------------------------

Date: 12 November 1987, 11:40:23 EST
From: Joshua Knight <JOSH@ibm.com>
Subject:  Re: Commercial plea for space station - effective!

The McD-D commercial was aired during (at least one game of) the
National League baseball playoff series.  I thought of commenting at the
time given the previous laments on this list:

 > Date:     Mon, 27 Jul 87 10:26:24 CDT
 > From: Will Martin -- AMXAL-RI <wmartin@almsa-1.arpa>
 > Subject:  Pro-Space Publicity
 >
 > I was just looking through a back issue (May '87) of GOVERNMENT EXECUTIVE
    ...
 > "...Budget limits said they could afford to buy time on only one Sunday
 > morning talk show and a few local-TV nightime news slots. [This explains
 > why I had never seen this ad nor heard of it before now.-WM] The
 > networks made that decision easy for them. Only NBC said it would run
 > the ad. ABC and CBS turned it down, said it was 'too controversial'."
    ...                                                > "... When they
 > deny expression of 'controversial' opinions they don't like, this
 > Republic has a heap of trouble, folks."
 > (editorial by C. W. Borklund, Editor-In-Chief)
    ...                                               > But much of this
 > effort has been stifled and suppressed by enemies of the pro-space
 > viewpoint. If someone with the clout of McDonnell Douglas can't get a
 > professionally-produced ad on TV, what chance do private persons have of
 > spreading the word with some kind of newsletter or lobbying effort?

but decided it wasn't worth it then.  Now that it seems to be appearing
regularly, it is perhaps worth noting that the either the previous
pessimism was misplaced or something changed.  Note that airing this
commercial during the playoffs is a good sign.  This is normally the
time when beer and shaving creme are advertised; things on which we
spend more than space exploration.

			Josh Knight
josh@ibm.com, josh@yktvmh.BITNET

------------------------------

Date: 12 Nov 87 15:38:14 GMT
From: paul.rutgers.edu!masticol@rutgers.edu  (Stephen P. Masticola)
Subject: Re: Commercial plea for space station - effective!

In article <1381@carthage.swatsun.UUCP> leif@swatsun (Leif Kirschenbaum) writes

> The space station will (this may be somewhat innaccurate, or
> repetitive for many readers)
>  1) force us to invent new technology  

So would almost any massive technological effort, including BDB. The
question is: to what end will we use the technology? My guess is that
the Space Station would never have been promoted by the Reagan
"administration" unless it was _primarily_ intended as an SDI test bed.

  [I gather that BDB refers to Big Dumb Booster. -Ed]

> 2) give easier access to a space environment for vacuum, microgravity,
> cold temperatures, etc.

So would BDB. BDB would also make it easier and cheaper to build a space
station. So why not build BDB first?

> 3) permit on-the-site supervision and *repair* [of satellites]

The shuttle was supposed to give us this capability. Total cost of
shuttle: $40 billion, I think. Total number of satellites repaired in
orbit: 2. Total value of satellites: Somewhat less than $200 million.
Per pound of payload to LEO, the shuttle is the most expensive launcher
invented in the last 20 years, and the game plan is to rely on it to
build the Space Station. Let's build the BDB first!

> 4) allow us to put many of the satellites we currently use in one spot
> thus consolidating power supply, and allowing us to more easily
> maintain them.

The SS has the _disadvantage_ of occupying only one spot in space.
Since it, too, is in LEO, it will be impractical to use the SS as a
communications relay. Because there will be a lot of comunications going
to/from the SS, it will be unusable for radio astronomy or communication
with deep-space probes. Similar interference effects apply for
magnetometry studies. The bigger a system is, the more trouble it is to
integrate it. The SS would be usable as a weathersat or spysat, but we
already have that technology. Again, the inevitable conclusion about the
usefulness of the SS is: Star Wars. Period.

> Another factor is limited room in orbit: if every satellite needs 100
> miles leeway (due to launch innacuracy and other factors) and the U.S.
> wants many satellites, and they have to be above the equator, smaller
> countries like Brazil or India may be pushed aside in their quest for
> satellite space.

Satellite space is hard to find only in Clarke orbit. The space station
is to operate in low-earth orbit. It would be valueless to any small
country that needs space in Clarke orbit.

> In addition micrometeorite protection would be easier with all the
> instrument in one place.

Current technology satellites aren't protected against micrometeorites;
they last about ten years on the average, and I've only heard about a
couple of cases where a collision may have caused the failure of a
satellite.  Space junk is the real problem, but it's only a problem in
geosynchronous orbit, where there are a lot of satellites whose orbits
decay slowly. But the SS operates in LEO, so anything aboard would also
operate in LEO.

> 5) be a launching platform for manned and unmanned missions

Which would still have to be hauled up from Earth. Build the BDB first,
and it will be easier to get them up there. Besides, we managed to
launch all kinds of manned and unmanned missions without a space
station. We've sent probes to almost every planet in the Solar System
without a space station. I'm also willing to bet that the total cost for
launching _all_ those planetary probes was less than the SS.

> 6) be an assembly site for manned and unmanned missions. I would think
> cleanliness would be easier in the vacuum or near-vacuum of space than
> on Earth.

Which means that the astronauts have to go EVA to assemble their
packages, if they really want to do it in vacuum. Or worh through
gloveboxes or robot manipulators. We have grade-10 cleanrooms on Earth
now, and I've heard of work being done on grade 0.  Space has the
disadvantages of microgravity, vacuum, extreme temperatures, and a cost
currently not less than $300 per pound to get _anything_ there.

In conclusion, let's explore, exploit, and colonize space, but let's be
smart about it instead of trying to be sexy.

Build the BDB first!

-..-. Steve -.-

------------------------------

Date: 12 Nov 87 20:26:40 GMT
From: web5h.berkeley.edu!adamj@jade.berkeley.edu  (Adam J. Richter,260E,6427762,5496300)
Subject: Re: Commercial plea for space station - effective!

In re: the McD-D Space Station commercial:

	The reason that the networks are now airing the McD-D commercial
is that the law or regulation requiring stations to yield equal time to
opposing viewpoints has been repealled.

			--Adam J. Richter
			  adamj@widow.berkeley.edu
Adam J. Richter			adamj@widow.berkeley.edu
				....!ucbvax!widow!adamj
(415)642-7762

------------------------------

Date: 12 Nov 87 18:16:27 GMT
From: cfa!wyatt@husc6.harvard.edu  (Bill Wyatt)
Subject: Brown Dwarf and media idiocy

Did anyone else see the CNN story on Ben Zuckerman's Brown Dwarf
discovery? Regardless of whether the object is real, is a brown dwarf or
whatever, I'm incensed at the sloppy and downright ignorant way CNN
reported the story. The following is from memory, so the details might
be off, but:

Before a commercial, they tease you with `Tenth planet discovered! More
after this...'

Then, they say a brown dwarf has been discovered 50 million light-years
away (yes, that's *MILLION*), and cut to footage of the telescopes on
Mauna Kea, used in the observations. They then cut to a graphic showing
a big darkish object in orbit (you can see the circle, so you know it's
in orbit) around a white dwarf. Lots of talk and voiceover by Zuckerman
about the object. Finally, in the story wrap-up, the CNN anchorperson
makes another reference to `the tenth planet'.

During the story, no reference was made to what Zuckerman et.al.
*actually* did or *actually* observerd (i.e. observed an infrared
excess), or even why a brown dwarf is interesting/controversial.

So how could such an IGNORANT story get out???!?! Something in another
system is obviously not a `tenth planet', and where did that 50Mly
number come from, putting it out beyond the Virgo Supercluster
somewhere!! And the story itself had so little information content that
even I, as involved with astronomy as I am, couldn't read between the
lines to figure out what was happening.

It's a sad commentary on the U.S. educational system when none of the
people making up that broadcast knew enough science to avoid the
idiocies in the story as broadcast.
-- 

Bill    UUCP:  {seismo|ihnp4}!harvard!cfa!wyatt
Wyatt   ARPA:  wyatt@cfa.harvard.edu
         (or)  wyatt%cfa@harvard.harvard.edu
      BITNET:  wyatt@cfa2
        SPAN:  17410::wyatt   (this will change, sometime)

------------------------------

Date: 12 Nov 87 15:00:04 GMT
From: nather@sally.utexas.edu  (Ed Nather)
Subject: Re: Dyson Sphere Discovered?

In article <1032@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM>, kempf@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM (Jim Kempf) writes:
> Does anyone know any details about the brown dwarf Ben Zuckerman
> discovered around Giclas 29-38? Zuckerman was quoted in the article I
> read saying that he believed it might be a Dyson sphere-like
> construction for converting part of the star's energy with excess heat
> as the byproduct. Apparently, Zuckerman has been a CETI skeptic, so
> the evidence must have been convincing.

Zuckerman & Becklin discovered an unexpected excess of IR radiation in
the direction of the variable white dwarf G29-38, an object much studied
by our group at Texas because of its intrinsic variability -- it is the
brightest of the known oscillating white dwarf stars.  They interpret
this excess as coming from a solid object in orbit, but there is no
evidence that it is a solid object, and none that it is in orbit.  It
could be a cloud of dust in that direction.

We explored our records of the variability and found no evidence for any
periodic effect that might be attributed to orbital motion.

It's quite a leap of faith to make that observation into a Dyson sphere.

Ed Nather
Astronomy Dept, U of Texas @ Austin
{allegra,ihnp4}!{noao,ut-sally}!utastro!nather
nather@astro.AS.UTEXAS.EDU

------------------------------

Date: 12 Nov 87 14:55:09 GMT
From: ethan@ngp.utexas.edu  (Ethan Tecumseh Vishniac)
Subject: Re: Dyson Sphere Discovered?

The evidence for a brown dwarf is an infrared excess.  There is some
argument, which I have not seen, for discarding the possibility of a
cloud of dust causing the excess.  A Dyson sphere is one logical
possibility for the excess but, in the absence of corroborating evidence
for a technologically advanced civilization near that star, it would be
ludicrous to cite this as evidence for aliens.

Incidentally, I am assuming you mean SETI.  Communication with
ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence will have to wait until, and if, the
search for it is successful.

 I'm not afraid of dying     Ethan Vishniac, Dept of Astronomy
 I just don't want to be     {charm,ut-sally,ut-ngp,noao}!utastro!ethan
 there when it happens.      (arpanet) ethan@astro.AS.UTEXAS.EDU
    - Woody Allen            (bitnet) ethan%astro.as.utexas.edu@WISCVM.WISC.EDU

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #45
*******************

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	id AA08743; Sat, 14 Nov 87 03:17:33 PST
Date: Sat, 14 Nov 87 03:17:33 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8711141117.AA08743@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #46

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 46

Today's Topics:
			 Space Shuttle Escape
		      Re: conciousness at impact
			  Space video disks
		      cassette of lunar landing
			Re: Defense is not War
	  Re: "Spaceflight" 1976-87 available in Los Angeles
			 Re: Hypergolic fuels
			      Mir again
		  PHOTONS BEING AFFECTED BY GRAVITY
		    Greenhouse effect vs. Ice Age
	       Re: SPICING UP AVIATION TERMINOLGY.....
	  Re: Commercial plea for space station - effective!
	  Re: Commercial plea for space station - effective!
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date:     Wed, 11 Nov 1987 21:47:53.05 CST
From: <ucs_mwk%SHSU.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu> (Mike Kent)
Sender: ota@galileo.s1.gov
Subject:  Space Shuttle Escape

In regards to crew escape systems.  All of the systems being discussed
are designed for a controlled glide escape. Not for powered flight.
None of the systems under consideration would save the crew from a
Challenger type "Accident".  The escape systems are to avoid killed the
crew if the shuttle had to ditch.  Ditching at 200+ mph in a shuttle is
considered unsurvivable.

Getting out of your seat during powered flight, alone would be an
accomplishment. Getting to the hatch and being able to open it and
ejecting is highly unlikely. Come on folks, could you do that under
several g's acceleration ????


Mike Kent
Graduate Computer Science Student
Sam Houston State University
Huntsville (the other Huntsville), Texas
UCS_MWK@SHSUODIN

------------------------------

Date: 12 Nov 87 21:01:35 GMT
From: necntc!linus!utzoo!henry@ames.arpa  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: conciousness at impact

> I usually don't disagree with Henry, but I'll stand by my guns that
> given the rate of fall from high altitude and the short time spent in
> thin air, I feel the possibility of revival before impact is a strong
> one.

Unless my memory is seriously at fault, you are not disagreeing with me
but rather with Joe Kerwin and the aviation-medicine and forensic
experts who were involved in preparing the Kerwin report.  It is
possible that the report was prettied up a bit for the media's benefit,
but based on other considerations I doubt it.

> Procedure for commercial aircraft on loss of pressurization is to DIVE
> for low altitudes. Since there have been a few incidents of this type,
> possibly there is some information on passenger revival time. I'm not
> aware of any from FL400...

We're talking, I assume, about passengers who fail to put on their
oxygen masks, since the astronauts had no oxygen supply.  (The escape
packs contain air, not oxygen.)  It WOULD be interesting to hear the
numbers.  Note that apogee for the Challenger cabin was well above the
height of the accident proper, also.
-- 
Those who do not understand Unix are |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
condemned to reinvent it, poorly.    | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date:         Thu, 12 Nov 1987 09:51 EDT
From: Ray Lauff <RAY%TEMPLEVM.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu>
Subject:      Space video disks

An excellent source of video disks in general is Starship
Audio-Industries 605 Utterback Store Road / Great Falls, VA 22066 /
(703)430-8692.  They are not "space video specialists"; they have all
kinds of disks, but I recently saw in their yearly catalog sever titles
such as Space Archive 7: Supersonic flight, Space Archive 8: History of
the space program, etc.  I don't think they have all the archives, but
at least they are reasonably priced.  They also have the NASA "space
disk" series, which runs on average $360 a disk, that contain "over
10,000 still frames of deep space objects, star charts,..." etc.  They
also list the National Air and Space Museum disks, more reasonably
priced ($44.95), which contain 10,000 still frames.  I'd suggest if you
are interested you write or call for a catalog (free, I think).

Ray Lauff
(NOTE:I don't work for them, I just buy from them.)

------------------------------

Date: 13 Nov 87 18:03:06 GMT
From: cca!mirror!ima!haddock!laura@husc6.harvard.edu  (The writer in the closet)
Subject: cassette of lunar landing

I just ordered a cassette that I thought might be of general interest,
at least in this newsgroup.  I haven't received it yet, obviously, but
it sounds like it should be good.  I'm not affiliated with Books on
Tape, Inc, but I am a very satisfied customer, and every other tape I
have received from them has been excellent.  (And if you decide to
order, mention my name and I'll get a free book ... but that's not my
motivation here, honestly.)

Here's the scoop, straight from their October catalog flyer:

"Man on the Moon"
with Walter Cronkite

    Walter Cronkite is our guide through one of our nation's greatest
dramas: the first manned landing on the lunar surface -- and the
stirring story that led up to it.
    The remarkable resources of the CBS News Archives bring this great
adventure to life.  The story unfolds in excerpts from the historic
original broadcasts -- from Sputnik to JFK's bold pledge, to the
suspense-filled minutes without contact before the trumphant cry of "The
_Eagle_ has landed!"
    You'll hear the voices of the astronauts and Cronkite's commentary
from the Houston Command Center, as the awe of the moment made
poets of scientists and newsmen alike.

One cassette
#45050   $7.95 + $1.50 shipping & handling
California residents add 6% sales tax

To order with Visa or Mastercard, call 1-800-626-3333
or send check or money order to:

Books on Tape
P.O. Box 7900
Newport Beach, CA   92658-7900

-------------

Have fun!
Laura Crook

------------------------------

Date:     Thu, 12 Nov 87 16:56 O
From: <LEISTI%FINUH.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu>
Subject:  Re: Defense is not War

In SPACE Digest V8 #39, Mr. Kevin Bold writes:
>*Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary* defines defense as
> . . .

Mr. Bold attempts to severe the connection between making weapons and
using them by quoting dictionary definitions of defense and war.  He
claims he is against war but for defense.  Here we have a contradiction
in terms, since despite dictionary definitions, defense is just a nicer
word for war.  What are weapons made for, if not using?  History shows
us that whenever there has been an arms buildup, those arms have not
been left unused.  This is the basic fallacy in the view, unfortunately
widely spread, that more arms mean more security.  The reality of the
matter is the opposite of this.  In my view, 50 000 nuclear warheads
ready to wipe out all higher life on Earth do not mean security but in
fact monstrous insecurity, but maybe Mr. Bold and people who think like
him could show this to be not so, by quoting more dictionary
definitions.
        The current world situation is caused by the awful power the
military- industrial complexes have on politicians and economies;
because weapons production furthers the short-sighted interests
(profits, career advancement) of a too-large number of people; and
because the ethical and moral development of humankind are a few hundred
or thousand years behind its technical development.  In other words,
because selfishness, stupidity and violence still seem to be the rulers
of the world.
        Tough text, but look where we are heading.  What we need is a
new idea of global security, with the recognition of the genuine
security problems of the world as its first priorities: the destruction
of the environment, the danger of the arms buildup, and the needs of the
poorest 2/3 of the human race, who will not indefinitely tolerate their
exploitation by the rich.  (Here I will probably have to point out that
I am not a communist, for the benefit of those who attach that label to
those whose views they cannot tolerate.  My views apply equally to the
other side.)  But since I have strayed far from space, I better stop.

Teemu Leisti
(LEISTI@FINUHA.BITNET)

------------------------------

Date: 12 Nov 87 21:03:23 GMT
From: necntc!linus!utzoo!henry@ames.arpa  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: "Spaceflight" 1976-87 available in Los Angeles

Anyone who's unsure about Bruce's Spaceflight collection might want to
note that Spaceflight is (in my opinion) clearly the #1 space periodical
available today.  Ten years of back issues for cheap is a steal.

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 12 Nov 87 20:56:33 GMT
From: necntc!linus!utzoo!henry@ames.arpa  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Hypergolic fuels

> News pictures of the Yankee showed a tube door blown off and a brown
> gas coming out of the tube. This was apparently fuel, and if it was
> hypergolic, why was there no accompanying fire or explosion? ...

I'd say the brown gas was probably nitrogen tetroxide, which is the
oxidizer most commonly used in hypergolic combinations.  You don't get
an explosion when only *one* of the propellants leaks.  In fact, it is
hard to get an explosion with hypergolics at all, because they burn on
contact and never get a chance to mix before ignition.  This is why
Gemini could use ejection seats rather than an escape-tower system: the
Titan was considered most unlikely to explode very violently, so getting
far away from the rocket ASAP was not so important.

Apart from lower performance, one price that you do pay for this
relatively docile behavior is that nitrogen tetroxide is very poisonous,
comparable to a WW1 war gas.  Hydrazine, often used as the fuel in such
combinations, is not exactly benign either...

> When the Yankee sank last year and its remaining missiles were
> crushed, would they have exploded, or would the fuel have been
> dispersed in the sea water?

Definitely not exploded, not if they were hypergolics.  At least, not
violently.  Assuming that hull collapse or whatever was violent enough
to rupture the missiles' tanks, I would bet on a minor explosion plus a
major fire (yes, an underwater fire, it's not impossible) plus a lot of
reaction with the surrounding water.

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 13 Nov 87 04:39:18 GMT
From: uop!robert@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu  (The Dog Faced Boy )
Subject: Mir again

there is also a Mir press, it is the soviet physical society
or something, from what i can guess by the few books in our library.

perhaps another gig at winning the race??

------------------------------

From: graham@drcvax.arpa
Date: 12 Nov 87 08:42:00 EST
Subject: PHOTONS BEING AFFECTED BY GRAVITY
To: "space" <space@angband.s1.gov>
Reply-To: <graham@drcvax.arpa>

Geoffrey Landis did a wonderful job of explaining relativistic mass, I
had never quite understood it before.  I still have a question though:

I was under the impression, garnared from college physics and some
reading that light was bent by gravity because the local region of space
surrounding a gravity source was bent or curved.  I thought that the
light, from it's own perspective, was going in a straight line, and the
space through which it was travelligng was curved, or bent.

I admit only a small knowledge of these things, so I stand ready to be
corrected if I am wrong.  [If I am right, I'd like to know that too,
restores faitn in my memory.]

Dan Graham

------------------------------

Date:     Fri, 13 Nov 87 14:36:09 CST
From: Will Martin -- AMXAL-RI <wmartin@almsa-1.arpa>
Subject:  Greenhouse effect vs. Ice Age

I realize this is peripheral to the interests of Space, but there seems
no other more appropriate forum on the ARPA/MILNET side to send this to,
and aspects of this have been discussed in the Space Digest in the past.
If someone on USENET wants to forward this to newsgroups over there,
feel free -- I'd appreciate being mailed copies of any followups or
related postings that don't go to the Space list; otherwise I'll never
see them.

For some years now, it has been stated by many authorities that we are
presently in an interglacial period, and (I believe) that we should be
fairly close to the end of that interglacial. There should be another
Ice Age coming up soon (in geologic terms). At the same time, we have
seen evidence of global warming due to the greenhouse effect, caused by
man's activities. I have never seen any discussion of the effect of
these two opposite forces in combination.

Is one cancelling out the other, and the heating due to the greenhouse
effect building up more rapidly than the natural cooling process could
ever counteract? Or is it just that the cooling which will lead into the
next glaciation has not yet started, awaiting the trigger such as a
large volcanic eruption (cf the last Nova, on volcanoes and the Toba
eruption happening at the start of the last steep cool-down) or nuclear
winter? Or perhaps a slow cooling trend has already begun, but is being
masked by the short-term effect of the human-caused temperature rise?

Any pointers to books which discuss this specific topic?

Thanks much!

Regards,
Will Martin
wmartin@ALMSA-1.ARPA   (on USENET try ...!seismo!wmartin@ALMSA-1.ARPA )

------------------------------

Date: 12 Nov 87 20:51:26 GMT
From: pioneer!eugene@AMES.ARPA  (Eugene Miya N.)
Subject: Re: SPICING UP AVIATION TERMINOLGY.....

I note the numerous followups to this terminology and the request for
the definition to CELSS.  My suggestion to the original poster is not to
use the net for queries of this type (i.e., what is a canard?)  a better
suggestion is take a moment and use a dictionary, or better, get a book
on general aviation.  In the case of a new acronym like CELSS, the
problem are the people following up, please send that person mail.  Send
mail, send mail, sendmail......  This is a plea for self-moderation.
These groups are like preaching to the converted, so try not to get too
involved in your and our own retoric.

>From the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA
  "You trust the `reply' command with all those different mailers out there?"
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."
  {hplabs,hao,ihnp4,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene

------------------------------

Date: 13 Nov 87 04:36:45 GMT
From: uop!robert@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu  (The Dog Faced Boy )
Subject: Re: Commercial plea for space station - effective!

i am sorry, i disagree, budgeting is not a zero sum game,
very few things in life are.
and to view them as such limits possibilities a great deal..
it is just as "zero sum" as argueing that it is either one
view or another, when a collection could work as well if not
better...does'nt anyone teach system technology anymore??

------------------------------

Date: 13 Nov 87 16:53:08 GMT
From: heurikon!lampman@speedy.wisc.edu  (Ray Lampman)
Subject: Re: Commercial plea for space station - effective!

In article <153@heurikon.UUCP> lampman@heurikon.UUCP (Ray Lampman) writes:
> How do we get this video aired on Nightline? Let's suppose 12000
> people call NBC and promise to watch Nightline and the other
> commercials ...

OK. Before everyone points out that Nightline is on ABC, and that NBC
would be unhappy if 12000 people called them and promised to watch
another network, I'd like to acknowledge my error. But doesn't NBC sound
better? I think it's the alliteration of the N's. NBC News Nightline?
Yeah, that's it! :-)

                                        - Ray (lampman@heurikon.UUCP)

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #46
*******************

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Date: Sun, 15 Nov 87 03:18:41 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8711151118.AA10839@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #47

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 47

Today's Topics:
		 Justification (?) for Space Station
			     10th planet
	  Re: Commercial plea for space station - effective!
	  Re: Commercial plea for space station - effective!
	       Re: SPICING UP AVIATION TERMINOLGY.....
	      Great Depression II and the space station
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 13 Nov 87 23:34:51 GMT
From: cfa!willner@husc6.harvard.edu  (Steve Willner)
Subject: Justification (?) for Space Station

In article <1381@carthage.swatsun.UUCP> leif@swatsun (Leif
Kirschenbaum) gave several justifications for the Space Station
(material preceeded by >>).  Then in article
<2181@sabbath.rutgers.edu>, masticol@sabbath.rutgers.edu (Stephen P.
Masticola) responded (material preceeded by >)

This posting gives a justification not originally included, and presents
some challenges to it.  Then it amplifies and corrects some of the
previous responses.  There is, I'm afraid, no neat conclusion about the
Station, but perhaps some of the other suggestions are worth
considering.

New justification:
  7) If one believes that humans must begin to live and work in space
for long periods of time, it behooves us to get started doing that.  We
need to learn more about long-term life support systems and about human
response to space conditions.  There is no other way to learn than to do
it.

Challenges:
  a) We can take advantage of Russian advances in space medicine.  (Not
that these will tell us everything we need to know, but they will
certainly answer the fundamental question of whether long stays are
feasible.  Once we know something is possible, we are most of the way
along to figuring out how to do it.)

  b) Building life support systems and other technology will be easier
in the future.  There is no urgency to invest now.

  c) Space Station will divert attention and resources from other needed
projects: Cheaper launch vehicles, a continuing assembly line for
Shuttles, science and Earth resources missions.  While budgeting is not
a "zero-sum process", the resources available are limited, and spending
a vast amount in one area will certainly limit expenditures in other
areas.

  d) Management concentration on Space Station and the need to justify
it politically may force other payloads to be attached to SS even when
that is technically disadvantageous.  (This process certainly occurred
on the Space Shuttle, and combined with the decision to cancel other
vehicles, it has been a disaster.)

  e) The Space Station represents another "new beginning", instead of
building on existing achievements.  The same money would buy 4-5 new
Shuttles.  The STS assembly line could be kept permanently open, and new
Shuttles could be specialized for particular roles.  (E.g. one
"stripped" version for maximum payload or altitude, like Atlantis but
more so; one with extra tankage for maximum stay on orbit; one with
deployable solar panels for maximum electric power; one with Spacelab,
or its derivatives, permanently installed to reduce turnaround time and
costs; etc.)

I don't think there is any clear choice.  If one feels very strongly
that 7) is correct, then that is justification enough, and all other
projects are secondary.  On the other hand, I take e) fairly seriously
and think it would be a mistake not to exploit the STS as far as
possible.  If resources were available to exploit STS fully and to build
SS and to do the other missions and projects we want, I would be all for
that.  (And would gladly pay my share.)  But I simply don't believe the
resources are there in the present political climate, and it is
perfectly justifiable to give SS a lower priority than the other two
areas.

Now back to the previous material:

[Space station would:]
>> 1) force us to invent new technology  
> So would almost any massive technological effort, including BDB. 
And including other launch vehicles, non-rocket launch technologies,
development of an ion engine, the "Mission to Planet Earth" and
"Planetary Exploration" recommended by the Ride report, the Great
Observatories program (partially) underway, and non-space activities
such as the Superconducting Super Collider.  It seems to me that
almost any of these would result in more new technology than would SS.

>> 2) give easier access to a space environment for vacuum,
>> microgravity, cold temperatures, etc.
> So would BDB. 
I can't see how Space Station would reduce the cost to orbit at all,
though BDB certainly would.  (If successful, of course, but that
caveat applies to anything we might want to try.)  The tenable
justification is that SS would allow access to space for longer time
intervals.  So would extended Shuttle missions, of course, and this
line of justification requires showing a need for missions longer
than 4 weeks or for some other requirement that cannot be met at
lower cost by an enhanced Shuttle.

>> 3) permit on-the-site supervision and *repair* [of satellites]
> The shuttle was supposed to give us this capability. [Cost is
> excessive.] 
Cost for satellite repair via SS is likely to be even more than via
Shuttle, since one needs OMV to bring satellites for repair, rather
than just matching orbits.  This cost would not apply to
Station-attached satellites (but see below for problems with that.)

>> 4) allow us to put many of the satellites we currently use in one
>> spot thus consolidating power supply, and allowing us to more
>> easily maintain them.
> [SS interference with many types of payloads due to large bulk and
> radio transmissions to/from. Added cost of integrating complex
> system.] 
Add contamination by water and other wastes.  Also, there is no
reason a combined power supply should save money unless satellites
operate with low duty cycle.  Moreover, additional complexity
introduces additional failure modes.  Finally, many satellites
require orbits other than the SS orbit.  The Ride report stated
explicitly that the two programs mentioned above (Mission to Earth
and Planetary) make essentially no use of SS, primarily because of
its orbit.

>> Another factor is limited room in orbit: 
> Satellite space is hard to find only in Clarke orbit. 
I don't think room in orbit is limited by the number of large,
trackable objects such as satellites.  Rather, collisions with
micro-meteoroids and debris of old spacecraft are the limiting
factor.  In Clarke orbit, the problem is one of radio frequencies 
and antenna beam width rather than of physical conflict between
satellites.  In any case, SS does not help much, though consolidating
satellites might make tracking marginally easier.

> Space junk is the real problem, but it's only a problem in
> geosynchronous orbit,  
I think the problem is greater in LEO because of the much greater
amount of debris and the prevalence of non-equatorial orbits, which
give higher relative speeds.

>> 5) be a launching platform for manned and unmanned missions
> We've sent probes to almost every planet in the Solar System
> without a space station. I'm also willing to bet that the total cost
> for launching _all_ those planetary probes was less than the SS.
There is a shred of plausibility to this one, but only for really,
REALLY big missions.  The SS would save money if it avoided the cost
of building and operating a bigger and less efficient booster.  That
can't be ruled out, but I'm not aware that the case has been made.
Also, one has to justify the "really big mission."

>> 6) be an assembly site for manned and unmanned missions. I would
>> think cleanliness would be easier in the vacuum or near-vacuum of
>> space than on Earth.
> Space has the disadvantages of microgravity, vacuum, extreme
> temperatures, and a cost currently not less than $300 per pound to get
> _anything_ there.
Cleanliness will be very hard, for wastes dumped overboard do not 
"just go away" but remain in orbit for a considerable time.  There is
much literature on Shuttle contamination, and SS will be worse
because of its longer lifetime.  (Of course, we have finally realized
that many Earthly waste products are similarly long-lived.)

> In conclusion, let's explore, exploit, and colonize space, but let's
> be smart about it instead of trying to be sexy.

Steve Willner            Phone 617-495-7123          Bitnet: willner@cfa2
60 Garden St.            FTS:      830-7123           UUCP:   willner@cfa
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA                     ARPA: willner@cfa.harvard.edu

------------------------------

Date: 12 Nov 87 19:48:39 GMT
From: ihnp4!ihlpa!rjp1@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Subject: 10th planet

I just saw a very short blurb on the TV about a scientist claiming to
have discovered a planet (or was it a red giant?) encircling a much
smaller white dwarf star.

Seems weird that finally, someone discovers a 10th planet out there, but
it doesn't belong to our own solar system!

Anyone with more info on this??

Bob Pietkivitch   (Prema - Shanti - Dharma - Satya)   UUCP: ihnp4!ihlpa!rjp1

------------------------------

Date: 13 Nov 87 23:10:41 GMT
From: paul.rutgers.edu!masticol@rutgers.edu  (Stephen P. Masticola)
Subject: Re: Commercial plea for space station - effective!

> i am sorry, i disagree, budgeting is not a zero sum game,
> very few things in life are.
> and to view them as such limits possibilities a great deal..

I really don't want to get deeply into this argument; just suffice it
it say that the financing has to come from somewhere. If the
government increases spending on the space station, they may well
decide to cut spending on something which will be of more
permanent benefit toward us. Or raise taxes.

What are the reasons for the space station's existence? As compared
to the space missions and other scientific research it will _likely_
displace, is it a good bet?

Lastly, could it be done more easily and cheaply if we had inexpensive
heavy launch technology available? Could other ambitious space projects
benefit from BDB technology? If so, let's build the BDB first!

> ... a collection could work as well if not
> better...does'nt anyone teach system technology anymore??

A collection of what? Listen, does anyone have a list of the planned
operations and experiments which will fly on the Space Station? Let's
not argue in a vacuum if possible! (Unless we've got good space suits :-)

-..-. Steve -.-

------------------------------

Date: 13 Nov 87 22:11:39 GMT
From: psuvax1!vu-vlsi!swatsun!leif@husc6.harvard.edu  (Leif Kirschenbaum)
Subject: Re: Commercial plea for space station - effective!

In article <2181@sabbath.rutgers.edu> masticol@sabbath.rutgers.edu (Stephen P. Masticola) writes:
>In article <1381@carthage.swatsun.UUCP> leif@swatsun (Leif Kirschenbaum) writes
>> 1) force us to invent new technology  
>
>So would almost any massive technological effort, including BDB.
A space station would create a different kind of technology. Technology
like a closed life support system which is invaluable for future missions or
even colonies. Though we may not *use* this technology for other purposes
for many years, the information and data we can gather about closed
life support will be invaluable. (I see an analogy to Navy dive tables, one
has worked out how long one can stay under water at given depths with given
atmospheres even though one doesn't need the data at the time. Later when divers
worked on underwater drilling rigs the info. was useful)
>> 2) give easier access to a space environment for vacuum, microgravity, cold 
>> temperatures, etc.
>So would BDB. 
One couldn't stay a few weeks in orbit and conduct experiments. Right now a
mission length for the Space Shuttle is approx. a few days, extendable to
 approx. 20 days.  A space station would offer long term experimental
 opportunities.
>> 3) permit on-the-site supervision and *repair* [of satellites]
>> 4) allow us to put many of the satellites we currently use in one spot thus
>> consolidating power supply, and allowing us to more easily maintain
>> them.
>The SS has the _disadvantage_ of occupying only one spot in space.
>Since it, too, is in LEO, it will be impractical to use the SS as a
>communications relay.
Hmmm... true, but why not put the SS in a higher orbit?
>Satellite space is hard to find only in Clarke orbit. The space
>station is to operate in low-earth orbit. It would be valueless to any
>small country that needs space in Clarke orbit.
Couldn't one put the SS in Clarke orbit? (or is this impossible, I'm not
familiar with orbits)
>Current technology satellites aren't protected against
>micrometeorites; they last about ten years on the average
Then why not protect satellites? If they have continuous power from a SS,
maintenance, and micrometeorite protection they should last as long as
one wants.
>> 5) be a launching platform for manned and unmanned missions
>Which would still have to be hauled up from Earth.
The raw materials would have to hauled up (or brought from the Moon or
asteroid belt) which would be used to build systems. In addition, the
system wouldn't have to withstand the stresses of lift-off or of Earth
gravity and pressure. Given the SS proposed would *not* be able to
accomplish all this, but one has to start somewhere.
>I'm also willing to bet that the total cost for launching _all_ those planetary
>probes was less than the SS.
But will the missions be cheaper if started from the SS?
>Space has the disadvantages of microgravity, vacuum, extreme
>temperatures, and a cost currently not less than $300 per pound to get
>_anything_ there. 
True, those characteristics are probably disadvantages in assembling systems,
but they can be invaluable for industry. I would think that certain items
produced in space would be far superior to those produced on Earth, and might
even be cheaper. Vacuum and cold temperatures are there for the taking; one 
doesn't have to produce them.
>Build the BDB first!
>-..-. Steve -.-
Anything I didn't respond to I have to admit was right; I didn't want to take
up a lot of room writing "true" over and over. I am not very knowledgable
re: this topic so there are probably technical details that would support
the SS. Does anyone know of any?

-- 
Leif Kirschenbaum '91                  | "Do you have any tea?"
Swarthmore College                     | I'm new at this game- no flames please.
UUCP:     rutgers!bpa!swatsun!leif     | (only candles)
Internet: bpa!swatsun!leif@rutgers.edu | Swat Motto: "Harsh but fair."

------------------------------

Date: 13 Nov 87 01:18:10 GMT
From: ihnp4!homxb!mtuxo!mtune!codas!killer!sampson@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Steve Sampson)
Subject: Re: SPICING UP AVIATION TERMINOLGY.....


> Stabilizer

On a 707 for instance, the horizontal stabilizer moves up and down with
the trim while the

> Elevator

moves up and down with the yoke.  The stabilizer is adjusted at the
front.  Or else I'm looking at the picture wrong...

------------------------------

Date: 9 Nov 87 01:05:41 GMT
From: clyde!burl!codas!killer!usl!usl-pc!jpdres10@rutgers.edu  (Green Eric Lee)
Subject: Great Depression II and the space station

In message <1158@scicom.alphacdc.com>, wats@scicom.alphacdc.com (Bruce Watson) says:
>
>If the government mishandles the economy or if it is beyond anyones control,
>the first thing, from historical analogy, is for a public works spending
...
>public spending programs.  Since the space program is already in place
>it would seem that this would be a good place to start.  

Several buildings here on campus were built by the PWA(?) during the
Great Depression, employing hundreds of people. This happened all
around the country. There's a number of things to think about when
funding public works projects:

a) Does the project employ a lot of workers? When unemployment is
high, political considerations arise, because unemployed people are
notoriously suspicious of the theory that even if the money is spent
on a low-labor big-bucks project, the money will somehow "trickle
down" to the poor unemployed slobs.

b) Does the project require skilled workers, or will unskilled workers
do? If it requires large numbers of skilled workers, then you have
something called "structural unemployment", which, simply put, means
that you'll have a shortage of skilled workers and a surplus of
unskilled workers -- again, politically infeasible.

c) Is the result of the project useful? In the case of the Hoover Dam
or Stephens Hall here on campus, the answer is a resounding "Yes!".
Hoover Dam supplies electricity, and if Stephens Hall hadn't been
built, USL would have a bigger crowding problem than it already has.
Both make a positive contribution to the economy. 

So let's see how the space program measures up:

  a) The space program employs very few people (relatively).
  b) The people employed by the space program need highly
sophisticated skills, meaning that you aren't going to be employing
Joe Budweiser from the shut-down mill.
  d) The economic contribution of the space program is nil. It
provides absolutely no product of even remote economic value, except
for information. When people are struggling for food and clothing
and housing, they could care less.

My conclusion is that we are never going to be able to sell the space
program on its economic merits, and to not even bother trying. Sure
influential senators and congressmen are all scrambling for the
privilige of having part of the porkbarrel, err, space station, but
compared to the amount of pork they can get for boondoggles like 50
unneeded Army bases or making Castor Creek navigable or ...., well,
you see, it's just a drop in the bucket....

--
Eric Green  elg@usl.CSNET       from BEYOND nowhere:
{ihnp4,cbosgd}!killer!elg,      P.O. Box 92191, Lafayette, LA 70509
{ut-sally,killer}!usl!elg     "there's someone in my head, but it's not me..."

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #47
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 16 Nov 87 06:25:18 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA12264; Mon, 16 Nov 87 03:13:10 PST
	id AA12264; Mon, 16 Nov 87 03:13:10 PST
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 87 03:13:10 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8711161113.AA12264@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #48

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 48

Today's Topics:
		    space news from Sept 28 AW&ST
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 15 Nov 87 02:20:30 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Sept 28 AW&ST

[You may have noticed that my promised recommendations of space books
have not yet materialized.  Please be patient.]

Some interesting bits of new from other sources...

Science (2 Oct) reports that the chairman of GM (which owns big
satellite-builder Hughes) has written to George Schultz asking that US
export policy forbidding use of Soviet launchers be revised.  The State
Department is still saying (unofficially) that the answer is "when Hell
freezes over".  A prominent reason for GM's interest is that the RFP for
Aussat's next generation of satellites explicitly asks that bidders
include an option to launch on Proton, something that bidders subject to
US export rules can't do at present.

The latest issue of Planetary Encounter (which I recommended a month or
so back) reprints the entire Ride Report.  And I think the latest issue
of World Spaceflight News, which I haven't looked at properly yet,
reprints the entire NRC report on the space station.

Jupiter is just past an unusually close approach to Earth, and is worth
taking a look at.  You can see the Galilean satellites clearly with a
cruddy set of binoculars, even from the middle of a big light-polluted
city.  [I know because I've looked at them several times from my
apartment window.]

Something I didn't mention much in my previous commentary on the NRC
space station report was that NRC was most emphatic about one issue:
space science will continue to require both expendable launches and
shuttle flights independent of the space station, and should not be
forced to funnel everything through the station, which is ill-suited for
some types of work.

Back to AW&ST....

French technicians run successful tethered test of the balloon system
they propose for a Soviet Mars mission in the 90s.

Congress limits NASA FY88 spending on expendables to two Deltas, but
would have supplied more if only the Administration would set clear
priorities.  Space supporters hoped for a Titan 3 for Mars Observer and
a Titan 4 as a backup for one TDRS.

Spectacular photo, lit by the engine flame, of the V19 Ariane launch.

Italy has indeed joined France's Helios spysat project, taking a 14%
share that will be mostly ground systems due to the late decision.
Spain is also interested.  Helios will be a Spot derivative.  [France is
pushing Helios hard because it will fix a major weakness in Europe's
bargaining position in intelligence matters: the US monopoly on spysat
images.]

ESA approves building a third Ariane pad at Kourou, specifically for use
by Ariane 5.  Work will start next year.  Also, a site has been picked
for the Hermes spaceplane's runway at Kourou.

ESA is finishing plans for its next decade or so, for approval in
November.  The three major items are: Ariane 5, to fly in 1995 and start
paying its way in 1996, with nine launches per year by 1999; the Hermes
spaceplane, to fly unmanned in 1998 and manned in 1999; and Columbus,
comprising a free-flyer in 1994, a module for the US space station in
1996, a polar platform in 1997, and a man-tended free-flyer in 1998.
Also on the November agenda will be the possibility of a European
data-relay satellite system, extension of Hermes's mission duration to
28 days, the continuing problems with NASA over the space station
negotiations, and the impact of Britain's recent space-funding
restrictions.

ESA begins early planning for two station-preparation Spacelab flights
in 1994-5.

Picture of a model of a Boeing ALS concept, including a flyback booster.
Boeing says that rocket engines are crucial to this, specifically an
efficient high-pressure hydrocarbon-fuel engine that can be removed and
replaced routinely (to permit engine maintenance independent of the
vehicle).

Eutelsat picks Atlas-Centaur to launch Eutelsat 2 in 1990, first firm
commercial A-C contract.  Deal includes options for two more.

Scout launches two Navy navsats into polar orbit from Vandenberg Sept.
16.

Progress 31 freighter undocks from Mir Sept 23, as Progress 32 is
launched.

Starfind [the latest innovative-navsat company] has asked the FCC to
stop processing applications for innovative navsat systems, on the
grounds that the current spectrum space cannot be shared by multiple
systems without unacceptable interference.  Starfind is particularly
critical of Geostar.

Soviet Union will offer launch insurance for satellites launched on
Proton.  This will include third-party liability, although they say that
launches within the Soviet Union do not need a lot of coverage for this.

The Soviets are now offering commercial terms for: launch into any
orbit; man-tended or untended payloads aboard Mir, including return to
Earth; launch and recovery of unmanned payloads; purchase of Soviet
space hardware.

The Soviets continue to claim that the two Proton failures early this
year were due to an experimental fourth stage that is not part of the
commercial Proton offer.

US launch companies tell Congress that they are increasingly worried
about the effect of US policies on international competition.  A
particular issue is that foreign launch companies usually have
government backing in liability insurance, while the USAF demands that
the company cover it all to use US facilities.  Martin Marietta suggests
US government coverage above an upper limit, to be set within the means
of US companies.  McDonnell-Douglas warns that a few firm contracts
don't make a viable industry and the US industry is not necessarily
competitive in the long run.  General Dynamics shows its model
launch-services contract, 27 pages versus thousands for a government
contract.  George Koopman, president of Amroc, is particularly critical
of the government (AmRoc wants to use Vandenberg).  Amroc has been
trying to start negotiations with the USAF for nine months...
unsuccessfully!  USAF HQ says talk to Space Division, Space Division
says it has no authority to negotiate.  "This sort of bureaucratic
nonsense results in real damage to our company and this industry."  He
says the USAF facilities-use agreement is disastrous: "AmRoc cannot sign
this agreement and survive".  USAF demands for "aggregate maximum
casualty and liability insurance available on the world market" are
"patently ridiculous... and a demand without reason, sense, or
precedent", involving premiums that could ruin AmRoc.  The draft
agreement is "unworkable, bureaucratic, and anti-commercial".  He says
that the working-level USAF people are okay but that the upper
management is a disaster.  "Perhaps the most unbelievable of all is the
Air Force's demand that we supply them with liability insurance against
`judicial actions for violation of federal, state, or local laws'.
There is not now, nor has there ever been, any insurance available
against breaking the law."  AmRoc has already lost two financial
partners because of the USAF agreement, which is "scaring the living
daylights out of the investment community".

The latest changes in the Landsat commercialization plan could terminate
the government's agreement with Eosat.  The government says Eosat is
acting like a government contractor rather than a commercial business.
Eosat says that the government's treatment of Eosat sends "a strong
message to people interested in the commercialization of space, `Don't
get involved with us because we're kind of flaky.  We stall, we use
delaying tactics, and we don't bother to fund our commitments.'  Knowing
what we do today, if we could do it over again, we wouldn't have bid on
this contract...  there were six winners in the Landsat contract [out of
seven competitors]; none of them are Eosat."  Landsat customers are
increasingly angry that there will obviously be a disruption of data
continuity when Landsats 4 and 5 fail.  The government, which formerly
was going to fund construction of Landsat 7, now says that maybe it
would be obsolete before launch, and wants to study it again instead.
The government also observes that Eosat is not investing much of its own
money in all this, and looks like another bloated government
contractor... especially compared to Spot Image, which is aggressive and
entrepreneurial despite its government subsidy.

US and Canadian space-station negotiators fail to resolve differences,
in what was hoped to be the final meeting.  This is a bad omen, since
Canada is closer to agreement than Europe and Japan, and is also much
more important to the station, since its mobile servicing center is
needed for station assembly.  Canada is dubious about unrestricted US
military use of the station, wants international management and regular
reviews of the program, objects violently to language that would impose
US export and technology-transfer laws on Canadian organizations, and
would like binding arbitration rather than ill-defined "negotiation" for
settling disputes.  Canada is also worried about possible elimination of
one or both of the polar platforms, which are important to Canada.  It
looks like none of the international partners will be officially on
board when development starts in November.  The partners "continue to
ask themselves whether the station program is truly international or
whether it is a US program with foreign participation".

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #48
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 17 Nov 87 06:20:46 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA14728; Tue, 17 Nov 87 03:19:17 PST
	id AA14728; Tue, 17 Nov 87 03:19:17 PST
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 87 03:19:17 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8711171119.AA14728@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #49

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 49

Today's Topics:
			 Company List (long!)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 13 Nov 87 18:06:00 GMT
From: jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Company List (long!)


I didn't want to clutter this file with all these addresses, but I've
gotten ~20 requests for a summary, so I figured this was of more
general interest than I had thought.

Again, I'd like to ask you who use these addresses NOT TO DISCLOSE THE
SOURCE.  I have a philosophical desire to get competent, interested
people in touch with the space program, but a selfish desire not to be
personally responsible for the people in this list being deluged by
hundreds of letters.  Please don't mention my name.

I actually have a few other addresses and phone numbers of contact
people, but I don't have time to type them in.  I'm incredibly busy
with thesis, classes, interviews, and plant trips (6 interstate
interviews so far, more anticipated).

Good luck, and follow your dreams!  I'll meet you on orbit!

	-- Ken Jenks

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

This first group of companies was found from a Contractor List supplied
by NASA Johnson Space Center's Personnel Dept.  Most of the NASA
Personnel Depts. have these lists.  I've gotten them for JSC, KSC,
MSFC, & ARC.  JSC is the only list I've put on-line.


Barrios Technology
		Attn: Ronda Monchak
		1331 Gemini
		Houston, TX  77058

Boeing Aerospace
		Attn: Lois Ramey
		PO Box 58747
		Houston, TX  77058

Computer Sciences
		Personnel Dept.
		16511 Space Center Blvd.
		Houston, TX  77058
		(713) 486-8153 ext 259

Control Data Corp.
		Attn: Maria Ward
		9894 Bissonnet
		Houston, TX  77036

Ford Aerospace & Communications Company
		Attn: Alvin Dailey
		PO Box 58487
		Houston, TX  77258
		(713) 280-6236

GE			They are no longer General Electric -- Just GE.
		Attn: Imma Lee Ross or Linda Pratt
		1820 NASA Road #1
		Houston, TX  77058
		(713) 333-8605 (Imma Lee Ross) or
		(713) 333-8604 (Linda Pratt)

Grumman Aerospace
		Personnel Dept.
		2800 Space Park Drive
		Houston, TX  77058
		(713) 333-2560

Grumman Houston Corp.
		Personnel Dept.
		12310 Galveston Rd
		Attn: Freddy-Ann Marcussen
		Webster, TX 77598

Jefferson Associates, Inc.
		Attn: Limas Jefferson
		1120 NASA Road #1
		Suite 100
		Houston, TX  77058
		(713) 333-3414

Lockheed Engineering & Management Service
		Attn: Linda Nilsen
		2400 NASA Road #1
		Houston, TX  77058
		(713) 333-6601

McDonnell Douglas
		Attn: C. D. Price
		16055 Space Center Blvd.
		Houston, TX  77062
		(713) 280-1500 ext 1761

Northrop Service, Inc.
		Attn: Carol Alcorta
		PO Box 34416
		Houston, TX  77234

Singer Company
		Link Division
		Attn: Patricia Records
		2224 Bay Area Blvd.
		Houston, TX  77058

Sperry Univac Corp.
		Attn: Modelle Mann
		16811 El Camino Real
		Houston, TX  77058

UNISYS
		Attn: Frances M. Bond
		600 Gemini
		Houston, TX  77058

Eagle Engineering		That mysterious company found at last!
		P.O. Box 891049
		Houston, TX 77289-1049
		(713) 338-2682




The following companies were found exclusively from net.pals:

Spacehab
		Seattle based

Space Industries
		Houston based

External Tanks, Incorporated
		Tom Rogers
		Boulder, CO

Third Millennium, Inc.
		918 F Street NW, Suite 601
		Washington DC 20004

PERMANENT, LTD
		114 Westwick Ct #5
		Sterling, VA 22170
		(703) 444-1560 (voice)
		(703 or 202)-450-2732 (computer)



The next list was found by a lot of hard work and many $ to Ma Bell.  I
took the list of Space Station contractors and tracked them all down.
(Well, all by Analex and Rocketdyne.  I'll get Rocketdyne soon, but
Analex looks hopeless.  Nobody has heard of it!)

Alphabetical Listing of Space Station Companies and Segments:

     Key:
	  #1: Segment I     Crew and lab modules
	  #2: Segment II    Framework (main boom)
	  #3: Segment III   Free-flying platform and research eqpt.
	  #4: Segment IV    Power system


Analex, #4		Nothing known.

Boeing, #1		Also in Seattle, LA (213), Wash. DC, Renton VA.
		The Boeing Company
		Employment Office
		PO Box 1470
		Huntsville, AL  35807

Computer Sciences, #3
		PO Box 21127  Kennedy Space Ctr, FL 32815
			(305) 853-2484
		8728 Colesville Rd  Silver Spring, MD 20910
			(301) 589-1545
		304 W Rt 38 / PO Box N  Moorestown, NJ 08057
			(609) 234-1100
		4835 University Sq Ste 8  Huntsville, AL 35816
			(205) 830-1000 (Applied Tech Div)
		200 Sparkman Dr N W  Huntsville, AL 35805
			(205) 837-7200 (Defense Sys Div)
		6565 Arlington Blvd  Falls Church, VA 22046
		       (703) 237-2000 (Energy Resch Div)
		16511 Space Center Blvd.  Houston, TX  77058
			(713) 486-8153 ext 259

Eagle Engineering, #4
 		711 Bay Area Blvd, Suite 315
 		Webster, TX 77598
	 	(713) 338-2682

Ford Aerospace & Communications, #4		Also in Sunnyvale, CA
		Attn: Alvin Dailey
		PO Box 58487
		Houston, TX  77258
		(713) 280-6236	(JSC List)
		(301) 345-0250  Ask for Jim Furilla or Judy Kopetz

Garrett Fluid Systems, #4       Formerly Garrett Pneumatic Sys Div
				I also saw a large sign saying GARRETT
				by the runway at LAX.
		Garrett Fluid Systems Company
		1300 W. Warner Rd, Box 22200
		Tempe, AZ 85282
		(602) 893-5000

General Dynamics, #4
		General Dynamics Bldg  Ft. Worth, TX 76101
		(817) 777-2000

General Electric, Astro Space Division, #1, #3		Subsumed RCA
		Attention: Mike Kavka
		Mail Stop 101
		Astro Space Division
		East Windsor
		POB 800
		Princeton, NJ 08543-0800
		(609) 426-3400

Grumman Aerospace, #1, #2       Large piece of Station awarded in July
		2852 Kelvin Ave  Irvine, CA 92714       	(714) 660-4200
		S Oyster Bay / Bethpage, NY 11714		(516) 575-3369
		Grumman Blvd / MS F05-07 / Calverton NY		(516) 575-0574
		2800 Space Park Drive / Houston, TX  77058	(713) 333-2560
		12310 Galveston Rd/Attn:Freddy-Ann Marcussen/Webster, TX 77598

Harris, #2
		(303) 727-4000 Ask for GASD

Honeywell, #2, #3
		W. R. Moore
		Mail Station 257-5
		Honeywell
		13350 US Highway 19
		Clearwater, FL  34624-7290
		(813) 539-3689

		Defense Sys Div
		5700 Smetana Dr
		M N O2-3380
		Minnetonka, MN 55343
		(612) 936-3196

		13350 US 19
		Clearwater, FL 33546
		(813) 531-4611

		Aerospace & Defense Grp
		Honeywell Plaza
		Minneapolis, MN 55408
		(612) 870-5186


Hughes Aircraft, #1
		Hughes Aircraft
		Radar Systems Group
		Engineering Employment
		POB 92426
		Los Angeles, CA  90009
		(213) 606-2111

		Hughes Aircraft
		Space Communications Group
		Attn: Employment Ofc. - College Relations
		909 N. Sepulveda
		El Segundo, CA  90009
		(213) 647-7177

IBM, #2, #3			They also have a group in Sunnyvale.
		IBM
		Personnel
		3700 Bay Area Bvd.
		Houston, TX  77058
		(713) 282-2300

Intermetrics, #2
		Indl Sys Div
		733 Concord Av
		Cambridge, MA 02138
		(800) 325-5235
	      	(617) 661-0072

Lockheed Missiles & Space, #1, #2, #3, #4, #4

		    Lockheed has MANY offices in Sunnyvale, CA.  That's
		    where much of the Space Station research is happening.
		    Contact Personnel Dept.  Area code 408.

		Lockheed Space Operations Company  {Shuttle contract}
		Attn: Mr. Don Quirk
		110 Lockheed Way
		Titasville, FL  32780
	
		Lockheed Engineering & Management Service
		Attn: Linda Nilsen
		2400 NASA Road #1
		Houston, TX  77058

		(305) 867-2765 (Kennedy Space Center)
	      	(305) 383-2200 (Titasville switchboard)
	      	(713) 333-6601 (Linsa Nilsen, Houston)

Martin Marietta, #1		Denver Aerospace is the group you want.
				Also in Sunnyvale.
		(504) 257-4716 (Sandy)

McDonnell Douglas Astronautics, #1, #2, #3
		Richard B. Rout,
		Dept. 5900, Mail Code 11-3
		McDonnell Douglas
		Astronautics and Space Division
		5301 Bolsa Ave.
		Huntington Beach, CA  92647
		(714) 896-5633
	
		McDonnell Douglas
		Attn: C. D. Price
		16055 Space Center Blvd.
		Houston, TX  77062
		(713) 280-1500 ext 1761

Planning Research Corp., #4
		1500 Planning Research Dr
		McLean, VA 22102
		(703) 556-1000

RCA, #2, #3, #3  	Subsumed by GE/Astro Space

Rocketdyne, #4		A subsidiary of Rockwell in LA area.

Rockwell, #2		This address is for Shuttle activity, not
			Station.  Station work is being done in Downey,
			CA, near LA.  Try area code 213.

		Steve C. Hoefer
		Supervisor, Crew Activity Planning
		Rockwell Shuttle Operations Company
		Rockwell International Corporation
		600 Gemini Avenue
		Houston, TX  77058
		(713) 483-4438

SRI International, #2
		SRI International
		Personnel Dept.
		333 Ravenswood Ave.
		Menlo Park, CA  94025
		(415) 859-3993

Sperry/UNISYS, #2	       Changed name from Sperry to UNISYS
		UNISYS
		Attn: Modelle Mann
		11681 El Camino Real
		Houston, TX  77058
		(800) 645-3440

Sunstrand, #4
		Sundstrand Energy Systems
		Unit of Sundstrand Corp.
		4747 Harrison Ave, P.O. Box 7002
		Rockford, Ill. 61125
		(815) 226-6000

TRW, #1, #2, #3, #4
		Jack Friedenthal
		Bldg. 135, Rm. 2823
		One Space Park
		Redondo Beach, CA  90278

		Penny Burkes
		Bldg. R2, Rm. 2130
		One Space Park
		Redondo Beach, CA  90278

		(213) 535-6027 (Penny Burkes)
	      	(213) 297-8765 (Irwin Newman)

Teledyne Brown Engineering, #1, #4  (Did not actually bid on #4)
		Teledyne Brown Engineering
		Attn: Mr. Tom Robinson
		Cummings Research Park
		Huntsville, AL  35807
		(800) 633-2090

USBI Booster Production, #1
		United Space Boosters / BPC
		188 Spartman Dr
		PO Box 1900
		Huntsville, AL 35807
		(205) 721-2400

United Technologies (Hamilton Standard), #1
		Phil Beaudoin
		Hamilton Standard
		One Hamilton Road
		Windsor Locks, CT  06096
	 	(203) 654-6000
	      	(203) 654-4601 (Personnel)

Wyle Laboratories, #1
		Wyle Laboratories
		Personnel Department
		Attn: Mr. Gordon Bakken
		7800 Govenor's Drive West
		Huntsville, AL  35807
		(703) 834-1633 (Mr. Gordon Bakken in NJ)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Many of these places have sent back cards/letters saying "We've gotten
your resume; please wait for our reply.  If we don't call back, you're
out of luck."  A few (Boeing, Rockwell, Lockheed) have invited me out
for interviews.  I've only gotten one "Bong Letter" -- Computer
Sciences in Huntsville, AL, said, "We are quite interested in your
qualifications and professional desires.  At the present time, our
commitments will not permit an offer of employment.  However, we will
keep your application in our active file..."  Sure.

Over fifty resumes out, only one rejection so far.  Not bad.  Yet.

        -- Ken Jenks, Univ. of Illinois, Urbana/Champaign

jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu
{ihnp4!pur-ee}uiucdcs!uiucdcsp!jenks

"For I dipt into the Future, far as human eye could see
Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be;
Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails,
Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales."
	-- Alfred, Lord Tennyson

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #49
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 18 Nov 87 06:17:49 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA16830; Wed, 18 Nov 87 03:16:22 PST
	id AA16830; Wed, 18 Nov 87 03:16:22 PST
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 87 03:16:22 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8711181116.AA16830@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #50

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 50

Today's Topics:
	  Re: Commercial plea for space station - effective!
		  AW&ST advertisement in poster form
		   Re: Brown Dwarf and media idiocy
		     Re: Dyson Sphere Discovered?
		     Space programs in Archives?
		     re:3d digitized shuttle data
		   Re: digitized (3D) shuttle data
		       Re: Space Shuttle Escape
			   Re: Video disks
	  Re: Commercial plea for space station - effective!
			Laser Disks and Slides
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 14 Nov 87 19:12:31 GMT
From: unc!leech@mcnc.org  (Jonathan Leech)
Subject: Re: Commercial plea for space station - effective!

In article <1383@pompeii.swatsun.UUCP> leif@pompeii.UUCP (Leif Kirschenbaum) writes:
>>The SS has the _disadvantage_ of occupying only one spot in space.
>>Since it, too, is in LEO, it will be impractical to use the SS as a
>>communications relay.
>Hmmm... true, but why not put the SS in a higher orbit?

    The shuttle can't reach Clarke orbit by tens of thousands of km - it
can barely get into orbit as is, and payload capacity drops dramatically
the higher it goes.  Being in low orbits is also good from the radiation
standpoint, until we can build appropriately shielded habitats.

    Jon Leech (leech@cs.unc.edu)    __@/
"The idea of ``picking up where Apollo left off'' in lunar exploration
is a chimera. There is nothing to pick up; when we dropped it, it broke."
    John & Ruth Lewis in 'Space Resources: Breaking the Bonds of Earth'

------------------------------

Date: 16 Nov 87 18:37:41 GMT
From: unc!leech@mcnc.org  (Jonathan Leech)
Subject: AW&ST advertisement in poster form


    The 2-page ad from United Technologies which appeared on the
inside cover of the 9/21 issue of Aviation Week (picture of astronaut
on the lunar surface, caption ``It's time we raised our sights
again'') is a powerful image. It's also available in poster form; a
polite letter to

    United Technologies
    Director of Public Relations
    United Technologies Building
    Hartford, CT 06101

    resulted in my getting a free poster of the ad (along with some
other UT ads and a corporate info brochure) in 10 days. My copy is
going on my office door, the best to expose it to my coworkers;
perhaps other people will want to do the same, thus this posting. A
tip of the hat to UT for the free poster!
-- 
    Jon Leech (leech@cs.unc.edu)    __@/
"The idea of ``picking up where Apollo left off'' in lunar exploration
is a chimera. There is nothing to pick up; when we dropped it, it broke."
    John & Ruth Lewis in 'Space Resources: Breaking the Bonds of Earth'

------------------------------

Date: 13 Nov 87 20:59:19 GMT
From: oliveb!pyramid!prls!philabs!ttidca!sorgatz@AMES.ARPA  ( Avatar)
Subject: Re: Brown Dwarf and media idiocy

In article <769@cfa.cfa.harvard.EDU> wyatt@cfa.harvard.EDU (Bill Wyatt) writes:
>Did anyone else see the CNN story on Ben Zuckerman's Brown Dwarf
>discovery? Regardless of whether the object is real, is a brown dwarf
>or whatever, I'm incensed at the sloppy and downright ignorant way CNN
>reported the story. The following is from memory, so the details might

  No, you've got it correct. I saw the same crap spew out of my TV too!

>It's a sad commentary on the U.S. educational system when none of the
>people making up that broadcast knew enough science to avoid the
>idiocies in the story as broadcast.

 Yes, unfortunately the AH's that call themselves "Broadcast
Journalists" are only silghtly more educated that the Couch Potato
Viewers that make TV a $7.45 x 10E+7 business!  The other broadcast
gambit that tries to invoke Science (aside from the
"10th-Planet-Story"..and BTW this happens every few years when something
new is discovered in the Sky!) is when comparing the physical strength
of various species, the 'Journalist' seems fond of making a big deal out
of that time-worn nonsense about an Ant being as big as a Man and being
able to "lift a house"..I pointed out to some Journalism-Bozo that if an
Ant were as big as a Man he'd have trouble breathing let alone walking
or carrying *anything*.  The fellow looked confused, I explained the
nature of the laws of Strength vs Scale to him, s l o w l y..he snapped
that I was trying to embarrass him or some such rot...!  Don't expect
too much from these people, it's their nature to be bubble-headed.

Erik K. Sorgatz) KB6LUY

------------------------------

Date: 13 Nov 87 21:10:19 GMT
From: trwrb!aero!venera.isi.edu!rod@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Rodney Doyle Van Meter III)
Subject: Re: Dyson Sphere Discovered?

In article <1032@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM> kempf@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM (Jim Kempf) writes:
>Does anyone know any details about the brown dwarf Ben Zuckerman
>discovered around Giclas 29-38? Zuckerman was quoted in the article I
>read saying that he believed it might be a Dyson sphere-like
>construction for converting part of the star's energy with excess heat
>as the byproduct. Apparently, Zuckerman has been a CETI skeptic, so the
>evidence must have been convincing.
>		Jim Kempf	kempf@hplabs.hp.com

Doesn't sound at all right to me. A Dyson Sphere has to be AROUND the
star, not letting out much radiation at all. Maybe something like
Ringworld, eh?  I saw an article that said it was found because there
was more infrared coming from there than the star alone could account
for. Hasn't yet been confirmed by wobble in the star's orbit or
anything, but it's speculated to be a gas giant, something like Jupiter,
but no estimations of mass yet.  The article was also a little skeptical
because researchers have thought they have found planets before, but
none of them have panned out. I'm with the wait and see crowd on this
one.

		--Rod

------------------------------

Date:     Sat, 14 Nov 87 13:11 EST
From: <11SSTEIN%GALLUA.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu>
Subject:  Space programs in Archives?


Hello, my space buffs. I wonder if there is any LISTSERV or any place that
has archives of astronomy programs... any help from you will be 100%
appreicated. I'd like some programs for VAX/VMS.... thanks...

- Scott Steinbrink
  11SSTEIN@GALLUA

------------------------------

Date: 13 Nov 87 15:04:39 GMT
From: clyde!watmath!utgpu!utcsri!uthub!ecf!apollo@rutgers.edu  (Vince Pugliese)
Subject: re:3d digitized shuttle data

  A while back I requested a 3d database for the space shuttle.  I
received a number of mail requests for this database so I figured that
as soon as someone sent me such a database that I would post it to the
net.  Yesterday, Novemeber 12,Ray Kreisel at SUNY Stony Brook sent me
along a database.  I will post it and his explanatory notes.  As well I
will be include a very simple C program, hacked together by fellow group
member Darin Graham and myself.  The program will work as is on an
Apollo, for other machines you will have to make appropriate changes.
These should be easy to spot as all our graphics calls are preceded by
gmr_.  Also mention is made in the fopen call to a file named
shuttle_data_1 which is the database sans the second line which provides
the upper and lower bounds on the points.  This is really convenient for
setting up window parameters.  We both know that the program is far from
optimum but as I say it was just a hack that we did in a short time.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 11 Nov 87 15:59:19 EST
From: sbcs.RUTGERS.EDU!rayk@rutgers.uucp (Raymond T Kreisel)
To: eecae!upba!mcdchg!clyde!watmath!utgpu!utcsri!uthub!ecf!apollo@super.upenn.edu
Subject: Re: digitized (3D) shuttle data
Newsgroups: comp.graphics,sci.space,sci.space.shuttle

Here is a simple space shuttle from the SUN workstations demos the
vectors are listd first and then the polygons are listed next.  The
first two numbers are the count, for how many vectors and how many
polygons. The polygons just tell which vertices are connected.

                                        ray


---------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Ray Kreisel   CS Dept., SUNY at Stony Brook, Stony Brook NY 11794
{ucbvax,ihnp4,harvard,rutgers,ut-sally,rochester}!rayk%suny-sb@relay.cs.net
 "If I get home before daylight, I just might get some sleep tonight...."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Some 800 lines of number and a C program deleted here.  If anyone wants
this data send a note to space-request@angband.s1.gov and I'll forward
the original. -Ed]

Well that's all. Thanks Ray, and I hope this is of use to someone.  By
the way I spoke to someone at our computer graphics lab and they
mentioned that they would be getting a 3d digitizer in the next few
months so maybe I will grab a 72nd scale model of the shuttle and do the
digitization myself.  Please let me know if there are others who would
be interested.
                                                 Vince Pugliese
                                                 apollo@ecf.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 14 Nov 87 22:21:00 GMT
From: jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Re: Space Shuttle Escape

> Getting out of your seat during powered flight, alone would be an
> accomplishment. Getting to the hatch and being able to open it and
> ejecting is highly unlikely. Come on folks, could you do that under
> several g's acceleration ????

Yes, I could.  At an amusement park, I convinced the bored attendant of
the English Rotor (big centrifuge) to crank it up with just me inside.
Based on trigonometry, stop-watch measurements of the angular rate and
an eye-ball estimate of the diameter, I was pulling 2 1/2 g -- and it
felt like it.  I managed to sit up and crawl to the exit.  I was darned
dizzy by the time I got there, but I wanted to see if this was possible.
I think, in an emergency, they could manage to activate an escape system
if they're under less than 4 g's.  What is the actual acceleration of
the Shuttle?

> Mike Kent

-- Ken Jenks
jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu

------------------------------

Date: 14 Nov 87 06:33:04 GMT
From: nosc!trout!ganzer@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu  (Mark T. Ganzer)
Subject: Re: Video disks

There is a recent Space_Archives that covers the Halley encounters and
the Voyager Uranus fly-by. I saw it (and a number of other
Space_Archives) in the rental bin at Dave's Laser Video in Sherman Oaks
for anyone in the Los Angeles area.  Looking at the liner notes, it
appeared that it was a mixture of video footage and a thousand or so
still frames. Unfortunately, I was just visiting up there, so couldn't
rent it. I have seen them for sale in a number of Tower Video stores in
Southern CA, and they seem to be reasonably priced (app. $35?), though
you may be able to get a slightly better price at a specialty store
(Tower is strictly list price).

I would like to hear what people think about this series, as I just
recently acquired Laser-Vision and I don't recall any of the specifics
of the previous discussions!
-- 
MarK T. Ganzer                    Naval Ocean Systems Center, San Diego
Internet: ganzer@nosc.mil         UUCP: {ucbvax,hplabs}!sdcsvax!nosc!ganzer

------------------------------

Date: 14 Nov 87 07:29:39 GMT
From: uwspan!root@unix.macc.wisc.edu  (John Plocher)
Subject: Re: Commercial plea for space station - effective!

+---- lampman@heurikon.UUCP (Ray Lampman) writes in <153@heurikon.UUCP> ----
| > From: macleod@drivax.UUCP
| > I wish that they would run it every night during Nightline...
| 
| How do we get this video aired on Nightline ...
| 
| suppose they all have a phone number at NBC they can call. Let's suppose they
+----

ABC's version of Nightline :-) aired this commercial about 3 months ago
on a segment titled "Lost in Space".  As you can tell from the
following, I taped the show and used it to prepare this note: You can
get a copy of the transcript from the people who do those sort of things
for $2.00 by calling:
		800/USA-TEXT -or- 202/USA-TEXT
and asking for the "Lost In Space" Nightline segment transcript.

The cast:

( "stuff" is paraphrased from what was said. ``stuff'' is an actual quote)
	Ted Koppel
		"NASA seems to be using 'The Russians are ahead' to get more $"
	Reginald Turnill - Janes Spaceflight Directory
		"USSR is 10 years ahead of US in space"
	General Daniel Graham (Ret) - Director of High Frontier
		"We are being left behind; we are losing our strategic lead"
	John Pike - Federation of Amer. Sci.
		"They launch 5x more than we do, but ours last 5x longer"
	Marcia Smith - Aerospace specialist
		"Energia had one test which it failed"
	Background segment by James Walker.
		"US space effort is 'fits and starts', USSR's is constant.  We
		*can* do it, the question is 'do we have the political will'?"
		[ He did a *good* job in presenting the stuff -John ]

Some stats:		Successful launches	Typical	   manhours in space
			    1986 - 1987		 yearly    total since Yuri...
			-------------------	--------   --------------
		USA		11		  17	       42,453
		USSR	       150		  97	      104,374


	Guests:  Dr. James Fletcher - Director of NASA
		 Eugene Cernan - Former Astronaut, now ABC Space advisor
		 Sen. John Glenn - Ohio, First American to orbit Earth
	
#define OPINION
    Gawd, Fletcher is a jerk!  He came off as someone who is trying to
    ignore any problems that NASA and the US are having.  And if there
    *are* any problems, they aren't anything to worry about!
#undef OPINION

    Some quotes: (This conversation is interspersed among segments from
    Walker's background presentation)

Koppel:   "What about USSR's lead in space activity?"
Fletcher: ``[it is] only in the humans in space program that they are 10
	    years ahead"
Koppel:   "How significant is this 10 year lead?"
Fletcher:  ``Very significant *if* you want to go to Mars, but neither of us
	     will get there before the year 2000 [mumble] or 2010, so we have
	     a chance to close that gap if we choose to.''
[Walker's presentation touches on materials handling - an area where the
 Soviet program has been doing lots of work]
Koppel:   "What about this?"
Fletcher: ``I don't expect them to have any more success in industrializing
	    space than they do on Earth.''
	  "The soviet space effort is being exaggerated; they are just
	   getting more publicity now, and *that* is why it looks like
	   they are doing more.  The US has done everything in full view
	   of the media, now the Soviets are doing a bit of the same."

Koppel:	  "Dry Rot, bad moral... in NASA?"
Fletcher: ``... false perception.  The moral is low simply because we are
	    not flying''
Koppel:   "what about questions about motivation problems?"
Fletcher: ``nonsense''

Koppel:   "You have heard these comments (background piece), seen the Newsweek
	   article, Time... "
Fletcher: "there are some areas where we are behind, but all will be OK"
Cernan:   "Disagree.  NASA is loosing good people, engineers.. because of 
	   frustration at not having leadership"
	   (about Dr. Graham, the national Science Advisor:)
	   ``The sci advisor in the White House neither gets along with
	     Dr. Fletcher nor do I believe knows a lot about space.''

There is more, but you get the drift.  If anyone in the Madison, WI area
would like to borrow the tape, give me a call at the University.

  -John

-- 
Email to unix-at-request@uwspan with questions about the newsgroup unix-at,
otherwise mail to unix-at@uwspan with a Subject containing one of:
	    386 286 Bug Source Merge or "Send Buglist"
(Bangpath: rutgers!uwvax!uwspan!unix-at & rutgers!uwvax!uwspan!unix-at-request)

------------------------------

Date: 16 Nov 87 19:23:06 GMT
From: cfa!willner@husc6.harvard.edu  (Steve Willner)
Subject: Laser Disks and Slides

Not long ago, there were requests for sources of video discs and
slides related to space and astronomy.  By coincidence, a catalog
just arrived in today's mail listing a wide assortment of materials:
everything from the NASM videodisc archive to NASA stills and movies
to observatory slide sets to Grolier's Encyclopedia on disc.  Prices
are $90-$400 per disc and around $1.50/slide for the sets.  Various
brochures are supposedly available to give more details.  Disclaimer:
I have never done business with this company and know nothing about
it except what's in the catalog.

MMI Space Science Corp., 2959 Wyman Parkway, Box 19907, Baltimore, MD
21211 USA.   Phone 301-366-1222.

The Astronomical Society of the Pacific offers slide sets, if those
are what you want, for around $1.00/slide.  Also astronomy-related
posters, T-shirts, bumper stickers, etc.  ASP is a non-profit
educational organization, has been around for 99 years, and is very
unlikely to rip you off.  Ask for the "Astronomy Selectory", and
enclose a (tax-deductible) dollar or two if you can afford it.

ASP, 1290 24th Ave., San Francisco, CA 94122

Hope these sources are helpful.
-- 
Steve Willner            Phone 617-495-7123          Bitnet: willner@cfa2
60 Garden St.            FTS:      830-7123           UUCP:   willner@cfa
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA                     ARPA: willner@cfa.harvard.edu

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #50
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 19 Nov 87 06:17:32 EST
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	id AA19004; Thu, 19 Nov 87 03:16:27 PST
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 87 03:16:27 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8711191116.AA19004@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #51

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 51

Today's Topics:
		    Mir elements, 14 November 1987
		   pro-space presidential candidate
			 Re: Brazil in space
	  Re: Commercial plea for space station - effective!
			 Re: Historical error
			 Re: Hypergolic fuels
	   Defense Still Isn't War, or THERE GLORY FOR YOU.
     Stealth Fighter Unveiled at 4th Annual Edwards AFB Air Show
			Re: Defense is not War
	  Re: Commercial plea for space station - effective!
      Re: Soviet manned missions; records made and future plans
		  Re: Mir Elements, 7 November 1987
	   Soviet Mir mission: New Progress cargo to go up
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 16 Nov 87 20:44:00 GMT
From: kenny@b.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Mir elements, 14 November 1987


Satellite: MIR        
Catalog id 16609
Element set 902
Epoch day: 87308.92682777
Inclination:  51.6248 degrees
RA of node: 149.4408 degrees
Eccentricity:  0.0042643
Argument of perigee: 351.7425 degrees
Mean anomaly:   8.2289 degrees
Mean motion: 15.84604728 revs/day
Mean motion acceleration: 0.00049191 * 2 revs/day/day
Epoch revolution:  9828
	Source: NASA Goddard via T.S.Kelso

... and STILL no reboost!  I unfortunately don't have old prediction
bulletins on file very far back, but the current orbit (346 x 289 km)
is the lowest I can remember for Mir.

------------------------------

Date: 13 Nov 87 22:29:14 GMT
From: clyde!burl!codas!mtune!lzaz!lznv!psc@rutgers.edu  (Paul S. R. Chisholm)
Subject: pro-space presidential candidate

Business Week, November 2, 1987, p. 142A:

THIS CANDIDATE MAKES AN ISSUE OF DATA BASES AND PRIVACY

". . . there's one little-known candidate who's running on a different
platform: the Information Age.  James R. Messenger, a 38-year-old public
relations executive for American Telephone & Telegraph Co., thinks that
the U.S. is ignoring the issues posed by the computerization of society,
and he's running for President to do something about it.

"Messenger warns that unless computer data bases are regulated, they
will increasingly threaten personal privacy.  [emphasis mine:] ANOTHER
CAMPAIGN THEME IS A PROPOSAL TO COLONIZE SPACE.  An Emmy-winning
documentary filmmaker, Messenger says winning or losing the race isn't
important.  It will be enough, he says, 'if I can force the candidates
to talk about real issues.'"

-Paul S. R. Chisholm, {ihnp4,cbosgd,allegra,rutgers}!mtune!lznv!psc
AT&T Mail !psrchisholm, Internet psc@lznv.att.com
I'm not speaking for my employer, I'm just speaking my mind.

------------------------------

Date: 13 Nov 87 21:12:49 GMT
From: necntc!dandelion!ulowell!cg-atla!hunt@eddie.mit.edu  (Walter Hunt X7031)
Subject: Re: Brazil in space

In article <2142@brspyr1.BRS.Com> miket@brspyr1.BRS.Com (Mike Trout) writes:
>Some time ago, I asked for information about science fiction works that
>postulate Brazil as the big power in space.
>
> [Mr. Trout's summary]

also, "There Is No Darkness" (Haldeman and Haldeman) features Latin
American governments, including Brazil.  The interstellar government
is called the "Confederacio'n".
			   ^ accent here.  (ASCII sucks.)

Walter

------------------------------

Date: 14 Nov 87 13:37:44 GMT
From: nrl-cmf!umix!umich!itivax!crlt!russ@ames.arpa  (Russ Cage)
Subject: Re: Commercial plea for space station - effective!

In article <1383@pompeii.swatsun.UUCP>, leif@swatsun (Leif Kirschenbaum) writes:
>In article <2181@sabbath.rutgers.edu> masticol@sabbath.rutgers.edu (Stephen P. Masticola) writes:
>>The SS has the _disadvantage_ of occupying only one spot in space.
>>Since it, too, is in LEO, it will be impractical to use the SS as a
>>communications relay.

>Hmmm... true, but why not put the SS in a higher orbit?

Because the Shuttle cannot reach altitudes higher than about 200 miles
(and that only with very light payloads), that's why.  If you can't get
to the station with Shuttle, it isn't much use.

>>Satellite space is hard to find only in Clarke orbit. The space
>>station is to operate in low-earth orbit. It would be valueless to any
>>small country that needs space in Clarke orbit.

>Couldn't one put the SS in Clarke orbit? (or is this impossible, I'm
>not familiar with orbits)

No.  Clarke orbit is 22,300 miles in altitude, and in the middle of the
second Van Allen radiation belt.  Not only is it totally unreachable by
Shuttle, but it is not habitable by humans without much shielding.  This
shielding would have to be launched at $5000+/pound.  To parody Carl
Sagan, it would be paying "billions and billions" for lead.  :-P

The space station, as proposed, would give us almost nothing compared to
a habitable Shuttle external tank.  Not the volume, not the cheapness,
not the ease and simplicity of launch.  The SS is a program designed to
keep the space contractors going, not the space program.

[What follows is editorial]

I like the idea of the McD-D TV ad.  It is finally bringing space back
into the conciousness of the public.  However, I think that the intended
result (getting funding for NASA's idea of a space station, gold-plated
and designed from scratch when we have dumb hardware on the shelf
already that would do the job) is a mistake.  We'd be doing the same
thing we've done since the X-15 program scrubbed just short of the
scramjet tests: throwing away a bunch of good R&D or even working
hardware to re-invent the wheel.

What we really ought to do is spend a billion bucks and get the durn F-1
production line going again.  Once we could build Saturns, we could put
pretty much anything we wanted into orbit, in one piece or a few pieces,
much cheaper than Shuttle could do the job.  And if one of them blew up,
we'd be out one mission, not a fair fraction of our launch capability
for the next several years.

  The above are the official opinions and figures of Robust Software, Inc.
(313) 662-4147         Forewarned is half an octopus.
Russ Cage, Robust Software Inc.              ihnp4!itivax![m-net!rsi,crlt!russ]

------------------------------

Date: 14 Nov 1987 21:43-EST 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: Historical error

History DOES NOT show that all arms buildups lead to war. History shows
that SOME arms buildups have led to war while others have not.
Interesting papers on the causes of conflict have been written on the
historical backgrounds of the various cases.

------------------------------

Date: 14 Nov 87 11:59:45 GMT
From: nosc!humu!uhmanoa!aloha1!islenet!scott@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu  (Scott Allen)
Subject: Re: Hypergolic fuels

In article <8921@utzoo.UUCP>, henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) writes:
> > When the Yankee sank last year and its remaining missiles were
> > crushed, would they have exploded, or would the fuel have been
> > dispersed in the sea water?

> Definitely not exploded, not if they were hypergolics.  At least, not
> violently.  Assuming that hull collapse or whatever was violent enough
> to rupture the missiles' tanks, I would bet on a minor explosion plus
> a major fire (yes, an underwater fire, it's not impossible) plus a lot
> of reaction with the surrounding water.

Thanks for your comments. Another factor leading to the possibility of
fire would be the rise in temperature as pressure increases due to the
captured air bubble inside the hull being compressed at the time of hull
rupture. That would probably happen at some depth greater than about
5,000 feet.

A friend of mine who has examined sunken subs says debris is often
charred from such events. In the case of the Yankee, the question arises
what might have happened to the nuclear weapons aboard (2 per missile)
after it sank.

There has never been any report that they have been recovered though the
Russians have maintained a vessel near the site most of the time since
the sinking.

Scott Allen             {ihnp4|dual|vortex}!islenet!scott
Honolulu, Hawaii	808-941-8500 808-947-3657 808-948-6750

------------------------------

Date: 15 Nov 87 13:44:00 PST
From: "ZEUS::BOLD" <bold%zeus.decnet@afsc-sd.arpa>
Subject: Defense Still Isn't War, or THERE GLORY FOR YOU.
To: "space" <space@angband.s1.gov>
Reply-To: "ZEUS::BOLD" <bold%zeus.decnet@afsc-sd.arpa>

Teemu Leisti, in SPACE DIGEST V8 #48, objects to my use of the
dictionary to bring some clarity to the defense budget controversy.  In
doing so, Leisti has demonstrated that clarity through definition of
terms is not what the anti-defense forces want.

Defense is not "a nicer word for war;" for someone afraid of being
called a Communist just because of taking a different viewpoint, Leisti
has no qualms about using such a McCarthyistic tactic in order to call
someone who "takes a view [Leisti] cannot tolerate" a warmonger.
(Neither do a lot of other "peace" activists, as other replies to my
contributions on this subject have proved.)  Of course, this is okay if
you don't believe in dictionaries.

Aggression is not the only use weapons may have, as Leisti naively
states.  Deterring a potential enemy from attacking is a legitimate use,
and the one I prefer.  But if necessary, I am willing to *retaliate*, as
refraining from defending one's self makes the victim the attacker's
accessory.  If we can use space to defend our country and deter our
enemies from attacking us, then let's do so.  Let the other nations
Leisti mentions create wealth for their peoples through privatized space
programs of their own, and let the US set the pace by privatizing NASA.
Space is big enough for both; so be it with our minds as well.  Let's
also keep the controversy productive by using words correctly.

Kevin "Reddy KiloByte" Bold
(BOLD@AFSC-SD.ARPA)

------------------------------

Date: 15 Nov 87 13:59:00 PST
From: "ZEUS::BOLD" <bold%zeus.decnet@afsc-sd.arpa>
Subject: Stealth Fighter Unveiled at 4th Annual Edwards AFB Air Show
To: "space" <space@angband.s1.gov>
Reply-To: "ZEUS::BOLD" <bold%zeus.decnet@afsc-sd.arpa>

One of the more interesting displays at the Edwards Air Force Base Air
Show was the roped-off area containing no plane (?) but did contain a
reusable marker bearing the caption "Stealth Fighter."  It had a one-man
crew (a pair of empty flight boots with a card in front of them which
read "STEALTH PILOT"), and is said to capable of speeds over 100 knots
and altitudes of over 1,000 feet.

It is my pleasure to include this snapshot:

********************************************************************
*                                                                  *
*								   *
*								   *
*								   *
*								   *
*								   *
*								   *
*								   *
********************************************************************

Kevin Bold
(BOLD@AFSC-SD.ARPA)

------------------------------

Date: 16 Nov 87 18:55:57 GMT
From: mike@arizona.edu  (Mike Coffin)
Subject: Re: Defense is not War

In article <8711121501.AA04832@angband.s1.gov> LEISTI@FINUH.BITNET writes:
>Mr. Bold attempts to severe the connection between making weapons and
>using them by quoting dictionary definitions of defense and war.  He
>claims he is against war but for defense.  Here we have a contradiction
>in terms, since despite dictionary definitions, defense is just a nicer
>word for war.

Switzerland spends a lot on defense (a higher proportion of GNP than
most countries, including the USA) and rarely gets into wars.

>What are weapons made for, if not using?

In a word, deterence.

>History shows us that whenever there has been an arms buildup, those
>arms have not been left unused.

How can we possibly tell from history how many wars have been prevented
by strong defense?  The fact that we keep having wars doesn't mean that
there wouldn't be *more* wars if counties paid less attention to
defense.

Mike Coffin				mike@arizona.edu
Univ. of Ariz. Dept. of Comp. Sci.	{allegra,cmcl2,ihnp4}!arizona!mike
Tucson, AZ  85721			(602)621-4252

------------------------------

Date: 16 Nov 87 02:39:59 GMT
From: umn-d-ub!umn-cs!ems!questar!datapg!sewilco@speedy.wisc.edu  (Scot E. Wilcoxon)
Subject: Re: Commercial plea for space station - effective!

In article <1044@crlt.UUCP> russ@crlt.UUCP (Russ Cage) writes:
>No.  Clarke orbit is 22,300 miles in altitude, and in the middle of the
>second Van Allen radiation belt.  Not only is it totally unreachable by
>Shuttle, but it is not habitable by humans without much shielding.
>This shielding would have to be launched at $5000+/pound.  To parody

Can [superconductor] magnets shield against the radiation?  The belt is
created by E-M, so the question probably is how strong the magnets must
be.  And whether the deflected particles should be aimed away from
Earth.  (Oh, good, an ion thruster with which to keep in orbit, and with
which to push the dinky TV satellites out of orbit :-).


Scot E. Wilcoxon	sewilco@DataPg.MN.ORG	{ems,meccts}!datapg!sewilco
Data Progress		Minneapolis, MN, USA	+1 612-825-2607
   "My name is David Small, what makes you think you're David Letterman?"

------------------------------

Date: 13 Nov 87 18:40:20 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Soviet manned missions; records made and future plans

> ... Maybe with this we can finally find out some of the things we have
> always suspected about the Soviet program past operations (eg.1 did
> they really have someone ready to beat Apollo 8 to lunar orbit in
> 1968).

My understanding is that (a) nobody seriously doubts that the Zond
circumlunar missions in 1968 were unmanned Soyuz flights, and (b) the
Soviets openly stated that a manned circumlunar mission was planned for
late 1968.  It sure sounds like they meant to do it.  There is more room
for debate on why they didn't.  The best observation I've heard is
(briefly) that the Zond missions must have been launched on Proton,
since nothing else that they had operational could have done it, and
Proton is not man-rated; presumably they meant to man-rate it but ran
into problems.  Harry Stine's opinion, which he says has recently been
confirmed by the Soviets, is that Soyuz 1 went up on a Proton.  (For
those who don't remember, Soyuz 1 crashed, killing its pilot; the
official explanation was that the parachute straps tangled.)  Stine says
that Proton gives its payloads a very rough ride and that Soyuz 1 was in
trouble from the start because of that.

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 15 Nov 87 20:38:00 GMT
From: jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Re: Mir Elements, 7 November 1987


> Satellite: MIR        
...

> 
> Still no reboost; the thing is continuing its fall out of the sky.

Skylab again?  Look out, kangaroos!

-- Ken Jenks

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 17 Nov 87 09:41:38 EST
From: Glenn Chapman <glenn@ll-vlsi.arpa>
Subject: Soviet Mir mission: New Progress cargo to go up

   The cosmonauts on board the USSR's Mir space station complex have
completed the unloading of the Progress 32 cargo carrier and are
preparing to receive Progress 33 (it will probably have been launched by
the time you read this).  This will be the 13th vehicle to reach Mir,
and the 8th Progress.  The total cargo carried to Mir (22.5 Tonnes) by
the Progress tankers now exceeds the mass of the Mir core section.
While half of that is fuel, air, food and water that still means about
10 Tonnes of hardware has been added to the station from these cargo
carriers alone (though not all of it may still be there).
     Mean while the reports are that Yuri Romanenko is getting tired,
and is now down to a 5 hour work day for the research.  Considering he
has been up there for 284 days now that is not surprising.  It has been
confirmed that the crew replacing him and Alexander Alexadrov will be a
3 man group containing a doctor.
     If you want to consider where we are relative to the Soviet's, and
where we shall be until the space station gets up look at the following.
Even if all shuttle flights take place on the current schedule we cannot
exceed the USSR's space experience for any given year during the next
decade if all they did was keep a minimum crew of two people on Mir.
Yet their plans call for Mir to have between 6 and 9 man occupation for
a least some periods by 1991.  If you believe that such experience is
not going to useful then you cannot consider man to have any worth while
function in space.  The Soviet's have committed themselves to have at
least one working, occupied space station from now on (ie for at least
several decades).  In this country people are still arguing whether it
is a good idea.  Let us keep the commitment to the station, and thus
become a true space faring nation.

                                                 Glenn Chapman
                                                 MIT Lincoln Lab

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #51
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 20 Nov 87 06:22:34 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA01957; Fri, 20 Nov 87 03:21:30 PST
	id AA01957; Fri, 20 Nov 87 03:21:30 PST
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 87 03:21:30 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8711201121.AA01957@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #52

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 52

Today's Topics:
	   Planet-like Object found beyond Our Solar System
		     Re: Dyson Sphere Discovered?
		       Re: Space Shuttle Escape
			  Challenger Escape
			   Re: Sunken subs
			 Re: Brazil in space
		   Re: space news from Oct 5 AW&ST
		     re:3d digitized shuttle data
	  Help, Scanners, Lasers, Graphics, 3D reproduction
			 Re: Historical error
			 NASA PROGRAM UPDATE
		     Calendar from Morton Thiokol
		      BDB and all the whining...
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date:     Mon, 16 Nov 87 12:51 EST
From: <11SSTEIN%GALLUA.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu>
Subject:  Planet-like Object found beyond Our Solar System

All, here's a little something I "stole" from the Washington Post -
(11/16/87)

PLANET-LIKE OBJECT OBSERVED BEYOND THE SOLAR SYSTEM

The first good evidence of a planet-like object beyond the solar system
has emerged from detailed observations near a star about 50 light years
from Earth. An object seen in the region may be the first known brown
dwarf, a hypothetical body intermediate in size between a planet and a
star.  If confirmed, the discover would lend support to the idea of life
in other solar systems. As long as our solar system contained the only
known planets, it was hard to estimate how common such objects might be.
A second example so close by - 50 light years is nearby on the galactic
scale - suggests planetary systems are fairly common.

The discovery may also help solve the so-called missing mass problem.
The observed mass of the universe accounts for only about 10% of the
gravitational force that appears to be operating in space. If it turns
out there are many brown dwarfs, they could account for a share of the
missing mass.  The discovery was reported in last week's Nature by
Benjamin Zuckerman of UCLA and Eric Becklin of the University of Hawaii.

Other planet-like objects have been reported in the past but all have
faded from believability because repeated attempts to see them failed.
Better established are signs of disks of material around stars that
appeared to be early stages of forming planetary systems.

The difference between a star and a planet is chiefly one of mass. When
interstellar gas and dust accrete into a ball, pressure builds up at the
center. If enough mass builds up, the pressure and the heat can become
great enough to start a thermonuclear chain reaction, the same process
that makes a hydrogen bomb blow up. This is what makes stars shine.

If the mass is too small to do this, the result can be anything from a
cold lump of rock to a planet such as Jupiter that, unlike Earth, gives
off more heat from its internal pressure than it recieves from the sun.
If Jupiter, the largest planet in our system, were about 75 times more
massive, its internal pressures would be enough to ignite nuclear
reactions and turn it into a star.

A brown dwarf would be a body many times larger than Jupiter, but not
big enough to turn into a star. It would send out heat resembling the
infrared radiation that Zuckerman and Becklin detected as coming from a
point in the sky near the white dwarf star Giclas 29-38. The mystery
object appears to have a surface temperature of around 1,700 F, much too
cool to be a star but about 10 times hotter than Jupiter.

------------------------------

Date: 16 Nov 87 18:02:16 GMT
From: cfa!mink@husc6.harvard.edu  (Doug Mink)
Subject: Re: Dyson Sphere Discovered?

in article <1032@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM>, kempf@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM (Jim Kempf) says:
> Xref: cfa sci.space:3427 sci.astro:1473

> Does anyone know any details about the brown dwarf Ben Zuckerman
> discovered around Giclas 29-38? Zuckerman was quoted in the article I
> read saying that he believed it might be a Dyson sphere-like
> construction for converting part of the star's energy with excess heat
> as the byproduct. Apparently, Zuckerman has been a CETI skeptic, so
> the evidence must have been convincing.
 
I heard Zuckerman's presentation of his results in Pasadena last week at
the annual meeting of the Division for Planetary Science of the American
Astronomical Society.  There was some interesting last-minute
politicking over whether he could release his results before they came
out in Nature later in the week, and the paper was inserted at the last
minute.

He said that the most likely cause of the infrared excess is a
Jupiter-sized (more or less) object which is emitting energy from
gravitational collapse rather than hydrogen burning.  A dust cloud was
ruled out due to the fact that a cloud close enough to the star to keep
it a point source would not be stable.  The Dyson sphere--actually he
refered to several large collectors in orbit around the star--was
another hypothesis, offered because he couldn't rule it out.  Zuckerman
has been not only a SETI sceptic, but a planet search skeptic.  The rest
of the planetary science community accepts his spectrum, but, having
been burned several times in the past, reserves judgement on what is
causing the infrared excess.  Needless to say, this star will be a
subject of intense study.

Doug Mink
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Cambridge, Massachusetts
mink@cfa.harvard.edu
{seismo|ihnp4}!harvard!cfa!mink

------------------------------

Date: 16 Nov 87 18:44:56 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Space Shuttle Escape

> ... I was pulling 2 1/2 g -- and it felt like it.  I managed to sit up
> and crawl to the exit...

The Shuttle astronauts have sometimes walked around in the cabin taking
photos during re-entry, which is 2-3 Gs as I recall.  I think the normal
maximum acceleration during launch is about 3 Gs.

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 16 Nov 87 18:32:26 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Challenger Escape

> >Is it too much to ask that people read the Rogers report before
> >airing their views on the issues to the entire net?
> 
> Henry, Henry. . . Let us NEVER discourage the novice, and besides,
> some of us have little or no access to assorted industry reports.

While I confess to having been a bit grumpy at the time I wrote that, I
continue to feel that the request is a reasonable one.  The Rogers
report is **NOT** some obscure industry report; it is the primary
document on the Challenger disaster, and anyone sounding off on things
like shuttle safety systems really ought to have read it first.  A copy
should be no farther away than your local library.  (If not, complain!)

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 19 Nov 1987 15:21-EST 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: Sunken subs

I have heard that the pressure wall caused by hull rupture causes the
air inside to ignite. That is the cause of the charring that is seen.
People on board are not crushed: they are incinerated.

------------------------------

Date: 18 Nov 87 00:10:20 GMT
From: rupp@cod.nosc.mil  (William L. Rupp)
Subject: Re: Brazil in space

L(yon) Sprague DeCamp, one of the leading SF writers of the 1930s, 40s,
and 50s, wrote a novel called THE TOWER OF ZANID, in which the
Brazilians were the space-faring nation.  This novel was published in
1958.

By the way, a close friend of mine here in San Diego is a science
fiction writer whose name most of the readers of this group would
probably recognize (How's *that* for anonymous name dropping!  I
withhold his name out of respect for his privacy.).  He is also a
mathematician and keeps himself well-informed on such matters.  In other
words, I respect his opinion highly.

When this question first came up recently I asked him what he thought
about the chances of Brazil's becoming a space power.  His opinion is
that such an idea is by no means out of the question.

Brazil is a large nation with many resources and a big enough population
to support scientific projects of great size.  Right now they have an
enormous international debt problem, but who knows what might happen a
century from now.  They are trying to create a homegrown microcomputer
industry (with controversial political ramifications, as the news of the
last few days atest to).  And I think they also have a nuclear project
going.

We (or our grandchildren) shall see.

Bill

------------------------------

Date: 18 Nov 87 22:35:43 GMT
From: pioneer!eugene@ames.arpa  (Eugene Miya N.)
Subject: Re: space news from Oct 5 AW&ST

In article <8955@utzoo.UUCP> henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) writes:
>Cover is a Landsat photo of the Hangzhou river delta, from the new Chinese
		    ^^^^^
Again, these are images, these are not photos, the geometry is not the
same as a photograph (linear rather than point perspective).  Everyone
on the net such educate the public on the difference.

--eugene

------------------------------

Date: 17 Nov 87 02:01:27 GMT
From: ndsuvax!ndsuvm1.bitnet!ud140469@uunet.uu.net
Subject: re:3d digitized shuttle data

    Wow, this is great!  Only the second or third time I read
comp.graphics, and just when I'm about to ask after 3d image libraries
and what do I find waiting for me? A 3d shuttle!  Thanks to the poster
of the info--it will come in handy.

    And now a similar request, but on a larger scale.  I've recently
started working on a new graphics system here at my university doing
animated shows, etc (or at least learning to).  This system, while
really neat on the hardware is rather lacking on the software side,
especially in relation to 3d image libraries (the system, while having
full 3d wireframe rotational capabilities, was mostly intended for star
display, so it's 3d image library is pitiful).  My boss has asked me to
go out and try to find some libraries to beef up our own.  Here's where
I ask help from fellow netters: I would appreciate getting info on
sources of such image libraries (be it email, snailmail, phone #'s,
etc).  I would need the libraries themselves and then information on
their structure (so that we can massage the data on our end into a
format compatible with our system).  If it's easier, we can go through
snail mail instead of over the net.  Of course we'd pay for the cost of
any media, phone charges, etc.  Public domain libraries would be
appreciated, but not necessary (being a public university on public
funds, we don't have a lot of bucks).  We don't really care what system
your data is on--we'll worry about converting it ourselves.  Also, along
a related line, are there any fileservers that have collection of these
3d images?

     Any help would be very much appreciated!

                                        Scott Udell
                                        UD140469@NDSUVM1.BITNET
                                        University of North Dakota


P.S.  I'm a beginner at graphics work, so please forgive me if I've used
any incorrect terminology...

------------------------------

Date: 17 Nov 87 21:49:40 GMT
From: ptsfa!well!lcole@AMES.ARPA  (Len Coleman)
Subject: Help, Scanners, Lasers, Graphics, 3D reproduction

    I need some help in locating information on scanner/graphics.

    Although I have no background in graphics or medicine, I have been
asked to research the technology without being told how the technology
will be used.  One extreme example of a possible use suggested was to
make large models of snowflakes. I view the snowflake illustration as
frivolous and only used to indicate that the object to be reproduced
could be fragile, small or even microscopic and that the object may
exist only for short periods of time.

    If any of the new technologies (i.e. sonic, uv, cat, optical) are be
more likely to be suitable/unsuitable than others, or if any other idea
pops into mind, please let me know.

Thanks,
--Len 

USENET:    lll-crg!well!lcole   Compuserv: 71016,177 (irregular)
USPS:      1291 18th Avenue,    San Francisco, CA 94122
Work:      415-753-2136         Answer: 415-753-2135      Home: 415-564-3082
Computers: SageIV, MacIntosh Plus

------------------------------

Date: 17 Nov 87 10:22:35 GMT
From: nosc!humu!uhmanoa!aloha1!islenet!scott@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu  (Scott Allen)
Subject: Re: Historical error

In article <563942636.amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU>, Dale.Amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU writes:
> History DOES NOT show that all arms buildups lead to war. History
> shows that SOME arms buildups have led to war while others have not.
> Interesting papers on the causes of conflict have been written on the
> historical backgrounds of the various cases.
	Do not neglect the for probable truth that tensions which cause
arms buildups also lead to war -- or that arms buildups deter war.

	I recommend Hans Morgenthau's classic text on international
power politics.

Scott Allen             {ihnp4|dual|vortex}!islenet!scott
Honolulu, Hawaii	808-941-8500 808-947-3657 808-948-6750
Islenet

------------------------------

Date:         Wed, 18 Nov 87 15:07:34 EST
From: Al Lester <ALESTER%UGA.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu>
Subject:      NASA PROGRAM UPDATE
To: Ted Anderson <space@angband.s1.gov>

Release 4.1 of CLIPS Adds Windows and Supports Mouse!

The C Language Integrated Production System (CLIPS) is a shell for
developing expert systems.  It is designed to allow artificial
intelligence research, development and delivery.  Developed at NASA
Johnson Space Flight Center the program meets or out-performs most micro
and minicomputer based artificial intelligence tools.  Version 4.1
includes a completely re-written and expanded Reference Manual and
User's Guide; the addition of windows; support for a mouse; and various
internal improvements.  The size of the code has increased from 11,000
source statements to 34,000 source statements.  CLIPS has proven to be a
very popular, very portable program.  Users report it can easily be
imbedded in a larger code and is especially appropriate for applications
in machine control and database access.

For more information, contact COSMIC, The University of Georgia, 382 East
Broad Street, Athens, GA  30602   Phone: 404-542-3265

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 14 Nov 1987 18:26:55.12 CST
From: <ucs_mwk%SHSU.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu> (Mike Kent)
Sender: ota@galileo.s1.gov
Subject:  Calendar from Morton Thiokol
To: <space@angband.s1.gov>

To anyone interested in getting a GOOD six month calendar:

I have been getting 5 copies of an aerospace calendar from Morton
Thiokol's public relations department for over a year now.  It has a
large picture of a launch or some such aerospace thing and a three month
calendar next to it.  The back holds the same thing. Its free, as is the
postage.  Just write them and ask for the calendar in the letter.

Public Relations
Morton Thiokol Inc.
Wasatch Operations
P.O. Box 524
Brigham City, UT 84302

They will not send you very many calendars. (I asked for 15) I guess the
cost is starting to get to them.  If you cannot get enough calendars
just have a friend write as well.

Mike Kent
Graduate Computer Science Student
Sam Houston State University
Huntsville, (the other Huntsville) Texas
UCS_MWK@SHSUODIN

------------------------------

Date:     Tue, 17 Nov 87 16:09 AST
From: <FNRJH%ALASKA.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu>
Subject:  BDB and all the whining...

   I hate to interupt like this but I am getting feedup with all the
whining about NASA and the affiliated company's.

   Have many of the 12,000 space.nuts (other than I) thought about
getting together and by commitie building a demo Little Dumb Booster.
Cost is the real factor we would let drive our design.  If nothing else
I would like to receive information on designing a rocket and what is
needed to launch the booster.

   I have to be honest and say I do not have much time to spare nor the
technical background.

                                Robert Jesse Hale III
                                IMPACT
                                University of Alaska Fairbanks 99775

We are not going to do anything intersting if we don't start it ourself.
**********************************
*  Back to the moon and beyond.  *
**********************************        FNRJH@ALASKA    :Bitnet

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #52
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 21 Nov 87 06:30:48 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA00718; Sat, 21 Nov 87 03:15:56 PST
	id AA00718; Sat, 21 Nov 87 03:15:56 PST
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 87 03:15:56 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8711211115.AA00718@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #53

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 53

Today's Topics:
		   Re: Do we need a Space Station?
			More skyhook questions
	  Re: Commercial plea for space station - effective!
		     Do we need a Space Station?
			 Re: Historical error
			Re: Defense is not War
			 Re: Historical error
		      Re: Mini Big Dumb Booster
		   Re: Do we need a Space Station?
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 18 Nov 87 20:28:24 GMT
From: topaz.rutgers.edu!josh@rutgers.edu  (J Storrs Hall)
Subject: Re: Do we need a Space Station?

Your analysis seems to require making a choice between BDB and a
station.  Now it may be that as currently proposed, that is so, but 
I would suggest that you differentiate between (a) a "permanent
presence" and (b) the current NASA plan.  I imagine that the best
program for (a) would involve building BDB.  The trick is to develop
the booster rather than to found a welfare system for high-tech
developers.  The whole idea is to make it simple and cheap.  It
shouldn't take that long to do it.  (However, I'm not sure that NASA
is capable of doing something that is simple and cheap.)

--JoSH

------------------------------

Date: 17 Nov 87 10:25:00 PST
From: "DSS::SINDER" <sinder%dss.decnet@AFSC-SD.ARPA>
Sender: ota@galileo.s1.gov
Subject: More skyhook questions
Reply-To: "DSS::SINDER" <sinder%dss.decnet@afsc-sd.arpa>
Cc: "DSS::SINDER" <sinder%dss.decnet@afsc-sd.arpa>

	Has there been talk of how one hooks onto a tether? I sorta
thought it would be like flying into an butterfly net. I am still very
interested in the dynamics of a skyhook.  Would it be like doing a 360
degree circuit on a swing or a Ferris wheel? If swinglike, centrifugal
force would keep one in one's seat - eh?

- Alan

------------------------------

Date: 17 Nov 87 14:48:19 GMT
From: paul.rutgers.edu!masticol@rutgers.edu  (Stephen P. Masticola)
Subject: Re: Commercial plea for space station - effective!

In article <165@datapg.DataPg.MN.ORG> sewilco@datapg.DataPg.MN.ORG (Scot
E. Wilcoxon) writes:

> In article <1044@crlt.UUCP> russ@crlt.UUCP (Russ Cage) writes:
> >No.  Clarke orbit is 22,300 miles in altitude, and in the middle of
> >the second Van Allen radiation belt.
> 
> Can [superconductor] magnets shield against the radiation?  The belt
> is created by E-M, so the question probably is how strong the magnets
> must be.

The magnets couldn't shield against gamma or x-rays, since these are
uncharged and wouldn't be sufficiently deflected by magnetic fields.
Also, charged particles could enter at the poles of the magnetic field
without much resistance.

Beside this, even assuming the SS could be built economically in Clarke
orbit (presently untrue), and that the radiation problem could be
resolved (by means unknown), the SS still has the logistical
disadvantage (for communications applications) of occupying only one
point in orbit. Coverage would be limited to somewhat less than a full
hemisphere, and would be vastly more expensive than an unmanned comsat
can already provide.

Also, re someone's point on service life of unmanned satellites: Failure
by collision is a _very_ rare event. More often, when satellites fail in
orbit, they do so because they run out of fuel for stationkeeping, or
because batteries or electronics fail. It is conceivable that the SS
could be used to service satellites by retrieving them with orbital
transfer vehicles, but it seems to me that the satellites would have to
be built for this purpose, and you'd have problems if they were
tumbling. To do it the smart way, you'd have to consider the amortized
cost of building the retrieval system (the SS and OTV's) against the
costs of just replacing the failed satellites. If this is favorable
(also in light of other direct benefits of building the SS), then it's a
good bet. Assuming launch technology gets reliable and loses its gold
plating.

-..-. Steve -.--.

------------------------------

Date: 17 Nov 87 22:06:00 GMT
From: jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Do we need a Space Station?

I'm working on a Special Projects paper entitled "Is there a scientific
need for the Space Station?"  (or some such).  The following are
arguments and comments I've gathered in my research.  I'd appreciate it
if you'd add comments of your own, more subjects, and references.  I'll
be sure to cite you as a reference if something major is included.
(Hmmm -- my English handbook doesn't have the proper format for a
reference gained through electronic correspondence.  I guess I'll have
to wing it.)

Thanks for those of you who have contributed already.  You'll find
things summarized here and sometimes quoted exactly -- I couldn't say
it better than you could!  If you disagree, please mention it.


-- Ken Jenks

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -


Subject: new technology
	Pro: The Space Station will cause new technology to be
		invented.
	Con: More new technology would be invented by a similar
		investment in other projects (Big Dumb Booster,
		Superconducting Super-collider, other boosters,
		non-rocket launchers, ion engine, Mission to Earth,
		planetary exploration, etc.).
	Comments: Will this "new technology" be used only for military
		(SDI) purposes?  A space station would create a
		different kind of technology.  Given that new
		technology is a Good Thing.


Subject: easier access
	Pro: The Space Station would give us longer durations on orbit
		for experiments.
	Con: An extended-duration Shuttle could do the same thing for
		much less money and give us another Shuttle in the
		process.
	Comments: Not the "permanent manned presence" that Reagan asks.
		Crews and experiments could be rotated on orbit for
		longer exposure durations.  This requires two Shuttles
		on orbit at once.


Subject: on-site supervision, repair of satellites
	Pro: The Station would allow us to repair satellites on orbit
		instead of bringing them to the ground for repairs.
	Con: We can already (supposedly) do this with the Shuttle.
		Station's orbit can't be altered, so an OMV will have
		to retrieve the satellites and tow them to the Station.
	Comments: The Con argument can be negated by co-orbitting the
		sats with the Station. (q.v.)


Subject: consolidation of satellites
	Pro: We can have many satellites co-orbitting with the Station.
		This will allow us to put up lots of radiation &
		micrometeor shielding in one place (saves mass &
		money), have one power supply instead of many, readily
		servicable with frequent manned tending, and easy
		retrieval.
	Con: Station environment is not ideal for all satellites:
		thermal radiation, low, non-polar & unchangeable orbit,
		vibration, and environmental contamination (outgassing,
		waste products, EM interferance) can make co-orbitting
		undesirable.  Added complexity means more things to go
		wrong.
	Comments: Some satellites will require co-orbitting;
		others will be at a great disadvantage.  This calls
		for a mix of co-orbitting and free-flyers.


Subject: Space Station as a assembly/deployment site
	Pro: SS would provide a clean environment in which to build
		and deploy satellites in a place easily protected
		against micrometeors & radiation.
		Satellites can be unpacked&/manufactured and tested on
		orbit, thus making it unnecessary to include deployment
		mechanisms and nine-nines reliability for high-G launch
		(both expensive).  This lowers costs of satellites and
		increases reliability (tested satellites can wait for
		replacement parts and be repaired on orbit).
		Low-acceleration bus can push sat to new orbit.
		Eventually could have standardized parts (solar panels,
		attitude control systems, telemetry units) and put them
		together with custom parts flown up.
	Con: Contaminents from SS would make the environment "dirty"
		(see co-orbitting above).  Astronauts would have to
		wear EVA eqpt or use glove boxes to assemble sats.
		Current sats have little trouble with micrometeors; why
		worry?
		NASA's current baseline SS is not configured to handle
		this.  The design is unlikely to be modified after bids
		are finalized (supposedly 11/87).  Using humans to
		unpack satellites takes away from time they could be
		using for other experiments.
	Comments: Con arguments seem weak.


Subject: cost
	Pro: Station can lower costs of satellites (see below) and pay
		its way in new technology and spin-offs.  Certain items
		produced in space would be far superior to those
		produced on Earth, and might even be cheaper.  Vacuum
		and cold temperatures are there for the taking; one
		doesn't have to produce them.
	Con: Everything on Station will be brought up at ~$4000+ per
		pound.  Money invested first in Big Dumb Booster would
		lower all costs to orbit and make Station cheaper
		(we should do BDB first).
		----
		The space station, as proposed, would give us almost
		nothing compared to a habitable Shuttle external tank.
		Not the volume, not the cheapness, not the ease and
		simplicity of launch.  The SS is a program designed to
		keep the space contractors going, not the space program.
		---
		We've sent probes to almost every planet in the Solar
		System without a space station. I'm also willing to bet
		that the total cost for launching _all_ those planetary
		probes was less than the SS.
		---
		The same money would buy 4-5 new Shuttles.  The STS
		assembly line could be kept permanently open, and new
		Shuttles could be specialized for particular roles.
	Comments: Lots of emotion on this one.


Subject: propoganda
	Pro: The Station will re-establish USA as a pre-eminent
		space power, proving to the world that we still can
		(and are willing to) have a major space program.
	Con: The cost of $20-40 G is too high for the propoganda
		value.  The Russians have already done this; all
		we'd be doing is catching up.  We should do something
		more spectacular, like push to Mars.
	Comments: This is straying away from my original request
		for a *scientific* need for the Station.  There
		are many political ones.  (Pork barrel comes to
		mind.)


Subject: long-term goals
	Pro: The Station will help us achieve a long-term commitment
		to sustained efforts in space.  This will be a basis
		for all our future research efforts.  We need a long-
		term focus like the Station to concentrate our
		efforts.  This is much better than the "one crash
		program per decade" approach we have been taking
		since Sputnik.
	Con: The Station has no long-term focus.  We're trying to build
		the Station that will make everyone happy, and the
		result is a compromise which pleases almost nobody.
		We need long-term goals before long-term commitments.
	Comments: (None)


Subject: experiments
	Pro: Many experiments would benefit from being frequently
		man-tended.  Interactive, serendipitous expts are
		possible (next expt depends on outcome of previous
		one).  Some expts can only be done with humans
		doing/overseeing them on-orbit.
	Con: Most expts would be cheaper on robotic probes.
	Comments: (None)


Subject: men in space
	Pro: Experiments on how humans live and work in space can
		only be done on humans living and working in space.
		We can take advantage of what the Russians have
		learned.
	Con: This kind of research will not be applicable until we
		seriously plan long-termed manned missions (like to
		Mars).  There's no need to invest now; let's wait
		until we have a cheaper booster.
	Comments: (None)

------------------------------

Date: 20 Nov 87 03:44:05 GMT
From: uop!robert@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu  (/dev/null)
Subject: Re: Historical error

then there are great things like rockefeller selling oil to
the germans during the war...

why don't we start a conversation about this? i have heard the
germans sued an arms company and won the suit (post wwii) for the
grenades used in the war?

anyone care to confirm or deny the rumour?

------------------------------

Date: 20 Nov 87 03:49:57 GMT
From: uop!robert@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu  (/dev/null)
Subject: Re: Defense is not War

In article <2855@megaron.arizona.edu>, mike@arizona.edu (Mike Coffin) writes:
> In article <8711121501.AA04832@angband.s1.gov> LEISTI@FINUH.BITNET writes:
> 
> Switzerland spends a lot on defense (a higher proportion of GNP than most
> countries, including the USA) and rarely gets into wars.
> 

look who holds all the gold too!!

and makes lots of shadey deals, all in the guise of being a peaceful
country!

------------------------------

Date: 20 Nov 87 03:55:14 GMT
From: uop!robert@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu  (/dev/null)
Subject: Re: Historical error

oh yeah??

well i recommend Carrol Quigley's "Tradgedy and Hope"

------------------------------

Date: 20 Nov 1987 13:58-EST 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: Mini Big Dumb Booster

That is pretty much what Phil Salin, Jim Bennet & co at AMROC are up
to. If they can ever get through the *&^$#@#(*& red tape and CYA of the
USAF at Vandenberg. Talk about beauracratic a******s!!!

The current USAF 'requirements' include demands for a type of insurance
that doesn't even exist!!! Sounds underhanded enough to me to start me
wondering who got paid off.

The biggest delay with the AMROC ELV (as I understand it) at this time
is the launch site agreement. I personally would not rule out pressure
from the big aerospace contractors who will look like fools if AMROC
gets a chance to launch. I have no evidence to say this has actually
happened.  I only have observed patterns of behavior and personal
knowledge of other cases of behind the scenes threats to tell me that
most of them would cut their mother's throat to keep their overpriced,
subsidized vehicles alive.

They don't want a competitive america, they just want to keep their
hidden subsidies.

Maybe some of you who care about the issue could write your DC critters
and suggest that simplifying the use of launch facilities would do a
great deal for american competitiveness, balance of trade, defense,
peace, what ever turns you (or them) on.

If some of the CAL5 people are out there, maybe they can pass on the
latest scuttlebut on AMROC.

------------------------------

Date: 20 Nov 87 00:11:00 GMT
From: jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Re: Do we need a Space Station?


> Your analysis seems to require making a choice between BDB and a
> station.

[..]

> 
> --JoSH

The main reason this seems to be an "either/or" kind of decision is the
short-term time frame imposed by Reagan.  He, like Kennedy, wanted his
project done within a decade.  Or at least *started* by the 1990's.
Developing BDB is a desperately needed part of getting us off the
planet in a big way.  So is the Space Station.  We don't have time to
develop BDB then do the Station in Reagan's time frame.

Another reason that BDB will take a back seat is that the funds only go
so far, and only one (+/-) company will benefit from BDB -- the
developer.  This means that the Station will take a front seat -- many
companies stand to make a bundle, as opposed to one company getting a
bigger bundle.

In an ideal world, with unlimited time and unlimited finances backing
the space program, we'd build a BDB then the Station.  Or better yet,
NASP (National AeroSpace Plane) then Station.  That promises to be even
more cost-effective than BDB.

-- Ken Jenks, MS: Aero/Astro Engineering, BS: Computer Science, UIUC

Job Search: 6 Plant Trips, 3 Offers so far.  Decision date: 7 December 1987

jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu		{ihnp4!pur-ee}uiucdcs!uiucdcsp!jenks

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #53
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 22 Nov 87 06:31:22 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA02274; Sun, 22 Nov 87 03:19:41 PST
	id AA02274; Sun, 22 Nov 87 03:19:41 PST
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 87 03:19:41 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8711221119.AA02274@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #54

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 54

Today's Topics:
		    Re: BDB and all the whining...
		   Is Missing Mass a pseudoproblem?
		   Re: Brown Dwarf and media idiocy
	    NAVSTAR (was Re: space news from Oct 5 AW&ST)
	       Progress 32 - some interesting maneuvers
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 20 Nov 87 00:23:00 GMT
From: jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Re: BDB and all the whining...


[...]

>    Have many of the 12,000 space.nuts (other than I) thought about getting
> together and by commitie building a demo Little Dumb Booster.  Cost is the
> real factor we would let drive our design.   If nothing else I would like to
> receive information on designing a rocket and what is needed to launch the
> booster.

SSI (Space Studies Institute) does things like this.  They are doing
necessary research on a shoe-string budget using volunteers and
tax-deductible contributions.  Their offices, I believe, are in Rocky River,
NJ.  If you have any interest in contacting them, their phone number is
(306) 921-0377.  They are a non-profit group.

> 
>   I have to be honest and say I do not have much time to spare nor the
> technical background.
> 

That is a big problem, but not as big as monetary considerations.  You
can get the education and find the time, but donating the money might
prove to be very difficult.

>                                 Robert Jesse Hale III
>                                 IMPACT
>                                 University of Alaska Fairbanks 99775
> [...]					FNRJH@ALASKA    :Bitnet

-- Ken Jenks, MS: Aero/Astro Engineering, BS: Computer Science, UIUC

Job Search So Far: 6 Plant Trips, 3 Offers.  Decision date: 7 December 1987
			Thanks for your help, everyone!

jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu		{ihnp4!pur-ee}uiucdcs!uiucdcsp!jenks

------------------------------

Date: 20 Nov 87 16:57:00 PST
From: "ZEUS::BOLD" <bold%zeus.decnet@afsc-sd.arpa>
Subject: Is Missing Mass a pseudoproblem?
To: "space" <space@angband.s1.gov>
Reply-To: "ZEUS::BOLD" <bold%zeus.decnet@afsc-sd.arpa>

                   I N T E R O F F I C E   M E M O R A N D U M

                                        Date:      20-Nov-1987 16:19 PST
                                        From:      Kevin W. Bold 
                                                   BOLD 
                                        Dept:      SD/SCOA -- 2080CS/DOA
                                        Tel No:    (AV83/213 64)3-2160

TO:  _MAILER!                             ( _DDN[SPACE@ANGBAND.S1.GOV] )


Subject: Is Missing Mass a pseudoproblem?

The other night I was rereading Rudy Rucker's *The 4th Dimension* and came 
across what struck me as information pertaining to the controversy over how 
the universe may end, oscillation between Big Bangs and Big Crunches versus 
eternal expansion, forever and ever, ah people!

If A Square, the hero in Abbot's *Flatland*, were to see a Sphere from 
Spaceland travel through his two-dimensional world, it would first appear 
to him as a small dot, then expand into a circle, and then contract into a 
dot again just before disappearing.  Likewise, if any of us were to 
experience a hypersphere's visit to our 3-D world, we would see a tiny 
sphere grow larger, then contract, and finally disappear.

The universe could be a hypersphere traveling through an eternal series of 
three dimensional realms.  (Imagine what would happen if we collided with 
another one coming from a different direction!)  On the other hand, if all 
the matter in the universe is flying away from itself, it will eventually 
come back together by virtue of moving in a hypersphere.

("[Virtue] had nuthin' to do with it." -- Mae West)

The bottom line: if our three dimensional universe is curved around another 
spacial dimension (Time may be A higher dimension, but if hyperspace is 
possible, could there not be a hypertime?), the question of "sufficient 
mass to enable gravitational forces to slow down, stop, and reverse the
expansion of the universe" becomes irrelevant.  It's going to come back 
together anyway.  ("Om nayam Shiva nam...")

(Of course, missing mass is a sizeable problem if you're a devout Catholic, 
but that's another story...)


Kevin Bold
(BOLD@AFSC-SD.ARPA)
(honk and wave if you see a red 1986 Fiero GT with California license 
plates reading "4DMNSNS")



------

------------------------------

Date: 19 Nov 87 21:10:18 GMT
From: pyramid!prls!philabs!ttidca!sorgatz@decwrl.dec.com  ( Avatar)
Subject: Re: Brown Dwarf and media idiocy

In article <2192@brspyr1.BRS.Com> miket@brspyr1.BRS.Com (Mike Trout) writes:
>In article <1461@ttidca.TTI.COM>, sorgatz@ttidca.TTI.COM ( Avatar) writes:
>
>> > [details on an incompetent CNN story on Ben Zuckerman's Brown Dwarf
>> > discovery deleted]
>
>    [ my mini-flame on broadcast journalism deleted ]

>Please try to refrain from name-calling.  I am a broadcast journalist, and I
>don't appreciate being called an asshole or a bozo.  I am far more educated
>than you might imagine, and I don't think it's my nature to be bubble-headed.

 My sincere apologies, Mr. Trout. One on one, for a moment, don't you think
your industry has a great deal to face up to? I have seen so damn little
real Science reporting that it's beginning to appear as if the journalism
trade is almost completly ignorant of the subject. This is my opinion, of
course, but I'd be willing to bet a great number of 'TechFolk' share it.

>Criticisms of news media blunders are welcome and essential, but personal
>attacks diminish your arguments.

 This would be a VERY LONG LIST, indeed. The point about "personal" attacks
is a bit out of line here, I never mentioned anyone by name, now did I?

>Broadcast journalism certainly has its share of incompetents.  So does
>engineering.  Every known human activity is tainted by the foibles and blunders
>of Homo sapiens.  I could go on and on about technogeeks who speak only
>computerese, take a shower once a month, and design bridges that fall into the
>Schoharie Creek, but this is sci.space, not talk.politics.misc.

 Yes, this is true. But most of these people are short-lived, in their
professional life span. Bad reporting, inaccurate reporting, sensationalism
and the so-called Yellow Journalism, especially about things Tech, seems
to be a constant, why? Television and it's bedfellow Mass-marketing, have
seemingly created an atmosphere where simplistic Media-mindset have eliminated
the hard facts from the reporting. Would you care to address this?

>"These people", as you call us, are for the most part highly-educated,
>hard-working, dedicated and ethical folk who do the best job we can under
>difficult circumstances.  We do make mistakes, and some of us aren't up to the
>standards of the majority.  But that's no reason to stereotype broadcast
>journalists--or anyone else, for that matter.
>
 Fine. You work hard. Why not work smart? How about adding some realism to
the picture, in the form of accuracy and completeness. Not the same 'ole
 "Yes! And with *more* on this fast-breaking story, here's Mike with the
live Mini-Cam crew, ON THE SCENE!" -- grow up! The press elements that make
up a part of the broadcast journalism industry have watered-down and HYPED
UP everything to come their way for the last 30 years. A stereotype in this
case is not only reasonable, it's it's deserved. Think about it, and while
you're at it, think about the misinformation that clouded the TMI incident,
the breastbeating that went on with the Challenger, the out-and-out silly
nonsense that passed for broadcast journalism during the Chernobyl affair...
..I'm ashamed of our Press, and you should be too. I *KNOW* you guys can
do a better job, you've got the best resources available to do so.

>Usually, I find sci.space an excellent forum for discussion and enlightenment.
>We are blessed with the intelligent and innovative thoughts of posters such as
>Henry Spencer and Eugene Miya.  Unfortunately, I found this posting to be

 So do I, but I think it's high-time that the presentation of the Sciences
be done in a complete way. We all bitch about the lack of funds, the cuts,
the lack of direction in our Space Program and the seeming lack of support;
it would seem logical to begin to examine the PR angle and it's mechanisms
closely, to try and find a means of reversing the present trends. Accuracy
and completeness in broadcast journalism, about things scientific would go
a long way towards helping this situation.

>nothing more than an emotional and uninformed rant and rave session.  If you
>have specific criticisms of news media performance, let's see them presented in
>a rational and logical context.  Keep the screaming diatribes off the net.  And
>you might brush up on your spelling and grammar, too.

 Ok. Here I've presented you with some exact criticisms...and yes, I will
brush up on my spelling and grammar...maybe you should closely examine the
professional behavior of your fellow journalists.

 My apologies to the newsgroup for this running so long, but when it comes
such matters as these, it is clear that the broadcast industry needs some
help. Telling half a story, telling a watered-down version, reporting with
sensationalism as a blind to the inaccuracy is criminal. Science has long
strived for knowledge and understanding, it would be a terrible waste for
the message to become lost in a flood of catch-phrases and over simplified
sensationalistic reporting techniques.
-- 
-Avatar-> (aka: Erik K. Sorgatz) KB6LUY           +-------------------------+
Citicorp(+)TTI                          *----------> panic trap; type = N+1 *
3100 Ocean Park Blvd.   (213) 450-9111, ext. 2973 +-------------------------+
Santa Monica, CA  90405 {csun,philabs,randvax,trwrb}!ttidca!ttidcb!sorgatz **

------------------------------

Date: 20 Nov 87 17:00:38 GMT
From: trwrb!cadovax!gryphon!mhnadel@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Miriam Nadel)
Subject: NAVSTAR (was Re: space news from Oct 5 AW&ST)

In article <8955@utzoo.UUCP> henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) writes:
>DoD to seek funds to add three more satellites to the Navstar configuration.
>This essentially restores the original 24-satellite configuration, largely
>eliminating the reduced-accuracy areas that were a major concern for aviation
>use of Navstar.  Another issue is that planned monitoring stations might not
>detect degradation of a satellite's signals for several hours.  This might
>be addressed by adding some civil monitoring stations, or by cross-checking
>the satellites against each other in each receiver.  The latter is possible
>a good bit of the time with a 24-satellite configuration, and would work
>even better if some civil Navstars in Clarke orbit were added, to increase
>redundancy.  DoD is suggesting that Europe or Japan might wish to do this,
>or perhaps Inmarsat (which is interested in navsats, and might be able to
>use its existing satellites to some extent), partly as a way of assuring
>international civil access.  Reagan's decision to open Navstar to civil use
>(1983, after KAL 007) is also causing some worries for the USAF:  "Today we
>might have a brief outage of one of our early warning satellites or a
>communications satellite, and only a handful of people would be aware of
>the problem.  But with GPS [Navstar], if a couple of satellites `hiccup'
>briefly, hundreds or thousands of civil pilots will know and complain."
>
>[Personal prediction:  civil Navstar is not going to take off in a big way
>unless/until it is done as a civil system, perhaps in coordination with DoD
>but not through them.  Too many people, in the US and elsewhere, don't trust
>DoD and the USAF in particular (it would be better if Navstar was being run
>by the Navy, which has a tradition of supporting civil sea use)... with
>considerable justification.]
>
First of all, it doesn't make sense to say that the 24 satellite constellation
was chosen to eliminate areas of reduced accuracy since there are several
21 satellite configurations with constellation values of 1.0.  (Constellation
value is essentially a measure of  what fraction of time the position dilution
of precision, PDOP, of a constellation is sufficiently small.  PDOP essentially
measures how much an error in pseudo range measurement is magnified into a
position error.  If you want further details about this, send me e-mail and
I'll dig up a couple of basic references.  The usual source of this sort of
information is the IEEE Journal of Navigation.)

At any rate, both the Walker 21/7/3 constellation and the 21/21/2 rosette
have constellation values of 1 (perfect availability).  The problem with these
configurations is the lack of on-orbit spares.  The baseline 21 satellite
constellation is really an 18/6/3 constellation with 3 on-orbit spares.  This
has some regions of brief outages but they can be moved to areas of little
(military) interest.  In addition, the three spares are active and can be
positioned to minimize the impact of these outages.  The Air Force has been
looking at 21 satellite constellations but they are unhappy with a lack of
spares.  (If the 3 spares were going to be active anyway, it seems silly
not to use a constellation that really takes advantage of having 21 active
birds up there.)  Unfortunately, the 21/7/3 is a bit awkward to deal with
(not so neatly symmetric) while the 21/21/2 is problematic because nobody 
knows how to rephase a rosette constellation if a satellite should break
down (in rephasing you can only move things in their orbital plane; rephasing
is easier the more satellites you have per plane.  With only one per plane,
life is more complicated.)  I worked on the problem of rephasing the 21/21/2
for a while and didn't have any brilliant inspirations before I got too busy
with other stuff and had to drop it.

As for civil use of NAVSTAR, bear in mind that the receivers for civil use
will be significantly less accurate than those for military use.  The
vulnerability issues for NAVSTAR are more serious than "lots of folks will
know when we hiccup".  If they don't fix up the other vulnerability issues,
the Air Force will have no excuse for denying civil use.  There is also
considerable pressure on the Navy (and, to a lesser extent, the Army - who
are being sold on "man-packs" containing receivers) to rely on NAVSTAR and
not develop other navigational satellites.  The option of "going with the
Navy systems" may disappear.

Miriam Nadel

-- 
"Always a godmother - never a God" - Fran Liebowitz

mhnadel@gryphon.CTS.COM       {philabs, trwrb}!cadovax!gryphon!mhnadel
      {hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, ihnp4, nosc}!crash!gryphon!mhnadel

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 20 Nov 87 18:38:09 EST
From: Glenn Chapman <glenn@ll-vlsi.arpa>
Subject: Progress 32 - some interesting maneuvers

   The Soviets finally detached the Progress 32 tanker from their
Mir space station on Nov 17, but have not yet launched Progress 33.  They
however where trying some interesting tests with '32 before they removed.
On Nov.11 and again apparently on Nov. 14 they undocked the Progress, moved
it away from the station, then redocked it to the Kvant addition (10 tonne
module) on the Mir complex.  Since the Progress was destroyed in reentry, as
usual, after removal it is certain that this was not some failure in the 
separation - the cosmonauts would not really be able to repair any guidance on 
it and they accounced this maneuver once on radio Moscow that I heard.  They 
are just practicing this for future missions.
   Why separate a Progress from the station?  First recall that the 7 tonne
Progress' contain about 1 Tonne of cargo and 1.5 tonnes of fuel, water and air
in tanks.  Also before the tanker is dropped, and indeed throughout its 
attachment to the station complex, the spare fuel in the Progress'
own fuel system (separated from that supplied to the station) is used to boost
the stations orbit, thus saving both fuel and wear on Mir's rockets.   Finally
the Progress is also used to dump the solid garbage from the station and 
burn it up in the atmosphere, rather than just push it out the airlock where
it might damage the station.  Three possibilities suggest themselves.  First 
is that they can then move a Progress off when they are bringing a new Soyuz
crew up.  Up to now the Progress must be discarded whether could serve useful
purposes or not.  Now it can be moved off, a visiting crew brought up for a 
short stay, and then reattached when they leave.   Secondly the Soviets have
talked about a new type of Progress derived craft - a free flyer that would be
used to run certain very low G experiments (eg crystal growth) away from the
station, then return to the station for study of the results before new
experiments are added.  Finally as they add side modules to Mir's side docking
ports for dynamical stability they will want to keep the axis of the station 
as heavy as possible, and the core station mass nearly constant.  That may 
suggest that keeping a Progress where it can be added to the station within
hours of a visiting crew leaving might be useful.  The mass of the Progress and
Soyuz are nearly the same.
    Whatever the reason the Russians are clearly finding new ways to use what
they have to the best advantage.  That only makes good engineering sense.
Let us get the shuttle flying again so that we can continue to do the same,
as was being done before the Challenger crash.

                                                    Glenn Chapman
                                                    MIT Lincoln Lab

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #54
*******************

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Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA00435; Mon, 23 Nov 87 08:22:11 PST
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Date: Mon, 23 Nov 87 08:22:11 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8711231622.AA00435@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #55

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 55

Today's Topics:
    Re: Re: Soviet manned missions; records made and future plans
		   WEIGHT LIMIT RAISED FOR SHUTTLE
	    Re: Great Depression II and the space station
			     Curved space
		      Standardized Vehicle Parts
			    error factors
	      Re: Brazil in space (SPACE Digest V8 #52)
		Desktop Aeronautics software products.
		 Re: WEIGHT LIMIT RAISED FOR SHUTTLE
	       Re: SPICING UP AVIATION TERMINOLGY.....
			Re: Defense is not War
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 20 Nov 87 18:46:34 EST
From: Glenn Chapman <glenn@ll-vlsi.arpa>
Subject: Re: Re: Soviet manned missions; records made and future plans


In my posting on the "Great Soviet Space Disasters" TV program
the Russians showed I suggested 

> ... Maybe with this we can finally find out some of the things we have
> always suspected about the Soviet program past operations (eg. did
> they really have someone ready to beat Apollo 8 to lunar orbit in
> 1968).

Henry Spencer suggested in a reply on the Nov19th space digest that 

> ...........................(a) nobody seriously doubts that the Zond
> circumlunar missions in 1968 were unmanned Soyuz flights, and (b) the
> Soviets openly stated that a manned circumlunar mission was planned for
> late 1968.  It sure sounds like they meant to do it.

   Sorry Henry, I have meet a lot of people who do not believe that the Soviets
where anywhere near a manned circumlunar mission.  As an example look at the
article published in the Journal of the Interplanetary Society annual issue
on the Soviet program (July?) where the author denies the existence
of the Soviet manned lunar program, and the big Saturn class G booster.  He
goes on to say that suggest that the new statements of a big soviet booster 
being on the pad will soon give way to statements that it has been been 
withdrawn due to development problems - that being written just as their new
big Energyia booster was being launched, and published 4 months after the 
flight. 
    I was referring to the more narrow question - was a manned Zond (Soyuz)
craft on the launch pad in early Dec. '68 ready to go for a circumlunar launch
just before the Apollo 8 mission did the same.  In other words did the USSR come
within weeks of beating the USA there.  There has been much evidence for that
but no real Soviet documents on it released to date.

   Also with respect to the Harry Stine opinion mention by Henry:

> .........Harry Stine's opinion, which he says has recently been
> confirmed by the Soviets, is that Soyuz 1 went up on a Proton.  (For
> those who don't remember, Soyuz 1 crashed, killing its pilot; the
> official explanation was that the parachute straps tangled.)  Stine says
> that Proton gives its payloads a very rough ride and that Soyuz 1 was in
> trouble from the start because of that.

   None of the observers of the Soviet Program that I have talked to 
believe Stine on this.  My own arguments are that in 1967 when this happened 
the Proton had been launched just 4 times (if my memory serves me - I do not
have my data book here), the most recent of which had failed.  The booster 
was also being changed from a SL-9 two stage version to the SL-12 3 stage.   
Also the payload capabilities of the Proton was 2-3 times that needed to 
send up the Soyuz 1, especially with only one crewman on board.  Why send 
up the first manned test flight of your new capsule on a new booster that was 
having problems.  Especially one that was not in full production and hence of 
limited supply.  Also all their previous unmanned tests of the Soyuz had taken 
place on their standard A-2 (Sapwood) booster, the launcher that sent up
their Vostock missions and has been used on all Soyuz's since then.  The 
Russians have always tended to be very conservative in their manned systems 
- it would be a real break for them to take such a chance.  By comparison 
the suggested circumlunar flight with a Zond modification of the Soyuz design 
had been preceded by not only unmanned tests, but even tests with animals.  
Sorry, until I see real Soviet publications of Salyut 1 being on the Proton,
or some of the real acknowledged experts agreeing with this, I remain
unconvinced.
     All of this really indicates the type of problems which the new openess 
in the Soviet program may answer, if they really do start to reveal what 
has gone on in the past.
    
                                             Glenn Chapman
                                             MIT Lincoln Lab.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 20 Nov 87 22:47 EST
From: Pietro Angelo Francesco Carboni <V041KKEW@UBVMS.BITNET>
Subject: WEIGHT LIMIT RAISED FOR SHUTTLE

	In the September '87 issue of Aerospace America magazine pg. 6
there is a paragraph that reads:

		And NASA has determined that to meet the 100 
	mission design goal, maximum Shuttle payload mass at 
	launch must be reduced from 65K lb to around 45K lb- 
	to keep the airframe fatigue within limits.

In contrast to this a New York Times article of November 11, 1987
(pg A 18 I think it was) reads in exerts:

		The allowable landing weight for a space shuttle
	has been increased from 211K lb to 230K lb, ...

		Rear Adm. Richard H. Truly, ..., said structural
	analysis and a review of forces encountered by a shuttle
	in landing showed it could carry the extra weight.

		The change would allow the shuttle to carry an 
	additional 100K lbs of cargo into space through 1993,...

Question: Is it me or are these articles in contridiction?  Does the
	  left hand know what the right is doing? 

Thought: Perchance some people want the shuttle to wear out prematurely 
	 so more funds could could be granted for the "Space Plane/Orient 
	 Express/ect." on the excuse the the Shuttle fleet is aged and 
	 obsolete (if it is not allready so).

	
				---  Pietro @ SUNY "Sunny!" Buffalo NY

------------------------------

Date: 20 Nov 87 13:45:09 GMT
From: unc!symon@mcnc.org  (James Symon)
Subject: Re: Great Depression II and the space station

In article <352@gethen.UUCP>, farren@gethen.UUCP (Michael J. Farren) writes:
> 
> This is a singularly shortsighted statement.  While the primary product
> of the space program is information, that information is used by many
> companies in many fields to produce new and useful technology.
> . . .  The space program,
> by any in-depth analysis, has paid back its investment many, many times
> over, and to the benefit of all.
> 

This is why I get very tight-lipped whenever I read or hear simplistic
cost-benefit arguments for not funding space exploration. Let's all
remember this aspect when we have the opportunity to counter
anti-space propaganda. Funds shifted to other areas would still get
spent but for most alternatives they would not have an equivalent,
positive long-term economic impact. 

				Jim Symon

UUCP:decvax!mcnc!unc!symon
Internet:symon@cs.unc.edu
Rt 4 Box 443 
Chapel Hill, NC 27514

------------------------------

Date: 20 Nov 87 23:26:13 GMT
From: heurikon!lampman%heurikon.UUCP@speedy.wisc.edu  (Ray Lampman)
Subject: Curved space

If the normal curvature of space within some limited area were disturbed,
would it be possible to detect that disturbance at some later time? In other
words does an event of this type propagate any information into the future?

             <------event------>    .---   detection?
                                    v
 n  ---------.                 .-------->  normal curvature
              `               '
               \             /
 0              \           /              no curvature
                 \         /
                  \       /
-n                 `.___.'                 reverse curvature

    time ------------------------------->

I can provide a partial answer in the extreme case: If the curvature of space
was altered to approach the extreme curvature near a black hole, I would expect
this event to leave evidence even after a normal curvature was restored. But
what would this evidence be? And the question remains unanswered in the less
extreme cases like those depicted above.

A related question: Can the curvature of space be measured at a given location?
Has anyone devised a scale of measure for this purpose? If not, may I suggest
a value of zero for space with no curvature, and a value of one at the event
horizon of a black hole. [Would all event horizons have the same curvature,
and therefore the same measure, independent of black hole mass?]

For the purpose of answering these questions, please, ignore how one would
affect a change in the curvature of space, leaving all other conditions
unchanged. Although, this would make an interesting discussion, it may not
be appropriate to place it in any of the sci groups.

                                        - Ray (lampman@heurikon.UUCP)

------------------------------

Subject: Standardized Vehicle Parts
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 87 13:51:21 -0500
From: Fred Baube <fbaube@note.nsf.gov>


jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu writes:
> Eventually could have standardized parts (solar panels,
> attitude control systems, telemetry units) and put them
> together with custom parts flown up.

Yes !  Instead of custom-designing every system (structural,
propulsion, comm, energy generation, habitation, etc. etc.) for
every vehicle, and instead of custom-building shuttles such as
Atlantis to accommodate outsized payloads, why not start now on a
line of standard parts optimized for space assembly/testing.  A
vehicle so assembled need be neither asthetic, nor structurally
distorted to fit in a shuttle bay, just functional.  Solar panels
that were not currently committed to a vehicle-in-assembly could
be used to dissassociate water that has been lifted into orbit
(no volatile shuttle payloads that way) into LOX and liquid
hydrogen to fuel such vehicles. Rush deliveries of smaller parts
could be reserved for Scouts or the National Aerospace Plane, but
the bulk could travel by whatever is both cheap and ready for
launch.  If we were still designing and fabricating cars on a
individual basis ..

------------------------------

Date: 21 Nov 87 18:39:34 GMT
From: uop!robert@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu  (The litte green man)
Subject: error factors

spacecraft use intertial guidance?
what are the error factors involved for a long journey? 
that is to say, if we go to another planet, how far "off" will we
be?
are the errors enough to worry about within our solar system?
or just beyond it?

------------------------------

Date:           Fri, 20 Nov 87 15:11:04 PST
From: George Bray <lcc.ghb@seas.ucla.edu>
Subject:        Re: Brazil in space (SPACE Digest V8 #52)

This may not be totally germane to space per se, but it is interesting
in regards to Brazil.

Brazil's economic growth has been fueled by large, government-sponsored
project.  Examples would include the Itaipu dam, the trans-Brazilian
highway, etc.  The Brazilian government invests heavily in these, which
have been successful, but accompanied by the usual problems of massive
government intervention: rapid inflation; excessive borrowing; large
bureaucracy.

If the Brazilians ever decide to make an assault on space, the rest
of the world should join in or step aside.

George Bray

------------------------------

Date: 21 Nov 87 19:43:42 GMT
From: phoenix!pucc!ICEMAN@princeton.edu  (Joakim Karlsson)
Subject: Desktop Aeronautics software products.

I tried this in rec.aviation without any success...lessee if anyone
in sci.space can help me...
 
Does anyone out there have any experiences (postive and/or negative)
with the software products of a company called Desktop Aeronautics.
In particular I'm interested in two programs for the Macintosh, called
LinAir 1.0 and Quickplot that supposedly will do multiple lifting
surface analysis?  The company is headquarted in California somewhere,
I've tried calling them but have only reached an answering machine.
 
Joakim Karlsson                               iceman @ pucc.Princeton.edu
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering '88      BITNET only: iceman @ pucc
Princeton University
                       "You can be my wingman anytime..."

------------------------------

Date: 21 Nov 87 22:03:12 GMT
From: beckenba@csvax.caltech.edu  (Joe Beckenbach)
Subject: Re: WEIGHT LIMIT RAISED FOR SHUTTLE

----

In article <8711210348.AA00313@angband.s1.gov> (V041KKEW@UBVMS.BITNET)
Pietro Angelo Francesco Carboni writes about an apparent contradiction
about the Shuttle masses:
	1) NASA determines that max payload decreases from 65Klb to
	   around 45Klb to reduce airframe fatigue. [Aerospace America
		magazine, Sept '87; secondhand citation by me from Pietro]
	2) A top [Air Force?] officer reports that landing weight can be
	   increased from 211Klb to 230Klb, allowing extra cargo to be carried
	   into space [Pietro: 100Klb of cargo by 1993] [New York Times,
		11 Nov 1987, pg A 18 ?; secondhand citation by me from Pietro]

>Question: Is it me or are these articles in contridiction?  Does the
>	  left hand know what the right is doing? 
	As stated in your article, this question cannot be resolved. Did the
military man say that the increased landing weight could increase cargo
capability to orbit, or did you unintentionally mangle the meaning?
	If Rear Adm. {whoever} really thinks added landing capability directly
translates to cargo capability at launch, I'd think someone handed him a mis-
leading or deceitful report. The landing capability is cargo coming down-
not up, which is limited by launch weight capacity.
	If the report on NASA's determination is wrong, then that means that
some extra cargo could go up-- but then why didn't the military man report
this as LAUNCH weight capability increase?
	Of course, they both could be right:
		1- NASA may have to continue to fly heavier payloads than it
would like.
		2- 39Klb could be added to the airframe in the form of better
bracing, other support equipment, escape systems, etc. This, however, is a
shuttle redesign and retrofit. 
		3- The military may have to allow NASA to fly lighter payloads.
	Of all these options, 1 forces earlier shuttle retirement, 2 sets the
program back at least a few more years, and 3 makes the SDI people and the 
defense people rather upset. If the NASA determination was wrong, the military
is being very strange in presenting their advantage [what can we bring back?
If we can bring back more than we take out, this means satellites or materials
retrival {ours, a Russian satellite for study,...}]. If the military is wrong,
then NASA is trying to keep what equipment they have, running for as long as
possible on the money they have.
	I personally think that, since NASA is the 'owner' and maintainer of
the shuttle systems, the military in this instance is daydreaming.
{Hm, maybe I should have said "mentally masturbating" :-) }
>Thought: Perchance some people want the shuttle to wear out prematurely 
>	 so more funds could could be granted for the "Space Plane/Orient 
>	 Express/ect." on the excuse the the Shuttle fleet is aged and 
>	 obsolete (if it is not allready so).
>				---  Pietro @ SUNY "Sunny!" Buffalo NY


-- 
		-Joe Beckenbach (CS BS '88)
Private booster projects may spell the difference between being in space
in the next decade  and  being grounded in the next century.

------------------------------

Date: 21 Nov 87 02:23:15 GMT
From: ihnp4!laidbak!spl1!wheaton!coulter@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Scott D. Coulter )
Subject: Re: SPICING UP AVIATION TERMINOLGY.....

The aviation terminology is interesting, but do we need it in sci.space
AND in sci.space.shuttle?  I think perhaps we could limit this a little,
since I suspect that most people who read one space group read both
(I do anyway . . . )

-- 
###############################################################################
Scott D. Coulter                    CPO 462, Wheaton College
ihnp4!wheaton!coulter               Wheaton, IL   60187

------------------------------

Date: 21 Nov 87 21:48:33 GMT
From: phoenix!pucc!ICEMAN@princeton.edu  (Joakim Karlsson)
Subject: Re: Defense is not War

In article <772@uop.EDU>, robert@uop.EDU (/dev/null) writes:
 
>In article <2855@megaron.arizona.edu>, mike@arizona.edu (Mike Coffin) writes:
>> In article <8711121501.AA04832@angband.s1.gov> LEISTI@FINUH.BITNET writes:
>>
>> Switzerland spends a lot on defense (a higher proportion of GNP than most
>> countries, including the USA) and rarely gets into wars.
>>
>
>look who holds all the gold too!!
>
>and makes lots of shadey deals, all in the guise of being a peaceful
>country!
 
Hmph.
    [1] I wouldn't say Switzerland per se makes shadey deals, but rather
        people who work through swiss banks (which guarantee anonymity).
 
    [2] If you don't like the example of Switzerland, take Sweden as
        an example.  I don't remember the exact figures, but Sweden's
        defense expenditure per capita is very, very high.  Can you
        name the last war Sweden fought in?
 
Joakim Karlsson                               iceman @ pucc.Princeton.edu
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering '88      BITNET only: iceman @ pucc
Princeton University
                       "You can be my wingman anytime..."

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #55
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 24 Nov 87 06:36:01 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA01904; Tue, 24 Nov 87 03:16:27 PST
	id AA01904; Tue, 24 Nov 87 03:16:27 PST
Date: Tue, 24 Nov 87 03:16:27 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8711241116.AA01904@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #56

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 56

Today's Topics:
  SURFER: A Stanford University Student Satellite Project wants YOU!
		      December meeting of STEPP
		    Re: BDB and all the whining...
			More skyhook questions
			    space station
		     Magnetic Radiation Shielding
		     Re: Dyson Sphere Discovered?
	  CCDs and Inverse-square law distance determination
			Re: Curvature of space
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 23 Nov 87 02:41:39 GMT
From: scherzo!lyang@sun.com  (Larry Yang)
Subject: SURFER: A Stanford University Student Satellite Project wants YOU!


		STUDENT SATELLITE PROJECT SEEKS DONATIONS 
		      OF TEST AND DESIGN EQUIPMENT!

   Graduate and undergraduate students in Stanford University's Small
Satellite Program are currently designing and prototyping an
experimental scientific satellite called SURFER (Stanford University
Radio Frequency Emissions Receiver) to be deployed on the Space Shuttle
in 1991 along with the Tethered Satellite System (TSS-1) mission.

The project urgently needs development and test equipment of all kinds.
Firms, government agencies or individuals with surplus electronic
equipment, computers, spacecraft test equipment, relevant software, etc.
are encouraged to donate such equipment to the SURFER satellite team at
Stanford.  We expect that such equipment donations would be eligible for
tax benefits.


		    PUBLICITY AND A CHANCE FOR ACCESS
		   TO OUTSTANDING ENGINEERING STUDENTS.  

Be part of the SURFER team!  The satellite will likely fly during
Stanford's Centennial Celebration in 1991-92, with much attendant
publicity. The students on the SURFER team are Stanford's best
engineers, and are pioneering innovative engineering designs as well as
gaining extensive teamwork experience.  Interested parties are invited
to call us or visit our facilities.


	EQUIPMENT/FACILITIES NEEDED BY THE SURFER SATELLITE PROJECT
	-----------------------------------------------------------

	1. ELECTRICAL TEST AND DEVELOPMENT EQUIPMENT
		8086 Assembler/Development System
		Audio Waveform Generator
		Data Books (TI/Intel, etc.)
		De-soldering equipment
		Development system
		IBM-compatible computer
		Logic analyzer
		Multimeters
		Ohm-meter
		Oscilloscope, analog & digital storage
		Power Supplies (5V @5Amp, 6V, +/- 12 V @ 5 Amp)
		PROM programmer
		Software for digital design (MacIntosh/IBM)
		VHF field strength meter
		VHF signal generator

	3. MECHANICAL TEST AND DEVELOPMENT EQUIPMENT
		Shake table
		Small Thermo-Vac Chamber
		CAD/CAE equipment
		Video Camera and ancillary equipment (slow-motion?)
		Zero-G Simulator

	4. SOFTWARE
		Schematic Capture/Design/Simulation (MacIntosh,IBM,uVAX)
		CAD, Dynamic & Thermal Analysis software
		Test bench/experiment-control software
		Simulation, graphics
		Other software potentially useful on IBM, Mac, VAX, SUN
		
	5. COMPUTER EQUIPMENT
		IBM-compatible Microcomputers
		IBM peripherals (hard-disks,experiment-control cards,etc)
		IBM software (analysis, lab controllers, simulators)
		MacIntosh Microcomputers (Plus, 512K, SE, MacII)
		MacIntosh peripherals (hard-disks, printers, etc.)

Any other donations will be gratefully accepted, as well as
contributions in the form of on-site access to your
facilities/equipment.  Please pass this notice on to your colleagues,
other departments, and anyone else interested.

		HOW TO CONTACT THE SURFER SATELLITE TEAM.  

You may contact the SURFER student team at (415)-723-2945 (SURFER
office), or (415)-328-1771 (after hours).  Our FAX number is
(415)-723-0010 (please be sure to include OUR name and phone number on
the FAX cover sheet).

Our address is: 	SURFER Satellite Project
			c/o STARLab, Durand 202
			Stanford University
			Stanford, CA 94305

 			EMAIL: LYANG@SUN.COM

Specialized inquiries may be directed to Burton Lee (Deputy Manager),
David Lauben (Electrical Team Leader), or Scott Williams (Mechanical
Team Leader).  Thank you very much for your interest and help.
-----

Postscript: Project Description and work in progress:

		       SURFER and MISSION BACKGROUND.

The SURFER satellite project is faculty-advised and student-managed.
All research and design (both electrical and mechanical) is being done
by undergraduate and graduate students. Total cost of design and
construction is estimated at around $1 million. NASA has provided
$50,000 support for initial design activities, but to take it to
functional prototype level will require much more resources which must
come from other organizations.

SURFER is a 120 lb., 15" high, 17" diameter passively stabilized
satellite designed to measure plasma characteristics and electromagnetic
waves radiated from the 20 km Tethered Satellite System (TSS-1).  SURFER
will be ejected from a Get-Away-Special canister prior to tether
deployment and drift from 1 to 100 km behind the Orbiter during the
TSS-1 experiment.  SURFER has a mission lifetime of about 50 hours and
will remain in orbit several months before it enters the Earth's
atmosphere and burns up.

ELECTRONICS & COMMUNICATIONS SUBSYSTEMS.  Items of immediate concern
include the telemetry/command and data processing systems.  These
consist of a VHF (137MHz) radio link and distributed-CPU data processing
system on-board the Orbiter.  The radio link must support a 20 Hz - 20
kHz analog waveform and 16 kbit/sec digital stream.  Once on-board the
Orbiter, the data processing system must convert the analog waveform to
digital form, and combine it with the 16 kbit/sec stream, MET time code,
and free-flyer range data for transfer to a high capacity data storage
unit located in the Orbiter bay.  A real time two-way command link for
Satellite re-configuration is also planned.  We intend to adapt
terrestrial handheld technology for the short-term space mission, and
modify some high-capacity data storage unit to survive the launch loads
and mission environment.

Additional work is currently being done on the Spacecraft power system,
science instrument design, spin-ejector prototype, dynamical simulation,
thermal analysis, and mission planning.

--Larry Yang [lyang@sun.com,{backbone}!sun!lyang]
  Sun Microsystems, Inc., Mountain View, CA

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 23 Nov 87 16:09:39 EST
From: subar%mwcamis@mitre.arpa
Subject: December meeting of STEPP

The December meeting of the Association for Science, Technology,
Engineering, and Public Policy (STEPP) will have Dick Thompson as
speaker.  Mr. Thompson, _Time_ magazine's Washington correspondent, was
the author of the October 5 cover story, "Surging Ahead - The Soviets
Overtake the US as a Spacefaring Nation".
     
Mr. Thompson visited the Soviet Flight Control Center at Kalingrad as
well as interviewing cosmonauts onboard the Mir as part of his research
for the article.  Mr.Thompson will discuss "The Soviet Space Program -
Are They Really Ahead?".  The dinner and discussion will take place
Tuesday, December 1 from 6p to 9p.  The cost is $13 for members and $15
for non-members.  For reservations and information, please contact
Marcia Brody @ (202) 659-2040.  No e-mail please.

------------------------------

Date: 20 Nov 87 21:36:37 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: BDB and all the whining...

> Have many of the 12,000 space.nuts (other than I) thought about
> getting together and by commitie building a demo Little Dumb
> Booster...

By committee, it will never get built.  There needs to be someone in
charge.  And there needs to be money, multiple megabucks.  Lots of
multiple megabucks unless you are willing to make it a very high-risk
venture, in which case most of those 12000 will not support it.

> ... what is needed to launch the booster.

Considering that you are a US citizen, you need government approval.
This translates to $$$ for complex dealings with the government, and a
lot of patience.  Using existing launch sites will be astronomically
expensive, notably for the compulsory insurance coverage, and probably
will not be practical at all with a high-risk design built by amateurs.
Setting up your own launch site will involve a good many other problems.
By the way, doing it outside the US does not get you out from under the
US government, since the US government claims authority over its
citizens everywhere.

Bear in mind that you're going to need enough money to launch several of
them, partly because launch failures are moderately likely, and partly
because you will not get commercial customers without building a track
record first.

I don't think it's impossible.  If somebody gave me enough money, I would
try.  But it would take rather a lot of money -- more than I have any hope
of getting from the space-enthusiast community -- and it wouldn't be easy.
At least I'm not a US citizen, which eliminates one set of obstacles.

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 23 Nov 87 12:12:31 EST
From: loeb@BOURBAKI.MIT.EDU
To: sinder%dss.decnet@afsc-sd.arpa
Cc: Space@angband.s1.gov, sinder%dss.decnet@afsc-sd.arpa
Subject: More skyhook questions

While going up a skyhook to geostationary orbit, gravity would dominate,
and good ol' Earth would keep you in your seat. However, towards the
other end of the hook, your seat better face the other way because
centrifugal "force" would be greater than gravitational attraction, and
your seat would be pushed in the opposite direction.

Danny

------------------------------

Date: 20 Nov 87 21:17:39 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space station

> A space station would create a different kind of technology...

People have objected to this on the grounds that technology development
can occur independently.  In fact, truly useful technologies actually
get developed -- as opposed to talked about -- in response to specific
projects that need them, by and large.  A stronger point against the
technology-development argument is that a space station needs no new
technology of any significance.  (This has nothing to do with what NASA
is actually going to do, of course.  Since NASA is an R&D-oriented
agency, there is going to be lots of unnecessary new technology
involved.)

> But will the missions be cheaper if started from the SS?

I have seen nothing that contradicts Fairchild's "Leasecraft" study.
This was a purely commercial venture, not a NASA contract.  It concluded
that a satellite which is assembled in orbit is cheaper than one
assembled on the ground, because assembly can be done after the rough
ride to orbit is over.  Leasecraft itself got shelved for lack of
customers, but as far as I know Fairchild's conclusions remain sound.

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date:         Sat, 21 Nov 87 15:51:57 EST
From: ST401385%BROWNVM.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu
Subject:      Magnetic Radiation Shielding

>>>Clarke orbit is 22,300 miles in altitude, and in the middle of
>>>the second Van Allen radiation belt.
>> Can [superconductor] magnets shield against the radiation?  The belt
>> is created by E-M, so the question probably is how strong the magnets
>> must be.
>The magnets couldn't shield against gamma or x-rays, since these are
>uncharged and wouldn't be sufficiently deflected by magnetic fields.
    Since gammas and x-rays are not deflected by magnetic fields, they
are not trapped in the Van Allen Belts either. These consist of protons
and electrons (at different places).

>Also, charged particles could enter at the poles of the magnetic field
>without much resistance.

   The concept of Magnetic shielding for space habitats was proposed by
Arthur Kantrowitz of Avco Everett at least fifteen years ago.  Even for
habitats ("Space Colonies") in orbits not intersecting the radiation
belts, there is a significant problem with radiation exposure due to (a)
Solar Flares and (b) Cosmic Rays.
     Solar Flares can be dealt with by having a "Storm Cellar": a small,
highly shielded area that people could cram into and wait out the storm.
This is possible since the events are comparatively short and the
protons arrive several hours after the flare is detectable from Earth.
     Cosmic rays cannot be waited out.  Electrons can be easily shielded
against, the problems come with protons and heavier nuclei.  These do
not cause short-term death, but in the long term they cause cancer, etc.
I think it's not much problem with a low orbit space station, because
much of the cosmic radiation is shielded by the Earth's magnetic field,
which the space station is lower than most of.  It is a significant
problem at the Lagrangian points, which is why most colony proposals
suggest such massive amounts of slag for shielding.
    As I recall, the magnetic fields to protect significantly against
cosmic rays needed to be huge, although I don't know the numbers.
Current "high temperature" superconductors won't allow huge magnetic
fields, although the technology may improve soon.  There is also a
problem that extremely high fields put stress on the current-carrying
wires that create them.
    Anyway, though, I think that using fields to shield a habitat is a
much more elegant solution than just surrounding it with slag (why go
all the way to space if you're gonna live in a basement with piped-in
sunlight?).  As far as I know, no work is being done on the subject.

--Geoffrey A. Landis, Ph.D     BITNET: ST401385 at BROWNVM
    Brown University           ARPA:  ST401385%BROWNVM.BITNET@WISCVM.ARPA

    Off the subject: Is anybody on the net interested in reading a SF
story and critiquing it for scientific details?  I have one story that
I'd be interested in such comments on.  Send a note (don't reply to the
net) if interested.
                              --GL

------------------------------

Date: 20 Nov 87 21:24:04 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Dyson Sphere Discovered?

> ... The Dyson sphere--actually he refered to several large collectors
> in orbit around the star--was another hypothesis...

It is worth noting that the original Dyson sphere *was* a collection of
smaller objects, not a monolithic sphere.  As I recall the paper I read
(which may not have been the idea's very first appearance, mind you),
Dyson picked a size of a few thousand kilometers to keep tidal forces
within the limits of the strength of known materials.  A monolithic
sphere needs enormous structural strength, or some other clever trick,
to support itself against the star's gravity -- remember that it must
rotate on a single axis, and only at the equator can centrifugal force
properly balance the star's gravity.

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Sender: "David_G._Opstad.osbunorth"@xerox.com
Date: 23 Nov 87 08:50:33 PST (Monday)
Subject: CCDs and Inverse-square law distance determination
From: Opstad.osbunorth@xerox.com
Cc: Opstad.osbunorth@xerox.com


  I was browsing through the latest edition of the late George Abell's
"Exploration of the Universe", and was looking through his explanation
of the inverse-square law, when something struck me. Given the
increasing accuracy of CCDs in counting photons, one might be able to do
a decent job of determining the distance to a given light source (say, a
star) WITHOUT the use of parallax (either spectoscopic or visual), by
simply taking a measuring device of fixed aperture, and counting the
number of photons received by it at two different distances from the
light source. By the inverse-square law:
  
  (L1 / L2) = (D2 / D1) ** 2,
  
  where L1 is the luminosity at distance D1, and L2 the luminosity at
distance D2. This equation can easily be solved so that the distance to
the light source can be expressed in units of the distance between the
two measuring points.
  
  Does this seem feasible and/or interesting? Or am I making too many
assumptions about accuracy, so that results wouldn't be usable?

  Dave

------------------------------

Date: 23 Nov 1987 14:51-EST 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: Curvature of space

Yes such affects are theoretically detectable, and in fact they have a
name: gravity waves. Unfortunately, nothing real is yet within the
sensitivity range of existing instruments, unless we happen to get a
supernova considerable closer than SN1987A.

Next generation of detectors should start getting results, if theory is
correct. If it isn't, some physicists are going to be very, very busy
figuring out why pulsars slow down...

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #56
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 25 Nov 87 06:18:38 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA03763; Wed, 25 Nov 87 03:17:53 PST
	id AA03763; Wed, 25 Nov 87 03:17:53 PST
Date: Wed, 25 Nov 87 03:17:53 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8711251117.AA03763@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #57

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 57

Today's Topics:
		    Mir Elements, 21 November 1987
		   WEIGHT LIMIT RAISED FOR SHUTTLE
			 Re: Shuttle weights
		 Re: WEIGHT LIMIT RAISED FOR SHUTTLE
			  Re: space station
		    Re: Standardized Vehicle Parts
			   Another Spin-Off
			 Re: Another Spin-Off
			 Re: Brazil in space
		    Re: Brazil and eco-catastrophe
			Re: Sweden's last war
	  Re: NAVSTAR (was Re: space news from Oct 5 AW&ST)
			     Re: NAVSTAR
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 24 Nov 87 02:09:00 GMT
From: kenny@b.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Mir Elements, 21 November 1987

The long-expected reboost has finally been performed; strangely, the
Soviets have moved to a much less eccentric orbit.  Drag is much lower
in the new orbit, with perigee boosted from about 285 to 326 km.  The
element sets I have give no indication of a launch of P33 yet.  Nor do I
have elements for P32 less than a week old, to confirm the undock.  I
will keep you posted.

Satellite: MIR        
Catalog id 16609
Element set 926
Epoch: 87320.97162467
Inclination:  51.6251 degrees
RA of node:  86.5865 degrees
Eccentricity:  0.0013200
Argument of perigee:  17.4859 degrees
Mean anomaly: 342.6256 degrees
Mean motion: 15.78403973 revs/day
Mean motion acceleration: 0.00011771 * 2 revs/day/day
	Source: NASA Goddard via T.S.Kelso of UT-Austin.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 23 Nov 87 12:36:36 est
From: Mike Stalnaker <mike@nrl-ssd.arpa>
Phone: (301)-695-5288 (h) (301)-258-5130(w)
Usnail: 127 Willowdale Drive, Apt. 22 Frederick, MD 21701
To: beckenba@csvax.caltech.edu
Cc: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: WEIGHT LIMIT RAISED FOR SHUTTLE

Ummm...
You might want to pay attention to who 'Rear Adm. whoever' is. He's Dick
Truly, who was the copilot for STS-1.  Also, he is now Director of
Shuttle Operations for NASA, so I kinda think he knows whereof he
speaks.

--Mike Stalnaker

------------------------------

Date: 23 Nov 1987 14:35-EST 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: Shuttle weights

Both sets of numbers are correct. The larger set are gross landing
weight, including the orbiter structure, remaining fuels, return cargo,
etc. These numbers affect craft lifetime and fatigue because of the wing
loading factors. A higher gross means higher loading and thus more
fatigue and reduced structural life. It also goes without saying that
loading affects the center of gravity and thus landing can get
squirrelly. And of course the landing gear (and tires) hasve to absorb
the impact after the flare out. Then the +x energy has to be absorbed by
a combination of heating the brakes and of tire friction with the
runway. The latter translates into longer rollouts for higher gross
landing weights.

The other figures are cargo weight TO ORBIT. These numbers have been
reduced so that the SSME's need not be run at the outer limits of their
performance envelope. Engine derating decreases chances of failure
because things like turbine blades, pump motors, throat linings and such
are well below their design limits.

There may also be some derating of SRB's. I believe the grain density is
laid down so that there is a carefully controlled preprogrammed thrust
profile during the ascent. I'm sure someone like Dani can correct me on
this if I'm wrong.

------------------------------

Date: 23 Nov 87 19:09:29 GMT
From: beckenba@csvax.caltech.edu  (Joe Beckenbach)
Subject: Re: WEIGHT LIMIT RAISED FOR SHUTTLE

	I logged in this morning to find some mail from Mike Stalnaker
(some- one in Maryland) along these lines:

>In-Reply-To: "beckenba@csvax.caltech.edu"'s message of 21 Nov 87 22:03:12 GMT
>Subject: WEIGHT LIMIT RAISED FOR SHUTTLE
>Ummm...
>You might want to pay attention to who 'Rear Adm. whoever' is. He's
>Dick Truly, who was the copilot for STS-1.  Also, he is now Director of
>Shuttle Operations for NASA, so I kinda think he knows whereof he
>speaks.
>--Mike Stalnaker

	I stand very corrected. [Thank you Mike!!] This changes the
whole complexion of the issue. I guess I can go back to being confused
about it all.
	Question: Has NASA actually set a change in the cargo capacity
allowed at launch? Now that it's had an extra few days to settle in my
mind, Pietro's sources never did unequivocally say that the change in
policy had actually been implemented.
	Apology: profusely to Rear Adm. Truly, and to the NASA people
concerned.  Ah, how fleeting memory. :-) [ I really ought to read more
newspapers... ]

		-Joe Beckenbach (CS BS '88)

------------------------------

Date: 23 Nov 87 18:44:25 GMT
From: byrne@eneevax.umd.edu  (Russ Byrne)
Subject: Re: space station

In article <8967@utzoo.UUCP> henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) writes:
>I have seen nothing that contradicts Fairchild's "Leasecraft" study.
>This was a purely commercial venture, not a NASA contract.  It
>concluded that a
[...]
>Leasecraft itself got shelved for lack of customers, but as far as I
>know Fairchild's conclusions remain sound.

Actually, our Leasecraft got shelved due to unresolvable difficulties in
obtaining "termination liablility" insurance.

At least the basic idea of having a reusable platform in orbit is alive
and well here at Fairchild Space, under the name of Explorer Platform.

We're prime contractors on EP, and are about a year into the contract.

The first payload is the Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer (EUVE), and the
second will probably be the X-ray Timing Experiment (XTE).


Russ Byrne                                 
VOICE: (301) 428-6009 [Fairchild Space Co.]
ARPA: byrne@eneevax.umd.edu

------------------------------

Date: 23 Nov 87 18:34:34 GMT
From: byrne@eneevax.umd.edu  (Russ Byrne)
Subject: Re: Standardized Vehicle Parts

In article <8711211351.aa08254@note.nsf.gov> fbaube@note.nsf.GOV (Fred Baube) writes:
>jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu writes:
>> Eventually could have standardized parts (solar panels, attitude
>> control systems, telemetry units) and put them together with custom
>> parts flown up.
>
>Yes !  Instead of custom-designing every system (structural,
>propulsion, comm, energy generation, habitation, etc. etc.) for every
>vehicle, and instead of custom-building shuttles such as Atlantis to
>accommodate outsized payloads, why not start now on a line of standard
>parts optimized for space assembly/testing.  A

I work for Fairchild Space Company, and with the direction of Goddard
Space Flight Center, we've been making standard modules for about 10
years.

They're called Multimission Modular Spacecraft (MMS) modules.  So far,
we've only built the Communications and Data Handling (CADH) modules,
but we plan to start making the Modular Attitude Control System (MACS)
modules soon.  The current MACS contractor is GE Space Systems in Valley
Forge.

Other Standard MMS modules that have been made are the Modular Power
System (MPS), and the Propulsion Module (PM).  Nearly every spacecraft
needs the CADH, MACS, and MPS modules, with some adding the PM as
needed.

Spacecraft that have or will employ such standard modules include:

Landsat D and D',
Solar Max,
Gamma Ray Observatory,
Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite,
Explorer Platform, and
TOPEX.

The Hubble Space Telescope is using modified (smaller) MMS modules.

Granted, these are not "off the shelf" modules -- they have many options
and all require some design or re-design, but it's a very good start.


Russ Byrne
VOICE: (301) 428-6009 [Fairchild Space Co.]
ARPA: byrne@eneevax.umd.edu

------------------------------

Date: 21 Nov 87 19:54:00 GMT
From: jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Another Spin-Off


I heard about yet another spin-off from the space program that I thought
I'd share with you: The astronuts needed a pen which would write in
microgravity.  One result of this research was a Nitrogen-pressurized
pen.  Another was a very pervasive item: the felt-tip pen.

        -- Ken Jenks, Univ. of Illinois, Urbana/Champaign

------------------------------

Date: 23 Nov 87 09:33:46 GMT
From: unisoft!gethen!farren@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Michael J. Farren)
Subject: Re: Another Spin-Off

In article <74700068@uiucdcsp> jenks@uiucdcsp.cs.uiuc.edu writes:
>I heard about yet another spin-off from the space program that I
>thought I'd share with you: The astronuts needed a pen which would
>write in microgravity.  One result of this research was a
>Nitrogen-pressurized pen.  Another was a very pervasive item: the
>felt-tip pen.

The Space Pen was, indeed, a spin-off, but the felt-tip has been around
a lot longer than that.  I can remember my third grade teacher using one
to write on a big pad of paper.  That would have been in 1957, thus
considerably predating the space program.

Michael J. Farren      "... if the church put in half the time on covetousness
unisoft!gethen!farren   that it does on lust, this would be a better world ..."
gethen!farren@lll-winken.arpa             Garrison Keillor, "Lake Wobegon Days"

------------------------------

Date: 22 Nov 87 05:30:36 GMT
From: linus!utzoo!henry@husc6.harvard.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Brazil in space

> the chances of Brazil's becoming a space power.  His opinion is that
> such an idea is by no means out of the question.

Yup.  Brazil does have a little space program, which is working towards
building its own launcher and at least one satellite to launch on it.
The schedule must be considered a bit uncertain, given limited
experience and financial difficulties, but they're trying.  Unlike a
certain country we could all name, they *do* have a plan.

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 23 Nov 1987 14:55-EST 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: Brazil and eco-catastrophe

Brazil's government funded development efforts have a few other side
effects as well.

Like pushing infrastructure and settlement into areas of the Amazon that
would have been untouched for decades, if ever.

Like displacing the indians (everybody's favorite sport) so that
campesinos can rape the land, eat for a year or two and vote for the
current government.

In the process the Brazilian government is creating what may be a
serious ecological disaster for the entire planet.

	1) Destruction of biological diversity in one of the most
	   species prolific junges in the world.

	2) Turning a large quantity of biomass into CO2.

	3) Destroying a major planetary O2 producing area.

	4) Possible major changes to climate since the rainforests have
	   very different property from the parched land left behind
	   after peasant slash and burn.

I've seen some before and after landsat photos of rainforest areas
opened for settlement by government. Anybody who wants to blame a few
"ravening western capitalist firms" for what is happening is a fool.
They may be there, (at government invitation) and they may indeed be
adding to the harm, but what they are doing is only a symptom of a
greater malaise.

You can see in the before and after pictures the advance of small plot
agriculture into thousands of square miles of virgin forest. In one
picture you see a few government roads run back into the jungle, visible
because of the initial settlements along them. Several years later you
see a vast checkerboard, like a growing fractal eating the heart out of
the jungles.

The Brazilian government may be in a race against poverty, but what they
do will affect us all. I do not have much respect for them.

------------------------------

Date: 23 Nov 1987 15:15-EST 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: Sweden's last war

Hmmm, maybe the 30 year's war?

Seriously though, I think it was probably WWII, whether willingly
involved or not, I'd have to go check because I don't remember specific
incidents as I do for Finland (a brave defense against invasion by the
USSR) and Norway (occupied by the Nazis, site of German heavy hydrogen
production, home port for the Tirpitz, sinking of the Tirpitz by the
RAF Dam Busters Lancasters using the specially designed 'earthquake
bomb' etc.)

------------------------------

Date: 22 Nov 87 03:33:29 GMT
From: ulysses!faline!karn@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: NAVSTAR (was Re: space news from Oct 5 AW&ST)

> As for civil use of NAVSTAR, bear in mind that the receivers for civil
> use will be significantly less accurate than those for military use.

Not really. The differences between C/A (Clear Access, the civilian
mode) and P (Precision, the military mode) are as follows:

1. The spread spectrum chip rate on the C/A PN sequence is 1.023
megachip/sec. It is ten times that on the P channel.

2. The P sequence is transmitted on both the L1 frequency, 1575.420 MHz,
and L2, 1227.6 MHz.  [Hams: this is why we lost 1215-1240 Mhz a few
years ago]. The C/A sequence is normally transmitted only on the L1
frequency.  The correction for ionospheric effects thus possible with
the P sequence isn't normally possible with the C/A sequence.

Nevertheless, tests with C/A have shown it to be less than 10x worse
than with P. Depending on location, integration time, receiver velocity,
etc, typical C/A accuracies are well within 30 meters bias, 6 meters
noise.  This is so much better than anything else that it hardly matters
if it's "significantly less accurate" than the P channel (which is
typically 3 meters bias, 6 meters noise).

(Source: Handbook of Modern Electronics and Electrical Engineering,
chapter 54, "Satellite Navigation").

Phil

------------------------------

Date: 23 Nov 1987 14:22-EST 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: NAVSTAR

Personally I recommend that anyone with the power to do so discourage
civil use of the NAVSTAR. Go for Geostar instead.

Geostar is wholly private and Space Studies Institute is a major stock
holder.

So what the options boil down to is:

	A) Buy the NAVSTAR system and help support you know who.
	B) Buy Geostar and know that money will be plowed back into
	   R&D to open the frontier to people like us instead of
	   fighter jocks. (No offense to fighter jocks)

The choice is yours.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #57
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 26 Nov 87 06:14:04 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA05915; Thu, 26 Nov 87 03:13:02 PST
	id AA05915; Thu, 26 Nov 87 03:13:02 PST
Date: Thu, 26 Nov 87 03:13:02 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8711261113.AA05915@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #58

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 58

Today's Topics:
		   Science Journalism (was RE:...)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 22 Nov 87 11:12:23 GMT
From: ihnp4!alberta!edson!tic!ruiu@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Dragos Ruiu)
Subject: Science Journalism (was RE:...)

[Flaming about responsible journalism back and forth omitted...]

In preparing for an interview with CBC (Canadian bradcasting
...substitute cute joke of choice) science journalist David Suzuki, I
came across the following paragraph in his auto-biography, that you
might find relevant: (excerpted without permission)

   "Once I went to see a CBC vice-president to plead for more time for
science programs. When I told him science is far more important in our
lives than business politics or entertainment, he just stares at me
incredulously. So I explained that at the heart of the issues of nuclear
war, environmental pollution, energy, medical care and computer
literacy, were science and technology. He replied "those aren't science
stories, they're current affairs!"  His reaction reflected the fact that
most of the people who rise through the CBC ranks come from a journalism
background. To them, news and current affairs are all that matter. Not
surprisingly, in all of the position papers written by the CBC, science
programming has never been mentioned as a priority area."

---
   My opinion on the dearth of good science journalism (and the relative
abundance of the fluff, "Yes, Entertainment Tonight will look at space
shuttle fashions this show...") is that the blame does not lie with the
reporters or the media in general. It belongs with the bureaucrats and
producers (read, paper-pushers) who control the funding of the media.
   There are qualified reporters and researchers out there. They are
simply not given enough leash to follow up subjects and explain them.
The producers are terrified at even the *chance* of alienating any
viewers with serious content. They go for the flash, the sensationalism
that sells commercial time.
   TV is that sort of medium, it has to be zippy, you have to have
graphics.  A pair of talking heads explaining things clearly will just
not do. As well you are limited by the packaging to segments lasting a
few minutes - and how much depth does that give? Four minutes to explain
a technical subject using language free of jargon, or that has all the
jargon explained. That is a tough task.
    But I think it can be done. If one news organization would have the
...  (ahem) balls to get a good science team together, fund them, and
most importantly, stand behind them - then they would eventually reap
the benefits.  There would be an initial backlash, (ratings etc...) but
I am positive that they would eventually gain the needed reputation.
   Joe Public, is not a drooling idiot. But you couldn't tell that from
today's TV.

   We now return you to your regularly scheduled Three's Company
rerun....

Dragos Ruiu
(403) 432-0090         #1705, 8515 112th Street, Edmonton,
		       Alta. Canada T6G 1K7 
Never play leapfrog with Unicorns...

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #58
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 27 Nov 87 06:22:09 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA07114; Fri, 27 Nov 87 03:21:22 PST
	id AA07114; Fri, 27 Nov 87 03:21:22 PST
Date: Fri, 27 Nov 87 03:21:22 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8711271121.AA07114@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #59

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 59

Today's Topics:
		  Space Companies List (~600 lines)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 21 Nov 87 20:35:00 GMT
From: jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Space Companies List (~600 lines)


Again, I've had 30+ requests for a RE-posting of my list of companies
involved in the space program.  This newest list includes corrections
to phone numbers and addresses since the last one, as well as some
general advice on How To Find A Job In Space.  I wish I'd known all
this when I started.

This will be my absolute last posting of this material to the net.  I
may post a couple of corrections, but this is the last time the
complete list will go out to everyone.  I will E-mail copies of this on
request.

Again, I'd like to ask that you who use this list DO NOT MENTION MY
NAME.  I have a philosophical interest in getting motivated, competent
people into the space program, but I don't want to be personally
associated with the kind people on this list getting deluged with
letters and phone calls.  I know, that's their job.  But I don't want
them to blame me!

The University has informed me that my sign-on will be disappearing as
of 20 December 1987.  When I get going at my new job, I'll try to get
back to the net.  Thanks to all of you who have helped me with this
project, and to all who have participated in these strange discussions
we have via computer.  I've had a lot of fun here.  I hope I can
return.

        -- Ken Jenks, Univ. of Illinois, Urbana/Champaign

jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu
{ihnp4!pur-ee}uiucdcs!uiucdcsp!jenks

"For I dipt into the Future, far as human eye could see
Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be;
Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails,
Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales."
	-- Alfred, Lord Tennyson

- - -- - - - - - - - - - - tear here - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

General Aerospace Job Search Stategies:
There are many job placement manuals available in the Placement Office
of your nearby college or university.  Even if you're no longer a
student, you can probably still use some of the facilities.  I won't
cover what those manuals told me, but I will give some suggestions that
I would have found helpful at the beginning of my job search in the
space industry.  As you can see from the following lists, I didn't
always follow these suggestions.  I wish I had.

1)  Start early.  Aerospace companies typically spend 2 months thinking
	about your application before doing anything about it.  In your
	first letter to the company, request that they send you an
	application.  This will help speed things along and let them
	know that you're interested enough to spend the time filling in
	the form.

2)  Write well.  I can't emphasize this enough.  People get an
	impression of you from how you interact with them.  If you come
	across as careless (typos, silly errors) or stupid (poor
	grammar, bad construction) they won't want to hire you.  Period.
	All your engineering skills can't save you.  Have a friend
	proofread.

3)  Keep good records.  As you send out letters and resumes, keep a
	record of the date you sent it and to whom you sent it.  This
	will help you track your resumes and applications when they
	(inevitably) get lost.

4)  Use a telephone.  A WATS line is VERY nice.  You'll be making many
	long distance calls (I made over 150).  You'll be put on hold
	and disconnected more times than you can count.  But the
	immediacy of talking to a person instead of writing to a Mail
	Stop is very important.  The people in the Personnel Office
	(whose names you should always record) will treat you as a
	person instead of just another applicant.

5)  Talk to people, not departments.  Always try to find the name of
	a PERSON to address your letters and phone calls to.  This will
	help you keep track of your correspondence better, and make
	them treat you better.  Names are powerful magic.

6)  Know your history.  Knowing what the space program has done in the
	past will aid you in your passge to the future.  You'll see
	trends in the space industry and know a bit more about where
	things happen and why.  It will also give you something to talk
	about with interviewers.  This isn't terribly important, but it
	helps.

7)  Be persistant.  The companies aren't out to hire you; they're out to
	hire somebody.  Anybody.  You have to stick to your dreams and
	get those letters out.  Follow up with phone calls (2 weeks
	later minumim).  This will remind your contacts in the company
	that you still exist and are still interested.


NASA:
The first place to look for a job in the space program is NASA.  Not
because they have the best jobs (debatable), but beacause it takes them
FOREVER to get job applications processed.  To apply, submit a resume
and a copy of Standard Form 171 to them at least six months (!) before
you want to interview, 9 months before you want the job.  If I'd known
this earlier, I might have have a job there.  Instead, NASA and I both
lose.  SF-171 can be found at any Federal office.  You can submit a
Xerox of your SF-171 to each place, as long as you SIGN and DATE each
individual copy.  This will save you mucho time when filling out
forms.

The best way I've found to get addresses in NASA is to call
(xxx) 555-1212 for the NASA Center you're interested in, then asking
for the main switchboard.  The NASA Centers, their location, area
codes, and brief summaries of activity at each follows:

	Ames Research Center				(ARC)
	Sunnyvale, CA
	(408)
	Mostly aeronautical (80%), some space-related (20%).  Wind
	tunnels, VSTOL, 'copters, automation.  Highly recommend
	contacting Eugene Miya (eugene@ames-pioneer.arpa).

	Dryden
	Edwards AFB, CA
	(619?)
	Land shuttle, flight research.  Lotsa history here.

	Goddard Space Flight Center			(GSFC)
	Greenbelt, MD
	(301)
	Unmanned S/C, Earth orbiting satellites.

	Johnson Space Center				(JSC)
	Houston, TX
	(713) 483-9591 (Jo Ellen Brown) or -3035 (Susan Braymer)
	Manned space program, astronaut training.
		NASA Johnson Space Center
		Attn: Mail Code AH73
		      Ms. Susam Braymer
		Houston, TX  77058

	Kennedy Space Center				(KSC)
	Titasville, FL
	(305)
	Launch facilities, Shuttle maintenance & repair.  Engineering
	happens here; little or no research.

	Langley						(Langley)
	Reston?, VA
	(703 or 804)
	Structures, aerodynamics, fluid flow, computation.
	Reston, VA is home of NASA HQ, including Space Station HQ.

	Lewis Research Center				(Lewis)
	Wright-Patterson AFB, Cleveland, OH
	(216) 433-4000 (switchboard)
	Technical support, research.

	Marshall Space Flight Center			(MSFC)
	Huntsville, AL
	(205) 544-0957 (personnel)
	Propulsion, rocketry.

The following aren't your regular NASA Centers.

	Jet Propulsion Laboratory			(JPL)
	Pasedena, CA
	(818)
	Actually a NASA contractor.  Non-profit, planetary missions,
	power systems, bio research, man fingers in many pies.

	Wallops Flight Center				(Wallops)
	Wallops Island, VA
	(804?)
	Sounding rockets; > 11,000 launched.



Contractors:
This first group of companies was found from a Contractor List supplied
by NASA Johnson Space Center's Personnel Dept.  Most of the NASA
Personnel Depts. have these lists.  I've gotten them for JSC, KSC,
MSFC, & ARC.  JSC is the only list I've put on-line.


Barrios Technology
	Attn: Ronda Monchak
	1331 Gemini
	Houston, TX  77058

Boeing Aerospace
	Attn: Lois Ramey
	PO Box 58747
	Houston, TX  77058

Computer Sciences
	Personnel Dept.
	16511 Space Center Blvd.
	Houston, TX  77058
	(713) 486-8153 ext 259

Control Data Corp.
	Attn: Maria Ward
	9894 Bissonnet
	Houston, TX  77036

Ford Aerospace & Communications
	Attn: Alvin Dailey
	PO Box 58487
	Houston, TX  77258
	(713) 280-6236

GE
	Attn: Imma Lee Ross or Linda Pratt
	1820 NASA Road #1
	Houston, TX  77058
	(713) 333-8605 (Imma Lee Ross) or (713) 333-8604 (Linda Pratt)

Grumman Aerospace
	Personnel Dept.
	2800 Space Park Drive
	Houston, TX  77058
	(713) 333-2560

Grumman Houston Corp.
	Personnel Dept.
	12310 Galveston Rd
	Attn: Freddy-Ann Marcussen
	Webster, TX 77598

Jefferson Associates, Inc.
	Attn: Limas Jefferson
	1120 NASA Road #1
	Suite 100
	Houston, TX  77058
	(713) 333-3414

Lockheed Engineering & Management Service
	Attn: Linda Nilsen
	2400 NASA Road #1
	Houston, TX  77058
	(713) 333-6601

McDonnell Douglas
	Attn: C. D. Price
	16055 Space Center Blvd.
	Houston, TX  77062
	(713) 280-1500 ext 1761
	---
	(714) 952-6797 (Mr. Waller)

Northrop Service, Inc.
	Attn: Carol Alcorta
	PO Box 34416
	Houston, TX  77234

Singer Company
	Link Division
	Attn: Patricia Records
	2224 Bay Area Blvd.
	Houston, TX  77058

Sperry Univac Corp.
	Attn: Modelle Mann
	16811 El Camino Real
	Houston, TX  77058

UNISYS
	Attn: Frances M. Bond
	600 Gemini
	Houston, TX  77058

Eagle Engineering		That mysterious company found at last!
	P.O. Box 891049
	Houston, TX 77289-1049
	(713) 338-2682

There are others on the JSC list, but I wasn't interested in them, so I
didn't type them in.


The following companies were found exclusively from net.pals:

Spacehab
	Seattle based

Space Industries
	Houston based

External Tanks, Incorporated
	Tom Rogers
	Boulder, CO

Third Millennium, Inc.
	918 F Street NW, Suite 601
	Washington DC 20004

PERMANENT, LTD
	114 Westwick Ct #5
	Sterling, VA 22170
	(703) 444-1560 (voice)
	(703 or 202)-450-2732 (computer)



The next list was found by a lot of hard work and many $ to Ma Bell.  I
took the list of Space Station contractors and tracked them all down.
(Well, all but Analex and Rocketdyne.  I'll get Rocketdyne soon, but
Analex looks hopeless.  Nobody has heard of it!)

Alphabetical Listing of Space Station Companies and Segments:

Key:
  #1: Segment I     Crew and lab modules
  #2: Segment II    Framework (main boom)
  #3: Segment III   Free-flying platform and research eqpt.
  #4: Segment IV    Power system


Analex, #4		Nothing known.

Boeing, #1	Also in Seattle, LA (213), Wash. DC, Renton VA.
	Contact Dani Eder in Seattle (eder@RUTGERS.EDU).
	He's been very helpful.
	---
	The Boeing Company
	Employment Office
	PO Box 1470
	Huntsville, AL  35807
	(205) 461-2121 (Jeff Prince)


Computer Sciences, #3
	PO Box 21127  Kennedy Space Ctr, FL 32815
		(305) 853-2484
	8728 Colesville Rd  Silver Spring, MD 20910
		(301) 589-1545
	304 W Rt 38 / PO Box N  Moorestown, NJ 08057
		(609) 234-1100
	4835 University Sq Ste 8  Huntsville, AL 35816
		(205) 830-1000 (Applied Tech Div)
	200 Sparkman Dr N W  Huntsville, AL 35805
		(205) 837-7200 (Defense Sys Div)
	6565 Arlington Blvd  Falls Church, VA 22046
	       (703) 237-2000 (Energy Resch Div)
	16511 Space Center Blvd.  Houston, TX  77058
		(713) 486-8153 ext 259

Eagle Engineering, #4
	711 Bay Area Blvd, Suite 315
	Webster, TX 77598
	(713) 338-2682 (Shirley Reynolds)


Ford Aerospace & Communications, #4
	Attn: Alvin Dailey
	PO Box 58487
	Houston, TX  77258
	(713) 335-1714 (Alvin Dailey)
	(713) 280-6236	(JSC List)
	(301) 345-0250  (Jim Furilla or Judy Kopetz)
	---
	Western Development Laboratories
	Attn: Mr. John Clark
	3939 Fabian Way
	Palo Alto, CA  94303
	(415) 852-6917


Garrett Fluid Systems, #4       Formerly Garrett Pneumatic Sys Div
	Garrett Fluid Systems Company
	1300 W. Warner Rd, Box 22200
	Tempe, AZ 85282
	(602) 893-5000


General Dynamics, #4
	General Dynamics Bldg  Ft. Worth, TX 76101
	(817) 777-2000
	---
	Space Systems Division
	PO Box 85990,
	San Diego, CA  92138
	(619) 573-8000
	---
	Data Systems Division
	PO Box 85808,
	San Diego, CA  92138


General Electric, Astro Space Division, #1, #3
	Subsumed RCA, changed name to just GE.
	---
	Attention: Mike Kavka
	Mail Stop 101
	Astro Space Division
	East Windsor
	POB 800
	Princeton, NJ 08543-0800
	(609) 426-3400
	(609) 426-2228 (Personnel)


Grumman Aerospace, #1, #2       Large piece of Station awarded in July
	2852 Kelvin Ave  Irvine, CA 92714       	(714) 660-4200
	1111 Stuart Ave / Bethpage, NY 11714		(516) 575-3369
		(516) 575-6400 Job Line
		(516) 575-3556 New Grads
	Grumman Blvd / MS F05-07 / Calverton NY		(516) 575-0574
	2800 Space Park Drive / Houston, TX  77058	(713) 333-2560
	12310 Galveston Rd/Attn:Freddy-Ann Marcussen/Webster, TX 77598


Harris, #2
	(303) 727-4000 Ask for GASD


Honeywell, #2, #3
	W. R. Moore
	Mail Station 257-5
	Honeywell
	13350 US Highway 19
	Clearwater, FL  34624-7290
	(813) 539-3689 (W. R. Moore)
	(813) 531-4611 (Ann Sherman)
	---
	Defense Sys Div
	5700 Smetana Dr
	M N O2-3380
	Minnetonka, MN 55343
	(612) 936-3196
	---
	Aerospace & Defense Grp
	Honeywell Plaza
	Minneapolis, MN 55408
	(612) 870-5186 (Corporate Human Resources)
	(612) 870-5998 (Elizabeth Olson, Corporate Human Resources)


Hughes Aircraft, #1
	Hughes Aircraft
	Radar Systems Group
	Engineering Employment
	POB 92426
	Los Angeles, CA  90009
	(213) 606-2111 (Lou Hendrick)
	---
	Hughes Aircraft
	Space Communications Group
	Attn: Employment Ofc. - College Relations
	909 N. Sepulveda
	El Segundo, CA  90009
	(213) 647-7177

IBM, #2, #3
	IBM
	Personnel
	3700 Bay Area Bvd.
	Houston, TX  77058
	(713) 282-2300 (Debbie Garcia)

Intermetrics, #2
	Indl Sys Div
	733 Concord Av
	Cambridge, MA 02138
	(800) 325-5235
	(617) 661-1840 (Mike Adams)

Lockheed Missiles & Space, #1, #2, #3, #4, #4
	Lockheed has MANY offices in Sunnyvale, CA.  That's
	where much of the Space Station research is happening.
	Contact Joe Lodge, Personnel Dept.
	(800) 851-8045 or (408) 742-7175 (Joe Lodge)
	---
	Lockheed Space Operations Company  {Shuttle contract}
	Attn: Mr. Don Quirk
	110 Lockheed Way
	Titasville, FL  32780
	(305) 383-2200 (Titasville switchboard)
	(305) 867-2765 (Kennedy Space Center)
	---	
	Lockheed Engineering & Management Service
	Attn: Linda Nilsen
	2400 NASA Road #1
	Houston, TX  77058
	(713) 333-6601 (Linda Nilsen, Houston)


Martin Marietta, #1
	(504) 257-4716 (Sandy)
	(408) 745-8068 (Rita in Sunnyvale)
	---
	Martin Marietta
	Denver Aerospace
	Personnel Dept.
	6020 S. Ulster
	Englewood, CO  80111


McDonnell Douglas Astronautics, #1, #2, #3
	Richard B. Rout,
	Dept. 5900, Mail Code 11-3
	McDonnell Douglas
	Astronautics and Space Division
	5301 Bolsa Ave.
	Huntington Beach, CA  92647
	(714) 896-5633
	---
	McDonnell Douglas
	Attn: C. D. Price (no longer works there)
	16055 Space Center Blvd.
	Houston, TX  77062
	(713) 280-1500 ext 1761


Planning Research Corp., #4		(PRC)
	1500 Planning Research Dr
	McLean, VA 22102
	(703) 556-1000 (Corporate Offices)


RCA, #2, #3, #3  	Subsumed by GE/Astro Space


Rocketdyne, #4		A subsidiary of Rockwell in LA area.


Rockwell, #2		Houston is Shuttle activity, not Station.
		Station work is being done in Downey, CA, near LA.
	---
	Steve C. Hoefer
	Supervisor, Crew Activity Planning
	Rockwell Shuttle Operations Company
	Rockwell International Corporation
	600 Gemini Avenue
	Houston, TX  77058
	(713) 483-4438
	---
	Electronic Operations
	Rockwell International Corp.
	3370 Miraloma Ave.
	PO Box 3105
	Anaheim, CA  92803-3105
	(714)
	---
	North American Space Operations
	Rockwell International Corp.
	12214 Lakewood Bvd.
	Downey, CA  90241
	(213)



SRI International, #2		Robotics, AI (maybe more)
	SRI International
	Personnel Dept.
	333 Ravenswood Ave.
	Menlo Park, CA  94025
	(415) 859-3993 (Elizabeth Brackman)
	(415) 859-3305 (Janice Adams, Human Resources)
	(415) 326-6200 (switchboard)


Sperry/UNISYS, #2	       Changed name from Sperry to UNISYS
	UNISYS
	Attn: Modelle Mann
	16811 El Camino Real		(ADDRESS CORRECTION)
	Houston, TX  77058
	(713)488-3300
	(800) 645-3440 (Corporate Offices, Eastern Time Zone)


Sunstrand, #4
	Sundstrand Energy Systems
	Unit of Sundstrand Corp.
	4747 Harrison Ave, P.O. Box 7002
	Rockford, Ill. 61125
	(815) 226-6000


TRW, #1, #2, #3, #4
	Jack Friedenthal
	Bldg. 135, Rm. 2823
	One Space Park
	Redondo Beach, CA  90278
	---
	Penny Burkes
	Bldg. R2, Rm. 2130
	One Space Park
	Redondo Beach, CA  90278
	(213) 532-0845
	---
	(213) 297-8765 (Irwin Newman)
	(213) 535-8416 (Arthur Green - best contact)


Teledyne Brown Engineering, #1, #4  (Did not actually bid on #4)
	Teledyne Brown Engineering
	Attn: Mr. Tom Robinson (corporate hires)
	      Caroline Walker  (entry level)
	Cummings Research Park
	Huntsville, AL  35807
	(800) 633-2090


United Technologies (Hamilton Standard), #1
	Phil Beaudoin
	Hamilton Standard
	One Hamilton Road
	Windsor Locks, CT  06096
	(203) 654-6000
	(203) 654-4601 (Personnel)


United Technologies (USBI Booster Production), #1
		Also in Slidelle, LA
	United Space Boosters / BPC
	188 Spartman Dr
	PO Box 1900
	Huntsville, AL 35807
	(205) 721-2400


Wyle Laboratories, #1
	Wyle Laboratories
	Personnel Department
	Attn: Mr. Gordon Bakken
	7800 Govenor's Drive West
	Huntsville, AL  35807
	(703) 834-1633 (Mr. Gordon Bakken in NJ)


The following are other companies not working directly on the Space
Station, but related to space nonetheless:

Aerospace Corporation
	non-profit, helps Air Force
	(213) 336-5000 (switchboard)
	(213) 336-1614 (college relations -- Walter Caldwell)

United Technologies (Research Center)
	(203) 727-7000

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #59
*******************

From:	GOV%"OTA@ANGBAND.S1.GOV" 28-NOV-1987 05:59
To:	HIGGINS
Subj:	SPACE Digest V8 #60

Received: From UIUCVMD(MAILER) by FNALC with RSCS id 0363
          for HIGGINS@FNALC; Sat, 28 Nov 87 05:59 CST
Received: by UIUCVMD (Mailer X1.25) id 0353; Sat, 28 Nov 87 05:53:59 CST
Date:         Sat, 28 Nov 87 03:25:47 PST
Reply-To:     Space@angband.s1.gov
Sender:       SPACE Digest <SPACE@TCSVM>
From:         Ted Anderson <OTA@ANGBAND.S1.GOV>
Subject:      SPACE Digest V8 #60
Comments: To: Space@angband.s1.gov
To:           "(no name)" <HIGGINS@FNALC>
     
SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 60
     
Today's Topics:
              Eugen Sanger Paper
          Re: Brown Dwarfs and media idiocy
              More on Militarism
            Soviet Science on NOVA
    Progress 33 docks to USSR's Mir and upcommin cosmonaut change
    Re: CCDs and Inverse-square law distance determination
            Re: Sweden's last war
         Re: WEIGHT LIMIT RAISED FOR SHUTTLE
----------------------------------------------------------------------
     
Date: 22 Nov 87 19:42:09 GMT
From: speedy!thurm@speedy.wisc.edu  (Matthew J. Thurmaier)
Subject: Eugen Sanger Paper
     
In the August/September 1987 issue of "AIR&SPACE Smithsonian" magazine,
there is an article on Eugen Sanger & his "Amerika Bomber".  In it
the author says that "...pirated copies of his top-secret Amerika Bomber
thesis can be found in virtually every military establishment..."
     
1.) Is the material still classified?
2.) If not, does someone out there have a copy that I can read?
     
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
     
Matthew J. Thurmaier
U of Wisc - Madison, Computer Systems Lab
..!{allegra,harvard,ihnp4,seismo}!uwvax!matt
matt@rsch.wisc.edu
     
------------------------------
     
Date: Sun 22 Nov 87 13:32:04-PST
From: ~  Victor Von Doom  ~   <J.JBRENNER@macbeth.stanford.edu>
Subject: Re: Brown Dwarfs and media idiocy
     
You can't expect an organization such as CNN to do a good job of science
reporting unless there's some demand for it, and it doesn't seem to be
there for the mass audience.  There's a certain market for
well-researched, respectable information (e.g. the New York Times), but
it seems that there's an even greater market pseudo-science (e.g. the
Enquirer).
     
Blaming "the media" is a fun game, but it's at best an
over-simplification.
     
By all means though, spread the word if CNN persists in making gross
errors.  Maybe Time magazine would be interested in an article on the
excesses of video journalism?  It might put the pressure on for CNN to
do a better job.  For example, I certainly appreciated the live coverage
of the commitee investigating the Challenger accident (Feynman, Ride,
etc.).
     
--- Joe Brenner
     
------------------------------
     
Date:     Fri, 20 Nov 87 16:15 O
From: <LEISTI%FINUH.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu>
Subject: More on Militarism
     
[Editor's Note:
     
While interesting, these discussions have gotten too far afield from the
topic of SPACE.  Starting soon, I'm going to start punting these
messages from the digest.  I recommend they be continued privately or in
a more appropriate mailing list.
    -Ted Anderson]
     
In SPACE Digest #52, Scott Allen writes:
     
>In article <563942636.amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU>, Dale.Amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU writes:
>> History DOES NOT show that all arms buildups lead to war. History
>> shows that SOME arms buildups have led to war while others have not.
>> Interesting papers on the causes of conflict have been written on the
>> historical backgrounds of the various cases.
>Do not neglect the for probable truth that tensions which cause arms
>buildups also lead to war -- or that arms buildups deter war.
     
I suspect that the double-quoted text above may have had something to do
with my article attacking military-industrial complexes in Digest #46,
but I haven't received the issue in which it appeared.  I back down from
my statement that arms buildups lead to war (I'm not an expert on
history), but will continue my attack from other directions.  (Certainly
arms buildups may lead to war, and may and probably will increase the
likelihood of one.)  I'll quote my answer to a private message:
     
We seem to have a basic difference in the way we view questions of war
and peace.  I say we have to start trying to win our mutual hostility
and distrust; you say that groups that completely abandon defense don't
survive.  I say we have to start viewing the human race as a group with
no external enemies.
     
One of the principles of democracy (in my view; your view of democracy
may be different, as is the Soviets') is open government; that is,
public availability of all policy-influencing information.  You are
correct in that some secrecy is necessary if one wants an effective
military; this just means that the requirements of militaries and
democratic governments are at odds in this respect.
     
The fact that famine relief destroys local food production is not a
function of trying to help people; it is a function of not helping them
enough, or not in the right way.  Famine relief is just a band-aid on
the symptoms of a sickness that is originally caused by the inequal
distribution of food in the world (there is enough food to feed
everyone).  Those that have money, eat; those that don't, don't.  It
comes down to economics, and the industrialized countries control the
world economy; they set the prices of the raw materials; they give the
loans and set the terms; they decide which projects (and countries) get
development aid and which don't; and they reap the profits on the cheap
labor of the Third World countries, who have to compete for
employment-creating foreign capital by giving foreign companies waivers
on working-condition and wage laws.  Are you implying in your statement
"Non-uniform distributions [of wealth and power] indicate differences
and most of them result from choices" that poor countries have
deliberately decided to be poor and ripped off by industrialized
countries?  I disagree with you in this, as in many other respects.
     
Some of your statements may be commented by the following answer of mine
to another private message:
     
All right, saying that defense is just a nicer word for war is
inaccurate.  It would be more accurate to say that they are two sides of
the same coin.  If all militaries' function was solely defense, there
wouldn't be any wars, would there?  That's what I meant by my statement.
One country's defensive measures may look like preparing for offense to
another country.  A prime example is the incredible $2*10**12 military
buildup of the U.S.  in the last seven years; the greatest military
buildup of world history, wartime or peacetime.  I don't think that
looks just like preparing to deter attack to the Soviets (or to others
outside the U.S.); more like increasing America's capability of
continuing politics by other means.
     
"Defense is the only deterrent to warfare we've found yet", "Disarmament
treaties are worthless."  So, if you want peace, prepare for war.  I
have to apologize, but in my view, this attitude is what has brought
humankind to the brink of collective suicide.
     
I did not mean that arms manufacturers are the sole reason for
international friction.  (But if the U.S. wants tanks, and no one is
selling, it can't very well go to war with tanks, can it?  I disagree
with you in that I think weapons manufacturers do have a moral
responsibility for the end use of their products.)  What I meant was
that, to continue to use the U.S. as an example, the people who profit
from the huge defense budget have so much combined political power that
it may be difficult to start pursuing a more peaceful foreign policy
even if the political leadership wanted to, which it certainly doesn't
seem to have wanted up to as few months ago.  (I am of course referring
to the medium-range missile treaty and the possible coming ICBM
reduction treaty, which I applaud wholeheartedly.)  Arms manufacturers
are just one of the pillars supporting militarism.  Another is fear,
mistrust and hatred among peoples.  These elements feed on each other.
     
The military eats up resources vitally needed to prevent war.  In other
words, money put into weapons and militaries should go to decreasing the
inequality of the distribution of wealth and power.  "Those that don't
have, want, and those that do, won't give it up without a fight."  Now
I'm not suggesting that industrialized countries just give all their
military budgets away as foreign aid (though they could easily put a
substantial bite of it for that purpose, and they do have poor of their
own, too), but that people should start realizing that in the long run
it would benefit all if wars could be prevented by greater solidarity
among peoples; by giving before the fighting begins.  This, and
increased trade among possible enemy countries, and fairer trade
practices between industrialized and developing countries, might serve
to increase trust and mutual dependency among peoples.  I know the U.S.
does give a considerable amount of money away as foreign aid (much of it
as military aid), but how much of it is purely humanitarian and
unselfish aid?  (Consider the (many of them fortunately former) Latin
American dictatorships propped up with American money.)  (What is
"humanitarian aid" to the contras?  Lots of iron and other minerals and
nutrients....)
     
Power should also be parceled out by moving towards a world government
with real power to enforce its decisions (the UN is just a discussion
forum in questions of war and peace).
     
The military mindset increases the likelihood of war.  "When your only
tool is a hammer, all the world looks like a nail."
     
The military expenditures of the superpowers are so huge that they
threaten and weaken civilian economies (the U.S. budget deficit, much of
which is due to the aforementioned arms buildup).  I am relieved that
there is at least one superpower leader who has realized that his
country can't take much longer the load of the arms race (and has
subsequently been very active in making arms-control proposals); and
neither can the U.S. for an awful lot longer.  It is strange, to say the
least, to pay hundreds of dollars for state-of-the-art military hammers
while one of the freedoms of one's country (which happens to be the
world's richest, and could well provide for all its citizens, as the
Scandinavian so-called "welfare states" (which happen to work) do) is
the freedom to starve if you're dropped out of the game.
     
I fail to see what the Korean and Vietnam wars had to do with America
getting to keep its cars, homes and jobs.  They look more like outright
imperialism to me.  (To keep this balanced: I consider Afghanistan
imperialism, too.)  Unless you mean that the Vietnam war stimulated the
American economy, as the brother of an American friend of mine said
during that war as a justification for it.
     
Now, I certainly do not consider the world a big, rosey paradise with
just a few snakes in it.  I think the world is seriously sick and should
start doing something to heal itself, quick, before it self-destructs.
That is why I'm a pacifist.  Militarism is an all-pervading threat to
our continuing existence, happiness and freedom.  We should start
looking for new ways of international cooperation to counter this
threat.  Have the military blocs really tried to increase peaceful
cooperation and mutual dependency in the world?  Not awfully hard, I
think.
     
I realize that the big boys at the positions of power of this world are
cold, cynical and calculating, and are not going to start disarming
themselves unilaterally just because weapons can hurt people.  Change
has to come from below: I feel that people of the world should stop
thinking of themselves as primarily the nationals of a certain country,
but as world citizens with a common responsibility for each other, the
way the people of the different states of the U.S. started thinking of
themselves primarily as citizens of U.S. after an initial period of
primary loyalty to their particular state.  (Because we in the western
societies have the freedom of travel that most eastern bloc countries do
not have, we have a particular responsibility for making contacts with
people on the other side; traveling, giving invitations to visit our
countries, etc.)  I feel that this kind of qualitative change in our
thinking is the only way to get permanent changes in the security
situation of the world on the way, to get us out of the rut we're in
right now.  If this kind of thinking is naive, then I say we need more
naive people.  We need alternatives to militarism.
     
Teemu Leisti                        U. of Helsinki, Dept. of Compter Science
(LEISTI@FINUH.BITNET)               Finland
     
------------------------------
     
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 87 10:22:27 EST
From: moss!cbrma!c.l.harting@RUTGERS.EDU
     
> Your list of addresses includes Lewis Research as being at
> Wright-Patterson AFB.  I beg to differ.  Wright-Patterson AFB is
> outside of Dayton, OH, not in Cleveland.  Lewis is in Cleveland.
> Please double-check your addresses.
>  Chris Harting
     
I know better.  I was bound to get some of them wrong.  If anybody else
spots a bug, please let me know.
     
-- Ken Jenks, MS: Aero/Astro Engineering, BS: Computer Science, UIUC
     
------------------------------
     
Date: 23 Nov 87 12:24:00 PST
From: "DSS::BOLD" <bold%dss.decnet@afsc-sd.arpa>
Subject: Soviet Science on NOVA
To: "space" <space@angband.s1.gov>
Reply-To: "DSS::BOLD" <bold%dss.decnet@afsc-sd.arpa>
     
Last week's NOVA episode dealt with the quality of Soviet science.  I
didn't catch the whole thing, but according the program, the Soviets are
claiming credit for the first lasers and the first nuclear power plant
(while they *may* have built upon the work of others in these areas,
these particular claims are a bit much).  The restrictions on what they
could film demonstrate, despite the hoopla from the media, that
*glasnost* does have limits.  (Ah, but what can we expect from people
who can't tell a planet from a brown dwarf?)  The program also contained
the best summary on Lysenkoism since the chapter on it in Martin
Gardner's *Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science*.
     
SPACE DIGEST readers who would like to obtain transcripts may do so for
$4.00 a copy.  Write to:
     
"How Good is Soviet Science?"
NOVA
P.O. Box 322
Boston MA 02435
     
     
Kevin Bold
(BOLD@AFSC-SD.ARPA)
     
------------------------------
     
Date: Tue, 24 Nov 87 13:42:34 EST
From: Glenn Chapman <glenn@ll-vlsi.arpa>
Subject: Progress 33 docks to USSR's Mir and upcommin cosmonaut change
     
     The USSR launched the Progress 33 cargo craft on Nov 21, and
successully docked it to the rear port of the Kvant/Mir space station
complex today (Nov. 23).  This craft contains about 2.5 Tonnes of fuel,
and supplies.  Interestly, there was only 6 days elapsed time total
between the undocking of Progress 32, and the docking of '33.  The
Russians are now keeping the rear docking port nearly as fully occupied
as possible without having a new Progress launched before the old one
renters the earth's atmosphere.
     Yuri Romanenko, the long duration cosmonaut on Mir, has now
achieved 291 days on this mission, and will exceed 300 days on Nov [Dec?
-Ed]. 2nd.  In mid December he and Alexander Alexandrov (who has been up
there since July 29th) are expected to be replaced by a 3 man crew
consisting of an unnamed doctor, Alexander Serebrov (a cosmonaut
researcher), and Vladimir Titov (mission commander).  Serebrov and Titov
where both on the Soyuz T-8 unsuccessful docking with Salyut 7 in Apr.
'83 caused by the failure of the Soyuz's rader and problems with a
manual dock.  In addition Titov was on the Soyuz T-10A mission, the
Sept. '83 pad fire and aborted flight - not the luckiest cosmonaut.
This switchoff crew, the second in a row if they do it, will try for a 1
year mission according to offical Soviet Statements.
    If they are successful with this then Mir will be well on its way to
helping create the perment human habitation of space.  Now if only the
budget problems will not slow down the NASA/international station.
     
                                    Glenn Chapman
                                    MIT Lincoln Lab
     
------------------------------
     
Date: 24 Nov 87 01:05:09 GMT
From: unc!leech@mcnc.org  (Jonathan Leech)
Subject: Re: CCDs and Inverse-square law distance determination
     
In article <871123-085106-2034@Xerox> Opstad.osbunorth@XEROX.COM writes:
>of the inverse-square law, when something struck me. Given the
>increasing accuracy of CCDs in counting photons, one might be able to
>do a decent job of determining the distance to a given light source
>(say, a star) WITHOUT the use of parallax (either spectoscopic or
>visual), by simply taking a measuring device of fixed aperture, and
>counting the number of photons received by it at two different
>distances from the light source. By the inverse-square law: (details
>omitted)
     
    A little math shows that the distance you can measure to is limited
by the product of the separation of the counters and the reciprocal of
their accuracy (actually, twice that). So suppose we have a count
accurate to 1*10^-6 and separation of 300 million km (Earth orbit
diameter), we could measure out to O(1 light year).  It appears the
method is limited by (i) intrinsic variation in the star's intensity and
(ii) limits on integration time since everything is moving.
     
    There's a wonderful book by Michael Rowan-Robinson discussing lots
of different ways of measuring astronomical distances. I believe it's
called ``The Cosmological Distance Constant'' although it's been a few
years since I read it. Warning: the book is kind of technical.
     
    Jon Leech (leech@cs.unc.edu)    __@/
    ``Thus Mathematics helps / our brains and hands and feet
      and can make / a race of supermen out of us.''
        - The Education of T. C. Mits
     
------------------------------
     
Date: 24 Nov 87 01:22:08 GMT
From: phoenix!pucc!ICEMAN@princeton.edu  (Joakim Karlsson)
Subject: Re: Sweden's last war
     
In article <564696906.amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU>, Dale.Amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU  writes:
     
>Hmmm, maybe the 30 year's war?
>
>Seriously though, I think it was probably WWII, whether willingly
>involved or not, I'd have to go check because I don't remember specific
     
Nope.  Check your history.  It wasn't WWII, nor was it WWI.  Does the
name "Napoleon" ring a bell?
     
Joakim Karlsson                               iceman @ pucc.Princeton.edu
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering '88      BITNET only: iceman @ pucc
Princeton University
                       "You can be my wingman anytime..."
     
------------------------------
     
Date: 24 Nov 87 01:07:17 GMT
From: unc!leech@mcnc.org  (Jonathan Leech)
Subject: Re: WEIGHT LIMIT RAISED FOR SHUTTLE
     
In article <8711231736.AA13696@nrl-ssd.ARPA> mike@NRL-SSD.ARPA (Mike Stalnaker)
 writes:
>You might want to pay attention to who 'Rear Adm. whoever' is. He's Dick
>Truly, who was the copilot for STS-1.    Also, he is now Director of Shuttle
     
    STS-1 was Young & Crippen, STS-2 was Engle & Truly.
--
    Jon Leech (leech@cs.unc.edu)    __@/
    ``Thus Mathematics helps / our brains and hands and feet
      and can make / a race of supermen out of us.''
        - The Education of T. C. Mits
     
------------------------------
     
End of SPACE Digest V8 #60
*******************
Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 29 Nov 87 06:32:49 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA09561; Sun, 29 Nov 87 03:17:52 PST
	id AA09561; Sun, 29 Nov 87 03:17:52 PST
Date: Sun, 29 Nov 87 03:17:52 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8711291117.AA09561@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #61

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 61

Today's Topics:
	  Re: NAVSTAR (was Re: space news from Oct 5 AW&ST)
			  Re: error factors
		   Space Shuttle Operator's Manual
		 Re: WEIGHT LIMIT RAISED FOR SHUTTLE
	  Re: Space Shuttle Operator's Manual (un-official)
		      Re: Soviet Science on NOVA
			Re: Sweden's last war
		   Is the universe a hyper-sphere?
		    Re: 3d digitized shuttle data
			Supernova in Andromeda
		    Re: 3d digitized shuttle data
			Re: Sweden's last war
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 23 Nov 87 22:33:27 GMT
From: sdcrdcf!markb@burdvax.prc.unisys.com  (Mark Biggar)
Subject: Re: NAVSTAR (was Re: space news from Oct 5 AW&ST)

In article <1566@faline.bellcore.com> karn@faline.bellcore.com (Phil R. Karn) writes:
<Nevertheless, tests with C/A have shown it to be less than 10x worse than
<with P. Depending on location, integration time, receiver velocity, etc,
<typical C/A accuracies are well within 30 meters bias, 6 meters noise.
<This is so much better than anything else that it hardly matters if it's
<"significantly less accurate" than the P channel (which is typically
<3 meters bias, 6 meters noise).

I read an article somewhere (popular science i think) the given 2 C/A
boxes placed a known distance apart and using some math similar to
long line interferometer radio telescope you can get accuraces better
then the military version.

Mark Biggar
{allegra,burdvax,cbosgd,hplabs,ihnp4,akgua,sdcsvax}!sdcrdcf!markb

------------------------------

Date: 23 Nov 87 15:50:00 GMT
From: jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Re: error factors


> spacecraft use intertial guidance?

Yes, some spacecraft use inertial guidance.

> what are the error factors involved for a long journey? 

The inertial guidance system is recalibrated periodically from star
sensors and Earth-based radio (and radar) range finding.  The star
tracking mechanisms require precise pointing and orientation of the S/C
and are only used occasionally.  "Occasionally" means "as often as
necessary".

> that is to say, if we go to another planet, how far "off" will we
> be?

Due to the periodic resetting, an inertial guidance system is never off
very far.  We haven't "lost" a S/C for quite a while.  (I seem to
remember that a Ranger missed Luna back in the '60's, but I was pretty
young at the time.  I don't recall the cause.)

> are the errors enough to worry about within our solar system?
> or just beyond it?

Beyond our solar system, we've only worried about how to orient the
antennae back to Earth.  This is pretty simple: point at Sol and Earth
isn't far away.  In the future, we (hopefully!) will be looking outward
as well as inward.  Inertial guidance will be useful out there, but it
must be periodically corrected to account for the inevitable (?)
drift.
---
Writing your articles entirely in lower case is a capital offense.

-- Ken Jenks, MS: Aero/Astro Engineering, BS: Computer Science, UIUC

The University of Illinois will revoke my account on 20 December.
It's been fun, folks!  I'll be back after I get a job!

jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu		{ihnp4!pur-ee}uiucdcs!uiucdcsp!jenks

------------------------------

Date:     Mon, 23 Nov 87 15:28:12 CST
From: Will Martin -- AMXAL-RI <wmartin@almsa-1.arpa>
Subject:  Space Shuttle Operator's Manual

The discount mail-order book house, Publishers Central Bureau, is selling 
remaindered copies of the SPACE SHUTTLE OPERATOR'S MANUAL for $9.98.
Original price was (I believe) $22.50.

The PCB stock number is 649160

Publishers Central Bureau
One Champion Avenue
Avenel, NJ  07001-2301       (They don't publicize a phone number)

They charge a flat $3.50 shipping, so it isn't worthwhile to order just
one book, but maybe you would have use for multiple copies of this. Or
you may want to ask for their catalog and order a bunch of stuff. (Check
your local library; they often have copies of PCB catalogs in their
acquisitions departments.)

I've seen mention of this book on this list several times, so I bought a
copy with my last PCB book order. Have just glanced at it so far, but it
does seem fairly interesting. I have one question about it: on the part
of the dust jacket that folds over inside the book, it has the comment
that this is the "Official" guide to training for would-be shuttle
astronauts. (I'm paraphrasing the blurb from memory, but the word
"official" is definitely in there.) Now, I looked through the copyright
and title pages, and I can't find any mention of NASA or any government
organization having anything to do with this book. So just how
"official" is this? Or is that use of the word "official" just a lie?

Regards,
Will Martin
wmartin@ALMSA-1.ARPA   (on USENET try ...!seismo!wmartin@ALMSA-1.ARPA )
                    [I've been told that "...!uunet!almsa-1.arpa!wmartin"
                        may be better now but I can't test it...]

------------------------------

Date: 24 Nov 87 03:37:04 GMT
From: trwrb!cadovax!gryphon!mhnadel@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Miriam Nadel)
Subject: Re: WEIGHT LIMIT RAISED FOR SHUTTLE

In article <4616@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu> beckenba@cit-vax.UUCP (Joe Beckenbach) writes:
>		3- The military may have to allow NASA to fly lighter payloads.
>	Of all these options, 1 forces earlier shuttle retirement, 2 sets the
>program back at least a few more years, and 3 makes the SDI people and the 
>defense people rather upset.

Not at all - the military is far from convinced that you can retrieve
64K payloads to begin with and is hardly likely to attempt deploying
heavier ones from the shuttle.  One of the military concerns is the
performance of the RMS (remote manipulating system - aka the robot arm)
since the mission in which they were supposed to demonstrate the capability
to retrieve a heavy payload (and nowhere near the design limit at that) got
wiped out by the Challenger disaster.

Miriam Nadel

-- 
"Always a godmother - never a God" - Fran Liebowitz

mhnadel@gryphon.CTS.COM       {philabs, trwrb}!cadovax!gryphon!mhnadel
      {hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, ihnp4, nosc}!crash!gryphon!mhnadel

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 24 Nov 87 11:36:46 pst
From: Eugene Miya N. <eugene@PIONEER.ARC.NASA.GOV>
Subject: Re: Space Shuttle Operator's Manual (un-official)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Cc: 

>The discount mail-order book house, Publishers Central Bureau, is selling 
>remaindered copies of the SPACE SHUTTLE OPERATOR'S MANUAL for $9.98.
> . . .
>and title pages, and I can't find any mention of NASA or any government
>organization having anything to do with this book. So just how
>"official" is this? Or is that use of the word "official" just a lie?

This book, which I've seen in stores is okay for most people.  It is not
an official document, and it is quite simple.  Manuals vary from mission
to mission depending on profile, etc.  The mass of paper exceeds the
mass of a loaded shuttle craft typically by greater than a factor of three.
Manuals are typically three-ring binders with appropriate paper insert
covers.  Revisions make 3-rings pretty obvious.

------------------------------

Date: 23 Nov 87 11:36:10 GMT
From: sonia!khayo@locus.ucla.edu  (Erazm J. Behr)
Subject: Re: Soviet Science on NOVA

In article <8711232031.AA01073@angband.s1.gov> "DSS::BOLD" <bold%dss.decnet@afsc-sd.arpa> writes:
(... header ...)
>Subject: Soviet Science on NOVA
>
>Last week's NOVA episode dealt with the quality of Soviet science.  I 
>didn't catch the whole thing, but according the program, the Soviets are 
>claiming credit for the first lasers and the first nuclear power plant 
>(while they *may* have built upon the work of others in these areas, these 
>particular claims are a bit much). 
   Not exactly - Basov, if I remember correctly, was a co-recipient of
the Nobel prize for the theoretical foundations of lasing. There must
have been a lot of work done on reactors during & just after WWII, as
a prelude to the construction of the A-bomb. Who knows, production of
electric energy per capita was always a BIG priority over there - a
statistic to be cited as proof of the SU quickly catching up with the
West. Do not underestimate Russian & Soviet scientists & inventors!
   Now, this does not change the fact that there is a book titled
"History of Russian priority" (literal transl.) which used to be
published every other year or so, which was supposed to counter the
"malicious claims of imperialist science". It was a long list of
the Russian & Soviet "firsts": airplane, radio, rockets, steam engine,
electric lightbulb etc. etc. This was just one of the more ridiculous
manifestations of their inferiority complex. It gave rise to a saying:
The discoverer of the electric lightbulb is Vladimir Lodygin, [in a lower
voice] who discovered it in a trash can behind the American embassy.
(I know I should use "invent" above, but then of course the joke falls
flat on its face.)
   I'm sorry if it has nothing to do with space.

>Kevin Bold			
>(BOLD@AFSC-SD.ARPA)
                              Eric Behr
-----------------------------------------------------------
          >>>>--------------->         khayo@MATH.ucla.edu

------------------------------

Date: 24 Nov 87 17:51:08 GMT
From: nysernic!weltyc@rutgers.edu  (Christopher A. Welty)
Subject: Re: Sweden's last war

In article <564696906.amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU> Dale.Amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU writes:
>Hmmm, maybe the 30 year's war?
>
>Seriously though, I think it was probably WWII, whether willingly
>involved or not, I'd have to go check because I don't remember specific
>incidents as I do for Finland (a brave defense against invasion by the
>USSR) and Norway (occupied by the Nazis, site of German heavy hydrogen
>production, home port for the Tirpitz, sinking of the Tirpitz by the
>RAF Dam Busters Lancasters using the specially designed 'earthquake
>bomb' etc.)

	Leaving myself wide open for flames here...  Sweden was
neutral (and remained so unlike Belgium, Norway, Holland, and
Luxembourg) during WWII.  It was also neutral in WWI.  It has little
strategic value.  I'm not sure but I believe the last war Sweden was
involved in was againt Napolean, when it was a royalty thing...
Sweden begins with an `S' just like space, hence, sci.space....




Christopher Welty  ---  Asst. Director, RPI CS Labs
weltyc@cs.rpi.edu       ...!rutgers!nysernic!weltyc

------------------------------

Date:         Mon, 23 Nov 87 13:56:48 EST
From: ST401385%BROWNVM.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu
Subject:      Is the universe a hyper-sphere?
                [YES if it's closed, NO if it's open]

Kevin Bold:
>Is Missing Mass a pseudoproblem?
>... if any of us were to
>experience a hypersphere's visit to our 3-D world, we would see a tiny
>sphere grow larger, then contract, and finally disappear.
>The universe could be a hypersphere traveling through an eternal series of
>three dimensional realms...
>The bottom line: if our three dimensional universe is curved around another
>spacial dimension ...  the question of "sufficient
>mass to enable gravitational forces to slow down, stop, and reverse the
>expansion of the universe" becomes irrelevant.


In general relativity, (at least as far as I understand it; it's
not my field) curvature is a function of mass.  What you have just
done is rephrase the question to:
    is the universe highly curved (i.e, a hypersphere?)  or somewhat less
curved (i.e., a hyperparaboloid?), or even less curved yet (i.e., a
hyperhyperboloid?).  Cross sections of a hyperspherical
universe will look like an expanding and then contracting universe
while cross sections of a hyper -paraboloid or -hyperboloid universe
will look like one expanding forever.
    But the answer to the rephrased question "how great us the
(hyper)curvature of the universe?"
is simply: How much mass does it contain?
     Whether you call the problem "is there enough mass in the universe
to give the universe a (hyper)spherical geometry", or "is there enough
mass in the universe to counteract the big bang and make it come together
again", it's the same problem, and the same amount of "missing" mass.
     (In fact, people working in GR don't really think of space as
being a whole lot different then time.  In four-dimensional spacetime,
a universe that expands, reaches a maximum, and then contracts is not
*like* a hypersphere.  It *is* a hypersphere.)

--Geoffrey A. Landis, Ph.D     BITNET: ST401385 at BROWNVM
    Brown University           ARPA:  ST401385%BROWNVM.BITNET@WISCVM.ARPA

------------------------------

Date: 24 Nov 87 00:07:54 GMT
From: tektronix!reed!nscpdc!cvedc!billa@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Bill Anderson)
Subject: Re: 3d digitized shuttle data

In article <> apollo@ecf.toronto.edu (Vince Pugliese) writes:
>
>As well I will be include a very simple C program, hacked together by fellow group member
>Darin Graham and myself.  The program will work as is on an Apollo, for other machines
>you will have to make appropriate changes.  These should be easy to spot as all our
>graphics calls are preceded by gmr_.

If anyone out there in netland converts this C program so that it can be
run on suns, please post the results of your work to the net.

Thanks.

 ===============================================================   _____   __
 Bill Anderson                  ..tektronix!reed!cvedc!wanderson  |   __| / /
 Computervision                     ..sun!cvbnet!cvedc!wanderson  |  (   / /
 14952 NW Greenbrier Parkway                FAX   (503) 645-4734  |   \_/ /
 Beaverton, Oregon 97006                    Phone (503) 645-2410  \______/

------------------------------

Date: 25 Nov 87 04:05:06 GMT
From: cfa!wyatt@husc6.harvard.edu  (Bill Wyatt)
Subject: Supernova in Andromeda

A preliminary, sketchy report...

Three days ago a Russian astronomer (sorry, can't remember the name)
discovered an 11th magnitude SN in M31. If it's a type I, it 
could reach 4th magnitude. If it's the more likely type II (as was the
one in the LMC), it'll reach maybe 6.5. A possible Wolf-Rayet progenitor
has been identified, which would indicate it's a type II.

Details will follow...

-- 

Bill    UUCP:  {seismo|ihnp4}!harvard!cfa!wyatt
Wyatt   ARPA:  wyatt@cfa.harvard.edu
         (or)  wyatt%cfa@harvard.harvard.edu
      BITNET:  wyatt@cfa2
        SPAN:  cfa2::wyatt

------------------------------

Date: 25 Nov 87 03:33:09 GMT
From: nrl-cmf!umix!tardis!pepe!shane@AMES.ARPA  (Shane Looker)
Subject: Re: 3d digitized shuttle data

In article <509@otto.cvedc.UUCP> billa@otto.UUCP (Bill Anderson) writes:
>In article <> apollo@ecf.toronto.edu (Vince Pugliese) writes:
>>
>>As well I will be include a very simple C program, hacked together by fellow group member
>>Darin Graham and myself.  The program will work as is on an Apollo, for other machines
>>you will have to make appropriate changes.  These should be easy to spot as all our
>>graphics calls are preceded by gmr_.
>
>If anyone out there in netland converts this C program so that it can be
>run on suns, please post the results of your work to the net.

Not what was asked for, but I've just knocked together a viewer for the shuttle
on the Mac.  It needs a lot of work, but the guts are fairly simple.  Mail
me if you want a little more info.  My supervisor's going to kill me, but
what the heck...

Shane Looker                       |  "He's dead Jim,
shane@pepe.cc.umich.edu            |     you grab his tricorder,
uunet!umix!pepe.cc.umich.edu!shane |     I'll get his wallet."
Looker@um.cc.umich.edu

------------------------------

Date: 24 Nov 87 23:26:55 GMT
From: phoenix!pucc!ICEMAN@princeton.edu  (Joakim Karlsson)
Subject: Re: Sweden's last war

In article <567@nysernic>, weltyc@nysernic (Christopher A. Welty) writes:
 
>In article <564696906.amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU> Dale.Amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU writes:
>>Hmmm, maybe the 30 year's war?
>
>        Leaving myself wide open for flames here...  Sweden was
>neutral (and remained so unlike Belgium, Norway, Holland, and
>Luxembourg) during WWII.  It was also neutral in WWI.  It has little
>strategic value.  I'm not sure but I believe the last war Sweden was
>involved in was againt Napolean, when it was a royalty thing...
>Sweden begins with an `S' just like space, hence, sci.space....
 
Finally someone who's got his Swedish history down right...that's
exactly the way it is: Sweden is still neutral of course, and has been
ever since WWI.  I wouldn't say though that Sweden has little strategic
value.  Especially during WWII it was deemed important because of its
large iron and forest resources.
 
Joakim Karlsson                               iceman @ pucc.Princeton.edu
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering '88      BITNET only: iceman @ pucc
Princeton University
                       "You can be my wingman anytime..."

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #61
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 30 Nov 87 06:47:13 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA11397; Mon, 30 Nov 87 03:17:31 PST
	id AA11397; Mon, 30 Nov 87 03:17:31 PST
Date: Mon, 30 Nov 87 03:17:31 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8711301117.AA11397@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #62

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 62

Today's Topics:
	  Re: Commercial plea for space station - effective!
		   Re: Brown Dwarf and media idiocy
		     space news from Oct 12 AW&ST
		      Re: More skyhook questions
			 NAVSTAR vs Geostar?
		    Re: BDB and all the whining...
			     Re: NAVSTAR
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 25 Nov 87 00:02:37 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Commercial plea for space station - effective!

> Build the BDB first!

Why not do both?
-- 
Those who do not understand Unix are |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
condemned to reinvent it, poorly.    | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 25 Nov 87 00:14:33 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Brown Dwarf and media idiocy

> ...Telling half a story, telling a watered-down version, reporting with
> sensationalism as a blind to the inaccuracy is criminal. Science has long
> strived for knowledge and understanding, it would be a terrible waste for
> the message to become lost in a flood of catch-phrases and over simplified
> sensationalistic reporting techniques.

Unfortunately, simple economics dictate that the media are, to put it bluntly,
in the business of selling entertainment, sometimes thinly disguised as news.
This problem is unfixable, short of establishing a government monopoly (a cure
worse than the disease if there ever was one), since that is what the public
wants to hear.  What is needed is less ranting at the media (clots though
many of them are) and more education of the next generation to see through
the hype and nonsense.  If people come to value getting the truth, the whole
truth, and nothing but the truth, the media will improve.  Not otherwise.
Don't expect it to happen soon.
-- 
Those who do not understand Unix are |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
condemned to reinvent it, poorly.    | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 24 Nov 87 23:40:51 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Oct 12 AW&ST

[Quote of the week, from Jane's Spaceflight Directory 1987, R. Turnill:
"NASA has lost the will to put men into space.  Only those emphasizing the
conservative approach and `safety must come first' find favour.  With 2000
personnel now concerned with `safety, reliability, and quality assurance',
and whose own safety is best ensured by saying `No', it is difficult to see
how the Launch Team can hope to get flights resumed -- despite the fact that
there are many who still think that there never was a need for complete
suspension."]

Editorial on the International Space Future Forum in Moscow.  "Several
interesting contrasts emerged from the gathering.  The starkest of these
was the ease with which Soviet space officials protrayed their space
program as both broadly based and energetic, while US space officials, by
failing to project a coordinated much less united presence, confirmed the
widely accepted impression that the US program is directionless and
moribund...  Soviet space officials are debating how they are going to
carry out their future space plans while in the US committees and panels
are being formed to debate whether there will be a concerted future effort
in space and, if so, what it might include."

The Forum did have some problems, notably some organizational snafus in
Moscow.  This is hardly surprising, given that it's the first time the
Soviets have tried something like this.

The US is planning a conference in response:  The Impact of Space Sciences
on the Human Community.  Planned for mid-88, might be postponed if the
shuttle recovery effort runs late.  Announced by Thomas Rona, highest US
official at the Forum.  Rona says that the US remains against exchange of
hardware with the Soviets in collaborative projects, partly because of
technology-transfer paranoia [my word, not his] and partly because "we want
to have a basic symmetry -- if both sides have something to offer each
other, then the leadership question does not come up.  And it is clear that
for the moment, we don't have too many opportunities for cooperation to
offer from our side."  He notes that many of the ambitious Soviet plans are
not yet approved projects, and that US involvement is still possible; other
US delegates agree but observe that at least the Soviets *have* a plan.

MBB ships the liquid boosters for the first Ariane 4.

JPL finishes tests using Voyager 1 to check out software improvements for
Voyager 2's Neptune encounter, mostly motion control for better imaging.

Another big closeup of Energia on the pad (before the May launch).

Soviet cosmonauts are doing takeoff and landing tests with a jet-powered
version of the Soviet shuttle orbiter.  First orbital launch will probably
be an unmanned test; this decision is not yet definite, and the cosmonauts
don't like it much.  First flight may not be until 1989, to allow time for
Energia to be checked out thoroughly and  forthe shuttle's digital flight
control system to be sorted out (the tests are being run with an analog
prototype).

Energia will not fly again until the problems with the first launch are
sorted out completely.  Among other things, it was meant to fly in daylight,
but last-minute difficulties delayed it.  The Soviets say Energia is a
recoverable launcher, with both the strap-ons and parts of the core built
for recovery and re-use, although no recovery was done on the first flight.
The big square bulges on the strap-ons are indeed parachutes.  Soviet
descriptions of how the core is recovered are conflicting and unclear.
They quote launch weight at 2000 metric tons and payload at about 100.
Pictures of a model displayed at the Space Future Forum, showing four big
engines at the base of the core and four in each strap-on; if this model
is accurate, this ends the speculation that the Soviets might be using
aerospike nozzles.

New module being readied for launch to Mir:  an EVA/airlock module, roughly
the same size as Kvant.

The current Mir crew are doing well and will probably continue for several
more weeks.  There will be at least one more Progress launch to Mir before
their mission ends, since Progress carries about a month's supplies. Yuri
Romanenko passed the 240-day mark recently.

Soviets preparing for one-year Mir mission, to be carried out by the crew
that replaces Romanenko and Alexandrov late this year.  Doctors say that
exercise remains the best countermeasure against degenerative effects, and
that Romanenko in particular goes farther than the assigned routine on this.

Glavcosmos offers Getaway Specials!  Price about $15k per kilo, to fly on
Cosmos unmanned missions or Mir.  Also offers Gorizont commercial comsats
at $45M for full capacity.

India's IRS remote-sensing satellite will fly on a Vostok launcher this year.

NASA and CIA preparing studies on international space activities and their
effects on US foreign policy.  Other nations are effectively using their
space programs for various gains; the US is not.  CIA says that the Soviets
will maintain their conspicuous lead at least through 1995.  Recommendations
to go to Fletcher, and eventually to Reagan, will include:

- Specific long-term goals, to be established at once.

- Presidential leadership, in particular in formally giving NASA the lead
	role in US civil space policy.

- Getting DoD and NASA back together.

- Fixing space commercialization and involving industry in planning.

- Major Presidential statement emphasizing international cooperation, its
	benefits, and continued US efforts in that direction.

Congress warns NASA that space-station money will be postponed unless NASA
commits more money for pre-space-station materials-processing work, in
particular support for a free-flying module, modification of one orbiter
for longer flights, adding two Spacelab materials flights (first no later
than 1990), more FY88 research funding, and development of automation and
robotics for the space station.  [Sounded good until that idiotic last item.
The space station needs, and can afford, neither.]

DoD says Soviets will "dramatically increase" tonnage into orbit over the
next decade or so, and claims again that Mir is mostly military.  Of note
is DoD's statement that the Soviets could re-launch their entire satellite
network in 2-3 months if existing satellites were destroyed.

General Dynamics, McDonnell-Douglas, and Rockwell win Aerospace Plane
contracts; Boeing and Lockheed lose out.  DoD says that the technology
appears adequate to get the AP into orbit.

British space officials told that no increase in budget is likely.

GOES West metsat suffers lamp failure, shortening its expected life.  The
backup lamp is expected to last 12-18 months and then GOES West's imager dies.

Arianespace preparing for bulk order for up to 50 Arianes, in an attempt
to reduce costs by streamlining production.  This will cover use for the
1990-1997 period.  Arianespace now has a 44-satellite backlog, circa
$2.5G, over half from outside Europe.

Ariane next flies mid-Nov with Germany's TVSat 1, then in December with
Spacenet 3 (including a Geostar package) and France's Telecom 1C.  Eight
launches with 14 payloads schedule for 1988, the first being the initial
Ariane 4 with European Meteosat P2, US's Panamsat 1, and the next Amsat
amateur-radio satellite, tentatively set for Feb.

New studies of Viking-orbiter images may be undertaken in preparation for
US 1990s Mars activity.  The folks who found the crater of Viking 1's
heatshield have sparked more activity, including a study on what the best
images can tell about the nature of the surface.  Also possible is a study
of Viking lander data over a long baseline to separate understood changes
from less-understood ones, with an eye in particular on signs of life.
"It's ironic that data from the Viking lander 1 automatic mission -- which
was some 800-900 days of systematic picture-taking on Mars -- have barely
been examined..."

Non-aerospace firms like the idea of a lunar base as a new source of pork
barrel funding oops excuse me I mean commercial opportunities.  White
House says that any new US space goals should have greater commercial
involvement than, say, Apollo.

[We pause to bring you a small editorial.  Whether "greater commercial
involvement" is a good idea depends on what that ringing phrase means.
In particular, if it means a government-funded program that will lean even
more heavily on contractors, it is **NOT** a good idea.  The only booster
NASA ever built that made good on *all* its promises -- the Saturn V -- was
virtually hand-built by Wernher von Braun's team at Huntsville, with the
contractors taking over only after all the problems had been sorted out.
The loss of the capability to do that was one of the greatest mistakes NASA
has made since its founding, and can credibly be given partial blame for the
Challenger disaster.  Back to our program...]

There is already interest from a number of companies, including some large
Japanese firms.  (Predictably, the latter are raising hackles among the
technology-transfer paranoids.)

One area of long-term commercial interest in the Moon is as a source of
helium 3 for clean-burning fusion power.  Helium 3 is essentially nonexistent
on Earth, but there is a noticeable amount in the lunar soil, where it has
been left by the solar wind.  Extraction would be simple, and the stuff's
commercial value could be hundreds of thousands of dollars per kilogram.

A whole bunch of small secondary shuttle payloads have been scrubbed from
the near-term manifests, due to reduced flight rates and massive backlog.
About 90 such payloads will fly through mission 43 in late 1990, including
a few on mission 26.  Notable on STS-26 will be a 3M experiment meant to
fly late last year.

Letter of the week, from Larry Evans of California:

	"Doesn't anyone learn anything from history any more?  The
	Challenger accident had its roots firmly planted in the
	decisions made early in the program to compromise the design
	in favor of meeting a specific budget.

	"A proper shuttle system would have cost twice as much as it
	did, and we now must admit that we definitely got what we
	paid for.  Unfortunately, seven people paid more dearly than
	the rest of us.

	"So now we're out to do it all over again with the space
	station...  It is high time to put the mission in the forefront
	again.  I think we'd all find it would be much less expensive
	in the long run."
-- 
Those who do not understand Unix are |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
condemned to reinvent it, poorly.    | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 23 Nov 87 12:31:19 MST
From: sreddy <@RELAY.CS.NET,@asu.csnet:sreddy@localhost.arpa (Srinath K. Reddy)>
Apparently-To: space@angband.s1.gov

sir
i am agrad. stiODudent at Arizona St. U. and would like to be placed on your mailing list. ODODl
ing list. please send meODODse do the needful.    
truly
Srinath Reddy (sreddy @ enuxha)

------------------------------

Date: 24 Nov 87 18:05:00 GMT
From: jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Re: More skyhook questions


> While going up a skyhook to geostationary orbit, gravity
> would dominate, and good ol' Earth would keep you in your
> seat. However, towards the other end of the hook, your seat
> better face the other way because centrifugal "force" would
> be greater than gravitational attraction, and your seat
> would be pushed in the opposite direction.
> 
> Danny

Well, yes and no.

YES:  An orbit, by definition, is the curve on which gravity exactly
balances centripedal acceleration.  As you approach Clarke orbit, you
would become "weightless".

NO:  However, a skyhook will likely extend beyond Clarke orbit a ways.
This would mean that you would have negative "weight" beyond that orbit.

-- Ken Jenks, MS: Aero/Astro Engineering, BS: Computer Science, UIUC

The University of Illinois will revoke my account on 20 December.
It's been fun, folks!  I'll be back after I get a job!

jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu		{ihnp4!pur-ee}uiucdcs!uiucdcsp!jenks

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 25 Nov 87 09:47:30 est
From: kr0u+@andrew.cmu.edu (Kevin William Ryan)
Subject: NAVSTAR vs Geostar?
Cc: 

   I understand from previous postings that NAVSTAR is a 24 satellite system
(with some being spares) for navigation.  Accuracy is reputed to be 30m bias
with 6m noise for the civilian system and 3m bias 6m noise for the military
receivers.  Several people have also mentioned Geostar, a commercial venture
with a similar aim.

   What is the positional accuracy for Geostar (predicted)?  How many nodes
in orbit?  How many spares?  And very importantly, what will the relative costs
be for a NAVSTAR civilian receiver versus a Geostar receiver?  I'm curious as
to how the government and civilian systems compare.


                                                    kwr

"Smile, you're on Orbital Camera!"

------------------------------

Date: 24 Nov 87 18:38:33 GMT
From: umix!umich!mibte!gamma!pyuxp!rruxa!rruxg!rruxjj!ddavey@NRL-CMF.ARPA  (Douglas A Davey)
Subject: Re: BDB and all the whining...

In article <74700067@uiucdcsp> jenks@uiucdcsp.UUCP writes:
> 
> SSI (Space Studies Institute) does things like this.  They are doing
> necessary research on a shoe-string budget using volunteers and
> tax-deductible contributions.  Their offices, I believe, are in Rocky River,
> NJ.  If you have any interest in contacting them, their phone number is
> (306) 921-0377.  They are a non-profit group.
> 

Whoa!  Before everybody calls some poor person who never heard of SSI,
SSI is based in NJ (Rocky Hill I believe), BUT 306 is NOT a New Jersey
area code.  The correct number is (609) 921-0377.

	Doug Davey
	Bell Communications Research
	rruxjj!ddavey

------------------------------

Date: 24 Nov 87 16:06:43 GMT
From: umix!umich!mibte!gamma!pyuxp!pyuxww!sabre!faline!karn@nrl-cmf.arpa  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: NAVSTAR

> Personally I recommend that anyone with the power to do so discourage
> civil use of the NAVSTAR. Go for Geostar instead.

Actually, I could never understand why Geostar was started in the first
place, if it is supposed to be a direct competitor to Navstar. That's
all we need, redundant, incompatible services placing additional demands
on RF spectrum and launch capability.

I don't particularly like or trust the military, but I don't have any
problems with accepting the occasional technological bone they toss at
us civilians from time to time (TCP/IP, space launchers, and navigation
systems like Loran-C and Navstar).  They're going to spend billions of
your tax dollars anyway, you might as well salvage something useful from
them.

I thought the Navstar specs were public. Since the system is
receive-only, how could they enforce user fees? If Geostar can provide
services that Navstar cannot, it should compete on that basis alone.

Phil

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #62
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU;  1 Dec 87 06:23:05 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA14326; Tue, 1 Dec 87 03:22:21 PST
	id AA14326; Tue, 1 Dec 87 03:22:21 PST
Date: Tue, 1 Dec 87 03:22:21 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8712011122.AA14326@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #63

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 63

Today's Topics:
		      NO Supernova in Andromeda
		      NOAA orbital predict data
				 help
		       Info on Swedish history
		       Re: Space Companies List
		     Re: hiring at aerospace cos.
		      Re: Soviet Science on NOVA
			Soviet Science on NOVA
		      Re: Mini Big Dumb Booster
			     solar energy
			   Re: solar energy
			   Re: solar energy
			   Dollars per Watt
			   Re: solar energy
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 25 Nov 87 14:42:27 GMT
From: cfa!wyatt@husc6.harvard.edu  (Bill Wyatt)
Subject: NO Supernova in Andromeda

Well, apparently it was a false alarm. Got a lot of people around here all
excited, too. Anyway, there's been a mistake somewhere. No evidence of
any SN on plates taken last night (~0h UT 11/25) from Oak Ridge Observatory,
and (second-hand report) an observatory in England. Sigh.
-- 

Bill    UUCP:  {seismo|ihnp4}!harvard!cfa!wyatt
Wyatt   ARPA:  wyatt@cfa.harvard.edu
         (or)  wyatt%cfa@harvard.harvard.edu
      BITNET:  wyatt@cfa2
        SPAN:  cfa2::wyatt 

[Also:

Date: Mon 30 Nov 87 18:09:39-PST
From: josh zucker <P.PHRED@lear.stanford.edu>
Subject: Supernova in M31
To: ota@angband.s1.gov
Message-Id: <12354870322.110.P.PHRED@LEAR.STANFORD.EDU>

I recently received a message from Charles Lawrence, an astronomer at
CalTech, stating that attempts at confirming the 11th magnitude
supernova had failed and the astronomers who had announced the sighting
were "feeling pretty silly"

--Josh Zucker ]

------------------------------

Date: 30 Nov 87 07:16:42 GMT
From: tektronix!reed!douglas@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (P Douglas Reeder)
Subject: NOAA orbital predict data


	Can someone please email me or post orbital predict data for NOAA-9
or NOAA-10 for December?

-- 
Doug Reeder                      USENET: ...!tektronix!reed!douglas
Box 502 Reed College
3203 S.E. Woodstock              122 38' W   45 28' N
Portland, OR 97202               planet earth,sol system

------------------------------

Date:     Wed, 25 Nov 87 10:39 CST
From: <TESLA%FNALB.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu>
Subject:  help

In Vol 8 #39 Paul Dietz writes:

> I've just read that someone has come up with a chemically fueled laser
> amplifier that operates in the visible spectrum.  Previously, chemical
> lasers have operated in the infrared.  SDI would be very interested in
> a short wavelength chemical laser, since smaller mirrors could be
> used.  The new system uses thallium excited by the reaction of silicon
> and ozone.  Silicon and oxygen, at least, are ubiquitous on the moon.
> The report I read didn't indicate what were the efficiency or power
> output of the experiment.

     I would be interested in reading the original article on the laser
discussed above. If someone could tell me who it's by and where it can
be found it would be appreciated. I'm also interested in finding the
source of the FTL superconductor paper mentioned in previous digest
discussions. Can anyone help?

     Rick R. Johnson - TESLA@FNAL - Fermi National Accelerator

------------------------------

Date: 25 Nov 1987 23:01-EST 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Info on Swedish history

I received many informative replies on Swedish history, and I'd like to
thank all of the numerous people who responded for helping fill in the
glaring gap in my historical knowledge of the area from about the 16th
century to the 1950's.

The net once again proves it's value as a means of sharing knowledge.

------------------------------

Date: 25 Nov 87 19:06:00 GMT
From: jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Re: Space Companies List

Another couple of corrections to that list of space companies: Northrop
Services' Houston branch has been shut down.  Another address you might
try is

Margaret James
Northrop Services, Inc.
108 Powers Court
Sterling, VA  22170
(703) 450-6500

The other correction is that TRW dropped out of the bidding for the
Space Station power systems. 

TRW is a strange place.  Although I interviewed with them at on-campus
interviews, their personnel department had never heard of me.  They are
more a collection of little, independent companies than one big one.
It would be worthwhile to send your resume to as many places inside TRW
as you can find.

Another suggestion is to find their company newsletter.  This has a
list of all the positions available for people who want to transfer
within the company.  Most major aerospace companies (Boeing, Rockwell,
TRW at least) have these things.  It is worth finding out which
divisions exsist and which are looking for people.

	-- Ken Jenks

------------------------------

Date: 27 Nov 87 17:15:01 GMT
From: ssc-vax!eder@beaver.cs.washington.edu  (Dani Eder)
Subject: Re: hiring at aerospace cos.

> TRW is a strange place.  Although I interviewed with them at on-campus
> interviews, their personnel department had never heard of me.  They are
> 
> 	-- Ken Jenks

Having observed a number of new hires coming into the Boeing Company
(including myself), I have decided that 'we lost your application' or
'we didn't get your application' is a convenient lie in the same
category as 'the check is in the mail'.  It would be reasonable for
the personnel department to lose an application once in a while, but
one third of them?  This is the proportion reported by people actually
hired, who thus pursued their jobs in spite of that problem.

I hypothesize that, given the fact that Boeing's personnel dept receives
600 applications a day, and hires about 600 people a month, that they
intentionally use ploys like 'losing' applications to weed out the less
determined applicants, and thus cut down the amount of real choosing
among people they have to do.

Dani Eder/Boeing/Advanced Space Transportation

------------------------------

Date: 24 Nov 87 16:16:55 GMT
From: umix!umich!mibte!gamma!pyuxp!pyuxww!sabre!faline!karn@nrl-cmf.arpa  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: Soviet Science on NOVA

> Now, this does not change the fact that there is a book titled
> "History of Russian priority" (literal transl.) which used to be
> published every other year or so, which was supposed to counter the
> "malicious claims of imperialist science". It was a long list of the
> Russian & Soviet "firsts": airplane, radio, rockets, steam engine,
> electric lightbulb etc. etc. This was just one of the more ridiculous
> manifestations of their inferiority complex.

Or take the Radio Moscow segment I heard a few months ago. They must
have gone on for 15 minutes extolling the virtues of the "small
independent enterprises" that have recently been permitted in Moscow,
and how even though they compete directly with some big State-owned
businesses it is a good idea because it makes everyone work harder,
increasing customer satisfaction and economic output.

Next thing we know, Radio Moscow will be claiming that Free Enterprise
was a Russian invention.  We can call this the "Ensign Chekov syndrome".
:-)

Phil

------------------------------

Date: 27 Nov 87 20:02:48 GMT
From: ihnp4!alberta!ers!pma@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Paul Martin)
Subject: Soviet Science on NOVA


An article I read in Discover Magazine left me with the impression 
that when it comes to Soviet Science there is plenty of money and
co_operation to develop new theories. But, when it comes to doing
anything practical with the theory - forget it. 


A personal observation:

Maybe they think its simpler to wait till we (the western world) 
steal the theory and develop practical uses which they can steal 
back than it is to do the actual development. :-)

------------------------------

Date: 25 Nov 87 20:31:19 GMT
From: ssc-vax!eder@beaver.cs.washington.edu  (Dani Eder)
Subject: Re: Mini Big Dumb Booster


Space Research Associates, of which I am a principal, is also working
on an inexpensive launcher in the 300 kg to orbit size class (equivalent
to Scout).  Partly because of an awareness of problems in working with
the government, we are designing to launch from a civil or private
airport, using an airplane to haul the rocket out over the ocean, where
the rocket is ignited.

We presently are looking for customers for our initial (test) flights,
and venture-type investors for the several (on the order of 5) million
in acquisition cost for the system.  We will have almost no development
cost by using existing harware in a new way.

Dani Eder/SRA

------------------------------

Date:     Wed, 25 Nov 87 09:11 CST
From: <TESLA%FNALC.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu>
Subject:  solar energy
Original_To:  SPACE

In Vol 8 #39 Geoffrey A. Landis writes:

(Herman Rubin):
> After all, hasn't practical solar energy on a basis which would make
> all other types [of energy] obsolete been just around the corner
> thirty years ago? :-)

> I rather resent the tone of this comment.  Thirty years ago would have
> been just three years after the *invention* of the silicon solar cell
> [ref. 1], long before any details of manufacturing, economics, or
> distribution could have been worked out... .  .

   AND:
>  Nevertheless, some of us are still working on photovoltaics research,
>  ... and costs have dropped from
> hundreds of dollars per watt to $2 (1987 dollars) per watt for large
> concentration systems, very close to the value of about $1/watt where
> arrays would become economical for large-scale utility power
> generation applications.

>   (1) D.M. Chapin et. al., _J. Applied Physics_, 25, p. 676 (1954).
>
>--Geoffrey A. Landis, Ph.D     BITNET: ST401385 at BROWNVM
>    Brown University           ARPA:  ST401385%BROWNVM.BITNET@WISCVM.ARPA

     Obviously Mr. Landis is not very informed on the history of modern
technology. The first photovoltaic materials were discovered over a
century ago, and as many are aware, A. Einstein's Nobel prize was for
his work on photo-electric effect (not relativity). My point here is
that solar energy has been under consideration for a very long time, and
for anyone who doubts that, spend some time reading IEEE abstracts and
papers from the turn of the century.

     Unfortunately, Mr. Landis is correct in stating that no MAJOR
effort has been made to make solar energy practical. Additionally, the
costs per unit energy he quoted are nowhere close to accurate. I
currently pay about 12 cents/kilowatt-hr for my electricity. The $1/watt
figure he quotes in stating that solar energy is coming close to being
practical for large utility power generation is ridiculous. I certainly
would not be willing to pay Com Ed. $100 per hour to light my living
room with a 100 Watt bulb.  The accurate figures are $1-$2 per
kilowatt/hr, which unfortunately still puts solar power an order of
magnitude away from being practical for the large utilities to use.

     Rick R. Johnson - TESLA@FNAL - Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory

------------------------------

Date: 25 Nov 87 21:14:49 GMT
From: concertina!fiddler@sun.com  (Steve Hix)
Subject: Re: solar energy

In article <8711251658.AA04790@angband.s1.gov>, TESLA@FNALC.BITNET writes:
>      Unfortunately, Mr. Landis is correct in stating that no MAJOR effort
> has been made to make solar energy practical. Additionally, the costs per
> unit energy he quoted are nowhere close to accurate. I currently pay about
> 12 cents/kilowatt-hr for my electricity. The $1/watt figure he quotes in
> stating that solar energy is coming close to being practical for large
> utility power generation is ridiculus. I certainly would not be willing to
> pay Com Ed. $100 per hour to light my living room with a 100 Watt bulb.
> The accurate figures are $1-$2 per kilowatt/hr, which unfortunately still
> puts solar power an order of magnitude away from being practical for the
> large utilities to use.

Maybe there's some confusion here on terminology?

I believe that Mr. Landis was talking about acquisition cost/watt of
large concentration systems (would that photovoltaic arrays were so
cheap!), rather than the cost/watt of electricity produced by such
systems.  Personally, I wouldn't pay $1/hr for current (unless, of
course, it were the only game in town...) from anybody.  But I'd go for
$2/watt photovoltaics next week.  My check would bounce today,
unfortunately.

Then again, maybe they're talking about the same thing and *I'm* wrong.
Wouldn't be the first time.  Sigh.

	seh

------------------------------

Date: 27 Nov 87 20:44:45 GMT
From: K.GP.CS.CMU.EDU!lindsay@pt.cs.cmu.edu  (Donald Lindsay)
Subject: Re: solar energy

He was referring to the capital cost of installing a generation facility
that puts out one watt. It puts out that watt for years, not for one
hour.

At $1/watt, an awful lot more solar cells will get sold. The problem of
storing the energy until night is still nowhere near as well solved as
I'd like.

	Don		lindsay@k.gp.cs.cmu.edu    CMU Computer Science

------------------------------

Date:     Sat, 28 Nov 87 02:06 CST
From: <TESLA%FNALC.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu>
Subject: Dollars per Watt

     I would like to apologize to the net, and to Mr. Geoffrey Landis in
particular, for falling prey to something I accused him of doing -
shooting my mouth off on the net before I had my facts straight. I
realized shortly after I sent my message that perhaps he was referring
to the costs of developing solar energy, rather than the ongoing costs
of producing and delivering it. This was not clear in his original
message however, and if solar energy is to be made practical, BOTH of
these issues are of concern.

     I do however, stand by my statements on the time period that solar
energy was first being researched, and would be glad to offer
substantiation of them to anyone that is seriously interested in the
subject.

                                                         Rick R. Johnson
                                                         TESLA@FNAL

------------------------------

Date: 29 Nov 87 16:55:29 GMT
From: nuchat!sugar!peter@uunet.uu.net  (Peter da Silva)
Subject: Re: solar energy

In article <8711251658.AA04790@angband.s1.gov>, TESLA@FNALC.BITNET writes:
> In Vol 8 #39 Geoffrey A. Landis writes:
> >  Nevertheless, some of us are still working on photovoltaics research,
> >  ... and costs have dropped from
> > hundreds of dollars per watt to $2 (1987 dollars) per watt for large
> > concentration systems, very close to the value of about $1/watt where
                                                               ^^^^
> > arrays would become economical for large-scale utility power generation
> > applications.

Here Geoffry Landis is talking about the capital costs for the solar cells
themselves.

> The accurate figures are $1-$2 per kilowatt/hr, which unfortunately still
                                     ^^^^^^^^^^^
> puts solar power an order of magnitude away from being practical for the
> large utilities to use.

Here Rick Johnson is talking about the operating costs, including depreciated
capital costs, of running a power grid and providing power to consumers.

Let's get our units in order before we start flaming people, shall we?
-- 
-- Peter da Silva  `-_-'  ...!hoptoad!academ!uhnix1!sugar!peter
-- Disclaimer: These U aren't mere opinions... these are *values*.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #63
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU;  2 Dec 87 06:17:50 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA16843; Wed, 2 Dec 87 03:17:26 PST
	id AA16843; Wed, 2 Dec 87 03:17:26 PST
Date: Wed, 2 Dec 87 03:17:26 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8712021117.AA16843@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #64

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 64

Today's Topics:
			 Re: Big Dumb Booster
		     A little test of readership
		     space news from Oct 19 AW&ST
     BDB and common sense (was Commercial plea for space station)
		   Re: Do we need a Space Station?
		     Re: Dyson Sphere Discovered?
		    Re: Brazil and eco-catastrophe
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 30 Nov 87 22:36:15 GMT
From: hplabsz!kempf@hplabs.hp.com  (Jim Kempf)
Subject: Re: Big Dumb Booster

In article <565235064.amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU>, Dale.Amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU writes:
> Just in case it isn't posted here, I just rcvd info that AMROC is on
> track, but with about a 2 month delay. The info is from the OASIS and
> is probably about 4-6 weeks 'fresher' than my most recent information
> on the subject, so I will bow to this source. My guess is that the

Is it any newer than the report in Nov. 23 AW&ST that they had laid off
all their employees due to the pullout of some backers?

I sure hope so!

		Jim Kempf	kempf@hplabs.hp.com

Usual disclaimer

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 1 Dec 87 16:13:58 pst
From: Eugene Miya N. <eugene@PIONEER.ARC.NASA.GOV>
Subject: A little test of readership

I plan to post the yearly announcement for next summer's positions in
NASA.  I am doing something a little different this year, but before I
post, I want to gauge readership "get off your duffness."  This is a
simple little test of motivation, regardless of whether you want to work
for NASA.  I tried this test on another newsgroup with surprisingly
disappointing results.

The test question: Determine the main telephone number to NASA
Headquarters.  DO NOT POST THE ANSWER.  SEND MAIL.  I will check and
count respondents and compare to group size.  Telephone information is
typically free.  You do not have call NASA HQ.  Just determine the
number, I will verify, and count heads.  I won't even tell you the area
code or the city, you can either guess, or ask around (let me know
number of people to talk to in a chain, BTW).  Just send the phone
number (and any chain size if you ask more than the telephone operator).
Added note to the guys at CMU and MIT: I might be visiting you Pitt and
Boston in January.  Send response to the address below.  Supposedly
7,000 people read this group, so the final count will be interesting
(how low or high it should be).  From the Rock of Ages Home for Retired
Hackers:

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA
  "You trust the `reply' command with all those different mailers out there?"
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."
  {uunet,hplabs,hao,ihnp4,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene

------------------------------

Date: 1 Dec 87 01:06:57 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Oct 19 AW&ST

[Aviation Week & Space Technology subscription address is PO Box 1505,
Neptune NJ 07754 USA.  Rates depend on whether you are an "unqualified" or
"qualified" subscriber, which basically means whether you look at the ads
for cruise missiles out of curiosity, or out of genuine commercial or
military interest.  Best write for a "qualification card" and try to get
the cheap rate.  US rates are $55 qualified, $70 unqualified at present.
It's weekly, it's thicker than Time or Newsweek, and most of it has nothing
to do with space, so consider whether the price is worth it to you. -- HS]

Editorial quoting chunks from a NASA Advisory Council task force on
international cooperation/competition.  "`US leadership in important space
areas is eroding in both absolute and relative terms...'  [The Soviets]
are in a position to offer exciting cooperative possibilities to nations
that once had little choice but to deal with thh US, too often on whatever
terms the US chose to dictate...  A recitation of opportunities frittered
away while other nations have moved steadily into the vacuum left by the
US's inaction runs through the report...  Potential partners around the
world view the US as less than dependable over the long term, and this has
stimulated numerous multinational space projects that specifically exclude
the US."  Recommendations include clear leadership from above, long-term
plans with broad support, and an absence of infighting and off-again-on-again
funding.

ESA looking at sites for a fourth pad at Kourou, not because of immediate
need but to ensure that room is available when the time comes.

USN is looking at launching small satellites from submarines, given that
subs would be expected to survive the early stages of a nuclear war while
land facilities probably would not.

NASA asks Interior Dept to remove 13 NASA facilities from the official list
of National Historic Landmarks; while they are indeed historic, official
NHL status makes it illegal to modify them without elaborate review, and
this is decidedly painful for still-operational facilities.

SDI negotiating with Amroc to supply payloads for Amroc's first suborbital
launches.  [It has been obvious for quite a while that Amroc is in bed with
DoD.]  First launch tentatively Feb.  The suborbital launcher will be one
of Amroc's motor modules.  Amroc's latest orbital launcher looks a bit like
a Titan 3, with a main unit and two big strap-ons.  Payload is 600 lbs to
low orbit.  Amroc is now giving this configuration priority over its earlier
bigger designs.  The motor modules are identical except that the main unit
has a higher-expansion-ratio nozzle.  The modules are bigger than Amroc's
original designs, mostly because Amroc has had trouble getting the desired
mass ratio with the smaller units.  [It has been reported that Amroc is in
deep financial trouble, so these plans must be considered uncertain.]

Post-firing checks of an SSME have revealed a possible heat-exchanger leak.
This is one of the engines meant for STS-26; if the leak is confirmed, this
will mean replacing the engine with a backup (tearing down an SSME for
repairs to such problems takes months), which may mean a schedule slip due
to the need to test the backup.

SDI Starlab shuttle mission, tentatively April 1990, will use a low-powered
laser to track various objects, ultimately including sounding rockets.
DoD astronauts LaCombe and Puz will fly with it.

British government officially repeats its refusal to increase its space
budget, on the grounds that ESA's Ariane-5/Hermes/Columbus plans are too
ambitious.  Other European representatives tend to agree with the latter,
but say that British handling of the issue has been heavy-handed at best.

British Aerospace is looking at bidding its multirole recoverable capsule
design as a crew-escape vehicle for the space station.

Martin Marietta picks Dornier to supply the satellite-carrier unit for
commercial Titan; it will be based on the one Dornier is doing for Ariane 5.

Soviets to launch replacement for malfunctioning ice-monitoring radar
satellite early next year.  Cosmos 1869's antenna failed to deploy properly.
The USSR ultimately wants three of them in orbit simultaneously (currently
the operational total is one, Cosmos 1766) as an operational system.

Tight budgets threaten the lightweight-satellite programs.  Lightsat
conference nevertheless raises some interesting issues, including the high
relative cost of launch vehicles and ground terminals, the "chicken or egg"
problem of no customers because of no satellites and launchers because of
no customers, and the problem of limited power sources (of significance to
materials-processing work in particular).

Globesat Inc designing small-satellite system for Unisys Corp, aimed at
experiments in store-and-forward data collection from remote sites.  Unisys
has a modest government contract for this.  The plan is to launch Globesat's
GS-100 satellite bus, with a suitable payload, on an Amroc launcher in mid-89.

USAF Consolidated Space Test Center in Sunnyvale considers commercial
marketing of its satellite-control facilities.  Of particular note is the
CSTC's ability to do timely radar tracking, since NASA typically has a
turnaround time of a week on such things.

Hughes to announce development of a new three-axis-stabilized comsat design,
optimized for launch on expendables (Hughes now builds spin-stabilized
comsats designed with a strong eye on Shuttle launch).

Soviet biosat lands 2000 miles off target, cause not entirely clear.
Result is some delay in analysis of its payload.

Mir crew's workload reduced a bit; the crew is tired.  They are finishing
unloading of Progress 32, doing work with new materials-processing
equipment, and observing the LMC supernova with Kvant's gamma-ray instruments.

Ball Aerospace is developing a relay-mirror satellite for launch next August
on an SDI Delta.  It will examine accuracy and stability of reflecting a
laser beam from one ground station to another.

Pictures of Soviet cosmonaut-training facilities in Star City.

USSR considers setting up international advisory committee to help select
experiments for its 1990s Mars missions; there has been extensive interest
from outside the Soviet Union, and it is felt that outside advice could be
helpful in selection.  The first of the missions will probably slip from
1992 to 1994 to give more time for payload development.  It will include
an orbiter, an atmospheric balloon, and a small rover.  "Our resolve is to
go to Mars in a big way, and we are working very hard to bring this to
reality."  "It's not too late for the US to join...  Some of our American
friends say it's too early for them.  But if they wait much longer, then
they may find that it is too late."

Pictures of Soviet spacesuits, displayed at Star City.  Unlike the complex
assembly procedure for donning a US suit, in the Soviet suits the backpack
simply hinges to one side and the cosmonaut slides in from the rear.  They
have the same problems with stiff gloves as the US designs.

Soviets confident that one-year manned missions are practical, given routine
measures to counteract free-fall effects.  Romanenko is still doing well,
partly because he is firm about his exercise routine; he is at 245 days now.
Laveikin, who was brought down early because of heart irregularities, is in
good health but is still under observation.

USAF Astronautics Lab is looking again at the idea of a solar-powered
rocket, using large mirrors to heat liquid hydrogen.  Space demonstration
possible in mid-90s.  Off-axis collectors, permitting pointing the rocket
in any direction, are crucial.  A demonstration inflatable collector will
fly as a Getaway Special payload in about 1991.  The solar rocket potentially
has double the performance of an oxyhydrogen rocket.  Also being looked at
is a flat reflector using a holographic film to make it act (optically) like
a curved surface; the basic idea works, but the necessary concentration
ratio has not yet been demonstrated.  One interesting aspect is that the
holographic reflector focuses different wavelengths at different points,
which might be used to focus infrared on the engine and ultraviolet on
solar panels.
-- 
Those who do not understand Unix are |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
condemned to reinvent it, poorly.    | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 25 Nov 87 16:57:27 GMT
From: paul.rutgers.edu!masticol@rutgers.edu  (Stephen P. Masticola)
Subject: BDB and common sense (was Commercial plea for space station)

> > Build the BDB first!
> 
> Why not do both?

Why not? I didn't imply that we shouldn't - just that it would make a
lot more economic sense to have the BDB in place before we went ahead
with a space station. Would you rather pay $300/lb or $5000/lb to
launch something the size of the SS into orbit?

By developing BDB technology first, the budgeteers won't have to
simultaneously budget support for the SS. It would be more likely the
BDB would get the support it deserves, rather than just what's left
over after NASA has paid for the Space Station (at Shuttle
cost-to-orbit prices).

Also, I know of no project flying on the SS that couldn't be delayed
for a few years without excessive harm. If anyone knows of a
_specific_ project that must fly on the Space Station and can't be
postponed a few years, post and I'll stand corrected.

My previous postings on this subject mostly concerned the usefulness
of the Space Station. I've never doubted that it should be built if it
can be proved worthwhile. But if I were running the show, I'd
certainly want that proof first.

- Steve Masticola.

------------------------------

Date: 26 Nov 87 18:00:09 GMT
From: ihnp4!alberta!mnetor!utzoo!henry@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Do we need a Space Station?

> ... Or better yet, NASP (National AeroSpace Plane) then Station.  That
> promises to be even more cost-effective than BDB.

Ho ho.  Ha ha.  Hee hee.  Chortle, guffaw.  No hope.  "The aerospace
plane is going to be a cross between the Concorde and the Space Shuttle;
is *that* really going to be cheap?"

This is aside from the fact that an operational aerospace-plane
freighter (not the strictly-experimental X-30) is at least twenty years
away, assuming that the X-30 stays on schedule, which I wouldn't bet on.

Those who do not understand Unix are |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
condemned to reinvent it, poorly.    | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 1 Dec 87 09:00:52 GMT
From: tektronix!reed!douglas@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (P Douglas Reeder)
Subject: Re: Dyson Sphere Discovered?

	Dyson's original idea was that a society might want to use as
much sunlight as possible, and so might have so many satelites orbiting
the sun that its output would be dimmed.  The idea of a SOLID dyson
sphere came later.

-- 
Doug Reeder                      USENET: ...!tektronix!reed!douglas
Box 502 Reed College
3203 S.E. Woodstock              122 38' W   45 28' N
Portland, OR 97202               planet earth,sol system

------------------------------

Date: 25 Nov 87 16:21:55 GMT
From: hao!noao!stsci!zeller@ames.arpa  (Steve Zeller)
Subject: Re: Brazil and eco-catastrophe

Since I missed the initial article that resulted in the comments on the
eco-catastrophe in Brazil, I can only assume that it must have been
pointed at the World Bank. (re: Anybody who wants to blame a few
ravening western capitalist firms is a fool).

Since I am not currently living in Brazil and can't attest to the level
or poverty which they have to overcome, I will address comments only to
the World Bank and its part in the destruction of rain forests world
wide.

The World Bank has been a source of investment capital for
underdeveloped nations. The main members of the Bank are such banks as
Chase Manahatten, Citicorp and the other top ten in the Banking
industry. They within their contracts which specify the terms detailing
the type of projects a receipient third world country can use it for,
have been a major contributor to the destruction of the world's major
rain forests. I take this fact from the many environmental organizations
which have done more research into the topic about which we are
discussing than I have. In the country of Peru for example, the World
Bank funded the development of the rains forest lands into cattle
grazing land. This led over a period starting in the 70's until present
day to the reduction in Peru of total land rain forest to 30% of what
existed originally. The result of which is a current environmental
disaster as the land cannot support the number of cattle projected
because all the nutrients necessary ( and supposed because of the rich
tropical rain forests) was lost when the forests were slash/burned. The
nutrients are held for the most part in the upper cannopy of the rain
forests, so the under lying soil is actually nutrient poor and acidic.
In Brazil the money for large scale projects such as those in Peru
(cattle grazing and mineral mining ) were funded entirely by the World
Bank. They are always looking for a return on investment since the
shareholders would by no means settle for a long term potential profit
as would be the case if the money went to education and labor intensive
jobs not to capitol intensive investments. As a final note: the recent
court victory by several majjor envoronmental groups( Natural Resources
Defense Council, World Wildlife Fund etc..) forced the World Bank to
rewrite its contracts to third world countries to support the
development of equal amounts of land set aside for envoronmental
protection, equivalent to amounts used for capitol investment.  Also,
all future land use must take into account the environmental impact of
the particular project, review is by a group of enviromental
representatives (third world representatives). One last note: Peru
currently has a major problem with its rivers and streams being over run
with Silt and most of the land slash/burned is now flowing out to sea
because of these policies. Peru is cutting down on the amount of land
being developed by its people but you can't overcome the already lost
land and money which was invested in the country for short term gains
and nno long term profits. ( teaching the prople to perform a trade
themselves, based upon their current resources, not adversly affecting
their environment)

Each year an area the size of Rhode Island or Kentucky (depending upon
which source you want to believe) disappears in rain forests....

By 2000 they may all be gone...

As for the comment on the Government of Brazil and its current land
distribution policy, my opinion is also that this is a truly sensless
waste of one of the greatest natural resources that we have on this
planet. I hope that education can slow the destruction in Brazil. But
for years most of the money invested in Brazil has been for short term
capitol intensive projects owned by firms outside of the country. Its a
two-fold effort to save the rsin forests: Brazil to try to teach the
potential utilization of the rainforests as a food supply without its
immediate destruction ( the Mayans did it and supported by some
estimates about 500 people per acre up to 1000 ((this is far better than
even our super-farms can provide today)) . they did all of this using
the idea of floating farms and other old agricultural techniques which
are trying to reestablish themselves in these countries through
government funding and education) The second part lies on our shoulders
to push our firms through the indirect efforts of groups like the NRDC
(natural resource defense council, sierra club, etc..) or directly by
supporting legistlators who are pro-environment to at least try to slow
this development type mind set which is short term at best in the eyes
of the environment and leverage their power to control these firms in
the US and abroad who don't feel the environment is a factor when
considering the return on investment.


						steve zeller
						arpa: zeller@stsci.edu
						SPAN: scivax::zeller

"all things are possible once human beings realize 
that the whole of the human future is at stake"

				norman cousins

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #64
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU;  3 Dec 87 06:15:51 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA18917; Thu, 3 Dec 87 03:18:07 PST
	id AA18917; Thu, 3 Dec 87 03:18:07 PST
Date: Thu, 3 Dec 87 03:18:07 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8712031118.AA18917@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #65

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 65

Today's Topics:
			  Mir-Watch software
		 Re: Space Shuttle Operator's Manual
		 Re: WEIGHT LIMIT RAISED FOR SHUTTLE
			 Re: Big Dumb Booster
	    Excellent series of articles in Sacramento Bee
		      Re: Laser Disks and Slides
		 Re: Space Shuttle Operator's Manual
			   Address for WSN
			     WSN address
			    Space Funding
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Wed, 2 Dec 87 18:00:53 PST
From: ota@galileo.s1.gov
Cc: ota@galileo.s1.gov
Subject: Mir-Watch software

Does anyone have the mir-watch software from NSS available on the
network?  I'd be especially interested if it is in the form of C or
Pascal source code.
	Thanks,
	Ted Anderson

------------------------------

Date: 25 Nov 87 22:25:27 GMT
From: ssc-vax!eder@beaver.cs.washington.edu  (Dani Eder)
Subject: Re: Space Shuttle Operator's Manual


Many of the illustrations and some of the text is copied directly
from the NASA source documents (which I have).  the source
doucments are:

Shuttle Operational Data Book (Document #JSC-08934)
Space Shuttle Systems Handbook (JSC-11174)
Shuttle Flight Operations Manual (JSC-12770, vols 1-19)
Satellite Services Catalog (JSC-19211)
Space Transportation System User Handbook (no number, available
from STS Utilization Office, Mail Code OT, NASA, Washington DC 20546)
Space Shuttle News Reference (no number, available from any
public information officer at any NASA center)
Space Shuttle Level II Program Definition and Requirements
(NSTS-07700, vols 1-10,12-15,18)
Flight Data File (various numbers)
  particularly 'Crew Activity Plan' for each mission,
  and various checklists.

Dani Eder/Boeing/Advanced Space Transportation.

------------------------------

Date: 25 Nov 87 21:57:41 GMT
From: ssc-vax!eder@beaver.cs.washington.edu  (Dani Eder)
Subject: Re: WEIGHT LIMIT RAISED FOR SHUTTLE

In article <4635@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu>, beckenba@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu (Joe Beckenbach) writes:
> I stand very corrected. [Thank you Mike!!] This changes the whole
> complexion of the issue. I guess I can go back to being confused about
> it all.

> Question: Has NASA actually set a change in the cargo capacity allowed
> at launch? Now that it's had an extra few days to settle in my mind,
> Pietro's sources never did unequivocally say that the change in policy
> had actually been implemented.

The following text is copied from a photocopy of a NASA memorandum, it
may help shed some light on the STS performance Question:
------
NASA
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Washington D C 20546
Dec 22 1986

To:	S/Associate Administrator for Space Station
From:	M/Associate Administrator for Space Flight
Subject:Space Shuttle Support Commitments for Space Station Missions
Ref:	1. Memorandum to S dated Dec 11, 1985, Subject: Space Shuttle
	   Performance for Space Station Orbital Activities
	2. Memorandum to S dated Apr 14, 1985, Subject: Space Station
	   Manifest Users

This memorandum sets forth Space Shuttle capabilities estimates for use
in Space Station program planning. Specifically, the capabilities
defined are: performance to orbit, cargo return weight, flight rate,
crew size, and extravehicular activities estimates for Space Station
missions beginning in 1993.

PERFORMANCE TO ORBIT. The performance commitment contained in our
Reference 1 memorandum is last year's projection of Space Shuttle
capabilities in the mid-1990's.  Since the Challenger accident, we have
reexamined that commitment and its underlying assumptions. The review
has led to a revised performance projection for Space Station with
allowances for post-accident modifications and with more modest
assumptions regarding enhancements. The revised projection now
represents a lower limit of capability that is subject to some potential
improvement.

The baseline due-east payload delivery capability for Space Station is
based on OV-103 [ed: Discovery] with a crew of five, a mission duration
of seven days, 104 percent of rated power level on the main engines,
mixed weight steel case solid rocket boosters, three full sets of
cryogenic tanks (one empty set) for electrical power and potable water,
orbital maneuvering system tankage of 19,900 lbs.  (40 fps Delta-v for
rendezvous), and a maximum certified performance ascent profile.  The
resulting estimate of payload plus attach hardware weight to a
220-nautical miles (nmi) altitude orbit at 28.5 degrees inclination with
full rendezvous capability is 39,530 lbs.

This number is somewhat optimistic in that no allowance has been made
for continued weight growth in the Orbiter fleet for the period of the
mid to late 1990's.  For this reason, Space Station proposed Orbiter
modifications will have to be carefully reviewed for performance
accountability.  Orbiters OV-104 and the new vehicle [ed: Challenger
replacement] will deliver the same performance as above; OV-102 [ed:
Columbia] will deliver up to 8500 lbs. less.

The baseline payload delivery capability for a Space Station polar-
platform mission is based on launching from Vandenberg on an OV-103
class vehicle with a five person crew, a seven day mission duration,
payload delivery (no retrieval), 104 percent of rated power level on the
main engines, filament-wound solid rocket booster cases, three sets of
cryogenic tanks, and maximum certified performance ascent trajectory.
The resulting estimate of payload plus attach hardware weight to a 140
nmi altitude orbit at a 98 degrees inclination is 14,000 lbs.

CARGO RETURN WEIGHT. The downweight restrictions on the Shuttle are
associated with vehicle dynamic loads certification that currently
limits the total vehicle and cargo landed weights to 211,000 lbs. for a
nominal end of mission and 240,000 lbs. for abort.  Using Space Station
design mission requirements, the maximum allowable landed Space Station
payload plus attach hardware weights on an OV-103 class vehicle are
24,000 lbs. for the nominal end of mission case and 48,000 lbs. for the
abort case.  These weight estimates include 1,000 lbs. allowance for a
crew escape system and 2,000 lbs.  margin for vehicle weight growth.
The Orbiter project is conducting a vehicle loads reassessment that is
planned to certify up to 214,000 lbs. at a nominal end of mission
landing.  Results of that analysis will be available in early 1988 and
could add 3,000 lbs.  to the end of mission cargo weight.

FLIGHT RATE. Regarding Space Shuttle flight rate and its effect on the
Space Station, the loss of Challenger has caused us to re-evaluate both
the STS capabilities and requirements.  While the reassessment is not
yet finished, our policy as stated in Reference 2 remains to support the
STS customers in accordance with their relative priorities. With a
four-orbiter fleet, we expect three vehicles to be available for east
coast launches resulting in 11-12 flights per year at KSC. Assuming
three to five DOD flights and another one to two high-priority missions,
the minimum number of flights available for Space Station is four per
year, and the maximum is expected to be eight per year on a sustained
basis.

CREW SIZE. Our current maximum crew size is seven people, and we are
willing to fly certain high priority missions with as few as four
Shuttle crewmembers.  This would normally restrict us to only three
Space Station crewmembers per flight.  However, we have flown one
mission with an eight-person total crew, and there may be some potential
for cross training or otherwise reducing the required crew complememnt
during entry.  Based on these two factors we are willing to commit up to
four Space Station crewmembers per flight.

EXTRAVEHICULAR ACTIVITY (EVA). The baseline STS capability is 24 EVA
manhours per flight.  The Space Station program had originally requested
up to 48 EVA manhours for selected assembly missions.  We have not yet
completed studies to determine the maximum Orbiter-based EVA capability
that might be achieved, however, we believe 48 EVA manhours per flight
can nominally be delivered with some harware augmentation.  It is
expected that the 48 hours would consist of four EVA's of six hours
duration each with two crewmen.  The added weight associated with that
capability would be approximately 1900 lbs.

If you have any questions regarding any of the above, please let us
know.

(original signed by:)
Richard H. Truly

cc:
A/ Dr. Fletcher
AD/Mr. Myers
JSC/AA/Mr. Cohen
JSC/GA/Mr. Kohrs
MSFC/DA01/Mr. Thompson
KSC/CD/Gen. McCartney

-----
Dani Eder/Boeing/Advanced Space Transportation

------------------------------

Date: 29 Nov 1987 20:44-EST 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: Big Dumb Booster

Just in case it isn't posted here, I just rcvd info that AMROC is on
track, but with about a 2 month delay. The info is from the OASIS and
is probably about 4-6 weeks 'fresher' than my most recent information
on the subject, so I will bow to this source. My guess is that the
ridiculousness of the situation was so apparent to all involved that a
quick settlement was forced.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 25 Nov 87 09:11:38 pst
From: Eugene Miya N. <eugene@PIONEER.ARC.NASA.GOV>
Subject: Excellent series of articles in Sacramento Bee
Newsgroups: sci.space

Over a week ago, Nov. 15, the Sacramento Bee had an excellent front page
series of articles on the relationship of the military and NASA.  The
issue started off with the motivations of the X-29A forward swept wing
planes, and some discussion about the coming X-30 vehicle.  There were
other articles in the series.  I recommend this series from what I read,
but I will neither confirm nor deny the truth of details.... ;-)

>From the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA
  "You trust the `reply' command with all those different mailers out there?"
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."
  {uunet,hplabs,hao,ihnp4,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene

------------------------------

Date: 30 Nov 87 04:12:29 GMT
From: bbn!lf-server-2.bbn.com!jr@husc6.harvard.edu  (John Robinson)
Subject: Re: Laser Disks and Slides

The Center for Aerospace Education, Drew University, and Video Vision
Associates have (so far) produced 6 discs of a projected 7-disc set,
culled primarlily from the archives of NASA but including much from
other sources as well.  I can provide informatio nabout these discs if
anyone is interested.  They are available from:
  Video Vision Associates, Ltd.
  66 Hanover Road
  Florham Park, NJ  07932
  201-377-0302
I also have one of the Space Archives discs (#6) from Optical Data
Corporation.  In the back of my mind, it seems that I once knew that
this is the new name for Video Vision.

At any rate, all of these can be mail-ordered from Instant Replay in
Waltham, MA:
  The Instant Replay
  479 Winter St.
  Waltham, MA  02154
  617-890-9262, 800-VHS-BETA (MA), 800-VHS-DISC (US)

-- 
/jr
jr@bbn.com or jr@bbn.uucp

------------------------------

Date: 1 Dec 87 00:14:37 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Space Shuttle Operator's Manual

> Many of the illustrations and some of the text is copied directly
> from the NASA source documents (which I have)...

People who are interested might want to dig out the address of World
Spaceflight News from one of my AW&ST summaries a while ago:  WSN's latest
"special report" series is reproductions of NASA's own astronaut-training
manuals.
-- 
Those who do not understand Unix are |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
condemned to reinvent it, poorly.    | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 1 Dec 87 04:40:35 GMT
From: pyrdc!mike@uunet.uu.net  (Mike Whitman)
Subject: Address for WSN


>People who are interested might want to dig out the address of World
>Spaceflight News from one of my AW&ST summaries a while ago: WSN's
>latest "special report" series is reproductions of NASA's own
>astronaut-training manuals.

Help, Henry I greped through all the back articles of sci.space and
couldn't find the address. Please post/send if possible. Thanks,

Mike Whitman

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 1 Dec 87 11:33:34 PST
From: ota@galileo.s1.gov
Cc: decvax!linus!utzoo!henry@ucbvax.berkeley.edu, pyrdc!mike@uunet.uu.net
Subject: WSN address

Here is the beginning of the note Henry sent:

Date: 7 Oct 87 21:59:32 GMT
From: decvax!linus!utzoo!henry@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Aug 24 AW&ST

[Next in the multi-way tie for third place in space-related periodicals
is a pair: Planetary Encounter and World Spaceflight News.  These are
for people who want the nitty-gritty details.  No glossy color photos or
quotations from Chairman Carl to be found here, just page after page of
real hard solid information.  PE covers planetary missions, WSN covers
near-Earth spaceflight.  Aviation Leak spent one paragraph discussing
Joe Kerwin's medical report on the deaths of the Challenger crew; WSN
printed the whole thing.  The NRC report on shuttle flight frequencies
etc. got about one column in AW&ST; WSN printed the whole thing.  The
so-called International Comet Explorer got some polite coverage in
various journals (no exciting photos to be had, since it had no camera);
PE spent an entire issue on it, with diagrams, lists of experiments, an
interview with the mission director, etc.  When the shuttle was flying
regularly, WSN printed things like payload manifests, activity
schedules, and post-mission assessment reports for EVERY mission.  The
same crew also puts out a succession of extra-cost "special reports",
containing things like NASA technical documents on related topics.
(Example: although I think they may have had second thoughts due to poor
sales on this, at one point they were going to put out a multi-volume
special report reprinting the entire Critical Items List from the
shuttle.)  Highly recommended if you are tired of the babytalk in
newsstand magazines and want to know the gory details.  PE and WSN are
at Box 98, Sewell NJ 08080.  Each is nominally monthly, although in fact
they've been coming out less frequently for the last year or so due to
lack of news.  Each is $30 for 12 issues sent First Class to the US or
Canada, elsewhere $45 for 12 issues sent Air Mail.]

------------------------------

Date:     Sat, 28 Nov 87 05:00 CST
From: <TESLA%FNALC.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu>
Subject: Space Funding

     In many postings on the net over the last few months, I have seen
the topic of funding for our space efforts tossed around quite a bit.
Additionally, the issue of what practical benefits the various space
projects have for society as a whole has been constantly controversial.
A major topic of discussions of late has been whether we should cut
defense and increase space funding, or cut something else, etc, etc,
etc... One subject that doesn't seem to have gotten into this discussion
though, is how other scientific budgets might affect the space budget.
Most notably how the proposed SSC - Superconducting Super Collider -
that the Reagan administration has given a tentative go-ahead on could
affect the space budget, and if its practical benefits to society are
comparable to the space program. (and I use the term program loosely -
the word 'program' implies to me a series of projects directed towards a
particular goal - something I'm not sure we have in regard to our space
efforts.

   The SSC as it is currently proposed would be the world's largest
particle accelerator - roughly a 50 mile circumference ring - with the
potential for providing particles with energies of 20-40 TeV. It would,
in theory, give high energy physicists a whole new view of the
sub-atomic world, and hopefully push us farther along the path towards a
unification theory of the fundamental forces. The cost of these new
insights is estimated to be anywhere from 6-20 billion dollars over the
period of the SSC construction and initial operation.

     As an insider (although not to the inner clique) of the high energy
physics world, I personally have seen very little viable technology
transfer to industry or society as a result of the high energy physics
programs that are currently being pursued during my involvement with
them. This may be due to the fact that very little state-of-the-art
technology is actually in use in the HEP (high energy physics)
community, and as such, there is very little to improve upon. The
equipment used for observing particle interactions and performing
particle beam transport, in my opinion. does not seemed to have changed
appreciably in the last several years - mostly because I don't think it
really needed to - and where there is no need for change, there is no
innovation. The only really notable contribution to come from HEP that
affects the average guy on the street is probably the improved
cryogenics technology now commonplace in medical imaging with nuclear
magnetic resonance sacnners, and even that hasn't changed much over the
few years it's been in use.

     Furthermore, excepting the philosophical and mentally pleasing
value of knowing you have an understanding of what makes the universe
tick, what is the real value of continued HEP research? Will our
understanding of fundamental forces or the structure of matter lead to
an improvement in the human condition?  Will it give us the ability to
construct an FTL drive, or some other radically new technology that will
benefit us all? If not, then I say continued research in this direction
is valueless, because in my opinion the bottom line of any research is
that it should benefit humanity and aid in removing the poverty and
misery so commonplace on this planet at this time.

     (As a side subject to this, I should state that SDI development
doesn't disturb me too much, simply because I think it could never be
made reliable.  The particle beamlines here at Fermilab are in fixed
positions under reasonably controlled conditions, and very seldom
function reliably for more than several hours at one time. Expecting the
same sort of thing to be reliable under extremely hostile conditions for
even a very short period is merely amusing)

     In comparison I fully believe that during the same period our space
efforts have had a much greater impact on the average Joe whose tax
dollars support both efforts. What I see in a single issue of NASA Tech
Briefs is probably more than I have seen collectively out of HEP. The
point I am trying to make here is whether it is logical for the
taxpayers to provide funding for something as comparatively esoteric as
the SSC, which carries little promise of actually discovering ANYTHING
new, and even less promise of anything USEFUL, as opposed to the
exploration and settlement of space which, in my opinion, has the
potential for dragging humanity out of the gutter.

     (I suppose I should add, as a disclaimer to avoid some flame that
perhaps the contributions of HEP are much more subtle than I am aware
of, and if that is true, I would be happy to be enlightened. It may help
me justify my current occupation)

     It is obvious that if the SSC gains a final approval, that the
money for it is going to come from other scientific budgets, and
considering the budget hacks over the last decade, I think it's obvious
where most of it would come from. For those that are seriously
interested in a continued space effort, (and/or HEP) I think it would be
wise to at least give this matter some thought.

 Note: The opinions expressed are my own, and should in no way be
construed as reflecting those of my employer.

                                                Rick Johnson
                                                Fermi National Accelerator Lab
                                                TESLA@FNAL

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #65
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU;  4 Dec 87 06:28:52 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA20970; Fri, 4 Dec 87 03:20:30 PST
	id AA20970; Fri, 4 Dec 87 03:20:30 PST
Date: Fri, 4 Dec 87 03:20:30 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8712041120.AA20970@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #66

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 66

Today's Topics:
			  Re:  phone number
       Planetary Vacuum-Cleaners Sweep Up Dust, says Kitt Peak
		  Re: Big Dumb Booster: AMROC status
	  Re: NAVSTAR (was Re: space news from Oct 5 AW&ST)
			     Re: NAVSTAR
			     Re: NAVSTAR
	  Re: NAVSTAR (was Re: space news from Oct 5 AW&ST)
		      Re: Mini Big Dumb Booster
			     Shuttle C ?
		    Re: BDB and all the whining...
		      Re: Mini Big Dumb Booster
			    Power Systems
			   Re: solar cells
		    solar energy saved until night
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Thu, 3 Dec 87 11:33:46 PST
From: Eugene miya <eugene@ames-aurora.arpa>
To: ST401385%BROWNVM.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu
Subject: Re:  phone number
Cc: space@angband.s1.gov


Dr. Geoffrey--
Oh come on, you can guess the AC. (Having suggested it should
be (987)-654-3210 ;-) JPL's and TRW's are 4321 and 54321 for
the main extensions, so some people are having fun.

People should ignore Mike's mistake.  It's no problem.  It's an
exercise to the reader.  It also gave me a chance to talk to old friends,
too.  Most readers would be surprised at who the network lazies are.
Now, if we could only get people to use libraries..... 8-)
Turn out is surprisingly good.  P.S. Don't send mail to
"pioneer."  We are in the middle of upgrading Ultrix, it's a development
machine and mail is unreliable.

--eugene

------------------------------

Date:         Thu, 03 Dec 87 14:47:02 EST
From: ST401385%BROWNVM.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu
Subject:      Planetary Vacuum-Cleaners Sweep Up Dust, says Kitt Peak

    The "Science Times" section of the Tuesday _New York Times_
had an article about possible planets around Vega, Formalhaut, and Beta
Pictoris.  These stars all have detectable dust clouds (more like disks
actually) surrounding them, and astronomers from Kitt Peak National
Observatory report that observations show the existance of regions
in the disks which are depleted of dust.  They attribute one explanation
of this to the existance of "Earth-sized objects" or larger sweeping
clear zones.  The astronomers quoted were Dana Beckman (Kitt Peak) and
Frederick Gillett (now at NASA).  Article is on page C7 of the 12/1 NYT.
   In other news in the Science Times, along with a report that for the
first time the Soviets have allowed American citizens to look at a
rocket before launch (but not photograph it; a Proton), they quoted
a superconductor reported by Georgia Tech (Ahmet Erbil) at 440 F!!
This is probably a misprint; maybe they mean 440 Farehneit degrees
above absolute zero ("Rankine"--the Times seems to have problems
dealing with Celsius degrees).  Material composition is still held
confidential, although they quoted Erbil as saying that the result
was reproducable on 6 different samples.
    All reports about superconductivity at near room temperature
should be taken with a grain of salt.  There was a whole flurry
of such reports about six months ago, none of which seemed to be
reproducable, and which (as far as I know) are now pretty much
considered to be measurement anomalies.

--Geoffrey A. Landis, Ph.D     BITNET: ST401385 at BROWNVM
    Brown University           ARPA:  ST401385%BROWNVM.BITNET@WISCVM.ARPA
                        EDU, try: ST401385%BROWNVM.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu
                 (until WISCVM stops being an ARPAnet gateway on Dec. 15)

   P.S. (Off the subject): Several people volunteered to critique a SF
short-story for me; but I seem to accidentally have erased the file
containing the names, so except for a few people whose names I remembered
I haven't sent it out.  Sorry--If you're still interested, send me
another note.
                                        --GL

------------------------------

Date: 1 Dec 87 17:02:53 GMT
From: idacrd!mac@princeton.edu  (Bob McGwier)
Subject: Re: Big Dumb Booster: AMROC status

in article <1131@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM>, kempf@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM (Jim Kempf) says:
> In article <565235064.amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU>, Dale.Amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU writes:
> Is it any newer than the report in Nov. 23 AW&ST that they had laid off
> all their employees due to the pullout of some backers?

In fact, mommy lost her bundle on the stock market and decided not to
fund Jr.'s toys any more (literally).  Maybe they found other investors,
as their concept is sound and the tests have been good.  The
restrictions being placed seem ludricous at best and down right nasty at
worst.

Bob

------------------------------

Date: 24 Nov 87 16:27:25 GMT
From: umix!umich!mibte!gamma!pyuxp!pyuxww!sabre!faline!karn@nrl-cmf.arpa  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: NAVSTAR (was Re: space news from Oct 5 AW&ST)

> I read an article somewhere (popular science i think) the given 2 C/A
> boxes placed a known distance apart and using some math similar to
> long line interferometer radio telescope you can get accuraces better
> then the military version.

Yes. The technique is Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI). It uses
the Navstar satellites as simple noise sources that can be
simultaneously observed by each station. Ordinarily, natural objects
such as quasars are used.  But this technique only measures the BASELINE
(i.e., distance) between the two stations to a very high degree of
accuracy, it doesn't necessarily give your position on an absolute
coordinate system.

I know a NASA radio astronomer who has made a career out of VLBI. He has
a T-shirt from Fairbanks, Alaska (site of a radio observatory) depicting
a post carrying distance/city measurements (a la M*A*S*H or most movies
of WWII military camps far from home). Except that each of these
measurements are in CENTIMETERS, and are accurate to that level.  Of
course, his shirt is probably out of date by now, since the whole
purpose of his work is to measure changes in these distances due to
continental drift.

Phil

------------------------------

Date: 29 Nov 87 16:40:42 GMT
From: nuchat!sugar!peter@uunet.uu.net  (Peter da Silva)
Subject: Re: NAVSTAR

In article <564693757.amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU>, Dale.Amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU writes:
> Personally I recommend that anyone with the power to do so discourage
> civil use of the NAVSTAR. Go for Geostar instead. Geostar is wholly
> private and Space Studies Institute is a major stock holder.

Personally, I'd recommend the third choice:

> 	A) Buy the NAVSTAR system and help support you know who.
> 	B) Buy Geostar and know that money will be plowed back into
> 	   R&D to open the frontier to people like us instead of
> 	   fighter jocks. (No offense to fighter jocks)
	C) Put them both up and use whichever gives the best cost/benefit
	   ratio. Let the market decide (I know the market is sadly
	   atrophied these days, but every little bit helps).
-- 
-- Peter da Silva  `-_-'  ...!hoptoad!academ!uhnix1!sugar!peter
-- Disclaimer: These U aren't mere opinions... these are *values*.

------------------------------

Date: Tue,  1 Dec 87 21:59:00 -0500 (EST)
From: gf08+@andrew.cmu.edu (George H. Feil)
Subject: Re: NAVSTAR

Phil R. Karn (Message-Id: <8711301117.AA11400@angband.s1.gov>) writes:
>Actually, I could never understand why Geostar was started in the first
>place, if it is supposed to be a direct competitor to Navstar. That's
>all we need, redundant, incompatible services pl}cing additional demands
>on RF spectrum and launch capability.

My understanding on GEOSTAR is that it will offer two-way communication as
well as navigation information.  I don't remember the stats on GEOSTAR's
accuracy, but from what I recall attending the Northeast Regional Space
Conference in 1985, GEOSTAR would be accurate enough to pinpoint one's
position on a detailed city road map.

As far as cost, I've heard GEOSTAR could be implemented as an add-on to a
multipurpose communications satellite.  That would make it relatively
inexpensive as opposed to having it as a standalone unit(s) in orbit (two are
necessary, I think), not to mention reducing the clutter of hardware already
in geosynchronous orbit. 

Perhaps someone who was at that conference remembers more details, and could
post them.

-HAL (gf08+@andrew.cmu.edu)

------------------------------

Date: 3 Dec 87 04:14:17 GMT
From: palmer@tybalt.caltech.edu  (David Palmer)
Subject: Re: NAVSTAR (was Re: space news from Oct 5 AW&ST)

In article <1566@faline.bellcore.com> karn@faline.bellcore.com (Phil R. Karn) writes:
>> As for civil use of NAVSTAR, bear in mind that the receivers for
>> civil use will be significantly less accurate than those for military
>> use.
>
>Not really. The differences between C/A (Clear Access, the civilian
>mode) and P (Precision, the military mode) are as follows:
....
>Nevertheless, tests with C/A have shown it to be less than 10x worse
>than with P. Depending on location, integration time, receiver
>velocity, etc, typical C/A accuracies are well within 30 meters bias, 6
>meters noise.  This is so much better than anything else that it hardly
>matters if it's "significantly less accurate" than the P channel (which
>is typically 3 meters bias, 6 meters noise).

I heard from a geologist that the military has several times down-graded
the civilian mode's accuracy, to prevent the public from taking full
advantage of it.  (After all, if people find out where they are, there's
no telling what mischief they can get into) Is this true?  And if so (or
if not) do they have any plans to do this again in the future?  Glonass
(sp, the Russian version) is starting to look better.

The geologist I talked to said that they could get improved accuracy by
using multiple receivers, some in fixed locations, some on the vehicle
being tracked.

		David Palmer
		palmer@tybalt.caltech.edu
		...rutgers!cit-vax!tybalt.caltech.edu!palmer
	The opinions expressed are those of an 8000 year old Atlantuan
	priestess named Mrla, and not necessarily those of her channel.

------------------------------

Date: 30 Nov 87 17:07:06 GMT
From: pyramid!nsc!taux01!amos@lll-lcc.arpa  (Amos Shapir)
Subject: Re: Mini Big Dumb Booster

What about all those Pershing (sp?) missiles which have to be taken
out of comission now?  Strapped together they can make a VERY big DB!
-- 
	Amos Shapir			(My other cpu is a NS32532)
National Semiconductor (Israel)
6 Maskit st. P.O.B. 3007, Herzlia 46104, Israel  Tel. +972 52 522261
amos%taux01@nsc.com (used to be amos%nsta@nsc.com) 34 48 E / 32 10 N

------------------------------

Date: 1 Dec 87 18:40:24 GMT
From: gaserre@athena.mit.edu  (Glenn A. Serre)
Subject: Shuttle C ?

Does anyone out there know what the status is on the Shuttle C?  If work
is being done on it, what division of NASA is doing the work?

Also, does anyone have names for private U.S. companies who are working
on building expendable launch vehicles (besides Titan, Atlas, Delta,
ALS, and the Amroc vehicle.)?

Thanks in advance.

                         --Glenn Serre             *Looking for a job making
                           gaserre@athena.mit.edu  *Launch vehicles.

------------------------------

Date: 2 Dec 87 08:40:41 GMT
From: pyramid!weitek!sci!daver@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu  (Dave Rickel)
Subject: Re: BDB and all the whining...

Henry is almost certainly right--it would be next to impossible for a
small group of US citizens to build a rocket capable of launching
something into orbit, even given the money and the talent.  Says nice
things about our government, doesn't it?

Harry Stein has been writing a bunch of pessimistic articles about the
meaning of some of the recent space regulations--in one of them he
mentioned that the Estes rockets, and even the silly little compressed
air-and-water rockets according to the regulations now require a DoT
approval to launch.  Interesting.  Unworkable, of course.  I was
thinking that it might be amusing to try and snow them under through
strict compliance with the law, but they'd only use it as an excuse to
hire more bean counters.

I'm not certain if the situation is too much better in other countries--
I've got this vague recollection (from another Stein article) that there
is now an international law that holds a country responsible for damages
caused from anything that country (or one of its citizens) launches into
space.  This might seem pretty reasonable, but Stein was saying that
this was open-ended enough that a country would be very leery of having
anything launched that the country didn't have absolute control over,
which kind of ruled out private enterprise.

I went to a con a few years ago, and picked up a flyer about a group
that was building a real liquid-fuel rocket (somewhere between 10 and 20
feet long, payload in the pounds range).  I don't remember the name of
the group.  Anyway, they were launching from Nevada.  Apparently, Nevada
has (had?) a fairly loose interpretation of what constituted fireworks,
and the rocket was categorized as a firework.  It might be possible, if
you keep things short range and quiet, to do quite a bit of development
without having to waste too much money and time on the government.


david rickel
decwrl!sci!daver

------------------------------

Date: 2 Dec 87 20:12:20 GMT
From: ihnp4!ihlpa!animal@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (D. Starr)
Subject: Re: Mini Big Dumb Booster

In article <406@taux01.UUCP>, amos@taux01.UUCP (Amos Shapir) writes:
> 
> What about all those Pershing (sp?) missiles which have to be taken
> out of comission now?  Strapped together they can make a VERY big DB!

Nothing, in theory.  However, solid rocket motors have a certain rate of
catastrophic failure, so the more you strap together the less the chance
of a successful flight.  I vaguely recall that in the days following the
Challenger accident the newspapers quoted an Air Force study as saying
that about one SRM in 70 can be expected to fail (it's been a while, so
that might not be the right number--anybody else know anything about
this?).  Assuming that number's correct , and you want at least a 90%
chance of success, you can only have a total of 7 SRMs between all
stages of your booster, since a failure of any SRM in any stage is
catastrophic to the entire flight.

Note that the situation with liquid-fueled engines is somewhat the
reverse--as long as you can sense an impending failure and shut the
engine off, more engines lead to increased reliability.

------------------------------

Date:     Tue, 1 Dec 87 7:29:05 MST
From: John Shaver Modernization Office <steep-mo-m@huachuca-em>
Subject: Power Systems

With regard to running power systems, I serve on a small rural electric
coop board.  Our major costs are energy 60%, Interest on debt 15%, and
taxes 10%.  Our current coal plant installed in 1982 had an investment
cost of $750/KW of generating capacity.  I underestand the current cost
of generating capacity is around $2000/KW.

Currently, (no pun intended) those people who co-generate, offset our
power cost by generating their own and even selling some back to us, are
using solar / wind sources.  Their systems cost have not been accurately
determined, but even with the tax breaks, they would have done better
with CD's in return on investment.

John

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 1 Dec 87 10:21:26 EST
From: John Roberts <roberts@icst-cmr.arpa>
Subject: Re: solar cells

Questions concerning the economics of photovoltaic cells:

1) How long may crystalline or polycrystalline cells be expected to last
   in "typical" terrestrial applications?

2) How long do they generally last in space-based applications?

3) A few weeks ago, NOVA showed a man who had worked on the development
   of flexible, amorphous cells, and was trying to market them in
   various countries. (I did not receive this list at the time.) About
   how much do these cells cost in relation to crystalline or
   polycrystalline cells?  Can they be used in outdoor terrestrial
   applications? What kind of protection do they need, and how long do
   they last? Can they be used in space?

4) Does this company have a marketing organization that individuals can
   get in touch with? (I would appreciate an address and/or telephone 
   number, if possible.)

                            Thanks in advance for any information.
                                   John W. Roberts
                                     roberts@icst-cmr.ARPA

------------------------------

Date: 2 Dec 87 10:28:27 GMT
From: tektronix!zeus!tekla!dant@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Dan Tilque;1893;92-789;LP=A;60aC)
Subject: solar energy saved until night

Donald Lindsay writes:
>The problem of storing the energy until night is still nowhere near as
>well solved as I'd like.

Check out the Nov 21 Science News.  It seems that some reseachers in
Israel have incorporated a sort of storage cell directly into a solar
cell.  The device operates at 11.8 % efficiency during the day while
part of its generated current is saved up in the storage part of the
cell.  When the light level falls below a certain threshold, it releases
the energy that was stored.  Its overall efficiency is 11.3%.

This article was based in part on a paper in the Nov 12 NATURE.

There was also an article on NASA's future plans in this Science News.

Dan Tilque
dant@tekla.tek.com  or dant@tekla.UUCP

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #66
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU;  5 Dec 87 06:12:51 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA23370; Sat, 5 Dec 87 03:19:59 PST
	id AA23370; Sat, 5 Dec 87 03:19:59 PST
Date: Sat, 5 Dec 87 03:19:59 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8712051119.AA23370@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #67

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 67

Today's Topics:
		  Space Station robotics/automation
		      More lights in the sky...
		   Re: A little test of readership
			      NASA tours
			     Re: Geostar
			    Re: NASA tours
			 Solar Cells: Answers
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 1 Dec 87 03:01:29 GMT
From: super.upenn.edu!grasp.cis.upenn.edu!ulrich@rutgers.edu  (Nathan Ulrich)
Subject: Space Station robotics/automation

In article <8986@utzoo.UUCP> henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) writes:
>Congress warns NASA that space-station money will be postponed unless
>NASA commits more money for pre-space-station materials-processing
>work, in particular support for a free-flying module, modification of
>one orbiter for longer flights, adding two Spacelab materials flights
>(first no later than 1990), more FY88 research funding, and development
>of automation and robotics for the space station.  [Sounded good until
>that idiotic last item.  The space station needs, and can afford,
>neither.]

I generally agree, or at least laugh at, Henry Spencer's editorial
comments in these summaries, and I do appreciate his posting the
information.  However, I have to ask him to elucidate his comment here.

Why does the space station neither need nor can it afford automation and
robotics?  From my point of view, it seems that automated systems for
assembly are essential, and, furthermore, that the judicious use of
robot arms is necessary when you consider the constraints imposed upon
an astronaut working in a space environment.  I am a researcher in
robotics, so I fully appreciate the limitations of the current
technology, but at the same time I see specific applications where
automation can help.  I do not necessarily agree with the current
planned uses of robots on the space station, but these are gripes with
specific areas, not the concept.

Can you give me any good reason why automation and robotics should be
excluded from the space station plan?  If you are interested, I could
spend a few hours telling you why they should be _included_.

Nathan Ulrich
ulrich@grasp.cis.upenn.edu

------------------------------

Date:     Wed, 2 Dec 87 16:07:50 CST
From: Will Martin -- AMXAL-RI <wmartin@almsa-1.arpa>
Subject:  More lights in the sky...

Reference our discussion a few months back on orbiting artworks and the
interference with ground-based astronomical observations:

On the MacNeil-Lehrer News Hour on 1 Dec 87, there was a segment on the
Soviet marketing of their booster capability in the commercial arena,
including some interviews with Soviets selling this service worldwide,
their US representative, and various potential customers. One of the
latter was a British person whose name was "Chris" something; can't
recall the last name. He was involved with a project to orbit a set of
clock arms, which would travel in a polar orbit, and show GMT to the
world every night.  They showed a painting of the expected result, which
displayed these clock arms as having the minute hand appear about as
long as the diameter of the full moon. Their orbit was supposed to make
them appear in the same relative position in the sky each night at every
location. Their brightness was supposed to be such that they were easily
visible in a lighted urban area.

The Soviets were quite happy to sell him the launch capability; I wonder
if they had checked yet with the Soviet astronomical community about
this wonderful idea? "Chris" seemed to be in the process of collecting
money (Lord knows from where or whom) to fund this thing.

Personally, I say this sounds to be just about the flakiest idea yet. If
these are actual objects moving around to be the hands of a clock, the
speed at which the minute hand would have to move, coupled with the size
it would have to be to appear that large and bright to naked-eye
observation, seems completely unrealistic to me. Mayhap instead this is
supposed to be some sort of giant disk on which the "hand" would be an
illuminated or reflecing strip which didn't really rotate... There was
no detail on this project; it was just a few seconds as part of a
several-minute segment on the Soviet effort.

Besides, who wants an *analog* orbiting clock in these days of digital
watches? :-) (A tip of the hat to _Hitchiker's Guide_...)

Regards, Will Martin

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 3 Dec 87 09:56:34 PST
From: Eugene miya <eugene@ames-aurora.arpa>
To: ames!uunet.UU.NET!kitty!larry@ames-aurora.arpa
Subject: Re: A little test of readership
Cc: space@angband.s1.gov

Re: Joy rides on Ames

One fine day, at JPL, we were walking to lunch at the cafeteria.
Kobrick (future shuttle alternate material, ex-USAF, etc.)  backgammon
game under arm, saw a tour group and bluttered out: "Gee, I wonder if
Brucie [Murray, then director] would let me take the space ship to Venus
this weekend?"  Those kids were probably damaged for life.....

--eugene

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 3 Dec 87 09:27:58 pst
From: Eugene Miya N. <eugene@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov>
Sender: ota@galileo.s1.gov
Subject: NASA tours

Asked about tours:

  Ames-Dryden is located at Edwards AFB.  Not much to see as a civilian,
but a nice gift shop (2 hours drive from Downtown LA, 3 from Anaheim).
Located in the "High desert of California....."
  JPL is in Pasadena, about 30-45 minutes.  Has a mission control
facility, and grants tours to groups.  If you have friends there, they
can show you around except the new closed areas (they are starting to do
classified work).
  Ames is located at Moffett Field (with USN (and MC), USAF, USDA, some
USGS), next to the Silicon Valley.  We are the smallest Center, but the
fastest growing center (has other mission oriented problems).  No
mission control type facility, but computers and wind tunnels, a modest
flightline.  Group tours arranged up to 3 months in advance (I scheduled
one for my ACM/SIGGRAPH chapter: Jan. 26, but you have to be a chapter
member).  Groups just ask for the Tours office and schedule:
restrictions (Foreign nationals must be cleared a month in advance for
tours, Eastern Bloc requires White House approval.

Other Centers:
  Goddard has a modest tour including their MC.
  Johnson is pretty interesting, especially if you can get into the
weighless tank.
  Lewis (sorry not much, some interesting researchy things)
  Langley -- not much to see more tunnels, some test facilities, the
USAF base has more interesting things. ;-)
  Marshall -- haven't been there yet (big test facilities)
  Kennedy -- haven't been there yet, see the boosters, MC, other parts
of the base (read interesting) are off limits due to environmental
hazards (alligators, explosives, etc.)
  HQ -- Go to the Air and Space Museum across the street, much more
interesting.

There are other locations, but NASA gives tours as a courtesy, this
isn't Universal studios.  People don't want to be disturbed in their
research, and I don't blame most.

--eugene

------------------------------

Date:  4 Dec 1987 01:53-EST 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
To: kr0u+@andrew.cmu.edu (Kevin William Ryan), space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: Re: Geostar

Kevin asked some questions whose answers might be of general interest.

I'm not sure I can anser your questions precisely, but I'll give you
the best I can.

Geostar recievers will cost a few hundreds of dollars. NAVSTAR a few
thousands. THe difference is that A NAVSTAR rcvr must have a ultra high
precision time base in each unit. The Geostar unit is little more than
a transciever. A central base station with redundant computers polls
and tells it where it is (a very unmilitary thing to do, but much
cheaper for the end user)

The system has been tested with mountaintop transmitters, and I have
seen the film of the position outputs in the cockpit of a light plan
running an instrument approach. The data is accurate enough for that.
It may even be good enough for Class I (I think that's the
nomenclature) approach gear used for landing in 0-0 conditions.

It is superior to the ELT/SARSAT combination now in use for search and
rescue of downed aircraft, because there is no false alarm problem.
Even in conjucntion with the ELT, Geostar could poll the aricraft and
let the Civil Air Patrol know that the aircraft emitting the alert is
sitting on the parking ramp...

In a real emergency, it could supply coordinates precise enough to send
the CAP directly to within meters of the crash site.

The aircraft rated rcvr would certainly cost more than the one intended
for hikers, for trucking firm fleet locating, for parcel location, etc.

Unlike NAVSTAR, Geostar also has the capacity to transmit short text
messages, so it can act as a smart beeper anywhere within it's service
range. If you happen to be a stock broker your company let you know you
needn't bother coming home from hiking in the Canadian Rockies...

Geostar will start small, because it will be building on it's own
profits, and because there will probably be a necessity of doing
licensing to foreign governments over land. SHould be no problem over
international waters, so it would help shipping and aircraft that fly
near our trigger happy russian friends...

The initial constellation would be something like 3-5 geosynchrnous
units serving the continental USA. I don't remember the exact number.

They already had a redundant unit launched piggy back to a comsat on an
Ariane in March 86, but both failed. RCA believes that fuel may have
been spilled on a common point between the xmtrs and the power supply.
(An approximate description of the failure from a 2 year old memory of
a conversation)

The will be launching a replacement on one of the upcoming Ariane (May
88)

- In terms of rcvr cost, it beats NAVSTAR to hell and back.
- In terms of simplicity, it beats NAVSTAR to hell and back.
- In terms of additional services, NAVSTAR isn't even in the running.
- In terms of trusting who you are dealing with, who would want
  NAVSTAR? (we're so sorry your 747 crashed on approach, but we just had
  a mistaken red alert in Cheyenne Mtn...)
- In terms of industrializing space, guess which entity will plow it back
  into commercial development?

I WISH I owned stock in them. Unfortuneatly, I could not meet the
*&^(*%$#@ government Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) requirements
as a 'qualified investor' for the initial placement. Which is basically
the SEC's way of saying, "you're not allowed to get rich unless you're
rich" (May the SEC staff and all their replacements unto the nth
generation rot and burn in the deepest pits of hell. And may they never
freeze over...)

The only real competition to Geostar is another company that is going
to send up some small cheap sats on one of the private launch company
vehicles. I don't know a great deal about them, and at 2am I ain't
gonna go look it up!

Hope this helps answer your questions.

------------------------------

Date: 4 Dec 87 06:15:36 GMT
From: terra!brent@sun.com  (Brent Callaghan)
Subject: Re: NASA tours

In article <8712032357.AA09380@galileo.s1.gov>, eugene@PIONEER.ARC.NASA.GOV (Eugene Miya N.) writes:
>   Ames is located at Moffett Field (with USN (and MC), USAF, USDA, some
> USGS), next to the Silicon Valley.
> restrictions (Foreign nationals must be cleared a month in advance for
> tours, Eastern Bloc requires White House approval.

Hmmm.. I've been through there twice now with foreign nationals
(I'm one myself) and no questions were asked.  I just called
a couple of weeks in advance and organised a day and time.
We had a look at the wind tunnels, centrifuge and flight line
complete with U2, Chinook, Tilt-rotor, Harrier Jump jets
and QRSA.

On my last visit they said that they were going to make self-guided
tours available soon.

"Hmmm this looks like the entrance t o  a   w i n d   t  u   n   .....

Made in New Zealand -->  Brent Callaghan  @ Sun Microsystems
			 uucp: sun!bcallaghan
			 phone: (415) 691 6188

------------------------------

Date:         Fri, 04 Dec 87 13:44:54 EST
From: ST401385%BROWNVM.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu
Subject:      Solar Cells: Answers


>1) How long may crystalline or polycrystalline cells be expected to last
>  in "typical" terrestrial applications?
    Crystalline silicon cells are speced for a 30 year lifetime.  Most
companies these days give (I believe) a five year guarantee.  There is
enough data on reliability now to believe that 30 yrs is quite reasonable
on glass-encapsulated modules (in the early seventies several people
tried modules potted in silicone, epoxy, etc.  These turned out to
be lousy in terms of resistance to humidity, hail, etc.)
    The newer thin-film solar cells don't have enough data to say
lifetime, but the target is also thirty years.  These have some
new failure modes in addition to the crystalline ones, but I expect
that (as long as Staebler-Wronski degradation is solved) these
can all be ironed out.

>2) How long do they generally last in space-based applications?
     Depends on a lot of things.  Number one is radiation damage,
which depends on how much you protect it and what orbit you're in.
(The worst orbit is 3000 [nautical] miles).
Also what type of cell you use.  Almost all existing satellites
use crystalline silicon cells with BOL ("Beginning Of Life")
efficiencies at AMO ("Air Mass Zero"--i.e., space conditions)
of about 15%.  End of Life (due to radiation, in geosynchronous
orbit) is typically 84% (from the data for the Hughes SBS-BF1
satellite, which has a spec of 10 year lifetime).  The solar arrays
are oversized at BOL to give specified power at EOL.
     Currently, production space cells are moving to gallium-arsenide
cells (manufactured by Hughes) which are very expensive, but more
efficient than production silicon cells.  In space efficiency, not cost,
is the name of the game.  Next generation silicon cells (which are also
very expensive) are at least as efficient as gallium arsenide (actually
slightly more efficient), but it looks now like Indium Phosphide will
take over, due to breakthroughs in InP by Spire Corporation in the
last year.  InP is apparently significantly more resistant to radiation
damage.
    I've seen radiation damage studies on CuInSe(2) cells
which show virtually zero damage.  Copper indium diselenide
cells are currently not extremely efficient (ten percent for the best
cells, which are currently being made by Boeing--for research, not
production).  This is a moderately hot research topic, but in the last
three years virtually no increases in CuInSe(2) efficiency have been
made, although production technology is getting better.

>3) A few weeks ago, NOVA showed a man who had worked on the development
>   of flexible, amorphous cells.
    Many companies are working on amorphous thin-film cells.  Since
they can be put down on almost any substrate (that will take the
production temperatures, which aren't that high), you can, if you
want, put them down on flexible plastic substrates.   Probably the
company being touted was ECD/Sovonics, since they're the only ones
who seem to be making a point of emphasizing flexability; or possibly
3M, who have been developing cells on very thin plastic to be possibly
incorporated in toys.  Other companies heavily into amorphous silicon
solar cells are Solarex, Glasstech, Arco Solar, and Chronar.

> ...and was trying to market them in various countries.
   Chronar has sold amorphous silicon solar-cell FACTORIES
to several countries.  Glasstech just sold a plant to India.
Both these plants produce about a megawatt per year per shift.
I think Solarex has a division in France as well.

>how much do these (amorphous Si) cells cost in relation to crystalline
>polycrystalline cells?
    Numbers from a study by RTI for current technology extrapolated
to large production volume (baseline, optimistic, conservative):
     Advanced-Single-Crystal Silicon: $1.90/Watt ($1.20 to $3.45)
     Dendritic Web (Silicon Ribbon) : $1.20/Watt ($0.90 to $4.05)
     500x concentration silicon     : $1.33/Watt ($0.95 to $2.20)
     Amorphous silicon              : $1.15/Watt ($0.75 to $4.50)
     Amorphous cascade (note--technology doesn't exist. Yet.) $1.05/Watt

As I pointed out in a (as yet unpublished) SERI report, these numbers
depend a whole lot on the input assumptions.  For example, the
silicon cells are based on existing efficiencies, but the amorphous
cells are based on extrapolating the best large-area efficiencies
of about 6.5% up to the lab efficiencies of 10%.  (not to mention
finding a solution to Staebler-Wronski degradation, which cuts power
down to 60-80% of initial after a month or so of light exposure).

> Can [amorphous silicon] be used in outdoor terrestrial applications?
   Yes.  Alabama Power has the largest existing experimental array,
about 20 kilowatts.

> What kind of protection do they [a-Si] need, and how long do they last?
   Same as crystalline silicon, which is usually a glass front surface,
EVA/Tedlar back lamination, and some kind of edge seal.

> Can [amorphous silicon cells] be used in space?
   Yes, but existing efficiencies are very low, so you probably
wouldn't want to.  You do have the advantage that a-Si cells
could be made on very low-weight substrates, but it turns out
that the mass of structural material which holds arrays stiff
is also important, and you don't gain as much as you'd think by
making lighter cells.  I would expect the structural mass could
also be made lighter for a lighter array, but I don't know by how
much.  I also don't know how amorphous silicon fares
in a radiation environment--I'd guess pretty well.

> Do [a-Si] companies have marketing organizations that individuals can
>  get in touch with?
The Solar Energy Research Institute, Golden Colorado: (303) 231-1000
has a library with a reference desk that answers public inquiries.
There also exists an organization called the Solar Energy Industries
Association (SEIA--I may have it slightly wrong) which I don't know
the number for.

--Geoffrey A. Landis, Ph.D     BITNET: ST401385 at BROWNVM
    Brown University           ARPA:  ST401385%BROWNVM.BITNET@WISCVM.ARPA
                        EDU, try: ST401385%BROWNVM.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu
                 (until WISCVM stops being an ARPAnet gateway on Dec. 15)

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #67
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU;  6 Dec 87 06:09:22 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA24521; Sun, 6 Dec 87 03:19:21 PST
	id AA24521; Sun, 6 Dec 87 03:19:21 PST
Date: Sun, 6 Dec 87 03:19:21 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8712061119.AA24521@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #68

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 68

Today's Topics:
			  Graphics Software
		    Failing memory => 2 questions
	       Re: Close up stereo photos of the moon.
		     Re: Info on Swedish history
		      Re: Mini Big Dumb Booster
		 Close up stereo photos of the moon.
		     Fact Sheet on Space Station
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date:     Fri, 4 Dec 87 11:52:43 MST
From: John Shaver Modernization Office <steep-mo-m@huachuca-em.arpa>
Subject:  Graphics Software

Does  anyone know of software for the IBM PC/PC Clones which will graphically
display satellite ground tracks and which will calculate the earth observers
azimuth and elevation angles?  Are there astronomy programs which might relate?
Would appreciate any responses.  Contact me by email or  AV 879/7622 or
COM 602 538 -7622.  Thanks
John

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 4 Dec 87 11:48:30 PST
From: John Sotos <SOTOS@sumex-aim.stanford.edu>
Subject: Failing memory => 2 questions


(1) I was really surprised a couple nights ago to see
on late night TV a commercial (featuring Helen Hayes
and Whoopi Goldberg) plugging the benefits of the US
space program.  They were talking about some spinoff
device, but I can't remember what it was or who the
organization was that put the message on.  (This was
*real* late; it was a San Francisco or San Jose non-
network channel.)

(2) Awhile back I enquired re a last-quarter 1986
article in Science chronicling the post-NASA careers
of the first group of scientist astronauts.  I checked
the last half of the 1986 science issues, with negative
results.  Could it have been a different journal?
Pointers, anyone?  (Pat Reiff: my mailer can't find
"spacvax.rice.edu")

John Sotos

"Take care of your Betz cells: you don't want to become
dependent on AI."
-------

------------------------------

Date: 4 Dec 87 22:54:53 GMT
From: ecsvax!dgary@mcnc.org  (D Gary Grady)
Subject: Re: Close up stereo photos of the moon.

In article <4834@sol.ARPA> fowler@cs.rochester.edu (Rob Fowler) writes:
>Purcell had a set of the slides.  They are amazing. Just the idea that
>you're seeing what you would if you had your nose 6 in from the moon
>is pretty staggering.  The geology is amazing too.  Some slides show
> ....
>Do any of you know how one could track these down and have a set of
>copies made up?

I wonder if it would be possible to get NASA's PR people and the
Viewmaster people together.  That would require NASA getting only ONE
set of copies made, presumably paid for by an outside source, and then
anyone could buy the Viewmaster slide set.  (Of course, that would only
be useful for goshwow purposes; serious geologists would presumably
prefer something a bit more high-tech.)
-- 
D Gary Grady
(919) 286-4296
USENET:  {seismo,decvax,ihnp4,akgua,etc.}!mcnc!ecsvax!dgary
BITNET:  dgary@ecsvax.bitnet

------------------------------

Date: 4 Dec 87 23:41:46 GMT
From: phoenix!pucc!ICEMAN@princeton.edu  (Joakim Karlsson)
Subject: Re: Info on Swedish history

In article <1426@carthage.swatsun.UUCP>, leif@swatsun (Leif Kirschenbaum) writes:
 
>Since I have a Swedish mother I can't help but insert a small comment here.
>Sweden's army was the best in the world before America came into being, and was
>hired by other countries.  It crossed the sea and fought its way into Europe
>in some religious wars, and did quite well.  Moreover, it was a Swede who
>invented the submarine (Ericsson designed the Monitor) and several other
> military devices.  Today there is a mandatory 18 month term of service for all
>Swedish men, which tops America and many European countries which only require a
> year of service.  And Swedes have to train in the ice and snow.
 
Since I *am* a swede, I can't help but insert some corrections here to
your article: The mandatory military service in Sweden is 9-15 months,
not 18, and it's much much shorter than that required for most Eastern
European countries.  Also, your assessment of Sweden's army seems highly
subjective: Yes, it was/is better than many European countries, but the
world's best army?  I don't know about that one...
 
Joakim Karlsson                               iceman @ pucc.Princeton.edu
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering '88      BITNET only: iceman @ pucc
Princeton University
                       "You can be my wingman anytime..."

------------------------------

Date: 4 Dec 87 17:19:56 GMT
From: linus!utzoo!henry@husc6.harvard.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Mini Big Dumb Booster

> What about all those Pershing (sp?) missiles which have to be taken
> out of comission now?  Strapped together they can make a VERY big DB!

There has been interest in using those Pershings for various things.
However, I believe the latest version of the treaty requires that the
decommissioned missiles be explicitly destroyed, not just put into storage
pending other uses, and sets a deadline.
-- 
Those who do not understand Unix are |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
condemned to reinvent it, poorly.    | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 4 Dec 87 18:31:11 GMT
From: rochester!fowler@bbn.com  (Rob Fowler)
Subject: Close up stereo photos of the moon.


When the Apollo moon missions were being planned, Edward Land and
Edwin Purcell (Nobel prize winning physicist at Harvard) were part of
a NASA advisory committee on the scientific experiments that were
going to be done.  Shortly before the first landing they learned that
NASA had had a "NASA grade" lightmeter made up to go with their
ruggedized Haselblad.  The meter wound up weighing a couple pounds.
The two Eds said, "Why are you taking a meter to the moon?  We can tell
you right now what exposure to use.  After all, we can see the moon
from here and there ain't going to be any clouds moving in before
you get there".  The meter got left on Earth and there was an opportunity
to add a new experiment if one could be designed quickly.

The two Eds seized the opportunity and devised a closeup stereo camera
to take 35mm color stereo slides of what you would see if you got down
on you knees and looked at the undisturbed surface of the moon from
about 6 in away.  Part of the motivation was to examine the texture of
the surface to answer questions about moon's albedo, e.g. why does the
full moon look like a disk and not like a sphere?  Anyway, the
prototype was an open bottomed cereal box on the end of a broomstick
and the final version was a NASA grade open bottomed box containing a
big roll of film, a couple of cheap f11 plastic lenses, and an
electric system driving a couple of lightbulbs (exposure was by
artificial light only), shutters, and film advance.  All this was
mounted on a NASA grade broomstick so the astronaut only had to put
the box down on the surface and push a button on the end of the stick.

Purcell had a set of the slides.  They are amazing. Just the idea that
you're seeing what you would if you had your nose 6 in from the moon
is pretty staggering.  The geology is amazing too.  Some slides show
pyrite crystals that must have been sitting undisturbed for billions
of years.  The bottoms of the crystals are still sharp but the top
edges have been fused by some kind of cataclysmic event.  The event
that melted them had no blast to disturb the surface, just enough
radiative energy to melt the edges of the rocks.

Anyway, I've been trying (low intensity effort) for a couple of years
to get a set of these slides.  Usually I spend about a half day or so
on the problem during Christmas shopping season and then let it
slide for another year.

The government printing office knows
nothing about this stuff.  The person I called at NASA HQ was no help at all.
Do any of you know how one could track these down and have a set of
copies made up?  I figure that by putting this out on the net that
there might be enough interest stirred up to motivate NASA to 
distribute this stuff.

-- Rob Fowler

------------------------------

Date: 4 Dec 87 20:34:42 GMT
From: cfa!willner@husc6.harvard.edu  (Steve Willner)
Subject: Fact Sheet on Space Station

[The following is an unabridged press release from NASA HQ.]

Posted: Tue  Dec  1, 1987   8:00 AM PST              Msg: TJIH-2718-1328

              SPACE STATION WORK PACKAGE FACT SHEET

                         WORK PACKAGE 1
Dominic Amatore
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala., 35812
(Phone:  205/544-6533)

     Marshall Space Flight Center is responsible for Space Station
Program Work Package 1, including responsibility for the laboratory
module, habitation module, logistics elements and fabrication of the
primary structure for the resource nodes.  Marshall also is
responsible for development of the environmental control and life
support system, internal components of the audio/visual and thermal
control systems, as well as for operational capability development
for users in the laboratory module.  The Johnson Space Center,
through special provisions within the Work Package 1 contact, will
exercise technical direction for the manned space subsystems.

LABORATORY MODULE

     The U.S. laboratory module will be cylindrical, measuring
approximately 44 feet long and 14 feet in diameter and will provide a
shirt-sleeve environment for performing laboratory functions.  The
laboratory module will be capable of supporting multi-discipline
payloads including materials research and development activities,
materials processing demonstrations, life sciences research and other
space science investigations requiring a pressurized area.
User-provided equipment that can be housed in the laboratory module
include furnaces for growing semiconductor crystals, electrokinetic
devices for separating pharmaceuticals, support equipment needed to
carry out a wide spectrum of low-gravity experiments and
applications, and a centrifuge for variable gravity experiments in
life sciences.

HABITATION MODULE

     Facilities for eating, sleeping, personal hygiene, waste
management, recreation, health maintenance and other functions
requiring pressurized space will be provided in the habitation
module.  The module will be the same size as the laboratory module
and will accommodate up to 8 astronauts.

     Using the health maintenance facility, astronauts will be able
to monitor their health through vital signs, X-rays and blood
samples.  There also will be exercise equipment for daily physical
conditioning.

LOGISTICS ELEMENTS

     These include elements required for transporting cargo to or
from the Space Station for the resupply of items required for the
crew, station, and payloads; and for on-orbit storage of these
cargos.  A key element will be the pressurized logistics carrier,
which will carry items used inside the Space Station modules.  The
other elements include unpressurized logistics carriers used for
transporting spares used external to the Space Station modules,
fluids and propellants.

ENVIRONMENTAL CONTROL AND LIFE SUPPORT SYSTEM (ECLSS)

     The ECLSS will provide a shirt-sleeve environment for the
astronauts in all pressurized modules on the Space Station.  A key
feature is the regenerative design employed in the air revitalization
and water reclamation systems.

RESOURCE NODE STRUCTURE

     The resource nodes are required to interconnect the primary
pressurized elements of the manned portion of the Space Station and
also will house certain key control functions.  The equipment
provided by Work Package 1 consists of the resource node structures,
berthing mechanisms, racks, ECLSS, internal thermal control, and
internal audio and video communication systems.


                         WORK PACKAGE 2 
Billie Deason 
NASA Johnson Space Center, 
Houston, 77058 (Phone: 713/483-5111)

     NASA's Johnson Space Center is responsible for the design,
development, verification, assembly and delivery of the Work Package
2 Space Station flight elements and systems, which include the
integrated truss assembly, propulsion assembly, mobile servicing
system transporter, resource node design and outfitting, external
thermal control, data management, operations management,
communication and tracking, extravehicular systems and guidance,
navigation and control systems, and the airlocks.  JSC also is
responsible for the attachment systems to the STS for its periodic
visits.  Additionally, JSC is responsible for flight crews, crew
training and crew emergency return definition, and for operational
capability development associated with operations planning.  JSC will
provide technical direction to the contractor for the design and
development of all manned space subsystems.

INTEGRATED TRUSS ASSEMBLY

     The integrated truss assembly is the Space Station structural
framework to which the modules, solar power arrays, external
experiments, Earth- and astronomical-viewing instruments, and mobile
transporter will be attached.

PROPULSION ASSEMBLY

     The propulsion assembly will be used to adjust or maintain the
orbit of the Space Station to keep it at the required altitude.  Work
package 2 has responsibility for the overall propulsion system.
Technical direction for the thruster assembly elements of the
propulsion system will be provided by MSFC.

MOBILE TRANSPORTER SYSTEM

     The mobile servicing system will be a multi-purpose mechanism
equipped with robotic arms to help assemble and maintain the Space
Station.  The contractor will build the mobile base; Canada will
provide the mobile servicing system which includes robotic arms and
special purpose dextrous manipulators.

RESOURCE NODES

     The resource nodes house most of the command and control systems
for the Space Station as well as being the connecting passageways for
the habitation and laboratory modules.  Work Package 2 will outfit
the node structures provided by Work Package 1 to accomplish the
objectives of each node.

EVA SYSTEMS

     Extravehicular activity (EVA) systems includes equipment such as
the extravehicular mobility unit (EMU) or spacesuit, provisions for
communication, physiological monitoring, and data transmission, EVA
crew rescue and equipment retrieval provision, and EVA procedures.
Airlocks for crewmember extravehicular activity also will be designed
as part of Work Package 2.

EXTERNAL THERMAL CONTROL

     The external thermal system provides cooling and heat rejection
to control temperatures of electronics and other Space Station
hardware located outside the modules and nodes.

ATTACHMENT SYSTEMS

     In addition to devices permitting Space Station docking by the
Space Shuttle and logistics resupply modules, this includes systems
for attaching experiment packages and other external hardware to the
truss structure.

GUIDANCE, NAVIGATION AND CONTROL SYSTEM (GN&C)

     The guidance, navigation and control system is composed of a
core system and traffic management functions.  The core system
function provides attitude and orbital state maintenance, supports
the pointing of the power system and thermal radiators, accomplishes
periodic reboost maneuvers, and provides Space Station attitude
information to other systems and users.

     The traffic management function provides for controlling all
traffic in the area around the Space Station, including docking and
berthing operations and trajectories determination of vehicles and
objects which may intersect the orbit of the Space Station.

COMMUNICATIONS AND TRACKING SYSTEM (C&T)

     The communications and tracking system is composed of six
subsystems: space-to-space communications with crew members during
extravehicular activity, aboard the Space Shuttle, and with the
Orbital Maneuvering Vehicle; space-to-ground communications through
the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System to ground data networks;
internal and external voice communication through the audio
subsystem; internal and external video requirements through the video
subsystem; management of C&T resources and data distribution through
the control and monitor subsystem; and navigation data through the
tracking subsystem.

DATA MANAGEMENT SYSTEM (DMS)

     The data management system provides the hardware and software
resources that interconnect onboard systems, payloads, and operations
to perform data and information management.  Functional services
provided by DMS include data processing, data acquistion and
distribution, data storage, and the user interface to permit control
and monitoring of systems and experiments.

     Crew safety is an essential consideration in the development of
the Space Station.  A major system failure aboard the Space Station,
injuries or illness may require the return of crew members to Earth
during a period when the Space Shuttle is unavailable.  NASA's
Johnson Space Center has responsibility for conducting
definition-phase studies of a Crew Emergency Return Vehicle which
could be used to supplement the Shuttle in such circumstances.

                         WORK PACKAGE 3
Michael Braukus 
Goddard Space Flight Center, 
Greenbelt, Md.  20771 (Phone: 301/286-5565)

     NASA'S Goddard Space Flight Center is responsible for
development of several of the Station's elements including the
free-flying platforms and attached payload accommodations, and for
planning NASA's role in satellite servicing.  Goddard also has
responsibility for developing the Flight Telerobotic Servicer which
is being procured through a separate competition.

FREE-FLYING PLATFORMS

     Goddard will manage the detailed design, development, test and
evaluation of the automated free-flying polar platform.  This
unmanned platform will feature modular construction to permit on-
orbit ease of serviceability and flexibility for accommodating a
variety of scientific observations.
 
ATTACHED PAYLOAD ACCOMMODATIONS

     The Space Station attached payloads are the instruments and
experiments designed to gather scientific data while attached
directly to the truss framework of the Space Station.  Goddard is
responsible for providing utilities such as power, thermal control,
data handling, pointing stability and other equipment needed to
operate the payloads and for insuring that the instruments are
pointed at the intended targets.  Two attachment points are provided,
one of the attach points is fixed and the other has an articulated
pointing system.

FLIGHT TELEROBOTIC SERVICER

     Goddard is responsible for building the Flight Telerobotic
Servicer.  This system will be capable of in-space assembly of
Station elements and payload servicing.

     As the system is evolved, it will perform telerobotic servicing
and repair of spacecraft visiting the Space Station.  In the future,
a telerobotic servicer-equipped Orbital Maneuvering Vehicle could
retrieve, as well as service, spacecraft beyond the Space Station's
orbit.

                         WORK PACKAGE 4

Mary Ann Peto 
Lewis Research Center, 
2l000 Brookpark Road, 
Cleveland, Ohio, 44l35 (Phone: 216/433-2902)

     Lewis Research Center is responsible for the end-to-end electric
power system architecture for the Space Station and for providing the
solar arrays, batteries, and common power distribution components to
the platforms.

     The power system includes power generation and storage, and the
management and distribution of power to the final user interface.
The electric power system is required to have the capability to
deliver 75 kW of electric power with a growth potential to 300 kW.

POWER GENERATION

     Initially, Space Station power will be provided by eight
flexible, deployable solar array wings.  This configuration minimizes
the complexity of the assembly process by taking advantage of the
technology demonstrated on Space Shuttle flights.  Each 32- by
96-foot wing consists of two blanket assemblies covered with solar
cells.  These are stowed in blanket boxes which are attached to a
deployment canister.  Each pair of blankets is to be deployed and
supported on a coilable, continuous longeron mast.  A tension
mechanism will supply tension to the blanket as it reaches complete
extension.  The entire wing will be tied structurally to the
transverse boom by means of the beta gimbal assembly.

     To provide the power needed during the period of Space Station
assembly, two solar wings and other elements of the power system are
scheduled to be carried up on each of the first two Space Station
assembly flights.  These four wings will provide 37.5 kw of power.
The remaining four panels will be delivered on orbit after the
permanently-manned configuration is reached.

     Lewis also is responsible for developing and testing proof of
concept hardware for the solar dynamic power module to prepare for
the growth phase of the Station.  In addition, sufficient preliminary
design efforts will be performed to insure that the Space Station can
accommodate the solar dynamic modules.

POWER STORAGE

     Ni-H2 batteries will store the energy produced by the solar
arrays.  A battery pack is made up of 23 Ni-H2 cells, wiring harness
and mechanical/thermal support components.  On discharge, this
operates near 28 v which allows the flexibility to connect several
packs in series to obtain a high voltage system for the Space Station
and platforms or use of single packs as a candidate for other low
voltage applications.  Ni-H2 batteries offer minimum weight and high
reliability with minimum redundancy required for the polar platform.
During the eclipse periods, power is supplied by the energy storage
systems.

POWER MANAGEMENT AND DISTRIBUTION (PMAD)

     The 20 kHz PMAD system is designed specifically to meet
aerospace requirements.  It is based upon rapid semiconductor
switching, low stored reactive energy, and cycle-by-cycle control of
energy flow, allowing tailoring of voltage levels.  It is user
friendly and can easily accommodate all types of user loads.

     The PMAD system will deliver controlled power to many scattered
loads.  The high frequency ac power system was selected to provide
higher efficiency, lower cost and improved safety.
-- 
Steve Willner            Phone 617-495-7123          Bitnet: willner@cfa2
60 Garden St.            FTS:      830-7123           UUCP:   willner@cfa
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA                     ARPA: willner@cfa.harvard.edu

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #68
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU;  7 Dec 87 06:04:47 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA25938; Mon, 7 Dec 87 03:17:25 PST
	id AA25938; Mon, 7 Dec 87 03:17:25 PST
Date: Mon, 7 Dec 87 03:17:25 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8712071117.AA25938@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #69

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 69

Today's Topics:
	       Chicago presentation:  The Year in Space
		    Space Station contract awards
		   Re: space news from Oct 12 AW&ST
		       Stereo Views of the Moon
			    Re: NASA Tours
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date:     Sun,  6 Dec 87 06:04 CST
From: Bill Higgins, Beam Jockey <HIGGINS%FNALE.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu>
Subject:  Chicago presentation:  The Year in Space
Original_To:  SPACE

         Ordinarily I don't post items of purely local interest, but I
         see that people in California keep doing it, so I'll try it.
         Please e-mail me if you have objections.

			       Bill Higgins
			       Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
			       HIGGINS@FNALB.BITNET
			       SPAN/HEPnet: 43011::HIGGINS
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


                        Chicago Space Frontier Society
                                     and
                      Chicago Society for Space Studies
                                   present

                           THE YEAR IN SPACE: 1987

                          Sunday, December 13, 1987
                                   1:00 PM

                         Adler Planetarium Auditorium
                         1300 South Lake Shore Drive

                         ADMISSION FREE TO THE PUBLIC


         1987 has been a year of triumph for the Soviet space program,
         while for Western nations it has been a year of slow recovery
         from the failures of 1986. Space expert Larry Boyle will
         discuss such Soviet milestones as the first launch of
         Energia, the largest booster now flying, and the record of
         over 300 days in space set by a cosmonaut aboard the new Mir
         space station.  Meanwhile, the U. S. Shuttle program has been
         working toward resuming flights in the wake of the Challenger
         disaster.  Both Americans and Europeans have begun launching
         unmanned rockets again after distressing failures last year.
         Japan, China, and India have progressed during 1987 in
         developing independent space capabilities.

         Larry Boyle, President of the Chicago Society for Space
         Studies,  has taught courses in space flight at the Adler
         Planetarium and frequently lectures on space topics in the
         Chicago area.

         +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
         This lecture is a joint meeting of the Chicago Space Frontier
	 Society (a chapter of the National Space Society) and the
	 Chicago Society for Space Studies.  Monthly meetings of both
	 groups feature presentations on some aspect of space
	 development, and are open to the public.  For more information
	 on these groups, contact Bill Higgins at (312)293-1050 or Larry
	 Ahearn at (312)373-0349, or send mail to HIGGINS@FNALC.BITNET.

         Meetings of CSFS are held on the third Monday of each month
	 (but not December 1987!) at 7:00 PM at the Chicago Academy of
	 Sciences, 2001 N. Clark Street, in Chicago.  Meetings of CSSS
	 are held on the second Sunday of each month at 1:00 PM in the
	 auditorium of the Adler Planetarium, 1300 South Lake Shore
	 Drive in Chicago.  (The catch: If the Bears are playing at
	 home, parking is hopeless, so the meeting is postponed to the
	 third Sunday. Clear?)

------------------------------

Date: 4 Dec 87 20:52:52 GMT
From: cfa!willner@husc6.harvard.edu  (Steve Willner)
Subject: Space Station contract awards

[Following is a press release from NASA HQ.  It is unabridged except
that I have omitted some boilerplate reminding the editors what the
space station is.  I have somehow resisted the nearly overwhelming urge
to comment on parts of the release.  Others should feel free to do so,
but please don't attribute any of the material below to me.]

Mark Hess
Headquarters, Washington, D.C.                   December 1, 1987
(Phone:  202/453-1175)                 EMBARGOED Until 2 p.m. EST
RELEASE:  87-177

NASA SELECTS AEROSPACE FIRMS TO DESIGN AND DEVELOP SPACE STATION

     NASA today announced selection of four aerospace firms for final
negotiations leading to award of cost-plus-award-fee contracts to
design, develop, test and evaluate and deliver the components and
systems comprising the permanently manned Space Station to be placed
into Earth orbit in the mid-1990's.

     The work to be performed is broken down into four packages each
containing a unique but interdependent portion of the Space Station.
Each work package is divided into 2 phases.  Phase I covers the
currently approved elements of the Space Station program.  Phase II is
an option for possible future enhancement of the Space Station's
capabilities.

     The four companies selected for the Phase I effort are: 

     o Work Package 1
       Boeing Aerospace Company, Huntsville, Ala.

     o Work Package 2  
       McDonnell Douglas Astronautics Co., with locations in
         Huntington Beach, Calif., and Houston

     o Work Package 3  
       General Electric Company, Astro-Space Division, with  
         locations in Valley Forge, Pa., and East Windsor, N.J. 

     o Work Package 4  
       Rocketdyne Division, Rockwell International, Canoga Park, Calif.

     Total cost proposed by the four companies is approximately $5
billion for the Phase I effort and approximately $1.5 billion for the
Phase II priced-option effort.  The combined work package prime
contractor cost, should the Phase II option be exercised, would be
approximately $6.5 billion.

     All selected offerors had technically superior proposals and
proposed the lowest cost for their work package.  The total cost
proposed by all four proposers is within NASA's cost estimate for the
Space Station program.

     The critical interdependency of the work packages creates an
unusual situation where, because of the unique interrelationships and
interfaces between the work packages and the need for intercenter
equipment deliveries, significant cost negotiations and adjustments are
expected as part of contract negotiation.

     Each firm was selected after an exhaustive review of their
technical and cost proposals received in response to the four Space
Station request for proposals.  Aproximately 300 people participated in
each work package review.  Together, the contractors will work closely,
under the direction of the Space Station program office, in designing,
building and integrating the Space Station.

     The contracts include two program phases.  Phase I will cover the
approximate 10-year period from contract start through 1 year after
assembly of the Space Station is completed.  Phase II is a priced option
which, if exercised, will enhance the capabilities of the Space Station
configuration by addition, in the 1991-1999 time frame, of an upper and
lower truss structure, additional external payload attachment points, a
solar dynamic power system, a free-flying co-orbiting platform and a
servicing facility.

     Phase I of the Work Package 1 contract, managed by the Marshall
Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala., calls for Boeing to provide the
U.S. laboratory and habitation modules, logistics elements, resource
node structures, airlock systems, environmental control and life support
system, internal thermal, audio and video systems and associated
software.

     Overall management, systems engineering and integration, and
operations and logistics support of these elements also will be
performed by Boeing.  Boeing's proposed cost for performance of the Work
Package 1, Phase I effort is approximately $750 million.  Boeing's
proposed cost for the Work Package 1, Phase II priced option is
approximately $25 million.

     Major Boeing subcontractors and their places of performance are:
Teledyne Brown Engineering, Huntsville, Ala.; Lockheed Missiles and
Space Co., Sunnyvale, Calif.; Hamilton Standard, Windsor Locks, Conn.;
Garrett Airesearch, Torrance, Calif.; Grumman Aerospace Corp., Houston;
ILC Space Systems, Houston; and Fairchild-Weston Systems Inc., Syossett,
N.Y.

     The unsuccessful offeror is Martin Marietta Corp., New Orleans,
with major subcontractors McDonnell Douglas Astronautics Co.,
Huntsville, Ala.; Hamilton Standard, Windsor Locks, Conn.; General
Electric, Valley Forge, Penn.; Honeywell, Inc., Clearwater, Fla.; Wyle
Laboratories, Huntsville, Ala.; United Space Boosters Inc., Huntsville,
Ala.; and Hughes Aircraft Co., Irvine, Calif.

     Phase I of the Work Package 2 contract, managed by Johnson Space
Center, Houston, calls for McDonnell Douglas Astronautics Co. to provide
the integrated truss structure, mobile servicing system transporter,
airlocks, resource node outfitting, hardware and software for data
management system, the communications and tracking system, the guidance,
navigation and control system, extravehicular activity systems, the
propulsion system, the thermal control system and associated software.

     McDonnell Douglas' proposed cost for performance of the Work
Package 2, Phase I effort is approximately $1.9 billion.  McDonnell
Douglas' proposed cost for the Work Package 2, Phase II priced option is
approximately $140 million.

     Major McDonnell Douglas subcontractors and their place of
performance are: IBM, Houston and Owego, N.Y.; Lockheed Missiles and
Space Co., Houston and Sunnyvale, Calif.; RCA Corp., Camden, N.J.;
Honeywell, Clearwater, Fla.; and Astro, Carpinteria, Calif.

     The unsuccessful offeror was Rockwell International Corp., Downey,
Calif., with major subcontractors Grumman Corp., Bethpage, N.Y. and
Houston; TRW, Redondo Beach, Calif.; Intermetrics, Huntington Beach,
Calif.; Sperry Corp., Phoenix, Ariz.; Harris, Melbourne, Fla., and UTC,
Arlington, Va.

     Phase I of the Work Package 3 contract, managed by Goddard Space
Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., calls for General Electric (GE) to
provide a free-flying, unmanned, polar-orbiting platform which will
carry scientific experiments in sun-synchronous or other near-polar
inclination orbits, and two attach points, including a pointing system,
for accommodating scientific instruments on the manned base.

     GE also is responsible for integration of the flight telerobotic
servicer to the Space Station, appropriate Space Station information
system activities, associated software and for planning NASA's role in
satellite servicing.  Additionally, GE is responsible for defining
requirements and interfaces for a satellite servicing facility.  GE's
proposed cost for performance of the Work Package 3, Phase I effort is
approximately $800 million.

     Included in the Phase II option is a free-flying unmanned
co-orbiting platform, three additional attach points including another
pointing system and a satellite servicing facility.  GE's proposed cost
of the Work Package 3, Phase II priced option is approximately $570
million.

     GE was the sole offeror on Work Package 3.  GE's team member is TRW
Corp., Redondo Beach, Calif.

     Phase I of the Work Package 4 contract, managed by the Lewis
Research Center, Cleveland, calls for Rocketdyne to design and fabricate
the Space Station electric power system.  This system includes power
generation and storage, management and distribution of electrical power
and associated software.  The electric power system, using photovoltaic
solar arrays and batteries, is required to have the capability to
deliver 75 kw of electric power.

     In Phase I, Rocketdyne also is responsible for providing solar
arrays, battery assemblies and common power management and distribution
components for the polar platform and for performing a proof-of-concept
test for a possible future solar dynamic power system utilizing the
Brayton cycle system.  Rocketdyne's proposed cost for performance of the
Work Package 4, Phase I effort, utilizing the Brayton cycle
proof-of-concept test, is approximately $1.6 billion.

     Included in the Phase II option is a 50 kw solar dynamic power
system.  Rocketdyne's proposed cost for the Work Package 4, Phase II
priced option is approximately $740 million.

     Rocketdyne was the sole offeror on Work Package 4.  The Rocketdyne
team members and their places of performance are: Ford Aerospace and
Communications Corp., Palo Alto, Calif.; Harris Corporation, Melbourne,
Fla.; The Garrett Corporation, Tempe, Ariz.; General Dynamics Corp., San
Diego, Calif.; and Lockheed Missiles and Space Inc., Sunnyvale, Calif.

-- 
Steve Willner            Phone 617-495-7123          Bitnet: willner@cfa2
60 Garden St.            FTS:      830-7123           UUCP:   willner@cfa
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA                     ARPA: willner@cfa.harvard.edu

------------------------------

Date: 4 Dec 87 19:28:00 GMT
From: jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Re: space news from Oct 12 AW&ST

> Why does the space station neither need nor can it afford automation
> and robotics?  From my point of view, it seems that automated systems
> for assembly are essential, and, furthermore, that the judicious use
> of robot arms is necessary when you consider the constraints imposed
> upon an astronaut working in a space environment.

It has to do with the reason we are putting a Space Station up to begin
with.  As Henry once pointed out, if our only reason to go there were to
take pictures, we'd send a camera.  A big part of the reason the Station
is needed is to study how people work in space.  This means that we not
only have to put people in space, we have to give them some work to do.

Robotics have proved their worth on all the planetary missions so far.
JPL has built and launched some truly fantastic robotic spacecraft, and
they're not the only ones.  We need to learn more about robotics, but
putting an experimental system aboard the Station is not the way to
ensure our country's future success in space.  The key word you used was
"judicious".  We don't need new technology for the Station; we need to
impliment what we know NOW.

> I am a researcher in robotics, so I fully appreciate the limitations
> of the current technology, but at the same time I see specific
> applications where automation can help.  I do not necessarily agree
> with the current planned uses of robots on the space station, but
> these are gripes with specific areas, not the concept.

I'm sure that you realize, then, how experimental robots are.  There are
applications where robots can do better than a man in a suit, but not
enough of them to justify the use of untried technology in a hostile
environment.  And while using robots in space will tell us much about
how robots work in space, it will tell us little about how men work in
space.

> Can you give me any good reason why automation and robotics should be
> excluded from the space station plan?  If you are interested, I could
> spend a few hours telling you why they should be _included_.

I can see several advantages to the blooming science of robotics, but
few real advantaged to the space program.  Congress is trying to keep
all its constituents happy -- including robotics people like yourself.
I would rather see the money spent on Station design, hardware, and
experiments than on developing robots to do work that men can do.  I
would like to see robotics get more attention -- seperate from the Space
Station.  We need robots, true, but I don't want to see the money to
research them come from the limited Space Station budget.

Keep the robots on Earth until we can guarantee that an errant arm won't
puncture a cabin wall!  That would ruin my day.


> Nathan Ulrich
> ulrich@grasp.cis.upenn.edu

-- Ken Jenks

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 6 Dec 1987  10:49 EST
From: MINSKY%OZ.AI.MIT.EDU@xx.lcs.mit.edu
Subject: Stereo Views of the Moon
Subject: Close up stereo photos of the moon.

I think that Thomas Gold of Cornell may have developed that stereo
camera.  I know that he has the slides and that they were on exhibit
at the Cornell Radiophysics laboratory for a long time and, probably,
still.

------------------------------

Subject: Re: NASA Tours
From: judice%unxa.DEC@decwrl.dec.com (Louis J. Judice)
Sender: ota@because.s1.gov
Date: Sun, 6 Dec 87 13:42:51 PST

Late this past week I was lucky to be in the Orlando area on business
and decided to visit the Kennedy center - not knowing what to expect.

I was quite impressed. There is a visitor's center, a museum (with
Gemini and Apollo capsules, mockups of Soyuz, etc), a really HUGE gift
shop and a large outdoor display of boosters, engines and radio tracking
equipment.

Most spectacular is the IMAX theater, which presents "The Dream is
Alive" a 20 minute film dedicated to the Challenger crew. It is
presented on a massive 5 1/2 story screen. I believe the film credits
Lockheed with funding. All is free except the IMAX film, which was about
$3.00.

There is also a bus tour around the launch facilities (operations
permitting) - unfortunately we missed the last tour. I suggest anyone
visiting the area call ahead for information.

NASA is definitely doing a good job of welcoming visitors - even
providing LOANER CAMERAS!

Lou Judice
Digital Equipment Corp.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #69
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU;  8 Dec 87 06:23:33 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA28342; Tue, 8 Dec 87 03:23:50 PST
	id AA28342; Tue, 8 Dec 87 03:23:50 PST
Date: Tue, 8 Dec 87 03:23:50 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8712081123.AA28342@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #70

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 70

Today's Topics:
		    Recycling Pershing-II's (long)
	  Presidential candidates & House space subcommittee
		      Re: Whoopi Goldberg, et al
			       Geostar
	  Re: NAVSTAR (was Re: space news from Oct 5 AW&ST)
			     Re: Geostar
		      ANALOG SF MAGAZINE VOTING
		   Re: A little test of readership
		   Re: space news from Oct 12 AW&ST
		    Re: BDB and all the whining...
	      SPS and Advances in Thin Film Solar Cells
			   RE: solar cells
			      Miscellany
			    Re: NASA tours
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: Recycling Pershing-II's (long)
Date: Mon, 07 Dec 87 13:21:21 -0500
From: Fred Baube <fbaube@note.nsf.gov>

Today's Washington Post [Monday] discusses INF missile disposal.
Excerpted without permission.

"One of the INF treaty's most unorthodox provisions will unfold at
[Kapustin Yar], 660 miles SE of Moscos, within a few days after the pact
takes effect, when the Soviets begin launching unarmed SS12 and SS20
missiles eastward virtually around-the-clock just to get rid of them.
"Similar launches of .. Pershing II missiles .. over the Atlantic are
contemplated if studies show this is the cheapest, safest way to destroy
the $6M rockets within the treaty's three-year deadline.  [..]  "The
treaty allows up to 100 rockets to be destroyed this way, falling
harmlessly back to Earth.  But all launches must be completed within 60
days .."

This will leave about a thousand missiles.

Certain other INF components are being recycled.  "The Army decided it
wanted to keep the tractors used tp pull the Pershing II's thru German
forests, and the Soviets decided they wanted to give their SS20 flatbeds
to civilians.  The two sides then entered protracted negotiations over
how much of the flatbeds must be lopped off to make them too short and
too weak to carry an SS20, finally settling on one meter.  "US
inspectors will be watching to ensure that the pieces are 39 inches
long, not 38.  When Soviet SS12 and SS20 missiles are launched from
Kapustin Yar, US officials will be there to inspect them beforehand and
observe them arcing high above the Kazakh plain."

It appears that recycling the launchers is a possibility.

------------------------------

Date:     Sun,  6 Dec 87 03:35 CST
From: Bill Higgins, Beam Jockey <HIGGINS%FNALE.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu>
Subject:  Presidential candidates & House space subcommittee
Original_To:  SPACE

               PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES TO DISCUSS SPACE ISSUES

Democratic presidential candidates will explain their positions on space
policy to the House Subcommittee on Space Science and Applications on
Friday, December 18th in Iowa City, Iowa.  The all-day hearings, to be
held at the Iowa Memorial Union, will also include testimony by
prominent space scientists.  Republican candidates will be invited to
speak at a similar event in New Hampshire sometime in January.

EDITORIAL COMMENTS: Okay, these are all the facts I have now.  We in the
Chicago chapter of the National Space Society are trying to find out
more details; when we do, I'll post them.

I've heard quite a few people express the wish that What To Do In Space
could be made a significant issue in the 1988 campaign. Clearly somebody
on Capitol Hill has had the same thought.  If you share these feelings,
you might tip off your local press about this event and tell them you'd
like to see it covered.

There *might* be a chance for represenatives of citizens' groups, such
as the NSS and the Planetary Society, to testify-- we don't know yet.
Note that Iowa is the home turf of Dr. James Van Allen, the most
prominent opponent of the elaborate manned spaceflight programs NASA
holds dear.


                                       Bill Higgins
                                       Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
                                       HIGGINS@FNALB.BITNET
                                       SPAN/HEPnet: 43011::HIGGINS

------------------------------

Date:  6 Dec 1987 18:44-EST 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: Whoopi Goldberg, et al

Ad is part of an 'odd couple' series by USSF, United States Space
Foundation, HQ in Colorado. I've personally only seen one, with Willie
Nelson. Gary Oleson told me that Rev. Jessie Jackson was in one also.

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 6 Dec 87 09:09 EDT
From: "Paul F. Dietz" <DIETZ%sdr.slb.com@relay.cs.net>
Subject: Geostar

Another comment on Geostar:

Because the Geostar satellites are in GSO, the system should have lousy
accuracy near the equator (since any north-south displacement of the
receiver will be perpendicular to the line connecting the receiver to
the satellites and so causes, to first order, no change in the time
delay).  I suppose they're targeting the US market first, so that's ok.
Eventually they'll have to go to satellites in inclined orbits.

Paul F. Dietz
dietz@sdr.slb.com

------------------------------

Date: 7 Dec 87 03:36:09 GMT
From: karn@faline.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: NAVSTAR (was Re: space news from Oct 5 AW&ST)

Actually, there may well be a less sinister reason for giving civilians
a different mode than the military reserves for itself.

It is pretty much a fact of life in communications that any signal you
can receive, you can jam. This goes for spread spectrum just as for
conventional narrowband modes. The fact that the C/A (clear access) code
on GPS is a simple length 1023 linear polynomial that is public
knowledge also makes it possible to jam the system.  The military
channel of GPS is spread with a different code that is the product of
two very long, relatively prime PN sequences. One has length 15,345,000
and the other 15,345,037. At 10.23 million chips/sec, this code would
take 38 weeks to repeat, but it is instead restarted every week at 0000
UTC Sunday. By keeping this sequence secret, it becomes much harder to
jam the signal.

Of course, because the sequence repeats each week, it is at least
theoretically possible to record the entire spread signal for later use
-- if you have a receiver with enough extra performance to make up for
the lack of coding gain, and if you have a place to put all those bits.

Phil

------------------------------

Date: 7 Dec 87 17:42:45 GMT
From: linus!utzoo!henry@husc6.harvard.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Geostar

> The only real competition to Geostar is another company that is going
> to send up some small cheap sats on one of the private launch company
> vehicles. I don't know a great deal about them, and at 2am I ain't
> gonna go look it up!

Starfind.  From what I've seen of their scheme, I have my doubts about
whether they can deliver on their promises.  Given the choice, I'd invest
in Geostar.
-- 
Those who do not understand Unix are |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
condemned to reinvent it, poorly.    | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 2 Dec 87 23:21:28 GMT
From: ihnp4!inuxc!inuxm!arlan@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (A Andrews)
Subject: ANALOG SF MAGAZINE VOTING

ANALOG AWARDS:  Want to influence SF trends?

Those who read ANALOG SF magazine may be interested in the AN LAB
ratings that are now being voted upon by the readership.  ANALOG editor
Dr. Stanley Schmidt tabulates votes for the best NOVELLA/NOVELETTE,
SHORT STORY, FACT ARTICLE and COVER ART and presents the results next
year.  Submission date presumably is end of year.

The address is: Dr. Stanley Schmidt, Editor	
                ANALOG SF Magazine
                Davis Publications, Inc.
                380 Lexington Avenue
                New York, NY 10017

         Attn:  ANLAB voting

(ASIMOV'S SF magazine is at the same address and has a similar contest.
Gardner Dozois is editor there.)

A complete index of ANALOG for 1987 is available in the January 1988
issue that is currently on the stands.

Enjoy.

--Arlan Andrews

------------------------------

Date: 4 Dec 87 23:14:00 GMT
From: irwin@b.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Re: A little test of readership


Bill, maybe Eugene's test was to see who can read, obviously, Mike
can not. :-) (They don't want HIM at NASA) :-)

------------------------------

Date: 4 Dec 87 19:30:00 GMT
From: jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Re: space news from Oct 12 AW&ST

I'd like to give a public thank-you to Henry for these summaries.  I
don't have the money to subscribe to Aviation Leak, nor the time to sift
throught all the airplanes to get to the good stuff.  I appreciate the
condensed news.

Thanks, Henry!

-- Ken Jenks, MS: Aero/Astro Engineering, BS: Computer Science, UIUC

The University of Illinois will revoke my account on 20 December.
It's been fun, folks!  I'll be back after I get a job!

jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu		{ihnp4!pur-ee}uiucdcs!uiucdcsp!jenks

------------------------------

Date: 6 Dec 87 05:10:23 GMT
From: linus!utzoo!henry@husc6.harvard.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: BDB and all the whining...

> ... the Estes rockets, and even the silly little compressed
> air-and-water rockets according to the regulations now require a DoT
> approval to launch.  Interesting...

Technically they did, under the legislation that created the Office of
Commercial Space Transportation [I think that's the correct name].  At
the NASFiC this year, Stine said that the OCST people were horrified
when this was pointed out, and some revised regulations have been issued
that exempt (effectively) anything that can't reach an altitude of 100
km.  It is not phrased that way, however, because 100 km is the Soviet
proposal for an official definition of the edge of space, and since the
Soviets suggested it, the State Dept. is dead-set against any official
US support for it.  So the regulations actually talk about things like
total impulse, but 100 km is what the numbers work out to.

> I've got this vague recollection (from another Stein article) that
> there is now an international law that holds a country responsible for
> damages caused from anything that country (or one of its citizens)
> launches into space...

Yes.  This has been in effect for some time, and it is indeed strong
enough to make governments distinctly wary of permitting private launch
activities.
-- 
Those who do not understand Unix are |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
condemned to reinvent it, poorly.    | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date:         Mon, 07 Dec 87 15:00:55 EST
From: ST401385%BROWNVM.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu
Subject:      SPS and Advances in Thin Film Solar Cells

     The recent issue of _Space World_ had an interesting, although
non-technical, retrospective on the concept of the Solar Power
Satellite.
   As I recall the results of the original SPS economic studies, the
result was that they would not be economically competitive because of
the costs to launch the materials from Earth (the original studies did
not consider use of lunar material).
   I wonder what the economics of an SPS would be like if, instead of
the crystalline silicon cells that the baseline studies assumed, the
satellite used thin-film cells on thin plastic substrates?  A typical
Copper Indium Selenide cell is only 3 microns thick, compared to (I
think) 50 micron thick silicon cells used for the baseline study.
    CuInSe(2) cells are currently only about 10% efficient.  (11.9
percent has been achieved in the lab).  The baseline study assumed 18%
efficient silicon cells.  Assume a 1 mil (25 micron) plastic substrate
at a density of 1 (compared to 4.5 for Si) and the solar cell portion of
the satellite should be roughly 1/6th as massive as the baseline, but
produce about 66% as much electricity.  We could quickly estimate that
the cost of launching the solar cells is then reduced by a factor of 3!
(depending somewhat on the relative mass of the protective coverslips on
the cells).  I don't know how much of the mass of a SPS is that of the
solar array, but I would expect it to be a large fraction, since the
antenna could be a very thin mesh reflector.  A very clever design would
use the solar panels themselves as a reflector; this would be tricky,
since one needs to be able to aim the cells at the sun and the antenna
at the receiver on the ground.
     The Boeing process for producing copper indium selenide is a
vacuum-evaporation process, which would be cheap to adapt to space
manufacture.
    Ten percent is not by any means the maximum possible achievable
efficiency in thin films.  15% is considered a reasonable target in the
near term for CuInSe2, and a copper GALLIUM selenide cell based on the
same structure as copper indium selenide should be capable of 15-18%
efficiency.  Cascade cell structures (cells sensitive to short
wavelength light but transparent to long wavelength light fabricated on
top of cells sensitive to long wavelengths) could also boost the
efficiency.  An 8% (very conservative estimate) amorphous silicon cell
cascaded on a 10% CuInSe2 cell would give 13% efficiency; and a CuGaSe2
(or CdTe variant) cell on a CuInSe2 cell should be able to reach 19-24%
efficiency.
    So maybe Space Solar Power *isn't* dead, it may just need a little
more development on thin-film solar cells.
    Important references for SPS include the journal _Space Power
Review_ (formerly, I think, _Space Solar Power Review_) and the
_Proceedings of the IEEE Photovoltaics Specialists Conferences_, which
cover all the recent advances in the solar cell field every 18 months.

--Geoffrey A. Landis, Ph.D     BITNET: ST401385 at BROWNVM
Brown University

------------------------------

Date:     Fri, 4 Dec 87 15:01 EST
From: GODDEN%gmr.com@relay.cs.net
Subject:  RE: solar cells

  >From: John Roberts <roberts@icst-cmr.arpa>
  >Subject: Re: solar cells
  >
  >3) A few weeks ago, NOVA showed a man who had worked on the development
  >   of flexible, amorphous cells, and was trying to market them in
  >   various countries. (I did not receive this list at the time.) 
  >
  >4) Does this company have a marketing organization that individuals can
  >   get in touch with? (I would appreciate an address and/or telephone 
  >   number, if possible.)
  
The man's name is Stan Ovshinsky, and his company is:
Energy Conversion Devices, Inc.
1675 W. Maple
Troy, MI 48084
tel: 313-280-1900

-Kurt Godden (godden@gmr.com)

------------------------------

Subject: Miscellany
Date: Mon, 07 Dec 87 10:58:10 -0500
From: Fred Baube <fbaube@note.nsf.gov>

Brent Chapman <chapman%mica.Berkeley.EDU@violet.berkeley.edu> writes:
> If you mean the "decent alarm" that occurred in the Lunar Module
> moments before lunar touchdown ..

I distinctly remember that a "descent alarm", maybe the same flight,
maybe not, was caused by the crew having a manual whose display of
switch settings was just plain wrong; the crew had frantic moments
trying to find the correct settings, and nearly aborted. (At least, this
is what Frank McGee of NBC said.)

umix!oxtrap!rich@RUTGERS.EDU (K. Richard Magill) writes:
> .. the Bricklin was sold with entirely electronic locks.  When the
> battery died or shorted you were entirely locked out.  The Bricklin
> had gull wing doors.

At a lower level of technology, its doors had to be opened sequentially,
not simultaneously, or else the motor in question burned out,
immobilizing the doors.

Does anyone have one of those cardboard punch-out-and-assemble Lunar
Module models that Gulf gave away ?  I wonder what they're worth now.

------------------------------

Date: 7 Dec 87 17:40:40 GMT
From: linus!utzoo!henry@husc6.harvard.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: NASA tours

> Marshall -- haven't been there yet (big test facilities)

The tour there is so-so.  You don't get much of a look at the big stuff.
They do give you a closeup look / photo opportunity at the oldest test
stand there, used for the Redstone.  There is a Skylab mockup that is
worth a look.  The most interesting thing (to my mind) was a close look
at a prototype shuttle external tank, which they've got on display.
Otherwise the tour is unimpressive.  The museum is worth some time,
though.  They also have a centrifugal simulator/ride that is thoroughly
weird and quite interesting.

> Kennedy -- haven't been there yet, see the boosters, MC, other parts
> of the base (read interesting) are off limits due to environmental
> hazards (alligators, explosives, etc.)

KSC was probably a better place to see back in Apollo days.  I went
there a couple of years ago with NSI to see the 41C launch.  Mission
Control was off-limits due to military work.  The VAB is very firmly off
limits due to the presence of fuel (the SRBs) in it, something that was
never allowed in Apollo days but which they have no choice about now.
The ex-flight-ready Saturn V with birds nesting in it is depressing.
You can't get a terribly close look at a shuttle on the pad due to both
security restrictions (they have started to take this seriously in
recent years) and safety restrictions (yes, Virginia, there really are
alligators in there).  Going with a known pro-space group may get you a
slightly better look at some things; I don't think we got the
standard-Joe-Public tour.  There is also a tour of the USAF base
(essentially, the older launch facilities) that I didn't catch.  It is
worth going to watch a launch, at such time as they start again; it's
not the same as watching it on TV!
-- 
Those who do not understand Unix are |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
condemned to reinvent it, poorly.    | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #70
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU;  9 Dec 87 06:14:51 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA00242; Wed, 9 Dec 87 03:16:44 PST
	id AA00242; Wed, 9 Dec 87 03:16:44 PST
Date: Wed, 9 Dec 87 03:16:44 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8712091116.AA00242@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #71

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 71

Today's Topics:
		    Mir elements, 5 December 1987
		     space news from Nov 2 AW&ST
			Cashew nut heat shield
		      Re: Cashew nut heat shield
	  Re: NAVSTAR (was Re: space news from Oct 5 AW&ST)
		  "Final Frontier" -- new space mag
		  Re: Recycling Pershing-II's (long)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 7 Dec 87 20:30:00 GMT
From: kenny@b.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Mir elements, 5 December 1987


Satellite: Mir        
Catalog id 16609
Element set 953
Epoch: 87336.98605706
Inclination:  51.6288 degrees
RA of node:   3.7520 degrees
Eccentricity:  0.0012358
Argument of perigee:  79.1413 degrees
Mean anomaly: 281.1023 degrees
Mean motion: 15.79146397 revs/day
Mean motion acceleration: 0.00025156 * 2 revs/day/day
Epoch Revolution: 10272

For those who are interested, the latest object (most likely a
Progress supply vehicle) docked to the Mir/Kvant complex is NORAD
catalog 18658, international ID 1982.094.A.

Good viewing opportunities this weekend through much of the Midwest.

------------------------------

Date: 8 Dec 87 00:20:27 GMT
From: linus!utzoo!henry@husc6.harvard.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Nov 2 AW&ST

[The summaries for the next little while are going to be especially
terse.  I am taking an extended Christmas vacation this year, and want
to get as caught-up as possible, so I have to emphasize quantity over
quality for a little while.]

ESA's Eureca reusable platform has been booked on the 18th
post-resumption shuttle flight.

Japan runs glide tests on spaceplane models.

[Remember how NASA was going to ask for both CRAF and AXAF as new starts
this year?]  Office of Mismanagement and Beancounting says it will
approve *no* new starts in FY89 budget, due to the deficit.  NASA will
appeal the decision.  Space station delays also threatened.

Air&Space Museum and Imax ask USSR to fly an Imax camera on one of their
manned missions, to contribute to an Imax film on world space
activities.

Titan 34D launch Oct 26 successful, carrying KH-11 spysat into polar
orbit from Vandenberg.  Just in time, the only other KH-11 in orbit is
getting very near the end of its life.  Another Titan is on the pad at
the Cape, for launch soon; payload is probably an early-warning
satellite (here too there is an urgent need to replace aging birds) but
might be a pair of military comsats.

Eosat is actively marketing a 5-m-resolution imaging capability for
media use, to fly in 1994 on Landsat 7.  This is half the informal lower
limit on US civilian imaging set some years ago.  Trouble is predicted
when Eosat applies for a formal license for the system, perhaps two
years from now.  Eosat has also decided to add an ocean sensor on
Landsat 6 (1991).

USAF Space Command boss says Soviet antisatellite lasers are capable of
damaging sensors and solar panels on Clarke-orbit satellites, and could
destroy low-orbit satellites.  Caution: he said this while appealing for
more in-space tests of the US antisatellite system, still banned by
Congress.

NASA acts to improve its space-commercialization image, notably lifting
the moratorium on new joint NASA-industry agreements.  Commercial
payloads have 28% of shuttle secondary-payload capacity on non-DoD
flights.  Shuttle managers expected to boost allowable landing weights
for shuttle, which will also boost launch weight.  NASA is interested in
industrial "payloads of opportunity", to be available as last-minute
additions to missions.

A possible reason for all this is that a DoC policy review has suggested
radical changes in policy, including limiting NASA's role in commercial
space activities and shifting space-station operations responsibility
from NASA to industry.

General Dynamics signs with USAF to use the Cape for up to eight
commercial Atlas launches per year, plus some degree of activity from
Vandenberg.

Gerry O'Neill tells Eascon (Electronics & Aerospace Systems Conference)
that getting commercial space activity going is far more important than
boosting NASA's budget slightly.

NASA Advisory Council task force on commercialization says likewise.
"Those who make US policy need to understand that its inability to win a
competition for a $100M launch contract is equivalent in economic terms
to the import of 10,000 Toyotas or the loss of 5000 jobs..."  Task force
team visiting Soviet space facilities says that Soviet program's
decision- making is much more centralized, a major improvement on the
US's "relatively cumbersome interagency process that tends to blunt
creativity and initiative."

NASA, under Congressional pressure, is looking much harder at using
Space Industries' Industrial Space Facility as a space-station
precursor.  Also, SII and Westinghouse will jointly acquire the
Astrotech facilities at KSC for use as ground control and payload
processing center for ISF.

Geostar awards $100M contract to GE for two commercial navsats, options
on two more.

Pictures of CRESS (Combined Release and Radiation Effects Satellite),
being modified for launch on Atlas instead of shuttle.  The mission is
being cut back a bit as a result.

TVSat 1, Europe's first direct-broadcast comsat, is in final preparation
for launch on Ariane.  It has been in storage for over a year.

Arianespace training additional launch teams to cover increased flight
rate scheduled for next year.

Mir is now using new momentum wheels for precision pointing, reducing
thruster fuel consumption and environment contamination.  The system
came up as part of Kvant because there was not room on Mir itself.
Momentum offloading is done by occasional use of gravity-gradient
stabilization (or thruster firings, if in a hurry).

Mir is using an electrolytic-decomposition system for oxygen supply,
replacing the bulky chemical cartridges used on Salyut, and some sort of
new system for carbon-dioxide removal that expels the CO2 into space
instead of absorbing it in chemicals that need regular replacement.

The propulsion system for the Soviet Phobos probes is the first use of a
new modular propulsion system intended for a wide variety of uses.

"Aerospace Forum" contribution by Roy Gibson, ex-head of British
National Space Center (also ex-director-general of ESA).  Actually light
on content, but pushes for more commercial involvement.  "National and
international space agencies will need to overcome an understandable
wish to keep control of the action and to break off pieces to throw to
the private sector when they are ready, rather than involving them in a
definition of a joint operation."
-- 
Those who do not understand Unix are |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
condemned to reinvent it, poorly.    | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Sender: "Christopher_Thompson.SBDERX"@xerox.com
Date: 8 Dec 87 06:23:24 PST (Tuesday)
Subject: Cashew nut heat shield
From: "Chris_Thompson.SBDERX"@xerox.com
Cc: Chris.SBDERX@xerox.com
Reply-To: Chris.SBDERX@xerox.com

Taken from the London Daily Telegraph 8/12/87

"SPACECRAFT HEAT SHIELD IS NUTS

India is to be the first nation to launch a spaceship composed partly of
vegetable matter.

The heat shields of future spacecraft, which prevent the vehicle from
burning up when it re-enters the atmosphere, are to be made from cashew
nuts, Mr Karthik Narayanan, Minister for Science and Technology, told
Parliament.

He said a heat-resistant resin based on liquid extracted from cashew nut
shells had been developed by the Regional Research Laboratory in Kerala,
the country's largest cashew nut producer. It was well suited for heat
shields.

The evergreen cashew trees, already used for making hard wood products
like crates, grow in profusion on India's coastlines, although they are
not native to the country. They were brought there from South America in
the 15th century by missionaries.

Scientists in Britain said yesterday that the idea was not as eccentric
as it might sound. Wood can be hardened until it is strong as steel.

A Kew Gardens spokesman said 'This particular resin is very tough. It is
used for such things as tanning and preserving fishing nets and
preserving wood from termite attacks.'

This is the first time vegetable matter has been used for the exterior
of a spaceship. All American and Russian spacecraft (as far as it is
known) use exotic metals and ceramics.

Only in the interior, in furniture fittings and in spacesuits is
'natural' material used"

Anyone care to comment? Is this the answer to all the heat tile problems
of the shuttle?!

Chris Thompson, SBD-E, Rank Xerox
Answer to: Chris.sbderx@xerox.com

------------------------------

Date: 8 Dec 87 19:37:11 GMT
From: palmer@tybalt.caltech.edu  (David Palmer)
Subject: Re: Cashew nut heat shield

In article <871208-062406-4560@Xerox> Chris.SBDERX@xerox.com writes:
>"SPACECRAFT HEAT SHIELD IS NUTS

>India is to be the first nation to launch a spaceship composed partly
>of vegetable matter.

According to an Aviation Leak of ~3 months ago, China is using oak wood
for a heat shield for some of its spacecraft.  I don't know whether any
of these have been launched.

		David Palmer
		palmer@tybalt.caltech.edu

------------------------------

Date: 8 Dec 87 02:14:27 GMT
From: cos!akt@uunet.uu.net  (Amit Thakur)
Subject: Re: NAVSTAR (was Re: space news from Oct 5 AW&ST)

In article <1595@faline.bellcore.com>, karn@faline.bellcore.com (Phil R. Karn) writes:
> Actually, there may well be a less sinister reason for giving civilians
> a different mode than the military reserves for itself.
> 
> It is pretty much a fact of life in communications that any signal you
> can receive, you can jam. This goes for spread spectrum just as for
> conventional narrowband modes. The fact that the C/A (clear access) code
> on GPS is a simple length 1023 linear polynomial that is public
> knowledge also makes it possible to jam the system.  The military
> channel of GPS is spread with a different code that is the product of
> two very long, relatively prime PN sequences. One has length 15,345,000
> and the other 15,345,037. At 10.23 million chips/sec, this code would
> take 38 weeks to repeat, but it is instead restarted every week at 0000
> UTC Sunday. By keeping this sequence secret, it becomes much harder to
> jam the signal.
> 
> Of course, because the sequence repeats each week, it is at least
> theoretically possible to record the entire spread signal for later use
> -- if you have a receiver with enough extra performance to make up for
> the lack of coding gain, and if you have a place to put all those bits.
> 
> Phil

According to my calculator,

10.23 * 10^6 * 3600 * 24 * 7 = 6.187104 * 10 ^ 12 bits = 773.388 Gigabytes.

Even double that figure wouldn't be too much for a determined adversary.
Just go out and buy a few thousand Gigabyte disk drives....

But, I presume in time of war, the code would be changed?  (I presume
the sequences can be changed.  Which brings up an interesting question:
Can a satellite be "captured" and a given sequence up-loaded?  Then,
*you* could use the satellite, and deny its use to the enemy, at least
until the enemy captured the satellite back from you.  Or perhaps, one
could jam the satellite control frequencies by intense (microwave)
beams.  Or are the uplink channels spread spectrum also?  Why not just
fry the satellite with microwaves?  (Have I just stepped into an SDI
discussion?  OH NO) )

Cheers,
akt
akt@cos.com

------------------------------

Date: 8 Dec 87 18:20:31 GMT
From: nisc.nyser.net!weltyc@nisc.nyser.net  (Christopher A. Welty)
Subject: "Final Frontier" -- new space mag

	I just got an offer to be a charter subsciber to "Space
Frontiers", a new magazine devoted to space.  "At last a magazine that
promises you the stars, and delivers".  Well, since they haven't
published anything yet, and there is no list of who is involved, I think
I'm gonna sign up.  I'll volunteer to provide this list with a critique
of this magazine - and even (on the off chance it prints anything
worthwhile) summarize interesting articles, following Henry's lead.  The
address, for anyone interested in finding out for themselves (and hasn't
already gotten an offer), is

Final Frontier
Suite 115, 6800 France Ave. S.
Minneapolis, MN 55435


Christopher Welty  ---  Asst. Director, RPI CS Labs
weltyc@cs.rpi.edu       ...!rutgers!nysernic!weltyc

------------------------------

Date: 8 Dec 87 03:58:26 GMT
From: rochester!kodak!ornitz@louie.udel.edu  (barry ornitz)
Subject: Re: Recycling Pershing-II's (long)

In article <8712071321.aa27796@note.nsf.gov> fbaube@NOTE.NSF.GOV (Fred Baube) writes:
>Today's Washington Post [Monday] discusses INF missile disposal.
>
>"One of the INF treaty's most unorthodox provisions will
> . . .

It is sad to see the waste of perfect usable (with warhead removed :-) )
high altitude launch vehicles.  A number of Nike-Zeus, Hercules, etc.
missiles of the fifties and sixties were sold or donated to research
organizations for high altitude research studies.  It is too bad the
same could not be done with these.  Such missiles would be ideal to
study ozone depletion, for example, if fitted with the proper
instrumentation for a payload.  Perhaps a number of such missiles could
be donated to the international research community as an alternate (and
beneficial) means of destruction.

I am sure that both sides do not want to give out secrets of their
guidance systems, however.  I feel that this is a minor problem that
could be resolved easily with a little diplomacy.  If you agree, call
your representatives in Washington.  Why waste many millions in a big
fireworks display when you can find a good peaceful use?
                                          Barry

Dr. Barry L. Ornitz   UUCP:...!rochester!kodak!ornitz

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #71
*******************

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Date: Thu, 10 Dec 87 03:21:39 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8712101121.AA02273@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #72

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 72

Today's Topics:
		   Large spinning objects in orbit
			More on Pershing-II's
			   Re: solar cells
	Consequences of Space Station Contractual Obligations
			      SS & LISP
	    automation/robotics on space station, why not
			Re: Graphics Software
		   Re: Brown Dwarf and media idiocy
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date:         Tue, 08 Dec 87 12:26:25 EST
From: ST401385%BROWNVM.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu
Subject:      Large spinning objects in orbit

The following is commentary by Keith F. Lynch on some of the details of
a SF story he critiqued for me.  The background is a large space station
"Oberon"* in Earth orbit, consisting of several modules on the ends of
long (order of 20 kilometers) cables, spun relatively slowly (1/5 of a
RPM) to produce roughly 1 gee of centrifugal "gravity".  The question
involves, what orbits can you reach by being "flung" off of the end of
the arms?  In particular, can you re-enter (i.e., reach an orbit that
intersects the Earth).

____________________________
    *Gotta think of a better name of the space station for the second
draft--this name is quite confusing since it is also a moon.

From: "Keith F. Lynch" <KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Subject: story

Assuming that the three hour orbit of Oberon is circular, and assuming
that its rotation axis equator is parallel to its plane of its orbit
around the Earth, then the lowest you can get by letting go is 1660
kilometers.  You can't hit the Earth.  I tried adding extra velocity,
[but you need] an extra 370 meters per second to get to within 40
kilometers of Earth's surface.

If you multiply the radius of Oberon four-fold [to 80 kilometers] and
double its rotation period [to 1/10 RPM] you will get the same apparent
gravity, and you can hit the Earth by letting go.  Alternatively, change
the three hour orbit to a two hour orbit.  Or simply assert that the
three hour orbit is not circular.

It is not true in any case that you can get almost anywhere in Earth
orbit by letting go.  Any such orbit will return to its starting point.
In general, any orbit will return to the point at which thrust was last
applied.  This is not to say Oberon will be there, unless the periods
are in the ratio of small integers, but it will pass through that
altitude.  To get a circular orbit you have to do a circularizing burn.
Unless, of course, Oberon is in an elliptical orbit.  This could get
interesting, if you have several such stations, etc.

I worked out the tidal effect on Oberon.  It is very small, but things
do weigh a little more when Earth is straight down or straight up.  It
is possible to gain energy from this effect, for instance by attaching a
generator to a weight on a spring scale.  I spent several hours trying
to figure out just where this energy is coming from, and I think it
comes from the spin of the station.  Then I spent a few more hours
trying to figure out where the angular momentum goes if you spin down
the station in this way.  As far as I can see, it goes to alter the
orbit.  I think this is the same effect as makes the moon recede from
the Earth over the ages.  I will have to think about this some more, as
there seems to be a lot of potential there (no pun intended).

It's pretty late, so I hope you will excuse me for not proofreading
this.  Enclosed is a Pascal program I used to work this stuff out.  I
hope you know Pascal.  The equations are all my own derivation, and are
open to criticism, though I would be extremely surprised if any are
wrong.  The function names should be clear, even if you don't know
Pascal.  Sqr for square.  Sqrt for square root.  Ln is natural log, and
Exp is e to the x.
                                ...Keith

Program GL;   { Test Geoffrey Landis's space station dynamics }
   Const      { Program by Keith Lynch, December 1987 }
      Re = 6.371E+6; { Radius of Earth }        { All units are MKS }
      Ae = 9.80;     { Acceleration at Earth's surface }
      Ro = 20000.0;  { Oberon arm length, given as 20 kilometers }
      Po = 291.0;    { Oberon rotation period, given as thrice 97 sec }
      Pe = 10800.0;  { Oberon revolution period, given as 3 hours }
      Vx = 0.0;      { Extra velocity}
   Var
      Ra: Real;  { Altitude, from Earth's center, of Oberon }
      Vo: Real;  { Velocity of Oberon's arms, relative to center }
      As: Real;  { Acceleration at end of Oberon's Arm }
      Va: Real;  { Orbital velocity of Oberon }
      Vm: Real;  { Velocity leaving Oberon }
      Rp: Real;  { Perigee altitude, from Earth's Center 
   Begin
      Vo := 2.0 * Pi * Ro / Po;
      As := Sqr(Vo) / Ro;
      WriteLn('Acceleration in Oberon is ',As);
      Ra := Exp((2.0/3.0) * Ln(Pe*Re*Sqrt(Ae)/(2.0*Pi)));
      WriteLn('Altitude of station from Earth''s surface is ',Ra-Re);
      Va := 2.0 * Pi * Ra / Pe;
      WriteLn('Orbital velocity of Oberon is ',Va);
      Vm := Va - Vo;
      WriteLn('Orbital velocity of resultant orbit is ',Vm);
      Vm := Vm - Vx;
      Rp := Sqr(Vm) * Sqr(Ra) / (2.0 * Ae * Sqr(Re) - Sqr(Vm) * Ra);
      WriteLn('Perigee alt. from Earth''s surface, is ',Rp-Re)
   End.

P.S.  Have fun with it.  Note that you can replace Va - Vo with Va + Vo
to see how HIGH you can get, if you let go when going FASTEST relative
to Earth.  If you get a negative answer, you have exceeded escape
velocity.
                                ...Keith

    [I estimated about a half percent variation in apparent weight due
to tidal effects.  The idea of getting energy out of the orbit from the
"tidal" force is new to me.  The version of Pascal that I have access to
requires a line saying that "Pi = 3.14159;".  --GL]

--Geoffrey A. Landis, Ph.D     BITNET: ST401385 at BROWNVM
Brown University
                  new net address: ST401385%BROWNVM.BITNET@MITVMA.MIT.EDU

------------------------------

Subject: More on Pershing-II's
Date: Wed, 09 Dec 87 14:37:43 -0500
From: Fred Baube <fbaube@note.nsf.gov>

>From the Wednesday Washington Post,
excerpted without permission.

"[The treaty documents] spell out detailed procedures for exploding,
burning, crushing, flattening all Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces
(INF) within three years."

The key word would seem to be "all".

"[T]he treaty will eliminate 926 shorter-range Soviet missiles, .. and
170 shorter-range US missiles, which are all in storage in the United
States.

"The treaty will also eliminate 826 medium-range Soviet missiles, .. and
689 US medium-range missiles, 429 of which are at missile bases in
Western Europe.

"A treaty protocol requires that the missiles be destroyed at designated
sites.  Each side may destroy up to 100 medium-range missiles within the
first six months by launching them from existing missile test ranges."

It would appear that the only way a recycling initiative will make
headway is thru the Senate; such amendments would have to be agreed to
by the Supreme Soviet.  The Senate switchboard is at (202) 224-3121,
open 24 hours although they suggest calling between 9 and 5.

------------------------------

Date: 8 Dec 87 16:53:27 GMT
From: K.GP.CS.CMU.EDU!lindsay@pt.cs.cmu.edu  (Donald Lindsay)
Subject: Re: solar cells

Since Ovshinsky's name has been mentioned, I think I should post a
warning.

Not to lay it on too thick..  and not to get myself sued ..  but:

His company has a looong tradition of not delivering. They get in bed
with some corporate giant, the giant gets unhappy, they part.  The giant
cuts losses by letting Ovshinsky keep everything.

The TV show was hilarious to me, since I've been following his progress
for years. The voiceover kept skirting the failures and putting a good
face on things. Nice balancing act.

When Ovshinsky announced a breakthrough in the new-type superconductors,
the general reaction was that he (more than others) would have to prove
his claims.

That said, amorphous silicon should be a good way to make cheap solar
cells. Ovshinsky's company has more background in amorphous silicon than
anyone else. I very much want him to make it on this one. It could
happen, and the sooner the better.

-- 
	Don		lindsay@k.gp.cs.cmu.edu    CMU Computer Science

------------------------------

Reply-To: lll-crg!ames!sdcsvax!bass.nosc.mil!pnet01!jim@mordor.s1.gov
Date: Mon, 7 Dec 87 19:53:24 PST
From: lll-crg!ames!scubed!sdcsvax!pnet01.cts.com!jim@mordor.s1.gov (Jim Bowery)
To: crash!space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: Consequences of Space Station Contractual Obligations

We've heard a lot about how development/operation of the space station
by NASA will not be allowed to "steal" funding from projects which are
more directly in line with NASA's scientific charter.

By creating substantial contractual obligations in the face of
unprecedented pressure to cut government spending, how are we to believe
that NASA is going to protect these scientific projects?  A contract is
a contract -- if/when Congress refuses to increase NASA funding enough
to cover all the bases, what gives?

UUCP: {cbosgd, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!pnet01!jim
ARPA: crash!pnet01!jim@nosc.mil
INET: jim@pnet01.cts.com

------------------------------

Subject: SS & LISP
Date: Tue, 08 Dec 87 13:40:18 -0500
From: Fred Baube <fbaube@note.nsf.gov>

I recall someone in the group saying that LISP had been disapproved as a
development language for Space Station software.  Can anyone supply
information and/or speculation on why this was done ?  Is NASA planning
on making any push in AI ?

In the past, the DoD seems to have succeeded at putting basic research
on paths that also encompassed development, prototyping, and
acquisition.  It seems obvious that for NASA to emulate this, they would
want to permit LISP in SS development, even if there is no "one tried
and true" LISP dialect.  Is AI being left to the Star Warriors and the
endo-atmospheric services ?

EE Times quotes a Defense Science Advisory Board as saying that Battle
Mgmt is a shambles and there is *NO* coherent software plan for SDI.
The FAA ATC computer acquisition (another distributed real-time system)
is a mess (good article in Monday's Washington Post).  Black Monday
exhibited problems of feedback and instability when humans are taken out
of the decision-making loop.  If these items are any guide, SDI software
is *not* going to set the world on fire. [No pun intended!].

Could it be that Gorby is relaxing demands re. SDI because they
have judged that either ..
(1) they may actually beat us to the punch in testing a *system*
    (not just a collection of killer vehicles), or at least that
(2) there is *no way* we can have a working *system* in the near 
    term (5-8 years) ?

------------------------------

Date: 8 Dec 87 18:22:06 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: automation/robotics on space station, why not

> Why does the space station neither need nor can it afford automation
> and robotics?

I could rant on this at some length, but I lack the time right now, so
I'll just hit the three high points:

1. It will be very expensive.

	The research needed to bring the state of the art up to a useful
	level actually probably won't be overly costly in relation to
	the benefits gained, unless an attempt is made to hurry it along
	-- and that might be necessary, given the schedule.  (I note,
	however, that "the benefits gained" do not necessarily relate to
	the space station, and hence it is not clear that it should pay
	for them.)  However, development of actual flight hardware will
	be *massively* expensive unless it is done very differently from
	the way NASA does everything else these days.  Leading-edge
	technology developed on government contract by aerospace
	contractors costs a bundle.

2. It probably will not work very well.

	NASA's history of automated space systems may seem good; look at
	Voyager and such.  However, all Voyager did was take pictures.
	Interacting with one's environment is much trickier.  In that
	area, NASA's experience has been less successful.  A major
	example is shuttle-based satellite retrieval/repair: Solar Max,
	Palapa/Westar, Leasat.  The Solar Max repair relied heavily on
	an automated docking system, in which NASA placed such
	confidence that there wasn't even a manual override; the result
	was nearly a disaster, saved more by luck than by good
	management.  The Palapa/Westar retrieval again was set up with
	fancy custom-built equipment, but this time there was a manual
	backup, which was just as well because the equipment once again
	did not work.  The Leasat repair went as planned, partly because
	it relied entirely on human beings plus a few simple tools.  On
	both the earlier missions, the problem was not bad equipment but
	an environment that was not quite what the designers had
	expected.  Complex automated systems seldom work well until
	after lengthy testing under operational conditions; the immense
	cost of access to space guarantees that such testing will not be
	available.  Claims of how robotics are essential because of the
	difficulties involved in human work assume that the robotic
	equipment will *work* the first time.  Not likely, at least not
	without a lot of human intervention and troubleshooting --
	precisely what we were trying to avoid!

3. It is not necessary.

	None of the nine space stations launched to date have made any
	significant use of automation and robotics.  Interestingly
	enough, they seem to have been successful nevertheless.  The US
	needs a working space station in orbit much more badly than it
	needs truly wondrous capabilities which will be ready Real Soon
	Now.


I agree, actually, that *affordable*, *working* automation and robotics
could be a significant asset to a space station.  In the real world,
however, it would be far more cost-effective to spend a much smaller
amount of money making *humans* more effective: things like better
spacesuits and easier access to equipment would help a lot.  If you add
up the probable long-term costs of developing automation and robotics,
and debugging them *in orbit*, I suspect you will find that it's cheaper
to add one or two extra crewmen dedicated to housekeeping chores.  Yes,
it costs a lot to add more crew; it will cost *more* to add automation
and robotics.

And the single biggest danger to the space station is not space debris
or air drag or equipment failure, but its stupefying and still-rising
price tag.

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 7 Dec 87 20:43:59 GMT
From: idacrd!mac@princeton.edu  (Bob McGwier)
Subject: Re: Graphics Software

in article <8712041352.aa26474@FHP2.HUACHUCA-EM.ARPA>, steep-mo-m@HUACHUCA-EM.ARPA (John Shaver Modernization Office) says:
> Does anyone know of software for the IBM PC/PC Clones which will
> graphically display satellite ground tracks and which will calculate
> the earth observers azimuth and elevation angles?  Are there astronomy
> programs which might relate?  Would appreciate any responses.  Contact
> me by email or AV 879/7622 or COM 602 538 -7622.  Thanks John

I wrote a program for the IBM PC and clones that does all that you have
asked.  It is available from AMSAT (the Radio Amateur Satellite
Corporation) Software Exchange, (301)-589-6062.  It is called Quiktrak
3.1

Bob McGwier (N4HY)

------------------------------

Date: 8 Dec 87 14:31:16 GMT
From: steinmetz!nyfca1!brspyr1!miket@uunet.uu.net  (Mike Trout)
Subject: Re: Brown Dwarf and media idiocy

For those who thought I was ignoring the valid points raised by media
critics, not true.  As this is an argument that goes back to ancient
Greece and really does not need to be posted in sci.space, I planned to
reply by e-mail.  I was also waiting for an article to appear that I was
going to use in my discussion.  The article is now available and I'm
ready to answer my critic.

Unfortunately, our *$@#!#$ system has erased the text and path of the
person that answered my posting on this subject.  I must confess that I
don't even remember the name of the person that I was arguing with.
Would whoever it was please e-mail me your name and path?  Thanks, and
don't worry; this will be an intelligent discussion, not a flaming
diatribe.  Most of the points you raised were quite valid; my problem is
with your focus.  Those of us that are responsible broadcast journalists
are becoming increasingly handicapped by producers, bean-counters,
consultants, "analysts", and other non-news types that are interested in
only one thing: ratings.

Michael Trout (miket@brspyr1) =-=-=-=-=-=-= UUCP:brspyr1!miket
BRS Information Technologies, 1200 Rt. 7, Latham, N.Y. 12110  (518) 783-1161

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #72
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 11 Dec 87 06:18:23 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA04465; Fri, 11 Dec 87 03:18:31 PST
	id AA04465; Fri, 11 Dec 87 03:18:31 PST
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 87 03:18:31 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8712111118.AA04465@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #73

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 73

Today's Topics:
		 Re:  Recycling Pershing-II's (long)
		      Shuttle Operator's Manual
		      Re: Mini Big Dumb Booster
			     Planetary B
    Re: Pro-space commercials (was: Failing memory => 2 questions)
		      *Final Frontier* Magazine
			 Vegetable Spaceships
	 Re: Cashew nut heat shield - India was not the first
			Remote Sensing Fascism
		      Treaties with the Russians
	 Re:Cashew nut heat shield - India was not the first
			  2001 N. Clark St.
		      Re: Cashew nut heat shield
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date:     Thu, 10 Dec 87 14:55:30 CST
From: Will Martin -- AMXAL-RI <wmartin@almsa-1.arpa>
To: rochester!kodak!ornitz@louie.udel.edu
Cc: space@angband.s1.gov
Subject:  Re:  Recycling Pershing-II's (long)

I wonder if one of the pro-space organizations could have its lawyers
file for an injunction against the destruction of any usable missles?
The government has a long history of wanton destruction of surplus
material, most notably under the guise of "de-militarization", which
instead should have been donated or sold via normal property-disposal
channels. (These procedures provide enough already-built-in safeguards
to prevent such missles from getting to "incorrect" destinations, like
middle-east states or whatever.)

I'm sure there are existing stautes against waste of government-owned
materials that would be violated by the actual destruction of these
missles. (Of course, government organizations conveniently ignore such
regulations for "policy" reasons, when they would enforce them with
great zeal against some low-level property-disposal officer who screwed
up!) Also, if they are destroyed by firing, as a previous posting
mentioned, won't they have to have dummy warheads installed to make
their weight-and-balance parameters be correct? And won't the government
have to go out and procure sizable numbers of such dummy warheads, at
some vast defense-contractor-sole-source contract price, because they
don't have enough to use up this way? (I'm sure they have some, for
training and test flights, but nowhere near enough to immediately
replace all the real warheads of the decommissioned missles!)

It seems, therefore, that the best route to prevent the shameful waste
of valuable research vehicles would be the judicial route, not
contacting legislators. Legislation would take too long to be useful,
and enough laws exist already that could be used in this context to
achieve worthwhile ends.

Regards, Will Martin

------------------------------

Date:     Tue, 8 Dec 87 04:32 O
From: <MAKELA_O@FINJYU.BITNET>
Subject:  Shuttle Operator's Manual

  There was some talk on "the Space Shuttle Operator's Manual"... I've
had the book for quite a while and in spite of noting a couple of errors
in it, it seems a pretty nice reference book for shuttle dimensions etc.

  The most glaring error was in a illustration titled something like:
"Shuttle pilot & co-pilot launch position" - the pictures looked more
like landing position, since the shuttle was horizontal !  This brings
up an interesting question: since the shuttle is vertical when attached
to the ET and SRB's for launch, how do the astronauts manage themselves
to their seats and do their jobs in an environment designed (mostly) for
micro- gravity or with the other orientation of 1G in mind ?  I've never
seen this "properly" explained, though this would seem to pose a pretty
elaborate problem with handholds, ladders and seating in 1G-
environment.  I'm not an expert on ergonomics, but to me the pilot's
positions look like they could be somewhat tiring if one had to sit
there for several hours, clicking switches and turning knobs, in the
shuttle launch position.

(about Swedish history: the Swedes were *real* good only when Finland
was still a part of Sweden.  After that - well... there are *still*
areas in the Balkans where the kids are told to eat their dinners nice,
or the Finnish "hakkapeliitta" [name for Finnish top-notch batallions]
will come and take them :-)

Otto J. Makela, U of Jyvaskyla
Mail: Kauppakatu 1 B 18, SF-40100 Jyvaskyla, Finland
Phone: +358 41 613 847
BBS: +358 41 211 562 (V.22bis/V.22/Bell 212A/V.21)
BitNet: MAKELA_OTTO_@FINJYU.bitnet

------------------------------

Date: 7 Dec 87 18:04:56 GMT
From: tikal!sigma!uw-nsr!brett@beaver.cs.washington.edu  (Brett Van Steenwyk)
Subject: Re: Mini Big Dumb Booster

I think I remember something of this 1 in 70 statistic too.  Before the
Space Shuttle, solid-fueled rocket boosters were not put on manned
flights for something of this reason.  Why this rule happened to be
broken in the case of the shuttle may be found in the context of all the
other violations of common sense that went on in the design.

Usually a solid rocket failure comes from an aberrant change in the
internal geometry of the fuel.  The axis hole MUST have a consistent
cross-sectional area and the surface of this hole must have a constant
area all the way through the rocket.  This is difficult to maintain,
however as the visco- elastic properties of the fuel leads to slumping.
Sometimes the fuel slumps and cracks, leading to a runaway burn and an
explosion, sometimes the fuel slumps and blocks the axis hole, leading
to an explosion.  There's a whole procedure in storing solid-fueled
rockets--tilting them this way and that every several months--to
minimize this slumping.  Inspection of the SRB's is easy--the axis hole
is large enough for an engineer to crawl up inside and gouge out any
cracks (what is his insurance like?:-).  Several years ago the employees
of Morton Thiokol got a variation on the paint jobs on their cars when
an explosion on one of the test stands about a mile away sent a shower
of burning solid fuel debris down on the main parking lot--that's what a
solid rocket failure normally means to me.  The whole segmented casing
design, unless done gingerly, I would think would invite a runaway burn,
but that does not seem to be the major problem in this case.  I wonder
how common a failure mode the Challenger "accident" was--for that kind
of failure, what are the chances of it blowing up way out over the
Atlantic (as it did), versus blowing up (with an actual solid booster
blowing up) near the ground.  The latter mode would, of course, endanger
many more people.

		--Brett Van Steenwyk

------------------------------

Date: 9 Dec 87 17:15:36 GMT
From: unc!leech@mcnc.org  (Jonathan Leech)
Subject: Planetary B

    The December Space World has an ELV manifest for 1988-1991.	It
includes a listing for 'Planetary B/U', to be launched 5/91 on a Titan
IV/IUS. I've never heard of a mission by this name. Does B/U mean
something obvious? The time frame is about right for Mars Observer but
presumably this is something else.

    Jon Leech (leech@cs.unc.edu)    __@/

------------------------------

Date: 7 Dec 87 22:39:32 GMT
From: ems!rosevax!kksys!bird@UMN-CS.ARPA  (0000-Mike Bird)
Subject: Re: Pro-space commercials (was: Failing memory => 2 questions)

In article <12355849513.64.SOTOS@SUMEX-AIM.Stanford.EDU> SOTOS@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU (John Sotos) writes:
>(1) I was really surprised a couple nights ago to see on late night TV
>a commercial (featuring Helen Hayes and Whoopi Goldberg) plugging the

I haven't seen the Helen Hayes and Whoopi Goldberg, But I've seen one
done by "old blue eyes" Frank Sinatra and Willie Nelson.  I don't
remember that any organization claimed credit for the commercials, but I
suppose it could have been NASA.  Or else the new combined National
Space Institute/L-5 society organization, the National Space Society (I
believe) are doing them.  I dropped out of both organizations just
before they merged, so I don't know what they've been up to lately.

Whoever's doing them, let's hope they keep up the good work!

------------------------------

Date: 9 Dec 87 08:04:00 PST
From: "KEVIN W. BOLD 0-1" <bold@afsc-sd.arpa>
Subject: *Final Frontier* Magazine
To: "space" <space@angband.s1.gov>
Reply-To: "KEVIN W. BOLD 0-1" <bold@afsc-sd.arpa>

The rumor I heard at OASIS (the Los Angeles NSS chapter) is *Final
Frontier* is "undercapitalized," and will probably not last a year.  I
already get *Space World* by being a NSS member, NASA's *Tech Briefs*,
and several other freebies which occasionally have articles on space.

I, for one, will hold off on getting *Final Frontier* until I've seen a
few issues.  Unlike my creditors, *Final Frontier* will not send anyone
to my apartment and harass me if I don't subscribe.  I look forward to
Chris Welty's review of the first issue, and I hope those of you who
join him in subscribing also send in your comments.

Kevin "Mad Max" Bold		| Honk and wave at the bright red Fiero GT
(BOLD@AFSC-SD.ARPA)		| with California plates reading 4DMNSNS

------------------------------

Date:         Thu, 10 Dec 87 00:26:52 EST
From: ST401385%BROWNVM.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu
Subject:      Vegetable Spaceships

>India is to be the first nation to launch a spaceship composed partly
>of vegetable matter.

     I know that some of the early test versions for Mars probes used
balsa wood for some applications.  Balsa is a really amazing material,
extremely light and strong.  (It is also an extremely *variable*
material.  I've seen balsa as light as 3 pounds/cubic foot and heavier
than 40.  Pardon the antique density units.)  Balsa was picked, I
believe, because it had excellent impact-absorbant properties.
     I think none of the designs using balsa ended up on the final
version, though.

--Geoffrey A. Landis, Ph.D     BITNET: ST401385 at BROWNVM
Brown University

    Other news: Well, looks like I'll probably be doing a postdoc at
NASA Lewis in Cleveland (still working on solar cells, though), starting
either late January or beginning of Feb.  Gosh, I'll be a colleague of
Eugene Miya!  Can't wait.

                                   --GL

------------------------------

Date: 10 Dec 87 21:26:33 GMT
From: sunybcs!kitty!larry@ames.arpa  (Larry Lippman)
Subject: Re: Cashew nut heat shield - India was not the first

In article <385@spar.SPAR.SLB.COM>, freeman@spar.SPAR.SLB.COM (Jay Freeman) writes:
> I seem to recall that wood was occasionally used for structure in some
> of the early (pre-Sputnik) research rockets.  I believe that the U. S.
> "Viking" (single-stage, vintage early 1950's, antecedent of the first
> stage of the Vanguard satellite launch vehicle) was one such.  Perhaps
> the first stage of Vanguard also used wood.

	Speaking as both an engineer and chemist, the use of organic
material for a heat shield does not surprise me.  Such organic material
would provide ablative shielding.  As it was heated and underwent
combustion, it would form carbon (i.e., like charcoal); such carbon has
great insulating capabilitity before it, too would undergo complete
combustion.
	Heat energy as produced by air friction can be prevented from
entering the interior of a space vehicle through: (1) insulation, (2)
absorption by physical means, or (3) consumption through chemical
reaction.  It would appear that the use of an organic heat shield is
somewhat unusual in that it combines all three of the above.  There may
even be a fourth method involving heat reflection as caused by the
formation of an intermediate carbon layer during what is a "layered"
combustion process, but I don't know enough about the mechanisms
involved to speculate in more detail.
	I have no idea what the practical design trade-offs are with
respect to the above three methods.

<>  Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp., Clarence, New York

------------------------------

Date:  9 Dec 1987 16:34-EST 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Remote Sensing Fascism

Anyone interested in the issues surrounding the DOD's unconstitutional
and idiotic repression of American private remote sensing should read
the article, "A Spy Satellite for the Press?", Science Magazine,
4-Dec-87, pg 1346.

If it weren't so sad, it would be comedic. The only question all this
leaves me with is, when did we start training our people with the KGB?
'Our' (I use the term VERY loosely since I'm not really sure which side
they are on) people have obviously learned how to lie about the
existance of things which are common knowledge, a tactic that I used to
think was purely russian.

I once again applaud our overseas friends in the various foreign public
(commercial/civil) remote sensing programs that are embarrassing the
hell out of people who deserve far worse. Keep up the good work.


PS: Is it now appropriate to address members of the DOD and the various
    spook agencies as Comrade?

------------------------------

Date: 9 Dec 87 21:40:42 GMT
From: ihnp4!homxb!mtuxo!mtune!codas!ablnc!rcpilz@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Robert C. Pilz)
Subject: Treaties with the Russians

I recently heard that we can verify missles from space with spy
satellites so powerful that they can track the movement of a puck on the
ice of a hockey game in Moscow. Mind boggling. If that makes us willing
to go into the treaty, the Soviets must have a similar device. This I
believe because they trust us as much as we do they.

An interesting aside on this. Three or four times this Summer, a salvo
of Pershing II missles were fired from Cape Canaveral. In retrospect, I
believe this was done for the benefit of Soviet tracking devices.  I'm
fairly sure that as a result of the Cuban missle crisis, the US has an
undocumented agreement with the USSR to announce the type of launch and
time of launch of any missle going up from the Cape. This is logical
since it is so close in distance to Cuba. A promise of this type would
assure them that we will not attack Cuba from this point. Most launches
are public knowledge anyway. But, I believe that the Pershing launchings
were done preannounced to them so that they could track them with their
devices and we are then on equal footing for the mutual signing of the
treaty.

I think a similar thing happened in the 70's prior to the SALT I
signing. This time it was the ABM system at Kwajalein Island of the
Marshalls in the Pacific. We have a system of Nike X and Sprint missles
designed to knock out ICBM's. This non-nuclear weapon system, purely a
defensive system was deamed "provocative" by the Soviets so their ABM
system and ours were torn down. We each have one left. Ours is in Grand
Forks ND (we have to keep Canada safe for Democracy, don't we?). I think
that prior to that treaty we put on a show for their trawlers off of
Kwaj. I think a lot of these kinds of background negotiations go on so
that we are on equal footing when one of us does not have the hardware
to verify the other's capabilities. I think it is healthy and a step in
the right direction.

This is a generic disclaimer.
R.C. Pilz AT&T

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 9 Dec 87 10:11:01 EST
From: Glenn Chapman <glenn@ll-vlsi.arpa>
Subject: Re:Cashew nut heat shield - India was not the first

In SPACE digest v8, no. 71 Chris Thompson quoted the London Daily
Telegraph's story about the use by India of cashew nuts in heat shields.
The article contained the quote:

>This is the first time vegetable matter has been used for the exterior
>of a spaceship. All American and Russian spacecraft (as far as it is
>known) use exotic metals and ceramics.

While the Indians are to be complemented on their innovative use of
materials at hand, unfortunately the press report could not be more
wrong.  The USSR's original Vostok 1 craft that launched Yuri Gagarin in
April 1961 used a heat shield made from hard wood particles (Oak if I
recall correctly) in an composite epoxy.  The spherical surface was
tiled in hexagonal shaped patterns with this.  Since several test craft
preceded this, flights with wood based shields probably go back to
1959-60.  Indeed several of their photo return craft and other short
duration vehicles still use the Vostok capsule design. I do not know if
the heat shield has stayed the same, but if so that means plant mater
based heat shields have been used for about 29 years in space.

                                                   Glenn Chapman
                                                   MIT Lincoln Lab

------------------------------

Date:     Tue, 8 Dec 87 16:46 EST
From: GODDEN%gmr.com@relay.cs.net
Sender: ota@galileo.s1.gov
Subject:  2001 N. Clark St.

In vol.8 no.69 Bill Higgins wrote about a space meeting in Chicago and
buried in his msg was a reference to the Chicago Academy of Sciences,
which has its office on 2001 N. Clark St. in Chicago.  What I'm
interested in is HOW was this organization able to obtain that
particular address, since I'm sure it's deliberate.  Is there some
interesting story that you might share on the net?

-Kurt Godden
 godden@gmr.com

------------------------------

Date: 9 Dec 87 17:50:36 GMT
From: sdcc6!calmasd!jnp@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu  (John Pantone)
Subject: Re: Cashew nut heat shield

Chris_Thompson writes:
>"SPACECRAFT HEAT SHIELD IS NUTS

Didn't(don't) the Japanese use Oak re-entry shields on their recoverable
satellites?  It may not be the Japaneese, but I did hear of such a thing
recently on the net.

The only reason I can think of for NOT using wood and/or organics is
that they "seem low-tech" and we tend not to want to use anything but
the newest high-tech stuff. (Even to the extent that we re-invent
technology over and over again - instead of (like the Russians) using
previously developed systems in new and innovative ways :-( )

John M. Pantone @ GE/Calma R&D, Data Management Group, San Diego
...{ucbvax|decvax}!sdcsvax!calmasd!jnp          jnp@calmasd.GE.COM

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #73
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 12 Dec 87 06:16:19 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA06496; Sat, 12 Dec 87 03:16:33 PST
	id AA06496; Sat, 12 Dec 87 03:16:33 PST
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 87 03:16:33 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8712121116.AA06496@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #74

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 74

Today's Topics:
		  Condensed CANOPUS - November 1987
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 10 Dec 87 12:16:34 GMT
From: cfa!willner@husc6.harvard.edu  (Steve Willner)
Subject: Condensed CANOPUS - November 1987

Here is the condensed CANOPUS for November 1987.  There were 9 articles;
two are given by title only, five are condensed, and two short ones are
unabridged.  Material in {braces} is from me and is signed {--SW} if
wholly new or different from the original.  I have omitted ellipses
(...) at many places where material was removed, since putting them in
everywhere was just too awkward.  The unabridged CANOPUS was sent to the
mailing list over a week ago, but there were some invalid paths.  Send
e-mail with the current path if your copy didn't arrive.

CANOPUS is published by the American Institute of Aeronautics and
Astronautics.  Send correspondence about its contents to the executive
editor, William W. L. Taylor (taylor%trwatd.span@star.stanford.edu;
e-mail to canopus@cfa.uucp will probably be forwarded).  Send
correspondence about business matters to Mr. John Newbauer, AIAA, 1633
Broadway, NY, NY 10019.  Although AIAA has copyrighted CANOPUS and
registered its name, you are encouraged to distribute CANOPUS widely,
either electronically or as printout copies.  If you do, however, please
send a brief message to Taylor estimating how many others receive
copies.  CANOPUS is partially supported by the National Space Science
Data Center.

{2 articles by title only}
OTHER ITEMS FROM THE ESA BULLETIN -can871103.txt - 10/31/87
ELACHI PROMOTED - can871107.txt - 1/17/87  {at JPL}

{7 articles}
WATCHING 1987a DOWN UNDER - can871105.txt - 11/17/87

A NASA-Lockheed gamma ray package made its second flight from Alice
Springs, Australia, in an effort to observe emissions from supernova
1987a. The package was launched Oct. 29 and coasted at 130,000 feet for
38 hours.  ...two prototype models of the Burst and Transient Source
Experiment that will fly on the Gamma Ray Observatory.

Other balloon packages will be launched by the University of California
at Riverside, the California Institute of Technology, and the Jet
Propulsion Laboratory. At least one X-ray telescope has been launched
atop a sounding rocket, and the Kuiper Airborne Observatory (with an
infrared telescope)....  {KAO flew from New Zealand in November.  I have
heard oral reports of successful observations but no details.  --SW}

SECONDARY PAYLOADS FOR SHUTTLE - can871106.txt - 11/17/87
{unabridged}

Eleven secondary payloads have been announced for the STS-26 mission
when the Shuttle resumes operations. Included are mesoscale lightning
photography and Earth-limb radiance observations. Six deal with
materials sciences while weightless, one is an infrared communications
technology test, and two are student experiments.

25 FOR 25 - can871108.txt - 1/17/87
{condensed}

NASA scored a string of 25 straight sounding rocket successes during
March 21-Nov. 4, according to NASA's Wallops Flight Center. This
includes five launches to support a plasma physics campaign at Sondre
Stromfjord, Greenland, and six in the Middle Atmosphere Cooperation
International Science Program (MAC Epsilon) in Andenes, Norway.  About
2,500 sounding rockets have been launched since 1959 by NASA with an 86
percent success rate. The rate is 89 percent for the past five years.

COMET PENETRATOR TESTED - can871109.txt - 11/17/87
{unabridged}

Prototype of the penetrator for the Comet Rendezvous/Asteroid Flyby
mission was tested in October at Sandia National Laboratories in
Albuqueque, N.M. The 1.5-meter probe was dropped into hard ice at
shallow angles to prove that penetrations could be made under the worst
terrain conditions. Early tests in 1985 were performed by Principal
Investigator William Boynton of the University of Arizona with a model
dropped 150 feet off the university football stadium into a 55-gallon
drum of ice.

The current design of the penetrator includes a small tooth that will
scrape off an ice sample for melting and gas analysis within the probe
body.

Additional tests will be conducted with higher-fidelity models of the
proposed probe and with weak ice to understand the chances of firing the
probe straight through the comet nucleus.

CRAF tentatively is scheduled for launch in 1993.  {Based on 1989 new
start, which I understand OMB has now refused but NASA has appealed the
refusal --SW}

SOLAR TERRESTRIAL COOPERATION DETAILED - can871102.txt - 10/31/87
{condensed}

Continuation of the Inter-Agency Consultative Group for Space Science
(IACG). It was formed in 1981 to coordinate the international activities
keyed to flyby of Halley's comet.  Solar-terrestrial science was
selected in November 1986 as the IACG's next project.  20 planned
solar-terrestrial spacecraft including the International Solar
Terrestrial Physics Program (NASA/ESA,ISAS), Ulysses (ESA/NASA),
Combined Release and Radiation Effects Satellite (NASA/USAF), Interball
(USSR), Relict 2 (USSR), Solar A (ISAS), the Upper Atmosphere Research
satellite (NASA), and IKI-1 and 2 (USSR).

NASA RESEARCH ANNOUNCEMENTS - can871104.txt - 11/17/87
{condensed}

Small Bodies Data Analysis Program (NRA 87-OSSA-9) and Pioneer Venus
Data Analysis and Guest Investigator Program (NRA 87-OSSA-10).

ESA BULLETIN DETAILS NEW ASTRONOMY MISSIONS - can871101.txt - 10/31/87
{condensed but long - last article}

Three astrophysics missions under study as new start candidates.
Selection is to be made by the end of 1988. The winner will undergo a
Phase B study, followed by Phase C/D development in 1990-95, and launch
by 1997.  Latter pair {of missions} started as NASA-ESA missions, but
have become ESA-led programs with possible Canadian and Australian
participation as a result of the Challenger accident and NASA's
leadership crisis.

  Gamma Ray Astronomy with Spectroscopy and Positioning (GRASP)

High-resolution spectral imager covering the 15-100,000 keV spectral
range. Spectroscopy in the 15-1,000 keV range with a resolution of
1/1,000 at 1,000 keV.  Spatial resolution of about 1 arc-min in a
50-deg. field of view.  Scientific goals for GRASP include observations
of active galaxies, and locating and mapping point and extended sources
in our own galaxy.

     LYMAN

Ultravioled spectra {at shorter wavelengths than} the Lyman-alpha line
(121.5 nm) Studies of stellar and interstellar atomic and molecular
species.  80 cm f/10 grazing incidence telescope feeds spectrograph with
spectral resolution about R=30,000. One or two secondary spectrographs
may be added for shorter or longer wavelengths or both.

  Quasar Satellite (QUASAT)

Quasat would deploy a 10-meter inflatable Kevlar radio telescope (down
from 15 meters when it was a NASA-ESA mission).  {Use with ground based
radio telescopes for Very Long Baseline Interferometry to get very high
spatial resolution.  Advantages over purely ground-based system include
higher spatial resolution and better images.} Recent tests using the
Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS) have validated the
concept.  {Resolution may be as good as} 0.0003 arc-sec.  Primary
observing frequencies would be 22 GHz (water) and 1.6 GHz (hydroxyl)
with 5 GHz added as a gap-filler.  {for observing quasars, I presume
--SW} A fourth frequency, 0.327 GHz, may be added for pulsar
observations.


Steve Willner            Phone 617-495-7123          Bitnet: willner@cfa2
60 Garden St.            FTS:      830-7123           UUCP:   willner@cfa
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA                     ARPA: willner@cfa.harvard.edu

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #74
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 13 Dec 87 06:31:29 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA08387; Sun, 13 Dec 87 03:21:35 PST
	id AA08387; Sun, 13 Dec 87 03:21:35 PST
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 87 03:21:35 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8712131121.AA08387@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #75

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 75

Today's Topics:
		       Absolutely the last time
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 10 Dec 87 00:01:00 GMT
From: jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Absolutely the last time


All right!  I give up!  I'll post it again!

I've had so many more requests by E-mail for this list of companies to
contact and hints for finding a job in the space industry that I'll post
it *one*more*time*.  Just once.

This version contains over a dozen corrections and a few new addresses
since the last one, so I feel a little bit justified in posting this
much redundant information.  Those of you who have copies of this, the
text below supercedes all previous versions.  (Gosh, I sound like a
computer manual.)

As usual, if you don't want to read this, just say "n".  (Actually, it's
"l" on our PLATO-like note reading system, but you know what I mean.)

If you are very observant, you'll notice that I no longer am asking
users of this list not to mention my name.  I'm done with my job search
now, so I don't mind if the people I've contacted in the various
employment offices are deluged with letters saying "Ken Jenks told me
to contact you...."  After all, it *is* their job.

-- Ken Jenks, Rockwell Shuttle Operations Co., as of 1/11/88!

  The University of Illinois will revoke my account on 20 December.
  It's been fun, folks!  I'll be back in January!

jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu		{ihnp4!pur-ee}uiucdcs!uiucdcsp!jenks

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - tear here - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

This is a summary of my experiences while looking for a job in the
space industry.  I hope it will help someone else; I wish I had
known all this when *I* started.

May the future be as kind to you as it is to me.

        -- Ken Jenks, Univ. of Illinois, Urbana/Champaign

jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu
{ihnp4!pur-ee}uiucdcs!uiucdcsp!jenks

"For I dipt into the Future, far as human eye could see
Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be;
Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails,
Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales."
	-- Alfred, Lord Tennyson

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - tear here - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 




General Aerospace Job Search Stategies:
There are many job placement manuals available in the Placement Office
of your nearby college or university.  Even if you're no longer a
student, you can probably still use some of the facilities.  I won't
cover what those manuals told me, but I will give some suggestions that
I would have found helpful at the beginning of my job search in the
space industry.  As you can see from the following lists, I didn't
always follow these suggestions.  I wish I had.

Note that US citizenship is required by almost all of the companies
listed in this paper.

1)  Start early.  Aerospace companies typically spend 2 months thinking
	about your application before doing anything about it.  In your
	first letter to the company, request that they send you an
	application.  This will help speed things along and let them
	know that you're interested enough to spend the time filling in
	the form.  NASA takes up to 9 months to process applications
	(see below).

2)  Write well.  I can't emphasize this enough.  People get an
	impression of you from how you interact with them.  If you come
	across as careless (typos, silly errors) or stupid (poor
	grammar, bad construction) they won't want to hire you.  Period.
	All your engineering skills can't save you.  Have a friend
	proofread.

3)  Keep good records.  As you send out letters and resumes, keep a
	record of the date you sent it and to whom you sent it.  This
	will help you track your resumes and applications when they
	(inevitably) get lost.  Also keep track of the dates of phone
	calls.

4)  Use a telephone.  A WATS line is VERY nice.  You'll be making many
	long distance calls (I made over 150).  You'll be put on hold
	and disconnected more times than you can count.  But the
	immediacy of talking to a person instead of writing to a Mail
	Stop is very important.  The people in the Personnel Office
	(whose names you should always record) will treat you as a
	person instead of just another applicant.

5)  Talk to people, not departments.  Always try to find the name of
	a PERSON to address your letters and phone calls to.  This will
	help you keep track of your correspondence better, and make
	them treat you better.  Names are powerful magic.

6)  Know your history.  Knowing what the space program has done in the
	past will aid you in your passage to the future.  You'll see
	trends in the space industry and know a bit more about where
	things happen and why.  It will also give you something to talk
	about with interviewers.  This isn't terribly important, but it
	helps.

7)  Be persistant.  The companies aren't out to hire you; they're out to
	hire somebody.  Anybody.  You have to stick to your dreams and
	get those letters out.  Follow up with phone calls (2 weeks
	later minumim).  This will remind your contacts in the company
	that you still exist and are still interested.

8)  Try to get ahold of the in-house newsletter from the company.  Big
	aerospace firms like TRW, Boeing, and Rockwell all have a
	periodic circular which gives listings of positions available
	in the company.  You might not be qualified for any of them,
	but it will tell you what divisions exist and are looking for
	people.




NASA:
The first place to look for a job in the space program is NASA.  Not
because they have the best jobs (debatable), but beacause it takes them
FOREVER to get job applications processed.  To apply, submit a resume
and a copy of Standard Form 171 to them at least six months (!)  before
you want to interview, 9 months before you want the job.  If I'd known
this earlier, I might have have a job there.  Instead, NASA and I both
lose.  SF-171 can be found at any Federal office.  You can submit a
Xerox of your SF-171 to each place, as long as you SIGN and DATE each
individual copy.  This will save you mucho time when filling out forms.

The best way I've found to get addresses in NASA is to call (xxx)
555-1212 for the NASA Center you're interested in, then asking for the
main switchboard.  The NASA Centers, their location, area codes, and
brief summaries of activity at each follows:

	Ames Research Center				(ARC)
	Sunnyvale, CA
	(408)
	Mostly aeronautical (80%), some space-related (20%).  Wind
	tunnels, VSTOL, 'copters, automation.  Highly recommend
	contacting Eugene Miya (eugene@ames-pioneer.arpa).

	Dryden
	Edwards AFB, CA
	(619?)
	Land shuttle, flight research.  Lotsa history here.

	Goddard Space Flight Center			(GSFC)
	Greenbelt, MD
	(301)
	Unmanned S/C, Earth orbiting satellites.

	Johnson Space Center				(JSC)
	Houston, TX
	(713) 483-9591 (Jo Ellen Brown) or -3035 (Susan Braymer)
	Manned space program, astronaut training.
		NASA Johnson Space Center
		Attn: Mail Code AH73
		      Ms. Susam Braymer
		Houston, TX  77058

	Kennedy Space Center				(KSC)
	Titasville, FL
	(305)
	Launch facilities, Shuttle maintenance & repair.  Engineering
	happens here; little or no research.

	Langley						(Langley)
	Reston?, VA
	(703 or 804)
	Structures, aerodynamics, fluid flow, computation.
	Reston, VA is home of NASA HQ, including Space Station HQ.

	Lewis Research Center				(Lewis)
	Cleveland, OH
	(216) 433-4000 (switchboard)
	Technical support, research.

	Marshall Space Flight Center			(MSFC)
	Huntsville, AL
	(205) 544-0957 (personnel)
	Propulsion, rocketry.

Speaking of NASA HQ, the best person to contact there seems to be

	Jack Garman
	Information Systems
	(703) 487-7100
-or-
	Ms. Debbie Fields
	Code SSI, Bldg. 3
	10701 Park Ridge Blvd.
	Reston, VA  22091

She handles employment for Jack Garman.

The following seem to be working for both General Dynamics and Boeing
at NASA HQ.  (I didn't quite understand the working arrangement.)

	Peter Dube		(703) 648-0685 or (703) 827-7200
	Susie Stuart		(703) 648-0650

	Human Resources Dept.
	1801 Alexander Bell Dr.
	Reston, VA  22091


The following aren't your regular NASA Centers.

	Jet Propulsion Laboratory			(JPL)
	California Institute of Technology
	Attn: Recruitment & Placement
	4800 Oak Grove Drive
	Pasedena, CA  91109
	(818)
	Actually a NASA contractor.  Non-profit, planetary missions,
	power systems, bio research, many fingers in many pies, but
	almost no manned space activity.

	Wallops Flight Center				(Wallops)
	Wallops Island, VA
	(804)
	Sounding rockets; > 11,000 launched.





Contractors:
This first group of companies was found from a Contractor List supplied
by NASA Johnson Space Center's Personnel Dept.  Most of the NASA
Personnel Depts. have these lists.  I've gotten them for JSC, KSC,
MSFC, & ARC.  JSC is the only list I've put on-line.


Barrios Technology
		Attn: Ronda Monchak
		1331 Gemini
		Houston, TX  77058

Boeing Aerospace
		Attn: Lois Ramey
		PO Box 58747
		Houston, TX  77058

Computer Sciences
		Personnel Dept.
		16511 Space Center Blvd.
		Houston, TX  77058
		(713) 486-8153 ext 259

Control Data Corp.
		Attn: Maria Ward
		9894 Bissonnet
		Houston, TX  77036

Ford Aerospace & Communications
		Attn: Alvin Dailey
		PO Box 58487
		Houston, TX  77258
		(713) 280-6236

GE
		Attn: Imma Lee Ross or Linda Pratt
		1820 NASA Road #1
		Houston, TX  77058
		(713) 333-8605 (Imma Lee Ross) or
		(713) 333-8604 (Linda Pratt)

Grumman Aerospace
		Personnel Dept.
		2800 Space Park Drive
		Houston, TX  77058
		(713) 333-2560

Grumman Houston Corp.
		Personnel Dept.
		12310 Galveston Rd
		Attn: Freddy-Ann Marcussen
		Webster, TX 77598

Jefferson Associates, Inc.
		Attn: Limas Jefferson
		1120 NASA Road #1
		Suite 100
		Houston, TX  77058
		(713) 333-3414

Lockheed Engineering & Management Service
		Attn: Linda Nilsen
		2400 NASA Road #1
		Houston, TX  77058
		(713) 333-6601

McDonnell Douglas
		Attn: C. D. Price
		16055 Space Center Blvd.
		Houston, TX  77062
		(713) 280-1500 ext 1761
		---
		(714) 952-6797 (Mr. Waller)

Northrop Service, Inc.			This plant closed 10/87.
		Attn: Carol Alcorta
		PO Box 34416
		Houston, TX  77234

Singer Company
		Link Division
		Attn: Patricia Records
		2224 Bay Area Blvd.
		Houston, TX  77058

Sperry Univac Corp.
		Attn: Modelle Mann
		16811 El Camino Real
		Houston, TX  77058

UNISYS
		Attn: Frances M. Bond
		600 Gemini
		Houston, TX  77058

Eagle Engineering		That mysterious company found at last!
		P.O. Box 891049
		Houston, TX 77289-1049
		(713) 338-2682 (Shirley Reynolds)

There are others on the JSC list, but I wasn't interested in them, so I
didn't type them in.




The following companies were found exclusively from net.pals:

Spacehab
		Seattle based

Space Industries
		Houston based

External Tanks, Incorporated
		Tom Rogers
		Boulder, CO

Third Millennium, Inc.
		918 F Street NW, Suite 601
		Washington DC 20004

PERMANENT, LTD
		114 Westwick Ct #5
		Sterling, VA 22170
		(703) 444-1560 (voice)
		(703 or 202)-450-2732 (computer)





The next list was found by a lot of hard work and many $ to Ma Bell.  I
took the list of Space Station contractors and tracked them all down.
(Well, all but Analex and Rocketdyne.  I'll get Rocketdyne soon, but
Analex looks hopeless.  Nobody has heard of it!)

Alphabetical Listing of Space Station Companies and Segments:

     Key:
	  #1: Segment I     Crew and lab modules
	  #2: Segment II    Framework (main boom)
	  #3: Segment III   Free-flying platform and research eqpt.
	  #4: Segment IV    Power system


Analex, #4		Nothing known.

Boeing, #1	Also in Seattle, LA (213), Wash. DC, Renton VA.
		Contact Dani Eder in Seattle (eder@RUTGERS.EDU).
		He's been very helpful.
		---
		The Boeing Company
		Employment Office
		PO Box 1470
		Huntsville, AL  35807
		(205) 461-2121 (Jeff Prince)


Computer Sciences, #3
		PO Box 21127  Kennedy Space Ctr, FL 32815
			(305) 853-2484
		8728 Colesville Rd  Silver Spring, MD 20910
			(301) 589-1545
		304 W Rt 38 / PO Box N  Moorestown, NJ 08057
			(609) 234-1100
		4835 University Sq Ste 8  Huntsville, AL 35816
			(205) 830-1000 (Applied Tech Div)
		200 Sparkman Dr N W  Huntsville, AL 35805
			(205) 837-7200 (Defense Sys Div)
		6565 Arlington Blvd  Falls Church, VA 22046
		       (703) 237-2000 (Energy Resch Div)
		16511 Space Center Blvd.  Houston, TX  77058
			(713) 486-8153 ext 259

Eagle Engineering, #4
 		711 Bay Area Blvd, Suite 315
 		Webster, TX 77598
		(713) 338-2682 (Shirley Reynolds)


Ford Aerospace & Communications, #4
		Attn: Alvin Dailey
		PO Box 58487
		Houston, TX  77258
		(713) 335-1714 (Alvin Dailey)
		(713) 280-6236	(JSC List)
		(301) 345-0250  (Jim Furilla or Judy Kopetz)
		---
		Western Development Laboratories
		Attn: Mr. John Clark
		3939 Fabian Way
		Palo Alto, CA  94303
		(415) 852-6917


Garrett Fluid Systems, #4       Formerly Garrett Pneumatic Sys Div
		Garrett Fluid Systems Company
		1300 W. Warner Rd, Box 22200
		Tempe, AZ 85282
		(602) 893-5000


General Dynamics, #4
		General Dynamics Bldg  Ft. Worth, TX 76101
		(817) 777-2000
		---
		Space Systems Division
		PO Box 85990,
		San Diego, CA  92138
		(619) 573-8000
		---
		Data Systems Division
		PO Box 85808,
		San Diego, CA  92138


General Electric, Astro Space Division, #1, #3
		Subsumed RCA, changed name to just GE.
		---
		Attention: Mike Kavka
		Mail Stop 101
		Astro Space Division
		East Windsor
		POB 800
		Princeton, NJ 08543-0800
		(609) 426-3400
		(609) 426-2228 (Personnel)
		---
		Aerospace Division
		(215) 823-2000 (Philadelphia)


Grumman Aerospace, #1, #2       Large piece of Station awarded in July
		2852 Kelvin Ave  Irvine, CA 92714       	(714) 660-4200
		1111 Stuart Ave / Bethpage, NY 11714		(516) 575-3369
			(516) 575-6400 Job Line
		        (516) 575-3556 New Grads
		Grumman Blvd / MS F05-07 / Calverton NY		(516) 575-0574
		2800 Space Park Drive / Houston, TX  77058	(713) 333-2560
		12310 Galveston Rd/Attn:Freddy-Ann Marcussen/Webster, TX 77598


Harris, #2
		(303) 727-4000 Ask for GASD


Honeywell, #2, #3
		W. R. Moore
		Mail Station 257-5
		Honeywell
		13350 US Highway 19
		Clearwater, FL  34624-7290
		(813) 539-3689 (W. R. Moore)
		(813) 531-4611 (Ann Sherman)
		---
		Defense Sys Div
		5700 Smetana Dr
		M N O2-3380
		Minnetonka, MN 55343
		(612) 936-3196
		---
		Aerospace & Defense Grp
		Honeywell Plaza
		Minneapolis, MN 55408
		(612) 870-5186 (Corporate Human Resources)
		(612) 870-5998 (Elizabeth Olson, Corporate Human Resources)


Hughes Aircraft, #1
		Hughes Aircraft
		Radar Systems Group
		Engineering Employment
		POB 92426
		Los Angeles, CA  90009
		(213) 606-2111 (Lou Hendrick)
		---
		Hughes Aircraft
		Space Communications Group
		Attn: Employment Ofc. - College Relations
		909 N. Sepulveda
		El Segundo, CA  90009
		(213) 647-7177

IBM, #2, #3
		IBM
		Personnel
		3700 Bay Area Bvd.
		Houston, TX  77058
		(713) 282-2300 (Debbie Garcia)

Intermetrics, #2
		Indl Sys Div
		733 Concord Av
		Cambridge, MA 02138
		(800) 325-5235
	      	(617) 661-1840 (Mike Adams)

Lockheed Missiles & Space, #1, #2, #3, #4, #4
		Lockheed has MANY offices in Sunnyvale, CA.  That's
		where much of the Space Station research is happening.
		Contact Joe Lodge, Personnel Dept.
		(800) 851-8045 or (408) 742-7175 (Joe Lodge)
		---
		Lockheed Space Operations Company  {Shuttle contract}
		Attn: Mr. Don Quirk
		110 Lockheed Way
		Titasville, FL  32780
	      	(305) 383-2200 (Titasville switchboard)
		(305) 867-2765 (Kennedy Space Center)
		---	
		Lockheed Engineering & Management Service
		Attn: Linda Nilsen
		2400 NASA Road #1
		Houston, TX  77058
	      	(713) 333-6601 (Linda Nilsen, Houston)


Martin Marietta, #1
		(504) 257-4716 (Sandy)
		(408) 745-8068 (Rita in Sunnyvale)
		---
		Martin Marietta
		Denver Aerospace
		Personnel Dept.
		6020 S. Ulster
		Englewood, CO  80111


McDonnell Douglas Astronautics, #1, #2, #3
		Richard B. Rout,
		Dept. 5900, Mail Code 11-3
		McDonnell Douglas
		Astronautics and Space Division
		5301 Bolsa Ave.
		Huntington Beach, CA  92647
		(714) 896-5633
		(714) 952-6797 (Mr. Waller)
		---
		McDonnell Douglas
		Attn: C. D. Price (no longer works there)
		16055 Space Center Blvd.
		Houston, TX  77062
		(713) 280-1500 ext 1761


Planning Research Corp., #4		(PRC)
		1500 Planning Research Dr
		McLean, VA 22102
		(703) 556-1000 (Corporate Offices)


RCA, #2, #3, #3  	Subsumed by GE/Astro Space


Rocketdyne, #4		A subsidiary of Rockwell in LA area.
		Canoga Park, CA


Rockwell, #2		Houston is Shuttle activity, not Station.
			Station work is being done in Downey, CA, near LA.
		---
		Steve C. Hoefer
		Supervisor, Crew Activity Planning
		Rockwell Shuttle Operations Company
		Rockwell International Corporation
		600 Gemini Avenue
		Houston, TX  77058
		(713) 483-4438
		---
		Electronic Operations
		Rockwell International Corp.
		3370 Miraloma Ave.
		PO Box 3105
		Anaheim, CA  92803-3105
		(714)
		---
		North American Space Operations
		Rockwell International Corp.
		12214 Lakewood Bvd.
		Downey, CA  90241
		(213)



SRI International, #2		Robotics, AI (maybe more)
		SRI International
		Personnel Dept.
		333 Ravenswood Ave.
		Menlo Park, CA  94025
		(415) 859-3993 (Elizabeth Brackman)
		(415) 859-3305 (Janice Adams, Human Resources)
		(415) 326-6200 (switchboard)


Sperry/UNISYS, #2	       Changed name from Sperry to UNISYS
		UNISYS
		Attn: Modelle Mann
		16811 El Camino Real		(ADDRESS CORRECTION)
		Houston, TX  77058
		(713)488-3300
		(800) 645-3440 (Corporate Offices, Eastern Time Zone)


Sunstrand, #4
		Sundstrand Energy Systems
		Unit of Sundstrand Corp.
		4747 Harrison Ave, P.O. Box 7002
		Rockford, Ill. 61125
		(815) 226-6000


TRW, #1, #2, #3, #4			Send resumes to ALL of them!
		Jack Friedenthal
		Bldg. 135, Rm. 2823
		One Space Park
		Redondo Beach, CA  90278
		---
		Penny Burkes
		Bldg. R2, Rm. 2130
		One Space Park
		Redondo Beach, CA  90278
		(213) 532-0845
		---
	      	(213) 297-8765 (Irwin Newman)
		(213) 535-8416 (Arthur Green)
		(213) 535-4321 (switchboard)
		(213) 536-1726 (Gene Goodban - best contact
			- Systems Development Division placement officer)
		(213) 535-8920 (RD Wood - Lab Mgr, SW Dev & CS)
		---
		Pearl Cadwell
		TRW
		Applied Tech emplmt ofc
		Bldg. R11, Rm. 2359
		One Space Park
		Redondo Beach, CA  90278
		(213) 812-4533
		---
		Jeff Jensen
		TRW
		Bldg. R02, Rm. 1374
		One Space Park
		Redondo Beach, CA  90278
		(213) 535-3125


Teledyne Brown Engineering, #1, #4  (Did not actually bid on #4)
		Teledyne Brown Engineering
		Attn: Mr. Tom Robinson (corporate hires)
		      Caroline Walker  (entry level)
		Cummings Research Park
		Huntsville, AL  35807
		(800) 633-2090


United Technologies (Hamilton Standard), #1
		Phil Beaudoin
		Hamilton Standard
		One Hamilton Road
		Windsor Locks, CT  06096
	 	(203) 654-6000
	      	(203) 654-4601 (Personnel)


United Technologies (USBI Booster Production), #1	Also in Slidelle, LA
		United Space Boosters / BPC
		188 Spartman Dr
		PO Box 1900
		Huntsville, AL 35807
		(205) 721-2400


Wyle Laboratories, #1
		Wyle Laboratories
		Personnel Department
		Attn: Mr. Gordon Bakken
		7800 Govenor's Drive West
		Huntsville, AL  35807
		(205) 837-4411 (David Brown)
		(703) 834-1633 (Mr. Gordon Bakken in NJ)




The following are other companies not working directly on the Space
Station, but related to space nonetheless:

Aerospace Corporation
	non-profit, helps Air Force
	(213) 336-5000 (switchboard)
	(213) 336-1614 (college relations -- Walter Caldwell)

United Technologies (Research Center)
	(203) 727-7000

Fairchild Space Co.
	(301) 428-6009 (Russ Byrne -- a net.person)



The United States Air Force has a division called Space Division,
formerly Western Development Division.  From a fact sheet I picked up in
LA, CA, comes the following blurb:

       "Air Force Space Division, part ot the Air Force Systems Command,
	is responsible for research, development, acquisition, launch
	and on-orbit command and control of military space systems.
	Space Division is also the focal point within the Department of
	Defense for plans and activities associated with military use of
	NASA's Space Transportation System (Shuttle)."

The people I talked to there thought that civilian engineers were being
hired.  If you are not queasy about weapons technology (I'm not), and
you don't mind SDI research, this might be the way to go.  USAF has a
very strong interest in space.  They are working on ASAT, SDI, MILSTAR,
FLTSATCOM, AFSATCOM, NAVSTAR, GPS, ELV, and other arcane acromyns.

	Headquarters Space Division (AFSC)
	Los Angeles AFS
	PO Box 92960, Worldway Postal Center
	Los Angeles, CA  90009
	(213) 643-0254		(AV 933-0254)

Otherwise, there's your local USAF recruiter: you don't HAVE to be a
civilian.  Note that most astronauts have come either from NASA or the
military.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #75
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 14 Dec 87 13:36:15 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA09742; Mon, 14 Dec 87 03:23:08 PST
	id AA09742; Mon, 14 Dec 87 03:23:08 PST
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 87 03:23:08 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8712141123.AA09742@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #76

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 76

Today's Topics:
		      Re: Cashew nut heat shield
		     Re: Exact Time (help please)
		      Space in Presidents Speech
		    Re: Treaties with the Russians
			Re: 2001 N. Clark St.
      Re: Re:Cashew nut heat shield - And other vegetable ideas!
 New cosmonaut crew for Soviet Mir and long duration men coming down
		    Recycling Pershing-II's (long)
		     Re: Recycling Pershing-II's
		    Re: BDB and all the whining...
	    Re:  Recycling Pershing-II's (short and sweet)
	     The Incredible History of Stanley Ovshinsky
	  Re: automation/robotics on space station, why not
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 10 Dec 87 15:27:35 GMT
From: clyde!watmath!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!db.toronto.edu!hogg@rutgers.edu  (John Hogg)
Subject: Re: Cashew nut heat shield

In article <871208-062406-4560@Xerox> Chris.SBDERX@xerox.com writes:
>Taken from the London Daily Telegraph 8/12/87
>
>"SPACECRAFT HEAT SHIELD IS NUTS
>India is to be the first nation to launch a spaceship composed partly
>of vegetable matter.
> ...
>...a heat-resistant resin based on liquid extracted from cashew
>nut shells had been developed by the Regional Research Laboratory in
>Kerala, the country's largest cashew nut producer. It was well suited
>for heat shields.
>...
>This is the first time vegetable matter has been used for the exterior
>of a spaceship. All American and Russian spacecraft (as far as it is
>known) use exotic metals and ceramics."
>
>Anyone care to comment? Is this the answer to all the heat tile
>problems of the shuttle?!

Judging by the dearth of other followups, this is a fine example of both
(a) either the short net memory or message propagation delay problems, and
(b) a journalist with a tight deadline and no interest in research.

A couple of months ago, Aviation Week published a series of articles on
the Chinese space program.  Their film-return capsules use some variety
of oak as a heatshield material.  While the Indian ``resin based on
liquid extracted from cashew nut shells'' is arguably not ``vegetable
matter'', there is no question that the Chinese heat shields fit that
description.  And as others have pointed out, they were far from the
first to use wood in spacecraft.

Answering the last facetious question seriously, the key to
cost-effectiveness of a reuseable craft is to keep turnaround time and
manpower to a minimum, so the shuttle heatshield pretty much has to be
``maintenance free'' (note those quotes!).  On the other hand, the
Chinese are extremely sensible in using a cheap, effective, throw-away
material for their non-reusable capsules, and other space programs
should take note.

John Hogg				|  Computer Systems Research Institute
...!uunet!csri.toronto.edu!hogg		|  University of Toronto

------------------------------

Date: 11 Dec 87 15:52:56 GMT
From: pyr!iadt3tb@gatech.edu  (T. Terrell Banks)
Subject: Re: Exact Time (help please)

In article <4890@nsc.nsc.com> ken@nsc.nsc.com (Ken Trant) writes:
>I have been asked by my Young Astronauts group to find out how the
>correct time is determined.

       Try calling WWV (National Bureau of Standards) in Fort Collins.
       I think the number is (303) 499-7111.

T. Terrell Banks
Georgia Insitute of Technology               Internet: iadt3tb@pyr.gatech.edu

------------------------------

Date: 11 Dec 87 15:14:58 GMT
From: ihnp4!homxb!mtuxo!rolls!doug!tim@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Tim J Ihde)
Subject: Space in Presidents Speech

When I was driving home last night (12/10), the radio newscaster was
talking about the President's upcoming speech about the summit, due at
9:00 that night.  He said that he expected some mention about a joint
US/Soviet venture in space.  This got me interested, but then I missed
the speech itself and none of the news commentators after the fact are
talking about anything like this.  Does anybody know if

    1)	such things were discussed at the summit (Mars mission??)

    2)	Ronnie said anything about this in his speach

I would think that this would be at least as important as a 4% reduction
in nuclear weapons, if not quite as flashy from a network news point of
view.

		tim
-- 
Tim J. Ihde					ihnp4!ctsmain!doug!tim
(201) 535-9897

------------------------------

Date: 12 Dec 87 01:45:34 GMT
From: kevin@csvax.caltech.edu  (Kevin Van Horn)
Subject: Re: Treaties with the Russians

In article <384@ablnc.ATT.COM> rcpilz@ablnc.ATT.COM (Robert C. Pilz) writes:
>We each [the Soviets and us] have one [ABM system] left. Ours is in Grand
>Forks ND... 

Sorry, but the U.S. has no ABM system of any kind; the one you mentioned
was dismantled.  The Soviets do still have their one ABM system allowed
by treaty, and it protects Moscow.

Kevin S. Van Horn

------------------------------

Date: 11 Dec 87 22:55:48 GMT
From: ihnp4!aicchi!dbb@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Burch)
Subject: Re: 2001 N. Clark St.

The CAS is a lovely neo-classical building on the edge of Linclon Park.
It has been there for quite some time, and predates Mr. Clarke's writing
career...

-David B. (Ben) Burch

------------------------------

Date: 10 Dec 87 13:59:17 GMT
From: ihnp4!homxb!mtuxo!mtune!codas!novavax!augusta!bs@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Burch Seymour)
Subject: Re: Re:Cashew nut heat shield - And other vegetable ideas!

I've always thought the definition of a heat shield is something that
can dissapate heat rapidly. That is, once it's hot, it can get rid of
the heat and become cold again in a very short amount of time. If that's
true then the best material choice is obvious -

Take out pizza :-)

Sorry, but that had to be said.....

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Dec 87 10:34:37 EST
From: Glenn Chapman <glenn@ll-vlsi.arpa>
Subject: New cosmonaut crew for Soviet Mir and long duration men coming down

     The long space flight of Yuri Romanenko aboard the Mir space
station is finally coming to a close.  After a continuous 308 days to
date he has already exceeded the previous record of 237 days (set by the
Soyuz T-10B crew on Salyut 7 in 1984) by more than 30%.  His lifetime
total is now 412 days (10% longer than Leoid Kizim's previous record).
Even Alexander Alexandrov, the "short term" replacement for Alexander
Laveikin done July 29th, has now spent 142 days on Mir and has a
lifetime total of 291 days (149 from Soyuz T-9/Salyut 7 in 1983).
   There is however some peculiarities with the upcoming replacement
cosmonauts that will fly to Mir at the end of this month.  Previously 
the Soviets have announced the crew for that flight, but now they are 
not giving out the names for the Soyuz TM-4 mission.  Instead they have
simply stated that two flight crews have left for the Baikonour
Cosmodrome today (Dec. 10) to prepare for a mission by one set of
them.  This suggests that the takeoff will be sometime after Dec. 17th,
with the Romanenko and Alexandrov returning by the end of the month.
The mystery about the replacement crew may come from one of them having
a cold or the like, so that whether the prime or backup crew will fly
is not yet certain.
   One thing is obvious, crew switchoffs have now become a standard
procedure in the Russian space station program.  They do not even make a 
big thing about them any more.  Let us work for the day when the same is
true for the USA.

                                 Glenn Chapman
                                 MIT Lincoln Lab

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Dec 87 14:27:38 EST
From: loeb@BOURBAKI.MIT.EDU
To: wmartin@almsa-1.arpa
Cc: rochester!kodak!ornitz@louie.udel.edu, space@angband.s1.gov
Subject:  Recycling Pershing-II's (long)

I'm afraid your case won't hold up in court. According to the
Constitution, treaties have higher status than law (but lower than the
Constitution). Thus, when Congress ratifies a treaty which appears to
contradict some laws (such as wasting useful missles), they are
inherently allowing these laws to be broken. Of course, I'm not a
lawyer, but I do know a thing or two.

Danny

------------------------------

Sender: LBennett.es@xerox.com
Date: 11 Dec 87 13:36:26 PST (Friday)
Subject: Re: Recycling Pershing-II's
To: Physics@unix.sri.com, Space@angband.s1.gov
From: LBennett.es@xerox.com
Cc: LBennett.es@xerox.com

It should be possible to get the Soviets to agree to let us use the
Pershing missiles as boosters.  There are ways to ensure that a missile
cannot be used militarily, other than destroying it.

For example, we choose an island, say, off the coast of Virginia, or in
the Pacific.  We store all the decommissioned Pershing missiles there,
without payload.  We allow the Soviets to control our access to them,
perhaps by letting them put a small military garrison on the island;
both sides are allowed to inspect the missiles at any time.  Whenever we
wish to use the missiles, we tell the Soviets and they give us the
appropriate number of missiles.  We allow them to verify that the
missiles were launched.

That way, the Soviets should be reasonably secure that the missiles are
no longer a military threat, and we still can have the use of them for
launching payloads.  Most researchers would be able to tolerate a
Russian inspector, if it gets them a launch vehicle.

I don't know if the Pershing-II missiles would be useful as boosters,
but if they are, we shold be able to think of a way to get the use of
them.

Leif Bennett

------------------------------

Date: 1 Dec 87 11:43:35 GMT
From: eecae!crlt!russ@super.upenn.edu  (Russ Cage)
Subject: Re: BDB and all the whining...

In article <8711180113.AA16278@angband.s1.gov>, FNRJH@ALASKA.BITNET writes:
>Have many of the 12,000 space.nuts (other than I) thought about getting
>together and by commitie building a demo Little Dumb Booster.  Cost is
>the real factor we would let drive our design.  If nothing else I would
>like to receive information on designing a rocket and what is needed to
>launch the booster.

I've been doing something of the sort (I wonder how many others are
doing the same?).  I'll post something when I get the docs into a
semi-presentable form (the concept has gone through a couple of
revisions and the descriptions are a mish-mash of versions).

But, so far as I can tell, it looks like a booster capable of lofting
~1500 pounds to LEO could be built in your average machine shop, and
fueled with materials that are delivered to farms and hospitals on a
daily basis (propane, LOX).  Promising!  However, I never did complete
my BSME (BSEE was enough work), and may have missed a show-stopper.  We
shall see.

Russ Cage
 rsi@m-net

------------------------------

Date: 12 Dec 87 10:46:09 GMT
From: tektronix!reed!psu-cs!mmason@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Mark C. Mason)
Subject: Re:  Recycling Pershing-II's (short and sweet)

I disagree with the idea that we should "recycle" the pershings which
will be destroyed under the INF treaty.  It would be too easy for a
superpower (US, or the Russians with their SS's) to commandeer such
hardware during times of high-tension world events.  It follows that
destruction of said hardware is a key ingredient of the INF treaty.

Look, we're getting rid of ten years of nulear arms buildup.  Leave well
enough alone.


					Mark

------------------------------

Date:         Thu, 10 Dec 87 15:12:28 EST
From: ST401385%BROWNVM.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu
Subject:      The Incredible History of Stanley Ovshinsky

Commentary on amorphous solar cells and Energy Conversion Devices (ECD):

> [ECD] has a long tradition of not delivering.
   This quite true.  I believe that the company has never showed a
profit in its 18 year history, which I've heard is some kind of a
record.  Despite having never made a profit, however, the company has
grown from a garage operation into an eight-digit operation.  Ovshinsky
appears to be, above anything else, a consummate salesman and has in the
past made outrageous claims that somehow never quite materialized.

>When Ovshinsky announced a breakthrough in the new-type
>superconductors, the general reaction was that he (more than others)
>would have to prove his claims.
    Among the people who didn't laugh, that is.

>That said, amorphous silicon should be a good way to make cheap solar
>cells. Ovshinsky's company has more background in amorphous silicon
>than anyone else.
    Not true.  A short history: The electronic properties of
hydrogenated amorphous silicon (if you don't hydrogenate it 2-10%, it
isn't worth anything) were discovered by Spear and Lecomber at Newcastle
Polytechnic in Britain around 1976; the first a-Si solar cells were made
by Carlson and Wronski at RCA a little later, most of the pioneering
work not done by RCA in the late seventies was done by several japanese
firms and universities.  RCA's operation was bought by Solarex a few
years ago.  ECD came into the amorphous silicon field quite late.  As
typical with Ovshhinsky, he started by announcing a "breakthrough" in
a-Si formulation that would "revolutionize" the field, virtually
implying that nothing important had been discovered before ECD entered.
The "breakthrough" turned out to be adding small amounts of Fluorine to
improve the a-Si properties on a process that in every other respect was
identical to all the other companies'.  And, as far as I know, it has
yet to be proven adding fluorine has any beneficial effects at all on
the solar cell performance.
     They conglomerated their operation with Standard Oil of Ohio
(Sohio) in the usual ECD way: Sohio provides the money, ECD the
"know-how".  Sohio pulled out a year or so back when it appeared that
they weren't going to make megabucks in a year or two.  The production
company is still around; it's called Sovonics.
     Which is not to say that Sovonics is *not* one of the major players
in the field.  But there are many players, and it is not at all clear
they're in the lead position.  Myself, if I had to bet on an American
firm, I would bet on Solarex--they have a lot of good people, and know
what they're doing--or on Arco Solar.

   With that said, I would like to add that I have a hell of a lot of
respect for Stanley Ovshinsky as a scientist.  Ovshinksy damn-near
single-handedly *invented* the whole field of amorphous electronics,
back in the fifties when anybody who said that amorphous materials could
be semiconductors was laughed at... if they could even get anybody to
listen.
   A main reason that ECD's pioneer amorphous devices didn't make it in
the market is not that they couldn't do what was promised, but because
of the almost incredible growth in the capability of silicon switches.
(Another reason they didn't make it is that Ovshinski has a history of
promising the most optimistic possible results.)  (The amorphous devices
that Ovshinski pioneered weren't silicon, though--they were these
bizarre compositions of Tellurium, Arsenic, Selenium and whatever.  I
once heard Dave Adler say that he thought that Ovshinski came up with
his compositions by throwing darts at a list of all the poisonous
elements in the periodic table.)
   He had the prescience, back in the mid sixties, to name his company
Energy Conversion Devices, in the totally unfounded belief that one day
amorphous devices would be able to convert solar energy to electricity,
and that this would become the most important use.  This, without any
evidence that amorphous materials could make solar cells, and a decade
before hydrogenated amorphous silicon was discovered.  But he was right.
    Without Ovshinsky's vigorous support of studies of amorphous
electronics, it is very unlikely that the current amorphous silicon
solar cells could ever have been invented.  Still, *Ovshinski* didn't
invent them.  He got in on the business after the inventing was mostly
done.

>I very much want him to make it on this one. It could happen, and the
>sooner the better.
    Yes, me too.

      "Always a Godfather, never a God."

--Geoffrey A. Landis, Ph.D          Brown University
BITNET: ST401385 at BROWNVM

------------------------------

Date: 10 Dec 87 09:47:34 GMT
From: karn@faline.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: automation/robotics on space station, why not

> ...All Voyager did was take pictures.

Henry, sometimes you surprise me. Try saying that to the people who
designed and now operate the Voyager magnetometers, low frequency radio
receivers, cosmic ray detectors, plasma detectors and particle
detectors, not to mention those who designed and carried out radio
science experiments with the Voyagers' own telemetry downlinks.

Even the imaging system does far more than just "take pictures". Two
focal lengths and a variety of filters are available. Spectrographs may
be taken at infrared and ultraviolet wavelengths.

Imaging contributes only a small fraction of the scientific return, at
least in proportion to the downlink bandwidth it consumes. The real
insights into the nature and composition of interplanetary space,
planetary ring systems, surfaces, atmospheres and interiors have come
mostly from these less glamorous instruments the public ignores because
they don't return any pretty pictures.  Almost like the
manned-vs-unmanned debate in miniature, eh?

Phil

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #76
*******************

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Date: Tue, 15 Dec 87 03:22:36 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8712151122.AA11829@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #77

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 77

Today's Topics:
			    Re: SS & LISP
		       Re: Ada (was SS & LISP)
			    Re: SS & LISP
	  re: automation/robotics on space station, why not
			     SS and Lisp
			   Re: SS and Lisp
		       Robotic devices in space
		    Re: Shuttle Operator's Manual
			     A correction
		      Re: Remote Sensing Fascism
		      Re: Remote Sensing Fascism
		      Re: Remote Sensing Fascism
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 10 Dec 87 04:59:00 GMT
From: jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Re: SS & LISP

> I recall someone in the group saying that LISP had been dis- approved
> as a development language for Space Station software.  Can anyone
> supply information and/or speculation on why this was done ?  Is NASA
> planning on making any push in AI ?

Eugene Miya at Ames (eugene@ames-pioneer.arpa) said that LISP is indeed
outlawed for the Station.  It was probably done because LISP is provably
unverifiable (in a software verification sense).

Several contractors (SRI International, for one) are working on AI for
the Station.  I don't know the details; the address and phone number of
SRI are in that obnoxiously long list of companies I posted today.

   ** * **
 **** * ****	-- Ken Jenks
***** * *****
**** *** ****		Rockwell Shuttle Operations Company
 ** ***** **
   *******			as of 1/11/88!

  The University of Illinois will revoke my account on 20 December.
  It's been fun, folks!  I'll be back in January!

jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu		{ihnp4!pur-ee}uiucdcs!uiucdcsp!jenks

------------------------------

Date: 10 Dec 87 18:20:52 GMT
From: pioneer!eugene@AMES.ARPA  (Eugene Miya N.)
Subject: Re: Ada (was SS & LISP)

In article <74700080@uiucdcsp> jenks@uiucdcsp.cs.uiuc.edu writes:
>It was probably done because LISP is provably unverifiable (in a
>software verification sense).

The edict was not against LISP specifically, but FOR support of Ada.
The DOD was no real pressure; it was an acknowledgement within NASA to
try and get its software act together in stride with the rest of the
real-time world.  NASA do software verification? 8-) LISP is not
specifically mentioned.  As langauges go, Ada is not all that bad,
especially compared to HAL/S (which will always be the Shuttle
language), but I could easily see that NASA could have stripped
important features from Ada until DOD said, "No subsets."

Not a comment on SS, but my favorite memory of early Ada Days: Reliable
software must kill people reliably.  -- Andy Mickel

>From the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:

++eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA

------------------------------

Date: 10 Dec 87 22:16:39 GMT
From: orstcs!ruffwork@rutgers.edu  (Ritchey Ruff)
Subject: Re: SS & LISP

One of the main reasons lisp never makes it into things like
control and critical applications is it can go into a garbage
collect at any time.  Imagine the following -

    "Mission Control, we are go for touchdown in t-30 seconds. over."
    "Roger, Columbia."
    Then the landing control program goes into a 30 second garbage collect!

--ritchey	ruffwork%oregon-state@relay.cs.net -or-

------------------------------

Date:         Thu, 10 Dec 87 19:34:10 EST
From: Lee Brotzman <ZMLEB%SCFVM.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Subject:      re: automation/robotics on space station, why not

     This is my first attempt to send mail to SPACE, so I trust that it
will reach its intended audience, especially the subject of the reply,
Dr. Henry Spencer, U. of Toronto.


Henry Spencer, U. of Toronto Zoology, writes:
>    NASA's history of automated space systems may seem good; look at
>    Voyager and such.  However, all Voyager did was take pictures.
>    Interacting with one's environment is much trickier.  In that
>    area, NASA's experience has been less successful.  A major
>    example is shuttle-based satellite retrieval/repair: Solar Max,
>    Palapa/Westar, Leasat.  The Solar Max repair relied heavily on
>    an automated docking system, in which NASA placed such
>    confidence that there wasn't even a manual override; the result
>    was nearly a disaster, saved more by luck than by good
>    management.  The Palapa/Westar retrieval again was set up with

     I am by no means an expert on the subject of robotics, but I do
have a problem with this portion of Dr. Spencer's argument.
     The Solar Max automated docking system was a rather simple
mechanical device, the "automatic" feature being a trip-released spring.
The device had worked successfully on several mockups of the Solar Max
trunion pin, including a mockup in the Shuttle bay tested in orbit
immediately before the rescue attempt.  The thing just did not work on
the one on Solar Max!
     The device was placed in front of the astronaut using the Manned
Manuevering Unit.  There were no robotics involved in the planned
mission to retrieve Solar Max.  The device had no manual overide because
NASA believed that it would be too dangerous to have the astronaut
remove his hands from the MMU controls when he was just inches from a
large, spinning satellite.
     When the first attempt at docking with Solar Max failed, the
astronaut decided to try to stabilize the satellite by grabbing one of
the solar-cell wings, which only served to make things much worse.
     The astronaut was forced to return to the Shuttle empty-handed.  A
long, hard, and ultimately successful attempt was made by ground-based
technicians at Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) to stabilize the
satellite.
     The next day, the satellite was captured on the first try by the
Canadian remote manipulator arm.  In other words, a robot did what a
human could not.
     I'm not sure what Dr. Spencer thinks of when he hears the word
"robot", but judging from his arguments, it appears that he is thinking
of autonomous intelligent machinery working without human intervention.
On the other hand, I think of practically any piece of machinery with a
computer between it and its human operator, whether the human operator
is working in real time or not.
     From what I have seen here at GSFC, the emphasis on robotics for
the Space Station is machines to perform routine tasks for unloading
supplies, "catching" satellites for repair, and construction.  Most
designs have human operators in the loop, controlling the robot in real
time, just like the robot arm on the Shuttle (which to date has
performed almost flawlessly).
     I was present at a demonstration of some of the systems under
development.  One was an enhancement of the "waldoes" used for years by
the nuclear energy industry.  The robot arms provided tactile feedback
to the operator.  In a sense, he could "feel" some of what the robot was
doing.  Another was a system designed to unload cargo.  This system had
hard information about where a specific piece of hardware was placed,
and where it should be moved to.  The third, and more advanced, system
was a payload loader and unloader commanded by voice control.
     In the NASA PR films promoting the Space Station, the most
prominent robot is some variation of the proven remote manipulator arm
already in use on the Shuttle.  The arm usually has more degrees of
freedom and different end effectors, but the principle is the same.
     These types of robots have already been developed to a "useful
level".  Robots designed to aid in construction have already been
developed, as evidenced by the auto industry.  I realize that systems
designed to operate under space conditions still need work, but the
technology is here.  The Shuttle provides a good working environment for
"debugging" the systems without presenting danger to the crew.  Indeed,
much of the Space Station construction will take place from the Shuttle
or from ground-based control centers long before the Station is
permanently manned.

Lee E. Brotzman
Astronomical Data Center
NASA Goddard Space Flight Centter

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Dec 87 17:19:41 EST
From: subar%mwcamis@mitre.arpa
Subject: SS and Lisp

In a recent posting Fred Baube <fbaube@note.nsf.gov> said:
> I recall someone in the group saying that LISP had been disapproved as
> a development language for Space Station software.  Can anyone supply
> information and/or speculation on why this was done ?
     
Lisp is being used for the SS.  There are people in Houston working on a
prototype written in Lisp to find SS faults.
     
> Is NASA planning on making any push in AI ?
     
This is a different issue than the use of Lisp, but NASA is using some
AI techniques.  There was an expert system developed at MITRE that is
used for LOX loading.  (If you are interested, I could possibly get more
info.)
     
> They [NASA] would want to permit LISP in SS development, even if
> there is no "one tried and true" LISP dialect.
     
Sorry to disagree, but Common Lisp is both tried and true.
     
> Is AI being left to the Star Warriors and the endo-atmospheric
> services ?
     
Not left to, but dominated by, in the gov't at least.
     
David Subar
subar@mitre.arpa

------------------------------

Date: 12 Dec 87 07:15:24 GMT
From: pioneer!eugene@AMES.ARPA  (Eugene Miya N.)
Subject: Re: SS and Lisp

In article <8712112219.AA09029@mitre.arpa> subar%mwcamis@MITRE.ARPA writes:
>> there is no "one tried and true" LISP dialect.
>Sorry to disagree, but Common Lisp is both tried and true.

I enjoy reading about the notes of garbage collection (HAL/S is
mathematized PL/1 without dynamic memory) and the like, and I know the
LOX systems.  LISP is being used in the Expert Systems area, we have a
good chunk of it here, but I would question whether I regard it as
"tried and true."  I would apply Shore's new code of software Hamurabi
in the latest issue of the CPSR newsletter.  If you want to write a
piece of code, you stake life on it, please be my guest.  You kill
someone, then you deserve to die.  P.S. added note about Ken Jenks's
garbage collection joke (har har!), such as the tale if Tim Standish's
Data Structures book in a footnote about inappropriate GC.

Needless to say Hamurabi is not an opinion of the Agency.

>From the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA

------------------------------

Date: 12 Dec 87 01:40:18 GMT
From: tektronix!zeus!tekla!dant@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Dan Tilque;1893;92-789;LP=A;60aC)
Subject: Robotic devices in space

Henry Spencer:  ...All Voyager did was take pictures.

Phil R. Karn writes:
>Henry, sometimes you surprise me. Try saying that to the people who
>designed and now operate the Voyager magnetometers, low frequency radio
>receivers, cosmic ray detectors, plasma detectors and particle
>detectors, not to mention those who designed and carried out radio
>science experiments with the Voyagers' own telemetry downlinks.  etc.

I think that what Henry really meant was that Voyager was a passive data
gathering device and not an active environment manipulator.  I don't
think he meant to denigrate the outstanding efforts of the Voyager
teams.

Except for the Viking shovel and the Shuttle arm, we haven't used any
manipulating robotic devices in space (if I'm wrong someone will surely
correct me).  That only counts NASA-launched devices.  I'm not that
familiar with what the Soviets have launched.  They did have a lunar
"rover" and material return device (name forgotten).  Any others?

Dan Tilque
dant@tekla.tek.com  or dant@tekla.UUCP

------------------------------

Date: 12 Dec 87 08:05:06 GMT
From: mike@ames.arpa  (Mike Smithwick)
Subject: Re: Shuttle Operator's Manual

In article <8712080406.AA27378@angband.s1.gov> MAKELA_O@FINJYU.BITNET writes:
>interesting question: since the shuttle is vertical when attached to
>the ET and SRB's for launch, how do the astronauts manage themselves to
>their seats and do their jobs in an environment designed (mostly) for
>micro- gravity or with the other orientation of 1G in mind ?  I've
>never seen this "properly" explained, though this would seem to pose a
>pretty elaborate problem with handholds, ladders and seating in 1G-
>environment.  I'm not an expert on ergonomics, but to me the pilot's
>positions look like they could be somewhat tiring if one had to sit
>there for several hours, clicking switches and turning knobs, in the
>shuttle launch position.

There are some small stools placed around in the cabin on top of the
panels wherever the crew may step. You can see the ground-support guys
remove them during launch prep on the TV broadcasts. Since the crew
ingress the cabin only about 2 hours before launch, they don't spend all
that much time (as compared to the apollo/gemini/mercury guys). Plus the
seats themselves are adjusted so the backs bend forward about 5 or 10
degrees from what would be a "normal" position when horizontal. When
laying on your back it is quite comfortable. Now, if there is a 4 hour
hold. . .

 *** mike (powered by M&Ms) smithwick ***

------------------------------

Date: 11 Dec 87 21:05:45 GMT
From: pitstop!sundc!netxcom!rkolker@sun.com  (rich kolker)
Subject: A correction

Thanks Ken, for doing a lot of legwork that should help the rest of us.

Now...

NASA HQ is at 400 Maryland Ave SW, Washington, DC 20546
Space Station HQ is in Reston, VA (west of DC)
Langley Research Center is in Hampton, VA 23665 (in the Norfolk/Tidewater area)

A good document to have in your library( and the source of all this)
is the NASA Media Guide and Public Affairs Contacts, published annually.

Convince NASA you're a reporter and they'll send you one.

++rich

------------------------------

Subject: Re: Remote Sensing Fascism
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 87 10:11:42 -0500
From: Fred Baube <fbaube@note.nsf.gov>

Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu wites:
> 'Our' .. people have obviously learned how to lie about the existance
> of things which are common knowledge, a tactic that I used to think
> was purely russian.

The uses of classification: Confidential to keep something from the
public and press, Secret to keep it from the Congress, and Top Secret to
keep it from the President [;-)]. Whether the Soviets know about
something is not relevant; remote sensing is just one case in point.

#include <disclaimer.h>

------------------------------

Date: 12 Dec 87 05:45:54 GMT
From: hanauma.stanford.edu!joe@labrea.stanford.edu  (Joe Dellinger,ESMB 471,7230463,4153244824)
Subject: Re: Remote Sensing Fascism

	I find it interesting that the US government tries to limit the
resolution people may get from satellites. A problem I haven't heard
mentioned yet is how to stop people from getting around this limitation
by data-processing means. It turns out that many of the "good old"
techniques of Geophysicists are brand new to Synthetic Aperture Radar
people. Geophysicists here at Stanford are getting higher than the
allowed resolution off of vintage Seasat data, simply by using better
processing techniques. If you use multiple images of the same scene from
different orbits, you can do even better (MUCH better, I've been told).

	How does this square with regulations? I've heard rumors that
the untimely death of Seasat was "not an accident". Anybody else hear
anything like that?

Dept of Geophysics, Stanford University
Joe Dellinger joe@hanauma.stanford.edu decvax!hanauma!joe

------------------------------

Date: 13 Dec 87 01:39:25 GMT
From: ecsvax!dgary@mcnc.org  (D Gary Grady)
Subject: Re: Remote Sensing Fascism

In article <34@canopus.UUCP> joe@canopus.UUCP () writes:
>	I find it interesting that the US government tries to limit the
>resolution people may get from satellites....

I don't particularly like the idea of the government keeping all the
high-res satellite technology for itself, but I can see some reason for
favoring that.  I can see it being used for industrial espionage, and at
high enough resolution I can see it being used to invade individual
privacy.  Tabloids running satellite pictures of celebrity beach
parties?  Why not?

By the way, Joe makes an excellent point about the use of multiple
low-resolution images to get a high-resolution result.  This doesn't
even necessarily require much technology.  A movie looks much sharper
than a projected single frame, and work is now underway to stream film
at a much higher rate and produce an astonishing bright and sharp screen
image.  I've seen this myself on a Kodak 8mm projector with an unusual
54 fps "fast forward" mode; the image looked sharper than one in a
theater!

-- 
D Gary Grady
(919) 286-4296
USENET:  {seismo,decvax,ihnp4,akgua,etc.}!mcnc!ecsvax!dgary
BITNET:  dgary@ecsvax.bitnet

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #77
*******************

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	id AA14036; Wed, 16 Dec 87 03:16:54 PST
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 87 03:16:54 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8712161116.AA14036@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #78

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 78

Today's Topics:
		     space news from Nov 9 AW&ST
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 15 Dec 87 02:50:19 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Nov 9 AW&ST

[Anyone who is wondering what happened to the Oct 26 AW&ST: I seem to
have missed it.  Either I didn't get it or it got mislaid.  Stay tuned.]

Martin Marietta picks Dornier to build payload carrier for commercial
Titan, based on Dornier's design for Ariane.

NASA completes improvements to the infrared camera system used to view
Columbia's topside during reentry.

GAO clears Fletcher of wrongdoing in original SRB contract award some
years ago.

NASA to start major new program to get advanced space technology
development going again.  Includes the Pathfinder program.

NASA starts series of sounding-rocket launches, balloon flights, and
Kuiper Airborne Observatory flights for supernova observations.

Tests of a prototype comet penetrator at Sandia are successful.

Space station contract awards delayed to late November by Fletcher,
pending further assessment of bids and word on the deficit situation.
Andrew Stofan, NASA AssocAdmin for it, says he would rather recommend
cancellation than accept cuts that would reduce it to little more than
Mir or Skylab.  [It would seem he hasn't noticed that that would be
considerably better than what the US has today!]  NASA is looking hard
at using Space Industries's ISF to get early payloads up before the
station is ready.  Westinghouse's ISF people say that commercial
interest in ISF has been much poorer than expected, but DoD is very
interested and that plus NASA should make the project a commercial
success.

There is interest in putting a high-resolution radar system on the polar
platform.  "There is significant concern that before the US gets any
commercial radar operational, Japanese, Canadian, Soviet, and possibly
West German radars with commercial application will already be in
orbit."

Shuttle managers are close to approving a 19,000 lb [!!] increase in
allowable shuttle payload weight.  [Flight International has suggested
that one reason for interest in this is that it could make Columbia, the
older heavyweight orbiter, capable of flying most Spacelab missions.
Columbia could then be modified to become the long-mission orbiter,
while the newer, lighter orbiters do the brief, heavy-payload missions.]

Britain signs with Martin Marietta for half of the first commercial
Titan launch (Aug 1989) for a military comsat.

Letter from S.W. Stagg commenting on Paine's Aerospace Forum piece in Sept:

	"Mr. Paine speaks eloquently of the 21st century and how
	Americans will lead in space and technology.  Does this mean
	that the US is written off for the remaining years of this
	century?

	"This, Mr. Paine, is how it is in the 20th century:

		- The Russians have a manned space station.
		- The Russians have a heavy-lift vehicle based on
			"obsolete technology".
		- The French are #1 in commercial space operations.
		- The Japanese are starting their own launch
			capabilities.
		- The Chinese have their own launch capabilities.
		- The English, French, and Germans are developing their
			own single-stage-to-orbit vehicle.

	"Other countries... are not resting on their laurels, holding
	meetings, making glowing predictions, or asking for more money.
	Other countries are in the space business...  NASA and the
	bureaucrats are fighting it out for last place in the space
	race."

Those who do not understand Unix are |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
condemned to reinvent it, poorly.    | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #78
*******************

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	id AA17257; Thu, 17 Dec 87 03:26:43 PST
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 87 03:26:43 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8712171126.AA17257@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #79

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 79

Today's Topics:
		     Do We Need A Space Station?
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 13 Dec 87 20:01:00 GMT
From: jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Do We Need A Space Station?



This is a research paper for a Special Problems course with Dr. Bruce
A. Conway, Aero/Astro Engineering, University of Illinois.  I've
prepared this paper with the help of several people on this network.  I
appreciate your help; you'll recognize a few of your thoughts here.

I'd like to see any comments or criticisms you may have on this paper.
It is due on Friday, 18 December, 1987.

Thanks for your help!

   ## * ##
 #### * ####	-- Ken Jenks
##### * #####
#### *** ####		Rockwell Shuttle Operations Company
 ## ***** ##
   *******			as of 1/11/88!

  The University of Illinois will revoke my account on 20 December.
  It's been fun, folks!  I'll be back in January!

jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu		{ihnp4!pur-ee}uiucdcs!uiucdcsp!jenks

Do we need a permanently manned Space Station?

NASA is building a permanently manned platform in Low Earth Orbit (LEO)
that will cost $15 - $30 billion dollars.  Do we need to spend this
money on a Space Station, or is there a better way to achieve our goals
in space?  What are our goals in space?  What is the role of humans in
space?  What should it be?  Will the Space Station give us useful new
technology?  Enough to justify the expense?

These questions have been largely by-passed in the limited public debate
about the capabilities and configuration of the Space Station.  The
press has largely ignored the Space Station, even when there is news
about which companies are awarded contracts.  We've all seen examples in
the press[1] bemoaning the high price tag of this advance in our
moribund space program, but little debate has been presented about the
real need for such a system.  This might be because the press, in
general, does not think that the general public is intellectually
capable of dealing with the issues involved.  Another problem is that
many reporters, even science reporters, do not have a good grasp of
issues involving space.

This paper will attempt to deal with these issues by discussing both
sides of several arguments for and against the Space Station.  The
topics we will discuss are: the creation of new technology, easier (or
better) access to space, on-site supervision and repair of satellites,
consolidation of satellites, the Space Station as a assembly/deployment
site, costs, propaganda value, long-term goals, experiments, and the
roles of humans in space.  Each section will be organized into three
parts: a "Pro" paragraph, introducing the topic and outlining how the
Space Station will be beneficial in this aspect, a "Con" paragraph,
rebutting the arguments in the "Pro" paragraph and outlining
alternatives, and a "Comments" paragraph summarizing any extra comments
which are neither for nor against the Space Station, but which shed some
additional light on the arguments.  The conclusion of this paper will
not give a final recommendation as to whether a Space Station is
necessary; that is left up to the reader.  (The point is moot anyway;
NASA is building the Station regardless of whether it is truly needed.)
The conclusion will simply serve to summarize salient points of the
arguments presented in the paper.


NEW TECHNOLOGY

Pro: The Space Station will cause new technology to be invented.  Our
understanding of medicine, basic science and engineering will be
increased as we look at the new technology needed to design, construct,
and use the Space Station.

This new technology will have several sources within the Space Station
project.  Experiments at NASA-Ames Research Center into CELSS, a closed
environment life support system, will help us understand the basic needs
of human sustenance.  We know that people need food, oxygen, light, and
water, but there are other needs, such as trace elements and the rhythms
imposed by day and night, that need to be researched.  The isolation
from gravity imposed by extended stays in orbit will require new
techniques of retaining muscle tone and bone-calcium levels which will
help us aid injured and handicapped people here on Earth.

We understand remarkably little about how fluids, chemicals, and
mechanical systems behave in microgravity.  Experiments in these areas
are sure to give us new insight into these areas and new technology for
handling them.

If our space program is ever to expand, we will need to know more about
engineering and construction in microgravity.  There has never been a
large-scale construction project on-orbit.  The experience and
technology we gain in constructing the Space Station will be invaluable
in future space constructions.


Con: The Space Station is possible with technology we know how to use
today.  In fact, we could have built the Space Station immediately
after Skylab, our first space station.  So no new technology is really
required.  Any new technology which does get invented is incidental to
the construction of the Space Station, not the direct goal of the
program.

If the creation of new technology is the goal, there are much more
efficient ways of creating it than construction of a Space Station.
For example, we could invest directly in the new technologies
themselves, not depend on NASA for spin-offs of somewhat-applicable
methods for accomplishing things in an environment we never encounter
on Earth.  More new technology might be invented by a similar
investment in other projects ("Big Dumb Booster", Superconducting
Super-collider, non-rocket launchers, ion engines, Mission to Earth,
planetary exploration, etc.).  If we want to improve health care for
handicapped people, the most efficient way to help them is NOT to
invest in a system which will orbit the Earth; it is to put money
into research programs specifically designed to help them.

Experiments in microgravity have been going on in the Space Shuttle for
years.  If longer duration experiments are needed, a longer duration
on-orbit for the Shuttle would certainly be easier than building an
entire Space Station.  (See next section.)

The need to build a large structure in space in order to know how to
construct large structures in space is simply begging the question: do
we need to have ANY large space structures?  If there is no need for
the structures, there is no need to know how to build them.


Comments: Will this "new technology" be used only for military
(SDI) purposes?  If this is the case, shouldn't the Department of
Defense (DoD) pick up a part of the cost for the Station, or should
they build their own, non-international Station for military purposes?

As to the question of the creation of new technology, a space station
would create a different kind of technology.  It would not always be
directly applicable to life on Earth; it would be specific to the
project.  NASA has an office for disseminating information on the new
technology developed in-house.  There is a magazine, NASA Tech Briefs,
devoted to public awareness of spin-offs from the space program.  In
fact, NASA's charter specifically declares that one of NASA's primary
purposes is to create new technology and disseminate it to the public.
This will continue regardless of whether a Station is built or not.

All these arguments presuppose the concept that new technology is
a good, desirable thing.  This idea is itself debatable, but beyond
the scope of this paper.


LONGER DURATIONS ON-ORBIT

Pro: The Space Station would give us longer durations on-orbit for
experiments.  Months-long experiments on plant and animal growth, slow
crystal growth, material exposure to the space enviromnent (including
atomic oxygen flow), and other projects vital to our long-term
understanding of space are just not possible, even on an extended
duration Shuttle.  We need the permanence of the Station to achieve
the necessary duration on these experiments.

A smaller, occasionally-manned Station might be able to support some of
these experiments, as men are brought up periodically with the Shuttle.
But this would not allow constant supervision in this unusual
environment, a factor many experiments will need.


Con: An extended-duration Shuttle orbiter could do the same thing for
much less money and give us another orbiter in the process.  Experiments
could be constantly tended on-orbit if each orbiter had a turn-around
time less than the flight duration of the previous one.  This way, a
crew could "hand off" the experiments requiring continuity to the next
crew.  The new extended-duration orbiter could stay on-orbit, having its
consumable resources replenished by the other orbiter.  This could
extend the duration of the new orbiter even more.

The very concept of a "permanent" Space Station needs to be examined
closely.  The projected life time of the Station is 30 years -- hardly
permanent.  This assumes that the Station hasn't outlived its usefulness
in this time, and accidents during resupply missions do not cost us too
much of our very limited orbiter fleet.


Comments: The use of extended-duration Shuttles is not the "permanent
manned presence" that Reagan asks for.  This also requires two Shuttles
on-orbit at once.  Orbiter turn-around time is unlikely to be reduced to
the 45-day projected maximum flight duration for an orbiter, rendering
the point moot.


REPAIR AND SUPERVISION OF SATELLITES

Pro: The Station would allow us to repair satellites on-orbit instead of
bringing them to the ground for repairs.  Currently, if a satellite
breaks down or runs out of fuel on-orbit, it is considered "space junk"
and tracked as an orbital menace to navigation.  In combination with the
Orbital Maneuvering Vehicle (OMV) being designed by McDonnell Douglas
Astronautics Company, the Space Station will be able to retrieve
disfunctional satellites, repair them at the Space Station, and return
them to their previous (probably geosynchronous) orbits.

An even easier method of repair for dead satellites, or a means for
providing preventative mantenance, would be to have the satellites
reside in the same general orbit as the Station, maybe 2 or 3 degrees
ahead or behind.  This would require only a simple manned "space
skateboard" to send a repairman or scientist out the the satellite to
fix it or maintain it.  This could be used to replace empty fuel
cannisters for maneuvering thrusters, to exchange film packs, or to
retrieve data from long-duration experiments which must be kept away
from the Space Station for whatever reason.


Con: We can already (supposedly) repair satellites with the Shuttle.  A
longer duration orbiter, as described above, would be able to do this
and more.  The Shuttle has, so far, repaired exactly two satellites in
its 24 successful flights.  This does not look like an effective
justification based on past experience.  Most of the satellites already
on-orbit are built to be throw-aways.  They have no readily replacable
components or exchangable fuel cells.  New satellites would have to be
launched if this scheme were to have any validity; the old ones are not
readily amenable to easy fixes.

The Space Station's orbit can't be altered significantly, so an OMV will
have to retrieve the satellites and tow them to the Station.  This may
not seem significant until we actually think about the mechanics of
catching a tumbling satellite far from human operators.  The inevitable
round-trip lightspeed lag of any human teleoperator is one-quarter of a
second -- already too slow for delicate maneuvering.  The current plan
is for the OMV to grab the satellite with an oversized pair of tweezers.
This is sure to break off fragile antennae and solar panels, which would
then have to be repaired as well.  And there's no guarantee that the
satellite, once retrieved, could be repaired at all.

Each time a satellite is repaired or maintained, there must be an EVA to
service it.  And although EVA has not resulted in an accident yet, it is
potentially dangerous and very time consuming (endless check-outs,
decompression and pre-breathing).

(For further arguments specifically against the co-orbiting satellites,
see next section.)


Comments: EVA would probably be necessary in any case; current plans do
not call for a large, enclosed "shirt sleeve" satellite repair facility.


CONSOLIDATION OF SATELLITES (Co-orbiting platform(s))

Pro: We can consolidate satellites co-orbiting with the Station.  This
will allow us to put up as much radiation & micrometeor shielding in one
place as we need to protect the satellites.  This will save on the mass
that need to be brought up (at great expense) from Earth.

We can also consolidate basic utilities such as power supply, waste heat
disposal, station keeping and pointing, and communications.  The
consolidated platform would be readily serviceable with frequent manned
tending, and easy retrieval of experiments, film, and data.


Con: Radiation and micrometeor shielding have not been necessary on past
unmanned missions; why should they be needed on this consolidated
platform?  Very few of the satellite failures which have occurred so far
have been attributed to either radiation or micrometeors.  This makes
the need for consolidated protection of this kind questionable.

Any co-orbiting satellite would have several inherent problems.  First,
the area around the Station would be so contaminated by exhaust and
waste gasses, accidental leakage, out-gassing of Station components,
electromagnetic interference (EMI), and even liquid leaks and stray
tools that anything requiring a clear view or a clean environment must
be kept far away from the Station.  Second, satellites must be kept far
away from the station for the safety of its delicate, human crew.

The total effects of upper atmospheric drag and solar radiation
pressures on satellites are not completely understood.  All bodies
involved would have to be kept at a large distance to decrease the
probability of collision to an acceptable level.

All these reasons for keeping co-orbiting satellites at a distance add
up to one conclusion: the orbits can't be too close.  Since this is
evident, the idea of simply "bopping on over" to an errant satellite
becomes a little more difficult than hopping on your rocket powered
skate board and steering there manually.

(This brings up the same arguments against EVA as in the previous
section.)

If the co-orbiting satellites are consolidated to provide a common bus
structure for common power, waste heat disposal, communications, and
basic station-keeping functions, we have, in effect, built ourselves an
unmanned Space Station.  Why not simply build one of those to begin
with?

Finally, co-orbiting satellites are stuck in the Space Station's low,
unchangeable, low-inclination orbit which is far from ideal for Earth
observations.  The current plan is to orbit the Station with the 28.5
degree inclination imposed by the latitude of Kennedy Space Center in
Florida.  This would give a very limited view of the Earth from the
100-200 mile altitude orbit imposed by maximum Shuttle altitude.


Comments: Although there are many disadvantages of co-orbiting
satellites, there are enough advantages that some experiments will
probably be flown this way.


SPACE STATION AS A ASSEMBLY/DEPLOYMENT SITE

Pro: The Space Station would provide a clean environment in which to
build and deploy satellites.

Satellites can be unpacked and/or assembled and tested on orbit, thus
making it unnecessary to include deployment mechanisms and 99.99999%
reliability for high-G launch (both are expensive and massy).  This
lowers costs of satellites (by decreasing both complexity and launch
mass) and increases operational reliability (assembled satellites can be
tested, and, if faulty, wait for replacement parts and be repaired
on-orbit).

A low-acceleration bus can then push the satellite to their final orbit.
Eventually, the Station assembly shop could have standardized parts
(chassis, solar panels, attitude control systems, telemetry units) and
put them together with custom parts flown up.


Con: The same space environment contaminants noted above (gasses,
liquids, stray tools, EMI, etc.) from Space Station would make the
environment "dirty" (see CONSOLIDATION above).  Astronauts would have to
wear EVA eqpt or use glove boxes to assemble sats.  NASA's current
baseline Space Station is not configured to handle this.  The design is
unlikely to be modified after bids are finalized (12/87).

Using humans to unpack, assemble, and test satellites takes away from
time they could be using for other experiments.


Comments: Nobody is presently exploring this use for the Space Station.
(At least, there isn't anything in public literature.)


COST

Pro: The Space Station can lower costs of satellites (see above) and pay
its way in new technology and spin-offs.  Oft-quoted references appear
in almost every pro-space argument stating that the Apollo program payed
for itself more than 7 times over in spin-offs alone.  (See NEW
TECHNOLOGY above.)

Certain items produced in space would be far superior to those produced
on Earth, and might even be cheaper.  Vacuum and cold temperatures are
there for the taking; one doesn't have to produce them.


Con: Every part of the Space Station will have to be brought up at
~$4000+ per pound.  Money invested first in an advanced launch system or
Big Dumb Booster would lower all costs to orbit and make Station
cheaper; we should do BDB first.

The space station, as proposed, would give us almost nothing compared to
a habitable Shuttle external tank.  Not the volume, not the cheapness,
not the ease and simplicity of launch.  If cost is a factor, other areas
need to be explored first.  There are probably ways to reduce the
overall cost, even of the present NASA design.

The same money would buy 4-5 new Shuttles.  The STS assembly line could
be kept permanently open, and new Shuttles could be specialized for
particular roles (i.e., a long duration orbiter, a low-payload,
high-altitude orbiter, etc.).


Comments: Each time the topic of the Space Station is brought up in
public, the price tag is mentioned without saying what that price will
give.  A cost-benefit analysis is a tedious, complex, subjective thing
that can be interpretted in many ways.  What the final price tag will be
for the Space Station can only be known in the future.  Whether it was
worth the cost can only be known in the more distant future, and even
then will be subject to debate.

Looking at the issue from our current vantage point, we really don't
have enough information to assess the economic impact of the Space
Station's design, launch, and construction costs, the income to be
gained from new technology and spin-offs, and the benefits in spirit and
exploration which cannot be quantified.

As we've seen with the deaths of ten astronauts (three in Apollo, seven
in the STS) there are costs that can't be counted monetarily.

But we can't decide a priori whether those costs are worth the advances
we will achieve.  Only the future can tell.


PROPAGANDA

Pro: The Space Station will re-establish the USA as a pre-eminent space
power, proving to the world that we still can (and are willing to) have
a strong space program.


Con: The monetary cost is too high for the propaganda value.  The
Russians have already built and operated a space station (Mir, Salyut);
all we'd be doing is catching up.  In fact, we've already done this,
too, with Skylab.  For pure propaganda value, we should do something
more spectacular, like a push to Mars.

If propaganda value is an issue, money could be better spent by getting
a better Public Relations department for NASA.  We have had some major
successes in the past which have been poorly presented to the public.  A
major public awareness and education campaign would do more good to
foster the view of a strong space program than a huge, expensive program
which the public does not understand.


Comments: (None)


LONG-TERM GOALS

Pro: The Station will help us achieve a long-term commitment to
sustained efforts in space.  This will be a basis for all our future
research efforts.  We need a long-term focus like the Station to
concentrate our efforts.  This is much better than the "one crash
program per decade" approach we have been taking since Sputnik.


Con: The Station has no long-term focus.  We're trying to build the
Station that will make everyone happy, and the result is a compromise
which pleases almost nobody.  We need long-term goals before long-term
commitments.


Comments: Our country desperately need to define our long-term goals, in
space as well as in other areas.  Since this is apparently too complex
or too politically difficult for the President to do, I suggest that the
Director of NASA set forth a well-defined set of goals and objectives
similar to Dr. Sally Ride's recent report, along with a schedule of
methods of achieving these goals.  There would, of course, be a thick
and furious debate after such a presentation, but that kind of debate
and attention would be much preferable to the floundering our space
program is currently doing.

One way to promote a longer view in NASA, and to give the scientist in
NASA some time away from politics, would be for Congress to give NASA a
five-year budget.  NASA would propose a budget for the next five years,
including all "new starts", and Congress would vote YES or NO.  When the
budget is eventually approved, NASA does not need to justify its
decisions every year, only every five.  This budget would set forth the
minimum amount that NASA would receive for each of these five years.
Unexpected costs (like the loss of another orbiter) could be negotiate
as they arise, but the budget ought to provide for emergency funding to
cover unexpected costs or new directions in research.

This would actually be cheaper in the long run, as less time would be
spent away from the serious scientific pursuits of NASA (i.e. in
appropriations commitees, trying to justify every penny of next year's
entertainment account) and more time would be spent on NASA's basic
mission.

Unfortunately, this is probably too reasonable for Congress to consider
seriously.  It would give each Congressman less of a chance of being
personally involved with the yearly budget process.


EXPERIMENTS

Pro: There are many theories about how materials and mechanical systems
behave in microgravity, but we have little experience in experimentation
in these conditions.  The Space Station will provide us with long-term
experience in dealing with fluid flow, material handling, and mechanical
systems which cannot be gained from the shorter-duration Shuttle
flights.  The limited experience we have with space-borne experiments on
the Space Shuttle simply underscores how little we actually know about
how things behave in microgravity.

Interactive, serendipitous experiments are possible (next experiment
depends on outcome of previous one).  Scientists need the time to
experiment and examine the data, then re-design the experiments based on
the results of these data.

Many experiments would benefit from being frequently man-tended.  Some
experiments can only be done with humans doing or overseeing them
on-orbit, especially experiments dealing with men in space (see HUMANS
IN SPACE below).


Con: Most experiments would be cheaper on robotic probes.  Man-tended
experiments are currently being carried out on the Shuttle; the Space
Station would simply be a more expensive place to carry out the same
kinds of experiments.

Shuttle launch capacity currently manifested for the Space Station could
contain experimental packages instead.  The Space Station is directly
competing with space science experiments in this way in addition to the
inevitable competition for funds.

Experiments using the Space Station obviously will be delayed until the
Space Station is built.  This delays research by years and loses many
researchers who will look for more interesting and/or profitable lines
of work in the mean time.


Comments: A compromise would help.  Some unmanned experiments could be
launched RIGHT NOW, some could be launched from the Space Station, and
some concurrent with but separate from the Space Station.  A larger
space budget would certainly help ease budget conflicts.


HUMANS IN SPACE

Pro: Experiments on how humans live and work in space can only be done
on humans living and working in space.  We desperately need to know more
about the long-term effects of microgravity on humans before we start to
plan for any future manned space ventures.  The only way we can get this
data and experience is to gather it ourselves, on-orbit.  As stated
above in NEW TECHNOLOGY, this knowledge will also be applicable here on
Earth.

We also have a human need to explore frontiers.  The Space Station,
unlike our first explorations with Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo, will be
the Pilgrims' homestead, where the others were Columbus' ships.  We need
to expand our human spirit, and only the remotest places of Earth
(undersea, the Poles) are unexplored.  Outer space fills a place in our
souls that has been missing for many years.


Con: Microgravity research will not really be applicable until we
seriously plan long-termed manned missions (like to Mars).  There's no
need to invest now; let's wait until we have a cheaper booster.  This
will allow us to have similar long-term missions to the Soviet's,
without the dozens of billions needed by the Space Station.  In
addition, there's no denying that a cheaper booster is in itself a
desirable thing.

A journey of the human spirit is a lofty, desireable goal, but does that
really justify the expense of the Space Station?  There are other ways
to improve the human condition which would be much less costly, and much
more immediately rewarding in spiritual advancement.  Music, arts, and
freedom from hunger and oppression can all be helped by sufficiently
large investments.  Is the money for the Space Station better spent by
social programs, or by giving money to needy multi-billion dollar
aerospace companies?


Comments: The dollar value of esthetic principals is particularly
difficult to pin down.

[1] NBC's Nightline News "900" survey, 2 December 1987.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #79
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 18 Dec 87 06:22:14 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA00836; Fri, 18 Dec 87 03:17:31 PST
	id AA00836; Fri, 18 Dec 87 03:17:31 PST
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 87 03:17:31 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8712181117.AA00836@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #80

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 80

Today's Topics:
		    Mir elements, 12 December 1987
		     space news from Nov 16 AW&ST
	     Robotics and Automation on the Space Station
	       Re: automation/robotics on space statio
			   Re: SS and Lisp
       Robotics vs. Telemanipulation and the Proper Use of Each
	      Re: Space Station Contractual Obligations
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 15 Dec 87 23:43:00 GMT
From: kenny@b.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Mir elements, 12 December 1987


Satellite: Mir        
Catalog id 16609
Element set 959
Epoch: 87341.85844159
Inclination:  51.6286 degrees
RA of node: 338.5311 degrees
Eccentricity:  0.0012450
Argument of perigee:  97.4000 degrees
Mean anomaly: 262.8788 degrees
Mean motion: 15.79382634 revs/day
Mean motion acceleration: 0.00015594 * 2 revs/day/day
Epoch Revolution: 10349

	Source: NASA Goddard via T.S.Kelso

This will be my last posting of the elements until after the first of
the year, as I shall be out of town most of the rest of 1987.  Happy
holidays to the MIR watchers, and see you again in 1988.  Good luck in
observing the apparitions Christmas week.

------------------------------

Date: 15 Dec 87 23:57:37 GMT
From: cbosgd!clyde!watmath!utgpu!utzoo!henry@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Nov 16 AW&ST

[The Oct 26 issue got overlooked in the mess of my in-box.  It will
appear sometime soon.]

First refurbished-ICBM Titan 2 booster rolled out to the pad at
Vandenberg.  Launch set for April, the early rollout is mostly for pad
checkout.

ESA will send letter to White House affirming intent to continue space
station negotiations but outlining four major issues still unresolved.
It will also say that ESA's Columbus project could go ahead
independently if agreement is not reached.

NSC staffer says that the new national space policy will be ready in
about a month.  Some skepticism has been expressed about its impact,
given the coming change in administrations.

ESA announces go-ahead on Ariane 5, Hermes, and Columbus, despite vocal
opposition from Britain.  A number of ESA delegates agree that there is
some point to Britain's objections, but they were presented in such a
ham-handed and undiplomatic way that their impact was much reduced.

Spending increases for ESA's science directorate and general budget have
been blocked by British abstention on the budget vote; they are part of
the mandatory budget (to which all members must contribute -- projects
like Hermes are optional), which requires unanimous approval.  Britain
may go along with the general budget's increase but is firmly opposed to
the increased science funding, on the grounds that it has already had
several increases and there is no clear justification for continuing
automatic increases.  There is disagreement about how much effect a
freeze on the science budget would have.

Planned December launch of Ariane V21 postponed about six weeks due to
some overheating in the third-stage hydrogen turbopump during testing.
A replacement engine is being readied in case it turns out to be needed.
V20, set for this week, will not slip.  The first Ariane 4 flight, set
to follow V21 in March, may or may not slip slightly.

Administration-Congress compromise on SDI tests permits space-based
tests only if they are on a list agreed by both sides not to violate the
ABM treaty, but continues to ban ASAT tests despite USAF lobbying.

Mir crew tests new rendezvous and docking procedures by undocking
Progress 32 freighter and then bringing it back.

Oct 29th: 2000th Soviet space launch.  (US: 870; all others combined:
91) Number 2000 was a Clarke-orbit Proton launch, probably some sort of
comsat.

Tests of the "file pole" shuttle escape idea to begin from aircraft Nov 30.

Japanese H-2 booster schedule tightens as design changes are made,
notably to improve reliability of engine restart in second stage.  First
flight is still planned for early 1992, officially.

Aerojet is working on a new "emulsion" solid propellant that could
increase solid-fuel performance and reduce exhaust pollution.  [Near as
I can tell from the description,] the basic concept is a solid with
liquid droplets imbedded in it.

Soviets plan heavy Mir module dedicated to biomedical work for launch in
1990, including both plant and animal facilities.  The module will be
able to undock and return to Earth.

Two letters with interesting comments:

       "Regarding... the Vandenberg shuttle launch site, I find it
	absolutely incredible that a nation that could, within the space
	of 10 years, put its first man in space, develop and execute
	three separate manned space programs, and land a man on the
	Moon, would require four years to reactivate an existing, almost
	new, launch facility.

       "Pardon my French, but what the hell has happened?

					"Paul A Jones, California"

       "[re space station funding] Sometimes I wonder how we ever got to
	the Moon on the backs of the lowest bidder.

					"Stephen R Sexsmith, NY"

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 14 Dec 87 22:31:30 GMT
From: grasp.cis.upenn.edu!ulrich@super.upenn.edu  (Nathan Ulrich)
Subject: Robotics and Automation on the Space Station

Several individuals have contributed their opinions regarding the use of
robotics and automation on the space station.  I would like to add my
two cents worth.  First, though, I must admit to some bias in this
subject: I am a research fellow in robotics, so this is my area and my
source of support, and I also work with the robotics lab at GSFC on the
space station robotics.

I would like to propose a distinction between robotics and automation: A
true robotic system is flexible enough to handle surprises, changes in
routine, new tasks, etc. without reprogramming or restructuring.  They
do not really exist, to date, even in the laboratory.  Automation, on
the other hand, is a system which is designed for a specific set of
tasks to be performed over and over again.  It is used extensively, and
with great success, in a wide range of applications from factories to
outer space.  The degree of flexibility in the automation is a
consideration, since some systems can handle disruptions in their
routine and adjust accordingly (as long as the change is not too
drastic).  Further complicating the picture are so-called tele-operated
"robots" (I don't consider them robots because they require human
control).

I do not advocate the use of true robots on the space station.  I am all
too aware of the limitations of current technology; real robots could
not be built in time.  I don't feel there is any question as to whether
teleoperated devices will be used on the space station--they are
reliable, though tough to operate, and already exist on the space
shuttle.  In essence, teleoperated devices are really just tools, albeit
complicated tools (of which there are many, in use and proposed, in
space).

I feel automation could be valuable on the construction of the space
station.  One reason is that the actual structure of the space station
is modular in nature, and many of the operations needed to put the thing
together are to be performed over and over again in exactly the same
way--exactly the forte of automation.  Now the system would have to be
flexible enough to perform many different types of tasks (over and
over), but this is possible utilizing current technology.  Current plans
call for most of the crucial positioning to be performed via
teleoperation (the system moves under computer control except when a
delicate positioning operation is to be performed, then becomes
teleoperated).  I must admit that I feel most of the applications where
tele-operation is planned could be replaced by appropriate mechanism
design, but I can do only so much.  (Designing machines for specific
operations is easy, designing a machine for many specific operations is
harder).

I agree with the many people (Henry Spencer, and others) who said that
we cannot afford unproven technology on the space station.  I must admit
to some disgust at their expression of fear regarding robots.  The
thought of a robot going crazy and punching a hole in a pressurized
module is ludicrous, not only because there will be many machines up
there capable of the same thing, but because I believe the devices that
make it into space will have more safety overrides than the astronauts,
and I would trust them more :-) *None* of the eventual devices sent up
will be unproven....they will all have been tested extensively and will
have proved their usefulness.  I do not agree that we cannot afford
*new* technology--I don't think the space station will work without
new technology, after all, I thought that was the idea....

Nathan Ulrich
University of Pennsylvania
ulrich@grasp.cis.upenn.edu

------------------------------

Date: 14 Dec 87 22:48:40 GMT
From: karn@faline.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: automation/robotics on space statio

Nobody seems to remember (or is willing to admit) that there really is,
and is likely to remain, only ONE economically viable space application
for the forseeable future.

Communications satellites, earth observation satellites, unmanned
science missions and yes, even manned missions all return one thing:
INFORMATION. Information about what's going on elsewhere on the earth:
military, meteorological, geological, earth resources, etc. Scientific
information about other objects in the solar system or the universe.
Engineering information about the performance of machines. Yes, even
medical and scientific information about how humans perform in space.
There is no technical limit to how many people may potentially benefit
from this information; it can be cheaply copied and redistributed once
it is on the earth.

With the exception of manned missions and film return spy satellites,
the entire yield of these missions consists of electromagnetic radiation
that carry information as easily as a Star Trek transporter carries
matter. On the other hand, those who propose space applications based on
moving physical materials between earth and space (e.g., space mining
and/or manufacturing) have their work cut out for them. They will have
to find some way to reduce transportation costs by several orders of
magnitude to even begin to make their applications viable. Even then
they would still be far from approaching the utter ease with which
information can be moved between earth and space.

Given that the space station is ill-suited for almost all information-
generating applications (with the possible exception of scientific
information in the life sciences) I have a hard time supporting it with
much enthusiam, especially since its enormous budget could have been
spent on many other projects having much better cost/benefit (i.e.,
cost/information) ratios.

Phil

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Dec 87 11:41:48 EST
From: subar%mwcamis@mitre.arpa
Subject: Re: SS and Lisp
     
In a previous posting orstcs!ruffwork@rutgers.edu (Ritchey Ruff) writes:
     
> One of the main reasons lisp never makes it into things like control
> and critical applications is it can go into a garbage collect at any
> time.  Imagine the following -
     
>    "Mission Control, we are go for touchdown in t-30 seconds. over."
>    "Roger, Columbia."  Then the landing control program goes into a 30
>    second garbage collect!
     
Garbage collection can be controlled (not meaning to be punny).  When it
turns on and off (ephemeral GC) and how it affects other processes
(background GC) are important issues to consider.  Not all GCs make you
wait (See Symbolics and other Lisp Machines, also Lisp on a chip).
     
On the same subject pioneer!eugene@AMES.ARPA (Eugene Miya N.)  replies
to my previous where I said:
     
>Sorry to disagree, but Common Lisp is both tried and true.
     
To which he responds:
> I would question whether I regard it as "tried and true."  If you want
> to write a piece of code, you stake life on it, please be my guest.
> You kill someone, then you deserve to die.
     
I would have to say that the Common Lisp the Language as specified by
Steele's book is tried and true and nearly bugless by design (or as much
as any other language is). I can't say so much for Common Lisp your
Compiler or Common Lisp your Code.  There are certainly compilers and
sets of code out there that are reliable.  As for the death sentence
that you relegated me to, thanks for the sensitivity.
     
David Subar
subar@mitre.arpa

------------------------------

Date: 15 Dec 87 21:40:24 GMT
From: marque!gryphon!mhnadel@csd1.milw.wisc.edu  (Miriam Nadel)
Subject: Robotics vs. Telemanipulation and the Proper Use of Each

Gee, I love it when subjects come up related to projects I've worked on :-)

I think that some people are misguided about what a robot is.  The mere
fact that a machine is manipulated by a computer in some way does *not*
make it a robot.  It could indeed be a robot but it might also be a
telemanipulator or an n-c machine tool (n-c = numerically controlled)
depending on the level of autonomy in operation and whether or not it
can be reprogrammed.  By the commonly used definitions (from the
*robotics* industry - the aerospace community does not have the right to
define these), the shuttle RMS (remote manipulator system - i.e. the
Canadian arm) is a telemanipulator, not a robot.

The reason for this is that the RMS has *no* feedback.  In fact, this is
viewed as one of the most serious deficiencies in its design.  There are
6 automatic trajectories which are preprogrammed (and would cause the
RMS to operate as a robot) but they are not generally used.  Except for
experiments to test these autosequences, the RMS has always been used in
manual or manual-assisted mode.  Basically this means that feedback is
provided by the operator based on the images from the elbow and wrist
cameras.  The reason this is problematic is that the geometry is such
that the arm *could* hit the orbiter - and the field of view provided by
the cameras is insufficient for the operator to avoid this (s/he cannot
see the part of the arm that would impact the orbiter if the arm is in
one of the configurations where this danger exists).

Now, what about the autosequences?  First off, they don't really permit
the arm to be maneuvered between any two arbitrary positions because
there are a large number of arm configurations which result in gimbal
lock (essentially this means that the kinematics cause the loss of a
degree of freedom in the motion.  It is also true of the human arm, by
the way, though caused by somewhat different conditions in that case.)
In addition, the danger of the arm impacting the orbiter (or itself) is
considered more severe for autosequences than for manual or
manual-assisted operations because of the time involved in overriding
the sequence and because of position overshoots when an autosequence is
stopped.  Finally, the autosequences have never been fully tested.  At
least 2 of the trajectories have *never* been run and there is a
disagreement between 2 of the contractors involved regarding exactly
which of the others have been run. (I will not discuss that point
further because of potential problems with the confidentiality of the
data I've seen.)

Incidentally, it is somewhat misleading to say that the RMS has
performed "flawlessly."  There have been some large unexpected motor
oscillations, as well as larger than anticipated bending mode
oscillations.  These have not been serious problems but are signs that
the arm may have trouble with larger payloads (e.g. the motors may stall
or there may be fatigue induced breakage).  This is in addition to the
problems encountered during the autosequences experiments.

What is the proper use of robotics vs. telemanipulation?  It seems to be
a generally accepted tenet in the robotics industry that true robots
(reprogrammable, some means of feedback, relatively autonomous) are best
used in hazardous environments or for repetitive tasks which can
endanger humans because of their boredom potential.  (For example, spot
welding, which meets both of these criteria, is the single largest use
of robotics both in the U.S.  and Japan.  The most talked about other
use among roboticists is clean up of nuclear accidents.)  If manpower is
available and the environment is relatively benign, telemanipulation is
the way to go.  This may no longer be true but at least until a few
years ago most research in telemanipulation was geared to the underseas
environment.  I think that in the long term there may be some
justification for robotics on the space station, but in the short term
(the next 10 years, say) we should probably continue with
telemanipulation.

Miriam Nadel
mhnadel@gryphon.CTS.COM

------------------------------

Date: 16 Dec 87 00:16:04 GMT
From: ssc-vax!eder@beaver.cs.washington.edu  (Dani Eder)
Subject: Re: Space Station Contractual Obligations

In article <8712080356.AA22904@crash.cts.com>, jim@pnet01.cts.COM (Jim Bowery) writes:
> By creating substantial contractual obligations in the face of
> unprecedented pressure to cut government spending, how are we to
> believe that NASA is going to protect these scientific projects?  A
> contract is a contract -- if/when Congress refuses to increase NASA
> funding enough to cover all the bases, what gives?

According to our Contracts office (who should have some idea, since we
just got one of those contracts here at Boeing) the government has no
real obligation to pay us to complete the contract.  The reason is this:
NASA operates under the 'Federal Acquisition Regulations' which can also
be found as volume 48 of the 'Code of Federal Regulations' within which
is a series of contract clauses which are incorporated by reference in
nearly all contracts, and certainly all of the large ones.  One of
these, 48 CFR chapter 1, paragraph 52.249, is called "Termination for
Convenience of the Government".  While I don't have the text before me,
I am told that it essentially allows the government to terminate the
contract for whatever reason it wants, an they have to pay only for the
work and expenses we have done to date.  In normal, non-government
terms, this contract, plus 95 cents, will buy you a cup of coffee.

Dani Eder/Boeing/Advanced SPace Transportation, soon to be
Space Station (if it's funded)

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #80
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 19 Dec 87 06:16:04 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA02815; Sat, 19 Dec 87 03:16:51 PST
	id AA02815; Sat, 19 Dec 87 03:16:51 PST
Date: Sat, 19 Dec 87 03:16:51 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8712191116.AA02815@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #81

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 81

Today's Topics:
		     space news from Oct 26 AW&ST
		     space news from Nov 23 AW&ST
		   Re: Do we need a Space Station?
		   Re: Do We Need A Space Station?
	   Re: Robotics and Automation on the Space Station
		   Re: space news from Oct 26 AW&ST
			Re: rewriting history
		    Re: 3d digitized shuttle data
			Re: rewriting history
			Re: rewriting history
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 17 Dec 87 03:17:33 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Oct 26 AW&ST

[Here's the missing issue.  If it occurs to you that I'm posting stuff at
a rather high rate, it's because I'll be away from next week to mid-Jan.]

NASA says space station will be operational 30 years.  The standard crew
of 4 will be a commander, two career astronauts, and one non-career astro.

Japan's National Aerospace Lab orders a light transport aircraft to be
turned into a computer-controlled spaceplane flight-characteristics testbed.

Spot photos [oh hush up Eugene, I know they're technically "images"] of
Soviet antisatellite-laser installations at Nurek and Sary Shagan.

New NASA launch manifest including both shuttle and expendables.  OMB
is not entirely happy with it because there is no funding approval for
the expendables.  There has been some negotiation with the USAF over
DoD payload scheduling.  The latest move to shift more DoD missions off
the shuttle isn't reflected in this manifest yet.  Notable in the new
manifest are one or more TDRS launches on Titans, and a possible "ColdSat"
(storage and transfer of cryogenic propellants in space) mission also on an
expendable.  Truly says NASA FY89 budget will start including major funding
for expendables.  "You can make speeches all day about space leadership,
but what you fund is where the leadership is..."  He also says that the
shuttle is still on track for June, although there is little slack and
some problems, notably the heat-exchanger leak in one of the engines.

Atlas-Centaur selected to launch three metsats in early 1990s, first US
government purchase of private launchers.

Hercules gets contract for uprated Titan 4 SRBs.  (United Technologies
builds the current ones.)

OMB warns that deficit crisis may delay space station.

Impasse over international participation in space station remains.
Oct 13-16 meeting made no real progress, although nobody is yet willing
to admit the possibility that negotiations will fail.  Canada and Japan
are not happy with the current draft agreement, and the less said about
Europe the better.  European delegate says that a major reason for the
protracted and unproductive negotiations is that nobody attending the
meetings has any authority to decide anything.

Small study contracts for Shuttle-C unmanned cargo booster awarded.

Large writeup on "Starlab", SDI Spacelab mission set for 1990.  Basically
a test of laser tracking and pointing systems.

NASA planning to fight what it sees as threats to its role in the space
program:  possible restrictions against NASA involvement in operational
and commercial programs, excessive Commerce and Transport intervention
in shuttle manifesting, definition of manned spaceflight as a "service
function" rather than a goal in its own right.  [I agree with NASA that
the latter two are bad ideas, but the first sounds like a fine concept
that would go a long way to curing some of the damage NASA has done.]

Small study contracts for Mars rover/sample-return missions awarded.

Article on Hughes's new big three-axis-stabilized comsat design.

US and Japan exploring a joint radarsat mission, launched by Japanese
H-2 with spacecraft integration, some of the instruments, and possible
later attachment to the space station done by the US.  1993?

General Dynamics is proposing an Atlas-Centaur aerobraking test mission,
could be flown as early as 1992.

Proposal deadline for Queensland spaceport nears.  Although Queensland
will provide support with things like roads, the actual spaceport would
be entirely a private venture.  An open issue is insurance coverage for
such launches; neither Queensland nor Australia plans to accept the
responsibility, on the grounds that this is the customer's business.
[This could be what shoots the concept down.  More and more, the treaty
that makes nations directly responsible for anything their citizens
launch is looking like a major disaster for private spaceflight.]

Soviet Union moving into detailed planning for its balloon/rover Mars
mission.  Final decision on date (1992 vs 1994) early next year.  They
are looking at the possibility of using aerobraking.  [This could be
humiliating for the US, if the Soviets are using aerobraking in real,
operational missions before the US gets around to even testing it.  A
real possibility.]  One idea being looked at is that the rover might
carry the return vehicle rather than returning to it; this means a
heavier rover, but eliminates the requirement for the rover to find its
way back.

Drawings of Soviet next-generation space station plans, notably with
free-flying platforms for things like materials work and science and a
central assembly/operations center with up to 20 cosmonauts.  [Once
again the Soviets do the right thing; wanna bet they're well on their
way to this before the US launches the first part of its space station?]

Soviets studying emergency-return vehicles for Mir and future stations.

Picture of British Aerospace's design for a multipurpose reentry capsule,
being proposed both as an unmanned materials-processing vehicle and as a
space-station rescue capsule.

International Astronautical Federation meeting shows both US and Europe
uncertain over space goals:  US doesn't know what it wants to do, Europe
doesn't know whether its nations will put up the money for its ideas.

JPL wants to orbit experimental 32-GHz communications system to test this
frequency for future deep-space use; it yields tighter beams and higher
data rates, but at the expense of more interference from Earth weather and
tighter antenna construction and pointing tolerances.

Europe looking to expand its astronaut corps, since manned-space prospects
are looking up.  One open question is where activities will be centered:
"Many countries want to have astronauts living and working within their
borders..."

Thoughtful letter from Daniel P Byrnes (California) pointing out that the
space industry, given the current legal situation, badly needs government
help with insurance, and suggesting the model of the Price-Anderson act that
got commercial nuclear power going:  government-guaranteed coverage for
risks in excess of privately-available insurance.

Letter of the month, perhaps the year, from Frank M. Clark (California):

	"...Asking NASA to assist and solve commercial space problems
	is a bit like asking the Air Force to launch spy satellites on
	Russian boosters because of availability.  Commercial space
	should be solved by commercial expertise and not bureaucraticese."

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 18 Dec 87 05:12:58 GMT
From: clyde!watmath!utgpu!utzoo!henry@rutgers.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Nov 23 AW&ST

ESA suspects its Infrared Space Observatory project will hit cost overruns,
is looking at ways of lowering cost.

Aerospace plane threatened with major budget cuts due to deficit crisis.

Rep. George Brown resigns from House Permanent Select Intelligence Committee
after government criticism of his go-public attitude on spysat pictures.  In
particular, he was criticized for alluding openly to the existence of the
KH-11 spysat.  The Soviets have had the KH-11 operator's manual for nearly
a decade now.  "I would guess they have read that manual by now, but as
a member of the Intelligence Committee, I'm not supposed to mention the
KH-11's existence.  This is ridiculous and I'm tired of it."

Latest House/Senate defense budget compromise continues to ban ASAT tests,
also terminates ASAT production work.

Bad News of the Month [already discussed in the newsgroup, actually]:  Amroc
furloughs most of its employees as investors withdraw after stock-market
crash.  Many employees continue to work without pay, though.  Amroc had
a good prospect of an SDI contract for two suborbital launches in the near
future, but no deal was signed and it looks iffy now.  Amroc Pres. George
Koopman is still hopeful.  Analysts say it is too early to write off Amroc,
because their technology clearly works and the customers are there.

Article detailing Delta 181, the next SDI test, set for early 1988.  It is
basically a sensor and tracking test, carrying its own supply of test
targets.  No violence this time.

Big special feature, multiple articles, on the current state of SDI.
Mostly pretty boring except to SDI junkies.

Ill-advised ad of the year:  Morton Thiokol ad headlined "Technological
barriers are for people without imagination"!  [I am not making this up!
Page 120 if you don't believe me.]

Letter of the week, from Probal Sanyal in Syracuse:  "...In a recent
article comparing the state of the art in US and Russian space technology,
the author made a very perceptive (I think) comment that the greatest
sophistication achieved by the Russians in this area was their ability to
restrain sophistication."  [Amen!]

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Dec 87  19:33:24 EST
From: Castell%UMASS.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu
      (Chip Olson@somewhere.out.there)
Subject: Re: Do we need a Space Station?

Ken Jenks' paper on the pros and cons of the Space Station is without a
doubt the most complete and comprehensive summation of the topic I have
ever seen.  I think the Cost and Long-Term Goals sections should be at
the end, but that's the only possible problem I can see. Excellent work.
                                                      -Chip Olson.

BITNet: Castell@UMass
Internet: Castell%UMass.BITNet@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU

------------------------------

Date: 17 Dec 87 17:09:38 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Do We Need A Space Station?

Mostly a good paper; I have one objection:

> The total effects of upper atmospheric drag and solar radiation
> pressures on satellites are not completely understood.  All bodies
> involved would have to be kept at a large distance to decrease the
> probability of collision to an acceptable level.

This is like arguing that we need a 100-mile separation between aircraft
because we can't predict the effects of weather.  The answer for
satellites is the same as for aircraft: of course you need wide
separations if you make no attempt to track them, monitor their
positions and motions, and take corrective action when a collision
appears possible.

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 17 Dec 87 17:22:09 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Robotics and Automation on the Space Station

> ... I must admit to some disgust at their expression of fear regarding
> robots...

Fear?  Please point to where that was expressed.  Speaking for myself, I
didn't say they were going to run amuck and wreck the place, I said they
weren't going to work and many man-hours would be wasted trying to make
them work.

> ...  *None* of the eventual devices sent up will be unproven....  they
> will all have been tested extensively and will have proved their
> usefulness.

Tested on the ground, i.e. in an environment that is not representative
of the environment they will have to work in for many years.  If you
think this is a trivial issue, please explain to me *exactly* how
Skylab's momentum wheels failed -- they were thoroughly tested on the
ground!  And they were just spinning wheels, not complex mechanisms.
(For those who hate mysteries, the failures were thought to be some kind
of lubrication problem; we do *not* understand long-term lubricant
behavior in free-fall very well.)      
                                       
> I do not agree that we cannot afford *new* technology--I don't think
> the space station will work with- out new technology...
                                       
The Mir astronauts would get a good laugh out of that.  A
carefully-designed space station works just fine without new technology.
Pretty well the only thing wrong with Skylab was that it wasn't built
for in-space resupply and maintenance... and Skylab was built with
mid-60s technology.                    

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 18 Dec 87 19:37:02 GMT
From: paulf%umunhum@labrea.stanford.edu
Subject: Re: space news from Oct 26 AW&ST

In article <1987Dec16.221739.1524@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>NASA says space station will be operational 30 years.  The standard
>crew of 4 will be a commander, two career astronauts, and one
>non-career astro.

No, no, you've got it all wrong, Henry.  It should be "NASA says space
station will be operational IN 30 years."  :-)


-=Paul Flaherty, N9FZX

------------------------------

Date: 14 Dec 87 23:07:11 GMT
From: pioneer!eugene@ames.arpa  (Eugene Miya N.)
Subject: Re: rewriting history

In article <8712141811.AA01413@hypatia.mit.edu> loeb@BOURBAKI.MIT.EDU writes:
>Heat shields (basically correct
>rapidly. I saw someone hold a Shuttle tile in his bare hand [edges]
>that had been heated to 10000 degrees, but he wasn't burnt
>since the tile was hardly dissapating any heat.

The people here in the Thermal Protection Branch find this a surprise.
10000 degrees eh?  That's the best figure we've seen ;-).

>From the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA
  "You trust the `reply' command with all those different mailers out there?"
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."
  {uunet,hplabs,hao,ihnp4,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene

------------------------------

Date: 4 Dec 87 09:49:43 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!reading!onion!bru-me!ralph@uunet.uu.net  (Ralph Mitchell)
Subject: Re: 3d digitized shuttle data

In article <509@otto.cvedc.UUCP> billa@otto.UUCP (Bill Anderson) writes:
>In article <> apollo@ecf.toronto.edu (Vince Pugliese) writes:
>>
>>As well I will be include a very simple C program, hacked together by fellow group member
>> [...]
>
>If anyone out there in netland converts this C program so that it can be
>run on suns, please post the results of your work to the net.

It has already been done.  The program should be in
/usr/demo/SRC/shaded.c, the shuttle data is in /usr/demo/DATA/space.dat.
There are notes on running it in /usr/demo/README.  The program displays
2 windows with cursor lines, to enable you to select the 3d viewpoint,
and there's a pop-up menu for setting fill style and colour, &c.  For
monochrome you need to select the "edges" (I think) fill style or it'll
look pretty wierd.  Also, if your display surface doesn't support hidden
surface removal, you'll get a wireframe effect that can be confusing to
the eye.

/usr/demo/DATA also contains data files for an icosahedron, a pyramid, a
ball and a Klein bottle.

 From:  Ralph Mitchell at Brunel University, Uxbridge, UB8, 3PH, UK
 JANET: ralph@uk.ac.brunel.cc	  ARPA:  ralph%cc.brunel.ac.uk@cwi.nl
 UUCP:  ...ukc!cc.brunel!ralph   PHONE: +44 895 74000 x2561
 "There's so many different worlds, so many different Suns" -- Dire Straits

------------------------------

Date: 16 Dec 87 23:34:12 GMT
From: uop!robert@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu  (Hi how ya doin)
Subject: Re: rewriting history

In article <3656@ames.arpa>, eugene@pioneer.arpa (Eugene Miya N.) writes:
> In article <8712141811.AA01413@hypatia.mit.edu> loeb@BOURBAKI.MIT.EDU writes:
> >Heat shields (basically correct rapidly. I saw someone hold a Shuttle
> >tile in his bare hand [edges] that had been heated to 10000 degrees,
> >but he wasn't burnt since the tile was hardly dissapating any heat.
> 
> The people here in the Thermal Protection Branch find this a surprise.
> 10000 degrees eh?  That's the best figure we've seen ;-).

I remember that demo, the guy who did it at our school held the cool
side of the tile to his face, after making it orange with a blow-torch.

he also had some unique foam padding that you could drop to your knees
on, and not get hurt, it had a good shock absorbing ability.

anyone know where i can get some? who makes it for NASA?

------------------------------

Date: 18 Dec 87 07:14:15 GMT
From: ihnp4!upba!eecae!crlt!russ@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Russ Cage)
Subject: Re: rewriting history

In article <849@uop.edu>, robert@uop.edu (Hi how ya doin) writes:
[speaking of thermal tile material]
>I remember that demo, the guy who did it at our school held the cool
>side of the tile to his face, after making it orange with a blow-torch.

There's also the classic photo of a tech, holding a cube of thermal tile
material which is still glowing orange-hot seconds after coming out of a
furnace.  No, those fingers weren't prosthetic.

But there is a trick.  If you grab the *sides* of the cube, you *will*
be burned.  The corners, on the other hand, cool very rapidly, and you
can grasp the cube by them even while the rest of the cube is hot.
(Info courtesy Jim Loudon and the _Astrofest_ lecture series.)

Russ Cage

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #81
*******************

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	id AA04638; Sun, 20 Dec 87 03:20:19 PST
Date: Sun, 20 Dec 87 03:20:19 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8712201120.AA04638@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #82

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 82

Today's Topics:
			   Re: Planetary B
		      Six year trip for Galileo
			Re: heat-shield tiles
		      Space in Presidents Speech
		       joint ventures in space
		   Candiates' space forum cancelled
			      Candidate
	Re:Cashew nut heat shield - And other vegetable ideas!
	    automation/robotics on space station, why not
		Re: Condensed CANOPUS - November 1987
		      Re: Cashew nut heat shield
		      Re: Cashew nut heat shield
		      Re: Cashew nut heat shield
		  Biological substance in spacecraft
		      Re: Cashew nut heat shield
		      Re: Remote Sensing Fascism
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 16 Dec 87 01:29:11 GMT
From: cbosgd!clyde!watmath!utgpu!utzoo!henry@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Planetary B

> ... a listing for 'Planetary B/U', to be launched 5/91 on a Titan
> IV/IUS. I've never heard of a mission by this name. Does B/U mean
> something obvious? ...

I would guess it means "backup", and that this is a launch slot reserved
against the possibility of trouble in an earlier planetary launch.

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 17 Dec 87 09:28:23 GMT
From: tektronix!zeus!tekla!dant@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Dan Tilque;1893;92-789;LP=A;60aC)
Subject: Six year trip for Galileo

The Dec 12 issue of Science News had an article about NASA's plans for
the Galileo mission to Jupiter.  [All the quantities in the article are
in English units, which gives me the idea that they are just rehashing a
NASA press release.  SN usually uses the units of its source.]  Here is
a summary:

The launch date is now set for Oct 1989 on the Space Shuttle Discovery.
I will now use a less powerful booster than the originally scheduled
Centaur (the article did not say which booster was going to be used)
because the Centaur is considered too dangerous to be launched aboard
the shuttle.

Because of the less powerful booster, Galileo will have to make three
planetary flybys in the inner solar system to gain the necessary
velocity to make it to Jupiter.  There will also be two asteroid flybys.

Flyby 1 is to Venus in Feb 1990, closest approach 9300 miles.  Some
follow up work to Pioneer 12 will be done at Venus.

Flyby 2 is Earth at 620 miles in Dec 1990.  Infrared mapping of the far
side of the moon will be done on this flyby.

Flyby 3 is asteroid Gaspra at 620 miles in Oct 1991.  First look at an
asteroid.

Flyby 4 is Earth (again) at 200 miles in Dec 1992.  Again mapping of
moon in infrared.

Flyby 5 is asteroid Ida.  Date and distance were not given.

In July 1995 the atmospheric probe will be released.

Insertion into Jovian orbit will be in Dec 1995, six years after launch.

What the article left out: anything about possible problems.  For
example, it did not give the launch window (I would expect it to be
narrow to make all the flybys) and what happens if there is a delay in
the shuttle schedule which makes it impossible to make the window.

Dan Tilque
dant@tekla.tek.com  or dant@tekla.UUCP

------------------------------

Date: 18 Dec 87 03:09:10 GMT
From: thurm@speedy.wisc.edu  (Matthew J. Thurmaier)
Subject: Re: heat-shield tiles

As long as people are looking for other things that nasa uses, I would
really like to find out how to get my hands on some of the heat-shield
tiles that the shuttle uses.  Any one have any ideas?

Matthew J. Thurmaier
U of Wisc - Madison, Computer Systems Lab
matt@rsch.wisc.edu

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Dec 87 13:08:20 EST
From: loeb@BOURBAKI.MIT.EDU
To: ihnp4!homxb!mtuxo!rolls!doug!tim@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Cc: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: Space in Presidents Speech

The Russians wanted to plan a special meeting between
Gorbachev and Reagan to discuss joint ventures in space, but
the Americans quashed the idea.

------------------------------

Date: 14 DEC 87 11:37-PST
From: clopez%UCIVMSA.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu
Subject: joint ventures in space
X-Original_To: space%ANGBAND.S1.GOV@orion
X-Routing: SMTP @ INTERBIT

   I don't believe anything was said about space (except SDI) at the
summit.  But on ABC News ``Capital to Capital'' which linked
Congresspeople in Washington D.C. to Supreme Soviet members in Moscow, a
New Jersey Senator proposed a joint US/Soviet Manned Mars Landing by the
100th anniversity of the soviet revolution (2017).  This was applaued by
the members of the Supreme Soviet present.  This was about 2-3 weeks
ago.
   Also, last night (12/13) on CBS News Nightwatch, former Secretary of
State Cyrus Vance (Carter Admin.) said the Soviets are looking into
joint ventures of all kinds because they need capital dollars and
western technology to improve their economy the way Gorby wants to.
They are recognizing the western need for profits as part of the deal.

Carlos A. Lopez (clopez@ucivmsa)
University of California at Irvine

------------------------------

Date:     Tue, 15 Dec 87 18:14 CST
From: Bill Higgins, Beam Jockey <HIGGINS%FNALE.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Subject:  Candiates' space forum cancelled

The House Subcommittee on Space Science and Applications hearings on
space policy, which were scheduled for December 18th in Iowa City, have
been postponed.  The forum is now scheduled for Friday, February 5th.
It was to include testimony on space policy by Democratic presidential
candidates, leading space scientists, educators, and represenatives of
the National Space Society and other citizens' groups.  As far as I
know, another forum will be held for Republican candidates in New
Hampshire, but information about the date of that event hasn't reached
me.

The HSSSA is a subcommittee of the House Committee on Space, Science,
and Technology.  It is chaired by Rep. Bill Nelson (D, Florida), and its
Minority Leader is Rep. Robert S. Walker (R, Pennsylvania).

                                       Bill Higgins
                                       Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
                                       HIGGINS@FNALB.BITNET
                                       SPAN/HEPnet: 43011::HIGGINS

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Dec 87 09:00:33 EST
From: loeb@BOURBAKI.MIT.EDU
To: cbosgd!clyde!watmath!utgpu!utzoo!henry@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Cc: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: Candidate

I have written to the candidates for Presidency for their
policy sheets including the ones on the Space Program. If
any one is interested I can post the results. So far, only
Bush has replied.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Dec 87 13:11:48 EST
From: loeb@BOURBAKI.MIT.EDU
To: ihnp4!homxb!mtuxo!mtune!codas!novavax!augusta!bs@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Cc: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: Re:Cashew nut heat shield - And other vegetable ideas!

   I've always thought the definition of a heat shield is something that
   can dissapate heat rapidly. That is, once it's hot, it can get rid of

Nope. A heat shield is something which heat has trouble getting through.
In other words, it doesn't transmit heat well. Therefore, it can not
(by definition) dissapate heat rapidly. I saw someone hold a Shuttle
tile in his bare hand that had been heated to 10000 degrees, but he
wasn't burnt since the tile was hardly dissapating any heat.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Dec 87 13:16:41 EST
From: loeb@BOURBAKI.MIT.EDU
To: karn@faline.bellcore.com
Cc: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: automation/robotics on space station, why not

   Date: 10 Dec 87 09:47:34 GMT
   From: karn@faline.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)

   > ...All Voyager did was take pictures.

In fact, even PUTTING a camera on the Voyagers was a last minute
decision resulting from the cancellation of another payload.

------------------------------

Date: 14 Dec 87 17:03:45 GMT
From: steinmetz!brspyr1!miket@itsgw.rpi.edu  (Mike Trout)
Subject: Re: Condensed CANOPUS - November 1987

In article <836@cfa.cfa.harvard.EDU>, willner@cfa.harvard.EDU (Steve Willner) writes:

> COMET PENETRATOR TESTED - can871109.txt - 11/17/87
> Prototype of the penetrator for the Comet Rendezvous/Asteroid Flyby
> mission was tested in October at Sandia National Laboratories in
> Albuqueque, N.M. The 1.5-meter probe was dropped into hard ice at
> shallow angles to prove that penetrations could be made under the
> worst terrain conditions. Early tests in 1985 were performed by
> Principal Investigator William Boynton of the University of Arizona
> with a model dropped 150 feet off the university football stadium
> into a 55-gallon drum of ice.

Hmmm.  Interesting experiment.  In May of 1974 a similar experiment was
conducted at the same location.  At approximately 2 a.m., a number of
residents of Papago Lodge (one of the men's dorms adjacent to the
University of Arizona Football Stadium) gained access to the locked
stadium through devious means.  I accompanied this stalwart team of
investigators, serving as technical advisor; I had also supplied the
test probe.  The test probe was an unopened one-gallon can of fire
engine red oil-based paint.  The probe was carefully dropped in an
upright condition into the (mostly deserted) parking lot below.  We
estimated the time to impact as a bit over two seconds.  The impact
noise was similar to that of a 155 mm hozitzer letting loose; the echo
reverberations around the various campus buildings was most gratifying.
The impact pattern was a red disk approximately 15 feet in diameter with
the telescoped paint can resting neatly in the center; the lid was still
partially attached.  Some paint spatters travelled an impressive
distance; two droplets were found on a Jeep's bumper over 25 feet away.
Unfortunately, further observations were impossible, due to the
intervention of a team of campus police and dormitory directors.  I am
told that to this day there is a slight pinkish tint to the parking lot
in that area.

I am most grateful that William Boynton has continued the proud
tradition of dropping things off the U of A football stadium.  All hail
to scientific experimentation.
-- 
Michael Trout (miket@brspyr1) =-=-=-=-=-=-= UUCP:brspyr1!miket

------------------------------

Date: 14 Dec 87 19:06:49 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Cashew nut heat shield

> India is to be the first nation to launch a spaceship composed partly of
> vegetable matter.

Sorry, the Daily Telegraph is misinformed.  The Chinese routinely use
wooden heatshields.  Oak may be a bit heavier than the sexy high-tech
materials, but it works fine, and is a whole lot cheaper.

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 15 Dec 87 13:13:06 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!stc!pete@uunet.uu.net  (Peter Kendell)
Subject: Re: Cashew nut heat shield

I'm sure someone (Henry?) will set me straight but I seem to remember
that the Surveyor Moon landers were encased in a balsa wood outer shell
to cushion the impact of a (not very) soft landing.

Peter Kendell <pete@tcom.stc.co.uk>
...{uunet!}mcvax!ukc!stc!pete

------------------------------

Date: 17 Dec 87 01:56:51 GMT
From: spar!freeman@decwrl.dec.com  (Jay Freeman)
Subject: Re: Cashew nut heat shield

In article <489@stc-f.tcom.stc.co.uk> pete@tcom.stc.co.uk (Peter Kendell) writes:

>	I'm sure someone (Henry?) will set me straight but I seem to
>	remember that the Surveyor Moon landers were encased in a balsa
>	wood outer shell to cushion the impact of a (not very) soft
>	landing.

I'm not Henry, but what I seem to remember is that a few of the latter
Ranger probes (which did not soft-land, but took pictures all the way
till impact) had a detachable capsule that was supposed to be braked by
rocket till it was falling sufficiently slowly that it could survive
impact.  If memory serves, the capsule was roughly spherical and
featured a balsa shell.

I do not remember whether (a) this was a proposed enhancement to Ranger
that never flew or (b) was an actual enhancement that never worked.  I
am pretty sure that no such capsule actually soft-landed (should we say
"firm-landed"?) on the Moon.  It would have been big news.


						-- Jay Freeman

------------------------------

Date:         Fri, 18 Dec 87 02:10:00 EST
From: Kenneth Ng <KEN%ORION.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Subject:      Biological substance in spacecraft

>Date:         Thu, 10 Dec 87 00:26:52 EST
>From: ST401385%BROWNVM.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu
>Subject:      Vegetable Spaceships
> . . .
>     I think none of the designs using balsa ended up on the final
>version, though.
>
>--Geoffrey A. Landis, Ph.D     BITNET: ST401385 at BROWNVM

Didn't some of the Ranger series space craft that landed (or rather
collided) with the moon carry a sphere of balsa wood with a transmitter
inside?  This I'm very unsure of because I don't remember if I read it
in an account of the Ranger series or a proposal for the Ranger series.

Kenneth Ng: ken@orion.bitnet, ken@argus.uucp, ken@mars.uucp

------------------------------

Date: 17 Dec 87 17:33:59 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Cashew nut heat shield

> 	I'm sure someone (Henry?) will set me straight but I seem to
> 	remember that the Surveyor Moon landers were encased in a balsa
> 	wood outer shell to cushion the impact of a (not very) soft
> 	landing.

No, the Surveyors made soft landings on rockets.  You are thinking of
some of the early Rangers, which carried a small hard-landing capsule in
a balsawood casing.  Those early Ranger missions were all dismal
failures, for a variety of reasons, so the landing capsules never got a
chance to work.  The earlier Luna missions apparently were hard-landers
using a vaguely similar scheme, although later on the Soviets did
succeed with soft-landers.

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 14 Dec 87 17:47:24 GMT
From: pioneer!eugene@ames.arpa  (Eugene Miya N.)
Subject: Re: Remote Sensing Fascism

Geez, I guess I should comment on this.
In article <34@canopus.UUCP> joe@canopus.UUCP () writes:
>	I find it interesting that the US government tries to limit the

Clarification: Not the US Government: the US DOD.

>resolution people may get from satellites. A problem I haven't heard
>mentioned yet is how to stop people from getting around this limitation
>by data-processing means. It turns out that many of the "good old"
>techniques of Geophysicists are brand new to Synthetic Aperture Radar
>people. Geophysicists here at Stanford are getting higher than the
>allowed resolution off of vintage Seasat data, simply by using better
>processing techniques. If you use multiple images of the same scene
>from different orbits, you can do even better (MUCH better, I've been
>told).

This depends.  Vintage?  That sounds weird.  Never compared the data to
a fine wine, but then I don't drink.  Back to multiple looks.  That
might be the case with the land, but it was an oceanographic satellite,
and there are limitations when dealing with the sea. P.S. They just made
Charles E. a Lab ALD (Assist. Lab Director).  Anyway, it depends on a
lot to look better.  If we only really knew "how radar worked..."
[Ref: Skolnik]

Another postered noted multiple looks akin to animation (looking
better).  Again, this is not necessary the case.  As Rob Cook was fond
of pointing out, the blurr of Andre in The Adventures of Andre and Wally
B.  doesn't look well in a single still, and single stills are very
important in analysis.

>	How does this square with regulations? I've heard rumors that
>the untimely death of Seasat was "not an accident". Anybody else hear
>anything like that?

Since our Section at JPL was one of those investigated by Congress, I
think I can safely say it was an accident, but we had other fears that
things would not work.  Fewer mechanical things work in 0-G than you
might believe.  There are more important things to worry about.  Also,
don't forget that SIR (Shuttle Imaging Radar, basically a Seasat clone)
has also flown twice and will fly again (so one friend hopes, she will
fly with it) and again.

Argh! I don't have time for this.

>From the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #82
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 21 Dec 87 06:17:25 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA06084; Mon, 21 Dec 87 03:18:17 PST
	id AA06084; Mon, 21 Dec 87 03:18:17 PST
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 87 03:18:17 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8712211118.AA06084@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #83

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 83

Today's Topics:
		      Re: Remote Sensing Fascism
	     Re: Remote Sensing Resolution (was Fascism)
		Remote Sensing Fascism & AMROC Update
			Re: 2001 N. Clark St.
			     ABM History
		     Re: Robotic devices in space
		     Re: Exact Time (help please)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 14 Dec 87 19:49:22 GMT
From: mcvax!enea!luth!cad!sow@uunet.uu.net  (Sven-Ove Westberg)
Subject: Re: Remote Sensing Fascism

In article <34@canopus.UUCP> joe@canopus.UUCP () writes:
>I find it interesting that the US government tries to limit the
>resolution people may get from satellites. A problem I haven't heard
>mentioned yet is how to stop people from getting around this limitation
>by data-processing means.

Or buy them outside US. In fact it is possible to buy a 6m resolution
images from Soviet today. Soviet needs $$$. The French Spot satellite
produce 10m images.

I can only see one reason for the government to limit the resolution.
It would be very inconvenient if everyone knows the real truth. I don't
belive that ANY government cares about personal integrity. Free
information will strengthen the democracy. We have seen some affairs the
"Iran-Contras" in the US. In Sweden everyone is wondering why our marine
never hits the alien (read Soviet) submarines in our archipelago. This
was just two examples. I hope that all of us want to reduce this type of
affairs.

By the way has anyone in the states heard about the "peace angel :-)"
Gorbatjovs space wapons. It was a good article on it in a Swedish paper
some month ago. Soviet is doing research with big laser guns.  The
article was based on satellite images from the French spot satellite.

Sven-Ove Westberg, CAD, University of Lulea, S-951 87 Lulea, Sweden.
UUCP:    {uunet,mcvax}!enea!cad.luth.se!sow
Internet: sow@cad.luth.se

The first and second law for great men.
- Get reelected.
- Create a monument with your name on.

------------------------------

Date: 16 Dec 87 18:55:48 GMT
From: pioneer!eugene@ames.arpa  (Eugene Miya N.)
Subject: Re: Remote Sensing Resolution (was Fascism)

There is an excellent article on this issue including a SPOT image of
Karg (sp?) island in the current Science.

In article <905@luth.luth.se> sow@cad.luth.se (Sven-Ove Westberg) writes:
>I can only see one reason for the government to limit the resolution.

There are many good technical reasons to limit resolution.  It depends
on the scale of the phenomena you are trying to observe.  It also means
the bulk of the magnetic tape or disk you are willing to store.
Consider that a building to house tapes of a X resolution satellite
requires 4 times the storage for a .5X resolution resolution satellite
(O(n^2) right?) assuming constant tape density.  Care to guess the data
volume of Landsat? (SPOT?)  It gets to nano-seconds of data collection
and multi-million dollar instruments which we only have the vaguest idea
of how to design [``Professional Science!'' say it in a Steve Martin
stretched out kind of voice] .

The problem non-serious users of imagery have is the cost.  You
(generic) want nice false color pictures of the topography around your
home.  A one time purchase, meanwhile the satellite is still flying
overhead.  You just LOOK at the data.  You might take in 500 MBs of data
in a single frame.

Serious users of imagery need time dependent data.  It requires
alignment, synchronization, and other tricks (See Deep Black).  It must
be rectified, bit errors require correction, etc.  This are expensive
and not relevant to solving end-user problems.  Frequently, you don't
`look' at an image.  You might convolute it, look at the frequency
domain of the image, etc.  This relates to Henry Spencer's comments
about cameras on Voyager for instance (another visual data bias).
Serious users also require an understanding of spectra.  IR, UV and
radar don't behave like visible light. Sensor geometries differ and
sub-pixel resolution is sometimes obtainable.  Resolution involves trade
offs, and they are not all geo-political.

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Dec 87 21:13:46 PST
From: ota@mariner.s1.gov
Subject: Remote Sensing Fascism & AMROC Update

The Dec 14 issue of AW&ST on pg 30 says that Amroc is recalling most of
its layed off workers.  They have found a new (unnamed) private
investor.

Following Dale Amon's original diatribe about remote sensing fascism and
a story called "Russians' Pictures of Earth Stir U.S." in the 27
September New York Times, I motivated myself to send a letter to all the
usual suspects (my Representatives, Senators, and the President).  A few
weeks ago I received a clearly personalized response from California
Senator Cranston, who basically said he was forwarding my note to
someone in DoD for comment.  Today I received the DoD response from one,
Thomas P. Quinn, Principal Deputy, Asst Secty Defense, Command, Control,
Communication and Intelligence.  It was quite a detailed denial of all
charges (mostly those included in the NYT story) at least on behalf of
DoD: "The Defense Department has, to date, posed no objections ...",
etc, etc for two full pages.

Somewhere I've seen a note that some company was approached to handle US
distribution of Soviet Images but was holding back because they were
worried that their government contracts would be jepordized.  Anyway I
thought the last paragraph of the letter addressed this question nicely.

   'Please be assured there is no truth in the comments in Mr.
    Anderson's letter that "the Defense Department is discouraging
    companies from marketing Soviet satellite images," and the Defense
    Department is not involved in any effort to use national security
    "as an argument to prevent U.S. comapnies from entering the
    potentially lucrative business of providing pictures from space."'

Best response from an elected rep I've ever gotten!
	Ted Anderson

------------------------------

Date: 13 Dec 87 08:33:59 GMT
From: ihnp4!chinet!editor@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Alex Zell)
Subject: Re: 2001 N. Clark St.

In article <8712100004.AA00500@galileo.s1.gov> GODDEN@gmr.COM writes:
>In vol.8 no.69 Bill Higgins wrote about a space meeting in Chicago and
>buried in his msg was a reference to the Chicago Academy of Sciences,
>which has its office on 2001 N. Clark St. in Chicago.  What I'm
>interested in is HOW was this organization able to obtain that
>particular address, since I'm sure it's deliberate.  Is there some
>interesting story that you might share on the net?
>
>-Kurt Godden
> godden@gmr.com

It is with great regret that I must report that there was no
hanky-panky, Chicago-style, or other venal machinations that caused the
little museum known as the Chicago Academy of Sciences to be given the
address of 2001 N. Clark St.  I do indeed admit that it had never
occurred to me to notice the symbolism about which the author of the
original query asked.
 
  Belay your suspicions, my friend.  The museum comes by its address
honestly and forthrightly, without the assistance of apostate judges and
lawyers (so prominently displayed in the world press in recent months),
nor of politicians (doesn't it sound like a dirty word when properly
pronounced?) but as the result of a plan espoused by the great architect
and city planner, Daniel Burnham, who, upon presenting a master plan for
the city, cautioned its people to "make no small plans." (Poor memory
prevents me from quoting more of his adjuration.)
 
  In short, Chicago streets and house numbers are created by the
location of the property on a rectangular (Cartesian) grid, with its
center at State and Madison streets.  Angular, diagonal and curved or
circular streets are fitted into the pattern in logical fashion.
 
  The museum happens to be located in Lincoln Park, on the east side of
Clark st., and at 2000 North.  Addresses on the east side of streets
running in a north-south direction and on the south side of streets
running east-west receive odd numbers.  The museum, because of its
location, was provided with with its proper address: 2001 N. Clark,
willy-nilly.  That occurred before the idiotic practice being
perpetrated these days of each owner designating his property as #1
Something Plaza.  (It gives me some pleasure, whenever someone gives me
his address as "One Magnificent Mile" (yeah, there is such a place) I
reject it and tell the caller, "Sorry, never heard of such a street.
Give me your street address."  I get it, too.  (Something on Michigan
avenue.)
 
   While the original reference to this subject may have had some
tenuous connection with space interests, I believe any further
discussion, which I doubt would have any value, should be directed to
alt.flame.
 
  Incidentally, a reading of the original inquiry suggests that the
author thinks the academy is a collegium of great scientists.  While its
membership may include a number of persons qualified to be called
"scientists" the organization is merely a museum, a very small one
indeed, that has some very fine exhibits dealing primarily with
Chicago's environs.  The museum for many years was the fiefdom of Dr.
Beecher, who was eased out under circumstances that escape me.  During
his tenure the museum housed the Chicago Microscopical Society which
conducted classes for school children interested in microscopy.  A
number of students went on to win national science fair awards.  The
classes are now conducted at McCrone Co. labs.  The Chicago Astronomical
Society also used to meet there.

------------------------------

Date:         Sun, 13 Dec 87 17:41:37 EST
From: ST401385%BROWNVM.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu
Subject:      ABM History

Some recent comments by Robert C. Pilz on ABM related issues contained
so many incorrect and misleading statements that I felt compelled
to correct them, despite the fact that I feel very leary of putting
anything vaguely political on the net for fear of a flame-fight.

>This time it was the ABM system at Kwajalein Island of the
>Marshalls in the Pacific. We have a system of Nike X and Sprint missles
>designed to knock out ICBM's.
     "Nike X" (a Western-Electric product, by the way) was never built.
The later version, tested but never made operational, was Sprint.

>This non-nuclear weapon system,
     Safeguard was INDEED nuclear.  This was a good part of the
reason people protested against it so loudly.

>purely a defensive system was deamed "provocative" by the Soviets
     The problem was that it was destabilizing, not that it was
"provocative", and it was American scientists that worked hard to
convince the Soviet ones that the ABM was destabilizing.

>so their ABM system and ours were torn down. We each have one left.
>Ours is in Grand Forks ND
    The ABM treaty indeed allows each country to retain one ABM
installation, and the US specified that ours was to be in ND, BUT as
installation was coming in way over budget, and it was pretty much
conceded by that time that it would not be very effective, it was
scrapped.  The US has no operational ABMs, although we are allowed one.
    The Russians still have the system that the treaty permits them,
about 200 missiles, which defend Moscow.  Of course, to destroy Moscow,
all we need to do is send 201 warheads. (Or send ten, and figure that
their system is unlikely to be more than 90% effective.)

>(we have to keep Canada safe for Democracy, don't we?).
    Protecting Canada has little to do with it.  Since Canada is north
of ND and Russian missiles would come over the pole, Canada isn't
defended by emplacements in Grand Forks anyway.
    The real reason for the Grand Forks emplacement was to protect the
ICBM fields in ND and Nebraska, to maintain our deterrant.

    Now, a *very* brief capsule history of the great ABM debate of
1968-74.  ABM's ("Anti Ballistic Missiles; previously referred to as
"Anti-Missile Missiles") were a technology first pioneered by the US.
The US announced that they would be setting up an ABM system in the late
'60's (this eventually evolved into Safeguard, a system of
nuclear-tipped ABM's of which "Sprint" was one of the components).  The
Soviets soon followed with their own system. This Soviet "threat" scared
the hell out of the Pentagon, who figured that a Soviet missile defense
would make the American deterrant obsolete.  After a considerably amount
of study of ways of penetrating the Soviet defense, the proposal was
made to put many warheads on each (offensive) missile, a technology
called "MIRV", for Multiple Independently Targetted Reentry Vehicles.
If three warheads were placed on each Minuteman missile, for example, it
would take them three ABM missiles to defend against each one Minuteman.
Since an ABM missile costs roughly the same amount as an offensive
missile, this results in "saturation" of the defense.
   This technology was implemented, and roughly two years later, the
Soviets followed suit.
   (This turned out, later, to be disasterous for strategic stability.
Until MIRV, it was impossible for a first strike to take out all of an
opposing nation's rataliatiatory capability.  After MIRV, a strategy
called "counterforce" became feasable, where a small number of missiles
with multiple warheads takes out the other side's offense, leaving you a
large amount of missiles left to threaten whatever else you wanted.
This promotes a "use it or lose it" mentality, which is badly
destabilizing.)
   Around 1968-69, a large grass-roots movement in the US sprang up as
the first Safeguard installations were beginning to be built.  Unlike
ICBM installations, which in general are out in farmland, many of the
ABM installations were in relatively populated areas (for example, the
one near Chicago, where I lived at the time, was to be in Libertyville,
IL).  The people in this town basically said, we don't want
nuclear-armed missiles in our town, go put them somewhere else.
   About this time, various disarmament organizations did the math,
which showed that any ABM system can be easily saturated at a cost far
less than that of the ABM.  They eventually convinced Congress etc., who
worried about the fact that the Soviet response to our ABM system had
been to go on a large binge of missile building.  The hard part of the
campaign was to convince the Soviets, who had a mind set that defensive
missiles were by definition good.  When this was done, the ABM treaty
was signed, in which both sides agreed not to set up a country-wide
missile defense system.
   The arguments from the ABM era still continue into the current SDI
era.  In fact, part of the original Pentagon specification to Congress
on SDI was that it should be "cost effective at the margin".  That's
economist talk; economists use the word "marginal" to mean what
everybody else says "incremental" to mean.  The translation is that is
should cost less for a deployed SDI system to add the capability to
shoot down one more missile than it would cost the Russians to add one
more missile to their arsenal.  Interestingly enough, the Pentegon later
told Congress that they wanted to remove this specification (changing it
to simply "cost effective", a word which, as the Pentegon uses it, is
essentially meaningless.)

--Geoffrey A. Landis, Ph.D          Brown University
Until late January:  BITNET: ST401385 at BROWNVM
internet address (new): ST401385%BROWNVM.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU

------------------------------

Date: 14 Dec 87 18:03:42 GMT
From: pioneer!eugene@ames.arpa  (Eugene Miya N.)
Subject: Re: Robotic devices in space

In article <2818@zeus.TEK.COM> dant@tekla.UUCP (Dan Tilque) writes:
>Henry Spencer:  ...All Voyager did was take pictures.
>
>Phil R. Karn writes:
>>Henry, sometimes you surprise me.
 Description of other science instruments deleted for space.
	Henry didn't surprise me, because he is visually oriented (as
	are most people) and he wants space for reasons different than
	say you are I.
>I think that what Henry really meant was that Voyager was a passive data
>gathering device and not an active environment manipulator.
>
>Except for the Viking shovel and the Shuttle arm, we haven't used any
>manipulating robotic devices in space (if I'm wrong someone will surely
>correct me).  That only counts NASA-launched devices.  I'm not that
>familiar with what the Soviets have launched.  They did have a lunar
>"rover" and material return device (name forgotten).  Any others?
Luna.

"Telescience" (as opposed to Pacific Bell's "Telesis") is a major new
concept for the science community.  There are major problems.  The
posting from GSFC pointed a little bit out.  There are three basic ideas
for robotics from manipulators to autonomous vehicles.  Yes mission
planners recognize the political value of an exhibit at the Smithsonian
where say, you move a stick and an arm moves on the Moon.

Major needs:

Development of communications protocols which can work with satellite
distances.  The 1 second delays to the moon (3 seconds back [rounding,
etc.] are significant.  Dave Clark (MIT) gave an interesting talk on
some problems with conventional protocols (TCP/IP) and satellite
communications.  This brings up two episodes from Sci Fi shows Outer
Limits had the Invisible Enemy on Mars seven minute communications
delays (obviously closest approach) and the last note on remote sensing,
there was an episode on the camp British Sci Fi, UFO on the importance
of scale and sensing.

>From the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA

Like the man said, "Space is big, really big...."

------------------------------

Date: 15 Dec 87 04:37:49 GMT
From: tektronix!zeus!tekla!dant@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Dan Tilque;1893;92-789;LP=A;60aC)
Subject: Re: Exact Time (help please)

T. Terrell Banks writes:
>Ken Trant writes:
>>I have been asked by my Young Astronauts group to find out how the
>>correct time is determined.
>
>       Try calling WWV (National Bureau of Standards) in Fort Collins.
>       I think the number is (303) 499-7111.

I believe they also broadcast the time on short wave.  I don't remember
the exact frequencies, but try 2.5, 5 and 10 MHz.  (If I'm wrong,
someone is sure to correct me.)  You can actually hear the "leap second"
that will take place at the end of year.  Exciting stuff...

Dan Tilque
dant@tekla.tek.com  or dant@tekla.UUCP

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #83
*******************

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Date: Tue, 22 Dec 87 03:18:15 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8712221118.AA08070@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #84

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 84

Today's Topics:
		     Purging the Van Allen Belts
		      British Space Development
		      British Space Development
			   Britain in space
		     Re: Exact Time (help please)
		    Re: Treaties with the Russians
		     Re: Recycling Pershing-II's
		     Re: Robotic devices in space
		     Re:  Recycling Pershing-II's
		       Recycling Pershing-II's
		    Re: Treaties with the Soviets
		     Re:  Recycling Pershing-II's
		    Re: Treaties with the Soviets
			 Recycling Pershings
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Dec 87 09:07 EDT
From: "Paul F. Dietz" <DIETZ%sdr.slb.com@relay.cs.net>
Subject: Purging the Van Allen Belts

Yesterday's (12/15/87) NY Times Science Times section had a short
article that might be of interest to the readers of this digest. Some
scientists have found that certain earth-based transmitters have been
found to accidently induce instabilities that can cause the
precipitation of electrons from the magnetosphere into the upper
atmosphere. It might be possible to use this effect to rid the Van Allen
belts of their trapped electrons.

Paul F. Dietz
dietz@sdr.slb.com

------------------------------

Date: 15 Dec 87 10:31:11 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!its63b!bob@uunet.uu.net  (ERCF08 Bob Gray)
Subject: British Space Development

In article <1580@brahma.cs.hw.ac.uk> adrian@cs.hw.ac.uk (Adrian Hurt) writes:
>The jet plane was invented practically at the same time by Britain,
>Germany and the U.S.A. Germany had the first flying jet aircraft,
>followed closely by Britain. Britain would have had a jet fighter not
>long after the Battle of Britain except for government intervention. ...
[...]
>Now, for those who say "Why is this in sci.space?", read the above and
>apply the lessons of history to the shuttle, Hermes, HOTOL, or whatever
>craft your country should be sponsoring.

The one thing you could rely on from ALL British goverments for the last
couple of hundred years is that they will oppose anything that smells
even faintly of change.

You can also rely on them to be consitantly wrong.

The Admiralty last century issued statements to the effect that they
could see no reason to convert any of the ships of the royal navy to use
steam power.

The post office at the end of last century declared "Why should we want
telephones? we have plenty message boys".

Much more recently, a goverment report in 1972/3 said that there would
be no real changes in computers, so it wasn't worth doing research.

There are at least some companies in this country who know where the
future will be. A recent TV advert may be the British equivalent of the
"Russian space station" advert mentioned in this group recently.

It is made by British Airways, and shows a Concorde or Concorde like
aircraft going along a runway, climbing very steeply into orbit, passing
two astronauts working outside a space station, (passangers gaze out the
window, little girl is held up to get a better look), and finally
accelerating off into the distance.

There is no indication given anywhere about the nationality of anyone
featured. The faces of the astronauts are never seen. There are no
markings on either the space station or on the astronauts. My guess is
thst BA have bought a Japanese shuttle and the astronauts are probably
Japanese too.
	Bob.

------------------------------

Date: 16 Dec 87 23:42:39 GMT
From: livesey@sun.com  (Jon Livesey)
Subject: British Space Development

In article <841@its63b.ed.ac.uk>, bob@its63b.ed.ac.uk (ERCF08 Bob Gray) writes:
> > . . .
> The one thing you could rely on from ALL British goverments
> for the last couple of hundred years is that they will oppose
> anything that smells even faintly of change.
> 
> You can also rely on them to be consi[s]tantly wrong.
>
> [A bunch of 19 C. 'history' omitted]
> 
> Much more recently, a goverment report in 1972/3 said that
> there would be no real changes in computers, so it wasn't
> worth doing research.

	That is a very interesting statement.  I have in front of me
three books which are reports of computer research projects funded
partly or wholly by the UK Government.

		Shrivastava, S. K.
		Reliable Computer Systems.
		Springer Verlag 1985.

	    This is a report on a research project in reliable computer
	hardware and software computer system structure, and the
	introduction contains explicit acknowledgement of and thanks for
	UK Government support and encouragement in the years 1972 to
	1983.  This is a fundamental reference in the field, since the
	Newcastle Reliablity Project is credited with introducing many
	of the basic concepts of the area, recovery blocks, for example.

		Duce D. A.
		Distributed Computing Systems Program
		Institute of Electrical Engineers 1984

	    This is a report on a research program in distributed
	computing hardware and software design, and Chapter I contains
	explicit acknowledgement of and thanks for UK Government support
	and encouragement during the years 1977-84, and *also* for other
	funding during the years *before* 1976.

		Paker Y. et al.
		Distributed Computing Systems
		Academic Press, London 1983

	    This is a collection of papers on distributed computing
	systems, including a basic reference on Distributed Path Pascal,
	with, as usual, acknowledgment of UK Government funding,


     It's very easy to talk about "A government report" (we have all
heard about the US general who swore the atom bomb would not work) but
what really matters is what a government finally does or does not do.
Other people can check Mr Gray's statements about steam ships and
telephones, but on the subject of UK Govt. support for computer systems
research it appears he is simply wrong.

Cheers.

jon.

------------------------------

Date: 17 Dec 87 17:29:40 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Britain in space

> The Admiralty last century issued statements to the effect that they
> could see no reason to convert any of the ships of the royal navy to
> use steam power.

Well, don't be too hard on them: remember that it was also the Royal
Navy that built HMS Warrior and HMS Dreadnought, both of them massive
breaks with the past.  (Warrior [mid-1800s? not sure of date] was the
first battleship to have an iron hull; Dreadnought [circa 1901] was the
first battleship to use armored turrets, all-big-gun armament, and steam
turbines; both made all other battleships obsolete.  In fact both
started arms races.)

Unfortunately, it looks like Britain is planning to stick with wood and
wind in space...

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 19 Dec 87 21:05:45 GMT
From: cgs@umd5.umd.edu  (Chris Sylvain)
Subject: Re: Exact Time (help please)

In article <5034@sdcrdcf.UUCP> darrelj@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Darrel VanBuer) writes:
| ... Until atomic clocks, a second was defined as 1/86400 of a day.
| Now it is defined as so many oscilations of some standard atomic
| clock, thus the need for occasional leap seconds as the Earth's
| rotation varies slightly over time.  [The side effects of changing the
| second to fit Earth would wreak havok with all kinds of precision
| measurements]

Since 1967, 1 second has been defined as 9,192,631,770 complete
oscillations of cesium atoms (which cesium isotope is no doubt part of
the definition?).

------------------------------

Date: 14 Dec 87 03:04:00 GMT
From: jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Re: Treaties with the Russians

Written  7:45 pm  Dec 11, 1987 by kevin@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu in sci.space:

> In article <384@ablnc.ATT.COM> rcpilz@ablnc.ATT.COM (Robert C. Pilz) writes:
> >We each [the Soviets and us] have one [ABM system] left. Ours is in
> >Grand Forks ND...
> 
> Sorry, but the U.S. has no ABM system of any kind; the one you
> mentioned was dismantled.  The Soviets do still have their one ABM
> system allowed by treaty, and it protects Moscow.
> 
> Kevin S. Van Horn

And so very well, too.  The joke goes: Wanna bomb Moscow?  Fly your
warhead in on a private plane with a West German pilot.

Speaking of which, my wife just told me that that pilot has been
convicted to four years in a Soviet labor camp for illegal entry into
Soviet air space, illegal immigration, and "malicious hooliganism".

jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu		{ihnp4!pur-ee}uiucdcs!uiucdcsp!jenks

------------------------------

Date: 14 Dec 87 22:24:51 GMT
From: ihnp4!ihlpa!animal@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (D. Starr)
Subject: Re: Recycling Pershing-II's

In article <871211-133643-1893@Xerox>, LBennett.es@XEROX.COM writes:
> It should be possible to get the Soviets to agree to let us use the
> Pershing missiles as boosters.  There are ways to ensure that a
> missile cannot be used militarily, other than destroying it.

Why should they?  Allowing us to try and use the Pershings for satellite
launching just gives us a capability that they've been trying to sell to
us for some time.  Whether you could really make anything competitive
with Proton out of a bunch of Pershings is questionable (see earlier
posting), but it's not in their best interests to let us try.

Perhaps more importantly, there's an internal Soviet propaganda reason
for destroying the missiles by firing them, as pointed out by Gwynne
Dyer, a London-based columnist on things military: Gorbachev's economic
reforms are going to create a noticeable drop in the average Russian's
standard of living in the immediate future, with the promise of better
things later on.  The promises don't mean much with a populace that's
used to being lied to, so he's got to come up with something they value
more than subsidized produce if he's going to keep the support necessary
to carry his reforms through.  That thing is a tangible symbol that the
threat of war has been reduced; memories of WWII are still very real in
the Soviet Union.  Shooting those missiles into the air, around the
clock, is a spectacular symbol, and you can bet that pictures of the
Soviet missile-disposal launches (and ours) will be a major feature of
Soviet TV news for some time to come.

------------------------------

Date: 14 Dec 87 20:38:51 GMT
From: concertina!fiddler@sun.com  (Steve Hix)
Subject: Re: Robotic devices in space

In article <2818@zeus.TEK.COM>, dant@tekla.TEK.COM writes:

> with what the Soviets have launched.  They did have a lunar "rover" and
> material return device (name forgotten).  Any others?

Wasn't that named "Lunakhod" ("Lunokhod")?  Looked like a bathtub
on wheels...rather victorian form.

	seh

------------------------------

Date:     Wed, 16 Dec 87 12:47:38 CST
From: Will Martin -- AMXAL-RI <wmartin@almsa-1.arpa>
To: loeb@bourbaki.mit.edu
Cc: space@angband.s1.gov
Subject:  Re:  Recycling Pershing-II's

Thanks for the note. I suppose the only way to work on this will be for
it to be covered in the Senate confirmation hearings. Maybe both the US
and Soviet missles could be donated to some international scientific
organization which could then oversee their eventual use in some
worthwhile research work...

I just hope the practical and economic aspects of this are not lost in
the euphoric glow of disarmament...

Regards, Will Martin

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Dec 87 21:21:17 EST
From: loeb@BOURBAKI.MIT.EDU
To: wmartin@almsa-1.arpa
Cc: space@angband.s1.gov
Subject:  Recycling Pershing-II's

  Is anybody planning to bring the missles up for discussion at the
Senate confirmation hearings?
  I'd hate to lose the INF over such a matter.....
  How important are these launchers to the Space Program?

Danny

------------------------------

Date: 17 Dec 87 07:56:57 GMT
From: tektronix!reed!percival!bucket!leonard@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Treaties with the Soviets

Please note that the much mentioned Soviet ABM system does not protect
Moscow.  As the ABM treaty only allows each nation's ABM system to
protect a missile site, setting up an ABM system to protect Washington
or Moscow would be a clear violation of the treaty.

However the Soviets _do_ have an ABM system and it does protect a
missile site. It is purely a co-incidence that the site is just outside
Moscow....  (and if you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you...)

Leonard Erickson		...!tektronix!reed!percival!bucket!leonard

------------------------------

Date:     Thu, 17 Dec 87 9:27:56 CST
From: Will Martin -- AMXAL-RI <wmartin@almsa-1.arpa>
To: loeb@bourbaki.mit.edu
Cc: space@angband.s1.gov
Subject:  Re:  Recycling Pershing-II's

All I've ever heard about the subject has been the traffic in the Space
Digest, so I don't know if any scientific or pro-space organizations
have been lobbying for bringing up this topic at the hearings, or if any
Senators plan to do so. In any case, I am sure that there is no chance
that such a peripheral issue will affect the fate of the treaty itself;
the people with the power to determine that have no interest in this.

As we have been merely speculating here anyway, I have no idea if these
Pershings really have any scientific or research value. One previous
posting mentioned that their chances of failure would preclude lashing
them together to use as boosters for heavy payload launches, and I don't
know if they are usable individually to do something like launch a small
satellite. Maybe they would only be usable in a sounding-rocket mode,
and, as recent traffic on Space indicated, we have a good record already
of successful sounding-rocket work, so they may not even be needed for
that. It just seems shameful, and personally morally repugnant to me, to
destroy perfectly good devices. I just don't believe in the "throw-away"
lifestyle that seems so prevalent. (I guess I'm just an ant amongst
grasshoppers... :-)

Regards, Will

------------------------------

Date: 17 Dec 87 19:13:47 GMT
From: karn@faline.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: Treaties with the Soviets

> Please note that the much mentioned Soviet ABM system does not protect
> Moscow.

This statement is more true than you think. The Soviets do indeed have
an ABM system around Moscow, but it does not protect anything.  It has
never been considered a serious impediment to our ability to obliterate
the city. It did, however, spur our development of MIRVed missiles (the
ideal ABM countermeasure). The Soviets quickly copied the idea, and the
resulting proliferation of highly accurate MIRVed missiles has greatly
destabilized the arms race.

Phil

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Dec 87 23:12:40 PST
From: ota@mariner.s1.gov
Subject: Recycling Pershings

An article in the Dec 14, 87 issue of AW&ST on page 20 talks about
methods of destruction of the banned missiles.  According to it each
side will be permitted to destroy UP TO 100 missiles by launching them
within 6 mo of ratification.  None of these missiles may be equipped
with instruments.  All stages must be fired and all launch trajectories
must be into designated impact areas.

This suggests that the possibility of re-using the missiles as launchers
was eliminated during the treaty negotiations.
	Ted Anderson

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #84
*******************

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	id AA10486; Wed, 23 Dec 87 03:16:56 PST
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 87 03:16:56 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8712231116.AA10486@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #85

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 85

Today's Topics:
		     space news from Nov 30 AW&ST
		 Re:  Recycling Pershing-II's (short
		     Re: Recycling Pershing-II's
			  Re: Life in Moscow
		     Re: Recycling Pershing-II's
      Soyuz TM-4 flys Monday and 30 month missions planned later
	     Correction to Soyuz TM-4 mission information
		      Soyuz TM-4 launched to Mir
	     Soyuz TM-4 crew - correct spelling of names
			  Re: Life in Moscow
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 21 Dec 87 04:16:34 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Nov 30 AW&ST

[last issue before I leave for vacation]

Editorial urging NASA and pro-space groups to go onto the offensive
politically.

NASA is looking at building a new four-stage high-altitude sounding
rocket for missions that need more time in space than current ones
offer.

Weinberger says Soviets may use mobile ICBMs as launchers for
spacecraft, notably their ASAT system.

SDI is talking about building a new booster as a massive cluster of
existing rockets, on a one-time basis (!) to launch the Zenith Star
space laser experiment.  ZS is 80 ft long and 100,000 lbs, much too
heavy for any existing booster.  The pictures look vaguely like the
Hubble telescope, with the rear being a big chemical laser with exhaust
ports on the side, and the front a mirror system.  SDI is also looking
at in-space assembly after launch on two Titan 4s, or building a Saturn
V derivative, but both are probably too costly.  There is likely to be a
political stink about building a one-shot booster, given the ongoing
debate about US launch capability.  The two (secret) studies of the ZS
booster are being done by McDonnell Douglas (proposing three shuttle
SRBs around a cluster of seven Delta main stages) and Martin Marietta
(proposing five Titan SRBs around a sort of "fat Titan" main stage with
five Titan engines and a body based on the shuttle tank).  Neither would
have the payload of Energia or the Saturn V, despite greater liftoff
thrusts, but both could be built (relatively) quickly and cheaply.
Reagan got a briefing on ZS during a visit to a Martin Marietta plant.
ZS apparently poses no dire technical problems, and some complex
hairsplitting has been done to explain why it would not violate the ABM
treaty, but it's not at all clear whether it will get funded fully.

Congressional Research Service report says it is most unlikely that
space-based missile-defense systems could usefully attack ground
targets, but they are a real threat to satellites and high-flying
aircraft.

New test stand to test SRB joints under external loads is a mixed
success; some sort of procedural foulup prevented proper application of
loads during the first test.  The test will have to be repeated, but
this is not thought likely to delay the shuttle much.

NRC SRB oversight team recommends more attention to assessing
effectiveness of O-rings; the new joint design keeps the hot gases away
from them so well that they have not been tested thoroughly yet.
Another recommendation is that at least one small-scale test use booster
hardware that has been assembled, dismantled, and then reassembled.

West Germany's TVSat 1 is in trouble.  Successful launch by Ariane on
Nov 20, but one of its solar arrays has not partially deployed properly.
(The partial deployment is to provide housekeeping power for
maneuvering, with full deployment happening only after the major
maneuvering ends.)  The satellite is in no immediate danger, as the
other array is providing enough housekeeping power, and maneuvering is
proceeding.  Apart from the power question, another worry is whether the
satellite's main antennas can be deployed properly if the jammed array
won't open.  Nothing will be done until the situation is studied at
length.  This array design has been used successfully before, although
one of its previous uses (Arabsat) did have a temporary deployment
problem.  The contractors are especially concerned because some of them
are bidding on the Intelsat 7 contract, and they need to show that they
can sort this one out.

Progress 33 launched toward Mir.  Romanenko will hit the 300th day of
his mission on Dec 2.

Japan sets Feb 1 as date for next H-1 launch (Mitsubishi comsat).

The good news: NASA changes its mind and endorses modifying one orbiter
for long stays.  The bad news: NASA says it will take 45 months and
$146M.  [Several expletives deleted...]

Thousandth person rescued by the Cospas/Sarsat search-and-rescue system.

Letter of the year, from Roger Harvey in Oregon:

       "To maintain your position in reporting events in the aerospace
	world, are you going to change your name to Aviation Week &
	Soviet Space Technology?"

[See you in mid-January.]

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 17 Dec 87 19:55:00 GMT
From: jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Re:  Recycling Pershing-II's (short


Written  4:46 am  Dec 12, 1987 by mmason@psu-cs.UUCP in sci.space:
"Re:  Recycling Pershing-II's (short"

> I disagree with the idea that we should "recycle" the pershings which
> will be destroyed under the INF treaty.  It would be too easy for a
> superpower (US, or the Russians with their SS's) to commandeer such
> hardware during times of high-tension world events.  It follows that
> destruction of said hardware is a key ingredient of the INF treaty.

This isn't really a valid reason; if tensions were high, there wouldn't
be time to put all those warheads back into their missiles.  There also
wouldn't be much of a need.  The current "Strategic" forces are more
than enough to keep hot heads in line.

> Look, we're getting rid of ten years of nulear arms buildup.  Leave
> well enough alone.

Agreed, but destroying those missiles is a good symbol.  Better, I
guess, than the old "swords into plowshares" idea.

jenks@p.cs.uiuc.edu

------------------------------

Date: 17 Dec 87 21:35:24 GMT
From: ems!datapg!sewilco@UMN-CS.ARPA  (Scot E. Wilcoxon)
Subject: Re: Recycling Pershing-II's

In article <1259@vaxb.calgary.UUCP> radford@calgary.UUCP (Radford Neal) writes:
[about destroying missiles by launching]
>It's not clear to me that conversion to scientific purposes would cost
>less than the "value" (whatever that is) of the data acquired, though.
>It might take longer to think of good uses for them than is allowed
>by the treaty timetable too...

There's one known need: a space tug.  Refuelable thruster package(s), a
keel with mounting points, solar panels, batteries, teleoperated arm,
radio gear, bucket of nuts and bolts.

Can a single intermediate range missile reach LEO, and with what
payload?  If single ones cannot, how many needed for a BDB?  OK, so it
may fail often..we were going to destroy them anyway.  Make test shots
with fuel cannisters as payload.

Solar panels and a battery go up with teleoperated arm.  Thruster goes
up next, flies to arm.  Arm fastened to thrusters.  Go to fuel or keel
and assemble.

Radios needed on thruster package and arm.  Special ones needed, or can
[mil-spec?] radio be simply sealed in a can?

What's difficult about the arm?  Need space-spec motors and bearings.
One continuous-rotation joint in wrist would be nice.

The closest thing to a thruster in my hardware store is a coffeepot or
fire extinguisher, so the thruster package needs special manufacturing.
Maybe navigational thrusters can be salvaged from some missiles?  Put
manual control on thruster package so arm can be used for recovery if
thruster radio fails?

Teleoperators?  How much do we have to pay to get to operate it? :-)

-- 
Scot E. Wilcoxon	sewilco@DataPg.MN.ORG	ihnp4!meccts!datapg!sewilco

------------------------------

Date: 19 Dec 87 13:40:22 GMT
From: ihnp4!homxb!mtuxo!mtgzy!ecl@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Evelyn C. Leeper)
Subject: Re: Life in Moscow

In article <3584@husc6.harvard.edu>, reiter@endor.harvard.edu (Ehud Reiter) writes:
> I picked up a propaganda poster (printed in 1982) of a young Russian
> scientist, staring into space with a thoughtful look, and surrounded
> by rockets, buildings, oil wells, etc.  The slogan on the poster was
> "Invent, Improve, Implement".  To emphasize the high-tech nature of
> science and of Russian society, the most prominent thing in the
> picture (besides the scientist himself) was a strip of paper tape.

Of course, they have a space station and we don't, they launch a couple
of rockets a week and we don't launch any, etc., etc..  But after all,
those are just minor quibbles, right?

We shouldn't be so smug in our hi-tech abilities if we aren't using
them.

					Evelyn C. Leeper
				ARPA:	mtgzy!ecl@rutgers.rutgers.edu

------------------------------

Date: 19 Dec 87 21:37:06 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Recycling Pershing-II's

> What's difficult about the arm? ...

Nothing at all, it's effectively an off-the-shelf item: Spar Aerospace
(Toronto) will be happy to quote you a price on a design that is already
space-qualified and space-tested.  Not cheap, and possibly too big for
the suggested application, but no development needed.

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 20 Dec 87 09:20:48 EST
From: Glenn Chapman <glenn@ll-vlsi.arpa>
Subject: Soyuz TM-4 flys Monday and 30 month missions planned later

     The USSR has announced that the Soyuz TM-4 mission to the Mir/Kvant
space station will be launched on Monday Dec. 21 at 11:00 hours UTC
(6:00 am EDT).  The three man crew will releave Yuri Romanenko (who has
been up there 315 days, the world's long duration record holder) and
Alexander Alexandrov (who has spent 145 days on Mir).  The Soyuz mission
will be 7-8 days so the current Mir crew will be coming down around Dec.
30th, as they had previously stated.
     The Soyuz TM-4 crew is still a bit of a mystery.  The commander is
Vladimir Titov (Soyuz T-8) and the cosmonaut researcher/flight engineer
is Alexander Serebrov (Soyuz T-8 and the Soyuz T-10A pad fire abort).
The third memeber is a doctor, but they keep on failing to give out the
person's name, so what ever problem they have is still happening.  This
will be the third successive full or partial switch off for the
Russians.  This crew is expected to stay up there for 400 days.
     In addition, a couple of days ago while commenting on Romanenko's
long duration a Soviet medical spokesman said that before a Mars mission
would occur they intended to have people with 30 months of continuous
zero G experience!  That time is equal to a low energy conjunction class
Mars mission (the planets are on opposite sides of the sun during the
launch) where the crew would spend 1.5 years at the planet.  Either they
are playing it safe by considering the Mars 1/3 G to be the same a zero
G for the crew, or they intend that at least part of the mission would
stay in orbit to explore Phobos and Deimos (the Marsian moons).  If they
continue to expand their mission durations with a 30% increase for each
long crew they would reach that time in 1995-6, and certainly by the end
of the century.  There is a very good low energy conjunction mission
possible in 2001.  They sound as if they are doing the ground work to be
ready for such a mission if they decide to go ahead it.
     The USSR's space station is now becoming permanently manned.
Meanwhile the congress has just reduced the NASA/international space
station funding by $300 million to $425 - bearly enough to get the work
started.  Even then they can only spend $200 million during the first 6
months, after which a review will take place before the rest is spent.
That review is timed for just when the shuttle is planned to fly - any
problems there and we may be in trouble.  There seems to be a difference
in commitment to space between this country and the Soviet Union.  Let
us try and change that.

                                   Glenn Chapman
                                   MIT Lincoln Lab

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Dec 87 00:06:25 EST
From: Glenn Chapman <glenn@ll-vlsi.arpa>
Subject: Correction to Soyuz TM-4 mission information

     A correction to my posting of earlier today on the Soyuz TM-4
mission.  While Vladimir Titov (Soyuz T-8 and Soyuz T-10A) is still the
mission commander, Serebrov is no longer the flight engineer.  He has
been replaced by Mosha Romara (age 36), while the third man is Aton
Lekenkov (age 46 - spelling of both uncertain).  Romara is listed as an
ex test pilot.  This is the first flight for both.  There mission is
stated as being a long duration one, with visits to Mir during their
time by "several other crews including international ones".  The reason
for the crew change has not been stated (Serebrov was on the mission as
of last months).
    Yuri Romanenkov and Alexander Alexandrov will return to earth on new
years eve.

                                  Glenn Chapman
                                  MIT Linclon Lab.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Dec 87 16:23:18 EST
From: Glenn Chapman <glenn@ll-vlsi.arpa>
Subject: Soyuz TM-4 launched to Mir

   The Russian Soyuz TM-4 flight was successfully launched today (Dec
21) at about 6:15 am EDT.  On board where Vladimir Titov (mission
commander), Mosha Romara (flight engineer), and Aton Lekenkov (scientist
cosmonaut).  They will arrive at Mir on Dec. 23 to replace Yuri
Romanenkov and Alexander Alexandrov who will return to earth on new
years eve (probably in their Soyuz TM-3 capsule).
    One interesting point here is that there has been no mention of the
Progress 33 supply ship being dropped as of yet.  Normally the Progress
is removed from the rear docking port a couple of weeks before the
visiting crew arrives.  However as of a few days ago the Mir/Kvant
complex did not appear to have undergone the maneuvers that accompany
the separation of the Progress (they normally use the Progress' engines
to boost the station just before leaving).  Perhaps they are going to
pull the Progress away from the station and leave it there while the
crew exchange takes place. This is the first full exchange yet attempted -
all previous switchoffs have involved one of the old crew staying on
when the new ones come up.
     How times have changed.  5 years ago I speculated on when a Soviet
launch would occur based on the orbit of Salyut 7, the time of sun set
at the recovery site, and subtle clues on the shortwave.  Now they
announce the launch time and I get up early to watch a live broadcast of
the mission (including pictures from within the capsule) on CNN.  Now
let us have some shuttle lift offs to watch too.

                                  Glenn Chapman
                                  MIT Lincoln Lab.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Dec 87 18:35:41 EST
From: Glenn Chapman <glenn@ll-vlsi.arpa>
Subject: Soyuz TM-4 crew - correct spelling of names

    The correct spelling of the new cosmonauts on Soyuz TM-4 is Musa
Manarov (flight engineer) and Anatoly Levchenko (scientist cosmonaut)
(according to the New York Times).  My applogy for the previous
positings but spelling Russian names heard on a noisy shortwave
broadcast is not my strong point.

                                   Glenn Chapman
                                   MIT Lincoln Lab

------------------------------

Date: 21 Dec 87 18:31:51 GMT
From: sdcc6!calmasd!jnp@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu  (John Pantone)
Subject: Re: Life in Moscow

(Ehud Reiter) writes:
> I picked up a propaganda poster (printed in 1982) of a young Russian
> scientist ..... surrounded by rockets, buildings, oil wells, etc.  ...
> To emphasize the high-tech nature of science and of Russian society,
> the most prominent thing in the picture ...  was a strip of paper
> tape.

(Evelyn C. Leeper) writes:
> We shouldn't be so smug in our hi-tech abilities if we aren't using them.

Right - Evelyn, except have you (or Ehud) ever seen how our "modern,
automated factories" get their data/programs for the NC machines?

You got it -- Paper tape (actually, it's often mylar - but punched
nonetheless).

The "moral" is applicable - just because the technology isn't new is no
reason to abandon it - we have a very serious problem, here in the U.S.,
with un-justified use of new technologies, and with un-justified
ridicule of older ones.

Had we stayed with the Saturn V/Apollo/Skylab technologies we would now
be listening to our moonbase's reporter each evening on the 10 o'clock
news - just after the special on the latest Mars mission.

John M. Pantone

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #85
*******************

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Date: Thu, 24 Dec 87 03:17:44 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8712241117.AA12151@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #86

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 86

Today's Topics:
		   High Temperature Superconductors
	  re: automation/robotics on space station, why not
	   Re: Robotics and Automation on the Space Station
		       Lunar Land Speed Record
		    Re: Six year trip for Galileo
	      Wild Materials (was Re: rewriting history)
	    Re: Wild Materials (was Re: rewriting history)
		   Re: space news from Nov 9 AW&ST
			Diversification Reform
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date:         Wed, 16 Dec 87 17:37:37 EST
From: ST401385%BROWNVM.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu
Subject:      High Temperature Superconductors

   Maybe the NYT's report of high-temp superconductivity wasn't a
missprint.
   The recent _Science News_ had an article quoting Ahmet Erbil (Georgia
Tech) saying that they have reproducable evidence of superconductivity
at 500 K (that's 225 C!) on a variant formulation of the Lanthanum
Copper etc. material.  They quoted him as saying that in even the best
samples only a small volume fraction is superconducting.
    I've been real skeptical of >= Room Temperature superconductivity
claims, but maybe this time it has something behind it.
    And, of course, maybe not.  Stay tuned....
    In the same issue, they quoted Sungho Jim of Bell labs as saying
that Bell has manufactured a flexible superconducting wire wthat can
carry 100 times as much current as similar ceramics, and that they've
"broken a critical current barrier".  This is important for two reasons,
first because before this all the new superconductors have been brittle,
and thus not much good for wires, and second because for technically
important uses like magnets (magnetic levitation, mass drivers, fusion
containment, and superconducting supercolliders) high currents (and
thus, high magnetic fields) are extremely important.

--Geoffrey A. Landis, Ph.D          Brown University
BITNET: ST401385 at BROWNVM         soon to appear at NASA Lewis Research
internet address (new): ST401385%BROWNVM.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU

   Postscript--Brown hasn't gotten a digest of SPACE for several
days now.  Is this because of WISCVM is dropping out as an
internet gate?  I hope we get back onto the disty list.  Meanwhile,
if you are replying to any of my recent postings, could you send
me a copy?  (I won't read them till after Christmas break, though.)

------------------------------

Date: 19 Dec 87 22:04:40 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: re: automation/robotics on space station, why not

> ... Dr. Henry Spencer, U. of Toronto.

(A minor quibble, it's not "Dr.")

> The Solar Max automated docking system was a rather simple mechanical
> device, the "automatic" feature being a trip-released spring...
> The device was placed in front of the astronaut using the Manned
> Manuevering Unit.  There were no robotics involved in the planned
> mission to retrieve Solar Max...

I realize that calling the TPAD "robotic" is pushing it.  Nevertheless,
I believe my point stands: the reliance on automatic coupling was a
fatal flaw that nearly ruined the mission.  As I understand it, if there
had been a "manual trip" button, it would have worked.

Also of note: if NASA can't make a "rather simple mechanical device"
work reliably...

> The device had no manual overide because NASA believed that it would
> be too dangerous to have the astronaut remove his hands from the MMU
> controls when he was just inches from a large, spinning satellite.

This objection is the sort of thing that any bright bicycle mechanic
could fix in half an hour.  The issue is not that a manual control is
inherently dangerous, only that it needs to be in a convenient place!

It is distinctly peculiar that none of the NASA people, the world
champions of contingency planning and backup provisions, ever considered
that this particular piece of equipment might not work.

> When the first attempt at docking with Solar Max failed, the astronaut
> decided to try to stabilize the satellite by grabbing one of the
> solar-cell wings, which only served to make things much worse.

True, and not enormously surprising.  Note, however, that he probably
would not have tried it if anybody had bothered to think about the
possibility that the TPAD might fail and to evaluate alternatives.  I
would guess that five minutes of work by the right engineer would have
made it clear in advance that grabbing a solar array wouldn't work.

Note that a somewhat similar concept, planned carefully in advance,
worked just fine for the Leasat repair.

> The next day, the satellite was captured on the first try by the
> Canadian remote manipulator arm.  In other words, a robot did what a
> human could not.

No, a robot did what another, supposedly foolproof (else why no
backup?), robot could not do.  Barely; if the Goddard controllers hadn't
managed to not only stabilize the satellite, but also *reduce its spin
rate*, the arm could not possibly have made this save.

I will heroically refrain :-) from claiming that the arm worked because
it was not designed or built by NASA!

> I'm not sure what Dr. Spencer thinks of when he hears the word
> "robot", but judging from his arguments, it appears that he is
> thinking of autonomous intelligent machinery working without human
> intervention.  On the other hand, I think of practically any piece of
> machinery with a computer between it and its human operator, whether
> the human operator is working in real time or not.

Actually, I go along with the latter definition, with the further
extension that I don't insist on an actual computer being involved.  We
don't have a convenient term that covers the whole area of robotics,
teleoperation, etc.

> In the NASA PR films promoting the Space Station, the most prominent
> robot is some variation of the proven remote manipulator arm already
> in use on the Shuttle.  The arm usually has more degrees of freedom
> and different end effectors, but the principle is the same.

*This* application of robotics I actually have no quarrel with, because
it does appear to be somewhat of a requirement -- for example, it is not
all that obvious how to dock a shuttle to the station otherwise.

*However*, this application requires little or no R&D, since the
hardware is already proven.  Nor does it require NASA money, since
Canada is doing it.  Yes, there are problems with the current arm
design, but the station would be far better off with a dozen arms of
proven design than with a handful of "new, improved" ones (with new,
improved bugs).  And it probably would cost less.

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 21 Dec 87 21:18:46 GMT
From: grasp.cis.upenn.edu!ulrich@super.upenn.edu  (Nathan Ulrich)
Subject: Re: Robotics and Automation on the Space Station

In article <1987Dec17.122217.10185@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>> ... I must admit to some
>> disgust at their expression of fear regarding robots...
>
>Fear?  Please point to where that was expressed.  Speaking for myself, I
Sorry to confuse you with someone else.

>> ...  *None* of the eventual devices sent up will be unproven....
>> they will all have been tested extensively and will have proved their
>> usefulness.
>
>Tested on the ground, i.e. in an environment that is not representative
>of the environment they will have to work in for many years.

You have hit on one of the fundamental problems with the testing of
robots for space while we are on the ground--too expensive to send them
up just for testing, but hard to duplicate outer space on the ground.
Notice that I said "hard," not impossible--as a matter of fact, there is
a way to test robot arms in almost exactly the same conditions as they
will experience in space.  Sorry to tease, but I can't talk about the
device yet.....

>> I do not agree that we cannot afford *new* technology--I
>>  don't think the space station will work with-
>> out new technology...
>
>The Mir astronauts would get a good laugh out of that.  A
>carefully-designed space station works just fine without new
>technology.
 
Again, I am not expressing myself well.  Undoubtedly, we could put up
another Skylab or duplicate Mir (maybe not :-), but I understood the
goals of our space station to be a bit different....New technology will
help, but I agree that it must be proven.

Nathan Ulrich
ulrich@grasp.cis.upenn.edu

------------------------------

Date: 19 DEC 87 09:19-PST
From: clopez%UCIVMSA.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu
Subject: Lunar Land Speed Record

  The following is quoted from "Ten Best Ahead-of-Their-Time Machines,"
in the most recent issue of Car and Driver:

  "The Lunar Roving Vehicle was a cunning piece of work.  It weighed
only 460 pounds (on earth) but could carry 1100.  Its wheels were
matrices of steel wire and titanium tread blocks.  For maximum
maneuverability, all four wheel steered.  A centrally mounted T-shaped
handle controlled forward and reverse speed, steering, and stopping.
The silver-zinc batteries, with a combined capacity of 242 ampere-hours,
allowed the LRV to be driven up to 57 miles.
  "Each of the three LRVs sent to the moon in 1971 and '72 was kept well
within that limit.  The highest odo reading, scored in three sorties
during the final lunar mission, Apollo 17, was 22.4 miles, covered in 4
hours and 27 minutes of driving.  That's an average of only 5.03 mph.
However, during the last sortie, Gene Cernen reported a top speed of
11.3 mph -- which stands as the lunar land speed record.  For the
moment.

Carlos A. Lopez       (clopez@ucivmsa)

------------------------------

Date: 19 Dec 87 21:30:33 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Six year trip for Galileo

> What the article left out: anything about possible problems.  For
> example, it did not give the launch window (I would expect it to be
> narrow to make all the flybys) and what happens if there is a delay in
> the shuttle schedule which makes it impossible to make the window.

One reason why interplanetary missions tend to go via parking orbit
(which can't be avoided for shuttle-boosted missions!) is that it
provides some slack: the *real* launch window is for the boost out of
parking orbit, so if one plans to arrive in parking orbit early, a
modest delay in the launch from Earth doesn't mean missing the real
window.

I dimly recall seeing mention of a backup launch date for Galileo; it
kills the asteroid flybys but otherwise works out okay.

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 21 Dec 87 19:08:17 GMT
From: decvax!ima!haddock!eli@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Elias Israel)
Subject: Wild Materials (was Re: rewriting history)

In article <849@uop.edu> robert@uop.edu (Hi how ya doin) writes:
>I remember [the Shuttle Tile] demo, the guy who did it

I think that the stuff that you are referring to is made by a company
called "Spenco". They are a medical supplies company and the material (I
forget the name of the stuff) absorbs some huge percentage of any shock
applied to it. I have heard that you can make two small cups of the
stuff and place an egg inside them and hit the whole mess with a mallet
and find the egg unbroken.

Spenco uses the stuff to make bicycle seats and foot pads and knee pads
and wrist wieghts and ...

Supposedly, the theory behind it came from a study of how flesh absorbs
shocks. Indeed, if you pick up a lump of the stuff and land a fist in
it, it feels petty much like punching someone in the upper arm.


Elias Israel
Interactive Systems Corporation
Boston, MA
..!harvard!ima!haddock!eli

------------------------------

Date: 23 Dec 87 01:41:59 GMT
From: concertina!fiddler@sun.com  (Steve Hix)
Subject: Re: Wild Materials (was Re: rewriting history)

In article <2038@haddock.ISC.COM>, eli@haddock.ISC.COM (Elias Israel) writes:
> I think that the stuff that you are referring to is made by a company
> called "Spenco". They are a medical supplies company and the material
> (I Spenco uses the stuff to make bicycle seats and foot pads and knee
> pads and wrist wieghts and ...

The material used in bicycle seats (Avocet, at least) is called GelFlex
(by Avocet, at least).  Another material like GelFlex is called
Sorbothane.

The Spenco material is basically neoprene that has had high-pressure
nitrogen bubbles injected while it was still liquid.  Neat stuff, but
not cheap.  A Spenco chair cushion (for a sick relative who had lost a
*lot* of weight) was quoted to me for @$140.  It also weighed about 15
pounds or so.

	seh

------------------------------

Date: 17 Dec 87 15:48:47 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!its63b!bob@uunet.uu.net  (ERCF08 Bob Gray)
Subject: Re: space news from Nov 9 AW&ST

In article <1987Dec14.215025.23687@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>Letter from S.W. Stagg commenting on Paine's Aerospace Forum piece in Sept:
>	.... Other countries are in the space business...  NASA and the
>	bureaucrats are fighting it out for last place in the space
>	race."

Sorry, last place is already taken.
	Bob.

------------------------------

Reply-To: lll-crg!ames!sdcsvax!bass.nosc.mil!pnet01!jim@mordor.s1.gov
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 87 18:20:22 PST
From: lll-crg!ames!scubed!sdcsvax!pnet01.cts.com!jim@mordor.s1.gov (Jim Bowery)
To: crash!space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: Diversification Reform

One component of an effective space program reform policy would be to
break NASA up into many independent space programs with overlapping
purviews.  The most obvious way of achieving this would be to give each
NASA center its own independent budget, perhaps while increasing their
budgets slightly to account for the cost of transition.  This, of
course, would be most vocally resisted by nonproductive NASA centers
which fear other NASA centers.  These centers would almost certainly
engage in blatent violations of the Hatch Act by having various
contractors lobby their congresscritters mercilessly, and thus would be
given 2 opportunities to be terminated: 1) Through good faith
enforcement of the Hatch Act and 2) Through being shown to be wasting
money when other centers are far more efficient and effective in the use
of their budgets to accomplish overlapping tasks.

This reform component would, of course, require a President who has a
modicum of integrity and the intelligence to understand the failure mode
our current space program is in.  Such a President would, also, need
guidance in the details of the implementation of such a reform.

A more detailed version of this proposal is being presented to some
Democratic Presidential candidates for consideration as a part of a more
effective space policy, and may be presented at the Iowa City space
forum coming up in February.

I would like to open discussion on the pragmatic aspects of such a
diversification of our space activities -- pitfalls to avoid and
recommended courses of action.

To kick it off, I'd like to offer a few suggestions for administrators
of the new space agencies, and ask for input on a more complete list:

CENTER        ADMINISTRATOR
Huston        John Young (or person he recommends)
Marshall      Alan J. McDonald (or person he recommends)
JPL           James Van Allen (or person he recommends)

Another important question to answer is, if we are unable to achieve a
diversification of space activities along the above lines, who would be
a good NASA administrator?  Who would be good suggestions for the
directors of various centers?  Please provide some justification.

Thank you for your suggestions.

Jim Bowery           PHONE:  619/295-8868
PO Box 1981
La Jolla, CA 92038

UUCP: {cbosgd, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!pnet01!jim
ARPA: crash!pnet01!jim@nosc.mil
INET: jim@pnet01.cts.com

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #86
*******************

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Date: Fri, 25 Dec 87 03:17:14 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8712251117.AA13336@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #87

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 87

Today's Topics:
		     Calendar from Morton Thiokol
			Still more fascism...
			   Van Allen belts
		      Re: Remote Sensing Fascism
			   Gravity assists
			  Recycled Missiles
		      Re: Still more fascism...
		      Re: Diversification Reform
		      Re: Still more fascism...
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Dec 87 16:11:40 EST
From: loeb@BOURBAKI.MIT.EDU
To: ucs_mwk%SHSU.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu
Cc: space@angband.s1.gov, jnp@calmasd.ge.com, ajw@manatee.cis.ufl.edu,
        ecsvax!ruslan@mcnc.org, lasibley%math.waterloo.edu@relay.cs.net,
        ihnp4!chinet!hcfeams!aicchi!dbb@ucbvax.berkeley.edu, jeffh@BRL.ARPA
Subject: Calendar from Morton Thiokol

Here are the results so far from my survey of Presidential candidates.
(Note: Hart was not surveyed does anybody know his address.)

1) George Bush
	Our Commitment to leadership in space is symbolic of the role we
seek in the world...
	Earlier this year Dr. Sally Ride delivered a report to NASA
called LEADERSHIP AND AMERICA'S FUTURE IN SPACE in which she outlined
four reasonable options for the space program. The first she called
"Mission to Planet Earth."
	Such a mission would create a global observation system in
space, aimed at developing a fundamental understanding of the Earth
system, in order to predict changes that might occur -- either naturally
or as a result of human activity.
	NASA should remain the lead agency in exploring the frontiers of
space science and technology -- for developement of a trans-atmospheric
vehicle to construction of a space station. What it should not be is a
freight service for routine commercial payloads.
	In the short term, I support construction of the replacement
shuttle. But because Mission to Planet Earth would require the ability
to launch large payloads, it would justify the building of a heavy-lift
launch vehicle -- designed for minimum cost instead of minimum weight.
	Any space based defense will require a deep reduction in the
price of placing cargo in orbit in order to be affordable. Indeed, costs
need to be cut by a factor of 10.
	I am committed to a vigorous SDI program. The soviets have been
working on strategic defenses much longer and harder than we have --
indeed, well before my time at the CIA in the mid-'70s.
	Mission to Planet Earth, a strong civilian launching program,
and strategic defense -- these are important immediate goals.
	We should make a long-term commitment to manned at unmanned
exploration of the solar system. There is much to be done -- further
exploration of the moon, a mission to Mars, probes of the outer planets.
These are worthwhile objectives, and they should not be neglected.
	The signing in April [1987] of a five-year agrement wiht the
Soviet Union to cooperate "in the exploration and use of outer space for
peaceful purposes" is a first step in this direction.
		-- Remarks made in Huntsville, Alabama
			October 20, 1987

2) Haig

Haig only mentions Space related issues in the following two paragraphs
under the heading of SDI.

	"I favor SDI because we cannot cede the field of space-bases
defenses to the Soviets, who have been developing such systems for over
two decades. I further support research and testing even deployment of
whatever off-the-shelf technology exists. We should be under no
illusions, however, about the state of that technology, which is still
at an elementary level.
	"Because a fully workable space defense umbrella may be 15 to 20
years away, SDI cannot be a substitute for nuclear deterrent. That is
why I have been critical about premature politicization of this issue,
which has caused confusion everywhere -- in the Congress and in the
scientific community, among the public, and especially among our
European allies."

3) Dole acknowledged my request and forwarded my letter to the
appropriate office.

4) No others have responded to date. (Including all of the Democrats)

Note that I have refrained from editorializing (with SOME effort)
inserting only the date [1987] in Bush's remarks.

------------------------------

Date: 22 Dec 1987 23:07-EST 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Still more fascism...

Science, 18-Dec-87, pg 1648:

"NASA Denied Access to DOE Laser Fusion Data"

NASA apparently is interested in Inertial Containment Fusion for deep
space propulsion systems that couild make the trip to Mars in under 100
days. DOE has decided NASA does not have sufficient justification to be
given access to the data.

Just another example of secrecy paranoia that slows technological
advance: Your tax dollars at work screwing you.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
To misquote and abuse Shakespeare:
	"First thing we do, kill all the spooks.."
---------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Dec 87 08:44:23 EST
From: subar%mwcamis@mitre.arpa
Subject: Van Allen belts

Recently "Paul F. Dietz" <DIETZ%sdr.slb.com@relay.cs.net> posted:
>Some scientists have found that certain earth-based transmitters have
>been found to accidently induce instabilities that can cause the
>precipitation of electrons from the magnetosphere into the upper
>atmosphere. It might be possible to use this effect to rid the Van
>Allen belts of their trapped electrons.
     
Call me an atmospheric ignoramus, but what are the effects of the
precitation?  How did the electrons get in the Van Allen belt, and why
remove them?  Would it be better to replace a Van Allen belt with a
leather one?
     
Merry Everything,
David Subar
subar@mitre.arpa

------------------------------

Date: 22 Dec 1987 20:17-EST 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: Remote Sensing Fascism

I don't wish to imply that the individual from the DOD is lying, but I
have heard the murmur underground that Mark Brender, the prime mover
for mediasat, backed off because they could not get an agreement solid
enough to satisfy potential investors.

Since an AMERICAN mediasat may be down the tubes, why should DOD
respond otherwise?

We must keep in mind that they (DOD) don't really need to get very
heavy handed to kill the industry. Hundred million dollar investors are
warier than a 12 point Pennsylvania buck in hunting season.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Dec 87 16:00:16 EST
Posted-From: The MITRE Corp., Bedford, MA
From: m18359%hawki@mitre-bedford.arpa (Marcel Parnas)
Subject: Gravity assists

Could someone please explain the use of gravity assists (close planetary
flybys) by space probes?  Suppose I am flying along towards Jupiter.  I
could try to get there on my own, by flying a "straight" line to where I
expect Jupiter to be when I get there, but I guess that would take a
long time at the speeds I am currently capable of attaining.  My
alternative is to deviate from the direct route, and make a close
encounter with some likely planet.  Obviously, this means the total
distance I must travel is greater.  Furthermore, I cannot expect to gain
any energy with respect to this planet just by flying by it.  Am I being
accelerated enough by the planet on my way in and on my way out that my
average velocity over this greater distance gets me where I am going in
a shorter amount of time?  Are there any other mechanisms at work?

As I only read SPACE Digest, please reply to me directly, (unless you
can make sure your reply appears in the Digest)!

Many thanks,

Marcel Parnas
MPARNAS%MDF@MITRE-BEDFORD.ARPA

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Dec 87 13:25 EDT
From: ELIOT%cs.umass.edu@relay.cs.net
Subject: Recycled Missiles

There may be a good arms control reason not to do this.  If there
were 100 well instrumented launches of the missiles it might well be
possible to discover and correct a number of subtle design problems.
The net result would be that deployed missiles would be traded for
designs of extremely well tested andmuch more reliable missiles.

It sounds wasteful, but I don't want anything to stop this minor
arms control measure.  If a trivial arms control agreement fails
then there does not seem to be much hope for any substantive
ones to work.

------------------------------

Date: 23 Dec 87 16:28:23 GMT
From: decvax!ima!haddock!eli@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Elias Israel)
Subject: Re: Still more fascism...

In article <567230824.amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU> Dale.Amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU writes:
>Science, 18-Dec-87, pg 1648:
>
>"NASA Denied Access to DOE Laser Fusion Data"
>
>NASA apparently is interested in Inertial Containment Fusion for deep
>space propulsion systems that couild make the trip to Mars in under 100
>days. DOE has decided NASA does not have sufficient justification to be
>given access to the data.
>
>Just another example of secrecy paranoia that slows technological
>advance: Your tax dollars at work screwing you.

Agreed. What a perfect example of &^$^&&^% bureaucrats screwing things
up for the rest of the citizens. I say we should seriously question
how they became empowered to make this decision.....

In any case, what a neat idea! Would someone on the net care to
conjecture how inertial confinement fusion could be used as a
propulsion system? Would current treaties with the soviets permit us
to construct a device that uses as its propulsion many (admittedly,
small) fusion reactions? What kind of velocity would be required to
send a vehicle to mars (assuming closest approach) in 100 days?

Elias Israel
Interactive Systems Corporation
Boston, MA
..!harvardima!haddock!eli

"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law."

------------------------------

Date: 23 Dec 87 18:22:41 GMT
From: thorin!hayes!leech@mcnc.org  (Jonathan Leech)
Subject: Re: Diversification Reform

In article <8712230236.AA23949@crash.cts.com> lll-crg!ames!sdcsvax!bass.nosc.mil!pnet01!jim@mordor.s1.gov writes:
>One component of an effective space program reform policy would be to break
>NASA up into many independent space programs with overlapping purviews.

    I believe this is a *really bad* idea. At one stroke you

	- add a great deal of redundant management for the new
	    organizations, thereby wasting mucho $$$ that could be
	    spent on real stuff.

	- make them compete against themselves for funding. So far
	    this tends to happen in arguments between NSS and
	    Planetary Society members rather than in Congressional
	    hearings, and I for one would prefer to keep it that way.

	- lose any hope of having a space program with coherent,
	    large-scale goals such as ``landing a man on the moon and
	    returning him safely to Earth''.
    Jon Leech (leech@cs.unc.edu)    __@/
    ``...there are many places where gravity has its practical
      applications as far as the Universe is concerned.''
	- R. P. Feynman, _The Character of Physical Law_

------------------------------

Date: 23 Dec 87 23:26:14 GMT
From: jtk@mordor.s1.gov  (Jordan Kare)
Subject: Re: Still more fascism...

In article <2070@haddock.ISC.COM> eli@haddock.ima.isc.com (Elias Israel) writes:
>In article <567230824.amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU> Dale.Amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU writes:

>>Science, 18-Dec-87, pg 1648:
>>"NASA Denied Access to DOE Laser Fusion Data"

	I don't have this issue yet, but I'll have to see what the article
says.  Meanwhile, some general notes:

>>NASA apparently is interested in Inertial Containment Fusion for deep
>>space propulsion systems that couild make the trip to Mars in under 100
>>days. 

Means very little.  NASA is "interested" in a great many things, including
laser propulsion, solar sails, etc.  This doesn't mean they plan to
do anything about them, like fund any significant research.  ICF
propulsion has been around as an idea since the mid-70's.  Judging
by NASA's schedules for much less advanced ideas, they would
probably expect to use ICF propulsion in about 2050.  NASA has no
facilities for research on ICF, with the possible exception of various
Crays (Hi, Eugene) which could (but normally don't) run ICF codes.

>>DOE has decided NASA does not have sufficient justification to be
>>given access to the data.
>>
>>Just another example of secrecy paranoia that slows technological
>>advance: Your tax dollars at work screwing you.

Much ICF research is unclassified, and I'm sure NASA has access to
those data.  While one can certainly argue that much of what is
classified should not be, it is also arguable that some ICF data
should be classified, and that NASA really doesn't "need to know" 
that information now for the sake of long distance plans.
This doesn't mean I agree with the decision (or disagree -- I don't
know enough about the circumstances), just
that I can understand what motivates it.
>
>Agreed. What a perfect example of &^$^&&^% bureaucrats screwing things
>up for the rest of the citizens. I say we should seriously question
>how they became empowered to make this decision.....

Probably by authority of the Secretary of Energy, and thus
indirectly by authority of the President.  But enough of bureacracy...

>
>In any case, what a neat idea! Would someone on the net care to
>conjecture how inertial confinement fusion could be used as a
>propulsion system? Would current treaties with the soviets permit us
>to construct a device that uses as its propulsion many (admittedly,
>small) fusion reactions? What kind of velocity would be required to
>send a vehicle to mars (assuming closest approach) in 100 days?

The basic scheme was proposed by Rod Hyde in the mid-70's -- the
vehicle drops a small pellet out the back, then blasts it with
a large on-board laser.  A small amount of the pellet material
fuses, heating the pellet material to very high temperatures.
The pellet debris is sufficiently ionized to be contained
by a magnetic field, which acts as a nozzle, converting the 
spherical pellet explosion into a directional exhaust that
accelerates the spacecraft.  A portion of the energy is captured
to power the lasers for the next shot.  

The details vary.  For example, D-T (deuterium-tritium) fusion
is easiest to "light" but emits neutrons, so the spacecraft
must be shielded (usually with a "shadow shield" that blocks
only neutrons coming out in a narrow cone).  D-D fusion is clean
(no neutrons) but harder to light.  

To my knowledge, no treaty would restrict the operation of an ICF
spacecraft, any more than treaty restricts the operation of 
nuclear reactors on satellites.  However, I'm not an expert on
treaty law.

The performance needed to reach mars in 100 days is quite modest
(few km/sec velocity)  If ICF propulsion works, it will
make trips to mars possible in more like 10 days -- or maybe 1 day.
Somewhere around Rod Hyde's office is a nice artist's conception of
an ICF spacecraft in orbit around Saturn.

Before you get too enthusiastic, though, note that no IC fusion
reaction, even using the very large (and very non-portable) NOVA
laser has achieved even scientific breakeven (more fusion energy out
than light energy into the pellet), much less engineering breakeven
(more energy out than electrical energy into the laser), still less
continuous operation.  We're a long way from building fusion-powered
spacecraft (except Orion-style, and that's a whole 'nother story....).

		Jordin Kare	jtk@mordor.UUCP	jtk@mordor.S1.gov

Statements contained in this article represent only my personal 
opinions, and do not reflect any official policy or position of
the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the University of
California, or the Department of Energy.

>Elias Israel
>"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law."

"Anarchy -- It's Not the Law, It's Just a Good Idea"

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #87
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 26 Dec 87 06:19:36 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA14355; Sat, 26 Dec 87 03:16:51 PST
	id AA14355; Sat, 26 Dec 87 03:16:51 PST
Date: Sat, 26 Dec 87 03:16:51 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8712261116.AA14355@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #88

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 88

Today's Topics:
	   Spouses in space (was: Re: Astronauts and Trek)
			  Re: Life in Moscow
			 Re: Van Allen belts
		      Re: Still more fascism...
	    Re: Wild Materials (was Re: rewriting history)
		      Re: Diversification Reform
		   Re: space news from Nov 30 AW&ST
	     Re: Remote Sensing Resolution (was Fascism)
	Re: UK Goverment funding of computer Systems research.
	Soyuz TM-4 docks at Mir with replacement crew on board
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 23 Dec 87 19:22:57 GMT
From: ihnp4!homxb!mtuxo!mtune!lzaz!lznv!psc@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Paul S. R. Chisholm)
Subject: Spouses in space (was: Re: Astronauts and Trek)

In article <391@drilex.UUCP>, carols@drilex.UUCP (Carol Springs) writes:
> I recall reading some time ago a newspaper interview with Sally Ride,
> in which she and her (now-ex) husband, also an astronaut . . .

I know that Dr. Ride is an ex-astronaut (she's gone back to Stanford to
teach).  I hadn't heard she'd split up with her husband.

Both of these facts, plus the fact that NASA never scheduled them to
fly together, prevented an important experiment in space science:
what's boinking like in zero G?  Astronauts routinely go into the
shuttle airlock when they need some space (pun intended).  I imagine
that the rest of the crew wouldn't say anything if a couple locked both
doors for an hour or so.

> On an unrelated note...  How much of the American public do you
> suppose knew that Sally Ride and her husband had (gasp!) lived
> together for a time during their astronaut training without benefit
> of clergy? . . . it's just that I was pleased to learn that NASA had
> felt the same way (w.r.t. the selection process).   

This is very different from the early days:  a Gemini (I think)
candidate was rejected for divorcing his wife and marrying his
girlfriend.  On a completely unrelated note, Judith Resnick (one of the
Challenger Seven) was both the first divorced astronaut, and the first
Jewish one.  I doubt there's any relation between the two.  On the
other hand, while these factors might (stupidly) encourage NASA to pass
over a white male, anyone who said, "We can't hire *her*; she's
divorced" would have gotten (rightly) flamed by the Equal Opportunity
folks.  (The preceding has been the personal opinion of the poster;
please flame him personally, via email, if you strongly disagree,
rather than inflicting it on everyone else.)

>       Carol Springs {rutgers!ll-xn, ames!ll-xn, mit-eddie!ll-xn,
> husc6!harvard, gatech!harvard, linus!axiom, necntc} !drilex!carols

-Paul S. R. Chisholm, {ihnp4,cbosgd,allegra,rutgers}!mtune!lznv!psc
AT&T Mail !psrchisholm, Internet psc@lznv.att.com
I'm not speaking for my employer, I'm just speaking my mind.

------------------------------

Date: 23 Dec 87 17:30:12 GMT
From: tektronix!tekgen!tekigm2!jimb@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Jim Boland)
Subject: Re: Life in Moscow

In article <2573@calmasd.GE.COM> jnp@calmasd.GE.COM (John Pantone) writes:
>Had we stayed with the Saturn V/Apollo/Skylab technologies we would now be
>listening to our moonbase's reporter each evening on the 10 o'clock news -
>just after the special on the latest Mars mission.

I agree.  
I feel that the Saturn V-A and Apollo program was the most exciting part of
our space exploration and I for one would like to see it re-enacted.
Witnessing a Saturn launch is a greater experience than the shuttle. 

jim boland
tektronix!tekigm2!jimb
(I felt the earth move.......under my feet)

------------------------------

Date: 23 Dec 87 22:10:02 GMT
From: tektronix!zeus!tekla!dant@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Dan Tilque;1893;92-789;LP=A;60aC)
Subject: Re: Van Allen belts

>Recently "Paul F. Dietz" <DIETZ%sdr.slb.com@relay.cs.net> posted:
>>Some scientists have found that certain earth-based transmitters have been
>>found to accidently induce instabilities that can cause the
>>precipitation of electrons from the magnetosphere into the upper
>>atmosphere. It might be possible to use this effect to rid the Van Allen
>>belts of their trapped electrons.

David Subar:
>Call me an atmospheric ignoramus, but what are the effects of the precitation?

Probably more spectacular auroras than usual.  

>How did the electrons get in the Van Allen belt, and why remove them?

Upper atmospheric nuclear testing in the 50's.  The sun also contributes
some electrons and possibly some come from cosmic rays.  These electrons
would be removed by natural causes over a long period (about 100,000 years,
I think).  Removing them would open some frequency bands in the radio
spectrum for use by radio astronomers.

>Would it be better to replace a Van Allen belt with a leather one?

No, but I think that adding some van Allen suspenders may help.

---
Dan Tilque
dant@tekla.tek.com  or dant@tekla.UUCP

------------------------------

Date: 23 Dec 87 21:27:38 GMT
From: moria!dunc@sun.com  (duncs home)
Subject: Re: Still more fascism...

In article <2070@haddock.ISC.COM> eli@haddock.ima.isc.com (Elias Israel) writes:
                        ...
>small) fusion reactions? What kind of velocity would be required to
>send a vehicle to mars (assuming closest approach) in 100 days?

Assuming:
    -Mars is ~36e6 miles away (best case), ~248e6 miles away (worst case)
    -you keep the motor turned on, ie. constant acceleration
    -you accelerate for 50 days, flip and decelerate for 50 days
    -I didn't drop a decimal place somewhere (I *think* it works out)

The back of the envelope shows you need a constant acceleration on the order
of .00031 gravities (best case) or .0022 gravities (worst case), giving you a
maximum velocity at turnover of 13 km/s (best case) and 93 km/s (worst case).

Of course the numbers are as rough as the assumptions, but I think they should
be order-of-magnitude correct.

------------------------------

Date: 23 Dec 87 19:34:57 GMT
From: uop!robert@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu  (Hi how ya doin)
Subject: Re: Wild Materials (was Re: rewriting history)

In article <2038@haddock.ISC.COM>, eli@haddock.ISC.COM (Elias Israel) writes:
> I think that the stuff that you are referring to is made by a company
> called "Spenco". They are a medical supplies company and the material (I

I am glad it is that easy, our store deals in Spenco products, I will
give the rep a call.

thanks
---
       ...mcvax!uunet!mit-eddie!garp!ames!ucbvax!ucdavis!\ 
...eunetv!unido!/             ...princeton!rutgers!retix!--uop!robert
                                     ...sun!ptsfa!cogent!/

------------------------------

Date: 23 Dec 87 21:17:06 GMT
From: mcvax!jack@uunet.uu.net  (Jack Jansen)
Subject: Re: Diversification Reform

In article <8712230236.AA23949@crash.cts.com> lll-crg!ames!sdcsvax!bass.nosc.mil!pnet01!jim@mordor.s1.gov writes:
>One component of an effective space program reform policy would be to break
>NASA up into many independent space programs with overlapping purviews.  The 

Uhm.... I *completely* disagree. Already one of the main problems
seems to be that most money is spent on publicity personnel,
copiers, new carpets, meetings, coffee machines, etc etc etc.

The main thing that'll happen if you split NASA is that there'll
be an enormous increase in publicity personnel, copiers, etc etc
etc.

Somebody said "central management"? giggle. "Consultation"? Hihihihi.
"Cooperation"? WHOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!
-- 
	Jack Jansen, jack@cwi.nl (or jack@mcvax.uucp)
	The shell is my oyster.

------------------------------

Date: 23 Dec 87 21:01:32 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!sq!msb@uunet.uu.net  (Mark Brader)
Subject: Re: space news from Nov 30 AW&ST



> NRC SRB oversight team recommends more attention to assessing effectiveness
> of O-rings; the new joint design keeps the hot gases away from them so well
> that they have not been tested thoroughly yet.

One hopes that this time they will find a non-destructive test.

[For those not up on the Rogers Report... one of the contributing causes
 of O-ring problems was the testing for O-ring problems.  There is a
 dramatic graph showing the increased incidence of trouble after a
 certain test began to be performed at a higher pressure.]

Mark Brader		"The last 10% of the performance sought contributes
Toronto			 one-third of the cost and two-thirds of the problems."
utzoo!sq!msb, msb@sq.com				-- Norm Augustine

------------------------------

Date: 21 Dec 87 18:38:56 GMT
From: mcvax!enea!luth!cad!sow@uunet.uu.net  (Sven-Ove Westberg)
Subject: Re: Remote Sensing Resolution (was Fascism)

In article <3680@ames.arpa> eugene@pioneer.UUCP (Eugene Miya N.) writes:
>
>In article <905@luth.luth.se> sow@cad.luth.se (Sven-Ove Westberg) writes:
>>I can only see one reason for the government to limit the resolution.
                                ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
>There are many good technical reasons to limit resolution.  It depends

I agree completly with you that it exist good technical reasons. But
my opinion is that this is NOT a matter for the government, did the
government have the knowedge to do the correct decisions?? How long
will the decision be valid?? 1 month 1 year or forever? Look how many
old crazy laws that still exists. This is NOT a question for the
government it is a question for the project managers and the founding
organisations. What would have happen if the gouvernment tried to
estimate the total computer power needed 20 years ago??


Sven-Ove Westberg, CAD, University of Lulea, S-951 87 Lulea, Sweden.
UUCP:    {uunet,mcvax}!enea!cad.luth.se!sow
Internet: sow@cad.luth.se

------------------------------

Date: 22 Dec 87 17:30:57 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!its63b!bct@uunet.uu.net  (B Tompsett)
Subject: Re: UK Goverment funding of computer Systems research.


  [See the end for attributions]

  Bob Gray (bob@its63b.ed.ac.uk) wrote that the UK goverment is extremely
resistant to funding various forms of research (related to space) including
Computer Systems research.
  Jon Livesey (livesey@sun.uucp) claims that as he knows of more than one
computer system project in the UK that has received goverment funding. The
implication from his article is that this refutes Bob Gray. I think he is
wrong. It is very clear that the UK Goverment is not known for its generosity
in funding such research. That does not mean that the level of funded research
is zero. The fact that Jon Livesey can quote the references he does says more
about the access to technical literature at Sun than the state of funding in 
the UK. For example some University Libraries might have trouble accessing the
same volume of material that Sun obviously has because of the difficulty in
obtaining funding for such a basic tool of scientific research.

  As someone who has moved from being somone in Jon Livesey's position (an
employee of a US hi-tech company) to the a UK academic position I know who
had access to the better tools of research (and it aint here). Attracting 
suitable funding for Computer Systems research in the UK is bloody hard. 
I hearby certify the UK goverment to be ungenerous.
                          Brian.
-----Attributions-----

>In article <841@its63b.ed.ac.uk>, bob@its63b.ed.ac.uk (ERCF08 Bob Gray) writes:
> The one thing you could rely on from ALL British goverments
> for the last couple of hundred years is that they will oppose
> anything that smells even faintly of change.
> 
> You can also rely on them to be consi[s]tantly wrong.
>
> [A bunch of 19 C. 'history' omitted]
> 
> Much more recently, a goverment report in 1972/3 said that
> there would be no real changes in computers, so it wasn't
> worth doing research.

In article <36747@sun.uucp> livesey@sun.uucp (Jon Livesey) writes:
>
>	That is a very interesting statement.    I have in front of me three
>books which are reports of computer research projects funded partly or wholly
>by the UK Government.
>
>  [... Details of funded research deleted ...]
>
>
>     It's very easy to talk about "A government report" [....]
> [......] but what really matters 
>is what a government finally does or does not do.
>     [...] but on the subject of UK
>Govt. support for computer systems research it appears he is simply wrong.

-- 
> Brian Tompsett. Department of Computer Science, University of Edinburgh,
> JCMB, The King's Buildings, Mayfield Road, EDINBURGH, EH9 3JZ, Scotland, U.K.
> Telephone:         +44 31 667 1081 x2711.
> JANET:  bct@uk.ac.ed.ecsvax  ARPA: bct%ed.ecsvax@nss.cs.ucl.ac.uk
> USENET: bct@ecsvax.ed.ac.uk  UUCP: ...!mcvax!ukc!ed.ecsvax!bct
> BITNET: ukacrl.earn!ed.ecsvax!bct or bct%ed.ecsvax@uk.ac

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 24 Dec 87 13:28:31 EST
From: Glenn Chapman <glenn@ll-vlsi.arpa>
Subject: Soyuz TM-4 docks at Mir with replacement crew on board

   The USSR's Soyuz TM-4 ship docked with the with the Mir/Kvant space station
complex today (Dec. 23) bringing up a three man crew consisting of 
Vladimir Titov  (Soyuz T-8 and the Soyuz T-10b launch pad failure),
flight engineer Musa Manarov (age 36, new cosmonaut) and Anatoly Levchenko 
(scientist cosmonaut - age 46 and also new).  In an interesting alteration from
expectations only Titov and Manarov will be staying on board Mir - Levchenko 
will return with Yuri Romanenko (who has been up there 321 days, the world's 
long duration record holder - previous record was 237 days) and 
Alexander Alexandrov (who has spent 152 days on Mir).  The Soyuz TM-3 
will bring them down on Dec. 31th/ Jan. 1st, as they had previously stated.
This change is actually consistent with other things that they have stated - 
that for well being of the crew it is necessary to have a separate stateroom 
for each crew member - Mir has two small rooms (each with a bed, desk, and its
own window).  The expectation is that this new crew will stay up there about
400 days.
    The Soviets are now referring to Mir as a "Permanently operational space
station", very much indicating that they intend to occupy it from now on until
its replacement with Novy Mir in the 1990's.  They first tried this 
on Salyut 7 in Nov. '84, but the commander of the replacement crew got ill. 
That was probably an early trial as they had stated that Salyut 7 was too
old a design to be used for permanent occupancy (they probably tried it due
to delays in the building or launching of Mir and the Kvant module ).
With Mir they have already done one partial replacement (July '29th) and appear
to be very strong on keeping this space station fully used.  Also there is
another trend here.  The long duration crews consist of one veteran cosmonaut,
and one (or more) younger rockies.  This makes sense from the point of view of
having one person who has the experience to take care of problems, yet is also
training a new person to pass that in orbit experience onto in the environment
in which they are going to work.  That to my mind beats ground based training
after the basics have been learned (be it noted that the new cosmonaut typically
has 5 to 7 years of ground training before going up there).  
    Meanwhile here I just found out that the $425 million approved for the
NASA space station contains $100 million taken out of other NASA space programs.
Note that when the shuttle was being built it ran into a funding barrier at
$1000 million a year (1973 dollars, equal to >$2 billion present day money).
That had bad impacts on the shuttle design and timing.  The station funding
looks like it is saturating at 1/4 the shuttle level.  Does any one have
an idea how we can convince the Congress to do otherwise? (Or get some private
group to invest the money to really do something).  Something that will work
please!!

                                   Glenn Chapman
                                   MIT Lincoln Lab

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #88
*******************

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Date: Sun, 27 Dec 87 03:18:04 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8712271118.AA15399@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #89

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 89

Today's Topics:
		      Re: Diversification Reform
       Re: UK Govermnent funding of computer Systems research.
       Inertial Containment Fusion (Was: Still more fascism...)
		     Christmas greetings from JSC
	     Inertial Confinement Fusion - Treaty Limits
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Thu, 24 Dec 87 13:56:01 EST
From: John Roberts <roberts@icst-cmr.arpa>
Subject: Re: Diversification Reform


> Date: Tue, 22 Dec 87 18:20:22 PST
> From: lll-crg!ames!scubed!sdcsvax!pnet01.cts.com!jim@mordor.s1.gov (Jim Bowery
> Subject: Diversification Reform

> One component of an effective space program reform policy would be to
> break NASA up into many independent space programs with overlapping
> purviews.  The most obvious way of achieving this would be to give each
> NASA center its own independent budget, perhaps while increasing their
> budgets slightly to account for the cost of transition.  

Sure, that worked so well for AT&T, why not try it on NASA? (:-)

> This, of course, would be most vocally resisted by nonproductive NASA centers
> which fear other NASA centers.  These centers would almost certainly
> engage in blatent violations of the Hatch Act by having various
> contractors lobby their congresscritters mercilessly, and thus would be
> given 2 opportunities to be terminated: 1) Through good faith
> enforcement of the Hatch Act and 2) Through being shown to be wasting
> money when other centers are far more efficient and effective in the use
> of their budgets to accomplish overlapping tasks.

I think there would be several problems with this. Consider three cases,
illustrating three types of organization:

Case 1: true overlap of functions

Of the many divisions derived from NASA, Divisions L1 (launch pads,
lavatories, and life support), L2 (lavatories, life support, and light
bulbs), and L3 (life support, light bulbs, and lubrication) are each
partially in competition with the other two. It turns out that L1 is
the most skilled and efficient in the areas of launch pads and life
support, but is highly inefficient and unskilled in lavatory design.
L3 is unsurpassed in light bulbs and lubrication, but is equally
unskilled at lavatory work. L2 is extremely skilled and efficient in
lavatory design, but is incompetent for work on life support and light
bulbs. Since L1 and L3 are each good at two things, they continue to
be funded, while L2, good at only one job, is discontinued, and everybody
is fired. Maybe a few employees will go to work for L1 or L3, but each
division will try to protect its own employees, limiting new hiring.
The net result is that the lavatory costs nearly as much as the rest of
the Space Station combined, and doesn't work, except when it discharges
into random living compartments.

Case 2: incomplete overlap of coverage

This brings about the risk that vital functions will be wiped out entirely
due to real or perceived inefficiency. Safety considerations, for instance,
have little immediately apparent productive value. If the situation 
described in case 1 takes place under these conditions, the Space Station
ends up with *no* lavatory, and the shamefaced astronauts must frequently
visit Mir to use theirs.

Case 3: redundancy of functions

In this example, there are several independent divisions covering each 
area, for example life support. For three divisions, either there are
three times as many employees as the original corresponding part of
NASA, or each division has a third as many employees, and a third of the
skill base of the original part. You would like to have as many parallel
divisions as you can afford, to create a good statistical universe in
which they can compete. Remember that there is no longer even nominal
cooperation, since the parallel divisions are in cutthroat competition
for survival. As a result, when one Life Support division discovers that
cod liver oil is a cumulative poison when ingested by humans under zero
gravity conditions, it neglects to inform the competing divisions.

Of course these examples are exaggerated, but I think they illustrate
real problem areas that could show up. Not that it's not an interesting
proposal, I'm just concerned that it would cause more problems than it
would solve.
                                           <Standard disclaimers>
                                            John Roberts
                                            roberts@icst-cmr.ARPA

------------------------------

Date: 25 Dec 87 01:09:41 GMT
From: livesey@sun.com  (Jon Livesey)
Subject: Re: UK Govermnent funding of computer Systems research.

In article <863@its63b.ed.ac.uk>, bct@its63b.ed.ac.uk (B Tompsett) writes:
> 
>   Bob Gray (bob@its63b.ed.ac.uk) wrote that the UK gover[n]ment is extremely
> resistant to funding various forms of research (related to space) including
> Computer Systems research.

	Please read Gray's message before you summarise it.   This is not
what he wrote.

>   Jon Livesey (livesey@sun.uucp) claims that as he knows of more than one
> computer system project in the UK that has received gover[n]ment funding. The
> implication from his article is that this refutes Bob Gray.

	You got that right, at least.  Gray actually wrote:

		"The one thing you could rely on from ALL British gover[n]ments
		for the last couple of hundred years is that they will oppose
		anything that smells even faintly of change.

		"You can also rely on them to be consi[s]ta[e]ntly wrong.

	And:

		"Much more recently, a gover[n]ment report in 1972/3 said that
		there would be no real changes in computers, so it wasn't
		worth doing research."

	When someone makes statements containing words like (capitalised) 'ALL',
'anything' and 'consistently wrong', it is sufficient to produce a few counter-
examples in order to refute what they write.   It took me less than fifteen 
seconds to reach for enough examples to refute what Mr Gray actually wrote.   OK?
Should I have included the work from your own University?   With a little time, I
could do that, too.

	I thought it also worth making the point that handwaving about unreferenced 
'reports' that may or may not have existed proves nothing; what counts is what 
governments finally do.   In particular, on the assumption that some report really 
said this, they apparently decided to ignore it, as my references (which Dr Tompsett 
was kind enough to delete, but you can look them up, eh?) showed.

	It is of course not true that HMG has 'oppposed anything that smells even
faintly of change'; in fact it's a very silly thing to allege since many scientific 
and technical innovations of the last hundred years came about with HMG support. 
It may have become the 'politically correct' thing to say, but then, a great many 
politically correct things are silly. 

	It's probably true that HMG are pretty stingy with their money, but if 
you talk to researchers in any country, you find that every government is 
perceived like this.   If there is a level of research funding that would earn 
a government even faint praise among academics, I don't know what it is.     On
the other hand, you only have to look at what science HMG does fund, which is a 
long list, to realise that they seem to be pretty good at identifying what is 
worth the money.  In other words, far from being 'consistently wrong', they are 
very often right.   Their habit of keeping their researchers on short commons 
does not seem to have prevented some distinguished research in the area I am 
familiar with, so maybe it's not such a bad idea.   (When you are interested in 
research quality, as opposed to quantity, it's a good idea to check how often 
work is referred *to*, and the Newcastle work on reliability is being referred 
to all over the place, even today, almost fifteen years after the project started).

	What the UK seems to be particularly bad at is the art of getting their 
money back by the industrial exploitation of their scientific and technical 
innovations.    That, however, is as much a problem of industry and management 
as it is of government, and I am not sure if HMG should take all the blame.  If
you really think that research deserves more money, then maybe the way to go about 
getting it is to demonstrate to people that the research generated will do something
to assist the general economy.   Just remember that they have seen a lot of
good research make money for other people.

	If you want money for Systems research, or Space, try to find a way to 
make sure that the UK taxpayer does not pay for profits that end up in Utah or 
Tokyo.   I have noticed that companies that do generate profits for the UK economy, 
like BAe and Rolls Royce, do get government funding.   Now you have to convince 
them that your research, or HOTOL, is a good bet, too.   Slandering them in
advance and in public seems like poor strategy, as well as casting an ironic light 
on ones knowledge of the history of science.

> It is very clear that the UK Gover[n]ment is not known for its generosity in 
> funding such research. That does not mean that the level of funded research is
> zero.

     My point precisely.    That's why I though what Gray said ought not to
go unchallenged.   Had he said what you have just said, I would not have uttered
a peep, for a very simple reason; it's probably correct.   It's one thing to 
make a reasonable complaint about funding levels; it's another thing to smear
a hundred years of governments.

> The fact that Jon Livesey can quote the references he does says more about the 
> access to technical literature at Sun than the state of funding in the UK. 

	No, it says that the farsighted Jon Livesey, when a grad student, spent 
his own money buying research publications he though worth spending the money 
on.   Drop by and see my books next time you are in CA.   That 5.3 you just felt was
my CACMs falling over.

	It also says that Jon Livesey would not have been able to spend his pennies
so wisely, had HMG (and the US Govt, and the French Govt.) not funded the research 
to begin with.   Are you starting to get the point yet?

> For example some University Libraries might have trouble accessing the
> same volume of material that Sun obviously has because of the difficulty in
> obtaining funding for such a basic tool of scientific research.

	I left an American University for much this reason.   They had an amazing 
section on Astrology (Astrology is studied as an area in sociology, believe it or 
not) but for five years they refused to buy anything on Computer Systems "because 
it's not a research area".   I'm not kidding, folks, the library staff all had PCs,
so they decided it was a closed area.   We have 1-2-3, so what else would anyone 
want to investigate?   The state I lived in had an active research funding program 
to encourage university-industry cooperation, but also refused, as a matter of 
policy, to fund any research in software.    This is the other side of the coin - 
all kinds of money, and no brains.    Notice, though, that I am not slandering them
on the net.

> I hearby[hereby] certify the UK gover[n]ment to be ungenerous.

	a.	So what?
	b.	What are you going to do about it?

Merry Xmas.

Jon.

------------------------------

Date: 25 Dec 87 08:21:28 GMT
From: ihnp4!homxb!hropus!ki4pv!codas!killer!elg@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Eric Green)
Subject: Inertial Containment Fusion (Was: Still more fascism...)

in article <21800@mordor.s1.gov>, jtk@mordor.s1.gov (Jordan Kare) says:
$ Before you get too enthusiastic, though, note that no IC fusion
$ reaction, even using the very large (and very non-portable) NOVA
$ laser has achieved even scientific breakeven (more fusion energy out
$ than light energy into the pellet), much less engineering breakeven
$ (more energy out than electrical energy into the laser), still less
$ continuous operation.  We're a long way from building fusion-powered
$ spacecraft (except Orion-style, and that's a whole 'nother story....).

OK. So put a fission reactor on your spacecraft. What would be the efficient
way of turning the energy from that reactor into propulsion?  How would
pouring that energy into ICF compare to other methods?

--
Eric Lee Green  elg@usl.CSNET        Snail Mail P.O. Box 92191       
{cbosgd,ihnp4}!killer!elg            Lafayette, LA 70509             
"There's someone in my head, but it's not me...." -PF

------------------------------

Date: 23 Dec 87 18:46:33 GMT
From: nuchat!splut!jay@uunet.uu.net  (Jay Maynard)
Subject: Christmas greetings from JSC

The following is reprinted from the JSC _Space News Roundup_. Maybe, one
day, this won't be as farfetched as it sounds now...

[Editor's note {from the original}: The holiday season inspires the
_Roundup_ staff with hope for the future of humans in space. We present the
following with apologies to Clement C. Moore.]

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the Space Station
Not a crewmember was stirring at that inclination

The stockings were Velcroed by the microwave with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there.

The astronauts were nestled all snug in their sleep restraints,
While visions of Tex-Mex ran contrary to diet constraints;

And the Commander in her IVA, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a 6-hour nap,

When out on the hull there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my crew compartment to see what was the matter.

Away to the porthole I flew like a flash,
Switched open the shutters in the blink of a lash.

White-painted graphite/epoxy like new-fallen snow,
Gave the luster of midday to the trusswork below.

When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer,

With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.

More rapid than Space Shuttles his coursers they came,
His radio crackled as he shouted and called them by name:

"Now Dasher! Now Dancer! Now, Prancer and Vixen!
On Comet! On Cupid! On, Donner and Blitzen!"

"To the top of the lab module! To the resource node!" he'd call.
"Now close the hatch! Dog the latch! Keep pressure loss small!"

As flight controllers monitored his craft on the fly,
When he met with an obstacle, they helped him get by.

So up to the airlock the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too.

And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the bumper
The prancing and pawingof each hoof a thumper.

As I drew on my slippersocks, and was turning around,
In the airlock St. Nicholas floated upside down.

The globe of an EMU helmet he held under his arm,
And the red of his space suit added holiday charm.

He had a broad face and a little brown belly,
That shook when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly.

He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself.

A wink of his eye and a twist of his head
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings, then turned with a jerk,

And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, through the airlock he rose.

He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a sign,
And away they all flew into the Earthshine.

But I heard him o'er the S band, as he drove out of sight:
"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!"

-- 
Jay Maynard, K5ZC (@WB5BBW)...>splut!< | GEnie: JAYMAYNARD  CI$: 71036,1603
uucp: {uunet!nuchat,academ!uhnix1,{ihnp4,bellcore,killer}!tness1}!splut!jay
Never ascribe to malice that which can adequately be explained by stupidity.
The opinions herein are shared by none of my cats, much less anyone else.

------------------------------

Date: 26 Dec 87 19:58:00 GMT
From: cfa!willner@husc6.harvard.edu  (Steve Willner)
Subject: Inertial Confinement Fusion - Treaty Limits

in article <21800@mordor.s1.gov>, jtk@mordor.s1.gov (Jordan Kare) says:
> To my knowledge, no treaty would restrict the operation of an ICF
> spacecraft, any more than treaty restricts the operation of 
> nuclear reactors on satellites.  However, I'm not an expert on
> treaty law.

Nor am I an expert, but there might be a problem with the Nuclear
Test Ban Treaty.  My understanding is that it prohibits all nuclear
explosions in space, as well as in the atmosphere.  (And underground
too for yields over 150 kt.)  But don't worry:

> Judging by NASA's schedules for much less advanced ideas, they
> would probably expect to use ICF propulsion in about 2050.  

Sounds over-optimistic to me, but even on this schedule there's
plenty of time to renegotiate a treaty or to withdraw from it if
necessary. 

-- 
Steve Willner            Phone 617-495-7123          Bitnet: willner@cfa2
60 Garden St.            FTS:      830-7123           UUCP:   willner@cfa
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA                     ARPA: willner@cfa.harvard.edu

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #89
*******************
From:	FNAL::gov%"ota@angband.s1.gov" 28-DEC-1987 06:04
To:	HIGGINS
Subj:	SPACE Digest V8 #90

Received: From UIUCVMD(MAILER) by FNALC with RSCS id 0735
          for HIGGINS@FNALC; Mon, 28 Dec 87 06:06 CST
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Sender:       SPACE Digest <SPACE@TCSVM>
From:         Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Subject:      SPACE Digest V8 #90
Comments: To: Space@angband.s1.gov
To:           "(no name)" <HIGGINS@FNALC>
     
SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 90
     
Today's Topics:
              Re: Remote Sensing Fascism
             Re: Van Allen belts
              Re: Diversification Reform
               Re: NASA breakup
      Soyuz TM-4 mission and Bulgarian mission announced
----------------------------------------------------------------------
     
Reply-To: lll-crg!ames!sdcsvax!bass.nosc.mil!pnet01!jim@mordor.s1.gov
Date: Sat, 26 Dec 87 14:53:07 PST
From: lll-crg!ames!scubed!sdcsvax!pnet01.cts.com!jim@mordor.s1.gov (Jim Bowery)
To: crash!space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: Re: Remote Sensing Fascism
     
Dale Amon points out that U.S. companies which might, otherwise, pursue
the remote sensing market, are unable to do so because of the high risk
that government interests will suppress private enterprise.
     
Thomas P. Quinn, of the DoD "assures" Senator Cranston and us that the
DoD is not inhibiting private enterprise in remote sensing.  We should
not be satisfied with this response.
     
As long as entrepreneurs do not believe that they can pursue remote
sensing markets without fear of government suppression, we can look
forward to a continuing accelleration of our downhill slide in space
prowess.
     
Senator Cranston, other statesmen and we, the people, should not be
satisfied until the public sector does whatever is necessary to resolve
this problem.
     
The burden of proof is on the DoD, NASA and other government agencies
that have earned the distrust of entrepreneurs.  Funding to the agencies
in question should stop until private capital is fueling the pursuit of
the manifestly lucrative remote sensing market here in the U.S.
     
I will let Senator Cranston and other appropriate statesmen know this is
how I feel.
     
Jim Bowery              PH: 619/295-8868
PO Box 1981
La Jolla, CA 92038
     
PS:  One has to wonder why the organizations of SPACEPAC and SPACECAUSE
haven't been pursuing these kinds of issues and instead, have insisted
on working with aerospace industry and National Space Society resources
to pump more and more money into NASA so that it can continue to do
business as usual. These organizations are not representing my views nor
the views of a substnatial number of influential space activists.  It
would be tragic if we had to notify H.U.D. and political candidates to
please ignore SPACECAUSE and SPACEPAC because they represent NASA rather
than the voters.
     
     
UUCP: {cbosgd, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!pnet01!jim
ARPA: crash!pnet01!jim@nosc.mil
INET: jim@pnet01.cts.com
     
------------------------------
     
Date: 27 Dec 87 19:41:16 GMT
From: cfa!wyatt@husc6.harvard.edu  (Bill Wyatt)
Subject: Re: Van Allen belts
     
in article <2879@zeus.TEK.COM>, dant@tekla.TEK.COM (Dan
 Tilque;1893;92-789;LP=A;60aC) says:
>>How did the electrons get in the Van Allen belt, and why remove them?
     
> Upper atmospheric nuclear testing in the 50's.
     
HUH? We're talking an altitude of a few hundred miles. LEO is *below*
the Van Allen belts.
     
> The sun also contributes some electrons and possibly some come from
> cosmic rays.  These electrons would be removed by natural causes over
> a long period (about 100,000 years, I think).
     
Virtually all the electrons come from the Sun. Cosmic rays are charged
atomic nuclei, stripped (almost always) of electrons.
     
> Removing them would open some frequency bands in the radio spectrum
> for use by radio astronomers.
     
If the original poster is correct, they would be removed, but would fill
back up again, in perhaps weeks or months. I don't know what the net
electron flux is.
     
As for opening RF bands, I think you're confusing ionospheric effects.
     
Bill    UUCP:  {husc6,ihnp4,cmcl2,mit-eddie}!harvard!cfa!wyatt
Wyatt   ARPA:  wyatt@cfa.harvard.edu
         (or)  wyatt%cfa@harvard.harvard.edu
     
------------------------------
     
Reply-To: lll-crg!ames!sdcsvax!bass.nosc.mil!pnet01!jim@mordor.s1.gov
Date: Sat, 26 Dec 87 12:32:50 PST
From: lll-crg!ames!scubed!sdcsvax!pnet01.cts.com!jim@mordor.s1.gov (Jim Bowery)
To: crash!space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: Re: Diversification Reform
     
Jonathan Leech and Jack Jansen assert that by centralizing management we
can eliminate redundancy and have a more efficient space program.  This
is the totalitarian falacy.  If this were true, the centralized planning
of the communist economies would be more effective than the
decentralized economic system of free enterprise.  This is observed to
not be the case.  The fact that the Soviet Union's space program is more
effective than ours is only an indication that we are no good at
centralized long range planning.  The Soviets are better at keeping
their space bureaucracy from going into complete failure than we are
because their entire society is based on the bureacratic model.
     
Rather than trying to better emulate them we should play on our
strength, recognizing human nature, particularly in the US, requires
competition to keep it honest.  NASA currently is overrun with
bureaucracy for exactly the same reason other government supported
monopolies become overhead dominated -- they can get away with it.
     
For example, when Fletcher came out and said "$40/lb to low earth orbit"
and the Shuttle ended up costing a factor of ONE HUNDRED more, how is
anyone (primarily Congress) to decide which of the explanations/excuses
is valid?  If there are multiple entities out there and one succeeds
where the other fails, not only do we have a more reliable space program
but we can eliminate wasteful bureaucracies thus providing appropriate
incentives for efficiency.  Face it, we're all human and we all need
feedback both positive and negative.  Those who provide feedback
(Congress) must have good information to base their judgements on.  I
will get into a detailed description the need for control groups, the
criminally anticompetative activies of NASA that have victimized our
nation's space prowess and other pertinent topics if this explanation
isn't sufficient.
     
In general, running things in a centralized, noncompetitive mode is
useful for small organizations, the military and short term emergency
projects where you have no other choice.  As an ongoing mode of
operation, diversification with competition is more reliable and thus,
in the long term, more efficient.  Projects like Manhattan and Apollo
were tremendous achievements that prove our mettle when confronted by
immediate challenges.  They are gambles that paid off because the
leaders and historic circumstances were in our favor.  If you are a
compulsive gambler, however, you eventually lose it all, no matter how
vivid your memories of bygone jackpots.
     
     
Jim Bowery              PH: 619/295-8868
PO Box 1981
La Jolla, CA 92038
     
UUCP: {cbosgd, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!pnet01!jim
ARPA: crash!pnet01!jim@nosc.mil
INET: jim@pnet01.cts.com
     
------------------------------
     
Date: 26 Dec 1987 16:42-EST
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: NASA breakup
     
I fear affect of splitting NASA up into it's constituent fiefdoms would
be to recreate the space program of the late 70's.
     
If NASA were a private organization, such a split up would create a
competive atmosphere. But it is a government agency and the only
'customer' it satisfies is it's own bureacracy and the members of the
four relevant committees on the hill.
     
First result: a number of small agencies at the mercy of the giant DC
based agencies like DOD, DOE, DOT, HUD, etc.
     
Second result: mutual throat cutting for the plums would make them even
weaker.
     
Third result: pork barrel would add to duplication. Space policy would
become even more a beast of local politics than it already is. I would
guess with high probability that the centers would become more involved
in local 'industrial' and 'welfare' 'needs' than in space.
     
I don't entirely disagree that NASA might need changes. But I would
suggest that the agency should be kept intact as a single entity and
have it's charter changed to one of hardware research. (ie better
engines, new propulsion systems, X-craft testing). Maybe responsibility
for some major exploratory missions as well.
     
I would put all of the planetary and scientific research under a
different agency entirely. I don't think it works to mix the needs of
the Van Allen's in the same agency with the goals of the Von Braun's.
     
I would even go so far as to require that the funding for the two areas
be handled by completely different committees.
     
And I would require that ALL ELV's be purchased on the open market.
NASA should not touch an ELV except as a propulsion test bed.
     
Shuttle should also be handled by a contracted external operating
company. Even if it can never be profitable, we might as well pay a
private concern to do the best they can rather than tie NASA up being a
trucking company.
     
In summary, I see NASA having difficulty defining it's mission because
it has three incompatible goals and constituencies. Operations, R&D and
Science. Lets put them back to work as the premier R&D agency and let
others do what they are good at.
     
------------------------------
     
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 87 00:00:28 EST
From: Glenn Chapman <glenn@ll-vlsi.arpa>
Subject: Soyuz TM-4 mission and Bulgarian mission announced
     
   The Soyuz TM-4 mission to Mir is now nearing a close with the
cosmonauts checking over both the TM-3 (brought up in July) and the
current TM-4 capsules.  Assuming that they find no problems they will
remove Anatoly Levchenko's couch from the TM-4 and transfer it to the
TM-3, where he will accompany Yuri Romanenko and Alexander Alexandrov
to ground, with a separation from Mir on either Dec. 29 or 30.
   The Russians have also announced that on June 21 they will fly a
3 man mission to Mir with a Bulgarian guest cosmonaut.  That flight
will be of 10 days duration and the announcement specifically stated
that they will meet Titov and Manarov in orbit on Mir - consistant with
the open statement that the long duration crew will be up there for more
than one year.  It is interesting that the Bulgarian's get the first
place in the new series of intercosmos guest missions (though this
has been known for at least a year).  The last Bulgarian mission,
Soyuz 33 with Georgi Ivanov (Bul) and Nikolai Rukavishnikov in Oct. '79,
failed to dock to Salyut 6 and returned to earth after only 2 days.
The stated cosmonaut for the new mission is Alexander Alexandrov,
who was the backup man for Soyuz 33 (he is no relation to the current Mir
cosmonaut of the same name).
   This announcement of a flight date 6 months from now makes the lack of
a specific launch date much in advance of the current Soyuz TM-4
even stranger.  Also they had previously stated that this would leave a
3 man crew on Mir, not the 2 man one now up there.  Obviously something
went wrong that made some of the timings of TM-4 uncertain.
   It is interesting to note that the Bulgarian mission is slated for
the date when NASA now says the shuttle is likely to fly.  Hopefully
there will be more than just Soviet block astronauts up there during
that week.
     
                                  Glenn Chapman
                                  MIT Lincoln Lab
     
------------------------------
     
End of SPACE Digest V8 #90
*******************
From:	FNAL::gov%"ota@angband.s1.gov" 29-DEC-1987 12:34
To:	HIGGINS
Subj:	SPACE Digest V8 #91

Received: From UIUCVMD(MAILER) by FNALC with RSCS id 5158
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Sender:       SPACE Digest <SPACE@TCSVM>
From:         Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Subject:      SPACE Digest V8 #91
Comments: To: Space@angband.s1.gov
To:           "(no name)" <HIGGINS@FNALC>
     
SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 91
     
Today's Topics:
             Re: Exact Time (help please)
             Re: Van Allen Belts
             Re: Exact Time (help please)
              ted this is a test
                  satellites
           Second attempt to post via mail
             Re:  Diversification Reform
             "Research" vs "Development"
             Re: Recycling Pershing-II's
            Re: heat-shield tiles
              Re: Diversification Reform
              Re: Diversification Reform
----------------------------------------------------------------------
     
Date: 22 Dec 87 22:29:47 GMT
From: sdcrdcf!csun!csustan!polyslo!caus-dp!marcos@burdvax.prc.unisys.com
(Marcos R. Della)
Subject: Re: Exact Time (help please)
     
In article <2837@zeus.TEK.COM>, dant@tekla.TEK.COM (Dan Tilque) writes:
 >T. Terrell Banks writes:
 >>Ken Trant writes:
 >>>
 >>> I have been asked by my Young Astronauts group to find out how the correct
 >>>time is determined.
 >>
 >>       Try calling WWV (National Bureau of Standards) in Fort Collins.
 >>       I think the number is (303) 499-7111.
     
You can also try calling the following number if you have access
to something called autovon. The number is 294-1800. This is the
East coast naval atomic clock.
     
Marcos R. Della
     
--
...!csustan ->!polyslo!caus-dp!marcos               | Whatever I said doesn't
...!sdsu ---/   Lt. Marcos R. Della                 | mean diddly as I forgot
...!csun --/    Smail:PO Box 8104 SLO,CA 93403-8104 | it even before finishing
...!dmsd -/     Tele: (805) 544-4900                | typing it all out!!! :-)
     
------------------------------
     
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 87 09:18 EDT
From: "Paul F. Dietz" <DIETZ%sdr.slb.com@relay.cs.net>
Subject: Re: Van Allen Belts
To: wyatt@cfa.harvard.edu, space@angband.s1.gov
     
Bill Wyatt (wyatt@cfa.harvard.edu), in response to Dan Tilque, wrote:
     
>>>How did the electrons get in the Van Allen belt, and why remove them?
>> Upper atmospheric nuclear testing in the 50's.
>HUH? We're talking an altitude of a few hundred miles. LEO is *below*
>the Van Allen belts.
     
A very high altitude nuclear explosion will eject fission products clear
out of the atmosphere, where they undergo beta decay, putting electrons
into the magnetosphere.  Also, some neutrons from the explosion escape
the atmosphere and decay.
     
>> The sun also contributes some electrons and possibly some come from
>> cosmic rays.  These electrons would be removed by natural causes over
>> a long period (about 100,000 years, I think).
     
>Virtually all the electrons come from the Sun. Cosmic rays are charged
>atomic nuclei, stripped (almost always) of electrons.
     
The electrons from cosmic rays would be secondaries, I think. Energetic
protons, hitting the atmosphere at a glancing angle, can produce muons and
neutrons that enter the magnetosphere from below and decay, emitting
electrons.
     
    Paul F. Dietz
    dietz@sdr.slb.com
     
------------------------------
     
Date: 28 Dec 87 14:11:34 GMT
From: mtune!rkh@rutgers.edu  (Robert Halloran)
Subject: Re: Exact Time (help please)
     
In article <338@caus-dp.UUCP> marcos@caus-dp.UUCP (Marcos R. Della) writes:
>In article <2837@zeus.TEK.COM>, dant@tekla.TEK.COM (Dan Tilque) writes:
> >T. Terrell Banks writes:
> >>Ken Trant writes:
> >>> I have been asked by my Young Astronauts group to find out how the correct
> >>>time is determined.
> >>       Try calling WWV (National Bureau of Standards) in Fort Collins.
> >>       I think the number is (303) 499-7111.
>You can also try calling the following number if you have access
>to something called autovon. The number is 294-1800. This is the
>East coast naval atomic clock.
>
>Marcos R. Della
     
 For those  of us  not working for DoD, the Naval Observatory master
 clock can be heard by dialing 1-202-653-1800 in Washington DC.  This
 gives the usual per-second beep and a voice announcement of Eastern
 and Universal times at 15-second intervals.
     
 Hope this helps.
     
                        Bob Halloran
=========================================================================
Classic UUCP: {ATT-ACC, rutgers}!mtune!rkh    DDD: (201)251-7514
Domain-style: rkh@mtune.ATT.COM                   evenings ET
USPS: 19 Culver Ct, Old Bridge NJ 08857
Disclaimer: These opinions are solely MINE; any correlation with AT&T
    policies or positions is coincidental and unintentional.
Quote: "No matter where you go, there you are." - Buckaroo Banzai
=========================================================================
     
------------------------------
     
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 87 12:23:38 pst
From: Eugene Miya N. <eugene@PIONEER.ARC.NASA.GOV>
Subject: ted this is a test
     
If you catch it, you don;t need to post it, but please ACK.
     
------------------------------
     
Date: 28 Dec 87 18:07:14 GMT
From: uop!robert@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu  (Doc Ness)
Subject: satellites
     
Well, how about that AP headline?
"Satellite saw Waite, newspaper says"
     
and  "National Security Agency Officials" talked of the "Lacrosse"
satellite parked over Lebanon.
     
Comments?
     
(I bet NSA is pissed off either way!)
     
------------------------------
     
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 87 15:03:18 pst
From: eugene%pioneer@ames.arpa (Eugene Miya N.)
Subject: Second attempt to post via mail
     
Received: Wed, 16 Dec 87 14:09:07 pst by ames-pioneer.arpa (1.2/1.2)
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 87 14:09:07 pst
From: Eugene Miya N. <eugene>
Message-Id: <8712162209.AA15843@ames-pioneer.arpa>
To: space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: Re: Cashew nut heat shield
Newsgroups: sci.space
In-Reply-To: <489@stc-f.tcom.stc.co.uk>
References: <2553@calmasd.GE.COM>
Organization: NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.
     
>    I'm sure someone (Henry?) will set me straight but I seem to
>    remember that the Surveyor Moon landers were encased in a
>    balsa wood outer shell to cushion the impact of a (not very)
>    soft landing.
     
Surveyor had a tripod landing gear.  Uses gas as a shock absorber (like
your car).  It didn't need a heat shield, the moon has no
significant atmosphere.  You are thinking of Viking.
First, I know this about Surveyor because Mr. Kubo (schoolmate's father)
of Huge Aircrash worked on it, dropped all this stuff about JPL (ended
up working in a builing in the literature).  Surveyor didn't have a
shell.
     
Viking lander (JPL), Pioneer Venus (Ames), and Galileo probe (Ames) all
had metallic heat shields as well as shells.  There's a Galileo probe
mock up at Ames and most of the other JPL craft are in a little display
off von Karmen Aud.
     
--eugene
     
------------------------------
     
Reply-To: lll-crg!ames!sdcsvax!bass.nosc.mil!pnet01!jim@mordor.s1.gov
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 87 14:00:12 PST
From: lll-crg!ames!scubed!sdcsvax!pnet01.cts.com!jim@mordor.s1.gov (Jim Bowery)
To: crash!space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: Re:  Diversification Reform
     
Dale Amon and I agree that NASA needs to be broken up and simply choose
different boundaries for the break up.  Breaking NASA up into 3 agencies
with around $3 billion each would have many of the benefits of breaking
it into 6 or so agencies with about $1.5 billion each.
     
Keep in mind that NSF is our most cost-effective research agency at a
budget of $1.5 billion.  The big bad government departments (DOE etc)
haven't squashed NSF yet.  The ratio of productive research to cut-throat
fighting between various government research agencies seems to be a lot better
     
than that ratio for the current NASA centers.  If we break the NASA infighting
     
out to the light of day, Congressional reaction will be quite appropriate --
either they clean up their acts or they get canned.  It should be obvious
that Congressional hearings are more effective at exposing inappropriate
behavior than private meetings between NASA managers and their good ole boys.
     
If NASA weren't so corrupt already, it might not be necessary to break it
down to NSF-sized agencies all directly answerable to Congress.  After ten
years or so of Congressional cleaning it might be feasible to consolidate
the centers if that makes sense.
     
John Roberts draws an analogy between AT&T and NASA stating that
the AT&T breakup worked so well that we should try it on NASA.  I'm
glad he brought that analogy up.  It supports my point very well.
In the time that electronics technology went from relays to Cray's
AT&T rocketed us from dial phones to push button phones and NASA took
us from $4,000/lb to LEO to $4,000/lb to LEO.  Since the break up
only 5 years go, we have seen an explosion of telecommunications
services and a dramatic drop in long distance rates.  Speaking as someone
who has been in telecommunications for 15 years, the breakup of AT&T
is one of the best things to happen to this country.  The initial
dislocations of telephone service caused by this revolutionary change
are already smoothing out.  Once again, thanks for that analogy, John. :-)
     
As to the rest of John's case analysis, it is clear he didn't understand
that I was proposing to breaking up NASA along center boundaries since
his boundary divisions were all JSC internal.
     
     
In an earlier message I stated small organizations, emergency projects
and the military are most appropriately handled via centralized planning.
Someone then sent me mail questioning why I included the military.  This
requires clarification:
     
Peacetime military operations should be and are run with internal competition.
I should have said "wartime military operations."  Wartime military operations
fall under the same principle as a short term emergency project.  I stated
it separately as a way of preempting arguments from those who are so close
to military operations that they might consider it to be a special case.
     
Jim Bowery               PHONE: 619/295-8868
PO Box 1981
La Jolla, CA 92038
     
UUCP: {cbosgd, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!pnet01!jim
ARPA: crash!pnet01!jim@nosc.mil
INET: jim@pnet01.cts.com
     
------------------------------
     
Reply-To: lll-crg!ames!sdcsvax!bass.nosc.mil!pnet01!jim@mordor.s1.gov
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 87 14:02:23 PST
From: lll-crg!ames!scubed!sdcsvax!pnet01.cts.com!jim@mordor.s1.gov (Jim Bowery)
To: crash!space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: "Research" vs "Development"
     
Earlier, Dale Amon recommended that we break NASA up into agencies
responsible for "Operations, R&D and Science."
     
Since "Science" is synonymous to "Research" and "R&D" stands for "Research
and Development" his divisions are, formally, redundant.  However, "R&D"
has acquired a colloquial meaning that excludes "research".  This meaning
has arisen because those who like to manage large development projects label
what they do as "R&D" so as to fraudulently acquire money that Congressional
intent earmarks for research.
     
If we spent as much money on "research" as is implied by our "R&D"
appropriations, our nation and its future would be in a lot better shape
than it is.  As it is, Congress is being hoodwinked by a semantic sleight-
of-hand.
     
Jim Bowery                 PHONE:  619/295-8868
PO Box 1981
La Jolla, CA 92038
     
UUCP: {cbosgd, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!pnet01!jim
ARPA: crash!pnet01!jim@nosc.mil
INET: jim@pnet01.cts.com
     
------------------------------
     
Date: 28 Dec 87 23:12:58 GMT
From: pioneer!eugene@ames.arpa  (Eugene Miya N.)
Subject: Re: Recycling Pershing-II's
     
Just a short note on this.  P-2s are not particularly great launch
vehicles for space or near space applications.  Maybe keep a few,
for sub-orbital stuff, but the majority appear useless for suggested
uses like space tugs, etc.  You are talking major modifications to the
point where making a new rocket can be just as cheap.  Sad but true,
maybe some private venture can take them.
     
--eugene
     
------------------------------
     
Date: 28 Dec 87 22:59:06 GMT
From: pioneer!eugene@ames.arpa  (Eugene Miya N.)
Subject: Re: heat-shield tiles
     
This is a test since our mailer is flakey (Pioneer is a development
machine, don't send mail here). Ted, let me know if you get the "tile
article.") P.S. my car (the Millenium Rabbit ;-) broke down at Tahoe, so
I'm just catching up on some people's requested answers).
     
Tiles have been designated material with a certain, shall we say,
"strategic importance."  This is funny since it is only silica.
I gave some small material to past friends (before it was so
classified) and owe some to seminar speakers (whom I know are reading this).
Don't even think about asking for the stuff at the moment, you might get
a visit from some people at the Dept. of Commerce and the FBI.
This contrasts with superconducting materials which everybody is
duplicating.  Maybe some day we will discover it (tile silica)
causes cancer ;-).
     
>From the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:
     
--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA
  "You trust the `reply' command with all those different mailers out there?"
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."
  {uunet,hplabs,hao,ihnp4,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene
     
------------------------------
     
Date: 28 Dec 87 20:53:41 GMT
From: mcvax!jack@uunet.uu.net  (Jack Jansen)
Subject: Re: Diversification Reform
     
In article <8712262036.AA17894@crash.cts.com>
 lll-crg!ames!sdcsvax!bass.nosc.mil!pnet01!jim@mordor.s1.gov writes:
>Jonathan Leech and Jack Jansen assert that by centralizing management
>we can eliminate redundancy and have a more efficient space program.
>This is the totalitarian falacy.
Well, well... This is the very first time in my life that I'm being
caught spreading totalitarian ideas, but so be it:-)
     
Anyway, the reason a totalitarian approach is the best working
model here and that "free market" won't work is that most of NASA
doesn't produce anything that can be sold. So, since *much* more money
goes into NASA than comes out again, NASA relies on government funding.
     
Since the people responsible for the funding are, at best, interested
laymen like myself (and probably even completely uninterested in
space) they will most likely spend the most money on the project
that provides the glossiest folders. So, the best value-for-money
personnel for new NASA-descendent startups will be publicity people.
     
Note that this point is already proven in the arms-industry:
fighter planes are sold because they look sexy, or because the
publicity person selling them looks sexy; *not* because they're good
fighter planes.
[Note that I couldn't care less about fighter planes, the example
just happens to prove my point]
--
    Jack Jansen, jack@cwi.nl (or jack@mcvax.uucp)
    The shell is my oyster.
     
------------------------------
     
Date: 29 Dec 87 01:14:18 GMT
From: livesey@sun.com  (Jon Livesey)
Subject: Re: Diversification Reform
     
In article <157@piring.cwi.nl>, jack@cwi.nl (Jack Jansen) writes:
> Well, well... This is the very first time in my life that I'm being
> caught spreading totalitarian ideas, but so be it:-)
     
    Don't worry about it.   Just point to the Manhattan Project.
The security aspects of much space and high technology work ensures
that arguments about totalitarian/non-totalitarian approaches are
vacuous.
     
> [....omitted]
>
> Since the people responsible for the funding are, at best, interested
> laymen like myself (and probably even completely uninterested in
> space) they will most likely spend the most money on the project
> that provides the glossiest folders. So, the best value-for-money
> personnel for new NASA-descendent startups will be publicity people.
>
> Note that this point is already proven in the arms-industry:
> fighter planes are sold because they look sexy, or because the
> publicity person selling them looks sexy; *not* because they're good
> fighter planes.
> [Note that I couldn't care less about fighter planes, the example
> just happens to prove my point]
     
    Oh come on.   This is humour, right?   Except in the US, fighter
production has less than epsilon to do with free enterprise.   Even for
the US, the closest thing to a private enterprise fighter crashed in
flames, so to speak, two years ago.   As for glossy folders, and sexy
models, I doubt if many fighters get bought in this way.   Maybe the
onesies and twosies that Lower Mondingo has to buy for appearances' sake,
but the first tier market; RAF, Armee De L'Air, and Luftwaffe?    Sexy
models?!   Even for the second tier arms market, I suspect bribery is a
bigger factor than glossy marketing.
     
Jon.
     
------------------------------
     
End of SPACE Digest V8 #91
*******************
Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU;  1 Jan 88 13:18:53 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA19693; Wed, 30 Dec 87 03:18:34 PST
	id AA19693; Wed, 30 Dec 87 03:18:34 PST
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 87 03:18:34 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8712301118.AA19693@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #92

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 92

Today's Topics:
			Re: heat-shield tiles
		      Re: Diversification Reform
		The mail path does not appear to work
		       Soyuz TM-4 mission lands
		     Re:  Diversification Reform
		      Re: Diversification Reform
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 29 Dec 87 00:14:37 GMT
From: nuchat!splut!jay@uunet.uu.net  (Jay Maynard)
Subject: Re: heat-shield tiles

In article <4904@spool.cs.wisc.edu>, thurm@speedy.WISC.EDU (Matthew J. 
Thurmaier) writes:
> As long as people are looking for other things that nasa uses, I would
> really like to find out how to get my hands on some of the heat-shield
> tiles that the shuttle uses.  Any one have any ideas?

Good luck. I know that the tiles are individually serialized, tracked (down
to the exact position on the orbiter), checked, characterized, inspected,
infected, rejected, detected...(>slap<) Where was I? Anyway, I don't know if
they'd be available after they're removed from the shuttle. The best
suggestion I can make is to contact Rockwell International, North American
Space Operations, in Downey, CA. If anyone would know, they would.
Don't hold your breath, though.

-- 
Jay Maynard, K5ZC (@WB5BBW)...>splut!< | GEnie: JAYMAYNARD  CI$: 71036,1603
uucp: {uunet!nuchat,academ!uhnix1,{ihnp4,bellcore,killer}!tness1}!splut!jay
Never ascribe to malice that which can adequately be explained by stupidity.
The opinions herein are shared by none of my cats, much less anyone else.

------------------------------

Date: 28 Dec 87 15:27:12 GMT
From: ihnp4!mmm!allen@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Kurt Allen)
Subject: Re: Diversification Reform

In article <8712230236.AA23949@crash.cts.com> lll-crg!ames!sdcsvax!bass.nosc.mil!pnet01!jim@mordor.s1.gov writes:
>One component of an effective space program reform policy would be to break
>NASA up into many independent space programs with overlapping purviews.  The 
>most obvious way of achieving this would be to give each NASA center its own
>independent budget, perhaps while increasing their budgets slightly to
>account for the cost of transition.

	Kinda sounds like what was supposed to happen with the
	breakup of Ma Bell. We all know how well that worked ...

	Personally I think NASA's problem is not NASA', but the US
	governments and Aerospace industry in general. If you really want
	to do something for NASA why not get the government, especially
	the executive brance (I wont mention any names) to exercise their
	responsibilities and to give some direction and support
	to NASA on what they should do. I could
	go on and on, but others on the net are doing such a good
	job that I wont say anything.

	
-- 
	Kurt W. Allen
	3M Center
	ihnp4!mmm!allen

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 29 Dec 87 09:12:26 pst
From: eugene%pioneer@ames.arpa (Eugene Miya N.)
Subject: The mail path does not appear to work

   ----- Transcript of session follows -----
bad system name: crash
uux failed. code 101
554 crash!pnet01!jim@nosc.mil... unknown mailer error 101

   ----- Unsent message follows -----
Received: by pioneer.arc.nasa.gov (1.2/Ultrix-T2.2-4A)
	id AA05647; Mon, 28 Dec 87 15:36:14 pst
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 87 15:36:14 pst
From: eugene (Eugene Miya N.)
To: crash!pnet01!jim@nosc.mil
Subject: Re: Diversification Reform
Newsgroups: sci.space
In-Reply-To: <8712230236.AA23949@crash.cts.com>
Organization: NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.

In article <8712230236.AA23949@crash.cts.com> you write:
>One component of an effective space program reform policy would be to break
>NASA up into many independent space programs with overlapping purviews.  The 

Oh, yeah?

>most obvious way of achieving this would be to give each NASA center its own
>independent budget, perhaps while increasing their budgets slightly to
>account for the cost of transition.  This, of course, would be most vocally
>resisted by nonproductive NASA centers which fear other NASA centers.  These
>centers would almost certainly engage in blatent violations of the Hatch Act
>by having various contractors lobby their congresscritters mercilessly, and
>thus would be given 2 opportunities to be terminated:  1) Through good
>faith enforcement of the Hatch Act and 2) Through being shown to be wasting
>money when other centers are far more efficient and effective in the use
>of their budgets to accomplish overlapping tasks.
>
> <Generic President bashing summarized.>
>
>I would like to open discussion on the pragmatic aspects of such a
>diversification of our space activities -- pitfalls to avoid and recommended
>courses of action.
>
>To kick it off, I'd like to offer a few suggestions for administrators of
>the new space agencies, and ask for input on a more complete list:
>
>CENTER        ADMINISTRATOR
>Huston        John Young (or person he recommends)
Don't know a Center in Houston (sp).
>Marshall      Alan J. McDonald (or person he recommends)
>JPL           James Van Allen (or person he recommends)

Sounds interesting.  Oh what basis did you pick these men? Public
visibility?

>Another important question to answer is, if we are unable to achieve
>a diversification of space activities along the above lines, who
>would be a good NASA administrator?  Who would be good suggestions
>for the directors of various centers?  Please provide some justification.

Would like to hear what you come up with.  This is amusing.

>Thank you for your suggestions.
>
>Jim Bowery           PHONE:  619/295-8868
>PO Box 1981
>La Jolla, CA 92038
>UUCP: {cbosgd, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!pnet01!jim
>ARPA: crash!pnet01!jim@nosc.mil

Good scientists do not necessarily make good managers and vice versa.
Nor do showmen.  Sometimes democracy isn't the way to solve a problem
such as this, but your responses are amusing.  There are whole lines of
scientists, most you have probably never heard of who would run these
Centers and the Agency.  You could ask me, but I would never know who exactly
to appoint, nor would John Young, et al.

Since I just got back, and since news and mail tests now work,
I've caught up with this discussion (which took place a couple of years
ago), with comments by Jon, John, Jack, and others.  I don't plan to
argue fully against this fellow (it would do no good, and I have better
things to do).  He needs to do a bit of homework.  His proposal sounds
like Reagan's ideas of abolishing DOE while pumping the DOD nuclear
program.  Jon's comment isn't one of centralization; it's one of
critical mass.  If this fellow wishes a bunch of subcritical masses, so
be it, we only follow the whim of the people.

Added comments from discussion: the NSF is not the most productive
Agency in research, DARPA is.  It's just seen as `DOD' and the rest of the
DOD brings the appearance down, you only need ask the people at MITI who
their competition is.

>From the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA
  "You trust the `reply' command with all those different mailers out there?"
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."
  {uunet,hplabs,hao,ihnp4,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene

  NSA == National Surfing Association (on the back of a friend's car)

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 29 Dec 87 14:12:54 EST
From: Glenn Chapman <glenn@ll-vlsi.arpa>
Subject: Soyuz TM-4 mission lands

   The Soyuz TM-2/3/4 mission to Mir ended this morning (Dec. 29th) when
the capsule returned to earth bringing Anatoly Levchenko from the Soyuz TM-4
team,  Yuri Romanenko from TM-2 and Alexander Alexandrov from TM-3
to ground.  It has not been stated yet which craft they brought down though
it is probably the Soyuz TM-3 brought up on July 22.
     Romanenko now is the world duration record holder with 326 days
on the current Mir mission, 37% greater than the previous record of 237 days
set by the Soyuz T-10B crew 237 mission on board Salyut 7 in 
Oct. 1984 (set by Leonid Kizim, Validimir Soloyev and Oleg Atkov).  In addition
he has 96 days from the Soyuz 26/Salyut 6 flight in Oct. '77 and 8 days from
the Soyuz 38/Salyut 6 mission in Sept. '80.  This gives him a lifetime total 
of 430 days in orbit, 15% longer than Kizim's previous record of 373 days (he 
is the second man to exceed one year total in space). The length of this Mir 
mission is best illustrated by the 161 days Alexander Alexandrov has 
accumulated since he replaced Alexander Laveikin on July 22th (Laveikin went 
up with Romanenko in Feb., but developed a medical problem).  That time, is on 
top of the 149 days he spent in the Soyuz T-9/Salyut 7 mission of Jun. '83, 
giving him a total of 310 days.  By comparison highest time of a currently 
active US astronaut is 70 days (Owen Garriott from Skylab 3 and STS-9), while 
the highest US time ever was the 84 days of the Skylab 4 three man crew in 
Nov. '73. Indeed alone Romanenko has accumulated more time than the combined
total gained by the Skylab 3 (59 day) and Skylab 4 crews.
     Though Soyuz TM-4 was successful even this landing added to the 
strangeness of this current mission, which was mentioned in my last Space 
Digest posting (Dec. 28th vol 8, no. 90). Not only was the launch date 
announced a few days in advance, the landing date stated after the launch was 
Dec 31, so they brought them home early.  Perhaps this is due to the weather 
conditions at the landing site.  That is added to a change in the original 
crew list and the leaving of only Titov and Manarov on board, not all three.  
I wounder when we will find out why all these changes.
    Well at least the news media is noting this mission as a preparation for
possible Russian Mars flights.  Maybe that will convince people that 
assumption that if we do not go to the planets the Russians will not either
is not valid.

                                  Glenn Chapman
                                  MIT Lincoln Lab

------------------------------

Reply-To: lll-crg!ames!sdcsvax!bass.nosc.mil!pnet01!jim@mordor.s1.gov
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 87 10:21:54 PST
From: lll-crg!ames!scubed!sdcsvax!pnet01.cts.com!jim@mordor.s1.gov (Jim Bowery)
To: crash!space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: Re:  Diversification Reform

Jack Jansen says since NASA doesn't produce anything that can be sold,
the "free market" won't work.  I agree.  The goal of diversifying our
space program is to create a competition OF IDEAS, the market-place
for which is in the scientific and technical community, exactly as
is handled in NSF.  I'm certainly not suggesting that NASA make money
on sending probes to Jupiter.  Indeed, another aspect of an effective
reform is that NASA should be specifically barred from selling into
the free market and, in fact, from developing or operating technology 
that has significant near term commercial potential.

Jansen goes on to point out that R&D appropriations are made on
the basis of sexy presentation of the proposal rather than on
technical merit.  He uses military R&D as an example.  I agree
with him here, as well.  Since we spend about $1 billion on true
research (which is sold on the basis of technical merit) and $99 
billion on "R&D" (various development projects which are sold on 
the basis of sexy presentation) it should be quite painless to reduce 
the deficit by $99 billion.  There are a few companies left in our
country that would love to fund their own development if they had any 
hope of finding a market for their systems -- let's let them do it
instead of trying to put them out of business.

Jon Livesey points out that military projects like Manhattan do not fit 
under the decentralized competition model.  I did point this out myself
more than once and went to some length to mention "Manhattan" by name.
Since so many people on the net are involved with the military, and 
such a gross misreading of my position appears to have occurred, I'll
state my position on this one more time in a little more detail:

Short term emergency projects (like Apollo and MANHATTAN) require
centralized management without internal competition.  Warfare is
another example of an activity that falls under this catagory.  In
peacetime, we can afford, and must require, a degree of internal
competition within the military in order to assure us external
strength in time of war.  Peacetime military operations exhibit
some internal competition but, because of the need to quickly
convert to a cohesive and efficient machine when challenged, the
military must be totalitarian in architecture.


Jim Bowery               PHONE: 619/295-8868
PO Box 1981
La Jolla, CA 92038

UUCP: {cbosgd, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!pnet01!jim
ARPA: crash!pnet01!jim@nosc.mil
INET: jim@pnet01.cts.com

------------------------------

Date: 30 Dec 87 00:06:21 GMT
From: livesey@sun.com  (Jon Livesey)
Subject: Re: Diversification Reform

In article <8712291836.AA05430@crash.cts.com>, jim@pnet01.cts.COM (Jim Bowery) writes:
> Jon Livesey points out that military projects like Manhattan do not fit 
> under the decentralized competition model.

	No.  I was talking about "The security aspects of much space and high 
technology work".    Manhattan is just one example.   It does not have to be
military, just strategic.   In 1987, space will do just fine as a similarly 
effort of great national importance.

	Security is just one example, also.   There is a constellation of
reasons why a single organization is sometimes, not always, to be preferred
for expensive science and technology development.   For each such organization,
there is an irreducible overhead of support; libraries, computing, engineering,
and so on.   A few years at CERN convinced me that a single organization with
a billion dollar budget could do things that distributed organizations could 
never afford to do, because they would be spending all their budgets doing
ten times what it only has to do once.   CERN's recent successes do not contradict
that view.

>  I did point this out myself
> more than once and went to some length to mention "Manhattan" by name.
> Since so many people on the net are involved with the military, and 
> such a gross misreading of my position appears to have occurred, I'll
> state my position on this one more time in a little more detail:

	Calm down.   I know you mentioned Manhattan, but you mentioned it only 
to dismiss it.   You talked about it as though it could validly be compare to a
gambler staking all on one throw, with the inevitable bankruptcy after enough 
throws.    With all due respect to popular science writing, I think that 'gamble' 
is a poor analogy for science.   The results are not simply controlled by chance.

	Your argument contains a basic assumption that decentralized organizations
are ipso facto more efficient than centralized ones, but have you proved it?
I worked for AT&T at the time of the break-up, too (so did half the country, it
seemed) and I have a different view to yours.    In my view we replaced a single 
corporation founded on an elite research organization, with a number of 
corporations founded on weaker research organizations.    Is that such a
great idea?    It might have been better simply to make the single corporation
more efficient.   What did it add to break it up?   Maybe all we really need to
do is get better at recognizing beaurocratic redundancy and eliminating it.

> Short term emergency projects (like Apollo and MANHATTAN) require
> centralized management without internal competition.  Warfare is
> another example of an activity that falls under this catagory.  In
> peacetime, we can afford, and must require, a degree of internal
> competition within the military in order to assure us external
> strength in time of war.  Peacetime military operations exhibit
> some internal competition but, because of the need to quickly
> convert to a cohesive and efficient machine when challenged, the
> military must be totalitarian in architecture.

	Fine, except that you are begging a number of questions here.  Many
people take the view that 'peacetime' hasn't meant very much since about
1949, especially in strategic technology.    Other people might argue that
space technology falls right into the area of short term emergency projects 
that even you say need centralized management (short term only in that it 
needs to get going fast; presumably it goes on for ever.   Yet other people
might argue that cantralized management does not imply absence of internal
competition.   The Manhattan project contained competing internal teams
with rival designs, after all.   Good science and technology people often just
happen to be competitive, and they rarely need to be faked into competing by
being told they have their own little NASA-let to play with.   They are a bit
more grown up than that.

    Finally, there was an interesting fallacy in your latest posting:

	"Jonathan Leech and Jack Jansen assert that by centralizing management
	we can eliminate redundancy and have a more efficient space program.
	This is the totalitarian falacy.  If this were true, the centralized
	planning of the communist economies would be more effective than the
	decentralized economic system of free enterprise."

   That does not follow, of course.   The performance of a particular example
of a planning system says little about its possible efficiency.   They may simply
not be very good at it.    You might as well dismiss the free market system based 
on its observed performance in, say, the US auto industry.

Jon.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #92
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU;  1 Jan 88 13:18:17 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA21001; Thu, 31 Dec 87 03:13:47 PST
	id AA21001; Thu, 31 Dec 87 03:13:47 PST
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 87 03:13:47 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8712311113.AA21001@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #93

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 93

Today's Topics:
		      Re: Diversification Reform
			   Re: NASA breakup
		     Re: Exact Time (help please)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Reply-To: lll-crg!ames!sdcsvax!bass.nosc.mil!pnet01!jim@mordor.s1.gov
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 87 11:35:58 PST
From: lll-crg!ames!scubed!sdcsvax!pnet01.cts.com!jim@mordor.s1.gov (Jim Bowery)
To: crash!space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: Re: Diversification Reform

Kurt Allen is correct to point out that the source of the problem with
NASA is in the executive branch.  I introduced this topic because I
am involved in the political process to elect a president and have been
given some responsibility to help put together papers on space policy.
I came onto this network to do outreach and was greeted by sophistry (with
a signal to noise ratio of about .1) from individuals who are or have been
getting their pay checks from bureaucratic organizations with a clear 
record of wasting vast sums of money.  

To be honest, I did expect more from the people on here, but I forgot that
unedited networks tend to sink to the least common denominator.  At least
I may have gotten some reasonable, yet silent, people to think about some
alternatives to our present malaise, although I received very little of
value and nothing that responded to my request for input on the way to
go about accomplishing the diversification (except for perhaps, Dale Amon's
response).

If anyone out there would like to continue this correspondence off-line,
please feel free to contact me.

Jim Bowery                    PHONE:  619/295-8868
PO Box 1981
La Jolla, CA 92038

UUCP: {cbosgd, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!pnet01!jim
ARPA: crash!pnet01!jim@nosc.mil
INET: jim@pnet01.cts.com

------------------------------

Date: 31 Dec 87 02:27:53 GMT
From: vygr!mae@sun.com  (Mike Ekberg, Sun {Graphics Product Division})
Subject: Re: NASA breakup

Strange thought for the day. I know that commercial aviation was boosted
by the government saying it would pay X dollars for air mail. How about
NASA putting up a competetion for space station by saying it was 
willing to pay X million $/day to rent an (orbiting) room in space?
mike (sun!mae), M/S 5-40
"Maybe I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one."

------------------------------

Date: 30 Dec 87 20:18:35 GMT
From: steinmetz!sunray!oconnor@uunet.uu.net  (Dennis M. O'Connor)
Subject: Re: Exact Time (help please)

There is a 900 number ($.50 call) for the time :
	1-900-410-TIME    ( 1-900-410-8463 )
It's great for setting your watch. Probably
cheaper than a normal long-distance call during
regular hours ? Easy to remember, anyway.

--
	Dennis O'Connor 	oconnor@sungoddess.steinmetz.UUCP ??
				ARPA: OCONNORDM@ge-crd.arpa
        "If I have an "s" in my name, am I a PHIL-OSS-IF-FER?"

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #93
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU;  1 Jan 88 13:16:05 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA22306; Fri, 1 Jan 88 03:19:50 PST
	id AA22306; Fri, 1 Jan 88 03:19:50 PST
Date: Fri, 1 Jan 88 03:19:50 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8801011119.AA22306@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #94

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 94

Today's Topics:
		     Re: Exact Time (help please)
				 Rent
    Space Policy (reply to Jim Bowery's msg. on breaking up NASA)
		    Re: Treaties with the Soviets
		     Re: Exact Time (help please)
		       RE:  NASA reorganization
	  The Church of the Holy Starship was Re: A request
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 30 Dec 87 16:16:52 GMT
From: dayton!ems!viper!dave@rutgers.edu  (David Messer)
Subject: Re: Exact Time (help please)

In article <1383@mtune.ATT.COM> rkh@mtune.UUCP (Robert Halloran) writes:
 >In article <338@caus-dp.UUCP> marcos@caus-dp.UUCP (Marcos R. Della) writes:
 >>In article <2837@zeus.TEK.COM>, dant@tekla.TEK.COM (Dan Tilque) writes:
 >> >T. Terrell Banks writes:
 >> >>Ken Trant writes:
 >> >>> I have been asked by my Young Astronauts group to find out how the correct
 >> >>>time is determined. 
 >> >>       Try calling WWV (National Bureau of Standards) in Fort Collins.
 >> >>       I think the number is (303) 499-7111.
 >>You can also try calling the following number if you have access
 >>to something called autovon. The number is 294-1800. This is the
 >>East coast naval atomic clock.
 > 
 > For those  of us  not working for DoD, the Naval Observatory master
 > clock can be heard by dialing 1-202-653-1800 in Washington DC.  This
 > gives the usual per-second beep and a voice announcement of Eastern
 > and Universal times at 15-second intervals.

Another number that may be easier to remember is
1-900-410-8463 or 1-900-410-TIME.  It is also the Naval
Observatory Master Clock.
-- 
If you can't convince |   David Messer - (dave@Lynx.MN.Org)
them, confuse them.   |   Lynx Data Systems
   -- Harry S. Truman |
                      |   amdahl  --!meccts!viper!dave
                      |   rutgers /

Copyright 1987 David Messer -- All Rights Reserved
This work may be freely copied.  Any restrictions on
redistribution of this work are prohibited.

------------------------------

Reply-To: lll-crg!ames!sdcsvax!bass.nosc.mil!pnet01!jim@mordor.s1.gov
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 87 10:22:27 PST
From: lll-crg!ames!scubed!sdcsvax!pnet01.cts.com!jim@mordor.s1.gov (Jim Bowery)
To: crash!space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: Rent

In response to Mike Ekberg's idea about NASA creating a market for
facilities in orbit rather than building and operating the facility itself:

You hit the nail on the head.  NASA shouldn't be building operational
equipment -- it should establish a market for operational equipment by
stating what its needs are.  This is, of course, a spectrum of "make buy"
decisions, but NASA is, at present, way out on the "make" end.

This principle could be brought clear back to the research wing by stating
a bunch of research results and what NASA is willing to pay for each.

Private enterprise could then decide how to best go about doing these
measurements quickly and efficiently.

Second order problems do exist with this kind of procurement system such
as how do you break the log-jam created when multiple companies are ready
and able to fill the same market niche but there is no guaranteed market
large enough for only one of them to be successful at once.  In the research
results market this can be eliminated by offering substantial, albeit lower,
payments for subsequent measurements which are vital to substantiate earlier
results.  In the development and operations market, NASA can simply guarantee
separate vendors a market for redundant capacity.  Having redundant capacity
around is a problem we NEED to have in this country's space activities.

Of course this is all pie in the sky for one simple reason:  Private
enterprise doesn't trust NASA any further than it can throw NASA.  I've
heard 3 independent stories about companies/entrepreneurs who have attempted
to provide services/equipment to NASA at a much lower cost than NASA could
supply itself with NASA's only response being backroom dealings where 
contracts were threatened, capital sources scared off, etc.  If I were
going to put up millions of my own money to support any of this, I would
require some pretty impressive changes in NASA that were stable over a period
of time before I'd invest.  From what I understand, other capital sources
are even more skittish than I am.  It the responsibility of the government
to demonstrate that it is not corrupt to the satisfaction of investors and
entrepreneurs who are, otherwise, willing and able to pick up the burden for
our nation.


Jim Bowery                    PHONE: 619/295-8868
PO Box 1981
La Jolla, CA 92038

UUCP: {cbosgd, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!pnet01!jim
ARPA: crash!pnet01!jim@nosc.mil
INET: jim@pnet01.cts.com

------------------------------

Date: 31 Dec 87 14:56:00 EDT
From: "R2D2::BRUC" <bruc%r2d2.decnet@mghccc.harvard.edu>
Subject: Space Policy (reply to Jim Bowery's msg. on breaking up NASA)
To: "space" <space@angband.s1.gov>
Reply-To: "R2D2::BRUC" <bruc%r2d2.decnet@mghccc.harvard.edu>

	Jim Bowery's swipe at all of our thinking concerning his NASA
breakup proposal coupled with his potential impact on presidential
politics requires another response:

Dear Jim,
	Breaking up NASA into its constituent centers would have a
disasterous effect on space policy because it would eliminate the
prospect for coherent leadership which is essential to making the best
use of funds. However, I can understand why Mr. Bowery made the
suggestion -- the present leadership and bureaucracy is so moribund that
it needs to be removed. Further, the competition of ideas between
centers would be stimulating, but it would be more productive to
create an environment where innovative ideas are encouraged and
used together.
	The fundamental problem with our space program is a lack of
leadership and vision. By vision, I mean a set of worthwhile goals
toward which everyone involved is willing strive for. By leadership, I
mean a president, NASA administrator, and top level managers who will
organize everyone to work for the goals and to ensure that there are
sufficient funds. (note that I left Congress out, because if the
president articulates worthwhile goals, the people and Congress will
support them.) 
	With regard to goals, it is important that we recognize that
there are many benefits to space, and that we pursue different goals at
the same time to reap as many benefits as possible. In my mind there are
two classes of goals, exploration and exploitation. Exploration is most
suited to a government agency because the payoffs are very long term and
are spread throughout the society. Exploitation refers to the
applications of space, both non-profit and commercial. Here, our space
policy must mesh with commercial endeavors, to maximize our investment
in space. Ultimately, our goal should be the development of a
spacefaring society, whose members would be free to choose earth or
space as a place to live. 
	With regard to leadership, we need a president who believes
in the promise of space like the readers of this digest do. Next, we need
a NASA leadership that is visionary, determined, organized,
and political adept. If this is not possible in one man, then perhaps
several co-administrators who bring all these characteristics together
might be successful.
	Some suggestions for the next NASA adminstrator (I can't say
much about how good they'd be a running a large organization):
	Walter Cronkite shares our vision, and has been exposed
to a lot of politics.
	Robert Forward at Hughes Aircraft should be at the top level
since he is a very imaginative thinker.
	Ben Bova, head of the National Space Society, is another visionary
person and has some organizational skills.
	Many of the people on the National Commission of Space
would be good choices.
	Due to my own personal time constraints, I have not gone into
much detail above. If you would like me to, please let me know.

					Bob Bruccoleri
					bruc%r2d2.decnet@mghccc.harvard.edu
------

------------------------------

Date: 1 Jan 88 03:15:50 GMT
From: cartan!brahms!desj@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (David desJardins)
Subject: Re: Treaties with the Soviets

In article <635@bucket.UUCP> leonard@bucket.UUCP (Leonard Erickson) writes:
>Please note that the much mentioned Soviet ABM system does not protect Moscow.
>As the ABM treaty only allows each nation's ABM system to protect a missile
>site, setting up an ABM system to protect Washington or Moscow would be a
>clear violation of the treaty.
>
>However the Soviets _do_ have an ABM system and it does protect a missile
>site. It is purely a co-incidence that the site is just outside Moscow....

   As a New Year's Resolution I am giving up the practice of wondering aloud
why people don't bother to check the facts before posting stupid falsehoods.
So, I am sending this now to get my one last chance.  WHY DON'T YOU CHECK
THE FACTS BEFORE POSTING???

   The fact of the matter is that the ABM Treaty of 1972 permits each side
two ABM complexes, limited to 100 missiles each, one for the protection of
the capital city and the other for the defense of an ICBM site.  The US
built an ABM base at Grand Forks AFB in North Dakota, but closed it down
and terminated its ABM program in 1975.  The Soviet Union placed ABMs around
Moscow for the defense of the city, and has continued to modernize its system
within the limits of the treaty.

   -- David desJardins

------------------------------

Date: 31 Dec 87 15:00:42 GMT
From: hao!noao!mcdsun!sunburn!gtx!al@AMES.ARPA  (0732)
Subject: Re: Exact Time (help please)

> I have been asked by my Young Astronauts group to find out how the correct
>time is determined. 

A recent issue of Science, (18 December, 1987, to be exact) contains an
article entitled "A Matter of Time" that gives an excellent overview of
time-keeping and time-keepers, discussing such things as UTC, atomic
clocks, the Naval Observatory, the role of Greenwich, etc.

Some interesting trivia from the article:  The idea of a ball sliding
down a pole to mark a certain time originated at Greenwich castle in
the 1800's; the ball was released at precisely noon every day and
everyone who could see the castle could thus be informed of the exact
time. By 1861 there were four such "time balls" in England. The New
York new year's eve time ball is patterned after this, and, (as I heard
on NPR's Morning Edition today), has been in use since 1908, except for
two years during WWII.

    ----------------------------------------------------------------------
   | Alan Filipski, GTX Corp, 2501 W. Dunlap, Phoenix, Arizona 85021, USA |
   | {ihnp4,cbosgd,decvax,hplabs,seismo}!sun!sunburn!gtx!al (602)870-1696 |
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: 31 Dec 87 18:18:14 GMT
From: tikal!sigma!uw-nsr!brett@beaver.cs.washington.edu  (Brett Van Steenwyk)
Subject: RE:  NASA reorganization

In Article 3780 of sci.space, livesey@sun.uucp (Jon Livesey) writes:
>	Calm down.   I know you mentioned Manhattan, but you mentioned it only 
>to dismiss it.   You talked about it as though it could validly be compare to a
>gambler staking all on one throw, with the inevitable bankruptcy after enough 
>throws.    With all due respect to popular science writing, I think that
>'gamble' is a poor analogy for science.   The results are not simply controlled
>by chance.

One never knows for sure whether or not a venture into a previously unexplored
area will bear fruit.  It is by definition a gamble.  Nature may be an absolute,
but humankind can perceive only an imperfect subset of that--discovering links
between phenomena isn't a cut and dried process.

>corporation founded on an elite research organization, with a number of 
>corporations founded on weaker research organizations.    Is that such a
>great idea?    It might have been better simply to make the single corporation
>more efficient.   What did it add to break it up?   Maybe all we really need to
>do is get better at recognizing beaurocratic redundancy and eliminating it.

If "simply make the single corporation more efficient" is that SIMPLE to you,
why not work in that field--you would be rich in no time.  We've been trying
to rid ourselves of bureaucratic redundancy since the Roman Empire, and only
one solution has worked so far:  extinction.  This gets back to the original
point:  having several competing entities will tend to eliminate the bad ones
very quickly, either by getting their act together or die.  This is not only
to throw the present gaggle of rascals out of NASA, but to ensure that any
future ones in the organization(s) that replace it do not have a very long
employment history.  One may have to accept the fact that it often takes
dismantling the entire organization that's around these people to get rid
of them.

>with rival designs, after all.   Good science and technology people often just
>happen to be competitive, and they rarely need to be faked into competing by
>being told they have their own little NASA-let to play with.   They are a bit
>more grown up than that.

I beg to differ.  In the short exposure I have had
with science and technology types I have seen a great deal in inflated egos,
home turf protection at all costs, etc.  Not all that much in doing one's
best, pursuing scientific truths, etc.  When you are in a group, you follow
the leader's dictates like a god (most groups--there are some exceptions),
and if he's a raving maniac or even brain-dead, it doesn't much matter.  Office
politics does not lead to productive independent thinking, and the boss is
always free to reject any ideas that either:  1. he can't be credited for,
2. May supercede his pet models of "real science",  3. [put your favorite here].
The only way to counter this tendency is to have competing groups inherent in
the organization.

>   That does not follow, of course.   The performance of a particular example
>of a planning system says little about its possible efficiency.   They may
>simply not be very good at it.    You might as well dismiss the free market
>system based on its observed performance in, say, the US auto industry.

The fallacy is that the US auto industry, in the time in question, did not
represent a segment of the free market system--three companies did not have
free market pressure on their operation.  Today, the situation is different
as the European and Japanese have provided us with many more companies to
choose from.  Still, breaking a GM or a Ford in at least half would be a good
thing to do once we're through with NASA.

I do not write this lightly after reading yesterday that the next SS launch
will probably be delayed until October.  NASA's role in space as represented
by its operation of the SS is inappropriate for that organization--and I hope
that the previous discussion did not take away from any emphasis on that.

I personally believe that the SS should be scrapped--a few more band-aids
will not fix something that is wrong at the overall system level.  Maybe
one can build some sort of cargo transport out of some of the components,
but as long as there are large solid fuel boosters involved, DON'T put any
people inside.  Putting all of our eggs into the space shuttle basket not
only in manned flight but in the use of unmanned probes deserves at least
a Mr. Yuk sticker.  The shuttle was designed by consensus, in Congress, and
it is now very apparent that the dissenters should have been listened to.
I can only wish I was old enough to have understood what was going on at
the time.  If there had been one competing approach, from a Saturn V to a
Dynosoar, the present situation would be oh so much better.  Just think
what things would be like now if there were TWO competing approaches.  This
brings to mind a few quotes that seem to epitomize what has led our space
capability to its present level:
"Its so expensive to do _______.  We need to pool our resources so that we
can complete the project"
"It takes a GM to build a car right"
"We must focus our attention ..."
"The present space shuttle design represents the best cost-performance
tradeoffs"
I usually need to put on my hip boots to wade through these.

		--Brett Van Steenwyk

------------------------------

Date: 1 Jan 88 09:38:00 GMT
From: m2c!frog!sc@husc6.harvard.edu  (STartripper)
Subject: The Church of the Holy Starship was Re: A request

Followups to this posting are directed to talk.religion.newage. Please
help keep other, unconsenting groups _out_ of followups!  And for the
sake of newagers who don't want to play, maybe we could keep
"starship" in the title so they can filter us out?

In addition, this is partly an answer to a question in .newage about
people making up their own religions, but I'll amplify on that in
something that isn't crossposted to eighty-leven groups, ok, Steve?

Well, it's been a long year.  900-foot Jesii have their religion,
waterslides have theirs.  Why not space colonies?  And starships?

I've dreamed and thought for years about getting our ecosystem
reproduced off the planet, thus opening the door to a universe of
"culture dishes" where societies can experiment upon themselves. [Of
course, this provides a test bench for debugging the neglected
technologies of religion and metaprogramming.  And when I see some of
what passes for religious professionalism (well, it pays their rent,
no?), I know I could do _that_ in a rented donkey costume! I won't go
down a waterslide in a rented suit though....]

A while back, I gave this set of dreams the tag line Church of the
Holy Starship. I was, in part, joking, of course.  But the more I
joke, the more I hear an inner voice saying, "You _sure_ you're
joking?  I mean, _just_ joking?" And what really bugs me is the inner
voice that answers firmly, "I dunno."

The voice of my ghod (general hypothetical organizing device) spake
unto me in a loud voice, crying "throw it at the net, and dance with
the reaction".

So if anyone would like to join me in .newage, you're welcome -- Can
it be done?  Can _we_ do it? Should it be done? (I think the answers
are three yesses, but _you_ don't have to agree!).

You want to show me how to build a church financial and organizational
structure that can't be swindled? I'm listening!  Skeptically, but
listening....

You have ideas about controlling disinformation on information
utilities?  I want them.  

You want to tell me about problems I haven't even thought of yet?
Direct me to the appropriate newsgroup. And watch talk.religion.newage.

Our mother the earth needs our monkey hands to get us up the well.
Can we do it?

Author's Honor: I don't know whether I'm playing, starting a crusade,
plotting another great unfinished science fiction novel, or getting
ready to run for president.  But I'd sure like to see any sparks this
posting strikes while I'm making up my mind.

STartripper		QQQCLC		sc@frog.uucp"

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #94
*******************

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Date: Wed, 10 Feb 88 09:44:44 PST
From: ota%galileo.s1.gov@mordor.s1.gov
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To: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: [ota: SPACE Digest V8 #95]

Date: Sat, 2 Jan 88 03:02:24 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #95

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 95

Today's Topics:
		     Re: Exact Time (help please)
	Re: The Church of the Holy Starship was Re: A request
		      Teleoperators In Show Biz
 OOOOOOPS! was Re: The Church of the Holy Starship was Re: A request
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 1 Jan 88 19:54:15 GMT
From: cfa!wyatt@husc6.harvard.edu  (Bill Wyatt)
Subject: Re: Exact Time (help please)

> A recent issue of Science, (18 December, 1987, to be exact) contains
> an article entitled "A Matter of Time" that gives an excellent
> overview of time-keeping and time-keepers, discussing such things as
> UTC, atomic clocks, the Naval Observatory, the role of Greenwich, etc.
> 
> Some interesting trivia from the article: The idea of a ball sliding
> down a pole to mark a certain time originated at Greenwich castle in
> the 1800's; the ball was released at precisely noon every day and
> everyone who could see the castle could thus be informed of the exact
> time. By 1861 there were four such "time balls" in England. The New
> York new year's eve time ball is patterned after this, and, (as I
> heard on NPR's Morning Edition today), has been in use since 1908,
> except for two years during WWII.

Sky & Telescope did an article last year (sorry, don't know more
exactly) on how time balls were used in ports to allow navigators to
synchronize their chronometers. BTW, in contrast to the NY new years's
eve time ball, it was always the time of *release* that defined the time
(usually noon). There were also a set of standard times to rerelease in
case the first one went at the wrong time.

Bill    UUCP:  {husc6,ihnp4,cmcl2,mit-eddie}!harvard!cfa!wyatt
Wyatt   ARPA:  wyatt@cfa.harvard.edu

------------------------------

Date: 1 Jan 88 22:26:52 GMT
From: beckenba@csvax.caltech.edu  (Joe Beckenbach)
Subject: Re: The Church of the Holy Starship was Re: A request

In article <1985@frog.UUCP> sc@frog.UUCP (STartripper) writes:
		(among other things)
>So if anyone would like to join me in .newage, you're welcome -- Can it
>be done?  Can _we_ do it? Should it be done? (I think the answers are
>three yesses, but _you_ don't have to agree!).
	My votes: 1) yes, I've seen worse
		  2) yes, if we're so inclined
		  3) welllll yes but VERY carefully

>You want to show me how to build a church financial and organizational
>structure that can't be swindled? I'm listening!  Skeptically, but
>listening....
	Frankly I think that that is either a pipe-dream or a reason to
keep the kernel of each component of the organization small enough that
one honest person (you?) could keep track of.  However, with any amount
of money near the range needed for space research and development, or a
church on the scale of any of the major religion's subreligions, most of
the money will come through cleanly- it's the small percentage of
borderline employees/moneyhandlers who will have to be attended to.
	The best organization for an unswindleable organization that I
have even heard hinted at is EE "Doc" Smith's Lensmen (see any good
"science fiction" used bookstore or collection). Not to say that there
are good men and women out there that will do their damnest to treat all
this in a very professional manner, just that the best imaginable is not
quite attainable.  The next best thing are those who are sincerely
dedicated, above and beyond the run-of-the-mill worker. This will
require quite a lot of searching. And I'll wager many of them already
are set in one of the more mainstream religions.
	Also, note I said "kernel". I am indeed implying that this
organization would do well in taking the learnings gleaned from other
organizations concerning structure. The best of corporations are
becoming conglomerations of small working groups, some of which act as
the bookkeepers, some the research groups, some the design implentors,
some the policy coordinators, and so on.  The new age movement and the
corporate restructuring seem to stem from the same impulse: let everyone
discover who they are, and let them take some of the responsibilities
themselves instead of surrendering it all the way up the line to
"upperlevel management" or "the Lord Jesus Christ" or "my mother" or
some other voice of Authority with a 16-ton weight poised above the
individual's head, just waiting for the first opportunity to drop it.

>You have ideas about controlling disinformation on information
>utilities?  I want them.
	We've already got it, at least in rudimentary form: the network,
newspapers, magazines, personal letters, the telephone, word-of-mouth.
The problem simply is getting people who know about disinformation to
speak out about it. _That_ requires a support for those who wish to
speak out but cannot without going in the face of a threat from
somewhere. Examples: the whistle-blower who must either be employed or
be ethical; the person who faces loss of his job if he releases the
knowledge of disinformation to anyone outside his area. And there
definitely is money in disinformation in other pursuits- the con man
lives in all ages, it seems.

		-Joe Beckenbach (CS BS '88)
The Unknowable must have a sense of humor: we were left the Shroud of Turin!
No matter how we look at it, we can come up believing blindly, disbelieving
	blindly, or (rarely) shaking our heads at it & enjoying the joke.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 1 Jan 88 10:07 EDT
From: "Paul F. Dietz" <DIETZ%sdr.slb.com@relay.cs.net>
Subject: Teleoperators In Show Biz

Eugene Miya's comments about "telescience" reminded me of an article I
recently read about a new use for teleoperators: movie making.
Previously, Hollywood robots or aliens either had people inside or were
controlled by a group of joystick equipped puppeteers. The new system,
to be used in the movie "Short Circuit II", is controlled by an actor in
a harness. Cost: $2 million.

	Paul F. Dietz
	dietz@sdr.slb.com

------------------------------

Date: 2 Jan 88 01:08:00 GMT
From: m2c!frog!sc@husc6.harvard.edu  (STartripper)
Subject: OOOOOOPS! was Re: The Church of the Holy Starship was Re: A request

Um, gee gang, I screwed up.... I forgot, after deciding to include
other newsgroups but spare them the followups, to put
talk.religion.newage in the Followup-To: line.  Please, people, cover
for me in my hour of stupidity, OK?

It's better to feel embarrassed than not to feel at all, but sheesh! I
feel like a silly monkey....

STartripper		QQQCLC		sc@frog.uucp

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #95
*******************

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	id AA24614; Sun, 3 Jan 88 03:14:32 PST
Date: Sun, 3 Jan 88 03:14:32 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8801031114.AA24614@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #96

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 96

Today's Topics:
			  Re: Life in Moscow
			    MIR crew on TV
			     NASA Breakup
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 2 Jan 88 10:55:19 GMT
From: troly@locus.ucla.edu
Subject: Re: Life in Moscow

>>> I picked up a propaganda poster (printed in 1982) of a young Russian
>>> scientist, staring into space with a thoughtful look, and surrounded by
>>> rockets, buildings, oil wells, etc.  The slogan on the poster was "Invent,
>>> Improve, Implement".  To emphasize the high-tech nature of science and of
>>> Russian society, the most prominent thing in the picture (besides the
>>> scientist himself) was a strip of paper tape.

 Back in 1982 I was in space biz.  One of the most important computers
in the Deep Space Network tracking stations received its instructions
via (you guessed it!) paper tape.

Bret Jolly Mathemagus
             .

------------------------------

Date:  2 Jan 1988 17:49-EST 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: MIR crew on TV

Arts & Education channel carried "Australia Live". One portion of the
show was live from the USSR manned space flight center. Looks exactly
like H-MSFC control room, probably because that's the way to build such
a control room. The Russian who handled the communication set up, the
monitor in the background, all are reminiscent of our past glories.
Australian commentator carried out a live conversation (via the command
center translator) with the 2 cosmonauts.

About 10 minutes later they broke again for a minute of live
transmission of Australia from above. Commentator made a funny about how
things had changed. 25 years ago they would not have been so sanguine
about a Communist passing over Melbourne, and now they're joining in
with live transmissions for a national celebration...

Sigh, I heartily wish that WE could have shared the up top view with our
friends down under. Unfortuneately the new SRB problem has sent all the
government bureaucrats (and contractors) scurrying for their CYA papers.

Maybe we can take part in the Australian Tricentennial. Should be about
the right timing for the next US shuttle flight...

Oh well. Congrats to all our net friends down under! (even if it is from
ground level to ground level)

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 2 Jan 88 14:12 EDT
From: ELIOT%cs.umass.edu@relay.cs.net
Subject: NASA Breakup

The idea of breaking NASA up into a number of smaller government agencies
seems somewhat strange to me.  After all there is only one U.S. gov't.
The difference is whether the buerocracy comes together at the top of NASA,
or at higher levels (cabinet, president).  Eventually the whole thing
is supervised by the President.

The "privatization" of space seems to be a much better idea for optimizing
the process.  Currently satelites can be designed and operated by private
companies with the required technology.  NASA still has the only lauch
facilities.  The next logical step would be to try to develop private
commercial launch capacity.  The fastest way to do this would probably be
a generous government subsidy program.  For example, the government could
give any new U.S. company ten guaranteed payloads at very high prices,
say $6000 or $8000 per pound.  After 
that they could bid on other goverment
contracts, and private (telecommunications) contracts.

As the private launch capacity improves NASA would be forced out of the
earth-to-orbit task, which certainly isn't an area where major scientific
research is being done.  Instead NASA would have to concentrate on more
exotic endeavors, like planetary exploration.

In the long run we don't need a government research program to get into
orbit anymore.  WHat we need government research for is much longer range
projects and basic scientific research.

Chris Eliot
University of Massachusetts at Amherst

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #96
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU;  4 Jan 88 06:17:02 EST
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	id AA25965; Mon, 4 Jan 88 03:14:45 PST
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 88 03:14:45 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8801041114.AA25965@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #97

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 97

Today's Topics:
		     Re: Exact Time (help please)
			    Re: satellites
       LAST *DAY* 15 MORE VOTES NEEDED ON talk.politics.soviet!
		     Re: Exact Time (help please)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 2 Jan 88 08:47:12 GMT
From: tektronix!reed!aardvark!steve@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Steve Willoughby)
Subject: Re: Exact Time (help please)

(In reply to a request of how to obtain correct time info...)
Someone mentioned calling WWV (Nat'l Bureau of Standards) on the 
phone.  Unless I'm mistaken, you can also hear WWV transmissions 
on AM radio.  (One of those nifty shortwave things) 

I believe they send on 5, 10, and 15 kHz.  What you get is a
beep every second, with a voice message each minute telling
the correct GMT time.

-- 
Steve Willoughby       |  "You will, I am sure, agree with me that if page
...ihnp4!tektronix!    |  534 finds us only in the second chapter, the length
tessi!aardvark!steve   |  of the first one must have been really intolerable."
                                -- Sherlock Holmes, in The Valley of Fear

------------------------------

Date: 3 Jan 88 21:09:27 GMT
From: cgs@umd5.umd.edu  (Chris Sylvain)
Subject: Re: satellites

In article <873@uop.edu> robert@uop.edu (Doc Ness) writes:
? Well, how about that AP headline?
? "Satellite saw Waite, newspaper says"
? and  "National Security Agency Officials" talked of the "Lacrosse"
? satellite parked over Lebanon.
?
? Comments?
?
? (I bet NSA is pissed off either way!)

Uh-huh.... apply NaCl liberally..
Really now, does Waite have a highly distinctive bald-spot on the top of
his head? or maybe he was looking down into a bird-bath ?
-- 
--==---==---==--
.. 'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves ..
   ARPA: cgs@umd5.UMD.EDU     BITNET: cgs%umd5@umd2
   UUCP: ..!uunet!umd5.umd.edu!cgs

------------------------------

Date: 3 Jan 88 20:40:39 GMT
From: phoenix!pucc!EWTILENI@princeton.edu  (Eric Tilenius)
Subject: LAST *DAY* 15 MORE VOTES NEEDED ON talk.politics.soviet!

We only need about 15 more votes to create the newsgroup "talk.politics.soviet"
to discuss Soviet politics, relations, problems, and other matters of Soviet
affairs...   This would be an unmoderated group.
 
Votes must be "postmarked" by January 4, 1988 (sent from you any time on
that day), so send 'em in  --  quickly!
 
MAIL your votes on talk.politics.soviet to:
(note - news path does not work for mail)
 
        ewtileni@pucc.Princeton.EDU
        ewtileni@pucc.BITNET
        ewtileni%pucc.bitnet@cunyvm.cuny.edu  (or other internet gateway)
        ewtileni%pucc.Princeton.EDU@Princeton.EDU
        rutgers!princeton!ewtileni@pucc.Princeton.EDU
        ihnp4!psuvax1!pucc.bitnet!ewtileni
 
- ERIC -             * Another proud CoCo 3 user *        ______________
                                                         |              |
BITNET:ewtileni@pucc | ARPA:ewtileni@pucc.Princeton.EDU  | ColorVenture |
CompuServe: 70346,16 | MCI Mail and/or Delphi: TILENIUS  |______________|
PHONE :609-734-0092  | UUCP:{rutgers,cbosgd,cmcl2}!psuvax1!pucc.BITNET!ewtileni

------------------------------

Date: 3 Jan 88 23:50:33 GMT
From: terra!brent@sun.com  (Brent Callaghan)
Subject: Re: Exact Time (help please)

I've been setting my watch from WWV and WWVH for years. 
The voice at the 45th sec in each minute announces "At the tone, the
time will be n hours nn minutes coordinated universal time".

Then on the minute there's a high pitched tone that changes 1 sec
later to a lower tone interrupted by "ticks" at 1 sec intervals.

My question is: Which tone is the man referring to ?  Is it the high
pitched tone or is that just a warning that the low pitch tone
is going to start in a second ?

Made in New Zealand -->  Brent Callaghan  @ Sun Microsystems
			 uucp: sun!bcallaghan
			 phone: (415) 691 6188

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #97
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU;  5 Jan 88 06:16:32 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA27656; Tue, 5 Jan 88 03:14:09 PST
	id AA27656; Tue, 5 Jan 88 03:14:09 PST
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 88 03:14:09 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8801051114.AA27656@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #98

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 98

Today's Topics:
	      Sierra Club/National Space Society Retreat
		     Re: Exact Time (help please)
			   Re: Telescience
		     Re: Exact Time (help please)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Reply-To: lll-crg!ames!sdcsvax!bass.nosc.mil!pnet01!jim@mordor.s1.gov
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 88 10:02:03 PST
From: lll-crg!ames!scubed!sdcsvax!pnet01.cts.com!jim@mordor.s1.gov (Jim Bowery)
To: crash!space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: Sierra Club/National Space Society Retreat

Space Development or Space Despoilment?

The U.S. and U.S.S.R. have made policy statements to the effect that
space is a frontier which they intend to settle.  What are the essential
differences between the New World and space as a frontier?  Will the
perception of an infinite frontier encourage the reckless destruction of
Earth's riches?  How can we avoid the mistakes we've made with our
terrestrial environment while migrating into space?  The potential of
space settlement is powerful enough to illuminate basic questions about
our future, ethics and the environment.

Members of the National Space Society and the Sierra Club will come
together to discuss these issues on March 12 at the Sierra Club Lodge in
Laguna Mountains.  There will be a pot luck dinner around sundown
followed by a discussion and possibly some star gazing, as March 12 is
near a new moon.  Many of us will choose to stay overnight.  Telescopes
will be provided, but bring your own if you can.

For more information contact Jim Bowery at 619/295-8868.

UUCP: {cbosgd, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!pnet01!jim
ARPA: crash!pnet01!jim@nosc.mil
INET: jim@pnet01.cts.com

------------------------------

Date:    Mon, 4 Jan 88 09:20:23 PST
From: rgd059@mipl3.jpl.nasa.gov
Subject: Re: Exact Time (help please)
X-St-Vmsmail-To: ST%"space@angband.s1.gov",RGD059

[Sorry, I lost the references]
Somebody said:
>Someone mentioned calling WWV (Nat'l Bureau of Standards) on the 
>phone.  Unless I'm mistaken, you can also hear WWV transmissions 
>on AM radio.  (One of those nifty shortwave things) 
>
>I believe they send on 5, 10, and 15 kHz.  What you get is a
                                      ^^^
>beep every second, with a voice message each minute telling
>the correct GMT time.

Make that 5, 10, and 15 MHz.  It also might be on 20 MHz, I don't
remember for sure.  Most amateur radio hf receivers that I've seen can
tune in at least one of these.

Somebody else said:
>I've been setting my watch from WWV and WWVH for years.  The voice at
>the 45th sec in each minute announces "At the tone, the time will be n
>hours nn minutes coordinated universal time".
>
>Then on the minute there's a high pitched tone that changes 1 sec later
>to a lower tone interrupted by "ticks" at 1 sec intervals.
>
>My question is: Which tone is the man referring to ?  Is it the high
>pitched tone or is that just a warning that the low pitch tone is going
>to start in a second ?

It's the high pitched tone.  The low pitch tone continues for 15 or 30
seconds (don't remember which... it's been too long) so you can tell
when 15 or 30 seconds past the minute happens.  WWV (Colorado) and WWVH
(Hawaii) both transmit on the same frequencies.  The WWV announcement
happens in a male voice and the WWVH in a female voice.  One of them is
at 45 seconds past the minute, and the other is at 52.5 seconds.  WWV
also transmits other information like sunspot and hf propagation reports
at certain times during the hour.  Somewhere I saw a list of what all
they send... if anyone's interested I can try to dig it up again (it's
probably in the Amateur Radio Handbook).

Bob Deen (N5DPU)  @  NASA-JPL Image Processing Lab
Internet:  rgd059@mipl3.jpl.nasa.gov		Span:  mipl3::rgd059

------------------------------

Date: 4 Jan 88 18:07:07 GMT
From: rochester!kodak!ektools!john@bbn.com  (John H. Hall)
Subject: Re: Telescience

"Telescience" is not in my dictionary.  Is it pronounced
tel-ESS-ee-ents or tel-uh-SI-ents?

John Hall
ARPA:   kodak!ektools!john@rochester.ARPA

------------------------------

Date: 4 Jan 88 18:32:10 GMT
From: pitt!cisunx!tjw@cadre.dsl.pittsburgh.edu  (Terry J Wood)
Subject: Re: Exact Time (help please)

WWV in FT Collins, Colorado and WWVH (somewhere in Hawaii) broadcast on
2.5, 5, 10, 15, and 20 MHz.  If you have a reasonably good short-wave
receiver (or a reasonably good friend who's a Ham-radio operator) you
should be able to pick up WWV or WWVH anytime of the day on one of these
frequencies.  What you will hear on these frequencies is the same
information that you will get if you make the phone call.  Also, note
that the WWV and WWVH transmitters are quite accurate in regards to
being on frequency (i.e.: you can use these stations to tell how close
YOUR receiver is to being on frequency).

Terry J. Wood (WA3VQJ)
(Internet) tjw@vms.cis.pittsburgh.edu

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #98
*******************

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	id AA29159; Wed, 6 Jan 88 03:15:52 PST
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 88 03:15:52 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8801061115.AA29159@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #99

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 8 : Issue 99

Today's Topics:
		    Nozzles for Fusion-Propulsion
			    Re: satellites
			 Booster development
		      Re: Diversification Reform
		      Re: Diversification Reform
			   Re: NASA breakup
		       Re: Booster development
		      JSC is in Houston, right?
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date:         Tue, 05 Jan 88 15:10:00 EST
From: ST401385%BROWNVM.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu
Subject:      Nozzles for Fusion-Propulsion

(From a discussion of IC Fusion Propulsion by Jordan Kare):
>The vehicle drops a small pellet out the back, then blasts it with a
>large on-board laser.  A small amount of the pellet material fuses,
>heating the pellet material to very high temperatures.  The pellet
>debris is sufficiently ionized to be contained by a magnetic field,
>which acts as a nozzle, converting the spherical pellet explosion into
>a directional exhaust that accelerates the spacecraft.
     Note that the problem of using a magnetic field as a nozzle is a
very tricky one.  Charged particles orbit around magnetic field lines,
and the field lines for magnetic confinement necessarily loop around.
The result is that the ion exhaust doesn't stream out the back of the
rocket, but follows the field lines and loops back around to "stick" to
the outside.
    I don't know if this problem for fusion propulsion (or any type of
plasma propulsion) has been solved or not.  For inertial confinement
fusion propulsion, a brute-force solution would be to use, not a
magnetic nozzle, but an actual physical nozzle.  Alternatively you could
neutralize the plasma after it has passed out of the reaction chamber.

--Geoffrey A. Landis, Ph.D
          Until 23 January: Brown University, BITNET: ST401385 at BROWNVM
          Internet: ST401385%BROWNVM.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
          After 23 January: NASA Lewis Research Center

------------------------------

Date: 5 Jan 88 02:52:23 GMT
From: ptsfa!well!shibumi@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Kenton A. Hoover)
Subject: Re: satellites

>In article <873@uop.edu> robert@uop.edu (Doc Ness) writes:
>? Well, how about that AP headline?
>? "Satellite saw Waite, newspaper says"
>?
>? (I bet NSA is pissed off either way!)
>
>Uh-huh.... apply NaCl liberally..

No, it was the "Terry Waite" on his hostage jersey (number 17?).  Or
perhaps the satellite heard some car honk when they saw another car's
"Honk if you have Terry Waite in your trunk" bumpersticker.  Or perhaps
a "Terry Waite on board" sign in the window. Or perhaps some person at
AP need to change whatever it is they're smoking.

Kenton A. Hoover

------------------------------

Date: Mon,  4 Jan 88 13:47:00 est
From: kr0u+@andrew.cmu.edu (Kevin William Ryan)
Subject: Booster development

   As is common knowledge by now, the Space shuttle is kaput for a few
months (hopefully not years) longer than previously announced.  I've
heard mention of Air Force work on a reasonably straightforward booster,
and I believe some other group is doing something along the same lines.
   I'd like to know the status and plans for said boosters.  Are the
rumored plans for real?  Timeframes?  Planned payload to LEO?  Who's in
the game besides the Air Force?  Any boosters with a fighting chance of
existence?
   As an aside to this, is Amroc alive or dead at this point?  For a
while there it looked like they had exceeded the critical probability of
a snowball in hell - are they still trying?

                                                  Kevin Ryan

------------------------------

Date: 4 Jan 88 11:19:29 GMT
From: ptsfa!hoptoad!academ!uhnix1!sugar!peter@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Peter da Silva)
Subject: Re: Diversification Reform

In article <37471@sun.uucp>, livesey@sun.uucp (Jon Livesey) writes:
> Except in the US, fighter production has less than epsilon to do with
> free enterprise.  Even for the US, the closest thing to a private
> enterprise fighter crashed in flames, so to speak, two years ago.

What was this plane?

Peter da Silva

------------------------------

Date: 4 Jan 88 11:34:21 GMT
From: ptsfa!hoptoad!academ!uhnix1!sugar!peter@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Peter da Silva)
Subject: Re: Diversification Reform

In article <37531@sun.uucp>, livesey@sun.UUCP writes:
> That does not follow, of course.  The performance of a particular
> example of a planning system says little about its possible
> efficiency.  They may simply not be very good at it.  You might as
> well dismiss the free market system based on its observed performance
> in, say, the US auto industry.
> 
> Jon.

Since the '70s the U.S. auto industry hasn't been operating under
anything like a free market. Prior to the massive regulation during and
after the energy crunch the U.S. auto industry was pre-eminent. Since
then the companies that are operating in relatively free-market
environments have done much better.

Also, (watch this splendid 180 degree turn) the Soviet planned economy
does seem to be doing rather well in the space business.

Peter da Silva

------------------------------

Date: 4 Jan 88 11:39:34 GMT
From: ptsfa!hoptoad!academ!uhnix1!sugar!peter@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Peter da Silva)
Subject: Re: NASA breakup

In article <37617@sun.uucp>, mae%vygr@Sun.COM (Mike Ekberg, Sun {Graphics Product Division}) writes:
> Strange thought for the day. I know that commercial aviation was
> boosted by the government saying it would pay X dollars for air mail.
> How about NASA putting up a competetion for space station by saying it
> was willing to pay X million $/day to rent an (orbiting) room in
> space?  mike (sun!mae), M/S 5-40 "Maybe I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the
> only one."

I know that a bunch of people standing around saying "yes, yes" is
frowned upon on the net, but I'd like to do just that. There is already
a movement towards purchase of satellites delivered to orbit, rather
than buying them on the ground and shipping them up yourself. The
government should at least send out RFPs for a station delivered to
orbit.

Peter da Silva

------------------------------

Date: 5 Jan 88 20:39:34 GMT
From: beckenba@csvax.caltech.edu  (Joe Beckenbach)
Subject: Re: Booster development

In article <oVry6Yy00UjHIig08q@andrew.cmu.edu> Kevin William Ryan
(kr0u+@andrew.cmu.EDU) writes:
>I'd like to know the status and plans for ... boosters.  Are the
>rumored plans for real?  Timeframes?  Planned payload to LEO?  Who's in
>the game besides the Air Force?  Any boosters with a fighting chance of
>existence?

	Another voice along the same lines: whatever happened to the
Saturn V plans, assembly lines, and related production? All NASA needs
to do to get a booster is to revive the Apollo hardware! "Gee, it got us
to the Moon, it must not be good enough for the New Frontier," seems to
be the prevailing attitude at the very highest decision levels. :-(
	Question: How could a private company get launch facilities in
the US?  If private enterprise can't launch from the US, it will soon
surface somewhere outside the US- the US definitely cannot have all the
good launch sites.
	Hm, it may be about time to emigrate to Australia and join a
space company. 1/3 :-)
	Question #2: If every nation is responsible for the space
activities of its citizens, then the only Americans who can be present
in space will either have to ignore the government, or go to a country
which allows space access, "on loan" as it were. What other options are
there, aside from disclaiming all citizenship or forming a UN
citizenship if I want to go into space contrary to the wishes of all
national governments?

		-Joe Beckenbach (CS BS '88)

------------------------------

Date: 4 Jan 88 11:27:22 GMT
From: ptsfa!hoptoad!academ!uhnix1!sugar!peter@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Peter da Silva)
Subject: JSC is in Houston, right?

In article ... eugene%pioneer@AMES.ARPA (Eugene Miya N.) writes:
> >Huston        John Young (or person he recommends)
> Don't know a Center in Houston (sp).

You're kidding, right? Johnson's pork barrel? "Houston, Tranquility
Base.  The Eagle has landed" "Roger, Tranquility. We copy you on the
ground."  Must have been a figment of my imagination.

I know that most times they cut the first word out of that quote (I
haven't been able to get a recording of it), but you work at NASA...

Peter da Silva

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #99
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU;  7 Jan 88 06:41:21 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA00831; Thu, 7 Jan 88 03:16:13 PST
	id AA00831; Thu, 7 Jan 88 03:16:13 PST
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 88 03:16:13 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8801071116.AA00831@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #100

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 100

Today's Topics:
		      Candidates on space issues
		     Soviet space marketing moves
	 Liberia of space (was Soviet space marketing moves)
			       Saturn V
	    Re: Boosters (S V) and space commericalization
		       Re: Booster development
       Re: Liberia of space (was Soviet space marketing moves)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 5 Jan 88 20:24:26 GMT
From: aterry@teknowledge-vaxc.arpa  (Uninterned Symbol)
Subject: Candidates on space issues

We now have more than a dozen candidates who think they want to be
president.  Have any of them made any coherent statements on space
issues, preferably positive?  I suspect that even if one should mention
a stand on space exploration, the media would not give it a lot of
coverage.  If anybody picks up some news, this group might be a good way
to pass the word during this election year.  Who deserves support over
their stand on space?  Who needs persuasion (letters, etc)?  And who, if
any, seems to be a dead loss?  Lets work to make space an issue.
							Allan

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 6 Jan 88 10:22:03 EST
From: Glenn Chapman <glenn@ll-vlsi.arpa>
Subject: Soviet space marketing moves

   In the area of space marketing the Soviets have just signed a
commercial contract with a West German firm for the production of
several materials in orbit during 1989 to 1992 aboard a Photon
spacecraft.  Meanwhile Art Dula, the Texas lawyer who is trying get
permission to launch some communications satellites on Soviet boosters,
has just returned from a tour of the Baikonur Cosmodrome. While
initially doubting how much the Russians would reveal he said "we were
surprised they opened up as much as they did", by showing them a
satellite being integrated to a Proton launcher (with its panels off and
wiring harnesses observable).  Foreign launches he said would occur in a
separate portion of the space center and he said "we'll have an American
team of 50 people at the Soviet launch complex doing our satellite
processing, checkout, and integration, and our own security people will
be guarding our satellites until the moment of launch."  The opposition
by the State Department to the using the Russian launch vehicles he felt
was based not only on questions of technological transfer but also on
worries about Soviet boosters taking flights which would go to US
companies.  Not only are US satellite companies losing money from
comsats they cannot get into orbit now, the existence of foreign
companies which launch their systems on cheap Soviet boosters, as well
as the modification of the USSR's Gorizont system to compete directly
with western comsats "will kill the US satellite technology industry.
[The Soviets are] clearly determined to be part of the [space] market".
   In the 1970' the French and Germans wanted to launch a new type of
communications satellite called Symphony.  They had built the satellite
and were trying for a launch contract when certain groups in US industry
and government objected to Europe being allowed to send up such a system
(I do not recall the full details but it had something to do with US
vendors not being allowed to send up similar designs at that time).  The
Europeans felt that their satellite industry could not be held hostage
to a determination of what was allowed by various groups in this
country, especially when they were competing for comsat contracts with
US industry.  Hence they started the Ariane projects, producing a
launcher which even before the shuttle accident was capturing 50% of the
world's space commercial booster contracts.  One point to note that if
it was not for Ariane a fifth shuttle orbiter at least would have
justified just on the basis of demand.  Are we seeing the same thing
with respect to Soviet launch vehicles?  Will the mercantile forces in
industry within this country again try to keep everything for
themselves, and result in losing world market shares elsewhere? To third
world nations what does it mater whether they buy US, European,
Japanese, Chinese or Soviet equipment, only price, service and quality
are of concern.  At least in launch systems the Russians meet all those
requirements.  It reminds me of the old stock market saying - "A Bull
can make money part of the time, a Bear can make money part of the time,
but a Hog always looses".

                                            Glenn Chapman
                                            MIT Lincoln Lab

------------------------------

Date: 6 Jan 88 17:39:17 GMT
From: paul.rutgers.edu!masticol@rutgers.edu  (Stephen P. Masticola)
Subject: Liberia of space (was Soviet space marketing moves)

Seems to me that it's only a matter of time before some multinational
(or American) company figures out that they can get satellites
launched by the Russians if the satellites aren't built in the U.S.
The alternatives to achieve this are to subcontract with the Russians
to build the satellite themselves (would they allow verification of
the design and construction?), or to build the satellite in a country
which is willing to put up with threats of U.S. retaliation.  (Is
anyone from Toshiba listening? 0.5 :-)

Either way, both satellite launch and construction technology move
offshore, and specifically into the hands of the Evil Empire. I
wouldn't be too surprised to see a new satellite company organized in,
say, French Guiana (a third-world country which needs the bucks more
than it needs the U.S. government, and already has the Kourou launch
facility.) Such a company could construct satellites to be launched
from anywhere convenient - Kourou, Canaveral, Bainokur, wherever - as
long as they had the sympathy of the local government (which could be
maintained by the prospect of losing the revenue from the satellites.)

The only alternative is to give the commercial launch business in this
country a free rein, and government support through launch contracts
(with competition encouraged.)  If the federal government insists on
suppressing commercial launchers in the U.S., commercial space in this
country will go the way of commercial electronics - offshore.

------------------------------

Date: 6 Jan 1988 10:20:37 EST
From: Kevin.Ryan@a.cfr.cmu.edu
Subject: Saturn V

            Joe Beckenbach, [beckenba@csvax.caltech.edu] wrote
>... whatever happened to the Saturn V plans, assembly lines, and
>related production? All NASA needs to do to get a booster is to revive
>the Apollo hardware!

   This subject was discussed some time back on Space Digest.
Apparently NASA threw away the plans and specs, sold some of the
tooling, trashed most of the rest.  We are incapable of building a
Saturn V without reinventing it.  Various reasons were given by NASA for
this - mostly consisting of "We didn't have the room/money to keep it
while developing the Space Shuttle."  There are rumors that the Saturn V
plans were pitched in order to prevent it from becoming a SS competitor,
but I have heard no solid evidence for this theory.

   If the publicly stated reasons are true, then this loss is the result
of horrible nearsightedness.  If the rumor is correct, then somebody
deserves to be keelhauled, in the genuine and original sense.  (Look it
up, and think about barnacles...)  Either way, we've lost an important
and well-designed tool.

						Kevin Ryan

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 6 Jan 88 14:41:21 pst
From: Eugene Miya N. <eugene@PIONEER.ARC.NASA.GOV>
Subject: Re: Boosters (S V) and space commericalization


All sounds interesting.  I like Sagan's solution in Contact: the
US and Soviet technology had problems, so they took the third party
Japanese solution.  Let them make the follow-ons to the Saturn V ;-).
[Actually it's pretty sorry technology in some ways, if you only knew.]

--eugene

------------------------------

Date: 6 Jan 88 13:54:12 GMT
From: ece-csc!ncrcae!ncr-sd!ncrlnk!ncrwic!encad!mjohnson@mcnc.org  (Mark Johnson)
Subject: Re: Booster development

In article <5097@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu> beckenba@cit-vax.UUCP (Joe Beckenbach) writes:
>Question: How could a private company get launch facilities in the US?
>If private enterprise can't launch from the US, it will soon surface
>somewhere outside the US- the US definitely cannot have all the good
>launch sites.

Private companies *are* trying to get launch facilities. E-Prime
Aerospace has a preliminary agreement to use Canaveral Air Force Station
for a test sounding rocket launch now scheduled for early next month.
The original target date was November but the Air Farce (1/2 :-) is
requiring a $10 million liability policy (for a 10-foot long, 90-lb
sounding rocket which will reach 20,000 feet!!!!! )

[I am in no way affiliated with E Prime Aerospace]
-- 
Mark Johnson (mjohnson@ncrwic.UUCP)
NCR Engineering & Manufacturing-Wichita, KS  phone: (316)688-8189    
email:...!rutgers!hplabs!hp-sdd!ncr-sd!ncrwic!encad!mjohnson 
US snailnet: 3718 N. Rock Rd., Wichita, KS 67226

------------------------------

Date: 7 Jan 88 02:57:47 GMT
From: karn@faline.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: Liberia of space (was Soviet space marketing moves)

> say, French Guiana (a third-world country which needs the bucks more
> than it needs the U.S. government, and already has the Kourou launch
> facility.)

French Guiana is an overseas department of France, one of the last
remnants of the great European empires. Although there are still plenty
of islands under European control, I believe it's the very last such
colony on a mainland continent.

Phil

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #100
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU;  8 Jan 88 06:20:18 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA03056; Fri, 8 Jan 88 03:17:04 PST
	id AA03056; Fri, 8 Jan 88 03:17:04 PST
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 88 03:17:04 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8801081117.AA03056@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #101

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 101

Today's Topics:
			    Kalmann Filter
				 F20
			 old missiles--usage?
			     Re: Saturn V
				RFP's
		       Re: AMROC alive or dead?
			   Tranquility Base
       Re: Liberia of space (was Soviet space marketing moves)
			     Re: Saturn V
			      Re: RFP's
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 5 Jan 88 17:10:54 GMT
From: linus!philabs!gotham!ursa!raj@husc6.harvard.edu  (Raj)
Subject: Kalmann Filter

I am interested in forecasting and estimation, and would like to see a
simple introduction to Kalman filters.  The several books I looked into
were rather advanced, and needed a lot of background knowledge.  I would
like to know what does this filter do, how to build a model for it, some
simple examples, etc.  Does any of you have a simple paper, book or
something that will explain this to me in simple terms?

Secondly, I was told that someone, perhaps MIT, sells a package that
takes in all the relevant data and comes up with the required answers
using this filter.  Does any of you know of this package?

Please reply to sun!sunrise!ursa!raj.  Thanks very much.

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 7 Jan 88 11:54:21 EST
From: subar%mwcamis@mitre.arpa
Subject: F20

Re: Diversification Reform
     
Peter da Silva
(ptsfa!hoptoad!academ!uhnix1!sugar!peter@ames.arc.nasa.gov) asked the
musical question:
     
>> Except in the US, fighter production has less than epsilon to do with
>> free enterprise.  Even for the US, the closest thing to a private
>> enterprise fighter crashed in flames, so to speak, two years ago.
     
> What was this plane?
     
The plane is the F-20, built Northrop.  The development costs were small
(relative to designing a new fighter) because the F-20 design was based
on the F-4, also built by Northrop.  The chief differences between the
planes are the body lengths and the thrusts, both specifications being
larger on the F-20.  The 20 was considered by a few nations
(particularily S Saudi Arabia and Taiwan) as their next fighter, but
none would buy it because it never got the gold seal from the US, a
purchase order.

------------------------------

Date: 6 Jan 88 19:06:16 GMT
From: uop!robert@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu  (Robert McCaul -- The Equalizer)
Subject: old missiles--usage?

what about using the old rockets in the space program, and the
warheads to drive teller's sdi x-ray lasers?

------------------------------

Date: 7 Jan 88 12:48:19 GMT
From: pitstop!sundc!netxcom!rkolker@sun.com  (rich kolker)
Subject: Re: Saturn V

In article <8801061516.AA29718@angband.s1.gov> Kevin.Ryan@A.CFR.CMU.EDU writes:
>            Joe Beckenbach, [beckenba@csvax.caltech.edu] wrote
>>... whatever happened to the Saturn V plans, assembly lines, and
>>related production? All NASA needs to do to get a booster is to revive
>>the Apollo hardware!
>
>This subject was discussed some time back on Space Digest.  Apparently
>NASA threw away the plans and specs, sold some of the tooling, trashed
>most of the rest.  We are incapable of building a Saturn V without
>reinventing it.

Perhaps reverse-engineer is a better term, since we have several
complete ones lying around.  A tough, job, but the payoff is the most
powerful heavy lift booster around, and one that is man-rated.  Check
your references on what that thing can bring up to LEO.

++rich

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 7 Jan 88 11:54:58 EST
From: subar%mwcamis@mitre.arpa
Subject: RFP's
     
Subject: Re: NASA breakup
     
Peter da Silva
(ptsfa!hoptoad!academ!uhnix1!sugar!peter@ames.arc.nasa.gov) says:
     
>In article <37617@sun.uucp>, mae%vygr@Sun.COM (Mike Ekberg, Sun {Graphics Produ
ct Division}) writes:
>> Strange thought for the day. I know that commercial aviation was
>> boosted by the government saying it would pay X dollars for air mail.
>> How about NASA putting up a competetion for space station by saying
>> it was willing to pay X million $/day to rent an (orbiting) room in
>> space?  mike (sun!mae), M/S 5-40 "Maybe I'm a dreamer, but I'm not
>> the only one."
     
>The government should at least send out RFPs for a station delivered to
>orbit.
     
Sorry, no can do.  Putting out an RFP if you don't plan to buy is known
as a felony in the gov't biz.  It will open the gov't up to massive
civil and perhaps criminal damages.  The only way to cancel an RFP is to
have extremely extenuating circumstances.  You really can't change them
all that much once they are on the street.  It costs too much to respond
to one.
     
David Subar

------------------------------

Date:  7 Jan 1988 17:15-EST 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: AMROC alive or dead?

AMROC is indeed alive and well at this point. Their funding source
pulled the rug after the market crash, but they have found new backers
and have rehired many of the people they laid off. Still talk of a
launch sometime next year as I understand.

I actually heard about this a number of weeks ago, but I didn't know for
sure whether it was to be public knowledge. I waited until Space
Calendar mentioned it so's I wouldn't break any confidences...

------------------------------

Return-Path: dkrause@orion.cf.uci.edu
Date: Thu, 07 Jan 88 01:29:33 -0800
From: Doug Krause <djkrause%UCI.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Subject: Tranquility Base
Reply-To: dkrause@orion.cf.uci.edu

From: djkrause@UCI
>You're kidding, right? Johnson's pork barrel? "Houston, Tranquility
>Base.  The Eagle has landed" "Roger, Tranquility. We copy you on the
>ground."  Must have been a figment of my imagination.

I always thought it was "Tranquility Base to Houston, the Eagle has
landed."  (I know, it's minor quibble.)

Douglas Krause
ARPANET: dkrause@orion.cf.uci.edu

------------------------------

Date: 7 Jan 88 19:52:05 GMT
From: devvax!jplpro!des@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov  (David Smyth)
Subject: Re: Liberia of space (was Soviet space marketing moves)

In article <1687@faline.bellcore.com> karn@faline.bellcore.com (Phil R. Karn) writes:
>> say, French Guiana (a third-world country which needs the bucks more
>> than it needs the U.S. government, and already has the Kourou launch
>> facility.)
>
>French Guiana is an overseas department of France, one of the last
>remnants of the great European empires. Although there are still plenty
>of islands under European control, I believe it's the very last such
>colony on a mainland continent.
 ^^^^^^

French Guiana has EXACTLY the same political status in the Republic of
France as, say, Bordeaux.  Just like Hawaii has EXACTLY the same status
as New York.  It is NOT a colony.

<fodder>
<fodder>
<fodder>
<fodder>
<fodder>
<fodder>
<fodder>
<fodder>

------------------------------

Date: 8 Jan 88 01:07:08 GMT
From: cca!g-rh@husc6.harvard.edu  (Richard Harter)
Subject: Re: Saturn V

In article <624@netxcom.UUCP> rkolker@netxcom.UUCP (rich kolker) writes:
>In article <8801061516.AA29718@angband.s1.gov> Kevin.Ryan@A.CFR.CMU.EDU writes:
>>
>>            Joe Beckenbach, [beckenba@csvax.caltech.edu] wrote
>>>... whatever happened to the Saturn V plans, assembly lines, and related
>>>production? All NASA needs to do to get a booster is to revive the
>>>Apollo hardware! 
>>
>>   This subject was discussed some time back on Space Digest.  
>>Apparently NASA threw away the plans and specs, sold some of the 
>>tooling, trashed most of the rest.  We are incapable of building a 
>>Saturn V without reinventing it.
>
>Perhaps reverse-engineer is a better term, since we have several
>complete ones lying around.  A tough, job, but the payoff is the
>most powerful heavy lift booster around, and one that is man-rated.
>Check your references on what that thing can bring up to LEO.

	It is *obvious* that if we could do it in the past, we could do
it now in less time and at less cost -- after all we have made a lot of
*progress* since then.  Unfortunately, the obvious isn't necessarily true!

	One of the things that NASA in the 60's had that does not really
exist today is high level QA and the cooperation of industry.  Today it
is much harder to get the kind of high-rel parts that NASA routinely
demanded in the old days.  Vendors simply don't want to be bothered with
the demands of high-rel QA -- the high tech industry doesn't need that
level of QA, and that's where the money is.  In the old days NASA got
the cream of the crop; the best and the brightest were sitting on top
of the vendors, checking everything in exquisite detail.  Today ...
Challenger.  In the old days NASA had strong political support from
the White House and the public; they could ask for and get the best.
They were not burdened with 20 years of career hacks both inside NASA
and in the aerospace industry.

	... Comparing the American space effort of 1987 with that of
1967 is like comparing the papacy of the Borgias with the ministry of
St. Paul.

-- 

In the fields of Hell where the grass grows high
Are the graves of dreams allowed to die.
	Richard Harter, SMDS  Inc.

------------------------------

Date: 7 Jan 88 23:09:45 GMT
From: paul.rutgers.edu!masticol@rutgers.edu  (Stephen P. Masticola)
Subject: Re: RFP's

[Note to those not familiar with FedGovSpeak: RFP stands for Request
For Proposal, the government's way of telling industry it wants to get
bids to do something. -SPM]

In article <8801071654.AA18834@mitre.arpa> subar%mwcamis@mitre.arpa writes:

> >The government should at least send out RFPs for a station delivered to
> >orbit.
>      
> Sorry, no can do.  Putting out an RFP if you don't plan to buy is known
> as a felony in the gov't biz.  It will open the gov't up to massive
> civil and perhaps criminal damages.  The only way to cancel an RFP is
> to have extremely extenuating circumstances.  You really can't change
> them all that much once they are on the street.  It costs too much to respond
> to one.

Yes, but the proposal process can be stalled later. I was on a
proposal where the contract award was halted for a full year, due to
wrangling between the Air Force and the bidder over who would be
liable if the thing we were bidding for didn't work. There was a
_very_ signifigant chance it wouldn't, both sides realized this, and
neither side wanted to accept a dead loss of millions of dollars. I
think our side withdrew the bid after something like sixteen best and
final offers (BAFOs).

In this case, the proposal process did work to prevent the government
from spending a lot of money on a half-baked idea. The people in the
Air Force would have withdrawn the RFP if they could have; instead,
they worried us into backing down.

The names have been withheld to protect the guilty. :-)

- Steve

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #101
*******************

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Date: Sat, 9 Jan 88 03:14:46 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8801091114.AA01252@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #102

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 102

Today's Topics:
			    Re: satellites
				 F-20
			       Re: F-20
				 RFPs
	Re: The Church of the Holy Starship was Re: A request
			     Re: Saturn V
			De-Commercialize NASA
			       Re: F20
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 7 Jan 88 00:52:39 GMT
From: ihnp4!homxb!hropus!ki4pv!codas!killer!netsys!wb8foz@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (David Lesher)
Subject: Re: satellites

>>? Well, how about that AP headline?
>>? "Satellite saw Waite, newspaper says"
>>
>>Uh-huh.... apply NaCl liberally..

On the other hand, several public sources have reported that resolutions
good enough to read the brand of coffin nails being smoked by the guard
on duty in Moscow are in use.  If you combine that with the art of
*interpretation*, it is not unreasonable that the distinctive, big bulky
fellow walking outside the isolated house in a area of interest,
surrounded by guards with AK-47s is Terry Waite. I suggest the book
"Deep Black" on the subject of remote imagery.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 8 Jan 88 09:47:07 EST
Posted-From: The MITRE Corp., Bedford, MA
From: m18359%hawki@mitre-bedford.arpa (Marcel Parnas)
Subject: F-20

Not to quibble (especially with a fellow MITREite), but the F-20 was a
derivative of the F-5, not the F-4.  The F-5 is still used around the
world.  The U.S. principally uses the F-5 as agressor planes in training
exercises.  Northrop tried awfully hard to sell the F-20.  Remember the
ads for spark plugs or something with Chuck Yeager standing in front of
a "Tigershark?"

Marcel Parnas
mparnas%mdf@mitre-bedford.arpa

[Also similar info from:

From: phoenix!pucc!ICEMAN@princeton.edu  (Joakim Karlsson)
From: lf-server-2.bbn.com!tdonahue@bbn.com  (Tim Donahue)
From: John Sotos <SOTOS@sushi.stanford.edu>
]

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 8 Jan 88 13:07:09 EST
From: subar%mwcamis@mitre.arpa
Subject: Re: F-20

Hank.Walker@taurus.ece.cmu.edu sent me a note:
     
> Unless I'm losing it, the F-4 was built by McDonnell Douglas (well,
> actually McDonnell), and the F-5 was/is built by Northrup.  The F-20
> looks a lot more like an F-5 than an F-4.  Perhaps it was just a typo.
     
I believe he is correct.  The rest of my message, about why the F-20 died,
is correct, though.
     
David Subar

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 8 Jan 88 12:17 EDT
From: ELIOT%cs.umass.edu@relay.cs.net
Subject: RFPs

There are always ways around problems like this.  Don't send out an RFP
for a space station.  Send out an RFP for a *study* of the possibility
of sending out an RFP for a space station.  Then be sure that someone
explains` it to the CEO of the major companies over a nice game of golf.
You get your preliminary idea of whether any companies are interested,
but no legal obligations to follow up.

As for the Saturn V.  How many were actually used, and how many blew up?
I think there were two major accidents out of about 15 launches.  On the
other hand we have one major accident with shttle out of about 25
launches or so.  The numbers are too low for any statistical
significance, but there is the possibility that Saturn V is not really
any more reliable than the shuttle.  Maybe they just quit while they
were ahead.

------------------------------

Date: 9 Jan 88 01:27:33 GMT
From: amdahl!nsc!fiasco@ames.arpa  (G. R. Gircys)
Subject: Re: The Church of the Holy Starship was Re: A request

In article <1985@frog.UUCP> sc@frog.UUCP (STartripper) writes:
>I've dreamed and thought for years about getting our ecosystem
>reproduced off the planet, thus opening the door to a universe of
>"culture dishes" where societies can experiment upon themselves.

Only when we learn to live on our natural spaceship should we entertain
fantastically ambitious ideas like space born culture dishes. Face the
mayhem here before you start exporting it.

Signed:
An unsuspecting and innocent universe

------------------------------

Date: 7 Jan 88 20:58:41 GMT
From: amdahl!drivax!dambrose@ames.arpa  (David Ambrose)
Subject: Re: Saturn V

In article <8801061516.AA29718@angband.s1.gov> Kevin.Ryan@A.CFR.CMU.EDU writes:
>Apparently NASA threw away the plans and specs, sold some of the
>tooling, trashed most of the rest.  We are incapable of building a
>Saturn V without reinventing it.
>   If the publicly stated reasons are true, then this loss is the result 
>of horrible nearsightedness.  If the rumor is correct, then somebody 
>deserves to be keelhauled, in the genuine and original sense.  (Look it 
>up, and think about barnacles...)  Either way, we've lost an important 
>and well-designed tool.	^
				|-- And think about SALT WATER too

			Amen, to the above!

	As if it isn't already obvious, there is something dreadfully
wrong in the space industry.  Costs overrun, program management fails to
live up to its name, and none of the would-be leaders of this country
seem to be willing to discuss the issue.  Why is this?

	I have a theory.  The current situation with NASA and its
contractors strongly resembles the DOD of about 15 years ago.  Contracts
are usually a pretty cushy COST + 10%.  Under a situation like this,
there are few incentives to do things right the first time.  It will cut
into your profits.

	Maybe NASA should take a few lessons from DOD. [gulp! did I
really say that?]  Many of the contract reforms instituted at DOD should
have also been instituted at NASA.  The prime thrust of DOD reforms were
in the contract management area.  DOD started negotiating more
fixed-price contracts, including performance bonuses, and separating
development from production.  By themselves, contract reforms cannot
clean up the mess at either NASA or DOD.  But over the long run, they
can make a difference.

	We have given NASA the job of making our dreams, and those of
our children, into reality.  We need to take a cold, hard look at how
we'll achieve that goal.  We need to remember that NASA is the source of
profits for many companies and managers.  If we remember the monetary
aspects of space exploration, we can keep the profit-mongering from
getting out of hand.

	I am not in any way denigrating the people who work in the space
program!  I do want to remind you all that there IS a profit motive
available and that there will be individuals who will let profits
over-rule other criteria.  My goal would be to keep these people in
check.

David L. Ambrose, --  Digital Research, Inc         ...!amdahl!drivax!dambrose

------------------------------

Date: 6 Jan 88 16:05:00 GMT
From: codas!killer!ninja!sys1!trsvax!reyn@bikini.cis.ufl.edu
Subject: De-Commercialize NASA


There continues to be much discussion on ways to speed the privitization of 
space.  It seems to be a general consensus (note the word seems) that NASA
has unfortunately become part of the problem.  It is only natural for any
organization, whether government of private, to become increasingly protective
of its control over its domain.  NASA wishes to dominate all space policy,
much as A.T.& T. wishes to dominate telephone policy.  Enough said.

One way to release NASA's strangle-hold on the future of American enterprises
in space would be the following: prohibit NASA from launching commercial
satelites.  After all, you can't hire the Army Corps of Engineers to build
a shopping mall for you, so why should you be able to hire NASA to launch a
satellite for you?  Hire Martin-Marietta, or Rockwell, or General Dynamics,
or one of the many other companies who posses space launch technology to do
this for you.

NASA was originally envisioned as, and should return to the role of a research
and development organization.  It is extremely odd that post-Appollo planners

have begun to regard NASA as a trucking company.

						  John Reynolds

------------------------------

Date: 9 Jan 88 03:21:51 GMT
From: amdahl!oliveb!epimass!epiwrl!parker@ames.arpa  (Alan Parker)
Subject: Re: F20

In article <8801071654.AA18820@mitre.arpa> subar%mwcamis@mitre.arpa writes:
>The plane is the F-20, built Northrop.  The development costs
>were small (relative to designing a new fighter) because the F-20 design was
>based on the F-4, also built by Northrop.  
              ^^^
You mean F-5.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #102
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 10 Jan 88 06:19:21 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA02704; Sun, 10 Jan 88 03:16:36 PST
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Date: Sun, 10 Jan 88 03:16:36 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8801101116.AA02704@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #103

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 103

Today's Topics:
			 Re: Tranquility Base
			     Re: Saturn V
			  Re: Life in Moscow
		     Re: Exact Time (help please)
			     Re: Saturn V
			    Re: satellites
	Re: The Church of the Holy Starship was Re: A request
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 8 Jan 88 18:57:55 GMT
From: amdahl!bnrmtv!takahash@ames.arpa  (Alan Takahashi)
Subject: Re: Tranquility Base

In article <8801071158.AA01093@angband.s1.gov>, djkrause@UCI.BITNET (Doug Krause) writes:
> From: djkrause@UCI
> >You're kidding, right? Johnson's pork barrel? "Houston, Tranquility
> >Base.  The Eagle has landed" "Roger, Tranquility. We copy you on the
> >ground."  Must have been a figment of my imagination.
> >
> >I know that most times they cut the first word out of that quote (I
> >haven't been able to get a recording of it), but you work at NASA...
> >
> >Peter da Silva
> 
> I always thought it was "Tranquility Base to Houston, the Eagle has
> landed."  (I know, it's minor quibble.)
> Douglas Krause

Followed by: "We copy you down, Eagle."

Just continuing the minor quibble... :-)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alan Takahashi                            !     hplabs   amdahl
Bell-Northern Research                    !          \   / 
Mountain View, CA                         !   .....!{-----}!bnrmtv!takahashi
                                          !          /   \
"When you need to knock on wood is when   !    3comvax   ames
  you realize the world's composed of     !-----------------------------------
  aluminum and vinyl." -- Flugg's Law     ! DISCLAIMER: It's all an illusion.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: 8 Jan 88 14:32:47 GMT
From: codas!burl!clyde!watmath!utgpu!utzoo!kcarroll@bikini.cis.ufl.edu  (Kieran A. Carroll)
Subject: Re: Saturn V

>>>... whatever happened to the Saturn V plans, assembly lines, 
>>>and related production? All NASA needs to do to get a booster is 
>>>to revive the Apollo hardware! ...
>>
>>...We are incapable of building a Saturn V without reinventing it.
>
>Perhaps reverse-engineer is a better term, since we have several
>complete ones lying around.  A tough, job, but the payoff is the
>most powerful heavy lift booster around, and one that is man-rated.
>Check your references on what that thing can bring up to LEO.


Have you stopped to consider that perhaps we don't >>want<< to build
new Saturn Vs?  From what I can remember, those spectacular machines
delivered payload to orbit at a cost of around $2000/lb, >>in 1966
dollars<<; that'd be at least 1988$8000/lb.  While you could make the
argument that the price per booster would come down were they mass-
produced (thus bringing down the cost per pound), I've seen at least
one early-60s reference that suggested the anticipated savings were
not very great; perhaps a factor of two cost reduction, by the time
the 100th booster rolled off the assembly line.  Saturn Vs were
>>expensive<< to fly! (also, bear in mind Eugene's comment about
the technology involved not being too impressive...).

Shuttles, on the other hand, deliver payload to orbit at more like
1988$2000/lb; a similar cost is available from Deltas, Arianes,
Titans, etc. Their main problem is a small payload per launch;
also, the safety improvements to the shuttle, and reduced launch
rate, will tend to jack up the price.  The shuttle was intended to
reduce the cost of getting to orbit; it seems to have achieved that.

The people behind the Jarvis booster (McD-D?) looked into using
the Saturn V engines for their Big Dumb Booster; apparently they've
decided that it's not even worthwhile reverse-engineering just the
engines.  Those engines are >>old<<, designed back around 1960;
according to Henry, von Braun and friends didn't even try to make
them particularly efficient, striving for reliability and simplicity
at the expense of performance.  A good approach for a crash program,
that must achieve results soonest, and has a huge pot of money to draw 
from; not the best way to design engines for an affordable rocket.

Comments, anyone?

     Kieran A. Carroll @ U of Toronto Aerospace Institute
     {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!kcarroll
-- 

     Kieran A. Carroll @ U of Toronto Aerospace Institute
     {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!kcarroll

------------------------------

Date: 6 Jan 88 22:23:04 GMT
From: tolerant!sci!auspyr!aussjo!ausmelb!mulga!ditmela!george@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (George michaelson)
Subject: Re: Life in Moscow

>>>In article <3584@husc6.harvard.edu>, reiter@endor.harvard.edu (Ehud Reiter)
>>>writes:
>>>> Russian society, the most prominent thing in the picture (besides the
>>>> scientist himself) was a strip of paper tape.
>>>

I have a similar poster I believe mine says technology will help lead russia
forward. However I have no human but instead a large hammer & sickle
formed of 5-dot baudot coded paper tape, against a backdrop of atomic
icebreakers, huge robot arms & general heavy machinery.

There seems to be an implication in your posting that the paper tape image 
implies great backwardness.. 

Well in my poster the whole style is iconic, and as a visual
medium to say "computer" which is fluid enough to shape into the motif of
a hammer & sickle I think tape can't be beaten

If you look at any western TV wildtrack of computer room activity they 
don't show a black cube 2 foot square with one red light on, they go for a 
tennis court of minions loading tape into chunky drives. no autoload collars, 
no vaxen. 

People need a heavy handed motif to get the technology image re-inforced, we 
might now be impressed by oh-so-cool no-buttons boxes but whose to say that 
will still be true in 10 years time? 

look at the images of computers in even recent films like ALIEN - the computer 
control room has wall-to-wall buttons just like the old days, yet in 2001 they
had simple keyboards & voice input. Look at old computer ads and the new ones
in your trade rag. Images change. 

I for one miss the aesthetics of older machines. there's a whole generation
of mindless ada hackers out there who've never had punched tape chad stuffed
down their shirt nor had to sort carddecks by hand. Hell I'm not even OLD!

That poster of mine looks really great on the wall, I'd rather have it than 
any number of glossy spreads of the shuttle on a monitor, or the same old 
stacked balls floating in space. 

-- 
ACSnet:	G.Michaelson@ditmela.oz.au
Postal:	55 Barry St, Carlton, Vic 3053
Phone:	(03) 347 8644 				Fax:	(03) 347 8987

------------------------------

Date: 9 Jan 88 19:11:26 GMT
From: amdcad!uport!smegma!mdg@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Marc de Groot)
Subject: Re: Exact Time (help please)

In article <880104092023.007@Mipl3.JPL.Nasa.Gov> rgd059@mipl3.jpl.nasa.GOV writes:
>WWV also transmits other information like sunspot
>and hf propagation reports at certain times during the hour.  Somewhere I saw
>a list of what all they send... if anyone's interested I can try to dig it up
>again (it's probably in the Amateur Radio Handbook).

My latest RAdio Amateur's Handbook is 1974, and it's in there. I would also
suggest tuning in WWV at zero minutes past the hour, and copying down
the mailing address for WWV in Fort Collins, CO. They will be glad to send you
a package describing all the wonderful services that WWV provides. Such things
as major storm warnings, geomagnetic disturbances, sunspot flux reports, and
more can be yours for the twist of a radio dial.


-- 
Marc de Groot (KG6KF)
UUCP: {hplabs, sun, ucbvax}!amdcad!uport!smegma!mdg
AMATEUR PACKET RADIO: KG6KF @ KB6IRS 
"Look, he's mounting a tape!" "Quick, throw cold water on him!"

------------------------------

Date: 9 Jan 88 20:52:27 GMT
From: cit-adel!kevin@csvax.caltech.edu  (Kevin Van Horn)
Subject: Re: Saturn V

In article <1988Jan8.093251.11064@utzoo.uucp> kcarroll@utzoo.uucp (Kieran A.
Carroll) writes [re the possibility of building Saturn V's again]:
>Have you stopped to consider that perhaps we don't >>want<< to build
>new Saturn Vs?  From what I can remember, those spectacular machines
>delivered payload to orbit at a cost of around $2000/lb, >>in 1966
>dollars<<; that'd be at least 1988$8000/lb.  [...]
>Shuttles, on the other hand, deliver payload to orbit at more like
>1988$2000/lb; [...]

Not true.  The figures I've heard are more on the order of $5000-$6000/lb.
once you add in all the operating costs.

>[The Saturn V engines] are >>old<<, designed back around 1960;
>according to Henry, von Braun and friends didn't even try to make
>them particularly efficient, striving for reliability and simplicity
>at the expense of performance.

Making your launch vehicles reliable and simple is in general a better way to
reduce costs than making the engines efficient.  With the shuttle, I believe
that fuel costs are only a fraction of a percent of the total cost of a
launch, the large majority of the costs being in maintenance and preparing the
shuttle for launch; thus, its higher-performance engines do not decrease the
cost-per-pound to orbit, but rather increase it, because their greater
complexity boosts maintenance costs.

We need simplicity, not performance; we need the space-going equivalent of a
truck, not a race car.

Kevin S. Van Horn

------------------------------

Date: 10 Jan 88 02:02:42 GMT
From: jfc@athena.mit.edu  (John F Carr)
Subject: Re: satellites

In article <1952@netsys.UUCP> wb8foz@netsys.UUCP (David Lesher) writes:
>>>? "Satellite saw Waite, newspaper says"

>>>Uh-huh.... apply NaCl liberally..

>On the other hand, several public sources have reported that
>resolutions good enough to read the brand of coffin nails
>being smoked by the guard on duty in Moscow are in use. 
>If you combine that with the art of *interpretation*, 
>it is not unreasonable that the
>distinctive, big bulky fellow walking outside the isolated house 
>in a area of interest, surrounded by guards with AK-47s is 
>Terry Waite. I suggest the book "Deep Black" 
>on the subject of remote imagery.


I haven't read the book, but there is a simple argument against
such resolution.  Cameras in orbit are limited either by diffraction
or atmospheric conditions.  A telescope at sea level, in perfect 
weather, is typically limited to no better than 1" (that is a unit 
of angle: 1 arc-second, not 1 inch).  At 200 km this is a linear 
distance of 1 meter.  I would believe that looking down 
from orbit would give a different result (though I don't know).  
An *absolute* limit on the resolution of an image is diffraction 
in the camera.  For visible light (wavelength 5 X 10^-7 m), and a 
1 meter lens or mirror on the satellite, the limit is about 10 cm.  
To distinguish an object of size 1 cm, a 10 meter lens/mirror would 
be needed.  The Space Telescope, which has not been launched and is 
to my knowledge the largest mirror in or intended to be in space, is 
about 2 meters.  The biggest telescope in the world is 6 meters.  
There are techniques for processing images distorted by the 
atmosphere or an imperfect lens, but they can not get an image to be 
better than the diffraction limit.

I would be impressed if any intelligence agency could regularly scan
a city at 4 inch resolution while also doing its other (presumably 
more important) business.  (assuming B+W image, 256 intesity levels,
10 cm pixels, 2 km square area : 400 MB per image.)  Unless the miltary
or intelligence agencies are far ahead of anything I have read about in
computer pattern recognition (or somehow learned exactly where to look),
I would not believe the report "Satellite saw Waite".  (Unless someone
was *extremely* lucky).

  --John Carr

------------------------------

Date: 10 Jan 88 05:07:49 GMT
From: hin9@sphinx.uchicago.edu  (World Court Jester)
Subject: Re: The Church of the Holy Starship was Re: A request

In article <4907@nsc.nsc.com> fiasco@nsc.UUCP (G. R. Gircys) writes:
>In article <1985@frog.UUCP> sc@frog.UUCP (STartripper) writes:

>>I've dreamed and thought for years about getting our ecosystem
>>reproduced off the planet, thus opening the door to a universe of
>>"culture dishes" where societies can experiment upon themselves. 

>Only when we learn to live on our natural spaceship should we
>entertain fantastically ambitious ideas like space born culture
>dishes. Face the mayhem here before you start exporting it.


>Signed:

>An unsuspecting and innocent universe

     "What do you mean _we_, paleface?"
          -Tonto

     "_We_ decided?  _My_ best interests?"
          -Suicidal Tendencies

     "It's not my goddamn planet, monkey-boy!"
          -John Bigboote'

     What they said.

     T_Rev


-- 
The Reverend with No Name       I know I'm born to lose
@ The Lord Julius Cabal         And gambling's for fools
...ihnp4!gargoyle!sphinx!hin9   But that's the way I like it baby
The Legend Begins...		I don't want to live forever - Lemmy (God)

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #103
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 11 Jan 88 06:19:50 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA04302; Mon, 11 Jan 88 03:17:03 PST
	id AA04302; Mon, 11 Jan 88 03:17:03 PST
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 88 03:17:03 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8801111117.AA04302@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #104

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 104

Today's Topics:
			Realistic technology.
			Private Space Station
			 F-20's and Nasa.....
		     re:Sierra Club Weenie Roast
		      Re: Private Space Station
			   Saturn V Facts?
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1988  11:56 EST
From: MINSKY%OZ.AI.MIT.EDU@xx.lcs.mit.edu
Subject: Realistic technology.

George michaelson remarks:

>If you look at any western TV wildtrack of computer room activity they
>don't show a black cube 2 foot square with one red light on, they go
>for a tennis court of minions loading tape into chunky drives.  ...
>People need a heavy handed motif to get the technology image
>re-inforced, we might now be impressed by oh-so-cool no-buttons boxes
>but whose to say that will still be true in 10 years time?

When Kubrick was making 2001 he invited me to look at HAL.  The modules
had very fancy engravings and indicators.  I said I thought that all the
status data would come out the pins and no one would look at anything
but centralized display terminals in the year 2001.  (I agreed the
machine would speak very well, but wasn't convinced it would understand
continuous speech input reliably.)  Kubrick scrapped that set and
replaced it by the plain black modules seen in the movie.  I forget
whether they have a red LED on them.  I was horrified to see all that
nice artwork go away but Kubrick would not compromise.

------------------------------

Date: 10 Jan 1988 14:46:39-EST
From: Hank.Walker@taurus.ece.cmu.edu
Subject: Private Space Station
Apparently-To: Space-Enthusiasts@mc.lcs.mit.edu

Would anyone care to comment on the proposed private space station?
This would be a man-tended station several times the size of Spacelab
and larger than Mir/Kvant, with electrical power provided by large
electrical panels.  It could be put up by ~1991 in 1-2 shuttle launches.
The station would be man-tended, not manned, and would get life support
from a docked shuttle.  One might think of it as a free-flying Spacelab,
which was proposed at one time.

The government would lease a large fraction of the station to run
experiments.  This lease would be sufficient for the private companies
involved to raise funds for construction.  The benefits would be to
encourage private space industry, and get something up much sooner than
NASA's space station.  The White House and some Congressmen are pushing
this idea.  NASA of course is dead set against it since they rightly see
it as a threat to their own fancier station.

I'm all for it since I think it has a much better chance of success than
NASA's station.  Congress is already cutting the budget for that.  The
smaller station can be built with a much more realistic number of
shuttle flights, and accomplish many of the same goals at a much lower
cost.  It also takes the right path of many incremental changes, rather
than infrequent major leaps.  Obvious extensions to the smaller station
would be life support and manned modules.

------------------------------

Date:    Sun, 10 Jan 88 13:48 EST
From: NKK101%URIMVS.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu
Subject: F-20's and Nasa.....

> One way to release NASA's strangle-hold on the future of American
> enterprises in space would be the following: prohibit NASA from
> launching commercial satelites.

 And how do you propose we pay off the expediture of R&D? Out of the
 tax-payers pocket? I happen to LIKE the idea of a government controlled
 private enterprise. The way to go about it is to reform the aquisition
 process for contracts. Close off the bid. And let the bid go NOT to the
 lowest bidder, but the one who can best handle the job. Improve the
 QUALITY of the space program, and lower costs. Find alternate sources
 for critical parts. This is what the Dod did. And they've managed to
 eliminate a lot of pork-barrelling.

     And finally, Keep the DAMN thing out of space until it WORKS!

                                              NKK101@Urimvs.

  p.s. the F-20 Tigershark was an extended weapons platform based on the
  F-5. It was supposed to be another version of the F-5 but the
  extremity of the changes to the F-5 warrented a new designation.

------------------------------

Date:     Sun, 10 Jan 88 19:44 CST
From: SQUID HUNTER <MAXWELL%FNALC.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Subject:  re:Sierra Club Weenie Roast
Original_To:  Orig_To! space, MAXWELL


In SPACE DIGEST V8 #98 Jim Bowery writes about a Sierra Club/NSS function
in the Laguna Mountains:
 >Subject: Sierra Club/National Space Society Retreat
 >
 >Space Development or Space Despoilment?
 >
 >The U.S. and U.S.S.R. have made policy statements to the effect that
 >space is a frontier which they intend to settle.  What are the essential
 >differences between the New World and space as a frontier?

The essential diffence between the New World and space is this: space does
not have a biosphere.  Space is deadly; if you move into space you _must_
live in an artificial enviornment because you die if you experience the
natural enviornment there. We _can_ pollute space, and of course we can
clutter it up with junked hardware.  Junked hardware can become a kinetic
hazard.  Some of it goes away, some of it doesn't.
There are other differences between here and there. of course, but I think
that we're talking about enviornmentalism.


 >Will the perception of an infinite frontier encourage the reckless
 >destruction of Earth's riches?

I don't think so.  The whole idea behind space manufacturing is that you
move the nasty stuff _off_ Earth. You get raw materials _out there_.  Go
to the moon or the belt for minerals and metals, the belt or the gas giants
for volatiles.  You _do not_ rape the planet.  I'm sure we all know about
the idea of orbiting power stations relieving Earth of the burden of nuclear
and fossil-fueled power plants.

We could, none the less, do bad things to our planet.
There are serious questions about our ability to get this bounty back to
the planet.  Are we _sure_ we want to pump giga- or terawatts of micro-
wave energy through the atmoshpere?  (Maybe a beanstalk would be the solution)
Deorbiting mass products may have a deleterious effect on the atmosphere,
water cycle or who-knows-what.  I don't think a beanstalk would help here.
How do many many ground launches effect the enviornment?  Would laser propulsion
be better?  Could we be so stupid as to reduce Earth's insolation [sic] by
blocking out too much sunlight?

 >How can we avoid the mistakes we've made with our terrestrial environment
 >while migrating into space?
We've soiled our nest here.  It existed before we did, is greater than we
are.  The synergisms of Earth effect everyone.  Screwups propagate here.
Earth is the only source of life we have; we lose something and its _gone_.
In space our mistakes might not necessarily propagate so widely but they might
propagate more.  At least we will not have all our everything in only one
place.

I do wonder how much weight should be given to the aesthetics of space.
I don't really believe we can do anything to space to make it more hostile,
so I don't believe we can "ruin" it, but what about the philosophical concept
of aesthetics?  Could somebody someday be so crass as to suck up the rings
of Saturn?  I am not being facetious.  Humans _do_ value beauty; how should
we value the beauty of the solar system?  Do you want a 20 km billboard
in orbit telling you to "c-c-c-catch the wave" or "eat more pork"?  (I don't)


 >The potential of space settlement is powerful enough to illuminate basic
 >questions about our future, ethics and the environment.
                              ======
Questions like who goes, who comes back, who stays, and who pays.  How do
we share the wealth, between the Lunatics, the Martians, the Belters, the
L-5'ers, the industrialized Earth, and the third world Earth.  Who is equal,
first, or last among same; what if we try to pull a King George?  What happens
to politics?

 >Members of the National Space Society and the Sierra Club will come
 >together to discuss these issues on March 12 at the Sierra Club Lodge in
 >Laguna Mountains. ...[deleted]
 >For more information contact Jim Bowery at 619/295-8868.
 >
 >UUCP: {cbosgd, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!pnet01!jim
 >ARPA: crash!pnet01!jim@nosc.mil
 >INET: jim@pnet01.cts.com

This posting has been a little long...but I won't be there to enjoy
the wonderful weenie roastand stargaze; but perhaps my voice would be
heard.  It would be good if the Sierra Club recognized NSS goals as a
means to their ends.


Max Monningh
MAXWELL@FNALB.BITNET
SPAN/HEPnet: 43011::MAXWELL

------------------------------

Date: 10 Jan 88 23:00:50 GMT
From: thorin!hayes!leech@mcnc.org  (Jonathan Leech)
Subject: Re: Private Space Station

In article <8801101946.AA01556@taurus.ece.cmu.edu> Hank.Walker@TAURUS.ECE.CMU.EDU writes:
>Would anyone care to comment on the proposed private space station?

    Is this the Industrial Space Facility or something new? (If the
latter, details would be appreciated, I haven't seen anything on it).

    Anyway, this is an excellent idea, we should push it for
at least 2 reasons:

    - it's unlikely to be designed by committee and thus may be
	actually usable to someone.

    - it might actually fly.

    The pressure to cut the deficit makes it clear that NASA cannot
hope to get their proposed funding increases for the station in FY 89
and beyond ($1.8 billion from $450 million this year? Give me a
break). In the absence of strong political support for the station -
and it's not going to come from any of the presidential candidates
regardless of how many editorials Aviation Week writes on the topic -
the obvious conclusion is that the station *will not fly* by anything
close to the current IOC (1994? 1996? I've lost track). I'd be
surprised if NASA admits this since they have so much at stake in the
project. Fletcher threatened to can the station (so to speak :-) if
funding was reduced to the levels they did finally get this year but
it was just a threat.

>The White House and some Congressmen are pushing this
>idea.	NASA of course is dead set against it since they rightly see it as a
>threat to their own fancier station.

    The NIH mentality is strong both within NASA and their
contractors - witness the fate of Oliver Harwood and his modular
station design.  But, if NASA actually has this forced on them,
perhaps it would be also be a good opportunity to get them make use
of the ETs at long last.

    Tangential question: can the ET-analog on the Soviet Energia
booster be placed in orbit? Have they made any comments about doing
so?

    Jon Leech (leech@cs.unc.edu)    __@/
    ``After all, the best part of a holiday is perhaps not so much to be
      resting yourself as to see all the other fellows busy working.''
	- Kenneth Grahame, _The Wind in the Willows_

------------------------------

Date: 10 Jan 88 19:54:40 GMT
From: uvaarpa!virginia!uvacs!edison!mjk@umd5.umd.edu  (Mark Kocher)
Subject: Saturn V Facts?

I got into a discussion the other day, and couldn't remember where I had seen
this documented, but here goes.  It seems to me I read that the third stage
was targeted to crash on the back side of the moon, after it had accellerated
the Apollo package up to its necessary velocity.  This was always ignored,
as I remember it, during all those discussions about "space trash on the
moon" back in the 70s.  Can anyone confirm this?  It makes sense to me,
but I can't find the reference.  Thanks to anyone who can corroborate this.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #104
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 12 Jan 88 06:22:13 EST
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	id AA06110; Tue, 12 Jan 88 03:19:27 PST
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 88 03:19:27 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8801121119.AA06110@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #105

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 105

Today's Topics:
			 Starship: Innocence?
			     PLEASE STOP!
			    Re: satellites
			       Re: RFPs
				   
			Re: heat-shield tiles
			 Re: Saturn V Facts?
	 Super Science Weekend in Trenton, NJ; January 16-17
	Re: The Church of the Holy Starship was Re: A request
			      SDI maybe
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 11 Jan 88 00:26:00 GMT
From: cybvax0!frog!sc@eddie.mit.edu  (STartripper)
Subject: Starship: Innocence?

Followups to talk.religion.newage (this time for sure....)

In article <4907@nsc.nsc.com> fiasco@nsc.UUCP (G. R. Gircys) writes:
>In article <1985@frog.UUCP> sc@frog.UUCP (STartripper) writes:
>>
>>I've dreamed and thought for years about getting our ecosystem
>>reproduced off the planet, thus opening the door to a universe of
>>"culture dishes" where societies can experiment upon themselves. 
>
>Only when we learn to live on our natural spaceship should we
>entertain fantastically ambitious ideas like space born culture
>dishes. Face the mayhem here before you start exporting it.

"Only when we learn to live on our natural spaceship the ocean should
we entertain fantastically ambitious ideas like land-borne culture
dishes.  Face the mayhem here before you start exporting it to dry
land"?

Sounds silly, no?  Not to mention that if we'd taken such advice, this
conversation would not be taking place, since my terminal is NOT
suitable for underwater use, and my fins would not be able to type.

We _have_ learned to live on this spaceship.  Not, perhaps, with
perfect love and peace, but such is not required of the rest of the
universe, so why should we require it of us, the seeds of self-aware
ghods?

When Stewart Brand put that shot of the earth on his catalog, it made
a point that many people had not previously considered.  This one
precious earth is, for all _we_ know, the only place where matter
reached self-awareness.  And we are all in it together.  And right
now, _ONE_ error could fry all our eggs in this one terrestrial basket.

The first time a colony _dies_ because they ignore their ecological
responsibilities, it will jolt the planet-bound as well as those in
other colonies.  I don't _know_ that it will create as strong a
reaction as the whole-earth image did, but that's the way I'm betting.

>An unsuspecting and innocent universe

Unsuspecting?  Yes, if it's not self-aware!  And in that case, why
_not_ eat it?  But if the universe contains self-aware life, I rather
expect it to be just as suspicious, just as wary, as a bankvault full
of gangsters with machineguns.  Or a tin tank full of Terrans....

Innocent?  Not the bits _I've_ seen.  Ever watched a starfish wrestle
an oyster open?  Ever seen what lions have for lunch?  Do you happen
to know where the AIDS virus lives?  Yes, in one sense all these
things are innocent, since there's no more blame for the munching
tiger than for my shooting a would-be rapist, but in the sense I take
you to mean, there are NO innocent bystanders -- all that is
self-aware must be considered either the hands of ghod, or on the
construction committee, depending on your beliefs.

I believe, in some moods, that all life on this planet is one single
being of ghod-like adaptability.  And that we, twitching unkind
monkeys that we are, are Her hands, Her mind (as modified, always, by
feedback from the rest of Her body of life), and potentially, Her
heart (not circulatory, but emotional heart...).  And even when other
aspects of Herself organize to stop me, I will still feel that She who
is our life is saying to me "You are my hands, help me up the ladder
to the stars."

STartripper		QQQCLC		sc@frog.uucp

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 11 Jan 88 09:54:17 pst
From: Eugene Miya N. <eugene@PIONEER.ARC.NASA.GOV>
Subject: PLEASE STOP!


Just a short, note, I have a cold, and can't spend a lot of time
responding.  SPACE (sci.space) has to start restraining yourself.
I mean little correction articles like the derivation of the
F-20, using shuttle fuel tanks for XXX, etc.  Discussion articles,
fine, but use mail rather than posting a follow up.  Can all
of you readers start doing this?  Separating the true signal from the
noise is hard, especially when answering serious requests
as which occasionally come by.  I still owe the net some
survey results and also the summer contacts, which should be forth
coming before weeks end.  I'm over-loaded as is...

--eugene

------------------------------

Date: 11 Jan 88 17:53:35 GMT
From: pioneer!eugene@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Eugene Miya N.)
Subject: Re: satellites

Resolution is only part of the problem.  Last evening, the local PBS
station (Channel 54) started rebroadcasting the camp British sci-fi show
"UFO."  Now UFO is a pretty *bad* show, but there was ONE episode which
had a good theme, and it turned out that was last evening's show
(Closeup).  It was about remote sensing (they used older Gemini images,
I recognized the Nile Delta in one, I had not studied
photo-interpretation when I first saw this show as a kid).  The problem
was that the satellite malfunctioned and did not send back what's called
"ancillary" data.  The interpreters knew this, but the Boss-man didn't
fully understand.  If you IGNORE the characters and the story line, it
was a very good lesson in interpretation (and also the budgeting
process).  I recommend that one episode alone.

>From the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA
  "You trust the `reply' command with all those different mailers out there?"
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."
  {uunet,hplabs,hao,ihnp4,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene

------------------------------

Date: 11 Jan 88 16:39:22 GMT
From: hplabsb!dsmith@hplabs.hp.com  (David Smith)
Subject: Re: RFPs

In article <8801090616.AA00966@angband.s1.gov>, ELIOT@cs.umass.EDU writes:
> As for the Saturn V.  How many were actually used, and how many blew up?
> I think there were two major accidents out of about 15 launches.

I challenge you to back that up.

				David Smith

------------------------------

Date: 11 Jan 88 13:45:00 PST
From: "KEVIN W. BOLD 0-1" <bold@afsc-sd.arpa>
Subject: 
To: "space" <space@angband.s1.gov>
Reply-To: "KEVIN W. BOLD 0-1" <bold@afsc-sd.arpa>

Subject:  Control

>> One way to release NASA's strangle-hold on the future of American
>> enterprises in space would be the following: prohibit NASA from
>> launching commercial satellites.

 >And how do you propose we pay off the expenditure of R&D? Out of the
 >taxpayers pocket? I happen to LIKE the idea of a government controlled
 >private enterprise. The way to go about it is to reform the acquisition
 >process for contracts. Close off the bid. And let the bid go NOT to the
 >lowest bidder, but the one who can best handle the job. Improve the
 >QUALITY of the space program, and lower costs. Find alternate sources
 >for critical parts. This is what the DoD did. And they've managed to
 >eliminate a lot of pork-barrelling.

One has to be clear on the meaning of "control" here.  Government control 
vs. government ownership is the main difference between fascism and 
socialism.  Our own economy is more than sufficiently regulated to qualify as 
at least quasi-fascist.  The rest of the suggestion isn't bad, but as long 
as NASA continues to do to space what the Post Office does to written 
communication, privatizing NASA will be a hot issue in the space community, 
and I'm glad to see so many SPACE DIGEST postings on it.

Kevin "Mad Max" Bold
(BOLD@AFSC-SD.ARPA)

------

------------------------------

Date: 11 Jan 88 21:11:11 GMT
From: polak@brl-adm.arpa  (Helen R. Polak )
Subject: Re: heat-shield tiles

A guy from NASA spoke at a Physics Seminar at Towson State U around
'83 or so.  He brought along a couple tiles, and we passed them around.
They felt like old rotten carpet backing, and they erode to the touch
of a finger though not much.

Neat-looking.  Strategic, eh?

Helen /\

------------------------------

Date: 11 Jan 88 19:20:41 GMT
From: halley!bill@im4u.utexas.edu  (Bill Baker)
Subject: Re: Saturn V Facts?

In article <1282@edison.GE.COM> mjk@edison.GE.COM (Mark Kocher) writes:
>I got into a discussion the other day, and couldn't remember where I
>had seen this documented, but here goes.  It seems to me I read that
>the third stage was targeted to crash on the back side of the moon,
>after it had accellerated the Apollo package up to its necessary
>velocity.

On some of the later lunar flights this was true.  Apollo 15 & 16 I
think, but maybe Apollo 17 too.  And I don't beleive it was the back
side.  The purpose was to create shock waves that would be detected by
the sensors placed on the surface by EVAs.  The data was used to analize
the geoloical structure of the lunar core.  They used the same
principles as are used to detect subterranian structure here (they use
dynamite blasts on earth though.)

Bill

------------------------------

Date: 11 Jan 88 20:23:21 GMT
From: mtune!mtgzz!mtuxo!tee@rutgers.edu  (54317-T.EBERSOLE)
Subject: Super Science Weekend in Trenton, NJ; January 16-17


     Reprinted from Asbury Park Press without their knowledge, much
     less permission. I hope they don't mind.

MUSEUM TO HOLD SCIENCE WEEKEND

Dinosaurs, fossil digs, and monitor lizards are some of the attractions
included in the eighth annual Super Science Weekend to be held Jan 16
and 17 at the New Jersey State Museum, West State Street, Trenton, NJ.

The festival is designed to introduce children and parents to the
wonders of science.

Special attractions begin at 10:30am, Jan 16, when Paul and Brenda Cohen
present "Science, Past and Present," an illustrated tour of ancient and
present contemporary scientific sites around the world.

At 1 and 3pm, Ozzie Tolletson will present "The Great Dinosaurs!"
Tolletson, who has worked with the museum's fossil collectors in South
Dakota, included specimens and puppets in the program.

The Wizards of Chemistry will present "Air," a program that explores the
wonders of gases at 1 and 3pm Jan 17. Admission to the program is $1.
Admission to the other programs is free.

Other science weekend highlights include displays organized by the New
Jersey Science Teachers Association.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I can't vouch for the quality of this science festival, since I've never
attended. But I think exposing kids to science of all kinds is
important, so I hope those of you with kids in the NJ-Penn area will
consider this.

Tim Ebersole ...!ihnp4!mtuxo!tee

------------------------------

Date: 12 Jan 88 00:47:31 GMT
From: concertina!fiddler@sun.com  (Steve Hix)
Subject: Re: The Church of the Holy Starship was Re: A request

In article <4907@nsc.nsc.com>, fiasco@nsc.nsc.com (G. R. Gircys) writes:
> In article <1985@frog.UUCP> sc@frog.UUCP (STartripper) writes:
> >
> >I've dreamed and thought for years about getting our ecosystem
> >reproduced off the planet, thus opening the door to a universe of
> >"culture dishes" where societies can experiment upon themselves. 
> 
> Only when we learn to live on our natural spaceship should we
> entertain fantastically ambitious ideas like space born culture
> dishes. Face the mayhem here before you start exporting it.
> 

WRONG!!! WRONG!!! WRONG!!! WRONG!!! WRONG!!! WRONG!!!

I suppose you prefer to carry fresh eggs all in one basket...
and you *never*, **ever** trip!

Take some of the pressure off the single basket we're in, and
maybe it'll have a better chance of surviving.

Maybe one of the modified cultures would work out better than
what's down at the bottom of the well.  If not, it's better to
know beforehand.  Don't forget that different cultures have been
and are and will be tried out her.  What if one of them is
*really* non-viable?  How do you backtrack and retry another
path if there isn't anyone left to try again?

Let's spread out as much as possible, as soon as possible.  It's
easier that way to absorb a really bad hit.

Besides, shifting, say, steel processing off-planet wouldn't be
such a hardship for Europe's forests, don't you think?

	seh

------------------------------

Date: 12 Jan 88 04:41:50 GMT
From: sunghou@violet.berkeley.edu  (Sung-Hou KimGroup)
Subject: SDI maybe


 Defence
 December 1987

 "SDI Partnership and Participation" contains invaluable detailed information
,
 much firsthand, on what the SDI programme is all about, how it is being
 administered, the various special contracting procedures designed to
 drive it along, and the assistance being offered to business and academic
 institutions bidding for research funding.

 Focusing on the UK/US SDI Memorandum of Understanding and subsequent arrange
-
 ments - the model for all foreign participation in the SDI programme - the
 editor and contributors examine every aspect of the most important military/
 industrial initiative launched in this half of the 20th century.

 The US Congress has allocated $26 billion to SDI R & D through to 1990 and,
 President Reagan has indicated deployment might begin as early as 1993.
 Overall the programme might be worth more than $1,000 billion.

 The implications of SDI on Western security policy, East - West arms control
,
 nuclear and conventional deterrence, and high technology development and
 spin-off are far reaching.

 "SDI Partnership and Participation" represents the most comprehensive and
 detailed examination available of the US Strategic Defense Initiative and
 its international programmes.  It not only looks at how bodies like the
 Pentagon's SDI Organisation and Britain's SDI Participation Office are
 organised, staffed and run and how contracts are being awarded in theory
 and practice, but also contains many useful names, addresses and telephone
 numbers essential for anyone wishing to pursue their own inquiries.

----> L5.00 UK     L6.50 or US$10.00 rest of world, surface mail.

----> L10.00 or US$16.00 rest of world, air mail.

 Cheques payable to: Whitton Press Ltd., Queensway House, 2 Queensway
                     Redhill, RH1 1QS, UK.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
<END OF TEXT!>

 BLEVINS@SILVER.BACS.INDIANA.EDU

 SILVER=VAX 8650/32 MB Ultrix V2.0

 BACS=Bloomington Academic Computing Services

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #105
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 13 Jan 88 06:23:34 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA07917; Wed, 13 Jan 88 03:20:20 PST
	id AA07917; Wed, 13 Jan 88 03:20:20 PST
Date: Wed, 13 Jan 88 03:20:20 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8801131120.AA07917@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #106

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 106

Today's Topics:
			    Re: satellites
			    Re: satellites
			    Re: satellites
			    Re: satellites
			    Universal Time
	  I hate person mail (to Reiff), but it's important
			  Re: Universal Time
		       Funding a laser launcher
			G.I. Joe Conquest X-30
			     Re: Saturn V
			     Re: Saturn V
			       Re: RFPs
	Re: The Church of the Holy Starship was Re: A request
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 11 Jan 88 23:08:46 GMT
From: karn@faline.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: satellites

> On the other hand, several public sources have reported that
> resolutions good enough to read the brand of coffin nails being smoked
> by the guard on duty in Moscow are in use.

Nonsense, assuming you're talking about orbiting reconaissance
satellites (as opposed to low-flying aircraft).  Do a little math and
determine the visible-light resolution limit of a 2-meter diameter
mirror (roughly the largest that could be comfortably carried inside the
payload fairing of a Titan from Vandenburg) at a distance of 500 miles
(the perigee of a KH-11 orbit plus allowance for slant range).

You'll end up with something on the order of a foot, which just so
happens to be the resolution of the KH-11 aircraft carrier construction
pictures that showed up in Av Week last year.

Making a project secret doesn't exempt it from the laws of physics. (Too
bad the SDI folks don't realize this. :-))

Phil

------------------------------

Date: 11 Jan 88 20:29:27 GMT
From: sdcc6!calmasd!jnp@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu  (John Pantone)
Subject: Re: satellites

> >>>? "Satellite saw Waite, newspaper says"
> >>>Uh-huh.... apply NaCl liberally..
> >On the other hand, several public sources have reported that
> >resolutions good enough to read the brand of coffin nails being
> >smoked by the guard on duty in Moscow are in use.
 
> I haven't read the book, but there is a simple argument against such
> resolution.  Cameras in orbit are limited either by diffraction or
> atmospheric conditions.  A telescope at sea level, in perfect weather,
> is typically limited to no better than 1" (that is a unit of angle: 1
> arc-second, not 1 inch).  At 200 km this is a linear distance of 1
> meter.

Except sattelites don't use cameras - in that sense of the word.  They
use CCD's and all sorts of bizarre imaging equipment - but they DON'T
take pictures - I don't think that the same limitations apply (although
they no doubt have other limitations).

I've seen a message on this subject from someone at NASA - can anyone
talk?







-- 
These opinions are solely mine and in no way reflect those of my employer.  
John M. Pantone @ GE/Calma R&D, 9805 Scranton Rd., San Diego, CA 92121
...{ucbvax|decvax}!sdcsvax!calmasd!jnp   jnp@calmasd.GE.COM   GEnie: J.PANTONE

------------------------------

Date: 12 Jan 88 17:11:48 GMT
From: daveb@eneevax.umd.edu  (David Bengtson)
Subject: Re: satellites

>Except satelites don't use cameras - in that sense of the word.  They use

   That's true, they don't use cameras, in the sense of a piece of film
isn't currently used, However, the concept of diffractive losses apply
to any situation where an image is formed, and light, or in the more
general sense, Electromagnetic waves, are passed through an aperature.

   From Jenkins & White, Fundamentals of Optics p331

   Minimum angle of resolution in seconds = 1.220 * ( lambda / D )

   Where D is the diameter of the aperture and lambda is the wavelength
of the light. It is physically impossible, using 1 image, to get below
this limit.

For the visible range ( lambda ~ 555 nanometers ) and D = 2 meters,
theta = 3.39e-7 radians
For an orbit of 200 miles, features resolve to ~ 5 inches. Not bad, but
that assumes a perfect atmosphere. 
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I cannot comment on the possibility of image processing, since I know
squat about that topic


   David Bengtson
   Laboratory for Plasma Fusion
   University of Maryland

------------------------------

Date: 12 Jan 88 21:12:02 GMT
From: devvax!lwall@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov  (Larry Wall)
Subject: Re: satellites

In article <1175@eneevax.UUCP> daveb@eneevax.umd.edu.UUCP (David Bengtson) writes:
: For the visible range ( lambda ~ 555 nanometers ) and D = 2 meters,
: theta = 3.39e-7 radians.  For an orbit of 200 miles, features resolve
: to ~ 5 inches. Not bad, but that assumes a perfect atmosphere.

You guys are all assuming a big round mirror.  Now, it's true that for
looking at faint stars you need a lot of mirror acreage, but there's
plenty of light bouncing off of Lebanon.  You don't need a huge round
mirror to get the aperature you want--just build a frame that will stay
rigid in microgravity and hang several smaller mirrors on it with a
common focus.  What's the resolution for a mirror with an effective
aperature of, say 20 meters?  How many 1 meter mirrors would it take to
get the interferometry to come out right?

Larry Wall
lwall@jpl-devvax.jpl.nasa.gov

------------------------------

Date: 21 Dec 87 17:40:00 CDT
From: "PAT REIFF" <reiff@spacvax.rice.edu>
Subject: Universal Time
To: "space" <space@angband.s1.gov>
Cc: reiff
Reply-To: "PAT REIFF" <reiff@spacvax.rice.edu>


Regarding getting the master clock by phone:

If you call the (303) number, you get the WWV broadcasts (which include
predictions of solar flare activity, etc), but only announce the minute
once per minute.  If all you want is the (absolutely) correct time, call
(900) 410-TIME.  There they announce the minute several times per minute
(handy for setting watches).  I think the call costs 50c or so.

The WWV is exactly on the 5 Mz and 10 Mz channels (also useful for
calibrating radios).  In addition, the "tocks" are also exactly
calibrated signals, as is the "ping" of the minute, but I forget the
frequencies.

...Patricia Reiff
   Department of Space Physics and Astronomy
   Rice University

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 12 Jan 88 14:22:13 pst
From: Eugene Miya N. <eugene@PIONEER.ARC.NASA.GOV>
Subject: I hate person mail (to Reiff), but it's important

I suggest that you solicit article on the Net.  Lots of friends read
EOS.  I'm not permitted to just publish anything.  NASA doesn't regard
the net as publishing, and few NASA people know or understand networks.

Tried egreping spacvax.  This won't work, so I'll cc your line.  Anyway
thanks for the reply test.  I should visit Rice as I do go to Johnson on
occasion.  Ken Kennedy in CS does stuff with us.

--eugene

------------------------------

Date: 12 Jan 88 22:49:15 GMT
From: trantor.umd.edu!louie@umd5.umd.edu  (Louis A. Mamakos)
Subject: Re: Universal Time

In article <8801122059.AA06930@angband.s1.gov> "PAT REIFF" <reiff@spacvax.rice.edu> writes:

>Regarding getting the master clock by phone:
>If you call the (303) number, you get the WWV broadcasts (which include

This may sound picky, but when making the telephone call you don't know
what the propagation delay between you and Boulder (or where ever) is.
This is even the case with the HF (5,10,15,20 MHz) broadcasts unless you
happen to know how high the F layer happens to be that day.

The advantage to listening to the WWVB signal (60kHz) is that the
propagation delay remains very constant.  In fact, our WWVB
clock/receiver has thumbwheels on the back panel that you dial in your
propagation delay.

What, you don't want the time within a few milliseconds?


Louis A. Mamakos  WA3YMH    Internet: louie@TRANTOR.UMD.EDU
University of Maryland, Computer Science Center - Systems Programming

------------------------------

Date:     Tuesday, 12 January 1988 0835-EST
From: DAVID%PENNDRLS.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu
Subject:  Funding a laser launcher

      Crazy idea of the month: suppose someone were to come to you with
sufficient credentials for credibility and a proposal to research and
build a laser (or other) launch facility capable, at the end of 30
years, of launching routine passenger flights to orbit on the order of
once a day.  Suppose you were offered the opportunity to buy a ticket to
orbit in advance, at the cost of $n/month for 30 years.  How much would
you be willing to pay, keeping in mind that the company might not
survive?

      If 10,000 people were willing to pay $100/month, that would be $12
million a year.  At 350 launches a year ultimately, and randomly
assuming five tourists per launch, it would take six years to give each
of the investors their payoff.  (The launch would have to be gentle
enough that people past their fiftieth could survive it, but thirty
years advancement in in medicine should help.)  You could offer earlier
slots to those who pay a higher price, later slots for lower
investments. Some people might invest in tickets for their kids.  Some
people might even be willing to gamble on one way tickets.

      Obviously, more money would be needed from somewhere, but this
could provide startup costs.  A well founded project could probably draw
on a fair bit of good talent at relatively cheap wages by promissing
orbital work down the line (barring medical incapacity, of course).
(Hmn.  Maybe I should strike that 'of course'.)

      Obviously there are big holes in this.  Like, how does the company
make enough money to afford to give the 10,000 investors their flights?
But I thought it might spark some other ideas.  The key point is, if you
want investors, offer them the return we all want: a chance to go ``out
there''.

 $36,000 for a trip to a           -- R. David Murray
 space station?  Where do             Arts and Sciences Computing Facility
 I sign?                              University of Pennsylvania

P.S.: I bet you could get some sizable corporate investments if the
investment had the added perk of company executives getting special
spots on a space flight.  Read ``The Man who Sold the Moon'' by Robert
Heinlein.

------------------------------

Date: 12 Jan 88 20:34:54 GMT
From: bucsb!alkis@bu-cs.bu.edu  (Alkis Kornilios)
Subject: G.I. Joe Conquest X-30

  I guess this is the place to ask my question, so here it is.  I'll
have to call the jet i am refering to the X-30 since i can't remember
what the name is, and also it looks like the cartoon jet ( or is it the
other way around ).
  Whatever happened to that jet that was designed with its wings
backward. I read one not very informative article on it but i haven't
seen anything on it since ( maybe i'm not looking in the right places ).
Could someone tell me what is going on with the development of this jet.
Thanks.

P.S:  
 Any good references would be appreciated.

------------------------------

Date: 11 Jan 88 16:00:15 GMT
From: hao!noao!mcdsun!sunburn!gtx!al@husc6.harvard.edu  (0732)
Subject: Re: Saturn V

In article <1988Jan8.093251.11064@utzoo.uucp> kcarroll@utzoo.uucp (Kieran A. Carroll) writes:
->Have you stopped to consider that perhaps we don't >>want<< to build
->new Saturn Vs?  From what I can remember, those spectacular machines
->delivered payload to orbit at a cost of around $2000/lb, >>in 1966
->dollars<<; that'd be at least 1988$8000/lb.  While you could make the

Compared to the current shuttle cost/lb, which is infinite.

Alan Filipski

------------------------------

Date: 11 Jan 88 23:11:22 GMT
From: karn@faline.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: Saturn V

> 	Maybe NASA should take a few lessons from DOD. [gulp! did I
> really say that?]

Nonsense. NASA does almost everything under the glare of intense public
scrutiny, while DoD routinely hides its expensive mistakes by
classifying them.

Phil

------------------------------

Date: 12 Jan 88 13:17:50 GMT
From: pitstop!sundc!netxcom!rkolker@sun.com  (rich kolker)
Subject: Re: RFPs

In article <4495@hplabsb.UUCP> dsmith@hplabsb.UUCP (David Smith) writes:
>In article <8801090616.AA00966@angband.s1.gov>, ELIOT@cs.umass.EDU writes:
>> As for the Saturn V.  How many were actually used, and how many blew
>> up?  I think there were two major accidents out of about 15 launches.
>
>I challenge you to back that up.

Well, let's do a little research (and more memory searching).  What
could be considered an S-V failure?

AS-502/Apollo 6 - Pogo effect (caused early center engine shutdown?)
This so scared NASA that they used the next Saturn V off the line to
send Apollo 8 to the Moon.

Apollo 12 - Struck by lightning causing computer problem.  Mission
successful (except they pointed the TV camera at the sun).

Apollo 13 - Explosion of oxygen tank in SM caused by failure in heater
element...not a Saturn V componant.

Skylab 1 - Shroud over solar array ripped off during ascent, repaired
and three crews man Skylab.

Where are the major accidents?

++rich

------------------------------

Date: 13 Jan 88 01:44:22 GMT
From: spdcc!kaos!hilda@husc6.harvard.edu  (Hilda Marshall)
Subject: Re: The Church of the Holy Starship was Re: A request


>In article <4907@nsc.nsc.com>, fiasco@nsc.nsc.com (G. R. Gircys) writes:
>> 
>> Only when we learn to live on our natural spaceship should we
>> entertain fantastically ambitious ideas like space born culture
>> dishes. Face the mayhem here before you start exporting it.

In article <38531@sun.uucp> fiddler%concertina@Sun.COM (Steve Hix) writes:
>
>
>Maybe one of the modified cultures would work out better than
>what's down at the bottom of the well.  If not, it's better to
>know beforehand.  Don't forget that different cultures have been
>and are and will be tried out her.  What if one of them is
>*really* non-viable?  How do you backtrack and retry another
>path if there isn't anyone left to try again?
>
>Let's spread out as much as possible, as soon as possible.  It's
>easier that way to absorb a really bad hit.
>
>Besides, shifting, say, steel processing off-planet wouldn't be
>such a hardship for Europe's forests, don't you think?

One of my relatives got mad at another relative for selling some cherished
family property foolishly registered in his name when he had to move away
for health reasons.  She said, "He had his drink from the pond, then he
pissed in it."

If planets are an unlimited resource (like we used to think the seas/garbage
receptacles were), we may spread out over the ages with nothing more than a
scaled-up version of our previous attitude toward resources:  "Muck with it
until it fits, and if it rips go get a new one".  This approach makes some
assumptions that I don't see as obvious facts:

	1. The expansion of the human realm and the assurance of the 
	   propagation of the human species are paramount.

	2. When technology can assure a constant supply of something,
	   there is no reason to preserve the existing supply.

	3. Therefore, if a species does not directly serve humanity in
	   its viable state, it is expendable.

This whole argument teeters on the brink of the purely ethical, especially
if one believes that we can reach a point where we can thoroughly and
accurately predict the extended outcome of any action.  But then, who said
we had to kick out the ethics anyway?  And what makes PARTICIPATION in a
system "better" than DOMINATION of it, and how do you tell the difference?

-Hilda

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #106
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 14 Jan 88 06:23:12 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA09606; Thu, 14 Jan 88 03:20:46 PST
	id AA09606; Thu, 14 Jan 88 03:20:46 PST
Date: Thu, 14 Jan 88 03:20:46 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8801141120.AA09606@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #107

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 107

Today's Topics:
		   Earth's rotation is speeding up
		   Launch Costs (was Re: Saturn V)
			     Face on Mars
		      Re: De-Commercialize NASA
		       Re: Satellite Resolution
		      Re: G.I. Joe Conquest X-30
			    Re: satellites
		       Mir Elements, 10 Jan 87
			 Re: Tranquility base
			    Re: satellites
			       Re: RFPs
			       Re: RFPs
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 13 Jan 88 01:24:55 GMT
From: mahendo!ted@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov  (4989)
Subject: Earth's rotation is speeding up

A lot of people have been talking about the leap second that
was added recently with reference to Earth's rotation slowing
down.  But it's not - it's speeding up, at least in the near
term, i.e., over the last few years.  I have recently
looked at a plot of the difference between Terrestrial 
Dynamic Time (which is measured by atomic clocks) and UT1
(Universal Time, as measured on the "Earth clock" after
some cyclic variations are removed).  While the "Earth clock"
is slower than the atomic clocks just now (the difference is
increasing), the curve of the difference is flattening out,
i.e., the "Earth clock" is speeding up.  Although extrapolation
in this area is pretty chancy, it looks like the "Earth clock"
will catch up to the atomic clocks sometime in the 90s and
we will have to start taking out seconds instead of adding 
them (4...3...2...Happy New Year!).

		ted@iji.jpl.nasa.gov

------------------------------

Date: 11 Jan 88 14:45:23 GMT
From: ihnp4!alberta!mnetor!utzoo!@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Subject: Launch Costs (was Re: Saturn V)

Kevin Van Horn writes:
>>Shuttles, on the other hand, deliver payload to orbit at more like
>>1988$2000/lb; [...]
>
>Not true.  The figures I've heard are more on the order of $5000-$6000/lb.
>once you add in all the operating costs.
>
>>[The Saturn V engines] are >>old<<, designed back around 1960;
>>according to Henry, von Braun and friends didn't even try to make
>>them particularly efficient, striving for reliability and simplicity
>>at the expense of performance.
>
>Making your launch vehicles reliable and simple is in general a better way to
>reduce costs than making the engines efficient.  With the shuttle...
>...greater complexity boosts maintenance costs.
>
>We need simplicity, not performance; we need the space-going equivalent of a
>truck, not a race car.

Rebuttal: The figure that >>I<< heard was a fee of
approx. $80 million-$100 million for a dedicated shuttle
launch.  This price was a compromise.  If Shuttle launches at
a rate of, say, 24 per year were to recover >>all<< the research
and development money spent on the Shuttle, a higher price of
perhaps $200 million per launch would have obtained.  If only
operating costs were to be charged for, on the other hand
(ie. the government would pick up the tab for all the R&D;
the customers would pay for none of that), the price might have
been as low as $50 million or $60 million per launch.
The agonizing over pricing was sparked by the relatively
low launch costs offered by Arianespace for comsat launches,
some 3 years ago; NASA started losing launch orders, and complained
(with some justification) that the Ariane was beingheavily
subsidized by the French government.

Note that these prices are a couple of years old, and are
post-Challenger-explosion at that.  If they still hold, tho',
and the Shuttle payload is assumed to be downgraded to 30 tons,
that still works out to about $1600 per pound of payload to orbit.
Q: does anyone know what NASA will be charging for dedicated
Shuttle flights, assuming that they get around to renting
the machines out again?

As for your point about simplicity, I wholeheartedly agree that
it's a Good Thing.  However, Performance is also a Good Thing.
The Saturn V engines, we speculate, had the first but not
enough of the second (ie. not enough to bring cost per pound to
orbit down to a reasonable level); the Shuttle engines certainly
do pretty well on the second, but fall enough short on the first
that complexity has become one of the major cost drivers.
Just because the Shuttle engines are too complex doesn't
mean that we should retreat to re-using Saturn engines.
What NASA >>should<< be doing (what it ought to have been doing
for the past 25 years!) is pursuing an active engine-technology
program.  We've seen one generation of new engines (the Shuttle
SSMEs) since Apollo; we ought to have been in our fifth or tenth
by now.

     Kieran A. Carroll @ U of Toronto Aerospace Institute
     {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!kcarroll
-- 

     Kieran A. Carroll @ U of Toronto Aerospace Institute
     {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!kcarroll

------------------------------

Date: 12 Jan 88 21:52:35 GMT
From: vu-vlsi!harman@psuvax1.cs.psu.edu  (Glen Harman)
Subject: Face on Mars


Hello netfolks!  I watched David Letterman last night (January 11th)}, and on 
this re-run there was a UFO "enthusiast".  This guest brought a few pictures of unexplained images with him.  One of the pictures was of Mars, and in this 
picture there was what appeared to be a large face carved into a rock.  
It is ironic that I read about such a face a few days before, but quickly 
dismissed it as nonsense.  Then, I see the picture and cannot believe how 
realistic it looks!  It appears to be symmetric and looks very human, 
and therefore has me wondering.  However, the picture could have been altered.
I once read on the Net that NASA photographs are available to the public for a
small price.  I would like to send for a copy of this photograph.  If anyone
knows how I can do this (possibly the address or phone # of the appropriate
office) would you please mail it to me, or better yet, post it.  I think the
picture would make a nice conversation piece.

Thanks for your help!

                                         Glenvar Harman


                               !{cbmvax, pyrnj, bpa}\!vu-vlsi\!harman

------------------------------

Date: 11 Jan 88 16:44:46 GMT
From: ems!rosevax!kksys!bird@UMN-CS.ARPA  (0000-Mike Bird)
Subject: Re: De-Commercialize NASA

In article <191700003@trsvax> reyn@trsvax.UUCP writes:
> ... (stuff deleted) ... NASA wishes to dominate all space policy,
>much as A.T.& T. wishes to dominate telephone policy.  Enough said.

	Except that AT&T's network worked wonderfully well.  It hasn't
worked as well since the bust-up.  Enough said.

>NASA was originally envisioned as, and should return to the role of a research
>and development organization.  It is extremely odd that post-Appollo planners
>have begun to regard NASA as a trucking company.

	Except that NASA was created to get
the US space program ahead of the Russians.  It's done that.  Excuse
me, it did that, and should have been replaced.  Now, we've fallen
behind again, NASA looked for, and found, the Space Truck mandate, and
we have a bit of the mess we're in.  However, ask how many truckers
are killed in a year, and compare that with NASA's director's comments
that we won't launch until SSTS is "safe".  If truckers had waited
until it was "safe" to drive, Wells Fargo would still be using
horses.
-- 
================================================================================
Mike Bird (These opinions are mine, dammit!)   Mail paths:  bird@kksys.UUCP -or-
Void where prohibited by law.                       ...rutgers!meccts!kksys!bird

------------------------------

Date: 13 Jan 88 06:05:56 GMT
From: hanauma.stanford.edu!joe@labrea.stanford.edu  (Joe Dellinger,ESMB 471,7230463,4153244824)
Subject: Re: Satellite Resolution


	I'm pretty sure you can beat the "theoretical resolution limit"
with satellites.
	Imagine what they do with radio telescopes: they combine a dish
in Puerto Rico, California, Australia, and Great Britain into "one dish
as big across as the world".
	Can you do the same thing optically, utilizing the satellite's
motion?
	I know that digitally you can re-focus an out of focus image.
Most of the information to make a sharp image is there, it just isn't
in the right place if the image is out of focus.
\    /\    /\    /\/\/\/\/\/\/\.-.-.-.-.......___________
 \  /  \  /  \  /Dept of Geophysics, Stanford University \/\/\.-.-....___
  \/    \/    \/Joe Dellinger joe@hanauma.stanford.edu decvax!hanauma!joe\/\.-._

------------------------------

Date: 13 Jan 88 03:12:18 GMT
From: phoenix!pucc!ICEMAN@princeton.edu  (Joakim Karlsson)
Subject: Re: G.I. Joe Conquest X-30

In article <1395@bucsb.UUCP>, alkis@bucsb.UUCP (Alkis Kornilios) writes:
 
>I guess this is the place to ask my question, so here it is.
>I'll have to call the jet i am refering to the X-30 since i
>can't remember what the name is, and also it looks like the
>cartoon jet ( or is it the other way around ).
>Whatever happened to that jet that was designed with its wings
>backward. I read one not very informative article on it but i haven't
>seen anything on it since ( maybe i'm not looking in the right places ).
>Could someone tell me what is going on with the development of this
>jet. Thanks.
 
I know veeeeery little about G.I. Joe, but the "wings backwards"
reference probably means you're talking about the X-29, which was
developed by Grumman, primarily as a technology demonstrator.  I
don't know much about it, but at least now you know what you're
talking about...  :)
 
Joakim Karlsson                               iceman @ pucc.Princeton.edu
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering '88      BITNET only: iceman @ pucc
Princeton University
                       "You can be my wingman anytime..."

------------------------------

Date: 13 Jan 88 04:46:22 GMT
From: phoenix!pupthy2!lgy@princeton.edu  (Larry Yaffe)
Subject: Re: satellites

In article <2604@calmasd.GE.COM> jnp@calmasd.GE.COM (John Pantone) writes:
>> [[ Quoted comments about limits on image resolution omitted. ]]
>
>Except sattelites don't use cameras - in that sense of the word.  They use
>CCD's and all sorts of bizarre imaging equipment - but they DON'T take
>pictures - I don't think that the same limitations apply (although they no
>doubt have other limitations).
>
>John M. Pantone @ GE/Calma R&D, 9805 Scranton Rd., San Diego, CA 92121
>...{ucbvax|decvax}!sdcsvax!calmasd!jnp   jnp@calmasd.GE.COM   GEnie: J.PANTONE

    The fact that CCD sensors are used in place of film is completely
irrelevant to the issue of diffraction-based resolution limits.
Diffraction by the primary mirror of the imaging system limits
the best acheivable focusing of the incoming light irrespective
of what sort of sensor is used to record the picture.

    On a marginally related note - an earlier posting (sorry, no reference),
implied that spy satellite mirrors are no larger than the primary mirror
of the Hubble Space Telescope.  I doubt that this is true (but not by
enough to change the improbability of recognition of Waite from orbit!).
The size of the space telescope mirror was far more strongly influenced
by economic realities than by technical limits.  Supposedly, when the bids
for the fabrication of the space telescope mirror were solicited,
the lowest bids came not from traditional optical companies like Corning,
but from defense companies like Lockheed.  Seems that they already had
lots of experience...

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Laurence G. Yaffe
Department of Physics			lgy@pupthy.princeton.edu
Princeton University			...!princeton!pupthy!lgy
PO Box 708, Princeton NJ 08544		609-452-4371 or -4400

------------------------------

Date: 12 Jan 88 13:43:00 GMT
From: kenny@b.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Mir Elements, 10 Jan 87


Hi.  I'm back from vacation, somewhat delayed owing to a combination
of car trouble and the wearther on the East Coast.

Mir elements as of 10 January 1987:

Satellite: Mir        
Catalog id 16609
Element set   9
Epoch: 88  6.86636483
Inclination:  51.6274 degrees
RA of node: 184.1272 degrees
Eccentricity:  0.0016248
Argument of perigee: 303.0891 degrees
Mean anomaly:  56.8166 degrees
Mean motion: 15.74133730 revs/day
Mean motion acceleration: 0.00013744 * 2 revs/day/day
Epoch Revolution: 10822

	Source: NASA Goddard via TS Kelso's `Celestial RCP/M'

------------------------------

Date: 11 Jan 88 22:25:25 GMT
From: nbires!isis!scicom!wats@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Bruce Watson)
Subject: Re: Tranquility base


I wonder if the Soviets were debating the meaning of the word *base*
in Tranquility base as we were debating the meaning of *mir* recently?

------------------------------

Date: 12 Jan 88 19:20:10 GMT
From: karn@faline.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: satellites

> In fact, it is possible to get better than the diffraction limit, as synthetic
> aperature radars have shown. Take several images from different points,(from
> a satelite, easily done by just taking a few sequential pictures, since the
> stelite is moving) and image-process your little brains out.

Aperture synthesis doesn't "get better than the diffraction limit", it
decreases the diffraction limit by building a system with a very large
effective aperture. It's like having a telescope with a very large
virtual mirror where only small portions of the signal gathering area is
actually "filled in".

You can get extremely high resolution images if you *simultaneously*
photograph the same target from two or more widely separated satellites,
and then *coherently* add the two images with an accuracy on the order
of a small fraction of a wavelength. This is entirely practical at radio
wavelengths (VLBI and SAR being two examples), but at optical
wavelengths? Good luck!

Phil

------------------------------

Date: 13 Jan 88 04:20:00 GMT
From: silber@p.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Re: RFPs



	Another point in favor of the Saturn V, the first stage was 
Kerosine and LOX fueled, it would burn but not explode.  (That is why they
had an escape tower, as opposed to Gemini's more risky ejection seats.
Titan IIs blow-up easier.  Armstrong once witnessed a test where the seats
went through the closed doors (this is bad enough through an aircraft
canopy).  He remarked "what a headache!".)

------------------------------

Date: 13 Jan 88 04:17:00 GMT
From: silber@p.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Re: RFPs



>As for the Saturn V.  How many were actually used, and how many blew up?
>I think there were two major accidents out of about 15 launches.  On the
>other hand we have one major accident with shttle out of about 25 launches
>or so.  The numbers are too low for any statistical significance, but
>there is the possibility that Saturn V is not really any more reliable
>than the shuttle.  Maybe they just quit while they were ahead.

Saturn V uses.  I forgot which unmanned launches there were, I know that
it was used on Apollo IV (the first full unmanned test, I think.  It may
have even included a pseudo-LEM), and I assume V and VI, if they were
launched.  It was also used on Apollo 8, (the first manned lunar orbiter),
Apollo 9, (first manned test of LEM, in NEO), Apollo 10 (first lunar orbit
test of the LEM, a probably uneeded shot, all they found out is that one
should document test suites properly (the LEM started tumbling due to 
thrusters firing off at random, it turned out that that was left over from
a deleted test someone forgot to clean up), and Apollos 11-17.  Apollo 13
had a problem with the service module, and Apollo 12 burned out their only
video camera.  (One of the early ones, 8, I think, had the CM capsize, 
after that, they made the little inflatable balls standard with the capsule,
as opposed to the rescue crew.  Several others also capsized, and at least
one lost a chute.)  Apollos 21-23 or so had originally been planned, but
cut early (I read somewhere that they had been talking about going up to
the mid 20s), and 18-20 somewhat later.  The Saturns for these had been
built.  One was used for Skylab, one is at Huntsville, and one is at
Houston.  (There may be another one down at the cape.)  
The pad is still there, or at least one of them.  If you remember the Skylab
crew shots, or Apollo-Soyuz, they adapted it with a kind of "high-chair" to
carry the Saturn I-B, as the original pad for that had been scrapped
sometime after Apollo 7.  
Near as I remember, there were no tests of the Saturn V before Apollo IV,
it was seen as highly reliable, enough to warrent risking a simulated
mission on.  The restartable 3rd stage had been tested earlier, using the
Saturn I-B, and the command module using the "Little Joe".  Gemini had
only two unmaned flights, due to the reliability and predictability of the
Titan II.  (The two flights were to test the capsule, more than anything
else.)
	In summary, the Saturn V proved its reliability.  It was a big, dumb
booster, using tried and proved technology for the most part.  The major
inovation was the large scale of the engines.  I think that we need something
like this again.  

ami silberman - janitor of lunacy

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #107
*******************

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Date: Fri, 15 Jan 88 03:25:11 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8801151125.AA11481@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #108

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 108

Today's Topics:
			  "RE: Face on Mars"
			  Universal Time/WWV
			       Re: X-30
			    Re: satellites
			    Re: satellites
		 Re: Earth's rotation is speeding up
	      Re: How long can a human live in a vacuum?
	Re: The Church of the Holy Starship was Re: A request
	  Beating the diffraction limit (was Re: satellites)
			Re: Fighter nitpicking
			    Re: satellites
		   Something wrong with a Molniya?
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 13 Jan 88 13:49:02 GMT
From: jim@xn.ll.mit.edu  (Jim L. Washburn)
Subject: "RE: Face on Mars"



	I have seen the "face on Mars" picture and
have heard an explanation for it.  It seems that one
of the vital parts of this face, one of its eyes, is
in fact missing data.  This area was photographed at
different times and none of the other pictures show
a human face.  This one picture keeps circulating
by these UFO folks as "evidence" for something that
does not exist.  Unfortunatly showing them other, 
contridicting photos of the same area does nothing
to diminish their claims.

			-- Jim Washburn

------------------------------

Date:         Wed, 13 Jan 88 12:02:28 EDT
From: Jeffrey R Kell <JEFF%UTCVM.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Subject:      Universal Time/WWV

One other interesting aspect of the 'noises' in the WWV(B) broadcasts are
the presence of encoded bitstreams for the date/time.  A friend of mine,
now moved to the west coast, had a Heathkit clock with a receiver and the
necessary electronics to decipher them.  Just before the official 'ping'
of the minute, the requisite values are transmitted, and the clock resynchs
itself when the 'ping' is received.  It too had adjustments for propagation
delay (albeit not absolutely constant in the Mhz bands).  As long as the
clock had A/C power and a received signal, it would synch itself with WWV;
if it lost the signal, it had its own internal clock; if the power went off
it had a battery backup.  Not absolutely "exact" but close enough for the
curious.

------------------------------

Date: 13 Jan 88 09:39 PST
From: William Daul / McAir / McDonnell-Douglas Corp  <WBD.MDC@office-8.arpa>
Subject: Re: X-30
To: bucsb!alkis@bu-cs.bu.edu
Cc: SPACE@angband.s1.gov

message

I recently saw a ad from my company that designated X-30 as the national 
Aero-space plane (NASP).  ...fyi,  --Bi((

------------------------------

Date: 13 Jan 88 09:59:07 PST (Wednesday)
From: Cate3.PA@xerox.com
Subject: Re: satellites

In regrads to:
> At 200 km this is a linear distance of 1 meter.
   and:
>For an orbit of 200 miles, features resolve to ~ 5 inches. Not bad, but
>that assumes a perfect atmosphere. 

     Just one comment, my advanced mechanics physics teacher from a few years
ago pointed out it would make sense for the orbits to be ellipses.  That way the
satellites could get closer.
     Have a good day.

     Henry III
     cate3.pa@xerox.com

------------------------------

Date: 13 Jan 88 15:26:28 GMT
From: rochester!srs!lee@louie.udel.edu  (Lee Hasiuk)
Subject: Re: satellites

>    That's true, they don't use cameras, in the sense of a piece
> of film isn't currently used, However, the concept of diffractive losses
> apply to any situation where an image is formed, and light, or in the 
> more general sense, Electromagnetic waves, are passed through an aperature.

Actually, this may not be completely true.  According to the 'The Puzzle
Palace', some reconnaissance satellites have the capability of ejecting
film cannisters which can be picked up by airplanes as they fall to Earth.
This technology was developed in 1960.

> 
>    From Jenkins & White, Fundamentals of Optics p331
> 
>    Minimum angle of resolution in seconds = 1.220 * ( lambda / D )
> 
>    Where D is the diameter of the aperture and lambda is the wavelength
> of the light. It is physically impossible, using 1 image, to get below 
> this limit. 
> For the visible range ( lambda ~ 555 nanometers ) and D = 2 meters,
> theta = 3.39e-7 radians
> For an orbit of 200 miles, features resolve to ~ 5 inches. Not bad, but
> that assumes a perfect atmosphere. 
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> I cannot comment on the possibility of image processing, since 
> I know squat about that topic
> 

In a complex analysis class, we were told that the diffractive 'limits' of
lenses and mirrors could be bypassed to a certain degree through the use
of analytic continuation.  Anyone care to comment?

------------------------------

Date: 13 Jan 88 19:59:27 GMT
From: nather@sally.utexas.edu  (Ed Nather)
Subject: Re: Earth's rotation is speeding up

In article <130@mahendo.Jpl.Nasa.Gov>, ted@mahendo.Jpl.Nasa.Gov (4989) writes:
> A lot of people have been talking about the leap second that
> was added recently with reference to Earth's rotation slowing
> down.  But it's not - it's speeding up, at least in the near
> term, i.e., over the last few years.  I have recently
> looked at a plot of the difference between Terrestrial 
> Dynamic Time (which is measured by atomic clocks) and UT1
> (Universal Time, as measured on the "Earth clock" after
> some cyclic variations are removed).  While the "Earth clock"
> is slower than the atomic clocks just now (the difference is
> increasing), the curve of the difference is flattening out,
> i.e., the "Earth clock" is speeding up.  Although extrapolation
> in this area is pretty chancy, it looks like the "Earth clock"
> will catch up to the atomic clocks sometime in the 90s and
> we will have to start taking out seconds instead of adding 
> them (4...3...2...Happy New Year!).
> 
> 		ted@iji.jpl.nasa.gov

While there may be fluctuations in the difference between the "earth
clock" and atomic clocks on the "short term" -- i.e. a few thousand
years -- the overall trend, both observationally and theoretically,
is for the earth's rotation to slow down.  We have observations of
solar eclipses by oriental astronomers made very long ago, which 
they could not possibly have seen had the earth maintained its current
rotation rate since that time.  They indicate the earth has been
slowing down ever since, but say nothing about how smooth the
effect has been.

Observations of the moon show that its distance from the earth is
getting greater all the time, and theory explains how the conservation
of the angular momentum of the earth-moon system requires that the
earth's rotation slow down if this is happening.  Some of earth's rotational
momentum is being transferred (by tidal action) into the orbital
momentum of the system.

Now, maybe the atomic clocks are slowing down ...

-- 
Ed Nather
Astronomy Dept, U of Texas @ Austin
{allegra,ihnp4}!{noao,ut-sally}!utastro!nather
nather@astro.AS.UTEXAS.EDU

------------------------------

Date: 13 Jan 88 20:10:34 GMT
From: concertina!fiddler@sun.com  (Steve Hix)
Subject: Re: How long can a human live in a vacuum?

In article <988@cblpf.ATT.COM>, dim@cblpf.ATT.COM (Dennis McKiernan) writes:
> 
> Simple question: How long can a human live in a vacuum?

I remember reading about some experiment done at the Air Force
Medical facility at (Holloman AFB) years ago with chimps and
explosive decompression.  The maximum times claimed were on
the order of three or four minutes.

If memory serves (and it usually does, poorly) a small pressurized
capsule was placed in a large chamber which was then evacuated.
When the small capsule's seal was popped, the subject found itself
at the equivalent of 100K to 150K equivalent pressure.  After a
brief (to the guys running the test, at least!) period, air was
let into the chamber.  Must have been quite an experience!

Generally, according to the report, the major lasting effect on
the subject was *really* bloodshot eyes.  (Not to mention a
strong desire to go on vacation in some other hemisphere.
 
> References would be appreciated.

Sorry...memory's not that good.

Anyway, this may be where some ideas of spacesuits in the form
of industrial-strength body-stockings came from.  Evaporative
cooling would sure be simpler than miles of tiny tubes pumping
water...suppose you'd need silver coveralls or the like to avoid
overheating.

	seh

------------------------------

Date: 13 Jan 88 20:32:52 GMT
From: concertina!fiddler@sun.com  (Steve Hix)
Subject: Re: The Church of the Holy Starship was Re: A request

In article <409@kaos.UUCP>, hilda@kaos.UUCP (Hilda Marshall) writes:
> 
> If planets are an unlimited resource (like we used to think the seas/garbage
> receptacles were), we may spread out over the ages with nothing more than a
> scaled-up version of our previous attitude toward resources:  "Muck with it
> until it fits, and if it rips go get a new one".  

You missed the point:  Muck about with alternative paths off-site.
Then if they *don't* work, you haven't polluted the pond.  This gives
you a chance to investigate potentially risky options without stuffing
all your eggs in one basket, and ending up with crunchy, raw omelet.

> This approach makes some assumptions that I don't see as obvious facts:
> 
> 	1. The expansion of the human realm and the assurance of the 
> 	   propagation of the human species are paramount.

Don't know about you, but *I'd* like to visit new neighborhoods,
maybe stay awhile, maybe not.  If the water and power get shut off
at home, I'd prefer to not be locked in the house.  The coziest
bungalow loses its charm under such conditions.

> 	2. When technology can assure a constant supply of something,
> 	   there is no reason to preserve the existing supply.

Who said that?  The supply may be assured, but it doesn't necessarily
follow that it will be cheap or easy to get.  If it is, fine.  If not,
there might be other reasons (pollution, esthetics) that might make
off-planet operations desirable.  (Ensuring safety from industrial
spies?)
 
> 	3. Therefore, if a species does not directly serve humanity in
> 	   its viable state, it is expendable.

What??!!! Iron ore is an organism?  I don't think this follows at all!
>From what I've heard, to the contrary, most astronauts come back with
an increased feel for the value of the earth and its passengers, not
a feeling that they're more expendable.  Expansion into space is more
likely to reduce the stress on the biosphere than increase it.  After
all, why open a strip mine if you can more of what you need, closer to
the product in its final form somewhere else?
 
> This whole argument teeters on the brink of the purely ethical, especially
> if one believes that we can reach a point where we can thoroughly and
> accurately predict the extended outcome of any action.

All the more reason for moving the petri dishes out of the kitchen.

> But then, who said we had to kick out the ethics anyway?

Not me!

	seh

------------------------------

Date: 14 Jan 88 01:30:37 GMT
From: jwl@ernie.berkeley.edu  (James Wilbur Lewis)
Subject: Beating the diffraction limit (was Re: satellites)

In article <531@srs.UUCP> lee@srs.UUCP (Lee Hasiuk) writes:
>>    From Jenkins & White, Fundamentals of Optics p331
>>    Minimum angle of resolution in seconds = 1.220 * ( lambda / D )
>>    Where D is the diameter of the aperture and lambda is the wavelength
>> of the light. It is physically impossible, using 1 image, to get below 
>> this limit. 
>
>In a complex analysis class, we were told that the diffractive 'limits' of
>lenses and mirrors could be bypassed to a certain degree through the use
>of analytic continuation.  Anyone care to comment?

The diffraction component of the point spread function for a given wavelength 
and aperture is known; it should be possible to beat the diffraction limit
by deconvolving this function with the image.  I've seen this done for 
out-of-focus images, and the results are remarkable.

The real problem, it seems to me, is noise introduced by the atmosphere
(and other factors, I suppose...).  Since you can't remove the noise
analytically, information is truly lost.  It is not clear (to me) how this
effect varies with aperture; amateur astronomers often prefer a small
aperture/high f-ratio instument  to larger (and theoretically better
resolution) "light bucket" type 'scopes for planetary observations where
light grasp isn't the limiting factor.  Are larger apertures really more
sensitive to "seeing", or is this an artifact of the difference in focal
ratios/optical quality?  Would this effect be irrelevant for a telescope 
above the atmosphere, where one doesn't have to worry about air boiling 
around inside the tube?

-- Jim Lewis
   U.C. Berkeley

------------------------------

Date: 13 Jan 88 20:20:53 GMT
From: ghostwheel!milano!mcc-pp!rsb@sally.utexas.edu  (Richard S. Brice)
Subject: Re: Fighter nitpicking



Do any of you F-20 experts know why the twin engine design in the F-5 was
abandoned in favor of a single engine?

------------------------------

Date: 14 Jan 88 00:39:23 GMT
From: concertina!fiddler@sun.com  (Steve Hix)
Subject: Re: satellites

In article <531@srs.UUCP>, lee@srs.UUCP (Lee Hasiuk) writes:
> 
> Actually, this may not be completely true.  According to the 'The Puzzle
> Palace', some reconnaissance satellites have the capability of ejecting
> film cannisters which can be picked up by airplanes as they fall to Earth.
> This technology was developed in 1960.

The old Discover series of satellites, generally launched from
Vandenberg AFB, tossed down film cannisters after they had
exposed all the film (most of the time).

The exposed film, drifting down with a parachute off the coast
of someplace like Hawaii, would be snagged in mid-air by
either a HC-130 or a large helicopter towing a trapeze-like
device.  There was usually time to make several passes before
the thing hit the water.  (When that happened, whoever pulled
the short straw got to go swimming.)

The disadvantage of this system (while nobody could intercept
and decode any transmissions) was that you had to wait some
variable amount of time before the polar-orbiting satellite
was in a position to launch its package where you wanted to
be.

It's probably cheaper to dump a radio signal down to one or
more ground stations (once you have them built, anyway) than
sending a plane 600 miles out to sea to catch a film drop.
(Somewhat quicker, too.)

	seh

------------------------------

Date: 14 Jan 88 06:45:26 GMT
From: hanauma.stanford.edu!joe@labrea.stanford.edu  (Joe Dellinger,ESMB 471,7230463,4153244824)
Subject: Something wrong with a Molniya?


	Here at Stanford Russian TV channel 2 is piped over the University
Network. There is an official 10 minute "technical break" 4 times a day
to allow everyone time to switch satellites. For the last few days, the
satellite that's supposed to come on line at around 12:20 PST hasn't.
Is one of the Molniya satellites sick?
\    /\    /\    /\/\/\/\/\/\/\.-.-.-.-.......___________
 \  /  \  /  \  /Dept of Geophysics, Stanford University \/\/\.-.-....___
  \/    \/    \/Joe Dellinger joe@hanauma.stanford.edu decvax!hanauma!joe\/\.-._

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #108
*******************

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Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA12794; Sat, 16 Jan 88 03:25:51 PST
	id AA12794; Sat, 16 Jan 88 03:25:51 PST
Date: Sat, 16 Jan 88 03:25:51 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8801161125.AA12794@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #109

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 109

Today's Topics:
			   Re: Face on Mars
			    Re: satellites
		 Re: Earth's rotation is speeding up
		  Satellites and diffraction limits
			   Re: Face on Mars
			    Re: satellites
			       Saturn V
       Re: UK Govermnent funding of computer Systems research.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 14 Jan 88 06:40:47 GMT
From: tektronix!zeus!tekla!dant@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Dan Tilque;1893;92-789;LP=A;60aC)
Subject: Re: Face on Mars

In article <1291@vu-vlsi.UUCP> harman@vu-vlsi.UUCP (Glen Harman) writes:
>
> a UFO "enthusiast"... brought a few
>pictures of unexplained images with him.  One of the pictures was of
>Mars, and in this 
>picture there was what appeared to be a large face carved into a rock.  
>It is ironic that I read about such a face a few days before, but quickly 
>dismissed it as nonsense.  Then, I see the picture and cannot believe how 
>realistic it looks!  It appears to be symmetric and looks very human, 
>and therefore has me wondering.  However, the picture could have been altered.

The picture was probably not altered; on "Cosmos" Carl Sagan mentions this 
"face".  This is an example of coincidental resemblance.  The are several
examples of this on Earth (the old man in the mountain, etc.)  There's
even a rather interesting one near Portland, OR.  East of town there is a
rock formation called Rooster Rock.  Its original name was Cock Rock from
its resemblance at certain angles to a part of a man's anatomy.  It's now
a state park and for some reason they didn't want a "Cock Rock State
Park".

---
Dan Tilque
dant@tekla.tek.com  or dant@tekla.UUCP

The above address will go away on Jan 17.  I don't know where or when I'll
regain net access.

------------------------------

Date: 12 Jan 88 23:08:15 GMT
From: clyde!watmath!utgpu!utzoo!lsuc!sq!msb@rutgers.edu  (Mark Brader)
Subject: Re: satellites

> A telescope at sea level, in perfect 
> weather, is typically limited to no better than 1" (that is a unit 
> of angle: 1 arc-second, not 1 inch).  At 200 km this is a linear 
> distance of 1 meter.  I would believe that looking down 
> from orbit would give a different result (though I don't know).  

Probably it would be considerably better, since the atmosphere is at
the right end of the light path.  However, diffraction is still a limit,
as you say.  They might not be using visible light; how many times the
frequency of violet light must you go to before viewing becomes impossible?

> I would be impressed if any intelligence agency could regularly scan
> a city at 4 inch resolution while also doing its other (presumably 
> more important) business.

This could have BEEN considered important business, or they could have
gotten lucky, or, as you say, they could have known where to look.

I'm not saying that people CAN be spotted by satellite, only that it's
not as easy to dismiss as one might think.

Mark Brader		"You wake me up early in the morning to tell me I am
Toronto			 right?  Please wait until I am wrong."
utzoo!sq!msb, msb@sq.com	-- John von Neumann, on being phoned at 10 am

------------------------------

Date: 14 Jan 1988 10:01:14 EST
From: Kevin.Ryan@a.cfr.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: Earth's rotation is speeding up

>Date: 13 Jan 88 01:24:55 GMT
>From: mahendo!ted@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov  (4989)
>Subject: Earth's rotation is speeding up

>A lot of people have been talking about the leap second that
>was added recently with reference to Earth's rotation slowing
>down.  But it's not - it's speeding up, at least in the near
>term, i.e., over the last few years.  ...  
>				 ... Although extrapolation
>in this area is pretty chancy, it looks like the "Earth clock"
>will catch up to the atomic clocks sometime in the 90s and
>we will have to start taking out seconds instead of adding 
>them (4...3...2...Happy New Year!).

   Perhaps some astrophysicists out there could correct me on this, but 
I thought that the earth was slowing its rotational velocity.  I recall 
the mechanism as being tidal forces with the moon - tidal force slowly 
pushes the moon away from the earth, with the energy for this coming out 
of the earths rotation.  The moon moves away, the earth slows down, and 
energy is conserved (ain't physics great :-).
   The discussion I read on this (sorry, I have no idea where) said that 
the only problem with this is that, extrapolating backwards, the moon 
must have been within the Roche limit some time ago (a billion years or 
so?  My memory is akin to swiss cheese today.).  The Roche limit is that 
point where tidal forces exceed the gravitational pull of the moon, and 
rocks on both sides just fall up...
   Despite small problems like this, which may be explained by something 
I don't know about, I do believe that the earth is slowing down.  
Perhaps Ted is looking at a short term variation?

						Kevin Ryan

"Of course this is just my opinion.  Who else would say such a thing?"

................................................................................
|	arpanet		kevin@a.cfr.cmu.edu	(preferred)		       |
|	  or		kr0u@andrew.cmu.edu				       |
|	bitnet		kevin%cmcfra@cmccvb				       |
|	decnet		{cmcctd, cu20b, nyu20, or vassar}::cmcfra::kevin       |
|..............................................................................|

------------------------------

Date: 14 Jan 88 07:20:57 GMT
From: jfc@athena.mit.edu  (John F Carr)
Subject: Satellites and diffraction limits

In article <990@devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> lwall@devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV (Larry Wall) writes:

>>        [I and others pointed out diffraction, etc, limit resolution
>>         to about 5 inches]

>You guys are all assuming a big round mirror.  Now, it's true that for looking
>at faint stars you need a lot of mirror acreage, but there's plenty of light
>bouncing off of Lebanon.  You don't need a huge round mirror to get the
>aperature you want--just build a frame that will stay rigid in microgravity
>and hang several smaller mirrors on it with a common focus.  What's the
>resolution for a mirror with an effective aperature of, say 20 meters?  How
>many 1 meter mirrors would it take to get the interferometry to come out right?

Another posting suggests a larger conventional mirror.  The reason I used
2 meters in my article instead of (1) assuming a larger single mirror or
(2) assuming an interferometer is that I think neither practical.
I do not believe that the technology is available to do the right kind 
of interferometry at optical wavelengths with non-coherent sources.
A more likely method would be to launch a 3 meter mirror in 3 1.5 meter
pieces, then fit them together in orbit.  I doubt that the required accuracy
is possible now (a telescope is being built in Hawaii (??) which has 6
mirrors fitted together into one large mirror; I have heard that the 
technology to build it is quite recent and that it is not known if it 
will work).  Unless the mirror array were solid, the gaps would cause
diffraction and the result would be no better than a single mirror of 
the size of the individual components.
I chose 2 meters because I am not aware that we can launch anything bigger.
Does anyone know what the size of the Titan II(I) is?  
Does anyone know what the diffraction limit is for 3 mirrors, in an
equilateral triangle [so no preferred direction], with a common focus ?



  --John Carr

------------------------------

Date: 13 Jan 88 23:01:21 GMT
From: karn@faline.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: Face on Mars


> ...there was what appeared to be a large face carved into a rock.  

This is an *old* one.  Humans are amazingly capable of pulling
"patterns" out of random noise; just consider Rorsach blots. Look at
enough pictures long enough, and you'll eventually see all sorts of
stuff that isn't there. One of the Surveyor missions even had a
"dinosaur skull".

Go find another picture of the same spot on Mars when the sun lighting
is from a different direction (or the wind has had a chance to move the
dust around) and the face will be gone.  The "face" is an interesting
curiosity, but nothing more.

Phil

------------------------------

Date: 13 Jan 88 23:15:30 GMT
From: karn@faline.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: satellites

> ...You don't need a huge round mirror to get the
> aperature you want--just build a frame that will stay rigid in microgravity
> and hang several smaller mirrors on it with a common focus.  What's the
> resolution for a mirror with an effective aperature of, say 20 meters?  How
> many 1 meter mirrors would it take to get the interferometry to come out right?

Yes, but those mirrors will have to be positioned to accuracies of a
fraction of a wavelength. That's easily done at radio frequencies, but
optical frequencies are a different story. I'm not saying it can never
be done, only that it's well beyond our capabilities at present to do it
on spacecraft. Not to say that there probably isn't a few billion buried
somewhere in NRO's black budget for R&D into this sort of thing. (Can
you say 'Welfare for Engineers?' Good! I knew you could!") :-)

Don't be *that* sure you don't need light-gathering capability, even
when imaging the sunlit earth. Remember you are imaging a narrow field
with a very long "lens", so the f-rating will be very large. You're also
moving along at a good clip (~7 km/sec) so there's something to be said
for being able to use short exposure times.  Any photographer can tell you
that ASA 400 film isn't all that fast when you're using handheld telephoto
lenses, even on a sunny day.

Phil

------------------------------

Date: 14 Jan 88 16:00:35 GMT
From: 2.474.enet!hughes@decwrl.dec.com  (Greetings and Hallucinations!)
Subject: Saturn V

In response to various comments around the Saturn V...

The Saturn V had only two test flights before its first manned use (Apollo
8). They were Apollos 4 and 6 (Apollo 5 was an LEO test of the LM launched
on a modified Saturn IB). One of those flights (6, I think) experienced
the pogo problems which lead serious underperformance by the Saturn V second
and third stages. One objective of this mission was to test the CM heat
shield at lunar reentry speed. This was acheived by using the service module
propulsion system. (This is from memory, I may have the two flights mixed)

A number of other missions experienced less than ideal operation of the
J-2s but clearly the missions proceeded. I have read (Space World?) that
based on mission statistics, the SSMEs are far more reliable than the J-2s.

One significant difference between the Saturn V and the Shuttle is that the
Saturn has more failure modes that would allow the mission to continue or
recover with reasonable safety. The Shuttle design philosophy seems to have
been to minimise the possibility of failure and not design in 'graceful
degradation'. I don't think space technology is that advanced, yet.

Some comments were made regarding LOX/RP-1, escape towers and Titans. If LOX
and RP-1 (or LOX/LH2 for that matter) are allowed to mix together for more than
a very short period of time before ignition they will form globules that will
detonate rather than burn. Although burning in a closed environment will cause
an explosion, detonation is a much faster reaction and leads to more serious
explosions in a much shorter time. The detonation reaction is propagated by a
shock wave. The ability to undergo detonation distinguishes high explosives
from common, garden variety explosives. 

The Titan propellants (Aerozine 50 and nitrogen tetroxide) are hypergolic,
meaning that they react upon mixing and do not carry the risk of detonation.
Explosions can still occur but they are slightly less likely and would proceed
at a slower rate. This supposedly was a factor in the choice between ejection
seats and escape towers. 

Gary Hughes
UUCP:   ...{ decvax | allegra | ucbvax }!decwrl!monstr.dec.com!hughes
ARPA:      hughes@monstr.dec.com
reality?:  DEC, ZKO2-1/N71, 110 Spit Brook Rd, Nashua NH 03062

------------------------------

Date: 11 Jan 88 18:07:18 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!its63b!bob@uunet.uu.net  (ERCF08 Bob Gray)
Subject: Re: UK Govermnent funding of computer Systems research.

In article <37389@sun.uucp> livesey@sun.uucp (Jon Livesey) writes:
>In article <863@its63b.ed.ac.uk>, bct@its63b.ed.ac.uk (B Tompsett) writes:
>> 
>>   Bob Gray (bob@its63b.ed.ac.uk) wrote that the UK gover[n]ment is extremely
>> resistant to funding various forms of research (related to space) including
>> Computer Systems research.
>
>	Please read Gray's message before you summarise it.   This is not
>what he wrote.

Please go back and re-read what I wrote. The point I was
making was about special funding for research.

There is a vast difference between the special funding of
research of the type proposed by ESA and the UK space
industry, and the low levels of routine research funding
paid forby the Goverment through SERC and other bodies.

>
>>   Jon Livesey (livesey@sun.uucp) claims that as he knows of more than one
>> computer system project in the UK that has received gover[n]ment funding. The
>> implication from his article is that this refutes Bob Gray.
>
>	You got that right, at least.  Gray actually wrote:
>
>		"The one thing you could rely on from ALL British gover[n]ments
>		for the last couple of hundred years is that they will oppose
>		anything that smells even faintly of change.
>
>		"You can also rely on them to be consi[s]ta[e]ntly wrong.
>
>	And:
>
>		"Much more recently, a gover[n]ment report in 1972/3 said that
>		there would be no real changes in computers, so it wasn't
>		worth doing research."
>
>	When someone makes statements containing words like (capitalised) 'ALL',
>'anything' and 'consistently wrong', it is sufficient to produce a few counter-
>examples in order to refute what they write.   It took me less than fifteen 
>seconds to reach for enough examples to refute what Mr Gray actually wrote. OK?

It does of course help your point if you quote me out of
context. I am unable to find any examples of MAJOR research
projects which were not rejected at least once. That they
eventually funded research in this country after realising
that we were being left behind by other countries, is
irrelevant. 

>
>	I thought it also worth making the point that handwaving about unreferenced 
>'reports' that may or may not have existed proves nothing; what counts is what 

I will admit to confusing two Goverment papers here. I
originaly should have referred to a paper in 1980 by
the "Electronic computers sector working party" and
published by the institute of manpower studies, called
"Computer manpower in the '80s".

Based on much the same evidence as this paper covers, the
Japanese started their Fifth generation research. It was
only when the Goverment realised that we were falling behind
everyone else in research, that the Alvey project was funded.

I have been working on this for the last few years, so I
should know something about it.

The 1972 paper is from the Goverment select committee on
science and technology. It is called "Prospects for the UK
computer industry in the '70s".

I will quote from it.

	"At present, many people feel, for no very valid reason,
	that they must have their own equipment under their own
	control. As time and education break down this attitude the
	present picture of a large number of in-house machines is
	going to change"

	"There is no Goverment policy toencourage the
	industry to grow and expand."


	"the British Computer Society [complaines about]
	lack of a national policy.... very little guidance on the
	kind of development and research work ... worthy of support."

	"Witnesses critical of small scale of Goverment
	support"

	"Goverment R+D remote from practical applications"

There is a table which shows an estimate of the numbers of
computer terminals in the UK.

	0-200 bps	201-10,000bps	over 10,000 bps
1973	 27,000		 24,000		108
1978	169,000		 65,000		390
1983	316,000		117,000		637

and a final quote,
	"The need to continue support at the previous level
	had diminished and greater financial support from industry
	was looked for"

Just to bring things back to space, If the word space were
to be sustituted in the above paper for computer, the paper
could have been produced last week.

There are warnings about investments by the French the
Germans, the Americans, and that even the Japanese have a
large research programme.

There is also a note that people concerned about security in
the USA were woried about the export of equipment to the Soviets.

It isn't possible to tell from the paper that that Goverment
was about as ideologically different from the present Conservative
Government as it is possible to get in this country.

I will leave it up to you to decide if the Goverment
(through it's committee report) got it right.

>From my reading of Goverment reports on scientific subjects,
the Goverment, Any (UK) Goverment, cannot comprehend that
Science and technology are constantly changing. They accept
small changes, but any major change (e.g. space exploration)
is resisted for as long as possible.

There is a report from the same select committee on
"UK space activities" in the session 1970-71.

The report opens
	"The United Kingdom's space programme is confined to the use
	of space vehicles for gathering and transmitting information."

This would very neatly sum up the present Goverment's
attitude to space exploration.

>	What the UK seems to be particularly bad at is the art of getting their 
>money back by the industrial exploitation of their scientific and technical 
>innovations.    That, however, is as much a problem of industry and management 
>as it is of government, and I am not sure if HMG should take all the blame.

This last part I must agree with. The Government is,
however, developing closer ties with Japan in an attempt to
help solve the problem without spending too much money.
	Bob.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #109
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 19 Jan 88 18:07:24 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA00905; Tue, 19 Jan 88 14:38:50 PST
	id AA00905; Tue, 19 Jan 88 14:38:50 PST
Date: Tue, 19 Jan 88 14:38:50 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8801192238.AA00905@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #110

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 110

Today's Topics:
		 Re: G.I. Joe, X-30, X-29, and X-19?
		  Standing an egg on it's small end
			  Re: CCD and HI RES
			      Re: Hilda
	  NSS press release: Soviet Space Program (2 PAGES)
			    Re: satellites
			     Re: Saturn V
       Re: Liberia of space (was Soviet space marketing moves)
			    Re: The X-29A
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Thu, 14 Jan 88 13:33:55 EST
From: subar%mwcamis@mitre.arpa
Subject: Re: G.I. Joe, X-30, X-29, and X-19?

--------
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: Re: G.I. Joe Conquest X-30
     
Joakim Karlsson recently posted:
     
> the "wings backwards"
> reference probably means you're talking about the X-29, which was
> developed by Grumman, primarily as a technology demonstrator.  I
> don't know much about it, but at least now you know what you're
> talking about...  :)
     
The plane was interesting (read unique?) because the forward swept wings
and the cannards (sp?) gave the plane loft but made it unstable.  Unstable,
you say, how did it fly, and why would that be good?  Although the plane
was naturally unstable, controlled flight was achieved through the use of
a computer system(s) that sampled flight conditions 40 times a second.  The
instability of the plane, when properly controlled, allows the plane to
maneuver (that is turn, dive, etc.) much quicker, and in a much smaller
radius.
     
An example of this phenomenon in everyday life is riding a bicycle.  When
the bike is unstable (at low speeds) it is easier to make the bike lean,
and if your not careful, to fall over.  At higher speeds, the bike is more
stable, more likely to come to it's initial upright state naturally, and
harder to move it from that stable state (static equilibrium in an area local
to the bike's position normal to the ground.  I know that this is really
dynamic equilibrium in the universe of movement, i.e. comparared to
resting on the ground, but to illustrate the point, allow me to take a
small liberty.)  Now, imagine if you could retain the instability, control it,
and move at high speeds.  You could do incredible manuveurs.
     
By the way, I think, although I've been wrong in the past, the plane is
the X-19, not the X-29.
     
David Subar
subar@mitre.arpa
     
Disclaimer - The opinions expressed don't even belong to me.

------------------------------

Date:    Thu, 14 Jan 88 11:44:14 PST
From: tencati@vlsi.jpl.nasa.gov (Ron Tencati)
Subject: Standing an egg on it's small end
X-St-Vmsmail-To: ST%"space@angband.s1.gov"


I don't think I was dreaming when I saw this posted on a bulletin board
at JPL, but now the message has been taken down.  I was wondering
if anyone could tell me if the following contention is true:

The bboard message said that on a certain day early in the year (march?),
it was possible to stand an egg (hard boiled?) on it's small end, and it
would stay.  This was due to the gravitational forces acting upon the Earth
due to the position of it's orbit and it's relation to the sun.  The article
further mentioned a "window" for the upcoming year when this effect was 
supposed to be "best".

Anybody else heard of/seen such a story?  The article was a copy from some
net bboard somewhere.

Ron Tencati
Tencati@VLSI.JPL.NASA.GOV

------------------------------

Date: 14 Jan 1988 18:03-EST 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: CCD and HI RES

True, diffraction limits hold for CCD because it is just the image
storage technique, not the image collection technique.

But the difference is that the data is in a form that is easily
manipulated for other imaging methods. A reader pointed out the key
issue: the diffraction limit of the mirror holds for ANY ONE IMAGE.

There are aperture synthesis techniques used in SLAR that are dependent
on the motion of the craft to generate the aperture. Once the input
data is in digital form, I see little difference whether the original
frequency was light or microwave. There is of course the problem that
there is no reference beam, but I've heard that this is not necessarily
required, that a reference signal can be mathematically synthesized.

Even if the pure motion of the craft is not useable, there is still a
simple interferometry technique of taking multiple images and using the
phase differences to make an image with a diffraction limit equivalent
to a mirror whose diameter is the distance between the two images. The
key is whether the craft are stable enough and whether it is possible
to get a time base good enough to allow combination of data from two
separate satellites. Time bases have taken a few orders of magnitude
jump in accuracy, and a few more are expected in the next couple years.
The pointing accuracy seems to be not too different from that required
for VLBI using a satellite component to image the core of a quaser,
something both the USSR and USA are talking about doing in the
1990's.

How about the resolution of an effective mirror with a 100km diameter,
hmmm?

------------------------------

Date: 14 Jan 1988 18:24-EST 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: Hilda

The difficulty is that there will never ever be a consensus, only a
dynamic tension between the different views. We will go out, we will do
some good, we will do some evil. But we WILL go.

The simple nature of it is that those who want to leave will eventually
do so whether others wish them too or not, and with a universe to
expand in, those who expand will eventually dominate those who stay
behind. Note even necessarily physical domination, but philosophical
and numerical domination will be quite as effective.

Can you imagine any means of preventing, forever, a few hard core
pioneer types from escaping this particular philosophical doctrine and
developing in a different direction? I can't. Unless we commit suicide.

So if someone truly wishes that humanity be controlled and not allowed
to expand helter skelter into the universe, they had better pray for
nuclear annihilation of every last homo sapiens, because otherwise,
next century or next millennia or 10,000 years from now, the dam will
break and there will never, ever be a way to put it back together
again.

Personally, I pray for the dam break.

------------------------------

Date: 14 Jan 1988 18:44-EST 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: NSS press release: Soviet Space Program (2 PAGES)

		BACKGROUND INFORMATION

		Date:	20 December 1987
	      Number:	BI8703
	   Reference:	PR8703

		SOVIET SPACE PLANS AFTER "MIR"

(Note to editors: Please credit Art Bozlee & Seattle L5/1 Chapter
Newsletter if used in full)

With the launch of the Soviet Type-L (ENERGIA) booster on May 15, 1987,
the long range future plans of the Soviet conquest of space entered a
new era. In contrast to the usual secretive nature of Soviet efforts
many details of future programs were recently revealed in a series of
startling announcements. Contrary to some ill informed Western reports,
the Soviets are very actively working on a reusable space shuttle to
compete with the West. The Soviets confirmed in early October of this
year that cosmonauts crew have been conducting flight tests of the
shuttle from the 15,000 foot runway at the cosmodrome at Tyuratam.

For these early flight tests two 20,000 pound thrust jet engines have
been installed to supplement the two jet engines the space-rated
shuttle carries. After takeoff from the runway the vehicle is flown to
alititude where the cosmonauts can then practice the difficult approach
and landing sequence. For these tests two cosmonauts are flying the
orbiter.

First flight of th Soviet shuttle is expected in late 1988 or early
1989. One report stated the first flight test would be unmanned, a
decision not well received in the cosmonaut corps. Problems in
developing the digital flight control system may have prompted the
decision for an early unmanned test flight.

The booster for the Soviet shuttle is the Type-L vehicle, called
ENERGIA by the Soviets is by some margin the most pwerful rocket system
ever successfully flown, dwarfing even the might SATURN V the US used
in the APOLLO program. ENERGIA stands 200 feet (60 meters) tall, 65
feet (20 meters) across the four strap on booster rockets, and weighs
an awesome 4,400,00 pounds (2,000 metric tons). Liftoff thrust is
8,280,000 pounds, compared with 7.5 million pounds for the SATURN V.

Unlike the US Shuttle, all of the ENERGIA booster is recoverable, and
thus reusable. About two minutes after launch the four strap on
boosters separate from the core. They are then lowered to Earth by a
parachute system carried in two pods mounted on the forward and aft
section of each booster. After the core booster completes its mission
it breaks into three sections for recovery. One section carries the
expensive and delicate booster engines, a second parachute system
recovers the fuel tank structure, and the third section recovered are
the liquid oxygen tanks. The payload, either the shuttle orbiter, or a
cylindrical payload container then goes into orbit propelled by its own
internal engines. For the first flight test of ENERGIA last May this
recovery system was not used.

The engines of ENERGIA represetn another major advance for Soviet
engineers. The four main engines in the core booster burn liquid
hydrogen, a first for the Soviet Union. Each engine has one thrust
chamber, and delivers 400,000 pounds (200 metric tons) thrust. The
strap on boosters employ a single engine with four thrust chambers
burning liquid oxygen and kerosene. The use of liquid fuel boosters is
a safer and more sophisticated tehcnology than the solid fuel boosters
that destroyed the Shuttle CHALLENGER in 1986.

Computer science has also taken a long stride for the Soviets on
ENERGIA. Automated ground checkout equipment has been incorporated in a
Soviet booster design for the first time. This equipment greatly speeds
the ground testing of the vehicle prior to launch.

The biggest question regarding ENERGIA and the shuttle is what missions
are planned for them. Aside from the ability to lift either a shuttle
or 220,000 pounds into low earth orbit, several other missions are seen
as very probably by Soviet planners.

The first of these difficult and spectacular missions could very well
be a manned mission to the planet Mars. Several cosmonauts have stated
for the record they expect to go to Mars in the early to mid 1990's.
While landing ont he surface of the planet is not seen as a high
probability, at least one mission model is regarded as reasonable by
Western analysts. A landing on one of the two moons of Mars, most
probably Phobos, would offer cosmonauts a secure base from which they
could send automated landers, rovers, and sample return missions to the
surface of Mars, and manage them via teleoperations.

Several Soviet officials have also spoken openly of manned lunar
landings. After Apollo 11 the Soviets publicly stated they were no
longer interested in manned lunar landing, preferring to put their
efforts into unmanned probes of the Moon, and their manned space
station program.

However, Soviet space literature and interviews with defectors involved
int the Soviet space progam state work on a lunar module intended for
manned lunar landings was being developed as late as 1978. It seems
reasonable to assume that work has continued. It is cetainly not
impossible we could see the hammer and sickle flying over the barren
lunar plains as soon as the early 1990's.
			(end)

------------------------------

Date: 14 Jan 88 02:53:50 GMT
From: tikal!hplsla!deanp@beaver.cs.washington.edu  ( Dean Payne)
Subject: Re: satellites

>From: lwall@devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV (Larry Wall)
>
>You guys are all assuming a big round mirror.  

No.

>                          You don't need a huge round mirror to get the
>aperature you want--just build a frame that will stay rigid in microgravity
>and hang several smaller mirrors on it with a common focus.

Without signal processing, which is still very difficult at 500 TeraHertz, the
required surface accuracy for the interferometer is the same as for the
huge round mirror.  Gravity is not the only structural problem.

>From: jnp@calmasd.GE.COM (John Pantone)
>
>Except sattelites don't use cameras - in that sense of the word.  They use
>CCD's and all sorts of bizarre imaging equipment - but they DON'T take
>pictures - I don't think that the same limitations apply (although they no
>doubt have other limitations).

The same restrictions still apply.

Dean Payne

------------------------------

Date: 13 Jan 88 10:25:35 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!its63b!adam@uunet.uu.net  (ERCF02 Adam Hamilton)
Subject: Re: Saturn V

In article <2902@drivax.UUCP> dambrose@drivax.UUCP (David Ambrose) writes:
>
>	I am not in any way denigrating the people who work in the space
>program!  I do want to remind you all that there IS a profit motive
>available and that there will be individuals who will let profits
>over-rule other criteria.  My goal would be to keep these people in
>check.
>
>-- 

I was under the impression that this newsgroup was unanimous that the way
to get the US Space program back on its feet was to turn it over to
private industry as far as possible.  I was also under the impression that
this involves putting the profit motive first (you know, as in capitalism)
rather than keeping it in check.
	Please tell me of my logic errors without flaming.

------------------------------

Date: 12 Jan 88 08:19:40 GMT
From: mcvax!inria!axis!matra!ma@uunet.uu.net  (Michel Allair)
Subject: Re: Liberia of space (was Soviet space marketing moves)


	French guyana is not a third world country, it's a French oversea department
wich is part of the French republic, and so part of the ECC. One of the last
part of the former French colonial empire.

	By the way, about ten years ago a german private company tried to
build a launch facility in Zaire. Does someone knows about how this 
story has ended ?

------------------------------

Date: 15 Jan 88 00:02:45 GMT
From: pioneer!eugene@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Eugene Miya N.)
Subject: Re: The X-29A

Yes, the forward-swept wing is the X-29A by Grumman.  We have two in
existence (just down the ramp at EAFB from the remaining Northrup F-20).

The X-29A combines 3 low-cost technologies together: a left over engine,
airframe, and it's 3 onboard computers (1 failure: immediate return to
base, 2 failures: immediate ejection).  The plane is unstable (one
retired pilot noted it's just a little more unstable than a DC-3) one
poster noted the 40Hz control surface adjustments.
What's interesting to note is the flow of the wing slipstream (not shed)
up to the fuslage and then along side it (note red lines on wings).
Has nice fuel efficiency advantages as well as manuveurably (rather than
shed the stream of wing tips).
The cockpit is quite minimal.  It is an unfair characterization
to say it has a pilot.  The X-29A is not really capable of getting off
the ground without another 16 people monitoring ground computers.
Yes, there's other planes (most notably a West German executive business
jet).  It's not flying currently as systems are being reprogrammed.
It did not handle as expected in some conditions in the first phase of
testing, but the program is being called a success (it was real cheap).

>From the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA
  "You trust the `reply' command with all those different mailers out there?"
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."
  {uunet,hplabs,hao,ihnp4,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #110
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 20 Jan 88 06:20:22 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA01853; Wed, 20 Jan 88 03:18:21 PST
	id AA01853; Wed, 20 Jan 88 03:18:21 PST
Date: Wed, 20 Jan 88 03:18:21 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8801201118.AA01853@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #111

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 111

Today's Topics:
		Re: Satellites and diffraction limits
			      RE: HI RES
			Re: HI RES, Jim Lewis
		Re: Satellites and diffraction limits
			Re: Fighter nitpicking
			    Re: satellites
		     Re:  Standing an Egg on End
		SPACE Digest V8 #108, Earth's rotation
			Re: Fighter nitpicking
		     Re:  Standing an Egg on End
	      Re: SPACE Digest V8 #108, Earth's rotation
			Re: Fighter nitpicking
	     Forward Swept Wings and Dynamic Instability
		 Re: G.I. Joe, X-30, X-29, and X-19?
	   Re: Forward Swept Wings and Dynamic Instability
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 15 Jan 88 07:35:58 GMT
From: tedrick@ernie.berkeley.edu  (Tom Tedrick)
Subject: Re: Satellites and diffraction limits

Here is an extract from "The Puzzle Palace" (James Bamford)

page 259: " ... the Code 467 satellite, better known as Big Bird
... first launched on June 15, 1971 ... built around an extraordinary,
superhigh resolution camera capable of distinguishing objects eight
inches across from a height of ninety miles ... "

------------------------------

Date: 15 Jan 1988 03:39-EST 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: RE: HI RES

Answers to the questions I raised on other means of getting high
resolution have been been brought to my attention.

1) The SLAR technique is strictly coherent.

2) CCD devices do not preserve phase information needed for VLBI, and
   there are no known devices capable of capturing and storing this
   information.

3) The quantity of data per second would be well beyond the capacity of
   any foreseable machine, except possibly some of the pure optical
   image processing systems NASA (and others) have been working on. And
   that type of system still requires that the full image data with
   phase info be stored or transmitted some how. It might require the
   ability to make a hologram without using coherent light, which would
   return us to something very similar to problem 1.

Comments and discussion are welcome.

------------------------------

Date: 15 Jan 1988 16:05-EST 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: HI RES, Jim Lewis

I'd entirely forgotten about some of the deconvolution work you
mentioned. I've seen the before and after processing of pictures fogged
by intentionally out of focus optics and by motion of a car past a speed
sign.  The image is translated into the complex frequency domain,
fiddled with at great computational expense and then (VOILA) translated
back to an amplitude domain. The results are remarkable, but I seem to
remember cautions about the limited applicability. I also did not intuit
the connection to the aperture, etc. It's been 3-4 years since I read
it, so does anyone know what the state of this art is?

Also, I wonder if the atmospheric effects from above are all that
serious.  Remember that it is not the same problem faced by ground based
astronomy where the disturbing 'cells' are close at hand and thus cause
large changes in the path of a photon (well, its large if you're
thinking of imaging in arcseconds). From space the angular size of these
cells is small and their impact on imaging is much less.

If it became a problem before other limits were reached (which I doubt)
the same speckle interferometry techniques that are being used in ground
based astonomy might be used, IF the images could be taken quickly
enough that the satellite did not travel TOO far (define too far?) and
that the slewing (ala Voyager at Uranus) was accurate enough not to blur
the image during the exposure interval(s).

------------------------------

Date: 15 Jan 88 19:49:46 GMT
From: pitt!cisunx!bgarwood@cadre.dsl.pittsburgh.edu  (Robert Garwood)
Subject: Re: Satellites and diffraction limits

Lets see, 8 inches from 90 miles corresponds to an angular size of 0.3
arc seconds.  This is only a factor of 3 or so smaller than the best
seeing of ground based astronomical telescopes and a factor of 4 to 5
larger than the diffration limit of a 2-m telescope at optical
wavelengths.  Seems reasonable to me.

Bob Garwood
Dept of Physics and Astronomy
Univ. of Pittsburgh

------------------------------

Date: 14 Jan 88 23:16:21 GMT
From: concertina!fiddler@sun.com  (Steve Hix)
Subject: Re: Fighter nitpicking

In article <4477@mcc-pp.UUCP>, rsb@mcc-pp.UUCP (Richard S. Brice) writes:
> 
> Do any of you F-20 experts know why the twin engine design in the F-5 was
> abandoned in favor of a single engine?

(Can I play?  I'm not an expert...)

With nearly 20 years development time in the art, the thrust/
weight/fuel consumption requirements for the design were met by a single
engine.  This also meant fewer parts (reliability/ maintenance win) and
parts count reduction in needed fuel system and engine control and
support mechanisms (read simpler with added lightness).

It seems reasonable...

	seh

------------------------------

Date: 15 Jan 88 04:15:58 GMT
From: marque!gryphon!mhnadel@csd1.milw.wisc.edu  (Miriam Nadel)
Subject: Re: satellites

In article <880113-095952-2436@Xerox> Cate3.PA@XEROX.COM writes:
>Just one comment, my advanced mechanics physics teacher from a few
>years ago pointed out it would make sense for the orbits to be
>ellipses.  That way the satellites could get closer.

Orbit planners choose what they consider optimal for any given mission.
One of the parameters they determine is how eccentric the orbit should
be.  If you're really interested in a relatively small region, you would
select both your orbit and, assuming you have more than one satellite to
use, the phasing of your constellation (among several other parameters)
to maximize coverage over that region.

Given the latitude of the Soviet Union, it's hardly surprising that they
put their communications satellites in Molniya orbit (highly eccentric,
result is satellite spending most of its time near the northern
latitudes.)

Miriam Nadel
mhnadel@gryphon.CTS.COM   crash!gryphon!mhnadel

------------------------------

Date: 15 Jan 88 06:31:16 GMT
From: saturn!ucscb.UCSC.EDU!avalon@jade.berkeley.edu  (Scott A. McIntyre)
Subject: Re:  Standing an Egg on End

yeah, you can stand an uncooked egg on end on March 21st, the Vernal
Equinox.  Now this does not work for all locations on earth, I think
that this is just for northern lattitudes.

I used to do this all the time in San Diego, people would find it a real
blast...but if I remember corretly, it was only for a few hours onthe
equinox..

Scott

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 15 Jan 1988  14:28 EST
From: MINSKY%OZ.AI.MIT.EDU@xx.lcs.mit.edu
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #108, Earth's rotation

There exist fossil corals from, as I recall, 400 megayears ago, that
show both annual and diurnal growth rings - with the order of 400 days
per year!

------------------------------

Date: 15 Jan 88 19:07:13 GMT
From: hplabsb!dsmith@hplabs.hp.com  (David Smith)
Subject: Re: Fighter nitpicking

They wanted the F-20 to have greater thrust for higher performance, and
one F-404 gives more thrust than two J-85s.

		David Smith

------------------------------

Date: 15 Jan 88 19:32:05 GMT
From: pitt!cisunx!bgarwood@cadre.dsl.pittsburgh.edu  (Robert Garwood)
Subject: Re:  Standing an Egg on End

Every year this shows up (although usually not until sometime closer to
the equinox).  While I was a graduate student in astronomy at the U of
Minnesota, one of the faculty performed an experiment to test this.
Several weeks (I think it was 6 or so) before the equinox he bought a
couple dozen eggs and managed to make most of them stand on their ends
(I can't remember the exact fraction, but it was at least 60%).  From
then on, every other day he attempted the same feat.  The fraction of
eggs which he was able to stand on the end increased slightly for the
first few trials (a result probably do to his learning how to stand them
on end) but leveled off and remained essentially constant through the
equinox.  The point being that anyone can stand eggs on their ends at at
time throughout the year.  All it takes is practice.  Try it, you'll
like it.

Bob Garwood
Univ. of Pittsburgh
Dept. of Physics and Astronomy

------------------------------

Date: 15 Jan 88 23:59:41 GMT
From: cca!g-rh@husc6.harvard.edu  (Richard Harter)
Subject: Re: SPACE Digest V8 #108, Earth's rotation

In article <MINSKY.12366855894.BABYL@MIT-OZ> MINSKY@OZ.AI.MIT.EDU writes:
>There exist fossil corals from, as I recall, 400 megayears ago, that
>show both annual and diurnal growth rings - with the order of 400 days
>per year!

	Verrry interestin'.  Now that you mention it, I recall reading
something about that also, but I don't recall the numbers.  I expect
that one can translate the change in the length of day to a change in
the distance of the moon from the Earth.

	Two thoughts occur to me.  The first to ask whether it is
settled as to whether the Earth/Moon system started out that way or
whether it is possible that the Moon was acquired at a later date.  If
the latter is still under consideration, one asks when, and, in
particular, if a date about 700 million years ago is likely.

	The reason why this date matters is that it is just before the
precambrian.  One of the great events in the history of life is the
development of the Eurkaryotic cell.  There is a lot of debate about
when this happened, but one scenario runs

-4500 Myears 	Earth formed
-3500 Myears	First detectable life (un-nucleated)
- 700 Myears	First nucleated life
- 650 Myears	First multicellular nucleated life

For about three billion years life did nothing except pile up algal mats
- dull, dull, dull.  Then all of sudden cells got nucleii and
mitochondria and chromosomes, and things happened, and here we are.
Maybe something really big happened back then that kicked of a
biological revolution as as side effect.  Just a speculation.

------------------------------

Date: 18 Jan 88 02:44:17 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Fighter nitpicking

> Do any of you F-20 experts know why the twin engine design in the F-5 was
> abandoned in favor of a single engine?

Northrop wanted to re-engine with more modern engines, for performance,
reliability, etc.  Undoubtedly they would have preferred to fit two
engines of size similar to the old ones, which would have avoided having
to redesign the whole aft fuselage... but there simply weren't any
modern fighter engines that small.
-- 
Those who do not understand Unix are |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
condemned to reinvent it, poorly.    | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 15 Jan 88 00:57:39 GMT
From: devvax!jplpro!des@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov  (David Smyth)
Subject: Forward Swept Wings and Dynamic Instability

Forward swept wings, such as used on the Hansa business jet from the
late 50's, the Northrop X-29 demonstrator, and on the Rockwell Hi-MAT
demonstrator, are very good for several reasons.

First, because they are swept, so the transonic shock wave causes less
drag.  All recent transonic and supersonic aircraft have swept wings for
this reason.  Slower aircraft have swept tail surfaces so they look fast
%^).  The same drag reduction is realized regardless of which way a wing
is swept - forward or back.

The reason FORWARD swept wings are good is because it makes stalls
surviveable.  If a 747 stalls, everybody on board is dead.  This is
because a wing stalls at the tip, and then the stall moves closer to the
root because of tip effects (the vortex) and because the fuselage bends
the air and reduces the apparent angle of attack at the root.  In this
scenario, as the tips stall, the center of lift moves forward, which
increases the nose up attitude, which increases the angle of attack,
which stalls the wing more, which ... until the plane goes inverted and
spins.  Everybody on board gets dead.

On the forward swept wing aircraft, the opposite effect occurs near
stall: first the tip stall, which moves the center of lift AFT.  This
decreases the nose up attitude, which decreases the angle of attack,
which avoids the stall.  Safe!  Nobody dies.

Why aren't all aircraft built this way?  Because of "flutter".  If a
forward swept wing tip flexes up, it will tend to keep flexing up,
increasing the angle of attack at the tip, until it stalls - suddenly.
This will suddenly release most of the upward pressure, allowing the tip
to come back down.  Then whatever caused it to go up it the first place
will happen again ... eventually, the wing fatigues and fails.  Darn!
Looks like everybody dies now in cruise rather than at stall.

Turns out that if the wings are built of a material where the elasticity
is different in different directions, like composits, then this flutter
problem SHOULD be controllable.  This is the main thing the X-29 was
for: what is the flutter behavior of composite forward swept wings.

The Hansa Jet was a very good business jet because of its flight
qualities.  It was safe at stall, unlike EVERY other swept wing business
jet.  However, they had shorter wing life due to this flutter fatigue.
I know of no case where the wings failed, but they did need more
frequent inspection and rebuilding.

Forward swept wings are very good for fighters, because they can be
flown right at stall (like in a very high speed tight turn - you realize
that airplanes always turn by LIFTing into the circle, right?) safely,
which no other planes can do.  All current fighters must be kept safely
away from their maximum turn rate because if they stall at max rate, the
plane is lost.

There is alot of garbage in the press, even by people who should know
better like AW&ST (pronounced A-WASTE), about "dynamically unstable
aircraft, which can only be flown by computer."  This is just "plane"
wrong.  Dynamically unstable aircraft are simply ones which have all the
horizontal surfaces lifting.  That is it.  Old fashioned airplanes have
the horizontal stabilizers generating negative lift.  Obviously, if all
that structure lifts instead of some of it pulling down, the total wing
and horizontal stabilizer is smaller, lighter, and therefore, less drag.
The only reason a computer is involved is because the pilots arms would
get tired pushing on the stick all day.  The computer just takes care of
that part of the force.  Nothing nasty, nothing unsafe.  Just purely
more efficient.  A forward swept wing aircraft can be balanced like an
old fashioned airplane, or like a dynamically unstable airplane.  It has
nothing at all to do with sweep, only to do with control technology:
cables & hoses of wires & hoses.  Nothing else.

A racing sailboat is typically dynamically unstable: it has "weather
helm".  If it doesn't, it is slow.

------------------------------

Date: 14 Jan 88 23:29:39 GMT
From: concertina!fiddler@sun.com  (Steve Hix)
Subject: Re: G.I. Joe, X-30, X-29, and X-19?

In article <8801141833.AA07616@mitre.arpa>, subar%mwcamis@MITRE.ARPA writes:
> Joakim Karlsson recently posted:
>      
> > the "wings backwards" reference probably means you're talking about
> > the X-29, which was
>      
> By the way, I think, although I've been wrong in the past, the plane
> is the X-19, not the X-29.

Nope.  The swept-forward demonstrator is Grumman's X-29.

For example, the X-20 was the Air Force DynaSoar...and it's been dead
for *decades*.

BTW, the Germans have built at least at least two other swept-forward
winged jets, one a WW2 bomber (the Arado234?) and the Hansa (320?)
business jet.  There was at least one sailplane with a swept-forward
wing, I think it was the Czech-built Blanik.  A doctor acquaintance of
mine from the far, dusty past owned one.

The X-29 is just the first supersonic aircraft with swept-forward wings.
(Needed development of new materials, such as composites, to make one
strong enough to fly that could still be lifted off the ground.)
	seh

------------------------------

Date: 15 Jan 88 19:31:33 GMT
From: devvax!jplpro!des@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov  (David Smyth)
Subject: Re: Forward Swept Wings and Dynamic Instability

I know somebody is going to get nick-picky on my previous (already too
long) posting about my claim that the stall always starts at the tip,
and that a typical swept wing aircraft cannot survive a stall.

First, it is possible to prevent a stall to first occur at the tip.
Simply twist the wing enough so the tip always has a significantly lower
angle of attack, or is very thick, or add giant tip tanks, or fences,
etc.  However, each of these approaches reduces effeciency, so they are
rarely done.

Second, a 747 has stalled and recovered.  It did go into an inverted
spin first, but luckily it did recover after only loosing 37000 feet of
altitude.  The pilots completely freaked out, and the cockpit recorders
picked up crying and asking for mommy.  The plane recovered by itself.
Of course I am referring to the China Airlines 747 which safely landed
at SFO, but (I think) never took off again...

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #111
*******************

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	id AA03752; Thu, 21 Jan 88 03:18:32 PST
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 88 03:18:32 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8801211118.AA03752@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #112

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 112

Today's Topics:
	   Re: Forward Swept Wings and Dynamic Instability
	   Re: Forward Swept Wings and Dynamic Instability
	   Re: Forward Swept Wings and Dynamic Instability
			       Oddities
	Re: The Church of the Holy Starship was Re: A request
			       Re: RFPs
			     Re: Saturn V
			     Re: Saturn V
			 Re: Saturn V Facts?
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 15 Jan 88 19:58:21 GMT
From: hplabsb!dsmith@hplabs.hp.com  (David Smith)
Subject: Re: Forward Swept Wings and Dynamic Instability

In article <998@devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>, des@jplpro.JPL.NASA.GOV (David Smyth) writes:
> Forward swept wings, such as used on the Hansa business jet from the
> late 50's, the Northrop X-29 demonstrator, and on the Rockwell Hi-MAT
> demonstrator, are very good for several reasons.

FSW on Hi-MAT?  Not in any pictures I ever saw of it.  Did they put on a
new set of wings?
 
> The reason FORWARD swept wings are good is because it makes stalls
> surviveable.  If a 747 stalls, everybody on board is dead.  This is
> because a wing stalls at the tip, and then the stall moves closer to
> the root because of tip effects (the vortex) and because the fuselage
> bends the air and reduces the apparent angle of attack at the root.
> In this scenario, as the tips stall, the center of lift moves forward,
> which increases the nose up attitude, which increases the angle of
> attack, which stalls the wing more, which ... until the plane goes
> inverted and spins.  Everybody on board gets dead.

Competent designers have long included washout (wing twist) or changed
cross section to ensure that the tips don't stall first.  Note that tip
stall is also bad on straight-wing aircraft (and FSW), because that is
where the ailerons are.  If a badly designed plane flies near stall and
the pilot tries to turn right, the alieron will cause the left wingtip
to stall, resulting in a spin to the left.  I can't believe the 747
designers didn't do their homework.  I will believe that FSW cuts down
the penalty for avoiding tip stall.  The wing tips are flying in clear
air in which no spanwise flow has been induced.

> There is alot of garbage in the press, even by people who should know
> better like AW&ST (pronounced A-WASTE), about "dynamically unstable
> aircraft, which can only be flown by computer."  This is just "plane"
> wrong.  Dynamically unstable aircraft are simply ones which have all
> the horizontal surfaces lifting.  That is it.  Old fashioned

The Vari-Eze is not unstable.  If its nose should be picked up (e.g., by
a gust), the rear lifting surface (lifting wing) will gain lift more
than the front (lifting canard), straightening the plane back out.  This
stability also counters a nose-up movement commanded by the elevators,
reducing maneuverability.  The same goes for conventionally tailed and
tailless aircraft.  Dynamically unstable aircraft dispense with this
inherent stability, and maintain stable flight by sensing uncommanded
movements and countering them with control surface movements.  This
requires a computer.

> airplanes have the horizontal stabilizers generating negative lift.
> Obviously, if all that structure lifts instead of some of it pulling
> down, the total wing and horizontal stabilizer is smaller, lighter,
> and therefore, less drag.  The only reason a computer is involved is
> because the pilots arms would get tired pushing on the stick all day.
> The computer just takes care of that part of the force.

Wrong (see above).  Anyway, "pushing on the stick all day" can be
relieved by trim tabs, which are not new.  By the way, dynamically
stable aircraft with all-lifting horizontal surfaces (i.e., canard or
tandem wing aircraft) load the front surface more highly, which also
causes drag.

			David Smith

------------------------------

Date: 18 Jan 88 21:39:02 GMT
From: concertina!fiddler@sun.com  (Steve Hix)
Subject: Re: Forward Swept Wings and Dynamic Instability

In article <1053@devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>, des@jplpro.JPL.NASA.GOV (David Smyth) writes:
> Second, a 747 has stalled and recovered.  It did go into an inverted
> spin first, but luckily it did recover after only loosing 37000 feet
> of altitude.  The pilots completely freaked out, and the cockpit
> recorders picked up crying and asking for mommy.  The plane recovered
> by itself.  Of course I am referring to the China Airlines 747 which
> safely landed at SFO, but (I think) never took off again...

Yeah, it was kind of bent in places...

------------------------------

Date: 18 Jan 88 21:25:49 GMT
From: concertina!fiddler@sun.com  (Steve Hix)
Subject: Re: Forward Swept Wings and Dynamic Instability

Does a 747 really automatically go inverted and buy farmland when- ever
one stalls?  Such behaviour would seem to indicate the need to go back
to straight wings, just in case something were to fail in control
systems' safety measures...

The Pipers that I've flown (as well as other little guys) have mostly
been designed with some form of washout, such as tip twist or variying
airfoil sections, so that the tip stalls before the root of the wing.

(Is this a Piper [Cessna, Aeronca, Stinson,...] trade secret?  Shouldn't
someone tell Boeing about it? :} )

> On the forward swept wing aircraft, the opposite effect occurs near
> stall: first the tip stall, which moves the center of lift AFT.  This
> decreases the nose up attitude, which decreases the angle of attack,
> which avoids the stall.  Safe!  Nobody dies.

We, of course, assume sufficient altitude...
 
> Forward swept wings are very good for fighters, because they can be
> flown right at stall (like in a very high speed tight turn - you
> realize that airplanes always turn by LIFTing into the circle, right?)
> safely, which no other planes can do.  All current fighters must be
> kept safely away from their maximum turn rate because if they stall at
> max rate, the plane is lost.

Umm...I must be able to commune with ghosts.

I've talked to several (living) current and ex-fighter drivers who, at
one or more points in their career, have stalled jet aircraft and had
been forced to do nothing more than recover from the stall.  (Except for
the two who lacked sufficient altitude...)
 
> There is alot of garbage in the press, even by people who should know
> better like AW&ST (pronounced A-WASTE), about "dynamically unstable
> aircraft, which can only be flown by computer."  This is just "plane"
> wrong.  Dynamically unstable aircraft are simply ones which have all
> the horizontal surfaces lifting.

The VariEze is dynamically unstable?  (Tell *that* to Mr. Rutan, who
chose to go for canard layouts for the VariEze-type designs partly for
better efficiency [everything lifting] and partly for safety...the
canard stalls first, lowering angle-of-attack, saving the main wing from
stalling.)  You can fly a VariEze (and probably many other small canard
types) by weight shifting.  If you're heavy enough, just lean the way
you want to pitch or bank...hold it..  and eventually it will do it.  It
will also eventually correct to straight-and-level.  Seems to have
positive stability.

> That is it.  Old fashioned airplanes have the horizontal stabilizers
> generating negative lift.

The Wright brothers built their Flyers (admittedly canards) with neutral
or negative stability.  On purpose.

> Obviously, if all that structure lifts instead of some of it pulling
> down, the total wing and horizontal stabilizer is smaller, lighter,
> and therefore, less drag.

OK.  See VariEze, Beech StarShip, etc...

> The only reason a computer is involved is because the pilots arms
> would get tired pushing on the stick all day.  The computer just takes
> care of that part of the force.

Only forces?  What ever happened to hydraulic boosting of the controls?
Why use a computer for *that*?  Maybe because the X-29 was designed to
be dynamically unstable in hopes of better performance, and that also
bought you the need to quickly correct for deviations from desired
states?

> Nothing nasty, nothing unsafe.  Just purely more efficient.  A forward
> swept wing aircraft can be balanced like an old fashioned airplane, or
> like a dynamically unstable airplane.

Which the X-29's shape was selected for specifically.

> It has nothing at all to do with sweep, only to do with control
> technology: cables & hoses of wires & hoses.  Nothing else.

Well, the thing's shape has *something* to do with it...  like sweep,
dihedral (or anhedral), camber, twist, angle-of- attack,...

	seh

------------------------------

Date:     Fri, 15 Jan 1988 17:44:38.50 EST
From: <shafferj%BKNLVMS.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu> (Jim Shaffer)
Subject:  Oddities
To: <space@angband.s1.gov>

The recent letters about the "face" on Mars have prompted me to write.
I, too, have heard of the "missing data" information, and I believe,
although I cannot recall where I have seen them, that pictures were
published that prove that it is, indeed, missing data.

However, there is another intriguing photograph that may not be so
easily explained. I first saw this on a "Late-Night With David
Letterman" re-run about a week ago. One of Dave's guests was a man from
the Aethereus Society.  He was trying to prove that aliens have visited
Earth. (What else is new?)  He, too, showed the picture of the "Mars
face." However, he also showed a picture of the Moon that was very
unusual, to say the least!  This picture was taken from orbit, I believe
in 1965. On it, in the same frame, were two objects that appeared to be
mountains or bright craters. Extending out from them, in roughly the
same direction, were what appeared to be tracks, as if the objects were
moving over the surface. One of the tracks was wide and extended 900
yards, the other was narrow and extended 1200 yards until it disappeared
in a crater. These tracks appeared to be geological faults, except for
the facts that they were so close, that they extended in roughly the
same direction, and that they ended at unidentifiable objects.

Can anyone offer any explanation?

------------------------------

Date: 15 Jan 88 19:06:48 GMT
From: necntc!drilex!tomr@husc6.harvard.edu  (Tom Revay)
Subject: Re: The Church of the Holy Starship was Re: A request

In article <1985@frog.UUCP> sc@frog.UUCP (STartripper) writes:
>I've dreamed and thought for years about getting our ecosystem
>reproduced off the planet, thus opening the door to a universe of
>"culture dishes" where societies can experiment upon themselves.

So in article <4907@nsc.nsc.com>, fiasco@nsc.UUCP (G. R. Gircys) replies
>Only when we learn to live on our natural spaceship should we entertain
>fantastically ambitious ideas like space born culture dishes. Face the
>mayhem here before you start exporting it.

Tho' I'm of the "Fix Yourself Before You Fix Anybody Else" school (and
my preferred drinking salute is "Here's mote in yer eye!"), given the
mayhem here, it might be a wise idea to create a few of STartripper's
Culture Dishes.

I mean, petri dish cultures have been known to die under the best of
circumstances.  You wouldn't find a bio lab keeping only one copy of a
given cell or virus culture, and use the whole thing in a single
experiment, now would you?

I realize that it's not especially cheerful to be talking about Planet
Earth as a Failed Culture (tho' it does contain Los Angeles 8-) ), but
if we're talking survival, well, fish gotta sing and birds gotta swim,
and we'd better keep a few backups of our genetic microcode, just for
safety's sake.

Tom Revay

------------------------------

Date: 15 Jan 88 14:41:17 GMT
From: ncspm!jay@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu  (Jay C. Smith)
Subject: Re: RFPs

In article <74700086@uiucdcsp> silber@uiucdcsp.cs.uiuc.edu writes:
>...as opposed to Gemini's more risky ejection seats.  Titan IIs blow-up
>easier.  Armstrong once witnessed a test where the seats went through
>the closed doors (this is bad enough through an aircraft canopy).  He
>remarked "what a headache!".)

I didn't think Neil was that witty, so I looked this up in _The Space
Program Quiz & Fact Book_ by Timothy B. Benford and Brian Wilkes (a
childish-looking book to the casual browser, but full of lots of great
information):

Q. Who said:  "That's one hell of a headache, but a short one."

A. John Young, watching a test of the Gemini ejection seat.  The seat
   worked just fine, but the hatch failed to open; the seat blasted
   right through the 2-inch-thick hull.  (Young had other problems with
   ejection seats; during an early shuttle test it was determined that
   the parachutes would open "about 50 feet after we hit the ground.")

Jay C. Smith
Domain:	jay@ncspm.ncsu.edu    internet: jay%ncspm@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu

------------------------------

Date: 15 Jan 88 18:52:18 GMT
From: pitstop!sundc!hqda-ai!cos!smith@sun.com  (Steve Smith)
Subject: Re: Saturn V

In article <886@its63b.ed.ac.uk> adam@its63b.ed.ac.uk (ERCF02 Adam Hamilton) writes:

>I was under the impression that this newsgroup was unanimous that the
>way to get the US Space program back on its feet was to turn it over to
>private industry as far as possible.  I was also under the impression
>that this involves putting the profit motive first (you know, as in
>capitalism) rather than keeping it in check.
>	Please tell me of my logic errors without flaming.

Adam -

The bad assumption you're making is that everybody in *any* newsgroup
can agree on *anything*.  I've seen at least three points of view on
this so far:

1.  "Privatize" (ugly word) as much of the "routine" space work as
    possible.  This, of course, involves somebody making money.

2.  Give NASA lots and lots of money.  They will know what to do with
    it.

3.  Do "whatever is necessary" as long it doesn't hurt the environmnt,
    involve animal experimentation or South Africa, give more power to
    the Military - Industrial Complex, and does employ minorities, give
    the Third World a cut of the profits, and whatever else is currently
    "politically correct".

The opinions that I've seen are pretty evenly split between 1 and 2.
Somebody occasionally posts a "3" type article, apparently after
wandering in from talk.religion.newage (:-).  The article you were
responding to is on the edge of type 3 - let people make money, but
not too much, and make sure that they don't do anything Bad
(unspecified) in the process.

------------------------------

Date: 16 Jan 88 05:08:14 GMT
From: beckenba@csvax.caltech.edu  (Joe Beckenbach)
Subject: Re: Saturn V

In article <886@its63b.ed.ac.uk> Adam Hamilton (adam@its63b.ed.ac.uk) writes:
>I was under the impression that this newsgroup was unanimous that the
>way to get the US Space program back on its feet was to turn it over to
>private industry as far as possible.  I was also under the impression
>that this involves putting the profit motive first (you know, as in
>capitalism) rather than keeping it in check.
>	Please tell me of my logic errors without flaming.

	Frankly, I don't think that any group this size could be
unanimous about anything. :-) I think the common consensus is that
unless the government and NASA et al get their acts together, the only
way Americans will get up into space will be through private industry.
{or foreign exchange :-( }
	The profit motive, like anything, is best/most ethically used in
moderation. Putting the profit motive first and foremost means that the
bottom line is the money gain, and only the money gain differentiates
two courses of action-- the one yielding more money is the only way to
go, says this view.
	Most of the corporations in step with the times which are
pleasant to work for {evidence is second-hand from friends and
strangers} happen to realize that profit motive is not the end-all and
be-all of existence. An excess of profit-motive ignores other, vital
considerations: Will this action destroy the environment? Will this
action affect a city's growth? Will this action degrade this company's
ability to deliver goods and services in the next decade? -- and so on.
	Personally, I think that the private sector will go into space
despite any government's actions to the contrary. It just depends on how
long it takes for some individual/corporation to gather enough
expertise, material, and gumption to get up and DO it. Now, hopefully
they will be very responsible and ethical in their activities (aside
from their revolutionary attitude), but then no human or group has been
wholly good. Or unethical.

------------------------------

Date: 15 Jan 88 16:50:19 GMT
From: oliveb!pyramid!fmsrl7!eecae!crlt!russ@AMES.ARC.NASA.GOV  (Russ Cage)
Subject: Re: Saturn V Facts?

In article <1282@edison.GE.COM>, mjk@edison.UUCP writes:
>I got into a discussion the other day, and couldn't remember where I
>had seen this documented, but here goes.  It seems to me I read that
>the third stage was targeted to crash on the back side of the moon,
>after it had accellerated the Apollo package up to its necessary
>velocity.

I remember hearing from Jim Loudon that the third stages of several
missions (posted by another user) had not only been aimed at the moon,
but that at least one of the resulting craters was visible in
sufficiently powerful telescopes.  If you want to ask him about this
yourself, his number is (313) 426-5396; LD callbacks are collect.

Russ Cage
 rsi@m-net

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #112
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Date: Fri, 22 Jan 88 03:17:13 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
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Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #113

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 113

Today's Topics:
     space news from Dec 7 AW&ST + space-station editorial part 1
      Progress 34 launched and Soviet Shuttle on the pad report
			       Re: RFPs
		 Re: Launch Costs (was Re: Saturn V)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 19 Jan 88 05:46:51 GMT
From: clyde!watmath!utgpu!utzoo!henry@rutgers.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Dec 7 AW&ST + space-station editorial part 1

[I'm back.  I've had a couple of letters asking "what's this I hear
about serious trouble in the latest SRB test?".  To which my reply is,
"what's this *I* hear about serious trouble in the latest SRB test?".  I
have been on vacation in Australia, completely out of touch, for a
month.  All I know is:

	1. The next full-scale SRB test was scheduled for Dec 19.

	2. Any significant problem in that test will mean a shuttle
	   schedule slip, because there is no longer any slack in the
	   schedule leading up to the June launch date.  (For that
	   matter, NRC has criticized the whole shuttle recovery program
	   as being lacking in backup plans and contingency
	   arrangements.)

More when I know more.]

Editorial about the space station.  "...there is a hollowness to the
station program; a nagging feeling that there may be considerably less
long-term substance to the effort than the initial numbers indicate...
lack of commitment is the foremost reason.  It must be unnerving for the
newly named station contractors to hear frustrated program officials at
NASA saying that their biggest challenge is to convince top level
managers within their own agency that the space station is a viable
program and that adequate funding for it must be pursued vigorously...
The contrast with what the US space program used to be is stark indeed.
December 7 marks the 15th anniversary of the Apollo 17 launch... it will
pass with no official notice.  A national consensus had been generated
in support of Apollo and despite a certain amount of public wrangling
over costs, sufficient resources were found to support the program.
Unless a concerted effort is made to rekindle that same national
consensus in support of the space station, there is a good chance the
program is headed for oblivion..."

Draft NASA/DoD report on the Advanced Launch System says DoD will pay
for it, except for things needed to meet NASA-unique requirements.  This
also means that DoD is basically in charge.

White House Senior Interagency Group for Space [the current feeble
excuse for a space decision-making body in the US government] is
deadlocked over whether (a) preeminence in manned orbital flight and (b)
eventual manned presence beyond Earth orbit should be US policy goals.
Predictably, NASA is in favor and OMB leads the opposition.

Space station contractors selected.  Big set of articles on this.
Boeing gets pressurized modules.  McDonnell-Douglas gets structure,
support, and assembly.  Rocketdyne gets power.  GE gets free-flying
platforms and satellite servicing.  Andrew Stofan, NASA station boss,
says stretchout is preferable to scaledown if money is tight; he
strongly opposes more reductions in the station plans.  When contractor
activity begins, what international cooperation is now in effect will
cease unless there is quick agreement on the remaining disputed issues.
Canadian participation is a particular problem because the Canadian arm
system is vital to station assembly.  [Late reports say agreement
reached with Canada.]  NASA's funding deal with the White House, reached
earlier in 1987, will probably not be honored in the current deficit
crunch: Stofan says "that piece of paper and fifty cents will get me a
cup of coffee".  Hardware bashing will begin in 1990, eight years after
NASA started fighting for the station; Stofan says this is "ridiculous".

Mir crew to return Dec 31 [actually it was a few days sooner, I think].
Next crew expected to stay up about a year.  US will have similar
capabilities in about a decade, maybe.

Details on Boeing station contract, boring.  Details on McD-D contract,
a bit more interesting.  The moving base for the Canadian arm system is
being subcontracted to Astro Aerospace in California, a US subsidiary of
Spar Aerospace (which builds the arms).  Orbit-maintenance propulsion
will be an electrically-heated steam jet, using waste gases and fluids.

NASA and contractor people slam station design, saying it lacks
flexibility and will have trouble when in-orbit experience calls for
modifications.  Member of NASA Advisory Council notes that "give the
customer what he wants" is the rule for NASA contractors these days,
with few suggestions made beyond those already found in the NASA RFPs.
One top contractor official observes that the way to win a NASA contract
is to figure out which faction within NASA will win, and align your
proposal with that faction's ideas.  Some critics say that the basic
station design has never been evaluated properly, but has won on sheer
momentum.  Problems are lack of adaptability to later changes, too much
time and payload needed to get things started (making the station
vulnerable to overruns), and too much technology for its own sake (e.g.
the 20 kHz power system, whose technical advantages are most unlikely to
outweigh the extra time, risk, and money of developing a new system
incompatible with all existing equipment and components; use of 400 Hz
aircraft systems would make much more sense).

Station contract awards permit KSC to start work on ground-support
facilities for the station, notably a new processing building.

USAF Titan 34D launches early-warning satellite from the Cape Nov 28.

Eutelsat reluctantly agrees with its own advisors not to openly oppose
Luxembourg's Astra comsat program, while calling for ongoing monitoring
of possible impact on Eutelsat's business.

Arinc plans to start aviation comsat services by 1989, using Inmarsat
satellite channels leased via Comsat Corp.  FCC recently rejected
Arinc's proposal to set up its own satellite network for both
communications and traffic control for aircraft, mostly because Arinc
asked for an overly large slice of spectrum.

Pictures taken by the infrared camera flown in Columbia's fin to look at
heat distribution on the upper surface of the orbiter during reentry.
The system will fly again when flights resume, with some changes to give
full coverage late in reentry, where the original system failed because
of inadequate gas flow to cool its viewing windows.  This work is
thought important to permit future heatshield designs to be lighter and
simpler than the highly conservative shuttle design.

Photographs of lightning-research rocket launches at KSC, using small
sounding rockets with trailing wires to draw lightning bolts.

USAF and NASA prepare to encourage revival of small US expendables.
NASA intends to issue an RFP for up to 10 Scout-class launchers in 1988,
to suport the Small Explorer program.  Scout is the only current
launcher of the right size, and all 10 remaining Scouts are committed.

Italy and LTV [makes Scout] announce joint development of a souped-up
Scout using two Ariane strap-on boosters [built by an Italian company]
to roughly double payload.  (West Germany and Italy are already involved
in a project to do semi-commercial microgravity work using up to 12
standard Scouts launched from Italy's San Marco platform off the Kenyan
coast.)  Biggest delay in the Italy-LTV project preparations is US
export licensing.  Both NASA and USAF are interested in this project
although neither has a current requirement.

NASA making various shuttle pad modifications for improved safety and
efficiency, notably precautions to ensure adequate clearance between pad
structures and the rising shuttle.

McDonnell-Douglas reaches agreement with Great Wall Industries to put
McD-D's PAM upper stage on the Long March launchers.

First in-flight test of the tractor-rocket escape system for shuttle
crews is successful.  More tests of this system and the telescoping-pole
system are imminent.

Globesat, a new small-satellite company, picked by NASA to design a
small satellite to study degradation of materials by atomic oxygen in
low orbit.


[Saving The Space Station, Part 1.

As I understand it, Alcoholics Anonymous will tell you that you can't
make any progress on an alcohol problem until you admit that (a) you
have a real and serious problem, and (b) fixing it will be difficult and
painful.

How is this relevant to the Space Station, you ask?

The Space Station is dying.

Not just troubled, but *dying*.  Its cost escalation is out of control.
After repeated cutbacks to try to get costs under control, they still
far exceed the original $8G target -- and they are still growing.  This
is *BEFORE* a single part has been launched, *BEFORE* any metal has even
been cut, *BEFORE* we even have a final design for some parts!  There is
just no hope that the project can be held to anything near current
estimates at this rate.  And if it goes well beyond them, as it will,
there is a serious danger of cancellation, or cuts so severe that they
amount to cancellation.  This cannot be avoided if NASA continues to
treat it as "business as usual".  It is time to admit that the Station
is in real and serious danger, and that it cannot be saved without
drastic and painful changes.

What kind of changes?  Well, first, what goals do we have too meet,
i.e., what is the thing *for*?

Well, it's not for the excitement of space exploration, that's for sure.
If we wanted excitement, the right thing to do would be the long-overdue
return to the Moon.  The station, by itself, is boring.  So it has to be
justified as a tool for other purposes.  What are the uses of a manned
space station?

There are people, including me, who argue that in a rational universe
many currently automated space activities would be at least man-tended,
to improve their reliability and reduce their cost.  This is pretty much
out of the question with Earth-to-orbit costs the way they are now,
though.  Although we ought to be working on cheaper transport, it won't
happen overnight.  What are the uses of a manned space station in our
current situation?

One is obvious: many biomedical microgravity experiments simply cannot
be done without human presence as things stand now (we will politely
ignore the people who claim that robotics and telepresence technology
will be up to handling such things Real Soon Now).  This is trivially
true when the experiments in question use humans as their experimental
animals.  Many of these experiments want lengthy stays in free-fall.

Many other experiments, like materials-processing work, don't need (or
even actively don't want) human presence while they are running, but
would benefit greatly from occasional human attention.  In principle
this could be done with shuttle visits, but those are very expensive and
in short supply.  The situation looks much better if many experiments
can be visited at a time.  Unfortunately, lumping a whole bunch of
experiments into one box brings back many (not all) of the problems that
are cited as disadvantages of manned spacecraft: interference between
experiments, compromises due to shared facilities, contamination from
the "housekeeping" activities of a large spacecraft.  The best solution
is to put these experiments on modest free- flyers with human visits
available on a flexible and frequent schedule.

Another prominent use of humans in a rational world would be interaction
with experiments, as witness some of the on-orbit repairs and
modifications that have already occurred aboard Spacelab and other
missions.  The high costs of human presence in our current world reduce
the importance of this argument, but it's not entirely trivial even so,
particularly for first- generation exploratory experiments which lack
past experience to draw on.

Observation experiments, both Earth-observation and astronomical,
generally are simple enough to run by remote control, and do not want
the problems caused by nearby humans.  They do want occasional
man-tending, though, and novel experimental instruments might be an
exception to the general rule.

Finally, it is clear from past studies, like Fairchild's Leasecraft
effort, that integrating a satellite well enough to guarantee it will be
functional after the high acceleration and vibration of a launch is very
expensive, and that major cost reductions could be had from on-orbit
final assembly.  That would also bypass launcher payload limits, which
considerably restrict what can be done today.	 Only the most limited
forms of such assembly are practical today without human presence.

Do these things justify a manned space station?  I would say yes.  But
not quite the sort that is now being planned.  The station should not be
meant primarily as a mounting platform for major experiments; major
experiments will want their own platforms, and even minor ones will want
private or shared unmanned platforms.  (Even the biomedical lab may
eventually want its own platform so it can spin for partial-gravity
experiments.)  The station's jobs are to support the biomedical lab, to
provide a convenient place for small exploratory experiments that are
expected to need a lot of hand-holding, and to serve as a base for
man-tending and assembly work.  At least one major shared unmanned
platform should probably be considered part of the station (although it
will co-orbit rather than being attached) as a service to small
experimenters who want high-quality microgravity conditions but haven't
yet worked up to running their own platform.  Another useful service
would be a modest number of standardized small platforms that could be
leased to individual experimenters.

Okay, that's what we want; how do we get there?  Sorry, I'm going to
leave you in suspense until part 2.]
-- 
Those who do not understand Unix are |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
condemned to reinvent it, poorly.    | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 22 Jan 88 00:53:52 EST
From: Glenn Chapman <glenn@ll-vlsi.arpa>
Subject: Progress 34 launched and Soviet Shuttle on the pad report

     The Soviet Union has launched Progress 34 today (Jan. 21), the
tenth unmanned freighter to travel to the Mir/Kvant complex so far, and
will be the 16th vehicle total to dock to the space station.  As usual
this will bring up about 1.5 tonnes of fuel/water/air and 1 tonne of
other supplies and equipment. Note that this shows how much work is
going on at the Mir station, Salyut 6 & 7 had 12 Progress' each visit
them during their 5 year operational lifetimes, while Mir is less than
two years old so far.
     On board Mir itself Vladimir Titov and Musha Manarov have now been
in orbit for 31 days, already exceeding the USA's Skylab 2 mission of
May '73.  Medical studies on Yuri Romanenko, who holds the orbital
record at 326 days, have indicated that he actually was in better shape
after this mission then he was after the 96 day Soyuz 26/Salyut 6
mission in Dec '77.  They attribute this to their exercise program and
some medicines.  The Russian doctors see no reason that the current
mission cannot go the full year that they plan for Titov and Manarov.
     Also there was an interesting statement on the shortwave that the a
Soviet fully reusable spacecraft (ie. shuttle) was being prepared for
launch now using an Energya booster core.  This was the same sort of
statemnet that was released just before the first Energya liftoff.  This
somewhat contradicts previous announcements that the next Energia launch
would occur in May-June and would not be a shuttle test.
     Soviet progress continues.  At least if the current AWST issue is
correct this has finally generated some movement on the part of the
President, if he does announce the expected plans in the state of the
Union speach.

                                          Glenn Chapman
                                          MIT Lincoln Lab

------------------------------

Date: 18 Jan 88 16:05:34 GMT
From: karn@faline.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: RFPs

Since no one else seems willing to go research the actual facts, I did.

Apollo 6 had major problems with each of the three stages in the Saturn
V.  This was the second launch of a Saturn V; the first had been Apollo
4, which was a complete success.

The pogo effect occurred during first stage flight. During this time,
part of the spacecraft adaptor between the third stage and the Apollo
vehicle broke away. There seems to be a difference of opinion as to
whether this was caused by the pogo or by faulty manufacturing.  The
pogo didn't show up on Apollo 4 because it was sensitive to the payload
mass distribution, and the two flights used different mass simulators in
place of the lunar module.

Two of the second stage engines shut down early. This was caused by a
wiring error.  The remaining engines burned until propellant depletion,
but the performance of the stage was still way below nominal.

The third stage achieved orbit, but it was not the circular one
originally planned. When the third stage was commanded to start for a
second time to raise apogee for a lunar-speed re-entry test, nothing
happened.  The Service Propulsion System engine on the service module
was used instead, so a high-speed re-entry test from high altitude was
still possible. In this sense the mission was at least partially
successful.

The cause of the third stage failure was later determined to be a broken
liquid hydrogen line. This line had bellows to allow flexing. In ground
tests, frost forming on the bellows damped vibrations and protected the
line.  In vacuum, however, no frost formed and the bellows broke from
the vibration.  The line was redesigned to use bends instead of bellows.

Sources: "The History of Manned Space Flight" by David Baker, and NASA
SP-350 (Apollo Expeditions to the Moon), chapter 9.

Phil

------------------------------

Date: 18 Jan 88 02:25:59 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Launch Costs (was Re: Saturn V)

> Rebuttal: The figure that >>I<< heard was a fee of approx. $80
> million-$100 million for a dedicated shuttle launch...

That's a very old price, Kieran, based on very optimistic assumptions
which have not come true.  The NRC report on launch frequency etc.
concluded that all-inclusive costs to orbit were about $5000/lb for all
current launch systems.
-- 
Those who do not understand Unix are |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
condemned to reinvent it, poorly.    | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #113
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Date: Sat, 23 Jan 88 03:20:30 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8801231120.AA07925@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #114

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 114

Today's Topics:
			     Re: Saturn V
			     Re: Saturn V
			       Re: RFPs
	 Re: Spouses in space (was: Re: Astronauts and Trek)
			       Re: RFPs
			     Re: Saturn V
	      A Pure Rumor--State of the Union Address?
			       Re: RFPs
			       Re: RFPs
			    Nanotechnology
		   Fourth National Space Symposium
			    Re: satellites
			    Re: satellites
			    Re: satellites
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 18 Jan 88 02:21:45 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Saturn V

> One of the things that NASA in the 60's had that does not really exist
> today is high level QA and the cooperation of industry...

Don't forget something else: NASA in the 60s had its own independent
engineering capabilities, not dependent on the vagaries of contractors.
The first Saturn Vs were built by NASA crews (with some contractor
participation) at Marshall, not at contractor plants.  Von Braun
insisted on doing it that way.  The results say that he knew what he was
doing.  That whole organization was destroyed in the post-Apollo cuts.

Those who do not understand Unix are |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
condemned to reinvent it, poorly.    | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 18 Jan 88 02:12:49 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Saturn V

> Shuttles, on the other hand, deliver payload to orbit at more like
> 1988$2000/lb; a similar cost is available from Deltas, Arianes,...

More like $5000/lb in the estimates I've seen.  Order-of-magnitude
check: Titan 4 pricetag approx $250M, payload definitely more like
50klbs than 125klbs.

> The people behind the Jarvis booster (McD-D?) looked into using the
> Saturn V engines for their Big Dumb Booster; apparently they've
> decided that it's not even worthwhile reverse-engineering just the
> engines.  Those engines are >>old<<, designed back around 1960...

It was Hughes and Boeing.  They very badly wanted to use the Saturn V
engines; those were good engines, despite their age and unsophisticated
design.  (The "very badly" part I have firsthand from sources within
Boeing, by the way.)  They decided, however, that they could not justify
the cost of reverse-engineering major rocket engines.  That's not a
small job, and not a quick one either.  So they reluctantly opted for
SRBs and SSMEs instead.

Those who do not understand Unix are |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
condemned to reinvent it, poorly.    | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 18 Jan 88 02:40:26 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: RFPs

> ...  Apollos 21-23 or so had originally been planned, but cut early (I
> read somewhere that they had been talking about going up to the mid
> 20s)...

They were talking about going much farther.  The fate of the later
missions was sealed when Congress terminated Saturn V production at 15,
though.  18-20 were cancelled after all the hardware was built; one of
the leftover Saturn Vs was used for Skylab.

> ... one is at Huntsville...

No, the Huntsville Saturn V was a test article that was never officially
flight-ready, although in a pinch it could probably have been flown.

> The pad is still there, or at least one of them...

The pads and launchers have been revised for Shuttle use, mostly.

> Near as I remember, there were no tests of the Saturn V before Apollo
> IV, it was seen as highly reliable, enough to warrent risking a
> simulated mission on....

Right answer, wrong reasons.  The Saturn V used "all-up" testing, on the
grounds that the only way of doing a fully realistic test of the first
stage was to put loaded upper stages on top, and one might as well test
them as well if the first stage worked (which it did).  Von Braun had to
be talked into this, as his original preference was for
one-thing-at-a-time testing, but he later admitted that Apollo could not
possibly have made its 1969 deadline without all-up testing.  The
simulated mission was simply the best and quickest way of testing
everything.

Those who do not understand Unix are |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
condemned to reinvent it, poorly.    | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 17 Jan 88 05:15:31 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Spouses in space (was: Re: Astronauts and Trek)

> Both of these facts, plus the fact that NASA never scheduled them to
> fly together, prevented an important experiment in space science:
> what's boinking like in zero G?

Surely you don't think it's an accident that NASA never scheduled them
to fly together?  NASA management, collectively, is as prudish a bunch
as you'll find anywhere.

The story I hear is that it *has* been tried in NASA's
free-fall-simulation water tanks, however.  Alas, a guess I'd made some
years ago is confirmed: it is difficult for the participants to stay
together without gravity to help.  Having a helper ready to contribute
an occasional shove helps.  So do bungee cords.

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 17 Jan 88 05:29:55 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: RFPs

> As for the Saturn V.  How many were actually used, and how many blew
> up?

Thirteen.  None.  Someone commented that the Saturn V is the only
launcher NASA has ever built that kept all its promises.

> I think there were two major accidents out of about 15 launches.

Nope, unless you have an odd definition of "major".  15 Saturn Vs were
built, not counting non-flying test articles.  Two unmanned tests
(Apollos 4 and 6, I think).  Two circumlunar flights (8 and 10).  One
LEO flight for testing the lunar module (9).  Seven lunar landings, one
of which aborted (11-17).  Skylab 1 (Skylab itself, not the crews).  One
rusting on the lawn at Kennedy, one rusting on the lawn at Houston.  No
failures, despite some rather severe conditions (notably, Apollo 12
taking a direct hit by lightning).

The second unmanned test had upper-stage engine trouble, but this was a
nuisance rather than a disaster: the mission was not ruined, and the
next flight carried Apollo 8 around the Moon.

The third lunar landing aborted en route due to a failure in the Apollo
service module.  Skylab was nearly ruined due to a failure in the lab's
heat/meterite shielding during launch.  Both were payload failures, not
launcher failures.

> ... The numbers are too low for any statistical significance, but
> there is the possibility that Saturn V is not really any more reliable
> than the shuttle.  Maybe they just quit while they were ahead.

It is possible.  On the other hand, considering the people involved, I
doubt it.  That was before the rot set in at Marshall in particular.

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 15 Jan 88 21:43:08 GMT
From: amdahl!drivax!dambrose@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (David Ambrose)
Subject: Re: Saturn V

In article <886@its63b.ed.ac.uk> adam@its63b.ed.ac.uk (ERCF02 Adam Hamilton) writes:
>In article <2902@drivax.UUCP> dambrose@drivax.UUCP (David Ambrose) writes:
>>program!  I do want to remind you all that there IS a profit motive
>>available and that there will be individuals who will let profits
>>over-rule other criteria.  My goal would be to keep these people in
>>check.
>
>I was under the impression that this newsgroup was unanimous that the
>way to get the US Space program back on its feet was to turn it over to
>private industry as far as possible.  I was also under the impression
>that this involves putting the profit motive first (you know, as in
>capitalism) rather than keeping it in check.
>	Please tell me of my logic errors without flaming.

	I agree that a profit motive is important.  However, let us
structure things in a manner where efficiency and performance are
rewarded.  How do you make money in a cost plus 10% type of contract?
Spend more money!  Your return is guaranteed.  You have no motive to get
things right.  In a fixed price contract, efficiency is rewarded.  By
getting it done right the first time, you lower your cost, you make a
better profit.  You do things right, you get the next contract that
comes through.

	This is much more business like than the current pork barrel
approach to space exploration.  Do you think we would get better
performance from Morton-Thiokol if they knew their next contract
depended on their current performance?  You betcha!

	Fixed price contracting is not a panacea, but it is a big
improvement.

	Regarding my original posting, I think I owe you all an apology
for the tone of the whole thing.  Guess I should have re-read net.intro.

------------------------------

Date: 16 Jan 88 19:01:00 GMT
From: ndsuvax!ndsuvm1.bitnet!ud140469@uunet.uu.net
Subject: A Pure Rumor--State of the Union Address?

     I just heard a rumor that we should keep an eye on the President's
State of the Union address.  The rumor says that he will be talking
about space commercialization, and specifically announce that the
Industrial Space Facility will be flown before the space station (one of
my professors in Space Studies is of the opinion that this is because
the SS might be canceled, considering the Industrial Space Facility &
recent moves by ETCO towards getting ET's into orbit...  but that's
beside the point).  The rumor originates, as do so many, out of
Washington, D.C., but I don't know the specific source...  Remember,
just a rumor.  Comments, any one?

                     Scott Udell
                     UD140469@NDSUVM1.BITNET

------------------------------

Date: 16 Jan 88 13:33:38 GMT
From: codas!burl!clyde!mcdchg!illusion!marcus@bikini.cis.ufl.edu  (Marcus Hall)
Subject: Re: RFPs

Just a few comments to add, I think the orriginal assertion (that the
Saturn V had any major accidents [attributible to the Saturn.])

>AS-502/Apollo 6 - Pogo effect (caused early center engine shutdown?)
>This so scared NASA that they used the next Saturn V off the line to
>send Apollo 8 to the Moon.

It should be noted that this was only the second launch of a Saturn V.
Also, there were no tests of individual stages, to get things done
faster they did the testing "all up" with everything tested at once
(they did do extensive component testing, of course).  The 2nd stage
center engine shutdown was caused by a failure of some flexible tubing
under low atmospheric pressure I believe.  Anyhow, the other four
engines burned longer to compensate and if that launch had been a real
launch they thought that the mission would have continued normally.

>Apollo 12 - Struck by lightning causing computer problem.  Mission
>successful (except they pointed the TV camera at the sun).

Most of the CM/SM systems kicked out their circuit breakers, including
the guidance system.  This required re-alignment in orbit which had not
been done before.  The Saturn's instrument unit, however, continued to
function and its guidance system got the crew into orbit without any
problems.  So the Saturn's systems appeared to be much more robust than
the CM/SM (although depending on where the lightning hit this could be
misleading.)

Marcus Hall
..!{ihnp4,mcdhcg}!illusion!marcus

------------------------------

Date: 20 Jan 88 17:06:17 GMT
From: fred!anderson@ames.arpa  (Douglas T. Anderson)
Subject: Re: RFPs

In article <218@antares.aero.org> zeus@antares.UUCP (Dave Suess) writes:
>I was in Huntsville in '79, I think, and I recall seeing TWO Saturn Vs:
>one was vertical, one was on its side.  Do I misremember the type of
>one?

>Dave Suess zeus@aerospace.aero.org

Yep Dave you sure do, I lived in Huntsville for 3 years, the one
standting was a Saturn 1B if I remember correctly, the reclineing one
was the Saturn V.

Douglas T. Anderson

Manager - Technical Services
General Electric @ NASA/AMES Research, Moffett Field, CA

------------------------------

Date:     Fri, 15 Jan 88 09:15 EST
From: GODDEN%gmr.com@relay.cs.net
Subject:  Nanotechnology

Of interest to you space buffs (and all techno-junkies, for that matter)
is the book >Engines of Creation< by K. Eric Drexler, which is now out
in paperback.  It discusses the emerging field of nanotechnology (itty-
bitty machines) in a readable style with references to more technical
literature.  Last night I read a hypothetical scenario he proposes where-
by a rocket engine would be produced entirely by molecular-sized 
assemblers directed by nanocomputers (itty-bitty computers) working with
raw materials in the form of a kind of soup.  The assemblers draw out the
particular atoms/molecules they require to build up the engine parts atom-
by-atom.  Since there are a LARGE number of such assemblers working in
parallel they can build this engine in a very short time.  Drexler states
they could be expected to build an engine as strong or stronger than
possible with current technology at 10% the mass.  Since it is constructed
at the atomic level there would be no seams, rivets, welds, etc.
Before you write this off as belonging on sci.fi.baloney I suggest you 
take a look at the book.  He addresses specific objections to the 
feasibility of nanotechnology in chapter 1.  Forward is by Minsky.
There is also a separate chapter devoted to space exploration. He claims
nanotechnology will make it not only routine, but cheap.  I hope so, I'm
getting tired of reading about $2000/lb to orbit.

-Kurt Godden
 godden@gmr.com       My opinions are just that.

------------------------------

Date: 20 Jan 88 09:49:00 PST
From: "KEVIN W. BOLD 0-1" <bold@afsc-sd.arpa>
Reply-To: "KEVIN W. BOLD 0-1" <bold@afsc-sd.arpa>
From: Kevin Bold (BOLD@AFSC-SD.ARPA)
Subject:  Fourth National Space Symposium

The United States Space Foundation will sponsor the Fourth National
Space Symposium 12-15 Apr 88 at the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs.
The theme will be "The Challenges of '88."  Speakers include Dr. James
C.  Fletcher, Dr. Edward Teller, Lt Gen James A. Abraham, and former
astronauts Deke Slayton, Buzz Aldrin, and Gene Cernan.  For more
information write the USSF at PO Box 1838, Colorado Springs, CO, or call
(303) 550-1000.

------------------------------

Date: 15 Jan 88 23:39:33 GMT
From: pur-phy!clt@ee.ecn.purdue.edu  (Carrick Talmadge)
Subject: Re: satellites

In article <1988Jan12.180815.685@sq.uucp> msb@sq.UUCP (Mark Brader) writes:
>> A telescope at sea level, in perfect weather, is typically limited to
>> no better than 1" (that is a unit of angle: 1 arc-second, not 1
>> inch).
>
>Probably it would be considerably better, since the atmosphere is at
>the right end of the light path.

Mark is right here.  This is a point which I screwed up on last fall
when this question was last discussed: You'll do a lot better looking in
from the outside than 1 arc-second.  Numbers that were floating around
at that point were maximum resolutions of about 3-4 cm.

>However, diffraction is still a limit, as you say.  They might not be
>using visible light; how many times the frequency of violet light must
>you go to before viewing becomes impossible?

Depends.  Violet light is usually classified to be around 4200
angstroms.  The transmission coefficient of the atmosphere plummets
somewhere between 2900-3000 angstroms (at 2900 angstroms, it is less
than 1e-6) [Ref: International Critical Tables, Vol. V, page 268].  Over
Antartica, with the hole in the ozone layer, you'll probably do better,
though. :-) Anyway, you'll gain *maybe* a factor of two by going as far
as is practical into the ultraviolet.

Carrick Talmadge			 clt@newton.physics.purdue.edu

------------------------------

Date: 15 Jan 88 17:15:12 GMT
From: codas!mtune!whuts!homxb!hropus!jgy@bikini.cis.ufl.edu  (John Young)
Subject: Re: satellites


Are you safe from satellite scanning if you carry an umbrella,
or could they scan from a *wide* range of angles (>100 degrees)

------------------------------

Date: 18 Jan 88 18:14:30 GMT
From: sdcc6!calmasd!jnp@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu  (John Pantone)
Subject: Re: satellites

> > I'm not saying that people CAN be spotted by satellite, only that
> > it's not as easy to dismiss as one might think.
> 
> O.K. - I've finally reached saturation.  As a certifiable old-fart who
> was around during the Cuban missle crisis (1962) I can guarantee that
> an object as small as an automobile and/or truck was plainly visible
> by sattelite in '62.  I'm quite confident that you could have made out
> the make of the car or truck - even in the crummy newspaper photos
> they were showing at the time.

I must also be a certifiable old idiot - apparently those photos were
from a U-2 not a satellite.  Sorry to increase the background noise.

John M. Pantone @ GE/Calma R&D, 9805 Scranton Rd., San Diego, CA 92121
...{ucbvax|decvax}!sdcsvax!calmasd!jnp   jnp@calmasd.GE.COM   GEnie: J.PANTONE

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #114
*******************

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	id AA09171; Sun, 24 Jan 88 03:17:08 PST
Date: Sun, 24 Jan 88 03:17:08 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8801241117.AA09171@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #115

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 115

Today's Topics:
			    Re: satellites
			    Re: satellites
		    remote sensing and resolution
			    Re: satellites
			    Re: satellites
	Re: Beating the diffraction limit (was Re: satellites)
			    Re: satellites
			    Re: satellites
			    Re: satellites
			    Re: satellites
	Re: Beating the diffraction limit (was Re: satellites)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 19 Jan 88 04:09:40 GMT
From: eecae!crlt!russ@super.upenn.edu  (Russ Cage)
Subject: Re: satellites

In article <5860003@hplsla.HP.COM>, deanp@hplsla.HP.COM (Dean Payne) writes:
>>From: lwall@devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV (Larry Wall)
>>You don't need a huge round mirror to get the aperature you want--just
>>build a frame that will stay rigid in microgravity and hang several
>>smaller mirrors on it with a common focus.
>
>Without signal processing, which is still very difficult at 500
>TeraHertz, the required surface accuracy for the interferometer is the
>same as for the huge round mirror.  Gravity is not the only structural
>problem.

You don't have to do that, necessarily.  Speckle interferometry has been
used to get resolution much greater than the limit imposed by
atmospheric distortion out of large mirrors; I have read that the
surface of Betelgeuse was imaged well enough to measure the Doppler
difference in the spectral lines between the advancing and retreating
edges (and presumably not by measuring line widths)!

The way this is done (as I understand it) is to subdivide the mirror
into pieces which are smaller than the atmospheric turbulence cells, so
that the image from each piece is sharp (but has bad diffraction due to
the small size).  "Snapshots" of the images are taken at rapid intervals
(compared to the time over which turbulence changes).  The images are
then summed by computer to remove the diffraction "fuzz" and yield an
image which has neither turbulence blur nor fuzz.  This technique would
work just as well looking down as looking up, so long as your viewpath
through the turbulent part didn't change too quickly and you had enough
processing power *somewhere* to add up the pieces.

Russ Cage
 rsi@m-net

------------------------------

Date: 19 Jan 88 09:37:00 GMT
From: necntc!frog!die@husc6.harvard.edu  (Dave Emery)
Subject: Re: satellites

	Not that it has much to do with resolution from orbit, but on
the original topic that started the discussion - NSA picking up pictures
of Waite from a satellite "over Lebanon" - This could very well have
been accomplished by satellite interception of the video signal from one
of the low altitude drones that the Israelis regularly fly over the
area.

	These aircraft probably use microwave wide-bandwidth encrypted
digital video links to send back real time imagery - no doubt one of
NSA's Aquacade class synchronous spy satellites would do quite nicely at
picking up the signal.  And for at least the smaller drones,
omnidirectional transmit antennas which radiate significant signal at
the sky are more or less neccessary because mechanically or
electronically steered high gain antennas are impractical from a weight,
cost, size, and angular coverage standpoint. (since the drones circle
and manuever to get the right camera angle and linger over the target
the rf link has to work at almost any azimuth and over quite a range of
elevations and vehicle attitudes).

------------------------------

Date: 18 Jan 88 17:37:05 GMT
From: rochester!daemon@rutgers.edu
Subject: remote sensing and resolution

Often the resolution obtainable by SAR imaging systems is better
than that obtainable by comparable-level (eg. built around the
same time) optical technology.  
Incidentally, clouds are irrelevant to SAR imaging systems.

------------------------------

Date: 17 Jan 88 10:50:40 GMT
From: portal!cup.portal.com!truett@uunet.uu.net
Subject: Re: satellites

In order to beat the apparent diffraction limit, you don't even need a
rigid frame for the multiple mirror setup.  The method is called active
optics and it works like this:

First you drop a small corner reflector somewhere in the Lebanese
highlands.  Then you put an array of mirrors and CCD detectors into
orbit together with a small laser.  Now, use the reflected signal of the
laser from the corner reflector to get the optical sensors all phase to
withing a fraction of a wavelength of light (or infrared, that's even
easier).  The resulting system has an effective appature much bigger
than a sigle mirror.  I suspect that arrays with an apparent aperture of
20-30 meters can be orbited easily.

Another note.  Each of the optical sensors is using folded optics with a
very long focal length (probably up to ten meters) and for pictures in
daylight, a very high f/stop would be used resulting in extreme depth of
field.

There is also nothing that says the observation had to be in visible
light.  I believe that synthetic aperture radar achieves a resolution of
half the antenna diameter.  It should not be too difficult to put a
microwave radar on a satellite that can achieve a three-dimensional
image to a resolution of a few inches.  Such a system can even provide
sequential images giving you a movie of the action below.

Now, use the reflected laser light to put an array of synthetic aperture
radars in phase (thus overcoming the higher diffraction limit of
microwaves) and the results can be very interesting.

Truett Lee Smith, Sunnyvale, CA
UUCP:  truett@cup.portal.com

------------------------------

Date: 17 Jan 88 01:52:35 GMT
From: oliveb!epimass!epiwrl!parker@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Alan Parker)
Subject: Re: satellites

In article <2619@calmasd.GE.COM> jnp@calmasd.GE.COM (John Pantone) writes:
>As a certifiable old-fart who was
>around during the Cuban missle crisis (1962) I can guarantee that an object
>as small as an automobile and/or truck was plainly visible by sattelite in
>'62.  

I think you are confusing sattelite imaging with U-2 pictures here.

------------------------------

Date: 17 Jan 88 01:13:50 GMT
From: tektronix!orca!brucec@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Bruce Cohen)
Subject: Re: Beating the diffraction limit (was Re: satellites)

In article <22572@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> jwl@ernie.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP
(James Wilbur Lewis) writes:
>The diffraction component of the point spread function for a given
>wavelength and aperture is known; it should be possible to beat the
>diffraction limit by deconvolving this function with the image.  I've
>seen this done for out-of-focus images, and the results are remarkable.

Similar computations can also be done to remove motion-blurring.  If the
distortion characteristics of the intervening medium are known (or can
be approximated to some reasonable degree), they can be also be removed.
This makes it easy to look through wavey glass, but leaves something to
be desired when looking through the atmosphere, because of the imperfect
knowledge about the medium.  Still some enhancement is possible.

>The real problem, it seems to me, is noise introduced by the atmosphere
>(and other factors, I suppose...).  Since you can't remove the noise
>analytically, information is truly lost.  It is not clear (to me) how
>this effect varies with aperture; amateur astronomers often prefer a
>small aperture/high f-ratio instument to larger (and theoretically
>better resolution) "light bucket" type 'scopes for planetary
>observations where light grasp isn't the limiting factor.  Are larger
>apertures really more sensitive to "seeing", or is this an artifact of
>the difference in focal ratios/optical quality?  Would this effect be
>irrelevant for a telescope above the atmosphere, where one doesn't have
>to worry about air boiling around inside the tube?

Yes, larger apertures are more sensitive.  As I recall (I may very well
be wrong, this information comes from many years back in my memory),
there is a critical size of roughly 10 cm., established by the size of
the average convection cell in the air.  Distortion is least when all of
your image goes through a single cell (on average).

There are some things which can be done to remove atmospheric distortion
even though it varies with time in an unpredictable fashion.  First,
recognize that there are several sources of distortion:

	1) Unpredictable translations of the image caused by changes in
the refractive index of the air you look through as a function of time.
This is mostly of concern when taking moving pictures, or trying to
compare one picture to another (although taking pictures of the janitor
next to the general you want to know about can be embarrassing).  Where
this is a problem in single images is when the motion takes place in a
time of the same order as the exposure length (or the integration time
of the CCD).  This can be handled as motion-deblurring.

	2) Arbitrary affine geometric distortions caused by what you
might call the "funhouse mirror" effect: Changes in the path of the
light rays over the field of the image.  Since this affects only the
large-scale geometry of the image, it can removed by applying an inverse
transform, which can be determined interactively if need be (twiddle the
knobs 'til it looks right).  This gets harder if the distortion changes
on the same time-scale as the exposure time.  I haven't read of any
research on this problem (guess who's most interested in it), but I
would guess that applying motion-deblurring with different parameters in
each of several regions of the image would be useful.  This might also
help when the image is viewed through several convection cells, since
the distortion transformations will change abruptly at the edges of a
cell.

	3) Haze. This is equivalent to a loss of image contrast.  Since
most of the human image recognition capability is based on boundaries
(high-spatial-frequency components of an image), edge-enhancement helps
here.  This is a useful preprocessing step for the first two effects.

Theoretically, taking a number of images of the same area and correcting
for angular changes due to the flight path of the observer could allow
some averaging out of distortion.  I suspect this technique isn't all
that useful, since the improvement should go as the square root of the
number of images used in the average, and you just don't have that long
a time during which a low-orbit bird is over any one place.

By the bye, the newspaper article I read stated that these incredible
feats of imaging could be done through cloud cover, which I very much
doubt.  Even infrared doesn't see perfectly through clouds, and since IR
wavelengths are longer than light, the diffraction limit on angular
resolution is larger for a given aperture optic.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
	"The galaxy-spanning luminous arcs reported by M. Mitchell
	Waldrop in Research News on 6 February have a very simple
	explanation.  They are part of the scaffolding that was not
	removed when the contractor went bankrupt owing to cost
	overruns."
					"Arthur C. Clarke, Sri Lanka"

My opinions are my own; no-one else seems to want them.

Bruce Cohen
UUCP:        {the real world}...!tektronix!ruby!brucec
ARPA/CS-NET: brucec@ruby.TEK.COM
overland:    Tektronix Inc., M/S 61-028, P.O. Box 1000, Wilsonville, OR  97070

------------------------------

Date: 16 Jan 88 20:11:36 GMT
From: bill@astro.as.utexas.edu  (William H. Jefferys)
Subject: Re: satellites

In article <2619@calmasd.GE.COM> jnp@calmasd.GE.COM (John Pantone) writes:
~O.K. - I've finally reached saturation.  As a certifiable old-fart who
~was around during the Cuban missle crisis (1962) I can guarantee that
~an object as small as an automobile and/or truck was plainly visible by
~sattelite in '62.  I'm quite confident that you could have made out the
~make of the car or truck - even in the crummy newspaper photos they
~were showing at the time.

Actually, the photographs made public by the Kennedy administration
during the Cuban missle crisis were taken by high-flying U-2 aircraft,
not by satellites. They carried cameras of much smaller aperture (and
correspondingly lower resolution) than the present generation of spy
satellites does.

Bill Jefferys

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 19 Jan 88 14:22:54 pst
From: Eugene Miya N. <eugene@PIONEER.ARC.NASA.GOV>
Subject: Re: satellites
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.crypt
Cc: 

Cuban photos:
>I think you are confusing sattelite imaging with U-2 pictures here.   
			   ^^^^^^ oops!

Not all the photos (these were photos) taken over Cuban were U-2, the
low-obliques were taken by F-8 Crusader pilots who had some SAM risk.
These pilots don't deserve to be placed in obscurity.

There's too much misunderstanding about microwave to try and correct
certain misunderstandings (re: resolution better than optical), most of
the postings are good and correct (Dale's, Bruce's, for instance), but I
give up.  A case of a few misinformed trying to educate the uninformed.
People make microwave the super-sensor that it isn't.  (See the
wavelength term in the radar equation.)

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA

------------------------------

Date: 20 Jan 88 02:43:31 GMT
From: concertina!fiddler@sun.com  (Steve Hix)
Subject: Re: satellites

In article <8801192222.AA08418@ames-pioneer.arpa>, eugene@PIONEER.ARC.NASA.GOV (Eugene Miya N.) writes:
> Cuban photos:
>>I think you are confusing sattelite imaging with U-2 pictures here.   
> 			   ^^^^^^ oops!
> 
> Not all the photos (these were photos) taken over Cuban were U-2,
> the low-obliques were taken by F-8 Crusader pilots who had some SAM risk.
> These pilots don't deserve to be placed in obscurity.

I think there were also some overflights made by Air Force drivers
in RF-101s, too.  (Wouldn't want to miss anybody...:})

------------------------------

Date: 20 Jan 88 03:32:13 GMT
From: daveb@eneevax.umd.edu  (David Bengtson)
Subject: Re: satellites

In article <8801192222.AA08418@ames-pioneer.arpa> eugene@PIONEER.ARC.NASA.GOV (Eugene Miya N.) writes:
>Cuban photos:

>There's too much misunderstanding about microwave to try and correct
>certain misunderstandings (re: resolution better than optical), most of
>the postings are good and correct (Dale's, Bruce's, for instance), but
>I give up.  A case of a few misinformed trying to educate the
>uninformed.  People make microwave the super-sensor that it isn't.
>(See the wavelength term in the radar equation.)
>
>--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA

   Sorry to increase the net.traffic, but I'd like to stand up in
defense of microwaves ( they're paying my way through grad school ). The
Radar equation does indeed have wavelength dependence, but there are
some things that the radar range eqn. doesn't take into effect.
Mechanical tolerancing being one of the more important. Reflector
surfaces in general need to be correct to within fractions of a
wavelength, something that is easier to do at millimeter wavelengths
than at optical wavelengths. Microwave sources are, in general, more
efficient than lasers, 50% and up as opposed to quantum efficiencies of
~1 to 10 percent in lasers. Important thing to consider when heat
dissipation and mass are major considerations.

  I do want to agree, with you, though, that optical radars ( think
about what RADAR stands for! ) are useful and remote sensing needs all
wavelengths available for good judgement.

   David Bengtson

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 19 Jan 88 13:22:21 pst
From: Eugene Miya N. <eugene@PIONEER.ARC.NASA.GOV>
Subject: Re: Beating the diffraction limit (was Re: satellites)
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.crypt

Bruce, you made some excellent comments about this problem!  However, I
would like to add one comment about what you said about removing motion
blurr.  Rather than do it computationally or optically, it's just much
simpler to move the recording instrument or media. (If I had a quarter
for every roll of film I've hunched over, I'd be rich.)

--eugene

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #115
*******************

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Date: Tue, 26 Jan 88 10:50:13 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8801261850.AA00452@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #116

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 116

Today's Topics:
			      Re: HI RES
			      Re: HI RES
       Re: UK Govermnent funding of computer Systems research.
		    Origin of Moon, Effect on Life
		       space flight coordinates
		       In Orbit of 9th Jan 1988
		  Re: Proton/anti-proton annhilation
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 20 Jan 1988 10:58:35 EST
From: Kevin.Ryan@a.cfr.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: HI RES

>Date: 15 Jan 1988 16:05-EST 
>From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
>Subject: Re: HI RES, Jim Lewis
>
>I'd entirely forgotten about some of the deconvolution work you
>mentioned. I've seen the before and after processing of pictures fogged
>by intentionally out of focus optics and by motion of a car past a
>speed sign.  The image is translated into the complex frequency domain,
>fiddled with at great computational expense and then (VOILA) translated
>back to an amplitude domain. The results are remarkable, but I seem to
>remember cautions about the limited applicability. I also did not
>intuit the connection to the aperture, etc. It's been 3-4 years since I
>read it, so does anyone know what the state of this art is?

   Several notes about this: The out of focus problem is not really the
point.  The ground image for a spy sat is in focus already, or the
people who launched it are not doing their job :-).  Sharpening poor
images is generally a matter of emphasising high vs low spacial
frequencies using either spacial or frequency domain techniques.  This
emphasises edges over large expanses - and since the eye detects edges
well you see more detail.  I suspect that this is what has been seen by
many of the people who mentioned this.  Unfortunately this also
emphasises noise, which tends to be high frequency.  Even more
unfortunately, this does not deal with diffraction limits.  You can only
emphasize what is there in some form already.  (more on this later)

   Actual out of focus information is a considerably different problem.
As you go out of focus on an object, you _lose_ certain of the spacial
frequencies.  The transfer function for the defocussed imaging system
has zeros in some places - those frequencies simply don't appear,
information is lost.  If you have an object that extends out of the
focal depth of the imaging system (not terribly likely from orbit) you
can use multiple planes to try to reconstruct the object from the point
spread function (which describes how a point behaves when going out
focus).  But this is quite a different problem than trying to get one
GOOD image in focus.  I don't think that it's applicable to the spysats.
You would get the best information from one clean image in focus.

   As to the movement blur - the limits mentioned by Dale are real.  You
really must have the motion well defined.  If not you're better off
getting a beer and trying to blur yourself.  However, I believe that
this can be done for most spysat images, and therefore I'm willing to
bet that it's _being_ done.  This would really only be needed when one
had to take long exposures.

   The diffraction limit problem is best stated as this - an imaging
system with a set aperture can only resolve up to a certain spacial
frequency in the focal plane.  The information describing objects that
are smaller than that does not get collected.  It is simply impossible
to separate objects that are closer together than the diffraction limit,
as they appear to be contiguous.  You do not have the information about
the spacial frequency that describes the gap.  Since you do not have the
information, it is not possible to enhance past the diffraction limit
using either spacial or frequency (Fourier) techniques.
   SAR 'constructs' a large aperture that allows high resolution in the
direction of movement, but I do believe that it's a coherent technique,
and thus not applicable to visible or infrared imaging.

   Sorry I'm so talkative, but this stuff is something of an interest of
mine.  Hope this helps 'resolve' the problem...

						Kevin Ryan

arpanet		kevin@a.cfr.cmu.edu

------------------------------

Date: 20 Jan 1988 18:06:25 EST
From: Kevin.Ryan@a.cfr.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: HI RES

   Mea culpa.  I just sent out a long post on diffraction limitations of
spysat photos, and I may have not been entirely correct :-<

   I stated that diffraction limitations cut off information about high
spacial frequencies.  This is not precisely true.  Diffraction prevents
the collection of information _at_ high frequencies, but there is
information _about_ those frequencies.
   If the Fourier transform is examined, it is an analytic function.  By
appropriately analyzing the section of the FT that you _do_ have, an
estimation can be made of the continuation of the function beyond the
diffraction limit.  Upon reconstruction and Fourier inversion, you have
a higher resolution image.  In the absence of noise, and with a
continuous detector, you have infinite resolution.
   Several things to note.  Noise is, as always, a limitation on all
reconstruction techniques, and this is no exception.  Secondly, it
requires at least partially coherent light.  Sunlight, oddly enough, is
partially coherent.  I do not know if the noise level in spysats is low
enough (this may be improved), or if the solar coherence is high enough
(rather difficult to improve), but it may be doable.  Finally, I suspect
that the sampling rate of your imager (film particles, CCD wells) will
limit the accuracy if your original FT function section.

   So, my apologies both for stating something too strongly in the first
place and for confusing both you and me with my correction.  Hope this
'clears' thing up a little.

						Kevin Ryan

"You canna change the the laws of physics, Cap'n!"
   At least, not without a _real_ good lawyer...
|	arpanet		kevin@a.cfr.cmu.edu

------------------------------

Date: 15 Jan 88 08:20:48 GMT
From: livesey@sun.com  (Jon Livesey)
Subject: Re: UK Govermnent funding of computer Systems research.

In article <880@its63b.ed.ac.uk>, bob@its63b.ed.ac.uk (ERCF08 Bob Gray) writes:
> Please go back and re-read what I wrote. The point I was making was
> about special funding for research.

	And I wasn't contradicting that point.  I pointed out that the
historical claims you made were sweeping and against the evidence.

> There is a vast difference between the special funding of research of
> the type proposed by ESA and the UK space industry, and the low levels
> of routine research funding paid forby the Goverment through SERC and
> other bodies.

	As one would expect.  Britain is a relatively poor country,
among Europeans.  However, again, what I objected to was not a
reasonable complaint about funding levels, but an over-generalization,
as follows:

> >		"The one thing you could rely on from ALL British
> >		gover[n]ments for the last couple of hundred years is
> >		that they will oppose anything that smells even faintly
> >		of change.
> >
> >		"You can also rely on them to be consi[s]ta[e]ntly
> >		wrong.
> >
> >	And:
> >
> >		"Much more recently, a gover[n]ment report in 1972/3
> >		said that there would be no real changes in computers,
> >		so it wasn't worth doing research."
> 
> It does of course help your point if you quote me out of context. I am
> unable to find any examples of MAJOR research projects which were not
> rejected at least once. That they eventually funded research in this
> country after realising that we were being left behind by other
> countries, is irrelevant.

	At least the state of logic research must be shaky.  When
someone purports to describe the behaviour of ALL UK governments w.r.t.
any innovation, as you did, it's pretty hard to quote them out of
context.

    As to specific projects, one we have already talked about:

		"Britain has its own plans for a hypersonic plane called
	Hotol.  BAe and R.R. have now finished the "proof of concept" of
	Hotol, and so far wind tunnel tests on the Hotol models have
	gone well.

		..................During the past three years, The
	British Government, Bae and R.R. have spent L3m on the early
	design of Hotol.  When the government's contribution of L1.5m
	ran out, industry found the extra money to complete the tests.

		[more omitted - the article goes on to descrebe tests at
	the University of Canberra high speed wind tunnel and talks
	about other possible research spinoffs (ceramics, carbon-carbon,
	and engine design)]"

			New Scientist Dec 3 1987

     It sounds to me as though the UK government did contribute some of
the initial funding (about $3m?), and it does not sound as though Hotol
has been cancelled.  Has it been?  I heard a BBC World Service interview
with the principal designer last week, so I am assuming not.  Is that
right or wrong?

	Of course, you can claim that HMG is not funding BAe/RR enough,
but over in talk.politics, the people who worry about trade deficits
will tell you they should not be funding them at all.  Damned if you do;
damned if you don't.

> I will admit to confusing two Goverment papers here. I originaly
> should have referred to a paper in 1980 by the "Electronic computers
> sector working party" and published by the institute of manpower
> studies, called "Computer manpower in the '80s".

	Is this Institute a government body, and was it they who
recommended not investing in computer research or was it really the
government which did so?  Is this the quote saying computer research
ought not to be pursued?

>	[Alvey project]
>
> I have been working on this for the last few years, so I should know
> something about it.

	Has Alvey been cancelled?   Has HMG decided not to fund it?

> The 1972 paper is from the Goverment select committee on science and
> technology. It is called "Prospects for the UK computer industry in
> the '70s".
>
>	[extensive quotes]
> 
> I will leave it up to you to decide if the Goverment (through it's
> committee report) got it right.

	I don't see a single quote there to support your contention.  I
see a mixture of quotes criticising government policy, and what is, I
think, some criticism of people who wanted their own machines.  Where is
the quote which tells us they (HMG) think it's not worth investing in
computer research?

	By the way, is this a government policy statement or a
parliamentary report?  I thought Select Committees were Commons bodies.
Could you clarify that?


	Again, I am not claiming UK funding levels are correct (I said
in my last posting that they are obviously tight with their money) but I
still see no evidence to support the sweeping claims you made.

Jon.

------------------------------

Date: 16 Jan 88 07:21:24 GMT
From: hanauma.stanford.edu!joe@labrea.stanford.edu  (Joe Dellinger,ESMB 471,7230463,4153244824)
Subject: Origin of Moon, Effect on Life

	Best theory of the origin of the moon is that after the
proto-Earth was formed there were still Mars-sized planetisimals
wandering around... probably both Earth and Venus got thwacked by one
(or more) of these. In Venus' case it didn't make a moon but it screwed
up it's rotation.  In the Earth's case it kicked enough stuff up into
orbit to make the moon.  The collision probably melted the Earth if it
weren't still molten anyway...

	Speculation:
Whether a moon recedes or approaches with time depends on whether a
month is more or less than a day. It is quite possible the inner planets
all had moons early on that death-spiraled in and were lost, because
they were too close.
	Any comments?

> For about three billion years life did nothing except pile up algal mats 
> - dull, dull, dull.  Then all of sudden cells got nucleii and mitochondria
> and chromosomes, and things happened, and here we are.

	Figuring out how to make a true multicelled creature that can do
sex is the HARD PART... after you've got THAT, the trifles like a
backbone, central nervous system, etc, are EASY. Consider that both
vertebrates and cephalopods (octopus) have evolved the eye (apparently)
completely independently. Insects, birds, and mammals have all
independently discovered flight... once you've evolved something that's
good at evolving, it's EASY!  (Well... at least on a geological time
scale...)

Joe Dellinger joe@hanauma.stanford.edu

------------------------------

Date: 17 Jan 88 20:53:02 GMT
From: necntc!linus!philabs!sbcs!bnl!allard@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Rick Allard)
Subject: space flight coordinates


What is the coordinate system used for space flight?

thanks, Rick

------------------------------

Date: 14 Jan 88 17:07:41 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!its63b!bob@uunet.uu.net  (ERCF08 Bob Gray)
Subject: In Orbit of 9th Jan 1988

There were a couple of interesting items in last weekend's "IN ORBIT"
pages on the channel Channel 4 teletext service.

They are reproduced below for other readers of this newsgroup.

The author of the articles is Dr David Whitehouse.  I'm just posting
them.
	Bob.
-------------------------------------------------------
[Report on shuttle booster rocket test failure deleted]

RIP-OFF OF THE WEEK AWARD

:- goes to US estate agent Rick walter. He's offering to sell five acre
plots on the moon for just 14 pounds through his lunar land company.

Selling land on other planets has been tried before and, just like the
service that offers to name a star after you, has no legal status.

The United Nations has said that space, including the moon and planets,
belongs to no-one, and no-one can claim it.

--------------------------------------------------------------

QUOTES AFTER 326 DAYS IN SPACE

Yuri Romanenko, record breaking cosmanaut, said:
	"we know and feel, we are sure we will not stop at this 300 day
	flight. The next comrades will take it further and, of course,
	much is being said about Mars."

	"for us, Mars is getting nearer and nearer."

	"We are pleased we have completed this - it will, without doubt,
	help all our comrades who fly further, higher, and more
	interestingly."

Ex cosmanaut and the new chief of the Yuri Gagarin cosmanaut training
centre, Vladimir Shatalov, said that apart from earth observation, there
was a lack of consistency about the space effort.

On crews in space he said:

	"Relaxation on board is the achiles heel. It is necessary to
	have good collections of books, videos, tapes, and regular
	televisual contacts with families."

	"Sometimes you also need to be alone in the cabin. As space
	stations are improved so oppertunities for relaxation are
	increased."

Oleg Gazenko, Director of the biomedical problems institute of the USSR
ministry of health, said:

	"I believe that man could easily work for 18 months or two years
	in orbit.

	"There is no doubt that man could make the solar system
	habitable and perpetuate his race"

------------------------------

Date: 15 Jan 88 23:37:27 GMT
From: thorin!hayes!leech@mcnc.org  (Jonathan Leech)
Subject: Re: Proton/anti-proton annhilation

In article <3814@husc6.harvard.edu> greg@endor.UUCP (Greg) writes:
>In article <1176@crlt.UUCP> russ@crlt.UUCP (Russ Cage) writes:
>>Proton/antiproton annihilation results in three pi mesons, a pi, an
>>anti-pi, and a pi-nought.
>
>Really?  I would have thought that photon production was the most
>probable outcome.
>
>But then again, what do I know.

    The antimatter propulsion system devised by Robert Forward under an
Air Force contract relies on the fact that proton/antiproton
annihilation does not *immediately* produce a burst of gammas; he
proposes a magnetic thrust chamber to channel the charged mesons in the
right direction during their brief lifetime. The project report is
fascinating reading and, being unclassified, is available from the NTIS.

    Jon Leech (leech@cs.unc.edu)    __@/

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #116
*******************

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	id AA01300; Tue, 2 Feb 88 03:23:49 PST
Date: Tue, 2 Feb 88 03:23:49 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8802021123.AA01300@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #117

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 117

Today's Topics:
	     International Space Devel. Conference (1988)
		    Creating National Space Policy
	     House Subcommittee hearings: Feb. 5 in Iowa
	       Aerospace Engineering Conference & Show
		     space news from Dec 14 AW&ST
	    Re: Still more fascism... (fusion propulsion)
			     Curved space
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 12 Jan 88 18:57:19 GMT
From: nbires!isis!scicom!cyrill@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Cyro Lord)
Subject: International Space Devel. Conference (1988)


                 1988 INTERNATIONAL SPACE DEVELOPMENT CONFERENCE

      Memorial Day weekend, May 27-30, 1988
      Denver, Colorado   USA

Travel Agency: 800-451-8097, Mon-Fri 9-5, Sat 1-4 (Pacific)
Conference Committee: 303-692-6788 or 303-388-2368
Stouffer Hotel 
        Reservations: 800-468-3571;  please specify 1988 ISDC!

1988 ISDC, P.O. Box 300572, Denver, CO 80218


                           OUR DREAM ...

"To create a spacefaring civilization beyond Earth." In the TECHNICAL
track, you can listen to presentations about leading-edge aerospace
topics.  The SOCIOECONOMIC track considers cultural relations, business
development, and other "human" aspects of a spacefaring civilization:

	"Space is for people, not just governments and machines!"


                    ... OUR CHILDREN'S REALITY

We can make it happen.  From individual initiatives by a single person,
through building chapters to inform the public, political candidates,
and government officials, the GRASSROOTS track shows how we can make a
difference.  People need to know that space development is both possible
and necessary. Educators can hasten that realization by incorporating
aerospace themes into their classes -- not only math and science
classes, but the entire curricula.  They'll learn how to do this in the
educators' course, which has been accredited by the University of
Colorado for one graduate or undergraduate credit.  A special educators'
package, including registration, tuition, two lunches and two banquets
makes it easier for them to attend the conference.

  Call For Papers:  abstracts received after February 15th might not be
considered!

Guest Speakers include:  Steve Wolfe               Art Dula
                         Andrew Stofan             Eric Drexler
                         Dr. Ben Clark             Dorothy Diehl
                         Georgia Franklin          Dr. David Webb
                         Robin Kline (Teacher in Space)


Please print off the registration form below:

_____________________________________________________________________

REGISTRATION
thru May 1, 1988     NAME (please print) _____________________________
1988  1989  BOTH!

Member of NSS or     AFFILIATION (for name tag) ______________________
co-sponsor:
$60   $45   $90

If not member:       ADDRESS _________________________________________
$90   $75   $120
Circle $xx. College          _________________________________________
students check here __
ifor half-price.
	                                              ________________
EDUCATORS' PACKAGE,                           day or  |              |
academic credit:     PHONE (_________________ evening | for official |
check here __ to register                             | use only     |
for $125.                                             |______________|


PAYMENT	Check	  VISA	  MC	  AmEx               Date ___________

Exp.         Card		    SIGNATURE
Date_________  #__________________  ___________________________

$ ENCLOSED ___________

PLEASE MAIL TO:  1988 ISDC, P.O. BOX 300572,  DENVER, CO  80218


-- 
Cyro Lord	Alpha Comm. Dev. Corp.  2570 Sky Ranch Rd. Aurora, CO. 80011
UUCP/DOMAIN	{boulder,hao,isis}!scicom!cyrill / cyrill@scicom.alphacdc.com
		"Endeaver to Persevere"

------------------------------

Date: 20 Jan 88 01:42:07 GMT
From: hamilton@caf.mit.edu  (David P. Hamilton)
Subject: Creating National Space Policy

Here's a chance for you to influence space policy for the next four to
eight years, so sharpen your pencils:

A friend and I are working for one of the Democratic presidential
candidates and are likely to be talking with his issues coordinator in
the near future (like next weekend) on the subject of space policy.  In
order to build a solid case for a pro-space agenda, we'd like to solicit
your ideas on concrete justifications for national space programs.  In
addition, we'd appreciate any suggestions for specific goals and
programs that can be justified in an era of budget cutting and potential
austerity.  Remember, this is a Democrat we're talking about, so it
would help to provide reasons that will stand up to people asking
questions like "why don't we spend the money here on Earth, instead?"

Specific ideas to consider might include:

How do you feel about the Space Station (perhaps as opposed to the
Industrial Space Facility or use of external shuttle tanks)?

What about space shuttle follow-ons, such as the NASP, BDB's, etc?

Possible benefits from lunar missions, near-Earth asteroid missions, or
a manned mission to Mars?

What role should NASA play in U.S. space policy?  How can it complement,
rather than hinder, commercial development of space?  What other steps
might the government (reasonably) take to encourage commercial space
ventures?


Finally, if anyone can provide pointers to official studies on space
policy, such as the Ride and the National Space Commission reports, we'd
also appreciate them.


Thanks for your time.

David P. Hamilton
hamilton@caf.mit.edu     ...!mit-eddie!mit-amt!mit-caf!hamilton

------------------------------

Date:     Wed, 27 Jan 88 18:26 CST
From: Bill Higgins, Beam Jockey <HIGGINS%FNALE.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Subject:  House Subcommittee hearings: Feb. 5 in Iowa
Original_To:  SPACE

        SPACE SCIENCE FIELD HEARINGS SCHEDULED FOR IOWA, NEW HAMPSHIRE

The House Subcommittee on Space Science and Applications will be holding
special hearings on Monday, February 1 in New Hampshire and Friday,
February 5, 1988 in Iowa.  The Subcommittee, chaired by Bill Nelson
[D-Florida], will hold its Iowa hearings in Iowa City, Iowa, in the Main
Ballroom of the Iowa Memorial Union on the University of Iowa campus.
(This is the district of David R. Nagle (D-Iowa).)  At this time the
field hearing is scheduled to have a morning session from 9:30 to 11:30
AM and an afternoon session from 12:30 to 3:30 PM.

There will be four parts to the hearings, panels dealing with space
science, education, history, and finally the space policy views of the
Democratic presidential candidates.  As of January 14th, however, none
of the candidates have confirmed their appearance.  Hearings might be
broadcast by National Public Radio stations.

These are the Iowa hearings that were originally scheduled for
mid-December, then postponed.  If I get information about the New
Hampshire hearings (which presumably include an invitation to Republican
candidates), I'll post it in appropriate places.

                                       Bill Higgins
                                       Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
                                       HIGGINS@FNALB.BITNET
                                       SPAN/HEPnet: 43011::HIGGINS

------------------------------

Date:         Mon, 01 Feb 88 07:41:19 EST
From: Al Lester <ALESTER%UGA.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Subject:      Aerospace Engineering Conference & Show
To: Ted Anderson <space@angband.s1.gov>

The Aerospace Engineering Show is going to be held at the Los Angeles
Airport Hilton Hotel and Towers on February 9, 10 and 11. COSMIC, the
NASA Computer Software Management and Information Center, will be in
booth 919. I invite you to stop by and find out about new software
available form NASA. If you should need a free pass, please contact me
by Thursday morning, Feb. 4th.  (The Aerospace Engineering Conference &
Show is organized and operated by the American Institute of Aeronautics
and Astronautics.)
                                                  Thanks!

                                                  Al Lester
                                                  404-542-3265

------------------------------

Date: 28 Jan 88 03:38:37 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Dec 14 AW&ST

Reagan-Gorbachev summit vaguely endorses international cooperation in
space.  Gorbachev calls for joint manned Mars mission; no US response.

An attempt will be made to free the jammed solar array on TVSat 1 by
shaking the satellite with apogee-motor firings.  It is in Clarke orbit
near its planned position, and the firings will contribute to moving it
there.  This will minimize the waste of fuel, which otherwise could
shorten the satellite's useful life.  The big question is how many of
the hold-down hooks failed to release; engineers are studying whether
a small thruster firing could make the solar array resonate at a
distinctive frequency that could be observed via the attitude gyros,
and whether the slight power loss caused by the shadows the hooks cast
on the outermost panel of the array could be distinctive at suitable
sun angles.  Neither test will be tried until possible results are
thoroughly understood.  If the array cannot be freed, then it will be
necessary to reduce the number of broadcast channels as the solar arrays
age, which will cause a political battle in Germany over who gets the
remaining ones.  Another problem is that the satellite's main receiving
antenna cannot deploy fully unless the array is released, and nobody has
yet sorted out just where it is pointing as a result; no great amount of
time will be spent on this until the array issue is resolved.

Polar-platform meeting in Tokyo decides against French proposal to
reduce the size of the ESA polar platform.  Original plan was a US
platform in 1995, ESA's in 1997, another US one in 1997, and a Japanese
one in 1998.  France proposed replacing the European platform with a
Spot-sized satellite, out of concern for the impact of reduced British
contributions; Britain was a major supporter of the European platform
until its recent turnabout.  Nobody else liked the idea and the French
backed down, but there may still be trouble later.

NASA seeks ways to block expected Station budget cuts.  Senator Garn
says there simply is no serious public support for it, in a time of
tight money.  Garn slams Reagan for showing "no leadership in space
whatsoever".  Stofan, NASA station admin, says Station may suffer from
same up-and-down budget that plagued the Shuttle.  He says this is
"devastating and wasteful" and may double the cost of the program.
[Lordy, considering what it already costs...]  Stofan says he will
recommend scrapping the station if the budget is too low, but refuses to
say just how low that is.

Martin Marietta receives USAF contract for 13 more Titan 4s.

Canada and US reach agreement on Canadian space-station participation!

Amroc begins to recall work force after major new investor found.

Article on Galileo's latest trajectory, arrival at Jupiter 7 Dec 1995
from launch Oct 1989, with flybys of two asteroids (Gaspra and another,
name not mentioned) plus Venus and Earth.  Plans underway for Venus and
Earth observations, including first infrared mapping of lunar farside.
The launch window is about 45 days long; failing that, July 1991 is
possible although the asteroid flybys would have to be shelved.  Galileo
is at JPL with instruments starting to return from sponsoring labs.
Full assembly will be followed by thermal testing in summer, after which
some instruments will again go back home for final calibration before
final assembly in mid-1989.  Modifications for the new schedule and
trajectory include more sunshades [Galileo originally not having been
intended to get as close to the Sun as Venus], a Sun sensor to ensure
that Galileo can stay in its "shaded" position without help from Earth,
an aft-facing low-gain antenna for inner-solar-system operation, a
higher-performance telemetry encoder, and isotope heaters replacing some
electrical heaters on cold-sensitive subsystems.  The last two changes
are aimed at preserving full operation despite the loss in power caused
by the delays [Galileo's isotope generators cannot be refuelled at any
reasonable price -- the plant that made them has shut down -- and they
will be about 12% of the way down their decay curve due to the long
delays in the mission].  Also underway is a study of the shelf life and
aging of systems and components, and various minor upgrades in equipment
that have become possible since it was built.

Soviet Union expected to unveil a plan for a space-based global aviation
navigation and tracking system at a spring meeting of ICAO's future-
navigation-systems group.  Soviets continue unwilling to discuss status
of their Navstar lookalike, but make positive noises about sharing it
with others.


[Part 2 of the saving-the-space-station editorial is postponed to next
time.  Instead we will observe three minutes of silence.  Today is the
anniversary of Apollo 1.  Tomorrow is the anniversary of Challenger.
Last month, slightly under two years after Challenger, the schedule for
the first post-Challenger shuttle launch slipped again, for at least the
fourth time.  The most optimistic date is eight months from now.
Slightly under two years after Apollo 1, the first manned Saturn V took
humans into deep space for the first time, as Apollo 8 rounded the
Moon... eight months before Apollo 11.  The three minutes of silence are
for Grissom, White, and Chaffee, for Scobee, Smith, McNair, Onizuka,
Resnik, Jarvis, and McAuliffe...  and for the US space program that once
was.]

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 17 Jan 88 05:08:22 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Still more fascism... (fusion propulsion)

> ...For example, D-T (deuterium-tritium) fusion is easiest to "light"
> but emits neutrons, so the spacecraft must be shielded...

An addendum: when you get into really high-power systems, D-T simply
becomes infeasible, because the neutrons' energy turns into heat in the
shield, and the shield-cooling problem becomes insuperable.

> ... D-D fusion is clean (no neutrons) ...

Alas, wrong; the main reaction path of D-D fusion is clean but one of
the significant alternate paths does generate neutrons.  This is why the
BIS Daedalus design went to D-He3 for a super-high-power design that
simply could not tolerate major neutron emission.  (There would be some
residual emission due to the D in D-He3 reacting with itself, but it
would be manageable.)

> ... We're a long way from building fusion-powered spacecraft (except
> Orion-style, and that's a whole 'nother story....).

Another addendum is that it's not clear that *laser* inertial fusion
will ever power spacecraft, because lasers are fairly inefficient for
quite fundamental reasons.  Daedalus picked electron-beam inertial
fusion to avoid the power loss (and consequent cooling problems) of
lasers.  Sigh, there ain't no such thing as a free lunch, however: using
charged-particle beams in the presence of a magnetic nozzle is lots of
fun...

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 28 Jan 88 17:49:41 GMT
From: heurikon!lampman%heurikon.UUCP@speedy.wisc.edu  (Ray Lampman)
Subject: Curved space

If the curvature of space were disturbed, then allowed to revert to
normal, would it be possible to detect this event some time later at the
site of the disturbance?

(An analogy may make the question more clear: If a guitar string is
plucked, then allowed to stop vibrating, would it be possible to tell
that it had been plucked?)

If space were `plucked' :-), I would expect the curvature of space to
oscillate and gravitational energy to be radiated as equilibrium were
restored. But after normal curvature is restored, can the event be
detected?

In the case of extreme curvature (greater than 100G), I would expect
evidence at the site even after normal curvature was restored. In less
extreme events (on the order of 10G) a distortion of the physical
surroundings should remain.  But would any evidence remain after an
event on the order of 1 or 2G?

                                        - Ray Lampman (lampman@heurikon.UUCP)

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #117
*******************

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	id AA01306; Wed, 3 Feb 88 03:18:38 PST
Date: Wed, 3 Feb 88 03:18:38 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8802031118.AA01306@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #118

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 118

Today's Topics:
	       Do you really want to put it into print?
			Mir elements, 2 Feb 88
			   Re: Curved space
		   Re: Saturn V as low cost booster
		   Info request on Rocket Boosters
			 Question to England
		    Zaire Outcome for the Germans
				Zaire
		   LOFT-1 Flight delayed yet again
		       Re: Question to England
	    Re: Still more fascism... (fusion propulsion)
		  Re: Zaire Outcome for the Germans
		       Re: Question to England
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 13 Jan 88 13:59:00 CDT
From: "Pat Reiff" <eos@spacvax.rice.edu>
Sender: ota@galileo.s1.gov
Cc: eos@spacvax.rice.edu
Subject: Do you really want to put it into print?
Reply-To: "Pat Reiff" <eos@spacvax.rice.edu>

FORUM SOLICITATION

   I am one of the discipline editors of EOS, the Transactions of the
American Geophysical Union, a weekly newspaper.  The paper includes
general-interest articles, news items, section reports, and "forums" - a
place for "letters to the editor" about sundry topics, both of science
and of political policy.  For example, in forums near the end of the
year, there were several items pro and con about the space station as
presently envisioned.  In any event, many of the contributors to Space
Digest have made good points, and I am hereby inviting you to submit to
me items for the forum page of EOS.  My discipline is Solar-Planetary
Relationships, covering everything from the surface of the sun to the
upper atmosphere of the Earth, including the solar wind and its
interactions with planets, (with or without magnetospheres), comets, and
asteroids.  (In addition, for you history buffs, we are also soliciting
items for articles on the history of geophysics and space science -
there is a separate history editor).  You may submit things to me by
email if you like; my addresses are as follows:
   SPAN:        RICE::EOS
   arpanet:     EOS%spacvax.rice.edu@rice.edu
   telemail:    [preiff/edunet] Mail/USA
   bitnet:      REIFF@RICE
Please send, _in addition to_ (or instead of) the email version, a hard
copy with signature to my postal address:
   Dr. Patricia H. Reiff
   Department of Space Physics and Astronomy
   Rice University
   Houston, TX 77251-1892

Naturally, although I encourage discussion, flames will be edited out or
rejected entirely.  The newspaper is distributed free to all members of
the American Geophysical Union (~21,000 members).  The AGU is _the_
principal society for space scientists (as opposed to
Astronomers/Astrophysicists).  To join is $20 for regular members, $7
for student members (you need not be a scientist to join - just
interested in geophysics).  The toll-free number for membership
information is (800)424-2488; the address is 2000 Florida Avenue, N.W.,
Washington, D. C. 20007.

from the first Space Science Dept in the World:     Pat Reiff, Rice U.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 2 Feb 88 21:41:16 PST
From: ota@because.s1.gov
Subject: Mir elements, 2 Feb 88
Cc: kenny@b.cs.uiuc.edu

Mir elements as of 2 February 1988:

Satellite: Mir        
Catalog id 16609
Element set   43
Epoch: 88  27.87464829
Inclination:  51.6300 degrees
RA of node: 76.1431 degrees
Eccentricity:  0.0016762
Argument of perigee: 26.2501 degrees
Mean anomaly:  333.9259 degrees
Mean motion: 15.74904835 revs/day
Mean motion acceleration: 0.00022385 * 2 revs/day/day
Epoch Revolution: 11153

	Source: NASA Goddard via TS Kelso's `Celestial RCP/M'

------------------------------

Date: 29 Jan 88 22:01:59 GMT
From: heurikon!lampman@speedy.wisc.edu  (Ray Lampman)
Subject: Re: Curved space

I received mail suggesting the environment involved in my original
posting was not specified. I would like to correct that mistake. The
question is not just "is the event theoretically detectable?", but what
environment at the site would aid in later detection?

Are there any natural recording devices? Some rocks record information
about the magnetic field in which they were formed. Are there any
objects which record information about the magnitude of changing
gravitational fields.

I will restate the question: If the curvature of space were disturbed
(other factors remaining constant), then allowed to revert to normal,
would it be possible to detect this event some time later at the site of
the disturbance?

If the site of a 100G disturbance was your back yard (normally rated at
1G), I would expect evidence at the site even after normal curvature was
restored.  Any object unable to withstand a 100G acceleration would be
permanently distorted (this may include the ground itself). But would
any evidence remain after an event on the order of 2G? How about a
distortion which reverses the normal 1G curvature to -2G? Would trees be
pulled out of the ground?

Enquiring mind wants to know ... :-)

                             - Ray Lampman (lampman@heurikon.UUCP)

------------------------------

Date: 18 Jan 88 03:07:19 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Saturn V as low cost booster

> ...The entire structure becomes much larger, requiring expensive
> things like the Vehicle Assembly Building and creating logistical
> nightmares if the larger pieces are not constructed near where they
> will be used.

Note that the much-more-sophisticated Shuttle still needs the VAB.  It's
simply impossible to avoid such facilities for big rockets.  The VAB
actually could have been smaller for the Saturn V, but it had to be
designed before anyone knew for sure how big Apollo's boosters were
going to be.

> The Saturn V weighed 6.5 million pounds while the first stage
> delivered 7.5 million lbs of thrust.  The result was very low initial
> acceleration. This made good TV pictures but produced poor
> efficiency...

The tradeoffs here are not that simple.  Higher acceleration is more
efficient, yes, but it also means bigger engines and heavier structures.
The Saturn V's initial acceleration was not especially low by the
standards of the time.

> ... Also, reliability IS necessary for low cost unmanned vehicles --
> some of those satellites cost > 100M !

Some (me, for example) would argue that a major reason for the immense
cost of the satellites is that they are designed for launch on expensive
boosters, where every gram of weight costs several dollars and
reliability must be extremely high because replacing a failed satellite
is very costly.  Satellites cost far more than equivalent commercial
Earthbound equipment; there *are* other reasons for this, but the
extreme cost of access to orbit figures in almost all of them in one way
or another.

Those who do not understand Unix are |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
condemned to reinvent it, poorly.    | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 18 Jan 88 01:35:11 GMT
From: pc.ecn.purdue.edu!ga.ecn.purdue.edu!edward@ee.ecn.purdue.edu  (Edward L Haletky)
Subject: Info request on Rocket Boosters

Hello Netlanders,

I am a member of a Design Project here at Purdue University. We are
looking for a booster configuration to launch a 1000 lb. vehicle to mah
20 and 220,000 ft. I am interested in fuel types and rocket types. The
vehicle is also relatively small (15x10ft or so). Do any of you have any
information that you would be willing to share upon the subject?

			Thanks in advance,
			Edward L. Haletky
			(struggling design student)

Usenet: ~!pur-ee!edward
Arpa:   edward@ga.ecn.purdue.edu

------------------------------

Date: 17 Jan 1988 06:04-EST 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Question to England

Someone just told me something that I found rather difficult to believe,
so I thought I'd ask for verification.

Is it REALLY true that amateur rocketry is banned in England? That no
one is allowed to even OWN, let alone launch Estes type rockets? and
that in particular no one is allowed to build their own outside of a
controlled research lab?

I know UK is more controlled than here, but I found the above claim a
bit hard to swallow. After all, rumor has it that it is still a free
country over there...


PS: anyone near Edinburgh? If someone happens to be in contact with
Duncan Lunan, please contact me.

------------------------------

Return-Path: FHD%TAMCBA.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU
Date:         Wed, 20 Jan 1988 10:09 CST
From: H. Alan Montgomery <FHD%TAMCBA.bitnet@jade.berkeley.edu>
Subject:      Zaire Outcome for the Germans

Michel Alistair asked what happen to the West German company which tried
to get off the ground in Zaire. Zaire had a civil war, incursion from a
neighboring country, or a local conflict depending on who you talked to.
The upshot is that the company's people were in jepardy of getting shot.
They beat hasty retreat.

At the time I heard rumors that the Soviets had inspired the war to keep
the Germans out of space. Whether this is true or just sour grapes I do
not know. Just because you are paranoid does not mean you do NOT have
enemies.

------------------------------

Date: 20 Jan 88 16:57:53 GMT
From: el0r+@andrew.cmu.edu  (Eric Wesley Leuliette)
Subject: Zaire


>By the way, about ten years ago a german private company tried to build
>a launch facility in Zaire. Does someone knows about how this story has
>ended ?

I believe the name of the private German company was OTRAG.  60 Minutes
did a segment on them about five or seven years ago, if I remember
correctly.

Also, if my memory serves me right, they attempted to set up shop in
Libya.  (We let you launch satellites, and you build us missiles, I
guess).  Under external pressure (few in the rest of the world were
pleased with the idea of a certain colonel with rockets), OTRAG left
Libya.

Eric W. Leuliette
Tartan News Editor
Carnegie Mellon University

------------------------------

Date: 20 Jan 88 13:34:25 GMT
From: ucsdhub!hp-sdd!ncr-sd!ncrlnk!ncrwic!encad!mjohnson@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu  (Mark Johnson)
Subject: LOFT-1 Flight delayed yet again

Most readers of sci.space may remember discussion of the LOFT-1 sounding
test vehicle, which was to have flown from Cape Canaveral AFS in
November. It has been delayed multiple times by the Air Force's
insistence on a $10 million insurance policy...and by the USAF's refusal
to schedule range time until it was available.

With the latest delays the flight is now scheduled for early April (was
mid-Oct, was mid-Nov, was mid-Feb.). Meanwhile, the Univ. of
Alabama/Huntsville industrial engineers, North Coast Rocketry, and the
high school group will be flying an alternative mission with a similar
but slightly smaller bird. This flight will take place near Huntsville
on/about April 9. The Army's Huntsville reservation will be utilized
(presumably they allow such flights without the huge insurance
requirement the Air Force has).

Mark Johnson (mjohnson@ncrwic.UUCP)
NCR Engineering & Manufacturing-Wichita, KS  phone: (316)688-8189    
email:...!rutgers!hplabs!hp-sdd!ncr-sd!ncrwic!encad!mjohnson 
US snailnet: 3718 N. Rock Rd., Wichita, KS 67226

------------------------------

Date: 20 Jan 88 22:26:45 GMT
From: ut-emx!tmca@sally.utexas.edu  (Tim Abbott)
Subject: Re: Question to England

In article <569415871.amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU>, Dale.Amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU writes:
> Is it REALLY true that amateur rocketry is banned in England?

Try visiting Goode Olde Englande on November 5th!

Remember now boys and girls, don't play with fireworks, read the
instructions and make sure there is always an adult supervising.

	T. (The Brit that got away)

	"Clean as a Q-Tip,
	 Quiet as nylon.
	 Don't look now,
	 We've got eyes on;
	 Sway, this way.

P.S. Oh, yes: light the blue touch paper and stand well back.

------------------------------

Date: 21 Jan 88 00:32:37 GMT
From: jtk@mordor.s1.gov  (Jordan Kare)
Subject: Re: Still more fascism... (fusion propulsion)

In article <1988Jan17.000824.5071@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>> ... D-D fusion is clean (no neutrons) ...
>
>Alas, wrong; the main reaction path of D-D fusion is clean but one of
>the significant alternate paths does generate neutrons.  This is why
>the BIS Daedalus design went to D-He3 for a super-high-power design
>that simply could not tolerate major neutron emission.

'Tis what I get for posting at odd hours.  D-He3 was what I was thinking
of for avoiding neutrons; D-D just saves you fuel costs.

>Another addendum is that it's not clear that *laser* inertial fusion
>will ever power spacecraft, because lasers are fairly inefficient for
>quite fundamental reasons.  Daedalus picked electron-beam inertial
>fusion to avoid the power loss (and consequent cooling problems) of
>lasers.

Lasers aren't necessarily that bad, but I'd rather leave them on the
ground and just send out the power....

	Jordin Kare







.

------------------------------

Date: 21 Jan 88 18:02:21 GMT
From: pitstop!sundc!hqda-ai!cos!smith@sun.com  (Steve Smith)
Subject: Re: Zaire Outcome for the Germans

In article <8801201630.AA04286@jade.berkeley.edu> FHD@TAMCBA.BITNET (H. Alan Montgomery) writes:

|[Regarding OTRAG's troubles in Zaire]

|At the time I heard rumors that the Soviets had inspired the war to
|keep the Germans out of space.  Whether this is true or just sour grapes
|I do not know.

German capatilists in space!  The ultimate Russian paranoid fantasy!

------------------------------

Date: 21 Jan 88 13:52:50 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!its63b!hwcs!hwee!sutherla@uunet.uu.net  (I. Sutherland)
Subject: Re: Question to England

In article <569415871.amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU> Dale.Amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU writes:
>Is it REALLY true that amateur rocketry is banned in England? That no
>one is allowed to even OWN, let alone launch Estes type rockets? and
>that in particular no one is allowed to build their own outside of a
>controlled research lab?
>
>PS: anyone near Edinburgh? If someone happens to be in contact with
>Duncan Lunan, please contact me.

  I think your question is aimed at the United Kingdom, I am currently
sitting in Edinburgh and I am certainly *not* in England, but please
forgive the patriotism and I'll overlook your poor geography.

  In answer to your question though I have never, *ever*, heard of
amateur rocketry in this country. I am also quite sure that the
authorities would never allow it, they are very protective of their
airspace (maybe 'cos there's not that much of it :-) ). In fact, I
remember from about a year ago that a certain kind of kite was refused
manufacture on the grounds that it flew too high, and our air force
likes to fly very low over inhabited areas.
            Iain A. Sutherland             Heriot-Watt University
                                           Edinburgh, SCOTLAND
            sutherla@uk.ac.hw.ee

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #118
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU;  4 Feb 88 06:20:51 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA03094; Thu, 4 Feb 88 03:19:50 PST
	id AA03094; Thu, 4 Feb 88 03:19:50 PST
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 88 03:19:50 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8802041119.AA03094@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #119

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 119

Today's Topics:
		     Re: Funding a laser launcher
			     Re: Saturn V
		       Re: Question to England
		   Re: Amateur Rocketry in England
		       Re: Question to England
			     'Rail Guns?'
			      Re: Zaire
		Ownership of extraterrestial material
	      Re: Ownership of extraterrestial material
		     Re: NYT editorialo on space.
		       NYT editorialo on space.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 14 Jan 88 16:12:12 GMT
From: uplherc!esunix!bpendlet@gr.utah.edu  (Bob Pendleton)
Subject: Re: Funding a laser launcher

in article <8801121543.AA06748@angband.s1.gov>, DAVID@PENNDRLS.BITNET says:
>       Crazy idea of the month: 
>       If 10,000 people were willing to pay $100/month, that would be
> $12 million a year. 

I hate to rain on your parade, but investing $100/month for 30 years
should give you somewhere between $100,000 and $350,000. Depending on
how conservative you are with your investments. So what you are actually
asking me to pay is more like $250,000 for a ticket.

Why not just sell stock in your company? Or, 30 year bonds, with pay off
in either cash or in some fraction of a round trip ticket? Then, in
thirty years I, or my heirs, can decide whether to take the cash or the
trip, depending on desire and the current market value of the trip.

I've met a lot of people who would like the sound of your offer. I know
a lot of people who could afford to send you $100/month. But, I believe
they are disjoint sets. :-)

			Bob Pendleton

------------------------------

Date: 12 Jan 88 15:36:33 GMT
From: uplherc!esunix!bpendlet@gr.utah.edu  (Bob Pendleton)
Subject: Re: Saturn V

in article <1988Jan8.093251.11064@utzoo.uucp>, kcarroll@utzoo.uucp (Kieran A. Carroll) says:
> The people behind the Jarvis booster (McD-D?) looked into using
                                        ^^^^^
                                     Boeing and Hughes.
        Jarvis was a passenger on board the Challenger.

> the Saturn V engines for their Big Dumb Booster; apparently they've
> decided that it's not even worthwhile reverse-engineering just the
> engines.  Those engines are >>old<<, designed back around 1960;
> according to Henry, von Braun and friends didn't even try to make them
> particularly efficient, striving for reliability and simplicity at the
> expense of performance.

Everything I've read indicates that the efficiency of the first stage
engines in a stack like the Saturn V is not as important as their cost.
One of the basic concepts of the Big Dumb Booster (BDB) is that weight
and engine efficiency are not that important for things like first
stages that aren't lifted very far from the earth. The costs involved in
using high tech to shave pounds or add a few more ISP to second and
third stage engines can be justified because every pound of fuel, tank,
and engine in those stages increase the cost of the lower stages.

What are the differences in design trade offs for engines in the
different stages of a stack staged vehicle like the Staturn V vs.
parallel staged vehicles like the Shuttle and Energia ( to name only two
of the many in use ). Clearly the core engines on parallel staged
vehicles must be able to run longer than the engines on stack staged
vehicles. They must also operate under a much wider external pressure
range. On the Shuttle the main engines are carried all the way to orbit
and are returned, so their weight affects OMS fuel requirements, reentry
heat loading, wing loading, landing gear weight, even runway
construction.

Hm, starting to look to me like a high ISP, low weight engine is a
critical design requirement for vehicles, like the shuttle, that don't
throw away their core engines. So high tech expensive engines might be a
good thing for the shuttle.

But, if the engines were attached to the ET, like they are on the
Energia, a lot of the reasons for low weight engines on the shuttle
would be eliminated. Would high ISP still be important enough to justify
the cost of high ISP engines?

> A good approach for a crash program, that must achieve results
> soonest, and has a huge pot of money to draw from; not the best way to
> design engines for an affordable rocket.

> Comments, anyone?

Bob Pendleton @ Evans & Sutherland

------------------------------

Date: 22 Jan 88 12:41:32 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!its63b!bob@uunet.uu.net  (ERCF08 Bob Gray)
Subject: Re: Question to England

In article <569415871.amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU> Dale.Amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU writes:
> Is it REALLY true that amateur rocketry is banned in England?
It is banned in the whole UK, not just England.

The control of explosive substances act of 1880-something makes it
illegal for any unlicenced person to handle explosives.

Rocket fuel is explosive, and no-one gets a licence just so they can
have fun launching rockets.

Anyone with explosives would also have problems with the prevention of
terrorism act.

Any building and launching of amateur rockets would have to be done
secretly. but then, no-one drives faster than the speed limit, do they
:->.

It does make sense, if you consider just how little open land there is
in (most) of the UK.

> I know UK is more controlled than here, but I found the above claim a
> bit hard to swallow. After all, rumor has it that it is still a free
> country over there...

See my recent postings in soc.culture.celtic for a different view of how
things are over here than you will get from most of the news agencies.
	Bob.

------------------------------

Date: 25 Jan 88 18:16:41 GMT
From: terra!brent@sun.com  (Brent Callaghan)
Subject: Re: Amateur Rocketry in England

In article <911@its63b.ed.ac.uk>, bob@its63b.ed.ac.uk (ERCF08 Bob Gray) writes:
> The control of explosive substances act of 1880-something makes it
> illegal for any unlicenced person to handle explosives.

There must be an exception here every November 5th - Guy Fawkes night of
course.  It's OK then for kids to set off explosives in their own back
yards and do night launches of rockets over built-up areas.  What a
strange world we live in...

I'm not sure of the details of the law in the U.K. - I grew up in New
Zealand.  As a teenager I was interested in model rocketry and drooled
over the Estes rockets and boosters in U.S. magazines.  There was no law
banning model rocketry as such - except for laws governing the use and
storage of explosives.

Model rockets are trivially easy to build - just a paper tube and some
balsa wood for the fins and nose cone.  The big problem was getting
boosters.  I tried making my own but my mother freaked out when she
asked what I was cooking in a pot on her stove and I had to admit it was
rocket fuel.  She wasn't mollified by my explanation that it was just
sugar and potash and was perfectly safe under 600 degrees...

I couldn't get the Estes boosters either - there's a prohibition against
sending explosive substances through the mail.  My solution was to wait
until November 5th and stock up on skyrockets.  With the stick removed
they made ideal boosters.  The ones with the colored stars in the top
were good for deploying the parachute.  I couldn't have a real countdown
though - it seemed a bit silly getting to zero and having to strike a
match.  I good countdown needs a button.

Made in New Zealand -->  Brent Callaghan  @ Sun Microsystems
			 uucp: sun!bcallaghan
			 phone: (415) 691 6188

------------------------------

Date: 26 Jan 88 17:53:16 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Question to England

> I heard this on the net earlier, so it may just be GIGO, but the
> original wording of the bill which Reagan announced in a State Of The
> Union address a few years ago--a bill which was supposed to make it
> possible for free enterprise to get into the launch business--made it
> illegal to fire the little Estees rockets...

No, it merely subjected model rockets to the same regulatory agency as
the bigger ones.  This was NOT changed, by the way, although the agency
in question (Office of Commercial Space Transportation, I think it is)
woke up to the issue and quickly issued rules exempting model rockets
from detailed regulation.

Those who do not understand Unix are |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
condemned to reinvent it, poorly.    | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 29 Jan 88 16:40:00 GMT
From: uflorida!codas!killer!ninja!sys1!trsvax!reyn@gatech.edu
Subject: 'Rail Guns?'

>From Electronic Engineering Times - January 18,1988 - Page 14 ...

 "Technologies discussed included electromagnetic rail guns for
  launching swarms of small research vehicles, reusable and servicable
  components of spacecraft for use in both Earth orbit and outer reaches
  of the solar system, trans-atmospheric vehicles that could lift heavy
  loads into space in relatively rapid sequence and a
  single-stage-to-orbit space station service vehicle.

 "The continuing need for workable U.S. space launch systems, plus the
  rail gun work done by the SDI Organization, makes the timing good for
  the consideration of using the technology for a space-based launch
  system, said Ross Jones of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

 "A 100-meter, free-flying rail gun deployed near the space station
  could launch a 1 kg spacecraft to speeds of 10 km per second, Jones
  said.  The 90,000 kg gun would cost $30 million .... "

Pardon me for airing my ignorance, but what is the difference between a
'rail gun' and the 'mass drivers' outlined by O'Neill back in the early
80's.  The accellerations for this rail gun seem to be considerably
higher than those mentioned for the 'mass driver'.

------------------------------

Date: 2 Feb 88 16:46:04 GMT
From: mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Mike Smithwick)
Subject: Re: Zaire

In article <4VxC0Fy00Ws7JFY0Ad@andrew.cmu.edu> el0r+@andrew.cmu.edu (Eric Wesley Leuliette) writes:
>>By the way, about ten years ago a german private company tried to
>>build a launch facility in Zaire. Does someone knows about how this
>>story has ended ?
>
>I believe the name of the private German company was OTRAG.  60 Minutes
>did a segment on them about five or seven years ago, if I remember
>correctly.
>
>Also, if my memory serves me right, they attempted to set up shop in
>Libya.  (We let you launch satellites, and you build us missiles, I
>guess).  Under external pressure (few in the rest of the world were
>pleased with the idea of a certain colonel with rockets), OTRAG left
>Libya.
>
>Eric W. Leuliette

About 7 or 8 years ago I read an article about OTRAG, and their proposed
rockets. They had a good idea, build 'em cheap using off the shelf
equipment. For instance, they were using windshield-wiper motors to
control some engine valves. Their would be a standard propulsion unit,
which would be bundled together with as many other units as necessary to
launch a given payload.

What the article was really about was the Soviet disinformation machine.
Russia, as it seemed, didn't appreciate a private rocket company working
in Africa (Zaire at first), so they launched a massive propaganda
campaign against OTRAG. Among their activities was the leak of (phoney)
"CIA" documents proving that OTRAG was actually producing ICBMs and that
the satillite stuff was merely a cover story. Zaire fell for it, and
booted the company out. The only nation willing to take them in was
Libya, not very good for the PR department. I gather the stigma stayed
with them and the group just faded away.

Another fine example on how "the Workers Paradise" saved us from the
evils of capitalism.

I don't know where it was published, but I read it in Space World,
before NSI bought it.

		   *** mike (powered by M&Ms) smithwick ***

------------------------------

Date: 19 Jan 88 00:42:35 GMT
From: amdahl!drivax!macleod@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (MacLeod)
Subject: Ownership of extraterrestial material

In article <888@its63b.ed.ac.uk> bob@its63b.ed.ac.uk (ERCF08 Bob Gray) 
quotes another writer:
>The United Nations has said that space, including the moon and planets,
>belongs to no-one, and no-one can claim it.

Let them enforce their claims.  This fantasy will last as long as it
takes for somebody to build solar-powered railguns or working
particle-beam weapons.

------------------------------

Date: 23 Jan 88 06:51:31 GMT
From: tektronix!reed!percival!bucket!leonard@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Ownership of extraterrestial material

In article <2963@drivax.UUCP> macleod@drivax.UUCP (MacLeod) writes:
<In article <888@its63b.ed.ac.uk> bob@its63b.ed.ac.uk (ERCF08 Bob Gray) 
<quotes another writer:
<
<>The United Nations has said that space, including the moon and
<>planets, belongs to no-one, and no-one can claim it.
<
<Let them enforce their claims.  This fantasy will last as long as it
<takes for somebody to build solar-powered railguns or working
<particle-beam weapons.

If the first poster was talking about the "moon treaty", then we're ok
as the L-5 Society lobbied hard enough to keep the US from ratifying it.

If it is some other UN treaty, odds are that the US *has* signed it, in
which case it is *illegal* under *our own* laws to lay claim to extra-
terrestial "real estate". Signed and ratifiied treaties rank with the
other "laws of the land".

Pity we did sign that treaty that makes the government responsible for
the activities of its citizens in space...

Leonard Erickson		...!tektronix!reed!percival!bucket!leonard

------------------------------

Date: 19 Jan 88 15:32:25 GMT
From: mtune!mtgzz!dls@rutgers.edu  (XMRP50000[jto]-d.l.skran)
Subject: Re: NYT editorialo on space.

I'd make the following points:

1)The ISF is a great idea -- as a precursor to a real station and as a
platform to be used with it.

2)If NASA wasn't afraid the station would be canceled, they would
support it.

3)The picture that accompanied this editorial was deceptive -- it showed
the ISF, the station, and MIR. Problems include:

	A)It showed only the MIR core(!) with no add-on modules. This
	  considerably understates MIR's value and size.

	B)Even the full blown MIR won't be very long -- a comparision of
	  internal volumn is more important.

	C)It is absurd to compare the non-existent station and the
	  non-existent ISF with the IN-ORBIT MIR. By the time
	  ISF/station are in heavy use, the Soviets will have a much
	  larger station launched by Energia.  The NYTs loves to do
	  these sorts of comparions. A previous set of drawings compared
	  shuttle C with Energia -- while incorrectly stating that
	  Energia could launch only 100,000 lbs.

4)I am pleased the the NYT's merely called for a delay or modification
of the station, not an outright cancellation.

5)I urge that the pro-space community support BOTH the ISF and the
station.

Dale Skran

------------------------------

Date: 18 Jan 88 22:53:03 GMT
From: amdahl!reddy@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (T.S. Reddy)
Subject: NYT editorialo on space.

The following is an editorial from the Friday (Jan 15th, 1988) edition
of the New York Times. Wonder what everyone thinks of it?

     The space station NASA wants to build is a luxury hotel with a
sky-high price tag, now at $32 billion. Congress has at last decreed
that the agency should also consider supporting a much smaller,
privately operated space station that costs a mere $700 million and
can do many of the same things. NASA seems petrified that Congress
may next wonder why it needs a palace in space if a mobile home
would do nearly as well.
     The Industrial Space Facility, to be built by Space Industries
of Houston, is an orbiting laboratory designed to be tended by astro-
nauts, not inhabited by them. That makes it far simpler and cheaper
than the space station. It would be launched into orbit on the shuttle,
and, astronauts would visit periodically to monitor experiments in
low gravity crystal growing and materials processing. If successful,
extra modules could be added.
     With no humans lumbering around, the lab would be free of vib-
rations, an essential quality for many space experiments. It has
as much power as the Soviet Mir space station. Devised by Maxime
Faget, once a top NASA designer, the lab is built from off-the-shelf
parts and could be launched in 1991. The space station won't be ready
until 1997 at the earliest. To erect the space station requires 20
shuttle flights, the lab just one.
     The lab thus seems a better bet than investing in a full-fledged
space station right away. Yet NASA doesn't see it that way. The space
agency apparently prefers hardware to results. If cheap access to space
had been the agency's top priority, it could have pressed long ago to
reduce the cost of launching payloads from the present $3600 per pound
to $400 per pound, a project the Air Force and NASA have just begun.
The agency might have discovered the Antarctic ozone hole 10 years
ago in data from the Nimbus 7 satellite, but it invests so little
in analysis that most data from space sit unanalyzed in NASA's vaults.
     The agency says it has no need to lease space on the private
orbiting lab, and that the lab does not compete with the space station:
most experiments need to be continuously watched, as the space station
makes possible, not merely visited every four months. But the orbiting
lab, with its big solar panels, could supply the power to double the
shuttle's time in space, allowing for some extended experiment watching.
And doubtless some experiments now designed for continuous monitoring
could be adapted to the lab.
     The Industrial Space Facility looks like a carefully designed,
cost-effective way of exploiting specific goals in space. On careful
scrutiny, Congress might find the lab could achieve many of the goals
promised for the space station, allowing the station  to be postponed
or scaled down. The money and shuttle flights saved could then be
invested in getting results from space, instead of building hardware
for hardware's sake.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #119
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU;  5 Feb 88 06:19:54 EST
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	id AA04698; Fri, 5 Feb 88 03:18:52 PST
Date: Fri, 5 Feb 88 03:18:52 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8802051118.AA04698@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #120

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 120

Today's Topics:
		  Space Digest face to face meeting?
    space news from Dec 21 AW&ST + space-station editorial part 2
		      Piezoelectric Spacesuits?
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date:  4 Feb 1988 17:43-EST 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Space Digest face to face meeting?

I have been asked by Elisa Wynn, NSS Chapters Coordinator, to set up a
session at the 7th Space Development Conference for network people to
get together. The conference will be in Denver (see the posting earlier
this week) at the end of May. I'd like to see get a show of hands on who
is interested in doing this.

It would be an excellent forum for us to discuss digest issues in real
time. It would also be a good time to look into Eugene Miyas 'talking
books' digest archive project and any other ideas that are useful to
either promoting space via international networking or to simply
increasing the utility of this digest in either professional or
avocational usage.

Any and all suggestions are welcome. So are volunteers.

			Ted, Henry, Eugene: hint, hint...

------------------------------

Date: 2 Feb 88 04:43:02 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Dec 21 AW&ST + space-station editorial part 2

Cover:  image of the Antarctic ozone hole from weather-satellite data.

KH11 spysat imaged the second Energia on its pad earlier in fall.  It
was later removed; presumably this was for tests of some kind.  Next
launch thought to be set for early 88.

Italy is interested in taking part in the space station even if ESA as a
whole does not.  Italy is interested in the logistics module, and also
in use of tethers to lower reentry vehicles into a reentry trajectory.
[Italy is cosponsor of the shuttle tethered-satellite experiment.]

USSR proposes that US Mars Observer, to launch in 1992, be modified to
act as a relay satellite for data from the Soviet/French balloon probes.
This would considerably increase the number of images that could be
returned, by adding another relay satellite (the Soviet orbiters not
being able to provide 100% coverage).  Mars Observer will be finishing
its primary mission at about the time the balloons arrive.  It would
need a receiver for the balloons' signals, but otherwise there is little
cost involved.  White House and NASA seem to be taking the idea quite
seriously.

Soviets are planning a radarsat mission to Mars to fill the hole between
the Phobos missions (launch 1988) and the balloon missions (launch
1994).  Radar imaging would add information about surface composition
and the possible presence of water.

Launch of U of Chicago's cosmic ray experiment (flown on Spacelab 2 in
85) to Mir has been discussed informally.

Booster and spacecraft being readied for the Mir crew rotation.

Aussat studying four proposals for Australia's next comsats.  This is
one of the two major 1988 satellite buys, the other being the Intelsat 7
contract, and Aussat and Intelsat are interested in the possibility of
getting a quantity discount by choosing the same supplier.  Australians
have been offered launchers including Long March 3, Ariane, and US
expendables.  No bidder has openly said the word "Proton", but the
Aussies say they would be interested, and it is rumored that at least
one US (!)  bidder will offer a Proton option.  The US marketing agents
for Proton report having responded to several US requests for
information on Proton launches for Aussat.

Article on why the space station contracts went where they did, nothing
very interesting.

NASA's budget cut seriously, including major space-station cuts.  First
station operations will probably slip a year, to 95-96.  Shuttle
recovery program is also hurting, and Magellan's launch may be delayed.

Large article on SDI sounding-rocket experiment aimed at investigating
operation of high-powered electrical equipment in space.  It flew Dec
13, and pretty much completely worked.  Another is planned for about a
year from now, carrying more realistic hardware.  Of note [as a contrast
to some agencies we could name] is that this experiment took less than a
year to go from approval to launch.

Rocketdyne to build two ground-demonstration units of an isotope-heated
turbogenerator power system, aimed at providing several kW for military
satellites.  Launch safety remains a concern.

SDIO considers advancing the launch date for its Starlab laser-pointing
experiment by swapping it with another military shuttle mission.

ESA approves [finally] its 1988 mandatory budget.  [This is ESA's core
budget, requiring unanimous approval, that covers general operating
expenses, not major projects.]

KSC readiness for 1988 shuttle operations is being jeopardized by hiring
restrictions and personnel shortages, according to KSC director.

Japan Air Lines and Inmarsat demonstrate FAX transmissions between an
airborne 747 and ground stations, via Inmarsat satellites.

NASA decides to send a human inspector into the central cavity of
stacked SRBs; a fiber-optic instrument for joint inspection is badly
behind schedule.  The inspector will be suspended by crane, using a
breathing mask and a lamp.  Tests underway now.  Morton Thiokol says
this is not overly hazardous, and human entry into horizontal booster
segments is routine at both M-T and KSC already.  This is the first use
of human inspectors inside already-stacked boosters.  Late delivery of
support equipment is considered a potentially serious schedule problem.

KSC managers express concern that manpower is not adequate to process
three orbiters simultaneously, once launches get underway again.

NASA Langley is testing space-shuttle landing gear, aiming at less tire
wear and better steering for landings at KSC.  The KSC runway is very
rough, for good traction, and is quite hard on tires.  Langley says that
smoothing the touchdown area somewhat would greatly reduce tire damage
without hurting wet-weather handling.


[Saving the Space Station, Part 2.

In the first installment of this editorial, I argued that we need a
space station, but that the program is in desperate trouble and needs
drastic changes to survive.  Its missions should be support of a
biomedical lab, small hands-on experiments, satellite assembly, and
man-tending of free- flying platforms to support all the things that
want occasional human attention but don't want the noisy, dirty
environment of a manned station.  (Note that this is not quite the same
list of missions NASA has now.)

So, what sort of drastic changes am I talking about?

Well, first, foremost, and almost solely: Dump The Luxuries.  The
station is in deep financial trouble and can no longer afford to fund
everybody's pet project.  It is time to stick to building a useful space
station, and dispense with the pork barrel, the corporate welfare
programs, and the bureaucratic empire-building.

A major corollary of this, important enough to be mentioned in its own
right, is: Use Existing Hardware.  One reason why the station is so
scandalously expensive is that it's developing nearly everything from
scratch.  This has to stop; new development should focus on the (few)
things which *cannot* be bought off the shelf.

On to specifics.

The first Luxury which has to go is all the "high technology" swill.
The station's budget for automation and robotics development, in
particular, should be ZERO.  There have been nine space stations flown
to date (eight by the USSR), most of them quite successful, none of them
with any significant use of leading-edge automation or robotics.  The
same applies more generally to high technology: the only fundamental
defect of Skylab -- built with early-60's technology -- was the lack of
any way to resupply it in orbit.  (It had other flaws, but nothing that
could not have been cured easily at the time with 5% higher funding and
a longer-range outlook.)  The station cannot afford to develop
technology it does not need, and that means it should do virtually no
technology development.

Next in the list of Luxuries is the Polar Platform.  This has nothing,
absolutely nothing, to do with the space station, and should be funded
on its own merits or not at all.  (NRC agrees with me, by the way.)

And speaking of Platforms, the Co-Orbiting Platform needs, at the very
least, a long hard look.  I don't recall the details of the current
plans for it, but I strongly suspect it falls under the same heading as
the Polar Platform.

But I did say I wanted co-orbiting platforms, didn't I?  Yes, but not of
that sort.  The station needs one major shared platform for multiple
small experiments, and a handful of modest single-experiment platforms
for things that are especially touchy or that have outgrown the shared
platform.  Neither of these needs to be developed from scratch.  SII's
Industrial Space Facility is perfect for the shared platform, and there
have been several proposals for small platforms that would do for the
other role.  NASA's role in these projects should be limited to ensuring
compatibility and guaranteeing startup customers; there is no need for
major NASA funding for hardware that private industry is perfectly
willing to finance itself.

That leaves us with the station proper.  The most obvious essential is
the pressurized modules.  Can we buy existing hardware there?  Damn
right.  ESA would be overjoyed to see a straight commercial order for
half a dozen Spacelab "long modules"; they have long felt that they got
thoroughly shafted on the original Spacelab deal, and this would go a
long way toward fixing that.  It would be worth seeing if the "long
module" could be stretched into an "extra-long module" cheaply, but this
is not vital.  Yes, this means that agreement with the Europeans is
essential and that it would not be even theoretically possible for NASA
to "go it alone if necessary"; the current unwillingness to depend on
supposed "partners" is another Luxury, as are the parochial US demands
that are obstructing agreement with ESA.

The hardware to connect the modules is probably going to have to be
built from scratch.  This means that it should be kept as simple as
possible.  If the station needs more internal volume, we add more
modules and more connectors, rather than making the existing ones
fatter.  (Note that this is the opposite of what NASA is doing, and the
budget reflects it.)  The station should be planned around adding a
shuttle external tank (or more than one!) as the long-term solution to
volume problems.

The Spacelab modules do need external support equipment to provide
things like power and life support, as do the currently-planned station
modules.  In the current plan, this support equipment is partly built in
and partly the responsibility of a "logistics module" which is
periodically replaced.  A reasonable plan.  The built-in stuff will need
some development, as will the other "furnishings" of the pressurized
modules; much of it can be done with commercially-available hardware,
though.  As I recall, Japan originally wanted to do the logistics
module.  Fine, let them; we need that much more badly than we need Yet
Another Laboratory Module, which is what they're doing in the current
plan.  See above comments on international cooperation.

Given that the station I envision is *not* a mounting point for major
experiments, the need for the big truss needs to be re-assessed.  If it
remains necessary, it's time to get some construction firms bidding.  If
they are allowed to make it a bit heavier than an aerospace contractor
would, they can do it FAR more cheaply.  The station is not like the
shuttle: every kilo of dead weight in either is that much less payload
when it's launched, but the station only needs to be launched ONCE.  We
are far better off accepting slightly higher launch costs to keep the
development costs down.

Yes, the station needs reboosting periodically, but a heavier station
will need that less often, so to a first approximation the weight of the
station cancels out when computing station-keeping costs.  In fact the
heavier station probably comes out ahead when indirect costs [e.g.
experiments disrupted by reboost acceleration] are figured in.

Speaking of reboosting...  rather than developing all-new hardware for
the station, the simplest way to handle this is to carefully put the
logistics module at the center of gravity and include an off-the-shelf
liquid-fuel engine and tankage in it.  Since the logistics module gets
replaced with a new one regularly anyway, and that is the logical time
for a reboost (this puts the replenishment visits at the low point of
the station's path, which is just right for maximizing shuttle payload),
this eliminates any need to mess with in-space refuelling and so forth.
This is *not* ideal and we should pursue better systems, but it will get
the station operational with minimum delay and cost, which is the major
requirement right now.

The station needs power.  Fortunately there are several commercially-
available large solar arrays.  Buy a dozen of whichever looks best.  It
will be cheaper and quicker than building a new design from scratch.
Solar-dynamic power is an excellent idea, LATER.  The nonsense of
running the power at 20 kHz, requiring *everything* to be developed from
scratch, is a Luxury of the stupidest kind and should be discarded at
once.  Yes, higher frequencies mean lighter power equipment, which is
why aircraft power systems run at 400 Hz rather than 50 or 60 like
land-based power.  Off-the- shelf aircraft hardware will do just fine
for most of the station's needs; the extra benefits of 20 kHz cannot
possibly pay for themselves.

Some other support systems, like cooling, probably will need some new
development.  Again the emphasis should be on simplicity and rapid
availability rather than on optimal design and minimal weight, and
aerospace contractors should be avoided whenever possible -- those
people couldn't sell you a pencil for less than $10 if they tried,
especially with NASA "helping".

Although we should be putting some effort into things like lightweight
spacesuits for easier EVA, for the moment we will need remote
manipulator arms of some sort.  This is also said to be the easiest way
to dock the shuttle to the station; could be.  Fortunately, reasonably
suitable arms are available off the shelf (well, almost...) from Spar
Aerospace, which builds them for the shuttle.  There is no reason to
mess around with a major redesign.  As for the mobile base for them,
dare I suggest that it's better to just buy half a dozen arms and put
them in all the likely places?

Finally, we have to launch the thing.  At least some of the stuff will
have to go up on the shuttle, since it's the only man-rated launch
system we've got handy (unless we take the Soviets up on Commercial
Soyuz!!).  It sure would be nice to use a heavylift booster for the big
things, though.  I know how to make one available, too.  Just ask
Boeing/Hughes to quote a price for twenty Jarvis launches spread over,
say, ten years.  The station won't need all of them, of course, but does
anyone suggest that we can't find uses for the rest?  And the nice part
of it is that Boeing and Hughes are willing to do the development with
their own money, provided they're sure of having customers.  The one
thing better than getting a heavylift booster is getting it FREE -- and
we can.

Intelligently done, the above program would cut station costs vastly,
and probably shave some time off the schedule too.  [These are not
unrelated; doing something sooner is usually *cheaper* these days.]  Do
I think there is any chance of it happening?  No way, no hope, no
chance.  Remember how Congress squealed when NASA proposed some minor
rearrangements in station responsibilities within the US?  How do you
think they would react to some of the above suggestions right off the
bat, never mind after the lobbyists got going?

My prediction?  I give the space station less than a 50-50 chance, the
way things are going.  And I don't see any way to save it.]

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date:         Tue, 19 Jan 88 14:31:34 EST
From: ST401385@brownvm
Subject:      Piezoelectric Spacesuits?


Comments by Joe Brenner about my suggestion of a spacesuit based on
piezoelectric fibers that contracts to exert a constant pressure on
the body when in vacuum:
      From: ^  Victor Von Doom  ^   <J.JBRENNER@MACBETH.STANFORD.EDU>
>What caught my eye was your piezoelectric space suits.  I've liked the
>skin tight space suit idea ever since I first read about it in one of
>Pournelle's articles in Galaxy back in the 70's, but I have to say that
>I'm dubious about being able to use the piezoelectric effect to tighten
>them up. The range of motion you can (currently) get out of a piezo is
>really pretty small (though I'm told you can amplify it using strips of
>disimilar materials, as in a thermostat).  And what happens if the suit
>loses power?  Are you envisioning using the actuating force from the
>piezos against some sort of elastic springs, i.e. you have to supply
>power to remove the suit?

>I have an alternate suggestion that I like better, though I'm not sure
>I know how to work out all the details: shape memory metals.  Currently
>there are two uses of Nitinol (nickel-titanium).  One is in connectors
>in F-14s, the other is in Japanese bras. The way they work in Japanese
>bras is that there's a flat spot in the stress vs. strain curve, so
>that when you put the bra on, you exert a constant, low force to
>stretch it into place (rather than exerting a force increasing
>proportionally with the amount of extension, as you would in a typical
>elastic material). The bra doesn't become streched out, however,
>because the heat of washing and drying is enough to return them to
>their original shape.

>I imagine you could squeeze into a shape memory space suit fairly
>easily then apply a touch of current to heat the wires and cinch the
>suit into place.  There might be problems with the suit stretching out
>as you work in it.  You need *some* ordinary elasticity and possibly a
>periodically applied current to restore the shape of the suit.  Maybe
>pulsing the current fairly frequently would allow you to use this
>effect for general heating purposes also. Bad news if you're in
>someplace warm and you need to stay cool, though.


    Yes, piezoelectric spacesuits would assume a new miracle material!
Other than that, though, they would have some advantages over shape
memory suits or stretchy suits, in that the on-board computer could
exactly compensate for changing volume to keep a constant pressure,
making it "feel" like there was no suit there at all.
    I'd worry about the shape-memory suit.  Space is not a very good
isothermal system; you'd hate to step into a shadow and all of a sudden
have your suit depressurize!  How about a suit made of thin foam
(polyurethane, maybe? or just plain neoprene?  which will expand in
vacuum?

--Geoffrey A. Landis, Ph.D
          Until 23 January: Brown University, BITNET: ST401385 at BROWNVM
          Internet: ST401385%BROWNVM.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
          After 23 January: NASA Lewis Research Center
                            21000 Brookpark Road, Cleveland Ohio 44135

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #120
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU;  6 Feb 88 06:19:19 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA06162; Sat, 6 Feb 88 03:18:02 PST
	id AA06162; Sat, 6 Feb 88 03:18:02 PST
Date: Sat, 6 Feb 88 03:18:02 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8802061118.AA06162@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #121

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 121

Today's Topics:
		     Re: NYT editorial on space.
		     Article about Space Station
		 RE: Space station editorial, part 1
			  Re: space station
	       Re: RE: Space station editorial, part 1
		     re:Sierra Club Weenie Roast
		      Re: Solar System Volcanos
			Re: Japanese Astronomy
	      Re: SPACE Digest V8 #108, Earth's rotation
		 Re: Earth's rotation is speeding up
		 Re: Earth's rotation is speeding up
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 19 Jan 88 22:03:01 GMT
From: amdahl!reddy@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (T.S. Reddy)
Subject: Re: NYT editorial on space.

In article <3507@mtgzz.UUCP>, dls@mtgzz.UUCP (XMRP50000[jto]-d.l.skran) writes:
> 3)The picture that accompanied this editorial was deceptive -- it showed
> the ISF, the station, and MIR. Problems include:
> 
> 	A)It showed only the MIR core(!) with no add-on modules. This
> 	  considerably understates MIR's value and size.
> Dale Skran

    You're right Dale in that it's not the quantity that counts, but
quality. I remember reading somewhere though that, during the joint
space excercise between the US and SU in the seventies, the Soviets also
fudged the size of their module to show that it was as big as the US
one! But enough of that.
    I agree that the ISF is a nice idea, but disagree that NASA should
go with both the Space Station and the ISF. The ISF kills a lot of birds
(to borrow an idiom) with one stone, among them:
 1) It will be in space much before the Space Station, thus
re-establishing regular US presence in space in the very near future.
 2) It will be a private enterprise operation, thus representing
eminently this nation's very philosphy of captalism in outer space. As a
corollary NASA will be a sort of guideline agency rather than one which
does the integration/launching. This is how a government agency should
operate.
 3) Considering that the commercial viability of space is yet to be
proven, there is no need to spend $32 billion (which will definitely go
up) on a space station only to find out that it is really not necessary.
     To me, it looks like NASA still believes that it is in the
unlimited availability of monies mode of the sixties when it should be
thinking about wringing all it can out of every space dollar spent.
     Thank you for your support!

T.S.Reddy
Arpa: reddy@amdahl.amdahl.com

------------------------------

Date: 20 Jan 88 00:13:24 GMT
From: rochester!daemon@cu-arpa.cs.cornell.edu  (Brad Miller)
Subject: Article about Space Station

I just thought I'd give y'all a pointer to Feb 88 REASON mag, as it
contains an article on the space shuttle.

Cover: Ronnice is a westernized space suit. Subtitle:

Lost in Space -- Billions and Billions for a Space Station Nobody Wants

Byline: T.A. Heppenheimer


It's an interesting chronicle of the politics involved in the SS
project. A 25 word summary might be that the contractors want the SS
because otherwise there's no big $ projects, and NASA wants it because
otherwise who needs NASA.

Read the article, I won't defend it.

miller@cs.rochester.edu {...allegra!rochester!miller}

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 22 Jan 88 17:02 EDT
From: "Paul F. Dietz" <DIETZ%sdr.slb.com@relay.cs.net>
Subject: RE: Space station editorial, part 1
To: clyde!watmath!utgpu!utzoo!henry@rutgers.edu, space@angband.s1.gov

Henry,

I liked the alcoholic analogy.  Some comments...

(1) It's clear that a manned presence is needed for extensive biological
microgravity work.  You don't need much of a station for this, though.

(2) I am unconvinced a manned presence for the purpose of assembly and
repair could be economical at current launch costs. The cost of keeping
a person in space with the current station design is several million
dollars per day; at that rate it makes sense to spend more than a
man-year of effort on the ground to save one man-hour in space.

(3) As Van Allen noted a few years back, the potential of microgravity
manufacturing has been so hyperbolized as to leave the informed person
gasping for breathe. NASA keeps trotting out a few tired examples (3M's
crystal research, McD-D's CFE apparatus; but note that McD-D is a
station contractor); if they had much more wouldn't they tell everyone?
The reaction of most american industry to microgravity research has
silence or derision.

Given that the prospects for manufacturing are poor, there is little
reason to make microgravity materials research a major funding target.

(4) The space station program is built on a foundation of sand: the
assumption that the shuttle program succeeded. It didn't, but NASA bulls
ahead anyway. Mir is criticized for being small and low tech, but the
Soviets have concentrated their efforts quite sensibly on the real
bottleneck to space: launch costs. NASA should do the same, even if it
means euthanasia for the space station.  We'll be better off in the long
run.

	Paul F. Dietz
	dietz@sdr.slb.com

------------------------------

Date: 25 Jan 88 21:25:08 GMT
From: ecsvax!hunnic@mcnc.org  (Jeff Hunnicutt)
Subject: Re: space station


I think that we should get into an orbiting space station before we talk
about going back to the moon.  I do not see it as economically feasible
to try a lunar base.  We have neither the capability or the funding for
such a project.  The shuttle was not designed with lunar missions in
mind.  The cost of getting men, materials, supplies, etc. to the lunar
surface is certainly higher than getting a space station in orbit and
could be done in a fraction of the time it would take to develop a new
generation of lunar craft and heavy lift vehicle.  Once in orbit we
could use the station as a stepping stone to future lunar endeavors.  I
do not see the governmant shelling out big bucks for a project that may
be shelved in the future for the sake of budget cuts.  I am all for a
lunar base its just that i think we should get back into the shallow end
of the pool before we go for the deep end.

------------------------------

Date: 31 Jan 88 01:06:23 GMT
From: uflorida!codas!burl!clyde!watmath!utgpu!utzoo!henry@gatech.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: RE: Space station editorial, part 1

> (1) It's clear that a manned presence is needed for extensive
> biological microgravity work.  You don't need much of a station for
> this, though.

That's good, because we aren't getting much of one!  I predict problems
for the station as now planned, because the biomedical-lab environment
is not going to be a very good place for materials research, and they're
not very well separated.

> (2) I am unconvinced a manned presence for the purpose of assembly and
> repair could be economical at current launch costs...

I would like to see a proper study of this before conceding the point.
Launches were not exactly cheap when Fairchild did the Leasecraft study.
I admit that I'm not confident of the result.  However, note another
issue I mentioned: on-orbit assembly permits doing things that Cannot Be
Done otherwise at present.  The obvious example is sending Galileo to
Jupiter on a direct, fast trajectory.  There are enough uses for
on-orbit assembly to make it valuable on at least an experimental basis.
Eventually we will want it in a big way, and it's high time to start
sorting out how to do it.  (This sort of technology development is,
after all, supposed to be a major NASA responsibility.)  That means
DOING IT, not thinking about it.

> (3) As Van Allen noted a few years back, the potential of microgravity
> manufacturing has been so hyperbolized as to leave the informed person
> gasping for breathe...

Microgravity manufacturing definitely is not going to suddenly spring
into vigorous activity.  Just as well, since we're not going to be able
to support vigorous activity in the immediate future.  The best we can
hope for is to do a good job on supporting basic, and some applied,
research.  That means more than five-minute sounding-rocket flights, and
more than the one-week-per-decade situation offered by the shuttle.
Last I heard, there is no shortage of investigators, especially at
universities rather than companies, who would like space access for
this.  There is potential there, even if next-quarter-oriented companies
cannot justify funding it right now.

> ... Mir is criticized for being small and low tech, but the Soviets
> have concentrated their efforts quite sensibly on the real bottleneck
> to space: launch costs. NASA should do the same, even if it means
> euthanasia for the space station.  We'll be better off in the long
> run.

The Soviets have not "concentrated their efforts" on low launch costs.
They don't seem to agree that one can only have one major objective at a
time.  You haven't heard *me* criticizing Mir for being small and low
tech; it is large and high tech compared to its current competition.
And it's up NOW; they did not wait for Energia to become operational to
start getting experience running a space station.

Finally, while I agree that massive reduction of launch costs is our
biggest priority by any reasonable measure, the chances of achieving
this objective by having NASA (or the USAF) do it are nil.

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 17 Jan 88 05:34:41 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: re:Sierra Club Weenie Roast

> ... Space is deadly; if you move into space you _must_ live in an
> artificial enviornment because you die if you experience the natural
> enviornment there...

Many parts of Earth are just as deadly.  Experiencing the natural
environment of over half the surface of Earth usually results in
drowning.  Experiencing the natural environment of a midwinter blizzard
in central Saskatchewan -- where I was born and raised -- will kill you
almost as quickly as space would.  Experiencing the natural environment
of the Los Angeles basin, notably its distinct shortage of water, would
kill most of the population of LA within days.  Space is different in
degree, not in kind.

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 20 Jan 88 09:36:35 GMT
From: sdcc6!calmasd!wlp@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu  (Walter Peterson)
Subject: Re: Solar System Volcanos

The gold medal goes to Olympus Mons, by far the largest volcano in the
solar system. It rises more than 26Km above the surrounding Martian
plains and is roughly 700Km in diameter ( diameter here is used *very*
freely, as none of these features are really round ).

The silver medal goes to Maxwell Mountain on Venus.  It is about 10Km
above the mean radius of the planet and on the order of 300Km in dia.

Finally, for the bronze is "lowly" Mauna Loa.  It also rises about 10Km
above the Pacific abyssal plain, but is only on the order of 150Km in
dia.

A possible reason for the greater height to width ratio of Mauna Loa is
that it errupted from the ocean floor and the cooling effect of water
solidified the lava sooner keeping it from spreading out.  Such would
not have been the case with either Olympus Mons or Maxwell.

All three of these feature are what are called shield volcanos. These
type of volcanos on earth don't produce large amounts of atmospheric
ejecta, they mostly pour out vast quantites of lava.  Caldera eruptions
on the other hand do put out hugh quantities of atmospheric eject.  From
that point of view the "largest" volcano in the solar system is probably
the Long Valley Caldera Volcano in California, which last exploded 1000s
of years ago, covering the entire U.S. in ash !!!

The sulphur volcanos of Io probably do not rise very high above the
average radius of the satellite.  The extreame tidal effects of Jupiter
rework the surface of Io so fast that no feature would have a chance to
grow very large.  The largest caldera seen on Io is about 50Km in dia.
The ejecta from the sulphur volcanos does indeed go into orbit arround
Jupiter, but since Io is only 1.21 times the mass of Luna and the eject
is estimated to break the surface at 500 to 1000 meters/sec, that is not
too surprising.

See Abell, Morrison, and Wolff "Realm of the Universe" Sanders College
Press, 1988

and 

Murray, B. ed, "The Planets" Freeman, 1983

Walt Peterson   GE-Calma San Diego R&D

------------------------------

Date: 20 Jan 88 18:44:37 GMT
From: cfa!willner@husc6.harvard.edu  (Steve Willner)
Subject: Re: Japanese Astronomy

In an otherwise excellent article <1437@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM> on the
Japanese space program, kempf@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM (Jim Kempf) says:
> ... there is no well known international astronomer of Japanese origin
> and a very weak astronomical program in general.

It's not clear whether this statement is from Mr. Kempf or from the
article he is quoting, but I have to dispute at least the second part.
While Japanese astronomy is arguably weaker than it ought to be
considering the strength of the Japanese economy, describing it as "very
weak" in absolute term is too severe.

The Japanese astronomy community is small but excellent in certain
areas.  While Japan has no large optical telescopes, they do operate the
world's largest millimeter-wave telescope (45 meters) and a world-class
millimeter interferometer.  These instruments, used by both Japanese and
foreigners, have made major contributions to understanding of molecular
clouds and star formation.  Japan (ISAS) has also launched two X-ray
satellites, one of which (GINGA, I think) made the first X-ray detection
of the Magellanic Cloud supernova.  Also notable were the Halley's Comet
flybys.

While no Japanese astronomer is publicly recognized (at least in this
country), many are well known to other astronomers and are highly
respected.  The term "Hayashi track", for example, is known (or ought to
be) to all astronomers.

Steve Willner            Phone 617-495-7123          Bitnet: willner@cfa2
60 Garden St.            FTS:      830-7123           UUCP:   willner@cfa
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA                     ARPA: willner@cfa.harvard.edu

------------------------------

Date: 20 Jan 1988 21:00-EST 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: SPACE Digest V8 #108, Earth's rotation

The current front runner theory for the moon's formation would make life
difficult for any cell on earth, since it requires a grazing impact of a
Mars sized planetisimal.

It is only in the last few years that this idea has gained credence,
because only recently have computer simulations shown that the results
of such a collision would be pretty much what we see: a moon size body
with depleted volatiles.

Under this scenario, the moon accreted from the fraction of Terran and
planetisimal crust that fell into stable orbit. Most of the material
would have escaped.

It would also place the time of the event in the early formative years
when large planetisimals were still wandering around like Velikovskian
planetary billiard balls.

The lunar crust, as dated from Apollo samples, is also quite old. FAR
FAR older than .7G BP. More like ~4.3G BP for undisturbed areas (ie not
from the maria which are slightly younger.

------------------------------

Date: 21 Jan 88 15:59:09 GMT
From: ulysses!gamma!pyuxp!nvuxj!nvuxg!nvuxk!perseus@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (A D Domaratius)
Subject: Re: Earth's rotation is speeding up

In article <10080@ut-sally.UUCP>, nather@ut-sally.UUCP writes:
> Observations of the moon show that its distance from the earth is
> getting greater all the time

I had heard the other day that the moon was as close as 10k miles from
the earth at one time.  Is that true.  Can't the rate of movement of the
moon from the earth be used to calculate the time that it may have been
a part of the earth as is theorized by some people?

Al Domaratius

------------------------------

Date: 23 Jan 88 15:12:34 GMT
From: nather@sally.utexas.edu  (Ed Nather)
Subject: Re: Earth's rotation is speeding up

In article <280@nvuxk.UUCP>, perseus@nvuxk.UUCP (A D Domaratius) writes:
> I had heard the other day that the moon was as close as 10k miles from
> the earth at one time.  Is that true.  Can't the rate of movement of
> the moon from the earth be used to calculate the time that it may have
> been a part of the earth as is theorized by some people?

I'm afraid it's not that simple -- if you put a moon too close to a
planet it is subject to severe tidal forces which can disrupt it.  This
is the main (theoretical) argument against the theory you mentioned.

By the way, even having a plausible theory doesn't mean that's what
actually happened.  (And you thought astronomy as *easy*!)

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #121
*******************

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	id AA07462; Sun, 7 Feb 88 03:19:36 PST
Date: Sun, 7 Feb 88 03:19:36 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8802071119.AA07462@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #122

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 122

Today's Topics:
		 Re: Earth's rotation is speeding up
		 Re: Moon with orbit less than a day
		 Re: Earth's rotation is speeding up
			missing/phantom matter
		       Re: Dynamic Instability
		    X-29A references as requested
		   Re: Arado 234 not swept forward
		   Re: Arado 234 not swept forward
			      Re: Stalls
	   Re: Forward Swept Wings and Dynamic Instability
			 Forward Swept Wings
			      Re: Stalls
			      Re: Stalls
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 23 Jan 88 14:12:42 GMT
From: bill@astro.as.utexas.edu  (William H. Jefferys)
Subject: Re: Earth's rotation is speeding up

No, it can't. The rate is variable and depends, upon other things, on
the existence or nonexistence of resonant modes of energy dissipation,
which vary over time in a random way due to continental drift, varying
heights of the ocean, etc. These resonant modes can drastically alter
the "Q" of the system. The present rate is unusually large.

This was discussed several years ago in an article in _Science_, but I
don't have the reference handy. I could find it if you are really
interested.

Bill Jefferys

------------------------------

Date: 26 Jan 1988 14:22-EST 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: Moon with orbit less than a day

I've read some recent theorizations that a number of the larger lunar
impacts may have been caused by the breakup of 2-3 smaller bodies as
they breached the Roche limit and then impacted, each series seperated
by many millions of years. Theory holds that this is an explanation for
some of the masscons, and also suggests that the impacts occured along
the original orbital path, but the impact masses were sufficient that
the moon would stabilize after some time with the impacts all on the
equator. Three different 'former' lunar equators are suggested.

I have seen no other papers that confirm or disconfirm the conclusions
of this paper.

------------------------------

Date: 26 Jan 88 16:40:53 GMT
From: ptsfa!varian!vaxwaller!chip@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Chip Kozy)
Subject: Re: Earth's rotation is speeding up

In article <280@nvuxk.UUCP>, perseus@nvuxk.UUCP (A D Domaratius) writes:
. In article <10080@ut-sally.UUCP>, nather@ut-sally.UUCP writes:
. . 
. . Observations of the moon show that its distance from the earth is
. . getting greater all the time
. 
. I had heard the other day that the moon was as close as 10k miles
. from the earth at one time.  Is that true.  Can't the rate of movement
. of the moon from the earth be used to calculate the time that it may
. have been a part of the earth as is theorized by some people?

	It's highly probable that the moon was never part of the earth.
I believe examination of the moon rocks is the basis for this.

	However, an interesting thought occurs.  If the moon was at one
time a "lot" closer, would it have been recent enough to affect
continental drift and all its' associated phenomina (i.e. vulcanism,
faulting, plate tectonics in general, etc.)?  (I should add "and close
enough" up at the beginning of the last sentence, but I'm too lazy, so
it's here instead ;-)).

					Sto lat;
					Chip

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 31 Jan 88  17:21:19 EST
From: nutto%UMASS.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu (Andy Steinberg)
Sender: ota@galileo.s1.gov
Subject: missing/phantom matter

I'm fairly familiar with the missing mass problem, that about 95% of the
matter in the universe seems to be invisible. But recently my friend Jim
mentioned something called phantom matter. I could not find this in any
of my astronomy books and all he could tell me was that it was like
being stuck in space but able to move forward, backward, and sideways in
time freely. Could someone please elaborate this?

USnail: Andy Steinberg          BITNet: nutto@UMass
        216 Johnson             Internet: nutto%UMass.BITNet@cunyvm.cuny.edu
        UMass                             nutto%UMass.BITNet@mitvma.mit.edu
        Amherst, MA. 01003      Phone: 413-546-3227

------------------------------

Date: 16 Jan 88 21:41:22 GMT
From: cfa!willner@husc6.harvard.edu  (Steve Willner)
Subject: Re: Dynamic Instability

in article <4505@hplabsb.UUCP>, dsmith@hplabsb.UUCP (David Smith) says:
> Dynamically unstable aircraft dispense with this inherent stability,
> and maintain stable flight by sensing uncommanded movements and
> countering them with control surface movements.  This requires a
> computer.

The "computer" may be a biological one in some cases.  Remember the
Wright flyer?  The Wright brothers were the first (as far as I know) to
recognize the importance of control but thought dynamic instability was
the only way to achieve it.
-- 
Steve Willner            Phone 617-495-7123          Bitnet: willner@cfa2
60 Garden St.            FTS:      830-7123           UUCP:   willner@cfa
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA                     ARPA: willner@cfa.harvard.edu

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 19 Jan 88 09:45:07 pst
From: Eugene Miya N. <eugene@PIONEER.ARC.NASA.GOV>
Subject: X-29A references as requested

Here's some refer (for obvious reasons):

%A Gadi Kaplan
%T The X-29: Is it coming or going?
%J IEEE Spectrum
%V 22
%N 6
%D June 1985
%P 54-60

You will probably want this first, but I doubt many would want the
following articles (maybe 2 readers).

%A Don Anderson
%T X-29 foward-swept wing flight control system
%J Joint AIAA-IEEE Fifith Digital Avionics Systems Conference
%D Nov. 1983
%X IEEE no. 83 CH 1839-0

%A A. Whitaker
%A J. Chin
%Z Grumman
%T X-29 digital flight control system design
%J Symp. Active Systems Control
%C Toronto, Canada
%D Oct. 1984

%A Joel Markowitz
%Z Grumman
%T An Efficient Structural Resizing Procedure for Meeting Static
Aeroelastic Design Objectives
%J Journal of Aircraft
%V 16
%N 2
%D Feb. 1979
%P 65-71

Additionally, several dozen NASA and DARPA TRs available from libraries.

>From the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA

------------------------------

Date: 20 Jan 1988 21:14-EST 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: Arado 234 not swept forward

Unless the sweep forward was too small to be visually noticeable, the
German Arado 234 bomber had a straight wing over the top of
the fuselage with one jet slung underneath each side on a pylon.

------------------------------

Date: 21 Jan 88 18:30:23 GMT
From: concertina!fiddler@sun.com  (Steve Hix)
Subject: Re: Arado 234 not swept forward

In article <569729685.amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU>, Dale.Amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU writes:
> Unless the sweep forward was too small to be visually noticeable, the
> German Arado 234 bomber had a straight wing over the top of
> the fuselage with one jet slung underneath each side on a pylon.

You're right, it wasn't the Arado.  However, one of the the prototype
German jet bombers *did* have a slight forward sweep.  I'll see if I
can find pictures somewhere to be sure, but I think Heinkel may have
done it.  (Off to the library...)

------------------------------

Date: 21 Jan 1988 22:24-EST 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: Stalls

I would suggest that any aircraft can be brought out of a clean stall,
(ie nose up, power off or down), SO LONG AS IT DOES NOT SLIDE OFF THE
STALL TO EITHER SIDE.

I base the presumption on a very simple fact, known to any pilot.

		A LANDING IS A CONTROLLED STALL.

I have heard, and expect someone will tell me if I'm wrong, that some of
the Rutan aircraft like the Vari-eze, and a few other aircraft which
stall only with difficulty, take a very different piloting technique
because you 'fly them onto the runway'.

The difficulty with a stall at altitude is that many high performance
aircraft will tend to fall off the stall into a flat spin. This is
unrecoverable except in some aerobatic aircraft and grounds for
immediate ejection. It is particularly nasty in a jet because with the
inlet air at such low speed, the engines can't even be restarted from a
power out stall. I have heard that compressed gas(?) for the engine
restart or possibly JATO packs to stop the spin have been tried. I do
not know if this has become standard equipment anywhere, or even if it
works particularly well.

I can not say what the results of a power on stall would be on a jet,
since most of my experiences or those of friends have been at several
less horsepower. It can be pretty scary for a non-acrobatic pilot even
in a well balanced plane. "Any aircraft can be stalled at any power
setting or attitude." Is an almost truism (except for Rutan).

Isn't wing dihedral is also used to keep the approach to stall
characteristics honest? I believe that aircraft like the F4U Corsair had
the dual dihedral so they would have both good high speed fighter
performance and a very low stall speed for carrier approach.

All of the 7x7 series have a positive dihedral, and I would guess that
this is a major factors controlling their stall recovery
characteristics. I'm certain Dani Eder has access to the people at
Boeing who can give the FINAL WORD on stall characteristics of Boeing
products...

------------------------------

Date: 21 Jan 88 18:27:46 GMT
From: pyramid!fmsrl7!eecae!crlt!russ@decwrl.dec.com  (Russ Cage)
Subject: Re: Forward Swept Wings and Dynamic Instability

In article <39204@sun.uucp>, fiddler%concertina@Sun.COM (Steve Hix) writes:
>In article <1053@devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>, des@jplpro.JPL.NASA.GOV (David Smyth) writes:
>> Second, a 747 has stalled and recovered.  It did go into an inverted
>> spin first, but luckily it did recover after only loosing 37000 feet
>> of altitude.  The pilots completely freaked out, and the cockpit recorders
>> picked up crying and asking for mommy.  The plane recovered by itself.
>> Of course I am referring to the China Airlines 747 which safely landed at
>> SFO, but (I think) never took off again...
                      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>Yeah, it was kind of bent in places...

If this is the incident of which I heard, that is not true.  I read
about an incident in which a 747, en route to SFO, had the #4 engine
fail to spool up again because of bleed-load hogging after the
autothrottle had brought all engines back to flight idle.  (The cause
was a worn part in the fuel computer.)  The imbalanced thrust
overpowered the autopilot (which does not use the rudder) and the plane
rolled off to the right.  The plane was in IFR conditions, and the
pilots did not believe what they saw on their gyros.  Shortly
thereafter, they were pinned down by 5 G's.  They recovered after coming
out of the clouds and acquiring visual references again (not
surprising).

Half the horizontal stabilizer was gone, and the wing acquired a
permanent upward set of a couple of feet.  *The wing was returned to
service*, and I assume that the aircraft is now flying again after
repairs.  Considering that the cracked-in-half Boeing is slated to be
repaired and flown again, trivial matters such as a broken stabilizer
are nothing.  Goodness, the airplane flew without it; if the structure
is okay, it'll fly safely once it's repaired.

Russ Cage, Robust Software Inc (rsi@m-net)

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 22 Jan 88 11:26 EDT
From: ELIOT%cs.umass.edu@relay.cs.net
Subject: Forward Swept Wings

There was a reasonably good non-technical article on this a couple years
ago in Science85/86.  As I recall it started as a doctoral thesis
(probably something like a study of the dynamic properties of FSW in
supersonic flight.)  By coincidence the student or his professor ended
up as the head of an Air Force experimental research unit and was in a
position to make decisions about what kind of experimental planes to
build.

The decision to put a pilot in it was, as I recall, purely political.
It made the program more visible and harder for the Air Force to decide
not to follow up.  The scientific research could have been done just as
well in a cheaper remote-control plane.

As I read all of this several years ago it is possible that I have
mis-rememebered any or all of it.

If you want to actually find the article I would start looking near the
time the test flights were done.

------------------------------

Date: 25 Jan 88 23:59:01 GMT
From: concertina!fiddler@sun.com  (Steve Hix)
Subject: Re: Stalls

In article <569820264.amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU>, Dale.Amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU writes:
> Isn't wing dihedral is also used to keep the approach to stall
> characteristics honest? I believe that aircraft like the F4U Corsair
> had the dual dihedral so they would have both good high speed fighter
> performance and a very low stall speed for carrier approach.

The F4U approached the problem of exceeding the performance of competing
Japanese fighter designs by simply putting the biggest engine available
at the time into as small an airframe as possible.  This meant that it
swung the largest propeller ever used up to that time in a
single-engined fighter.  The prop's diameter was something on the order
of 13.5'.

To get enough tip clearance so that the aircraft could take off, they
had the choice of *very* long landing gear (not so desirable for carrier
service...heavier and not so rugged), "cranking" the wing to move the
wheels down and still use shorter, stiffer oleos.

The outboard dihedral, however, would give the F4U added roll stability
without the penalty of a longer wing (also a no-no for carrier use).

There were other "gull-winged" aircraft in the '30s and '40s, but most,
such as the Lysander and Stinson Reliant series were bent opposite to
the F4U's layout.

	seh

------------------------------

Date: 25 Jan 88 21:53:32 GMT
From: pyramid!fmsrl7!eecae!crlt!russ@decwrl.dec.com  (Russ Cage)
Subject: Re: Stalls

(Followups to rec.aviation; this isn't a space topic any longer.)

In article <569820264.amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU>, Dale.Amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU writes:
>Isn't wing dihedral is also used to keep the approach to stall
>characteristics honest? I believe that aircraft like the F4U Corsair
>had the dual dihedral so they would have both good high speed fighter
>performance and a very low stall speed for carrier approach.

No, the F4U Corsair had an inverted gull wing so that the propeller
would clear the ground without very long (heavy) landing gear.  The bend
in the wing gave another 18" or so of height at the mains.

>I base the presumption on a very simple fact, known to any pilot.
>
>		A LANDING IS A CONTROLLED STALL.

Depends if you stall or not.  The reason that landings are done close to
the stall is to make the aircraft less likely to float, not roll so far
after touchdown, and be easier on the tires and brakes.  While my club
teaches landings with the stall warning going (meaning that the aircraft
is close to stalling), actual stalls aren't very common.

>I can not say what the results of a power on stall would be on a jet,
>since most of my experiences or those of friends have been at several
>less horsepower. It can be pretty scary for a non-acrobatic pilot even
>in a well balanced plane. "Any aircraft can be stalled at any power
>setting or attitude."

Are you a pilot?  What scares you about a stall?  Don't you know how to
recover from a stall?  How about a spin?  If the answers to the last two
questions aren't both "yes", with the comment "and I don't get too
worked up about them if they're done at altitude", I wouldn't want to
fly with you.  Do stalls for a couple of hours in a Cessna 152 sometime
(including power-on stalls and accelerated stalls) and see if you don't
get more comfortable with them.

(Yes, I'm a pilot.  Yes, I've had a bit of aerobatic training.  No,
 stalls, spins, critical attitudes nor hood work have never made me lose
 my cool, nor have in-flight electrical system failures at night.)

Russ Cage, Robust Software Inc.
 rsi@m-net

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #122
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU;  8 Feb 88 06:21:44 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA08911; Mon, 8 Feb 88 03:18:42 PST
	id AA08911; Mon, 8 Feb 88 03:18:42 PST
Date: Mon, 8 Feb 88 03:18:42 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8802081118.AA08911@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #123

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 123

Today's Topics:
		 How Probable are Earth-like Planets?
		   Starship: Peeing in the Stream?
			Solar System Volcanos
			     Biocentrism
		      Re: Solar System Volcanos
		      Re: Solar System Volcanos
		      Re: Solar System Volcanos
		      Re: Solar System Volcanos
			Re: "RE: Face on Mars"
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Mon, 1 Feb 88 18:40:30 PST
From: ota@galileo.s1.gov
Subject: How Probable are Earth-like Planets?
Cc: ota@galileo.s1.gov

There is a fascinating article in the February 88, Scientific American
on the formation of planetary atmospheres.  In a nutshell, it suggests
that the range of habitable orbits for a planet around a star is much
wider than has previously been thought.  This is due to a active
feedback mechanism that controls the CO2 concentration of the atmosphere
to regulate the temperature within more-or-less habitable ranges.  This
cycle is driven by plate tectonics which subducts and heats the
planetary crust; thereby releasing through plate margin vulcanism the
CO2 trapped in Carbonaceous sediments.  The CO2 is removed from the
atmosphere in a temperature sensitive fashion by the rain.

This cycle brings to mind the policy described in David Brin's Sundiver
books of locating long-lived evidence of civiliation in subduction zones
so they get recycled on a million year time scale.

	Read this article,
	Ted Anderson

------------------------------

Date: 16 Jan 88 05:33:00 GMT
From: necntc!frog!sc@eddie.mit.edu  (STartripper)
Subject: Starship: Peeing in the Stream?

Hilda, I'm trying to moderate my annoyance, let me know by email if I
blow it, OK?

The problem I have with your postings is this: I say "I feel it is our
duty to save the ecosphere, to assist our lovely lady Gaea to reproduce"
and you reply "Stop peeing in the stream!" Seems to me like you're not
hearing what I'm saying, and are attacking me for saying what you choose
(rightly, in my opinion) to attack.

I agree that anthropocentric obsession on spreading man through the
galaxy is not a Good Thing.  I would not choose to live in a tin tank
with only humans.  But ghod-flaming-dammit, that's not what I'm spending
my life trying to encourage.  I dream of living in a ecosphere in which
snail darters, mountain gorillas, slime molds, and prickly-pear cactus
all have their share.  How would you suggest I say "I want to reproduce
the ecosystem so that we have backup copies" so that you understand that
I'm not saying "pee in the stream"?  I'm trying, as hard as I can, to
make it clear that I think our efforts toward the stars will have to be
founded on respect for all life (*especially including life as we don't
know it!*), and I seem not to be getting through.  Can you help me?

In article <409@kaos.UUCP> hilda@kaos.UUCP (Hilda Marshall) writes:
>One of my relatives got mad at another relative for selling some
>cherished family property foolishly registered in his name when he had
>to move away for health reasons.  She said, "He had his drink from the
>pond, then he pissed in it."

That's sad.... but I don't see the analogy you clearly intend I
should.... Back a few centuries, a male midwife (perhaps his name was
Chamberlin?  Can't remember for sure.) had a fairly brilliant idea -- he
invented the obstetrical forceps. However, rather than giving the idea
to the world, he kept the _secret_ within his family, arranged the
birthing scene so that women could not see what he was doing, and
ensured that only HIS family could (for a fee) save the lives of women
and babies. This monopoly lasted for over a hundred years, if I recall
correctly, before someone else had the same idea.

During that time, women who never heard of the Chamberlins' invention
_died_ because this powerful technique of life-saving was
single-sourced, and only those who heard of the miracle worker and could
afford his high fees were able to benefit.  If the holder of the secret
had died, his life-saving technology would have died with him.

So far as we presently know, this one vulnerable planet, which could be
stripped of most multicellular life with _very_ little effort, is the
only place where matter has learned to look at itself and wonder
"howcome?".  We may not have a monopoly on self-awareness, and I
devoutly hope we do not.  But right now, the love of a mother, the
cameraderie of a crowd of happy deadheads, the dedication of a Dr.
Salk, are demonstrated ONLY in one ecosystem.  (I believe there probably
are other worlds that have given life, but that's a emotional belief,
not something I could prove!) And risking all that love, all that
potential for being on the ghod-committee on the hope that maybe we
won't nuke us till we glow -- well, I'm kind of an idealist, but I'm not
_that_ much a dreamer.  Refusing to study the interactions of our mother
Gaea's being well enough to reproduce it strikes me as being more
comparable to keeping forceps a secret than mucking with it till it
fits, and getting a new one if we break it.

>	1. The expansion of the human realm and the assurance of the 
>	   propagation of the human species are paramount.

Um, Hilda?  I say "Gaea", you say "humans".  I don't think it's either
possible OR desireable to create a colony that contains only human
beings.  And even if it's possible, _I_ wouldn't want to live there!  A
world without cats and chickadees, pot plants and rosebushes, mosquitoes
and earthworms?  NO THANKS!

>	2. When technology can assure a constant supply of something,
>	   there is no reason to preserve the existing supply.

If I grow my own roses, there's no need to take one into the house and
put it on the mantelpiece?  I think what I'm most confused about is that
I'm not sure _what_ you think I'm saying.  Would you be willing to
_paraphrase_ rather than quote me if you reply to this? It might give me
a better chance of understanding why we seem to be sailing our thoughts
past each other....

>	3. Therefore, if a species does not directly serve humanity in
>	   its viable state, it is expendable.

_Where_ in the name of Gaea did you get this idea?  Have I missed
someone else's posting?  If we don't take the pigmy hippopotamus to the
stars, it will be _gone_ within a century or so.  If we don't save the
entire complexity of our mother's being, no one else will.  We are the
hands of the ecosystem!

Please, Hilda, flame me for what I'm doing, not what I'm trying
desperately to counter!  Or better yet, help me understand more of what
must be done.

>This whole argument teeters on the brink of the purely ethical,
>especially if one believes that we can reach a point where we can
>thoroughly and accurately predict the extended outcome of any action.

Until we can, we'd better worry about backups!  Right now, we're wasting
our forests, killing our co-tenants, and we cannot predict the results
of our efforts.  I cannot, of course, predict the effects of helping our
ecosystem reproduce.  However, I've learned, in the time I've played
with computers, that backups are a good thing, and I believe it's our
duty to help Gaea back herself up.

>But then, who said we had to kick out the ethics anyway?

Unless I've missed some postings, you seem to be saying those who want
to back up the biosphere are _by definition_ unethical.  And I still
need convinced before I agree.

STartripper		Do what thou		Suite 293
QQQCLC		  wilt shall be the whole	738 Main Street
sc@frog.uucp		of the law.		Waltham, MA, 02154

(If you have a different address for me, it's still good -- but I'll
_post_ my maildrop!)

------------------------------

Date: 19 Jan 88 01:12:35 GMT
From: hplabsz!kempf@hplabs.hp.com  (Jim Kempf)
Subject: Solar System Volcanos


I'm interested in obtaining pictures of the three largest volcanos in
the solar system. These are (in order of distance from the sun):

1) Mauna Loa (Skylab)
2) Olympus Mons (Viking)
3) Sulphur Volcano on Io (name?, Voyager)

Anybody know where to write to get them? Also, anybody know which of
these volcanos is largest, 2nd largest, etc., and what their sizes 
are? I'd guess that the Sulphur Volcano on Io is the largest, since
sulpher from it was detected in orbit, Olympus Mons is 2nd, and 
Mauna Loa third.

Thanks!

	Jim Kempf	kempf@hplabs.hp.com

------------------------------

Reply-To: lll-crg!ames!sdcsvax!bass.nosc.mil!pnet01!jim@mordor.s1.gov
Date: Mon, 18 Jan 88 14:50:47 PST
From: lll-crg!ames!scubed!sdcsvax!pnet01.cts.com!jim@mordor.s1.gov (Jim Bowery)
To: crash!space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: Biocentrism

Ethical issues are most important to address when our natural
predispositions encourage us to depart from ethical behaviors.
Fortunately, evolution has provided us with a lot of common sense.
Hilda's concern about the limited circle of altruism exhibited by humans
-- specifically humans engaged in promoting space settlement -- is one
area in which evolution has endowed us with some "ethical"
predispositions.

We perceive greater "kinship" with the primitive life forms than we do
with a lifeless void.  Perceived kinship is a major evolutionary driver
of altruism.  Therefore, the perspective provided by space migration will 
drive humanity to a larger circle of altruism, beyond nationalism and
anthropocentrism, to biocentrism.  


Jim Bowery                    PHONE: 619/295-8868
PO Box 1981
La Jolla, CA 92038

PS:  There are critiques to be made of biocentrism which are important 
to raise.  Other important issues include the perception of abundance as
a driver of waste, the trade off between diversity and caution in government
participation and the appropriateness of unstustainable activities.  We will 
be addressing these and other issues at the Mount Laguna Sierra Club Lodge 
on March 12.  Contact me if you will be attending and need further 
information.  We'll be publishing an abstract of the proceedings of that 
seminar (or "weenie roast" as it has come to be known in some circles)
on the net.

UUCP: {cbosgd, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!pnet01!jim
ARPA: crash!pnet01!jim@nosc.mil
INET: jim@pnet01.cts.com

------------------------------

Date: 19 Jan 88 18:28:16 GMT
From: ut-emx!poole@sally.utexas.edu  (Steve Poole)
Subject: Re: Solar System Volcanos

In article <1426@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM> kempf@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM (Jim Kempf) writes:
>I'm interested in obtaining pictures of the three largest volcanos in
>the solar system.
>
>Anybody know where to write to get them?
>
>	Jim Kempf	kempf@hplabs.hp.com

The Jet Propulsion Lab has an office that sell pictures.
The address of that office is

Jet Propulsion Laboratory
ATTN:  ERC, 114-104
4800 Oak Grove Drive
Pasadena, CA 91109-9990

Phone # 818-354-6120

You can call to see if they have what you want.

Steve Poole  
ARPA: poole@emx.cc.utexas.edu

------------------------------

Date: 20 Jan 88 01:40:12 GMT
From: skat.usc.edu!seidel@oberon.usc.edu  (Starman)
Subject: Re: Solar System Volcanos

In article <1426@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM> kempf@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM (Jim Kempf) writes:

>I'm interested in obtaining pictures of the three largest volcanos in
>the solar system. These are (in order of distance from the sun):

>1) Mauna Loa (Skylab)
>2) Olympus Mons (Viking)
>3) Sulphur Volcano on Io (name?, Voyager)

>Anybody know where to write to get them? Also, anybody know which of
>these volcanos is largest, 2nd largest, etc., and what their sizes are?
>I'd guess that the Sulphur Volcano on Io is the largest, since sulpher
>from it was detected in orbit, Olympus Mons is 2nd, and Mauna Loa
>third.

Well, actually, Mars' Olympus Mons is the biggie here.  As for the other
two, I'm not sure, but I'll place my bet on the bugger from Io.  But
Olympus Mons towers above even Mt. Everest by at least 2x.

  Michael Seidel
  seidel@skat.usc.edu

------------------------------

Date: 21 Jan 88 18:07:13 GMT
From: hplabsz!kempf@hplabs.hp.com  (Jim Kempf)
Subject: Re: Solar System Volcanos

Thanks to everyone (and especially Janet Walz) for their replies. Here
is a brief summary of information, for those of you (like myself) who
are interested in volcanos.

Olympus Mons appears to be the verifiably largest volcano in the Solar
System, though two on Venus, Rhea Mons and Theia Mons, could someday
take over the honors. Olympus Mons is about 600 km in diameter and
26 km tall. Mauna Loa, the largest shield volcano on Earth, stands
8 km above the Pacific Ocean floor.

Rhea Mons and Theia Mons on Venus are known only from radar mapping
and the Soviet Venera probes. They appear to be shaped like shield
volcanos, and the chemical composition is similar to that of basalt
on Earth. There are no pictures of them, however.

In contrast, the volcanos on Io (of which Pele appears to be the 
largest) are not particularly massive. There are about 200 with
caldera diameters greater than 20 km, while the Earth has only 15.
The Ionian volcanos do not tend to build up large lava mountains,
like shield volcanos on Earth. Nine different eruptive plumes were
observed during the Voyager 1 flyby, and the plumes rose to more
than 300 km. The height of the plumes (some extending into orbit)
is primarily due to the lower gravity.

Mercury also has a number of shield volcanos.

Related note. The Feburary Scientific American has an article describing
how volcanos function in recycling carbon dioxide into the atmosphere,
how this process differs on Venus, Earth, and Mars, and the consequences
for habitability.

		Jim Kempf	kempf@hplabs.hp.com

------------------------------

Date: 21 Jan 88 18:52:41 GMT
From: tikal!phred!daveh@beaver.cs.washington.edu  (Dave Hampton)
Subject: Re: Solar System Volcanos

     Although I'm not sure about Io, the dimensions of the other two
peaks are:
           Mauna Loa:  Base = 120 km across
                       Height = 9 km above the sea floor

           Olympus Mons:  Base = 700 km across
                          Height = 25 km above the surrounding plain.

     Olympus mons sits on a sheer pedestal 4 km high around the base.
The central crater is 65 km across,surrounded by sheer walls over
over 3 km high.  One of the best pictures which may be returned
from a Mars surface explorer could be a picture from inside the crater.

     The largest volcano, though, may not be any of the three that
you mentioned.  Radar measurements have revealed a large shield
volcano on Venus:  Maxwell Montes.  It seems to be a large shield
volcano, hundreds of km across, with a central depression (caldera?)
100 km across.  Its height is 11 km above the average elevation
of the surface.  If the whole feature is a volcano, then it is
about 25% larger than Olympus Mons.  Artists renderings of the
volcano can be found in most books on Venus, including Berman's
Exploring the Cosmos.

                                 Dave Hampton

------------------------------

Date: 15 Jan 88 18:27:01 GMT
From: uop!robert@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu  (Robert McCaul -- The Equalizer)
Subject: Re: "RE: Face on Mars"

I still remember the book (still in the local library) about evidences
of civilization on the moon.

Lots of NASA pictures in that one too.  I recently had the time to go
over the "Off the wall" section of the library, and looked into that
particular book.  It was hot air as far as I am concerned, based on the
"evidence" in the book.

*Someone* else *must* remember this book!?

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #123
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU;  9 Feb 88 06:30:04 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA11304; Tue, 9 Feb 88 03:25:46 PST
	id AA11304; Tue, 9 Feb 88 03:25:46 PST
Date: Tue, 9 Feb 88 03:25:46 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8802091125.AA11304@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #124

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 124

Today's Topics:
		    Mir elements, 6 February 1988
	     Chicago lecture: Designing Lunar Structures
			   RE:Face on Mars
			    Re: Mars Face
		 Re: Face on Mars (more funny stuff)
		 Re: Face on Mars (more funny stuff)
			  Re: Images on Mars
			  Re: Mars Pictures
			  Re: Images on Mars
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 7 Feb 88 21:35:00 GMT
From: kenny@b.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Mir elements, 6 February 1988


Satellite: Mir        
Catalog id 16609
Element set  47
Epoch: 88 32.88717099
Inclination:  51.6309 degrees
RA of node:  50.3592 degrees
Eccentricity:  0.0016787
Argument of perigee:  46.0859 degrees
Mean anomaly: 314.1993 degrees
Mean motion: 15.75088096 revs/day
Mean motion acceleration: 0.00019623 * 2 revs/day/day
Epoch Revolution: 11232

	Source: NASA Goddard Spaceflight Center via T.S.Kelso's
		`Celestial RCP/M.'

------------------------------

Date:     Mon,  8 Feb 88 11:28 CST
From: Bill Higgins, Beam Jockey <HIGGINS%FNALE.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Subject:  Chicago lecture: Designing Lunar Structures
Original_To:  SPACE

		     Chicago Space Frontier Society
				presents
				    
	       MOON MANSIONS: DESIGNING LUNAR STRUCTURES
				    
			       Peter Land
		    Illinois Institute of Technology
				    
		       Monday, February 15, 1988
				7:00 PM
				    
		      Chicago Academy of Sciences
			  2001 N. Clark Street
				    
		      ADMISSION FREE TO THE PUBLIC
				    
Buildings on the Moon will look very different from Earthly buildings,
according to Professor Peter Land. If and when astronauts return to the
Moon, they will most likely establish a permanent base with laboratory,
industrial, and residential buildings.  Such structures must be airtight
and protect people against the temperature extremes and radiation of the
lunar environment.  They should be straightforward to erect. They should
also make use of available lunar soil, so that a minimal weight of
materials need be flown from Earth.

Peter Land, a professor in the College of Architecture, Planning, and
Design at the Illinois Institute of Technology, will discuss concepts
for lunar construction that include arched, domed, and pneumatic
structures, building methods, and directions for further research.

     #############################################################

The Chicago Space Frontier Society, sponsor of this event, is dedicated
to the opening of the space frontier. Among its activities are monthly
meetings at the Chicago Academy of Sciences (just west of the Lincoln
Park Zoo) which always feature presentations on some aspect of space
development.  Meetings are held on the third Monday of each month at
7:00 PM.  For more information call Bill Higgins at (312)293-1050 or
Larry Ahearn at (312)373-0349, or send mail to HIGGINS@FNALC.BITNET.

------------------------------

Date:    Mon, 18 Jan 88 13:05:44 PST
From: hairston%utd750%utadnx%utspan.span@vlsi.jpl.nasa.gov
Subject: RE:Face on Mars
X-St-Vmsmail-To: JPLLSI::"space@angband.s1.gov"

     Glenvar Harman asked about where to get a photo of the "face" on
Mars that he saw on Letterman.  I don't have an address, but I would
suggest he start with the nearest Government Printing Office bookstore
(check the phonebook under US Government in most major cities) and they
could probably find it or else send him in the right direction.
     I'm sorry I missed the guy on Letterman, but I suppose it's better
such things appear there rather than on the the six o'clock news or in
the papers (and I've seen it on both).  As for the "face" itself, it has
been around for years and seems to be "rediscovered" about every three
years or so (usually on slow news days).  For those who haven't seen it,
it is a small hill about a mile long on Mars with shadows at the time
the Viking orbiter imaged it that make it look like half a face with a
round eye, a partial nose, and a partial mouth.  Later images taken at
different sun angles show the hill looks nothing like a face, just an
ordinary Martian hill with some wind erosion features.  Somehow those
photos never seem to be considered in any of these articles.....
     The fall 1986 issue of "The Whole Earth Review" (an interesting and
lively quarterly magazine put out by the folks who gave you "The Whole
Earth Catalog") was on the subject "The Fringes of Reason".  It was one
of the best single issues of any magazine I have ever seen and I
recommend you check for that issue in your local library.  Anyway, the
lead article (called "Reality Shopping") examined the "face" among many
other fringe claims.  Facing (no pun) paranoia straight on ("it's all a
NASA coverup") they wrote to NASA and asked if they had any other weird
photos from Mars.  NASA happily send back (and WER printed) photos
showing a martian crater with a happy face in it and a lava flow bed
that is a profile of Kermit the Frog.  Proof positive that not only were
there ancient Martians, but that they felt good about themselves and
they watched "Sesame Street"!
      The reason there is a "face" on Mars is that the human eye and
brain are wired for recognition.  In other words, given random visual
stimuli, we tend to see patterns in them and those patterns are drawn
from our experience.  That's why we see horses or faces or whatever in
clouds, or why we see a face (or a rabbit or an old woman) on the Moon,
or why Italy looks like a boot, or why we see human profiles in the New
England mountains.  The list could go on for a long time.  The Kermit
lava flow is a perfect example.  If Jim Henson had never invented
Kermit, then that flow shape on Mars would not appear as anything
remarkable to anyone.  But since most people (in the US and Europe at
least) are familiar with the frog, then the image jumps out at them in
the midst of other unfamiliar geological features.  And frankly, the
Kermit image is far more "realistic" than the "face" is.  Harman
describes the face as "symmetric" which serves as a example of this.
The face is NOT symmetric, it is just the right side with the left side
totally in shadow.  But since most people (at least all the ones I have
experience with) have two sides to their faces, then when you see half
the face you automatically assume there is another side hidden in the
darkness.  Again, the photos taken when both sides are sunlit show no
signs of eyes, mouth, etc.
       Carl Sagan had a great quote about all this.  The astronomer
Percival Lowell studied Mars at length at the turn of the century and
probably saw some of the craters and other surface features we now know
are there, but since they were right at the limit of resolution he saw
them as forming patterns of canals all over the surface.  "Lowell always
said that the regularity of the canals was an unmistakable sign that
they were of intelligent origin," writes Sagan.  "This is certainly
true.  The only unresolved question was which side of the telescope the
intelligence was on."

Marc Hairston
Center for Space Sciences--University of Texas at Dallas

------------------------------

Date: 17 Jan 1988 05:53-EST 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: Mars Face

Go back through OMNI. There was an article on the face some years back.
Someone got the original data tapes from NASA and did some enhancement
work on it. Image is for real, bu explanations are probably more in line
with chance. There are some pretty strange rock formations on Earth too.
After all, with an entire planet full of rocks to chose from, you'd
expect that something, somewhere, would...ahhh...LOOK like something!!!

------------------------------

Date:    Sun, 17 Jan 88 11:27:13 PST
From: august@vlsi.jpl.nasa.gov (Richard August)
Subject: Re: Face on Mars (more funny stuff)
X-St-Vmsmail-To: ST%"Space@angband.s1.gov",AUGUST      

For those of you interested in talking to someone about the availability
of pictures from the Viking Missions you might call:
     Jet Propulsion Laboratory
     Public Information Office
     818-354-5011
     Manager: R.J. Mac Millin

or write to:

     Jet Propulsion Laboratory
     Public Information Office
     4800 Oak Grove Drive
     Pasadena, CA 91109

Someone in that office should be able to help you.

Recently a fellow handed me a copy of a newsletter from an individual
named Alan Shawn Feinstein of Cranston, RI 02905.  In his "Winter, 1988
Quarterly Report" he cites his previous predictions (of the financial
persuasion) that have "come true".  This is to support the following:

"Now - January, 1988.  Something that makes those [previous predictions]
pale by comparison...

Here it is:

Back in the early 1970's [actually 1976], the Viking space mission took
over 60,000 pictures of the planet Mars.  Recently, during a more
careful examination of them, there was one picture that sent shock waves
throughout the scientific community. With unbelievable implications...

It is a monument of a human face. It is huge - one mile wide from crown
to chin. It is 1400 feet high.  Exactly 6 miles from it are several 5
sided buildings. All precisely aligned.  Each one large enough to house
1 million people.

It is on Mars. Right now...

This is no joke. I have seen the picture...

What dies it mean?... Somewhere the is - there was - there could be - a
level of technology capable of things never dreamed possible before.

Mark my words well. This could be the greatest discovery of the century...

The Russians know about it. They are working frantically to launch a
space mission this July.

Our space agency, NASA, has asked Congress for a special $200,000,000
appropriation for the search for extraterrestrial life.

The request is public, but the reason behind it is cloaked in mystery.

There is feverish excitement. Here and in Russia. Each side trying not
to alert the other.

But much is being planned. Much is about to happen.

How will this affect you?

You'll find out. We'll be keeping you apprised of the inside news in our
upcoming issues.

Don't miss them. This could affect your future AS NOTHING ELSE BEFORE..."

OK folks don't FLAME me. I'm just transcribing this from a newsletter
and thought that you would get a kick out of it.

I too have seen that photo (I probably saw it first, as I was one of the
designers/implementors of the Mission and Test Imaging System for the
Viking Project and I was pouring-over all the images that came in, like
the daily returns in at a motion-picture studio) and thought that is was
interesting. However, I havn't seen the "several 5 sided buildings".

What do you have to say?

After all, "This could affect your future AS NOTHING ELSE BEFORE..."

RIGHT!

------------------------------

Date: 20 Jan 88 08:10:57 GMT
From: rlcarr@athena.mit.edu  (Richard L. Carreiro)
Subject: Re: Face on Mars (more funny stuff)

In article <880117112713.3c2d@VLSI.JPL.NASA.GOV> august@VLSI.JPL.NASA.GOV (Richard August) writes:
...stuff deleted...
>Recently a fellow handed me a copy of a newsletter from an individual
>named Alan Shawn Feinstein of Cranston, RI 02905.  In his "Winter, 1988
>Quarterly Report" he cites his previous predictions (of the financial
>persuasion) that have "come true".  This is to support the following:
>
"... stuff deleted ...
>It is a monument of a human face. It is huge - one mile wide from crown
>to chin. It is 1400 feet high.  Exactly 6 miles from it are several 5
>sided buildings. All precisely aligned.  Each one large enough to house
>1 million people.
>
>It is on Mars. Right now..."

As a resident of Cranston, RI, I am ashamed that someone from there
could put out such tripe.  Unfortunatley, people will believe it.  It
reminds me of a talk show I say once.  "The Amazing" Jim Randi, debunker
extraordinaire, was on the talk show _Sally Jesse Raphael_.  On it was a
tabloid psychic who claimed she could tell things bout people from
lokking at pictures of them.  Randi set up a double-blind experiment:
the pictures were labeled A-J.  The psychic would read off the letter,
then describe the persons traits/life/etc.  The ten people would rate,
from 1 to 10, how well the decription fit them.  This eliminated any
unconscious bias on the part of the participants.  At the end, Randi
asked who thought the first description fit him/her well.  A few raised
their hands.  Then he pointed out who the picture really was of.  That
person had rated the description only a 2.  They checked 5 more
pictures, and on none did the "pyschic" even come close.  The audience
reaction: Just as many people said they believed in psychics after the
show as before, and one woman demanded Randi why he was trying "to
destroy these people."  His reply: "I just do the test, and if it shows
them wrong, then that's the way the pickle squirts."  Sometimes I really
get depressed about the credulity of the American public.

------------------------------

Date: 20 Jan 88 17:36:04 GMT
From: moria!dunc@sun.com  (duncs home)
Subject: Re: Images on Mars

This face on Mars "controversy" is an interesting phenomenon.  As usual,
people are divided into two camps--those who claim to know the truth, a
priori, and those who propose experimental verification.  The odd part
is that THIS time it's mostly technical types who claim the a priori
"truth"...

Now *I* don't claim there's a face on Mars; I haven't studied the
pictures or even talked with anyone who has.  I have read one article by
someone who claims to have done so, and further claims that the face is
visible in two pictures taken at different angles and times of day.  I
have read any number of letters by people claiming that the face on Mars
can't exist because it doesn't match the way they think the universe
works.  I have yet to hear of anyone who claims to have studied the
pictures and further claims that one or more pictures of the same area
show there is no face.

The fact that something is unexpected, unintuitive and sounds silly does
NOT mean it's false; witness the early scientific disbelief of
meteroites or the predictions of relativity.

The face on Mars hypothesis strikes me as unlikely.  If a counterexample
exists among the pictures it should be easy to disprove.  Otherwise, all
*available* data suggests there's evidence of extraterrestrial
intelligence awaiting us on Mars.  That strikes me as something worth a
second look no matter HOW unlikely.

------------------------------

Date: 20 Jan 88 16:21:09 GMT
From: cos!smith@uunet.uu.net  (Steve Smith)
Subject: Re: Mars Pictures

In article <8801150857.AA11051@angband.s1.gov> dkrause@orion.cf.uci.edu writes:

>There's also a picture of a Mars feature that looks like Kermit the
>Frog.

I can hardly wait to see the religion that forms around this! (:-)

The interesting thing about the "face" is that it is symmetrical.  It is
very easy to find "faces" (or anything else) in random noise, but they
are (almost?) never symmetrical.

 -- Steve    
S. G. Smith  
smith@cos.com

------------------------------

Date: 21 Jan 88 02:56:56 GMT
From: yaron@astro.as.utexas.edu  (Terr S. Trial)
Subject: Re: Images on Mars

In article <39401@sun.uucp>, dunc%moria@Sun.COM (duncs home) writes:
> The face on Mars hypothesis strikes me as unlikely.  If a
> counterexample exists among the pictures it should be easy to
> disprove.  Otherwise, all *available* data suggests there's evidence
> of extraterrestrial intelligence awaiting us on Mars.

Now, THAT'S a giant leap of blind faith! Why should ET on Mars be
responsible for the "Face"? By this *biased* view you are ignoring many
other fascinating possibilities, such as...

...Atlantis astronauts had been on Mars before, and left their mark;
...Apollo astronauts were there by some navigational mistake of NASA
   controllers, but it was kept as a top secret. Alas, they didn't
   notify JPL controllers NOT to image the landing site;
...Visitors from the Andromeda galaxy did it! They did the same on every
   planet, but on Earth it was destroyed by erosion. Of course, they are
   no longer around;

Clearly, the simple assumption of local Mars people waiting there is
unjustified. And how do they know about Kermit the Frog?

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #124
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 10 Feb 88 06:25:41 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA13890; Wed, 10 Feb 88 03:20:52 PST
	id AA13890; Wed, 10 Feb 88 03:20:52 PST
Date: Wed, 10 Feb 88 03:20:52 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8802101120.AA13890@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #125

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 125

Today's Topics:
		  Re: TVSat 1 Solar-panel Situation
	  International L5 Network Directory update time...
			    LDEF satellite
	       Mars Institute Student Contest Announced
		 Re: Face on Mars (more funny stuff)
			   Skyhook on Mars
	     Re: Proxmire's stand on manned Mars mission
			 Re:  Images on Mars
				   
			   Re: face on Mars
			    Pigs In Space
		 Saturn V More Reliable than Shuttle?
			LDEF; another Skylab?
			     In Memoriam
			   Shuttle schedule
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 5 Feb 88 18:02:18 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!kcarroll@uunet.uu.net  (Kieran A. Carroll)
Subject: Re: TVSat 1 Solar-panel Situation

The latest rumor that I've heard about the TVSat solar-array deployment
failure is as follows: apparently during transportation to the launch
pad, the solar arrays are held in place by 12 bolts (to keep them from
rattling around, I suppose). These were all supposed to have been
removed before launch, so that the arrays would be able to deploy.  Each
was supposed to have been checked off of a pre-launch preparation list,
as they were removed.  The rumor is that only >>11<< of the 12 were
checked off of the list.  One of the pre-launch hold-down bolts may
still be doing its job...

     Kieran A. Carroll @ U of Toronto Aerospace Institute
     {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!kcarroll

------------------------------

Date:  6 Feb 1988 22:57-EST 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
To: "/usr/amon/Email/tmp2" <Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu>
Subject: International L5 Network Directory update time...

The time has come to update the L5 Network Directory. If you have
recieved this message directly, (ie not via a public posting on Space
Digest, uucp, FIDO or whatever) then you are already listed. If you
wish to update or modify your entry, please fill out the following
template and return it to me.

The criteria for being included is that you meet at least one of the
following:

	1) are, have been, or intend to become, a member of
	   NSS/L5.
	2) You are an activist in another space organization. Specify
	   why you feel you should be included. Members of SEDS, SSI,
	   ASF in particularl may may wish to be included. Please note
	   the organizations you are active with.
	3) You are directly involved in the space program via NASA, a
	   contractor or an entrepreneurial company, are an officer in a
	   space movement organization, a science writer, a science
	   fiction writer, space artist, etc. If in doubt, just ask.

This list is primarily for point to point communications among
activists, and will from time to time be used as a portion of a
broadcast of alerts on space issues, or as a narrow cast to members on
internal society issues. Any society member should feel free to send
mail to any or all listed fellow members.

Sample:

Amon, Dale *		Pittsburgh L5 member
860920			NSS Board member
			NSS/L5 Life member
			1st SFMSS Email coordinator
			PghL5 Founder
			CMU Computer Science Department
			Pittsburgh, PA
	                Dale.Amon@h.cs.cmu.edu


Template:

lastname, firstname	chapter affiliation, chapter office
last verify date	other space organization jobs, offices,
			 accomplishments
			space related facts about self
			city, state
			Email path(s)

* Asterisk means a primary network contact for the named chapter

I'll release an updated copy of the directory in a few weeks.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 9 Feb 88 17:07:27 PST
From: ota@galileo.s1.gov
Subject: LDEF satellite

Yesterday's AW&ST carried a story on rescheduling the first few Space
Shuttle missions in order to retrieve the Long Duration Exposure
Facility satellite before its currently predicted reentry date of
early-to-mid 1990.  It was originally expected to last until 1995 or so.
No explanation was offered for the change.  Parts of the satellite are
expected to hit the surface if it reenters.
	Ted Anderson

------------------------------

Date: 27 Jan 88 15:23:59 GMT
From: cgs@umd5.umd.edu  (Chris Sylvain)
Subject: Mars Institute Student Contest Announced

The Planetary Society's Mars Institute has announced its 1988 student
contest.  This year's topic will be: Consider the search for evidence of
life (past or present) on Mars, including why life may have existed or
does exist, where the evidence might be found, and how human explorers
or robots could find that evidence.

Entrants will be asked to submit an essay detailing their proposal,
which will then be judged by a distinguished panel of planetary
scientists and engineers.  All high school and college students are
eligible for the prize of $1,000.

If you would like more information on the contest, please write:
	Mars Student Contest
	The Planetary Society
	65 N. Catalina Avenue
	Pasadena, CA	91106

------------------------------

Date: 30 Jan 88 04:39:28 GMT
From: rochester!crowl@rutgers.edu  (Lawrence Crowl)
Subject: Re: Face on Mars (more funny stuff)

If you take enough pictures of rock fields, some are bound to look like
something familiar.  Just as if you look at enough clouds, some are
bound to look like something familiar.  This whole debate is pointless.
If you want to know for sure, send someone to find out!

  Lawrence Crowl		716-275-9499	University of Rochester
		      crowl@cs.rochester.edu	Computer Science Department

------------------------------

Date: 3 Feb 88 18:49:22 GMT
From: hxn@psuvm.bitnet  (Joseph Hennessey)
Subject: Skyhook on Mars

I am researching into the possibility of putting a sky hook or space
elevator on the planet Mars.  A couple months past I remember their was
a discusion on the net, about the feasiblility of this idea for use to
reach earth orbit.  I would be appreciate if someone who had archived
these discussions would e-mail them to me.  I also would like it if some
one would comment on the subject of putting a skyhook on Mars and what
difficulties and possibilities they forsee in the idea.  I remember that
the discussion on putting a skyhook on earth, had pretty much concluded
that we were not capable of doing so at this time, but with the reduced
gravity of Mars and its thinner atmosphere I believe Mars might have a
shot.
     
                                Thanks in advance.

JOE HENNESSEY (HXN@PSUVM) COMPUTER GAMES EXPERT ON C-64, APPLE II, AMIGA,
AND MAC II (SOMEDAY!)     AND PART TIME PHYSICIST (WHEN I'M BORED)

------------------------------

Date: 4 Feb 88 01:55:28 GMT
From: mtune!lzaz!lznv!psc@rutgers.edu  (Paul S. R. Chisholm)
Subject: Re: Proxmire's stand on manned Mars mission

< If you lined all the news readers up end-to-end, they'd be easier to shoot. >

Funny:  Proxmire likes the Mars shot, because it puts the space station
(which he wants to kill) in the proper framework?

It's amazing how many people who don't seem to want a manned space
program are for rushing right off to Mars.  It's as if they think it's
the fastest way to kill manned programs.

-Paul S. R. Chisholm, {ihnp4,cbosgd,allegra,rutgers}!mtune!lznv!psc
AT&T Mail !psrchisholm, Internet psc@lznv.att.com
I'm not speaking for my employer, I'm just speaking my mind.

------------------------------

Date:     Tue, 9 Feb 88 8:58:14 EST
From: the Shadow <jeffh@brl.arpa>
Subject:  Re:  Images on Mars

> Clearly, the simple assumption of local Mars people waiting there is
> unjustified. And how do they know about Kermit the Frog?

That's obvious ... We all know that any self-respecting alien creature
has antennae on its head(s).  They just use those to pick up our TV
transmissions from earth.  Newspaper columnist Dave Barry had an
excellent article a few years back about how network programming
is saving the earth from alien invasion.  I recommend reading this
article (and any others by Dave Barry) for its keen scientific and
social insight.

	:-),
		Jeff Hanes
		jeffh@brl.mil

------------------------------

Date: 9 Feb 88 09:12:00 PST
From: "KEVIN W. BOLD 0-1" <bold@afsc-sd.arpa>
Subject: 
To: "space" <space@angband.s1.gov>
Reply-To: "KEVIN W. BOLD 0-1" <bold@afsc-sd.arpa>

Subject: Faces on Mars, Crosses on the Moon

When I was twelve and not as well-versed in the rules of evidence or the 
scientific method as I am now, I read, and was enthralled with, Frank 
Edwards' *Flying Saucers: Serious Business*.  One of the photographs it 
contained was of a structure (?) on the moon resembling a cross with arms 
of equal length.  The book is in print again, in the same area where you 
will find such future classics as *The Geller Papers* and *Opening to 
Channel*, which is a must for those of you interested in augmenting your 
incomes with a relatively small investment.


--Kevin "Mad Max" Bold		|WARNING: Writing back only encourages me.
(BOLD@AFSC-SD.ARPA)
------

------------------------------

Date: Tue,  9 Feb 88  11:36:18 EST
From: nutto%UMASS.BITNET@mitvma.mit.edu
      (Andy Steinberg)
Subject: Re: face on Mars
To: ota%galileo.s1.gov@mordor.s1.gov, space@angband.s1.gov

With all this recent talk about whether or not the "face" on Mars is real,
a hoax, or an illusion I was wondering if anyone else rememered back when
Viking landed on Mars and NASA released photos to the public that showed
the Pyramids of Elysium as clearly defined, regular pyramidal structures?

USnail: A. Steinberg            BITNet: nutto@UMass
        216 Johnson             Internet: nutto%UMass.BITNet@cunyvm.cuny.edu
        UMass                             nutto%UMass.BITNet@mitvma.mit.edu
        Amherst, MA. 01003      Phone: 413-546-3227

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 9 Feb 88 14:51 EDT
From: "Paul F. Dietz" <DIETZ%sdr.slb.com@relay.cs.net>
Subject: Pigs In Space

> Clearly, the simple assumption of local Mars people waiting there is
> unjustified. And how do they know about Kermit the Frog?

Clearly, Henson stole the idea of Kermit the Frog from the aliens, who
look like muppets.

------------------------------

Date:         Tue, 19 Jan 88 14:32:59 EST
From: ST401385@brownvm
Subject:      Saturn V More Reliable than Shuttle?


>In summary, the Saturn V proved its reliability.  It was a big, dumb
>booster, using tried and proved technology for the most part.  The
>major innovation was the large scale of the engines.  I think that we
>need something like this again.
    By my count there were only 12 or 13 Saturn V launches.  While it is
a useful data point that none of them blew up, keep in mind that it took
*twice* that many flights to find the flaw in the shuttle.  There is no
valid basis to believe that the Saturn V is more reliable than the
shuttle.

--Geoffrey A. Landis, Ph.D
          Until 23 January: Brown University, BITNET: ST401385 at BROWNVM
          Internet: ST401385%BROWNVM.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
          After 23 January: NASA Lewis Research Center
                            21000 Brookpark Road, Cleveland Ohio 44135

------------------------------

Date: 22 Jan 88 21:00:24 GMT
From: nbires!isis!scicom!wats@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Bruce Watson)
Subject: LDEF; another Skylab?


Just heard on CNN that the Long Duration Exposure Facility has
one year before it augers in.

------------------------------

Date: 28 Jan 88 12:50:50 GMT
From: cos!hadron!decuac!dolqci!stein@uunet.uu.net  (Mike Stein)
Subject: In Memoriam

     This may be one of the more unusual cross-postings ever done - but
I think that on this day and in these places it is appropriate.  It is a
song, but I like to think it stands on its own as a poem.


The Final Lesson
Words and music copyright 1986 by Michael Stein

   e                            
My son, I've got to tell you that
     a                            e
Your mother isn't coming home again.
    e              G6
She lifted off for outer space
C6                          e
With another woman and five men.
e              G6
A teacher into space, they said,
C6                                     B7 flat 9
To teach young children all across the land.
    C                    G
And yes, she's taught us something, son,
    f#dim#6      B7         e
But not a lesson anyone had planned.

  2) The Challenger set off into
     The morning of a January day.
     A minute into launch, and all
     The instruments reported "A-OK".
     And all your classmates watched in awe
     As on its way your mother's mission sped.
     When suddenly, at Launch Control
     On every panel all the lights went red.

  3) At first the crowd believed the flash
     Was separation; everybody cheered. 
     Without a 'scope, they could not see
     The funny way the booster rockets veered.
     But then they heard the sirens wail;
     Their hearts grew cold, and all the cheering died.
     And then the grim announcement came:
     "The craft's exploded."  Everybody cried.

  4) As minutes passed without a word,
     A nation prayed that somehow they'd survived.
     But half a million pounds of fuel
     Burnt in one second won't leave much alive.
     They say that for an hour or more
     The pieces rained across the silent sea.
     And now a nation searches for
     Some answers in an ocean of debris.

  5) The engineers, they want to know
     The reason that your mother's ship was lost.
     The businessmen are asking
     How much this little incident will cost.
     And those who sent them search their hearts:
     "Dear God, could this brave crew have died for naught?"
     They won't, as long as we can learn
     The final lesson that your mother taught.

  6) Some people live entire lives
     As if a moment after birth, they died.
     They never lose, they never win,
     Because in truth they never even tried.
     Your mother gave her life to teach
     What only an example can explain.
     Your mother's final lesson, son:        x|   E arpeg.
     Reach for the stars, or else you live in vain.

  29th January 1986

 - Mike Stein
 { uunet!vrdxhq, decvax!decuac }!dolqci!stein
 Box 10420 Arlington VA 22210         (703)241-2927

------------------------------

Date: 28 Jan 88 18:43:49 GMT
From: concertina!fiddler@sun.com  (Steve Hix)
Subject: Shuttle schedule

Buried deep within the first section of a local newspaper (and I *do*
mean local, as in Morgan Hill Dispatch) was an item to the effect that
the next Shuttle launch has been (re)scheduled for @August 15.  (No year
mentioned.)

It also said the the assembly of the system would start around the
middle of May.

Is this real, or did they pick up something from the floor that had been
lost for a long time?

	seh

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #125
*******************


Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 10 Feb 88 23:34:30 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA15119; Wed, 10 Feb 88 20:20:37 PST
	id AA15119; Wed, 10 Feb 88 20:20:37 PST
Date: Wed, 10 Feb 88 20:20:37 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8802110420.AA15119@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #126

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 126

Today's Topics:
			    Administrivia
		  Net connectivity survey (finally)
	   Yearly Announcement of Opportunity (NASA Jargon)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Wed, 10 Feb 88 18:34:56 PST
From: ota@galileo.s1.gov
Subject: Administrivia

Due to the very large backlog (140 messages) I'm going to punt from the
queue all the stuff about aircraft stalls, aerodynamics, faces on Mars,
and of course the perennial SDI messages.  If anyone stongly objects let
me know your reasoning and I'll reconsider.

Also, at least for the next few days, I'm going to produce two digests
per day.  Hopefully, this will reduce the delay and make the discussions
a bit more relevant.
	Ted Anderson (space-request@angband.s1.gov)

------------------------------

Subject: Net connectivity survey (finally)
Date: Wed, 03 Feb 88 00:27:44 PST
From: eugene@PIONEER.ARC.NASA.GOV

What can we conclude: people are willing to go to surprising, but
inconsistent rates.  

The usual way I would have done it (steps 4&5) from one reader:
	1. 800 operator - didn't even know how to spell Nasa
	[^^^^^^^^ well not quite, but maybe NASA should get one (seriously).]
	4. Local operator - Washington D.C. is area code 202
	5. 202 operator - 453-1000
	total of 5 steps.  Only last two should have been necessary.
Great if you did this minimum.  But the diversity of intepretation of
instructions (I asked for NASA HQ, not the Centers or Offices) and
the various numbers I received are interesting.  The ingenuity of
people to solve the problem is notable.  Consider the following:
	Well, if I wanted to know, I'd ask this friend of mine who works
	at Ames. [Actually he has several, this one came early.]

	The main number at NASA HQ from my American Astronomical Society
	Directory is: (202) 755-2320 [old or perhaps a project office]

	Got it from a Xerox of some pages from a Government. . . 

	It's sitting here over my terminal along with my congress
	critters numbers/addresses, etc.  I'll be flabber-gasted if you
	get 50 responses...  [From a friend and climbing partner]
[I got 90!]
[The response rate can be consistent with 1% estimated by other sources.]

	Got that from Peter Banks
	Do I get extra points for the main number at NASA MSFC
	205-453-2121?

	Despite the spoiler, I got the phone number the "hard" way:
	looked up NASA in the World Almanac

	I got the number by calling the operator at Ames.  I looked the
	Ames number up in the Palo Alto phone book.

	The phone number is 202-453-1000 gotten from the operator at
	JPL.

	I cheated. I called the main number at JSC ((713) 483-0123) and
	got it.

	I skipped back to Ken Jenks' list where he said Reston, VA is
	the HQ.  The operator at that area code gave me the D.C. number
	above.

	Phone directory from the Boeing Library.

	called 202 information, and the first number they gave me was
	for the Smithsonian (presumably the National Air and Space
	Museum).  The second call yielded

	First call : Houston,Texas. Got number of security of "NASA" there.
	Second call: Determined that NASA HQ was in DC. Should have known.
	Third call : Washington DC. Got number above, which has
	answering machine on it ( at least at 6:30PM it does ! )
	So that's one person who thinks he did it !

	Time and path taken:
	10 seconds to pull out my xeroged copy of "A Visitors Guide to NASA"
	from Sky and Telescope  Feb 85. NASA HQ is first place listed,
	but only the Public Info Office number is given.  10 seconds to
	call phone info at 202 555 1212 and get the general number.
	SEVERAL DAYS to get around to it!
	WHO-KNOWS-HOW-LONG to get this message from BITNET onto ARPANET,
	and to you, since the gateway changed.

	be easy, I'd just whip out my old Annual Report of Nasa (1979),
	or a Nasa Tech Brief.  Darn, they had the field offices but no
	main number.  Ok, so I tried the phone company.  I remembered
	the HQ was in Washington DC, so I called local information for
	the area code,

While one correspondent wrote:
	Severe cost-based disincentive for us on this side of the pond...
	[Pond == Altantic]
But as a interesting counter, another wrote:
	information: 010 1 202 453-1000
	The "010 1" is for calling the USA from Australia.

Good to see many people have a sense of humor.
	I don't know what the number is, but what it *should* be is
	(987) 654-3210.  Now, if only I knew what area code (987)
	is.... ;-) I don't call myself a space activist for nuthin', you
	know.

Also notable was the frequent mention of compensation.
	Do I get my gold star?

	I want a prize, you hear me, a prize, a good prize, a fun prize...

	the telephone number for Bill Ballhaus, Jr.?
		Just pulling your leg a bit...

	Okay, what do I win if I get the phone number correct?  A teddy
	bear?

	Well, I didn't have to get off my duff to find it.  I cheated: I
	asked a friend at RICECSVM to look it up in the Houston phone
	book for me.
	NASA switchboard - (713)483-3111
	Johnson Space Ctr- (713)483-0123
	they said it was NASA HQ.  I also got an address...  Do I win?

	Well eugene I don't know if this is THE phone number you want
	but I found this one (619) 442-7100 also I found this one (202)
	755-2480 being overseas stationed at Clark Air Base, RP makes it
	hard to find phone numbers and such, I found these on the
	SIR-NIC network by looking up NASA-HQ.  if these numbers are
	right can I be an astronaut?
	[RP == Philipines]

Others got their own sense of reward:
	Anyway, thanks for 2 minutes of amusement.

	All in all, an interesting excercise.  Thank you for that
	refreshing "get-off-your-duff-ness"; I really enjoyed actually
	doing something (1/2 :-).

	Hi, the # should be (804) 865 2855. [Not correct, but okay].
	Took me 3 minutes from the time I read your posting, which only
	reinforces my constant amazement at the availability of
	information of all kinds in the US. (I'm from Poland.)

Some noteable "extra credits:"
	From: "Priscilla Frisch" <frisch@oddjob.uchicago.edu>
	(you forgot to ask for the TELEX number, which is 89530)

	Associate Administrator of A&ST is listed as Raymond S. Colladay.
	[Not any more.]

Some people took advantage of special facilities:
	I just went down the hall here to check the HQ directory, and
	here is what I came up with:
	The commercial number for NASAHQ is: . . .
	The FTS number is: . . .
	Fletcher's office number is: . . .
	Just for grins, I looked you up in the ARC directory.  Are you
	still at . . .?  What does the "Computational Research Branch
	(RCR)" do? ;-)
	Technology Utilization dept, which I am familiar with)
	is (202) 453-1920
	Are you really going to tabulate circa 7,000 messages?? !!
[Especially good number. Circulation: No.]

Employment is big concern:
	Thanks for an interesting challenge!  I'm anxiously awaiting the
	info on NASA jobs available next summer.

	BTW, I *am* job hunting this year, but most likely have no
	chance for anything at NASA (temporary visa) even though I'd
	love to make a sidetrip from the academia.

	I would like to say that I am very interested in a summer job at
	NASA, particularly JPL.  I would appreciate any information you
	could send me on this topic.

	I am interested in working for NASA if the opportunity presents
	itself, and would greatly appreciate your sending me a copy of
	your job postings. Of course, if you are going to put it on the
	net, don't go to the extra trouble of sending me a copy - I'll
	just read it on the net.

Then this note:
	etc. etc.etc.... I imagine that you don't get any financial
	compensation for the time you spend on the Space Digest--
	certainly don't pay for it; your effort is however greatly
	appreciated.

Actually, I'm alloted a small amount of time to read news, but not just
space.  My main USENET groups are comp.arch, sci.space, comp.graphics,
and several minor ones like comp.hypercube, comp.lang.fortran, etc.  I
fully believe that the USENET is a more significant network than the
ARPA Internet (which I used from 73-76, then 79-81 prior to moving to
Ames), CSnet, BITNET, because the bureaucracy on those networks hampers
communications, but this is a digression, I'm a convert.

In more serious veins:
	Interesting experiment - but I hope you will not draw any
	general conclusions about the number of readers in this group
	from this survey. There are many readers internationally who
	follow this group with interest, but are not necessary inclined
	to try to figure out a phone-number in the US.
I appreciate all International readers, and (see note above from
Australia).  I wish we were not so Nationalistic.
	I reject the hypothesis that asking 7,000 people to do something
	silly will measure their "get off your duffness." I submit that
	the correlation between the people who respond to this with the
	NASA HQ phone number and the people who would get off their
	duffs in a given real situation is poor.
No comment, but I appreciate the note.  I didn't think it was silly,
nor did I think the other 89, but he writes further: [same write]
	Furthermore, how many of those 7,000 can actually get mail to
	you?  I don't know that this message will get to you... There
	are ARPA, BITNET, CSNET, and USENET readers, and getting mail
	from a given site to you is not exactly reliable.
This is why I appeal to readers on any network to use a human readable
signature line.  I wonder how many tried, but could not get thru.

	I read and enjoyed your articles, but am too lazy to look up the
	numbers.

	But I don't want you to think I never do anything, so I am at
	least sending you this note.

That's okay.  You sent email.
	It will be interesting to know how many of the net actually did
	something.  In any case, I am interested in the results of your
	test.  Please send me the final tally.

This is it!

>From the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA
  "You trust the `reply' command with all those different mailers out there?"
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."
  {uunet,hplabs,hao,ihnp4,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene

------------------------------

Date: 3 Feb 88 08:50:19 GMT
From: pioneer!eugene@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Eugene N. Miya)
Subject: Yearly Announcement of Opportunity (NASA Jargon)

[leq: in a nearby by galaxy, close, closer, closest.....]

It's time for university students to realize they MUST start preparing
resumes if they want the best summer opportunities: outside of NASA as
well as inside.

	--eugene

If you are a student looking for employment next summer, now is the time
to prepare a resume and fill out the application form for NASA summer
employment.  This message is being posted for those with dreams from
youth.  This is your chance.  Do not delay.  This is a crude posting,
but time is running out.

Unfortunately, each of the NASA Centers is recruiting summer students
using different policies from the past due to budgetary contraints.
NASA Ames and Lewis are using local Universities to hire summer
students, other Centers are doing other things.

Those Centers using Universities such as Ames and Lewis can take
restricted foreign student positions.  Just ask if it's possible.  Also,
for mailing to other NASA centers: YOU MUST BE A CITIZEN OF THE UNITED
STATES to apply.  We have received several resumes from non-US citizen,
sorry, we cannot take you.  Do not forget to state that you are seeking
summer positions!  Foreign nationals with a green card are okay for JPL.
NASA and its contractors are equal opportunity employers. (usually) P.S.
see Ken Jenk's list of contractors and if any one know's Ken's current
phone number, please send it to me.

NASA is the United States civilian space agency [we are not part of the
DOD].  If you have ethical qualms about working for the DOD, but want to
work in high tech, consider NASA.  Technically for instance, all of Ames
funding is from the civilian pot.  Approximately 10% of our programs
have some interest to the military and are reimbersed by them.  This
Center does NO SDI work.  I learned this information for Computer
Professionals for Social Responsibility [CPSR].  Note that several
Centers (Ames, Johnson, Kennedy, Langley) share land with military
bases. (Other Centers do not: Goddard with USDA, Lewis with Cleveland
Airport, etc.)  JPL is a contracted lab to Caltech.  They have choosen
limited military contracts, but in all cases, it is possible to
positions away from joint or direct military work if you choose.  As a
reminder, we have projects which deal with manned and unmanned space,
near Earth orbit as well as deep space, aeronautics, and many aspects of
air research.  NASA is in desparate need of young computer types [You're
our only hope...].

Additionally, there are non-computer openings, but I am unable to
provide any special help, so you have to take pot luck.

Standard Form 171.  To apply for some Centers (and excepting JPL ARC and
LeRC), please fill out a standard Form 171.  This is the form used for
all employment within the Federal Government.  If you are uncertain
about anything regarding summer hiring, you can mail me (preferred) or
phone me before the end of December at (415)-694-6453.  [Better to send
me net mail as I need to take some vacation.]

Problems working with NASA.  Let's be truthful.  Salary can be a
problem, so if you would prefer working for a contractor, state that on
your cover letter.  We will try to forward resumes if possible. Another
problem is locale.  Sorry, we bought land where it was cheap (at the
time).  Some positions sound like they use obsolete equipment (in some
cases this is true, but we recognize the problem and try to be buy
state-of-the-art equipment, manpower is our biggest problem).

The following descriptions are obviously biased to the Centers I have
worked at and toward contacts I have.  Not all of these people know or
remember me, so mentioning my name won't help.

Marilyn Lane
Summer Programs
MS 241-5
NASA Ames Research Center
Moffett Field, CA 94035
 Including the Dryden Flight Research Facility (Ames/Dryden) located at
Edwards AFB where the Space Shuttle lands.
 We also have numerous contractors including the Research Institute for
Advanced Computer Science.  We can forward a resume if so indicated (171
for RIACS is not necessary).  Ames has a Cyber 205, Cray XMP and a Cray
2, and numerous other machines.  Located in the heart of Santa Clara
Valley.  Aerodynamics, chemistry, life sciences, SETI, space station
work (AI).  Our summer hires will become employees of San Jose State
University.  A SF 171 is unnecessary for applying to Ames, send a resume
and we will mail you an additional application packet.

Duane Patterson
Personnel Office
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
California Institute of Technology
4800 Oak Grove Dr.
Pasadena, CA 91109
 Work at JPL includes VLSI CAD, image processing, general purpose
computing on IBMs, Univacs, and the normal complement of VAXen and PDPs.
JPL is involved in deep space missions and communications.  A form 171
is not necessary.  NASA's Deep space center, the DSN (Deep Space
Network), the Mission Control and Computing Center (MC^3), various
planetary and imaging facilities, robotics and other AI.

Personnel Office
NASA Headquarters
Washington DC 20546
 There is limited use of computers at NASA HQ, but I do know people who
have summered in WDC.

Personnel Office (contact has moved back to HQ)
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, MD 20771
 GSFC has a Cyber 205, Amdahls soon to be running UTS, and performs work
on unmanned near Earth space missions.  They are located just outside
Washington DC.  Landsat, massively parallel processor, and other sats.

Try Personnel Office, this may change.
NASA Lewis Research Center
21000 Brookpark Rd.
Cleveland, OH 44135
 LeRC does work on aerodynamics.  They have a Cray-X-MP, amdahls,
Univacs.  Summer hires will be employees of Case Western Reserve
University.

Amy Kennedy
Mail Code AH3
NASA Johnson Manned Space Center
Houston, TX 77058
 The heart of all manned space operations.  One of the largest NASA
centers.  They run on IBMs and Univacs on the large-end to HP 9000s on
the small end.  Gearing up for the space station.  JSC is requiring an
SF171.

Personnel Office
NASA Kennedy Space Flight Center
Titusville, FL 32899
 The Eastern launch complex for major flights.  Many small minis and
other computers such as IBMs.  Gearing up for the space station.  May
need a 171.

NASA Marshall Space Flight Center
Huntsville, AL35812
 The largest NASA Center.  It does work on manned and unmanned space.
They have a Cray, and lots of other machines.  They have a separate
facility known as the McCloud Computer Center which houses large IBMs.
They have decided NOT to have a summer employment program (their
contractors might).
 They will have a summer co-op program contact: Tom Holden, CM-23

Personnel Office
MS 174
NASA Langley Research Center
Hampton, VA 23665
 LaRC has a Cyber 205 and VAXen.  Those interested in numerical analysis
should know that ICASE (Inst. for Comp. Appl. in Sci.  and Eng.) is
located at Langley.  Send your resumes (if interested in ICASE) to Bob
Voigt (not Personnel Office).  They are doing lots of aerodynamics and
space work.

There are also several other NASA sites under the control of the above
Centers.  For instance: at the Ames Research Center, we have the Dryden
Flight Research Facility 100 miles N of Los Angeles at Edwards AFB.  If
you are not interested in the above, perhaps there are other NASA
offices nearer than you think.  Ask me using the net.  Some sites I can
think about are near VAFB, White Sands, NM, the McCloud facility in LA
(Louisuana), the Wallops Island facility, and the Goddard Space
Institute near NY (uncertain about their summer policies).

COOPerative work with a university or college is possible.  If you have
an interest in this, make this clear in your cover letter and check with
your local work-study office.  You must be a college student [I checked
for a high school student earlier: no go.]  Seniors and juniors have
precedence (Lower classmen should still ask, then try contractors).

A comment about odds. Last year, we appeared to average 50 network based
resumes (up from 30 previous year).  On the average 2,000 resumes (for
all disciplines) appear per Center for about 50 openings max (does this
mean the net is insignificant? well, sort of, but computers aren't
everything, but the quality of net resumes for computer people I would
assume to be high).  Last year, no one was hired from the net at either
Ames (RIACS yes) or Langley, but were hired at GSFC.  I don't know about
other Centers.

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA
  "You trust the `reply' command with all those different mailers out there?"
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."
  {uunet,hplabs,hao,ihnp4,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #126
*******************

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Date: Thu, 11 Feb 88 03:21:48 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8802111121.AA15876@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #127

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 127

Today's Topics:
		    TVSat 1 Solar-panel Situation
			 Stofan leaving NASA
			      Re: Stalls
		      Lunar habitation questions
      Payload of shuttle flight directly after last Challenger.
    Re: Payload of shuttle flight directly after last Challenger.
    Re: Payload of shuttle flight directly after last Challenger.
	  Shuttle-launched satellites considered unreliable?
		       Plutonium on the shuttle
    Re: Payload of shuttle flight directly after last Challenger.
    Re: Payload of shuttle flight directly after last Challenger.
    Re: Payload of shuttle flight directly after last Challenger.
    Re: Payload of shuttle flight directly after last Challenger.
    Re: Payload of shuttle flight directly after last Challenger.
    Re: Payload of shuttle flight directly after last Challenger.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date:     Tue, 2 Feb 88 14:11:34 CST
From: Will Martin -- AMXAL-RI <wmartin@almsa-1.arpa>
Subject:  TVSat 1 Solar-panel Situation

Re Henry Spencer's note from the 14 Dec AW&ST on the efforts then to
free the jammed solar array on the German TVSat 1: I had heard on
shortwave, in just the last couple weeks, that the satellite has BOTH
arrays jammed -- one completely closed, and one partially open. This
news differed from earlier reports which said that one array was
deployed and the other jammed partially open. The radio report stated
that the satellite was unusable and worthless in this condition, again a
difference from earlier statements, which had indicated it was usuable
in a reduced-performance mode. (I believe that this was on Radio Canada
International, though it could have been on Radio Nederland instead -- I
listen to communications-oriented programs on both stations.)

If anyone has some current info on this, please post it!

Will Martin

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 10 Feb 88 15:14 EDT
From: "Paul F. Dietz" <DIETZ%sdr.slb.com@relay.cs.net>
Subject: Stofan leaving NASA

In addition to the business about LDEF, I notice the 2/8 AW&ST says
Stofan (the head of the space station program) is leaving NASA.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 10 Feb 88 15:33:09 pst
From: Eugene N. Miya <eugene@PIONEER.ARC.NASA.GOV>
Subject: Re: Stalls


I have a serious suggestion:

Postings about flight (in atmosphere) and aviation matters like stalls
probably best belong in the aviation newsgroup.  Yes, Virginia, there is
such a thing.  I think it's a more appropriate group because there are
more pilots there to jump on questions (I would assume that most people
are not aware of its existence).  True, some spaceflight takes place in
the atmosphere.  The group is reachable (aviation-request at MIT), and I
believe it's gatewayed to the Usenet.  I also know other Ames and other
NASA people read those groups as well.  This would align itself with
Henry's summarizing only space matters from Av. Week.

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 10 Feb 88 11:06:13 EST
From: John Roberts <roberts@icst-cmr.arpa>
Subject: Lunar habitation questions

Since there have been several moon landings, I presume answers to at
least some of the following questions have been found:

- What is the temperature range of the surface material on the moon?

- How deep do you have to go before you find a constant temperature (no
day/night cycles)?

- What is the temperature at this point?

- Does the temperature increase below the constant-temperature point, as
on Earth? How fast?

- How deep does the pulverized lunar surface go?

Thanks in advance for answers to any of these questions.

                                           John Roberts
                                           roberts@icst-cmr.ARPA

------------------------------

Date: 1 Feb 88 20:30:20 GMT
From: amdahl!nuchat!flatline!erict@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (eric townsend)
Subject: Payload of shuttle flight directly after last Challenger.

According to activist and musician Jello Biafra, the next flight of the
shuttle was to carring a payload of 46 pounds of *plutonium*.  He claims
this is from _The_Nation_ and _Common_Cause_, who got it from NASA, who
"conveniently forgot to tell us about it."

What I'd like to know is:

1. Is this correct?

2. If so, I thought there was a law or treaty or something that we're
   involved with that prohibits the launching of radioactive material
   into space; and that this treaty was the reason we don't put nuclear
   reactors into space.

Can anyone confirm/deny/refuse to comment on any of this?

  [ FYI: J. Biafra's talk "Why I'm Glad the Space Shuttle Blew Up" is
   about 3 and half minutes long, and has to do with the 46 pounds of
   plutonium slated for the next shuttle mission.  It can be found on
   _No_More_Cocoons_ (Alternative Tentacles virus 59) -- a double
   speach-only album by Jello Biafra; and also on The Birth of Tragedy
   Magazine's _Fear_Power_God_ Spoken Word/Graven Image Compilation
   album (CFY Records). ]

J. Eric Townsend ->uunet!nuchat!flatline!erict smail:511Parker#2,Hstn,Tx,77007

------------------------------

Date: 2 Feb 88 15:28:21 GMT
From: kit@athena.mit.edu  (Chris D. Peterson)
Subject: Re: Payload of shuttle flight directly after last Challenger.

I am by no means an expert on the subject, but here is a bit of
information on the subject, There are nuclear "reactors" in space.  In
fact the upcomming Galileo mission to Jupiter uses nuclear fission for
its power systems.  There is a good reason for this, as solar energy
near Jupiter is pretty weak, and nothing else comes near the weight
requirements for such a long mission.

The fact is that when you are dealing with new things and new technology
there is always some risk, it is a fact of life so live with it.
Nothing in this world is free.
						                   
					Chris Peterson     
					Project Athena     
					Systems Development

------------------------------

Date: 2 Feb 88 19:45:12 GMT
From: concertina!fiddler@sun.com  (Steve Hix)
Subject: Re: Payload of shuttle flight directly after last Challenger.

In article <347@flatline.UUCP>, erict@flatline.UUCP (eric townsend) writes:
> 
> According to activist and musician Jello Biafra, the next flight of the
> shuttle was to carring a payload of 46 pounds of *plutonium*.
> 
> 2. If so, I thought there was a law or treaty or something that we're
>    involved with that prohibits the launching of radioactive material
>    into space; and that this treaty was the reason we don't put nuclear
>    reactors into space.

There are any number of satellites zooming overhead with radioactive
power components.  Well, not *that* many, but several with very
large power requirements, such as the Soviet RORSATs, which are
radar platforms for oceanic surveys...which is another way of saying
ones that look for ships and shallow-running subs.  The radars on
board need lots of power and solar cells aren't quite up to it.

The treaty you're thinking of bans weapons of mass destruction
from space, not the same thing as a power plant, exactly.  The main
drawback with these RORSATs and other nuclear-powered birds is that
sometimes they came down in places like Canada.

	seh

------------------------------

Date: 28 Jan 88 00:28:39 GMT
From: tolerant!sci!auspyr!aussjo!ausmelb!mulga!munnari!otc!metro!ipso!stcns3!dave@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Dave Horsfall)
Subject: Shuttle-launched satellites considered unreliable?

An article in "Electronics Australia" Jan 88 talks about Aussat 3, and
starts off with saying that Aussat 3 was launched by Arianespace, as
distinct from the previous two which were shuttle-launched.

Then follows this statement: "The choice of Arianespace followed the
consideration of various economic factors, including the longer life
expectancy of a rocket-launched satellite compared with that of a
shuttle-deployed satellite."

Forgive me if this has been hashed over before, but that statement does
sound a little odd.  Are shuttle-deployed satellites really less
reliable than rocket-launched ones?  How come?

Dave Horsfall (VK2KFU)      ACS:  dave@stcns3.stc.OZ.AU
STC Pty Ltd                 ARPA: dave%stcns3.stc.OZ.AU@uunet.UU.NET
11th Floor, 5 Blue St       UUCP: {enea,hplabs,mcvax,uunet,ukc}!\
North Sydney NSW 2060 AUSTRALIA    munnari!stcns3.stc.OZ.AU!dave

------------------------------

Date: 3 Feb 88 03:14:14 GMT
From: mb2l+@andrew.cmu.edu  (Marc Charles Bonin)
Subject: Plutonium on the shuttle

   If there is a treaty prohibiting the launching into orbit of
radioactive materials (I am virtually certain that there is not) , then
it gets broken on a regular basis.  Radioactive material (thorium ???)
has been used in radioisotope generators many times, mainly for missions
where solar cells are impractical or ineffective.  These missions
include the Viking landers, Pioneer 10 &11, Voyager 1 &2, and
(eventually) Galileo.
   Incidently, these generate electricity by using the decay heat to
produce electricity by the thermoelectric effect, rather than setting up
a fission reaction and then using the heat released to power a Rankine
cycle. These generators are NOT reactors.
   What if the launch vehicle carrying one of the generators failed??
Then the radioactive material would fall into the ocean along with the
contents of the reactors aboard USS Thresher, USS Scorpion, and who
knows how many sunken Soviet submarines.



                 Marc Bonin
 
                  mb2l+@andrew.cmu.edu

------------------------------

Date: 3 Feb 88 04:20:27 GMT
From: sj1f+@andrew.cmu.edu  (Steven Kent Jensen)
Subject: Re: Payload of shuttle flight directly after last Challenger.

> 2. If so, I thought there was a law or treaty or something that we're
>   involved with that prohibits the launching of radioactive material
>   into space; and that this treaty was the reason we don't put nuclear
>   reactors into space.

	I know that some of the Soviet Cosmos series used nuclear
reactors as power sources.  One re-entered and rained debris over
Northern Canada in the late 70's(?) and there was some concern about the
radioactivity from the reactor.  I do not think that any of our sats
carry reactors, but I do not know about some of the other spacefaring
countries satellites.

						Steven Jensen

------------------------------

Date: 4 Feb 88 01:08:10 GMT
From: mtune!codas!killer!elg@rutgers.edu  (Eric Green)
Subject: Re: Payload of shuttle flight directly after last Challenger.

in article <347@flatline.UUCP>, erict@flatline.UUCP (eric townsend) says:
> 2. If so, I thought there was a law or treaty or something that we're
>    involved with that prohibits the launching of radioactive material
>    into space; and that this treaty was the reason we don't put
>    nuclear reactors into space.

There is a treaty banning nuclear WEAPONS in space. But there is no
treaty banning nuclear REACTORS in space. Remember that Russian
satellite that broke up over Canada a few years back, spewing low-level
radiation over a wide swath? It was powered by a nuclear reactor....

Your friend the nut case might have been thinking about the SDI payload
that was recently sent up on a Delta(?) rocket... it was originally
scheduled for the shuttle, back when the shuttle was planned to fly,
well, now.

Eric Lee Green  elg@usl.CSNET

------------------------------

Date: 3 Feb 88 18:33:41 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Payload of shuttle flight directly after last Challenger.

> According to activist and musician Jello Biafra, the next flight of
> the shuttle was to carring a payload of 46 pounds of *plutonium*.

He's misinformed in several ways.  For one thing, it wasn't the next
flight; two flights circa June were scheduled to carry isotope-powered
planetary probes (Ulysses and Galileo).  For another thing, he's using
that great scare word "plutonium" without mentioning that it would go up
in an armored canister designed to survive a launch failure.  (There
have been some doubts expressed about whether the canisters are in fact
tough enough for all possible cases, but they definitely would have
survived the Challenger disaster.)  This is not just speculation: such a
canister went into the ocean some years ago after an expendable launcher
failed; it was recovered intact, wiped clean, and re-used.

> 2. If so, I thought there was a law or treaty or something that we're
>    involved with that prohibits the launching of radioactive material
>    into space; and that this treaty was the reason we don't put
>    nuclear reactors into space.

Nope.  There is no such treaty.  In any case it would probably exempt
armored isotope canisters, because there is just no other satisfactory
way of powering outer-planet missions -- there isn't enough sunlight out
there for solar panels.

The US has put one reactor into space, although not recently.  The
Soviet Union routinely uses small reactors to power its military
radarsats.

Those who do not understand Unix are |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
condemned to reinvent it, poorly.    | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 6 Feb 88 01:46:26 GMT
From: nuchat!flatline!erict@uunet.uu.net  (eric townsend)
Subject: Re: Payload of shuttle flight directly after last Challenger.

In article <3212@killer.UUCP>, elg@killer.UUCP (Eric Green) writes:
> There is a treaty banning nuclear WEAPONS in space. But there is no
> treaty banning nuclear REACTORS in space. Remember that Russian
> satellite that broke up over Canada a few years back, spewing
> low-level radiation over a wide swath? It was powered by a nuclear
> reactor....

Ok, so that's it.  No nuclear weapons, but nuclear reactors are just
fine.  If we're allowed to launch reactors into space, why not launch
the waste, too?  The 'what-if-it-blows-up?' answer could be applied to
the launch of the reactor as well....

> Your friend the nut case might have been thinking about the SDI
> payload that was recently sent up on a Delta(?) rocket... it was
> originally scheduled for the shuttle, back when the shuttle was
> planned to fly, well, now.

My 'friend the nut case' has a very good point.  What if the
rocket/shuttle /whatever that's carrying 46 pounds of plutonium goes
blooie in lower atmosphere?  You gonna be ready to live inside for the
next few years?  I'm not.  I'd much rather spend money getting us a base
on the moon, and just mine/manufacture all the reactor fuel there..
Where there *aren't* 5 billion people, at least 3 billion of which are
just minding their own buisiness.

> Eric Lee Green  elg@usl.CSNET     Asimov Cocktail,n., A verbal bomb

Hey, do you attend the University of Slow Learners, by any chance??  :-)
(I used to live in La. too.... get out of the state while you still can!
:-)

J. Eric Townsend

------------------------------

Date: 7 Feb 88 00:44:44 GMT
From: unisoft!gethen!farren@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Michael J. Farren)
Subject: Re: Payload of shuttle flight directly after last Challenger.

In article <2728@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> kit@athena.mit.edu (Chris D. Peterson) writes:
>In fact the upcomming Galileo mission to Jupiter uses nuclear fission
>for its power systems.

The power system for Galileo does NOT use fission - at least, not in the
sense that is implied when you say "reactor".  There is no chain
reaction involved - the power is generated by thermovoltaic devices
driven by the heat of Plutonium's natural breakdown processes.  While
this is, technically, a fission process, it's not one which requires any
external control, and not one which poses any particular danger - the Pu
is sealed inside VERY strong armored capsules, and the chance of it
being released into the environment is minuscule.

Michael J. Farren

------------------------------

Date: 7 Feb 88 22:05:13 GMT
From: mtune!codas!killer!elg@rutgers.edu  (Eric Green)
Subject: Re: Payload of shuttle flight directly after last Challenger.

in article <365@flatline.UUCP>, erict@flatline.UUCP (eric townsend) says:
> My 'friend the nut case' has a very good point.  What if the
> rocket/shuttle/whatever that's carrying 46 pounds of plutonium goes
> blooie in lower atmosphere?  You gonna be ready to live inside for the
> next few years?
  46 pounds of plutonium might irradiate a stretch of ocean pretty
badly, but not much worse. It won't explode. You need very high
pressures to compress plutonium to critical mass, and a shuttle
explosion would tend to expand outwards (now you know why atomic bombs
have heavy cases?). Even if it did explode, the global effects would be
no worse than atmospheric testing in the 40's and 50's...

> I'm not.  I'd much rather spend money getting us a base on the moon,
> and just mine/manufacture all the reactor fuel there..
  The moon, like most other places in the solar system, is very short on
fissionables. Be difficult to mine anything there in reasonable
quantities.  The moon doesn't have the seismic and tidal activities that
have concentrated such materials here on Earth. There's little
difference between carrying 46 pounds of plutonium and 4 tons of raw
uranium ore, risk-wise, besides the costs involved... so processing it
on the moon would be no help, either.

> Hey, do you attend the University of Slow Learners, by any chance?? :-)
No no, you got it all wrong! That's "U Stand in Line"! :-)
> (I used to live in La. too.... get out of the state while you still can! :-)
 Believe me, I don't intend to hang around here one moment more than I
have to... no smiley there.

Eric Lee Green  elg@usl.CSNET

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #127
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Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #128

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 128

Today's Topics:
    Re: Payload of shuttle flight directly after last Challenger.
    Re: Payload of shuttle flight directly after last Challenger.
       Re: Liberia of space (was Soviet space marketing moves)
       Re: Liberia of space (was Soviet space marketing moves)
       Re: Liberia of space (was Soviet space marketing moves)
	  Private enterprise versus national administration
	Re: Private enterprise versus national administration
		      Re: "What's New"  01/29/88
		  Condensed CANOPUS - 1987 December
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 6 Feb 88 13:06:07 GMT
From: ems!rosevax!kksys!bird@UMN-CS.ARPA  (0000-Mike Bird)
Subject: Re: Payload of shuttle flight directly after last Challenger.

In article <1988Feb3.133415.12432@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>  [stuff deleted ] ... there is just no other satisfactory
>way of powering outer-planet missions -- there isn't enough sunlight
>out there for solar panels.  The US has put one reactor into space,
>although not recently.  The Soviet Union routinely uses small reactors
>to power its military radarsats.
> Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology

I was under the impression that the experiment packages left up on the
moon by the manned Apollo shots used a small Pu-powered nuclear reactor
as their power source.  I seem to remember a small, black, cylindrical
device with radiating fins as the center imstrument deployments.  Can
anyone else confirm or deny this?

Mike Bird

------------------------------

Date: 8 Feb 88 18:56:46 GMT
From: uflorida!codas!burl!clyde!watmath!utgpu!utzoo!henry@gatech.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Payload of shuttle flight directly after last Challenger.

> ...It won't explode. You need very high pressures to compress
> plutonium to critical mass...

Besides which it is the wrong isotope anyway, and CANNOT explode.
-- 
Those who do not understand Unix are |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
condemned to reinvent it, poorly.    | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 18 Jan 88 02:52:03 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Liberia of space (was Soviet space marketing moves)

> By the way, about ten years ago a german private company tried to
> build a launch facility in Zaire. Does someone knows about how this
> story has ended ?

Otrag, the company in question, is defunct.  The Soviets had it in for
them from the start, partly because China was a major potential customer
and partly because the Soviets distrust the Germans and would prefer not
to see ICBM-capable technology in German hands.  The Soviets scored a
major propaganda coup when some Western media people -- who should have
been more careful -- swallowed their disinformation campaign whole and
"exposed" Otrag's "real purpose": to develop nuclear-capable missiles
for West Germany.  The totally-unfounded uproar that followed resulted
in Otrag getting kicked out of Zaire, and they never really recovered.
It's not clear that they would have succeeded anyway, since there was
some reason for doubts about their approach, but they never really got a
chance to try.

Those who do not understand Unix are |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
condemned to reinvent it, poorly.    | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 19 Jan 88 00:30:02 GMT
From: mmm!allen@UMN-CS.ARPA  (Kurt Allen)
Subject: Re: Liberia of space (was Soviet space marketing moves)

In article <254@matra.matra.UUCP> ma@matra.UUCP (Michel Allair) writes:
>By the way, about ten years ago a german private company tried to build
>a launch facility in Zaire. Does someone knows about how this story has
>ended ?

I heard a rumour that a german company in Zaire was trying to develop a
basic rocket system but had to close shop because of political problems
/ rebellions going on. This was strictly one story that I heard. Take it
with a large grain of salt.

	Kurt W. Allen
	3M Center
	ihnp4!mmm!allen

------------------------------

Date: 17 Jan 88 05:18:17 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Liberia of space (was Soviet space marketing moves)

> Seems to me that it's only a matter of time before some multinational
> (or American) company figures out that they can get satellites
> launched by the Russians if the satellites aren't built in the U.S.

Sooner than you think, maybe: the RFP for Australia's next generation of
comsats specifically requests that proposals include consideration of
Proton as a launcher.  The US comsat companies are not happy about this.

Those who do not understand Unix are |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
condemned to reinvent it, poorly.    | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Sender: "chaz_heritage.WGC1RX"@xerox.com
Date: 22 Jan 88 05:38:33 PST (Friday)
Subject: Private enterprise versus national administration
From: "chaz_heritage.WGC1RX"@xerox.com
Reply-To: "chaz_heritage.WGC1RX"@xerox.com

In his message Adam Hamilton writes:
    I was under the impression that this newsgroup was unanimous that
    the way to get the US Space program back on its feet was to turn it
    over to private industry as far as possible.  I was also under the
    impression that this involves putting the profit motive first (you
    know, as in capitalism) rather than keeping it in check.

There are certain issues arising from this proposal. Briefly:

1. Not every activity which is justifiable is necessarily profitable. To
define the profit motive as the sole criterion for justification may
exclude worthwhile projects unlikely to show rapid profit; navigation
systems are a possible example.

2. Elsewhere in SPACE Digest Volume 8 : Issue 110 Michael Allair writes:
    By the way, about ten years ago a german private company tried to
    build a launch facility in Zaire. Does someone knows about how this
    story has ended ?

This was an example of one of the problems that might be associated with
a free market in launch facilities. I can research this issue further,
but from memory I recall that Zaire was the only country which would
agree to accomodate the company, and that there were grave concerns that
the launch vehicles offered might be made available to countries
developing nuclear weapons, for use as ICBMs. Clearly any launch vehicle
capable of delivering a worthwhile payload to LEO can also undertake at
least an IRBM role, and it therefore seems inevitable that governments
will be involved in supervision at the very least of any private launch
facilities.

3. The link between launch vehicles and weapons systems also extends
into the political sphere; politicians use astronautics as either a
votecatcher / status symbol (cf. Apollo and Voshkhod) or as a soft
target for budget-cutting, depending on the breaks. Is it likely that
they will happily part with such a useful political object?

4. There have been numerous comments regarding treaty provisions
concerning the responsibility of countries for objects launched by their
inhabitants. Do not such provisions effectively prevent any government,
even the most enterprise-minded, from deregulating ('privatising' is the
current UK jargon) the space industry?

Regards,
Chaz

------------------------------

Date: 25 Jan 88 12:33:34 GMT
From: l.cc.purdue.edu!cik@k.cc.purdue.edu  (Herman Rubin)
Subject: Re: Private enterprise versus national administration

In article <880122-054310-1110@Xerox>, "chaz_heritage.WGC1RX"@XEROX.COM writes:
> . . . 
> 1. Not every activity which is justifiable is necessarily profitable.
> To define the profit motive as the sole criterion for justification
> may exclude worthwhile projects unlikely to show rapid profit;
> navigation systems are a possible example.

Until recently, most research and development activities were done under
non-governmental auspices.  Only after WWII did governments attempt to
control research (except military research, and not even that always) in
a big way.  Before 1950, Szilard (one of the scientists active in the
Manhattan project) wrote about this; I am not sure whether the amount of
scientific research would be less at this time if the government did not
effectively take over funding of research.

It is true that _in the short run_ a massive government activity can
speed up research in some area.  It can also slow it down.  Before WWII,
considerable research was funded by universities and nonprofit
organizations.  There were contributions from industry, in many cases
with no strings attached, and some government sponsorship, in most cases
directed.

I do not advocate excluding government contributions to space.  However,
it is hard for a government to keep to a vague goal, especially when
much money is concerned.  We need means by which the millions of people
who believe man in space is important can combine to get it done.  The
other millions who believe that unmanned space exploration is more
important should also be able to do so.  Each group should not expect
the other to give financial support to its activities.  Those who do not
believe that efforts in space are important should not be taxed to
support it.

Let people support what they believe in, by financing organizations
which they believe will turn a profit in a reasonable time, by giving to
organizations which they believe will not, and even by having
intermediate types of organizations.  Also, allow these organizations to
cooperate.

Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907
Phone: (317)494-6054
hrubin@l.cc.purdue.edu (ARPA or UUCP) or hrubin@purccvm.bitnet

------------------------------

Date: 30 Jan 88 19:14:03 GMT
From: beckenba@csvax.caltech.edu  (Joe Beckenbach)
Subject: Re: "What's New"  01/29/88

In [sci.physics] article from piner@pur-phy appears:
>[...]
>3.  REAGAN'S NEW "NATIONAL SPACE POLICY" IS STILL UNDER WRAPS, although
>he reportedly signed off on it two weeks ago.  It was generally thought
>that it was being held up until after the State-of-the-Union Address
>but, as you may have noticed, neither space nor science got even a
>mention.  However, in an expanded message to Congress, supplied by the
>White House, the President offers his solution to the space problem --
>"privatization."
>
>Robert L. Park  (202) 232-0189      The American Physical Society

	All I can say about this is that if this is really true, it's
about time! Let's suck up our socks and get down to it-- and also push
to have this solution implemented.

	I'd be tempted to start a company to do space software, and try
to run it as ethically as possible-- just to see if a company can be
ethical and still keep its head above water in the apparent maze of bad
ethics clustered around the space efforts. Do large amounts of money
automatically create financial hanky-panky, or are there actually enough
people out there to form (eventually) a corporation large enough to
handle all aspects of a space industry/information-network/research
support structure? Considering the spate of scandals involving bribes,
criminal actions, etcetera, I find my faith in human nature amply borne
out. ;-(
	Or am I being too cynical in assuming that there is no ethics in
big business, government, etc. when it comes to handling all the money
and the access to all the money? [Maybe this belongs in talk.philosophy
:-| ]

Joe Beckenbach (CS BS '88) 			I'D RATHER BE ORBITING

------------------------------

Date: 19 Jan 88 21:03:58 GMT
From: cfa!willner@husc6.harvard.edu  (Steve Willner)
Subject: Condensed CANOPUS - 1987 December

Here, finally, is the condensed CANOPUS for December 1987.  There are
four articles.  The first is presented by title only and the other three
in condensed form.  The unabridged version has already been sent to its
mailing list.  Articles are highly condensed and rearranged; material in
{braces} has been added by me.

CANOPUS is published by the American Institute of Aeronautics and
Astronautics.  Send correspondence about its contents to the executive
editor, William W. L. Taylor (taylor%trwatd.span@star.stanford.edu;
e-mail to canopus@cfa.uucp will probably be forwarded).  Send
correspondence about business matters to Mr. John Newbauer, AIAA, 1633
Broadway, NY, NY 10019.  Although AIAA has copyrighted CANOPUS and
registered its name, you are encouraged to distribute CANOPUS widely,
either electronically or as printout copies.  If you do, however, please
send a brief message to Taylor estimating how many others receive
copies.  CANOPUS is partially supported by the National Space Science
Data Center.

PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES TO DISCUSS SPACE ISSUES - can871204.txt - 12/6/87
{Scheduled for Dec. 18.  Cancelled??  --SW}

E.O.S. A.O. PLANNED - can871201.txt - 12/2/87 - {condensed}

Earth Observing System (EOS) is the single, largest science system
planned for the international space station.  It will comprise
instruments on polar orbit platforms and on the manned station to
provide a comprehensive view of the terrestrial environment.  The U.S.,
European, and Japanese space agencies will release Announcements of
Opportunity simultaneously in mid-January.

SPACE STATION TO PROCEED WITH OR WITHOUT INTERNATIONAL PARTNERS -
can871202.txt - 12/2/87 - {condensed}

The U.S. Space Station program will continue as planned -- but with gaps
-- if NASA and its foreign partners cannot reach an agreement on their
participation, officials said Dec. 11 at a press conference announcing
prime contracts.

Under the current plan, ESA and Japan each will provide laboratory
modules for the manned station, and Canada will provide the satellite
servicing center. However, the three have balked at signing final
agreements because of the Department of Defense insistence that the
station be available to conduct military experiments, possibly to the
extent of "blacking out" the station for the duration of the
experiments.

"If they're late or don't show up," {Associate Administrator for Space
Station Andrew} Stofan said, "we will go ahead without them."

Although the Phase C/D contracts have been awarded, NASA still faces an
uphill battle to win complete authorization and appropriations funding
for the current and coming fiscal years.  The zeroing-out by the Senate
appropriations subcommittee and partial restoration by the full
committee "was close to the edge" for NASA cancelling the program,
Fletcher said.

AMBITIOUS SCIENCE CAMPAIGN PLANNED BY GALILEO TEAM - can871203.txt -
12/2/87 - {last article - condensed but still long}

The Galileo Jupiter Orbiter/Probe mission will attempt a mini-grand
tour of the solar system with visits to two inner planets and three
minor bodies before arrival at Jupiter.

Project Scientist Torrence Johnson said the delays "have been extremely
frustrating," but the results from Voyager and other activities "have
whetted our appetite to get back into the [Jovian] system."

Activities taking advantage of Galileo's circuitous route to Jupiter
include:

   o The first cruise science spanning the inner-to-middle solar system
     with a single set of instruments, and exploration of a large
     neutral hydrogen region recently found at 1 A.U.,

   o Flyby of Venus with instruments having capabilities beyond the
     current Pioneer Venus Orbiter,

   o Two flybys of Earth, allowing outside imaging of the geocorona, and
     infrared imaging of the farside and north pole of the Moon,

   o Flybys of rocky, Type-S {as opposed to metallic or carbonaceous
     types --SW} asteroids Gaspra and Ida, 16 and 32 km wide,
     respectively.

The project team has managed to stay intact during three crises all
related to launch vehicles. Originally Galileo was on a three-stage
version of the Inertial Upper Stage (IUS) to be launched by the Space
Shuttle. Then it was split into orbiter and probe missions aboard
separate IUS's, then was rejoined atop a widebody Centaur when the three
stage IUS was dropped due to a combination of technical and cost
problems.

In the wake of the Challenger disaster the widebody Centaur was
cancelled as too risky.  The current plan is to launch Galileo atop a
standard IUS to the inner solar system and use gravity assists at Venus
and Earth to reshape the orbit so it finally stretches to Jupiter. This
will take six years, more than double the travel time planned with a
Centaur boost.

Several design changes were required to accommodate the delay and the
tour of the inner solar system, explained Project Manager John Casani.

Large sunshades were added to the spacecraft bus and around the
secondary reflector on the high gain antenna, and new thermal control
surfaces were added elsewhere.

Electrical circuitry was modified to reduce the electrical power
requirement since the plutonium in the existing radioisotope thermal
generators is decaying and replacements cannot be manufactured (the
capability was discontinued some years ago). Small radioisotope heating
units have been attached to some portions of the spacecraft to ease that
power demand.

The extended duration has raised concerns about the life of mechanical
systems like tape recorders.  "Those resources will be carefully
husbanded and metered out," Casani said.

Despite problems caused by launch vehicle woes and delays, "What we will
do at Jupiter is everything we ever planned and more," said Science and
Mission Manager William O'Neil.  The delay has allowed improvements in
some science instruments.  There has been "no compromise, no reduction
of the Jupiter science," Casani said, and the tour of the Galilean moons
will have a better propellant margin than a direct mission would allow.

Finally, Casani said the redesign will raise the cost of the spacecraft
from $675 million to $895 million, and the longer and later cruise to
Jupiter will double operational costs from $225 million to $450-$500
million.

The current timetable for the Galileo mission is:
Launch                                           Oct. 8, 1989
(Launch window 45 days; second window in July 1991 loses asteroid
encounters.) 
Venus gravity assist (1,000 km miss distance)    Feb. 9, 1990
Earth gravity assist 1 (1,000 km)                Dec. 8, 1990
Gaspra flyby (1,000 km)                          Oct. 29, 1991
Earth gravity assist 2 (300 km) {!!!}            Dec. 8, 1992
Ida flyby (1,000 km)                             Aug. 28, 1993
Jupiter arrival                                  Dec. 7, 1995
Io closest approach (1,000 km)                   Dec. 7, 1995
Probe entry and relay                            Dec. 7, 1995
Jupiter orbit insertion                          Dec. 7, 1995
Galilean satellite tour                  Dec. 1995- Oct. 1997
-- 
Steve Willner            Phone 617-495-7123          Bitnet: willner@cfa2
60 Garden St.            FTS:      830-7123           UUCP:   willner@cfa
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA                     ARPA: willner@cfa.harvard.edu

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #128
*******************

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Date: Fri, 12 Feb 88 03:25:46 PST
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Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #129

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 129

Today's Topics:
			    Re: NASA tours
			 Re: Tranquility Base
			       Re: RFPs
			      Pathfinder
			 Re: Saturn V Facts?
			     Re: Saturn V
			  Pathfinder funding
			      Re: RFP's
			       Re: RFPs
			       Re: RFPs
			Nasa Deep Space Images
			       Re: RFPs
			 reproducing Saturn V
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 20 Jan 88 00:10:27 GMT
From: cartan!brahms!desj@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (David desJardins)
Subject: Re: NASA tours

In article <8712032357.AA09380@galileo.s1.gov> eugene@PIONEER.ARC.NASA.GOV (Eugene Miya N.) writes:
>There are other locations, but NASA gives tours as a courtesy, this
>isn't Universal studios.  People don't want to be disturbed in their
>research, and I don't blame most.

   I can understand people not wanting to be disturbed in their work,
but it is not accurate to describe NASA tours as a "courtesy."  NASA as
a Federal agency has two primary missions (identified specifically in
its charter)-- one is to conduct scientific and technological
investigation, and the other is to distribute information to the public
(I'm afraid I don't recall the exact words).  Tours and exhibitions are
one way that it fulfills this latter responsibility.

   -- David desJardins

------------------------------

Date: 19 Jan 88 05:34:13 GMT
From: amdahl!nuchat!flatline!sugar!peter@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Peter da Silva)
Subject: Re: Tranquility Base

In article ... takahash@bnrmtv.UUCP (Alan Takahashi) writes:
> In article ... djkrause@UCI.BITNET (Doug Krause) writes:
> > From: me.
> > >"Houston, Tranquility Base.  The Eagle has landed" "Roger, Tranquility.
> > >We copy you on the ground."

> > I always thought it was "Tranquility Base to Houston, the Eagle has
> > landed."  (I know, it's minor quibble.)
> > Douglas Krause

> Followed by: "We copy you down, Eagle."
> Just continuing the minor quibble... :-)

I have the whole sequence from "Tranquility Base" to "ground" digitised.
We used it in our prize-winning (well, runners up get prizes too) Amiga
demo, "Workbench Lander". If you have an Amy you can get the BADGE
killer demo contest disks and hear the whole thing.

Actually, the guy in Houston muffed it. The last part comes out as
"Roger, Trak...  Tranquility. We copy you on the ground."

-- Peter da Silva  `-_-'  ...!hoptoad!academ!uhnix1!sugar!peter

------------------------------

Date: 20 Jan 88 07:30:20 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: RFPs

> Apollo 6 had major problems with each of the three stages in the
> Saturn V.

"Stages to Saturn" (NASA SP-4206, the authoritative history of the
Saturns) disagrees to some extent; see pages 360-363 for the gory
details.

> The pogo effect occurred during first stage flight...

StS says that, apart from a tense moment when it first showed up, nobody
considered the first-stage pogo to be a "major" problem.  It was
relatively mild and brief (although it was definitely troublesome enough
to analyze and fix) and it was a familiar problem with new boosters.
The word "mild" is a direct quote from von Braun.

On the other hand, everyone agreed that the upper-stage problems were
serious: "With three engines out, we just cannot go to the Moon." (von
Braun again)

> Two of the second stage engines shut down early. This was caused by a
> wiring error...

No, the ultimate cause of the shutdown was the same problem that
affected the third-stage engine, although a wiring error propagated the
shutdown to a second engine.

> liquid hydrogen line. This line had bellows to allow flexing. In
> ground tests, frost forming on the bellows damped vibrations and
> protected the line.  In vacuum, however, no frost formed and the
> bellows broke from the vibration.

Basically correct but it wasn't frost, it was air liquefied by the cold
of the liquid hydrogen and trapped between the bellows and their
protective covering of metal braid.

Those who do not understand Unix are |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
condemned to reinvent it, poorly.    | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 20 Jan 88 10:48:31 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!its63b!bob@uunet.uu.net  (ERCF08 Bob Gray)
Subject: Pathfinder

The following news item appeared on the ORACLE news pages last night.

Would anyone care to confirm, deny or (until Monday) speculate?

And if it is true, could someone get President Reagan to have a word
with Mrs. T.
	Bob.
---------------------------------------------------------------

President Regan has backed a new space policy aimed at restoring
America's lead in solar system exploration.

He will use his State of the Union address on Monday to outline the
plan, said White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater.

It centres on a programme called Pathfinder, which aims to put people
back on the moon by the year 2000 and manned flights to Mars soon
afterwards.

The Whitehouse proposals would see NASA's budget jump 25% to $11.5bn in
the 1989 financial year.

------------------------------

Date: 23 Jan 88 04:21:24 GMT
From: amdahl!nuchat!splut!stu@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Stewart Cobb)
Subject: Re: Saturn V Facts?

In article <1282@edison.GE.COM>, mjk@edison.GE.COM (Mark Kocher) writes:
> It seems to me I read that the third stage was targeted to crash on
> the back side of the moon, after it had accellerated the Apollo
> package up to its necessary velocity.


This is true.  The third stages were crashed into the Moon to get rid of
them, and to calibrate the lunar seismometers that the astronauts left
behind.  The ascent stages of the LEMs were also deorbited and crashed,
for the same reasons.
   However, Apollo 10 was never staged during the manned part of its
flight (down to an altitude of 6 miles, and back up - so close).  The
ascent stage was full up with fuel, and the descent stage was about half
full.  The flight controllers wanted to find out what happened when a
burning engine ran dry, so (after the astros were on their way home)
they fired the LEM remotely on an escape trajectory.  When the descent
stage ran dry, they staged it, and burned the ascent stage dry as well.
The ascent stage is now in a heliocentric orbit.
   This is a little bit interesting, because there's a guy in my office
who helped compute the trajectories for that Apollo 10 shot.  According
to him, when the batteries finally died on the LEM and they lost the
tracking beacon, the digitals said the thing would return close by Earth
in about 18 years -- which was not that long ago.  I've tried to get
more accurate data, but it's buried in twenty years of trajectory tapes.
   Anyone want a slightly used LEM?

| Stewart Cobb    (Hacking GNC for STS)  ... sun!housun!nuchat!splut!stu
| N5JXE @ KA5KTH or WB5BBW             ... seismo!soma!uhnix1 /

------------------------------

Date: 11 Jan 88 15:35:44 GMT
From: uplherc!esunix!bpendlet@gr.utah.edu  (Bob Pendleton)
Subject: Re: Saturn V

in article <2902@drivax.UUCP>, dambrose@drivax.UUCP (David Ambrose) says:
> ...  The prime thrust of DOD reforms were in the contract management
> area.  DOD started negotiating more fixed-price contracts, including
> performance bonuses, and separating development from production.

Yes, and since you can't count on getting the juicy production contract,
how much incentive do you have to even bid on the development contract?

Your chance of winning a development contract is strongly affected by
how much of your own money you have already spent on research. Money
that will not be recovered from the profits on a development contract.
So you spend the money to win the developement contract. Lose money on
the develoment contract hoping to make it back on the production
contract.  Your competion, who has spent none of their own money on
research, under bids and gets the production contract. You are forced to
give them the results of your internal research, since it was used in
the developement of the product, for free. Thus eliminating the
competitive advantage that made it possible to get the development
contract in the first place.

A truley enlightened approach to doing business.

> By themselves, contract reforms cannot clean up the mess at either
> NASA or DOD.  But over the long run, they can make a difference.

Contract reforms like these put an enormous burden on private companies
without forcing the contracting agency to clean up their act. It also
places the percieved blaim for the mess on the private companies and not
on the agency.
 
Bob Pendleton @ Evans & Sutherland

------------------------------

Date: 24 Jan 88 02:07:54 GMT
From: thorin!hayes.cs.unc.edu!leech@mcnc.org
Subject: Pathfinder funding

    The current Aviation Week reports on a major space initiative and
new National Space Policy Reagan is supposed to announce in the State of
the Union address.  It includes a $3.5G increase in NASA funding, to >
$11 billion in FY '89, including funds for building a mixed fleet and
starting work on the Pathfinder advanced technologies program.

    Leaving aside the near certainty of deficit pressure and a new
Administration nipping this laudable initiative in the bud, I am curious
why this massive funding increase is given while ~$90 million in new
start funding for the Comet Rendezvous/Asteroid Flyby (CRAF) and AXAF
missions is simultaneously deleted from the NASA budget, as also
reported in AW&ST. The paragraph in their lead editorial lamenting these
so-called short term sacrifices doesn't cut the mustard when requested
funding for these projects is <3% of the proposed budget increase.
Fletcher is reported to be fighting only the smaller ($30 million) AXAF
cut. This is a fine way to drive yet another wedge into the space
community but is otherwise unjustifiable.

    The Japanese model (a separate space science agency) looks real good
right now.

    Jon Leech (leech@cs.unc.edu)    __@/

------------------------------

Date: 25 Jan 88 07:26:07 GMT
From: nuchat!sugar!peter@uunet.uu.net  (Peter da Silva)
Subject: Re: RFP's

Sounds like I belgiumed my terminology, perhaps...

In article <8801071654.AA18834@mitre.arpa>, subar%mwcamis@mitre.arpa writes:
> >The government should at least send out RFPs for a station delivered
> >to orbit.
>      
> Sorry, no can do.  Putting out an RFP if you don't plan to buy is
> known as a felony in the gov't biz.

Is this true of requests for proposals, or just for requests for
purchase?

Besides... I think the government should damn well plan to buy anything
that can be delivered to orbit that is (a) cheaper than the station and
(b) as capable as the station.

------------------------------

Date: 27 Jan 88 17:15:07 GMT
From: mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Mike Smithwick)
Subject: Re: RFPs

[deleted alot of stuff about the reliability of the Saturn V]

>The third lunar landing aborted en route due to a failure in the Apollo
>service module.  Skylab was nearly ruined due to a failure in the lab's
>heat/meterite shielding during launch.  Both were payload failures, not
>launcher failures.
>
>> ... The numbers are too low for any statistical significance, but
>> there is the possibility that Saturn V is not really any more
>> reliable than the shuttle.  Maybe they just quit while they were
>> ahead.

Don't forget the Apollo 13 launch, when the center engine of second
stage cut off about a minute early. They merely extended the S-IVB burn
by a few seconds to compensate for that.

				   *** mike (powered by M&Ms) smithwick ***

------------------------------

Date: 27 Jan 88 17:31:52 GMT
From: mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Mike Smithwick)
Subject: Re: RFPs

In article <1988Jan17.214028.16062@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>> ...  Apollos 21-23 or so had originally been planned, but cut early
>> (I read somewhere that they had been talking about going up to the
>> mid 20s)...
>
>They were talking about going much farther.  The fate of the later
>missions was sealed when Congress terminated Saturn V production at 15,
>though.  18-20 were cancelled after all the hardware was built; one of
>the leftover Saturn Vs was used for Skylab.

I have a 1967 report from a Lunar exploration working group, which
developed recommendations for the Apollo program. It's enuf to make a guy
cry. They called for 15 or 20 landings, going up through the mid 70s,
and even give sample lunar flight-plans and exploration charts. In the
back is a map of the crater Alphonses (sp?) which was one of the
proposed landing sights. The lunar stay would be upwards of 2 weeks,
with long rover treks every day. After liftoff, the rover would go over
to ground control, exit the crater and make it's way to the next landing
site picking up samples along the way. Advanced Surveyor landers would
also be used heavily doing preliminary site surveys.

That reminds me, that before the cancellations of Apollos 18-20, Apollo
16 was supposed to land in the highlands north of Tycho at the Surveyor
6 landing site, and Apollo 20 was targeted for a site next to the
central peak in Copernicus. Oh, well. . .

Apollo was originally not meant to be a one shot deal, as so many
critics contend, but was supposed to mark the beginning of a massive
manned solar-system exploration program. Remember Agnew talking of a
Mars landing by 1980?

				   *** mike (powered by M&Ms) smithwick ***

------------------------------

Date: 26 Jan 88 16:21:52 GMT
From: mmm!allen@umn-cs.arpa  (Kurt Allen)
Subject: Nasa Deep Space Images

About a year ago, some one in this net mentioned that NASA allowed
purchase of it's deep space probe imaging information for a nominal
price. If anyone knows who to contact in NASA to get these images would
you please mail me this info ?
	Thx in advance.
		Kurt W. Allen
		3M/DIAC (DIGITAL IMAGING ACQUISITION CENTER)
		ihnp4!mmm!allen

------------------------------

Date: 29 Jan 88 05:56:15 GMT
From: portal!cup.portal.com!CaptainDave@uunet.uu.net
Subject: Re: RFPs

Somewhere I heard, and not that long ago, that the government was going
to reproduce the Saturn V launch vehicle to supplement the STS as a
heavy launch vehicle. Is there any truth to this rumor??? Any comments
are appreciated.


               Dave Nusbaum

------------------------------

Date: 31 Jan 88 00:42:51 GMT
From: uflorida!codas!burl!clyde!watmath!utgpu!utzoo!henry@gatech.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: reproducing Saturn V

> Somewhere I heard, and not that long ago, that the government was
> going to reproduce the Saturn V launch vehicle to supplement the STS
> as a heavy launch vehicle. Is there any truth to this rumor??? ...

The idea has been talked about quite a bit, but as far as I know, nobody
has actually decided to do it.  Unfortunately, it would be quite
expensive and would take quite a while.  Even if tooling and plans had
been preserved with care -- and they haven't been, the tooling is gone
and even the plans are incomplete -- a fair amount of work would have to
be done over because it didn't get into the permanent records.  (For
example, having the specs for some subcontractor's piece of equipment
doesn't mean that the subcontractor still exists or still remembers how
to make the thing to meet those specs.)  At the very least, enough
details would have changed to make it necessary to repeat much of the
testing.

An additional problem is that some key support facilities -- notably
Launch Complex 39 (the VAB, launchers, and pads) -- have been modified
extensively for Shuttle use.  And since it was clear that the remaining
Saturn Vs would never fly, nobody saw any reason to invest the extra
money and effort to retain Saturn compatibility.

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #129
*******************

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Date: Fri, 12 Feb 88 20:17:55 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8802130417.AA00745@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #130

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 130

Today's Topics:
			   New space camp?
			 Re: Tranquility Base
			 Re: Tranquility Base
			 Re: New space camp?
			 Astronauts' Memorial
		       Re: Astronauts' Memorial
			Re:  Saturn V takeoff
			 Re: Tranquility Base
		       Re: Astronauts' Memorial
		       GET AWAY SPECIAL JOURNAL
	       Employment of Foreign Nationals by NASA
		       Re: Time Magazine story
			 Re: New space camp?
			 Re: Tranquility Base
			 Re: New space camp?
	     Re: Employment of Foreign Nationals by NASA
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date:     Tue, 2 Feb 88 09:57 EST
From: RON PICARD <PICARD%gmr.com@relay.cs.net>
Subject:  New space camp?

Hi all,
  I recently talked to someone who had gone to spacecamp and he told me
a couple things that I haven't seen on the net.  He said that another
space camp is supposed to be built out in Calif. I think at Ames.  Has
anyone else heard about this?  He also mentioned that some of the
equipment has a 200 pound limit so if you're close list yourself at 195.
  I sent my money in to attend the Sept. 23 session.  If anyone else is
going at the same time let me know.
 
Ron Picard  (PICARD@GMR.COM)
General Motors Research Labs

------------------------------

Date: 2 Feb 88 16:30:37 GMT
From: mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Mike Smithwick)
Subject: Re: Tranquility Base

>Actually, the guy in Houston muffed it. The last part comes out as
>"Roger, Trak...  Tranquility. We copy you on the ground."

To further add to this trivial discussion, Charlie Duke the CapCom
continued:

   ". . .We got a bunch of guys about to turn blue here, thanks alot!"

Now the real question here is what were Neil's actual words when he
first stepped on the moon. The transmissions sez "That's one small step
for man. . . "(you know the rest, I hope). But Neil claims that he said
"That's one small step for A man. . .".
                                   ^

		   *** mike (powered by M&Ms) smithwick ***

------------------------------

Date: 2 Feb 88 22:57:33 GMT
From: tada@athena.mit.edu  (Ivan Tadayoff)
Subject: Re: Tranquility Base

In article <4331@ames.arpa> mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov.UUCP (Mike Smithwick) writes:
> [...]
>Now the real question here is what were Neil's actual words when he
>first stepped on the moon. The transmissions sez "That's one small step
>for man. . . "(you know the rest, I hope). But Neil claims that he said
>"That's one small step for A man. . .".

I remember reading somewhere about an interview in which Neil said
something along the lines of: I wrote one small step for a man, and I
wanted to say one small step for a man, but in the excitment I
forgot....

I can't remember the source, unfortunately.

-michael zehr

------------------------------

Date: 2 Feb 88 19:47:58 GMT
From: concertina!fiddler@sun.com  (Steve Hix)
Subject: Re: New space camp?

In article <8802021523.AA01866@angband.s1.gov>, PICARD@gmr.COM (RON PICARD) writes:
> Hi all,
>   I recently talked to someone who had gone to spacecamp and he told
> me a couple things that I haven't seen on the net.  He said that
> another space camp is supposed to be built out in Calif. I think at
> Ames.  Has anyone else heard about this?

This has been in local papers here recently.  As I understand it, some
local legislator is trying to get funding (from where?) to start a space
camp around Ames.  It's very preliminary, they haven't done much more
than talk about the possibility of setting one up, no real solid plans
as yet.  Sounds like fun, though.

	seh

------------------------------

Date:     Wed, 3 Feb 88 10:18:15 CST
From: Will Martin -- AMXAL-RI <wmartin@almsa-1.arpa>
Subject:  Astronauts' Memorial

The following is the caption of an illustration on the front page of the
1 Feb 88 issue of Federal Computer Week:

SPACE MIRROR

"The Astronauts Memorial Foundation has selected the winning design for
a memorial to astronauts who have been killed on space missions. When
completed in 1990, the 50- by 40-foot mirror-finished granite memorial
will follow the sun's movement and track the sky. The monument was
designed by the San Francisco architectural firm Holt Hinshaw Pfau Jones
and is to be built on a six-acre site near the entrance to the Kennedy
Center's Spaceport USA."

The illustration depicts a rectangular reflective sheet tilted back at a
30-or-so-degree angle, with supporting strutwork behind it, mounted on
some sort of bearing. This assembly sits on what seems to be the corner
of some sort of raised platform or roof of a structure. All in all, it
looks much more like an industrial or scientific device, or a component
of a solar furnace, than a monument. Perhaps that effect is intentional.

Regards, Will Martin

------------------------------

Date: 4 Feb 88 22:16:56 GMT
From: moria!dunc@sun.com  (duncs home)
Subject: Re: Astronauts' Memorial

To be a really fitting memorial it should be placed on the Moon.  I
wonder if it's too late to change....

------------------------------

Date: 4 Feb 88 21:47:41 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!csri.toronto.edu!hogg@uunet.uu.net  (John Hogg)
Subject: Re:  Saturn V takeoff

In article <7049@ihlpa.ATT.COM> animal@ihlpa.ATT.COM (D. Starr) writes:
>A while ago, somebody asked how long it took a Saturn V to clear the
>launch tower.  I had an opportunity to time it just the other night
>when the PBS series "Television" re-ran the original network feed from
>the Apollo 11 launch.  From this program it looks like about six and a
>half seconds pass between the word "liftoff" and the first stage fins
>passing the crane at the top of the tower, a distance of about 400
>feet...

According to the book ``Project Apollo'' (published 1971, original
edition 1969) the time to clear the tower is greater than 20 seconds.
That may well be starting from ignition; the context concerned the
mechanism by which the upper service booms retract into their shields
before five F-1 engines at full power come past.

Let's see... at 15 tons/sec, that's about 300 tons of fuel to go the
first ~450 feet.  Working this out in my head, the initial milage is
order-of- magnitude 200,000,000 l/100km.  Of course, it gets better if
you average over the whole trip...

John Hogg			   | hogg@csri.toronto.{edu,cdn}
Computer Systems Research Institute| uunet!csri.toronto.edu!hogg
University of Toronto		   | hogg%csri.toronto.edu@relay.cs.net (arpa)
				   | hogg@csri.utoronto (bitnet)

------------------------------

Date: 4 Feb 88 17:42:12 GMT
From: mmm!ems!rosevax!carole@UMN-CS.ARPA  (Carole Ashmore)
Subject: Re: Tranquility Base

Well, I was listening back in 1969, and he did indeed say "One small
step for man, one giant step for mankind." which seemed at the time a
bit trite.  I remember reading in the newspaper what he was supposed to
have said, "One small step for a man, one giant step for mankind."  and
thinking it made more sense.

					Carole Ashmore

------------------------------

Date: 5 Feb 88 21:18:11 GMT
From: yaron@astro.as.utexas.edu  (Terr S. Trial)
Subject: Re: Astronauts' Memorial

In article <41065@sun.uucp>, dunc%moria@Sun.COM (duncs home) writes:
> To be a really fitting memorial it should be placed on the Moon.  I
> wonder if it's too late to change....

Or to be a *really* fitting memorial it should be placed on Pluto. I
wonder when can we get there to do it...

------------------------------

From: RMORALES%WPI.BITNET@husc6.harvard.edu
Date: Sat, 6 Feb 88 02:09:24 est
Subject: GET AWAY SPECIAL JOURNAL

    I am involved in one of Worcester Polytechnic Institute's on-going
space-related projects: the Get Away Special Journal. This quarterly
Journal chronicles the history of WPI's development of two Get Away
Special Canisters (GASCANs in NASA's lingo) donated by the MITRE
Corporation. Until last year, the Journal presented only "local" events
concerning these canisters. However, this year our editorial team has
taken the initiative to expand this 5 1/2 year old project to encompass
important aerospace events in the WPI community as well



as the national and international space effort. Anyone interested can
subscribe by just writing to the address below. Subscriptions are free.
When writing, please mention that you saw this notice in BITNET.

                             Get Away Special Journal
                             c/o Robert Morales
                             WPI Box 2502
                             Worcester, MA  01609

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 8 Feb 88 12:58:10 PST
From: Eugene miya <eugene@ames-aurora.arpa>
Subject: Employment of Foreign Nationals by NASA

I've received about 4 notes on this, so permit me to respond as one.

NASA is an Agency of the US Government.  It has a basic "hire home
bodies" clause for several reasons: 1) "security," 2) "buy/hire
American," and 3) "other miscellaneous reasons."  Now 1) how many
Russian agents do you think work for the Social Security Administration?
Probably not many, but maybe one or two (right?) ;-).  Let's not argue
"deep agents," that's dumb, but the rule is inclusive of all Agencies.
2) this is a back lash to trade legistation (not the 1970s, but since
the turn of the Century).  The Detroit analogy still does hold; the
arguments have lasted decades.  (P.S. I know a Communist (I use that
word for flame effect) Chinese person working at LLNL.  The right
signatures can approve anything.)  So the only way to get one of these
positions (Civil Service) is to change citizenship, wait some grace
period, then apply.

Those are the primary `defenses' from hiring foreign nationals.  The
secondary effects are as follows: NASA has about 100,000 contractor
personnel working for it.  A foreign national can try to get a job with
one of them.  This is probably subject to approval, frequently given.  A
good justification about "sole person capable of (blah, blah)."

Co-ops sort of fall into this latter category.  Rules for this category
can change depending how the co-op is set up and how far someone wants
to risk their signature.

By historical (hysterical?) precedent, England and Canada, and the other
ex-Colonies tend to have the best odds.  ESSA countries follow this.
Then come the other countries.  Many of these people have special status
as joint representatives.  Note this is not an impossible situation.
The grants in my Branch alone have Chinese (Hong Kong, Japanese, and
Mexician (Hi Rafael, give me a call)) National students on it.  Note:
the high percentage of non-US citizen students in US Universities is a
big worry in Washington DC.

As with any job, some information remains proprietary, because we work
with commercial firms (and we don't let their information out, etc.).
It's really not very much different than applying to ESSA or JSA each
will protect their own interests.

P.S. We were just sent a note about disseminating TRs outside the US and
all the approvals (up to the Director's office) to do this.  People
outside the US might not like this, but lots of people inside do.  Rock
the boat, and I stop talking.

>From the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:
--eugene miya NASA Ames Research Center eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA

------------------------------

Date: 4 Feb 88 17:29:15 GMT
From: uplherc!esunix!bpendlet@gr.utah.edu  (Bob Pendleton)
Subject: Re: Time Magazine story

in article <1988Jan31.193503.10424@utzoo.uucp>, henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) says:
> Slightly lower peak development budgets.  That is the whole, complete,
> entire reason why the SRBs were chosen.  The reason why they remain in
> service is equally simple: it would cost a lot to develop a
> replacement, especially with NASA and its contractors doing it, and
> there is no money.

Come on, cut the contractors a little slack. I've seen too many
engineers who work for those contractors grinning ear to ear at being
given assignments on commercial projects. Projects where they are
allowed to do work in weeks that NASA and DOD regulations would force to
take years.

The contractors look and act the way NASA and DOD want them to act, not
vice versa.
			Bob P.

------------------------------

Date: 8 Feb 88 17:30:17 GMT
From: pitstop!sundc!hadron!netxcom!rkolker@sun.com  (rich kolker)
Subject: Re: New space camp?

In article <8802021523.AA01866@angband.s1.gov> PICARD@gmr.COM (RON PICARD) writes:
>  I recently talked to someone who had gone to spacecamp and he told me
>a couple things that I haven't seen on the net.  . . .

Right now, the Space Camp folks have three different locations,
Huntsville (the original), KSC and Japan.  The last two are new and have
not yet opened, but will this summer.  KSC and Japan are also Space Camp
Level I only for the first year. (That's 4-7 grades).

There are "Space Camp Like" programs at other locations around the
country, but I don't know anything about them.

++rich

------------------------------

Date: 8 Feb 88 23:52:00 GMT
From: pitt!cisunx!sngst@cadre.dsl.pittsburgh.edu  (Sanjiv N. Gupta)
Subject: Re: Tranquility Base

In article <4331@ames.arpa> mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov.UUCP (Mike Smithwick) writes:
>To further add to this trivial discussion, Charlie Duke the CapCom continued :
>
>   ". . .We got a bunch of guys about to turn blue here, thanks alot!"
>

I've read and heard tapes of this historic dialouge about ten million
times, so I'm fairly certain that he says:

'...we got a bunch of guys about to turn blue, but were breathing
again...'

or something to that effect.  Im quoting from memory.

Here's two interesting tidbits:

The 'program alarm' that occured shortly before touchdown nearly aborted
the landing of Apollo 11, but actually there was no problem (false
alarm).  The guy in mission control who recognized the situation and
acted very quickly to save the landing was along with Armstrong, Aldrin
and Collins at the white house after the flight to receive a medal from
Nixon.  I forget his name.

Right after landing a fuel line in the Eagle clogged up and the pressure
in the fuel system started to build up. Again, the mission was almost
aborted with an emergency liftof from the moon.  You don't hear them
talking about it to the crew, because they didn't tell them until after
the flight.  the situation cleared itself up before it became critical.
It was probably caused by frozen fuel.

I forget the exact reference for these, but I think its a book called
"Chariots for Apollo," an excellent history of the lunar module
development.  Good reading.

sanjiv

------------------------------

Date: 9 Feb 88 01:06:52 GMT
From: devvax!jplpro!des@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov  (David Smyth)
Subject: Re: New space camp?

How can I get info on Space Camp?  Never heard of it before,
and it sounds interesting for me and my family.

Mail me, or better, post as I think it will be general interest.

------------------------------

Date: 9 Feb 88 16:24:22 GMT
From: devvax!jplpro!des@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov  (David Smyth)
Subject: Re: Employment of Foreign Nationals by NASA

eugene@AMES-AURORA.ARPA (Eugene miya) writes:
>NASA is an Agency of the US Government.  It has a basic "hire home bodies"
>clause for several reasons: 1) "security," ...
>                                   ... Now 1) how many Russian agents do
>you think work for the Social Security Administration?  Probably not
>many, but maybe one or two (right?) ;-).  Let's not argue "deep
>agents," that's dumb, but the rule is inclusive of all Agencies.

When I came to work here at JPL, I was led through the typical security
briefing, told not to talk to Russians, don't go to Communist countries,
etc., just like at every other aerospace facility in the USA.

Then, as I was being directed to my workplace by my brand new boss, he
said "Oh, you don't have to worry about the Russians, you have to worry
about the locals!" and he introduced me to my office mate, who is
Russian from Lenongrad.  There are many foreign nationals on-site here
including Russians.  About half the discussions my office mate has are
in the Russian tongue.

Cooperation is the best way to avoid strife, and of course, war.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #130
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 13 Feb 88 06:20:06 EST
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	id AA01295; Sat, 13 Feb 88 03:17:14 PST
Date: Sat, 13 Feb 88 03:17:14 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8802131117.AA01295@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #131

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 131

Today's Topics:
		  Re: Creating National Space Policy
			    space station
			  Lunar base station
	      *Engines of Creation* (Re: Nanotechnology)
		      Candidates' Space Position
	Re: The Church of the Holy Starship was Re: A request
		 Re: Japan's Space "Fifth Generation"
	       Proxmire's stand on manned Mars mission
			 Time Magazine story
		    Re: Candidates' Space Position
		       Re: Time Magazine story
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 20 Jan 88 16:48:13 GMT
From: devvax!jplpro!des@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov  (David Smyth)
Subject: Re: Creating National Space Policy

It is better to spend $$ on international cooperation than international
destruction.

We can achieve peace with USSR the same way Europe has achieved peace
with itself over the last 43 years: COOPERATION.

And a cooperative space program: USA, USSR, ESA, and JSA (sp?)  can lead
to epace among the "civilized" world.

Peace is national security, not war.  Girding for war, as the Ray-Gun
administration has been doing, undermines the stability of the world,
and therfore the security of the world and our nation.

Focussing our efforts on the next frontier - space - will provide our
children and children's children (God, do I sound like a politician or
what !?! :^) with hope and a better life.  As they support us on Social
Security and pay off the national debt, of course :^p

------------------------------

Date: 22 Jan 88 17:13:19 GMT
From: linus!alliant!powell@husc6.harvard.edu  (Glen D. Powell)
Subject: space station

Space stations are boring! We need something that will ignite the
imagination of the public and also offer something substantial to the
business world.

How about a space station on the moon? Far more exciting!  On the moon
we would have ready access to many raw materials.  We would have room to
grow. What does the net think of the idea of a moon based space station?

Glen

------------------------------

Date: 23 Jan 88 19:51:18 GMT
From: beckenba@csvax.caltech.edu  (Joe Beckenbach)
Subject: Lunar base station

In his article Glen D. Powell (powell@alliant.COM) writes:
>	Space stations are boring! We need something that will ignite
>	the imagination of the public and also offer something
>	substantial to the business world.

>	How about a space station on the moon? Far more exciting!  On
>	the moon we would have ready access to many raw materials.  We
>	would have room to grow. What does the net think of the idea of
>	a moon based space station?

	Personally, I say "go for it". However, the basic support
structure which must be included will probably extend to some kind of
space station in earth orbit; after all, it is about 60-70 hours (at
Apollo speed) to Luna.  That would get me from LA to Chicago by car: a
long time to go without any scenery. ;-)
	On looking at it again, this looks even better. Now there's a
firm reason (no pun intended) to put something in space: a community on
Luna that needs support-- very much like the initial serious
colonization efforts of centuries ago. The New World about 300 years ago
would be a comparable situation, but then everyone will have to remember
that failures will happen regardless: remember Roanoake?

	Pardon the ramblings, but I want to see this happen too!

-Joe Beckenbach (CS BS '88)

------------------------------

Date: 25 Jan 88 15:38:00 PST
From: "KEVIN W. BOLD 0-1" <bold@afsc-sd.arpa>
To: "space" <space@angband.s1.gov>
Reply-To: "KEVIN W. BOLD 0-1" <bold@afsc-sd.arpa>
Subject: *Engines of Creation* (Re: Nanotechnology)

Kurt Godden's review of K. Eric Drexler's *Engines of Creation* (SPACE
DIGEST V8 #114) was an excellent summary of the book, but I would like
to add the following note: namely, Drexler's discussion notes the
possible *misuses* nanotechnology could have as well as its benefits.
(I don't remember G. K. O'Neill mentioning possible misuses of space
colonies in *The High Frontier*, for example.)  This is very sharp pin
for deflating the neo-Luddite myth that "science leads people away from
human values;" science doesn't seem to have had that effect on Drexler.

Kevin "Mad Max" Bold	|When in Southern California, honk & wave at the
(BOLD@AFSC-SD.ARPA)	|red Fiero GT with plates that say "4DMNSNS."

------------------------------

Date: 26 Jan 88 00:31:26 GMT
From: lmsprys@athena.mit.edu  (Linda M Sprys)
Subject: Candidates' Space Position

After the debate amomg the democratic candidates on Sunday in Durham,
NH, Babbitt was asked about his ideas on space. His response was as
follows:

1: Support for developing a mix of launch vehicles, avoiding
   overreliance on a single vehicle. (a la Challenger)
2: He would like an eventual manned space station. Not clear if this
   means cancelling the present NASA concept and starting with a
   man-tended version like the ISF or not.
3: Supports the development of a moonbase.  

I found it significant that he did not mention a manned mission to Mars
as a near-term goal. I would like to assume that his support for these
particular aspects of space development reflects a commitment to
avoiding Apollo-style oneshot missions and indicates a desire to foster
the development of a viable space infrastructure, mostly because this is
the basis of my support for these goals.

Also, I wonder what the net thinks about Reagan's proposed new policies
regarding commercial development of space. The New York Times printed
the criticism that the policy might amount to little more than massive
subsidies to private enterprise.

Aspects that I remember include:

1. A limitation of commercial liability
2. A requirement that NASA buy launch services from private enterprises
3. Contracting out design work

. . .

Too bad he didn't do this seven years ago. Now, it is questionable
whether this policy will survive a change of administration.

Benjamin Mclemore   
lmsprys@athena.mit.edu

------------------------------

Date: 26 Jan 88 00:09:49 GMT
From: amdahl!nuchat!sugar!peter@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Peter da Silva)
Subject: Re: The Church of the Holy Starship was Re: A request

In article <409@kaos.UUCP>, hilda@kaos.UUCP (Hilda Marshall) writes:
[ re: attitudes of space buffs, I think ]
> This approach makes some assumptions that I don't see as obvious facts:

Neither do I:

> 	1. The expansion of the human realm and the assurance of the 
> 	   propagation of the human species are paramount.

I'll go along with this one.

> 	2. When technology can assure a constant supply of something,
> 	   there is no reason to preserve the existing supply.

I don't see that this one follows. We can assure a constant supply of
anything at some price... that doesn't mean that we should keep using
everything up. Apart from aesthetic reasons it's just too expensive.

> 	3. Therefore, if a species does not directly serve humanity in
> 	   its viable state, it is expendable.

And this assumption is pure road apples. I don't know any space
enthusiast who would go along with this, except perhaps for species that
directly harm humanity... like smallpox virus (the classic case, here).

-- Peter da Silva  `-_-'  ...!hoptoad!academ!uhnix1!sugar!peter
-- Disclaimer: These U aren't mere opinions... these are *values*.

------------------------------

Date: 27 Jan 88 21:09:30 GMT
From: beckenba@csvax.caltech.edu  (Joe Beckenbach)
Subject: Re: Japan's Space "Fifth Generation"

In his article Henry Spencer (henry@utzoo.uucp) writes:
>Note that 2000 kg is not much of a shuttle.  Unless Japan has changed
>its plans radically without telling outfits like Aviation Week, this is
>the proposed -- not yet approved -- small *unmanned* spaceplane that
>might fly late in the century.  The US need not quake in its boots yet.

	Also note that once a shuttle with cargo capacity of 2 metric
tons is flying with frequency, all it takes to provide a major space
effort is a large booster. The US ought to be seriously worried soon.

		-Joe Beckenbach (CS BS '88)

Why the powers-that-be dumped a working system of boosters to spend
years on developing an exclusive technology is beyond me. One should
keep the bicycle while waiting for the volkswagen.

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 28 Jan 88 00:50:00
X-Date-Last-Edited: 1988 January 28 00:50:00 PST (=GMT-8hr)
X-Date-Posted: 1988 January 28 00:50:53 PST (=GMT-8hr)
From: Robert Elton Maas <REM%IMSSS@sail.stanford.edu>
Cc: REM@imsss
Subject: Proxmire's stand on manned Mars mission

(I'm not on Space-Enthusiasts mailing list, so please send or CC any
 reply directly to me via mail.)

With Proxmire traditionally being opposed to spending money on science
and other worthy causes because he believes it to be a waste of valuable
taxpayer money, I was concerned about his stand in favor of immediately
starting work towards a manned Mars landing.  I wrote to him to ask him
why and to point all the other projects in space (lunar mining etc.)
that would be more cost-effective uses for taxpayer money in the
immediate future, with the manned Mars mission being better left for
later after the other tasks are completed and our capabilities in space
are more developed. Here is his reply:


Dear Mr. Maas:

	It was good of you to let me know of your opposition to a Mars
mission and your interest in learning why I supposr such a mission.

	I support the manned exploration of Mars primarily because of
the opportunity it presents the United States to work with the Soviet
Union on a project that would encourage progress toward a common goal,
break down the barriers that currently exist between our two countries
and result in shared costs.  I also believe it provides a framework and
a rationale for several of the other activities being pursued by NASA
such as the development of a heavy lift launch capability and the space
station program.  To my mind one of the differences betwen the Apollo
days and the current NASA environment is that NASA no longer has a
single overriding goal but rather a number of divergent missions with
differing groups of proponents.

	I hope this helps to explain my position.

					Sincerely,

					William Proxmire
					Chairman
					HUD-Independent Agencies
					  Subcommittee

I have a number of questions I'd like to ask him:
 - Is he pleased or displeased that we presently have lots of divergent
    missions instead of one big one? I am pleased, but he sounds like he
    wants to revert to the Apollo one-big-project mode.
 - Does he consider the Mars mission to be the only way we can get the
    USA and USSR to cooperate, therefore worth the immense cost at this
    time?
 - Does he think we can get other tasks done while the Mars mission is
    getting most of the money? Does he want anything else done except
    that which directly contributes to Mars mission?

I'm not sure I can ask such questions tactfully, so perhaps somebody
else can "pick up the ball" by sending him a letter that starts
something like "I understand your position on the manned Mars mission is
that ... Is that essentially correct? I have a different opinion for the
following reasons ... Can you justify your position in the light of that
...?" etc. As you can see, that doesn't sound very tactful, so you gotta
reword it somehow, but perhaps that basic idea would be a good way to
refer to the info I gathered from the reply I received without making it
obvious that we are in cahoots over the net.

------------------------------

Date: 28 Jan 88 22:44:53 GMT
From: sonia!khayo@locus.ucla.edu  (Erazm J. Behr)
Subject: Time Magazine story

  The latest (Feb 1) issue of the Time Mag. has a horror story "Putting
Schedule over Safety", relating the problems that safety-conscious
people working for contractors are having (Unisys & Rockwell
specifically mentioned). I think that by putting 3 safety inspector next
to each worker would get us flying maybe in the 22nd century, but the
other extreme as described by Time is rather revolting.
  I haven't thought about the privatization of space very much,
generally I am for privatization of whatever can be privatized without
dire consequences, but this to me looks like a major argument against it
(in this case at least). If there were no NASA and their "blue-ribbon"
committees, what would prevent the industry from taking outrageous
shortcuts? Public opinion which doesn't seem to care one whit? The
old-fashioned "responsibility" in the age when abstract ideas like that
are ridiculed? Fear of punishment? (A question: has anyone involved in
the space program ever had to stand trial as a result of an accident or
incompetence?)
  Any reactions?                                Eric
       khayo@MATH.ucla.edu

------------------------------

Date: 28 Jan 88 00:29:07 GMT
From: purtill@faline.bellcore.com  (Mark Purtill)
Subject: Re: Candidates' Space Position

Well, I just got a (today) letter from SPACEPAC (asking for money, of
course) that had some info along those lines.  (However, this letter was
dated Dec 23, 1987, so this may be a little out-of-date.

Bush gave a pro-space speach in Huntsville, AL, last fall.  "While no
other Republican candidate has yet taken a stronger pro-space position
than Bush, SPACEPAC feels Bush's position is unreasonably constrained by
his concerns for the federal deficit." (That's from the letter, as are
any other quotes I might throw in).  As I recall, Bush was in favor of
the "Mission to planet earth" scenario from the Ride report.

At a "recent" Iowa debate, "Both Dukakis and Gephardt calimed to be
favorably inclined toward the space program, but felt that in an era of
tight budgets that priorities should be placed elsewhere."

"SPACEPAC has thus far penetrated the Gore campaign substantially more
than... others. ... Based on positions taken so far, Gore is clearly
more pro-space than any of the other Democratic contender.  However,
this could change;" since most of the others haven't said anything on
the issue.

Aside from asking for money, SPACEPAC says that writing letters to
candidates asking them what they're position is is a good idea as it
gives them the feeling someone cares.  Asking questions at "public
forums" (like speaches) is also good.  They would like to have copies of
any replies you get, especially if the candidate takes a position on
Space Station.  SPACEPAC's address is:

SPACEPAC, 2801 B Ocean Park Boulevard, Suite S, Santa Monica CA 90405

The letter has the addresses of all the presidential candidates; I'll
post it if and only if there is sufficent interest.

The Jan. 4, 1988, issue of Aviation Week also has an article space
issues in the campaign.  My impression was that no one had said much,
and those who had were not the front-runners.


purtill@math.mit.edu

------------------------------

Date: 31 Jan 88 09:26:34 GMT
From: sonia!khayo@locus.ucla.edu  (Erazm J. Behr)
Subject: Re: Time Magazine story

As usual, thanks go to Henry for his informed opinion.

What I thought when saying that NASA's "blue ribbon committees" are
better than the absence of the like: I am a total outsider, but my
impression was that because of the public focus etc. NASA gets to take
most of the blame for whatever (even screw-ups of the contractors) -->
desire to avoid this --> stronger emphasis on safety-oriented
procedures, anonymous complaints being given some attention etc. (not
strong enough - granted - the Challenger was easily the biggest shock of
my life to date). My impression of how things work in industry (I'm no
part of it either) was that the discipline was more like the (P)Russian
army kind, discouraging *any* "dissent" (the article I was referring to
provides some proof - I somehow can't imagine NASA security guards
snooping on their "whistle blowers", simply because such things are much
harder to hide/deny when they happen in a non-private outfit).

I fully agree that all this depends mainly on the people and
organization; however, it also depends on the motivations and underlying
principles on which an organization is based. You simply cannot *count
on* having good people in any enterprise (in the long run, of course).
Just look at the incompetence that is everywhere and growing. There must
also be something in the system that would at least reduce the chances
of big or small idiocies passing without notice. As long as there is no
clear relationship between competence and profit/"good name"/respect
(say, in the absence of many competitors, which is inevitable in the
case of efforts of this magnitude), all the usual incentives - that make
businesses good, reliable, growing - simply don't work.

By the way, my question about people standing trial was also sarcastic,
but I think it has more to do with the general tendency to smear
responsibility around very thinly - it is now quite usual (I guess) for
a victim of an electric shock to sue everyone starting from the electric
company and ending with the printing shop which failed to include a
warning that a heater submerged in a bathtub may cause bodily harm to
those submerged with it - and nobody even laughs at it any more. If I
don't see the Big Picture, it's because it doesn't exist any more.
                                            Regards, Eric
        khayo@MATH.ucla.edu

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #131
*******************

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Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA02290; Sat, 13 Feb 88 20:19:32 PST
	id AA02290; Sat, 13 Feb 88 20:19:32 PST
Date: Sat, 13 Feb 88 20:19:32 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8802140419.AA02290@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #132

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 132

Today's Topics:
		 Re: Japan's Space "Fifth Generation"
		       Re: Time Magazine story
		      Re: "What's New"  01/29/88
		  Re: Creating National Space Policy
		       Re: Time Magazine story
		       Re: Time Magazine story
		     Civilian Space Policy Reform
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 26 Jan 88 06:07:12 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Japan's Space "Fifth Generation"

> H-II. Planned to operate from 1992-?. Payload capacity of 2000 kg.
> About 47 meters tall. This would lift the Japanese space shuttle.

Note that 2000 kg is not much of a shuttle.  Unless Japan has changed
its plans radically without telling outfits like Aviation Week, this is
the proposed -- not yet approved -- small *unmanned* spaceplane that
might fly late in the century.  The US need not quake in its boots yet.

> ... no real home-grown Japanese aerospace industry. The liquid fueled
> LE-5 engine in the second stage of the H-I is produced under American
> license and will be a model for the LE-7, the power train in the H-II.

This sounds to me like somebody has gotten a bit confused; it's the
*first* stage of the H-1 that is made under US license, since it is
basically a Delta.  The second stage is pretty much all-Japanese.
McDonnell-Douglas, which makes Delta, tried to get US rights to the
second stage; the Japanese refused to sell.

> ... Also, Japan is going for 2 stage launchers, as opposed to the
> three stage launchers which ESA and NASA use...

Now I know somebody is confused.  Ariane is indeed 3 stages, but the US
boosters cover the range from 2 to 4 stages.

> ... Also, the Halley's Comet flyby (Planet A) was put into orbit using
> direct injection rather than an elliptical slingshot, because it would
> reduce costs...

Again something has been lost somewhere; as I understand it, Planet A
used direct injection simply to get maximum payload out of a booster
that was rather small for a planetary mission.

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 1 Feb 88 00:34:58 GMT
From: clyde!watmath!utgpu!utzoo!henry@rutgers.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Time Magazine story

> I understand that the SRB's were originally intended to be only
> temporary solutions as shuttle boosters, and were to be replaced by
> liquid fuel boosters after a (small?) number of launches.  Is (was)
> that correct?

Perhaps in the most informal and speculative sense; nothing like that
was ever official policy.  NASA has been *interested* in liquid boosters
from the beginning, but never had any firm plan for changeover.

And no, nobody is doing anything about it now except for yet more paper
studies of the idea.

> What are the reasons for chosing SRB's over conventional liquid fuel
> rockets?...

Slightly lower peak development budgets.  That is the whole, complete,
entire reason why the SRBs were chosen.  The reason why they remain in
service is equally simple: it would cost a lot to develop a replacement,
especially with NASA and its contractors doing it, and there is no
money.

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 30 Jan 88 21:50:42 GMT
From: palmer@tybalt.caltech.edu  (David Palmer)
Subject: Re: "What's New"  01/29/88

In [sci.physics] article from piner@pur-phy appears:
>[...]
>3.  REAGAN'S NEW "NATIONAL SPACE POLICY" IS STILL UNDER WRAPS, although
>he reportedly signed off on it two weeks ago.  It was generally thought
>that it was being held up until after the State-of-the-Union Address
>but, as you may have noticed, neither space nor science got even a
>mention...

According to Aviation Leak (Jan 25. '88 p. 15), the White House was
going to trumpet the new policy heavily in the state of the Union
Address, but then AW&ST scooped them.  So instead Reagan went with his
old standards: Line-Item vetos, prayer in schools, life begins at
ovulation, America strong, free, proud, tall in the saddle, getting off
cocaine (thank you Nancy) etc.

		David Palmer
		palmer@tybalt.caltech.edu
		...rutgers!cit-vax!tybalt.caltech.edu!palmer
	"Every day it's the same thing--variety.  I want something different."

------------------------------

Date: 25 Jan 88 17:25:49 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Creating National Space Policy

> We can achieve peace with USSR the same way Europe has achieved peace
> with itself over the last 43 years: COOPERATION.
> 
> And a cooperative space program: USA, USSR, ESA, and JSA (sp?)  can
> lead to epace among the "civilized" world.

Europe has achieved peace with itself for precisely one reason: American
and Soviet nuclear weapons hovering in the background.  If you think the
Europeans are marvels of cooperation, consider that the ESA member
countries combined have a larger population and a bigger, healthier
economy than the US... but it sure doesn't show in ESA and other
cooperative projects.  Why?  Because cooperative activity is very low on
everybody's funding-priority lists, and ESA is constantly torn by
internal warfare on priorities (should we build Hermes?) and
territoriality (if we expand the ESA astronaut corps, who gets the
astronaut base?).

The idea IS superficially appealing, but things just aren't that simple.

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 31 Jan 88 03:22:55 GMT
From: cdaf@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu  (Charles A. Daffinger)
Subject: Re: Time Magazine story

>Right now, when a contractor screws up, they get more money to fix the
>problem.  Although Morton Thiokol isn't being paid for fixing the SRB
>problems, they still have the contract for making SRBs.  Rockwell and
>its subcontractors have the lucrative contract to build a new shuttle.
>The only losers have been the taxpayers and the seven people who died
>(and their families.)

I understand that the SRB's were originally intended to be only
temporary solutions as shuttle boosters, and were to be replaced by
liquid fuel boosters after a (small?) number of launches.  Is (was) that
correct?  Is there any kind of effort currntly being expended at indeed
replacing these troublesome SRB's with someting more controllable, if
not more reliable?  and wouldn't this close to 3-year grounding have
been a great opportunity to do that work?  Much money has been spent in
studying methods of making the SRB's more controllable in an emergency
situation, mostly to no avail.

What are the reasons for chosing SRB's over conventional liquid fuel
rockets?  Certainly it cannot be safety, and certainly it cannot be
controllablility.  They were cheaper in the short run, but the problems
now point to an ill-conceived desighn, where good money is now being
thrown after bad.  Or was the decision once again one mired in the
politics of contracts for congressional districts?

-charles

------------------------------

Date: 29 Jan 88 20:01:42 GMT
From: ihnp4!chinet!mcdchg!clyde!watmath!utgpu!utzoo!henry@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Time Magazine story

> I haven't thought about the privatization of space very much,
> generally I am for privatization of whatever can be privatized without
> dire consequences, but this to me looks like a major argument against
> it (in this case at least)...

I see no evidence that the government can do better, especially since
most government work is done through (ta da) contractors.  In fact there
is, I think, a negative correlation there.  Working for the government
seems to automatically produce the sort of overbureaucratized,
micromanaged, committee-run organizations that are inherently hostile to
things like quality and safety.  The two specific names given (UniSys
and Rockwell) are both major government contractors.

To amplify a bit: the problem is not whether there is a profit motive
involved.  An organization cares about safety -- or doesn't -- mostly as
a function of the attitude of the people in charge.  This is definitely
related to the organizational structure, because different structures
attract different kinds of people.  The sort of stifling bureacracy that
is everywhere inside the government, or in major dealings with the
government, is unlikely to attract the sort of honorable and courageous
leader who insists that things be done right even if it takes a bit
longer and costs a bit more.  The same is true of a lot of large
companies.

Occasionally one does find the right sort of leader even in unlikely
settings, but there is no guarantee that their successors will maintain
the same standards.  Marshall Spaceflight Center was a conspicuous example
of good management under Wernher von Braun; it has fared less well since
he left, to put it mildly.

> If there were no NASA and their "blue-ribbon" committees, what would
> prevent the industry from taking outrageous shortcuts? ...

The blue-ribbon committees didn't help the Challenger crew much, did
they?  Remember that it was NASA that pushed for the outrageous
shortcuts and bullied the industry people into cooperating, that time.
The issue is what kind of people are in charge, not where their salaries
come from.

> ... The old-fashioned "responsibility" in the age when abstract ideas
> like that are ridiculed?

Responsibility can still be found, or grown, in a favorable environment.
Not everyone ridicules the idea.  The problem is creating the favorable
environment.  Unfortunately, it is not going to happen at NASA, or at
the aerospace contractors: the rot has simply gone too deep, and the
sort of radical reform that would fix it would be so unpopular that
Congress would never permit it.  As I have said before, NASA is not the
solution, it is part of the problem.  I agree that safety is a real
concern in commercial spaceflight... but at least there is some chance
of building the right sort of outfit when one starts from scratch.

> Fear of punishment? (A question: has anyone involved in the space
> program ever had to stand trial as a result of an accident or
> incompetence?)

[begin sarcasm] Of Course Not.  You just don't understand the Big
Picture.  When we are All To Blame, it is totally unfair and
inappropriate to blame the people who happened to make specific
decisions.  Far better to add a few committees to supervise things in
more detail, rather than making it clear to the actual decision makers
that they are responsible for their own stupidity.  It's ridiculous to
think that loyal bureaucrats might actually be *punished* for killing
seven astronauts, wrecking $1G worth of equipment, and nearly ruining
the space program.  [end sarcasm]

If you want to be unhappy, check out what happened to most of the people
involved in the Challenger disaster.  Early retirement on a fat pension
was the worst result for most of the decision-makers.  And if you really
want to cry, compare what Morton Thiokol paid in penalties with what
they got in new fix-the-SRBs contracts.  When the next such decision
comes up, which choice do you think this example will encourage?

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Reply-To: lll-crg!ames!sdcsvax!bass.nosc.mil!pnet01!jim@mordor.s1.gov
Date: Sun, 7 Feb 88 14:06:06 PST
From: lll-crg!ames!scubed!sdcsvax!pnet01.cts.com!jim@mordor.s1.gov (Jim Bowery)
To: crash!space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: Civilian Space Policy Reform

				    
		      CIVILIAN SPACE POLICY REFORM
				    
			   By James A. Bowery
				    
			    February 5, 1988
				    
				    
I) CIVILIAN SPACE POLICY REFORM

The following list of civilian space policy items are given in order of
their importance.


I.1)  DIVERSIFY

Reform the National Aeronautics and Space Administration by creating a
number of independent space agencies with overlapping purviews.  Do this
by giving each NASA center its own independent administrator and budget.
Allow Jet Propulsion Laboratory to come into the civil service system as
one of these agencies.  Require the use of recharge accounting.  Set
statutory limits the number of civil servants in each agency based on
their current employee counts.

This is a prerequisite for all other reforms.  Without it, other reforms
will eventually fail.  With it, we can recapture leadership in space
permanently.


I.2)  GIVE CONTROL TO SCIENCE

Beyond fixed recurring personnel and facility costs the entirety of
every agency's budget should be earmarked for unsolicited research
proposals from scientists outside of NASA who receive less than one half
of their funding from NASA development or operations contracts.  Model
proposal review after the National Science Foundation's (NSF) peer
review system.  Require reviews to be public, written and attributed
unless the reviewer is not a civil servant and has compelling reasons to
remain anonymous.  A letter of acceptance or rejection giving rationale
must be written, public and attributed.  Require that all revenue for
development or operations contracts come from research scientists who
have been awarded funding for their unsolicited proposals.  Allow funded
research scientists to buy services, including launch and on orbit
laboratory facilities, from any source they choose -- private, public or
foreign.

Operate private space services under the same rules of liability that
airlines operate under.  Allow requests for proposals to be issued only
in the case of operations and development contracts.


I.3)  PRESERVE SHUTTLE-DEPENDENT MISSIONS

As an exception to policy item 2, maintain direct funding for Shuttle
flights sufficient to fly already pending missions, such as Spacelab,
that require manned rating or the return from orbit of large payloads.
Allow this exception to continue for a period of no more than 3 years
subsequent to the execution of item 2.


I.4)  OFFER EARLY RETIREMENT

Offer voluntary early retirement to any NASA civil servant for a period
of one year subsequent to the execution of item 2.  Offer enhanced
retirement benefits during this year only.


II)  RATIONALE FOR CIVILIAN SPACE POLICY REFORM

It is widely recognized that the United States is losing its leadership
in space due, in part, to structural problems in our civilian space
program.  The extent to which increased funding can help us recapture
leadership is limited by increasing budgetary pressures.  Fortunately,
we can recapture our world leadership without increasing the civilian
space program's budget.

The strategy followed in this reform is to redirect inappropriately
allocated funds into creating a private space services industry whose
initial market is a dramatically increased space science community, and
whose later markets are yet to be discovered by that space science
community.  For a variety of historic reasons, there is so much funding
being inappropriately allocated in NASA that the gains possible are
truly astounding and more than sufficient to support a renewed world
leadership in space by the United States.

The following is a list of the reasons for each of the proposed policy
items.


II.1)  WHY DIVERSIFY?

Any reform of NASA that does not involve breaking it out into separate
agencies is subject to a relapse of the current problems.

NSF has shown itself to be an effective agency at $1.5 billion which is
the approximate size each of the space agencies would be.

Currently, when one NASA center accomplishes something significant, its
credibility is used by the other NASA centers via headquarters to embark
on dubious programs (such as Space Station) with very little funding
being fed back to the credible center based on its prior performance.

Programmatic "hostage taking" (such as requiring all JPL launches to go
on Shuttle and similar games with Space Station) creates a political
climate in which it is very difficult to kill the largest and most
destructive programs.  This kind of political game is possible only
under coordination of headquarters.

There are significant overlaps between other federal research agencies
with benefits that clearly outweigh the cost of redudancy.  These
benefits include independent verification of scientific results, having
a backup team in case of failure and the added incentive of having
others in the same field who might do a better job using less money.

JPL should be made part of the civil service system so it is on an equal
footing with the other agencies.

Space Shuttle should be terminated if its recurring costs cannot be
supported by its users rather than having headquarters protect it from
competition from outside launch services.  (This is referring to many of
the government, not commercial, payloads that NASA STILL refuses to move
off Shuttle).  Breaking NASA up would require Shuttle to stand on its
own merits rather than the political clout of headquarters.

While scientists need space laboratories, Space Station as currently
envisioned, is not correctly conceived or executed and should be
terminated so as to open the market for private efforts to provide such
laboratories.  Without the political clout of headquarters, Space
Station would be terminated and the market for space facilities would be
wide open.


II.2) WHY GIVE CONTROL TO SCIENCE?

Give control to science because NASA's main purpose is to acquire
knowlege about space through exploration and research.  Every dollar
that goes into NASA should be under the control of science.  Other
activities, such as system development and operation, should be
conducted only at the requirement of scientists with scientifically
meritorious objectives.

Scientifically meritorious objectives are best uncovered by allowing
scientists to decide independently what proposals to write, and then
submit them for review by independent peers with knowlege of the
scientific area of the proposal.  This procedure has a track record of
success in other scientific fields so it should be pursued in space
science as well.  Specifically, the National Science Foundation (NSF)
has a good track record of effective disbursement of government research
funds and should be used as a model.

Written, public, attributed reviews and letters of acceptance or
rejection for all proposals goes a bit further than NSF's procedures.
This extra care is necessary due to the current institutional culture at
some NASA centers which tends to review proposals based on who is making
the proposal more than on the proposal's content.

Research proposals must be unsolicited in order to protect the
scientific integrity and independence of the proposal generation
process.

Development and operations contracts must obtain all funds from funded
scientists in order to ensure these contracts are serving scientific
needs.

Scientists must be free to purchase services, including launch and the
use of on orbit facilities, from any source they choose so that these
choices are based solely on scientific merit.  The several billion
dollars available from scientists for space activities will be
sufficient to seed a domestic space services industry including launch
services and on orbit facilities.  Such a domestic space services
industry will play on the greatest strength of the United States --
diversity and competition in the open market.  Conventional aerospace
contracting practices do not play on this strength because they are not
"arms length" the way they would be with a wide variety of independent
scientific activities providing an open market.


II.3) WHY PRESERVE SHUTTLE-DEPENDENT MISSIONS?

There are many scientists who have spent their careers preparing to fly
missions that require a capability very similar to Shuttle.  It may be
that Shuttle cannot pay its own way based on these users.  Since the
government got them into their position of dependency on the Shuttle, it
has an obligation to pick up the slack and provide Shuttle service to
them in a timely manner even if it is expensive.


II.4) WHY OFFER EARLY RETIREMENT?

NASA, like many federal agencies, has run into the problem of having an
aging staff.  Many of these hard working staffers would appreciate a
peaceful retirement after their productive careers and this would give
the agency open slots to fill with young people with new ideas.


III)  AUTHOR'S ADDRESS

James A. Bowery
PO Box 1981
La Jolla, CA 92038

PHONE: 619/295-8868


UUCP: {cbosgd, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!pnet01!jim
ARPA: crash!pnet01!jim@nosc.mil
INET: jim@pnet01.cts.com

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #132
*******************

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	id AA02922; Sun, 14 Feb 88 03:18:20 PST
Date: Sun, 14 Feb 88 03:18:20 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8802141118.AA02922@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #133

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 133

Today's Topics:
		       Space News from Hawai'i
	Re: Shuttle-launched satellites considered unreliable?
	Re: Shuttle-launched satellites considered unreliable?
	Re: Shuttle-launched satellites considered unreliable?
	    Choice of launch sites for geosync. satalites
	  Re: Choice of launch sites for geosync. satalites
			Choice of launch sites
	  Re: Choice of launch sites for geosync. satalites
      Forward report numbers; details of antiproton annihilation
		  Re: Proton/anti-proton annhilation
      Re: Mission planning (was space station editorial, part 1)
	      Difference between RTG and nuclear reactor
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 19 Jan 88 01:16:20 GMT
From: hplabsz!kempf@hplabs.hp.com  (Jim Kempf)
Subject: Space News from Hawai'i

The Hawai'i industrial development commission is considering three sites
on the Big Island for development of a Pacific Basin spaceport.  The
spaceport is controversial, but the industrial development commission is
determined to go through with it. One obvious customer for the services
it would provide is the Japanese (see posting on Japanese space
program).

		Jim Kempf	kempf@hplabs.hp.com

------------------------------

Date: 3 Feb 88 18:43:57 GMT
From: thumper!karn@faline.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: Shuttle-launched satellites considered unreliable?

> Are shuttle-deployed satellites really less
> reliable than rocket-launched ones?  How come?

Reliability is not the issue. It's station-keeping fuel, at least for
geostationary satellites.  Most satellites run out of fuel before their
components fail and must be deliberately switched off lest they
interfere with other satellites operating on the same frequencies from
other orbital locations.

Ariane is launched from Kourou, French Guiana, about 5.5 degrees north
of the equator. Cape Canaveral is at about 28.5 degrees north latitude.
Spacecraft launched on Ariane therefore require smaller kick motors to
reach geostationary orbit from the launcher transfer orbit than do
spacecraft launched from the Cape, and this translates directly into
extra mass and volume for holding stationkeeping fuel.

Another factor unique to Shuttle-launched satellites is the 45-minute
(1/2 orbit) coast phase between shuttle deploy and PAM firing, intended
to allow the shuttle to separate to a "safe" distance. During this
period the spacecraft must continue spinning stably about its
longitudinal axis. Physics says that bodies instead "prefer" to spin
about the axis having the greatest moment of inertia (i.e., in a flat
spin). When you combine this tendency with the gravity-gradient and drag
perturbations due to the low altitude, the spacecraft must expend a
nontrivial amount of hydrazine to hold attitude, fuel that will not be
available later for stationkeeping.

When you start looking at factors like these, you realize just how
ill-suited the Shuttle is for launching satellites, and wonder just how
anybody got the idea to make it our sole launcher.  Some of us were even
saying this BEFORE Challenger...

Phil

------------------------------

Date: 3 Feb 88 18:53:45 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Shuttle-launched satellites considered unreliable?

> ... Are shuttle-deployed satellites really less
> reliable than rocket-launched ones?  How come?

Note that the original quote said "longer life expectancy", not "higher
reliability".  Barring equipment failures, the lifetime of a comsat is
usually limited by its supply of maneuvering fuel.  (No, it doesn't just
stay where it's put, not in the presence of perturbing factors like the
Moon's gravity and Earth's non-spherical shape.)  Other things being
equal -- they often aren't -- Ariane puts a satellite closer to its
final orbit, meaning that less fuel is needed to get it up there and
hence more is left for station-keeping.  This is not because Ariane is
somehow better, but because Kourou is much nearer the equator than
Kennedy.  A satellite launched from Kennedy starts out in an orbit
inclined twenty-odd degrees to the equator, while launch from Kourou
ends up in essentially the plane of the equator.  Clarke orbit, the
destination for most comsats, is in the plane of the equator.  Plane
changes take a lot of fuel.

I don't know for *certain* that this is the underlying reasoning, but
I'd be surprised if it was anything else.

Those who do not understand Unix are |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
condemned to reinvent it, poorly.    | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 4 Feb 88 19:42:53 GMT
From: mmm!allen@umn-cs.arpa  (Kurt Allen)
Subject: Re: Shuttle-launched satellites considered unreliable?

While not knowing all the facts, I think that that remark is in
reference to Shuttle launched rockets being launched in an orbit that
typically requires more fuel to reach Clark orbit from. The more fuel
used by the satellite means less fuel for station keeping when it is in
it's final position. I believe that the majority of non functioning
satellites in orbit became non functional because of lack of fuel to
maintain their orbital positions and attitude.

Just as an aside, the shuttle was to have tried in orbit refueling of
satellites to revitalize older satellites. I don't recall whether it
occured or not.

	Kurt W. Allen
	3M Center
	ihnp4!mmm!allen

------------------------------

Date: 8 Feb 88 23:12:55 GMT
From: huntting@boulder.colorado.edu  (Bradley Enoch Huntting)
Subject: Choice of launch sites for geosync. satalites

It occured to me the other day that when satalites launched from within
the U.S., they are put into a transfer orbit which is inclined about 20
deg from the plane of the equator.  This means that the net change in
velocity nessary to place the payload into geosyncronous orbit (sum of
the instantainious acceleration nessary to attain transfer orbit (~10.1
km/s) plus the instantainious acceleration nessary to bump the object
from transfer to geosyncronous orbit (~1.45 km/s if launched from the
equator, or ~4.39km/s if launched from 20 deg latitude) is higher by
~3km/s!  That's a 26% increse!  Add to this the fact that the mass of
the delivery system increases with the net velocity change.

Now it seems to me that lightening the workload by 20% would
significantly decreace the cost of delivery!  So why doesn't anyone
launch from the equator?

The climate in the south pacific or indian ocean is comparable to that
of the cape.  There are several Indoneasian islands near Syngapore which
could be used.

I understand that a government might have reservations about investing
the nessary capitol for a launch facility in a forign country.  However
a private enterprise would be able to deliver satelites for a
significant discount over what NASA could.  Esspecially once one
considers that near Syngapore there is a well educated workforce which
one doesn't have to pay in $!

So what I'm asking is:  why hasn't someone with money thought of this?
			And if they have, what success have they had?

	-brad e huntting
					huntting@boulder.colorado.edu
					     ...!hao!boulder!huntting

------------------------------

Date: 9 Feb 88 16:29:02 GMT
From: devvax!jplpro!des@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov  (David Smyth)
Subject: Re: Choice of launch sites for geosync. satalites

Many people who have the choice do - they launch on Ariane from
Honduras.  We don't have that choice, of course.  We don't need
it, we have the Shuttle!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

------------------------------

Date: 10 Feb 88 18:20:02 GMT
From: necntc!encore!waltm@husc6.harvard.edu  (Walt Mattison)
Subject: Choice of launch sites

Good timing, I just started my own pet project to find alternate launch
sites on or near the Equator. My prerequisites were that the launch site
be U.S. soil, have a natural deep water harbor, have an airfield, and be
as close to the equator as possible. Lo and behold, Kingsman Reef, a
coral atoll located about 1400 miles south west of Hawaii and only a few
degrees north of the equator.  It is U.S. territory and part of the Line
Islands. The island has a 200 ft deep lagoon that extends nearly the
full 9 mile length of the island, perfect for unloading boosters made
elsewhere or any other equipment. Launching to the east would give you
several thousand miles of uninhabited ocean to abort to. the nearest
neighbors are several hundred miles away so maybe launch insurance could
be lowered. There is an airfield on the island left over from the Naval
use of the island which ended in 62. The island is now under control of
the Interior Dept. so I think it could be bought for close to nothing.
This is all I have so far but as more info comes in I can make it
available if anyone wants to see it, or if anyone has suggestions send
mail.

Walt Mattison
Encore Computer
617-460-0500

------------------------------

Date: 10 Feb 88 18:00:44 GMT
From: idacrd!mac@princeton.edu  (Bob McGwier)
Subject: Re: Choice of launch sites for geosync. satalites

>From article <1264@devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>, by des@jplpro.JPL.NASA.GOV (David Smyth):
> Many people who have the choice do - they launch on Ariane from
> Honduras.  We don't have that choice, of course.  We don't need
> it, we have the Shuttle!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

BULL, we have as many possibilities for near equatorial launch if we
pursued them, it is just not apparent that it would be cost effective.

The launch site for Ariane is in the French state, French Guiana in the
town of Kourou.

Bob

------------------------------

Date:     Wed, 27 Jan 88 09:50 CST
From: Bill Higgins, Beam Jockey <HIGGINS%FNALE.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Subject:  Forward report numbers; details of antiproton annihilation
Original_To:  SPACE

In Space Digest V.8, #116, Jon Leech recommends Robert Forward's report
on antiproton annihilation for propulsion.  I thought I might post
information to help interested readers find it.

ANTIPROTON ANNIHILATION PROPULSION is report AFRPL TR-85-034 from the
Air Force Rocket Propulsion Laboratory (AFRPL/XRX, Stop 24, Edwards Air
Force Base, CA 93523-5000).  It's also UDR-TR-85-55 from the contractor,
the University of Dayton Research Institute.  I don't know how NTIS
would refer to it.

Its predecessor report is at least as interesting: ALTERNATE PROPULSION
ENERGY SOURCES, also by Forward, AFPRL TR-83-067.  I'll list the
keywords to whet your appetites: Propulsion energy, metastable helium,
free-radical hydrogen, solar pumped (sic) plasmas, antiproton
annihiliation, ionospheric lasers, solar sails, perforated sails,
microwave sails, quantum fluctuations, antimatter rockets... It's a
wide, if not deep, look at exotic energy sources which might be useful
for space propulsion.  It also considers various kinds of laser
propulsion, metallic hydrogen, tethers, and unconventional nuclear
propulsion.  The bibliographic information, pointing to the research on
all this stuff, belongs on every daydreamer's shelf.

And by the way, re the discussion involving Jon Leech, Russ Cage, and
greg@endor.UUCP (Greg): The misconception most people seem to share--
that antimatter annihilation gives rise to gamma rays and nothing else--
probably comes from the fact that when electrons and positrons, the
best-known antiparticles, interact you get gamma rays.  But for fancier
particles such as protons and antiprotons, the situation is more
complicated.

When a proton and an antiproton annihilate, 92% of the time the result
is three to six pions.  Some are charged pions, with a mean lifetime of
26 nanoseconds (in their own reference frame), so you can grab them with
magnetic and electric fields.  One or two of those pions are neutral
ones, so they are useless for propulsion.  But even worse, the neutral
pion's lifetime is 9E-17 seconds, after which it almost always decays
into two hefty (67 MeV in the pion's reference frame) gamma rays.

The energy spectrum of the emerging pions is broad, but averages around
250 MeV.  The mean lifetime of the charged pions, as seen from the lab
frame, is about 70 nanoseconds, enough to travel 21 meters.  The energy
spectrum of the gamma rays due to decaying neutral pions, as seen in the
lab frame, averages around 200 MeV.

                                       Bill Higgins
                                       Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
                                       HIGGINS@FNALB.BITNET
                                       SPAN/HEPnet: 43011::HIGGINS

------------------------------

Date: 25 Jan 88 23:31:38 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Proton/anti-proton annhilation

> ... proton/antiproton annihilation does not *immediately* produce a
> burst of gammas; he proposes a magnetic thrust chamber to channel the
> charged mesons in the right direction during their brief lifetime...

See also past papers in Interstellar Studies issues of JBIS.  Proton
plus antiproton gives mostly pions.  The neutral ones are useless, too
short-lived and there is no way to handle them.  The charged ones live a
little while, long enough for a compact magnetic nozzle to use them --
as I recall, their lifetime equates to a distance of a few meters.
Moreover, when they decay you get muons, which live quite a bit longer,
a kilometer or so worth.  It's better to use the pions, because you lose
energy in their decay, but using the muons still gives reasonable
results.  The muons decay into electrons and positrons, and they
annihilate with each other (and with the ones present from the start,
orbiting the protons and antiprotons, assuming you started with atoms)
to give gammas.  Some neutrinos also wander out of the reaction at
various times, and miscellaneous gamma rays emerge at every stage, but
much of the energy is available (briefly) as kinetic energy of charged
particles.

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 8 Feb 88 18:20:32 GMT
From: pioneer!eugene@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Eugene N. Miya)
Subject: Re: Mission planning (was space station editorial, part 1)

In article <1075@thorin.cs.unc.edu> leech@proline.UUCP (Jonathan Leech) writes:
>In article <8802072157.AA08139@angband.s1.gov> DIETZ@sdr.slb.COM ("Paul F. Dietz") writes:
>>Another lesson from Galileo: launch many smaller spacecraft, rather
>>than cramming all your experimental eggs into one swollen basket
>>(don't tell me Galileo was cheaper!).
>
>It seems clear that launching one spacecraft with many instruments is
>cheaper than launching many spacecraft with one instrument. Launch
>costs are a significant portion of mission cost at present.
>    Jon Leech (leech@cs.unc.edu)    __@/

This is a tough call.  Friends were involved in the planning on the
Galileo mission (still are).  The craft went from a 3-axis stablized
craft like Voyager to the rotating Pioneer class but with a stationary
body (I thought the latter was dumb at the time, but the plasma people
won out on this one).  Also it did have a two part launch, in space
assembly, but this is very complex.  I won't get into details.  You sit
around in meetings and haggle (like shown in Nova most recently on
Uranus encounter ["No Andy, you can't have more atmosphere imaging time,
because Uranus has an uninteresting atmosphere..."]).  There's tradeoffs
both ways.  It's like the one part versus many parts SRB discussion: if
you have multiple parts, you have to add complexity and weight for
connectors (which might fail, etc.).

The advantage of one craft with many instruments is that several
instruments can be correlated for (hopefully) simulataneous data
gathering (ah! yet more complexity): synoptic view.  Scientists would
love to more than one craft going, but those are the bucks..... (or lack
of).

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA

------------------------------

Date: 9 Feb 88 00:22:05 GMT
From: cfa!willner@husc6.harvard.edu  (Steve Willner)
Subject: Difference between RTG and nuclear reactor

Several postings in this newsgroup have confused the operating
principles of "nuclear reactors" and "radioisotope thermoelectric
generators" (RTG).  Both work by using nuclear processes to create
heat and then converting the heat to electricity, but the nuclear
reactions used in the two cases are entirely different.

A "reactor" works by allowing fission reactions, i.e. heavy nuclei
are split into two roughly equal parts.  A control system is present
to start and stop the fission reactions.  The "fission products" are
extremely neutron-rich compared to stable nuclides of the same mass
and continue to decay with short half-life.  Also, the fission
process emits fast neutrons that can induce radioactivity in the
reactor shell itself.  The effect is that a reactor becomes more
radioactive as it is operated.  However, after the fission reaction
is stopped, the most radioactive isotopes decay fairly quickly,
though some residue continues to be radioactive for many years.

An RTG uses the heat of normal radioactive decay, generally alpha
emission.  There are no highly radioactive fission products, and the
overall radioactivity and power generation capability just decay with
the half-life of the original isotope.  (Activation of the container
may be possible in principle but is unimportant in practice, since
adequate shielding is very easy.)  There is no way to control the
(thermal) power output.

US outer planet spacecraft, such as Galileo, use RTG's.  In fact, one
serious problem for Galileo is that the launch delays and the
lengthened transit time have greatly reduced the power that will be
available at Jupiter.  It is my understanding that some Russian
satellites, including the one that crashed in Canada a few years ago,
use reactors.  I think the US tested one or two reactors in orbit,
but I am not aware of any current program using them.  (Is anyone
else aware of any?)

As a further note, the amount of plutonium used in either reactors or
RTG's is not likely to cause detectable health problems in any
plausible launch accident scenario.  As several articles have pointed
out, the plutonium is unlikely to escape.  Even if it does escape,
the release is likely to occur at sea.  The amount of water needed to
dilute 10 kg of plutonium to below established exposure standards is
about 1/8 cubic kilometer. For the worst conceivable accident, a
complete release at low altitude over New York City, an article in
Health Physics estimated one death per 18 grams released, with most
of the deaths occurring years after the accident.  
-- 
Steve Willner            Phone 617-495-7123          Bitnet: willner@cfa2
60 Garden St.            FTS:      830-7123           UUCP:   willner@cfa
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA                     ARPA: willner@cfa.harvard.edu

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #133
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 14 Feb 88 23:19:40 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA03954; Sun, 14 Feb 88 20:16:58 PST
	id AA03954; Sun, 14 Feb 88 20:16:58 PST
Date: Sun, 14 Feb 88 20:16:58 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8802150416.AA03954@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #134

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 134

Today's Topics:
    Re: Payload of shuttle flight directly after last Challenger.
	  SPACE Digest V8 #110, large synthesized apertures
		     Re: satellites (resolution)
		Phased Arrays at Optical Frequencies?!
	Re: SPACE Digest V8 #110, large synthesized apertures
		      Commercial Spy Satellites
	Re: Beating the diffraction limit (was Re: satellites)
			    Re: satellites
			    Re: satellites
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 9 Feb 88 00:23:29 GMT
From: uflorida!codas!burl!clyde!watmath!utgpu!utzoo!henry@gatech.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Payload of shuttle flight directly after last Challenger.

> I was under the impression that the experiment packages left up on the
> moon by the manned Apollo shots used a small Pu-powered nuclear
> reactor as their power source.  I seem to remember a small, black,
> cylindrical device with radiating fins as the center imstrument
> deployments.  Can anyone else confirm or deny this?

Sigh.  I guess I had better explain all this from scratch; there are
probably others with similar misunderstandings.  Everyone who isn't sure
what's going on, please listen -- I'm only gonna say this once! :-)

There are two ways of getting power from nuclear energy.  One is with a
nuclear reactor: a complex piece of machinery that maintains a
controlled chain reaction in a suitable fissionable isotope, usually
Uranium 235 but sometimes Plutonium 239.  Non-fissionable isotopes like
Uranium 238 may be present but do not participate.  Reactors can yield
very high power outputs, but are relatively big, heavy, and complicated,
and once in operation they emit lots of radiation and have a stew of
nasty isotopes inside them.

The other way is to use the natural decay of a radioactive isotope.  To
get useful amounts of power without troublesome radiation, one picks an
isotope that decays rapidly by emitting non-penetrating radiation like
alpha and beta particles.  Plutonium 238 (note, 238, *not* 239) is one
fairly good choice.  Such isotopes do not have to be fissionable and in
fact usually aren't.  Small isotope generators can use thermoelectric
devices for converting heat to electricity, which means no moving parts.
It is difficult to get high power out of isotope generators, but they
are simple and reliable and (unlike reactors) can be built in small
sizes.  It is relatively easy to package the isotope in such generators
in an armored capsule that can survive a re-entry or a launch accident;
this is routinely done, and such capsules *have* survived launch
accidents.  An isotope generator is *not* a nuclear reactor.

The US has launched only one reactor, the SNAP-10A experimental reactor
of the late 60s.  The Soviets use reactors to power their military
radarsats, which need lots of power.  That is basically it for reactors
in space.

Isotope generators are used in some military satellites where the
vulnerability of solar panels is undesirable, but see their main use in
planetary missions.  The Apollo surface experiments and the Viking
landers used isotope generators to continue operations despite long
periods of darkness.  Outer-planet probes like the Voyagers and Galileo
use isotope generators because the sunlight is pretty faint out there.
The waste heat from isotope generators can also be useful to keep
equipment warm in cold environments.

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 19 Jan 1988  21:21 EST
From: MINSKY%OZ.AI.MIT.EDU@xx.lcs.mit.edu
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #110, large synthesized apertures

It seems to me that it should be rather easy to buld synthetic apertures
in microgravity, because a rigid frame is not required.  Or, rather, all
one needs is a dynamically servoed frame.  One way to do this would be
to couple the mirrors by a tetrahedral framework of this wires whose
lengths are adjustable (for example, by passing small currents through
them) and servoing those lengths by using simple laser-interferometers,
as is done today with numerically controlled milling machines.

It is not hard to make such a servo measure the order of 1/20 of a
wavelength.  The system might sound complicated at first, but each servo
could be made to weigh only a few grams, I claim, including its
computer.

The hardest problem I would foresee is rotating the entire array.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 19 Jan 88 13:09:31 pst
From: Eugene Miya N. <eugene@PIONEER.ARC.NASA.GOV>
Subject: Re: satellites (resolution)
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.crypt

>John M. Pantone writes:
>O.K. - I've finally reached saturation.  As a certifiable old-fart who
> . . .
>I can't even begin to believe that a sattelite would have trouble
>resolving a person-sized thing. (Image enhancement, long-baseline
>effects, microwave imaging, etc.)

I can.  I can think of lots of things: clouds being THE major problem of
remote sensing.  We have a hard timing looking thru solid-objects, too.
The problem is an anthropocentric view of sensing (sort of like Reagan's
comments about the "distinctive shape of 747s" [only from the side]).
Night time's another problem (athough less so [for other reasons]).  You
need critical EMR windows thru the atmosphere. Before you say microwave
(or IR) is the solution, let me tell you that we know less about radar
than most people think and can think of half a dozen problems.
Mis-information spread by people who don't fully understand the problems
of these sensing instruments is probably a problem as great as the
selling of AI in the 1960s.  (Can you say, "Data fusion?").

>From the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA

------------------------------

Date:         Wed, 20 Jan 88 12:07:02 EST
From: ST401385@brownvm
Subject:      Phased Arrays at Optical Frequencies?!

Re comments by Dale Amon on using phased array techniques to
simulate very large mirrors:
>There are aperture synthesis techniques used in SLAR that are dependent
>on the motion of the craft to generate the aperture...  I see little
>difference whether the original frequency was light or microwave. There
>is of course the problem that there is no reference beam, but I've
>heard that this is not necessarily required, that a reference signal
>can be mathematically synthesized.
    There are many many differences.  (1) optical sensors do not record
the phase of the incoming signal; microwave sensors do.  (2) The time
scale for microwave signals is much much longer than that for light.
Are you imagining a clock that runs at frequencies which are fast
compared with optical frequencies?  This is what you would need to
provide a time base to do phase interference.  (3) Electronic circuits
do not work at optical frequencies.  Just try to imagine a teraherz
phase lock loop!  (4) Phased array techniques only work for essentially
monochromatic light.  Filtering reflected sunlight down to a band which
is monochromatic enough would make the signal so weak that I doubt you
could do anything with it.

>Even if the pure motion of the craft is not useable, there is still a
>simple interferometry technique of taking multiple images and using the
>phase differences to make an image....

   On this one you got it right.  To synthesize an aperture, you *must*
have the phase information from the incoming signal.  This information
is not available in current optical sensors.
    You might argue that someday this will be possible, which is quite
possible; but since the discussion was about the optical resolution of
existing spy satellites, you are way out in left field.

     ....Also, since I'm here, a quick response to another posting in
the same issue.
>From ERCF02 Adam Hamilton:
>I was under the impression that this newsgroup was unanimous that the
>way to get the US Space program back on its feet was to turn it over to
>private industry as far as possible.

    For the record, I dissent with this view.  It is not (yet) clear
that there exists low-risk profit in space in the short enough term that
private industry will invest the amounts needed to leave this planet.
Space is important enough that we should go there even if the profit is
only in the long term.

--Geoffrey A. Landis, Ph.D
          Until 23 January: Brown University, BITNET: ST401385 at BROWNVM
          Internet: ST401385%BROWNVM.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
          After 23 January: NASA Lewis Research Center
                            21000 Brookpark Road, Cleveland Ohio 44135

------------------------------

Date: 21 Jan 88 04:29:48 GMT
From: paul.rutgers.edu!masticol@rutgers.edu  (Stephen P. Masticola)
Subject: Re: SPACE Digest V8 #110, large synthesized apertures

In article <MINSKY.12367979729.BABYL@MIT-OZ> MINSKY@OZ.AI.MIT.EDU writes:

> It seems to me that it should be rather easy to buld synthetic
> apertures in microgravity, because a rigid frame is not required.  Or,
> rather, all one needs is a dynamically servoed frame.

A rigid frame would be preferable, though, because a non-rigid frame
would vibrate when any physical motion occurred on the satellite. Such
motion could come from the servos, or any moving part on the satellite.

> It is not hard to make such a servo measure the order of 1/20 of a
> wavelength.

[ Of visible light ]

This claim, strange as it may seem, is borne out by IBM's scanning
tunneling microscope. This has taken images of individual tungsten
atoms, essentially by running a probe across a crystal at a constant
distance from the atoms themselves. References aren't handy, but I think
the radius of a tungsten atom is less by a good fraction than one
wavelength of visible light. (Otherwise, we'd be able to use light
microscopes to see atoms.)

> The system might sound complicated at first, but each servo could be
> made to weigh only a few grams, I claim, including its computer.

Ay, there's the rub!

The servos would have to be strong enough to compensate for any
vibration amplitude and frequency likely during imaging. For the sake of
argument, let's say we have a cutoff of 1 KHz at an amplitude of 1 mm,
and a mirror has a mass of 10 kg. (Anyone know the size and weight of
the mirror on the Space Telescope?) I get a force of 39,000 newtons that
the servo system would have to exert to keep the mirror stable in such a
case. (If I'm wrong, please post a correction.) That, if I'm not
mistaken, is one _hell_ of a servomotor. Remember that the STM is
positioning only an itty-bitty needle, not a big huge mirror.

Alternatively, how about a piezoelectric crystal for the mirror?
Positioning might be accomplished by applying current in the right
places. The mirror's surface would react against its body, which, if
they were of equal masses, would not induce additional forces in the
frame of the spacecraft. Forces would be applied by the entire body of
the crystal mirror, reducing the strength needed in any particular
position. You could build the mirror of laminated crystals to get the
displacement you need to do fine aiming or compensate for vibration.
This is a standard technique in building ultrasonic transducers.

By using a magnetic-levitation suspension for the mirrors (as is already
done in Army tank optics), the mirrors can be decoupled from the motion
of the frame. I'd bet that something like this is being done in the
KH-11 and 12.

> The hardest problem I would foresee is rotating the entire array.

As in stationkeeping or compensating for rotation to keep the array on
target? Stationkeeping is nothing new. For brief periods of time, the
mirrors could be rotated counter to any residual rotation of the
spacecraft by warping their surfaces. This may be enough to fine-aim the
mirrors or to compensate for residual rotation.

Levitating the mirrors also allows them to coarse-rotate 1 or 2 degrees
individually without any need to rotate the entire frame. The mechanism
for coarse rotation might also be piezo, but needn't be.

"Scratch a computer hack and you'll find a physics hack." - Thomas A.
Bass, _The Eudaemonic Pie_.
-- 
	     Steve Masticola (masticol@paul.rutgers.edu)
	"The more you drive, the less intelligent you become."

------------------------------

Date: 21 Jan 88 02:58:48 EST
From: Hans.Moravec@rover.ri.cmu.edu
Subject: Commercial Spy Satellites
To: BBoard.Maintainer@PT.CS.CMU.EDU

Stolen from AP:

a011  2219  20 Jan 88
AM-Space Cameras,0256
U.S. To Allow Commercial Satellites With High-Resolution Cameras
    NEW YORK (AP) - The Reagan administration has dropped rules that
prevented American companies from sending aloft satellites that could
produce highly magnified pictures of objects on Earth, according to a
published report.
    The change was included in an updated national space policy signed
by President Reagan on Jan. 5 but was not made public at that time, The
New York Times reported in its Thursday editions. It would allow
advanced American satellites that could produce high-resolution pictures
for use by scientists, geographers, journalists and others.
    The government previously has barred private companies from
operating satellites that could produce pictures showing objects smaller
than 10 meters wide.
    But the Soviet Union markets worldwide satellite photographs with a
resolution of 5 meters, and French companies have satellites that
produce pictures nearly that clear.
    Details of the new U.S. policy are classified as secret, but a White
House statement said it is meant to ''encourage the development of U.S.
commercial systems competitive with or superior to foreign-operated
civil or commercial systems,'' the Times reported.
    The constraints on civilian satellites originally were imposed
because of Defense Department fears that highly detailed photographs
taken from space could disclose military secrets.
    A study last May by the Congressional Office of Technology
Assessment predicted the availability of increasingly sharp satellite
images could lead to conflict between the government and journalists
seeking to use the pictures to report on military movements, nuclear
missile installations and disasters.
    
 
AP-NY-01-21-88 0109EST
***************

------------------------------

Date: 21 Jan 88 21:09:23 GMT
From: cos!howard@uunet.uu.net  (Howard C. Berkowitz)
Subject: Re: Beating the diffraction limit (was Re: satellites)

In article <8801192122.AA06886@ames-pioneer.arpa>, eugene@PIONEER.ARC.NASA.GOV (Eugene Miya N.) writes:
> Bruce, you made some excellent comments about this problem!  However,
> I would like to add one comment about what you said about removing
> motion blurr.  Rather than do it computationally or optically, it's
> just much simpler to move the recording instrument or media. (If I had
> a quarter for every roll of film I've hunched over, I'd be rich.)

A number of photorecon satellites do exactly that, according to Dino
Brignoli, a retired senior CIA recon expert who has a rather interesting
"road show" on photoreconnaissance and history.  I heard him a few years
ago at the Washington chapter of the Society for Photographic Scientists
and Engineers.

He said that one of the major breakthroughs in imaging satellites, which
was classified for some time, was using moving backs both to cancel
motion and allow much longer exposure times.

-- howard(Howard C. Berkowitz) @cos.com
 {uunet,  decuac, sun!sundc, hadron, hqda-ai}!cos!howard
(703) 883-2812 [ofc] (703) 998-5017 [home]
DISCLAIMER:  I explicitly identify COS official positions.

------------------------------

Date: 21 Jan 88 18:21:36 GMT
From: necntc!adelie!infinet!rhorn@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Rob Horn)
Subject: Re: satellites

In article <8801192222.AA08418@ames-pioneer.arpa> eugene@PIONEER.ARC.NASA.GOV (Eugene Miya N.) writes:
>Not all the photos (these were photos) taken over Cuban were U-2, the
>low-obliques were taken by F-8 Crusader pilots who had some SAM risk.
>These pilots don't deserve to be placed in obscurity.

Neither should the U-2 pilot who died when shot down by a SAM at the
height of the crisis.  They had to fly into SAM range to get the
pictures.  By that time no one was safe.  This was one of the major
motivations for accepting the numerous limitations of satellite recon.

BTW: The transcripts of the Missile Crisis tapes (Kennedy's equivalent
of the Watergate tapes) make fascinating reading.

				Rob  Horn

------------------------------

Date: 19 Jan 88 10:12:00 GMT
From: munnari!basser!jaa@uunet.uu.net  (James Ashton)
Subject: Re: satellites

In article <1705@faline.bellcore.com> karn@faline.bellcore.com (Phil R. Karn) writes:
>You can get extremely high resolution images if you *simultaneously*
>photograph the same target from two or more widely separated
>satellites, and then *coherently* add the two images with an accuracy
>on the order of a small fraction of a wavelength. This is entirely
>practical at radio wavelengths (VLBI and SAR being two examples), but
>at optical wavelengths? Good luck!

It is true that interferometry is more difficult at optical wavelengths
but it is certainly not impossible.  The Physics department at this
university has sucessfully tested a prototype optical telescope which
uses two widely spaced plane mirrors feeding into an intricate optical
system.  The system was able to compensate for atmospheric jitter and
recombine the light to obtain very high resolution.  Work is currently
in progress on a full scale instrument which will have a maximum mirror
separation of 240 metres and the best optical resolution of any
telescope.  Of course stellar images tend to be simpler than spy sat
images but I guess that a spy sat, could use a similar technique to
obtain very fine resolution.

						James Ashton.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #134
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 15 Feb 88 06:27:03 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA05209; Mon, 15 Feb 88 03:23:43 PST
	id AA05209; Mon, 15 Feb 88 03:23:43 PST
Date: Mon, 15 Feb 88 03:23:43 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8802151123.AA05209@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #135

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 135

Today's Topics:
	Re: Beating the diffraction limit (was Re: satellites)
			    Re: satellites
	Re: SPACE Digest V8 #110, large synthesized apertures
			    Re: satellites
			  Re: Remote sensing
			    Re: satellites
			  Re: spy satellites
		    Re: Commercial Spy Satellites
		  Re: spy satellites, eavesdropping
		  Re: spy satellites, eavesdropping
			    A seminar past
			    Re: satellites
		     Re: FAA citizenship policy.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 23 Jan 88 02:00:21 GMT
From: tektronix!orca!brucec@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Bruce Cohen)
Subject: Re: Beating the diffraction limit (was Re: satellites)

In article <8801192122.AA06886@ames-pioneer.arpa> eugene@PIONEER.ARC.NASA.GOV (Eugene Miya N.) writes:
>... removing motion blurr.  Rather than do it computationally or
>optically, it's just much simpler to move the recording instrument or
>media. (If I had a quarter for every roll of film I've hunched over,
>I'd be rich.)
>
>--eugene

Well, I may have been guilty of techi-ism here: finding the high-tech
solution rather than the optimal solution.  There might be reasons for
doing the job computationally, though.  Moving the medium or the
recorder requires that you know the instantaneous velocity of the object
to be de-blurred, or that you iteratively try values until you get a
good enough fit (a binary search will save time).  If the scene imaged
by a satellite is relatively static, then in principle you know the
velocity from the orbital position and the view angle (it's 2000 Zulu;
do you know where your Keyhole birds are? 8:).

On the other hand if things are moving around (and especially if they
are not all moving at the same velocity or in the same direction), you
might save a lot of trouble by using a computer.  I'll bet that the
surveillance images that NSA works with are analyzed digitally; military
targets tend to move around; they're harder to see and hit that way.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
	"The galaxy-spanning luminous arcs reported by M. Mitchell
	Waldrop in Research News on 6 February have a very simple
	explanation.  They are part of the scaffolding that was not
	removed when the contractor went bankrupt owing to cost
	overruns."
					"Arthur C. Clarke, Sri Lanka"

Bruce Cohen
ARPA/CS-NET: brucec@ruby.TEK.COM

------------------------------

Date: 23 Jan 88 15:58:34 GMT
From: cgs@umd5.umd.edu  (Chris Sylvain)
Subject: Re: satellites

In article <2013@frog.UUCP> die@hydra.UUCP (David I. Emery) writes:
+ Not that it has much to do with resolution from orbit, but on the
+ original topic that started the discussion - NSA picking up pictures
+ of Waite from a satellite "over Lebanon" - This could very well have
+ been accomplished by satellite interception of the video signal from
+ one of the low altitude drones that the Israelis regularly fly over
+ the area.

I'll take back the NaCl now.. Ahh, an elegant solution, and could well
be 'dangerously' close to what really happened! That is, this solution
sounds much closer to reality to me than imaging directly from orbit.

   ARPA: cgs@umd5.UMD.EDU     BITNET: cgs%umd5@umd2

------------------------------

Date: 24 Jan 88 17:32:34 GMT
From: eecae!crlt!russ@super.upenn.edu  (Russ Cage)
Subject: Re: SPACE Digest V8 #110, large synthesized apertures

In article <2949@clash.rutgers.edu>, masticol@paul.rutgers.edu.UUCP writes:
>The servos would have to be strong enough to compensate for any
>vibration amplitude and frequency likely during imaging. For the sake
>of argument, let's say we have a cutoff of 1 KHz at an amplitude of 1
>mm, and a mirror has a mass of 10 kg. (Anyone know the size and weight
>of the mirror on the Space Telescope?) I get a force of 39,000 newtons
>that the servo system would have to exert to keep the mirror stable in
>such a case.

What is going to vibrate the structure at frequencies as high as 1 KHz?
The cogging effects of the momentum wheel motors?  For motions which
require actual *moving* of the mirror (as opposed to merely following
vibrations in the structure, which requires no force), I'd estimate
something closer to a micrometer at 1-10 Hz.  Your force goes down 5 to
7 orders of magnitude.  You'd probably want piezos that can push up to
several millimeters to compensate for gross thermal distortions of the
structure, but they'd do this very slowly and require little force.

>For brief periods of time, the mirrors could be rotated counter to any
>residual rotation of the spacecraft by warping their surfaces. This may
>be enough to fine-aim the mirrors or to compensate for residual
>rotation.

This won't work.  The entire point of all the servomechanisms is to
maintain a coherent optical path from all the mirrors to the image
plane.  If you rotate the mirrors, the path lengths change and the
system is no longer coherent (and picks up a lot of funny diffraction
effects at different wavelengths).

Russ Cage, Robust Software Inc.
 rsi@m-net

------------------------------

Date: 25 Jan 88 23:31:50 GMT
From: lawrence@bbn.com  (Gabriel Lawrence)
Subject: Re: satellites

Knowing precious little about optical diffraction limits or advanced
uses of interferometry, you can take what I have to say as having little
technical merit.  I do know that according to a Natl. Public Radio
report I heard last month, Congress has just 'officially' lifted the ban
on the 10 meter satellite optical imaging restriction due to American
industrial lobbyists complaining about unfair international competition.
It has been widely known that satellites giving much greater resolution
have been available outside of the U.S. for quite awhile.  I believe the
new commercial standard is somewhere in the 3 meter range.  To the best
of my recollection, the commentator mentioned that while the 10 meter
range was sufficient to view the individual cars located in the parking
lot of the Pentagon, the new range allowed you to see the contents of
the cars through the windows.  This would seem to me to easily make the
case for a _commercial_ satellite being able to spot an individual held
hostage if the location of the prison/barracks and his physical
characteristics was a known quantity.  The same commentator also
acknowledged that military spy satellites were, in all likelihood, quite
a bit more powerful/accurate/higher in resolution than the best
commercial satellites so I'll let you informed usenetter's draw your own
conclusions...

------------------------------

Date: 26 Jan 88 01:39:18 GMT
From: telesoft!roger@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu  (Roger Arnold @prodigal)
Subject: Re: Remote sensing

In article <570055327.amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU>, Dale.Amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU writes:
> The problem with dropping a corner reflector in Lebanon is that it
> doesn't really gain you much. Adaptive optics means that you have a
> realtime feedback loop between you and the object being sensed. 
> [..]
> Taking a reading on some random location gains you nothing. You might
> as well put the reflector in Hawaii. Distortion is caused by
> atmospheric cells that are moving, bubbling, changing and not terribly
> large.

Yes and no.  You're describing the situation that applies if you're
using adaptive optics to obtain high resolution images when looking
OUT through the atmosphere.  It's not necessary to use adaptive optics
to get high resolution images of the earth's surface from space.  The
atmospheric cells that so limit earth-based telescopes occur at low
altitudes, under normal conditions.  The limit they impose on image
resolution is no greater for a satellite than it is for a high
altitude spy plane--or even one of the drones that the Israelis use.

The poster who spoke of dropping a corner reflector in Lebanon was 
addressing the problem of getting the mirrors of a multi-mirror system
properly aligned in the first place--not dynamic compensation for
atmospheric effects.  The latter are just not a problem.  Unless, of
course, you're after something like _millimeter_ resolution.

- Roger Arnold				..sdcsvax!telesoft!roger

------------------------------

Date: 27 Jan 88 17:13:02 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!its63b!bob@uunet.uu.net  (ERCF08 Bob Gray)
Subject: Re: satellites

In article <6309@ccv.bbn.COM> lawrence@ccv.bbn.com (Gabriel Lawrence) writes:
>of the U.S. for quite awhile.  I believe the new commercial standard is
>somewhere in the 3 meter range.  To the best of my recollection, the
>commentator mentioned that while the 10 meter range was sufficient to
>view the individual cars located in the parking lot of the Pentagon,
>the new range allowed you to see the contents of the cars through the
>windows.

I know that American cars are supposed to be bigger than European cars,
But 3 metres is [almost] 10 feet. What size are the the car windows you
can resolve things to this scale through? :->

3 centimetre resolution sounds more reasonable, but this is close to the
minimum being mentioned by previous posters.
	Bob.

------------------------------

Date: 30 Jan 88 04:55:32 GMT
From: tedrick@ernie.berkeley.edu  (Tom Tedrick)
Subject: Re: spy satellites

Here is an extract from "Veil", by Bob Woodward:

page 30: "Another project [in 1980] was Indigo, a new highly secret
satellite system in development that could be the key to verifying
future arms control agreements with the Soviets. Using radar-imaging,
Indigo would see through clouds and work at night, when photographic
satellites were blind. This would be particularly important over Eastern
Europe, where the so-called 'demon cloud cover' could sit for days or
weeks."

Question: Is it possible to pick up human voices from space, using
	  satellites? I don't have the technical background to judge
	  such questions.

Thanks,
       -Tom
	tedrick@ernie.berkeley.edu

------------------------------

Date: 29 Jan 88 20:42:01 GMT
From: tikal!hplsla!deanp@beaver.cs.washington.edu  ( Dean Payne)
Subject: Re: Commercial Spy Satellites

>From: bobcoe@cca.CCA.COM (Robert K. Coe)
>I recall that at the time the 200-in. Hale (Palomar Mtn.) telescope was
>built, it was reported that if it were not for the curvature of the
>earth and 3000 miles of atmosphere, the telescope has the resolving
>power to read the date on a dime in New York.

That must be a very big dime.  A five meter optical device should be
able to resolve about 0.02 arc-second in vacuum, which corresponds to
about one-half meter at the above distance.

Dean Payne

------------------------------

Date: 31 Jan 88 17:41:40 GMT
From: ems!rosevax!kksys!bird@umn-cs.arpa  (0000-Mike Bird)
Subject: Re: spy satellites, eavesdropping

In article <22782@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> tedrick@ernie.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP (Tom Tedrick) writes:
>Question: Is it possible to pick up human voices from space,
>	  using satellites? I don't have the technical background
>	  to judge such questions.

If you use an optical device, like a laser, to bounce off of windows,
like in the construction article last year in Radio-Electronics, you can
listen to conversations.

If you mount the laser and receiver in a satellite, and used the
technique I read something about in Scientific American last year on
correcting for atmospheric haze, you might be able to listen from a
satellite.  However, I don't think these techniques are reliable, or are
practical at the current state of the art.  However, in 50 years or
so....

------------------------------

Date: 2 Feb 88 14:26:45 GMT
From: sj1f+@andrew.cmu.edu  (Steven Kent Jensen)
Subject: Re: spy satellites, eavesdropping

>If you use an optical device, like a laser, to bounce off of windows,
>like in the construction article last year in Radio-Electronics, you
>can listen to conversations.

	These devices work monitoring the beam reflected off the window.
This beam will travel slightly because of the vibrations induced in the
glass by sound.  If you are trying to use one of them on a satellite the
beam would strike the window not perpedicularly (where reflection is
best), but rather almost parallel.  This means that the return would be
EXTREMELY small.  Therefore a large laser would be needed and a power
supply for said laser, etc.  This would lead to a LARGE satellite.  Also
the travel of the reflected beam is very slight and would quickly get
lost in atmospheric refraction of the beam.  These devices produce only
moderate quality sound when going across a street, not to mention miles
worth of air, dust, and water vapor.

	With all this working against the system I do not think that a
workable system will ever be built.

					Steven Jensen

------------------------------

To: graphics@ads.arpa, space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: A seminar past
Date: Wed, 03 Feb 88 01:29:13 PST
From: eugene@PIONEER.ARC.NASA.GOV

A seminar past, but the reference might be useful to some, since I used
to be an ASP member:

Subject: 1/26 8PM Bay Area ACM/SIGGRAPH Mtg. Digital Cartography
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 88 00:19:44 PST
From: siggraph

San Francisco Bay Area
ACM SIGGRAPH
Digital Cartography
Computerized Map-Making

Barry Napier
USGS, National Mapping Division
January 26, 1988 8:00 PM

XEROX Palo Alto Research Center Auditorium
3333 Coyote Hill Road, Palo Alto

Maps, perhaps the earliest form of graphics, are undergoing a revolution
due to computer.  From the collection of data using digitized aerial
photos and positions using satellites to the output on laser printers
and CRTs, all areas have been affected.  Simulated landscapes, as in the
video "LA, The Movie," are generated by combining Digital Elevation
Models (DEM) and LANDSAT satellite data.  Separate layers of information
are combined to help researchers predict where and when landslides will
occur.  Land Use and Land Cover (LULC) maps are used for making public
policy decisions.  Many cities are converting and combining their old
maps of above and below ground services into one system.

U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is currently converting its map library
collection (over 55,000 maps for just the 1:24,000 series alone) from
paper form to digital.  In addition they are defining digital map
standards to improve communication and resource sharing between
organization.  Barry Napier will describe the current conversion process
and what research is being explored.  Information about what digital
data can be ordered now will be available.

Barry Napier is a Cartographer with USGS National Mapping Division.  He
has been with USGS for 6 years and received his BS in Geography from
Berkeley.  He is a member of Bay Area Automated Mapping Association
(BAAMA) and American Congress on Surveying and Mapping and is also the
president of the local chapter of the American Society for
Photogrammetry and Remoting Sensing.

P.S. It was an excellent talk.  Our chapter will be touring the USGS
Menlo Park Offices in March, members only.  NASA Ames was our last tour
(1/26/88)

------------------------------

Date: 3 Feb 88 11:32:52 GMT
From: eecae!crlt!russ@super.upenn.edu  (Russ Cage)
Subject: Re: satellites

In article <23760@cca.CCA.COM>, bobcoe@cca.UUCP writes:
>I recall that at the time the 200-in. Hale (Palomar Mtn.) telescope was
>built, it was reported that if it were not for the curvature of the
>earth and 3000 miles of atmosphere, the telescope has the resolving
>power to read the date on a dime in New York.

Nope, can't be.  Angular resolution is approximately lambda/D, which at
5 meters and 6000 Angstroms, is about 1.2e-7 radians for the Hale
telescope.  At 5 million meters distance, this corresponds to an object
of .6 meters in size.  You couldn't see the dime, much less read the
details off it.  (But it is a nice story even if not true.)

------------------------------

Date: 20 Jan 88 21:59:33 GMT
From: jtk@mordor.s1.gov  (Jordan Kare)
Subject: Re: FAA citizenship policy.

In article <4248@pucc.Princeton.EDU> ICEMAN@pucc.Princeton.EDU writes:
>Does anyone know if the FAA would do the following:
>[1] Hire a non-resident alien for "practical training".
>[2] Hire a non-citizen permanent resident.
>Thanks...Joakim

A perfectly reasonable question, to which I don't know the answer, but
it reminds me of nothing so much as a pair of entries in the MIT
undergraduate association's freshman handbook from many years ago:

The Non-Resident Student Organization (NRSO)
	-- coordinating body for off-campus living groups.

The Non-Student Resident Organization (NSRO)
	-- _NOT_ an MIT-recognized organization.

	:-)

	Jordin (Non-Organized) Kare

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #135
*******************

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Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA06313; Mon, 15 Feb 88 20:17:53 PST
	id AA06313; Mon, 15 Feb 88 20:17:53 PST
Date: Mon, 15 Feb 88 20:17:53 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8802160417.AA06313@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #136

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 136

Today's Topics:
			      Space Sex
	      Re: SPACE Digest V8 #108, Earth's rotation
	Mail reply problems (UUCP paths and return addresses)
	 Re: Spouses in space (was: Re: Astronauts and Trek)
   Re: space news from Dec 7 AW&ST + space-station editorial part 1
			Motorola Quality Award
   Re: space news from Dec 7 AW&ST + space-station editorial part 1
		    Re: Treaties with the Russians
		 Re:  Recycling Pershing-II's (long)
	    Progress 34 docks and more Soviet Shuttle news
	   USSR's Mir station fully manned for one year now
			   Re: Curved space
			   Re: NYT article
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 23 Jan 1988 06:35-EST 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Space Sex

Henry has stumbled across the same 'rumor' about zero G sex that I ran
across a few years back. My source was a high level woman in L5 who
claimed she'd heard it from one of the lady astronauts. I'd jumped to
the conclusion that 0G necessarily meant 'off-planet' though. Henry's
info is much more detailed than mine.

I've never gotten any verification of the details. I had heard about
the requirement for the helping hand though...

------------------------------

Date: 17 Jan 88 20:25:31 GMT
From: thomson@cs.utah.edu  (Richard A Thomson)
Subject: Re: SPACE Digest V8 #108, Earth's rotation

In article <MINSKY.12366855894.BABYL@MIT-OZ> MINSKY@OZ.AI.MIT.EDU writes:
>There exist fossil corals from, as I recall, 400 megayears ago, that
>show both annual and diurnal growth rings - with the order of 400 days
>per year!

I just finished reading an excellent sci-fi book called _Inherit The
Stars_ by James P. Hogan; In his book he postulates that there was a
planet where the asteroid belt is now with a moon -- Earth's current
moon.  The civilization on the planet destroyed its own planet through
warfare and the resulting explosion hurled its moon out of its orbit
where is was caught by the Earth's gravitational pull.  There are alot
of other interesting twists in the book that I won't give away here, but
I recommend the book.		Rich

------------------------------

Date: 27 Jan 88 17:03:19 GMT
From: pioneer!eugene@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Eugene N. Miya)
Subject: Mail reply problems (UUCP paths and return addresses)

Recently, I've read interesting articles or have received several pieces
of interesting mail.  Unfortunately, the return paths has been bad ones.
I've corresponded with other people (most recently Peter Neumann at SRI)
about this problem.  It only appears to be getting worse.  I feel very
bad about if someone sends me mail, and I can't get an answer to them.
For all of us: please figure out a return path or address if on the
Internet (in particular) and put it at the end of articles or mail like
a signature.

>From the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA
  {uunet,hplabs,hao,ihnp4,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene

------------------------------

Date: 26 Jan 88 02:25:43 GMT
From: oliveb!3comvax!michaelm@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Michael McNeil)
Subject: Re: Spouses in space (was: Re: Astronauts and Trek)

In article <1988Jan17.001536.5136@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
writes:
>> Both of these facts, plus the fact that NASA never scheduled them to
>> fly together, prevented an important experiment in space science:
>> what's boinking like in zero G?
>
>Surely you don't think it's an accident that NASA never scheduled them
>to fly together?  NASA management, collectively, is as prudish a bunch
>as you'll find anywhere.
>
>The story I hear is that it *has* been tried in NASA's
>free-fall-simulation water tanks, however.  Alas, a guess I'd made some
>years ago is confirmed: it is difficult for the participants to stay
>together without gravity to help.  Having a helper ready to contribute
>an occasional shove helps.  So do bungee cords.

I dunno -- somehow this sounds to me like all those predictions that
rockets could *never* work in a vacuum, 'cause there'd be nothing to
*push* against.  Just as rockets really push on their own exhaust and
not on air, why can't the participants push against, and hold on to,
each other?  Maybe those who tried it were just groundlubbers -- they
hadn't yet learned how to "fly."  (Somehow I doubt that they got a whole
lot of practice!  And, doing it all wrapped in equipment in a water tank
doesn't seem the same either.)  I suppose, though, it might be desirable
to design three-dimensional "beds" (padded monkey bars?) to let it all
happen more easily.  I sincerely doubt that we'll be disappointed....

Michael McNeil

------------------------------

Date: 29 Jan 88 00:40:57 GMT
From: tolerant!sci!auspyr!aussjo!ausmelb!mulga!munnari!natmlab!dmsadel!augean!tnemeth@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Tom Nemeth)
Subject: Re: space news from Dec 7 AW&ST + space-station editorial part 1

In article <1988Jan19.004700.4033@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>[I'm back.  I've had a couple of letters asking "what's this I hear about..."
>      ...                                                      I have been
>on vacation in Australia, completely out of touch, for a month.  All I
>know is:

I think I resent the implication above; we are not THAT out of touch
"down here"... after all, we get this newsgroup, don't we?

(But then, maybe he didn't come to the right places, because I didn't
see him :-) Anyway, I hope he had a good time.

------------------------------

Date: 3 Feb 88 20:40:12 GMT
From: hao!noao!mcdsun!mcdchg!heiby@gatech.edu  (Ron Heiby)
Subject: Motorola Quality Award

Here are some excerpts from "The Roadrunner", the weekly newspaper for
Motorola Semiconductor Products Sector (SPS) employees (that I get to
read because my office is in one of their buildings).
----------

A team consisting of the Government Electronics Group (GEG) integrated
Circuit Facility (ICF) and the SPS Motorola Integrated Circuit
Applications Research Lab (MICARL) recently received the CEO Quality
Award for an outstanding 10-year quality record for classified
equipment.

In presenting the award, Bill Weisz, Motorola Vice Chairman, said:
"Motorola equipment has been on virtually every classified DoD satellite
for the last 10 years.  During that time, more than 900 secure systems
have been delivered and none has experienced failure."

The ICs used in the space secure systems were built primarily by GEG's
ICF and SPS's MICARL.  MICARL contributes wafer fabrication, probe and
test engineering for classified LSI devices using radiation-hardened
CMOS and high-speed MOSAIC technologies.  ICF provides short lead time
packaging and testing of the wafers to the highest IC quality levels
required by DoD.

Motorola has put 150 systems in space that have accumulated more than
200,000 unit-days without failure.  Approximately 20,000 ICs in the
systems have accumulated more than 400 million device hours.
----------

I'm glad Motorola is building good stuff for the space program, but I
sure wish I knew what they were talking about.
-- 
Ron Heiby, heiby@mcdchg.UUCP	Moderator: comp.newprod & comp.unix
"Intel architectures build character."

------------------------------

Date: 5 Feb 88 19:32:32 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: space news from Dec 7 AW&ST + space-station editorial part 1

> I think I resent the implication above; we are not THAT out of touch "down
> here"... after all, we get this newsgroup, don't we?

The house where I was staying didn't get it... :-)

More seriously, being out of touch was a matter of choice rather than
necessity.  In retrospect, actually, I regret not having set up
something to meet some of the Aussie net people.

> ... Anyway, I hope he had a good time.

Yup.  Nice place.  Now if they would only build the Cape York
spaceport...

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 21 Jan 88 00:00:00 GMT
From: uplherc!esunix!bpendlet@gr.utah.edu  (Bob Pendleton)
Subject: Re: Treaties with the Russians

in article <384@ablnc.ATT.COM>, rcpilz@ablnc.ATT.COM (Robert C. Pilz) says:
> This time it was the ABM system at Kwajalein Island of the Marshalls
> in the Pacific. We have a system of Nike X and Sprint missles designed
> to knock out ICBM's. This non-nuclear weapon
                            ^^^^^^^^^^^

Nike X and Sprint were NOT non nuclear. Both were nuclear armed. They
were not intended for hostile use. They were intended to stop nuclear
warheads targetted on our ICBMs.

> system, purely a defensive system was deamed "provocative" by the
> Soviets so their ABM system and ours were torn down.

In the world of the M.A.D. defensive systems are provocative. If your
defenses are good enough you could:

	1) launch a first strike
	2) deflect a retaliatory strike
	3) Survive with enough nuclear weapons to rule the world

Or so it was thought before nuclear winter was invented.

		Bob P.

P.S.
 From reading the net I have learned that "what I heard" is almost
always wrong. And, that what I remember is usually correct. But, that
what I look up in the library is much more accurate.

------------------------------

Date: 21 Jan 88 00:00:00 GMT
From: uplherc!esunix!bpendlet@gr.utah.edu  (Bob Pendleton)
Subject: Re:  Recycling Pershing-II's (long)

in article <8712102133.AA03140@angband.s1.gov>, wmartin@ALMSA-1.ARPA (Will Martin -- AMXAL-RI) says:
> I wonder if one of the pro-space organizations could have its lawyers
> file for an injunction against the destruction of any usable missles?

lots of flames deleted.

> Will Martin

If you haven't read the basic treaty I suggest you do so. What you are
suggesting might work if the Senate does not ratify the treaty. But, I
believe that a signed and ratified treaty has the force of law within
the United States and would supersede any federal or state laws and
regulations on the disposal of useful government property.

Under the treaty we have three (3) years to destroy ALL the PIIs. We are
not allowed to wait 35 months and then destroy them all in 1 month. We
are required to have most of them destoryed in something like 21 months
(Ok, so I read the treaty a week ago and I'm already forgetting the
details).

Even if we decide to destroy the missiles by using them as launch
vehicles the treaty time tables don't give you much time to prepare a
payload for launch.

By the by, it looks like the choice of the destruction site is being
determined more by local air quality boards than anyone else. It doesn't
realy matter whether you fire the horizontally or vertically, you still
wind up with a lot of junk in the air.

			Bob P.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 25 Jan 88 22:32:23 EST
From: Glenn Chapman <glenn@ll-vlsi.arpa>
Subject: Progress 34 docks and more Soviet Shuttle news

    The USSR's Progress 34 unmanned cargo craft docked with the
Mir/Kvant space station today (Jan. 23).  It is delivering about
2.5 tonnes of food, fuel, water, air and instruments.  The total mass
dilivered to Mir by the ten Progress' exceeds the total initial mass of
the station (22 tonnes).
    In another area some interesting information has been released about
the previous Soyuz TM-4/3 mission last Dec. 21 '87.  Recall that TM-4
went up with Vladimir Titov and Musa Manarov (who are currently on Mir)
plus Anatoly Levchenko.  When the return craft (using Soyuz TM-3) came
down Levchenko was the pilot for Romanemko and Alexanderov, the long
duration crew being replaced.  It now appears that this is all connected
with their shuttle program. Levchenko was sent up to check his response
to weightlessnes, ie how quickly he recovers from the space adaption
syndrome.  In most future missions at least one crew man will have the
same purpose.  In addition about an hour or so after he landed Levchenko
got into a jet trainer and flew it to a air base with an escort plan.
The purpose is to see how well he could preform in a standard flight
situation after spending time in zero gravity and being hit by the
reentry forces.  Again this is related to their shuttle program.
     It is interesting how widespread the recognition of the power of
the soviet program is becoming.  There have been 3 Bloom Country
cartoons on the Russians being ahead in space.  The same thing was
stated on Wall Street Week this last friday.  Now that people are
recognizing that the USSR is pushing ahead of the USA maybe they will do
something about it.

                                          Glenn Chapman
                                          MIT Lincoln Lab

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 10 Feb 88 00:06:06 EST
From: Glenn Chapman <glenn@ll-vlsi.arpa>
Subject: USSR's Mir station fully manned for one year now

    The Soviet Union has today achieved an important milestone in human
habitation of space.  As of Feb 6th there has been a human being in
space every day for the past year.  As of Feb. 8 their space station,
the Mir/Kvant complex, has been permanently occupied.  The second long
term crew of Vladimir Titov and Musakhi Manarov have now been in orbit
for 50 days with statements still being made that their missions will
last one year.  Among the things they have been working with is a new
type of furnace for material processing.  Called an electron/radiation
reflection furnace it is described as being used in the fusion and
crystallization of materials by the application of radiation.  It sounds
like a furnace that uses light (or perhaps electron beams) to melt the
samples.  The furnace was delivered by Progress 33 on Nov. 24 to the
previous Mir crew, Yuri Romanenko and Alexander Alexandrov.  Romanenko
has been interviewed several times now by the press, and appears to be
in very good shape, inspite of some statements otherwise by the Guardian
Newspaper in England.  (I have not read the article - would someone in
the UK please give me a date reference to it).
   There have been several conflicting statements on how many additional
"Star" modules (20 Tonne expansion unites) will be added to Mir during
their watch.  Aleksey Lenonov, the director of the Gagarin Cosmonaut
Training Center, has stated in an interview in Flight that two modules
will be added to Mir this year, which would raise its mass to 90 Tonnes
and nearly double its useable volume from the current about 150 to 250
cubic meters (8827 cubic feet).  Other reports have said that either one
or even no modules will be sent to Mir in 1988.  To say the least the
situation is confusing.
    So now the human race has now really entered the space age.  Too bad
this country was not the one to do it.

                                                  Glenn Chapman
                                                  MIT Lincoln Lab

------------------------------

Date: 3 Feb 88 08:43 EST
From: Emanuel.henr@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Curved space
Cc: Emanuel.henr@xerox.com

Ray,
	Don't we need to ask the question, "Where are we observing
from?"

	I believe that Albert The Great taught us that observations like
these are dependent on the observer's frame of reference.  Are you
within the space looking about you, or are you outside looking in ?

	Consider the case of a light ray passing through the space near
a very massive gravitational body.  Classical experiments have shown
that the light ray seems to bend, from our point of view. BUT, if you
were riding on the back of the ray of light you would not perceive the
bending.  WHY ?  Because the light ray is moving straight through curved
space.  The outside observer sees a curved rays of light from his frame
of reference only. From the rider's frame of reference the ray is moving
perfectly straight.

	In your problem I wonder if the observer within the frame of
occurrence could detect such an anomaly.  The space within the anomaly
would remain RELATIVLY consistent.  I think that the outside observers
only are able to detect the change.

	Please, if this is wrong don't scorch me for trying.

Keith J. Emanuel              8->
Software Systems & Tools
Xerox Corp.

------------------------------

Date:  4 Feb 1988 16:34-EST 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: NYT article

I must admit that I have trouble disagreeing with some of the logic.
The ISF gets us there NOW. At $30B I really wonder if we can hold on the
the station budget, and if it is really worth it at the price.  Space
Studies Institute could have a working mass driver sending lunar
material back to earth for less than that.

The budget stretchout is going to make this thing cost even more than
suggested, will bring about the same problems that the shuttle had (that
is why Stofan CLAIMS he would shitcan the whole thing below a certain
budgetary level), and will end up being too little too late. By the time
we get this thing up it will be the LATE 90's and it will be utterly
dwarfed by the massive Soviet space city that will be in place by then.
You can send up some awfully big cast iron cans with Energia.

I will suggest that, ASSUMING we can protect the budget for another
decade against rising federal deficits, the first permanent habitation
of the US space station will not occur until 1998.

I want a space station as much as anyone, and I have fought as long and
hard and effectively for it as anyone; but I want a cost effective,
WORKING space station right now; not a paper based engineering welfare
program.

I think the combination of some ISF's with a bunch of tethered ET's
would suit me just fine. More volume, more cost effective, and above
all, sooner.

Screw the goldplate and goldbrick. Lets get a big tin can up there NOW
for christ sakes!

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #136
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 16 Feb 88 06:19:54 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA07084; Tue, 16 Feb 88 03:17:10 PST
	id AA07084; Tue, 16 Feb 88 03:17:10 PST
Date: Tue, 16 Feb 88 03:17:10 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8802161117.AA07084@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #137

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 137

Today's Topics:
		      Re: NYT editorial on space
		  Re: space-station editorial part 2
		 Re: space station editorial, part 1
		 Re: space station editorial, part 1
		  Re: space-station editorial part 2
		 Re: space station editorial, part 1
			   Stofan to retire
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Reply-To: lll-crg!ames!sdcsvax!bass.nosc.mil!pnet01!jim@mordor.s1.gov
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 88 15:38:20 PST
From: lll-crg!ames!scubed!sdcsvax!pnet01.cts.com!jim@mordor.s1.gov (Jim Bowery)
To: crash!space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: Re: NYT editorial on space

The editorial was basically correct in its direction.

It failed to analyze the reasons a private company might be able to
produce a facility at a fraction of the cost of NASA, much sooner and
with far higher results/$.

It failed to follow through on the point raised in paragraph 4, which is
that NASA suffers from a systemic problem -- one not limited to Space
Station.

In the last paragraph, "building hardware for hardware's sake" is given
as NASA's current mode.  However, I have just one question: WHERE'S THE
HARDWARE??

In general, it's tough on NASA from the standpoint of your typical
NASA-geek.  From the standpoint of a rational world, the editorial
treats NASA with kid gloves.

Jim Bowery                  PHONE: 619/295-8868
PO Box 1981
La Jolla, CA 92038
ARPA: crash!pnet01!jim@nosc.mil

------------------------------

Reply-To: lll-crg!ames!sdcsvax!bass.nosc.mil!pnet01!jim@mordor.s1.gov
Date: Fri, 5 Feb 88 10:38:53 PST
From: lll-crg!ames!scubed!sdcsvax!pnet01.cts.com!jim@mordor.s1.gov (Jim Bowery)
To: crash!space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: Re: space-station editorial part 2

I've heard a lot of ideas about how to increase the cost effectiveness
of Space Station, and this editorial does a nice job of summing most of
them up.  It also, quite realistically, recognizes there is little
chance of these ideas being implemented given current
political/bureaucratic realities.

Until we take all program funding away from NASA managers and put it in
the hands of researchers with specific space science objectives so they
can buy the launch and facility services they deem appropriate from
whatever source they choose, we will continue to see decade after decade
of disasters like Shuttle and Space Station.

Leave $2billion for NASA payroll and facility costs and put the rest of
the $6billion into an NSF-like peer review system with WRITTEN PUBLIC
reviews REQUIRED so that the back room good ole boy politics is exposed
and legitimate space science is supported at a level 4 times greater
than general science is within NSF ($1.5B).  Not only would this
multiply the rate at which we are acquiring knowlege about space
(knowlege which we MUST have before we can proceed to
industrialize/develop space), but it would create a multibillion dollar
market for space services including launch and on orbit facilities.  The
VARIETY of on orbit facilities that would spring up with this funding
would be far more effective in getting us into a "space faring" mode
than yet another government monument.  The same can be said of launch
services (keep in mind NASA allocated a whole $30 million for ELVs in
the last budget -- this proposal would essentially increase that by a
factor of 100 -- that's ONE HUNDRED).

One additional point which applies to NSF as well: NO RFP'S SHOULD BE
ISSUED -- ALL RESEARCH PROPOSALS SHOULD BE UNSOLICITED.

This proposal gets closer to dealing with the root problem in NASA but
it still doesn't crack the bureaucratic defenses that the aerospace
establishment has constructed over the last 20 years.  ANY proposed
reform can't even be implemented, let alone maintained, so long as those
bureaucratic defenses are in tact.  This is why NASA must be broken into
a number of independent programs with their own budgets and recharge
accounting.  Without such a breakup, all other efforts at reform will be
successfully resisted and/or reversed within a few years.  Please --
wake up folks.


Jim Bowery                            PHONE:  619/295-8868
PO Box 1981
La Jolla, CA 92038

UUCP: {cbosgd, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!pnet01!jim
ARPA: crash!pnet01!jim@nosc.mil
INET: jim@pnet01.cts.com

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 7 Feb 88 16:13 EDT
From: "Paul F. Dietz" <DIETZ%sdr.slb.com@relay.cs.net>
Subject: Re: space station editorial, part 1
To: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net, space@angband.s1.gov

In response to Henry's response...

>> biological microgravity work.  You don't need much of a station for
>> this, though.

>That's good, because we aren't getting much of one!  ...

Specifically, you don't need a big boom, or much power. What you need is
something like a Mir. You might also do other nonmedical research, not
because it's worth doing on its own, but mainly to keep the human guinea
pigs from going crazy from boredom while you study how their bodies
stand up to long duration spaceflight.

>> (2) I am unconvinced a manned presence for the purpose of assembly
>> and repair could be economical at current launch costs...

>I would like to see a proper study of this before conceding the point.
>Launches were not exactly cheap when Fairchild did the Leasecraft
>study.  I admit that I'm not confident of the result.  However, note
>another issue I mentioned: on-orbit assembly permits doing things that
>Cannot Be Done otherwise at present.  The obvious example is sending
>Galileo to Jupiter on a direct, fast trajectory.

I'd think Galileo would prove exactly the opposite point: don't let
unmanned spacecraft depend on the manned space program. Another lesson
from Galileo: launch many smaller spacecraft, rather than cramming all
your experimental eggs into one swollen basket (don't tell me Galileo
was cheaper!).

>Eventually we will want it in a big way, and it's high time to start
>sorting out how to do it.  (This sort of technology development is,
>after all, supposed to be a major NASA responsibility.)  That means
>DOING IT, not thinking about it.

I don't buy this sort of argument. Sure, we want to eventually build
things in space. We eventually want to send people to Alpha Centauri,
too. That doesn't imply we should now build starships -- or space
stations. It isn't high time to start building things in space, any more
than it was 20 years ago, since less than zero progress has been made on
the central problem: affordable transport to orbit.

> Microgravity manufacturing definitely is not going to suddenly spring
> into vigorous activity.

We agree on something.

> Just as well, since we're not going to be able to support vigorous
> activity in the immediate future.  The best we can hope for is to do a
> good job on supporting basic, and some applied, research.

The $64 billion dollar question is: why siphon such a large fraction of
the government research budget into microgravity research? Because it
has such a good potential return on investment? Nonsense. The whole area
is distinctly unpromising compared to any number of fields the
government could support. NASA's past history of marketing hype should
make one extremely wary of the current promises.

I'm willing to change my mind on this, if you can give some good
examples of products that could be made in space. Be sure to tell me how
large the markets are, and why earth-based competition will not be a
problem (any product with sales large enough to make the development
cost worthwhile will certainly attract competition).

> The Soviets have not "concentrated their efforts" on low launch costs.

They have, in the sense that, compared to where NASA wants to be in the
late 90's, they have cheaper launchers (even ignoring Energia) and less
ambitious space stations.

> Finally, while I agree that massive reduction of launch costs is our
> biggest priority by any reasonable measure, the chances of achieving
> this objective by having NASA (or the USAF) do it are nil.

I wonder why you think a NASA too incompetent to design an economical
booster is capable of implementing a worthwhile space station program.

	Paul F. Dietz
	dietz@sdr.slb.com

------------------------------

Date: 8 Feb 88 01:38:42 GMT
From: thorin!proline!leech@mcnc.org  (Jonathan Leech)
Subject: Re: space station editorial, part 1

In article <8802072157.AA08139@angband.s1.gov> DIETZ@sdr.slb.COM ("Paul F. Dietz") writes:
>Another lesson from Galileo: launch many smaller spacecraft, rather
>than cramming all your experimental eggs into one swollen basket (don't
>tell me Galileo was cheaper!).

    It seems clear that launching one spacecraft with many instruments
is cheaper than launching many spacecraft with one instrument. Launch
costs are a significant portion of mission cost at present.
    Jon Leech (leech@cs.unc.edu)    __@/

------------------------------

Date: 8 Feb 88 19:08:46 GMT
From: uflorida!codas!burl!clyde!watmath!utgpu!utzoo!henry@gatech.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: space-station editorial part 2

> ... take all program funding away from NASA managers and put it in the
> hands of researchers with specific space science objectives so they
> can buy the launch and facility services they deem appropriate from
> whatever source they choose...

Unfortunately, those researchers are just as captive to the bureaucracy
as NASA is.  This will work fine for buying services that already exist,
and very poorly for bringing new and innovative services into existence.
Would you risk failure of your grant application because it depends on a
service that doesn't exist yet but somebody is promising Real Soon Now
If Enough Customers Materialize?  Fermilab most assuredly would not
exist if its construction had to be funded out of the research grants of
its users, yet I think we can safely say that it is valuable.  There is
a place for centrally-organized, centrally-funded facilities.

> ... NASA must be broken into a number of independent programs with
> their own budgets and recharge accounting...

Anyone who thinks subdivision and competition will bring efficient
operation in government agencies should study the long-standing, vicious
competition between the US Navy and the US Air Force, and the staggering
waste and duplication of effort it produces.

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 9 Feb 88 02:08:34 GMT
From: uflorida!codas!burl!clyde!watmath!utgpu!utzoo!henry@gatech.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: space station editorial, part 1

> [for biomedical work] What you need is something like a Mir...

Well, preferably a bit bigger than Mir.  Maybe Skylab size.

> >...The obvious example is sending Galileo to Jupiter on a direct,
> >fast trajectory.
> 
> I'd think Galileo would prove exactly the opposite point: don't let
> unmanned spacecraft depend on the manned space program.

No, actually what Galileo proves is, don't let major time-critical
missions depend on launchers which don't have adequate political support
to guarantee continuous service.  Galileo would still have been in
trouble, although not quite as badly, if it had been manifested on
Titan.  (The big Titans only having started flying again recently, after
their early-86 failure.  That's not a trivial slip.)

> Another lesson from Galileo: launch many smaller spacecraft, rather
> than cramming all your experimental eggs into one swollen basket...

Amen to that.  In fact there is a more general principle here:
spaceflight will always be expensive if losing a single launch is a
catastrophe, because nibbling away at that last 0.01% of failure
potential is VERY costly.  How much would airline tickets cost if one
airliner crash grounded them all for years?  An important reason why
airlines work, at affordable prices, is that both the customers and the
airlines accept less-than-perfect safety.

> ...doesn't imply we should now build ... space stations. It isn't high
> time to start building things in space, any more than it was 20 years
> ago, since less than zero progress has been made on the central
> problem: affordable transport to orbit.

So we must cease all space activity until transport costs are
affordable?  That is the logical end of this argument.

> The $64 billion dollar question is: why siphon such a large fraction
> of the government research budget into microgravity research? ...

Please explain to me why my proposed space station (much cheaper than
NASA's) is an enormous drain on the government research budget when,
say, the Superconducting SuperCollider is not.  Both are multi-billion
projects; neither is a "large fraction" of the government research
budget, especially over their considerable lifetimes.

> > The Soviets have not "concentrated their efforts" on low launch
> > costs.
> 
> They have, in the sense that, compared to where NASA wants to be in
> the late 90's, they have cheaper launchers (even ignoring Energia) and
> less ambitious space stations.

Yes, but this is not the result of concentration.  It is the result of
pursuing multiple goals *simultaneously*... like building your first
small station before your cheap launcher is ready, because you need to
gain experience before getting ambitious.

> I wonder why you think a NASA too incompetent to design an economical
> booster is capable of implementing a worthwhile space station program.

I think NASA is capable of building a space station comparable in this
regard to NASA's boosters: very expensive but too useful, for limited
purposes, to abandon without replacement.

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 10 Feb 88 20:22:22 GMT
From: cfa!willner@husc6.harvard.edu  (Steve Willner)
Subject: Stofan to retire

[Following are two key paragraphs from a NASA press release, in case
your local paper doesn't carry this item.  The rest of the release was
just background information and typical retirement comments.]

__________________________________________________________________
Mark Hess
Headquarters, Washington, D.C.                   February 8, 1988

STOFAN TO RETIRE FROM NASA ON APRIL 1

     Associate Administrator for Space Station Andrew J. Stofan will
retire from NASA on April 1.  Stofan, 53, was appointed June 30, 1986,
to the position responsible for developing a permanently manned Space
Station by the mid 1990's.  Stofan directed the Space Station program
through a difficult period marked by significant progress.

     Stofan says he took the job as associate administrator for Space
Station with the idea of accomplishing a set of objectives.  "I've
accomplished everything I set out to do when I came here," says Stofan.
"We have the NASA management team in place, the development and support
contractors are on board, the international negotations are in their
final stages and the President has submitted a $1 billion budget for the
next fiscal year which will permit the program to move into full
development," says Stofan.  "The program is on track now and its [sic]
an appropriate time to retire from government."

Steve Willner            Phone 617-495-7123          Bitnet: willner@cfa2
60 Garden St.            FTS:      830-7123           UUCP:   willner@cfa
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA                     ARPA: willner@cfa.harvard.edu

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #137
*******************

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Date: Wed, 17 Feb 88 03:16:02 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8802171116.AA08767@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #138

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 138

Today's Topics:
		     space news from Jan 4 AW&ST
		    Creating National Space Policy
		   Space Station Docking Subsystem
	     A NEW question - computers and space station
		 Re: Extraterrestrial land ownership
		 Re: Moon with orbit less than a day
			 a bit of space humor
			      Starchart
		      Desparately Seeking Kermit
    Re: Payload of shuttle flight directly after last Challenger.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 9 Feb 88 04:47:51 GMT
From: mnetor!spectrix!tmsoft!utgpu!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Jan 4 AW&ST

[As usual, AW&ST skipped the last issue in December.]

First Titan 4 to roll out early this month.

Australia and New Zealand urge polar-platform builders to equip the
platforms with "direct broadcast" systems [as opposed, presumably, to
systems that go via relay satellites] so that deep-southern-hemisphere
countries can get real-time data.

Shuttle schedule to slip due to SRB test failure.  [AW&ST has a "new
look" this year.  I do hope the quality of the what-failed-in-the-SRB
diagram is not typical of what the new look is going to be like; it is
totally incomprehensible, and I *know* roughly what the insides of an
SRB look like!]

Test of Titan SRB successful, clearing way for first Titan 4 launch.
This one incorporated a number of post-Challenger mods, including joint
heaters.

Romanenko and Alexandrov finally return to Earth Dec 29, with Romanenko
totalling 326 days aboard Mir.  They were clearly fatigued towards the
end, with work-days shortened and days off provided frequently.  [The
Soviets have stated elsewhere that six months is now their preferred
stay time for station crews, except for those involved in long-term
medical experiments.]  The mysterious third member of the relief crew,
who went up with the new crew and down with R&A, was not a doctor as
previously rumored but a test pilot.  The official explanation is that
it was to give him some space experience that could be helpful in Soviet
shuttle work, but another factor may have been that it put a fairly
fresh "safety pilot" aboard the returning Soyuz.

Romanenko is going to be studied intensively for biomedical effects of
his stay.  Of note are calcium loss from the bones, which appears *not*
to be regained on return to Earth, and general deterioration of leg
muscles and cardiovascular system.  Some Soviet work has suggested that
the calcium problem, clearly the worst, levels off after about seven
months in space, but nobody is sure yet.

The new Mir crew is expected to do an EVA soon to add another solar
array to Mir.

Congress boosts FY88 funding for Lightsat, the Advanced Launch System,
and the space-recovery program.  ALS gets $150M instead of the $140M
asked for, with a minimum of $70M of it going to NASA for propulsion
work.

Congress restricts space-station funding in FY88, notably requiring NASA
to report on economy measures possible.  Congress comes down hard on bad
management, noting that less than 30% of FY88 station funds is going to
companies actually building hardware: "This trend is unacceptable."
Congress earmarks $25M for NASA to start leasing arrangements for Space
Industries's Industrial Space Facility as an interim pre-station
measure, sets aside $20M for microgravity payloads, urges another
Spacelab materials mission in 1991, orders use of $28M to buy two Deltas
for Rosat and the Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer, caps Advanced
Communications Satellite funding at $35M until NASA gets cost overruns
under control, approves $25M boost for Mars Observer (to be spent either
on MO itself or on planetary-observer spares), and provides $5M to be
spent on long-stay orbiter work.

USAF planning 11 military-astronaut exercises aboard shuttle to settle
the 25-year-old debate about the usefulness of manned spaceflight for
military purposes.  (Soviet cosmonauts have already run such tests.)  Of
particular note is a test to determine whether an astronaut with "simple
optics" [binoculars?] can observe a missile launch and track it
reasonably well; this has obvious implications for credibility of
missile-warning systems.

Gamma-Ray Observatory structure complete (picture), on schedule for
launch in 1990.

FCC continues to push a spectrum-allocation scheme for L-band that makes
it very difficult for a company to run an aeronautical-safety [traffic
control etc.] satellite system without belonging to the winning
consortium in the great general-mobile-communications competition.  This
is not affecting the navsat people (notably Geostar, scheduled to put up
its first [working] payload piggyback on a comsat due for Ariane launch
this spring), because they were recently allocated their own separate
bit of spectrum.  (Geostar and such do have some limited
data-communications capability, but this was considered a secondary
issue.)

Ground facilities built in Luxembourg for its privately-owned Astra TV
satellite will be rented for use during post-launch maneuvering of
Japan's Superbird A and B comsats.

[And an interesting bit from Flight International: ex-cosmonaut Vladimir
Shatalov, now a Star City official, criticizes "lack of purposefulness
and consistency" in economically-useful aspects of the Soviet space
program, remote sensing aside.  He is particularly critical of the slow
pace of microgravity research; read it and weep: "We carry out
experiments, wait six months to get them back, spend a year studying
them, and only then do we prepare the next experiment.  At this pace, we
won't set up orbital workshops and factories even by the year 2000."]

[Another read-it-and-weep item from Flight International: China reports
that high-temperature superconductors made in orbit are more uniform
than those made on Earth.  Note, they are not speculating on this, they
are saying they've *tried it already*.]

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 10 Feb 88 15:52:00 PST
From: "KEVIN W. BOLD 0-1" <bold@afsc-sd.arpa>
Reply-To: "KEVIN W. BOLD 0-1" <bold@afsc-sd.arpa>
Subject: Creating National Space Policy

<My comments appear in <> -- KB>

A friend and I are working for one of the Democratic presidential
candidates and are likely to be talking with his issues coordinator in
the near future (like next weekend) on the subject of space policy.  In
order to build a solid case for a pro-space agenda, we'd like to solicit
your ideas on concrete justifications for national space programs.  In
addition, we'd appreciate any suggestions for specific goals and
programs that can be justified in an era of budget cutting and potential
austerity.  Remember, this is a Democrat we're talking about, so it
would help to provide reasons that will stand up to people asking
questions like "why don't we spend the money here on Earth, instead?"

<The money spent on going to space is spent on Earth.  The jobs go to
Americans, not Martians.  The space program has been on of the few
government programs which creates more wealth than it takes from the
economy.  [Liberals often forget that it costs money to redistribute
wealth.  They also forget that since wealth is createable, there is no
need to resort to coersive methods such as taxation to redistribute
it.]>

Specific ideas to consider might include:

How do you feel about the Space Station (perhaps as opposed to the
Industrial Space Facility or use of external shuttle tanks)?

<The Space Station must receive sufficient funding to become an adequate
space science laboratory, large enough to handle both civilian and
military applications.  It must be more than busy-work for NASA
engineers.>

Possible benefits from lunar missions, near-Earth asteroid missions, or
a manned mission to Mars?

<We never got to use the moon's resources because our vision of lunar
exploration was too small: it need not have been just a series of
publicity stunts to avenge the damage Sputnik did to our national
prestige.  The same must be true for Mars flights and the space station:
we must have a vision of long term accomplishment.>

What role should NASA play in U.S. space policy?  How can it complement,
rather than hinder, commercial development of space?  What other steps
might the government (reasonably) take to encourage commercial space
ventures?

<NASA should be more sensitive to the space community's input to
determine its policies.  That's where they will get the visionary
perspective they've been lacking.  [A common malady among government
agencies...]  From what I've seen and heard, NASA looks to the space
community to come to their aid during budget appropriation debates and
to tour their facilities, period, paragraph.>

Finally, if anyone can provide pointers to official studies on space
policy, such as the Ride and the National Space Commission reports, we'd
also appreciate them.

<Whoever your candidate is, get him aquainted with the overview of such
reports.  See the latest issue of *Space World*, the NSS magazine, for a
discussion of the aggrivating apathy nearly all the candidates of either
major party have towards space issues.  [I'll probably vote Libertarian
again, *if* I vote.  Voting only encourages them, ya know...]>

-- Kevin "Mad Max" Bold
(BOLD@AFSC.SD-ARPA)

------------------------------

Date: 11 Feb 88 14:50:46 GMT
From: cbosgd!clyde!watmath!utgpu!utzoo!@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Subject: Space Station Docking Subsystem

A Question: which of the space station contractors has the reponsibility
for the space shuttle docking subsystem?  Despite the several news
articles decribing the recently awarded work packages, I still haven't
been able to determine this. Please mail answers to this question to me
directly, rather than posting news.  Some related questions: what design
has been chosen for the shuttle docking subsystem? Does it make use of
the standardized docking equipment developed for Apollo/Soyuz?  Or
something new? Which pieces of hardware will the shuttle have to carry,
and which will be part of the station?  How will dockings proceed; will
the shuttle's RMS (or the station's manipulator) be required? I've been
following the space station design effort for years, but these details
have managed to slip by me.

Thanks in advance!

     Kieran A. Carroll @ U of Toronto Aerospace Institute
     {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!kcarroll

------------------------------

Date: 15 Feb 88 17:47:46 GMT
From: unmvax!charon!hydra.unm.edu!cs3631be@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Tommie D. Daniel)
Subject: A NEW question - computers and space station

How many ways can computers be used to help build the sapce station ??

     ( and what are they ..... )

hopefully this will inspire some new disscusions !!!

------------------------------

Date:  4 Feb 1988 16:18-EST 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: Extraterrestrial land ownership

Realistically speaking, the treaty won't last past the third native born
generation in the colonies. Imperialism didn't work forever on Earth,
and it won't work forever in space.

I wonder if the UN people realize that they have voted themselves rulers
of a colonial empire?  Ironic that the children of the subjugated will
be the parents of the exploiters.

Like every other attempt to rule from afar, it will fail. The locals
will kick out the UN or whoever else enforces the treaty, (with more or
less bloodshed, depending on the cost of stormtrooper transport to LEO)
form a new nation and reject any earthly treaties and laws that do not
suit local tastes.

History just keeps on repeating itself, and nobody ever seems to learn.

					Space for the Spacers!
					Mars for the Martians!
					Luna for the Lunatics!
					Earthmen Go Home!!

------------------------------

Date: 4 Feb 88 19:52:57 GMT
From: jfc@athena.mit.edu  (John F Carr)
Subject: Re: Moon with orbit less than a day

In article <570223368.amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU> Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.EDU writes:
>I've read some recent theorizations that a number of the larger lunar
>impacts may have been caused by the breakup of 2-3 smaller bodies as
>they breached the Roche limit and then impacted, each series seperated
>by many millions of years.

I recently read a book about the formation of the moon.  An article in
it concluded that objects in parabolic or hyperbolic orbits do not spend
enough time inside the Roche limit to break up due to tidal forces
(assuming a reasonable strength, which should be valid for anything
stronger than a comet).  There is uncertainty to this result.

  --John Carr   (jfc@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)

------------------------------

Date:     Thu,  4 Feb 1988 23:44:53.30 EST
From: <shafferj%BKNLVMS.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu> (Jim Shaffer)
Subject:  a bit of space humor

Date:         Thu, 4 Feb 88 19:56:00 EST
Reply-To:     SUNY/Stony Brook Literary Underground <SBRHYM-L@SBCCVM>
From:         "Graham P. Collins" <COLLINS@SUNYSBNP>
Subject:      here's that poem I mentioned
To:           "JIM SHAFFER, JR." <SHAFFERJ@BKNLVMS>

                    BEFORE THE BIG BANG:
          NEWS FROM THE HUBBLE LARGE SPACE TELESCOPE

              The Astronomer was red-eyed, pale,
                his face was gray with stubble;
                 he was 13 on a sliding scale
                    of 1 to 10 in trouble.

                "Is Physics just a fairy tale?"
               he asked, and then began to wail,
               "Why DID we seek the holy grail?
                 Why did we launch the Hubble?

              The launch was good (relax, exhale)
                 the data systems did not fail
               we peered beyond the cosmic veil,
                    the anti-cosmic double

              to back before the quarks prevail.
                 We digitized each dark detail
                  but it was all to no avail,
                 it burst our pretty bubble."

               "WHAT did you see?" I asked "Before
                   Beginning Big Bang lights?"
       (I reviews and interviews. I edits and I writes.)
     "Before the start of Time, before the Universe's Birth,
 What DID the Hubble show, ten billion years before the Earth?"
               He told me. Now I writes no more.
                    I drinks a bit. I edits.
             "Right before the Beginning," he said,
                "is when THEY roll the credits!"


(C) Jonathon V. Post
(Previously published in
"Rhysling Anthology, 1987" and "Star*line, Nov/Dec 1986")

=================================================
By the way, notice the shape of the poem, anyone seen pictures of the design
of the Hubble Telescope . . . ?   :-)

Graham P. Collins
BITNET%"collins@sunysbnp"
UUCP: ...icus!noether!graham

------------------------------

Date: 11 Feb 1988 00:22-EST 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Starchart

Last year in Aug or Sep someone posted that a star chart would be
posted to net.sources around 1-Oct-87. I didn't see it on that date,
and neglected to keep checking. Does anyone have this software or have
pointers to it?

------------------------------

Date:    Mon, 15 Feb 88 11:19:58 PST
From: hairston%utd750%utadnx%utspan.span@vlsi.jpl.nasa.gov
Subject: Desparately Seeking Kermit
X-St-Vmsmail-To: JPLLSI::"space@angband.s1.gov"

   When I first mentioned the martian lava flow that looked like Kermit
the Frog that was printed in the "Whole Earth Review" , I was concerned
that many folks might not be able to find such an obscure magazine.  I
have since found that both "Kermit" and the "face" appear in an article
in the April 1985 issue of "Discover" magazine (page 92), which I hope
is a bit easier for folks to locate at their libraries.

Marc Hairston--Center for Space Sciences--University of Texas at Dallas

------------------------------

Date: 10 Feb 88 20:06:10 GMT
From: milano!banzai-inst!wex@im4u.utexas.edu  (Alan Wexelblat)
Subject: Re: Payload of shuttle flight directly after last Challenger.

In article <1988Feb3.133415.12432@utzoo.uucp>, henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
> ...that great scare word "plutonium" without mentioning that it would
> go up in an armored canister designed to survive a launch failure.
> (There have been some doubts expressed about whether the canisters are
> in fact tough enough for all possible cases, but they definitely would
> have survived the Challenger disaster.)  This is not just speculation:
> such a canister went into the ocean some years ago after an expendable
> launcher failed; it was recovered intact, wiped clean, and re-used.

Er, yes and no.  Yes, the canister is designed to survive an explosion.
Specifically, it can withstand forces up to 2,000 psi.  This is (as
Henry notes) clearly enough to withstand a spashdown after failure of an
unmanned.

However, NASA tests indicate that an exploding shuttle ET might generate
forces as high as 20,000 psi.  What's particularly troublesome are
detonation-on-pad scenarios, which involve these higher pressures.  If
the cannister did explode, the resulting shower of material might
contaminate the entire space center.

The point is that while the risk is relatively low, the potential
consequences of a failure are so high that alternatives should be given
more serious consideration, including the alternative of hardening the
cannister to withstand 20,000 psi.  (Could such shielding be jettisoned
after the space probe was free-flying?)

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #138
*******************

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	id AA10449; Thu, 18 Feb 88 03:15:16 PST
Date: Thu, 18 Feb 88 03:15:16 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8802181115.AA10449@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #139

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 139

Today's Topics:
		Mining fissionables, nuclear risk, etc
			      Pu on LEM
    Re: Payload of shuttle flight directly after last Challenger.
			   Plutonium usage
			   reactor reentry
    Re: Payload of shuttle flight directly after last Challenger.
		  Plutonium generators on spacecraft
			 Re: reactor reentry
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 11 Feb 1988 17:36-EST 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Mining fissionables, nuclear risk, etc

I'd place my bets on Mercury, although it's iffy whether they are
accessible. Material abundances in the solar system follow a curve of
volitality. That's why there are terrestrial planets close to the
furnace and gas giants and iceballs out in the back yard.

The difficuly with Mercury is that if may be TOO differentiated. It has
a higher over all percentage of Fe than other planets, but popular
theory has it that the core/mantle/crust are highly differentiated,
possibly leaving the crust very depleted. The stuff is bound to be
there, the question is whether it is minable or buried out of reach at
100km.

There are small amounts of radioactives in some asteroids. Some actually
had enough radioactivity early in solar system formation that they had
partial melting or even core formation: ie that's where we get
Nickel-Iron and Stony iron meteorites. However, the melting is presumed
to have been caused by a short lived isotope (of Al? I can't remember
whether Al or Sr is the starting point or ending point) that seeded our
nebula as it was compressed on it's way to stardom by a nearby
supernova.

The moon does have He3 in the regolith from gigayears of solar wind.
But in general, fissionables look to be pretty hard to come by.

Oh well. At least the Earth will have SOMETHING worth exporting...

Eugene: I wish we had a dump of the last round of the "FISSION in
space/Plutonium is nasty" cycle. I seem to remember the last block
covering this matter occured around 2/86. This territory has been well
trampled before...

But to summarize that old discussion:

	1) It ain't particularly dangerous
	2) Accidents have HAPPENED with no serious affects
		1) USSR sat crashed in Canada. They paid (partially) for
		   the cleanup.
		2) An old US sat reentered and spread it's Pu nice and
		   evenly. Back in the 60's I think.
	3) The carrier of the type used in deep space probes has, as
	   Henry noted, actually gone down in flames with a far more
	   violent explosion than that from the Shuttle, which was
	   pretty benign. Remember that the shuttle was not destroyed
	   by the explosion, it was torn appart aerodynamically. And
	   at least two astronauts were alive even after the shuttle
	   disintegration. I would guess that a heavily armoured pod
	   can survive anything that flesh and blood can handle. The
	   splash down sure as hell won't hurt it.
		1) It's awfully cold and dark out there. No RTG's, no
		  outer planet planetary probes. PERIOD.

I really get tired of anti-nuclear hysteria. It's nearly as bad as the
anti-drug hysteria. Both are hysterias based on extensive disinformation
campaigns by people who seem to have found 'religion' more palatable
than reason. You can't tell the truth from the conveniently invented
facts without a scorecard...

Please note that I am not saying that things nuclear are utterly
harmless. Cyanide isn't harmless either, but it can be dealt with.
Industrial accidents can and will occur, and I am unconvinced that even
a Chernobyl level disaster is inherently worse than a Bhopal. Given a
vote on which has the worse effects, I'd have to say Bhopal...

Come to think of it, I wouldn't at all mind if pesticides were
manufactured off planet...

The only nuclear threat that I find worrisome is the terrorist threat,
one that I see little if any solution to other than getting off the
planet. Every year that goes by makes the technology older and older,
and new technology keeps making it cheaper and easier to do things that
were expensive or impossible in the past. Laser seperation can be done
in hideable facilities, and is based on a technology that will scale
down over decades and whose pieces will become more and more readily
available. Anyone want to bet they can control all conceivably relevant
technologies over the entire planet forever? Good luck and sieg hiel.

Back yard A-bombs anyone?

Personally, I intend to leave first.

------------------------------

Date: 12 Feb 88 11:02:46 GMT
From: lakesys!jtk@csd1.milw.wisc.edu  (Joe Klein)
Subject: Pu on LEM

I belive the LEM that was used to return the crew and command module in
the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission, had a package of Pu in it for one of
the long term experements to be deployed on the moon. The LEM (or what
was left of it) crashed into the Pacific Ocean. Some place near New
Zealand is now the resting place for that chunk of Pu.

Joseph T. Klein

------------------------------

Date: 10 Feb 88 15:26:41 GMT
From: uplherc!esunix!bpendlet@gr.utah.edu  (Bob Pendleton)
Subject: Re: Payload of shuttle flight directly after last Challenger.

in article <365@flatline.UUCP>, erict@flatline.UUCP (eric townsend) says:

> Ok, so that's it.  No nuclear weapons, but nuclear reactors are just
> fine.  If we're allowed to launch reactors into space, why not launch
> the waste, too?  The 'what-if-it-blows-up?' answer could be applied to
> the launch of the reactor as well....

Not really. A nuclear reactor that has not been operated is simply not
that hot. Remember, you can build a reactor out of stuff you dig out of
the ground.

The high level nuclear waste produced by an operating nuclear reactor is
a whole 'nuther matter. I would not like to see operating reactors being
boosted into orbit.

> My 'friend the nut case' has a very good point.  What if the
> rocket/shuttle /whatever that's carrying 46 pounds of plutonium goes
> blooie in lower atmosphere?  You gonna be ready to live inside for the
> next few years?  I'm not.

I live in Utah, I'd be very surprised if less than 46 pounds of
plutonium have been spread over the state. You see, we are the preferred
fallout path for all the above ground, and more than a few of the below
ground nuclear tests performed at the Nevada nuclear test range. The
state is still quite habitable, it doesn't even glow in the dark. There
are a few "statistical anomolies" in the cancer rate though.

Assuming a worst case accident, parts of Florida would have to be
evacuated and cleaned up. I'd be very surprised if anyone outside of the
Indian River area would be affected.

As for living inside for a couple of years, well I hope you have been
very careful in your choice of construction materials, fuels, and so
forth.  If you haven't, your nice closed shelter can build up some nasty
levels of Radon.  Real nice for cooking your lungs.

If you want to get upset about something real, look at the amounts of
nuclear waste put into the atmosphere every year by coal fired power
plants. Compare that to the amount released by all nuclear power plant
accidents.

You have to be careful with nuclear materials.  But, you have to be
reasonable about assesing risks.  The word "plutonium" has you jumping
out of your skin with fright.  I'll bet the word "coal" doesn't frighten
you at all.  But I'll bet that the coal industry kills more people every
year than the plutonium industry does.

			Bob Pendleton

------------------------------

Sender: "chaz_heritage.WGC1RX"@xerox.com
Date: 12 Feb 88 10:58:03 PST (Friday)
Subject: Plutonium usage
From: "chaz_heritage.WGC1RX"@xerox.com
Cc: "chaz_heritage.WGC1RX"@xerox.com

In his 06 Feb 88 13:06 UT message Mike Bird writes:

>...the experiment packages...used a small Pu-powered nuclear
>reactor...with radiating fins.....

This is correct. The Apollo ALSEP (Apollo Lunar Surface Experiment
Package) was powered by a SNAP-27 RTG (Radioisotope Thermoelectric
Generator) which used a slug of Pu as fuel; the Pu disintegrations
produced heat which was directly converted into electricity.

One of the first tasks of the landing crew was to deploy the RTG and,
using a long handling tool, to insert into it the Pu slug, which was
carried in a cylinder on one of the LEM legs.

SNAP series RTGs are one of the standard methods of powering spacecraft
in general. A description of the ALSEP deployment sequence is given in
Gatland: Manned Spaceflight (c. 1967).

RTGs are not, strictly speaking, nuclear reactors since they do not
contain either a critical or an immediately subcritical assembly.
However, the Pu fuel slug is most certainly radioactive.

The effects of dispersal of an RTG fuel canister's contents (either by
catastrophic self-disassembly of the launch vehicle or by premature
re-entry) would certainly include a radiation incident as serious as
those occasionally caused by nuclear systems used on the ground. A toxic
incident would also occur as a result of the very high toxicity of Pu.

To distinguish between RTGs and reactors on the basis of safety is
somewhat sophisticated. Henry Spencer appositely points out that the Pu
isotope used in RTGs cannot explode; it would be fair to say that this
also applies to reactors, since, in order to generate a nuclear
explosion per se, a highly fissile isotope must be explosively
compressed into a supercritical assembly in a very short time. To do
this with Pu is very difficult since its high activity promotes
preinitiation, forcing weapons designers to use either spherical
compression with complex explosive lenses or more refined (and
classified) methods. The crude gun-assembly technique, which some
believe would allow terrorists to manufacture a weapon from stolen
plutonium, would in fact work only with highly enriched uranium
(oralloy) which is somewhat harder to obtain - though the consequences
of trying it with Pu would certainly be unpleasant in the extreme; it is
most unlikely that the builders of such a thing would survive to emplace
it at its target.

It appears that there is no greater threat to safety from spacecraft
power systems than already exists as a result of ground-level nuclear
power and weapons activities. There is not, in my personal view, any
justification for scandal over what a given launch vehicle was, or was
not, carrying on the occasion of its malfunction.

Regards, 

Chaz

------------------------------

Date: 11 Feb 88 16:15:45 GMT
From: cbosgd!clyde!watmath!utgpu!utzoo!lsuc!hcr!hcrvax!stacey@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Stacey Campbell)
Subject: reactor reentry

Considering all the postings regarding the proposed space station and
the discussion on reactors in space vehicles I was a bit surprised to
discover the only example of poorly controlled reentry of vehicles
containing reactors was...

In article <3212@killer.UUCP> Eric Green writes:
>There is a treaty banning nuclear WEAPONS in space. But there is no
>treaty banning nuclear REACTORS in space. Remember that Russian
>satellite that broke up over Canada a few years back, spewing low-level
>radiation over a wide swath? It was powered by a nuclear reactor....

In article <40767@sun.uucp> seh writes:
>The main drawback with these RORSATs and other nuclear-powered birds is
>that sometimes they came down in places like Canada.

In article <YW1eC=y00WABcDo09x@andrew.cmu.edu> Steven Jensen writes:
>I know that some of the Soviet Cosmos series used nuclear reactors as
>power sources.  One re-entered and rained debris over Northern Canada
>in the late 70's(?) and there was some concern about the radioactivity
>from the reactor.  I do not think that any of our sats carry reactors,
>but I do not know about some of the other spacefaring countries
>satellites.

Skylab made a spectacular reentry in Western Australia, spewing all
manner of junk over a large band of desert and semi-arid land.  There
was a lot of concern at the time that much of this junk could be
radioactive, that didn't stop people collecting it for souvenirs.

mnetor!utzoo!lsuc!hcr!hcrvax!stacey Stacey Campbell, HCR Corp, 130 Bloor St W
Toronto,Ont,Canada. This time we didn't forget the gravy! +1 416 922 1937 X50
ACSnet users from Australia: ubc-vision!utai!utcsri!hcr!stacey@munnari and/or
mnetor!utzoo!lsuc!hcr!stacey@munnari

------------------------------

Date: 15 Feb 88 09:07:43 GMT
From: thumper!karn@faline.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: Payload of shuttle flight directly after last Challenger.

> alpha and beta particles.  Plutonium 238 (note, 238, *not* 239) is one
> fairly good choice.  Such isotopes do not have to be fissionable and
> in fact usually aren't.  Small isotope generators can use
> thermoelectric

>From everything I've read about plutonium, all of its long-lived
isotopes are fissionable.  Pu-239 is favored for bombs because it is
easy to make, and because its spontaneous fission rate is low enough to
make bomb design simpler. (It was the high neutron levels caused by
Pu-240 contamination that ruled out use of the gun-type bomb with
plutonium during the Manhattan Project; implosion brings the fissionable
material together faster than a gun can, avoiding a fizzle).

Pu-238 is used in RTGs because its much shorter half-life (86 years vs
24,400 years for Pu-239) gives much more power per unit weight.

It is the lack of a nonfissionable isotope of plutonium that would make
the controlled destruction of the superpowers' plutonium stocks so
difficult.  Enriched uranium, on the other hand, can be effectively
"denatured" by mixing it with depleted uranium (U-238).

Refs: The Making of the Atomic Bomb, by Richard Rhodes; Stopping the
Production of Fissile Materials for Weapons, by von Hippel et al,
Scientific American, September 1985.  Also see the CRC Handbook.

Phil

------------------------------

Date:    Fri, 12 Feb 88 08:18:34 PST
From: hairston%utd750%utadnx%utspan.span@vlsi.jpl.nasa.gov
Sender: ota@galileo.s1.gov
Subject: Plutonium generators on spacecraft

   Eric Townsend wrote wanting to know about the nuclear power plants on
spacecraft, but in the replies so far no one has mentioned the article
about radioisotopic thermal generators and their risks that appeared in
the May/ June 1987 issue of "The Planetary Report" (put out by the
Planetary Society).  In the article David Salisbury goes through the
history of RTG use and the various risks they pose and the steps taken
to minimize the risks.  For anyone interested in this subject, this
article is a well informed piece that sheds more light than heat on the
subject.
   Salisbury had read the "Common Cause" article and mentions that it
"left the reader with the misleading impression that such an accident
[as Challenger] could cause hundreds of thousands of cases of cancer, or
worse."  According to the article the USSR has launched at least 30
nuclear-powered spacecraft since 1967 and the US has lauched 22 RTGs
since 1961.  There have been three accidents on the US side.  The first
was in 1964 when a Navy satellite with a RTG failed to make orbit and
burned up over the Indian Ocean.  Studies showed it added only 15% to
the radioactive dust in the Southern Hemisphere (the rest from open air
bomb testing in the South Pacific).  After that the AEC changed the
design of RTGs so they would survive intact without any leaks rather
than burn up.  Number two came in 1968 when a weather satellite launch
was aborted and the RTGs fell 30 km to the Atlantic.  They survived and
were recovered intact.  The third was on Apollo 13.  The lunar module
had RTGs on board (whether for the experiments, the rover, or both isn't
stated) so after it served its purpose as a lifeboat, it was targeted to
reenter over the South Pacific.  Surveys of the area afterwards showed
no signs that any radioactive release, so it is assumed the current
design of RTG can with- stand a 25,000 mph reentry and hitting the ocean
at several hundred miles an hour without leaking the plutonium.
   Last editorial comment: Eric's friend, the musician and activist,
serves as a good example of the need for better science education for
everyone, not just scientists and engineers.  I have lots of friends
that are musicians, artists, activists, and other non-tech types.  They
are all very bright and very curious people, but for some
social/cultural reasons they have been taught to hate/fear /have disdain
for/etc. science and technology.  When they ask me questions about
science they are surprised to find that much of it is actually
understandable and even exciting, not the threatening monster they faced
in school.  We need to do a better job of presenting science to the
general public or else we're going to face more half-informed hysteria
like this.

Marc Hairston--Center for Space Science--Univ Texas at Dallas

------------------------------

Date: 15 Feb 88 20:44:20 GMT
From: uflorida!codas!burl!clyde!watmath!utgpu!utzoo!henry@gatech.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: reactor reentry

> Skylab made a spectacular reentry in Western Australia, spewing all
> manner of junk over a large band of desert and semi-arid land.  There
> was a lot of concern at the time that much of this junk could be
> radioactive, that didn't stop people collecting it...

Needless concern, since there was nothing radioactive aboard Skylab.
(There may possibly have been very minor amounts of radioactive
materials in instruments, but there was no reactor, no isotope
generator, and no other reason why any significant radioactivity would
be present.  Remember that men lived in the thing for months at a time.)

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #139
*******************

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	id AA00962; Fri, 19 Feb 88 03:18:14 PST
Date: Fri, 19 Feb 88 03:18:14 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8802191118.AA00962@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #140

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 140

Today's Topics:
			  Re: LDEF satellite
		      Interpreting Mir Elements
		Re: Apollo not intended to be one shot
		   Condensed CANOPUS - January 1988
			More breaking up NASA
			Reagan's new proposals
		      Re: Reagan's new proposals
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 16 Feb 88 22:48:36 GMT
From: marque!gryphon!mhnadel@csd1.milw.wisc.edu  (Miriam Nadel)
Subject: Re: LDEF satellite

In article <8802100107.AA05684@galileo.s1.gov> ota@GALILEO.S1.GOV writes:
>Yesterday's AW&ST carried a story on rescheduling the first few Space
>Shuttle missions in order to retrieve the Long Duration Exposure
>Facility satellite before its currently predicted reentry date of
>early-to-mid 1990.  It was originally expected to last until 1995 or
>so.  No explanation was offered for the change.  Parts of the satellite
>are expected to hit the surface if it reenters.

I doubt that the reentry risk is the primary reason for this scheduling.
Remember that LDEF was supposed to show the effects of exposure to space
debris.  Since it has no telemetry, it needs to be retrieved if it is to
have been at all useful.

LDEF retrieval will also provide a much needed test for the heavy load
capabilities of the RMS.  There is considerable concern over the
structural vibrations of the RMS (which have been significantly larger
than had been anticipated) and nobody is all that convinced it can
really do the job.

Miriam Nadel

------------------------------

Date: 12 Feb 88 19:13:49 GMT
From: irizarry@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu  (Gil Irizarry)
Subject: Interpreting Mir Elements

I have seen the data on the Mir space station appear regularly in this
group.  I am interested in perhaps using this to see Mir for myself, but
don't know much about satellite data.  Can anyone explain the "Mir
elements" that show up regularly and tell me how I can use them to
determine where Mir is?

Thanks,

Gil Irizarry
irizarry@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu

------------------------------

Date: 12 Feb 1988 17:51-EST 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: Apollo not intended to be one shot

No, the engineers did not intend Apollo to be one shot. But the
engineers were politically naive, or at least most of them were. The
ones that weren't, who predicted what the Apollo approach would lead to,
were told to put up or shut up.

Kennedy wanted a big civilian project to project the desired image that
the US space program was civilian, that would remove the taint of the
Bay of Pigs and would make people forget the imaginary 'missile gap'
that he ran for president on.

The most important thing to the upper echelons was that we do something
that would show to the world that we were technologically more capable
than the USSR in space. That meant we had to be first to the moon, at
any cost.

I understand that Kennedy personally nixed the idea of Earth Orbit
rendezvous with a station because it would not get us there first. And
as resources became tighter, the political goal held firm, but anything
else (things intended to make the gains permanent) were eliminated from
the budget one by one.

So to all of you engineeers out there, just remember that all
politicians are liars and scoundrels. They do things for their own
political agenda and are very good at convincing you to feel good about
the knife sticking in your back. Talk and the power of persuasion gets
these people into office and keeps them there. They are as good at lying
convincingly as you are at designing hardware and software.

Apollo played into their hands. As soon as THEIR goal, beating the
russians and showing the world how wonderful the US is, was completed
the funding evaporated.

To reach THEIR goal, no permanent presence was established, no
commercial force (other than COMSATS and the usual aerospace firms) was
created. So when they got to political mileage out of it, they were
done USING the engineeers. They cut you off like a diseased appendage
and let world experts go to work driving taxis in San Francisco.

So this time around guys, don't do what is politically acceptable.
Don't be obediant little lemmings running off the cliff while a smiling
face with no brain behind it takes the credit.  Create steps that
CANNOT BE REMOVED. Stick it to the bastards.

They may be our bastards, but they ARE bastards.

------------------------------

Date: 15 Feb 88 16:53:57 GMT
From: cfa!willner@husc6.harvard.edu  (Steve Willner)
Subject: Condensed CANOPUS - January 1988

Here is the condensed CANOPUS for January 1988.  There are 4 articles, 3
presented in condensed form and one short one given in full.  The
unabridged version has gone to the special mailing list.  Don't expect
the February issue before the middle of March, because my travel
schedule is very heavy right now.  The articles below are heavily
condensed, but for simplicity ellipses (...) are not inserted.  Material
in {braces} is from me and is signed {--SW} if wholly new or if my
opinion only.

CANOPUS is published by the American Institute of Aeronautics and
Astronautics.  Send correspondence about its contents to the executive
editor, William W. L. Taylor (taylor%trwatd.span@star.stanford.edu;
e-mail to canopus@cfa.uucp will probably be forwarded).  Send
correspondence about business matters to Mr. John Newbauer, AIAA, 1633
Broadway, NY, NY 10019.  Although AIAA has copyrighted CANOPUS and
registered its name, you are encouraged to distribute CANOPUS widely,
either electronically or as printout copies.  If you do, however, please
send a brief message to Taylor estimating how many others receive
copies.  CANOPUS is partially supported by the National Space Science
Data Center.

PERSONNEL - can880101.txt - 1/6/88 - {condensed}

Astronaut OWEN GARRIOTT has joined Teledyne Brown Engineering.  LAWRENCE
ROSS has been named deputy director of NASA's Lewis Research Center.

SOLAR MAX GUEST INVESTIGATOR PROGRAM - can880102.txt - Jan. 6, 1988
{condensed}

NASA has released a Research Announcement for the Solar Maximum Mission
Guest Investigator Program (NRA-87-OSSA-12).  Solar Max is in
outstanding condition given that its eighth anniversary will be on Feb.
14. Its instruments have been used for only five years since the
attitude control system failure in late 1980 left it unable to point at
the sun until after the Shuttle repair mission in 1984.

According to the NASA announcement, four of the eight instruments are
fully functional: the gamma ray/neutron spectrometer (GRS), the hard
x-ray burst spectrometer (HXRBS), the coronograph/polarimeter (C/P), and
the solar constant monitor (ACRIM). The ultraviolet spectrometer and
polarimeter (UVSP) is rated at only 10 percent since its wavelength
drive failed and it can only return UV continuum burst observations and
aeronomy. The hard x-ray imaging spectrometer (HXIS) failed before 1984
and could not be repaired.  The soft x-ray polychromator (XRP) {is
nearly fully functional but very low on expendable gas.} To extend the
life of XRP as far into solar cycle 22 as possible, it will be left off
unless there is significant solar activity or an important
multi-instrument campaign.

{Programs similar to the one above exist for HEAO-1, Einstein, IRAS,
IUE, various planetary missions, and no doubt more.  NASA is becoming
very good at milking existing and past satellites for maximum data
return.  It's a good thing, since there are so few new ones. --SW}

TWIN SOLAR ROCKET FLIGHT - can880103.txt - 1/6/88 - {condensed}

X-ray and ultraviolet instruments were launched on Dec. 11 at White
Sands, N.M., in an attempt to correlate features observed in the solar
transition zone and the corona.  The two rockets were launched 30
minutes apart. Ground-based observations were made at Kitt Peak (N.M.)
National Observatory, Big Bear Observatory near Pasadena, Calif.,
Sacramento Peak (N.M.)  Observatory, the Very Large Array at Socorro,
N.M., and the Solar Vector Magnetograph at Marshall Space Flight Center.

VIDEO TOUR OF MIRANDA - can880104.txt - 1/6/88 - {in full}

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory has generated a one-minute computerized
cartoon trip over the "bizarrely contoured terrain" of Miranda, one of
the moons of Uranus. The cartoon was made using Voyager 2 imagery taken
in January 1986 and elevation data from the U.S. Geological Survey. The
footage shows a flight around Miranda at an altitude of 9 miles and with
vertical scale exaggerated three times for clarity.  {I have no idea
where to get the film - I'd like to see it myself --SW}

Steve Willner            Phone 617-495-7123          Bitnet: willner@cfa2
60 Garden St.            FTS:      830-7123           UUCP:   willner@cfa
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA                     ARPA: willner@cfa.harvard.edu

------------------------------

Date: 17 Feb 88 01:06:56 GMT
From: thorin!unc!leech@mcnc.org  (Jonathan Leech)
Subject: More breaking up NASA

In article <8802161916.AA08422@crash.cts.com> lll-crg!ames!sdcsvax!bass.nosc.mil!pnet01!jim@mordor.s1.gov writes:
    <To summarize his posting: breaking up NASA is appropriate since
	it does science as opposed to 'short-term emergency projects
	(such as Manhattan or Apollo) and the military.'

    Since NASA's primary mission is not science, your comments are not
wholly relevant even if they are correct.

    Separating the R & the D in NASA into independent agencies might
make some sense, if their budget authority is also separated. There is
partial proof-of-concept for this approach in the two Japanese space
agencies. Further subdivision is inappropriate. NASA does not operate on
the profit/competition model and never will.

    Jon Leech (leech@cs.unc.edu)    __@/

------------------------------

Date: 12 Feb 88 07:18:32 GMT
From: imagine!pawl5.pawl.rpi.edu!jesup@itsgw.rpi.edu  (Randell E. Jesup)
Subject: Reagan's new proposals

Reagan has announced a new space policy.  According to the CNN & CBS
news coverage I heard, it includes:

	Increased funding for NASA
	Space station as vital part of program
	Something called 'Pathfinder'
	Buying unmanned launches from private companies (I'll bet
		American Rocket Co likes that!)
	Continued use of shuttle for manned flights
	An 'Industrial Space Facility' with NASA as cornerstone tenant
		(This is a commercial research/production facility)
	Return to the moon sometime after 2000
	Possible manned mission to Mars after 2000

There's probably more.  Does anyone have any details??  Reactions from
Aerospace industry/congress?

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 12 Feb 88 09:21:57 pst
From: Eugene N. Miya <eugene@PIONEER.ARC.NASA.GOV>
Subject: Re: Reagan's new proposals
Newsgroups: sci.space

>Reagan has announced a new space policy.  According to the CNN & CBS news
>coverage I heard, it includes:
>
>	Increased funding for NASA
>	Space station as vital part of program
>	Something called 'Pathfinder'

No this is just a nice sounding bureaucratic term to stir the emotions.

>	Buying unmanned launches from private companies (I'll bet American
>		Rocket Co likes that!)
>	Continued use of shuttle for manned flights
>	An 'Industrial Space Facility' with NASA as cornerstone tenant
>		(This is a commercial research/production facility)
>	Return to the moon sometime after 2000
>	Possible manned mission to Mars after 2000
>
>There's probably more.  Does anyone have any details??  Reactions from
>Aerospace industry/congress?

Article 392 of nasa.telemail.larc:
From: agprice@nasamail (AUBREY G. PRICE)
Newsgroups: nasa.telemail.larc
Subject: SPACE POLICY STATEMENT
Message-ID: <PJII-2728-1640@nasamail>
Date: 11 Feb 88 19:34:00 GMT
Sender: telemail@ames.arpa
Lines: 204 (edited to remove blank lines and pagination)
Approved: telemail

Forwarded message:

Posted: Thu  Feb 11, 1988  11:06 AM PST              Msg: RJII-2728-1532
From:   HQNEWSROOM
To:     PAO.LOOP, L
CC:     [L/GSFCMAIL] GSFC/USA
Subj:   SPACE POLICY STATEMENT


Following is Dr. Fletcher's statement in connection with the new
national space policy

     STATEMENT OF DR. JAMES C. FLETCHER, NASA ADMINISTRATOR
       PRESS BRIEFING; WASHINGTON, D.C.; FEBRUARY 11, 1988


     Thank you, Marlin, and good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. 

     Today President Reagan issued a new National Space Policy designed
to guide United States' activities in space well into the future.

     This policy confirms the basic goal of United States' leadership in
space, and the President's strong commitment to the Space Station as the
key to such leadership.

     The policy reaffirms that space activities serve a variety of vital
national goals and objectives. Among them are the strengthening of
United States' scientific, technological, political, economic and
international leadership. In fact, the new policy stresses that civil
space activities contribute significantly to enhancing America's world
leadership.

     The President's new space policy is a comprehensive statement. It
was derived from a long and thorough review of previous Presidential
directives, and of assessments of current and future opportunities.

     Secretaries Verity, Burnley and Aldridge and many others in the
Administration were involved in this process, as was NASA.

     With the new policy, President Reagan has added a major new thrust
to the objectives and directions that have guided the civil space
program for the past three decades. The policy clearly establishes that,
for the first time, the United States has a long-range goal of expanding
human presence and activity beyond Earth orbit into the solar system.

     This is a goal of enormous significance with potentially historic
future implications.

     This is a policy of investment in the future. It lays the necessary
groundwork now for the decisions of the next century.  It puts a
challenge squarely on NASA. And it is a challenge we accept.

     The new policy reaffirms the President's strong support for the
Space Shuttle and for the permanently manned Space Station the United
States is developing with the expected participation of its allies.

     The President's policy stresses the unique and vital role of the
Space Shuttle in the nation's Space Transportation System. It calls for
further enhancing the system's capabilities, as new requirements emerge;
and for NASA and the Department of Defense to work together to develop
new, cost-effective launch systems, one of which is the Advanced Launch
System, to enhance national capabilities for transportation to, from and
within space. The policy also states that the national security sector
will continue to use the STS in response to that sector's specific
mission requirements.

     With regard to the Space Station, the policy states that the
station is to contribute directly to the preservation of United States'
preeminence in manned spaceflight and to the goal of expansion of human
presence and activity into the solar system.

     But to prepare for that development, the policy focuses
appropriately on the near-term - on the development and testing of the
emerging, innovative "Pathfinder" technologies that will make future
decisions possible. The Pathfinder program will permit a future
Administration to act with confidence in deciding on specific manned
exploration goals and timetables to meet them.  In this area, as in
several other areas, the policy recognizes the critical role that
technology advances have played and will continue to play in preserving
this nation's leadership in vital areas of space activity and on Earth,
as well.

     The policy recognizes the existence of a separate commercial
sector, as well, and reaffirms the President's strong commitment to
encouraging a healthy and expansive commercial space industry.

     I stress that last point because, although I've been addressing
primarily the civil sector portions of the National Space Policy, the
policy also says a great deal about commercial space. And in that
regard, there has been a related effort underway to develop special
initiatives in support of the President's thrusts to develop the
commercial use of space.

     NASA has long been in the forefront of this effort and supports the
goals of those initiatives whole-heartedly. In this regard, NASA will
take the lead in implementing many of these initiatives, including
Government actions to lease space on a new, commercially financed,
developed and managed on-orbit space facility.

     I believe that Secretaries Verity and Burnley will also want to
speak about these important new initiatives in just a moment.

     But let me sum things up by saying that the President's new
National Space Policy has recharged the nation's space program by giving
it new momentum and the prospects of new challenges and new
opportunities.

     Time and again, Americans have demonstrated that we can lead in
exploring new frontiers and in developing their potential for the
benefit of humankind.

     This new policy charts a clear course on the greatest frontier of
all - space.

     Thank you very much. And now, I'll turn it over to Secretary
Verity.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #140
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 20 Feb 88 06:19:30 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA02317; Sat, 20 Feb 88 03:17:23 PST
	id AA02317; Sat, 20 Feb 88 03:17:23 PST
Date: Sat, 20 Feb 88 03:17:23 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8802201117.AA02317@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #141

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 141

Today's Topics:
		 Where the US stands in space [BLUNT]
		  re: space station editorial part 2
			 New US Space Policy
		      Coercive Space Exploration
		      Re: Reagan's new proposals
		  re:  Civilial Space Policy Reform
	  Re: Choice of launch sites for geosync. satalites
	  Re: Choice of launch sites for geosync. satalites
		    DSN & In-Flight Reprogramming
		  Re: DSN & In-Flight Reprogramming
			  Navigation Systems
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 16 Feb 88 11:02:23 GMT
From: beckenba@csvax.caltech.edu  (Joe Beckenbach)
Subject: Where the US stands in space [BLUNT]

In article <1282@lznv.ATT.COM> psc@lznv.ATT.COM (Paul S. R. Chisholm) writes:
>Funny: Proxmire likes the Mars shot, because it puts the space station
>(which he wants to kill) in the proper framework?  It's amazing how
>many people who don't seem to want a manned space program are for
>rushing right off to Mars.  It's as if they think it's the fastest way
>to kill manned programs.

	Surprise. This is exactly the way to kill all space activity-
place some men into Mars insertion orbit, then be unable to get them
back in one piece since the support structures were not funded. Another
poster, talking about the Apollo debacle, said in no uncertain words
what is going on. To paraphrase him, are we going to sit back with
politicians' knives between our shoulder blades and kiss them for it?
	I'm a man of tact, but I've been pondering for a year. I think
that this is common consensus (and has been for months):
	THE U.S. SPACE PROGRAM IS DEAD. It's all over but the murmur of
the Space Station proponents and of the interested aerospace
contractors.  No one in any position of power wants to wake up and smell
the maggots.  Cases in point:
	1- This SDI business. Reliability is the top set of worries.  If
		the proposals were for automobiles, the manufacturer
		could not sell any of the cars.
	2- NASA chucked several extremely good designs and facilities to
		concentrate on the Shuttle. No Saturn V is left; no
		plans are extant for any non-Shutle system launcher.
			[As far as I've been able to gather, the only
			 serious boosters still running are all Russian,
			 or fitted with megatons of nuclear death.]
	3- As with Apollo, the politicians who want some sign of life to
		demonstrate the "innate American superiority" over the
		rest of the world wish to put a man on Mars.  We don't
		even have the facilities to ready a booster capable of
		putting any part of the mission into space.

	Much as I hate to say it, a single country will be Earth's
representatives in space. Once human presence in space is large and
routine enough for history to repeat itself (the colonies break away),
then we can sit back and laugh at the Russians. But they tried, while we
sat with our hands up our asses and our mouths running triple speed with
double talk.

	I mourn the inability to work within the current system to do
something about this. All I can hope for is that some country will be
kind enough to set humans into space and not abandon them until they
have proven completely self-sufficient.  I as an American will not live
to see that goal unless something rises Phoenix-like out of the corpse.
If Australia or Europe offers the chance, the vital men and women of
space efforts will emigrate with their talents and their children. If
Russia opens the doors wide enough, the same thing will happen.

	The past is dead and gone. The glory is for the history books.
The US is safe and comfortable, secure and stagnant. Rest in peace.

Joe Beckenbach (CS BS '88) 			I'D RATHER BE ORBITING
	I'm serious, folks. Wake up before it's too late.

------------------------------

Reply-To: lll-crg!ames!sdcsvax!bass.nosc.mil!pnet01!jim@mordor.s1.gov
Date: Tue, 16 Feb 88 10:58:37 PST
From: lll-crg!ames!scubed!sdcsvax!pnet01.cts.com!jim@mordor.s1.gov (Jim Bowery)
To: crash!space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: re: space station editorial part 2

> Would you risk failure of your grant application because it depends on
> a service that doesn't exist yet but somebody is promising Real Soon
> Now If Enough Customers Materialize?

Ultimately, this may be a valid criticism.  In the current situation,
however, it is not reasonable to expect that directly funded development
programs will do anything but grow to the maximum size allowed by
Congress and waste all the money allocated thus ensuring that any future
attempts to obtain funding for valid purposes are politically resisted.
Also, the current situation represents about 20 years of pent up
potential for private involvement.  IDF, AMROC and the renewed interest
in sounding rockets and remote sensing are just the tip of the iceberg
coming as they do, in an environment that is quite hostile to such
enterprise.  Give us a decade to exploit this pent up potential while
dismantling the rotting aspects of NASA's development structure before
forcing us to act as if NASA and the markets it has suppressed can be
treated with conventional logic.

> Anyone who thinks subdivision and competition will bring efficient
> operation in government agencies should study the long-standing,
> vicious competition between the US Navy and the US Air Force, and the
> staggering waste and duplication of effort it produces.

There are several serious flaws in this analogy.  Science is a very
different type of activity from military operations.  As I have stated
before on a number of occasions in this very forum, centralized
management and planning with cooperation inside a monolithic structure
is appropriate for short-term emergency projects (such as Manhattan and
Apollo) and the military.  Science is the very embodiment of the
competition of ideas and thus requires diversity, variety, independence,
redundancy and a certain amount of controlled chaos from which mutant
ideas arise to feed the evolutionary process.  Only after we have
evolved the technical maturity necessary to create and manage plans
should we attempt to do so.

UUCP: {cbosgd, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!pnet01!jim
ARPA: crash!pnet01!jim@nosc.mil
INET: jim@pnet01.cts.com

------------------------------

Date: 16 Feb 88 00:19:18 GMT
From: ihnp4!homxb!mtuxo!mtune!mtunk!io!granjon!edsel!dxa@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (DR Anolick)
Subject: New US Space Policy

Does anyone out there have any comments on the new United States Space
Policy announced by the President last week?

I've only seen one newspaper article on it, and it wasn't that detailed.
Maybe the NY Times had something, but I couldn't get out and get it due
to a snow storm that morning.

Would someone who has a good source post details on the new policy?

droyan				David ROY ANolick
ihnp4!edsel!droyan		^     ^^^ ^^

------------------------------

Date: 16 Feb 88 22:58:36 GMT
From: hyper!guest@UMN-CS.ARPA  (guest)
Subject: Coercive Space Exploration

> I am becoming increasingly irritated by the simplistic attitude often
> expressed here that "competitive free enterprise" can solve all our
> problems. The world just isn't that simple. ...

     Space exploration like any other human endeavor ought to be
conducted without resorting to coercion.  Arguments can and have been
made that governments can do some things better, safer, faster, and
cheaper than free enterprise.  But even if that were true (which I
personally doubt) it does not ameliorate the underlying fault of all
government action; the use of coercion -- the initiation of force, to
achieve social or political goal.
     Arguments of efficiency cannot justify acts of coercion.  Neither
majoritarian or elitist arguments can justify acts of coercion. The
arguments of the efficiency of the slave state are well known.  Yet they
do not justify it (at least not to people who reject coercion.)
     If you believe that space exploration may be coercively conducted,
the burden forced on to an unwilling majority (or minority), then you are
no friend of liberty.  So do not bother to cover up your true motivations
with pathetic assertions of efficiency.  You really just want the
world to be forced to accomplish your own selfish goals.

John M. Logajan         umn-cs!hyper!ns!logajan
Network Systems Corporation, Brooklyn Park  MN  55428

------------------------------

Date: 17 Feb 88 08:19:12 GMT
From: imagine!pawl20.pawl.rpi.edu!jesup@itsgw.rpi.edu  (Randell E. Jesup)
Subject: Re: Reagan's new proposals

In article <8802121721.AA09398@ames-pioneer.arpa> eugene@PIONEER.ARC.NASA.GOV (Eugene N. Miya) writes:
<Following is Dr. Fletcher's statement in connection with
<the new national space policy
<
<     STATEMENT OF DR. JAMES C. FLETCHER, NASA ADMINISTRATOR
<       PRESS BRIEFING; WASHINGTON, D.C.; FEBRUARY 11, 1988
...
<     The policy recognizes the existence of a separate commercial 
<sector, as well, and reaffirms the President's strong commitment 
<to encouraging a healthy and expansive commercial space industry. 

<     I stress that last point because, although I've been 
<addressing primarily the civil sector portions of the National 
<Space Policy, the policy also says a great deal about commercial 
<space. And in that regard, there has been a related effort 
<underway to develop special initiatives in support of the 
<President's thrusts to develop the commercial use of space.

<     NASA has long been in the forefront of this effort and 
<supports the goals of those initiatives whole-heartedly. In this 
<regard, NASA will take the lead in implementing many of these 
<initiatives, including Government actions to lease space on a 
<new, commercially financed, developed and managed on-orbit space 
<facility.

	Thanks for posting this.  God, what beauracratese!

	So, what does this really mean?  Will NASA be buying unmanned
launches from companies, as I had heard on the news?  Who is going to
create this commercial space facility?  What about the old liability
question (US is responsible for all launches by US citizens)?  Will the
companies be able to use NASA facilities, if so, which ones, how much?
Will NASA sign contracts with people like Hughes for Jarvis launchers?

	In other words, will NASA administrators actually go along with
this and help, or will they try to leave roadblocks as they have in the
past?

	On a related point, does anyone know what the candidates think
about space and space policy?  Have any commented on Reagans proposal?

Randell Jesup			      Lunge Software Development

------------------------------

Reply-To: lll-crg!ames!sdcsvax!bass.nosc.mil!pnet01!jim@mordor.s1.gov
Date: Wed, 17 Feb 88 09:08:17 PST
From: lll-crg!ames!scubed!sdcsvax!pnet01.cts.com!jim@mordor.s1.gov (Jim Bowery)
To: crash!space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: re:  Civilial Space Policy Reform

I've received a number of communiques concerning point 3 of my proposed
civilian space policy reform.  Point 3 concerns maintaining Shuttle
operations so as to protect existing space science missions so as to
keep the flow of scientific results and the careers of scientists who
have spent most of their professional lives preparing their experiments.

After reading the critiques of this stance, I stand corrected.  There is
no need for this policy item.  Scientific merit and self sufficiency of
Shuttle operations should be adhered to throughout any civilian space
policy.  This probably means immediate termination of all Shuttle
related activities to cut our losses which presents severe political
problems.  If, in the interest of political realities, it is necessary
to continue Shuttle operations, however, missions such as Spacelab must
take precedence and the goal must be total self sufficiency or
termination of Shuttle within 3 years.

UUCP: {cbosgd, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!pnet01!jim
ARPA: crash!pnet01!jim@nosc.mil
INET: jim@pnet01.cts.com

------------------------------

Date: 12 Feb 88 02:16:01 GMT
From: telesoft!roger@ucsd.edu  (Roger Arnold @prodigal)
Subject: Re: Choice of launch sites for geosync. satalites

In article <1505@boulder.Colorado.EDU>, huntting@boulder.Colorado.EDU (Bradley Enoch Huntting) writes:
> It occured to me the other day that when satalites launched from
> within the U.S., they are put into a transfer orbit which is inclined
> about 20 deg from the plane of the equator.  This means that the net
> change in velocity nessary to place the payload into geosyncronous
> orbit (sum of the instantainious acceleration nessary to attain
> transfer orbit (~10.1 km/s) plus the instantainious acceleration
> nessary to bump the object from transfer to geosyncronous orbit (~1.45
> km/s if launched from the equator, or ~4.39km/s if launched from 20
> deg latitude) is higher by ~3km/s!  That's a 26% increse!  [..]

Whoa!  I don't know where you got that 4.39 km/sec figure, but it's way
off.  (Actually, I can guess: it sounds like what one might come up with
by figuring the plane change first, in LEO, rather than at GEO).  There
is definitely a penalty for launching from higher latitudes, but it's
not nearly that bad.  (Figure, figure).  Uhm, the back of the envelope
numbers I get--taking your 10.1 km/s and 1.45 km/s as correct--is about
1.65 km/s for the appogee burn from a launch at 20 deg.  That's still a
significant penalty, but not unbearable.  The vector diagram for the two
appogee burns looks something like this (pardon my ascii):

	    ^
	    |\
	    | \
	    |  \
  1.45 km/s |   \ 1.65 km/s
	    |    \
	    |     \
	    ^      \
	    |  20  ^
	    | deg./
  1.55 km/s |    /
	    |   / 1.55 km/s
	    |  /
	    | /
	    o

- Roger Arnold					..ucsd!telesoft!roger

------------------------------

Date: 12 Feb 88 13:54:19 GMT
From: clyde!watmath!utgpu!utzoo!kcarroll@bellcore.bellcore.com  (Kieran A. Carroll)
Subject: Re: Choice of launch sites for geosync. satalites

The following is quoted from a rather timely article in the February,
1988 >Space World< issue, entitled "The Pros and Cons of Launch Sites,"
by Lawrence Suid.  The context is a discussion of the choice of Cape
Canveral as the launch site for the Apollo moon program: "...the
decision to locate the Apollo launch facilities at the Cape came only
after deliberation and debate...  Christmas Island in the central
Pacific was a contender because of its location near the
equator...launching...  from an equatorial location could take advantage
of the Earth's rotational velocity...Most important, launching from an
equatorial base avoided the costly dogleg technique, a prerequisite for
placing rockets into an equatorial orbit from a site such as Cape
Canaveral...There were also disadvantages in locating Apollo facilities
outside the United States. Construction costs would be about 100%
higher. NASA would have logistics problems and face the uncertainties of
setting up an American base on foreign soil."

It seems to me that most near-equatorial countries are either
politically unstable, or lack much industrial infrastructure, or both.
Lack of infrastructure will increase the costs of both the initial
construction of facilities (launch, assembly and checkout, employees'
housing, etc.), and of operations (shipping satellites, boosters, rocket
fuel, etc., from several thousand miles away). This additional cost need
not force the decision against an equatorial launch site, of course; the
French are doing just fine in South America. However, they undoubtedly
had some infrastructure in place before Ariane came along.

     Kieran A. Carroll @ U of Toronto Aerospace Institute
     {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!kcarroll

------------------------------

Date: 15 Feb 88 03:57:24 GMT
From: rochester!daemon@bbn.com
Subject: DSN & In-Flight Reprogramming

Hi,

  I am looking for literature pointers to (1) the Deep Space Network,
and (2) in-flight reprogramming of satellites and exploratory probes.  I
am interested in articles that provide either general discussion or
report on specific features or uses.  The more "archival" in nature, the
better, but articles in magazines such as Aviation Week and Space
Technology would be OK.

  I'd do an INSPEC title search, but can't think of keywords that are
both descriptive and sufficiently restrictive.  Can anyone help me out
with references?  Failing that, what are the most likely journals to
find such things in?

Stu Friedberg  {ames,cmcl2,rutgers}!rochester!stuart
stuart@cs.rochester.edu

------------------------------

Date: 15 Feb 88 19:44:19 GMT
From: thumper!karn@faline.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: DSN & In-Flight Reprogramming

One title I can think of is "Deep Space Telecommunications Techniques".
It contains a wealth of information about communications with deep-space
probes like Voyager and Pioneer, with emphasis on the details like
coding schemes. It was edited by a guy at JPL; unfortunately I can't be
more specific because my copy disappeared some time ago...

Phil

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 12 Feb 88 09:35 EDT
From: "Paul F. Dietz" <DIETZ%sdr.slb.com@relay.cs.net>
Subject: Navigation Systems

"chaz_heritage.WGC1RX"@xerox.com, in his message about private 
industry in space, wrote

> 1. Not every activity which is justifiable is necessarily profitable.
> To define the profit motive as the sole criterion for justification
> may exclude worthwhile projects unlikely to show rapid profit;
> navigation systems are a possible example.

Actually, navigation systems are a very good example of the advantages
of private enterprise. The Navstar system is more expensive than the
private Geostar system because it must cover the entire globe and
because the ground units must not emit radio signals (very bad on a
battlefield). Also, the government has crippled Navstar's accuracy for
civilian users; Geostar will have no such restriction, because all
navigation fixes go through a ground computer and so are useless to a
hostile power.

	Paul F. Dietz
	dietz@sdr.slb.com

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #141
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 21 Feb 88 06:43:45 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA03473; Sun, 21 Feb 88 03:16:43 PST
	id AA03473; Sun, 21 Feb 88 03:16:43 PST
Date: Sun, 21 Feb 88 03:16:43 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8802211116.AA03473@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #142

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 142

Today's Topics:
			Re: Navigation Systems
			Re: Navigation Systems
	 Question about National Radio Astronomy Observatory
       Re: Question about National Radio Astronomy Observatory
			    Free-fall sex
		     Posting for Cindy@idis@cadre
			  IN ORBIT 7th Feb.
		   Re: Amateur Rocketry in England
	       RE: National Radio Astronomy Observatory
		 New EVA planed on USSR's Mir station
		    Mir elements, 14 February 1988
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 13 Feb 88 17:30:41 GMT
From: ulysses!thumper!karn@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: Navigation Systems

> Also, the government has crippled Navstar's accuracy for civilian
> users; Geostar will have no such restriction, because all navigation
> fixes go through a ground computer and so are useless to a hostile
> power.

GPS/Navstar in the C/A (Clear Access, i.e., civilian) mode has
consistently demonstrated horizontal errors of less than 10 meters and
vertical errors of 30 meters. I would hardly call this "crippled".

I am becoming increasingly irritated by the simplistic attitude often
expressed here that "competitive free enterprise" can solve all our
problems. The world just isn't that simple. The notion of a free market
is based on the following fundamental assumptions:

1. The variable costs of production dominate the fixed costs.
2. There are no economies of scale.
3. It's very easy for others to enter the market (a restatement of #1
and #2).
4. Charging mechanisms for services and/or products are cheap and easy.
5. There are no limits imposed by availability of natural resources.

There are many places where these assumptions are mostly true, and
private enterprise works just fine. But satellite navigation isn't one
of them! Not only is there a large economy of scale in having one common
system (there is no limit on how many simultaneous GPS users there can
be) but charging is usually impossible, at least in systems with passive
receivers (which I'd prefer for both cost and reliability reasons).
Also, the radio spectrum is a limited natural resource; multiple,
incompatible systems, each with their own chunk of RF spectrum, are just
plain wasteful.  Global optimization of resources is not a strong point
of free enterprise.

The characteristics of satellite navigation put it squarely in the
category of a service that is best provided by the government, just like
the vast majority of existing navigation aids for aviation and boating.

The fact that the DoD happens to run the system primarily for its own
purposes is unfortunate; it says a lot about our national priorities.
However I don't see anything wrong with subverting technology designed
for death and destruction into more constructive uses. :-)

The only possible justification I can see for Geostar would be if it did
something that GPS can't do, or if it was inherently far cheaper. I
doubt either of these are true; position reporting could be done just as
effectively by combining a GPS receiver with a land-mobile satellite
transceiver (which can be used for other things as well), and production
economies of scale are making GPS receivers quite affordable.

Phil

------------------------------

Date: 15 Feb 88 20:57:24 GMT
From: uflorida!codas!burl!clyde!watmath!utgpu!utzoo!henry@gatech.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Navigation Systems

> The only possible justification I can see for Geostar would be if it
> did something that GPS can't do, or if it was inherently far cheaper.
> I doubt either of these are true; position reporting could be done
> just as effectively by combining a GPS receiver with a land-mobile
> satellite transceiver (which can be used for other things as well),
> and production economies of scale are making GPS receivers quite
> affordable.

A Geostar terminal is basically just a digital transceiver with
flourishes.  Other things being equal (which they aren't, at present),
it would indeed be inherently far cheaper than a GPS receiver.  Also
more reliable.

Geostar can indeed do things that GPS can't do.  For one thing, it can
be self-financing, since it can deny service selectively.  For another,
it can be used for (limited) digital communications.  For a third, its
communications capability can be used to warn of impaired accuracy --
there is no provision in GPS for real-time warnings about satellite
degradation.  (The Europeans are talking about an international civilian
equivalent of GPS that would include provisions for warning *GPS* users
that their system is broken!)

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 12 Feb 88 17:42:48 GMT
From: daveb@eneevax.umd.edu  (David Bengtson)
Subject: Question about National Radio Astronomy Observatory


Does anyone know if the National Radio Astronomy Observatory is 
  1) located in Charlotsville Va ? 
  2) Has a net feed?

  I'm graduating from U Maryland this summer with a MSEE and am
interested in talking with them about employment.

     Thanks for any information

   David Bengtson              
   Laboratory for Plasma Fusion
   University of Maryland      
   College Park Md 20742  
   {your keyboard} !uunet!mimsy!eneevax!daveb
   eneevax.umd.edu

------------------------------

Date: 15 Feb 88 06:46:47 GMT
From: trwrb!aero!venera.isi.edu!rod@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Rodney Doyle Van Meter III)
Subject: Re: Question about National Radio Astronomy Observatory

	Last time I was there, the National Radio Astronomy Observatory
was in Greenbank, West Virginia, well up in the Appalachian Mountains,
in the middle of nowhere. But extraordinarily beautiful. If you go, take
a lot of reading material and plan on doing a lot of hiking in your
spare time. It's four or more hours to anywhere with more than a few
thousand people.

		--Rod

------------------------------

Sender: "chaz_heritage.WGC1RX"@xerox.com
Date: 16 Feb 88 04:36:46 PST (Tuesday)
Subject: Free-fall sex
From: "chaz_heritage.WGC1RX"@xerox.com
Cc: "chaz_heritage.WGC1RX"@xerox.com

I haven't heard all these rumours that people discuss darkly on the
newsgroup.  However, on this one point I'm inclined to disagree with Mr.
Arthur C. Clarke (who seems to think it would be fun) - it seems to me
that the energy expended in the process would be likely to wind up
partly as heat and mostly as angular momentum. In a water tank there's a
lot of drag; in air there isn't. I suggest that both (Calif: all)
parties to the contract would rapidly acquire an impressive spin, in an
axis determined by their mechanical configuration, which could be
nauseating. And, of course, in free fall you can't throw UP, you can
only throw OUT....

I am, of course, prepared to volunteer for an experimental proof of my
hypothesis.

Regards,

Chaz

PS If one can model things like 747s crashing into PWRs on one's
supercomputer then surely one can model a simple mechanical system like
this. What are all those well-paid people doing with their Crays? I
think we should be told.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 16 Feb 88 09:20:05 PST
From: Eugene miya <eugene@ames-aurora.arpa>
Subject: Posting for Cindy@idis@cadre


Sorry our hosts don't talk to one another.  Send a telephone number
so I can answer your question.  Darn mailers!

>From the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:

--eugene miya NASA Ames Research Center eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA
  "You trust the `reply' command with all those different mailers out there?"
  {uunet,hplabs,hao,ihnp4,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene

------------------------------

Date: 9 Feb 88 12:49:10 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!its63b!bob@uunet.uu.net  (ERCF08 Bob Gray)
Subject: IN ORBIT 7th Feb.

Item from "IN ORBIT" of 7th February.

IN ORBIT is Channel 4's ORACLE service weekly space news pages.

For thise who can get C4, it can be found on p618 on Saturday and
Sunday. I only occasionaly reproduce articles I think could be
interesting to a wider audience.

The articles were written by Dr David Whitehead.
	Bob.
-----------------------------------------------------------

India's IRS1a satellite has arrived at the USSR's Baukonur cosmodrome to
begin a test period before a proton rocket puts it into space in
mid-march.

India also hopes to test it's ASLV rocket to orbit a satellite in March
or April. Last year it failed just one minute into its maiden flight.

Japan's CS3a domestic communications satellite is due to be launched
from the Tanegashima complex sometime on or after February 16. It will
be launched by a H1 rocket.

------------------------------

Date: 9 Feb 88 12:06:47 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!its63b!bob@uunet.uu.net  (ERCF08 Bob Gray)
Subject: Re: Amateur Rocketry in England

I suppose I should have made this clearer.

I have been told that technically it is against the law to have or to
set off even fireworks. Typical fireworks contain very small amounts of
gunpowder. Only two companies are licenced in the UK to make fireworks,
and they do so under very strict regulations controling what they can
make and sell.

The police and other government bodies don't bother about people letting
off commercially made fireworks in a responsible manner.

Any attempt to make your own fireworks or any action deemed
irresponsible, e.g. launching rockets with a payload, will make you
liable to prosecution.

And if you think that this is a strange way to apply the law, you should
hear some of the others in this country.
	Bob.

------------------------------

Date: 16 Feb 88 15:17:42 GMT
From: steinmetz!ge-dab!ge-rtp!edison!rja@uunet.uu.net  (rja)
Subject: RE: National Radio Astronomy Observatory

The NRAO administrative offices are located in Charlottesville, VA.
They are physically located on the grounds of the University of
Virginia, but are completely separate in all other respects, except that
the NRAO computers in C'ville are directly on the UVa LAN.  (But
addressed separately from the Internet: .Virginia.EDU for UVa and
.NRAO.EDU for NRAO according to UVa Academic Computing.)

There is a NRAO observatory in Green Bank, WV as previously noted.  I
don't know if there are any others.

I am not affiliated in any way with NRAO or UVa, but am acquainted with
some folks at both institutions.  ...hope this helps

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 16 Feb 88 00:23:07 EST
From: Glenn Chapman <glenn@ll-vlsi.arpa>
Subject: New EVA planed on USSR's Mir station

     The USSR has announced that the current Mir/Kvant space station
crew of Vladimir Titov and Musakhi Manarov will being doing a space walk
later this week (about Feb. 17 or so - though in one report they said it
may as late as the next week).  The purpose of this EVA is to replace
one of the solar panels on the third (vertical) solar array that was
erected by Yuri Romanenko and Alexander Laveikin (the second Mir crew)
last June 13/16th.  This 22 square meter (237 sq. ft.) solar cell
addition consists of 4 sections attached to 10.5 meter (34.5 ft.) tower.
According to the reports one of these sections is to be replaced with a
new panel using "new semiconductor" cells.  This may suggest that the
replaced section will use Gallium Arsenide solar cells, such as were
installed in additions/repairs to the previous Salyut 7 station by
Vladimir Layakhov and Alexander Alexandrov on 1/3 Nov. '83.  If so this
should increase the power produced by the third panel from 2.5 KW to 3.1
KW on the basis of the Salyut 7 results, yielding a total station power
of 13.6 KW.  The panels were probably brought up on Progress 34 last
month.  This will be the first space walk for either crew member.  They
have accumulated 57 days of orbital time on this flight so far, and will
exceed the Skylab 3 mission of 59 days on Feb. 17th (that is the second
longest US mission).
    EVA construction, repair or space station improvement is now a
standard feature of every long duration Soviet space mission.  Such
extravehicular activity has occurred on every long duration Russian crew
on Mir.  Indeed, every main crew manning Salyut 7, starting with Soyuz
T-5 in 1982, also did such space walk work with the exception of the
Soyuz T-14 flight (Sept. '85) which had to come down after just two
months due to the illness of the mission commander.  That is exactly
what you would expect for true permanent manned space station
operations.
    The Soviets are now constantly expanding the "envelope" of their
space station operations.  Meanwhile the next shuttle launch has been
delayed at least to Aug. 14th.  I hope that by the end of this year this
country will finally again have put men and woman in space.

                                                 Glenn Chapman
                                                 MIT Lincoln Lab

------------------------------

Date: 15 Feb 88 22:59:00 GMT
From: kenny@b.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Mir elements, 14 February 1988


Satellite: Mir        
Catalog id 16609
Element set  49
Epoch: 88 34.85393094
Inclination:  51.6305 degrees
RA of node:  40.2415 degrees
Eccentricity:  0.0016974
Argument of perigee:  53.2769 degrees
Mean anomaly: 306.9644 degrees
Mean motion: 15.75171232 revs/day
Mean motion acceleration: 0.00022560 * 2 revs/day/day
Epoch Revolution: 11263

Semimajor axis:    6722.24 km
Apogee height*:     355.49 km
Perigee height*:     332.67 km


		Source: NASA Goddard via T.S.Kelso's `Celestial RCP/M'

* Apogee and perigee altitudes are referred to the mean radius of the
  Earth (6378.15 km), and not to the local radius of the geoid.  They
  are only approximate, and should not be used for orbit prediction.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #142
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 22 Feb 88 06:20:25 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA04705; Mon, 22 Feb 88 03:18:19 PST
	id AA04705; Mon, 22 Feb 88 03:18:19 PST
Date: Mon, 22 Feb 88 03:18:19 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8802221118.AA04705@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #143

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 143

Today's Topics:
			What are Mir elements?
			What are Mir elements?
		     matter/antimatter propulsion
		    Re: Lunar habitation questions
			    NASA SPACELINK
		 Where the US stands in space [BLUNT]
	      Re:  Where the US stands in space [BLUNT]
		     Richard Feynman passes away
		   Re: matter/antimatter propulsion
		      Re: What are Mir elements?
			  Re: NASA SPACELINK
		  Erector-set: Let's build a company
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 15 Feb 88 23:01:00 GMT
From: kenny@b.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: What are Mir elements?

Answers to commonly asked questions about the posting of the MIR
elements.

1) WHAT IS MIR?

	Mir (The Russian word means both `peace' and `world') is the
first space station permanently staffed by a human crew.  It was
launched in November of 1986, and has had men on board continuously
since February of 1987.  One crewman recently returned from a tour of
duty exceeding 300 days.

2) WHAT ARE THE ORBITAL ELEMENTS?

	The orbital elements of a body are a set of parameters that
completely describe its motion according to Newton's laws of motion.
Given an accurate set of elements, and assuming that no maneuvering has
been done since the elements were posted, a program can calculate the
position of the body at any given time.

3) WHY POST THE ORBITAL ELEMENTS?

	The elements for Mir are interesting not only because Mir is
interesting in itself, but also because Mir is a highly visible object;
when it makes a close approach, it can be as bright as the brightest
stars.  If you know where to look, it is easy to see Mir.  Moreover,
some radio experimenters have been able to listen in on Mir's
operational communications and telemetry.

4) HOW DO YOU INTERPRET THE ORBITAL ELEMENTS?

	The epoch day is the reference time for which the orbital
elements were calculated.  It is expressed as yyddd.ffffff, where yy is
the year, ddd is the number of the day within the year (1 January = 1, 1
February = 32, etc.) and ffffff is the fraction of a day.  The times are
in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC, also [inaccurately] called GMT).

	The inclination is the angle between the plane of the orbit and
the plane of the Earth's equator, in degrees.  The line where these
planes intersect is called the nodal line.

	The right ascension of the ascending node is the angle, measured
from west to east along the Earth's equator, between the Sun's position
at the vernal equinox and the point on the nodal line where the
satellite crosses the Earth's equator from south to north.  Taken
together the RA of the ascending node and the inclination define the
orbital plane uniquely.

	The eccentricity of the orbit is a pure number that determines
how much it varies from a circle.  If a is the distance from the center
of the Earth to the satellite at apogee and p is the distance to the
satellite at perigee, then the eccentricity is (a - p) / (a + p).

	The argument of periapsis is the angle, measured along the plane
of the satellite's orbit, between the ascending node and the point where
the satellite reaches perigee.

	The mean anomaly is somewhat difficult to explain.  Imagine an
unusual clock with one hand moving at a uniform rate of speed,
completing one revolution for each revolution of the satellite.  Imagine
further that the hand reaches noon just as the satellite reaches
perigee.  The mean anomaly is the angle from noon to the position of the
hand at the epoch time, measured in degrees.

	Given the imaginary clock just described, the mean motion is the
rate of speed at which the hand turns, measured in revolutions per day.

	A satellite in low Earth orbit experiences a certain amount of
drag from the upper atmosphere, which causes its orbit to decay and
spiral in toward the Earth.  Paradoxically, as the orbit decays the
satellite moves faster; the acceleration of the mean motion describes
how fast the orbit is decaying.  It is measured in revolutions per day
per day; the posting actually gives half the acceleration of mean
motion.

5) HOW DO I USE THE ORBITAL ELEMENTS TO SEE MIR?

	First, you should probably forget about attempting to do hand
calculations.  The calculations are messy, since a number of effects
such as the Earth's non-spherical shape (it's flattened at the poles)
and the drag from the upper atmosphere.  The only really effective way
to do orbit predictions is to use a computer program.

	There are several programs available to do the job.  One source
for them is T.S.Kelso's `Celestial RCP/M', which operates 24 hours a day
and is accessible at +1 512 892 4180, 300/1200 baud, 8 data bits, 1 stop
bit, no parity.  The program that I use is SGP4-C, written by Bob Wallis
(amdcad!cae780!weitek!wallis); please don't ask me to mail you a copy,
as mine is obsolete and doesn't have all of Bob's latest bug fixes.  The
program *is* available on Kelso's bboard, and that is probably the best
source for it.

	The National Space Society also provides a Mir prediction
service for its membership, run out of the DC office.  I can't vouch for
the predictions, since I've never tried them, but I have on occasion
telephoned them to get the latest orbital elements.  They can be reached
by voice at +1 202 543 1900 (the front desk) or +1 202 543 4487 (the Mir
Watch hotline).  I understand that they also make an IBM PC program for
Mir prediction available to chapter leaders; I have never tried it.

	If you're feeling really ambitious and want to write your own
program, be prepared to learn a fair amount of physics.  I am willing
to help out, *as time permits*, with serious inquiries; I have a
`cookbook' description of one fairly simple (as such things go!)
prediction algorithm that might be used as a starting point.  I can
also recommend a couple of textbooks that I found useful.

6) HOW DO I OBSERVE MIR?

	Observing Mir is fairly simple -- it's a naked-eye object.  Find
a spot with as little interference from city lights as possible (as with
all sky-watching, the less man-made light, the better).  Allow some time
for your eyes to become dark-adapted, and to familiarize yourself with
the stars along the projected path of the spacecraft through the
heavens.

	Begin watching for the overflight several minutes before the
predicted time, and continue until several minutes after, if you haven't
spotted it.  The crew maneuvers the spacecraft fairly frequently,
reboosting it as its orbit decays.  The usual effect of these maneuvers
is to make overflights later than expected; this effect is somewhat
offset if a period of high solar activity has made atmospheric drag
greater than expected.

	If you're watching with a party of several people, have someone
watch near the point of closest approach; the spacecraft brightens as it
approaches the viewing site, and can be missed while it is still far
away.

	The spacecraft will be a moving, starlike object; some people
have mistaken it for a high-flying jet.  It has some behaviors that no
jet has, though: the most obvious one is that it reddens and passes from
view as it enters the shadow of the Earth.  Watch for this effect; Mir
is bright enough that the gradual eclipse is noticeable for a period of
several seconds.

	Good hunting, and clear skies!

Kevin Kenny			UUCP: {ihnp4,pur-ee,convex}!uiucdcs!kenny
Department of Computer Science	ARPA: kenny@B.CS.UIUC.EDU (kenny@UIUC.ARPA)
University of Illinois		CSNET: kenny@UIUC.CSNET
1304 W. Springfield Ave.
Urbana, Illinois, 61801		Voice: (217) 333-8740

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 16 Feb 88 08:44:26 PST
From: ota@galileo.s1.gov
Cc: kenny@b.cs.uiuc.edu, ota@galileo.s1.gov
Subject: What are Mir elements?

I have successfully used the NSS Mir Watch program to find Mir.  In all
three cases I tried it was easy to find and the time and location
numbers given by the program were quite close.  I found that the most
reliable way to distinguish between satellite and a high flying jet
(after the fact) is that the Satellite will quite suddenly disappear
from view as it passes into the Earth's shadow.  This is quite striking.

I got my copy of the Mir Watch program as an object-only program that
runs on an IBM PC from a local NSS chapter coordinator.  So calling the
two NSS numbers Kevin Kenny gave is probably the best approach:
    They can be reached by voice at +1 202 543 1900 (the front desk) or
    +1 202 543 4487 (the Mir Watch hotline).

Cheers,
Ted Anderson

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 15 Feb 88 16:50 EDT
From: "Paul F. Dietz" <DIETZ%sdr.slb.com@relay.cs.net>
Subject: matter/antimatter propulsion

In addition to neutral pions from p/pbar annihilation, one should also
worry about fast neutrons if the normal matter is more than ordinary
hydrogen.  Also, if the density of reactants is high enough one might
also see reactions between positive and negative pions, as well as
reactions like pi- + p --> n + pi0.

Paul F. Dietz
dietz@sdr.slb.com

------------------------------

Date: 16 Feb 88 17:15:47 GMT
From: mtune!lzaz!lznv!psc@rutgers.edu  (Paul S. R. Chisholm)
Subject: Re: Lunar habitation questions

In article <8802101606.AA02462@icst-cmr.arpa.ARPA>, roberts@ICST-CMR.ARPA (John Roberts) writes:
> - What is the temperature range of the surface material on the moon?
> - How deep does the pulverized lunar surface go?
> 
> John Roberts, roberts@icst-cmr.ARPA

The answers to these and other questions (but not the ones about
temperature vs. depth) can be found in Ben Bova's book, WELCOME TO
MOONBASE.  I heard him plugging it at Boskone, bought it, and enjoyed
it.

WELCOME TO MOONBASE is *not* a particularly technical book; it's aimed
at the young adult (and non-technical adult) popular science audience.
But it does contain some useful information.  More, it collects a bunch
of neat ideas on how (and why!) we could build a permanent lunar colony.
It reads like a nice hybrid between a science fiction novel and a
proposal.  If that sounds like your cup of tea, I highly recommend the
book.

-Paul S. R. Chisholm, {ihnp4,cbosgd,allegra,rutgers}!mtune!lznv!psc

------------------------------

Date: 10 Feb 88 22:26:00 GMT
From: uflorida!codas!novavax!ankh!John_Emmert@gatech.edu  (John Emmert)
Subject: NASA SPACELINK

 * Forwarded from 18/23, The Byte Buck of S.E./Caribbea, Huntsville AL
 * Originally to All on 18/0

* Original: FROM.....Bill Anderson (18/23)
* Original: TO.......All (18/23)
* Forwarded by.......OPUS 18/23

 NASA Spacelink is a data base of information designed to be used by
 teachers but it is open for public use.  The number is 895-0028.  It's
 operating at 300, 1200 or 2400 baud, and we have eight phone lines.
 Enjoy...


 * Forwarded by Christopher Baker on 135/14, 11:28 2/13
--- TBBS v2.0
 * Origin: The John Galt Line -- (305) 235-1645  (135/13)

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 17 Feb 88 14:51:21 PST
From: ota@galileo.s1.gov
To: beckenba@csvax.caltech.edu
Cc: space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: Where the US stands in space [BLUNT]

There is an interesting article in the Feb 88 Space World (the National
Space Society magazine) by Frank White from his book called "The
Overview Effect: Space Exploration and Human Evolution".  The point he
makes that struck a chord with me was that there is a distinction
between the space movement and the space program in the United States.
The US Space Program is dead: it lasted from 1958 to January 28,
1986.  At the moment the US has no space program, but of course the
space movement was there before the US Space Program was created and
continues after its demise.  If anything the space movement is stronger
now, more committed and more self-aware.

The space movement is also international, and though that has always
been true it is even more obvious now.  Perhaps those outside the US
have always realized this but I think that Americans have had real
trouble in distinguishing between the two.  As painful as it was, that
link has been cut.  And it is for the best.
	Ted Anderson

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 17 Feb 88 14:57:38 PST
From: beckenba@csvax.caltech.edu (Joe Beckenbach)
To: beckenba@mordor.s1.gov, ota%galileo.s1.gov@mordor.s1.gov
Subject: Re:  Where the US stands in space [BLUNT]
Cc: space@angband.s1.gov

Thanks for the book reference and your very perceptive observation; this is 
important enough [I think] to be posted. [Caveat: I've not read sci.space
yet today, so I don't know if you've already posted the contents of your 
letter to me. If you wish, I could repost it for you.]

------------------------------

Date: 17 Feb 88 18:48:11 GMT
From: thumper!karn@faline.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Richard Feynman passes away

Professor Richard Feynman, Nobel laureate and member of the Rogers
Commission that investigated the Challenger accident, passed away
Monday night from cancer.

Some time ago I read Feynman's autobiography ("Surely you're joking, Mr
Feynman!") and developed an instant liking for him. I had always hoped
to meet or hear him speak in person some day.

We need many more people like him. People who are unafraid to think for
themselves and to publicly proclaim the emperor to be without clothing
whenever it becomes necessary.  The world is a better place because of
Richard Feynman.

Phil Karn

------------------------------

Date: 17 Feb 88 02:29:52 GMT
From: uflorida!codas!burl!clyde!watmath!utgpu!utzoo!henry@gatech.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: matter/antimatter propulsion

> In addition to neutral pions from p/pbar annihilation, one should also
> worry about fast neutrons if the normal matter is more than ordinary
> hydrogen...

On the other hand, there was some speculation that reacting antiprotons
with heavier normal nuclei might tend to trap more of the annihilation
energy in charged fragments.  I don't know if anything has come of this
idea yet.
-- 
Those who do not understand Unix are |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
condemned to reinvent it, poorly.    | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 17 Feb 88 04:52:22 GMT
From: thumper!karn@faline.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: What are Mir elements?

An excellent set of inexpensive orbit tracking programs for a wide
variety of personal computers is available from AMSAT, the Radio
Amateur Satellite Corporation. Write to them for details:

AMSAT
PO Box 27
Washington, DC 20044

------------------------------

Date: 17 Feb 88 22:14:14 GMT
From: sonia!khayo@locus.ucla.edu  (Erazm J. Behr)
Subject: Re: NASA SPACELINK

In article <4863@ames.arpa> mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov.UUCP (Mike Smithwick) writes:
 >In article <3.2219060F@ankh.UUCP> John_Emmert@ankh.UUCP (John Emmert) writes:
 >> NASA Spacelink is a data base of information designed 
 >> to be used by teachers but it is open for public use.
 >> The number is 895-0028. 
 >Is there an area-code associated with this number???

The first one I tried (205, Alabama) had a carrier tone, so I guess
that's it.
                                                       Eric
___________________________________________________________
 Please use   khayo@MATH.ucla.edu   instead of CS.ucla.edu

------------------------------

Date: 17 Feb 88 07:29:07 GMT
From: tektronix!reed!lnclark@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (LewisAclark)
Subject: Erector-set: Let's build a company


	With all this talk of private industry flying around on the net, I was 
wondering what exactly you people think should go into a private company. The 
basis of the American economic system is that some on who can do something 
better, hopefully for cheaper, should win. Lets see if we can build a company 
that would survive in the baby space industry on a national and inter-national
scope. Of course, we also want to build a company which will stand up under 
scrutiny, that means protecting the environment and playing by the rules of 
what ever country we happen to locate in.   
 
	Assuming we can get reasonable funding for this venture, lets go ahead and select a launch site, shall we?
 
	BTW, I looked into Kingman Reef as a launch site, it's great, except 
for the fact that the average hight above sea level is 1 meter, and in high sea
s, it submerges completly. We might want use it for a base to build on, tho...
( Sorry, Walt... )
 
	David Reeck @ Reed
	(at least until we get Usenet back up at Lewis and Clark)
	!tektronix!reed!lnclark 
	or 
	!tektronix!reed!lclark!reeck

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #143
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 23 Feb 88 06:19:47 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA06273; Tue, 23 Feb 88 03:17:41 PST
	id AA06273; Tue, 23 Feb 88 03:17:41 PST
Date: Tue, 23 Feb 88 03:17:41 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8802231117.AA06273@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #144

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 144

Today's Topics:
			   MIR predictions
		MIR predictions for San Francisco, CA
		  Re: Mir elements, 20 February 1988
			MIR:  More predictions
		     space news from Jan 18 AW&ST
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 19 Feb 88 07:25:23 GMT
From: snowdog@athena.mit.edu  (Richard Brezina)
Subject: MIR predictions


Hello, fellow space enthusiasts!

In a recent letter (02/18), Mr. Joe Dellinger of Stanford University has
asked whether anyone could post predictions for MIR instead of just
posting the elements.  Well, I am a member of a small but serious group
of satellite observers based in Toronto, Canada (I am presently an
undergraduate at MIT).  The group has created its own software for
various aspects of satellite tracking, and I have available the
necessary programs to make MIR predictions for anywhere in the world.
(Note: if you have more questions about our group feel free to address
them here on the net or to me privately at snowdog@athena.mit.edu - this
address should work from most nets.)  Anyway, I am willing to give this
a shot, as an experiment.  The task could easily get out of hand,
however, since due to MIR's relatively low orbit, the predictions are
very position-sensitive and I will have to make up predictions
separately for pretty much everyone who asks.  But, let's see how it
goes anyway!  For most places, MIR is only visible for 2 periods lasting
only a few days and separated by about 2 weeks - then the satellite
remains unobservable for a month.  So, at least, I will not have to make
up the predictions continuously.

So, for those who are _moderately_ to _seriously_ interested in seeing
MIR, please let me know soon, so I can include you on the list.  Also,
do not forget to mention your location - it is VERY important.  If you
are experienced in astronomy, you can also mention what format you would
like the prediction in.  I'll be glad to help you out!

To Mr. Dellinger: Actually, right now we are just on the beginning of
one of the 'observing windows' - California will get good passes next
week, so you haven't missed out.  I will prepare the prediction first
thing tomorrow and it will appear on sci.space by early afternoon.

This will be fun!

-Richard Brezina

P.S.  Gee, I guess I will have to get a wise quotation from somewhere!

------------------------------

Date: 19 Feb 88 18:10:59 GMT
From: snowdog@athena.mit.edu  (Richard Brezina)
Subject: MIR predictions for San Francisco, CA


Hello again!

Here are the predictions Mr. Dellinger asked for:  (explanation follows)

|----------------------------------------------------------------|
| Date   | Time (PST) | Azimuth | Elevation | Magn | Shadow Time |
|--------|------------|---------|-----------|------|-------------|
| Feb 23 | 18:35:00   | 020 deg | 33 deg    |  2   | 18:37.7     |
| Feb 24 | 18:58:00   | 220     | 61        |  0   | 19:00.3     |
| Feb 26 | 18:08:00   | 250     | 62        |  0   | No shadow   |
|----------------------------------------------------------------|


Explanations:

Date:      I selected passes that reach a culmination elevation of more
	   than 30 degrees above the horizon, as these are the passes
	   that are most easily observable.  If you would like a
	   different minimum elevation limit, please specify and I'll
	   keep it in mind.

Time:      This is the integral minute, during each pass, that is
	   closest to the culmination (max. elevation) time for that
	   pass.

Azimuth:   The "bearing" of the satellite at the aformementioned time.
	   This is an angle measured clockwise from North along the
	   observer's horizon, so 0=N, 45=NE, 90=E, etc.

Elevation: Angular elevation of the satellite above the horizon.
	   Together with the azimuth, this completely describes the
	   position of the satellite on the sky.  For instance, if the
	   prediction says Az=220, El=61, you would look for the
	   satellite in the South-Western sky, about 2/3 of the way up
	   from the horizon to the overhead point.  Note: Because of
	   parallax, these values will vary even from different parts of
	   the city but should hold to +- 10 degrees within 30 miles of
	   downtown SF.

Magn:      Predictied visual astronomical magnitude when the satellite
	   is at it's brightest.

Shadow T:  The time of predicted Earth shadow entry on that pass.


Accuracy of the predicitions will depend on whatever orbital manouevres
the Russians will decide to make.  If nothing major happens, expect a +-
1 minute accuracy but it is advisable to start looking about 5 min
before.  I will observe it myself (even the bad passes which I did not
post because they are much more difficult) and keep you informed on the
expected accuracy.

Customization: if you want things like RA & Dec, distance of the
satellite, phase angle, and other such junk, these things are available
so just say so.  Note that RA and Dec predictions will be especially
prone to parallax and other errors due to earth's rotation if the
satellite is early or late.

Just today I already got three feedback letters - thanks!  I will make
up predictions for those who asked and post them sometime within the
next 24 hours.  I will also reply to each letter separately via e-mail.

Well, enough for now...got to run off to class!  Good luck in observing
Mir!

-Richard Brezina

"Hackito Ergo Sum."   (How's that?)

------------------------------

Date: 22 Feb 88 05:50:00 GMT
From: kenny@b.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Re: Mir elements, 20 February 1988

Satellite: Mir        
Catalog id 16609
Element set  70
Epoch: 88 46.84067118
Inclination:  51.6300 degrees
RA of node: 338.5221 degrees
Eccentricity:  0.0015156
Argument of perigee: 103.5465 degrees
Mean anomaly: 256.8131 degrees
Mean motion: 15.76272428 revs/day
Mean motion acceleration: 0.00035159 * 2 revs/day/day
Epoch Revolution: 11452

Semimajor axis:    6719.11 km
Apogee height*:     351.13 km
Perigee height*:     330.76 km


		Source: NASA Goddard via T.S.Kelso's `Celestial RCP/M'

Note that predictions for the overflights this week will HAVE to be
recalculated; atmospheric drag has been significantly greater than
estimated, resulting in overflight times that are up to ten minutes
late.

* Apogee and perigee altitudes are referred to the mean radius of the
  Earth (6378.15 km), and not to the local radius of the geoid.  They
  are only approximate, and should not be used for orbit prediction.

Kevin

------------------------------

Date: 20 Feb 88 09:15:50 GMT
From: snowdog@athena.mit.edu  (Richard Brezina)
Subject: MIR:  More predictions

Hi everyone!  I was delighted to see that I got no less than 11 letters
in response to the satellite information I posted a short while ago.  I
realized (through preparing the predictions today, which only took me 15
minutes, for 5 different location requests) that I'd probably be able to
handle even up to 20 different locations.  So, for those interested,
keep'em coming!

I will now post the present predictions here, although in the future I
might send them separately to each person who requested them.  But I
figure that many more potentially interested people than wrote to me
might be interested, so posting predictions here for the large cities
might be of some use.

Here goes:

Location:  Pasadena, CA (good for all of LA)   Time: Pacific Standard 

|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Date   | Time (PST) | Azm | El | Magn | Shadow Time | Comment               |
|--------|------------|-----|----|------|-------------|-----------------------|
| Feb 24 | 18:59:00   | 264 | 59 |  0   | 19:00.3     | Passes  near overhead |
| Feb 26 | 18:09:00   | 284 | 53 |  0   | None        | Overhead pass too     |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------|


Location:  New York, NY                         Time: Eastern Standard

|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Date   | Time (EST) | Azm | El | Magn | Shadow Time | Comment               |
|--------|------------|-----|----|------|-------------|-----------------------|
| Feb 20 | 18:59:00   | 022 | 27 |  2   | Forgot this | Rel. difficult pass   |
| Feb 21 | 19:21:00   | 314 | 34 |  1   | 19:21.4     | Mod. difficulty       |
| Feb 22 | 18:10:00   | 041 | 26 |  1   | 18:12.3     | Difficult             |
| Feb 23 | 18:32:00   | 325 | 54 |  0   | 18:34.7     | Best pass             |
| Feb 24 | 18:55:00   | 229 | 29 |  2   | 18:57.5     | Not great             |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------|


Location:  Bloomington, IN                      Time: Eastern Standard

|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Date   | Time (EST) | Azm | El | R.A.  | Dec.  | M | Shadow  | Comment      |
|--------|------------|-----|----|-------|-------|---|---------|--------------|
| Feb 22 | 19:42:00   | 336 | 30 | 21:52 | +67.9 | 1 |         | RA, Dec is   |
|        | 19:43:00   | 029 | 49 | 08:38 | +67.5 | 0 | 19:43.5 | Epoch 1950   |
|--------|------------|-----|----|-------|-------|---|---------|              |
| Feb 23 | 20:05:00   | 266 | 32 | 01:22 | +16.5 | 2 |         |              |
|        | 20:06:00   | 208 | 40 | 04:06 | -06.8 | 0 | 20:06.2 |              |
|--------|------------|-----|----|-------|-------|---|---------|              |
| Feb 25 | 19:16:00   | 228 | 43 | 02:36 | +02.8 | 1 |         |              |
|        | 19:17:00   | 173 | 30 | 05:15 | -20.5 | 1 | None    |              |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------|

Note: this person wanted Right Ascension and Declination in addition to the
usual info.

In your letters, most of you are interested in whether the sources of
our software are available.  Well...  Let me put it this way: we have
had some sad experiences with things like that before.  Therefore, we'd
rather not release our new software - we put too much work into it and
we definitely don't want it to get into the wrong hands.  However, I'll
see if I can somehow transfer my old BASIC program to this system - I'd
be willing to share that one with you.  It's bug-free, almost as
accurate as SGP (NORAD's orbital model) and it has some documentation
with it.  It will probably take me a while to figure out how to
down-load it, however.

Anyway, have fun observing MIR; tell me how it goes!

-Rich

"Hackito Ergo Sum."
    -borrowed from MIT **Third East** Hackers (my apologies for getting it
     wrong the first time).

------------------------------

Date: 17 Feb 88 08:02:08 GMT
From: uflorida!codas!burl!clyde!watmath!utgpu!utzoo!henry@gatech.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Jan 18 AW&ST

Big story this week is AW&ST scooping Reagan on his own new space
policy.  A policy backed up with money: NASA FY89 budget to be $11.5G, a
$3G boost from FY88... if Congress approves.  Included is early funding
for a long-stay orbiter and an uprated SRB to boost shuttle payload by
12klbs.

Key words in the new policy are "preeminence in manned Earth orbital
flight" and "extending US manned operations beyond Earth".  Technology
development gets underway at once, with specific mission recommendations
due in 1991.  Technology development includes the "Pathfinder" program
that has already been discussed to death: rover technology, automatic
sample analysis, automatic rendezvous and docking, advanced oxyhydrogen
rocket engines, aerobraking, power systems, closed-cycle life support,
and materials production from lunar soil.

The new policy was approved by SIG-Space in December, after a long fight
against opposition from OMB.

Lots of pretty pictures of possible missions.

Now the bad news: CRAF and AXAF aren't included in FY89.  Fletcher is
appealing the AXAF exclusion, with CRAF expected to slip to next year
(which will mean considerable delays in the actual mission).

Serious talk about major joint US-Soviet projects expected at planned
summer summit in Moscow.

[Lest there be too much euphoria at all this, remember that the next
administration in Washington will have much more say in whether this all
comes to fruition.]

Total count of Soviet launches in 1987: 95.

NASA assessing plan to conduct flight-readiness firing of Discovery
engines after stacking non-flight SRBs.  This would permit continued
progress despite SRB delays.  Unfortunately it would also mean having to
unstack and then restack the whole system after the FRF, a major
complication.  Tentative launch date either way is August.

Amroc resumes full operations including engine tests.  Unfortunately it
cannot meet the spring-88 date for the first launch it had hoped to sell
to SDI; Amroc still hopes for SDI business soon, though.

First Titan 4 rolls out and is shipped to the Cape.  Launch October.

Congress tells USAF to either do something with the Vandenberg shuttle
complex or mothball it completely, on grounds that $50M/yr maintenance
funding cannot be justified on grounds of *possible* use in late 1990s.

Heavy reductions in SDI budget hit ground-based free-electron laser work
hard.  [This is space-related because the FEL is the number one
possibility to drive a laser launcher, and the laser-launcher people at
Livermore are relying on SDI for the laser development.]

"Aerospace Forum" piece by Michael Lisagor, aerospace program manager at
"a major American aerospace firm".  "Our government has an unwritten
policy of engaging in projects promising only short-term return.
American's space program (or lack of one) illustrates this fact...  an
overabundance of 'short-termitis' also is prevalent in corporate
America."

NASA is running test flights with an F-104 to investigate using fast
aircraft rather than balloons for pre-launch weather assessment; the big
win is the ability to get data 1 hr before launch instead of 3.5.

NASA picks Northrup Strip, at White Sands, as primary alternate shuttle
landing site, after the Edwards lakebed.  In particular, White Sands is
preferred over the Edwards concrete runways, due to concern over the
limitations of the orbiter's brakes.  KSC comes fourth, except for
launch aborts.  This policy will be reassessed after the first three
launches.  One complication with landing at White Sands is that the fine
sand there caused some thruster problems after STS-3 landed there in
1982.

Letter from Glenn Reynolds, Washington DC: "Space activists should
emulate successful groups like the environmental and civil-rights
groups, who fill the halls of Congress with citizen-supporters for weeks
and months before crucial votes, instead of simply trying to generate
mail and phone calls in the final days."

Letter of the Month, possibly the year, concerning the enthusiasm for
Space Industries' Industrial Space Facility as a station alternative:

"I am distressed to learn of, and must take serious issue with, those
members of Congress who believe that an ISF could be 'preferable' to
NASA's space station.

"Nothing could be further from the truth.  Astronaut crews can work in,
or tend, an ISF only when a space shuttle is attached.  They cannot live
there.  For that reason, ISF cannot provide the US with permanent
occupancy of space, nor can any number of ISFs prepare us to travel or
live beyond low Earth orbit...

"The ISF project initially complements the space station project in an
obvious way and can serve as a catalyst for the development of equipment
and users of the space station...  the ISF provides the US with added
and complementary capabilities for in-orbit services just as the country
maintains added and complementary transporatation services with both
ELVs and shuttles...

"Over 12 years ago, as director of engineering and development at the
Johnson Space Center and as a member of the 'Outlook for Space' study
group, I stated that the US must work toward a permanently occupied
outpost in space.  Four years ago I participated on a presidential
advisory committee that recommended the US pursue the design and
construction of an international space station.  In the next century the
very viability of Space Industries, or any other US commercial space
company for that matter, will be possible only if there is a permanent
space station.

					"Maxime A. Faget
					President and CEO
					Space Industries Inc."

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #144
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 24 Feb 88 06:20:55 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA07877; Wed, 24 Feb 88 03:18:38 PST
	id AA07877; Wed, 24 Feb 88 03:18:38 PST
Date: Wed, 24 Feb 88 03:18:38 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8802241118.AA07877@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #145

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 145

Today's Topics:
		   Re: Richard Feynman passes away
	Feynman's *Challenger* experiences in *Physics Today*
			      Mir passes
		     space news from Jan 25 AW&ST
		   Soviet space marketing successes
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 19 Feb 88 22:12:46 GMT
From: trwrb!aero!venera.isi.edu!rod@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Rodney Doyle Van Meter III)
Subject: Re: Richard Feynman passes away

I know this isn't really the appropriate newsgroup for this, but I can't
resist because the man touched my life so deeply in such a brief period.
Sorry it's so long, and yet there's so much more that ought to be said,
mostly by people who new him better than I did.

Feynman was known affectionately around the Caltech campus as God.  His
"Lectures on Physics" are referred to as the Bible. There are many
bright people on the faculty there, but none have influenced the life of
the campus to such a degree. His excellent teaching skills, genuine
interest in people, and personality contributed to this. Everyone who
knew him liked him. His unorthodox, irreverent attitude toward anything
and everything and his unusual manner of seeing things made him unique
among all the individuals I have ever met (and I've met other Nobel
laureates).

I have never met an individual whose intelligence shone as brightly as
did Feynman's. He had a way of looking at the world which went beyond
everything we are normally taught.  Equations were not crutches to him
as they are to so many of us. We hide behind them when we're uncertain
where we're headed, hoping something will fall out which will enlighten
us. To Feynman, they were a natural way of expressing what he already
understood.

The clarity of his vision went well beyond physics. It extended to
whatever topic caught his fancy. In his last few years, he became
interested in computer science. What might have come out of that
incredible mind in the next few years, we will never know. He had
already laid the theoretical groundwork for a quantum mechanical
computer.

(I'll digress just a bit:
  A calculation is made by shifting around a single electron in
appropriate patterns. The result is read by checking your result bin
(sort of an electron trap). If the electron shows up, the answer is yes.
If it doesn't, the answer is no. Unfortunately, in the QM world, things
are never 100% certain. You improve the certainty of your answer by
either increasing the amount of energy you put into the process at the
start, or by waiting longer for your answer. So you can run your
computer without any power at all, but then you have to wait forever to
be certain of your answer.  The math is very complex, but that's a
simplistic view.)

I was a student in a class Feynman was teaching on the potentialities
and limitations of computers. He had (no surprise) a different view of
logic, von Neumann machines, etc. One reason his view was so different
and his understanding so deep (and his teaching so good) was that he
insisted on figuring everything out for himself. He would read a
researcher's conclusion, then work it out himself to see whether or not
he believed it. Then when he taught, he made it sound clear and simple.
Yet it never was that easy for us...

Unfortunately, in January of that year the Challenger accident occured.
He was dragged away to Washington to spend many months telling people
what took him only a few days to figure out.  He returned for visits,
though, and kept us appraised as best he could.  He saw many thingswrong
with NASA, and wanted to correct them all.  Unlike some of the career
bureaucrats on the panel with him, he would say anything to anyone. He
was the only commission member who actually talked to the people who put
the whole system together.  Without his input, the commission might
still be muddling around, trying to figure out what happened.

He was active in his home community and was involved, when he had the
time, with student drama productions. His interests were many, including
travel, painting, and music. He also took a warmhearted interest in his
students.

His lectures on physics (for that matter, his lectures on ANYTHING) will
always stand out as a model against which poorer teachers will be
compared.

His personality, on the other hand, invites no comparison. He was a man
alone, perhaps in all the world, in many ways, and anyone whose life he
touched will never forget him.

Richard Feynman, we will miss you.

		--Rod

------------------------------

Date:     Mon, 22 Feb 88 14:55 CST
From: Bill Higgins, Beam Jockey <HIGGINS%FNALE.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Subject:  Feynman's *Challenger* experiences in *Physics Today*
Original_To:  SPACE

Richard P. Feynman, the uncle of all physicists, died last week.  How
timely, then, that his picture appears on the cover of the February
*Physics Today*, illustrating his article "An Outsider's Inside View of
the Challenger Inquiry."

The article is an oral account of his experiences on the Rogers
Commission, and gives a very readable glimpse of the interaction between
NASA, the press, and the commission's members.  It's obligatory for
readers of this newsgroup, I should think.

Also in this issue is Gloria Lubkin's account (p. 69) of the Space
Future Forum in Moscow last October-- the most detailed I've seen-- as
well as other meetings with space scientists in the Soviet Union.  And
Irwin Goodwin reports on the Shuttle problems and NASA-bashing on page
49, probably old stuff to you.

*Physics Today* has pretty long deadlines, but when they do cover a
story, they often do it very well indeed.  It's one of those magazines
you should scan to keep up with good science and technology journalism.

				Bill Higgins
				Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
				HIGGINS@FNALB.BITNET
				SPAN/HEPnet: 43011::HIGGINS

------------------------------

Date: 23 Feb 88 13:58:51 GMT
From: snowdog@athena.mit.edu  (Richard Brezina)
Subject: Mir passes

Hi everyone!

Mr. Kenny was correct; Mir is way ahead of schedule.  I saw it yesterday
- it was 10 minutes early compared to my predictions, and 7 minutes
early compared to the most recent elements given on sci.space.  The
error will likely get worse with time; expect this.  Unfortunately, I do
not have time to recompute the predictions; however, here are a few
guidelines:

It is reasonable to assume Mir will be about 12 minutes early today and
about 14 minutes early tomorrow.  Keep this in mind as you schedule your
observing times.

For passes in the north, below 40 degrees elevation, expect Mir to come
about 5 to 10 degrees lower than predicted.  For high elevation passes
in the north, expect Mir to come 20 to 30 degrees lower.  For overhead
passes, expect the path to be shifted considerably (30 degrees) towards
the northern horizon.  Expect predicted southern passes of 60 degrees
elevation to come overhead in- stead.  And low southern passes will be
shifted 10-20 degrees higher.

Good luck,
-Rich

------------------------------

Date: 22 Feb 88 02:21:15 GMT
From: ukma!uflorida!codas!burl!clyde!watmath!utgpu!utzoo!henry@NRL-CMF.ARPA  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Jan 25 AW&ST

NASA's Advanced Communications Technology satellite is having serious
cost overruns.

Soviet cosmonauts aboard Mir are expected to demonstrate a manned
maneuvering unit this year.

Australia signs space-cooperation agreement with USSR.

AW&ST advance scoop on Reagan's new space policy changes Reagan's plans
to announce it in his State of the Union address.

New space policy stresses government use of commercial services rather
than doing the work itself (for civil spaceflight, that is), endorses
use of government contracts to guarantee a market for commercial space
services, and incidentally removes resolution limits from commercial
remote-sensing satellites.

JPL presents Mars lander concept using a cruise-missile guidance system,
programmed with landing-site terrain data obtained by an orbiter, to
permit a pinpoint landing.

NASA considers system changes to space station to cut costs.  Most
potential changes were rejected on grounds that they would yield much
higher operating costs.  One still under consideration is deferring the
mobile base for the Canadian arm, meaning that the arm would have to
handle its own movement -- the so-called "inchworm" concept that was
rejected earlier.  This is politically touchy since Canada is the only
firm international partner so far, and will have to approve.  Karl
Doetsch, Canadian space-station-program manager, says he doesn't think
eliminating the transporter is a good idea, but there is time to review
the idea again.  Another idea being thought about is starting with a
hydrazine propulsion system rather than the waste-water-electrolysis
oxyhydrogen system currently planned.  The trouble is, the waste water
still has go somewhere, and lifting considerable amounts of hydrazine to
the station will increase demands on the already-strained supply system.
One idea that was rejected was shortening or getting rid of the truss
structure; it doesn't cost very much.  One thing that may be added is a
substantial number of small "resource ports" providing power and data
hookup; they would be necessary for an "inchworm" arm and could also
hold small payloads.

Attitude control lost on French Telecom 1B comsat due to system
failures.  Its workload has been transferred to Telecom 1A.  The design
of 1C, due for launch in March, is being reviewed.  European aerospace
contractors are unhappy: "Here we are trying to prove that we are viable
competitors in two important international bids [Aussat + Intelsat 7],
and two of our spacecraft [the other being TVSat 1] come up with major
in-orbit problems.  The timing simply couldn't be worse."

SDI begins parcelling out funding cuts to its programs.  At least two of
its space-based projects may die or be put on hold.

Japan boosts space budget 15% in FY88.

Japan postpones next H-1 launch a few weeks due to problems in the
comsat payload.

France postpones launch of TDF-1 direct broadcast satellite, opening an
Ariane payload slot which will probably be filled by Insat 1C and
Europe's ECS-5, to modify its solar panels against a recurrence of the
problems with TVSat 1 (which used the same panel design).

NRC says that NASA has been so preoccupied with short-term goals that
its technology base is in dismal shape, recommends major increases in
funding for technology research.  "For the past 15 years less than 3% of
the total NASA budget has been invested in space research and
technology.  Of that virtually none has been spent on technology
development for missions more than five years in the future."  NRC says
current initiatives toward more technology work are good but
insufficient.  Propulsion is cited as a particular disaster area,
especially since much information from earlier programs is being lost as
people retire.  Manned spaceflight is number two needing attention,
notably long-term effects of spaceflight, closed- cycle life-support,
and better EVA technology.

ESA proposes Navsat: an international civilian system to supplement
Navstar and eventually evolve into a complete independent navsat system.
It would start with satellites in elliptical and Clarke orbits to give
full capability in specific areas, notably the North Atlantic.  It will
also include a capability to warn users of Navstar and Glonass [the
Soviet equivalent] of failures in *their* systems, something that
Navstar and Glonass cannot do!  ESA would not operate Navsat in the long
run; the responsibility for operations would be transferred to an
international body like Inmarsat (which is interested).  The civilian
nature of Navsat is seen as a strong selling point; the airlines in
particular distrust the US military's control of Navstar, and fear
restrictions on access in time of crisis, or even outright abandonment:
"something like this already is happening with the US Navy's Transit
satellite-based navigation system -- which will be abandoned in the
1990s because they won't have a use for it any longer".  ESA is trying
to sort out issues like Navsat/Navstar/Glonass signal compatibility and
the added complexity of Navsat capability in a Navstar receiver.  Navsat
will do most of its work in its ground stations, which will track the
satellites and send position/time information to the satellites for
relay to users.  This will also make it practical to detect and turn off
a malfunctioning satellite, and to include data transmissions such as
warnings of failures in Navstar and Glonass.

Bruce Murray criticizes current space-station plans as a "giant WPA in
the sky", says it will be nearly useless unless it is designed for a
role in a manned Mars mission.  He also claims that there is no real
scientific interest in a return to the Moon.  [Can you say "tunnel
vision"?]

Harris Corp. proposes an SDI software-test project involving launch of
six small satellites as a simulation testbed.  The idea has support but
is on hold pending funding and launch availability.

TVSat 1 program officials say the satellite is probably a writeoff.  Its
stuck solar panel is firmly stuck; attempts to free it with motor
firings failed.  (Officials note that it's hard to nudge a 1.2-ton
satellite hard enough to shake a lightweight solar panel much.)  Other
methods are being examined, but nobody is optimistic any more,
especially there is still no good idea of the cause of the trouble.  The
various tests aimed at figuring out how many clips are holding the panel
have not been conclusive; the satellite was not designed for such
measurements, and the data is down in the noise range of the sensors.
However, if the outer panel is open at all, it's not by much.  There is
some concern that the satellite was not designed to stay in this
configuration for any length of time, but overall there doesn't seem to
be much of a hurry.  If the stuck array stays stuck, the satellite's
receiving antenna can't fully deploy, making the satellite useless
unless it can be tilted to point the antenna at the ground station;
again, people are pessimistic.  TVSat 2, originally meant to be an
on-orbit spare, is on schedule for launch early in 1990.

"Aerospace Forum" piece by James Van Allen, urging "re-balancing" of the
space program.  [Actually this one is surprisingly mild for him; maybe
he's realizing that his strident no-manned-spaceflight position is not
popular.]

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 23 Feb 88 12:08:16 EST
From: Glenn Chapman <glenn@ll-vlsi.arpa>
Subject: Soviet space marketing successes

     The Soviet marketing program has scored two notable successes in
the past month.  First, a West German firm, Kayser Threde, has signed up
for 3 launches of materials science processing experiments on the
Russian's "Foton" spacecraft.  It appears that "Foton" is a modification
of their standard short duration return capsule, which in turn is a
reworked version of the Vostok craft that Yuri Gagarian first flew in.
The satellite weighs about 5-7 tonnes, and the return portion is
spherical in shape.  Each launch will contain about 100 - 150 kilograms
(220 - 330 pounds) of material processing and life science experiments.
Kayser Threde, which makes hardware for the West German Aerospace
Research Establishment (DFVLR), has previously done 25 experiments on
the space shuttle, including laser experiments on the West German D1
spacelab mission (interesting as some reports say that at least some of
the experiments will be devoted to developing instruments to measure
atmospheric pollution from space).  However the very long wait for the
next shuttle opportunity has made then seek contracts with the Soviets.
The USSR's Litsenzintorg agency won over the People's Republic of China
in a competition for those launch contracts.  Negotiations have been
going on with both countries for the past year, with the Russians
getting the contract in December, but the information only being
announced in the past month.  They are apparently paying $15,000 per
Kilogram for the experiments (note that is cheap - the numbers here are
per Kilogram of equipment, excluding the capsule mass).  Launches will
occur between 1989 and 1992.
     The second contract was with Payload Systems of Wellesley, Mass. to
do some biochemical crystal growth processing on board the Mir space
station.  The Soviets will grow crystals, which will then be used to do
X-ray crystallography research to help determine the crystal structure
of the samples.  The materials are basically proteins produced by
biotech firms which are trying to synthesis drugs and the like.  The
Russian work will be limited to processing materials in sealed
containers, making observations on how the crystals are growing, and
returning the samples to earth.  The X-ray analysis would be done by the
companies involved.  Payload Systems is acting as a broker for several
such firms.  The company was founded by Byron Lichtenberg (who flew on
STS-9 in Nov. '83), and was originally orientated towards doing the same
work on the shuttle.  They have received both Defense and Commerce
department approval for these flights that will take place starting in
1989.
     Life has not been all good for the Soviets though in this field.  A
large photographic satellite (Cosmos 1906) failed on Jan 31, and was
destroyed by the Russians.  It was producing Landsat type pictures for
their Soyuzkarta marking agency.  Also on Feb. 17th they lost a Proton
booster when the third stage failed to separate, destroying the 3
Glonass military communications satellites on board.  That will make
more difficulties for them in marking the Proton.
    Nevertheless the USSR is the place to go these days if you want to
get a product quickly from space.  I thought it was supposed to be Free
Enterprise that would commercialize space first?  Something is wrong
here.

                                         Glenn Chapman
                                         MIT Lincoln Lab.



------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #145
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 25 Feb 88 06:21:44 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA00756; Thu, 25 Feb 88 03:19:33 PST
	id AA00756; Thu, 25 Feb 88 03:19:33 PST
Date: Thu, 25 Feb 88 03:19:33 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8802251119.AA00756@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #146

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 146

Today's Topics:
			 Payload Systems+USSR
			 AMROC, Where is it?
			   Re: face on Mars
			  Re: LDEF satellite
			  Re: LDEF satellite
      Paul Simon on NASA and Space Policy -- Official Statement
	       Re: Where the US stands in space [BLUNT]
	       Re: Where the US stands in space [BLUNT]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Reply-To: lll-crg!ames!ucsd!bass.nosc.mil!pnet01!jim@mordor.s1.gov
Date: Mon, 22 Feb 88 19:22:00 PST
From: lll-crg!ames!scubed!ucsd!pnet01.cts.com!jim@mordor.s1.gov (Jim Bowery)
To: crash!space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: Payload Systems+USSR

I heard a very sketchy news item on the nightly business report about a
company called "Payload Systems" somewhere in Massachusetts which has
entered into a contract with the USSR to sell US firms space for
experiments and processing on MIR.

Does anyone have any more detailed information on this?  Where are they
exactly (city?  address?  phone?).  Do they have any customers lined up?
Who is financing them?  etc.


Jim Bowery                  PHONE: 619/295-8868
PO Box 1981
La Jolla, CA 92038

UUCP: {cbosgd, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!pnet01!jim
ARPA: crash!pnet01!jim@nosc.mil
INET: jim@pnet01.cts.com

------------------------------

Date: 20 Feb 88 23:08:43 GMT
From: gaserre@athena.mit.edu  (Glenn A. Serre)
Subject: AMROC, Where is it?

Does anyone out there know where AMROC (American Rocket Company) is 
located? If so, can you e-mail me their address or home town?

Thanks.

                          --Glenn Serre
                            gaserre@athena.mit.edu

------------------------------

Date: 16 Feb 88 13:53:12 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!its63b!bob@uunet.uu.net  (ERCF08 Bob Gray)
Subject: Re: face on Mars

This story finally reached this side of the water yesterday (Monday).

One of the more sensational UK tabloids, The Star, had as it's front
page headline in 30 point type "THE FACE ON MARS".  This was beside a
copy of the actual photo (image).

It then reports
	"... it could have been put there by an extra-terestrial
	civilisation"
and
	"Scientists are hysterical about it."

Hysteria mounts as the report goes on.
	"Now the Americans and Russians are working against the clock to
	mount a manned flight to the Red Planet, 35 million miles from
	earth, so they can take a closer look at the face."
and on...
	"... America, Russia and France are all collaborating in the
	race to reach Mars, and the US congress has agreed to spend an
	extra #50 million on the project."

Then goes completely over the top.
	"An atomic powered spaceship is being prepared for the flight to
	mars... Viking Orbiter took 11 months to reach the mysterious
	planet, the spaceship will cover the journey in 130 days [by
	using] the sun's gravitational pull to hurtle through space
	using a technique known as 'celestial mechanics'".

I know the some parts of the press are somewhat lacking in the technical
accuracy of their reports, but as a front page story, the above must
take some beating.

If the above is the sort of drivel that the public is being fed about
space exploration, is it really surprising that it is so difficult to
persuade both them and the government that space is worth funding. (by
whatever means).

But on second thoughts, rational argument has had so little effect on
the UK government, perhaps it is time to scare them into action with the
little greem men? :->
	Bob.

------------------------------

Date: 18 Feb 88 19:40:00 GMT
From: kenny@b.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Re: LDEF satellite

/* Written  4:48 pm  Feb 16, 1988 by mhnadel@gryphon.CTS.COM in uiucdcsb:sci.space */
/* ---------- "Re: LDEF satellite" ---------- */
In article <8802100107.AA05684@galileo.s1.gov> ota@GALILEO.S1.GOV writes:
>Yesterday's AW&ST carried a story on rescheduling the first few Space
>Shuttle missions in order to retrieve the Long Duration Exposure
>Facility satellite before its currently predicted reentry date of
>early-to-mid 1990.  It was originally expected to last until 1995 or
>so.  No explanation was offered for the change.  Parts of the satellite
>are expected to hit the surface if it reenters.

I doubt that the reentry risk is the primary reason for this scheduling.
Remember that LDEF was supposed to show the effects of exposure to space
debris.  Since it has no telemetry, it needs to be retrieved if it is to
have been at all useful.
/* End of text from uiucdcsb:sci.space */

There's just something that doesn't jibe in all this.  I pulled the
two-line elements for LDEF and ran my own calculations, giving a
re-entry date of late 1994 when either SGP4 or SGP8 perturbation theory
was used.  The elements that I used were for an epoch date of 29
January, and are included following this message.

The only thing that I can think of that would affect this prediction
substantially is that we're in a period of increasing solar activity,
and so the atmospheric drag might be expected to increase
correspondingly.  But I would doubt that it would increase enough to
throw the calculations off *that* far; moreover, the art of predicting
solar weather is not far enough advanced to have that much confidence in
the prediction.

Perhaps what NASA are doing is rushing to retrieve it against a low (but
still unacceptably high) probability of its re-entering ahead of the
predicted time?

For those that want to check my calculations, here's the element set
that I used.  I'd like to hear from anyone who does check them,
particularly if you use another model.  I'd also like to hear from
anyone with some idea where I went astray.

----- Two-line form --------------------------------------------------
LDEF       
1 14898U          88 29.75646613 0.00003245           92639-4 0  5043
2 14898  28.5098  67.6969 0001898 345.2740  14.7734 15.33860958213659
----- AMSAT format ---------------------------------------------------
Satellite: LDEF       
Catalog id 14898
Element set 504
Epoch: 88 29.75646613
Inclination:  28.5098 degrees
RA of node:  67.6969 degrees
Eccentricity:  0.0001898
Argument of perigee: 345.2740 degrees
Mean anomaly:  14.7734 degrees
Mean motion: 15.33860958 revs/day
Mean motion acceleration: 0.00003245 * 2 revs/day/day
Epoch Revolution: 21365
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Semimajor axis:    6842.40 km
Apogee height*:     465.54 km
Perigee height*:     462.94 km
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
		Source: NASA Goddard via T.S.Kelso's `Celestial RCP/M'

* Apogee and perigee altitudes are referred to the mean radius of the
  Earth (6378.15 km), and not to the local radius of the geoid.  They
  are only approximate, and should not be used for orbit prediction.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Kevin Kenny			UUCP: {ihnp4,pur-ee,convex}!uiucdcs!kenny
Department of Computer Science	ARPA: kenny@B.CS.UIUC.EDU (kenny@UIUC.ARPA)
University of Illinois		CSNET: kenny@UIUC.CSNET
1304 W. Springfield Ave.
Urbana, Illinois, 61801		Voice: (217) 333-8740

------------------------------

Date: 19 Feb 88 18:47:29 GMT
From: snowdog@athena.mit.edu  (Richard Brezina)
Subject: Re: LDEF satellite

Hello again!

Kevin Kenny mentioned a calculation of the LDEF re-entry time, using the
SGP orbit models, and that he came up with 1994.  Well, I know where the
error is: SGP takes the ballistic coefficient as constant whereas in
reality is is a function of atmospheric density and therefore the height
of the satellite.  It increases VERY rapidly with decreasing height,
especially in the lower layers of the atmosphere (below 250 km).
Therefore, by assuming it constant one can easily overestimate the
lifetime of the satellite by even a factor of ten.  What is needed here
is a heavy duty numerical integration...  of course one must also
simulate how the air density varies with time now as the solar activity
is climbing uphill....

-Richard Brezina

snowdog@athena.mit.edu

"Hackito Ergo Sum."
       (Borrowed from the MIT 4E Hackers...)

------------------------------

Date: 18 Feb 88 02:14:22 GMT
From: phoenix!pucc!EWTILENI@princeton.edu  (Eric Tilenius)
Subject: Paul Simon on NASA and Space Policy -- Official Statement

The following is out of Democratic Presidential candidate Paul Simon's
official "position book" and was obtained from the Simon campaign.  This
statement was written on 11/12/87.
 
                    -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -
 
PAUL SIMON ON NASA AND SPACE POLICY
 
"The 1986 Challenger disaster has forced us to reexamine our previous
directions in civilian space policy.  Now that we are building a
replacement shuttle, we have to make decisions about America's long-term
access to space.  We need different launch vehicles so that we're not
caught again in the present situation of not being able to get into
space in a timely fashion.
 
"Budgets will continue to dominate the space agenda.  The space station,
for example, will be very costly if we adopt a go-it-alone attitude.  An
international effort will reduce costs and ensure that it will be used
only for peaceful ends.  We should also pursue joint U.S.-Soviet
research and planetary missions, as well as missions with other nations,
as an alternative to placing weapons in space.
 
"Our space science efforts have lagged.  We should study our solar
system and galaxy, through such missions as the Mars Observer, Magellan,
Galileo, and Ulysses.  We should study comets and asteroids up-close, as
we are now able to do.  We should not rule out manned missions, but
neither should we allow them to continue to drive NASA's major programs.
As a rule, it is more cost effective and efficient to conduct missions
without people aboard.
 
"NASA should be restored to its original mission of studying the
universe.  NASA should not be forced to use its scarce resources to
carry out the Pentagon's military space missions.  NASA can reclaim its
legacy of excellence in research.
 
"As President, I will chart a long-range civilian space policy that will
provide technological and research leadership into the 21st century."
 
                      -   -   -   -   -   -   -
 
For more information, write to: Paul Simon for President, 302 Fifth
Street, NE, Washington, D.C. 20002.
 
- ERIC - 

BITNET:ewtileni@pucc | ARPA:ewtileni@pucc.Princeton.EDU  | ColorVenture |

------------------------------

Date: 18 Feb 88 16:52:08 GMT
From: oliveb!intelca!mipos3!td2cad!jreece@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (t patterson)
Subject: Re: Where the US stands in space [BLUNT]

In article <5457@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu> beckenba@cit-vax.UUCP (Joe Beckenbach) writes:
>THE U.S. SPACE PROGRAM IS DEAD. It's all over but the murmur of the
>Space Station proponents and of the interested aerospace contractors.

Ever heard of Voyager?  Galileo?  The Space Telescope?  The Soviets,
after all, have yet to get a spacecraft past Mars orbit or inside Venus,
much less perform multiple missions to Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus
and Neptune.  Nor do they have any announced plans to do so.

>No one in any position of power wants to wake up and smell the maggots.
>Cases in point:
>	2- NASA chucked several extremely good designs and facilities
>		to concentrate on the Shuttle. No Saturn V is left;
>		no plans are extant for any non-Shutle system launcher.
>		    [As far as I've been able to gather, the only
>		     serious boosters still running are all Russian, or
>		     fitted with megatons of nuclear death.]
 
Both the Air Force and NASA are floating competing proposals for a heavy
lift booster, the NASA proposal being essentially an unmanned version of
the shuttle system.

As to the Shuttle, if it's such a inherently flawed concept, why did the
Russians copy so much of it for their shuttle and their Energia heavy
booster?  Furthermore, the Soviets have yet to launch a single mission
of their Shuttle-clone, much less carry out 24 successful launches.  And
the first Energia launch was about as successful as the Challenger,
since the final stage failed to fire.  Close doesn't count with launch
vehicles.

>		We don't even have the facilities to ready a booster
>		capable of putting any part of the mission into space.

What about the assembly building and launch pad for the Saturn V and
Space Shuttle?

> [More hysteria deleted]
>The past is dead and gone. The glory is for the history books. The US
>is safe and comfortable, secure and stagnant. Rest in peace.

Really now, this NASA-bashing is beginning to not just resemble, but
exceed the original and unjustified panic over Sputnik.  And all because
they kept up the funding for a Skylab-type space station and launched
*one* interplanetary mission to Halley's comet which we did not
duplicate.

------------------------------

Date: 20 Feb 88 01:19:50 GMT
From: beckenba@csvax.caltech.edu  (Joe Beckenbach)
Subject: Re: Where the US stands in space [BLUNT]

Dramatis Personae:
>> beckenba@cit-vax [me; initial BLUNT article]
>  jreece@td2cad    [John Reece]
   beckenba@cit-vax [me]

I. ******
>>THE U.S. SPACE PROGRAM IS DEAD. It's all over but the murmur of the
>>Space Station proponents and of the interested aerospace contractors.

>Ever heard of Voyager?  Galileo?  The Space Telescope?  The Soviets,
>after all, have yet to get a spacecraft past Mars orbit or inside
>Venus, much less perform multiple missions to Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn,
>Uranus and Neptune.  Nor do they have any announced plans to do so.

	Yes, I've heard of all these. True, we are still getting data
from the Voyager, and the Soviets have made far fewer planetary
missions. But my point was that they are getting their goals
accomplished. We are sitting down, waiting to see if there will be
government money to do our projects. We're paying somewhere around $1e6
to keep the Space Telescope ready for its launch vehicle, with not
definite launch date in sight. Regardless, the number of planetary
missions of us versus them is not relevent. The American space goals
have been planetary and successful until all the eggs were placed in the
Shuttle basket. The Russian space goals have seemed to be near-earth
space presence, and successful because their boosters were not taken
away from them.  {In fact, I'm inclined to think that the Apollo push
may have caused a slight feeling of Russian inferiority. That would give
them a bit more drive to do something different but lasting to one-up
the US. Good for them- they're doing it.}

II. ******
>>	2- NASA chucked several extremely good designs and facilities
>>		to concentrate on the Shuttle. No Saturn V is left;
>>		no plans are extant for any non-Shutle system launcher.
>>   		[As far as I've been able to gather, the only serious
>>   		 boosters still running are all Russian, or fitted
>>   		 with megatons of nuclear death.]

>Both the Air Force and NASA are floating competing proposals for a
>heavy lift booster, the NASA proposal being essentially an unmanned
>version of the shuttle system.

	Good to hear. However, NASA had a good booster already: Saturn
V.  It was relegated to oblivion; too little remains in design archives
to bring it back, the manufacturing facilities are gone, and my gripe
was that NASA decided to re-invent the wheel. Not wise to throw away the
bicycle while waiting for the motorcycle to come back from the shop.

>As to the Shuttle, if it's such a inherently flawed concept, why did
>the Russians copy so much of it for their shuttle and their Energia
>heavy booster?  Furthermore, the Soviets have yet to launch a single
>mission of their Shuttle-clone, much less carry out 24 successful
>launches.  And the first Energia launch was about as successful as the
>Challenger, since the final stage failed to fire.  Close doesn't count
>with launch vehicles.

	I apologize if I was inarticulate in the first article. The
Shuttle is by no means flawed, in concept or execution [except the
Challenger loss].  However, the Russians do not have as extensive a
technological base [it seems] nor has the project been worked on as long
[again, apparently]. My complaint was that the unmanned boosters which
were proven in Apollo launches were discontinued completely in favor of
a manned booster, even though the need for unmanned boosters remained. I
do not know about the status of any of the other NASA boosters; since
the press and computer net groups have not said word one about them
either way, I can only assume that said boosters are in limbo or rusty
oblivion right now.
	Close indeed does not count with launch vehicles. The US has
close to one somewhat working launch system.

>>		We don't even have the facilities to ready a booster
>>		capable of putting any part of the mission into space.

>What about the assembly building and launch pad for the Saturn V and
>Space Shuttle?

	Concerning the Shuttle facilities: I stand corrected.
	Anyone care to comment about the conditions of the Cape? If my
memory serves me correctly, about a year ago here in sci.space several
articles lamented the lack of upkeep in the Apollo-involved areas of the
Cape.  If someone has definitive information, please post. As far as the
Shuttle facilities: it's here but not being used.

III. *******
>> [More hysteria deleted]
	Sometimes it takes hysteria to get people to sit up and realize
that something's going wrong.

>>The past is dead and gone. The glory is for the history books. The US
>>is safe and comfortable, secure and stagnant. Rest in peace.

>Really now, this NASA-bashing is beginning to not just resemble, but
>exceed the original and unjustified panic over Sputnik.  And all
>because they kept up the funding for a Skylab-type space station and
>launched *one* interplanetary mission to Halley's comet which we did
>not duplicate.

	The Sputnik panic initially prompted the US into space efforts.
So they sent a comet probe. So? We sent craft to Jupiter and beyond. So
what?  Different goals.
	I could care less if the Soviets accomplish their space goals or
not.  I hope they do. I do care whether one organization is monopolizing
the means to accomplish our space goals, providing only one method of
accomplishing those varied goals, and then botching the job. [The
Challenger explosion was not "botching the job"; not implementing
several independent methods of accomplishing goals IS "botching the
job".]

Joe Beckenbach (CS BS '88)			I'D RATHER BE ORBITING	
	Realities to come:  L5 University. Orbital living spaces.
"Welcome to the Colony _Don Quixote_, a.k.a. The Moon of La Mancha."

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #146
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 26 Feb 88 06:18:58 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA02426; Fri, 26 Feb 88 03:17:08 PST
	id AA02426; Fri, 26 Feb 88 03:17:08 PST
Date: Fri, 26 Feb 88 03:17:08 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8802261117.AA02426@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #147

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 147

Today's Topics:
	       Re: Where the US stands in space [BLUNT]
		    Source of plutonium for RTG's
			 Re: reactor reentry
			    Re: Navigation
			  [Non]fissionables.
			  Re: Free-fall sex
			  Re: Free-fall sex
		    Re: Coercive Space Exploration
			  Re: Free-fall sex
		    Re: Coercive Space Exploration
		       Re: SPACE Digest V8 #145
    Dry run of Soviet Mir station space walk + Bulgarian crew list
			  H-fussion ramjets
		    No wonder we're in trouble...
		Re: Erector-set: Let's build a company
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 19 Feb 88 14:04:11 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!kcarroll@uunet.uu.net  (Kieran A. Carroll)
Subject: Re: Where the US stands in space [BLUNT]

td2cad!jreece writes :

>...The Soviets...have yet to get a spacecraft inside Venus...
>...they...launched *one* interplanetary mission to Halley's comet which
>we did not duplicate.

Sorry; the Soviets launched **two** interplanetary missions to Halley's
comet. The two Vega spacecraft first dropped landers and balloon probes
off at Venus, before flying by the nucleus of comet Halley (at a
distance of < 10,000 km). I believe that the rendezvouses occurred
within the orbit of Venus, by the way.

>Really now, this NASA-bashing is beginning to not just resemble, but
>exceed the original and unjustified panic over Sputnik.  And all
>because they kept up the funding for a Skylab-type space station...

I do not wish to denigrate NASA; it has achieved many great things, and
will probably continue to do so. Its political lords and masters,
though, are another matter. The U.S. has tremendous potential
opportunities in space, and is >wasting< them.  The decision-makers have
shown time and again that they have >no< interest in space, except
inasmuch as it can be used to support their own political careers; thus,
all the nonsensical talk about `national prestige' and `American
leadership in space' (like the Puppeteers in Niven's stories, they `lead
from behind', perhaps?); these goals can justify only the most shallow
and ephemeral space programs. The Soviets, on the other hand, have
stated again and again that they are committed to putting people in
space; they prove that be doing it on a regular and continual basis.

     Kieran A. Carroll @ U of Toronto Aerospace Institute
     {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!kcarroll

------------------------------

Date: 18 Feb 88 09:28:00 EST
From: "R2D2::BRUC" <bruc%r2d2.decnet@mghccc.harvard.edu>
Subject: Source of plutonium for RTG's
To: "space" <space@angband.s1.gov>
Reply-To: "R2D2::BRUC" <bruc%r2d2.decnet@mghccc.harvard.edu>

In the recent discussion of radioactive thermal generators, it's been
mentioned that reactor source for the plutonium is no longer available.
Does anyone know what we are going to use for RTG's when we build the
next outer planet spacecraft?

Bob Bruccoleri
bruc%r2d2.decnet@mghccc.harvard.edu

------------------------------

Date: 16 Feb 88 21:31:32 GMT
From: ubc-vision!attvcr!jroberts@beaver.cs.washington.edu  (John Roberts)
Subject: Re: reactor reentry

> In article <3212@killer.UUCP> Eric Green writes:
> >There is a treaty banning nuclear WEAPONS in space. But there is no
> >treaty banning nuclear REACTORS in space. Remember that Russian
> >satellite that broke up over Canada a few years back, spewing
> >low-level radiation over a wide swath? It was powered by a nuclear
> >reactor....

And last time I heard, the USSR is still refusing to pay for the cost of
the cleanup undertaken by the Canadian government.  Don't want to set a
precendent, I guess.

John M. Roberts

------------------------------

Date: 21 Feb 1988 20:27-EST 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: Navigation

Geostar provides a VERY important additional service to many of us: the
choice of a non government supplier.

To some of us this is as an important as the availability of 'ethical
investment' mutual funds are to some who wish to avoid their money going
to companies investing in South Africa, etc.

I would pay a premium price for a service rather than see extra one
penny of my income go to ANY government for ANY purpose.

Although I don't get silly about making exceptions when the need is
really major, I personally boycott the use of any publicly owned
tranport system. If there is a private alternative available, I will
almost invariably use it. I avoid the use or support of any government
tainted service if it is humanely possible to stay clear of it, even if
the alternative service is more costly.  That is my choice and I'm
perfectly happy to be utterly irrational and emotional about it.  I'm
out to keep their (government) slimy hands off of every penny I possibly
can. And I lobby for the most reasonable use possible for every penny
that I CAN'T keep out of their hands.

Even if Geostar didn't supply more features at a lower price, they would
still supply a premium service to many of us. The simple fact that the
money doesn't go into the hands of people we utterly despise is worth a
great deal.

That is freedom of choice. Those who wish to pay for it via taxes may do
so. I refuse.

				Free Minds and Free Markets
					Dale Amon
					MYOB-IW

=============================================================================
			Government kills
=============================================================================

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 18 Feb 88 18:20:25 -0500 (EST)
From: Chris Beasley <cb1p+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: [Non]fissionables.

How do you go about detecting the composition of objects like this?

------------------------------

Date: 19 Feb 88 07:49:24 GMT
From: snowdog@athena.mit.edu  (Richard Brezina)
Subject: Re: Free-fall sex

>However, on this one point I'm inclined to disagree with Mr. Arthur C.
>Clarke (who seems to think it would be fun) - it seems to me that the
>energy expended in the process would be likely to wind up partly as
>heat and mostly as angular momentum.

Hmm...interesting problem indeed!  Gee, we didn't get anything like THIS
on our physics exams!  But one thing I do seem to remember from my
physics class is the law of conservations of angular momentum, that is,
that the product of the moment of intertia tensor and the angular
velocity remains constant in no external torques are present.  Now, the
two persons engaged in the "experiment" form a pretty good isolated
system - I can't see any NET torques acting on them both!  Therefore, so
far as I can see, their angular momentum would remain constant.  So,
maybe it IS fun after all!

-Richard Brezina

snowdog@athena.mit.edu

------------------------------

Date: 19 Feb 88 00:41:06 GMT
From: ssc-vax!lee@beaver.cs.washington.edu  (Lee Carver)
Subject: Re: Free-fall sex

In article <880216-043642-2877@Xerox>, "chaz_heritage.WGC1RX"@XEROX.COM writes:
> it seems to me that the energy expended in the process would be likely
> to wind up partly as heat and mostly as angular momentum. ...[everyone
> would] ...  rapidly acquire an impressive spin ...

Fortunately, you can't create angular momentum.  All you can do is
redistibute it.  So, if you let go in a big enough room, you might have
a little spin from the release process, but it can't radically change
during any activity.  (Obviously, if you curl up, you will go faster --
but it stops as soon as you straighten out).

> I am, of course, prepared to volunteer for an experimental proof of my
> hypothesis.

:-) :-) :-)

------------------------------

Date: 18 Feb 88 16:38:31 GMT
From: thumper!karn@faline.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: Coercive Space Exploration

> ... But even if that were true (which I personally doubt) it does not
> ameliorate the underlying fault of all government action; the use of
> coercion -- the initiation of force, to achieve social or political
> goal.

Just what is it about space interest groups that attract so many
anarchists?  Who's to say that coercion is the exclusive province of
governments?

Phil

------------------------------

Date: 21 Feb 88 21:01:10 GMT
From: decvax!dartvax!eleazar!seldon@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Joe Walker)
Subject: Re: Free-fall sex


....(first posting...please be patient)..

  well...If someone really wanted to find out what it's like..find a
willing partner and get some diving belts to make yourself nutraly
boyant..and jump into a pool.

I'm not suggesting the REAL act, but you could really see what positions
would work..

(nutral boyancy (sic) is where an object submereged in water niether
sinks or floats..thus simulating zero-gee.)

------------------------------

Date: 22 Feb 88 22:56:51 GMT
From: sgi!daisy!wooding@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Mike Wooding)
Subject: Re: Coercive Space Exploration

In article <957@thumper.bellcore.com>, karn@thumper.bellcore.com (Phil R. Karn) writes:
> > ... But even if that were true (which I personally doubt) it does
> > not ameliorate the underlying fault of all government action; the
> > use of coercion -- the initiation of force, to achieve social or
> > political goal.
> 
> Just what is it about space interest groups that attract so many
> anarchists?  Who's to say that coercion is the exclusive province of
> governments?
> 
> Phil

Anarchy?? Is that what distrust of gov't motivation and wisdom is?  Then
sign me up. Coercion is what gov't does. It has the monopoly!  Its about
all it can do well (except maybe collect tax, wage war,.....)

sorry, seems like wrong news.group for this kind of diatribe.

?????????????????

I have heard several proposals for SkyHooks. Anyone care to update the
news on this?

Mike Wooding

------------------------------

Sender: "Carol_A._Locicero.rochX2"@xerox.com
Date: 24 Feb 88 11:27:36 PST (Wednesday)
Subject: Re: SPACE Digest V8 #145
From: "Carol_A._Locicero.rochX2"@xerox.com

Would anyone out there care to give me a summary of the article in
"Physics Today" on the Challenger Inquiry and also a summary on the
Rogers Report.  Thanks.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 22 Feb 88 11:57:12 EST
From: Glenn Chapman <glenn@ll-vlsi.arpa>
Subject: Dry run of Soviet Mir station space walk + Bulgarian crew list

     The current crew on the Soviet's Mir station, Valdimir Titov and
Musakhi Manarov, held a dry run of their upcoming space walk on Feb.
19th.  They put on and checked out their space suits, but did not enter
the air lock.  The walk will occur sometime next week now.
     They have also released the crew members of the June 21, '88
mission bringing the Bulgarian cosmonaut to Mir.  The scheduled guest is
Alexander Alexandrov (who was the backup for the Soyuz 33 mission of
Apr. '79) and his backup is Krasimir Stoyanov.  Anatoly Solovyov is the
mission commander (he was the backup commander for the Soyuz TM-3 flight
in July '87).  Viktor Savinykh the flight engineer has an interesting
background, with a flight on Soyuz T-4/Salyut 6 74 day flight in Mar.
'81, and the Soyuz T-13 100 day mission in June '85 (which repaired the
frozen Salyut 7).
     Yuri Romanenko, the long duration crewman (326 days on Mir), is
stated to have recovered except for some weakness in some muscles.  He
has offered to come to Europe to refute the published stories that he
was very weak, provided that the papers there pay for his trip. Todate
the papers have not accepted his offer.
     The soviet program continues to move ahead.  Some day ours will
too.

                                              Glenn Chapman
                                              MIT Lincoln Lab

------------------------------

Date: 19 Feb 88 23:07:10 GMT
From: huntting@boulder.colorado.edu  (Bradley Enoch Huntting)
Subject: H-fussion ramjets

Can anyone point me toward articles, or books about the theory of
"hydrogen fussion ramjets"?  All I've read on the subject comes
from fiction.

			Many thanx in advance...
			-brad huntting

	huntting@boulder.colorado.edu
	...!{hao,cires}!boulder!huntting

------------------------------

Date: 19 Feb 1988 19:10-EST 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: No wonder we're in trouble...

I was chatting with Jim Bennet from AMROC the other night and thought
I'd pass along some anecdotes.

If you want to build a new gantry on an EXISTING government test range,
the EPA rigamarole will take from 1.5 to 2 years to complete. THEN you
can start building. I was told that it would be far, far longer to file
for creating a private launch site.

Of the existing facilities at Vandenburg, a number are classified
'Historic Landmarks'. This means that you can't modify or upgrade them,
and you'd better be careful using them.

An area of the base that would be good for building new launch
facilities is off limits because it could potentially endanger another
historic landmark: "General Curtis LeMay's Summer Cottage". Jim noted
that General Lemay would probably have driven the bulldozer himself if
he'd been told any such thing.

(Another friend of mine suggested Curtis would have had a regrettable
accidental bomb release from an entire SAC wing... Personally I think
the targetting should be on EPA and the National Historic Landmarks
HQ's)

It appears that there will be a severe shortage in launch facilities in
this country in the near future, and it is ENTIRELY a government
created shortage.

Of course one could make the point that the american space program only
exists in the history books anyway. Maybe we need to preserve the
gantry's so Russian kids can crawl on them when they come to see the
place's where historic things happened. The tourist trade from visitors
gawking at the quaint and old fashioned life style of america may be the
only import we have by then...

------------------------------

Date: 20 Feb 88 00:40:12 GMT
From: beckenba@csvax.caltech.edu  (Joe Beckenbach)
Subject: Re: Erector-set: Let's build a company

In article <8287@reed.UUCP> lnclark@reed.UUCP (LewisAclark) writes:
 . . .

>Assuming we can get reasonable funding for this venture, lets go ahead
>and select a launch site, shall we?

>BTW, I looked into Kingman Reef as a launch site, it's great, except
>for the fact that the average height above sea level is 1 meter, and in
>high seas, it submerges completly. We might want use it for a base to
>build on, tho...

	Well, where can you/we/anyone get a hold of the companies which
actually design and put together oil platforms? A forest of platforms
could make a good working base. Or, in a slightly wilder vein, how about
a relatively free-floating platform? These could be combined into a
community of facilities to be the terrestrial launch base for national
or international space efforts.  Can we get the participants of the
International Space University in on this?  [MIT is hosting the
inaugural sessions this summer.]
	If a completely free platform system is chosen for one site, it
could be placed actually on the Equator in international waters (or some
eastern coastal waters for a national effort). Intense efforts would
have to be made in order to prevent environmental damage; this can be
minimized by wise selection of rocket fuels and materials.
	Would wave swells cause satellite uplinks to lose tracking?

		The list of design questions grows. Lord help me, I'm
going to volunteer myself to try to be a clearinghouse for questions and
some information. As one respondant to my BLUNT article has said, it's
now very apparent that the space movement and the space program are two
completely different cats.
	More philosophizing in later articles.

Joe Beckenbach (CS BS '88)

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #147
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 27 Feb 88 06:19:21 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA03874; Sat, 27 Feb 88 03:17:37 PST
	id AA03874; Sat, 27 Feb 88 03:17:37 PST
Date: Sat, 27 Feb 88 03:17:37 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8802271117.AA03874@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #148

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 148

Today's Topics:
		Re: Erector-set: Let's build a company
		 Re: space station editorial, part 1
		      response to Forbes article
			       Arecibo
		    Re: Fletcher's press briefing
		    Re: Fletcher's press briefing
		   Reagan's "privatization" policy
	   Erector sets, private companies, and everything
			 Operant conditioning
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 22 Feb 88 06:40:23 GMT
From: killer!elg@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Eric Green)
Subject: Re: Erector-set: Let's build a company

Well, some views from  the oil patch:

Current oil platforms are only useful in shallow waters (conteniental
shelf), although the new free-floating/anchored ones can be placed
deeper.

Shallow-water oil platforms are fairly inexpensive. There's about 200 of
them sitting in drydock in Houston, waiting for anybody with 100K (it's
not worthwhile to go drilling with them, since the Arabs can suck oil
out of the desert much cheaper than underwater oil can be obtained).
But a deep-water platform can easily cost $100,000,000. They are very
complex and very experimental at the moment, mainly due to the need to
keep them EXACTLY in one place (wouldn't do to have the drillbit
joggling up and down in the hole, after all). As far as I know, there's
only 4 or 5 of those in American hands, a bunch of white elephants that
major oil companies keep hanging around simply because they paid so much
for them (it's certainly not economically feasible to DRILL with them!).

Since contenental-shelf areas are generally under the protectorship of
ajoining nations (at least fisheries-wise & environmental regulation), a
free-floating spaceport is pretty much out of the question. Land is a
lot cheaper ($5,000/acre, as vs. 100k or more for a teeny oil platform).

Eric Lee Green  elg@usl.CSNET     Asimov Cocktail,n., A verbal bomb
{cbosgd,ihnp4}!killer!elg              detonated by the mention of any
Snail Mail P.O. Box 92191              subject, resulting in an explosion
Lafayette, LA 70509                    of at least 5,000 words.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 19 Feb 88 16:48 EDT
From: "Paul F. Dietz" <DIETZ%sdr.slb.com@relay.cs.net>
Subject: Re: space station editorial, part 1

In response to a message by Henry Spencer:
> Galileo would still have been in trouble, although not quite as badly,
> if it had been manifested on Titan.  (The big Titans only having
> started flying again recently, after their early-86 failure.  That's
> not a trivial slip.)

No, because it would have been launched years before the failure, and it
could still have used Centaur upper stages.

> So we must cease all space activity until transport costs are
> affordable?  That is the logical end of this argument.

Uh, how did "not build space stations" turn into "cease all space
activity"? There are lots of things we can do in space without building
things there (or putting people there).

We should cease space activities that do not make economic or scientific
sense at current launch costs. Would it be sensible to build a space
station if launch costs were (say) $100,000/pound? I'm sure you'd agree
it wouldn't. The question is where to draw the line. I draw it well
below $5000/lb.

>> The $64 billion dollar question is: why siphon such a large fraction
>> of the government research budget into microgravity research? ...

> Please explain to me why my proposed space station (much cheaper than
> NASA's) is an enormous drain on the government research budget when,
> say, the Superconducting SuperCollider is not.  Both are multi-billion
> projects; neither is a "large fraction" of the government research
> budget, especially over their considerable lifetimes.

But you also think NASA's space station is "too useful ... to abandon
without replacement", so I feel entitled to use its projected cost.  It
would consume a nonnegligible fraction of government basic research
funds (which amount to $21G/year in Reagan's new budget) for a decade or
more.

The comparison to the SSC (which I am also skeptical about) is unfair,
since the SSC is intended to answer fundamental questions about the
nature of matter. The importance of microgravity research to basic
science is much lower, and does not warrant spending several $G/year.
The benefits of either project to the economy at large are likely to be
small, fabulous predictions about microgravity manufacturing
notwithstanding.

	Paul F. Dietz
	dietz@sdr.slb.com

------------------------------

Date: 23 Feb 88 00:00:37 GMT
From: mtune!mtgzz!dls@rutgers.edu  (XMRP50000[jto]-d.l.skran)
Subject: response to Forbes article

Editor, Forbes Magazine
Dear Editor:

In the February 8, 1988, Forbes article ("It's Time to Bust Up NASA"),
Howard Brooks proposes a child's approach to fixing NASA - if it is not
working right, hit it hard with a hammer. Mr. Brooks maintains that NASA
cannot be believed because they overstate benefits and understate costs
fairly consistently. Such behavior is to be expected from an embattled,
eviscerated agency struggling to build a compromise shuttle on steadily
diminishing funds. NASA is frequently attacked for choosing single,
large programs as the focus of its efforts. This phenomenon is mainly a
function of our political system - every program that is funded must
have a part manufactured in practically every state to maintain
Congressional support, naturally creating pressure toward large
programs.

Mr. Brooks states that the Space Station cannot be used as a stepping
off point to Mars because humans cannot last the 14-month trip in zero
gravity. This reasoning ignores the following facts: 1)going to Mars is
not the major justification of the Space Station, merely one of many
things it could be used for, 2)it is not necessary to be in zero gravity
all the way to Mars due the rotation of the ship to create the sensation
of gravity(see the movie 2001 for an nice visualization of this idea),
and 3) Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Romanenko is back after a record-breaking
326 days in orbit and was walking around almost immediately, contrary to
Mr. Brook's predictions(TIME/Feb. 1, pg. 48).

Mr. Brooks belittles Soviet space efforts by describing MIR(an in-use,
permanently staffed space station), as "only half a generation ... ahead
of Skylab" (currently a pile of junk in the Australian desert) while
ignoring the years of Soviet experience with the Salyut space station.
The reality is that America is many years behind the Soviets in space
station operations and research, and that the full extent of this
deficit cannot be known since the Soviets probably do not make their
most intriguing materials- processing techniques known to the West.

The lesson of the Soviet and the American space program is that both
humans and machines are needed in space. Pro- machine rhetoricians such
as Van Allen tend to forget how American astronauts saved Skylab and
numerous Shuttle experiments by improvisation and to ignore the failure
of the Viking probe to answer unambiguously the question "Is there Life
On Mars?"  when a human scientist on Mars with a lab would almost
certainly have succeeded.

Mr. Brooks leaves unaddressed the important questions we must answer as
a nation. Suppose we, in frustration, break up NASA and shut down the
surplus centers, while funding only a few planetary probes now and then.
Who, if anyone, would run the shuttles? What, if anything, would be the
role of humans in space? Who will fund projects like Space Industries'
ISF, which has been unable to find private funding and is looking for
$700 million from NASA?  How could private corporations compete with
heavily subsidized ESA, Chinese, and Soviet satellite-launching and
remote- sensing operations? When the Europeans, Japanese, and the
Soviets start selling products manufactured in zero-gravity, how will
private American companies compete with state- supported operations?
Does anyone really believe that American industry, now widely recognized
as short-sighted and narrowly bottom-line driven, is going to step
forward to exploit the "high frontier" of space?  Finally, is there a
real industrial future for America in space, one involving lunar mines,
orbiting factories, solar power satellites, and even tourism, or is
space going to be a spectator sport limited to a tiny elite of
scientists such as Van Allen and their pet robots?

Rather than being a useful reform, Mr. Brook's plan for shutting down
NASA would leave the detailed and feasible plans of Sally Ride and the
National Commission on Space(Paine Commission) on paper -- and the
Soviets on Mars laughing at the skeptical Mr. Brooks.

				       Sincerely,
					Dale Skran

------------------------------

Date: 22 Feb 88 19:07:48 GMT
From: irizarry@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu  (Gil Irizarry)
Subject: Arecibo

>> You're right, my brain locked. I think they also administer the big
>> dish at Arecibo, though I wouldn't swear to that.
>
>Hmmm, sorry to keep doing this to you :-) :-) ... I believe Arecibo is
>administered by Cornell University astronomy, not NRAO.  Used to be
>Frank Drake and Carl Sagan as co-directors, currently only the latter,
>unless I am out of date (an update, someone from Corny U. ?).

I am from Cornell and can safely say that the Cornell astronomy
department does indeed administrate the Arecibo dish.

>As far as I know, NRAO sites perform purely *radio* astronomy (i.e., no
>transmitters).  Arecibo, however, is capable of, and has been known to
>perform, monostatic *radar* astronomy.

I am unsure of the difference between the two, but I do know that
Arecibo has been used to bounce signals off Venus in order the radar map
the surface.  Yes, Arecibo can transmit signals, as opposed to just
listening.  I believe that it was Arecibo that transmitted Sagan's
message to extra-terrestials out in the galaxy in 1977(?).

Gil Irizarry
irizarry@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu

------------------------------

Date: 19 Feb 88 19:06:38 GMT
From: tektronix!orca!brucec@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Bruce Cohen)
Subject: Re: Fletcher's press briefing

In article <8802171951.AA03413@ames-pioneer.arpa> eugene@PIONEER.ARC.NASA.GOV (Eugene N. Miya) writes:
>	Subject: Re: Fletcher's press briefing
>	
>	That is a press release.
>	
>	ACK!
>	
>	--eugene

The text of the briefing was onomatopoetic: the sound of thousands of
heels dug firmly into the ground while their owners are dragged down a
path which offends them greatly.

On a less emotional, but still bitter, note, I'm very curious how long
it will be before the NASA bureaucracy commits itself to the new policy,
and ceases attempts to sabotage and/or divert it back to the old policy.

Bruce Cohen

------------------------------

Date: 21 Feb 88 02:16:20 GMT
From: pioneer!eugene@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Eugene N. Miya)
Subject: Re: Fletcher's press briefing

In article <2483@orca.TEK.COM> brucec@orca.UUCP (Bruce Cohen) writes:
>On a less emotional, but still bitter, note, I'm very curious how long
>it will be before the NASA bureaucracy commits itself to the new
>policy, and ceases attempts to sabotage and/or divert it back to the
>old policy.

I don't know Bruce, but I wish I knew myself.  Perhaps the same time we
get mail systems to talk to one another.

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA

------------------------------

Reply-To: lll-crg!ames!ucsd!bass.nosc.mil!pnet01!jim@mordor.s1.gov
Date: Sat, 20 Feb 88 14:22:28 PST
From: lll-crg!ames!scubed!ucsd!pnet01.cts.com!jim@mordor.s1.gov (Jim Bowery)
To: crash!space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: Reagan's "privatization" policy

In response to Fletcher's "bureaucratese" about how NASA is at the
forefront of promoting commercialization of space, Randell E. Jesup
writes:

>         So, what does this really mean?  ...

It means that NASA has caught onto the fact that Americans are fed up
with its bureaucratic style of running things.  NASA is taking steps to
preempt reforms by providing token gestures toward privatization of
space even though the cash flows will be almost totally unaltered.  Any
thinking sociopath would do the same thing in Fletcher's position.  NASA
will continue to do this sort of thing until it is dismantled into
separate independent agencies.  In fact, it will grow stronger and more
difficult to reform.

We must act soon or give up on America as the seashore of the universe.

UUCP: {cbosgd, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!pnet01!jim
ARPA: crash!pnet01!jim@nosc.mil
INET: jim@pnet01.cts.com

------------------------------

Date: 23 Feb 88 00:59:35 GMT
From: beckenba@csvax.caltech.edu  (Joe Beckenbach)
Subject: Erector sets, private companies, and everything

[Damm, some things are so hard to articulate!]

	Time to get the ball rolling! Reagan's new space policy about
space privatization has been announced; it will be some time before the
policy really percolates into the governmental systems, but let's get
started now!

		0. Setting up the Clearinghouse
	I'm getting ready to postpone my graduation anyway, and there's
going to be a need for a clearinghouse for ideas and information. Much
of this could be best handled in E-mail, or (idea!) another newsgroup:
sci.space.entrep [sci.space.entrepeneur]. I'm collecting votes to see if
people think it's a good idea. {Note: not a final vote for newsgroup
creation unless voters care to specify their votes as going for the
newsgroup creation process itself.}

		I. Re: Erector sets
	Time to grease up the engineering thought. We've had some
figures about skyhooks for the Earth thrown around. Pandora's Box has
just opened: I need a basic idea on how to figure values for any other
natural body's attendant skyhooks. I need more information on
free-floating oil platforms, continental shelf platforms, etcetera. Oh,
to heck with it. Send me any information regarding launch site
selection, supply, design requirements, and mission requirements on a
launch site. {I know Cape Canaveral has the best combination of weather,
clear groundspace and airspace under the launch path, and access to
technical and academic abilities. Where could this be duplicated?}
	As Joseph Klein suggested to me in a letter, "Perhaps an E-mail
discussion group could be set up. Perhaps papers should be filed. The
net is a great place to get this rolling."

		II. Other Business
	There needs to be some clearinghouse for many other things
involving sci.space and related concerns. Areas I have general (and soon
specific) questions include:
	Government Policy and Guidelines to Policy-Making
	Lines of Development for Space-related Industries
	Computer and Noncomputer and Human Division of Labor
	Reliability Testing and Verification
	Ground Siting, Support, and Monitoring
	Permanent Space Presences
	Mission Policies
	Role of NASA and USA and UN in Private Space Efforts
		(or rather, national and international government involvement)
	International Cooperation: Materials, Manufacturing,
Informational and several others. Needless to say, any space effort is
going to be hopelessly interdisciplinary, but it must start somewhere.

	The network is the world's largest potential think tank. Let's
tear into it! The brainstorming is easy- e-mail and postings do well;
it's the collating and synthesis which so far has not been in evidence.
Go ahead; send me mail. How many of us can get together to form a
company to do this?

My mailing address:
Joe Beckenbach			beckenba@cit-vax.caltech.edu
Caltech 1-58			(818) 578-9769 & leave a message	
Pasadena, CA 91125

	If there are any companies currently planning to do new or
additional work in private space efforts, please notify sci.space or me;
if a new company comes of this article, being able to work together
would make standardizations and later cooperations much easier.
-- 
Joe Beckenbach (CS BS '88)			I'D RATHER BE ORBITING

------------------------------

Reply-To: lll-crg!ames!sdcsvax!bass.nosc.mil!pnet01!jim@mordor.s1.gov
Date: Fri, 19 Feb 88 10:46:04 PST
From: lll-crg!ames!scubed!sdcsvax!pnet01.cts.com!jim@mordor.s1.gov (Jim Bowery)
To: crash!space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: Operant conditioning

Jonathan Leech writes:
>    Since NASA's primary mission is not science, your comments are not
>wholly relevant even if they are correct.

You're right.  NASA's primary mission is to waste taxpayer's money and
inhibit free enterprise.  Reagan's recent policy announcement will aid
them in this by bolstering funding to STS and Space Station while
providing relatively no money for purchase of private launch services,
despite the wonderful sounding rhetoric to the contrary.

> NASA does not operate on the profit/competition model and never will.

And I never said NASA should operate on the profit/competition model.  I
said NASA should operate on the competition of ideas and should be able
to justify any space services it provides in terms of scientific merit
as measured by cashflow from scientists with their own scientific
agendas.  This is not profit -- it is operant conditioning.

UUCP: {cbosgd, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!pnet01!jim
ARPA: crash!pnet01!jim@nosc.mil
INET: jim@pnet01.cts.com

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #148
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 28 Feb 88 06:19:05 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA04975; Sun, 28 Feb 88 03:17:21 PST
	id AA04975; Sun, 28 Feb 88 03:17:21 PST
Date: Sun, 28 Feb 88 03:17:21 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8802281117.AA04975@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #149

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 149

Today's Topics:
			    NASA Select TV
			 Re: reactor reentry
      Re: Ever heard of Voyager?  Galileo?  The Space Telescope?
		  A modestly sleepy proposal, yawn!
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 19 Feb 88 06:42:27 GMT
From: portal!cup.portal.com!Paul_L_Schauble@uunet.uu.net
Subject: NASA Select TV

I'm trying to talk the local cable TV company into carrying the NASA
Select TV channel that was mentioned here some time ago. Can anyone give
me a contact person connect with this operation that I can pass on to
them?

   Thanks,
     Paul

------------------------------

Date: 21 Feb 88 03:28:11 GMT
From: bw0r+@andrew.cmu.edu  (Bryan Webb)
Subject: Re: reactor reentry

Henry Spencer mentioned that there was no substantial amount of
radioactive material aboard Skylab when everybody was concerned about it
coming down.  This is true.  What they were worried about was a heavy
lead vault used to store the photographic material aboard the station.
It was heavy enough that they were sure it was going to survive
re-entry, or at least a big chunk of it would.

--Bryan Webb

------------------------------

Date: 25 Feb 1988 18:28-EST 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: Ever heard of Voyager?  Galileo?  The Space Telescope?

Voyager: an outer planet probe launched a decade ago.

Galileo: An outer planet probe holding the world's time duration record
	 for exploration of the Earth's surface.

The Space Telescope: A large telescope that has for many years delivered
		     the best images ever of the wall of the storage
		     facility.

> The Soviets, after all, have yet to get a spacecraft past Mars orbit
> or inside Venus, much less perform multiple missions to Mercury,
> Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.  Nor do they have any announced
> plans to do so.

Neither has the US returned pictures from the surface of Venus, one of
the nastiest natural environments in solar system.

> Both the Air Force and NASA are floating competing proposals for a
> heavy lift booster, the NASA proposal being essentially an unmanned
> version of the shuttle system.

	None of which will be flying in less than 5 years (or more), and
both of which have a capacity less than half of Energiya.

> As to the Shuttle, if it's such a inherently flawed concept, why did
> the Russians copy so much of it for their shuttle and their Energia
> heavy booster?

	The soviet craft is not a copy of the shuttle, other than
aerodynamic similarities. Whether they used our design for this or not
makes little difference because they would have come up with the same
basic structure for the task regardless. Form follows function.
Additionally, the soviet shuttle has jet engines which are deployable
for landing go arounds. Their computer technology is admittedly less
sophisticated, so they prefer not to trust themselves to a philosophy of
'land your brick the first time or screw the pooch'. In addition, the
booster it rides on may be fully reusable. It is certainly fully
recoverable, INCLUDING the main tank. The boosters are liquid fueled,
not solid fueled, thus flight is abortable at any time. The cargo port
may be in the rear rather than the top since the main engines are on the
booster, not on the shuttle.

> Furthermore, the Soviets have yet to launch a single mission of their
> Shuttle-clone, much less carry out 24 successful launches.

At current schedules, I would not be surprised if it has first flight
before we restart. Soviet pilot-astronauts have been testing it in
approach and landing, and at least one has recently been on the soviet
permanently manned space station for zero G training.

> And the first Energia launch was about as successful as the
> Challenger, since the final stage failed to fire.  Close doesn't count
> with launch vehicles.

	The Energiya is the BOOSTER rocket, not the upper stage. An
older style upper stage failure certainly means the overall mission
failed, but the engineering test of the NEW flight hardware was
evidentally quite successful. Additionally, there is just no comparison
between the Energiya throw weight and the shuttle, or for that matter
with anything we have proposed or even on the drawing boards. It's
capacity with the maximum number of straps is estimated to be about 2.5
times the Saturn 5. 270 tons versus 120(?) tons versus 35(?) tons. And
the 120 tons is from one of the paper vehicles the poster proudly
proclaimed earlier. Energiya will be operationally delivering 230-270
tons at a crack to LEO before the paper settles in the appropriations
committees.

> Really now, this NASA-bashing is beginning to not just resemble, but
> exceed the original and unjustified panic over Sputnik.

Maybe it is for real this time. By the time we get our paper space
station up in 1997 or so, they will have Star City with a hundred or
more people in orbit full time. With Energiya they can launch sheet
steel if they want. Screw the high tech alloys and weight savings.

> And all because they kept up the funding for a Skylab-type space
> station and launched *one* interplanetary mission to Halley's comet
> which we did not duplicate.

Yep, those wonderful skylabs. I have a chunk of one of them for a desk
ornament, and I walked through the other in the Air and Space Museum.  A
simply marvelous example of american preeminence in space in 1988.  A
damn fine paper weight too.

------------------------------

Date: 22 Feb 88 15:14:32 GMT
From: xanth!kent@mcnc.org  (Kent Paul Dolan)
Subject: A modestly sleepy proposal, yawn!

 	[This is posted to places that know and love/hate the poster.
	Followups firmly directed back to talk.bizarre, where they will
	stay unless readers act.  It goes to talk.bizarre because that
	is where this nonsense started, to talk.politics.misc to respond
	to the "for whom should I vote" articles, to soc.women to
	attract Mikki Barry to the campaign for women's rights, to
	soc.men for all the socially conscious types who flame or cheer
	me on me from there, to sci.space because that is what this
	campaign is all about, to rec.humor because trying to do
	anything about the mess this country is in is pretty funny, to
	comp.sys.amiga because that is what the article is being written
	upon, to talk.rumors because a previous note there got a
	friendly response and a vote pledge, to rec.games.frp because
	running for president on USENet is indeed a fantasy role playing
	game, and to ra.slug to show that the author of
	_1001_Ways_to_Roast_a_Slug hasn't forgotten you. ]


	Folks, there is something fun, and possibly important, going on
	in talk.bizarre that has every chance of dying on the vine
	without your input.  So, gang up, join in, flame, agree,
	broadcast, campaign, be involved.  Please excuse a one time
	trashing of your favorite newsgroups with a big cross-post; I
	have taken my civic responsibility to direct follow ups back to
	the parent newsgroup seriously.  Word was just going out too
	slowly as was.

In article <7029@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> silverio@brahms.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP (Chris Silverio) writes:
>In article <891@elmgate.UUCP> ram@elmgate.UUCP (Randy Martens) writes:
>>Well, it's time to consider the major Presidential candidates :

[...lots of cute flames of current candidates omitted...]

>>Kent, the man from Xanth : Promises to spend money on useful things
>>like deep space exploration instead of nuclear weapons and contras.
>>Promises to sleep a lot, and therefore not cause trouble. hmmm.....

>>and the winner is .....
>
>>KENT THE MAN FROM XANTH, FOR PRESIDENT !!
>>SUPPORT THE BIRTHRIGHT PARTY !!!
>>VOTE KENT !!!!
>>
>
>The advertising firm of Silverio, Silverio, and Silverio (greg) wishes
>to announce its whole-hearted support of Kent, the Man from Xanth, as
>the Bizarre Party candidate in the 1988 presidential elections.
>
>Anything we can do, Kent, just let us know.
>
>The preceding announcement paid for by the Xanth Man for President
>Committee. 
>
>| C J Silverio          | Identify the following:       .
>| ucbvax!bosco!silverio | 
>|                       | "AAAIIIGH!"


Chris,

	The unborn children of the human race, whose future existence
	you have done a little bit to assure by you support, send you a
	huge wet kiss from the future.  Keeping a race as unbalanced as
	ours on a single base of operations when we have the capability
	to destroy the utility of that base is taking too big a chance
	with extinction.  We need to get our seed stock spread out at
	least to the planets, asteroids, and major moons while we try to
	puzzle out the requisites of star travel and surviving our own
	orneriness.

	The economic benefits of a planet sized chunk of high grade iron
	ore, already broken down into usable sized pieces, and with the
	energy to smelt it nearly free for the capture as it streams by
	are beyond calculation.  We have whole planet sized moonfulls of
	fresh water, gas giants from which to harvest carbon, hydrogen,
	and nitrogen, a planet crusted with sulphur, all just waiting
	for us to go out and pick up the bounty.

	We have the choice of spending our seed corn on being able to
	murder the planet one more time over than the Russians while we
	quarrel over the diminishing resources of a limited planet, and
	spending it on trying to prevent poverty for everyone in a
	shrinking economy with an aging, growing population, or we can
	instead take large parts of that same money, and begin a program
	of moving mankind corporeally and economically off this small
	planet and into space, with the resultant expanded job market,
	increased resources, decreased energy costs, and all the other
	well known benefits.

	Our present path is doomed to fail; no one yet has proved
	Malthus wrong, only delayed him a bit.  We can accept our
	failure, act as if it were inevitable, thereby making it so, and
	putter our way to national unimportance, or we can choose a new
	pathway and follow it to the stars.  The choice is simple, but
	the path is not easy.

	What can you do?  Stop treating this as a game, start
	circulating copies of notes like this where they will spread far
	and fast, and add your own.  You all know I'm not much as a
	presidential candidate, but neither was Junior Senator John
	Kennedy.  What is needed is a leader with vision, and the people
	willing to work with him to make that vision reality.  I have
	that vision clearly, but I cannot do the job alone.  I need you,
	and the rest of our audience.  I need people elected with me
	whose _first_ priority is expanding our economy into space.  Not
	the next water project, not protecting an antiquated military
	base, not protecting fools from the consequences of their own
	planning for poverty, not highway funds, not urban renewal, not
	siphoning education money from the states, not providing Social
	Security to able bodied, bored, and willing to work senior
	citizens, but getting this country going again.

	Cross-post, download and upload to BBS's, write your own copy,
	flood the newspaper editors and the magazine editors with
	letters, make things happen.  Find out what it takes to register
	a new political party in your own state, convince enough of your
	technocrat friends that the time is now and they have to pay if
	they want to play, gather the funds, the signatures, stump door
	to door, go without sleep, get laughed at and reviled and beat
	up and threatened, dream the dream and fight the good fight.

	You need to know two things about me I may not have made clear;
	I am passionately committed to this cause, and I would step
	aside in a minute if this campaign brought forth a truly
	superior candidate.  I just don't see one waiting in the wings,
	but that doesn't mean one can't be found.  In the mean time, I
	stand as a placeholder for another person, or as a possible
	choice myself.

	Next, it is unlikely that this will happen in 1988; time is
	short; not impossibly short, but short.  We can establish a new
	party, elect Congressmen and Senators (male/female,
	black/brown/tan/yellow/red/pink/albino, hairy/bald, young/old,
	gay/straight/don't-care, religous/atheist/agnostic, whoever is
	best qualified and most committed), make our presence felt.  We
	are the people who understand the electronic network media, we
	are the ones who can spread the word faster and with less
	resources than the vidiots, but we are a small group; each
	person who hears the call must go out personally and recruit a
	hundred who don't share our electronic village, by power of
	persuasion.  If this year doesn't find us ready to elect a
	president, I'm only 44, we can build toward it, and when this
	starts to look like a movement, the power hungry will come out
	of the woodwork like termites from a rotting house to tell you
	they should have the top slot, so you won't lack for other
	choices.

	So, children, can you set aside your enmity, and your napalm,
	and your egos big as a planet, and make a concerted effort to
	make this work?  I have 17 vote pledges; WE need 10,000,000
	times that many.  Who feels like taking on the job?

	I am looking for a Vice Presidential candidate.  She should be a
	minority person, to lend credence to this being a movement for
	the good of the whole nation.  Any takers?

Kent, the man from xanth, rolled over and went back to sleep, sure in
his mind that not a one of them would ever realize he was serious, and,
besides, he'd missed a nap and both his cats were already asleep.

Kent, the (sympathetic or sarcastic, you just can't tell) man from
xanth.

Keep those Birthright Party presidential vote pledges coming in,
kiddies.  Still looking for that big #18!  Just 99,999,983 to go for a
win in '88!

"That man sleeping in the gutter?  Yeah, him, that's the one.  I'm
trying to get him honest work.  Could you sign this petition to put his
name on the ballot for 1988?  Sure, the presidency.  We have a tradition
of sleeping presidents.  The safest kind, if you ask me.  Wake 'em up
and they invade defenseless Caribbean islands.  Last time I saw _him_
awake, he muttered something about spending _his_ invasion budget on
space exploration.  Hey, come back, it's not that unlikely!  Damn, lost
another one!  What have people got against spending money where there's
some chance of return, anyway?"

Kent, the man from xanth.       -^-"  -^-"  -^-"  -^-"  -^-"  -^-"  -^-"  -^-"
Cullinary specialist in the preparation and enjoyment of Greater Seattle Tiger\
Slug treats.  Author of _1001_Ways_to_Roast_a_Slug_.  Greater Seattle Tiger   /
Slugs (tm) are the official diet of the Birthright Party: "A food best sent  "
far into space."  Be the first on Europa to serve Slug Dodgers!  Support the  \
man in space, slug in space program! Help get those slugs out of here! "-^- "-'

Kent, the (Birthright Party's Choice for Chief Somnambulist) man from xanth.
"The Birthright of Mankind is the Stars!"

+-------------------------------------------------------+
|\~                                                     |
| |~  .  o  o  .    :;:    ()    -O-    0     . O       |
| |~        ^                                           |
|/~         |                                           |
|      You are Here                                     |
|                                                       |
|Wouldn't you rather be out there -->                   |
|                                                       |
|Support the Birthright Party Today!                    |
|                                                       |
|(Note: Above diagram NOT to scale.)                    |
+-------------------------------------------------------+

[This lovely banner, available at a terminal near you for a donation
 of a mere 3 5/7 Quatloos, brought to you through the keyboard talents
 of Michael P. Seidel, Press Secretary Nominee to the Administration
 of the Chief Somnambulist Candidate.]

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #149
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 29 Feb 88 06:20:52 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA06324; Mon, 29 Feb 88 03:18:59 PST
	id AA06324; Mon, 29 Feb 88 03:18:59 PST
Date: Mon, 29 Feb 88 03:18:59 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8802291118.AA06324@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #150

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 150

Today's Topics:
		       ADAM SMITH'S MONEY WORLD
			 Re: H-Fusion Ramjet
		       Re: Operant conditioning
			 Re: H-Fusion Ramjet
			  Re: NASA SPACELINK
			     Re: Arecibo
		    Re: Coercive Space Exploration
			    Re: Navigation
		  Re: Source of plutonium for RTG's
			  Re: Free-fall sex
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 21 Feb 88 21:22:30 GMT
From: ihnp4!homxb!hropus!ki4pv!codas!novavax!ankh!Peter_Glaskowsky@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Peter Glaskowsky)
Subject: ADAM SMITH'S MONEY WORLD


 
"Adam Smith's Money World", a public-television financial news show, devoted 
a show this week to the United States space program.
 
There was a recap of the US space program to date; problems with the space 
shuttle were attributed to conflicting requirements imposed by NASA and the 
Department of Defense, a "shoestring budget", the requirement that the 
shuttle program should be self-supporting, and efforts by NASA to gain and 
maintain a "monopoly on the space launching business".
 
Not much was said about the Challenger accident per se; it was pointed out 
that the Shuttle was never expected to be perfectly safe, and they left it at 
that. The show went on to describe the current status of the US space program 
(poor) and the status of the foreign competition (generally good).
 
"If you absolutely, positively have to get into space", the show said, you 
can't do it here. The Shuttle is out of action, and booked well into the 
future once it gets going again. US defense contractors are beginning to 
develop a private launch capability (the Titan IV program was mentioned), but 
they won't be ready for a while. The American Rocket Company (AMROC) was 
portrayed very favorably; there was a lot of footage of AMROC facilities, 
test firings, etc., and NASA was represented as AMROC's main obstacle to 
further progress. However, AMROC doesn't expect a launch before mid-1989 at 
the earliest. The ARIANESPACE operation was presented as the only real 
operational launch operation in the West, but they're booked through 1991. 
Japan's progress was briefly noted. China was also mentioned.
 
The Soviet Union's successful space program was a major topic in the show. 
Once again, the US government was criticized for interfering with private 
companies in the US which have tried to get permission to launch satellites 
on Soviet boosters. Arthur Dula was interviewed about his efforts to get the 
US government to reverse its position on this issue.
He said that the laws intended to limit technology transfer from the US to 
the Soviet Union, being used to deny export licenses for US satellites, 
should not apply; he said the Soviet Union has agreed to allow US scientists 
and military personnel to accompany US satellites through the launch 
procedure to ensure that these laws are not violated.
 
There were additional interviews with George Koopman of AMROC, Joseph Allen 
and Maxime Faget of Space Industries, Inc., John Pike of the Federation of 
American Scientists, and Gregg Fawkes of the US Department of Commerce.
 
The future of the US space program was discussed, with emphasis on the 
recent White House proposals. The Space Industries, Inc. Industrial Space 
Facility (ISF) was discussed as an inexpensive way to get the US back into 
space quickly. The ISF was projected to cost about $500 million, and could be 
operational by 1991. While John Pike of the FAS opposed the ISF (a 
"questionable" expenditure, quoted NASA study purporting to show that the ISF 
was only useful for one "refrigerator-sized" materials-processing experiment, 
claimed private industry wouldn't be willing to finance it without a 
government "subsidy"), Gregg Fawkes of the US Department of Commerce 
supported the concept (and mentioned a Teledyne-Brown study showing the ISF 
to be suitable for many different sorts of experiments). Joe Allen of Space 
Industries, Inc. made the point that the ISF was not intended as an 
alternative to NASA's larger space station; he drew an analogy between a 
motor home without plumbing, and a house "where people could live". James 
Rose of NASA and Edward Hudgins of the Heritage Foundation were also brought 
in to make favorable comments about the ISF.
 
NASA's own space station design was not explored in detail; a few
mostly-negative comments were made (the high cost, ranging up to $32 
billion, and the long delay until it becomes operational, possibly not until 
the turn of the century), and in general it was not represented as a Good 
Thing.
 
The last part of the show was a Q&A session between Adam Smith, John Pike, 
and Gregg Fawkes. Pike came down hard on space in general, and the ISF, the 
NASA space station, and NASA itself in particular. He made many favorable 
comments about the Soviet space program. Fawkes charged the Soviets with 
offering launch services below cost (Adam Smith used the terms "dumping" and 
"loss leader" pricing, with which Fawkes agreed). Pike characterized Soviet 
launch pricing as "promotional pricing", and said they are "just competing" 
with NASA and private enterprise launch facilities, and that they would have 
to recover their costs eventually.
 
A transcript of the show is available from:
 Adam Smith's Money World
 267 Broadway
 New York, NY 10007
 
Transcripts are $3.00; be sure to mention the date of the show (2/21/88) and 
the subject (the space program).
 
Standard disclaimers. I taped the show, but haven't reviewed it yet. Any 
errors are probably mine, and I have tried to keep my own opinions to myself.
 
 Peter N. Glaskowsky, Sysop, the John Galt Line TBBS.  Voice: 305-235-1421
 uucp: !uunet!gould!umbio!pglask                        Data: 305-235-1645
--- TBBS v2.0
 * Origin: The John Galt Line -- (305) 235-1645  (135/13)
SEEN-BY: 135/7 13 369/6

------------------------------

Date: 22 Feb 88 03:29:40 GMT
From: pasteur!agate!saturn!ucscb.UCSC.EDU!etrigan@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (The Fantasy Demon)
Subject: Re: H-Fusion Ramjet


This was quite sometime ago that I heard/read this, but I believe
that a ramjet would not work per se; or at least not in the way that 
I have seen it configured. Rather, it would act as a starship braking
system (all those cute little molecules 'impacting' upon the ramjet
surface/whatever). And a rather good brake at that...

Any comments?




-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|UUCP:   ...!ucbvax!ucscc!ucscb!etrigan |    All my life,                     |
|ARPA:   etrigan@ucscb.ucsc.edu         |      I wanted to be somebdy...      |
|BITNET: etrigan@ucscb@ucscc.BITNET     |    I guess I should                 |
|U.C.S.C. - Uncle Charlie's Summer Camp |      have been more specific...     |
|R.S.V.P - Joe Di Lellio	        |                      -Anon          |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| These opinions are mine. Mine, Mine, Mine! Hee hee hee he eheheheheheh...   |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: 25 Feb 88 00:43:52 GMT
From: sdcrdcf!csun!polyslo!jmckerna@burdvax.prc.unisys.com  (John L McKernan)
Subject: Re: Operant conditioning

In article <8802191856.AA24807@crash.cts.com> lll-crg!ames!sdcsvax!bass.nosc.mil!pnet01!jim@mordor.s1.gov writes:
>You're right.  NASA's primary mission is to waste taxpayer's money and
>inhibit free enterprise.  Reagan's recent policy announcement will
>aid them in this by bolstering funding to STS and Space Station while 
>providing relatively no money for purchase of private launch services,
>despite the wonderful sounding rhetoric to the contrary.

Au contraire. As I understand it, the Reagan administrations new space policy 
(whatever that's worth coming all of nine months before the end of his 
presidency (we're talking bold leadership here!)) does more to provide a
guarenteed market for private space companies than anything previously proposed.


John L. McKernan.                    Student, Computer Science, Cal Poly S.L.O.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Servant's gossip in Aillas's castle: "Have you heard the latest?, GREEN jewelry
                                  is the new fad among the ladies of the court."

------------------------------

Date: 24 Feb 88 23:53:15 GMT
From: cos!smith@uunet.uu.net  (Steve Smith)
Subject: Re: H-Fusion Ramjet

In article <2052@saturn.ucsc.edu> etrigan@ucscb.UCSC.EDU (Demonicus Fantasia) writes:

>This was quite sometime ago that I heard/read this, but I believe
>that a ramjet would not work per se; or at least not in the way that 
>I have seen it configured. Rather, it would act as a starship braking
>system (all those cute little molecules 'impacting' upon the ramjet
>surface/whatever). And a rather good brake at that...

>Any comments?


What you need to do is configure your magnetic fusion area as a
travelling wave.  That way, you don't have to bring the interstellar
hydrogen up to the ship's speed before you burn it - it burns at
rest.

If I knew exactly how to do it, I would be writing patent applications
instead of news articles! (:-)

-- 
                -- Steve
(smith@cos.com)    ({uunet sundc decuac hqda-ai hadron}!cos!smith)
"Truth is stranger than fiction because fiction has to make sense."

------------------------------

Date: 24 Feb 88 20:32:59 GMT
From: cooksys!walt@uunet.uu.net  (Walt Cooksey)
Subject: Re: NASA SPACELINK

In article <1004@its63b.ed.ac.uk> bob@its63b.ed.ac.uk (ERCF08 Bob Gray) writes:
:In article <4863@ames.arpa> mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov.UUCP (Mike Smithwick) writes:
::In article <3.2219060F@ankh.UUCP> John_Emmert@ankh.UUCP (John Emmert) writes:
::: NASA Spacelink is a data base of information designed 
::: to be used by teachers but it is open for public use.
::: The number is 895-0028. 
::Is there an area-code associated with this number???
::
:Or a country code, even?
:	Bob.
::


205 - Alablama



-- 
Walt Cooksey		COOKSEY SYSTEMS, INC		(404) 469-2321
			uunet!cooksys!walt		CIS 76010,522
			gatech!dscatl!cooksys!walt

------------------------------

Date: 24 Feb 88 19:07:38 GMT
From: devvax!tomc@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov  (Tom Clodfelter)
Subject: Re: Arecibo




	The Arecibo Observatory is part of N.A.I.C (The National
Astronomy and Ionosphere Center) .  N.A.I.C. is headquarted at
Cornell University.  It is operated by Cornell University for the
NSF.   *** Although NAIC works closekly with the Cornell astronomy
department it is not responsible to it.  It is a a different
organization. ***

Frank Drake was once Director of NAIC but I do not believe
that Carl Sagen has ever held a post with the organization other
than as a consultant.  The current director is Thor Hagfors (sp!)
and Riccardo Geovanelli (sp!) is the acting director at the
observatory site.  Although NRAO and NAIC often work together, they
are very seperate organizations.   

NAIC is made up of a bunch of good people.  I know...I used
to work there and I miss them.


===============================================================================
         _#_                                | W. Thomas Clodfelter
  .  *    # .       .   * .     *  .        | JPL Systems Eng. Tech. Support
     _____#_____ *.   .      .      .   .   | Jet Propulsion Laboratory
   . \         / .   . .   *     .    .   . | California Institute of Tech.
  ____\_______/____   .  .    .    .        | MS 301-260/350
###===|Galileo|===================######|## | 4800 Oak Grove Drive
      |_______|    *  .  .    *   . .   .   | Pasadena, California 91109
  *  . O|   |O  .    . .    * .      .      | ucbvax!ames!elroy!jpl-devvax!tomc
        /___\     *        .     .       .  | tomc@jpl-devvax.jpl.nasa.gov
===============================================================================

------------------------------

Date: 26 Feb 1988 10:35-EST 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: Coercive Space Exploration

> Just what is it about space interest groups that attract so many
> anarchists?  Who's to say that coercion is the exclusive province of
> governments?

The same thing that attracted our great-grandfathers to America and our
grandfathers to the West.

Space is the only place left. The only place where we can escape the
vile clutches of statists. It shouldn't be the least bit surprising to
find nearly ALL of us interested in space.

I may be forced to live out my life under tyranny, but at least I can
ensure that those who come after will live in freedom.

------------------------------

Date: 23 Feb 88 19:31:43 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Navigation

> ... I personally boycott the use of any publicly owned
> tranport system. If there is a private alternative available, I will
> almost invariably use it...

I'm always amused by the people who boycott government-owned transit
systems in favor of privately-owned cars... driven on government-owned
roads patrolled by government police who demand that all cars display
government license plates and all drivers have government-issued licences
and obey the latest set of government rules.  The street/road/highway
system is just as much a government-owned transit system as a subway is.
Sure, the cars are privately owned; so are the shoes I wear when I ride
the subway.

I do agree with Dale's original point, though, that the non-government
nature of Geostar is an advantage for it.
-- 
Those who do not understand Unix are |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
condemned to reinvent it, poorly.    | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 26 Feb 88 11:45:36 -0500 (EST)
From: "George H. Feil" <gf08+@andrew.cmu.edu>
X-Andrew-Message-Size: 737+0
Subject: Re: Source of plutonium for RTG's


I believe one of the reasons behind scrapping Hanford's N-plant is that the 
Pentagon has a "large" stockpile of Plutonium.  Also, the dismantling of 
nuclear missile warheads in accordance with arms treaties with the Soviets 
should make some more fission material available.

Has anyone heard about any plans for a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant 
recently?  There is a tremendous stockpile of high-level waste in this 
country.  Such a plant could extract plutonium from the spent fuel rods all 
the nuclear power plants are spewing out.  Since we do have all this 
plutonium-rich waste sitting about, it would make much more sense to have an 
operating reprocessing plant than to be fissioning it out of uranium.

-hal (gf08+@andrew.cmu.edu)

------------------------------

Date: 23 Feb 88 15:30:26 GMT
From: ihnp4!uniq!rjnoe@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Roger J. Noe)
Subject: Re: Free-fall sex

I've cross-posted this to rec.scuba to follow-up this specific topic.
The whole subject should be understood to be partially humorous.  (Yes,
I know that's obvious to 98% of you, but the other 2% . . .)

In article <8218@eleazar.Dartmouth.EDU>, seldon@eleazar.Dartmouth.EDU (Joe Walker) writes:
>   well...If someone really wanted to find out what it's like..find a willing
> partner and get some diving belts to make yourself nutraly boyant..and jump
> into a pool.
> 
> I'm not suggesting the REAL act, but you could really see what positions would
> work..
> (nutral boyancy (sic) is where an object submereged in water niether sinks or
> floats..thus simulating zero-gee.)

Why do you think warm-water scuba diving and snorkeling are so popular?
Somewhat more seriously, Joe Walker is correct that neutral buoyancy is one of
the best ways to simulate free-fall for extended periods of time without going
into orbit.  (I guess you could try a quickie on NASA's "vomit comet", a
converted cargo plane that makes repeated parabolic dives to produce free-fall
conditions - for something like 30 seconds at a pop.  Oops, sorry.)  The
NASA astronauts spend a pretty fair amount of time in one of their
facilities designed for weightless simulation:  large "swimming pools",
something like 25 feet deep (all around) and large enough to accommodate
astronauts and quite a bit of gear.  Astronauts who have actually been in
EVA (extravehicular activity) situations have reported this to be a very
good simulation.

This leads me to believe that this suggestion might be pretty much on the
mark.  It sure would give new meaning to the terms "skin diving" and also
"buddy breathing".  I can see some problems with it:

1. You would have to include breathing apparatus (an air tank and regulator)
   since true neutral buoyancy requires complete submersion, not just enough
   to keep everything below your neck underwater.  Breath-holding without
   such apparatus is not an optimal solution, because you'd have to keep
   coming up for air.  (No additional comment.)

2. You'd need masks to see what's underwater.  Fins would not be necessary
   but a snorkel could prove interesting.

3. If scuba gear is to be used, your mouth would be otherwise occupied for
   at least most of the time.  You'd also have to remember to keep breathing
   normally and never hold your breath.  That could be difficult.

4. If in open water, environmental conditions would have to be nearly perfect
   as you'd have to do without a BCD (buoyancy compensating device, for you
   non-divers; basically an inflatable vest) and so much as a skin-tight
   Lycra suit, as both would be frustrating obstructions.  The temperature
   of the water would need to be up around 30C (86F) to remain comfortable
   for any length of time.  (Goose flesh is such a turn-off.)  I guess a
   private pool is the only really good alternative.  If properly chlorinated
   you also wouldn't have to worry so much about infections as you would in
   open water.

5. Given the lack of BCD and wet suit you would only need minimal weights
   (e.g. ankle weights) to counteract natural buoyancy.  Given a full tank
   on your back, you may in fact be negatively buoyant rather than neutrally.
   Being able to dispense with weights is definitely an advantage!

Given sufficiently motivated individuals it's still possible.  Even a small
positive buoyancy by jumping in a pool with absolutely nothing on would be
pretty close to free-fall (maybe 0.1g?) and avoids many of the problems that
complete submersion necessitates.  While I have heard vague and loose talk
on dive boats on the way out to a dive site, I don't really know anyone who
reports with credibility having had first-hand (hmm..) experience in this
particular aquatic activity.  Any volunteers?
--
What does it sound like when someone shouts "Oh, god" underwater?
	Roger Noe			{ihnp4|clyde}!uniq!rjnoe
	Uniq Digital Technologies	+1 312 879 1566
	Batavia, Illinois  60510	41:50:56 N.  88:18:35 W.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #150
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU;  1 Mar 88 06:20:14 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA07861; Tue, 1 Mar 88 03:18:25 PST
	id AA07861; Tue, 1 Mar 88 03:18:25 PST
Date: Tue, 1 Mar 88 03:18:25 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8803011118.AA07861@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #151

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 151

Today's Topics:
			     Mir elements
    Re: Payload of shuttle flight directly after last Challenger.
				   
			    Re: Starchart
		  Re: No wonder we're in trouble...
			  Re: Free-fall sex
			 Re: H-Fusion Ramjet
			  Re: Free-fall sex
		  Third Stage Engine: Ariane Rocket
		    German Satellite declared dead
		  Looking for solar insolation data
			  Re: Free-fall sex
		  Re: No wonder we're in trouble...
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 28 Feb 88 21:07:00 GMT
From: kenny@b.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Mir elements


Mir        
1 16609U          88 48.86895274 0.00071701           43307-3 0   737
2 16609  51.6324 328.0640 0014085 113.6084 246.8195 15.76829672114845
Satellite: Mir        
Catalog id 16609
Element set  73
Epoch: 88 48.86895274
Inclination:  51.6324 degrees
RA of node: 328.0640 degrees
Eccentricity:  0.0014085
Argument of perigee: 113.6084 degrees
Mean anomaly: 246.8195 degrees
Mean motion: 15.76829672 revs/day
Mean motion acceleration: 0.00071701 * 2 revs/day/day
Epoch Revolution: 11484

Semimajor axis:    6717.52 km
Apogee height*:     348.83 km
Perigee height*:     329.90 km


		Source: NASA Goddard via T.S.Kelso's `Celestial RCP/M'

* Apogee and perigee altitudes are referred to the mean radius of the
  Earth (6378.15 km), and not to the local radius of the geoid.  They
  are only approximate, and should not be used for orbit prediction.

------------------------------

Date: 23 Feb 88 21:48:06 GMT
From: pyramid!oliveb!amdahl!nuchat!flatline!erict@decwrl.dec.com  (eric townsend)
Subject: Re: Payload of shuttle flight directly after last Challenger.

In article <713@esunix.UUCP>, bpendlet@esunix.UUCP (Bob Pendleton) writes:

> You have to be careful with nuclear materials. But, you have to be reasonable
> about assesing risks. The word "plutonium" has you jumping out of your skin
> with fright. I'll bet the word "coal" doesn't frighten you at all. But I'll
> bet that the coal industry kills more people every year than the plutonium
> industry does.

My worries about the plutonium (at the time of the posting) were
directly related to my misunderstanding of the isotope generaters and
all the stuff that I've received so much email about...

I am worried about coal.  I think coal and hydrocarbon fuels in general
are a really bad idea.  I also wish solar powered everything would become
economical...  I've read a lot of stuff on alternative energy that leads
me to beleive it'd be quite easy.

Solar powered launch vehicles, anyone?
 
> 			Bob Pendleton
> Bob Pendleton @ Evans & Sutherland
> UUCP Address:  {decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4,allegra}!decwrl!esunix!bpendlet
> Alternate:     {ihnp4,seismo}!utah-cs!utah-gr!uplherc!esunix!bpendlet
>         I am solely responsible for what I say.
-- 
Just say NO to skate harassment. | Just another journalist with too much
If I wish really hard, will IBM go away forever?        | computing power..
Girls play with toys. Real women skate. -- Powell Peralta ad
J. Eric Townsend ->uunet!nuchat!flatline!erict smail:511Parker#2,Hstn,Tx,77007

------------------------------

Date: 26 Feb 88 10:59:00 PST
From: "KEVIN W. BOLD 0-1" <bold@afsc-sd.arpa>
Subject: 
To: "space" <space@angband.s1.gov>
Reply-To: "KEVIN W. BOLD 0-1" <bold@afsc-sd.arpa>

Government has no *practical* monopoly on coercion.  People tolerate being 
"governed" (see the footnote in Robert Nozick's *Anarchy, State, Utopia* 
quoting Proudhon on what it means to be "governed") because they rely on 
governments to protect them from coercive individuals (criminals) and coercive 
groups (organized crime, foreign powers).  The problem: governments stay in 
power by means of the things from which they are supposed to protect their 
clients (citizens), i.e., force and fraud.

Anarchism appeals to many in the space colony movement because it is a 
strong ingredient of the "pioneer spirit," as government was one of the 
things the pioneers were fleeing; today, space is the only frontier left.
(The government operated schools don't tell this to the kids because 
anarchists are "bad," but pioneers are "good.")

The Soviets, who lead us in space, have a rich anarchist heritage.  (Some 
of L. Neil Smith's characters are named after Russian anarchists.)  It 
would be a gas if their expansion to space triggered a renewed interest in 
the works of Bakunin, Kropotkin, et al.  Not impossible; many would-be space 
colonists in the US have enjoyed Ayn Rand, on whom anarchism has had more 
influence than her "Randroid" followers care to admit.


-- Kevin "Mad Max" Bold 	|When governments are outlawed, only 
(BOLD@AFSC-SD.ARPA)		|outlaws will want to govern.
------

------------------------------

Date: 26 Feb 88 04:53:49 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!watcgl!awpaeth@uunet.uu.net  (Alan W. Paeth)
Subject: Re: Starchart

In article <571555366.amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU> Dale.Amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU writes:
>Last year in Aug or Sep someone posted that a star chart would be
>posted to net.sources around 1-Oct-87. I didn't see it on that date,
>and neglected to keep checking. Does anyone have this software or have
>pointers to it?

The original StarChart was posted in early 1987 and provided output for the
Tektronix, Pic format and TTY devices. It was upgraded throughout 1987
to include Greek star symbols, PostScript output and other niceties.
It was posted to net.sources in Sep 88, and appeared in late November.
This version (2.0) can be obtained by the moderator of net.sources, Rick Salz.
Old articles in newsgroup net describe how to locate and request archived files.

A set of upgrades and minor bug fixes to generate a version 2.1 was posted
to sci.astro and crossposted to net.sources where it joined version 2 as
an archive.

Version 3.0 is due up in a few months -- this will add some new cartographic
projections. Long term plans include upgrading from 9000 stars (to about
magnitude 6.5 - a bit beyond visual) to about 250K stars (~mag 8.5).

    /Alan Paeth (author and poster)
    Computer Graphics Lab
    University of Waterloo

------------------------------

Sender: Wegeng.WBST207V@xerox.com
Date: 26 Feb 88 14:58:44 PST (Friday)
Subject: Re: No wonder we're in trouble...
From: Wegeng.WBST207V@xerox.com
To: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Cc: Space@angband.s1.gov, Wegeng.WBST207V@xerox.com


There was one item in Dale's message that disturbed me.

>It appears that there will be a severe shortage in launch facilities in
>this country in the near future, and it is ENTIRELY a government
>created shortage.

Why? If it takes a couple years to get EPA permission to build a new gantry on
an existing test range, then why not start the process NOW? Let's apply to build
a whole bunch of the things while were at it.

This seems so obvious that I must have missed something...

/Don

------------------------------

Date: 26 Feb 88 16:59:13 GMT
From: erc@tybalt.caltech.edu  (Eric R. Christian)
Subject: Re: Free-fall sex


If you are really interested in underwater sex, I suggest you check out
the X-Rated movie "Lure of the Triangle" (I'm serious).  I've never
actually seen the movie (no, really), but I have seen clips from it and
they clearly explore a range of activities.  The participants are wearing
tanks and masks, and it appears to be filmed in a lake or ocean as opposed
to a pool.

I apologize if this message is a repeat, but from my end, it appears the
original article did not get out.  Please send me mail if you read this
(also tell me if you got my previous posting).

Eric R. Christian
erc@tybalt.caltech.edu

------------------------------

Date: 26 Feb 88 15:09:12 GMT
From: s.cc.purdue.edu!ain@h.cc.purdue.edu  (Patrick White)
Subject: Re: H-Fusion Ramjet

In article <1012@cos.COM> smith@cos.UUCP (Steve Smith) writes:
>What you need to do is configure your magnetic fusion area as a
>travelling wave.  ... - it burns at rest.

   I can see how one might get all of this idea to work except for getting
enough H together to fuse.. only way I can think of requires moving it
around.

   Can anyone think of any way around this?


-- Pat White
UUCP: k.cc.purdue.edu!ain  BITNET: PATWHITE@PURCCVM   PHONE: (317) 743-8421
U.S.  Mail:  320 Brown St. apt. 406,    West Lafayette, IN 47906

------------------------------

Date: 26 Feb 88 03:02:03 GMT
From: decvax!dartvax!eleazar!seldon@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Joe Walker)
Subject: Re: Free-fall sex


    Well...The ACTUAL act might be tough to do (as you stated above), but
to just get arough idea of a workable position and *grimace* what the motion
would be like, you could try it in water that was just below your chin and try
holding your breath. *Don't look at me!! I didn't start this conversation!*

    On a more serious note: NASA has considered the possibilities of sex on
long duration missions (Mars mission for example.) They were wondering if they
should take into account the privacy required for intamacy in the design of
crew modules. *Between two MARRIED couples of course!!* Such measures as this
might be necessary to preserve an astronaut's sanity.

                                                      *Oh well...*

( No flames please..I know this is a touchy subject for some people...)

------------------------------

Date: 26 Feb 88 09:54:04 GMT
From: phri!dasys1!patth@nyu.edu  (Patt Haring)
Subject: Third Stage Engine: Ariane Rocket

THIRD-STAGE ENGINE FOR ARIANE ROCKET PASSES TEST 

ARIANE ENGINE  

PARIS (FEB. 25) - A third-stage engine for the European rocket Ariane was
test-fired Tuesday for a record time of 16 minutes and 40 seconds, without
problems, an informed source said here Thursday.  

The test was carried out on a test-bench of the European Propulsion Company.
The motor is to undergo two more identical tests in the next few days, the
source said.  

The engine burns oxygen and liquid hydrogen, and ignites only at high altitude.
In normal flight, it is supposed to operate for only 720 to 725 seconds.  

The testing is part of a program requested by the French National Space Studies
Center (CNES) and the European Space Agency (ESA) following failure of Ariane
flights blamed on the motor.  




-- 
Patt Haring                 {sun!hoptoad,cmcl2!phri}!dasys1!patth
Big Electric Cat Public Access Unix (212) 879-9031 - System Operator

Three aspects of wisdom:  intelligence, justice & kindness.

------------------------------

Date: 26 Feb 88 09:29:21 GMT
From: phri!dasys1!patth@nyu.edu  (Patt Haring)
Subject: German Satellite declared dead

GERMAN TV SATELLITE DECLARED DEAD AFTER FAILURE TO DEPLOY PANELS 

GERMAN SATELLITE  

PARIS (FEB. 25) - The West German television satellite TV-SAT1 has been
officially declared dead after it failed to deploy its two solar panels, its
French builders said.  

One solar panel failed to open up when the satellite was placed into orbit by
the European rocket Ariane on November 21 and has remained blocked despite two
months of efforts by West German scientists.  

Scientists had hoped to operate the satellite with one panel only but the
eloped by West Germany and France under a programme launched in
1980.  

France's first television satellite, TDF-1, is to be launched by the Ariane
rocket next September while the second West German satellite is scheduled for
launching in February 1990.  

Foreseeing the loss of TV-SAT, the West Germany's postal service  Bundespost,
the operator of the satellite, had been negotiating with France's broadcasting
body TDF for the possible leasing of several channels on the French satellite. 





-- 
Patt Haring                 {sun!hoptoad,cmcl2!phri}!dasys1!patth
Big Electric Cat Public Access Unix (212) 879-9031 - System Operator

Three aspects of wisdom:  intelligence, justice & kindness.

------------------------------

Date: 26 Feb 88 07:48:00 GMT
From: orstcs!mist!koff@rutgers.edu  (Caroline N. Koff)
Subject: Looking for solar insolation data

I need solar insolation data, preferrably AM0, for my solar cell
modelling program.  I am looking for data already in a file, so that
I don't have to type it in!  (I don't have an access to a scanner to
automate this process.)  Please reply to me directly at:

UUCP: {tektronix, hp-pcd}!orstcs!koff
CSNET: koff%cs.orst.edu@relay.cs.net

Thanks in advance!

------------------------------

Date: 27 Feb 88 17:35:02 GMT
From: thomson@cs.utah.edu  (Richard A Thomson)
Subject: Re: Free-fall sex

In article <8262@eleazar.Dartmouth.EDU> seldon@eleazar.Dartmouth.EDU
(Joe Walker) writes:
>    On a more serious note: NASA has considered the possibilities of sex on
>long duration missions (Mars mission for example.) They were wondering if they
>should take into account the privacy required for intamacy in the design of
>crew modules. *Between two MARRIED couples of course!!* Such measures as this
				    ^^^^^^^
>might be necessary to preserve an astronaut's sanity.

Surely you meant two married persons?  Perhaps you were trying to start a
thread about free-fall orgies?  Now that does increase the possibilities,
doesn't it....
					Rich Thomson

------------------------------

Date: 27 Feb 1988 17:56-EST 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
To: Wegeng.WBST207V@xerox.com, space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: Re: No wonder we're in trouble...

> Why? If it takes a couple years to get EPA permission to build a new
> gantry on an existing test range, then why not start the process NOW?
> Let's apply to build a whole bunch of the things while were at it.
> This seems so obvious that I must have missed something...

What you are missing is very, very obvious if you happen to be (or have
been) an entrepreneur. First, one must define who is the 'we' implied
by the 'let us' in your statement.

The large aerospace companies don't particular care, and can use
political pressure and 'national defense' urgency unavailable to the
smaller operator FOR THEIR OWN NEEDS.

The government agencies don't need it for their own purposes, so they
would rather spend the money on other things rather than be accused of
underwriting private ventures.

If 'we' is the entrepreneurial companies I was discussing, the problems
are immense.

The 2 year process is not certain to end in a license. I also noted
that this is the time for an EXISTING test test range, assuming you can
FIND a place to do it. I also noted that many suitable areas on those
existing ranges have been removed from the running due to 'national
historical landmarks of areas at both the Cape and Vandenberg. It also
happens to be the case that large portions of KSC are a bird sanctuary.
(The meat and bones type, not the aluminum and titanium birds we're
interested in.)  With limited possibilities on the existing national
ranges, those who attempt to significantly expand capacity will be
forced to search for new ranges. God only knows how many years and
millions in legal fees it will take to get the permit, remove the
demonstrators for the preservation of the anopholes mosquito, fight the
injunction by the committee to remove radium from watchfaces, etc. 7-10
years would not surprise me at all if attempted on the coasts of the
continental US.

It is very difficult to justify the time cost of money to a venture
capitalist when the success or failure of your entire operation is
dependant upon the arbitrary whims of beauracrats and the possibility
of many years of legal battles. Nothing scares them off faster than
'regulatory uncertainty'.

I would go so far as to say that anyone stupid enough to invest
millions of dollars for building gantry capacity for an unproven
market, for an unknown future launch technology, requiring court and
regulatory battles, with no possibility of a return on investment for
10 years, does not have the money to invest in the first place.

Anyone who is familiar with feedback control systems can think this
through quite clearly. The regulatory requirements are sticking a very
large delay line in the feedback loop, and we all know this can lead to
an unstable system. Capacity will tend to oscillate between massive
undercapacity and massive overcapacity. The more violent the swings,
the more severe the damage it will do to businesses on both ends of the
swing.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #151
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU;  2 Mar 88 06:23:17 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA09464; Wed, 2 Mar 88 03:21:20 PST
	id AA09464; Wed, 2 Mar 88 03:21:20 PST
Date: Wed, 2 Mar 88 03:21:20 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8803021121.AA09464@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #152

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 152

Today's Topics:
	       New Road to Mars: Chicago-area lectures
		     Mir predictions and Software
	   Re: Choice of launch site (was Re: Erector set)
		       data and long distances
		    United Nations Press Releases
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date:     Mon, 29 Feb 88 21:30 CST
From: Bill Higgins, Beam Jockey <HIGGINS%FNALC.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Subject:  New Road to Mars: Chicago-area lectures
Original_To:  SPACE

*ahem* Ladies and gentlemen of the Net, I beg your indulgence while I
toot my own horn a little...

A number of groups in the Chicago area have asked me to reprise my
slideshow on Mars exploration.  I'll be giving this talk twice in March,
and again on "Astronomy Day," April 23, though I don't have the location
yet.

All presentations are open to the public.  Come if it sounds
interesting.

	      Bill Higgins
	      Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
	      HIGGINS@FNALB.BITNET
	      SPAN/HEPnet: 43011::HIGGINS

			  THE NEW ROAD TO MARS
				    
			   William S. Higgins
				    
		     Chicago Space Frontier Society
				    
Human exploration of Mars is emerging as a possible goal for the U.S.
space program after more than a decade in eclipse.  The third Case for
Mars conference surveyed current technical ideas for robot probes,
piloted missions, science objectives, Martian bases, Phobos and Deimos
exploration, and obtaining useful resources-- such as fuel, air, water,
metals, and building materials-- from the vicinity of Mars. This
presentation will also cover combined rover and sample return missions,
new mission profiles and trajectories, and possible hiding places for
native Martian life.

				    
			  Friday, 4 March 1988
				7:30 PM
		     Northwest Suburban Astronomers
		     Eisenhower Junior High School
		       Hoffman Estates, Illinois
				    
			    *** AND ALSO ***
				    
			 Sunday, 13 March 1988
				1:00 PM
		   Chicago Society for Space Studies
		      Adler Planetarium Auditorium
			   Chicago, Illinois

------------------------------

Date: 28 Feb 88 10:03:23 GMT
From: snowdog@athena.mit.edu  (Richard Brezina)
Subject: Mir predictions and Software

Hello everyone!

Well, today is the end of the Mir observing window for Florida and
Texas; the window ended a few days ago for more northern parts of the
States.  The next window starts approximately March 28 to April 4,
depending largely on your latitude.  For those of you in other parts of
the world (especially latitude-wise), you might have a window coming
right now, so if you want to see Mir, don't put off asking!

I now have 38 people on my prediction list, with more requests still
coming.  I have modified my tracking program so it runs by itself for
everyone, and all I have to do is retype the predictions onto e-mail.
During the next window, I'll be prepared and organized, and each of you
who signed up will receive predictions well ahead of time.  I am also
thinking (following the suggestions of a few of you) about setting up a
mail-response program that would send predictions automatically.  Of
course, it'll take a while to implement this.

Many of you reported seeing Mir.  It was most gratifying to receive
letters filled with excitement from you, and they made my whole effort
worth the while.  Thanks for your interest!

For those of you who requested software, I have to download it somehow
onto this computer system, before I can sent it.  Once I do that, I will
notify you.

-Rich
(snowdog@athena.mit.edu)

------------------------------

Date: Sun 28 Feb 88 11:10:44-PST
From: ~  Victor Von Doom  ~   <J.JBRENNER@macbeth.stanford.edu>
Subject: Re: Choice of launch site (was Re: Erector set)

Many thanks to Eric Lee Green for providing some numbers on the cost of
offshore oil platforms (Sumarry: Shallow Water: $100K, Deep Water:
$100M, Land: $5K per acre).  I do wish he (and everyone else) would be a
little less quick on the draw when shooting down an idea:

> Since contenental-shelf areas are generally under the protectorship of
> ajoining nations (at least fisheries-wise & environmental regulation),
> a free-floating spaceport is pretty much out of the question. Land is
> a lot cheaper ($5,000/acre, as vs. 100k or more for a teeny oil
> platform).

Isn't it possible that a deep sea spaceport could be cheaper than a deep
sea oil rig?  Extreme stability may not be strictly necessary.  And the
environmental/legal/insurance hassles associated with land basing may
well outway the hassles (plus additional cost) associated with a shallow
water launch site (such as the Kingman Reef site under discussion).

Like they say at 3M, an idea should never be killed, only deflected.

> Eric Lee Green  elg@usl.CSNET

Joe Brenner  J.JBRENNER%Macbeth@Stanford.edu

------------------------------

Date: 1 Mar 88 00:10:39 GMT
From: uop!todd@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu  (Dr. Nethack)
Subject: data and long distances

Ok, with all the talk of space stations and moon bases, how are the data
protocols going to be set up for deep space?

I mean, you can hardly have a duplex conversation if the data is several
minutes in getting there.

What work is being done in this area?

How are the problems overcome?  Just waiting, I suppose?

------------------------------

Date: 28 Feb 88 02:38:43 GMT
From: phri!dasys1!patth@nyu.edu  (Patt Haring)
Subject: United Nations Press Releases

Reposted from:  United Nations Information Transfer Exchange BBS
                  (1:107/701 on the FidoNETwork)
                    1-212-764-5912 (3/12/2400 baud, 24 hrs)
                      James Waldron, Ph.D. - Sysop
                      Dorothy Nicklus      - NGO Rep




N.B.  Items     1,5                     posted to soc.women
         "      2-4,8,10,11,18          posted to misc.headlines
        "       6                       posted to soc.culture.indian
        "       7                       posted to talk.politics.mideast
        "       9,14,16,17              posted to sci.space
        "       12,13,15                soc.culture.african

************************ UNITED NATIONS PRESS RELEASES ************************
FRIDAY    FEBRUARY 26, 1988 

1   WOM/430     -------------------------------    Issued: 23 February 1988
    COMMITTEE TO ELIMINATE DISCRIMINATION AGAINST WOMEN
    COMMENTS ON INITIAL REPORT OF AUSTRALIA

2   HR/3231     -------------------------------    Issued: 24 February 1988
    HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION TAKES UP QUESTION OF RIGHTS OF DETAINEES
    AND PRISONERS
    (PART 1)

3   HR/3231     -------------------------------    Issued: 24 February 1988
    HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION TAKES UP QUESTION OF RIGHTS OF DETAINEES
    AND PRISONERS
    (PART 2)

4   HR/3231     -------------------------------    Issued: 24 February 1988
    HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION TAKES UP QUESTION OF RIGHTS OF DETAINEES
    AND PRISONERS
    (PART 3)

5   WOM/432     -------------------------------    Issued: 24 February 1988
    STATUS OF MALIAN WOMEN DISCUSSED AS COMMITTEE ON ELIMINATING
    DISCRIMINATION AGAINST WOMEN CONSIDERS INITIAL REPORT OF MALI

6   BIO/2307     ------------------------------    Issued: 25 February 1988
    NEW PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE OF SRI LANKA PRESENTS CREDENTIALS

7   BIO/2308     ------------------------------    Issued: 25 February 1988
    NEW PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE OF SYRIA PRESENTS CREDENTIALS

8   HR/3232     -------------------------------    Issued: 24 February 1988
    COMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND CULTURAL RIGHTS CONSIDERS REPORT
    OF SESSIONAL WORKING GROUP

9   OS/1338     -------------------------------    Issued: 24 February 1988
    SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL SUB-COMMITTEE DISCUSSES LIFE SCIENCES,
    PLANETARY EXPLORATION, ASTRONOMICAL RESEARCH

10  HR/3235     -------------------------------    Issued: 25 February 1988
    HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION CONTINUES DEBATE ON HUMAN RIGHTS
    OF DETAINEES AND PRISONERS

11  ICAO/710     ------------------------------    Issued: 25 February 1988
    DIPLOMATIC CONFERENCE ON AIR LAW ADOPTS PROTOCOL ON AIRPORT VIOLENCE

12  IB/4895     -------------------------------    Issued: 25 February 1988
    PROJECTS IN CAMEROON, CYPRUS, REPUBLIC OF KOREA RECEIVE WORLD BANK
    SUPPORT; NIGER, MALAWI, BURUNDI GET IDA CREDITS

13  GA/AP/1838     ----------------------------    Issued: 25 February 1988
    ANTI-APARTHEID COMMITTEE CALLS FOR DENUNCIATION OF 'NEW WAVE
    OF REPRESSION' BY SOUTH AFRICA AND IMPOSITION OF SANCTIONS
    AGAINST REGIME

14  IAEA/1119     -----------------------------    Issued: 25 February 1988
    INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY DEMONSTRATES
    EARLY NOTIFICATION SYSTEM FOR NUCLEAR ACCIDENTS

15  HR/3234     -------------------------------    Issued: 25 February 1988
    HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION ADOPTS RESOLUTION ON SITUATION IN SOUTHERN AFRICA

16  OS/1339     -------------------------------    Issued: 25 February 1988
    SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL SUB-COMMITTEE HEARS PRESENTATION
    ON SUPERNOVA 1987

17  OS/1340     -------------------------------    Issued: 25 February 1988
    OUTER SPACE SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL SUB-COMMITTEE PREPARES REPORT

18  DC/2167     -------------------------------    Issued: 25 February 1988
    CONFERENCE ON DISARMAMENT HEARS STATEMENT BY PRESIDENT
    ON PRESENT STAGE OF WORK

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                  


OS/1338     -------------------------------    Issued: 24 February 1988 
  SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL SUB-COMMITTEE DISCUSSES LIFE SCIENCES, 
            PLANETARY EXPLORATION, ASTRONOMICAL RESEARCH


     The Scientific and Technical Sub-Committee of the Committee on the
Peaceful Uses of Outer Space this afternoon continued consideration of
items on life sciences and planetary exploration.  It then took up
consideration of its agenda item on astronomy.

     Statements were made by the representatives of the German
Democratic Republic, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, the United States, the
Soviet Union and Australia.

     Following the meeting, the representatives of the Soviet Union and
the United States presented slide presentation on life sciences,
specifically with respect to biorhythms in outer space.

     The Sub-Committee will meet again at 10:30 a.m. tomorrow, 25
February.

     Statements 

     ROBERT KNUTH (German Democratic Republic) said his country's
activities in the field of space physics covered planetary exploration,
planetology, planetogony and space plasma.

     A planetogonistic scenario had been developed that made it possible
to describe any eventual sequence of the processes making up the
planetary system and its evolved satellite systems, he continued.
Scientific interpretation of the data received on Halley's Comet from
the Vega spacecraft had led to remarkable progress in the visualization
of the cometary nucleus, identification of its surface features,
interpretation of the spectra of the cometary dust and reinterpretation
of magnetic field and plasma measurements.

     Future activities envisaged by the German Democratic Republic would
be carried out within the Soviet Phobos space research project, which
was open to international participation, he added.

     KAROLY SZEGO (Hungary) said that last October the Academy of
Sciences of the Soviet Union had organized a seminar to commemorate the
anniversary of the first Sputnik and to consider future space
activities.  The seminar, in which Hungary had participated, had
concluded that international co-operation must be promoted with regard
to the peaceful use of outer space.  Participants had agreed on the
necessity of studying Mars, including sending a mission there before the
end of the century.

     Stressing the advantages derived from bilateral and multilateral
co-operation in outer space, he said the only current East-West
co-operation in the field of space was in the joint activities of the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) of the United
States, European Space Agency, Japan and the Soviet Intercosmos
programme.  Hungary supported the Soviet proposal to establish a world
space organization, which would prove to be indispensable.

     PETR LALA (Czechoslovakia) said the research conducted by his
country had produced significant results in the field of X-ray astronomy
and space solar physics.  Those results had been made concrete with the
development and production of instruments, such as the X-ray photometer
and telescope.

     Evaluation of the data obtained from the EXOSAT experiment was now
complete, he stated; the results were interesting.

     Interesting results had also been obtained with regard to the
interplanetary magnetic field, solar wind and its interaction with the
earth's magnetosphere, he continued, thanks to the Intershock project
carried out from the Interkosmos Prognoz 10 satellite.

     HANS JOACHIM HAUBOLD (German Democratic Republic) said
international co-operation in the field of astronomy was an excellent
example of world-wide scientific co-operation.  Scientists from a number
of countries, including his own, had for years been involved in joint
experiments, using balloons, rockets and satellites.  That co-operation
should be continued and enhanced.

     The Central Institute for Astrophysics of the Academy of Sciences
of the German Democratic Republic was continuing its research on
extragalactic astrophysics and cosmology, stellar physics, particularly
solar physics and physics of the earth's magnetosphere, he went on.  The
Central Institute co-operated with observatories throughout the world.

     Astronomic studies from outer space, although still in their
infancy, had already opened up new visions of the universe and provided
new ways to promote peaceful international co-operation in outer space,
he added.

     PETER G. SMITH (United States) stated that the goal of his
country's activities in the field of space astronomy and astrophysics
was to understand the origin and evolution of the universe and the
fundamental physical laws governing cosmic phenomena.

     In 1987, there had been a rare opportunity to understand the
phenomena born from the death of a star and the resultant rebirth of
matter, he continued, thanks to the joint efforts of scientists from his
and other countries.  The discovery of a Supernova by the astronauts
[Astronomers] Ian Shelton and Oscar Duhalde in the Las Campanas
observatory of Chile had generated intense, world-wide scientific
interest.  No one had seen a supernova so close and bright since 1604,
which was before the invention of the telescope.  That discovery had
enabled scientists to study the supernova in all the radiation
wavelengths from the moment of its explosion.

     Last April, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration
(NASA) of the United States, in co-operation with a number of other
countries, had launched a major scientific effort to detect and analyze
the emissions from Supernova, he went on.  That programme would continue
until 1989 or later, and would facilitate satellite observations,
balloon and sounding rocket missions, aircraft flights and radio
observations.  In order to link scientists together and analyze the
data, the programme would rely on a computer communications network.

     B. KHABIROV (Soviet Union) said the Soviet planetary exploration
programme had concentrated in recent years on the study of Venus.  A
station had been set up in Venus's atmosphere by landing modules and
"Vega" probes in order to study the dynamics of that atmosphere.  The
"Vega" probe had passed alongside Halley's Comet.  The goal of another
international project, "Phobos", currently in the testing stages, was to
examine from a distance Phobos, by overflying it at 50 or 70 metres.
The project would enable scientists to study Mars from its orbit and to
make plasmic studies.

     The Soviet Union's programme for the study of the solar system was
currently involved in an intensive study of Mars, he continued.  A
satellite would be sent into the orbit of Mars, and a device equipped to
take samples of the Martian soil would be sent to Mars.  There were
plans to make a brief landing on Mars by the year 2000.

     Reaffirming the importance of international co-operation in that
field, he said that all scientists world-wide, particularly from the
United States and the Soviet Union, should combine their efforts.
Noting that those two countries had already agreed to co-operate in the
study of Mars, he said other countries, especially developing countries,
should take part in that research, both as observers and as
participants.

     The Soviet Union, he continued, was planning to develop the "Vesta"
programme in 1994 for the study of small celestial bodies.  Probes would
be sent to Mars, or near Mars and Venus.  A probe would be sent to the
asteroid belt and placed on one of the asteroids in order to take
samples.  In 1999, a study was planned of Jupiter, Saturn and Titan, one
of Saturn's satellites.

     He drew the attention of the Outer Space Affairs Division to the
fact that, in response to the request of the Sub-Committee and of the
Working Group on the Implementation of the Recommendations of the United
Nations Conference on the Exploration and Peaceful Uses of Outer Space
(UNISPACE 82) to hold further colloquia for developing countries, the
Soviet Union had said it was willing to organize a colloquium next year
or in 1988 and, again this year, to organize one for 1989.  The United
Nations Space Applications Programme had turned down those two offers.
The Secretariat should take due consideration of his country's offer.

     JILL COURTNEY (Australia) summarized the experiment in space
medicine conducted by Dr. Leopold Dintenfass of the Department of
Medicine of the University of Sydney within the framework of the space
shuttle "Discovery" flight.

     That experiment involved testing the reactions of eight human blood
samples to weightlessness, she continued.  The samples were obtained
from donors suffering from heart disease, cancer and kidney disorders.
The analyses were done in the space shuttle and on the ground.  The
experiment had shown that red cells did not change shape under zero
gravity, that the morphology of the blood remained normal and that
platelet aggregation was evident on the ground but not under zero
gravity.  Dr. Dintenfass planned to fly another experiment on the
shuttle during 1988.

     She also mentioned the research programme of Westmead Hospital on
respiratory function during weightlessness, and enumerated two other
collaborative programmes in space medicine, one with the United States
and the other with Europe.

     She then referred to her country's pre-eminent role in the research
conducted following the discovery of the supernova, and particularly the
Woomera launching range.  At the time of the supernova's appearance,
Australia possessed the only flyable high energy gamma-ray detector
operative in the world.

     VLADIMIR KOPAL, chief of the Outer Space Affairs Division,
responded to comments by Mr. Khabirov (Soviet Union) on his country's
offer to hold colloquia, saying he deeply appreciated the active
participation of the Soviet Union in the Division's programmes,
especially its offer to grant scholarships and organize seminars and
training courses in co-operation with the United Nations.  The
Secretariat's report on the United Nations seminars, workshops and
training courses scheduled for 1989 called for the organization, in
co-operation with the Soviet Union, of an international training course
on remote sensing applications in June 1989.

     ADIGUN ADE ABIODUN, a specialist in space technology applications,
said a three-week training course would take place in the Soviet Union
in 1989.  Consultations could be held with that country to develop other
joint projects.
                                                          



IAEA/1119     -----------------------------    Issued: 25 February 1988 
          INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY DEMONSTRATES 
          EARLY NOTIFICATION SYSTEM FOR NUCLEAR ACCIDENTS 


     VIENNA, 24 February (IAEA) -- A communications system designed to
rapidly notify responsible national authorities about nuclear accidents
having potential transboundary consequences was effectively demonstrated
today to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Board of
Governors, the 35-member policy-making body of the IAEA.

     The system has been established by the IAEA pursuant to its
responsibilities under the Convention on early notification of a nuclear
accident, which was adopted in September 1986 by the IAEA's 113 member
States.  The demonstration included the use of the Global
Telecommunication System (GTS) of the World Meteorological Organization
(WMO), which has been supporting the IAEA's work under the Convention.

     The demonstration was the fifth in a series of trials since 20
January 1988 to check the functioning of the modes of communication that
the IAEA would use to provide information to national authorities under
terms of the Convention.  During the demonstration, test information was
received by the IAEA from a nuclear station in the Federal Republic of
Germany and immediately relayed through the GTS to designated contact
points in countries around the world, which then confirmed their receipt
of the information to the IAEA for purposes of the demonstration.
During an actual emergency, the early notification convention requires
States parties to provide the IAEA with specified information which the
Agency would then transmit to its member States by Conventional and
other modes of communication.  The GTS is regarded as the most
appropriate mode of communication for rapid transmission of large
amounts of recorded meteorological and radiological data to a large
number of contact points.

     The IAEA's early notification system is expected to become fully
operational later this year following the Agency's issuance of a system
manual and guidebook.  Until the full operation of the system, the
Agency will continue to utilize the same conventional modes of
communication that have enabled its timely and reliable responses to
actual or hypothetical events in the past.  It should be emphasized that
the primary responsibility for notification and emergency planning and
preparedness remains with national authorities.

     The demonstration was part of the IAEA Board of Governors'
consideration of the Agency's nuclear safety and radiological programme,
and in particular measures that have been taken and are planned to
further strengthen international co-operation in this area.  The Board
is expected to conclude their meetings, at which other Agency programmes
and matters of international co-operation also are being discussed on 24
February.
                                           


OS/1339     -------------------------------    Issued: 25 February 1988 
     SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL SUB-COMMITTEE HEARS PRESENTATION
                         ON SUPERNOVA 1987


     The Scientific and Technical Sub-Committee of the Committee on the
Peaceful Uses of Outer Space this morning heard a presentation on the
Supernova 1987 by David Helfand of Columbia University.

     The Chairman of the Sub-Committee, John Carver (Australia),
announced that the draft report of the Working Group on the Use of
Nuclear Power Sources in Outer Space had just been issued (document
(A/AC.105/C.1/WG.5/L.19), and should be adopted this afternoon.  Also,
the Working Group of the Whole was to conclude its report and present it
to the Sub-Committee.

     This afternoon, the Sub-Committee will also consider other matters,
including the report of the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR), of the
International Council of Scientific Unions on progress in space research
during 1986-1987 and of the International Astronautical Federation (IAF)
on notable achievements in space technology during 1987.  The
Sub-Committee will also consider its future role and work.
                                              



OS/1340     -------------------------------    Issued: 25 February 1988 
 OUTER SPACE SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL SUB-COMMITTEE PREPARES REPORT 


     The Scientific and Technical Sub-Committee of the Committee on the
Peaceful Uses of Outer Space held a brief meeting this afternoon, during
which the Chairman, John Carver (Australia), announced that the
Sub-Commitee would meet again tomorrow morning, 26 February, immediately
following a 10:30 a.m. meeting of the Working Group of the Whole.  The
Sub-Committee will also meet at 3 p.m. tomorrow to adopt its report on
the work of the current session, which began 16 February.
                                                    


-- 
Patt Haring                 {sun!hoptoad,cmcl2!phri}!dasys1!patth
Big Electric Cat Public Access Unix (212) 879-9031 - System Operator

Three aspects of wisdom:  intelligence, justice & kindness.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #152
*******************

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Date: Thu, 3 Mar 88 03:17:35 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8803031117.AA11251@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #153

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 153

Today's Topics:
	  Space and Anarchy: Statists eye Moon lasciviously
	Re: Space and Anarchy: Statists eye Moon lasciviously
	    Soviets install new solar array on Mir in EVA
			 Re: H-Fusion Ramjet
    Re: Payload of shuttle flight directly after last Challenger.
			  Object composition
			 Re: sanity in space
	       Re: sanity in space (was Free-fall sex)
			  Re: Free-fall sex
	       Re: sanity in space (was Free-fall sex)
			     Re: Arecibo
			     Re: Arecibo
			       Arecibo
	      Anybody going to Houston for Lunar Bases?
		       Centrifuges on the moon
			  Re: Free-fall sex
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 1 Mar 88 04:33:21 GMT
From: amdahl!drivax!macleod@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (MacLeod)
Subject: Space and Anarchy: Statists eye Moon lasciviously

:> ... But even if that were true (which I personally doubt) it does not
:> ameliorate the underlying fault of all government action; the use of
:> coercion -- the initiation of force, to achieve social or political
:> goal.

:Just what is it about space interest groups that attract so many
:anarchists?  Who's to say that coercion is the exclusive province of
:governments?

:Phil

Seen any land lately that isn't wearing a flag?  Governments have such a
sick craving for sovreignty that they'll claim every coral atoll that
sticks up a foot over low tide, and spend gigabux fighting over the
Falklands, which are utterly without natural resources, have miserable
weather, and consist mostly of elephant seal wallows and thorny gorse.
If you want to sit under your fig tree without anybody making you
afraid, you'll have to do it on L5 or one of its brethren.

While on this subject, I see that Harrison Schmitt, former astronaut and
former State operative, has proposed the formation of a multinational (=
lots of envious Statist dictatorships that have no conception of
republican government, democracy, or civilization in general) body to
divide up the Moon amongst countries desiring to colonize it, and to
>draft laws and rules and governmental agencies< for those on the Moon.
I suppose that our best hope is that such a body will have built-in
conflicts of interest sufficient to assure that they will never get off
square one, but it is >really< depressing to see Statists rubbing their
hands in glee while dreaming about slave camps in the sky.

Michael Sloan MacLeod

------------------------------

Date: 1 Mar 88 19:10:05 GMT
From: concertina!fiddler@sun.com  (Steve Hix)
Subject: Re: Space and Anarchy: Statists eye Moon lasciviously

In article <3128@drivax.UUCP>, macleod@drivax.UUCP (MacLeod) writes:
> ...and spend gigabux fighting over the Falklands, which are utterly
> without natural resources, have miserable weather, and consist mostly
> of elephant seal wallows and thorny gorse.

The Falklands produce some very fine wool (and mutton, I suppose, from
expired sheep), center on an extremely rich fisheries area which is
currently being managed by the Brits so that the squid don't get over...
umm...squided? (they're not fish, surely!), and a population that claims
British citizenship.  (But what do they know, right?)

The squid (oh, all right...) fishery, btw, is being managed in an
interesting fashion: the limits are being set well below the currently-
assumed ability of the squid to replenish their numbers.  Better safe
than sorry.  Sort of behavior that should be encouraged, I'd think.
 
> While on this subject, I see that Harrison Schmitt, former astronaut
> and former State operative, has proposed the formation of a
> multinational (= lots of envious Statist dictatorships that have no
> conception of republican government, democracy, or civilization in
> general)

My, my.  Who are we referring to here?  Genghis Khan, Pol Pot, Adolph
Schicklegruber, ...?  Let's throw these rascals out before they can do
any damage.  Put our own rascals in instead, I suppose.

> ...but it is >really< depressing to see Statists rubbing their hands
> in glee while dreaming about slave camps in the sky.

Interesting picture.  (Are they all issued black cloaks and stovepipe
hats?)  I suppose that if you had the funds you could build your own
slave camps in the sky.  As far as that goes, if you can't get your
funding together, you're not going to be making any sort of islands in
the sky...you'll be stuck with either riding on their coattails, or
never going beyond the dreaming stage.  At least they're doing some-
thing other than merely complaining.  (Though, admittedly, there's a lot
of that going around.)  Until something better can be implemented
(where're your boosters?), better to use them to advance your own goals
than to drag them down because you don't approve of their choice of
breakfast cereal.

I haven't seen any evidence that *anyone* is getting into space (or is
likely to do so in the forseeable future) sans "repressive coercion".
 
> Michael Sloan MacLeod

Excuse the bluntness, but either contribute something constructive or
quitcher bitching.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 29 Feb 88 18:37:19 EST
From: Glenn Chapman <glenn@ll-vlsi.arpa>
Subject: Soviets install new solar array on Mir in EVA

     The current crew on the Soviet's Mir station, Valdimir Titov and
Musakhi Manarov, held their first space walk on Feb. 26th.  This four
hour EVA was used to replace one of the quadrants of the third
(verticle) set of solar panels on the Mir/Kvant complex.  There was no
statement exactly as to what type of solar cells were added (Silicon or
Gallium Arsenide).  Parts of the space walk were broadcast live on
Soviet television.  The crew is now into its 68th day in orbit.
     By the way it has just come to my attention that Owen Garriott, the
Skylab 3 crewman which held the most hours of zero G time for currently
active US astronauts retired recently (due to the shuttle problems).
That leaves just John Young with 34 days experience and Paul Weitz
(Skylab 2 & STS-9) with 33 days as the maximum time for active American
space travelers (all higher time ones have left the program).  An
interesting point will develop if Jean-Loup Chretien, the French
spationaut which spent 7.8 days on Soyuz T-6/Salyut 7 in June 1982,
makes the expected 30 day flight to Mir at the end of this year.  Then
France will become the nation which has an active astronaut with the
most orbital experience outside of the Russian cosmonauts, and the USA
moves into third place there.  One point - all his time will be obtained
on Soviet space stations.
      While people here are still trying to put up the Industrial Space
Facility, a man tended free flyer with no life support system, the
Soviets have continued to gain experience on board a real space station.
Let us not assume that ISF can every let us do what the Russians are
doing now.

                                              Glenn Chapman
                                              MIT Lincoln Lab

------------------------------

Date: 28 Feb 88 00:29:06 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: H-Fusion Ramjet

> This was quite sometime ago that I heard/read this, but I believe that
> a ramjet would not work per se; or at least not in the way that I have
> seen it configured. Rather, it would act as a starship braking system
> (all those cute little molecules 'impacting' upon the ramjet
> surface/whatever). And a rather good brake at that...

This is the standard objection to the interstellar ramjet by people who
feel qualified to comment but haven't bothered to read any of the
technical papers about the concept.  The problem has been understood for
a long time, and solutions to it are not (conceptually) difficult.  You
just have to decelerate the incoming gas (with respect to your ship) in
a reversible way, so you can accelerate it again as it leaves your
exhaust nozzle.  For example, assuming the input gas is ionized and the
protons are the only thing you care about (they carry most of the
momentum), just charge your ship to a high positive voltage.  This will
decelerate the protons as they approach, and then accelerate them again
as they leave.

Yes, there are drag problems with ramjets, but they just make the design
harder; they don't make it impossible.

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 28 Feb 88 00:30:34 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Payload of shuttle flight directly after last Challenger.

> Solar powered launch vehicles, anyone?

Sure: a solar power satellite is the obvious power supply for a big
laser launcher!

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: Tue,  1 Mar 88 12:31:07 -0500 (EST)
From: Chris Beasley <cb1p+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Object composition

 Well, my last message seems to have been truncated a bit.  The line
eater is getting sneakier all the time.  :^}
 What I was questioning about was how do you go about detecting the
composition of objects in space.  If I want to form a company that is
going to mine asteroids for their metals, how do I remotely measure
their compositions?

Chris

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 27 Feb 88 16:28:53 pst
From: Eugene N. Miya <eugene@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov>
Subject: Re: sanity in space
Newsgroups: sci.space
Cc: 

>In article <8262@eleazar.Dartmouth.EDU> seldon@eleazar.Dartmouth.EDU (Joe Walker) writes:
>>Such measures as this might be necessary to preserve an astronaut's sanity.
>Forcing the crew to deal with each other on more levels might detract
>from the success of the mission.

I don't think it's appropriate for me to discuss the orginal topic which
brought this up.  I discussed some of it in private communication with
another net person about 3 years ago since it was one of his desires.
{I was going to say something else, but, naw....} Take celebate
astronauts ;-).

Regarding sanity, married couples, etc.  We have some knowledge of this
from Antarctic and expedition research.  The general concensus is that
it tends to increase tension.  Friends back from K2, Everest, and other
places ABSOLUTELY refuse to take women on their climbs.  Arlene Blum,
another climbing partner in year past, won't take men on some of her
bigger trips.  This contrasts which mixed crews at the South Pole who do
seem to adapt and get along.  A college roommate was the only woman an a
12 person crew of a boat for 3 months.  So you had better listen to
female responses more than male responses.  This is a major problem.

I should disclaim any policy statement for the Agency on this one.

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA

------------------------------

Date: 27 Feb 88 22:12:29 GMT
From: huntting@boulder.colorado.edu  (Bradley Enoch Huntting)
Subject: Re: sanity in space (was Free-fall sex)

In article <8262@eleazar.Dartmouth.EDU> seldon@eleazar.Dartmouth.EDU (Joe Walker) writes:
>On a more serious note: NASA has considered the possibilities of sex on
>long duration missions (Mars mission for example.) They were wondering
>if they should take into account the privacy required for intimacy in
>the design of crew modules. *Between two MARRIED couples of course!!*
>Such measures as this might be necessary to preserve an astronaut's
>sanity.

About this...  What has been proposed for dealing with the group
dynamics of long space missions.  It isn't a trivial problem.  It would
seem that maintaining functional *working* relationships would be enough
of a chore.  Forcing the crew to deal with eachother on more levels
might detract from the success of the mission.

			:-)	-brad huntting

	huntting@boulder.colorado.edu

------------------------------

Date: 29 Feb 88 15:44:59 GMT
From: decvax!dartvax!eleazar!seldon@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Joe Walker)
Subject: Re: Free-fall sex

 > *Between two MARRIED couples of course!!*

 YES I did make a grammerical mistake!!!! I APOLOGISE *sniff*.....

   Geez!!! You people are harsh....My thesaurus is going to commit suicide...

 FOR SANITY'S SAKE, Here is how it SHOULD read:

   *Between A MARRIED COUPLE of course!!*
            ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

   AAAAAAUUUUUUUUGGGGGGHHHHHH....

 Joe Walker

------------------------------

Date: 29 Feb 88 15:52:02 GMT
From: decvax!dartvax!eleazar!seldon@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Joe Walker)
Subject: Re: sanity in space (was Free-fall sex)

   Yes, I see your point. But I don't think NASA was thinking of
coersing (sic) the astronauts into a relationship, they were considering
the possibilities of one developing. Of course, this is all speculation.
I don't trust my data too much because it's just stuff I remember
reading a long time ago, I may have my facts crooked. I do think that it
is a valid subject for thought...

 Joe Walker
 E-Mail:                             |
    BITNET: Seldon@D1.Dartmouth.EDU  |
    UNIX:seldon@eleazar.Dartmouth.EDU|

------------------------------

Date: 27 Feb 1988 18:58-EST 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: Arecibo

Actually, I think it was Drake (Sagan may well hve been involved too)
who used Arecibo to transmit a message in the direciton of the Hercules
cluster back around 1962. It may have been done as a part of the
'christening' of the facility. My reference is at home so I can't check
at the moment, but I'm pretty sure it was not done in 1977. I'm open to
authoritative correction. Henry?...

------------------------------

Date: 29 Feb 88 01:21:36 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Arecibo

Frank Drake did it as part of the re-dedication ceremony held in 1974
when Arecibo was upgraded with a new dish surface and a high-powered
transmitter (for planetary radar astronomy).  Sagan was peripherally
involved.  Target was M13 in Hercules.

A quick look at references doesn't reveal anything of note happening in
1962.  This is possibly confusion with some of Drake's early SETI work,
notably the first actual attempt to listen for extraterrestrial signals,
his Project OZMA in 1960.

(Ref: Drake's chapter in "Murmurs of Earth", Sagan et al., Random House
1978.)

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 29 Feb 88 14:09:58 GMT
From: thorin!lhotse!symon@mcnc.org  (James Symon)
Subject: Arecibo

So how far away is M13 in Hercules? When is the reply due?
				Jim Symon
Internet:symon@cs.unc.edu

------------------------------

Date:     Mon, 29 Feb 88 20:44 CST
From: Bill Higgins, Beam Jockey <HIGGINS%FNALC.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Subject:  Anybody going to Houston for Lunar Bases?
Original_To:  SPACE

I am planning to attend the Second Symposium on Lunar Bases and Space
Activities of the 21st Century, which will be held in Houston the first
week in April.  I'd like to hear from anyone who also plans to be there.
Please send me e-mail if you can; don't post to the newsgroup unless
your message is of general interest.

	 Bill Higgins
	 HIGGINS@FNALB.BITNET
	 SPAN/HEPnet: 43011::HIGGINS
	 PaperMail:
	 Mail Station 355
	 Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
	 Box 500
	 Batavia, IL 60510
	 (312)293-1050

------------------------------

Date: 1 Mar 88 02:04:54 GMT
From: portal!cup.portal.com!Mitchell_K_Hobish@uunet.uu.net
Subject: Centrifuges on the moon

Can anyone suggest any *good* rationale for placing a life
sciences-rated centrifuge on the Lunar surface, as opposed to (or,
perhaps, in addition to) having one or more in orbit?

------------------------------

Date: 2 Mar 88 00:22:53 GMT
From: devvax!jplpro!des@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov  (David Smyth)
Subject: Re: Free-fall sex

In article <4184@blia.BLI.COM> heather@blia.BLI.COM (Heather Mackinnon) writes:
>What do you do about lubrication underwater?

It works, don't worry.  I would demonstrate it for you, but my wife would object.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #153
*******************

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Date: Fri, 4 Mar 88 03:16:06 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8803041116.AA12905@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #154

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 154

Today's Topics:
		     Re: data and long distances
			 Re: sanity in space
		     Mir predictions and Software
    Progress 34 leaving USSR's Mir and more Soviet marketing moves
		   Re: space news from Feb 1 AW&ST
			RE: Space and Anarchy
			Solar power launching
		       John Glenn's heat shield
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 2 Mar 88 04:32:47 GMT
From: markh@csd4.milw.wisc.edu  (Mark William Hopkins)
Subject: Re: data and long distances

In article <1154@uop.edu> todd@uop.edu (Dr. Nethack) writes:
>
>Ok, with all the talk of space stations and moon bases, how are
>the data protocols going to be set up for deep space?
>
>I mean, you can hardly have a duplex conversation if the data is
>several minutes in getting there.
>
>What work is being done in this area?
>
>How are the problems overcome?  Just waiting, I suppose?

Batch processing?

------------------------------

Date: 2 Mar 88 01:23:47 GMT
From: devvax!jplpro!des@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov  (David Smyth)
Subject: Re: sanity in space

eugene@PIONEER.ARC.NASA.GOV (Eugene N. Miya) writes:
>
>Regarding sanity, married couples, etc.  We have some knowledge of this
>from Antarctic and expedition research.  The general concensus is that
>it tends to increase tension.  Friends back from K2, Everest, and other
>places ABSOLUTELY refuse to take women on their climbs.  Arlene Blum,
>another climbing partner in year past, won't take men on some of her
>bigger trips.  This contrasts which mixed crews at the South Pole who do
>seem to adapt and get along.  A college roommate was the only woman an a
>12 person crew of a boat for 3 months.  So you had better listen to
>female responses more than male responses.  This is a major problem.

I've spent my whole life sailing yachts, and have sailed transoceanic 5
times, and countless other extended adventures which have some of the
sociological problems of an extended space voyage.

I have yet to observe the need for such sexist regulations as "nobody
except those of the same sex" except when some of the participants are
social retards.  True, a very large percentage of the population is
socially retarded, so there have been voyages where such a rule just
might have filtered out the most offensive participants.  For example,
when there are 10 men and 2 women, a "no men allowed" rule would have 
significantly reduced the problems on-board :-)

What I HAVE found is that when people get along easily for one
extended voyage, they tend to on repeated extended voyages, even 
when a decade or more separates the voyages.

What I have NOT been able to do, however, is predict with any
great accuracy which people will be compatible, and which people
will not.  The best way is just to give it a try.  If most of
the people on any given voyage have worked well together on a
previous voyage, a few "unknowns" can safely be introduced without
the likelyhood of too much grief.  

The best rule of thumb is to do any adventure with the very fewest 
people possible.

Regarding the issue that really started this entire string of articles
(sex on space missions) I would assume it is as important in space on
an extended mission as it is to the participants in extended times of
stress and overwork on Earth.  If sex is not important to them on Earth
in such situations, then it probably will not be important to them on
space missions.  If it is, then it will be on a mission too.  For me, I
like it.  It is not something so important that I would refuse a trip
to Mars if I couldn't take my wife along ... but it sure would be
nice!!!

Only the Russians know for sure!  Unmanned probes will never let on :-)

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 2 Mar 88 10:09:50 EST
From: loeb@BOURBAKI.MIT.EDU
To: snowdog@athena.mit.edu
Cc: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: Mir predictions and Software

I'd like to see Mir too. (Cambridge, MA)

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 2 Mar 88 15:01:34 EST
From: Glenn Chapman <glenn@ll-vlsi.arpa>
Subject: Progress 34 leaving USSR's Mir and more Soviet marketing moves

     The Soviet crew on the Mir/Kvant complex, Valdimir Titov and Musakhi 
Manarov, have just finished refueling the station with from Progress 34 
tanker, adding about 1 tonne of oxidizer/fuel. Currently they are filling the
vehicle with garbage and in about a day or so they will separate the Progress
from Mir, sending it for a reentry destruction.  When that happen they will
boost the station using the Progress' rockets.  NOTE to Mir watchers: any
Mir visibility times after Mar 3rd are probably suspect until the data from
these maneuvers appears in the station's orbital parameters.
     There is now information from several sources now that the Russians will
launch two 'Star' expansion modules (20 tonne, 50 cubic meter additions) to
Mir this fall/winter.  These will be sent up very close together in time,
probably so that the station will have only a limited period with one module
docked.  That would make the station asymmetric and produce difficulties in
balancing it against the gravity gradient of the earth, where as two module
would make it symetric about the axis of the Mir core.  There are indications
that this will occur before the French cosmonaut flies to Mir later this year.
     The West German firm, Kayser Threde, which signed up with the Russians
for material processing on their "Foton" (or Photon) satellites has now paid
them a non-refundable 100,000 Marks ($150,000 US) up front money for the first
flight.
     With regard to the recent purchase by Payload Systems of processing time
on Mir for crystal growth experiments a snag has occurred. Rep. Nelson (from 
the Florida district of the Kennedy Space Center if I remember correctly) has
vowed to hold committee meetings on this to try and block the sale.  He has
been quoted as saying that if it turns out that the project is legal under the
current laws then new laws should be made to make it illegal.  European and
Japanese biotech companies will just love that - they will be able to do 
such work in Zero G for years before American business can do so.  Since the
crystals are proteins which are used to obtain the structure of materials slated
for bioengineering production it will give them a real advantage down on earth.
It may be embarrassing to have to do such deals with the Russians, but if these
prove that useful products come from orbit then it will be for the best in the
long run.  Somehow the idea of selling them US surplus grain (which is piling
up in bins) and getting back orbital processing time on a space station seems 
like a great deal to me for this country.

                                              Glenn Chapman
                                              MIT Lincoln Lab

------------------------------

Date: 2 Mar 88 20:19:09 GMT
From: microsoft!mikewa@beaver.cs.washington.edu  (Mike Walma)
Subject: Re: space news from Feb 1 AW&ST

Pardon my ignorance, but what is scheduled to go up on the August
fourth launch?

Mike Walma

------------------------------

Date:     Thu, 3 Mar 88 09:45 EST
From: GODDEN%gmr.com@relay.cs.net
Subject:  RE: Space and Anarchy

In Space 8/153, amdahl!drivax!macleod@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (MacLeod) writes:
 >Seen any land lately that isn't wearing a flag?  Governments have such a
 >sick craving for sovreignty that they'll claim every coral atoll that
 >sticks up a foot over low tide, ... 

I noticed something long ago of interest here.  At the intersection of
Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Kuwait there is a large diamond-shaped chunk
of land NOT enclosed by anyone's borders.  In my atlas it has
'neutral zone' written in it.  I'm sure there's some story behind it,
but I don't know what it is.  In any case, maybe the anarchists can
set up shop in the desert.  They could even build themselves a spaceport!

-Kurt Godden

------------------------------

Date:         Thu, 3 Mar 1988 11:18 EST
From: Bob - GWU SEDS <SPACE%GWUVM.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Subject:      Solar power launching
To: <SPACE@angband.s1.gov>

    Solar power launching can be accomplished in a number of ways.
The problem of collection of the needed solar power is only really available
from a solar power station (SPS).  All other systems that I am familar with
lack the concentration of energy to get out of the Earth's gravity well.
Assuming the existence of an SPS (5-20 Gigawatts) there are a few options:
1.  Lazer launch - current and best designs only allow a small payload on
    the order of 2 kilograms.  Additionally a reasonable quantity of fancy
    (impure & expensive) ice must be thrown into the upper atmosphere as
    reaction mass.  The offsets the environmental concerns that prompted the
    question.
2.  Beam Power - would use microwave or laser to power an electric engine,
    maximizing the payload as percentage of launch mass.  I'm not convinced
    the the engines will be powerful enough for launch.  Air to space and
    intraspace transport, this is great.
3.  Mass Driver - a large scale mass driver (electromatic catapult) from the
    upper atmosphere has promise, but drag and other inherent problems seem
    to negate the function of this method from the ground to air realm.  This
    method is incidently economic and clean given an SPS.
4.  Storage of Solar Power for non-direct use - This basic idea, is that the
    form of the energy may be inconvienent as the sun provides it.  If we take
    that energy and store it in some form (as in fact most of our energy is),
    preferablly clean and renuable.  This might include the separation of
    water into hydrogren and oxygen for latter burning.  Unfortunately,
    hydrogen doesn't store well, and it may not be a good idea to dump large
    amounts of (admittedly ultra-pure) water into the upper-atmosphere.  The
    shuttle is only a tiny amount, but if we multiply that by a hundred or a
    thousand, things might turn nasty in terms of greenhouse effects.
5.  Directly riding an SPS lazer - the nuttiest idea I've seen, if you have a
    hollow centered beam, it is possible to build a two-man vehicle to ride up
    the power shaft based on the reflecting of the beam.  I personally won't
    go near it.

If your intersest is propultion in free space -where environmental impact is a
non-sequitor- ion, electric, solar sails, and mass drivers are the obvious
solar powered technics.

------------------------------

Date: 3 Mar 88 00:11:35 GMT
From: nbires!isis!scicom!wats@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Bruce Watson)
Subject: John Glenn's heat shield


Just saw a NASA AT WORK episode on my local cable concerning
John Glenn's Mercury orbital mission.

In the book THE RIGHT STUFF there is a bit of discussion about
the cover up that ground did with regard to the warning light
that showed that the heat shield has detached from the capsule.

I don't remeember how late in the three orbit mission the 
light was discovered, but the decision to keep the retro pack
and straps connected came less than five minutes before
Glenn had to retract the scope manually and to override
pack jettison.  Ground told him what to do and told him 
that they coldn't tell him then when he asked what the
trouble was.  After he went to work on the pressing matters,
they told him.

Is that how it was or was there more to it than that?

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #154
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU;  5 Mar 88 06:19:07 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA14509; Sat, 5 Mar 88 03:17:14 PST
	id AA14509; Sat, 5 Mar 88 03:17:14 PST
Date: Sat, 5 Mar 88 03:17:14 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8803051117.AA14509@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #155

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 155

Today's Topics:
			NASA SpaceLink sample
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 2 Mar 88 08:43:25 GMT
From: sonia!khayo@locus.ucla.edu  (Erazm J. Behr)
Subject: NASA SpaceLink sample

I'm going to be flamed for posting a 14K pile of propaganda ... :-)
Here is a sample (short) session on the SpaceLink BBS; the phone #
(*including* the area code) is (205) 895 0028 [Huntsville, Alabama]

                               W E L C O M E

                                     to

                               NASA SPACELINK

                   A Space-Related Informational Database
              Provided by the NASA Educational Affairs Division

                 Operated by the Marshall Space Flight Center
                On a Data General ECLIPSE MV7800 Minicomputer

                            ******IMPORTANT!******
       Do not press RETURN until you have read the following information.
         You are about to be asked to provide a Username and a Password.
                If this is your first call to NASA Spacelink,
       Enter NEWUSER as your Username and enter NEWUSER as your Password.
     If you have called before, enter your assigned Username and Password.
                       You may now press RETURN, or
                To redisplay this message press CONTROL-D.

<CR>
AOS/VS 7.57.00.00 / EXEC-32 7.57.00.00   2-Mar-88  2:19:26      @CON3
Username: XXXXX
Password:
--------
Last previous logon      2-Mar-88       2:16:00
NASA/SPACELINK     MENU SYSTEM      Revision:1.13.00.00

NASA Spacelink Main Menu

1.   Log Off NASA Spacelink

2.   Review Introduction to NASA Spacelink
3.   Current NASA News
4.   Aeronautics
5.   Space Exploration: Before the Shuttle
6.   Space Exploration: The Shuttle and Beyond
7.   NASA Installations
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10.  Space Program Spinoffs


      Enter your choice:     3



Current NASA News

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6..Space Shuttle Manifest (Baseline October, 1987)
7..1987 In Review


      Enter your choice:     3


                Current NASA News Releases
     0..Return to Previous Menu     1..Return to Spacelink Main Menu

2..ASTRONAUT GROUP PROVIDES INTERFACE WITH SPACE SHUTTLE CUSTOMERS
3..NASA TO ACQUIRE SECOND SPACE SHUTTLE CARRIER AIRCRAFT
4..MAJOR MILESTONE REACHED IN RETURNING SHUTTLE TO FLIGHT
5..NASA TO SEEK SPACE ABOARD COMMERCIALLY DEVELOPED FACILITY
6..SHUTTLE CREW POLE ESCAPE SYSTEM TEST
7..SPACE COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENT ADVISORY GROUP FORMED CHAIRMAN NAMED
8..SHUTTLE SOLID ROCKET MOTOR NOZZLE JOINT TEST SCHEDULED
9..NASA BUDGET PRESS CONFERENCE
10..NASA CONTINUES ROCKETBORNE STUDIES OF SUPERNOVA FROM AUSTRALIA
11..SAN MARCO ATMOSPHERIC SATELLITE SCHEDULED FOR MARCH 18 LAUNCH
12..SPACE SCIENCE AND APPLICATIONS ADVISORY SUBCOMMITTEE ESTABLISHED
13..ADVANCED IMAGING SPACE RADAR COMPLETES FIRST FIELD TESTS
14..National Space Policy Press Briefing
15..NASA EXAMINES 72 NOZZLE BOLTS
16..PROPOSALS SELECTED FOR NEW SPACE EXPLORATION STUDIES
17..STOFAN TO RETIRE FROM NASA ON APRIL 1
18..NASA SUPERCOMPUTER STUDIES AIRCRAFT CONTROL PHENOMENON

      Enter your choice:     0



Current NASA News

0..Previous Menu
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2..NASA Educational Programs
3..NASA News Releases
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7..1987 In Review


      Enter your choice:     4


                Current Kennedy Space Center Shuttle Status
     0..Return to Previous Menu     1..Return to Spacelink Main Menu

2..KSC SHUTTLE PROCESSING REPORT FOR - Tuesday Feb. 23 1988
3..KSC SHUTTLE PROCESSING REPORT FOR - Thursday Feb. 18 1988
4..KSC SHUTTLE PROCESSING REPORT FOR - Friday Feb. 12 1988
(...)
18..KSC SHUTTLE PROCESSING REPORT FOR - Tuesday Dec. 15 1987

      Enter your choice:     2


KSC SHUTTLE PROCESSING REPORT FOR - Tuesday, Feb. 23, 1988

                  DISCOVERY (OV 103) - OPF BAY 1

     The left hand orbital maneuvering system pod was transferred
to the Orbiter Processing Facility yesterday evening and is now
on the hook in preparation for installation. Preparations are
continuing to install the forward reaction control system (FRCS).
Technicians have about 15 thermal blankets to install along with
carrier panels and testing of a radio frequency wave guide in the
FRCS cavity prior to installing the FRCS.

     Systems testing continues to prepare the orbiter for the
upcoming August mission.  The main engine controller on engine one
was removed last Friday after a problem with its internal power
supply was discovered. Another controller is being shipped to KSC
and is scheduled to arrive this week. The engine flight readiness
test (FRT) will be conducted after the spare controller has been
installed.

                   ATLANTIS (OV 104) - OPF BAY 2

     The check valve line in the main propulsion system (MPS) was
installed and passed the leak test. Preparations are underway
today for the test of the MPS helium regulators. The regulators
regulate the amount of helium pressure to the main engines during
powered flight. The test is scheduled to be conducted Wednesday
through Friday.

     Deservicing of one of the water coolant loops is continuing
along with orbiter modifications. Technicians are scheduled to
install the rudder speed brake's power drive unit today and
tomorrow. The PDU directs the speed brake hydraulically.

                     COLUMBIA (OV 102) - OMRF

     Removal of cold plates is continuing today along with
scheduled orbiter modifications and inspections.

                 STS-26 SOLID ROCKET MOTORS - RPSF

     Yesterday, the left aft skirt was transferred from the
Assembly and Refurbishment Facility to the Rotation Processing and
Surge Facility. The forward center segments are scheduled to
arrive later this week.

                                      # # # #

                Current Kennedy Space Center Shuttle Status
     0..Return to Previous Menu     1..Return to Spacelink Main Menu

2..KSC SHUTTLE PROCESSING REPORT FOR - Tuesday Feb. 23 1988
(...)

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(...)

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NASA Spacelink Main Menu

1.   Log Off NASA Spacelink

2.   Review Introduction to NASA Spacelink
3.   Current NASA News
4.   Aeronautics
5.   Space Exploration: Before the Shuttle
6.   Space Exploration: The Shuttle and Beyond
7.   NASA Installations
8.   NASA Educational Services
9.   Materials for Classroom Use
10.  Space Program Spinoffs


      Enter your choice:     7


NASA Installations

0.  Previous Menu
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2.  NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
3.  Ames Research Center, Mountain View, Calif.
4.  Dryden Flight Research Facility, Edwards, Calif.
5.  Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
6.  Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
7.  Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas
8.  Kennedy Space Center, Fla.
9.  Langley Research Center, Hampton, Va.
10. Lewis Research Center, Cleveland, Ohio
11. Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
12. Michoud Assembly Facility, New Orleans, La.
13. National Space Technology Laboratories, Miss.
14. Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.
15. Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, Va.

      Enter your choice:     2


NASA HEADQUARTERS
Washington, D. C. 20546

     NASA Headquarters is located at 400 Maryland Avenue,
S.W. Washington, D.C., and also occupies other buildings in
the District of Columbia.  It has more than l,500 employees
and administers the total NASA budget, which for FY l987
amounted to $10.5 billion.  Dr. James C. Fletcher is
administrator.

     NASA Headquarters exercises management over the space
flight centers, research centers and other installations that
constitute the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

     Responsibilities of Headquarters cover the
determination of programs and projects, establishment of
management policies, procedures and performance criteria;
evaluation of progress; and the review and analysis of all
phases of the aerospace program.

     Planning, direction and management of NASA's research
and development programs are the responsibililty of six
program offices which report to and receive overall guidance
and direction from an associate or assistant administrator.

     The Office of Aeronautics and Space Technology (OAST)
is responsible for the planning, direction, execution,
evaluation, documentation and dissemination of the results
of all NASA research and technology programs.  These
programs are conducted primarily to demonstrate the
feasibility of a concept, structure, or component system
which may have general application to the nation's
aeronautical and space objectives.  OAST has institutional
management repsonsibility  for Ames Research Center,
Mountain View, Calif.; Langley Research Center, Hampton,
Va.; and Lewis Research Center, Cleveland. Dr. Raymond S.
Colladay is associate administrator.

     The Office of Space Flight is responsible for
developing and applying a capability that will permit man to
explore space and perform missions leading to increased
knowledge of man and the quality of life on Earth. To
achieve this goal, the office directs the development of
space transportation and the required supporting systems for
man to perform missions in space.  A major program now
underway is the Space Shuttle, a space transportation
system. The office is responsible for scheduling Space
Shuttle flights, including the Spacelab, developing
financial plans and pricing structures, providing necessary
services to users, management of the expendable launch
vehicles and upper stages, and management of NASA's
advanced program activities.  Space Flight also is responsible
for institutional management of Kennedy Space Center, Fla.;
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.; Johnson
Space Flight Center, Houston; and the National Space
Technology Laboratories, near Bay St. Louis, Miss.  Rear
Admiral Richard H. Truly is associate administrator.

     The Office of Space Science and Applications (OSSA) is
responsible for the NASA automated space flight program
directed toward scientific investigations of the solar
system using groundbased, airborne and space techniques
including sounding rockets, Earth satellites and deep space
probes; for scientific experiments to be conducted by humans
in space; directing the NASA scientific portion of the
Spacelab program; and for the NASA contacts with the Space
Science Board of the National Academy of Sciences and other
advisory groups.  OSSA is responsible for the conduct of
research and development activities leading to programs that
demonstrate the application of space systems, space
environment, and space-related or derived technology for the
benefit of the world.  These activities involve disciplines
such as weather and climate, pollution monitoring, Earth
resources survey and Earth and ocean physics.  OSSA has
institutional management responsibility for the Jet
Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., and Goddard Flight
Center. Greenbelt, Md.  Dr. Lennard A. Fisk is associate
administrator.

     The Office of Space Station is responsible for managing
and directing all aspects of the Space Station program and
to achieve the goals established by President Reagan in his
State of the Union message of Jan. 25, l984.  These goals
include the development of a permanently manned Space
Station by the early l990s; to encourage other countries to
participate in the Space Station program; and to promote
private sector investment in space through enhanced
space-based operational capabilities.  The Office of Space
Station has overall policy and management responsibilities
for the program.  NASA centers responsible for developing
major elements of the Space Station are the Johnson Space
Center, Marshall Space Flight Center, Goddard Space Flight
Center and Lewis Research Center.  Andrew J. Stofan is
associate administrator.

     The Office of Space Tracking and Data Systems is
responsible for all activities incident to the tracking of
launch vehicles and spacecraft and for the acquisition and
distribution of technical and scientific data from them.
This office is also responsible for managing NASA's
communications systems and for operational data systems
and services.  Robert O. Aller is associate administrator.

     The Office of Commercial Programs is responsible for
managing and directing all aspects of the commercial use of
space.  The office has overall policy and management
responsibilities for the technology utilization transfer
program; the small business innovation research program;
new commercial application of existing space
programs to the private sector; and the establishment and
management of the Centers for the Commercial Development of
Space.  Isaac T. Gillam IV is assistant administrator.

NASA Installations

0.  Previous Menu
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1.   Log Off NASA Spacelink

2.   Review Introduction to NASA Spacelink
3.   Current NASA News
4.   Aeronautics
5.   Space Exploration: Before the Shuttle
6.   Space Exploration: The Shuttle and Beyond
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NO CARRIER

                                                       Eric
___________________________________________________________
 Please use   khayo@MATH.ucla.edu   instead of CS.ucla.edu

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #155
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU;  6 Mar 88 06:18:38 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA15801; Sun, 6 Mar 88 03:16:57 PST
	id AA15801; Sun, 6 Mar 88 03:16:57 PST
Date: Sun, 6 Mar 88 03:16:57 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8803061116.AA15801@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #156

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 156

Today's Topics:
			 Re^2: Free-fall sex
	      Re^2: sanity in space (was Free-fall sex)
		       RE: SPACE Digest V8 #153
			  When Stars Collide
			  Re: Free-fall sex
			   Info on the NASP
			 Biosphere II project
		   Let's Build a Space Station!!!!
		     Re: data and long distances
			       Hearing
			       LaRouche
		Need info. on current fuel technology.
		     Horizontal ascent into orbit
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 2 Mar 88 15:16:16 GMT
From: mcvax!diku!ambush!kimcm@uunet.uu.net  (Kim Chr. Madsen)
Subject: Re^2: Free-fall sex


In article <2696@emory.uucp> vicki@emory.uucp (Vicki Powers) writes:
>Sounds kinky to me!  I didn't realize that NASA would allow four
>people to have sex together ....

Funny it never occurred to me that NASA had to approve sex in space -
it just seemed that too few women was ever sent into space and the
first one to go there really was fucked up by NASA (-;


					Best Regards
					Kim Chr. Madsen.

------------------------------

Date: 2 Mar 88 15:11:22 GMT
From: mcvax!diku!ambush!kimcm@uunet.uu.net  (Kim Chr. Madsen)
Subject: Re^2: sanity in space (was Free-fall sex)


Well, I never thought that it would come to this but here it goes ...

Why are you suggesting that astronauts going on a long voyage is going
to have problems with their sanity because of lacking sex! I mean sex
is a wonderful thing, but you can manage without for long periods of
time even for years - it has been practiced by a number of people
including catholic priests.

Well my main point is that whether to have sex or not in space should
not be planned beforehand and as a cure for eventual break-downs or
the like, but it should neither be banned or made impossible by
sending crews on only one sex on a voyage.

Lastly if free-fall-sex proves not to be such a great sensation one
can either generate artificial gravity or use magnetic boots (though
they might not be sexy)


					Best Regards
					Kim Chr. Madsen.

------------------------------

From: deskevich@bluto.scc.com
Date: 3 Mar 88 17:46:00 EST
Subject: RE: SPACE Digest V8 #153
To: "space" <space@angband.s1.gov>


THIS IS MY FIRST ATTEMPT TO PARTICIPATE IN THE SPACE DIGEST DIALOG OR 
WHAT EVER LOG YOU WANT TO CALL IT AND I WAS WONDERING WHAT GEOGRAPHIC
AREA IS COVERED BY THE PARTICIPANTS.  I SEE CANADIAN INPUTS AND AN
CURIOUS IF INPUTS FROM AREAS OTHER THAN THE NORTH AMERICAN CONTINENT
ARE POSSIBLE.  I DO HAVE A REASON AND MAY BE WILLING TO DISCUSS IT IF 
THIS INTERFACE WORKS.

JOE D.

------------------------------

Date: 3 Mar 88 01:35:22 GMT
From: portal!cup.portal.com!CaptainDave@uunet.uu.net
Subject: When Stars Collide


     What would be the effect of two stars colliding? Would the total mass
and gravitational energy be enough to prevent a cosmic explosion, or would
one, if it was much larger, just assimilate the other? What if the binarys
are roughly the same mass? Does anyone have any opinions on these questions?


                           David Nusbaum@cup.portal.com


Dis claimer, Dat claimer, We all need claimers!!!

------------------------------

Date: 2 Mar 88 15:02:57 GMT
From: kr0u+@andrew.cmu.edu  (Kevin William Ryan)
Subject: Re: Free-fall sex


   I have it on good authority that lubrication in underwater sex is not a
problem.  Regulating your breathing, on the other hand, is :-).

                                                    kwr

   "Jest so ya know..."

------------------------------

Date: 26 Feb 88 20:16:00 GMT
From: sundc!pitstop!texsun!texsun.central-relay.sun.com!convex!trsvax!authorplaceholder@seismo.css.gov
Subject: Info on the NASP



Dr. Max Waddoups, director of the General Dynamics NASP project (National
Aero-Space Plane), gave a lecture about that plane to our IEEE meeting
last night.  Much of what he said I haven't seen posted to sci.space,
although it may be available from other sources.  Of course, much of
what he said also had all sorts of qualifiers like "I can't tell you
the exact numbers" or "I'm not authorized to reveal that compound", etc.

The builder of the NASP, also known as the X-30, will be decided amongst 
collaboration/competition from three contractors for the airframe, and 
two contractors for the engines.  He said this has resulted in much
confusion on the who gets what data, with "many packages going to the 
wrong doorstep." This has resulted in many of the people on the project 
being more relaxed and open with ideas between contractors and NASA, much 
to the horror of GD and the DoD.

This airplane will be one of the least dense aircraft ever built.  Full loaded
with fuel, it could quite literally float on water.  This is because the
fuel used is supercooled hydrogen slush, "about the same consistency as
a snow cone", with a density of 6 lbs/cubic foot.  This has earned the 
plane the nickname of "The Hypersonic Hindenburg".  The outer skin will
be a carbon-silicate polymer almost like the black tiles used on the shuttle.
The inner fuel tank will be constructed of a material that has a zero
coefficient of expansion, which will hopefully not spring leaks that have
to be traced down by soap bubbles, like they do on the Atlas/Centaurs.
The first design prototype will be rather small, "large enough for
two passengers and a box of Cheerios."  They plan having an initial 
fleet of three aircraft.

He showed us several slides, one of which was the flight envelope of
the X-30.  On a chart with time on the y axis and speed on the x axis,
the shuttle flight envelope was almost vertical on the ascent, with
a more gracefull curve on the descent.  That shuttle descent curve will
be followed almost exactly by the X-30 on ascension as well as descension,
meaning it will be traveling at Mach 15-20 from about 100,000 ft. until
it achieves orbit.  The other slide he showed us some projected test
flights from Edwards AFB, each having a leisurely 2-G turn.  The first
was at Mach 10, and encompassed a circle over northern Nevada, Utah,
Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona.  The second flight was at Mach 15
and included going over Nevada, Idaho, southern Canada, Lake Michigan,
Mississippi, Texas and back to Edwards!

They are looking into the possibility of using some of the new high
temperature superconducting materials onboard for power transmission/
storage, since they have this really nice source of a very cold 
material available.  The hardware for the computers will be massively
redundant so that any stray radiation doesn't kill something.  The
operating system for the plane will probably be a derivative of a 
real-time Unix, with many Ada applications thrown in, as per DoD spec.
They want to try to keep the software costs down to "no more than 25%
of the cost of the plane."

Another real problem they are having is sampling/sensing of the airflow
outside.  There would be no way they could just stick a Pitot tube out
without it melting, so they are looking into ways of doing remote
sensing of such things behind transparent panels.  And speaking of
transparent panels, they don't really want to have to figure out a
way to put windows in the thing, causing much uproar with the pilots.

He stressed this will be a very experimental and dangerous plane, fully 
deserving the "X" designation.  Much of the data for the airflow and
and such isn't available yet, and will require years of testing.
He said, "we won't be sending any school teachers up in it anytime
soon."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

I hope I haven't butchered the details too badly, since I am doing this
from memory.  If so, perhaps you more knowledgeable types could
correct me.

						-George Moore
						  (gm@trsvax.UUCP)

	"Ok...which way to Ft. Lauderdale?"
		"How should I know?  I only know what's inside your head,
		 and you don't know the way from your house to a 7-11."

------------------------------

Subject: Biosphere II project
Date: Sat, 20 Feb 88 13:48:34 CST
From: stevens%antares@ANL-MCS.ARPA
Sender: ota@galileo.s1.gov

Does anyone have any information about the Biosphere II project ?  I
would like any information but in particular a mailing address for the
project and/or e-mail address.  Thanks.

Rick Stevens
Advanced Computing Research
Argonne National Laboratory

stevens@anl-mcs.arpa
{ihnp4,decvax,sequent,mcvax}!anlams!stevens

------------------------------

Reply-To: pnet01!jim@bass.nosc.mil
Date: Thu, 3 Mar 88 13:25:10 PST
From: jim@pnet01.cts.com (Jim Bowery)
To: crash!space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: Let's Build a Space Station!!!!

Glen Chapman writes:

>    Let us not assume that ISF can ever let us do what the Russians are
>doing now.

I agree.  So let's build a properly conceived and executed space station!
To bad NASA isn't doing anything remotely related to such a space station
and isn't about to start.  

Maybe if the government would take that $30 billion and spread it around
to several agencies including NOAA, NSF and guaranteed markets for
certain kinds of space facilities, we might get SEVERAL properly conceived
and executed space stations.  Too bad we don't have any leadership in
this country...  maybe it's time to pack it up and move west (I live
in California).

Ah shucks...  I like the U.S.  I guess I'll just continue to work 
within the political system for real leadership.

What are YOU doing to see a properly conceived and executed space 
station built?


Jim Bowery                   PHONE:  619/295-8868
PO Box 1981
La Jolla, CA 92038

UUCP: {cbosgd, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!pnet01!jim
ARPA: crash!pnet01!jim@nosc.mil
INET: jim@pnet01.cts.com

------------------------------

Date: 4 Mar 88 08:09:23 GMT
From: tektronix!reed!douglas@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (P Douglas Reeder)
Subject: Re: data and long distances

The distance problem applies to satelites in geosynchonous orbit, as well.
radio wave take a noticeable fraction of a second to get there and back.
That would play hell with high baud rates if not accounted for.
A comsat expert might know how it's done.

-- 
Doug Reeder                   USENET: ...!tektronix!reed!douglas
Box 502 Reed College          BITNET: douglas@reed.UUCP
3203 S.E. Woodstock           122 38' W  45 28' N, planet Earth, sol system
Portland, OR 97202            `Seldon helps those who help themselves.'

------------------------------

Date: 	  Fri, 4 Mar 88 15:10:10 PST
From: BOWERYJ%CPVA.SAINET.MFENET@nmfecc.arpa

Subject: Hearing
Date:    Fri,  4-MAR-1988 14:38 PDT
X-VMS-Mail-To: SPACE

After reviewing a tape recording of the House Subcommittee on Space
Science Applications several times, I'm more convinced than ever that
the function of Reagan's new space policy is to continue business as
usual in our space program while giving lip service to privatization.
When confronted about some of these issues by Rep. Packard (Ca),
Fletcher hemmed and hawed until he finally admitted that there would be
one commercial launch in 1989 and another in 1991.  Also, Packard
questioned the management of ALS booster development that sets up a
business as usual relationship between NASA and a contractor rather than
letting private industry take the existing technology and reduce it to
practice in a HLV.

While I'm no great fan of ISF (now known as CDSF or commercially
developed space facility), it is one area that Fletcher seemed to be
saying the right things about -- specifically that we need an early
facility whose primary users are scientists funded by the government to
accomplish specific scientific objectives, as opposed to immediate
production runs of various materials.  Of course, I think Fletcher had
this one rammed down his throat and was making the right noises about it
only because those are the noises necessary to justify the position he
has to take.

------------------------------

Date: 4 Mar 88 20:10:27 GMT
From: agate!wheatena!web@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (William Baxter)
Subject: LaRouche

Did any one else see Lyndon LaRouche expounding the merits of space
exploration on prime time television last night?  I saw only the last 15
minutes of his presentation, in which he laid out his plan to build
infrastructure, colonize and develop industry on the moon, and
ultimately to colonize Mars.  His plans were long range and visionary,
extending well into the next century.

This was broadcast on ABC between 8 and 8:30pm PST, and the portion that
I saw was uninterrupted.

The address, for those brave enough to risk it, is:

The LaRouche
Democratic Campaign
PO Box 17068
Washington, DC 20041

Disclaimer:  I am endorsing neither this candidate nor his views,
             but merely reporting the event.


William Baxter

ARPA: web@bosco.Berkeley.EDU
UUCP: {cbosgd,sun,dual,decwrl,decvax,ihnp4,hplabs,...}!ucbvax!bosco!web

------------------------------

Date: 4 Mar 88 22:24:08 GMT
From: markh@csd4.milw.wisc.edu  (Mark William Hopkins)
Subject: Need info. on current fuel technology.


     I would like some technical information about the different fuel 
technologies that currently exist.  In particular:

	     EXPULSION SPEED: of the fuel during thrust,
	     FUEL/DEAD MASS RATIOS for the Shuttle and several
	     boosters.

It would help to clarify the questions too, since I know, for example,
that the expulsion speed is as much a function of engine design as it is
of the fuel being used.

     Is fission (or fusion?!) being seriously considered?

------------------------------

Date: 4 Mar 88 22:38:11 GMT
From: markh@csd4.milw.wisc.edu  (Mark William Hopkins)
Subject: Horizontal ascent into orbit

Consider the following method for achieving orbit:

  STAGE 1: The craft takes off EASTWARD from a runway as a jet,
	   rising to the upper stratosphere and attaining
	   Mach 10 or thereabouts,

  STAGE 2: The boosters are activated for a short period to 
	   achieve a high elliptic orbit, with the starting
	   position being the low point of the orbit
			      ^^^
	   (*** This is why the flight is horizontal ***)

  STAGE 3: The boosters are activated again at the high point
	   in orbit to circularise the orbit. 

	   (*** The flight is horizontal here, too ***)

Has such a method been considered (say, in the old Dynasoar project)?
What is wrong with it?  The question is more pointed when it is
considered that this method uses the energy from the boosters in the
most efficient way possible (i.e. boosting during horizontal flight
gives you the most angular momentum per expended energy).

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #156
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU;  7 Mar 88 06:19:52 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA17125; Mon, 7 Mar 88 03:18:13 PST
	id AA17125; Mon, 7 Mar 88 03:18:13 PST
Date: Mon, 7 Mar 88 03:18:13 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8803071118.AA17125@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #157

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 157

Today's Topics:
			     A conference
		     space news from Feb 1 AW&ST
		       The Public Consciousness
			      name games
		    Re: Coercive Space Exploration
		    Re: Coercive Space Exploration
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 5 Mar 88 19:59:09 GMT
From: ndsuvax!ndsuvm1.bitnet!ud140469@uunet.uu.net
Subject: A conference

     Hello folks!  Below is a conference announcement I got from the
Space Studies department at my school.  Even though it doesn't mention
it, papers for the conference are still being accepted, with paper
briefs due March 15th.  I'm not involved with the conference other than
knowing the people who are setting it up.

*******************************************************************************

  First International Conference on Hypersonic Flight in the 21st Century


       The Center for Aerospace Sciences at the University of North
       Dakota, in cooperation with NASA, ESA, NAL/STRG, IEEE/AEES, AIAA,
       AAS and other government and professional agencies, will host the
       First International Conference on Hypersonic Flight at the
       University of North Dakota on September 20-23, 1988.  Conference
       Committee members are: David C. Webb, General Chairman; Jerry
       Grey, Program Chairman; Ian Pryke, Coordinator of European
       Participation; and Tatsuo Yamanaka, Coordinator of Japanese
       Participation.

       All aspects of flight in the Mach 2 - Mach 25 regime will be
       discussed by speakers and panelists from around the world:
       vehicle designs, propulsion, artificial intelligence, materials,
       fuels, avionics, economics, markets, scheduling, airspace control
       issues, international cooperation and competition, environmental
       issues, human factors, social/legal/political issues, and other
       interests and concerns.

       For registration information contact:

       Mary Higbea
       Box 8216 University Station
       Grand Forks, ND  58202-8216

       phone:  (701) 777-3197

************************************************************************

    I don't think anyone involved with the conference is on the net, but
I'd be happy to pass on any messages or questions to Mary.



                     Scott Udell
                     UD140469@NDSUVM1.BITNET

------------------------------

Date: 2 Mar 88 03:32:11 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Feb 1 AW&ST

[For the benefit of those who haven't been paying attention :-) and have
complained because I don't always explain abbreviations, CRAF is Comet
Rendezvous / Asteroid Flyby and AXAF is Advanced X-ray Astronomy
Facility.  I get very tired of typing the full names every time.  (These
are the top items on NASA's new-start wishlist, so they get mentioned a
lot.)]

Future of SDI's proposed quick-and-dirty heavylift booster for its
Zenith Star space laser experiment is unclear, because people are
accusing SDI of really wanting it as an early-SDI-deployment booster.

Space station pressurized modules will not be built to a standard
diameter.  The US diameter will be the biggest that will fit in the
shuttle, the European diameter will match that of Spacelab to permit
reuse of equipment, and the Japanese would like to use the US diameter
but their ground- transportation facilities can't handle something that
size, so they will use an intermediate choice.  [Just when you think
you've heard the worst possible screwups, a still bigger one comes
along...]

Albert Gore (Dem. presidential candidate) comes out in favor of an
international manned Mars mission and of "reversing the imbalance" in
funding between DoD's space budget and NASA's.

Pictures of the latest SDI Delta mission, being readied for launch.

NASA will run out of space-station money by the end of Feb, and cancel
the four prime contracts [!], unless NASA either gets its act together
on leasing SII's Industrial Space Facility (Fletcher says NASA has no
need for it [!]) or Congress relents on its insistence on this as a
condition of station funding.  So far NASA is firmly saying "no".  As a
result, there is talk of moving control of a government-leased ISF away
from NASA.

Congress says it cannot approve the large NASA funding boosts requested
by Reagan unless, under the administration/Congress budget compromise,
Reagan takes the money out of something else.

NASA sets August as new STS-26 launch target, with Aug 4 the tentative
specific date.  This puts final stacking in early May, rollout in
mid-May, and flight-readiness firing in mid-June.  Various minor
problems have turned up, but none seem unmanageable.

Reagan sends new space-leadership proposals to Congress, but postpones
release of the new Space Policy until a commercial-space-initiatives
review is complete.  The new commercial initiatives will include yet
more pressure on NASA to lease ISF as an interim pre-space-station step
and limits on third-party liability insurance required for commercial
space activities [now THAT is an important initiative].

GE Space Division signs with Martin Marietta to launch 15 commercial
comsats on Commercial Titan.  This is 7-8 launches.  The probable result
is price breaks for GE customers due to the volume deal.  [Only in space
would an order for 8 of something count as "volume", sigh.]  This is not
yet a cast-in-concrete binding agreement, but it's solid enough to have
cancellation penalties.

Rockwell and two ex-Rockwell managers charged with fraud over Navstar
contracts.

As recommended by Langley, NASA will smooth the ends of the KSC shuttle
runway to reduce tire wear on landing.

Progress 34 tanker docks to Mir.

SDI cancels its big in-space neutral-particle-beam experiment due to
shortage of money.

Japan and NASA sign agreement allowing NASA to receive data from Japan's
ERS-1 earth-resources satellite (launch 1992).

Big set of articles on DoD's space recovery program, notably Titan 4.
Long-term plans call for two Titan 4 pads on each coast, for redundancy.

DoD establishes space test-range organization to coordinate all orbital
testing activities.  Previously such organizations had to be assembled
on an ad-hoc basis every time a major space test was planned.
Eventually the organization may have its own satellites for tracking
and/or data relay.

USAF studies proposal from Rowan Companies of Houston to use its
"Gorilla" mobile drilling rig as an offshore launch platform for
heavylift boosters.  Building new pads at Vandenberg is hard because of
all the regulatory bureaucracies that have to be placated first.  An
equatorial site has been thought about, but building it would be costly.
Transferring big rockets to a floating platform would also be tricky.
The "Gorilla" would be towed into a loading facility at Vandenberg,
would jack down its legs until it was resting on the bottom, and would
then pick up a mobile launcher platform on a sort of giant forklift.  It
would then retract its legs, be towed out to sea, extend its legs again
to provide firm support, and extend the launcher out over the water on
the forklift.  After final checkout, the crew would evacuate and the
launch would be done by remote control from the shore.  One big asset:
it would use existing launch-control facilities.  Main problem: security
and logistic problems of launching from a mobile platform.  NASA is also
interested.

SDI alters two of its midcourse-sensor-satellite projects to cut costs.

Space-nuclear-power programs are in trouble because of SDI budget cuts.
Article giving more details about proposed projects, not very
interesting.  GAO expresses some doubts about some of the projects, too,
saying that there are major technological challenges in the programs as
now conceived, and that there is a lack of specific applications.  (They
do note the chicken-and-egg problems involved here: specific
applications are reluctant to commit to unproven technology.)

McDonnell-Douglas to deliver first operational in-space laser
communications system this summer, for a military inter-satellite
application.  (There have been earlier projects for laser communication
in space, including one for the NASA Advanced Communications Technology
satellite, but all were cancelled.)

JPL studies lasers for deep-space communications; one study suggests a
transmission rate of 700kbps from Saturn with about a watt of laser
power.  [This is lots better than radio systems.]

Letter of the week, from Lannon Stafford (Phoenix AZ), criticizing AW&ST
editorial that called for NASA to control US space activities: "Enduring
exploitation of space will occur only under the banner of free
enterprise and individual activities, which NASA (or any other
government agency) cannot control and can only hamper with
intervention... devotion to government handouts and control still seems
very difficult to cure..."

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 4 Mar 88 22:21:06 PST
From: ota@startide.s1.gov
Subject: The Public Consciousness

I was watching a new sitcom last night, Thursday March 3rd called "Day
by Day".  Its about these ex-Yuppies running a day care.  At one point
near the end one of the adults said something about believing things.
Then three of the kids did this free association gag line:

Kid 1: I believe in the Tooth Fairy.
Kid 2: I believe in Santa Claus.
Kid 3: I believe in the future of the space program.
	<laugh track>

Are things bad or what?
	Ted Anderson

------------------------------

Date: 2 Mar 88 00:51:55 GMT
From: thorin!lhotse!symon@mcnc.org  (James Symon)
Subject: name games

>Shouldn't that be *Alan* instead of Scott.  (Scott Glenn played Alan B.
>Shepherd in "The Right Stuff", though.)

and Sam Shepard played our hero (at least until the Voyager comments).
Shepard, Glenn, Glenn, Shepherd. Holy cow!

------------------------------

Date: 1 Mar 88 02:24:55 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!yunexus!maccs!gordan@uunet.uu.net  (gordan)
Subject: Re: Coercive Space Exploration


In article <572888117.amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU> Dale.Amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU writes:
-
-Space is the only place left. The only place where we can escape the
-vile clutches of statists. [...]
-
-I may be forced to live out my life under tyranny, but at least I can
-ensure that those who come after will live in freedom.


I can't help but feel that there's something slightly unreal with this
attitude.  Space after all is an extremely hostile environment, and
sending humans up the gravity well in large numbers and keeping them
alive out there will remain extremely expensive for a very, very long
time.

Given the unforgiving nature of space, it seems far more likely that
life would be more, rather than less, tightly controlled.


Consider a hypothetical space colony of the future, one that declares
itself independent of any Earth government.  To be as self-sufficient
and independent of Earth as possible, everything is very carefully
recycled -- air, water, nutrients.  The total oxygen and hydrogen supply
is limited and must be closely monitored.

Therefore the air in your lungs, the water in your body tissues do not
belong to you, but are considered community property.  Tomorrow, they
will recirculate, and will be your neighbor's drinking water.  How your
body handles the resources it temporarily has custody of is everyone's
business.

Smoking of course will be strictly forbidden; however, taking any sort
of drug or medicine, whether for "legitimate" or recreational purposes,
will be very closely controlled.  In fact, any activity that alters your
body's normal metabolism could be subject to restrictions because of its
capacity to poison community resources.  Alcohol consumption is
regulated or banned outright.  Certain foods are forbidden because they
contain compounds that make some people allergic, and it would be
prohibitively expensive to remove all trace quantities of such compounds
during the recycling process.  Regular medical examinations are
mandatory, and anyone who is "metabolically incompatible", even through
no fault of their own, can be required to leave the colony.

Regular psychological evaluations are mandatory as well.  After all, the
colony would be extremely vulnerable to sabotage by a disturbed
individual (poisoning the water supply, opening an airlock, crashing the
life-support controller software).

Etcetera.

-- 
I am the Lizard King    "Vous cherchez Jim, Monsieur?"
and I can do anything
                          -- caretaker at                Gordan Palameta
 -- Jim Morrison             Pere Lachaise      mnetor!lsuc!maccs!gordan

------------------------------

Date: 1 Mar 88 02:27:45 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!yunexus!maccs!gordan@uunet.uu.net  (gordan)
Subject: Re: Coercive Space Exploration


In article <572888117.amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU> Dale.Amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU writes:
-
-Space is the only place left. The only place where we can escape the
-vile clutches of statists. [...]
-
-I may be forced to live out my life under tyranny, but at least I can
-ensure that those who come after will live in freedom.


Just another followup to the same article.

If anyone out there _really_ wants to be free of any world government,
there's a place on Earth where it can be done.  The high seas.  Outside
the 200-mile territorial limits, you're free of any government
interference (of course, some national government could try to extend
its jurisdiction to the middle of the ocean; but then again, some
government could try to extend its jurisdiction to space).

The point is, colonization of the seas seems far more plausible than
colonization of space, at least in the near term, so why don't the
anarchist, libertarian masses yearning to breathe free consider this
option?  Why the allure of space?


Consider this scenario.  Peace has broken out, and the superpowers need
some spare cash to help with the budget deficits.  They'd gladly sell
you an aircraft carrier (sans armaments) for a billion dollars or so.

The point is, those things are already practically floating cities.  A
lot of R & D has already gone into how to build them and keep them
self-sufficient for long periods of time.  They even come with their own
built-in airport.  If you eliminate the need for them to be
battleworthy, and cut out the gold-plated toilet seats, you could build
them much cheaper.

Can't afford an aircraft carrier?  Well, maybe someone'll sell you an
old oil supertanker, after fusion/solar/you-name-it energy makes them
obsolete.  Use your imagination to subdivide and redecorate the
interior.


Impractical, technologically infeasible, too expensive, too
uncomfortable, you say?  Name any reason along those lines, and I can
turn around and apply it a hundredfold to space stations.  At any level
of technology, a floating city will always be several orders of
magnitude less expensive to build and operate than a comparably sized
space station.  The environment is far more forgiving (you can take the
air you breathe for granted, for starters).  Resupplying the city by
container ship will always be far less expensive than sending a rocket
up a gravity well.

The point is, we are already at the point where thousands of people
could live in this way -- by contrast, it will be many decades before
more than a few dozen people could live permanently in space, and a
century or more before thousands could.


Not that I personally would wish to consider such an option.  Life on
land is more comfortable and far less expensive.  Only groups that are
sufficiently ideologically committed in finding government interference
intolerable could be expected to consider such an idea.

The only point in bringing up the whole idea is simply to provide a
counter-perspective -- space is certainly _not_ the only place left.  If
you're just plain bored with planet Earth, and see humanity's destiny as
"inheriting the stars", that's another matter -- but if it's simply
government you can't stand, then space is the _least_ practical option.
-- 
I am the Lizard King    "Vous cherchez Jim, Monsieur?"
and I can do anything
                          -- caretaker at                Gordan Palameta
 -- Jim Morrison             Pere Lachaise      mnetor!lsuc!maccs!gordan

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #157
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU;  8 Mar 88 06:20:48 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA18998; Tue, 8 Mar 88 03:19:06 PST
	id AA18998; Tue, 8 Mar 88 03:19:06 PST
Date: Tue, 8 Mar 88 03:19:06 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8803081119.AA18998@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #158

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 158

Today's Topics:
		       NASA Prediction Bulletis
			Lyndon's Space Policy
	  Highlights of President Reagan's new Space Policy
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 5 Mar 88 20:19:20 GMT
From: ut-emx!tskelso@sally.utexas.edu  (TS Kelso)
Subject: NASA Prediction Bulletis


For those of you who are interested in satellite tracking, the most current
orbital elements from the NASA Prediction Bulletins are carried on the
Celestial RCP/M, (512) 892-4180, and are updated several times weekly.  As a
service to the amateur satellite community, the most current of these elements
are uploaded weekly to rec.ham-radio.  The Celestial RCP/M may be accessed 24
hours/day at 300, 1200, or 2400 baud using 8 data bits, 1 stop bit, no parity.

--
TS Kelso                            ARPA: tskelso@emx.cc.utexas.edu
The Center for Space Research
The University of Texas at Austin   UUCP: {ihnp4,allegra}!ut-emx!tskelso

------------------------------

Date: 4 Mar 88 15:00:00 GMT
From: killer!ninja!sys1!trsvax!reyn@eddie.mit.edu
Subject: Lyndon's Space Policy


For those of you die-hard "I wanna get to space sooo bad" types, have I got a
Presidential Candidate for you.

Lyndon LaRouche, of "the Queen of England is a drug pusher" fame, is running on
the "establish a permanent colony on Mars by 2027" platform.

Here in the Dallas/Ft Worth Texas area, he ran a 30 minutes of Prime Major
Network Time outline of his plans to colonize outer space.  To summarize, he
proposes a totally reusable "Scramjet" which can take off from normal runways,
an interplanetary 1g constant acceleration spacecraft powered by a "one terra-
watt fusion reactor designed by Lawrence Livamore Labs" and mining of the moon 
for valuable "Helium 3" to fuel the craft.

To add weight to his argument, the viewer was treated to some stock footage
from SDI support films and some coloful illustrations which probably came
from the Golden Book Encyclopedia.  He was even clever enough to include a
Hispanic female as the first woman on Mars.

Lyndon has always been a very effective speaker, and last night was no 
exception.  Switch off your brain for a while and you too can live in outer
space.

------------------------------

Date: 28 Feb 88 16:50:39 GMT
From: nbires!isis!scicom!rwb@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Robert Brumley)
Subject: Highlights of President Reagan's new Space Policy


Someone a while back asked for details on President Reagan's new "Space Policy
and Commercial Space Initiative to Begin the Next Century."  To that end I 
have typed up two documents: one is a five-page summary and the other an
eleven-page complete version (contained in next message).  They should
provide a good basis for discussion.  I hear it's not doing so hot in
Congress, but at least Congress has something to work with!  



      Robert Brumley
Post: 4661 S. Vivian Street
      Morrison, CO  80465
Tel:  (303) 978-1838
UUCP: (isis,hao)!scicom!rwb

"Though my soul may rest in darkness, it will rise to perfect light.
 I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night."

- THE OLD ASTRONOMER TO HIS PUPIL


==================================<cut here>==================================


 The White House
 Office of the Press Secretary
 February 11, 1988


           HIGHLIGHTS OF THE PRESIDENT'S SPACE POLICY AND COMMERCIAL
                   SPACE INITIATIVE TO BEGIN THE NEXT CENTURY


                                   FACT SHEET
                                   ----------


The President today announced a comprehensive "Space Policy and Commercial
Space Initiative to Begin the Next Century" intended to assure United States
space leadership.

The President's program has three major components:

o  Establishing aa long-range goal to expand human presence and activity beyond
Earth orbit into the Solar System;

o  Creating opportunities for U.S. commerce in space; and

o  Continuing our national commitment to a permanently manned Space Station.

The new policy and programs are contained in a National Security Decision
Directive (NSDD) signed by the President on January 5, 1988, the FY 1989 Budget
the President will submit shortly to Congress, and a fifteen point Commercial
Space Initiative.


I. EXPANDING HUMAN PRESENCE BEYOND EARTH ORBIT

In the recent NSDD, the President committed to a goal of expanding human
presence and activity in the Solar System.  To lay the foundation for this
goal, the President will be requesting $100 million in his FY 1989 Budget for a
major new technology development program "Project Pathfinder" that will enable
a broad range of manned or unmanned missions beyond the Earth's orbit.

Project Pathfinder will be organized around four major focuses:

-- Exploration technology;

-- Operations technology;

-- Humans-in-space technology; and

-- Transfer vehicle technology

This research effort will give the United States know-how in critical areas,
such as humans in the space environment, closed loop life support, aero
braking, orbital transfer and maneuvering, cryogenic storage and handling, and
large scale space operations, and provide a base for wise decisions on long
term goals and missions.

Additional highlights of the NSDD are outlined in Section IV of this fact
sheet.


II. CREATING OPPORTUNITIES FOR U.S. COMMERCE IN SPACE

The President is announcing a fifteen point commercial space initiative to
seize the opportunities for a vigorous U.S.  commercial presence in Earth orbit
and beyond -- in research and manufacturing.  This initiative has three goals:

o  Promoting a strong U.S. commercial presence in space;

o  Assuring a highway to space; and

o  Building a solid technology and talent base.


PROMOTING A STRONG U.S. COMMERCIAL PRESENCE IN SPACE

1.  Private Sector Space Facility: The President is announcing an intent for
the Federal Government to lease space as an "anchor tenant" in an orbiting
space facility suitable for research and commercial manufacturing that is
financed, constructed, and operated by the private sector.  The Administration
will solicit proposals for the U.S. private sector for such a facility.  Space
in this facility will be used and/or subleased by various Federal agencies with
interest in microgravity research.

The Administration's intent is to award a contract during mid-summer of this
year for such space and related services to be available to the Government no
later than the end of FY 1993.

2. Spacehab: The Administration is committing to make best efforts to launch
within the Shuttle payload bay, in the early 1990s, the commercially developed,
owned, and managed Shuttle middeck module: Spacehab.  Manifesting requirements
will depend on customer demand.

Spacehab is a pressurized metal cylinder that fits in the Shuttle payload bay
and connects to the crew compartment through the orbiter airlock.  Spacehab
takes up approximately one-quarter of the payload bay and increases the
pressurized living and working space of an orbiter by approximately 1,000 cubic
feet or 400 percent in useable research volume.  The facility is intended to be
ready for commercial use in mid-1991.

2.  Microgravity Research Board: The President will establish, through
Executive Order, a national Microgravity Research Board to assure and
coordinate a broader range of opportunities for research in microgravity
conditions.

NASA will chair this board, which will include senior-level representatives for
the Departments of Commerce, Transportaion, Energy, and Defense, NIH, and NSF;
and will consult with the university and commercial sectors.  The board will
have the following responsibilities:

o  To stimulate research in microgravity environments and its applications to
commercial uses by advising Federal agencies, including NASA, on microgravity
priorities, and consulting with private industry and academia on microgravity
research opportunites;

o  To develop policy recommendations to th Federal Government on matters
relating to microgravity research, including types of research, governement/
industry/and academic cooperation, and access to space, including a potential
launch voucher program;

o  To coordinate the microgravity programs of Federal agaencies by:

-- reviewing agency plans for microgravity research and  recommending
priorities for the use of Federally-owned or leased space on microgravity
facilities; and

-- ensuring that agencies establish merit review processes for evaluating
microgravity research proposals; and

o  To promote transfer of federally funded microgravity research to the
commercial sector in furtherance of Executive Order 12591.

NASA will continue to be responsible for making judgments on the safety of
experiments and for making manifesting decisions for manned space flight
systems.

4.  External Tanks: The Administration is making available for five years the
expended external tanks of the Shuttle fleet at no cost to all feasible U.S.
commercial and nonprofit endeavors, for uses such as research, storage, or
manufacturing in space.

NASA will provide any necessary technical or other assistance to these
endeavors on a direct cost basis.  If private sector demand exceeds supply,
NASA may auction the external tanks.

5.  Privatizing Space Station: NASA, in coordination with the Office of
Management and Budget, will revise its guidelines on commercialization of the
U.S. Space Station to clarify and strengthen the Federal commitment to private
sector investment in this program.

6.  Future Privatization:  NASA will seek to rely to the greatest extent
feasible on private sector design, financing, construction, and operation of
future Space Station requirements, including those currently under study.

7.  Remote Sensing:  The Administration is encouraging the development of
commercial remote sensing systems.  As part of this effort, the Department of
Commerce, in consultation with other agencies, is examining potential
opportunities for future Federal procurement of remote sensing data from the
U.S. commercial sector.


ASSURING A HIGHWAY TO SPACE

8.  Reliance on Private Launch Services: Federal agencies will procure existing
and future required expendable launch services directly from the private sector
to the fullest extent feasible.

9.  Insurance Relief for Launch Providers: The Administration will take
administrative steps to address the insurance concerns of the U.S. commercial
launch industry, which currently uses Federal launch ranges.  These steps
include:

o  Limits on Third Party Liability: Consistent with the Administration's tort
policy, the Administration will propose to Congress a $200,000 cap on
noneconomic damage awards to individual third parties resulting from commercial
launch accidents;

o  Limits on Property Damage Liability: the liability of commercial launch
operators for damage to Government property resulting from a commercial launch
accident will be administratively limited to the level of insurance required by
the Department of Transportation.

If losses to the Government exceed this level, the Government will waive its
right to recover for damages.  If losses are less than this level, the
Government will waive its right to recover for those damages caused by
Government willful misconduct or reckless disregard.

10.  Private Launch Ranges: The Administration will consult with the private
sector on the potential construction of commercial launch range facilities
separate from Federal facilities and the use of such facilities by the Federal
Government.

11. Vouchers for Research Payloads: NASA and the Department of Transportation
will explore providing to research payload owners manifested on the Shuttle a
one time launch voucher that can be used to purchase an alternative U.S.
commercial launch service.


BUILDING A SOLID TECHNOLOGY AND TALENT BASE

12. Space Technology Spin-Offs: The president is directing that the new
Pathfinder program, the Civil Space Technology Initiative, and other technology
programs be conducted in accordance with the following policies:

o  Federally funded contractors, universities, and Federal laboratories will
retain the rights to any patents and technical data, including copyrights, that
result from these programs.  The Federal Government will have the authority to
use this intellectual property royalty free;

o  Proposed technologies and patents available for licensing will be housed in
a Pathfinder/CSTI library within NASA; and

o  When contracting for commercial development of Pathfinder, CSTI and other
technology work products, NASA will specify its requirements in a manner that
provides contractors with maximum flexibility to pursue innovative and creative
approaches.

13. Federal Expertise on Loan to American Schools: The President is encouraging
Federal scientists, engineers, and technicians in aerospace and space related
careers to take a sabbatical year to teach in any level of education in the
United States.

14. Education Opportunities: The President is requesting in his FY 1989 Budget
expanding five-fold opportunities for U.S.  teacher to visit NASA field centers
and related aerospace and university facilities.

In addition, NASA, NSF, and DoD wil contribute materials and classroom
experiments through the Department of Education to U.S. schools developing
"tech shop" programs.  NASA will encourage corporate participation in this
program.

15. Protecting U.S. Critical Technologies: The Administration is requesting
that Congress extend to NASA the authority it has given the Department of
Defense to protect from wholesale release under the Freedom of Information act
those critical national technologies and systems that are prohibited from
export.


III.  CONTINUING THE NATIONAL COMMITMENT TO THE SPACE STATION

In 1984, the President directed NASA to develop a permanently manned Space
Station.  The President remains commited to achieving this end and is
requesting $1 billion in his FY 1989 Budget for continued development and a
three year appropriation commitment from Congress for $6.1 billion.  The Space
Station, planned for devlopment in cooperation with U.S. friends and allies, is
intended to be a multi-purpose facility for the Nation's science and
applications programs.  It will permit such things in space as: research,
observation of the solar system, assembly of vehicles or facilities, storage,
servicing of satellites, and basing for future space missions and commercial
and entrpreneurial endeavors in space.

To help ensure a Space Station that is cost effective, the President is
proposing as part of his Commercial Space Initiative actions to encourage
private sector investment in the Space Station, including directing NASA to
rely to the greatest extend feasible on private sector design, financing,
construction, and operation of future Space Station requirements.


IV.  ADDITIONAL HIGHLIGHTS OF THE JANUARY 5, 1988 NSDD

o  U.S. Space Leadership: Leadersip is reiterated as a fundamental national
objective in areas of space activity critical to achieving U.S. national
security, scientific, economic and foreign policy goals.

o  Defining Federal Roles and Responsibilities: Governement activities are
specified in three separate and distinct sectors: civil, national security, and
nongovernmental.  Agency roles and responsibilities are codified and specific
goals are established for the civil space sector; those for other sectors are
updated.

o  Encouraging a Commercial Sector: A separate, nongovernmental or commercial
space sector is recognized and encouraged by the policy that Federal Government
actions shall not preclude or deter the continuing development of this sector.
New guidelines are established to limit unnecessary Government competition with
the private sector and ensure that Federal agencies are reliable customers for
commercial space goods and services.

o  The President's launch policy prohibiting NASA from maintaining an
expendable launch vehicle adjunct to the Shuttle, as well as limiting
commercial and foreign payloads on the Shuttle to those that are Shuttle-unique
or serve national security or foreign policy purposes, is reaffirmed.  In
addition, policies endorsing the purchase of commercial launch services by
Federal agencies are further strengthened.

o  National Security Space Sector: An assured capability for national security
missions is clearly enunciated, and the survivability and endurance of critical
national security space functions is stressed.

o  Assuring Access to Space: Assured access to space is recognized as a key
element of national space policy.  U.S.  space transportation systems that
provide sufficient resiliency to allow continued operation, despite failures in
any single system, are emphasized.  The mix of space transportation vehicles
will be defined to support mission needs in the most cost effective manner.

o  Remote Sensing: Policies for Federal "remote sensing" or observation of the
Earth are established to encourage the developement of U.S. commercial systems
competitive with or superior to foreign-operated civil or commercial systems.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #158
*******************

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Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA20679; Wed, 9 Mar 88 03:23:46 PST
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Date: Wed, 9 Mar 88 03:23:46 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8803091123.AA20679@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #159

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 159

Today's Topics:
	President Reagan's new Space Initiative - Long Version
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 28 Feb 88 17:01:29 GMT
From: nbires!isis!scicom!rwb@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Robert Brumley)
Subject: President Reagan's new Space Initiative - Long Version


Here is the long version to President Reagan's new Space Initiative.  Enjoy.


      Robert Brumley
Post: 4661 S. Vivian Street
      Morrison, CO  80465
Tel:  (303) 978-1838
UUCP: (isis,hao)!scicom!rwb

"Still round the corner there may wait
  A new road or a secret gate;
 And though I oft have passed them by,
  A day will come at last when I
 Shall take the hidden paths that run
  West of the Moon, East of the Sun."

- J.R.R. Tolkien


==================================<cut here>==================================


 THE WHITE HOUSE
 Office of the Press Secretary
 February 11, 1988


               PRESIDENTIAL DIRECTIVEE ON NATIONAL SPACE POLICY


                                   FACT SHEET
                                   ----------


The President approved on January 5, 1988, a revised national space policy that
will get the direction of U.S. efforts in space for the future.  The policy is
the result of a five-month interagency review which included a thorough
analysis of previous Presidential decisions, the National Commission on Space
report, and the implications of the Space Shuttle and expendable launch vehicle
accidents.  The primary objective of this review was to consolidate and update
Presidential guidance on U.S. space activities to provide a broad policy
framework to guide U.S. space activities well into the future.

The resulting Presidential Directive reaffirms the national commitment to the
exploration and use of space in support of our national well being.  It
acknowledges that Unites States space activities are conducted by three
separate and distinct sectors: two strongly interacting governmental sectors
(Civil, and National Security) and a separate, non-governmental Commercial
Sector.  Close coordination, cooperation, and technology and information
exchange will be maintained among sectors to avoid unnecessary duplication and
promote attainment of United States space goals.


GOALS AND PRINCIPLES

The directive states that a fundamental objective guiding United States space
activities has been, and continues to be, space leadership.  Leadership in an
increasingly competitive international environment does not require United
States preeminence in all areas and disciplines of space enterprise.  It does
require United States preeminence in key areas of space activity critical to
achieving our national security, scientific, technical, economic, and foriegn
policy goals.

-  The overall goals of United States space activities are: (1) to strengthen
the security of the United States; (2) the general population and to improve
the quality of life on Earth through space-related activities; (3) to encourage
continuing United States private-sector investment in space and related
activities; (4) to promote international cooperative activities taking into
account United States national security, foreign policy, scientific, and
economic interests; (5) to cooperate with other nations in maintaining the
freedom of space for all activities that enhance the security and welfare of
mankind; and, as a long-range goal, (6) to expand human presence and activity
beyond Earth orbit into the solar system.

-  The directive states that United States space activities shall be conducted
in accordance with the following principles:

--  The United States is committed to the exploration and use of outer space by
all nations for peaceful purposes and for the benefit of all mankind.
"Peaceful purposes" allow for activitites in pursuit of national security
goals.

--  The United States will pursue activities in space in support of its
inherent right of self-defense and its defense commitments to its allies.

--  The United States rejects any claims to sovereignty by any nation over
outer space or celestial bodies, or any portion thereof, and rejects any
limitations on the fundamental right of sovereign nations to acquire data from
space.

--  The United States considers the space systems of any nation to be national
property with the right of passage through and operations in space without
interference.  Purposeful interference with space systems shall be viewed as an
infringement on sovereign rights.

--  The United States shall encourage and not preclude the commercial use and
exploitation of space technologies and systems for national economic benefit
without direct Federal subsidy.  These commercial activities must be consistent
with national security interests, and international and domestic legal
obligations.

--  The United States shall encourage other countries to engage in free and
fair trade in commercial space goods and services.

--  The United States will conduct international cooperative space-related
activities that are expected to achieve sufficient scientific, political,
economic, or national security benefits for the nation.  The United States will
seek mutually beneficial international participation in its space and space-
related programs.


CIVIL SPACE POLICY

The directive states that:

- The United States civil space sector activities shall contribute
significantly to enhancing the Nation's science, technology, economy, pride,
sense of well-being and direction, as well as United States world prestige and
leadership.  Civil sector activities shall comprise a balanced strategy of
research, development, operations, and technology for science, exploration, and
appropriate applications.

-  The objectives of the United States civil space activities shall be (1) to
expand knowledge of the Earth, its environment, the solar system, and the
universe; (2) to create new opportunities for use of the space environment
through the conduct of appropriate research and experimentation in advanced
technology and systems; (3) to develop space technology for civil applications
and, wherever appropriate, make such technology available to the commercial
sector; (4) to preserve the United States preeminence in critical aspects of
space science, applications, technology, and manned space flight; (5) to
establish a permanently manned presence in space; and (6) to engage in
international cooperative efforts that further United States space goals.


COMMERCIAL SPACE POLICY

The directive states that the United States government shall not preclude or
deter the continuing development of a separate, non-gevernmental Commercial
Space Sector.  Expanding private sector investment in space by the market-
driven Commercial Sector generates economic benefits for the Nation and
supports governmental Space Sectors with an increasing range of space goods and
services.  Governmental Space Sectors shall purchase commercially available
space goods and services to the fullest extent feasible and shall not conduct
activities with potential commercial applications that preclude or deter
Commercial Sector space activities except for national security or public
safety reasons.  Commercial Sector space activities shall be supervised or
regulated only to the extent required by law, national security, international
obligations, and public safety.


NATIONAL SECURITY SPACE POLICY

The directive further states that the Unites States will conduct those
activities in space that are necessary to national defense.  Space activities
will contribute to national security objectives by 1) deterring, or if
necessary, defending against enemy attack; 2) assuring that forces of hostile
nations cannot prevent our own use of space; 3) negating, if necessary, hostile
space systems; and 4) enhancing operations of United States and Allied forces.
Consistent with treaty obligations, the national security space program shall
support such functions as command and warning, and surveillance (including
research and development programs which support these functions).


INTER-SECTOR POLICIES

This section contains policies applicable to, and binding on, the national
security and civil space sectors:

- The United States Government will maintain and coordinate separate national
security and civil operational space systems where differing needs of the
sectors dictate.

- Survivability and endurance of national security space systems, including all
necessary system elements, will be pursued commensurate with their planned use
in crisis and conflict, with the threat, and with the availability of other
assets to perform the mission.

- Government sectors shall encourage, to the maximum extent feasible, the
development and use of United States private sector space capabilities without
direct Federal subsidy.

- The directive states that the United States Government will: (1) encourage
the development of commercial systems which image the Earth from space
competitive with or superior to foreign-operated civil or commercial systems;
(2) discuss remote sensing issues and activities with foreign governments
operating or regulating the private operation of remote sensing systems; and
(3) continue a research and development effort for future advanced, remote
sensing technologies.  Commercial applications of such technologies will not
involve direct Federal subsidy.

- The directive further states that assured access to space, sufficient to
achieve all United States space goals, is a key element of national space
policy.  United States space transportation systems must provide a balanced,
robust, and flexible capability with sufficient resiliency to allow continued
operations despite failures in any single system.  The goals of United States
space transportation policy are: (1) to achieve and maintain safe and reliable
access to, transportation in, and return from, space; (2) to exploit the unique
attributes of manned and unmanned launch and recovery systems; (3) to encourage
to the maximum extent feasible, the development and use of United States
private sector space transportation capabilities without direct Federal
subsidy; and (4) to reduce the costs of space transportation and related
services.

- The directive also states that communications advancements are critical to
all United States space sectors.  To ensure necessary capabilities exist, the
directive states that the United States Government will continue research and
development efforts for future advanced space communications technologies.
These technologies, when utilized for commercial purposes, will be without
direct Federal subsidy.

- The directive states that it is the policy of the United States to control or
prohibit, as appropriate, exports of equipment and/or technology that would
make a significant contribution to a foreign country's strategic military
missile programs.  Certain United States friends and allies will be exempted
from this policy, subject to appropriate non-transfer and end-use assurances.

- The directive also states that the United States will consider and, as
appropriate, formulate policy positions on arms control measures governing
activities in space, and will conduct negotiations on such measures only if
they are equitable, effectively verifiable, and enhance the security of the
United States and its allies.

- the directive further states that all space sectors will seek to minimize the
creation of space debris.  Design and operations of space tests, experiments
and systems will strive to minimize or reduce accumulation of space debris
consistent with mission requirements and cost effectiveness.


IMPLEMENTING PROCEDURES

The directive states that normal interagency procedures will be employed
wherever possible to coordinate the policies enunciated in this directive.  To
provide a forum to all Federal agencies for their policy views, to review and
advise on proposed changes to national space policy, and to provide for orderly
and rapid referral of space policy issues to the President for decisions as
necessary, a Senior Interagency Group (SIG) on Space shall continue to meet.
the SIG(Space) will be chaired by a member of the National Security Council
staff and will include appropriate representatives of the Department of State,
Department of Defence (DoD), Department of Commerce (DoC), Department of
Transportation (DoT), Director of Central Intelligence (DCI), Organization of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency,
the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Office of Management
and Budget, and the Office of Science and Technolgy Policy.  Other Executive
agencies or departments will participate as the agenda of meeting shall
dictate.


******************************************************************************


POLICY GUIDELINES AND IMPLEMENTING ACTIONS

The directive also enumerates Policy Guidelines and Implementing Actions to
provide a framework through which the policies in the directive shall be
carried out.  Agencies are directed to use this section as guidance on
priorities, including preparation, review, and execution of budgets for space
activities, within the overall resource and policy guidance provided by the
president.  Within 120 days of the date of this directive, affected Government
agencies are directed to review their current policies for consistency with the
directive and, where necessary, estaablish policies to implement the practices
contained therein.


CIVIL SPACE SECTOR GUIDELINES

- The directive specifies that in conjunction with other agencies: NASA will
continue the lead role within the Federal Government for advancing space
science, exploration, and appropriate applications through the conduct of
activities for research, technolgy, development, and related operations; the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will gather data, conduct
research, and make predictions about the Earth's environment; DOT will licence
and promote commercial launch operations which support civil sector opration.

- Space Science.  NASA, with the collaboration of other appropriate agencies,
will conduct a balanced program to support scientific research, exploration,
and experimentation to expand understanding of: (1) astrophysical phenomena and
the origin and evolution of the universe; (2) the Earth, its environment and
its dynamic relationship with the Sun; (3) the origin and evolution of the
solar system; (4) fundamental physical, chemical, and biological processes; (5)
the effects of the space environment on human beings; and (6) the factors
governing the origin and spread of life in the universe.

-  Space Exploration.  In order to investigate phenomena and objects both
within and beyond the solar system, the directive states that NASA will conduct
a balanced program of manned and unmanned exploration.

--  Human Exploration.  To implement the long-range goal of expanding human
presence and activity beyond Earth orbit into the solar system the policy
directs NASA to begin the systematic development of technologies necessary to
enable and support a range of future manned missions.  This technolgy program
(Pathfinder) will be oriented toward a Presidential decision on a focused
program of manned exploration of the solar sytem.

--  Unmanned Exploration.  The policy further directs NASA to continue to
pursue a program of unmanned exploration where such exploration can most
efficiently and effectively satisfy national space objectives by among other
things: acieving scientific objectives where human presence is undesirable or
unnecessary; exploring realms where the risks or costs of life support are
unacceptable; and providing data vital to support future manned missions.

- Permanent Manned Presence.  The directive states that NASA will develop the
Space Station to achieve permanently manned operational capability by the mid-
1990s.  The directive further states that the Space Station will: (1)
Contribute to United States preeminence in critical aspects of manned
spaceflight; (2) provide support and stability to scientific and technological
investigations; (3) provide early benefits, particularly in the materials and
life sciences; (4) promote private sector experimentation preparatory to
independent commercial activity; (5) allow evolution in keeping with the needs
of Station users and the long-term goals of the United States; (6) provide
opportunities for commercial sector participation; and (7) contribute to the
longer term goal of expanding human presence and activity beyond Earth orbit
into the solar system.

- Manned Spaceflight Preeminence.  the directive specifies that approved
programs such as efforts to improve the Space Transportation System (STS) and
return it to safe flight and to develop, deploy, and use the Space Station, are
intended to ensure United States preeminence in critical aspects of manned
spaceflight.

- Space Applications.  The policy directs NASA and other agencies to pursue the
identification and development of appropriate applications flowing from their
activities.  Agencies will seek to promote private sector development and
implementation of applications.  The policy also states that:

--  Such applications will create new capabilities, or improve the quality or
efficiency of continuing activities, including long-term scientific
observations.

--  NASA will seek to ensure its capability to conduct selected critical
missions through an appropriate mix of assured access to space, on-orbit
sparing, advanced automation techniques, redundancy, and other suitable
measures.

--  Agencies may enter cooperative research and development agreements on space
applications with firms seeking to advance the relevant state-of-the-art
consistent with United States Governmental space objectives.

--  Management of Federal civil operational remote sensing is the
responsibility of the Department of Commerce.  The Department of Commerce will:
(1) consolidate Federal needs for civil operational remote sensing products to
be met either by the private sector or the Federal government; (2) identify
needed civil operational system research and development objectives; and (3) in
coordination with other departments or agencies, provide for the regulation of
private sector operational remote sensing systems.

- Civil Government Space Transportation.  The policy states the unique Space
Transportation System (STS) capability to provide manned access to space will
be exploited in those areas that offer the greatest national return, including
contributing to United States preeminence in critical aspects of manned
spaceflight.  The STS fleet will maintain the Nation's capability and will be
used to support critical programs requiring manned presence and other unique
STS capabilities.  In support of national space transportation goals, NASA will
establish sustainable STS flight rates to provide for planning and budgeting of
Government space programs.  NASA will pursue appropriate enhancements to STS
operational capabilities, upper stages, and systems for deploying, servicing,
and retrieving spacecraft as national and user requirements are defined.

- International Cooperation.  The policy guidelines state that the United
States will foster increased international cooperation in civil space
activities by seeking mutually beneficial international participation in its
civil space and space-related programs.  the SIG(Space) Working Group on Space
Science Cooperation with the U.S.S.R. shall be responsible for oversight of
civil space cooperation with the Soviet Union.  No such cooperative activity
shall be initiated until an interagency review has been completed.  The
directive provides that United States cooperation in international civil space
activities will:

--  Be consistent with United States technology transfer laws, regulations,
Executive orders and presidential directives.

--  Support the public, nondiscriminatory direct readout of data from Federal
civil systems to foreign ground stations and the provision of data to foreign
users under specified coonditions.

--  be conducted in such a way as to protect the commercial value of
intellectual property developed with Federal support.  Such cooperation will
not preclude or deter commercial space activities by the United States private
sector, except as required by national security or public safety.


COMMERCIAL SPACE SECTOR GUIDELINES

-  The directive states that NASA, and the Departments of commerce, Defense,
and Transporation will work cooperatively to develop and implement specific
measures to foster the growth of private sector commercial use of space.  A
high-level focus for commercial space issues has been created through
establishment of a Commercial Space Working Group of the Economic Policy
Council.  SIG(Space) will continue to coordinate the development and
implementation of national space policy.

-  To stimulate private sector investment, ownership, and operation of space
assets, the directive provides that the United States Government will
facilitate private sector access to appropriate U.S. space-related hardware and
facilities, and encourage the private sector to undertake commercial space
ventures.  The directive states that Governmental Space Sectors shall, without
providing direct Federal subsidies:

--  Utilize commercially available goods and services to the fullest extent
feasible, and avoid actions that may preclude or deter commercial space sector
activities except as required by national security or public safety.  A space
good or service is "commercially available" if it is currently offered
commercially, or if it could be supplied commercialy in response to a
government service procurement request.  "Feasible" means that such goods or
services meet mission requirements in a cost-effective manner.

--  Enter into appropriate cooperative agreements to encourage and advance
private sector basic research, development, and operations while protecting the
commercial value of the intellectual property developed;

-- Provide for the use of appropriate Government facilities on a reimbursable
basis;

-- Identify, and eliminate or propose for elimination, applicable portions of
United States laws and regulations that unnecessarily impede commercial space
sector activities;

-- Encourage free trade in commercial space activities.  The United States
Trade Representative will consult, or, as appropriate, negotiate with other
countries to encourage free trade in commercial space activities.  In entering
into space-related technology development and transfer agreements with other
countires, Executive Departments and agencies will take into consideration
whether such countries practice and encourage free and fair trade in commercial
space activities.

-- Provide for the timely transfer of Government-developed space technology to
the private sector in such a manner as to protect its commercial value,
consistent with national security.

--  Price Government-provided goods and services consistent with OMB Circular
A-25.

-  The directive also states that the Department of Commerce (DOC) will
commission a study to provide information for future policy and program
decisions on options for a commercial advanced earth remote sensing system.
This study, to be conducted in the private sector under DOC direction with
input from other Federal Agencies, will consist of assessments of the following
elements: (1) domestic and international markets for remote sensing data; (2)
financing options, such as cooperative opportunities between government and
industry in which the private sector contributes substantial financing to the
venture, participation by other government agencies, and international
cooperative partnerships; (3) sensor and data processing technology and; (4)
spacecraft technology and launch options.  The results of this study will
include an action plan on the best alternatives identified during the study.


NATIONAL SECURITY SPACE SECTOR GUIDELINES

-  General.  The directive states that:

--  The Department of Defense (DOD) will develop, operate, and maintain an
assured mission capability through an appropriate mix of robust satellite
control, assured access to space, on-orbit sparing, proliferation,
reconstitution or other means.

--  The national security space program, including dissemination of data, shall
be conducted in accordance with Executive Orders and applicable directives for
the protection of national security information and commensurate with both the
missions performed and the security measures necessary to protect related space
activities.

--  DOD will ensure tha the military space program incorporates the support
requirements of the Strategic Defense Initiative.

-  Space Support.  The directive states that:

--  The national security space sector may use both manned and unmanned launch
systems as determined by specific mission requirements.  Payloads will be
distributed among launch systems and launch sites to minimize the impact of
loss of any single launch system or launch site on mission performance.  The
DOD will also continue to enhance the robustness of its satellite control
capability through an appropriate mix of satellite autonomy and survivable
command and control, processing, and data dissemination systems.

--  DOD will study concepts and technologies which would support future
contingency launch capabilities.

-  Force Enhancement.  The directive states that the national security space
sector will develop, operate, and maintain space systems and develop plans and
architectures to meet the requirements of operation land, sea, and air forces
through all levels of conflict commensurrate with their intended use.

-  Space Control.  The directive also states that:

--  The DOD will develop, operate, and maintain enduring space systems to
ensure its freedom of action in space.  This requires an integrated combination
of antisatellite, survivability, and surveillance capabilities.

--  Antisatellite (ASAT) Capability.  DOD will develop and deploy a robust and
comprehensive ASAT capability with programs as required and with initial
operational capability at the earliest possible date.

--  DOD space programs will pursue a survivability enhancement program with
long-term planning for future requirements.  The DOD must provide for the
survivability of selected, critical national security space assets (including
associated terrestrial components) to a degree commensurate with the value and
utility of the support they provide to national-level decision functions, and
military operational forces across the spectrum of conflict.

--  The United States will develop and maintain an integrated attack warning,
notification, verification, and contingency reaction capability which can
effectively detect and react to threats to United States space systems.

-  Force Application.  The directive states that the DOD will, consistent with
treaty obligations, conduct research, development, and planning to be prepared
to acquire and deploy space weapons systems for strategic defense should
national security conditions dictate.


INTER-SECTOR GUIDELINES

The directive states that the following paragraphs identify selected, high
priority corss-sector efforts and responsibilities to implement plans
supporting major United States space policy objectives:

-  Space Transportation Guidelines.

--  The United States national space transportation capability will be based on
a mix of vehicles, consisting of the Space Transportation System (STS),
unmanned launch vehicles (ULVs), and in-space transporation systems.  The
elements of this mix will be defined to support the mission needs of national
security and civil government sectors of United States space activities in the
most cost effective manner.

--  As determined by specific mission requirements, the national security space
sector will use the STS and ULVs.  In coordination with NASA, the DOD will
assure the Shuttle's utility to national defense and will integrate missions
into the Shuttle system.  Launch priority will be provided for national
security missions as implemented by NASA-DOD agreements.  Launches necessary to
preserve and protect human life in space shall have the highest priority except
in times of national security emergency.

--  The STS will continue to be managed and operated in an institutional
arrangement consistent with the current NASA/DOD Memorandum of Understanding.
Responsibility will remain in NASA for oprational control of the STS for civil
missions, and in the DOD for operational control of the STS for national
security missions.  Mission management is the responsibility of the mission
agency.

--  United States commercial launch operations are an integral element of a
robust national space launch capability.  NASA will not maintain an expendable
launch vehicle (ELV) adjunct to the STS.  NASA will provide launch services for
commercial and foreign payloads only where those payloads must be man-tended,
require the unique capabilities of the STS, or it is determined that launching
the payloads on the STS is important for national security or foreign policy
purposes.  Commercial and foreign payloads will not be launched on government
owned or operated ELV systems except for national security or foreign policy
reasons.

--  Civil Government agencies will encourage, to the maximum extent feasible, a
domestic commercial launch industry by contracting for necessary ELV launch
services directly from the private sector or with DOD.

--  NASA and the DOD will continue to cooperate in the development and use of
military and civil space transporation systems and avoid unnecessary
duplication of activities.  They will pursue new launch and launch support
concepts aimed at improving cost-effectiveness, responsiveness, capability,
reliability, availability, maintainability, and flexibility.  Such cooperation
between the national security and civil sectors will ensure efficient and
effective use of national resources.

-  The directive lists guidelines for the federal encouragement of commercial
unmanned launch vehicles (ULVs):

--  The United States Government fully endorses and will facilitate the
commercialization of United States unmanned launch vehicles (ULVs).

--  The Department of Transportation (DOT) is the lead agency within the
Federal Government for developing, coordinating, and articulating Federal
policy and regulatory guidance pertaining to United States commercial launch
activities in consultation with DOD, State, NASA, and other concerned agencies.
All Executive departments and agencies shall assist the DOT in carrying out its
responsibilities, as set forth in the Commercial Space Launch Act and Executive
Order 12465.

--  The United States Government encourages the use of its launch and launch-
related facilities for United States commercial operations.

--  The United States Government will have priority use of Government
facilities and support services to meet national security and critical mission
requirements.  The United States Government will make all reasonable efforts to
minimize impacts on commercial operations.

--  The United States Government will not subsidize the commercialization of
ULVs, but will price the use of its facilities, equipment, and services wit the
goal of encouraging viable commercial ULV activities in accordance with the
Commercial Space Launch Act.

--  The United States Government will encourage free market competition within
the United States private sector.  The United States Government will provide
equitable treatment for all commercial launch operators for the sale or lease
of Government equipment and facilities consistent with lease of Government
equipment and facilities consistent with its economic, foreign policy, and
national security interests.

--  NASA and DOD, for those unclassified and releasable capabilities for which
they have responsibility, shall, to the maximum entent feasible:

---  Develop, in consultation with the DOT, contractual arrangements covering
access by commercial launch firms to national launch and launch-related
property and services they request in support of their operations;

---  Use best efforts to provide commercial launch firms with access, on a
reimbursable basis, to national launch and launch-related facilities,
equipment, tooling, and services to support commercial launch operations;

---  Provide technical advice and assistance to commercial launch firms on a
reimbursable basis, consistent with the pricing guidelines herein; and

---  Conduct, in coordination with DOT, appropriate environmental analyses
necessary to ensure that commercial launch operations conducted at Federal
launch facilities are in compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act.

-  The directive lists government ULV Pricing Guidelines.  The price charged
for the use of United States Government facilities, equipment, and service,
will be based on the following principles:

--  Price all services (including those associated with production and launch
of commercial ULVs) based on the direct costs incurred by the United States
Government.  Reimbursement shall be credited to the appropriation from which
the cost of providing such property or service was paid.

--  The United States Government will not seek to recover ULV design and
development costs or investments associated with any existing facilities or new
facilities required to meet United States Government needs to which the U.S.
government retain title;

--  Tooling, equipment, and residual ULV hardware on hand at the completion of
the United States Government's program will be priced on a basis that is in the
best overall interest off the United States Government, taking into
consideration that these sales will not constitute a subsidy to the private
sector operator.

-  The directive also states that commercial launch firms shall:

--  Maintain all facilities and equipment leased from the United States
Government to a level of readiness and repair specified by the United States
Government;

--  Comply with all requirements of the Commercial Space Launch Act, all
regulations issued under the Act, and all terms, conditions or restrictions of
any license issued or transferred by the Secretary of Transporation under the
Act.

-  The directive establishes the following technology transfer guidelines:

-- The United States will work to stem the flow of advanced western space
technology to unauthorized destinations.  Executive departments and agencies
will be fully responsible for protecting against adverse technology transfer in
the conduct of their programs.

--  Sales of United States space hardware, software, and related technologies
for use in foreign space projects will be consistent with relevant
international and bilateral agreements and arrangements.

-  The directive states that all Sectors shall recognize the importance of
appropriate investments in the facilities and human resources necessary to
support United States space objectives and maintain investments that are
consistent with such objectives.  A task force of the commercial Space Working
Group, in cooperation with OSTP, will conduct a feasibility study of alternate
methods for encouraging, without direct Federal subsidy, private sector capital
funding of United States space infrastructure such as ground facilities,
launcher developments, and orbital assembly and test facilities.  Coordinated
terms of reference for this study shall be presented to the EPC and SIG(Space).

-  The directive notes that the primary forum for negotiations on nuclear and
space arms is the Nuclear and Space Talks (NST) with the Soviet Union in
Geneva.  The instructions to the United States Delegation will be consistent
with this National Space Policy directive, established legal obligations, and
additional guidance by the President.  The United States will continue to
consult with its Allies on these negotiations and ensure that any resulting
agreements enhance the security of the United States and its Allies.  Any
discussions on arms control relating to activities in space in fora other than
NST must be consistent with, and subordinate to, the foregoing activities and
objectives.

-  Finally the directive states that using NSC staff approved terms of
reference, an IG(Space) working group will provide recommendations on the
implementation of the Space Debris Policy contained in the Policy section of
this directive.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #159
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 10 Mar 88 06:26:41 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA01327; Thu, 10 Mar 88 03:18:02 PST
	id AA01327; Thu, 10 Mar 88 03:18:02 PST
Date: Thu, 10 Mar 88 03:18:02 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8803101118.AA01327@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #160

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 160

Today's Topics:
		Re: the LaRouchians are coming (again)
			     Bill Nelson
		       Geography and Typography
    AL GORE ON SPACE POLICY - Where the candidates stand, Part II
			  Re: Free-fall sex
	    Re: SPACE Digest V8 #153 (re: this news group)
			Re: When Stars Collide
		      Re: More about John Glenn
		       Re: Next Arianne launch
		     Re: Colonization of the seas
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date:  6 Mar 1988 14:13-EST 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: the LaRouchians are coming (again)

I too made a point of watching the LaRouche telecast. I was fortunate
in being forwarned by a radio station engineer while going through
sound checks for a talk show.

A great deal of what he presented was accurate information. There was
also a small percentage of bent truth and pseudo science stuck in where
few non technical people would spot it. Like any would-be world
dictator, he made it sound like he personally generated all the ideas
and got others to follow up on them.

I do not agree with a 2 trillion dollar federal budget and a government
constructed space colony on a planetary surface. Nonetheless, it was
one of the better presentations on space possibilities that I have seen
in prime time in 25 years.

And that is a crime.

It means that the american media have done such a pathetic job in
preparing the public for the 21st century that a person like this can
come along and take credit for the ideas and work of thousands.

By failing to inform, they have given him the high ground in bold
proposals. Those who point out (after the fact) he had nothing to do
with any of these developments will appear as simple detractors (to the
previously uninformed).

I've already heard some statements from people who don't realize what
LaRouche is.

LaRouche gets points this time because the media utterly failed at the
performance of it's sacred duty: to inform the electorate. They are too
busy trying to photograph politicians in bed with models and whores to
bother with the future of humanity.

------------------------------

Date:  6 Mar 1988 15:05-EST 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Bill Nelson

As some previous posters have noted, Bill Nelson has decided on a one
congressman campaign to stop Payload Systems Inc from doing materials
processing experiments on MIR. I feel that it is simply sour grapes on
his part that american companies have to go to the 'evil empire' in
order to run experiments. Maybe if our space program wasn't an utter
failure, PSI would not have to.

Nonetheless, I feel Congressman Nelson is attempting a gross
interference with private business. Anyone who feels likewise should
write him. 307 Cannon House Office Building, Wash. DC 20515

Incidentally, he and many of the others in his Space Science and
Applications Subcommittee are out to stop NASA from putting out an RFP
for a 'Commercially Developed Space Facility'.

------------------------------

Date: Sun,  6 Mar 88 17:03:49 EST
From: "Keith F. Lynch" <KFL@ai.ai.mit.edu>
Subject: Geography and Typography
To: deskevich@bluto.scc.com
Cc: KFL@ai.ai.mit.edu, Space@angband.s1.gov

> THIS IS MY FIRST ATTEMPT TO PARTICIPATE IN THE SPACE DIGEST DIALOG OR
> WHAT EVER LOG YOU WANT TO CALL IT AND I WAS WONDERING WHAT GEOGRAPHIC
> AREA IS COVERED BY THE PARTICIPANTS.

All parts of the free world where lowercase is used.
								...Keith

------------------------------

Date: 6 Mar 88 16:40:51 GMT
From: phoenix!pucc!EWTILENI@princeton.edu  (Eric Tilenius)
Subject: AL GORE ON SPACE POLICY - Where the candidates stand, Part II

I recently sent letters to all the Democratic Presidential candidates,
asking their position on SPACE and United States SPACE POLICY.  So far,
I have received responses from Paul Simon and Al Gore.
 
Paul Simon's response has been posted.  If anyone did not see it and
would like a copy, please EMAIL me.
 
The following is a copy of the letter I received from Democrat AL GORE
and tells his views on SPACE:
 
  February 29, 1988
 
  Dear Friend:
 
  Thank you for your recent letter on the space program.
 
  I care deeply about reinvigorating the nation's civilian space program.
  In the Senate, I was a leader in the investigation into the Challenger
  disaster, and have seen the disarray of the program.  As President, I
  will give the space program the high priority it deserves at the
  beginning of my term, not at the end.
 
  Here are my goals:
 
  -- I will lead this nation to set clear goals in space.  The next target
  for exploration is Mars.  We should begin planning now.
 
  -- I will expand our vision of space exploration to include the
  exploration of our own planet.  In space, we may find the key to the
  understanding such environmental threats as the greenhouse effect and
  ozone depletion.
 
  -- I will place a greater emphasis on the development of commercial
  applications of space technologies.  NASA helped lead the way in such
  innovations as robotics and remote sensing.  The agency now should work
  to bring other technologies to the market.
 
  -- I will reverse the balance between our military and civilian space
  programs.  The administration's obsession with SDI has upset the
  traditional balance between the two programs.  The Pentagon already
  spends twice as much on space as NASA.
 
  To accomplish these goals, I plan to install new leaders at NASA,
  appointing those who can command the loyalty and respect of NASA's
  employees.
 
  Thank you for your interest in my campaign.  I hope this information is
  useful, and that I can count on your support.
 
  Sincerely,
 
  Al Gore
 
For more information, contact:  Al Gore for President, P.O. Box 15800,
Arlington, VA 22215.
 
I will be posting more letters on space policy as I receive them from
the other candidates.  Copies of any received so far are available by
EMAIL.
 
- ERIC -
 
*----------------------===>  SPACE IS THE PLACE... <===-----------------------*
*        ewtileni@pucc.Princeton.EDU  //  ewtileni@pucc.BITNET                *
*      rutgers!pucc.bitnet!ewtileni  //  princeton!pucc.bitnet!ewtileni       *
* ColorVenture - Microcomputer Software - "Because Life isn't Black and White"*
*--------------------===> Another proud CoCo 3 owner <===---------------------*

------------------------------

Date: 29 Feb 88 18:51:02 GMT
From: ulysses!sfmag!sfsup!erl@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (E.Lund)
Subject: Re: Free-fall sex

In article <8262@eleazar.Dartmouth.EDU>, seldon@eleazar.UUCP writes:

> 
>     On a more serious note: NASA has considered the possibilities of sex on
> long duration missions...*Between two MARRIED couples of course!!*
> Such measures as this might be necessary to preserve an astronaut's sanity.

Okay, so I am a bit picky, but I think NASA should really think about
this in terms of individual couples.  Married or not, it seems unreasonable
to require coples to couple in sets.

		My two cents,

				Eric

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 4 Mar 88 14:46:32 pst
From: Eugene N. Miya <eugene@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov>
Subject: Re: SPACE Digest V8 #153 (re: this news group)
Newsgroups: sci.space

Don't mine those people talking over in the corner about sex in space.....

>WAS WONDERING WHAT GEOGRAPHIC AREA IS COVERED BY THE PARTICIPANTS.

Since you asked and since I did a little something of a survey (observation)
over the last year.  Brian Reid at DEC Western Research Lab estimates
some something about 7-9,000 people read this BB on the ARPAnet (where it
began at a variety of universities), and now the Usenet, CSnet, BITNET, and
redistributed to other boards as well.  In a survey of connectivity, I
received about 90 letters (I said basically "ACK" this message).  1/3 of the
people did not listen and and just `replied' to my news system message,
2/3 followed directions and send mail to my correct mail box.  The most
distant messages came from Australia (3), the Phillipines and Korea.
Also Sweden (2).  Two people were from Eastern Bloc countries visiting the
US (Poland and Hungary I believe).  My ACKs bounced back 1/3 of the time
(poor in my opinions, so perhaps 1/3 of the people who initially tried to
reach me probably failed.  The vast majority of the people are from the US,
Canada and England.  Is this a low response rate?  I'm informed not.
Would make good discussion about Nixon's Silent Majority.
Note: I don't speak for the Agency, and don't have any
standing on this group as editor (nor should I as NASA is too biased),
but have been given some responsibility in the past for certain "shady" areas
of computing which I no longer want anything to do with.

Most people have a very sincere desire to go into space (or at least see the
Country go into space, which is a marked contrast for me [I don't care,
send the most qualified, if that's me, then, that's part of the job]).
There is a touching idealism, a hope, from the US.  It surprises that more of
these people haven't tried getting jobs working with space companies, but
maybe that's my observation having grown up in Southern CA.  The problem is
convincing the rest of the country to think about the future.

>From the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA
  "You trust the `reply' command with all those different mailers out there?"
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."
  {uunet,hplabs,hao,ihnp4,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene

------------------------------

Date: Mon,  7 Mar 88 09:24:39 -0500 (EST)
From: Joe Keane <jk3k+@andrew.cmu.edu>
X-Andrew-Message-Size: 659+0
Subject: Re: When Stars Collide


When two stars approach each other, their trajectories are offset by some 
distance, giving a large angular momentum.  This makes it hard for them to 
just form one star.

Most likely, the stars will just swing by each other in a hyperbolic orbit.  
If there's enough interaction (from tidal effects), they might lock into 
elliptical orbit.  If you're really lucky, this might stabilize.

If they pass too close, they tear each other apart.  They'll probably stretch 
out into filaments, which may form new stars or die.

I think the only way to get a clean assimilation is to have a small star fall 
about head-on into a large one, which isn't very likely.

--Joe

------------------------------

Date: 7 Mar 88 16:43:54 GMT
From: mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Mike Smithwick)
Subject: Re: More about John Glenn

["when I was little, I wanted to be somebody, then I realized I 
  should've been more specific", L. Tomlin]

While were on the subject of John Glenn's mission, let me add another little
mystery. On my tapes of the network coverage, while Glenn is passing over
Florida at the end of the first orbit, the CapCom passes the link to 
President Kennedy. Trouble is, Kennedy's message was blacked out for us.

The comm comes back after only 30 seconds or so. None of the network 
announcers picked up on that, and my air-to-ground transcripts deleted that
portion as well. Anyone ever here the text of that transmission??


-- 
			   *** mike (Cyberpunk in training) smithwick ***
"live long and multi-task"
[discalimer : nope, I don't work for NASA, I take full blame for my ideas]

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 7 Mar 88 14:48:23 EST
From: laura@vax.darpa.mil
Posted-Date: Mon, 7 Mar 88 14:48:23 EST
To: laura@vax.darpa.mil, space@angband.s1.gov


>From: ota@startide.s1.gov 
>I was watching a new sitcom last night, Thursday March 3rd called "Day
>by Day".  Its about these ex-Yuppies running a day care.  At one point
>near the end one of the adults said something about believing things.
>Then three of the kids did this free association gag line:

>Kid 1: I believe in the Tooth Fairy.
>Kid 2: I believe in Santa Claus.
>Kid 3: I believe in the future of the space program.
        <laugh track>

An aside from the Business section of USA Today:

  "With the US space program only a sad memory..."

>Are things bad or what?
>        Ted Anderson

You can maintain an illusion for only so long...  

Laura Burchard
laura@vax.darpa.mil

------------------------------

Date: 7 Mar 88 18:38:34 GMT
From: mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Mike Smithwick)
Subject: Re: Next Arianne launch


[line eater fodder]

Theoretically, Arianne mission V-21 takes off this next Friday, March 11.
Anyone have the exact time of launch?? I know that they normally aim for
about 4:00 pm to 4:30 local.

mike

-- 
			   *** mike (Cyberpunk in training) smithwick ***
"live long and multi-task"
[discalimer : nope, I don't work for NASA, I take full blame for my ideas]

------------------------------

Date:  7 Mar 1988 18:22-EST 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: Colonization of the seas

It has been tried. An abandoned platform off the coast of England set
up a pretty much free port and gambling casino. It was raided by men
with machine guns.

A group set up shop on a reef in the Pacific that was unclaimed. I
think the may have dumped loads of landfill to raise the level or
something. They even minted gold coinage. The nearest socialist welfare
island came visiting with gunboats and took over. The case is pending
in World Court. They might even do something in 20 years or so. Like
tell the invaders they were naughty, but since they've been living
there for 20 years...

Statists do not like competition that will show them up for the
useless parasites that they are.

For example, what do you think would happen to a libertarian platform
in the Pacific that allowed people to grow and export Marijuana? I
expect the US would show even less respect for borders then it does
with it's fellow nation slave-states.

I mean right now via military aid, trade boycotts, CIA infiltration, public
censure and other means the US is mucking around in so many other
countries that I would have trouble naming a place that it ISN'T
screwing with. Just off the top of my head:
	Panama, Nicaraugua, El Salvador, Columbia, Israel, South
	Africa, Angola, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Libya,
	Lebanon, Phillipines, Haiti...
(I intentionally include the interventions that LIBERALS like as well
as the interventions that CONSERVATIVES like just to show that they
really aren't any different when it comes to leaving other countries alone.)

All this, and the US is one of the GOOD guys for cripes sake! I won't
even attempt to compare US activities with the level of internal
manipulation of other states carried out by the soviets. As bad as we
are we aren't even in the same league.

So I stand by my statement that you have to leave the planet to be
free. I will agree that it might even be several centuries (or as
little as one century) before free humans are expanding into free
space. Possibly even in small dynamically changing 'tribal' groups as
discussed in a paper on comet colonization at the 84 Princeton
conference.

The day WILL come.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #160
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 11 Mar 88 06:19:14 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA01140; Fri, 11 Mar 88 03:17:33 PST
	id AA01140; Fri, 11 Mar 88 03:17:33 PST
Date: Fri, 11 Mar 88 03:17:33 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8803111117.AA01140@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #161

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 161

Today's Topics:
	     Re: Solar power launching (laser launchers)
		     Re: Colonization of the seas
		   Re: space news from Feb 1 AW&ST
		      LaRouche's space position
		   Re: Horizontal ascent into orbit
			   There's hope yet
		       Attack on space program
		      Re: Solar power launching
		Making "Space Government" an Oxymoron
			     Re: LaRouche
		   Re: Horizontal ascent into orbit
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 4 Mar 88 18:30:56 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Solar power launching (laser launchers)

> 1.  Lazer launch - current and best designs only allow a small payload
>     on the order of 2 kilograms.  Additionally a reasonable quantity
>     of fancy (impure & expensive) ice must be thrown into the upper
>     atmosphere as reaction mass.  The offsets the environmental
>     concerns that prompted the question.

If I am correctly remembering the informal talk I heard Jordan Kare
(head of the current laser-launcher work) give, this isn't correct.
First, the payload of a laser launcher is simply a question of how big
your laser is.  A first prototype would probably launch something the
size of a baseball, but if you have the lasers and the power to run
them, there is no reason why the technique wouldn't scale to hundreds or
thousands of kilos per shot.

Second, the propellant is not likely to be ice, because the dissociation
of water at high temperatures soaks up a lot of energy.  ("This amounts
to running an oxyhydrogen rocket engine backwards, which makes the
rocket engineers barf.")  The choice of propellant actually doesn't seem
to be too critical, and a number of things are being looked at.  One
possibility is sodium hydride, which dissociates easily to yield
hydrogen (the right stuff for rocket exhausts) and sodium (which is
already present in the atmosphere due to salt spray), and is relatively
cheap and easy to handle.  One defect of it is that it decomposes slowly
in air, especially wet air, but a protective coating should handle that
before launch and it doesn't matter once the lasers light up.

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 8 Mar 88 16:22:40 GMT
From: thumper!karn@faline.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: Colonization of the seas

> So I stand by my statement that you have to leave the planet to be
> free.

If it becomes technically feasible (ie., economically practical) for
ordinary individuals to move into space, what makes you think that Earth
governments won't follow them, or that new and possibly oppressive
governments won't form among the space colonists themselves? Governments
are a phenomenon of human beings, not planetary surfaces.

I guess I'm just one of those misguided people who still believe that
democratically elected governments, for all their faults, are preferable
to anarchies.  I am more than willing to allow a "coercive" government
to take away my freedom to murder people as long as they take it away
from everybody else too.

Phil

------------------------------

Date: 3 Mar 88 20:00:16 GMT
From: unmvax!charon!deimos.unm.edu!f12012ag@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  ( )
Subject: Re: space news from Feb 1 AW&ST


To answer your question about Discovery's payload - STS-26:    

According to GODDARD NEWS, November, 1987, the primary payload
will be the TDRS-C satellite.  (Tracking & Data Relay Sat.)

-Ollie N6LTJ

SEDS - Students for the Exploration and Development of Space -Info:277-3171
Box 92 Student Union, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM  87106

------------------------------

Date: 7 Mar 88 01:35:09 GMT
From: ems!rosevax!kksys!bird@UMN-CS.ARPA  (0000-Mike Bird)
Subject: LaRouche's space position

I was channel flipping and just came across this "plan" on a
scramjet-powered shuttle launch system.  So, I continued to listen, and
it turned out to be a paid political announcement by Linden LaRouche.
(I think I got the spelling right.)  ANYway, he was speaking about "his"
plan for bringing America back to the fore-front of the technological
world, primarily through an agressive space program focusing on a Mars
mission.  A lot of the information was developed, he said, by scientists
world over.  Most of his illustrations seemed to have been done by
Europeans (Italian, West Germann, etc).  From the other things I've
he|rd about this man, he wouldn't be my personal first choice for
president, but he certainly can speak well in an edited, prepared,
presentation.  Did anyone else catch the presentation?  Has anyone else
heard about his stance on the space program?  Is this a recent
"Bandwagon" jumping, or is this something he picked because no one else
is talking about it?

------------------------------

Date: 7 Mar 88 23:39:41 GMT
From: mnetor!spectrix!tmsoft!utgpu!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Horizontal ascent into orbit

>     Consider the following method for achieving orbit: ...
>     STAGE 2: The boosters are activated for a short period to 
>              achieve a high elliptic orbit, with the starting
>	      position being the low point of the orbit

Unfortunately the period is not "short", because what is involved is
raising the low-point velocity from the Mach 10 you started with to an
orbital velocity, circa Mach 25.

>  Has such a method been considered (say, in the old Dynasoar project)?
>  What is wrong with it?

Nothing is wrong with it; all existing space launchers use it!  All of
them climb vertically for quite a short period, tilt over, and do most
of their real accelerating almost horizontally at high altitude.

The only thing that's really different about your proposal is using
horizontal flight to reach Mach 10 in the upper stratosphere.  This has
advantages, since supporting yourself with wings is easier than doing it
with brute-force rocket thrust.  It also has disadvantages, since wings
are heavy and are effectively dead weight during the later phases.  The
same is true of jet engines.  The tradeoffs are complicated.
-- 
Those who do not understand Unix are |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
condemned to reinvent it, poorly.    | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 7 Mar 88 17:42:54 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!its63b!bob@uunet.uu.net  (ERCF08 Bob Gray)
Subject: There's hope yet

Just when you thought the UK space effort was dead and buried...

The corpse twitches....

One of the UK's computer trade newspapers "Computer weekly"
carried a front page article on Feb 25th edition entitled
	"Space project offers boost to software work".

I quote some excerpts from it.

	"British Aerospace, the principal architect of the HoToL
	programme - the UK's answer to the space shuttle - has asked
	eight software houses to help it develop the software
	technologies required to make the programme a reality."

	"Software productivity and reliability are the key issues if
	British Aerospace is to build the command and control system
	for HoToL in an acceptable development time. Using existing
	tools would require 3,000 worker years of effort - BA wants
	to reduce that to 300."

	"The HoToL programme to produce a re-useable reansit van 
	for the 21st century requires twice as much code as the
	current all-electronic planes."

	"It is also planned to cut down the size of team required to
	fly the HoToL van. ... it takes 5,000 people to operate
	the US shuttle."

	"Over the next few months the club of software eight software
	houses will iron out a programme of research. ... BA has
	already set up another such club, to work on another
	technical issue for HoToL - advanced material."

	"HoToL needs some 5 billion pounds investment over
	the next 10 years."

It is worth noting that one of the software houses, Logica,
was the main candidate do be awarded the contract by ESA for
the software systems on Columbus. (The ESA module of the US
space station). Logica had already spent large sums of money
on preliminary research, before the UK Government finally pulled
out of the project a couple of weeks ago. This was the only
one of the three ESA special projects the UK didn't give a
definite no to at the ESA meeting last November.
(Hardly encouraging private enterprise).

Other developments in the last couple of days worth noting.

1. BA has put in a bid to buy the UK Government owned car makers,
   previously known as British Layland (amongst others).

2. BL has close ties with Honda.

3. Honda has no aerospace expertise, unlike other Japanese car
   makers, and has expresed an interest in entering the field.

I leave it to you to work out your own conclusions.
	Bob.

------------------------------

Date:  9 Mar 1988 01:23-EST 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
To: "/usr/amon/Email/Email.space" <Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu>
Subject: Attack on space program

      Representative William H. Gray III (D-Pa) recently
attacked space programs.  While presenting the Democrats'
reply to President Reagan's radio address on the
Administration's new budget proposal, Gray said that
spending on the space program is "out of line with America's
needs and America's values."  Gray said that we should be
spending more on the homeless, not more on space.  He has
since repeated the remarks in interviews on CNN and
elsewhere.  Gray is chair of the House Budget Committee,
which will soon be reviewing NASA's appropriations.

     If you disagree with his perspective, you should let
him know.  His address is 204 Cannon House Office Bldg.,
Washington, DC  20515; (202) 225-4001.  His legislative
assistant's name is Roselee Roberts.  Please also send a
copy of your letter, with a short explanatory note, to
Speaker of the House Jim Wright, 1236 Longworth House Office
Building, Washington, DC  20515.  The leadership will be
making decisions in the next few weeks that will determine
whether NASA will receive the Administration's proposed
budget increase or instead suffer major cutbacks including
the elimination of the space station, of Pathfinder
programs, etc.  Please also spread this message around to
any other forums you have access to.  This year will be
critical to the future of an American space program --
please do your part to see that it has a future, and that
nay-sayers like Gray shut up.  Your children will thank you.

------------------------------

Date: 8 Mar 88 21:22:34 GMT
From: fluke!salt@beaver.cs.washington.edu  (Craig Johnston)
Subject: Re: Solar power launching

In article <8803031621.AA11880@angband.s1.gov> SPACE@GWUVM.BITNET (Bob - GWU SEDS) writes:
>    Solar power launching can be accomplished in a number of ways.
      <good stuff deleted>
>2.  Beam Power - would use microwave or laser to power an electric engine,
>    maximizing the payload as percentage of launch mass.  I'm not convinced
>    the the engines will be powerful enough for launch.  Air to space and
>    intraspace transport, this is great.

I guess I will expose my ignorance to ask what kind of an electric motor
can be used in both atmosphere and in space.  Can anyone enlighten me?

On a related subject, I seem to recall that a large portion of boost energy
in the present approach goes into lifting the whole assembly through the 
lower atmosphere.  A science fiction story I once read essentially suggested
taking the current shuttle and lifting it to 80,000 to 100,000 feet with a
(very large) balloon.  Has anyone worked out the physics of this?  It seems 
as though the balloon and its gas could be recovered by using some form of
solar energy to compress the gas back to liquid form (also taking care of 
potential pollution effects).  The story did assume chemical rockets to boost
into orbit from there, but the other interesting suggestions in this article
could also be applied to this composite approach.
-- 
Craig Johnston (salt@tc.fluke.com), John Fluke Mfg. Co., Everett, WA, USA
{uw-beaver,lbl-csam,hplsla,ssc-vax,microsoft,sun,allegra,...}!fluke!salt

------------------------------

Subject: Making "Space Government" an Oxymoron
Date: Tue, 08 Mar 88 12:07:26 -0500
From: Fred Baube <fbaube@note.nsf.gov>


mnetor!utzoo!yunexus!maccs!gordan@uunet.uu.net (gordan) writes:
> If anyone out there _really_ wants to be free of any world government,
> there's a place on Earth where it can be done.  The high seas.  Outside
> the 200-mile territorial limits, you're free of any government
> interference (of course, some national government could try to extend
> its jurisdiction to the middle of the ocean; but then again, some
> government could try to extend its jurisdiction to space).

Sorry, but .. to be on the high seas, your ship must be regis-
tered in some country (i.e. gov't).  Otherwise, you're fair
game for *any* government's seagoing enforcers.  And even if you
*are* registered somewhere (e.g. Panama, a favorite), the Law of
the Sea says that there must be a "genuine link" between the
registerer and the nation (e.g. a residence, or some sort of
business transacted there) .. I recall reading that the US is
using this rule to attack the validity of registrations of
smugglers' ships.

And as for extending jurisdiction to the middle of the ocean,
there are arguments that this is *precisely* what the US has been
trying to do.  They have been targeting drug smugglers, but the
effect has been to try to set precedents for general enforcement
power on the high seas.

So, you see, the Statists ARE *everywhere*, and there is an
argument to be made that they are being spearheaded by the Land
of the Free ..

#include <disclaimer.h>

------------------------------

Date: 8 Mar 88 07:27:59 GMT
From: decvax!mandrill!edvax@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Edward Reznichenko)
Subject: Re: LaRouche

>Did any one else see Lyndon LaRouche expounding the merits
>of space exploration on prime time television last night?
...
>
>The LaRouche
>Democratic Campaign
>PO Box 17068
>Washington, DC 20041
--------------------------------------------

Yeah, I saw it here too. I was kinda surprised that he would spend several 
million dollars on a TV add.  I can tell you one thing though, it got
my attention.  His half-hour uninterrupted advertisement made more sense
than the commercials made by the rat race candidates.  My biggest turn-off
from LaRouche are obviously his racists views (and his questionable sanity).

If he decides to change his views by election time, I might vote for LaRouche
instead of Benny Hill.

--ed

Pat_Robertson:system("cat</dev/null"):system("kill -9 !$");

------------------------------

Date: 9 Mar 88 08:53:10 GMT
From: markh@csd4.milw.wisc.edu  (Mark William Hopkins)
Subject: Re: Horizontal ascent into orbit

In article <1988Mar7.233941.297@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>>     Consider the following method for achieving orbit: ...
>>     STAGE 2: The boosters are activated for a short period to 
>>              achieve a high elliptic orbit, with the starting
>>	      position being the low point of the orbit
>
>Unfortunately the period is not "short" ...

Isn't it only three minutes or so with 5 G's of thrust?

Orbital speed is about 40000 km / hour ... or 40 000 000/3600 m/sec.
5G's is about 50 in those units, so the time of acceleration would
optimally be:

	  40 000 000 / (3600 * 50) = about 210 seconds.

Mach10 is around 3500 met/sec so that chops off slightly under a minute of 
thrust: 

                            2 1/2 minutes

			       or so

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #161
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 12 Mar 88 06:18:44 EST
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA02597; Sat, 12 Mar 88 03:17:08 PST
	id AA02597; Sat, 12 Mar 88 03:17:08 PST
Date: Sat, 12 Mar 88 03:17:08 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8803121117.AA02597@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #162

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 162

Today's Topics:
			  NASA News Release
		  [Ed: [ota: SPACE Digest V8 #156]]
		       RE: SPACE Digest V8 #159
      Albert Gore on space budgets (space news from Feb 1 AW&ST)
wonderfully informative letter (re space) from congressman Tom Lantos
			Bill Nelson's problem
				   
			The LaRouche worldview
				BA/BAe
		  Horizontal takeoff launch vehicles
			  RE:  Free Fall Sex
		     Re: Colonization of the seas
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 8 Mar 88 00:33:29 GMT
From: nbires!isis!scicom!embudo!markf@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (markf)
Subject: NASA News Release


NASA NEWS - NASA Examines 72 Nozzle Bolts

NASA and Morton Thiokol are examining 72 bolts in the interior
of the Space Shuttle solid rocket motor nozzle. The bolts,
which measure 3/4" by 2 1/2", attatch the nozzle fixed housing
to the nozzle's flex bearing assembly.

Replacement is being considered because the bolts are threaded all
the way to the bolt head instead of having a smooth bolt shank. A
smooth shank may be preferred to assure that special Stat-O-Seal
washers located under the bolt heads seal properly. The washers
form a secondary seal intended to prevent gas leakage past the
attachment bolts should there be a leak past the primary o-ring
seal in this joint. The washers were added as part of the overall
SRM redesign for additional seal redundancy, even though the 
previous single seal design has never experienced any difficult or
distress in any previous ground test or flight motor firing.

Preliminary tests at the equivalent of full motor pressure have
shown no external leakage with the current bolts. As a precaution,
however, further special tests and analyses are being conducted to
determine if replacement of the bolts and seals is necessary.

-----------------------------------------------------------
NASA News Release 88-18 - Reprinted with permission for 
electronic distribution -
Article by Sarah Keegan, Headquaters, Washington, D.C.
and Ed Medal, Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
Feb 9, 1988

------------------------------

Date: Wed,  9 Mar 88 10:46:10 EST
From: "Christopher M. Maeda" <MAEDA@ai.ai.mit.edu>
Subject:  [Ed: [ota: SPACE Digest V8 #156]]

Date: Mon, 7 Mar 88 15:57 EST
From: Ed Schwalenberg <Ed at MEAD.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>
To:   Rob Austein <SRA at XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>, MAEDA at AI.AI.MIT.EDU
cc:   postmaster at MC.LCS.MIT.EDU, MarkL at ALLSPICE.LCS.MIT.EDU,
      Info-ITS at AI.AI.MIT.EDU
Re:   [ota: SPACE Digest V8 #156]

    Date: Sun 6 Mar 88 23:23:32-EST
    From: Rob Austein <SRA@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>

	Date: Sun,  6 Mar 88 14:22:49 EST
	From: "Christopher M. Maeda" <MAEDA@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>

	The following was posted to space digest in a discussion about 
	remote logins to the moon.,,
    [Note COMSAT ".." lossage here^^.]

	    From: tektronix!reed!douglas@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (P Douglas Reeder)
	    Subject: Re: data and long distances

	    The distance problem applies to satelites in geosynchonous
	    orbit, as well.  radio wave take a noticeable fraction of a
	    second to get there and back.  That would play hell with high
	    baud rates if not accounted for.  A comsat expert might know
	    how it's done.

    For interplanetary stuff you'd want to use a batched mail protocol
    like BSMTP over a high bandwidth transmission protocol like NETBLT for
    mail.  You could probably get away with SMTP to Lunagrad (Moonbase
    doesn't look like it's going to be an issue any time soon).

    Remote login will be bad no matter what.  The best you could do would
    be something like RMS's local editing protocol, again using something
    like NETBLT for transmission so that at least screen updates would be
    fast once they arrived.

I actually tried using a computer in Miami from Antarctica via a geosynch
satellite.  It was, er, painful.  But I did a fun experiment too: I did
an analog loopback through the satellite, and watched my characters echo
on the screen.  Then I tried typing a character, and while it was on its
way up and back I digitally looped back my end.  After about 6 passes the
character would begin to decay:
	aaaaaabp~~~~~~<rubout><rubout><rubout>
Another satellite hacker (the gentleman in Miami) ran a PDP-11 to the satellite,
ran the analog downlink back up to another channel on the same satellite, then
to a terminal, for a total delay of about .75 sec.

------------------------------

From: mrgate::"a1::manansalafs"@afsc-sd.arpa
Date: 9 Mar 88 10:51:00 PST
Subject: RE: SPACE Digest V8 #159
To: "space" <space@angband.s1.gov>
Reply-To: <mrgate::"a1::manansalafs"@afsc-sd.arpa>

From:	NAME: MANANSALA, FILEMON S.  CAPT.  
	FUNC: SCPP                    
	TEL: 30418                <MANANSALAFS AT A1 AT ZEUS>


Request removal from Space Digest distribution.

------

------------------------------

Date: 6 Mar 88 17:04:02 GMT
From: paul.rutgers.edu!masticol@rutgers.edu  (Steve Masticola)
Subject: Albert Gore on space budgets (space news from Feb 1 AW&ST)


> Albert Gore (Dem. presidential candidate) comes out in favor of an
> international manned Mars mission and of "reversing the imbalance" in
> funding between DoD's space budget and NASA's.

Well, that's a pretty ambiguous statement. If he's listening to
reality, he's planning to cut Pentagon space programs to fund NASA,
but I seem to remember that he's a supporter of lavish military
spending in general and Star Wars in particular.
				   
	 M A X   H E A D R O O M   F O R   P R E S I D E N T
	  (the best computer-generated video image running)
-- 
	     Steve Masticola (masticol@paul.rutgers.edu)
		      Hill 137 - (201) 932-3766

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 9 Mar 88 18:40:31
X-Date-Last-Edited: 1988 March 09 18:40:31 PST (=GMT-8hr)
X-Date-Posted: 1988 March 09 18:40:45 PST (=GMT-8hr)
From: Robert Elton Maas <REM%IMSSS@sail.stanford.edu>
Subject: wonderfully informative letter (re space) from congressman Tom Lantos

(I'm not on Space, so please CC any discussion to REM%IMSSS@SAIL.Stanford.Edu)

I have tried several times through the years to write to my congressman,
Tom Lantos (11th dist.), without luck. Mostly he just ignored my letters
as far as I can tell, not any reply nor even ack. Once he even had the
gall to send me a letter notifying me that I was not in his district and
that as a courtesy he had forwarded my letter to Ernie Konnyu (12th dist.).

But a couple months ago I sent him a listing of the message containing
the New Jersey (I think?) proposal for space priorities, and that must
have been of unusually great interest to him because he actually replied
to it, telling me what seems to be his complete position on the U.S.
Space Program. Below is the complete text of his letter (sans letterhead,
inside address and signature):

----------------------------------------------------------------

Thank you very much for taking the time to share your thoughts with me
about the U.S. Space Program.

I am always delighted to receive comments on these critical matters. I
can assure you that when these important issues come before Congress I
will keep your views in mind.

Please continue to keep me informed of your views on other issues of
concern to you.

----------------------------------------------------------------

That was so informative, next I'll write to him about an even more
important topic, the order of succession for a congressman who is
permanently unable to perform his duties due to severe mental disability.

------------------------------

Date: 	  Fri, 11 Mar 88 08:41:03 PST
From: BOWERYJ%CPVA.SAINET.MFENET@nmfecc.arpa

Subject: Bill Nelson's problem
Date:    Thu, 10-MAR-1988 10:31 PDT
X-VMS-Mail-To: SPACE

Dale Amon feels Bill Nelson's campaign against Payload Systems is sour
grapes about US firms having to go to the Soviets for space facilities.
This may be partially true, but during the budget hearings, Nelson made
it quite clear that he saw this as a juristictional battle between the
Commerce Department and the Space Science Subcommittee over regulatory turf.
Nelson may oppose the Payload Systems contract with the Soviets as much
because the Commerce Department did not consult him first, as because Nelson
can't handle the reality of our failures in space.

------------------------------

Date: 11 Mar 88 09:57:00 PST
From: "KEVIN W. BOLD 0-1" <bold@afsc-sd.arpa>
Subject: 
To: "space" <space@angband.s1.gov>
Reply-To: "KEVIN W. BOLD 0-1" <bold@afsc-sd.arpa>

Subject: Re: Attack On Space Program

Dale Amon <Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu> writes:

>      Representative William H. Gray III (D-Pa) recently attacked space 
>programs.  While presenting the Democrats' reply to President Reagan's radio 
>address on the Administration's new budget proposal, Gray said that spending 
>on the space program is "out of line with America's needs and America's 
>values."  Gray said that we should be spending more on the homeless, not more
>on space. . . Gray is chair of the House Budget Committee, which will soon be 
>reviewing NASA's appropriations.

Rep. Gray might be interested in the Space Shuttle experiment which a group 
of inner-city high school students designed.  Ben Bova described it in _The 
High Road_; forgive me for not remembering the exact reference (while 
looking it up, you will find additional ammunition as well).

He may also appreciate a quote from Nichelle Nichols, who played Lt Uhura 
on _Star Trek_.  The gist of it was something like this: all of humanity 
will send representatives into space, and when blacks go, it should not be 
as waiters and tap dancers.  The exact words are in Stewart Brand's late 
70's book, _Space Colonies_.  (Rep. Gray is black.)

Send those letters to:

Rep Wm Gray III
204 Cannon House Office Bldg.,
Washington, DC  20515 

Phone number is (202) 225-4001; his legislative assistant's name is 
Roselee Roberts.  CC to: 

Speaker of the House Jim Wright 
1236 Longworth House Office Building, 
Washington, DC  20515.  

-- Kevin "Mad Max" Bold		|"The history of government is the history
(BOLD@AFSC-SD.ARPA)		|of the abuse of power."
				|  -- Kevin Bold, _Anarchy Is Not Chaos_
------

------------------------------

Date:    Fri, 11 Mar 88 09:16:56 PST
From: hairston%utd750%utadnx%utspan.span@vlsi.jpl.nasa.gov
Subject: The LaRouche worldview
X-St-Vmsmail-To: JPLLSI::"space@angband.s1.gov"


   I've seen several postings talking about Lyndon LaRouche's space program
proposals but nobody has yet mentioned the weird worldview that goes with
it.  Before I get started I must admit that I am no expert on LaRouche other
than having read some of his literature in passing and having a fellow
space physicist friend who makes a hobby of arguing physics with LaRouchites
at the airports.
   LaRouche's world view is basically a paranoid "world conspiracy is running
EVERYTHING" outlook.  Nothing terribly original in that idea.  He sees all
world history since the ancient Greeks as being an ongoing battle between the
forces of light and the evil forces of darkness, in this case the good guys 
are the Aristotelians and the bad guys are the nasty neo-Platonists.  The
embodiment of all the evil neo-Platonism in the modern world is England.  
(Which is why the Queen of England, dear old frumpy Elizabeth, is the head of
the Worldwide Drug Smuggling Cartel.  Apparently it's an inherited post.)
Since everything English is tainted with the evil heresy of neo-Platonism,
then all science done by English scientists is WRONG!  Newton and Maxwell are
nothing but false prophets who must be struck down in order that TRUE
Riemannian Physics can prevail.  LaRouche is (and has been since the 70's)
a fervent Star Wars advocate, but sees it failing because the scientists
working on it aren't using the TRUE physics that he and his followers
hold to.  (For some reason they don't like Einstein either.  I would guess
it's anti-semitism, but that's too logical and straightforward a reason for
LaRouchite thought.)
   Last summer I was going through the DFW airport when I saw one of their
hawkers with the table full of pamphlets.  It was a slow day and since he
was not allowed out of their designated area, he was yelling at the people 
at they went by trying to get someone to come look at their material.  I 
guess he had me pegged because when I passed he yelled out "Revitalize the 
US's space program!"  I turned on my heel and shouted back "Not without 
Newtonian mechanics you don't!"  He started foaming at the mouth and 
shouting about "Riemannian physics", but I didn't stay to listen.  I had a 
plane to catch.

Marc Hairston--Center for Space Science--Univ of Texas at Dallas
A Known Hotbed of Newtonian, Maxwellian, and Einsteinian Physics

------------------------------

Date:     11-MAR-1988 14:55:25 GMT
From: F026@cpc865.uea.ac.uk
Subject:  BA/BAe

>(Space digest V8 #161)
>BA has put in a bid to buy the UK Government owned car makers [Rover]

That's BAe (British Aerospace, who make things) not BA (British Airways, who
fly things)
Mike.

------------------------------

Date:       Fri, 11 Mar 88 17:50:33 GMT
From: "Geoff. Lane. Phone UK-061 275 6051" <ZZASSGL@cms.umrcc.ac.uk>
Subject:    Horizontal takeoff launch vehicles


  There is  already a  horizonal takeoff launch  system in  the design
  stage ... THE HOTOL and its British(well so far, funding has not yet
  quite stopped :-( ).

  It takes off  from a fairly standard runway  using airbreathing mode
  where liquid  hydrogen is burnt with  air and continues up  to about
  85000ft and Mach 5. From there  the rockets change mode and continue
  up into orbit using onboard liquid oxygen to burn the hydrogen.

  The takeoff weight will be about  250 tonnes and the payload will be
  about 3 percent  of that - which  is not too bad. The  Hotol will be
  the first TOTALLY reusable vehicle. No bits of it are thrown away as
  it rises. It is intended to be unmanned.

  Geoff Lane
  UMRCC

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Mar 88 13:10:31 GMT
From: VTIS001%NMSUVM1.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu
Comment: CROSSNET mail via SMTP@CUNYVM
Subject: RE:  Free Fall Sex

I was just reading through the recent space digests, and I was curious about
exactly how two people would work things in a neutral bouyancy tank.  Aren't
they wearing a mask, air tanks, weights, suit, etc.?  Not to mention the fact
that their motions will be *real* sluggish underwater....

David
VTIS001@NMSUVM1.BITNET

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Mar 88 13:45 PDT
From: Frank Mayhar <Frank-Mayhar%LADC@bco-multics.arpa>
Really-To: Space%angband.s1.gov @ARPA
Subject: Re: Colonization of the seas


Dale Amon says:
> So I stand by my statement that you have to leave the planet to be
> free.

Phil Karn replies:
> If it becomes technically feasible (ie., economically practical) for
> ordinary individuals to move into space, what makes you think that Earth
> governments won't follow them, or that new and possibly oppressive
> governments won't form among the space colonists themselves? Governments
> are a phenomenon of human beings, not planetary surfaces.
>
> I guess I'm just one of those misguided people who still believe that
> democratically elected governments, for all their faults, are preferable
> to anarchies.  I am more than willing to allow a "coercive" government
> to take away my freedom to murder people as long as they take it away
> from everybody else too.

Not misguided, merely naive.  :-)

Seriously, I think you're right, to a point.  Using the American west as
an example, the "pioneers" found that the eastern government eventually
followed them west, swallowing up many locally-formed governments in the
process.  At the same time, for quite a long while, sheer distance from
that eastern government gave the people in the west virtually complete
autonomy.  To extend the analogy, the United States itself owes much of
its early autonomy to the distance between the North American continent
and Europe (and, of course, to the fact that often the European powers
were too busy with their own local squabbles to worry about a bunch of
British upstarts).  Compare that distance with interplanetary distances.
Even given better technology, getting to the Moon will be almost as
difficult as getting to North America was, and getting to Mars, the
asteroids, or the moons of Jupiter will be much more difficult, not to
mention more time-consuming.  The result will be that the people that
will live there could be almost completely independent (socially and
politically, at least) of any terrestrial government.  I say "could"
rather than "will" because they must be physically self-sufficient
before they could be politically independent.  I certainly think that
physical independence would be likely, though, given the resources there
and an economical way of extracting them.

As to preferring a democratically-elected government over an anarchy,
first show me a democratically elected government.  (The U.S. is not
strictly a democracy, as you should know if you paid attention in
college history courses.)  Secondly, a governments coercion goes further
than forbidding murder.  Some examples in our particular government:
the income tax (don't pay and we'll put you in jail); selective service
registration (not only will we put you in jail, we'll make sure you
can't get any financial aid while you're trying to better your
education, as well); the punishment for "desertion" while in the armed
forces (was once death, is still severe).  I could go on.  I personally
do NOT believe in any government that says that it's not okay for its
citizens to commit murder, but it IS okay for the government to do the
same.  (What is capital punishment, anyway, but legal murder, carried
out by the state.  Not that I don't believe in a form of capital
punishment (it's unfortunately the only solution, in some cases), I
believe it should be carried out by individuals, rather than the state.)
While I admit that some laws are useful, many do nothing but reduce our
individual freedoms.  And, unfortunately, the only place left to get
away from governments is above the atmosphere.
--
Frank Mayhar  (Frank-Mayhar%ladc@bco-multics.arpa)
Honeywell Bull, Inc.  Los Angeles Development Center, Los Angeles
(213) 216-6241
These opinions are strictly my own, and do not necessarily reflect
those of my employer.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #162
*******************

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	id AA03816; Sun, 13 Mar 88 03:14:32 PST
Date: Sun, 13 Mar 88 03:14:32 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8803131114.AA03816@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #163

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 163

Today's Topics:
			Letters to congressman
			 Space civilizations
			 Re: Info on the NASP
			  Political Colonies
		       Re: Next Arianne launch
		     Re: Colonization of the seas
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date:     Fri, 11 Mar 88 10:29 CDT
From: <MWF8191%TAMVENUS.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu> (Mark Fischer)
Subject:  Letters to congressman

While reading the newspaper I noticed that the press has been giving quite a
bit of attention the actions of the committe that allocates government funds
for the space program.

Would someone give me a list of the Congressmen that I should write to to
express my views about the space program?

Thanks in advance.


Mark Fishcer                               Bitnet: mwf8191@tamvenus

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Mar 88 22:01:19 EST
From: "Keith F. Lynch" <KFL@ai.ai.mit.edu>
Subject: Space civilizations
To: thumper!karn@faline.bellcore.com
Cc: KFL@ai.ai.mit.edu, Space@angband.s1.gov, Poli-Sci@rutgers.edu

> From: thumper!karn@faline.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)

> If it becomes technically feasible (ie., economically practical) for
> ordinary individuals to move into space, what makes you think that Earth
> governments won't follow them, or that new and possibly oppressive
> governments won't form among the space colonists themselves?

The idea is that space gives people space to try out new forms of
government - for groups of people who believe in some different way of
organizing society to get together and make a fresh start, out of reach
of earth governments.

And why should earth governments follow them?  If it takes the colonists
several months to reach the asteroid belt, government won't get there
any faster.  And what excuse would they have?  A distant space society
would hardly be setting up gambling casinos or drug factories that would
have any influence on the earth government's property - I mean citizens.

Also, a true anarchist, in space, could live as a hermit, millions of
miles from the nearest neigbors, if that's what he wanted.

> I am more than willing to allow a "coercive" government
> to take away my freedom to murder people as long as they take it away
> from everybody else too.

I would have no objection to government if it was restricted to doing
things like this, e.g. laws against using force, threat of force, or
fraud against others.  Period.  But I for one am sick of the myriad
rules and regulations that control every aspect of life here in the US
(and it's even worse in most other countries) and of giving up to taxes
1/3 to 1/2 of any wealth I ever create.  I would like to see the US get
back to its original ideals of liberty.  Since so many US citizens
unfortunately don't agree, I would like to start over with like-minded
people somewhere out of reach of all earth governments.  I don't
consider myself an anarchist.

A society in space (not in earth orbit) would also be immune to earth-
based wars, plagues, and gray-goo disasters.
								...Keith

------------------------------

Date: 10 Mar 88 01:27:23 GMT
From: devvax!jplpro!des@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov  (David Smyth)
Subject: Re: Info on the NASP

In article <191700007@trsvax> gm@trsvax.UUCP writes:
>
>Another real problem they are having is sampling/sensing of the airflow
>outside.  There would be no way they could just stick a Pitot tube out
>without it melting, so they are looking into ways of doing remote
>sensing of such things behind transparent panels.  And speaking of
>transparent panels, they don't really want to have to figure out a
>way to put windows in the thing, causing much uproar with the pilots.

This seems strange.  Yachts have had water speed transducers which
require nothing at all beyond the surafe for years.  I think they use
doppler against the water molecules, but I'm not sure.  Why not just
use intertial and Navstar like ICBMs?  Or TDRS like the shuttle?

If they want air data, just use pressure.  That won't require anything
beyond the surface.

The shuttle has windows, so the NASP obviously could too.  But why bother?
Use cameras (small ports should be easy and light) and make a transparent
cockpit via imaging, like Honeywell did on some experimental cockpit they
made a few years ago.  They tracked the pilots eyes with light, and
projected very high resolution images in the narrow area immediately
ahead of the pupil, with the resolution decreasing with angle, so not
so much imaging really had to be done by the computers.  The image
was displayed on the inside of a rather extended visor.

------------------------------

Date: 9 Mar 88 17:28:39 GMT
From: hyper!guest@UMN-CS.ARPA  (guest)
Subject: Political Colonies


Table of Libertarian Alternatives:

            Space Colony    Ocean Colony    Land Colony    Non-Colony
            ------------    ------------    -----------    ----------

Cost --     Astronomical     Very high       Relocation    Advertising

Interference -- lowest risk   low risk        medium         low

Livability -- questionable   questionable       good         good

Mass Appeal --    low           lower          medium        highest

Timeframe --  futuristic        years           now          years

Probability --    low            low           highest       medium
 
Overall rating -- very low       low           high          highest

Notes:
1) Land colony assumes a geographic area INSIDE the United States.
2) Non-colony assumes the whole USA.
3) Ocean colony assumes nearness to US coast or territory.

Conclusions:

The land colony seems to offer the quickest route to reduced coercion
against the individual, a sort of interim haven until total victory.
I wouldn't underestimate the ability of a libertarian city to muck up
and otherwise deflect a lot of state and federal interference.

Ocean and Space colonies are just too darned expensive.

- John M. Logajan            {...!rutgers!} umn-cs!hyper!ns!logajan
- Network System Corp.;  7600 Boone Ave;   Brooklyn Park,  MN 55428

------------------------------

Date: 9 Mar 88 07:49:59 GMT
From: mcvax!esatst!neil@uunet.uu.net  (Neil Dixon)
Subject: Re: Next Arianne launch

In article <5676@ames.arpa> mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov.UUCP (Mike Smithwick) writes:
>
>Theoretically, Arianne mission V-21 takes off this next Friday, March 11.
>Anyone have the exact time of launch?? I know that they normally aim for
>about 4:00 pm to 4:30 local.

The launch window is 00.28 - 01.04 MET &
		     02.50 - 03.15 MET		(MET == GMT + 1)


-- 
Neil Dixon <neil@yc.estec.nl> UUCP:...!mcvax!esatst!neil, BITNET: NDIXON@ESTEC
Thermal Control & Life Support Division (YC) 
European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC),
Noordwijk, The Netherlands.

------------------------------

Date: 12 Mar 88 06:53:41 GMT
From: nuchat!uhnix1!sugar!peter@uunet.uu.net  (Peter da Silva)
Subject: Re: Colonization of the seas

Re: where's the last great hope of anarchy?

Space?

The oceans?

I don't know...

In article <573780134.amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU>, Dale.Amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU writes:
> It has been tried. An abandoned platform off the coast of England set
> up a pretty much free port and gambling casino. It was raided by men
> with machine guns.

> A group set up shop on a reef in the Pacific that was unclaimed. I
> think the may have dumped loads of landfill to raise the level or
> something. They even minted gold coinage. The nearest socialist welfare
> island came visiting with gunboats and took over.

...

> So I stand by my statement that you have to leave the planet to be
> free.

> The day WILL come.

And when it does what makes you think the nearest socialist welfare state
won't come visiting with gunboats and take the thing over? The states have
much more resources to throw into colonization than any individuals, and
have proven time and time again that they can't resist the lure of more
individuals to have power over... even if the colonial effort always ends up
bankrupting their economies.
-- 
-- Peter da Silva  `-_-'  ...!hoptoad!academ!uhnix1!sugar!peter
-- Disclaimer: These U aren't mere opinions... these are *values*.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #163
*******************

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Date: Mon, 14 Mar 88 03:19:05 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8803141119.AA05271@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #164

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 164

Today's Topics:
		       Re: Forget the Saturn V!
		Press Coverage and Democrats on Space
		       Re: Forget the Saturn V!
		     space news from Feb 8 AW&ST
		     Re: Colonization of the seas
		     Re: Colonization of the seas
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 13 Mar 88 04:28:53 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Forget the Saturn V!

> (Did planning for the Nova-class booster ever get past the
> "why not build a *really* big one, huh guys?" stage?)

There were a number of different Nova proposals; none ever got very far.
They did have some small effect on infrastructure planning, though.  For
example, the VAB at Kennedy can hold a booster quite a bit larger than
a Saturn V.

The biggest problem with almost any big-booster proposal these days is
the complete lack of big non-hydrogen engines.  Reviving the F-1 would
be the simplest approach, but even that would require a lot of retesting
and probably some redesign work -- too much of the original knowledge and
manufacturing capability has been lost.  Can you say "expensive"?  Rather
higher performance could be had with an all-new design, at still higher
cost.  There is nothing available off the shelf.

An important secondary problem is launch sites, since KSC is dedicated to
the shuttle these days and there just isn't anywhere else set up for things
that size, unless perhaps one climbs into bed with the USAF enough to get
the use of the Vandenberg shuttle pad.
-- 
Those who do not understand Unix are |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
condemned to reinvent it, poorly.    | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 11 Mar 88 06:41:53 GMT
From: phoenix!pucc!EWTILENI@princeton.edu  (Eric Tilenius)
Subject: Press Coverage and Democrats on Space

I recently wrote to both The Christian Science Monitor and The New York Times
about space policy and Campaign '88.  Looks like both my letters will have
been published by the time this reaches all you folks.
 
I was pleased to see that the Monitor published my letter in today's paper
(Thursday, March 10, 1988).  While it was edited somewhat (space reasons :-))
it was still good that something pro-space is getting into the press.
A NY Times editor called me up yesterday saying he was interested in running
the slightly different letter which I sent them, and that it would probably
appear on Friday, March 11.
 
My letters basically made a short case FOR the space program, including
manned missions to Mars, urged candidates to come forth and tell us their
opinions on these matters, and asked the press to help cover what was certainly
a vital issue (well, I think it is!) of the '88 campaign.
 
I would encourage ALL of you to write a letter to your local paper in SUPPORT
of the space program, and saying that you hope the Presidential candidates
will address this important issue.  (Any pro-space article is good!)
 
Also, on the matter of Democrats and the space program, there seems to be
a split line in the party, with many walking in between.   One of the most
outspoken PROponents of the space program and a mission to Mars is Hawaii
Democratic Senator Spark Matsangua (sp?).  I have received letters in support
of the space program from Paul Simon, Al Gore, and Daniel Moynihan (D-NY).
 
While this issue is in its formative stages, I would urge EVERYONE to write
to their Congressman and/or Senator to express their support for the space
program, especially Democrats.  There are many Democrats out there who
are strongly pro-space, and many who are wavering.   Before any kind of
party stance is made, it would be nice if we could demonstrate some public
support for the program.
 
Below the addresses and formats you can use in your letters to elected
officials (if you write to both Senators, do send separate letters):
 
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES (CONGRESSMAN)         U.S. SENATE  (SENATOR)
--------------------------------------         ----------------------
 
The Honorable ____________________             The Honorable ______________
House of Representatives                       United States Senate
Washington, DC  20515                          Washington, DC 20510
 
Dear Mr. _______________:                      Dear Senator __________:
 
 
Remember:  it's your future, but you've got to help work for it now!
 
Also, do TAILOR your letter to your reader/audience.  If there's a space
industry in your state, remind your Senator of JOBS.  If your Congressman
is big on peace, point out the peaceful benefits that multi-national space
cooperation can bring, and how the space program can bring great technological
leaps and encourage constructive nationalism in a peaceful fashion, etc.
 
- ERIC -
 
*----------------------===>  SPACE IS THE PLACE... <===-----------------------*
*        ewtileni@pucc.Princeton.EDU  //  ewtileni@pucc.BITNET                *
*      rutgers!pucc.bitnet!ewtileni  //  princeton!pucc.bitnet!ewtileni       *
* ColorVenture - Microcomputer Software - "Because Life isn't Black and White"*
*--------------------===> Another proud CoCo 3 owner <===---------------------*

------------------------------

Date: 11 Mar 88 16:57:53 GMT
From: hplabsb!dsmith@hplabs.hp.com  (David Smith)
Subject: Re: Forget the Saturn V!

In article <45012@sun.uucp>, fiddler%concertina@Sun.COM (Steve Hix) writes:
> Enough of these faint hearts...nuts to the dinky Shuttle
> and derivatives...none of this wimpy Saturn V resurrection
> nonsense!
> 
> What we need is a *real* booster!  Let's build the Nova!!
> Who needs advanced-technology engines?  Just scale things
> up...and up...and up.

Although this was obviously posted tongue-in-cheek, let me point out
that the Nova was to use a cluster of 8 F-1 engines in the first stage
and one J-2 in the third stage.  This is Saturn 5 stuff.

			David Smith

P.S. The second stage's M-1 engine was never developed.

------------------------------

Date: 11 Mar 88 04:12:45 GMT
From: pacbell!att-ih!alberta!mnetor!utzoo!henry@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Feb 8 AW&ST

NASA assessing new targets for CRAF; the slip from FY89 to FY90 (well,
maybe FY90) has probably postponed the launch several years, for lack
of good comet targets in the mid-1990s.

McDonnell-Douglas and Martin Marietta discussing a joint venture in the
USAF Medium Launch Vehicle competition, perhaps a McD-D Delta with a new MM
cryogenic upper stage.  [They're dreaming, MLV is clearly an excuse to
throw some government business to General Dynamics's Atlas-Centaur.]

The space station will not be metric, for fear that it might affect safety
in an emergency when snap decisions are being made by ignorant astronauts
who have to convert metric units to archaic ones before thinking about them.
[AW&ST obviously did not word it quite that way...]

Among minor issues in Reagan's new space policy is development of a new
Space Debris Policy.

James Beggs, ex-NASA-admin, becomes chairman of Spacehab, which wants to
build privately-funded extender modules to enlarge the Shuttle's
pressurized volume.  Spacehab does not want government money but does
want shuttle flight opportunities, which it so far hasn't got.  It plans
to start bending metal this summer.

Latest NASA headache:  the Long Duration Exposure Facility, long overdue
for retrieval by the shuttle, is decaying from orbit faster than expected.
NASA is trying to sort out a flight schedule that retrieves LDEF soon,
gets Magellan off to Venus on time, and gets SDI's Cirrus experiment up
early (which SDI badly wants).  LDEF was intended to be picked up a year
after its deployment in 1984.  NORAD predicts it will decay in mid-1990.
Many of LDEF's experiments have been ruined by now, since they weren't
meant for quite this long an exposure, but some will still yield useful
data, and LDEF itself is reusable.  The problem is that LDEF needs most
of the shuttle cargo bay and its retrieval is difficult to combine with
another mission.

A Soviet radar image of Venus's surface, much more detailed than the ones
they've released before.

Andrew Stofan, NASA station boss, will leave for private industry.

Four bids are in for Intelsat 7, teams headed by GE, Matra/British Aerospace,
Hughes, and Ford Aerospace.

Western Union to sell its satellite system to Hughes, which will add the
three on-orbit satellites (and one yet to be launched) to its own system.

Hughes sues US for $1.2G, claiming patent infringement by government
satellite attitude-control systems.  (This has actually been in the works
since 1971.)

Indonesia's Palapa B2R comsat will launch on Delta in 1990.

Military metsat launched successfully from Vandenberg Feb 2, after short
delays due to booster problems and weather.

House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology report says
Britain should double its space budget or forget the whole thing.
"[The current] level of spending gets the worst of all worlds -- too
much for real savings, too little for lasting achievement."  Report
also stresses need for consistent policy and a stronger space agency,
and notes that government has refused to release the British National
Space Center's space plan while refusing to offer an alternative.  Britain
should participate in ESA but should press for restraint in costly
programs duplicating those elsewhere.  (In particular, Britain should
not participate in Hermes at all.)  Increased cooperation with US
(military programs) and Canada (Radarsat etc.).  Increased support
for Hotol, provided it continues to look feasible, also stressed.

NASA issues RFPs for project definition on AXAF, hardware develoment to
commence by end of year if funding comes through.  [Picture of AXAF,
which actually could be mistaken for the Hubble telescope at first glance --
big tube with a sunshade lid at one end and solar arrays attached to the
middle.]

Report on microgravity from AIAA says US work is declining, not due to lack
of potential or interest but due to lack of flight opportunities.  If this
goes on, the space station may not be useful for this work because none of
the necessary preliminaries will have been done.  Several recommendations,
notably more funding, pressure on NASA to get going on a long-stay orbiter,
ISF, and Spacehab, and additional Spacelab missions.

Pratt & Whitney working on altitude-compensating rocket-nozzle concepts
for higher Earth-to-orbit performance, under small USAF contract.  Several
possibilities, e.g. closeable vents in the nozzle side, to make nozzle
act short when outside pressure is high and long when it is low.

Full-scale component tests begin soon for Ariane 5's big oxyhydrogen engine.

Letter from Mark Huffstutler, Texas:  "While the Mir space station orbits
overhead operating with the efficiency and occupancy rates rivaling a
Hilton Hotel and plans for a mission to Mars escalate, the US space program
cannot even put a man into orbit...  At this rate, NASA will have to
contract with the Soviet Union to deliver our space station into orbit."
-- 
Those who do not understand Unix are |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
condemned to reinvent it, poorly.    | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 11 Mar 88 19:01:13 GMT
From: pioneer!eugene@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Eugene N. Miya)
Subject: Re: Colonization of the seas

While the US and the USSR argues space stations and ocean colonies,
my distant relatives on an island nation ARE moving into the sea
(are being forced to).  They are designing and constructing their
next cities (measured in square miles) for the next
decade.  This is not by choice and will be done on the surface and
immediately below.  I guess Sagan was right in Contact.  But no one in
this country knows or cares, the language and the culture are too different.
Don't say I didn't warn you.  So went cars, electronics, etc.

>From the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA
  "You trust the `reply' command with all those different mailers out there?"
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."
  {uunet,hplabs,hao,ihnp4,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene

------------------------------

Date: 10 Mar 88 23:38:26 GMT
From: pacbell!att-ih!alberta!mnetor!utzoo!lsuc!maccs!gordan@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (gordan)
Subject: Re: Colonization of the seas

In article <573780134.amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU> Dale.Amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU writes:
-It has been tried.  [... gives examples of unsuccessful attempts to set
-up shop on abandoned oil rigs or reefs, which resulted in raids by
-neighboring governments or mercenaries.]
-
-So I stand by my statement that you have to leave the planet to be
-free. [...]
-
-The day WILL come.


Well you may have a point.  Perhaps national governments would suppress
any ocean colony that tried to declare itself independent, or perhaps it
would be a tempting target for mercenaries.

Still, the same situation could apply to space colonies.  You could
picture space pirates coming through the airlocks of L5 Prime, or the
inner solar system police raiding libertarian colonies that tried to set
themselves up as illicit-information brokers (yes, I know I've been
reading too many cyberpunk novels).


Seriously, though...  I suspect (though you may well disagree) that space
travel and habitation will remain the exclusive monopoly of national
governments for a long time, simply because of the enormous expense
involved and resources required.  I would venture to say that only the
fantastically wealthy (billionaires by today's standards) will be able
to live permanently in space as private individuals in our lifetimes.

For this reason, laws, regulations, and international governmental
organizations will be probably firmly entrenched in space long before
any private organization manages to scrape together enough resources to
establish a colony.  Perhaps the game will be over before it even started.


Though personally I don't subscribe to libertarian ideas, it seems to me
that ocean colonies would be a plausible near-term alternative
for anyone with a strong aversion to governments.

Ocean colonies would be especially important in establishing a precedent
-- that private groups can indeed declare themselves independent of any
national government (the easy part) and compelling those governments,
like it or not, to recognize that fact (the hard part).  If you can't
establish that precedent on Earth, it may well be too late (for the
reasons mentioned above) to ever do so in space (or at least the inner
solar system).

Apart from setting a precedent, they would also be important in proving
the whole concept of setting up such a colony is valid.  And of course
the experience gained (in self-government, and in attaining some degree
of self-sufficiency) would be valuable if the time ever came to move the
colony to space.


As suggested earlier, an ocean colony is almost feasible today.
Consider a determined (and well-off) group of several hundred to a
thousand individuals (count me out, thanks), each able to put up $ 150
000 or so initially and $ 15 000 annually.  They could certainly buy
themselves a used oil supertanker or cruise ship (or make a down-payment
on an aircraft carrier).

In other words, forget the rag-tag adventurers who land on abandoned
oil-drilling platforms.  Consider instead the floating condominium-state.


The main reason this idea is impractical today is because the citizens
of this state would have a hard time earning money to support
themselves, living permanently on board a ship.  In a few decades,
though, the situation could change.

Say it's the early twenty-first century.  You can use the equivalent of
a phone to call anywhere in the world at 56 kbps, for a fixed monthly
fee (we can dream, can't we).  Many people who use computers in their
jobs prefer to work at home.  In fact, it's not unheard of to live
halfway around the globe from your employer.  The few jobs with special
requirements ("geographic proximity required -- candidate must be
willing to relocate") pay extra for the inconvenience.

Under these circumstances (communications links are the key), the idea
of a self-supporting ocean colony becomes less far-fetched.  For the
price of a new home (which is exactly what it would be) and a somewhat
steep annual maintenance fee (but remember you're not paying taxes to
any government) to pay for periodic supplies and communications links,
an individual could indeed "be free".


Of course, living in a floating condominium-state will always be more
expensive and less convenient than living on land.  Only highly
ideologically motivated individuals would consider such an option (but
there seem to be enough of you out there).

I'm just thinking out loud (forgive the waste of net bandwidth), but it
does seem plausible somehow that some group might try this in a few
decades, either as a trial run for a space colony or as an end in
itself.

-- 
Gordan Palameta                                "Ecrasez l'infame"
...mnetor!lsuc!maccs!gordan                              -- Voltaire

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #164
*******************

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Date: Tue, 15 Mar 88 03:12:41 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8803151112.AA06735@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
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Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #165

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 165

Today's Topics:
		       Re: Space Civilizations
    Re: Albert Gore on space budgets (space news from Feb 1 AW&ST)
		     Low income housing in orbit?
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Mar 88 11:08 EDT
From: "Paul F. Dietz" <DIETZ%sdr.slb.com@relay.cs.net>
Subject: Re: Space Civilizations
To: KFL@mc.lcs.mit.edu, space@angband.s1.gov

> And why should earth governments follow them?  If it takes the colonists
> several months to reach the asteroid belt, government won't get there
> any faster.  And what excuse would they have?  A distant space society
> would hardly be setting up gambling casinos or drug factories that would
> have any influence on the earth government's property - I mean citizens.

Governments would have an excellent reason for stopping independent space
colonies.  Anyone who can redirect the orbit of an asteroid can potentially
drop it on the earth.  A 10,000 tonne asteroid -- quite small, as asteroids
go -- hitting the earth at 30 km/sec liberates about 1 megaton of energy.
Somehow, I can't imagine earth-based governments idlely accepting this
potential threat.

	Paul F. Dietz
	dietz@sdr.slb.com

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Mar 88 13:05:39 -0500 (EST)
From: "George H. Feil" <gf08+@andrew.cmu.edu>
X-Andrew-Message-Size: 504+0
Subject: Re: Albert Gore on space budgets (space news from Feb 1 AW&ST)

>        M A X   H E A D R O O M   F O R   P R E S I D E N T
>         (the best computer-generated video image running)
>--
>            Steve Masticola (masticol@paul.rutgers.edu)

Actually, I thought Ron Headrest was the video image running from president.
(According to Doonsbury...)

>From the computational caves of Carnegie <no dash> Mellon <no University>
George H. Feil
arpanet:    gf08+@andrew.cmu.edu
bitnet:     r746gf08@cmuccvb

"Too many students get their impression of a city
 from the campus within it."

------------------------------

Date: 12 Mar 88 00:11:53 GMT
From: thorin!ra.cs.unc.edu!leech@mcnc.org
Subject: Low income housing in orbit?


    Unattributed short item in the 3/11 Charlotte Observer:

    KISS `STAR WARS' GOODBYE?

    WASHINGTON - The chairman of a House appropriations subcommittee
    said Thursday that Congress will ``kiss goodbye'' to plans for a
    space station if more money isn't allocated for housing.

	Rep. Edward Boland, D-Mass, said he will recommend taking at
    least $1.5 million from President Reagan's requested $2.5 billion
    for NASA and using it to restore housing cuts.

Comments:
    - This has nothing to do with Star Wars.
    - I suspect they meant $1.5 BILLION, not million.
    - Perhaps the $2.5G referred to is Reagan's proposed increase in
	the NASA budget, since their current budget is far above this
	figure.

    In other words, does anyone know what Boland *really* said?
Thanks.

    Jon Leech (leech@cs.unc.edu)    __@/
    ``After all, the best part of a holiday is perhaps not so much to be
      resting yourself as to see all the other fellows busy working.''
	- Kenneth Grahame, _The Wind in the Willows_

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #165
*******************

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Date: Wed, 16 Mar 88 03:15:12 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8803161115.AA08248@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #166

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 166

Today's Topics:
		     Mir elements epoch 88-03-07
			   Upcoming eclipse
		   Dukakis Position Paper on Space
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 14 Mar 88 02:48:00 GMT
From: kenny@b.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Mir elements epoch 88-03-07


Satellite: Mir        
Catalog id 16609
Element set  98
Epoch: 88 67.87328229
Inclination:  51.6241 degrees
RA of node: 229.9278 degrees
Eccentricity:  0.0013082
Argument of perigee: 188.3485 degrees
Mean anomaly: 171.6746 degrees
Mean motion: 15.78022993 revs/day
Mean motion acceleration: 0.00063710 * 2 revs/day/day
Epoch Revolution: 11784

Semimajor axis:    6714.14 km
Apogee height*:     344.76 km
Perigee height*:     327.19 km

		Source: NASA Goddard via T.S.Kelso's `Celestial RCP/M'

* Apogee and perigee altitudes are referred to the mean radius of the
  Earth (6378.15 km), and not to the local radius of the geoid.  They
  are only approximate, and should not be used for orbit prediction.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Mar 88 21:32:22 PST
From: John Sotos <SOTOS@sumex-aim.stanford.edu>
Subject: Upcoming eclipse

Isn't there a total eclipse coming up soon?  (Sorry about this posting,
but I don't know the name of the astronomy group.)  As I recall, it is
in the west Pacific.  Does anyone know if the ground track will cross
Guam or American Somoa?  Isn't it sometime in the next week or so?

Of course, one or two orbits and a person could see all the eclipses he
or she wanted....

------------------------------

Date: 	  Mon, 14 Mar 88 16:56:34 PST
From: BOWERYJ%CPVA.SAINET.MFENET@nmfecc.arpa

Subject: Dukakis Position Paper on Space
Date:    Mon, 14-MAR-1988 16:57 PDT
X-VMS-Mail-To: SPACE

Mike Dukakis on the Issues
Restoring American Leadership in Space

A generation ago, President John F. Kennedy raised the sights and the
spirits of all Americans by challenging our scientists and citizens to
go forward with a bold program of space exploration.  Mercury, Gemini
and Apollo fired our imaginations and our pride; Voyager, Viking and
Skylab explored the depths of our solar system and the resources of our
planet, gave us new insight into the origins of our universe and
provided new knowlege and understanding with which we could improve the
quality of life on earth.

Sadly, in recent years, our space program has lost its sense of purpose.
Despite annual expenditures approaching $10 billion per year, NASA is
demoralized and our space effort is in disarray, our space science
program no longer leads the world, and the tragedy of the space shuttle
Challenger has created doubts about the ability of the United States to
operate effectively in space.  Our space program has been dominated by
military considerations, while our competitiveness in the world-wide
commercial market has steadily eroded.

A New National Consensus

For seven years, the current Administration has pursued a
program-by-program, piecemeal approach to our space effort.  The time
has come to renew our commitment to an imaginative, well-desiged space
policy.  To turn away from the fantasy of Star Wars and to seek again to
explore space for the benefit of all mankind.  The next President must
forge a new national consensus behind our goals in space: A vision that
will guide our policies throughout the next decade and into the next
century.

We must begin by addressing our basic aims in space: how to reinvigorate
our space science program, how to maintain America's technological edge
in the face of increasing foreign competition; how to meet our
requirements for space transportation; and how to define the role of
manned space activities.  The massive federal budget deficit will limit
the resources available to the next President.  He must work with
Congress to set clear priorities and attainable goals, while
strengthening partnerships between the federal government, our
universities and the research community, and the private sector.

Promoting a Competitive America Space Industry

We need a space policy that will promote the competitiveness of American
industry in the growing international market and expand job
opportunities, while serving fundamental national goals in space.  We
should encourage commercial uses of space.  The federal government must
provide our private sector with the opportunity to invest in and develop
space- related technologies, transportation systems and satellites.

As President, I will encourage private investment by creating
partnerships between the federal government and the private sector that
emphasizes joint research programs.  I will set forth clear policies for
commercial competition to help promote our ability to meet the
world-wide demand for launch services.  And I will reinvigorate the
White House office of Science and Technology Policy and charge it with
the responsibility for ensuring effective coordination among government
agencies and greater private sector involvement in our nation's space
effort.

Reinvigorating Space Science

Rather than spend billions of dollars for projects that serve narrow
interests -- such as the "Orient Express" space plane that will fly from
New York to Tokyo in three hours, we should invest in a space program
that will benefit our nation and humankind as a whlle.  We should
emphasize research, the development of innovative technology and space
science, to expand our knowlege of the earth's resources and the world's
oceans, improve communications and reveal the mysteries of the universe.
We must develop a comprehensive, long-term plan to assure stable funding
for important space science projects such as the Venus Radar mapper, the
Mars Observer, the Advanced X-Ray Astrophysics Facility and the Hubble
Space Telescope.

Assuring Our Access to Space

Second, we ust restore our space transportation capability.  I support
the recommendation of the Challenger Commission to return the shuttle to
service with a reduced flight schedule to help ensure higher safety
standards, and to build a fourth orbiter, using proven technology.  At
the same time, the disruption caused by the shuttle disaster and the
failures of the Titan and Delta rockets makes clear the need to
diversify our nation's launch capability and devlop affordable
alternatives to the shuttle (such as new expendable launch vehicles) for
delivering important payloads into space.

An Affordable, Practical Space Station

Third, we should review the options for the space station.  I support
the development, at a prudent pace, of a technologically sophisticated
space science and engineering laboratory -- but there are a number of
less costly alternatives to the station now envisioned by NASA.  These
alternatives -- including a station that need not be permanently manned
-- could be in operation much sooner and could meet most, if not all of
the requirements of the larger, permanently manned space station.

Skilled Management for NASA

Fifth, I will appoint skilled managers at NASA who will restore
professionalism and competence to our space program.  Managers who will
set high standards for NASA personnel and contractors -- and who will
make sure that those standards are met.  The continuing failures in our
shuttle program are symptomatic of management gone awry -- our nation
deserves better.

International Cooperation in Space

Finally, I will ask the Soviet Union, and other space-faring nations, to
join with the US in more cooperative efforts in space.  While we must be
careful to protect sensitive technologies in these cooperative programs,
they offer an unparalleled opportunity for all nations to work together
on projects which will benefit us all.  We should renew the US- USSR
Space Science Agreement, coordinate the 1989 Soviet mission to Phobos
with the US Mars Observer flight, and invite the USSR to join with the
US, Japan and the European Space Agency in the International Solar
Terrestrial Physics Program.  And we should explore with the Soviet
Union and other nations the feasibility and practicality of joint space
engineering activities that might pave the way to a joint manned mission
to Mars.

Enhancing Our Security in Space

I strongly oppose the Administration's militarization of space.  Star
Wars and anti-satellite weapons not only make our nation less secure;
they divert funds and attention from far more important space research
efforts.  As President, I will direct the Pentagon to focus its efforts
on programs that will enhance our security, such as improved satellites
for arms control verification and early warning of attack,
communications, navagation, and meteorology.

And I will challenge the Soviet Union to join with us in new agreements
to protect our vital space activities and enhance our security.  By
negotiating a ban on testing anti- satellite weapons -- including lasers
and electronic interference.  By developing guidelines for space
operations -- such as "keep out zones" that will reduce the danger of
attack on satellites.  And by placing limits on military activities by
humans in space.

Inspiring the Next Generation of Space Scientists

The future of the American space program depends on its ability to
inspire and attract the bright young people of our nation.  I support
the establishment of educational programs that will motivate young
people to explore careers in space science and technology.  NASA, its
scientists and engineers, and the private sector can be an important
part of that effort.

During the 1960's, our space program became a symbol of what the
American mind and spirit can accomplish.  As President, I will work with
all those involved in the adventure of space to restore our sense of
pride and purpose; and to explore the final frontier.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #166
*******************

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Date: Thu, 17 Mar 88 03:21:55 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
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To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #167

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 167

Today's Topics:
			  When Stars Collide
		     House Subcommittee Testimony
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Mar 88 13:25 EDT
From: "Paul F. Dietz" <DIETZ@sdr.slb.com>
Subject: When Stars Collide

To expand on the topic of stars colliding...

If a binary star swings by another star one has a three body problem, which
can cause capture. An interesting case, recently described in Nature, is
the close approach of a binary star to a supermassive black hole. If a
tight binary star swings by such an object one member can be trapped and
the other escape at up to 4000 km/sec (yes, > 1% c). Observation of such
hypervelocity stars in our galaxy would be proof of the existence of a
supermassive black hole in the galactic center.

The star left behind in this capture process would be in an elliptical
orbit around the black hole. Tidal heating would occur, and because the
orbit would be so energetic the energy released per unit stellar mass would
rival that of nuclear fusion. This would heat the star until it swelled to
giant size.  Stars heated to the Eddington limit and star-star collisions
would provide matter to feed the hole.

	Paul F. Dietz
	dietz@sdr.slb.com

------------------------------

Date:     Sunday 13 Mar 88 5:30 PM CT
From: Doug Brenner (Data Base Admin, U of Iowa) <GWCDCBPG%UIAMVS.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Subject:  House Subcommittee Testimony

[I've been rather behind in my reading and processing of mail, so I
 finally rediscovered this and the time to send it out.  The House
 Subcommittee on Science, Space, and Technology had hearings here at The
 University of Iowa last month.  Here is some basic information
 including the testimonies of several of the panel members.

 Doug Brenner, Weeg Computing Center (gwcdcbpg@uiamvs.bitnet)
 The University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242                   -dcb]
----------------------------------------------------------------------
               COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
                      U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
                         WASHINGTON, D.C.  20515

                              WITNESS LIST

Date:   February 5, 1988
Time:   9:30 a.m. - 3:00 p.m.
Place:  Iowa Memorial Union Building, University of Iowa,
        Iowa City, Iowa

Panel No. 1:    Dr. James Van Allen
                Department of Physics
                University of Iowa
                Iowa City, Iowa  52242

                Dr. Don Gurnett
                Department of Physics
                University of Iowa
                Iowa City, Iowa  52242

                Dr. Dwight Nicholson
                Department of Physics
                University of Iowa
                Iowa City, Iowa  52242

                Dr. Lou Frank
                Department of Physics
                University of Iowa
                Iowa City, Iowa  52242

Panel No. 2:    Dr. Gene Wubbels
                Department of Chemistry
                P.O. Box 805
                Grinnel College
                Grinnel, Iowa  50112

                Dr. Paul Rider
                Department of Chemistry
                3538 MSH
                University of Northern Iowa
                Cedar Falls, Iowa  50614

                Mr. Ted Cizadio
                Physics Instructor
                City High School
                1900 Morningside Drive
                Iowa City, Iowa  52240

What follows are SOME of the written testimonies presented to the House
subcommittee and entered into the Congressional record.  Most witnesses
followed their written testimony closely, but a few did deviate from it
a bit.  (Sorry, I'm a bad note taker, so I can't comment specifically.)

Many, MANY, thanks to Larry Granroth (The University of Iowa, Physics
and Astronomy) for supplying these on-line transcripts.
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Testimony of Professor James A. Van Allen, Department of Physics and
Astronomy, University of Iowa, to the Subcommittee on Space Science and
Applications of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology
meeting in Iowa City, Iowa on 5 February 1988:


      Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, let me first express my
thanks for your arrangements to hold these hearings in Iowa City and for
the opportunity to testify.

      You gave us, Mr. Chairman, in your letter of invitation, some very
heavy assignments.  I do have opinions on all of those matters and will
be happy to respond to questions on them.  But my prepared state ment is
brief and has a more single-minded focus.

                      ***********

      The overall record of the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration during the nearly thirty years of its existence has been
a brilliantly successful one, in many different ways.

      It has provided the scientific and technical foundations for a
wide array of direct human services, most notably in worldwide
communications, in improved understanding of the physical and chemical
conditions for all forms of life on Earth, and in the global survey of
natural resources.  It has sponsored a golden age of advances in our
knowledge of the solar system and of the remote astronomical universe.

      Let me cite two specific examples of planetary explorations which
are very close to my heart.

      The two companion spacecraft Pioneers 10 and 11 were launched in
1972 and 1973, respectively.  They passed through the asteroid belt
between Mars and Jupiter without damage, made the first-ever
investigations at close range of the great outer planets Jupiter and
Saturn and are now on escape trajectories out of the solar system.  As
of the present date, Pioneer 10 is four billion miles from Earth; is
beyond Pluto, the outermost of the known planets; and is the most remote
manmade object in the universe.  I am happy to report that the
spacecraft systems, including the Iowa-built radiation instrument,
continue to function properly and yield daily data on the physical
conditions in the outer reaches of the solar system.  This unprecedented
investigation is one of the classical aspirations of cosmic physics.

      The two follow-on and more sophisticated spacecraft Voyagers 1 and
2, which also carry Iowa-built instruments, have added brilliantly to
our knowledge of Jupiter and Saturn.  More recently, in late January
1986, Voyager 2 made the first-ever encounter with the planet Uranus.
The scientific papers resulting from this encounter provide encyclopedic
knowledge of this distant planet and its satellites and rings -- a whole
new world of fascinating phenomena on a grand scale.

      Neptune is our next target.  The encounter date is 24 August 1989.

      In addition to its scientific and technological leadership, NASA
has achieved the widely-held cultural objective of flying human crews in
space, most notably to and from the moon.

      But despite all of these successes, our national launching
capability is now in a state of nearly total paralysis for a period of
at least two and a half years.  This default is unprecedented in the
history of the program.  Meanwhile, billions of dollars worth of high
priority commercial, scientific, applicational, and military spacecraft
are piling up in the launching queue.

      What went wrong?

      How can we fix it?

      These are the questions that I now address.

      In a critique of the President's recent state-of-the-union
message, Senator Robert C. Byrd remarked that "Ideology is no substitute
for common sense".  This remark, though made in a different context,
summarizes my point of view on our national space policy.

      An often repeated ideology of space activities is, in brief, that
it is the manifest destiny of mankind to live and work in space and to
colonize the solar system.  This credo was adopted as an axiom, or
perhaps a divine revelation, by President Reagan in his 1984 and 1985
state-of-the-union messages and by the National Commission on Space in
its 1986 report.

      My own approach to the subject as a long-time practitioner is
quite different.  I advocate a pragmatic, incremental approach,
exploiting the things that work and phasing down the things that do not.

      The essence of my testimony is that we must return to primary
reliance on unmanned launch vehicles and unmanned commandable spacecraft
in order to reestablish the health of our national space program.

      Let me explain.

      The history of space exploration by the United States, the Soviet
Union, and all other countries provides overwhelming evidence that space
science and the many important practical applications thereof are best
served by unmanned, automated, commandable spacecraft -- the obvious and
only important exception being the study of human physiology and
psychology under prolonged free-fall or low-g conditions.

      Yet the civil space program of the United States continues to give
dominant emphasis to the flight of human crews as its centerpiece and
focus.

      The failure of our national policy for exclusive dependence on the
manned space shuttle for the launching of all commercial, scientific,
applicational, and military spacecraft has been evident to practitioners
for many years.  The tragic explosion of the Challenger in January 1986
dramatized the wrong headedness and fragility of that policy and, at
last, brought these facts to public attention.

      That dramatic realization elicited astonishingly different
responses by the Department of Defense and by the National Aeronautics
and Space Administration.

      Soon after the accident, Secretary of the Air Force Edward C.
Aldridge, Jr., made the forthright public statement: "We made a great
mistake in planning exclusive reliance on the shuttle to deliver
military payloads into space.  Believe me, we will never make that
mistake again."  True to his word, he placed the nearly-completed
Vandenberg shuttle-launch facility in caretaker status and resumed the
procurement of several classes of unmanned, expendable launch vehicles.

      In contrast, NASA passed up the opportunity to reexamine the
validity of its policy of the 1970's and early 1980's and hunkered down
to vindicate it.  Toward that end the agency has continued to devote a
major fraction of its available resources to manned flight.
Specifically it has undertaken to remedy known weak nesses in the three
remaining shuttles and associated boosters; has initiated the
procurement of a replacement shuttle; and has planned to continue still
another costly project -- namely the development of a large, permanently
manned space station.  These emphases were embodied in the agency's FY
1987 and FY 1988 budgets, which effectively ignored the nearly unanimous
judgment of the user communities -- commercial, scientific, and
applicational -- that return to primary dependence on expendable launch
vehicles was the matter of greatest national urgency.

      Only within the past few months has NASA itself "nibbled the
bullet" and expressed a tentative inclination to return to a mixed fleet
of manned shuttles and unmanned expendable launch vehicles.  We must
await release of NASA's FY 1989 budget proposal to learn the true
intentions of the agency and the White House.

      Meanwhile, no truly comprehensive recovery of our civil space
program has yet been implemented.

      It is obvious that a rapidly increasing annual budget for NASA
could respond affirmatively to all of the diverse constituencies of the
civil space program.  But the public mandate for approach to a balanced
federal budget appears to negate such an expansive point of view.
Either, NASA must be exempted from this mandate, or hard choices must be
made.  There is no way that a shuttle fleet of three or even four
orbiters can meet the pent-up launching requirements of the next ten
years, especially if the construction, deployment, and utilization of a
space station go forward.  Given due regard for increased safety, the
optimistic shuttle launch rate is eight to ten per year.  At this launch
rate the shuttle system is the world's most expensive and least robust
of available techniques and it is quite inadequate for national needs.
Despite heroic efforts to improve safety and reliability, it will be
difficult if not impossible to achieve better than a 97% success rate
under normal operating conditions.  Such a success rate corresponds to
the loss of one shuttle about every three years.

      It is, moreover, of central importance to note that only a small
fraction of our science and applicational missions require a human crew
in space.  This fraction can be progressively reduced by good
engineering.

      Surely there is no issue before this committee as important as
assuring our return to primary reliance on unmanned vehicles and
unmanned spacecraft in our national space program.

                Thank you, Mr. Chairman
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Testimony of Professor Louis A. Frank, Department of Physics and
Astronomy, University of Iowa, to the Subcommittee on Space Science and
Applications of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology
meeting in Iowa City, Iowa, on 5 February 1988:


     Mr.  Chairman and members of the committee, let me first express my
thanks for the opportunity to testify and for your efforts in honoring
Iowa City with this hearing.

                           ***********

     Mr.  Chairman, as an active participant in the U.  S.  space
program since the age of 20 I can most usefully point out some of the
reasons for the rapid and severe decay of the rate of our scientific
achievements by giving several specific examples.  I am quite sure that
these problems are widespread in the U.  S.  space science community.

     In 1981 the U. S. launched a satellite for the advancement of our
studies of the auroral lights.  This satellite, named Dynamics Explorer
1, is equipped with unique imaging instrumentation that is unduplicated
by the other spacefaring nations at the present date.  It is one of a
handful of scientific spacecraft that are currently operating during the
present period of essentially no launch activity.  Dynamics Explorer 1
is still providing valuable scientific information.  Yet NASA is
seriously considering the shutoff of this spacecraft in the near future
and has severely restricted the analyses of the scientific data by a
yearly deleterious reduction in funding.  The U.  S.  is simply not
taking advantage of its currently orbiting spacecraft and competent
scientists are being forced out of the space sciences.  They cannot be
expected to return.

     For over a decade a group of U. S. space scientists have been
carefully planning the use of the Space Shuttle to study the effects of
injection of charged particles and radio waves into Earth's upper
atmosphere.  We have actively participated in this program by designing
a satellite to be released from the Space Shuttle that will intercept
these beams and radio emissions and determine their effects on the upper
atmosphere.  A test flight for this scientific mission was conducted
with Challenger during the summer of 1985.  The satellite was
necessarily equipped with leftover scientific instruments from other
missions, some of which were almost a decade old, and with a piece of
hardware borrowed from the Smithsonian.  Even so, exciting scientific
data were collected and the promise of advanced experimentation with the
Space Shuttle was proved.  However, this following investigation, called
Space Plasma Laboratory, was cancelled by NASA last fall because no
flight opportunity on the Space Shuttle appeared to be available until
the mid-1990's.  Our Canadian collaborators on this mission have stated
that they might seek a Russian vehicle for conducting their part of the
scientific investigation.  For our part we may or may not be able to
hitch a ride on some Space Shuttle flight and achieve only a skeletal
portion of the originally planned scientific investigation.  It is
possible that the Russians, with their considerable launch capabilities,
will attempt to conduct this important investigation and base such a
mission on our extensive studies.  For the U. S. realization of the full
promise of the original Space Plasma Laboratory appears to be lost in my
working lifetime.

     The Japanese are constructing a spacecraft, Geotail, to explore the
vast regions of naturally occurring charged particles and magnetic
fields that lie at great distances from the nightside of our planet.
Our research group at the university is providing an instrument for this
spacecraft.  The space program in Japan, albeit relatively modest in
comparison to that of the U.  S., is highly successful.  There is a
well-programmed, and stable, series of scientific satellites.  Perhaps
more importantly, our Japanese colleagues are adopting the designs of
previously flown U. S. instruments and considerably improving these
instruments.  In the U. S. we are currently unable to advance and test
our instruments due to the lack of flight opportunity.  With each
passing year of launch inactivity our instrumentation capabilities are
rapidly falling behind those of the European consortium, Russia and
Japan.

     I consider that Galileo is the most advanced robot spacecraft ever
to be constructed.  This spacecraft's exploration of Jupiter and its
moons, and the vast, dynamic regions of charged particles surrounding
these bodies would be a great achievement for the U. S. space program.
As you are well aware, this spacecraft has been significantly delayed
due to the Challenger disaster.  Unlike the Space Plasma Laboratory, a
manned launch is not required for implementation of the Galileo Mission.
With an expendable launch vehicle available several years ago, today we
would be seeing the exciting results of this mission in our newspapers
and journals, and our space program would be revitalized by an influx of
new students.  In reality my own work on Galileo began in 1976 and the
fruits of my efforts are planned to be realized in 1995.

     I take great pride in the past achievements of the U.  S.  space
program.  But today, as a working scientist, I am concerned that a few
further years of launch inactivity will find our country with a
decimated space science capability.  A balanced, stable program of
expendable vehicle and Space Shuttle launches of scientific missions,
together with an interim period of taking full advantage of the wealth
of data presently in our possession, can reverse this deterioration.  It
is difficult for me to understand how our great country can ignore
taking its proper place with the other spacefaring countries in probing
the mysteries of our planet and the universe that lies beyond.

                    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Testimony on the Long Range Goals of the United States Space Program by
Professor Donald A. Gurnett, Department of Physics and Astronomy, The
University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242-1479, Presented to the hearing
of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, and
Applications held in Iowa City, Iowa, February 5, 1988:


     Mr.  Chairman, and members of the Space Science and Applications
Subcommittee, let me express my thanks for being offered the opportunity
to express my views on the long range goals of the U.S. space program.
Since I am a scientist, most of my comments will be concerned with the
status and future of U.S.  space science.

                   INTRODUCTION TO THE PROBLEM

     From almost any point of view it is apparent that a serious crisis
exists in the U.S. space program.  For nearly thirty years the United
States enjoyed a period of world leadership in space, with many
brilliant successes.  We now find ourselves essentially grounded, with a
long backlog of payloads to be launched, and serious questions about the
long range goals of the space program.

     Although the Challenger disaster provided dramatic evidence of
serious problems in the U.S. space program, signs of stress and a loss
of momentum were evident much earlier.  The last planetary spacecraft
launched by the United States was Pioneer Venus in 1978, almost ten
years ago.  Galileo, our next planetary spacecraft, was originally
scheduled for launch in 1982.  Because of difficulties caused by the
shuttle, the Galileo launch has been delayed to 1989, at the earliest,
over seven years behind schedule.  Throughout the 1980's, the space
program has been plagued by long delays, with many programs stretched
out, or canceled outright.

     For scientists trying to do space research, the process of
submitting a proposal to NASA has become a frustrating game in which one
mainly hopes to be selected for a mission that survives.  My own
experience illustrates the difficulties that space scientists face.  Out
of eleven spacecraft instrumentation proposals submitted to NASA by my
group since 1975, there are only two projects for which we have actually
received a contract to build instrumentation.  Of these, only one, the
Plasma Diagnostics Package, has flown and produced data.  Of the rest,
four projects have been canceled, in two cases after many years of
developmental work.  Others have been stretched out almost indefinitely.
For example, we were selected seven years ago to provide instrumentation
for two spacecraft in the Global Geoscience Program.  This program has
been under almost continuous study since March 1980.  If we are lucky, a
contract to construct the instrumentation will be awarded this year,
with a launch in 1992, twelve years after submitting the proposal.
Whereas in the early years of space exploration it was entirely feasible
to conceive and execute a spacecraft project in two or three years, at
the present time it is now approaching twenty years.

     In sharp contrast, the Soviet Union, Europe, and Japan are all
proceeding with vigorous, aggressive space science programs.  Since the
launch of Pioneer Venus, the Soviets have launched eight spacecraft to
Venus, and are now poised to undertake a vigorous program of Mars
exploration.  During the recent reappearance of the comet Halley in
1986, Europe, Japan, and the Soviet Union launched a total of four
spacecraft in response to this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.  The U.S.
mission to Halley was canceled.

     It is clear from these trends that important changes are going to
have to be made if we are to maintain our leadership in space science.

            SCIENCE EMPHASIS IN NATIONAL SPACE POLICY

     If the United States is to regain and maintain its leadership in
space science, it is essential that science be given a more prominent
role in national space policy.  Although space policy must always
involve numerous other factors, such as commercial and military
interests, it has become apparent in the last decade that science is
taking a decidedly secondary role.  This trend was first apparent to me
in the decision to build the space shuttle.  Although the shuttle is
sometimes identified with science, the decision to proceed with the
shuttle during the late 1970's was mainly on technological grounds and
had little to do with science.  Scientists were essentially told, "here
is the shuttle, do what you can with it."  Much to our regret, few
objected and we are now stuck with a vulnerable launch system that
cannot meet our needs.

     The trend to ignore science continues to the present date in the
form of the manned Space Station.  Extensive and careful reviews by the
National Academy of Sciences, involving scientists representing a broad
range of space science disciplines, have concluded that the Space
Station only marginally serves the needs of the space science community.
The Space Station provides a reasonable platform for space medicine, but
is nearly useless for planetary studies, astronomy, magnetospheric
physics, and numerous other disciplines.  Fearful that Space Station
cost overruns will kill other important space science projects, similar
to the shuttle experience in the 1980's, many scientists have voiced
objections.  Nevertheless, NASA plans to proceed with the Space Station.

     Unless we recognize the importance of science as an objective,
rather than an incidental by-product, the present trend toward a loss of
leadership in space research is likely to continue.  To reverse this
trend will require recognition of the problem at the highest level, by
Congress and by the President of the United States.

                      SELECTION OF MISSIONS

     Having commented on the need for increased emphasis on science in
national space policy, I next want to discuss the missions that are
required to carry out an effective space science program.  I believe
that it is not my role to prioritize various space science missions.
Instead, I want to comment on the selection process and the types of
missions that are required for a broadly based space science program.
The National Academy of Sciences has produced numerous reports in recent
years outlining the strategies and missions that are recommended in
various areas of space science.  For example, a few years ago I
participated in a National Academy of Sciences study on the strategy for
exploring the outer planets during the next twenty years.  Our study
recommended that we carry out a Saturn orbiter (now called the Cassini
mission) as well as several other projects.  In addition to the National
Academy of Sciences reports, there are also studies by other NASA
advisory committees such as "Planetary Exploration Through Year 2000"
and "The Crisis in Earth and Space Science."  Collectively, I regard the
recommendations of these and other similar studies to be the types of
space science missions that should be carried out during the next ten to
twenty years.

     Next, let me consider the types of launch vehicles and spacecraft
required for space science.  Space science involves measurements in many
different regions of space.  Some disciplines, such as Earth studies,
require low altitude orbits.  Other disciplines, such as magnetospheric
physics, require highly eccentric orbits, often to very specific regions
of the magnetosphere.  Planetary studies require high performance
vehicles that can escape from the Earth.  Sensitive scientific
measurements often require very specialized environments around the
spacecraft.  By and large these diverse requirements can only be met by
specialized spacecraft devoted to specific missions.  In most cases, the
science requirements can be met by relatively modest-sized payloads,
typically a few thousand pounds, like Voyager or Galileo.  Although, not
small by some standards, these payloads are well within the capability
of present technology.

           THE REQUIREMENT FOR ONE LARGE NASA PROJECT

     In the last twenty years there has developed within NASA the view
that the agency must have at least one large project that is the
agency's main effort.  In the 1960's this was the Apollo project; in the
1970's and 1980's this was the shuttle; and in the 1990's this
presumably will be the Space Station.  For the more distance future,
serious discussion is being given to a manned flight to Mars, or a
permanent manned outpost on the Moon.  Given unlimited resources, these
projects are certainly worthy of the attention of a great nation such as
the United States, even if they do not all serve a broad range of
scientific disciplines.  The problem arises during times when national
priorities are such that NASA's budget cannot be increased adequately to
accommodate the large projects.  Under these conditions, the smaller,
more broadly based science missions are severely squeezed, threatening
the viability of the entire space science program.

     Often the assertion is made that without a major, high-visibility
project NASA would not be able to generate the public support needed to
sustain its program.  This largely unproven assertion assumes that a
broad mix of science-oriented missions would not be able to generate
adequate public support.  In fact, this is hardly the case.  For over a
decade, Europe has had a very broadly based space science program that
has received considerable public support.  In my opinion we could
generate a more stable base of public support by carrying out a steady
series of science-oriented missions than by placing all of the emphasis
on one high-visibility project.  The risk of a catastrophic collapse of
public confidence is much lower for a broadly based program than for a
single, high risk venture.  The shuttle experience certainly shows what
can happen when all of our eggs are in one basket.

                 MANNED VERSUS UNMANNED MISSIONS

     Since the Challenger accident there has been considerable
discussion of manned versus expendable launch vehicles.  My view on this
subject is that it is proper and fitting that man should fly in space.
The main achievement of the Apollo mission is that man has walked on the
Moon.  This is a landmark achievement of mankind, one that could never
be duplicated with a robot, no matter how complex.  On the other hand,
robotic spacecraft can be made extremely capable and are in most cases
the primary method for carrying out space science measurements.  Manned
spaceflight is inherently dangerous, and because of the need to
emphasize human safety, extremely expensive.  For this reason it is my
view that manned vehicles should be used only for those missions in
which the presence of an astronaut is absolutely essential.  Just how to
make the decision on when an astronaut is essential is a gray area that
is hard to answer.  If we want to claim that man has walked on Mars,
then we will have to send a man.  On the other hand, it is completely
crazy to use a manned vehicle to launch a spacecraft to Jupiter.  My
conclusion is that we need both manned and expendable launch vehicles,
and that manned missions should be undertaken only if an astronaut is
absolutely essential to the success of the mission.

                             SUMMARY

o    There  is  a crisis in the ability of the United  States  to
     maintain its leadership in space science.

o    The  crisis can be adverted only if a firm decision is  made
     to place more emphasis on science in national space policy.

o    A  long list of very worthy space science missions has  been
     recommended  by the National Academy of Sciences  and  other
     NASA study groups.  These missions should be carried out  in
     a timely fashion.

o    Large, high-visibility projects, such as the Space  Station,
     should  be undertaken only if they can be performed  without
     adversely affecting a broadly based science program.

o    Manned missions should be undertaken only if an astronaut is
     absolutely essential to the success of the mission.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
End of available testimonies.
---------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #167
*******************

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	id AA11192; Fri, 18 Mar 88 03:13:36 PST
Date: Fri, 18 Mar 88 03:13:36 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8803181113.AA11192@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #168

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 168

Today's Topics:
		    Re: Your "space" submission...
			 SPOT picture wanted
			   Asteroid Mining
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 15 Mar 1988 17:52-EST 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
To: Tom Perrine <Perrine@LOGICON.ARPA>
Cc: space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: Re: Your "space" submission...

I've heard of Minerva's sad case several times. The material I have
close at hand is from an ad in Reason Magazine run by Liberty Coin
Service to sell Republic of Minerva gold coins.


"	But in addition to its historic importance, beauty and the
value of its metallic properties, the Minerva coin is the symbol of a
little-known new country, established in 1972 by a group of visionary,
freedom-loving libertarians.

		The Republic of Minerva

	On January 19,1972 the North and South Minerva Reefs (situated
400 miles south of Fiji, and previously unclaimed by any nation) were
occupied and claimed under international law by the founders of the
State of Minerva. These men immediately commenced a bold, sophisticated
plan of landfill and seawall development to literally create from once
barren reefs the land needed for a city-state of 30,000 inhabitants.

	The Republic of Minerva was dedicated to the principles of
Capitalism and Free Enterprise. Its government was limited to the
protection of its citizens against force or fraud. Other world
governments were officially notified of the existance of the newly
created island and its government. Landfill operations were proceeding
apace, and recognignition had been received from the first of the
world's countries when disaster struck.

	On June 21, 1972 Minerva was forcibly invaded by the Kingdom of
Tonga, its nearest neighbor, 260 miles distant. Unable to effectively
defend the island, its government was forced into exile pending
resolution of the conflict. The possibility remains that the Republic
of Minerva may yet reclaim its territory and if that should happen, the
Minerva coin could multiply in value many times over."

I have seen other recent references stating that the case is pending in
World Court, but it would take me a considerable amount of research to
find a 2 column inch article, assuming I still have the publication in
my library.

The unneighborly and warlike behavior exhibited by the Fijians is an
object lesson to any group that wishes to found a new state governed
under their own principles, no matter where it is done. You have got to
be ready to get nasty to protect your rights. I think a few antiship
missiles would have persuaded the Fijians that it made much more sense
to stay home and lay on the beach.

The same would be true of any space settlement. If you want to be free
in an unfree world, you have to be prepared to die for it. That's the
way it was in 1776, and that's the way it is in 1988 or any other year.

------------------------------

Date: 16 Mar 88 17:34:51 GMT
From: kaufman@shasta.stanford.edu  (Marc Kaufman)
Subject: SPOT picture wanted

I would like to purchase a SPOT image of a particular place, on or about
a particular time.  Can someone point me to an appropriate source for
ordering same?  I also need pricing (presumably from the same source).

Thanks.
Marc Kaufman (kaufman@Shasta.stanford.edu)

------------------------------

Subject: Asteroid Mining
Date: Thu, 17 Mar 88 17:09:00 -0500
From: Fred Baube <fbaube@note.nsf.gov>


I'm sure this has been asked before, but ..

For a paper on strategic metals subject to supply problems, viz.
cobalt, chromium, and manganese, also platinum and vanadium, I'd
like to add some informed speculation about asteroids as a secure
source over the long term.  Where can I find out about ..

1) Composition of asteroids
   a) certainty of those estimates
   b) differences between asteroids in the Mars/Jupiter
      belt and asteroids elsewhere
2) Chances of finding such metals on the moon
3) Techniques for prospecting (e.g. remote assaying using laser
   spectrometry, as the Bolshies will do to Mars' moons)
4) Technologies and plans for asteroid mining, including the
   comparative costs and feasabilities of
   a) smelt "on-site" and launch loads of reduced ore to destinations
   b) bringing promising asteroids to earth orbit and smelt there
   c) effect asteroidal re-entry and smelt on-earth :-)

I'm in DC, if that helps.  Thanx; I will summarize.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #168
*******************

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Date: Sat, 19 Mar 88 03:24:06 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8803191124.AA12508@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #169

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 169

Today's Topics:
		     House Subcommittee Testimony
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date:     Sunday 13 Mar 88 5:30 PM CT
From: Doug Brenner (Data Base Admin, U of Iowa) <GWCDCBPG%UIAMVS.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Subject:  House Subcommittee Testimony

[I've been rather behind in my reading and processing of mail, so I finally
 rediscovered this and the time to send it out.  The House Subcommittee on
 Science, Space, and Technology had hearings here at The University of Iowa
 last month.  Here is some basic information including the testimonies of
 several of the panel members.

 Doug Brenner, Weeg Computing Center (gwcdcbpg@uiamvs.bitnet)
 The University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242                        -dcb]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
               COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
                      U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
                         WASHINGTON, D.C.  20515

                              WITNESS LIST

Date:   February 5, 1988
Time:   9:30 a.m. - 3:00 p.m.
Place:  Iowa Memorial Union Building, University of Iowa,
        Iowa City, Iowa

Panel No. 1:    Dr. James Van Allen
                Department of Physics
                University of Iowa
                Iowa City, Iowa  52242

                Dr. Don Gurnett
                Department of Physics
                University of Iowa
                Iowa City, Iowa  52242

                Dr. Dwight Nicholson
                Department of Physics
                University of Iowa
                Iowa City, Iowa  52242

                Dr. Lou Frank
                Department of Physics
                University of Iowa
                Iowa City, Iowa  52242

Panel No. 2:    Dr. Gene Wubbels
                Department of Chemistry
                P.O. Box 805
                Grinnel College
                Grinnel, Iowa  50112

                Dr. Paul Rider
                Department of Chemistry
                3538 MSH
                University of Northern Iowa
                Cedar Falls, Iowa  50614

                Mr. Ted Cizadio
                Physics Instructor
                City High School
                1900 Morningside Drive
                Iowa City, Iowa  52240

What follows are SOME of the written testimonies presented to the House
subcommittee and entered into the Congressional record.  Most witnesses
followed their written testimony closely, but a few did deviate from it a
bit.  (Sorry, I'm a bad note taker, so I can't comment specifically.)

Many, MANY, thanks to Larry Granroth (The University of Iowa, Physics and
Astronomy) for supplying these on-line transcripts.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Testimony of Professor James A. Van Allen, Department of Physics
and Astronomy, University of Iowa, to the Subcommittee on Space
Science and Applications of the House Committee on Science, Space
and Technology meeting in Iowa City, Iowa on 5 February 1988:


      Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, let me
first  express my thanks for your arrangements to  hold
these hearings in Iowa City and for the opportunity  to
testify.

      You  gave  us, Mr. Chairman, in  your  letter  of
invitation,  some  very heavy assignments.  I  do  have
opinions  on all of those matters and will be happy  to
respond  to questions on them.  But my prepared  state
ment is brief and has a more single-minded focus.

                      ***********

      The  overall record of the  National  Aeronautics
and Space Administration during the nearly thirty years
of its existence has been a brilliantly successful one,
in many different ways.

      It  has  provided the  scientific  and  technical
foundations for a wide array of direct human  services,
most  notably in worldwide communications, in  improved
understanding  of the physical and chemical  conditions
for  all  forms  of life on Earth, and  in  the  global
survey of natural resources.  It has sponsored a golden
age  of advances in our knowledge of the  solar  system
and of the remote astronomical universe.

      Let  me cite two specific examples  of  planetary
explorations which are very close to my heart.

      The  two companion spacecraft Pioneers 10 and  11
were  launched  in 1972 and 1973,  respectively.   They
passed  through  the  asteroid belt  between  Mars  and
Jupiter    without   damage,   made   the    first-ever
investigations  at  close  range  of  the  great  outer
planets  Jupiter  and  Saturn and  are  now  on  escape
trajectories  out  of  the solar  system.   As  of  the
present  date,  Pioneer 10 is four billion  miles  from
Earth;  is  beyond Pluto, the outermost  of  the  known
planets;  and is the most remote manmade object in  the
universe.     I am happy to report that the  spacecraft
systems, including the Iowa-built radiation instrument,
continue  to function properly and yield daily data  on
the  physical  conditions in the outer reaches  of  the
solar system.  This unprecedented investigation is  one
of the classical aspirations of cosmic physics.

      The   two   follow-on  and   more   sophisticated
spacecraft  Voyagers  1 and 2, which also  carry  Iowa-
built  instruments,  have  added  brilliantly  to   our
knowledge  of  Jupiter and Saturn.  More  recently,  in
late  January  1986,  Voyager  2  made  the  first-ever
encounter  with  the  planet  Uranus.   The  scientific
papers  resulting from this encounter provide  encyclo-
pedic   knowledge  of  this  distant  planet  and   its
satellites   and  rings  --  a  whole  new   world   of
fascinating phenomena on a grand scale.

      Neptune  is our next target.  The encounter  date
is 24 August 1989.

      In  addition to its scientific and  technological
leadership, NASA has achieved the widely-held  cultural
objective of flying human crews in space, most  notably
to and from the moon.

      But despite all of these successes, our  national
launching capability is now in a state of nearly  total
paralysis  for  a  period of at least two  and  a  half
years.  This default is unprecedented in the history of
the  program.  Meanwhile, billions of dollars worth  of
high  priority commercial,  scientific,  applicational,
and military spacecraft are piling up in the  launching
queue.

      What went wrong?

      How can we fix it?

      These are the questions that I now address.

      In a critique of the President's recent state-of-
the-union message, Senator Robert C. Byrd remarked that
"Ideology  is  no substitute for common  sense".   This
remark, though made in a different context,  summarizes
my point of view on our national space policy.

      An  often repeated ideology of  space  activities
is,  in  brief,  that it is  the  manifest  destiny  of
mankind  to live and work in space and to colonize  the
solar  system.  This credo was adopted as an axiom,  or
perhaps a divine revelation, by President Reagan in his
1984  and 1985 state-of-the-union messages and  by  the
National Commission on Space in its 1986 report.

      My  own  approach to the subject as  a  long-time
practitioner  is quite different.  I advocate  a  prag-
matic, incremental approach, exploiting the things that
work and phasing down the things that do not.

      The  essence  of  my testimony is  that  we  must
return to primary reliance on unmanned launch  vehicles
and   unmanned  commandable  spacecraft  in  order   to
reestablish the health of our national space program.

      Let me explain.

      The  history of space exploration by  the  United
States,  the  Soviet  Union, and  all  other  countries
provides  overwhelming evidence that space science  and
the  many important practical applications thereof  are
best   served  by  unmanned,   automated,   commandable
spacecraft -- the obvious and only important  exception
being  the  study of human  physiology  and  psychology
under prolonged free-fall or low-g conditions.

      Yet the civil space program of the United  States
continues  to give dominant emphasis to the  flight  of
human crews as its centerpiece and focus.

      The failure of our national policy for  exclusive
dependence on the manned space shuttle for the  launch-
ing  of all commercial, scientific, applicational,  and
military  spacecraft has been evident to  practitioners
for many years.  The tragic explosion of the Challenger
in  January  1986 dramatized the wrong  headedness  and
fragility  of that policy and, at last,  brought  these
facts to public attention.

      That dramatic realization elicited  astonishingly
different responses by the Department of Defense and by
the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

      Soon  after  the accident, Secretary of  the  Air
Force  Edward  C. Aldridge, Jr.,  made  the  forthright
public statement:  "We made a great mistake in planning
exclusive  reliance on the shuttle to deliver  military
payloads  into space.  Believe me, we will  never  make
that  mistake again."  True to his word, he placed  the
nearly-completed Vandenberg shuttle-launch facility  in
caretaker status and resumed the procurement of several
classes of unmanned, expendable launch vehicles.

      In  contrast, NASA passed up the  opportunity  to
reexamine the validity of its policy of the 1970's  and
early 1980's and hunkered down to vindicate it.  Toward
that  end  the agency has continued to devote  a  major
fraction  of its available resources to manned  flight.
Specifically  it has undertaken to remedy  known  weak
nesses  in the three remaining shuttles and  associated
boosters;  has initiated the procurement of a  replace-
ment shuttle; and has planned to continue still another
costly  project -- namely the development of  a  large,
permanently manned space station.  These emphases  were
embodied  in the agency's FY 1987 and FY 1988  budgets,
which effectively ignored the nearly unanimous judgment
of the user communities -- commercial, scientific,  and
applicational  -- that return to primary dependence  on
expendable  launch vehicles was the matter of  greatest
national urgency.

      Only  within the past few months has NASA  itself
"nibbled   the  bullet"  and  expressed   a   tentative
inclination  to  return  to a  mixed  fleet  of  manned
shuttles  and unmanned expendable launch vehicles.   We
must await release of NASA's FY 1989 budget proposal to
learn  the true intentions of the agency and the  White
House.

      Meanwhile, no truly comprehensive recovery of our
civil space program has yet been implemented.

      It  is obvious that a rapidly  increasing  annual
budget  for NASA could respond affirmatively to all  of
the diverse constituencies of the civil space  program.
But  the  public  mandate for approach  to  a  balanced
federal  budget  appears to negate  such  an  expansive
point of view.  Either, NASA must be exempted from this
mandate, or hard choices must be made.  There is no way
that a shuttle fleet of three or even four orbiters can
meet the pent-up launching requirements of the next ten
years, especially if the construction, deployment,  and
utilization  of a space station go forward.  Given  due
regard  for  increased safety, the  optimistic  shuttle
launch  rate is eight to ten per year.  At this  launch
rate  the shuttle system is the world's most  expensive
and  least  robust of available techniques  and  it  is
quite  inadequate for national needs.   Despite  heroic
efforts  to improve safety and reliability, it will  be
difficult  if not impossible to achieve better  than  a
97%  success  rate under normal  operating  conditions.
Such  a  success rate corresponds to the  loss  of  one
shuttle about every three years.

      It  is, moreover, of central importance  to  note
that only a small fraction of our science and  applica-
tional  missions require a human crew in  space.   This
fraction can be progressively reduced by good engineer-
ing.

      Surely there is no issue before this committee as
important as assuring our return to primary reliance on
unmanned  vehicles  and  unmanned  spacecraft  in   our
national space program.

                Thank you, Mr. Chairman
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Testimony of Professor Louis A. Frank, Department of Physics  and
Astronomy,  University  of  Iowa, to the  Subcommittee  on  Space
Science and Applications of the House Committee on Science, Space
and Technology meeting in Iowa City, Iowa, on 5 February 1988:


     Mr.  Chairman  and members of the committee,  let  me  first
express  my  thanks for the opportunity to testify and  for  your
efforts in honoring Iowa City with this hearing.

                           ***********

     Mr.  Chairman, as an active participant in the U.  S.  space
program since the age of 20 I can most usefully point out some of
the  reasons  for the rapid and severe decay of the rate  of  our
scientific  achievements by giving several specific examples.   I
am  quite  sure that these problems are widespread in the  U.  S.
space science community.

     In  1981 the U. S. launched a satellite for the  advancement
of  our  studies of the auroral lights.   This  satellite,  named
Dynamics   Explorer   1,   is  equipped   with   unique   imaging
instrumentation  that  is unduplicated by the  other  spacefaring
nations  at  the  present  date.   It is  one  of  a  handful  of
scientific  spacecraft  that are currently operating  during  the
present  period  of  essentially no  launch  activity.   Dynamics
Explorer  1 is still providing valuable  scientific  information.
Yet NASA is seriously considering the shutoff of this  spacecraft
in  the near future and has severely restricted the  analyses  of
the scientific data by a yearly deleterious reduction in funding.
The  U.  S.  is  simply not taking  advantage  of  its  currently
orbiting spacecraft and competent scientists are being forced out
of the space sciences.  They cannot be expected to return.

     For  over  a decade a group of U. S. space  scientists  have
been carefully planning the use of the Space Shuttle to study the
effects  of injection of charged particles and radio  waves  into
Earth's upper atmosphere.  We have actively participated in  this
program  by designing a satellite to be released from  the  Space
Shuttle  that will intercept these beams and radio emissions  and
determine  their effects on the upper atmosphere.  A test  flight
for this scientific mission was conducted with Challenger  during
the summer of 1985.  The satellite was necessarily equipped  with
leftover  scientific  instruments from other  missions,  some  of
which  were  almost a decade old, and with a  piece  of  hardware
borrowed from the Smithsonian.  Even so, exciting scientific data
were  collected and the promise of advanced experimentation  with
the   Space   Shuttle  was  proved.   However,   this   following
investigation,  called Space Plasma Laboratory, was cancelled  by
NASA last fall because no flight opportunity on the Space Shuttle
appeared  to  be available until the  mid-1990's.   Our  Canadian
collaborators on this mission have stated that they might seek  a
Russian  vehicle  for  conducting their part  of  the  scientific
investigation.  For our part we may or may not be able to hitch a
ride  on  some Space Shuttle flight and achieve only  a  skeletal
portion  of the originally planned scientific investigation.   It
is  possible  that the Russians, with their  considerable  launch
capabilities,   will   attempt   to   conduct   this    important
investigation  and base such a mission on our extensive  studies.
For  the  U. S. realization of the full promise of  the  original
Space  Plasma  Laboratory  appears  to  be  lost  in  my  working
lifetime.

     The  Japanese  are constructing a  spacecraft,  Geotail,  to
explore the vast regions of naturally occurring charged particles
and  magnetic  fields  that  lie  at  great  distances  from  the
nightside of our planet.  Our research group at the university is
providing  an instrument for this spacecraft.  The space  program
in  Japan, albeit relatively modest in comparison to that of  the
U.  S.,  is highly successful.  There is a  well-programmed,  and
stable,   series   of  scientific   satellites.    Perhaps   more
importantly, our Japanese colleagues are adopting the designs  of
previously  flown  U. S. instruments and  considerably  improving
these  instruments.   In  the U. S. we are  currently  unable  to
advance  and  test  our instruments due to  the  lack  of  flight
opportunity.   With  each passing year of launch  inactivity  our
instrumentation capabilities are rapidly falling behind those  of
the European consortium, Russia and Japan.

     I   consider  that  Galileo  is  the  most  advanced   robot
spacecraft ever to be constructed.  This spacecraft's exploration
of  Jupiter  and  its moons, and the  vast,  dynamic  regions  of
charged  particles  surrounding  these bodies would  be  a  great
achievement for the U. S. space program.  As you are well  aware,
this  spacecraft  has  been  significantly  delayed  due  to  the
Challenger  disaster.   Unlike  the Space  Plasma  Laboratory,  a
manned  launch is not required for implementation of the  Galileo
Mission.   With  an expendable launch vehicle  available  several
years ago, today we would be seeing the exciting results of  this
mission  in  our newspapers and journals, and our  space  program
would be revitalized by an influx of new students.  In reality my
own  work on Galileo began in 1976 and the fruits of  my  efforts
are planned to be realized in 1995.

     I  take  great pride in the past achievements of the  U.  S.
space program.  But today, as a working scientist, I am concerned
that  a  few  further years of launch inactivity  will  find  our
country  with a decimated space science capability.  A  balanced,
stable  program of expendable vehicle and Space Shuttle  launches
of scientific missions, together with an interim period of taking
full advantage of the wealth of data presently in our possession,
can  reverse  this  deterioration.  It is  difficult  for  me  to
understand  how  our great country can ignore taking  its  proper
place  with  the  other  spacefaring  countries  in  probing  the
mysteries of our planet and the universe that lies beyond.

                    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Testimony  on  the Long Range Goals of the  United  States  Space
Program by Professor Donald A. Gurnett, Department of Physics and
Astronomy,  The  University of Iowa, Iowa City,  IA   52242-1479,
Presented  to  the hearing of the U.S. House  of  Representatives
Committee on Science, Space, and Applications held in Iowa  City,
Iowa, February 5, 1988:


     Mr.   Chairman,  and  members  of  the  Space  Science   and
Applications  Subcommittee,  let me express my thanks  for  being
offered  the  opportunity to express my views on the  long  range
goals of the U.S. space program.  Since I am a scientist, most of
my comments will be concerned with the status and future of  U.S.
space science.

                   INTRODUCTION TO THE PROBLEM

     From almost any point of view it is apparent that a  serious
crisis exists in the U.S. space program.  For nearly thirty years
the United States enjoyed a period of world leadership in  space,
with many brilliant successes.  We now find ourselves essentially
grounded,  with  a long backlog of payloads to be  launched,  and
serious  questions  about  the  long range  goals  of  the  space
program.

     Although the Challenger disaster provided dramatic  evidence
of  serious problems in the U.S. space program, signs  of  stress
and  a  loss  of momentum were evident much  earlier.   The  last
planetary  spacecraft launched by the United States  was  Pioneer
Venus in 1978, almost ten years ago.  Galileo, our next planetary
spacecraft, was originally scheduled for launch in 1982.  Because
of  difficulties  caused by the shuttle, the Galileo  launch  has
been  delayed to 1989, at the earliest, over seven  years  behind
schedule.   Throughout  the 1980's, the space  program  has  been
plagued  by  long delays, with many programs  stretched  out,  or
canceled outright.

     For  scientists trying to do space research, the process  of
submitting  a proposal to NASA has become a frustrating  game  in
which  one  mainly  hopes  to be  selected  for  a  mission  that
survives.   My own experience illustrates the  difficulties  that
space scientists face.  Out of eleven spacecraft  instrumentation
proposals  submitted  to NASA by my group since 1975,  there  are
only two projects for which we have actually received a  contract
to  build  instrumentation.   Of  these,  only  one,  the  Plasma
Diagnostics  Package, has flown and produced data.  Of the  rest,
four  projects have been canceled, in two cases after many  years
of  developmental  work.  Others have been stretched  out  almost
indefinitely.   For example, we were selected seven years ago  to
provide   instrumentation  for  two  spacecraft  in  the   Global
Geoscience   Program.   This  program  has  been   under   almost
continuous  study since March 1980.  If we are lucky, a  contract
to construct the instrumentation will be awarded this year,  with
a  launch  in 1992, twelve years after submitting  the  proposal.
Whereas  in the early years of space exploration it was  entirely
feasible  to conceive and execute a spacecraft project in two  or
three  years,  at the present time it is now  approaching  twenty
years.

     In  sharp contrast, the Soviet Union, Europe, and Japan  are
all proceeding with vigorous, aggressive space science  programs.
Since  the  launch of Pioneer Venus, the  Soviets  have  launched
eight  spacecraft  to Venus, and are now poised  to  undertake  a
vigorous   program  of  Mars  exploration.   During  the   recent
reappearance of the comet Halley in 1986, Europe, Japan, and  the
Soviet  Union launched a total of four spacecraft in response  to
this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.  The U.S. mission to  Halley
was canceled.

     It  is  clear from these trends that important  changes  are
going to have to be made if we are to maintain our leadership  in
space science.

            SCIENCE EMPHASIS IN NATIONAL SPACE POLICY

     If  the  United  States  is  to  regain  and  maintain   its
leadership  in  space science, it is essential  that  science  be
given  a more prominent role in national space policy.   Although
space policy must always involve numerous other factors, such  as
commercial and military interests, it has become apparent in  the
last  decade that science is taking a decidedly  secondary  role.
This trend was first apparent to me in the decision to build  the
space shuttle.  Although the shuttle is sometimes identified with
science, the decision to proceed with the shuttle during the late
1970's  was mainly on technological grounds and had little to  do
with  science.   Scientists were essentially told, "here  is  the
shuttle,  do  what  you can with it."  Much to  our  regret,  few
objected  and  we are now stuck with a vulnerable  launch  system
that cannot meet our needs.

     The trend to ignore science continues to the present date in
the  form  of the manned Space Station.   Extensive  and  careful
reviews by the National Academy of Sciences, involving scientists
representing  a  broad range of space science  disciplines,  have
concluded that the Space Station only marginally serves the needs
of  the  space science community.  The Space Station  provides  a
reasonable platform for space medicine, but is nearly useless for
planetary   studies,  astronomy,  magnetospheric   physics,   and
numerous  other  disciplines.  Fearful that  Space  Station  cost
overruns  will  kill  other  important  space  science  projects,
similar to the shuttle experience in the 1980's, many  scientists
have voiced objections.  Nevertheless, NASA plans to proceed with
the Space Station.

     Unless  we  recognize  the  importance  of  science  as   an
objective,  rather  than an incidental  by-product,  the  present
trend toward a loss of leadership in space research is likely  to
continue.  To reverse this trend will require recognition of  the
problem at the highest level, by Congress and by the President of
the United States.

                      SELECTION OF MISSIONS

     Having  commented  on  the need for  increased  emphasis  on
science  in  national space policy, I next want  to  discuss  the
missions  that  are  required to carry  out  an  effective  space
science program.  I believe that it is not my role to  prioritize
various  space science missions.  Instead, I want to  comment  on
the selection process and the types of missions that are required
for a broadly based space science program.  The National  Academy
of  Sciences  has  produced  numerous  reports  in  recent  years
outlining  the  strategies and missions that are  recommended  in
various  areas of space science.  For example, a few years ago  I
participated  in  a  National Academy of Sciences  study  on  the
strategy  for exploring the outer planets during the next  twenty
years.  Our study recommended that we carry out a Saturn  orbiter
(now  called  the  Cassini  mission) as  well  as  several  other
projects.   In  addition  to the  National  Academy  of  Sciences
reports,   there  are  also  studies   by  other  NASA   advisory
committees such as "Planetary Exploration Through Year 2000"  and
"The Crisis in Earth and Space Science."  Collectively, I  regard
the recommendations of these and other similar studies to be  the
types of space science missions that should be carried out during
the next ten to twenty years.

     Next,  let  me  consider the types of  launch  vehicles  and
spacecraft  required for space science.  Space  science  involves
measurements   in   many  different  regions  of   space.    Some
disciplines, such as Earth studies, require low altitude  orbits.
Other disciplines, such as magnetospheric physics, require highly
eccentric   orbits,  often  to  very  specific  regions  of   the
magnetosphere.    Planetary  studies  require  high   performance
vehicles  that can escape from the Earth.   Sensitive  scientific
measurements  often require very specialized environments  around
the spacecraft.  By and large these diverse requirements can only
be  met by specialized spacecraft devoted to  specific  missions.
In most cases, the science requirements can be met by  relatively
modest-sized  payloads,  typically a few  thousand  pounds,  like
Voyager or Galileo.  Although, not small by some standards, these
payloads are well within the capability of present technology.

           THE REQUIREMENT FOR ONE LARGE NASA PROJECT

     In the last twenty years there has developed within NASA the
view that the agency must have at least one large project that is
the  agency's  main effort.  In the 1960's this  was  the  Apollo
project;  in the 1970's and 1980's this was the shuttle;  and  in
the  1990's this presumably will be the Space Station.   For  the
more  distance  future, serious discussion is being  given  to  a
manned flight to Mars, or a permanent manned outpost on the Moon.
Given unlimited resources, these projects are certainly worthy of
the  attention of a great nation such as the United States,  even
if they do not all serve a broad range of scientific disciplines.
The problem arises during times when national priorities are such
that NASA's budget cannot be increased adequately to  accommodate
the  large projects.  Under these conditions, the  smaller,  more
broadly based science missions are severely squeezed, threatening
the viability of the entire space science program.

     Often  the  assertion is made that without  a  major,  high-
visibility project NASA would not be able to generate the  public
support  needed  to sustain its program.  This  largely  unproven
assertion  assumes that a broad mix of science-oriented  missions
would not be able to generate adequate public support.  In  fact,
this  is  hardly the case.  For over a decade, Europe has  had  a
very  broadly  based  space science  program  that  has  received
considerable  public support.  In my opinion we could generate  a
more  stable  base  of public support by carrying  out  a  steady
series  of science-oriented missions than by placing all  of  the
emphasis   on  one  high-visibility  project.   The  risk  of   a
catastrophic  collapse of public confidence is much lower  for  a
broadly based program than for a single, high risk venture.   The
shuttle  experience certainly shows what can happen when  all  of
our eggs are in one basket.

                 MANNED VERSUS UNMANNED MISSIONS

     Since  the Challenger accident there has  been  considerable
discussion of manned versus expendable launch vehicles.  My  view
on this subject is that it is proper and fitting that man  should
fly in space.  The main achievement of the Apollo mission is that
man  has walked on the Moon.  This is a landmark  achievement  of
mankind,  one  that could never be duplicated with  a  robot,  no
matter how complex.  On the other hand, robotic spacecraft can be
made  extremely capable and are in most cases the primary  method
for carrying out space science measurements.  Manned  spaceflight
is  inherently  dangerous, and because of the need  to  emphasize
human safety, extremely expensive.  For this reason it is my view
that  manned vehicles should be used only for those  missions  in
which the presence of an astronaut is absolutely essential.  Just
how  to make the decision on when an astronaut is essential is  a
gray  area that is hard to answer.  If we want to claim that  man
has  walked  on Mars, then we will have to send a  man.   On  the
other  hand,  it is completely crazy to use a manned  vehicle  to
launch  a spacecraft to Jupiter.  My conclusion is that  we  need
both  manned  and  expendable launch vehicles,  and  that  manned
missions should be undertaken only if an astronaut is  absolutely
essential to the success of the mission.

                             SUMMARY

o    There  is  a crisis in the ability of the United  States  to
     maintain its leadership in space science.

o    The  crisis can be adverted only if a firm decision is  made
     to place more emphasis on science in national space policy.

o    A  long list of very worthy space science missions has  been
     recommended  by the National Academy of Sciences  and  other
     NASA study groups.  These missions should be carried out  in
     a timely fashion.

o    Large, high-visibility projects, such as the Space  Station,
     should  be undertaken only if they can be performed  without
     adversely affecting a broadly based science program.

o    Manned missions should be undertaken only if an astronaut is
     absolutely essential to the success of the mission.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
End of available testimonies.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #169
*******************

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Date: Sun, 20 Mar 88 03:16:51 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
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To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #170

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 170

Today's Topics:
		      Re: More about John Glenn
		      The lighter side of space.
			 Re: There's hope yet
		       Re: Colonizing the seas
		     How do they do it? (longish)
	    Re: SPACE Digest V8 #160 (re: this news group)
			    govt in space
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 13 Mar 88 15:40:18 GMT
From: nuchat!splut!jay@uunet.uu.net  (Jay Maynard)
Subject: Re: More about John Glenn

>From article <5671@ames.arpa>, by mike@ames.arpa (Mike Smithwick):
> While were on the subject of John Glenn's mission, let me add another little
> mystery. On my tapes of the network coverage, while Glenn is passing over
> Florida at the end of the first orbit, the CapCom passes the link to 
> President Kennedy. Trouble is, Kennedy's message was blacked out for us.
 
> The comm comes back after only 30 seconds or so. None of the network 
> announcers picked up on that, and my air-to-ground transcripts deleted that
> portion as well. Anyone ever here the text of that transmission??

Speculation time:

The President said, "John, are you a turtle?" :-) :-)

Well, I *said* it was speculation...

-- 
Jay Maynard, EMT-P, K5ZC...>splut!< | GEnie: JAYMAYNARD  CI$: 71036,1603
uucp: {uunet!nuchat,academ!uhnix1,{ihnp4,bellcore,killer}!tness1}!splut!jay
Never ascribe to malice that which can adequately be explained by stupidity.
The opinions herein are shared by none of my cats, much less anyone else.

------------------------------

Return-Path: clopez@orion.cf.uci.edu
Date: Sun, 13 Mar 88 18:14:35 -0800
From: "Carlos A. Lopez" <clopez@orion.cf.uci.edu>
Subject: The lighter side of space.
Sender: clopez@orion.cf.uci.edu

Favorite Drink: RC Cola

    A lot of interesting ideas are presented on this bboard, but it's time
for the lighter side of space.  Every field/activity/institution/ect has
its own set of humor.  I'm sure most of you have heard various computer
related jokes such as "If computers get too powerful, we can organize them
into a committee - that will do them in."
   Well, I'd like to collect all those "space" jokes out there.  Everybody
has heard at least one like "Werner Von Braun had a V2 when he could have
had a V8," or "Did you hear about the restraunt on the moon?  It has good 
food but no atmosphere."
   Now that you're done groaning, send me all the space related jokes you have.
DO NOT POST TO THE NET, SEND THEM TO ME.  I will compile them and post the
"Canonical Collection of Space Humor."  Science in general jokes are welcome
for my personal collection, but I'll limit reposting to space only
jokes.  If in doubt, send me the joke any way.  DO NOT POST TO THE NET, SEND
THEM TO ME.  
   Please note that this is not a contest, it's just for fun.  Send as many
jokes as you have.  Ask a friend of s/he knows any and send those in too.
But, DO NOT POST TO THE NET, SEND THEM TO ME.  If by some chance you have
some kind of a gripe against this, DO NOT POST TO THE NET, SEND THEM TO ME.

Disclaimer: If you can't laugh at something, then you don't understand it.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Carlos A. Lopez         |  Project: Cutting a record to show the world I 
clopez@orion.cf.uci.edu |           can't sing.
clopez@uci.bitnet       |  Plan: To be the "Don Johnson" of Computer Science.

------------------------------

Date: 14 Mar 88 03:39:37 GMT
From: livesey@sun.com  (Jon Livesey)
Subject: Re: There's hope yet

In article <1054@its63b.ed.ac.uk>, bob@its63b.ed.ac.uk (ERCF08 Bob Gray) writes:
> 
> Other developments in the last couple of days worth noting.
> 
> 1. BA has put in a bid to buy the UK Government owned car makers,
>    previously known as British Layland (amongst others).
> 
> 2. BL has close ties with Honda.
> 
> 3. Honda has no aerospace expertise, unlike other Japanese car
>    makers, and has expresed an interest in entering the field.
> 
> I leave it to you to work out your own conclusions.
> 	Bob.


	I am sure we can, but if you wanted us to form valid conclusions, 
you should have given us the whole story.

	Amongs other products, the Rover group [ex. British L*e*yland]
manufactures the Land Rover vehicle.   This is used by several British
and foreign military organizations that BA*e* already sells to.   More-
over, BAe supply Swingfire and Rapier missile systems which use the Land
River as a platform.    The benefits of owning the manufacturer of the 
Land Rover are clear, especially if you think there is a large market 
out there for small, Land Rover portable missile systems.

	The second benefit BAe would buy with Rover would be Rover's
40% share in DAF, a Dutch company which, among other products, makes
landing gear for the F-16, and also tracked personnel carriers, and
military trucks.   It should be clear that the landing gear fits into 
BAe's current business, but it happens that the personnel carriers 
do too, since BAe recently bought Royal Ordnance, British manufacturers 
of the same.

	The third benefit from buying Rover Group would be in buying
a large investment in factory automation and computer-controlled
manufacturing, reckoned to be among the most advanced in Europe, and
probably of keen interest to an air and space manufacturer like BAe.

	Of course, aircraft-military-civilian vehicle conglomerates
are not unknown in Europe.    ADF is one, but the best known is
probably Saab-Scania, who make sedate cars and hot planes.   Fiat
is another.  Whether BAe wants to own the civilian vehicle parts of 
Rover Group for ever is an open question, of course.   Rover Group 
must be somewhat attractive, since both Ford and GM have previously 
tried to buy it.
		[source: Economist March 5 1988]


	Finally, there are rumours of a deal with Honda, the Rover
Group's Asian partner, to market BAe planes and missiles (and missiles
on Land Rovers?) in Asia.  This is less surprising than it sounds, 
since, apart from some unpleasantness in the early forties, Anglo-
Japanese arms deals and contacts go back to about 1905.   If ESA
is reluctant to back HoToL, maybe a joint development deal with
Japan could 'fly'.

Jon.

------------------------------

Date: 14 Mar 1988 00:10-EST 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: Colonizing the seas

In answer to Phil:

You are correct that coercive governments will not come to an end
(necessarily) just because we get into space. However, space at least
makes it possible for a free market colony to exist. If you don't like
our non-government, feel free to select one of the other 10,000 forms
of social contract being tried out in the colonies next door.

All I ask is that you allow your people to leave when they see how much
better our system works...

=============================================================================
"How are you gonna keep 'em down on the farm, once they've been to gay
Paree?"
=============================================================================

------------------------------

Date: 12 Mar 88 20:14:38 GMT
From: linus!philabs!micomvax!zap!iros1!iros25!leonard@husc6.harvard.edu  (Nicolas Leonard)
Subject: How do they do it? (longish)


   I have been reading this newsgroup for now a couple of weeks.
And I couldn't help noticing the general feeling of ... discouragement,
hopelessness, disillusionment, frustration, call it whatever you want, that
seems to overcome american space enthousiasts regarding the state
of the american space program.

   Many solutions have been proposed, generally along the lines of:
"It's all NASA and the bureaucrats' fault. If we could just dismantle
NASA and hand space activities to the private sector (the more the merrier),
things will be back to normal (i.e. America first)".

   Is the situation so bad that such extreme measures are now really
necessary? Has the situation degraded so much since the glory days
of the Appolo missions that it would be simpler to start back from
scratch? What has changed since then? I don't recall NASA considered  
at the time a major hindrance (or am I mistaken?).
 
I think that what the Americans lack most is a clear view of WHAT
they want to do, and WHY. I am pretty sure that if they could only
make an agenda of what they need, they will set to the task, and
would do it FAST (as they proved they could do in the past). The
problem is, they don't. And I do not see how they could do it
without some sort of a government agency, not necessarily there
to do the job, but to decide what is to be done next. And this for a
good reason: space does not (YET) pay. Of course, there is a market for
satellites (military, com., weather...). But scientific experiments
and space probes do not make money (at least in the short run),
and space factories are now a very distant possibility. And the amount
of money and research that it takes before space is profitable is so
big that I think only the gvt has the time and $$ to do it). So, the
the gvt is there to stay, for yet many years to come. That does not
mean forbidding private competition for the contracts.

   This brings me to the point of my posting. I suspect that this is
the reason why the CCCP is ahead of the US in the space area, despite
the [allegied] poor communist economy and technological primitiveness.
Efficiency is one thing, but vision is something else, which may
be more important. This is why I would like to ask the more knowledgeable
members of this august forum (hum :-)), what they know of the soviet
program, for I know not much. How do they "sell" their program
to the public (I am sure they do)? Who takes the decisions? What
does soviet NASA look like and work? What is their budget? etc...
Why shouldn't something that works be imitated, especially if it that is 
is in a domain complementary to the capitalist strong point (policy-making 
vs policy-implementing). That way the Americans could have the best of 
both worlds. What do you think?

notes: . excuse my spelling.
       . I am a space fan, but not an engineer. I would like to find
a good magazine about space activities (with coverage of world activity),
and vulgarization (neither too technical, nor too childish). I've seen
references to AW&ST or =~. What does this stand for? Is it good?
       . I posted many "I think..." and not much facts. I'd like to hear
the opinions and reactions of the pros to my naive mumbling of amateur.
-- 
                              |          ,
I'm a frog... kiss me         | Nicolas Leonard
and I'll turn into a prince   | Departement d'informatique           @-@
                              | Universite de Montreal              (\ /)
   - Robert Charlebois        | seismo!utai!musocs!iros1!leonard    -----
                              | <leonard%irox.udem.cdn@ubc.csnet>

------------------------------

Sender: "Jo_M._Anselm.henr801E"@xerox.com
Date: 14 Mar 88 07:19:09 PST (Monday)
Subject: Re: SPACE Digest V8 #160 (re: this news group)
From: "Jo_M._Anselm.henr801E"@xerox.com

>Don't mine those people talking over in the corner about sex in space.....

Absolutely.  Mining is unnecessary.  A few grenades should suffice . . . .

------------------------------

Date: 14 Mar 88 13:34:42 GMT
From: thorin!lhotse!symon@mcnc.org  (James Symon)
Subject: govt in space

>        Paul F. Dietz writes:
>Governments would have an excellent reason for stopping independent space
>colonies.  Anyone who can redirect the orbit of an asteroid can potentially
>drop it on the earth.  A 10,000 tonne asteroid -- quite small, as asteroids
>go -- hitting the earth at 30 km/sec liberates about 1 megaton of energy.
>Somehow, I can't imagine earth-based governments idlely accepting this
>potential threat.

a la _Moon is a Harsh Mistress_

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #170
*******************

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Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #171

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 171

Today's Topics:
				   
		   Re: How do they do it? (longish)
		    Re: The lighter side of space.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 14 Mar 88 13:58:00 PST
From: "KEVIN W. BOLD 0-1" <bold@afsc-sd.arpa>
Subject: 
To: "space" <space@angband.s1.gov>
Reply-To: "KEVIN W. BOLD 0-1" <bold@afsc-sd.arpa>

Subject: Re: [Lyndon] LaRouche's space position

>I was channel flipping and just came across this "plan" on a
>scramjet-powered shuttle launch system.  So, I continued to listen, and
>it turned out to be a paid political announcement by Linden (sic) LaRouche.

(It's spelled L-y-n-d-o-n.) 

>ANYway, he was speaking about "his"
>plan for bringing America back to the forefront of the technological
>world, primarily through an aggressive space program focusing on a Mars
>mission.  A lot of the information was developed, he said, by scientists
>world over.  Most of his illustrations seemed to have been done by
>Europeans (Italian, West German, etc).  

This is not the first time LaRouche has made a grandiose claim; he also has 
pretended to have originated SDI (which has enough trouble without LaRouche 
defending it) and the space colony movement.  (His attitude towards the 
_real_ originators ranges from contempt for Lt Gen Graham to conspiracy 
theories about the L5 Society being a sex & drug cult.)  Through the auspices 
of his front group, The Schiller Institute, he has made several contacts with 
key individuals in other countries, probably because they don't know how sick 
he is.

>Did anyone else catch the presentation?  Has anyone else
>heard about his stance on the space program?  Is this a recent
>"Bandwagon" jumping, or is this something he picked because no one else
>is talking about it?

I didn't, but get in touch with your local NSS chapter and see if anyone 
taped it.  Some L5 old timers may have some tapes of his previous shows on 
space exploration.  

While visiting a friend up in Santa Monica, I noticed he had a book called 
_Colonize Space! Open the Age of Reason._  I asked him if I could  borrow 
it.  When he said yes, I asked him when he wanted it back.  He said never.  
(It's a LaRouche book.)

This is not just bandwagon-jumping for him; he's been 
into high technology for quite some time.  (About ten years ago he launched 
the Fusion Energy Foundation, which publishes a "journal" called _Fusion_.  
Great reading for anecdotal data and secondary source fans.)

Some of their literature is free; if you see something of theirs you want, 
go ahead and rob them -- anything a human being does to a LaRouche follower 
is justifiable on the grounds of self-defense.  

Whatever you do, DO NOT let them get your credit card number!!!

>Yeah, I saw it here too. I was kinda surprised that he would spend several 
>million dollars on a TV add.  I can tell you one thing though, it got
>my attention.  His half-hour uninterrupted advertisement made more sense
>than the commercials made by the rat race candidates.  My biggest turn-off
>from LaRouche are obviously his racists views (and his questionable sanity).

A sad comment on the American political scene.  Watch LaRouche closely; 
Hitler started with less money and fewer followers in a relatively 
better-educated country.

>If he decides to change his views by election time, I might vote for LaRouche
>instead of Benny Hill.

C3PO has more experience in civilian and military applications of space 
technology.  Not to mention diplomacy. . . 

-- Kevin "Mad Max" Bold
(BOLD@AFSC-SD.ARPA)




From:	GSS2::BOLD         14-MAR-1988 13:58
To:	_MAILER!<LTSMITH@MITRE.ARPA>
Subj:	

Subject: Re: [Lyndon] LaRouche's space position

>I was channel flipping and just came across this "plan" on a
>scramjet-powered shuttle launch system.  So, I continued to listen, and
>it turned out to be a paid political announcement by Linden (sic) LaRouche.

(It's spelled L-y-n-d-o-n.) 

>ANYway, he was speaking about "his"
>plan for bringing America back to the forefront of the technological
>world, primarily through an aggressive space program focusing on a Mars
>mission.  A lot of the information was developed, he said, by scientists
>world over.  Most of his illustrations seemed to have been done by
>Europeans (Italian, West German, etc).  

This is not the first time LaRouche has made a grandiose claim; he also has 
pretended to have originated SDI (which has enough trouble without LaRouche 
defending it) and the space colony movement.  (His attitude towards the 
_real_ originators ranges from contempt for Lt Gen Graham to conspiracy 
theories about the L5 Society being a sex & drug cult.)  Through the auspices 
of his front group, The Schiller Institute, he has made several contacts with 
key individuals in other countries, probably because they don't know how sick 
he is.

>Did anyone else catch the presentation?  Has anyone else
>heard about his stance on the space program?  Is this a recent
>"Bandwagon" jumping, or is this something he picked because no one else
>is talking about it?

I didn't, but get in touch with your local NSS chapter and see if anyone 
taped it.  Some L5 old timers may have some tapes of his previous shows on 
space exploration.  

While visiting a friend up in Santa Monica, I noticed he had a book called 
_Colonize Space! Open the Age of Reason._  I asked him if I could  borrow 
it.  When he said yes, I asked him when he wanted it back.  He said never.  
(It's a LaRouche book.)

This is not just bandwagon-jumping for him; he's been 
into high technology for quite some time.  (About ten years ago he launched 
the Fusion Energy Foundation, which publishes a "journal" called _Fusion_.  
Great reading for anecdotal data and secondary source fans.)

Some of their literature is free; if you see something of theirs you want, 
go ahead and rob them -- anything a human being does to a LaRouche follower 
is justifiable on the grounds of self-defense.  

Whatever you do, DO NOT let them get your credit card number!!!

>Yeah, I saw it here too. I was kinda surprised that he would spend several 
>million dollars on a TV add.  I can tell you one thing though, it got
>my attention.  His half-hour uninterrupted advertisement made more sense
>than the commercials made by the rat race candidates.  My biggest turn-off
>from LaRouche are obviously his racists views (and his questionable sanity).

A sad comment on the American political scene.  Watch LaRouche closely; 
Hitler started with less money and fewer followers in a relatively 
better-educated country.

>If he decides to change his views by election time, I might vote for LaRouche
>instead of Benny Hill.

C3PO has more experience in civilian and military applications of space 
technology.  Not to mention diplomacy. . . 

-- Kevin "Mad Max" Bold
(BOLD@AFSC-SD.ARPA)




From:	GSS2::BOLD         14-MAR-1988 14:00
To:	_MAILER!<DALE.AMON@H.GS.CMU.EDU>
Subj:	

Subject: Re: [Lyndon] LaRouche's space position

>I was channel flipping and just came across this "plan" on a
>scramjet-powered shuttle launch system.  So, I continued to listen, and
>it turned out to be a paid political announcement by Linden (sic) LaRouche.

(It's spelled L-y-n-d-o-n.) 

>ANYway, he was speaking about "his"
>plan for bringing America back to the forefront of the technological
>world, primarily through an aggressive space program focusing on a Mars
>mission.  A lot of the information was developed, he said, by scientists
>world over.  Most of his illustrations seemed to have been done by
>Europeans (Italian, West German, etc).  

This is not the first time LaRouche has made a grandiose claim; he also has 
pretended to have originated SDI (which has enough trouble without LaRouche 
defending it) and the space colony movement.  (His attitude towards the 
_real_ originators ranges from contempt for Lt Gen Graham to conspiracy 
theories about the L5 Society being a sex & drug cult.)  Through the auspices 
of his front group, The Schiller Institute, he has made several contacts with 
key individuals in other countries, probably because they don't know how sick 
he is.

>Did anyone else catch the presentation?  Has anyone else
>heard about his stance on the space program?  Is this a recent
>"Bandwagon" jumping, or is this something he picked because no one else
>is talking about it?

I didn't, but get in touch with your local NSS chapter and see if anyone 
taped it.  Some L5 old timers may have some tapes of his previous shows on 
space exploration.  

While visiting a friend up in Santa Monica, I noticed he had a book called 
_Colonize Space! Open the Age of Reason._  I asked him if I could  borrow 
it.  When he said yes, I asked him when he wanted it back.  He said never.  
(It's a LaRouche book.)

This is not just bandwagon-jumping for him; he's been 
into high technology for quite some time.  (About ten years ago he launched 
the Fusion Energy Foundation, which publishes a "journal" called _Fusion_.  
Great reading for anecdotal data and secondary source fans.)

Some of their literature is free; if you see something of theirs you want, 
go ahead and rob them -- anything a human being does to a LaRouche follower 
is justifiable on the grounds of self-defense.  

Whatever you do, DO NOT let them get your credit card number!!!

>Yeah, I saw it here too. I was kinda surprised that he would spend several 
>million dollars on a TV add.  I can tell you one thing though, it got
>my attention.  His half-hour uninterrupted advertisement made more sense
>than the commercials made by the rat race candidates.  My biggest turn-off
>from LaRouche are obviously his racists views (and his questionable sanity).

A sad comment on the American political scene.  Watch LaRouche closely; 
Hitler started with less money and fewer followers in a relatively 
better-educated country.

>If he decides to change his views by election time, I might vote for LaRouche
>instead of Benny Hill.

C3PO has more experience in civilian and military applications of space 
technology.  Not to mention diplomacy. . . 

-- Kevin "Mad Max" Bold
(BOLD@AFSC-SD.ARPA)



------

------------------------------

Date: 14 Mar 88 19:13:18 GMT
From: beckenba@csvax.caltech.edu  (Joe Beckenbach)
Subject: Re: How do they do it? (longish)

	Hi, remember me? I wrote the BLUNT article about four months back.

In article <436@mannix.iros1.UUCP> leonard@iros1.UUCP (Nicolas Leonard) writes:
>I have been reading this newsgroup for now a couple of weeks.  And I
>couldn't help noticing the general feeling of ... discouragement,
>hopelessness, disillusionment, frustration, call it whatever you want,
>that seems to overcome american space enthousiasts regarding the state
>of the american space program.
	It's all of those and more.
 
>Many solutions have been proposed, generally along the lines of: "It's
>all NASA and the bureaucrats' fault. If we could just dismantle NASA
>and hand space activities to the private sector (the more the merrier),
>things will be back to normal (i.e. America first)".
	An example of one solution, the one that seems to be the current
consensus on the way to go about jump-starting the space program.
 
>   Is the situation so bad that such extreme measures are now really
>necessary? Has the situation degraded so much since the glory days
>of the Appolo missions that it would be simpler to start back from
>scratch? What has changed since then? I don't recall NASA considered  
>at the time a major hindrance (or am I mistaken?).
	I think that that is the general consensus. In testimony in
early February in Iowa City, for example, several space scientists gave
Congress their views on the space program, NASA, and where do we go from
here? The written statements kindly posted by one netter from Iowa
[pardon the loss of memory] indicate that the basic problem is policy,
policy within NASA itself, on exactly what is to be concentrated on.
More and more NASA has been concentrating on its big P.R.-generating
projects, the Shuttle & Station.  To get to this point, all other
projects languished, including projects in the pipe and unmanned booster
programs. This has led to the wholesale questioning of NASA's wisdom and
role by the space scientists and enthusiasts.
  
>I think that what the Americans lack most is a clear view of WHAT
>they want to do, and WHY. I am pretty sure that if they could only
>make an agenda of what they need, they will set to the task, and
>would do it FAST (as they proved they could do in the past). The
>problem is, they don't. And I do not see how they could do it
>without some sort of a government agency, not necessarily there
>to do the job, but to decide what is to be done next. And this for a
>good reason: space does not (YET) pay. Of course, there is a market for
>satellites (military, com., weather...). But scientific experiments
>and space probes do not make money (at least in the short run),
>and space factories are now a very distant possibility. And the amount
>of money and research that it takes before space is profitable is so
>big that I think only the gvt has the time and $$ to do it). So, the
>the gvt is there to stay, for yet many years to come. That does not
>mean forbidding private competition for the contracts.
	This is what NASA was intended for: to gather up all the
directions people wanted to go, and go in the general overall direction.
However, in the past decade they've been veering farther from the
mainstream of space efforts within this country. Most of the space
effort is small scientific projects (it seems to me), few of which
require human intervention. In fact most are designed explicitly without
the human factor in mind, because the human role is to be listening to
the scientific data in the reception area dirtside. I can think of no
reason to send a human into space when nonliving elements can go there
more cheaply, more safely, and with much less fuss and much more
confidence.

>This brings me to the point of my posting. I suspect that this is the
>reason why the CCCP is ahead of the US in the space area, despite the
>[allegied] poor communist economy and technological primitiveness.
>Efficiency is one thing, but vision is something else, which may be
>more important. This is why I would like to ask the more knowledgeable
>members of this august forum (hum :-)), what they know of the soviet
>program, for I know not much. How do they "sell" their program to the
>public (I am sure they do)? Who takes the decisions? What does soviet
>NASA look like and work? What is their budget? etc...  Why shouldn't
>something that works be imitated, especially if it that is is in a
>domain complementary to the capitalist strong point (policy-making vs
>policy-implementing). That way the Americans could have the best of
>both worlds. What do you think?
	I know nothing in this area, except to say that Russians are
human, and that if you underestimate a human's 'vision', you are denying
the humanness of that person _and_ yourself. [It's taken me twenty long
years of life to find this out; flames to /dev/null !!!]

>      . I posted many "I think..." and not much facts. I'd like to hear
>the opinions and reactions of the pros to my naive mumbling of amateur.
	As another amateur, yearning to become much closer to a
professional, I echo you.

>Nicolas Leonard
>Departement d'informatique Universite de Montreal
> leonard%irox.udem.cdn@ubn.csnet

	Joe Beckenbach		beckenba@csvax.caltech.edu

------------------------------

Date: 14 Mar 88 14:16:04 GMT
From: thorin!ra!leech@mcnc.org  (Jonathan Leech)
Subject: Re: The lighter side of space.

In article <8803140218.AA04730@angband.s1.gov> clopez@ORION.CF.UCI.EDU ("Carlos A. Lopez") writes:
>   Well, I'd like to collect all those "space" jokes out there.  Everybody
>has heard at least one like "Werner Von Braun had a V2 when he could have
>had a V8," or "Did you hear about the restraunt on the moon?  It has good
>food but no atmosphere."

    I picked up a book devoted to space humor (mostly from the 60's
and early 70's) at the KSC visitor's center a few years ago.
Unfortunately I don't remember the title and the book is buried
somewhere in the 20 boxes of same that I haven't unpacked since moving
here... perhaps someone else with a copy can post the title.

    Jon Leech (leech@cs.unc.edu)    __@/
    ``After all, the best part of a holiday is perhaps not so much to be
      resting yourself as to see all the other fellows busy working.''
	- Kenneth Grahame, _The Wind in the Willows_

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #171
*******************

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Date: Tue, 22 Mar 88 03:18:27 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8803221118.AA16629@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #172

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 172

Today's Topics:
				errata
		     Mir elements, epoch 14 March
				 LH2
		   Space Station measurement system
		     Re: Colonization of the seas
		    Re: The lighter side of space.
		       AXAF and NASA '89 budget
	       Re: President Reagan's Space Initiative
WANTED: (Astronomical) applications for ULTRA PRECISE mass spectrometer
			   Shuttle Bashing
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 18 Mar 1988 14:27-EST 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: errata

A number of people noted a mistake in my last posting. The text of the
quoted article is correct. My own comments cited Fijians instead of
Tongans.

------------------------------

Date: 20 Mar 88 20:48:00 GMT
From: kenny@b.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Mir elements, epoch 14 March


Satellite: Mir        
Catalog id 16609
Element set 109
Epoch: 88 74.77506485
Inclination:  51.6260 degrees
RA of node: 194.2539 degrees
Eccentricity:  0.0012202
Argument of perigee: 216.2760 degrees
Mean anomaly: 143.7371 degrees
Mean motion: 15.78486300 revs/day
Mean motion acceleration: 0.00049409 * 2 revs/day/day
Epoch Revolution: 11893

Semimajor axis:    6712.82 km
Apogee height*:     342.85 km
Perigee height*:     326.47 km


		Source: NASA Goddard via T.S.Kelso's `Celestial RCP/M'

* Apogee and perigee altitudes are referred to the mean radius of the
  Earth (6378.15 km), and not to the local radius of the geoid.  They
  are only approximate, and should not be used for orbit prediction.

------------------------------

Date: 15 Mar 88 22:44:42 GMT
From: pacbell!att-ih!alberta!ubc-cs!fornax!zeke@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Zeke Hoskin)
Subject: LH2

    In the general wailing and gnashing of teeth, a few people have
knocked the fact that big American rockets us LH2 instead of kerosene.
Since liquid hydrogen gives a better specific impulse with LOX than any
other stable fuel, since environmental threat from unburned/spilled fuel
is less with hydrogen than hydrocarbons, since (given cheap power)
hydrogen is trivially easy to come by, it would seem to be the fuel of
choice. Surely the extension of cryogenic technology needed for liquid
oxygen isn't that much of a barrier. (Twenty years ago, of course, it
was: hence kero-burning Saturn V and assorted Soviet hardware.)

(How many astronauts does it take to change a light bulb?  Only one --
but the ladder won't be available for 2.5 years, and the new bulb costs
$10,000,000 and has a left-hand thread)

------------------------------

Date: 14 Mar 88 15:19:51 GMT
From: pacbell!att-ih!att-cb!clyde!watmath!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!db.toronto.edu!hogg@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (John Hogg)
Subject: Space Station measurement system

In article <1988Mar11.041245.8768@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>The space station will not be metric, for fear that it might affect
>safety in an emergency when snap decisions are being made by ignorant
>astronauts who have to convert metric units to archaic ones before
>thinking about them.  [AW&ST obviously did not word it quite that
>way...]

This brings up two questions:

1) Won't we poor foreigners have the same safety problems when we
   conduct research on the =>international<= space station? Canadians
   are probably sufficiently bilingual (for the time being) to deal with
   imperial measurements, but what about Europeans and Japanese?

2) What unit of mass will be used?  Will astronauts deal with both
   pounds-force and pounds-mass, or, in the middle of a crisis
   situation, will they instinctively think in slugs?

I can guess the answer to the first question, but the implications of
the second one stump me.  Can somebody connected with NASA answer this?
-- 
John Hogg			   | hogg@csri.toronto.{edu,cdn}
Computer Systems Research Institute| uunet!csri.toronto.edu!hogg
University of Toronto		   | hogg%csri.toronto.edu@relay.cs.net (arpa)
				   | hogg@csri.utoronto (bitnet)

------------------------------

Date: 14 Mar 88 20:35:04 GMT
From: concertina!fiddler@sun.com  (Steve Hix)
Subject: Re: Colonization of the seas

In article <880311.13520091.073743@L66B.CP6>, Frank-Mayhar%LADC@BCO-MULTICS.ARPA (Frank Mayhar) writes:
> the punishment for "desertion" while in the armed forces (was once
> death, is still severe).

Death as a punishment for desertion from the military is generally only
proposed during wartime.  Just as death for sleeping while on sentry
duty would be expected in a combat situation.  Both assume that your
bugging out or snoozing would be putting others at increased risk of
death.

------------------------------

Date: 15 Mar 88 16:42:35 GMT
From: mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Mike Smithwick)
Subject: Re: The lighter side of space.

In article <1695@thorin.cs.unc.edu> leech@ra.UUCP (Jonathan Leech) writes:
>I picked up a book devoted to space humor (mostly from the 60's and
>early 70's) at the KSC visitor's center a few years ago.  Unfortunately
>I don't remember the title and the book is buried somewhere in the 20
>boxes of same that I haven't unpacked since moving here... perhaps
>someone else with a copy can post the title.

You may be talking about "The Light Stuff", by someone whose name I
forgot but he is the editor of the Huntsville Times. He used to have a
column in Space World and actually published a couple of things I
submitted to him.

------------------------------

Date: 15 Mar 88 16:52:12 GMT
From: cfa!cfa250!kaa@husc6.harvard.edu  (Keith Arnaud x57400)
Subject: AXAF and NASA '89 budget

In view of the fact that AXAF has been turning up frequently in Henry's
AW&ST summaries and it is the proposed new start in the '89 budget I
thought that the summary below might be of interest to this group.  (I
have an ulterior motive as will be apparent at the end)


             ADVANCED X-RAY ASTROPHYSICS FACILITY (AXAF)
             -------------------------------------------

What is AXAF?

  -Long-lived, space-based X-ray Observatory to be launched in 1995

  -Study black holes, neutron stars, supernova remnants,
   quasars, hot gases, and elementary particles

  -Launched by shuttle (ELV compatibility under study); serviced via
   shuttle, OMV,  and/or station

  -One of NASA's Great Observatories


Scientific Importance of AXAF

  -#1 new priority for ground and space-based astronomy and astrophysics
   for the 1980's (National Academy of Sciences' Astronomy Survey
   Committee)

  - Investigate behavior of matter under extreme physical conditions,
   energy transport in stars, explosions of massive stars, expansion of
   universe, distribution of dark matter, etc.

  -Synergistic benefits from multi-wavelength, contemporaneous
   observations with other Great Observatories and ground-based telescopes

  -Relevant to astrophysics, cosmology, elementary particle physics,
   plasma physics, and fusion research


U. S. Scientific Leadership

  -X-ray astronomy pioneered by U.S. in 1960's and 1970's

  -No U.S. X-ray missions currently flying

  -Vigorous X-ray astronomy programs underway in Japan, USSR, West
   Germany, and other European nations; Japanese and Soviet/European
   satellites detected X-rays from new supernova (1987A)

  -AXAF pictures 10 times sharper
   and sensitivity 100-1000 times greater than prior X-ray telescopes

  -AXAF reasserts U.S. leadership in X-ray astronomy


Role in Education and U.S. Technological Competitiveness

  -Will involve approximately 1000 U.S. astronomers from about 100
   institutions; expect 10-20 Ph.D.'s/year

  -Technology spinoffs important to areas such as medical
   instrumentation, pharmaceutical research, basic biological and
   chemical research, non-invasive quality control and automated
   manufacturing equipment, X-ray lithography, fusion research, and
   security inspection devices.


Program Readiness

  -Under study for a decade by NASA, science community, and industry

  -Detailed studies completed by two parallel contractor teams

  -X-ray test mirror successfully built, showing specifications can
   be met

  -Capitalizing on lessons learned from prior X-ray telescope missions
   as well as Hubble Space Telescope and Gamma-Ray Observatory

  -Costs well understood (approx $1B in current year dollars; 
   includes substantial reserves)

  -Risks minimized by phased start emphasizing high technology, schedule
   driving areas such as telescope and instruments


AXAF FY89 Start Reasserts Leadership and Helps Establish Vigorous Space
Science Program
            -------------------------------------------

As you can probably tell from the style this summary was written for
politicians (or at least staffers). This is where YOU come in. If you
write to NASA (and I hope you will) in support of the proposed budget
please include support for AXAF (for those of you who prefer CRAF note
that when AXAF is out of the way then CRAF can have a new start). Feel
free to use any of the arguments above.

The relevant Congresspeople are Senators William Proxmire (WI) and Jake
Garn (UT) (Appropriations committee HUD and independent agencies
subcommittee); Donald Reigle (MI) and Larry Pressler (SD) (Commerce
committee science, technology and space subcommittee); and their
counterparts in the House : Edward Boland (MA), Bill Green (NY), Bill
Nelson (FL) and Robert Walker (PA). I have complete lists of the
relevant committees that I can mail to anyone who wants them.

                     Thanks,
                            Keith

------------------------------

Date:     Wed, 16 Mar 88 12:50 O
From: <LEISTI%FINUH.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Subject:  Re: President Reagan's Space Initiative

>-- The United States is committed to the exploration and use of outer
>space by all nations for peaceful purposes and for the benefit of all
>mankind.  "Peaceful purposes" allow for activitites in pursuit of
>national security goals.

To put it in English: All activities will be for peaceful purposes,
except for those which will not be for peaceful purposes....

The old euphemism for preparing for war, namely Defense, seems to have
been replaced by a new one, namely National Security.  Carrying the
implication of this euphemism to its logical conclusion, we'll be
perfectly safe the day every one of us carries around his/her personal
nuke, thus creating the ultimate deterrent to violence....

"Love is the beginning of the kind of horror we can tolerate."
                                                 - Jean-Luc Godard

Teemu "I Don't Want No Teenage Queen,     U. of Helsinki, Dept. of CS
I Just Want My M-14" Leisti               Finland
leisti@finuh.bitnet

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Mar 88 18:13:39 MET
From: TNEOKTS%HDETUD1.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu
Comment: CROSSNET mail via SMTP@INTERBIT
Subject: WANTED: (Astronomical) applications for ULTRA PRECISE mass spectrometer

DATE: 29 FEBRUARY 1988, 18:53:46 MET
From: E. Koets                  31-(0)15-785920      TNEOKTS  at HDETUD1

                               WANTED:

       Space applications for ULTRA PRECISE mass spectrometer.
                     (e.g. neutrino rest mass)



At the Delft University of Technology we have a precision RF mass
spectrometer (originating from Princeton University). At present - since
the instrumental work is not yet fully completed - its IMPRECISION lies
in the 10-9 range at maximum (probably in the 10-10 range).

However: A FWHM-line RESOLUTION of 1:10+7 has been realized (1: 5*10+7
is expected after a little extra trimming). The centroid of such a line
has (separately) been determined to 1:10+4 of FWHM. So, after completion
of the trimming, an IMPRECISION in the 10-11 or even 10-12 range could
be expected (10-12 is equivalent to 0.1 eV at M=100).

The SYSTEMATIC errors of this machine have proven to be small compared
to those of other machines. Opposed to other machines, the measurement
and the calibration run are interleaved at a rate 4 orders of magnitude
within the time constant of these systematic effects. Therefore the
remaining SYSTEMATIC errors could be some 4 orders of magnitude smaller
than for other machines and thus also end up in the 10-12 range.
Reference with futher references: J. Phys. E, Vol. 14 (1981), 1229.

For political reasons the work on this project was abruptly stopped in
1983. This unique machine will be SCRAPPED after the summer of 1988,
unless enough applications and support are found to restart the project.
The alternative being, that some institute wants to take over the
machine. That is why I urge you to contact me if you know (about
somebody who knows) about a suitable application or about an interested
institute. I would also appreciate suggestions about other (network-)
ways to contact potentially interested astronomers, chemists,
physicists, ....

Some areas of interest might be:
- Masses of particular isotopes.
- Contributions (e.g. 3H - 3He) to the determination of the neutrino
  rest mass (elementary particles; mass of the universe).
- Masses involved in double beta decay.
- Chemical binding energies.
- Total atomic electron binding energy.
- Calibration of high energy gammas through the measurement of the
  isotope masses involved.
- Fundamental constants:
  a) Contributions to an atomic standard kilogram.
  b) The 1H mass is relatively poorly known, due to the choice of the
     molecule used for the measurement. More favourable molecules are
     available, resulting in an order of magnitude better precision.
     The machine was also improved since the previous 1H-measurement.

Are there any other areas of interest?
What are the interests? How important are they?
Who is interested?
Which institute is willing to take over the instrument?

My addresses:    TNEOKTS@HDETUD1.BITNET
              or
                 E. Koets
                 Applied Physics Department
                 University of Technology
                 P.O. Box 5046
                 2600 GA  DELFT
                 Netherlands.

------------------------------

Date: 14 Mar 88 10:33:00 EST
From: "Charles E. Bouldin" <bouldin@ceee-sed.arpa>
Sender: ota@galileo.s1.gov
Subject: Shuttle Bashing
Reply-To: "Charles E. Bouldin" <bouldin@ceee-sed.arpa>

Lately there has been a lot of talk about the reliability of the Space
Shuttle, comments that it is to complex, and that failures will occur
fairly often with that machine. We know (now) that the failure rate
during a launch is >~4%. Based on what I can remember about Delta,
Atlas, Titan, Saturn and Soviet Boosters this is about the same as it is
for all other large rockets.

Anyone have better numbers? I seem to recall failure rates of 2-4% for
ALL large rockets. Anyone have numbers for the Soviet ones? I can recall
two nearly fatal failures of manned Soyuz launches. I guess my bottom
line here is that the Shuttle, while very complex in many ways, does not
seem to be much less safe than other boosters of similar size.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #172
*******************

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Date: Wed, 23 Mar 88 03:19:21 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
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To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #173

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 173

Today's Topics:
		   Re: House Subcommittee Testimony
       Volunteer scientists wanted to correspond with children
		       Re: SPOT picture wanted
		   _Defense Science_ March 88 issue
	   Rumors of Soviet Shuttle Launch in next few days
		     space news from Feb 15 AW&ST
		     Geostar & Back to the future
		      Upcoming name vote for NSS
		       Re: Forget the Saturn V!
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 15 Mar 88 22:45:42 GMT
From: ulysses!thumper!karn@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: House Subcommittee Testimony

After reading the Congressional testimony by Dr. Van Allen and his
colleagues from Iowa, I am starting to wonder if this could possibly be
the very same Dr. Van Allen, Chief Villain to the National Space
Society.

I found his remarks very well thought out and his recommendations quite
prudent and logical. I hope (but don't expect) that any responses to his
comments will be made at the same level.

Phil

------------------------------

Date: 18 Mar 88 14:47:51 GMT
From: celica.dec.com!seltzer@decwrl.dec.com  (DECWORLD/MGMT MEMO/CORPORATE EMPLOYEE COMMUNICATION)
Subject: Volunteer scientists wanted to correspond with children

Wanted -- Volunteer Scientists to correspond with children

The Boston Museum of Science is looking for individuals in science-related 
fields to participate in Science-by-Mail, a new program designed to bring 
children together with scientists as they correspond about real science 
issues.

Due to the extensive response from children around the New England area, we 
are desperately in need of additional volunteer scientists to read and respond 
to approximately six groups of children as they solve general science problems 
posed by scientists and science educators at the Museum.  This correspondence 
will occur three times over the next four months.  The program will culminate 
in a one-day event where all participants, including the scientists, are 
invited.

If you or anyone you know might be interested, please contact:

Stephen Brand
Scence by Mail
Boston Museum of Science
Science Park
Boston, MA 02114
(617) 589-0439

[I am posting this for a friend.  Please respond directly to Stephen Brand by 
phone or regular mail, not to me over the network.]

------------------------------

Date: 17 Mar 88 20:50:16 GMT
From: mahendo!jplgodo!wlbr!etn-rad!jru@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov  (John Unekis)
Subject: Re: SPOT picture wanted

In article <2576@Shasta.STANFORD.EDU> kaufman@Shasta.stanford.edu (Marc Kaufman) writes:
>I would like to purchase a SPOT image of a particular place, on or about
>a particular time.  Can someone point me to an appropriate source for
>ordering same?  I also need pricing (presumably from the same source).
....
You want the SPOT Image Corporation, They are in northern Virginia near
Wash. , D.C.  Call (703)555-1212 to get their phone number. They sell
images on Magtape in Ansi format, I vaguely remember them costing approx.
$1000 for a tape with 3 images.

------------------------------

Date: 18 Mar 88 14:16:00 PST
From: "KEVIN W. BOLD 0-1" <bold@afsc-sd.arpa>
Subject: _Defense Science_ March 88 issue
To: "space" <space@angband.s1.gov>
Reply-To: "KEVIN W. BOLD 0-1" <bold@afsc-sd.arpa>


The current issue of _Defense Science_ included a short article on the merits ofa lunar base.  According to scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratories, low cost, data on living in space, and the presence of resources such as oxygen 
make the moon an ideal place for nonterrestrial research.  The article also
quoted Dr Lowell Wood of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, who has 
observed that the moon would offer "surface and gravity" while a space station 
would not, and the National Commission on Space Report which described "that
portion of space beyond low Earth orbit as the key to a much needed American 
technological resurgence."

There was also a sidebar on NASA's request for an additional $2.3 billion 
funding increase.

-- Kevin "Mad Max" Bold		|When governments are outlawed,
(BOLD@AFSC.SD-ARPA)		|only outlaws will have governments.
------

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Mar 88 23:59:40 EST
From: Glenn Chapman <glenn@ll-vlsi.arpa>
Subject: Rumors of Soviet Shuttle Launch in next few days

     There are many indications that the Soviet Union is on the verge of
launching the first test flight of its Shuttle vehicle within the next few
days.  First about a month ago they stated that the next launch of Energia
(their large, 100 Tonne to orbit booster) would carry a test of a fully
reusable space plane.  Secondly in the past few days there have statements
on both the BBC (British Broadcast Corps) shortwave, and Reuters news service,
that the Russians have been inviting news services to send reporters to
the Baikonur cosmodrome to watch the launch.  It has been said that Cable News
Network will carry the liftoff live (or nearly live).  However while this 
sounds strong for a liftoff there have been no statements about an impending 
launch on Radio Moscow (shortwave).  Instead there has been, for the past 
several days, reports about the launch of the Indian earth observation 
satellite on Mar. 15th (that is the first commercial launch for them).
    Their shuttle, as they have previously stated, will be launched unmanned
strapped to the side of the Energia booster.  The shuttle does not have its
own main engines, these 4 hydrogen/oxygen boosters are carried on the core 
section of Energia (there are 4 Kerosene/oxygen strapon first stage engines
around the sustainer core).  There is considerable debate on how complete
this vehicle is.  James Oberg (a well known US expert on the Soviet space
program) has stated that it will only be a boiler plate vehicle, and will
be destroyed on reentry.  On the other hand there have been many statements
that the cosmonauts corp opposed an unmanned test launch.  Also several
soviet officials stated last year that there were problems with the automatic
control system, making unmanned landings of it rather difficult.  Art Bozlee
(another US export on the Russian program) stated that there was no evidence
for the earlier rumors about an explosion of an Energia booster on the pad 
late last year.  However he did find out that an Energia was moved out to the
pad in December, a partial countdown made, and then it was moved back to the
assembly building.  This would be consistent with a dry run test of the launch
system, but does not prove things one way or the other.  By the way there are 
many indications now that Energia is moved to the pad horizontally, and 
then raised vertically, which is what I expected.
     The Russians would love to launch their shuttle before the US one gets 
going again.  It is now generally agreed that its main purpose would be to 
bring back large cargos from their space stations.  However the launch of a 
boiler plate version which does not land would not win them much credit in the
west.  Hence if they really have invited in the western press it will be
something more than that, but certainly less than one of NASA's vehicles.
Meanwhile the news reports say that the congressional budget committee cut 
NASA's funds to about $10 billion (from the $11.4 asked for).  The American 
people keep on saying that they want to be leaders in Space, they just do not 
to pay for it.  Well, let us see the if the current administration's plan to
turn things over to business works out better than government funding.

                                           Glenn Chapman
                                           MIT Lincoln Lab

------------------------------

Date: 18 Mar 88 04:24:52 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Feb 15 AW&ST

Editorial praising Pete Aldridge (sec of air force) for his efforts at
getting expendable launchers going again, but ending with a caution:
"USAF is now threatening to turn ALS into a technology program instead
of a project that can provide the US with a heavy lift capability by
the late 1990s.  Sending ALS into the bureaucratic black hole in which
so many technology efforts disappear will not help the US recover the
heavy lift capability it lost when NASA abandoned the Saturn V..."

Arianespace puts in a bid to launch the next pair of NATO military
comsats, pointing out that 60% of NATO's infrastructure budget now
comes from Europe.

Small study contracts for multimegawatt space reactors put out by DOE.

Aussat is showing a strong preference for launching the next-generation
Aussats on Long March (!).  The business may end up being split between
Long March and either Titan or Ariane, because Aussat will probably want
a backup launcher and the Western launch companies may not be interested
in serving only as backups (i.e. they may want to be first in line for
one of the launches in return for being backup for the other).

White House finally releases the new National Space Policy.  Of note are
provision of shuttle external tanks in orbit free to commercial projects,
and competitive procurement by NASA of something like ISF.

Big article on SDI's Delta 181 space test mission, launched Feb 8.  There
were some tracking problems and a partial failure of one important sensor,
but on the whole the mission was successful.  The launch was very carefully
done, including a supervisory team whose sole job was to watch for things
the launch team might overlook.  Weather criteria were tight, and so was
security:  a USAF gunship circled the pad area for several hours before
launch, among other things.  (Officially it was there to keep the range
clear of boats, but note that the AC-130 aircraft is heavily armed and
carries sensors that can pick up intruders by their body heat.)

The third SDI Delta will fly early in fall.  Delta will officially become
a USAF launcher after that mission, but the USAF has asked NASA for the
lead role on that one too; "the issue is being negotiated".

Picture of a Hermes model in a wind tunnel.

Formal space-station negotiations concluded Feb 6, not entirely successfully.
Informal negotiations will continue to try to sort out the remaining issues.
Canada is still the only partner that has agreed to the US's memorandum of
agreement.  [Late news:  Canada's participation is now considered to be in
serious jeopardy, because Congressional budget cuts may remove most of
Canada's role.  If you have a station-related job, on either side of the
border, I would recommend bringing your resume up to date...]

Veteran cosmonaut Vladimir Solovyov among those presenting papers at an
AIAA conference this week.  He says that greater attention to crew comfort
is needed on Mir, and better automation of routine housekeeping would also
be useful (he appears to mean monitoring and control, not robotics).  He
also notes that the crew wants to be able to vary the vehicle's climate
from time to time, and that private rooms are needed.

Aerojet tests a small ultra-high-thrust rocket engine for final maneuvering
of missile interceptors.

SDI outlines a proposed operating structure for an initial missile-defence
system; of note is that contrary to assorted alarmist claims, top control
would remain with humans.

Big advertiser-funded supplement:  "Space Industries".  Front page is a
satellite photo of Seattle, supplied by Soyuzkarta.  The content is pretty
lightweight except for two items:  a statement from Eosat that Spot has
had no effect on Landsat revenues (apparently it has expanded the market
instead), and a near-full-page ad for the only heavy booster "AVAILABLE
RIGHT NOW!":  Proton.

[Yes, Soyuzkarta is who you think it is:  the USSR.]

Target for next Ariane launch slips a week (to March 11) because Matra is
making urgent changes to one of the payloads.  Telecom 1C is being fixed
to ensure that it doesn't have the same disastrous attitude-control failure
that hit Telecom 1B.

Stacking of the first Ariane 4 (launch tentatively May) is underway.

JPL studies feasibility of a specialized space telescope for hunting
extrasolar planets; it would combine ultraprecise optics (developed for
the semiconductor industry, not for spy satellites!) with a new design
of coronagraph to block the light from the star.

Design selected for astronaut memorial at KSC, a slab of granite that will
track the sun, with astronaut's names cut into it, illuminated by mirrors
behind it.

Retiring DepSecCommerce Clarence Brown slams government mismanagement of
space programs (especially by NASA) and hostility to commercial space.
In microgravity programs, "Optimistic folks think we're in third place;
the pessimists think we're in fourth or fifth."  Recent DoC study says
industrial interest is space is very high; Brown observes that most of
the interested companies are European or Japanese.

The competing mobile-satellite companies have finally merged into an
uneasy consortium and have submitted a joint bid to the FCC.

DARPA to award small contracts for lightweight-launcher programs,
including an air-launched vehicle for small payloads, a Standard Small
Launch Vehicle (1500 lbs to low orbit in mid-1990), and an Interim
Launch Vehicle (400 lbs to low orbit in mid-1989).  All the obvious
companies are interested.

Hearings to begin on limiting liability for US commercial space launches.
Congress backs a scheme in which liability over $500M is assumed by
government, paralleling an arrangement used by NASA in pre-Challenger days.
Liability for damage to government property will be limited, all parties
involved will be required to sign waivers renouncing claims against each
other, and launch-date commitments will not be subject to government
preemption except in cases of "imperative national need" [whatever that is].
Also bundled in may be provisions giving special discounts and liability
reductions to owners of satellites bumped from the shuttle, *if* they
launch them on a US launcher.  Reagan administration also wants limits on
commercial-launch liability, but is proposing it as a flat limit on
liability, rather than having the government assume responsibility after
a limit is reached; this is arguably a fundamental change to liability
law and may not be popular with Congress.

Two-page letter column with reactions to AW&ST's facelift and style change,
perhaps half of it negative.  "If I wanted Newsweek -- I don't -- I would
have subscribed to Newsweek."  [I agree.]
-- 
Those who do not understand Unix are |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
condemned to reinvent it, poorly.    | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 19 Mar 88 15:19 EDT
From: "Paul F. Dietz" <DIETZ%sdr.slb.com@relay.cs.net>
Subject: Geostar & Back to the future

I've read that Geostar has conducted a pilot test of a 1-satellite location
system with a trucking firm. It enabled the firm to track a stolen truck
for several days and direct police to its final destination. The system
also lets drivers communicate without stopping to use a phone, which
saves roughly $20 per call in lost time.

An Ariane has just placed a satellite into orbit with a Geostar package.
Is this one working?

Back to the future: I read in Discover magazine a wonderfully crazy story
about a fellow who is designing some really weird aircraft. The things use
ducted fans for vertical takeoff and are about the size of a car. A test
model was saucer shaped with six engine/fan units around the pilot's seat.
If this refugee from Popular Mechanics really does evolve into a replacement
for the automobile it'll have to be highly automated, and navsats like
Geostar's would play a central role in collision avoidance and traffic
control.

------------------------------

Date: 19 Mar 1988 16:55-EST 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
To: "/usr/amon/Email/Email.L5" <Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu>
Subject: Upcoming name vote for NSS

    Chapter leaders:

         I  am  writing to you about the upcoming vote on the society
    name.

         I had initially felt that I would stay completely  clear  of
    the  name  change  issue,  other  than to voice my dislike of the
    current name to anyone who requested my opinion. However,  recent
    discussions I have had with respected members of our organization
    have convinced me to take a more public stand.

         A  name  is  a  very  important  identifier   of   what   an
    organization  is  about.  For  me,  that  image  must  convey the
    international yearning for a free and unfettered human  frontier.
    It  must  convey  a  long  range  view  that  encompasses O'Neill
    cylinders, Solar  Power  Satellites,  lunar  and  martian  bases,
    asteroid  mining and starwisps. 'National' Space Society does not
    do this.

         A new  name  is  a  new  identity  for  us  all.  The  'fait
    accomplait' of the name we have lived under for the last year can
    be laid to rest. By the act of choosing a new name, we choose  to
    leave  the  past behind us. Whether we came from NSI/NSS or L5 we
    can finally become the strong and unified voice that  I  know  we
    can be.

         The alternative name is Space Frontier Society, a name which
    I find satisfactory on all of the above accounts. I urge  you  to
    circulate  copies of this letter and to discuss the issues openly
    with your membership.

         If you share the same vision of a  hopeful  future  for  all
    humanity that I do, I'm sure you will get out the vote for "Space
    Frontier Society". Should we lose this vote, I will be a graceful
    loser.  Win,  lose  or  draw,  it is our society and it needs our
    voices to keep it on the path to our shared dreams.

                                        Ad Astra,
                                        Dale Amon
                                        Board of Directors,
                                        National Space Society

------------------------------

Date: 16 Mar 88 14:01:28 GMT
From: aplcen!aplcomm!stdc.jhuapl.edu!jwm@mimsy.umd.edu  (James W. Meritt)
Subject: Re: Forget the Saturn V!


Forget the little Saturn V? 
Forget the little NOVA!

GO ORION!!!!!


Disclaimer: Individuals have opinions, organizations have policy.
            Therefore, these opinions are mine and not any organizations!
Q.E.D.
jwm@aplvax.jhuapl.edu 128.244.65.5

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #173
*******************

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Date: Thu, 24 Mar 88 03:20:04 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8803241120.AA19796@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #174

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 174

Today's Topics:
			Seminar: LIFE ON MARS?
		   A Letter from Congressman Mrazek
		   Re: House Subcommittee Testimony
			   JFK's challenge
			   ISDC News Flash
	      International Space Development Conference
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 16 Mar 88 23:40:58 GMT
From: hpda!hpcuhb!hpcllla!hpclove!dr@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Dick Rupp)
Subject: Seminar: LIFE ON MARS?

Here's a seminar in the San Francisco Bay Area that looks interesting.
The condensed press release follows:


The Planetary Society and NASA Ames Research Center present a public
session:

"Continuing the Search -- LIFE ON MARS?"
   
   What is the relationship between the evolution of the solar system
   and the evolution of life?  Has there ever been life on Mars?  What
   should future missions do to search for past or present life on the
   Red Planet?


Moderator:  
   Dr. Carl Sagan, Director of Laboratory for Planetary Studies at
       Cornell University, and President of the Planetary Society

Other Speakers:

   Dr. Harold P. Klein, former Viking [Mars landing probe] Biology
       Team Leader

   Dr. Stanley Awramik, Dept. of Geology, UCSB, expert on earliest
       life on Earth

   The Soviet Union will send some of their Planetary Scientist to
       describe their efforts at finding life on Mars


Location and Date:

   Thursday, March 24, 1988,   8:00 pm
   Sunnyvale Hilton Hotel Ballroom
   US 101 at Lawrence Expressway (1250 Lakeside Dr)
   Sunnyvale, CA   [about 50 miles south of San Francisco]

Admission:
   $2 for members and students
   $3 for the general public

------------------------------

Date: 19 Mar 88 04:44:16 GMT
From: phoenix!pucc!EWTILENI@princeton.edu  (Eric Tilenius)
Subject: A Letter from Congressman Mrazek

I received the following letter from my Congressman, Bob Mrazek,
Democrat from the 3rd district, New York.  My letter expressed concern
over Congress' commitment to the space program, and urged him to support
a vigorous, peaceful space program.
 
I was quite pleased to see his reply (printed below).
 
              -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -
 
		     CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES
                        House of Representatives
                         Washington, D.C. 20515
   ROBERT J. MRAZEK                        Committee on Appropriations
   3rd District, New York                          Whip at Large
 
Dear Eric:
 
Thank you for contacting my office to express concern regarding
Congress' commitment to the space program.
 
As you know, Congress did reduce funding for the space station to $425
million for FY 88.  Out of that amount, NASA will only receive $200
million until June 1, 1988.  NASA will not receive the additional $225
million until it satisfies Congress with plans for a "rescoped" program.
 
With respect to "rescoping" the program, many NASA officials have
interpreted this language to mean reducing the station design.  Others
believe the intention of Congress is to institute a slower work
schedule.  In either case, the space station will not be orbited until
the mid-1990's or later.
 
As a strong supporter of the space program, I share your concern
regarding the lack of commitment on the part of the president and
Congress to articulate and fulfill long-term space policy goals.  Since
space activities have been a critical component of U.S. foreign policy
engagement, the development of vibrant space programs by a variety of
nations only exacerbates our problem.
 
On a more positive note, NASA does recognize our changing space
environment.  Work is going forward on Mission to Planet Earth, a
cooperative program involving NASA, the National Science Foundation and
the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to study global
change.  The main project associated with this effort, the Earth
Observing System (EOS), is going forward.  EOS, a multinational
remote-sensing platform, will receive funding in FY 89.
 
In October, a report entitled "International Space Policy for the 1990's
and Beyond" was released by the NASA Advisory Council, Task Force on
International Relations in Space.  An oversight hearing on the report
was held in December before the Subcommittee on Space Sciences and
Applications.  Apparently, its findings were taken seriously as the
president will soon be announcing major policy changes for our space
program.
 
When President Kennedy announced the decision to go to the moon, he was
quoted as saying that it was "time for this nation to take a clearly
leading role in the space achievement which in many ways may hold the
key to our future on Earth."  While we have long since passed the time
when the United States held a monopoly on space technology and
expertise, the does not mean that the other leadership opportunities are
not present.
 
The space environment of the 1980's and beyond dictates a different
type of leadership.  In addition to the space station, innovative and
cooperative space policies must be sought out.
 
Therefore, I have decided to act in this area.  Just a few days ago, I
introduced legislation that will establish a national commission to
examine how satellite-monitoring arrangements can increase international
security and cooperation.  As the interdependent state of our planet
becomes widely recognized, space-based observations will come to play an
increasingly important role.  With the emerging capabilities on the part
of many nations to monitor Earth, now is the time for the United States
to assume leadership in this area as well.
 
You can be assured that I will do all I can to ensure that we become a
leader among nations in space.  But I can use your help in this regard.
Not nearly enough of my colleagues, or the public at large, understand
the tangible benefits associated with a vibrant national space program.
Given your interest in this area, I am confident that you will play a
vital role in shaping our nation's space program.
 
Once again, I appreciate hearing from you.  If you should need further
assistance or information, please do not hesitate to contact me.
 
Sincerely,
 
Robert J. Mrazek
Member of Congress
 
              -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -
 
Ah, if only more Congressmen had some common sense like this!  Well, as
Bob does say, his colleagues need convincing.  Perhaps each of you can
help do that.  Write your Congressman today!
 
- ERIC -

------------------------------

Date: 18 Mar 88 18:04:04 GMT
From: mnetor!spectrix!tmsoft!utgpu!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: House Subcommittee Testimony

> After reading the Congressional testimony by Dr. Van Allen and his
> colleagues from Iowa, I am starting to wonder if this could possibly
> be the very same Dr. Van Allen, Chief Villain to the National Space
> Society.

Van Allen has been showing signs of mellowing lately.  Either that, or
he's decided that his loud opposition to all manned spaceflight was
being ignored as parochial propaganda (which it was), and that more
moderate tactics would get better results (which they will).

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 21 Mar 88 06:21:56 GMT
From: tektronix!reed!douglas@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (P Douglas Reeder)
Subject: JFK's challenge

It could be argued that President Kennedy's challenge to to land a man
on the moon was a major hindrance to the expansion of the United States
into space.  Previously, expeditions to the moon were envisioned as
departing from a (previously built) space station and using earth-orbit
to moon-orbit craft that were enhanced versions of existing orbital
transfer vehicles.  The only new equipment that would have to be built
for another expedition would be the lunar lander.
    Such an approach might have been far less vulnerable to the feeling
in the early seventies that the whole moon shot was an expensive waste
of money that was needed for social programs.  The space station and
transfer vehicles would have also been doing all the things you know
they are good for, justifying themselves.  Old hardware would remain
useful when new was aquired.

Doug Reeder                           USENET: ...!tektronix!reed!douglas
10 Cyclopedia Square             from BITNET: douglas@reed.UUCP
Terminus City                     from  ARPA: !tektronix!reed!douglas@Berkley
Terminus,The Foundation                Box 502 Reed College,Portland,OR 97202

------------------------------

Date: 18 Mar 88 21:47:47 GMT
From: cu-den!udenva!isis!scicom!cyrill@boulder.colorado.edu  (Cyro Lord)
Subject: ISDC News Flash


			SPACE: The Next Renaissance

	      1988 International Space Development Conference

                              NEWS FLASH!

Greetings, Fellow Space Enthusiasts:

The Space Conference has just expanded by an order of magnitude! In
case you hadn't heard yet, the Soviets have recently signed an
agreement with an American company to launch a commercial payload on
the Proton, and conduct experiments on the Space Station Mir.
Astronaut Byron K. Lichtenburg, who is president of Payload Systems
Inc., the first American company to sign a commercial space contract
with the Soviets, just happens to be speaking in the Technical Track
and in the Business Symposium at our conference. We will also have a
representative from the Office of Space Commercialization in the
Department of Commerce speaking at the Business Symposium.

We have a new track called the International and Commercial Launch
Track, which for the first time in history will bring together the top
American orbital launch companies and the top world space powers to
give presentations on their launch capabilities to the public! Courtney
Stadd from the Department of Transportation's Office of Commercial
Space will be speaking at launch on Sunday, May 29. And Nandy
Jasentuliyana, from the United Nations will be speaking on Saturday.

			Ad Astra.
			Jill E. Steele

-- 
Cyro Lord	Alpha Comm. Dev. Corp.  2570 Sky Ranch Rd. Aurora, CO. 80011
UUCP/DOMAIN	{boulder,hao,isis}!scicom!cyrill / cyrill@scicom.alphacdc.com
		"Endeaver to Persevere"

------------------------------

Date: 18 Mar 88 21:45:16 GMT
From: cu-den!udenva!isis!scicom!cyrill@boulder.colorado.edu  (Cyro Lord)
Subject: International Space Development Conference


		SPACE THE NEXT RENAISSANCE

	The 1988 International Space Development Conference

			May 27 - 30 1988

		Stouffer Concourse Hotel
		Denver, Colorado, USA

		PO Box 300572 - Denver, CO 80218
		(303)692-6788 or (303)388-2368

Our Purpose: To hasten the technical and social advances that will
create a spacefaring civilization.

Organized by the 1988 International Space Development Conference
Committee and hosted by The National Space Society and the Colorado
Chapters of the National Space Society.

    Jill Steele, Chair   1988 International Space Development Conference

    William H. Ganoe, Chair   Symposium on Private Enterprise in Space

Co-sponsers
	Aerospace Education Development Program
 	AMSAT
	AMSPACE
	Boulder Center for Science & Policy
	Denver Area Science Fiction Association
	Denver Folkers Anonymous
	Forsight Institute
	Independent Space Research Group
	International Association of Space Architects
	National Association of Rocketry
	Rocky Mountain Future Association
	Spacecause
	Space Generation
	Spacepac
	Space Studies Institute
	SpaceWeek National Headquarters
	United States Space Foundation
	Women's Space Network
	World Space Foundation

Special Thanks
	Ball Aerospace Systems Division
	Deborah Carlen/Cape & Companies
	Tom Konetski
	Mike Mills
	Ed Daniels
	Action Answering Service
	Execu-Type
	Kinko's
	Copy Cat

Featured Speakers
	Bob Forward
	Frank White
	Courtney Stadd
	Georgia Franklin

PROGRAM TECHNICAL TRACK

Leading edge aerospace technology will be discussed in talks and
presentations, including the following featured speakers and topics.

Speakers Include:
	K. Eric Drexler:	Nanotechnology
	Ben Clark:		Our Future on Mars
	Arthur Kantrowitz:	Laser Launch Technology

Topics & Issues
	External Tanks 			Robotics
	Space Station			Physics and Astrophysics
	Launch Technology		Life Sciences
	Geosciences			Space Medicine
	Technology Transfer		Physiology and Psychology
	Space Manufacturing		Botany and Zoology
	Communications			Lunar Ecosystems
_____________________________________ 

EDUCATION TRACK

The Education Track offers graduate/undergraduate credit (1) through the
University of Colorado. The course emphasizes the use of aerospace
education to enrich and update existing curricula. Previous knowledge or
experience in aviation or space is not required. There is an additional
registration fee for the course, and seating is on a space-available
basis for non-credit attendees.

Speakers Include:
	David Webb
	Dorothy Diehl
	Greg Barr

Topics & Issues
	Aerospace an the Contemporary World
	Integrating Aerospace Education
	Into the Curriculum
	Astronaut Lecture
	NASA Moon Rock Teacher Certification
______________________

GRASSROOTS TRACK

For those interested in pioneering the space frontier in their
communities, the Grassroots Track will offer dynamic short courses.

Speakers Include:
	Elisa Wynn
	Gary Oleson
	Loyd Case

Topics & Issues
	Chapter Leadership
	Membership
	Publicity for Space Activists/Public Relations
	Marketing
	Reaching Experts 
	Chapter Forum
_________________________

SOCIOECONOMIC TRACK

Workshop, discussions and projects exploring developments that will be
needed to create communities beyond the earth.

Speakers Include:
	Art Bozlee
	Spencer McCallum
	Fred Stitt

Topics & Issues
	International Cooperation and Competition
	Space As The New Economic Base
	The Marketing of Space
	Cultural and Economic Leadership in Space
	Long-range Planning of Space Development
	Architecture 
	Law 
	Barriers to Commercialization
___________________________

INTERNATIONAL AND COMMERCIAL LAUNCH TRACK

For the first time in the history of humanity's ventures into space, all
the major U.S. commercial orbital launch companies and the major space
power countries will be brought together to inform the general public
about current and future space launches.

Plans include represenatives from:
American Rocket Company
General Dynamics
E'Prime Aerospace Corp.
LTV Aerospace
Martin Marietta
McDonnel Douglas
Pacific American Launch Systems Inc.
Space Services Inc.

ESA, NASA, China, Japan and the USSR have been invited to participate.

Nandy Jasentuliyana, Deputy Director, Outer Space Affairs Division of
the United Nations will make opening remarks to the International
Presentation on Saturday.

Saturday
Presentations by countries, ESA and NASA.
Sunday
Presentations by companies.
___________________________

BUSINESS SYMPOSIUM 
Friday, May 27, 1988    $195

A one-day professional symposium for those already in a space-related
business and for those interested in starting one. The program will
include speakers from industry and government, and provide opportunities
to develop contacts with experienced entrepreneurs.

One of the featured speakers will be Spacelab I astronaut Dr. Byron K.
Lichtenberg, President of Payload Systems, Inc., the first U.S. firm to
sign an agreement with the Soviets to preform experiments on the Mir
space station.

Other speakers include:
    Tom Taylor and Bob Citron, Spacelab Inc.
    Steve Wolfe, a member of the staff of
		 Rep. George E. Brown, Jr. (D-CA)
    Jeffery Mamber, Project Director, Office of Commercial Space,
		    U.S. Department of Commerce
    Hugh Kelso, Space Research Associates

ART SHOW

An open entry show with space reserved on a first-come, first-served,
fee basis. The show will be judged in several categories, and will
include a written and a voice auction. Space Art, Space Engineering
Illistration, Space Age Humor&Cartoons, and Space Speculation are
acceptable subjects. Sculpture, jewelry, and models are encouraged.
More information:
	Gail Barton, 31 Range View Dr., Lakewood, CO 80215 (303) 233-6958.

LUNAR BASE DESIGN WORKSHOP

A review on the most current information about lunar entrepreneurial
developments, emphasizing human factors, finance and management
considerations more then technical detail. Its goals: to develope a
proposal for a lunar base developed by and for private enterprise,
including funding of start-up research,and to show how laypeople with
proper information can contribute in a useful andthoughtful way to a
space project. Participants will have opportunities to create sketches
and artwork, to write sections of the report, and to build a clay model
of the conceptual design. The workshop is co-sponsored by the
International Association of space Architects and Design Science
Corporations.

Special Attractions, Included in the Conference Registration.

	Video Room
	Art show and auction
	Lunar Base Design Workshop
	Rooms fo ad hoc meetings and gatherings
	Exhibits - including the Space Architecture Design Contest
	Folksinging concerts 
	(folksongs about life in Space and the struggle to achieve it.)

Cyro Lord	Alpha Comm. Dev. Corp.  2570 Sky Ranch Rd. Aurora, CO. 80011
UUCP/DOMAIN	{boulder,hao,isis}!scicom!cyrill / cyrill@scicom.alphacdc.com
		"Endeaver to Persevere"

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #174
*******************

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Date: Fri, 25 Mar 88 03:18:06 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8803251118.AA21873@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #175

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 175

Today's Topics:
			       Re: LH2
			     X-15 engine
			   Re: X-15 engine
		       Re: SPOT picture wanted
			  Look What I Found
		   Re: space news from Feb 15 AW&ST
			Soviet Launch Vehicles
		       Soviet launch confidence
		Re: Horizontal takeoff launch vehicles
		      very small launch vehicles
			     launch costs
		    t. s. kelso's celestial rcp/m
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 18 Mar 88 18:27:50 GMT
From: mnetor!spectrix!tmsoft!utgpu!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: LH2

> ... Since liquid hydrogen gives a better specific impulse with LOX
> than any other stable fuel, since environmental threat from
> unburned/spilled fuel is less with hydrogen than hydrocarbons, since
> (given cheap power) hydrogen is trivially easy to come by, it would
> seem to be the fuel of choice.  Surely the extension of cryogenic
> technology needed for liquid oxygen isn't that much of a barrier.
> (Twenty years ago, of course, it was: hence kero-burning Saturn V and
> assorted Soviet hardware.)

I can't answer for the Soviets, but the kerosene in the first stage of
the Saturn V was not there because of cryogenic-technology problems;
remember that both the second and third stages used hydrogen.  The
biggest reason for kerosene in the first stage was that it was not
thought possible to develop large hydrogen engines quickly enough to
meet Apollo's deadline.

However, the situation for hydrogen isn't quite as rosy as presented
above.  Yes, it is energetic and environmentally fairly benign.  The
cryogenic technology is not a big problem.  It's not as cheap as one
might like, in practice as opposed to theory.  It causes serious
metallurgical problems, as prolonged exposure tends to make metals
brittle.  Its handling problems, although much exaggerated, are not
entirely trivial.

The biggest problem with hydrogen, though, and a secondary reason for
not using it in first stages, is that it is *bulky*.  Its density is
very low, which means huge tanks (on the shuttle, for example, the LOX
tank is almost spherical; essentially *all* the rest of that big long
external tank is hydrogen tank).  Big tanks are heavy, and create extra
air drag.  Most of the studies done in recent times have concluded that
hydrogen is not worth the trouble for conventional (or even somewhat
unconventional) first stages, although it clearly pays for itself in
upper stages.  In a first stage, it is better to accept the lower energy
content of a hydrocarbon in exchange for its much greater density.

Also, although this doesn't necessarily relate to the choice of fuels,
the contrast between the US's two big engines influences people.  The
F-1 was relatively simple and reliable, and not grossly expensive.  The
SSME is complex, incompletely debugged, probably inherently somewhat
unreliable (it pushes the margins too hard), and cosmologically
expensive.

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 22 Mar 88 00:27:32 GMT
From: sdcc6!calmasd!jnp@ucsd.edu  (John Pantone)
Subject: X-15 engine

Does anyone know what the fuel was for the X-15's engine?  It was
throtleable and was apparently expected to eventually propell the X-15
into orbit - something I think most people have forgotten.

Comments, please?

John M. Pantone @ GE/Calma R&D, 9805 Scranton Rd., San Diego, CA 92121
...{ucbvax|decvax}!sdcsvax!calmasd!jnp   jnp@calmasd.GE.COM   GEnie: J.PANTONE

------------------------------

Date: 22 Mar 88 18:07:56 GMT
From: hplabsb!dsmith@hplabs.hp.com  (David Smith)
Subject: Re: X-15 engine

In article <2690@calmasd.GE.COM>, jnp@calmasd.GE.COM (John Pantone) writes:
> Does anyone know what the fuel was for the X-15's engine?  It was
> throtleable and was apparently expected to eventually propell the X-15
> into orbit - something I think most people have forgotten.

Anhydrous ammonia and liquid oxygen.  It could not have put the X-15
into orbit with a B-52 drop.  I recall seeing an artist's conception
drawing of an X-15 separating from an Atlas, but I can't see that being
realistic, because it wasn't designed for atmospheric entry at orbital
speed.  X-15 #2 got its rear fuselage burned through at 4500 mph.  That
was its last flight.

				David Smith

------------------------------

Date: 21 Mar 88 05:55:58 GMT
From: clyde!watmath!watdcsu!mmaclenn@rutgers.edu  (Mark MacLennan-Geog.)
Subject: Re: SPOT picture wanted

> I would like to purchase a SPOT image of a particular place, on or
> about a particular time.  Can someone point me to an appropriate
> source for ordering same?  I also need pricing (presumably from the
> same source).

SPOT satellite imagery (10m panchromatic, 20m multispectal - 3 bands) is
available in the U.S. for purchase from:

     SPOT Image Corporation
     1897 Preston White Drive
     Reston, Virginia  22091-4326     703-620-2200
     
This data is not cheap and it is copyrighted (i.e. once you buy it you
cannot pass it on to anyone else; an agreement on terms and conditions
for use of the data must be signed ...).  Imagery in digital format (on
1600bpi tape) start at about $1500 per scene.  There are a few sample
scenes of selected areas in the U.S. available for $600 each.  I am not
certain that SPOT Corporation archives all that many scenes unless they
are requested by customers.

------------------------------

Date: 20 Mar 88 23:15:04 GMT
From: amdahl!nsc!taux01!amos@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Amos Shapir)
Subject: Look What I Found

(I hope this was not posted here already)
While re-reading Heinlein's 'The Man Who Sold the Moon' last night, I
came across the following lines:

"For now we have missed our best chance. The satellite is gone ... Even
the shuttle rocket is gone. We are back where we were in 1950 ..."
"Therefore - I propose that we build a spaceship and send it to the
Moon!"

[These lines were written in 1949!]

All I can add is: Delos D. Harriman for president!

	Amos Shapir			(My other cpu is a NS32532)
National Semiconductor (Israel)
6 Maskit st. P.O.B. 3007, Herzlia 46104, Israel  Tel. +972 52 522261
amos%taux01@nsc.com  34 48 E / 32 10 N

------------------------------

Date: 21 Mar 88 19:01:49 GMT
From: siemens!steve@princeton.edu  (Steve Clark)
Subject: Re: space news from Feb 15 AW&ST

In article <5856@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu> kevin@cit-adel.UUCP (Kevin Van Horn) writes:
>[...]  The Soviets shot down something that merely looked like it might
>be a spy plane (flight KAL 007) [...]
>
>Kevin S. Van Horn

You touched a nerve here.  The Soviets never NEVER said the 747 looked
like a spy plane.  They said it was on a spying mission.  Our President
and our news did not present evidence that it was on a spying mission
(all lights were out etc.) and made it appear that the soviets claimed
it was a spy plane rather than a spying mission.  The distortion by our
press and President was itself a news item in Germany at the time.  (I
went to Germany on a short business trip at the time, and I was amazed
at the difference in the story here and there.  I no longer believe we
have a completely free press in the US.)

Steve Clark, steve@siemens.com

------------------------------

Date: 22 Mar 88 16:13:29 GMT
From: cfa!cfa250!mcdowell@husc6.harvard.edu  (Jonathan McDowell)
Subject: Soviet Launch Vehicles

Soviet Launch Vehicles - New Data

The Mar 18,1988 ish of Aviation Week reports the first ever Soviet
statistics on their family of launch vehicles. Analysis of these data
indicates the existence of a previously unsuspected booster, and screws
up a lot of the standard assumptions about which booster launched what.

The Soviet figures cover the period Jan 1,1970 to Jan 1, 1988 (except
for the Soyuz booster where the period is 1972-1988 - maybe it failed a
lot in 1971!). They give total successful launches to orbit and total
failures to reach orbit, as follows: (RN= Raketa Nosityel', = Carrier
Rocket)

Vehicle		Successes	Failures
RN Kosmos	317		14
RN Molniya	179		10
RN Tsyklon	61		2
RN Proton(4-st)	106		9
RN Vostok	88		1
RN Soyuz	554		12     (1972-1988 only)

The figures for the 4-stage version of the Proton and the Mk II version
of the Tsyklon agree exactly with Western tabulations. (The 3-stage
Proton and the Mk I Tsyklon are not being offered for commercial use).
The Mk II Kosmos has 322 launches assigned to it in the period, so 5
must belong to some other booster. I suggest this may include the 4
Kapustin Yar suborbital spaceplane tests. The Mk I Kosmos was retired in
1977 and had 69 orbital launches in the period - it is not discussed by
the Soviets.  The Molniya has had 180 orbital launches in the period not
179 - maybe one of the low orbit failures such as Kosmos-837 is counted
as a failure to reach orbit. The real problem comes with Vostok and
Soyuz.  The new encyclopedia Kosmonavtika SSSR by V. Glushko published a
couple years ago confused the issue by attributing some types of Meteor
weather satellite to both Vostok and Soyuz boosters in different parts
of the book.  We can only reconcile the Vostok numbers if all the Meteor
type satellites, including the sun-synchronous launches, went on
Vostoks. A further 11 launches previously attributed to Soyuz must also
be Vostoks; most probably the last 11 second-generation spy satellites
of the Kosmos-22 and Kosmos-120 series.  This leaves 647 launches still
attributed by Western totals to the Soyuz in the 1972-1988 period -
according to the new Soviet figures, 93 of these must actually be using
a different booster which is not any of the ones discussed above. Up to
Jan 1,1988 I count 92 launches of the advanced 4th and 5th generation
spy satellites (Kosmos-758,Kosmos-1246,Kosmos-1426 types) and civilian
missions based on the same long-duration vehicle (Kosmos-1543 and
Kosmos-1882 series), and I'm prepared to believe that a K-758 type
mission has been misidentified as a K-317 3rd generation mission. Since
US intelligence has not reported the existence of this new booster
(although the Pentagon document Soviet Military Power has accurately
reported other new vehicles) I suggest that a *Mk II version of the
Soyuz booster* has been introduced which is sufficiently different (and
has a sufficiently higher failure rate) that the Soviets have not
included it in their totals.


Jonathan McDowell, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

------------------------------

Date: 22 Mar 88 17:51:45 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Soviet launch confidence

> Launch conditions were atrocious with only the red glare of the
> rockets visible through a snow blizzard as it blasted off in the early
> hours of Thursday morning.  [that is what you call confidence in your
> technology]

After over 1000 launches of the same booster, one tends to have a fair
idea of what it can and can't do!  The Soviets also have some reason to
want an winter-weather launch capability, since their program is geared
to frequent launches in a country that has nasty winters, so they
undoubtedly tested it thoroughly long ago.

------------------------------

Date: 16 Mar 88 14:04:26 GMT
From: aplcen!aplcomm!stdc.jhuapl.edu!jwm@mimsy.umd.edu  (James W. Meritt)
Subject: Re: Horizontal takeoff launch vehicles

You have heard, perhaps, of the "orient express"?  This sucket should go
barely orbital velocity as designed.  Shouldn't take much more.

jwm@aplvax.jhuapl.edu 128.244.65.5

------------------------------

Date: 23 Mar 88 07:47:15 GMT
From: telesoft!roger@ucsd.edu  (Roger Arnold @prodigal)
Subject: very small launch vehicles

So far, at least, private launch companies targeting the market for
small to medium launch vehicles have not been very successful.  Among 
the problems:

   1) raising the capitol needed to develop any new launch vehicle;

   2) achieving cost/performance sufficiently beyond what is already 
      available as to justify a high risk venture;

   3) acquiring permits and approvals for new launch facilities.

Solutions to 1) and 2) tend to be antagonistic.  There is no question
that the potential exists for orders-of-magnitude reductions in the 
cost of delivering payload to orbit.  The theoretical bottom line
imposed by the cost of fuel is nearly ten THOUSAND times less than 
current actual costs.  But the cost of developing new launch systems 
is high; if development is limited to what can be reasonably funded 
through private risk capitol, then it is difficult to promise a 
sufficiently better mousetrap to make the risk worthwhile.  

Even if a company can develop a launch vehicle that looks good against
the current competition, if their vehicle requires ground-based launch
facilities in the U.S., they may be killed by problem 3).  (As AMROC 
seems to be discovering).  Dealing with technical problems is nothing 
compared to dealing with bureaucracies in matters they have never
handled before.  Channels and areas of responsibility are ill-defined,
at best.  There is no incentive for any bureaucrat to risk his career 
by departing from routine, when the safe alternative of passing the 
buck is available.

I don't believe that these problems preclude any chance of success for
a private launch company, but they do imply certain constraints.  To
have a reasonable chance of success, I suggest that a private launch
company:

   a) design its launcher for the smallest payload for which a decent
      market can be realistically projected;
   
   b) limit itself to vehicle designs that don't require new ground-
      based launch facilities.  

Making the launcher as small as possible limits development costs, 
and makes it possible to do something interesting with what could
reasonably be expected from venture financing.  Avoiding new ground-
based launch facilities either means compatibility with existing 
government launch facilities, or the capability to launch from sea 
or air.

What looks good to me is a very small launcher with a LEO payload
capability on the order of 50 kg.  It would have two main stages 
fueled by liquid oxygen and liquid methane, with a very small orbital
maneuvering stage for performing rendezvous operations.  The gross
weight of the vehicle, fueled and ready to launch, would be on the 
order of 1000 kg.  It would be launched at high altitude from an 
"air sled", towed by a modified business jet.  (The sled is a safety
feature; if the rocket blows up, the sled is lost, but the tow plane
isn't.  Reduces development costs, by leaving room for failures).

The size of the vehicle would be about 2.5 feet in diameter and 8 feet
in length--including payload fairing.  The high altitude air launch is 
crucial to the feasibility of such a tiny launch vehicle.  Not only 
does it reduce the effective delta vee to orbit by around 1000 mps 
(by eliminating most atmospheric losses and allowing a more efficient 
ascent profile), but it allows for the use of simple, pressure fed 
engines.  The engines can operate at a high expansion ratio despite 
modest internal tank pressure.  Modest tank pressure, in turn, means 
lighter, cheaper tanks.  Each stage would have four fixed engines, 
and steering would be through differential fuel metering to opposite 
engines, a' la OTRAG.

Would there really be a market for a launch system with an LEO payload
capability of only 50 kg?  I think there would be.  50 kg is enough to
deliver pharmeceutical feedstock for a teleoperated space electrophor-
esis unit, plus a return capsule for processed material.  It's also
large enough to carry special purpose mini-satellites and scientific 
experiments.

It would also be great for delivering mail and hot meals to the space 
station, if that ever gets built.  Maybe Domino's Pizza would like to
fund its development?  Talk about delivering!

- Roger Arnold					..ucsd!telesoft!roger

------------------------------

Date: 23 Mar 88 15:06:41 GMT
From: s.cc.purdue.edu!ain@h.cc.purdue.edu  (Patrick White)
Subject: launch costs

   Could somebody please send me a list of how much it costs to purchase
a launch from all the companies/countries selling such a service.. or
preferably, send me a list of the companies/countries and how to contact
them?
   Many thanks.


[Hmmm.. wonder if our government has realized that the USSR could use
 their space shuttle to grab some of our dead satellites (you know.. the
 ones we would never miss) to examine the techonology?.. naww.. the USSR
 would *never* do that :-)]

-- Pat White
ARPA/UUCP: k.cc.purdue.edu!ain  BITNET: PATWHITE@PURCCVM  PHONE: (317) 743-8421

------------------------------

Date: 19 Mar 88 18:40:49 GMT
From: ihnp4!inuxc!inuxh!andy@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (M Anderson)
Subject: t. s. kelso's celestial rcp/m

 Can some one mail me the phone  number for t.s. kelso's
 celestial rcp/m system (or post it to the net.)?
 Thanks in advance,
 M. Anderson

[From: unmvax!charon!deimos.unm.edu!f12012ag@ucbvax.berkeley.edu

The number is (512) 892-4180.  Operates 24 hrs/day at 300, 1200, and
2400 baud.  8 data bits, 1 stop bit, no parity.

Ollie ]

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #175
*******************

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Date: Sat, 26 Mar 88 03:18:55 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
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To: Space@angband.s1.gov
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Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #176

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 176

Today's Topics:
		      Re: Engineering new stars
		       Re: Neutrino Tomography
		     The moon as a research base
		    Re: Feynman's last trip report
		   Re: Geostar & Back to the future
		    Re: The lighter side of space.
		 Re: Space Station measurement system
		 Re: Space Station measurement system
		 Re: Space Station measurement system
		 Re: Space Station measurement system
		 Re: Space Station measurement system
		 Re: Space Station measurement system
	     Libertarian candidate space position papers
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 19 Mar 88 23:22:07 GMT
From: oliveb!pyramid!prls!philabs!pwa-b!mmintl!franka@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Frank Adams)
Subject: Re: Engineering new stars

In article <5230@uwmcsd1.UUCP> markh@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Mark William Hopkins) writes:
>In discussing the movie 2010 with someone, I came across what may be
>the boldest engineering project ever imagined: to create a new star.

It isn't.  Putting a Dyson sphere around a galaxy, to name one example,
is much more ambitious.  (Followups on this subject should be to
sci.space.)

>I would like someone who is qualified to tell me what would happen if,
>say, 1000 H-Bombs were sent into Jupiter and simultaneously detonated.
>...  If the interior is mostly Hydrogen then the reaction would sustain
>itself thereby creating a new star.

No.  If Jupiter were dense enough to sustain a fusion reaction, there
would be one going on, and it would already be a star.  If you blow up a
bunch of H-bombs there, you will get a little extra yield from setting
off (some of) the nearby hydrogen, but it will fizzle out.  In the
extreme case, if you set off enough bombs scattered around the planet
(probably at least on the order of a trillion), you could get the planet
to blow up; but still no star.

Try reading the book.  I'm not sure Clarke's suggestion could be made to
work, but it's a lot more plausible than just setting off a lot of
H-bombs.

Frank Adams

------------------------------

Date: 23 Mar 88 09:41:23 GMT
From: xanth!kent@mcnc.org  (Kent Paul Dolan)
Subject: Re: Neutrino Tomography

In article <240@unisv.UUCP> vanpelt%unisv@ubvax.ub.com (Mike Van Pelt) writes:
>In article <7831@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> weemba@garnet.berkeley.edu (Obnoxious Math Grad Student) writes:
>>(1) De Rujula, Weinstein, and others have proposed to use Tev-Pev
>>    neutrinos for doing whole earth tomography.  One Earth diameter of
>>    rock and iron should be just the right distance.  Earthquake
>>    prediction and the like would surely benefit.  This requires
>>    SSC-level energies.  Their actual proposals get further out: for
>>    maximum tomography benefit, they want to try floating the SSC out
>>    at sea!  I posted a short description with references about a year
>>    ago.

>Now this is fascinating, and deserves to be split out into a separate
>subject.  It seems to me that what you really need to do for this is to
>put your SSC in orbit.

There you go!  Build two of whatever you use to launch it, and the spare
can launch the next twenty or thirty years of the space program in one
fell swoop.  Talk about your big, dumb boosters!

[Notice the "Followups-to:" line!]

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Mar 88 12:43 EDT
From: ELIOT%cs.umass.edu@relay.cs.net
Subject: The moon as a research base

The more I think about it the more I feel that the U.S. should scrap the
space station in favor of a permanently manned lunar base.  Some of the
materials needed would be locally available saving $$$$ in
transportation costs.  It would be a fabulous place for a large
telescope.  No atmospheric disturbance, without many of the hastles of a
satelite.  You wouldn't have to worry about occilations every time
something twitches.  You wouldn't gravitationally attract a dust cloud.
And you wouldn't need to use rockets for stabilization and pointing.
Furthermore, the orbit won't decay for a *very* long time.

Chris Eliot
University of Massachusetts at Amherst
Department of Computer and Informtion Science (COINS)

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Mar 88 13:29:28 PST
From: Eugene miya <eugene@ames-aurora.arpa>
Subject: Re: Feynman's last trip report

A friend and climbing partner writes:
From: murray@src.dec.com (Hal Murray)
>On the first page, he talks about betting a good breifing on the
>shuttle from JPL. I assume they have a lot of sharp guys, but how come
>they know so much about the shuttle?

There are complete sets of Shuttle manuals at JPL.  This existed years
ago since the first real payload (The SIR: shuttle imaging radar) was a
JPL project.  These manuals detail dimensions, power, temperatures, etc.
Feynman was being a little rosy about not having any vested interests:
other friends think Caltech (which runs JPL) told him to be considerate
of the Lab's 2 year contract (hearsay only).  Also note that Taylor Wang
also flew with his levitation experiments, and I also have two other
friends waiting for the next SIR mission (Cimino and Kobrick [Alt.]).
All missions have their own set of up to date manuals and they meet the
crew of their respective missions.

--eugene miya NASA Ames Research Center eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA

------------------------------

Date: 21 Mar 88 17:42:35 GMT
From: beckenba@csvax.caltech.edu  (Joe Beckenbach)
Subject: Re: Geostar & Back to the future

In his article DIETZ@sdr.slb.COM ("Paul F. Dietz") writes:
>Back to the future: I read in Discover magazine a wonderfully crazy
>story about a fellow who is designing some really weird aircraft. The
>things use ducted fans for vertical takeoff and are about the size of a
>car. A test model was saucer shaped with six engine/fan units around
>the pilot's seat.  If this refugee from Popular Mechanics really does
>evolve into a replacement for the automobile it'll have to be highly
>automated, and navsats like Geostar's would play a central role in
>collision avoidance and traffic control.

	It's closer than you think: in a recent (Dec '87?) _Popular
Mechanics_ issue, I noticed a full-page ad by some company here in
California for the "Merlin 2000" [number may be wrong]. This vehicle was
claimed to fit in a one-car garage, run on auto fuel, and cruise
aerially at 225 mph, range about 1000 miles. Apparently this is a
testing of the market; the ordering info and related info packet sold by
mail for about $40. The front view in the ad gave me the impression that
the profile would look more like a fighter than a saucer; anyway, once
the production line starts, the FAA and DoT will have to get together-
problems of traffic changing media as easily as changing lanes could
cause lots of problems. Just think of all the aerospace congestion
around LAX or any airport, large or small. Now think of a vehicle that
can take off from anywhere, and you can see *huge* problems rearing
their ugly heads.

Joe Beckenbach (CS BS '??)			I'D RATHER BE ORBITING	
	"Dispatch, this is 504. Suspect spotted, heading east in I-5. It's
one of them vertical jobbies, and we lost him. Call in the CHP jets."

------------------------------

Date: 19 Mar 88 13:37:17 GMT
From: sj1f+@andrew.cmu.edu  (Steven Kent Jensen)
Subject: Re: The lighter side of space.

        I believe the title that Jon Leech is loking for is "The Light
Stuff".  It contains interesting anecdotes about the people around the
space program from its conception through the space shuttle.  Good
reading, I highly recommend it.
                                Steven Jensen

------------------------------

Date: 21 Mar 88 03:23:05 GMT
From: vu-vlsi!swatsun!leif@psuvax1.cs.psu.edu  (Leif Kirschenbaum)
Subject: Re: Space Station measurement system

In article <8803141519.AA22768@blues.db.toronto.edu> hogg@db.toronto.edu (John Hogg) writes:
> In article <1988Mar11.041245.8768@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
> >The space station will not be metric, for fear that it might affect
> >safety in an emergency when snap decisions are being made by ignorant
> >astronauts who have to convert metric units to archaic ones before
> >thinking about them.  [AW&ST obviously did not word it quite that
> >way...]
  In all science courses I have taken we have always used metric; the
English system was only mentioned as an aside.  The metric system makes
all physics, chemistry, etc. much easier than English. The professors at
my college who are doing research (and publishing) also use metric.
(I've peeked in their labs and talked to upperclass students who help
them) Everything I've read about science (Scientific American and
articles from "real science" journals) has been in metric. I don't know
which system NASA uses, but would be surprised if they use English. I
would think that anyone qualified enough to be an astronaut has had more
than the basic courses in science, and would therefore think in metric.
Even in snap situations (I certainly do- slugs are awfull difficult to
relate to and metric numbers are so much easier to compute- 10m/s/s for
g, 1g/cc density for water, etc.)  Even if they hadn't, all the training
NASA gives astronauts (and I gather that it's a lot) should involve
metric. So why the worry about 'ignorant' astronauts?

> 2) What unit of mass will be used?  Will astronauts deal with both
>    pounds-force and pounds-mass, or, in the middle of a crisis
>    situation, will they instinctively think in slugs?
> I can guess the answer to the first question, but the implications of
> the second

I missed whatever's after 'second', but I want to comment that slugs are
bad to work with, as are pounds, inches, miles and everything else.

Does anyone know what system NASA uses to train its personnel and design
its systems?  Does anyone know where it gets scientists who are willing
to use the English system to design spacecraft, instruments, equipment,
etc?

------------------------------

Date: 21 Mar 88 17:42:59 GMT
From: FAS.RI.CMU.EDU!schmitz@pt.cs.cmu.edu  (Donald Schmitz)
Subject: Re: Space Station measurement system

>In all science courses I have taken we have always used metric; the
>English system was only mentioned as an aside.  The metric system makes
>all physics, chemistry, etc. much easier than English. The professors
>at my college who are doing research (and publishing) also use metric.

If you dig a little deeper, you will find most of their apparatus and
likely all the standard components (screws, pins, etc) are spec'd in
English.  Why?  Becaue machine shops are full of English calibrated
tools, and English screws, bolts, etc. offer the widest selection and
can be bought at any hardware store.  You are sure to get parts that
don't fit together if you spec them in metric and give them to an
English shop, which then converts every measurement to English, with
obvious round-off. Likewise, expect a few months delivery on metric
fasteners in any but the most common sizes.

The hassle over the pound-mass and pound-force (lbm and lbf for MEs) is
rather academic, no one uses slugs in casual conversation, and the
meaning of "pound" is generally obvious from its usage.  The metric
system is no better in this respect, I have seen quite a few Japanese
publications rate motor torque in Kg-m, rather than the correct
Newton-meter.  In any case, I doubt the decision to use English on the
station affects the actual design, but rather the station instrument
calibration.  I would much rather measure some things, like the cabin
pressure I was about to walk into, in lb/in^2 than Pascals, and count on
doing the conversion to atmospheres (which is what really matters)
right.

------------------------------

Date: 22 Mar 88 09:49:22 GMT
From: tektronix!reed!douglas@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (P Douglas Reeder)
Subject: Re: Space Station measurement system

Nuclear reactors designed these days are now all metric, after years of
unitary chaos.

Doug Reeder                           USENET: ...!tektronix!reed!douglas
10 Cyclopedia Square             from BITNET: douglas@reed.UUCP
Terminus City                     from  ARPA: !tektronix!reed!douglas@Berkley
Terminus,The Foundation                Box 502 Reed College,Portland,OR 97202

------------------------------

Date: 22 Mar 88 00:32:21 GMT
From: pioneer!eugene@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Eugene N. Miya)
Subject: Re: Space Station measurement system

NASA tends to officially recognize English units.  There was an IEEE
Spectrum article on this.  This is something of a joke, but many
instruments say L-band radar which is measured as 23.1 cm wavelength,
not the equivalent English.  There is a set of small stories about the
English bias, let's just leave it to "dusty deckism."  So a Space
station will likely have a mixture of measurements like National Parks
which give both units but with English first in this case.  Gawd what a
pain!

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA

------------------------------

Date: 22 Mar 88 21:35:36 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Space Station measurement system

> If you dig a little deeper, you will find most of their apparatus and
> likely all the standard components (screws, pins, etc) are spec'd in
> English...

No, by and large they are specced as the equivalent of "size 5", where
the meaning of "5" has to be found by looking it up in a table anyway.
This is entirely independent of what system of units is used for
*measurements*.  I assure you that it's quite possible to use "English"
screws in equipment build in metric; you just need a screw-sizes table
showing how big those screws are in metric units.  You need this sort of
thing anyway, in fact, since there *is* no single metric screw standard.
Remember that there is nothing two-inches-by-four-inches about a
"two-by-four", and for that matter there is nothing one-inch about a
"one-inch" pipe.

In any case the "but you have to convert, and that causes errors" is
increasingly spurious; the aerospace industry is going metric.  And of
course, all three international "partners" in the project are already
metric.  It wouldn't surprise me if there is going to be *more*
conversion this way than there would be with an all-metric station.

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 23 Mar 88 18:07:34 GMT
From: grasp.cis.upenn.edu!ulrich@super.upenn.edu  (Nathan Ulrich)
Subject: Re: Space Station measurement system

In article <1988Mar22.213536.500@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>I assure you that it's quite possible to use "English" screws in
>equipment build in metric; you just need a screw-sizes table showing
>how big those screws are in metric units.  You need this sort of thing
>anyway, in fact, since there *is* no single metric screw standard.

For small screws, there is very little correlation to inches anyway: a
6-32 screw has a 0.138" O.D., etc.  Larger screws such as 1/4-20, and on
up have much more relationship to "even" inch sizes.

The use of English units by machinists, engineers, and draftsmen (and
most manufacturers) in the US is a source of constant frustration to me.
I much prefer using metric units, and do so for all of my calculations,
analysis, etc., but when I get to the stage of actually designing a
mechanism, my machinist thinks in English, the parts I need are all in
inch sizes, and I have to convert everything.  Many professional
societies have come out as proponents of the metric system, and with
increasing use of numerically- controlled milling machines, etc.,
conversion should not be too difficult--- a just wish it would happen in
my lifetime.

Nathan Ulrich
ulrich@grasp.cis.upenn.edu

------------------------------

Date: 21 Mar 1988 15:13-EST 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
To: "/usr/amon/Email/Email.L5" <Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu>
Subject: Libertarian candidate space position papers

The following two positions papers are the statements of the
Libertarian Presidential Candidate, Ron Paul on domestic and
international space issues. For more information on their stands:

	Ron Paul for President Committee
	1120 NASA Road, Suite 104, Houston TX 77058


========================================================================
			SPACE - DOMESTIC POLICY

Time after time NASA has developed capabilities at great expense then
discarded them: a space station larger than the Soviet MIR, a heavy lift
vehicle competitive with the new Soviet Energia, a nuclear engine twice
as efficient as the space shuttle main engine and a well tested
Earth-Moon transport.

The fate of the Saturn V heavy lift launch vehicle is one of the saddest
examples of this folly.  Production was intentionally halted and
portions of its tooling were "lost". This bridge burning ensured support
for the next aerospace welfare program: the space shuttle.  Now we have
a grounded government shuttle that can lift a third as much as the
Saturn V for the same cost per pound. That's progress, government style.

Even worse, this failed state monopoly is now wrecking businesses to
avoid well deserved embarassment. American companies desperately need to
get their satellites into space. They have been blocked from using the
cheapest, most reliable launcher in the world which unfortuneately
happens to be the Soviet Proton.

NASA has cost our nation a full twenty years in space development,
twenty years that has seen the Soviet Union surpass us to an extent that
may well be irreparable. It is inconceivable that a private firm could
have committed such follies and survived. NASA deserves no better.

Our only hope now lies in the power of free individuals risking their
own resources for their own dreams. We must recognize the government led
space program is dead and the corpse must be buried as soon as possible.
Any defense functions should be put under the military, and thre rest of
NASA should be sold to private operators. The reciepts would be applied
to the national debt. Then, all government roadblocks to commercial
development of space must be removed.

It is not the business of the defense department of a free society to
veto business decisions of remote sensing or launch companies. The
interests of liberty would be well served by a bevy of mediasats that
will put any future Iran-Contra affair under the full glare of live
television coverage.  Maybe, besides competition, that's what our
government is afraid of.

There is really only one proper role for the military in space or on
Earth: the protection of America. Otherwise, the new fronteir of Space
should be opened to all. Space pioneers will generate knowledge and
wealth that will improve the lot of all people on earth.  We should not
let government get in their way.

========================================================================
		SPACE - INTERNATIONAL POLICY

Our government is not only shortsighted in it's negotiations on space
issues, it's downright anti-american. Sometimes it's hard to decide
whose principles the State Department is defending. They certainly
aren't those of our Founding Fathers.

About the only anti-property treaty this country hasn't ratified is the
odious "Moon Treaty", written by our own State Department. If not for an
alert group of citizens (L5 Society), the United States would have
ratified this treaty under President Carter and embraced control of all
the rest of creation by a World Government.  Under "the common heritage
of all mankind" space would be the heritage of no one.  The vast wealth
of resources and energy in our solar system would remain untapped
instead of being explored by entrepreneurs who would improve the
condition of all humanity.  It's time this sick treaty is repudiated
once and for all.

We must also demand a revision or understanding to the 1967 Outer Space
Treaty so individual property rights are recognized.  If there are no
implimenting protocols for property rights within a specified time limit
we should withdraw from the treaty entirely.  In any case, we should
immediately open a land office and accept claims of Americans to
specific pieces of land, subject to occupancy within 15 years.

Back in the late 1950's a project called Orion seriously considered
using small nuclear explosions to power a spacecraft. The lifting
capacity would have been vast, measured in thousands of tons instead of
the miniscule abilities of today's mightiest rockets. This brute-force
approach was simple enough to be considered feasible 30 years ago.
Unfortuneately, the idea was shelved by the 1963 Nuclear Test Ban
Treaty.

If we truly wish to see the opening of the space frontier, we must not
prevent businesses from working on futuristic ideas like fusion drives
or matter-antimatter engines. Such technologies will one day open the
solar system to commerce the way the clipper ship opened the oceans in
the 19th century.

A time may also come when industrial nuclear explosives are needed in
deep space for extraction of the vast wealth of resources inside comets
and asteroids.  Modification of the 1963 Test Ban Treaty and other
understandings to clearly allow such non-military use of nuclear
technology is in the best interests of all space-faring peoples.

But perhaps most basic of all, we should question why governments of
20th century Earth assume they have the right to make laws for unknown
environments, at distances of millions of miles and a time decades or
centuries in the future. If the arm of government can reach that far,
freedom on Earth is precarious at best.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #176
*******************

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Date: Wed, 30 Mar 88 07:18:12 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8803301518.AA05654@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #177

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 177

Today's Topics:
		     space news from Feb 22 AW&ST
	    National Space Society name change vote update
		 Re: Space Station measurement system
				slugs
			      Re: slugs
		 Re: Space Station measurement system
		 Re: Space Station measurement system
		 Re: Space Station measurement system
			      Re: Units
			      Re: Units
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 28 Mar 88 00:25:06 GMT
From: att-cb!clyde!watmath!utgpu!utzoo!henry@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Feb 22 AW&ST

Senate committee asks GAO to expand on an earlier report on Morton
Thiokol, especially in light of recent accidents there.  "Do significant
and potentially serious problems with quality control and safety still
exist at the Morton Thiokol Wasatch facility?"

ESA and NASA more or less sort out their difficulties over Space Station
cooperation, and ESA station people get their station-staff badges back
(they had been revoked in December, blocking ESA access to NASA
facilities).  Japan remains a holdout.

Asat program finally abandoned during latest budget cuts, after repeated
Congressional bans on testing it.  Remaining three missiles mothballed.

Advanced Launch System is hitting budget problems, and its future is
uncertain.  SDI, its big backer, can't afford to pursue it alone given
budget constraints.  It may turn into a USAF technology program.

Various SDI space projects suffer from budget cuts, notably the Zenith
Star chemical-laser satellite.

NASA seeks $11.48G FY89 budget, including space station (delayed a year
but still running), AXAF new start (Fletcher convinced the White House
to reverse its no-new-starts-this-year policy), Pathfinder technology
development, start on an improved SRB, start on long-duration orbiter
work, more expendables, large increases in Shuttle, and a modest boost
in the Civilian Space Technology Initiative's near-term programs.  [Mind
you, NASA isn't going to *get* $11.48G.]

Reagan space policy released Feb 11.  Calls for more coordination
between agencies.  Rejects Kennedy-style commitment to a big new goal.
Removes 10-m resolution limit on civilian imaging satellites, *but*
calls for case-by-case review based on "commercial and national security
implications".  [Translation, the government is still in control, but
it's no longer going to make the rules explicit.  Sigh.]  Calls for
trying to get some of the space-station money from private sources.
[Rotsa ruck.]

Reagan commercial space initiative, released Feb 11, pushes government
support of private space efforts, orders NASA to immediately lease
something like ISF (Space Industries is obvious favorite, since it's got
a long head start on design, but other companies are interested, notably
Fairchild [with its old Leasecraft proposal], some of the station
bidders, and MBB-Erno [which built the Spacelab modules for ESA, but
would have to team with a US company to meet US-only rules]; the expense
of bidding, plus reluctance to join a shaky partnership with the
government, may mean that only Space Industries bids, however) (Fletcher
says NASA has "reoriented its thinking" and reversed its earlier
opposition to the idea), endorses Spacehab's efforts to build a
shuttle-cabin extender by ordering NASA to do its best to give Spacehab
launch opportunities (which is the only government supoprt Spacehab
wants at present), orders NASA to provide expended shuttle external
tanks at no cost to "all feasible US commercial and nonprofit endeavors"
(NASA expects substantial demand for the tanks, but insists that
recipients have their act together on either keeping them in orbit or
providing controlled reentry).

Liability limits for commercial launches will be delayed because
Congress and administration disagree on approach.  Congress wants
government to assume liability above a ceiling.  Administration wants an
absolute cap on indirect damages (e.g. pain and suffering) per person
affected; such a radical reform in liability principles is unlikely to
win favor with Congress, especially a Democrat-controlled Congress.  One
positive note: the government has decided that if an accident is the
government's fault, the government will not hold commercial firms
liable; previous policy said that the firms were liable regardless!
[One would think that these rules were designed to discourage commercial
launch firms, wouldn't one?  Just an accident, of course :-), even
though they were set up by the USAF, which is even more hostile to
private spaceflight than NASA is -- which is saying something!]

[Micro-editorial: In retrospect, it was clearly a mistake to give the
USAF primary responsibility for US military spaceflight.  The US Navy,
which has a long history of being charged with supporting commercial sea
users, would have been a much better choice.]

SDI will add more funding to a sounding-rocket particle-beam experiment
in the wake of the budget-cutting cancellation of the shuttle Neutral
Particle Beam project.

Bad luck for the Soviets, a double dose this time.  Cosmos 1906, an
imaging satellite working for the new Soyuzkarta marketing organization,
fails and has to be blown up to prevent it making an uncontrolled
reentry and possibly falling into US hands.  And the Proton fourth-stage
separation system fails on a navsat launch, third Proton failure in last
year or so.

SDI unveils plans for a robotic satellite servicer, possibly consisting
of a telerobotic "maintenance garage" plus a copy of NASA's Orbital
Maneuvering Vehicle to tow satellites in.  Actually, it would probably
have two OMVs, and might also have a tanker module for an OMV to carry
for refuelling satellites; SDI is talking to NASA, since NASA has its
own tanker ideas.

High-resolution radar images of Venus released by USSR.  Old data
(1983), but new release, some of it much enhanced from earlier releases.

[Next item is from Flight International, 30 Jan issue]

British Aerospace is cautiously optimistic about Hotol's future.  Engine
work has solved some possible problems.  Details remain secret, and no
serious interest from other nations is likely until this changes, but
Rolls-Royce has released a vague schematic of the engine.  It's a rocket
engine with a feed for atmospheric air, which is compressed after being
run through a "sophisticated" liquid-hydrogen heat exchanger to cool it.
Looks like the hydrogen used to cool the air spins the turbine for the
compressor and is then dumped, rather than going into the rocket.

[And these are from the 23 Jan issue]

Leonov says the Soviet shuttle will fly unmanned this year and manned
next year.  Second Energia flight expected Feb-March.  Leonov says two
modules will be added to Mir this year.  A crew will visit Salyut 7 "at
the end of the century" to examine it for long-term effects of space.

Victor Blagov (dep chief manned spaceflight) says Mir 2 is under
development for Energia launch, and that a Manned Maneuvering Unit (the
Soviets call it a "jet bicycle", actually!) will fly this summer.

Space medicine expert Oleg Gazenko says that Romanenko's one-year flight
supplies adequate information to assess biological effects of a
three-year Mars mission, and there is no real need for longer simulation
flights.  He was depressed, homesick, and argumentative towards the end
of the flight; apparently he has a history of being temperamental in
space.

West German company Kayser Threde is to fly materials-processing
experiments aboard Soviet unmanned satellites between 1989 and 1992,
first such Western customer.
-- 
"Noalias must go.  This is           |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
non-negotiable."  --DMR              | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 21 Mar 1988 18:02-EST 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
To: "/usr/amon/Email/Email.L5" <Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu>
Subject: National Space Society name change vote update

The ballot for the name change vote will be going out in bulk mail this
week, along with a demographic survey and a fundraiser.

I urge you to:
	1) Vote for Space Frontier Society
	2) Get as many people as you can to do likewise, including
	   phone tree activations to all NSS members in your areas.
	3) Donate as much as you can and encourage others to do so.

Additionally if you feel as I do on fairness in politics:
	4) Make a snide comment about the Libertarian Party not being
	   included in the demographic survey. It was included in the
	   original form and was taken out on orders from Glen Wilson,
	   without the consent of anyone in authority. You can do so
	   even if you are checking the box for Republican or Democrat.
	   Just consider how you would feel if someone left YOUR
	   affiliation out.

------------------------------

Date: 24 Mar 88 18:23:49 GMT
From: dennis@cod.nosc.mil  (Dennis Cottel)
Subject: Re: Space Station measurement system

Does anyone know what the astronauts themselves have to say on the subject?

   Dennis Cottel  Naval Ocean Systems Center, San Diego, CA  92152
   (619) 553-1645     dennis@NOSC.MIL       sdcsvax!noscvax!dennis

------------------------------

Date: 23 Mar 88 06:05:59 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!sq!msb@uunet.uu.net  (Mark Brader)
Subject: slugs

> What unit of mass will be used?  Will astronauts deal with both
> pounds-force and pounds-mass, or, in the middle of a crisis situation,
> will they instinctively think in slugs?

I don't know why people seem to think slugs are so difficult.  :-) I
mean, to reasonable accuracy for "instinctive" use, a slug is just 2.3
stones-mass, isn't it?

------------------------------

Date: 23 Mar 88 16:16:46 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!kcarroll@uunet.uu.net  (Kieran A. Carroll)
Subject: Re: slugs

>...a slug is just 2.3 stones-mass, isn't it?...

I can never remember...how many snails are there to the slug?
-- 

     Kieran A. Carroll @ U of Toronto Aerospace Institute
     {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!kcarroll

------------------------------

Date: 23 Mar 88 17:32:53 GMT
From: ncar!noao!mcdsun!nud!duster!mikec@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Michael Collins)
Subject: Re: Space Station measurement system

The following from an earlier posting:
>>  In all science courses I have taken we have always used metric; the
>>English system was only mentioned as an aside.  The metric system makes all
>>physics, chemistry, etc. much easier than English.

In article <1184@PT.CS.CMU.EDU> schmitz@FAS.RI.CMU.EDU (Donald Schmitz) writes:
>If you dig a little deeper, you will find most of their apparatus and
>likely all the standard components (screws, pins, etc) are spec'd in
>English.  Why?  Becaue machine shops are full of English calibrated
>tools, and English screws, bolts, etc. offer the widest selection and
>can be bought at any hardware store.

My uncle owns a fairly large manufacturing operation in California (yes,
there still is some industry in the USA).  He has been under contract to
NASA or its suppliers a number of times over the years for hardware that
_looks_ like what you'd buy down at the local True Value.  Why?  NASA
doesn't buy from the local hardware store.  When you look at the overall
cost of an orbital mission, you don't want to risk the whole thing on
unknowns, so everything is spec'd, inspected, etc.  Aside from that,
English-measured hardware cannot be bought at any hardware store in
Japan, West Germany, France, etc., i.e. metric hardware is more common
worldwide.

>You are sure to get parts that don't fit together if you spec them in
>metric and give them to an English shop, which then converts every
>measurement to English, with obvious round-off.

Before I learned how to make money pushing buttons, I spent a few years
as a machinist working mostly in job shops.  I frequently encountered
drawings which were dimensioned in metric measurements.  There is no
"round-off."  If the designer specs 15mm +/- 0.02mm, then I would make
the dimension between 0.5913" and 0.5898".  It may take a bit longer
when the print says 230mm and the dial is calibrated in thousandths of
an inch, but a tolerance is a tolerance regardless of the units of
measure.

Michael Collins
Motorola Microcomputer Division
(602) 438-3443

------------------------------

Date: 24 Mar 88 20:34:12 GMT
From: FAS.RI.CMU.EDU!schmitz@pt.cs.cmu.edu  (Donald Schmitz)
Subject: Re: Space Station measurement system

In article <769@duster.UUCP> mikec@duster.UUCP (Michael Collins) writes:
>My uncle owns a fairly large manufacturing operation in California (yes, 
>there still is some industry in the USA).  He has been under contract to 
> NASA or its suppliers a number of times over the years for hardware that
> _looks_ like what you'd buy down at the local True Value.  Why?  NASA 
>doesn't buy from the local hardware store.  When you look at the overall 
>cost of an orbital mission, you don't want to risk the whole thing on 
>unknowns, so everything is spec'd, inspected, etc.

The original post was discussing university lab equipment, not space
hardware.  However, I doubt even NASA would care to maintain all of the
dimensional standards regarding screw sizes, I'll bet their special
requirements deal with the material and _compliance_ with the industry
standard size, which happen to be English.

>English-measured hardware cannot be bought at any hardware store in
>Japan, West Germany, France, etc., i.e. metric hardware is more common
>worldwide.

I'm interested in substantiation, I worked with an Isreali aerospace
engineer who claimed he used English hardware in everything because of
the lack of availability and standardization in metric parts.  Most of
his suppliers were European.

>Before I learned how to make money pushing buttons, I spent a few years
>as a machinist working mostly in job shops.  I frequently encountered
>drawings which were dimensioned in metric measurements.  There is no
>"round-off."  If the designer specs 15mm +/- 0.02mm, then I would make
>the dimension between 0.5913" and 0.5898".  It may take a bit longer
>when the print says 230mm and the dial is calibrated in thousandths of
>an inch, but a tolerance is a tolerance regardless of the units of
>measure.

The problems I have seen occur when two machinists are making parts
which must mate, say a pin with OD 151 +0/-0.15mm and a hole at OD 151
+0.15/-0mm, a nominal line-to-line fit with clearance acceptable.  The
fellow making the pin converts 151 mm to 5.94488189 (on his calculator),
and since he works to 4 places, rounds up to 5.9449 inches.  The fellow
making the hole _drops_ everything after the 4th decimal, and makes a
hole 5.9948 inches.  Both parts come out exactly as the machinists
intended. Instead of at best 0 _clearance_, the parts now mate with
0.0001 inch _interference_.  This is no big deal for most things, but
there are a few places it matters (precision ball bearing seats).  Of
course good machinists would know to consider the tolerances when
converting the dimensions, but not all of them are good.  And this all
assumes they hit the right calculator buttons, for every dimension on a
part.  Long timer mechanical designers advise specing parts with the
dimensions needed to manufacture it, plus make friends with the
machinists.

>Michael Collins
>Motorola Microcomputer Division
>(602) 438-3443

Sorry if this has wandered too far from the topic of space, I promise
not to mention it again.

Don Schmitz - CMU Robotics Institute

------------------------------

Date: 25 Mar 88 00:31:04 GMT
From: nbires!isis!scicom!wats@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Bruce Watson)
Subject: Re: Space Station measurement system


 
NASA may be maintaining compatibility with the manned space efforts
of Burma and Brunei.

------------------------------

Date: 28 Mar 88 10:12:51 GMT
From: jfc@athena.mit.edu  (John F Carr)
Subject: Re: Units

In article <1806@ssc-vax.UUCP> eder@ssc-vax.UUCP (Dani Eder) writes:
>One time on a request for proposals from the government, it stated that
>"values shall be quoted ~rin metric, with British units in parentheses"

One of the courses I have taken in aerospace engineering had a few
lectures on overall systems issues.  The lecturer described a project he
worked on for NASA (a shuttle payload).  At one point in the project, he
sent NASA a detailed report, with metric units.  They sent it back, and
asked for a copy with English units.  (What I want to know is, did all
the NASA engineers there who looked at the report convert back to
metric?)

   John Carr
   jfc@athena.mit.edu

------------------------------

Date: 27 Mar 88 21:58:58 GMT
From: ssc-vax!eder@beaver.cs.washington.edu  (Dani Eder)
Subject: Re: Units

In article <1988Mar23.010559.29954@sq.uucp>, msb@sq.uucp (Mark Brader) writes:
> I don't know why people seem to think slugs are so difficult.  :-) I
> mean, to reasonable accuracy for "instinctive" use, a slug is just 2.3
> stones-mass, isn't it?
> 
> Mark Brader

One time on a request for proposals from the government, it stated that
"values shall be quoted ~rin metric, with British units in parentheses"

since they are very nitpicky when you respond with your proposal, I
suggested we give values as:

(a)  100m (British Units)

or

(b) 500N (xxx stone-furlongs/fortnight squared)

(the conversion factor from Newtons to stone-furlong/fornight squared
escapes me at the moment :-) ).

Dani Eder/Boeing/Space Station Program/ssc-vax!eder

ps I vote for SI units.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #177
*******************

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Date: Thu, 31 Mar 88 03:20:52 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8803311120.AA07379@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
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Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #178

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 178

Today's Topics:
		     Mir elements, epoch 21 March
IN ORBIT 20th March (Was Re: Rumors of Soviet Shuttle Launch in next few days)
		       Re: Forget the Saturn V!
		       Re: Forget the Saturn V!
	   Progress 35 docks with Soviet Mir Space Station
		 Re: Where is Apollo 13 Lunar module?
		   Where is Apollo 13 Lunar module?
		 Re: Where is Apollo 13 Lunar module?
		  International L5 Network Directory
			      Antimatter
		 metric system and human engineering
		     Design in English vs Metric
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 28 Mar 88 18:15:00 GMT
From: kenny@b.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Mir elements, epoch 21 March


Satellite: Mir        
Catalog id 16609
Element set 119
Epoch: 88 81.92787299
Inclination:  51.6239 degrees
RA of node: 157.2532 degrees
Eccentricity:  0.0011393
Argument of perigee: 246.5377 degrees
Mean anomaly: 113.4489 degrees
Mean motion: 15.78977347 revs/day
Mean motion acceleration: 0.00041336 * 2 revs/day/day
Epoch Revolution: 12006

Semimajor axis:    6711.43 km
Apogee height*:     340.92 km
Perigee height*:     325.63 km


		Source: NASA Goddard via T.S.Kelso's `Celestial RCP/M'

* Apogee and perigee altitudes are referred to the mean radius of the
  Earth (6378.15 km), and not to the local radius of the geoid.  They
  are only approximate, and should not be used for orbit prediction.

------------------------------

Date: 21 Mar 88 16:23:56 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!its63b!bob@uunet.uu.net  (ERCF08 Bob Gray)
Subject: IN ORBIT 20th March (Was Re: Rumors of Soviet Shuttle Launch in next few days)

Last weekends "IN ORBIT" contained a story about the Soviet space
shuttle and recent Soviet commercial space activity.

The article is reproduced below, although I think some of the details in
the second half may already be out of date.

The article was written by Dr. David Whitehouse.
	Bob.
---------------------------------------------------------------

Launch of the Soviet space shuttle is imminent, preparations for it are
well advanced at the Baikonur launch complex.

It will be carried into space by the Energia rocket tested for the first
time last May. Its high pressure engines are able to deliver a payload
of over 100 tonnes into low earth orbit, a capability the USA has not
had since it discontinued use of the Saturn V rocket in the early 1970s.
New details about Energia's engines have just come out of the USSR.

The Soviet shuttle that will fly will be a modest affair and not quite
what western experts had been expecting.

There are two types of shuttle under development. A manned version which
will not fly until next year at the earliest and an unmanned cargo
shuttle that cannot be adapted to carry people. It is the cargo that
will be launched soon for a 2-4 orbit test mission.

It will land back at Baikonur and is ultimately intended to return
satellites and space station modules to Earth.

The Soviets want to be able to refurbish and launch again the expensive
space station modules (like the one currently attached to the MIR space
station and others planned for later this year).

Last Thursday [17th March] the USSR launched it's first satellite for a
fee-paying customer. The launch was with the ageing Vostock rocket
(essentially the same one that launched Yuri Gagarin) from Baikonur.

The satellite was India's IRAS 1A Earth observation satellite.

Launch conditions were atrocious with only the red glare of the rockets
visible through a snow blizzard as it blasted off in the early hours of
Thursday morning.  [that is what you call confidence in your technology]

It was watched by a team of 45 Indian technicians, the Indian ambassador
to the USSR and foreign news media.

India is paying only $4 million for the launch - the cost to anyone else
in the future will be nearer $20 million which is still not far off half
the price for an Ariane launch or one on a US rocket. (commercial
satellite will no longer be launched from the shuttle).

The USSR has launched three small satellites for India free of charge
before, so India did not seek bids from other countries to launch this
satellite. Nevertheless, nobody could undercut the Soviets.

The USA has banned any satellite containing parts made in the USA from
being launched by the USSR. Most satellites contain lots of parts made
in the USA.

The reason for the ban by America is, they say, because they don't want
the USSR to obtain any secrets about western technology.

However, most observers think they are protecting their own rockets from
the effects of much cheaper foreign competitors.

------------------------------

Date: 24 Mar 88 17:15:00 GMT
From: cfa!cfa250!mcdowell@husc6.harvard.edu  (Jonathan McDowell)
Subject: Re: Forget the Saturn V!

>From article <1113@its63b.ed.ac.uk>, by bob@its63b.ed.ac.uk (ERCF08 Bob Gray):
> In article <134@aplcomm.UUCP> jwm@stdc.jhuapl.edu.UUCP (James W. Meritt) writes:
>>I sort of thought IRAN would like to contribute to the space-race!
> 
> Note that Iran already has a space industry.
> 
> They have had a number of satellites launched for them by the Soviets,
> and an Iranian cosmonaut has visited MIR.
> 	Bob.

Wot?? I think you mean INDIA - who have had 4 sats and a cosmonaut put
up by the Soviets. The Shah's govt was planning a Zohreh domestic comsat
before the revolution, but nothing ever came of it. The only thing Iran
ever had was a few ground stations.

Jonathan McDowell

------------------------------

Date: 23 Mar 88 17:19:28 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!its63b!bob@uunet.uu.net  (ERCF08 Bob Gray)
Subject: Re: Forget the Saturn V!

In article <134@aplcomm.UUCP> jwm@stdc.jhuapl.edu.UUCP (James W. Meritt) writes:
>I sort of thought IRAN would like to contribute to the space-race!

Note that Iran already has a space industry.

They have had a number of satellites launched for them by
the Soviets, and an Iranian cosmonaut has visited MIR.
	Bob.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 28 Mar 88 09:41:50 EST
From: Glenn Chapman <glenn@ll-vlsi.arpa>
Subject: Progress 35 docks with Soviet Mir Space Station

    The Soviet Union docked the Progress 35 tanker with the Mir/Kvant
complex on Mar 26 between 8 and 9 pm EST (Progress 34 had been undocked
from the Mir on Mar. 3 and was destroyed on Mar.4th).  The Progress is
bringing about 1 Tonne of fuel/oxygen/water and 1.5 tonnes of supplies
to their space station.  This is the 11th Progress docked to Mir since
its launch in Feb. '86.  All combined they have carried up 27 Tonnes of
material to the station, more than the 22 Tonne mass of the Mir central
core, but less than the combined orginal mass of Mir plus Kvant.  Note
that the older Salyut 6 and 7 stations each only received 12 Progress
cargo craft in 5 years of operation.
     On board the station Vladimir Titov and Musahi Manarov have been in
orbit 98 days now, well excess of the 84 day Skylab mission (the longest
US flight).  The plans are still for this crew is to stay in orbit for
one year.  According to Flight International the first module to be sent
to Mir will be late this year, and will contain the both a small
observation module and a larger airlock.  It will dock to the rear axial
end of the space station, and stay there for some time.  This will be
done shortly before the French mission to Mir, which will occur in
November.  The crew that will go up with the Jean-Loup Chretien, the
French spationaut, will stay on Mir for a month (giving them 5 people in
orbit for that period - a new record sized crew for a mission longer
than 10 days).  The Titov and Manarov will come down with Chretien in
late December, giving them the year mission.
    Among the things brought by the Progress was video tapes of the
winter Olympics hockey games (where the Russians captured the Gold
metal).  All the comforts of home for those that inhabit earth's first
and only permanently manned space station.  Maybe someday we will be
there to.

                                           Glenn Chapman
                                           MIT Lincoln Lab.

------------------------------

Date: 26 Mar 88 07:55:15 GMT
From: agate!saturn!ucscb.UCSC.EDU!spcecdt@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Space Cadet)
Subject: Re: Where is Apollo 13 Lunar module?

The remains are at the bottom of the Pacific.  At least portions of it
survived intact, since it contained an RTG for the ALSEP, and extensive
surveys found no traces of the RTG's plutonium fuel after the reentry.
The RTG was in a graphite casing in case of an accident.

------------------------------

Date: 26 Mar 88 00:25:00 GMT
From: cca!mirror!prism!john@husc6.harvard.edu
Subject: Where is Apollo 13 Lunar module?

A friend of mine was asking me about the Apollo 13 mission, and what was
involved in its getting back successfully.  I didn't remember too much,
but one detail came up that I was very interested in, but had no answer
to.

I seem to remember that the astronauts basically rode back in the lunar
landing module, using its power and life-support systems to help out the
crippled main command module.

So my question is, what happened to the lunar landing module?  Did it
re-enter and burn up (I would think that chunks of it would have come
all the way down) or did it continue on, in some sort of orbit?  Would
it be in orbit around the earth?

Thanks for any information on this bit of space trivia

JOHN DOWD	john@mirror.TMC.COM
{mit-eddie, ihnp4, harvard!wjh12, cca, cbosgd, seismo}!mirror!john

------------------------------

Date: 28 Mar 88 23:35:48 GMT
From: marque!studsys!jetzer@csd1.milw.wisc.edu  (jetzer)
Subject: Re: Where is Apollo 13 Lunar module?

Hmm.. I wrote a paper that included that very topic two years ago.  A
quick check to that paper (word processors are great) shows that I did
not include that particular bit of information in the paper.

I'm pretty sure that the Aquarius (the Apollo 13 LM) burned up in the
atmosphere.  I remember seeing a picture of something from Apollow 13
burning up, although it may have been the service module.

If Aquarius didn't burn up, it's now in orbit of the sun, not the earth.

(If someone really wants to know, they could check the August 1970 issue
of Popular Science, one of the sources of my paper .... )

------------------------------

Date: 30 Mar 1988 12:26-EST 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: International L5 Network Directory

I have just Emailed the 1988 Directory to everyone whose name appears
in it. If you are an NSS/L5/NSI/SFS/SSI member and do not receive one,
please contact me. If worst comes to worst, analog communications line is
412-268-2627.

------------------------------

Date: 30 Mar 1988 14:05-EST 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Antimatter

I'll get the jump on Henry on this one. AWST p19 3/21/88:

"USAF Predicts Anitmatter Propellants Could Be in Use by Early 21st
Century"

	'The 'giggle factor' is over. Antimatter is real and we know how
	 to make it and keep it. It has promise.'

I recommend everyone run over to the tech library and read it.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 30 Mar 88 13:51:22 EST
From: John Roberts <roberts@icst-cmr.arpa>
Subject: metric system and human engineering

The metric system, with its carefully-constructed system of interrelated
units, is greatly superior to the "standard" system for scientific
research, system design, etc. The issue that has been raised, however,
is not one of complex mathematical analysis, which is unlikely to be
used by astronauts under the conditions described, but one of the
appropriate response of human beings, predominantly Americans, to the
measurement systems found in their environment in an emergency
situation. In other words, this is a problem in what is commonly called
human engineering.

Neither the original posting nor the followups have gone into much depth
on the anticipated range of emergency situations for which autonomous
astronaut response could be useful. A further discussion of this area
could provide better insight on the types of measures that will be of
interest. In general, a situation in which complex calculations are
required but neither communications nor local computational facilities
are operational is probably hopeless anyway. The most likely measures of
interest are length, area, volume, velocity, acceleration, mass,
pressure, temperature, and sizes of standard items such as fasteners.

I think that an optimum system for rapid response may use a mixture of
measurement systems, which is acceptable when the parameters being
measured are unlikely to be used together. I suspect that this is
already done to some extent. There is probably also nonstandard use of
standard measures; I seriously doubt that the fuel gauge is calibrated
in gallons and fluid ounces.

Assigning numbers (or letters, or whatever) to fastener sizes (i.e. bolt
diameters) rather than using the actual measurements sounds like a good
idea, since usually the main requirement for a mechanic working on an
existing system is that the sizes be distinguished from one another with
a minimum of confusion. [Recommendation to system designers: use as few
different sizes of fasteners as possible, and include plenty of spares
for each.] In case the astronauts need to know how many 6-32 X 2" brass
machine screws are needed to make up a pound of ballast, they can bring
along a reference book.

If the astronauts are expected to be able to perform calculations for
changes in orbit, etc., the related parameters should probably be
metric, otherwise, no preference.

The ability of humans to manipulate the simplest measurements (length,
mass, etc.) is influenced by background and training, but also by
fundamental characteristics of the human body; for instance length is
evaluated in terms of distance between the eyes, arm length, etc. There
are therefore at least two possible arguments in favor of use of some of
the simpler "standard" measures:

 (1) The "standard" system, for all of its awkwardness in calculations,
     evolved over a long period of time using measurements that were
     convenient for humans to use. By contrast, the metric system was
     based arbitrarily on an approximate measure of the circumference of
     the earth, a measure which is only indirectly related to human
     physiology (:-) If such a system were being set up today, I think
     human factors would be taken more into account.

 (2) Other factors being equal, people tend to think best in terms of
     the measurements they learned first. Memorized constants also
     *tend* to be in terms of the native measurement system. Since the
     astronauts in question will presumably be predominantly American,
     it makes sense to use the system they are more familiar with. (This
     is the argument used by NASA.)

As to the question of whether to use the metric Volt, Ampere, second,
etc., I'm sorry, I just can't provide any help in this raging
controversy! (:-)

                 John Roberts
		 roberts@icst-cmr.ARPA

------------------------------

Date: 30 Mar 88 14:19:40 EST
From: Kevin.Dowling@rover.ri.cmu.edu
Subject: Design in English vs Metric
To: BBoard.Maintainer@a.cs.cmu.edu

I've been working on the design for a prototype Mars Rover here and I
find that 5-10% of our time here is making sure units work out. In the
english system it's horrible. Motor torque can be in oz-in, in-lbs,
ft-lbs. Motor manufacturer's literature are all different. Some use
combinations of units. A lb force is different from a lb mass etc etc.
I'm now much more comfortable using N-m for torque, N for force, kg for
mass, Watts for mechanical as well as electrical power. Converting by
shifting decimal points is a lot easier than *12 or /192 or etc etc...

I read recently that GM is switching to metric and GM believes it can
save millions of dollars per year by doing so. Not sure how they'll do
that but I'm looking forward to it. If GM does it then other industries
are sure to follow.

nivek
Aka :	Kevin Dowling		Bell:	(412) 268-8830
Arpa:	nivek@rover.ri.cmu.edu	Mail:	Robotics Institute
				Carnegie Mellon University
				Pgh, PA 15213-3890

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #178
*******************

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Date: Fri, 1 Apr 88 03:22:18 PST
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
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To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #179

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 179

Today's Topics:
			    Another letter
			MoonRise airline, ect.
		       Quote from Aviation Week
		    Re: very small launch vehicles
		       NASA FY89 Budget Request
		  Condensed CANOPUS - February 1988
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Mar 88 09:59:01 pst
From: Eugene N. Miya <eugene@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov>
Subject: Another letter


The following is part of a conversation I am having with a network
correspondent.  I am sympathetic to her situation.

--eugene

>From: cathyh@iscuva.iscs.com (Cathy Hooper)
>
>I never saw the original posting asking for replies, so didn't send in my
>"vote" for whatever it was you needed "ACKS" on.
>
>As to why more people don't apply to space companies for jobs, it's for many
>reasons.  I would LOVE to go into space.  Would love to even be associated
>with the effort to establish a human presence in space, but have personal
>and professional reasons why I can't at the moment. 
>
>I'm married and my husband refuses to
>live in most of the places where space-related industries live.  The
>exception is Boeing in Seattle, but I don't know how much I have to offer
>them sin ce my area of expertise does not really include heavy programming,
>just system/network management.  I am not sure I'd want to work for them given their reputation for hiring, chewing up, then discarding programmers and
>engineers either.
>
>If things change or I get the opportunity to contribute to the space
>program, you can bet I'll jump at the chance.  Until then, I have to content
>myself with reading the net and watching the space program, such as it is
>under current circumstances.  I do appreciate contributions to the net by
>people such as you who are much more in touch with the space program than I,
>though.
>
>
>>From your reply, I guess you really do understand the restraints of career 
>choices.  I have chosen to go with my personal life as the primary (mostly) 
>constraint in my career path.  My husband doesn't think so since I've asked 
>him to move several times in the past 15 years, but it's always worked out 
>well so far.  The only tough part is getting him to leave the state of 
>Washington.  He's from Massachusettes and swears he'll never go back to 
>something like that again :-) :-).
>
>Cathy,
>08-Mar-1988 14:04

------------------------------

Date:     Thu, 24 Mar 88 14:52 AST
From: <FNRJH%ALASKA.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Subject:  MoonRise airline, ect.

Robert J. Hale III
FNRJH@ALASKA

   I know  in a sci fi book their was a airlines that had sold tickets to the
moon years before they were flying to the moon.   One of my friends seems to
remember a REAL group putting out an add for such a flight.   Does anyone
remember this.    Please don't post the sci fi books with such plots.  Just
looking for the real thing and a copy of their add.   May have been about
three years ago.

   To the individal that posted that he and his friends were working on a
propane/ox launcher.  could you post how your project is going?

   I am some of my friends are trying to setup a group of space entrepreneurs.
Our main project  of interst is a Biosphere.   Does anyone out there have
any connections with someone who may have done some previous studys along
that line.   Will post as soon as possible a flyer on our group and what
we wish to do.

That is all for now.   Anyone out there doing some project that you think I
would be intersted in is encourged to write.

Robert

533 LongSpur Loop
Fairbanks Alaska 99709

Eternal dreams clamor and awake, we strive, climbing up the well.
Onward expanding never thining, we touch a star.

----------------------------------------------------
Back to the moon.   Build the new reasurch labs for
the future.

------------------------------

Date: 24 Mar 88 01:16:47 GMT
From: thumper!karn@faline.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Quote from Aviation Week

>From an article on a SDI satellite network experiment, Aviation Week,
25 Jan 1988, p 107:

"Data would be stored so that after our 30-min war is over, we would
be able to go back for a detailed analysis".

Nice thing to know.  Hopefully they will put the operational satellites
in high enough orbits so that thousands of years after the war, when (or
if) the human race re-evolves to space flight capability, their
space archeologists will be able to do a detailed analysis...

Phil

------------------------------

Date: 24 Mar 88 13:13:10 GMT
From: steinmetz!sungoddess!oconnor@itsgw.rpi.edu  (Dennis M. O'Connor)
Subject: Re: very small launch vehicles

Something like this already exists, although I'm not
sure of the exact payload rating. It's launched
from an F-15, I beleive, with the F-15 at maximum
altitude in a full-power climb.

It's called the ASAT : it's a satelite killer.
--
 Dennis O'Connor   oconnor%sungod@steinmetz.UUCP  ARPA: OCONNORDM@ge-crd.arpa
         ( I wish I could be civil all the time, like Eugene Miya )
  (-: The Few, The Proud, The Architects of the RPM40 40MIPS CMOS Micro :-)

------------------------------

Date: 24 Mar 88 20:34:55 GMT
From: cfa!willner@husc6.harvard.edu  (Steve Willner)
Subject: NASA FY89 Budget Request

Here's the NASA budget request for fiscal year 1989 (i.e. the year
beginning October 1, 1988).  The "1989" column shows the amount
requested by the President; Congress may (and undoubtedly will)
modify these amounts.  The "1988" column shows the amount
appropriated by Congress for the current fiscal year.  The first line
in each group is apparently the total for the group, with subsequent
lines giving allocations within the group.  Many groups must have
tasks not shown, since the totals are often greater than the sum of
the lines that follow.

This information comes from CANOPUS; see previous (and future)
postings for full credits.

Notable new starts are Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility (AXAF), a
long-life X-ray observatory, and Project Pathfinder, a collection of
advanced technology development projects.  Funding Pathfinder was one
of the recommendations of the Ride committee.  Also notable are the
large increase for Space Station and for the Shuttle.

NASA BUDGET SUMMARY (all figures in millions)

                                              FY 1988    FY 1989
RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT                         3294.5     4446.7

Space Station                                   392.3      967.4

Space Transportation                            609.8      631.1
  Upper Stages                                  154.9      146.2
  Spacelab                                       66.5       80.4
  Engineering & Technical Base                  133.9      158.9
  Payload Operations                             84.6       67.3
  Advanced Programs                              46.4       45.0
  Tethered Satellite System                      12.1       23.8
  Orbital Maneuvering Vehicle                    46.3       96.5
  Advanced Launch System                         65.1       13.0

Space Science & Applications                   1575.8     1859.6
Physics & Astronomy                             610.8      791.6
  Hubble Space Telescope                         93.1      102.2
  Gamma Ray Observatory                          53.4       41.9
  AXAF                                            0.0       27.0
  Global Geospace Science                        20.0      101.4
  Shuttle/Spacelab Payload Mission
    Management & Integration                     54.2       61.5
  Payload and Instrument Development             43.7       77.1
  Space Station Integrated Planning
    & Attached Payloads                          18.9        8.0
  Explorer Development                           67.9       82.1
  Mission Operations & Data Analysis            132.0      156.2
  Research and Analysis                          82.9       89.1
  Suborbital Program                             44.7       45.1

Life Sciences                                    69.5      101.7

Planetary Exploration                           329.2      404.0
  Galileo Development                            51.9       61.3
  Ulysses                                         7.8       10.3
  Magellan                                       73.0       33.9
  Mars Observer                                  53.9      102.2
  Mission Operations & Data Analysis             74.7      112.7
  Research & Analysis                            67.9       83.6

Space Applications                              566.3      562.3
  Environmental Observations                    313.5      368.3
  Materials Processing                           62.7       73.4
  Space Communication                            94.9       16.2
  Information Systems                            20.9       22.3

Commercial Programs                              73.7       57.9

Aeronautical Research and Technology            334.8      414.2
  Research and Technology Base                  251.6      314.2
  Systems Technology programs                    83.2      100.0

Space Research & Technology                     223.6      390.9
  Research and Technology Base                  108.4      134.1
  Civil Space Technology Initiative             115.2      156.8
  Pathfinder Program                              0.0      100.0
    Transfer Vehicle Technology                            (14.0)
    Humans-in-Space Technology                             (13.0)
    Exploration Technology                                 (17.0)
    Operations Technology                                  (41.0)
    Mission Studies                                        (15.0)

Transatmospheric Research and Technology         52.5       84.4
Safety, Reliability and Quality Assurance        14.1       22.4
Tracking and Data Advanced Systems               17.9       18.8

SHUTTLE PRODUCTION AND CAPABILITY DEVELOPMENT  1088.3     1400.5
SPACE SHUTTLE OPERATIONS                       1838.0     2405.4
TRACKING AND DATA                               884.4     1035.3
CONSTRUCTION OF FACILITIES                                 285.1

-- 
Steve Willner            Phone 617-495-7123         Bitnet:   willner@cfa
60 Garden St.            FTS:      830-7123           UUCP:   willner@cfa
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA                 Internet: willner@cfa.harvard.edu

------------------------------

Date: 24 Mar 88 22:49:32 GMT
From: cfa!willner@husc6.harvard.edu  (Steve Willner)
Subject: Condensed CANOPUS - February 1988

Here is the condensed CANOPUS for 1988 February.  There are eight
articles.  Three are given by title only, and the other five are
drastically condensed, though ellipses are omitted for simplicity.
The details of the NASA budget request (CON880207) were posted
separately.  Items in {braces} are my rephrasings and are signed
{--SW} if wholly new or my opinions only.

CANOPUS is published by the American Institute of Aeronautics and
Astronautics.  Send correspondence about its contents to the executive 
editor, William W. L. Taylor (taylor%trwatd.span@star.stanford.edu; 
e-mail to canopus@cfa.uucp will probably be forwarded).  Send
correspondence about business matters to Mr. John Newbauer, AIAA,
1633 Broadway, NY, NY 10019.  Although AIAA has copyrighted CANOPUS
and registered its name, you are encouraged to distribute CANOPUS
widely, either electronically or as printout copies.  If you do,
however, please send a brief message to Taylor estimating how many
others receive copies.  CANOPUS is partially supported by the
National Space Science Data Center.

{Three articles by title only}
SPACE TELESCOPE MANAGERS NAMED - can880203.txt - 2/15/88
{at NASA Marshall}
STOFAN TO RETIRE - can880204.txt - 2/15/88
JPL SPOKESMAN RETIRES - can880206.txt - 2/15/88
{Frank Collela} 

PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES SHUN SPACE HEARINGS - can880201.txt - 2/6/88
Contributed by William S. Kurth, University of Iowa.

On February 5, 1988, in Iowa City, IA, the House Subcommittee on
Space Science and Applications received testimony from scientists,
educators, and students on the goals of the U.S. space program.  Also
invited to testify, but conspicuously absent were the Presidential
candidates from both parties.  Nelson {subcommittee chairman} did
announce that candidates Gephardt, Simon, Gore, Bush, and Robertson
provided written testimony on their space policy to the committee
which would be entered into the record.

Interestingly, both {of two high school students invited to testify}
justified manned presence in space as a prerequisite to the time when
we would be required to move into space.  This requirement might be
caused by a breakdown in the Earth's environment or by severe
overcrowding; nevertheless, both had tacitly assumed that man would
eventually be required to go into space and we should begin to learn
about that environment as soon as possible.

BUDGET PLAN "STARTS" AXAF - can880207.txt - 2/18/88
{budget figures posted separately}

The Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility (AXAF) and the Pathfinder
technology program are the only "new starts" in the fiscal 1989
budget proposal for the National Aeronautics and Administration. The
$11.5 billion plan, released today, includes significant increases
for space science and astronomy programs as well as for space station
and other areas.

Major reasons for the budget increase are the return of the Space
Shuttle to operations, building to a flight rate of 10 launches in
fiscal 1990, and the growth of the Space Station program.

AXAF is a 1.1-meter aperture X-ray telescope that is expected to be
comparable to the Hubble Space Telescope for the high-energy
astrophysics community.  AXAF is the third of NASA's "Great
Observatories," the first two being HST and the Gamma Ray
Observatory.  Launch of AXAF is expected in 1995.  {Don't bet large
sums of money.--SW} Only the Space Infrared Telescope Facility has
not been started.  {We're hoping for a new start in FY 1993.--SW}

The Pathfinder technology program will entail "detailed studies and
technology development to provide a sound basis for future decisions
on approaches and missions to move human presence and activities
beyond Earth orbit and into the solar system," according to
Fletcher's prepared statement.

Space station funding is to be doubled in fiscal '89 under the budget
plan. At present NASA has $392 million allocated to station, although
money from fiscal 1987 and from the replacement Space Shuttle orbiter
raises that to $525 million, the minimum that NASA had claimed it
needed for the program. Fletcher said that the $967 million request
has the same urgency: "It doesn't have to be skinnied down very much
before it doesn't make any sense."

EARTH OBSERVING SYSTEM A.O. RELEASED - can880202.txt - 2/9/88

NASA has scheduled a March 22 preproposal briefing for the Earth
Observing System (EOS), the earth-oriented component of the Space
Station system.  {EOS will include two polar-orbiting platforms and
one platform co-orbiting with Space Station.} "EOS is a science
mission whose goal is to advance the understanding of the entire
Earth system on the global scale through developing a deeper
understanding of the components of that system," the NASA AO reads.
"The EOS mission will create an integrated scientific observing
system which will enable multidisciplinary study of the Earth" over a
long period of time.

OLD SATELLITES  - can880205.txt - 2/15/88

The International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE) continues to operate 
in good health on its 10th anniversary, more than triple its 
expected lifetime. More than 1,400 professional papers based on 
IUE observations were published during its 10th year of 
observations. 

A more recent NRL satellite has been monitoring the health of new
solar cell components on its third Living Plume Shield (LIPS-III) 
satellite since launch in the spring of 1987. LIPS is a plume 
shield jettisoned by an unnamed launcher's upper stage. The 
spacecraft spins at 30 rpm and uses small thrusters and 
electromagnetic pulses to keep itself facing within 0.5 degree of 
the sun. More than 140 solar cell components, including miniature 
cassegrain concentrators, are being tested aboard the spacecraft. 
Mission life is expected to be 3 to 5 years. LIPS-II, launched in 
1983, continues to operate.

TFSUSS SUCCESSOR FORMED - can880208.txt - 2/18/88

TFSUSS, popularly known as the Banks committee for former chairman
Peter Banks, issued several recommendations on making the space
station as "user friendly" and useful as possible for the science
community.  The new SSSAAS is a joint subcommittee of three NASA
Advisory Council committees: the Space and Earth Science Advisory
Committee, the Space Applications Advisory Committee, and the Life
Sciences Advisory Committee.
-- 
Steve Willner            Phone 617-495-7123         Bitnet:   willner@cfa
60 Garden St.            FTS:      830-7123           UUCP:   willner@cfa
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA                 Internet: willner@cfa.harvard.edu

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #179
*******************

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Date: Sat, 2 Apr 88 03:21:20 PST
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Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #180

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 180

Today's Topics:
		    Re: very small launch vehicles
			       KAL 007
		       Planets aligned in May?
		   Re: The moon as a research base
			   NASA Predictions
			    Ammonia fuels
			   Re: X-15 engine
			 Re: Mars Declaration
			     Welcome Back
		      Support Space Settlement!
			       KAL 007
		    Re: very small launch vehicles
		       Space Digest submission.
		       Libertarians love NASA?
			     Re: Harriman
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 25 Mar 88 05:24:16 GMT
From: jfc@athena.mit.edu  (John F Carr)
Subject: Re: very small launch vehicles

In article <10081@steinmetz.steinmetz.ge.com> oconnor%sungod@steinmetz.UUCP writes:
: Something like this already exists, although I'm not
: sure of the exact payload rating. It's launched
: from an F-15, I beleive, with the F-15 at maximum
: altitude in a full-power climb.
: 
: It's called the ASAT : it's a satelite killer.

Unfortunately for the space program, it can't carry a payload into orbit
(out of orbit, yes...).  I think it has a payload of a few tens of pounds,
lifted to LEO altitude at near zero velocity.

   John Carr           "No one wants to make a terrible choice
   jfc@athena.mit.edu   On the price of being free"           -- Neil Peart

------------------------------

Date:     Fri, 25 Mar 88 08:04 EST
From: RON PICARD <PICARD%gmr.com@relay.cs.net>
Subject:  KAL 007

>                They said it was on a spying mission.  Our President
> and our news did not present evidence that it was on a spying mission
> (all lights were out etc.) and made it appear that the soviets claimed
> it was a spy plane rather than a spying mission.

I remember reading that it was a passenger plane that was used for a 
spying mission (according to the U.S.S.R.).  I never heard any of the
evidence you mention.  This may not belong on the net but can you give
a run down of it?  Any sources would also be appreciated.

Ron Picard  (PICARD@GMR.COM)
General Motors Research Labs

------------------------------

Date: 22 Mar 88 19:06:00 GMT
From: bradley!bucc2!xevious@a.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Planets aligned in May?


   I don't know about anyone else out there, but I am wondering about
this major thing that is supposed to happen sometime in May. The
planets are supposed to be in line, or at least close to it. 
   Anyone have any ideas what effects this will have on Earth or any
other planet/satellite/sun?? There may not even be any, but it sure
would be interesting to hear everyones ideas! 
   Some of the rumors I have heard going around is that California
will fall into the ocean at about this time because of an earthquake
that was caused by this phenomenon. I guess Nostradomus (sp?)
predicted it to happen about this time. Of course he predicted that we
are supposed to have a war in the 90's and only 144,000 people will
survive. I guess we'll have to wait and see about that one.

						Phil Batson
					  Bradley University

          {ihnp4,uiucdcs,noao,cepu,attmail}!bradley!bucc2!xevious

------------------------------

Date: 24 Mar 88 22:02:08 GMT
From: pioneer!eugene@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Eugene N. Miya)
Subject: Re: The moon as a research base

In article <8803232057.AA19033@angband.s1.gov> ELIOT@cs.umass.EDU writes:
>The more I think about it the more I feel that the U.S. should scrap
>the space station in favor of a permanently manned lunar base.

Okay, I'll listen.  I favor both, but will probably get neither ;-).

>Some of the materials needed would be locally available saving $$$$ in
>transportation costs.  It would be a fabulous place for a large telescope.
>No atmospheric disturbance, without many of the hastles of a satelite.
>You wouldn't have to worry about occilations every time something twitches.
>You wouldn't gravitationally attract a dust cloud.  And you wouldn't
>need to use rockets for stabilization and pointing.  Furthermore, the
>orbit won't decay for a *very* long time.  

1) earth observation is made more difficult, so the remote sensing community
wouldn't like this,
2) you don't get cheap long-term 0-G or micro-G.
2a) can't study space sickness in the same way and similar human factors.
3) dust IS a major problem.
4) outgassing is a problem (still as well as with lunar material).
5) landing and take-offs or even surface transport do cause vibrations.

You are right, it is more stable, some materials are available (P.S. I have
to give Dale a chunk of anorthosite to get O2 out of it some day....

>From the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA
  "You trust the `reply' command with all those different mailers out there?"
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."
  {uunet,hplabs,hao,ihnp4,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene

------------------------------

Date: 25 Mar 88 10:02:45 MST
From: SHAVER@epg1-hua.arpa

>From Shaver's Screen
Subject: NASA Predictions
Could someone send me the telephone number of the Texas BB which has the
listing of two-line satellite elements predicted by NASA. Please

                                          John

------------------------------

Date: 	  Fri, 25 Mar 88 09:29:05 PST
From: BOWERYJ%CPVA.SAINET.MFENET@nmfecc.arpa

Subject: Ammonia fuels
Date:    Fri, 25-MAR-1988 09:31 PDT
X-VMS-Mail-To: SPACE

John Pantone asked about X-15 fuels making reference to orbital capability.

There is a guy here in San Diego doing work on cracked ammonia for hypersonic
flight.  It is, to mmy knowlege, the only work in this area right now and
it is not being funded by the NASP program (they're too busy believing
in LH2 to do their homework before acquiring all that juicey development
money -- sound familiar?).

His name is Andy Cutler and he's working for Energy Science Laboratories
in La Jolla.

------------------------------

Date: 22 Mar 88 21:30:27 GMT
From: mtune!mtunx!whuts!sw@rutgers.edu  (WARMINK)
Subject: Re: X-15 engine

In article <2690@calmasd.GE.COM>, jnp@calmasd.GE.COM (John Pantone) writes:
> Does anyone know what the fuel was for the X-15's engine?  It was
> throtleable and was apparently expected to eventually propell the X-15
> into orbit - something I think most people have forgotten.

Engine:     XLR-99
Fuel:       Anhydrous ammonia (NH3)
Oxidizer:   Liquid oxygen

The X-15 also carried a small supply of hydrogen peroxide for the
attitude control rockets. The main engine was developed by Reaction Motors
I believe, formerly in New Jersey. Helium and liquid nitrogen were used to 
pressurize the propelants.
Ammonia is poisonous and concentrated hydrogen peroxide will disassociate 
rapidly when it comes into contact with just about anything else!

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"We demand rigidly defined areas of    |  Stuart Warmink, APT UK Ltd.
 doubt and uncertainty" (Vroomfondel)  |  <ihnp4>!whuts!sw
-----------> My opinions are not necessarily those of APT UK Ltd. <-----------

------------------------------

Date: 24 Mar 88 23:36:24 GMT
From: phoenix!pucc!EWTILENI@princeton.edu  (Eric Tilenius)
Subject: Re: Mars Declaration

I'm strongly in favor of the Mars Declaration.  In fact, I was planning on
typing it up for the net.  I'll try to get to that tonight.
 
The space program needs a goal to inspire it again - this is just one
of the many, many reasons for supporting manned exploration of Mars.
 
The Declaration itself lists many of them, so I'll post that and let
you read it.  I'm asking for signatures of many at Princeton, and the
response has been quite positive.
 
If nothing else, and effort on this scale will help raise consciousness
about the wonders of space, and will help re-open discussion.
 
Large public support for The Mars Declaration is one of the best things
that we could do to help get the public behind the space program.  Support
for a mission like this would undoubtedly spin off into support for
other space projects.
 
As always, it would be up to us - and other space activists all over the
world - to KEEP that momentum.  But we have to get the ball rolling first,
and The Mars Declaration is an excellent way to do just that.
 
- ERIC -
 
*----------------------===>  SPACE IS THE PLACE... <===-----------------------*
*        ewtileni@pucc.Princeton.EDU  //  ewtileni@pucc.BITNET                *
*      rutgers!pucc.bitnet!ewtileni  //  princeton!pucc.bitnet!ewtileni       *
* ColorVenture - Microcomputer Software - "Because Life isn't Black and White"*
*--------------------===> Another proud CoCo 3 owner <===---------------------*

------------------------------

Date: 24 Mar 88 04:19:38 GMT
From: nisc.nyser.net!weltyc@nisc.nyser.net  (Christopher A. Welty)
Subject: Welcome Back


	For those few who remember me, I've been off
sci.space/space-digest now for about five months due to massive
workloads and marriage...  But now I'm back, and glad to be.  I just
read the past 100 messages and I see not much has changed...

	Somewhere in there was talk about the X-15.  Technically, the
sucker *did* go into space, since the AirForce defines it to be 50
miles.  Most of the Airforce X15 pilots earned astronaut wings (Scott
Crossfield wasn't in the AF - at the time - and wasn't allowed to fly
it that high).

	And when I look up, I see space is still there, too, and still
calling my name.

Christopher Welty  ---  Asst. Director, RPI CS Labs
weltyc@cs.rpi.edu       ...!rutgers!nysernic!weltyc

------------------------------

Date: 24 Mar 88 04:29:06 GMT
From: nisc.nyser.net!weltyc@nisc.nyser.net  (Christopher A. Welty)
Subject: Support Space Settlement!


	Just to get back into the swing of posting to this group:

Rep. George Brown (D) of California has proposed the `Space Settlement
Act of 1988' [HR 4218], which would add to NASA's charter the specific
goal of establishing space settlements, and would require NASA to
report on progress in this area on a regular basis.

Space enthusiasts are constant complainers, always being asked to
contact their congressman and say `don't do that'.  Now's our chance
to support something truly worthwhile.  

CALL/WRITE YOUR LOCAL CONGRESSMAN TODAY.  Tell him/her to co-sponsor
Brown's bill.  Tell him that it is important, and a great idea. 

Brown will be having a briefing on March 30th, 1-4PM.  Tell him to go.
This could be the beginning of something truly great.  It's easy to
get discouraged by beaurocracy, but we musn't ever give up the fight!
And it is important to show that we can compliment as much as
complain.... 

If you need info on how to contact your congrssman, let me know, I'd
be glad to help out.  It's something you should know whether you're a
space activist or not.


Christopher Welty  ---  Asst. Director, RPI CS Labs
weltyc@cs.rpi.edu       ...!rutgers!nysernic!weltyc

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 25 Mar 88 15:41:56 PST
From: Peter Scott <PJS@grouch.jpl.nasa.gov>
Subject: KAL 007
X-Vms-Mail-To: EXOS%"space@angband.s1.gov"

Well, the fact that the Soviets knew what kind of plane they were shooting
down works both ways: I am sure that even an entire fleet of Aeroflot
passenger planes circling over D.C. would not be molested, although they
would be greeted by a fair number of fighters.  Even if it were obvious
that they were on a spy mission, if they were passenger planes on
regularly-scheduled flights they would not be shot down; yet the Soviets
did exactly that and never apologised since.  In retrospect, apparently
it doesn't make any difference to the Soviets what you look like...

------------------------------

Date: 25 Mar 88 18:18:59 GMT
From: thumper!karn@faline.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: very small launch vehicles

> Something like this already exists, although I'm not
> sure of the exact payload rating. It's launched
> from an F-15, I beleive, with the F-15 at maximum
> altitude in a full-power climb.
> 
> It's called the ASAT : it's a satelite killer.

The American ASAT doesn't even come close to entering orbit. It is simply
lobbed into the path of an oncoming satellite, which then smashes into
it.

Orbital altitude is easy, orbital velocity is not.

Phil

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 26 Mar 88 11:22 EDT
From: "Ken Scherwenik (203) 431-5584" <SCHERENIK%sdr.slb.com@relay.cs.net>
Subject: Space Digest submission.


Date: 26-Mar-1988 16:17:56 GMT
From: scherenik@sdr.slb.com  (Ken Scherwenik)
Subject: Re: X-15 engine

In article <2690@calmasd.GE.COM>, jnp@calmasd.GE.COM (John Pantone) writes:
> Does anyone know what the fuel was for the X-15's engine?  It was
> throtleable and was apparently expected to eventually propell the X-15
> into orbit - something I think most people have forgotten.

There were actually two different engines used in the X-15 project.
The Reaction Motors, Inc. XLR11 was used on the first twentyfour powered flights.
This used ethyl alcohol-water as the fuel and liquid oxygen as the oxidizer.

Later flights used the Reaction Motors, Inc. XLR99 which used anhydrous
ammonia as fuel and liquid oxygen.

The XLR99 was thottleable from 25,000 - 50,000 lbs thrust at sea level and
could deliver 58,000 lbs thrust at 100,000 feet.

There were 199 flights altogether from 6/8/59 till 10/24/68.
Highest speed was 6.33 Mach set on 11/18/66 piloted by William Knight, USAF.
Highest altitude was 354,200 feet set on 8/22/63 piloted by Joe Walker of NASA.

I think initially the X-15 was seen as a possible orbital spacecraft, but
tests proved too little power and re-entry problems made that goal unpractical.

				Ken Scherwenik

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: 	  Sat, 26 Mar 88 08:26:56 PST
From: BOWERYJ%CPVA.SAINET.MFENET@nmfecc.arpa

Subject: Libertarians love NASA?
Date:    Sat, 26-MAR-1988 08:29 PDT
X-VMS-Mail-To: SPACE

A couple of weeks ago, I saw a message from Dale Amon asking us to lobby
for full NASA funding.  Dale is quite vocal in proclaiming himself to
be a libertarian.  When I talked to the Libertarian Party HQ in Washington
about their space policy, they recommended that NASA be abolished.  Even
the policy statement of a Libertarian Party presidential candidate was
clear in its stance that NASA had held back U.S. progress in space for
the last 20 years.  

What I want to know is, are all you supposed "libertarians" out there
who support NASA going to do something to get your party and candidates
to start "thinking right" or are you going to continue to discredit
yourselves and your political party by letting your party leaders 
advocate positions which are incompatible with your promotion of full
NASA funding?  These are obviously the only two realistic options that
we can ask of you since you obviously are incapable of rational thought
where NASA is concerned.

Of course you could TRY to explain to us all how "full funding for NASA"
is consitent with official Libertarian Party statements like "abolish
NASA" and "NASA has held back progress in space for the last 20 years."
Yeah, why don't you do that?  Should be worth a few yucks.

------------------------------

Date: 26 Mar 1988 15:17-EST 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: Harriman

I hope Heinlein isn't as accurate in some of the other parts of his
timelines. He had the USA under a religious dictatorship in the
1990's.... (Hmmm. Rev Jackson, Rev Robertson... NAhhh)

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #180
*******************

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Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #181

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 181

Today's Topics:
		     space news from Feb 29 AW&ST
		    Mir predictions - new formats
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 29 Mar 88 05:37:42 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Feb 29 AW&ST

[The moral of this week's summary is to make damn sure you sign up for
your Advanced Russian courses, and think about Introductory Chinese
while you're at it.]

Editorial claiming Reagan space policy is too little and too late: nice
words, but no specific projects, no solid push for funding, and no real
indication that Reagan himself is behind it.  "Is the state of the US
space program such an embarrassment to the Reagan Administration that it
wants only to go through the motions of articulating a space policy?"

First Delta 2 is behind schedule but there are hopes of making up the
delays; first launch still set for Oct.

The long-wave infrared signatures of simulated ICBM plumes did not match
predictions in the SDI Delta 181 experiment.  Details secret.

USAF safety officers brief Truly on USAF concerns that NASA safety area
for the shuttle is much too small if NASA sticks to its policy that
destruct systems will be used only if the orbiter is totally out of
control.  USAF says that if this policy continues, all of KSC should be
considered at risk during a launch and uninvolved observers should be
outside it.  This is particularly sticky because VIP and press sites
well within KSC are being built and renovated.

USSR is considering expanding its 1994 Mars balloon/rover missions to
include small return vehicles coming back to Earth from Mars orbit, as a
rehearsal for a later sample-return mission.  The return vehicles also
would bring back high-resolution film from orbiter cameras, as a
supplement to radio image transmission.  Other additions being thought
about are a 110-lb subsatellite for gravity measurements, ten small
weather transmitters to be dropped on the surface, a pair of penetrators
for subsurface science, and a 1m-resolution camera system for the
orbiters.  All of this, including the return vehicles, is contingent on
a decision to use aerobraking for Mars-orbit insertion, which would
greatly boost the payload of the missions.

USSR is also thinking about missions further afield.  Corona, possible
for 1995 launch, would do a Jupiter flyby to get within 5 million km of
the Sun.  Also being looked at is a Titan probe mission, including a
surface probe and a balloon, possibly for 1999.

NASA would like to get both CRAF and Cassini (Saturn orbiter, Titan
probe) into FY90 budget, on the grounds that they use similar spacecraft
and doing them together would save money.  [Don't hold your breath.]

Mir crew prepares for EVA to install a new experimental solar panel
module on Mir's third solar array, replacing one of the four modules
already there.  The new section was delivered by Progress 34.

Redesigned SRB joints pass hot-firing tests with large deliberate flaws.

Massachusetts-based Payload Systems Inc books protein-crystallization
payloads onto Mir, starting 1989.  They have their export licence
already, too, so this is real.

Kayser-Threde of West Germany books three flights aboard Soviet unmanned
recoverable capsules, with the intent of developing equipment and
selling the experiment capacity to others.  They are still working on
export clearance.  They say the Soviets were surprisingly easy to deal
with.

Both PSI and K-T will supply their experiments in sealed cases which the
Soviets will not open.  Soviets also say that round-the-clock
supervision by company representatives is possible if desired.

Intospace (European company) signs contract with China to fly its
multi-user protein-crystal-growth facility, COSIMA, on a recoverable
capsule on a Long March this August, with another flight within a year.

Matra (French) books another microgravity flight aboard Long March.
(Its first was last fall.)

Satellite owners call for major revisions in the usual launch-contract
terms.  Current contracts impose penalty charges if payloads are not
ready but not if launcher is not ready.  Payments begin years before
launch and must be complete before launch.  And launch companies bear
little responsibility for the effects of launch failures.  The customers
want all of these to change.  Arianespace and Martin Marietta, who have
long waiting lists, say "impossible"; General Dynamics, hungry for
business, says "we'll make improvements".

CNES [French space agency] proposes to buy and operate a Caravelle
(small French jetliner) for microgravity flights.  ESA is considering
paying for the maintenance in return for access.  ESA has rented space
on NASA's microgravity KC-135 several times and would like more
convenient flights.

ESA prepares to revise industrial work assignments for Columbus
following Britain's decision not to participate.  The commitment
deadline has passed without a British commitment.  Later entry into the
program would require unanimous consent of the other participants.
Ariane 5 and Hermes also got no British commitment, but Britain wasn't
heavily into either one to begin with, while British Aerospace expected
to be prime contractor for the Columbus polar platform.

NASA and DoD discuss future of Shuttle-C unmanned heavylift shuttle
derivative.  Second-phase Shuttle-C study contracts are to go out by
late March, subject to funding (looking doubtful) and to outcome of turf
battles (notably with the USAF's ALS).  Shuttle-C configuration has
settled down some [or been settled down by NASA's prejudices?], with all
participants agreeing on a side-by-side layout much like the shuttle.

To the shocked surprise of absolutely nobody, NASA's leased-platform
specs closely resemble those of Space Industries's ISF.  Must be a
single shuttle payload with 2-3kcuft of pressurized volume, at least 30%
available for commercial use after accommodating the government,
shirt-sleeve environment with minimal help from the shuttle, normal
autonomous operation for 4-6 months, contingency operation for three
years without servicing or external reboost, ability to dock with
shuttle, orbital capability by end of FY93 with a bonus for earlier,
firm five-year fixed-price lease (subject to the vagaries of Congress,
of course).  US suppliers only.  Decision mid-July.

USAF exercises first option on Delta 2 contract, adding 7 to initial
order of 7.  Another option, for 6 more, remains.

Japanese CS-3A comsat launched by H-1 Feb 19, in Clarke orbit Feb 21.

Big spread on Space Industries and Spacehab.  SI expect to win NASA's
lease contract and will start bending metal then.  They expect the first
module to be ready for launch in 1991, with the first servicing mission
early 1992.  A second module could be added later in 1992.  ISF thinks
it can raise the $700M needed privately given a government commitment to
lease.

There is some government cynicism about SI, on the grounds that SI used
political pressure to get government business after it couldn't find any
commercial customers.  SI counters that the major reason for the lack of
commercial customers is the Challenger mess.

Spacehab says the only government support it needs is launch slots.
They hope for regular government use but are not asking for guarantees.
They have offered to barter use of part of their modules in return for
launch service, to avoid NASA having to explicitly spend money on it.
Of note is that it now looks possible to fly Spacehab together with
Spacelab; Spacehab says this could provide extended crew quarters and
storage for long Spacelab missions.  They also suggest fitting Spacehab
out as an animal facility, in hopes of solving some of the problems with
the Spacelab animal facilities.  Spacehab is also proposing their
modules as space-station expansion modules.

Both SI and Spacehab are interested in selling capacity overseas, since
foreign interest in microgravity work is much stronger.  They will need
government permission to do this.  One major uncertainty affecting both
is future shuttle pricing (not resolved by either NASA or the White
House so far); another is excessive reliance on reliable shuttle
operations.

JPL is flight-testing prototype equipment for the third shuttle radar
experiment, scheduled for spring 1991.

[Finally, this one is only marginally space news, but worth mentioning
for sheer entertainment value...]

Break Out The Photon Torpedos, Mr. Spock: SDI is funding studies of
"electromagnetic missiles", uncertain theoretical possibilities of
propagating radio energy in ways that partially avoid the inverse-square
law.  Apparently the idea is not totally ridiculous, but to date nobody
is sure whether there is any physical reality behind the mathematical
speculation.  Harvard is running experiments to check it out.

"Noalias must go.  This is           |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
non-negotiable."  --DMR              | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 31 Mar 88 22:51:23 GMT
From: snowdog@athena.mit.edu  (Richard Brezina)
Subject: Mir predictions - new formats


Hello everyone!

An observing window for Mir is coming up for us folks in the northern
hemisphere.  Those of you that were interested in receiving predictions
will get them soon.  The purpose of this article is largely to let
others know what I'm up to.  I will include predictions (in the next
entry) for San Francisco CA, since that (for some reason) seems to be a
particularly abundant source of interested people.  The rest of the
predictions will be distributed individually over e-mail.

If you would like to receive predictions yourself (in case you are not
already), just ask (please send e-mail to snowdog@athena.mit.edu - all
nets).  I would appreciate it if you send the geographical coordinates
of your locations as well as its name.  It makes things a lot faster.

What follows here is an explanation of the predictions which appear in
my next sci.space posting.  Those of you on the prediction list will
receive it individually as well.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Hello, space enthusiasts!

You will be receiving predictions for Mir passes for your location very
soon.  The format has changed since last time, as I have recently
implemented new software to do these predictions with.  The following
quick explanation should acquaint you with this format.

I think the best way of doing this is by example.  So, here is a sample
prediction:

 Prediction for:  Cambridge MA                  
 Lat:  42.370000  Lonw:   71.100000  Ht:    0.   Zone:   5.00000  DST:  1.0
 Satellite: MIR COMPLEX    86017A   16609   Age:   21.3 days   Unc:   385 sec
 Local Date: 1988  4  4

   TIME      MAG  ILL   AZ  EL   R.A.   DEC   RANGE  VANG
 --------  -----  ---  ---  --  -----  -----  -----  ----
 21:10:10    2.7   19  300  31  03:52   42.6    603  0.64
 21:10:20    2.5   21  308  33  03:45   49.2    575  0.70
 21:10:30    2.3   23  316  35  03:35   56.3    555  0.75
 21:10:40    2.1   26  326  36  03:18   63.6    545  0.78
 21:10:50    2.0   30  336  36  02:47   70.8    543  0.78
 21:11:00    1.9   33  345  35  01:45   77.3    551  0.76
 21:11:10    1.9   37  354  34  23:28   81.3    568  0.71
 21:11:20    1.9   41    2  32  20:33   80.3    593  0.66


Explanation:

1) Header:

The actual prediction is preceeded by a header which gives general
information about the location, satellite, and date; as follows:

The first line shows the location name.

The second line shows the latitude, west longitude, height above sea
level, time zone, and saving time for your location.  The latitude and
longitude are in DECIMAL DEGREES (not degrees/minutes/seconds!).  The
sea level height is in metres - I left it at zero for most locations
since it would not make much difference to the prediction.  (If you have
more accurate values of these three parameters, pass them along to me
and I'll update them.)  The time zone is in hours, and is equal to
Greenwich time minus Local Standard time.  The DST flag shows whether
Daylight Saving Time (Summer time) is in operation - it is 1 during
summer time operation and zero otherwise.  PLEASE check whether these
values are correct - I have been handling many of them and could have
made an error.  In particular, BEWARE of the DST flag.  DST comes into
effect right about now, and I have ASSUMED the rules for DST all over
the northern hemisphere are the same as for Toronto, Canada (where I
come from), namely, DST ON on the first Sunday of April and DST OFF on
the first Sunday of October.  This is an unreasonable assumption, but it
was the best I could do under the circumstances.  If your local DST
rules differ, please let me know.  In any case, you could still use the
predictions even if the DST is wrong by adding or subrtracting an hour
(as is appropriate).

The third line gives information about the satellite.  Its name,
international designator, and NORAD number appear in sequence.  The AGE
value shows how many days have elapsed since the orbit was determined.
This is a useful parameter to estimate prediction accuracy.  In
addition, an uncertainty value is provided - this shows the maximum
likely time error on the prediction and is based on the likely error in
the atmospheric density.  You should keep this error in mind when
observing - in the above example you might want to start observing some
8 minutes before the predicted pass and stick around for 8 minutes after
if the satellite does not show up on time.

The fourth line of the header shows the date in the format yyyy mm dd.

2) The Ephemeris:

A few points along the track are given, spaced out in such a way that
the satellite covers about 7 degrees on the sky between any two points.
With this format, you can easily plot the path on a star map.  A
description of each column follows.

TIME:   This is your LOCAL TIME, which takes into account your own time
	zone and the Saving time correction (if in effect).  The
	format is hh:mm:ss.

MAG:    The astronomical magnitude (brightness) of the satellite.
 	This is based on the averaged cross-section of the satellite,
	and so the prediction is by no means exact; with Mir I have
	seen deviations of up to 1 magnitude, probably due to the
	relative orientation of the spacecraft.

ILL:    This is the 'phase' of the satellite, completely analogous to
	the phases of the moon.  It is given in %.  It's not terribly
	important here, but it was already included in the program so
	I thought I might as well keep it there.  Note that solar cell
	panel reflections might occur if this value is >~ 90%.  These
	appear as 'flashes' which last a couple of seconds and are
	about 1-2 magnitudes in amplitude.

AZ:     This is the azimuth or bearing of the satellite.  It is an
	angle measured eastwards from north in the observer's horizon
	plane, so 0 = North, 45 =NW, etc.  You should be able to
        deduce that in the above example, Mir rises in the Norh-West,
	and culminates in the North.  Together with the elevation
	value (next column), it's a useful way of finding the
	satellite without using star maps.

EL:	This is the satellite's elevation, in degrees above the
	horizon.  For amateur observation purposes, the higher the
	satellite goes the better.  Overhead passes (EL=~ 90) are
	particularly spectacular.

R.A.    The satellite's Right Ascension, in hours and minutes.  The 
	assumed star chart epoch is 2000.0, but the error in using
	1950 maps is negligible for this purpose.  Together with the
	Declination, the RA can be used to make a plot of the
	satellite's path among the stars.

DEC.    The satellite's Declination, in degrees and decimals.
	Southern declinations are expressed as negative values.

RANGE   The distance, in km, between the satellite and the observer.
	As you can see from the example, near-circular orbit
	satellites make their closest approach near culmination
	(maximum elevation).

VANG    The angular speed of the satellite, in degrees per second.
	This tells us how fast the satellite will move.  For
	comparison, a satellite moving at 1deg/s (typical Mir speed)
	could pass in front of the moon in 1/2 s.

Shadow Considerations: Unfortunately, I did not have time to implement
anything to indicate shadow entry/exit into the present program.
However, the program DOES do a shadow check and you can be assured that
all the predictions you receive WILL be out of shadow.  You can deduce
that a satellite does enter shadow if the prediction is terminated
before the elevation goes down to 30 degrees (the normal cut-off limit).

Conclusion: I have taken up more space than necessary to explain all
this.  Oh well.  Please excuse the rather casual style (plus possible
grammar error and typos).  I figured I'd just throw this together very
quickly - I enjoy programming better than writing up doc.  Anyway, if
you have any questions, etc., please feel free to address them to me.
I'll be glad to answer them.

Good luck in observing Mir!

-Rich

(Richard Brezina; snowdog@athena.mit.edu)

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #181
*******************

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Date: Wed, 6 Apr 88 03:20:52 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
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To: Space@angband.s1.gov
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Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #182

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 182

Today's Topics:
	   Los Angeles Area Space Talk, 23 Apr 88, 7:30 PM
		     Mir elements, epoch 28 March
		   Re: space news from Feb 15 AW&ST
		   Mir predictions - email trouble
			MIR tracking Software
			   Mir distribution
		    Re: very small launch vehicles
		    Re: very small launch vehicles
		    Re: very small launch vehicles
		 Commercial launch vehicle companies.
		    Re: very small launch vehicles
		    Re: very small launch vehicles
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Posted-Date: Sat, 26 Mar 88 14:35:32 PST
From: Craig Milo Rogers <Rogers@venera.isi.edu>
Reply-To: Rogers@venera.isi.edu
To: BBoard@venera.isi.edu, Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: Los Angeles Area Space Talk, 23 Apr 88, 7:30 PM
Date: Sat, 26 Mar 88 14:35:32 PST
Sender: rogers@venera.isi.edu

		   Space Technology Comes to Earth and
		Commercial Applications of Space Technology

	John Graham of NASA's Industrial Applications Center will show
us how space technology affects our lives today, and what the products
of space development will bring to our future.  This presentation,
open to the public, will be given in Rockwell International's DEI
Room, 12214 Lakewood Blvd. in Downey, California, on Saturday, April
23, starting at 7:30 PM.

	Other speakers will include Herb Asbury, Director of the NASA
Industrial Application Center at USC; E. A. Brown, Project Manager for
Commercial Uses of Space, Boeing Aerospace Operations; and Richard P.
Macleod, Executive Director of the United States Space Foundation.

	The National Space Act of 1958, which established NASA, also
required NASA to transfer its research efforts into the commercial
sector.  The NASA Industrial Application Center at USC (NIAC) was one
of the original Industrial Application centers.  Three topics will be
covered in this meeting: 1) the NIAC Associate in Technology Transfer
Program, which provides commercial access to scientific databases,
NASA researchers and NASA facilities, 2) the NASA Commercial
Utilization of Space program, a program to introduce companies to
doing business in space, and 3) a presentation by the United States
Space Foundation on "Space Challenge 88", a call to action.

	This lecture is one of many activities sponsored by the
Organization for the Advancement of Space Industrialization and
Settlement (OASIS), the Greater Los Angeles Area chapter of the
National Space Society.  The organization is a non-profit educational
group which promotes space development.

	The public is invited; there is no admission charge.  For more
information about this lecture or other OASIS activities call the
OASIS Message Machine at (213) 374-1381 or Craig Milo Rogers
<Rogers@ISI.Edu>. [Note:  We do not normally make transcripts of these
meetings.]

------------------------------

Date: 4 Apr 88 18:16:00 GMT
From: kenny@b.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Mir elements, epoch 28 March


Satellite: Mir        
Catalog id 16609
Element set 129
Epoch: 88 88.88923772
Inclination:  51.6249 degrees
RA of node: 121.2282 degrees
Eccentricity:  0.0010907
Argument of perigee: 273.8583 degrees
Mean anomaly:  86.0830 degrees
Mean motion: 15.79167867 revs/day
Mean motion acceleration: 0.00020709 * 2 revs/day/day
Epoch Revolution: 12116

Semimajor axis:    6710.89 km
Apogee height*:     340.05 km
Perigee height*:     325.41 km


		Source: NASA Goddard via T.S.Kelso's `Celestial RCP/M'

* Apogee and perigee altitudes are referred to the mean radius of the
  Earth (6378.15 km), and not to the local radius of the geoid.  They
  are only approximate, and should not be used for orbit prediction.

------------------------------

Date: 24 Mar 88 11:12:47 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!its63b!hwcs!adrian@uunet.uu.net  (Adrian Hurt)
Subject: Re: space news from Feb 15 AW&ST

In article <505@siemens.UUCP>, steve@siemens.UUCP (Steve Clark) writes:
> In article <5856@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu> kevin@cit-adel.UUCP (Kevin Van Horn) writes:
> >[...]  The Soviets shot down something that merely looked like it
> >might be a spy plane (flight KAL 007) [...]

007? It must have been a spy plane, then! :-)
 
> You touched a nerve here.  The Soviets never NEVER said the 747 looked
> like a spy plane.  They said it was on a spying mission.

Well now, what about the genuine spy planes, on spying missions? The
SR-71's, for example? And what about the "Bears", those huge prop-driven
Russian planes we often see photos of, being escorted out of your
airspace by your fighters?  Even if the 747 was on a spying mission,
does that entitle the Russians to shoot it down? If so, why doesn't the
USAF (or RAF, for that matter - we get them too) shoot down these
intruders - with much less loss of civilian life.

I imagine there would be much more of an outcry if a USAF Phantom shot
down an airliner, even if there were clear evidence it was up to no
good.

 Adrian Hurt			     |	JANET:  adrian@uk.ac.hw.cs
 UUCP: ..!ukc!cs.hw.ac.uk!adrian     |  ARPA:   adrian@cs.hw.ac.uk

------------------------------

Date: 1 Apr 88 06:17:03 GMT
From: snowdog@athena.mit.edu  (Richard Brezina)
Subject: Mir predictions - email trouble


Hello again,

Sorry for having to post this rather useless message, but there is no
other way out:

I had some trouble sending predictions to the following people:

Tim Donahue    from  Cambridge MA (or therebouts)
Kevin Ryan     from  Pittsburgh PA

If you still want to receive Mir predictions, please drop off a note to
me; I should be able to figure out your address from there.  Thanks!

-Rich

snowdog@athena.mit.edu

------------------------------

Date: 1 Apr 88 16:39:07 GMT
From: ulysses!mhuxo!mhuxu!davec@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Dave Caswell)
Subject: MIR tracking Software

Does anyone have any satalite tracking software that runs under UN*X? I
have downloaded an SPG-4 program from T.S. Kelso's BBS system, but I
only got mysterious error messages, and no numerical output.

Or if you have a referance to any documentation to SPG4 orbit algorithm,
that would also be useful.

Thanks,
	Dave CAswell
	davec@mhuxu.att.com
-- 
    --->Dave Caswell
	{allegra|ihnp4|...}!mhuxu!davec

------------------------------

Date: 5 Apr 88 07:13:38 GMT
From: snowdog@athena.mit.edu  (Richard Brezina)
Subject: Mir distribution


Hi!

For those of you on the Mir prediciton list, the new updates will be mailed
today (Tuesday the 5th), between 3:40 and 4:30 pm EDT.  This will include
tonight's prediction, so read your mail early!

Al Holecek of Abilene TX and Bob Ayers of San Francisco have independetly
observed Mir and measured it at about 3 minutes early with respect to the
predictions you'll get (about 1/2 min late wr to the old predictions).
My thanks to you for your valuable observations.

-Rich

(snowdog@athena.mit.edu)

------------------------------

Date: 25 Mar 88 18:04:42 GMT
From: telesoft!roger@ucsd.edu  (Roger Arnold @prodigal)
Subject: Re: very small launch vehicles

In article <10081@steinmetz.steinmetz.ge.com>, Dennis M. O'Connor writes:
> Something like this already exists, although I'm not sure of the exact
> payload rating. It's launched from an F-15, I beleive, with the F-15
> at maximum altitude in a full-power climb.
> 
> It's called the ASAT : it's a satelite killer.

>  Dennis O'Connor   oconnor%sungod@steinmetz.UUCP  ARPA: OCONNORDM@ge-crd.arpa

The ASAT doesn't put anything into orbit.  It reaches orbital altitude,
dead in the path of an orbiting satellite, but with no significant
horizontal velocity.  If it didn't strike the satellite, it would
promptly fall back to earth.

It only takes a delta vee around 2200 mps to reach orbital altitude, vs.
8000 mps for a vehicle launched in the manner we're discussing, or about
9200 mps for a conventional launch.  That's one of the big problems with
any SDI system that depends on satellites in LEO; the advantage is
overwhelmingly on the ASAT side.

- Roger Arnold				..ucsd!telesoft!roger

------------------------------

Date: 25 Mar 88 17:49:24 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: very small launch vehicles

> Something like this already exists, although I'm not sure of the exact
> payload rating... It's called the ASAT...

Its payload to orbit is zero.  It only reaches orbital *altitude*, not
orbital *velocity*.  For intercepting satellites, one does not *want* to
reach orbital velocity, because the 8-kps velocity difference between
the interceptor and the target makes a warhead superfluous if the
guidance is accurate enough for a direct hit.

The hard part of launching satellites is velocity, not altitude.
-- 
"Noalias must go.  This is           |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
non-negotiable."  --DMR              | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 25 Mar 88 14:39:34 GMT
From: B.GP.CS.CMU.EDU!Ralf.Brown%B.GP.CS.CMU.EDU@pt.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: very small launch vehicles

In article <10081@steinmetz.steinmetz.ge.com>, oconnor@sungoddess.steinmetz (Dennis M. O'Connor) writes:
}Something like this already exists, although I'm not sure of the exact
}payload rating.

However, the ASAT doesn't go into orbit, it just goes straight up.  If it 
misses it target, it falls back to earth.  I seem to recall that there were
speculations that it doesn't necessarily need a warhead, as the orbital
velocity of the satellite smashing into the ASAT would do quite a bit of 
damage.

------------------------------

Date: 27 Mar 88 03:49:43 GMT
From: gaserre@athena.mit.edu  (Glenn A. Serre)
Subject: Commercial launch vehicle companies.

I heard (read, whatever) someone on the net refer to a company with a
name like "Pacific America" (or something like that) that is supposed to
be working on producing a launch vehicle.  Does someone out there know
anything about this company?  If you do, please send me the company's
address or home city.

Also, if anyone out there knows of other private companies (besides the
established ones) that are making launch vehicles, please let me know
(I'd be interested in working for them.).

Thanks in advance.

                                --Glenn Serre
                                  gaserre@athena.mit.edu

------------------------------

Date: 29 Mar 88 11:31:29 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!its63b!bob@uunet.uu.net  (ERCF08 Bob Gray)
Subject: Re: very small launch vehicles

In article <231@telesoft.UUCP> roger@telesoft.UUCP (Roger Arnold @prodigal) writes:
>I don't believe that these problems preclude any chance of success for
>a private launch company, but they do imply certain constraints.  To
>have a reasonable chance of success, I suggest that a private launch
>company:
>
>   a) design its launcher for the smallest payload for which a decent
>      market can be realistically projected;
>   
>   b) limit itself to vehicle designs that don't require new ground-
>      based launch facilities.  
>
>Making the launcher as small as possible limits development costs, and
>makes it possible to do something interesting with what could
>reasonably be expected from venture financing.  Avoiding new ground-
>based launch facilities either means compatibility with existing
>government launch facilities, or the capability to launch from sea or
>air.

Teledyne Brown engineering are proposing to build a system for launching
shuttle sized payloads weighing up to 6,300 Kg into a space station
orbit.

Launch is from the back of a B-747 carrier aircraft.

The spaceplane is 100% re-useable and is built from currently existing
technology. The engines are SSMEs and no other booster rockets are
needed.

Anyone interested should see the article in the December 1987 issue of
"Spaceflight" (P. 417) for further details.

I realise that this is a larger machine than that proposed by the
original poster, but there is probably a minimum economic size of craft
for air launching, once the costs of the carrier aircraft are added in.
	Bob.

------------------------------

wDate: 3 Apr 88 05:04:27 GMT
From: ssc-vax!eder@beaver.cs.washington.edu  (Dani Eder)
Subject: Re: very small launch vehicles

Or, you could write to Teledyne Brown directly, and ask for a copy of a
presentation entitled "Proposed concept for a Spaceplane" dated
September 11, 1986.  Their address is Cummings Research Park,
Huntsville, AL 35807.

As for the cost of the carrier airplane, you can get 50% of the
performance of a 747 for 1-2% of the cost by buying an old 707.  They
sell, I am told, for 0.5-2.5 million $US, depending on the number of
hours left before the engines have to be overhauled.

The rest of this article is taken from the aforementioned TBE
presentation, which I have a copy of:

Payload estimated at about 14,000 pounds (6-7000 kg) No human pilots.

Launch Profile:
	747 makes maximum performance climb.
	747 initiates pullup at 38,700 ft.
	Separation at 30 degrees above horizon flight path,
		altitude 39,400 ft, speed Mach 0.68
	747 throttles back to glide idle power and
		clides back to takeoff runway, and lands
		with minimal fuel reserves, while
	Spafceplane accelerates to 7.9 km/sec at 80 km altitude
		in 310 seconds

[sorry for the mixed units, but that's the way it's written in the
presentation.]

Space plane configuration:

	One Space Shuttle Main Engine plus six RL-10 engines.  Both
engines burn liquid oxygen/liquid hydrogen.  Oxygen tank forward of
engines, then cargo bay, hydrogen tank, nosegear, and electronics.

Length=130 ft
Wingspan=72 ft
Payload bay= 15 ft diameter x 28 ft long
Takeoff mass 172,000 kg (380,000 lb)
Landing mass 18,400 kg (40,600 lb), no payload included
Mission altitude= 400 km circular orbit.
Plan view is similar to space shuttle orbiter
Winglets, no vertical tail.
Weight margin 2000 kg out of 18,373.

Note that the Spaceplane and the Phoenix by Gary Hudson at Pacific
American Launch Systems, have about the same fueled mass, but the
spaceplane has a 14,000 lb payload vs. 20,000 claimed for the Phoenix,
an 11% weight growth margin vs 4.7% for the Phoenix, and gets a ride to
altitude vs. ground start for the Phoenix.

While no one I believe has checked the weight statement, this is a much
more conservative design than the Phoenix.

Development cost estimate (also unchecked by anyone I believe)
$940 million
Operations for 140 flights: $1193 million.
Purchase and modification of 747 carrier: $250 million

Total cost: $2383 million

Average cost/flight to break even in 140 flights, not counting cost of
money: $16 million

Cost/lb: $1100 (about 25% of the current cost for expendables and the
Shuttle)

Dani Eder/Boeing/Space Station Program/ssc-vax!eder

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #182
*******************

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Date: Thu, 7 Apr 88 03:20:42 PDT
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Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #183

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 183

Today's Topics:
		    Re: Support Space Settlement!
			 Re: Mars Declaration
			 Re: Mars Declaration
			 Re: Mars Declaration
			 Re: Mars Declaration
			   Mars Declaration
		Re: MARS DECLARATION & SIGNATURE FORM
		Re: MARS DECLARATION & SIGNATURE FORM
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 25 Mar 88 17:46:29 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Support Space Settlement!

> Rep. George Brown (D) of California has proposed the `Space Settlement
> Act of 1988' [HR 4218], which would add to NASA's charter the specific
> goal of establishing space settlements, and would require NASA to
> report on progress in this area on a regular basis.

I'm afraid that the sensible thing to do is to oppose this bill unless
it also provides guaranteed *funding* for this activity.  NASA's biggest
problem (besides being a government agency, I mean...) is the widening
gap between goals and funding.  Adding more goals is exactly the wrong
thing to do at this time, however much we might approve of them.

Now if the bill requires that (say) 10% of all revenues from tobacco taxes
be spent on it, *that* would be different.
-- 
"Noalias must go.  This is           |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
non-negotiable."  --DMR              | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 25 Mar 88 14:46:18 GMT
From: att-cb!clyde!watmath!utgpu!utcsri!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!postmaster@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (John Hogg)
Subject: Re: Mars Declaration

In article <3761@mtgzz.UUCP> dls@mtgzz.UUCP (XMRP50000[jto]-d.l.skran) writes:
>I recently received a copy of the Planetary Society Mars Declaration.
>Basically, it's a straight forward and carefully worded call for the
>human exploration of Mars.
  ...
>Suppose the PS gets what they're asking for -- a joint US/USSR trip to
>Mars.
  ...
>I'd like to see a sophisticated discussion of the good/bad that would
>come of a Mars trip that moves beyond a general feeling that we'll go
>there, plant a flag, and the whole thing will be canceled.
  ...
>I consider it very likly that it WILL be canceled that day after the
>flag is stuck in the Martian ground.

Perhaps one of the greatest advantages of a joint project is that an
Apollo-style one-shot is far less likely to occur.  The Soviet pattern
of space exploration has been conservative but steady progress, with few
retreats.  The hardest part of a Mars expedition would be getting there
in the first place, not staying there.  Therefore, when the red flag is
planted in the red planet, it will remain for a long time, regardless of
the whims of any partners.  For reasons of politics and prestige, NASA
would then be forced to support a continuing American presence.

Barring distractions such as a nuclear war, the Soviets *will* mount a
manned expedition to Mars.  The presence or absence of an American
contribution will affect when this happens, but not whether or not it
comes to pass.  In either case, ESA will probably be in on it.

I wonder whether we could contribute some ``robot'' arms...

John Hogg			   | hogg@csri.toronto.{edu,cdn}
Computer Systems Research Institute| uunet!csri.toronto.edu!hogg
University of Toronto		   | hogg%csri.toronto.edu@relay.cs.net (arpa)
				   | hogg@csri.utoronto (bitnet)

------------------------------

Date: 25 Mar 88 17:52:52 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Mars Declaration

> The space program needs a goal to inspire it again - this is just one
> of the many, many reasons for supporting manned exploration of Mars.

The space program needs an ongoing goal that cannot be perverted into a
one-shot mission which leaves us not much better off than we were
before.  This is just one of the many, many reasons for opposing a big
push in manned Mars exploration at this time.  If you want more, you
should read the Ride Report, which said "Mars should not be our
immediate goal" and justified it at length.
-- 
"Noalias must go.  This is           |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
non-negotiable."  --DMR              | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 25 Mar 88 20:54:40 GMT
From: ihnp4!ihlpa!animal@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (D. Starr)
Subject: Re: Mars Declaration

In article <3761@mtgzz.UUCP>, dls@mtgzz.UUCP (XMRP50000[jto]-d.l.skran) writes:
(PS := Planetary Society)

> Suppose the PS gets what they're asking for -- a joint US/USSR trip to
> Mars. What are the possible good effects of this for space
> development?

If we're talking about long-term exploration, exploitation and
habitation of space, we need to provide the following:

Useful scientific information, to keep Van Allen and the
planetary-science people happy.  A mission to Mars could provide some of
this, though it may not the most cost-effective way to get answers to
specific questions.

A demand for large-scale earth-to-orbit transportation, to force the
development of a routine heavy-lift capability.  Mars is not as large a
demand as SDI might be, but it's cheaper and more salable.

A commitment to have the large-scale earth-to-orbit transportation be
operated by the private sector, not the government.  This is an
organizational issue; the cargo being carried has nothing to do with it.

The ability to live and work in a genuinely long-term, independent space
habitation.  A space station resupplied from the ground every month
doesn't force the development of this capability; a multi-year trip to
another planet would seem to need it.  Of course, this is also a risk.

Entertainment value for the people who pay the bills.  The detailed
radio-scattering analysis of the rings of Saturn do not excite the
taxpayers the way the pictures of a thousand ringlets did.  This is one
of the reasons Voyager had a camera; one earlier posting remarked that
the camera was almost left out because scientists couldn't find a good
purpose for it.

The last requirement, entertainment value, is the place where the Mars
proposal beats the pants off the other alternatives.  We could endlessly
debate the moral issues, but the reality is that the taxpayers see the
primary value of space as providing some government activity a bit more
enjoyable to watch than Iranamok or $600 toilet seats.  INDUSTRIAL SPACE
STATIONS WON'T SATISFY THIS NEED.  NOR WILL A MOON BASE.  Neither is
"big" enough.  We've been to orbit.  We've been to the moon.  Mars is
essential to creating the necessary romance.

Now, the danger--and the challenge to space lobbying groups--has to do
with the fact that the public will lose interest once we've planted our
respective flags (Question--if we go with the USSR, whose flag gets
planted first?  Maybe we should include two video channels, so each
country can see its own flag being planted "first" simultaneously).  The
problem with Apollo was that when the public lost interest, all the
technology created by the moon missions was still in the hands of the
government.  This mistake must not be repeated.  The ideal Mars mission
would be a government-owned interplanetary spacecraft assembled at a
privately-owned space station from parts lifted into orbit by privately
built launchers.  The government's involvement in any portion of the
project that also supports current commercial needs (presently transport
to orbit, in-orbit manufacturing, communications and remote sensing)
should be limited to purchasing these services from private vendors.
NASA should be ordered to do what it does best--organize, develop and
coordinate the really new, leading-edge part of the job; namely building
the interplanetary vehicle.  I would even maintain that our commercial
remote-sensing capabilities have reached the point where even the
pre-departure remote surveys of Mars (Mars Observer and its followups,
for instance) should really be contracted out to private industry (eg,
Spot Image).

In short, a Mars mission could provide a demand for a real commercial
space capability--but only if the program is carefully managed to do so.
If it comes out as a strictly in-house NASA thing, it will be a dead
end.

------------------------------

Date: 26 Mar 88 23:46:03 GMT
From: phoenix!pucc!EWTILENI@princeton.edu  (Eric Tilenius)
Subject: Re: Mars Declaration

In article <1988Mar25.175252.910@utzoo.uucp>, henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
 
>The space program needs an ongoing goal that cannot be perverted into a
>one-shot mission which leaves us not much better off than we were
>before.  This is just one of the many, many reasons for opposing a big
>push in manned Mars exploration at this time.  If you want more, you
>should read the Ride Report, which said "Mars should not be our
>immediate goal" and justified it at length.
 
Just because something CAN be perverted into a one-shot deal does not
mean that it is either likely to be, or that it will be, especially if
we see that it remains part of a bigger picture of development.
 
Currently, the space program is in a precarious position as we have no
long-term commitments, except the space station, and funding for that
has been cut.
 
Mars is a long-term, many-year goal, and its international/political
aspects will help insure that we do not cut funding.  To do so would be
to lose face in a way the U.S. is unlikely to do.
 
Further, as someone else pointed out, a mission of this sort is likely
to put public support behind the space program -- a space station is
much less likely to do this, and hasn't done this, despite all the
McDonnell-Douglas ads to the contrary.
 
As for the Ride Report, Sally Ride herself has signed to Mars
Declaration.
 
(Read that list of signatories carefully - you'll find it interesting.)

*        ewtileni@pucc.Princeton.EDU  //  ewtileni@pucc.BITNET                *

------------------------------

Date: 22 Mar 88 22:57:29 GMT
From: mtune!mtgzz!dls@rutgers.edu  (XMRP50000[jto]-d.l.skran)
Subject: Mars Declaration

I recently received a copy of the Planetary Society Mars Declaration.

Basically, it's a straight forward and carefully worded call for the
human exploration of Mars. Hopefully, I or someone else will type it in
at some point.

What does the net think of the PS's drive to get 1,000,000 signatures on
this document? Consider its effectiveness as an organization building
technique.

Should it be supported at all, or is it a distraction from the effort of
focusing our space efforts on economic return rather than "space
spectaculars?"

Should groups like NSS support it?

Should they support it actively?

Should groups like NSS actively support it, but only at some price?

Suppose the PS gets what they're asking for -- a joint US/USSR trip to
Mars. What are the possible good effects of this for space development?
What are the possible bad effects?

I'd like to see a sophisticated discussion of the good/bad that would
come of a Mars trip that moves beyond a general feeling that we'll go
there, plant a flag, and the whole thing will be canceled.

I consider it very likly that it WILL be canceled that day after the
flag is stuck in the Martian ground. Will it be worthwhile even so?
Note that this is akin to asking if Apollo was worthwhile.


Finally, what would be the effect of chosing Mars as a goal over a Lunar
base(the only other major choice in the running)?


Please respond to the net. I think the discussion will be of general
interest.


Dale Skran
(not Amon)
mtgzz!dls

------------------------------

Date: 28 Mar 88 09:48:11 GMT
From: phoenix!pucc!EWTILENI@princeton.edu  (Eric Tilenius)
Subject: Re: MARS DECLARATION & SIGNATURE FORM

In article <8570@reed.UUCP>, douglas@reed.UUCP (P Douglas Reeder) writes:
 
>    I, however, prefer not to be a pessimist.  Instead I ask:
>
>"What can and should be done to ensure that the Mars mission will not
>END UP the same way as Apollo?"
 
I would first argue that the Apollo was not a failure just because the
space program did not continue AT THE SAME PACE.  Also, without Apollo
we may not have had much of any space program at all.
 
However, since it seems that the pace of exploration and the space
program is a big concern, there are a few things which can be done now
to assure a long lasting, rather than a one-shot deal:
 
1. We have to get some broad, public base issue that will guarantee
start funding for a program.  For many reasons already mentioned,
signing the Mars Declaration can help with this.
 
2. Team up with the Soviets and other nations!  The Soviets are
unlikely, as another poster noted, to give up on their program.  In a
world political situation, the U.S. will be forced to keep up in the
space race once we start.  A joint mission can put national pressure to
keep going.
 
3. Give contract chunks to many private enterprise firms and have NASA
supervise.  The power of capitalism will mean that the companies
involved in the program will push their hardest to make sure such a
program continues.  When more people are involved in making SPACE
equipment than WEAPONRY, you'll see the sort of resistance to cutting
that budget that we see in the defense budget nowadays.  Although that's
a long way off (and assuming it's ever true), even a small degree of
space industry will help insure long life.  And, unlike the
military-industrial complex, the space industries have distinctly
positive benefits.
 
Any other ideas out there?
 
- ERIC -

*        ewtileni@pucc.Princeton.EDU  //  ewtileni@pucc.BITNET                *

------------------------------

Date: 29 Mar 88 12:10:23 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!its63b!bob@uunet.uu.net  (ERCF08 Bob Gray)
Subject: Re: MARS DECLARATION & SIGNATURE FORM

In article <8570@reed.UUCP> douglas@reed.UUCP (P Douglas Reeder) writes:
>"What can and should be done to ensure that the Mars mission will not
>END UP the same way as Apollo?"

The obvious answer is to carry out the mission in such a way as to
ensure that exploration can continue afterwards.

I posted a suggestion a year or so ago on this subject with little
response, so let me try again.

The next major mission should be to the near earth asteroids.

There was a posting about them I include below.

>DIETZ@slb-test.CSNET Writes.
> E. Tedesco and J. Gradie report (Astrophysical Journal, 93(3), March
> 1987) the detection of the first two M class near earth asteroids.
> Colorimetry, visual and IR photometry and 10 and 20 micron radiometry
> were used to classify the asteroids 1986 DA and 1986 EB.

> 1986 DA's orbit crosses Mars but not Earth, making it an Amor object,
> while 1986 EB's orbit crosses Earth (and Venus) and has a semimajor
> axis < 1 AU, making it an Aten object:
> 
>   1986 DA     a = 2.811 AU    q = 1.166 AU    (MPC 10628, 1986)
>   1986 EB     a =  .974 AU    Q = 1.247 AU    (MPC 10625, 1986)
> (a = semimajor axis, q = perihelion, Q = apohelion, MPC = Minor
> Planets Calendar)

> Both are about 2 km across. Class M asteroids are believed to be
> mostly metal. Radar observations of 16 Psyche, another class M
> asteroid with similar spectra, are indicative of a largely metallic
> body.

Shifting these asteroids into an eliptical orbit which comes close to
both Mars and Earth would create a waystation which could then be
colonised.

Advantages of this approach.

	Large amounts of raw material for construction work and
	radiation shielding.

	A permanent transpost system would be in place.

	Passengers do not need to carry large amounts of equipment with
	them. This is stored on the asteroid/station

	With large amounts of metal available for construction, a
	centrifuge to simulate gravity could be built, reducing or
	eliminating the problems of prolonged weightlessness.

Disadvantages.
	
	Nuclear explosives needed to alter orbit of asteroid

	The launch velocity needed to reach the asteroid is almost the
	same as to go to Mars.

	Supplies are needed to keep the station going on a permanent
	basis.

The station could best be supplied by a luner mass launcher, so that
means a lunar base is needed first anyway.

Would anyone else like to add to the list?
	Bob.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #183
*******************

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Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #184

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 184

Today's Topics:
		   Re: The moon as a research base
		   Re: The moon as a research base
			  STS-26 simulation
		    Re: Feynman's last trip report
		  commercialism of the cpace program
		Re: commercialism of the cpace program
			   Abolishing NASA
	 Moon or Mars? Editorial in _Air & Space Smithsonian_
       Re: Moon or Mars? Editorial in _Air & Space Smithsonian_
       Re: Moon or Mars? Editorial in _Air & Space Smithsonian_
       Re: Moon or Mars? Editorial in _Air & Space Smithsonian_
			   Re: X-15 engine
			   Re: X-15 engine
			   Re: X-15 engine
		    Re: fuels other than hydrogen
		    Re: fuels other than hydrogen
			   Re: X-15 engine
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 26 Mar 88 05:59:14 GMT
From: tektronix!reed!douglas@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (P Douglas Reeder)
Subject: Re: The moon as a research base

The far side of the moon is, of course the best place in the solar
system for radio astronomy, being permanently shielded from Earth's
radio noise by thousands of kilometers of rock.

Doug Reeder 
 from  ARPA: !tektronix!reed!douglas@Berkley

------------------------------

Date: 28 Mar 88 21:05:57 GMT
From: uplherc!esunix!bpendlet@gr.utah.edu  (Bob Pendleton)
Subject: Re: The moon as a research base

While sitting waiting for my doctor to keeps my appointment I happened
to pick up a recent copy of "Discover" magazine. It had a brief article
about some experiments in which some old samples of lunar soil were
heated to about 1650 degrees ( I think degrees F ). Large amounts of
hydrogen were released. The article said that one milliliter of hydrogen
( they did not give temperature or pressure data ) was realeased from
each gram of material that was heated.

It makes sense, I guess, that if the lunar soil traps He3 it should trap
lots of hydrogen too. Does anyone have any REAL information about these
experiments? A source of large amounts of hydrogen on the moon would
make a lunar settlement much cheaper.

I canceled my subscription to Discover after about six months. They
called and asked me why. I explained that it was advertised as a
technical publication, but contained no technical information, and what
it did contain was out of date.

			Bob P.

------------------------------

Date: 26 Mar 88 07:57:37 GMT
From: mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Mike Smithwick)
Subject: STS-26 simulation

NASA-TV ALERT!! Okay youse guys with satillite dishes. There will be a
high-fidelity simulation of STS-26 on March 29. "Launch" is scheduled
for 9:09 AM CDT. The "mission" continues through March 30, 5:00 PM CDT.

The simulation will have the TDRSS deployment at 15:22, March 29, news
conferences, et al.

The TV schedule makes it appear that the simulation will have the full
complement of coverage.

No other information was given.

 *** mike (Cyberpunk in training) smithwick ***

------------------------------

Date: 24 Mar 88 18:53:11 GMT
From: trwrb!aero!venera.isi.edu!rod@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Rodney Doyle Van Meter III)
Subject: Re: Feynman's last trip report

In article <8803212129.AA28172@ames-aurora.arpa> eugene@AMES-AURORA.ARPA (Eugene miya) writes:
>A friend and climbing partner writes:
>From: murray@src.dec.com (Hal Murray)
>>On the first page, he talks about betting a good breifing on the
>>shuttle from JPL. I assume they have a lot of sharp guys, but how come
>>they know so much about the shuttle?

If I'm not mistaken, he got a crash course in rocketry from the ground
up before they opened the shuttle manuals. Remember, he was talking to
JPL's famed "rocket scientists" :-) !

>There are complete sets of Shuttle manuals at JPL.  This existed years
>ago since the first real payload (The SIR: shuttle imaging radar) was a
>JPL project.  These manuals detail dimensions, power, temperatures,
>etc.  Feynman was being a little rosy about not having any vested
>interests: other friends think Caltech (which runs JPL) told him to be
>considerate of the Lab's 2 year contract (hearsay only).  Also note

Seems unlikely to me. I'd say that if he'd been asked that, he would
have been so pissed off about it, he would have told everyone. Wouldn't
put it past Murph or the Board of Trustees to ask, though.

And if Feynman had any bias at all in the early stages of the
investigation, it would have been toward blaming the SSME's. All the JPL
people were certain it was them, because the design scared them so in
the first place.

		RIP, RPF.

		--Rod

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 28 Mar 88 09:55:29 EST
From: rachiele@nadc.arpa (J. Rachiele)
Subject: commercialism of the cpace program

There is one and only one motive of private industry, and that is to
MAKE A PROFIT!  This is what, directly or indirectly, caused the space
shuttle disaster.  During the days of the moon shot, there were many
dedicated individuals at NASA whose only motive was to safely get men to
the moon and back again.  Granted, there now seem to be some career
empire-builders at NASA who are more interested in keeping control and
advancing their own careers than in the above mentioned pure motive
(present company excepted of course -:)) but, in general, I feel much
more comfortable knowing that someones life on the line in a space
vehicle or in a space staion in orbit, or in a manned colony on the
moon, is not depending on a high-level business exec looking at the
bottom line on a profit sheet!

             Jim Rachiele
             rachiele@nadc.arpa

------------------------------

Date: 30 Mar 88 19:38:27 GMT
From: marsh@MITRE-BEDFORD.ARPA  (Ralph J. Marshall)
Subject: Re: commercialism of the cpace program

I agree that we don't want a cost-cutting bean-counter deciding how much
safety equipment we can afford.  However, I see relatively little
distinction between commercial expansion into space launches and
commercial airlines.  An airplane is at least roughly comparable in
terms of complexity as a space vehicle (although there are fewer
unsolved problems).  It is government regulation of required equipment
and safety inspections that make scheduled air travel the safest way to
travel.  I see no reason why this analogy cannot be extended to space
travel. I personally think that space exploration is going to be small
potatoes as long as the taxpayers have to fund it entirely for
entertainment value.  Show a company a way to make a buck in space and
we will _have_ multiple launch vehicles, making the crippling of the
space program due to a single disaster impossible.

------------------------------

Date: 27 Mar 88 13:23:32 GMT
From: l.cc.purdue.edu!cik@k.cc.purdue.edu  (Herman Rubin)
Subject: Abolishing NASA

I see no inconsistency between advocating the abolition of NASA and
advocating its adequate funding if it is not abolished.  As long as the
government has a stranglehold on space, limiting the bureaucrats to
strangling instead of doing something useful will not help us get into
space.

Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907
Phone: (317)494-6054
hrubin@l.cc.purdue.edu (ARPA or UUCP) or hrubin@purccvm.bitnet

------------------------------

Date: 25 Mar 88 17:54:32 GMT
From: nescorna!marcum@sun.com  (Alan M. Marcum)
Subject: Moon or Mars? Editorial in _Air & Space Smithsonian_

There's an interest editorial in the latest _Air & Space Smithsonian_,
dicussing the "permament lunar base" vs "Mission to Mars" issue.
Recommended reading.
---
Alan M. Marcum				Sun Microsystems, Technical Consulting
marcum@nescorna.Sun.COM			Mountain View, California

------------------------------

Date: 3 Apr 88 19:31:42 GMT
From: hubcap@gatech.edu  (Mike Marshall)
Subject: Re: Moon or Mars? Editorial in _Air & Space Smithsonian_

The same issue of Air&Space contains an article entitled "Resist the
Pull of Mars" in which the author talks about "The dark far side of the
moon..." being a good place to conduct " ...sensitive radio astronomy...
without interference from terrestrial signals."

Since this is a credible magazine, I should give the guy the benefit of
the doubt and assume he is talking about the period of time that the
moon appears full from the perspective of the earth, but that's not how
it reads.

-Mike Marshall         hubcap@hubcap.clemson.edu         ...!hubcap!hubcap

------------------------------

Date: 3 Apr 88 22:23:51 GMT
From: josh@topaz.rutgers.edu  (J Storrs Hall)
Subject: Re: Moon or Mars? Editorial in _Air & Space Smithsonian_

One of the common meanings of "dark" in colloquial English is "unknown",
as in "darkest Africa", something the poster was possibly in the dark
about.  "The dark side of the moon" simply means the side facing away
from the earth.

--JoSH

------------------------------

Date: 4 Apr 88 06:46:48 GMT
From: beta!a!jlg@hc.dspo.gov  (Jim Giles)
Subject: Re: Moon or Mars? Editorial in _Air & Space Smithsonian_

The moon always has the same face toward the earth.  That is, it rotates
with the same period as it orbits the earth.  The 'far' side of the moon
was therefore often called the 'dark' side because it was unknown to
human experience until spacecraft went there.  The term is similar to
the use of 'dark' with respect to Africa (it wasn't a racial slur but a
reference to the fact that much of the African contenent was unknown to
europeans even to the beginning of this century).  Just as Africa is
still often called the 'dark contenent', people also still often refer
to the 'dark side' of the moon.

It is true that a base on the far side of the moon woud be a reasonable
place to conduct radio astronomy because the moon would block all the
earth-based radio noise.  Many astronomers feel that such a moon base
would be a much more important goal than manned trips to Mars.

J.L.G.

------------------------------

Date: 25 Mar 88 03:58:59 GMT
From: steinmetz!ge-dab!ge-rtp!edison!mjk@itsgw.rpi.edu  (Mark Kocher)
Subject: Re: X-15 engine

In article <4610@hplabsb.UUCP>, dsmith@hplabsb.UUCP (David Smith) writes:
> In article <2690@calmasd.GE.COM>, jnp@calmasd.GE.COM (John Pantone) writes:
> > Does anyone know what the fuel was for the X-15's engine?  It was
> 
> Anhydrous ammonia and liquid oxygen.  It could not have put the X-15

My memory's a little thin on this, but I think you are referring to the
so-called "Big Engine".  The "Little Engine" which they used early in
the program was actually 4 X-1 engines mounted together; I think they
were fueled by alcohol with Hydrogen Peroxide as an oxidizer.  Scott
Crossfield describes a lot of this in his autobiography, it makes for
fairly interesting reading.

------------------------------

Date: 24 Mar 88 15:51:42 GMT
From: uplherc!esunix!bpendlet@gr.utah.edu  (Bob Pendleton)
Subject: Re: X-15 engine

Scott Crossfield was the speaker at the last meeting of the Utah Chapter
of the AIAA. I asked him about the cancelation of the X-15B, the orbital
version of the X-15. The X-15B was to have leading edges, and other
parts, covered with a high temperature resistant beryllium alloy. The
boost vehicle was to be a cluster of Navaho rockets, left over from
another canceled program.

The X-15B as canceled in favor of project Mercury. So Sputnik was a
bigger victory than I had thought. It derailed a program that would have
given us an operational aerospace plane in the early '60s. Instead, we
got the famous spam in can Mercury project. He went on to say that the
main thing he learned from this was the value of good P.R.

Crossfield was one of the designers of the X-15 and one of its chief
test pilots.

The reasoning behind the cancelation of X-15B has been bugging me since
I was 10 years old. It still bugs me.

If you ever get a chance to hear Crossfield speak, don't pass it up.
The man is a national treausre.

			Bob Pendleton

------------------------------

Date: 23 Mar 88 17:58:09 GMT
From: pioneer!eugene@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Eugene N. Miya)
Subject: Re: X-15 engine

As discussed in private correspondence: fuel type, engine rating, etc.
are all dependent on which models of the X-15 you are talking about.
The unmodified (never made) X-15B was supposed to be boosted. (Titan
launch vehicle?).  The two other X-15 engines can be read about by going
to local libraries and seeking X-15 books (or write Rockwell at LAX,
they might have stuff left over).  I also recommended Crossfield's
autobio since he was its first (sub-Mach 3) pilot.

>From the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA

------------------------------

Date: 27 Mar 88 22:37:25 GMT
From: ssc-vax!eder@beaver.cs.washington.edu  (Dani Eder)
Subject: Re: fuels other than hydrogen

In article <18552@sci.UUCP>, daver@sci.UUCP (Dave Rickel) writes:
> Hmm.  I may as well post the numbers.  I took the energy of formation,
> divided by the molar weight of the byproducts, multiplied by two, and
> took the square root, thinking that would give me the maximum exhaust
> velocity of the reaction (units would be in km/sec).  That's probably
> invalid for reactions producing multiple products (like water and
> carbon dioxide), but what the hell.
> 
   The molecular weight of the exhaust products cannot be neglected in
this case.  Anything with carbon burns with oxygen to form carbon
dioxide, of molecular weight 44, while the hydrogen burns to form
water, with a molecular weight of 18, with a velocity difference of
sqrt(44/18)

> The carbon reaction is amusing.  Maybe someone could build a
> coal-powered rocket?

> david rickel
> decwrl!sci!daver

There is a paper available through the NASA 'Tech Briefs' journal on
'CoaL Fired Rocket engine', I believe the work is being done at JPL.
Basically, it's a form of solid rocket, but it's supposed to be cleaner
burning than a regular solid (i.e. no worse than a coal fired power
plant).

Dani Eder/Boeing/Space Station Program/ssc-vax!eder

------------------------------

Date: 27 Mar 88 23:59:26 GMT
From: pyramid!weitek!sci!daver@lll-lcc.llnl.gov  (Dave Rickel)
Subject: Re: fuels other than hydrogen

Oops.  Cringe.  Apologies to one and all--it turns out that i can't add.
12 + 16 + 16 = 28.  Right.  Anyway, i used the wrong values for the
molecular weight of CO2--all my conclusions were bogus.  Sorry.  Next
time, maybe if i come to a conclusion that's too good to be true, i'll
spend a little more time trying to find my mistake.

Anyway, revised numbers (hopefully this time i didn't make another
stupid mistake):

substance	boiling point (C) density	number

Hydrogen	-252.87		.0708 (ick!)	5.18
Acetylene	-84 (sublimes)	.6181		4.87
Ethylene	-103.71		.384		4.62
Ethane		-88.63		.572		4.48
Methane		-164		.466		4.48
Propane		-42.07		.5005		4.48
Benzene		80.1		.87865		4.46
Carbon		4287		1.8-2.1		4.23
Ethanol		78.5		.7893		4.17
Methanol	64.96		.7914		3.99

Oxygen		-182.962	1.14		----


david rickel
decwrl!sci!daver

------------------------------

Date: 28 Mar 88 21:21:10 GMT
From: uplherc!esunix!bpendlet@gr.utah.edu  (Bob Pendleton)
Subject: Re: X-15 engine

The "little engine" was 2 X-1 engines. It is easy to get confuse here,
each X-1 engine had 4 chambers. The engine was throttled, at least in
part, but starting and shutting down individual chambers. So the X-1 had
4 thrust levels to choose from. I guess, I don't know, that the first
version of the X-15 had 8 thrust levels. It had 8 chambers and 8
nozzels.

> FUELED by alcohol with Hydrogen Peroxide as an oxidizer.

I'm pretty sure it was alcohol and LOX.

> describes a lot of this in his autobiography, it makes for fairly
> interesting reading.

Bob Pendleton @ Evans & Sutherland

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #184
*******************

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Date: Sat, 9 Apr 88 03:22:31 PDT
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Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #185

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 185

Today's Topics:
		       Re: SPOT picture wanted
		       Re: SPOT picture wanted
		       Re: SPOT picture wanted
			     RE:RE: X-15
		  Important microgravity experiments
		    Re: fuels other than hydrogen
		     Re: Planets aligned in May?
	     Re: Power satellites (was greenhouse effect)
			      NASA News
		       Re: Forget the Saturn V!
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 23 Mar 88 14:21:45 GMT
From: ems!nis!sialis!rjg@UMN-CS.ARPA  (Robert J. Granvin)
Subject: Re: SPOT picture wanted

>> I would like to purchase a SPOT image of a particular place, on or about
>> a particular time.  Can someone point me to an appropriate source for
>> ordering same?  I also need pricing (presumably from the same source).
>
>SPOT satellite imagery (10m panchromatic, 20m multispectal - 3 bands)
>is available in the U.S. for purchase from:
>
>     SPOT Image Corporation
>     1897 Preston White Drive
>     Reston, Virginia  22091-4326     703-620-2200
>     
>This data is not cheap and it is copyrighted (i.e. once you buy it you
>cannot pass it on to anyone else; an agreement on terms and conditions
>for use of the data must be signed ...).  Imagery in digital format
>(on 1600bpi tape) start at about $1500 per scene.  There are a few sample
>scenes of selected areas in the U.S. available for $600 each.  I am not
>certain that SPOT Corporation archives all that many scenes unless they
>are requested by customers.

Snarfed from the latest issue of Omni:

You can contact the U.S. Geological Survey offers a service where you
can order clear color or black and white photos of any location in the
United States.  The costs from from $6 to $65 depending on print size.

These photos can cover an area of 30 to 120 square miles, and cover
altitudes from 40,000 feet to 110 miles.

For a brochure, write:

	National Cartographic Information Center
	U.S. Geological Survey
	507 National Center
	Reston, VA  22092

This at least is an option for someone who may not want to spend the big
bucks on SPOT images...

rjg@sialis.mn.org        UUCP:...uunet!{amdahl,hpda,rosevax}!bungia!sialis!rjg

------------------------------

Date: 26 Mar 88 19:35:59 GMT
From: leah!ens598@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu  (Eric Sheffer)
Subject: Re: SPOT picture wanted

The problem with this solution is that you have to know what you're
getting.  SPOT provides two formats: 10 meter _panchromatic_ black and
white or 15 meter _color-infrared_ imagery.  USGS and Earth Resource
Obervation System (EROS) maintains a miriad of images, from Gemini,
Apollo and Skylab orbital photographs to LANDSAT Thematic Mapper
imagery.  If you're thinking about this option, consider National High
Altitude Photography Program's 1:58000 scale color-infrared photographs,
or contact a local mapping agency (transportation department, planning
bureau, etc.) who might be able to provide larger scale imagery.  Also,
you must be able to digitize photographs, or these sugestions are moot.
In any event, NHAP images are available from USGS and EROS Data Center.

EROS Data Center
U.S. Geological Survey
Sioux Falls, SD 57198
(605)-594-6151

------------------------------

Date: 28 Mar 88 22:54:46 GMT
From: mcvax!enea!sal!dk@uunet.uu.net  (Danny Kohn)
Subject: Re: SPOT picture wanted

I think that you can buy them from Satellitbid in Kiruna in Sweden. They
have speciallized in taking down and are selling spot pictures also.

------------------------------

Date:     Mon, 28 Mar 88 16:59 AST
From: <FSWFL%ALASKA.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Subject:  RE:RE: X-15




    After reading the previous messages pertaining to the X-15 I decided to
hit the local library to refresh my memory. The X-15 which suffered heat
damage was a modified version listed as an X-15A-2. This aircraft had been
damaged in a previous flight. When it was modified a hydrogen fuel tank was
added. The craft was to be used to test a "scramjet" engine. During a test
flight a dummy scramjet scoop was mounted under the belly of the aircraft.
During the test flight the dummy scramjet heated up and burned. As it
turned to slag it damaged the main body of the aircraft beyond repair.

    Also, that was not the last flight of the X-15 program, although it was
the last successful flight. The third X-15 flew high enough to enter near
space. Due to a malfunction, the pilot re-entered the atmoshpere 180
degrees out of position and was killed.

    There is a film titled "The Rocket Pilots" which documents the
test flights of the X-1, X-2, X-3, X-15, and Gemini programs. There  are also
several books which cover this topic.

        William Leslie
        University of Alaska, Fairbanks

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 29 Mar 88 17:08 EDT
From: "Paul F. Dietz" <DIETZ%sdr.slb.com@relay.cs.net>
Subject: Important microgravity experiments

I was wondering if there were any historically important experiments one
can do in microgravity. I couldn't think of anything for a low orbit space
station, but I had some ideas for higher orbits.

Recently there has be a great deal of controversy over the so-called "fifth
force", a putative intermediate-range (hundreds of meters) interaction that
violates the equivalence principle.  Experiments to detect a fifth force
have yielded contradictory results.

It has been proposed [see, for example, Phys. Lett. B (171) pg. 217; Phys.
Rev. Lett. 60(13), pg. 1225; Scientific American, March 1988, pg. 48] that
the contradictory experimental results can be resolved if the "fifth force"
is actually a combination of two intermediate range forces produced by
quantum gravity, one attractive, the other repulsive (on normal matter).
These forces would largely cancel and could have a range of up to hundreds
of kilometers.

One problem with terrestrial experiments to measure intermediate range
forces is the presence of large amounts of poorly characterized material
(rock strata, etc.). This problem is difficult to avoid without going into
space.

One can think of several kinds of space experiments to test shorter range
gravitational forces. Artificial objects with precisely defined mass and
composition can be set in orbit about one another (an experiment with
ton-scale tungsten spheres has already been proposed; larger experiments
could use extraterrestrial material).  Low orbit lunar satellites can
probe the moon's gravity field at short distances.  This might require
setting up laser ranging stations on the lunar surface.  The gravity
field around an asteroid could be measured, then the asteroid could be
"weighed" by attaching a rocket and measuring the impulse and change in
velocity it causes when fired.

Some grand unified theories have predicted that neutrons and antineutrons
should "oscillate": that is, free neutrons should gradually convert to
neutron-antineutron mixed states which, when observed, have a nonzero
probability of being antineutrons.  Limits on neutron oscillations from
experiments at Grenoble are quite stringent -- oscillation time > 10**8
seconds, I recall, vs. the neutron half life of about 600 seconds.  But
oscillations are suppressed if the neutron and antineutron energy states
are too different.  New forces from quantum gravity could cause a difference
of perhaps .001 eV on earth, which would totally suppress oscillation
[Europhys. Lett., 2(2), pp. 87-90].  If further experiments confirm the
existence of the new forces, it would be interesting to repeat the neutron
oscillation experiments in space, away from large amounts of matter, in hope
of getting a positive result.

This raises the intriguing possibility that it might be possible to convert
neutrons into antineutrons in factories in space.  Note that the conversion
efficiency need not be very high for this to be a win, since much less
energy is required to liberate a neutron from a nucleus than to produce a
nucleon-antinucleon pair from scratch, and the energy can be provided
directly by a reactor or bomb rather than indirectly through an accelerator.

Paul F. Dietz
dietz@sdr.slb.com

------------------------------

Date: 28 Mar 88 19:19:44 GMT
From: telesoft!roger@ucsd.edu  (Roger Arnold @prodigal)
Subject: Re: fuels other than hydrogen

In article <18552@sci.UUCP>, daver@sci.UUCP (Dave Rickel) writes:
> I went paging through my chemistry book last night, calculator in
> hand, looking for interesting hydrocarbons for rocket fuels.  [..]
> 
> Acetylene	-84 (sublimes)	.6181		5.83
> Ethylene	-103.71		.384		5.36
> Benzene	80.1		.87865		5.34
> Carbon	4287		1.8-2.1		5.30
> Hydrogen	-252.87		.0708 (ick!)	5.18
> Propane	-42.07		.5005		5.12
> Ethane	-88.63		.572		5.09
> Methane	-164		.466		5.01
> Ethanol	78.5		.7893		4.74
> Methanol	64.96		.7914		4.47
> 
> Oxygen	-182.962	1.14		----
> 
> [..]
> 
> david rickel
> decwrl!sci!daver

The problem with the carbon-rich fuels is that the temperature that
corresponds to the theoretical results you calculated is too high to
work in a real engine.  Even if you could come up with a combustion 
chamber and nozzle that could stand up to the temperatures involved, 
combustion would be incomplete, due to thermal dissociation.  The 
exhaust would be a very hot stew of some CO2, some H2O, and also a 
lot of CO, OH, monatomic oxygen, and assorted radicals.  One of the
factors that makes LH2-LO2 work so well is that excess LH2 in the
combustion mix keeps the temperature manageable and insures nearly
complete reaction of the oxygen, without costing much in terms of the
net energy per pound of propellant.  But you're right; the very low
density of LH2 is a bummer.

Liquid anhydrous amonia is an interesting fuel.  It has some of the
advantages of hydrogen, in terms of yielding an exhaust with low
molar density--or whatever the term is for low average molecular
weight.  It's particularly well suited for reusable engines, because
it's an efficient coolant and doesn't coke up the tubes in the
combustion chamber walls.  Which is probably why it was used in the 
X-15.  If hydrogen peroxide is used as the oxidizer, rather than
liquid oxygen, the exhaust has the lowest average molecular weight 
of any fuel-oxidizer combination, other than hydrogen/oxygen.  

- Roger Arnold				..ucsd!telesoft!roger

------------------------------

Date: 29 Mar 88 03:26:04 GMT
From: mtunx!lzaz!lznv!psc@rutgers.edu  (Paul S. R. Chisholm)
Subject: Re: Planets aligned in May?

< If you lined all the news readers up end-to-end, they'd be easier to shoot. >

In article <16000003@bucc2>, xevious@bucc2.UUCP writes:
>    Anyone have any ideas what effects this will have on Earth or any
> other planet/satellite/sun?
>Phil Batson, {ihnp4,uiucdcs,noao,cepu,attmail}!bradley!bucc2!xevious

Nothing major, but be careful of your refrigerator; all of your eggs
are suddenly going to stand on end.

(Last month, someone reported that you can stand an egg on its end when
all the planets are aligned.  Several zillion other people reported
that you can always do that, if you're careful.  Let's *not* hold this
debate again, okay?)

-Paul S. R. Chisholm, {ihnp4,cbosgd,allegra,rutgers}!mtune!lznv!psc
AT&T Mail !psrchisholm, Internet psc@lznv.att.com
I'm not speaking for my employer, I'm just speaking my mind.

------------------------------

Date: 30 Mar 88 05:27:42 GMT
From: jfc@athena.mit.edu  (John F Carr)
Subject: Re: Power satellites (was greenhouse effect)

In article <1420@bigtex.uucp> james@bigtex.UUCP (James Van Artsdalen) writes:
>IN article <4091@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU>, jfc@athena.mit.edu (John F Carr) wrote:
: :  [...] Assuming international cooperation in space (else 
: :  the SPS is too vulnerable to attack) the SPS is more reliable than other
: :  systems, and has a greater thermal efficiency on earth.

: I don't seriously consider a deliberate attack on a power sattellite a
: likelyhood: that's an act of war. 

Is war impossible?  If a country with the ability to launch payloads to
synchronous orbit fights one with SPS, it can cripple its enemy.

:  But space debris would be a similar
: problem.  These SPSs would be very large, and would have to have very long
: operating lifetimes (: 25 years?) due to cost.  Has there been any serious
: efforts to consider problems & costs of building impact-tolerant sattellites?
: Or is it not that bad (yet)?

I would design an SPS with a very large, thin-film mirror.  Holes would
be unimportant until they occupied a large fraction of the total area.
Structural strength would be in a rigid frame with members thick enough 
not to be destroyed by meteoroids.
   John Carr           "No one wants to make a terrible choice
   jfc@athena.mit.edu   On the price of being free"           -- Neil Peart

------------------------------

Date: 27 Mar 88 15:54:09 GMT
From: cu-den!udenva!isis!scicom!embudo!markf@boulder.colorado.edu  (markf)
Subject: NASA News


NASA NEWS

NASA Administrator says 1989 "Make or Break" Year

Dr. James C. Fletcher, administrator of NASA appeared ... before
the House Subcommittee of Space Science and Applications on the
agency's proposed 1989 budget. The following points are among
those made in his oral testimony and written statements:

- This is a crucial year for NASA which could "make or break" the
nation's space program. It is not an overstatement to say that the
entire future of the U.S. civil space program rides at risk in this
budget.

- The budget contains funds to build up the rate of Shuttle flights
in 1989 and to start to fly off the backlog of vital defense and
science missions. If such effective access to space cannot be provided,
hopes for future U.S. space leadership will be extinguished.

- The budget provides the build-up of Space Station funding required
in the second year of hardware development. Unless adequate funding
is provided, the development teamwill have to be disbanded and hopes
for a permanent laboratory and base in space deferred indefinitely or
cancelled.

- If the funds requested for advanced technology are not approved, the
necessary technological foundation for future achievements will not
be built, and the goal of long-term U.S. space leadership will "become
an idle dream."

- This budget would move NASA funding to a higher plateau and start 
the nation down the road toward the historic new goal that President
Reagan has just set forth in the nation's new space policy. It is
human exploration of the solar system beyond Earth orbit.

---------------------------------------------------------------
Reprinted with Permission for electronic distribution
NASA News Release 88-31   March 3, 1988
By James W. McCulla Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
---------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: 29 Mar 88 11:12:17 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!its63b!bob@uunet.uu.net  (ERCF08 Bob Gray)
Subject: Re: Forget the Saturn V!

In article <766@cfa237.cfa250.harvard.edu> mcdowell@cfa250.harvard.edu (Jonathan McDowell) writes:
>From article <1113@its63b.ed.ac.uk>, by bob@its63b.ed.ac.uk (ERCF08 Bob Gray):
>> Note that Iran already has a space industry.
>Wot?? I think you mean INDIA - who have had 4 sats and a cosmonaut put up
>by the Soviets. The Shah's govt was planning a Zohreh domestic comsat before
>the revolution, but nothing ever came of it. The only thing Iran ever had
>was a few ground stations. 

No, I mean IRAN.

The "Zohreh" domestic comsat project is still continuing
under the control of their SITAO (Satellite and
International Affairs Office). The satellites and ground
equipment are to be built in Iran.

The Soviets took an Iranian airforce officer up on one of
their missions in the days before MIR, but this shouldn't
be surprising considering the number of other nationalities
of passengers carried by the soviets.

A quick survey shows that they have flown cosmanauts from
Bulgaria, Cuba, East Germany, France, India, North Korea,
Poland, Romania, Syria and Vietnam, amongst others.
	Bob.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #185
*******************

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Date: Sun, 10 Apr 88 03:24:21 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8804101024.AA22295@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #186

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 186

Today's Topics:
			 Re: Mars Declaration
		 Re: Where is Apollo 13 Lunar module?
		Space Settlement Act of 1988 (HR 4218)
			      NASA News
			      NASA News
	     Re: Power satellites (was greenhouse effect)
			 JPL Vision Statement
		      Some Articles of Interest
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 29 Mar 88 11:47:18 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!its63b!bob@uunet.uu.net  (ERCF08 Bob Gray)
Subject: Re: Mars Declaration

In article <3761@mtgzz.UUCP> dls@mtgzz.UUCP (XMRP50000[jto]-d.l.skran) writes:
>I recently received a copy of the Planetary Society Mars
>Declaration.
>
>Basically, it's a straight forward and carefully worded call
>for the human exploration of Mars. Hopefully, I or someone else
         ^^^^^
>will type it in at some point.

If this is what they mean, they don't have anything to wory
about. The Soviets have already made it clear that they
intend to go there, and they have the technology to do so.

Or perhaps they mean American?

If they want an international effort, they should target
their petition at ALL the Governments of the world capable
of contributing to the human exploration of Mars.

If they want an American effort, they should be more careful
in the wording.
	Bob.

------------------------------

Date: 28 Mar 88 18:21:48 GMT
From: mtunx!whuts!sw@rutgers.edu  (WARMINK)
Subject: Re: Where is Apollo 13 Lunar module?

In article <201300003@prism>, john@prism.TMC.COM writes:
> So my question is, what happened to the lunar  
> landing module?  Did it re-enter and burn up (I would think that 
> chunks of it would have come all the way down) or did it continue on, in some 
> sort of orbit?  Would it be in orbit around the earth? 

It burned up in the atmosphere, but: some chunks of it did not. Most noticable
of these was the plutonium powered generator, now somewhere at the bottom
of the Indian Ocean I believe. Not much has been said about this...

The Galileo Jupiter probe will be similarly powered, current flightpath calls
for a close Earth gravity assist fly-by. Wait for the debate to start up!
-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"We demand rigidly defined areas of    |  Stuart Warmink, APT UK Ltd.
 doubt and uncertainty" (Vroomfondel)  |  <ihnp4>!whuts!sw
-----------> My opinions are not necessarily those of APT UK Ltd. <-----------

------------------------------

Date: 31 Mar 88 05:23:19 GMT
From: agate!jiff!web@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (William Baxter)
Subject: Space Settlement Act of 1988 (HR 4218)

William Baxter

ARPA: web@bosco.Berkeley.EDU
UUCP: {cbosgd,sun,dual,decwrl,decvax,ihnp4,hplabs,...}!ucbvax!bosco!web

------------------------------

Date: 27 Mar 88 16:08:03 GMT
From: cu-den!udenva!isis!scicom!embudo!markf@boulder.colorado.edu  (markf)
Subject: NASA News


NASA NEWS
NASA To Acquire Second Space Shuttle Carrier Aircraft

NASA ... announced plans to acquire a Boeing 747-100 jetliner to serve
as a second Space Shuttle carrier aircraft (SCA) for the space transportation
system.

A letter contract has been signed with Boeing Military Airplane Co., a 
division of the Boeing Company, Seattle, to reserve the aircraft for NASA
use. The additional SCA will provide increased ferrying capability and 
eliminate a potential single-point failure in the space transportation
system.

The 231-foot long aircraft will be modified to carry Shuttle orbiter
vehicles from landing sites to orbiter processing facilities at the 
Kennedy Space Center, Fla. Modifications will be made by Boeing at their
manufacturing facilities in Wichita, Kan. The 747-100 is nearly identical
to the original SCA and was selected to minimize costs associated with 
modifications and operations.

The original SCA has transported orbiters since 1977 when orbiter Enterprise
was first used for unpowered atmospheric flight tests. Since then, Columbia,
Challenger, Discovery and Atlantis have been ferried coast to coast atop
the SCA. 

Total cost of the aircraft and required modifications is currently under
negotiations. That figure is expected to be available this summer.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Reprinted with permission for electronic distribution
NASA News Release 88-28
By Sarah Keegan  Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
and Jeffrey Carr  Johnson Space Center, Houston

------------------------------

Date: 27 Mar 88 15:55:37 GMT
From: cu-den!udenva!isis!scicom!embudo!markf@boulder.colorado.edu  (markf)
Subject: NASA News


NASA NEWS
NASA ISSUES UPDATED MIXED FLEET MANIFEST

NASA ... issued an updated mixed fleet manifest reflecting current
planning for primary payloads for Space Shuttle missions and expendable
launch vehicles (ELVs) through Fiscal Year 1993. The manifest is for
planning purposes only. Firm Shuttle payload assignmentsare made during
the formal integration process at approximately 19 months prior to 
launch. The planned next Shuttle launch (STS-26) remains in August 1988.

In addition to supporting Department of Defense mission requirements and
the Commercial Space Initiative recently announced in conjunction with
the new National Space Policy, this mixed fleet manifest continues to
reflect the high priority assigned to civil space science and applications
payloads, both on the Shuttle and ELVs.

A decision to interchange the STS-29 and STS-28 missions eases the orbiter
processing flow and enables NASA to maintain the required launch windows
for two interplanetary missions in 1989 -- Magellan, a mission to map
the planet Venus in April, Galileo, a cooperative project with Germany
to survey Jupiter and its moons,in October. The Hubble Space Telescope
also maintains its flight assignment date of June 1989.

Astro-1, a Spacelab mission designed to study the univers in the 
ultraviolet spectrum is being reconfigured to enhance the study of
Supernova 1987A, an event that has drawn the attention of astrophysicists
from around the world. The Broad-Band X-Ray Telescope has been added
to complement the Astro-1 mission now slated to fly on STS-35 in November
1989.

Taking advantage of the recently announced Shuttle downweight additional
capability, Spacelab missions are now planned to fly aboard the orbiter
Columbia (OV-102), which was not previously possible. Two Spacelab
payloads have been assigned flights in 1990 -- a Spacelab Life Science
mission in March and the first of the Atomospheric Laboratory for 
Applications and Science mission series, Atlas-1, scheduled for
projected schedule, is now slated for March 1990 and the Ulysses
projected October 1990 launch date.

Another important addition to the manifest is a misson to retrieve the
Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF) in July 1989. Launched by the
Space Shuttle in April 1984, LDEF originally was scheduled for retrieval
in March 1985. The LDEF retrieval mission will replace Astro-1 as the
payload for STS-32.

The manifest supports the commercial space initiative announced with the
National Space Policy, February 11, 1988, as follows:

- The Industrial Space Facility (ISF) is manifested as a fully reimbursable
payload under a pre-existing agreement.

- The Spacehab is manifested as a fully reimbursable payload.

- The Commercially Developed Space Facility (CDSF) will be manifested
when the government's lease arrangements are complete.

All of the above are subject to further negotiations with the appropriate
commercial organizations and specific manifesting decisions will depend
on commercial customer demand.

This mixed fleet manifest continues to reflect NASA's plans to use
ELVs for those payloads that do not need the capabilities of the Space
Shuttle. Thirty-five ELV launches are planned through FY 1993.

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Republished with permission for electronic distribution
Nasa News Release 88-38  March 15, 1988
By Barbara E. Selby  Headquarters, Washington, D.C.

------------------------------

Date: 30 Mar 88 17:10:19 GMT
From: sun.soe.clarkson.edu!montague@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu  (Michael Montague)
Subject: Re: Power satellites (was greenhouse effect)

>From article <4147@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU>, by jfc@athena.mit.edu (John F Carr):
> Structural strength would be in a rigid frame with members thick enough 
> not to be destroyed by meteoroids.
Actually, you have to play the odds when selecting a size for the structural
members.  If you build the members large enough so they cant be destroyed by
meteoroids would be prohibitively expensive. Dust pitting the mirror may
be more of a problem than meteoroids actually penetrating it.

Michael.



-- 
Internet: montague@sun.soe.clarkson.edu  |  Woody's my hero...
Bitnet: montague@CLUTX.BITNET            |  
uucp: {rpics, gould}!clutx!montague      |

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 31 Mar 88 09:55:24 PST
From: Peter Scott <PJS@grouch.jpl.nasa.gov>
Subject: JPL Vision Statement
X-Vms-Mail-To: EXOS%"space@angband.s1.gov"

JPL has just embarked on formulating a vision statemnet.  This will be a long 
range (15-25 years) set of goals and objectives for the lab.  Most of the
other NASA field centers have published such statements recently.  It was
reported that as a result of writing its statement, Lewis has already
decided to divest itself of its communication effort.

------------------------------

Date:    Thu, 31 Mar 88 10:33:14 PST
From: tencati@vlsi.jpl.nasa.gov (Ron Tencati)
Subject: Some Articles of Interest
X-St-Vmsmail-To: ST%"space@angband.s1.gov"

The following is a small compenduim of news articles relating to recent
events of interest

Ron Tencati
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

WASHINGTON POST, MARCH 18

"SOVIETS TO FLY U.S. PLAQUE TO MARS MOON"

     "Soviet officials have agreed to place aboard their
spacecraft bond for the Martian moon Phobos a plaque
commemorating the moon's discovery by an American."

     The POST says in an informal ceremony in Houston, NASA
science official Bevan French presented the plaque to scientist
Lev Mukhin of the Soviet Space Research Institute.  The Soviets
have scheduled a July launch, scheduled to reach the Martian moon
in the spring of 1989.

     "I can promise the plaque will be installed on the lander,"
the robot vehicle that will descend to the moon's surface, Mukhin
said afterward.  "This means it will remain on Phobos forever."

     The POST says the two moons of Mars, Phobos and Deimos, were
discovered in 1877 by astronomer Asaph Hall of the U.S. Naval
Observatory in Washington, D.C.

                    *********************

WASHINGTON POST, MARCH 18

"SOVIET SATELLITE LAUNCH"

     "The Soviet Union entered the commercial space race with its
first paid-for-launch of a foreign satellite, a 1-ton weather
monitor for the Indian government that was placed into a near-
Earth polar orbit on a Vostok rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome
in Kazahstan."

     The POST says the head of the Soviet space engineering
agency, Alexander Dunayev, said his government was losing money
on the deal.  No price was mentioned in the story.

                    *******************

NEW YORK TIMES, MARCH 18

"U.S. REVISES SPACE MISSIONS"

     "The space agency has revised its schedule of space shuttle
flights and cargoes, adding a mission that is to retrieve a bus-
size satellite left in space in 1984 for what was to have been
one year."

     The TIMES story says the satellite has led scientists to
conclude that it could crash through the atmosphere and burn up
if it is not retrieved.

     The story says the Shuttle schedule reverses the order of
one military and once civilian flight early next year.  It says
this enables NASA to orbit a pair of communications satellites
earlier than planned--because they will be needed in June 1989
when the Hubble Space Telescope is launched from a Shuttle.

                    ********************

AEROSPACE DAILY, MARCH 18

"SUCCESS OF MANNED MISSION GOALS LINKED TO CORE TECHNOLOGIES"

     "Developing life support systems, determining criteria for
crew selection and finding ways to deal with the rigours of long
term space flight are some of the supporting research
technologies which must be addressed further if NASA is to meet
its long term space exploration goals, Ames Research Center
officials reported."

     "We don't know how to do a lot of those things" necessary
for long duration manned missions, said Bruce Webbon, chief of
the Crew Research and Space Human Factors branch at Ames.  "We
haven't done the homework and the foundation isn't there."

     Webbon told the DAILY that project Pathfinder, which NASA
requested $100 million in FY '89, will provide the missing link
needed to develop the technology base which will make long term
missions a reality.

                   *********************

NEWSWEEK Magazine, MARCH 21

"THE SPACE RACE HEATS UP AGAIN"  By:  Frank Givney and John
Schwartz

     "The ancient Romans had a saying:  'To the stars through
difficulties.'  America's private space industry might adopt it
as a motto."

     The article says last month the Reagan administration issued
a directive urging NASA to work more closely with the private
sector, a boost that could be worth millions.

       It outlines the plans of Space Industries Inc., and its
Industrial Space Facility; Space Services, run by former
astronaut Donald "Deke" Slayton, and American Rocket Co.

*                  *                   *                   *

NEWSWEEK, MARCH 21

"IS THE NEW SHUTTLE ROCKET FIT FOR TAKEOFF?"  By:  Harry Hurt

     "More than two years after the Challenger disaster, the last
shipment of main booster parts for the new space shuttle
Discovery arrived at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida last
week.  Morton Thiokol, the Utah-based company that built the
flawed Challenger booster, has made key changes in the solid
rocket motors.  But as technicians stack the parts for a planned
Aug. 4 launch, a battle is still raging over whether the new
booster is safe."

     The article goes on to discuss the various re-designed parts
of the booster, and lists pro and con arguements about its
ability to do the job safely.

                   ********************

PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER, MARCH 17

"SCIENTISTS:  STUDY SUPPORTS THEORY THAT METEORITE DOOMED
DINOSAURS"  By:  Thomas Maugh

     "Two scientists who experimented with a 50-foot 'gun' to
simulate the impact of a giant meteorite on prehistoric earth
have concluded that such a collision could have raised
temperatures enough to have killed off the dinosaurs."

     The story says research by the California Institute of
Technology suggests that if a meteorite or comet 10 miles in
diameter struck 65 million years ago, it would have released two
to five times as much carbon dioxide as was already in the
atmosphere.  The carbon dioxide would have produced a "greenhouse
effect."  The story says this would have killed off many of the
dinosaurs as well as the leafy plants they fed on.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #186
*******************

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Date: Mon, 11 Apr 88 03:26:19 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8804111026.AA23713@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #187

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 187

Today's Topics:
			  Question on Migma
			    Hybrid engine
			    Re: Antimatter
			     Re: KAL 007
				Apollo
		 Responses of Congressman to letters
	    The future of network special interest groups
	       Re: Responses of Congressman to letters
		       Passenger Space Flights
			     Re: KAL 007
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date:    Thu, 31 Mar 88 15:22 EST
From: SVISSAG%CLEMSON.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu
Subject: Question on Migma

    Can anyone tell me what has happened to the Migma reactor?  How is
it comming along?  Has the fifth and final (I think there were supposed
to be five) prototype been completed?  Did it work?  Is there any
particular publication I could refer to to keep up with this sort of
thing?
     Thanks for any info or suggestions I might, or might not, receive.

                                       Steve L. Vissage II

On Bitnet: SVISSAG@CLEMSON

------------------------------

Date:     Thu, 31 Mar 88 11:48 AST
From: <FNRJH%ALASKA.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Subject:  Hybrid engine

   I as wondering if anyone heard what has happened to the Dolphin rocket?
The one using Polybutadiene and LOX for fuel?     Solid plastic core pump LOX
through it for a burn that is only a few percent lower than LOX/LH.   Anyone
outthere with some experince with this topic?

   I left my "old" News Week artical at home with the name of the indivual that
designed the big dumb booster.   Anyone know him personaly or have his address?
I would like to talk with him about launchers.

   Anyone design a canned space station and willing to share their reading
material with me?    Would like to see some designs.

   To the indivudal that mentioned he is working on a Propane/LOX launcher,
would like to hear from you.  What is the progress.


What are the chances of starting an indersty that launches from the ocean or
air.   What restrictions and follys would we need to overcome.


   Wonder if it would ever be possible to use a blimp to launch from?  If you
write me and I don't answer you the message was most likly lost.  I loose a lot
of my Space mail.    I will try to send a message back.   Sometimes the address
is a pain to decypher.   Thanks for the info about TWA and the moon tickets.


 Robert J. Hale III
 FNRJH@ALASKA     bitnet

------------------------------

Date: 31 Mar 88 12:26:54 GMT
From: agate!garnet!weemba@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Obnoxious Math Grad Student)
Subject: Re: Antimatter

In article <575751917.amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU>, Dale.Amon@H writes:

>	'The 'giggle factor' is over. Antimatter is real and
>	 we know how to make it and keep it. It has promise.'

Of course the 'giggle factor' is over.  There's absolutely nothing
funny about what DoD is going to actually use antimatter for.

(Hint for the slow: it isn't to beat the Russkies to Alpha Centauri.)

ucbvax!garnet!weemba	Matthew P Wiener/Brahms Gang/Berkeley CA 94720

------------------------------

Date: 30 Mar 88 16:27:00 GMT
From: cca!mirror!prism!peter@husc6.harvard.edu
Subject: Re: KAL 007


*************************************************************************
/* Written  8:04 am  Mar 25, 1988 by PICARD@gmr.COM in prism:sci.space */
/* ---------- "KAL 007" ---------- */
>                They said it was on a spying mission.  Our President
> and our news did not present evidence that it was on a spying mission
> (all lights were out etc.) and made it appear that the soviets claimed
> it was a spy plane rather than a spying mission.

I remember reading that it was a passenger plane that was used for a 
spying mission (according to the U.S.S.R.).  I never heard any of the
evidence you mention.  This may not belong on the net but can you give
a run down of it?  Any sources would also be appreciated.

Ron Picard  (PICARD@GMR.COM)
General Motors Research Labs
/* End of text from prism:sci.space */
*************************************************************************

KAL007 was not a spy plane, but a 747 'seen' from below and behind looks a lot
like the kind of plane that is used to fly electronic intelligence missions
from bases in the Aleutian(?sp) Islands.  According to Seymore Hersch(?sp) in
his book _The Target Is Destroyed_, KAL 007 caught the Russians with their
pants down, when it strayed over the home base of the Soviet Pacific Fleet.
Since the first set of fighters scrambled failed to intercept the plane, the
Russians had to scamble another group of fighters before the 747 would leave
their air-space.  Apparently there was something akin to panic on the Russian
side, based on the unusual radio traffic between Moscow and the Pacific Fleet
Headquarters.  The Russian fighter pilots, due to the night time conditions,
never positively identified the 747 before shooting it down.  It is believed
that the fighters did fire a warning salvo of machine gun fire, but the 747
pilot would have had to look down and to the rear to see it.  Since the pilot
was unaware that he was in deep trouble, he probably would not have seen it.

Hersch says that the disaster was caused by carelessness on the part of the
Korean pilots when entering data into their inertial navigation system,
by faulty human factors engineering of the navigation system's interface,
and by a panic on the part of the Soviet Air Defense staff.

He goes on to criticise the misuse of the disaster for political ends by 
current administration, and he criticises the Russians for not owning up to
their mistake, for a tragic mistake it was.

I recommend the book to anyone interested in the disaster.  It is almost
allegorical in the way it illustrates how a series of mistakes could so easily
result in disaster between two nations with hair-trigger mentalities.  It made
me wonder and worry about the possibility of another, far greater disaster,
for had not cooler, more informed heads prevailed on the US side, some Navy
brass would have launched a punitive air strike at the Russians....



----
Peter J. Stucki --  peter@mirror.TMC.COM	
  UUCP   :  {mit-eddie, ihnp4, harvard!wjh12, cca, cbosg, seismo}!mirror!peter
  TryThis:  peter@mirror.zone1.com
                  (we forward for .zone1.com)
Mirror Systems	2067 Massachusetts Avenue  Cambridge, MA, 02140
Telephone:	617-661-0777 extension 131

"Don't hope for miracles! Rely on them!"
---

------------------------------

Date: 30 Mar 88 09:14:29 GMT
From: tektronix!reed!douglas@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (P Douglas Reeder)
Subject: Apollo

I got no response the first time I asked this, so don't hold back if you
have ANY information.  Thanks in advance for any information.

I am contemplating totally rewriting my interplanetary flight simulator
to accurately simulate an Apollo mission.  Can some one tell me where to
find,or send me the necessary technical data?  It would be at the level
of keeping track of kg of fuel left, change in momentum/kg fuel, spacecraft
mass, what orbit you're in (I'll assume the earth and moon are spheres).
You're choices would be how much fuel to burn, and when, with the projected
flightpath shown in advance.  Considering the amount of computer time invested
on real missions, I worry that it might not be possible to complete the
mission by eyeballing the orbits, even with computer assist. You would
then complete a realistic lunar landing from orbit. If I can find out how
to make realistic terrain with fractals, I'll be able to generate interesting
terrain for you to land in if you're off target.
     Also, is thewre a more accurate way to compute orbits than repeatedly
calculating:
xv := xv + MoonAcceleration+EarthAcceleration;
yv := yv + MoonAcceleration+EarthAcceleration;
x  := x + xv;
y  := y + yv;
 that doesn't require calculations that doesn't require more than, say,
four seconds to plot out what your orbit will be if you burn so much fuel
in such and such a direction.
    Of course, I need to know what sorts of orbits were used, so you'll
know what to aim for.  Also, information on NASA's mission simulators would
greatly help.
    Has someone already done this?


-- 
Doug Reeder                           USENET: ...!tektronix!reed!douglas
10 Cyclopedia Square             from BITNET: douglas@reed.UUCP
Terminus City                     from  ARPA: !tektronix!reed!douglas@Berkley
Terminus,The Foundation                Box 502 Reed College,Portland,OR 97202

------------------------------

Date: 30 Mar 88 20:44:33 GMT
From: nisc.nyser.net!weltyc@nisc.nyser.net  (Christopher A. Welty)
Subject: Responses of Congressman to letters


	I have been writing letters regularly to Congress for about two
years now, at the rate of maybe once or twice a month, about the space
program.  Mostly complaints, and a few (very few) praises.  This week,
I received the first-ever response.   I sent letters recently to Bill
Gray of Penn (chairman of the House Budget Committee) and Speaker
Wright regarding the proposed cut of NASAs budget.  Gray replied with
a letter saying the Budget Committee is holding hearings on the issue
of NASAs budget, and will formulate it's own version of the budget,
but he would `remain mindful of my comments'.  Wright apparently sent
my letter to my Congressman, Sam Stratton, who sent me a letter
saying that NASAs budget will be raised 1.25 billion in FY89.  This,
he claimed, is less than Reagan requested, but NASA is one of the very
few agencies that will not experience a budget freeze.

	On one hand I must admit that the national deficit is a valid
reason to cut back on spending, but the space station is vital to our
future (or a moonbase)....maybe if I ran for president.....nah.

Christopher Welty  ---  Asst. Director, RPI CS Labs
weltyc@cs.rpi.edu       ...!rutgers!nysernic!weltyc

------------------------------

Date:     Fri, 1 Apr 88 02:57 CST
From: <KCB9792%TAMSIGMA.BITNET@cornellc.ccs.cornell.edu> (Kevin 'Charlie' Brown)
Subject:  The future of network special interest groups

While the following is not related directly to space, I feel it has a great
deal of significance for all of us.  I have, up until now, had access to
the "sf-lovers" newsgroup.  That is, until I received this in their latest
digest:

>Date: Fri, 1 Apr 88 08:59:51 EST
>From: sfl@elbereth.rutgers.edu (SF-LOVERS)
>Subject: LAST ISSUE
>
>Well folks, as Ralph Kramden has often said: "I've got a BIIIIIIIG MOUTH!!"
>It seems that in the last year, there has been so much media attention in
>magazines like Omni, Locus, IEEE Potentials, ACM Communications, Time,
>Newsweek and others about SF-LOVERS, that it has attracted the attention of
>"The Powers that Be" in Washington.
>
>I spent two weeks recently in Washington, D.C. in conference with William
>Proxmire and several House and Senate committees.  I have been questioned,
>in length, about SF-LOVERS and the use of the computer networks.  I have
>had meetings with the President of Rutgers University, Ed Bloustein.  In
>short, it has been determined that SF-LOVERS Digest has, for the years of
>it's existence, been grossly misusing public funds.  There are criminal
>actions pending now against me (and all the prior moderators) for this
>misuse and other actions are contemplated for copyright infringements,
>theft of services (using the Rutgers computers for private gain), and tax
>invasion (the IRS claims that even though the digest generates no income it
>is still a business and must file an Income Tax form).
>
>In short, this will be the *LAST* issue of SF-LOVERS.  After this issue I
>am, under orders from the U.S. District Court in New York, folding the
>digest and deleting all archives and files pertaining to the digest in my
>possession.  Enjoy this last issue and remember fondly the days of
>SF-LOVERS.  Some day, we may return.  Until then, save your back issues and
>relish them, they may be worth something someday.
>
>Ex-Moderator SF-LOVERS Digest
>sf-lovers-request@rutgers.edu (address goes away April 1, 1988)

I have refrained from including the moderator's name in case he does not
wish it to be known.

That William Proxmire is in on this does not surprise me.

The fact that this happened deeply concerns me.  I have learned a great
deal from the various newsgroups that are on the network, and would like to
see their services continue.  It would be a shame if the newsgroups on the
network were shut down by the shortsightedness of bureaucrats and
politicians.  While SF-LOVERS was essentially a recreational newsgroup,
I can easily imagine this action extending to other newsgroups as well.  I
hope, for all of us, that it will not.


Signature: (yeah, I sign my checks like this.. :-)

   Kevin Brown (KCB9792@TAMSIGMA.BITNET)
   Texas A&M University

   Voice: (409)846-2667
   US SNAIL: 4302 College Main #353
          Bryan, TX  77801

Confucious say: "He who live by sword, die by gun!"

Disclaimer: These opinions are not the opinions of Texas A&M University or
anyone else, or even myself.  In fact, they're just products of your
imagination... :-)

------------------------------

Date: 31 Mar 88 17:57:41 GMT
From: pioneer!eugene@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Eugene N. Miya)
Subject: Re: Responses of Congressman to letters

In article <638@nysernic> weltyc@nisc.nyser.net (Christopher A. Welty) writes:
>....maybe if I ran for president.....

Sure Chris.  Do it.  In 1964 my Dad was among two dozen men to convince
a B-grad actor to run for Governor of CA.  I've been regretting ever
since.  You can't do much worse.  What does this have to do with space?

--eugene
	Style? Me?  Let me get my surf board..... ;-)

------------------------------

Date: Fri,  1 Apr 88 15:05:45 PST
From: Peter Scott <PJS@grouch.jpl.nasa.gov>
Subject: Passenger Space Flights
X-Vms-Mail-To: EXOS%"space@angband.s1.gov"

Years ago, Society Expeditions advertised that they would launch people
into space for the sum of $52,000, starting 1992.  At present they have
a vague design for a vehicle, nothing concrete.  I do not know how many
people registered.  Society Expeditions is a legit business that journeys
to exotic lands fot those with the bucks.  I would bet serious money their
plans do not materialize this century.

------------------------------

Date: 1 Apr 88 01:10:14 GMT
From: sonia!khayo@locus.ucla.edu  (Erazm J. Behr)
Subject: Re: KAL 007

A note to the readers of sci.space: I'm following up here for only
one reason - the original article appeared in this group. Other
than this, the topic has nothing to do with space. PLEASE use your
favorite editor to erase "sci.space" from the "Newsgroups" line; direct
ALL follow-ups & responses to talk.politics.misc or, by e-mail, to me.
My apologies - Eric Behr

This comes up now and then, just like lightbulb jokes and mercury-filled
wires. In contrast with the latter two, however, this topic is my favorite
for it clearly illustrates the Americans' tendency to disbelieve their
government (sometimes rightly so) and to find excuses for other governments
even when those clearly break all ethical/legal norms by their actions.
Note that I'm not directing this against Warwick (in which case I would've
descended 3 flights of stairs and put a stink-bomb in his office :-) but
rather against those who will propagate misconceptions/hearsay as *fact*,
simply because it suits them to do so in support of a particular political
point they're trying to make.

In article <10811@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU> warwick@MATH.UCLA.EDU (my life isn't real) writes:
 >In article <201300004@prism> peter@prism.TMC.COM writes:
 >>KAL007 was not a spy plane, but a 747 'seen' from below and behind
 >>looks a lot
 >>like the kind of plane that is used to fly electronic intelligence missions
Only it's 230 feet long, compared to 135 ft. for an RC-135; the wingspan
is also clearly different. In this sense *all* 4-wing-mounted-engine
planes look a lot like one another.

 >> ... [Deleted Stuff] ...
 >>Headquarters.  The Russian fighter pilots, due to the night time conditions,
 >>never positively identified the 747 before shooting it down.  It is believed
 >>that the fighters did fire a warning salvo of machine gun fire, but the 747
The Soviet pilot in an interview with Soviet TV claimed he fired tracers;
it *may* be inferred from the recorded conversations that he did ("...now
I will try a rocket..."); I could not find *any* other evidence of this claim.
 >> .... [More Stuff Deleted]....
 >>Peter J. Stucki --  peter@mirror.TMC.COM	

Warwick Daw:
 >
 >There was an American spy plane in the same area as KAL 007 at the
(see below)
 >time it was shot down. The spy plane was a 717, which I think is a
                                             ^^^ RC-135
 >modified version of a 707. Supposedly, the Russian pilots thought they
 >were shooting at the 717, having never gotten close enough or at the
 >right angle to identify the plane as a 747 (that distinctive bump
 >is only distinctive when the plane is viewed from the side).
1) The plane was in and out of Soviet airspace for more than 1 hour. At
first it seems the Soviets identified it as an RC-135, but later
re-classified it as "unidentified";
2) At at least one point, just before shoot-down, the Soviet interceptor
overtook the 747, coming as close as 2 km to it; from the recordings it
seems that the KAL was then 70 deg. to his left. If he didn't identify
the aircraft correctly, it was because he didn't really try to (it was
dark, but the radar cross-sections of a 747 and an RC-135 must be easy
to distinguish!). The most plausible reason was that the 747 was about
30 miles away from the international airspace. Shoot first, ask later.
 >
 >This information was in an article burried in the middle of the
 >New York Times AT LEAST six months after KAL 007 was shot down.
 >In other words, our government sat on this information until it
 >was no longer news. 
Here you get an F for logic. The fact that you saw it 6 months after
the event doesn't mean that others didn't see it earlier...

FYI: the tragedy occurred on Sept. 1, 1983. The Sept. 5 LA Times
has a big-print header across the front page ("US spy plane..." etc.),
with an article below beginning: "The White House acknowledges that
a reconnaisance airplane (RC-135) was operating in the area" (I'm
quoting from memory - I looked it up yesterday). That's hardly 6 months.
The Sept. 19 issue of the Time Magazine has a long article in which the
RC-135 is mentioned repeatedly.

The area where the two planes were anywhere near each other was
1000 miles north of where the 747 was shot down; this was over 90
minutes before the missiles were fired. The RC-135 never entered
Soviet airspace.

 >E. Warwick Daw      warwick@math.ucla.edu

Two more interesting tidbits: on Sept. 3 the Soviets admitted they
intercepted the plane, but not that they shot at it, and said:
"Fighters of the anti-aircraft defense, which were sent aloft
toward the intruder plane, tried to give it assistance in directing
it to the nearest airfield" [TASS]

A little later, Pravda quoted the Sydney Morning Herald as saying
"[the 747] could well have been mistaken for an E4B bomber..."
(granted, E4B is 747-based, but (a) it is not a bomber, but a
Presidential command post; (b) as far as I know there were at
most 2 in existence at that point, both stationed permanently
in the US).

And so the story rolls on, gathering more and more colorful
"details"...
                                                       Eric
___________________________________________________________
 Please use   khayo@MATH.ucla.edu   instead of CS.ucla.edu

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #187
*******************

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Date: Tue, 12 Apr 88 03:23:33 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
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To: Space@angband.s1.gov
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Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #188

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 188

Today's Topics:
		   Re: space news from Feb 22 AW&ST
	   Re: Carr *STILL* does not understand refraction
		    Re:  Quote from Aviation Week
		    Re: Libertarian space position
	     Iranians in Space (was: Forget the Saturn V)
		     Re: Libertarians love NASA?
		Re: commercialism of the space program
		    Re: fuels other than hydrogen
			    Re: Antimatter
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 31 Mar 88 20:54:08 GMT
From: jtk@mordor.s1.gov  (Jordan Kare)
Subject: Re: space news from Feb 22 AW&ST

In article <1988Mar28.002506.12135@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>
>[Micro-editorial:  In retrospect, it was clearly a mistake to give the USAF
>primary responsibility for US military spaceflight.  The US Navy, which has
>a long history of being charged with supporting commercial sea users, would
>have been a much better choice.]

Not to mention, as a Navy friend of mine points out, that the Navy has
vastly more experience with closed life-support systems and other
aspects of long-term survival in hostile environments -- other than
needing to get used to zero-g, any submarine crewperson would feel right
at home in a space station....

>Bad luck for the Soviets, a double dose this time.  Cosmos 1906, an imaging
>satellite working for the new Soyuzkarta marketing organization, fails and
>has to be blown up to prevent it making an uncontrolled reentry and possibly
>falling into US hands.  

Or onto US heads :-) (or is that :-( ?)

>"Noalias must go.  This is           |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
>non-negotiable."  --DMR              | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

	Jordin Kare	jtk@mordor.UUCP	jtk@mordor.s1.gov

------------------------------

Date: 31 Mar 88 17:45:42 GMT
From: aplcen!aplcomm!stdc.jhuapl.edu!jwm@mimsy.umd.edu  (James W. Meritt)
Subject: Re: Carr *STILL* does not understand refraction

In article <4026@whuts.UUCP> orb@whuts.UUCP (45263-SEVENER,T.J.) writes:
>And there *is* an abrupt end to the atmosphere in the region
>where the escape velocity approximates the velocity of the gas
>molecules at the edge of the atmosphere.


(future) shuttle pilots will be glad to hear this!  Would you mind
giving the altitude?




Disclaimer: Individuals have opinions, organizations have policy.
            Therefore, these opinions are mine and not any organizations!
Q.E.D.
jwm@aplvax.jhuapl.edu 128.244.65.5

------------------------------

Date: 	  Sat, 2 Apr 88 01:14:25 PST
From: BOWERYJ%CPVA.SAINET.MFENET@nmfecc.arpa

Subject: Re:  Quote from Aviation Week
Date:    Sat,  2-APR-1988 01:17 PDT
X-VMS-Mail-To: SPACE

Phil Karn speaks of humanity "re-evolve"ing space flight capability
thousands of years after a nuclear war.  Unfortunately, there is reason
to believe that humanity is living out its only chance to develop
a space-faring civilization right now.  The reason for this is that
hydrothermal ore formation processes are inherently very slow and cannot
be sped up without an economy of energy production far in excess of even
the fringe ideas of Joseph Newman with his "energy machine" let alone
the wildest claims of more mainstream fusion energy researchers.  We
are chewing up critical ores at a million times their formation rate
and are not likely to find substitutes for all materials which sit
at critical junctures of a space-faring civilization's technology.

In short, if we, the baby-boomers blow it, we may doom terrestrial life
to remain, forever, terrestrial.

------------------------------

Date:  2 Apr 1988 13:56-EST 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: Libertarian space position

Jim Bowery pointed out an issue that might cause a certain amount of
confusion.

When I post here I must where different hats on different occasions. If
I post for NSS or Spacepac or Spacecause, I must represent the
organization policy as well as I can. The same is true for Eugene Miya
at Ames.

If I post representing the Libertarian Party or their candidate, I must
also represent their stand as fairly and as honestly as I can.

My own personal opinion, not often expressed here, is that NASA should
be chopped down to where things like Pathfinder are it's SOLE
operation. I might also support some form of 'mail contract' for
private launch systems if it was done more honestly and without the
scandals of the 1920's. NACA did a fine job at what it was chartered to
do: run a few research facilities whose raison d'etre was basic flight
research for the infant aviation industry. I am personally in favor of
a bunch of private Industrial Space Facilities and a External Tank Farm
rather than a $30B federal money sink. The feds can lease the space they
need to carry out a NACA-like role in space.

Those of you who sometimes act in an official capacity will understand
such dilemmas. As a board member of NSS, I have attempted and will
continue to attempt to represent and carry out the policies of the
society as fairly and accurately as I can. It would be my duty to
resign if I felt I could not do so.

------------------------------

Date: 1 Apr 88 15:54:03 GMT
From: cfa!cfa250!mcdowell@husc6.harvard.edu  (Jonathan McDowell)
Subject: Iranians in Space (was: Forget the Saturn V)

>From article <1127@its63b.ed.ac.uk>, by bob@its63b.ed.ac.uk (ERCF08 Bob Gray):
> In article <766@cfa237.cfa250.harvard.edu> mcdowell@cfa250.harvard.edu (Jonathan McDowell) writes:
>>From article <1113@its63b.ed.ac.uk>, by bob@its63b.ed.ac.uk (ERCF08 Bob Gray):
>>> Note that Iran already has a space industry.
>>Wot?? I think you mean INDIA - who have had 4 sats and a cosmonaut put up
>>by the Soviets. The Shah's govt was planning a Zohreh domestic comsat before
>>the revolution, but nothing ever came of it. The only thing Iran ever had
>>was a few ground stations. 
> 
> No, I mean IRAN.
> 
> The "Zohreh" domestic comsat project is still continuing
> under the control of their SITAO (Satellite and
> International Affairs Office). The satellites and ground
> equipment are to be built in Iran.
> 
> The Soviets took an Iranian airforce officer up on one of
> their missions in the days before MIR, but this shouldn't
> be surprising considering the number of other nationalities
> of passengers carried by the soviets.
> 
> A quick survey shows that they have flown cosmanauts from
> Bulgaria, Cuba, East Germany, France, India, North Korea,
> Poland, Romania, Syria and Vietnam, amongst others.
> 	Bob.
Dear Bob,

I'd be really interested in any information you have on
an Iranian or North Korean cosmonaut.
I am only aware of:
Czech (Remek, Soyuz 28/Salyut-6, 1978)
Polish (Hermaszewski, Soyuz 30/Salyut-6, 1978)
East German (Jahn, Soyuz 31/Salyut-6,1978)
Bulgarian (Ivanov, Soyuz 33/Salyut-6, 1979)
Hungarian (Farkas, Soyuz 36/Salyut-6, 1980)
Vietnamese (Pham Tuan, Soyuz 37/Salyut-6, 1980)
Cuban (Tamayo Mendez, Soyuz 38/Salyut-6, 1980)
Mongolian (Gurragcha, Soyuz 39/Salyut-6, 1981)
Romanian (Prunariu, Soyuz 40/Salyut-6, 1981)
French (Chretien, Soyuz T-6/Salyut-7, 1982)
Indian (Sharma, Soyuz T-11/Salyut-7, 1984)
Syrian (Faris, Soyuz TM-3/Mir, 1987)

with Bulgarian (TM-5), Afghan (TM-6) and French (TM-7?) currently in training and Austrian 
expected soon.

I agree that the Iranians claim Zohreh still exists as a project,
but my impression is that it's pretty much on paper at the moment.

Jonathan McDowell

------------------------------

Date: Sat,  2 Apr 88 18:13:35 EST
From: "Keith F. Lynch" <KFL@ai.ai.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: Libertarians love NASA?
To: BOWERYJ%CPVA.SAINET.MFENET@NMFECC.ARPA
Cc: KFL@ai.ai.mit.edu, Space@angband.s1.gov

> From: BOWERYJ%CPVA.SAINET.MFENET@nmfecc.arpa

> I saw a message from Dale Amon asking us to lobby for full NASA funding.
> Dale is quite vocal in proclaiming himself to be a libertarian. ... the
> Libertarian Party ... recommended that NASA be abolished.  Even the policy
> statement of a Libertarian Party presidential candidate was clear in its
> stance that NASA had held back U.S. progress in space for the last 20 years.

Dale Amon does not speak for the Libertarian party.  I have asked him
more than once to change his stance or to stop calling himself a
libertarian.
								...Keith

------------------------------

Date: 29 Mar 88 10:21:24 GMT
From: xanth!kent@mcnc.org  (Kent Paul Dolan)
Subject: Re: commercialism of the space program

In article <8803281455.AA12832@NADC.ARPA> rachiele@NADC.ARPA (J. Rachiele) writes:
>
>There is one and only one motive of private industry, and that is to
>MAKE A PROFIT!  This is what, directly or indirectly, caused the space
>shuttle disaster.[...] I feel much 
>more comfortable knowing that someones life on the line in a space
>vehicle or in a space station in orbit, or in a manned colony on the moon,
>is not depending on a high-level business exec looking at the bottom line
>on a profit sheet!
>             Jim Rachiele

Sorry Jim, my conscience won't let me let that one go by unchallenged.

Elsewhere  on the net  today, I read  a posting (of  unknown accuracy)
stating that for each marginal 1  human life saved, US nuclear reactor
designers were spending $7,000,000,000!

We  have  sat paralyzed in   our space program   since  the Challenger
tragedy, in response to a known failure mode which could be avoided by
not launching in cold weather.   What _unemotional_  reason  was there
not to continue the  scheduled launches  with  that proviso  while the
ring seal was redesigned to allow cold weather launches?

There _must_ be some limitation to what  we  spend to prevent the loss
of the next human life  in the space program, or  we will never send a
manned US space mission up again.

In  any large enough human  enterprise,  lives are  lost to accidents.
Actuaries can  tell you almost to the   cubic yard the ratio  of lives
lost to dam volume constructed, or of  lives lost to caisson tunneling
volume  completed.  As we gain  experience,   we  will have the   same
figures for manned space work.

If that $7,000,000,000 figure  were correct (possible) and represented
wages at $35,000 per year (unlikely, but  for argument's sake) then it
represents 200,000 person years of labor.  That is too much!

Thought of as money, no amount seems too high to spend to save a life.
Thought of as expended  meaning of other human  lives, there must be a
cut-off  somewhere.  Those same 200,000 person  years  could have been
spent  finding  a  cure    for cancer,  or   building playgrounds  for
disadvantaged   children, or researching  the  causes  of and ways  of
preventing war; you get the idea.

For everything, there    is some balance  that  must  be struck.   The
working lives of our population are a finite resource.  The problem is
one of  "engineering  management   ethics", and probably   the balance
struck resulting in the loss of the Challenger was incorrect, but some
decision must be made in every case.

We simply cannot continue to have  a  space program involving  risk to
human life unless some person  is  charged with balancing cost against
lost human lives, and the rest of us are willing to accept that such a
decision must be made,  and to live both with  the decision,  and with
the inevitable resulting loss of lives.

Those actuarial tables are real, and real  people die raising dams and
sinking tunnels, and it is  as inevitable as anything  statistical can
be, and  yet the engineering management decisions   are made,  and the
dams are built, and the tunnels are  dug, and the  lives are  lost and
mourned by those who did everything reasonable to  prevent their being
lost.

By the time we settle  the Oort cloud, the loss  of life will probably
be enough to  populate a middle  sized European nation.   Remember the
loss of the Roanoke settlement, the loss of life at Plymouth?  We will
go because we must, we will  die unwilling and struggling to  the last
to live, but we will go, or stop calling ourselves human.

And  someone will have to strike  a  balance at  the  bottom line that
makes the going economically feasible, or we can't go on going.

Kent, the man from xanth.

Originator and "candidate" of the  Birthright Party.   "The Birthright
of Humankind is the Stars!"  Join us in talk.bizarre  and help us plan
the  politics of a  revitalized man into  space program.  If you care,
then your input is needed.

------------------------------

Date: 30 Mar 88 18:21:17 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: fuels other than hydrogen

> ...i essentially divided the energies
> of formation of various hydrocarbons by the weights of the reaction
> products...

I really wonder whether energy of formation is the right yardstick.
Some of the rankings you come up with are very surprising, notably
ethane better than methane -- as far as I know ethane has never even
been thought about as a rocket fuel, while methane gets serious
attention.

My recollection (this is dim and may be incorrect) is that a useful
approximate yardstick is percentage hydrogen by weight.  Hydrogen, being
very light and combining enthusiastically with a relatively small weight
of oxygen, does most of the work; the carbon or whatever else is pretty
much just along for the ride.  I.e., hydrocarbons are a way of storing
hydrogen without the hassles of liquid hydrogen.  Methane wins over the
more usual kerosene because it has nearly twice as much hydrogen, and
ammonia is a serious contender for the same reason.  (Methane and ammonia
tend to be the fuels talked about for high-performance non-hydrogen
non-kerosene chemical rocketry.)

To add a practical note or two... Even if acetylene scores high on energy
content, it is unusable because liquid acetylene is, I think, a dangerous
explosive.  Benzene likewise is out because it is extremely dangerous,
both poisonous and carcinogenic.  And yes, that startlingly low number for
the density of liquid hydrogen is indeed correct.
-- 
"Noalias must go.  This is           |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
non-negotiable."  --DMR              | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 2 Apr 88 22:28:51 GMT
From: agate!garnet!weemba@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Obnoxious Math Grad Student)
Subject: Re: Antimatter

In article <1988Apr2.022820.15059@utzoo.uucp>, henry@utzoo (Henry Spencer) writes:

>Giggle.  Snicker.  Chortle.  Guffaw.  Roll about on the floor laughing at
>the naivete of this silly comment.

I refer you to the SCIENCE article I summarized in ARMS-D last year, about
some researchers' alarm about where antimatter research is headed.  It was
not funny then.  Give it another 20-40 years; I have faith in the ingenuity
of American scientists.  But not in their wisdom.

ucbvax!garnet!weemba	Matthew P Wiener/Brahms Gang/Berkeley CA 94720

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #188
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To: Space@angband.s1.gov
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Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #189

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 189

Today's Topics:
		     Jesse Jackson's space policy
		     Re: Passenger Space Flights
		 Computer/Robot Vision on the Shuttle
			      Re: Units
			    Re: Antimatter
			      I-CON VII
		 Ride report (was: Mars Declaration)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 1 Apr 88 23:36:23 GMT
From: phoenix!pucc!EWTILENI@princeton.edu  (Eric Tilenius)
Subject: Jesse Jackson's space policy

The following is a DRAFT of Jesse Jackson's stands on space.  The following
is typed from a Draft released 2/29/88.
 
For more information, contact: Jesse Jackson '88, 30 West Washington Street,
Suite 300, Chicago, Illinois 60602 // 312-855-3773
 
              DRAFT - EXPLORING SPACE TO BENEFIT ALL HUMANITY
 
"For too long, our space program has been driven by military rivalries
and corporate greed.  The technology that can result from a space
program oriented to public needs will be the economic backbone of our
country and the world in the 21st century.  It is time for new
leadership, so that America's space program can go forward in
partnership with all humanity." -- Jesse Jackson
 
The development of high technology has given humanity the ability to
send people into orbit around the Earth and to the Moon, and to send
machines to the very ends of the solar system.  Space exploration has
produced an abundance of scientific knowledge about the Earth and about
the other planets, increased our ability to do solar forecasting, made
possible instantaneous worldwide communication, and created jobs by
opening new markets and stimulating productivity.
 
But space technology has its down side as well.  Military space
technology is spurring the arms race and increasing the risks of a
nuclear war which would destroy humanity.  The possession of this
enormous capability carries with it the responsibility to ensure that
technology is used wisely for the benefit of all people.
 
The Reagan Administration has failed in that responsibility. It has seen
the development of space weapons as a way to demonstrate superiority
over the Soviet Union, and has misled the American people with its
absurd claims that Strategic Defense Initiative, better known as Star
Wars, can protect us all from the threat of nuclear war.  At the same
time, it has failed to give leadership in shaping a long-term vision of
what good things our country, in cooperation with other nations, ought
to be doing in space.
 
To develop our space program to benefit all humanity, I propose to:
 
* STOP THE MILITARIZATION OF SPACE
 
A new direction in space policy requires abandonment both of the Star
Wars program and of the development of anti-satellite weapons. Star Wars
is a cruel hoax. It offers an impossible technological solution to a
political problem. It will cost over a trillion dollars in the heavens.
Space-based weapons will generate counter weapons which will generate
counter-protective weapons which will generate first strike space plans.
Our coffers will be robbed; our science distorted; and our insecurity
increased.
 
The Soviets have said that they are willing to curtail their own space
weapons development. We ought to challenge them to keep their word by
signing a mutual and verifiable agreement to keep space free of all
weapons and nuclear war fighting systems. Satellites must play an
important role in verifying this and all other arms control agreements.
 
At the same time, we must be scrupulous in adhering to the most
significant arms control treaty of recent decades, the 1972 ABM Treaty,
which restricts the development of anti-ballistic missile systems such as
Star Wars. We cannot make peace while undermining existing treaties.
 
* SHARE SPACE TECHNOLOGY
 
The United States must improve its efforts, through the United Nations
and other international bodies, to see that technological developments
in space truly do benefit all people everywhere. Space technology is not
the province of just the U.S. and the Soviet Union. In 1967, an Outer
Space Treaty was signed by over 100 nations, which says that space ought
to be used for peaceful purposes that benefit all humanity. Today, many
countries have active space programs. The Western European countries,
Japan, China, and India have launched their own satellites. Many other
countries use satellites for the environmental monitoring and
communications to promote their own economic development.
 
Satellites can observe the fragile environment of the Earth in a
systematic and efficient fashion. Remote sensing of our planet is
critical as we strive to protect and restore our ecology. Depending on
its orbit, a single satellite can observe much or all of the surface of
our planet. The valuable scientific information that results must be
shared, along with the expertise to make use of it, for we have only one
shared environment among all nations and peoples.
 
* EXPLORE THE PLANETS
 
Planetary exploration by robot spacecraft has produced a golden age of
astronomy. The pace of that exploration, which teaches us much about the
mysteries of our very origins, has slowed due to mismanagement and
shortsightedness. We must turn to our planetary and space scientists for
guidance as to the scientific priorities. It is important for us to
learn more about the sun, the comets, the asteroids, Venus, Mars, Saturn
and Jupiter. Whenever practical, these missions should be undertaken
cooperatively with other nations. Scientific exploration is not cheap,
but it is an investment in our future.
 
* PARTICIPATE IN JOINT U.S.-SOVIET SPACE PROJECTS
 
A joint U.S. - Soviet mission to Mars is an idea which has great
potential to bring our peoples together in both practical and symbolic
ways. Since Mars is the planet most like Earth, there is real scientific
merit in learning more about it. Both countries are planning unmanned
missions to Mars, and we ought to combine our efforts immediately. We
also should begin discussions with the Soviets on the feasibility of
sending a human crew to Mars in a joint U.S.-Soviet mission, with
involvement by other nations as well.
 
The U.S. is now planning a space station. We should direct the National
Academy of Sciences to approach its Soviet counterpart which has had
success with their Salyut and Mir stations, with the intention of
jointly leading an international effort dedicated to studying the needs
of a permanent presence of humans on an earth-orbiting space station. If
such a presence is deemed to be of value, we should participate in the
construction of such a space station. It should be charged with
developing globally beneficial technology for communications, maritime
and air traffic control, and astronomical, geological, and geophysical
exploration. A space station can produce advances in scientific and
commercial development, with strong leadership, capable management, and
careful thought. A project this complex must not be done solely for
reasons of prestige.
 
When the space shuttle Challenger exploded in January of 1986, two
women, a Black man, and an Asian-American man were among the seven who
died. The Challenger disaster symbolizes both the crisis of the U.S.
space program and its future strength. In order to revitalize the U.S.
space program, it must truly be a program that all humanity can embrace.
For too long, our space program has been driven by military rivalries
and corporate greed. The technology that can result from a careful
program of space exploration and development will be the economic
backbone of our country and the world in the 21st century. Our children
and grandchildren will benefit or suffer by the decisions we make now.
It is time for new leadership, so that America's space program can go
forward in partnership with all humanity.
 
           ------ END OF TEXT FROM JESSE JACKSON ------
*****
Position statements from the following candidates are on record.  If you
would like a copy of any, please send me EMAIL:
 
Paul SIMON, Mike DUKAKIS, Al GORE, Jesse JACKSON
 
In addition a letter from Congressman Bob Mrazek, the President's new National
Space Policy, and the Mars Declaration are also available via EMAIL.  If
you wish to see copies of any of these, just drop me a note.
 
- ERIC -
 
*----------------------===>  SPACE IS THE PLACE... <===-----------------------*
*        ewtileni@pucc.Princeton.EDU  //  ewtileni@pucc.BITNET                *
*      rutgers!pucc.bitnet!ewtileni  //  princeton!pucc.bitnet!ewtileni       *
* ColorVenture - Microcomputer Software - "Because Life isn't Black and White"*
*--------------------===> Another proud CoCo 3 owner <===---------------------*

------------------------------

Date: 2 Apr 88 05:48:44 GMT
From: imagine!pawl19.pawl.rpi.edu!jesup@itsgw.rpi.edu  (Randell E. Jesup)
Subject: Re: Passenger Space Flights

In article <880401150545.00000AC8101@grouch.JPL.NASA.GOV> PJS@GROUCH.JPL.NASA.GOV (Peter Scott) writes:
>Years ago, Society Expeditions advertised that they would launch people
>into space for the sum of $52,000, starting 1992.  At present they have
>a vague design for a vehicle, nothing concrete.  I do not know how many
>people registered.  Society Expeditions is a legit business that journeys
>to exotic lands fot those with the bucks.  I would bet serious money their
>plans do not materialize this century.

	They started 6 months before the Challenger accident, I believe.
After Challenger, they said that they still were planning on it, and that
very few/no people had pulled out.  The fee was 50,000 or so, and a reservation
cost 5000 which goes into an escrow account (if they don't give you a ride,
you get the money back.)
	The design shown on the news was SSTO, vertical takeoff/landing.
Flight plan was 6-12 hours(?) in orbit, 20 passengers, pilot, co-pilot, 
stewardress/medical attendant, everyone has their own window for taking
photographs.
	Last I heard (Challenger + 3-6 months) they were filled up for the
first couple of years of flights, at 1 flight every week or 2 weeks.  I 
think they were going to build 2 or 3 of the vehicles.

	It makes some sense that they might be able to do it, using fairly
modern but not cutting edge technology.  The payload requirements are very
low compared to shuttle/boosters.  23 people @ 175lbs, about 4200 lbs,
plus a few hours oxygen/etc.  And I'm sure the orbit would be VERY low,
which allows great pictures of the earth, and keeps fuel requirements for
retro-burn to a minimum.
	The shuttle engines are very sophisticated so they can get maximum
thrust out of the fuel, but getting that last 10% thrust probably cost them
50% of the cost of development/maintenance.  Also, cheaper/simpler engines
can be replaced more often, reducing the longevity requirements.  I don't
know if they planned to build their own engines, I suspect not.

	Does anyone have more details concerning the design, or their current
status?

     //	Randell Jesup			      Lunge Software Development
    //	Dedicated Amiga Programmer            13 Frear Ave, Troy, NY 12180
 \\//	beowulf!lunge!jesup@steinmetz.UUCP    (518) 272-2942
  \/    (uunet!steinmetz!beowulf!lunge!jesup) BIX: rjesup

(-: The Few, The Proud, The Architects of the RPM40 40MIPS CMOS Micro :-)

------------------------------

Date: 31 Mar 88 16:20:25 GMT
From: wucs1!wucs2!wuccrc!dwex@uunet.uu.net  (David Wexelblat)
Subject: Computer/Robot Vision on the Shuttle


While doing research for a Computer Vision seminar, I came accross a paper
by T.E. Beeler on a robot vision system for sizing and cutting replacement
tiles for the shuttle.  This sparked my interest.  Can people provide me
with references to other papers on computer or robot vision systems used with
the shuttle, either in manufacturing, or on missions.  Please mail responses
and I will summarize to the net.


-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
David Wexelblat	   Washington University in St. Louis  (314) 889-4794
UUCP:		   dwex@wuccrc.UUCP  or  ..!{ihnp4,uunet}!wucs1!wuccrc!dwex
ARPANET:	   wucs1!wuccrc!dwex@uunet.uu.net
CSNET:		   wucs1!wuccrc!dwex%uunet.uu.net@csnet-relay or
		   wucs1!wuccrc!dwex.uucp%bbncv.ARPA@csnet-relay

------------------------------

Date: 30 Mar 88 19:29:29 GMT
From: meccts!viper!dave@UMN-CS.ARPA  (David Messer)
Subject: Re: Units

In article <1806@ssc-vax.UUCP> eder@ssc-vax.UUCP (Dani Eder) writes:
 >(b) 500N (xxx stone-furlongs/fortnight squared)
 >
 >(the conversion factor from Newtons to stone-furlong/fornight squared
 >escapes me at the moment :-)  ).

500N = 5.726653e+11 stone-furlongs/fortnight squared

Simple once you get used to the system... :-)
-- 
If you can't convince |   David Messer - (dave@Lynx.MN.Org)
them, confuse them.   |   Lynx Data Systems
   -- Harry S. Truman | 
                      |   amdahl   --!bungia!viper!dave
                      |   hpda    /

Copyright 1988 David Messer -- All Rights Reserved
This work may be freely copied.  Any restrictions on
redistribution of this work are prohibited.

------------------------------

Date: 2 Apr 88 02:28:20 GMT
From: att-cb!clyde!watmath!utgpu!utzoo!henry@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Antimatter

> >	'The 'giggle factor' is over. Antimatter is real ...
> 
> Of course the 'giggle factor' is over.  There's absolutely nothing
> funny about what DoD is going to actually use antimatter for.

Giggle.  Snicker.  Chortle.  Guffaw.  Roll about on the floor laughing at
the naivete of this silly comment.

Do you have any idea how much antimatter is going to *cost*?!?

Or how big and heavy the support equipment for safe antimatter storage on
Earth's surface is going to be?

For the foreseeable future, antimatter bombs will be bigger, heavier,
and far less safe to handle than ordinary nuclear bombs (which are, for
example, built to survive a high-speed aircraft crash without a major
explosion -- with good reason, since aircraft do crash with bombs aboard).

And not even the USAF could afford them.
-- 
"Noalias must go.  This is           |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
non-negotiable."  --DMR              | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 2 Apr 88 03:42:20 GMT
From: ihnp4!twitch!hoqax!bicker@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (The Resource, Poet of Quality)
Subject: I-CON VII



                          I-CON VII

New York's Largest Convention of Science Fiction, Science Fact, and
Fantasy is coming to the State University of New York at Stony Brook

                    April 15, 16, 17, 1988

Extensive Science and Technology Programming Track.  Last year's
talks included the history of the development of spacecraft,
aerospace design, new directions in physics, future spaceflight,
stargazing, genetic uplift, nuclear waste, and the Titanic.

Lectures, Panel Discussions, An Art Show, Science Fiction and
Fantasy Programming, Films, Videos, ...

Admission for all three days is only $18 at the door.
Single day rates: Fri - $8, Sat - $10, Sun - $10.
        Make checks payable to I-CON VII
                  and send to PO Box 550, Stony Brook, NY  11790

Latest info is available through bicker@hoqam.UUCP (...ihnp4!hoqam!bicker)

I-CON Programming Hours:
                    Friday    6pm - 2am?
                    Saturday  10am - 3am?
                    Sunday    10am - 8pm?

B. Kohn, I-CON VI Committee

/kohn/brian.c      AT&T Bell Laboratories Semantic Engineering Center
The Resource, Poet of Quality   ...ihnp4!hoqam!bicker  (201) 949-5850
"It is useless for sheep to pass resolutions in favor of vegetarianism
while wolves remain of a different opinion." - Wm. Ralph Inge, D.D.

------------------------------

Date: 30 Mar 88 17:36:29 GMT
From: mtunx!lzaz!lznv!psc@rutgers.edu  (Paul S. R. Chisholm)
Subject: Ride report (was: Mars Declaration)

In article <1988Mar25.175252.910@utzoo.uucp>, henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>                                        If you want more, you should read
> the Ride Report, which said "Mars should not be our immediate goal" and
> justified it at length.
Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

Sounds like a good idea to me.  However, when our local chapter of the
National Space Society sent GPO an order for a few copies, we were told
it was back ordered, then told that it was out of print.  Anyone know
how to get hold of a copy these days?  (The suggestion at the chapter
meeting was to call our congressman, but he died on Friday, so *he's*
no help!-)

-Paul S. R. Chisholm, {ihnp4,cbosgd,allegra,rutgers}!mtune!lznv!psc
AT&T Mail !psrchisholm, Internet psc@lznv.att.com
I'm not speaking for my employer, I'm just speaking my mind.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #189
*******************

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	id AA00853; Thu, 14 Apr 88 03:21:45 PDT
Date: Thu, 14 Apr 88 03:21:45 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8804141021.AA00853@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #190

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 190

Today's Topics:
			     Re: KAL 007
			     Re: KAL 007
			     Re: KAL 007
		     Re: Who's running for office
	       Re: Ride report (was: Mars Declaration)
	    Information wanted on "Space Camp" for Adults
		      NASA Prediction Bulletins
			Space Digest V#, #180
		     Re: Passenger Space Flights
			 Re: Mars Declaration
			 Re: Mars Declaration
			   MIR passover...
		     Re: Who's running for office
			 POSITION OF JUPITER
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 31 Mar 88 19:28:33 GMT
From: warwick@locus.ucla.edu
Subject: Re: KAL 007

In article <201300004@prism> peter@prism.TMC.COM writes:
>KAL007 was not a spy plane, but a 747 'seen' from below and behind looks a lot
>like the kind of plane that is used to fly electronic intelligence missions
>from bases in the Aleutian(?sp) Islands.  According to Seymore Hersch(?sp) in
>his book _The Target Is Destroyed_, KAL 007 caught the Russians with their
> ... [Deleted Stuff] ...
>Headquarters.  The Russian fighter pilots, due to the night time conditions,
>never positively identified the 747 before shooting it down.  It is believed
>that the fighters did fire a warning salvo of machine gun fire, but the 747
> .... [More Stuff Deleted]....
>----
>Peter J. Stucki --  peter@mirror.TMC.COM	

I have watched this conversation go back and forth for a while now,
on the assumption that someone else would come forth with this bit
of information. Since nobody has here it is:

There was an American spy plane in the same area as KAL 007 at the
time it was shot down. The spy plane was a 717, which I think is a
modified version of a 707. Supposedly, the Russian pilots thought they
were shooting at the 717, having never gotten close enough or at the
right angle to identify the plane as a 747 (that distinctive bump
is only distinctive when the plane is viewed from the side).

This information was in an article burried in the middle of the
New York Times AT LEAST six months after KAL 007 was shot down.
In other words, our government sat on this information until it
was no longer news. 

My Office mate has just told me that there is a very good article
that appeared sometime within the last year or so in the Atlantic
Monthly, which explains the chain of mistakes and errors that led
to KAL 007 being shot down.

E. Warwick Daw      warwick@math.ucla.edu

------------------------------

Date: 30 Mar 88 19:37:05 GMT
From: meccts!viper!dave@umn-cs.arpa  (David Messer)
Subject: Re: KAL 007

In article <880325154156.000004A6871@grouch.JPL.NASA.GOV> PJS@grouch.jpl.nasa.GOV (Peter Scott) writes:
 >Well, the fact that the Soviets knew what kind of plane they were shooting
 >down works both ways: I am sure that even an entire fleet of Aeroflot
 >passenger planes circling over D.C. would not be molested, although they
 >would be greeted by a fair number of fighters.
 
Actually D.C. contains one of the only areas in the country
where they WOULD be shot down.  The White House and Capitol in
particular are protected with anti-aircraft missles.
-- 
If you can't convince |   David Messer - (dave@Lynx.MN.Org)
them, confuse them.   |   Lynx Data Systems
   -- Harry S. Truman | 
                      |   amdahl   --!bungia!viper!dave
                      |   hpda    /

Copyright 1988 David Messer -- All Rights Reserved
This work may be freely copied.  Any restrictions on
redistribution of this work are prohibited.

------------------------------

Date: 31 Mar 88 23:17:35 GMT
From: pioneer!eugene@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Eugene N. Miya)
Subject: Re: KAL 007

This subject has nothing to do with space. Please move it to rec.aviation or
soc.politics.arms-d where it was raised and burned before.

--eugene

------------------------------

Date: 3 Apr 88 05:31:02 GMT
From: ssc-vax!eder@beaver.cs.washington.edu  (Dani Eder)
Subject: Re: Who's running for office


Some of you might be interested in John Palmer, Libertarian Party
candidate for the US House of representatives in the 5th District
in Alabama.  He works with me on the Space Station program, and is
for the development of space, although not by governments.

 Dani Eder/Boeing/Space Station Program/sscvax!eder

------------------------------

Date: 3 Apr 88 22:16:38 GMT
From: josh@topaz.rutgers.edu  (J Storrs Hall)
Subject: Re: Ride report (was: Mars Declaration)

Sounds like a good idea to me.  However, when our local chapter of the
National Space Society sent GPO an order for [the Ride report], we were told
it was back ordered, then told that it was out of print.  Anyone know
how to get hold of a copy these days?  

I believe it can be ordered through Aviation Week.  There have been
full page ads for it in recent issues.  
--JoSH

------------------------------

Date: 4 Apr 88 00:48:47 GMT
From: erd@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu  (Ethan R. Dicks)
Subject: Information wanted on "Space Camp" for Adults


I just heard about an education experience for Adults, like "Space Camp"  Can
anyone furnish any details (location, cost, waiting time, qualifications)?

Please reply via E-mail.

Thanks,

-ethan

-- 
Ethan R. Dicks      | ######  This signifies that the poster is a member in
Specialized Software|   ##    good sitting of Inertia House: Bodies at rest.
2101 Iuka Ave.      |   ##
Columbus OH 43201   | ######  "You get it, you're closer."

------------------------------

Date: 3 Apr 88 23:31:39 GMT
From: ut-emx!tskelso@sally.utexas.edu  (TS Kelso)
Subject: NASA Prediction Bulletins


For those of you who are interested in satellite tracking, the most current
orbital elements from the NASA Prediction Bulletins are carried on the
Celestial RCP/M, (512) 892-4180, and are updated several times weekly.  As a
service to the amateur satellite community, the most current of these elements
are uploaded weekly to rec.ham-radio.  The Celestial RCP/M may be accessed 24
hours/day at 300, 1200, or 2400 baud using 8 data bits, 1 stop bit, no parity.

--
TS Kelso                            ARPA: tskelso@emx.cc.utexas.edu
The Center for Space Research
The University of Texas at Austin   UUCP: {ihnp4,allegra}!ut-emx!tskelso

------------------------------

Date: 4 Apr 1988
From: DR9021@ucsfvm.ucsf.edu

Date:    Mon, 4 Apr 88       07:41:33 PDT
From:    Donna Reynolds <DR9021@UCSFVM.BITNET>
         (University of California, San Francisco)
         (415-476-4440)
To:       <SPACE@angband.s1.gov>
Subject: Space Digest V#, #180

Sorry to trouble you, but the above-referenced Space Digest
arrived as garbage.  Would you be so kind as to resend?

Thank you for your assistance.

-DR

------------------------------

Date: 2 Apr 88 23:00:54 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Passenger Space Flights

> ... Society Expeditions is a legit business that journeys
> to exotic lands fot those with the bucks.  I would bet serious money their
> plans do not materialize this century.

A friend of mine speculates that Society Expeditions figures it will make
a profit on publicity even if the hardware doesn't come through and they
have to return all the deposits.

Personally, I'm not prepared to bet *against* their plans working out some
time soon, but I wouldn't be prepared to bet a lot in favor either.  A
high-risk venture.  There is nothing in the laws of physics, or even in
the limits of current technology, that makes it impossible, but there are
a lot of obstacles to be overcome.
-- 
"Noalias must go.  This is           |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
non-negotiable."  --DMR              | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 2 Apr 88 23:12:59 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Mars Declaration

> ... NOR WILL A MOON BASE.  Neither is
> "big" enough.  We've been to orbit.  We've been to the moon.  Mars is
> essential to creating the necessary romance.

"But will you still love me after the romance is gone?"  The only way to
generate sustained public attention to the exploration of Mars would be
to go in for it in a big way, essentially an attempt at permanent settlement
right off the bat.  The key is that serious *exploration*, not just science
(a tricky distinction that I will expand on some other time), must continue.
That means a major operation, permanent settlement, and taking of risks --
not just digging up rock samples from the 53rd location.  I don't see it
being funded at that level any time soon.

> ... The problem with Apollo was that
> when the public lost interest, all the technology created by the moon missions
> was still in the hands of the government.  This mistake must not be repeated.
> The ideal Mars mission would be a government-owned interplanetary spacecraft
> assembled at a privately-owned space station from parts lifted into orbit by
> privately built launchers...

I agree about the nature of the ideal Mars mission, but not about the
underlying nature of the problem.  Having the technology in private hands
does no good if the government remains the only customer.  I have news
for you:  private industry throws things out too, when they are taking up
storage space and there is no prospect of making money off them any time
soon.  Unless you are suggesting that private Mars exploration would follow
initial government ventures -- a proposition that is not obviously silly but
not obviously practical either -- the ownership of the technology makes no
real difference.  It will still get lost if it's not used.
-- 
"Noalias must go.  This is           |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
non-negotiable."  --DMR              | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 2 Apr 88 23:24:06 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Mars Declaration

> Just because something CAN be perverted into a one-shot deal does not
> mean that it is either likely to be, or that it will be, especially if
> we see that it remains part of a bigger picture of development.

What we see is irrelevant; what the bean-counters see is what matters.
And it's true that "can be a one-shot", "is likely to be a one-shot", and
"will be a one-shot" are different statements; however, all three are true
of the proposed Mars mission.
 
> Mars is a long-term, many-year goal, and its international/political
> aspects will help insure that we do not cut funding.  To do so would be
> to lose face in a way the U.S. is unlikely to do.

HA HA HA HA HA HA!!! :-( :-(  Please, child, go home and read about things
like Spacelab and the International Solar Polar Mission.  Or look at the
wrangling over the "international" space station!  The US can and does back
out of major international space commitments.
 
> Further, as someone else pointed out, a mission of this sort is likely
> to put public support behind the space program...

The same sort of public support that Apollo got?  Again, I have news for
you:  the handwriting was on the wall for Apollo well before Apollo 11,
and the public support didn't help one little bit.
 
> As for the Ride Report, Sally Ride herself has signed to Mars Declaration.

And if you read the Mars Declaration, you'll see why:  all it says is "Mars
is a nice idea".  The Ride Report said that.  It also said that certain
other nice ideas should be pursued first.  Those of us who are refusing to
sign it are objecting not to the explicit wording, but to the obvious
possibility that Chairman Carl will cite the results as backing for his
Mars Right Now And The Future Be Damned campaign.
-- 
"Noalias must go.  This is           |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
non-negotiable."  --DMR              | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 3 Apr 88 14:35:48 GMT
From: decvax!dartvax!eleazar!seldon@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Joe Walker)
Subject: MIR passover...


       I live in Hanover N.H. Where can I get information as to where and when
a MIR passover might be. Am I too far north to see it? I have a friend that
works late at the local observitory and we were both wondering about this.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Joe Walker                          |        The dream is still alive!!
 U.S. Mail:                          |-----------------------------------------
    Dartmouth College                | Space Camp -------------->Jun. 1983
    H.B. 219, Hanover N.H. 03755     | Space Camp Lev 2 -------->Aug. 1984
 E-Mail:                             | Space Academy ----------->Aug. 1985
    BITNET: Seldon@D1.Dartmouth.EDU  | Space Academy Lev 2 ----->Aug. 1987
    UNIX:seldon@eleazar.Dartmouth.EDU| *Let's hear from you campers out there!*
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
               !{harvard,linus,inhp4}!dartvax!eleazar!seldon
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: 4 Apr 88 14:02:43 GMT
From: ihnp4!ihlpa!garyt@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Theis)
Subject: Re: Who's running for office


ATTENTION:

A note to let all you Libertarian Party fans in the Chicago 
area know that Ron Paul, the official Presidential candidate
of the LP, will be in town for two appearences.

	Friday, April 22, 11:30am
	City Club of Chicago
	$15.00/$17.00 --- Luncheon
	312-565-6500


	Saturday, April 23, 06:30pm
	Congress Hotel in Chicago 
	$50.00 --- Dinner and cash bar

I plan to attend and hope to see many other advocates 
of freedom there.

------------------------------

Date:     Mon, 4 Apr 88 12:43 CDT
From: <AHD2044%TAMSTAR.BITNET@cornellc.ccs.cornell.edu>
Subject:  POSITION OF JUPITER

        DOES ANYONE OF YOU ASTRONOMY PEOPLE OUT THERE HAVE A BASIC PROGRAM THAT
CAN PREDICT THE POSITION OF THE PLANET JUPITER BY INPUTING THE DATE
AND TIME ONE WOULD LIKE TO OBSERVE IT. PREFERRABLE IN BASIC WOULD BE NICE
HOWEVER, ANY LANGUAGE WOULD BE APPRECIATED.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #190
*******************

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Date: Fri, 15 Apr 88 03:21:37 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8804151021.AA02114@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #191

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 191

Today's Topics:
		Birthright Party Canonical Pledge List
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 1 Apr 88 08:39:35 GMT
From: xanth!kent@mcnc.org  (Kent Paul Dolan)
Subject: Birthright Party Canonical Pledge List



Birthright Party regulars and waverers,

A while back, I promised to answer this request from Cindy:

        Kent, 

             Why don't you post the names of the 17 vote pledges?
             I know that I am lucky number 13, but who are your
             other supporters?

                   Cindy

and I got another similar request from Randy Martins.

So here, finally, is the canonical pledge list, with comments, for my
candidacy for Chief Somnambulist (a.k.a. president) of the United
States of America, on the Birthright Party platform.

As usual, followups directed back to talk.bizarre from this
crossposted article.

I am hard at work, and miles behind, on the draft party platform.

(A lot of the pledge numbers changed; I had more than I counted before.)



#1 From: Bruce Sutherland <brsuth@RELAY.CS.NET>

	Tell you what, If you can mix supporting space exploration
	with impressing the need for caffeine, you've got my support.

#2 From: <rgd059@Mipl3.JPL.Nasa.Gov> Bob Deen  @  NASA-JPL Image Processing Lab

	Hell, if that's your campaign platform, I'll vote for you!

#3 From: seidel@oberon.uucp (Starman) Michael Seidel
   [Birthright Party Press Secretary Nominee]

	OK, you got number #3!  I'd rather see money being spent on
	invading uninhabited (but soon to be inhabited) planets than
	on invading small Caribbean islands!

#4 From: World Court Jester <hin9@sphinx.uucp>
   [National Science Foundation Chairman Nominee]

	Hey.  I'll vote for you if you'll agree to put a little money
	away for Neuromancer-type AI research.  Get the 'face vote and
	they'll make sure you win the election :-).

#5 From: <greg@mind.uucp> Greg Nowak

	BTW, you got my vote, too. Sock it to `em.

#6 From:    "The Pentagonal Potentate 2-6177" <COK@PSUVMA> Rob Clark
	    rutgers!psuvax1!psuvma.BITNET!cok <- this one works [kpd]

	Might as well speed this election thing up a bit.  Ahem.  I,
	The Pentagonal Potentate, hereby commit the Syd Barrett Cabal
	of the Pan-Pontification Committee for the
	Paratheo-Anametamystikhood of Eris Esoteric to the election of
	one Kent Paul Dolan to the office of President of the United
	States.

	Can't possibly be worse than the bozo who's there now.

#7 From:    "The Kzinti Ambassador, M.P." <KHD@PSUVMA>
            [Secretary of Peace and Emigration Nominee]
	    rutgers!psuvax1!psuvma.BITNET!khd <- this one works [kpd]
   Subject: Vote for the Prexy.

	"I, the Kzinti Ambassador, hereby pledge my vote for President
	of the United States to you, Kent Paul Dolan."

	Only one qualifier.  Set up some kind of rider on a bill you
	pass giving the net permanent anarchy. Then force it through
	Congress.

#8 From: richard welty <welty@steinmetz.uucp>
   [Outer Planets Latex Novelty Expediter-in-Chief Nominee]

	... oh, all right ... I'll vote for you (in return for a
	suitable bribe, of course -- what are you offering?)

#9 From: headroom@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (The only computer-generated user at UWM)
   uwvax!uwmcsd4!headroom <- that one works [kpd]
   Mark "Giving the Apathy Vote" Lippert
   net.average.joe 

	Hey, put me down for the big #8!  I could use a big #8!  Then
	maybe my thungh will get thawed out....

        [SLOW NEWS FEED - hope #9 is OK, Mark. kpd]

#10 From: ZEUS <nasadc!ma3751bg%ariel.unm.edu@sun.UUCP>
   ...!unmvax!ariel!ma3751bg <Mark Giaquinto>

	We are paraniod about being confused with Mexico, so please
	spell it [Albuquerque] right..

	P.S. You got my vote, keep up the good work.

#11 From: sflaher@polyslo.uucp (Steve Flaherty)
    Subject: Another vote

	After watching the machinations of the louts currently running
	on the big dollar tickets, your campaign has become more and
	more appealing.
 
	I hereby pledge the vote of one lurker.  Far more vaulable
	than a vote from a posting bizarrite, due to the extreme
	measures required to get a lurker to actually create something
	on a keyboard.

#12 From: gypsy@c3pe.UUCP
    saint gypsy, live from the gypsy roach motel
	BTW, my name is Meredith Tanner.  okay?  

	and i'll vote for you, too!

	i forget what you were running for...
	president or something?

#13 >From: kyl@homxb.UUCP (Cindy)
    Subject: Re: talk.politics.bizarre (was Re: My thungh)

      OK, Kent,
 
              I am 10.

                Cindy

	[SLOW NEWS FEED strikes again! kpd]

#14 >From: ccs026@deneb.ucdavis.edu (-=paul=-)

	(yo kent!  didja get my vote?  lots of messages have been
	going kabounce from here lately)

	-=paul=-

#15 >From: silverio@jiff.berkeley.edu (christine silverio)

	The advertising firm of Silverio, Silverio, and Silverio
	(greg) wishes to announce its whole-hearted support of Kent,
	the Man from Xanth, as the Bizarre Party candidate in the 1988
	presidential elections.

	Anything we can do, Kent, just let us know.

	The preceding announcement paid for by the Xanth Man for
	President Committee.

	| C J Silverio             |  KENT FOR PRESIDENT
	| ucbvax!brahms!silverio   |    Who cares why?
	| official brahms gangster |      Just vote.

#16 >From: ram@elmgate.UUCP (Randy Martens)
    [NASA Director Nominee]

	Well, it's time to consider the major Presidential candidates :
[...]
	Kent, the man from Xanth : Promises to spend money on useful
	things like deep space exploration instead of nuclear weapons
	and contras.  Promises to sleep alot, and therefore not cause
	trouble. hmmm.....

	and the winner is .....
	[]
	KENT THE MAN FROM XANTH, FOR PRESIDENT !!
	SUPPORT THE BIRTHRIGHT PARTY !!!
	VOTE KENT !!!!

	(yes Kent, you can count me in. *sigh*)

#17 From: thomson@cs.utah.edu (Richard A Thomson)
Subject: Vote Pledge

	Count me in!  I liked your first posting in sci.space a while
	back about being a potential space candidate.  Since then I
	moved from Delaware to Utah, where I don't have access to
	talk.bizarre yet :-(.  Ergo me missing your campaign efforts
	there.  I would whole-heartedly support your election this
	term.  I will see what I can do to about writing letters to
	local papers, etc.  I will also attempt to upload your message
	to local BBS's.  Do you have a more elaborate description of
	your policies that I could use.  The one you posted to
	sci.space could be a little too bizarre :-) for some people to
	stomach.  Perhaps something a little less sarcastic with focus
	on the main issue-- space exploration and EXPLOITATION instead
	of useless war-mongering.

	The line about Malthus was great; keep up the good postings
	and don't give up.

#18 From: S. Elizabeth Van Wyk <sally@csd4.milw.wisc.edu>
    ...uwvax!uwmcsd4!sally <- this one works [kpd]

	Greetings!!  Is your mailer still done, or after my *attempt*
	at a flame are you never writing to me again?

	I guess it's time to get to the heart of my letter.  Can I be
	of any assistance in the campaign?  The more I read, the more
	I'm convinced you're the only candidate worth voting for.

	Hey, no hard feelings.  I don't know what got into me.

	The Muffin Queen

18.5# >From: svpillay@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Kanthan Pillay)
      [I don't know about this one - I got back about 400 lines of
	passionate pro space posting, ending with the only words
	from the mailer:]

      Do I really need a signature?

      [Could be a pledge, more likely to be a slam about abusing
	net bandwidth. We won't count it.]

#19 >From: CLT@PSUVMA.BITNET (Merlin of Chaos)
    ...!rutgers!psuvax1!psuvma.BITNET!clt

	I've been watching Pat Robertson do much better than he has
	any right to, so I've come to the big decision.

	Go for it, Kent.  You have my vote.

	(That's one more pledge, folks!  Keep 'em coming!)

#20 From: logico!slovax!steve <Steve Cook>

kpd>	I am looking for a Vice Presidential candidate.  She should be
kpd>	a minority person, to lend credence to this being a movement
kpd>	for the good of the whole nation.  Any takers?

	How about any of the many net.goddesses???  Sure, buy my vote,
	I can be had.  If all else fails : Susan St. James.

#21 >From: mack@inco.UUCP (Dave Mack)

	[A vastly stirring defense of the future of humanity]

	That was beautiful, Kent, just beautiful. I'll do it, I really
	will.  You wouldn't have spent all the time necessary to write
	that if you didn't mean it.

	Vote the Birthright Party: Put a *Real* Corpse in Office in
	1988. [Hmmm.  Oh, well, a pledge is a pledge.  kpd]

#21.5 From: lauren@cbmvax.uucp (Lauren Brown CATS)

	Thanks for the kind words.  You might almost have me promoting the
	Birthright Party ! :-)

	[Won't count this one either, but... kpd]

#22 From: f12018ak@deimos.unm.edu.unm.edu (Yngvi Diamondeye Hammerfoot)

	|and may the Dwarves|<<<<<>|    %Gregory J. LeVee      |>>>>>|
	|f12018ak@deimos.UNM.EDU|><|Vote: Kent & the Birthright Party|

	[Never got a formal pledge letter, but that .siggie will do.  kpd]

#23 From: bu-it.BU.EDU!bucsb!boreas%bu-cs.bu.edu@uunet.UUCP
    (The Cute Cuddle Creature) 	-- Michael.

	P.S. -- What the heck.  Here's another vote for you.  --M.

#24 >From: justin@inmet.UUCP -- Justin du Coeur II

	Let's trade. I'll become voter #14 if you'll drop one *teeny*
	tac-nuke on this Bradley place.

	[talk about SLOW NEWS FEED - at least we eliminated the "what
	do YOU call a soda" thread. kpd]

#25 >From: lae@pedsga.UUCP

	Hello, my name is Leslie Ann Ellis.  I am a systems engineer
	with Concurrent Computer Corp. in Tinton Falls, N. J.

	Kent's empassioned bid for the presidency did not fall on deaf
	ears (eyes?); I, too, believe that mankind's future lies in
	the colonization of space.  Questions of a "standing room
	only" future aside, there is only a limited mass of the raw
	materials of life on our tiny planet. [...] I would like at
	this time to announce that I am available to aid Kent in his
	noble cause.

#26 >From: hooker@tramp.Colorado.EDU (Bosk of Port Kar) -Devin 
    [Technical Consultant on Aerospace Nominee]
    Subject: Another closet supporter surfaces

	Kent, You've got another vote here.  Let's get the fuck off
	Earth - it can't support us any more.  I'm an aerospace engineer -
	if you need technical support look to me.

#27 >From: cs1552cy@hydra.unm.edu.unm.edu (Cipher)
    [Vatican Ambassador Nominee]

	All RIGHT already!  Here's my vote!  Take it!  Please!

     ___
     |X|        Kent for Pres
     ---

                      -Chap. Oksimoron the Portable, KSC, GM, Ev., Esq., Etc.
                      -Josh Bell
                      -Robert Vilheim

#28 >From: cs2551aq@charon.unm.edu (Capt. Gym Quirk) Taki Kogoma

	Now that's over, let me add my endorsement (and that of the
	Imperial Secret Service) to Kent's candidacy.

	BTW, anyone ever have one of those decades?

#29 From: <jay@splut.uucp>
    [FCC Administrator Nominee]

	If I pledge the Birthright Party, can I be appointed head of
	the FCC?  ...Jay

Jay Maynard {ihnp4,bellcore,killer}!tness1!splut!jay
Never ascribe to malice that which can adequately be explained by stupidity.

#30 From: jkrueger@dgis.ARPA (Jonathan Krueger)

	Your arguments are coherent and convincing.

#31 From: bradley!bucc2!random (Brett Neumeier)

	Hereby do I pledge one (1) vote to the Birthright Party.  I
	want to see if there really *are* any small furry creatures on
	Alpha Centauri, and getting off the planet so as to make
	future survival more likely seems like a good first step.

#32 From: dieter@titan.uucp

	I hate to say it, but you do sound more realistic than any
	other candidate I've heard of yet. [...] I am quite willing to
	vote for you.

	Dieter (what this country needs is a good out-of-work actor
	who STAYS that way) Muller

#33 From: Tracey A. Baker <ihnp4!mhuxu!tab>

	I know you're past #18 by now, but count me as whatever number
	is next (my favorites are 27, 33 and 37, so if you could
	arrange one of those, it'd be nice). [Took a bit of shuffling. kpd]

#34 >From: ewilliam@garfield.UUCP (Edward Williams)

	I'd also like to add my vote for Ken[t] for pres. 

#34.5 From: richard@gryphon.CTS.COM (Richard Sexton)

	YOU were surprised at the richard.sexton.fan.club ? Imangine
	How surprised I was.

	So Kent, what are these votes worth to you ?

	[That needs a bit of work to turn into a pledge, I think.]

#35 From: richard@gryphon.CTS.COM (Richard Sexton)
    [Official Aquaculturalist and Keeper of the Fonts Nominee]

kpd->	Well, I've handed out the chairmanship of the FCC, the bar
kpd->	position on Ganymede (or was it Ceres?), the press secretary
kpd->	job, and several other plums of about equal value.  I'm still
kpd->	hoping presidential science advisor will get a pledge from
kpd->	Herbert Spencer.  Do you have an interesting talent you would
kpd->	like to apply to the cause, and a job in mind where it might
kpd->	fit?

	Sure. I'd like to be the official aquaculturalist and keeper of the
	fonts.

	[OK, _now_ that's a pledge.]

kpd->	OK, we'll make you curator of the National Aquarium (Commerce
kpd->	Building, basement floor); I'll have to look some to find out
kpd->	who keeps the fonts; perhaps the GPO?


#35.5 From: <lae@pedsga.uucp>
      Subject: The Presidency

	Hey, I thought you were going to save the world from itself
	by running for president.  What happened?

	Leslie

	[Was that meant to be a pledge, Leslie? kpd]

#36 From: paradis@encore.uucp (Jim Paradis)

	Second, I'd like to say that I'm in full support of the
	space-industrialization provisions of the Birthright Party
	platform.  Is that the only issue for the BP, or are there
	others?

	<back to slight disagreement mode>

	If it weren't for your position on drug testing, I'd endorse
	your candidacy 100% in a minute!  Seriously.  If that's a
	personal preference and not a Party position, you've got my
	vote!

	[Answer on this one in B. P. platform due out soon.  Pledge
	accepted but subject to review.  kpd]

#37 >From: kettyle@homxc.UUCP (Starsha)

	Cheer up, I think you are a very nice person, and should be
	President.  So, I am going to announce my support for your
	candidacy.

	Vote For Kent!
	              Kent For President!
                                  Support the Birthright Party!

That's all the pledges I have right now; anyone I missed, forgot to
bribe, or otherwise maligned?

These last two are just for fun, because I'm proud of them; they do
not constitute pledges.  Guess I'd better not quote without asking;
pledges got fair warning.  These two folks sent letters of
appreciation for my

	Subject: Re: commercialism of the space program

posting, which you might have read.

	From: Cathy Hooper <cathyh@iscuva.iscs.com>

	From: Eugene N. Miya <eugene@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov>

So, we are up to 37 confirmed pledges and a few maybes.  I know there
are supposed to be 11,000 readers out there.  Let's have a little more
participation, while I go back to work on my draft Birthright Party
platform.

Folks already on the list, if you have any last minute first draft
pro-space exploration items for the BP platform, wing them my way!

Kent, the (Birthright Party's Choice for Chief Somnambulist) man from xanth.
"The Birthright of Humankind is the Stars!"

+-------------------------------------------------------+
|\~                                                     |
| |~  .  o  o  .    :;:    ()    -O-    0     . O       |
| |~        ^                                           |
|/~         |                                           |
|      You are Here                                     |
|                                                       |
|Wouldn't you rather be out there -->                   |
|                                                       |
|Support the Birthright Party Today!                    |
|                                                       |
|(Note: Above diagram NOT to scale.)                    |
+-------------------------------------------------------+

[This lovely banner, available at a terminal near you, brought to you
 through the keyboard talents of Michael P. Seidel, Press Secretary
 Nominee to the Administration of the Chief Somnambulist Candidate.]

Join the KENT FOR PRESIDENT movement in talk.bizarre!

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #191
*******************

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Date: Sat, 16 Apr 88 03:20:14 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8804161020.AA03601@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #192

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 192

Today's Topics:
	       Re: Ride report (was: Mars Declaration)
	  Re: The future of network special interest groups
	       Re: Ride report (was: Mars Declaration)
		     Space Settlement Act of 1988
			   Mir predictions
		 It was nice knowing you, really. . .
			 comments: (giberish)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 4 Apr 88 17:07:22 GMT
From: mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Mike Smithwick)
Subject: Re: Ride report (was: Mars Declaration)

In article <1351@lznv.ATT.COM> psc@lznv.ATT.COM (Paul S. R. Chisholm) writes:
like a good idea to me.  However, when our local chapter of the
>Anyone know
>how to get hold of a copy these days?  (The suggestion at the chapter
>meeting was to call our congressman, but he died on Friday, so *he's*
>no help!-)
>

Try Aviation Week*, that's where I got my copy.


---
---
---
---
---

-- 
			   *** mike (Cyberpunk in training) smithwick ***
"After all, isn't our only real purpose in life merely to make the person
 next to us slightly more insane than we are?" - Me
[disclaimer : nope, I don't work for NASA, I take full blame for my ideas]

------------------------------

Date: 4 Apr 88 17:14:10 GMT
From: mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Mike Smithwick)
Subject: Re: The future of network special interest groups

In article <8804011046.AA08636@angband.s1.gov> KCB9792@TAMSIGMA.BITNET (Kevin 'Charlie' Brown) writes:
>
>>Date: Fri, 1 Apr 88 08:59:51 EST
>>From: sfl@elbereth.rutgers.edu (SF-LOVERS)
>>Subject: LAST ISSUE
>>
[deleted stuff about proxmire,et al]
>>In short, this will be the *LAST* issue of SF-LOVERS.  After this issue I
>>am, under orders from the U.S. District Court in New York, folding the
>>digest and deleting all archives and files pertaining to the digest in my
>>possession.  Enjoy this last issue and remember fondly the days of
>>SF-LOVERS.  Some day, we may return.  Until then, save your back issues and
>>relish them, they may be worth something someday.
>>
>>Ex-Moderator SF-LOVERS Digest
>>sf-lovers-request@rutgers.edu (address goes away April 1, 1988)
>
>That William Proxmire is in on this does not surprise me.
>
>The fact that this happened deeply concerns me.

[deleted more stuff lamenting the passing of SF-LOVERS]

I we don't get the rec.* groups, as the chief netster deemed them 
inappropriate, so I can't check for SF-LOVERS directly. But, one look
at the date, April 1, tells me that this message is greatly suspect.

[filler]
[filler]
[filler]
[filler]
[filler]
[filler]
[filler]
[filler]
[filler]

*** mike ***

-- 
			   *** mike (Cyberpunk in training) smithwick ***
"After all, isn't our only real purpose in life merely to make the person
 next to us slightly more insane than we are?" - Me
[disclaimer : nope, I don't work for NASA, I take full blame for my ideas]

------------------------------

Date: 4 Apr 88 17:48:52 GMT
From: pioneer!eugene@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Eugene N. Miya)
Subject: Re: Ride report (was: Mars Declaration)

Well, I have a typed up copy (of about 40 odd pages) from NASA HQ, but
I can't stand over the copier (actually, I am, for the ridiculous number
of copies for a conference paper, but that's a different problem).  I
offer to give ONE copy locally (Silicon Valley) for that person to
redistribute.  Technically, I can send out copies of this in Government
envelopes, but I can't let that person take said postage out.  Same
goes for copying costs.  So said person should request Self Addressed
Stamped envelopes and you guys have to organize copy costs.
Local volunteers?  No going over to Stanford to ask Sally.
Frankly, I'm not really impressed, it's just another bureaucratic
document (wish list) which "B Ark" managers distance themselves from.

>From the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA
  "You trust the `reply' command with all those different mailers out there?"
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."
  {uunet,hplabs,hao,ihnp4,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene

------------------------------

Date: 1 Apr 88 19:42:05 GMT
From: agate!garnet.berkeley.edu!web@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Subject: Space Settlement Act of 1988

What follows is a not quite verbatim rendering of Rep. Brown's
bill, HR 4218, taken from the copy his office sent to me.
This bill is scheduled to go before the full house on April 12,
so if you have any opinion about it, write your representative today.

Representative Brown's bill consists of the following amendments
to the NASA charter, the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 
1958:

1. Adding the paragraph:
	
+	The Congress declares that the extension of human life
+	beyond Earth's atsmosphere for the purposes of advancing
+	science, exploration, and development will enhance the 
+	general welfare on Earth and that such an extension will
+	eventually lead to the establishment of space settlements
+	for the greater fulfillment of those purposes.

2. Providing the definition:

+	The term `space settlement' means any community of humans
+	living beyond Earth's atmosphere which exists with a 
+	substantial degree of independence of resupply from Earth.

3. Requiring:

+	(a) Consistent with the national security interests of the 
+	United States, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration
+	shall, in close cooperation with other appropriate agencies,
+	the private sector, academia, and the international community,
+	obtain, produce, and provide information relating to all issues
+	important for the development and establishment of space
+	settlements, including essential technologies.
+
+	(b)Once every 2 years after the date of the enactment of this
+	Act, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration shall
+	submit a report to the President and to the Congress which--
+		
+		(1) analyzes ways in which current science and 
+		technology can be applied in the establishment
+		of space settlements;
+		
+		(2) identifies scientific and technological capacity
+		for establishing space settlements, including a
+		description of what steps must be taken to develop
+		such capacity;
+		
+		(3) examines alternative space settlement locations
+		and architectures;
+		
+		(4) examines the status of technologies necessary for 
+		extraterrestrial resource development and use and 
+		energy production;
+		
+		(5) reviews the ways in which the existence of space
+		settlements would enhance science, exploration, and 
+		development;
+		
+		(6) reviews mechanisms and institutional options
+		which could foster a broad-based plan for international
+		cooperation in establishing space settlements;
+		
+		(7) analyzes the economics of financing space settlements,
+		especially with respect to private sector and international
+		participation;
+		
+		(8) discusses sociological factors involved in space 
+		settlement such as psychology, political science, and
+		legal issues; and
+		
+		(9) addresses such other topics as the National Aeronautics
+		and Space Administration considers appropriate.

4. Requesting Funding:

+	There are authorized to be appropriated to the National Aeronautics
+	and Space Administration for the purposes of this Act for each
+	of the fiscal years ending September 30, 1989, September 30,
+	1990, and September 30, 1991, not to exceed $3,000,000.

William Baxter

ARPA: web@bosco.Berkeley.EDU
UUCP: {cbosgd,sun,dual,decwrl,decvax,ihnp4,hplabs,...}!ucbvax!bosco!web

------------------------------

Date: 4 Apr 88 06:18:59 GMT
From: snowdog@athena.mit.edu  (Richard Brezina)
Subject: Mir predictions


Hi folks;

As of today, the entire satellite prediction system here is completely
automated.  This means that it can knock off and mail predictions to
hundreds of subscribers with absolutely minimal effort on my part (of
course I have been working on it rather intensively up till now).
What this means is that I can put even more people on the distribution
list.  Right now there are 80 - the deluge of requests after I posted
my first article came to me as an absolute surprise.

For those of you already on the distribution list, there are
additional features available.  Namely, you can now receive
predictions for satellites other than Mir - other interesting objects
might be the other Soviet station Salyut 7, the detached but still
active KVANT module, or some of the US objects, like the LDEF for
those of you living south of latitude 35N.  There will probably be
other objects that you might have a special interest in.  Let me know
if interested.  Also, parameters like the location of your station,
the cutoff (minimum) elevation, or the Daylight Savings Time (has the
computer confused you about it yet?) are freely adjustable on request.
For now, I decided I will mail predictions weekly each Thursday
afternoon, even when there are no Mir passes (because there will
likely be passes of other satellites selected by other observers).  If
you are subscribed to Mir only, you'll just get a "No passes during
this interval" message.  For this week only, a prediction will also be
mailed this Monday or Tuesday afternoon, depending on how many reports
of Mir sigtings I receive today.  I was unable to see Mir myself this
weekend, mostly due to weather factors, and so was unable to determine
a time correction.  However, I have a single report from Al Holecek of
Abilene TX who says Mir is 1-3 minutes late with respect to the
predictions I already mailed to you.

I've spent only about 10% of the total development time debugging the
software, and so I will rely mostly on you to report bugs.  Please
bear with me through this initial stage.  I estimate that bugs should
be few and far between, but I could be wrong. (Note: The fact that you
do not receive predictions at all could also be a bug, so please if
you have written to me and are not receiving predictions, drop off a
message!)

The software involved was partly developed by myself and partly by Ted
Molczan, another member of our Toronto satellite tracking group.  It
uses the NORAD SGP4 orbital model for predictions.  So far, none of
the software has been either tested or documented throroughly enough
for distribution, but sooner or later I will make the better parts of
it available.

Good luck to all of you, and I hope to hear from you any criticisms or
suggestions you might have about this service.  I think it's great
fun!

             -Rich

              Snowdog@Athena.MIT.EDU


             "Better the pride that resides       
              In the Citizen of the World         
              Than the pride that divides         
              When a colourful rag is unfurled!"  
                                                     
              -Neil Peart, "Territories"

------------------------------

Date: 4 Apr 88 15:24:00 PST
From: "KEVIN W. BOLD 0-1" <bold@afsc-sd.arpa>
Subject: It was nice knowing you, really. . .
To: "space" <space@angband.s1.gov>
Reply-To: "KEVIN W. BOLD 0-1" <bold@afsc-sd.arpa>

I regret to inform you that I can no longer accept postings from you which do 
not have any explicit bearing on my duties at LAAFB.  Please do not send me 
any more of such postings, as you may be liable to criminal proceedings if you 
do.

/s/
Kevin Bold

From:	GSS2::BOLD          4-APR-1988 15:25
To:	_MAILER!<ARMS@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subj:	It was nice knowing you, really. . .

I regret to inform you that I can no longer accept postings from you which do 
not have any explicit bearing on my duties at LAAFB.  Please do not send me 
any more of such postings, as you may be liable to criminal proceedings if you 
do.

/s/
Kevin Bold
------

------------------------------

Date:     Mon, 4 Apr 88 14:50 AST
From: <FNRJH%ALASKA.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Subject:  comments: (giberish)

I recently received this message.  Unless it is an delibert April
fools message I received one day late please resend.   Thanks.
I always loose the whole message not receive giberish.  Well it was april
1st yesterday.
                  Robert J. Hale III


#24 SMTP@INTERBIT       Sat 02 Apr 1988  03:40  ( 411) U T

Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #180
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov

Received: From UWAVM(MAILER) by ALASKA with Jnet id 7460
          for FNRJH@ALASKA; Sat,  2 Apr 88 03:40 AST
Received: by UWAVM (Mailer X1.25) id 4378; Sat, 02 Apr 88 04:40:03 PST
Date:         Sat, 2 Apr 88 03:29:18 PST
Reply-To:     Space@angband.s1.gov
Sender:       space-request@angband.s1.gov
From:         Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Subject:      SPACE Digest V8 #180
Comments: To: Space@angband.s1.gov
To:           ROBERT HALE <FNRJH@ALASKA>

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 180

Today's Topics:
            Re: very small launch vehoples
                   KAL 007
               Pallnets aligned in May?
                        The moon as a researaunba r
 00NASA Predictions
                Amhenia fuels
 00           X-15 engine
                        Mary'Decallradicon
                 Welcome Back
              Support Space Settlement!
opl                   KAL7
ic           Re:vermall allunaunch vehes
 00ortce DiE D submissctn.
 00Libertariany'love ba SA?
rad           Harriman
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 2-1c                                    88 05:24:16 GMT
From: jfc@athena.mit.edu  (John F C           H)
Subject: KAL7er           Ry s mallahnce vcles

In ardice  <10081@steinmetz.stesteace metge.com> oelnnor%sungod@81.stinm.UUCP
 writes:
: Slcthing           Ryike Sly'already exists, although I'm not
: sureom>f c@15xact payanyad ecaing. Itday           Ryl lched
: from aJo           X5, I bgW1@sve, with f F aJ at may emum
: ts,itude nedhena ll-Supwer climb.
:
e 8. Iy'called f  00NT : itIthensatets te killer.

UnfppunatgWy Unr f space program, itwean't carry henactpayignnto orbit
(altt oureontoit, yes...). ugom>f vnk m,hoorryayhenasuon afew tensayhSupunds,
ts fted to LEOnetdictuituat nres zero veanycity.

     (hnn Frr May"Noom>neUUanallntedma           Ryion aterriblewehoope
   om:jfat             naenait.mu   On f prwehayhbelctfree" May-- N1@sl Prest

------------------------------

                                                                          Fri, D
 GMm: RON PICARDdiceON PID%gmillelm@reallcipi.Pa>
 C                           ered:  t!007

>ioT             veraidudt woomo spylct susmis.)Our RO a ident
 .coandom>.)Onewy'did 'msp a ent evidelaikk mt m,udty'wor fmo ng ylmis
 .co(er                                             s ghalln-Sre.coa a etcs..fro
d
 .cok mtm,hoomspePe rom:jSupwthan itIpworgmo nislct on.

5,rememberas eadir fmom:jSikkidu.cokpass5 Supwplandeltuit m u rd gWy a
y'w spygmmis ylmcelrdlcttedf U.Sf URs...)5,neRe:              ard any altt. ue
ent RO  00oyaltmo nsp  sus  >iismo nay not, Ianyr fmon f Pa but, in  RO  it. eve
henrun downayhit?  AnveraltseesUUaltldnetso, I adSreveappud.

Ron Pop eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
General Motory'Re raraunLabs

Pr-

2222222222222222222222222222222 2- 88 198 068 00:16T
4 : bradley!bu y2!xaltt.alts@a.cs.ui!benai
 .PSub ROoomsallnal aled nedc                   n

-----------------------------------
| much more of the same gibberish |
-----------------------------------

ayhb>LioureoTo: ortcest V8 #180
*******************

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #192
*******************
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	id AA04772; Sun, 17 Apr 88 03:21:17 PDT
Date: Sun, 17 Apr 88 03:21:17 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8804171021.AA04772@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #193

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 193

Today's Topics:
	  Re: The future of network special interest groups
			     Re: KAL 007
		      Radiation Hardening Chips
		     Re:  Libertarians Love NASA
		       Where is Apollo 13 LEM?
		   Re: Mir elements, epoch 28 March
	  Re: The future of network special interest groups
		   Re: Jesse Jackson's space policy
	      KAL (wasRe: space news from Feb 15 AW&ST)
			    Re: Antimatter
			     Re: KAL 007
				 mars
		    Re:  Support Space Settlement!
			 Re: Mars Declaration
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 3 Apr 88 23:07:10 GMT
From: mtunx!mtune!mtgzz!mtgzy!ecl@rutgers.edu  (Evelyn C. Leeper)
Subject: Re: The future of network special interest groups

In article <8804011046.AA08636@angband.s1.gov> KCB9792@TAMSIGMA.BITNET (Kevin 'Charlie' Brown) writes:
> ... "sf-lovers" newsgroup ... their latest digest:
> 
> >Date: Fri, 1 Apr 88 08:59:51 EST
> >From: sfl@elbereth.rutgers.edu (SF-LOVERS)
> >Subject: LAST ISSUE
> > [stuff about how Proxmire is shutting down sf-lovers as a waste of money]
>
> The fact that this happened deeply concerns me.  ...
> I can easily imagine this action extending to other newsgroups as well.  I
> hope, for all of us, that it will not.

Like it says in the summary, *read the date*!

Ha, ha, chalk up another "Gotcha!" for Saul.  SF-Lovers must be a great place
to do this stuff; the Tiptree April Fool's posting there has also convinced a
lot of people.

					Evelyn C. Leeper
					201-957-2070
				UUCP:	mtune!mtgzy!ecl or ecl@mtgzy.att.com
				ARPA:	ecl%mtgzy@att.arpa

------------------------------

Date: 4 Apr 88 19:02:55 GMT
From: concertina!fiddler@sun.com  (Steve Hix)
Subject: Re: KAL 007

In article <10811@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU>, warwick@MATH.UCLA.EDU writes:
> In article <201300004@prism> peter@prism.TMC.COM writes:
> >KAL007 was not a spy plane, but a 747 'seen' from below and behind looks a lot
> >like the kind of plane that is used to fly electronic intelligence missions
> >from bases in the Aleutian(?sp) Islands.  According to Seymore Hersch(?sp) in
> 
> There was an American spy plane in the same area as KAL 007 at the
> time it was shot down. The spy plane was a 717, which I think is a
> modified version of a 707. Supposedly, the Russian pilots thought they
> were shooting at the 717, having never gotten close enough or at the
> right angle to identify the plane as a 747 (that distinctive bump
> is only distinctive when the plane is viewed from the side).

717 should be replaced by RC-135.  The B-707 was modified to become the
C-135 (first U.S. military jet transport) which became (with appropriate
modifications) the KC-135 aerial tanker, and RC-135 recon aircraft.
The RC-135 typically is operated as an ELINT collector, rather than a
camera platform as for other "R" designation aircraft, like RF-4E or
SR-71 types.

------------------------------

Date: 1 Apr 88 00:00:01 GMT
From: munnari!vuwcomp!dsiramd!pnamd!cstowe!wdr@uunet.uu.net  (Bill & Greg)
Subject: Radiation Hardening Chips


HI there Y'all out in Netland,


     We (Commercial Software Ltd) are looking for information on
radiation hardening chips. This is because we are involved in the
SCONZ project (Space COmmunications New Zealand) and have been
asked by SCONZQUANGO to obtain information on hardening chips for
space radiation exposure.

     We have the technology to make the chips (using REALM (Rather Exotic
Advanced Lead Molding technology)) but are unsure of what we should
alloy the lead with to make it more resistent to radiation. We have
read about the techniques for Silicon Hardnening, but they don't really
apply in this case.

     We would appreciate any information on current research into lead
hardening for radioactive environments. It would also be
interesting to get any information on protection against EMP as we
would like the satellite to function after any Nuclear War (as we
would survive as no one could hit such a little place, Ahh - you say -
what about the Nuclear Winter -- well, we have a big thermal blanket
and sunlamp).

     What has this to do with a software company? Well, we have been
asked to set up SPUSENET (SPace transmitted USENET) to reduce the
costs of importing news from the US and AUS and we have access to the
net whilst no one else in the group has.


Thanx in Advance,




       |\  /|
       |//\\|
        /  \
       /    \
      /      \
     /        \
    / ==    == \
   /  <>    <>  \
  (      ||      )
  (     _||_     )
  (    |____|    )
   \            /
    \" \____/ "/
     \""\__/""/
      \""""""/
       \""""/
       	\""/
         \/


Tonguesa Love from Greg and Bill and Zippy (or Bill and Greg and Zippy)

------------------------------

Date: Tue 5 Apr 88 01:34:00-PDT
From: ~  Victor Von Doom  ~   <J.JBRENNER@hamlet.stanford.edu>
Subject: Re:  Libertarians Love NASA



Maybe I should let Dale Amon deal with this, but what the hell:

>  From: BOWERYJ%CPVA.SAINET.MFENET@nmfecc.arpa
>
> Of course you could TRY to explain to us all how "full funding for NASA"
> is consitent with official Libertarian Party statements like "abolish
> NASA" and "NASA has held back progress in space for the last 20 years."

One of the more obvious explanations:  There's a difference between
being a libertarian and being a Libertarian (i.e. a member of the Libertarian
party), just as there's a difference between believing in democracy
and being a Democrat.

Alternately, one may be a member of the Libertarian party and not entirely
agree with the party platform or candidate (A better question might be:
Why is Ron Paul, an anti-abortion Republican reject, running as a Libertarian?)

Specifically, on this issue, it's a serious problem for people like me
who are more or less libertarians to decide whether to support government
spending in areas we consider important, or to work on reducing
spending overall.  The theory is that if there was a serious cut
in spending, the boost to the economy would make funding something
like NASA unnecessary.  Just to make this absolutely, clear: as taxation
has increased, private spending on R&D has dwindled.  It seems likely
that there's a rough cause and effect relationship here.  The fear
is that if we abandon NASA, and if the cut in government spending
does not occur, then we get the worst of both worlds.

It doesn't seem unreasonable to me, for example, to support full funding
of NASA while demanding proportionate cuts in all government spending.

(Sorry if the above isn't "good for a few yucks", but what do you
expect from people like me who are "incapable of rational thought"? )

--- Joe Brenner

-------

------------------------------

Date:         Wed, 06 Apr 88 10:38:03 EDT
From: Kenneth Ng <KEN%ORION.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Subject:      Where is Apollo 13 LEM?

My apologies for sending this to the list, I forgot the originator who
made the query.  I think I remember the Apollo 13 LEM landing in the
Indian Ocean.  There was a SNAP (System for Nuclear Auxilliary Power)
generator on board that probably survived re-entry.

Now I'll step aside and let the real net experts take over.

------------------------------

Date: 4 Apr 88 18:20:00 GMT
From: kenny@b.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Re: Mir elements, epoch 28 March


Once again, the Soviets have reboosted Mir just before a cluster of
overflights over the US.  These data are from after the successful
rendezvous and docking with Progress 35 on 26 March.

For those that follow prediction bulletins from other sources, here
are the vital statistics for Progress 35:

Progress 35
1 18992U          88 89.83842298 0.00065358           35574-3 0   114
2 18992  51.6306 116.3176 0009365 283.7566  76.1288 15.79272163   956

------------------------------

Date: 5 Apr 88 04:04:42 GMT
From: weltyc@nisc.nyser.net  (Christopher A. Welty)
Subject: Re: The future of network special interest groups

In article <8804011046.AA08636@angband.s1.gov> KCB9792@TAMSIGMA.BITNET (Kevin 'Charlie' Brown) writes:
>While the following is not related directly to space, I feel it has a great
>deal of significance for all of us.  I have, up until now, had access to
>the "sf-lovers" newsgroup.  That is, until I received this in their latest
>digest:
> ...
>>Ex-Moderator SF-LOVERS Digest
>>sf-lovers-request@rutgers.edu (address goes away April 1, 1988)
> ...
>The fact that this happened deeply concerns me.  

	The fact that it was dated April 1 should have concerned you more.

>I have learned a great
>deal from the various newsgroups that are on the network...

	Well, I think you just learned something new, don't believe
everything you read, especially not something written on April Fools
Day...  Unless you knew, in which case you got me....


Christopher Welty  ---  Asst. Director, RPI CS Labs
weltyc@cs.rpi.edu       ...!rutgers!nysernic!weltyc

------------------------------

Date: 5 Apr 88 20:30:14 GMT
From: oliveb!intelca!mipos3!td2cad!jreece@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (John Reece )
Subject: Re: Jesse Jackson's space policy

In article <4817@pucc.Princeton.EDU> EWTILENI@pucc.Princeton.EDU writes:
>The following is a DRAFT of Jesse Jackson's stands on space.  The following
>is typed from a Draft released 2/29/88.
> 
>For more information, contact: Jesse Jackson '88, 30 West Washington Street,
>Suite 300, Chicago, Illinois 60602 // 312-855-3773
> 

Much deleted, but Jesse says lots of stuff like:

> 
>The development of high technology has given humanity the ability to
>send people into orbit around the Earth and to the Moon, and to send
>machines to the very ends of the solar system.  Space exploration has
>produced an abundance of scientific knowledge about the Earth and about
>the other planets, increased our ability to do solar forecasting, made
>possible instantaneous worldwide communication, and created jobs by
>opening new markets and stimulating productivity.....

You get the idea.

It should be pointed out here that Jesse Jackson was one of number of
sign-carrying protestors on hand at Kennedy to protest the space program
during the launch of Apollo 11....

John Reece

------------------------------

Date: 5 Apr 88 05:16:50 GMT
From: pv04+@andrew.cmu.edu  (Philip Verdieck)
Subject: KAL (wasRe: space news from Feb 15 AW&ST)

One very interesting story that I heard was that in the preceding
hours before the incident, an American spy-plane, which looked a lot
like a spy plane, had been repeatedly in the area, before the KAL
flight went over....



"No luck - no golden chances,
 no mitigating circumstances now.
 It's only common sense - 
 there are no accidents 'round here."

ARPA   : Philip.Verdieck@andrew.cmu.edu
         PV04+@andrew.cmu.edu
BITNET : r746pv04@CMCCVB
UUCP   : ...!{harvard,ucbvax}!andrew.cmu.edu!pv04

------------------------------

Date: 6 Apr 88 20:13:59 GMT
From: ubvax!vsi1!unisv!vanpelt@AMES.ARC.NASA.GOV  (Mike Van Pelt)
Subject: Re: Antimatter

In article <247@zeus.hf.intel.com> sdp@.UUCP (Scott Peterson) writes:
>So, just how big a bomb could you make with [antimatter] anyway?  Would you
>need more than one?

Rough approximation -- assuming you can mix the stuff with normal matter
so that it anihilates quickly and completely, you get about a 1 megaton
explosion for every ounce of antimatter.

(So Roddenberry & co. were all wet when Kirk blew the atmosphere right
off a planet with 2 ounces of antimatter.)
-- 
Mike Van Pelt        Unisys, Silicon Valley       vanpelt%unisv@ubvax.ub.com
Bring back UNIVAC!                              ...uunet!ubvax!unisv!vanpelt

------------------------------

Date: 5 Apr 88 16:31:36 GMT
From: hplabsb!dsmith@hplabs.hp.com  (David Smith)
Subject: Re: KAL 007

In article <48118@sun.uucp>, fiddler%concertina@Sun.COM (Steve Hix) writes:
>                                    The B-707 was modified to become the
> C-135...

It was the other way around.  But the "modification" made the 707 a bigger
plane.  Bigger diameter fuselage, bigger tail, bigger landing gear, and
after a few years, a new wing.  The military version of the 707 is the
C-137.

				David Smith

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 7 Apr 88 08:09:42 MST
From: Harold bidlack <bidlack@usafa.arpa>
Subject: mars
Cc: monagan@usafa.arpa


One aspect of a manned mission to Mars that I thing should be discussed
is the biological debate.  In a past issue of Sky and Telescope, the
late Jim Loudin discussed the near-impossibility of creating a Mars
space suit which did not "leak" to some degree.  Thus terrestrial
microorganisms could, possibly, be transferred to the Martian surface.
Remembering the Surveyor III lander's camera, when returned to Earth
by the Apollo 12 crew, was found to contain bacteria which, while dormant,
remained viable.  In the less-hostile Martian climate, the danger of
"earth germs" to any indigenous life forms _could_ be significant.
Thus, Loudin argued, a manned landing on Mars should be delayed until
we are ABSOLUTELY sure there is no life on Mars.
Thoughts?
Hal Bidlack@usafa.arpa

------------------------------

Date: 	  Thu, 7 Apr 88 09:12:26 PDT
From: BOWERYJ%CPVA.SAINET.MFENET@nmfecc.arpa

Subject: Re:  Support Space Settlement!
Date:    Thu,  7-APR-1988 09:14 PDT
X-VMS-Mail-To: SPACE

Rep. Brown's call for NASA to establish space settlements could be reasonable
if it were modified to say instead that NASA should acquire the KNOWLEGE
which would enable the establishment of space settlements and that this
knowlege must be acquired through a broadly based RESEARCH program rather
than through technology development or operations.  (I use "technology
development" here in the same meaning that NASA has given it, which is
the same as the "development" portion of "research and development".)

------------------------------

Date: 	  Thu, 7 Apr 88 09:19:21 PDT
From: BOWERYJ%CPVA.SAINET.MFENET@nmfecc.arpa

Subject: Re: Mars Declaration
Date:    Thu,  7-APR-1988 09:21 PDT
X-VMS-Mail-To: SPACE

We should go to Mars when we are good and ready.  Sally Ride signed the
Mars Declaration because it does NOT call for an immediate "Mars Program"
but rather is carefully worded to say "sometime in the next century" which
is a reasonable time scale for us to expect to be good and ready.

Let the Soviets go to Mars with ESA and whoever else wants to go.  We should
demonstrate the maturity, foresight and forebearance to not go shooting off
toward another "goal" which has insufficient scientific or economic value
to justify its cost.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #193
*******************

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	id AA06123; Mon, 18 Apr 88 03:20:29 PDT
Date: Mon, 18 Apr 88 03:20:29 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8804181020.AA06123@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #194

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 194

Today's Topics:
	     NASA contracting IS NOT "private enterprise"
       Re: Moon or Mars? Editorial in _Air & Space Smithsonian_
		   Re: How to become an astronaut?
	      ``Soviet Space Trash Light Up Texas Sky''
		   Re: How to become an astronaut?
       Re: Moon or Mars? Editorial in _Air & Space Smithsonian_
       Re: Moon or Mars? Editorial in _Air & Space Smithsonian_
		   Re: How to become an astronaut?
       Re: Moon or Mars? Editorial in _Air & Space Smithsonian_
			     Re: KAL 007
				  L5
		   Re: Jesse Jackson's space policy
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 	  Thu, 7 Apr 88 09:32:56 PDT
From: BOWERYJ%CPVA.SAINET.MFENET@nmfecc.arpa

Subject: NASA contracting IS NOT "private enterprise"
Date:    Thu,  7-APR-1988 09:35 PDT
X-VMS-Mail-To: SPACE

I've heard a falacy start to crop up recently which should be recognized
as such since it will receive increasing support by aerospace establishment
interests, NASA and their naive supporters in an attempt to suppress the
movement toward private involvement in space activities.  The falacy is
this:

"NASA can promote the privatization of space by contracting out the work
to private firms."

This is nothing more than the statement:  "Let's pursue business as usual."
since NASA already contracts out most of the work it does to private firms.

The way to promote private involvement in space is to create a robust and
diverse market for launch and space services by dispersing NASA funding to
a MUCH larger number of SCIENTISTS who will receive NO government supplied
launch or space services, but rather are given sufficient funding to buy
these services on their own.  Not coincidentally, this is the only way that
we can expect to acquire the knowlege about space necessary to uncover
potential space applications which will have markets large enough to motivate
private investment totally independent of government funding.

------------------------------

Date: 6 Apr 88 21:07:15 GMT
From: CAT.CMU.EDU!dep@pt.cs.cmu.edu  (David Pugh)
Subject: Re: Moon or Mars? Editorial in _Air & Space Smithsonian_

In article <48414@sun.uucp> dunc@sun.UUCP (duncs home) writes:
>1. You need communications channels back to earth. A radio telescope on
>the far side of the moon would need relay satellites in lunar orbit for
>this purpose. ...

Why do you need a relay satellite? We lay cables across the ocean,
which is surely a rougher environment than the Moon. No current,
no marine life, and no corrosion. The temperature extremes on the
Moon shouldn't be all that difficult to handle.

I can see laying fiber-optic cable using technology from derived
wire-guided missiles: fire a missile containing 100+km cable, go
to whereever it lands, splice the cable to a new missle, etc.
Repeat 20 times....
-- 

"Fools are always at the bottom of 		David Pugh
 the food chain." Cesare, _Elf Defense_		...!seismo!cmucspt!gpa!dep

------------------------------

Date: 5 Apr 88 16:48:46 GMT
From: yaron@astro.as.utexas.edu  (Terr S. Trial)
Subject: Re: How to become an astronaut?

In article <176@aplcomm.UUCP>, dpw@aplpy.jhuapl.edu (David P. Wenger) writes:
> 
> .....  I have a great desire to become an astronaut and was
> wondering if anyone out there knows what steps should be taken to accomplish
> this goal. 
   
   Coming up!

> I've written NASA several times on this subject, but have

   Oh, you are just wasting your time...

> ....as well as any type of general information would be greatly
> appreciated.

   Step 1: Study Russian. An intensive course ASAP.
   Step 2: Contact the Soviet space program, and talk to
           the Mir/Soyuz-TM ground personnel.
   Step 3: Apply to become a Cosmonaut.
   Step 4: You don't have to pray. It doesn't work over there.
   Step 5:-)  :-)  :-)  :-)

------------------------------

Date: 5 Apr 88 08:36:20 GMT
From: hanauma.stanford.edu!joe@labrea.stanford.edu  (Joe Dellinger,ESMB 471,7230463,4153244824)
Subject: ``Soviet Space Trash Light Up Texas Sky''


	Reprinted without permission from the Dallas Morning News,
[It's much longer than this, lots of oohs and ahs which I edited out]

Soviet Sky Show

	What flashed across the Texas sky Friday night (March 25) like a
high-voltage sparkler was Soviet space garbage. A cargo rocket used to
resupply a manned Soviet space station disintegrated about 10:50 PM CST
as it reentered teh atmosphere over San Antonio, said Lt Col Ivan Pinnell,
a spokesman for NORAD.
	The crumbling spacecraft blazed a brilliant southwest to northeast
trail that was visible for about 75 seconds in Texas, Arkansas, and
Oklahoma.

	``It was beautiful,'' said San Antonio resident Rita Carrillo.
``The colors changed from yellow to gold to red to pink, and it dripped
fire as it flew across the sky... I thought it must be Halley's Comet.''

	Motorists on I-35 near Waco pulled over to watch what looked
like the sparks caused by a car dragging a loose muffler...

	The rocket was the second stage of the Progress 35 satellite,
launched on Thursday...

>>> Question: Forget about seeing MIR, I wanna see something like THIS!
Any way to predict such events? And to think I flew back to CA on
Thursday... it just ain't fair...
\    /\    /\    /\/\/\/\/\/\/\.-.-.-.-.......___________
 \  /  \  /  \  /Dept of Geophysics, Stanford University \/\/\.-.-....___
  \/    \/    \/Steve Cole steve@hanauma.stanford.edu decvax!hanauma!steve\/\.-._

------------------------------

Date: 6 Apr 88 15:10:21 GMT
From: trwrb!aero!venera.isi.edu!rod@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Rodney Doyle Van Meter III)
Subject: Re: How to become an astronaut?


David Wenger asks how to become an astronaut. He mentions that he already
has the info on minimum requirements, so I won't go into those.

When the first black American astronaut (sorry, I forget his name) was
giving a speech at some school, I think a junior high, he was asked
that question. He answered something like, "Go home tonight and do
your homework. And tomorrow niight.  Make sure you get it right. Now
do that through high school, and college, and graduate school, and
they'll come looking for you."

I also read some piece that used a lot of cute phrases like "intelligence
without genius" and "determination without stubbornness". It's really
not entirely clear exactly what they want. So many people apply for
the job, that choosing among them almost has to begin to get 
arbitrary at some point. I think most astronauts have an advanced
degree. An ability to think and act independently coupled with
a willingness to take orders. An even temperament is also a big plus.
I think their selection field is also wide enough that the de facto
health requirements are much higher than the official ones. Why should
they bother with somebody who's going to get sick on them? A pilot's
license is also a big plus, even if you're not going to fly the 
shuttle.

It's a known fact that working for NASA or the military drastically
improves your odds. I think out of the last class of something like
27, several were ex-military, most of rest worked for NASA, and only
one or two had no such qualification.

In short, be exactly what they're looking for, and very lucky. I
don't think you'll find a more formal description of exactly  what
they're after, but if you do, please post it.

	--Rod

------------------------------

Date: 7 Apr 88 09:26:38 GMT
From: sdcrdcf!csun!polyslo!jmckerna@hplabs.hp.com  (John L McKernan)
Subject: Re: Moon or Mars? Editorial in _Air & Space Smithsonian_

In article <1022@thumper.bellcore.com> karn@thumper.bellcore.com (Phil R. Karn) writes:
>I really wish people would stop clutching at straws, looking for every
>possible application of their pet man-in-space project when many (if not
>most) of the tasks can be done far more cheaply and effectively with
>unmanned spacecraft. 

Fact 1. For as long as Homo Sapiens Sapiens has existed, we have expanded our
        range of habitation, or sought to fill uninhabited land.
Conclusion 1. Man's future is in space and on other planets.

Fact 2. A human being has more capabilities than any of his machines, by orders
        of magnitude.

It is short sighted and an oversimplification to say that people should not go
into space. Any reasonable space program requires both a strong manned and
unmanned program.


John L. McKernan.                    Student, Computer Science, Cal Poly S.L.O.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: 4 Apr 88 16:38:13 GMT
From: oresoft!beryl@uunet.uu.net  (Beryl Gray)
Subject: Re: Moon or Mars? Editorial in _Air & Space Smithsonian_

In article <Apr.3.18.23.48.1988.13258@topaz.rutgers.edu> josh@topaz.rutgers.edu (J Storrs Hall) writes:
>-> The same issue of Air&Space contains an article entitled "Resist the
>-> Pull of Mars" in which the author talks about "The dark far side of the
>-> moon..." 
>
>-> Since this is a credible magazine, I should give the guy the benefit
>-> of the doubt and assume he is talking about the period of time that the
>-> moon appears full from the perspective of the earth, but that's not how
>-> it reads.
>
>One of the common meanings of "dark" in colloquial English is
>"unknown", as in "darkest Africa", something the poster was possibly
>in the dark about.  "The dark side of the moon" simply means the side
>facing away from the earth.
>--JoSH

Can we adopt the old Bob Heinlein convention of calling it "Farside?"
-- 
Beryl Gray                  "Clear writers, like fountains, do not seem so deep 
uunet!oresoft!beryl          as they are; the turbid look the most profound."
                                                              -Walter S. Landor

------------------------------

Date: 5 Apr 88 14:42:54 GMT
From: sdcc6!calmasd!wlp@ucsd.edu  (Walter L. Peterson, Jr.)
Subject: Re: How to become an astronaut?

In article <176@aplcomm.UUCP>, dpw@aplpy.jhuapl.edu (David P. Wenger) writes:
> 
> ...  I have a great desire to become an astronaut and was
> wondering if anyone out there knows what steps should be taken to accomplish
> this goal. 
> ...
> 			David Wenger




David,


     If you have been following the news posted here in the past,
then you should know your first step in becomming an astronaut; learn
to speak Russian.


            Walt


-- 
Walt Peterson   GE-Calma San Diego R&D
"The opinions expressed here are my own and do not necessarily reflect those
GE, GE-Calma nor anyone else.
...{ucbvax|decvax}!sdcsvax!calmasd!wlp        wlp@calmasd.GE.COM

------------------------------

Date: 6 Apr 88 22:50:55 GMT
From: bigtex!james@astro.as.utexas.edu  (James Van Artsdalen)
Subject: Re: Moon or Mars? Editorial in _Air & Space Smithsonian_

IN article <48414@sun.uucp>, dunc@sun.UUCP (duncs home) wrote:
> [ power storage problems ... ]
> Yes, you have to store the energy longer, but you have planet worth of raw
> materials to assist.  [...]

Surely you're not suggesting trying to build parts of the observatory out of
raw material on the moon.  That implies to me sending up factories and other
non-observatory-related things.  I assume you have to want to build something
much larger than a telescope before it's economical to do any material
processing on the moon as part of the installation...

An associated issue is the cost of a lander vs. orbiter.  Even though the
lunar observatory never need lift off, it still probably costs more to
achieve a soft landing with a fairly heavy craft.  In addition, the margin
of error is greater.  If the satellite goes into a slightly incorrect orbit
it probably wouldn't significantly effect work: if a ground observatory lands
too hard or in the wrong place, it's all over.  Finally, if you do want to
service it at some point, it's cheaper to get to something in orbit than on
the ground.
-- 
James R. Van Artsdalen   ...!ut-sally!uastro!bigtex!james    "Live Free or Die"
Home: 512-346-2444 Work: 328-0282; 110 Wild Basin Rd. Ste #230, Austin TX 78746

------------------------------

Date: 6 Apr 88 13:39:42 GMT
From: ncspm!jay@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu  (Jay C. Smith)
Subject: Re: KAL 007

Note:  this follow-up has been cross-posted to rec.aviation.

In article <4642@hplabsb.UUCP> dsmith@hplabsb.UUCP (David Smith) writes:
>In article <48118@sun.uucp>, fiddler%concertina@Sun.COM (Steve Hix) writes:
>>                                    The B-707 was modified to become the
>> C-135...
>
>It was the other way around.

Every time the subject of the 707 and C-135 comes up it degenerates into
some sort of "chicken and the egg" discussion.  I would appreciate it
if someone would clear this up for me.  I think this might be what
happened, but I'm not sure:  Boeing built a prototype passenger jet,
but realized that a big military contract would be the best way to
attract customers, so they actively sought to sell their prototype
to the Air Force as a cargo plane (the C-135).  A big military
contract followed, the airlines soon wanted the plane, and it was
updated and sold as the 707.

The reason for confusion may be that while the C-135 was sold first,
the 707 was always the ultimate intention.

-- 

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Jay C. Smith                  uucp:     ...!mcnc!ncsuvx!ncspm!jay
Domain:	jay@ncspm.ncsu.edu    internet: jay%ncspm@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu

------------------------------

Date:     Thu, 7 Apr 88 23:22 CDT
From: <BIRMINPJ%VUCTRVAX.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Subject:  L5

        How can I find out more about the L5 organization?

        I am especially interested in its goals, and how one becomes a member.

Phillip J. Birmingham           *       "I just found out today.. my rest-mass
"Would anybody ELSE ask         *        energy is enough to run a Corvette for
a question like that?"          *        approximately 1.4 million years."

------------------------------

Date: 7 Apr 88 17:13:43 GMT
From: avsd!govett@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (David Govett)
Subject: Re: Jesse Jackson's space policy

> > Until recently, the Soviets denied the existence of their SDI program,
> > which seems to be better funded than ours.
> 
> Fortunately, the laws of physics apply as much to the Soviets as they do
> to us. Why should you care if the Soviets want to waste their money? As
> far as I'm concerned, the more they blow on futile space defenses (as
> opposed to additional conventional or nuclear offensive weapons) the
> better. Hmm, maybe the Soviets KNOW all this, but they fund their own
> "sdi" program just so we'll blow even more money on our own.  They must
> certainly *know* that the louder they protest, the more Reagan will dig
> in his heels...
> 
> >  Also, arms agreements are unverifiable from space. 
> 
> Really? Then I guess the only reason we have programs like KH-11, Big
> Bird, Vela, Rhyolite, Magnum, etc, is so we can watch and listen in on 
> Soviet leaders when they call their girlfriends from their limos. Of
> course, I don't know how nuclear explosion detectors like those on Vela
> would fit in...
> 


For someone so sceptical of technical feasibility, you sure put
a lot of confidence in satellites.  

The Soviets have stolen technical manuals on several of the birds you
list above, and are quite familiar with their capabilities.
Sure, a ferret satellite once got Brezhnev's limo, but so what?
That doesn't tell you diddly about what is being produced where.

If the Soviet SDI program is futile, what has been blinding our
satellites?

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #194
*******************

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Date: Tue, 19 Apr 88 03:21:07 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8804191021.AA07715@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
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Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #195

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 195

Today's Topics:
		     Schmitt Lecture - Apollo 17
		     Mir elements, epoch 4 April
		      Mailer failures - CANOPUS
		    space news from March 7 AW&ST
		    space news from March 14 AW&ST
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 5 Apr 88 17:44:03 GMT
From: unmvax!charon!deimos.unm.edu!f12012ag@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Chang H. Park)
Subject: Schmitt Lecture - Apollo 17

      Astronaut and former U.S. Senator Harrison Schmitt will discuss
the Apollo 17 mission to the Moon on the University of New Mexico campus
Wednesday April 27 at 7:00 p.m.

	Harrison Schmitt, pilot of the final Lunar Module to land on the
Moon, was the first geologist to study the lunar surface.  Along with
Gene Cernan, Apollo 17 Commander, and Ron Evans, the Command Module
pilot, Schmitt carried out many experiments and observations.

	The presentation is being sponsored by the UNM chapter of the
Students for the Exploration and Development of Space.  In addition to
Schmitt's lecture, which will include a slide presentation, a question
and answer session is scheduled.

	The presentation will be in room 101 of Woodward Hall on the UNM
campus.  Admission is free.


SEDS-UNM : Students for the Exploration and Development of Space           
Box 92 Student Union, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM  87106
(505) 277-3171

------------------------------

Date: 11 Apr 88 19:43:00 GMT
From: kenny@b.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Mir elements, epoch 4 April


Satellite: Mir        
Catalog id 16609
Element set 137
Epoch: 88 95.84809350
Inclination:  51.6238 degrees
RA of node:  85.1781 degrees
Eccentricity:  0.0010807
Argument of perigee: 306.8362 degrees
Mean anomaly:  53.2165 degrees
Mean motion: 15.80011058 revs/day
Mean motion acceleration: 0.00046735 * 2 revs/day/day
Epoch Revolution: 12226

Semimajor axis:    6708.50 km
Apogee height*:     337.59 km
Perigee height*:     323.09 km


		Source: NASA Goddard via T.S.Kelso's `Celestial RCP/M'

* Apogee and perigee altitudes are referred to the mean radius of the
  Earth (6378.15 km), and not to the local radius of the geoid.  They
  are only approximate, and should not be used for orbit prediction.

------------------------------

Date: 17 Apr 88 22:00:48 GMT
From: cfa!willner@husc6.harvard.edu  (Steve Willner)
Subject: Mailer failures - CANOPUS

Ignore this if you are not on the unabridged CANOPUS mailing list.

This month, there were apparently numerous failures in attempting to
send the unabridged CANOPUS to the mailing list.  If you don't get
the issue you were expecting, send me a good address.  Following is
the list of errors.  These all worked all right last month, so
something has changed.

   ----- Transcript of session follows -----
550 cs.rpi.edu.arpa-mailer... 550 Host unknown
550 <weltyc%cs.rpi.edu@harvard>... Host unknown
421 doc.cc.utexas.edu.arpa-mailer... Deferred: Connection timed out
    during user open with doc.cc.utexas.edu 
550 edai.ed.ac.uk.arpa-mailer... 550 Host unknown
550 <gary%edai.ed.ac.uk@harvard>... Host unknown
550 pyr.gatech.edu.arpa-mailer... 550 Host unknown
550 <frobozz%pyr.gatech.edu@harvard>... Host unknown
550 cca.ucsf.edu.arpa-mailer... 550 Host unknown
550 <dr9021%cca.ucsf.edu@harvard>... Host unknown

-- 
Steve Willner            Phone 617-495-7123         Bitnet:   willner@cfa
60 Garden St.            FTS:      830-7123           UUCP:   willner@cfa
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA                 Internet: willner@cfa.harvard.edu

------------------------------

Date: 11 Apr 88 02:02:49 GMT
From: necntc!linus!utzoo!henry@ames.arpa  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from March 7 AW&ST

Official rationalization for the USAF's Atlas-Centaur Subsidy -- er
excuse me, cancel that, I meant source selection for the Medium Launch
Vehicle -- is underway.  Announcement expected early May.  [It shouldn't
be hard to figure out who the winner will be...]

NASA FY89 budget includes $195M for expendables: one Titan 4, two Titan
3s, and four Deltas.

Testing of the NASA-Ames AX-5 hard-shell space-station spacesuit about
to start.  Its competitor from JSC will start testing next month.

NASA FY89 asks $50M to start replenishment of the stock of shuttle
structural spares, the old ones having been used for the new orbiter.

NRC says NASA shuttle safety effort is hampered by complex and
fragmented bureaucracy, and needs better organization.  NRC also says
that there are no specific reasons why shuttle flights can't resume this
summer.

House members say NASA will not get its full FY89 budget request;
support for space in Congress is weak.

US studying ground-launched missiles and laser systems as possible
replacements for the cancelled Asat system.  Also under study is what
could be done about using the existing Asat hardware to provide minimal
capability in a crisis.

Vyacheslav Balebanov, Mir project official, says an earth-resources
module will go up to Mir late this year.  It will also include an X-ray
telescope.  An airlock module will also go up this year.

Titov and Manarov do EVA Feb 26 to install a high-efficiency solar-array
section on Mir's third array.

Results from the Delta 181 SDI test appear mostly favorable, with some
surprises.  Details secret.  The spacecraft is finishing up its
playbacks of recorded data, and will switch to doing space science until
its batteries die.  Picture of Earth's limb at dusk from it.  Still
unresolved is why the spacecraft's two tracking computers disagreed at
one point.

Kaiser Engineers Australia Pty Ltd picked for feasibility study of the
Cape York spaceport; they will manage the project if it goes ahead.  KEA
is a subsidiary of Kaiser Engineers, a US firm.  The study will last two
years and will include final site selection and a market study.  Another
three years and about $1.5G would bring the site to initial operational
status.

USAF cancels ASPS upper stage, a large shuttle upper stage meant as a
backup for Titan-Centaur, due to shortage of money.  [Interesting how
backup systems were vitally important when it was the (NASA) shuttle
being backed up with (USAF) expendables, and are low-priority now that
it's the other way around.]

Spacenet 3R, to go up on Ariane this week, will be first US domestic
comsat to fly in two years.  It carries GTE Spacenet transponders and a
Geostar navsat package.  GTE Spacenet is Arianespace's biggest US
customer, although it wasn't meant that way (they used to be a big
shuttle customer).  They are thinking about alternatives to Ariane, but
are strongly opposed to using the same vehicle or launch facility as US
military programs.  GTE Spacenet president says that the cancelled
shuttle contracts are an obvious example of the US government reneging
on supposedly-firm agreements without compensation.  He does not want a
repetition.  He also does not think the US expendable companies have
proven their commitment to the commercial launch business.  GTE Spacenet
will not use Proton but is thinking seriously about Chinese and Japanese
launchers.

DoC awards three small study contracts for next-generation civil remote
sensing satellites.  Eosat, the current Landsat operator, did not bid.

Eight Ariane launches are planned this year, in an attempt to catch up
after delays.  First is V21 on March 11, with Spacenet 3R and France's
Telecom 1C.  (This launch is now critical to France due to Telecom 1B's
attitude-control failure in orbit.)  V21 was delayed repeatedly for
several reasons, including investigation of unexpectedly-high
temperatures in third-stage pump bearings.  This investigation arose
from Arianespace's new policy of thorough study of all telemetry, as a
result of their conclusion that such a policy would have given advance
warning of the third-stage ignition problems that grounded Ariane for
quite a while.  After V21 will be Intelsat 5 on May 11, followed by the
first Ariane 4 at the end of May.  The limiting factor in Ariane launch
rate is now not manufacturing but the post-flight telemetry review,
which takes three weeks.

China and Brazil agree to develop a small earth-resources satellite for
launch on Long March in 1992.

Big story on Aerospace Plane work.  Technology is progressing despite
budget cuts and yet another management revision.  First flight is behind
schedule, now 1994-5.  Despite early talk about commercial uses, the
project is now highly classified.  One controversial issue that is
coming up is whether the X-30 should use rockets for final boost into
orbit; the original hope was that scramjet technology would be used all
the way to orbital velocity, with rockets only for orbital maneuvering.

GAO and Defense Science Board reports on X-30 question excessive
optimism on technology and predict schedule slips.

Gamma-ray detector originally meant for shuttle flies on balloon in
Antarctica, observing Supernova 1987A.  Preliminary results suggest that
the supernova explosion was asymmetrical.

Major bottleneck in plans for Aug 4 shuttle launch is completion of
orbiter modifications.  Everything is on schedule now but there is no
margin for problems.  A 6-8 week slip is considered likely.  One
possible reason for a slip is that NASA has neither selected a crew-
escape system nor decided whether it should be fitted for mission 26.

West Germany writes off TVSat 1, after all attempts to free jammed solar
array fail.  This is a significant blow to Germany's post office (the
owners) and the space-insurance business.  The insurers are lucky this
time, because the Germans were most worried about launch failures and
selected insurance coverage that dropped 50% after launcher separation.
Spinning the satellite did not work.  Commanding full array extension
deployed the other array fine but did nothing for the jammed one.
Activating the array's Sun-tracking motors to wiggle the array did not
help.  Technicians have deployed the transmit antenna and will try to
deploy the receive antenna; there is a slim chance that it might deploy
if the solar array is not fully jammed, and this would make the
satellite useful to a limited extent.  The investigation report, not yet
released, does not call for major redesign, pointing the finger instead
at sloppy manufacturing and inadequate margins.

The insurers are also preparing to pay off on France's Telecom 1B after
its attitude-control failure.  There is little hope of a fix.

Letter column includes several responses to NASA's decision not to go
metric on the space station, all negative.  "If our space scientists
have to convert liters into quarts or meters into feet to react in an
emergency, our nation is in worse trouble than I realized."

Most of the rest of the letter column is criticism of Van Allen's latest
epistle.  "Thanks to men with the Proxmire/Van Allen viewpoint, we have
no coherent space program today..."

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 13 Apr 88 02:53:05 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from March 14 AW&ST

[This is the "Aerospace Forecast and Inventory" issue; not a lot of
actual news.]

Forecast for NASA: uncertain.  There is a distinct shortage of strong
space supporters in Congress these days (supporters, yes, but not in
strong political positions).  NASA will be in a good position for major
new undertakings if the shuttle works well for the next couple of years
and the Hubble telescope, Galileo, and Magellan succeed.  If not...

The space station remains in jeopardy due to its lack of clear missions.

NASA is hoping for a major new start in science each year for the next
several years: AXAF in 89, CRAF and Cassini in 90, a major polar
platform in 92, and a lunar orbiter in 93 [no mention of 91, oddly].

USAF pushing to keep two space-based surveillance efforts alive despite
budget cuts: a space-based radar system for tactical use, and a space-
based optical space-tracking system.  The latter is of interest because
the limited viewpoints of ground-based systems make it difficult to
monitor events in the southern hemisphere and in equatorial orbits.

USAF points out that while the US is talking about building the launch
capability for a space-based defence system, the Soviets already have
it: Energia.  The USAF is also concerned that the Soviet shuttle will
make it much harder to analyze Soviet payloads (because the shuttle
looks much the same no matter what payload is inside, and the payload
deployment can occur under on-board control far away from the ground-
based sensors in the northern hemisphere).

Launch counts for 1987: Soviets 95, all others 15.

The Soviets appear to be moving their radar satellites to higher
altitudes, which increases coverage but also makes them much less
vulnerable to the US Asat system.

First Ariane 4 is on track for launch at the end of May, carrying ESA's
Meteosat metsat, the American Panamsat comsat, and Amsat's latest
amateur-radio satellite.  Arianespace and its contractors are gearing up
for a launch surge to try to catch up on some of their backlog.  To date
49 Arianes have been bought (20 have flown); negotiations for another 50
(all Ariane 4s) are underway.  This will cover lauches until about 1998.

Comsat manufacturers expect a rush of business in the next year or two,
as many comsat operators are going to have to start thinking about
replacing the large number of satellites orbited in the early 80s.  Many
of them will start running out of fuel in the early 90s, and the lead
times dictate ordering of replacements soon.

Although launcher makers don't want customers using Proton, many people
are irked by the silliness of the US government's "technology transfer"
argument against Proton, and wish a more supportable reason were given.

The dreaded "data gap" in Landsat coverage is imminent.  The existing
satellites will probably start to die within a year, and launch of
Landsat 6 is three years away.  Continuity in the late 90s is also in
doubt.

Spot, on the other hand, has the situation in hand.  Spot 1 is doing
fine.  Spot 2 is ready to fly and will get high priority from
Arianespace if Spot 1 starts to fail.  Spots 3 and 4 are in the works.

The Soviet attempt to enter the remote-sensing market is not considered
much of a threat so far.  For one thing, their images are photographic
rather than digital data, and the customers are geared for digital data.
For another thing, there is no indication so far that the Soviets will
take pictures to order (i.e. both place and time specified).

3M says commercial interest in microgravity materials work is picking
up.  3M in fact will offer equipment leasing and support services to
other shuttle microgravity users.

Satellite-launch backlogs: Titan 19 (including GE's 15 reservations, not
all of which may end up being taken), Delta 9, Atlas-Centaur 4 plus 4
options, Ariane 63 (!), Proton 1? (at least one US customer is thought
to have a Proton reservation, but US government opposition makes this
rather academic), Long March "several".  At least one US booster company
will probably die unless the US government actually implements its
theoretical policy of buying launch services rather than just hardware.
Some of the small startup companies will probably make commercial sales
this year, although the size of the small-payload market is very unclear
and overhead costs like insurance loom large for small companies.  E
Prime observes that the USAF wants $25M third-party-liability insurance
for launch of a rocket weighing 80 pounds that travels only five miles.
"A $2000 rocket and a $20000 payload will cost approximately $12000 in
range costs and $25000 in insurance premiums."

Japan is boosting its space budget 15%.  H-1 is working well, with three
successful launches.  H-2 development is well under way.  The
possibility of delivering supplies to the space station with H-2 is
under study, at NASA request (!).  Japan is also looking at a
three-stage solid-fuel replacement for the MU-3S booster currently used
for science payloads; a small Venus mission might be the first mission.

[Now, current news.]

Soviet Union begins final preparations for first (unmanned) launch of
its shuttle aboard Energia.  It might happen in the next few weeks.

DoD study finds that the space station has possibilities for various
military uses, notably satellite servicing and construction.  "It may be
more practical and less costly to assemble possible large space
structures, such as very large antennas and orbiting fuel storage farms,
in space rather than designing them for self assembly, deployment, and
repair."

Deja Vu Dept: The Feb 14 test of a Titan SRB produced unusually severe
erosion of internal insulation, with metal structure exposed in parts of
the nozzle.  Investigation underway.

Long March launch March 7 from Xichang puts comsat into Clarke orbit.

Train carrying SRB segments for STS-26 collides with car in Mississippi.
No apparent damage to the segments, but extra inspections will be done.

Letters page carries more criticism of the non-metric space station.
"My bet is that the contractors are still attempting to hold on to
English-system tooling to save money -- or keep out foreign
contractors."  (John Goodman, Peachtree City, GA)

And more of Van Allen as well.  "Last year a colleague and I managed to
accomplish the first flight around the Earth via the poles in a single
engine aircraft.  Despite two years of planning and support from 10
governments and countless organizations, we encountered dozens of
unanticipated problems along the way which required on-the-spot
solutions.  It seems unlikely that a preprogrammed computer, no matter
how sophisticated, could have replaced us." (Richard D. Norton,
Philadelphia)

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #195
*******************

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Date: Wed, 20 Apr 88 03:24:17 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
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To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #196

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 196

Today's Topics:
		    space news from March 21 AW&ST
		       Reply to MS info request
		     How to become an astronaut?
		   Re: Millions of comets hit Earth
		     Millions of comets hit Earth
		     Re: Libertarians love NASA?
       Re: Moon or Mars? Editorial in _Air & Space Smithsonian_
		    Re: fuels other than hydrogen
      Re: Re-evolving spaceflight after collapse of civilization
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 15 Apr 88 02:12:11 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from March 21 AW&ST

Editorial criticizing repeated reorganizations of the Aerospace Plane
project, and also its deep secrecy, claiming that inadequate support for
the program will lead to "bureaucratic strangulation".

Soyuzkarta is interested in picking a US marketing agency.  Geodyne is
interested, as is Space Commerce Corp (which markets Proton).

JPL tentatively picks Wild 2 as the target for Comet Rendezvous Asteroid
Flyby, assuming a start next year.  Tempel 2 was preferred, but is no
longer possible after all the delays.  CRAF launch would be Oct 1994
with arrival at Wild 2 in Feb 2001.  [Cripes, the Soviets or the
Europeans will be there first at this rate.]

Instrumentation Technology Associates and U of Penn. find a possible
problem for those planning to grow protein crystals in orbit: the
crystals are fragile enough that high-G reentries might damage them.

USAF interest in antimatter grows; it might be a reality early in the
21st century.  Rand Corp says that near-term technology should be able
to make and store antimatter at about $10M/mg [Robert Forward said a few
years ago that at roughly that price, antimatter is competitive with
*fusion* engines for in-space propulsion], and that supercollider
technology might be able to lower that to $1M/mg.  A shuttle-like
vehicle about the size of Hotol could carry several times Hotol's
payload by using about 35 mg of antimatter as its energy source.
Engineering problems remain, notably the design of the actual rocket
engine.  A short-term approach would absorb the energy in a tungsten
honeycomb and use that to heat propellant; this could yield 50-100 klbs
of thrust at an exhaust velocity of 12 kps or so (this is 2.5 times
H2/O2).  More advanced designs could use a magnetic nozzle to confine
the heated propellant, giving several hundred klbs of thrust at an
exhaust velocity of maybe 200 kps, which "would enable every conceivable
mission in the solar system".  The most immediate need from the USAF
viewpoint is a US source of antimatter; the only existing production
facility is at CERN, which is partly Swiss and thus will not supply
antimatter for defence-related work.

Also of interest are high-energy exotic chemical propellants.  The USAF
is funding small studies on them, now that modern computers have made
theoretical studies possible and laser technology has made experimental
work practical.  Materials under study are tetrahydrogen (H4), fluorine
azide, asymmetric N2O2, and xenon-halide excimers.  Tetrahydrogen would
probably be the best propellant.  Fluorine azide is too heavy to be a
useful propellant, but is convenient for study work and also may lead to
high-energy chemical lasers.  Asymmetric N2O2, made by combining an
excited oxygen molecule with a ground-state nitrogen molecule, could
have an exhaust velocity of about 3.7 kps, 50% better than the best
existing monopropellant.  Most of these things are unstable at room
temperatures, but storage in cryogenic ices seems practical.

Ariane V21 launch on March 11 is successful, carrying GTE Spacenet 3R
and Telecom 1C into orbit.  Next Ariane launch is set for May 11.

US is strongly opposed to use of Ariane to launch NATO's next series of
comsats.  The shuttle is officially prime launcher for them, but they
might switch to expendables if shuttle delays continue.  There is no
doubt of Ariane's ability to launch them, since it is going to launch
two British Skynet 4 comsats, which are almost identical to the NATO 4
series (not surprising, since British Aerospace builds both).  The
shuttle-vs-expendable decision for the first NATO 4 is likely to happen
soon.  "As far as the US is concerned, there is no way we will ever
accept Ariane as an alternate to shuttle."  The US *says* that its
reason is that such NATO "infrastructure" contracts are normally
required to stay within full members of NATO, and much of Ariane is
built by countries which don't qualify (notably France).

First US scientific launch since Challenger set for March 25: a small
Italy/US/Germany satellite to go up on Scout from the San Marco platform
[off Kenya].  [Actually this isn't such a big deal, since only the
booster and a few of the instruments are from the US; the satellite was
built in Italy and the launch crew is Italian too.]

Estimate for cost of Canadian space-station contribution rises from
$800M to $1.2G, raising some doubts in Canada.  Official position is
still "go", but this is a lot of money for Canada.

Meanwhile, the Soviets were busy: one launch March 10th, two March 11th,
one March 14th, and on March 17th they launched India's remote-sensing
satellite (at a bargain-basement price, $6M).

Soviets step up launch-marketing efforts.  Photo of the Cyclone launcher
(4000 kg into low orbit).

New shuttle manifest.  Two missions in 1988, TDRS Aug 4 and a DoD
payload [thought to be an NSA Magnum listening satellite, as I recall]
Oct 27.  Missions 28 and 29 have been swapped to give more lead time for
Magellan; 29 will carry another TDRS, then Magellan on 28, then an
imaging spysat on 30.  31 will be the Hubble Telescope, officially June
1989 but more probably late that year.  32 will be LDEF retrieval, which
has bumped the Astro-1 telescope package to 35.  Also of note is 37, SDI
Cirris plus USAF Teal Ruby plus SDI Spas (the German Spas platform
carrying an SDI infrared-background-survey instrument), a new addition.
There are two Spacelab missions in 1990.  ISF goes up on 51, June 1991,
while the NASA-leased Commercially Developed Space Facility is
tentatively booked for May 1992; these two may in fact be the same
thing, which would mean some reshuffling.  The Aug 4 schedule for
mission 26 is likely to slip to early fall.

LTV and Italy's SNIA PBD sign agreement for development and marketing of
a souped-up version of Scout, adding two SNIA PBD strapons and changing
the fourth stage to another SNIA PBD motor.

Big story on US Navy space systems.  Little new except for an imminent
buy of 9-10 new Navy comsats to replace aging FltSatCom and Leasat
birds.  The Navy might buy launch services commercially; the RFP asked
bidders to provide this as an option.

US Navy and NASA reach agreement on a complex barter deal to replace the
Atlas-Centaur that was ruined in a pad accident.

SDI speeds up work on a sounding-rocket particle-beam experiment,
bringing its launch forward about six months to early 1989.  This is at
least partly an aftereffect of the cancellation of the much bigger
particle-beam experiment SDI planned to fly on the shuttle.

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 6 Apr 88 12:05:44 GMT
From: pitstop!sundc!netxcom!rkolker@sun.com  (rich kolker)
Subject: Reply to MS info request

Sorry to the rest of you, but my reply bounced...



If you're at Drexel, why are you posting on APL (where I happen to be
working on my Masters in Comp Sci)

If you've spoken to NASA then you probably know the basics...at least
a BS in a hard science or engineering (Comp Sci counts...I asked), the
ability to pass a class 2 flight physical (not hard), vision at least
20/100 in each eye correctable to 20/20, three years experience in your
field (additional education can be substituted for experience).

These are the requirements for Mission Specialists, if you're planning on
being a pilot, get into the service and start getting some jet time.

Also on the application, although it's not required, is the question
"Are you a licensed pilot?"  I am now.

Based on what I've seen and heard from those who have been selected,
the following can't hurt:  Advanced degrees (a lot of PhDs in the
Astronaut Corps), being in good shape and physically active, a wide
range of interests (You're going to be trained in all areas of science
and engineering, so if you are too narrowly focused, you're not perfect
for the job)

You've got one advantage I don't, about 10 extra years.  I'm 33 already
and still working toward the same goal (the application goes in this
fall when the Masters degree arrives).  A couple of other things I've
done:  Attended Space Academy in Huntsville, AL - You can get some
	college credit for the 10 day Level II program.
       Scuba training (for neutral boyancy work and weightless familiarity)
       Become a licensed pilot (like I said above).

I'm interested in exchanging information with others with the same goal
I have...unfortunately, I may be off the net in two weeks, I don't
know if the new job has access.  Still, keep in touch.

++rich
 +--------------------------------------------------------------------^-------+
 |  Rich Kolker                 The work goes on...                 A|W|A     |
 |  8519 White Pine Drive        The cause endures...               H|T|H     |
 |  Manassas Park, VA 22111        The hope still lives...          /|||\     |
 |  (703)361-1290 (h)           And the dream shall never die.     /_|T|_\    |
 |  (703)749-2315 (w)  (..uunet!netxcom!rkolker)                    " W "     |
 +------------------------------------------------------------------V---V-----+

------------------------------

Date: 4 Apr 88 22:54:33 GMT
From: aplcen!aplcomm!aplpy.jhuapl.edu!dpw@mimsy.umd.edu  (David P. Wenger)
Subject: How to become an astronaut?


I'm an undergraduate comp-sci and mathematics major at Drexel University
in Philadelphia, Pa.  I have a great desire to become an astronaut and was
wondering if anyone out there knows what steps should be taken to accomplish
this goal.  I've written NASA several times on this subject, but have
received only general information on the subject (mostly concerning the
eligibility requirements such as academics, health, etc.). If anyone out
there is an astronaut, or is pursuing such a goal, I would be very
interested in hearing your comments.  Any information on topics for
graduate study, as well as any type of general information would be greatly
appreciated.

		Thanks in advance.

			David Wenger

------------------------------

Date: 6 Apr 88 23:08:11 GMT
From: mtunx!whuts!sw@rutgers.edu  (WARMINK)
Subject: Re: Millions of comets hit Earth

In article <61@spar.SPAR.SLB.COM>, freeman@spar.SPAR.SLB.COM (Jay Freeman) writes:
> all those impacts; remember that the seismographs were more than sensitive
> enough to detect the LEMs when they were crashed into the lunar surface
> after various missions, and that a LEM is much less massive than a 30-foot
> snowball and also moving at far less speed at impact.
> Am I missing something?  Was there a typo in the original posting?

I read the 30ft as meaning 'left 30ft images', i.e. the cloud of water vapour
could have been up to that size, but the comet causing it could be much much
smaller. I'd be interested to find out what the resolution of the UV 
instrument was though...
-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"We demand rigidly defined areas of    |  Stuart Warmink, APT UK Ltd.
 doubt and uncertainty" (Vroomfondel)  |  <ihnp4>!whuts!sw
-----------> My opinions are not necessarily those of APT UK Ltd. <-----------

------------------------------

Date: 5 Apr 88 05:24:11 GMT
From: bungia!datapg!sewilco@umn-cs.arpa  (Scot E. Wilcoxon)
Subject: Millions of comets hit Earth

Hmm, something new in [knowledge of] the neighborhood.

Millions of comets hit the Earth each year.  Clayne Yeates of JPL has
captured hundreds of images of small comets during a three-month period.
The images are of small water-bearing comets, up to 30 feet in diameter,
found at the rate of about one every minute.

The observations were made to confirm a 1986 theory advanced by
Louis A. Frank's team at the U of Iowa.  Frank's team found 30,000 black
spots in UV images of Earth.  The theory was that the spots might be
caused by water vapor from comets vaporizing about 180 miles above the
Earth's surface.

[Above information from an L.A. Times article]

Yeates calls his results preliminary, probably awaiting confirmation.
"One every minute" is 526,000 per year merely in the part of the sky which
that telescope was covering.  The Earth gains a lot of water each year
from this.

I assume Venus and Mars get a lot of hits as well, although the Earth-Moon
system may present a much wider gravitational well.  I wonder how Mars'
atmosphere can lose all that water.
-- 
Scot E. Wilcoxon  sewilco@DataPg.MN.ORG    {amdahl|hpda}!bungia!datapg!sewilco
Data Progress	  UNIX consulting    +1 612-825-2607      uunet!datapg!sewilco

------------------------------

Date: 6 Apr 88 06:51:56 GMT
From: tm2b+@andrew.cmu.edu  (Todd L. Masco)
Subject: Re: Libertarians love NASA?

> *Excerpts from: 2-Apr-88 Re: Libertarians love NASA? "Keith F.*
> *Lynch"@AI.AI.M (594)*

> > From: BOWERYJ%CPVA.SAINET.MFENET@nmfecc.arpa

> > I saw a message from Dale Amon asking us to lobby for full NASA funding.
> > Dale is quite vocal in proclaiming himself to be a libertarian. ... the
> > Libertarian Party ... recommended that NASA be abolished.  Even the policy
> > statement of a Libertarian Party presidential candidate was clear in its
> > stance that NASA had held back U.S. progress in space for the last 20 years.

> Dale Amon does not speak for the Libertarian party.  I have asked him
> more than once to change his stance or to stop calling himself a
> libertarian.
>                                                               ...Keith

Does this mean that someone who doesn't agree with all Republican dogma cannot
call himself a Republican?  Funny, I thought that diversity of opinion within
EVERY group was what our system depended upon.
[Watch out, Dale... you might be excommunicated.]


                 Todd Masco

------------------------------

Date: 4 Apr 88 14:50:27 GMT
From: mtunx!whuts!sw@rutgers.edu  (WARMINK)
Subject: Re: Moon or Mars? Editorial in _Air & Space Smithsonian_

In article <1290@hubcap.UUCP>, hubcap@hubcap.UUCP (Mike Marshall) writes:
: The same issue of Air&Space contains an article entitled "Resist the
: Pull of Mars" in which the author talks about "The dark far side of the
: moon..." being a good place to conduct " ...sensitive radio astronomy...
: without interference from terrestrial signals."
: Since this is a credible magazine, I should give the guy the benefit
: of the doubt and assume he is talking about the period of time that the
: moon appears full from the perspective of the earth, but that's not how
: it reads.

Surely the "dark far side" of the moon is always shielded from *terrestrial*
signals, regardless of whether it is actually dark or not at the time: it 
always faces away from the Earth.


-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"We demand rigidly defined areas of    |  Stuart Warmink, APT UK Ltd.
 doubt and uncertainty" (Vroomfondel)  |  <ihnp4>!whuts!sw
-----------> My opinions are not necessarily those of APT UK Ltd. <-----------

------------------------------

Date: 5 Apr 88 18:35:47 GMT
From: trwrb!aero!venera.isi.edu!rod@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Rodney Doyle Van Meter III)
Subject: Re: fuels other than hydrogen

In article <1988Mar30.182117.1034@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>
>To add a practical note or two... Even if acetylene scores high on energy
>content, it is unusable because liquid acetylene is, I think, a dangerous
>explosive.  Benzene likewise is out because it is extremely dangerous,
>both poisonous and carcinogenic.  And yes, that startlingly low number for
>the density of liquid hydrogen is indeed correct.

Acetylene, at least, can be handled safely: it's used every day around the
world in oxy-acetylene cutting torches. The key is how it's stored: unlike
most bottled gases, the interior of a tank designed to contain acetylene
is not hollow. It contains a porous ceramic material. A solvent is then
used to diffuse the acetylene into the ceramic.If the tank is kept
upright, as it's supposed to be, acetylene comes out of the valve as a gas
seeping out of the ceramic. If the tank is laid on its side, the solvent
will seep out with the acetylene and gum up the operation of the valve and
torch.

Now: would you want to have to construct an external tank designed to hold 
acetylene? Sounds like a difficult proposition to even construct, much
less to do lightly enough to even get the thing off the ground! At least
with thi storage method you can keep it at room temperature, but you probably
need liquid density anyway, not gas...

My $.02 worth.

			--Rod

------------------------------

Date: 6 Apr 88 18:12:15 GMT
From: concertina!fiddler@sun.com  (Steve Hix)
Subject: Re: Re-evolving spaceflight after collapse of civilization


 In article <880402011425.2100021d@NMFECC.ARPA> BOWERYJ%CPVA.SAINET.MFENET@NMFECC.ARPA writes:
 >                                                                  We
 >are chewing up critical ores at a million times their formation rate
 >and are not likely to find substitutes for all materials which sit
 >at critical junctures of a space-faring civilization's technology.
 >

All that refined ore didn't just evaporate, did it?

Recovering metals from old buildings, garbage dumps, and auto
wrecking yards would be orders of magnitudes easier and cheaper
than scouting out their ores and redeveloping the chemical and
industrial base to refine them.

Just think of all the aluminum cans...

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #196
*******************

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To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #197

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 197

Today's Topics:
       Re: Moon or Mars? Editorial in _Air & Space Smithsonian_
			   Superconductors
	Re-evolving spaceflight after collapse of civilization
    Reasons for non-space-enthusiasts to support space exploration
		     Re: Libertarians love NASA?
       Re: Moon or Mars? Editorial in _Air & Space Smithsonian_
		   Re: How to become an astronaut?
		       Re: POSITION OF JUPITER
		 Re: Space Station measurement system
		 Re: Space Station measurement system
		   Re: The moon as a research base
		   Re: How to become an astronaut?
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 7 Apr 88 03:00:42 GMT
From: silver!compton@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu  (David Compton)
Subject: Re: Moon or Mars? Editorial in _Air & Space Smithsonian_

In article <48414@sun.uucp> dunc@sun.UUCP (duncs home) writes:
>>2. You need power. This is much easier to obtain in orbit, since solar
>>panels will be illuminated for roughly half of each orbit. On the

	If you would think about it, a satellite could be in sunlight
almost all the time(e.g.) a polar orbit.  This makes it a better alternative
than the ground based nuclear plant.

dave

-- 
compton@silver.bacs.indiana.edu
ihnp4!inuxc!iuvax!silver!compton
compton@silver.UUCP
compton%silver@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu

------------------------------

Date: 7 Apr 88 05:10:55 GMT
From: phoenix!sjmoon@princeton.edu  (Sang J. Moon)
Subject: Superconductors


I may be treading a beaten path, but I would like to know what uses
the present or future space program has for superconductors.  (Not
only in this country)

-- 
sjmoon@pucc                              | "Don't roam in the Wight
Sang J. Moon                             | plains."
aka Moonknight, defender of good stuff   |
Disclaimer: My words are mine, and your words are yours.

------------------------------

Date: 5 Apr 88 19:19:06 GMT
From: tektronix!reed!douglas@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (P Douglas Reeder)
Subject: Re-evolving spaceflight after collapse of civilization

In article <880402011425.2100021d@NMFECC.ARPA> BOWERYJ%CPVA.SAINET.MFENET@NMFECC.ARPA writes:
>                                                                  We
>are chewing up critical ores at a million times their formation rate
>and are not likely to find substitutes for all materials which sit
>at critical junctures of a space-faring civilization's technology.
>

I believe metals are not NECCESARY for high technology. A society without easy
access to metals might develop organic, ceramic, or other materials with the
neccesary strength, durability, and other characteristics needed.  If a society
invested as much research in non-metallic structural materials as we have in
metals, they could develop materials with the neccesary properties.  Note,
however, this could take hundreds or thousands of years, as we have taken.

However, I'd rather not wait.

-- 
Doug Reeder                           USENET: ...!tektronix!reed!douglas
10 Cyclopedia Square             from BITNET: douglas@reed.UUCP
Terminus City                     from  ARPA: !tektronix!reed!douglas@Berkley
Terminus,The Foundation                Box 502 Reed College,Portland,OR 97202

------------------------------

Date: 5 Apr 88 20:52:41 GMT
From: tektronix!reed!douglas@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (P Douglas Reeder)
Subject: Reasons for non-space-enthusiasts to support space exploration

If anyone has a list of reasons for non-space-enthusiasts to support space
exploration, could you please send it to me?

-- 
Doug Reeder                           USENET: ...!tektronix!reed!douglas
10 Cyclopedia Square             from BITNET: douglas@reed.UUCP
Terminus City                     from  ARPA: !tektronix!reed!douglas@Berkley
Terminus,The Foundation                Box 502 Reed College,Portland,OR 97202

------------------------------

Date: 7 Apr 88 01:07:18 GMT
From: mcb@tis.llnl.gov  (Michael C. Berch)
Subject: Re: Libertarians love NASA?

Keith F. Lynch writes:
> > From: BOWERYJ%CPVA.SAINET.MFENET@nmfecc.arpa
> > I saw a message from Dale Amon asking us to lobby for full NASA funding.
> > Dale is quite vocal in proclaiming himself to be a libertarian. ... the
> > Libertarian Party ... recommended that NASA be abolished.  Even the policy
> > statement of a Libertarian Party presidential candidate was clear in its
> > stance that NASA had held back U.S. progress in space for the last 20 years.
> 
> Dale Amon does not speak for the Libertarian party.  I have asked him
> more than once to change his stance or to stop calling himself a
> libertarian.

Abolition of NASA and the creation of a fully private-sector space
industry is a libertarian ideal, and I support the LP's position on it, 
but I also live in the real world, and pay real-world federal and state
taxes, as do lots of other people, and would MUCH rather tax revenues 
went to things like the space program than to income-redistribution 
programs and military adventurism.  So long as the government has a 
monopoly on the U.S.  space effort, we need to stick up for space funding.  
Of course I'd rather have it the "right" way, and I spend more time/money 
working on fundamental political issues than on appropriations (though I 
suport SpacePAC/Spacecause), but there's no contradiction in my mind between
"short term" and "long term" goals...  This position is shared by many
libertarians with respect to various real-world public policy issues.

Michael C. Berch 
mcb@tis.llnl.gov / {ames,ihnp4,lll-crg,lll-lcc,mordor}!lll-tis!mcb

------------------------------

Date: 6 Apr 88 15:36:17 GMT
From: moria!dunc@sun.com  (duncs home)
Subject: Re: Moon or Mars? Editorial in _Air & Space Smithsonian_

In article <1022@thumper.bellcore.com> karn@thumper.bellcore.com (Phil R. Karn) writes:
>                                  ...
>1. You need communications channels back to earth. A radio telescope on
>the far side of the moon would need relay satellites in lunar orbit for
>this purpose. These satellites would themselves have to transmit within
>view of the far side of the moon, possibly polluting the very spectrum
>you spent so much to view in a pristine state. On the other hand, a
>telescope in lunar orbit can provide its own store-and-forward relay. It
>need not transmit anything at all while it is actually observing.

There's no reason a relay satellite couldn't store and forward in exactly
the same way.

>2. You need power. This is much easier to obtain in orbit, since solar
>panels will be illuminated for roughly half of each orbit. On the

On the surface solar panels are illuminated for roughly half the time too.
Yes, you have to store the energy longer, but you have planet worth of raw
materials to assist.  In return you get to make uninterrupted observations
for as long as you choose.  The orbital observatory spends half the time
with the Earth shouting in it's ears and half the remainder with the Moon
between it and whatever it's interested in.

>surface, you will almost certainly need nuclear power sources to carry
>you through the long 2-week lunar night.  Thermal control is also much
>easier in orbit. Of course much of a surface station could be buried to
>help level out the day/night temperature fluctuations, except for the
>antennas -- and these are likely to be very susceptible to severe
>thermal-induced distortions.

Could you explain again why having the antenna cycle from sunlight to shade
every few tens of minutes provides better stability than having it happen
every two weeks?

>3. You need large antennas. You can build truly awesome arrays in zero-gee
>that require very little mass. Not quite as easy even in 1/6 G.

Probably true.  On the other hand, it's probably easier to get all the bits
pointed in the same direction when they're mounted on a large common platform.

				--Dunc

------------------------------

Date: 5 Apr 88 15:56:38 GMT
From: aplcen!aplcomm!stdc.jhuapl.edu!jwm@mimsy.umd.edu  (James W. Meritt)
Subject: Re: How to become an astronaut?

In article <176@aplcomm.UUCP> dpw@aplpy.jhuapl.edu (David P. Wenger) writes:
}I'm an undergraduate comp-sci and mathematics major at Drexel University

Unfortunately, one of the first things you must do is learn to speak
russian.....  :~(

jwm@aplvax.jhuapl.edu 128.244.65.5

------------------------------

Date: 5 Apr 88 15:28:10 GMT
From: mtunx!whuts!sw@rutgers.edu  (WARMINK)
Subject: Re: POSITION OF JUPITER

In article <8804041822.AA13294@angband.s1.gov>, AHD2044@TAMSTAR.BITNET writes:
> DOES ANYONE OF YOU ASTRONOMY PEOPLE OUT THERE HAVE A BASIC PROGRAM THAT
> CAN PREDICT THE POSITION OF THE PLANET JUPITER BY INPUTING THE DATE
> AND TIME ONE WOULD LIKE TO OBSERVE IT. PREFERRABLE IN BASIC WOULD BE NICE
> HOWEVER, ANY LANGUAGE WOULD BE APPRECIATED.

Only recently a PC program appeared in 'comp.binaries.ibm.pc' which
plots the positions for all the planets, lots of stars and the Sun and Moon
for any place, time and date.
It was called 'skyplot' and consists of 8 sections which should be 'cat'
together (after removing rubbish) and 'uudecode'ed. The resulting file
should be renamed SKY.EXE and run on a PC to extract all relevant files.
As it has already appeared on the net, I would hesitate to post it again
as it is a bit big really...
Good luck,

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"We demand rigidly defined areas of    |  Stuart Warmink, APT UK Ltd.
 doubt and uncertainty" (Vroomfondel)  |  <ihnp4>!whuts!sw
-----------> My opinions are not necessarily those of APT UK Ltd. <-----------

------------------------------

Date: 31 Mar 88 16:58:54 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!dciem!nrcaer!cognos!geovision!alastair@uunet.uu.net  (Alastair Mayer)
Subject: Re: Space Station measurement system

In article <1184@PT.CS.CMU.EDU> schmitz@FAS.RI.CMU.EDU (Donald Schmitz) writes:
 [.. a bunch of stuff deleted..]
>but rather the station instrument calibration.  I would much rather measure
>some things, like the cabin pressure I was about to walk into, in lb/in^2
>than Pascals, and count on doing the conversion to atmospheres (which is
>what really matters) right.
 
  I can't say I'm fond of kiloPascals as a pressure measurement myself,
either.  But I'm not sure that either PSI or atmospheres is what you
really want.  Sure, you need a PSI or kiloPascal measurement to figure
stresses on the pressure hull, etc, and some arbitrary measurement to
keep the life support system calibrated.  But when it comes to the air
that I'm breathing (assuming an air-like O2/N2 mix) then from my pilot
training I tend to convert to an equivalent altitude.  Ie, air at up
to 10,000 feet (down to about 10psi) is breathable 'indefinitely' without
exertion, above that one needs supplementary oxygen.  12 to 13psi (about
5000') is perfectly comfortable for any reasonably healthy person (ask
anyone who lives in Denver or Mexico City), and so on.
   Instrument calibrations depend not just on *what* you're measuring,
but *why* you're measuring it.  Altitude chambers measure pressure in
feet altitude.  Recompression chambers measure pressure in feet of
seawater equivalent depth, etc.   Ditto for other measurement systems.
(I always wanted a speedometer calibrated in metres/sec, or Mach number :-)
-- 
 Alastair JW Mayer     BIX: al
                      UUCP: ...!utzoo!dciem!nrcaer!cognos!geovision!alastair

"Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it."

------------------------------

Date: 31 Mar 88 16:43:52 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!dciem!nrcaer!cognos!geovision!alastair@uunet.uu.net  (Alastair Mayer)
Subject: Re: Space Station measurement system

In article <1694@pompeii.UUCP> leif@pompeii.UUCP (Leif Kirschenbaum) writes:
>In article <8803141519.AA22768@blues.db.toronto.edu> hogg@db.toronto.edu (John Hogg) writes:
>> In article <1988Mar11.041245.8768@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>> >The space station will not be metric, for fear that it might affect safety
>> >in an emergency when snap decisions are being made by ignorant astronauts
>> >who have to convert metric units to archaic ones before thinking about them.
>> >[AW&ST obviously did not word it quite that way...]
  [..stuff deleted..]
>metric. I don't know which system NASA uses, but would be surprised if they
>use English. I would think that anyone qualified enough to be an astronaut has
>had more than the basic courses in science, and would therefore think in metric.

  It's a long way from a few science courses to "thinking in metric".  The
units you use tend to relate to what you're doing with them - I use metric
for lab work and buying groceries and gas (although I still figure my gas
consumption in miles/gallon), miles for figuring walking distances, km/hr
for driving speed, and knots and nautical miles for flying.  Likewise for
flying I don't care so much about gallons (or litres) of fuel as I do about
pounds of fuel.  I'd say I tend to 'think' more in Imperial measure than
metric, though I use both.  Depends how you're brought up, and what your
measuring devices are calibrated in. In any case, anyone with pilot training
is going to tend to think in feet and nautical miles.

>Even in snap situations (I certainly do- slugs are awfull difficult to relate to
>and metric numbers are so much easier to compute- 10m/s/s for g, 1g/cc density
>for water, etc.)  Even if they hadn't, all the training NASA gives astronauts
>(and I gather that it's a lot) should involve metric. So why the worry about
>'ignorant' astronauts?

Personally, I find it difficult to imagine a scenario where the difference
in whether, say, a station module is 10m (33.something feet) long or
30 feet (9.something meters), or whether you've got 50kg or 110lb of
thruster propellant is going to make a big difference.  True, Air Canada
ran into a little problem (the "Gimli Glider") with metric measurement
of fuel left in one of their 767s (the fuel guages were inoperative,
a dipstick measurement was converted to weight using the wrong conversion
factor, inches to lbs instead of cm to kg, or some such), but if consistent
units are used in the station, I can't see a similar situation occurring.


>Does anyone know what system NASA uses to train its personnel and design its
>systems?  Does anyone know where it gets scientists who are willing to use
>the English system to design spacecraft, instruments, equipment, etc?

  The thing is, *scientists* don't design spacecraft, instruments, etc,
*engineers* do.  And most engineers (in North America, anyway) were taught
the Imperial system.  (Not English - England went metric a while back...)
-- 
 Alastair JW Mayer     BIX: al
                      UUCP: ...!utzoo!dciem!nrcaer!cognos!geovision!alastair

"Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it."

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 8 Apr 88 09:27:21 CDT
From: sedspace@doc.cc.utexas.edu (Steve Abrams)
Posted-Date: Fri, 8 Apr 88 09:27:21 CDT
Subject: Re: The moon as a research base
Cc: enos@doc.cc.utexas.edu


In Space Digest, V8 #184, tektronix!reed!douglas@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (P Douglas
 Reeder) writes:

The far side of the moon is, of course the best place in the solar
system for radio astronomy, being permanently shielded from Earth's
radio noise by thousands of kilometers of rock.

I've just returned from the Lunar Bases Symposium, held in Houston TX,
where an entire session on "Scientific Investigations from a Lunar Base"
where it was discussed that the moon and its environment were the best
places, not only for r adio astronomy, but for optical, IR, X-Ray,
neutrino, and gravitational radiati on.

The first three obviously are due to shielding by the Earth, vacuum
environ ment, and the ready availability of land (no squatters or
protestors around).  The last two are more physics oriented
(time-of-flight measurements to improve guesses on neutrino masses;
correlation of lunar gravitational radiation laser interferometer --
high vacuum -- with Earth-based instruments) but, eventually, they will
be incorporated into neutrino and gravity wave observatories.  The
latter, incidentally, is what motivates me to work towards a PhD in this
field (one that I probably won't receive until well after the
establishment of a parmanently manned lunar base -- or so it seems at
times)...

				Steve Abrams

------------------------------

Date: 5 Apr 88 21:41:49 GMT
From: weltyc@nisc.nyser.net  (Christopher A. Welty)
Subject: Re: How to become an astronaut?

In article <176@aplcomm.UUCP>, dpw@aplpy.jhuapl.edu (David P. Wenger) writes:
> 
> .....  I have a great desire to become an astronaut and was
> wondering if anyone out there knows what steps should be taken to accomplish
> this goal. 

	Eugene Miya sent me this information a year ago, when I sent
in a request, I was quite promptly sent an application for Mission
Specialist and Astronaut:

Astronaut Selection Board
NASA Johnson Space Center
Houston, TX 77050

I also called to find out what my chances were, etc, and I was told
that (surpisingly?) competition is still quite intense.  You need to
be in EXCELLENT physical shape, decent vision (20/100 uncorrected for
Mission Specialist, 20/20 for Astronaut), and have a pretty impressive
background.  In general if you don't have a graduate degree you're
pretty much out of the running for Mission Specialist.   They look for
information going back as far as high school......They recommended I
wait to apply until I get my PhD, as that would increase my chances
significantly....

If this is indeed your dream, don't let cynicism stand in your way,
you've got to fight to make it a reality.


Christopher Welty  ---  Asst. Director, RPI CS Labs
weltyc@cs.rpi.edu       ...!rutgers!nysernic!weltyc

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #197
*******************

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Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #198

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 198

Today's Topics:
			       48 Hours
		    space news from March 28 AW&ST
		    space news from April 4 AW&ST
		  Re: space news from April 4 AW&ST
		   Re: Millions of comets hit Earth
		    Condensed CANOPUS - March 1988
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 19 Apr 88 19:05:53 GMT
From: ncspm!jay@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu  (Jay C. Smith)
Subject: 48 Hours

This week's "48 Hours," the CBS prime-time news program that isn't "60
Minutes" or "West 57th," is supposed to be about a shuttle mission
simulation.

Air time is 8:00 p.m. EDT on Thursday, April 21.

Thought you might like to know, since this sort of information always
comes in too late for TV Guide.

Jay C. Smith                    uucp:     ...!mcnc!ncsuvx!ncspm!jay
Domain:	jay@ncspm.ncsu.edu      internet: jay%ncspm@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu

------------------------------

Date: 17 Apr 88 23:52:44 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from March 28 AW&ST

Martin Marietta is studying a near-term manned Mars mission.  It would
need about 1.5 Mlbs in Earth orbit.  Needed would be orbital storage of
cryogenic propellants, aerobraking, and a lightweight spacesuit (the old
lunar spacesuits would be too heavy in Mars's stronger gravity).

Congress puts the Commercially Developed Space Facility on hold due to
doubts about the need, and irritation that NASA didn't ask them about it
first.  NASA expects that Congress will okay it eventually, but some
changes may be needed.

NRC urges NASA not to fly the shuttle again until the cause of the
nozzle boot ring failure in December is understood, and urges more
testing before launch.  This would probably cause delays, since there is
no slack in the Aug 4 schedule.  NRC is concerned that even the old
boot-ring design should not be trusted until the failure of the new one
is understood, which it isn't at the moment.  NASA points out, though,
that the analytical methods are not really trusted and testing is the
real source of confidence in the boot-ring designs.  A mid-April test
will involve a deliberately weakened boot ring.

Remaining full-scale tests before STS-26 are QM-6 (April 19, with
defects in joint seals and boot ring), QM-7 (June, high temperature,
flight loads, but no defects), and PVM-1 (July, still more drastic
defects).

NASA FY89 budget likely to lose about half the $2.5G increase requested
over last year.

NASA is looking at four sites for an Advanced Solid Rocket Motor
production facility.  Unresolved is whether the plant should be owned by
the contractor or only operated by them.  NASA-owned facilities would
provide a more competitive situation for contractors.  Morton Thiokol
favors company-owned facilities; the other four interested companies all
favor NASA ownership.

Phase one work on the Awesomely Lucrative Spacelauncher, er excuse me
the Advanced Launch System, resumes as USAF and NASA come to agreement
on roles.  USAF will be in charge, NASA will do full-scale propulsion
work and hydrocarbon-fuel subsystem work, USAF Astronautics Lab will do
hydrogen- fuel subsystem work, and USAF will pay for upgrading of NASA
facilities for propulsion testing.

British government expected to approve additional develoment funding for
Hotol, to supplement substantial industry-provided funding.

ESA and NASA come to tentative agreement on space-station participation!
ESA also decides to give Britain a chance to change its mind about its
recent refusal to get involved.

Britain awards large contract to Marconi Space Systems for work on laser
communications for satellites, to include lab demonstrations of
hardware.

Progress 35 tanker launched to Mir March 23rd.

Drawings by Charlie Vick of the expected configuration of the Soviet
shuttle stacked on Energia.  From the back (looking at the orbiter's
top) it actually looks a lot like the US shuttle except at the bottom,
where Energia bristles with rocket engines and the orbiter tails off
into a streamlined fairing.  [Vick is one of the top
Soviet-space-program watchers.]

DoD formally approves SDI's Space-Based Interceptor experiment as
compliant with the ABM Treaty, partly as a result of a number of changes
made to the experiment to make it more compliant.

[Also of note, from the March 12th issue of Flight International:]

Alexander Dunayev, head of Glavkosmos, confirms that the second Energia
will carry an unmanned shuttle orbiter, adding that it may not be quite
what Western analysts expect.  He says launch could be within a month
but four months is more realistic.  Dunayev thinks that if the automatic
system works, there is no rush about putting men aboard.  There may be
two different versions of the Soviet shuttle, manned and unmanned.  As
some Western analysts have suggested, the shuttle's main mission is to
bring major payloads down.  [Energia is just fine by itself for taking
them up.]  Dunayev says that the third-stage failure in the first
Energia test was pre-launch human error, and that the engine did fire
but in the wrong direction.  He confirms that parts of Energia are meant
to be reusable, and says that tests indicate this is practical.  The
current Mir crew is intended to be up 400 days, although medical
considerations may change this as the mission goes along.  Bulgarian
cosmonaut Alexandrov will not in fact do an EVA, and earlier reports
about "space bicycles" referred to exercise bicycles rather than manned
maneuvering units (although such things are planned for later).

Pravda says that the Sanglok Mountain complex the Soviets are building
is not an antisatellite laser station but a combined electro-optical
space- surveillance site and astronomical observatory.

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 19 Apr 88 04:15:35 GMT
From: mnetor!spectrix!tmsoft!utgpu!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from April 4 AW&ST

Editorial criticizing Commerce Dept's attempt to dictate shuttle pricing
policies, also its granting of an export licence for Mir microgravity
experiments without consulting the entire US government about it.

Zenith Star (SDI's big chemical-laser satellite) gets big budget boost.

Getaway Special program has about 530 reservations, roughly 1/4 of them
from outside US, with Germany in the lead followed by Canada and Japan.

NASA says RFP for advanced-SRB development will be issue in June, work
to start Jan.  A segmented design will be used [boo hiss].  The question
of whether facilities will be owned by the contractor or the government
remains open.

NASA wins battle with Commerce over shuttle pricing: should paying users
pay full shuttle costs, or (since the shuttle would be flying even
without them) only the extra costs required to fly them?  Commerce, OMB,
and DoD favored the higher price; everybody else, including customers
and Congress, was opposed.  Rep. Nelson says that if the Administration
was favoring the higher price, "that's all we need to know to understand
that those who are making policy in the Administration don't know much
about commercial spaceflight".  Rep. Walker (Nelson's Republican
counterpart): "For the life of me, I can't understand what idiot decided
this was a rational policy."  He charges that advocates of the higher
price were ignoring the law: in NASA's FY86 authorization bill, Congress
set firm shuttle-pricing rules.  DoT's Office of Commercial Space
Transportation observes that in the present situation, full cost
recovery is "nuts".  Walker also tells Commerce that the unwillingness
of Administration officials to supply details on how policy was set is
grossly out of order.

Budget situation looks sticky for space station and related projects.
Congress tells NASA that its persistent assumption of 15-20% annual
budget increases has no relation to reality.  Also some criticism of the
proposed CDSF lease deal, which says NASA will start paying on delivery
even if the launch is delayed, but imposes no penalty for late delivery
of hardware.  Spacehab is also unhappy that leasing of ISF could reduce
its business; NASA confirms that if it is paying for facilities,
obviously it will use them before buying more.  [Could it be my memory,
or do I recall a time, only a couple of months ago at that, when
Spacehab said it wanted no subsidies or special treatment, just flight
opportunities?]

Rep. George Brown introduces Space Settlement Act, making human
settlement of space an official long-term goal and requiring regular
NASA reports on progress.  He is also making loud noises about more
money for civilian space.

Picture of Hughes's latest Jarvis design, aiming at the ALS program.
Think of a slightly short shuttle tank, with 50%-scale replicas of
itself clustered around its base.  The strap-ons would be recovered, but
not the core.  Propulsion is identical for strap-ons and core: each has
four clusters of eight RL-10 engines [the Centaur engine], for a total
of 224 [!!] engines if all six strap-ons are used.  Everything would be
firing at launch, with the core then shutting down and restarting later
at high altitude.  The RL-10 was picked for reliability, performance
[not as good as the SSME but not bad], and cost [much less than the
SSME].  Hughes is proposing launch from Palmyra Island (vaguely near
Hawaii) from an austere facility.

British government semi-reverses itself, saying that it might return to
some of the big ESA projects if they can be revised to reduce costs and
increase benefits.

Andrew Stofan, outgoing space-station admin, says NASA is ready to start
shuttle flights again, and should have done so 18 months ago, but that
everybody is paranoid about safety due to intense unfavorable publicity.
"There is only one way to be safe -- never fly..."  "NASA's been a
risk-taking agency.  If they stop doing that, NASA's not a viable agency
any more."  He also slams Congressional micromanagement and the
"infinite amount of time and energy" required to solve problems when
everybody in Washington wants a say.

NASA names crews for 1989 shuttle missions.  Nobody remarkable.  [In
particular, John Young isn't going to fly the Hubble Telescope mission,
as he was going to before Challenger.  Young in fact is in the doghouse
these days.  Shortly after Challenger, he openly criticized the lack of
astronaut involvement in engineering... something widely felt to be
mostly his fault, since his predecessors insisted on astronaut
involvement and generally got it.  If you've wondered why he got kicked
upstairs from his position as chief astronaut, my spies tell me this had
a lot to do with it.]

[Finally, a repetition of old news: for those interested in a copy of
the Ride Report, AW&ST sells them.  $14.95 plus "appropriate sales tax"
to The Ride Report (A128), Aviation Week & Space Technology, PO Box
5505, Peoria, IL 61601.  They take Visa, Mastercard, AmEx, Diner's
Club.]
-- 
"Noalias must go.  This is           |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
non-negotiable."  --DMR              | {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 20 Apr 88 03:42:52 GMT
From: pv04+@andrew.cmu.edu  (Philip Verdieck)
Subject: Re: space news from April 4 AW&ST


Hey... space news from April 4 AW&ST,
and today is April 19th...

My God! It's only two weeks old!!!!!!!

What's wrong Henry ?????    ;-}

ARPA   : Philip.Verdieck@andrew.cmu.edu
         PV04+@andrew.cmu.edu
BITNET : r746pv04@CMCCVB
UUCP   : ...!{harvard,ucbvax}!andrew.cmu.edu!pv04

------------------------------

Date: 5 Apr 88 20:57:37 GMT
From: spar!freeman@decwrl.dec.com  (Jay Freeman)
Subject: Re: Millions of comets hit Earth

If that were so, then there should be at least hundreds of thousands of
new craters on the MOON each year, each caused by the impact of a small
comet.  I think we have enough high-resolution lunar photography, over a
sufficient time base, so that any such phenomenon would be pretty
obvious.  (I mean the stuff from the lunar orbiters, such craters might
be too small to be easily detectable with Earth-based telescopes.)  I
also suspect that the seismographs left by the Apollo missions would
have been kept pretty busy by all those impacts; remember that the
seismographs were more than sensitive enough to detect the LEMs when
they were crashed into the lunar surface after various missions, and
that a LEM is much less massive than a 30-foot snowball and also moving
at far less speed at impact.

Am I missing something?  Was there a typo in the original posting?


						-- Jay Freeman

<canonical disclaimer; these are my personal opinions>

------------------------------

Date: 17 Apr 88 21:47:31 GMT
From: cfa!willner@husc6.harvard.edu  (Steve Willner)
Subject: Condensed CANOPUS - March 1988

This is the condensed CANOPUS for March 1988.  There are 9 articles,
three presented by title only, three condensed to become very short, and
three condensed but somewhat longer.  The shuttle manifest included in
this issue has been posted separately to sci.space.shuttle.  All
articles have been highly condensed and often rearranged.  Material from
me is in {braces}, and expressions of opinion are signed {--SW}.  The
unabridged CANOPUS has been sent to the special mailing list.

CANOPUS is published by the American Institute of Aeronautics and
Astronautics.  Send correspondence about its contents to the executive
editor, William W. L. Taylor (taylor%trwatd.span@star.stanford.edu;
e-mail to canopus@cfa.uucp will probably be forwarded).  Send
correspondence about business matters to Mr. John Newbauer, AIAA, 1633
Broadway, NY, NY 10019.  Although AIAA has copyrighted CANOPUS and
registered its name, you are encouraged to distribute CANOPUS widely,
either electronically or as printout copies.  If you do, however, please
send a brief message to Taylor estimating how many others receive
copies.  CANOPUS is partially supported by the National Space Science
Data Center.

{Three articles by title only}
NEW INITIATIVES OFFICE IN HOUSTON - can880305.txt - 3/8/88
RAYMOND HEACOCK - can880306.txt - 3/8/88  {at JPL}
HIGH-ENERGY ASTROPHYSICS MISSION DESCRIBED - can880309.txt - 3/16/88
  {Details of instruments on SHEAL}

{Three very short, condensed articles}
SAN MARCO DELAYED - can880302.txt - 3/3/88 
Studying Earth's atmosphere.  Scout launcher.  Delayed one week.

NEW SPACE STATION HEAD NAMED - can880304.txt - 3/8/88 
James Odom, currently director of science and engineering at Marshall
Space Flight Center, as of April 1.

ASTRONAUTS FORM CUSTOMER RELATIONS GROUP - can880307.txt - 3/8/88

Six astronauts have been assigned to customer relations duties for
prospective Space Shuttle and Space Station experimenters.  According to
a NASA announcement, "The group focuses on increasing scientific and
engineering flexibility of experiments in space without violating
Shuttle operational guidelines."

  {Three longer condensed articles.}
"SMALL" EXPLORER A.O. PLANNED - can8809301.txt - 3/3/88 {condensed}

An "Announcement of Opportunity" is to be issued by NASA by early May
for small Explorer spacecraft that would be launched aboard Scout
expendable launchers.  With the new program NASA is "trying to get back
to doing space science research quickly," said George Newton, manager of
advanced programs in NASA's astrophysics division.  The AO will be aimed
at "mature instruments" that can be designed, built and flown with
relatively little development work.  The first launch is to come in
1991. Newton said that the goal is to fly one or two Scout Explorers a
year.  {Quicker flight opportunities are definitely a step in the right
direction.  Now let's just hope they can pull it off.--SW}

  {Larger Explorers, probably requiring Delta-class launchers.}
In February, NASA selected for Phase A study four concepts from a field
of 44 proposals.  The four selected are:

     Lyman Far UV Spectroscopic Explorer, Warren Moos, Johns Hopkins
     University. {A successor or a companion to IUE, which recently had
     its tenth birthday.}

     Nuclear Astrophysics Explorer, James Matteson, University of
     California at San Diego. It would produce high-resolution
     observations of gamma ray lines, with emphasis on neutron stars,
     supernovas, and nucleosythesis.  {A similar instrument was dropped
     from GRO in a cost-saving move a few years ago.}

     Advanced Composition Explorer, Edward Stone, California Institute
     of Technology. Analyze the makeup of solar, interplanetary, and
     galactic "cosmic ray" particles.

     Mesosphere/Lower Thermosphere Explorer, Paul Hays, University of
     Michigan at Ann Arbor.  {Earth's atmosphere}

The number of spacecraft that will be selected for flight will depend on
the funding outlook.  {Probably at most two.} Development is to start in
1991 and the first launch will be in 1995-96.

NASA DEVELOPING SPACE SCIENCE STRATEGY - can880303.txt - 3/7/88

A "serious strategy planning effort" began last fall, said Joseph
Alexander, assistant associate administrator for space science and
applications, and is about a month from completion. Alexander said it
resulted from Associate Administrator Lenard Fisk's desire to provide a
more realistic approach to developing missions.  {Fisk was a relatively
new appointee.  More realistic planning has been long overdue.--SW}

The general outline of the strategy follows five major themes. In
priority they are:

COMPLETION OF ONGOING PROGRAMS. 
MAJOR AND MODEST NEW STARTS. 
SMALL MISSIONS. 
USE OF SPACE STATION. 
RESEARCH AND SUPPORT. 

Alexander noted that the 1989 budget request to start the Advanced X-ray
Astrophysics Facility (AXAF) fits the major program category.
Completion of the Space Infrared Telescope Facility, the last of the
four Great Observatories for space astrophysics, is planned, too.  {for
1993 new start, I think.--SW} (The other Great Observatories are the
Hubble Space Telescope and the Gamma Ray Observatory).

The next major program, the Mariner Mark 2 series planetary spacecraft,
will be sought in 1990, with the Comet Rendezvous/ Asteroid Flyby as its
first mission followed a few years later by the Casini Saturn/Titan
mission. It is planned that ultimately there will be at least one
planetary mission in its prime data gathering phase each year. {This
almost surely requires increased funding, unless they're planning to
eliminate non-planetary missions.--SW}

"SPACELAB 5" REUNITED, LDEF RETRIEVAL SET - can880308.txt - 3/16/88
{condensed.  Shuttle manifest posted separately in sci.space.shuttle}
{last article}

Major features of the latest Space Shuttle manifest are unchanged, and a
number of space science and applications missions are given firm slots
rather than just a listing of needed bookings. The manifest shows
payload assignments through late 1993 (rather than 1989), and builds to
a flight rate of one mission per month in 1992.

ASTRO consists of the Hopkins Ultraviolet Telescope (HUT), the
Wisconsion Ultraviolet Photopolarimeter (WUPPE), and the Goddard UV
Imaging Telescope (UIT). SHEAL consists of the Broad-Band X-ray
Telescope (BBRXT) and the Diffuse X-ray Spectrometer (DXS).  A third
X-ray telescope was dropped several years ago to conserve costs.  ASTRO
now will fly with the BBRXT.  Spacelab 5 used to be ASTRO plus SHEAL,
but they were separated a few years ago.

Recovery of LDEF will come more than five years after its April 1984
launch on the Solar Max Repair Mission. LDEF's orbit is decaying
somewhat faster than expected. Unlike Skylab, it has no attitude control
system which engineers could use to select is entry point.  Further,
many of its experiments may be useless from extended exposure to
radiation; it was only supposed to be up 9 months.

-- 
Steve Willner            Phone 617-495-7123         Bitnet:   willner@cfa
60 Garden St.            FTS:      830-7123           UUCP:   willner@cfa
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA                 Internet: willner@cfa.harvard.edu

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #198
*******************

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To: Space@angband.s1.gov
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Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #199

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 199

Today's Topics:
			 Today's Anniversary
		       Re: Today's Anniversary
			 Re: Superconductors
		     Re: Libertarians love NASA?
	     remote sensing of Mars and private industry
		    Re: Radiation Hardening Chips
		   Re: Jesse Jackson's space policy
	 searching for astronomy discussion groups by e-mail
      Re: Re-evolving spaceflight after collapse of civilization
			    Re: Antimatter
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 12 Apr 88 22:30:10 GMT
From: firth@sei.cmu.edu  (Robert Firth)
Subject: Today's Anniversary

Today is a special day.

On 1961 April 12, the first human flew in space.  He was Yuri Gagarin,
and he was launched from Russia into Earth orbit.  The conquest of space
had begun.  The British Broadcasting Corporation brought the news to a
small farmhouse in Wales, in what was then the County of Flint, where a
schoolboy tried to explain what it all meant to his grandmother.

Of course, we knew it had to happen.  We'd read about Goddard, about von
Braun and the V-2, about the British Interplanetary Society.  We'd read
Tsiolkovsy's books; we treasured Ley & Bonestell's 'The Conquest of
Space'; we had grown up with the romances of Wells, Verne, and the
modern writers of speculative fiction.

I was fifteen.  My first thought was one of simple joy, that at last we
were on our way.  The theoretical groundwork had been done; the backyard
engineering of the pioneers was behind us; the heavy rockets at
Peenemunde - however abused - had proven that the technology was
adequate.  It was now a matter of will, and drive, and heroism; things
with which mankind has rarely been under-supplied.

My second thought was panic.  I was too young!  Now that the long, slow
period of growth, from wild propagandists, random rabid enthusiasts,
through private engineers and amateurs, to working programs - now that
this was over, progress would surely be fast.  Rocketry was now in the
stage that aviation had reached by about 1920, or steamships by about
1820.  A manned space station was next; then the moon landing; and then
the real adventure, the thing we dreamed about: Mars.

And what chance would I have, of being on the expedition that would be
launched during the opposition of 1971?

----

Well, twenty-seven years have passed since that day.  How have we done?

Recall that, thirty years after the other Rocket, of Stevenson, you
could buy a train ticket from London to Edinburgh.  Thirty years after
Wilbur and Orville left the ground, you could buy an airline ticket that
would take you around the world.  How did we get here, where all the
West in concert cannot even replicate the achievment of Vostok 1, and
put a man into Earth orbit?

I remember the steam engine of Heron of Alexandria, that could have
changed the world; and the society, rooted in slavery and oppression,
that ignored its promise, and used it to fake temple miracles.  I
remember Cheng Ho, who almost alone tried to make China into a
transoceanic empire; and whose dream was crushed by the mandarins, who
saw any change as a threat to their control.  I remember Robert Fulton,
trying to convince a sick tyrant that ships could indeed move against
the wind, and that his tyranny could profit by funding them.  And I
remember Neil Armstrong, taking a small step on the moon.

Today is a day to look again at Bonestell's paintings.  To replay the
gramophone record the Russian Embassy sent me, of Gagarin's words
crackling down from space.  To leaf through the closing pages of
Spengler's 'Der Untergang des Abendlandes', where he predicts in
frightening terms the stifling bureaucratic totalitarianism that is our
inevitable fate: as the influential loot the treasury; as the powerful
stifle all initiative that does not serve their ends; as the mob and
their toadies destroy the Laws; and as at last the coming Caesar
consummates the triumph of blood and iron.

Today is a day to weep, for the dream is over.

------------------------------

Date: 13 Apr 88 14:37:36 GMT
From: cfa!cfa250!mcdowell@husc6.harvard.edu  (Jonathan McDowell)
Subject: Re: Today's Anniversary

>From article <5036@aw.sei.cmu.edu>, by firth@sei.cmu.edu (Robert Firth):
> Today is a day to weep, for the dream is over.  

No, Robert - the dream goes on. It just is gonna take a little longer to
make real, that's all.

Course, if we don't get our act together soon, we'll have to dream in a
certain other language, but that point's been laboured enough recently
in sci.space.  The dream of Apr 12, 1961 is finally being realized in
its homeland, and so I wish you a happy 'Denya Kosmonavtika'
(cosmonaut's day). But the anniversary I keep is Dec 21, 1968 - can it
really be almost twenty years since humans first escaped from the
Earth's gravity well and voyaged around another world? By the time that
anniversary comes around I hope Americans will be flying in space again
and we'll be gearing up to get our part of the dream going again.

Jonathan McDowell

------------------------------

Date: 7 Apr 88 16:47:45 GMT
From: pioneer!eugene@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Eugene N. Miya)
Subject: Re: Superconductors

In article <2422@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> sjmoon@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Sang J. Moon) writes:
>I may be treading a beaten path, but I would like to know what uses
>the present or future space program has for superconductors.

"You are forgiven, my son..."  You are only the second request I've seen.

"There are many uses.." say the people who don't really know anything
except the ruediments of superconductivity.

The uses these materials will see in space will be anything which
benefits having current flow thru them: computers, power systems,
motors, etc.  There are still too many unknowns: mass production, can
you make wire? Does this stuff fall apart thru time? can it be radiation
hardened? Etc. etc.  The problem is like this: Chu's ceramic works in
LN2.  Do we start to gear up for LN2 technology (we can, witness the
ETA-10)?  Or do we wait for the promised (like AI, fusion, and
remote sensing) room temperature SC?  If we wait, it may never appear
(there are limits to these things), if we go to LN2, then we have this
obsolete stuff if room temp stuff appears.  The third course
(bureaucratic) is waiting and use existing stuff (non-SC).  I would
rather buy Genetech or minisuper stock myself than SC companies.

Just too much hype in this field right now.  A good talk was given last
summer at Stanford on the promise of SC materials in the supercollider.

NASA is not specifically targeting anything to use the new
superconductors.  There is insufficient knowledge to apply them to like
or project "threatening" space missions.  On the other hand, NASA is
supposed to take risks.  It's a tradeoff.  You will notice no one at
NASA has made any of the IBM material for instance (H.S. do it, right?
;-), and there has been only one internal meeting I am aware of on the
topic.  There's more to space than flowing electrons.

If you are willing and in able health, maybe we can make a fly-by wire
SC plane and let you be the first to test fly it ;-).  We will try our
best to prevent you from augering in.  Ooops, we forgot the
aerodynamics!  Back to the drawing board......

It has been printed that research takes 20 years to see practical
applications (a figure typically printed in the 1960s, may not take
exponential growth into account).  Superconditivity will be an
interesting case to see in all of your life times.
>From the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA
  "You trust the `reply' command with all those different mailers out there?"
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."
  {uunet,hplabs,hao,ihnp4,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene

------------------------------

Date: 5 Apr 88 21:12:32 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Libertarians love NASA?

> > Dale is quite vocal in proclaiming himself to be a libertarian. ... the
> > Libertarian Party ... recommended that NASA be abolished...
> 
> Dale Amon does not speak for the Libertarian party.  I have asked him
> more than once to change his stance or to stop calling himself a
> libertarian.

It is possible to be libertarian without being Libertarian, in the same
way that it is possible to be democratic without being a Democrat.  Don't
confuse the general philosophy with the political party.
-- 
"Noalias must go.  This is           |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
non-negotiable."  --DMR              | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 7 Apr 88 11:12:27 MST
From: mocvax!mc%miranda.uucp@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov (Mike Caplinger)
To: mocvax!space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: remote sensing of Mars and private industry

D. Starr says:
> I would even maintain that our commercial
> remote-sensing capabilities have reached the point where even the
> pre-departure remote surveys of Mars (Mars Observer and its followups,
> for instance) should really be contracted out to private industry (eg,
> Spot Image).

I feel compelled to point out that the Mars Observer Camera isn't being
built by NASA, but by a team of people at Arizona State University
and Caltech.  We're contracting out some of the work (optics and
support structure mostly, for example Perkin-Elmer is making the glass)
and doing most of the electronics and software ourselves.  This is a
rather capable instrument, better than any non-military device that's
ever been flown in Earth orbit (resolution of 1.4 meters narrow
angle, and global coverage in two colors with a wide-angle lens
system.)

I'm really not sure what you're objecting to.  Sure, MO is
NASA-funded.  But most of the instruments are being built by university
research teams who contract out to industry to get some of the stuff
built.  Do you believe SPOT Image is going to *pay* for a survey of
Mars?  Besides, they're not the best example anyway; do you think they
weren't subsidized by the French government?

	Mike Caplinger
	ASU/Caltech Mars Observer Camera Project
	mc@moc.jpl.nasa.gov

------------------------------

Date: 5 Apr 88 22:43:50 GMT
From: quintus!ok@unix.sri.com  (Richard A. O'Keefe)
Subject: Re: Radiation Hardening Chips

In article <75@avsd.UUCP>, govett@avsd.UUCP (David Govett) writes:
> >      We (Commercial Software Ltd) are looking for information on
> > radiation hardening chips. This is because we are involved in the
> > SCONZ project (Space COmmunications New Zealand) and have been
> > asked by SCONZQUANGO to obtain information on hardening chips for
> > space radiation exposure.

> I though that you New Zealanders gave up nuclear-related technologies 
> Lange ago so that the Soviets wouldn't notice you.  Do I detect an 
> incipient backbone?

NZ didn't "give up nuclear-related technologies".
It repudiated nuclear _weapons_, a very different thing.
You think it doesn't take backbone to stick to your principles (come to
that, to the principles of the _American_ Methodist Bishops) despite
Uncle's tantrums and threats?  [NZ, by the way, stuck within the letter
of the ANZUS pact, of which I have a copy.  The US did _not_.]

> By the way, couldn't you come up with more euphonic acronyms than
> SCONZ and SCONZQUANGO?

"Scones" is the English name for what USAns call "biscuits".
Sounds euphonious to me.  QUANGO is a standard English acronym,
standing for "QUasi-Autonomous Non-Governmental Organisation".

But the cream of the joke is that the flamer apparently didn't notice
the dateline:  1 Apr 88, or that while rec.humor was among the
Newsgroups, comp.lsi and sci.electronics (which would have been the
appropriate newsgroups if the request had been genuine) were not.

Nice one, Zippy and (Gregg and/or Bill).  Kua nui te kata.

------------------------------

Date: 5 Apr 88 18:30:32 GMT
From: ulysses!thumper!karn@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: Jesse Jackson's space policy

> Until recently, the Soviets denied the existence of their SDI program,
> which seems to be better funded than ours.

Fortunately, the laws of physics apply as much to the Soviets as they do
to us. Why should you care if the Soviets want to waste their money? As
far as I'm concerned, the more they blow on futile space defenses (as
opposed to additional conventional or nuclear offensive weapons) the
better. Hmm, maybe the Soviets KNOW all this, but they fund their own
"sdi" program just so we'll blow even more money on our own.  They must
certainly *know* that the louder they protest, the more Reagan will dig
in his heels...

>  Also, arms agreements are unverifiable from space. 

Really? Then I guess the only reason we have programs like KH-11, Big
Bird, Vela, Rhyolite, Magnum, etc, is so we can watch and listen in on 
Soviet leaders when they call their girlfriends from their limos. Of
course, I don't know how nuclear explosion detectors like those on Vela
would fit in...

Phil

------------------------------

Date:     Fri,  8 Apr 1988 17:00:33.33 EDT
From: <shafferj%BKNLVMS.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu> (Jim Shaffer, Jr.)
Subject:  searching for astronomy discussion groups by e-mail
To: <space@angband.s1.gov>

I'm trying to compile a definitive list of astronomy and astronomy-related
discussion groups run by electronic mail.
I would appreciate hearing from everyone who has information on the subject.
It doesn't matter whether it's mainframe networks, commercial bulletin
boards, FidoNet boards, completely un-networked BBSs, or what. I want to
hear about it.

Please send to me directly, because I'm temporarily unsubscribed from
the Space discussion.

Thank you in advance,
Jim Shaffer, Jr.
ShafferJ%Bknlvms.Bitnet@cunyvm.cuny.edu

------------------------------

Date: 7 Apr 88 14:34:01 GMT
From: aplcen!aplcomm!stdc.jhuapl.edu!jwm@mimsy.umd.edu  (James W. Meritt)
Subject: Re: Re-evolving spaceflight after collapse of civilization

In article <48472@sun.uucp> fiddler%concertina@Sun.COM (Steve Hix) writes:
> In article <880402011425.2100021d@NMFECC.ARPA> BOWERYJ%CPVA.SAINET.MFENET@NMFECC.ARPA writes:
> >are chewing up critical ores at a million times their formation rate
> >and are not likely to find substitutes for all materials which sit
> >at critical junctures of a space-faring civilization's technology.
 
>Recovering metals from old buildings, garbage dumps, and auto
>wrecking yards would be orders of magnitudes easier and cheaper
>than scouting out their ores and redeveloping the chemical and
>industrial base to refine them.


We are doing that now: A major source of aluminum is the cans, and a
major source of copper is dug up underground cables (as we shift to
fiber optics).  I think the substitutes will prove to be very interesting,
though.  Sort of like evolving from a class I star....  (ceramics, fusion,
biologics,...)



Disclaimer: Individuals have opinions, organizations have policy.
            Therefore, these opinions are mine and not any organizations!
Q.E.D.
jwm@aplvax.jhuapl.edu 128.244.65.5

------------------------------

Date: 5 Apr 88 05:24:27 GMT
From: littlei!zeus!sdp@uunet.uu.net  (Scott Peterson)
Subject: Re: Antimatter

In article <8188@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> weemba@garnet.berkeley.edu (Obnoxious Math Grad Student) writes:
>In article <575751917.amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU>, Dale.Amon@H writes:
>
>>	'The 'giggle factor' is over. Antimatter is real and
>>	 we know how to make it and keep it. It has promise.'
>
>Of course the 'giggle factor' is over.  There's absolutely nothing
>funny about what DoD is going to actually use antimatter for.
>
>(Hint for the slow: it isn't to beat the Russkies to Alpha Centauri.)

So, just how big a bomb could you make with the suff anyway?  Would you
need more than one?

Scott Peterson
OMSO Software Engineering
Intel,  Hillsboro OR
sdp@sdp.hf.intel.com
uunet!littlei!foobar!sdp!sdp

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #199
*******************

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Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #200

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 200

Today's Topics:
	     707/717/720/c-135 history (was Re: KAL 007)
		   Re: Jesse Jackson's space policy
       Re: Moon or Mars? Editorial in _Air & Space Smithsonian_
       Re: Moon or Mars? Editorial in _Air & Space Smithsonian_
		   Re: How to become an astronaut?
	   Re: 707/717/720/c-135 history (was Re: KAL 007)
		   Re: How to become an astronaut?
		    Aerospace Concepts Curriculum
       Re: Moon or Mars? Editorial in _Air & Space Smithsonian_
			     Re: KAL 007
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 7 Apr 88 18:32:33 GMT
From: steinmetz!sunup!welty@uunet.uu.net  (richard welty)
Subject: 707/717/720/c-135 history (was Re: KAL 007)

(this is crossposted; edit the news.groups line appropriately if necessary)

In article <48118@sun.uucp>, fiddler%concertina@Sun.COM (Steve Hix) writes:
*                                    The B-707 was modified to become the
* C-135...

In article <4642@hplabsb.UUCP> dsmith@hplabsb.UUCP (David Smith) writes:
=It was the other way around.

In article <815@ncspm.ncsu.edu> jay@ncspm.ncsu.EDU (Jay C. Smith) writes:
>Every time the subject of the 707 and C-135 comes up it degenerates into
>some sort of "chicken and the egg" discussion.  I would appreciate it
>if someone would clear this up for me.  I think this might be what
>happened, but I'm not sure:  Boeing built a prototype passenger jet,
>but realized that a big military contract would be the best way to
>attract customers, so they actively sought to sell their prototype
>to the Air Force as a cargo plane (the C-135).  A big military
>contract followed, the airlines soon wanted the plane, and it was
>updated and sold as the 707.

>The reason for confusion may be that while the C-135 was sold first,
>the 707 was always the ultimate intention.

This is nearly correct, Jay.

The original aircraft was the Boeing 717, which built in the hopes of
obtaining a large government contract for tankers (the KC-97s were in
obvious need of replacement.)  The Air Force agreed, and ordered large
numbers of this aircraft, designating it the KC-135 (the cargo variants
came later -- the tanker was first.)  Boeing then used the profits from
the Air Force contract to complete the design of the type 707, which
is a similar aircraft, but has suprisingly few parts in common with the
KC-135.  In addition, there is a variation on the 707 called the 720
which some airlines use, although there is a bit of confusion over
the model numbers -- some planes designated 720s by the airlines are
really 707s, and some 707s have a few 720 features.

The C-137 (Air Force One) and the E-3A Sentry (the AWACS) are based on
commercial 707s, and not on 717s, incidentally.

Mike Trout has a large C-135 history, which he mailed to me a while back.
I could post it if anyone is interested (or he could, I suppose.)
----
Richard Welty               Phone H: 518-237-6307  W: 518-387-6346
    welty@ge-crd.ARPA       {rochester,philabs,uunet}!steinmetz!welty

------------------------------

Date: 7 Apr 88 17:13:43 GMT
From: avsd!govett@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (David Govett)
Subject: Re: Jesse Jackson's space policy

> > Until recently, the Soviets denied the existence of their SDI program,
> > which seems to be better funded than ours.
> 
> Fortunately, the laws of physics apply as much to the Soviets as they do
> to us. Why should you care if the Soviets want to waste their money? As
> far as I'm concerned, the more they blow on futile space defenses (as
> opposed to additional conventional or nuclear offensive weapons) the
> better. Hmm, maybe the Soviets KNOW all this, but they fund their own
> "sdi" program just so we'll blow even more money on our own.  They must
> certainly *know* that the louder they protest, the more Reagan will dig
> in his heels...
> 
> >  Also, arms agreements are unverifiable from space. 
> 
> Really? Then I guess the only reason we have programs like KH-11, Big
> Bird, Vela, Rhyolite, Magnum, etc, is so we can watch and listen in on 
> Soviet leaders when they call their girlfriends from their limos. Of
> course, I don't know how nuclear explosion detectors like those on Vela
> would fit in...
> 


For someone so sceptical of technical feasibility, you sure put
a lot of confidence in satellites.  

The Soviets have stolen technical manuals on several of the birds you
list above, and are quite familiar with their capabilities.
Sure, a ferret satellite once got Brezhnev's limo, but so what?
That doesn't tell you diddly about what is being produced where.

If the Soviet SDI program is futile, what has been blinding our
satellites?

------------------------------

Date: 5 Apr 88 18:56:41 GMT
From: ulysses!thumper!karn@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: Moon or Mars? Editorial in _Air & Space Smithsonian_

> ... The dark far side of the
> : moon..." being a good place to conduct " ...sensitive radio astronomy...
> : without interference from terrestrial signals."

Yes, it's a great idea. In fact, it's already been done. Only it was an
unmanned probe in lunar orbit instead of a manned base on the surface. 
The spacecraft recorded its observations during the time it was shielded
from earth, and it relayed them back down when earth was visible.

I really wish people would stop clutching at straws, looking for every
possible application of their pet man-in-space project when many (if not
most) of the tasks can be done far more cheaply and effectively with
unmanned spacecraft. In the case of lunar-shielded radio astronomy,
lunar orbit makes a lot more sense than the lunar surface for several
very good reasons:

1. You need communications channels back to earth. A radio telescope on
the far side of the moon would need relay satellites in lunar orbit for
this purpose. These satellites would themselves have to transmit within
view of the far side of the moon, possibly polluting the very spectrum
you spent so much to view in a pristine state. On the other hand, a
telescope in lunar orbit can provide its own store-and-forward relay. It
need not transmit anything at all while it is actually observing.

2. You need power. This is much easier to obtain in orbit, since solar
panels will be illuminated for roughly half of each orbit. On the
surface, you will almost certainly need nuclear power sources to carry
you through the long 2-week lunar night.  Thermal control is also much
easier in orbit. Of course much of a surface station could be buried to
help level out the day/night temperature fluctuations, except for the
antennas -- and these are likely to be very susceptible to severe
thermal-induced distortions.

3. You need large antennas. You can build truly awesome arrays in zero-gee
that require very little mass. Not quite as easy even in 1/6 G.

Even Arthur C. Clarke originally conceived of his geostationary
satellite relays as being manned. Fortunately, technological
developments (and some economic common sense) have made that romantic
notion unnecessary.

Phil

------------------------------

Date: 7 Apr 88 20:44:54 GMT
From: concertina!fiddler@sun.com  (Steve Hix)
Subject: Re: Moon or Mars? Editorial in _Air & Space Smithsonian_

In article <1335@PT.CS.CMU.EDU>, dep@CAT.CMU.EDU (David Pugh) writes:
> In article <48414@sun.uucp> dunc@sun.UUCP (duncs home) writes:
> >1. You need communications channels back to earth. A radio telescope on
> >the far side of the moon would need relay satellites in lunar orbit for
> >this purpose. ...
> 
> Why do you need a relay satellite? We lay cables across the ocean,
> I can see laying fiber-optic cable using technology from derived
> wire-guided missiles: fire a missile containing 100+km cable, go
> to whereever it lands, splice the cable to a new missle, etc.

Why make work for yourself?

Take a line-of-sight bearing in the direction of your transmitting
statioon that can see Earth.

Place a relay on the horizon at that bearing.

Repeat until you can see the transmitting station.

Use lasers to transmit data from the observatory to the downlink
station (uplink?  I get confused easily.).  No weather to degrade
the laser signal, no kids on tricycles to knock over the relays.

Set up two or three relay paths for redundancy.

Save fiber optics for your lunar cable TV network. (To make it harder
to bootleg programming, of course.)

	seh

------------------------------

Date: 7 Apr 88 23:03:51 GMT
From: concertina!fiddler@sun.com  (Steve Hix)
Subject: Re: How to become an astronaut?

In article <5212@venera.isi.edu>, rod@venera.isi.edu (Rodney Doyle Van Meter III) writes:
> 
> When the first black American astronaut (sorry, I forget his name) was

Guion Bluford.

There was another, earlier, black astronaut...but he never made it
into space, having died in a training accident. (T-38 crash, I think.)

------------------------------

Date: 7 Apr 88 22:00:31 GMT
From: steinmetz!sunbarney!welty@uunet.uu.net  (richard welty)
Subject: Re: 707/717/720/c-135 history (was Re: KAL 007)

(this is crossposted; edit the news.groups line appropriately if necessary)

I've come up with a bit of additional information, and am filling it
in with this posting ...

In article <815@ncspm.ncsu.edu> jay@ncspm.ncsu.EDU (Jay C. Smith) writes:
... about the C-135 and the 707 ...

In article <10312@steinmetz.ge.com> I wrote:

>The original aircraft was the Boeing 717, which built in the hopes of
>obtaining a large government contract for tankers (the KC-97s were in
>obvious need of replacement.) 

The prototype was of a jetliner, although the tanker variant was always
intended too.  The prototype is described by one of my sources as a
`gamble'.  It was a very successful one.

> The Air Force agreed, and ordered large
>numbers of this aircraft, designating it the KC-135 (the cargo variants
>came later -- the tanker was first.) 

The first order for the KC-135 came 3 weeks after the prototype flew.
29 were ordered.  732 KC-135A aircraft were built, with a peak production
rate of approx. 20 per month.

> Boeing then used the profits from
>the Air Force contract to complete the design of the type 707, which
>is a similar aircraft, but has suprisingly few parts in common with the
>KC-135.

The 707 has a wider fuselage and a completely different airframe.
Other systems were throughly revised as well.  The C-135 and the 707
are in no way, shape, or form the same aircraft.
----
Richard Welty               Phone H: 518-237-6307  W: 518-387-6346
    welty@ge-crd.ARPA       {rochester,philabs,uunet}!steinmetz!welty

------------------------------

Date: 8 Apr 88 19:18:44 GMT
From: cfa!cfa250!mcdowell@husc6.harvard.edu  (Jonathan McDowell)
Subject: Re: How to become an astronaut?

>From article <48770@sun.uucp>, by fiddler%concertina@Sun.COM (Steve Hix):
> In article <5212@venera.isi.edu>, rod@venera.isi.edu (Rodney Doyle Van Meter III) writes:
>> 
>> When the first black American astronaut (sorry, I forget his name) was
> 
> Guion Bluford.
> 
> There was another, earlier, black astronaut...but he never made it
> into space, having died in a training accident. (T-38 crash, I think.)

 This was Maj. Robert A Lawrence, who was in the third group of trainees
for the USAF's MOL military space station program; he died in late 1967
in a T-38 crash.  When MOL was cancelled in 1969 most of its astros got
reassigned to NASA; Lawrence would probably have made his first flight
as commander of an early Shuttle mission. None of the black pilot
astronauts has yet commanded a mission.


Jonathan McDowell

------------------------------

Date: 7 Apr 88 16:06:36 GMT
From: cu-den!udenva!isis!scicom!cyrill@boulder.colorado.edu  (Cyro Lord)
Subject: Aerospace Concepts Curriculum


The Division of Continuing Education of the University of Colorado at Denver
in cooperation with the International Space Development Conference presents:

	   INTEGRATING AEROSPACE CONCEPTS INTO THE CURRICULUM

		An Educator's Special Conference Package

This course is designed to provide educators with methods of integrating
aerospace concepts into the curriculum. Emphasis will be on utilizing
aerospace education to enrich and/or update existing curricula.
Knowledge or experience inaviation or space is not required. Topics
include:

*AEROSPACE IN THE CONTEMPORARY WORLD
*SELECTED AEROSPACE CONCEPTS
*AEROSPACE EDUCATION RESOURCES
*INTEGRATION OF AEROSPACE EDUCATION INTO THE CURRICULUM

Educators participating in this course will become certified by NASA to
borrow the lunar (moon roock) samples for use in their classrooms and
will receive special classroom activities for elementary and secondary
levels.

INSTRUCTORS:	Dr. Christian Romero and Dr. Victoria Duca.

What:		El or Sec Ed 580-1 (SEC. 052). Intergrating Aerospace Comcepts
		into the Curriculum.

When:		Memorial Day Weekend. Education sessions will be held on
		Saturday, May 27, 9am through dinner, and Sunday, 8am to
		5pm. Luncheons, both days, and dinner on Saturday feature
		special speakers and are part of the educational program.

Where:		Stouffer Concourse Hotel, 3801 Quebec, Denver, Co.

Fee:		$140. This is a special package for educators only and it
		represents and outstanding opportunity and saving for
		teachers. It includes conference registration, one hour
		graduate credit, two luncheons and a dinner with special
		speakers. The entire conference from Friday evening to Monday
		evening is included in this fee.

TO REGISTER:	You may register at the door or you may send you registion in
		advance. 


1988 International Space Development Conference
P.O. Box 300572
Denver, CO. 80218
(303)692-6788  or  (303)388-2368
-- 
Cyro Lord	Alpha Comm. Dev. Corp. -  DOMAIN  cyrill@scicom.alphacdc.com
UUCP		{ncar,nbires,boulder,isis}!scicom!cyrill
		"Endeaver to Persevere"

------------------------------

Date: 7 Apr 88 07:56:58 GMT
From: ulysses!thumper!karn@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: Moon or Mars? Editorial in _Air & Space Smithsonian_

> 	If you would think about it, a satellite could be in sunlight
> almost all the time(e.g.) a polar orbit.

Not really. To do what you want for an appreciable length of time, you
want a "sun synchronous" orbit phased over the terminator. This is
actually pretty easy to do with the earth (almost every launch from
Vandenburg goes into sun-synchronous orbit, though usually not over the
terminator).  But a sun-synchronous lunar orbit is much more difficult
because of the moon's far more irregular gravity field, and because of the
earth's proportionately larger perturbations.

I was thinking of a lunar equatorial orbit mainly because it's much cheaper
to get there.

Phil

------------------------------

Date: 5 Apr 88 13:51:19 GMT
From: ukma!uflorida!codas!novavax!potpourri!bseymour@NRL-CMF.ARPA  (Burch Seymour)
Subject: Re: KAL 007

in article <8803251355.AA22449@angband.s1.gov>, PICARD@gmr.COM (RON PICARD) says:
> I remember reading that it was a passenger plane that was used for a 
> spying mission (according to the U.S.S.R.).  I never heard any of the
> evidence you mention.  This may not belong on the net but can you give
> a run down of it?  Any sources would also be appreciated.

According to William Burrows in his book "Deep Black", page 172-3.  The
US routinely flys RC-135S ELINT (electronic intelligence) missions to 
collect data from Soviet missile tests. On a night in early September
1983 one of these RC135S (Cobra Ball) aircraft had been in the immediate
vicinity of the KAL 747. The theory is the Soviets thought they had
caught one of the RC135S's on a penetration attempt and shot it down
but actually destroying KAL-007 by mistake.

-bs-

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #200
*******************

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Date: Mon, 25 Apr 88 03:25:50 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8804251025.AA16838@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
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Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #201

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 201

Today's Topics:
	Birthright Party Canonical Pledge List, second edition
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 6 Apr 88 12:57:47 GMT
From: xanth!kent@mcnc.org  (Kent Paul Dolan)
Subject: Birthright Party Canonical Pledge List, second edition

Cross posted to draw a crowd of people with strong opinions.

Followups already directed to talk.bizarre, Birthright Party Headquarters

Birthright Party regulars and waverers, and new readers,

Well, surprisingly to me, after all the hate and discontent expressed,
the pace of pledges actually picked up quite a bit with the
publication of the first canonical pledge list. I guess everyone likes
to see their name on the small screen!  We now have 48 pledges and the
continuing waverers list.  It looks like Nigel's chance for pledge #69
is arriving apace!  I'll be gone for a week; enjoy the peace and quiet!

#1 From: Bruce Sutherland <brsuth@RELAY.CS.NET>

	Tell you what, If you can mix supporting space exploration
	with impressing the need for caffeine, you've got my support.

#2 From: <rgd059@Mipl3.JPL.Nasa.Gov> Bob Deen  @  NASA-JPL Image Processing Lab

	Hell, if that's your campaign platform, I'll vote for you!

#3 From: seidel@oberon.uucp (Starman) Michael Seidel
   [Birthright Party Press Secretary Nominee]

	OK, you got number #3!  I'd rather see money being spent on
	invading uninhabited (but soon to be inhabited) planets than
	on invading small Caribbean islands!

#4 From: World Court Jester <hin9@sphinx.uucp>

	Hey.  I'll vote for you if you'll agree to put a little money
	away for Neuromancer-type AI research.  Get the 'face vote and
	they'll make sure you win the election :-).

#5 From: <greg@mind.uucp> Greg Nowak

	BTW, you got my vote, too. Sock it to `em.

#6 From:    "The Pentagonal Potentate 2-6177" <COK@PSUVMA> Rob Clark
	    rutgers!psuvax1!psuvma.BITNET!cok <- this one works [kpd]

	Might as well speed this election thing up a bit.  Ahem.  I,
	The Pentagonal Potentate, hereby commit the Syd Barrett Cabal
	of the Pan-Pontification Committee for the
	Paratheo-Anametamystikhood of Eris Esoteric to the election of
	one Kent Paul Dolan to the office of President of the United
	States.

	Can't possibly be worse than the bozo who's there now.

#7 From:    "The Kzinti Ambassador, M.P." <KHD@PSUVMA>
            [Secretary of Peace and Emigration Nominee]
	    rutgers!psuvax1!psuvma.BITNET!khd <- this one works [kpd]
   Subject: Vote for the Prexy.

	"I, the Kzinti Ambassador, hereby pledge my vote for President
	of the United States to you, Kent Paul Dolan."

	Only one qualifier.  Set up some kind of rider on a bill you
	pass giving the net permanent anarchy. Then force it through
	Congress.

#8 From: richard welty <welty@steinmetz.uucp>
   [Outer Planets Latex Novelty Expediter-in-Chief Nominee]

	... oh, all right ... I'll vote for you (in return for a
	suitable bribe, of course -- what are you offering?)

#9 From: headroom@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (The only computer-generated user at UWM)
   uwvax!uwmcsd4!headroom <- that one works [kpd]
   Mark "Giving the Apathy Vote" Lippert
   net.average.joe 

	Hey, put me down for the big #8!  I could use a big #8!  Then
	maybe my thungh will get thawed out....
        [SLOW NEWS FEED got you, Mark! kpd]

#10 From: ZEUS <nasadc!ma3751bg%ariel.unm.edu@sun.UUCP>
   ...!unmvax!ariel!ma3751bg <Mark Giaquinto>

	We are paraniod about being confused with Mexico, so please
	spell it [Albuquerque] right..

	P.S. You got my vote, keep up the good work.

#11 From: sflaher@polyslo.uucp (Steve Flaherty)
    Subject: Another vote

	After watching the machinations of the louts currently running
	on the big dollar tickets, your campaign has become more and
	more appealing.
 
	I hereby pledge the vote of one lurker.  Far more vaulable
	than a vote from a posting bizarrite, due to the extreme
	measures required to get a lurker to actually create something
	on a keyboard.

#12 From: gypsy@c3pe.UUCP
    saint gypsy, live from the gypsy roach motel
	BTW, my name is Meredith Tanner.  okay?  

	and i'll vote for you, too!

	i forget what you were running for...
	president or something?

#13 >From: kyl@homxb.UUCP (Cindy)
    Subject: Re: talk.politics.bizarre (was Re: My thungh)

      OK, Kent,
 
              I am 10.

                Cindy

	[SLOW NEWS FEED strikes again! kpd]

#14 >From: ccs026@deneb.ucdavis.edu (-=paul=-)

	(yo kent!  didja get my vote?  lots of messages have been
	going kabounce from here lately)

	-=paul=-

#15 >From: silverio@jiff.berkeley.edu (christine silverio)

	The advertising firm of Silverio, Silverio, and Silverio
	(greg) wishes to announce its whole-hearted support of Kent,
	the Man from Xanth, as the Bizarre Party candidate in the 1988
	presidential elections.

	Anything we can do, Kent, just let us know.

	The preceding announcement paid for by the Xanth Man for
	President Committee.

	| C J Silverio             |  KENT FOR PRESIDENT
	| ucbvax!brahms!silverio   |    Who cares why?
	| official brahms gangster |      Just vote.

#16 >From: ram@elmgate.UUCP (Randy Martens)
    [NASA Director Nominee]

	Well, it's time to consider the major Presidential candidates :
[...]
	Kent, the man from Xanth : Promises to spend money on useful
	things like deep space exploration instead of nuclear weapons
	and contras.  Promises to sleep a lot, and therefore not cause
	trouble. hmmm.....

	and the winner is .....
	[]
	KENT THE MAN FROM XANTH, FOR PRESIDENT !!
	SUPPORT THE BIRTHRIGHT PARTY !!!
	VOTE KENT !!!!

	(yes Kent, you can count me in. *sigh*)

#17 From: thomson@cs.utah.edu (Richard A Thomson)
Subject: Vote Pledge

	Count me in!  I liked your first posting in sci.space a while
	back about being a potential space candidate.  Since then I
	moved from Delaware to Utah, where I don't have access to
	talk.bizarre yet :-(.  Ergo me missing your campaign efforts
	there.  I would whole-heartedly support your election this
	term.  I will see what I can do to about writing letters to
	local papers, etc.  I will also attempt to upload your message
	to local BBS's.  Do you have a more elaborate description of
	your policies that I could use.  The one you posted to
	sci.space could be a little too bizarre :-) for some people to
	stomach.  Perhaps something a little less sarcastic with focus
	on the main issue-- space exploration and EXPLOITATION instead
	of useless war-mongering.

	The line about Malthus was great; keep up the good postings
	and don't give up.

#18 From: S. Elizabeth Van Wyk <sally@csd4.milw.wisc.edu>
    ...uwvax!uwmcsd4!sally <- this one works [kpd]

	Greetings!!  Is your mailer still done, or after my *attempt*
	at a flame are you never writing to me again?

	I guess it's time to get to the heart of my letter.  Can I be
	of any assistance in the campaign?  The more I read, the more
	I'm convinced you're the only candidate worth voting for.

	Hey, no hard feelings.  I don't know what got into me.

	The Muffin Queen

18.5# >From: svpillay@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Kanthan Pillay)
      [I don't know about this one - I got back about 400 lines of
	passionate pro space posting, ending with the only words
	from the mailer:]

      Do I really need a signature?

      [Could be a pledge, more likely to be a slam about abusing
	net bandwidth. We won't count it.]

#19 >From: CLT@PSUVMA.BITNET (Merlin of Chaos) (Christopher Tate)
    ...!rutgers!psuvax1!psuvma.BITNET!clt

	I've been watching Pat Robertson do much better than he has
	any right to, so I've come to the big decision.

	Go for it, Kent.  You have my vote.

	(That's one more pledge, folks!  Keep 'em coming!)

#20 From: logico!slovax!steve <Steve Cook>

kpd>	I am looking for a Vice Presidential candidate.  She should be
kpd>	a minority person, to lend credence to this being a movement
kpd>	for the good of the whole nation.  Any takers?

	How about any of the many net.goddesses???  Sure, buy my vote,
	I can be had.  If all else fails : Susan St. James.

#21 >From: mack@inco.UUCP (Dave Mack)

	[A vastly stirring defense of the future of humanity]

	That was beautiful, Kent, just beautiful. I'll do it, I really
	will.  You wouldn't have spent all the time necessary to write
	that if you didn't mean it.

	Vote the Birthright Party: Put a *Real* Corpse in Office in
	1988. [Hmmm.  kpd]

#21.5 From: lauren@cbmvax.uucp (Lauren Brown CATS)

	Thanks for the kind words.  You might almost have me promoting the
	Birthright Party ! :-)

	[Won't count this one either, but... kpd]

#22 From: f12018ak@deimos.unm.edu.unm.edu (Yngvi Diamondeye Hammerfoot)

	|and may the Dwarves|<<<<<>|    %Gregory J. LeVee      |>>>>>|
	|f12018ak@deimos.UNM.EDU|><|Vote: Kent & the Birthright Party|

	[Never got a formal pledge letter, but that .siggie will do.  kpd]

#23 From: bu-it.BU.EDU!bucsb!boreas%bu-cs.bu.edu@uunet.UUCP
    (The Cute Cuddle Creature) 	-- Michael.

	P.S. -- What the heck.  Here's another vote for you.  --M.

#24 >From: justin@inmet.UUCP -- Justin du Coeur II

	Let's trade. I'll become voter #14 if you'll drop one *teeny*
	tac-nuke on this Bradley place.

	[talk about SLOW NEWS FEED - at least we eliminated the "what
	do YOU call a soda thread. kpd]

#25 >From: lae@pedsga.UUCP

        Hello, my name is Leslie Ann Ellis.  I am a systems engineer
        with Concurrent Computer Corp. in Tinton Falls, N. J.

	Kent's empassioned bid for the presidency did not fall on deaf
	ears (eyes?); I, too, believe that mankind's future lies in
	the colonization of space.  Questions of a "standing room
	only" future aside, there is only a limited mass of the raw
	materials of life on our tiny planet. [...] I would like at
	this time to announce that I am available to aid Kent in his
	noble cause.

#26 >From: hooker@tramp.Colorado.EDU (Bosk of Port Kar) -Devin 
    [Technical Consultant on Aerospace Nominee]
    Subject: Another closet supporter surfaces


	Kent, You've got another vote here.  Let's get the fuck off
	Earth - it can't support us any more.  I'm an aerospace engineer -
	if you need technical support look to me.

#27 >From: cs1552cy@hydra.unm.edu.unm.edu (Cipher)
    [Vatican Ambassador Nominee]

	All RIGHT already!  Here's my vote!  Take it!  Please!

     ___
     |X|        Kent for Pres
     ---

                      -Chap. Oksimoron the Portable, KSC, GM, Ev., Esq., Etc.
                      -Josh Bell
                      -Robert Vilheim

#28 >From: cs2551aq@charon.unm.edu (Capt. Gym Quirk) Taki Kogoma

	Now that's over, let me add my endorsement (and that of the
	Imperial Secret Service) to Kent's candidacy.

	BTW, anyone ever have one of those decades?
        [last four in a row - is that a record?  kpd]

#29 From: <jay@splut.uucp>
    [FCC Chief Nominee]

	If I pledge the Birthright Party, can I be appointed head of
	the FCC?  ...Jay

Jay Maynard {ihnp4,bellcore,killer}!tness1!splut!jay
Never ascribe to malice that which can adequately be explained by stupidity.

#30 From: jkrueger@dgis.ARPA (Jonathan Krueger)

	Your arguments are coherent and convincing.

#31 From: bradley!bucc2!random (Brett Neumeier)

	Hereby do I pledge one (1) vote to the Birthright Party.  I
	want to see if there really *are* any small furry creatures on
	Alpha Centauri, and getting off the planet so as to make
	future survival more likely seems like a good first step.

#32 From: dieter@titan.uucp

	I hate to say it, but you do sound more realistic than any
	other candidate I've heard of yet. [...] I am quite willing to
	vote for you.

	Dieter (what this country needs is a good out-of-work actor
	who STAYS that way) Muller

#33 From: Tracey A. Baker <ihnp4!mhuxu!tab>

	I know you're past #18 by now, but count me as whatever number
	is next (my favorites are 27, 33 and 37, so if you could
	arrange one of those, it'd be nice). [Took a bit of shuffling. kpd]

#34 >From: ewilliam@garfield.UUCP (Edward Williams)

	I'd also like to add my vote for Ken[t] for pres. 

#34.5 From: richard@gryphon.CTS.COM (Richard Sexton)

	YOU were surprised at the richard.sexton.fan.club ? Imangine
	How surprised I was.

	So Kent, what are these votes worth to you ?

	[That needs a bit of work to turn into a pledge, I think.]

#35 From: richard@gryphon.CTS.COM (Richard Sexton)
    [Official Aquaculturalist and Keeper of the Fonts Nominee]

kpd->	Well, I've handed out the chairmanship of the FCC, the bar
kpd->	position on Ganymede (or was it Ceres?), the press secretary
kpd->	job, and several other plums of about equal value.  I'm still
kpd->	hoping presidential science advisor will get a pledge from
kpd->	Herbert Spencer.  Do you have an interesting talent you would
kpd->	like to apply to the cause, and a job in mind where it might
kpd->	fit?

	Sure. I'd like to be the official aquaculturalist and keeper of the
	fonts.

	[OK, _now_ that's a pledge.]

kpd->	OK, we'll make you curator of the National Aquarium (Commerce
kpd->	Building, basement floor); I'll have to look some to find out
kpd->	who keeps the fonts; perhaps the GPO?


#35.5 From: <lae@pedsga.uucp>
      Subject: The Presidency

	Hey, I thought you were going to save the world from itself
	by running for president.  What happened?

	Leslie

	[Was that meant to be a pledge, Leslie? kpd]

#36 From: paradis@encore.uucp (Jim Paradis)

	Second, I'd like to say that I'm in full support of the
	space-industrialization provisions of the Birthright Party
	platform.  Is that the only issue for the BP, or are there
	others?

	<back to slight disagreement mode>

	If it weren't for your position on drug testing, I'd endorse
	your candidacy 100% in a minute!  Seriously.  If that's a
	personal preference and not a Party position, you've got my
	vote!

	[Answer on this one in B. P. platform due out soon.  Pledge
	accepted but subject to review.  kpd]

#37 >From: kettyle@homxc.UUCP (Starsha)

	Cheer up, I think you are a very nice person, and should be
	President.  So, I am going to announce my support for your
	candidacy.

	Vote For Kent!
	              Kent For President!
                                  Support the Birthright Party!

#38 From: <Berryh@UDEL.EDU> John Berryhill net.Lectroid

    You have my vote....if Red Lectroids can vote, that is.

#39 From: Wizo  <konc@sphinx.uucp> T_Deacon
    Secretary without Portfolio to 
        The Reverend with No Name @ The Lord Julius Cabal

    Ah, what the hell.  I must be good for at least a half-vote, being
    a net.sidekick.  Count me in.

#40 From: lanced@pur-ee.uucp (Daniel R Lance)
    [USGS Off Planet Operations, Division Chief Nominee]

    What a chance  --  to get in on the ground floor of a real, intelligent
    political movement.  Count me in -- I want off of this planet.

#41 From: hplabs!rutgers!rochester!ritcv!ritcv:jdb9608@sun.UUCP (D)

    Glad to have you back, Kent!  Chalk up another vote, from me.

#42 From: rhorn@infinet.uucp (Rob Horn)

    Great .sig.  How about making it a bumper sticker.  Then we can get
    everyone to vote Birthright Party.  You've got my vote.

#43 From: jra1_c47@ur-tut.uucp

    Your platform was excellent. And you covered issues which are not
    currently "in" as far as the press is concerned. However, this might be a
    fatal flaw-- someone who covers "popular" (as defined by the press) issues
    will get more support than someone who doesn't.

    Doesn't matter though... *I'll* vote for you.

    -- Jem
    "Say it... don't laugh. Say it!"
    "Pr-presi-president B-Bu- hahahahaha!"

#44 From: ucscc.UCSC.EDU!spcecdt%ucscb.UCSC.EDU@uunet.UUCP (Space Cadet)

    p.s.  you have my vote!!!

    Hello, lift.   # We're going to space if we have to walk. -Jerry Pournelle 
    -Marvin the PA # The meek will inherit the earth.  WE will go to the stars!
    John H. DuBois III # spcecdt@ucscb.ucsc.EDU  ...!ucbvax!ucscc!ucscb!spcecdt

#45 From: skitchen@ATHENA.MIT.EDU Scott Kitchen

    And since your shot at the presidency won't be harmed by my doing
    this, you can have my vote, too.  I think that makes me something
    around 40 or so.  Besides, I want to help Nigel make 69...
    See you 'round t.b...
    ("Psst!  Hey, boss!")
    ("Now, what, Guido?")
    ("Kent's a good man.")
    ("Thanks, Guido.  You've got good taste.")

#46 From: douglas@reed.uucp (P Douglas Reeder)

    I'm trying to organize a local chapter of the Birthright Party
    (we may not get any members here at Reed).

    [I guess that's enough enthusiasm to count as a pledge! kpd]

#47 From: dahutch@sequent.uucp (dahutch)

		You never responded when I said you have my
		vote, so here it is again.  ;-)
    ps: remember, you've got my vote!

#48 From: Panicked Undergrad <geswein@silver.uucp>
    [Government Accounting Office, Orbital Audits Division Chief Nominee]

    I find talk.biz a little boring without variety that the
    Birthright Party HQ communiques fail to provide.  Mind, you're not
    in my kill file; I'd like the BP raised myself (remember, I'd LIKE
    to go to Ganymede (although Titan may be a better bet)). [...]
    --So hey, sign me up for the Birthright Party.  Go forth, shake
    hands, stab backs--for your good cause. Slant some GAO reports in
    a sensible direction.  Of course, I'll want to be the Orbital
    Auditor just as soon as we move enough stuff out there to justify
    it...think you can swing that?

    Get everyone's BP up in '88--vote Birthright!
    Steve Geswein, The Panicked Undergrad

That's all the pledges I have right now; anyone I missed, forgot to
bribe, or otherwise maligned?

These last two are just for fun, because I'm proud of them; they do
not constitute pledges.  Guess I'd better not quote without asking;
pledges got fair warning.  These two folks sent letters of
appreciation for my

	Subject: Re: commercialism of the space program

posting, which you might have read.

	From: Cathy Hooper <cathyh@iscuva.iscs.com>

	From: Eugene N. Miya <eugene@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov>

So, we are up to 48 confirmed pledges and a few maybes.  I know there
are supposed to be 11,000 readers out there.  Let's have a little more
participation, while I go off for a week to try a chance at a real job
while we await the returns at the polls.

While I'm gone, keep working on Birthright Party Platform ideas for
me.  I got inputs on 1) the question of how the nation cares for our
children, 2) an addition to my salinification of the soil position,
documenting heavy metal poisoning by improper irrigation, and 3) an
input from a Canadian reader on the subject of US foreign relations.
Thanks to all three writers; I will make (in one case, already have
made) use of your input.

Lots to do, get those local party groups going!  Let talk.bizarre know
your plans, successes and failures.  Spread the word to BBS and nets.

Kent, the (Birthright Party's Choice for Chief Somnambulist) man from xanth.
"The Birthright of Humankind is the Stars!"

Keep those Birthright Party presidential vote pledges coming in,
kiddies.  Still looking for that big #49!  Just 99,999,952 to go for a
win in '88!

"That man sleeping in the gutter?  Yeah, him, that's the one.  I'm
trying to get him honest work.  Could you sign this petition to put
his name on the ballot for 1988?  Sure, the presidency.  We have a
tradition of sleeping presidents.  The safest kind, if you ask me.
Wake 'em up and they invade defenseless Caribbean islands.  Last time
I saw _him_ awake, he muttered something about spending _his_ invasion
budget on space exploration.  Hey, come back, it's not that unlikely!
Damn, lost another one!  What have people got against spending money
where there's some chance of return, anyway?"


+-------------------------------------------------------+
|\~                                                     |
| |~  .  o  o  .    :;:    ()    -O-    0     . O       |
| |~        ^                                           |
|/~         |                                           |
|      You are Here                                     |
|                                                       |
|Wouldn't you rather be out there -->                   |
|                                                       |
|Support the Birthright Party Today!                    |
|                                                       |
|(Note: Above diagram NOT to scale.)                    |
+-------------------------------------------------------+

[This lovely banner, available at a terminal near you, brought to you
 through the keyboard talents of Michael P. Seidel, Press Secretary
 Nominee to the Administration of the Chief Somnambulist Candidate.]

Join the KENT FOR PRESIDENT movement in talk.bizarre!

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #201
*******************

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From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8804261023.AA18718@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #202

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 202

Today's Topics:
		   Re: How to become an astronaut?
       Re: Moon or Mars? Editorial in _Air & Space Smithsonian_
			     Mars and AIS
	     Re: How to become an astronaut? (patiences)
		     Re: Libertarians love NASA?
       Re: Moon or Mars? Editorial in _Air & Space Smithsonian_
       Re: Moon or Mars? Editorial in _Air & Space Smithsonian_
				VISTA
			     Martian clay
			Hawaiian launch sites
      Re: Re-evolving spaceflight after collapse of civilization
			   Re: Abolish NASA
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 7 Apr 88 23:09:33 GMT
From: cascade!bhayes@labrea.stanford.edu  (Barry Hayes)
Subject: Re: How to become an astronaut?

The other day I had a very short conversation with Millie Hughes-Fulford,
the Payload Specialist for the Life Sciences Lab going up in 1992 or so.
She has been in training for the mission since 1984.  She will have spent
seven years of her life getting ready for a seven day mission.  I want to
go into space, but I don't think I'd be willing to trade seven years for
it.  I know others who would, but think about it; would you?

------------------------------

Date: 8 Apr 88 04:45:25 GMT
From: bigtex!james@astro.as.utexas.edu  (James Van Artsdalen)
Subject: Re: Moon or Mars? Editorial in _Air & Space Smithsonian_

IN article <1384@silver.bacs.indiana.edu>, compton@silver.UUCP (David Compton) wrote:
> 	If you would think about it, a satellite could be in sunlight
> almost all the time(e.g.) a polar orbit.  This makes it a better alternative
> than the ground based nuclear plant.

I am not an astronomer, but it seems to me that if it is useful to place
an observatory on the far side of the moon so that Earth isn't radiating at
the telescope, it would also be useful to place the observatory to avoid the
Sun shining on it.  Is this not the case, or am I missing the benefit of
placing an observatory on the moon?
-- 
James R. Van Artsdalen   ...!ut-sally!uastro!bigtex!james    "Live Free or Die"
Home: 512-346-2444 Work: 328-0282; 110 Wild Basin Rd. Ste #230, Austin TX 78746

------------------------------

Date: 8 Apr 88 00:47:11 GMT
From: avsd!govett@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (David Govett)
Subject: Mars and AIS

This AIS (American Ignorance Syndrome) epidemic has really gotten
out of hand.  Sometimes I wonder whether people are really as
ignorant as they seem.  Other times, I'm sure.

Why the indignity?  Recently a local news show speculated
on the existence of life on Mars.  So far, so good.
But I about choked on my tofu-flavored bean sprouts when they said, 
"We here at Channel X are conducting a poll on life on Mars.  
If you believe there is life on Mars, call 800-xxx-xxxx and your 
vote will be automatically tabulated.  If you think there is no life 
on Mars, call....  Tune in tonight at 11 for the results."

It was then I realized that the  age of touch-tone science and the 
800-number scientific method had arrived at last.

------------------------------

Date: 8 Apr 88 18:57:25 GMT
From: pioneer!eugene@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Eugene N. Miya)
Subject: Re: How to become an astronaut? (patiences)

In article <397@cascade.STANFORD.EDU> bhayes@cascade.STANFORD.EDU (Barry Hayes) writes:
>She will have spent
>seven years of her life getting ready for a seven day mission.  I want to
>go into space, but I don't think I'd be willing to trade seven years for
>it.  I know others who would, but think about it; would you?

Consider.  I worked on a spacecraft which was launched in 1978.
While in grad school, I did some reading and learned the mission was
first proposed in the oceangraphy literature in 1964.  The ideas
probably kicking around in 1959.  Frank Estabrook, the head of the
Galileo mission proposed that mission around 1970 with a 1978 launch,
then (when I think of Galileo being launched) 1982, then the rest
of documented by Nova.  The cost of replacing that mission in 1987
dollars is so obscene, I can't think of posting it.

The problem is not unique to space.  Consider the times it takes to
build telescopes, particle accelerators.  It's all part of the cost
(money as well as time) for BIG Science.  Science will teach you
patience, or you will come up with a better way (like Newton).

On the other hand, two friends who are astronauts never dreamed they
would be astronauts, they just found themselves in the right place at
the right time [PhD in Planetary Science, Caltech, and (ex-USAF
Academy) PhD Astrophysics UCLA both at JPL].

>From the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA
  "You trust the `reply' command with all those different mailers out there?"
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."
  {uunet,hplabs,hao,ihnp4,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene

------------------------------

Date: 7 Apr 88 09:44:32 GMT
From: mcvax!cernvax!hslrswi!ken@uunet.uu.net  (Ken Ferschweiler)
Subject: Re: Libertarians love NASA?

In article <352107.880402.KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU> KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU ("Keith F. Lynch") writes:
>Dale Amon does not speak for the Libertarian party.  I have asked him
>more than once to change his stance or to stop calling himself a
>libertarian.

The party which advocates liberty, freedom, no-government-intervention, etc.,
discourages its members from speaking their minds?

-ken

If disclaimers are outlawed, only outlaws will have disclaimers.

------------------------------

Date: 8 Apr 88 15:30:17 GMT
From: aplcen!aplcomm!stdc.jhuapl.edu!jwm@mimsy.umd.edu  (James W. Meritt)
Subject: Re: Moon or Mars? Editorial in _Air & Space Smithsonian_

In article <1782@polyslo.UUCP> jmckerna@polyslo.UUCP (John L McKernan) writes:
>Fact 2. A human being has more capabilities than any of his machines, by orders
>        of magnitude.


How about "A human being is more versatile than any of his machines so far"
A phrase like "more capabilities" is subject to misunderstanding.  i.e.
if the capability in question is lifting rocks, a crane does that real
well.  "We" (assuming not a netted AI) are just more versatile - we do
ANYTHING!!!



Disclaimer: Individuals have opinions, organizations have policy.
            Therefore, these opinions are mine and not any organizations!
Q.E.D.
jwm@aplvax.jhuapl.edu 128.244.65.5

------------------------------

Date: 8 Apr 88 20:37:23 GMT
From: aplcen!aplcomm!stdc.jhuapl.edu!jwm@mimsy.umd.edu  (James W. Meritt)
Subject: Re: Moon or Mars? Editorial in _Air & Space Smithsonian_

In article <1481@bigtex.uucp> james@bigtex.UUCP (James Van Artsdalen) writes:
>IN article <1384@silver.bacs.indiana.edu>, compton@silver.UUCP (David Compton) wrote:
>> 	If you would think about it, a satellite could be in sunlight
>> almost all the time(e.g.) a polar orbit.  This makes it a better alternative
>> than the ground based nuclear plant.
>I am not an astronomer, but it seems to me that if it is useful to place
>an observatory on the far side of the moon so that Earth isn't radiating at
>the telescope, it would also be useful to place the observatory to avoid the
>Sun shining on it.  Is this not the case, or am I missing the benefit of
>placing an observatory on the moon?


I am afraid that I cannot envision a point which is both hidden from the
earth and hidden from the sun on the surface of the moon, unless you
mean in a hole.  Where did you mean?










Disclaimer: Individuals have opinions, organizations have policy.
            Therefore, these opinions are mine and not any organizations!
Q.E.D.
jwm@aplvax.jhuapl.edu 128.244.65.5

------------------------------

Date:     Sat, 9 Apr 88 12:44:37 PDT
From: super@csa5.lbl.gov (Michael Helm)
Reply-To: M_Helm@csa5.lbl.gov
Subject:  VISTA

[I found this item on my dep't. bulletin board.  I don't know how long
it has been there, but the article appears to be from about 1 February,
from the Berkeley newspaper _The Daily Californian_.  Reprinted w/o
permission]

HUMAN VOYAGE TO MARS!  IT'S A SCIENCE FICTION DREAM COME TRUE
by Seth Sutel

These are the voyages of the Starship VISTA, and its 100-day journey to
our neighboring planet, Mars....

A trip to Mars has been mere science fiction for years, but if a plan proposed
by Charles Orth of the Lawrence Livermore Lab is carried out, such a trip
may actually become reality by the year 2020.

Orth and his colleagues at NASA, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and other space
science research centres have developed a plan for a spaceship that would be 
capable of safely carrying up to 10 astronauts to the red planet.

Orth and his colleagues have taken a proposal devloped by Livermore scientist
Rod Hyde and made it "more complete and detailed" according to a paper Orth
published last June.

The ship would be shaped like an enormous cone a little wider than a football
field and coast gracefully thruough space, blunt-end first with a 110-ton
payload.  [There's also a drawing of the vehicle in the article]  It would
cruise at an speed of 28 to 32 miles per second, allowing the 55 million mile
trip to Mars to be made in about 100 days.

Using current technology, the trip would take up to three years, which is much
longer than a human can remain helathy in space, due to the dangers of cosmic
radiation and zero gravity.

VISTA -- Vehicle for Interplanetary Space Trave Applications -- would enable 
10 astronauts to spend about 10 days on the planet surface.  It would be
powered by a laser-fusion method originally devloped for applications in 
energy production.

Fifty-gram fuel pellets would be shot from the cone's apex at the rate of 
about five per second.  The pellets, made of hydrogen isotopes (deuterium
and tritium) and liquid hydrogen, woudl be imploded by converging laser
beams, causing a fusion reaction similar to those that occur in the centers
of stars.

The resulting nuclear explosions would occur inside a bottle-shaped magnetic
field, which would shape the plasma and debris of the fusion process into a 
stream that could be shifted in order to steer the ship.

This field would be created by a superconducting magnet, heavily shielded
by lithium, at the small end of the cone-shaped ship.

The lithium shield would absorb some of the heat from the explosions to
make electricity to power the magnet, lasers and life-support systems of
the ship.

The lithium shield would also protect the ship from the dangerous heat and
neutrons emitted by the blasts creating a cone shaped "shadow" around the
ship.

Because its design is far from aerodynamic and its exhaust quite dangerous,
VISTA would have to be constructed in orbit with material brought up to
the space station, Orth said.

Its engines would be far enough from the earth so that no radiation would
reach it.  Once near Mars, the astronauts would use landing craft to reach
the planet's surface.

Orth stressed that the success of the plan depends on technology that sill has
not been fully developed, but will hopefully be available by 2020.
This technology includes advanced lasers, more powere-efficients compounds to
use in fuel pellets, stronger radiator coils to generate electricity, and
hardware that would be able to fire over 100 million fuel pellets.

Orth feels that much can be learned about the origins of the solar system
and perhaps the universe from a manned mission to Mars.  But he also stressed
the "spiritual" goal fo the mission, to "satisfy man's urge to explore, to
do new things."o new things."

------------------------------

Date:     Sat, 9 Apr 88 12:45:23 PDT
From: super@csa5.lbl.gov (Michael Helm)
Reply-To: M_Helm@csa5.lbl.gov
Subject:  Martian clay

[From v16n17 of the Berkeleyan, April 6-19 1988, {UC house organ}
Reprinted w/o permission, from the "Research Notes" section--no byline]

"Let's Take Another Look at That Clay"

The puzzling chemical activity detected on Mars a decade ago may have been a 
sign of life halted in the earliest stages of evolution when water froze 
forever on the red planet, according to biochemist Hyman Hartman.

Hartman, a research associate in computer science [?], is urgin a revival of
NASA's civilian scientific space program and a return to Mars to re-examine
the life-like chemistry first detected on Mars during the 1976 Viking 
mission.

In 1976, two of the automated experiments aboard the Viking lander found
the chemical signs of life on Mars they were designed to detect.  Yet the
failure of other instruments to find any organic compounds led most biologists
to conclude that Mars is lifeless.

Organic compounds are building blocks of all life on Earth, and their absence
on Mars squelched speculation of life on our neighboring planet.

But if life emerged from iron-rich clays, rather than from organic molecules,
the signs detected by the Viking experiments might indeed be signs of life,
said Hartman.

Co-author of the book _Clay Minerals and the Origin of Life_, Harman spoke
on th elink between the clay-life theory and evidence detected by the Viking
mission to Mars at a NASA conference on Mars missions in March.

He urged the space agency to cooperate with Soviet scientists who have
proposed a return to Mars to determine what drives the life-mimicking
chemistry detected in 1976.

Hyman also told the conference that the militarization of space is killing
NASA's civilian space program, and with it, the opportunity to join the
Soveits in a proposed mission to explore Mars for new signs of life.

Last year, the Soviets porposed a joint mission to Mars to continue the
life search begun by the US in 1976, but so far no American response has
been heard, according to Hartman.

In effect, America's civilian, scientic exploration of space has given way
to purely military commitments, without any public debate in this country,
he said.

------------------------------

Date: 7 Apr 88 02:06:06 GMT
From: burdick@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu  (Matt Burdick)
Subject: Hawaiian launch sites


There has been some talk about the article "Resist the Pull of Mars"
in the April/May edition of _Air & Space_ magazine.  In the same issue
is a short article about Hawaii checking on the possibility of launch
sites there (flip back to page 16 to find it).

Apparently, a Massachusetts consulting company called Arthur D. Little
suggested that Hawaii set up a launch site and theme park to help the
state's economy.  A committee in Hawaii liked the idea and recommended
the state should hire a "space czar".  It was estimated that a site to
launch sounding rockets would cost $30 million, or $300 million to get
something in orbit.

Funding and location are both up in the air: funding would come from
launch customers, and land that people would be willing to give up for
something like that is scarce there (although one company, C. Brewer
and Co., has offered to donate 500 acres to the project).

Does anyone have any comments about the pros/cons of a Hawaiian launch
site? 

-- 
UUCP: {ihnp4,pyramid,akgua}!iuvax!burdick	All these nodes are yours
ARPA: burdick@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu		Except nsavax
BITNET: burdick@iubacs.bitnet			Attempt no logins there
						Use them together
						Use them in peace

------------------------------

Date: 9 Apr 88 17:03:48 GMT
From: joe@athena.mit.edu  (Joseph C Wang)
Subject: Re: Re-evolving spaceflight after collapse of civilization

All this talk of recycling materials after the collapse of civilization
reminds me of what happpened the last time civilization collapsed in Europe.
Most of the Roman ruins you see today are ruins because people found them
to be convenent quarries and sources of lime.
--------------------------------
Joseph Wang (joe@athena.mit.edu) 
450 Memorial Drive C-111
Cambridge, MA 02139

------------------------------

Reply-To: pnet01!jim@trout.nosc.mil
Date: Sat, 9 Apr 88 00:26:12 PDT
From: jim@pnet01.cts.com (Jim Bowery)
To: crash!space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: Re: Abolish NASA

Herman Rubin writes:

> I see no inconsistency between advocating the abolition of NASA and
> advocating its adequate funding if it is not abolished.  As long as the
> government has a stranglehold on space, limiting the bureaucrats to
> strangling instead of doing something useful will not help us get into
> space.

When something gets big enough to strangle you, Dale Amon works 
with SpaceCause to save you by giving it your wallet in hopes that it
might leave you alone.  At first I had trouble seeing how
this was consistent with Libertarian ideals.  Then I recalled
the Libertarian opposition to antitrust laws.  It all makes sense now.

UUCP: {cbosgd, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!pnet01!jim
ARPA: crash!pnet01!jim@nosc.mil
INET: jim@pnet01.cts.com

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #202
*******************

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Date: Wed, 27 Apr 88 03:22:46 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8804271022.AA20468@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #203

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 203

Today's Topics:
		   Re: Jesse Jackson's space policy
      Re: Re-evolving spaceflight after collapse of civilization
       Re: Moon or Mars? Editorial in _Air & Space Smithsonian_
		      Re: Hawaiian launch sites
		      Re: Hawaiian launch sites
       Re: Moon or Mars? Editorial in _Air & Space Smithsonian_
			     Re: KAL 007
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 8 Apr 88 21:44:39 GMT
From: ulysses!thumper!karn@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: Jesse Jackson's space policy

> For someone so sceptical of technical feasibility, you sure put
> a lot of confidence in satellites.  

I don't quite know how to respond to this sort of comment, because it
appears that you don't care to take the time necessary to examine the
issues individually and decide each on its merits. But I'll try.

I also recommend highly the book Deep Black. If you read it, you will
learn that reconnaissance satellite capabilities are well established.
Military reconnaissance was the first "practical" use of space,
predating even communications (still the only really practical
commercial space application).  Then-president Lyndon Johnson is quoted
early in the book as saying that the investment made to date in the
entire US space program had already paid off several times over by the
savings in US programs shown to be unnecessary by the information
returned from reconnaissance satellites.

Verifiability is an important part of any arms treaty. The  phrase
"national technical means", found so frequently in arms treaties, is
nothing more than a euphemism for "spy satellites". They are so
important to verification that you will find that many treaty provisions
were specifically written with the ability of satellites to monitor them
in mind. The best example is the principle of limiting the number of
launchers (easy to see) as opposed to the number of warheads (not so
easy to see).

> The Soviets have stolen technical manuals on several of the birds you
> list above, and are quite familiar with their capabilities.
> Sure, a ferret satellite once got Brezhnev's limo, but so what?
> That doesn't tell you diddly about what is being produced where.

In my opinion, the value to the Soviets of having the technical manual
to any particular US spy satellite has been greatly overblown. There's
much you can conclude about a satellite's capabilities just by applying
some elementary physics. (This may come as a big shock, especially to
you SDI fans, but making a project secret and giving it an unlimited
budget doesn't exempt it from the laws of physics. Believe it or not.)

The KH-11 photos of the Soviet aircraft carrier that were first
published in Jane's and again in Deep Black have a resolution of about 1
foot. This is exactly what you would expect for a visible-light image
taken from that distance (~900 km) with a diffraction-limited objective
of about 2 meters in diameter (the largest that would fit comfortably in
the fairing of a Titan III-D).  The Soviets know the laws of physics as
well as we do, and they also have the benefit of their own experience to
know what they are or aren't likely to get away with.

Rather than repeat the details, go read the book. I think you'll find it
pretty convincing.

> If the Soviet SDI program is futile, what has been blinding our
> satellites?

If by this you are referring to the reports that Soviet lasers have been
aimed at US spysats, then a) I'm not at all convinced of the reliability
of these reports, considering their source (certain US officials whose
personal empires stand to grow enormously if the reports are taken as
accurate) and b) even if they are true, this has very little to do with
SDI, but a lot to do with ASATs and arms treaties.

It's far, far easier to shoot down a few unarmed and fragile
reconnaissance satellites in well-known orbits when you can take your
time (and several shots, if necessary) than it is to shoot down several
thousand sub-orbital missiles within minutes of their unannounced
launching and be sure of getting each and every one. Unfortunately, the
general public doesn't understand the distinction, and this naivete
plays directly into the hands of those pushing SDI. (For example, the
much-ballyhooed "Homing Overlay" PR stunt of a few years ago resembled
an ASAT interception much more than a realistic demo of a ballistic
missile defense).

The technology for ASATs (Anti-Satellite weapons) is well established,
with the US having a definite technology lead.  Unfortunately, it is a
very dangerous development because of the importance of reconnaissance
satellites to verifying arms control agreements and in keeping things
stable.

It may have actually occurred to the more thoughtful (or intellectually
honest, if there are any) SDI-ers that the relative ease with which
space-based sensors could be temporarily blinded by lasers or blown out
of the sky with ASATs constitutes a very grave vulnerability of the
whole system.

Phil

------------------------------

Date: 8 Apr 88 19:29:07 GMT
From: fluke!ssc-vax!eder@beaver.cs.washington.edu  (Dani Eder)
Subject: Re: Re-evolving spaceflight after collapse of civilization

In article <8645@reed.UUCP>, douglas@reed.UUCP (P Douglas Reeder) writes:
> In article <880402011425.2100021d@NMFECC.ARPA> BOWERYJ%CPVA.SAINET.MFENET@NMFECC.ARPA writes:
> >                                                                  We
> >are chewing up critical ores at a million times their formation rate
> >and are not likely to find substitutes for all materials which sit
> >at critical junctures of a space-faring civilization's technology.
> >
> 

Since the atoms of iron, for instance, still exist, we must look at where
they end up.  For example, automobile axles and engine blocks will tend
to survive a long time, since they will be bathed in oil.  So wherever
a lot of cars are found, will in hundreds or thousands of years become
an iron mine or ore deposit (depending on the progression of rust).  
Another source of iron is reinforcing bars in reinforced concrete.
There the iron is encased in concrete, which will tend to protect it
for quite some time.

Another wonderful place to find stuff will be garbage landfills.  
Stuff like aluminum cans will presumably last a long time if protected
by burial.  Another use for landfills is a source of easy to 
get natural gas.  In a suburb of Seattle where I lived until last month,
a landfill has numerous holes poked in it to release natural gas
being generated by the decomposition of gargbage.  The gas is being
burned in a flare (like an olympic torch), but it could be put to
use by a restarting civilization.

Dani Eder/Boeing

------------------------------

Date: 9 Apr 88 03:13:02 GMT
From: ulysses!thumper!karn@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: Moon or Mars? Editorial in _Air & Space Smithsonian_

> I am not an astronomer, but it seems to me that if it is useful to place
> an observatory on the far side of the moon so that Earth isn't radiating at
> the telescope, it would also be useful to place the observatory to avoid the
> Sun shining on it.  Is this not the case, or am I missing the benefit of
> placing an observatory on the moon?

The question dealt specifically with RADIO telescopes, not optical ones.
The idea is to use the moon to shield radio telescopes from the intense
din of artificially generated signals coming from the earth and
near-earth orbit. If you are doing very low frequency observations I
suppose the moon would also help shield against most of the naturally
generated signals coming from the earth's atmosphere (e.g., lightning)
and the region of space near the earth. (VLF through HF astronomy would
in any case have to be done from space to get past the earth's
reflecting ionosphere, as would microwave astronomy much above 20 Ghz or
so in order to avoid atmospheric absorption).

Although the sun does emit radio frequency energy, it emits
proportionately far more at infrared and visible wavelengths than does
the earth. Thanks to things like FM, VHF and UHF TV broadcast
transmitters, the earth already rivals the sun at meter wavelengths, and
when the radars crank up at Arecibo, Goldstone or Haystack, the earth
becomes one of the brightest objects in the entire galaxy at the right
frequencies and directions. Since the earth's atmosphere doesn't scatter
RF like it does visible (especially blue) light there's no problem in
operating surface radio telescopes during the day. Of course, in space
or on the airless moon there is no optical scattering either, so you can
also operate optical telescopes during the day. You just put a baffle
around the front, like the one on the Space Telescope.

In fact, with small antennas operating at VHF frequencies it's actually
easier to "see" the hotter parts of the galaxy than it is to "see" the
sun.  The sun may have an effective noise temperature at VHF of a
hundred thousand kelvin vs a few thousand for the galactic center, but
the hot parts of the galaxy are much larger and fill much more of the
antenna's beamwidth.  I can easily see the difference when I aim my
amateur satellite antenna (14 element yagi on 145 Mhz with GaAsFET
preamp) first in and at right angles to the galactic plane.  However, to
really "see" the sun takes somewhat larger antennas (so the sun fills
more of the smaller beamwidth) and this is in fact a very common method
for evaluating the performance of large antennas.

Phil

------------------------------

Date: 10 Apr 88 03:06:46 GMT
From: beckenba@csvax.caltech.edu  (Joe Beckenbach)
Subject: Re: Hawaiian launch sites

In article <7494@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> burdick@iuvax.UUCP (Matt Burdick) writes:
>Does anyone have any comments about the pros/cons of a Hawaiian launch
>site? 

	Well, if the Los Angeles Times article is correct (a couple of days
ago, page 3) then one Hawaiian senator has already tried-- and failed 
miserably to get grass-roots backing. In fact, according to the article,
most of the Hawaiians are against such a project. [Sorry I don't have the
article to hand; the janitors around the dorm are pretty zealous with throwing
out "yesterday's news".]

-- 
Joe Beckenbach (CS BS '??)			I'D RATHER BE ORBITING	
	All this bloody insurance! What will I have to insure next
to keep legal-- the dorm's cats' right hind legs?

------------------------------

Date: 10 Apr 88 05:45:56 GMT
From: imagine!pawl22.pawl.rpi.edu!jesup@itsgw.rpi.edu  (Randell E. Jesup)
Subject: Re: Hawaiian launch sites

Put the launch site on top of one of the volcanos (dead, of course).
You should save quite a bit of fuel due to less think atmosphere to fly
through.  Anyone have any number on high points/fuel consumption?

Also, Hawaii is farther south (I believe) than Florida, though not real
close the the equator.

------------------------------

Date: 9 Apr 88 04:09:34 GMT
From: unmvax!charon!deimos.unm.edu!f12012ag@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Chang H. Park)
Subject: Re: Moon or Mars? Editorial in _Air & Space Smithsonian_

In article <1022@thumper.bellcore.com> karn@thumper.bellcore.com (Phil R. Karn) writes:
>> ... The dark far side of the
>> : moon..." being a good place to conduct " ...sensitive radio astronomy...
>> : without interference from terrestrial signals."
>
>Yes, it's a great idea. In fact, it's already been done. Only it was an
>unmanned probe in lunar orbit instead of a manned base on the surface. 
>The spacecraft recorded its observations during the time it was shielded
>from earth, and it relayed them back down when earth was visible.
>
>I really wish people would stop clutching at straws, looking for every
>possible application of their pet man-in-space project when many (if not
>most) of the tasks can be done far more cheaply and effectively with
                                                     ^^^^^^^^^^^
Are you sure about this??? -------------------------------|
It seems to me that long term observations of some objects would be
easier to carry out on the moon, as opposed to a satellite.  (Which
would be orbiting the moon....at times having the moon itself eclipse
the very object under observation!)

>unmanned spacecraft. In the case of lunar-shielded radio astronomy,
>lunar orbit makes a lot more sense than the lunar surface for several
>very good reasons:
>
>1. You need communications channels back to earth. A radio telescope on
>the far side of the moon would need relay satellites in lunar orbit for
>this purpose. These satellites would themselves have to transmit within
>view of the far side of the moon, possibly polluting the very spectrum
>you spent so much to view in a pristine state. On the other hand, a
>telescope in lunar orbit can provide its own store-and-forward relay. It
>need not transmit anything at all while it is actually observing.

Come on!  This is a weak argument.  For one thing, the same store and
forward technology could just as easily be used for the moon to earth
relay satellites. 

>2. You need power. This is much easier to obtain in orbit, since solar
>panels will be illuminated for roughly half of each orbit. On the
>surface, you will almost certainly need nuclear power sources to carry

This may be true...but what about running cables to the other side of the
moon to carry electricity while the telescope is in the lunar night.
Several solar power arrays would keep the telescope powered continuously.
Superconducting cables would help...even to the point of eliminating
the need for a relay sat. in orbit.  Just place your communications
antenna on the earth-facing side of the moon!

>you through the long 2-week lunar night.  Thermal control is also much
>easier in orbit. Of course much of a surface station could be buried to
>help level out the day/night temperature fluctuations, except for the
>antennas -- and these are likely to be very susceptible to severe
>thermal-induced distortions.
> [....]
>
>Phil

Just thought I`d say something. The radio telescope on the moon is
a great idea.  Even if people use it as an excuse for getting men &
women in space, so what!  What`s wrong with that?  Isn`t that the goal
we all have...or am I being silly

Let`s explore the possibility of having both oribiting and surface
telecopes.  

Ollie Eisman - N6LTJ
--
SEDS-UNM : Students for the Exploration and Development of Space           
Box 92 Student Union, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM  87106
(505) 277-3171

------------------------------

Date: 8 Apr 88 15:11:38 GMT
From: trwrb!aero!venera.isi.edu!raveling@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Paul Raveling)
Subject: Re: KAL 007

In article <815@ncspm.ncsu.edu> jay@ncspm.ncsu.EDU (Jay C. Smith) writes:
>
>Every time the subject of the 707 and C-135 comes up it degenerates into
>some sort of "chicken and the egg" discussion.  I would appreciate it
>if someone would clear this up for me.  I think this might be what
>happened, but I'm not sure:  Boeing built a prototype passenger jet,
>but realized that a big military contract would be the best way to
>attract customers, so they actively sought to sell their prototype
>to the Air Force as a cargo plane (the C-135).  A big military
>contract followed, the airlines soon wanted the plane, and it was
>updated and sold as the 707.
>
>The reason for confusion may be that while the C-135 was sold first,
>the 707 was always the ultimate intention.

	Right.

	The original 707-80 prototype began flying in 1954 (or was
	it '53?).  It was somewhat regarded as an answer to the
	British Comet.  The -80 was shorter than any of the production
	aircraft, didn't have such niceties as lots of windows or
	an airline interior.  It also had a distinctive chocolate
	brown and yellow paint job.

	Next came the KC-135, which allowed using government money
	to develop the product.  I doubt that either airlines or
	Boeing alone could have commited enough cash to do it any
	other way.  Boeing's Renton plant switched from KC-97's
	and C-97's to KC-135's in about '56 or '57.

	Finally, commercial 707's began with the 120 models, which
	used virtually the same airframe as KC-135's.  Pan Am #1
	flew and entered service in 1958.


---------------------
Paul Raveling
Raveling@vaxa.isi.edu

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #203
*******************

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From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
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Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #204

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 204

Today's Topics:
			    RE: Brown Bill
      Re: Re-evolving spaceflight after collapse of civilization
			  Re: RE: Brwon Bill
		      Re: Hawaiian launch sites
		      Re: Hawaiian launch sites
		      Re: Hawaiian launch sites
	   Re: 707/717/720/c-135 history (was Re: KAL 007)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sun, 10 Apr 1988 16:54-EDT 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: RE: Brown Bill

Just thought I'd give Henry a dig...

Exhibit A:
>> Rep. George Brown (D) of California has proposed the `Space
>> Settlement Act of 1988' [HR 4218], which would add to NASA's charter
>> the specific goal of establishing space settlements, and would
>> require NASA to report on progress in this area on a regular basis.

> I'm afraid that the sensible thing to do is to oppose this bill unless
> it also provides guaranteed *funding* for this activity.  NASA's
> biggest problem (besides being a government agency, I mean...) is the
> widening

Exhibit B:
> The space program needs an ongoing goal that cannot be perverted into
> a one-shot mission which leaves us not much better off than we were
> before.  This is just one of the many, many reasons for opposing a big


I would suggest that the latter is EXACTLY what Congressman Brown is up
to. He is not naming a program, not telling NASA exactly what they
should do when. He is suggesting the NASA charter include
self-sufficient settlements as an agency goal. By directing official
attention at space settlement he hopes to make it impossible for a
future James Beggs to ignore such 'radical' and 'visionary' ideas.  It
is Brown's intention that key technologies required for self-sufficient
settlements have a high profile and a high priority.

ASSUMING we decide to keep NASA around, what better goal could we
POSSIBLY ask for?

With high level attention focused on the space program for a change,
right now is the time to force a permanent shift in policy. Waiting for
a new administration is not a good idea: I doubt the over all climate
will be as good as it is right now for many years to come.

------------------------------

Date: 10 Apr 88 03:16:40 GMT
From: clyde!watmath!utgpu!utzoo!henry@bellcore.bellcore.com  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Re-evolving spaceflight after collapse of civilization

> ... A society without easy access to metals might develop organic,
> ceramic, or other materials with the neccesary strength, durability,
> and other characteristics needed...

Perhaps.  It's easy enough to substitute such materials for specific
uses of metals; it's not quite so simple to bootstrap a civilization
with them.  Metals are awfully useful in making sophisticated
non-metallic materials.

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 17 Apr 88 19:56:52 GMT
From: portal!cup.portal.com!Brian_C_McBee@uunet.uu.net
Subject: Re: RE: Brwon Bill

NASA was originally an R&D agency - That's what it does best, and that's
what it should stick to. Permanent settlements in space will come when
someone with the bucks to make it happen can see a profit in it. I
expect to see it within my lifetime.

------------------------------

Date: 10 Apr 88 19:40:32 GMT
From: jfc@athena.mit.edu  (John F Carr)
Subject: Re: Hawaiian launch sites

In article <641@imagine.PAWL.RPI.EDU> jesup@pawl22.pawl.rpi.edu (Randell E. Jesup) writes:
>Put the launch site on top of one of the volcanos (dead, of course).
>You should save quite a bit of fuel due to less think atmosphere to fly
>through.  Anyone have any number on high points/fuel consumption?

One reason for the sea level location of launch sites is transportation.
A lot of big parts are carried on barges.  To build a railroad up the
side of a mountain is difficult; to build an engine capable of hauling a
train carrying a rocket up a mountain at 13000 feet is harder (you also
have trouble with landing sites for support aircraft).  Maybe a
supercharger on the engine would work.

If you could do it, you are above almost half the atmosphere.  I think
that translates to 500 m/s gain.

   John Carr           "No one wants to make a terrible choice
   jfc@athena.mit.edu   On the price of being free"           -- Neil Peart

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 26 Apr 88 10:52:52 PST
From: Peter Scott <PJS@grouch.jpl.nasa.gov>
Subject: Re: Hawaiian launch sites
X-Vms-Mail-To: EXOS%"space@angband.s1.gov"

As far as I know, the biggest pro by far is the geographical position
(southernmost point of the USA, despite what the monument at Key West
says), which provides additional energy to reach orbit, although not as
much as the ESA gets in Guyana.  Another pro would be that Hawaii would
have a source of income that could back up their income from tourism,
which is about 60% of their total, I believe.

Cons: cost of transporting boosters there.  The Saturn V first and
second stages were barged to Canaveral, and the third stage flown in on
a Super Guppy, so on the face of it it appears impossible to launch
anything that big.  If you can get the External Tank over there then the
Space Shuttle can be launched (Honolulu airport is a designated
emergency landing site and has very long runways).  Does anyone know
where Ariane is built and how it is shipped to Kourou?

I have a personal con: I find South Point to be an area of outstanding
natural beauty and refreshingly bereft of civilization; I would be sorry
to see a favorite vacation spot deprived of that which I value in it.

Peter Scott (pjs%grouch@jpl-mil.jpl.nasa.gov)

------------------------------

Date: 26 Apr 88 19:56:59 GMT
From: pioneer!eugene@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Eugene N. Miya)
Subject: Re: Hawaiian launch sites

Ach!  You guys have such a lack of sensitivity!  A great way to wreck one of
the best optical observing sites in the world.  Okay, SPACE at all costs.

Another gross generalization from

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA
				soon to be aurora.arc.nasa.gov
at the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:
  "Mailers?! HA!"
  {uunet,hplabs,hao,ihnp4,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."

------------------------------

Date: 10 Apr 88 02:57:22 GMT
From: ut-emx!juniper!mentat@sally.utexas.edu  (Robert Dorsett)
Subject: Re: 707/717/720/c-135 history (was Re: KAL 007)

In article <10312@steinmetz.ge.com> welty@sunup.UUCP (richard welty) writes:
>(this is crossposted; edit the news.groups line appropriately if necessary)
>
>In article <48118@sun.uucp>, fiddler%concertina@Sun.COM (Steve Hix) writes:
>*                                    The B-707 was modified to become the
>* C-135...

A number of people have been using the "C-135" designation.  It's very
important to remember that the military variant was first and foremost a
TANKER, i.e., a KC-135.

>The original aircraft was the Boeing 717

The "Boeing 717" was the 367-80, the "Dash 80" testbed.  It was never a
production model, nor intended as such (see below).


>The Air Force agreed, and ordered large numbers of this aircraft,
>designating it the KC-135 (the cargo variants came later -- the tanker
>was first.)  Boeing then used the profits from the Air Force contract
>to complete the design of the type 707, which

I really doubt that Boeing used any "profits."  Break-even takes a long time.
Boeing had to sell 400 747's before it broke even (1976, nearly eight 
years after rollout) on that project.


>In addition, there is a variation on the 707 called the 720 which some
>airlines use, although there is a bit of confusion over the model
>numbers -- some planes designated 720s by the airlines are really 707s,
>and some 707s have a few 720 features.

No, the 720 is a totally distinct airplane.  The airlines might confuse
the passenger emergency cards, but from a maintenance/flying viewpoint,
they're two very different airplanes.  The 720's sort of like a short
707, a hot-rod (see below)


>Mike Trout has a large C-135 history, which he mailed to me a while
>back.  I could post it if anyone is interested (or he could, I
>suppose.)

Please do!


-------------------------------------------
Here's the history of the 707, derived from Boeing's "Jet Transport
Performance Methods," copyright 1957 by the Boeing Company.  January
1964 revision.  Note that it ignores the KC-135 entirely, but provides a
framework within which other information can be applied.


0-1 History and Development

In May, 1954, a new airplane was rolled out of the Renton, Washington
plant.  This airplane, the propotype of America's first jet transport,
was an investment of the Boeing Airplane Company, and represented the
company's re-entry into the field of commercial aviation.  For a decade,
production strength was being poured into the national defense effort.
Now there appeared a place on the production line for other than
military aircraft.

The decision to offer a jet transport to the nation's airlines was not a
new idea.  Early design studies were begun in 1946 and carried on
through the years.  The success of the B-47 bomber instilled even more
confidence in the undertaking.  In late 1947 and in 1948 an appreciable
amount of preliminary work was done on a commercial jet transport
configuration.  This was largely directed toward an investigation of the
possible economics of the configuration to see if such a transport would
be commercially feasible.  Very little drawing board design work was
attempted and the characteristics assumed for the studies were taken
directly from the contempory swept wing bomber investigations.  Work
accomplished during 1947 and subsequent years in some cases was placed
under the designation of Model 473.  Some designs proposed in this era
were the 473-12, 473-14, 473-19, and 473-29 models.

By mid-1949 it had become apparent that neither Boeing nor the potential
users possessed sufficient knowledge of the factors which would be
involved in a jet operation.  Consequently, Boeing undertook a
comprehensive study, based upon the performance of a hypothetical
airplane.  Included were not merely takeoff and landing distances and
cruising speeds, but the entire picture of jet transport operation.  The
airplane upon which the study was based was powered by four engines
having characteristics somewhat similar to those of the military J-57
engine manufactured by Pratt & Whitney aircraft.  It had a wing area of
2500 square feet with a sweepback of 35 degrees, with aero- dynamic
characteristics similar to those of the B-52.  This study constituted by
far the most thoroughly-filled package of jet-transport information
assembled by anyone to that time.

So favorable was the reaction of potential customers that a small
project was organized to begin actual design and wind tunnel work.  The
most significant result was a 1950 design called the 473-60.  It was
similar to the airplane of earlier performance work except that it had a
slightly smaller wing of 2300 square feet.  The wing characteristics
were virtually identical to those of the B-52.  The landing gear was a
tricycle type having all three gears supported in the body, resulting in
a very narrow tread.  The "60" was proposed in two versions: aa domestic
model weighing 135,000 pounds, and a transocean model offered in weights
up to 180,000 pounds.  A wind tunnel model was made and a full
aerodynamic study carried out.  In the process, it appeared that
improvements should be made in certain areas, particularly the landing
gear.

While the Model 473-60 study was underway, considerable preliminary
design and aerodynamic work was being done on improvements to the C-97
configuration.  A variety of engines were investigated, including
advanced versions of the Pratt & Whitney R-4360 and turboprop
installations.  Two of the designs that appeared on the drawing board
prior to 1950 were the 367-14 and the 367-22.  These models retained the
then current C-97 wing and landing gear features but incorporated
various engine changes.  The improvements were not as great as
anticipated, and the designs undertook a further change.

By 1950, a configuration was proposed which was expected to remedy some
of the problems encountered in attempting to improve the C-97.  The
model was designated 367-60 and was powered by four turboprop engines.
It was characterized by a gulled-wing designed to lower the floor and to
provide propeller clearance.  Sweepback was beginning to look profitable
and an 18 degree sweep was selected for this model.  However, progress
of the turboprop engine development was disappointing and serious
consideration was given to the turbojet engine.

Late in 1950 work was begun on Model 367-64, a design based around a
C-97 body, four jet engines and a new landing gear.  The wing had an
area of 2500 square feet and 25 degrees of sweepback.  The increased
sweep was found to give more desirable Mach number characteristics.  A
great deal of effort went into this design.  The amount of wind tunnel
testing that was done was more than many high speed airplanes have had
prior to first flight.  Although this design, commonly known as the
"Advanced C-97," was a good airplane, it became evident by late summer
of 1951 that it would not be sold.  All was not lost, for the vast fund
of knowledge gained from turboprop and turbojet investigations brought
about a better understanding of design and operational requirements of a
jet transport.  The landing gear problem, which had been difficult in
earlier designs, had been worked out on the 367-64.  In other ways,
including body shape, development work on the "64" pointed to further
improvements.

For example, the fuel capacity of the 367-64 was less than desired.
This was partially due to the fact that the wing had been severely
thinned in order to achieve Mach number objectives.  In addition, the
thinning had produced a wing that would be difficult to fabricate from a
manufacturing standpoint.  To adjust these factors, a new wing was laid
out which was thicker and had a 35-degree angle of sweepback.  Even
here, previous efforts were not lost, as the wing was essentially the
"64" wing rotated an additional 10 degrees about the root.  The result
of the additional sweep reduced the span from 140 feet to 130 feet but
maintained the gross area at 2500 square feet, including an inboard
trailing edge extension which faired the landing gear.  It is this wing,
with refinements to airfoil sections and trailing edge extension, which
is on today's 707 prototype.

Many of the drawings at the end of 1951 were now being labeled Model
707, as they were the products of joint efforts to incorporate the work
of the past months into a saleable article.  It appeared also that a
demonstration airplane was required to convince potential customers of
the advantages of jet transportation to a degree sufficient to warrant
their large investment in new equipment.  Models 707-5 and 707-6 evolved
to a point where a decision to build a prototype airplane was
forthcoming.  In May 1952, work was begun although for economic reasons
the model number was changed from 707 to 367-80.  It was designed also
to keep the prototype light in weight and simple in design and
operation.  During the course of the design, a number of changes were
made.  The most significant of these was the change from dual engine
pods to four single pods.  Subsequent attempts to enlarge the body
cross-section were discontinued in favor of making the change on
production models.

The models discussed herein are but a few of the 150 "paper" airplanes
that make up the ancestral lines of the 707.  The years of research,
investigation, and production ingenuity culminated on July 15, 1954,
when the 367-80 prototype made the historic first flight from Renton
Airport.  Landing was made at Seattle, Boeing Field, after a flight of
one hour and 24 minutes.

Two versions of the production 707 airplane exist: the "Stratoliner,"
and the "Intercontinental."  The Stratoliner airplane was designed to
serve the longer domestic and most intercontinental routes and has a
range capability of over 3500 nautical miles.  The Intercontinental was
designed to carry a 40,000 pound payload over 5000 nautical miles.
There are variations within the models and series depending upon the
requirements of the customers.

Following closely on the heels of the family of 707 airplanes is the
medium range Model 720.  Although similar to its predecessor in
appearance, it is a completely new design from a weight and structural
strength viewpoint.  Variations of Model 720 exist largely due to the
type of power plant equipment used.  The development of a turbofan
engine with its higher thrust ratings and vastly improved specific fuel
consumption makes the Model 720 an attractive package.

The most recent addition to the family of Boeing airplanes is the Model
727.  It features the latest advances in jet engine technology and
aerodynamics.  Its smaller size and versatility provide low cost air
transportation in the short-to-medium range class.

Over a period of 4 1/2 years, thousands of details and design features
were studied for feasibility and checked out against specific airline
objectives.  Having detailed and tested a total of 68 different airplane
designs, the final form of the 727 was established.  The Model 727
differs noticeably in appearance from its predecessors, in that it is
equipped with three turbofan engines and a dominating empennege section.
Two of the three engines are mounted in pods at each side of the rear
fuselage.  The cowl-enclosed third engine is suspended from a beam at
the rear of the fuselage, with the air intake located at the base of the
vertical fin.  The engine location dictated the design of tail, such
that the horizontal stabilizer is attached to the top of the fin
structure.  The vertical stabilizer is swept sharply aft to give the
control surfaces maximum effect for minimum size and weight.

A high degree of "commonness" has been preserved between the 707/720 and
the 727 airplanes.  Any changes in the systems were made only on the
basis of improvements possible due to experience and to advances in the
state of technology, or due to the aircraft's intended short-haul,
minimum ground time use.

Low speed performance is built into the wing by means of high-lift
devices.  These consist of triple-slotted trailing-edge flaps and
leading edge flaps and slats.  The 727 uses dual hydraulic packages to
power the primary flight controls throughout complete surface travel.
Elevators and ailerons are aerodynamically balanced to allow manual
operation.  The rudder has a third hydraulic system available for backup
purposes.

To reduce the turn-around time and make the airplane as self-sufficient
as possible, an aft airstair is installed as an integral part of the
fuselage.  In addition, a forward airstair can be installed at the
option of the customer.  To provide electric and pneumatic power for
ground operation an airborne auxilliary power unit can be installed in
the wheel well.

Advanced high-lift devices enable the 727 to operate at full payload
(24,000 lbs) from 5000-foot runways.  The 727 is capable of carrying
70-114 passengers at speeds up to 600 miles per hour over a distance
ranging from 150 to 1700 miles.

----------------------------------------

     Robert Dorsett     {allegra,ihnp4}!ut-emx!walt.cc.utexas.edu!mentat
University of Texas 	mentat@walt.cc.utexas.edu
          at Austin	{allegra, ihnp4}!ut-emx!juniper!mentat

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #204
*******************

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To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #205

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 205

Today's Topics:
	   Re: 707/717/720/c-135 history (was Re: KAL 007)
			     Re: KAL 007
			     Re: KAL 007
			     Re: KAL 007
		      Re: Dash-80 707 prototype
			       Re: Mars
			       Re: mars
       Re: Moon or Mars? Editorial in _Air & Space Smithsonian_
       Re: Moon or Mars? Editorial in _Air & Space Smithsonian_
       Re: Moon or Mars? Editorial in _Air & Space Smithsonian_
       Re: Moon or Mars? Editorial in _Air & Space Smithsonian_
       Re: Moon or Mars? Editorial in _Air & Space Smithsonian_
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 13 Apr 88 00:51:20 GMT
From: phoenix!pucc!ICEMAN@princeton.edu  (Joakim Karlsson)
Subject: Re: 707/717/720/c-135 history (was Re: KAL 007)

In article <4129@whuts.UUCP>, sw@whuts.UUCP (WARMINK) writes:
 
>Am I alone in trying to figure out what this (interesting) topic is
>doing in sci.space?

It is here because there is not a "sci.aerospace" or a "sci.aviation"
group, but I'm not sure people want this.  I'd like to either see
"sci.space" be renamed to "sci.aerospace", and include both aeronautical
and astronautical issues, *or* create a "sci.aviation" ("sci.aero"?),
that would keep aeronautical engineering issues out of "rec.aviation"
and out of "sci.space", instead of in both.
 
Joakim Karlsson                               iceman @ pucc.Princeton.edu

------------------------------

Date: 13 Apr 88 22:43:37 GMT
From: pitt!cisunx!sngst@cadre.dsl.pittsburgh.edu  (Sanjiv N. Gupta)
Subject: Re: KAL 007

In article <815@ncspm.ncsu.edu> jay@ncspm.ncsu.EDU (Jay C. Smith) writes:
>Every time the subject of the 707 and C-135 comes up it degenerates
>into some sort of "chicken and the egg" discussion.  ...  The reason
>for confusion may be that while the C-135 was sold first, the 707 was
>always the ultimate intention.

I dunno which came first, but I do know that the Boeing model number for
the C-135 is 717 (didn't you ever wonder why they went from 707 to 727?
That's why) That would seem to imply that the 707 came first, but its
not neccessarily the case.  Both were derived from the Boeing model 360,
which resembles both aircraft, but isn't exactly either.  For those who
haven't looked carefully, by the way, the 707 and the C-135 are *not*
the same plane.  They differ considerably in appearance...check out the
wings, for one thing...the C-135 has straight trailing edges while the
707 has the 'crank' in it that most Boeing commercial transports have
(does anyone who does aerodynamics know why?).

Sanjiv Gupta

------------------------------

Date: 15 Apr 88 22:35:54 GMT
From: ssc-vax!stuart@beaver.cs.washington.edu  (Stuart Lewis)
Subject: Re: KAL 007

Well, as I read through the net further I saw a number of other articles
on the subject and realized I was wrong on some counts. The aircraft
wasn't the 720 but the -80. The 720 was later. Most of my information I
got from the book "Vision...." which I mentioned in my original posting,
but then it's been a while since I read it.

I do stand by my statement that the 707/-80 was strictly a commercial
venture by the companies board of directors - they banked nearly
everthing on it's being a success. That I do remember from the text. As
history has shown, Chairman of the Board Bill Allen made the right
gamble.

Someone else mentioned the color scheme - a combo of yellow and some
shade of red - ugly as sin! You can find color photos of the -80 in
various old-timers offices here in the company.

Someone also mentioned the airframe diameters being different which is
true too. They look like the same aircraft (707/KC-135) from the
outside, but then who has eyes that can detect a few inches diameter
variation on something that size!

Stuart Lewis
Boeing Aerospace Co.
ssc-vax!stuart

------------------------------

Date: 15 Apr 88 21:46:58 GMT
From: ssc-vax!stuart@beaver.cs.washington.edu  (Stuart Lewis)
Subject: Re: KAL 007

I haven't been on the net for about 2 weeks so I hope I'm not re-
hashing something already said, but......

Actually, the 707 was first.  It first flew in 1955 (I'm pretty sure),
and made history in 1958 as the first trans-oceanic commercial jet
transport when PanAm flew from New York to London.  Anyway, the 707
copied a great deal of technology and design from the first swept wing
bomber - the B-47.  The 707 or Boeing Stratojet was designed from the
very beginning as a commercial transport - period.  Assembly of the B-52
was at and end and Boeing gambled (litteraly) everything they had on the
commercial 707 (then called the 720) production.

After a few years of very successful performance in the commercial
market the gov't took interest in applying the technology to the
military. In the early 1960's development and conversions to the 707
began and the first military 707 was born - the KC-135 tanker.  This was
at a time when nearly all the military airlift capability was still prop
driven! Sure, the bomber and fighter force was jet, but for running
cargo they still flew prop Boeings and Douglas and the like. The
military Boeings include the aforementioned KC-135, the RC-135 (Recon. &
Intel. gathering) of the KAL 007 saga, the E3A Sentry (AWACs c^3
mission), and currently under production - still undergoing shakedown,
certification and design by-off - the E6, a U.S. Navy submarine
communications aircraft. I may quite possibly be wrong, but I don't
think that there exists a C-135 for purely cargo mission - I believe
that role is entirely done by the C-130, C-131, C-5, and C-141 - all
non-Boeing aircraft. If there are any ex- Air Force out there maybe they
could post more info.

For additional reading try "'Vision', The Saga of the Boeing Commercial
Airplane Company". Sorry, I don't remember the publisher or author but
is is interesting reading.

Stuart Lewis
Boeing Aerospace Co.
ssc-vax!stuart

------------------------------

Date: 17 Apr 88 23:31:32 GMT
From: cute@sphinx.uchicago.edu  (John Robert Cavallino)
Subject: Re: Dash-80 707 prototype

Just had one item to add to the 707 discussion -- some of you might not
know this, but the Dash-80 itself is stored in "mothballed" condition at
Davis- Monthan AFB in Tucson, AZ., along with multitudes of other
surplus planes and plane parts.  They have public tours where they bus
you around the storage areas, and you can actually get out and walk
right up to the planes.  I'll never forget the rows and rows and rows of
what looked like hundreds of B-52s, stretching as far as I could see.
BTW, they also have the B-52 that launched the X-15s.  Anyone else ever
taken the tour?
	JohnC

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 10 Apr 1988 17:11-EDT 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: Mars

I've just recently returned from the Lunar Bases Symposium in Houston,
and I'd point out that a number of experts made statements that boiled
down to:

"When they start doing the real engineering, the disagreements between
Mars and Moon advocates will go away. For engineering and cost reasons,
you have to build the lunar base first. You have to test the equipment
where you can get home or be rescued if there are problems. And the
economics of lunar O2 refueling at L2 make the Mars trip affordable."

The above is a composite of several speakers statements, and points of
agreement in their questioning and comments to each other. The lunar O2
scenario had tables and tables of hard data on payloads, mass fractions
and $$$'s behind it.

------------------------------

Date: 9 Apr 88 13:58:59 GMT
From: oliveb!felix!ccicpg!turnkey!stanton!donegan@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Steven P. Donegan)
Subject: Re: mars

In article <8804071509.AA24359@usafa.ARPA>, bidlack@USAFA.ARPA (Harold bidlack) writes:
> One aspect of a manned mission to Mars that I thing should be
> discussed is the biological debate.  In a past issue of Sky and
> Telescope, the

> Thus, Loudin argued, a manned landing on Mars should be delayed until
> we are ABSOLUTELY sure there is no life on Mars.
> Thoughts?
> Hal Bidlack@usafa.arpa

I, being a computer science worker for 15 years, have yet to see
ABSOLUTE proof of anything. I feel we should expend every REASONABLE
effort to keep our contamination of space to a minimum. I don't believe
that we should keep from exploring other planets due to the (impossible
as I see it) requirement of zero contamination. We must remove all of
our eggs from this one very fragile basket - we must explore space for
the future of humanity.

Steven P. Donegan
Sr. Telecommunications Analyst
Western Digital Corp.
donegan@stanton.TCC.COM

------------------------------

Date: 10 Apr 88 03:27:15 GMT
From: clyde!watmath!utgpu!utzoo!henry@bellcore.bellcore.com  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Moon or Mars? Editorial in _Air & Space Smithsonian_

> ... If the satellite goes into a slightly incorrect orbit it probably
> wouldn't significantly effect work...

Thinking of that, don't forget that the lunar-orbiting observatory is
going to need regular orbit corrections.  The lunar gravitational field
is pretty lumpy and perturbs orbits badly; my impression is that almost
any lunar orbit eventually ends up intersecting the surface.

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 11 Apr 88 07:27:30 GMT
From: thumper!karn@faline.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: Moon or Mars? Editorial in _Air & Space Smithsonian_

> Thinking of that, don't forget that the lunar-orbiting observatory is
> going to need regular orbit corrections.  The lunar gravitational
> field is pretty lumpy and perturbs orbits badly; my impression is that
> almost any lunar orbit eventually ends up intersecting the surface.

Correct. For this purpose, you can use a small fraction of the fuel you
would otherwise spend on taking everything down to the surface in a soft
landing.

Phil

------------------------------

Date: 11 Apr 88 08:13:44 GMT
From: ulysses!thumper!karn@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: Moon or Mars? Editorial in _Air & Space Smithsonian_

> It seems to me that long term observations of some objects would be
> easier to carry out on the moon, as opposed to a satellite.  (Which
> would be orbiting the moon....at times having the moon itself eclipse
> the very object under observation!)

You're forgetting that a base on the moon's surface would also be
eclipsed by the moon itself. Once an object set, you'd have to wait 2
weeks, not just 12 hours, to see it again.  From lunar orbit you'd have
even less time to wait.  (Please don't tell me about siting bases on the
moon's poles. You'd not be shielded from the earth, which was the whole
point of this exercise, and a single base would never see half of the
sky).

Not that many astronomical observations require such long and
uninterrupted views of a single object. Remember that the Space
Telescope will be similarly limited, yet it will still be a very
powerful instrument.

> Come on!  This is a weak argument.  For one thing, the same store and
> forward technology could just as easily be used for the moon to earth
> relay satellites.

Agreed. But if you need lunar satellites for communications, why not
just put the instruments there too?

> This may be true...but what about running cables to the other side of
> the moon to carry electricity while the telescope is in the lunar
> night.

Now YOU'RE way out on a limb (weak pun unintended) here. Ever hear of
the engineer's corollary to Occam's Razor? The simplest and cheapest way
to do job reliably is usually the best way.

> Just thought I`d say something. The radio telescope on the moon is a
> great idea.  Even if people use it as an excuse for getting men &
> women in space, so what!  What`s wrong with that?  Isn`t that the goal
> we all have...or am I being silly

Now we come to the real heart of the matter. You're now admitting what I
said in my first item, that everyone was falling all over themselves
trying to find some practical excuse, no matter how stretched, for
putting as many people in space as possible.  Isn't this exactly the
mistake NASA made with the Shuttle? Obviously it didn't learn much the
first time, because now it's doing it all over again with Space Station.

Look, I really *do* enjoy manned missions.  I was one of the few people
around here to see Challenger blow up on the TV in real time, because
the major networks (and most other people) had long tired of shuttle
launches by then.  Not me.  But at least I try to be up front about it
-- I admit that I enjoy manned missions strictly for entertainment
and/or educational value.  My share in a Shuttle launch is a lot less
than a movie ticket.

But I don't try to rationalize that sending up seven people is the best
way to launch a communications satellite, or conduct earth resources
photography, or any of a long list of things that have been done
perfectly well and far more cheaply (if with less glamor) with unmanned
launchers.  The one aspect of the STS-51L mission that really did
require a human presence in space was the part everyone was looking
forward to -- Christa McAuliffe's science lesson. The shuttle is
admirably suited to this sort of thing, which is completely worthwhile
if inspires youngsters into careers in engineering or science. But don't
kid yourself -- for the vast majority of practical space applications,
you're a lot better off in the long run by going after the simplest and
most direct approach to the problem, and only VERY rarely does this
require humans in space.

Phil

------------------------------

Date:         Mon, 11 Apr 88 12:04:46 EDT
From: Lee Brotzman <ZMLEB%SCFVM.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Subject:      Re: Moon or Mars? Editorial in _Air & Space Smithsonian_


hubcap@gatech.edu  (Mike Marshall) writes:
>The same issue of Air&Space contains an article entitled "Resist the
>Pull of Mars" in which the author talks about "The dark far side of the
>moon..." being a good place to conduct " ...sensitive radio
>astronomy...  without interference from terrestrial signals."
>
>Since this is a credible magazine, I should give the guy the benefit of
>the doubt and assume he is talking about the period of time that the
>moon appears full from the perspective of the earth, but that's not how
>it reads.

The term "dark" has another meaning in astronomy.  A good "dark" site
for an observatory is one which has little or no light pollution.  Using
the astronomical interpretation, the far side of the moon is "radio
dark", i.e.  there is no interference from the radio emissions from
earth.

The moon would be a fantastic site for astronomy in any wavelength,
since there is no obscuring atmosphere to absorb or scatter light and it
would provide a stable platform free from the nightmares of accurately
pointing a free flying observatory like the Hubble Space Telecope (HST).
"Deep sky" observations could be made with exposure times ranging from
hours to weeks.

One thing about the Hubble Space Telescope that is rarely mentioned is
that, since it will be in low-earth orbit, the amount of actual
observing time is very limited.  Something like 50% of the time HST is
in orbit it can't observe because the earth takes up nearly half of the
sky.  The maximum exposure time for any one observation is 30-40
minutes.  The International Ultraviolet Explorer, on the other hand, has
been known to make single exposures of up to 18 hours in length, which
is only possible because it is in geo-synchronous orbit.

The reduced exposure times are partially compensated for by more
sensitive digital detectors, but for spectra of very faint sources, only
long exposures will do.  Operating an astronomical observatory on the
moon shouldn't be much more difficult than some of the present earth
sites.  Mauna Loa looks like it's right out of a lunar picture book :-)

-- Lee Brotzman, ST Systems Corp.
   Contracted to the Astronomical Data Center, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
   (No, ST does not stand for "Space Telescope")
   The above statements are my own, and do not represent the opinions or policy
   of my employer, or the Astronomical Data Center.

------------------------------

Date: 11 Apr 88 18:09:21 GMT
From: concertina!fiddler@sun.com  (Steve Hix)
Subject: Re: Moon or Mars? Editorial in _Air & Space Smithsonian_

In article <211@aplcomm.UUCP>, jwm@stdc.jhuapl.edu (James W. Meritt) writes:
> In article <1481@bigtex.uucp> james@bigtex.UUCP (James Van Artsdalen) writes:
> >I am not an astronomer, but it seems to me that if it is useful to
> >place an observatory on the far side of the moon so that Earth isn't
> >radiating at the telescope, it would also be useful to place the
> >observatory to avoid the Sun shining on it.
> I am afraid that I cannot envision a point which is both hidden from
> the earth and hidden from the sun on the surface of the moon, unless
> you mean in a hole.  Where did you mean?

A large Farside telescope would have 14-day-long nights...this would
give you a place to make very long exposures with reduced tracking
efforts, no weather to worry about, no local light pollution sources,
and less vibration from local truck traffic.

	seh

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #205
*******************

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Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #206

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 206

Today's Topics:
       Re: Moon or Mars? Editorial in _Air & Space Smithsonian_
       Re: Moon or Mars? Editorial in _Air & Space Smithsonian_
       Re: Moon or Mars? Editorial in _Air & Space Smithsonian_
       Re: Moon or Mars? Editorial in _Air & Space Smithsonian_
       Re: Moon or Mars? Editorial in _Air & Space Smithsonian_
       Re: Moon or Mars? Editorial in _Air & Space Smithsonian_
       Re: Moon or Mars? Editorial in _Air & Space Smithsonian_
       Re: Moon or Mars? Editorial in _Air & Space Smithsonian_
		   Re: How to become an astronaut?
		   Re: How to become an astronaut?
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 12 Apr 88 16:11:36 GMT
From: thumper!karn@faline.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: Moon or Mars? Editorial in _Air & Space Smithsonian_

I asked my friend at NASA Goddard, Dr. Thomas Clark, about the radio
astronomy satellites I mentioned earlier. Here is his reply. Note the
*big* advantage zero gravity had in constructing large antennas.

Phil
------------------------

The satellite was Radio Astronomy Explorer-B which flew circa 1971.
RAE-A & B were the largest satellites ever flown. From the central body
(roughly a 1M tub) were deployed 6 long booms. 4 of them were 750' long
each, with the 'up' and 'down' pairs constituting long terminated vee
antennas; thus the 'height' was 1500', taller than the Empire State
building. The included angle on each vee was about 25 deg (I could get
the exact figure if it is needed). At an angle approximately 60 deg to
the plane of the 'X' made by the vee antennas was a 630' long libration
boom (similar in concept to the pole carried by a tight-rope walker).

RAE-A went into earth orbit in late 1968, and RAE-B flew circa 1971 in
lunar orbit gravitationally scaled to it's terrestrial twin.

The vee antennas were terminated by cutting the booms about 1/4 of the
way back from the tips and inserting a resistor element. Thus at freqs
where the ends segment is an odd number of quarter-wavelengths, the
termination suppresses the far-end reflection and the antenna becomes
unidirectional.  Primary observing frequencies were 1.31, 3.93, 5.55
MHz. In addition, the s/c had short, well calibrated dipoles for
non-directional radiometric measurements.

The antennas were made of Be-Cu tape about 1.5" wide, with the edges
serrated so that they locked rigidly when deployed; thus the booms were
about 0.5" in diameter. The very long booms were silvered on the outside
& blackened on the inside, and perforated with a semi-random hole
pattern to minimize differential thermal distortions; the holes let
through enuff sunlight to illuminate the 'backside' from the inside.
Needless to say, this was a gravity-gradient stabilized satellite par
excellence.

I was one of the project scientists on RAE and managed about a
half-dozen publications, mostly on the spectrum of the low-frequency
synchrotron radiation from cosmic ray electrons in our galaxy.

------------------------------

Date: 15 Apr 88 18:58:21 GMT
From: pacbell!att-ih!alberta!mnetor!utzoo!henry@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Moon or Mars? Editorial in _Air & Space Smithsonian_

>... For this purpose, you can use a small fraction of the fuel you
>would otherwise spend on taking everything down to the surface in a
>soft landing.

Don't forget to add the fuel you use in bringing materials up from the
lunar surface to orbit.  Any major facility is probably going to find it
cost-effective to use lunar materials to some extent.

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 17 Apr 88 01:47:03 GMT
From: thumper!karn@faline.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: Moon or Mars? Editorial in _Air & Space Smithsonian_

> Don't forget to add the fuel you use in bringing materials up from the
> lunar surface to orbit.  Any major facility is probably going to find
> it cost-effective to use lunar materials to some extent.

I doubt it. Despite their enormous antennas, RAE-1 and RAE-2 mass was
only about 417 and 328 kg, respectively. RAE-2 (the lunar orbiting
spacecraft) was launched on a Delta, not the exactly the largest rocket
ever built.

You can build truly enormous, extremely lightweight structures in zero-g
that would fall apart on a planetary surface.  All it takes is clever
engineering.

You know, for a group of people that keeps prodding others to use their
imaginations, the man-in-space crowd is unremarkably uncreative at
solving engineering problems. According to them, the answer to every
problem is "put a human up there". :-)

Phil

------------------------------

Date: 17 Apr 88 20:34:51 GMT
From: sun.soe.clarkson.edu!montague@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu  (Michael Montague)
Subject: Re: Moon or Mars? Editorial in _Air & Space Smithsonian_

>From article <1559@bigtex.uucp>, by james@bigtex.uucp (James Van Artsdalen):
> In article <1988Apr15.185821.804@utzoo.uucp>, henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>> Don't forget to add the fuel you use in bringing materials up from
>> the lunar surface to orbit.  Any major facility is probably going to
>> find it cost-effective to use lunar materials to some extent.

> Out of curiosity, what are a bunch of lunar rocks going to be used
> for?  I assume you're implying that a mining/manufacturing plant would
> be boosted from Earth to process the rocks into something useful.
> Won't this cost as much as the original observatory?

One possiblity to get the lunar rocks into orbit is through the use on
an electromagnetic cannon.  A small one was built at Princeton a couple
of years ago I think.  The processing plant could be designed to be
mostly self replicating.  So you boost one into orbit from earth, and
have it reproduce itself.  Now using these processing plants the lunar
rocks can be used to make a variaty of things.  Space Colonys, a space
ship to go to Mars, power satellites, and so on.  If I remember
correctly, lunar rocks consist mostly of silicon and alumnimum.  Hence,
we dont have to haul nearly as much stuff out of the earth's gravity
well.

Michael.


-- 
Internet: montague@sun.soe.clarkson.edu  |  Woody's my hero...
Bitnet: montague@CLUTX.BITNET            |  
uucp: {rpics, gould}!clutx!montague      |

------------------------------

Date: 17 Apr 88 14:34:24 GMT
From: pacbell!att-ih!chinet!bigtex!james@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (James Van Artsdalen)
Subject: Re: Moon or Mars? Editorial in _Air & Space Smithsonian_

In article <1988Apr15.185821.804@utzoo.uucp>, henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
> Don't forget to add the fuel you use in bringing materials up from the
> lunar surface to orbit.  Any major facility is probably going to find
> it cost-effective to use lunar materials to some extent.

Out of curiosity, what are a bunch of lunar rocks going to be used for?
I assume you're implying that a mining/manufacturing plant would be
boosted from Earth to process the rocks into something useful.  Won't
this cost as much as the original observatory?

James R. Van Artsdalen   ...!ut-sally!utastro!bigtex!james   "Live Free or Die"
Home: 512-346-2444 Work: 328-0282; 110 Wild Basin Rd. Ste #230, Austin TX 78746

------------------------------

Date: 18 Apr 88 14:50:30 GMT
From: mtunx!whuts!sw@rutgers.edu  (WARMINK)
Subject: Re: Moon or Mars? Editorial in _Air & Space Smithsonian_

In article <760@sun.soe.clarkson.edu>, montague@sun.soe.clarkson.edu (Michael Montague) writes:
> One possiblity to get the lunar rocks into orbit is through the use on an
> electromagnetic cannon.  A small one was built at Princeton a couple of years

The raw materials exist, and could even be 'shot' into moon orbit
cheaply, but it is quite a step to go from moon rocks to finished
product, e.g.  another processing plant or satellite, as mentioned
above. There is nothing to say it can't be done, the question is at what
cost?

Just think of all the processing involved just to get some aluminium
components: smelting, extracting the aluminium, alloying, rolling/and or
machining...and that is just one metal. It is worth considering all the
equipment necessary to build that first processing plant, then you get
an idea of just how big (and heavy, and expensive) it must be in order
to replicate itself. The processing plant may well turn out to be
heavier (since that is what matters when launching stuff) than the
finished product(s).  Is it worth it?

------------------------------

Date: 19 Apr 88 17:38:26 GMT
From: sun.soe.clarkson.edu!montague@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu  (Michael Montague)
Subject: Re: Moon or Mars? Editorial in _Air & Space Smithsonian_

>From article <4164@whuts.UUCP>, by sw@whuts.UUCP (WARMINK):
> another processing plant or satellite, as mentioned above. There is
> nothing to say it can't be done, the question is at what cost?

Agreed.

> Just think of all the processing involved just to get some aluminium
> components: smelting, extracting the aluminium, alloying, rolling/and

But there are a couple of things to remember.  Big in space does not
necessarily mean expensive.  Without any gravity (or very little), many
new processing techniques will probably be developed.  Perhaps these
would not be as expensive or require as much heavy material to do as the
corresponding earth bound process would.  In the long run, I think that
it would be much cheaper to use materials from the moon (and asteroids
etc.)  rather than continue to haul everything up from earth.

Michael.

Internet: montague@sun.soe.clarkson.edu 
Bitnet: montague@CLUTX.BITNET

------------------------------

Date: 20 Apr 88 08:06:01 GMT
From: linus!utzoo!henry@husc6.harvard.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Moon or Mars? Editorial in _Air & Space Smithsonian_

> > ... Any major facility is probably going to find it cost-effective
> > to use lunar materials to some extent.
> 
> I doubt it. Despite their enormous antennas, RAE-1 and RAE-2 mass was
> only about 417 and 328 kg, respectively...

Phil, when I say "major facility", I am not talking about a few hundred
kilos of satellite with long antennas.  However useful the results from
RAE-[12] were, Arecibo they were not.  There is a limit to how lightly
you can build a structure that is exposed to tidal forces and periodic
reboost.  RAE-[12] were an extreme best case, not a typical one.

> You know, for a group of people that keeps prodding others to use
> their imaginations, the man-in-space crowd is unremarkably uncreative
> at solving engineering problems. According to them, the answer to
> every problem is "put a human up there". :-)

You know, for a group of people that claims to be forward-looking, the
"keep space for the robots" crowd is remarkably short-sighted in their
notion of what "major" facilities and missions are.  According to them,
the answer to every problem is "why should we worry, our current mission
won't run into it". :-)

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 10 Apr 88 19:01:38 GMT
From: killer!bigtex!james@AMES.ARC.NASA.GOV  (James Van Artsdalen)
Subject: Re: How to become an astronaut?

IN article <397@cascade.STANFORD.EDU>, bhayes@cascade.STANFORD.EDU (Barry Hayes) wrote:
> [...] She will have spent seven years of her life getting ready for a
> seven day mission.  I want to go into space, but I don't think I'd be
> willing to trade seven years for it.

Owen Garriott, who recently retired, spent nearly twenty years as an
astronaut and flew only two missions.  And that considering there
weren't nearly as many astronauts back then.  The current crop will be
lucky to *average* seven years.

James R. Van Artsdalen   ...!ut-sally!uastro!bigtex!james    "Live Free or Die"
Home: 512-346-2444 Work: 328-0282; 110 Wild Basin Rd. Ste #230, Austin TX 78746

------------------------------

Date: 10 Apr 88 03:13:05 GMT
From: clyde!watmath!utgpu!utzoo!henry@bellcore.bellcore.com  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: How to become an astronaut?

These are strictly my own thoughts and opinions; I have no special
pipeline into NASA.  However, I'd be surprised if any of this was far
wrong.

First and most important, you must realize that THE CONCEPT OF "ROUTINE
ACCESS TO SPACE" IS DEAD.  In the West, anyway.  For at least the near
future, and probably for a long time unless one of the less orthodox
private launch firms is wildly successful.  That means that if you want
to go into space, you have to work for the government.  There will be a
*few* non-government people in space, but that's not the way to bet if
you want to maximize your chances.

There are two ways to go: pilot and mission specialist.  If you want to
become a pilot astronaut, you're going to have to become a military
pilot first.  No exceptions.  You need lots of fast-jet time, and there
is no civilian way to get that.  Yes, there are a few civilian fast-jet
jobs...  but military pilot training is pretty much a prerequisite for
getting one of them.  Neil Armstrong was a civilian test pilot when he
became an astronaut, but he learned to fly in the military.

Okay, so you want to become a mission specialist.  The important thing
to realize here is that there are few openings and many, many
applicants.  It is not enough to be able to do the job.  Probably most
of the people reading this could; I'm pretty sure I could.  You have to
be better than all the other people trying for the job.  This means
being better in a lot of silly, irrelevant ways, as well as the ones
that matter.  NASA's problem is not selecting qualified people, it's
weeding out all but a few of the qualified ones; most any excuse will
do.  You have to avoid giving them an excuse to weed YOU out.

For example, you will need a PhD.  Not because it has diddly-squat to
do with being an astronaut -- it pretty much doesn't -- but because a
lot of your competitors have PhDs.

You should obviously be in good physical condition, with no obvious
medical disqualifications.  In particular, look at group pictures of
astronauts and note how few of them wear glasses.  (John Young wore
glasses to land Columbia on STS-1, but he *didn't* wear them when he
was picked to be an astronaut many years ago!)

You should be good at public speaking.  Partly because astronauts get a
lot of media attention and NASA wants people who will cope well.  The
big reason, though, is that you're going to have to sell yourself to
NASA's selection people, against lots of competition.

Similarly, you should be of orthodox appearance.  I usually wear my hair
somewhat long, and am seldom seen in anything but T-shirt and bluejeans.
Not atypical for Usenet readers, I suspect.  But that's not the image
you want to project to become an astronaut.  What you want is the
rising-young-executive look, respectable and orthodox.  Same reason:
you've got a tough selling job to do, and your appearance will influence
people.  Likewise, you don't want a lot of weird behavior conspicuously
on record.  Save that for *after* you qualify! :-)

Along related lines, a career as an astronaut has a pretty good chance
of requiring a security clearance sooner or later.  (Maybe right away,
I'm not sure.)  It shouldn't be hard to think of things you should avoid
if you want to qualify for one.  Security clearances are not like
criminal charges: conclusive proof of guilt is NOT required.

If you aren't a US citizen, either become one or forget it.

Getting back to education, you want hands-on background in a hands-on
field.  Forget theory; the theoreticians will stay on the ground.
Forget computer programming too; programming can and will be done on the
ground.  Pick something in engineering or experimental science, and get
your hands dirty a lot.

Get a pilot's license and fly a lot.  Officially this does not matter
for mission specialists.  In practice NASA is known to be prejudiced in
favor of pilots for *all* astronaut jobs.

Go to work for NASA.  The pay is not great and the job security probably
won't be either, but NASA is known to have a *strong* prejudice in favor
of NASA employees.  This one they even admit to, if pressed.

Think space, especially when you're actually trying to qualify.  If they
ask you what sort of animal you'd like to be reincarnated as, if you had
to pick one (this is said to be a standard question), pick a soaring
bird even if you would really prefer to be a man-eating tiger.  If they
ask you for an essay on one of several topics, and only one of them is
about space, that's the one you pick.  And so on.  NASA wants highly
motivated people, remember.

Finally, keep trying.  Quite a few of the current astronauts didn't get
in on their first try.

Being lucky wouldn't hurt, either.

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #206
*******************

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Date: Sun, 1 May 88 03:24:33 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8805011024.AA27057@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #207

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 207

Today's Topics:
		   Re: How to become an astronaut?
		   Re: How to become an astronaut?
		   Re: How to become an astronaut?
		   Re: Jesse Jackson's space policy
	      Fwd: NASA decides on shuttle escape system
		   Advertisement from Aviation Leak
       Optical Processing and Space Station Automation Query...
	   Re: network special interest groups (sf-lovers)
		   Re: Jesse Jackson's space policy
			 Re: Superconductors
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 11 Apr 88 07:24:50 GMT
From: thumper!karn@faline.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: How to become an astronaut?

To all you people dreaming and scheming about how to get yourselves into
space:  How about sublimating some of that energy into projects that are
actually going to fly, not just in your lifetimes but in the next few
years?

There are several small, informal organizations that specialize in
giving ANYONE with the necessary technical skills and time to volunteer
an opportunity to contribute directly to the design, construction and
operation of a real live satellite in earth orbit.  The best known such
organization is AMSAT, the Radio Amateur Satellite folks. AMSAT has
major spacecraft development groups in West Germany and the US, and
affiliated organizations all over the world. To date, two satellites in
the Phase III series were built and launched (with one launch failure)
and a third is ready to go up on the first Ariane 4 in about 6 weeks.

In the past decade several newer organizations have established their
own track records. The University of Surrey in the UK, Weber State
College in Utah, the Japanese national ham radio organization and at
least two separate groups in the USSR have all successfully designed and
built, with volunteer labor, small satellites of their own that were
carried into orbit by various existing launchers (Delta, Shuttle, H-1,
etc).

So... for those of you who are getting tired of sitting around, reading
sci-fi, listening to tapes of old L-5 speeches, waiting for Super Saver
fares to be announced on the shuttle... why not get involved in actually
DOING something! It may not sound very exciting to be able to say that
my finger prints are on something in earth orbit that I helped build and
operate, but believe me, it is to me.

If you're interested, write to

AMSAT
PO Box 27
Washington, DC 20044

and offer your services. We're working on quite a few projects right now
-- the Phase 3-C launch I mentioned earlier, a low-altitude
store-and-forward packet radio project that has gained quite a bit of
momentum in the past half year with the appearance of some launch
opportunities, and Phase 4, an ambitious plan for one or more
geostationary repeater satellites.  AMSAT news items are regularly
carried on the rec.ham-radio USENET group. Join us!

Phil Karn, KA9Q
Asst VP Engineering, AMSAT

------------------------------

Date: 20 Apr 88 11:32:07 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!its63b!bob@uunet.uu.net  (ERCF08 Bob Gray)
Subject: Re: How to become an astronaut?

In article <1988Apr10.031305.24364@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>If you aren't a US citizen, either become one or forget it.

There are other astronauts than American citizens you know.

You could become a West German or French citizen. ESA's manned
spaceflight programme has it's first flight scheduled for 1996. (on the
Hermes shuttle).

A number of other ESA member states also have astronaut training
programmes.

But.... There aren't many manned missions planned yet, and the last I
heard, no-one is recruiting any more astronauts at present. The current
group of astronauts will probably supply all the crew for Columbus too.

The rest of the posting still applies. You would need VERY good
qualifications.

Side note: One of the main characters in a recent BBC TV series, STAR
COPS, was an ex-NASA astronaut who joined ESA.  He didn't like the
military dominance of the US space programme.  The series is set in the
late 2020s. Very good series.
	Bob.

------------------------------

Date: 23 Apr 88 05:07:11 GMT
From: nuchat!splut!stu@uunet.uu.net  (Stewart Cobb)
Subject: Re: How to become an astronaut?

> >If you aren't a US citizen, either become one or forget it.
> 
> There are other astronauts than American citizens you know.
> 
> You could become a West German or French citizen. ESA's manned
> spaceflight programme has it's first flight scheduled for 1996. (on
> the Hermes shuttle).

Not only that.  We have flown non-citizens on our shuttle.

Salman Al-Saud, Saudi Arabia, 51-G
Patrick Baudry, France, 51-G
  (he has also flown a Russian mission!)
Mark Garneau, Canada, 41-G
Rienhard Furrer, West Germany, 61-A
Ulf Merbold, West Germany, STS-9
Wubbo Ockels, West Germany, 61-A

The above is a partial list, compiled from a report to Congress:
Astronauts and Cosmonauts Biographical and Statistical Data (revised
June 28, 1985)

Check your local GPO bookstore...

-Stu

-- 
| Stewart Cobb    (Hacking GNC for STS)  ... sun!housun!nuchat!splut!stu
| N5JXE @ KA5KTH or WB5BBW             ... seismo!soma!uhnix1 /
| << Insert the usual disclaimer >>  ... hoptoad!academ /
| Sattinger's Law:  It works better if you plug it in.

------------------------------

Date: 10 Apr 88 03:55:31 GMT
From: clyde!watmath!utgpu!utzoo!henry@bellcore.bellcore.com  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Jesse Jackson's space policy

> ... There's
> much you can conclude about a satellite's capabilities just by applying
> some elementary physics. (This may come as a big shock, especially to
> you SDI fans, but making a project secret and giving it an unlimited
> budget doesn't exempt it from the laws of physics...

One should be a *little* cautious when making such statements, however.
The laws of physics, our current understanding of them, and a specific
person's interpretation of them are three different things, and only the
first is guaranteed to be immune to the effects of money and effort.
There are plenty of historical examples of predictions based on the latter
two going down in flames, sometimes fairly promptly.  While there is much
that can be *guessed* about a satellite's capabilities just by applying
elementary physics, there is always room for doubt about whether somebody
has found a clever way around the rules.  Reading the manual is better!
-- 
"Noalias must go.  This is           |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
non-negotiable."  --DMR              | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 11 Apr 88 07:18:49 -0400 (EDT)
From: Michael Sclafani <sclafani+@andrew.cmu.edu>
X-Andrew-Message-Size: 2514+0
Subject: Fwd: NASA decides on shuttle escape system

------------------------------
Forwarded message begins here:
------------------------------

From: kroon@alice.UUCP
Newsgroups: rec.skydiving
Subject: NASA decides on shuttle escape system
Message-ID: <7800@alice.UUCP>
Date: 8 Apr 88 14:05:29 GMT
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill NJ

NASA has decided that on future shuttle flights, each shuttle will be
equipped with a telescoping pole, to make it easy to bail out.
The pole escape method was chosen over an alternative that would have used
rockets to propel the crew away from the shuttle in an emergency.
By sliding down the pole, the astronauts would clear the
shuttle's tail before parachuting into the sea, NASA says.
The telescoping pole was selected as it has shown to be safer,
simpler to operate, lighter weight and easier to support than the
tractor rocket system.
A NASA spokeswoman, said the 10-foot pole already is being installed in
 Discovery and will be ready for the first flight, scheduled for Aug. 4.
The aluminum and steel pole weighs 241 pounds, 70 pounds lighter
than the rocket system.
If the shuttle had to ditch _ either on an aborted launching or on return
from space _ the pole would be extended out the side hatch and the crew would
attach themselves to it with rings on their parachutes and slide
down, one at a time.
During launch and landing, the unextended pole will be pointed
toward the hatch. It will be stowed while the shuttle is in orbit.
Engineers say the new escape system cannot be used while the
shuttle is connected to the rockets.
NASA already has replaced the spacecraft's hatch so it can be jettisoned
with explosive bolts and it is installing a partial pressure suit,
oxygen equipment, a parachute, a life raft and survival equipment for each
crew member.
Under the rocket system, the astronauts would have to jettison
the hatch, and, one-by-one, lie on a metal ramp that slanted out
the door. Each one would have to attach a line to a small rocket
housed in an adjacent rack and be pulled out.
The pole system was tested in February and March, using a fixed
pole that extended through a hatch-like opening in a C-141 cargo
plane. Navy parachutists completed 66 jumps, using cords attached
to their parachute harnesses to slide down the pole and descend to
a safe landing.
NASA said the side hatch jettison system can also be helpful if
an emergency should require a quick crew exit once the ship is on
the ground. The new hatch contains an escape slide similar to those
on commercial airliners.

------------------------------

Date: 10 Apr 88 21:12:00 GMT
From: necntc!frog!john@ames.arpa  (John Woods, Software)
Subject: Advertisement from Aviation Leak

The following advertisement (quoted only in part) appeared in the 29 February
Aviation Week and Space Technology:

``       Count Us Among The Movers and Shakers In Space

Mitsubishi Electric is certainly a mover.  Witness our ion engine.  Weighing
in at a modest 3kg [that, of course, should be "massing in" :-], it provides
ultra-reliable long-term power out of all proportion to its size, for precise
positioning and orientation.  Maybe one day a scaled up version will power
the first flight to the stars.  Count on us being there, too.
...''

Yeah, and count on the US to be a complete third-world backwater by that
time...

--
John Woods, Charles River Data Systems, Framingham MA, (617) 626-1101
...!decvax!frog!john, ...!mit-eddie!jfw, jfw@eddie.mit.edu

FUN:  THE FINAL FRONTIER
Zippy the Pinhead in '88!

------------------------------

Date: 11 Apr 88 18:46:04 GMT
From: bobw@boulder.colorado.edu  (Bob Wald)
Subject: Optical Processing and Space Station Automation Query...

Hi There!
I'm writing a graduate term paper for a class entitled "Fourier
Optics and Optical Computing" as an *overview* of applicable
optical technologies deemed useful for space station automation.
Emphasis on intelligent optical pattern recognition and optical
control processing, optical or electro-optical computing ideas,
fiber optic and laser communications, possible avenues for the
optical  interconnection of these, as well as advantages of optics over
electronics in this environment etc. will(hopefully) be addressed.

If possible, could you please reply thru net mail to the above
address on any *readily obtainable* references which may be of 
help. (I am told our library has a fair amount of NASA material,
as well as many of the technical optical journals...)
Many thanks in advance!
Bob

------------------------------

Sender: "Jo_M._Anselm.henr801E"@xerox.com
Date: 11 Apr 88 06:32:27 PDT (Monday)
Subject: Re: network special interest groups (sf-lovers)
From: "Jo_M._Anselm.henr801E"@xerox.com

I guess it's a good thing you're concerned about the future of newsgroups, but
you should look harder at the date of that issue.  The moderator upholds a
sacred tradition, and would probably be delighted by your response.

------------------------------

Date: 10 Apr 88 19:28:06 GMT
From: phri!dasys1!tbetz@nyu.edu  (Tom Betz)
Subject: Re: Jesse Jackson's space policy

In article <776@td2cad.intel.com>, jreece@td2cad.intel.com (John Reece ) writes:
> 
> It should be pointed out here that Jesse Jackson was one of number of
> sign-carrying protestors on hand at Kennedy to protest the space program
> during the launch of Apollo 11....
> 
> John Reece

d

d

Jesse Jackson was a very young man then, and saw the Moon program for the 
wasteful and short-term project that it was.  Had we been engaged in slowly
pushing forward the frontiers as the Soviets have instead of blowinbg all our
capital on trips to the moon, we'd have permanent bases there now, and be on 
our way to Mars.   If I knew then what I know now about what Nixon's plans 
for the space program were (slow, lingering death, because it was started by
Kennedy, a man he hated) I'd have been out there on the picket lines as well.
-- 
Tom Betz                        {allegra,philabs,cmcl2}!phri\
Big Electric Cat Public Unix           {bellcore,cmcl2}!cucard!dasys1!tbetz
New York, NY, USA                               {sun}!hoptoad/

------------------------------

Date: 11 Apr 88 21:59:25 GMT
From: weltyc@nisc.nyser.net  (Christopher A. Welty)
Subject: Re: Superconductors

In article <2422@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> sjmoon@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Sang J. Moon) writes:
>
>I may be treading a beaten path, but I would like to know what uses
>the present or future space program has for superconductors.  (Not
>only in this country)
>

	Supercondictivity does have very exciting prospects, in and
out of space.  But it is difficult to get around all the hype.  Here
is what this months Nasa Tech Briefs says about what NASA is doing:

First of all there is a clear advantage to space applications, the
current superconductors can be used since space is cold enough (just keep
it away from direct sunlight...), so many of these do not need to wait
for the mythical "room temperature superconductor".

Sensors:  Nasa plans to use the new ceramics to improve the detection
range of space-born sensors.  NASA Marshall  is researching using a
`superconducting quantum interference device' (SQUID) which will be
used on `deep space gravity probes'.  NASA JPL is working on
superconducting-insulating-superconducting (sounds like a Josephine (sp?)
Junction) junction for atmospheric remote sensing satellites, which
would be ten times more sensitive than current models.  

Power and Propulsion: Current battery systems for the Shuttle and
other spacecraft are quite limited.  Superconducting batteries are
being ressearched at NASA Lewis for extending space missions and the
lifetimes of space probes.  Also electromagnetic launchers are
beginning to look feasible.

Space shield: [this sounds incredible, but I don't know...] Apparently
NASA Lewis is also looking into the feasibility of a superconducting
magnet being used as a heat shield.  If the magnetic feild was intense
enough, and concentrated at the front of a reentering spacecraft, it
would keep the hot, ionized gases away from the craft...[wow]

Although we're probably all familiar with the problems that the
current superconductors have (especially current density), apparently
NASA IS working and researching this stuff for space applications.
There was no mention as to when they thought any of this would come
about, and it may very well be (although I'm not really qualified to
say) that this is all just pie in the sky kind of thinking....


Christopher Welty  ---  Asst. Director, RPI CS Labs
weltyc@cs.rpi.edu       ...!rutgers!nysernic!weltyc

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #207
*******************

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Date: Mon, 2 May 88 03:32:34 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8805021032.AA28496@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #208

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 208

Today's Topics:
			   Libertarians...
			   Next Year in L5!
		   National Space Society "Policy"
	becoming an astronaut (additional comment to Henry's)
		      Quoting without permission
    Re: space news from March 7 AW&ST (Defense of James van Allen)
	   Re: remote sensing of Mars and private industry
		   Re: Jesse Jackson's space policy
			    Re: Antimatter
			     Ride Reports
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 12 Apr 88 09:23:52 EST
From: laura@vax.darpa.mil
Posted-Date: Tue, 12 Apr 88 09:23:52 EST
To: laura@vax.darpa.mil, space@angband.s1.gov

>From: BOWERYJ%CPVA.SAINET.MFENET@nmfecc.arpa
>Phil Karn speaks of humanity "re-evolve"ing space flight capability
>thousands of years after a nuclear war.  Unfortunately, there is reason
>to believe that humanity is living out its only chance to develop
>a space-faring civilization right now.  The reason for this is that
>hydrothermal ore formation processes are inherently very slow and cannot
>be sped up without an economy of energy production far in excess of even
>the fringe ideas of Joseph Newman with his "energy machine" let alone
>the wildest claims of more mainstream fusion energy researchers.  We
>are chewing up critical ores at a million times their formation rate
>and are not likely to find substitutes for all materials which sit
>at critical junctures of a space-faring civilization's technology.
 
>In short, if we, the baby-boomers blow it, we may doom terrestrial life
>to remain, forever, terrestrial.

I've heard this sort of statement before, and I really think it is 
exaggerated. The human race is far more flexible and inventive than
this gives it credit for. There seems to be a presumption here that
humans will drag themselves up from the wood burning stage, look    
around, say "Ooops! No fossil fuels! Guess that's that!" and stay
farmers forever. There are plant-based fuels, you know. They may
not be optimal, but neither is oil. 

It's rather like those people who look at the universe, point out
all the various delicate balances which allow life and intelligence
to exist, and say "[insert divine/non-divine force of your choice]
must have designed this for us!" This ignores the fact that in universes
where such balances were off, there wouldn't be any life around to 
see them...

This is a word for this sort of thinking (what is actually one of   
multiple paths looks singular and inevitable to those on it), and
I can't remember it.  Any help?
 
Laura Burchard
laura@vax.darpa.mil

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 12 Apr 88 09:48:43 CDT
From: sedspace@doc.cc.utexas.edu (Steve Abrams)
Posted-Date: Tue, 12 Apr 88 09:48:43 CDT
Subject: Libertarians...


>From Keith Lynch...

"Dale Amon does not speak for the Libertarian party.  I have asked him
more than once to change his stance or to stop calling himself a
libertarian."

In all my conversations with Dale, he has *NEVER* come across as trying to represent the Libertarian Party.  He usually , through words or buttons, indicates 
that he is a *member* of the Libertarian Party, but I've never heard him lay claim to *representing* the Party.  Also, I should like to remind Keith that
membership in an organization doesn't automatically mean that one supports all that party's platform.  Dale should not have to "change his stance or to stop calling himself a
libertarian."  Constructive criticism is what makes organizations strong and any group 
group that, as you imply, asks members to resign rather than voice opposing viewpoints is certainly not worth my support.

					Steve Abrams

------------------------------

Date: 11 Apr 88 23:00:09 GMT
From: amdahl!drivax!macleod@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (MacLeod)
Subject: Next Year in L5!

During the Passover season I was reading soc.culture.jewish and I was 
impressed all over again by the faith of the Jews in returning to the
Promised Land.  It occurred to me that those who dream of living in space
would do well to cultivate the same faith and patience and belief in
the future, though we should not have to wait as long.  So, inspired by
their example, let us say to each other, to refresh our spirits,

Next Year in L5!

Michael Sloan MacLeod    amdahl!drivax!macleod

------------------------------

Date: 	  Tue, 12 Apr 88 09:48:50 PDT
From: BOWERYJ%CPVA.SAINET.MFENET@nmfecc.arpa

Subject: National Space Society "Policy"
Date:    Tue, 12-APR-1988 09:50 PDT
X-VMS-Mail-To: SPACE

Dale Amon excuses his call for lobbying to obtain full NASA funding by
claiming he was obligated to act in an official capacity for the National
Space Society.  This is false.  Neither Dale, nor ANY board member, is
obligated to act in an official capacity on this network.  I verified
this fact in a conversation with Glen Wilson who stated while it is
desirable for board members to show solidarity when they speak for the
National Space Society, there is no obligation for them to speak for the
National Space Society in any official capacity.

The real question is this:  Why does Dale work against the establishment
of a spacefaring civilization by espousing views which are against that
aim which he is not obligated to espouse?

Further, since the Legislative Committee of the National Space Society
refuses to accept and circulate input from members of the Society (speaking
from personal experience and the experience of others who have tried on
many occasions) the current "policy" statements are nothing more than
the personal positions of the members of the Legislative Committee, primarily
Sandra Adamson (who receives income from the Space Station program),
Scott Pace (Rand Corporation) and Mark Hopkins (Rand Corporation).  These
individuals also have close ties with the political action organizations
SpacePac and SpaceCause, upon which NSS has been made finanically dependent
and which, themselves, are dependent on the Aerospace Industries Advisory
Council -- an arm of the aerospace establishment used to launder lobbying
money and thus get around the Ethics in Government Act (Hatch Act).

I am running for the board of directors the the National Space Society so
that I can work to rid our organization of these corrupting influences,
restore the Society to its appropriate focus on apolitical educational
activities and begin to represent the MEMBERSHIP rather than the views
of a few NASA lackies.  Dale should immediately cease espousing the views
of these individuals and stand up for what he believes is right.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 12 Apr 88 16:14:02 pdt
From: Eugene N. Miya <eugene@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov>
Subject: becoming an astronaut (additional comment to Henry's)


DUMB MAIL SYSTEMS!

I tried to send this as mail, but it did not get thru.
If you expect a reply, start placing return addresses in the bottoms
of your notes.

>Well, gee, what do you want to know?  Let's break this down.
>
>1) Learn how to fly. (Fun spare time activity)
>2) Learn some empirical science: aeronautics, astronomy, geology,
>materials, etc.
>
>Anything else?
>Learn patience, discipline, get into physical shape.
>
>>From the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:

Henry is generally correct and fair to what he posted.
Any ways to correct or add to some of the things Henry has said.

First off, it has not in the past really helped to be a NASA employee.
USAF, definitely, but in the 8th and beyond call for astronauts,
they specifically were weeded out.  The change came around the 10th call
when outside mission specialists started to come in.  It turned out a
few were inside and this gave some advantage, but the advantage was
slight.  Several astronauts have flown without PhDs.  What's his name
from Hughes killed on the Challenger was one of several.  BUT get a PhD
it helps.

Several foreign astronauts have flown.  In fact in some ways, if you can
get into the early stages of a foreign country's space program, we have
some advantages (PR).  There is an impressive list of foreign astronaut
material in the bi-yearly Congressional report.  Mostly, you
have to have patience.
	
	--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA
	  "You trust the `reply' command with all those different mailers out there?"
	  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."
	  {uunet,hplabs,hao,ihnp4,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 12 Apr 88 18:13:16 pdt
From: Eugene N. Miya <eugene@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov>
Subject: Quoting without permission

Too many postings, I'm going to lose respect.

Anyway, I would like to make a comment that I think too many network
discussions get away with murder by posting articles, quotations,
and other material by other folks.  Well, I'm being a bit harsh, but
I hope you get my point.  I want to encourage you guys to seek
permission to use material that you get from other sources.  Yes, it
will take a bit longer, but it's a better learning experience for you.
It will give you a chance to communicate with some great as well as some
not so great thinkers.  It's too easy to misinterpret based on short snipetts
of material.  So stop it.  Check your sources, and talk to some of these
guys before you "post without seeking permission."  You might learn
something to add to it.

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA
  "You trust the `reply' command with all those different mailers out there?"
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."
  {uunet,hplabs,hao,ihnp4,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene

------------------------------

Date: 12 Apr 88 18:19:40 GMT
From: pioneer!eugene@AMES.ARC.NASA.GOV  (Eugene N. Miya)
Subject: Re: space news from March 7 AW&ST (Defense of James van Allen)

In article <1988Apr11.020249.8269@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>Most of the rest of the letter column is criticism of Van Allen's latest
>epistle.  "Thanks to men with the Proxmire/Van Allen viewpoint, we have
>no coherent space program today..."

James van Allen is hardily in the same category as Proxmire.  The
problem comes from the political and social motivations for going into
space.  There is a tendency to believe that "going into space"
constitutes "science" like "space science" is naively a part of
"astronomy."

Dr. van Allen and many others are the people responsible for keeping the
SCIENCE in space and not just the political hype of sending people up.
I would not blame van Allen that there is no coherent space policy, 
I can see few coherent policies anywhere in Government (economic
trade, research, education, even the military ;-).  Perhaps we need two
(correction three) space programs: military, civilian political (for
those who need firsts) and civilian science. 8-) [I know some would
argue we have this already.]

Added note: mail is getting especially bad.  Please add a return address
to your signatures otherwise, don't expect replies.  Also I want to try
and assemble a set of most asked questions (things we will see again and
again, like "why not use expended Shuttle tanks for something?")
I will post and we can iterate (when I get some time).

>From the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA
  "You trust the `reply' command with all those different mailers out there?"
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."
  {uunet,hplabs,hao,ihnp4,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene

------------------------------

Date: 12 Apr 88 15:24:28 GMT
From: ihnp4!ihlpa!animal@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (D. Starr)
Subject: Re: remote sensing of Mars and private industry


[Plot summary to this point:  I said (among other things) that the right
way to do a manned Mars mission would include farming out all the pre-flight
surveys of Mars (e.g, Mars Observer and followups) to private remote-
sensing firms such as Spot.  Mike Caplinger, who I infer works on MO, 
noted the advances in the MO camera, and that it's being built by universities
and private industry, so what was I complaining about?  Besides, he added,
Spot is subsidized by the French government.  

If you need to know more, consult the earlier postings.]

Perhaps my original point didn't come through clearly enough.  I was trying
to say that even a one-shot Mars mission could be of long-term benefit if 
each step along the way had as a goal (equal in importance to reaching Mars)
helping to develop a private, non-governmental presence in space.  In the
area of pre-flight surveying, I would contract out the entire job to some
remote-sensing company with adequate technology.  Right now Spot is about
the closest thing to what I'd want; its subsidy from the French government is
unfortnate, but it's better than having the whole job *performed* by an 
agency of the US government.  

Note that I said I'd contract out the *whole* job; I'd be buying not a camera
or a spacecraft; I'd be buying *pictures*.  It would be up to the contractor
to decide what kind of cameras to use, the design and number of spacecraft and
how they'd get to Mars.  As I see it, if a remote-sensing outfit's already
got a spacecraft that can operate for a few years in Earth orbit (Spot had,
I believe, demonstrated this capability) and can find a subcontractor able to
deliver to the vicinity of Mars (something Arianespace seems to have 
demonstrated with Giotto--not the same location, but the same kind of job),
the remaining problems (primarily communication-related) should be well 
within the grasp of a private company, and as such the government has no 
business running the survey task itself.
  
This is a *lot* different from MO, where the contractors deliver 
cameras and components to be put on a spacecraft specified (if not designed)
by a government agency, to be sent to Mars and operated by a government
agency.  Now, I'd assume that MO has scientific purposes beyond just mapping
Mars well enough to permit a landing.  That research does still seem to be
within the context of what a government, but I don't see it as justifiying
the government staying in the business of building and launching spacecraft:
they should be saying "we have this experimental equipment, it weighs this
much, consumes this much power, needs this kind of support; we're taking 
bids for the service of providing support and delivery to Mars orbit."

------------------------------

Date: 12 Apr 88 16:22:06 GMT
From: avsd!govett@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (David Govett)
Subject: Re: Jesse Jackson's space policy

> In article <776@td2cad.intel.com>, jreece@td2cad.intel.com (John Reece ) writes:
> > 
> > It should be pointed out here that Jesse Jackson was one of number of
> > sign-carrying protestors on hand at Kennedy to protest the space program
> > during the launch of Apollo 11....
> > 
> Jesse Jackson was a very young man then, and saw the Moon program for the 
> wasteful and short-term project that it was.  Had we been engaged in slowly
> pushing forward the frontiers as the Soviets have instead of blowinbg all our
> capital on trips to the moon, we'd have permanent bases there now, and be on 
> our way to Mars.   If I knew then what I know now about what Nixon's plans 
> for the space program were (slow, lingering death, because it was started by
> Kennedy, a man he hated) I'd have been out there on the picket lines as well.

If Ronald Reagan had been the one picketing the launch of Apollo 11,
would you say the same thing?  I think not.  I think you are being
hypocritical.

Isn't it funny how easy it is to minimize the actions of anyone
if you support them?  JJ can do no wrong in your eyes.  I've got
news for you.  If you think the space program has suffered over
the past twenty years, it's nothing compared to what JJ would try
to do if he were elected.  He'd try to spend the entire NASA and DOD 
budgets on the one special interest group he represents, and say to hell 
with America's future in space.  Sure, I know what his speech writers say,
but I don't believe that self-serving posturing for a second.

------------------------------

Date: Wed 13 Apr 88 10:53:55-PDT
From: MATTHEWS%ASD.SPAN@star.stanford.edu
Subject: Re: Antimatter

Henry Spencer writes:

> Do you have any idea how much antimatter is going to *cost*?!?

About $1M per milligram, according to the quoted Av Week article, using a 
facility comparable to the Superconducting Supercollider. Current (or near 
future) costs run more like $10M/milligram.

According to my calculations (which may be off by an order of magnitude or so), 
it takes about 7.5 grams of antimatter to equal the energy release of a one-
megaton H-bomb.  So, you'd be looking at about $7.5 Billion per megaton at 
production efficiencies we'd be likely to get by the turn of the century... 
not exactly cost competitive with old-fashioned fusion technology.

Considering the much more cost-effective uses to which such a rare commodity 
could be put, I would think that the last thing they would want to do with 
antimatter is use it to blow something up...
.............................................................................
Disclaimer: I speak only for myself, not for my employer.

Mike Matthews                   ARPANet:  MATTHEWS%ASD.SPAN@STAR.STANFORD.EDU
Lockheed-EMSCO                     SPAN:  ASD::MATTHEWS
Houston, Texas

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 13 Apr 1988 14:05-EDT 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Ride Reports

For those who are NSS members, it might be worth calling the DC office
to see if they have any in stock. I'd be surprised if they didn't have
some for sale.

Also, there was a second printing.

If worst comes to worst, you might try directly contacting the Office
of Exploration, since they are the ultimate source of the book.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #208
*******************

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Date: Tue, 3 May 88 03:29:41 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8805031029.AA00653@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #209

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 209

Today's Topics:
	    Re: ``Soviet Space Trash Light Up Texas Sky''
		 Antimatter and request for M. Wiener
		   Re: Jesse Jackson's space policy
      Re: becoming an astronaut (additional comment to Henry's)
	    Re: greenhouse effect / solar power satellites
			    Re: Antimatter
		Mir predictions and more mail trouble
			 Re: Superconductors
			    Re: Antimatter
		  Re: space news from March 14 AW&ST
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 12 Apr 88 19:09:58 GMT
From: cu-den!udenva!isis!scicom!wats@boulder.colorado.edu  (Bruce Watson)
Subject: Re: ``Soviet Space Trash Light Up Texas Sky''

In article <46@canopus.UUCP>, joe@hanauma.stanford.edu (Joe Dellinger,ESMB 471,7230463,4153244824) writes:
> 
> as it reentered the atmosphere over San Antonio, said Lt Col Ivan Pinnell,
> a spokesman for NORAD.
> Any way to predict such events? And to think I flew back to CA on
 
Me too!

Ivan Pinnell must be the public relations officer.  This would be a good
task for someone on the NET in colo Spgs (local call) to call him
regularly and submit the info for the rest of us curious skywatchers.

------------------------------

Date:     Wed, 13 Apr 88 15:36 CDT
From: Bill Higgins,
        Beam Jockey <HIGGINS%FNALE.BITNET@cornellc.ccs.cornell.edu>
Subject:  Antimatter and request for M. Wiener
Original_To:  SPACE

Readers should be aware that over here in the Bitnet cave we see only the
shadows of Usenet dancing on the wall.  In other words, we read those messages
gatewayed from sci.space into Arpanet and concatenated by Ted Anderson into the
Space Digest.  (Kind souls on Arpanet mail the Digest into the Bitnet world,
where friendly robots redistribute copies of it.) This means we don't get to
read *every* message that percolates across Usenet, though we seem to read most
of them.

An example of this is Matthew P. Wiener's recent discussion with Henry Spencer
on the military uses of antimatter.

--First Dale Amon's announcement about the Aviation Week piece (21 May 1988
issue, page 19) appeared.  (Space Digest #178, 31 March).

--Some days later we got Matthew's response to Dale's report (Space
Digest #187, 11 April).

--Then Matthew's response to Henry's criticism of his posting (Space Digest
#188, 12 April).  This included a vague reference to a *Science* article that
Matthew had cited to the Arms-Control Digest last year.

--Henry's criticism appeared a day later (Space Digest #189, 13 April).

I knew if I was patient, I would eventually see the whole correspondence.

Since I'm having trouble reaching him directly, I'd like to ask Matthew Wiener
here to post the reference to the *Science* piece on antimatter and the
military.

The way the Usenet-Internet link works, the posting you are now reading
probably appeared on Usenet several days before I wrote it...(-:

                         ______meson      Bill Higgins
                      _-~
        ____________-~______neutrino      Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
      -   -         ~-_
    /       \          ~----- proton      Bitnet: HIGGINS@FNALB.BITNET
    |       |
    \       /                             SPAN/Hepnet/Physnet: 43011::HIGGINS
      -   -
        ~

------------------------------

Date: 12 Apr 88 20:55:00 GMT
From: portal!atari!daisy!wooding@uunet.uu.net  (Mike Wooding)
Subject: Re: Jesse Jackson's space policy

In article <1036@thumper.bellcore.com>, karn@thumper.bellcore.com (Phil R. Karn) writes:
> > For someone so sceptical of technical feasibility, you sure put
> > a lot of confidence in satellites.  
> 
> Verifiability is an important part of any arms treaty. The  phrase

 Its not just an important part, its the entire foundation. without it
 the treaties are un-tenable.

> "national technical means", found so frequently in arms treaties, is
> nothing more than a euphemism for "spy satellites". They are so

 Satellites only? No ground based electronic surveillance or airborne
 recon? No seismic monitoring?

> important to verification that you will find that many treaty provisions
> were specifically written with the ability of satellites to monitor them
> in mind. The best example is the principle of limiting the number of
> launchers (easy to see) as opposed to the number of warheads (not so
> easy to see).
> 
> In my opinion, the value to the Soviets of having the technical manual
> to any particular US spy satellite has been greatly overblown. There's

 There's obviously room for intellectually honest people to disagree here,
 (you are only giving an opinion.)

> > If the Soviet SDI program is futile, what has been blinding our
> > satellites?
> 
> If by this you are referring to the reports that Soviet lasers have been
> aimed at US spysats, then a) I'm not at all convinced of the reliability

 You may not be convinced, but would you concede that others might have
 grave concerns?

> of these reports, considering their source (certain US officials whose
> personal empires stand to grow enormously if the reports are taken as
> accurate) and b) even if they are true, this has very little to do with
> SDI, but a lot to do with ASATs and arms treaties.
 
 The same US officials who would be responsible for verifying the treaties
 by "national technical means"? Or are those officials somehow more
 responsible than the latter.

> The technology for ASATs (Anti-Satellite weapons) is well established,
> with the US having a definite technology lead.  Unfortunately, it is a

 The technology may be established, but the implementation is still in
 the R&D phase.

> very dangerous development because of the importance of reconnaissance
> satellites to verifying arms control agreements and in keeping things
> stable.
> 
> It may have actually occurred to the more thoughtful (or intellectually
> honest, if there are any) SDI-ers that the relative ease with which
> space-based sensors could be temporarily blinded by lasers or blown out
> of the sky with ASATs constitutes a very grave vulnerability of the
> whole system.

 But then why would anyone bother to attack the system when it clearly
 wouldn't work anyway.

 I'm really just trying to cast some doubts that the issues are quite
 so cut and dried. As far as relying entirely on spy satellites to 
 verify arms treaties, don't you think thats putting a lot of faith
 (and eggs) in one basket? If you guess wrong, maybe you're dead.

 Some of the short-comings of satellite surveillance is that it is
 not continuous (once each pass is all you get), and it takes time to
 adjust orbits to examine "interesting" items. And even 1 foot 
 resolution doesn't do much good on an overcast day. And examining
 the insides of buildings, unless of course the have sky-lights.
 Seems to me at best it might be one of many tools, perhaps including 
 on site inspections. Oh, there is one more drawback to the use of
 spy satellites. You must be able to get them into orbit. :-)
 But then no one in our gov't would dream of putting all of their
 eggs in one basket, would they? :-)

 I hope you don't think I'm empire building or too intellectually
 dishonest if I don't find your faith in spy satellites terribly
 re-assuring.

 m wooding

------------------------------

Date: 13 Apr 88 14:46:35 GMT
From: cfa!cfa250!mcdowell@husc6.harvard.edu  (Jonathan McDowell)
Subject: Re: becoming an astronaut (additional comment to Henry's)

>From article <8804122314.AA16522@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov>, by eugene@PIONEER.ARC.NASA.GOV (Eugene N. Miya):
> 
> 
> First off, it has not in the past really helped to be a NASA employee.
> USAF, definitely, but in the 8th and beyond call for astronauts,
> they specifically were weeded out.  The change came around the 10th call
> when outside mission specialists started to come in.  It turned out a
> few were inside and this gave some advantage, but the advantage was
> slight.  Several astronauts have flown without PhDs.  What's his name
> from Hughes killed on the Challenger was one of several.  BUT get a PhD
> it helps.
> 	
> 	--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA


I beg to differ, Eugene. I don't have the figures in front of me, but almost every
mission specialist selected since the early 1980's (at least the 
last three selections) has been working in some capacity for NASA or the DoD. 
Jemison was the only exception in the most recent group. 

It's true that a PhD isnt necessary, but I would point out that Jarvis (= whatshisname
from Hughes) was a payload specialist not a career astronaut. That is the other way
to fly without working for NASA - work for a company that's going to use the
STS to put something up. Except, after 51L they're clamping down on such 
payload specialist joyrides.


I don't mind going to work for NASA, but I wish they would relax that
uncorrected vision requirement!

Yours myopically and (for now) earthbound,

Jonathan McDowell

------------------------------

Date: 14 Apr 88 00:15:47 GMT
From: jfc@athena.mit.edu  (John F Carr)
Subject: Re: greenhouse effect / solar power satellites

In article <226@aplcomm.UUCP> jwm@stdc.jhuapl.edu.UUCP (James W. Meritt) writes:
: Not being much of an astrophysicist, could someone comment on putting
: dust in an orbit between the earth and the sun?  The position I have in
: mind is an orbit closer to the sun at the point where the earth's
: gravity balances the suns to the extent that it could orbit at the
: (slower) speed that the earth does.  It sounds to me like it would orbit
: properly, but I have no idea how far from the earth this point is, nor
: does it seem overly stable.  

The point of which you are thinking, one of the Lagrange points, is
not stable.  An object placed there will drift away.



   John Carr           "No one wants to make a terrible choice
   jfc@athena.mit.edu   On the price of being free"           -- Neil Peart

------------------------------

Date: 14 Apr 88 12:33:34 GMT
From: ucsdhub!hp-sdd!ncr-sd!ncrlnk!ncrwic!encad!mjohnson@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu  (Mark Johnson)
Subject: Re: Antimatter

In article <8804131919.AA28318@angband.s1.gov> MATTHEWS%ASD.SPAN@STAR.STANFORD.EDU writes:
>megaton H-bomb.  So, you'd be looking at about $7.5 Billion per megaton at 
>production efficiencies we'd be likely to get by the turn of the century... 
>not exactly cost competitive with old-fashioned fusion technology.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ so who sez warfare has anything to do with
cost effectiveness??? (Unfortunately, only 1/3 :-) here, it hurts every time
I see how much they take out of my paycheck for "defense"...I guess I shouldn't
complain, the evidence (no nuke war yet in 20+ years) indicates that
deterrence, for now, seems to work. It has, however, begun to show some
cracks..
-- 
Mark Johnson (mjohnson@ncrwic.UUCP)
NCR Engineering & Manufacturing-Wichita, KS  phone: (316)636-8189    
email:...!rutgers!hplabs!hp-sdd!ncr-sd!ncrwic!encad!mjohnson 
US snailnet: 3718 N. Rock Rd., Wichita, KS 67226

------------------------------

Date: 13 Apr 88 17:55:01 GMT
From: snowdog@ATHENA.MIT.EDU  (Richard Brezina)
Subject: Mir predictions and more mail trouble



Hi gang,

For those of you on the satellite prediction distribution list, I just
want to mention that Mir is 3 minutes late as compared to the
predictions you have received as of last Thursday or thereabouts.
This is according to observations by Mike Salmon of Norwich, England.

The next batch of predictions will be distributed tomorrow afternoon
starting at 1800 UTC; it will cover all of next week.  The second
window now starts for the US, so most of you should enjoy some pretty
good passes.  My thanks goes to Mr. Kenny for providing me with timely
orbit updates; the new predictions should be right on the nose, at
least initially.

If any more of you would like to see Mir, give me a shout and I'll
put you on the distribution list.  Remember, I need the name of your
town, its latitude and longitude to 2 decimal places, its approximate
elevation above sea level, your local time zone, and whether you use
Daylight Saving time.  Predictions for other satellites are available
(yes, the whole NORAD catalog); if you would like to see other object
too, please specify.

I have had more mail trouble getting predictions to some of you.  If
some of you have sent me mail but got no response, that means your
mail is not reaching me because I do answer every message I receive.
You could putting a brief message here on usenet and I'll see if I
can get in touch.

To Adam Hamilton of Edinburgh Scotland

There was something wrong with your email address.  Please drop off
another message, perhaps giving me some helpful hints about the
peculiarities of you mail system.  It's weird; the system seems to
reverse the names of the nodes, and it can't find one called 
UK.AC.ED.ETIVE.

There will be some useful passes for San Francisco starting on the
18th.  I will post these within a few days.

Clear skies to all of you across the world,

-Rich

"Invisible to telescopic eye,
 Infinity, the star that would not die..."

 -Neil Peart, "Cygnus X-1"

------------------------------

Date: 14 Apr 88 12:41:28 GMT
From: aplcen!aplcomm!stdc.jhuapl.edu!jwm@mimsy.umd.edu  (James W. Meritt)
Subject: Re: Superconductors

In article <653@nysernic> weltyc@nisc.nyser.net (Christopher A. Welty) writes:
}Space shield: [this sounds incredible, but I don't know...] Apparently
}NASA Lewis is also looking into the feasibility of a superconducting
}magnet being used as a heat shield.  If the magnetic feild was intense
}enough, and concentrated at the front of a reentering spacecraft, it
}would keep the hot, ionized gases away from the craft...[wow]


What's incredible about that???  The Enterprise had that YEARS ago!!
Deflectors up, Scotty!!!!!


Disclaimer: Individuals have opinions, organizations have policy.
            Therefore, these opinions are mine and not any organizations!
Q.E.D.
jwm@aplvax.jhuapl.edu 128.244.65.5

------------------------------

Date: 14 Apr 88 12:47:51 GMT
From: aplcen!aplcomm!stdc.jhuapl.edu!jwm@mimsy.umd.edu  (James W. Meritt)
Subject: Re: Antimatter

In article <8804131919.AA28318@angband.s1.gov> MATTHEWS%ASD.SPAN@STAR.STANFORD.EDU writes:
>Considering the much more cost-effective uses to which such a rare commodity 
>could be put, I would think that the last thing they would want to do with 
>antimatter is use it to blow something up...


Seems there is a better, safer way of zapping the enemy.  LiD2 is fairly
stable under ordinary conditions.  How would one deliver a few grams of
antimatter without being VERY obvious what you are doing, not to mention
that launching that sucker would probably be sufficient acceleration to
negate almost any non-material containment system you care to come up 
with.

antimatter bombs: just say no.


Disclaimer: Individuals have opinions, organizations have policy.
            Therefore, these opinions are mine and not any organizations!
Q.E.D.
jwm@aplvax.jhuapl.edu 128.244.65.5

------------------------------

Date: 13 Apr 88 17:02:43 GMT
From: paul.rutgers.edu!styx.rutgers.edu!masticol@rutgers.edu  (Steve Masticola)
Subject: Re: space news from March 14 AW&ST

Henry Spencer writes:

> Deja Vu Dept:  The Feb 14 test of a Titan SRB produced unusually severe
> erosion of internal insulation, with metal structure exposed in parts of
> the nozzle.  Investigation underway.

Who manufactures the Titan SRB?

(I've a suspicion, but just wanted to make sure.)

- Steve.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #209
*******************

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Date: Wed, 4 May 88 03:24:31 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8805041024.AA02450@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #210

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 210

Today's Topics:
	    Re: greenhouse effect / solar power satellites
			Good book on the X-15
		  Re: space news from March 14 AW&ST
		Solar Sat Power Stations & greenhouses
		 AMPTE/CCE Report from JPL newsletter
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 13 Apr 88 12:43:47 GMT
From: aplcen!aplcomm!stdc.jhuapl.edu!jwm@mimsy.umd.edu  (James W. Meritt)
Subject: Re: greenhouse effect / solar power satellites

In article <1033@daisy.UUCP> wooding@daisy.UUCP (Mike Wooding) writes:
}In article <1840@ssc-vax.UUCP>, eder@ssc-vax.UUCP (Dani Eder) writes:
}> In fact, if there is not enough time to run all our power
}> plants backwards to get the CO2 out of the atmosphere before we
}> fry, intentionally placing mirrors in orbit to deflect inco iming
}> sunlight might give us more time to solve the problem.
} Might be easier to make a cloud (of dust?) for a little shade
} on a hot day. Wouldn't stay around a long time, but then that
} could be an advantage. Gets noticeably cooler during an eclipse
} which lasts only minutes. Were talking a LOT of dust though,
} more than might be reasonable to lift from earth, but there's 
} the moon. And with a mass launcher, and maybe some static
} charge to disperse, ... well you get the idea? Could it be
} kept from falling to earth? Would it matter if it did?


Not being much of an astrophysicist, could someone comment on putting
dust in an orbit between the earth and the sun?  The position I have in
mind is an orbit closer to the sun at the point where the earth's
gravity balances the suns to the extent that it could orbit at the
(slower) speed that the earth does.  It sounds to me like it would orbit
properly, but I have no idea how far from the earth this point is, nor
does it seem overly stable.  Could a, say, 5% reduction in incoming
solar flux be achieved in this way (balancing the "extra" beamed in
from those billions and billions of SPSs ;~))?


Disclaimer: Individuals have opinions, organizations have policy.
            Therefore, these opinions are mine and not any organizations!
Q.E.D.
jwm@aplvax.jhuapl.edu 128.244.65.5

------------------------------

Date:     Thu, 14 Apr 88 16:36 CDT
From: Bill Higgins, Beam Jockey <HIGGINS%FNAL.BITNET@cornellc.ccs.cornell.edu>
Subject:  Good book on the X-15
Original_To:  SPACE

Since there was a lot of discussion recently about technical details of the
X-15 rocket plane, I thought I'd recommend a book my colleague Mike Herren
(HERREN@FNALB.BITNET) picked up.  It has a tremendous amount of very detailed
information as well as plenty of photos.

                                       Bill Higgins
                                       Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
                                       HIGGINS@FNALB.BITNET
                                       SPAN/HEPnet: 43011::HIGGINS
=======================================================================
HELLO BILL!
HERE'S THE PERTINENT POOP ON THE X-15/X-15A-2 DATA BOOK.

        AEROFAX DATAGRAPH 2
        NORTH AMERICAN X-15 / X-15A-2
        By Ben Guenther, Jay Miller, and Terry Panopalis
        Copyright 1985
        Stock Number 0302.      ISBN 0-942548-34-5

        Published by:   AEROFAX, INC.
                        P.O. BOX 120127
                        ARLINGTON, TEXAS 76012
                        Phone: 214-647-1105

I'm sorry but I don't remember the list price but I think it was around $10.
As you'll recall, the book contain the complete flight log and several pages of
colour photos of both the X-15 and B-52 support planes.
I hope this helps you.
                                        M.W.Herren

------------------------------

Date: 14 Apr 88 18:27:32 GMT
From: hpda!hpcupt1!hpcuhb!hpsel1!campbelr@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Bob Campbell)
Subject: Re: space news from March 14 AW&ST

>> Deja Vu Dept:  The Feb 14 test of a Titan SRB produced unusually severe
>> erosion of internal insulation, with metal structure exposed in parts of
>> the nozzle.  Investigation underway.
> 
> Who manufactures the Titan SRB?
> 
> (I've a suspicion, but just wanted to make sure.)
> 
> - Steve.
----------

The test was performed in San Jose, CA at the United Technologies
Chemical Systems Division plant.  Although the test was announced
in advance, it surprised quite a few of us who were sleeping in
on Valentines Day.

Bob Campbell                Some times I wish that I could stop you from 
campbelr@hpda.hp.com        talking, when I hear the silly things you say.
Hewlett Packard                                    - Elvis Costello
HP-UX System Interface & Recovery Testing

------------------------------

Date: 14 Apr 88 17:47:10 GMT
From: steinmetz!ge-dab!ge-rtp!edison!rja@uunet.uu.net  (rja)
Subject: Solar Sat Power Stations & greenhouses


  All these postings on SSPSs brings to mind a couple questions.  Back when I
last looked into these things in a serious way (circa 1981) one of the big
technological problems was how to get the power from space (wherever) through
the atmosphere with reasonable efficency.  Some kind folks at NASA/Langely
gave me copies of some studies that NASA had contracted for.  The studies
indicated that the the problems were quite extensive and pointed out
that the atmospheric transmission losses would actually tend to promote
a "greenhouse effect" although they were understandably uncertain whether
the "greenhouse effect" existed or posed a problem.  My later study of
satellite communications technology and transmission losses tended to confirm
the impressions I received from these NASA papers.

Have there been breakthroughs in transmission technology ??
Doesn't this imply that folks concerned about the "greenhouse effect" should
   NOT be in favor of SSPSs ??

For that matter, the Laws of Thermodynamics imply that it isn't the source
of the energy that matters, but rather how much of it is in the ecosystem.

Shouldn't we be promoting terrestrial solar power instead, since to the
extent we use that to replace carbon fuels, nuclear power, etc. we are
actually reducing the energy input to the system ??

______________________________________________________________________________
         rja@edison.GE.COM      or      ...uunet!virginia!edison!rja  
             "Noalias must go, this is non-negotiable"  DMR 
______________________________________________________________________________

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 15 Apr 88 13:41:55 PST
From: Peter Scott <PJS@grouch.jpl.nasa.gov>
Subject: AMPTE/CCE Report from JPL newsletter
X-Vms-Mail-To: EXOS%"space@angband.s1.gov"

"At 1234 hours, GMT, Saturday, March 12, the AMPTE/CCE spacecraft passed
through the 2,000th perigee of its continuing mission to return data about
the physics of the magnetosphere within which our planet exists," reported
Al Beers, sec. 202, JPL.

"This event occurred during the 1,304th day of the spacecraft's mission."

The Active Magnetospheric Particle Tracer Explores (AMPTE) Project is a 
cooperative effort of the U.S., the Federal Repu'lic of Germany, and the
United Kingdom.  JPL is responsible for mission operations and data
collection and storage.

The mission was carried out to obtain a better understanding of certain
mechanisms and physical properties of the Earth's magnetosphere.  Scientists
wanted to know how particles from the solar wind enter our magnetosphere,
the characteristics of their energy transfer, and the population and energy
states of the trapped particles.

Beers explained that the three nations developed separate spacecraft which
were stacked on a launch vehicle and injected into Earth orbit in August,
1984.  Each spacecraft carried five scientific instruments not only to
perform independent studies of physical phenomena, but to function 
cooperatively with other spacecraft for a series of unique experiments.

Experiments involved the creation and monitoring of two artificial comets,
as well as the release of chemicals into the solar wind and into the 'tail'
of the magnetosphere and monitoring the flow of tracer particles.

The German spacecraft, the Ion Release Module, carried 16 containers of
chemicals to be selectively released.  The United Kingdom subsatellite
contained a radar and maneuvering system to work with the Ion Release
Module to measure effects of the chemicals as they ionized.

The United States' Charge Composition Explorer (CCE) was designed to
monitor characteristics of the ions, their quantities and energy states
as they approached Earth.

The British mission prematurely lost spacecraft radio contact in January,
1985, after five months of flawless operation.  The German spacecraft
completed its primary mission and a significant extended mission before
suffering a power system failure in August, 1986.

"Only the U.S. spacecraft, designed for a five-year normal life, survives,"
Beers said.

... Accepted theory associated with the behavior of energetic particles
within the magnetosphere was almost completely disproved.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #210
*******************

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Date: Thu, 5 May 88 03:19:51 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
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Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #211

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 211

Today's Topics:
		     Mir elements, epoch 20 April
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 25 Apr 88 17:00:00 GMT
From: kenny@b.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Mir elements, epoch 20 April


Satellite: Mir        
Catalog id 16609
Element set 157
Epoch: 88111.84196177
Inclination:  51.6244 degrees
RA of node:   2.1970 degrees
Eccentricity:  0.0010636
Argument of perigee:   4.0490 degrees
Mean anomaly: 356.2625 degrees
Mean motion: 15.81687808 revs/day
Mean motion acceleration: 0.00032962 * 2 revs/day/day
Epoch Revolution: 12479

Semimajor axis:    6703.76 km
Apogee height*:     332.73 km
Perigee height*:     318.47 km


		Source: NASA Goddard via T.S.Kelso's `Celestial RCP/M'

* Apogee and perigee altitudes are referred to the mean radius of the
  Earth (6378.15 km), and not to the local radius of the geoid.  They
  are only approximate, and should not be used for orbit prediction.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #211
*******************

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To: Space@angband.s1.gov
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Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #212

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 212

Today's Topics:
			       48 Hours
		      Re: 48 Hours (post facto)
		      Re: 48 Hours (post facto)
			  Is it CBS or NASA?
			Re: Is it CBS or NASA?
			Re: Is it CBS or NASA?
			Re: Is it CBS or NASA?
			Re: Is it CBS or NASA?
			Re: Is it CBS or NASA?
			Re: Is it CBS or NASA?
			Re: Is it CBS or NASA?
			Re: Is it CBS or NASA?
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 22 Apr 88 14:26:50 GMT
From: ncspm!jay@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu  (Jay C. Smith)
Subject: 48 Hours


I saw CBS' "48 Hours" last night about NASA, and a shuttle mission
simulation in particular.  The one thing that really struck me was:

The astronauts are wearing pressure suits during launch again.

And they're blue.

I'm sure this was mentioned somewhere before, wasn't it?  How did I miss
this?  What's the official reason for returning to pressure suits?
Increased safety, of course, but then how was their absence after the
first four shuttle flights justified?

Jay C. Smith                    uucp:     ...!mcnc!ncsuvx!ncspm!jay
Domain:	jay@ncspm.ncsu.edu      internet: jay%ncspm@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu

------------------------------

Date: 22 Apr 88 19:07:33 GMT
From: portal!atari!apratt@uunet.uu.net  (Allan Pratt)
Subject: Re: 48 Hours (post facto)

>From article <845@ncspm.ncsu.edu>, by jay@ncspm.ncsu.edu (Jay C. Smith):
> This week's "48 Hours," the CBS prime-time news program that isn't "60
> Minutes" or "West 57th," is supposed to be about a shuttle mission
> simulation.
> 
> Air time is 8:00 p.m. EDT on Thursday, April 21.

Well, this got to my site too late, but I did notice the listing in the
paper, and caught the show.

I thought the parts which DIDN'T have Dan Rather in them were great.
But I felt Dan took an unnecessarily antagonistic position in his
interviews, focusing on the negatives and not any positives.  He kept
asking the astronauts about the disaster and how that kind of thing
affects their thinking, and he asked again after they'd answered, rather
than moving on.

The ultimate insult was in his wrap-up at the end: he said "*If* the
shuttle goes up..." (Emphasis mine.) Nobody but Dan expressed any doubt
at all that the shuttle would go up, yet I'm sure this left the
impression in Joe American that the issue was still in doubt.

But then again, I haven't watched CBS News in weeks -- I deliberately
avoid Dan Rather whenever I can.  (I do watch CBS weekend news...  I
keep hoping for Charles Kuralt or Charles Osgood.)  Did anyone else get
this impression of the coverage?

------------------------------

Date: 25 Apr 88 17:36:01 GMT
From: pioneer!eugene@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Eugene N. Miya)
Subject: Re: 48 Hours (post facto)

This is part of a series of tests I'm trying.

In article <1046@atari.UUCP> apratt@atari.UUCP (Allan Pratt) writes:
>But I felt Dan took an unnecessarily antagonistic position in his
>interviews, focusing on the negatives and not any positives.

Unfortunately, I missed this show (tried to see it).  I would hope Mr.
Rather would focus on the negatives.  This is how safety is
accomplished.  Note: I also believe the activity is EXTREMELY risky.
[Note KFL's previously published comments that spaceflight should be
accessible to everybody.]

>He kept asking the astronauts about the disaster and how that kind of
>thing affects their thinking, and he asked again after they'd answered,
>rather than moving on.

There is no time for feeling or thinking at the velocities we are
dealing with. If this is true, then this would detract from the program.
It's the scale of things that most people have difficulty comprehending.

Another gross generalization from

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA
				soon to be aurora.arc.nasa.gov

------------------------------

Date: 22 Apr 88 15:27:29 GMT
From: oodis01!uplherc!esunix!loosemor@tis.llnl.gov  (Sandra Loosemore)
Subject: Is it CBS or NASA?

Last night there was a documentary on CBS featuring Dan Rather and
several other reporters giving an inside view of training for the next
space shuttle mission.  Besides having interviews with the astronauts
and some other well-known people (Asimov, Boisjoly, etc), they also
showed the flight controllers and the people running the simulation at
work, and some other training facilities like the WET-F tank.

What bothered me is how blatantly *sexist* this broadcast made NASA
appear.  The only women that I could see at work were a tour guide and
one of the people who was running the simulation, who was kept very much
in the background and never got to say a word on camera.  When they
talked about the future space station, the reporter and the interviewee
(both male) started giggling like teenagers when discussing how men and
women would be able to live and work together in space for six months at
a time.  In short, CBS made it seem like NASA was strictly a
good-ol-boys organization, even down to visiting the bar where they guys
hang out after work.

Is this an accurate picture of how NASA works?  Or is CBS just living up
to its reputation for biased reporting again?

-Sandra Loosemore
{decwrl, utah-cs}!esunix!loosemor

------------------------------

Date: 27 Apr 88 17:56:49 GMT
From: layman@athena.mit.edu  (Tracey A. Layman)
Subject: Re: Is it CBS or NASA?

NASA is not necessarily sexist.  As women have been seeking their equal
rights, and "coming into their own" these days aeronautics, and
astronautics are among the fields with the lowest percentage of women.
Therefore, don't blame NASA, blame a lack of motivation.  (Or smarts, no
I won't say it.  It's too sick.)

Tracey Layman:		mit-eddie!layman@athena.mit.edu

------------------------------

Date: 27 Apr 88 18:45:44 GMT
From: ai!williams@speedy.cs.wisc.edu  (Karen Williams)
Subject: Re: Is it CBS or NASA?

I think the shuttle accident is giving NASA a chance to revert to the
old all-white all-male control structure. I recently saw a bit on tv
about the team preparing for the next shuttle flight, and they were all
white men in their late thirties or so. Of course, the shuttle accident
could have killed all of the female, non-white astronauts that NASA had,
and all the female, non-white people who worked for NASA quit in
protest, and they haven't had enough going on to hire new people yet.

					    Karen Williams

------------------------------

Date: 27 Apr 88 17:17:06 GMT
From: lucerne!marla@sun.com  (Marla Parker)
Subject: Re: Is it CBS or NASA?

In article <809@esunix.UUCP> loosemor@esunix.UUCP (Sandra Loosemore) writes:
>...an inside view of training for the next space shuttle
>mission.  ...  they also showed the flight
>controllers and the people running the simulation at work...
>What bothered me is how blatantly *sexist* this broadcast made NASA appear.
>...
>Is this an accurate picture of how NASA works?  Or is CBS just living
>up to its reputation for biased reporting again?

My sister works at NASA in the group that runs the sims and trains the
shuttle astronauts.  She told me she is going to be training the
astronauts for STS29, which is going to fly before STS28 for some
reason.  Anyway, she is a feminist, so I'm going to send her your
posting and see what she says.  Unfortunately she is not on the net, but
I'll post her response.

Marla Parker
{ihnp4, decvax, seismo, decwrl, ...}!sun!marla
marla@sun.com

------------------------------

Date: 27 Apr 88 20:41:06 GMT
From: pioneer!eugene@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Eugene N. Miya)
Subject: Re: Is it CBS or NASA?

This is being follow up from sci.space and not soc.women which this
machine does not receive.  I don't know if this will make it to the net,
assume it does.

The following is my opinion and not that of the Agency.  It involves
working slightly more than 10 years at two Centers, 4 projects, Details
to HQ, JSC, GSFC, LeRC, and LaRC, working with male and female managers.
I generally found most of the women harder workers than men for the
"same" positions.

loosemor@esunix.UUCP (Sandra Loosemore) writes:
> A CBS summary
Again, I did not see the tape, but it seems Asimov was out of place
[Ah, could we not have had Le Guin instead?].

>What bothered me is how blatantly *sexist* this broadcast made NASA appear.

I will not try to tell you there isn't sexism in the Agency.  I believe
there is, but like the rest of society, it's changing slowly.

>CBS made it seem like NASA was strictly a good-ol-boys organization,
>even down to visiting the bar where they guys hang out after work.

This comment is independent of sexism, and I would also agree it is
true.  Note this comes from education (the PhD process), and the
military, and is also visible in things like the airline and other parts
of the aerospace industy (see below).  I have battled with this old-boy
network many times and typically lost.  Check a map, SOME (not all) of
this would be evident by seeking the centroid of NASA Centers in
geography.  It's not sexism there, classical behavior [God's way] in
many places.

>Is this an accurate picture of how NASA works?  Or is CBS just living
>up to its reputation for biased reporting again?

It's an observation of some parts of it (Manned Space, note the Official
adjective).  Other parts tend to ignore it, note the Unmanned part of
the Agency which I have grown to prefer in someways.  I can also comment
about CBS to a degree because I used to correspond with Don Hewitt, 60
minutes, during his early days with that show.  I used to write letter
to him, and one of my DSN (Deep Space Network) managers had a husband
who wrote the news.  Don't blame CBS, it's really our (the viewing
audience's) pentant for sensationalism.

layman@athena.mit.edu (Tracey A. Layman):

>NASA is not necessarily sexist.  aeronautics, and astronautics are
>among the fields with the lowest percentage of women.  Therefore, don't
>blame NASA, blame a lack of motivation.

	Mommas don't let your daughters grow up to be cowgirls Make them
	Doctors, not lawyers, make them scientists and engineers.  Teach
	them math, not art, . . . . .

"Women and minorities" [are they talking to me in the latter?] are
officially an area of concern in the AIAA (the aerospace professional
group).  We would also have to encourage women to join the Air Force and
Naval Aviation as well.  This does not sit well with those seeking
peace.

In article <5650@spool.cs.wisc.edu> williams@ai.cs.wisc.edu (Karen Williams) writes:
>the team preparing for the next shuttle flight, and they were all white
>men in their late thirties or so.

This comment about 30s is flattering to the Agency, the average age is
now in the 40s.  I would generally agree with all you people have said
except Tracey's first line, it is sexist.  It is also changing and is
under great political pressure.

Another gross generalization from

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA
				soon to be aurora.arc.nasa.gov
at the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:

------------------------------

Date: 27 Apr 88 13:22:33 GMT
From: ulysses!sfmag!sfsup!peking@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (L.Perkins)
Subject: Re: Is it CBS or NASA?

In article <809@esunix.UUCP> loosemor@esunix.UUCP writes:
>Is this an accurate picture of how NASA works?  Or is CBS just living
>up to its reputation for biased reporting again?

On the whole yes.
 At the risk of being flamed by the few in NASA who are not that way I
speak as a former NASA contractor employee who has observed that behind
the high tech futuristic image that the agency likes to project, is a
1940's era red neck engineering club.  This agency is the good ol' boys
in action.

------------------------------

Date: 28 Apr 88 13:24:35 GMT
From: cfa!cfa250!mcdowell@husc6.harvard.edu  (Jonathan McDowell)
Subject: Re: Is it CBS or NASA?

>From article <5650@spool.cs.wisc.edu>, by williams@ai.cs.wisc.edu (Karen Williams):
> I think the shuttle accident is giving NASA a chance to revert to the
> old all-white all-male control structure. I recently saw a bit on tv
> about the team preparing for the next shuttle flight, and they were
> all white men

In fact, the next few missions have all male crews. They have just named
a couple of women to later crews, starting about the fifth mission. So
it looks very much like an attitude of 'oh dear, we can't risk our dear
delicate women on risky missions..' - (gasp, where are these people
*coming* from?) However, at least after Sally Ride's mission seven other
professional women astronauts got to fly as regular members of shuttle
crews (as opposed to 'Gee look a woman can fly in space, isnt that
amazing?')  In contrast, the only women the Soviets have flown have been
'The First Woman in Space', 'The First Woman in Space for Twenty Years
Just Before Sally Ride', and 'The First Woman to make a Space Walk'
(Radio Moscow commentary: 'the fact that a woman can now make a space
walk by a WOMAN proves the advanced state of Soviet space technology.'
Huh?? ). General Leonov stated recently 'Yes, we did have some girls in
the program, but we sent them all home a while ago.' Grrr.

This is not to excuse the NASA attitude, just to point out that it could
be worse.  But there is clearly a danger that women could be relegated
to minor roles in the space program. There are currently no potential
women spaceship commanders as all the women astronauts are 'mission
specialists' (scientists/engineers) rather than 'pilot astronauts' who
are almost all chosen from the military test pilot and fighter pilot
corps, still all male as far as I am aware. Only 'pilot astronauts' are
eligible to command.

As an aside, it seems to me that Dr. Resnik was one of the few examples
I can think of offhand of a woman losing her life not as a victim but in
the traditional male heroic mold - a trained professional risking her
life for something she thought was important and noble, and had played a
part in planning and creating.  (unlike the teacher, who was a passenger
without the technical training to fully appreciate the risks or
participate in the planning and development of the mission).  On prime
time TV in front of all those kids, too..will it have any effect on
their perceptions of bravery as an appropriate female characteristic?
Can any soc.women comment on other examples of heroic women who died or
risked their lives for some such positive (I believe) goal rather than
(Florence Nightingale role model) in support of some man's goal?
Earhart? Hypatia? Jeanne d'Arc perhaps?

Jonathan McDowell
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

------------------------------

Date: 28 Apr 88 23:05:06 GMT
From: turing.arc.nasa.gov!bualat@icarus.riacs.edu  (Maria Bualat)
Subject: Re: Is it CBS or NASA?

I have been working for NASA for about 9 months now, so I'm not sure how
qualified I am to participate in this discussion.  For the record, I'm
an electronics engineer (Those of you familiar with the system here know
that everyone's an electronics engineer, but I really am one.) in the
Information Sciences Division here at Ames.

In my limited experience, I can't say that I've encountered much sexism.
There seems to be a reasonalbe ratio of women to men workers (in
technical positions) considering the ratios I encountered in school.
We've women in positions of authority (branch chief and project heads)
and the average age overall (men and women) seems to be in the
mid-thirties.  Again, I don't know what the situation is around the rest
of the center, let alone the agency.  I think one of the reasons for the
situation in my own division is that we work primarily in artificial
intelligence and computer science (software and hardware).  These fields
tend to attract more women than some of the other technical fields.
Also, AI is still relatively young.

I can believe, however, that sexism could be a problem in other
divisions and at other centers.  Having now had first hand experience
with the bureaucracy of a government agency, I can see how change would
come about at a very slow rate.

Maria Bualat

------------------------------

Date: 28 Apr 88 15:48:45 GMT
From: marque!gryphon!mhnadel@csd1.milw.wisc.edu  (Miriam Nadel)
Subject: Re: Is it CBS or NASA?

In article <809@esunix.UUCP> loosemor@esunix.UUCP (Sandra Loosemore) writes:
>Is this an accurate picture of how NASA works?  Or is CBS just living up
>to its reputation for biased reporting again?

I would say the truth is somewhere inbetween.  The number of women
working at NASA varies a lot from site to site (I assume the show was
portraying Johnson Space Center in Houston since that's where astronaut
training is done).  My experience with NASA was at Ames and I wasn't a
regular employee there (I had a NASA traineeship as a grad student and
visited Ames periodically) so it may not be directly applicable.

But I never saw another technical woman there.  I used to go to workshop
meetings on the program I worked on (CELSS - which for non sci.space
types stands for Closed Ecology Life Support Systems and is administered
by the Life Sciences division) and out of typically 60-75 participants I
would be the only woman there.  To be fair, I know at least two other
women were involved in that program, both in academia and both far
enough away to conceivably make it difficult for them to go meetings.
(Which raises a question about whether women in academia may sometimes
be denied conference travel, which is a very important perk for those
who wish to get ahead.)

I'm not sure blatant sexism is the reason, though.  NASA has some
particular hiring problems, being somewhat more prone to government
imposed hiring freezes than the commercial sector is.  And the available
applicant pool is quite small (there aren't a lot of women with advanced
degrees in science or engineering).  Those women who are qualified are
likely to be able to do better financially (I make about half again as
much working in the private non-profit aerospace world than I would
working for NASA).  And though we may wish otherwise, NASA no longer has
the reputation of a place to be if you want to work with the latest and
greatest.

Miriam Nadel

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #212
*******************

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Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #213

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 213

Today's Topics:
			Re: Is it CBS or NASA?
			Re: Is it CBS or NASA?
			Re: Is it CBS or NASA?
			Re: Is it CBS or NASA?
			Re: Is it CBS or NASA?
			Re: Is it CBS or NASA?
			Re: Is it CBS or NASA?
			Re: Is it CBS or NASA?
			Re: Is it CBS or NASA?
			Re: Is it CBS or NASA?
			Re: Is it CBS or NASA?
			Re: Is it CBS or NASA?
			Re: Is it CBS or NASA?
			Re: Is it CBS or NASA?
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 30 Apr 88 02:31:15 GMT
From: jenkins@purdue.edu  (Colin Jenkins)
Subject: Re: Is it CBS or NASA?

In article <809@esunix.UUCP> loosemor@esunix.UUCP (Sandra Loosemore) writes:

		[On CBS report (48 hours?) on NASA]

>What bothered me is how blatantly *sexist* this broadcast made NASA
>appear.  The only women that I could see at work were a tour guide and
>one of the people who was running the simulation, who was kept very
>much in the background and never got to say a word on camera.

I saw that report.  I could have swore they interviewed Sally Ride with
a caption that read "former astronaut" or words to that effect.

>-Sandra Loosemore


						Colin

------------------------------

Date: 29 Apr 88 17:04:05 GMT
From: pioneer!eugene@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Eugene N. Miya)
Subject: Re: Is it CBS or NASA?

I note Maria and Miriam's article.  Permit me to add two more
observations.

In 1980 Dan Erickson and I (both JPLers, Dan now works on Galileo) were
at a GSFC meeting on software.  Dan had been there a week before
attending an EE hardware meeting in the same room.  Dan noted there were
absolutely no women in the hardware meeting and perhaps 10% women in the
software meeting (more now if Beth Katz as anything to do with it....).

My current Division chief, female, has been promoted much more slowly
than probably otherwise.  Part is due to being female, part due to being
in a support rather than a research or flight project division.  She is
shortly due for retirement.  She has stories to tell some day.

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA
				soon to be aurora.arc.nasa.gov

------------------------------

Date: 29 Apr 88 16:57:18 GMT
From: mtunx!mtuxo!tee@rutgers.edu  (54317-T.EBERSOLE)
Subject: Re: Is it CBS or NASA?

In article <830@cfa237.cfa250.harvard.edu>, mcdowell@cfa250.harvard.edu (Jonathan McDowell) writes:
> In fact, the next few missions have all male crews. They have just named a couple of 
> women to later crews, starting about the fifth mission. So it looks very much like
> an attitude of 'oh dear, we can't risk our dear delicate women on risky missions..' 
> - (gasp, where are these people *coming* from?) However, at least after Sally Ride's
> mission seven other professional women astronauts got to fly as regular members of
> shuttle crews (as opposed to 'Gee look a woman can fly in space, isnt that amazing?')
> (etc.)

======We interrupt this newsgroup for a small flicker of a flame============

Could those of you blessed with terminals which allow you to write
90 or more characters/line have some pity on those poor deprived souls,
like me, whose terminals will only print 80 characters/line? I realize
that content is vastly more important than form, but if you're going to
take the time to express your views, why not make them presentable? A
few blank spaces at the end of a line, proper paragraph structure, a
quick check for spelling, and other such discipline, might help writers
form articles which more correctly express their true thoughts. Good
writing takes time. If you don't have the patience to collect your
thoughts, express them as well as you can, and, at least occasionally,
use your editor, perhaps you can at least be brief.

Those of you who must read these at 40 characters/line will have to 
write your own flames, as this one is not all-inclusive.

======="We now return you to your regularly scheduled broadcast."===============

P.S. I did find the article in question to be informative. I've heard a
     few well-known industry advisers (W. Edwards Deming, Peter Drucker)
     claim that Japan will start to experience a decline because they
     don't use at least half of their creative, hard-working potential by
     excluding women from having a voice in work decisions. The same
     conclusion undoubtedly will apply to NASA if those attitudes persist.

-- 
Tim Ebersole ...!{allegra,ulysses,ihnp4,mtune,...}!mtuxo!tee

[As Moderator I'd like to support this sentiment.  I normally go through
and justify things to 72 columns to provide a bit more margin for error.
It would be nice if this wasn't necessary.
	-Ted Anderson]

------------------------------

Date: 1 May 88 19:22:26 GMT
From: agate!skippy!fester@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (lea fester)
Subject: Re: Is it CBS or NASA?

Posted for Karen Zukor 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

I work at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, on NASA projects, and I am a
woman.  Basically, I concur with the thoughts of Eugene Miya (from
sci.space), that there is sexism (against women employed) at NASA, and
that it is the same sexism that is prevalent in the society at large,
and probabaly for that matter at CBS.  Of course there are some specific
inequalities I could point to (like the fact that in the 8 story
building where I work there are three women's bathrooms and six men's
bathrooms, despite a fairly balanced pool of employees) but I like to
think these are changing.

A related issue is the composition of the workforce at JPL.  Because JPL
likes to hire people who have Ph.D.'s in science, the scientific
workforce is prodominantly male, and will continue to be so, until women
begin to earn a higher percentage of Ph.D.s in mathematics, physics,
electrical engineering, and astronomy, the fields of most of the people
I have met here.  (My guess is that in the above mentioned fields women
earn maybe 25% of the Ph.D.s, so JPL in 1988 will hire only 1/4 women.)
I think JPL does hire "its" percentage of women, in this sense.  The
total workforce at JPL is more balanced, because women make up most of
the secretarial staff.

I must say I found it hard to characterize my feelings about sexism
here, because my impressions are dominated by the fact that I find far
less sexism here than I encountered in math graduate school.  In math
grad school, people were constantly quoting to me statements by
mathematicians of the past and present that women could not do math.
Certain professors were known to be uncomfortable with women as
students.  Women had a lower success rate than men, even with the same
mathematical backgrounds.  I felt so relieved when I came to work here,
that my first thought about sexism here was there was no appreciable
amount, but in my mind this is appreciable compared with what I had
previously experienced.

These are my thoughts, and do not necessarily reflect NASA's or JPL's
views.

Karen Zukor
e-mail:    zukor%logos.jpl.nasa.gov@hamlet.caltech.edu

------------------------------

Date: 1 May 88 05:57:09 GMT
From: phri!dasys1!lkw@nyu.edu  (Laura Watson)
Subject: Re: Is it CBS or NASA?

In article <7975@ames.arpa> eugene@pioneer.UUCP (Eugene N. Miya) writes:
>	Mommas don't let your daughters grow up to be cowgirls
>	Make them Doctors, not lawyers, make them scientists and engineers.

Well, if I went down and applied for a job as an astronaut, do you think
they'd take me?  I think it'd be fun.  What qualifications does an
astronaut have to have?  (My Momma told me she would've liked to have
been an astronaut....)

Now is the time for all good women to come to the aid of feminism.

Laura Watson                                    {uunet}!mstan\
Big Electric Cat Public Unix           {bellcore,cmcl2}!cucard!dasys1!lkw
New York, NY, USA                               {sun}!hoptoad/

------------------------------

Date: 2 May 88 13:26:33 GMT
From: cfa!cfa250!mcdowell@husc6.harvard.edu  (Jonathan McDowell)
Subject: Re: Is it CBS or NASA?

>From article <51490@sun.uucp>, by falk@sun.uucp (Ed Falk):
> I find the idea repulsive that women are weak or fragile or something
> and have to be kept away from doing what they want for their own good.

Hear, hear.  But it's an attitude I still come across amazingly
frequently.  How can people grow up these days and still come out with
stuff like that? Oh well, I guess I know the answer, but..  what do you
say in reply to people like that?
  
> p.s. Could I second the request that people watch the linelength of
> their postings?
> 		-ed falk, sun microsystems

GUILTY! GUILTY! Mea culpa, I realised just seconds too late that I had
sent it off in a wide window. I have now finally learnt how to use
'format paragraph' in this editor.  Yours properly singed and contrite,
Jonathan

------------------------------

Date: 2 May 88 16:23:55 GMT
From: sworking@TEKNOWLEDGE-VAXC.ARPA  (Scott Workinger)
Subject: Re: Is it CBS or NASA?

In article <4206@dasys1.UUCP> lkw@dasys1.UUCP (Laura Watson) writes:
>Well, if I went down and applied for a job as an astronaut, do you
>think they'd take me?  I think it'd be fun.  What qualifications does
>an astronaut have to have?

Seriously, Laura.  Why don't you apply?  It could be a great experience.
I understand that they're now taking mission specialists.  (ie.  You
don't necessarily have to be a pilot.)  I'm sure that you need to be
pretty fit, but that's something that you have control over.  Reach for
the stars.

Scott

------------------------------

Date: 2 May 88 16:39:01 GMT
From: pioneer!eugene@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Eugene N. Miya)
Subject: Re: Is it CBS or NASA?

In article <4206@dasys1.UUCP> lkw@dasys1.UUCP (Laura Watson) writes:
>Well, if I went down and applied for a job as an astronaut, do you
>think they'd take me?  I think it'd be fun.  What qualifications does
>an astronaut have to have?  (My Momma told me she would've liked to
>have been an astronaut....)

Well, Jo Bea (who is supposed to fly when ever the next SIR (Shuttle
Imaging Radar) mission goes up has a PhD in Planetary Science from
Caltech.  Her alternate (Mikie, from the the commercial, otherwise Mike)
has a PhD from UCLA and was an AF Academy wash out (eyes went bad).
They both run 10Ks with Jo Bea's husband (Mike going for marathons).  So
good physical health is a factor.  A tolerance for BS (PhD=Piled higher
and Deeper).  Patience.  Frankly, I sort of wonder why they selected PIs
(principal investiagtors) rather than an EE to fix the thing while in
flight.  Get the paperwork (where it begins) from NASA JSC near Houston.

Added note: Read Jim B.'s postings they are interesting.

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA
				soon to be aurora.arc.nasa.gov

------------------------------

Date: 3 May 88 18:29:40 GMT
From: maslak@unix.sri.com  (Valerie Maslak)
Subject: Re: Is it CBS or NASA?

By "victims of male technology" I understood a condemnation of the macho
attitude that led NASA not to include any sort of escape mechanism in
the shuttle. Which of course would imply some sort of cowardice and fear
of battle and might be misused if someone chickened out and pushed the
"let me out" button...right???  Can't have those heros chickening out,
can we?

Valerie Maslak

------------------------------

Date: 3 May 88 15:15:19 GMT
From: sworking@TEKNOWLEDGE-VAXC.ARPA  (Scott Workinger)
Subject: Re: Is it CBS or NASA?

In article <1988May2.232932.5095@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>>... I could have swore they interviewed Sally Ride with a caption that
>>read "former astronaut" or words to that effect.
>
>It's true, she's left NASA.

The scuttlebut is that she left NASA when NASA stopped flying after the
challenger tragedy.  The reason I heard attributed was that she joined
NASA to fly.  Since they weren't flying she wanted to get on with her
life.  When you consider how long an astronaut has to wait to get even a
single mission in the best of times, it's not surprising.

Scott

------------------------------

Date: 2 May 88 16:43:04 GMT
From: ihnp4!ihlpe!ccitt@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (452is-Perkins)
Subject: Re: Is it CBS or NASA?

In article <4916@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU>, layman@athena.mit.edu (Tracey A. Layman) writes:
> NASA is not necessarily sexist.  As women have been seeking their
> equal rights, and "coming into their own" these days aeronautics, and
> astronautics are among the fields with the lowest percentage of women.
> Therefore, don't blame NASA, blame a lack of motivation.  (Or smarts,
> no I won't say it.  It's too sick.)

> Tracey Layman:		mit-eddie!layman@athena.mit.edu

I can't see why that would stop you. I assume you mean that since women
are doing so well in private industry, NASA doesn't feel motivated to
hire them and give them jobs.  Or maybe you mean that NASA isn't smart
enough to give out jobs based on ability not gender.  Silly me not to
notice that all gender based barriers in employment, in education,
especially math and science, and in our society in general had
disappeared while I was writing code and not paying attention.  Thanks
for your sharing your enlightenment.

Kate Perkins
replies to ihlpg!kapa

------------------------------

Date: 3 May 88 02:20:53 GMT
From: natinst!bigtex!james@cs.utexas.edu  (James Van Artsdalen)
Subject: Re: Is it CBS or NASA?

I did not see the broadcast: don't watch CBS at all (poor journalism).

Key point: JSC's charter is NOT research.  This is strictly an
engineering site at best.

They hire what engineering schools turn out, and at least some of those
schools turn out few women engineering graduates indeed.  As recently as
five years ago I was an undergraduate at The University of Texas at
Austin in the Electrical Engineering school, and there were almost no
undergraduate women.  Computer Science appears to have been >50% women,
but definitely not EE!

As for the good 'old boys, well, it IS a conservative area.  Clear Lake
City, and Friendswood especially, is Southern Baptist country.  Anything
that sounds like liberalism isn't going to go at all.  I doubt there is
any intentional discrimination, but were there a need for change - well,
we've seen in the last couple of years that change comes very slowly at
NASA these days.

Got a chuckle out "the bar where the guys hang out".  To the best of my
knowledge, the best place to "see and be seen", NASA style, is still
lunch at Frenchy's (sp?) at NASA Rd. 1 & El Dorado.  Go there if you
visit the center just to see the celebrity pictures.  I doubt many
management types hang out at a bar, and unless things have changed
greatly, getting plastered at a bar would bring a quick end to an
astronaut's career if it got in the papers.

PS. This is the "new model" Van Artsdalen, not that "older model" who
    still lives in Houston and would be annoyed were he to see his name
    on this article :-)
-- 
James R. Van Artsdalen   ...!ut-sally!utastro!bigtex!james   "Live Free or Die"
Home: 512-346-2444 Work: 328-0282; 110 Wild Basin Rd. Ste #230, Austin TX 78746

------------------------------

Date: 2 May 88 23:48:00 GMT
From: nsc!csi!jwhitnel@hplabs.hp.com  (Jerry Whitnell)
Subject: Re: Is it CBS or NASA?

In article <4206@dasys1.UUCP> lkw@dasys1.UUCP (Laura Watson) writes:
>Well, if I went down and applied for a job as an astronaut, do you
>think they'd take me?  I think it'd be fun.  What qualifications does
>an astronaut have to have?  (My Momma told me she would've liked to
>have been an astronaut....)
>Laura Watson                                    {uunet}!mstan\

There was an article on the qualifications that NASA is looking for in
their astronauts in NASA Technical Briefs (I think the name is correct)
about 2 years ago.  All I can remember is that they wanted an advance
degree in the sciences or engineering and that you be under 5' 9".  The
ironic thing about this article was that it came out right after the
Challenger explosion.

------------------------------

Date: 3 May 88 12:50:08 GMT
From: mfci!root@YALE-BULLDOG.ARPA  (SuperUser)
Subject: Re: Is it CBS or NASA?

In article <22238@teknowledge-vaxc.ARPA> sworking@teknowledge-vaxc.UUCP (Scott Workinger) writes:
>Seriously, Laura.  Why don't you apply?  It could be a great 

Here's the address: 

  Mr. Duane L. Ross
  Manager, Astronaut Selection Office
  National Aeronautics and Space Administration
  Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center
  Houston, Texas 77058

It doesn't cost anything to apply.  They'll send you an application with
instructions for including other things, like college transcripts and
medical history.  The application says that only pilots have to be
physically perfect (and have a zillion flight hours already in
high-performance experimental aircraft.)  Mission specialists have much
more lenient requirements.

Bob Colwell            mfci!colwell@uunet.uucp
Multiflow Computer
175 N. Main St.
Branford, CT 06405     203-488-6090

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #213
*******************

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Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #214

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 214

Today's Topics:
		      Re: RELEASE/Remote Sensing
		DUKAKIS Space Position Paper (repost)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 15 Apr 88 21:53:09 pdt
From: Eugene N. Miya <eugene@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov>
Subject: Re: RELEASE/Remote Sensing
Newsgroups: nasa.nasamail.l
Cc: 

Here's an interesting article.

--eugene
================================================

Jim Ball 
Headquarters, Washington, D.C.                     April 15, 1988
(Phone:  202/453-8604) 

Charles Redmond
Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
(Phone:  202/453-1547)

Myron Webb
National Space Technology Laboratories, Miss.
(Phone:  601/688-1413)


RELEASE: 88-53

NASA SELECTS PROJECTS FOR PUBLIC/COMMERCIAL USE OF REMOTE SENSING


     The National Aeronautics and Space Administration today 
announced the selection of 20 research projects to develop new 
public and private sector applications of space-based and 
airborne remote sensing technologies.

     Funding of the projects represents the initiation of a new 
program aimed at increasing broader use of NASA-developed 
technology for gathering and analyzing valuable information about 
Earth and ocean resources through remote satellite or aircraft 
observations.

     The program, jointly sponsored by NASA's Office of Space 
Science and Applications and Office of Commercial Programs, 
Washington, D.C., will fund up to $4 million of research 
annually.

     Projects funded under the program will identify and research 
new commercial products and services that might be developed from 
use of existing technology and explore ways of improving and 
expanding the uses of remote sensing by public sector agencies or 
commercial ventures.

     Commercial development projects will be managed by the 
Office of Commercial Programs through the Earth Resources 
Laboratory at NASA's National Space Technology Laboratories 
(NSTL), Mississippi.

     Public sector applications projects and those requiring 
significant technology development will be managed by the Earth 
Science and Applications Division of NASA's Office of Space 
Science and Applications.

     The 20 projects selected for negotiation leading to 1-year 
funding contracts, with options to extend funding two additional 
years, are:


	COMMERCIAL APPLICATION PROJECTS


o 	Development of Practical, Cost Effective Methods Utilizing 
	Satellite Data for Forest Resources Management, proposed by 
	investigators affiliated with James W. Sewall Co., Old 
	Town, Maine; NSTL Earth Resources Laboratory; the University 
	of Maine, Orono.

o	Commercial Development of an Ice Data and Forecasting System, 
	proposed by investigators affiliated with Batelle, 
	Columbus, Ohio; Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio; User 
	Systems Inc., Annandale, Va.; Naval Postgraduate School,
	Monterey, Calif.; Weather Management Consultants, Anchorage,
	Alaska; Mobil Research and Development Corp., Farmers Branch,
	Texas; Amoco Production Co., Denver, Colorado; Unocal, 
	Brea, Calif.

o	An Evaluation of Current, and Recommendations for Future Uses 
	of Remotely Sensed Data for Commercial Forest Inventory, 
	proposed by investigators affiliated with the University of 
	California, Berkeley.

o	Application of the Airborne Ocean Color Imager for Commercial 
	Fishing, proposed by investigators affiliated with NASA's
	Ames Research Center (ARC), Mountain View, Calif.; Daedalus
	Enterprises, Ann Arbor, Michigan; National Marine Fisheries
	Center, NSTL; Zapata Haynie Corp., Hammond, La.; Spectro 
	Scan Inc., Miami, Fla.

o	An Environmental and Archeological Assessment of the Piedras 
	Negras Region of Guatemala and Mexico, proposed by 
	investigators affiliated with Middle Tennessee State 
	University, Murfreesboro; NSTL; National Geographic Society,
	Washington, D.C.; Geoinformation Services, Starkville,
	Miss.

o	Commercial Environmental Sensitivity Index Mapping Using 
	Remote Sensing and GIS Technology, proposed by investigators 
	affiliated with RPI International, Inc., Columbia, South 
	Carolina; University of South Carolina, Columbia; NSTL 
	Earth Resources Laboratory.

o	Efficient Updates of Vector-Coded Geographic Information 
	Systems Using Remotely Sensed Data, proposed by an 
	investigator affiliated with San Diego State University, San
	Diego, Calif.

o	Using Landsat to Provide Potato Production Estimates to 
	Columbia Basin Farmers and Processors, proposed by 
	investigators affiliated with Cropix, Inc., Hermiston, 
	Oregon; Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon; ARC.


o	Algorith Development for an Integrated Satellite APT and 
	Ocean Color Scanner Receive/Process/Display System for Ocean-
	Going Vessels, proposed by investigators affiliated with 
	Systems West, Inc., Carmel, Calif.


	PUBLIC SECTOR APPLICATIONS/TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS 


o	Detection of Seasonal and Annual Changes in Migratory 
	Waterfowl Habitats in the Central Valley of California, 
	proposed by investigators affiliated with the U.S. Fish and 
	Wildlife Service and ARC.

o	Applications of Remote Sensing for Landslide Hazard 
	Assessment, proposed by investigators affiliated with ARC; 
	U.S. Geological Survey; the U.S. Forest Service.

o	Use of Spectral Resonance Imaging Techniques for the 
	Detection of Surface Alternation Effects Associated with 
	Hydrocarbon Reservoirs, proposed by investigators affiliated 
	with ARCO Oil and Gas Co., Dallas, Texas and the Jet 
	Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

o	Development of Application of Remote Sensing of Longwave 
	Heating from TIROS Operational Sounder, proposed by 
	investigators affiliated with the University of Maryland,
	College Park; National Oceanic and Atmospheric 
	Administration; the National Weather Service. 

o	Compiling and Editing Area Sampling Frames Using Digital Data 
	for Land Use Analysis and Boundary Definition, proposed by 
	investigators affiliated with the U.S. Department of 
	Agriculture and ARC.

o	Application of Remote Sensing and Image Processing 
	Technologies: Sediment Transport and Land Loss Processes, 
	Coastal Louisiana, proposed by investigators affiliated with 
	Louisiana State University; Louisiana Geological Survey;
	NSTL.

o	Automated Satellite-Based Alarms: A Proposal to Develop and 
	Operate a Satellite-Based Fire Detection and Monitoring 
	Program for Western U.S., proposed by investigators 
	affiliated with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric 
	Administration; U.S. Department of Interior; the U.S. 
	Department of Agriculture.

o	Locating Subsurface Gravel Deposits with Thermal Imagery, 
	proposed by investigators affiliated with the U.S. Forest 
	Service and NSTL.

o	Applying Remote Sensing and GIS Techniques in Solving Rural 
	County Information Needs, proposed by investigators 
	affiliated with Purdue Research Foundation; Purdue University
	DRT, Inc., all of Lafayette, Indiana.

o	Satellite Inventory of Minnesota Forest Resources, proposed 
	by investigators affiliated with the University of Minnesota, 
	Minneapolis, and the Minnesota Department of Natural 
	Resources, St. Paul.

o	Geographic Information Analysis: An Ecological Approach for 
	the Management of Wildlife on the Forested Landscape, 
	proposed by investigators affiliated with Oregon State
	University; the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife; the 
	U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Science Lab.

------------------------------

Date: 16 Apr 88 02:19:43 GMT
From: phoenix!pucc!EWTILENI@princeton.edu  (Eric Tilenius)
Subject: DUKAKIS Space Position Paper (repost)

With some big elections coming up, and due to the large number of requests for
this I've been receiving lately, here is a report of Mike Dukakis' Space
Position Paper...
 
ALSO AVAILABLE BY EMAIL:  Jesse JACKSON,  Al GORE,  Paul SIMON;
ALSO, The Mars Declaration, President's Nat'l Space Policy, and Mrazek on Space
Send EMAIL if you'd like a copy of any of the above.
 
*************************************************************************
 
  MIKE DUKAKIS ON THE ISSUES:
 
  RESTORING AMERICAN LEADERSHIP IN SPACE
 
  A generation ago, President John F. Kennedy raised the
  sights and the spirits of all Americans by challenging our
  scientists and citizens to go forward with a bold program of
  space exploration.  Mercury, Gemini and Apollo fired our
  imaginations and our pride; Voyager, Viking and Skylab
  explored the depths of our solar system and the resources of
  our planet, gave us new insight into the origins of our
  universe and provided new knowlege and understanding with
  which we could improve the quality of life on earth.
 
  Sadly, in recent years, our space program has lost its sense
  of purpose.  Despite annual expenditures approaching $10
  billion per year, NASA is demoralized and our space effort
  is in disarray, our space science program no longer leads
  the world, and the tragedy of the space shuttle Challenger
  has created doubts about the ability of the United States to
  operate effectively in space.  Our space program has been
  dominated by military considerations, while our
  competitiveness in the world-wide commercial market has
  steadily eroded.
 
  A NEW NATIONAL CONSENSUS
 
  For seven years, the current Administration has pursued a
  program-by-program, piecemeal approach to our space effort.
  The time has come to renew our commitment to an imaginative,
  well-desiged space policy.  To turn away from the fantasy of
  Star Wars and to seek again to explore space for the benefit
  of all mankind.  The next President must forge a new national
  consensus behind our goals in space:  A vision that will
  guide our policies throughout the next decade and into the
  next century.
 
  We must begin by addressing our basic aims in space:  how to
  reinvigorate our space science program, how to maintain
  America's technological edge in the face of increasing
  foreign competition; how to meet our requirements for space
  transportation;  and how to define the role of manned space
  activities.  The massive federal budget deficit will limit
  the resources available to the next President.  He must work
  with Congress to set clear priorities and attainable goals,
  while strengthening partnerships between the federal
  government, our universities and the research community, and
  the private sector.
 
  PROMOTING A COMPETITIVE AMERICAN SPACE INDUSTRY
 
  We need a space policy that will promote the competitiveness
  of American industry in the growing international market and
  expand job opportunities, while serving fundamental national
  goals in space.  We should encourage commercial uses of
  space.  The federal government must provide our private
  sector with the opportunity to invest in and develop space-
  related technologies, transportation systems and satellites.
 
  As President, I will encourage private investment by
  creating partnerships between the federal government and the
  private sector that emphasizes joint research programs.  I
  will set forth clear policies for commercial competition to
  help promote our ability to meet the world-wide demand for
  launch services.  And I will reinvigorate the White House
  office of Science and Technology Policy and charge it with
  the responsibility for ensuring effective coordination among
  government agencies and greater private sector involvement
  in our nation's space effort.
 
  REINVIGORATING SPACE SCIENCE
 
  Rather than spend billions of dollars for projects that
  serve narrow interests -- such as the "Orient Express" space
  plane that will fly from New York to Tokyo in three hours,
  we should invest in a space program that will benefit our
  nation and humankind as a whlle.  We should emphasize
  research, the development of innovative technology and space
  science, to expand our knowlege of the earth's resources
  and the world's oceans, improve communications and reveal
  the mysteries of the universe.  We must develop a
  comprehensive, long-term plan to assure stable funding  for
  important space science projects such as the Venus Radar
  mapper, the Mars Observer, the Advanced X-Ray Astrophysics
  Facility and the Hubble Space Telescope.
 
  ASSURING OUR ACCESS TO SPACE
 
  Second, we must restore our space transportation capability.
  I support the recommendation of the Challenger Commission to
  return the shuttle to service with a reduced flight schedule
  to help ensure higher safety standards, and to build a
  fourth orbiter, using proven technology.  At the same time,
  the disruption caused by the shuttle disaster and the
  failures of the Titan and Delta rockets makes clear the need
  to diversify our nation's launch capability and devlop
  affordable alternatives to the shuttle (such as new
  expendable launch vehicles) for delivering important
  payloads into space.
 
  AN AFFORDABLE, PRACTICAL SPACE STATION
 
  Third, we should review the options for the space station.
  I support the development, at a prudent pace, of a
  technologically sophisticated space science and engineering
  laboratory -- but there are a number of less costly
  alternatives to the station now envisioned by NASA.  These
  alternatives -- including a station that need not be
  permanently manned -- could be in operation much sooner and
  could meet most, if not all of the requirements of the
  larger, permanently manned space station.
 
  SKILLED MANAGEMENT FOR NASA
 
  Fifth, I will appoint skilled managers at NASA who will
  restore professionalism and competence to our space program.
  Managers who will set high standards for NASA personnel and
  contractors -- and who will make sure that those standards are
  met.  The continuing failures in our shuttle program are
  symptomatic of management gone awry -- our nation deserves
  better.
 
  INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION IN SPACE
 
  Finally, I will ask the Soviet Union, and other space-faring
  nations, to join with the US in more cooperative efforts in
  space.  While we must be careful to protect sensitive
  technologies in these cooperative programs, they offer an
  unparalleled opportunity for all nations to work together on
  projects which will benefit us all.  We should renew the US-
  USSR Space Science Agreement, coordinate the 1989 Soviet
  mission to Phobos with the US Mars Observer flight, and
  invite the USSR to join with the US, Japan and the European
  Space Agency in the International Solar Terrestrial Physics
  Program.  And we should explore with the Soviet Union and
  other nations the feasibility and practicality of joint
  space engineering activities that might pave the way to a
  joint manned mission to Mars.
 
  ENHANCING OUR SECURITY IN SPACE
 
  I strongly oppose the Administration's militarization of
  space.  Star Wars and anti-satellite weapons not only make
  our nation less secure; they divert funds and attention from
  far more important space research efforts.  As President, I
  will direct the Pentagon to focus its efforts on programs
  that will enhance our security, such as improved satellites
  for arms control verification and early warning of attack,
  communications, navagation, and meteorology.
 
  And I will challenge the Soviet Union to join with us in
  new agreements to protect our vital space activities and
  enhance our security.  By negotiating a ban on testing anti-
  satellite weapons -- including lasers and electronic
  interference.  By developing guidelines for space operations --
  such as "keep out zones" that will reduce the danger of
  attack on satellites.  And by placing limits on military
  activities by humans in space.
 
  INSPIRING THE NEXT GENERATION OF SPACE SCIENTISTS
 
  The future of the American space program depends on its
  ability to inspire and attract the bright young people of
  our nation.  I support the establishment of educational
  programs that will motivate young people to explore careers
  in space science and technology.  NASA, its scientists and
  engineers, and the private sector can be an important part
  of that effort.
 
  During the 1960's, our space program became a symbol of what
  the American mind and spirit can accomplish.  As President,
  I will work with all those involved in the adventure of
  space to restore our sense of pride and purpose; and to
  explore the final frontier.
 
 
  -- Mike Dukakis
 
* For more information, write to: Mike Dukakis for President, 105 Chauncy St.  ,
  Boston, MA 02111 // 617-451-2480
 
******************************************************************************
 
- ERIC -
 
*----------------------===>  SPACE IS THE PLACE... <===-----------------------*
*        ewtileni@pucc.Princeton.EDU  //  ewtileni@pucc.BITNET                *
*      rutgers!pucc.bitnet!ewtileni  //  princeton!pucc.bitnet!ewtileni       *
* ColorVenture - Microcomputer Software - "Because Life isn't Black and White"*
*--------------------===> Another proud CoCo 3 owner <===---------------------*

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #214
*******************

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Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #215

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 215

Today's Topics:
	    Re: greenhouse effect / solar power satellites
			    Re: antimatter
			      Jim Loudin
		       IUE (NASA Press Release)
			      Antimatter
      Advertising, technology leakage, and space remote sensing
			      MAGAZINES
			 Private industry...
			     Space cities
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 14 Apr 88 07:40:21 GMT
From: markey@tybalt.caltech.edu  (Ron A Markey)
Subject: Re: greenhouse effect / solar power satellites

In article <226@aplcomm.UUCP> jwm@stdc.jhuapl.edu.UUCP (James W. Meritt) writes:
>Not being much of an astrophysicist, could someone comment on putting
>dust in an orbit between the earth and the sun?  The position I have in
>mind is an orbit closer to the sun at the point where the earth's
>gravity balances the suns to the extent that it could orbit at the
>(slower) speed that the earth does.  It sounds to me like it would orbit
>properly, but I have no idea how far from the earth this point is, nor
>does it seem overly stable.  Could a, say, 5% reduction in incoming
>solar flux be achieved in this way (balancing the "extra" beamed in
>from those billions and billions of SPSs ;~))?
>
>
>Disclaimer: Individuals have opinions, organizations have policy.
>            Therefore, these opinions are mine and not any organizations!
>Q.E.D.
>jwm@aplvax.jhuapl.edu 128.244.65.5


The distance from the Earth to the center of mass of the cloud works
out to be about 1,530,000 km.  Given that the moon is out there swinging 
around 400,000 km, I don't think that it would be to awfully stable.
I anyone is interested in the math, send me mail and I'll give it to you.

Another problem with this pops to mind.  This dust is not just going to 
block the sunlight, it is going to absorb and re-radiate it.  Given that
the cloud is going to spread out (it would even if the moon weren't screwing
things up) and potentially occupy a lot of sky it seems likely that it
will eventually end up contributing to the problem that it is supposed to
solve by absorbing a LOT of energy and radiating it at Earth.

- Ron (markey@tybalt.caltech.edu)

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 17 Apr 88 16:02 EDT
From: "Paul F. Dietz" <DIETZ%sdr.slb.com@relay.cs.net>
Subject: Re: antimatter
To: att-cb!clyde!watmath!utgpu!utzoo!henry@ucbvax.berkeley.edu,
        space@angband.s1.gov


In response to:
  >> >	'The 'giggle factor' is over. Antimatter is real ...
  >> Of course the 'giggle factor' is over.  There's absolutely nothing
  >> funny about what DoD is going to actually use antimatter for.
Henry Spencer wrote:
  > Giggle.  Snicker.  Chortle.  Guffaw.  Roll about on the floor laughing at
  > the naivete of this silly comment.
  (followed by comments on the ridiculousness of antimatter bombs.)

I don't think this sort of condescending ridicule is appropriate.  One
can easily imagine military applications of antimatter, although not
in the near future.

Antimatter might be effective in a beam weapon. In a normal-matter neutral
particle beam weapon, energy is conveyed to the target by the kinetic
energy of the beam's particles. The particles must be quite energetic, and
the accelerator must have a large power source. In an antimatter beam
weapon, energy is released when the beam's particles annihilate in the
target. That could shrink the size of the accelerator by many orders
of magnitude.

It might be possible to use antimatter to initiate fusion reactions. For
example, one might use chemical explosives to implode fusionable material
onto a small kernel of antimatter. A temperature of around 10 KeV or so is
required to ignite DT, so very little antimatter is required (assuming 
enough of the energy can be deposited locally).

An antimatter explosion would produce radiations not found in a
conventional nuclear device. Decay of neutral pions would produce very
energetic photons, and decay of charged pions produces muons. Annihilation
of antimatter in nuclei might produce neutrons more energetic than those
produced by fusion.

Unlike conventional nuclear bombs, antimatter bombs can in principle be
made as small as one likes, and are essentially fallout-free. A bomb
containing a few tens of nanograms of antimatter might make an effective
tactical radiation weapon (less if fusion reactions can be initiated),
assuming handling problems can be solved. That might require the synthesis
of higher antielements, but that's not obviously impossible.

	Paul F. Dietz
	dietz@sdr.slb.com

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 18 Apr 88 15:37:57 MST
From: Harold bidlack <bidlack@usafa.arpa>
Subject: Jim Loudin

One of the nation's great space popularizers and one of the most knowledgeable
persons about the US and USSR space programs has died.  Jim Loudin of the
University of Michigan passed away from natural causes on Jan 27th in his
home near Dexter, Michigan.  Jim hosted for 18 years a very popular lecture
series on space related topics, and was the NPR space reporter during the
Viking Mars lander program.  He was also a friend, and his loss will be
felt by all whose lives he touched.  He was 45.  He will be missed.

------------------------------

Date: 18 Apr 88 19:33:32 GMT
From: cfa!willner@husc6.harvard.edu  (Steve Willner)
Subject: IUE (NASA Press Release)

Here's a NASA press release from back in January.  I'm posting it a
bit late, but it's still relevant.  My own comments are in {braces}.
(The release is a bit long, but you can hit 'n' when you've read
enough.)

Charles Redmond
Headquarters, Washington, D.C.                  January 22, 1988
(Phone:202/453-1549)

Randee Exler
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt ,Md.
(Phone:301/286-7277)

INTERNATIONAL ULTRAVIOLET EXPLORER MARKS DECADE OF RESEARCH

     When NASA launched a space-based telescope called the
International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE), it was expected to last
only 3 years, perhaps 5 at the most.

     On Jan. 26, the IUE will complete a decade of continuous
operation during which it was instrumental in some of the most
important advances in modern astronomy.

     The IUE is credited with the discovery of galactic halos (hot
gas which surrounds our galaxy {They must mean other galaxies; I
don't think IUE has seen the halo of our Galaxy.}), monitoring
volcanic activities on Io (a moon of Jupiter), beaming the first
images ever recorded of Halley's comet from space and monitoring,
since Feb. 24, 1987, the intense emissions of ultraviolet radiation
from Supernova 1987A, an exploding star approximately 163,000 light
years from Earth.

     Dr. Yoji Kondo, IUE project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space
Flight Center (GSFC), Greenbelt, Md., maintains, "The IUE is one of
the most productive telescopes on or off the planet.

     "One measure of the productivity of a scientific instrument is
the number of papers published in referred journals about work using
that instrument," he said.  "As the IUE completed its 10th year in
orbit, more than 1,400 articles, based on IUE observations, have been
published in refereed journals.  This far exceeds the number of
articles based on data from other telescopes in similar journals
during the same time period.  The papers are based on research of
astronomers from around the world who conduct their studies in
real-time on both sides of the Atlantic."  {For comparison, the
leading US journal publishes about 1000 papers per year.  Of course, 
many IUE papers contain data from other telescopes too.}

     The IUE was placed in a geosynchronous orbit over the Atlantic
Ocean, enabling operations around the clock.  The satellite telescope
is controlled from the science operations center at GSFC for 16 hours
and in Spain, with the Villafranca Ground Station near Madrid, for 8
hours.  IUE staff astronomers at GSFC, under contract by the Computer
Sciences Corporation, Beltsville, Md., assist visiting astronomers
with their work.  The Bendix Field Engineering Corporation performs
spacecraft maintenance operations 24 hours-a-day from GSFC.

     The IUE is a joint effort of NASA, the European Space Agency
(ESA) and the British Science and Engineering Research Council
(SERC).  Goddard scientists, engineers and technicians designed,
integrated and tested the IUE.  An ESA team built the solar array and
the ground facilities near Madrid.  SERC, in collaboration with
University College, London, provided four TV camera detectors for
transforming the spectral displays into video signals.

     These organizations select observers and programs through annual
proposal competitions.  In January 1987, the total number of U.S.
guest proposals for the 10th year of operation reached 320, the
highest number for any year.  Over the years, the total number of IUE
guest observers at GSFC came to more than 800 different astronomers,
while the number for the control center in Spain totaled more than
750.

     "These figures indicate that a very substantial number of the
world's astronomers have used the IUE for their work at one time or
another," said Kondo.
 
     Goddard engineers, astronomers and analysts encountered a
serious problem with IUE when one of its remaining three gyros failed
and the spacecraft lost its pointing capability in 1985.  Of the
IUE's original six gyros (three had previously failed in 1979, 1982,
and 1983), the 1985 gyro failure left only two working gyros.

     Spacecraft traditionally need a minimum of three gyros to
determine the spacecraft roll, pitch and yaw reference to point at
targets and maintain stabilization during observations.  The problem
of maintaining three-axis stabilization with only two gyros is
considered nearly impossible to achieve.

     A plan was devised and implemented by Goddard's guidance and
control team, led by GSFC engineer Henry Hoffman, that asubstituted
one axis of the IUE's sun sensor for the lost gyro, thus maintaining
three-axis control on only two gyros.  Not only did using the sun
sensor stabilize the ailing spacecraft, but pointing accuracies and
stability remained virtually unchanged.

     "The IUE has an entirely new set of control laws which bear no
resemblance to what was there before," explained Hoffman.

     "We have a one-gyro system sitting in our hip pocket," he added.
This software has been fully checked out on the ground and will be
uplinked to the IUE if and when one of the remaining two gyros fails.
The one gyro system uses the second axis of the sun sensor in lieu of
one of the remaining two gyros.

     "We have a concept and plans for developing a zero-gyro system,"
Hoffman claimed.  "Two reference axes will be derived from the sun
sensor, and the third reference by carefully managing the speed of
the spacecraft's reaction wheels."  The zero-gyro concept is being
studied and appears feasible at this time.

     There are many ground-based telescopes much larger and more
powerful than the IUE but being space-borne vastly improves the
acquired images due to the absence of clouds or atmosphere that
obscure vision. {"Improves" is a bit of an understatement, since the
atmosphere is completely opaque at the ultraviolet wavelengths where
IUE works.}
-- 
Steve Willner            Phone 617-495-7123         Bitnet:   willner@cfa
60 Garden St.            FTS:      830-7123           UUCP:   willner@cfa
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA                 Internet: willner@cfa.harvard.edu

------------------------------

Date: 18 Apr 88 20:51:42 GMT
From: josh@topaz.rutgers.edu  (J Storrs Hall)
Subject: Antimatter

Hmmm.  It just occurs to me:  how much antimatter would it take to
ignite a lithium deuteride pellet?  or indeed something harder to
fuse?  One might get a signigicant power multiplier that way (assuming
that antimatter is the critical-cost component).

--JoSH

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 19 Apr 88 15:41:16 pdt
From: Eugene N. Miya <eugene@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov>
Subject: Advertising, technology leakage, and space remote sensing

I call reader attention to Page 22-23 of the April 15 issue of
Datamation (go to nearest library or big computer center).  Datamation
for those not in the know is a freebie especially to IBM oriented
(well that's not completely fair), mainframe oriented COBOL shops.

This is an ad placed by DEC using Westinghouse Defense as an example
to promote VAX(tm) /VMS systems.  The ad is not unique, probably every
company has vested interest touting their clients. Anyway, I call your
interest to the radar image on page 22.

Now the article notes key words like B-1B, but there is no indication
that said radar image is from the B-1 radar system.  Pick picking up a
map of WDC one can determine the orientation of the image (can you
identify North? {Not Ollie})  Good, don't post it. What direction
is the radar signal coming from (upper right corner of the picture, I mean
image) which is what direction? (Don't post it!)  Read on.  A quick
observation of photos (conventional) can pickout features for the two
usual tests of spatial resolution (separation and the other one).

It would be interesting to correlate specular highlights and shadow
areas as well.  Interesting areas to note: the
right most side of the pentagon shaped building: note how the
signal diminishes with distance, note the start of the shadow of the
"crown" of the pentagon shaped bulding. The angles and distances are
all important.  The parking areas also can provide interesting
information about the characterstics of the radar system in use.
It's interesting to note many more things, but I WANT TO POINT
OUT TO READERS HOW REMOTE SENSING INTEPRETERS THINK ABOUT DATA, and how 
seemingly innocuous information is leaked to the Soviet Union for those
concern with these issues, and a few other questions like this.

Now, note: the picture I paint is far from complete, but lots of things
can be deduced from this image.  I hope a few of your become interested
in satellite remote sensing. A few of you will probably seek this ad and
find a map of the area and look at these things (like determine building
height, this is called "ancillary data").
The really sharp guys will try to determine the material for the
pentagon shaped building (determine the dielectric constant).  One might chip
off a piece of a side for analysis, this is called "ground truth."  They are
all probably on Green Street in SF or off that hill in WDC.  Yes, you too
can learn lots about forward and side looking synthetic aperature
radar systems.  True you don't know aircraft altitude, but that's just
another piece of the puzzle.  Go have some fun.

Some times I wish I could turn off the way I think. ;-)

--eugene
s|.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 19 Apr 88  13:50:55 EST
From: Talisma%RCN.BITNET@mitvma.mit.edu
Subject:  MAGAZINES


  ARE THERE ANY OTHER ON-LINE MAGAZINES AVAILABLE?

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 19 Apr 88 11:19:20 CDT
From: "John Kelsey" <C445585%UMCVMB.BITNET@cornellc.ccs.cornell.edu>
Subject: Private industry...

     It seems like this has been brought up before, but what's to keep a
private firm from creating its own mini-space-program, say, for some of the
communications satelites?  Couldn't McDonnell-Douglas (sp?) or some such air-
craft company build its own small booster, then rent some land in So. America
or someplace like that to launch it?  From the article Henry Spencer quoted,
it sounds like there would be no shortage of demand at all.
     Is the federal gov't restricting this kind of stuff, or have no companies
seen a profit potential great enough to cover the costs?

-- John Kelsey, C445585@UMCVMB.bitnet
               (Fiver)
  "Cyberpunk :  Intimidation through superior technology."

------------------------------

Date: 18 Apr 88 03:20:28 GMT
From: steinmetz!ge-dab!codas!novavax!maddoxt@uunet.uu.net  (Don Joslyn)
Subject: Space cities


	With regard to the current state of development of space
cities, particularly their design:
	I am working on a novel, part of which is located in (surprise!)
a space city.  (If you want to check me out before wasting any time
engaging in correspondence, see _Omni_ for June, '85, April, '86, 
March, '88; _Asimov's_ for Sept. [or Oct.? Nov.? damn, I can't lay my
hands on the issue at the moment] . . . also _Mirrorshades_ anthology.  
I'm also cited in the back of _Neuromancer_ as the inventor of ICE, if 
that means anything to you.)  Also, you should know the novel will be 
published by Tor, and I'll certainly give proper credit to anyone 
who helps out.
	Anyway, while I have read many of the usual semi-popular pieces 
on space cities, from Gerard O'Neill to T. A. Heppenheimer, I am sadly
out of it with regard to the latest happenings.
	So I'm looking for help on questions like these:  who is doing 
the most interesting work in design of space cities right now?  What 
major revisions in the overall concept have been proposed in the past 
few years?  Does [insert specific harebrained idea] seem like a reasonable 
device/design parameter?
	Ideally, I would (very very much) like to e-correspond with someone
on the net who would be willing to read & respond to my ideas; I'm 
into the book at the point where I really need to firm up the design of 
the habitat.  
	One other thing:  while I'm not a truly "hard" sf writer, 
in the old tradition of, say, Hal Clement, I want to extrapolate 
from the most interesting current ideas generated by people doing the 
real skull work.  So I don't feel constrained by current technology,
probably not even by current science, but I don't want to contravene
reality itself (if that makes sense). 
	If you're interested, drop me e-mail (maddoxt@novavax.UUCP) and
let me know.  Ask whatever questions you've got, and I can send you 
details.  
	(I've got to tell you, there's an additional fascination in doing 
this, working the net this way:  this is the stuff I write about.)
	Thanks in advance for your replies.  If anything interesting happens,
I'll post it.  

 

	Tom Maddox

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #215
*******************

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Date: Tue, 10 May 88 03:27:08 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8805101027.AA02712@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #216

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 216

Today's Topics:
			 Re: TVSat situation
			 Re: Superconductors
		  Re: space news from March 28 AW&ST
		  Re: space news from March 28 AW&ST
	      Re: Solar Sat Power Stations & greenhouses
		  Re: space news from March 14 AW&ST
			 Re: Nippon in Space
			 Re: TVSat situation
			 Re: Superconductors
		       Re: Private industry...
		       Leasecraft and ISF/CDSF
		    Re: Millions of Comets etc...
			  Lunar Construction
	   Cometesimals (was: Millions of comets hit Earth)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date:     Wed, 20 Apr 88 10:16:28 CST
From: Will Martin -- AMXAL-RI <wmartin@almsa-1.arpa>
Subject:  Re: TVSat situation

>West Germany writes off TVSat 1, after all attempts to free jammed solar
>array fail.  

I wonder if it has occured to the Soviets to detour one of their many 
orbital flights by this satellite and have one of their guys or gals
lean out of the hatch and remove that one remaining retaining bolt that
earlier reports speculated is still in place and jamming that solar
array? If they did it without any fuss or prior announcement, and then
just notified the West Germans, "hey, we stopped by and fixed your
busted satellite while we were passing by. No big deal... Just being
neighborly..." -- that would be a fantastic propaganda coup (plus a
clear demonstration of their capabilities, which should help their
international space-sales organization!).

I'm making some assumptions here -- the main one is that the TVSat
is still in low orbit and hasn't yet been boosted up to geosync. (But if
the Soviets could fix it *there*, that would certainly be something to
brag about... :-) Another is that the Soviets have any interest in
helping the West Germans with anything. But their being able to fix this
particular satellite, which, in use, would affect millions of
DBS-receiving Europeans directly, would far overshadow the US' past
in-orbit repair of Solar Max, which, though scientifically valuable,
was still far distant from the man-in-the-street.

If they did it quietly, with no announcement or live-from-space video,
then if they failed they could just ignore it and proceed normally with
the rest of that mission. Even if tracked as coming close, they could say
they were practicing rendezvous or take some pictures to give to the West
Germans to perhaps show the actual cause of the failure. To me, it looks
like they couldn't lose. (It's not like there was anybody else up there
to see just what they were doing! :-()

Regards, Will Martin

------------------------------

Date: 20 Apr 88 19:14:20 GMT
From: cae780!leadsv!pat@hplabs.hp.com  (Pat Wimmer)
Subject: Re: Superconductors

I read the other day that the race to patent these new wonder
materials is underway.  Guess who is way out ahead of the rest of the
world in applying for patents?  It ain't the good ol' US of A!

Pat

------------------------------

Date: 20 Apr 88 21:38:02 GMT
From: livesey@sun.com  (Jon Livesey)
Subject: Re: space news from March 28 AW&ST

In article <1175@its63b.ed.ac.uk>, bob@its63b.ed.ac.uk (ERCF08 Bob Gray) writes:
> 
> In an unexpected announcement yesterday, Monday 18th April,
> The British Government changed it's previous position on
> the funding of space science, and is now to provide
> 250 million pounds to ESA over the next 10 years to take a
> 5.5% share in the Columbus project.
> 
> This change in policy seems to have happened after a
> House of Lords comittee report last month was highly
> critical of Government space funding.
> 
> The Government minister who made the announcement, and who
> earlier criticised ESA for being a "hugely expensive club"
> and "Over-ambitious", now says that sufficient changes have
> been made to make British participatrion worthwhile.

	It's very gratifying to see that the Upper House is still
performing its role efficiently.   It's also gratifying to see
that the threat of non-participation by one member state is enough
to influence ESA goals.

jon.

------------------------------

Date: 19 Apr 88 15:44:52 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!its63b!bob@uunet.uu.net  (ERCF08 Bob Gray)
Subject: Re: space news from March 28 AW&ST

In article <1988Apr17.235244.214@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>ESA and NASA come to tentative agreement on space-station participation!
>ESA also decides to give Britain a chance to change its mind about its
>recent refusal to get involved.

It's funny you should say that.

In an unexpected announcement yesterday, Monday 18th April,
The British Government changed it's previous position on
the funding of space science, and is now to provide
250 million pounds to ESA over the next 10 years to take a
5.5% share in the Columbus project.

This change in policy seems to have happened after a
House of Lords comittee report last month was highly
critical of Government space funding.

The Government minister who made the announcement, and who
earlier criticised ESA for being a "hugely expensive club"
and "Over-ambitious", now says that sufficient changes have
been made to make British participatrion worthwhile.

British Aerospace is expected to be the main contractor for
an Earth observation platform. Other British companies are
expected to provide operation control facilities and data
processing.

Also yesterday, the appointment of the new Director-General
of the UK's National Space Centre was announced. He is
Mr Arthur Prior, 49, a Department of Industry regional
officer in Birmingham for the past three years.
	Bob.

------------------------------

Date: 20 Apr 88 07:56:49 GMT
From: linus!utzoo!henry@husc6.harvard.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Solar Sat Power Stations & greenhouses

> Shouldn't we be promoting terrestrial solar power instead, since to the
> extent we use that to replace carbon fuels, nuclear power, etc. we are
> actually reducing the energy input to the system ??

Not necessarily.  The obvious place to put large-scale terrestrial solar
power facilities is in deserts, normally high-albedo places that reflect
or re-radiate most incoming energy right back out into space.  Remember
too that conversion of light to electricity is quite inefficient.  As I
recall, solar power satellites actually add less energy to the biosphere
than desert-based terrestrial solar power, because they put the very
inefficient conversion to electricity outside the atmosphere.
-- 
"Noalias must go.  This is           |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
non-negotiable."  --DMR              | {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 19 Apr 88 21:00:34 GMT
From: unisoft!hoptoad!dasys1!tneff@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Tom Neff)
Subject: Re: space news from March 14 AW&ST

In article <1988Apr13.025305.5212@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
> [excellent news roundup omitted]
>
>Train carrying SRB segments for STS-26 collides with car in Mississippi.
>No apparent damage to the segments, but extra inspections will be done.

In the interests of decency, let's note that the occupants of the
car were, tragically, killed.  I forget whether 2 or 4 people died,
but I believe a day of mourning was declared at Canaveral.

-- 
Tom Neff			UUCP: ...!cmcl2!phri!dasys1!tneff
	"None of your toys	CIS: 76556,2536		MCI: TNEFF
	 will function..."	GEnie: TOMNEFF		BIX: are you kidding?

------------------------------

Date: 20 Apr 88 11:12:16 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!its63b!bob@uunet.uu.net  (ERCF08 Bob Gray)
Subject: Re: Nippon in Space

In article <78@avsd.UUCP> govett@avsd.UUCP (David Govett) writes:
>Ohmygod!  A space camp race.

Coming soon. The Soviet version.

Headquarters to be in a special Nova Mir module.

and add 1/2 :->
	Bob.

------------------------------

Date: 21 Apr 88 15:56:59 GMT
From: cfa!cfa250!mcdowell@husc6.harvard.edu  (Jonathan)
Subject: Re: TVSat situation

>From article <8804202213.AA10239@angband.s1.gov>, by wmartin@ALMSA-1.ARPA (Will Martin -- AMXAL-RI):
> I'm making some assumptions here -- the main one is that the TVSat
> is still in low orbit and hasn't yet been boosted up to geosync. 
> Regards, Will Martin

Sorry- TV-SAT is in near geostationary orbit, slowly drifting
above the goestationary ring, according to NORAD's tracking data.

Maybe NASA's OMV will go fix it in a decade or so.

Jonathan McDowell

PS to Soviet space fans - Soviet launches continue 
apace with the launch of the fourth Photon recoverable
materials processing satellite, Kosmos-1939.

------------------------------

Date: 21 Apr 88 17:12:48 GMT
From: avsd!govett@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (David Govett)
Subject: Re: Superconductors

in article <2886@leadsv.UUCP>, pat@leadsv.UUCP (Pat Wimmer) says:
> Summary: Who owns the commercial applications?
> 
> I read the other day that the race to patent these new wonder
> materials is underway.  Guess who is way out ahead of the rest of the
> world in applying for patents?  It ain't the good ol' US of A!
> 

While it is true that Japan has filed for over 2000 patents (at $20,000
apiece) relating to superconductivity, it is important to remember that
not all patents are of equal value scientifically or monitarily.
Many patents are merely slight variants of others.  Also, quantity is
no substitute for quality.  One of the reasons Japan has filed for
so many patents is that they fear the US will lock up basic patents
on superconductivity.  It's the basic patent that pays.  

This is not intended to diminish Japan's activity in the field of 
superconductivity.  They certain seem to be more aware of its 
commercial potential than do US corporations.

------------------------------

Date: 21 Apr 88 22:05:09 GMT
From: beckenba@csvax.caltech.edu  (Joe Beckenbach)
Subject: Re: Private industry...

In his article John Kelsey (C445585@UMCVMB.BITNET) writes:
>
>     It seems like this has been brought up before, but what's to keep a
>private firm from creating its own mini-space-program, say, for some of the
>communications satelites?  Couldn't McDonnell-Douglas (sp?) or some such air-
>craft company build its own small booster, then rent some land in So. America
>or someplace like that to launch it?  From the article Henry Spencer quoted,
>it sounds like there would be no shortage of demand at all.
>     Is the federal gov't restricting this kind of stuff, or have no companies
>seen a profit potential great enough to cover the costs?

	Apparently there is no governmental incentive at all to allow any 
commercial American efforts in space:
	1- The US is under a UN treaty/agreement that makes each government
responsible for its citizens' actions while outside atmosphere.
	2- The NASA efforts are stalling; if the government-backed efforts
are failing miserably, how can a less-supported effort succeed? { NO FLAMES!
I call it as I have seen it.}
	3- The government has historically tried (and usually succeeded) in
placing as much state-of-the-art resources and material in the hands of itself
in the forms of its military and nonmilitary facets. Outside use is much
less controllable, and governments (especially bureaucratical) derive their
justifications and internal status from amount of control over some area.

	The only reason I can see for the US government to allow for the
commercial space efforts is to farm out harmless branches of research and
development, letting the private sector take the risks, tax any profits,
and classify projects if "national security is involved". This takes effort
and is in general counter to the trends I feel have been moving through
bureacracy for the past several years.

	In short, a private firm is fighting in a rigged no-win game to
provide an American-based effort. An international spread could allow a
better chance, but government is government the world over; it would
take immense pressures from industry to start turning any given governmental
behemoth, or a complete reworking.

-- 
Joe Beckenbach	CS BS ??			-- I'D RATHER BE ORBITING

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 22 Apr 88 09:27 MDT
From: HOFGARD_J%CUBLDR%VAXF.COLORADO.EDU@cunyvm.cuny.edu
Subject: Leasecraft and ISF/CDSF

I would be interested in comments regarding similarities and s
differences between Fairchild's Leasecraft program (whichgramd
essentially failed) and ISF/CDSF situation. Any thoughtsnSpace
out there?

------------------------------

Date:     Fri, 22 Apr 88 12:28 EDT
From: <SULTAN%BUASTA.BITNET@mitvma.mit.edu> (SULTAN)
Subject:  Re: Millions of Comets etc...


It seems that the 'small comet' debate has now hit SPACE DIGEST.
For those interested, most of the debate/discussion over the theory
that the Earth is constantly being bombarded by small comets has
already taken place in the pages of Geophysical Research Letters (GRL).

The relevant issues are:

         GRL Vol 13, No. 4 (pp. 303-310 is Frank et al's original paper)
         GRL vol 13, No. 6, 7, 9, 13, 14
         GRL Vol 14, No. 3, 5, 7

Mostly these are short articles that raise objections to the theory,
(like Jay Freeman did in SPACE DIGEST V8N198 with the 'where are the
lunar craters?' objection) followed by Frank et al's reply.

Most of the standard objections have already been addressed in these
letters. If you think you have a new one, check the back issues before
posting it.  If anyone knows more about the alleged JPL photos of said
comets, I'd be interested in hearing about it.

                                 Peter Sultan
                                 Boston University Center for Space Physics

------------------------------

Subject: Lunar Construction
Date: Fri, 22 Apr 88 13:41:24 -0500
From: Fred Baube <fbaube@note.nsf.gov>


Q1: What was/is the composition of lunar samples ?  Wasn't it
    silicon, aluminum, and oxygen in "ideal" proportions for use
    in solar cells, construction, and air-or-fuel ?  Wasn't it
    found to be excellent for terrestrial vegetables ?

Q2: How much variation was there in the composition of samples ?
    As much as in, say, terrestrial samples ?

Q3 (ridiculous): Couldn't von Neumann machines completely process
   the Moon into something like Trantor ?  There's no climate or
   strong gravity to complicate things, just vacuum and solar
   flares :-)

/f
------

------------------------------

Date:     Fri, 22 Apr 88 13:45:17 CDT
From: kistler%Iowa.Iowa@iago.caltech.edu (Allen C. Kistler)
Subject:  Cometesimals (was: Millions of comets hit Earth)


> From: bungia!datapg!sewilco@umn-cs.arpa  (Scot E. Wilcoxon)
> Subject: Millions of comets hit Earth

I don't work in that group, but it's within 30 sec walking distance so ...

> ...
> I assume Venus and Mars get a lot of hits as well, although the Earth-Moon
> system may present a much wider gravitational well.  I wonder how Mars'
> atmosphere can lose all that water.

It doesn't.  It (re)freezes.  Every few million years Mars warms up (since the
water that is in vapor form creates a greenhouse effect just like CO2); the
ice thaws; rivers flow on Mars.  There are lots of images of dry river beds on
Mars, river beds millions of years younger than the craters 10 feet away.
THEN Mars loses the water, because it's so warm.  Start all over again, etc.

> From: spar!freeman@decwrl.dec.com  (Jay Freeman)

> If that were so, then there should be at least hundreds of thousands of
> new craters on the MOON each year, each caused by the impact of a small
> comet.  I think we have enough high-resolution lunar photography, over a
> sufficient time base, so that any such phenomenon would be pretty
> obvious....    I
> also suspect that the seismographs left by the Apollo missions would
> have been kept pretty busy by all those impacts; remember that the
> seismographs were more than sensitive enough to detect the LEMs when
> they were crashed into the lunar surface after various missions, and
> that a LEM is much less massive than a 30-foot snowball and also moving
> at far less speed at impact.

The thing you have to get out of your head is that these are rocks.  You admit
they're snowballs, but you're still thinking of them as rocks.  The heat of
impact vaporizes them before they make a crater.  The most they do is stir up
the surface.  There are photographs of small vapor plumes on the moon.

The lunar seismometers are designed to detect low frequencies only, like
moonquakes (or LEM's).  These impacts are high frequency and consequently out
of the seismometers' bandwidth.

> From: mtunx!whuts!sw@rutgers.edu  (WARMINK)

> I read the 30ft as meaning 'left 30ft images', i.e. the cloud of water vapour
> could have been up to that size, but the comet causing it could be much much
> smaller. I'd be interested to find out what the resolution of the UV
> instrument was though....

The cometesimals are 10 to 12 m balls of carbon-covered ice.  Upon entry
they become 50 km balls of UV absorbing vapor.  The resolution of DE is
about 0.20 to 0.29 degrees, depending upon the geometry at the time.  This
is just enough to see the ``holes'' in the dayglow.  The temporal resolution
is fine enough (but also variable) that you can watch the dark spots move
across the viewing screen.

For those that are interested, _Geophys_Res_Lett_ in 1986 and 1987 had more
specific and accurate info than maybe _Omni_ or the LA _Times_.         :)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Disclaimer: "Even if I mangled them, the positions in the above text are
             entirely somebody else's."

Allen Kistler   kistler%iowa.iowa@Iago.Caltech.edu  Internet  <- good luck!
                iowa::kistler                       SPAN      <- always works
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #216
*******************

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Date: Wed, 11 May 88 03:24:47 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
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To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #217

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 217

Today's Topics:
			     May in Space
		      Mir elements, epoch 5 May
		    space news from April 11 AW&ST
			  Unused Saturn V's
	 Re: Cometesimals (was: Millions of comets hit Earth)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 24 Apr 88 02:25:00 GMT
From: kenny@b.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: May in Space

			 MAY IN SPACE HISTORY

5	Alan Shepard becomes first American in space, in 15-minute
	suborbital flight of Freedom 7. (1961)

11	Albert Einstein presents General Theory of Relativity.  (1916)

13	Soviet cosmonauts Anatoliy Beresovoy and Valentin Lebedev depart
	Baikonur Cosmodrome to begin record-setting 211-day stay in
	space aboard Salyut 7 space station.  (1982)

14	Skylab, first manned space station, launched.  (1973) Ground
	controllers discover that the laboratory has damage to thermal
	shield and solar cell array.

16	Gordon Cooper completes 22 orbits of the Earth in Faith 7.
	(1963)

17	Birthday (1836) of Joseph Norman Lockyer, discoverer of helium
	in the spectrum of the Sun.

	Nasa launches first geosynchronous-orbit meteorological
	satellite, SMS-1.  (1974)

18	Apollo 10 mission to rehearse lunar landing launched, with
	crewmen Eugene Cernan, Thomas Stafford, and John Young.
	(1969)

20	Pioneer Venus 1 spacecraft launched.  (1978)  Pioneer Venus 1
	later produces first global radar map of Venus.

24	Malcolm Scott Carpenter completes 3 orbits of the Earth in
	Aurora 7. (1962)

25	Arthur C. Clarke proposes the placement of relay satellites in
	geosynchronous orbit. (1945)

	John F. Kennedy declares landing a man on the Moon to be US
	national space objective. (1961)

	First Skylab crew, comprising Joseph Kerwin, Charles `Pete'
	Conrad, and Paul Weitz, launched. (1973)

28	Monkeys `Able' and `Baker' travel 300 miles into space aboard
	Jupiter-C missile.  (1959)

	Mars 3, USSR mission to Mars, launched.  (1971)

29	Einstein's General Theory of Relativity tested during solar
	eclipse.  (1919)

30	Mariner 9, first craft to orbit Mars, launched.  (1971)

31	Construction begins on Soviet space launch facilities at
	Baikonur Cosmodrome.  (1955)

------------------------------

Date: 9 May 88 04:07:00 GMT
From: kenny@m.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Mir elements, epoch 5 May


Mir        
1 16609U          88126.30389225 0.00020274           13584-3 0  1876
2 16609  51.6201 287.7444 0022386 291.3488  68.4997 15.74916017127072
Satellite: Mir        
Catalog id 16609
Element set 187
Epoch: 88126.30389225
Inclination:  51.6201 degrees
RA of node: 287.7444 degrees
Eccentricity:  0.0022386
Argument of perigee: 291.3488 degrees
Mean anomaly:  68.4997 degrees
Mean motion: 15.74916017 revs/day
Mean motion acceleration: 0.00020274 * 2 revs/day/day
Epoch Revolution: 12707

Semimajor axis:    6722.96 km
Apogee height*:     359.85 km
Perigee height*:     329.75 km


		Source: NASA Goddard via T.S.Kelso's `Celestial RCP/M'

* Apogee and perigee altitudes are referred to the mean radius of the
  Earth (6378.15 km), and not to the local radius of the geoid.  They
  are only approximate, and should not be used for orbit prediction.

------------------------------

Date: 9 May 88 00:49:35 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from April 11 AW&ST

More problems with the Hubble Telescope:  the launch in late 1989 will
be just before the solar cycle peaks in 1990, and there are already
indications that this peak may be a record-breaker.  The significance
of this is that increased solar activity means increased air drag, and
the telescope is big and fairly light, hence seriously affected.  There
has always been intent to reboost the HST occasionally, but if the
pessimistic forecasts come true, reboost might be needed only a year
after launch!  Viable alternatives are a higher orbit (possible but with
little margin for trouble during deployment) and a lengthy launch delay
(which everyone would prefer to avoid).  [Not all of this is from AW&ST;
the detail is from Planetary Encounter, the newsletter I've mentioned in
the past -- $35/12 issues, Box 98, Sewell NJ 08080.]

USAF Space Division plans to reexamine cryogenic shuttle upper stages.
The USAF would like a shuttle upper stage that could put 15 klbs into
Clarke orbit, and this doesn't look practical without cryogenic fuels.

Another company announces interest in doing things with shuttle external
tanks:  Global Outpost Inc of Virginia has approached NASA about using
the tanks as experiment platforms, starting in the early 1990s.  Unlike
External Tanks Corp, GO does not plan to pressurize them as shirtsleeve
environments.  ET has asked the government to give it all rights to all
external tanks [!], with it serving as intermediary for other customers
to amortize management and operational costs over as many tanks as possible.
ET promises to be real nice to other users.  GO, predictably, prefers to
deal direct with the government, and sees no need for a middleman.  ET
has asked the government to let it use the intertank area of the tanks
on early shuttle flights, first to measure atmospheric density and drag
in the tank's suborbital trajectory and then to experiment with using
residual propellants for attitude control; it might even be possible to
put paying suborbital payloads in there.

Aussat is expected to pick its next satellite supplier around the end of
May.  Intelsat will make its choice in the fall.

Dept of Transport would like to double the budget of the Office of
Commercial Space Transportation, on the grounds that recent budget cuts
have jeopardized proper supervision of the launch industry.  DoT also
foresees a growing need to get involved in private launch-site development,
both within and outside [!] the US, and will be ill-prepared to "assist"
such development without more funding.  [For some strange reason, I cannot
seem to recall any industry whose early growth was badly hampered by a
lack of government regulation and interference!  If OCST would stick to
safety issues and only safety issues, they wouldn't be short of manpower.
What, you thought that was all they did?  Ho ho. :-(]

Eosat restarts work on Landsat 6 after finally reaching agreement with
DoC over it.  Development stopped two years ago when government funding
stopped; $220M has now been made available.  There is no longer any
hope of avoiding a data gap, as 6 will go up in mid-91 (Titan 2 from
Vandenberg) but 4 and 5 won't last that long.  Eosat hopes to hold the
gap down to 18 months.

NASA and contractors put heads together on insulation separation in SRBs
and a possible problem with loose screws in SSME LOX pumps.  Minor areas
of debonding in the SRB insulation are not considered a disastrous problem,
and it undoubtedly happens a fair bit due to stresses after SRB stacking,
but recent debonding somewhat exceeds the current official limits.  The
big problem is that there is no longer any slack in the schedule for
sorting out things like this, and the early-August date will thus slip.

Eutelsat investigating a scheme using two or more small satellites in the
same orbital position for direct TV broadcasting.

NASA picks the telescoping-pole system as the low-altitude controlled-
flight escape system for shuttle crews.  [For those who don't remember,
the problem is that the shuttle is too fragile for safe ditching or
belly-landing, and someone just jumping out the hatch is likely to hit
the wing.]  Modifications and prototype fit checks on Discovery to be
done this week, with a flight-qualified pole to be installed in July.
Navy parachutists tested a prototype pole mounted on a C-141B; they
reported that it works even better than expected.  More tests will be
run in June to certify the flight hardware, including parachutes,
harnesses, the roller-equipped rings that fit over the pole, and the
pole itself (which is about 5 m long and 8 cm in diameter).  The pole
was picked over tractor rockets because of lighter weight, longer life
(the rockets have only a 5-year shelf life), less attention needed
during orbiter processing, and greater safety (since carrying live
rockets in the cabin presents significant risks).  The pole is thought
to be just as quick if not quicker in getting people out.  [Frankly, I
always thought the pole was the clear choice and the tractor rockets
were obviously a dumb idea.]  [Some of the detail in the above is from
World Spaceflight News, same price and address as Planetary Encounter.
I highly recommend both of them to people who want the details of most
anything space-related.]

Germany and Arianespace agree to move launch of TVSat 2 up to next year,
from 1990, since TVSat 1's stuck solar array has proved unfixable.

San Marco D/L atmospheric research satellite launched by Scout March 25
from the San Marco platform off Kenya.

Full development on Hermes starts this month, design to be complete by
the end of 1990.  Two will be built, the first to start drop tests in
1996 and the second to fly the first (unmanned) mission in mid-97.
The first manned mission will be April 98 using the first Hermes.
Debate continues on whether the escape capsule planned for Hermes can
be built within the time and money available, and whether it would be a
viable escape method in a catastrophic accident, but officially it is
still in the plans, if only to avoid public outcry if there was an
accident and there wasn't an escape system.

State commission asks Florida legislature for $500k for a feasibility
study of a state-run spaceport.  Commission also recommends state money
for a commercial-space insurance fund.  Hawaii is already pursuing the
idea of a state spaceport and has picked a location (Palima Point).
Virginia and Texas are also interested.  Australia's Cape York is ahead
of all competitors so far.  Indonesia is looking at the idea, with
enthusiastic support from Arianespace.  Japan is scouting Pacific locations,
and is reported to have offered to finance Cape York [Australia declined].

[This one is not space at all, but I can't resist.]  Presidential Airways,
a small airline based in Washington DC, reports a rush of charter inquiries
from US presidential candidates, because its jets have "Presidential"
prominently displayed on side and tail!

Aerospace Forum article by two people from UCLA's Center for International
and Strategic Affairs, urging that any future strategic-missile-reduction
treaty provide for conversion into space launchers.  This is not possible
under the impending INF treaty, although the intermediate-range missiles
are a bit small to make good boosters anyway.
-- 
NASA is to spaceflight as            |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
the Post Office is to mail.          | {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date:     Fri, 22 Apr 88 10:29 EST
From: GODDEN%gmr.com@relay.cs.net
Subject:  Unused Saturn V's

Last month I saw an aging Saturn V on the ground at Cape Canaveral and
I recall reading on this list that there are 2 others (Houston and
Huntsville?).  I commented to someone at work that it is absurd that
so much money was spent building these spacecraft when they were never
used, and he called me too lenient saying he thought it was criminal.
He has a point.  If we spent all that money building those guys, why
didn't we spend a little more and USE the damn things?  What's the 
scoop?  Who's to blame?  Why aren't they in prison?  Why do I smell
the stench of Congress?  
-Kurt Godden
 GM Research   
 <If my opinions aren't everyone's, there's something wrong.>

------------------------------

Date: 22 Apr 88 22:31:18 GMT
From: spar!freeman@decwrl.dec.com  (Jay Freeman)
Subject: Re: Cometesimals (was: Millions of comets hit Earth)

In article <880422134517.2698@Iowa> kistler%Iowa.Iowa@IAGO.CALTECH.EDU (Allen C. Kistler) writes:
>
>> From: spar!freeman@decwrl.dec.com  (Jay Freeman)
>
>> If that were so, then there should be at least hundreds of thousands of
>> new craters on the MOON each year, each caused by the impact of a small
>> comet.  I think we have enough high-resolution lunar photography, over a
>> sufficient time base, so that any such phenomenon would be pretty
>> obvious....    I
>> also suspect that the seismographs left by the Apollo missions would
>> have been kept pretty busy by all those impacts; remember that the
>> seismographs were more than sensitive enough to detect the LEMs when
>> they were crashed into the lunar surface after various missions, and
>> that a LEM is much less massive than a 30-foot snowball and also moving
>> at far less speed at impact.
>
>The thing you have to get out of your head is that these are rocks.  You admit
>they're snowballs, but you're still thinking of them as rocks.  The heat of
>impact vaporizes them before they make a crater.  The most they do is stir up
>the surface.  There are photographs of small vapor plumes on the moon.

It shouldn't matter what they are made of; the kinetic energy of a 10-meter
sphere of unit density, moving at a speed of several tens of Km per second,
is on the order of one gram times c-square.  That's as much energy as is
released in a small nuclear explosion -- one the size of the weapons used by
the US in World War II -- without regard to whether it's made of rock, ice,
jello or chocolate fudge.  It's hard to imagine releasing as much energy as
in a Hiroshima-sized atomic bomb, within a circle ten meters in diameter, in
less than a thousandth of a second, without making a crater.

>The lunar seismometers are designed to detect low frequencies only, like
>moonquakes (or LEM's).  These impacts are high frequency and consequently out
>of the seismometers' bandwidth.

Huh??  When you whack on something hard, you expect a louder noise, not a
different pitch, than when you whack on it more gently.  The analogy here is
Moon <-> bell (or drumhead, or tabletop); LEM impact <-> little hammer blow;
impact of meteoroid or cometesimal <-> big hammer blow.  I know the Apollo
seismometer data were used to rule out frequent impacts of LEM-sized meteors
on the Moon, presumably the same data would rule out the impact of LEM-sized
cometesimals.

Do you have any more specific journal references?

							-- Jay Freeman


<canonical disclaimer - these are my personal opinions>

------------------------------

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Date: Thu, 12 May 88 03:31:59 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
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To: Space@angband.s1.gov
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Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #218

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 218

Today's Topics:
     Open response to the Chair of the NSS Legislative Committee
		  Re: Superconductivity applications
		       How hot is it in space?
		   Preliminary Most asked questions
	 Re: Cometesimals (was: Millions of comets hit Earth)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Reply-To: pnet01!jim@trout.nosc.mil
Date: Sat, 23 Apr 88 13:12:49 PDT
From: jim@pnet01.cts.com (Jim Bowery)
Subject: Open response to the Chair of the NSS Legislative Committee

Open response to Scott Pace, Chairman of the Legislative Committee of
the National Space Society regarding unethical exercise of authority
and mismanagement of the Society:

You quote me:
>                                      "...The real question is this:  Why
> does Dale work against the establishment of a spacefaring civilization by
> espousing views which are against that aim which he is not obligated to
> espouse?"
> 

You respond:
>                               If he opposed them so strongly that he could
> not support them for the Society, he could have stayed silent or even
> resigned.  

This is exactly my point.  The message "cooperate, stay silent or resign" 
is the message we are receiving from the National Space Society these days.  

The free expression and exchange of ideas is the basis of a free society.
Totalitarian societies must suppress the free exchange of ideas and
ensure that everyone espouses the same view to maintain their immoral
authority.  Examples of such societies are Nazi Germany, Soviet Union,
from time to time, NASA and The National Space Society.

Established legal precident requires every man to resist immoral 
authority.  Simply following the rules is not good enough when the rules 
are evil.  Therefore, all members of the National Space Society should 
resist your authority solely because of your statement that Dale 
Amon can either cooperate, be silent or resign.  I call upon them to do so.

Our chapter is not the only one which is disgusted by the way a few 
unethical people have climbed on top of our Society.  Tactics which divide 
and suppress these chapters are starting to fail.  In response to these 
tactics, we have begun to form a network of resistance.  


>                                        I am not aware of material from
> you that we have failed to circulate. 

My primary contact was with Legislative Committee founder Sandra Adamson 
(Space Station contractor employee).  My contact was made in good faith 
without knowlege of her conflict of interest, therefore it was NOT 
confrontational.  Even so, she made it clear that she was working on
the Space Station program and that my input objecting to the Space 
Station Program as well as other aspects of NASA reform (all of which I 
have subsequently posted on this net) was unwelcome.  

>                                        I am aware of material from Andy
> Cutler, also of the San Diego chapter. I have discussed its contents
> extensively with him and other Committee members - and we have treated it
> on an equal basis with any other input from fellow NSS members.

The Dukakis organization appears to have a far greater awareness of Andy's 
proposed policy ideas than the NSS Legislative Committee.

I checked with Andy Cutler.  He recently talked to other members of 
the Legislative Committee who had neither seen the letter nor heard of 
the ideas represented in it.  Your "circulation" of these ideas must have 
been very ineffective to achieve such a low level of awareness in the 
other members.  

Your recent political mailing to the membership of NSS stated the 
falsehood that Dukakis has made no formal statement on space policy
except for a few negative comments.  It is clear that you acted in 
bad faith because of two damning facts:  1)  A simple call Dukakis' 
campaign headquarters would have correctly informed you about his space 
policy and 2)  The policies of other candidates were include even though 
they released theirs AFTER Dukakis organization publicized theirs.  

Since Andy had significant input on the Dukakis policy, your pattern of
behavior is consistent with the goal of keeping these policy options from 
coming to the attention of the Society's membership.

>        I work on military space policy issues ...

It is an accepted standard of behavior that one must avoid "not only
actual conflicts of interest, but must refrain from engaging in conduct
that gives the appearance of a conflict of interest."  (Executive order
11222 8 May 1965).

It is clear that you are in an actual conflict of interest.  

Even if you do not accept this it is inconceivable that you are not
giving the appearance of a conflict of interest.  Therefore if you
adhere to standards of personal conduct you should resign your 
positions of trust and authority with the National Space Society.

>         You last statements, while nonsense, alleged violations of Federal
> law. If you believe them to be true, the correct action would be to report
> it to the Federal Elections Commission and the Attorney General's Office
> nearest you. You should be prepared to to provide hard evidence to a Grand
> Jury.  I take arguements over policy, political strategy, and even insults
> as part of my work with the Society. 

I accept your invitation to contact the appropriate law enforcement
agencies, Scott.  The Federal Attorney will decide whether there are
sufficient grounds to come up hard evidence for a Grand Jury.
I'll be happy to assist him/her in doing just that.  I'm sure they'll
find your position as head of the Legislative Committee, board positions
on SpacePac and SpaceCause and employment with a government think tank
on military space policy, to be interesting.

I was originally hoping to keep this in the space interest community, 
but your challenge along with Sandra Adamson's rebuff has made it clear 
that something must be done about you two.  Mark Hopkins, while no longer 
employed by RAND, was so employeed when he founded the political action 
organizations and therefore has a history of unethical conduct which
ethically compells him to resign all positions of trust and authority
in NSS along with you and Sandra Adamson.

> 
> "I am running for the board of directors of the National Space Society so
> that I can work to rid out organization of these corrupting influences,
> restore the Society to its appropriate focus on apolitical educational
> activities and begin to represent the MEMBERSHIP rather than the views of a
> few NASA lackies."
> 
> Who are you calling NASA lackies? Those members of the NSS who do not
> agrees with you? 

No.  I'm calling Scott Pace, Sandra Adamson and Mark Hopkins, NASA lackies.

Your attempt to hide behind other members of the Society will not wash
with me or those members.  While I disagree with the opinions of some
members of NSS, they have not nominated themselves for suspicion through
unethical conduct.  Your situation and actions ("The lady doth protest 
too much." -- WS) reinforce my suspicions about your motives.  

>         In summary, your reckless allegations, lack of information about
> the structure of the Society, insulting tone, and ignorance of the laws
> regulating the Soceity and its sister organizations make you totally
> unqualified to serve on the NSS Board of Directors. You need to clean up
> your own act before you can get anyone else to take you seriously.
> 

Thank you very much, Scott.


Jim Bowery                    PHONE 619/295-8868
PO Box 1981                   (I welcome voice discussion of these issues.)
La Jolla, CA 92038

The path to space is paved with independence and diversity.

UUCP: {cbosgd, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!pnet01!jim
ARPA: crash!pnet01!jim@nosc.mil
INET: jim@pnet01.cts.com

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 25 Apr 88 10:17:31 PST
From: Peter Scott <PJS@grouch.jpl.nasa.gov>
Subject: Re: Superconductivity applications
X-Vms-Mail-To: EXOS%"space@angband.s1.gov"

The April issue of NASA TECH BRIEFS obligingly printed the first in a series of articles on superconductivity:

"NASA Rises To The Challenge:"

Could high-temperature superconductors--ceramics that transmit electrical
current without resistance--help power a manned mission to Mars?  That's
one possibility NASA is studying as part of an agency-wide effort to
harness superconductivity for space use.

"There's been a lot of talk about how high-temperature superconductors are
going to revolutionize everything from automobiles to dishwashers," said
Dr. Martin Sokoloski, head of a coordinating group on superconductivity
activities at NASA's Office of Aeronautics and Space Technology, "but what's
been largely overlooked is the material's potential benefits for space.
There are a variety of NASA-unique applications that could play an important
role in future space missions."

Areas NASA has targeted for high-temperature superconductivity research
include:

SENSORS.  NASA plans to use the new ceramics to improve the detection range
of space-borne sensors.  At NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, research
is focused on the development of ceramic thin-films for fabrication into a
superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID), a highly-sensitive
magnetometer slated for use on future deep space gravity probes.  A SQUID
can measure weaker signals than traditional sensors because there is les
background "noise" in its circuits, due to the free flow of electrons in
the superconducting material.

Researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory are developing
superconducting-insulating-superconducting (SIS) junctions for atmospheric
remote sensing satellites.  SIS junctions formed from high-temperature
superconducting thin-films would be sensitive at ten times higher a
frequency than current low-temperature versions, and could be radiatively
cooled in the col "room temperature" of outer space, eliminating the
need for on-board cryogens.  "That would mean lighter, more efficient
satellites," said Dr. Carl Kukkonen, Director of the Center for Space
Microelectronics Technology Directorate at Jet Propulsion Laboratories.

POWER AND PROPULSION SYSTEMS.  Both NASA's Lewis Research Center and the
Department of Defense are studying the feasibility of using electrical
power stored in superconducting coils to launch vehicles into orbit.
Magnetic containment fields within the coils could store electricity by
diverting it into endless loops, where it would circle forever, undiminished.
If the amassed energy were discharged into a launching mechanism, it could
conceivably propel a craft skyward.  "High-temperature superconductors would
reduce the energy requirements for an electromagnetic launcher because there
would be no power loss during transmission," said Dr. Denis Connolly, Deputy
Chief of Applied Research for the Lewis Center's Space Electronics Division.

Magnetic energy storage might also help extend mission duration, according
to Dr. Charles Byvik, a Senior Research Physicist at NASA's Langley
Research Center.  "A superconducting magnetic energy storage system could
generate ten times more energy than currently available from spacecraft
batteries," he said.  "The batteries we're now using are expensive and
wouldn't provide the energy density required for long-duration manned
flights, such as a Mars mission.   Superconductivity could offer a cost-
effective alternative."

MAGNETIC SUSPENSION.  Langley scientists want to use the strong magnetic
field surrounding superconducting current to suspend and balance models
in wind tunnels.  "The traditional physical methods of suspension interfere
with the flow field surrounding the model, which hampers our getting
accurate test results," explained Dr. Byvik.  "With magnetic levitation,
we could eliminate this interference completely."

SPACE SHIELDS.  A high magnetic field created by a superconducting magnet and
coil could be used to protect a spaceship from the intense heat of reentry,
according to Dr. Connolly.  "If we could arrange to generate this magnetic
field around the front of the craft, it would act as a shield, keeping the
hot ionizing gases at a distance."

A LONG ROAD AHEAD:  Researchers must overcome a number of technical 
obstacles before any of these ideas reach fruition.  High-temperature
superconductors as they exist today can carry only small volumes of current,
are too brittle to form into wires and other usable shapes, and lose their
superconductive properties within a few months.  In addition, there are
problems unique to the space environment.  "No one knows if these ceramics
can handle the pressure in the high magnetic fields of space," said Dr.
Eugene Urban, Cheif of the Cryogenics Physics Branch at Marshall, "or
if they can withstand bombardment by ionizing radiation."

"While we're excited about the potential for superconductors in space,"
said Dr. Urban, "we know there's a long, hard road ahead."

			------------------------------

NOTE:  As I understand it, there are now non-ceramic materials that
become superconducting at even higher temperatures; also that IBM had
succeeded in depositing the ceramics in thin film form; someone else
reported being able to work the superconductors into LSI-size features.

Peter Scott (pjs%grouch@jpl-mil.jpl.nasa.gov)

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 25 Apr 88 10:41:36 PST
From: Peter Scott <PJS@grouch.jpl.nasa.gov>
Subject: How hot is it in space?
X-Vms-Mail-To: EXOS%"space@angband.s1.gov"

Posting my last article on high-temperature superconductors brought up a
few questions:  I wondered why ordinary superconductors hadn't already
been used: isn't it cold enough there already?

Well, a spacecraft can't receive appreciable heat via conduction or
convection once it's far enough outside the atmosphere, so aside from
quantum effects the only source should be radiation.  Therefore the
temperature of a spacecraft depends on its emissivity (I think; or
whatever it is that governs how much radiation is reflected vs absorbed).
If we have a perfectly shiny spacecraft then the only heat inside it will
be what it generates itself.  Of course, getting rid of this is a problem;
but then, if we're not doing much, there won't be much heat, and none
will come from superconducting circuits.

So does someone know how cold you can get it inside a spacecraft without
using cryocoolants (which have a finite and relatively short lifetime),
assuming that the spacecraft is, say, a Landsat?  How hot do communications
satellites get, since they must be built to absorb certain wavelengths?

Peter Scott (pjs%grouch@jpl-mil.jpl.nasa.gov)

("These aren't the opinions of my employers... I'm sure they already
know the answers, if I only knew who to ask.")

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 25 Apr 88 12:53:04 pdt
From: Eugene N. Miya <eugene@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov>
Subject: Preliminary Most asked questions
Cc: eugene@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov


Let's start off with one of my pet repeated questions:
Most questions about space deal with current NASA related events.
Obtaining information is the last question.

1) Can't they use those Shuttle tanks as an orbiting resource rather than
let them crash into the sea?

Yes, this question was thought about and answered in the mid-late 70s.
The problem is there is not sense in keeping an unguided object in space
until you need it.  There actually is a company devoted to developing them as a
resource.

2) Fermi's paradox:
Too open ended. ;-)

n-1) How do I get a job in space?
There are two different concerns here. 1) If seasonal like summer, you
must start looking between the months of January-March, this means
preparation in December.  Reminders are posted at that time with addresses,
etc.  2) Permanent, a list of contracting aerospace companies was
assembled by Ken Jenks (now successfully working at Rockwell, but without a
net address [see! space uses modern technology]).  Send mail request such
to one of the network personalities (Dale, Henry, Phil, etc., myself) we
will try to update the list yearly.  P.S. It helps to learn Russian and
Japanese.

n) Where do I find information about space?
Try you local public library first.  The net is not a good place for this.
It's a better place for open ended discussions.  Next trying writing
real letters to the Public Relations or Public Information Offices
of NASA and its various contractors.  They can inundate you.  Also try
the telephone (check a phone directory can all offices at various Centers
[addresses posted occasionally]).  We will also try to have designed net
`experts' on where to get more information.

--eugene

------------------------------

Date: 24 Apr 88 14:23:39 GMT
From: ihnp4!aicchi!dbb@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Burch)
Subject: Re: Cometesimals (was: Millions of comets hit Earth)


Say, folks... Could this explain (neatly) the occasional reports that
lunar observers have made of clouds of water vapor?  I recall that these
have been from near the terminator, logical if a snowball hit during the
night, and was being vaporized by the sun.  If this is so, all a lunar
colony need do for water is set up a network of sensors, and then collect
the debris before they sublime...


-- 
-David B. (Ben) Burch
 Analysts International Corp.
 Chicago Branch (ihnp4!aicchi!dbb)

"Argue for your limitations, and they are yours." - R. Bach

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #218
*******************

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Date: Fri, 13 May 88 03:33:41 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8805131033.AA07907@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #219

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 219

Today's Topics:
		    Rumored changes in SS program?
		       Re: Space Station Names
		       Re: Space Station Names
		       Re: Space Station Names
		       Re: Space Station Names
		       Re: Space Station Names
		       Re: Space Station Names
		       Re: Space Station Names
		       Re: Space Station Names
		     Excellent New Space Magazine
		     SPACEWATCH '88 VOTERS' GUIDE
		   Fletcher on US-USSR MOON Mission
		     Re: using lunar resourcesn_
	    Future Soviet Guest Cosmonaut Missions to Mir
	 Re: Cometesimals (was: Millions of comets hit Earth)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 3 May 88 16:51:29 GMT
From: ndsuvax!ndsuvm1.bitnet!ud140469@uunet.uu.net
Subject: Rumored changes in SS program?

Just yesterday I heard some rumors of big changes coming in the Space
Station program.  About all I know of their source is that s/he was at a
recent (last week) SEDS conference in Minneapolis.  Because of that, and
since I've not verified it with any other sources, I won't go into any
detail (don't want flames if my rumor is just that)--I'll just ask if
any one else has heard strange rumblings.  If you'd like to know what
I've heard on a private basis, I'd be glad to tell you (I'll be around
at this address for another week before heading to Houston & Eagle
Engineering).

                                        Scott Udell
                                        UD140469@NDSUVM1.BITNET

------------------------------

Date: 10 May 88 15:07:01 GMT
From: mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Mike Smithwick)
Subject: Re: Space Station Names

And now the question you've all been staying up late for: what the heck
are they going to name the Space Station??

The Ames Astrogram just published a preliminary list of possible names
which follows :

       Aurora                  Earth-star
       Freedom                 Hercules
       Independence            Jupiter
       Landmark                Liberty
       Minerva                 Olympia
       Pegasus                 Pilgrim
       Prospector              Skybase
       Starlight               Unity

So gang, anyone got any better ideas??? Like something original for
instance?

cheers, mike

------------------------------

Date: 11 May 88 02:29:30 GMT
From: imagine!pawl17.pawl.rpi.edu!sundance@itsgw.rpi.edu  (Mitchell E. Gold)
Subject: Re: Space Station Names

In article <8552@ames.arc.nasa.gov> mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov.UUCP (Mike Smithwick) writes:
>And now the question you've all been staying up late for: what the
>heck are they going to name the Space Station??
...
>So gang, anyone got any better ideas??? Like something original for instance?
 
How about Low Station. George M. Low was a NASA manager and
administrator during the Apollo years. Low would also represent LEO.

------------------------------

Date: 11 May 88 08:16:00 GMT
From: mcvax!jack@uunet.uu.net  (Jack Jansen)
Subject: Re: Space Station Names

How about "Mir II"?

------------------------------

Date: 11 May 88 12:57:42 GMT
From: aplcen!aplcomm!stdc.jhuapl.edu!jwm@mimsy.umd.edu  (Jim Meritt)
Subject: Re: Space Station Names

Mir

------------------------------

Date: 11 May 88 16:04:42 GMT
From: phri!dasys1!tneff@nyu.edu  (Tom Neff)
Subject: Re: Space Station Names

I have some candidate names here:

	Space Station Zebra

	The Money Pit

	Bob's LEO (when the waitress comes out, DON'T roll down the window!)

	The Van Allen Hilton

	Mir   (how to infuriate CCCP in one easy lesson!)

Tom Neff			UUCP: ...!cmcl2!phri!dasys1!tneff

------------------------------

Date: 11 May 88 15:34:07 GMT
From: mmm!viper!dave@umn-cs.arpa  (David Messer)
Subject: Re: Space Station Names

How about "Peace"? :-)

------------------------------

Date: 11 May 88 18:36:47 GMT
From: mnetor!spectrix!tmsoft!utgpu!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Space Station Names

"Gold-Plated Rabbit Hutch", maybe?

Actually I'd be tempted to name it after Willy Ley, but that won't fly...

------------------------------

Date: 12 May 88 19:40:06 GMT
From: eachus@mitre-bedford.arpa  (Robert Eachus)
Subject: Re: Space Station Names

In article <876@imagine.PAWL.RPI.EDU> sundance@pawl.rpi.edu (Mitchell E. Gold) writes:
>How about Low Station. George M. Low was a NASA manager and
>administrator during the Apollo years. Low would also represent LEO.

     Excellent idea, I second the motion.  I was a grad student at RPI
while George was President, and like everyone who knew him, I respected
him tremendously.  Its a shame he wasn't around to get NASA back on
track after the Challenger disaster like he did when he took over after
the Apollo fire.  Of course, if George, or any one who had worked with
him had been in charge, I know that launch would not have happened. The
"success oriented" planning at NASA was not invented by engineers, but
by managers, and George never let his management responsibilities
overrule his engineering judgement.

					Robert I. Eachus

------------------------------

Date: 24 Apr 88 20:20:53 GMT
From: phoenix!pucc!EWTILENI@princeton.edu  (Eric Tilenius)
Subject: Excellent New Space Magazine

I just received my second issue of FINAL FRONTIER: The Magazine of Space
Exploration.
 
FINAL FRONTIER is an excellent publication.  It comes out bi-monthly, and is
packed with interesting articles and photos on Space Exploration.
 
I highly recommend this magazine... It can be found at some bookstores, or
you can enter a charter subscription for $14.97 (1 yr/6 issues)
 
To order, you can call 612-926-5962 (VISA/MC/Invoice), or send a check for
$14.97 payable to FINAL FRONTIER to:
 
     Final Frontier
     Suite 115
     6800 France Ave. S.
     Minneapolis, MN 55435
 
- ERIC -
 
*----------------------===>  SPACE IS THE PLACE... <===-----------------------*
*        ewtileni@pucc.Princeton.EDU  //  ewtileni@pucc.BITNET                *
*      rutgers!pucc.bitnet!ewtileni  //  princeton!pucc.bitnet!ewtileni       *
* ColorVenture - Microcomputer Software - "Because Life isn't Black and White"*
*--------------------===> Another proud CoCo 3 owner <===---------------------*

------------------------------

Date: 24 Apr 88 20:26:04 GMT
From: phoenix!pucc!EWTILENI@princeton.edu  (Eric Tilenius)
Subject: SPACEWATCH '88 VOTERS' GUIDE

SPACECAUSE has released their guide to the 1988 Presidential Campaigns.
 
It is available by writing to:
 
     SPACECAUSE
     International Space Center
     922 Pennsylvania Avenue S.E.
     Washington DC 20003
 
or by calling Spacecause at 202-543-1900.
 
Ask for a copy of "Spacewatch '88".
 
(If you really want to know how the candidates feel, you're better off
writing to each campaign that you're interested in, and asking their position
on the civilian space program. This is a condensed guide taken from those
policy statements near as I can tell.)
 
- ERIC -
 
*----------------------===>  SPACE IS THE PLACE... <===-----------------------*
*        ewtileni@pucc.Princeton.EDU  //  ewtileni@pucc.BITNET                *
*      rutgers!pucc.bitnet!ewtileni  //  princeton!pucc.bitnet!ewtileni       *
* ColorVenture - Microcomputer Software - "Because Life isn't Black and White"*
*--------------------===> Another proud CoCo 3 owner <===---------------------*

------------------------------

Date: 24 Apr 88 02:05:00 GMT
From: kenny@b.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Fletcher on US-USSR MOON Mission


RELEASE:	88-52			April 14, 1988

	FLETCHER SAYS MOON, NOT MARS, MAY BE BETTER FIRST STEP

	NASA Administrator, Dr. James C. Fletcher, said today that the
Moon, rather than Mars, may be the best initial destination for
possible U.S./USSR manned missions.  ``Going to the Moon together
would give the two leading spacefaring nations in the world an
opportunity to build a stable base for further cooperation, which
could, one day, lead to a cooperative mission to Mars,'' he said.

	Dr. Fletcher stressed that any cooperative manned activity
should be preceded by a program of cooperative unmanned activities.

	``Flying out to Mars together before building such a
foundation could, for several reasons, be less practical,'' Dr.
Fletcher told participants at the National Space Symposium in Colorado
Springs, Colo.  In the last several months, a number of parties have
advocated a joint U.S./USSR manned mission to Mars.  Dr. Fletcher
cited three crucial factors favoring the Moon for an initial
cooperative manned mission:

o Timing - A joint mission to the Moon would involve a relatively
  short timetable, while a Mars mission ``would probably encompass
  four or five Presidential administrations,'' Dr. Fletcher said.  He
  said relations between the Unired States and Soviet Union have yet
  to demonstrate that degree of stability.

o Cooperative experience - A year ago, the United States and Soviet
  Union signed a space science agreement that established joint
  working groups in five areas.  The efforts of these groups ``could
  lay the groundwork for a strong bridge of mutual cooperation and
  mutual trust,'' he said.

o Technical readiness - Both nations realize that there are ``many
  technical unknowns involved in a manned Mars mission,'' Dr. Fletcher
  said.  These issues, such as the effects of prolonged weightlessness
  on the human body, must be considered before commitments can be made
  for a Mars mission.

	In a more general vein, Dr. Fletcher labeled 1988 ``perhaps
the most critical year in the history of the U.S. civil space
program,'' and he criticized those who say American space leadership
is a thing of the past.

	``It's ironic that these doom-and-gloom-sayers have emerged
this year, just when the United States is poised to launch itself into
a new era of development and exploitation of space,'' he said.

	Dr. Fletcher said the Administration's fiscal year 1989 budget
request for NASA provides the resources to reestablish U.S. leadership
in space.  He acknowledged that civil space efforts must compete with
other domestic programs for Congressional funding, but reminded his
audience of ``the benefits of long-term investments in science and
technology, which, as we have seen, are the lifeblood of the American
economy.''

	``The nation now has established a strong national policy for
civil space activities and a budget to back it up,'' the NASA
Administrator said.  ``We have the right program at the right time to
restore U.S. Leadership in space just when we need it most -- when
competition is getting stronger.''

	Copies of Dr. Fletcher's speech are available from the NASA
Newsroom, Room 6043, 400 Maryland Ave., S.W., Washington, DC 20546
(phone: 202/453-8400) and from the U.S. Space Foundation, Colorado
Springs, Colo., (719-550-1000).

				--END--

Debra J. Rahn				EMBARGOED UNTIL
Headquarters, Washington, D.C.		2:00 p.m. (EDT)
(Phone: 202/453-8455)			April 14, 1988

RELEASE:	88-52			END

------------------------------

Date: 24 Apr 88 08:13:19 GMT
From: fluke!ssc-vax!eder@beaver.cs.washington.edu  (Dani Eder)
Subject: Re: using lunar resourcesn_

In article <4164@whuts.UUCP>, sw@whuts.UUCP (WARMINK) writes:
> In article <760@sun.soe.clarkson.edu>, montague@sun.soe.clarkson.edu (Michael Montague) writes:
> 
> The raw materials exist, and could even be 'shot' into moon orbit cheaply,
> but it is quite a step to go from moon rocks to finished product, e.g.
> another processing plant or satellite, as mentioned above. There is nothing
> to say it can't be done, the question is at what cost?

> 
The least energy-to-extract material after raw regolith (which has
it's own uses) is iron.  There is free (unoxidized) iron in the
lunar regolith (the rock & dust at the surface).  This stuff comes from
asteroid impacts (same place all the craters come from).  The iron
can be extracted with magnets at low energy cost and complexity.

Uses for iron: structural material (same as on earth), electrical
conductors (what,you say iron is a lousy conductor?  But if you can
get lots of it into lunar orbit cheaply, then who cares.

Uses for undifferentiated regolith(i.e. dirt):

Shielding (for humans and electronics)
Ballast mass (for orbital tether (skyhook) systems.

Dani Eder/Boeing/Space Station Program

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 26 Apr 88 18:41:32 EDT
From: Glenn Chapman <glenn@ll-vlsi.arpa>
Subject: Future Soviet Guest Cosmonaut Missions to Mir

    The USSR has announced more information about their guest cosmonaut
program for the next few years.  First the Bulgarian visitor mission,
with Alexander Alexandrov as the guest, will be launched on June 7th.  The
current schedule for the French mission is for a flight in late September
or October (Jean-Loup Chretien is still slated as the visitor).  This is 
earlier other statements of a November mission.  Also scheduled for this
year is an Afghan cosmonaut, though no time is set - maybe they want to get 
him up there quickly before the Soviet military withdrawal in his country
is finished.  Finally, they have signed the Austrians up to send a visiting
cosmonaut to Mir in 1992.  
     By the way, the June 7th mission suggests that Mir observation schedules 
are not likely to be useful starting in the last week of May.  A week or so 
before a mission flies to Mir they use the fuel in their current Progress 
tanker craft to boost the station orbit, and then discard the useless cargo 
ship.
     On board the station Vladimir Titov and Musahi Manarov have now been in
orbit for 128 days.  Most of the work being mentioned these days is their
use of the Kvant astrophysics facility.  Again there are conflicting reports
about the when the next "Star" expansion module (20 tonne, 50 cubic meter
sections) will fly to Mir, though all sources say that at least one will go
up by the end of this year.  Also the slated month for their shuttle/Energyia
test is now June.
     The Russians are not expanding their manned space missions at a 
tremendous pace, this was rather a uneventfull month for them.  Yet every 
year now they are breaking new ground in manned exploration, maybe slowly, but 
certainly surely.  This program of theirs is the living example of how "slow 
but steady wins the race".

                                               Glenn Chapman
                                               MIT Lincoln Lab

------------------------------

Date: 25 Apr 88 13:38:57 GMT
From: mtunx!whuts!sw@rutgers.edu  (WARMINK)
Subject: Re: Cometesimals (was: Millions of comets hit Earth)

In article <880422134517.2698@Iowa>, kistler%Iowa.Iowa@IAGO.CALTECH.EDU (Allen C. Kistler) writes:
> It doesn't.  It (re)freezes.  Every few million years Mars warms up (since the
> water that is in vapor form creates a greenhouse effect just like CO2); the
> ice thaws; rivers flow on Mars.  There are lots of images of dry river beds on
> Mars, river beds millions of years younger than the craters 10 feet away.
> THEN Mars loses the water, because it's so warm.  Start all over again, etc.

This is a new theory to me. It is generally accepted that water once flowed
on Mars, but cycles of thawing and freezing? I would immagine that such cycles
would have a drastic impact upon the Martian surface, which does not fit in
with the large number of craters observed. I would be interested to find out
where the evidence for multiply thawing/freezing cycles comes from. Does
water vapour have the same greenhouse effect as CO2? Why water vapour anyway?
The Martian atmosphere contains a significant percentage of CO2, one of
the poles consists of CO2 as well as water ice I thought.
It is a shame there is no liquid water on Mars now, it would make the planet
very interesting - and shrouded in cloud cover no doubt.

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   Als it dit in deze taal schrijf,    |  Stuart Warmink, APT UK Ltd.
    kan haast niemand het verstaan!    |  <ihnp4>!whuts!sw
-----------> My opinions are not necessarily those of APT UK Ltd. <-----------

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #219
*******************

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To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #220

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 220

Today's Topics:
		 Re: Antimatter propulsion questions
	       Problems with the National Space Society
		     Re: How hot is it in space?
		      NOVA on Russian Technology
			  Lunar observatory
		   Space Articles in 'Soviet Life'
	     Question about Richard Hoagland/Mars Project
		     Re: How hot is it in space?
		   Re: Excellent New Space Magazine
	      Wanted: Info on radio astronomy satellites
	  Re: Motivations For The Soviet Union To Go To Mars
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 26 Apr 88 13:08:02 GMT
From: aplcen!aplcomm!stdc.jhuapl.edu!jwm@mimsy.umd.edu  (James W. Meritt)
Subject: Re: Antimatter propulsion questions

In article <1988Apr25.142806.188@mntgfx.mentor.com> mbutts@mntgfx.mentor.com (Mike Butts) writes:
>2) How safe a fuel would antimatter be for earth-based launches?  


OK people.  My earlier question rears it head: to what extent does the
antimatter-matter reaction follow the exclusion prinicples, and to
what extent does the wave-structure matter?  To wit, does an anti-proton
react only with free protons?  Or does the anti-quark/quark reaction
take place allowing partial anniliation of neutrons?  How about protons
bonded into nuclei?  Will a free anti-proton react with protons in iron?
Will anti-protons incorporated into anti-nuclei react with protons in
normal nuclei, or is it an all-or-nothing deal based on the overall
wave pattern? (i.e. anti-lithium will only react with lithium, not
zirconium for instance).  Would this exclusion, if it takes place,
extend to the electron/anti-electron shells?  This matters in the
question as follows:  If the antimatter/matter reaction is an entire-wave
function the plants should produce anti-lithium.  Since there is not that
much sitting around if it gets loose if would just sit there and police
could walk up and pick it up.  You could store it in aluminum tanks.
Perfect!!!!  Reasonable!!!!!  But true?  Beats me.  Comments, please.



Disclaimer: Individuals have opinions, organizations have policy.
            Therefore, these opinions are mine and not any organizations!
Q.E.D.
jwm@aplvax.jhuapl.edu 128.244.65.5

------------------------------

Date: 26 Apr 88 21:09:49 GMT
From: phoenix!pucc!EWTILENI@princeton.edu  (Eric Tilenius)
Subject: Problems with the National Space Society

Jim's recent posting pointed out some very clear problems that I have
with the National Space Society family of organizations. I've noticed
evidence of these problems before, and I think Jim put his finger on it
quite well.
 
I have long felt a real sense of conflict of interest in the National
Space Society, Spacecause, and SpacePAC. While I am a member of these
groups, a large portion of their funding comes from big corporations with
a stake in the space industry.
 
The types of programs NSS advocates are indicative of this.  They have
NOT pushed for space exploratory moves, but rather for big projects which
the contractors want - the Space Station and that jazz.  I don't recall
offhand, but I believe they were in favor of Space Industry's budget-sapping
lab (ISF) as well.
 
When board members serve as high ranking directors of major aerospace
corporations, one is left to wonder about the validity of such an organization
as a citizens' grass-routes pro-space group.
 
The Planetary Society, for one, has made it a point NOT to accept corporate
donations from those in the aerospace industry.  This assures that The
Planetary Society is not only kept free of corporate financial pressure, but
can be respected as being a citizens' and scientists' group.
 
I noticed the slights on Dukakis in Spacecause's "Spacewatch '88" as well.
>From the limited blurbs they give, they make it sound as though George Bush
is the demigod of space compared to Mike Dukakis, while this is far from the
case! Mike Dukakis has formulated some excellent pro-space ideas - Bush
merely wavers in his policy stances depending on where he is.  But I
digress.
 
With so many of NSS' officers having personal ECONOMIC interests in their
activities, how can we make the group one that we can be proud of?  If NSS
is seen as a big-industry group promoting space because that's where its
profits lie, can we seriously expect lawmakers to view us as a citizens' group?
Are our contributions merely making corporate lobbying cheaper for Sperry,
Boeing, General Dynamics, and the rest of the gang?
 
Where do SpacePAC contributions go?  Does anyone have a list?  While I'm an
NSS member, and have given money to Spacecause as well, I have refrained from
giving anything to SpacePAC, because I think I can predict all too well who
is going to get the money, and most of them probably support defense
spending hikes. It would make all too realistic corporate sense for
companies to give PAC money to those who support increased spending in
defense, SDI, and so forth, NOT those who GENUINELY support a strong,
peaceful, civilian space program.
 
I'd rather give personal contributions to Rep. George Brown (the Congressman
introducing the space settlement bill), Rep. Bob Mrazek (NY), and Senator
Spark Matsangua (sp? - from HI), and let them know in a personal letter
why I'm sending money.
 
The Planetary Society, with over 100,000 members, is a good educational,
pro-space organization.  My main gripe is that they aren't making themselves
visible enough (need more publicity), and aren't doing enough to actively
change policy.  But they are an excellent group and deserve support.
 
I'd like to say the same for NSS.  I belong, and I believe in many of the
things which they do, but I get a strange feeling NSS & Co. are perverting
my goals for the whims of those wishing to make a profit.
 
Jim's comments that they are trying to stifle discourse are equally
disturbing, should they prove true.
 
It's time NSS had true, democratic elections and put real SPACE ACTIVISTS
back in the front line, not corporate lobbyists.
 
- ERIC -
 
*----------------------===>  SPACE IS THE PLACE... <===-----------------------*
*        ewtileni@pucc.Princeton.EDU  //  ewtileni@pucc.BITNET                *
*      rutgers!pucc.bitnet!ewtileni  //  princeton!pucc.bitnet!ewtileni       *
* ColorVenture - Microcomputer Software - "Because Life isn't Black and White"*
*--------------------===> Another proud CoCo 3 owner <===---------------------*

------------------------------

Date: 26 Apr 88 17:07:38 GMT
From: mtunx!whuts!sw@rutgers.edu  (WARMINK)
Subject: Re: How hot is it in space?

In article <880425104136.000006E80A2@grouch.JPL.NASA.GOV>, PJS@GROUCH.JPL.NASA.GOV (Peter Scott) writes:
> [Other stuff about spacecraft and superconductors]
> So does someone know how cold you can get it inside a spacecraft without
> using cryocoolants (which have a finite and relatively short lifetime),
> assuming that the spacecraft is, say, a Landsat?  How hot do communications
> satellites get, since they must be built to absorb certain wavelengths?
> 
The temperature of a spherical object with black-body characteristics can
be found by knowing that the energy lost by radiation is proportional to
(T1^4 - T2^4), where T1 is the absolute temperature of (say) the spacecraft
and T2 that of open space (say 0 K). I can't remember the exact details, but
the idea is to balance the energy received from the Sun (and Earth) with
the energy lost due to radiation into space (and towards the Earth).

Anyway, from what I remember is that this is independant of the size of the
satellite (assuming spherical), and works out to somewhere around 270K.
Interesting...just right for man & machine (=electronics)

Of course, for non-black body and non-spherical objects this won't be quite
true. For instance, an object with a shiny surface pointing towards the Sun
and a black surface towards space will be at a colder equilibrium temperature.
This is the way satellites work, as then the internal heat generated is 
balanced out by the nett energy loss due to radiation. Solar cells will
absorb more radiation as heat than a gold reflector, but will radiate it
just as efficiently as the satellite spins or on the back side of the array.

Anyway, the long and short of all this is that the satellite designers do
their best to keep the internal temperature as even as possible and somewhere
around the operating temperatures of the electronic components.
I suppose that the answer to your question is 'roughly -40 to +100 C'.
-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   Als it dit in deze taal schrijf,    |  Stuart Warmink, APT UK Ltd.
    kan haast niemand het verstaan!    |  <ihnp4>!whuts!sw
-----------> My opinions are not necessarily those of APT UK Ltd. <-----------

------------------------------

From: graham@drcvax.arpa
Date: 27 Apr 88 08:19:00 EST
Subject: NOVA on Russian Technology
To: "space" <space@angband.s1.gov>
Reply-To: <graham@drcvax.arpa>

I watched the PBS program NOVA last evening.  It was on the subject of 
Soviet technology.  The general theme was that they were rather behind the 
West but catching up slowly.

They may be behind technologically, but they're up there...and we ain't!!!

-->Dan
------

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 27 Apr 88 09:55 EDT
From: KEVIN@a.cfr.cmu.edu
Subject: Lunar observatory

   If you wish to base a radio telescope so that it is shielded from the 
rather immense RF output of the earth, placing it on the lunar Farside 
seems like a good idea.  Something I haven't seen mentioned in detail 
yet is how badly the moon would block 50% of the sky for two weeks every 
two weeks.  On earth the planet screens out large portions of the sky, 
but there are enough radio telescopes to give fairly full coverage of 
such time-limited events as novae and such.  To steal a scenario from 
somebody (I'd credit them if I could remember who it was), imagine the 
Congressional hearing...

   SENATOR BIGNOSE:  "Let me see if I understand this, Dr..  You are 
saying that we are losing 50% of the irreplacable transmissions from the
aliens from Sirius?  Why is this?  I thought that this telescope was one 
of the finest research instruments built." 
   DR. EGO:  "Yes, unfortunately, that's true.  We decided it was easier
to put the telescope on the Moon, but that does mean that Lunar rotation 
blocks 50% of the sky at a time for two week periods."
   SENATOR BIGNOSE:  "And you knew this when you built this incredibly 
expensive and apparently insufficient instrument?  Perhaps we should 
start reviewing your grants, Dr. Ego..."

   Perhaps we would be better off with an orbital telescope.  I realize 
that it might be more expensive, but as a research instrument it may be 
more effective.  Not to give the 'cast in stone' impression (:->), but 
consider as a possibilty the following:
   Orbit, perhaps at the leading Lagrangian point, a large radio 
telescope.  Power from it's own solar array, shielding from a large thin 
metal shield orbiting near the scope or connected to it.  A distant 
orbit is probably necessary to minimize the problem of keeping the 
shield oriented without banging it into the scope. Given a shield at a 
reasonable distance there would be very little of the sky eclipsed at 
any time - with the minimum being the arc subtended by the earth seen at 
that distance.
   Other questions, such as exact orbit, manned vs unmanned, etc., would 
have to answered by a detailed cost/benefit analysis.
   This idea is not original with me by any means, but since nobody else 
mentioned it...

					Kevin Ryan

................................................................................
|		Reply to arpanet	kr0u@andrew.cmu.edu		       |
|	   "Never put off till tomorrow what you can delegate today."	       |
|..............................................................................|

------------------------------

Date:     Wed, 27 Apr 88 10:52 EDT
From: GODDEN%gmr.com@relay.cs.net
Subject:  Space Articles in 'Soviet Life'

A friend has loaned me a copy of the April 88 issue of a magazine called
'Soviet Life' and it has several articles concerning space as well as a
pull-out poster with pictures of various Soviet and U.S. boosters (on one
side) and pictures of all cosmonauts (and astronauts? (I haven't seen the
poster)) (on the other side).  The space articles are (from TOC):
 "Mars -- Joint Expedition" by Vladimir Vozchikov
 "Halley's Comet in Profile and Full Face" by Tamara Breus
 "Soviet Rocketry -- Past and Present"
 "Energia -- New Generation Booster" by Alexander Dunayev
 "Up...Up...and Away!"
 "Yuri Gagarin's Last Flight" by Alexei Leonov & Sergei Belotserkovsky
 "Almost a Year in Space!" Interview with Oleg Gazenko

If you can't find it in your local newsstand, the cover price is $2.25
and the address given inside is:  Soviet Life
                                  1706 Eighteenth Str, NW
                                  Washington, DC 20009
                                  tel: 202-328-3237

-Kurt Godden
 (My regards to the NSA line-scanner.  Happy snooping!)

------------------------------

Date: 26 Apr 88 20:30:56 GMT
From: microsoft!ellene@beaver.cs.washington.edu  (Ellen Eades)
Subject: Question about Richard Hoagland/Mars Project

I have just finished reading a book by one Richard Hoagland called
_The Monuments of Mars_.  It is essentially speculative nonfiction
concerning some possible artificial objects on the surface of Mars.
I'm curious about the author's bona fides within the scientific
community.  If anyone has concrete information (please, no flames,
and no mudslinging) about Hoagland and/or his "Mars Project," please
reply.

Ellen Eades
(fluke, sun, uw-beaver)!microsoft!ellene

------------------------------

Date: 25 Apr 88 23:27:11 GMT
From: CAT.CMU.EDU!dep@pt.cs.cmu.edu  (David Pugh)
Subject: Re: How hot is it in space?

In article <880425104136.000006E80A2@grouch.JPL.NASA.GOV> PJS@GROUCH.JPL.NASA.GOV (Peter Scott) writes:
>Posting my last article on high-temperature superconductors brought up a
>few questions:  I wondered why ordinary superconductors hadn't already
>been used: isn't it cold enough there already?

The basic answer to all of this is it depends how you design your
spacecraft. A black body in Earth orbit will have an average temperature
of about 290 K (no surprise). Surprisingly (to me, anyway) a polished
aluminium body will be much hotter (it absorbs less sunlight, but
radiates far less).

In general, if you can keep something shadowed, you can keep it very
cold. Unfortunately, this isn't easy. Without some type of active
control, a satellite will tumble with respect to the Sun. Also,
the Earth is a source of a significant amount of reflected sunlight.

A final difficult with cryonics is that, while it is very useful for
somethings (superconductors, IR sensors, etc.). It makes life very
difficult for just about everything else (batteries, for example).
As a result, satellites have to have a "warm" section. The heat
flow between the warm and cold sections then becomes significant.

Still one possibility for superconductors. How about a lunar
mass driver which can only be used at lunar night? (what,
power? night => no solar cells. Easy enough to fix, use big
open "air" flywheels to store energy collected during the "day"
and dump it at night to power the mass driver).
-- 
"A fanatic is one who can't change his		David Pugh
 mind and won't change the subject."		...!seismo!cmucspt!cat!dep
	-- Sir Winston Churchill

------------------------------

Date: 25 Apr 88 18:12:12 GMT
From: yaron@astro.as.utexas.edu  (G. Zes Kriste)
Subject: Re: Excellent New Space Magazine

In article <5035@pucc.Princeton.EDU>, EWTILENI@pucc.Princeton.EDU (Eric Tilenius) writes:
> I just received my second issue of FINAL FRONTIER: The Magazine of Space
> Exploration.
>  
> I highly recommend this magazine... It can be found at some bookstores, or
> you can enter a charter subscription for $14.97 (1 yr/6 issues)
>  


Rats, I suspect my Russian is not that good to rush and buy this
new magazine about space*FLIGHT*...

------------------------------

Date: 26 Apr 88 01:57:49 GMT
From: sunybcs!ugthomps@boulder.colorado.edu  (Gregory Thompson)
Subject: Wanted: Info on radio astronomy satellites

Greetings,

I am seeking info of any nature and kind on past and present space launches
that had/have a mission of radio astronomy research.  

I do not need specific info, only the names of the missions, the year they
they were launched, and a short summary of the mission if possible.

Information of foreign (non US) missions is also welcome. 

A prompt reply would be greatly appreciated as I need this info fairly quickly.

                       Thanks in advance,
                           Greg

...{decvax,rocksvax,watmath,ames,rutgers,boulder}!sunybcs!ugthomps
CSNET: ugthomps@Buffalo.CSNET
BITNET: ugthomps@sunybcs.BITNET
Internet: ugthomps@cs.buffalo.edu

------------------------------

Date: 27 Apr 88 14:23:31 GMT
From: s.cc.purdue.edu!ain@h.cc.purdue.edu  (Patrick White)
Subject: Re: Motivations For The Soviet Union To Go To Mars

In article <9071@reed.UUCP> douglas@reed.UUCP (P Douglas Reeder) writes:
>NO FLAMES! Rational Discussion okay.
>The Soviet Union has a public-relational reason for making their next big
>goal a mission to Mars rather than the Moon.  If they go to the Moon, they
>are doing somthing the US did 20 years ago.

   I think they have a bit more common sense than that... after all, they
didn't follow us to the moon, but rather concentrated on achiving what
they have now -- a permanently manned space station and now a space
shuttle...  to our seemingly permantly grounded space shuttle.  The old
tortoise and hare story all over again.

-- Pat White
ARPA/UUCP: j.cc.purdue.edu!ain  BITNET: PATWHITE@PURCCVM  PHONE: (317) 743-8421
U.S.  Mail:  320 Brown St. apt. 406,    West Lafayette, IN 47906

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #220
*******************

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Date: Sun, 15 May 88 03:31:00 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8805151031.AA10407@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #221

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 221

Today's Topics:
      Re: Re-evolving spaceflight after collapse of civilization
		   Antimatter propulsion questions
		     Re: How hot is it in space?
	      A Soviet strategy for domination in space
		     Re: How hot is it in space?
		     Re: Libertarians love NASA?
			 STS Stacking Problem
	      Yet another: RELEASE/Engineeering Centers
	 Re: Cometesimals (was: Millions of comets hit Earth)
		      re:  Hawaiian launch sites
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Reply-To: pnet01!jim@trout.nosc.mil
Date: Wed, 27 Apr 88 23:09:39 PDT
From: jim@pnet01.cts.com (Jim Bowery)
To: crash!Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: Re: Re-evolving spaceflight after collapse of civilization

The responses to my assertion about the difficulty of reestablishing
the capability for the creation of a spacefaring civilization after
the collapse of civilization have focused on two ideas:

1)  We can find substitute materials for everything that we run out of.
and
2)  We can recycle the metals we are now using so we won't run out of
them.

The problem with 1 is that it requires an almost blind faith in the
ability of technology to overcome barriers that mother nature places
in our path.  There are only so many stable elements in the periodic
chart and they have a finite number of characteristics.  We can combine
them in various ways to achieve a variety of effects, but we ARE limited
by nature in both the range of things we can do and in the economy of
doing those things.  If we do start running out of various critical
metals, we MIGHT find ways around them.  Then again, we MIGHT NOT.

The problem with 2 is that it fails to take into account the nature of
metal recovery.  It is never 100%, even in recycling of raw metal.  In
fact, there are thermodynamic limits on the efficiency of recovery of
materials during recycling.  Given the fact we are dealing with humans
in the loop, the best we can expect is to get around 50% recovery of
the critical materials each time they go through the cycle.  Those
metal atoms don't just dissapear, but they DO end up mixed with other
things that make it uneconomic to recover them.

UUCP: {cbosgd, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!pnet01!jim
ARPA: crash!pnet01!jim@nosc.mil
INET: jim@pnet01.cts.com

------------------------------

Date: 25 Apr 88 21:28:03 GMT
From: tektronix!sequent!mntgfx!mbutts@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Mike Butts)
Subject: Antimatter propulsion questions

I read with great interest the news from AW&ST (thanks, Henry) that USAF
is seriously considering antimatter as a fuel for propulsion in 20 years
or so.  The improvement in exhaust velocity, even with the "low tech"
version, would have a tremendous effect on payload sizes and/or flight times,
as fission atomics were once hoped to provide.  (Arthur Clarke's 1950
classic "Interplanetary Flight" has been rereleased, and is an excellent
lightweight engineering treatment of the fundamentals (he described the
Space Shuttle system in good detail 31 years before it flew).  I found it very
counter-intuitive what huge leverage exhaust velocity can have.)  

I have 2 questions:

1) If particle accelerators are used to create the antimatter fuel in the
first place, on a production basis, would there be any advantage to siting
them in space, driven by solar power and taking advantage of the natural
vacuum?  Would solar wind, cosmic rays, etc. interfere with the process?
If so, could reasonable shielding deal with that?

2) How safe a fuel would antimatter be for earth-based launches?  Getting
out of our gravity well is so large a part of the problem, earth-based launch
technology is critical.  Atomics didn't work out mainly because they would 
leave such foul messes, especially in an accident.  Since antimatter fuels 
don't involve those nasty heavy elements, or even light radioactive ones, 
we might (naively?) hope for better.  

The obvious antimatter failure mode would be instant complete
annihalation of the fuel, with massive energy release.  Launching from remote
locations might be appropriate, but since the amount of energy would be 
comparable to the amount released in a comparable chemical rocket explosion 
(even less, given the much better mass ratio), that alone might not be enough 
to cause significant damage to the biosphere.  Could the form of the energy be 
a problem?  Presumably hard EM radiation, X-rays, and/or gamma rays would be 
emitted.  To what effect?  Could any substantial radioactive byproducts result?  
How would it compare with an A-bomb or H-bomb test?  What about a failure in 
near earth orbit?

Or would the worst-case consequenses be confined to the rocket and pad?  If so,
21st Century spaceflight might get pretty exciting.

Perhaps someone who knows high-energy physics would venture an opinion?
-- 
Mike Butts, Research Engineer         KC7IT           503-626-1302
Mentor Graphics Corp., 8500 SW Creekside Place, Beaverton OR 97005
...!{sequent,tessi,apollo}!mntgfx!mbutts OR  mbutts@pdx.MENTOR.COM
These are my opinions, & not necessarily those of Mentor Graphics.

------------------------------

Date: 27 Apr 88 20:56:51 GMT
From: aplcen!aplcomm!stdc.jhuapl.edu!jwm@mimsy.umd.edu  (James W. Meritt)
Subject: Re: How hot is it in space?

In article <4225@whuts.UUCP> sw@whuts.UUCP (WARMINK) writes:
>Anyway, from what I remember is that this is independant of the size of the
>satellite (assuming spherical), and works out to somewhere around 270K.
>Interesting...just right for man & machine (=electronics)


Should be no wild suprise here.  These things are receiving approximately
the same solar flux as a well-known test case upon which a great deal of
research and development for biological, electrical, and mechanical
systems were developed.




Disclaimer: Individuals have opinions, organizations have policy.
            Therefore, these opinions are mine and not any organizations!
Q.E.D.
jwm@aplvax.jhuapl.edu 128.244.65.5

------------------------------

Reply-To: pnet01!jim@trout.nosc.mil
Date: Thu, 28 Apr 88 00:18:01 PDT
From: jim@pnet01.cts.com (Jim Bowery)
To: crash!Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: A Soviet strategy for domination in space

The Soviets appear to be onto a really clever strategy for becoming
the dominant space civilizaton:

Promote joint activities with the US in which NASA is encouraged to 
take as much credit for Soviet accomplishments as possible while doing 
as little real work as possible.  This not only makes it appear that
NASA is doing something for the vast sums of money it receives, but it
hides the growing Soviet advantage over us in space!

Oh, but this couldn't work because NASA bureaucrats would NEVER
take credit for the accomplishments of others and, of course, the
Soviets are too short sighted to let us have even a decade or two of
feeling good about ourselves in exchange for the solar system. ;-)

UUCP: {cbosgd, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!pnet01!jim
ARPA: crash!pnet01!jim@nosc.mil
INET: jim@pnet01.cts.com

------------------------------

Date: 27 Apr 88 05:16:18 GMT
From: thumper!karn@faline.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: How hot is it in space?

Spacecraft thermal design is founded on well-understood physical
principles, but that isn't quite the same thing as saying it's simple. 

One thing people have so far missed is that a body at "ordinary"
temperatures emits thermal radiation at far longer infrared wavelengths
than the much hotter sun, and a material's optical properties may be
radically different at these two wavelengths.  Any material's thermal
properties must therefore be described by a PAIR of numbers, one
representing its "absorbance" at optical and near-infrared wavelengths
(denoted by lower-case alpha) and its "emissivity" at far-infrared
wavelengths (denoted by lower-case epsilon). Both numbers range between
0 and 1, but it is their RATIO that is important. High a/e ratio
materials run hot, low ratios run cold.  A perfect black body would have
a = e = 1.

Ever wonder why a piece of bare metal gets so hot in the sun even though
it's so shiny? Even though some materials reflect almost all of the
visible light that hits them (i.e., are very inefficient at absorbing
solar radiation), they are even LESS efficient at radiating much longer
wavelengths. Most unfinished metals are in this category.

The thermal design of a spacecraft must take into account the orbit
(this determines the average solar input), the form of attitude control
(which surfaces will face the sun, and for how long) and the internal
dissipative loads of the payload.  Surfaces facing dark sky for long periods
(e.g., the north and south faces of geostationary communications satellites)
are generally covered either with thermal blankets (which effectively
decouple the underlying structure from the environment) or radiators,
for getting rid of waste heat from transmitters, etc. Sun-facing surfaces
are of course usually covered with solar cells, and this limits what you
can do with their thermal characteristics.  If the spacecraft does not
spin, heat pipes are often used to transfer heat from the sunlit side to
the shadowed side.

Once a spacecraft's physical design is drafted, the thermal designer
creates a computer model, incorporating verious points within the
spacercraft as "nodes" and the conductive or radiative thermal
connections between them.  Even small, relatively simple spacecraft such
as the AMSAT Phase 3 series are thermally modeled with several hundred
nodes, and minor changes to the thermal coatings are often required as
a result of the model.

Phil

------------------------------

Subject: Re: Libertarians love NASA?
Date: Thu, 28 Apr 88 12:01:54 -0400
From: Fred Baube <fbaube@note.nsf.gov>


mcvax!cernvax!hslrswi!ken@uunet.uu.net (Ken Ferschweiler) writes:
> The party which advocates liberty, freedom, no-government-intervention,
> etc., discourages its members from speaking their minds?

I hope not.  When you're in a party that prides itself on a
modicum of intellectual consistency and reputability, factional-
ism is bound to set in.  It always seems to be the Statist "Left"
that splinters itself, not the Statist "Right", so some ideolo-
gies are more immune than others.

------------------------------

Date:         Thu, 28 Apr 88 12:23:25 EST
From: Lou Surface <LBS100S%ODUVM.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Subject:      STS Stacking Problem

I understand that the august launch has been delayed 10 days due to problems
in stacking the vehicle. Is this related to any SRB engineering changes?

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 28 Apr 88 18:19:21 pdt
From: Eugene N. Miya <eugene@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov>
Subject: Yet another: RELEASE/Engineeering Centers
Newsgroups: nasa.nasamail.l
Cc: 

Les Reinertson
Headquarters, Washington, D.C                    April 28, 1988


RELEASE: 88-58

NASA SELECTS UNIVERSITY SPACE ENGINEERING RESEARCH CENTERS


     NASA today announced the selection of nine universities to 
conduct long-term research into promising areas of space 
engineering and technology.

     This year's selection of University Space Engineering 
Research Centers includes new opportunities for university 
specialization such as Mars mission technologies, 
extraterrestrial materials, in-space construction and large 
space-based observatories.

     The university-based centers are eligible to receive up to 
$500,000 for the first year and may grow to over $1 million a 
year for a minimum of four years.  The centers support NASA's 
goal to broaden the nation's engineering capability to meet the 
critical needs of the civilian space program.

     The Centers are:

	o The University of Arizona, Center for the Utilization of 
	  Local Planetary Resources;

	o The University of Cincinnati, Health Monitoring Technology
	  Center for Space Propulsion Systems;

	o The University of Colorado, Boulder, Center for Space
	  Construction;

	o The University of Idaho, Very Large Scale Integrated 
	  Hardware Acceleration Center for Space Research;

	o Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Center for Space
	  Engineering Research Focused on Controlled Structures
	  Technology;

	o The University of Michigan, Center for Near-Millimeter Wave
	  Communication and Sensing Technology;

	o North Carolina State University at Raleigh and North 
	  Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, Mars 
	  Mission Research Center;

	o The Pennsylvania State University, Center for Space 
	  Propulsion Engineering;

	o Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Intelligent Robotic 
	  Systems for Space Exploration.

     The nine centers were selected from 115 proposals submitted 
last November to NASA in response to the agency's program 
announcement.  The program's sponsor, the Office of Aeronautics 
and Space Technology, Washington, D.C., screened each proposal 
over a 6-month process that included a broadly-based national 
peer review followed by an internal NASA review.  NASA plans 
another competitive round to expand the participation and grow 
the program over the next few years to about 20 universities.  
Timing and rate of growth will depend on budget availability.

     "This university-based center concept is an integral part of 
the strategy to rebuild the nation's space technology base.  We 
are making a special effort to reach out to the university 
community and make a long-term commitment for space engineering 
research partnerships between NASA centers and universities. The 
program also will generate new talent and increase awareness in 
our program among college-bound space enthusiasts," said Dr.
William F. Ballhaus, Jr., NASA's acting associate administrator 
for the Office of Aeronautics and Space Technology.

     NASA grants for the University Space Engineering Research 
Program will support cross-disciplinary research of high 
potential payoff.  The universities are expected to attract other 
support as their programs evolve.

<RUN Don't walk to your nearest...;-> <Well gee, where's Caltech;-)

------------------------------

Date: 26 Apr 88 10:37:12 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!its63b!bob@uunet.uu.net  (ERCF08 Bob Gray)
Subject: Re: Cometesimals (was: Millions of comets hit Earth)

In article <1002@aicchi.UUCP> dbb@aicchi.UUCP (Burch) writes:
>Say, folks... Could this explain (neatly) the occasional reports that
>lunar observers have made of clouds of water vapor?  I recall that these
>have been from near the terminator, logical if a snowball hit during the
>night, and was being vaporized by the sun.  If this is so, all a lunar
>colony need do for water is set up a network of sensors, and then collect
>the debris before they sublime...

If there are all these snowballs lying around on the Moon,
waiting to be vaporised by a rising sun, then you are
overlooking a MUCH more important point.


The little green men who put them there.

A comet or small comet or snowball is in orbit round the sun.

If the moon gets in the way, the snowball would hit the
lunar surface at a velocity measured in kilometers per
second. (or miles per second if you are observing from the
Space Station :->)

Any snowball would be ionised by the impact, which would
also make a large hole in the surface.

Therefore, if there are any snowballs on the surface of the
moon, someone put them there.

Probably the same ones who put the face on Mars, and the B52
on the Moon.

:-> :-> :-> :-> :-> :-> :-> :->

In case you haven't already guessed.
	Bob.

------------------------------

Date: 	28-APR-1988 22:34:34.12
From: LUCAS@sage.psy.cmu.edu
Subject: 	re:  Hawaiian launch sites
To: unique-bb@a.psy.cmu.edu
Attention: 	SPACE BBoard
Reply-To: LUCAS@psy.cmu.edu
Vaxnotes_Export: 	MESCAL  

Anyone who has ever visited the top of an Hawaiian volcano should think twice
about the damage that would be done by installing a launch site in such
a unique environment.  A hike below the rim of Haleakala on Maui is a
truely amazing trip--the closest thing to a walk on another planet
that any of us are likely to experience.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #221
*******************

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Date: Mon, 16 May 88 03:34:07 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8805161034.AA11806@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #222

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 222

Today's Topics:
			     Re: KAL 007
	      Vocabulary lesson #1: "the space program"
			       Re: Mars
	    Space Photographs, Paintings and Prints Wanted
		      Re: Hawaiian launch sites
			Re: Lunar observatory
			Re: Shooting the Moon
			Re: Shooting the Moon
			  Shooting the Moon
	  Re: Motivations For The Soviet Union To Go To Mars
		      Re: Hawaiian launch sites
			Re: Lunar observatory
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date:     Fri, 29 Apr 88 08:18 EDT
From: RON PICARD <PICARD%gmr.com@relay.cs.net>
Subject:  Re: KAL 007

Stuart Lewis writes:
> I do stand by my statement that the 707/-80 was strictly a commercial
> venture by the companies board of directors - they banked nearly
> everything on it's being a success.
 
What company has that kind of guts now-adays?  It's my understanding     
that the few companies that are trying to design and build a rocket
are held up mainly due to acquiring launch facilities and mounds of
red tape (Outer Space Treaty?).  There are designs that would eliminate
the need for a ground launch facility so what's holding them up?

Ron Picard  (PICARD@GMR.COM)

------------------------------

Reply-To: pnet01!jim@trout.nosc.mil
Date: Thu, 28 Apr 88 22:57:42 PDT
From: jim@pnet01.cts.com (Jim Bowery)
To: crash!Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: Vocabulary lesson #1: "the space program"

Vocabulary lesson #1:

"the space program":  The rotting carcas of Apollo which NASA bureaucrats
keep around like a psycho with his long dead mother feeding pieces to
gullible space enthusiasts, lacing it with opiates like "in 10 years $50/lbs 
to LEO!" and "permanent manned presence!"  and "citizens in space!" to keep 
them stupified into not noticing the stench and believing that Mother might 
get up and walk any day now if only we would give NASA enough money.

For example:

"The space program is being given the charter of setting up settlements
 beyond Earth!"

Which translated into straight-talk means:

"Here, space enthusiast, we know you are unhappy that things didn't
 quite turn out the way O'Neill said back in the '70s what with 
 Shuttle costing 200 times as much to fly as we said it would and
 blowing up teachers and stuff like that... but if you just swallow
 this Big Opiated Lie, you will forget all about NASA's rather, uh, 
 revolting condition and think it will all be better any day now."

UUCP: {cbosgd, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!pnet01!jim
ARPA: crash!pnet01!jim@nosc.mil
INET: jim@pnet01.cts.com

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 29 Apr 88 08:30 EDT
From: "Paul F. Dietz" <DIETZ%sdr.slb.com@relay.cs.net>
Subject: Re: Mars
To: bidlack@usafa.arpa, donegan%stanton.tcc.com@relay.cs.net,
        space@angband.s1.gov

> One aspect of a manned mission to Mars that I thing should be
> discussed is the biological debate.  In a past issue of Sky and
> Telescope, ... thus Loudin argued, a manned landing on Mars should
> be delayed until we are ABSOLUTELY sure there is no life on Mars.
> Thoughts?
> Hal Bidlack@usafa.arpa

I think this worry about biological contamination stems fromm a grossly
overoptimistic position some folks had on the chances for life existing on
Mars. The conditions there are extremely bad. Viking landers detected no
organic matter, even though carbonaceous chrondrites should bring it in in
detectable amounts. This is apparently due to destruction by reactive
oxygen bearing molecules produced by atmospheric photochemical reactions.

Consider also that terrestrial life absolutely requires the existence of
liquid water to reproduce. Liquid water cannot exist on Mars ... the
partial pressure of water vapor in the atmosphere is far too low, even
in the "moist" areas of the planet.

Finally, Mars should not be viewed as a biologically isolated environment.
Large impacts on Earth have likely lofted rocks into solar orbit. It has
been argued ("The Rocky Road to Panspermia", Nature, 4/21/88) that some
small fraction of these rocks suffer sufficiently little shock heating that
viable microorganisms can exist. Some of the rocks would be perturbed into
Mars-crossing orbits and could eventually hit that planet. In view of the
conditions on Mars, any dormant microorganisms brought in would not revive,
and would be quickly oxidized.

	Paul F. Dietz

------------------------------

Date: 28 Apr 88 18:16:02 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!yunexus!ists!waugh@uunet.uu.net  (Don Waugh)
Subject: Space Photographs, Paintings and Prints Wanted


ISTS The Institute for Space and Terrestrial Sciences, located at York 
University, Toronto, Ontario is looking for pictures and prints of space
related subject matter to decorate our soon to be offices and
laboratories. We would appreciate receiving any information or
suggestions on possible sources for such material. I might add that any 
donations will be gladly accepted. Many Thanks.

Don Waugh ISTS

------------------------------

Date: 29 Apr 88 04:53:07 GMT
From: vu-vlsi!swatsun!leif@psuvax1.cs.psu.edu  (Leif Kirschenbaum)
Subject: Re: Hawaiian launch sites

In article <7897@ames.arpa> eugene@pioneer.UUCP (Eugene N. Miya) writes:
> Ach!  You guys have such a lack of sensitivity!  A great way to wreck one of
> the best optical observing sites in the world.  Okay, SPACE at all costs.
> --eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA
> 				soon to be aurora.arc.nasa.gov
>   {uunet,hplabs,hao,ihnp4,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene

But we will have our telescopes in space! :-)

{Then we'll have to worry about where we park our shuttles, stations, and
garbage. :-> }

-- 
Leif Kirschenbaum '91
Swarthmore College
UUCP:     rutgers!bpa!swatsun!leif
Internet: bpa!swatsun!leif@rutgers.edu

------------------------------

Date: 28 Apr 88 17:15:00 GMT
From: phri!dasys1!tneff@nyu.edu  (Tom Neff)
Subject: Re: Lunar observatory

In article <8804271354.AA21051@angband.s1.gov> KEVIN@A.CFR.CMU.EDU writes:
>   If you wish to base a radio telescope so that it is shielded from the 
>rather immense RF output of the earth, placing it on the lunar Farside 
>seems like a good idea.  Something I haven't seen mentioned in detail 
>yet is how badly the moon would block 50% of the sky for two weeks every 
>two weeks.  On earth the planet screens out large portions of the sky, 
>but there are enough radio telescopes to give fairly full coverage of 
>such time-limited events as novae and such.  

Kevin, it needn't be as bad as that if we think about it for a moment.
In order to block the Earth's RF, you don't need to be at the exact antipode
or center of the Lunar farside; anywhere over the limb as seen from Earth
will do the trick.  Taking libration into account, that leaves 4/5 of the
farside to work in.  If you placed one or more observatories around the
East and West limbs, your total sky coverage at any given moment would
be 85-90% by my rough calculation; probably even better since there are
no Lunar horizon effects I'm aware of.  So Congressman Iguanaface won't
have any grist for his mill.  If something big happens to occur in opposition
to the Moon, we'd have to watch it via Earthside instruments (getting better
all the time).  Lunar observatories will be wonderful, but they will never
constitute the whole observing mission - just a key component.

PS you would want your observatories nearer the limb than the antipode
anyway, because that way they can easily beam results Earthside via the
geosync satellite network, which I don't think is visible from the nether
reaches of the "lunar outback".

-- 
Tom Neff			UUCP: ...!cmcl2!phri!dasys1!tneff
	"None of your toys	CIS: 76556,2536		MCI: TNEFF
	 will function..."	GEnie: TOMNEFF		BIX: are you kidding?

------------------------------

Date: 29 Apr 88 22:19:56 GMT
From: spar!freeman@decwrl.dec.com  (Jay Freeman)
Subject: Re: Shooting the Moon


It sounds like a reasonable way to clear a landing strip, one merely
worries about possible widespread effects of the blast that might
mess up some of the very phenomena one wants to study (meteorology,
suspended particles, surface dust and debries, who knows what).  I
think I would be less apprehensive about a planetary exploration
program that assumed that the scientifically interesting things
about the planet were in general extremely fragile, and that
proceeded cautiously.  "Shoot first and ask questions later"
(... sorry, I couldn't resist ...) may not be the right way to
perform such investigations.

Of course, circulating your proposal widely increases the chances
of somebody thinking of something that a nuclear explosion is likely
to mess up, while there's still time to do it another way.

						-- Jay Freeman

<canonical disclaimer -- these are my opinions only>

------------------------------

Date: 29 Apr 88 22:41:01 GMT
From: polya!crew@labrea.stanford.edu  (Roger Crew)
Subject: Re: Shooting the Moon


Just what are the plans for this probe?
You wouldn't happen to be planning any atmospheric studies, would you?

``Gee, there seems to be an awful lot of radioactive dust here;  
  ...wouldn't have expected that...''

On the other hand, Mars being uninhabited, there won't be any
environmentalists around to complain.                          :-)

--
Roger (crew@polya.stanford.edu)		``Beam Wesley into the sun!''

------------------------------

Date: 29 Apr 88 16:27:42 GMT
From: paulf@shasta.stanford.edu  (Paul A. Flaherty)
Subject: Shooting the Moon

I'm currently involved with the joint Stanford - JPL mission to Mars;
for those of you who don't know about this, we're looking at placing 
an orbiter in sun - sync, two repeaters in "Molniya" orbits, and
landing a pair of rovers.

The biggest problem we're faced with at the moment is landing site selection,
and crash landing aviodance, eg., not putting down on top of a large boulder.
This is a rather difficult proposition, since the best hi-res photography
we'll be able to get will have about 3m resolution (pessimistically), and
we can, at best, tolerate 1m boulders.

For this reason, my design partner and I have proposed a radical approach:
build a landing site.  The site would consist of a two kilometer wide
flat landing strip, which will be easily visible to the lander.  Construction
benefits would include knowledge of regional atmospherics, seismic data 
generation, and lander simplification.

Unfortunately, since Mars is currently uninhabited, we cannot simply hire
a construction crew.  Therefore, we are forced to consider a simple,
engineered solution to landing field construction.

The explosion of a 35 kiloton nuclear device, optomized for heat blast, at
approximately 100m above the Martian surface, would create a glass-smooth
landing pad, with the required dimensions, and the above stated benefits.

No, this is not a joke.  We're very serious about this.

I'd appreciate comments / suggestions on this proposal.


-- 
-=Paul Flaherty, N9FZX	     | "The architecture of the 80xxx series of
Computer Systems Laboratory  |microprocessors is clear evidence that INTEL
Stanford University          |isn't doing in-house drug testing."
->paulf@shasta.Stanford.EDU  |			--Paul Flaherty

------------------------------

Date: 29 Apr 88 19:34:39 GMT
From: rochester!ur-tut!kwa1_ltd@bbn.com  (Karl Wagenfuehr Ltd.)
Subject: Re: Motivations For The Soviet Union To Go To Mars

In article <2885@s.cc.purdue.edu> ain@s.cc.purdue.edu.UUCP (Patrick White) writes:
>
>   I think they have a bit more common sense than that... after all, they
>didn't follow us to the moon, but rather concentrated on achiving what
>they have now -- a permanently manned space station and now a space
>shuttle...  to our seemingly permantly grounded space shuttle.  The old
>tortoise and hare story all over again.

I don't think the picture is as simple as that at all.

The soviets *were* trying to get to the moon.  Why should they have made
their goal be permanent earth orbit way back then, when (literally) the
moon wasn't the limit.  Remember back to the sixties, those days of 
endless expansion.  I don't think the soviets, especially in light of
their approach of sensationalism in launches, didn't have the moon in
mind.  Remember, they were the first to orbit a man, first to orbit a
woman, first to orbit two men, first to orbit *three* men, first to do
an EVA, etc, etc.  What makes you believe they didn't want first on the
moon, too?
When they saw that the United States was just about at the moon, and they
realized it was pretty much hopeless to hope to get there first, they
claimed they never wanted to go there to begin with.  But how can we
believe this?  They never publicize their plans.  We had no idea what they
were planning.  Because they never explicately stated they were going to
the moon, it was easy for them to say they never intended to go there in
the first place.  But then, they never anounced *any* of their plans until
they were successfully completed.  And there is no reason not to believe
that they wanted the moon.
Permanently manned space stations were nothing back then.  WHo cares that
you can stay in earth orbit when others are going to the moon?
I would also like to bring to your attention the fact that after getting
bored with Apollo (blame Congress!  Con is opposite pro as Congress is
opposite progress), Skylab was sent up, and manned.  It was no big deal,
really.  Yeah, a manned space station; big deal.  I would like to remind
you that Skylab was a lot bigger than Mir (how much I don't recall off
hand).  This slow turtle approach being better is just a load of bunk.
We *had* a space station.  A much better space station than that which we
envy the soviets today.  Permanent man presense in space is not such a
big deal.  It just requires persistence and money.
I will concede on that point:  the soviets are superior in that they stuck
to their space program.  Had the united states shown just half the 
persistance of the soviets, I don't think we'd be envying them anything
right now.  We were where they are now *15 years ago*!  Just we got
bored, and stopped supporting Space.

Maybe it is true; maybe the soviets are better off in space right now.
But I don't think this is due to any superiority on their part of them
being so much more noble than we in persuing their goals.  I think it
is that we really screwed up back in the seventies, dropping down to
almost nothing after the big days of Apollo.  It is not how persistent
the soviets are in space, but how *incredibly* unpersistent *we* are in
space that is the crux of the matter, I feel.

Karl
['(]

kwa1_ltd@tut.cc.rochester.edu

------------------------------

Date: 29 Apr 88 16:41:47 GMT
From: paulf@shasta.stanford.edu  (Paul A. Flaherty)
Subject: Re: Hawaiian launch sites

Wrongo.  The US owns three VERY equatorial islands in the Pacific: Baker,
Howard, and Jarvis, all of which are closer to the equator than French
Guiana.


-- 
-=Paul Flaherty, N9FZX	     | "The architecture of the 80xxx series of
Computer Systems Laboratory  |microprocessors is clear evidence that INTEL
Stanford University          |isn't doing in-house drug testing."
->paulf@shasta.Stanford.EDU  |			--Paul Flaherty

------------------------------

Date: 29 Apr 88 22:01:08 GMT
From: kr0u+@andrew.cmu.edu  (Kevin William Ryan)
Subject: Re: Lunar observatory

>   If you wish to base a radio telescope so that it is shielded from the
>rather immense RF output of the earth, placing it on the lunar Farside
>seems like a good idea.  Something I haven't seen mentioned in detail
>yet is how badly the moon would block 50% of the sky for two weeks every
>two weeks.  On earth the planet screens out large portions of the sky,
>but there are enough radio telescopes to give fairly full coverage of
>such time-limited events as novae and such.

Kevin, it needn't be as bad as that if we think about it for a moment.
In order to block the Earth's RF, you don't need to be at the exact antipode
or center of the Lunar farside; anywhere over the limb as seen from Earth
will do the trick.  Taking libration into account, that leaves 4/5 of the
farside to work in.  If you placed one or more observatories around the
East and West limbs, your total sky coverage at any given moment would
be 85-90% by my rough calculation; probably even better since there are

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #222
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 17 May 88 12:39:28 EDT
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA15102; Tue, 17 May 88 05:02:23 PDT
	id AA15102; Tue, 17 May 88 05:02:23 PDT
Date: Tue, 17 May 88 05:02:23 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8805171202.AA15102@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #223

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 223

Today's Topics:
		     Ariane Launch V23 17-18 May
	  Network session at 7th Space Develpment Conference
	     Progress 36 to go up and Soviet Shuttle news
			  Watch Cosmos 1900
		      Progress 36 docks with Mir
      Re: Re-evolving spaceflight after collapse of civilization
	       Vocabulary lesson #2: "NASA contracting"
			       Re: Mars
	 Re: Cometesimals (was: Millions of comets hit Earth)
			Re: Shooting the Moon
		Vocabulary lesson #3:  "NASA-bashing"
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 12 May 88 14:08:36 GMT
From: mcvax!esatst!neil@uunet.uu.net  (Neil Dixon)
Subject: Ariane Launch V23 17-18 May

The launch of Ariane V23 will take place on the night of 17-18 May 1988.

Launch window times are:

	23:43 - 23:59 GMT
	00:33 - 00:48 GMT
	01:15 - 01:34 GMT

The Ariane 2 launcher carries as single payload the communications
satellite INTELSAT V, F13.  This launch, V23, originally scheduled for a
later launch-slot, has been brought forward and will thus be followed on
8th June by V22, the first start of ESA's new heavy launcher Ariane 4.

Neil Dixon <neil@yc.estec.nl> UUCP:...!mcvax!esatst!neil, BITNET: NDIXON@ESTEC
Thermal Control & Life Support Division (YC) 
European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC),
Noordwijk, The Netherlands.

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 15 May 1988 17:43-EDT 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Network session at 7th Space Develpment Conference

I will be chairing an ad-hoc get together entitled "Space Digest
Discussion Group" at the 7th Space Development Conference in Denver.

The session will be Sunday, May 29, 10am - 11am.

The discussion is at current open, and I'd like to hear suggestions for
the agenda. The emphasis should be on real, practical volunteer
projects. I suggest some of the following:

	1) Future of space-digest (ie after Ted moves)
	2) Uses of Space-activists to advance the cause
	3) Increasing the reach of our mail nets into FIDO, CBB's,
	   commercial nets, etc.
	4) Assignment or 'formalizing' areas of responsibility. Ie
	   Henry Spencer is "Abstractor of AvLeak", Glenn Chapman is
	   "Reporter of Soviet Space Runaway", Dale Amon is "Keeper of
	   the Net Directory", Chris Welty is the "Keeper of the
	   activists digest". We can discuss other ideas at the
	   meeting. (I prefer that we do without a "Keeper of the
	   Flame"!!)


This session will probably overlap something that everyone wants to
see, but that's the problem with conferences in general.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 11 May 88 21:26:10 EDT
From: Glenn Chapman <glenn@ll-vlsi.arpa>
Subject: Progress 36 to go up and Soviet Shuttle news

    The USSR announced about a week ago (May 1) that Progress 36, the
12th cargo craft to Mir, would be launched about May 7th, yet as of May
11th it has not taken off.  Indeed the Progress 35 craft, which brought
2.5 tonnes of supplies to Mir on Mar. 26, has been loaded with garbage,
but appears to have been not yet separated from the Mir/Kvant complex.
The exact reason for the delay has not been explained anywhere to date.
One point is that just before that separation takes place they use the
engines of the Progress to raise the space station's orbit (Mir watchers
take note: data is going to be uncertain for the next week or so as the
orbital elemeants will change substantially when the Progress is
dropped).  Recently it was confirmed to me by people at Pay Load Systems
(the company with the contract to put material processing experimeants
on Mir) that the docking of the Kvant module to the rear end of Mir
meant that its main engines could not be used to make major orbital
changes because of fears of damaging the experimeants on Kvant
(astrophysical observation instruments).
    Also for what it is worth it appears now that the first Russian
shuttle flight will be manned with two cosmonauts Igor Volk (Soyuz T12,
July 17, 1984) and Anatoly Levchenko (Soyuz TM-4, Dec. 21, 1987).
Pravda actually had a sketch of their shuttle about a week ago.  They
are still talking about a June flight.  It has been known for some time
that the cosmonaut corps were pushing for a manned first shuttle
mission, and had trained for similar missions.  One could speculate that
the final factors pushing for this was two things.  First it has been
confirmed that the failure in the upper stage of Energiya was due to a
software error which reversed the direction vectors of the stage during
firing, not a failure of the engines or other guidance systems.
Secondly the shuttle autolanding system development has been having some
trouble.  So when your robots fail you substitute humans for tasks
humans have shown abilities to do.
    It looks like the next couple of months could be very exciting for
the soviet program.  Meanwhile we get shuttle fuel factories blowing up
and more delays on the shuttle.  Let us get a bit of move on here.

                                             Glenn Chapman
                                             MIT Lincoln Lab

------------------------------

Date: 13 May 88 20:25:50 GMT
From: thumper!karn@faline.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Watch Cosmos 1900

Keep an eye on COSMOS 1900. The AP wire is reporting that it appears to
be another Soviet nuclear-powered ocean surveillance satellite that will
re-enter the atmosphere instead of being boosted to a high orbit.

Phil

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 16 May 88 09:46:05 EDT
From: Glenn Chapman <glenn@ll-vlsi.arpa>
Subject: Progress 36 docks with Mir

     The USSR has today (May 15) docked Progress 36 with the Mir/Kvant
space station.  The cargo craft will deliver about 1 Tonne of
fuel/air/water and 1.5 Tonnes of equipment, destined for use on the
Bulgarian visiting mission scheduled for June 7th.  This is the 12th
Progress to visit Mir, the previous generation of Soviet stations
(Salyut 6 and 7) received only 12 cargo craft each during their separate
5 years of operation.  Mir has been in orbit 2.2 years so that this
shows Mir to be twice as active in supply usage as the previous
generation of stations.  This is not surprising as Mir has been occupied
for 547 days (continuously for 472 days).  By comparison Salyut 6 had
669 days of occupancy, and Salyut 7 had 712 days.  Thus the real
difference with Mir is that it is being used more intensively than the
previous Soviet space stations.  Also the Progresses have now brought
considerable equipment to Mir which has stayed on board (total mass
brought by cargo craft now almost exceeds the mass of Mir and Kvant
togeather and the operational station weight now appears to be over 50
Tonnes). Note that Vladimir Titov and Musahi Manarov have now been in
orbit for 146 days on board the Mir complex.
    Just compare this operational capacity to the suggestion by the
Cogressional Budget Office that we wait until 2005 AD for the
NASA/International space station.  That is just the type of leadership
this country needs to be a third rate space power.

                                               Glenn Chapman
                                               MIT Lincoln Lab

------------------------------

Date: 30 Apr 88 00:57:30 GMT
From: tektronix!orca!brucec@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Bruce Cohen)
Subject: Re: Re-evolving spaceflight after collapse of civilization

In article <8804280616.AA20191@crash.cts.com> pnet01!jim@trout.nosc.mil writes:
>The responses to my assertion about the difficulty of reestablishing
>the capability for the creation of a spacefaring civilization after
>the collapse of civilization have focused on two ideas:
>
>1)  We can find substitute materials for everything that we run out of.
>and
>2)  We can recycle the metals we are now using so we won't run out of
>them.
>
>The problem with 1 is ...
some explication ...
>  If we do start running out of various critical
>metals, we MIGHT find ways around them.  Then again, we MIGHT NOT.
>
>The problem with 2 is ...
more explication ...
>the best we can expect is to get around 50% recovery of
>the critical materials each time they go through the cycle.  Those
>metal atoms don't just dissapear, but they DO end up mixed with other
>things that make it uneconomic to recover them.

But ... how much of what materials do you need to bootstrap
yourself as far as Luna or the asteroids, where you can find *very* large
quantities of the meterials you need?  If you make getting back into space
a high priority for your entire society, then it shouldn't be a problem.
I don't think that there is anything critical needed in more than kiloton
lots, as long as you have lots of energy available; and there will always
be sunshine.  I simply can't believe that a culture which has developed
spaceflight once already will have stripped its home planet so
thoroughly that you can't find, say, a thousand tons of vanadium
*somewhere*, even if you have to vaporize rock by the cubic kilometer and
run it through a huge mass spectrograph.  It may take time (perhaps
centuries) and energy, but it should be *technically* possible.

The real question is whether it would be *politically* possible.  Hell, we
(the US) can't even agree that we should commit the necessary resources
when we *haven't* stripped ourselves bare.  How much chance would the
space program have if the resources necessary to make it self-sustaining
amounted to half the GNP for several decades, rather than less than 1
percent?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    "The authorities are excellent at amassing facts, though they do not
     always use them to advantage."
                                      Sherlock Holmes, "The Naval Treaty"
Bruce Cohen
{the real world}...!tektronix!ruby!brucec
brucec@ruby.TEK.COM
 Tektronix Inc., M/S 61-028, P.O. Box 1000, Wilsonville, OR  97070

------------------------------

Reply-To: pnet01!jim@trout.nosc.mil
Date: Fri, 29 Apr 88 20:28:53 PDT
From: jim@pnet01.cts.com (Jim Bowery)
To: crash!Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: Vocabulary lesson #2: "NASA contracting"

Vocabulary lesson #2:

"NASA contracting":  The technique whereby NASA hires an unlimited
number of employees and launders large amounts of money which is
used by those employees to lobby for even more money without getting
thrown in jail for violations of the Hatch Act.

For example:

"Several NASA contractors were given awards to study Space Station
 design."

Which translated to straight-talk means:

"Some NASA bureaucrats want a Big Project to be in charge of
 so they are giving their good ole boy buddies the incentive and 
 resources to put propoganda for NASA on during network TV commercial 
 breaks and torture their congressmen into engaging in pork-barrel 
 politics not to mention placing ads in Spaceworld magazine for
 gullible space enthusiasts to get excited about."

UUCP: {cbosgd, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!pnet01!jim
ARPA: crash!pnet01!jim@nosc.mil
INET: jim@pnet01.cts.com

------------------------------

Date: 30 Apr 88 06:54:52 GMT
From: silver!chiaravi@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu  (Lucius Chiaraviglio)
Subject: Re: Mars

In article <8804291350.AA24568@angband.s1.gov> DIETZ@sdr.slb.COM ("Paul F.
Dietz") writes:
>I think this worry about biological contamination stems fromm a grossly
>overoptimistic position some folks had on the chances for life existing on
>Mars. The conditions there are extremely bad. Viking landers detected no
>organic matter, even though carbonaceous chrondrites should bring it in in
>detectable amounts. This is apparently due to destruction by reactive
>oxygen bearing molecules produced by atmospheric photochemical reactions.

	Remember that the Viking landers only sampled 2 places on all of Mars,
and those weren't even the places where atmospheric pressure and water vapor
content are thought to be highest.  They also did register some life-like
reactions, which, while by no means being proof of life, deserve further
investigation before being swept under the rug.  Also, who is to say that life
has to be organic?  In _Genetic Takeover and the Origin of Life_ and also in a
Scientific American article of a couple of years ago, A. G. Cairns-Smith makes
a very respectable case for the hypothesis that the first life on Earth was in
fact reproducing crystals capable of storing and transmitting genetic
information and catalyzing metabolic reactions beneficial to themselves.
According to the hypothesis, these organisms evolved nucleic acids and
proteins as more flexible ways of dealing with their environment, but since
nucleic acids can also store and transmit genetic information and be the basis
of protein-synthesizing machinery, they took over from the crystalline genetic
material and discarded it as superfluous.  On Mars, mineral life would be more
likely to hold its own due to the unfavorability of conditions there for
organic matter.

>Consider also that terrestrial life absolutely requires the existence of
>liquid water to reproduce. Liquid water cannot exist on Mars ... the
>partial pressure of water vapor in the atmosphere is far too low, even
>in the "moist" areas of the planet.

	Liquid water is not stable on Mars, but since frost (or maybe even
snow) can form there and accumulate during the night and then be heated by the
Sun when morning comes around, liquid water could exist transiently.  From
working in biology labs and having to vacuum-dry samples I know that water
just doesn't boil very well in vacuum if it has stuff (particularly salts)
dissolved in it.  I have left samples in the lyophilizer for an hour and come
back and found large drops of liquid still sitting there, even though the
vacuum gauge couldn't detect any pressure (and the pressure was almost
certainly less than on Mars -- low enough to boil away nearly pure water at
a reasonable speed).

>Finally, Mars should not be viewed as a biologically isolated environment.
>Large impacts on Earth have likely lofted rocks into solar orbit. It has
>been argued ("The Rocky Road to Panspermia", Nature, 4/21/88) that some
>small fraction of these rocks suffer sufficiently little shock heating that
>viable microorganisms can exist. Some of the rocks would be perturbed into
>Mars-crossing orbits and could eventually hit that planet. In view of the
>conditions on Mars, any dormant microorganisms brought in would not revive,
>and would be quickly oxidized.

	Terrestrial microorganisms that use oxygen have enzymes to deal with
oxidizing radicals and other nasty stuff.  Considering that some cyanobacteria
and archaebacteria are capable of growing in boiling sulfuric acid (which is a
pretty strong oxidizer), and that other organisms have been shown to be able
to grow in conditions which simulate Martian conditions, I would not be
surprised if something found Martian conditions to be similar enough to its
terrestrial niche to be able to adapt.

>	Paul F. Dietz

	-- Lucius Chiaraviglio
	   chiaravi@silver.bacs.indiana.edu
	   lucius@tardis.harvard.edu	(in case the first one doesn't work)
	Maybe your next spaceflight should be on a train.
	STARTRAK

------------------------------

Date: 29 Apr 88 17:20:15 GMT
From: killer!netsys!nucleus!hacker@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Thomas Hacker)
Subject: Re: Cometesimals (was: Millions of comets hit Earth)

In article <880422134517.2698@Iowa> kistler%Iowa.Iowa@IAGO.CALTECH.EDU.UUCP writes:

>It doesn't.  It (re)freezes.  Every few million years Mars warms up (since the
>water that is in vapor form creates a greenhouse effect just like CO2); the
>ice thaws; rivers flow on Mars.  There are lots of images of dry river beds on
>Mars, river beds millions of years younger than the craters 10 feet away.
>THEN Mars loses the water, because it's so warm.  Start all over again, etc.
>
     Water on Mars??  Could you please point me to references that
substantiate this?

-- 
Thomas J. Hacker            ...!uunet!umix!nucleus!hacker (hacker@nucleus.UUCP)
Physics/CS Undergrad
Oakland University                 "Physics is the poetry of nature."
Rochester, MI 48063

------------------------------

Date: 30 Apr 88 00:13:39 GMT
From: tlh@purdue.edu  (Thomas L Hausmann)
Subject: Re: Shooting the Moon


Yes, but doesn't this violate a treaty?

------------------------------

Reply-To: pnet01!jim@trout.nosc.mil
Date: Sat, 30 Apr 88 18:06:12 PDT
From: jim@pnet01.cts.com (Jim Bowery)
To: crash!Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: Vocabulary lesson #3:  "NASA-bashing"

Vocabulary lesson #3:

"NASA-bashing":  Any criticism of NASA that some NASA apologist wants
to discredit as irrational, indiscriminate, ill conceived or ill founded
when, in fact, their SUPPORT of NASA is irrational, indiscriminate, ill
conceived or ill founded.  

For example:  

        "Feynman's NASA-bashing was uncalled for and destructive
         to the tough job of rebuilding our space program."

Which translated into straight-talk means:

        "Feynman dared question NASA when NASA is our only
         pathetic hope of developing a spacefaring civilization
         because people like me are too shallow to put ourselves
         on the line to help create viable alternatives."

UUCP: {cbosgd, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!pnet01!jim
ARPA: crash!pnet01!jim@nosc.mil
INET: jim@pnet01.cts.com

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #223
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 18 May 88 06:39:34 EDT
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA01466; Wed, 18 May 88 03:27:27 PDT
	id AA01466; Wed, 18 May 88 03:27:27 PDT
Date: Wed, 18 May 88 03:27:27 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8805181027.AA01466@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #224

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 224

Today's Topics:
		   Soviet Space Shuttle Launch date
			    Arianne launch
		      Mir elements, epoch 12 May
			      NASA News
		      NASA Prediction Bulletins
		      Space & General Relativity
      On Television - "PIONEERING THE FUTURE: America in Space"
	    Motivations For The Soviet Union To Go To Mars
			Re: Lunar observatory
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 12 May 88 17:51:15 GMT
From: nbires!isis!scicom!wats@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Bruce Watson)
Subject: Soviet Space Shuttle Launch date

Just heard that the Soviet Space Shuttle is set for launch on May 18.
Dignitaries are assembling at the Baikonur Cosmodrome for the event.
Cable News Network is supposed to televise live.  If I knew the time of
launch I could compute the orbit and determine if North America has a
chance to see it.  Please send mail.  Thanks.  Bruce.

------------------------------

Date: 16 May 88 20:36:32 GMT
From: mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Mike Smithwick)
Subject: Arianne launch

Just got the word that tomorrow's ESA launch is scheduled for 4:43 PDT/
7:43 EDT (of course, your mileage may vary!). The window extends for 5
minutes.

As with previous launches, this should be broadcast on the Spacenet 1
satillite, somewhere around transponder 21.

About the Red-Shuttle launch, you may want to check the Telstar 301
satillite during the count. That is where CNN picked up their broadcast
for that live Soyuz launch last year.

------------------------------

Date: 16 May 88 04:54:00 GMT
From: kenny@m.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Mir elements, epoch 12 May

[Predictions made with this set may well be untrustworthy, as recent
 news releases lead analysts to expect a reboost within the next few
 days.]


Mir        
1 16609U          88132.77585481 0.00020557           13652-3 0  1955
2 16609  51.6199 254.4461 0021701 316.7364  43.0666 15.75131381128092

Satellite: Mir        
Catalog id 16609
Element set 195
Epoch: 88132.77585481
Inclination:  51.6199 degrees
RA of node: 254.4461 degrees
Eccentricity:  0.0021701
Argument of perigee: 316.7364 degrees
Mean anomaly:  43.0666 degrees
Mean motion: 15.75131381 revs/day
Mean motion acceleration: 0.00020557 * 2 revs/day/day
Epoch Revolution: 12809

Semimajor axis:    6722.35 km
Apogee height*:     358.78 km
Perigee height*:     329.60 km


		Source: NASA Goddard via T.S.Kelso's `Celestial RCP/M'

* Apogee and perigee altitudes are referred to the mean radius of the
  Earth (6378.15 km), and not to the local radius of the geoid.  They
  are only approximate, and should not be used for orbit prediction.

------------------------------

Date: 30 Apr 88 01:21:28 GMT
From: cu-den!udenva!isis!scicom!embudo!markf@boulder.colorado.edu  (markf)
Subject: NASA News


NASA NEWS - April 19, 1988
SCOUT ROCKET TO LAUNCH NAVY NAVIGATION SATELLITE

Two U.S. Navy navigation satellites are scheduled to be
launched aboard a NASA Scout rocket April 25 from Vandenberg
Air Force Base, Calif. The 8-minute launch window for the
Stacked Oscars on Scout (SOOS-3) mission opens at 6:57 p.m., PDT.

The pair of Oscar satellites, each weighing 141 pounds, will be
placed into a 600-nautical-mile circular polar orbit. The
Oscars are part of the Navy's long-established, continuous
all-weather global navigation system.

The Scout-launched Navy navigation satellites have been used for
all-weather global navigation since July 1964, originally to 
support Navy fleet ballistic missile submarines. Made available
to non-Navy users in 1967, the spacecraft have since been
adapted for diverse civilian uses such as commercial shipping,
charting of offshore oil and mineral deposits and land survey
projects. The system provides position information within one
tenth of a nautical mile anywhere in the world.

The upcoming launch marks Scout's 110th flight and follows
closely on the heels of the Scout San Marco D/L launch which
took place March 25 from the San Marco Range platform in the
Indian Ocean. Two additional Scout launches, both for the Navy,
are presently manifested in 1988: NOVA-II scheduled for June
and SOOS-4 targeted for August.

The Scout program is managed by NASA's Langley Research Center,
Hampton, Va. The four stage, solid-propellant rockets are 
built by the Missiles Division of LTV Missiles and Electronics
Group, Dallas, Texas.
------------------------------------------------------------
NASA News Release 88-55   April 19, 1988
By James Cast Headquarters, Washington, D.C
and Jean Drummond Clough  Langley Research Center, Hampton, Va.
Reprinted with permission for Electronic Distribution
-----------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: 30 Apr 88 20:28:13 GMT
From: ut-emx!tskelso@sally.utexas.edu  (TS Kelso)
Subject: NASA Prediction Bulletins


For those of you who are interested in satellite tracking, the most current
orbital elements from the NASA Prediction Bulletins are carried on the
Celestial RCP/M, (512) 892-4180, and are updated several times weekly.  As a
service to the amateur satellite community, the most current of these elements
are uploaded weekly to rec.ham-radio.  The Celestial RCP/M may be accessed 24
hours/day at 300, 1200, or 2400 baud using 8 data bits, 1 stop bit, no parity.

--
TS Kelso                            ARPA: tskelso@emx.cc.utexas.edu
The Center for Space Research
The University of Texas at Austin   UUCP: {ihnp4,allegra}!ut-emx!tskelso

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 1 May 88 09:41:46 CDT
From: sedspace@doc.cc.utexas.edu (Steve Abrams)
Posted-Date: Sun, 1 May 88 09:41:46 CDT
Subject: Space & General Relativity


Does anyone have any information as to which NASA offices are overseeing the planned tests of General Relativity in the coming decade?  I refer specifically to
the ranging tests (both up- and down-links) of the Galileo and Ulysses probes
as well as the tests for "frame-dragging" on the solar polar probe and the
Earth-orbiting Gravity Probe B1.  Are they each being supervised by the 
individual teams overseeing each probe or is there some person/office/dept.
responsible for coordinating them and their results?  I am also interested in
obtaining any technical information on the hardware and design of these
experiments.  Thanks!

Steve Abrams			ARPANET:  sedspace@doc.cc.utexas.edu
c/o Graduate Office		CompuServe:  [70376,1025]
Dept. of Physics		(512)480-0895
University of Texas at	
	Austin			OR
Austin, TX  78705		c/o Students for the Exploration and	
					Development of Space
"The rate of increase of 	P.O. Box 7338
 the entropy of the        	358 Texas Union
 universe reaches its		University of Texas at Austin
 maximum value in my		Austin, TX  78713-7883
 immediate vicinity."		(512)471-7097

------------------------------

Date: 29 Apr 88 03:05:40 GMT
From: phoenix!pucc!EWTILENI@princeton.edu  (Eric Tilenius)
Subject: On Television - "PIONEERING THE FUTURE: America in Space"

THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR REPORTS is a weekly syndicated news program
which dedicates each 30 minute segment to exploring current issues in depth.
 
This week:
 
                        PIONEERING THE FUTURE
                           America in Space
 
I've found that Monitor Reports handles issues quite well, so this feature
on space should be one you'll want to catch!  You can see it on The Learning
Channel, or on the TV stations listed below...  Some markets have it on at odd
hours, so set that VCR, but don't miss it!
 
PIONEERING THE FUTURE: America in Space runs April 29 - May 5, on the days
listed below.
 
  STATE    CITY               STATION/CHANNEL  TIME    DAY
 
    AL   Biringham/Tuscaloosa    WDBB   17    4:00am   Sun
    AL   Gadsen                  WNAL   44    4:00am   Sun
    AL   Huntsville/Florence     WTRT   26    4:30pm   Sun
    AR   Little Rock             KLRT   16   12:30am   Mon
    AZ   Kingman                 KMOH    6    5:30pm   Sun
    AZ   Phoenix/Kingman         K36AZ  36   10:00pm   Sun
    AZ   Phoenix/Prescott        KUSK    7   11:00am   Sun
    CA   Barstow                 KVVT   64    9:00am   Sun
    CA   Eureka                  KREQ   23   11:30am   Sun
    CA   Fresno                  KAIL   53    9:30am   Sun
    CA   Los Angeles             KWHY   22    6:00am   Sun
    CA   Los Angeles/Anaheim     KDOC   56    1:30am   Tues
    CA   Los Angeles/Oxnard      KADY   63   11:30am   Sun
    CA   Monterey/Salinas        KNTV   11    6:00am   Sun
    CA   Palm Springs            KMIR   36    6:30am   Sun
    CA   Sacramento              KTXL   40    5:30am   Sat
    CA   San Diego               KUSI   51    6:30am   Sat
    CA   San Francisco           KWBB   38    7:00am   Sun
    CA   San Francisco           KWBB   38    7:00am   Mon
    CA   San Fran./Santa Rosa    KFTY   50    8:30am   Sun
    CA   SantaBarbara/SantaMaria KCOY   12    7:00am   Sun
    CA   Victorville             KVVT   64    9:00am   Sun
    CO   Durango                 KREZ    6   10:00am   Sun
    CO   Glenwood Spr./CarbondaleKREG    3   12:30am   Sat
    CO   Grand Junction          KREX    5   12:30am   Sat
    CO   Montrose                KREY   10   12:30am   Sat
    CT   Hartford                W13BF  13   12:30am   Tues
    DC   Washington              WDCA   20    5:30am   Sun
    FL   Fort Myers              WINK   11   11:00am   Sun
    FL   Miami                   WBFS   33    6:00am   Sat
    FL   Orlando                 WOFL   35    6:00am   Sat
    FL   Tallahassee             WTXL   27    7:30am   Sun
    FL   Tampa/Lakeland          WTMV   32    5:30am   Sun
    GA   Albany/Valdosta         WVGA   44    9:30am   Sun
    GA   Atlanta                 WGNX   46    6:30am   Sat
    GA   Augusta                 W67BE  67    8:00pm   Tues
    GA   Savannah/Hardeeville    WTGS   28    7:00am   Sun
    HI   Honolulu                KMGT   26   12:30pm   Tues
    IA   Davenport/Burlington    KJMH   26   10:30pm   Sat
    IA   Des Moines              KDSM   17    6:30am   Sun
    IA   Des Moines/Marshalltown KDAO   39    4:30pm   Sun
    IA   Ottumwa                 KOIA   15   10:30pm   Sat
    ID   Twin Falls              K-49   49    7:00pm   Sat
  * IL   Chicago                 WGN     9    5:30am   Sun
    IL   Springfield             WRSP   55    7:00am   Sat
    KS   Junction City           K-06KZ  6   10:30pm   Sat
    KS   Wichita/Salina          KHCT   34   10:30pm   Sat
    KY   Louisville/Jeffersonvil W05BA   5   12:30am   Tues
    KY   Louisville/Jeffersonvil W05BA   5    4:30am   Tues
    LA   New Orleans             WGNO   26   12:30am   Mon
    LA   Shreveport              KSLA   12    7:00am   Sat
    MA   Boston                  WQTV   68   10:00pm   Sun
    MA   Boston/Norwell          WRYT   46    6:00pm   Tues
    MA   Hyannis                 WCVX   58   11:30am   Sun
    MA   Hyannis                 WCVX   58    8:30am   Thurs
    ME   Portland                WPXT   51   11:30pm   Sun
    MI   Grand Rapids            WXMI   17    6:30am   Sun
    MI   Lansing                 WSYM   47   10:30am   Sat
    MI   Traverse City/St.Ignace W13BH  13    6:30pm   Sun
    MS   Jackson/Natchez         WNTZ   48   11:45pm   Sat
    NC   Greensboro/Winston-SalemWGGT   48    6:30am   Sun
    NC   Hickory                 WHKY   14   10:00am   Sun
    NC   Hickory                 WHKY   14    9:30pm   Thurs
    NC   Rocky Mount             W47AG  47    7:30am   Sun
    ND   Fargo/Moorhead          KVRR   15    7:00am   Sat
    ND   Grand Forks/Thief River KBRR   10    7:00am   Sat
    ND   Pembina/Winnipeg, MN    KNRR   12    7:00am   Sat
    NE   Lincoln/Hastings        KHAS    5   10:00am   Sun
    NH   Merrimak                WGOT   60    7:00pm   Sun
    NM   Albuquerque/Santa Fe    KNMZ    2    7:30am   Sat
    NV   Reno                    TV55   55    5:30pm   Sun
    NY   Elmira                  WETM   18    9:30am   Sun
  * NY   New York                WPIX   11    6:00am   Sat
  * NY   New York                WPIX   11    6:30am   Sun
    NY   Olean/Buffalo           W20AB  20   12:30pm   Tues
    NY   Olean/Buffalo           W20AB  20    8:00pm   Tues
    NY   Rochester               WUHF   31    6:00am   Sun
    NY   Rochester               WUHF   31   10:00am   Sun
    NY   Utica                   WTUV   33    7:00am   Sun
    OH   Clevland/Bucyrus        W54AF  54    6:00pm   Fri
    OH   Clevland/Mansfield      WCOM   68    6:30am   Sun
    OH   Columbus/Worthington    WWAT   53   12:00pm   Sun
    OH   Toledo                  WUPW   36    8:00am   Sat
    OK   Oklahoma City           KTVY    4    6:30am   Sat
    OK   Oklahoma City           KTVY    4   11:30am   Sun
    OR   Bend/Powell Butte       K48BL  48    9:30pm   Mon
    OR   Portland                KPDX   49    6:30am   Sat
    PA   Harrisburg/Red Lion     WGCB   49   12:00pm   Sun
    PA   Harrisburg/Red Lion     WGCB   49    5:00pm   Wed
    PA   Johnstown/Altoona       WFAT   19    9:30am   Sat
    PA   Pittsburgh              WPTT   22    7:00am   Sun
    PR   San Juan                WSJU   18   12:00pm   Sun
    SC   Beaufort/Hilton Head    WTGS   28    9:30am   Sun
    SC   Greenville/Spartanburg  WAXA   40    1:30pm   Sun
    SD   Sioux Falls             K-42   42   10:30pm   Sun
    SD   Sioux Falls             K-42   42   12:00pm   Tues
    SD   Sioux Falls             K-42   42    9:30pm   Tues
    TN   Chattanooga             WDSI   61    7:00am   Sun
    TX   Dallas                  KTXA   21    7:00am   Sat
    TX   El Paso                 KDBC    4    6:30am   Sun
    TX   Houston                 KHOU   11   11:00am   Sun
    TX   Houston/Livingston      KETX    5   11:30pm   Mon
    TX   San Angelo              KIDY    6    7:30am   Sun
    TX   San Antonio             KENS    5    1:35am   Mon
    TX   San Antonio/Eagle Pass  CBBL    7    6:30pm   Sat
    TX   Victoria                K-55   55    9:30pm   Sat
    UT   Salt Lake City          KDL    55   10:00pm   Sat
    WA   Seattle/Tacoma          KCPQ   13    6:30am   Sat
    WA   Spokane/Wenatchee       KCWT   27    8:00am   Sat
    WI   Madison                 WMSN   47    7:00am   Sat
    WI   Madison                 W5BD    5   11:30pm   Mon
    WV   Clarksburg/Bridgeport   WDTV    5   12:30am   Mon
    WV   Parkersburg             WTAP   15   10:30am   Sun
    WY   Casper                  KFNB   20    7:30am   Sun
    WY   Laramie                 UWTV   var   1:00pm   Sat
    WY   Rawlins                 KFNR   11    7:30am   Sun
    WY   Riverton                KFNE   10    7:30am   Sun
 
* This superstation broadcasts extensively throughout the country.  Check
your local cable-TV listings for broadcasts in your area.
 
The Christian Science Monitor Reports can be viewed on "The Learning Channel,"
a cable network available in many cities.  It airs at 10:30pm Saturday, 12:00
midnight Sunday, and 11:30am Thursday (Eastern time).
 
For a written transcript, call 617-247-5707.
 
Be sure not to miss PIONEERING THE FUTURE: America in Space, this week on
The Christian Science Monitor Reports!
 
- ERIC -
 
*----------------------===>  SPACE IS THE PLACE... <===-----------------------*
*        ewtileni@pucc.Princeton.EDU  //  ewtileni@pucc.BITNET                *
*      rutgers!pucc.bitnet!ewtileni  //  princeton!pucc.bitnet!ewtileni       *
* ColorVenture - Microcomputer Software - "Because Life isn't Black and White"*
*--------------------===> Another proud CoCo 3 owner <===---------------------*

------------------------------

Date: 26 Apr 88 07:22:25 GMT
From: tektronix!reed!douglas@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (P Douglas Reeder)
Subject: Motivations For The Soviet Union To Go To Mars

NO FLAMES! Rational Discussion okay.

The Soviet Union has a public-relational reason for making their next big
goal a mission to Mars rather than the Moon.  If they go to the Moon, they
are doing somthing the US did 20 years ago.  Mars has not been visited by
humans.

Of course this is is not their only motivation, by far.  I merely point out
that it exists.

-- 
Doug Reeder                           USENET: ...!tektronix!reed!douglas
10 Cyclopedia Square             from BITNET: douglas@reed.UUCP
Terminus City                     from  ARPA: tektronix!reed!douglas@berkley
Terminus,The Foundation               Box 502 Reed College,Portland,OR 97202

------------------------------

Date: 29 Apr 88 17:06:06 GMT
From: mtunx!mtuxo!mtuxj!lmg1@rutgers.edu  (xf3aa4-L.GEARY)
Subject: Re: Lunar observatory

It's true that an observatory positioned on the lunar farside
exactly opposite the earth would see only 50% of the sky. But
you could place other observatories near the poles and the east
and west limbs - still on the farside and shielded from the earth.
Each site would see a different 50%, and together they would cover
most of the sky most of the time. They might even be linked together
to form a long baseline interferometer.

An earth orbiting observatory is not the only other alternative.
Put it into solar orbit between earth and Mars, or even further
out (how about a long trip beyond Pluto's orbit?).

Larry Geary

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #224
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 19 May 88 06:41:12 EDT
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA03227; Thu, 19 May 88 03:39:10 PDT
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Date: Thu, 19 May 88 03:39:10 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8805191039.AA03227@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #225

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 225

Today's Topics:
			Re: Shooting the Moon
			Re: Shooting the Moon
    Article in "The Plain Truth" on why the US is behind in space.
		Vocabulary lesson #4:  "Space Shuttle"
	       How YOU can REALLY become an astronaut!
			 Anthropic Principle
    Article in "The Plain Truth" on why the US is behind in space
	     private industry and remote sensing of Mars
			Antimatter Propulsion
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 1 May 88 16:29:14 GMT
From: paul.rutgers.edu!styx.rutgers.edu!masticol@rutgers.edu  (Steve Masticola)
Subject: Re: Shooting the Moon

In article <2739@Shasta.STANFORD.EDU> paulf@Shasta.STANFORD.EDU (Paul A. Flaherty) writes:

[problems finding places for a Mars mission to land]

> The explosion of a 35 kiloton nuclear device, optomized for heat blast, at
					^^^^^^
> approximately 100m above the Martian surface, would create a glass-smooth
> landing pad, with the required dimensions, and the above stated benefits.

(Let's call a spade a spade and a bomb a bomb, shall we?)

> No, this is not a joke.  We're very serious about this.

Glad you said that last. I'll give it a serious answer.

Technically, I see no reason why it couldn't be made to work.  But
it's just a dumb idea. It should not be done.

First, it's a violation of the Peaceful Nuclear Explosions treaty,
which forbids use of nuclear weapons in space. Unlike ABM, I don't
think this point is subject to interpretation. It's not a good idea,
unless you want to start another cold war.

Second, it puts us in the position of using the most violent force
ever developed to accomplish part of what should be a peaceful mission
of scientific exploration. From one standpoint, it looks like taking
the supreme step of mindless agression against a place we've never
even been.

Third, because of the politics, it would never happen. You just
wouldn't get funded.

Fourth, it's not necessary. I can think of at least five possible
alternatives:

	- Use steerable parachutes and a smart robot to beat the
	  4-minute speed-of-light delay.
	- Use a balloon, with same control methodology and purpose.
	- Land a constructor robot,in any reasonable manner, and use
	  it to clear a landing field.
	- Use a nuclear-powered long-duration-flight aircraft or a
	  steerable lighter-than-air craft to scout out a landing
	  site.
	- Make some passes with a low-orbiting vehicle for the same
	  purpose.


By the way, with regard to the 3-meter resolution, I don't believe
that current imaging technology is that limited. What about our
spysats? Don't they resolve to less than one meter from LEO?

Why do it the dumb way when you can do it the smart way? You'd learn
much more.

-----

"It's like using an H-bomb to kill a rabbit."
		- Robert A. Heinlein, _Tunnel in the Sky_

------------------------------

Date: 2 May 88 03:41:36 GMT
From: natinst!bigtex!james@cs.utexas.edu  (James Van Artsdalen)
Subject: Re: Shooting the Moon

IN article <May.1.12.29.12.1988.29697@styx.rutgers.edu>,
	masticol@styx.rutgers.edu (Steve Masticola) wrote:
> In article <2739@Shasta.STANFORD.EDU> paulf@Shasta.STANFORD.EDU
>	(Paul A. Flaherty) writes:

> [problems finding places for a Mars mission to land]

> > The explosion of a 35 kiloton nuclear device, optimized for heat blast, at
> > approximately 100m above the Martian surface, would create a glass-smooth
> > landing pad, with the required dimensions, and the above stated benefits.

> (Let's call a spade a spade and a bomb a bomb, shall we?)

You can use explosives to build land mines to kill people in battle, gunpowder
to shoot them, and bombs to obliterate them.  That does not prevent their
use as demolition charges, or to clear construction sites in rocky terrain
(small rocks being easier to move than a big rock), or even in research (I
recall an article in Scientific American a while back on various uses for
chemical explosives in shock research and as welding technique).  A similar
argument applies here.

> First, it's a violation of the Peaceful Nuclear Explosions treaty,
> which forbids use of nuclear weapons in space. Unlike ABM, I don't
> think this point is subject to interpretation. It's not a good idea,
> unless you want to start another cold war.

Mars is a planet, not open space.  They are not proposing to use the device
as a weapon but as a tool (read my paragraph above to understand importance
of intent to this).  Also, I gather Mr. Masticola doesn't intend to surprise
anyone with the blast (except the Martians :-).  We test detonate warheads to
verify their stability anyway:  why not get something useful for it?  In any
case, it would presume this *more* open to interpretation on the grounds
that there are no military issues or advantages involved here: I assume this
is a purely scientific endeavor.

I agree it unlikely.  Congress does tend to avoid the merits of issues quite
consistently.

> Fourth, it's not necessary. I can think of at least five possible
> alternatives:
> 
> 	- Use steerable parachutes and a smart robot to beat the
> 	  4-minute speed-of-light delay.
> 	- Use a balloon, with same control methodology and purpose.

I think this very much harder than you suggest.  I do not think it possible
with any degree of assurance yet (ie, maybe some tests in the lab work, but
not in the field where you risk a >$1b mission on it).

> Why do it the dumb way when you can do it the smart way? You'd learn
> much more.

Why do it the expensive way when you can save money for other projects?

I personally have reservations about using even a small tactical nuke
to clear a landing site, due to disruptions of the very environment you want
to study.  Presumably the lander is then going to have to travel some
distance to get away from the fallout.  However, I have no inherent paranoia
about the concept.
-- 
James R. Van Artsdalen   ...!ut-sally!utastro!bigtex!james   "Live Free or Die"
Home: 512-346-2444 Work: 328-0282; 110 Wild Basin Rd. Ste #230, Austin TX 78746

------------------------------

Date: 2 May 88 07:47:44 GMT
From: tektronix!reed!douglas@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (P Douglas Reeder)
Subject: Article in "The Plain Truth" on why the US is behind in space.

"America has become permissive, lacking in determination and self-discipline."
"But unless there is a massive moral and spiritual turnaround and
acknowledgement of national sins, the nation will head down the
slippery slope that leads to ever grater troubles."

Plain Truth, May-June 1988


Now why didn't we think of that?

-- 
Doug Reeder                           USENET: ...!tektronix!reed!douglas
10 Cyclopedia Square             from BITNET: douglas@reed.UUCP
Terminus City                     from  ARPA: tektronix!reed!douglas@berkley
Terminus,The Foundation               Box 502 Reed College,Portland,OR 97202

------------------------------

Reply-To: pnet01!jim@trout.nosc.mil
Date: Sun, 1 May 88 12:44:08 PDT
From: jim@pnet01.cts.com (Jim Bowery)
To: crash!Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: Vocabulary lesson #4:  "Space Shuttle"

Vocabulary lesson #4:

"Space Shuttle" pron:  An exploding myth.  Once touted as a 
"space truck" hauling cargo to space at $50/lb, it proved to
be most useful as a religious icon of NASA's space religion
by using up so much money that everyone had to believe in 
it with religious fervor.  This religious fervor is even
more important to sustain since Space Shuttle has turned
a teacher to astroburger before the expectant eyes of millions
of aspiring school children who now have nightmares about going
to space instead of dreams.

For example:

"Once Space Shuttle is flying safely again, our space program
 can move forward!"

Which translated into straight-talk means:

"Get that phallic sky god thrusting into heaven again before 
the stupid natives wake up and realize that we haven't had a 
real space program in 20 years!"

UUCP: {cbosgd, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!pnet01!jim
ARPA: crash!pnet01!jim@nosc.mil
INET: jim@pnet01.cts.com

------------------------------

Reply-To: pnet01!jim@trout.nosc.mil
Date: Sun, 1 May 88 13:15:13 PDT
From: jim@pnet01.cts.com (Jim Bowery)
To: crash!Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: How YOU can REALLY become an astronaut!

So you want to be an astronaut?

Here's how you can REALLY do it:

First, recognize that you have absolutely no hope of ever becoming an
astronaut under NASA's space program or anything like it.

Second, do everything you can to help lower the cost of launch to low
earth orbit.  Once again, remember that there is absolutely no hope of
this happening within NASA's space program or anything like it so forget
about programs like ALS or NASP.  Instead, do everything you can to 
protect private companies like Boeing's commercial division which along
with Hughes would develop and sell launch services based on the Jarvis
design if NASA were prevented from ever engaging in development programs
like ALS (this is virtually a quote from a person high up in Boeing).
Another item critical to this goal is to make sure that part of the
approximately $10B/year (like around $6B to $8B) is provided to scientists
who want to launch things to orbit and require that they launch on 
private launch services.  Also, require high volume military requirements
(such as the navigation satellites) be launched via private services.
In order to pursue these policy objectives, forget about trying to talk
the leaders of SpacePac, SpaceCause and the NSS Legislative Committee into
it.  If they were acting in good faith toward these goals they would have
placed protection of private launch services at the top of their priorities
and beat the hell out of congress about letting Fletcher get away with
ignoring the new Reagan space policy's push toward use of private services.
Instead, they are supporting whatever NASA sees as a good idea this week.
Replace the leadership of these bodies AND act on your OWN to support
these policy objectives by getting involved with candidates for political
office in the >1990< election NOW!

Third, give yourself valuable skills in potential launch service 
companies, potential space facilities companies and, most importantly,
in applications of space technology such as materials science.  If that
means you have to go back to school, start looking for a good materials
school now and figure out how you are going to get your degree before
the turn of the century.  Good places to start looking for advice and
direction are leading edge semiconductor companies, AMROC, Boeing
commercial, Office of Commercial Space Transportation (Transportation
Dept.), Hughes and your public library.  Stay away from SDI related
fields -- it is a house of cards that will collapse in the next few years.

Fourth, start making PERSONAL connections with people who appear to have
the integrity to try to get to do things in space based on their own
merit rather than with Other People's Money (taxpayer's money).  These
are people who have their own ideas and ambitions regarding commercial
space enterprises.  There are a lot of crazies among these folks, but don't
let that stop you from getting to know them and what their visions are.
SOME of them are going to be the entrepreneurs of the coming space age.
(No, we haven't yet entered the space age in the West... when we enter
 the space age for real, everyone will KNOW it.)

Ad Astra!

Jim Bowery                   PHONE: 619/295-8868
PO Box 1981
La Jolla, CA 92038

UUCP: {cbosgd, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!pnet01!jim
ARPA: crash!pnet01!jim@nosc.mil
INET: jim@pnet01.cts.com

------------------------------

Date: 2 May 88 15:05:03 EDT
From: Hans.Moravec@rover.ri.cmu.edu
Subject: Anthropic Principle
To: BBoard.Maintainer@a.cs.cmu.edu

	laura@vax.darpa.mil  asks about the name of the idea that
our universe is specially designed for us observers, because otherwise
we wouldn't be around to observe it.   It is called the Anthropic
Principle, from the Greek word for man.
	A great (in size as well as quality) discussion of the history
of the idea, its role in science (including several correct predictions
made on the basis of it), and its implications for our future and
the future of the universe can be found in:

  MEDIA     book
  LANGUAGE  english
  AUTHOR    Barrow, John D., 1952- and Tipler, Frank J.
  TITLE     The anthropic cosmological principle
  LC-CARD   85-004824
  CITATION  Oxford [Oxfordshire] ; New York : Oxford University Press, 1985.
            8510 xx, 706 p. : ill. ; 25 cm.
   NOTES     Includes index. Bibliography: p. 677-682
   SUBJECT   Cosmology.
             Man.
             Teleology.
	     Intellect.
             Life on other planets.
             Science Philosophy.

------------------------------

Date: 2 May 88 09:03:22 GMT
From: tektronix!reed!douglas@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (P Douglas Reeder)
Subject: Article in "The Plain Truth" on why the US is behind in space

"America has become permissive, lacking in determination and self-discipline."
"But unless there is a massive moral and spirtual turnaround and an
acknowledgement of national sins, the nation will contitue to head down
the slippery slope that leads to ever greater troubles."

"The Plain Truth" May-June 1988


Now why didn't we think of that?

-- 
Doug Reeder                           USENET: ...!tektronix!reed!douglas
10 Cyclopedia Square             from BITNET: douglas@reed.UUCP
Terminus City                     from  ARPA: tektronix!reed!douglas@berkley
Terminus,The Foundation               Box 502 Reed College,Portland,OR 97202

------------------------------

Date: 2 May 88 14:43:00 CDT
From: "ASUIPF::MC" <mc%asuipf.decnet@spacvax.rice.edu>
Subject: private industry and remote sensing of Mars
To: "space" <space@angband.s1.gov>
Reply-To: "ASUIPF::MC" <mc%asuipf.decnet@spacvax.rice.edu>

First off, yes, I do work on Mars Observer; I'm doing ground data systems
for the Mars Observer Camera.

I don't believe there is a commercial company in the world that could
put a spacecraft in Martian orbit and operate it.  The main lack is
that no one except NASA has the Deep Space Network, which seems like
an essential component to communicate with such a spacecraft.

As far as the spacecraft goes -- MO is being designed by RCA (now GE)
Astro-Space Division in Princeton, NJ.  They're the same people who
designed spacecraft like Tiros and DMSP (Defense Metsat Program).
JPL is not designing this spacecraft per se, they just write the specs.
(And some stories could be told about those specs.)

So I still claim that MO is as close to being "contracted out" as one
could come today.  I doubt very much that there will ever be a commercial
company that could do a "turnkey" interplanetary mission.  Not until
going to other planets becomes a commercially-viable thing to do.

	Mike Caplinger, mc@moc.jpl.nasa.gov
------

------------------------------

To: andromeda@intermail.isi.edu
Cc: space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: Antimatter Propulsion
Date: Mon, 02 May 88 13:39:25 PDT
From: Scott Pace <pace%tp3@rand-unix.arpa>


		      NEW BOOK ON ANTIMATTER BY BOB FORWARD

Bob Forward and Joel Davis has just come out with a new book called "Mirror
Matter - Pioneering Antimatter Physics" It covers how antimatter can be
produced in large (gram) quantities, how antimatter can be captured and
stored, and how it can be used efficiently for space power and propulsion.

The work summarizes the results of work in the U.S. and overseas, from both
government and university researchers. The sections on using antihydrogen
-hydrogen engines for interplanetary and intersteller missions are
particularly interesting.

Published in hardback, John Wiley & Sons, 1988

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #225
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 20 May 88 06:36:19 EDT
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA04992; Fri, 20 May 88 03:34:32 PDT
	id AA04992; Fri, 20 May 88 03:34:32 PDT
Date: Fri, 20 May 88 03:34:32 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8805201034.AA04992@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #226

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 226

Today's Topics:
			      Titan SRBs
			Re: Unused Saturn V's
	      Vocabulary lesson #5: "Planetary Science"
			A Heretical Suggestion
			Window of Opportunity?
		      Re: Window of Opportunity?
		       Re: Space Station Names
		       Re: Space Station Names
		       Re: Space Station Names
		       Re: Space Station Names
		     Space Station Names, etc...
		       Re: Space Station Names
		       Re: Space Station Names
			   Station Heinlein
		       Re: Space Station Names
		      Naming the space station.
		       Re: Space Station Names
		       Re: Space Station Names
		       Re: Space Station Names
		    Re: Naming the space station.
			    Going to Mars
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue,  3 May 88 08:12:18 PDT
From: Allyn Lai <GD.AML@forsythe.stanford.edu>
Subject: Titan SRBs

The Titan SRBs are produced by the Chemical Systems
Division of United Technologies Corp.

Allyn Lai

------------------------------

Date: 2 May 88 17:12:09 GMT
From: al@eos.arc.nasa.gov  (Al Globus)
Subject: Re: Unused Saturn V's

>From article <8804221939.AA13686@angband.s1.gov>, by GODDEN@gmr.COM:
> Last month I saw an aging Saturn V on the ground at Cape Canaveral and
> ... saying he thought it was criminal.
> Who's to blame?  Why aren't they in prison?  Why do I smell
> the stench of Congress?  

Richard Nixon cut the lunar flight program.  He was pardoned for
Watergate so I doubt you'll get him for this.  Congress has been
very supportive of NASA, at least until Challenger and the budget
crises.  Before that, Congress routinely increased NASAs money over
Reagan's requests.  I guess you'll have to dump you pre-conceptions
about Congress and put the blame where it belongs, on the presidency.

------------------------------

Reply-To: pnet01!jim@trout.nosc.mil
Date: Tue, 3 May 88 00:35:23 PDT
From: jim@pnet01.cts.com (Jim Bowery)
To: crash!Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: Vocabulary lesson #5: "Planetary Science"

Planetary Science, n, an arcane ritual in which the life's work and
creative essence of thousands of graduate students and research
scientists are sacrificed through slow torture so that NASA may 
remain in the good graces of congress and continue to receive
large amounts of money while it does no science and flies no missions.

UUCP: {cbosgd, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!pnet01!jim
ARPA: crash!pnet01!jim@nosc.mil
INET: jim@pnet01.cts.com

------------------------------

Date: 15 May 88 17:46:40 GMT
From: bobmon@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu  (RAMontante)
Subject: A Heretical Suggestion

>NASA is to spaceflight as            |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
>the Post Office is to mail.          | {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

I seem to recall that commercial aviation got a boost when the Post
Office starting sending airmail.  Okay, maybe they lost a bag or two
initially.  But another hero like Lindbergh would help a whole lot right
now.

So maybe the Shuttle program should be removed from NASA's purview and
given to the USPS!  And the private sector can be represented by
FedEx...

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 4 May 88 13:19 EDT
From: "Paul F. Dietz" <DIETZ%sdr.slb.com@relay.cs.net>
Subject: Window of Opportunity?

The idea that we have a short window to get into space before resources
are exhausted is at best dubious.  First of all, if hydrothermal ore deposits
are so important, going into space won't help much; such deposits are not
likely to be found on the moon or the asteroids.

We are certainly not running out of common materials like iron or aluminum.
Bauxite deposits may be limited, but we can get aluminum from
garden-variety rocks (as lunar mining fans point out) or from clay
(kaolinite). So, discussion of entirely metal-free technologies is
unnecessary.

Availability of any mineral increases and demand decreases as the price
rises. At the prices needed to justify E.T. sources, available terrestrial
supplies of most materials are enormous.

Substitutability is the rule rather than the exception in technology. This
principle can only become more valid as our knowledge of materials
increases, and as cheaper ores are mined out, increasing the incentive to
find substitutes.

(An aside: materials research is important, and has been claimed as a
justification for the space station. It is therefore ironic that facilities
with real importance for materials science, such as x-ray and neutron
sources at Stanford and Brookhaven, are having their operation drastically
curtailed to cope with budget cuts.  Once again, glitz crowds out substance.
Let's hope the next president is not a scientific illiterate.)

	Paul F. Dietz
	dietz@sdr.slb.com

------------------------------

Date: 4 May 88 21:31:15 GMT
From: pioneer!eugene@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Eugene N. Miya)
Subject: Re: Window of Opportunity?

In article <8805041924.AA03392@angband.s1.gov> DIETZ@sdr.slb.COM ("Paul F. Dietz") writes:
>Let's hope the next president is not a scientific illiterate.)

Well, I see all the major candidates, but I would hazard to say they are all
scientifically illiterate.  [Ref: Scientific Attitudes in US recent Science]

--eugene

------------------------------

Date: 13 May 88 13:48:57 GMT
From: cfa!cfa250!mcdowell@husc6.harvard.edu  (Jonathan McDowell)
Subject: Re: Space Station Names

Hmm, a name for the Space Station..
We have the John F.  Kennedy Space Center; we have the Lyndon B. 
Johnson Space Center; surely it is time for the
 RONALD W. REAGAN SPACE FORCE BASE
(Only kidding - I hope! :-):-)

Jonathan

P.S.  I rather like Minerva - it hasn't been used in a space program so
far and it has a good ring to it.  Earth Star sounds stupid.  Never mind
"Mir", how about Salyut? It was apparently a "salute" to Yuri Gagarin
who had died a while before, so I read somewhere.  We could have
"Challenger Memorial Station"...  a better monument to them than any
earthbound one could be.

------------------------------

Date: 12 May 88 07:14:00 GMT
From: agate!saturn!ucscb.UCSC.EDU!spcecdt@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Space Cadet)
Subject: Re: Space Station Names

How about the Space Station Heinlein?  I think it would be fitting.

------------------------------

Date: 12 May 88 16:24:28 GMT
From: ncspm!jay@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu  (Jay C. Smith)
Subject: Re: Space Station Names

Okay, first: no names full of political symbolism and no names of
people, living or dead.

My suggestion:  Gateway.

------------------------------

Date: 13 May 88 20:49:33 GMT
From: pioneer!eugene@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Eugene N. Miya)
Subject: Re: Space Station Names

Oh I don't know? how about Portal? Liberator (Blake?) ;-)

Anyway, it is the current understanding that the Station will be
regarded as just another NASA Center except orbiting and smaller, but
I'll believe when I see it orbiting.  Floating bureaucrats in space.

They had Uncle Carl Sagan on the Morning Show.  K.S. brought to topic of
Unmanned versus Manned space, and Carl politely noted the sexism in the
term and moved on the role of the person-ed and un-person-ed space.

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@aurora.arc.nasa.gov

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 14 May 88 13:42:10 EDT
From: David HM Spector <spector@vx2.gba.nyu.edu>
Subject: Space Station Names, etc...

Regarding names for the space station, (with aploogies to Ridley Sott)
how about "Gateway Station", which is what one would hope it is going to
be...

(This may seem a bit naive, but...)

On another topic, with all the recent discussion of the where, whys and
hows of the lost Saturn V's, I am suprised noone has come to the
conclusion that there are enough "spare cycles", engineers, physicists,
etc, etc floating around the net to redesign the Saturn V many times
over.  If Amateur Radio (AMSAT really) can design, build and get
satellites flown, all with "volunteer" effort, what's to stop a
dedicated bunch of space enthusiasts [some of whom just happen to be
experts, like folk from NASA, JPL, et al] from designing (and perhaps
building) state of the art space systems in their spare time?  Surely
outside the governmental restraints applied to NASA such a group could
do some interesting things.
		DHMS

------------------------------

Date: 14 May 88 22:03:51 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Space Station Names

> Actually I'd be tempted to name it after Willy Ley, but that won't fly...

On reflection, I think I withdraw that proposal in favor of a better
one: Chesley Bonestell.

Incidentally, for those thinking about the matter, NASA's ground rules
for the choice of name are no acronyms, no names of living persons, and
no names that are ambiguous or offensive when translated into the
languages of the international "partners".

------------------------------

Date: 13 May 88 10:10:12 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!its63b!bob@uunet.uu.net  (ERCF08 Bob Gray)
Subject: Re: Space Station Names

In article <876@imagine.PAWL.RPI.EDU> sundance@pawl.rpi.edu (Mitchell E. Gold) writes:
>How about Low Station. George M. Low was a NASA manager and
>administrator during the Apollo years. Low would also represent LEO.

And also imply that a later space station, in a higher orbit, could be
the high station.
	Bob.

------------------------------

Date: 16 May 88 23:17:25 GMT
From: sdcrdcf!csun!polyslo!jsalter@hplabs.hp.com  (The Ag Major)
Subject: Station Heinlein

In <3279@saturn.ucsc.edu> spcecdt espouses:

>How about the Space Station Heinlein?  I think it would be fitting.

I second the motion strongly.  There is currently a movement in
sf-lovers to get this as a legitimate station name.  I hope it will be
posted here, also.

Station Heinlein Motto (unofficial): 

		--- Have Space Station, WILL Travel ---

James A. Salter
jsalter@polyslo.calpoly.edu

------------------------------

Date: 16 May 88 13:25:42 GMT
From: cfa!cfa250!mcdowell@husc6.harvard.edu  (Jonathan McDowell)
Subject: Re: Space Station Names

>From article <678@cernvax.UUCP>, by emanuel@cernvax.UUCP (emanuel): >
> Well, Minerva was the goddess of War...  Aren't you giving them some >
> ideas? :-) (I hope) ,

Yeah, but I seem to remember primarily she was the goddess of wisdom and
knowledge (science advisor to Jove?).  Now this is assuming we're
building a science station.  If we're building Earth Spaceport, maybe
Janus is better..  one face (and one docking port) back toward Earth,
one outward toward the solar system.


Jonathan

------------------------------

Date: 17 May 88 02:55:45 GMT
From: markh@csd4.milw.wisc.edu  (Mark William Hopkins)
Subject: Naming the space station.

Space station

S Y N T H E S I S

(ahhhh .... just right)

------------------------------

Date: 18 May 88 15:42:40 GMT
From: hplabsb!dsmith@hplabs.hp.com  (David Smith)
Subject: Re: Space Station Names

> In article <868@cfa237.cfa250.harvard.edu> mcdowell@cfa250.harvard.edu (Jonathan McDowell) writes:
>Hmm, a name for the Space Station..
>
>P.S.  I rather like Minerva - it hasn't been used in a space program so
>far and it has a good ring to it.

Maybe we should hold off on that a bit.  I'd rather apply the name
Minerva to the deep-space ship that explores the inner solar system and
goes to Mars, as described by Willy Ley in his 1958 book Space Travel.
He had Minerva rendezvous with the asteroid Eros, land on Phobos or
Deimos, and drop off "landing boats" to carry explorers down to the
planet's surface and back.  His explanation for the name was that
Minerva was the Roman goddess who sprang from the head of her father
Jupiter, and the rockets that carry equipment and ships into orbit are
called Jupiter rockets.

And as for the objection that Minerva is inappropriate as a space
station name because she was the goddess of war, well, that shouldn't be
a problem for the Mars trip, should it?

			David Smith
			HP Labs

------------------------------

Date: 18 May 88 21:37:42 GMT
From: nyser!weltyc@itsgw.rpi.edu  (Christopher A. Welty)
Subject: Re: Space Station Names

	I'd like to see a name that reflects the distant outpost kind of
idea, and as an `Arthurian' (one who loves the legends of King Arthur) I
think `Tintagil' would be a good name.  In the legend this is the castle
where King Arthur was conceived, and in reality it IS a castle on the
very western shore of Cornwall in England.  If anyone has ever been
there you'd see why it would be a good name for the space station,
because it is quite remote and only connected to the rest of the world
by a very narrow strip of land.  And don't forget this is the
INTERNATIONAL space station, the British could count this as their
contribution - it don't cost much.

Christopher Welty  ---  Asst. Director, RPI CS Labs
weltyc@cs.rpi.edu       ...!rutgers!nysernic!weltyc

------------------------------

Date: 17 May 88 09:19:17 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!its63b!hwcs!adrian@uunet.uu.net  (Adrian Hurt)
Subject: Re: Space Station Names

I thought Minerva was the Roman name for the Greek goddess Athene, the
goddess of wisdom.

Maybe the Romans, being more militaristic, put her in charge of both,
but I thought that war was the speciality of Mars (Ares in Greek).

------------------------------

Date: 18 May 88 15:37:56 GMT
From: mcvax!diku!zaphod@uunet.uu.net  (Ole D. M. Lennert)
Subject: Re: Naming the space station.

Naming the space station:

How about      Arthur C. Clarke ?

------------------------------

Date:         Wed, 04 May 88 08:27:56 PLT
From: Bill Johns <JOHNSW%WSUVM1.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Subject: Going to Mars

GREETINGS

I have read many issues of the space digest with interest, although I
have not responded.  I now have a comment and a favor to ask.

Questions have been raised over whether we should go to Mars before we
are absolutely certain there are no life forms there.  After the 1985
Aeronautics conference in Stockholm (talk in the halls) I thought we
were almost positive there was life there. Ours.  We have been dumping
solid human waste out of space craft for sometime now and the simple
fact of the matter is that this stuff seems to be moving away from the
earth in an ever expanding sphere of ____, pushed onward by solar winds.
Can anyone be absolutely sure that all living material, every last cell
that was dumped was killed by the space environment?  The question is
not whether we can find life on Mars, but whether we can make some
accurate determination of life forms directly related to E. coli in
comparison with whatever may have been indigenous to the Martian
landscape.

Also, and here is the favor, rumor has it the Russians have their
shuttle "on the pad," have gone through a couple of trial countdowns
more or less successfully and will launch in early June.  I would very
much like to follow the response in Space Digest on that issue.

Thanks,

Bill Johns
(JOHNSW@WSUVM1)

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #226
*******************

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Date: Sat, 21 May 88 03:25:42 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8805211025.AA00934@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #227

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 227

Today's Topics:
			Re: Shooting the Moon
			Re: Shooting the Moon
			Re: Shooting the Moon
			Re: Shooting the Moon
			Re: Shooting the Moon
	       Re: Cometesimals (really, water on Mars)
			  Final Fontier VI#2
			Re: Shooting the Moon
			   Dust Eclipses...
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 2 May 88 13:39:55 GMT
From: cfa!cfa250!mcdowell@husc6.harvard.edu  (Jonathan McDowell)
Subject: Re: Shooting the Moon

>From article <1662@bigtex.uucp>, by james@bigtex.uucp (James Van Artsdalen):
> Mars is a planet, not open space.  They are not proposing to use the
> device as a weapon but as a tool (read my paragraph above to
> understand importance of intent to this).

> James R. Van Artsdalen

My understanding is that the relevant treaty language on weapons of mass
destruction reads "in outer space or on celestial bodies" (Presumably
the Earth is excluded, but they don't specify this.) "Peaceful Nuclear
Explosions" have been conducted for (somewhat suspect ecologically)
major engineering projects in the USSR, but I believe they had to be
carried out underground to comply with the PTBT.  I am sure that even a
peaceful nuclear explosion 100 m above the Martian surface is illegal.
It's also a real bad idea to carry out nuclear explosions on any planet
with an atmosphere.  On an airless world like the moon, however, where
radioactive contamination will not be transported by wind or water, you
might be able to make a case.  In fact, I hope all dirty heavy industry
will ultimately be done on the moon for exactly this reason - pollution
on an airless world is localised and containable instead of being spread
around the globe of a world with an atmosphere or drifting through space
from the waste pipe of a space colony.  (I'm not sure what the potential
is for pollution from a major industrial facility in earth orbit is but
the recent problems with space debris make me think we ought to have a
good worry about it.)

Jonathan McDowell

------------------------------

Date: 2 May 88 19:32:25 GMT
From: amdahl!nsc!ken@ames.arc.nasa.gov  ({JOAT})
Subject: Re: Shooting the Moon


 Why does it have to be a nuclear explosion?, why not a small chemical
charge. What are you trying to set down that needs that much area to
land in. I would think you could clear a small area, land a construction
robot and let it start clearing more landing area while other work procedes.

 Thanks
  Ken Trant
  nsc!ken

------------------------------

Date: 3 May 88 17:21:59 GMT
From: pioneer!eugene@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Eugene N. Miya)
Subject: Re: Shooting the Moon

In article <115@marque.mu.edu> paulf@marque.mu.edu (Paul A. Flaherty) writes:
>The responses ranged from "Gee, that's a good idea"

I suspect these people don't understand or know much about the effects
of nuclear weapons (devices).  They are probably good managerial
material.  No thanks, we have enough in NASA as it is.  I don't know the
immediate answer about the technical feasibility (I think for instance
Paul is assuming lots of melting [see following keyword expose] and some
shock [I look at the numbers 3-M->1-M is a lot], and we don't know much
about the subsurface characteristics [you might just expose more 3-M
rocks surrounded by loose uncompacted soil easily blown away]), but I've
asked a weaponer what he thinks and will relay his response to Paul.
[I've been corresponding directly to Paul on this one, but I `had' about
"good idea" people.]  No we probably should not use nukes, but it was an
interesting thought problem.

> to "You facist pig", so I consider the posting a success.

Yes, I think you had a successful posting.

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA

------------------------------

Date: 2 May 88 12:37:34 GMT
From: mcvax!unido!ecrcvax!johng@uunet.uu.net  (John Gregor)
Subject: Re: Shooting the Moon

In article <May.1.12.29.12.1988.29697@styx.rutgers.edu> masticol@styx.rutgers.edu (Steve Masticola) writes:
>In article <2739@Shasta.STANFORD.EDU> paulf@Shasta.STANFORD.EDU (Paul A. Flaherty) writes:
>[problems finding places for a Mars mission to land]
>> The explosion of a 35 kiloton nuclear device, optomized for heat blast, at
>					 ^^^^^^
>(Let's call a spade a spade and a bomb a bomb, shall we?)
How about a tool.  It's about time serious consideration was given to using
fission for something other than enforcing a particular set of politics.

>But it's just a dumb idea. It should not be done.
I'll let everybody use their own brand of flame generator to 'suggest'
better words than dumb.  Flames noting that people use dumb when they mean 
I am offended are the easiest to generate.

>First, it's a violation of the Peaceful Nuclear Explosions treaty,
>which forbids use of nuclear weapons in space. Unlike ABM, I don't
>think this point is subject to interpretation. It's not a good idea,
>unless you want to start another cold war.

The legal aspects do seem to be the hardest engineering problems.  The
political climate just might be warming up enough that an exception
could be gotten.  At what price, I have no idea.

>Second, it puts us in the position of using the most violent force
>ever developed to accomplish part of what should be a peaceful mission
>of scientific exploration. From one standpoint, it looks like taking
>the supreme step of mindless agression against a place we've never
>even been.

A bulldozer is a pretty violent force when used on a bunch of people.
Using it as a tool for scientific exploration seems to be about the 
best idea for a nuclear explosion (is that word ok?) that I've seen
for a long time.

>alternatives:
>	- Use steerable parachutes and a smart robot to beat the
>	  4-minute speed-of-light delay.
>	- Use a balloon, with same control methodology and purpose.
Smart is hard to do.  4 minute delay is best case.  Winds and chutes don't
mix.
>	- Land a constructor robot,in any reasonable manner, and use
>	  it to clear a landing field.
If we could ship something to mars big enough to move 3 meter boulders
around, we wouldn't be sitting earthside watching all the pretty things
with CCCP on them going up up and away...

Enough flamming. 

I don't think it is the best idea either.

1. It has a large impact on the surrounding area.  Unless you have the
   ability to roam far away from the landing site, you have just contaminated
   your samples.

2. Weight.  For that amount of mass, you could have more experiments, and
   an equally viable landing mechanism.

3. Politics, security, etc.  It might be easier to walk on water than to
   get permission to use the bomb.  Also, there are bound to be protests.
   I can see someone flying his cessna into the shuttle (or whatever)
   to save the martians 1/2 :-).

How about surrounding the instrument package with inflatable segments
that could take a rough landing.  Imagine something looking like a large
soccer ball.

Also, the shadows from 1m boulders should be a lot bigger than 3m when
the sun is on the horizon.

Just some ideas...

-- 
pqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpq
bdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbd

John Gregor                                     johng%ecrcvax.UUCP@germany.CSNET

------------------------------

Date: 3 May 88 03:17:15 GMT
From: marque!paulf@csd1.milw.wisc.edu  (Paul A. Flaherty)
Subject: Re: Shooting the Moon

My thanks to those of you who graciously responded to my inquiry;
I've gained quite an amount of insight into the problem.

The responses ranged from "Gee, that's a good idea", to "You facist
pig", so I consider the posting a success.  For the record, I realize
that the political problems clearly doom such a proposal.  My response
to this is that we should rethink our attitudes about The Bomb, since
there are many peaceful uses for nuclear explosions, particularly
in space.  To categorically rule out their use will hamstring the
development of space resources.

One final note: Shasta.Stanford.EDU has been unstable in recent days,
and so I'm posting from another site.

-- 
Paul Flaherty, N9FZX		| Engineer (n) --
Computer Systems Laboratory	|
Stanford University		|	A machine for converting beer
paulf@shasta.Stanford.EDU	|	into blueprints.

------------------------------

Date: 2 May 88 18:30:33 GMT
From: oliveb!3comvax!michaelm@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Michael McNeil)
Subject: Re: Cometesimals (really, water on Mars)

In article <868@nucleus.UUCP> hacker@nucleus.UUCP (Thomas Hacker, ACM) writes:
>     Water on Mars??  Could you please point me to references that
>substantiate this?

It's been well known since the Viking expeditions that there's
a considerable amount of water ice, hundreds of meters thick
in places, near the Martian north pole.  (There's also a much
larger amount of carbon dioxide ice.)  Sorry, I don't have a
reference for this handy, but the matter is not controversial.  

Michael McNeil
3Com Corporation
Santa Clara, California
	{hplabs|fortune|idi|ihnp4|tolerant|allegra|glacier|olhqma}
	!oliveb!3comvax!michaelm

	It is absurd to ask why the future should turn out to chime with
	our knowledge of the past.  This puts the question upside down
	and makes nonsense of it.  What we have learnt from the past
	is knowledge only because the future proves it to be true.  
		Jacob Bronowski, *The Common Sense of Science*, 1967

------------------------------

Date: 3 May 88 03:36:42 GMT
From: nisc.nyser.net!weltyc@nisc.nyser.net  (Christopher A. Welty)
Subject: Final Fontier VI#2


	I promised everyone, sometime in December, that I would
subscribe to the newly created `Final Frontier' Magazine and give a
review and possibly a monthly sumamry to this list.  I think Eugene
was right that some of us should discontinue distributing othr
people's published material without permission, so I will speak to the
folks at FF first before I post any summaries, however i am well
within my own ethics to post a critique.

	First, an administrational note: I got the add for the premier
of the magazine in December, and I just got MY first issue this month.
However, those clever holmseans out there may have noticed in my
subject line I stated this was about Volume I number 2...I never got
VI#1, but I did get TWO copies of the scond issue....hmph.  Well, they
did send a number of letters saying how much trouble it was starting a
new magazine...

	I would say the magazine is worthwhile, but it is definitely
aimed at the space enthusiast and dreamer.  It's not for hard line
people looking for current events, or detailed techical descriptions,
but for the kind of person who dreams about going into space and wants
a magazine that plays on that dream.  It is put together a little like
Omni, very glossy, lots of ads, a couple (OK 1) fiction stories, and
lots of articles that make you feel like maybe there's a chance.  On
one hand (when my cynical side is speaking) I would say it's aimed
more at kids than adults, with articles about what the architectural
style of buildings on the moon will be, and on what it's like
floating out in space.  But on the other hand (my other side speaks)
many of us share dreams from childhood of going into space, and as
long as that kid within us is not denied, the `dream' is still alive.
So I think I'll say it's a nice magazine - but those really cynical
ones out there will definitely think it's trash.  Here's the table of
contents and a brief description of each article:

`Solo' by Alcestis Oberg - A description of spacewalking with
	interviews with Astronauts who've done it.

`Growing Pains' by Michael Leccese - All about the NSS.

`The Five Rocket Garage' by Robert Nichols - A really good (I must
	say) article about Bob Traux [who some may know of from his
	work on Atlas and Thor], who is starting his own private
	launch company.

`Digging in on the Moon' by Maura Mackowski - Architecture for lunar
	homes.

`The Stars Come Out For Space' by Tony Reichhardt - All about the
	commercials with big stars plugging the space program.

`Japans Jem of an Idea' by Gary Stephenson and Greg Freiherr - A
	report on the Japanese Experimental Module for the
	"International" Space Station, and some stuff on the Japanese
	space program.

`Is Anybody Listening' by Linda Billings - SETI.

`RSVP' by Robert Nozick - Fiction about SETI.

`Mission to Phobos' by Charles Pellegrino - The Soviets and the Mars
	mission (I though this one was quite good in that it stayed
	neutral.  Most Americans either go nuts about how we're much
	better than the Russians or go nuts about how the Russians are
	better than us)

Monthly "Departments" included an article by George Brown on his
proposed Space Settlement Act (talk about preaching amongst the
converted), which would be good for those who wonder how politicians
get their jobs.


Christopher Welty  ---  Asst. Director, RPI CS Labs
weltyc@cs.rpi.edu       ...!rutgers!nysernic!weltyc

------------------------------

Date: 2 May 88 14:47:27 GMT
From: cmx!retants@nisc.nyser.net  (Becki Tants)
Subject: Re: Shooting the Moon

Well, since you stated that you were SERIOUS about this situation, I'll
mention the following.  As other's have mentioned, it's probably against
the treaty of Peaceful nuclear Explosions [that one is almost as bad as
jumbo shrimp and military intellegence :-)], you'd NEVER get political
support/funding for it, if the general populace found out there would be
a general outrage ["can't be satisfied nukeing our own planet, have to
nuke another one"], nd we have yet to prove that there is no life on
mars.  As with the Genisis experiment in Star Trek II, if there is even
the tiniest bit of life on mars, be it a single cell barely alive
organism, we have no right to nuke it, knowing full well what effects
that has.  Yes in a way it is a catch-22 (can't find out if there is
life until we are up there, can't get up there without a landing pad)
but this is too big a risk when we can't prove anything.  sorry, but
there's no chance of getting that one thru.....
 
-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-
-=*=- Becki Tants    RETANTS@SUVM.BITNET or RETANTS@SUVM.ACS.SYR.EDU    -=*=-
-=*=- Disclaimer:     Improbability Factor 1 to 1.    We have Normalcy. -=*=-
-=*=-      Anything you still can't cope with is your own problem.      -=*=-
-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 4 May 88 21:26:57 CDT
From: sedspace@doc.cc.utexas.edu (Steve Abrams)
Posted-Date: Wed, 4 May 88 21:26:57 CDT
Subject: Dust Eclipses...
Cc: enos@doc.cc.utexas.edu

In V8, #210, James Merritt writes:

>Not being much of an astrophysicist, could someone comment on putting
>dust in an orbit between the earth and the sun?  The position I have in
>mind is an orbit closer to the sun at the point where the earth's
>gravity balances the suns to the extent that it could orbit at the
>(slower) speed that the earth does.  It sounds to me like it would orbit
>properly, but I have no idea how far from the earth this point is, nor
i>does it seem overly stable.  Could a, say, 5% reduction in incoming
>solar flux be achieved in this way (balancing the "extra" bea5OJ95~}i>from those billions and billions of SPSs ;~))?

This reminds me of an idea I've had about putting a large (1.52E14 m**2 
circular), aluminum solar sail (or a system of sails) in heliocentric orbit at, 
say, 0.99 AUs (the sail could keep "pace" with the Earth by balancing 
gravitational, centrifugal, and radiation pressure forces).  For example, if the 
sail is 10 nm thick and 6960 km in radius (I realize that that radius is larger 
than Earth's), it would weigh just over 4E3 kg (if I have the density of 
aluminum right).  At this thickness, the reflectance is around 65% and the 
transmittance is about 20%.  The large size would "eclipse" a circular area of 
2760 km**2.  I seem to remember (from a discussion i> 0A
kVV.]Jthat 
solar insolation at sea level is around 1 kW/m**2 and, if true,  this means a 
loss of around 500 giga-watts (GW) from the atmosphere.

Not only that but, if we construct a phase-reversal zone plate (PRZP) on that 
sail (with a focal length of .01 AU ==> central circle about 750 m in radius) 
with around 140,000 zones (so that the width of the outer zone is about 1m -
- we *could* go into millions of zones; thereby increasing the power density 
at the focal spot - don't tell anyone that's pro-SDI or we could have 
thousands of square kilometers of molten "enemies").  Even taking into 
account various sources of loss (transmissivity, PRZP-losses, white light 
losses, etc.), this PRZP could deliver 100-1000 GW to a relatively small area 
of the atmosphere.  (Note:  I've neglected the change in focal 
length/spot/energy density/phase due to interaction with the atmosphere; I 
assume that once it starts interacting, it will be absorbed by something)

I am not sure what sort of effect this might have on the atmosphere, climate, 
ecology, etc, but it seems to me that, if we understood atmospheric processes 
better, we ought to be able to manipulate the weather in this way.  We could 
ampilfy high pressure cells and ameliorate low pressure cells.

Futher "fine" control could be had be thermally-modulating the 
transmittance of the sail (aluminum can vary 10-20% in transmittance over 
the temperature range 100K - 950K).  Some of the recently reported 
electrically-conductive polymers should also exhibit a wider range of 
reflectances depending upon their doping).

Either way, it seems to me that a maneuverable solar sail would be better 
for "eclipsing" the Sun than dust that would disperse under the influence of 
solar radiation and solar wind.  We could control the amount of shading 
without having to continually replenish the supply.  The aluminum for such 
a large sail could come from the same source as the proposed dust -- the 
Moon.  It could also be easily placed via conventional rocketry.  If assembled 
in Earth orbit, it could place itself in the necessary orbit within a year or two.

Steve Abrams			ARPANET:  sedspace@doc.cc.utexas.edu
c/o Graduate Office		CompuServe:  [70376,1025]
Dept. of Physics		(512)480-0895
University of Texas at	
	Austin			OR
Austin, TX  78705		c/o Students for the Exploration and	
					Development of Space
"The rate of increase of 	P.O. Box 7338
 the entropy of the        	358 Texas Union
 universe reaches its		University of Texas at Austin
 maximum value in my		Austin, TX  78713-7883
 immediate vicinity."		(512)471-7097

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #227
*******************

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Date: Sun, 22 May 88 03:23:55 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8805221023.AA02063@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #228

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 228

Today's Topics:
			Re: Shooting the Moon
			  Faith and Patience
	       Re: Cometesimals (really, water on Mars)
		  Vocabulary lesson: "The Hatch Act"
	  Re: Space Photographs, Paintings and Prints Wanted
			    Bombs on Mars
			Re: Shooting the Moon
			Re: Shooting the Moon
			Re: Is it CBS or NASA?
			Re: Shooting the Moon
			 Space Shuttle Names
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 3 May 88 19:51:08 GMT
From: EWTILENI@pucc.princeton.edu  (Eric Tilenius)
Subject: Re: Shooting the Moon

In article <115@marque.mu.edu>, paulf@marque.mu.edu (Paul A. Flaherty) writes:
>The responses ranged from "Gee, that's a good idea", to "You facist
>pig", so I consider the posting a success.  For the record, I realize
>that the political problems clearly doom such a proposal.  My response
>to this is that we should rethink our attitudes about The Bomb, since
>there are many peaceful uses for nuclear explosions, particularly
>in space.  To categorically rule out their use will hamstring the
>development of space resources.
 
I think the Life-on-Mars opposition to this argument has been adequately
stated, but I wanted to point out a couple of extra arguments against this
which I sent Paul through EMAIL (did you get it, Paul?):
 
1. EXPLOSION ON THE PAD:  Folks, the Challenger disaster was bad, really
bad.  But imagine if it had a nuclear warhead on board.  Bye, bye South
Florida!  A spaceship is one of the least stable places to keep a warhead!
 
2. GEOLOGICAL LOSS OF DATA:  You'd destroy a whole section of Mars without
ever studying it!  And who knows what you'd do to the planet...  Earthqauakes?
Who knows...
 
3. NOT PRODUCTIVE:  Even with this nuked landing site, you wouldn't know
where else on the planet one could land.  An unmanned scout mission (ala
Mars Observer) can find SEVERAL good landing sites.  This mission would give
you one, but you'd still want it in a good location, thus the need for a
scout ship in any case.
 
4. COST:  Me thinks baloons and such would be cheaper; the insurance alone,
if nothing else.
 
SUMMARY:  Nukes & Outer Space don't mix for very practical reasons.
 
- ERIC -
 
*----------------------===>  SPACE IS THE PLACE... <===-----------------------*
*        ewtileni@pucc.Princeton.EDU  //  ewtileni@pucc.BITNET                *
*      rutgers!pucc.bitnet!ewtileni  //  princeton!pucc.bitnet!ewtileni       *
* ColorVenture - Microcomputer Software - "Because Life isn't Black and White"*
*--------------------===> Another proud CoCo 3 owner <===---------------------*

------------------------------

From: Shimon Edelman <edelman%WISDOM.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Date: Thu, 5 May 88 11:50:34 -0200
Subject: Faith and Patience

In article <19@wisdom.BITNET> amdahl!drivax!macleod@ames.arc.nasa.gov
(Michael MacLeod) writes:
>During the Passover season I was reading soc.culture.jewish and I was
>impressed all over again by the faith of the Jews in returning to the
>Promised Land.  It occurred to me that those who dream of living in space
>would do well to cultivate the same faith and patience and belief in
                                     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>the future, though we should not have to wait as long.  So, inspired by
>their example, let us say to each other, to refresh our spirits,
>
>Next Year in L5!

Ever since the founding of the state of Israel 40 years ago, any Jew who
chooses to do so may actually fulfill the "Next year in the Promised Land"
pledge. It may be some time, however, till the L5 people (and the lunatics,
and the Martians) are in a position to fulfill *their* dream. This can
happen sooner if people realize (as some Diaspora Jews at the turn of the
last century did) that faith, patience and belief are not enough: action is
also needed.

Shimon (edelman@wisdom.bitnet)

------------------------------

Date: 3 May 88 18:58:33 GMT
From: wdc@astro.as.utexas.edu  (William Cochran)
Subject: Re: Cometesimals (really, water on Mars)

In article <868@nucleus.UUCP> hacker@nucleus.UUCP (Thomas Hacker, ACM) writes:
>     Water on Mars??  Could you please point me to references that
>substantiate this?

In article <1204@3comvax.3Com.Com>, michaelm@vax.3Com.Com (Michael McNeil)
replies:
> It's been well known since the Viking expeditions that there's
> a considerable amount of water ice, hundreds of meters thick
> in places, near the Martian north pole.

The presence of atmospheric water on Mars was known BEFORE Viking.
It was discovered here at McDonald Observatory by Edwin Barker.
For details, see the paper by Barker, Schorn, Woszczyk, Tull, and
Little, entitled "Mars: Detection of Atmospheric Water Vapor During the
Southern Hemisphere Spring and Summer Season" in Science, Vol 170,
Page 1308, 1970.  We are continuing the studies of Mars water from
McDonald in order to fill in the gap in coverage between the Viking
Orbiter and the launch of Mars Observer.  This is an excellent example
of the complementary roles of ground based astronomy and space missions.

------------------------------

Date: 3 May 88 05:26:27 GMT
From: ganzer@nosc.mil  (Mark T. Ganzer)
Subject: Vocabulary lesson: "The Hatch Act"



>From pnet01!jim@trout.nosc.mil Fri Apr 29 20:28:53 1988
>Vocabulary lesson #2:
>"NASA contracting":  The technique whereby NASA hires an unlimited
>number of employees and launders large amounts of money which is
>used by those employees to lobby for even more money without getting
>thrown in jail for violations of the Hatch Act.
                                  ^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^
Vocabulary lesson:
"The Hatch Act": An unconstitutional restraint of free speech applied to
federal employees to prevent PARTISAN political activity and sometimes
used in the rhetoric of government-bashers to imply that anyone who gets a
paycheck from Uncle Sam is a crook...(my definition).

I've seen Mr. Bowery use this phrase before, but this time I couldn't sit
still. It's quite apparent that he does not really know what the act covers.
The Hatch Act was passed in 1939 to prevent federal employees from engaging
an PARTISAN political campaigns, such as running for, or campaigning for a
candidate in a PARTISAN election. It DOES NOT prevent federal employees from
engaging in non-partisan issues. For example, I - as a federal employee - could
run for a Mayor of San Diego (defined by California state law a non-partisan
office),
if it was determined not to interfere with my federal duties, or campaign for
or against any candidate for this office. It DOES NOT prohibit federal
employees from engaging in political activity in connection with an issue not
identified with a political party. Nor does it prevent petitioning Congress
or members of Congress, including recommending how they should vote on
particular issues! In other words, I - as a federal employee - can petition
and lobby Congress all I want on space-related issues (as long as I don't
represent my views as those of the Department of the Navy), but I cannot
campaign for congressional or presidential candidates who support my views.

And THAT, my folks, is the Hatch Act....

Followups have been directed to talk.politics.misc where
they belong (I don't want to clutter sci.space with this BS any more than
I have to).

Flames are directed to /dev/null

Oh yes... my definition of the Hatch Act is mine alone and does not represent
the views of the Naval Ocean Systems Center or the Department of the Navy.
Although I greatly disagree with the Hatch Act, it's something I have to live
with as part of my job.

------------------------------

Date: 2 May 88 11:10:53 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!its63b!bob@uunet.uu.net  (ERCF08 Bob Gray)
Subject: Re: Space Photographs, Paintings and Prints Wanted

In article <192@ists> waugh@ists (Don Waugh) writes:
[a request for sources for photographs, etc.]

There isn't much of a return mail address, but I think these
addresses may be of interest to others.
------
	ESA public relations,
	8-10 Rue Mario Nikis,
	75738 Paris Cedex 15,
	France.
------
	CNES public relations,
	18 Avenue Edouard Berlin,
	31055 Toulouse Cedex,
	France.
------
	Glavkosmos,
	International relations,
	9 Krasnoproletarskaya st.
	103030 Moscow,
	USSR.
------

I noted these addresses down a couple of months ago, but
have not yet written to them. If someone does get some
results from them, post and let the rest of us know.
	Bob.

------------------------------

Date: 2 May 88 09:12:28 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!its63b!adam@uunet.uu.net  (ERCF02 Adam Hamilton)
Subject: Bombs on Mars

In article <2739@Shasta.STANFORD.EDU> paulf@Shasta.STANFORD.EDU (Paul A. Flaherty) writes:
>
>The biggest problem we're faced with at the moment is landing site selection,
>and crash landing aviodance, eg., not putting down on top of a large boulder.
>This is a rather difficult proposition, since the best hi-res photography
>we'll be able to get will have about 3m resolution (pessimistically), and
>we can, at best, tolerate 1m boulders.
>
>For this reason, my design partner and I have proposed a radical approach:
>build a landing site.  The site would consist of a two kilometer wide
>flat landing strip, which will be easily visible to the lander.  Construction
>benefits would include knowledge of regional atmospherics, seismic data 
>generation, and lander simplification.
>
>Unfortunately, since Mars is currently uninhabited, we cannot simply hire
>a construction crew.  Therefore, we are forced to consider a simple,
>engineered solution to landing field construction.
>
>The explosion of a 35 kiloton nuclear device, optomized for heat blast, at
>approximately 100m above the Martian surface, would create a glass-smooth
>landing pad, with the required dimensions, and the above stated benefits.
>
>No, this is not a joke.  We're very serious about this.
>
>I'd appreciate comments / suggestions on this proposal.
>
This is an attempt to create life on Mars, right?

You want me to be serious? OK.
NO BOMBS ANYWHERE - was that loud enough.
Let's NOT get used to the idea that we (the human race) can go around the
Solar system casually nuking whatever we like on the grounds that it
won't hurt anything.  We can't afford to be wrong.

Since I wouldn't mind seeing one used on an asteroid, perhaps its time to
draw up some sensible guidelines.  How about nothing over 15 km long.
I was going to say "nothing with an atmosphere", but this seems better.

Please, no more fallout!
			Adam Hamilton

------------------------------

Date: 4 May 88 01:41:18 GMT
From: cat.cmu.edu!dep@pt.cs.cmu.edu  (David Pugh)
Subject: Re: Shooting the Moon

In article <5121@pucc.Princeton.EDU> EWTILENI@pucc.Princeton.EDU writes:
>...
>SUMMARY:  Nukes & Outer Space don't mix for very practical reasons.

I'm not too sure about this. Nukes can be very useful in outer
space. Has anyone ever figured the Isp for an Orion-type drive?
-- 
"A fanatic is one who can't change his		David Pugh
 mind and won't change the subject."		...!seismo!cmucspt!cat!dep
	-- Sir Winston Churchill

------------------------------

Date: 4 May 88 01:29:45 GMT
From: cat.cmu.edu!dep@pt.cs.cmu.edu  (David Pugh)
Subject: Re: Shooting the Moon

In article <5121@pucc.Princeton.EDU> EWTILENI@pucc.Princeton.EDU writes:
>...
>1. EXPLOSION ON THE PAD:  Folks, the Challenger disaster was bad, really
>bad.  But imagine if it had a nuclear warhead on board.  Bye, bye South
>Florida!  A spaceship is one of the least stable places to keep a warhead!

If a shuttle (or other launcher) explodes, I'd prefer a nuclear warhead
to a RTG unit. The warhead will probably have a smaller amount of 
Plutonium, and neither will explode (getting a nuclear warhead to
explode is a non-trivial operation).

I don't really see why we need to consider using a nuke, though. After
all, Viking didn't have any problems and the technology has improved
somewhat.
-- 
"A fanatic is one who can't change his		David Pugh
 mind and won't change the subject."		...!seismo!cmucspt!cat!dep
	-- Sir Winston Churchill

------------------------------

Date: 3 May 88 23:44:24 GMT
From: zodiac!deimos!booter@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Elaine Richards)
Subject: Re: Is it CBS or NASA?

The discussion is focusing on sexism at NASA, with comments about the
shuttle program.

At one point a woman (I forget her name) mused about becoming an
astronaut and a man (in a friendly way) said, "Go for it."

My brother in law is in Navy Air (Navigator) and his buddies liked
to rumor around that he had "the right stuff". (He does). Bill has
nixed the idea of being an astronaut because you basically sit on 
your butt waiting for the flight. It is not Mondo Career Development
here. There are many career paths to take at NASA (or elsewhere).

As far as I recall, Sally Ride left the space program to join a think
tank at Stanford. If I had the credentials that Ride does, I would be
a little bored sitting around with my thumb out, too.

ER

------------------------------

Date: 4 May 88 22:28:53 GMT
From: unisoft!hoptoad!dasys1!tneff@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Tom Neff)
Subject: Re: Shooting the Moon

In article <2739@Shasta.STANFORD.EDU>, Paul Flaherty writes:
> The explosion of a 35 kiloton nuclear device, optomized for heat blast, at
> approximately 100m above the Martian surface, would create a glass-smooth
> landing pad, with the required dimensions, and the above stated benefits.
> 
> I'd appreciate comments / suggestions on this proposal.

I don't think you would want to do this.  I take it you are afraid of all
those rocks in the Viking lander pictures.  You might remember that the 
landers themselves had to negotiate these same rocks successfully in order 
to provide you with the fearsome-looking vistas!

There is no particular reason to believe that the Martian surface is
covered everywhere with a uniform distribution of Planitia-style debris.
There are almost certainly zones with every conceivable density and size
distribution of surface rocks, judging from the orbiter image data.

It will be the job of the proposed Mars Orbiter mission(s) to select suitable
landing sites, just as it was the (superb) Lunar Orbiter's mission to do it
for Surveyor (also superb! remember when we could knock 'em off like that?)
and Apollo.  This time we can go back with synthetic-aperture radar and
such, and characterize surface conditions very elaborately.  I have no doubt
we will find acceptable sites in the natural state, meanwhile expanding our
(already voluminous) orbital observation database many times over.

Your nuke is also counterproductive.  There is very little scientific interest
in what conditions would be like at ground zero if you bombed Mars.  Nor is
this hypothetical "smooth glass plain" any flight dynamics officer's dream
of a landing site!  Three or more degrees of local slope and you're lunchmeat.
The local radiation headaches have already been mentioned; you would also
be wafting a whole bucket of fallout into the thin, fast Martian winds, which
circulate over the entire surface in a matter of days.  I don't even want to
pursue this any further, it gets worse the more I look at it.  :-)

-- 
Tom Neff			UUCP: ...!cmcl2!phri!dasys1!tneff
	"None of your toys	CIS: 76556,2536		MCI: TNEFF
	 will function..."	GEnie: TOMNEFF		BIX: are you kidding?

------------------------------

Subject: Space Shuttle Names
Date: Thu, 05 May 88 14:26:24 -0400
From: Fred Baube <fbaube@note.nsf.gov>


I've heard the story on how the Enterprise was named, but how did
they come up with a New Age / UFOphilic name like Atlantis ?

Just wondering.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #228
*******************

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Date: Mon, 23 May 88 03:27:06 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8805231027.AA03530@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #229

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 229

Today's Topics:
	   Re: Quoting (without permission, to Hank Walker)
		     Re: How hot is it in space?
		   anthropic cosmological principle
			Re: Shooting the Moon
			Re: Shooting the Moon
			       Re: Mars
		 Re: Antimatter propulsion questions
	    Re: Henry's signature (was Shooting the Moon)
			Re: Is it CBS or NASA?
		 Re: Antimatter propulsion questions
	   Re: Question about Richard Hoagland/Mars Project
			Re: Is it CBS or NASA?
			Re: Shooting the Moon
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Thu, 5 May 88 13:29:46 PDT
From: Eugene miya <eugene@ames-aurora.arpa>
Subject: Re: Quoting (without permission, to Hank Walker)
Cc: neumann@kl.sri.com


I have tried twice to send this note to Hank Walker unsuccessfully.
As I stop to think, it is more important than I first considered, so I
offer it to sci.space.

To: Hank.Walker@taurus.ece.cmu.edu
Subject: Re:  Quotations

Hi Hank, I should have stopped by your office when I was at CMU.
I might be back thru in Sept. for Melinda's Supercomputer meeting.

The reason why I want to try to encourage people to get to sources,
to reiterate, is to provide them more exposure rather than just make 
information available.  An example.  In Jr. High, I made the acquantance
of the political cartoonist Paul Conrad of the L.A. Times.  He did a really
neat cartoon on the Vietnam war which we wanted to "blow up" and use in
class.  The teacher suggested I contact him.  I did first by writing, then
over the phone.  This is all about 1969-70 when we landed on the moon.
Also during this time, we had a school debate on the space program (this
is about the time I wrote and got pounds of mail from JPL.

Letter writing and further communications of this sort is important, and I
would hate to see it lost because Email is easier but less connected.
Later on, Conrad invited me to lunch and a tour of the LA Times.  In time, I
made other acquaintences there and learned details of things which
never make it to print.  A good example was the raising of the Soviet
sub in the Pacific.  Things leak out, and this is how.  I want to encourage
people to follow up on references, especially non-electronic ones.

Regarding copyright:
As for lawyers, several read the net, and I can always call on some
good computer literate lawyers down the street.  Copyright is the
least of my concerns, but blindly stating information from the
wire-services disturbs me.  You are welcome to post this message to
SPACE, RISKS, etc.

P.S.  Oh, BTW, the letters I wrote to guys like NASA and Conrad, Don Hewitt
at 60 Mins. all have the typos, jumps in thoughts, etc. my enotes have.
I thank them for their patience.

--eugene
====end note
Added note: I did recently sought permission to reproduce a letter from
John Pierce published in Science, and I re-established and acquaintance
from JPL.  It was quite pleasant and I'm current talking to a writer
at Science about article she wrote.  Sure it takes time, but it is worth it.
You don't always want to talk to the writers of articles you can go to
sources yourself: like asking S. J. Gould about concepts of evolution,
or Edgerton to secure copyright for strobe photos for my research.
As once noted before, I wrote Minsky "fan mail" in 1968 about lasers
and got a "don't hurt yourself" letter.

------------------------------

Date: 2 May 88 21:34:05 GMT
From: pyramid!fmsrl7!nucleus!hacker@decwrl.dec.com  (Thomas Hacker)
Subject: Re: How hot is it in space?


>of about 290 K (no surprise). Surprisingly (to me, anyway) a polished
>aluminium body will be much hotter (it absorbs less sunlight, but
>radiates far less).

   Why would a polished surface be much hotter if it is not absorbing
any energy (if it reflects 100% of the incoming radiation across the
whole spectrum), and it is (I assume) radiating energy due to heat
radiation (usually called "blackbody" radiation)? Planck's law doesn't
have a term within it that makes the intensity of the radiation emitted
a function of the reflectivity of the surface. 


-- 
Thomas J. Hacker            ...!uunet!umix!nucleus!hacker (hacker@nucleus.UUCP)
Physics/CS Undergrad
Oakland University                 "Physics is the poetry of nature."
Rochester, MI 48063

------------------------------

Date:    Mon, 2 May 88 09:23:53 PDT
From: hairston%utd750%utadnx%utspan.span@vlsi.jpl.nasa.gov
Subject: anthropic cosmological principle
X-St-Vmsmail-To: UTADNX::UTSPAN::JPLLSI::"space@angband.s1.gov"

  Laura Burchard asked about the name of the idea for her statement about 
why the Universe is the way it is.  It's called the anthropic cosmo-
logical principle.  More specifically she is quoting the weak anthropic 
principle (WAP) which says the Universe's laws and constants are the 
way they are because if they were too much different, then the conditions
that allow us to be here (enough carbon, right amount of energy for life, 
stars that last long enough for life to evolve, etc.) would not exist and 
so we wouldn't be around to ask "Why does the Universe look like it does?"  
There is also the strong anthropic principle (SAP) that says that the 
Universe "conspires" to produce conditions suitable for the emergence of 
intelligent, conscious life.  And then there is the final anthropic prin-
ciple (FAP) which says that the Universe "conspires" to produce intelligent,
conscious life and that once such life has arisen it will last forever.
Martin Gardner has written that the FAP should be renamed the completely
ridiculous anthropic principle (CRAP).  All the anthropic principles are
interesting, but since none of them can be tested or used to make predictions,
then they fall outside of science and into the realm of philosophy (which 
is nothing new to this group).  If you're interested in learning more than
what's in the above brief sketch then look for the following:
articles:
"The Anthropic Principle" by George Gale, Scientific American (Dec 1981)
"A Cozy Cosmology" by Heinz Pagels, Whole Earth Review (Summer 1987)
"What You See Is What You Beget" by Tony Rothman, Discover (May 1987)
books:
The Accidental Universe by Paul Davies
The Anthropic Cosmological Principle by John Barrow and Frank Tipler
the above is the official guide in that B and T are leading proponents
of the APs and their book is 700 pages of everything you never knew you
wanted to know about the Universe

PS  Those of you still looking for the Ride Report check out the Jan 88
issue of Astronomy magazine.  They ran a slightly condensed version and
it's about a fifth the cost of what AWaSTe charges.  (Yes, I got burned.)

Marc Hairston--Center for Space Science--Univ Texas at Dallas
"The opinions expressed are not those of my employer,  I'm not even sure
they are mine..."

------------------------------

Date: 5 May 88 14:26:44 GMT
From: cfa!cfa250!mcdowell@husc6.harvard.edu  (Jonathan McDowell)
Subject: Re: Shooting the Moon

>From article <416@aplcomm.UUCP>, by jwm@stdc.jhuapl.edu (Jim Meritt):

[deleted comments to the effect that putting nukes on a spaceship can't
be the most dangeroous place for them as an ICBM is a spaceship too]

> jwm@aplvax.jhuapl.edu 128.244.65.5  (James W. Meritt)

Yeah, and you think an ICBM is a safe thing to have round the house? :-)
Or even a safe place to keep a warhead? I point out that although
they are kept on ICBMs in silos there are only a very few cases
of missiles ever having been launched carrying nuclear warheads,
just one test series in the Pacific in 1962. (Plus one Chinese
test I think). Most people are very careful to take the warheads
OUT before they test launch an ICBM. I agree that the danger
of an accidental nuclear explosion as a result of an in-flight
accident is very small, of course, but I'm still not keen on
the idea.

Jonathan McDowell

------------------------------

Date: 4 May 88 09:26:32 GMT
From: sdcrdcf!csun!polyslo!dgiles@hplabs.hp.com  (Darren Giles)
Subject: Re: Shooting the Moon


   Great...  One of our first visits to another planet and we're planning
the ultimate pollution.  So much for hoping when we get into space we could
leave our mistakes on Earth.
                                                   - Darren

------------------------------

Date: 3 May 88 11:43:41 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!its63b!bob@uunet.uu.net  (ERCF08 Bob Gray)
Subject: Re: Mars

In article <1678@silver.bacs.indiana.edu> chiaravi@silver.UUCP (Lucius Chiaraviglio) writes:
>... other organisms have been shown to be able
>to grow in conditions which simulate Martian conditions, I would not be
>surprised if something found Martian conditions to be similar enough to its
>terrestrial niche to be able to adapt.

And may be doing so at this moment.

If any of the probes sent there weren't properly sterilised
before launch, colonies of bacteria could still be living in
the remains of the (hard or soft) lander.

How long they will survive, or if any of them will be able
to find a new food source once whatever smear of grease they
are living on is gone, is a different question.

The surveyor camera brought back from the moon by Apollo 12
was found to contain a bacterial colony which had survived
for years in the more hostile lunar environment.
	Bob.

------------------------------

Date: 2 May 88 23:13:04 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Antimatter propulsion questions

> ... to what extent does the
> antimatter-matter reaction follow the exclusion prinicples, and to
> what extent does the wave-structure matter? ...

Antiproton reacts with proton; surroundings are pretty much irrelevant.
Antiproton reaction with heavy nuclei has been talked about as a possible
way of trapping more of the annihilation energy in charged particles.
-- 
NASA is to spaceflight as            |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
the Post Office is to mail.          | {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 4 May 88 16:55:53 GMT
From: pioneer!eugene@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Eugene N. Miya)
Subject: Re: Henry's signature (was Shooting the Moon)

In article <1988May2.232835.5062@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>NASA is to spaceflight as the Post Office is to mail.
Actually I got a kick of of this (NASA being the butt of Henry's jabs, I
really liked the reinvention of Unix), but this one is actually too kind.

At least the mail gets delivered. ;-)

No, NASA is evolving to something closer to the DOE [See 60 Minutes/20/20
stories on the DOE]. 90% overseers 10% others.

Another gross generalization from

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA
	resident cynic			soon to be aurora.arc.nasa.gov
at the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:
  "Mailers?! HA!", "If my mail does not reach you, please accept my apology."
  {uunet,hplabs,hao,ihnp4,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."

------------------------------

Date: 2 May 88 23:17:31 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Is it CBS or NASA?

NASA is a historically male-dominated organization, and it's mostly based
in the southern US as well.  Things are changing, slowly, particularly in
the non-traditional subject areas (e.g. computers).  Much sexism remains.

As for sex in space, the views at lower levels are about what you'd expect
given the preceding paragraph, and at higher levels extreme prudishness
prevails for public-relations reasons.
-- 
NASA is to spaceflight as            |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
the Post Office is to mail.          | {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 2 May 88 23:10:42 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Antimatter propulsion questions

>1) If particle accelerators are used to create the antimatter fuel in the
>first place, on a production basis, would there be any advantage to siting
>them in space, driven by solar power and taking advantage of the natural
>vacuum? ...

In a word, yes.  Space is the obvious place to do antimatter production, in
the long run.  In the short run it will have to be done on Earth because we
can't put the necessary infrastructure into space yet.

> 2) How safe a fuel would antimatter be for earth-based launches?

Reasonably so.  An antimatter-fueled Earth-to-orbit system would use really
minute amounts of antimatter to heat large amounts of something else, perhaps
liquid hydrogen or water.  Explosion and radioactive contamination are not
serious issues, I believe; the main safety problem is that the immediate
vicinity gets sprayed with hard radiation if something goes wrong.

>... Atomics didn't work out mainly because they would 
>leave such foul messes, especially in an accident.

No, actually, the *reason* why atomic rockets didn't work out was that all
the missions that could use them were cancelled, after which they were
cancelled to save money.  The radiation-safety issues were not trivial, but
they were not the direct cause.

> The obvious antimatter failure mode would be instant complete
> annihalation of the fuel, with massive energy release...

Depends on how the stuff is stored.  If it's in lots of little pieces, then
if all the suspension systems fail, your prediction is more or less right.
If it's in one big piece, the process is much slower because it doesn't all
come into intimate contact with normal matter at once.
-- 
NASA is to spaceflight as            |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
the Post Office is to mail.          | {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 2 May 88 23:19:28 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Question about Richard Hoagland/Mars Project

> I have just finished reading a book by one Richard Hoagland called
> _The Monuments of Mars_.  It is essentially speculative nonfiction
> concerning some possible artificial objects on the surface of Mars.

I have not read this particular book, but before taking Hoagland too
seriously, look at a bunch of photos of rock formations on Earth, and
count the artificial-looking shapes in what are definitely natural
rock formations.  Hoagland is generally regarded as a nut.
-- 
NASA is to spaceflight as            |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
the Post Office is to mail.          | {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 2 May 88 23:29:32 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Is it CBS or NASA?

>... I could have swore they interviewed Sally Ride with
>a caption that read "former astronaut" or words to that effect.  

It's true, she's left NASA.
-- 
NASA is to spaceflight as            |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
the Post Office is to mail.          | {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 2 May 88 23:28:35 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Shooting the Moon

> The explosion of a 35 kiloton nuclear device, optomized for heat blast, at
> approximately 100m above the Martian surface, would create a glass-smooth
> landing pad, with the required dimensions, and the above stated benefits.
> 
> I'd appreciate comments / suggestions on this proposal.

Um, well, nobody can criticize you for being too orthodox...

One obvious problem is that it's illegal just now.  Senate-ratified treaties
have the force of law in the US, and off-Earth nuclear explosions are banned
by one of the test-ban treaties.  Those things generally have provision for
negotiation of non-military uses, but I don't think the Soviets are going
to be too enthusiastic about this idea, and making it legal probably isn't
possible without their consent.

Underground permafrost might do unexpected things.

I assume you've thought about the effects on instruments; one example that
comes to mind is that gamma-ray spectrometers aren't going to be very useful
in the immediate vicinity.

You'll never get it past Congress.
-- 
NASA is to spaceflight as            |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
the Post Office is to mail.          | {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #229
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 24 May 88 06:27:13 EDT
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA05379; Tue, 24 May 88 03:25:44 PDT
	id AA05379; Tue, 24 May 88 03:25:44 PDT
Date: Tue, 24 May 88 03:25:44 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8805241025.AA05379@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #230

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 230

Today's Topics:
			 Hip Hip ... Ariane!
		      Mir elements, epoch 17 May
		   Re: Uncle Carl is on the rampage
			Re: Unused Saturn V's
		    Re: I want to be an astronaut
			Re: Unused Saturn V's
			Re: Shooting the Moon
		      I want to be an astronaut
			    Dr. Sally Ride
			Re: Shooting the Moon
			    Ion-like-drive
			Re: Is it CBS or NASA?
	      Oops... (was: Nevada fuel plant explosion)
			    Re: NASA News
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 19 May 88 12:17:29 GMT
From: mcvax!unido!ecrcvax!bruno@uunet.uu.net  (Bruno Poterie)
Subject: Hip Hip ... Ariane!

Kourou, 18 May 1988, 01h58 (European Time)
Ariane-2 fired from pad ELA-1
load put onto orbit 18 minutes afterwards
everything went ok - just waiting 15 minutes for a big electricity-loaded
cumulus to pass over the launch place.
Intelsat-5 F13 onto work orbit
next Intelsat-5 in december 1988
Intelsat-6 serie to start in 1989

Felicitations for all people involved, both in Guyane and in Europe.

------------------------------

Date: 20 May 88 00:32:00 GMT
From: kenny@m.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Mir elements, epoch 17 May

These elements are from after Progress 36 was hard-docked to the
Mir/Kvant complex, and are more likely to be reliable than the ones
posted on Monday.

You may be better off fudging the values for mean motion and B*; they
tend to be estimated incorrectly in the days immediately following
maneuvering of the vehicle.

Kevin

Mir        
1 16609U          88137.78771951 0.00018335           12175-3 0  2030
2 16609  51.6192 228.6531 0021522 336.6954  23.3330 15.75232363128881

Satellite: Mir        
Catalog id 16609
Element set 203
Epoch: 88137.78771951
Inclination:  51.6192 degrees
RA of node: 228.6531 degrees
Eccentricity:  0.0021522
Argument of perigee: 336.6954 degrees
Mean anomaly:  23.3330 degrees
Mean motion: 15.75232363 revs/day
Mean motion acceleration: 0.00018335 * 2 revs/day/day
Epoch Revolution: 12888

Semimajor axis:    6722.06 km
Apogee height*:     358.37 km
Perigee height*:     329.44 km


		Source: NASA Goddard via T.S.Kelso's `Celestial RCP/M'

* Apogee and perigee altitudes are referred to the mean radius of the
  Earth (6378.15 km), and not to the local radius of the geoid.  They
  are only approximate, and should not be used for orbit prediction.

------------------------------

Date: 4 May 88 16:03:45 GMT
From: mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Mike Smithwick)
Subject: Re: Uncle Carl is on the rampage

[hey mister line eater. . .]

I just heard an incredible piece of dreck emanating from the direction
of Carl Sagan's mouth yesterday morning. How anyone can continue to take
this character seriously is beyond me (flames go to /dev/null).

He was on the CBS morning show yesterday with his pal from the Politburo,
Roald Segedeeve (or whatever, didn't write down his name) hyping the 
proposed joint US/Soviet mars mission. Kathy Sullivan asked him, 
"Wouldn't something like this cause problems in the area of stealing
secrets???"

Carl : "Well, yes, the Soviets would have to worry about us, seeing that
they are so far ahead in both manned and planetary space exploration"

(not quite an exact quote, but you get the idea).

To his credit however, he did say that the mission should not be a one 
shot love-fest, but would require a strong infrastructure (gawd, i hate
that word), to insure that it doesn't end up like another Apollo.

This is not to criticize the concept of the mission, so don't start
another flame.war about that. Just Carl should learn to think before he speaks.


-- 
			   *** mike (Cyberpunk in training) smithwick ***
"Use an Atari, go to jail!"
[disclaimer : nope, I don't work for NASA, I take full blame for my ideas]

------------------------------

Date: 3 May 88 11:35:50 GMT
From: aplcen!aplcomm!ra.jhuapl.edu!mws@mimsy.umd.edu  (Michael W. Stalnaker)
Subject: Re: Unused Saturn V's

In article <652@eos.UUCP> al@eos.UUCP (Al Globus) writes:
>
>.............................................  Congress has been
>very supportive of NASA, at least until Challenger and the budget
>crises.  Before that, Congress routinely increased NASAs money over
>Reagan's requests.  I guess you'll have to dump you pre-conceptions
>about Congress and put the blame where it belongs, on the presidency.


	Congress supportive of NASA??? Since when??? Those dunderheads on the
hill would love to see NASA abolished and the money used for their pet pork 
barrel projects. If there is any one group of people most responsible for the
shambles that the U.S. Space program is in, it's Congress.  NASA told them
originally that the shuttle would cost about double what it does today.
Congress replied. Fine here's half the money you asked for, not double the
performace so the DoD can use it too. The result? A flying brickyard rather
than a ship with a titanium-alloy hull, and boosters that blow up. NASA did
not want to use solid boosters since you can't shut them down, and since they
have a lower performance than liquids, but thanks to the infantile wisdom of
Congress, they didn'nt have the budget to develop the needed equipment.

--Mike Stalnaker
mws@aplvax.jhuapl.edu
'' Pro is to con as progress is to congress.''

------------------------------

Date: 4 May 88 16:20:40 GMT
From: cfa!cfa250!mcdowell@husc6.harvard.edu  (Jonathan McDowell)
Subject: Re: I want to be an astronaut

>From article <4620@ihlpf.ATT.COM>, by colsmith@ihlpf.ATT.COM (Marcia Colsmith):
> I always thought being an astronaut was out for me because of my bad
> vision.  However only the pilots need perfect vision now, the mission
> specialists just need to have correctable vision, i.e. contacts are fine.
> Marcia Colsmith		ihnp4!ihlpf!colsmith

My understanding is that having correctable to 20/20 vision is not
good enough; there is also a limit on your uncorrected vision 
- at least 20/100 in each eye. This applies for mission and payload
specialists. Unfortunately, I think I just miss because of this
problem. What the hell, I'll apply anyway - the worst they can
do is say no. 

Good luck, Marcia - see you on the space station some day.

Jonathan McDowell

PS I don't know about the height regs although there is a book
called 'The Real Stuff' which lists all this in an appendix.
I think I heard they had to make a new Extra Extra Small
spacesuit size for Mary Cleave.

------------------------------

Date: 4 May 88 17:13:53 GMT
From: concertina!fiddler@sun.com  (Steve Hix)
Subject: Re: Unused Saturn V's

In article <652@eos.UUCP> al@eos.UUCP (Al Globus) writes:
>
>.............................................  Congress has been
>very supportive of NASA, at least until Challenger and the budget
>crises.  Before that, Congress routinely increased NASAs money over
>Reagan's requests.  I guess you'll have to dump you pre-conceptions
>about Congress and put the blame where it belongs, on the presidency.

Which congresscritter's reelection pamphlets have *you* been reading?

The chronic underfunding for the shuttle started a *long* time before
the current administration.  You can say this for congress, though,
they've been consistent.  Doubt if they'll ever get blamed for being in
large part responsible for the Challenger disaster, among other
things.  (*No* :-)! )

------------------------------

Date: 4 May 88 20:57:37 GMT
From: spar!freeman@decwrl.dec.com  (Jay Freeman)
Subject: Re: Shooting the Moon


Maybe an interesting Mars mission would be an orbiting mapper with excellent
imaging capability:  Elementary physical optics indicates that from 200 Km,
a 1-meter aperture telescope operating in the mid-green could resolve
objects on the surface that were only 10 cm in extent.  A meter is perhaps
large and heavy for a planetary mission, but surely, not by too much:  I
expect 0.3 m would not be too big a deal.  And one need not work in the
mid-green, either.  I don't recall how far into the UV the transparency of
the Martian atmosphere extends, but resolution is inversely proportional to
wavelength, so if you could work at (say) 3000 Angstroms instead of 5500,
there would be nearly a factor of two improvement.  That means that an 0.3-m
telescope, from 200 Km, at 3000 Angstroms, could resolve objects less than a
foot in diameter; and that ought to be sufficient for finding a smooth
"landing field".

Thus a high-resolution imaging orbiter could provide detailed images of a
wide variety of sites, both for immediate scientific use and as part of the
search for a "landing field"; the lander could wait in orbit (or be a later
flight) until a field was identified.

I suspect that the launch weight required to put such an imaging spacecraft
into Martian orbit is less than the launch weight required to get a small
nuclear device to the Martian surface.  (The latter mission must launch not
only the weight of the device, but also the weight of its re-entry vehicle.)

						-- Jay Freeman

<canonical disclaimer -- these are my opinions only>

------------------------------

Date: 3 May 88 20:25:06 GMT
From: ihnp4!ihlpf!colsmith@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Marcia Colsmith)
Subject: I want to be an astronaut

Laura Watson asked what qualifications an astronaut needs.  I have an
interest in that myself, and even asked a few questions of a genuine
astronaut once.  A bachelors degree is required, but of course the more 
degrees the better, in appropriate fields of course.  This could be almost 
anything scientific.  I believe most astronauts nowadays (aside from the 
actual pilots) have PhDs simply because they were "more qualified" and
there is a surplus of applicants.  A PhD is not required, however.

I always thought being an astronaut was out for me because of my bad
vision.  However only the pilots need perfect vision now, the mission
specialists just need to have correctable vision, i.e. contacts are fine.
There is a max and min height (because of space suits I guess) but most 
people fit that.  Anybody know the numbers?

Sometimes I think about getting another techie degree just to be better
qualified for the space program!  Okay, it's a dream I have, but maybe
someday I'll do something about it.  The other thing I worry about is
I get dizzy reading in a car and stuff like that and I think I'd be prone
to space sickness. :-( 

Anyway I did briefly talk to Dr. Sally Ride twice and she is one of my heros.  
(Heroine sounds like a drug, or some lady tied to railroad tracks, so I say
hero for either gender.)  When I toured Kennedy Space Center last month
95% of the people in the promo films were male, but they were kind of old 
recordings and simulations.

Marcia Colsmith		ihnp4!ihlpf!colsmith

------------------------------

Date: 4 May 88 15:26:23 GMT
From: ihnp4!ihlpf!colsmith@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Marcia Colsmith)
Subject: Dr. Sally Ride

I hope 12 other people don't post this as well, but Sally Ride left NASA
because they weren't letting her do research work.  She said that when she
joined the astronaut corps NASA said the astronauts could do research
between flights and training.  Evidently they weren't doing this, so she
left to do research at Stanford (?).  

And the height requirement is definitely NOT a max of 5'9" although I don't
remember what it is.  I think it was around 6'3" or 6'6".

Marcia Colsmith		ihnp4!ihlpf!colsmith

------------------------------

Date: 3 May 88 20:23:29 GMT
From: kr0u+@andrew.cmu.edu  (Kevin William Ryan)
Subject: Re: Shooting the Moon


   Ideas for overcoming the landing site problem:

   Since what is wanted is a clear landing site, scout it out ahead of time.
There are objections to sending a large enough telescope on the orbiter to
check the surface from LMO (low martian orbit), such as the size of the thing,
but this might work anyway.  Carefully view the terrain and select a spot
before going down.  This has been suggested by others.

   Now for my idea:

   If a telescope is too heavy/bulky/low in resolution, send down a Ranger type
probe first.  This is just a camera on a retrorocket, with position locational
gear.  Have it take pictures of the proposed area as it impacts.  Resolution is
limited by how fast the camera transmits (Geronimoooo....WHAP! :->).  This
should give pictures detailed enough.  Load it with an impact-survivable
transmitter, and you have a landing beacon as well.  This would allow a rather
stupid but accurate mechanism for terminal guidance.  Send down several, and
the latter ones could use the previous ones to accurately triangulate the
clearest landing site with respect to the probes.  (Of course, you'd want some
extras, in case some hit rocks :->)
   Comments?  I wanna call it Highdiver...


   Kevin Ryan

 kr0u@andrew.cmu.edu

------------------------------

Date: 2 May 88 22:53:00 GMT
From: ddsw1!igloo!bhv@gargoyle.uchicago.edu  (Bronis Vidugiris)
Subject: Ion-like-drive


I seem to recall hearing about a test of an ion drive that used the
ions and/or electrons of free space rather than an onboard reaction mass
source.  Is this correct, and if so, does anybody remember the details
of where and when this was done?

Bronis Vidugiris
!igloo!bhv@ddsw1

------------------------------

Date: 4 May 88 18:58:37 GMT
From: jenkins@purdue.edu  (Colin Jenkins)
Subject: Re: Is it CBS or NASA?

In article <1492@csib.csi.UUCP> jwhitnel@csib.UUCP (Jerry Whitnell) writes:

>There was an article on the qualifications that NASA is looking for in their
>astronauts in NASA Technical Briefs (I think the name is correct) about 
>2 years ago.  All I can remember is that they wanted an advance degree
>in the sciences or engineering and that you be under 5' 9".  

Actually, I think the true irony of this is that a 5'9" max height
discriminates against a heck of a lot more men than women!  I'm certainly 
out of the running.

[Which isn't to say that NASA is easier for women, this just caught my eye]

>Jerry Whitnell				Been through Hell?


						Colin

------------------------------

Date: 5 May 88 07:31:33 GMT
From: lim@csvax.caltech.edu  (Tat Lim)
Subject: Oops... (was: Nevada fuel plant explosion)

Open foot, insert mouth...  This is what happens when you post without getting
all available facts straight first...

The plant that exploded in Nevada apparently *was* making sodium perchlorate,
but for *solid rocket booster* fuel.  Thus there is a direct effect on the
Shuttle program.  Now, my question becomes whether this is the same fuel
compound used in other solid rockets used by the U.S. space program.

--
Kian-Tat Lim (ktl@wagvax.caltech.edu, GEnie: K.LIM1)

------------------------------

Date: 5 May 88 18:43:52 GMT
From: paulf@shasta.stanford.edu  (Paul A. Flaherty)
Subject: Re: NASA News

In article <1067@thumper.bellcore.com> karn@thumper.bellcore.com (Phil R. Karn) writes:
>"AMSAT" (Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation) is a registered trademark,
>mostly to protect against misuse by American Satellite Corporation.
>Unfortunately, "OSCAR" is not.
>Phil

Begging the Colonel's pardon, but "OSCAR" is a registered trademark, in the
state of California, owned by California Project OSCAR, Inc.  We're the 
folks that put up the first amateur satellites; nowadays, Project OSCAR
spends most of its time raising money for AMSAT, and a few of its own
projects.  The relationship between the two groups is bizarre, indeed.


-- 
-=Paul Flaherty, N9FZX	     | One Internet to rule them all,    -- Tome
Computer Systems Laboratory  | One Internet to find them;            of 
Stanford University          | One Internet to bring them all,    Internet
->paulf@shasta.Stanford.EDU  | And in the Ether bind them.         Hacking

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #230
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 24 May 88 23:25:27 EDT
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA06735; Tue, 24 May 88 20:22:44 PDT
	id AA06735; Tue, 24 May 88 20:22:44 PDT
Date: Tue, 24 May 88 20:22:44 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8805250322.AA06735@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #231

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 231

Today's Topics:
			 Group for Space Camp
			Re: Shooting the Moon
			Re: Shooting the Moon
			Re: Shooting the Moon
	 Re: Cometesimals (was: Millions of comets hit Earth)
		     Nevada fuel plant explosion
			 runway designations
		   Re: Nevada fuel plant explosion
		       Re: runway designations
		       Re: runway designations
		   Re: Nevada fuel plant explosion
		   Re: Nevada fuel plant explosion
		   Re: Nevada fuel plant explosion
			Re: Is it CBS or NASA?
      SRM Fuel Composition (was:Re: Nevada fuel plant explosion)
			Re: Is it CBS or NASA?
			Re: Is it CBS or NASA?
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 5 May 88 03:37:42 GMT
From: ulysses!terminus!picard@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Luc)
Subject: Group for Space Camp

I lead a group of folks down to adult Space Academy level II each fall.
This is a three day program leading to flights in the Shuttle simulator.

The dates we are attending this year are October 7-9.  The cost is $405
(10% off).

I need to have all the money in by June 1.

If you're interested, send email or call me at: 703-361-1290 (h)
                                                703-689-5915 (w)

++rich

------------------------------

Date: 4 May 88 20:10:14 GMT
From: aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!lear@rutgers.edu  (eliot lear)
Subject: Re: Shooting the Moon

We can use Mars to solve the world's parking problem ;-)

In article <1662@bigtex.uucp> james@bigtex.uucp (James Van Artsdalen) writes:
> Why do it the expensive way when you can save money for other projects?

Ohyeahsure.

It reminds me of times when the military considered ABombs as practical
solutions to all of our problems.  Remember the days of John Foster
Dulles and the French?  Does science entirely understand the intended
effects AND the side effects that would be caused by such an explosion?

After all, in the long run, which way is the expensive way?

Eliot Lear
[lear@rutgers.edu]

------------------------------

Date: 4 May 88 16:15:28 GMT
From: aplcen!aplcomm!stdc.jhuapl.edu!jwm@mimsy.umd.edu  (Jim Meritt)
Subject: Re: Shooting the Moon

In article <5121@pucc.Princeton.EDU> EWTILENI@pucc.Princeton.EDU writes:
>1. EXPLOSION ON THE PAD: Folks, the Challenger disaster was bad, really
>bad.  But imagine if it had a nuclear warhead on board.  Bye, bye South
>Florida!  A spaceship is one of the least stable places to keep a
>warhead!

Boy, I bet you have a tough time sleeping at night!

What is the difference between:
Rocket propelled vehicle capable of lifting off of the surface of a
planet and travelling at barely suborbital velocities above the bulk of
the atmosphere and conducting a controlled re-entry

and

a spaceship?

(the first is a description of an ICBM)

What is the connection between "a nuclear warhead" on the Challenger and
"Bye, bye South Florida"?

jwm@aplvax.jhuapl.edu 128.244.65.5  (James W. Meritt)

------------------------------

Date: 4 May 88 19:40:09 GMT
From: cfa!wyatt@husc6.harvard.edu  (Bill Wyatt)
Subject: Re: Shooting the Moon

In article <5121@pucc.Princeton.EDU>, EWTILENI@pucc.Princeton.EDU (Eric Tilenius) writes:
[...]
> I think the Life-on-Mars opposition to this argument has been
> adequately stated, but I wanted to point out a couple of extra
> arguments against this which I sent Paul through EMAIL (did you get
> it, Paul?):
>  
> 1. EXPLOSION ON THE PAD: Folks, the Challenger disaster was bad,
> really bad.  But imagine if it had a nuclear warhead on board.  Bye,
> bye South Florida!  A spaceship is one of the least stable places to
> keep a warhead!

I agree that the nuking Mars is a BAD IDEA, but the above is *very*
unlikely to be a problem. Warheads just don't go off until armed, and
they are not armed until well after launch. Remember the H-bomb dropped
accidentally from a B52 over Spain in the 60's? Remember the Titan that
blew up in its silo in Arkansas, tossing the warhead almost a mile?

Bill    UUCP:  {husc6,ihnp4,cmcl2,mit-eddie}!harvard!cfa!wyatt
Wyatt   ARPA:  wyatt@cfa.harvard.edu

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 11 May 88 18:22:49 -0400 (EDT)
From: Joe Keane <jk3k+@andrew.cmu.edu>
X-Andrew-Message-Size: 579+0
Subject: Re: Cometesimals (was: Millions of comets hit Earth)

In some article spar!freeman@decwrl.dec.com  (Jay Freeman) writes:
> Huh??  When you whack on something hard, you expect a louder noise,
> not a different pitch, than when you whack on it more gently.  The
> analogy here is Moon <-> bell (or drumhead, or tabletop); LEM impact
> <-> little hammer blow; impact of meteoroid or cometesimal <-> big
> hammer blow.

There are some natural resonant frequencies.  A small impact tends to
stimulate the higher ones, while a large impact tends to stimulate the
lower ones.  So you don't get different pitches, just a different
distribution.

--Joe

------------------------------

Date: 5 May 88 06:43:37 GMT
From: lim@csvax.caltech.edu  (Kian-Tat Lim)
Subject: Nevada fuel plant explosion

By now, you've all heard about the explosion at the hypergolic fuel
plant in Nevada.  This is supposed to cause further setbacks for the
already-lame U.S.  space program.  Some early questions:

1) Shuttle uses monomethyl hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide for OMS/RCS.
	Does the reported sodium perchlorate have anything to do with
	this?  If not, shouldn't it be unaffected?

2) What fuels do other launch systems use: Titan, Scout, Ariane?

Kian-Tat Lim (ktl@wagvax.caltech.edu, GEnie: K.LIM1)

------------------------------

Date: 3 May 88 19:53:10 GMT
From: nbires!isis!scicom!wats@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Bruce Watson)
Subject: runway designations

In the TV program SPACEFLIGHT there is a sequence of the shuttle landing
on runway 23 at Edwards (There! That got it in sci.space).  Runways are
designated by the magnetic azimuth in 10 degree increments with the 0
omitted.  Since the magnetic pole wanders have there been runways whose
designations had to be changed?

------------------------------

Date: 5 May 88 17:23:49 GMT
From: concertina!fiddler@sun.com  (Steve Hix)
Subject: Re: Nevada fuel plant explosion

If sodium perchlorate was reported, correct the reporter: that should
have been ammonium perchlorate.  It's the oxidizer used in the SRBs.  I
think most of the rest of the active ingredients is taken up with
aluminum powder.  (I assume that the binder, sort of like synthetic
rubber, is comparatively inactive.)

As to how much effect on the space program, I suppose it depends on what
percentage of the total supply of fuel comes out of that one facility.
United Technologies, just a bit south and east of here, makes the solid
booster for the Titan-4, and they sort of indicated that their supplier
is not the one who had the accident.
 
> 2) What fuels do other launch systems use: Titan, Scout, Ariane?

a. Titan: Hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide for the liquid engines, and
   solid boosters using ammonium perchlorate and aluminum for the
   strap-ons.

b. Scout: Solid fuel.  Not sure what type, but guess amm.perch., etc.

c. Ariane: LOX and (?) kerosene.  Maybe LH2.

The shuttle main engines, btw, use LOX + LH2.

------------------------------

Date: 5 May 88 14:11:45 GMT
From: cat.cmu.edu!dep@pt.cs.cmu.edu  (David Pugh)
Subject: Re: runway designations

Yes. Two airports I know of (AGC & ZZV, I think) had their runways
relabeled. You could see the old numbers painted out beneath the new
numbers.

------------------------------

Date: 5 May 88 22:16:10 GMT
From: portal!cup.portal.com!edg@uunet.uu.net
Subject: Re: runway designations

Yes, Runway designations change and variation lines move, and VORs get
reset every few years.  I don't know many of the details.

One thing to remember is that runway designations are quite approximate.
For example, San Jose has three parallel runways numbered 30L, 30R and
29.  The actual runway heading is probably somewhere between them.

OAKland's 33 is actually on a heading of 326 degrees.  Consult your
local instrument approach plate for the actual runway heading.
   -edg

edg@cup.portal.com

------------------------------

Date: 6 May 88 23:20:37 GMT
From: ubvax!unisv!vanpelt@lll-winken.llnl.gov  (Mike Van Pelt)
Subject: Re: Nevada fuel plant explosion

In article <52155@sun.uucp> fiddler%concertina@Sun.COM (Steve Hix) writes:
>If sodium perchlorate was reported, correct the reporter: that should
>have been ammonium perchlorate.  It's the oxidizer used in the SRBs.  I
>think most of the rest of the active ingredients is taken up with
>aluminum powder.  (I assume that the binder, sort of like synthetic
>rubber, is comparatively inactive.)

The butyl rubber binder is also fuel; it burns quite nicely, though not
as exothermic as aluminum dust.  Starstruck's hybrid rocked used butyl
rubber as a fuel and LO2 as oxidizer.

I used to have the formula for the SRB propellant.  It also contains
some epoxy (about 5%?) and about 1% iron oxide as a 'combustion
enhancer'.  (Aluminum dust + iron oxide = thermite.)

Mike Van Pelt

------------------------------

Date: 6 May 88 18:27:28 GMT
From: ulysses!thumper!karn@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: Nevada fuel plant explosion

> a. Titan: Hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide for the liquid engines, and
>    solid boosters using ammonium perchlorate and aluminum for the
>    strap-ons.

Strictly speaking, the fuel for Titan is called Aerozine-50. This is a
50-50 mixture of straight hydrazine (N2H4) plus unsymmetrical dimethyl
hydrazine (UDMH -- take off the two hydrogens on one of the nitrogens in
straight hydrazine and replace them with two methyl groups). Water is
also present in small amounts, so it's really 49.5% N2H4 + 49.5% UDMH +
1% H2O. Straight hydrazine is denser than the organic variations (i.e.,
you can cram more of it into a tank), but it is less stable and it
freezes at too high a temperature.  The Aerozine-50 mixture is a good
compromise.  AMSAT Oscar-10 used UDMH in its kick motor; Phase 3-C (due
to go up in a few weeks) will use Aerozine-50, mainly because its
greater density will result in more kick per unit tank volume. The
payload is heavier this time, but the same size tank and engine are
being used.

> c. Ariane: LOX and (?) kerosene.  Maybe LH2.

The Ariane first and second stages use UDMH + N2O4. The third stage is
cryogenic; it uses LH2 + LO2.  Kerosene is not used anywhere on the
Ariane.

It's easy to tell from a launch picture when hypergolic fuels like those
used on Titan, Ariane and Proton are being used. The plume is almost
transparent, unlike those of kerosene-fueled rockets that emit
yellow-white plumes, or solid-fueled rockets that emit lots of dense
white aluminum oxide smoke.

Phil

------------------------------

Date: 6 May 88 21:37:33 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Nevada fuel plant explosion

> c. Ariane: LOX and (?) kerosene.  Maybe LH2.

Tsk, tsk, two out of three wrong.  Ariane first and second stages use
nitrogen tetroxide and one of the hydrazine variants (UDMH I think).
The third stage is LOX/LH2.  Oh yeah, and solid strap-ons for the newer
variants (also still-newer liquid strap-ons but I don't know what they
burn, probably N2O4/UDMH).

To add to the list...

d. Atlas-Centaur:  LOX/kerosene in Atlas, LOX/LH2 in Centaur.

e. Delta:  LOX/kerosene plus solid strap-ons.

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 5 May 88 19:15:00 GMT
From: silber@p.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Re: Is it CBS or NASA?

>By "victims of male technology" I understood a condemnation of the
>macho attitude that led NASA not to include any sort of escape
>mechanism in the shuttle. Which of course would imply some sort of
>cowardice and fear of battle and might be misused if someone chickened
>out and pushed the "let me out" button...right???  Can't have those
>heros chickening out, can we?

>Valerie Maslak

Every U.S. spacecraft before the shuttle had an escape system.  From
what I understand, the difficulty with including one in the shuttle was
that there was no way of including a system of more than marginal
survivability that was usable in the boost phase.  (For aerodynamic
reasons an escape tower was impossible, likewise for an orbiter
separation system.  Ejection seats were used on the first flight, but
would be to bulky to provide for all the crew, and if there is one thing
NASA would not want it would be for the flight crew to punch out leaving
the passengers.)  The current system (the pole and parachutes) would
only be of use either on the pad or in gliding (and subsonic) flight,
and appears to be more of a PR scheme than anything useful, considering
that those are the two safest portions of the launch.

ami silberman

------------------------------

Date: 6 May 88 12:33:47 GMT
From: ucsdhub!hp-sdd!ncr-sd!ncrlnk!ncrwic!encad!mjohnson@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu  (Mark Johnson)
Subject: SRM Fuel Composition (was:Re: Nevada fuel plant explosion)

The approximate solid fuel mix used in most of the various solid rocket
motors goes something like this:

    80% ammonium perchlorate
    10% powdered aluminum (which coincidentally gives the white exhaust)
    10% HTPB (Hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene, a polymer which serves
	      as both fuel and plastic binder, and which not
	      coincidentally provides a good deal of energy into the
	      bargain (15-20% more than earlier solid recipes of
	      polyurethane base and similar ratios).

My percentages may be a bit off, but this is basically what's used.

Mark Johnson (mjohnson@ncrwic.UUCP)

------------------------------

Date: 10 May 88 02:01:26 GMT
From: killer!bigtex!james@eddie.mit.edu  (James Van Artsdalen)
Subject: Re: Is it CBS or NASA?

IN article <74700087@uiucdcsp>, silber@uiucdcsp.cs.uiuc.edu wrote:
> Every U.S. spacecraft before the shuttle had an escape system.

In principle at least, I believe they could also extinguish the rockets,
which the shuttle can't (SRBs).

> The current system (the pole and parachutes) would only be of use
> either on the pad or in gliding (and subsonic) flight, and appears to
> be more of a PR scheme than anything useful, considering that those
> are the two safest portions of the launch.

Is the pole really useful on the pad?  Isn't there a tower in the way?
:-) Even the ejection seats originally in place were not useful in
ascent phase.

Out of curiosity, what were the windows for the previous escape systems?
How long before the rockets were moving too fast or too high?

Question: Does anyone know when SRB separation occurs, height &
velocity?  I've been having trouble finding out.

James R. Van Artsdalen

------------------------------

Date: 10 May 88 10:25:25 GMT
From: lim@csvax.caltech.edu  (Kian-Tat Lim)
Subject: Re: Is it CBS or NASA?

In article <1870@bigtex.uucp> james@bigtex.UUCP (James Van Artsdalen) writes:
>Question: Does anyone know when SRB separation occurs, height &
>velocity?  I've been having trouble finding out.

According to the Space Shuttle Operator's Manual, "By the time the solid
motors consume their propellants (T + 2 minutes and 12 seconds) you have
reached Mach 4.5 and an altitude of 28 miles (45 kilometers)."

Kian-Tat Lim (ktl@wagvax.caltech.edu, GEnie: K.LIM1)

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #231
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 25 May 88 06:23:17 EDT
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA07574; Wed, 25 May 88 03:21:44 PDT
	id AA07574; Wed, 25 May 88 03:21:44 PDT
Date: Wed, 25 May 88 03:21:44 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8805251021.AA07574@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #232

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 232

Today's Topics:
		       Re: runway designations
			Re: Is it CBS or NASA?
		       Re: ISF funding held up
			Re: Is it CBS or NASA?
			Re: Is it CBS or NASA?
			Re: Is it CBS or NASA?
	     Re: How YOU can REALLY become an astronaut!
			    Re: NASA News
			Re: Is it CBS or NASA?
			Re: Is it CBS or NASA?
			Re: Is it CBS or NASA?
			   No April CANOPUS
			    Re: NASA News
			    Re: NASA News
			NASA Technical Briefs
			    Re: NASA News
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 9 May 88 19:04:47 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!dciem!nrcaer!cognos!geovision!alastair@uunet.uu.net  (Alastair Mayer)
Subject: Re: runway designations

Yep.  Runways 06L/24R and 06R/24L at Pearson Int'l (formerly Toronto
Int'l, aka YYZ) used to be 05L/23R and 05R/23L respectively, a few years
back.

------------------------------

Date: 9 May 88 17:25:49 GMT
From: attcan!lsuc!spectrix!tmsoft!utgpu!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Is it CBS or NASA?

> ... The current system (the pole and parachutes) would only be of use
> either on the pad or in gliding (and subsonic) flight, and appears to
> be more of a PR scheme than anything useful, considering that those
> are the two safest portions of the launch.

How safe gliding flight is depends on what you are gliding towards.  If
there isn't a runway down there, then the safety is illusory: ditching
or belly-landing an orbiter is considered unsurvivable.  The sections of
the STS-1 flight plan [I have a copy] dealing with disastrous aborts
that leave the orbiter unable to reach a runway all end with "EJECT".
The pole and chutes are not just a PR move: they are the result of
recognizing that safety could be considerably improved with a very small
investment.  They do not solve the escape-in-powered-flight problem, but
they are not meant to -- it's a much harder problem.

Given oxygen masks (which I think are also part of the new plans) and
parachutes, the Challenger crew would have had a fighting chance to
survive.

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 10 May 88 04:30:17 GMT
From: EWTILENI@pucc.princeton.edu  (Eric William Tilenius)
Subject: Re: ISF funding held up

In article <9716@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>, web@garnet.berkeley.edu writes:
>The follwing four senators are reportedly holding up funding for the
>Industrial Space Facility.  The process is well under way, so call or
>write to them *immediately*.  Failure to force NASA to purchase the ISF
>would be a serious blow to any movement toward commercial space
>development.
 
The ISF is one of the weakest and most insulting idea in movement toward
commercial space development I've seen.  Originally, Space Industries
was supposed to run it and pay back the funds within X years.  NASA was
to use it when it needed it, and it would be available to other
companies.
 
Now they're trying to force NASA to guarantee $600 million or some
number when it, quite plainly, has stated that it doesn't want to buy in
to that large a chunk and has much better use for the money.
 
I'm sorry, but I can't support a handout program for Space Industries,
which is what this is.  I'm all for commercialization, but not this way!
Given its current budget constraints, NASA has MUCH BETTER THINGS IT CAN
DO WITH THIS MONEY.
 
If Space Industries had stuck with their original plan, it would have
been good and well, but this is turning into a fiasco.
 
- ERIC -

------------------------------

Date: 5 May 88 00:04:32 GMT
From: zodiac!deimos!booter@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Elaine Richards)
Subject: Re: Is it CBS or NASA?

>>2 years ago.  All I can remember is that they wanted an advance degree
>>in the sciences or engineering and that you be under 5' 9".

I think this has changed. The Apollo craft were larger than previous and
the space shuttle has no such need for small stature.

Admittedly, women are at an advantage as astronauts as they tend to be
shorter and lighter and just as smart. More bang for the buck as it were
:-)

ER

------------------------------

Date: 4 May 88 17:32:34 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Is it CBS or NASA?

> >It's true, she's left NASA.  [Sally Ride]
> 
> The scuttlebut is that she left NASA when NASA stopped flying after
> the challenger tragedy.  The reason I heard attributed was that she
> joined NASA to fly...

Don't forget, also, her involvement with the Ride Report.  Of necessity
it was critical of NASA in certain respects.  That probably ended any
hope of her flying again.  Who flies, and when, is much more a matter of
office politics than of technical competence or fitness.  Offending the
powers that be is a good way to spend the rest of your career on the
ground.  She must have been aware of this when she took on that project;
I don't recall whether that was before or after Challenger.

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 5 May 88 01:40:23 GMT
From: mfci!root@uunet.uu.net  (SuperUser)
Subject: Re: Is it CBS or NASA?

I'm sorry to intrude on this newsgroup again, but I thought it might be
better to get this issue straight.

I have the appropriate form from NASA in front of me as I type this:

Height: pilot candidates min. 5'4", max 6'4".  Mission specialist
candidates min 5'0", max 6'4".

Vision: pilot candidates uncorrected 20/50 or better, correctable to
20/20 each eye.  Mission specialists 20/100 or better, correctable to
20/20 each eye.

Blood pressure: preponderant systolic not to exceed 140, nor diastolic
to exceed 90 mm Hg, measured in sitting position.

There's also a maximum acceptable hearing loss that I don't feel like
typing in.  And also a list of disqualifying physical disorders that
aren't explicitly spelled out.

Bob Colwell            mfci!colwell@uunet.uucp
Multiflow Computer
175 N. Main St.
Branford, CT 06405     203-488-6090

------------------------------

Date: 4 May 88 17:22:39 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: How YOU can REALLY become an astronaut!

I have minor reservations about one or two of the points Jim Bowery makes,
but on the whole his comments are worth paying attention to.
-- 
NASA is to spaceflight as            |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
the Post Office is to mail.          | {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 3 May 88 22:27:11 GMT
From: thumper!karn@faline.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: NASA News

Note that the Navy "Oscar" navigation satellites are not to be confused
with the amateur radio "OSCARs" (orbiting satellites carrying amateur
radio).

"AMSAT" (Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation) is a registered trademark,
mostly to protect against misuse by American Satellite Corporation.
Unfortunately, "OSCAR" is not.

Phil

------------------------------

Date: 5 May 88 16:34:58 GMT
From: trwrb!cadovax!gryphon!mhnadel@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Miriam Nadel)
Subject: Re: Is it CBS or NASA?

In article <3701@zodiac.UUCP> booter@ads.com (Elaine Richards) writes:
>At one point a woman (I forget her name) mused about becoming an
>astronaut and a man (in a friendly way) said, "Go for it."
>
>My brother in law is in Navy Air (Navigator) and his buddies liked to
>rumor around that he had "the right stuff". (He does). Bill has nixed
>the idea of being an astronaut because you basically sit on your butt
>waiting for the flight. It is not Mondo Career Development here. There
>are many career paths to take at NASA (or elsewhere).
>
>As far as I recall, Sally Ride left the space program to join a think
>tank at Stanford. If I had the credentials that Ride does, I would be a
>little bored sitting around with my thumb out, too.

While it is true that it is generally a long wait to get a flight, it is
not a matter of sitting around bored.  Astronauts have several other
tasks they are responsible for in support of space missions - which is
probably the primary reason Ph.D.'s are preferred.

As for NASA career paths, NASA is notoriously prone to hiring freezes
and generally underpays their employees.  There are lots of other ways
to work on the space program (and get paid what you're worth) - though
if you have serious reservations about working on military space
projects it may be harder to find jobs.

Miriam Nadel

------------------------------

Date: 5 May 88 13:57:19 GMT
From: ddsw1!dino@gargoyle.uchicago.edu  (Laura Watson)
Subject: Re: Is it CBS or NASA?

Actually, I think I would be most interested in the job of space station
construction engineer.  Provided I'd get to go up and get my hands er,
spacesuit gloves on the thing myself (I'm the hands-on type.)  I'm not
so sure I'd want to be sitting around in space watching spiders spin
their webs or launching ozone canisters all that much.  Are they taking
applicants for space station construction yet?  Where could I get an
advanced degree in space station construction engineering?  (Somehow I
don't think planetary science would be of much help to me in that.)

Laura Watson             ...[ihnp4, moss, codas]!ddsw1!dino

------------------------------

Date: 6 May 88 04:05:06 GMT
From: natinst!bigtex!james@cs.utexas.edu  (James Van Artsdalen)
Subject: Re: Is it CBS or NASA?

IN article <22258@teknowledge-vaxc.ARPA>, sworking@teknowledge-vaxc.UUCP (Scott Workinger) wrote:
> The scuttlebut is that she left NASA when NASA stopped flying after
> the challenger tragedy.  The reason I heard attributed was that she
> joined NASA to fly.  Since they weren't flying she wanted to get on
> with her life.  When you consider how long an astronaut has to wait to
> get even a single mission in the best of times, it's not surprising.

The head of the Astronaut Office has always exerted pretty much absolute
control over the astronauts because of his power to choose flight crews.
When you work better than 60-70hrs a week for ten years, in order to get
a five or six day flight, you do whatever the chief says, and you do
nothing that gets you on his bad side.

In this context, I have to wonder if Ride left out of concern of ever
getting another flight.  You can't so intimately associated with a high
profile commission that investigated the accident - which ruined dozens
of careers - and expect to get away untarnished.  I was really surprised
that *any* astronaut would agree to be appointed to that commission
unless he or she didn't expect to fly again anyway.

There have been other retirements.  Owen Garriott retired a while back,
leaving NASA without anyone with significant space time (ie, going back
to the Skylab days) except John Young, who I assume will not fly again.
If Young retires before the Space Station is launched, as seems likely,
that would mean that the most space-experienced astronauts at the time
would have maybe 20 days!  Maybe the Russians could loan someone as a
consultant...

BTW: does anyone know who selects flight crews these days?  Is that
still concentrated in the Astronaut Office, or has it been moved?

James R. Van Artsdalen

------------------------------

Date: 6 May 88 13:57:28 GMT
From: cfa!willner@husc6.harvard.edu  (Steve Willner)
Subject: No April CANOPUS

There will be no CANOPUS distribution for April, since there were no
articles for the month.  (Perhaps the editors had to rest after the
unusually large March issue.)

By the way, the best explanation for last month's mailer problems
seems to be a failure of some Internet sites to update software on
schedule.  If this is correct, most paths should be repaired by now,
or at least in time for next month's distribution.
-- 
Steve Willner            Phone 617-495-7123         Bitnet:   willner@cfa
60 Garden St.            FTS:      830-7123           UUCP:   willner@cfa
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA                 Internet: willner@cfa.harvard.edu

------------------------------

Date: 5 May 88 14:37:03 GMT
From: cfa!cfa250!mcdowell@husc6.harvard.edu  (Jonathan McDowell)
Subject: Re: NASA News

>From article <1067@thumper.bellcore.com>, by karn@thumper.bellcore.com (Phil R. Karn):
> Note that the Navy "Oscar" navigation satellites are not to be
> confused with the amateur radio "OSCARs" (orbiting satellites carrying
> amateur radio).

The Navy 'Oscar' is just the radio call sign 'O', as in
'MIKE,NOVEMBER,OSCAR,PAPA, ROMEO..'.  It stands for 'Operational' I
believe, as Oscar 1 = Transit NNS O-1 = NNSS 30010 was the first Transit
satellite to be declared operational.  The first few failed quickly so
they built lots, then they got the bugs out and were stuck with storing
a dozen in boxes while the ones in space chirped happily away for a
decade each.  They've now decided storing them in space costs less
warehouse rental so theyre putting them up two at a time.  Oscar 24 and
30 went up last year, I don't know which ones the latest two are (they
couldnt do anything as helpful as launch them in numerical order, of
course.)

Jonathan McDowell

------------------------------

Date: 3 May 88 15:40:51 GMT
From: hubcap!ncrcae!ncr-sd!ncrlnk!ncrwic!encad!mjohnson@gatech.edu  (Mark Johnson)
Subject: Re: NASA News

In article <110@embudo.UUCP> markf@embudo.UUCP (markf) writes:
>NASA NEWS - April 19, 1988
>SCOUT ROCKET TO LAUNCH NAVY NAVIGATION SATELLITE
>
>The pair of Oscar satellites, each weighing 141 pounds, will be placed
>into a 600-nautical-mile circular polar orbit. The Oscars are part of
>the Navy's long-established, continuous all-weather global navigation
>system.

I thought that the "Oscar" name was already taken by the on-going
Amateur Radio Satellite program, which has built a total of 12 "OSCAR"
satellites (U.S., Japan, and European participation).

OSCAR = "Orbiting Satellite Carrying Amateur Radio"
        ^         ^         ^        ^       ^

So why does the Navy need to steal somebody else's satellite name???

Mark Johnson (mjohnson@ncrwic.UUCP)

------------------------------

Date:     Sun, 8 May 88 07:00 EDT
From: RON PICARD <PICARD%gmr.com@relay.cs.net>
Subject:  NASA Technical Briefs

> There was an article on the qualifications that NASA is looking for in
> their astronauts in NASA Technical Briefs.

I've heard these briefs are an excellent source of information.  From
what I was told you need to show you are in a job related to NASA work
which I might be able to do.  What I need is the address to write to.
Anybody out there know the correct installation?

Thanks,
Ron Picard  (PICARD@GMR.COM)

------------------------------

Date: 7 May 88 07:45:33 GMT
From: sonia!khayo@cs.ucla.edu  (Eric Behr)
Subject: Re: NASA News

In article mcdowell@cfa250.harvard.edu (Jonathan McDowell) writes:
(...)
 >Oscar 24 and 30 went up last year, I don't know which ones the latest
 >two are (they couldnt do anything as helpful as launch them in
 >numerical order, of course.)
I forwarded the question to the higher authority:

NASA/SPACELINK     MENU SYSTEM      Revision:1.15.00.00
You have received a message from NASA:

The serial numbers of the new Oscars are 30230 and 30320.  This is
really not a NASA program--the Navy runs it.  For more information you
can contact Joe Padorsic at Point Mugu.  805/989-4233
                                                       Eric

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #232
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 25 May 88 23:23:23 EDT
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA09042; Wed, 25 May 88 20:21:36 PDT
	id AA09042; Wed, 25 May 88 20:21:36 PDT
Date: Wed, 25 May 88 20:21:36 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8805260321.AA09042@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #233

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 233

Today's Topics:
			Re: Unused Saturn V's
			Re: Is it CBS or NASA?
			Re: Is it CBS or NASA?
			Re: Is it CBS or NASA?
	  Obtaining NASA Tech Briefs [Fruit of the Loom ;-)]
	       NASA's basic requirments for astronauts
	    Re: Vocabulary lesson #1: "the space program"
			Re: Is it CBS or NASA?
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 4 May 88 17:27:45 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Unused Saturn V's

> > Last month I saw an aging Saturn V on the ground at Cape Canaveral and
> > ... saying he thought it was criminal.
> > Who's to blame?  Why aren't they in prison?  Why do I smell
> > the stench of Congress?  
> Richard Nixon cut the lunar flight program...  Congress has been very
> supportive of NASA, at least until Challenger...

Sorry, not so.  Congressional penny-pinching has been a major part of
the problem all along, even under supportive presidents like LBJ.  The
decision to can the last three lunar missions may have been Nixon's (I
don't remember offhand), but the decision to terminate Saturn V
production after the first 15 was made in Congress.  (NASA had to argue
hard just to get 15, in fact.)  That ended any real hope of keeping
either Apollo or the Saturn alive.
-- 
NASA is to spaceflight as            |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
the Post Office is to mail.          | {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 6 May 88 03:35:26 GMT
From: att!occrsh!uokmax!madean@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Mark A Dean)
Subject: Re: Is it CBS or NASA?

In article <809@esunix.UUCP> loosemor@esunix.UUCP (Sandra Loosemore) writes:
>What bothered me is how blatantly *sexist* this broadcast made NASA appear.
>Is this an accurate picture of how NASA works?  Or is CBS just living up
>to its reputation for biased reporting again?
>--Sandra Loosemore

I hope we're not running this into the ground but there are a few points
that I would like to make that I didn't see in any of the followups.

I spent 4 semesters in the Engineering Co-Op program at NASA-JSC, and
while it is true that overall there are far more men than women working
in the Engineering area, most of this is due to the fact that there were
far fewer women engineers in the work force when NASA was created.  Of
the "younger" crowd of Engineers, women comprise a much greater
percentage of the work force than they do at the center as a whole.  As
an example, in the group I was with of the 5 Co-Ops who decided to
accept full time positions at JSC, 2 were female and 3 were male.  And
of the 100-150 Co-Ops that JSC has, 40-50% are female (which is a
greater percentage than in engineering as a whole I think).

While most of the people in Mission Control were men, it is to be
expected that on a mission as critical as STS-26 they would want their
most experienced people (mostly men due to the much smaller number of
women engineering graduates in the 50's/early 60's) at the consoles.

It is also harder for NASA/the federal government in general to hire top
notch women (and men) engineering graduates, due to fierce competition
with the private sector, which can pay much more to recent grads.

NASA isn't perfect, there is some sexism, but mostly by the good-*old*
boys who are about to retire anyway.... Hopefully we'll be able to get
rid of many of the problems when we dump some of that old excess
baggage.

		-MAD

------------------------------

Sender: Wegeng.WBST207V@xerox.com
Date: 9 May 88 09:50:14 PDT (Monday)
Subject: Re: Is it CBS or NASA?
From: Wegeng.WBST207V@xerox.com
Cc: Wegeng.WBST207V@xerox.com

L.Perkins writes:
>At the risk of being flamed by the few in NASA who are not that way I
>speak as a former NASA contractor employee who has observed that behind
>the high tech futuristic image that the agency likes to project, is a
>1940's era red neck engineering club.  This agency is the good ol' boys
>in action.

I think that you'd find that much of the aerospace industry is like
this. Some of the reasons are:

1) most of the engineers are older, conservative, white males.

2) most of their customers (both military and civilian) are
conservative, white males (I'm not sure about age).

3) it's still very difficult to recruit women/minorities into this field
of study.

I base the above on many conversations that I've had with my father, who
before he retired was a senior manager in the aerospace industry, and
who's primary business was government/military contracts. Things are
changing, but not very fast (and not without opposition).

/Don

------------------------------

Date: 9 May 88 15:17:47 GMT
From: cfa!cfa250!mcdowell@husc6.harvard.edu  (Jonathan McDowell)
Subject: Re: Is it CBS or NASA?

>From article <4319@dasys1.UUCP>, by lkw@dasys1.UUCP (Laura Watson):
> Tasks such as???
> Laura Watson                                    {uunet}!mstan\

Tasks such as mission planning, overseeing design and development of the
software and hardware, etc.. each astro upon completing 1-yr basic
training is allocated a speciality. For instance, Sally Ride's was the
remote manipulator arm, and she became one of the first astronauts to
test it out. Bruce McCandless spent many, many years involved in the
development of the MMU backpack, he was the last of his group to get a
flight but when he did it was to make the first free flight in the
backpack he'd helped create.

I just read some interesting statistics in NASA ACTIVITIES Mar/Apr 1988
issue some of which I list below:

Women made up 10.8 % of NASA scientist/engineers in 1987, up from 2.6%
in 1974. At higher grades (GS-14 and above) they make up 4.8%, up from
0.6% in 1974. Article also listed specific instances of women in senior
positions.

So although things aren't wonderful, they don't sound worse than in the
rest of the techie world.

Jonathan McDowell

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 9 May 88 14:52:26 pdt
From: Eugene N. Miya <eugene@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov>
Subject: Obtaining NASA Tech Briefs [Fruit of the Loom ;-)]


Send a request to:
 NASA STI Facility
Manager, TU Division
P.O. Box 8757
Baltimore, MD 21240-9985

--eugene

------------------------------

Date: 8 May 88 20:24:39 GMT
From: trwrb!cadovax!gryphon!gbarbay@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Gordon Barbay)
Subject: NASA's basic requirments for astronauts

Since there seems to be some question over the requirements for
astronaut candidates, what follows is excerpts from the NASA brochure
"Announcement for Mission Specialist and Pilot Astronaut Candidates".
This is from a few years ago but it shouldn't have changed much if at
all.  Text in []'s indicate my comments.


#Begin excerpts


Basic qualification requirements Applicants *must* meet the following
minimum requirements prior to submitting an application.

Mission Specialist Astronaut Candidates:


1. Bachelor's degree from an accredited institution in engineering,
biological science, physical science or mathematics.  Degree must be
followed by at least three years of related progressivly responsible,
professional experience.  An advanced degree is desirable and may be
substituted for part or all of the experience requirement (master's
degree = 1 year, doctoral degree = 3 years).  Quality of academic
preperation is important.


2. Ability to pass a NASA class II space physical, which is similar to a
civilian or military class II flight physical and includes the following
specific standards:


     Distant visual acuity:
          20/100 or better uncorrected,
          correctable to 20/20, each eye.


     Blood pressure:
          140/90 measured in sitting postion.


3. Height between 60 and 76 inches.


Pilot Astronaut Candidates:


1. [same as 1 above, minus the experience information]


2. At least 1000 hours pilot-in-command time in jet aircraft.
Flight test experience highly desirable.


3. Ability to pass a NASA class I physical... [which] includes
the following specific standards:


     Distant visual acuity:
          20/50 or better uncorrected
          correctable to 20/20, each eye.


     Blood pressure:
          140/90 measured in sitting postion.


4. Height between 64 and 76 inches.



Applicants for the Astronaut Candidate Program must be citizens of the
United States.


Notes on Academic Requiremnets


Applicants... must meet the basic education requirements for NASA
engineering and scientific positions -- specifically: successful
completion of standard professional curriculum in an accredited college
or university leading to at least a bachelor's degree with major study
in an appropriate field of engineering, biological science, physical
science, or mathematics.


The following degree fields, while related to engineering and the
sciences, are not considered qualifying:


     -Degrees in technology (Engineering Technology, Aviation
Technology, Medical Technology, etc.)


     -Degrees in Psychology (except for Clinical, Physiological or
Experimental Psychology, which are qualifying).


     -Degrees in Nursing

     -Degrees in social sciences (Geography, Anthropology, Archeology,
etc).


     -Degrees in Avaition, Aviation Management, or similar fields.



Application Procedures


[Civilians may obtain an application package] by writing to:


          NASA, Johnson Space Center
          Astronaut Selection Office
          ATTN: AHX
          Houston, TX 77058


Civilian applications will be accepted on a continous basis.


Active duty military personnel must submit applications to their
respective military service and not directly to NASA.  Application
procedures will be disseminated by each service.


General Program Requirements 


Selected... astronaut candidates will undergo a 1 year training and
evaluation period...  Pilot astronaut candidates will maintain
proficiency in NASA aircraft during thier candidate period.


Applicants should be aware that selection as an astronaut candidate does
not insure selection as an astronaut.  Final selection as an astronaut
will depend on satisfactory completion of the 1 year training and
evaluation period.



#End excerpts


          -Gordon


gbarbay@gryphon.cts.com  or  gb74219@scgvaxd.scg.hac.com

------------------------------

Date: 8 May 88 06:46:40 GMT
From: ssc-vax!eder@beaver.cs.washington.edu  (Dani Eder)
Subject: Re: Vocabulary lesson #1: "the space program"

I recently had reason to visit the libraries in the Marshall Space
Flight Center.  Something odd I noticed while in the 4200 Building
(Center headquarters) building library:

While the library has a good collection of recent reports (like case for
mars, lunar bases & space settlements in the 21st century, report on the
national comission on space, etc.), the reports were in 'mint'
conidtion.  You would think that in a building that has oversight of a
fair chunk of NASA, these kind of future program reports would get heavy
reading. Apparently not.  From this I deduced that the space program
(NASA version) has died.

The main NASA/Army library (Marshall Space Flight Center is carved out
of the Army Redstone Arsenal, they share library space.) is overcrowded
in shelf space, and understaffed, which is about what you would expect
for a government operation, but it is also not heavily used.  In a
center with thousands of government and contractor technical people, you
would expect more activity than I saw.

------------------------------

Date: 11 May 88 03:31:20 GMT
From: killer!bigtex!james@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (James Van Artsdalen)
Subject: Re: Is it CBS or NASA?

In article <1263@uokmax.UUCP>, madean@uokmax.UUCP (Mark A Dean) wrote:
> NASA isn't perfect, there is some sexism, but mostly by the good-*old*
> boys who are about to retire anyway.... Hopefully we'll be able to get
> rid of many of the problems when we dump some of that old excess
> baggage.

I actually worry more about the new generation of management than the
old.  This group has grown up for most of their NASA careers in the
bureaucracy.  They may never shake that mindset.  Earlier management at
least was around in the early sixties and knew how to get something
done.

In addition, I'll point out that the current management exodus isn't
unprecedented.  It may not even be as large as the group that left in
the early '80s.  NASA (JSC at least) went through a couple of early
retirement incentives that were very successful - indeed too much so.  A
lot of mid-level Apollo-era management left then.

Perhaps another indicator of the problems: A friend recently quit his
job at a JSC contractor.  The contractor in question is known for
questionable practices.  His answer to my query was "I could take the
corruption, but not the incompetence" - this in reference to contractor
management...

James R. Van Artsdalen

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #233
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 26 May 88 06:26:32 EDT
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA09836; Thu, 26 May 88 03:24:55 PDT
	id AA09836; Thu, 26 May 88 03:24:55 PDT
Date: Thu, 26 May 88 03:24:55 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8805261024.AA09836@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #234

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 234

Today's Topics:
			Re: Is it CBS or NASA?
	     Re: NASA's basic requirments for astronauts
			Re: Is it CBS or NASA?
	     NASA news release (becoming an astronaut...)
			 Astronaut selection
		       Re: Astronaut selection
		   Re: Uncle Carl is on the rampage
		Vocabulary lesson #5:  "Space Booster"
			  response to Bowery
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 11 May 88 03:55:52 GMT
From: killer!bigtex!james@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (James Van Artsdalen)
Subject: Re: Is it CBS or NASA?

IN article <4319@dasys1.UUCP>, lkw@dasys1.UUCP (Laura Watson) wrote:
> Tasks such as???

Program Administrator.  Astronauts have always been supposed to take
part in the decision process at all levels at JSC.  Even things like
planning simulations get an invitation for the astronaut office.
Certainly anything involving in-flight activities warrants their
presence.  In the past few years it became less of a practice to
actually participate, but it was originally just the way things were
done, and it is again becoming more common.

Scientist.  The scientist astronauts also participate in general science
conferences to try to stay with their field(s) of expertise.  This means
reading all the journals and going to conferences, just like any other
scientist.  They are to be able to function as a scientist in orbit in
fact, not just in name.  Throw in with this the need to be a good
engineer (as I suppose most experimental scientists must be away), as
one of the main points of having manned presence is that you can fix
something that goes wrong...

The two paragraphs above each constitute a full-time job for most
people.  In addition:

Medical training.  There's no quick ambulance from orbit.  All of the
astronauts get medical training, including time in the emergency room at
Herman Hospital in Houston, where they learn to handle some nasty
injuries.

Flight qualifications.  I'm not sure how this is done any more, but the
early scientist/astronauts maintained full qualifications to fly the
orbiter if necessary: at least Owen Garriott could have landed it.  This
means not only pilot-training, but maintaining air-hours, and astronauts
need lots of flight hours.

Public Relations.  Got to smile for the cameras, make speeches, do all
sorts of gross stuff, and smile like a politician.  Not the most time
consuming part of the job, but not all of these people like being center
stage, nor the notoriety: "May I have your autograph?"

Have no fear, the government gets its money's worth out of these
people...

James R. Van Artsdalen

------------------------------

Date: 10 May 88 16:42:20 GMT
From: mmm!viper!dave@umn-cs.arpa  (David Messer)
Subject: Re: NASA's basic requirments for astronauts

In article <3912@gryphon.CTS.COM> gbarbay@gryphon.CTS.COM (Gordon Barbay) writes:
 >Since there seems to be some question over the requirements for
 >astronaut candidates, what follows is excerpts from the NASA
 >brochure "Announcement for Mission Specialist and Pilot Astronaut
 >Candidates".
 >  . . .

I wonder what their REAL requirements are.  The requirements for a
Mission Specialist are so vague that they are almost meaningless.  So
how do they select from the millions of "qualified" candidates?

------------------------------

Date: 9 May 88 23:13:59 GMT
From: ulysses!terminus!picard@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Luc)
Subject: Re: Is it CBS or NASA?

Okay here we go.  The qualifications for Mission Specialists are:
   A degree (BS) in a hard science or engineering w/ 3 years experience
   20/100 vision in each eye correctable to 20/20
   The ability to pass a Class II flight physical.
   They ask if you're a licensed pilot, but it's not required.
   
The 5' 9" requirement dates back to Mercury, and I think it was 5'11",
the height limit now is something like 6' 4" (I don't have the
qualifications in front of me).

++rich

------------------------------

Date: 15 May 88 05:16:12 GMT
From: sonia!khayo@cs.ucla.edu  (Eric Behr)
Subject: NASA news release (becoming an astronaut...)

>From SpaceLink BBS [(205) 895 0028, Huntsville AL]:
==================================================================

NASA ANNOUNCES 2-YEAR ASTRONAUT SELECTION CYCLE

May 11, 1988


RELEASE:   88-63

     NASA today announced plans to conduct astronaut candidate
selections on a 2-year cycle and has scheduled the next class of
candidates for 1990.  Previously, NASA has selected astronaut candidates
as needed, with selections the last 10 years occurring in 1978, 1980,
1984, 1985 and 1987.

     The 2-year process will moderate the demand on resources required
for candidate selection and training while maintaining the manpower
levels necessary to meet mission requirements.

     The next selection cycle will begin July 1, 1989, the cutoff date
for applications.  Applications received after that will be eligible for
consideration in the next cycle.  Nominees also will be submitted by the
military services at the same time.  After 6 months of screening,
medical evaluation and interviews, selections will be announced in
January 1990 and candidates will report to the Johnson Space Center in
July.

     The selection process will begin again in July 1991 with the cutoff
for applications to be considered in the 1992 selection.  The number of
selections made every 2 years will be based on projected requirements.

     NASA will continue to accept and review applications from the
general public on an ongoing basis.  Applicants for the Astronaut
Candidate Program must be citizens of the United States.

     Applications can be obtained by writing to the NASA Lyndon B.
Johnson Space Center, Astronaut Selection Office, AHX, Houston, Texas
77058

==================================================================
                                                       Eric

------------------------------

Date: 24 May 88 07:56:11 GMT
From: sonia!khayo@cs.ucla.edu  (Eric Behr)
Subject: Astronaut selection

Some odds & ends about the NASA astronaut corps, from
SpaceLink BBS (205 895 0028):
=====================================================================
Background

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) selected the
first group of astronauts in 1959.  From 500 candidates having the
required jet aircraft flight experience and engineering training as well
as height below 5 feet 11 inches, 7 military men became the Nation's
first astronauts.  The second and third groups chosen included civilians
who had extensive flying experience.  By 1964, requirements had changed
and emphasis was placed on academic qualifications; in 1965, six
scientist astronauts were selected from a group of 400 applicants who
had a doctorate or equivalent experience in the natural sciences,
medicine, or engineering.  The group named in 1978 was the first of
Space Shuttle flight crews and was composed of 15 pilots and 20 mission
specialists; 6 of the 35 were women and 4 were members of minorities.
Since then, 4 additional groups have been selected with an even mix of
pilots and mission specialists.

In total, 172 astronauts have been selected in the 12 groups from 1959
through 1987; there are 96 astronauts currently in the program; 60 have
retired, resigned or been reassigned; and 16 are deceased.

Payload specialists are career scientists or engineers selected by their
employer or country for their expertise in conducting a specific experi-
ment or commercial venture on a Space Shuttle mission.  Their names are
not included in the Astronaut Fact Book.

NASA accepts applications for the Astronaut Candidate Program on a
continuing basis and selects candidates as needed.


            INSTITUTIONS WITH LARGEST NUMBER OF ASTRONAUT GRADUATES

U.S. Naval Academy         31
U.S. Air Force Academy     18
Massachusetts Inst. Tech.  16
Purdue University          15
U.S. Naval Postgrad. Sch.  14
U.S. Military Academy      11
Colorado U.                 9
Stanford                    8
U.S. Air Force Inst. Tech.  8
California Inst. Tech.      7
U. of Michigan              7
Stanford U.                 7
U. of Southern California   7
Auburn                      6

=====================================================================
                                                       Eric

------------------------------

Date: 24 May 88 16:08:17 GMT
From: paulf@shasta.stanford.edu  (Paul A. Flaherty)
Subject: Re: Astronaut selection

Um, why does Stanford show up twice in that list?

-=Paul Flaherty, N9FZX	     | One Internet to rule them all,    -- Tome

------------------------------

Date: 4 May 88 19:11:59 GMT
From: concertina!fiddler@sun.com  (Steve Hix)
Subject: Re: Uncle Carl is on the rampage

In article <8270@ames.arpa>, mike@ames.arpa (Mike Smithwick) writes:
> I just heard an incredible piece of dreck emanating from the direction
> of Carl Sagan's mouth yesterday morning.
> 
> Carl : "Well, yes, the Soviets would have to worry about us, seeing
> that they are so far ahead in both manned and planetary space
> exploration"
> 
> This is not to criticize the concept of the mission, so don't start
> another flame.war about that. Just Carl should learn to think before
> he speaks.

I get the impression that he *does* think before he speaks and means
exactly what he says.  Unfortunately.  Sincerity != good sense (or
correctness, for that matter).  ( flames to dev/null, thanks )

------------------------------

Reply-To: pnet01!jim@trout.nosc.mil
Date: Fri, 6 May 88 00:08:26 PDT
From: jim@pnet01.cts.com (Jim Bowery)
To: crash!Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: Vocabulary lesson #5:  "Space Booster"

space booster, n, 1. A vehicle which carries payloads sky-high by expelling
horrendous quantities of hot gases at enormous velocities, often carrying
things all the way to orbit.  2.  A person who tries to send the NASA budget
sky high by expelling enormous quantities of hot gas instead of trying to
give us a space program or create a spacefaring civilization.

UUCP: {cbosgd, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!pnet01!jim
ARPA: crash!pnet01!jim@nosc.mil
INET: jim@pnet01.cts.com

------------------------------

Date: 5 May 88 16:10:50 GMT
From: mtunx!whuts!homxb!mtuxo!mtgzz!dls@rutgers.edu  (XMRP50000[jto]-d.l.skran)
Subject: response to Bowery

>> Second, do everything you can to help lower the cost of launch to low
>> earth orbit.  Once again, remember that there is absolutely no hope
>> of this happening within NASA's space program or anything like it so
>> forget about programs like ALS or NASP.  Instead, do everything you
>> can to protect private companies like Boeing's commercial division
>> which along with Hughes would develop and sell launch services based
>> on the Jarvis design if NASA were prevented from ever engaging in
>> development programs like ALS (this is virtually a quote from a
>> person high up in Boeing).

If, as Mr. Bowery contends, NASA is so corrupt, rotten, lazy, stupid,
etc., why does ALS concern Boeing at all? It should be a snap for the
quick smart engineers at Boeing to build and launch a Jarvis, and get
rich before NASA can even generate the ALS blueprints? Or is it possible
that Mr. Bowery has presented only part of the story?  Also, as usual,
Mr. Bowery has presented an unsubstantiated "quote" to butruss his
reasoning.

I think any corporate officer would have to be pretty stupid to spend a
single dollar on a launch vehicle when the main competition will consist
of four government subsidized national launch operations, namely those
of Soviet Union, China, ESA, and Japan Inc.

>> Another item critical to this goal is to make sure that part of the
>> approximately $10B/year (like around $6B to $8B) is provided to
>> scientists who want to launch things to orbit and require that they
>> launch on

This is the core of Mr. Bowery's thinking. Instead of subsidizing the
aerospace corporations, the NASA budget will be doled out to countless
professors and grad students, who by some miracle of organization, will
generate a coherent, efficient, well directed space program.

Translation: stop spending money in such a way that it benefits
engineers who work for large corporations. Instead, spend money in such
a way that it benefits my friends who do research at universities and
small companies.

The net has repeatedly pointed out to Mr. Bowery the various problems
with his ideas, to little effect.

>> private launch services.  Also, require high volume military
>> requirements (such as the navigation satellites) be launched via
>> private services.  In order to pursue these policy objectives, forget
>> about trying to talk the leaders of SpacePac, SpaceCause and the NSS
>> Legislative Committee into it.  If they were acting in good faith
>> toward these goals they would have placed protection of private
>> launch services at the top of their priorities

Said organizations are working very hard to support private launch
operations. A current target is making sure that the DOT gets enough
dollars to process all their applications for private launch services.

If Mr. Bowery was looking for constructive ways to help
NSS/Spacecause/Spacepac achieve the goal of a strong private launch
industry, he would find a lot to do, and a lot of people who agreed with
him. Unfortunately, he has chosen to devote his energies to a series of
wild and unsubstantiated attacks on various individuals in leadership
positions.

>> and beat the hell out of congress about letting Fletcher get away
>> with ignoring the new Reagan space policy's push toward use of
>> private services.  Instead, they are supporting whatever NASA sees as
>> a good idea this week.

This statement merely indicates that Mr. Bowery is not very well
informed about the activities of the organizations he likes to attack.

>> Replace the leadership of these bodies AND act on your OWN to support

Translation: elect Mr. Bowery to the NSS board

>> these policy objectives by getting involved with candidates for
>> political office in the >1990< election NOW!

By all means, support the candidates of your choice, but ...

Mr. Bowery's advice aside, you should consider contributing to Spacepac.
An honest source of information on Spacpac is the Federal Elections
Commission. Write to them -- I did before I became involved with
Spacepac. I was impressed, and I think you'll be too.

Mr. Bowery's allegations of cross-subsidization of
NSS/Spacecause/Spacepac are simply more unsubstantiated
allegations(mud-slinging).

Spacepac
2801 B Ocean Park Boulevard
Suite S
Santa Monica, CA 90405

>> Third, give yourself valuable skills in potential launch service
>> companies, potential space facilities companies and, most
>> importantly, in applications of space technology such as materials
>> science.  If that means you have to go back to school, start looking
>> for a good materials school now and figure out how you are going to
>> get your degree before the turn of the century.  Good places to start
>> looking for advice and direction are leading edge semiconductor
>> companies, AMROC, Boeing commercial, Office of Commercial Space
>> Transportation (Transportation Dept.), Hughes and your public
>> library.  Stay away from SDI related fields -- it is a house of cards
>> that will collapse in the next few years.
>> 
>> Fourth, start making PERSONAL connections with people who appear to
>> have the integrity to try to get to do things in space based on their
>> own merit rather than with Other People's Money (taxpayer's money).
>> These are people who have their own ideas and ambitions regarding
>> commercial space enterprises.  There are a lot of crazies among these
>> folks, but don't let that stop you from getting to know them and what
>> their visions are.  SOME of them are going to be the entrepreneurs of
>> the coming space age.  (No, we haven't yet entered the space age in
>> the West... when we enter the space age for real, everyone will KNOW
>> it.)

This is a wonderful dream which will founder on the reality that the
United States is competing with four other corporate states in space,
and AMROC has not one single chance(nor does anyone else) without
massive subsidization. I support this kind of subsidy, but let's be
honest about the real possibilities for commercial space activities.

Over the years, I have seen a number of "Boweries" come and go in the
space movement. They grab attention for a while, but eventually the word
gets around, and people who are serious about moving into space start
ignoring them after first listening carefully to their ideas to see if
they do have some good ones.

To the net: I ask you to independently confirm Mr. Bowery's allegations
before judging the organizations and people he attacks. I applaud the
collective decision to ignore Mr. Bowery's frequent attacks of
rhetorical overload.

To Mr. Bowery: I challenge you to substantiate your multiple allegations
and I urge that you cease attacking and begin to engage in a
constructive dialog.

There is an old cliche: we shall hang together, or we shall hang
separately.  This sort of factional nonsense assures that the pro-space
movement will never achieve its goals.

Dale Skran
Speaking for himself

(not Amon!)

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #234
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 27 May 88 06:26:37 EDT
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA11317; Fri, 27 May 88 03:25:45 PDT
	id AA11317; Fri, 27 May 88 03:25:45 PDT
Date: Fri, 27 May 88 03:25:45 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8805271025.AA11317@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #235

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 235

Today's Topics:
			the old days vs today
			    A New Holiday?
		   Re: Uncle Carl is on the rampage
			  Re: A New Holiday?
			  Re: A New Holiday?
			  Re: A New Holiday?
			  Re: A New Holiday?
			  Re: A New Holiday?
			  Re: A New Holiday?
			  Re: A New Holiday?
			  Re: A New Holiday?
			  Re: A New Holiday?
			  Re: A New Holiday?
		  Petition for redress of grievances
		       Open reply to Jim Bowery
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 6 May 88 21:32:22 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: the old days vs today

> ... it was the (superb) Lunar Orbiter's mission to do it
> for Surveyor (also superb! remember when we could knock 'em off like that?)

Ranger would be a better comparison to the current state of NASA...
-- 
NASA is to spaceflight as            |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
the Post Office is to mail.          | {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 9 May 88 15:15:37 GMT
From: bbn.com!mfidelma@bbn.com  (Miles Fidelman)
Subject: A New Holiday?

Does anybody else out there think that July 20 (the day of the first moon
landing) should be a recognized holiday?

------------------------------

Date: 9 May 88 17:32:00 GMT
From: necntc!encore!paradis@husc6.harvard.edu  (Jim Paradis)
Subject: Re: Uncle Carl is on the rampage

In article <8270@ames.arpa> mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov.UUCP (Mike Smithwick) writes:
>Carl : "Well, yes, the Soviets would have to worry about us, seeing
>that they are so far ahead in both manned and planetary space
>exploration"
>
>[...] Carl should learn to think before he speaks.

Oh, I dunno about that... I think that this is a GREAT jab at all those
State Department spooks and "America First" types who honestly believe
that the Soviets wouldn't know the sky was blue if they hadn't stolen
the information from the U.S.

Jim Paradis, Encore Computer
(.signature undergoing renovations. Please pardon our appearance.)

------------------------------

Date: 9 May 88 23:50:26 GMT
From: ganelon.usc.edu!robiner@oberon.usc.edu  (Steve)
Subject: Re: A New Holiday?

In article <24337@bbn.COM> mfidelma@BBN.COM () writes:
>Does anybody else out there think that July 20 (the day of the first
>moon landing) should be a recognized holiday?

I think it's a marvelous idea.  It could be called moon-day and it would
remind everyone how important space exploration is.  It would also be a
yearly event during which media would undoubtedly seize on to
demonstrate how far we've come in the last year.  ( let's not start
until 1989, OK? )

=Steve=

------------------------------

Date: 10 May 88 15:59:29 GMT
From: tlh@purdue.edu  (Thomas L Hausmann)
Subject: Re: A New Holiday?

In article <24337@bbn.COM>, mfidelma@bbn.com (Miles Fidelman) writes:
> Does anybody else out there think that July 20 (the day of the first
> moon landing) should be a recognized holiday?

People are already ignoring the "holidays" we currently have!  (Or are
pushing them off onto Mondays.)  For example, few universities (none I
have attended) cancel classes for Labor Day.

Perhaps something on the level of Flag Day to commemorate the event is
possible, but I feel that most people would be relatively
unenthusiastic.

-Tom

------------------------------

Date: 10 May 88 15:46:34 GMT
From: anaid@astro.as.utexas.edu  (Diana Hadley)
Subject: Re: A New Holiday?

In 1971 a high school student in Utah, J. David Baxter, made that same
suggestion -- that July 20 be considered a national celebration.  Ken
Randle of AIAA (American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics)
picked up the ball and has worked for over a decade and a half now.
Thanks to his efforts, and the efforts of many others, in 1976,
President Ford, at the request of AIAA, issued the first Space
Exploration Day Proclamation for July 20th, to co-incide with Viking
One's landing on Mars.  Since the early 80's governors of all 50 states
plus Puerto Rico have issued US Space Observance related proclamations.

In 1980, Spaceweek Inc. was founded as a non-profit educational
corporation to oversee a national program that conducts educational
space-related activities at the local level to bring public attention of
the many benefits and potentials of space with the goal of conducting an
annual national celebration of space, expanding the celebration to
include the whole eight day period (July 16 - July 24) of the Apollo 11
mission.  Besides the landing of Viking One, the Apollo-Soyuz
anniversary also falls within this period.  Spaceweek activities are
sponsored on the local level, and I suspect many of the people on this
network have their own stories to tell of their efforts to organize
Spaceweek events in their hometown.

Addresses:

Spaceweek National HQ
P.O. Box 56172
Houston, TX  77258
(713) 470-0007

Mr. Randle is with the AIAA section in Utah.

(Check with your congress rep to see if he/she are sponsoring
this year's Space Exploration Day Resolutions.)

------------------------------

Date: 11 May 88 23:30:47 GMT
From: oliveb!3comvax!michaelm@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Michael McNeil)
Subject: Re: A New Holiday?

In article <8998@oberon.USC.EDU> robiner@ganelon.usc.edu (Steve) writes:
>I think it's a marvelous idea.  It could be called moon-day and it
>would remind everyone how important space exploration is.  It would
>also be a yearly event during which media would undoubtedly seize on to
>demonstrate how far we've come in the last year.  ( let's not start
>until 1989, OK? )

I also think that a holiday on July 20 is an excellent idea.  However,
as far as "Moon Day" is concerned, we've already got some 52 "Moon Days"
every year (one each week) -- of course, the name has gotten shortened a
bit over the years....  How about if we just incorporate all Mondays
into the weekend!

Michael McNeil

------------------------------

Date: 11 May 88 16:57:03 GMT
From: tektronix!sequent!mntgfx!mbutts@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Mike Butts)
Subject: Re: A New Holiday?

>From article <8998@oberon.USC.EDU>, by robiner@ganelon.usc.edu (Steve):
> I think it's a marvelous idea.  It could be called moon-day and it would
> remind everyone how important space exploration is.  It would also be a
> yearly event during which media would undoubtedly seize on to demonstrate
> how far we've come in the last year.  ( let's not start until 1989, OK? )

You bet!  I suggest you take the idea up with the greeting card
companies.  I'm serious!  They were behind the development many of our
'secondary' holidays.  They'd have a fine opportunity to purvey space
photography on cards, posters, etc.  (How about 'Wish you were here'
postcards?)

Mike Butts

------------------------------

Date: 11 May 88 17:27:34 GMT
From: pyramid!cbmvax!vu-vlsi!swatsun!leif@decwrl.dec.com  (Leif Kirschenbaum)
Subject: Re: A New Holiday?

In article <24337@bbn.COM> mfidelma@BBN.COM () writes:
> Does anybody else out there think that July 20 (the day of the first
> moon landing) should be a recognized holiday?

Yes, it would be a great opportunity for the media and other
organizations to remind the public of how far we've come and how far we
have *not* come.  People (other than the minority already interested)
might learn about our space program, or lack of one, and might see some
of the significance in it.  This hopefully would give it greater support
and thus more impetus.

The only drawback I see in June 20 is that some schools have let out by
that time.  Most schools seize upon holidays as an opportunity to teach
important ideas to young people (elementary and junior high and some
high schools).  Martin Luther King Day teaches about prejudice.
Washington's and Lincoln's birthdays- to teach about our government and
the value of freedom.  Memorial Day to teach about the negative value of
war.  And others.  Lunar Landing Day (or whatever) would be a great
opportunity to teach young people about our space program, its
importance, and where it can go from here.  I think the support of
future citizens will do the most to garner support for our space
program.

------------------------------

Date: 12 May 88 13:30:47 GMT
From: cfa!cfa250!mcdowell@husc6.harvard.edu  (Jonathan McDowell)
Subject: Re: A New Holiday?

I actually celebrate Dec 21st - the day humans first left the Earth's
gravitational sphere of influence and opened the highway to the worlds.
Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders left Earth orbit in Apollo VIII
on their way to lunar orbit. It's a good excuse for those of us who have
no other for carrying on celebrating the ancient pagan festival of the
winter solstice. But I think Jul 20 would be a good date too.  The USSR
makes a big fuss on Cosmonautics Day, Apr 12 (anniversary of Gagarin's
flight) - does anyone know if it's actually a national day-off holiday
there or does the worker's paradise not go in for that sort of idea?

Jonathan McDowell

------------------------------

Date: 12 May 88 19:04:32 GMT
From: eachus@mitre-bedford.arpa  (Robert Eachus)
Subject: Re: A New Holiday?

     I have always assumed that July 20 would someday be a planet wide
holiday -- on the moon, and probably on Mars as well (the first unmanned
Mars lander landed on July 20).  Seriously, bang on your personnel
departments, congressmen, etc.  Space Day is a much more appropriate
holiday than Labor Day, New Years Day, Martin Luther Kings Birthday, or
Presidents Day. (And occurs at a much nicer time of year!)

					Robert I. Eachus

------------------------------

Date: 13 May 88 16:25:56 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!its63b!bob@uunet.uu.net  (ERCF08 Bob Gray)
Subject: Re: A New Holiday?

In article <1988May11.095708.669@mntgfx.mentor.com> mbutts@mntgfx.mentor.com (Mike Butts) writes:
>You bet!  I suggest you take the idea up with the greeting card companies.
>I'm serious!  They were behind the development many of our 'secondary' 
>holidays.  They'd have a fine opportunity to purvey space photography
>on cards, posters, etc.  (How about 'Wish you were here' postcards?)

And until I can post it in person, How about some "Wish I
was there" postcards.
	Bob.

------------------------------

Date: 17 May 88 18:57:42 GMT
From: killer!tness7!tness1!sugar!peter@eddie.mit.edu  (Peter da Silva)
Subject: Re: A New Holiday?

In article <24337@bbn.COM>, mfidelma@bbn.com.UUCP writes:
> Does anybody else out there think that July 20 (the day of the first moon
> landing) should be a recognized holiday?

Yes. Apollo Day?

-- Peter da Silva

------------------------------

Reply-To: pnet01!jim@trout.nosc.mil
Date: Sun, 8 May 88 21:26:33 PDT
From: jim@pnet01.cts.com (Jim Bowery)
To: crash!Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: Petition for redress of grievances

The Pikes Peak chapter of the National Space Society is circulating this
petition.  You should print it out, sign it and mail it to them at:

Pike's Peak L5
919 N 19th #23
Colorado Springs, CO 80904

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We the members of the chapters of the National Space Society, find the
following:

- That the policies, attitudes, and actions of the leadership of the
Society are failing to promote the stated goals of the organization.

- That the Society's current publication, in it's present form, fails to
recognize the organization's purpose of existence.

- That the actions of the current publication are in every way in
opposition to the chapter structure.  Space World therefore spends
considerable effort undermining effors of the active NSS membership.

- That the editorial policies of Space World Magazine serve to exclude
the positions and beliefs of the majority of the active membership.

Therefore it is imperative the following changes take place:

- The National Space Society leadership must openly recognize the stated
objectives of the organization being that of:

        The creation of a space-faring civilization which will establish
	communities beyond Earth; promotion of the earliest possible
	establishment of self-sustaining human settlements in space;
	promotion of large scale industrialization and private
	enterprise in space; (Bylaws of the National Space Society;
	Article II, Section 1(A).

- Those leaders which openly renounce these objectives shall be
considered to have renounced their positions as leaders of the
organization.

- The editorial staff of Space World Magazine must be changed to reflect
the stated objectives of the Society.

- NSS and Space World Magazine must be changed to reflect the stated
objectives of the Society.

- NSS and Space World Magazine must cease its blind support of
government space endeavors.  More discussions of pros and cons of NASA
and military space projects must take place.

- The editorial policy must be changed to an orientation toward the
future of space development with a mixture of approximately 25% current
topics (Space Shuttle, political action, etc.), 50% near future plans
(Space Station, private launch companies, External Tanks Corp., etc.),
and 25% distant future possibilities (O'Neill colonies, solar power
sattelites, etc.).

- A wider variety of new authors must be published in the magazine.  The
magazine will also provide greater access to members and their ideas and
opinions.

- The Space Advocate section is to be removed and all columns will be
placed within the magazine at suitable locations.  In addition,
information concerning chapter and membership activities will be
provided as an integral part of the publication.

- Space World and the remainder of the National Space Society leadership
will recognize international space efforts in addition to the American
and Soviet programs.

The overwhelming majority of the active membership is of similar
sentiment.  Membership of such individuals is drastically declining,
except in areas with active chapters to support their interest.  These
changes must be made while an active membership is in place to achieve
our stated objectives.

Written for Pikes Peak L5 Chapter
by Keith L. Hamburger

UUCP: {cbosgd, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!pnet01!jim
ARPA: crash!pnet01!jim@nosc.mil
INET: jim@pnet01.cts.com

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 27 Apr 88 15:42:14 PDT
From: Bruce Bon <bon@saavik.jpl.nasa.gov>
Sender: ota@galileo.s1.gov
Subject: Open reply to Jim Bowery

It is my hope that this will reach all NSS members who received Jim
Bowery's blistering reply to Scott Pace's earlier response to Bowery's
message regarding National Space Society Policy!

Conflict of interest: it is absurd to expect those of us who have an
active vocational interest in the space program to avoid participation
in organizations such as NSS or SpacePAC or SpaceCause which try to
affect national space policy!  Would you expect unions not to try to
influence right-to-work legislation?  Or government employees not to
vote?  Legal conflict of interest generally involves direct and
substantial financial gain, which Bowery has not shown.  His allegations
are reckless, insulting and full of misinformation.

I believe that there is a broad consensus within NSS, which is
faithfully represented by the Board of Directors, that the U.S. won't
achieve substantial occupation of space in our lifetimes without
government support, and that the space station, for all of its Cadillac
faults, is the only game in town for the next decade or two.  Of course
there is disagreement, and that is perfectly healthy, but the allegation
that the NSS board is dominated by an unethical, minority viewpoint
shows either a very warped perception of NSS or intentional
misrepresentation of reality.

All organizations suffer from incomplete communication, and NSS is
certainly no different.  It would be truely amazing if all the Board
members were aware of the opinions and complaints of every disgruntled
member.  My experience is that it is very difficult to strike a balance
between having adequate communication and getting anything else done.

I have known Scott Pace for several years and have a great deal of
respect for both his competence and his sincerity.  He is certainly not
the unethical NASA lacky that Bowery accuses him of being.  This, in
fact, is what compelled me to reply.  Bowery, or any other NSS member,
is entitled to disagree with any position of the Board or anyone else,
but such emotional, uninformed, irresponsible attacks as his most recent
communication show his true colors -- he must be a fanatic, infantile
person who disregards facts at his convenience in order to promote his
unpopular position.

In case you couldn't tell, I won't be voting for Jim Bowery for NSS
Board of Directors!

					Bruce Bon
					bon@robotics.jpl.nasa.gov

Caveat:  I work for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, but my views on this
	or any other topics are not dictated by my employer, nor do they
	necessarily represent the policy or opinion of my employer.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #235
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 28 May 88 06:21:53 EDT
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA12598; Sat, 28 May 88 03:21:06 PDT
	id AA12598; Sat, 28 May 88 03:21:06 PDT
Date: Sat, 28 May 88 03:21:06 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8805281021.AA12598@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #236

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 236

Today's Topics:
			   Name change vote
		      Re: Hawaiian launch sites
		      Re: Hawaiian launch sites
		     Re: How hot is it in space?
		     Re: How hot is it in space?
		     Re: How hot is it in space?
		     Re: How hot is it in space?
		     Re: How hot is it in space?
		     Technology Transfer Worries?
	      Mir watch predictions and orbital elements
	       Re: Mir watch predictions and orbital e
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Mon, 9 May 1988 13:19-EDT 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
To: "/usr/amon/Email/Email.L5" <Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu>
Subject: Name change vote

The results are official. Ballots were counted over the weekend by Gary
Oleson and Terry Dawson:

National Space Society:		3388		64%
Space Frontier Society:		1830		34%
Blank and write-in:		  64		 1%


The numbers I'm giving might possibly be off by a few since I got them
from Gary at his office and he quoted them from memory. Nonetheless,
the results are rather overwhelmingly in favor of NSS. For all those
who took voted, regardless of your choice, I thank you for
participating in the democratic process. I personally may not agree
with the choice, but the will of the majority has been spoken. 

				Welcome to the National Space Society.
				Dale Amon
				NSS Board of Directors

------------------------------

Date: 7 May 88 22:16:15 GMT
From: cfa!willner@husc6.harvard.edu  (Steve Willner)
Subject: Re: Hawaiian launch sites

[Apparently this article failed to go out earlier.  If it did go out, I
apologize for sending it twice.]

>From article <7897@ames.arpa>, by eugene@pioneer.arpa (Eugene N. Miya):
> Ach!  You guys have such a lack of sensitivity!  A great way to wreck
> one of the best optical observing sites in the world.  Okay, SPACE at
> all costs.

You refer no doubt to Mauna Kea, from which I have just returned.  It is
indeed one of the world's best observing sites.  But how wreck?  The
work lights would be behind Mauna Loa and below the clouds.  Launches
would only briefly illuminate the south.  And if ever there comes a time
when there are many launches per night, some of them will be carrying
telescopes.

Steve Willner            Phone 617-495-7123         Bitnet:   willner@cfa
60 Garden St.            FTS:      830-7123           UUCP:   willner@cfa
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA                 Internet: willner@cfa.harvard.edu

------------------------------

Date: 12 May 88 15:10:49 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!its63b!bob@uunet.uu.net  (ERCF08 Bob Gray)
Subject: Re: Hawaiian launch sites

In article <880426105252.00000211081@grouch.JPL.NASA.GOV> PJS@GROUCH.JPL.NASA.GOV (Peter Scott) writes:
> ... Does anyone know where Ariane
>is built and how it is shipped to Kourou?

As I haven't seen any other replies...

Arianne is built at the Aerospatiale works in France,

The first and second stages are taken my sea to Kourou.
The third stage and payload are taken by air.
	Bob.

------------------------------

Date: 4 May 88 18:08:30 GMT
From: beckenba@csvax.caltech.edu  (Joe Beckenbach)
Subject: Re: How hot is it in space?

In article <873@nucleus.UUCP> hacker@nucleus.UUCP (Thomas Hacker, ACM) writes:
>>of about 290 K (no surprise). Surprisingly (to me, anyway) a polished
>>aluminium body will be much hotter (it absorbs less sunlight, but
>>radiates far less).
>
>Why would a polished surface be much hotter if it is not absorbing any
>energy (if it reflects 100% of the incoming radiation across the whole
>spectrum), and it is (I assume) radiating energy due to heat radiation
>(usually called "blackbody" radiation)? Planck's law doesn't have a
>term within it that makes the intensity of the radiation emitted a
>function of the reflectivity of the surface.

>Thomas J. Hacker (hacker@nucleus.UUCP)

	Because aluminum and other metals, though they absorb little in
the way of EM radiation, they can radiate it much more slowly than they
can receive it. Most metals [that I've come in contact with.. OUCH! :-)]
reflect visible light well and infrared less well. They can't reradiate
at all quickly though! That is why metals are hot in sunlight on the
earth, and after an hour's drive in the country you can't stand barefoot
on the hood of your car without risking severe burns for about fifteen
minutes.
	The reflectivity of the body is not involved in Planck's Law,
true; the problem is that no material reflects evenly over the entire
spectrum.  Planck's Law describes only what goes out, not how it got in.
And no material is actually a black body- I don't know what comes
closest.
	So to design using a material knowing it will both radiate and
absorb, the problem is to balance the input and output energy. If a hunk
of radiator will be in sun 50% of the time and exposed to black space
50% of the time, I need to know the ratio of reradiation to absorbtion.
If it absorbs faster, I get more energy than I can reradiate later in
the radiator-- instead of cooling I get heating. Oops. Ratio of 1.0000..
is not a help either: the energy taken in matches the energy reradiated,
and I can't use it to cool my craft. Only when the _net_ reradiation is
greater than the _net_ absorbtion will my radiator be useful. Polishing
normally ups the reflectivity, thus lowering the absorption rate;
conventional wisdom states that polishing does nothing to the
reradiation rate from Planck's Law.

Joe Beckenbach	CS BS ??			-- I'D RATHER BE ORBITING

------------------------------

Date: 7 May 88 22:22:44 GMT
From: cfa!willner@husc6.harvard.edu  (Steve Willner)
Subject: Re: How hot is it in space?

[Apparently this failed to go out earlier.  If it did go out, I
apologize for sending it twice.]

In article <873@nucleus.UUCP>, hacker@nucleus.UUCP (Thomas Hacker) writes:
> Why would a polished surface be much hotter if it is not absorbing any
> energy (if it reflects 100% of the incoming radiation across the whole
> spectrum),

Nothing, except possibly a superconductor, is a perfect reflector.
Polished aluminum, for example, reflects only about 93% of visible
light.

> and it is (I assume) radiating energy due to heat radiation (usually
> called "blackbody" radiation)?

If it can't absorb, it can't radiate.  Look up "Kirchhoff's Law."

> Planck's law doesn't have a term within it that makes the intensity of
> the radiation emitted a function of the reflectivity of the surface.

Planck's law contains a _factor_ called "emissivity".  Radiation emitted
or absorbed is proportional to this factor.  In general, emissivity is a
function of wavelength.  For aluminum, the visible emissivity is about
7% (as noted above), while the infrared emissivity is about 2%.  Thus an
aluminum sheet will be hotter than a blackbody when illuminated by
sunlight.

(I suppose one could adopt a definition of "Planck's Law" that omits the
emissivity factor and thus applies only to perfect blackbodies, but
that's a matter of semantics, not physics.  One certainly has to include
emissivity in calculating thermal emission from real objects.)

Steve Willner            Phone 617-495-7123         Bitnet:   willner@cfa
60 Garden St.            FTS:      830-7123           UUCP:   willner@cfa
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA                 Internet: willner@cfa.harvard.edu

------------------------------

Date: 9 May 88 22:28:51 GMT
From: ddsw1!igloo!bhv@gargoyle.uchicago.edu  (Bronis Vidugiris)
Subject: Re: How hot is it in space?

I don't know how to describe the actual charachteristics of polished
aluminum exactly.  I do know, however, that it does NOT reflect 100% of
the incoming radiation across the spectrum.  I believe the region where
it starts to absorb significantly is in the infra-red, but don't quote
me.

I also know that blackbody radiation is a special case which
DELIBERATELY excludes the properties of the surface from the radiation.
A blackbody is can be made by making a very small pinhole in a hot
cavity, as I recall...

Bronis Vidugiris
igloo!bhv@ddsw1

------------------------------

Date: 16 May 88 22:24:41 GMT
From: netsys!nucleus!hacker@lll-winken.llnl.gov  (Thomas Hacker)
Subject: Re: How hot is it in space?

In article <638@igloo.UUCP> bhv@igloo.UUCP (Bronis Vidugiris) writes:
>exactly.  I do know, however, that it does NOT reflect 100% of the incoming
>radiation across the spectrum.  I believe the region where it starts to
>absorb significantly is in the infra-red, but don't quote me.

   Thank you, I wasn't aware of this.

>I also know that blackbody radiation is a special case which
>DELIBERATELY excludes the properties of the surface from the radiation.
>A blackbody is can be made by making a very small pinhole in a hot
>cavity, as I recall...

   Quote from "Modern Physics"
   Paul Tipler
   Oakland University
   Worth Publishing 1977
   page 102

   "When radiation falls on an opaque body, part of it is reflected and
the rest absorbed.  Light-colored bodies reflect most of the radiation
incident upon them, whereas dark bodies absorb most of it.  If an opaque
body is in thermal equillibrium with its surroundings, it must emit and
absorb radiation at the same rate...."
   "...The radiation emitted under these circumstances is called thermal
radiation....As a body is heated the quantity of thermal radiation
emitted increases, and the energy radiated tends to shorter and shorter
wavelengths..."
   "...A body that absorbs all radiation incident on it is called an
_ideal blackbody_."

   An example a thermal radiator you see in everyday life is an
incandescent light bulb.  It gets very hot due to resistive heating and
thus gives off thermal radiation.
   Thus, I should have said "thermal radiation" instead of "blackbody
radiation", but the people around here call it blackbody radiation.

   Someone told me that the interior of the cargo bay doors of the space
shuttle are covered with a polished metal to dissipate heat.  Is this
true?  How does it work?

Thomas J. Hacker            ...!uunet!umix!nucleus!hacker (hacker@nucleus.UUCP)
Physics/CS Undergrad
Oakland University                 "Physics is the poetry of nature."
Rochester, MI 48063

------------------------------

Date: 18 May 88 15:39:24 GMT
From: attcan!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: How hot is it in space?

> Someone told me that the interior of the cargo bay doors of the space
> shuttle are covered with a polished metal to dissipate heat.  Is this
> true?  How does it work?

Someone's misunderstood.  The shuttle's cooling radiators are indeed
located on the inside of the cargo bay doors -- that's why the doors
must be opened fairly promptly on reaching orbit, or else the shuttle
has to come down immediately -- but they are active devices, with
circulating fluid, pumps, electronic control, etc.

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 5 May 88 20:11:29 GMT
From: EWTILENI@pucc.princeton.edu  (Eric William Tilenius)
Subject: Technology Transfer Worries?

In article <8270@ames.arpa>, mike@ames.arpa (Mike Smithwick) writes:
>"Wouldn't something like this cause problems in the area of stealing
>secrets???"
>
>Carl : "Well, yes, the Soviets would have to worry about us, seeing
>that they are so far ahead in both manned and planetary space
>exploration" (not quite an exact quote, but you get the idea).
>
>This is not to criticize the concept of the mission, so don't start
>another flame.war about that. Just Carl should learn to think before he
>speaks.

I think his point was not what you quoted.  He was trying to say that
there wasn't any real danger in such a peaceful, cooerative space
exploration mission, of technology transfer.
 
Rather, the Russians might have to SLOW the pace of their Mars
expeditions to make room for us, since they are ahead in scheduling such
missions.
 
(As an aside, I agree that technology transfer isn't a big issue...
don't you think the Soviets can find out what NASA is up to?  And this
is peaceful technology as well, most of which they do themselves.)
 
Carl meant to turn the question around, just to make people think... If
the Soviets keep up the current pace, they may have to worry about us
after all.
 
He wasn't stating it as a set fact (the WILL have to worry about us),
but rather to say that we are on comparible terms, except they have a
more ambitious program at present.

------------------------------

Date: 5 May 88 21:22:37 GMT
From: mtunx!lzaz!lznv!psc@rutgers.edu  (Paul S. R. Chisholm)
Subject: Mir watch predictions and orbital elements

I just had an interesting chat with a friend about Mir watches and
predictions.  He gets orbital elements every five days, and is using
Woodcock's prediction software to calculate the timing and position of
good, observable passes.  He had some interesting comments.

First of all, his predictions have been late.  That is, Mir has been
showing up sooner than he would expect.  Before everyone jumps on
Woodcock's software, my friend did some thinking and is now suspicious
of NASA's elements!  The actual orbital decay is roughly twice the drag
listed in the elements.  (He quoted both; I dunno the numbers, but the
units were orbits/day, I think.  I just looked at T. S. Kelso's latest
posting, and didn't see anything familiar.  Then again, I haven't played
with orbital mechanics in nearly a decade, and never managed to get my
hands dirty with real objects and numbers.)

Anyway, he's going to play with the numbers: make the predictions twice,
once with NASA's elements, once again by adding a fudge factor of two to
the drag.  If he gets better predictions the second way, I'll let you
know.

Second, Mir was apparently boosted fifteen miles recently.  He'd heard
that Mir would adjust course "fairly often", and assumed this was
relative to geosynchronous satellite station keeping (about every three
weeks).  Nope; every four months is closer to it for Mir.

Third, he says there haven't been *any* observations in a while, not
even marginal ones.  This doesn't sound like a prediction problem; his
elements are never more than five days old, and he *has* gotten fairly
good predictions before.  This may mean something, but I dunno what.

-Paul S. R. Chisholm, {ihnp4,cbosgd,allegra,rutgers}!mtune!lznv!psc
AT&T Mail !psrchisholm, Internet psc@lznv.att.com
Neither my friend nor I are speaking for our employers.

------------------------------

Date: 7 May 88 17:28:00 GMT
From: kenny@m.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Re: Mir watch predictions and orbital e


/* Written  4:22 pm  May  5, 1988 by psc@lznv.ATT.COM in uiucdcsm:sci.space */
First of all, his predictions have been late.  That is, Mir has been
  . . .
/* End of text from uiucdcsm:sci.space */

The NASA figure is off by a factor of two; this is intentional.  If you
use the NASA third derivatives of the mean anomaly, you'll find they're
off by a factor of 6.  They're actually the coefficients of a Taylor
series for the mean anomaly, and not the derivatives themselves.

I suspect you're right about Gordon's program.  I'll speak to him about
it at the Denver conference.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #236
*******************

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Date: Sun, 29 May 88 04:09:05 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8805291109.AA00689@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #237

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 237

Today's Topics:
	     Yet again the advantages of Mir over Skylab
	   Re: Yet again the advantages of Mir over Skylab
	   Re: Yet again the advantages of Mir over Skylab
	   Re: Yet again the advantages of Mir over Skylab
	   Re: Yet again the advantages of Mir over Skylab
			   Mir predictions
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Mon, 16 May 88 18:41:23 EDT
From: Glenn Chapman <glenn@ll-vlsi.arpa>
Subject: Yet again the advantages of Mir over Skylab

In Space v8, 222 Karl Wagenfehr repeats on of the often quoted myths of
our space age, as have many others in recent days on the net:

> ...... Skylab was sent up, and manned.  It was no big deal, really.
> Yeah, a manned space station; big deal.  I would like to remind you
> that Skylab was a lot bigger than Mir (how much I don't recall off
> hand).  This slow turtle approach being better is just a load of bunk.
> We *had* a space station.  A much better space station than that which
> we envy the soviets today.  Permanent man presense in space is not
> such a big deal.  It just requires persistence and money.  I will
> concede on that point: the soviets are superior in that they stuck to
> their space program.  Had the united states shown just half the
> persistance of the soviets, I don't think we'd be envying them
> anything right now.  We were where they are now *15 years ago*!  Just
> we got bored, and stopped supporting Space.

   This persistant belief in the Skylab myth has gotten to be rather
disturbing.  I have started to have sympathy for Jerry Pournelle's
comment that he wished Skylab had never flown, then we would not be
trying to convince ourselves that we had done it all decades before.
For those that want a true comparison I have substantial revised a
breakdown of advantages and disadvantages of both I posted more than a
year ago (adding several more points, all to Mir's benifit).  In the
past year the advantages of Mir have increased by its operation and the
strong points for Skylab decreased.  Read it and weep.

Let us compare the advantages of the two stations.  As a reminder Soviet
stations have come in 3 generations: Their 1st containing Salyut 1 (Apr
- Oct '71), Salyut 2/Cosmos 557 (1973 - failures that were never
manned), Salyut 3 (Jun '74 - Jan '75), Salyut 4 ( Dec '74 - Feb '77),
and Salyut 5 (Jun '76 - Aug '77); Second generation with Salyut 6 (Sept
'77 - Jul '82) and Salyut 7 (Apr '82 - present); Third generation Mir
(Feb '86 - present).  Skylab was launched in May '73, the last crew left
in Feb '74, and decayed in July '79.

Where Skylab is currently ahead

(1) Skylab had a final mass of 77 Tonnes (with 2200 lbs per metric
Tonne), and the combined cluster Skylab + the Apollo Command Service
Module is listed as 90 Tonnes.  The current Soviet Mir/Kvant station has
a 33 Tonne mass as launched, while the combined Mir + Soyuz + Progress
cluster is 47 Tonnes.  However there are some caveats here.  The mass
for Skylab includes some 8 Tonnes of food, water, air, and fuel for that
were required for the entire mission.  By comparison the Progress
freighters bring that up to Mir.  There have been 12 Progresses to Mir,
each bring some 2.5 Tonnes of cargo/fuel/water for a total of 30 Tonnes
added to Mir, plus about 1.3 Tonne more brought up by the Soyuz's with
the Cosmonauts.  Of course some of that has been discarded as waste.
However the combined station mass is probably 60 Tonnes now (15 Tonnes
in the Progess + Soyuz carriers).  In Skylab all the garbage was kept in
a tank at the "bottom" of the station, so it maintained that mass (plus
the astronauts took up about 200 Kg per trip).  Also there is one other
problem with Skylab's mass - all the books I have found give the value
as launched, with both solar wings, but one was lost before orbit.  That
probably reduces the mass by 2-3 tonnes.  Note that the command/service
modules added 13 tonnes to Skylab, but little in useful capacity.  By
comparison the Soyuz solar panels feed the station about 1 KW of power
while the Progress's rocket engines are used to adjust the station's
orbit.

(2) Working volume for the Skylab complex was 357 cubic meters.  The
current Mir/Kvant combination is about 160 cubic meters.  From a
psychological point of view that was definitely better for Skylab crews
(each crewman had about 48% more volume).  However much of that volume
had little useful value, and pictures of Skylab show that its walls are
not completely covered with equipment, the way the Mir's is.  Also it
should be noted that the new NASA station has a volume per crew that is
about the same as Mir's, or perhaps a bit smaller.

Where Mir & other Soviet stations are ahead

(1) All Russian stations, right from Salyut 1 in 1971, have had orbital
manoeuvring rockets that use Hydrazine (UMHD) fuel and Nitrogen
Tetroxide oxidzer.  This allows the Soviets to do extensive orbital
changes with their systems. For example this lets them lower the orbit
to meet supply ships and Soyuz's (usually by letting the orbit decay a
bit so this does not cost them fuel), thus allowing those systems to
bring up more material.  Then they raise the orbit to keep the space
station up there.  Thus with this the orbital working lifetime of the
second generation Soviet Stations was about 5 years, and none of their
working stations have decayed from orbit (Salyut 2 and Comos 557 were
two early stations that were damaged on orbit, never manned, and allowed
to decay - the others were brought down by command from the ground).
Skylab had only a small Nitrogen gas system with 0.8 Tonnes of gas.  As
a result only small changes could be made to Skylab's orbit.  As we all
know it reentered in 1979 due to this.

(2) All second generation Russian space stations had 2 docking ports,
while Mir has 6.  Skylab had two, one axial and one on the side (the
side one was never used and was mostly ment for a rescue if needed).
The Soviet stations have 2 axial ports (Mir has 4 additional side
ports).  Axial ports are easier to dock to. Having several ports has
many implications.  First one crew could be docked to the station while
a second crew came up for a visit or to replace the first crew.  Without
multiple ports crew exchanges, where all or part of cosmonauts releaved
those currently manning the station, would be extremely difficult.
Secondly this allows cargo to be brought to the station while a crew is
on board (see point 3 also).  Thirdly the extra ports can be used to
expand the current station.  Salyut 6 & 7 had one extra module added to
them at a time (Salyut 7 had this done twice to it).  Mir currently has
one expansion module added (Kvant) but is designed to take at least 5
modules, plus a Soyuz and one other vehicle.  Skylab was a one shot deal
- no plans for expansion.  Indeed the TRS rocket system that was being
designed to attached Skylab from the shuttle had two plans for it - one
to boost it to a higher orbit, the other to send it to reentry in the
ocean areas.

(3) The Russians developed an automatic docking system back on Salyut 6
(1977) which allows unmanned cargo craft like Progress, or large "star"
modules (20 Tonne expansion units) to attach to the system.  Since the
cargo craft are unmanned they do not need heat shields and can carry
more material.  This naturely cuts the effort and cost in supplying the
station and makes their long duration missions possible.  Indeed Skylab
was launched with 140 days worth of supplies on board.  The Apollo
capsule could only bring a few weeks worth up with them.  The plans for
a fourth mission to Skylab called for only a 30 day stay, due to supply
problems.  Again the Soviet autodocking system means the expansion
modules need no crew, making their design and testing simpler.  Skylab
had nothing like that developed for it.  Sure we could supply a station
from the shuttle and expand it that way, but not without developing
equipment which we do not have.  The Russians have had automatic systems
doing this for 11 YEARS!

(4) All Soviet stations since Salyut 6 (1977) have been refuelable via
Progress tanker craft.  To date (May 16, 1988) 36 Progress tankers have
flown, 12 to each of the three last stations, all successfully as far
can be told.  In addition their to the fuel the station's water and air
was resupplied from the same vehicles via similar lines and transfer
systems from the Progress to the station.  Fuel supplied to Salyut 6 or
7 was about 5.3 Tonnes each, to Mir I estimate the same so far.  Since
UMHD/Nitrogen Tetroxide has a much higher specific impulse than Nitrogen
gas that gives them much more boost capability.  Water and air totaled
about 11 Tonnes each for the Salyuts.  Mir, even this early in its cycle
has been supplied with the same amount.  The first generation Russian
stations where like Skylab - throw away cans.  You used them until they
ran out of supplies and then tossed them.  Second generation and the new
Mir can be used as long as you need or want them.

(5) Since Salyut 6 (1977) Russian stations have had a working partial
water recovery system.  The older versions recovered about 50% of the
water (Mir may be better from some comments).  Since water a human uses
about 4.5 Kg of water a day, but only 0.8 Kg of oxygen and 0.7 Kg of
food (dry) this is the most important thing to recover first.  Sure
better systems have been built on earth, but nothing else has flown in
zero g.  This is vital for a real station or long voyages to the
planets.  Nothing like this on Skylab.  There also appears to be tests
of newer Carbon Dioxide removal and oxygen recovery systems on Mir,
though it is not certain they have replace the old absorption filter
system as of yet.

(6) Mir has a data/communications relay system through their TDRS system
(the Eastern Data Relay Network).  While the shuttle has this Skylab did
not.  They have had some some problems with this at the satellite end,
but the station capability is still there.

(7) Mir's solar power system puts out twice the power, 12-14 KW, of
Skylab's.  People think Skylab was better because some books talk about
the total possible power there as 23 KW.  However Skylab's max
deliverable power was only 8.5 KW before they lost the solar wing, and
about 6-7 after the repairs.  The difference comes from looking at the
area of the solar cells and their efficiency, while ignoring shadowing
effects, losses in the power cables, and other power system losses which
reduce the output to 33% of the max value.  Mir's values are for the
actual system output power. 2.5 KW of Mir's comes from solar panels
added to the station in a space walk last year.

(8) The Russians have put a lot of work into making the crew
psychologically comfortable on their stations, from the experience they
have gotten from their long voyages.  They send up gifts from home and
fresh fruits on the Progress tankers, have a TV studio set up to set up
weekly video conversations with friends and families.  Color schemes on
the station are for maximum comfort etc.  Again we can do this, but they
have 11 years of experience of what people miss most in orbit (they get
great pleasure in tending the small gardens in the space station for
example).

(9) Mir has currently 547 days of occupation (1136 man-days) in its 815
current existance and has been permanently manned since Feb. 9, 1987.
Skylab had only 171 days occupation (513 man-days) of 235 operational
days.  Furthermore Mir is still behind Salyut 6 which had 669 days of
occupancy, and Salyut 7 which had 712 days.  Skylab was not in good
shape at the end - one gyro had failed another of the 3 was showing
signs of failing, which was part of the decision to bring the last crew
home when they did.  Salyut 7 by comparison is still in orbit after 6
years, still under control and held a crew for 50 days just last year.

(10) Almost certainly the computers on Mir are far in advance of those
on Skylab.  Skylab's were of 1972 vintage, and the Soviets are probably
5 years behind us in computers, 10 years at the outside (there are
several DOD reports on this).  Hence that puts Mir's computers of the
equivalent of 1976 to 1980 vintage here.

Where Mir will probably exceed Skylab in the near future:

(1) The Mir complex will exceed the combined Skylab complex mass when
two more 20 Tonne "star" modules are added, probably by the end of this
year.

(2) The Skylab's working volume record will fall if the Soviets add the
announced 4 "star" expansion modules that Mir was designed to take.
This will take several years to occur.

All of this was only hardware.  It ignores the experience the Soviets
have gained: 11 years of materials science experiments, zero g life
science work, the knowledge of how space station system work in orbit,
how joined structures behave in orbit over years of time.  If you think
that the Russians having more than twice the number of man hours of
space experience means nothing then you must argue that space is
different in that reguard than any activity on here earth - experience
counts when things must be done well or quickly.  Right now the US is
not even on the top 10 list of space flight durations.

Look it, Skylab was a wonderful house in space, but we have done nothing
real in space stations since.  Saying that Skylab is better than Mir is
like arguing that the Titanic ocean liner is better than a flying 747
aircraft.  Sure the ocean liner was more comfortable and larger, but it
was older technology, goes less places, is generally less flexible than
the 747, and no longer exists.  We have no working space shuttle, and a
space station which will not be operating for another decade.  To say
that there is no problem because we are still ahead of the Russians on
the basis of Skylab is to deny the reality of the world.  It makes
people feel good in this country but it does not help solve our
problems.  As the saying goes "it is not the things that you do not know
that hurt you, but rather those that you do "know" that are not true".

                                          Glenn Chapman
                                          MIT Lincoln Lab

------------------------------

Date: 18 May 88 15:56:49 GMT
From: attcan!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Yet again the advantages of Mir over Skylab

> Skylab was a one shot deal - no plans for expansion.

Well, not quite true -- there were *plans* for expansion, back when
Skylab had five docking ports.  It's just that nothing was ever done
about them.  (And as a result, it didn't need five docking ports any
more...)
-- 
NASA is to spaceflight as            |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
the Post Office is to mail.          | {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 18 May 88 16:43:46 GMT
From: thumper!karn@faline.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: Yet again the advantages of Mir over Skylab

Glenn Chapman's detailed comparison of Skylab and Mir is interesting,
but especially so because it omitted any mention of what each
accomplished in the way of practical applications (including meaningful,
PUBLISHED scientific research).  Just to keep things fair, we ought to
compare each to the contributions of unmanned spacecraft while we're at
it.

I suppose as an engineer I really ought to care about "whose is bigger"
and who is currently ahead in our hi-tech flagpole-sitting contest, but
as a taxpayer I want to know how effectively my money is being spent on
accomplishing the goals originally used to justify these expenditures in
the first place. Don't forget that these programs are means to an end,
not ends in themselves.

Phil

------------------------------

Date: 19 May 88 17:09:11 GMT
From: ulysses!terminus!rolls!mtuxo!mtgzy!ecl@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Evelyn C. Leeper)
Subject: Re: Yet again the advantages of Mir over Skylab

You missed the most basic and important one: Skylab is debris scattered
over the Australian desert; Mir is still up there.

					Evelyn C. Leeper
					201-957-2070
				UUCP:	mtune!mtgzy!ecl or ecl@mtgzy.att.com
				ARPA:	ecl%mtgzy@att.arpa

------------------------------

Date: 19 May 88 21:47:25 GMT
From: ulysses!terminus!rolls!mtuxo!mtgzz!dls@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (XMRP50000[jto]-d.l.skran)
Subject: Re: Yet again the advantages of Mir over Skylab


Detailed comparisons of research output from MIR/Salyut and Skylab
are probably impossible -- I strongly doubt the Soviets make
public any significant number of their real breakthroughs.

Dale

------------------------------

Date: 20 May 88 19:23:40 GMT
From: snowdog@athena.mit.edu  (Richard the Nerd)
Subject: Mir predictions

Hi there!

Another evening visibility window for Mir is coming up, so I thought I'd
post some predictions for SF as usual.  Now, I am going home to Toronto
tomorrow, and won't be back for a week.  With all the manouevres that
folks think are likely occur, the predictions might be WAY out by the
28th, but, alas, I can't help it now.  Good luck anyways!  BTW, ignore
the magnitude predictions.  I have the wrong size data stored for Mir
and I did not bother to change them yet.  Actually, if you want
reasonable predictions just subtract about 4.5 from each predicted
value.

This is a message largely for folks on the mailing list.  (People on
this list get predictions for a few requested satellites, calculated for
their own locations.  If you'd like to be on this, drop off a note
including your latitude, longitude, sea level elevation, time zone, name
of town, and the satellites you would like to see, and I can put you on
it.)  Anyways, for those that asked to be on the list but did not
receive anything, please drop off a note - I have no clue whether the
predictions are reaching you, but I am making every effort to send them
successfully.

So, here are the predictions for SF:


   Prediction for:  San Francisco CA              
   Lat:  37.800000  Lonw:  122.400000  Ht:    0.   Zone:   8.00000  DST:  1.0
   Satellite: Mir                     16609   Age:   17.5 days   Unc:   171 sec
   Local Date: 1988  5 28

     TIME      MAG  ILL   AZ  EL   R.A.   DEC   RANGE  VANG
   --------  -----  ---  ---  --  -----  -----  -----  ----
   22:27:40    5.3   37  260  29  09:44   10.7    626  0.47
   22:28:00    5.0   36  269  37  09:52   21.6    526  0.65
   22:28:10    4.8   35  277  41  09:57   28.5    485  0.76
   22:28:20    4.7   34  286  45  10:03   36.5    452  0.87
   22:28:30    4.6   34  299  49  10:12   45.5    428  0.96
   22:28:40    4.5   34  314  51  10:25   55.3    416  1.02
   22:28:50    4.5   34  331  51  10:46   65.2    416  1.02
   22:29:00    4.5   35  346  49  11:29   74.4    428  0.96
   22:29:10    4.6   36  358  45  13:26   81.6    452  0.87
   22:29:20    4.7   37    8  41  17:28   82.4    485  0.76
   22:29:30    4.9   38   15  37  19:34   77.7    526  0.65
   22:29:40    5.1   39   20  33  20:19   72.5    574  0.55
   22:29:50    5.2   40   25  29  20:41   67.8    626  0.47



   Prediction for:  San Francisco CA              
   Lat:  37.800000  Lonw:  122.400000  Ht:    0.   Zone:   8.00000  DST:  1.0
   Satellite: Mir                     16609   Age:   18.4 days   Unc:   190 sec
   Local Date: 1988  5 29

     TIME      MAG  ILL   AZ  EL   R.A.   DEC   RANGE  VANG
   --------  -----  ---  ---  --  -----  -----  -----  ----
   21:15:50    4.5   84  172  27  13:07  -24.3    657  0.56
   21:16:00    4.4   86  166  29  13:29  -21.4    622  0.62
   21:16:10    4.2   89  159  31  13:52  -18.0    594  0.68
   21:16:20    4.1   92  151  33  14:17  -14.3    573  0.73
   21:16:30    4.1   93  142  34  14:42  -10.2    561  0.76
   21:16:40    4.0   95  133  34  15:08   -5.9    558  0.76
   21:16:50    4.1   95  124  33  15:33   -1.6    565  0.75
   21:17:00    4.1   95  115  32  15:57    2.4    580  0.71
   21:17:10    4.2   94  107  31  16:20    6.1    604  0.66
   21:17:20    4.4   92  100  29  16:42    9.4    636  0.59
   21:17:30    4.5   90   95  26  17:02   12.3    673  0.53



   Prediction for:  San Francisco CA              
   Lat:  37.800000  Lonw:  122.400000  Ht:    0.   Zone:   8.00000  DST:  1.0
   Satellite: Mir                     16609   Age:   19.4 days   Unc:   212 sec
   Local Date: 1988  5 30

     TIME      MAG  ILL   AZ  EL   R.A.   DEC   RANGE  VANG
   --------  -----  ---  ---  --  -----  -----  -----  ----
   21:38:20    5.5   29  258  29  09:06    9.8    620  0.46
   21:38:40    5.2   28  268  37  09:15   20.6    520  0.65
   21:38:50    5.0   28  275  42  09:21   27.6    478  0.76
   21:39:00    4.9   28  284  46  09:28   35.6    444  0.88
   21:39:10    4.7   28  297  50  09:38   44.8    419  0.98
   21:39:20    4.6   29  313  53  09:53   54.6    407  1.04
   21:39:30    4.6   31  331  53  10:18   64.6    407  1.04
   21:39:40    4.5   33  347  51  11:07   73.8    419  0.98
   21:39:50    4.6   36    0  46  13:10   80.6    443  0.88
   21:40:00    4.7   38    9  42  16:43   81.1    477  0.76
   21:40:10    4.8   40   16  37  18:41   76.6    519  0.65
   21:40:20    4.9   42   22  33  19:28   71.6    567  0.55
   21:40:30    5.1   44   26  29  19:53   67.0    619  0.47


Good luck once again!

Rich Brezina

Snowdog@athena.mit.edu    (most nets, thank whomever)

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #237
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 30 May 88 06:40:05 EDT
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	id AA00985; Mon, 30 May 88 03:29:56 PDT
Date: Mon, 30 May 88 03:29:56 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8805301029.AA00985@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #238

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 238

Today's Topics:
		      Soviet nuclear satellites
			     Mir elements
			 Space Services et al
		      Vocabulary lesson #7:  ALS
	   A high volume Earth to high orbit launch system
	 Re: A high volume Earth to high orbit launch system
	 Re: A high volume Earth to high orbit launch system
	 Re: A high volume Earth to high orbit launch system
	 Re: A high volume Earth to high orbit launch system
	 Re: A high volume Earth to high orbit launch system
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 25 May 88 18:51:10 GMT
From: cfa!cfa250!mcdowell@husc6.harvard.edu  (Jonathan McDowell)
Subject: Soviet nuclear satellites

As already mentioned briefly in this newsgroup, Soviet Fleet
Intelligence's nuclear reactor satellite Kosmos-1900 lost stationkeeping
ability around Apr 12, according to orbital data from NASA.  As of May
22 it was in a 246x260 km orbit and continuing its slow decay. 
Furthermore, the nuclear fuel core has not been ejected (After K-954
fell on Canada, they redesigned the satellites to eject the most
radioactive part so that it would not reach the ground intact due to the
shielding of the rest of the satellite).  However, its companion RORSAT
Kosmos-1932 successfully boosted its reactor to a 923x1011 km orbit at
about 0700 GMT on May 20 and ejected its nuclear fuel core shortly
thereafter.  So we don't have to worry about that one for a few
centuries.  Meanwhile a couple of their naval electronic intelligence
sats have just been deorbited, and a very busy series of launches has
occurred from Baykonur, including the successful launch of three GLONASS
navigation satellites on a Proton on May 21.  The previous attempted
GLONASS launch ended in failure in February. 


Av Week suggests an August launch for their Shuttle, which I find
plausible.  


Jonathan McDowell

------------------------------

Date: 24 May 88 04:07:00 GMT
From: kenny@m.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Mir elements


Mir        
1 16609U          88139.81771683 0.00015382           99963-4 0  2050
2 16609  51.6180 218.2070 0021873 343.2888  16.7524 15.75351119129209
Satellite: Mir        
Catalog id 16609
Element set 205
Epoch: 88139.81771683
Inclination:  51.6180 degrees
RA of node: 218.2070 degrees
Eccentricity:  0.0021873
Argument of perigee: 343.2888 degrees
Mean anomaly:  16.7524 degrees
Mean motion: 15.75351119 revs/day
Mean motion acceleration: 0.00015382 * 2 revs/day/day
Epoch Revolution: 12920

Semimajor axis:    6721.73 km
Apogee height*:     358.27 km
Perigee height*:     328.86 km


		Source: NASA Goddard via T.S.Kelso's `Celestial RCP/M'

* Apogee and perigee altitudes are referred to the mean radius of the
  Earth (6378.15 km), and not to the local radius of the geoid.  They
  are only approximate, and should not be used for orbit prediction.

------------------------------

Date: 7 May 88 15:42:52 GMT
From: pasteur!agate!garnet.berkeley.edu!web@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Subject: Space Services et al

Space Serices Incorporated of America, the Houston based firm marketing
the Conestoga rocket, announced Thursday that the DARPA had chosen them
to compete in a phase I study contract for launch services.  The studies
are to be completed by July 25, after which one or two of the
competitors will receive hardware contract offers.  The other firms
doing phase one studies are LTV, TRW and Lockheed.

William Baxter

ARPA: web@math.Berkeley.EDU
UUCP: {cbosgd,sun,dual,decwrl,decvax,ihnp4,hplabs,...}!ucbvax!math!web

------------------------------

Reply-To: pnet01!jim@trout.nosc.mil
Date: Sun, 8 May 88 14:46:36 PDT
From: jim@pnet01.cts.com (Jim Bowery)
To: crash!Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: Vocabulary lesson #7:  ALS

ALS, noun abrv., a program optimally designed to create uncertainty and
business risk among those who might develop commercial launch vehicles
by keeping open the possibility of the government developing and
subsidizing one as was done with Space Shuttle.

UUCP: {cbosgd, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!pnet01!jim
ARPA: crash!pnet01!jim@nosc.mil
INET: jim@pnet01.cts.com

------------------------------

Date: 8 May 88 14:42:38 GMT
From: mcvax!unido!ecrcvax!johng@uunet.uu.net  (John Gregor)
Subject: A high volume Earth to high orbit launch system

How many people out there are familiar with the "Launch Loop" concept by
Keith Lofstrom?  Have any of the sci.space regulars (Eugene, Henry, Dani
(are you still out there?), etc.) taken a look at the concept?  I'd
really like to hear some opinions on it.  Here is a reference to the
paper:

AIAA-85-1368
The Launch Loop: A Low Cost Earth-To-High-Orbit Launch System
K. H. Lofstrom, Launch Loop,
Portland, OR
AIAA/SAE/ASME/ASEE 21st Joint Propulsion Conference
July 8-10, 1985
Monterey, California

I'll do my best to give a very brief summary:

The launch loop employs a very long and very thin iron ribbon moving at
high velocity.  The speed is, in fact, great enough that an upwards
force is generated by the ribbon.  This force is used to support a
control track to maintain stability and two large (5000 metric ton)
deflection stations.

The basic idea is that the West station dangles cables down to the
surface (Yes, 80km is easily within the strength of todays materials).
Payload is raised via these cables out of the way of most of the
atmosphere.  The payload is then set over the moving ribbon.  It hovers
over and is accelerated by eddie current repulsion between the ribbon
and the cargo container.  It accelerates at 3g for the 2000km length of
the ribbon at which point it has achieved orbital velocity.

Highly schematic diagram (Warp to conform to Earth's curvature):

+----------------------- 2000km -----------------------------+
|                                                            |
       	  #________________________________________#              -+
    ___---|                                         ---___         | 80km
(---======================================================---)    -+

= -> Surface of the Earth
- -> Ribbon, control track, etc. (The stair steps should be gently sloping
				  lines.  I hate ascii graphics)
( -> West deflector magnet.
) -> East deflector magnet.
# -> East and West station.
| -> Cable from West station.

The paper goes into quite a bit of detail and answers most questions
people have come up with (so far).  I would REALLY, REALLY, REALLY
recommend getting your hands on a copy, before commenting on the idea.
I'll even go so far as to mail (even though I am currently in Germany)
people copies if they can't find copies any other way.

I really think it is an incredibly ingenious solution to the problem of
getting things into space.  It has the posibility to launch 400 metric
tons of cargo into high orbit PER HOUR!!!!  If you don't believe me,
don't flame, READ THE PAPER!  I'd really like to get into some
discussions with those more knowledgeable in engineering than I am.

Again, please get a copy of the paper and read it.  I want to know why
we aren't doing reasearch on this device.

John Gregor  -  johng%ecrcvax.UUCP@germany.CSNET

------------------------------

Date: 11 May 88 06:41:49 GMT
From: ssc-vax!eder@beaver.cs.washington.edu  (Dani Eder)
Subject: Re: A high volume Earth to high orbit launch system

In article <529@ecrcvax.UUCP>, johng@ecrcvax.UUCP (John Gregor) writes:
> How many people out there are familiar with the "Launch Loop" concept
> by Keith Lofstrom?  Have any of the sci.space regulars (Eugene, Henry,
> Dani (are you still out there?), etc.) taken a look at the concept?
> I'd really like to hear some opinions on it.  Here is a reference to
> the paper:

Not only have I read the paper, but I know Keith.  In fact, he was on
usenet at one time (you out there?).  The advanced propulsion community
is really a very small one.

> I really think it is an incredibly ingenious solution to the problem
> of getting things into space.  It has the posibility to launch 400
> metric tons of cargo into high orbit PER HOUR!!!!  If you don't

400 tons of cargo is a piddly-ass amount.  One airport runway with a
stream of 727s taking off represents 1200 tons of passengers and cargo.

> Again, please get a copy of the paper and read it.  I want to know why
> we aren't doing reasearch on this device.

Define 'we'.

My personal opinion of the launch loop is that is is an overly complex
solution to the problem with failure modes that could be used for
special effects in a George Lucas film.

The ribbon of metal in the launch loop is really a series of strips
about one meter by ten centimeters by a millimeter each.  They are
constrained to follow the back and forth path by a string of control
magnets that sense the position of the ribbon.  The turnarounds at each
end are done by big magnets.

What I worry about is what happens if one of the turning magnets fails
(keeping in mind that everything manmade fails eventually) then the
ribbon continues straight into the ground behind the turning magnet,
creating a pile of slag in a crater, as for several minutes a continuous
stream of one pound slugs hits the ground at 11,000 rounds per second.
On the return leg of the loop, a part of the ribbon is missing.  The
resulting unbalanaced forces may leave metal strips flying every which
way in earth orbit.

To my way of looking at design, I would like my support structure to be
passive rather than active.  The loop in the launch loop is what holds
up the structure by moving at super-orbital speeds.  The same result can
be obtained with a tower made of modern structural materials (such as
graphite epoxy for compressive columns and fiberglass/ kevlar/
polyethelyne for guy wires.)

You can support an accelerator (linear motor, mass driver, whatever)
from a series of towers of increasing height with suspension bridges
strung between the towers.  If the power goes down, your structure does
not fall out of the sky.

Using towers also allows for incremental construction.

Dani Eder / Boeing / Space Station Program / uw-beaver!ssc-vax!eder
(205)461-2606(w) (205)461-7801(h) 1075 Dockside Drive #905 Huntsville, 
AL 35824  34 40 N latitude 86 40 W longitude +280 ft altitude, Earth

------------------------------

Date: 10 May 88 21:00:41 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: A high volume Earth to high orbit launch system

> How many people out there are familiar with the "Launch Loop" concept
> by Keith Lofstrom?  Have any of the sci.space regulars (Eugene, Henry,
> Dani (are you still out there?), etc.) taken a look at the concept?
> ...

I met Keith once upon a time and got a copy of what was probably an
early draft of the paper.  I could not see anything disastrously wrong
with the idea, although I'm not an expert in the technologies involved.
To my mind it has a couple of modest practical flaws shared by most of
the (so to speak) mechanical Earth-to-orbit schemes:

1. It works much better on a large scale than on a small one, so it's
	impractical to start with a little one and use its revenues to
	bootstrap up.  All the money has to be raised up front.

2. It's big enough and fragile enough to be very vulnerable to attack
	by clever terrorists.

These are not insuperable obstacles, but they do present problems.  He
may have addressed them since.

NASA is to spaceflight as            |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
the Post Office is to mail.          | {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 13 May 88 17:27:15 GMT
From: tektronix!sequent!mntgfx!mbutts@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Mike Butts)
Subject: Re: A high volume Earth to high orbit launch system

>From article <1918@ssc-vax.UUCP>, by eder@ssc-vax.UUCP (Dani Eder):
> In article <529@ecrcvax.UUCP>, johng@ecrcvax.UUCP (John Gregor) writes:
>> How many people out there are familiar with the "Launch Loop" concept
>> by Keith Lofstrom?.........
> 
> To my way of looking at design, I would like my support
> structure to be passive rather than active.  The loop in the
> . . .
> 
> Using towers also allows for incremental construction.

Incremental construction is an important, and often neglected, point.  A
look back at the history of technology shows the successful technologies
are those which can be developed incrementally.  Small scale, lower risk
*useful* initial implementations are almost always needed to pave the
way for full scale projects.  They offer engineering experience,
profits, and a track record, all of which are *required* to lower the
risk enough to raise funding for something big and new.  This has been
true for centuries.  (Take a look at James Burke's Connections and The
Day the Universe Changed for abundant popularized examples.)

Technologies which must be built on a large scale to work at all are
what you might call "You can't get there from here" technologies.  The
"N plus one" ideas are the ones that get funded.  Sad, but very true.

A major weakness of Keith's elegant Launch Loop idea (in my opinion) is
that you need a full scale system before you can get the first kilogram
into orbit.  Keith has been developing ideas for smaller-scale testbeds
to develop the technology, but they don't actually launch anything.

Of course the potential benefits of such technologies can be so great as
to justify taking a big risk (again in my opinion), but finding any real
entity with real cash willing to take that big a leap has nearly always
proven to be impossible.

Mike Butts, Research Engineer         KC7IT           503-626-1302
Mentor Graphics Corp., 8500 SW Creekside Place, Beaverton OR 97005

------------------------------

Date: 14 May 88 08:15:24 GMT
From: lim@csvax.caltech.edu  (Kian-Tat Lim)
Subject: Re: A high volume Earth to high orbit launch system

Incremental construction projects are easier to get funded than
all-at-once type projects, but it seems to me that they also are much
more readily stalled in mid-development before achieving the final goal.
By selling bureaucrats on "just let us have this little bit" you
simultaneously allow them to say back to you "you got your bit last
year, why are you back now?".

For examples, look at the attempted construction of the Santa Monica
Mountains National Recreation Area: land was supposed to be bought
incrementally, in what was called a great advance in federally-financed
park construction.  What happened?  Appropriations were minimal after an
initial surge, and developers quickly moved in to snap up and
irrevocably damage prime property.

A science-fiction version of this can be found in Robert Forward's
Flight of the Dragonfly, in which an incrementally-constructed Fresnel
lens has its funding put off for so long that it cannot be completed in
time to slow down the interstellar spacecraft in the story.  I'm not
advocating the use of SF to bolster real-world arguments, but I believe
that this type of action by Congresscritters and such has much
precedent.

Kian-Tat Lim (ktl@wagvax.caltech.edu, GEnie: K.LIM1)

------------------------------

Date: 13 May 88 11:44:18 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!its63b!bob@uunet.uu.net  (ERCF08 Bob Gray)
Subject: Re: A high volume Earth to high orbit launch system

In article <1918@ssc-vax.UUCP> eder@ssc-vax.UUCP (Dani Eder) writes:
>What I worry about is what happens if one of the turning magnets fails
>(keeping in mind that everything manmade fails eventually) then the
>ribbon continues straight into the ground behind the turning magnet,
>creating a pile of slag in a crater , as for several minutes a
>continuous stream of one pound slugs hits the ground at 11,000 rounds
>per second.  On the return leg of the loop, a part of the ribbon is
>missing.  The resulting unbalanaced forces may leave metal strips
>flying every which way in earth orbit.

One proposed solution to this is to put the entire launch loop into
orbit. (Don't laugh)

Cables can then be dropped from the orbiting ring to the ground. The top
of the cable is attached to a cradle floating on a magnetic field. The
ring turns but the cradle can "hover" above any point above the Earth's
equator.

The worst case accident is if the orbital ring breaks.  The remains of
the ring then fall UP, away from the Earth.

The design is described in a series of articles in the "Journal of the
British Interplanetary Society" called "Orbital rings and Jacob's
ladders" which appeared in 1983or 1984 (I think).

The author clains that the ring is buildable using today's technology.
The original design called for liquid helium cooled superconducting
magnets. If high temperature superconductors would work, the cost of
building would drop even more.

Eventual cost was something of the order of $36 billion.  Using lunar
materials and a bootstrap technique, this would drop to about $17
billion.  (I don't have the article here, so those are only remembered
figures, but are of the right magnitude).

Cost to orbit would be $0.04 per pound.

The articles then go on to describe how to use orbital rings to provide
a very fast and cheap Earth-Moon transit system.

The author then starts to get a little more far-fetched and describes
how to terraform Jupiter using them, but I will save that for another
posting. :->
	Bob.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #238
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 31 May 88 06:40:55 EDT
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA03239; Tue, 31 May 88 03:39:48 PDT
	id AA03239; Tue, 31 May 88 03:39:48 PDT
Date: Tue, 31 May 88 03:39:48 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8805311039.AA03239@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #239

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 239

Today's Topics:
	 Re: A high volume Earth to high orbit launch system
			  Re: Bombs on Mars
		     Re: Small comets & The Moon
			  Re: Bombs on Mars
		     Re: Small comets & The Moon
			     Space suits
			   Re: Space suits
			   Re: Space suits
			   Re: Space suits
			   Re: Space suits
			   Re: Space suits
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 17 May 88 19:48:27 GMT
From: mcvax!unido!ecrcvax!johng@uunet.uu.net  (John Gregor)
Subject: Re: A high volume Earth to high orbit launch system

In article <1988May10.210041.3940@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>>[Re: Launch loop]
>it has a couple of modest practical flaws shared by most of the (so to
>speak) mechanical Earth-to-orbit schemes:
>
>1. It works much better on a large scale than on a small one, so it's
>	impractical to start with a little one and use its revenues to
>	bootstrap up.  All the money has to be raised up front.

True.  But the US space program never was one for a slow, well
established bootstraping process.

There is another use for the same basic technology as the launch loop:
storage of energy.  Calculate the amount of energy stored in that
ribbon.  Increase the mass of the ribbon, decrease the speed a bit,
remove the hardware needed for space launching, mount the whole thing
horizontally, and you now have a very usefull means of staring LARGE
amounts of energy.  I think this could be used to 1. act as a proof of
concept demonstration for many of the basic ideas, 2. raise research
money, 3. act as a testbed for further development, 4. generate revenue,
and 5. even be usefull.  A giant Q-Tip (TM) brand cotton swab shaped
loop is probably the best:
    1) Linear sections are easier than curved ones.  
    2) It reduces the likelyhood that a failure would send roughly a
       billion MJ (amount of energy stored in a loop of the size in the
       paper, knock off 3 orders of magnitude for power storage) in an
       inhabited direction.

>2. It's big enough and fragile enough to be very vulnerable to attack
>	by clever terrorists.

Fortunately, the terrorists of the world haven't been very clever.
Friends and I have thought of many truly destructive things that can be
accomplished with very low technology.  Maybe they are clever, but the
NSA/CIA combo is more effective and useful than we realize.  I don't
know which is scarier.  But I digress...

Keith has been somewhat cavalier about the terrorist threat for several
reasons:
    1) The majority of the beast is 80km up, not easy for many people
       (including us right now) to get to.
    2) The target is only 5 to 10 cm wide for 99.9% of it's length.  How
       many SAMs have that kind of accuracy?
    3) The loop would be a MAJOR resource to the planet.  The
       governments using it's services would definitely have incentive
       to keep the surrounding waters well patrolled.  Hopefully, one
       nation wouldn't try to monopolize it's use.
    4) Once the industry has been set up to produce the ~500,000
       identical pieces of track, producing more shouldn't be very
       difficult.
	 A) The track sections are pretty low tech.
	 B) Most of the original track would be recovered.  Only the
	    ribbon (2.6 million pieces of transformaer iron -- lot's
	    cheaper than a shuttle) would be a write off.
       So yes, a terrorist attack would be painful, but not shattering.
       The loop would be out of commision for at most a month or three.
       After a once or twice, the novelty would wear off (hopefully).  I
       guess the best analogy I can come up with would be the blowing up
       of high tension power lines: It's annoying, it stops the whole
       system for a while, but it really doesn't change things in the
       long run.

>These are not insuperable obstacles, but they do present problems.  He
>may have addressed them since.

The control theory and dynamics of the structure are some of the biggest
headaches.  Gurus comfortable with higher order differential equations,
should make themselves known.  Sensor technology was another problem
Keith mentioned.

Keith -- are you still out there?  I saw your vote for the
	 nanotechnology group, so I know you still read a few things.
	 How about an update?

If this discussion has piqued anybody's curiosity, I STRONGLY urge you
to order the paper.  It is also probably in many university libraries.
If somebody else want to put a full description on the net, be my guest.
But, I'd really like to see more people go out and get references for a
change.

AIAA-85-1368
The Launch Loop: A Low Cost Earth-To-High-Orbit Launch System
K. H. Lofstrom, Launch Loop, Portland, OR
AIAA/SAE/ASME/ASEE 21st Joint Propulsion Conference
July 8-10, 1985 Monterey, California

American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
1633 Broadway, New York, NY 10019

John Gregor  -  johng%ecrcvax.UUCP@germany.CSNET

------------------------------

Date: 5 May 88 10:07:30 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!strath-cs!glasgow!jack@uunet.uu.net  (Mr Jack Campin)
Subject: Re: Bombs on Mars

adam@its63b.ed.ac.uk (ERCF02 Adam Hamilton) writes:

>Since I wouldn't mind seeing [a nuke] used on an asteroid, perhaps its
>time to draw up some sensible guidelines.  How about nothing over 15 km
>long.

I assume you are thinking of fending off something like the Alvarez
meteorite.  I have occasionally wondered about that. Would the world's
present sky surveying activity give us any warning at all of a
continent-smasher on its way? Would our present interplanetary launcher
and bomb technology be adequate to deal with it? I would assume the best
that could be done would be an Energeia with an American warhead (I
believe they're a lot more reliable) on top of it - which leaves an
interesting political problem; what chance would there be of persuading
Reagan to ship a state-of-the-art nuclear warhead to Baikonur in the few
weeks, at most, we'd have?

ARPA: jack%cs.glasgow.ac.uk@nss.cs.ucl.ac.uk       USENET: jack@cs.glasgow.uucp

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 10 May 88 10:04:23 PST
From: Peter Scott <PJS@grouch.jpl.nasa.gov>
Subject: Re: Small comets & The Moon
X-Vms-Mail-To: EXOS%"space@angband.s1.gov"

kistler%Iowa.Iowa@iago.caltech.edu (Allen C. Kistler) writes:
>> From: spar!freeman@decwrl.dec.com  (Jay Freeman)

>> If that were so, then there should be at least hundreds of thousands
>> of new craters on the MOON each year, each caused by the impact of a
>> small comet.  I think we have enough high-resolution lunar
>> photography, over a sufficient time base, so that any such phenomenon
>> would be pretty obvious....

>The thing you have to get out of your head is that these are rocks.
>You admit they're snowballs, but you're still thinking of them as
>rocks.  The heat of impact vaporizes them before they make a crater.
>The most they do is stir up the surface.  There are photographs of
>small vapor plumes on the moon.

Well, hold on a moment.  Using the authors' figures of 12m diameter and
0.1 g/cm**3 density, such a snowball travelling at 6 km/sec impacts with
1.5 *10**12 joules, a yield of about a quarter of a kiloton.  It's not
the mass of the object that causes a crater, it's kinetic energy.  If
someone can explain how such an impact could not leave a crater at least
10m in diameter, I'd like to hear from them.  By my calculations, at
most one-fifth of the energy would be used in vaporizing the snowball.

Peter Scott (pjs%grouch@jpl-mil.jpl.nasa.gov)

("Could we get this newsletter mailed out a little more rapidly so us
guys in Internet land aren't two weeks behind on the articles?")

[Yes, I'm trying... -Ed]

------------------------------

Date: 9 May 88 17:16:15 GMT
From: attcan!lsuc!spectrix!tmsoft!utgpu!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Bombs on Mars

> ... Would the world's present sky surveying activity give us any
> warning at all of a continent-smasher on its way?

Only by chance.  There is no systematic watch kept, and the smaller
asteroids are not easy to see unless you know where to look.

> Would our present interplanetary launcher and bomb technology be
> adequate to deal with it? I would assume the best that could be done
> would be an Energeia with an American warhead...

This is plausible, although one would have to wonder about whether
Energia could support a high launch rate.  The MIT student study in the
late 60s concluded that the odds were much better with multiple attacks;
they postulated four Saturn Vs each carrying a 100-MT bomb.  This
required a third launch pad at KSC and massive industrial effort.
Nothing much smaller than the Saturn V has the lift capability, so it
would have to be Energia.  A problem would be the lack of a suitable
cruise-maneuvering stage; the MIT study used modified Apollo service
modules, but we don't have those on hand any more.  Another problem
might be bomb design: the MIT folks (with some expert advice) concluded
that 100 MT was the biggest that could be built on short notice with
reasonable assurance that it would work, but that was twenty years ago,
before the general trend toward smaller bombs really took hold.

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 11 May 88 23:48:13 GMT
From: oliveb!3comvax!michaelm@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Michael McNeil)
Subject: Re: Small comets & The Moon

In article <880510100423.00000DDE081@grouch.JPL.NASA.GOV>
PJS@GROUCH.JPL.NASA.GOV (Peter Scott) writes:
> . . .
>can explain how such an impact could not leave a crater at least 10m in
>diameter, I'd like to hear from them.  By my calculations, at most
>one-fifth of the energy would be used in vaporizing the snowball.

I also believed that the lack of lunar craters constantly being created
was a flaw in this idea, but then one newspaper report I read implied
that what was happening was that tidal forces would break up the very
fragile snowballs well before they got near the Earth or the Moon.  If
the matter were sufficiently dispersed by the time it arrived at the
Moon, creation of a crater could be avoided.

I don't know if the idea is sound theoretically, as I haven't heard any
technical commentary on this suggestion.  Anybody know more?

Michael McNeil

------------------------------

Date: 10 May 88 04:57:03 GMT
From: ubvax!weitek!sci!daver@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Dave Rickel)
Subject: Space suits

The local paper ran an article on a couple of contenders for designs for
space suits a while back.  These space suits were supposed to have a few
features to make them useful for constructing a space station--easier to
tailor for different builds, better armor for micro-meteoroid
collisions, cheaper, higher internal pressure (oxy/nitrogen atmosphere
rather than pure oxygen) etc.  So far as i could tell, all the space
suit designs under consideration were pretty much the standard
designs--two arms, two legs, etc.  Wernher von Braun (i think, the idea
might have been Bonestell's) in his Man in Space series proposed a
different space suit design--more like an ice cream cone.  Transparent
hemisphere on top (the ice cream), metal body with manipulator
appendages and rockets (the cone).  It seems to me that making a suit
along these lines would have several advantages--feet are pretty well
useless in space, you might as well get rid of them in the suit(although
you might have some sort of articulated gripper down there, so you could
either anchor the suit or grab hold of something and fly with it).  You
could stick in quite a bit better armor.  Maintenence ought to be
simpler.  Attitude control could be simpler.  The manipulator waldoes
could have specialized fittings for various jobs.  It ought to be
simpler to eat and drink inside these than inside regular suits.

As long as i'm here, i may as well mention some of the disadvantages.
These suits are obviously special-purpose--some sort of emergency suit
will be needed anyway.  These suits are essentially miniature space
ships--they would be much more massive and somewhat more complex than
traditional space suits.  I don't know what the current level of
technology is with regard to manipulator arms--it may be that the
manipulators would be too clumsy, wouldn't offer the necessary level of
tactile feedback, or may be too subject to vacuum welding or other
nastiness.  People inside might want to wear something like a space suit
anyway, so why bother?

david rickel
decwrl!sci!daver

------------------------------

Date: 13 May 88 16:23:22 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!its63b!bob@uunet.uu.net  (ERCF08 Bob Gray)
Subject: Re: Space suits

In article <21047@sci.UUCP> daver@sci.UUCP (Dave Rickel) writes:
>......  These suits are essentially miniature space ships--they would
>be much more massive and somewhat more complex than traditional space
>suits.

The basic design doesn't need to use waldos. A tubular structure with a
couple of spacesuit arms sticking out the front is all that is needed.
Put an adjustable harness inside, and it will fit people of very
different sizes.  This would be a MUCH simpler design than the
conventional suit where a lot of effort goes into designing flexible leg
joints.

It would also be easier to get into and out of and it would be much more
comfortable to work in for extended periods.

The only real disadvantage I can think of at the moment, would be for
publicity purposes. People in spacesuits at least look human on the TV
screens.
	Bob.

------------------------------

Date: 18 May 88 06:38:43 GMT
From: attcan!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Space suits

> The basic design doesn't need to use waldos. A tubular structure with
> a couple of spacesuit arms sticking out the front is all that is
> needed...  This would be a MUCH simpler design than the conventional
> suit where a lot of effort goes into designing flexible leg joints.

Unfortunately, you have the problem backwards.  A lot of effort goes
into designing flexible *ARM* joints; the legs are a trivial issue by
comparison.  Current spacesuit arms are poor and gloves are grossly
unsatisfactory.  Fix that and there won't be any problem making good
legs to match.

> It would also be easier to get into and out of...

Compared to the NASA suits, perhaps.  The Soviets have this one licked:
the backpack hinges out away from the suit, you slide legs, arms, and
head into the suit from behind, and the backpack closes and latches.
-- 
NASA is to spaceflight as            |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
the Post Office is to mail.          | {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 18 May 88 06:09:15 GMT
From: attcan!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Space suits

> ...feet are pretty well useless in space...

Not so, actually; staying in one place is a major hassle in free-fall,
much more so than anybody really expected.  Those pretty pictures of
non-anthropomorphic suits floating next to the space station (or
whatever) while the occupants work away look nice, but those suits would
be expending fantastic amounts of fuel holding their positions.  One can
re-invent mechanical feet as anchors, and they would have some
advantages, but it's not clear that it's worth it.

> The manipulator waldoes could have specialized fittings for various
> jobs...

The state of waldo technology can be described, charitably, as "crude".
They aren't up to being arm substitutes, not really.
-- 
NASA is to spaceflight as            |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
the Post Office is to mail.          | {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 19 May 88 20:57:07 GMT
From: dartvax!eleazar.dartmouth.edu!seldon@decvax.dec.com  (Joe Walker and Hal Jr.)
Subject: Re: Space suits

>> It would also be easier to get into and out of...
>
>Compared to the NASA suits, perhaps.  The Soviets have this one licked:
>the backpack hinges out away from the suit, you slide legs, arms, and
>head into the suit from behind, and the backpack closes and latches.

  I think the only advandage a "pod" type of suit is that it would not
have to be depressurized...Soft suits have a limit on interior
pressure..too high and the astronaut would not be able bend arms, legs,
or even fingers..  as it is the astronaut has to pre-breathe pure oxygen
for a while before suiting up to prevent the bends when he's in the low
pressure environment of the suit.  right now NASA is looking at designs
for "Hard suits" to be used in the space station..this simplifies the
process of going from coabin to suit...

    Hard suits...best of both worlds..

------------------------------

Date: 20 May 88 21:57:50 GMT
From: cos!smith@uunet.uu.net  (Steve Smith)
Subject: Re: Space suits

In article <1988May18.063843.2851@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:

> ... Current spacesuit arms are poor and gloves are grossly
> unsatisfactory.

Many years ago, I saw an idea for a "spacesuit" that solved this problem
elegantly.  It uses the fact that human skin is a very good gastight
membrane.  It simply consists of a mechanical support layer that doesn't
let the user swell up in vacuum.  Think of a *very* stiff body stocking.
A helmet finishes it off.  There are some obvious problems -- getting in
and out would not be trivial, and there are parts of the human anatomy
that would be difficult to handle (armpits, for example).

Suposedly, a large aerospace company (Avco-Everett?) built a model suit
that was comfortable, inexpensive, and *far* more efficient than NASA's
suits.  NASA rejected the idea with an excuse that translated "not
invented here".

Does anybody have any further information?

                -- Steve
(smith@cos.com)    ({uunet sundc decuac hqda-ai hadron}!cos!smith)
"Truth is stranger than fiction because fiction has to make sense."

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #239
*******************

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Date: Wed, 1 Jun 88 03:25:53 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8806011025.AA05162@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #240

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 240

Today's Topics:
			   Re: Space suits
			   Re: Space suits
			   Re: Space suits
			   Re: Space suits
			   Re: Space suits
	      What to do with the external shuttle tanks
	    Re: What to do with the external shuttle tanks
	    Re: What to do with the external shuttle tanks
		 Re: Converting Ephemeris Time to GMT
		 Re: Converting Ephemeris Time to GMT
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 21 May 88 15:25:35 GMT
From: nyser!cmx!anand@itsgw.rpi.edu  (Rangachari Anand)
Subject: Re: Space suits

In article <1783@cos.com> smith@cos.UUCP (Steve Smith) writes:
>Many years ago, I saw an idea for a "spacesuit" that solved this
>problem elegantly.  It uses the fact that human skin is a very good
>gastight membrane.  It simply consists of a mechanical support layer
>that doesn't let the user swell up in vacuum.  Think of a *very* stiff
>body stocking.  A helmet finishes it off.  There are some obvious
>problems -- getting in and out would not be trivial, and there are
>parts of the human anatomy that would be difficult to handle (armpits,
>for example).

 Protection from vaccuum is not the only function of a space suit
 Thermal insulation and radiation insulation are also important.  I
 recently read in Spaceflight that even with the current space suits,
 EVA times have to be restricted to not more than a few hours so as to
 minimize exposure to radiation.

                                          R. Anand
                                         anand@amax.npac.syr.edu

------------------------------

Date: 20 May 88 16:08:18 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!its63b!bob@uunet.uu.net  (ERCF08 Bob Gray)
Subject: Re: Space suits

Legs are not needed except for hooking your feet into some convenient
perch. Most of the actual moving about is done either by using your
hands or using a maneuvering unit of some sort. In a suit for serious
construction work in space, e.g. on a large space colony, there would
have to be a maneuvering unit attached to the suit.

On the basis of keeping the system as simple and as cheap as possible,
do away with the legs and torso and replace then with a simple cylinder.
Some sort of anchor would also be needed to hold the suit in place while
the occupant is working.

If the cylinder is wide enough, the occupant could withdraw their arms
from the sleeves to adjust instruments, feed, or just to scratch.

To improve the suit arms and gloves, make the occupant wear a long pair
of skin support gloves, put an air seal at the top of the wearer's arm
above the bicep, and pump most of the air out. The gloves can then be
designed to hold much less pressure, and be correspondingly more
flexible.  Make sure that the gloves are well thermaly insulated,
'though, things might get very hot in sunlight and very cold in shadow.

Suits of this basic design used to be used 150 years ago for underwater
salvage operations, before the invention of the diving suit.
	Bob.

------------------------------

Path: ucbvax!pasteur!ames!lll-tis!lll-winken!uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry
From: utzoo!henry@ucbvax.berkeley.edu (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Space suits
Keywords: non-anthropomorphic
Date: 22 May 88 01:14:09 GMT
Lines: 9
Apparently-To: space-incoming@angband.s1.gov

>   Hard suits...best of both worlds..

Well, better of both worlds.  The clear winner for the hassle-free
spacesuit is the "space activity suit" concept, in which the body of the
suit is just extra-stretchy fabric to supply pressurization, with the
skin in vacuum.  The idea has been tested in vacuum chambers; it works.
Unfortunately, NASA displays no interest in pursuing the scheme further,
even though it funded the original work and nobody has found any real
flaws.  If one were being cynical, one might suspect an overly-cozy
relationship between NASA and its current space-suit suppliers; it
wouldn't be the first time.

------------------------------

Date: 24 May 88 02:58:39 GMT
From: spar!snjsn1!trojan!chuckc@decwrl.dec.com  (Charles Crapuchettes)
Subject: Re: Space suits

In article <1988May22.011409.16510@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>>   Hard suits...best of both worlds..
>
>Well, better of both worlds.  The clear winner for the hassle-free spacesuit
>is the "space activity suit" concept, in which the body of the suit is just
>extra-stretchy fabric to supply pressurization, with the skin in vacuum.
> . . .

In article <580158832.amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU> Dale.Amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU writes:
>Small particles released with the liquids will suffer the same fate as
>Delta rocket paint flecks: fly around Earth for a few years and then
>either reenter or make craters in spacecraft windshields.

How long would an astronaut have to be EVA to have a 50% chance of being
injured by a chunk of crud (either artificial or man-made)?  Do harder
suits provide protection, or is the energy too high?

Anyone with hard facts?

InterNet:  chuckc%sentry@spar.slb.com  or  crapuchettes%mother@spar.slb.com

------------------------------

Date: 24 May 88 04:33:44 GMT
From: ubvax!unisv!vanpelt@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Mike Van Pelt)
Subject: Re: Space suits

In article <1783@cos.com> smith@cos.UUCP (Steve Smith) writes:
>Many years ago, I saw an idea for a "spacesuit" that solved this
>problem elegantly.  It uses the fact that human skin is a very good
>gastight membrane.  It simply consists of a mechanical support layer
>...  Suposedly, a large aerospace company (Avco-Everett?) built a model
>suit that was comfortable, inexpensive, and *far* more efficient than
>NASA's suits.  NASA rejected the idea with an excuse that translated
>"not invented here".
>
>Does anybody have any further information?

I heard a talk on space suit design a few years ago, and I asked about
this suit.  The speaker (don't remember his name, but he was involved in
the Apollo suit design) said that for satellite work, you'll be doing a
whole lot of outgassing, which is very bad for contaminating delicate
parts.

Sounds bogus to me.  They don't put satellites in a vaccum canister for
launch.  Probably (1) NIH and (2) not expensive enough.

That suit is supposedly very good for thermal control, too.  Given the
mechanical support, your skin does just as good a job of temperature
control as on earth.  Better, actually, as a little sweat provides a lot
more cooling in vacuum.

------------------------------

Date: 6 May 88 22:47:59 GMT
From: cadnetix.COM!beres@uunet.uu.net
Subject: What to do with the external shuttle tanks


	* All details from Boulder Daily Camera, 5/6/88; information
	  used and quoted without permission *

	FACTS:

	In todays Boulder Daily Camera (5/6) there is an article about a
Boulder company that stands to benefit by a new amendment passed by the
space sub-committee (Congress).  The company is ETCO (External Tanks
Corp.) of Boulder.  ETCO was created by UCAR (Univ. Corp. for
Atmospheric Research, also of Boulder) to study and design ways of using
the ET in orbit.  ETCO is/was founded as a co-op between gov't and the
private sector; uses of the tanks are to be investor financed (yea!).
Final bit of factual info: the bill to authorize NASA to make use of the
ET was introduced by Rep. David Skaggs D-Colo.

	ME:
	
	Funny that a Boulder company could stand to benefit from this
bill, huh?  In any event, the bill is a good idea, no matter who is the
*financial* winner.  I know that uses of the ET has come up before in
this group, but it might be a good time to discuss it again - since it
just really might happen.  To start the ball rolling, here are a few
(well, 5) questions I have:

	1.  Does anyone in the know (Greg Woods at NCAR, others) know if
	    the previous net discussion, amongst others I presume,
	    influenced our Congress-critters/NASA to make use of the ET?
	    Did it help?
	2.  The Camera article mentioned 20 to 30 experiments have been
	    proposed to UCAR.  Care to give us any details, anyone?
	3.  Timeframe, if Congress/NASA is timely about adoption of the
	    plan?
	4.  Does anyone have a summary of previous net proposals?
	5.  What about integration with the space station/ISF plans?

	Speaking for myself only...if anyone else has a better summary
of the amendment, speak up!

			-Tim

------------------------------

Date: 9 May 88 20:24:05 GMT
From: attcan!lsuc!spectrix!tmsoft!utgpu!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: What to do with the external shuttle tanks

>  1.  Does anyone in the know (Greg Woods at NCAR, others) know if the
>      previous net discussion, amongst others I presume, influenced
>      our Congress-critters/NASA to make use of the ET?  Did it help?

Unlikely.  The most significant influence was probably that the Reagan
space policy specifically called for NASA to provide ETs to private
companies wanting them, and this is uncontroversial enough to pass
Congress easily.

>  3.  Timeframe, if Congress/NASA is timely about adoption of the plan?

NASA is supposed to release a detailed policy document on it soon.  See
my latest AW&ST summary for some related news.  The main issue is that
any company wanting an ET in orbit has got to demonstrate to everyone's
satisfaction that the tank will not make an uncontrolled reentry.  This
is a non-trivial problem since the tanks are big and light, would end up
in quite a low orbit, and would naturally tend to orient themselves
broadside- on to air drag.

>	5.  What about integration with the space station/ISF plans?

If NASA were sensible, it would have provided for using an ET as
expansion space for the station.  It didn't.  And I'd say Space
Industries has enough problems with plain old ISF just now.

NASA is to spaceflight as            |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
the Post Office is to mail.          | {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 17 May 88 01:25:41 GMT
From: al@eos.arc.nasa.gov  (Al Globus)
Subject: Re: What to do with the external shuttle tanks

My favorite use for external tanks: sports arena.

Note that the revenue from a major sporting event (Olympics, SuperBowl)
can be in the $100 millions range.

Put an aft cargo compartment on the tank so that modification work that
cannot be done on the ground can be done in a shirt sleeve environment.

First launch sets up the facility and presurizes the oxygen tank.

Next launch a Shuttle and a Soyuz simulataneously to dock with the
facility (this may be tricky).  The shuttle carries a pilot and
commander, a video technician, two American and two Soviet atheletes.
The Soyuz carries a Soviet pilot, one American and one Soviet athelete.

Take four days to train and aclimate.  Then have three or four games,
one per day with three on three teams, Americans vs Soviets.  I
guarantee VERY large audiences for at least the first game.

With proper marketing you just might be able to make some money.  In any
case, the initial potential income vastly exceeds any other space
venture.  You should take in hundreds of millions in the first week of
operation.

The scientist and engineers have had the orbital sandbox to themselves
for too long.  It's time for others to get in the action.

------------------------------

Date: 9 May 88 18:26:55 GMT
From: cfa!mink@husc6.harvard.edu  (Doug Mink)
Subject: Re: Converting Ephemeris Time to GMT

In article <217@krafla.rhi.hi.is>, kjartan@rhi.hi.is (Kjartan R. Gudmundsson)
writes:
> I am working on a program which will give me on what days the moon is
> full.  I have a formula which gives the answer in Julian Ephemeris
> Days, and now I need a formula to convert these in to GMT.  A example
> with the formula shows that New Moon in February 1977 was on JD =
> 2443192.6525 or 1977 February 18 at 3 Hours 39.6 min (ET).

> If someone could give me this formula I would be thankful.

I run into this problem all the time doing occultation predictions.
Until recently, I've been working over a period of time during which
ET-UT could be closely approximated by a linear fit (it is an empirical
number whcih can only be accurately computed for the past).  I had
occasion to look at data over a period from the late 1940's to the
present, and no polynomial fit would work, so I built in a table of
ET-UT over a the period from which observations are most likely to be
used.  The fit back past the 1940's is based on the real ET-UT which I
didn't want to tabulate; ET-UT fluctuates strangely before 1930.  The
fit into the future fits the extrapolated data for the next two years
and should work for longer.  I use it through 1999 in my work.

Here is a program I wrote:

c*** March 24, 1988
c*** By Doug Mink

c--- Calculate ET - UT given seconds after 1/1/1950

	Subroutine JPDT (TSEC0, DT)

	Real*8 TSEC0
c			Date in format (yyyy.mmdd)
c			or if >3000.d0, seconds after 1/1/1950 0:00 et

	Real*8 DT
c			ET - UT in seconds

	Real*8 TSEC,YEAR,YDIFF,DIFF
	Integer*4 IYR

c  Table containing ET - UT in seconds from the Astronomical Ephemeris

	Real*4 DTTAB(40)
	Save DTTAB
	Data DTTAB/28.71,29.15,29.57,29.97,30.36,30.72,31.07,31.35,31.68,32.18,
     1		   32.68,33.15,33.59,34.00,34.47,35.03,35.73,36.54,37.43,38.29,
     2		   39.20,40.18,41.17,42.23,43.37,44.49,45.48,49.46,47.52,48.53,
     3		   49.59,50.54,51.38,52.17,52.96,53.79,54.34,54.90,55.40,56.00/

	TSEC = TSEC0

c  Convert date to seconds after 1950.0101

	If (TSEC .lt. 3.d3) Then
	   Call VCON (TSEC0,0.d0,TSEC)
	   Endif

c  Convert to years since 1950 (divide by 365.25d0*8.64d4)

	YEAR = TSEC / 31557600.d0
	IYR = Idint (YEAR) + 2

c  Extrapolate into past using fit based on data from 1930 to 1950

	If (IYR .lt. 1) Then
	    DT = 29.157184d0 + 0.589892348d0 * DYEAR + 7.701803d-3 * DYEAR*DYEAR
     1	       - 4.7890824d-4 * DYEAR*DYEAR*DYEAR

c  Interpolate from table from the Astronomical Ephemeris (1987) (1949-1988)

	Elseif (IYR .lt. 40) Then
	    DIFF = Dble (DTTAB(IYR+1) - DTTAB(IYR))
	    YDIFF = YEAR - Dble (IYR-2)
	    DT = Dble (DTTAB(IYR)) + (YDIFF * DIFF)

c  Extrapolate into future using fit based on data from 1975 to 1988

	Else
	    DT = 28.76304734d0 + 0.719777265d0 * (YEAR)
	Endif

	Return
	End

------------------------------

Date: 10 May 88 05:52:00 GMT
From: kenny@m.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Re: Converting Ephemeris Time to GMT

While Dr. Mink's posting is quite accurate, as far as it goes, let me
just fill in some data for longer periods.

Actual observed differences in the two clocks over the last three
centuries are (all times in minutes):

1710 -0.2  1770 0.1   1870 0.0	 1903 0.0   1940 0.4   1971 0.7
1730 -0.1  1800 0.1   1880 -0.1  1912 0.2   1950 0.5   1977 0.8
1750 0	   1840 0.0   1895 -0.1  1927 0.4   1965 0.6 [Meeus]

For longer periods (centuries), Meeus suggests the approximation:

diff = 0.4992 * T**2 + 1.2053 * T + 0.41

where diff is the difference between the two clocks, in minutes, and T
is the time since 1900.0, in centuries.

Another useful and simple approximation is

diff = 0.015 * Y + 0.91,

where Y is the time since 1985, in years, and diff is again in minutes;
this approximation appears in the programs distributed by Allan Paeth.
This last one is within a few seconds for periods 1950-present.

Kevin

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #240
*******************

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Date: Thu, 2 Jun 88 03:22:09 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8806021022.AA01309@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #241

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 241

Today's Topics:
		 Re: anthropic cosmological principle
		 Re: anthropic cosmological principle
			 P.C.W. Davies Books
		 Re: anthropic cosmological principle
		 Re: anthropic cosmological principle
			Re: Shooting the Moon
	 Re: Cometesimals (was: Millions of comets hit Earth)
			Re: Shooting the Moon
			Re: Shooting the Moon
	   Re: Question about Richard Hoagland/Mars Project
			Re: Shooting the Moon
	   Re: Question about Richard Hoagland/Mars Project
       Re: Shooting the Moon (really Martian ballooning) (LONG)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 6 May 88 19:24:18 GMT
From: wall@decwrl.dec.com  (David Wall)
Subject: Re: anthropic cosmological principle

Marc Hairston recommends _The_Accidental_Universe_, and I do so also.
It should be noted, however, that it is by A. J. P. Davies, not Paul
Davies.  I used to think they were the same (and they might be) but
their books are quite different.  My impression from reading them is
that the former is a real scientist and the latter is a mystic.

------------------------------

Date: 6 May 88 21:28:16 GMT
From: livesey@sun.com  (Jon Livesey)
Subject: Re: anthropic cosmological principle

In article <429@bacchus.DEC.COM>, wall@decwrl.dec.com (David Wall) writes:
> Marc Hairston recommends _The_Accidental_Universe_, and I do so also.
> It should be noted, however, that it is by A. J. P. Davies, not Paul
> Davies.  I used to think they were the same (and they might be) but
> their books are quite different.  My impression from reading them is
> that the former is a real scientist and the latter is a mystic.

	I have the book in front of me:

		P. C. W. Davies.
		The Accidental Universe
		Cambridge University Press.
		1982.

	The jacket blurb begins "In 'The Accidental Universe" renowned
expositor Paul Davies grapples with the most fundamental questions of
all."

	Paul Davies is Professor of Theoretical Physics at the
University of Newcastle upon Tyne (which used to be called King's
College, Durham, when I was a tyke).

	Could you be thinking of A. J. P. Taylor, the historian?

jon.

------------------------------

Date: 8 May 88 23:39:34 GMT
From: amdahl!apple!dan@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Dan Allen)
Subject: P.C.W. Davies Books

It seems that Paul Davies also goes by P.C.W. Davies.  His latest book
from Simon and Schuster is called _The_Cosmic_Blueprint_ and is on the
Scientific American reading level, along with:

	The Runaway Universe
	Other Worlds
	The Edge of Infinity
	God and the New Physics
	Superforce

Then there are his "student texts":

	Space and time in the modern universe
	The forces of nature
	The search for gravity waves
	The accidental universe
	Quantum mechanics
	The ghost in the atom

And finally there are his "technical" works:

	The physics of time asymmetry
	Quantom fields in curved space

All of the above information came from the "Also by Paul Davies" page of
his latest book, _The_Cosmic_Blueprint_.

Editorial: I have about five of his books and find them pretty good on
the whole.  I particulary like his _The_Accidental_Universe_ which is a
condensed version of the big Barrow & Tipler
_The_Anthropic_Cosmological_Principle_ book which is also very good.

His latest book (Cosmic Blueprint) is so-so.  _God_And_The_New_Physics_
is the best of his easy reading level for me, because it has a neat
philosophical side to it that the average science retelling does not
have.

I have not yet dived into his "technical" works, only because I have not
seen them for sale.  Does anyone have anything to say about them?

One final comment: on my shelf of favorite books (the ones that I would
take if on a desert island) I have the Barrow & Tipler, as well as two
of Davies student level texts.  For the curious, I also have Misner
Thorne and Wheeler's _Gravitation_, Allen's _Astrophysical_Quantities_,
Harwit's _Astrophysical Concepts_, Rindler's _Essential_Relativity_,
Feynman's _QED_, Einstein's _The_Meaning_Of_Relativity_, Tolman's
_Relativity_Thermodynamics_and_Cosmology, Eddington's _Space_Time_and_
Gravitation, and two other authors.

F.S.C. Northrop's _Science_And_First_Principles_, a classic wonderful
book by a man that I have heard so little about, and almost everything
that KARL POPPER ever wrote.

Keep in mind that this is my favorite shelf of physics books.  The rest
number in the 100s, and then there is computers, philosophy, religion...
It is so hard to make a SHORT list of favorites.  Try it sometime!

Dan Allen
Software Explorer
Apple Computer

------------------------------

Date: 7 May 88 23:33:09 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!yunexus!ists!mike@uunet.uu.net  (Mike Clarkson)
Subject: Re: anthropic cosmological principle

In article <880502092353.edf@VLSI.JPL.NASA.GOV>, hairston%utd750%utadnx%utspan.span@VLSI.JPL.NASA.GOV writes:
> Martin Gardner has written that the FAP should be renamed the
> completely ridiculous anthropic principle (CRAP).

I like that.

> All the anthropic principles are interesting, but since none of them
> can be tested or used to make predictions, then they fall outside of
> science and into the realm of philosophy (which is nothing new to this
> group).

Not true: most of the anthropomoric principles centre around the
assumption that carbon is a a requirement for life forms as we know
them.  It turns out that the relative abundance of carbon in the
universe places some pretty severe restrictions on what must have
transpired during the first second of the universe's existence after the
big bang, so in fact the anthropomorphic principle does allow one to
make predictions.  One of the important early papers in this field was
Dirac's paper in Nature (1961 I think, sorry I don't have the reference
here).  It began "It is well known that carbon is required to make
physicists..."

When you are working in quantum mechanics, the line between physics and
philosophy is very thin; perhaps nowhere more so than in areas like the
quantum theory of gravity.  But it is most definitely science, and
predictions can be made.  Dirac was no philospher; he was an execellent
and very practical scientist.

Mike Clarkson					mike@ists.UUCP
Institute for Space and Terrestrial Science	mike@ists.yorku.ca
York University, North York, Ontario,		uunet!mnetor!yunexus!ists!mike
CANADA M3J 1P3					+1 (416) 736-5611

------------------------------

Date: 11 May 88 23:18:17 GMT
From: oliveb!3comvax!michaelm@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Michael McNeil)
Subject: Re: anthropic cosmological principle

In article <202@ists> mike@ists (Mike Clarkson) writes:
>When you are working in quantum mechanics, the line between physics and
>philosophy is very thin; perhaps nowhere more so than in areas like the
>quantum theory of gravity.  But it is most definitely science, and
>predictions can be made.  Dirac was no philospher; he was an execellent
>and very practical scientist.

	I am now convinced that theoretical physics is
	actual philosophy.  
		Max Born

Michael McNeil

------------------------------

Date: 5 May 88 00:10:43 GMT
From: tektronix!reed!douglas@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (P Douglas Reeder)
Subject: Re: Shooting the Moon

Does anyone know if the soviet mars probes that will travel around mars
by balloon will deploy their balloons before or after first touching
down?

For those who haven't heard: The balloons are heated by the morning sun,
adding to lift, drift with the winds during the day, and touch down
every night at a different site.

Doug Reeder

------------------------------

Date: 4 May 88 17:07:11 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Cometesimals (was: Millions of comets hit Earth)

> >... Every few million years Mars warms up (since the water that is in
> >vapor form creates a greenhouse effect just like CO2); the ice thaws;
> >rivers flow on Mars...
> 
> Water on Mars??  Could you please point me to references that
> substantiate this?

Well, nobody disputes the effects of water on the topography; the Viking
Orbiter images settled once and for all that Mars once had flowing water
on a large scale.  The idea that Mars's climate changes cyclically, and
that it is currently in a dry phase, is respectable speculation but not,
I believe, unanimously accepted.

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 4 May 88 17:36:11 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Shooting the Moon

> If a telescope is too heavy/bulky/low in resolution, send down a
> Ranger type probe first.

This isn't a bad idea.  The major problem is that you may need more than
one of them to find a suitable location.

> Load it with an impact-survivable transmitter, and you have a landing
> beacon as well.  This would allow a rather stupid but accurate
> mechanism for terminal guidance.

This isn't actually necessary if you can survey the landing area well
enough.  (Doing that from orbit should suffice, the only tricky part is
picking the exact landing point.)  Cruise-missile guidance systems
should suffice to find a selected point in well-mapped terrain.

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 4 May 88 17:41:04 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Shooting the Moon

>1. EXPLOSION ON THE PAD: Folks, the Challenger disaster was bad, really
>bad.  But imagine if it had a nuclear warhead on board.  Bye, bye South
>Florida!  A spaceship is one of the least stable places to keep a
>warhead!

Not an issue, actually.  Nuclear warheads are routinely designed to
crash at supersonic speeds or cook in a burning aircraft without doing
much more than spraying a bit of radioactive gup around the immediate
vicinity.  Getting a nuclear explosion is not that easy; nuclear bombs
are precision machinery.  Smashing one with a sledgehammer won't
detonate it.

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 5 May 88 06:22:13 GMT
From: well!pokey@lll-lcc.llnl.gov  (Jef Poskanzer)
Subject: Re: Question about Richard Hoagland/Mars Project

In the referenced message, henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) wrote:
}Hoagland is generally regarded as a nut.

Not by anyone who has even skimmed his book, and noted the extensive
disclaimers that it's all wild speculation.  This is very different from
the Ancient Astronauts syndrome.  I met Hoagland in 1980, and I did not
find him nutty at all -- just intelligent, creative, open-minded, and
slightly modest if you can believe that.

Now, I don't actually believe this stuff about faces, and I don't think
we should send *anything* to Mars until we have the infrastructure to
stay there, but it is interesting.

}I have not read this particular book

Well then.

------------------------------

Date: 5 May 88 05:51:36 GMT
From: paulf@shasta.stanford.edu  (Paul A. Flaherty)
Subject: Re: Shooting the Moon

In article <EWTWl0y00Wg9cFU0OD@andrew.cmu.edu> kr0u+@andrew.cmu.edu (Kevin William Ryan) writes:
> Since what is wanted is a clear landing site, scout it out ahead of time.

We will have an orbiter in LMO, but as I said earlier, the resolution
isn't good enough.  And that's with a big CCD camera, and optimistically
precise optics.

Moreover, terrain assessments done in the past have tended to be just
plain wrong.  Apollo 11 had to contend with unexpectedly rough terrain;
they almost bought the farm.  We got just plain lucky with Viking.

> Now for my idea: If a telescope is too heavy/bulky/low in resolution,
> send down a Ranger type probe first.

Yep, we have said probes, but you can't get a camera with the necessary
resolution, nor can you get enough power in the package to send back
information at the required rate (Shannon et al).

> kr0u@andrew.cmu.edu

------------------------------

Date: 5 May 88 16:42:30 GMT
From: ddsw1!dino@gargoyle.uchicago.edu  (Laura Watson)
Subject: Re: Question about Richard Hoagland/Mars Project

In article <1988May2.231928.4924@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>> I have just finished reading a book by one Richard Hoagland called
>> _The Monuments of Mars_.  It is essentially speculative nonfiction
>> concerning some possible artificial objects on the surface of Mars.

I read in Charles Berlitz's _Atlantis_ that there are pictures of
pyramids on Mars.  This was in the part about pyramids found under the
Atlantic ocean, supposedly where Atlantis was.  If the book you're
talking about is about that, I sure going to read it.

Laura Watson             ...[ihnp4, moss, codas]!ddsw1!dino

------------------------------

Date: 6 May 88 01:19:55 GMT
From: jeric@tybalt.caltech.edu  (J. Eric Grove)
Subject: Re: Shooting the Moon (really Martian ballooning) (LONG)

In article <9179@reed.UUCP> douglas@reed.UUCP (P Douglas Reeder) writes:
>Does anyone know if the soviet mars probes that will travel around mars
>by balloon will deploy their balloons before or after first touching
>down?
>
>For those who haven't heard: The balloons are heated by the morning
>sun, adding to lift, drift with the winds during the day, and touch
>down every night at a different site.

As I understand it, the concept actually employs two balloons, a He (or
H) balloon which, in answer to your question, is inflated on descent,
and an open hot "air" balloon (maybe better called a "Montgolfier") made
of some black material yet to be developed.

Since the balloon fabrics are so fragile (presumably only a couple
tenths of mils thick), they must not touch the Martian surface.  Because
the Martian atmosphere is so tenuous, Montgolfier ballooning is
difficult, and every extra bit of weight must be eliminated.

I recently heard a fellow from JPL talk here (sorry, his name has long
since been filed) about the project.  It is a French concept, and the
JPLers were contributing to the design of the balloons and payload.  Our
government has, in its infinite wisdom, canceled their funding, so the
French and Soviets will have to go it alone.

The JPLers did make some significant advances in removing some of of the
inherent problems in the concept, namely ...

When the payload is on the ground at night, the Montgolfier is deflated
and being held aloft by the He balloon.  If there is any wind, the
Montgolfier will act like a beautiful spinnaker, dragging the payload
and pulling itself into the ground (bye-bye balloon).  And if the
payload drags, it may catch and be stuck forever.  What we need is a
balloon with a lifting shape (too complex to put in ascii) and a
"smooth" payload.  The JPLers came up with a lifting shape after much
head-scratching, only to discover you can buy toy kite-balloons at
K-Mart for a couple of bucks with just the right shape :-) (but much too
heavy and small).  They designed a snake-like payload of nested "dixie
cups" to give rigidity on small scales, but flexibility on large scales.
So with the wind blowing to the right, we might see this on Mars:

					He kite-balloon
						/
					       /
					      /
				    deflated Montgolfier
					    /
					   /
					  /
					 /
					0
				       0
				      0
				000000		<- the payload

Tests of the kite-balloon and the payload on the only Martian surface we
Americans can reach (the CA desert) were quite successful.  Now,
designing instruments to fit in a series of squashed dixie cups might
not be so simple.

The French were impressed, but it's not yet clear whether or how much of
the design will actually be used.

disclaimer: I have no connection whatsoever with K-Mart.  I don't even
know where one is.

		J. Eric Grove
		jeric@tybalt.caltech.edu
		...rutgers!cit-vax!tybalt.caltech.edu!jeric

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #241
*******************

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Date: Fri, 3 Jun 88 03:21:32 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8806031021.AA03095@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #242

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 242

Today's Topics:
			       Re: Mars
			Re: Shooting the Moon
			Re: Shooting the Moon
	      Vocabulary lesson #6:  Joint Mars Mission
			Re: Shooting the Moon
			     Mars Landing
		  Re: Radar (was Shooting the Moon)
			Re: Shooting the Moon
	   Re: Question about Richard Hoagland/Mars Project
		  Re: Radar (was Shooting the Moon)
		      When in doubt, nuke it...
			Re: Shooting the Moon
			Re: Shooting the Moon
			  Shooting the Moon
		    Re: When in doubt, nuke it...
		    Re: When in doubt, nuke it...
		    Re: When in doubt, nuke it...
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 5 May 88 16:45:20 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Mars

> If any of the probes sent there weren't properly sterilised before
> launch, colonies of bacteria could still be living in the remains of
> the (hard or soft) lander.

I believe that at least one of the early Soviet hard-landers is thought
*not* to have been sterilized.  Oh well.

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 6 May 88 17:43:34 GMT
From: paul.rutgers.edu!styx.rutgers.edu!masticol@rutgers.edu  (Steve Masticola)
Subject: Re: Shooting the Moon

In article <5045@nsc.nsc.com> ken@nsc.nsc.com ({JOAT}) writes:

> Why does it have to be a nuclear explosion?, why not a small chemical
> charge.

Serious answers: Thermite might work better than explosives, because an
explosion (as was pointed out earlier) might just uncover buried rock.

On the other hand, the explosives or thermite required would be massive,
maybe prohibitively so. Maybe the cheapest answer is radar imaging on
the lander and fine enough steerability to avoid the boulders. If
there's a way to use the radar after it landed, great!

But then again, two Vikings got down without landing on a boulder,
didn't they? So maybe imaging radars and fancy boulder-avoidance
hardware isn't really needed.  (Flame anticipation: Yeah, I know they
could have come down on a rock.  The point is that they didn't, twice.
I think this conclusively proves that it's possible to land unmanned
vehicles on Mars without nuclear pyrotechnics.)

Flippant answer: The use of a technically elegant solution would prevent
the Curtiss LeMays from using atom bombs on the Koreans _sorry_
Vietnamese _er_ the Iranians _whoops!_ Mars. Let the big kids have some
fun once in awhile, why dontcha? Just a little one? Aw, come on, it's
just a little city _I mean_ planet...

------------------------------

Date: 6 May 88 08:49:50 GMT
From: sj1f+@andrew.cmu.edu  (Steven Kent Jensen)
Subject: Re: Shooting the Moon

        I personally would not support the detonation of an atomic
weapon on Mars because of the amount of scientific data that we would
lose.  BUT as a concept I approve whole-heartedly.  Part of the problem
with the space program is that the imagination has bled from NASA, in
fact it has bled from the whole country.  If you ask someone why they do
something a certain way they will most likely tell you that that was the
way it had always been done.  America needs to start THINKING, and not
just along the same, old lines.

                                Steven Jensen

------------------------------

Reply-To: pnet01!jim@trout.nosc.mil
Date: Fri, 6 May 88 19:31:34 PDT
From: jim@pnet01.cts.com (Jim Bowery)
To: crash!Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: Vocabulary lesson #6:  Joint Mars Mission

Joint Mars Mission, n, a diabolically clever Soviet plot to destroy
American leadership in space by allowing NASA to take credit for Soviet
space accomplishments and thus lulling the American populace into
believing that they have a space program.

ARPA: crash!pnet01!jim@nosc.mil

------------------------------

Date: 6 May 88 20:57:15 GMT
From: tektronix!reed!douglas@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (P Douglas Reeder)
Subject: Re: Shooting the Moon

Is 1m resolution the only way to tell if there are 1m rocks at your
Martian landing site?  Is there no computer processing method that could
dectect surface roughness and tell you there are 1m rocks without being
able to say exactly where they are?

------------------------------

Date: 6 May 88 18:37:31 GMT
From: ganelon.usc.edu!robiner@oberon.usc.edu  (Steve)
Subject: Mars Landing

All this talk about nuclear detonations on Mars sounds totally
unnecessary.

No accurate data on landing sites?  How did we land the Viking which
tolerates much less than 1m boulders?

If Viking did its own maneuvering, which I don't think it did, at least
we know that terrain very well now, why not land the rover right next to
it, and go for a walk.

=Steve=

------------------------------

Date: 7 May 88 20:18:29 GMT
From: pioneer!eugene@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Eugene N. Miya)
Subject: Re: Radar (was Shooting the Moon)

In article <May.6.13.43.32.1988.8843@styx.rutgers.edu> masticol@styx.rutgers.edu (Steve Masticola) writes:
>massive, maybe prohibitively so. Maybe the cheapest answer is radar
>imaging on the lander and fine enough steerability to avoid the
>boulders. If there's a way to use the radar after it landed, great!

I'm amazed that you guys are so infatuated with radar (imaging).  Sure
for the final decent, but 1 and 3 meter mapping?  We have a ways to go
to understand how it works.  Mars is one of the last planets RSAG wants
to image.  Processing equipment is very heavy.  Seasat images took 2
weeks to process adequately.  The DC-8 up here is just about ready for
JPL missions I occasionally see some of the guys up here.

On Curtis LeMay:
I just saw "Wild Blue Yonder" this morning before driving into work.
Drop that phorphous!

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA

------------------------------

Date: 7 May 88 15:58:39 GMT
From: portal!cup.portal.com!Daniel_C_Anderson@uunet.uu.net
Subject: Re: Shooting the Moon

   Aside from the technological considerations of nuking Mars to provide
a landing site, there is the matter of aesthetics.
   Nuking Mars would be a crudity akin to spray-painting directions to
your party in 100-ft letters on the Grand Canyon. A cosmic act of
inconsideration by a F-T-Universe species. It'd make us look bad.
   Even if it works.
--Daniel

------------------------------

Date: 9 May 88 15:55:52 GMT
From: mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Mike Smithwick)
Subject: Re: Question about Richard Hoagland/Mars Project

>  Hoagland is generally regarded as a nut.

Ahhhhh, but a very entertaining nut! I saw him at a local L-5 meeting a
few years back, and found his talk utterly preposterous, but fun.

>NASA is to spaceflight as            |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
>the Post Office is to mail.          | {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

Perhaps, but the PO is largely independent, whereas NASA is run by a
bunch of lawyers (read : "congresscritters") who think they know about
science.

------------------------------

Date: 9 May 88 17:33:22 GMT
From: phri!dasys1!tneff@nyu.edu  (Tom Neff)
Subject: Re: Radar (was Shooting the Moon)

In article <8444@ames.arpa> eugene@pioneer.UUCP (Eugene N. Miya) writes:
>...  Mars is one of the last planets RSAG wants to image.  Processing
>equipment is very heavy.  Seasat images took 2 weeks to process
>adequately...

Good, another reason for a joint mission.  Ivan eats heavy payloads for
breakfast.

And why does a 2 week processing turnaround matter in this context?  If
the imaging is being done in support of an unmanned lander mission, just
park the orbiter/lander assembly in orbit until JPL can decipher the
data and make a decision.  If it's in support of a manned mission, you
could ALMOST do the same thing (hell, it takes them a year to get there,
there ought to be two weeks' worth of stuff to do before landing), but
more appropriately you could use an unmanned orbiter launched to arrive
months beforehand.

Anyway if this were part of an actual Mars mission you have to believe
that more supercomputer resources would be online for you guys, and more
manpower too.  Would it REALLY still take 2 weeks?

Tom Neff

------------------------------

Date:           Mon, 16 May 88 14:46:59 PDT
From: Dana Myers <bilbo.dana@seas.ucla.edu>
To: paulf@shasta.stanford.edu
Cc: space@angband.s1.gov
Subject:        When in doubt, nuke it...


>Date: 29 Apr 88 16:27:42 GMT
>From: paulf@shasta.stanford.edu  (Paul A. Flaherty)
>Subject: Shooting the Moon
>
>I'm currently involved with the joint Stanford - JPL mission to Mars;
>for those of you who don't know about this, we're looking at placing an
>orbiter in sun - sync, two repeaters in "Molniya" orbits, and landing a
>pair of rovers.
>
>The biggest problem we're faced with at the moment is landing site
>selection, and crash landing aviodance, eg., not putting down on top of
>a large boulder.  This is a rather difficult proposition, since the
>best hi-res photography we'll be able to get will have about 3m
>resolution (pessimistically), and we can, at best, tolerate 1m
>boulders.

  How did Viking accomplish this? Luck?

>For this reason, my design partner and I have proposed a radical
>approach: build a landing site.  The site would consist of a two
>kilometer wide flat landing strip, which will be easily visible to the
>lander.  Construction benefits would include knowledge of regional
>atmospherics, seismic data generation, and lander simplification.

>Unfortunately, since Mars is currently uninhabited, we cannot simply
>hire a construction crew.  Therefore, we are forced to consider a
>simple, engineered solution to landing field construction.

  Mars may not be currently uninhabited. We (Earthlings) currently view
it as such. This is a very important difference. The bottom line is that
it is not inhabited by know contractors.

>The explosion of a 35 kiloton nuclear device, optomized for heat blast,
>at approximately 100m above the Martian surface, would create a
>glass-smooth landing pad, with the required dimensions, and the above
>stated benefits.

  I am not convinced that you would get the "glass smooth" landing pad
you expect. Also, the integrity of the pad may not be too wonderful.
There could be "soft spots" in the middle of your landing pad waiting
for your lander to fall in. In terms of science, detonating a nuclear
device isn't exactly a low impact incident on ANY planet's ecology.

  You would get one benefit for sure. You would distinguish yourself as
the one to make the first act of nuclear violence on another planet.

>No, this is not a joke.  We're very serious about this.

   Go ask someone who lived through Hiroshima or Nagasaki -- imagine if
someone decided YOUR backyard was going to be a nuke-prepared landing
pad and they couldn't see anything in the way 'coz their cameras
couldn't see anything smaller than 10 feet big. How would you feel?
You'd probably be upset enough if someone landed a big helicopter in
your back yard, much less a spacecraft without nuking your yard first.

  Try to keep a "do unto others (other planets, lifeforms, etc.) as you
wish them to do unto you" attitude. It would ruin your (not to mention
my) day if the (currently undiscovered) Martians retaliated for the
nuclear attack with attimatter weapons. At the very least, you may
corrupt some otherwise interesting scientific data.

>I'd appreciate comments / suggestions on this proposal.

Dana H. Myers, WA6ZGB		| "The proposal to nuke Mars for a landing
Locus Computing Corp.		|  pad is clear evidence that STANFORD
Santa Monica, CA		|  isn't doing any in-house drug testing."
				|		-- Dana Myers

------------------------------

Date: 17 May 88 18:56:40 GMT
From: killer!tness7!tness1!sugar!peter@eddie.mit.edu  (Peter da Silva)
Subject: Re: Shooting the Moon

In article <5181@cup.portal.com>, Daniel_C_Anderson@cup.portal.com.UUCP writes:
> Nuking Mars would be a crudity akin to spray-painting directions to
> your party in 100-ft letters on the Grand Canyon. A cosmic act of
> inconsideration by a F-T-Universe species. It'd make us look bad.

Why? What good is Mars? It doesn't even have an ecosystem. There's a lot
to be said for just busting the thing wide open and making a bunch of
useful asteroids. Venus, too... in fact you could make a better case for
Venus.

But there's really no hurry. There are plenty of asteroids out there
yet.  Let Mars lie fallow for a while. Hell, we haven't even gotten a
decent start on the moon.

-- Peter da Silva

------------------------------

Date: 16 May 88 20:23:24 GMT
From: uflorida!novavax!midas!mkraiesk@umd5.umd.edu  (Mark Kraieski)
Subject: Re: Shooting the Moon

in article <2739@Shasta.STANFORD.EDU>, paulf@Shasta.STANFORD.EDU (Paul A. Flaherty) says:
> No, this is not a joke.  We're very serious about this.
> 
> I'd appreciate comments / suggestions on this proposal.

Great idea!  But one warhead may not be enough.  I know, since we are
cozying up to the Ruskies so much on space stuff, lets combine all of
our warheads and all of theirs and ship the whole load to Mars.  We
could even send high government officials along to make sure it works!

Seriously, if the best our scientists can come up with for landing a
craft on uneven terrain is thermo nuclear destruction then I fear the
end is near!  This is like using a rocket launcher for geese.

Mark E. Kraieski
Gould, CSD
Ft. Lauderdale

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 19 May 88 14:53:57 EDT
From: loeb@BOURBAKI.MIT.EDU
To: paul.rutgers.edu!styx.rutgers.edu!masticol@rutgers.edu
Cc: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: Shooting the Moon

Not only that but the resolution of a spysat going around Mars is bound
to be better than the same resolution around Earth. The reason for this
is that LMO (Low Mars Orbit) is much lower than LEO (Low Earth Orbit).

	Danny

------------------------------

Date: 19 May 88 19:58:57 GMT
From: pacbell!cogent!uop!todd@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Dr. Nethack)
Subject: Re: When in doubt, nuke it...

Why not use a "Daisy cutter"? Worked well in Vietnam, and non nuclear!

I would rather they use X-ray imaging to explore the landing zone first,
maybe with some other specrtal things thrown in for good measure.

I hardly think this is a supreme problem necessitating a nuclear device.

------------------------------

Date: 19 May 88 19:28:17 GMT
From: devvax!jplpro!leem@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov  (Lee Mellinger)
Subject: Re: When in doubt, nuke it...

In article <8805162352.AA17060@mordor.s1.gov> bilbo.dana@SEAS.UCLA.EDU (Dana Myers) writes:
|  How did Viking accomplish this? Luck?

Mostly, yes.  The Viking orbiters surveyed the surface for several weeks
prior to choosing a landing site.  I don't remember the resolution, but
it certainly wasn't 3m.  The most benign location was chosen from the
pictures made during that survey.  You've probably seen the pictures
from these "benign" locations.  Lander 1 came down about 10m from a
boulder that would certainly destroyed it had it landed there.

Lee
|Lee F. Mellinger                         Jet Propulsion Laboratory - NASA|

------------------------------

Date: 20 May 88 16:37:43 GMT
From: concertina!fiddler@sun.com  (Steve Hix)
Subject: Re: When in doubt, nuke it...

In article <1477@uop.edu>, todd@uop.edu (Dr. Nethack) writes:
> Why not use a "Daisy cutter"? Worked well in Vietnam, and non nuclear!

Do you remember how much one weighs and how big it is?

You'd do better to haul 1500 pounds of foam rubber for a self-carried
landing mat.  :}

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #242
*******************

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Date: Sat, 4 Jun 88 03:21:02 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8806041021.AA04548@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #243

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 243

Today's Topics:
		  Re: Radar (was Shooting the Moon)
		    Re: When in doubt, nuke it...
		       Re: Space Shuttle Names
		       Re: Space Shuttle Names
			 cooling by radiation
		       Re: cooling by radiation
		       Re: cooling by radiation
		       Re: cooling by radiation
			Bureaucracy vs. space
		      Re: Bureaucracy vs. space
		       Re: cooling by radiation
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Path: ucbvax!pasteur!agate!ig!uwmcsd1!bbn!husc6!uwvax!rutgers!paul.rutgers.edu!styx.rutgers.edu!masticol
From: masticol@styx.rutgers.edu (Steve Masticola)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Radar (was Shooting the Moon)
Date: 8 May 88 14:05:09 GMT

So who said anything about using radar for surface mapping? I meant
collision avoidance on descent, and possible use as an instrument for
some kind of scientific data gathering to prevent it from being a
one-use-only box. (I admit I don't know what kind of data the radar
could be used to acquire; I'm a doctor, not a surgeon!) Those with
legitimate ideas on this are encouraged to follow up. However...

	>>>>>>	READ BEFORE FLAMING. <<<<<<

) Another gross generalization from
) --eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA

U-betcha. :-)

-Steve (masticol@clash.rutgers.edu) - Help stamp out cute .sigs

------------------------------

Date: 23 May 88 14:49:32 GMT
From: phri!dasys1!tneff@nyu.edu  (Tom Neff)
Subject: Re: When in doubt, nuke it...

In article <2061@devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> leem@jplpro.JPL.NASA.GOV (Lee Mellinger) writes:
>... You've probably seen the pictures from these "benign" locations.
>Lander 1 came down about 10m from a boulder that would certainly
>destroyed it had it landed there.

This is sort of a classic fallacy.  If the surface was evenly covered
with 3m boulders at 40m average spacing in a honeycomb pattern, a lander
of 4m average diameter would have about a 0.0275 chance of striking one
of the boulders on landing.  Yet about 60% of all landing sites would
lie within 10m of one of the boulders!

I think you guys should be asking yourselves what you could put on board
Mars Observer to give you 1m resolution or better at selected sites,
rather than fantasizing about nuking a landing pad.

Tom Neff

------------------------------

Date: 6 May 88 21:39:18 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Space Shuttle Names

> I've heard the story on how the Enterprise was named, but how did they
> come up with a New Age / UFOphilic name like Atlantis ?

Enterprise aside, the orbiters are named after famous oceanographic
vessels.

NASA is to spaceflight as            |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
the Post Office is to mail.          | {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 7 May 88 06:04:00 GMT
From: snail!thompson@a.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Re: Space Shuttle Names

I believe that the Atlantis was a US oceanographic research vessel of
the 19th century. With the exception of Enterprise, all the shuttles are
named for such ships.

They had to have some sort of system, didn't they?

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 16 May 88 18:18:04 EDT
From: John Roberts <roberts@icst-cmr.arpa>
Subject: cooling by radiation

As I recall, the Space Shuttle is supposed to cool itself while in orbit
by opening the cargo bay doors, and pointing the cooling array at the
earth.  Since this is much less efficient than pointing at open space, I
presume there must be some good reason for this choice. Is it because
faster cooling might damage something, because this position keeps the
cooling surfaces out of the sun most of the time, or for some other
reason?

                                                      John Roberts
                                                      roberts@icst-cmr.ARPA

------------------------------

Date: 18 May 88 01:04:46 GMT
From: thumper!karn@faline.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: cooling by radiation

> As I recall, the Space Shuttle is supposed to cool itself while in
> orbit by opening the cargo bay doors, and pointing the cooling array
> at the earth.  Since this is much less efficient than pointing at open
> space, I presume there must be some good reason for this choice. Is it
> because faster cooling might damage something, because this position
> keeps the cooling surfaces out of the sun most of the time, or for
> some other reason?

I believe the reason has to do with thermal control in the payload bay.
Pointing the bay at the earth is much more benign than pointing it
either at the sun or at deep space.

Back when we thought we could launch an amateur PACSAT (packet radio
satellite) from a GAS canister on the shuttle I took a look at the
thermal environment. It can be summed up in one word: horrendous!  If
you design your payload to survive direct sunlight, it will freeze if
the bay is oriented to deep space for any length of time. If you design
it to work in shadow, it will fry in the sun.  And, of course, GAS
customers are peons -- you get no say over the orbiter's attitude, and
they usually can't even tell you what they expect it to be at any given
time during the mission.

You don't get a single microwatt of the kilowatts being generated by the
orbiter's fuel cells. You have to waste half the canister just carrying
batteries -- no lithium batteries are allowed, this is a man-rated
vehicle. You may well end up using most of your battery power just
keeping warm. The best you can do is compromise on the thermal design
and hope that they'll keep it pointed at earth most of the time.

I'll take a free-flying payload (with an unmanned launcher to fly it on)
any day. At least you know what the thermal environment will be so you
can plan for it.  The selling of the shuttle as a platform for easy,
inexpensive, small scale space applications is one of the biggest con
jobs in history.

Phil

------------------------------

Date: 20 May 88 23:27:07 GMT
From: thumper!karn@faline.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: cooling by radiation

> And of course it would all be so much better for a small experimenter
> on a big shared unmanned platform, right?

Partially yes. Have you ever seen the GAS Safety Manual? I have. Just
read it sometime if you want to get depressed. And my copy was published
BEFORE the Challenger disaster.

I really want my platform to be FREE-FLYING, not just unmanned.  But the
GAS program was not originally set up to actually launch payloads. A
couple of very persistent people finally persuaded NASA to allow it;
remember GLOMR and NUSAT? They could launch their payloads from a GAS
can, but only through the use of a NASA-developed deployment mechanism
that took fully HALF the can's already-cramped interior. (I know -- I
visited Goddard during the NUSAT preparation and and inspected the
actual flight mechanism with spacecraft attached).

Even worse, the NASA safety people insisted that the deployments occur
on the LAST day of a week-long mission. Why? Because they were worried
about the possibility of a collision between the spacecraft and the
shuttle orbiter, and doing it on the last day would minimize this. (As
it turned out, they were able to move up the NUSAT/GLOMR deployment
because the dry cells in the can (remember -- no orbiter power) weren't
expected to last the entire mission. And GLOMR didn't make it out at
all, and had to be brought back and relaunched).

AMSAT has had considerable experience flying small secondary payloads on
unmanned launchers, primarily Delta and Ariane. Yes, there certainly are
interface and safety requirements. We fly solid and hypergolic kick
motors on Ariane, and share space with $100M Landsats on Delta. It's
perfectly reasonable for them to require assurance that our payloads
won't kill somebody or ruin a mission. And with 13 satellites launched
we've built an absolutely perfect track record in this regard.  (The
Ariane launch failure that occurred in 1980 was caused by a first stage
engine defect, and had nothing to do with our payload).

Even if you're allowed to deploy something from a GAS can, however,
you're in an entirely different league. The bureaucracy levels and
safety requirements are orders of magnitude higher, and the service
provided by the vehicle itself is much worse. Standard facilities, like
battery charging and telemetry while on the pad, are not provided.  Your
payload may have to survive for months on the ground before launch
without your being able to touch it. Instead of being deployed in a
known, preselected attitude within minutes of reaching orbit, you get
dumped out at an unpredictable time and attitude chosen by NASA, not
you, and they couldn't care less about the thermal beating your payload
might have to take in the meantime.  The orbit is much lower than that
typical of unmanned launchers, but conventional kick motors are
completely out of the question because of the safety rules.  So either
you resign yourself to a <1 year lifetime, or you take a big detour and
go off to build solar-powered thermal thrusters.  And perhaps you'll
even have time left to work on whatever payload you wanted to fly in the
first place.

These drawbacks are inherent from BOTH the man-rated and the shared-bus
nature of the Shuttle, and would work against anyone trying to use it
for low cost, small-scale space research or applications.

Phil

------------------------------

Date: 19 May 88 17:03:21 GMT
From: attcan!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: cooling by radiation

> Back when we thought we could launch an amateur PACSAT (packet radio
> satellite) from a GAS canister on the shuttle I took a look at the
> thermal environment. It can be summed up in one word: horrendous! ...
> ... The selling of the shuttle as a platform for easy, inexpensive,
> small scale space applications is one of the biggest con jobs in
> history.

And of course it would all be so much better for a small experimenter on
a big shared unmanned platform, right?  Let us give credit, and blame,
where it is due: the problem here is not the launch vehicle, it is the
big-shared-platform concept.  Unfortunately it's hard to get away from
that concept if you use the shuttle, or the space station, or the ISF,
or Mir, or any other scheme for sharing support facilities to reduce
costs and operational overhead.

The fundamental, underlying difficulty here is simply that the shared
facilities are trying to do too many different things.  If shuttle
flights really were dead cheap, once a week, commercially run, as some
people once hoped, there's no obvious reason why "payload bay will face
Earth at all times, barring major emergencies" wouldn't be written into
the contracts for some large fraction of the multi-payload flights.
Customers who wanted warm environments would choose Earth-facing
flights; those who wanted cold would choose sky-facing flights.  (In
fact it is not obvious to me why NASA couldn't make this sort of promise
now, for some flights at least, if they were making a serious effort to
respond to customer needs... which they aren't, of course.)  Things
haven't worked out quite that way, unfortunately, and the salesmen have
forgotten to tone down the hype to match.

> ... no lithium batteries are allowed, this is a man-rated vehicle.

As I've mentioned before, if I can fly lithium batteries on a man-rated
Hercules transport aircraft, there is no fundamental reason why I should
be forbidden to fly them on a man-rated shuttle.  I would agree with the
above if you changed the last part to "this is a NASA man-rated
vehicle".

NASA is to spaceflight as            |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
the Post Office is to mail.          | {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 20 May 88 18:01:06 GMT
From: jumbo!stolfi@decwrl.dec.com  (Jorge Stolfi)
Subject: Bureaucracy vs. space

Henry Spencer writes:
   
>   As I've mentioned before, if I can fly lithium batteries on a
>   man-rated Hercules transport aircraft, there is no fundamental
>   reason why I should be forbidden to fly them on a man-rated shuttle.

Except that the shuttle is NOT a Hercules transport.  

For starters, an airplane is MUCH gentler than the shuttle.  In an
airplane, the flight proper usually the smoothest part of the whole
trip; if a palyoad can survive the truck ride to the airport, it can
surely survive the flight.  An airplane takes off, flies and lands in an
horizontal position; it doesn't turn somersaults at takeoff the way a
shuttle does.  The maximum acceleration of a cargo plane is far less
than that of the shuttle.  The shuttle payload must whithstand going
from 1 atm to vacuum during takeoff, and from frying to freezing many
times over when in orbit.

Furthermore, the design safety factors seem to be much smaller in the
shuttle than in a cargo airplane.  An airplane may be able to fly and
land even with a ten-foot hole in the cargo bay.  I doubt the shuttle
would survive re-entry with a one-foot hole, a few missing tiles, or
even a bent bay door.  Safety factors are smaller also for the payloads
themselves, and for the gadgets that are supposed to keep them in place
during flight.  Add to that that we have had eighty years of experience
with airplanes and airplane cargo, with millions of flights and
vehicles; whereas we had only 25 shuttle flights.

Finally, a shuttle is substantially more expensive than a cargo plane,
and a and a lot more precious --- lose one and you have lost 1/4 of the
fleet.  Yes, if NASA had a few dozen shuttles (and the money to operate
them), things wouldn't be so critical; but they haven't, and wishing
that the impossible were true doesn't help.

NASA's payload regulations for the shuttle may be exaggerated, but
comparing them with those for cargo airplanes is unfair and meaningless.

Jorge Stolfi
stolfi@src.dec.com, ..{..decvax,ucbvax,allegra}!decwrl!stolfi

------------------------------

Path: ucbvax!pasteur!ames!lll-tis!lll-winken!uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry
From: utzoo!henry@ucbvax.berkeley.edu (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Bureaucracy vs. space
Keywords: shuttle, bureaucracy, man-rated, private enterprise, hype
Date: 22 May 88 01:33:56 GMT
Lines: 54
Apparently-To: space-incoming@angband.s1.gov

> Except that the shuttle is NOT a Hercules transport.  

You will note that I said "fundamental reason".  I'm not claiming that
the current shuttle can be treated like a Hercules; I'm claiming that
there is no deep reason why *a* manned shuttle can't be treated like a
Hercules.

> For starters, an airplane is MUCH gentler than the shuttle.

Are you sure you aren't drawing your experience entirely from airliners?
When you get aboard a Hercules, they hand you a pair of ear protectors.
The noise and vibration probably aren't as bad as a shuttle at takeoff,
but they last a whole lot longer.  Remember also that the ride on a jet
airliner at 35000 feet is a whole lot smoother than on a
propellor-driven cargo plane bumping and bouncing along at low altitude.

> ...An airplane takes off, flies and lands in an horizontal position;
> it doesn't turn somersaults at takeoff the way a shuttle does...

I wasn't aware of the shuttle turning any somersaults!  The worst-case
loading in the shuttle is the same as that of an aircraft: the
possibility of a very hard landing.  The shuttle does impose a higher
fore-and-aft loading than that of an aircraft, but 3 G is hardly
bone-breaking.

>... The shuttle payload must whithstand going from 1 atm to vacuum
>during takeoff, and from frying to freezing many times over when in
>orbit.

So must any payload flown on an unmanned launcher, and they have rather
less stringent requirements imposed on them.  (For that matter,
conditions in a Hercules cabin aren't always as friendly as those on an
airliner.)  So change my comment slightly: for "payload" substitute
"space-qualified payload".  There is a *large* difference between being
space-qualified and being shuttle-qualified.

> An airplane may be able to fly and land even with a ten-foot hole in
> the cargo bay.  I doubt the shuttle would survive re-entry with a
> one-foot hole, a few missing tiles, or even a bent bay door...

Please remember that STS-1 landed successfully with a number of missing
tiles.  Not in critical areas, admittedly, but even a Hercules will have
trouble surviving small failures if you pick the locations carefully.

> Finally, a shuttle is substantially more expensive than a cargo plane,
> and a lot more precious...

Here we get to the real problem, and the real reason I said "fundamental
reason".  NASA has no interest in achieving a compromise between safety
and utility -- the sort of compromise that is necessary for almost any
aircraft.  On the contrary, NASA has every reason to shoot for the
highest possible level of safety even if it makes the shuttle nearly
useless.

"To be completely safe, you have to sit on the fence and watch the birds."
							-- Orville Wright.

------------------------------

Date: 23 May 88 02:38:06 GMT
From: portal!cup.portal.com!CaptainDave@uunet.uu.net
Subject: Re: cooling by radiation

So, just what are Lithium batteries, and why would they be prohibited on
a space flight, when I am allowed to take one in my watch and mingle
around thousands of people in public places? Are they radioactive?  What
about a leak?

                               CaptainDave@cup.portal.com

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #243
*******************

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Date: Sun, 5 Jun 88 03:23:44 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8806051023.AA05590@angband.s1.gov>
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Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #244

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 244

Today's Topics:
		      Re: Bureaucracy vs. space
		 "What if" on Shuttle External Tanks
	       Draft: Op-Ed on Cooperative Mars Mission
		  Re: International Radio Alphabet.
	   Vocabulary lesson #7: Expendable launch vehicles
			     NASA funding
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 22 May 88 23:32:11 GMT
From: thumper!karn@faline.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: Bureaucracy vs. space

> > For starters, an airplane is MUCH gentler than the shuttle.

Henry is right about the max G loads on the shuttle; they're about 3G.
This *is* gentler than many expendables. From the figures I have, I
compute a peak acceleration of about 4.5G for the Ariane 1, just before
2nd stage cutoff.

However, typical launcher static accelerations are not a problem with
most payloads. Solid fuel kick motors attached to the payloads
themselves often generate even higher accelerations; for example, the
kick motor on AMSAT Phase III-A would have produced about 7-8G just
before burnout. Standard construction techniques, including prelaunch
testing and potting of electronics modules, can easily handle this.

 A bigger problem lies with the vibration and accoustical noise produced
by large solid rocket boosters. Consider that the Shuttle SRBs are not
far away from the payload bay. The pad water deluge system cuts down the
levels somewhat, but they are still very high in comparison with most
expendables. I seem to recall figures in the 150 dbA range.

Phil

------------------------------

Date:     Wed, 11 May 88 10:51:35 CDT
From: Will Martin -- AMXAL-RI <wmartin@almsa-1.arpa>
Subject:  "What if" on Shuttle External Tanks

The recent reference to another plan to use shuttle External Tanks for 
in-orbit construction leads me to wonder something. We have long discussed 
this topic on this list, and many people expressed their regret that NASA
made the decision to dump those tanks on ascent so that they burned up
on re-entry instead of carrying them to orbit and leaving them there for
possible future use.

Suppose NASA had actually done what we wished, and there HAD been a dozen
or more tanks in orbit, and then the Challenger disaster and the
subsequent multi-year hiatus in US manned spaceflight had happened as it
did. Would those tanks still be up there, or would their orbits have
decayed by now and they all would have burned up anyway?

This ignores the possibility that the Soviets would have salvaged them
and used them -- is there any salvage law applicable to space yet? If
the US had some supplies in orbit, and could not use them or get to them
to save them before their orbit decayed and they re-entered and were
destroyed, would the Soviets have the "right" to collect and use such
resources? Of course, they could offer to buy them, or trade something
for them, which would be good propaganda and put a reasonable aspect on
the whole thing, and there's nothing we could actually do to prevent
them from taking things in orbit except by threatening them on Earth,
but it seems likely that they would want to avoid the appearance of
"stealing", even if it really was more of a case of picking up something
abandoned. Nothing keeps them from scooping up our satellites now, but
I never heard any rumors that such things had happened.

(That possibility makes me think the technology-embargo aspects of the
US refusing to let our satellites go up on Soviet boosters is pretty
ridiculous. If the Soviets really wanted to look at the innards of any
of our satellites, they could just grab the worn-out or inert ones
while they are over Soviet territory and out of our scanning range
and leave something in their orbital places to continue to show up on
radar tracks! Maybe they've already done this -- how would we know?)

Anyway, if we HAD left tanks in orbit, and we then discovered that we
wouldn't have been able to use them or "freshen-up" their orbits before
they were lost, I would hope that we would have had the sense to offer
them to the Soviets as gifts. That would have been to OUR propaganda
advantage and wouldn't have risked or hurt anything (since they aren't
anything secret or sensitive). Would have been in the "joint mission"
spirit, after all.

Will Martin

------------------------------

Date: 11 May 88 01:39:07 GMT
From: EWTILENI@pucc.princeton.edu  (Eric William Tilenius)
Subject: Draft: Op-Ed on Cooperative Mars Mission

I'm interested in feedback on this piece... it's aimed at an non-space
audience who would be reading a newspaper Op-Ed page in The New York
Times, Christian Science Monitor, Wall Street Journal, etc.
 
Even if you don't have time to send feedback, I think you'll enjoy reading
it, but I would welcome any reactions via. EMAIL or to the net.
 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
A great adventure, perhaps unparalled in the course of human history,
is taking shape over the next decades. Humanity will finally reach a
world that has tugged at the imagination for centuries - a world much
like our own, yet one with countless mysteries. A world that beckons
to be explored, to be discovered, and to become part of the human
legacy.
 
The world is Mars, and for the first time in our history, we have the
opportunity to visit - not just through robotic cameras, but with
actual human eyes, hands, feet, and minds - the red planet which has
intrigued man for as long as history can recall.
 
The vision, the fulfilling of a dream, and the extension of mankind
beyond the borders of earth, however, are just one small part of what
a manned mission to Mars has to offer. The actual fruits of such a
mission are real, tangible benefits to those of us living here on planet
earth, for such a mission inevitably gives far reaching support to
education, scientific understanding, world cooperation, peace,
cultural activities, the economy, social understanding, technology,
security, and the quality of life as a whole.
 
A manned Mars mission will by no means be easy, nor will it take
place in the near future. It is a long-term goal, one that will is not
likely to be realized until the twenty first century. Going from robotic
missions to manned exploration will require a concerted effort over
time. It is a challenge that the nations of the world can best meet
together, and one we can meet - if we start planning now. The
technology is by no means out of reach. The key however, is to start
now, as it is a long-term project. If we do nothing today, we won't
have anything fifteen years down the road with which to work.
 
First, though, why go to Mars? It's a valid question, especially for
many of us without the flame for exploration. For many people, there
is a feeling of natural destiny, of belonging on other worlds. Lev
Mukhin of the Institute for Space Research in the USSR puts it simply:
"Mankind would not be mankind if it would not have a study of other
worlds." Mars is enticing precisely because it is so accessible. "Mars
is the world next door, the nearest planet on which an astronaut or
cosmonaut could safely land," writes Carl Sagan, president of The
Planetary Society, a space education group with over 100,000
members worldwide.
 
For others, the seemingly limitless amount of scientific information
available on Mars holds the key. Mars is filled with wonders - a "grand
canyon" that would cross most of the United States, an intricate
network of canals, vast, extinct volcanoes that dwarf any on earth,
frozen poles, pink skies, sand dunes, strange bright and dark markings
on its surface, mountains shaped like pyramids, and many other
enigmas.  New light can be shed on the origins of the planets and the
solar system, and their fates.  Is there life on Mars?  Or was there
once? If Mars once had water, what happened to it, and what clues
does this give us about earth's future? The amount of scientific
information is staggering, and can only be explored fully with the
ultimate tool - man himself.
 
There are those, however, who wonder if a mission can be justified on
these grounds. Science, exploration, and a widening of man's horizon
are admirable goals, they say, but how can we think of devoting the
resources to such a project when we have so many problems right
here on earth. This "home front" argument, as I term it, counters that
we should be using all our resources to battle problems here - global
conflict and tension, the environment, sickness, and so on - rather
than spending money on space. Such an argument is flawed in several
significant ways and stems mainly from a lack of understanding of
the many direct benefits which space missions provide. The home
front argument falsely pitts space programs against domestic ones
when, in fact, this is far from the case. Space missions are much
more likely to use military than domestic problem-fighting resources,
and rather than detract from problem-solving on earth, they provide
excellent tools, both in the spirit they foster and in actual physical
and intellectual resources they give us to use at home. In addition, the
home front argument confuses what is an undeniably visible space
program with an expensive program. The budget numbers given at the
end of this article prove just how cost effective such a program can
be.
 
But first, let me turn to an issue on many people's minds -
international security, cooperation, and peace. Mars provides a unique
opportunity to achieve all of these, and more, while at the same time
reducing the cost of a Mars mission. The Soviet Union has committed
itself to long-term exploration of Mars, planning missions to Mars'
moon Phobos this year and next, a robotic lander in 1994, and eventual
manned exploration. More than that, it has openly and boldly invited
the United States and other nations to join with it in the exploration
of Mars - an offer that most scientists feel is genuine, if only a little
embarrassing because of our lack of a comparable Mars commitment.
Our only scheduled Mars craft, Mars Observer, has been pushed back
four years, and will not launch until 1992.
 
Such an invitation, though, is a chance for the nations of the earth to
work together, as a planet, towards a long-term, major goal for all
humanity. The French are planning to provide Mars-scouting balloons,
and other countries can help in the effort as well. Politically, this can
be a major strike for peace. No earthly goal can accomplish this, as
such intense cooperation needs a goal more removed from the
struggles of everyday politics. On the other hand, this joint
cooperation can effectively spearhead  cooperation on more projects
here on earth - research, treaties, cooperative efforts to help end
hunger, and much more. Sigmund Freud, in a letter to Albert Einstein
in 1939, wrote, "Anything that creates emotional ties between human
beings must inevitably counteract war... Everything that leads to
important shared action creates such common feelings. On them the
structure of human society in good measure rests." More than anything
else, a cooperative mission to Mars is able to create these emotional
ties. It is perhaps one of the most important shared actions humanity
has ever undertaken, and a key tool in journeying beyond the cold war.
 
While there are many details that need to be worked out, most
scientists feel that technology transfer is not a significant deterrent.
After all, the mission is based on peaceful technology, and NASA's
current projects are not unknown by the Soviets. The more important
issue is increasing the United States' program so we do have a
comparable share in a joint mission. Secretary of State George
Schultz and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Schevernadze made a
significant step recently by renewing the US-USSR space cooperation
treaty in which the two countries have agreed to cooperate in space
exploration in 16 different areas.
 
A joint Mars mission offers an even greater ability to reduce the arms
race, though, for a very important economic reason - the space
program creates jobs. Not just any jobs, but productive jobs in
fields that were formerly taken by military projects. The same
corporations that build missiles can easily shift their resources to
build productive, useful spacecraft, and the latter have an infinitely
higher societal value. Thus, possible economic resistance to arms
reductions would be greatly reduced if we shifted our resources into a
positive direction with the space program.
 
Space technology gives very direct benefits to society as well. Any
Mars mission would undoubtedly advance technology well beyond
present capability. Unlike secretive defense technology, however,
space technology directly benefits people in need and consumers as a
whole. Out of the past Apollo program we now have such "miracles" as
laser heart surgery, scratch resistant glasses, devices for the blind, a
method for turning sewage into drinking water, and much more. A
common goal-oriented program such as space brings much back into
every facet of society. Satellites that help track global forest
conditions, predict famines, manage agriculture, and study our earth
are further examples of how space technology provides advantages
worth many times the cost of the program. New fields such as
materials processing and precision manufacturing are on the horizon.
And, unlike projects such as SDI, the civilian space program is a
clear, united, peaceful, open project that we know can work.
 
In education as well, a broad cooperative space effort can help inspire
a younger generation. For years now, there has been little for youth to
set its sights on. Students today at all levels often question the
usefulness of science and math. Compare this with the excitement and
sense of purpose in the 1960's when John F. Kennedy inspired an entire
generation with his call to put a man on the moon. Nowadays, we have
the opportunity to create an even bigger adventure - one in which the
entire world can take part. And the information which will result
from a Mars mission will engage a new generation of scientists with
productive work, keeping our nation's technology at the forefront and
America's economy strong.
 
As far as cost, a joint mission would cost about the same as a new
weapons system - perhaps $25 billion for each country over a many
year period - and would require only minor increases in NASA's
budget. To put this in perspective, in 1986, our budget for space flight
was $3.8 billion, only 0.39% of the national budget. By comparison,
defense for 1986 was $265.8 billion, or 27.13% of the budget, interest
payments were $142.7 billion (14.56%), and Social Security payments
amounted to $268.8 billion (2.71%) in one year (Source: Statistical
Abstract of the United States, 1987, 107th Edition, U.S. Department of
Commerce, 1986 estimates). All the civilian science, space, and
technology programs together added up to less than 1% of the budget.
It seems that any complaints about the cost come from having our
priorities confused rather than from actual cost to the taxpayer.
 
A joint, cooperative mission to Mars does anything but undermine
efforts to make life better on earth. In fact, it presents a dramatic
opportunity to extend not only our horizons outward from earth, but on
the earth as well. Unfortunately, after the Challenger disaster, the
United States' space program has faltered, and is now threatening to
make us miss a cooperative opportunity and make us a second rate
player in space. To show that there is popular support for a mission to
Mars, The Planetary Society is circulating The Mars Declaration in
favor of manned Mars exploration. The Declaration has been endorsed
by dozens of influential leaders - high ranking members of the
military and leaders of peace groups, Republicans and Democrats,
liberals and conservatives, entertainers and nobel laureates (in peace,
medicine, physics, chemistry), every former director of NASA and the
presidents of some of the country's top universities, authors and
astronomers, environmentalists and heads of corporations. The
Declaration is a long-range goal supported by leaders in every
imaginable field.
 
With all we have resting on this opportunity, it's time to ask not if we
can afford a mission to Mars, but if we can afford NOT to start
planning for such a mission. Don't turn your back to the future now,
America! Your future! If you have an interest in this area, I ask
you to join with me and the thousands of Americans who have
already signed the Mars Declaration and at the very least keep that
door open. It takes your support.
 
After all, you have to like the idea of the Roman god of war working
for peace, cooperation, understanding, science, and a better quality of
life for all humanity.
 
*----------------------===>  SPACE IS THE PLACE... <===-----------------------*
*        ewtileni@pucc.Princeton.EDU  //  ewtileni@pucc.BITNET                *
*      rutgers!pucc.bitnet!ewtileni  //  princeton!pucc.bitnet!ewtileni       *
* ColorVenture - Microcomputer Software - "Because Life isn't Black and White"*
*--------------------===> Another proud CoCo 3 owner <===---------------------*

------------------------------

Date: 11 May 88 07:06:07 GMT
From: iscuva!carlp@uunet.uu.net  (Carl Paukstis)
Subject: Re: International Radio Alphabet.

In article <1994@devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> timg@devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV (Tim Graham) writes:
...
>Charlie
...
I believe that the "official" C-word is "Cocoa", although everybody I've
heard (US only) uses "Charlie".

You hear "Sugar" occasionally; "Foxtrot" is generally shortened to "Fox".
-- 
Carl Paukstis    +1 509 927 5600 x5321  |"I met a girl who sang the blues
                                        | and asked her for some happy news
UUCP:     carlp@iscuvc.ISCS.COM         | but she just smiled and turned away"
          ...uunet!iscuvc!carlp         |                    - Don MacLean

------------------------------

Reply-To: pnet01!jim@trout.nosc.mil
Date: Tue, 10 May 88 21:39:22 PDT
From: jim@pnet01.cts.com (Jim Bowery)
To: crash!Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: Vocabulary lesson #7: Expendable launch vehicles

Expendable launch vehicles, n, a class of rockets designed to carry payloads
to Earth orbit which can be given up when it is necessary to generate
additional income and political support for "Space Shuttle."  Hence the name
"expendable", since they can be gotten rid of when they become politically
inconvenient - or heaven forbit!  Inexpensive.

UUCP: {cbosgd, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!pnet01!jim
ARPA: crash!pnet01!jim@nosc.mil
INET: jim@pnet01.cts.com

------------------------------

Date: 10 May 88 12:32:51 GMT
From: terminus!rolls!mtuxo!homxb!genesis!hotlr!anumb!adh@lll-winken.llnl.gov  (a.d.hay)
Subject: NASA funding


	The United States Senate Appropriations Committee will
	allocate to the Subcommittees their Fiscal '89 Funds. Current
	information indicates the HUD and Independent Agencies may be
	given only a 1% increase over the Fiscal '88 Budget. This
	would result in a substantial cut in NASA funding. According
	to NASA Director Dr. Fletcher in a recent speech, "This could
	spell extinction for the Space Program" (See last week's
	Washington Post).

	Sources indicate the decision will be made this week. To
	prevent the loss of funds, call NOW! Express your concern by
	asking the Senate to support NASA Funding at 11.5 billion, the
	President's Fiscal '89 request.

	The key U.S. Senators are:
			Senator Robert Byrd		(202) 224-3954
			(Senate MAjority Leader)

			Senator J. Bennett Johnston	(202) 224-5824
			(Member of the Appropriations Committee)

	If you are interested in more information, send e-mail to:

	{ihnp4|mtune{.att.arpa|.att.com|.uucp}}!mvuxd!dou
	Don Doughty

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #244
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU;  6 Jun 88 06:21:51 EDT
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA06832; Mon, 6 Jun 88 03:21:27 PDT
	id AA06832; Mon, 6 Jun 88 03:21:27 PDT
Date: Mon, 6 Jun 88 03:21:27 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8806061021.AA06832@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #245

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 245

Today's Topics:
			     Titan-4 SRBs
	       Re: Management (was Is it CBS or NASA?)
			   solar power sats
		  Re: space news from April 11 AW&ST
	       Re: "What if" on Shuttle External Tanks
		     Re: FINAL FRONTIER Magazine
		      On using half the brain(s)
		  Re: space news from April 11 AW&ST
		       Re: SPACE Digest V8 #221
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 9 May 88 15:59:14 GMT
From: oodis01!uplherc!esunix!bpendlet@tis.llnl.gov  (Bob Pendleton)
Subject: Titan-4 SRBs


Titan 4 SRBs will be manufactured by CSD and Hercules Aeorspace.
Hercules will provide high perfomance composite case boosters
used for large payloads an polar orbit launches

		Bob P.

Bob Pendleton @ Evans & Sutherland
UUCP Address:  {decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4,allegra}!decwrl!esunix!bpendlet
Alternate:     {ihnp4,seismo}!utah-cs!utah-gr!uplherc!esunix!bpendlet
        I am solely responsible for what I say.
-- 
Bob Pendleton @ Evans & Sutherland
UUCP Address:  {decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4,allegra}!decwrl!esunix!bpendlet
Alternate:     {ihnp4,seismo}!utah-cs!utah-gr!uplherc!esunix!bpendlet
        I am solely responsible for what I say.

------------------------------

Date: 11 May 88 17:47:09 GMT
From: pioneer!eugene@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Eugene N. Miya)
Subject: Re: Management (was Is it CBS or NASA?)

In article <1878@bigtex.uucp> james@bigtex.UUCP (James Van Artsdalen) writes:
>I actually worry more about the new generation of management than the old.
>This group has grown up for most of their NASA careers in the bureaucracy.
>They may never shake that mindset.

Actually, I do too.  This is one reason why I have decided not to climb
up management ladders.

Let me give you a good example of this.  In computing (this is not an ax
to grind, I suspect this is also a problem in American industry as well,
it is merely an observation): boxes were dropped onto the scene, say 20-30
years ago.  Most of the engineering managers of that time had no idea how to
program, plus they had a mission oriented, get the job done by any means
attitude.  It was then young engineers who "became computer literate."
At best they had Fortran with card decks.

Now the youngin's are older.  They fought computer 'battles.' And they
know how to manage their computer resources.  Right?  But we the
computer industry have pulled the rug out from under them.  We changed
the nature of computing more with personal computers, operating systems,
etc.

Computing isn't the only field.  I suspect good parallel could be found
in chemistry, biology, etc.  And again, I stress that NASA probably
isn't alone.  After all, who will be the next set of dead wood in 30
years? ;-)

Another gross generalization from

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA
	resident cynic			soon to be aurora.arc.nasa.gov
at the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:
  "Mailers?! HA!", "If my mail does not reach you, please accept my apology."
  {uunet,hplabs,hao,ihnp4,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."

------------------------------

Date:         Thu, 12 May 88 15:10:12 EDT
From: Kenneth Ng <KEN%ORION.CCCC.NJIT.EDU@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Subject:      solar power sats


>Date: 20 Apr 88 07:56:49 GMT
>From: linus!utzoo!henry@husc6.harvard.edu  (Henry Spencer)
>Subject: Re: Solar Sat Power Stations & greenhouses
>Not necessarily.  The obvious place to put large-scale terrestrial solar
>power facilities is in deserts, normally high-albedo places that reflect
>or re-radiate most incoming energy right back out into space.  Remember
>too that conversion of light to electricity is quite inefficient.  As I
>recall, solar power satellites actually add less energy to the biosphere
>than desert-based terrestrial solar power, because they put the very
>inefficient conversion to electricity outside the atmosphere.
>--
>"Noalias must go.  This is           |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
>non-negotiable."  --DMR              | {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry
>

If we put solar power stations in the desert you'll hear from
environmentalists saying that your destroying the delicate rich
environment of the desert.  And if you put then in space they'll
say that you are adding an unnatural burden onto the earth's
delicate biosphere.  And if you point out that the added change
is insignificant, they'll say "The facts are irrelevant, your
tampering with mother nature."
--
Kenneth Ng: ken@orion.cccc.njit.edu, ken@orion.bitnet

------------------------------

Date: 12 May 88 13:47:23 GMT
From: marsh@mitre-bedford.arpa  (Ralph J. Marshall)
Subject: Re: space news from April 11 AW&ST

I'm willing to look really stupid... Why don't they install explosive-powered
ejection seats on the shuttle.  I don't know enough about the technology,
but there has to be some way for the pilot to get out of a SR-71 that
should be close to useful, and require little effort on the part of the
human.  What's the story ?

------------------------------

Date: 12 May 88 14:45:41 GMT
From: ncspm!jay@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu  (Jay C. Smith)
Subject: Re: "What if" on Shuttle External Tanks

In article <8805111633.AA05118@angband.s1.gov> wmartin@ALMSA-1.ARPA 
(Will Martin -- AMXAL-RI) writes:
[stuff about what if NASA had left the tanks in orbit -- where would
they be after our long hiatus?]
>This ignores the possibility that the Soviets would have salvaged them
>and used them -- is there any salvage law applicable to space yet?

I've forgotten... why didn't the Soviets salvage Skylab?  I would think
that concern over discovering technological "secrets" from an old 
space station would have been overridden by safety concerns for those
under the falling debris.



-- 

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Jay C. Smith                    uucp:     ...!mcnc!ncsuvx!ncspm!jay
Domain:	jay@ncspm.ncsu.edu      internet: jay%ncspm@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 13 May 88 09:02:49 PST
From: Peter Scott <PJS@grouch.jpl.nasa.gov>
Subject: Re: FINAL FRONTIER Magazine
X-Vms-Mail-To: EXOS%"space@angband.s1.gov"

I second the compliments for FINAL FRONTIER.  Most of all, it is
*readable* -- unlike other space mags, where my eyes get tired after
wading through unbroken pages of uniformly dense print.

Peter Scott (pjs%grouch@jpl:mil.jpl.nasa.gov)

------------------------------

Date: 13 May 88 11:47:56 GMT
From: polak@brl-adm.arpa  (Helen R. Polak )
Subject: On using half the brain(s)

In article <1833@mtuxo.UUCP> tee@mtuxo.UUCP (54317-T.EBERSOLE) writes:
>In article <830@cfa237.cfa250.harvard.edu>, mcdowell@cfa250.harvard.edu (Jonathan McDowell) writes:
>> In fact, the next few missions have all male crews. They have just named a couple of 
>> women to later crews, starting about the fifth mission. So it looks very much like
>> an attitude of 'oh dear, we can't risk our dear delicate women on risky missions..' 

>Those of you who must read these at 40 characters/line will have to 
>write your own flames, as this one is not all-inclusive.
	Is he kidding? 40wpl?
>     few well-known industry advisers (W. Edwards Deming, Peter Drucker)
>     claim that Japan will start to experience a decline because they
>     don't use at least half of their creative, hard-working potential by
>     excluding women from having a voice in work decisions. The same
>Tim  conclusion undoubtedly will apply to NASA if those attitudes persist.

On the other hand, look where we got to today, suppressing most of the
creative potential of women world wide (Hypatia's Heritage, notwithstanding),
Perhaps this is why nations rise, and fall, with such regularity..
I'd hate to see space missions have the same pattern; women whould be included.n
The only way to stay on top is to have the yin and yang working for you,
not just the yin, not just the yang, I speculate.

Helen /\  Mann spricht Deutsch.  Wo Mann Deutsch spricht is a different question.

------------------------------

Date: 13 May 88 16:38:00 GMT
From: silber@p.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Re: space news from April 11 AW&ST


>I'm willing to look really stupid... Why don't they install explosive-powered
>ejection seats on the shuttle.  I don't know enough about the technology,
>but there has to be some way for the pilot to get out of a SR-71 that
>should be close to useful, and require little effort on the part of the
>human.  What's the story ?
	I think that in the SR-71, that the entire cockpit ejects (I could be
wrong however).  The problem with ejection seats on the Shuttle is that
one would need at least 7 or so, since it would be bad form to allow just the
flight crew to eject.  (Not to mention that no military pilot would be likely
to punch out if it meant sentencing the rest of the crew to death.)  That
many ejection seats would greatly hamper the amount of crew space available,
especially since there is no real way to move them out of the way.  It would
also necessitate the wearing of suits during the entire launch and landing
phases, since one is unlikely to survive an ejection much above 50,000
feet without oxygen, and somewhat higher without a pressure suit.
Another problem is that survivability of a supersonic ejection is very low.

ami silberman

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 15 May 1988 13:45-EDT 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: SPACE Digest V8 #221

> Anyone who has ever visited the top of an Hawaiian volcano should
> think twice about the damage that would be done by installing a launch
> site in such a unique environment.  A hike below the rim of Haleakala
> on Maui is a truely amazing trip--the closest thing to a walk on
> another planet that any of us are likely to experience.

Particularly if no one lets us build a spaceport:

	A) near a city because it's to dangerous in a highly developed
	   area.
	B) away from a city because it damages the undeveloped
	   environment.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #245
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU;  7 Jun 88 06:25:00 EDT
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA08529; Tue, 7 Jun 88 03:24:21 PDT
	id AA08529; Tue, 7 Jun 88 03:24:21 PDT
Date: Tue, 7 Jun 88 03:24:21 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8806071024.AA08529@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #246

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 246

Today's Topics:
	       Ad hominum attacks, summary of NSS board
			   Re: Night launch
	  Re: Non-sexist language (was:Space Station Names)
		     Re: Space Station Names :-)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sun, 15 May 1988 13:47-EDT 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Ad hominum attacks, summary of NSS board

I will respond once and only once on the personal attacks that I have
seen recently in this magazine.  Scott Pace and I are both available to
defend ourselves, some of the others named are not. 

Several individuals have been slandered who are not present to defend
themselves. I cannot hope to handle a defense for them, but just so
that these good people do not have their reputations impugned simply
because the thousands of readers out there do not know anything about
them, I will give a brief summary bio:

Sandy Adamson was instrumental in the founding of the Portland L5
chapter. Her background was in anthropology, but her first love was
space colonies. She moved to Tucson and was a major activist with the
Tucson chapter for many years. She became an officer within L5 and
traveled to conferences, both national and regional on her own
resources for many years. And her own resources were based on
freelancing work around Tucson. A major part of her income went into
society activities. She was a major force in political activities in
the society. In 1984 she did a great deal of work and got society
volunteers behind the short lived Glenn campaign.

A few years ago, she went to Washington to help lobby for the space
station funding for L5. She was paid only part time because that was
all that could be afforded, and what was available to pay her came
mostly from individual donations in special fund raisers. She had to
share space in someone else's apartment because she wasn't paid enough
to afford her own place.

To survive she started picking up some small jobs, and was finally
pointed to a consulting position by an old friend. She has for the last
year and half held a real paying job in space policy. She has thus
advanced one more step towards her life dream of living and working in
space after spending 10 years donating her life, her income and just
about her soul to the society. She also finds time to be a very caring
individual.

Mark Hopkins is more controversial in society circles but no one, even
his most avowed 'enemy' (sic) will claim that he is anything less than
one of the initiators of the space movement and one of it's hardest
workers.

Mark was involved with the initial summer study group run by Dr.
O'Neill and along with Eric Drexler (also present at that session) and
some others, was one of the founders of L5. He was working on a Phd in
Economics at Harvard(?) at the time. He took a job at Rand doing
non-space type work. The think-tank type atmosphere gave him the time
to dedicate to the society. Many of us have wondered if he ever
actually did ANY Rand work, or if so whether he'd invented the 30 hour
day. He had not finished his Phd thesis due to society work, and in
fact is only now finishing it, over TEN YEARS late. We once gave his
wife an "ignored spouse" award. It actually wasn't so funny. Mark has
totally dedicated his life to the space movement, and as far as I can
tell has gotten nothing out of it except getting burned out, burned and
maybe a bit paranoid. But he keeps at it, no matter what the personal
cost.

Since our organizational watch word is "I WANT TO GO!!!!!" I would
suggest that most of our more energetic members will eventually work
professionally in some facit of space. We are processing grass roots
activists into professionals committed to the dream. Those
professionals will dominate the government, military and private space
efforts because they CARE.  Hardworking activists are going to drive out the
9-5 put-in-40 schleps. If we aren't in it to go ourselves, then why
would any of us be such utter fools as to endanger our careers,
relationships, finances and sanity for the movement? (Last year cost me
nearly a third of my GROSS) I want to go, and I work with other people
who also want to go. Anyone who doesn't had better get out of my way.

I will also note that "aerospace" money does not dominate the
organization. Such monies are received through the AIAC (Aerospace
Industries Association Council), but are used only for special
projects, NOT for operating expenses. This is intentionally done to
keep them at a safe arms length. At least one incident occured in which
they did try to throw some weight. And they got quite a few people very
angry (myself included). I doubt they will try it again soon.

It is easy to attack particular goals of the society. And the larger
the organization grows, the more likely it is that some group will be
dissatisfied. I suggest that the vote on the name change tells us
something about the stand of the average member.

I will also state (having been one of the people who voluntarily worked for
severals days to encode last fall's survey) that a vast majority of the
membership places strong support of the space station in the context of
going for a lunar base and then to Mars. The policy stands of the
organization follow this.  I'm personally in favor of Space
Industries/WESPACE, External Tank Company, etc INSTEAD of the station.
But so long as I am a representative of a membership that
feels otherwise, I will bow to their wishes while occasionally pointing
out the alternatives and working to insure they are noticed.

I will also note the copy of the Space Cause voters guide in front of
me has Dukakis as the first entry and gives him nearly a full page. My
candidate, Ron Paul was left out entirely. I expressed my disappointment to
Mr. Pace. Within a week he responded to me with a hardcopy draft on Ron
Paul. Ron will be fairly treated in the next edition.

I can hardly call this non-responsiveness to minority views.

I will not respond furthur on this topic. I will work with anyone who
wants to make the society bigger and better. I will also attempt to
educate people about non-statist viewpoints while not ramming it down
their throats.

And I will ignore the existance of any of the tiny minority who want to
do nothing but bicker over internalities. It is a waste of my time.


					SUBJECT CLOSED,
					Dale Amon
					National Space Society,
						Board of Directors



Current Board of Directors:

	Dale Amon		founder PghL5, chair NE84 regional
				conference and 6th national conference.
	Michael Collins		Apollo 11 astronaut
	Tom Doherty		New York chapter
	K Eric Drexler		author Engines of Creation, founding
				member of L5, chapter activist in
				Massachusetts area a few years back.
				Worked on the very first mass driver.
				He's the long haired one in the picture
				you always see of MD-I with Gerard
				O'Neill in front.
				Founder of Foresite Institute
	Art Dula		Chairman of 2nd national conference.
				Active in Space Foundation (Space
				Business Roundtables). Well known space
				lawyer, involved with marketing the
				Proton to US customers.
	Frederick Durant III	(I don't know him well)
	Nancy Feldman		(Don't know her. Regional board member
				from Kansas)
	Edward Finch		space lawyer, author of Astrobusiness.
				Helped carry our fight against the Moon
				Treaty to the UN.
	Georgia Franklin	Housewife, does lectures with hundereds
				of schools in Washington state every
				year. A tireless activist.
	Peter Glaser		inventor of the Solar Power Satellite
	William Gunn		long time activist in South Carolina
				chapters.
	Joe Hopkins		spark plug behind most of the Seattle
				chapters. Worked on "glass cockpit' of
				767 for Boeing. Chairman of 5th
				national conference. Another tireless
				worker.
	Maxwell Hunter		Long time aerospace engineer. Currently
				retired and designing single stage to
				orbit craft for Society Expeditions.
	Margaret Jordon		Ran the Astronaut Memorial Foundation
				for L5 until the bill died in congress.
				Worked with TRW for awhile, currently a
				student again. Long time activist in
				the OASIS chapter.
	Irving Kahn		(Don't know him)
	George Koopman		Activist who is doing something about
				it. Was involved with Starstruck water
				launch of solid-fuel/liquid oxidizer
				test vehicle. President of AMROC, a
				compnay he founded to furthur develop
				private launch vehicles.
	John Logsdon		VERY well known space policy and
				history expert at George Washington
				University. An insider.
	Jim Muncy		Worked for Newt Gingritch, parleyed
				into a job as space policy advisor to
				George Keyworth. Left when Keyworth
				did. Did some work for Geostar, some
				staff work for NSS and SSI. An
				absolutely dedicated activist. Not yet
				30.
	Florence Nelson		I know little about her except she
				started a town in Arizona and seems to
				be a very good person.
	Frederick Ordway III	Know very little except that he is an
				insider.
	Warren Overton		Was the phone tree chairman until a few
				months ago. I believe he founded the
				Birmingham Alabama chapter.
	Chris Peterson		Was a chapter activist when she and
				Eric Drexler were in school. Later
				became chapters coordinator for L5, the
				editor of L5 News, an officer in the
				society for a few years.
	Ken Poe			Kansas chapter activist. Became L5
				chapters coordinator after Chris
				Peterson.
	Gene Roddenberry	Star Trek.
	Neil Ruzic		(Don't know him)
	Charles Sheffield	SF author. VP of company involved in
				remote sensing. Co-chairman of 4th
				national conference.
	Jill Steele		Denver area chapter activist. Chair of
				the next national conference (7th)


EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

	Ben Bova (president)	Well known SF author

	Gordon Woodcock		Long time Boeing employee. Along with
	(Chairman of the	Joe Hopkins, one of the founders of
	 Executive Committee)	Seattle L5 chapters. Co-chair of 5th
				national conference. Was President of
				L5 at time of merger. Gives papers on
				leading edge space missions, propulsion
				ideas, economic justifications,etc.

	Arthur Kantrowitz	member of National Academy of Science
	(Chairman, Board of
	  Directors)

	Hugh Downs		Well known broadcaster at ABC netowrk
	(Chairman, Board of
	 Governors)

	Gary Oleson		Founder of Washington DC chapter.
	(Executive Vice		Chairman of 4th national conference.
	 President)		Dedicated activist.

	Mark Chartrand		Former exec director of NSI
	(Senior Vice President)

	Mark Hopkins		A founder of L5, Spacepac, Spacecause
	(Vice President)	Has been a key figure in L5 society
				operations and now NSS operations for
				over a decade.

	Robert F Allnutt	(don't know him)
	(Vice President)

	Elisa Wynn		Dominant force behind Niagara L5 for
	(Vice President)	many years. Current chapters
				coordinator. Working on lots of
				committees and traveling to DC at
				regular intervals. A housewife with 2
				kids.

	Leonard David		Founder of one of the earliest (and
	(Vice President)	short lived space organizations) about
				15 years back, along with Alan Ladwig.
				Past and new editor of Space World. A
				'professional' activist for 15 years.
				Also a damn fine auto-harp player and
				songwriter.

	Sandy Adamson		Activist with Portland L5, Tucson L5
	(Secretary)		One of the founders of L5 political
				efforts going back to the Moon Treaty
				fight. Was society 'paid' lobbyist in
				DC during early space stations fights.
				Has been officer and board member off
				and on for nearly a decade. Currently
				working for a beltway bandit.

	Harry S Dawson		(Don't know him)
	(treasurer)

	David Brandt Erichsen	Was with Sandy Adamson as a Portland L5
	(Assistant Secretary)	and a Tucson L5 activist. Was a long
				time officer of L5.

	Ed Gray			(don't know him)
	(Assistant Treasurer)

	S Neil HosenBall	(don't know him)
	(General Council)

	Glen Wilson		was involved with NASA educational
	(Executive Director)	outreach for many years. Has been exec
				director of NSI and now NSS. Has put 
				in loads of his own cash and taken no
				salary.

	David Webb		This guy has done so much for so long
	(Chairman of the	that I'm almost embarrased to
	 Legislative Comm.)	summarize. He was heavily involved with
				UNISPACE 82, was one of our activist
				reps on the National Commission on
				Space. Has helped on virtually every
				national conference. Founded a space
				studies program at University of North
				Dakota. And on, and on. He's also one
				of the nicest people you will ever deal
				with. Of course he is Irish...

------------------------------

Date: 15 May 88 16:47:58 GMT
From: sonia!khayo@cs.ucla.edu  (Eric Behr)
Subject: Re: Night launch

In article <12260@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU> khayo@MATH.ucla.edu I wrote:
 >I just saw a fabulous sight - most likely a launch from
 >VAB. (...)
  ^^^ sorry for the typo; I'm sure VAFB is a little better
suited for launching things than VAB is 8-)

 >I hope to read something about it in tomorrow's paper.
Nothing in the papers, but a one-liner on NPR: it was a Trident
test, launched from a sub off the coast...

                                                       Eric

------------------------------

Date: 14 May 88 14:43:59 GMT
From: cfa!cfa250!mcdowell@husc6.harvard.edu  (Jonathan McDowell)
Subject: Re: Non-sexist language (was:Space Station Names)

>From article <8738@ames.arc.nasa.gov>, by eugene@pioneer.arpa (Eugene N. Miya):
> They had Uncle Carl Sagan on the Morning Show.  K.S. brought to topic
> of Unmanned versus Manned space, and Carl politely noted the sexism in
> the term and moved on the role of the person-ed and un-person-ed space.
> --eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@aurora.arc.nasa.gov

The NCOS report used 'piloted' and 'unpiloted' spaceflight which is
pretty well what I'd settled on as the best term.  One can also talk
about 'automatic spacecraft' vs 'spaceships' (the latter being vessels
with humans aboard'.  The 'unpiloted' term runs into trouble when we
have robot spaceships with human passengers.  Maybe 'Astronautics'
should include everything and 'Spaceflight' should be restricted to
flight involving humans.  But I just can't come up with a good
gender-free word to replace exactly the sense of 'manned'! 'Person' is
ugly, and potentially includes non-human intelligences (Martians or
human-made AI) - we need a term which means specifically 'humanned' but
sounds more natural.  'Crewed' is no good (see comment about
passenger-only above), likewise 'staffed' (yuck) which doesnt have the
right sense.  Any constructive suggestions?

Jonathan McDowell

Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

------------------------------

Date: 14 May 88 20:35:53 GMT
From: elsie!ado@cvl.umd.edu  (Arthur David Olson)
Subject: Re: Space Station Names :-)

> They had Uncle Carl Sagan on the Morning Show.  K.S. brought to topic
> of Unmanned versus Manned space, and Carl politely noted the sexism in
> the term and moved on the role of the person-ed and un-person-ed space.

Does this mean advocates of automated exploration will become unpersons?
-- 
	  Canada is to spaceflight as the U.S.S.R. is to baseball.
	ado@ncifcrf.gov			ADO is a trademark of Ampex.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #246
*******************

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Date: Wed, 8 Jun 88 03:23:20 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8806081023.AA10029@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #247

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 247

Today's Topics:
		 Re: Antimatter propulsion questions
			     Night launch
	 Re: space news from April 11 AW&ST (ejection seats)
	 Re: Vocabulary lesson #7: Expendable launch vehicles
		     Space Technology Aids Vision
			   Re: Night launch
	    Re: A Soviet strategy for domination in space
			   Re: Night launch
		  Re: space news from April 11 AW&ST
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sun, 15 May 88 20:14:15 CDT
From: sedspace@doc.cc.utexas.edu (Steve Abrams)
Posted-Date: Sun, 15 May 88 20:14:15 CDT
Subject: Re: Antimatter propulsion questions


In V8, #221 of Space Digest, tektronix!sequent!mntgfx!mbutts@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Mike Butts) writes:

"1) If particle accelerators are used to create the antimatter fuel in the
first place, on a production basis, would there be any advantage to siting
them in space, driven by solar power and taking advantage of the natural
vacuum?  Would solar wind, cosmic rays, etc. interfere with the process?
If so, could reasonable shielding deal with that?"

If you are considering a toroidal accelerator, I should think that the solar
wind would be deflected perpendicularly to the plane of the accelerator via the
Lorentz force.  Does anyone know the average velocity of particles in the solar
wind at 1AU?  I shouldn't think it would be great enough to overcome the high
magnetic fields of the accelerator, but I could be wrong.  Cosmic rays, on the
other hand, are very energetic and (I believe) isotropic.  they might be a greater hazard.  Perhaps a much larger shield can be used to stop the primary rays
down to the less energetic secondary radiation that could then be handled by
the magnetic fields of the accelerator.

I would worry more about interplanetary dust -- much more massive and not as
easily deflected -- interfering with that "natural vacuum."

Steve Abrams			ARPANET:  sedspace@doc.cc.utexas.edu
c/o Graduate Office		CompuServe:  [70376,1025]
Dept. of Physics		(512)480-0895
University of Texas at	
	Austin			OR
Austin, TX  78705		c/o Students for the Exploration and	
					Development of Space
"The rate of increase of 	P.O. Box 7338
 the entropy of the        	358 Texas Union
 universe reaches its		University of Texas at Austin
 maximum value in my		Austin, TX  78713-7883
 immediate vicinity."		(512)471-7097

------------------------------

Date: 15 May 88 05:08:11 GMT
From: sonia!khayo@cs.ucla.edu  (Eric Behr)
Subject: Night launch

(May 14, 9:00 pm PST)
I just saw a fabulous sight - most likely a launch from
VAB. My windows are facing +/- North, facing the canyons
of Santa Monica Mountains. A luminescent white cloud was
trailing behind a very bright object which moved due West
about 4 times as fast as a commercial jet (there were a
few in the area, on approach to LAX - those people must
have had a view...); of course the geometry of the whole
thing makes velocity comparisons meaningless. The shining
"ghost", which took up about 25 degrees of the horizon when
it was largest, was caused by thin clouds/fog hanging over
the coastal area (I saw another Vandenberg launch on a
cloudless night and it wasn't as spectacular as this one).
What puzzled me was that it continued to shine brightly
for about a minute after the vehicle left the cloud layer,
and only a faint glow of the exhaust was visible through
a spotting scope. It looked as if a very strong reflector
was pointed from the ground towards the rocket (at first
I thought that it was just that, maybe some rocket modellers,
but judging from the distance/apparent size it was something
on a much grander scale). Could it be ionized air? or what?

I hope to read something about it in tomorrow's paper.
                                                       Eric

------------------------------

Date: 14 May 88 22:16:03 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: space news from April 11 AW&ST (ejection seats)

>... Why don't they install explosive-powered
>ejection seats on the shuttle...

It's been thought about; in fact that's what the pilots had for the first
few flights.  The trouble is that ejection seats are heavy and bulky.
There isn't room to provide a full crew with ejection seats.

A secondary problem is that ejection seats introduce their own safety
hazards, since they are dangerous explosive devices.  (People who have
to work around them treat them with great respect.)
-- 
NASA is to spaceflight as            |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
the Post Office is to mail.          | {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 14 May 88 22:12:13 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Vocabulary lesson #7: Expendable launch vehicles

> ... can be gotten rid of when they become politically
> inconvenient - or heaven forbit!  Inexpensive.

Since there is no chance of the latter while the US government is running
the show, it need not be mentioned.  Despite some of the nonsense one
hears from the more rabid anti-shuttle factions, current US expendables
are just as expensive as the shuttle.

Actually, my definition would be something like:  "a class of space launchers
which clearly are not considered expendable, based on the vast manpower and
expense devoted to every single launch".  (Case in point.  Delta is derived
from the Thor IRBM.  Thor specs said launch in 15 minutes with crew of 9.
NASA Delta launches required three months with a crew of 2000.  Yes, the
Delta is more complicated, and the payloads need more attention... but
three orders of magnitude?!?)  We will not have cheap space transportation
until we can treat space-launch failures like airliner crashes:  lamentable,
to be avoided, worthy of careful investigation... but not usually cause for
grounding the vehicle.
-- 
NASA is to spaceflight as            |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
the Post Office is to mail.          | {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 14 May 88 01:26:11 GMT
From: nbires!isis!scicom!embudo!markf@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (markf)
Subject: Space Technology Aids Vision


NASA NEWS - Space Technology Aids In Improving Low-Vision Eyesight

NASA and the Johns Hopkins Wilmer Eye Institute, Balitimore, Md.,
will use space technology to develop a device designed to improve
the sight of millions of people with low vision. 

Scientists at NASA's National Space Technology Laboratories (NSTL),
Miss., and Wilmer scientists plan to adapt technology used for
computer processing of images from satellites and head-mounted 
imaging systems originally developed for NASA Space Station projects
to enhance vision.

According to officials in NASA's Technology Utilization Program, the
new collaborative project is expected to run at least 5 years and cost
a minimum of $5 million in its first phases.

The project will be carried out for NASA by NSTL's Earth Resource 
Laboratory, the installation's research and development organization.

The planned device, the Low-Vision Enhancement System, will resemble
"wraparound" sunglasses and will custom-tailor images of the outside
world for low vision patients. A version of the enhancement system is
expected to be available to patients through clinical tests in a few
years.

Approximately 11 million Americans have visual defects that cannot be
corrected medically, surgically or with glasses. Severe impairment
that causes disability, called low vision, affects 2.5 million Americans,
according to Eye Institute officials.

The transfer of NASA's technology will make it possible to improve the
visual capability of low-vision patients by appropriately enhancing and
altering images to compensate for the individual patient's impaired
eyesight. 

When the device is worn, the patient will see the world on two miniature
color television screens where the lenses of eyeglasses usually are
located. Lenses and imaging glass fibers will be embedded on each side
of the "wraparound" section where the front and ear pieces join.

The lenses will form images of the scene in front of the patient on the
surface of the fibers. The fibers, similar to those used to carry long-
distance telephone signals, carry pictures back to miniature solid-
state television cameras carried in a belt or shoulder pack. The images
are processed by a small, battery-powered system in the pack and, finally,
displayed on the television screens.

As planned, the device will be lightweight and confortable. The outside of
the television screens will be similar to mirrored lenses in sunglasses.

The system is expected to benefit patients who have lost their peripheral
or side field of vision, such as those suffering from glaucoma, an
increase of fluid pressure inside the eye that damages the optic nerve,
and from retinitis pigmentosa, a progressive degeneration of the retina,
the delicate light sensitive nerve layer lining the eye. The system also
is expected to benefit patients with central vision loss, the part of 
vision normally used for reading. These patients may have macular
degeneration associated with aging, or diabetic retinopathy, in which
diabetes causes swelling and leakage of fluid in the center of the
retina.

Ongoing Wilmer research supported by the National Eye Institute will
provide information on how images must be altered and enhanced for the
low-vision patient.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
NASA News Release 88-57  April 27, 1988
By James Ball Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
and Myron Well National Space Technologies Lab., Miss.
Reprinted with permission for electronic distribution
---------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: 16 May 88 13:17:15 GMT
From: cfa!cfa250!mcdowell@husc6.harvard.edu  (Jonathan McDowell)
Subject: Re: Night launch

>From article <12267@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU>, by khayo@sonia.math.ucla.edu (Eric Behr):
> (About Trident launch..)

Boston Globe reports Trident launch from submarine along Western Test
Range at 2050 PDT May 14. 

This is the first submarine launched ballistic missile test from the
West Coast that I've heard of (for about twenty years - there were a
couple in the sixties..) Have there been others? I presume it was a
Trident I since I think Trident II is still in flat pad testing at
Canaveral.. 

If its the first to be done from WTR that explains why it looked unusual
to people..  Usually SLBM launches are done on the ETR from subs about
100 mi E of Cape Canaveral; every SSBN ballistic missile sub launches a
couple for crew training in initial checkout and after each refit. 
Maybe they decided there would be fewer Soviet fishing trawlers off
Point Mugu?


Jonathan McDowell

------------------------------

Subject: Re: A Soviet strategy for domination in space
Date: Tue, 17 May 88 18:57:02 -0400
From: Fred Baube <fbaube@note.nsf.gov>


Jim Bowery writes:
> The Soviets appear to be onto a really clever strategy for becoming
> the dominant space civilizaton:
> [Work with NASA, letting it take the credit while they do the
>  yeoman's share of the work.]
> Oh, but this couldn't work because NASA bureaucrats would NEVER
> take credit for the accomplishments of others and, of course, the
> Soviets are too short sighted to let us have even a decade or two of
> feeling good about ourselves in exchange for the solar system. ;-)

Silly me, I *honestly* thought the Soviets would be *idiots*
to work with NASA and let it take much more credit than is its
rightful due.  But when you put it *that* way .. talk about an
unholy alliance !  If the moon is made of cheese, Mars will
turn out to be borscht.

#include <disclaimer.h>

------------------------------

Date: 16 May 88 18:55:22 GMT
From: mtxinu!rtech!llama!wong@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (J. Wong)
Subject: Re: Night launch

In article <12260@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU> khayo@MATH.ucla.edu (Eric Behr) writes:
>(May 14, 9:00 pm PST)
>I just saw a fabulous sight - most likely a launch from
>VAB.
[description deleted]
>I hope to read something about it in tomorrow's paper.
>                                                       Eric

I believe the papers said it was a Trident missle launch
from a submarine just off the coast.
J. Wong			sun!rtech!wong
	      ucbvax!mtxinu!/
****************************************************************
S-s-s-ay!

------------------------------

Date: 16 May 88 18:51:32 GMT
From: mtxinu!rtech!llama!wong@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (J. Wong)
Subject: Re: space news from April 11 AW&ST


From: sun!rtech!llama!wong (J. Wong)
Message-Id: <8805132107.AA17267@llama.rtech.UUCP>
To: mbunix!marsh
Subject: Re: space news from April 11 AW&ST
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.space.shuttle
In-Reply-To: <31710@linus.UUCP>
References: <1988May9.004935.49@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: Relational Technology, Inc. Alameda, CA

In article <31710@linus.UUCP> you write:
>I'm willing to look really stupid... Why don't they install explosive-powered
>ejection seats on the shuttle.  I don't know enough about the technology,
>but there has to be some way for the pilot to get out of a SR-71 that
>should be close to useful, and require little effort on the part of the
>human.  What's the story ?

Ejection seats have a numerous problems, the worst being that
they are just dangerous (as is any high-explosive.)  Ejection
seats have exploded on the ground, killing any technicians or
pilots who are nearby.  They have also exploded improperly in
the air.  Also, canopies have failed to come off resulting in
the occupant being crushed when the seat ejected.  Passengers
have been known to lose various pieces of their bodies when
ejected (like fingers, hands, arms, legs.)

Tom Wolfe relates some incidents in his book, "The Right Stuff."
Apparently, if you were in a bad situation it was 50/50 whether
to eject or to try and ride the plane down.
-- 
J. Wong			sun!rtech!wong
	      ucbvax!mtxinu!/
****************************************************************
S-s-s-ay!

J. Wong			sun!rtech!wong
	      ucbvax!mtxinu!/
****************************************************************
S-s-s-ay!

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #247
*******************

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Date: Thu, 9 Jun 88 03:25:01 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8806091025.AA11574@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #248

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 248

Today's Topics:
		  Mars Underground News Vol II, No 1
		       Re: SPACE Digest V8 #221
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 17 May 88 03:12:10 GMT
From: nbires!isis!scicom!rwb@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Robert Brumley)
Subject: Mars Underground News Vol II, No 1



This is the latest issue of the Mars Underground News, which contains 
information relevant to the exploration of the planet Mars.  Any replies
can be sent directly to Tom Meyer, the editor, at boulder!cubldr!meyer_t or
to me and I will forward.  Enjoy.


      Robert Brumley
Post: 4661 S. Vivian St.
      Morrison, CO  80465
Tel:  (303) 978-1838
UUCP: (isis,hao)!scicom!rwb


----------------------------------<cut here>----------------------------------


MARS Underground News                                          Vol. II No. 1


FLETCHER SAYS MOON BEST FIRST STEP

NASA Administrator, Dr. James C. Fletcher, speaking before the National Space
Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colo. said that the moon, rather than Mars, may
be the best initial destination for possible U.S./USSR manned missions.  "Going
to the moon together would give the two leading spacefaring nations in the
world an opportunity to build a stable base for further cooperation, which
could, one day, lead to a cooperative mission to Mars," he said.

Dr. Fletcher stressed that any cooperative manned activity should be preceded
by a program of cooperative unmanned activities.

"Flying out to Mars together before building such a foundation could, for
several reasons, be less practical," Dr. Fletcher told participants at the
April symposium.  In the last several months, a number of parties have
advocated a U.S./USSR manned mission to Mars.  Dr. Fletcher cited three
crucial factors favoring the moon for an initial cooperative manned mission:

* Timing - A joint mission to the moon would involve a relatively short
timetable, while a Mars mission "would probably encompass four or five
presidential administrations," Dr. Fletcher said.  He said relations between
the United States and Soviet Union have yet to demonstrate that degree of
stability.

* Cooperative experience - A year ago, the United States and Soviet Union
signed a space science agreement that established joint working groups in five
areas.  The efforts of these groups "could lay the groundwork for a strong
bridge of mutual cooperation and mutual trust," he said.

* Technical readiness - Both nations realize there are "many technical unknowns
involved in a manned Mars mission," Dr. Fletcher said.  These issues, such as
the effects of prolonged weightlessness on the human body, must be considered
before commitments can be made for a Mars mission.

Complete copies of Dr. Fletcher's speech are available from the NASA Newsroom,
(202) 453-8400.


ROMANENKO RESULTS

Can humans sustain a zero-G trip to Mars?  According to preliminary reports 
from the Soviet Union, cosmonaut Romanenko's physiological adaptation to
microgravity required less time, and resulted in smaller losses in bone
strength and mineral content than has been observed in previous flights.

On December 27, 1987, Soviet cosmonaut Col. Yuri Romanenko established an
Earth orbit endurance record of 327 days (11 months) aboard the Mir space
station.  According to Anders Hansson from the Institute for Space Biomedicine
in Sheffield, England, Romanenko reported a 5% loss in bone calcium which
levelled off after 80-110 days of flight.  Muscle atrophy was more extensive at
10% loss of volume, but only 1% loss of muscle fiber.

Romanenko's success, as reported in the December 29, 1987 issue of the New York
Times, may be attributed to a rigorous work schedule, two hours of exercise on
a stationary bicycle and treadmill, and the "penguin" suits which were designed
with elastic bands to provide resistance to movement for additional muscular
conditioning.  According to a report by Keller and Strauss presented at the
1988 Lunar Base Conference, Houston, Texas, there is a close correlation
between skeletal adaption and activity.  While Romanenko's regimen was
adequate, they concluded that more rigorous activity such as weight training or
sprinting may be a more effective countermeasure than more sedentary and less
intense activities such as bicycling or running.  -- Kelly McMillen


ADVANCE ON ROBBINS REPORT

In September 1986, the NASA Advisory Council convened a committee of 17
prominent scientists and physicians to make a comprehensive review of NASA's
life sciences program, recommend goals, and developed scientific and technical
strategies for achieving those goals.  Under the chairmanship of Nobel
laureate Dr. Frederick C. Robbins, the NASA Life Sciences Strategic Planning
Study Committee met periodically for more than a year, visiting field centers,
meeting with international representatives, surveying professional
organizations and groups active in medicine and biology, and reviewing the
issues relevant to the future of basic science, space exploration and,
particularly, extended human space flight.

Their findings and recommendations will be available in a report, "Exploring
the Living Universe: A Strategy for Space Life Sciences," scheduled for release
in mid-June.  This report takes a bold approach to near-term requirements for
biomedical research, gravitational biology, biospherics and exobiology.  It
also studies the factors that potentially limit human space flight, including
physiological deconditioning, radiation exposure, psychological difficulties
and environmental requirements.

A logical followup to the Paine Report and the Ride Report, the Robbins Report
will be available from NASA by calling (202) 453-1530.
-- Paula Korn 


TOO EARLY FOR JOINT MANNED MISSIONS

In a November 18, 1987 letter to the President from Congressmen Manuel Lujan,
Jr. and Robert Roe, the Congressional twosome asked that the White House
explore with the Soviet Union "the possibility of a joint American-Soviet
manned mission to Mars." The politicians, both top members of the U.S. House
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology called the mission a "venture that
could have more lasting beneficial results in terms of international good-will
and technological progress."  The response from the White House was handled by
J. Edward Fox, Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs at the U.S. 
Department of State.  "At the present time," explained the Fox, "the
Department believes it would be premature to commit the United States to join
with the Soviet Union in such a major space project.  The United States has not
yet committed itself to Mars missions beyond the Mars Observer, much less to
its own manned mission to Mars, and the current budget situation makes such a
commitment difficult at best."  The State Department reply also noted that, as
space cooperation with the Soviets improves, so too will a confidence level in
attempting more ambitious cooperative projects.  -- Leonard David 


REAGAN BOOSTS HUMAN EXPLORATION

Speaking before the annual meeting of the Electronic Industries Association in
Washington, D.C., President Ronald Reagan underscored his interest in the
health of the U.S. civilian space program, including human exploration beyond
the confines of Earth.  "...I look to the time, before the end of the first
decade of the next century, when we may have manned visits to other planets,"
stated the President.  In his dinner address before the electronic trade group,
Reagan supported the National Aerospace Plane (NASP) as "an important
investment in our future," noting the plane will be capable of taking off from
Dulles Airport, leaping into space, docking with the Space Station -- similar
to taking off from Washington, D.C. and heading for London.  "Not only the
Moon, but the entire Solar System beckons, which is why I have issued a new
national space policy that reaffirms the goal of U.S. leadership in space and
sets a new goal of expanding human exploration into the solar system," Reagan
said.  The President also remarked that he has asked for $100 million for the
initiation of Project Pathfinder, noting the program will "lay the foundation
for potential manned and unmaned missions beyond the Earth's orbit." "Tonight I
ask Congress and all the American people to join me in making the long-term
investment required to advance U.S. leadership in space.  We must begin that
investment by funding the increases I've proposed for our civil space program. 
Can we afford to stop our exploration and wait for others to pass us?," the
President questioned.  -- Leonard David


MARS' WATER CYCLES UNDER STUDY 

Scientist Bruce Jakosky, a research associate with the Laboratory for
Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado at Boulder, is
studying Mars' water cycle in an attempt to learn more about climatic trends on
Earth.  Jakosky was recently selected to assist in coordinating the scientific
study of the Red Planet by the 1992 Mars Observer mission.  According to
Jakosky, the cyclical system on Mars is remarkably similar to ours, providing
an excellent model for hypothesizing about Earth's ice ages and future climatic
changes.  The Colorado scientist said the vast valleys and channels cutting the
surface of Mars may be erosional features caused by the red planet's periodic
tilting to and away from from the Sun.  As Mars tilts toward the Sun every few
hundred thousand years, its polar ice caps warm and cause water vapor to be
disributed over much of the planet, he theorizes.  "The snow and ice build-up,
which may be as deep as 10 to 15 meters during high tilt, melts from
underneath, quite similar to a greenhouse effect in which the Sun's rays are
absorbed but heat is not emitted," Jakosky explains.  "It's this run-off from
underneath that may cause erosion and form the channels we now see on the
surface." - Leonard David MEETING REPORTS

CASE FOR MARS RESULTS: LIFE SUPPORT

The critical issue of life support for human Mars missions is advancing on
several important fronts.  Within NASA and associated contractors, the
development of the CELSS Breadboard project (closed ecological support system)
continues at Kennedy Space Center with supporting research from Johnson and
Ames Research Centers.  The Biospheres II Venture, a privately funded, and
University supported research facitlity in Arizona has recently put 8 people
into the closed-system environment for a 2 year trial period.  Further research
is continuing aboard the Soviet Mir Space Station, though comprehensive reports
are not yet available.

Among participants at the Case for Mars III held in Boulder, Colorado last
July, new ideas presented in the Life Support session included Alice Eichold's
proposal that rather than build the space station from the "outside in," the
design should be directed toward integrating the need for recreation into the
context of routine duty.  As an architect from the University of California,
Eichold's innovative ideas serve a dual purpose in the CELSS program:
utilization of space for the psychological and physical well being of crew
members and conservation of space from an engineering point of view. 
Additionally, Tyler Volk (New York Univ.) examines the consequences of
not requiring that all wastes from life support be recycled back to the 
food plants and concludes that cellulose production on Mars could be
an important input for many non-metabolic material requirements on Mars.
The fluxes of carbon in cellulose production would probably exceed those in
food production and therefore settlements on Mars could utilize "cellulose
farms" in making materials for structural components and perhaps furnishings 
for a Mars base or colony.

George Swanson's (Univ. of Colo.) approach to fitness management, discussed in
the Biomedical session, was to redefine the parameters of cardio-respiratory
fitness by characterizing blood lactate response.  His model suggests that the
index of fitness should be O2 consumption when the rate of change of lactate
just exceeds the rate of O2 consumption rather than defining fitness from the
"threshold" model done previously.  Additional topics provided insight into the
problems of bone loss (M. Cohen), space suit design (J. Billingham), and
radiation biology (B. Clark). John Billingham suggested that the space suit be
inflated to cover extremities and to constrict muscular blood flow, an idea
similar to the "penguin suit" designed by Soviets for use aboard the Mir
station.  -- Penelope Boston & Kelly McMillen


FUTURE MEETINGS

Exobiology in Solar System Exploration

A Symposium on Exobiology in Solar System Exploration will be held August
24-26, 1988.  Symposium topics will include solar system bodies, such as
planets, comets, asteroids and other celestial bodies, current knowledge
regarding Mars and the question of exobiology, and planned and future NASA
activities.  In addition, speakers will address the current status of the Mars
Observer mission and the U.S. Mars rover sample return project.  The program
will be held at or near Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California.  For
further information, contact: Judith Huntington or Deborah Schwartz; NASA Ames
Research Center; Mail Stop: 239-12; Moffett Field, California 94035; (415)
694-4204.  


Dust on Mars III

A call for abstracts has been issued for the MECA_LPI Workshop entitled "Dust
on Mars III" to be held September 21-23, 1988, at Estes Park, Colorado.  The
goal of the workshop is to stimulate cooperative research on, and discussion
of, dust-related processes on Mars; this should provide valuable background
information and help in preparation and scientific planning for the Mars
Observer mission.  The workshop will address the following general questions:
1. How is dust ejected from the martian surface into the atmosphere? 2. How
does the global atmospheric circulation affect the redistribution of dust on
Mars? 3. Are there sources and sinks of dust on Mars? If so where are they and
how do they vary with time? 4. How many components of dust are there on Mars,
and what are their properties? The deadline for abstracts is July 15, 1988. 
Any questions please contact LPI Projects office: (713) 486-2158 or Steve Lee,
Organizer (303) 492-5348.


4th International Conference on Mars

Although the last mission to Mars ended nearly a decade ago, continuing and new
studies have addressed several major areas.  In addition, a new generation of
spacecraft explorations is planned, beginning with the Soviet mission to Phobos
to be launched this year; the Mars Observer mission is scheduled for launch in
1992, and a series of additional Soviet and American missions are under
consideration.  This seems like a good time to review what is known about Mars
and to study the many intriguing questions.  To the end, a Fourth International
Conference on Mars is planned for January 10-13, 1989; the location will be in
Tucson.

Major objectives of the conference will be to summarize what is thought to be
fairly well known at the beginning of the new era of spacecraft exploration,
and to focus discussion on areas of uncertainty.  The intended theme of the
conference is to summarize those aspects that are known with reasonable
confidence; identify the key points at which interpretations diverge; discuss
the implications of alternate interpretations; and identify key future
measurements.

An important goal or outcome of the conference will be the production of a
source and text book on Mars, planned to be published by the university of
arizona press as part of the space science series.  For more information
contact Hugh Kieffer, USGS 2255 No.  Gemini Drive, Flagstaff, AZ 86001.  

******************

 Editor: Tom Meyer
 Technical Advisor: Christopher McKay
 Contributors: Penelope J. Boston, Leonard David, Paula Korn, Kelly McMillen
 Mail news correspondence to: Mars Underground News, P.O. Box 4877, Boulder,
 CO 80306 

 The electronic version of The Mars Underground News is distributed
by The Space Network BBS (303) 494-8446.


The printed version of The Mars Underground News
is published by The Planetary Society
 Publisher: Charlene Anderson
 In order to receive The Mars Underground News by mail
send $10 (for 1 yr, 4 issues) to:
 The Planetary Society, 65 N. Catalina Avenue, Pasadena, CA  91106

-------------

End of Mars Underground News Vol II, No 1.

------------------------------

Date: 17 May 88 19:46:02 GMT
From: necntc!ima!haddock!eli@husc6.harvard.edu  (Elias Israel)
Subject: Re: SPACE Digest V8 #221

In article <579721510.amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU> Dale.Amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU writes:
>> Anyone who has ever visited the top of an Hawaiian volcano should
>> think twice about the damage that would be done by installing a launch
>> site in such a unique environment.  A hike below the rim of Haleakala
>> on Maui is a truely amazing trip--the closest thing to a walk on
>> another planet that any of us are likely to experience.
>
>Particularly if no one lets us build a spaceport:
>
>	A) near a city because it's to dangerous in a highly developed
>	   area.
>	B) away from a city because it damages the undeveloped
>	   environment.


Amen!
First, the location for the proposed spaceport in Hawaii is in Palima
Point on the big island (Hawaii) not anywhere near Maui. Yes, I have
been to Haleakala and it's one of the most beautiful sights anywhere.
Palima Point is not on or near Mauna Kea or Mauna Loa, the two ACTIVE
volcanoes of the big island. From the sketches that I have seen, the
proposed site is (guess what) on the beach, on the south of the island,
I think.

Also, the benefits of a site in Hawaii are hefty! For the state of
Hawaii, the flow the technology to the state can only mean more money
for the state coffers. Naturally, Governor Waihee is a supporter of the
Palima Point proposal. For the possible users of the launch facility,
it sure is hard to beat a launch site with water in every direction
that's only 12 degress off the equator and in a friendly country to
boot!

I say do it. The age of commercial space development is coming. If you
thought the GOVERNMENT did some nifty things in space, just wait until
the businessmen who *know what they're doing* take a crack at it.

Elias Israel		   | "Justice, n. A commodity which in more or
Interactive Systems Corp.  | less adulterated condition the State sells
Boston, MA		   | to the citizen as a reward for his allegiance,
..!ima!haddock!eli	   | taxes, and personal service."
			   |     -- Ambrose Bierce, _The Devil's Dictionary_

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #248
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 10 Jun 88 06:25:15 EDT
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA13132; Fri, 10 Jun 88 03:24:35 PDT
	id AA13132; Fri, 10 Jun 88 03:24:35 PDT
Date: Fri, 10 Jun 88 03:24:35 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8806101024.AA13132@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #249

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 249

Today's Topics:
	  Re: Non-sexist language (was:Space Station Names)
	       Re: "What if" on Shuttle External Tanks
	 Re: Vocabulary lesson #7: Expendable launch vehicles
	Re Soviet Shuttle launch soon (May 18th) - not likely
			 More on anti-matter
		 Re: Antimatter propulsion questions
			       Re: Mars
		    Re: Naming the space station.
	       Re: "What if" on Shuttle External Tanks
		    Re: Naming the space station.
		   Vocabulary lesson #9:  Spinoffs
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 16 May 88 15:26:03 GMT
From: nuchat!steve@uunet.uu.net  (Steve Nuchia)
Subject: Re: Non-sexist language (was:Space Station Names)

>From article <870@cfa237.cfa250.harvard.edu>, by mcdowell@cfa250.harvard.edu (Jonathan McDowell):
> sounds more natural.  'Crewed' is no good (see comment about
> passenger-only above), likewise 'staffed' (yuck) which doesnt have the
> right sense.  Any constructive suggestions?

"manned" is the English word with the desired meaning.

Can we worry about something important now?
-- 
Steve Nuchia	    | [...] but the machine would probably be allowed no mercy.
uunet!nuchat!steve  | In other words then, if a machine is expected to be
(713) 334 6720	    | infallible, it cannot be intelligent.  - Alan Turing, 1947

------------------------------

Date: 16 May 88 10:59:45 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!its63b!bob@uunet.uu.net  (ERCF08 Bob Gray)
Subject: Re: "What if" on Shuttle External Tanks

In article <907@ncspm.ncsu.edu> jay@ncspm.ncsu.EDU (Jay C. Smith) writes:
>I've forgotten... why didn't the Soviets salvage Skylab?  I would think
>that concern over discovering technological "secrets" from an old 
>space station would have been overridden by safety concerns for those
>under the falling debris.

Because the propaganda of having a US spacestation fall 
out of the sky was worth more than the large effort to
salvage it.

And they had spacestations of their own at advanced stages
of development.
	Bob.

 than a stowed space suit. Any type of
"miniatre space ships" would also be much more clumsy. They would have to
have some kind of thruster system like the MMU..This means one more thing that
can go wrong.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Joe Walker                          |        The dream is still alive!!
 U.S. Mail:                          |-----------------------------------------
   Dartmouth College                 |    "Why don't you fix your little
   H.B. 219, Hanover N.H. 03755      |     problems and light this candle!!"
 E-Mail:                             |
   BITNET:seldon@D1.dartcms1.bitnet  |                   - Alan Shepard
   UNIX:seldon@eleazar.Dartmouth.EDU |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
               !{harvard,linus,inhp4}!dartvax!eleazar!seldon
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: 15 May 88 00:30:50 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Vocabulary lesson #7: Expendable launch vehicles

> ... can be gotten rid of when they become politically
> inconvenient - or heaven forbit!  Inexpensive.

Since there is no chance of the latter while the US government is running
the show, it need not be mentioned.  Despite some of the nonsense one
hears from the more rabid anti-shuttle factions, current US expendables
are just as expensive as the shuttle.

Actually, my definition would be something like:  "a class of space launchers
which clearly are not considered expendable, based on the vast manpower and
expense devoted to every single launch".  (Case in point.  Delta is derived
from the Thor IRBM.  Thor specs said launch in 15 minutes with crew of 9.
NASA Delta launches required three months with a crew of 2000.  Yes, the
Delta is more complicated, and the payloads need more attention... but
three orders of magnitude?!?)  We will not have cheap space transportation
until we can treat space-launch failures like airliner crashes:  lamentable,
to be avoided, worthy of careful investigation... but not usually cause for
grounding the vehicle or grossly compromising its economics.  And "grossly
compromised" is certainly the word for the economics today...
-- 
NASA is to spaceflight as            |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
the Post Office is to mail.          | {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 18 May 88 10:44:32 EDT
From: Glenn Chapman <glenn@ll-vlsi.arpa>
Subject: Re Soviet Shuttle launch soon (May 18th) - not likely

In Space Digest v8, 224 Bruce Watson posts:

> Just heard that the Soviet Space Shuttle is set for launch on May 18.
> Dignitaries are assembling at the Baikonur Cosmodrome for the event.

     I am rather doubtful of any Soviet Shuttle launch in the next few days
(from today's May 17th).  The Soviets have just started to take the foreign 
correspondents on the tour of the launch sites at Baikonur and the astronaut
training areas of Star city.  Also for the past week there has been only a
small piece about their space program on the Radio Moscow news.  For those
who listen to shortwave the Russians follow a standard pattern with space news.
If some big event is coming up they move relatively small articles ("the 
cosmonauts have now been in orbit for X days ... ") from their normal position,
as the last item or two of their ten minute long hourly news, to one of the top
four.  Also the number of such stories increase, which is just starting to be
true.  Finally since the news tours indicate that they are keeping to their 
word about publicizing the launch, they would have announced the take off well 
before now if it was going to occur soon.  Heck they gave the date of the first 
Energiya launch about two days before it happened.  Thus I would be rather 
surprised by a Soviet Shuttle launch tomorrow or in the next few days.  It
is probable, however, that they may try to launch it before the party congress
this June (to show their country's technological advances).
     Also note that there has been strong statements from the head of the
cosmonaut corps that the first few shuttle launches will not be manned.  There
have been over 50 atmospheric test flights to date (all manned).  This
contradicts other statements that I have seen from Non-Soviet sources about the
launch version being manned.  That shows again that in this business take all 
rumors with a grain of salt.  Never the less it appears their shuttle may
begin flying before this country's one lifts off once more unless we really get
a move on.

                                                 Glenn Chapman
                                                 MIT Lincoln Lab

------------------------------

Date:     Mon, 9 May 88 14:32 EST
From: <GILL%QUCDNAST.BITNET@cornellc.ccs.cornell.edu>
Sender: ota@galileo.s1.gov
Subject:  More on anti-matter

Paul Dietz writes the following on anti-matter:

>Antimatter might be effective in a beam weapon.

In a word, HAH!  Such a beam weapon would not work in the atmosphere, as
an interaction with matter will cause a minimum 1900 MeV explosion per
anti-proton annihilated (about 1 MeV if positrons are used instead).
Such a huge amount of isotropic energy added to the beam will disperse
it real quick, setting off more explosions.  This will all occur in or
just outside the nozzle!  If one attempts to vacate a small volume of
space for an anti-matter pulse to travel through, say with a high power
laser, the same problem arises, though with many orders of magnitude
(like about 25) lower integrated cross-section.  The same is true for
space based weapons, as the gas density is at least 1/cc and likelier to
be over 1000/cc.  Current matter particle beam research is arguably
feasible in that one has only collisions rather than the very high
energy annihilations leading to beam dispersion.

>An antimatter explosion would produce radiations not found in a
>conventional nuclear device. Decay of neutral pions would produce very
>energetic photons, and decay of charged pions produces muons.
>Annihilation of antimatter in nuclei might produce neutrons more
>energetic than those produced by fusion.

All that will be produced is a different energy spectrum of photons,
electrons, and neutrinos, as all of the other particles will decay or
annihilate on the order of a millionth of a second.  One MAY be able to
produce neutrons, but that would require anti-proton - proton collisions
of very high energy (and luck).  Such a branching is of very low
probability.

>Unlike conventional nuclear bombs, antimatter bombs can in principle be
>made as small as one likes, and are essentially fallout-free. A bomb
>containing a few tens of nanograms of antimatter might make an
>effective tactical radiation weapon (less if fusion reactions can be
>initiated), assuming handling problems can be solved. That might
>require the synthesis of higher antielements, but that's not obviously
>impossible.

This bomb will be as fallout-free as any nuclear device is.  The fallout
of any nuclear explosion is due to the irradiated matter around the bomb
being blown up into the atmosphere (this includes the containment
mechanism of the bomb itself).  It may be small, who knows the state of
current vaccum magnetic bottle experiments (extrapolated to room
temperature particle entrapment rather than solar core temperatures)?

J Storrs Hall writes:

>Hmmm.  It just occurs to me: how much antimatter would it take to
>ignite a lithium deuteride pellet?  or indeed something harder to fuse?
>One might get a signigicant power multiplier that way (assuming that
>antimatter is the critical-cost component).

If all one needs is 10 KeV, a single positron annihilation event is
enough energy (1 MeV), provided that it was placed properly.  This last
restriction would make things a bit more difficult.

The big problem with anti-matter is in the production.  As someone
stated earlier (and as was written up in a recent Science review),
anti-matter costs of order $10 million per milligram.  The problem is
getting it in a usable form.  SLAC, for example, has a 2 mile
accelerator to produce anti-particles.  Then one needs another 2 mile
accelerator to slow them down again so that they can be handled and
contained, provided they were travelling in the correct direction to
begin with!.  This all has to be done in a perfect vaccuum, otherwise
more 1900 MeV annihilations occur.  Fun stuff, this anti-matter!

Arnold Gill
Queen's University at Kingston
gill @ qucdnast.bitnet

------------------------------

Date:      Tue, 17-MAY-1988 12:03:31.00 PDT
From: <steveb%SLACSLD.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu> (Steve Bougerolle)
Subject:   Re: Antimatter propulsion questions
To: <space@angband.s1.gov>


In issue #220, James W. Meritt asks several questions about matter/anti-matter
annihilation:

1) What about Pauli exclusion?  Does an anti-proton only react with free
   protons?

    Pauli exclusion only applies to identical particles.  A proton and
   anti-proton are NOT identical, so exclusion is entirely irrelevant. A
   proton and anti-proton (electron/positron, etc) can annihilate regardless
   of the presence of a potential.

2) Will anti-protons only react with free protons? Or does quark-quark
   annihilation take place?

    The reaction actually taking place IS quark-antiquark annihilation.
   But because of confinement rules, some reactions are more likely than
   others.

   Nevertheless, it is possible for antiprotons and neutrons to react.

   Similarly, anti-lithium will react with normal matter quite nicely.
   (Not just lithium; ALL matter).

So, NO, you can not store antimatter fuel in an aluminum container.
It has to be handled with more care than that.  However, you have to
MAKE antimatter before you worry about any of this; and this hasn't been
done.  What is actually proposed as a fuel?  Anti-hydrogen?

                                             -New in town

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 18 May 88 09:58 EDT
From: "Paul F. Dietz" <DIETZ%sdr.slb.com@relay.cs.net>
Subject: Re: Mars
To: chiaravi@silver.bacs.indiana.edu, space@angband.s1.gov

> 	Remember that the Viking landers only sampled 2 places on all of Mars,
> and those weren't even the places where atmospheric pressure and water vapor
> content are thought to be highest.

It is not the case that the Viking sites were particularly dry compared to
other parts of the planet. Moreover, the measured partial pressure of water
was something like 14 precipitable microns, orders of magnitude too low for
liquid water to exist, even if saturated with salts.

>   They also did register some life-like
> reactions, which, while by no means being proof of life, deserve further
> investigation before being swept under the rug.

The results were hardly "life-like". They were much more consistent with
the presence of peroxides, superoxides, and ozonides in the soil. The
process that generates these compounds (photochemical dissociation of water
vapor) would operate globally, and dust storms would carry the chemicals
everywhere. It would be nice to confirm this model by further tests, but
claims that Viking did not present strong evidence against the existence of
life are misleading.

> Also, who is to say that life has to be organic? In _Genetic Takeover and
> the Origin of Life_ and also in a Scientific American article of a couple
> of years ago, A. G. Cairns-Smith makes a very respectable case for the
> hypothesis that the first life on Earth was in fact reproducing crystals
> capable of storing and transmitting genetic information and catalyzing
> metabolic reactions beneficial to themselves.

Cairns-Smith's very imaginative proposal is not supported by any evidence.
Moreover, his model requires the existence of liquid water.

>  Liquid water is not stable on Mars, but since frost (or maybe even
> snow) can form there and accumulate during the night and then be heated by
> the Sun when morning comes around, liquid water could exist transiently.

I believe this has been looked into. Frost does not form at night at the
Viking sites (although *seasonal* frosts do occur, probably by
precipitation of suspended ice grains), and any frost that did form would
sublime and not moisten the soil.

> Terrestrial microorganisms that use oxygen have enzymes to deal with
> oxidizing radicals and other nasty stuff. Considering that some
> cyanobacteria and archaebacteria are capable of growing in boiling sulfuric
> acid (which is a pretty strong oxidizer), and that other organisms have
> been shown to be able to grow in conditions which simulate Martian
> conditions, I would not be surprised if something found Martian conditions
> to be similar enough to its terrestrial niche to be able to adapt.

Those enzymes cannot operate if the organism has been lyophilized.  I view
with incredulity your claim that organisms have been found to grow in
conditions that simulate Martian conditions.  Perhaps you are refering
to very old experiments that were performed before it was realized how
cold and dry Mars really is?  Please give a reference.

	Paul F. Dietz
	dietz@sdr.slb.com

------------------------------

Date: 18 May 88 02:15:12 GMT
From: portal!cup.portal.com!Daniel_C_Anderson@uunet.uu.net
Subject: Re: Naming the space station.

I second  motion to name a Space Station after the late and
sincerely lamented Robert A. Heinlein.
Anyone who cares at all about space probably cut their (<--non-sexist
'third person indefinite' pronoun) teeth on Heinlein's stories.
 
(-:"My opinions should be those of my employers":-)

------------------------------

Date: 18 May 88 06:06:49 GMT
From: portal!cup.portal.com!Paul_L_Schauble@uunet.uu.net
Subject: Re: "What if" on Shuttle External Tanks

Soviets salvaging Skylab...

I recall hearing the story at the time that the Soviets offered to boost
Skylab. And afterward, it was theirs. NASA was ready to agree, but the
idea got forcefully shot down by either the Pentagon or State Department.

Can anyone substantiate??

------------------------------

Date: 17 May 88 21:52:37 GMT
From: portal!atari!daisy!wooding@uunet.uu.net  (Mike Wooding)
Subject: Re: Naming the space station.


 Perhaps ASIMOV:
 	Astronauts Space Inhabitable Module for Orbiting Vacations.

 m wooding

------------------------------

Reply-To: pnet01!jim@trout.nosc.mil
Date: Mon, 16 May 88 21:38:12 PDT
From: jim@pnet01.cts.com (Jim Bowery)
To: crash!space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: Vocabulary lesson #9:  Spinoffs

Spinoffs, n, 1. $500 worth of research results proclaimed to justify the
$200,000,000,000 expenditure on NASA to date.  2. The central dogma in
rationalizing NASA worship and The Space Program to the uninitiated.
3. Teflon, computers, electronics, automobiles, houses, caves, the wheel,
sliced bread and anything else of a generally useful nature that NASA
had nothing to do with inventing.

UUCP: {cbosgd, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!pnet01!jim
ARPA: crash!pnet01!jim@nosc.mil
INET: jim@pnet01.cts.com

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #249
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 11 Jun 88 06:24:47 EDT
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA14571; Sat, 11 Jun 88 03:24:22 PDT
	id AA14571; Sat, 11 Jun 88 03:24:22 PDT
Date: Sat, 11 Jun 88 03:24:22 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8806111024.AA14571@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #250

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 250

Today's Topics:
	  Re: Non-sexist language (was:Space Station Names)
			       Re: Mars
	       Re: "What if" on Shuttle External Tanks
			Astronaut Requirements
			      Robertson
	 clearing martian landing sites with nuclear devices
		      Re: Shuttle External Tanks
		    Re: Naming the space station.
		       Re: SPACE Digest V8 #221
		 Ariane V23/Intelsat V launch success
		  Re: space news from April 11 AW&ST
	       Re: "What if" on Shuttle External Tanks
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 18 May 88 06:33:08 GMT
From: attcan!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Non-sexist language (was:Space Station Names)

> ... But I just can't come up with a good
> gender-free word to replace exactly the sense of 'manned'! ...
> Any constructive suggestions?

Name three female astronauts who prefer sitting on the ground in a
"crewed" spacecraft to flying in a "manned" one.  My constructive
suggestion is to spend time and energy on problems which have a higher
priority, like the lack of spaceflight opportunities for both sexes,
and worry about the terminology once the important issues are solved.
Until then, I really think we can make do with "manned" plus an
occasional apology for the limitations of the language.
-- 
NASA is to spaceflight as            |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
the Post Office is to mail.          | {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 18 May 88 23:10:45 GMT
From: silver!chiaravi@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu  (Lucius Chiaraviglio)
Subject: Re: Mars

| > 	Remember that the Viking landers only sampled 2 places on all of Mars,
| > and those weren't even the places where atmospheric pressure and water vapor
| > content are thought to be highest.
| 
| It is not the case that the Viking sites were particularly dry compared to
| other parts of the planet. Moreover, the measured partial pressure of water
| was something like 14 precipitable microns, orders of magnitude too low for
| liquid water to exist, even if saturated with salts.

	I didn't say they were particularly dry; however, they are not the
wettest either.  (I don't remember the wettest spots, but I do remember that
at least one of them was considered for a Viking landing site and rejected for
some reason.)  And remember that the liquid water does NOT have to be stable;
transient existence is sufficient for some terrestrial forms of life, and can
be obtained under conditions in which liquid is not the most stable phase of
water.

| >   They also did register some life-like
| > reactions, which, while by no means being proof of life, deserve further
| > investigation before being swept under the rug.
| 
| The results were hardly "life-like". They were much more consistent with
| the presence of peroxides, superoxides, and ozonides in the soil. The
| process that generates these compounds (photochemical dissociation of water
| vapor) would operate globally, and dust storms would carry the chemicals
| everywhere. It would be nice to confirm this model by further tests, but
| claims that Viking did not present strong evidence against the existence of
| life are misleading.

	People gave those explanations, but not STRONG evidence.  If I
remember properly, the Vikings' onboard laboratories were not equipped to make
the distinction between life and reactions with oxidizing compounds, radicals,
etc.

| > Also, who is to say that life has to be organic? In _Genetic Takeover and
| > the Origin of Life_ and also in a Scientific American article of a couple
| > of years ago, A. G. Cairns-Smith makes a very respectable case for the
| > hypothesis that the first life on Earth was in fact reproducing crystals
| > capable of storing and transmitting genetic information and catalyzing
| > metabolic reactions beneficial to themselves.
| 
| Cairns-Smith's very imaginative proposal is not supported by any evidence.

	NONE of the models of the origin of life are supported by ANY evidence
whatsoever.  ALL of the attempts to reproduce pre-biotic evolution by
simulating "primordial soups" have failed miserably -- while they make a few
percent amino acids and such (total, not any one type), they make >90% tar and
other unuseable garbage.  With the low concentrations of these molecules that
can be obtained under any reasonable conditions (that is, not involving
enormous pressures and extreme concentrations of one compound to the exclusion
of other required compounds), assembly of polymers is highly energetically
unfavorable.  Of course, these facts are not usually emphasized in reports
supporting standard models. . .

	At any rate, when you take into account all the evidence (at least all
that obtained up to 1985), A. G. Cairns-Smith's model is as good as any of the
others.

| Moreover, his model requires the existence of liquid water.
| 
| >  Liquid water is not stable on Mars, but since frost (or maybe even
| > snow) can form there and accumulate during the night and then be heated by
| > the Sun when morning comes around, liquid water could exist transiently.
| 
| I believe this has been looked into. Frost does not form at night at the
| Viking sites (although *seasonal* frosts do occur, probably by
| precipitation of suspended ice grains), and any frost that did form would
| sublime and not moisten the soil.

	Like I said, the Viking sites are not the wettest on Mars.  And it
will probably be impossible to say that no liquid water forms on the surface
of Mars until some roving probe with the proper instruments samples a large
number of sites.

| > Terrestrial microorganisms that use oxygen have enzymes to deal with
| > oxidizing radicals and other nasty stuff. Considering that some
| > cyanobacteria and archaebacteria are capable of growing in boiling sulfuric
| > acid (which is a pretty strong oxidizer), and that other organisms have
| > been shown to be able to grow in conditions which simulate Martian
| > conditions, I would not be surprised if something found Martian conditions
| > to be similar enough to its terrestrial niche to be able to adapt.
| 
| Those enzymes cannot operate if the organism has been lyophilized.  I view
| with incredulity your claim that organisms have been found to grow in
| conditions that simulate Martian conditions.  Perhaps you are refering
| to very old experiments that were performed before it was realized how
| cold and dry Mars really is?  Please give a reference.

	I don't remember a specific reference, but these might have used
outdated conditions.  They were performed no later than the early 1970's
(before either Viking).

	-- Lucius Chiaraviglio
	   chiaravi@silver.bacs.indiana.edu
	   lucius@tardis.harvard.edu	(in case the first one doesn't work)
Better to open your mouth and prove yourself a fool than to leave people
hanging in suspense.

------------------------------

Date: 19 May 88 01:41:39 GMT
From: al@eos.arc.nasa.gov  (Al Globus)
Subject: Re: "What if" on Shuttle External Tanks

>>I've forgotten... why didn't the Soviets salvage Skylab?  

Salvaging SkyLab would have been extremely difficult, if possible, for
the Soviet's to do.  The would have had to dock with it - meaning they
would need a compatible docking adapter - and have enough fuel left
over for a reboost.  

Without detailed documentation on the SkyLab docking port, building a docking
adapter for Soyuz would be impossible.  Even with all the documentation, the US
had problems docking with the much smaller Solar Max satellite.

Once docking was complete the Soyuz would need substantial fuel for a 
reboost, and then more for the decent burn.  I don't have the numbers
but somehow I doubt that Soyuz could do this.  I could be wrong though.

------------------------------

Date: 18 May 88 22:04:31 GMT
From: ncspm!jay@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu  (Jay C. Smith)
Subject: Astronaut Requirements


Regarding the recent postings of the requirements for becoming an
astronaut, I don't remember normal color vision being one.

Did I just miss it?  Or did others leave it out?  Or is it really
not a requirement?

Please, go ahead and depress me (reds and greens give me problems
on those circles-in-a-circle tests they give, but never with stoplights
or other everyday situations).  I could take it, if only I just
once saw a list of job requirements that said "Must be able to hear 
frequencies up to 20 kHz."

-- 

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Jay C. Smith                    uucp:     ...!mcnc!ncsuvx!ncspm!jay
Domain:	jay@ncspm.ncsu.edu      internet: jay%ncspm@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 19 May 88 15:05:01 EDT
From: loeb@BOURBAKI.MIT.EDU
Subject: Robertson

Pat Robertson finally answered my question about his views
on Space. It's a little too late but I'll post them here
anyway:

"Americans for Robertson

"Dear

"Thank you for your correspondence. We are pleased to have
the opportunity of becoming further acquainted with the
goals and issues of greatest significance to you and the
community.

"Pat Robertson shares your concern for America's space
policy, and believes it is in desperate need of
revitalization. He considers President Reagan's space
program a step in the right direction toward restoring U. S.
leadership in space, and would like to see even greater
emphasis placed on privatization of ventures.

"At the same time, a thorough reorganization of NASA must
continue---from top management on down---so that its
operations are made cost effective, while maintaining the
highest standards of quality and safety.

"Your interest in our candidate, M. G. "Pat" Robertson is
appreciated.

"Sincerely, Barbara Gattullo, Director of Communications,
Americans for Robertson, BG:glp"

	--- Danny

------------------------------

Date: 19 May 88 11:18:00 CDT
From: "ASUIPF::MC" <mc%asuipf.decnet@spacvax.rice.edu>
Subject: clearing martian landing sites with nuclear devices
To: "space" <space@angband.s1.gov>
Reply-To: "ASUIPF::MC" <mc%asuipf.decnet@spacvax.rice.edu>

Get your facts straight about resolution from orbit first.  The Mars
Observer Camera narrow-angle has a resolution of between 1 and 1.4
meters.  We have proposed things like 30-cm resolution optics that
wouldn't be much more expensive.  If you think you're ever going
to be able to launch a tactical nuke to Mars you're completely
nuts.  It's hard enough to get a tank of hydrazine launched these
days, especially on the shuttle.  On the shuttle, it's hard to get
a nine-volt battery launched (I speak only of safety issues,
not the flight status of the shuttle.)

The person who proposed "steerable parachutes and smart robots" hasn't
been following the development of SCI autonomous vehicles and their
utter lack of success.  Now balloons are another story...

	Mike Caplinger, ASU/Caltech Mars Observer Camera Project
	mc@moc.jpl.nasa.gov
------

------------------------------

Date: 19 May 88 20:54:09 GMT
From: pioneer!eugene@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Eugene N. Miya)
Subject: Re: Shuttle External Tanks

No not again!
Actually Will Martin brought up a few points and when our noted space
attorney gets back from vacation next week, I will drop this on his
desk.  Al Globius made a few technical points.  He also left out a few orbital
characteristics.  The principal thing which no one has mentioned is the
Skylab and these tanks are regarded as US Territory.  Salvage law with
standing (we had an interesting lesson on this topic while sailing the
other day).  Anyway. I'll bring with up with the lawyer over lunch,
sure he will get a kick, "There are these guys out there and they want to
know...."

Another gross generalization from

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@aurora.arc.nasa.gov
  resident cynic at the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:
The Rock of Ages Home has moved buildings and phone extension......
  "Mailers?! HA!", "If my mail does not reach you, please accept my apology."
  {uunet,hplabs,hao,ihnp4,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."

------------------------------

Date: 20 May 88 00:01:34 GMT
From: beta!jlg@hc.dspo.gov  (Jim Giles)
Subject: Re: Naming the space station.

How about 'Ricercar' (pronounced reach-er-car).  It is the English
word for the musical form now called a fugue (a Latin word- through
Italian).  The roots of the word are the same as for 'research', in
fact one of the meanings of the word used to be 'to seek'.

This seems to capture the flavor that the space program should work
for - both artistic and scientific.

------------------------------

Date: 18 May 88 15:47:55 GMT
From: attcan!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: SPACE Digest V8 #221

> it sure is hard to beat a launch site with water in every direction
> that's only 12 degress off the equator and in a friendly country to
                                                  ^^^^^^^^
> boot!

Has Hawaii declared independence?  Last I heard it was still part of the
US... :-)

Being attacked by government bureaucrats waving regulations and lawyers
waving liability suits may be a bit less nerve-wracking than being
attacked by guerillas waving guns, but it's every bit as destructive to
privately-funded spaceflight.  Cape York is a better bet.
-- 
NASA is to spaceflight as            |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
the Post Office is to mail.          | {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 18 May 88 00:26:23 GMT
From: thumper!karn@faline.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Ariane V23/Intelsat V launch success

The Ariane V23 launcher (the Ariane 2 version) carrying an Intelsat V
spacecraft was launched successfully this evening, shortly before 0000
UTC. The launch was a complete success.

This clears the way for the next launch, Ariane V22 carrying, among
other things, the AMSAT Phase 3C amateur radio satellite. That launch is
scheduled for June 8 and will be the first flight of the new Ariane 4
version.

The V23 launch was carried live on Spacenet 1 (120 deg W) on transponder
23 (horizontal polarization).

Phil

------------------------------

Date: 18 May 88 17:56:36 GMT
From: attcan!utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!me!ecf!mugc@uunet.uu.net  (ModemUserGroupChairman)
Subject: Re: space news from April 11 AW&ST

In article <2091@rtech.UUCP> wong@llama.UUCP (J. Wong) writes:
>
>    (A bunch of comments re. safety of ejection seats)
>
>Tom Wolfe relates some incidents in his book, "The Right Stuff."
>Apparently, if you were in a bad situation it was 50/50 whether
>to eject or to try and ride the plane down.
>-- 

    Admittedly, ejection seats can not be considered to be perfectly safe.
In a space shuttle, however, you do not have the option of 'riding the plane
down'. Even if an ejection seat is only 10% effective, this is preferable to
the 0% chance of surviving without one. If a more better escape system is
developed, it should be used, but an ejection seat system is better than
nothing.



                                    -A. Craig West

------------------------------

Date: 18 May 88 18:12:55 GMT
From: mcvax!unido!ecrcvax!johng@uunet.uu.net  (John Gregor)
Subject: Re: "What if" on Shuttle External Tanks

In article <8805111633.AA05118@angband.s1.gov> wmartin@ALMSA-1.ARPA (Will Martin -- AMXAL-RI) writes:
>Suppose NASA had actually done what we wished, and there HAD been a dozen
>or more tanks in orbit, and then the Challenger disaster and the
>subsequent multi-year hiatus in US manned spaceflight had happened as it
>did.

Probably, if it were important enough, the program wouldn't have had
the multi-year hiatus it did.  But that would have implied a plan,
a multi mission project, and some sort of organization to it all.
And we know that isn't there.

>If the Soviets really wanted to look at the innards of any
>of our satellites, they could just grab the worn-out or inert ones
>while they are over Soviet territory and out of our scanning range
>and leave something in their orbital places to continue to show up on
>radar tracks! Maybe they've already done this -- how would we know?)

Reason 1: Booby traps (chemical, biological, radioactive, explosive, etc)
    I wouldn't go near a US military (or Soviet) satellite without the
    FULL documentation of what they were armed with.  Oh, they have
    the documentation... never mind.
Reason 2: Probably the last operation many of these satellites do is
    self-destruct (at least the 'sensitive' parts).
Reason 3: Any launch that planned to rendezvous with a satellite would
    be obvious from the orbit it entered.
Reason 4: The Soviets don't own the whole hemisphere, we have stations
    everywhere.

>Anyway, if we HAD left tanks in orbit, and we then discovered that we
>wouldn't have been able to use them or "freshen-up" their orbits before
>they were lost, I would hope that we would have had the sense to offer
>them to the Soviets as gifts.

Too bad they couldn't have salvaged skylab.  I would have like to have 
it get some real use.

-- 
pqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpq
bdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbd

John Gregor                                     johng%ecrcvax.UUCP@germany.CSNET

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #250
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 13 Jun 88 11:57:11 EDT
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA17006; Mon, 13 Jun 88 08:43:14 PDT
	id AA17006; Mon, 13 Jun 88 08:43:14 PDT
Date: Mon, 13 Jun 88 08:43:14 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8806131543.AA17006@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #251

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 251

Today's Topics:
		       Re:  Space Station Names
		    Re: Expanding cicrle of ______
	       Re: "What if" on Shuttle External Tanks
			    Re: Robertson
		       Re: SPACE Digest V8 #221
	 Roman-Greek Mythology (Was:Re: Space Station Names)
      Re: Re Soviet Shuttle launch soon (May 18th) - not likely
		       Re: Space Station Names
		  Re: space news from April 11 AW&ST
			   Soviet's shuttle
		  Re: space news from April 11 AW&ST
			 Re: Sun-Earth Orbit
		    Antimatter weaponry reference
		    Re: Naming the space station.
			   Sun-Earth Orbit
		 Re: Antimatter propulsion questions
		    Re: Naming the space station.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date:     Fri, 20 May 88 10:27:49 EDT
From: "Dennis G. Rears (FSAC)" <drears@ardec.arpa>
Subject:  Re:  Space Station Names


   How about "Space Station I" or the "John Ludd Station" :-) .

Dennis
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
ARPA:	drears@ardec-ac4.arpa	UUCP:  	...!uunet!ardec-ac4.arpa!drears
AT&T:	201-724-6639		Snailmail:	Box 210, Wharton, NJ 07885
Flames:	/dev/null		Reincarnation: newton!babbage!patton!drears
Work:	SMCAR-FSS-E, Dennis Rears, Bldg 94, Picatinny Ars, NJ 07806
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 20 May 1988 15:13-EDT 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: Expanding cicrle of ______


Keep in mind that the US craft do not dump solid wastes overboard, only
liquid ones.  The soviets do not return their garbage to the surface,
but they don't just dump it either. They fill a Progress with garbage
after unloading the cargo and let it burn up on re-entry.

Water this close sunwards is rapidly ionized (no difference from
cometary ices particles), as should be any bacteria thus contained. If
they were released on particulate matter, some would undoubtedly
survive in an encysted form, as was found on Surveyor lander.

I'm also fairly sure that the water and ice would not escape the
Earth's gravity. I won't go in to a long explanation, but I would
compare it to shuttle exhaust gases, and you can read:

"Spacelab-2 Plasma Depletion Experiments for Ionospheric and Radio
Astronomical Studies", Mendillo, Baumgardner, et al, Science, p1260
27-Nov-87.

Remember that at the altitude an speed of the shuttle, there are still
ionospheric plasmas, and any subliming gases will interact with them.
Small particles released with the liquids will suffer the same fate as
Delta rocket paint flecks: fly around Earth for a few years and then
either reenter or make craters in spacecraft windshields.

And as soon as the water ionizes, it will then interact with the
earth's magnetic field. The dissociated H+ may well escape. I don't
know.

------------------------------

Date: 20 May 88 23:30:07 GMT
From: thumper!karn@faline.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: "What if" on Shuttle External Tanks

This perennial discussion on storing Shuttle external tanks in orbit
keeps missing one thing -- the typical shuttle orbit is very low in
altitude (296 km) and an empty external tank has an enormous coefficient
of drag (i.e., it's very big and very light). It wouldn't stay up very
long without being kicked into a much higher orbit than the shuttle
itself would be willing to spend the fuel to go.

Phil

------------------------------

Date: 21 May 88 15:35:01 GMT
From: EWTILENI@pucc.princeton.edu  (Eric William Tilenius)
Subject: Re: Robertson

>Pat Robertson finally answered my question about his views
>on Space. It's a little too late but I'll post them here
>anyway:
 
[Stuff about Robertson supporting Reagan's space "inititive" deleted...]
 
Funny, but I recall Robertson being firmly against the Space Station, and
against human exploration of Mars.   Did G~  tell him otherwise, now?
Last I heard he still wanted to stay here and bash commies.
 
- ERIC -
*----------------------===>  SPACE IS THE PLACE... <===-----------------------*
*        ewtileni@pucc.Princeton.EDU  //  ewtileni@pucc.BITNET                *
*      rutgers!pucc.bitnet!ewtileni  //  princeton!pucc.bitnet!ewtileni       *
* ColorVenture - Microcomputer Software - "Because Life isn't Black and White"*
*--------------------===> Another proud CoCo 3 owner <===---------------------*

------------------------------

Date: 20 May 88 16:53:50 GMT
From: thumper!karn@faline.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: SPACE Digest V8 #221

> NASA is to spaceflight as the Post Office is to mail.

I only wish this were so. For $0.25 I can send an ordinary letter across
the country, and from recent experience it'll get there in about 3 days,
weekends included. And they go everywhere, too. 

Now if NASA could put something into an orbit of my choosing with a
3-day lead time and the same price per ounce, I'd agree with your
comparison. I know it's an American pastime to bash the postal service,
but I think that in recent years they've done an awfully good job given
that their service involves physical transportation.

Phil

------------------------------

Date: 20 May 88 11:46:53 GMT
From: mcvax!enea!kth!draken!d85-kai@uunet.uu.net  (Kai-Mikael J{{-Aro)
Subject: Roman-Greek Mythology (Was:Re: Space Station Names)

In article <1833@brahma.cs.hw.ac.uk> adrian@cs.hw.ac.uk (Adrian Hurt) writes:
>I thought Minerva was the Roman name for the Greek goddess Athene, the goddess
>of wisdom.
>Maybe the Romans, being more militaristic, put her in charge of both, but I
>thought that war was the speciality of Mars (Ares in Greek).

Well, coupled with her wisdom gig, Athena was the goddess of
thought-out war (strategy and tactics) as opposed to Ares, who was the
god of bravery and head-long rushes.

--
d85-kai@nada.kth.se	OR	{mcvax,uunet}!nada.kth.se!d85-kai

------------------------------

Date: 20 May 88 11:26:19 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!its63b!bob@uunet.uu.net  (ERCF08 Bob Gray)
Subject: Re: Re Soviet Shuttle launch soon (May 18th) - not likely

In article <8805181444.AA26555@ll-vlsi.arpa> glenn@LL-VLSI.ARPA (Glenn Chapman) writes:
>Also note that there has been strong statements from the head of the
>cosmonaut corps that the first few shuttle launches will not be manned.
>There have been over 50 atmospheric test flights to date (all manned).
>This contradicts other statements that I have seen from Non-Soviet
>sources about the launch version being manned.

The original talk of the soviet shuttle was that it was to be launched
unmanned. In a documentery on the soviet space programme shown here
recently, it was mentioned that the first flight would carry two
cosmanauts. The speculation is that the Soviets are having problems with
the software controlling the approach and landing, and that to launch
their shuttle before the US shuttle (or before the Moscow summit, pick
your rumor) the first flight would now be manned. The cosmanauts were
also said to have been exerting great pressure to have the first flight
manned.
	Bob.

------------------------------

Date: 20 May 88 16:26:20 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!its63b!bob@uunet.uu.net  (ERCF08 Bob Gray)
Subject: Re: Space Station Names

In article <667@nyser> weltyc@nisc.nyser.net (Christopher A. Welty) writes:
>	I'd like to see a name that reflects the distant outpost kind
>of idea, and as an `Arthurian' (one who loves the legends of King
>Arthur) I think `Tintagil' would be a good name.

While I wouldn't count a space station in low earth orbit as
"distant", the rest of the name seems quite accurate judging
by the comments about NASA on the net recently.

A mythical residence(1) resembling a place which exists today(2),
and which is part of a very elaborate publicity stunt(3)
based on reality which bears very little resemblance to the legend(4).

i.e. 1. The castle in the legend.
     2. The real castle, which hadn't been built at the time of the legend.
     3. The Legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round table.
     4. The actual chieftan from the 4th(?) century the legend is based on.


What did you think I was referring to? :->

>this is the INTERNATIONAL space station, the British could count this
>as their contribution - it don't cost much.

That is more than the present government is willing to spend
if it doesn't show a quick profit on the investment.
	Bob.

------------------------------

Path: ucbvax!decwrl!sun!pitstop!texsun!texsun.central.sun.com!convex!authorplaceholder
From: convex!matulka@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: space news from April 11 AW&ST
Date: 15 May 88 00:35:00 GMT
Lines: 22
Nf-Id: #R:<1988May9:4935:convex:62300005:000:992
Nf-From: convex.UUCP!matulka    May 14 19:35:00 1988
Apparently-To: space-incoming@angband.s1.gov


>	I think that in the SR-71, that the entire cockpit ejects (I could be
> wrong however).  The problem with ejection seats on the Shuttle is that
> one would need at least 7 or so, since it would be bad form to allow just the
> flight crew to eject.

Not to mention that there is no way to fit 7 ejection seats on the flight deck
of the shuttle.  Maximum occupancy of the flight deck during launch is four
with standard seats.

Then there's the issue of the weight of seven ejection seats, even if you could
fit them in.  There are always design tradeoffs.  At this point in the shuttle
program you have to make the rest of the systems as reliable as possible and
accept the risk.  A major redesign of the shuttle to make all forms of
catastrophe during launch survivable is not an option.  Considering an
ejectable crew cockpit is something to consider for the next generation
of space vehicle, not the shuttle.

jerry matulka

Convex Computer Corporation
{ihnp4,sun,uiucdcs}!convex!matulka

------------------------------

Date: 18 May 88 22:48:15 GMT
From: mcvax!cernvax!emanuel@uunet.uu.net  (emanuel)
Subject: Soviet's shuttle

Hi!

I didn't see television today, and there's nothing on the radio.
Did the Russian's Space Shuttle actully fly?

thanks
Emanuel

------------------------------

Date: 18 May 88 08:55:20 GMT
From: mcvax!enea!kth!sics!pd@uunet.uu.net  (Per Danielsson)
Subject: Re: space news from April 11 AW&ST

In article <74700088@uiucdcsp> silber@uiucdcsp.cs.uiuc.edu writes:
>     ... ...     The problem with ejection seats on the Shuttle is that
>one would need at least 7 or so, since it would be bad form to allow just the
>flight crew to eject.  (Not to mention that no military pilot would be likely
>to punch out if it meant sentencing the rest of the crew to death.) 

One of the British V-bombers (possibly the Vulcan) did have ejection
seats for the pilot and copilot, but none for the rest of the three
crew. I believe the ejection seats were even used once. Does anyone
remember this better than me?

Per Danielsson		UUCP: pd@sics.se (or {mcvax,decvax}!enea!sics!pd)
Swedish Institute of Computer Science
PO Box 1263, S-164 28 KISTA, SWEDEN
"No wife, no horse, no moustache."

------------------------------

Date: 21 May 88 04:43:32 GMT
From: n3dmc!johnl@uunet.uu.net  (John Limpert)
Subject: Re: Sun-Earth Orbit

In article <7897@drutx.ATT.COM> markf@drutx.ATT.COM (mark felton) writes:
>In response to the recent querry on placing objects in an orbit
>balanced between the sun and earth. There was a program called
>ISIS that was done by NOAA for measuring flares from the sun
>in which an orbit similar to the one described was used.

I believe you are referring to the ISEE program.  There were three
ISEE satellites, ISEE-A, ISEE-B and ISEE-C.  ISEE-C was placed in
a halo orbit between the sun and the earth.  ISEE-C, if I remember
correctly, was renamed to ICE (International Comet Explorer?) and
put into a new location to study Halley's comet.  This was after
some other programs had been cancelled due to lack of funding.
The ISEE program studied bow shock, solar wind/magnetosphere and
other obscure (to me) subjects.  I used to work at a NASA tracking
station that supported ISEE.  We collected huge amounts of ISEE data.
I never heard about the results of the program, just shipped bits
back to the experimenters.  It was a NASA (not NOAA) project.

-- 
John A. Limpert
UUCP:	johnl@n3dmc.UUCP	uunet!n3dmc!johnl
PACKET:	n3dmc@n3dmc.ampr.org	n3dmc@wa3pxx

------------------------------

Date: 21 May 88 02:24:17 GMT
From: agate!garnet!weemba@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Obnoxious Math Grad Student)
Subject: Antimatter weaponry reference

About two months ago I mentioned the possibility of antimatter
weaponry, but was vague on my reference.  I've gotten some re-
quests to find it.  Here it is--a brief letter--with pointers
to more detailed questions/answers:

NATURE, v325, p754. (1987).

See also the "rebuttal" in v329, p758 (1987).  It was pathetic.

ucbvax!garnet!weemba	Matthew P Wiener/Brahms Gang/Berkeley CA 94720

------------------------------

Date: 21 May 88 00:10:10 GMT
From: cc1@cs.ucla.edu
Subject: Re: Naming the space station.


How about "Fred"?

Yeah.

Fred the Space Station.

I like that.

			--Net.Rabbit

------------------------------

Date: 19 May 88 20:43:29 GMT
From: mtunx!mtuxo!mtgzz!drutx!markf@rutgers.edu  (mark felton)
Subject: Sun-Earth Orbit

In response to the recent querry on placing objects in an orbit
balanced between the sun and earth. There was a program called
ISIS that was done by NOAA for measuring flares from the sun
in which an orbit similar to the one described was used. The
orbit was called a HALO orbit. The main ISIS satellite was placed
in this balanced orbit - balancing the gravitation of the earth
and sun. The satellite was made to move back and forth across
the suns face, since radio transmission is useless directly into
the sun. Measurements were made of the sun then transmitted when
outside the radio interference edge of the sun. The satellite was
later moved into another orbit and given a new name. I believe it
was used to measure a comet.                   
				drutx!markf

------------------------------

Path: ucbvax!pasteur!ames!lll-tis!lll-winken!uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry
From: utzoo!henry@ucbvax.berkeley.edu (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Antimatter propulsion questions
Date: 22 May 88 01:08:23 GMT
Lines: 8
Apparently-To: space-incoming@angband.s1.gov

> What is actually proposed as a fuel?  Anti-hydrogen?

Right.  Antiprotons we can and do make, positrons are not that hard, and
combining the two is easy.  Making complex nuclei is orders of magnitude
harder; it has been done (anti-deuterons have been observed), but barring
some fundamental breakthrough in production technology, anti-hydrogen is
so expensive to make that anything more complex is out of the question.
Pity.  It would be nice not to need cryogenic temperatures, especially
since the latent heat of freezing is a real problem.

------------------------------

Date: 23 May 88 15:45:44 GMT
From: mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Mike Smithwick)
Subject: Re: Naming the space station.

In article <5568@cup.portal.com> Daniel_C_Anderson@cup.portal.com writes:
>I second  motion to name a Space Station after the late and
>sincerely lamented Robert A. Heinlein.

If the space-station was named the "Robert A. Heinlein", would it
be called "Bob" for short?? 

By the way, the list of names I posted is the working list by the 
naming committee. They are not accepting any new names as of last week.

"Roger Houston, Space Station Bob 1, copies. . . ."



-- 
			   *** mike (Cyberpunk in training) smithwick ***
"Use an Atari, go to jail!"
[disclaimer : nope, I don't work for NASA, I take full blame for my ideas]

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #251
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 14 Jun 88 07:07:53 EDT
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA18242; Tue, 14 Jun 88 03:26:45 PDT
	id AA18242; Tue, 14 Jun 88 03:26:45 PDT
Date: Tue, 14 Jun 88 03:26:45 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8806141026.AA18242@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #252

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 252

Today's Topics:
			 Space station names
		      US-USSR space cooperation
		    Re: When in doubt, nuke it...
		Space Station Work Packages (longish)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date:         Tue, 24 May 88 11:59:54 EDT
From: "Jerry Davis Rsch. Statistician" <JDAVIS%GRIFFIN.BITNET@cornellc.ccs.cornell.edu>
Subject:      Space station names

How about "Station Silmarill", the shining jewel in the sky!

-Jerry
BITNET JDAVIS@GRIFFIN
Acknowledge-To: <JDAVIS@GRIFFIN>

------------------------------

Date: 24 May 88 07:50:04 GMT
From: sonia!khayo@cs.ucla.edu  (Eric Behr)
Subject: US-USSR space cooperation

Here is a NASA summary of cooperative efforts & plans involving the
SU.
=====================================================================

U.S./SOVIET SPACE COOPERATION

U.S./USSR Space Science Agreement

     The U.S./USSR agreement on cooperation in space science was
signed in Moscow by Secretary Shultz and Soviet Foreign Minister
Shevardnadze on April l5, l987.  The agreement establishes joint
working groups (JWG) in five areas:

       o  Space biology and medicine
       o  Solar system exploration
       o  Space astronomy and astrophysics
       o  Solar-terrestrial physics
       o  Earth sciences

     A total of l6 cooperative project areas are listed in the
annex to the space agreement covering the five disciplines listed
above.  Additional projects may be added to the annex by mutual
agreement through an exchange of diplomatic notes.


Status of Joint Working Group Activities

Space Biology and Medicine JWG

     NASA and its Soviet counterparts have agreed that meetings
of all five JWGs will take place over the next year.  The
U.S./USSR Space Biology and Medicine JWG met in early August l987
in Moscow and Nal'chik, USSR.  Agreement was reached at this
meeting on NASA participation in three upcoming Soviet
biosatellite missions (in October l987, l989 and l991); exchange
of biomedical data from the U.S. Shuttle and Soviet Salyut 7 and
Mir space station missions; establishment of implementation teams
on biomedical data standardization, exobiology and
Shuttle/Spacelab flight experiments; and production of a joint
publication surveying progress in space biology and medicine.

     NASA-sponsored scientists participated in the Soviet Cosmos
l887 Biosatellite mission which took place from September 29 to
October 12, l987.  A total of 27 U.S. experiments were conducted
in connection with this mission, which flew 2 primates, l0 rats
and a variety of biological and plant speciments for a l3-day
mission.

     Despite problems with one of the monkeys which managed to
free one arm in flight, and landing 3000 km northeast of the
planned nominal landing site, mission science objectives were not
seriously affected.  This is the sixth USSR biosatellite mission
inwhich NASA has participated.  Previous missions took place in
l975, l977, l979, l983 and l985.

Solar System Exploration JWG

     At the U.S./USSR Solar System Exploration JWG meeting,
December 7-13, a range of implementing activities to carry out
the six solar system exploration projects enumerated in the
U.S./USSR space agreement were discussed.  Teams are to be
organized to implement cooperation in coordination of Mars
missions, reciprocal scientific participation in the USSR Phobos
and U.S. Mars Observer missions, Mars landing site selection,
Venus data exchanges and lunar, cosmic dust and meteorite
exchanges.

    NASA is cooperating with its Soviet counterparts in
connection with the l988 USSR Phobos mission which will
investigate the planet Mars and its moon Phobos, utilizing NASA's
Deep Space Network for position tracking of the Phobos landers.
Prior to the recent Solar System Exploration JWG meeting, two
technical meetings to discuss tracking requirements took place,
the most recent on November 16-20.  Equipment and compatibility
testing will occur in the Soviet Union and the United States
(Goldstone, Calif.) early next year.

Other JWG Group Meetings

     The Space Astronomy and Astrophysics and the Solar-
Terrestrial Physics Joint Working Groups will schedule meetings
in l988 to discuss the following topics:

Space Astronomy and Astrophysics JWG

     o  Exchange of scientific data in the field of radio
        astronomy
     o  Exchange of scientific data in the fields of cosmic
        gamma-ray, x-ray and sub-millimeter astronomy.
     o  Exchange of scientific data and coordination of program
        and investigations relative to studies of gamma-ray burst
        data.

Solar-Terrestrial Physics JWG

     o  Coordination of observations from solar terrestrial
        physics missions and the subsequent exchange of
        appropriate scientific data.

Joint Summit Statement on U.S./USSR Cooperation in Global Change
Research

     The December l0 joint statement by President Reagan and
General Secretary Gorbachev endorsed "a bilateral initiative to
pursue joint studies in global climate and environmental change
through cooperation in areas of mutual concern, such as
protection and conservation of stratospheric ozone, and through
increased data exchanges...".

     The April l5 space science agreement called for coordination
of activities in the study of global changes in the natural
environment as one of 16 initial agreed projects.  A U.S./USSR
Earth Sciences Joint Working Group meeting is planned for the
first half of l988 to agree on concrete steps to implement
cooperation in this area in support of the two leaders
initiative.

Proposals for U.S./USSR Manned or Unmanned Mars Mission

     Recently there have been numerous press articles speculating
on the possibility of a joint U.S./USSR manned or unmanned
mission to Mars.  To date, there have been no official
discussions between the U.S. and Soviet Union on either a joint
manned or unmanned mission to Mars.

     Mars is one of the most attractive and potentially rewarding
subjects for exploration in our solar system.  NASA believes
there is great potential for mutual scientific benefit through
coordination between the two countries' Mars missions and
programs.

     The April space agreement outlines four specific areas of
cooperation pertaining to Mars exploration, as mentioned above:

    o  Coordination of the Phobos, Vesta and Mars Observer
       missions and exchange of scientific data
    o  Utilization of the U.S. Deep Space Network for position
       tracking of the Phobos and Vesta landers and subsequent
       exchange of scientific data.
    o  Joint studies to identify the most promising landing
       sites on Mars.
    o  Invitation, by mutual agreement, of co-investigators'
       and/or interdisciplinary scientists' participation in the
       Mars Observer and the Phobos and Vesta missions.

     At the present time, neither the U.S. nor the Soviet Union
is committed to join in a new major manned or unmanned Mars
mission.  The U.S. has not yet committed to unmanned missions
beyond the Mars Observer, much less to its own manned mission to
Mars.  The space science agreement signed in Moscow last spring
provides a logical starting point and potential foundation for
success in coordinated current and future space activities
between the U.S. and the USSR.

=====================================================================
                                                       Eric

------------------------------

Date: 24 May 88 17:05:17 GMT
From: beckenba@csvax.caltech.edu  (Joe Beckenbach)
Subject: Re: When in doubt, nuke it...

In article <4578@dasys1.UUCP> tneff@dasys1.UUCP (Tom Neff) writes:
>I think you guys should be asking yourselves what you could put on board
>Mars Observer to give you 1m resolution or better at selected sites, 
>rather than fantasizing about nuking a landing pad.

	Well, I guess I'd best talk early to the guys at my summer job;
they should be able to throw plenty of light on the subject. (No pun intended)
I think the numbers that were being tossed around were in the range of 1m,
but I'll check before committing anything to the network.
-- 
Joe Beckenbach	beckenba@csvax.caltech.edu	Caltech 1-58, Pasadena CA 91125
Mars Observer Camera, GSE (Ground Support Engineering?) Programmer
Caltech Planetary Sciences		E&AS (CS) BS 1988

------------------------------

Date: 24 May 88 07:44:41 GMT
From: sonia!khayo@cs.ucla.edu  (Eric Behr)
Subject: Space Station Work Packages (longish)

>From NASA SpaceLink BBS (205) 895 0028 (Huntsville, AL)
=====================================================================

SPACE STATION WORK PACKAGE FACT SHEET

WORK PACKAGE 1

     Marshall Space Flight Center is responsible for Space
Station Program Work Package 1, including responsibility for the
laboratory module, habitation module, logistics elements and
fabrication of the primary structure for the resource nodes.
Marshall also is responsible for development of the environmental
control and life support system, internal components of the
audio/visual and thermal control systems, as well as for
operational capability development for users in the laboratory
module.  The Johnson Space Center, through special provisions
within the Work Package 1 contact, will exercise technical
direction for the manned space subsystems.

LABORATORY MODULE

     The U.S. laboratory module will be cylindrical, measuring
approximately 44 feet long and 14 feet in diameter and will
provide a shirt-sleeve environment for performing laboratory
functions.  The laboratory module will be capable of supporting
multi-discipline payloads including materials research and
development activities, materials processing demonstrations, life
sciences research and other space science investigations
requiring a pressurized area.  User-provided equipment that can
be housed in the laboratory module include furnaces for growing
semiconductor crystals, electrokinetic devices for separating
pharmaceuticals, support equipment needed to carry out a wide
spectrum of low-gravity experiments and applications, and a
centrifuge for variable gravity experiments in life sciences.

HABITATION MODULE

     Facilities for eating, sleeping, personal hygiene, waste
management, recreation, health maintenance and other functions
requiring pressurized space will be provided in the habitation
module.  The module will be the same size as the laboratory
module and will accommodate up to 8 astronauts.

     Using the health maintenance facility, astronauts will be
able to monitor their health through vital signs, X-rays and
blood samples.  There also will be exercise equipment for daily
physical conditioning.


LOGISTICS ELEMENTS

     These include elements required for transporting cargo to or
from the Space Station for the resupply of items required for the
crew, station, and payloads; and for on-orbit storage of these
cargos.  A key element will be the pressurized logistics carrier,
which will carry items used inside the Space Station modules.
The other elements include unpressurized logistics carriers used
for transporting spares used external to the Space Station
modules, fluids and propellants.

ENVIRONMENTAL CONTROL AND LIFE SUPPORT SYSTEM (ECLSS)

     The ECLSS will provide a shirt-sleeve environment for the
astronauts in all pressurized modules on the Space Station.  A
key feature is the regenerative design employed in the air
revitalization and water reclamation systems.

RESOURCE NODE STRUCTURE

     The resource nodes are required to interconnect the primary
pressurized elements of the manned portion of the Space Station
and also will house certain key control functions.  The equipment
provided by Work Package 1 consists of the resource node
structures, berthing mechanisms, racks, ECLSS, internal thermal
control, and internal audio and video communication systems.


WORK PACKAGE 2

     NASA's Johnson Space Center is responsible for the design,
development, verification, assembly and delivery of the Work
Package 2 Space Station flight elements and systems, which
include the integrated truss assembly, propulsion assembly,
mobile servicing system transporter, resource node design and
outfitting, external thermal control, data management, operations
management, communication and tracking, extravehicular systems
and guidance, navigation and control systems, and the airlocks.
JSC also is responsible for the attachment systems to the STS for
its periodic visits.  Additionally, JSC is responsible for flight
crews, crew training and crew emergency return definition, and
for operational capability development associated with operations
planning.  JSC will provide technical direction to the contractor
for the design and development of all manned space subsystems.

INTEGRATED TRUSS ASSEMBLY

     The integrated truss assembly is the Space Station
structural framework to which the modules, solar power arrays,
external experiments, Earth- and astronomical-viewing
instruments, and mobile transporter will be attached.

PROPULSION ASSEMBLY

     The propulsion assembly will be used to adjust or maintain
the orbit of the Space Station to keep it at the required
altitude.  Work package 2 has responsibility for the overall
propulsion system.  Technical direction for the thruster assembly
elements of the propulsion system will be provided by MSFC.

MOBILE TRANSPORTER SYSTEM

     The mobile servicing system will be a multi-purpose
mechanism equipped with robotic arms to help assemble and
maintain the Space Station.  The contractor will build the mobile
base; Canada will provide the mobile servicing system which
includes robotic arms and special purpose dextrous manipulators.

RESOURCE NODES

     The resource nodes house most of the command and control
systems for the Space Station as well as being the connecting
passageways for the habitation and laboratory modules.  Work
Package 2 will outfit the node structures provided by Work
Package 1 to accomplish the objectives of each node.

EVA SYSTEMS

     Extravehicular activity (EVA) systems includes equipment
such as the extravehicular mobility unit (EMU) or spacesuit,
provisions for communication, physiological monitoring, and data
transmission, EVA crew rescue and equipment retrieval provision,
and EVA procedures.  Airlocks for crewmember extravehicular
activity also will be designed as part of Work Package 2.

EXTERNAL THERMAL CONTROL

     The external thermal system provides cooling and heat
rejection to control temperatures of electronics and other Space
Station hardware located outside the modules and nodes.

ATTACHMENT SYSTEMS

     In addition to devices permitting Space Station docking by
the Space Shuttle and logistics resupply modules, this includes
systems for attaching experiment packages and other external
hardware to the truss structure.

GUIDANCE, NAVIGATION AND CONTROL SYSTEM (GN&C)

     The guidance, navigation and control system is composed of a
core system and traffic management functions.  The core system
function provides attitude and orbital state maintenance,
supports the pointing of the power system and thermal radiators,
accomplishes periodic reboost maneuvers, and provides Space
Station attitude information to other systems and users.

     The traffic management function provides for controlling all
traffic in the area around the Space Station, including docking
and berthing operations and trajectories determination of
vehicles and objects which may intersect the orbit of the Space
Station.

COMMUNICATIONS AND TRACKING SYSTEM (C&T)

     The communications and tracking system is composed of six
subsystems:  space-to-space communications with crew members
during extravehicular activity, aboard the Space Shuttle, and
with the Orbital Maneuvering Vehicle; space-to-ground
communications through the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite
System to ground data networks; internal and external voice
communication through the audio subsystem; internal and external
video requirements through the video subsystem; management of C&T
resources and data distribution through the control and monitor
subsystem; and navigation data through the tracking subsystem.

DATA MANAGEMENT SYSTEM (DMS)

     The data management system provides the hardware and
software resources that interconnect onboard systems, payloads,
and operations to perform data and information management.
Functional services provided by DMS include data processing, data
acquistion and distribution, data storage, and the user interface
to permit control and monitoring of systems and experiments.

     Crew safety is an essential consideration in the development
of the Space Station.  A major system failure aboard the Space
Station, injuries or illness may require the return of crew
members to Earth during a period when the Space Shuttle is
unavailable.  NASA's Johnson Space Center has responsibility for
conducting definition-phase studies of a Crew Emergency Return
Vehicle which could be used to supplement the Shuttle in such
circumstances.


WORK PACKAGE 3


     NASA'S Goddard Space Flight Center is responsible for
development of several of the Station's elements including the
free-flying platforms and attached payload accommodations, and
for planning NASA's role in satellite servicing.  Goddard also
has responsibility for developing the Flight Telerobotic Servicer
which is being procured through a separate competition.

FREE-FLYING PLATFORMS

     Goddard will manage the detailed design, development, test
and evaluation of the automated free-flying polar platform.  This
unmanned platform will feature modular construction to permit on-
orbit ease of serviceability and flexibility for accommodating a
variety of scientific observations.

ATTACHED PAYLOAD ACCOMMODATIONS

     The Space Station attached payloads are the instruments and
experiments designed to gather scientific data while attached
directly to the truss framework of the Space Station.  Goddard is
responsible for providing utilities such as power, thermal
control, data handling, pointing stability and other equipment
needed to operate the payloads and for insuring that the
instruments are pointed at the intended targets.  Two attachment
points are provided, one of the attach points is fixed and the
other has an articulated pointing system.

FLIGHT TELEROBOTIC SERVICER

     Goddard is responsible for building the Flight Telerobotic
Servicer.  This system will be capable of in-space assembly of
Station elements and payload servicing.

     As the system is evolved, it will perform telerobotic
servicing and repair of spacecraft visiting the Space Station.
In the future, a telerobotic servicer-equipped Orbital
Maneuvering Vehicle could retrieve, as well as service,
spacecraft beyond the Space Station's orbit.


WORK PACKAGE 4


     Lewis Research Center is responsible for the end-to-end
electric power system architecture for the Space Station and for
providing the solar arrays, batteries, and common power
distribution components to the platforms.

     The power system includes power generation and storage, and
the management and distribution of power to the final user
interface.  The electric power system is required to have the
capability to deliver 75 kW of electric power with a growth
potential to 300 kW.

POWER GENERATION

     Initially, Space Station power will be provided by eight
flexible, deployable solar array wings.  This configuration
minimizes the complexity of the assembly process by taking
advantage of the technology demonstrated on Space Shuttle
flights.  Each 32- by 96-foot wing consists of two blanket
assemblies covered with solar cells.  These are stowed in blanket
boxes which are attached to a deployment canister.  Each pair of
blankets is to be deployed and supported on a coilable,
continuous longeron mast.  A tension mechanism will supply
tension to the blanket as it reaches complete extension.  The
entire wing will be tied structurally to the transverse boom by
means of the beta gimbal assembly.

     To provide the power needed during the period of Space
Station assembly, two solar wings and other elements of the power
system are scheduled to be carried up on each of the first two
Space Station assembly flights.  These four wings will provide
37.5 kw of power.  The remaining four panels will be delivered on
orbit after the permanently-manned configuration is reached.

     Lewis also is responsible for developing and testing proof
of concept hardware for the solar dynamic power module to prepare
for the growth phase of the Station.  In addition, sufficient
preliminary design efforts will be performed to insure that the
Space Station can accommodate the solar dynamic modules.

POWER STORAGE

     Ni-H2 batteries will store the energy produced by the solar
arrays.  A battery pack is made up of 23 Ni-H2 cells, wiring
harness and mechanical/thermal support components.  On
discharge, this operates near 28 v which allows the flexibility
to connect several packs in series to obtain a high voltage
system for the Space Station and platforms or use of single
packs as a candidate for other low voltage applications.  Ni-H2
batteries offer minimum weight and high reliability with minimum
redundancy required for the polar platform.  During the eclipse
periods, power is supplied by the energy storage systems.

POWER MANAGEMENT AND DISTRIBUTION (PMAD)

     The 20 kHz PMAD system is designed specifically to meet
aerospace requirements.  It is based upon rapid semiconductor
switching, low stored reactive energy, and cycle-by-cycle control
of energy flow, allowing tailoring of voltage levels.  It is user
friendly and can easily accommodate all types of user loads.

     The PMAD system will deliver controlled power to many
scattered loads.  The high frequency ac power system was selected
to provide higher efficiency, lower cost and improved safety.

=====================================================================
                                                       Eric

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #252
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 15 Jun 88 06:22:42 EDT
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA19836; Wed, 15 Jun 88 03:22:18 PDT
	id AA19836; Wed, 15 Jun 88 03:22:18 PDT
Date: Wed, 15 Jun 88 03:22:18 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8806151022.AA19836@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #253

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 253

Today's Topics:
			 Soviet Space Shuttle
		    space news from April 18 AW&ST
		       Re: Astronaut selection
		       More Soviet Shuttle news
		      Re: NASA Technical Briefs
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 24 May 88 19:54:05 GMT
From: nbires!isis!scicom!wats@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Bruce Watson)
Subject: Soviet Space Shuttle


See rec.ham-radio message #4313 Amsat News #135 posted by Phil Karn for
the latest information on the Soviet Space Shuttle.

------------------------------

Date: 24 May 88 05:14:18 GMT
From: attcan!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from April 18 AW&ST

[If you're wondering why there's been somewhat of a hiatus in my AW&ST
postings, it's because I got rather more caught up than usual and took
it easy for a bit.  I normally run about a month behind, partly because
it often takes that long for me to get and read AW&ST, and partly as a
deliberate policy to avoid direct competition with AW&ST.]

Arianespace says it would have to match China's $30M launch price if
Long March started really attracting customers, although it would be
difficult to keep it that low.

SDI's Boost Surveillance Tracking System satellite will use solar power
rather than an isotope power pack, due to a combination of launch-
safety clearance worries and the high cost and scarcity of Pu-238, the
isotope normally used.

USAF report urges efforts in small space nuclear reactors, in the 5-40kW
range.  Report recommends against a second full-scale development project
at this time, as the existing SP-100 project is very expensive and is
eating up all available resources in the area; this is unfortunate since
some other concepts could be demonstrated at rather lower cost.

ESA is replacing possibly-faulty US-supplied memory chips in Ulysses
while waiting for its 1990 (maybe) launch.  The project is also installing
a new ground-based mission operations computer because the existing one is
now seriously obsolete!  Ulysses was originally meant to fly in 1983.
One other effect of the delay is that power-management procedures are
being revised, since the output of Ulysses's isotope power pack will be
down substantially by launch time.  It was deemed too difficult and far
too expensive to refuel the power pack, despite the long delay.  The loss
of power is awkward but is not expected to jeopardize the primary mission.

ESA's Hipparcos astrometry satellite undergoes final tests, after which
it will go into storage until launch next year on Ariane 4.  Ariane's
problems have delayed the launch from this July to next June.

Picture of TDRS-C being readied for delivery to KSC as payload for STS-26.

NASA doubles official limits for insulation debonds on shuttle SRBs and
begins to stack SRBs for STS-26.  Tests on the SSME LOX pumps have given
them a clean bill of health, and they have been reinstalled.

Ed Aldridge, Sec USAF, says that ALS is no longer a project to develop a
specific heavy launcher:  it has been revised to a much vaguer technology
effort, partly as a result of budget-induced delays in SDI and the space
station.

Retired USAF general Sam Phillips [if that name does not ring a bell, dig
into your reference books and find out who was the overall top boss of
Project Apollo] says the US space program has been "trying to do the
impossible" by trying to maintain space leadership "on the cheap".  He
urges attention to the lessons from Apollo:  the need for firm support from
the White House on down, realistic budget planning, better relations between
government and industry, and much simpler organizations and review processes.

Space station price tag on the rise, yet again...  NASA says that inflation
and the one-year stretchout from FY88 budget cuts have turned $14.6G into
$16G.  [Does anyone seriously still think this gold-plated turkey has any
real chance of survival?]

British decision imminent on whether to re-enter the polar-platform part
of ESA's Columbus; this would probably mean abandoning its proposed role
in Canada's Radarsat project.  [They did and it did.  Boo hiss.  I think
it's good that Britain is being a bit less negative toward ESA, but dumping
Radarsat was dumb.]

Fletcher tells symposium that a joint US/USSR lunar base makes more sense
as an initial objective than a joint Mars mission, saying this would allow
building a "stable foundation" for further exploration.

Pictures of the March 25 Scout launch from the San Marco platform.

Aerospatiale picked as lead contractor for the Infrared Space Observatory,
to be launched in 1993 carrying a 9m-focal-length infrared telescope and
enough liquid helium to keep it running 18 months.

Selenia Spazio picked as lead contractor for ESA's Data Relay Satellite
system (ESA's answer to TDRS).  Italy is financing quite a bit of the
program, hence its prominent role.  Final production goahead would be
late next year, for first launch (out of two) in 1995.

Starfind, the dark-horse private-navsat company, signs major contract
with Starfind South America to provide navsat services there, and claims
similar contracts near completion in other areas.  Starfind is hoping
for a December launch on a Conestoga booster, but there may be some
delay.  Starfind says it will not apply for an FCC license, as it expects
to operate under DoD authorization.

[Now, for a less positive report, from the 23 April issue of Flight
International...]  Starfind still has no funding or FCC approval, despite
committing to five launches and the 17-year South American contract.  It
is also running behind, with Geostar conspicuously out in front.  Geostar's
piggyback payloads on existing comsats are already getting results:
Countrywide Truck Service of California located a $50k stolen truck using
the truck's Geostar transponder.
-- 
NASA is to spaceflight as            |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
the Post Office is to mail.          | {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 25 May 88 04:56:19 GMT
From: sonia!khayo@cs.ucla.edu  (Eric Behr)
Subject: Re: Astronaut selection


 >Um, why does Stanford show up twice in that list?
 >-=Paul Flaherty, N9FZX
Good question - I'll ask when I have a chance.
                                                       Eric

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 25 May 88 16:16:58 EDT
From: Glenn Chapman <glenn@ll-vlsi.arpa>
Subject: More Soviet Shuttle news

     The latest information on the Soviet Shuttle seems to be raising the
confusion level as to whether it is going to be manned or not.  Alexander
Dunayev, chairman of Glavcosmos, stated that first flight would be unmanned,
consisting of 2 orbits and an automated landing during a interview in 
Spaceflight magazine.  Also it would be several years before it few manned.  
In an interview with CBS Col. Vladimir Dzhanibekov, the most senior Russian 
cosmonaut (5 missions) stated that the first few shuttle flights will be '
unmanned.  The next night on Radio Moscow the statement was made by first 
mission would "probably" have a two person crew.  Aviation Week of May 23
then reported that Lt. Gen. Vladimir Shatalov, head of the Star City cosmonaut
training facility, stated "When the Americans tested their shuttle, two men
took off.  I believe that this experience is reasonable and can be used in our
country".  Mission time is uncertain, with statements from Radio Moscow saying 
a few weeks ago that flights will be done in June, while AWST is stating 
that August will be the flight time.   It appears now from several sources
that the actual flight vehicle does not have jet engines for landing.  These
are only on the atmosphere test vehicle, which has had between 20 and 50 test
landings (depending on which source you hear - respectively AWST and 
Dzhanibekov).
    The rumour that their Shuttle was going to fly on May 18th probably came
from someone seeing that there was going to be a major tour of the Baikonur
Cosmodrome for the western press on that date, and assuming that it was the 
promised news coverage of the shuttle mission.  Actually it may a dry run of 
by their publicity people to see what problems would occur on the shuttle launch
date handling the western media people.  Also it was good publicity just before
the summit meeting.
    In one shuttle and space station related mission it was pointed out
in the May Spaceflight issue that the Luch communication satellite launch 
of Cosmos 1897 in Nov. '87 placed the comsat at 85 degrees West, just over 
South America where it cannot be directly seen by the USSR.  The Luch' are 
the Russian equivalents of the Tracking and Data Relay Satellites, and are 
designed certainly for Mir communications (which they have been tested with) 
and probably for their Shuttle.  This position is ideal for communications just
prior to the reentry path for a Baikonur Cosmodrome landing (where their big
runway is).  Data from the Luch can be sent via Cuba to another comsat, or to 
the Luch over the USSR, and down to the control center.
     All of this confirms the reports that there is a battle between the robot
orientated Institute for Automated Studies (which works on the control systems 
and built the successful Progress robot cargo craft) and the cosmonaut corps 
which argues humans handle tasks like landing etc. better.  It is the manned
verse unmanned debates, but it is both public and proceeding just months before
the missions.  The cosmonauts feel they are ready (they have trained for a
flight for years), while the robot scientists do not want to risk them.
Who knows which side will win.  I just hope this country's shuttle will begin
flying again soon so that the West has some manned missions this year.

                                                       Glenn Chapman
                                                       MIT Lincoln Lab.

------------------------------

Date: 25 May 88 14:15 PDT
From: William Daul / McAir / McDonnell-Douglas Corp  <WBD.MDC@office-8.arpa>
Subject: Re: NASA Technical Briefs

message

Write to:

   NASA Tech Briefs
   41 E. 42nd Street  Suite 921
   New York, NY  10017-5391

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #253
*******************

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SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 254

Today's Topics:
			 SPACE Digest V8 #231
----------------------------------------------------------------------

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SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 231

Today's Topics:
			 Group for Space Camp
			Re: Shooting the Moon
			Re: Shooting the Moon
			Re: Shooting the Moon
	 Re: Cometesimals (was: Millions of comets hit Earth)
		     Nevada fuel plant explosion
			 runway designations
		   Re: Nevada fuel plant explosion
		       Re: runway designations
		       Re: runway designations
		   Re: Nevada fuel plant explosion
		   Re: Nevada fuel plant explosion
		   Re: Nevada fuel plant explosion
			Re: Is it CBS or NASA?
      SRM Fuel Composition (was:Re: Nevada fuel plant explosion)
			Re: Is it CBS or NASA?
			Re: Is it CBS or NASA?
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 5 May 88 03:37:42 GMT
From: ulysses!terminus!picard@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Luc)
Subject: Group for Space Camp

I lead a group of folks down to adult Space Academy level II each fall.
This is a three day program leading to flights in the Shuttle simulator.

The dates we are attending this year are October 7-9.  The cost is $405
(10% off).

I need to have all the money in by June 1.

If you're interested, send email or call me at: 703-361-1290 (h)
                                                703-689-5915 (w)

++rich

------------------------------

Date: 4 May 88 20:10:14 GMT
From: aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!lear@rutgers.edu  (eliot lear)
Subject: Re: Shooting the Moon

We can use Mars to solve the world's parking problem ;-)

In article <1662@bigtex.uucp> james@bigtex.uucp (James Van Artsdalen) writes:
> Why do it the expensive way when you can save money for other projects?

Ohyeahsure.

It reminds me of times when the military considered ABombs as practical
solutions to all of our problems.  Remember the days of John Foster
Dulles and the French?  Does science entirely understand the intended
effects AND the side effects that would be caused by such an explosion?

After all, in the long run, which way is the expensive way?

Eliot Lear
[lear@rutgers.edu]

------------------------------

Date: 4 May 88 16:15:28 GMT
From: aplcen!aplcomm!stdc.jhuapl.edu!jwm@mimsy.umd.edu  (Jim Meritt)
Subject: Re: Shooting the Moon

In article <5121@pucc.Princeton.EDU> EWTILENI@pucc.Princeton.EDU writes:
>1. EXPLOSION ON THE PAD: Folks, the Challenger disaster was bad, really
>bad.  But imagine if it had a nuclear warhead on board.  Bye, bye South
>Florida!  A spaceship is one of the least stable places to keep a
>warhead!

Boy, I bet you have a tough time sleeping at night!

What is the difference between:
Rocket propelled vehicle capable of lifting off of the surface of a
planet and travelling at barely suborbital velocities above the bulk of
the atmosphere and conducting a controlled re-entry

and

a spaceship?

(the first is a description of an ICBM)

What is the connection between "a nuclear warhead" on the Challenger and
"Bye, bye South Florida"?

jwm@aplvax.jhuapl.edu 128.244.65.5  (James W. Meritt)

------------------------------

Date: 4 May 88 19:40:09 GMT
From: cfa!wyatt@husc6.harvard.edu  (Bill Wyatt)
Subject: Re: Shooting the Moon

In article <5121@pucc.Princeton.EDU>, EWTILENI@pucc.Princeton.EDU (Eric
Tilenius) writes:
[...]
> I think the Life-on-Mars opposition to this argument has been
> adequately stated, but I wanted to point out a couple of extra
> arguments against this which I sent Paul through EMAIL (did you get
> it, Paul?):
>  
> 1. EXPLOSION ON THE PAD: Folks, the Challenger disaster was bad,
> really bad.  But imagine if it had a nuclear warhead on board.  Bye,
> bye South Florida!  A spaceship is one of the least stable places to
> keep a warhead!

I agree that the nuking Mars is a BAD IDEA, but the above is *very*
unlikely to be a problem. Warheads just don't go off until armed, and
they are not armed until well after launch. Remember the H-bomb dropped
accidentally from a B52 over Spain in the 60's? Remember the Titan that
blew up in its silo in Arkansas, tossing the warhead almost a mile?

Bill    UUCP:  {husc6,ihnp4,cmcl2,mit-eddie}!harvard!cfa!wyatt
Wyatt   ARPA:  wyatt@cfa.harvard.edu

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 11 May 88 18:22:49 -0400 (EDT)
From: Joe Keane <jk3k+@andrew.cmu.edu>
X-Andrew-Message-Size: 579+0
Subject: Re: Cometesimals (was: Millions of comets hit Earth)

In some article spar!freeman@decwrl.dec.com  (Jay Freeman) writes:
> Huh??  When you whack on something hard, you expect a louder noise,
> not a different pitch, than when you whack on it more gently.  The
> analogy here is Moon <-> bell (or drumhead, or tabletop); LEM impact
> <-> little hammer blow; impact of meteoroid or cometesimal <-> big
> hammer blow.

There are some natural resonant frequencies.  A small impact tends to
stimulate the higher ones, while a large impact tends to stimulate the
lower ones.  So you don't get different pitches, just a different
distribution.

--Joe

------------------------------

Date: 5 May 88 06:43:37 GMT
From: lim@csvax.caltech.edu  (Kian-Tat Lim)
Subject: Nevada fuel plant explosion

By now, you've all heard about the explosion at the hypergolic fuel
plant in Nevada.  This is supposed to cause further setbacks for the
already-lame U.S.  space program.  Some early questions:

1) Shuttle uses monomethyl hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide for OMS/RCS.
	Does the reported sodium perchlorate have anything to do with
	this?  If not, shouldn't it be unaffected?

2) What fuels do other launch systems use: Titan, Scout, Ariane?

Kian-Tat Lim (ktl@wagvax.caltech.edu, GEnie: K.LIM1)

------------------------------

Date: 3 May 88 19:53:10 GMT
From: nbires!isis!scicom!wats@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Bruce Watson)
Subject: runway designations

In the TV program SPACEFLIGHT there is a sequence of the shuttle landing
on runway 23 at Edwards (There! That got it in sci.space).  Runways are
designated by the magnetic azimuth in 10 degree increments with the 0
omitted.  Since the magnetic pole wanders have there been runways whose
designations had to be changed?

------------------------------

Date: 5 May 88 17:23:49 GMT
From: concertina!fiddler@sun.com  (Steve Hix)
Subject: Re: Nevada fuel plant explosion

If sodium perchlorate was reported, correct the reporter: that should
have been ammonium perchlorate.  It's the oxidizer used in the SRBs.  I
think most of the rest of the active ingredients is taken up with
aluminum powder.  (I assume that the binder, sort of like synthetic
rubber, is comparatively inactive.)

As to how much effect on the space program, I suppose it depends on what
percentage of the total supply of fuel comes out of that one facility.
United Technologies, just a bit south and east of here, makes the solid
booster for the Titan-4, and they sort of indicated that their supplier
is not the one who had the accident.
 
> 2) What fuels do other launch systems use: Titan, Scout, Ariane?

a. Titan: Hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide for the liquid engines, and
   solid boosters using ammonium perchlorate and aluminum for the
   strap-ons.

b. Scout: Solid fuel.  Not sure what type, but guess amm.perch., etc.

c. Ariane: LOX and (?) kerosene.  Maybe LH2.

The shuttle main engines, btw, use LOX + LH2.

------------------------------

Date: 5 May 88 14:11:45 GMT
From: cat.cmu.edu!dep@pt.cs.cmu.edu  (David Pugh)
Subject: Re: runway designations

Yes. Two airports I know of (AGC & ZZV, I think) had their runways
relabeled. You could see the old numbers painted out beneath the new
numbers.

------------------------------

Date: 5 May 88 22:16:10 GMT
From: portal!cup.portal.com!edg@uunet.uu.net
Subject: Re: runway designations

Yes, Runway designations change and variation lines move, and VORs get
reset every few years.  I don't know many of the details.

One thing to remember is that runway designations are quite approximate.
For example, San Jose has three parallel runways numbered 30L, 30R and
29.  The actual runway heading is probably somewhere between them.

OAKland's 33 is actually on a heading of 326 degrees.  Consult your
local instrument approach plate for the actual runway heading.
   -edg

edg@cup.portal.com

------------------------------

Date: 6 May 88 23:20:37 GMT
From: ubvax!unisv!vanpelt@lll-winken.llnl.gov  (Mike Van Pelt)
Subject: Re: Nevada fuel plant explosion

In article <52155@sun.uucp> fiddler%concertina@Sun.COM (Steve Hix) writes:
>If sodium perchlorate was reported, correct the reporter: that should
>have been ammonium perchlorate.  It's the oxidizer used in the SRBs.  I
>think most of the rest of the active ingredients is taken up with
>aluminum powder.  (I assume that the binder, sort of like synthetic
>rubber, is comparatively inactive.)

The butyl rubber binder is also fuel; it burns quite nicely, though not
as exothermic as aluminum dust.  Starstruck's hybrid rocked used butyl
rubber as a fuel and LO2 as oxidizer.

I used to have the formula for the SRB propellant.  It also contains
some epoxy (about 5%?) and about 1% iron oxide as a 'combustion
enhancer'.  (Aluminum dust + iron oxide = thermite.)

Mike Van Pelt

------------------------------

Date: 6 May 88 18:27:28 GMT
From: ulysses!thumper!karn@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: Nevada fuel plant explosion

> a. Titan: Hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide for the liquid engines, and
>    solid boosters using ammonium perchlorate and aluminum for the
>    strap-ons.

Strictly speaking, the fuel for Titan is called Aerozine-50. This is a
50-50 mixture of straight hydrazine (N2H4) plus unsymmetrical dimethyl
hydrazine (UDMH -- take off the two hydrogens on one of the nitrogens in
straight hydrazine and replace them with two methyl groups). Water is
also present in small amounts, so it's really 49.5% N2H4 + 49.5% UDMH +
1% H2O. Straight hydrazine is denser than the organic variations (i.e.,
you can cram more of it into a tank), but it is less stable and it
freezes at too high a temperature.  The Aerozine-50 mixture is a good
compromise.  AMSAT Oscar-10 used UDMH in its kick motor; Phase 3-C (due
to go up in a few weeks) will use Aerozine-50, mainly because its
greater density will result in more kick per unit tank volume. The
payload is heavier this time, but the same size tank and engine are
being used.

> c. Ariane: LOX and (?) kerosene.  Maybe LH2.

The Ariane first and second stages use UDMH + N2O4. The third stage is
cryogenic; it uses LH2 + LO2.  Kerosene is not used anywhere on the
Ariane.

It's easy to tell from a launch picture when hypergolic fuels like those
used on Titan, Ariane and Proton are being used. The plume is almost
transparent, unlike those of kerosene-fueled rockets that emit
yellow-white plumes, or solid-fueled rockets that emit lots of dense
white aluminum oxide smoke.

Phil

------------------------------

Date: 6 May 88 21:37:33 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Nevada fuel plant explosion

> c. Ariane: LOX and (?) kerosene.  Maybe LH2.

Tsk, tsk, two out of three wrong.  Ariane first and second stages use
nitrogen tetroxide and one of the hydrazine variants (UDMH I think).
The third stage is LOX/LH2.  Oh yeah, and solid strap-ons for the newer
variants (also still-newer liquid strap-ons but I don't know what they
burn, probably N2O4/UDMH).

To add to the list...

d. Atlas-Centaur:  LOX/kerosene in Atlas, LOX/LH2 in Centaur.

e. Delta:  LOX/kerosene plus solid strap-ons.

 Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 5 May 88 19:15:00 GMT
From: silber@p.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Re: Is it CBS or NASA?

>By "victims of male technology" I understood a condemnation of the
>macho attitude that led NASA not to include any sort of escape
>mechanism in the shuttle. Which of course would imply some sort of
>cowardice and fear of battle and might be misused if someone chickened
>out and pushed the "let me out" button...right???  Can't have those
>heros chickening out, can we?

>Valerie Maslak

Every U.S. spacecraft before the shuttle had an escape system.  From
what I understand, the difficulty with including one in the shuttle was
that there was no way of including a system of more than marginal
survivability that was usable in the boost phase.  (For aerodynamic
reasons an escape tower was impossible, likewise for an orbiter
separation system.  Ejection seats were used on the first flight, but
would be to bulky to provide for all the crew, and if there is one thing
NASA would not want it would be for the flight crew to punch out leaving
the passengers.)  The current system (the pole and parachutes) would
only be of use either on the pad or in gliding (and subsonic) flight,
and appears to be more of a PR scheme than anything useful, considering
that those are the two safest portions of the launch.

ami silberman

------------------------------

Date: 6 May 88 12:33:47 GMT
From: ucsdhub!hp-sdd!ncr-sd!ncrlnk!ncrwic!encad!mjohnson@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu  (Mark
Johnson)
Subject: SRM Fuel Composition (was:Re: Nevada fuel plant explosion)

The approximate solid fuel mix used in most of the various solid rocket
motors goes something like this:

    80% ammonium perchlorate
    10% powdered aluminum (which coincidentally gives the white exhaust)
    10% HTPB (Hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene, a polymer which serves
	      as both fuel and plastic binder, and which not
	      coincidentally provides a good deal of energy into the
	      bargain (15-20% more than earlier solid recipes of
	      polyurethane base and similar ratios).

My percentages may be a bit off, but this is basically what's used.

Mark Johnson (mjohnson@ncrwic.UUCP)

------------------------------

Date: 10 May 88 02:01:26 GMT
From: killer!bigtex!james@eddie.mit.edu  (James Van Artsdalen)
Subject: Re: Is it CBS or NASA?

IN article <74700087@uiucdcsp>, silber@uiucdcsp.cs.uiuc.edu wrote:
> Every U.S. spacecraft before the shuttle had an escape system.

In principle at least, I believe they could also extinguish the rockets,
which the shuttle can't (SRBs).

> The current system (the pole and parachutes) would only be of use
> either on the pad or in gliding (and subsonic) flight, and appears to
> be more of a PR scheme than anything useful, considering that those
> are the two safest portions of the launch.

Is the pole really useful on the pad?  Isn't there a tower in the way?
:-) Even the ejection seats originally in place were not useful in
ascent phase.

Out of curiosity, what were the windows for the previous escape systems?
How long before the rockets were moving too fast or too high?

Question: Does anyone know when SRB separation occurs, height &
velocity?  I've been having trouble finding out.

James R. Van Artsdalen

------------------------------

Date: 10 May 88 10:25:25 GMT
From: lim@csvax.caltech.edu  (Kian-Tat Lim)
Subject: Re: Is it CBS or NASA?

In article <1870@bigtex.uucp> james@bigtex.UUCP (James Van Artsdalen) writes:
>Question: Does anyone know when SRB separation occurs, height &
>velocity?  I've been having trouble finding out.

According to the Space Shuttle Operator's Manual, "By the time the solid
motors consume their propellants (T + 2 minutes and 12 seconds) you have
reached Mach 4.5 and an altitude of 28 miles (45 kilometers)."

Kian-Tat Lim (ktl@wagvax.caltech.edu, GEnie: K.LIM1)

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #231
*******************

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #254
*******************

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Date: Fri, 17 Jun 88 03:25:55 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8806171025.AA22924@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #255

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 255

Today's Topics:
			    Space Agencies
		  Re: space news from April 11 AW&ST
			   Re: Space suits
			    women in space
			 Placing shades at L1
	    Soviet manned space plans for the rest of 1988
		  Re: space news from April 18 AW&ST
			skintight space suits
	      Re: one more bit about crew escape systems
			      Summit Ad
			   Re: Space suits
		  Re: space news from April 11 AW&ST
		   Yet another (Fletcher's) speech
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 23 May 88 23:46:38 GMT
From: unmvax!charon!ariel.unm.edu!seds@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (SPACE EXPLORATION)
Subject: Space Agencies



    Hello everyone.   We need the addresses for ESA and the Soviet
                      space program.  Trying to get some info.  Could
                      someone either e-mail or post them? 

    Thanks,

    Ollie Eisman - N6LTJ

======================   seds@ariel.unm.edu   ==========================
SEDS-UNM : Students for the Exploration and Development of Space           
Box 92 Student Union, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM  87106
(505) 898-1974

------------------------------

Date: 24 May 88 21:44:59 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: space news from April 11 AW&ST

> One of the British V-bombers (possibly the Vulcan) did have ejection
> seats for the pilot and copilot, but none for the rest of the three
> crew. I believe the ejection seats were even used once. Does anyone
> remember this better than me?

Well, a bit better anyway...  My recollection is that several of the
V-bomber-era large British aircraft had this setup, and that there were
several fatal crashes in which the pilots got out but nobody else did.
Note the B-1 birdstrike crash some months ago in which extra crew, aboard
for training, suffered the same fate.
-- 
NASA is to spaceflight as            |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
the Post Office is to mail.          | {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 25 May 88 00:38:22 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Space suits

> >...the "space activity suit" concept, in which the body of the suit is just
> >extra-stretchy fabric to supply pressurization...
> 
> How long would an astronaut have to be EVA to have a 50% chance of being
> injured by a chunk of crud (either artificial or man-made)?
> Do harder suits provide protection, or is the energy too high?

Debris protection is definitely one of the strong points of the hard suits.
However, you would want some sort of overgarment for a space activity suit
anyway, to supply thermal insulation and micrometeorite protection.  Said
garment is a lot easier to build if it doesn't have to be pressure-tight.

Note that we're not talking about the equivalent of bullets.  Things like
paint flakes will vaporize the instant they hit -- the effect is more that
of a tiny explosion.
-- 
NASA is to spaceflight as            |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
the Post Office is to mail.          | {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Return-Path: clopez@orion.cf.uci.edu
Date: Wed, 25 May 88 17:03:40 -0700
From: "Carlos A. lopez" <clopez@orion.cf.uci.edu>
Subject: women in space
Sender: clopez@orion.cf.uci.edu

Favorite Drink: RC Cola


> Admittedly, women are at an advantage as astronauts as they tend to be
> shorter and lighter and just as smart. More bang for the buck as it were.

   I remember hearing on one of those half hour "Gee, isn't science neat"
shows that women have lower metabolisms (overall) than men.  Some comments 
were also made that the first interplanetary crews might be mostly women 
to reduce the demands on the life support system.

   That doesn't mean that all women have lower metabolisms than all men.
But the idea of having a "biologically efficient" crew (for lack of a 
better term) does make sense.  Have any experiments been done or are 
planned to test the effects of 0-g on metabolism?  It seems to me that
individuals with slow-twitch muscle fibers might be better suited to 
extended voyages than those with a fast-twitch physiology, regardless of 
sex.  They use oxygen better, and tend to have less muscle mass.

   (Quick biology lesson: slow-twitch muscle fibers contract slower, but
can do so longer because they use oxygen better.  Fast-twitch fibers
contract faster, and more powerfully, but tire quickly.  Runners, bikers, 
and such have a higher proportion of slow to fast fibers.  Weight lifters, 
sprinters, and such have a higher proportion of fast to slow fibers.)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Carlos A. Lopez   (clopez@ucivmsa) | Q: Why won't there be a full moon again?
University of California at Irvine | A: The astronauts brought part of it back.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 25 May 88 20:13:47 EDT
From: dietz@gvax.cs.cornell.edu (Paul F. Dietz)
Subject: Placing shades at L1

Instead of placing a large subshade at the L1 point, how about putting
dust into the upper atmosphere?  This has actually been discussed as a
way to get around an increased greenhouse effect from CO2 pollution.

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 26 May 88 12:14:30 EDT
From: Glenn Chapman <glenn@ll-vlsi.arpa>
Subject: Soviet manned space plans for the rest of 1988

    The Soviets have a rather aggressive mission schedule in man related
activities for the rest of this year.  First is the June 7th Bulgarian
mission, for which they held the "traditional" preflight press conference
on May 22 (well they have done it for the last 4 missions).  The crew
consists of Victor Savinyhk (commander with 75 days on Soyuz T4/Salyut 6 and
168 days on Soyuz T13/Salyut 7 in June '85 - the Salyut rescue mission),  
Anatoly Stoyanov (rookie cosmonaut: Flight engineer) and Alexander Alexandrov 
(Bulgarian - backup on Soyuz 33 - Apr. '79).   Then in August there will be the
Afghan guest mission (crew not yet named), and in October/November the French 
month long mission with Jean-Loup Chretien.  In addition the next Mir expansion
module will lift off about September (according to Alexander Dunayev of 
Glavcosmos - their commercial marketing agency).  It is described as an 
energetics module, with more living area, and possible a larger air lock 
(weight about 10-20 Tonnes and living area addition 50 - 100 cubic meters:
my estimates).  It probably will contain more solar panels just by its name 
(and the drawings of some of the modules).  
     For the future additional "star" modules (also called heavy Cosmos) will 
be launched every 5 months, with 1989 containing first a technology module,
followed by the Priroda remote sensing addition.  The French should be upset
about that - Priroda was planed to be up for their mission as of last year.
1990 will see either the Medilab life science addition or a scientific
research module.  Mir will be completely assembled by mid 1990 under current
plans.  Mir 2 is in advance design, planed for 1994-95, and will use Energyia
for launching the core section.
     On board Mir/Kvant Vladimir Titov and Musa Manarov have now been up for 5
months.  They are preparing to do a space walk to repair the failed British
/Dutch X-ray telescope on board Kvant.  For the record it appears that the
Progress 35 tanker was undocked on May 5, and the Progress 36 launched on May 
13th (to clear up the uncertainty generated by my May 11th posting).
     In the unmanned area the major mission is the two Mars/Phobos flights 
which will lift off this July 7th and 12th.  Also on May 15th their new
medium (SL-16) booster was used to orbit Cosmos 1943, an intelligence satellite
the size of a school bus.  The SL-16 is similar to the strap on booster of
the big Energyia launcher.
     The strength of the Soviet's manned program is shown by the percentage
of their launches that are devoted to that activity.  If things go according
to plans there will be 3 Soyuz flights in 1988. This should give them about 
825 man days of orbital experience, (with an additional 47 man days for guest 
cosmonauts).  Progress tankers are now arriving every 45 days on average,
so that you would expect 8 this year, delivering 18.4 Tonnes of cargo/fuel/air
and boosting the station each time they leave.  With the Mir module addition
that will give them at least 12 man related mission, or about 12% of their
flights (without counting the shuttle mission).  They also would have 767
manned days for Mir, against Salyut 7's 712 days total, and 23 months of 
permanent occupancy.
     Success goes not to the swiftest, but to the most persistent in the
space business.  Consistency of policy has not happened in this country in 
Space exploration for nearly two decades now.  It shows.  Let us change that.

                                               Glenn Chapman
                                               MIT Lincoln Lab

------------------------------

Date: 25 May 88 17:42:11 GMT
From: pioneer!eugene@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Eugene N. Miya)
Subject: Re: space news from April 18 AW&ST

In article <1988May24.051418.14152@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>[If you're wondering why there's been somewhat of a hiatus in my AW&ST . . .
>and partly as a deliberate policy to avoid direct competition with AW&ST.]
>NASA is to spaceflight as            |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
>the Post Office is to mail. 

Somehow, Henry, I don't think AW&ST has to worry about competition from
the Usenet.  (At least until you start releasing color pictures and images.)
Nor do the postal services for that matter ;-).

A small observation from

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@aurora.arc.nasa.gov
  resident cynic at the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:
  "Mailers?! HA!", "If my mail does not reach you, please accept my apology."
  {uunet,hplabs,ncar,ihnp4,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene

------------------------------

Date: 25 May 88 17:17:50 GMT
From: pacbell!att!alberta!ubc-cs!fornax!zeke@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Zeke Hoskin)
Subject: skintight space suits

I'm willing to accept that human skin makes a good enough
space suit, with a little mechanical support. What about
human guts, human bladders, and human wombs? I have the
gut :-) feeling that with my head in a pressure bowl and
the other end exposed, I wouldn't need external propulsion.
How is that problem handled? Matching pressure shorts?

------------------------------

Date: 25 May 88 21:01:59 GMT
From: pioneer!eugene@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Eugene N. Miya)
Subject: Re: one more bit about crew escape systems

In article <1988May24.214459.1696@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>Note the B-1 birdstrike crash some months ago in which extra crew, aboard

I was wandering the Mtn. View Public libray the other day when I found a
book on the B-1.  Note the Crew Capsule was unstable after 350 MPH and
was abandoned.  Any shuttle escape system has some pretty stiff working
envelopes.

--eugene

------------------------------

Subject: Summit Ad
Date: Thu, 26 May 88 09:10:01 -0400
From: Fred Baube <fbaube@note.nsf.gov>


In today's Washington Post, the daily paper of Federal big-whigs,
are articles about summit preparations and about a summit T-shirt
authorized by Tass's popular music branch on sale here in DC, 

There is also a full-page ad in the
first section by the Planetary Society.

		THE WAY TO MARS

	We have before us a historic opportunity to
	fulfill an ancient dream, to help preserve
	this world and to venture forth to another.

	The Planetary Society is the largest space-interest group
in the world.  For the last four years it has advocated Mars as
the principal long-term goal for the US and Soviet space programs
- robotic exploratory missions and long-duration space flight,
leading to the epochal first landing of humans on another
planet.  Since then the moribund US-Soviet Space Co-operation
Agreement has been renewed; US scientists will work on the
forthcoming Soviet _Phosos_ mission, and Soviet scientists will
work on the US _Mars_Observer_ mission, and three bills are now
before the US Congress setting the goal of human exploration of
Mars and encouraging US-USSR cooperation towards that goal.

	General Secretary Gorbachev has just explicitly called
for a joint US-Soviet unmanned mission of discovery to Mars -
important for its scientific harvest; for its potential to bring
the two nations together in a great common enterprise; and, along
with other robotic missions as a necessary precursor for joint
human voyages to Mars early in the 21st century.  Mars has now
entered the realm of discourse between heads of government.

	[ There follows a Mars Declaration, concluding notes,
	  and a long list in small type of Planetary Society
	  luminaries ]

/f

------------------------------

Date: 25 May 88 23:38:13 GMT
From: thumper!karn@faline.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: Space suits

> ... for satellite work, you'll be doing
> a whole lot of outgassing, which is very bad for contaminating delicate
> parts.
> 
> Sounds bogus to me.  They don't put satellites in a vaccum canister
> for launch.  Probably (1) NIH  and (2) not expensive enough.

Contamination is something you do have to worry about. Thermal coatings
and solar arrays are especially susceptible.

Satellites are invariably tested in a thermal vacuum chamber before
launching, and one of the purposes of this test is to discover any
volatile contaminants.  When we tested AMSAT Phase 3-C, we first
scrubbed down the surfaces with MEK solvent to remove fingerprints and
such. During the test, a "cold plate" (a piece of metal cooled to liquid
nitrogen temperature) inside the chamber captured any contaminants for
later inspection.  This is one of the things the laucher agency and
primary payload owner want you to do, to show that your payload won't
gum up the works.

Satellites aren't sitting in a vacuum chamber at launch, but they *are*
kept in a well controlled environment. This generally involves
continuous purging with clean, dry nitrogen or air, temperature
controlled to 20C.  During assembly and final preparations for a launch,
spacecraft technicians usually work in a clean room and wear gloves and
special clothing.

Take a look at the statistics on how much nitrogen gas is used for each
shuttle flight. Virtually all if it is used for purging, just to keep out
the dirt and moisture. Two technicians died before STS-1 because they
entered an area being purged, and suffocated.

Phil

------------------------------

Date: 26 May 88 14:52:53 GMT
From: hplabsb!dsmith@hplabs.hp.com  (David Smith)
Subject: Re: space news from April 11 AW&ST

In article <1988May24.214459.1696@utzoo.uucp>, henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
> > One of the British V-bombers (possibly the Vulcan) did have ejection
> > seats for the pilot and copilot, but none for the rest of the three
> > crew. I believe the ejection seats were even used once. Does anyone
> > remember this better than me?
> 
> Well, a bit better anyway...  My recollection is that several of the
> V-bomber-era large British aircraft had this setup, and that there were
> several fatal crashes in which the pilots got out but nobody else did.
> Note the B-1 birdstrike crash some months ago in which extra crew, aboard
> for training, suffered the same fate.

As well as one of the pilots, whose ejection seat failed.

			David Smith
			HP Labs

------------------------------

Date: 26 May 88 07:39:04 GMT
From: sonia!khayo@cs.ucla.edu  (Eric Behr)
Subject: Yet another (Fletcher's) speech

===========================================================================

NOTE TO EDITORS: FUTURE OF CIVIL SPACE PROGRAM HANGS IN BALANCE

May 20, 1988


     Without adequate funding in this crossroads year, "America's
civil space program stands on the brink of collapse and may not
have a future at all," NASA Administrator Dr. James C. Fletcher
warned today.  "Three decades of progress in space could come to
a grinding halt if Congress fails to act responsibly in funding
the NASA budget for fiscal year 1989," he said.

     Although the future of the program is "hanging by a few
votes," the consequences are not as well understood as they
should be, Dr. Fletcher said in a speech to the Los Angeles
Rotary Club.  "Many in Congress have not reflected adequately on
what's at stake," he said. "Americans must face the fact that the
epitaph of their countries greatness in space could be written
this year because of lack of Congressional support.  And if
Congress doesn't rise to the challenge, it would be a tale of
lack of vision, of hopes betrayed and of opportunities lost.  It
wouldn't make pleasant reading."

     NASA's fiscal year 1989 budget is currently being debated in
Congress.  The House Appropriations Subcommittee has reported a
budget for NASA which, while falling below the Administration's
request, could permit NASA to proceed with the Space Station.
Much deeper cuts are threatened by the budget allocation now
under consideration on the Senate side.

     The NASA Administrator, who has spoken out repeatedly on the
NASA budget crisis in recent months, noted that a new study by
the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) also sees this
as a crucial year for the civil space program.  The study says
Congress has a fundamental choice:  either greatly increase the
real resources devoted to the space program, or redirect NASA's
program to accomplish much more limited goals.

     If Congress does not increase NASA's budget, there would be
two alternatives, according to the CBO study.  The first would
require stretching NASA's current programs out well into the next
century, "accepting higher risk and less achievement in space,"
the study says.  The second would restructure NASA's current
program toward unmanned activities in favor of "a less ambitious,
but more concentrated effort."

     "In my view, both clearly would mean loss of United States
leadership in space," Dr. Fletcher told the group.  He said the
consequences would bring a halt to work on the manned Space
Station -- "the key to our future in space" -- and a drastic
slowdown in Space Shuttle missions, which would mean further
delays in launching important science and national security
payloads.

===========================================================================
                                                       Eric

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #255
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 18 Jun 88 06:24:43 EDT
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA00843; Sat, 18 Jun 88 03:23:51 PDT
	id AA00843; Sat, 18 Jun 88 03:23:51 PDT
Date: Sat, 18 Jun 88 03:23:51 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8806181023.AA00843@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #256

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 256

Today's Topics:
			  Re: women in space
		    Re: Naming the space station.
		   The launch loop author replies:
			 NTSL := John Stennis
		    Tony England resigns from NASA
			  Re: Space Agencies
		       Re: Space Station Names
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 26 May 88 14:11:24 GMT
From: mmm!allen@UMN-CS.ARPA  (Kurt Allen)
Subject: Re: women in space

In article <8805260102.AA08795@angband.s1.gov>, clopez@ORION.CF.UCI.EDU ("Carlos A. lopez") writes:
>    I remember hearing on one of those half hour "Gee, isn't science neat"
> shows that women have lower metabolisms (overall) than men.  Some comments 
> were also made that the first interplanetary crews might be mostly women 
> to reduce the demands on the life support system.

Just a note. Women scuba divers typically use approx. 2/3'rds of the
air that male scuba divers, of the same abilities, use. My women diver friends
will last almost as long on a 40 cu foot air tank as myself on a 72.
-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
rutgers!umn-cs!mmm!allen	|	Kurt W. Allen
ihnp4!mmm!allen			|	3M/Digital Imaging Acquisition Center
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: 26 May 88 15:26:53 GMT
From: eachus@mitre-bedford.arpa  (Robert Eachus)
Subject: Re: Naming the space station.


     I like the idea of naming something after Robert Heinlein, but it
shouldn't be a space station in low earth orbit.  A lunar colony would
be much more appropriate.  Willy Ley is  already on the  moon, but his
name would  be very appropriate for  a station on or  around  Mars.  I
hope George Low's name can get on to the list considered for the Space
Station, to me it seems the most appropriate,  and it  would  be used!
"I'm going to Low  Station next week...",  does not  sound pretentious
and delivers the  message, where "I'm  going  to Minerva next week..."
just doesn't hack it.


					Robert I. Eachus

with STANDARD_DISCLAIMER;
use  STANDARD_DISCLAIMER;
function MESSAGE (TEXT: in CLEVER_IDEAS) return BETTER_IDEAS is...

------------------------------

Date: 26 May 88 03:13:28 GMT
From: tektronix!tekcae!vice!keithl@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Keith Lofstrom)
Subject: The launch loop author replies:


As John Gregor (a former student of mine and an unabashed partisan for
the launch loop) observes, it is hard to make a valid criticism of the launch
loop without reading the technical paper.  The December 1983 "Analog" article
wasn't the proper forum for technical details;  it also was written 5 years
ago and many problems have been solved since then.  However, John has done an
able job of answering most of the questions (BRAVO, John), saving me some
effort.  I will touch again on a few points and add a few of my own:

Important ideas since the Analog article:

1)  The loop should be built over mid-ocean, far away from land.  This actually
eases construction (the biggest ocean wave is flatter than most hills, for
example, and things are surprisingly quiet 20 meters down) but the most 
important aspects are safety and security.  If the loop fails and throws
pieces, they are unlikely to come down on people.

2)  Loop technology is useful for other things, and this provides a growth
path for the technology.  Underground power storage and transmission may be
possible (this depends on real world small-bore rock tunneling costs, an
unknown).  "Simple" towers built around 2Km/sec ribbons can poke above
the atmosphere, and are useful for scientific observations and the modification
of intercontinental ballistic "gift packages".  Why that instead of passive
structures?  Well, without active control of guy wires and such, the passive
towers must be quite massive to survive atmospheric perturbations  
(The atmosphere scales the launch loop cross section, too;  a lunar launch
loop can be millimeters across and launch kilogram payloads).  So, with your
active guy wires you might as well buy the whole package, and get the better
strength-to-weight of the loop, and get energy storage for your "gift"
modification apparatus.

3)  "But what if it fails?  Isn't there a lot of electronics to keep running?"
--- the control sections are about 1 meter long in the middle of the loop.
If they are designed properly, they will fail or not fail independently of
each other.  It takes about a 20 percent global failure rate, or 50 
control sections in a row, to cause the loop to go unstable.  (Why so many
small segments?  Resolution.  What percentage good pixels are required for a
readable terminal screen, assuming a slow hollywood scroll?)    The controllers
and magnets, and even ribbon sections, may be repaired and replaced during
operation.   The launch loop has lots of small, identical pieces;  don't
think of it as intricate, think of it as highly redundant.

What is most likely to bring the machine down is incorrect programming.  With 
proper instrumentation, and post-mortem analysis, such problems will eventually
go away.  In the interim, you just pick up the pieces, make some new ones, and
start the system up again.  This is part of the designed-in system cost.  Down
time with a "hot spare" would be about 2 weeks.  Down time from on-shore 
warehouses a few months.  No two year waits while your engineers try to
fix boosters designed like fragmentation grenades (to please pork-barrel
senators from Utah).  You should eventually have a whole bunch of launch
loops, anyway; there's room near the equator for thousands of them.  Unlike
Paul Birch's orbital rings, many loops can coexist without tangling if one
fails.

4)  The cost can be controlled if you use the following rules:
  (a) Don't make any pieces you can't buy
  (b) Make the pieces small 
  (c) Make the pieces identical
  (d) Don't stop making the pieces.
The launch loop has a few big pieces (the stations, the end magnet platforms,
and the motor platform), but those can be build by any big steel construction
company.  The rest of the stuff is small and distributed, or off-the-shelf
(like barges with gas-turbine power plants on them, cable ships, or the 
factory where you make new pieces).  I still expect the loop to be damned
expensive; perhaps as much as a replacement Shuttle, meaning it will be a
while before it's worthwhile to do.

5)  Stabilization:  A big problem has been the stabilization of the 
infamous equation 33:
.EQ (33)
{ { a sub rs ~ + ~ a sub 0        }    over
  { a sub s  ~ + ~ mu omega sup 2 } } ~ = ~
{ ( omega - omega sub k ) sup 2   }    over
{ mu omega sup 2 ~ + ~ ( omega - omega sub k ) sup 2 }
.EN
The  $$ a sub 0 $$ term is the natural instability of a magnetic levitation
system, while the $$ a sub rs $$ term is the controller output as a result
of measuring the ribbon-track spacing.  The $$ a sub s $$ term is based on
the absolute position of the track, and must be determined (much more
expensively) with laser interferometers and other such arcana.  The trick is
to come up with control equations that yield a finite number of damped poles
over a wide range of $$ omega sub k $$ (which is the wavenumber times the
velocity for a perturbation, == $$ 2 pi V sub r over lambda $$).   I spent over
a year stupidly banging away on $$ a sub rs $$ only, until I realized it was
impossible to stabilize without ground measurements of some sort.  After
that, another year banging away on user-fiendish symbolic math packages
trying various likely permutations of both control equations.  Finally it
dawned on me that you should add a term to the left side proportional to
the right, and to the right side proportional to the left, throw in a few
appropriately scaled damping factors, and everything stays hunky-dory and
fourth order.  This is where things are at right now;  I am still figuring
out what the physical implications of all this are.  I've got a new version
of the paper with the equations in it;  I'll be bringing copies to the 
Denver conference.

6)  "Okay, smarty pants, if it's so simple, why aren't you building one?"
Well, first, I'm lazy.  I wrote the "Analog" article to drum up interest.
I mailed out around 200 copies of the paper, and wrote hundreds of personal
letters.  I was hoping someone would steal the ball and run with it. Nuh-uh.

7)  "Where's my copy of the paper?"  Well, see the part about lazy.  Keep
bugging me, third try should do.  If you live in Tierra Del Fuego, find out
what the U.S. postage for 5 ounces is to you, so I won't have to call the
always-busy line at the post office (would someone send me a list of current
international mail rates?  Thank You!).  Postage is cheap, time is precious.

8)  "Why do this?"  Well, I want to live and work in space.  I don't want to
make somebody else pay for it, so it must be affordable.  Since nobody else
is working on $10/lb low-gee launch systems, I guess it's my job.  Sure the
thing is too damn big.  So are the alternatives, and they yield a much smaller
payback for the same investment.  If somebody out there has a system that will 
accomplish the same ends with a smaller investment, PLEASE LET ME KNOW!  I'll
send them money.  I'll build their electronics.  I'll clean their toilets if
they need it!

I may not get into space by working on the launch loop, or even helping on
some yet-to-be-defined better system.  But I sure as hell WON'T get there
by telling somebody else how hard it is.  If there were easy solutions, we'd
already be there!


Forty years from now, when you're in the back of the ambulance racing to the
hospital, while the EMT is trying to restart your heart, you may have other
regrets, but mine will probably be "I didn't make it into space".  Most of
the current crop of space "activists" will be dead before it's affordable to
go there.  Whose fault is that?


-- 
Keith Lofstrom   ...!tektronix!vice!keithl   keithl@vice.TEK.COM
MS 59-316, Tektronix, PO 500, Beaverton OR 97077  (503)-627-4052

------------------------------

Date: 26 May 88 07:38:09 GMT
From: sonia!khayo@cs.ucla.edu  (Eric Behr)
Subject: NTSL := John Stennis

===========================================================================

PRESIDENT RENAMES NASA CENTER FOR SEN. JOHN C. STENNIS

May 20, 1988

RELEASE 88-36


     NASA's National Space Technology Laboratories (NSTL) was
officially renamed the John C. Stennis Space Center by Executive
Order of the President today.

     President Reagan signed the executive order to rename the
NASA center for the distinguished Mississippi senator who is
retiring after 41 years of service to the nation and the state.

     The president's executive order said, "Sen. John C. Stennis
has served his country as a United States senator for over 40
years and has steadfastly supported the nation's space program
since its inception.  He has demonstrated visionary leadership
and has consistently worked to assure United States world
leadership and preeminence in space.

     NASA Administrator James C. Fletcher said "John C. Stennis
has served as the father of NSTL since he led the efforts for
its creation.  His leadership of the nation's space program stands
as a monument to his career of significant accomplishments."

     At NSTL, director Jerry Hlass said, "Senator Stennis made
major contributions to our country and our state throughout his
long and distinguished career.  His support to the national space
program has been consistently strong since NASA's inception.  His
close association with our center has contributed significantly to
the growth and progress we have experienced over the past 27 years.
He has been a leader and strong advocate for a preeminent role in
space for the United States.  The senator's interest in the
advancement of science and technology continues today with his
support of the Space Station, our nation's next logical step into
space."

     The space center is one of eight NASA field centers in the
country.  NASA selected its Hancock County location in 1961 to test
the Saturn V first and second stages for the Apollo program.  The
site was designated the Mississippi Test Facility when Saturn rocket
testing began.  In 1974 the installation was named the National Space
Technology Laboratories because of its achievements and unique
capabilities in space applications and Earth resources technologies.

     During the period between the Apollo and Space Shuttle
programs, Stennis was instrumental in helping NASA achieve full
utilization of the installation's facilities.  Today, the NASA
center employs more than 5,400 people and is the home of 18 federal
and state agencies engaged in environmental, oceanographic and
defense-related activities.

     Stennis, a frequent visitor to the space center that now bears
his name, continues to support the space agency's current and future
efforts.  In his December 1987 "Report to Mississippians" newspaper
column, the senator wrote, "While it is essential that we prioritize
our spending and bring our federal deficit under control, we must
look ahead to the future of our country."

     "The next logical step in space exploration is the establishment
of a permanent Space Station that will assure world leadership in
space for our country in the 1990s and beyond.  We must be committed
to this important program that will enhance our capabilities for
scientific learning while stimulating our nation's economic
development and defense programs."

===========================================================================
                                                       Eric

------------------------------

Date: 26 May 88 08:17:59 GMT
From: thumper!karn@faline.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Tony England resigns from NASA

Another astronaut has resigned from NASA because of delays in the
Shuttle and Space Station programs: Dr. Tony England. He flew once, on a
1985 Challenger Spacelab mission during which he ran an amateur radio
operation in his spare time.  Tony's recent project in NASA had been
the Space Station.

See the AMSAT bulletin on rec.ham-radio for further details.

Phil

------------------------------

Date: 26 May 88 18:14:07 GMT
From: trwrb!ucla-an!ondine!steve@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Steve Jenkins)
Subject: Re: Space Agencies

In article <3121@charon.unm.edu> seds@ariel.unm.edu.UUCP (SPACE EXPLORATION) writes:
>
>
>    Hello everyone.   We need the addresses for ESA and the Soviet
>                      space program.

    European Space Agency
    8-10, rue Mario-Nikis
    75738 Paris Cedex 15
    FRANCE
    (33.1) 42.73.76.54

-- 
Steve Jenkins			ucla-an!steve@EE.UCLA.EDU
Research Engineer		{decvax,ihnp4}!hermix!ucla-an!steve
UCLA Crump Inst for Med Engr	(213)-825-4364
Steve Jenkins			ucla-an!steve@EE.UCLA.EDU
Research Engineer		{decvax,ihnp4}!hermix!ucla-an!steve
UCLA Crump Inst for Med Engr	(213)-825-4364

------------------------------

Date: 26 May 88 20:30:35 GMT
From: uflorida!novavax!proxftl!rafael@umd5.umd.edu  (Rafael Mayer)
Subject: Re: Space Station Names

In article <1833@brahma.cs.hw.ac.uk>, adrian@cs.hw.ac.uk (Adrian Hurt) writes:
> I thought Minerva was the Roman name for the Greek goddess Athene, the goddess
> of wisdom.
>
> Maybe the Romans, being more militaristic, put her in charge of both, but I
> thought that war was the speciality of Mars (Ares in Greek).

Your right. She was also a warrior though. Her shield, the Aegis, is famous
in the Greek Mythos.  According to Homer, in the Iliad, she was one of the
gods egging on the Greeks and Trojans against each other.  (Oh, embarrasment,
I forget on what side whe was on.)

How about calling it Aegis?  I like the concept of the shield, and the wise
warrior and all that.  JMHO.

Rafael                  allegra!novavax!proxftl!rafael

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #256
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 19 Jun 88 23:41:34 EDT
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA02063; Sun, 19 Jun 88 03:26:39 PDT
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Date: Sun, 19 Jun 88 03:26:39 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8806191026.AA02063@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #257

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 257

Today's Topics:
	       Ruskies find Heaven to the left of Pluto
			 dialing for dollars
		       Re: Astronaut selection
	     Re: Ruskies find Heaven to the left of Pluto
		  NASA news - SN 1987A nova briefing
	       NASA news - USA-Japan talks re. Station
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 23 May 88 14:55:58 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!strath-cs!glasgow!jack@uunet.uu.net  (Mr Jack Campin)
Subject: Ruskies find Heaven to the left of Pluto

First Hitler on the moon, and now this ...
Front page story from the Sunday Sport, 22 May 1988.

[For US readers: the Sunday Sport is basically a tits and bums paper, with
more pages taken up with classified ads for soft porn phone services than
anything else. This issue also claimed that mermaids exist, on the alleged
say-so of a recently deceased satanist who is graphically described as having
had sex with one (covered in batter). The last issue I saw gave space to a
press release from Lyndon Larouche's Fusion Energy Foundation about the USSR
having microwave lasers that could cook NATO soldiers' brains like hardboiled
eggs from thousands of miles away - it looks like they will print ANYTHING. If
you want to think something up and send it to them, their address is 50 Eagle
Wharf Road, London N1 7ED.

Unlike the people who posted the Hitler-on-the-moon story, I don't entirely
disapprove of the Sunday Sport. Compared with their closest competition -
Murdoch's viciously racist and union-bashing "Sun" and "News of the World" -
their innocuous sexual buffoonery is a model of responsible journalism.

Does anyone know who Andreas Resch and Kurt Rauer are, or where the Sport is
likely to have got this rather, er, unusual scoop from?]

After travelling through tunnel of light ...
SPACECRAFT TAKES PICTURES OF HEAVEN
SCENES MATCH DESCRIPTION OF LIFE-AFTER-DEATH
* EXCLUSIVE *

INCREDIBLE space pictures of HEAVEN were last night backed by the Vatican as
GENUINE.

As Church of England boss Robert Runcie pledged to look into the sensational
snaps of Paradise, allegedly taken by a space probe, the Pope's advisors
agreed they had to be possible proof of an after life.

"There must be something in them," confessed Pope John Paul's personal
spokesman on supernatural matters, Father Andreas Resch.

"We promise to analyse the pictures and give a proper explanation - we must
consider the camera never lies."

The pictures show a spectacular gateway into Heaven taken by a Soviet satel-
lite then smuggled out of the country and into the West. They later appeared
in America, backed by the sensational claims.

* Sensational *

Sunday Sport investigators were handed copies of the first ever views of the
Pearly Gates and then passed them on to Lambeth Palace.

Now Britain's spiritual leader Dr Robert Runcie has pledged a top level
probe into the amazing scenes which have sent church leaders into an
almighty flap.

The amazing pictures have been dubbed "the most fantastic Christian find
since the Turin shroud."

While churchmen from London and Rome study the astonishing evidence that
Heaven is left of the planet Pluto, shocked Russian defence chiefs, who
snapped them, are deparately ducking questions.

The Ruskies would only admit it was their galactic spy in the sky which
beamed back fantastic pictures of the Hereafter.

TURN TO PAGE 7 [where you find a picture of a satellite beside what looks
like the mouth of a sea squirt, and the rest of the story ...]

Their incredible scenes should have been burned by top KGB agents - but in-
stead the artist's impressions were smuggled out of the USSR for the whole
world to see.

Lambeth Palace, astounded by the fantastic frames that prove Heaven is for
real, is treating them with utmost respect.

"We are examining them - can you send us any more?" said a spokesman.

Embarrassed Ruskies who don't believe in God stumbled on the tremendous
tunnel of light, billions of miles from Earth, when they were probing life
on Pluto.

Last night they admitted instead of sending back scenes of the planet's
surface, the satellite went berserk and beamed back dozens of different
pictures of dazzling multi-coloured rings.

* Evidence *

"The pictures are remarkable in their similarity to what people have seen
during near death experiences," revealed Dr Kurt Rauer, Germany's best
astrophysicist.

"They are pictures of what many people who have been in that state would
describe as Heaven. I can say without doubt these are the most amazing
pieces of evidence seen by the Christian world since the Turin shroud."

Russian space experts could not believe their eyes when their computer
screens were suddenly invaded by an eerie green and yellow light.

They were expecting views of craters and clouds of gases - instead their
haywire metal spy sent back a live transmission of Heaven.

Those who glimsed [sic] the the extraordinary sight were left temporarily
blinded by the light.

And several others have had to seek top medical help because they have been
unable to cope with their earth shattering experience.

A spokesman from Moscow revealed that witnesses who saw the live pictures
burst into tears because the stunning sight overwhelmed them.

* Tunnel *

Yesterday Joan Phillips, who nearly met her maker when she drowned, said of
the remarkable photos: "They're just what I saw when I thought I was going
to die. When I felt myself going under the water, all I remember is a fant-
astic tunnel of light. I knew instinctively it was Heaven. These pictures
reminded me of that," added the 45-year-old of Southampton.

And Dr Sauer confirmed her beliefs.

* NEXT WEEK   Granny vice den exposed *



-- 
ARPA: jack%cs.glasgow.ac.uk@nss.cs.ucl.ac.uk       USENET: jack@cs.glasgow.uucp
JANET:jack@uk.ac.glasgow.cs      useBANGnet: ...mcvax!ukc!cs.glasgow.ac.uk!jack
Mail: Jack Campin, Computing Science Dept., Glasgow Univ., 17 Lilybank Gardens,
      Glasgow G12 8QQ, SCOTLAND     work 041 339 8855 x 6045; home 041 556 1878

------------------------------

Date: 27 May 88 18:53:24 GMT
From: voder!apple!grady@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Grady Ward)
Subject: dialing for dollars

Recently on the net I've seen a few messages asking for money.  The 
senders supply such worthy reasons as education, feeding a starving 
sister, and so on.

Taking advantage of this trend, I would like to ask you all for money, 
too.

      Of course, I do not need it.  Apple Computer is a wonderful 
employer; I have a very good salary, two-digit profit sharing, and an 
excellent stock option.  I am happily married to a wonderful 
woman, Felicity, a Stanford graduate with a Masters in Horticulture.  
Less than a year ago, I founded a Hi-IQ club which now has over 130 
members around the world, including Marilyn vos Savant and 
Christopher Harding, individuals recognized by the popular press as 
having the highest IQ's in the world.  I write essays and fiction for 
various publications.  I am 6'1" with blond hair and blue eyes and 
good health.  My future prospects look great.

     But I want to have more fun.  And I'll even give you something for 
your money.  After everyone has sent me money, I will promise to 
have as much imaginative fun with it as I possibly can.  Furthermore, 
after I do, I will send everyone who has contributed to Grady's 
Fun(d) a letter describing exactly how I "spent" my time.

So, you can be the keystone of my summer blowout, or you can 
press "N" and go out for another desultory pizza tonight.  Just fold a 
twenty dollar bill in a sheet of paper with your return address and 
send to:

Grady's Fun(d)
380 N. Bayview Avenue
Sunnyvale, CA  94086

It's going to be *party* time!

------------------------------

Date: 28 May 88 06:50:08 GMT
From: sonia!khayo@cs.ucla.edu  (Eric Behr)
Subject: Re: Astronaut selection

paulf@Shasta.Stanford.EDU (Paul A. Flaherty) writes:
 >Um, why does Stanford show up twice in that list?
Surprise, surprise:
=============================================================================
You have received a message from NASA:
======
Thanks for catching the error.  Eight astronauts have graduated from Stanford.
 The document is an update of an old NASA Facts booklet that shows seven
Stanford graduates.  Guess when JSC updated the document they missed a
duplication.  I'll pass the word along.

Bill Anderson
MSFC Public Affairs
======
=============================================================================
                                                       Eric

------------------------------

Date: 27 May 88 21:14:04 GMT
From: cfa!willner@husc6.harvard.edu  (Steve Willner)
Subject: Re: Ruskies find Heaven to the left of Pluto

In article <1224@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk>, jack@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Mr
Jack Campin) writes: 
> Front page story from the Sunday Sport, 22 May 1988.
> SPACECRAFT TAKES PICTURES OF HEAVEN
> SCENES MATCH DESCRIPTION OF LIFE-AFTER-DEATH

[Contents of ...err...interesting article deleted]

> "The pictures are remarkable in their similarity to what people have seen
> during near death experiences," revealed Dr Kurt Rauer, Germany's best
> astrophysicist.

> Does anyone know who Andreas Resch and Kurt Rauer are...

It's not at all clear how one would determine who is the "best
astrophysicist" in any category, but I wonder if Dr Kurt Rauer
exists.  No person named Rauer is listed in the International
Astronomical Union directory, nor did any Rauer publish any articles
in either the main European or the main US journal in 1986 (the
latest year for which I have indices).

> The amazing pictures have been dubbed "the most fantastic Christian find
> since the Turin shroud."

This part of the story may well be true.  (Recall that the earliest
written reference to the Shroud declares it to be a fake.)
-- 
Steve Willner            Phone 617-495-7123         Bitnet:   willner@cfa
60 Garden St.            FTS:      830-7123           UUCP:   willner@cfa
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA                 Internet: willner@cfa.harvard.edu

------------------------------

Date: 28 May 88 16:16:14 GMT
From: sonia!khayo@cs.ucla.edu  (Eric Behr)
Subject: NASA news - SN 1987A nova briefing

I am crossposting this to sci.astro in the hope that that group
deals with "..nomy", not "..logy" (these days, you never know).
Needless to say, I'm not a subscriber.

=============================================================================

NOTE TO EDITORS: NASA TO CONDUCT SUPERNOVA 1987A SCIENCE BRIEFING

May 26, 1988


     NASA will conduct a press briefing to present major
scientific findings about the SN 1987A supernova at the NASA
Headquarters 6th floor auditorium, 400 Maryland Ave., S.W., at 1
p.m. EDT, June 2, 1988.

     Presentations will be made by NASA and NASA-sponsored
university scientists whose experiments have flown aboard
aircraft, balloons or sounding rockets in the past year and will
include supernova satellite observations.

     The formal presentation will be made by the following
scientists:

o Dr. David Helfand, Columbia University:  overall scientific
  approach;

o Dr. Robert Kirshner, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for
  Astrophysics:  ultraviolet and visible light findings;

o Dr. Harvey Moseley, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center:
  infrared findings;

o Dr. Tom Prince, California Institute of Technology:
  gamma-ray findings;

o Dr. Stan Woosley, University of California, Santa Cruz:
  theoretical work and overall scientific findings.

     Presenters will employ a variety of graphic materials to
illustrate precisely what is currently believed to happen when a
star goes supernova.  This will include video animation sequences
of the supernova.

     The briefing will be available on NASA Select television
and questions will be taken from participating NASA centers.

=============================================================================
                                                       Eric

------------------------------

Date: 28 May 88 06:55:43 GMT
From: sonia!khayo@cs.ucla.edu  (Eric Behr)
Subject: NASA news - USA-Japan talks re. Station

=============================================================================

NASA/JAPAN NEGOTIATORS COMPLETE NEGOTATIONS ON STATION AGREEMENTS

May 27, 1988

RELEASE: 88-70


     Negotiators from NASA and the Government of Japan have
reached agreement in substance on the text of a memorandum of
understanding (MOU) for cooperation in the detailed design,
development, operation and utilization of the permanently-manned
civil Space Station.  The Japanese Science and Technology Agency
will serve as NASA's counterpart in implementing this MOU.

     The Space Station is an international cooperative effort
involving Canada and the European Space Agency, as well as
Japan.  This space venture is the largest cooperative civil
science and technology project ever undertaken.  Negotiations on
the technical and programmatic framework between NASA and the
partners have been going on for over 2 years.

     In addition to the MOU, the participating governments have
nearly reached agreement in substance on a multilateral
intergovernmental agreement (IGA) which will provide a policy and
legal framework for the MOU.

     After reaching agreement on the texts of the MOU and the
IGA, the negotiators on both sides will submit the two texts to
their respective governments for consideration in accordance with
their separate internal procedures.  In the U.S., both agreements
will be reviewed by the Executive Branch and the Congress.

     Under the terms of the new MOU, Japan will provide the
Japanese Experiment Module (JEM) -- a permanently attached,
pressurized laboratory module which includes an exposed facility
and an experiment logistics module.  The pressurized portion of
the JEM will provide a shirt-sleeve environment for the Space
Station crew to perform research activities.  The JEM's exposed
facility will be used for scientific observations, Earth
observation, communications, advanced technology development and
other activities requiring direct exposure to space.  The
experiment logistics module, which will provide transportation
and storage of logistics items, will be transported to the
Station by the Space Shuttle.

     Japan's participation in the Space Station program resulted
from an invitation issued by President Ronald Reagan in 1984.
NASA and Japan entered into a memorandum of understanding for the
definition and preliminary design phase of the Space Station
program in March 1985, and have been working together on the
Space Station program since that time.

=============================================================================
                                                       Eric

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #257
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 20 Jun 88 07:33:04 EDT
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA03372; Mon, 20 Jun 88 03:25:17 PDT
	id AA03372; Mon, 20 Jun 88 03:25:17 PDT
Date: Mon, 20 Jun 88 03:25:17 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8806201025.AA03372@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #258

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 258

Today's Topics:
		   NASA news - Mars mission project
		Shuttle processing status, May 25 & 27
			satellite oceanography
			     STAR P.A.C.
	     Re: Ruskies find Heaven to the left of Pluto
			       Leaving
		      NASA Prediction Bulletins
			   Re: Space suits
			   Bungled posting
		      Re: skintight space suits
		Re: A New Holiday? (awkward question)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 28 May 88 06:53:08 GMT
From: sonia!khayo@cs.ucla.edu  (Eric Behr)
Subject: NASA news - Mars mission project

=============================================================================

LOCAL STUDENTS CHART COURSE FOR MARS MISSION

May 27, 1988

RELEASE:  88-69


     A three-month "Mars Mission" course concludes June 1 when
District of Columbia students present mission scenarios to a Blue
Ribbon panel of government aerospace managers and specialists.
Presentations will begin 10:30 a.m. EDT at the Department of
Transportation auditorium, sixth floor, 400 Seventh Street, SW.

     NASA has been conducting the course for 20 high school
students of the District of Columbia's School Without Walls since
February 1988.  The school is an alternative high school using
the community and its resources as the education setting.  The
community includes industry, museums, government, university and
individual scholar mentors.

     The students were divided into U.S. and Soviet groups, and
through role play, each group developed a manned Mars mission
scenario using their country's resources.

     Throughout the course, NASA scientists, managers, and
astronauts discussed space transportation systems, future flight
systems, Soviet space programs, planetary science, Space Station,
space physiology and medicine, and international agreements.

     From course lectures, the U.S. and Soviet groups designed
their theoretical mission plan.  The scenarios identify:

   *  mission objective
   *  mission schedule
   *  crew participation
   *  recreation/scientific activities
   *  medical countermeasures
   *  martian orbit precautions
   *  international cooperation
   *  political/budget obstacles

     The Blue Ribbon panel members include Dr. Franklin Martin,
Deputy Associate Administrator for Space Station, NASA
Headquarters;  Dr. Marie Zuber, Geophysicist, NASA Goddard Space
Flight Center;  Alan Ladwig, Director of Special Programs and
Projects for Office of Exploration, NASA Headquarters;  Carl
Praktish, Special Assistant for External Relations, NASA
Headquarters;  Kathryn Schmoll, Assistant Associate Administrator
of Space Science and Applications, NASA Headquarters;  Frank
Owens, Deputy Director of Educational Affairs, NASA
Headquarters;  and Marcia Smith, Aerospace Policy Specialist,
Library of Congress.

     The Mars Mission course demonstrates NASA's continued
commitment to improving the level of science literacy in the
nation's schools and is a further extension of the NASA
administrator's request for employees to participate in a
volunteer effort to support the District's public school system.

     The NASA Headquarters Educational Affairs Division developed
this course with Alan Ladwig and Dr. Andrew Gaffney, an astronaut
mission specialist scheduled to fly a Spacelab mission in 1990.

=============================================================================
                                                       Eric

------------------------------

Date: 28 May 88 06:51:59 GMT
From: sonia!khayo@cs.ucla.edu  (Eric Behr)
Subject: Shuttle processing status, May 25 & 27

=============================================================================

WEDNESDAY, MAY 25, 1988

             STS-26 - DISCOVERY (OV 103) - OPF BAY 1

     Today,  a 24-hour pressurization test of the main propulsion
system helium bottles is planned. This test will locate any leaks
in the helium tanks which are filled  at  the  launch  pad.  This
morning  the  frequency  response  test was completed and no sig-
nificant problems were reported.

     A functional test of the payload bay doors is scheduled  for
this evening.  Closeouts of all areas of the orbiter are underway
in preparation for rollover  to  the  Vehicle  Assembly  Building
scheduled  for the first week of June.  Thermal protection system
operations are being worked on all areas of the orbiter as flight
processing continues.

             STS- 27 - ATLANTIS (OV 104) - OPF BAY 2

     Powered down operations are scheduled while a panel,  neces-
sary for  power  up,  is  being  repaired.  After  power  up  the
radiators will be deployed for structural inspections.  Meanwhile
processing operations are continuing to ready the power  reactant
storage  and  distribution  system for flight.  Modifications are
continuing to implement the crew escape system.  The  chin  panel
has   been   reinstalled   for   final  fit  checks  and  contour
measurements.

                STS-28 - COLUMBIA (OV 102) - OMRF

     Operations scheduled today include crew escape, bonding heat
absorbing  strips  to  Columiba's  belly  for  the  RTV heat sink
modification, and electrical modifications in the forward and aft
sections of the orbiter.

               STS-26 SOLID ROCKET BOOSTERS - VAB

     Yesterday,  technicians  greased the metal parts of the last
field joint on the right hand solid  rocket  booster.  The  metal
parts of the segments were inspected in preparation for the mate.
Prior to mate, adhesive will be applied to the j-seal, and the o-
rings and the mating tool will be installed. Meanwhile, closeouts
of the field joints on both boosters are continuing.

     Today,  the  right  forward  assembly  is  scheduled  to  be
delivered  to  the VAB transfer aisle today.   The left and right
forward assemblies are scheduled to be installed this weekend.

=============================================================================

Friday, May 27, 1988

           STS-26  -  DISCOVERY (OV 103)  -  OPF BAY 1

     A pressurization test of the main propulsion system helium
bottles is continuing today. Yesterday a functional test of the
orbiter's star tracker was completed.

     Technicians finished shaving tiles around the nose landing
gear and chin area. The nose landing gear doors are open and
technicians will finish fine tuning adjustments of the thermal
barrier.

     A functional test of the payload bay doors is scheduled for
no earlier than midnight tonight. Technicians are inspecting the
door hinges and the associated thermal covers. Orbiter closeouts
are active on all areas of the shuttle in preparation for moving
the vehicle to the Vehicle Assembly Building scheduled for June
4.

     Installation of ordnance devices is planned for tomorrow and
thermal protection system operations are scheduled over the
Memorial Day holiday weekend.

           STS-27  -  ATLANTIS (0V 104)  -  OPF BAY 2

     Power down operations are continuing today while two panels
necessary for power up work are being repaired at the Rockwell
Service Center. Yesterday, technicians installed an oxygen panel
for the fuel cell system and electrical connections are planned
today. No work is scheduled over the three-day weekend.

              STS-28  -  COLUMBIA (OV 102)  -  OMRF

     Orbiter power down modifications scheduled today include
checks of thermal blankets to be installed in the midbody, crew
escape and electrical modifications in the forward and aft
sections of the orbiter. No work is planned for the three-day
weekend.

              STS-26 SOLID ROCKET BOOSTERS  -  VAB

     Today the left forward assembly will be mated to the left
stack. The right forward assembly is scheduled to be mated by the
weekend. In parallel with stacking the forward assemblies workers
are conducting a leak check of the final right hand field joint.
After all the hardware is stacked on the mobile launcher
platform, measurements of the alignment will be taken.  Closeouts
of all the field joints is also in progress.

=============================================================================
                                                       Eric

------------------------------

Date: 28 May 88 16:19:06 GMT
From: aplcen!aplcomm!stdc.jhuapl.edu!jwm@mimsy.umd.edu  (Jim Meritt)
Subject: satellite oceanography


Is anybody else out there doing oceanography using satellite radar data?
(currents, mostly.  Adding wind & waves)


Disclaimer: Individuals have opinions, organizations have policy.
            Therefore, these opinions are mine and not any organizations!
Q.E.D.
jwm@aplvax.jhuapl.edu 128.244.65.5  (James W. Meritt)

------------------------------

Date: 28 May 88 08:58:41 GMT
From: EWTILENI@pucc.princeton.edu  (Eric William Tilenius)
Subject: STAR P.A.C.

Has anyone heard of a Political Action Committee called STAR PAC ?
 
They ran an ad in The Christian Science Monitor back about a week ago
advertising the need for strong national leadership of the space program.
 
I don't have the actual ad copy, but it said something like "Who will
lead us into space in the 21st century - Bush or Dukakis."
 
I sent the organization a small contribution since I liked what they were
advocating, but was leary about an unfamiliar organization.
 
Has anyone heard anything else on STAR PAC?  Is it newly formed, or does
it have a track record?  How does it compare with SPACE PAC?
 
- ERIC -
 
*----------------------===>  SPACE IS THE PLACE... <===-----------------------*
*        ewtileni@pucc.Princeton.EDU  //  ewtileni@pucc.BITNET                *
*      rutgers!pucc.bitnet!ewtileni  //  princeton!pucc.bitnet!ewtileni       *
* ColorVenture - Microcomputer Software - "Because Life isn't Black and White"*
*--------------------===> Another proud CoCo 3 owner <===---------------------*

------------------------------

Date: 28 May 88 05:22:51 GMT
From: sonia!khayo@cs.ucla.edu  (Eric Behr)
Subject: Re: Ruskies find Heaven to the left of Pluto

In article <1224@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> jack@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Mr Jack Campin) writes:
 >First Hitler on the moon, and now this ...
 >Front page story from the Sunday Sport, 22 May 1988.
 >[For US readers: the Sunday Sport is basically a tits and bums paper...
[the other 120 lines deleted]
Yeah, yeah, we want more, we are all bored to death with those silly,
uninformative, beside-the-point, endless summaries that Henry Spencer
somehow finds time to pound into his keyboard ...............
                                                       Eric

------------------------------

Date: 24 May 88 13:08:55 GMT
From: ulysses!gamma!pyuxp!nvuxj!nvuxg!nvuxk!perseus@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (A D Domaratius)
Subject: Leaving

I will be leaving the net because I will be returning to my home
company, New York Telephone.  No boos and hisses please.  I was on
rotation at Bellcore since April, 1985.  I have enjoyed many
interesting articles on these nets and will miss the communications
with other people (That includes you too |||SPIKE|||).

I would like to find out if there is an access to these networks
through Bulletin Board Services.  If so then maybe I can continue to
communicate with you people in the future.

Al Domaratius

Go METS  (THIS ONE'S FOR YOU |||SPIKE|||)

Go Bruins

------------------------------

Date: 28 May 88 17:04:44 GMT
From: ut-emx!tskelso@sally.utexas.edu  (TS Kelso)
Subject: NASA Prediction Bulletins


For those of you who are interested in satellite tracking, the most current
orbital elements from the NASA Prediction Bulletins are carried on the
Celestial RCP/M, (512) 892-4180, and are updated several times weekly.  As a
service to the amateur satellite community, the most current of these elements
are uploaded weekly to rec.ham-radio.  The Celestial RCP/M may be accessed 24
hours/day at 300, 1200, or 2400 baud using 8 data bits, 1 stop bit, no parity.

--
TS Kelso                            ARPA: tskelso@emx.cc.utexas.edu
The Center for Space Research
The University of Texas at Austin   UUCP: {ihnp4,allegra}!ut-emx!tskelso

------------------------------

Date: 28 May 88 21:49:26 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Space suits

Phil certainly knows whereof he speaks:  contamination is something one
does have to worry about, although the extent depends on what one is doing.
However, note that neither existing manned spacecraft nor existing spacesuits
are contamination-free; far from it.  I doubt that the space activity suit
would be spectacularly worse.
-- 
"For perfect safety... sit on a fence|  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
and watch the birds." --Wilbur Wright| {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 29 May 88 03:11:08 GMT
From: sonia!khayo@cs.ucla.edu  (Eric Behr)
Subject: Bungled posting

Sorry for posting the latest Shuttle processing report to sci.space.
It obviously should have gone to .space.shuttle. Mea culpa....
                                                       Eric

------------------------------

Date: 28 May 88 21:36:53 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: skintight space suits

> I'm willing to accept that human skin makes a good enough
> space suit, with a little mechanical support. What about
> human guts, human bladders, and human wombs? I have the
> gut :-) feeling that with my head in a pressure bowl and
> the other end exposed, I wouldn't need external propulsion.
> How is that problem handled? Matching pressure shorts?

I haven't seen that specific aspect addressed in the descriptions I've
read, but I understand that concave spots in general are addressed with
custom-shaped air-filled balloons inside the fabric.
-- 
"For perfect safety... sit on a fence|  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
and watch the birds." --Wilbur Wright| {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 27 May 88 05:21:49 GMT
From: okstate!richard@rutgers.edu  (Richard Brown)
Subject: Re: A New Holiday? (awkward question)

> In article <24337@bbn.COM> mfidelma@BBN.COM () writes:
>> Does anybody else out there think that July 20 (the day of the first moon
>> landing) should be a recognized holiday?

Is my memory playing tricks on me?  I had always thought the actual
_landing_ took place on 19 July (Oklahoma time).  The EVA was 
postponed until the crew had rested, &c.  The "...giant leap for
mankind" occurred after midnight.  I remember vividly that this
was the first time I was allowed to stay up all night, to watch
the TV coverage and live broadcast from the moon.
Uh, I suppose the landing could well have been on the succeding
date if GMT were used.  I really don't recall that much detail.

It certainly _SHOULD_ be an International holiday!
				-  richard

-- 
Richard Brown, Oklahoma State University, Computer Science 
UUCP:  {cbosgd, ihnp4, rutgers}!okstate!richard
ARPA:  richard@A.CS.OKSTATE.EDU
BITNET:  ....CISXRVB

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #258
*******************

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Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA04911; Tue, 21 Jun 88 03:24:35 PDT
	id AA04911; Tue, 21 Jun 88 03:24:35 PDT
Date: Tue, 21 Jun 88 03:24:35 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8806211024.AA04911@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #259

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 259

Today's Topics:
			  Re: A New Holiday?
		       Re: dialing for dollars
		       that Canadian guy again
		Re: A New Holiday? (awkward question)
		 Anonymous quotes and NASA corruption
		       NASA apologist rantings
				NSS...
		       Re: More on anti-matter
	     Re: Ruskies find Heaven to the left of Pluto
	  Re: Shroud of Turin (Re: Ruskies find Heaven ...)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 27 May 88 05:03:15 GMT
From: okstate!richard@rutgers.edu  (Richard Brown)
Subject: Re: A New Holiday?

>From article <8998@oberon.USC.EDU>, by robiner@ganelon.usc.edu (Steve):
> In article <24337@bbn.COM> mfidelma@BBN.COM () writes:
>>Does anybody else out there think that July 20 (the day of the first moon
>>landing) should be a recognized holiday?
> 
> I think it's a marvelous idea.  It could be called moon-day and it would
> remind everyone how important space exploration is.  It would also be a
> yearly event during which media would undoubtedly seize on to demonstrate
> how far we've come in the last year.  ( let's not start until 1989, OK? )

All RiGGGGGHHHTTTTTTT!!!!!!
This makes much better sense than manny of the holidays now celebrated!
BTW, I have maintained for many years that event made a united
civilization at least conceptually possible, if not necessarily
immanent(sp)(i'm a computist, not a writer).
Alas, it appears that anyone interested in being a part of such a
civilization in the near term at least, had better be very familier
with the cryllic alphabet.........
Someone has pointed out that 'Mir'means 'peace' like "the war is over,
	-- We won"
We lost a tiny handfull of much-celebrated explorers following the
dream to the moon and beyond - and we stopped 'dead in the water'.
In more robust days, we launched a great many expeditions westward
and celebrated those who happened to return alive.  Where has all
our spirit gone?
		enough blather -    richard
			
-- 
Richard Brown, Oklahoma State University, Computer Science 
UUCP:  {cbosgd, ihnp4, rutgers}!okstate!richard
ARPA:  richard@A.CS.OKSTATE.EDU
BITNET:  ....CISXRVB

------------------------------

Date: 29 May 88 16:17:51 GMT
From: actnyc!jsb@uunet.uu.net  (The Invisible Man)
Subject: Re: dialing for dollars

I would like to propose that future I.Q. tests include the following
question:
"Is it appropriate to post articles asking for money on the net?"
I suspect a 'No' answer to this question would correlate highly with intelegence
thus adding to the reliability of I.Q. measurement.  However:

In article <11148@apple.Apple.Com> grady@apple.UUCP (Grady Ward) writes:
)Recently on the net I've seen a few messages asking for money.  The 
)senders supply such worthy reasons as education, feeding a starving 
)sister, and so on.
)
)Taking advantage of this trend, I would like to ask you all for money, 
)too.
)
	[ discriptions of the good fortune of the Grady Bunch deleted. ]

)Less than a year ago, I founded a Hi-IQ club which now has over 130 
)members around the world, 

I got a recent copy of the society's newsletter (Grady will send you one
if you ask) and, aside from an interesting short piece by weemba, I find
talk.bizarre better written and more informative.  Well, maybe I mean 
more written and better informative?  One article that particularly
bothered me in this journal, a discussion of possible gender bias in I.Q.
measurement, ends by saying that "only time and extensive research will prove"
whether or not, if a cognative "difference exists" beteween men and women,
"... it [can] truly be used as a marker of superiority in the hierarchical 
ranking of peoples".  Sounds bizarre to me.  If one rates high enough in
the hierarchical ranking of peoples, one is entitled to disrupt newsfroups
at will asking for spare change.  Since I rate really high in the h.r. of p.
too, I am continuing the disruption by not removing any of the froups of the
original posting.  Any of you folks who also rate high in the h. r. are invited
to join me.  And bring your lawn darts.

-- 
		"Notitiae gratia notitiarum"
				jim (uunet!actnyc!jsb)

------------------------------

Date: 29 May 88 17:33:59 GMT
From: bobmon@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu  (RAMontante)
Subject: that Canadian guy again

>"For perfect safety... sit on a fence|  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
>and watch the birds." --Wilbur Wright| {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

Not content to flame our all-American Post Office, now Henry The Foriegner is
abusing his position in Zoology to slur our bicycle makers!

And in sci.SPACE!

I bet he's a Space Alien -- does anybody know if his socks match?


(sorry, Henry; I'm feelin' my wierds today.)

------------------------------

Date: 30 May 88 16:15:11 GMT
From: cfa!cfa250!mcdowell@husc6.harvard.edu  (Jonathan McDowell)
Subject: Re: A New Holiday? (awkward question)

>From article <3606@okstate.UUCP>, by richard@a.cs.okstate.edu (Richard Brown):
> Is my memory playing tricks on me?  I had always thought the actual
> _landing_ took place on 19 July (Oklahoma time).  The EVA was 
> postponed until the crew had rested, &c.  The "...giant leap for
> mankind" occurred after midnight.

Yes, your memory is a day out - the landing was on 20 July at 2017:45 UT
which is 20 July at 1517:45 Oklahoma time (I think?); the EVA was something
like 0200-0300 UT on 21 July, or late evening 20 July US time.

Jonathan McDowell

------------------------------

Reply-To: pnet01!jim@trout.nosc.mil
Date: Mon, 30 May 88 12:49:08 PDT
From: jim@pnet01.cts.com (Jim Bowery)
To: crash!space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: Anonymous quotes and NASA corruption

I have, on several occasions, quoted or paraphrased individuals
in the aerospace industry without providing their exact positions
or other identifying information on a variety of issues.  This is
necessary because NASA has demonstrated repeatedly that it does not
hesitate to engage in corrupt practices to suppress dissent.  Since
I am totally independent of aerospace funding, I can act as a
mouthpiece for some of these people.  The Justice Department is 
not interested in pursuing these issues and neither is the FBI.

Agents in both organizations express regret at being unauthorized
to pursue anonymous complaints and I cannot divulge the names of
the individuals involved due to their sensitive positions.  I've 
seen some of the best and brightest of this country broken by NASA
corruption and am powerless to do anything about it.  Maybe this
bitterness has come through in my messages more than it should if
I were a perfect statesman, but I'm not. I'm a citizen concerned at
the tens of thousands of lives being wasted by malfeasance and
corruption in NASA.

If you had a wife and kids and mortgage to protect, you might 
understand the hesitance to come forth publically and risk 
everything for an ideal.

If you want identification of my sources, you'll have to earn my
and their trust.

UUCP: {cbosgd, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!pnet01!jim
ARPA: crash!pnet01!jim@nosc.mil
INET: jim@pnet01.cts.com

------------------------------

Reply-To: pnet01!jim@trout.nosc.mil
Date: Mon, 30 May 88 13:20:57 PDT
From: jim@pnet01.cts.com (Jim Bowery)
To: crash!space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: NASA apologist rantings

There has been a lot of disinformation thrown around about my 
statements and positions in an attempt to make it appear that I
am engaging in slander, libel, idiocy and attacks on the general
public or something.  This is a tactic I've run into before -- if
you want a group of naive people to go after someone who you don't
like, make the group think the person you don't like is a danger to
them all.  Unfortunately, there is a high correlation between being
naive and liking NASA so this is a particularly effective tactic on
computer networks and in space enthusiast groups when you want the
naive among them to go after someone critical of NASA or your position
as a NASA apologist.

Just for the record here are a few things I am NOT saying:

I am NOT saying Scott Pace or any other NSS board member is breaking
the law (violating the Hatch Act or anything else).  I AM saying that
some individuals in positions of influence over POLITICAL ACTION in
NSS are too closely tied to aerospace funding to be considered ethical
and that this ethical violation is also a violation of the INTENT of
the Hatch Act.

I am NOT saying that we should terminate or even reduce government
spending on space or that by so doing we would end up with lots of
companies automatically rushing into space businesses.  I AM saying
that we can create a space MARKETPLACE (as opposed to just a spoon-
fed aerospace industry) by associating full funding directly with 
each space objective independently so that those pursuing these 
objectives can purchase launch services and facility use from any
source they choose.  This is exactly the intent of Reagan's space
policy wherein he supports launch vouchers for space scientists to
let them launch on any service they like.  As in any other marketplace,
if foreign competition is government subsidized, appropriate tariffs
and other actions are necessary.  Since all systems developments have
supposedly been in service of space research objectives, and since
development is more appropriately pursued by the private sector, I've
concentrated on space research objectives.

I am NOT saying that research programs are partisan -- I am saying that
large development programs are partisan (due to porkbarrel) and that
civil servants who lobby for such ARE violating the Hatch Act (not
just the INTENT).

There has been a lot more disinformation spread around but these are
the main, and most damaging, items.

UUCP: {cbosgd, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!pnet01!jim
ARPA: crash!pnet01!jim@nosc.mil
INET: jim@pnet01.cts.com

------------------------------

Date:         Mon, 30 May 88 14:43:54 CST
From: Kamal Mehta <EAKMM%TTUVM1.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Subject:      NSS...
To: "SPACE Digest..." <SPACE@angband.s1.gov>

  I'm pretty new to this list, and also a lot of other space related
activiies. Recently i saw a posting about the name change for National
Space Society. I would appreciate if someone could enlighten me on
what it is and what it does. Thanks...

Kamal Mehta                                  Bitnet: EAKMM@TTUVM1
Texas Tech University

------------------------------

Date: 30 May 88 21:41:20 GMT
From: dietz@cu-arpa.cs.cornell.edu  (Paul F. Dietz)
Subject: Re: More on anti-matter

In article <8805181623.AA01822@galileo.s1.gov> you write:
>Paul Dietz writes the following on anti-matter:
>
>>Antimatter might be effective in a beam weapon.
>
>In a word, HAH!  Such a beam weapon would not work in the atmosphere, as
>an interaction with matter will cause a minimum 1900 MeV explosion per
>anti-proton annihilated (about 1 MeV if positrons are used instead).
>Such a huge amount of isotropic energy added to the beam will disperse
>it real quick, setting off more explosions.  This will all occur in or
>just outside the nozzle!  If one attempts to vacate a small volume of
>space for an anti-matter pulse to travel through, say with a high power
>laser, the same problem arises, though with many orders of magnitude
>(like about 25) lower integrated cross-section.  The same is true for
>space based weapons, as the gas density is at least 1/cc and likelier to
>be over 1000/cc.  Current matter particle beam research is arguably
>feasible in that one has only collisions rather than the very high
>energy annihilations leading to beam dispersion.

Of course I didn't mean a weapon to be used in the atmosphere.  Jeez!
And I suppose the disruption of antimatter beams by 1 atom/cc gas explains
why CERN has not been able to store antiprotons in a storage ring,
and therefore why they didn't detect the W and Z bosons.

Care to explain how the annihilation of one of the antihydrogen
atoms in a beam will "disperse [the beam] real quick"?  I would think
the annihilation products, which are penetrating, would
not deposit any energy at all in something as nebulous as a
particle beam.

>
>>An antimatter explosion would produce radiations not found in a
>>conventional nuclear device.
>
>All that will be produced is a different energy spectrum of photons,
>electrons, and neutrinos, as all of the other particles will decay or
>annihilate on the order of a millionth of a second.  One MAY be able to
>produce neutrons, but that would require anti-proton - proton collisions
>of very high energy (and luck).  Such a branching is of very low
>probability.

Muons would travel up to a kilometer before decaying.  Neutrons would
be "produced" by liberating them from nuclei with which the antimatter
interacts.  I read, for example, that an antiproton annihilating in
a uranium nucleus causes the emission of an average of 5+ neutrons.

>This bomb will be as fallout-free as any nuclear device is.  The fallout
>of any nuclear explosion is due to the irradiated matter around the bomb
>being blown up into the atmosphere (this includes the containment
>mechanism of the bomb itself).  It may be small, who knows the state of
>current vaccum magnetic bottle experiments (extrapolated to room
>temperature particle entrapment rather than solar core temperatures)?

Fallout in current weapons is overwhelmingly fission products (condensed
onto vaporized soil, etc.)  Even in a large thermonuclear bomb, 50% of the
energy comes from fission, I believe (mostly fission of U-238 by fusion
neutrons).  And who mentioned magnetic containment?

>The big problem with anti-matter is in the production.  As someone
>stated earlier (and as was written up in a recent Science review),
>anti-matter costs of order $10 million per milligram.  The problem is
>getting it in a usable form.  SLAC, for example, has a 2 mile
>accelerator to produce anti-particles.  Then one needs another 2 mile
>accelerator to slow them down again so that they can be handled and
>contained, provided they were travelling in the correct direction to
>begin with!.  This all has to be done in a perfect vaccuum, otherwise
>more 1900 MeV annihilations occur.  Fun stuff, this anti-matter!
>
>Arnold Gill
>Queen's University at Kingston
>gill @ qucdnast.bitnet

The SLC makes, cools and uses positrons, not antiprotons.  "Perfect" vacuum
is need? If I get just one gas atom anywhere in my system the whole thing
blows up?  Get serious.

I note that if antimatter costs $10 million/millgram (it is currently
far more expensive), a tactical radiation weapon containing 10 nanograms
of antimatter would contain $100 worth of antimatter.  Not much, although
it would be lethal only out to maybe ten meters or less.

	Paul F. Dietz
	dietz@gvax.cs.cornell.edu

------------------------------

Date: 30 May 88 05:09:42 GMT
From: phri!dasys1!mikej@nyu.edu  (Mike Johnston)
Subject: Re: Ruskies find Heaven to the left of Pluto

After reading this posting I am reminded of a book by the late        
Clifford D. Simak called "Project Pope" which has a storyline similar
to the "Heaven found" thesis.... Interesting book though.... I shouldn't
compare it with THIS though.....<grin>
m.r.j
-- 
Michael R. Johnston                                             / cpmain!mrj
Franchise Data Specialist                 ....cmcl2!phri!dasys1! 
Career Employment Services Inc.                                 \ mikej

------------------------------

Date: 30 May 88 23:59:50 GMT
From: valeria!wales@cs.ucla.edu  (Rich Wales)
Subject: Re: Shroud of Turin (Re: Ruskies find Heaven ...)

In article <1034@cfa.cfa.harvard.EDU> willner@cfa.harvard.EDU
(Steve Willner) writes:

    In article <1224@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk>, jack@cs.glasgow.ac.uk
    (Mr Jack Campin) writes: 

	The amazing pictures have been dubbed "the most fantastic
	Christian find since the Turin shroud."

    This part of the story may well be true.  (Recall that the earliest
    written reference to the Shroud declares it to be a fake.)

In the earliest written reference to the Shroud of Turin (a letter from
Pierre d'Arcis, the bishop of the French diocese of Troyes), the bishop
said the Shroud had been declared a fake by "the artist who painted it".

The 1978 analysis of the Shroud of Turin showed conclusively that, what-
ever the Shroud of Turin may be, it is not a painting.  Hence, if some
artist in the late 1300's claimed to have painted the Shroud, he was
presumably lying.

Actually, though, some Latin scholars have pointed out that the medieval
verb meaning "to paint" (depignere) could also mean "to paint a copy".
Additionally, Latin lacks the definite article (a word for "the").  The
passage in question, therefore, could be translated either as "the art-
ist who painted it" or "an artist who copied it".

Ian Wilson discusses the Pierre d'Arcis correspondence at some length in
his book, _The Shroud of Turin_.

-- Rich Wales // UCLA CS Dept // wales@CS.UCLA.EDU // +1 (213) 825-5683
   3531 Boelter Hall // Los Angeles, California 90024-1596 // USA
   ...!(ucbvax,rutgers)!ucla-cs!wales       ...!uunet!cs.ucla.edu!wales
   "Zounds!  A Gorkon death station appears!  Evasive action!"

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #259
*******************

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Date: Wed, 6 Jul 88 19:41:38 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
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Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #260

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 260

Today's Topics:
		      Re: Bureaucracy vs.  space
		      Re: Bureaucracy vs.  space
			    space station
		 Re: The launch loop author replies:
		    Some more launch loop stuff...
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 31 May 88 05:36:38 GMT
From: jumbo!stolfi@decwrl.dec.com  (Jorge Stolfi)
Subject: Re: Bureaucracy vs.  space


>   ME: An airplane takes off, flies and lands in an horizontal
>   position; it doesn't turn somersaults at takeoff the way a
>   shuttle does.  
>   
>   HENRY: I wasn't aware of the shuttle turning any somersaults!
>   ...  The shuttle does impose a higher fore-and-aft loading than
>   that of an aircraft, but 3 G is hardly bone-breaking.  

Aw, c'mon, won't you allow me a little poetic license?

      "The shuttle now consists of the Orbiter and External Tank.
      It continues to gain speed and altitude; 6.5 minutes into the
      flight you are traveling 15 times the speed of sound at an
      altitude of 80 miles (130 kilometers).  Flying a path resembling
      a roller coaster, the shuttle begins a long shallow DIVE to 72
      miles (120 kilomters).  During this maneuver, you experience the
      maximum acceleration of 3g.  Near the end of the dive, 8.5
      minutes after you left the ground, the MAIN ENGINE CUT-OFF
      (MECO) command is given.  The External tank is discarded 20
      seconds later.  The Orbiter maneuvers down and to the left of the
      tank which will splash down in a remote ocean area.
      Remember - throughout the ascent, you travel "upside down" with
      your head toward the ground." 

(From The Space Shuttle Operators Manual, quoted a while ago by Dale Amon).


>   ME: The shuttle payload must whithstand going from 1 atm to
>   vacuum during takeoff, and from frying to freezing many times
>   over when in orbit.  

>   HENRY: So must any payload flown on an unmanned launcher, and
>   they have rather less stringent requirements imposed on them.

>   PHIL KARN: Henry is right about the max G loads on the shuttle;
>   they're about 3G.  This *is* gentler than many expendables.
>   From the figures I have, I compute a peak acceleration of about
>   4.5G for the Ariane 1, just before 2nd stage cutoff.
>   ...  The kick motor on AMSAT Phase III-A would have produced
>   about 7-8G just before burnout.  

Agreed, but Henry's original posting was comparing shuttles with cargo
planes, not with expendables.  

>   HENRY: ...  There is a *large* difference between being
>   space-qualified and being shuttle-qualified.  ...  NASA has no
>   interest in achieving a compromise between safety and utility
>   -- the sort of compromise that is necessary for almost any
>   aircraft.  On the contrary, NASA has every reason to shoot for
>   the highest possible level of safety even if it makes the
>   shuttle nearly useless.  

Obviously I cannot tell whether NASA's safety regulations for the
shuttle are excessive or not.  My point is that it is perfectly
reasonable for those regulations to be stricter than for expendables,
given that the shuttle is manned, reusable, and more delicate than an
expendable.  

As for being manned, it doesn't matter how much risk the astronauts are
willing to take for the glory of NASA.  Every manager or engineer on
the ground still is morally required to worry about their safety ---
much, much more than what he would be expected to worry in the case of 
an unmanned vehicle.  

As for reusability, in an expendable launch the only party who really
needs to worry about payload safety is the payload owner, since he is
the only one who stands to lose in case of an accident.  Even when for
expendables carrying multiple payloads, safety requirements should in
principle be a matter of negotiation between the two or three customers
involved.  In contrast, with a reusable shuttle the potential loss to
the launching agency is 10-100 times greater than to any customer; so,
it makes perfect sense for the agency to be fussy about safety, even to
the point of losing customers or defaulting on a couple of contracts.  

Finally, a shuttle is necessarily more complex than an expendable, and
hence much more delicate --- there are more critical parts that may go
wrong, the design safety margins are smaller, the operating regimes are
more varied, and so on.  Therefore, damage to the vehicle --- say,
during payload deployment --- can have much more serious consequences
for the shuttle than for expendables.  

Jorge Stolfi
stolfi@src.dec.com, ...!decwrl!stolfi
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Several workmen, it is true, had paid with their lives for the rashness
    inherent in such dangerous projects. But these fatal accidents are
    impossible to prevent, and Americans worry very little about such
    details. They show more concern for humanity in general than for
    individuals in particular. Barbicane, however, profesed contrary
    principles, and tried to carry them out at every opportunity.
      -- Verne, _From the Earth to the Moon_ (1865)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: 31 May 88 07:28:50 GMT
From: agate!brahms!desj@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (David desJardins)
Subject: Re: Bureaucracy vs.  space

In article <13082@jumbo.dec.com> stolfi@src.dec.com (Jorge Stolfi) writes:
>As for being manned, it doesn't matter how much risk the astronauts are
>willing to take for the glory of NASA.  Every manager or engineer on
>the ground still is morally required to worry about their safety ---
>much, much more than what he would be expected to worry in the case of 
>an unmanned vehicle.  

   We went through this after the Challenger accident, so I won't belabor
the point.  I just want to point out that, as far as I can see, the people
involved should be far more concerned about the $2G+ orbiter than about
seven people.
   You can argue about what value our society puts on human life, but even a
cursory analysis shows that it is several orders of magnitude short of $300M
apiece.

   -- David desJardins

------------------------------

Date: 30 May 88 20:35:47 GMT
From: oxy!doctor_who@csvax.caltech.edu  (Jeffrey Katsumi Hombo)
Subject: space station

Why not just call it orbital station 1

------------------------------

Date: 30 May 88 14:46:36 GMT
From: mcvax!unido!ecrcvax!johng@uunet.uu.net  (John Gregor)
Subject: Re: The launch loop author replies:

In article <2553@vice.TEK.COM> keithl@vice.TEK.COM (Keith Lofstrom) writes:
>
>As John Gregor (a former student of mine and an unabashed partisan for
>the launch loop) observes, 

Actually, I'm an unabashed partisan for getting to space.  The launch loop
is just much more attractive than learning Russian.  Plus I think it's a
good idea.  If it doesn't make it, it should be on technical grounds
(i.e. we have something better), not because it never got a chance.

>it is hard to make a valid criticism of the launch
>loop without reading the technical paper.  

I've only received one request for the paper.  Did anybody out there get
copies on their own.  With all the megabytes flitting over usenet, I'm
curious how many people out there actually take the time to look things up.

>However, John has done an
>able job of answering most of the questions (BRAVO, John), saving me some
>effort.

Thank you very much.

>I've got a new version
>of the paper with the equations in it;  I'll be bringing copies to the 
>Denver conference.

Any chance of it making it on sci.space or comp.doc?  If not, can I
get a copy.

>6)  "Okay, smarty pants, if it's so simple, why aren't you building one?"
>Well, first, I'm lazy.  I wrote the "Analog" article to drum up interest.
>I mailed out around 200 copies of the paper, and wrote hundreds of personal
>letters.  I was hoping someone would steal the ball and run with it. Nuh-uh.

Ok net.world, we have an idea.  What can we do with it.  Anybody know how to
get research grants?  This is also a very viable means of storing LARGE
quantities of energy (DOE?).  How about Universities that have the people,
resources, and clout to do some initial studies (I'm a relatively soon
to be grad student looking for a project)?  Come on people, brainstorm!
What can WE do?  The next three paragraphs sum up my feelings about space
as well as any other manifesto ever has.

>8)  "Why do this?"  Well, I want to live and work in space.  I don't want to
>make somebody else pay for it, so it must be affordable.  Since nobody else
>is working on $10/lb low-gee launch systems, I guess it's my job.  Sure the
>thing is too damn big.  So are the alternatives, and they yield a much smaller
>payback for the same investment.  If somebody out there has a system that will 
>accomplish the same ends with a smaller investment, PLEASE LET ME KNOW!  I'll
>send them money.  I'll build their electronics.  I'll clean their toilets if
>they need it!

Be careful, Jessica Hahn got started by cleaning toilets :-)

>I may not get into space by working on the launch loop, or even helping on
>some yet-to-be-defined better system.  But I sure as hell WON'T get there
>by telling somebody else how hard it is.  If there were easy solutions, we'd
>already be there!

>Forty years from now, when you're in the back of the ambulance racing to the
>hospital, while the EMT is trying to restart your heart, you may have other
>regrets, but mine will probably be "I didn't make it into space".  Most of
>the current crop of space "activists" will be dead before it's affordable to
>go there.  Whose fault is that?
>-- 
>Keith Lofstrom   ...!tektronix!vice!keithl   keithl@vice.TEK.COM
>MS 59-316, Tektronix, PO 500, Beaverton OR 97077  (503)-627-4052

When I was a kid, I believed all the NASA hype -- shuttle real soon now,
missions to mars, moon bases, 10,000 person colonies etc.  All of it was
supposed to be there by now.  Well, it's now folks.  And now I'm not
sure if any of it is even going to make it in my lifetime any more.

-- 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

John Gregor                                       johng%ecrcvax.UUCP@pyramid.COM

------------------------------

Date: 30 May 88 14:58:35 GMT
From: mcvax!unido!ecrcvax!johng@uunet.uu.net  (John Gregor)
Subject: Some more launch loop stuff...

I sent this to Dani Eder by email, but I don't see any reason not to
put it on the net.  Also, I'd really like to see more discussion on the
following:

1) The launch loop -- obviously.
2) Other methods to orbit within todays technology.
3) What we can do.  In industry, academia, on usenet, via letters
   to congresscritters, etc.

>>>>---------- ------------- ------------- ------------ ------------ ---
In article <1918@ssc-vax.UUCP> you write:
>Not only have I read the paper, but I know Keith.  In fact, he was
>on usenet at one time (you out there?).  The advanced propulsion
>community is really a very small one.  
>
I know Keith also.  Way back when, when I was in high school, I
worked on his "floater" (suspended magnetic bar) demo.

I know he is still around on the net.  I saw his vote in the summary
for sci.nanotech a few weeks back.

>400 tons of cargo is a piddly-ass amount.  One airport runway
>with a stream of 727s taking off represents 1200 tons of
>passengers and cargo. 

I was comparing it to what our present launch capacity is, not what we
do with planes.  Do you know of some launch devices that could handle
jet sized cargo?

>Define 'we'.

It was late.  Not my best literary work.  I guess in the broadest 
category, 'we' could mean humanity, but I didn't mail it to kremvax. :-)
So, I guess it meant the US (my current location not withstanding).  In
the most specific sense, I guess 'we' could mean myself and the person
reading the posting.  I guess I should have rephrased it to be:  "Why
haven't I heard more about this (and other) design ideas.  Who has looked
at it?  What do you think?  Why?"

>My personal opinion of the launch loop is that is is an overly
>complex solution to the problem with failure modes that could
>be used for special effects in a George Lucas film.
>
True.  The megaSagans (million and billions) of Joules being dumped
into the ocean would make a rather spectacular scene...

> [ Lots of stuff regarding the ribbon composition and D-magnets ]
>The turnarounds at each end are done by big magnets.

14km diameter....big.... yeah, I guess they are big. :-)

>What I worry about is what happens if one of the turning magnets
>fails (keeping in mind that everything manmade fails eventually)
>then the ribbon continues straight into the ground behind
>the turning magnet, creating a pile of slag in a crater , as
>for several minutes a continuous stream of one pound
>slugs hits the ground at 11,000 rounds per second.  

More likely the magnets would be sea based.  No crater, but many
suprised (and cooked) fish.  The D-magnet segments are the most
critical portion of the loop.  I think they can stand the failure of 
a few segments, but loss of power or a clever terrorist would
lead to failure.  I think a lot of the structure could be salvaged
from such a failure however.

>On the
>return leg of the loop, a part of the ribbon is missing.  
>The resulting unbalanaced forces may leave metal strips
>flying every which way in earth orbit.

I had never thought of the instability of having a missing W->E ribbon.
I'd need a very good model of the system and a few cray hours to know
if control would still be possible.  My guess is yes.  The track is
there to damp oscillations in the ribbon,  I think it could still do
that while falling.  Also, the segments wouldn't wind up in Earth orbit.
They would go into solar orbit.  Nothing like having a few thousand
one kilo chunks of iron flying about in an earth intersecting solar
orbit. :-(  Maybe it would be a good test of our ability to clean up 
space junk.

>To my way of looking at design, I would like my support
>structure to be passive rather than active.  The loop in the
>launch loop is what holds up the structure by moving
>at super-orbital speeds.  The same result can be obtained
>with a tower made of modern structural materials
>(such as graphite epoxy for compressive columns and
>fiberglass/kevlar/polyethelyne fo guy wires.)

Is this possible now?  I think stability of that structure would be
almost as hard as for the loop.  What are some of the non-rocket,
non-classified methods of launching that you have looked at?  
References to papers are welcome.

Active systems fail.  That's a fact of life.  Airplanes use a much
more active support system than trains.  They also fail in many more
and spectacular ways.  We use them, however, because they are more
cost effective.  The shuttle and NASP aren't exactly the most passive
systems around either.

>You can support an accelerator (linear motor, mass
>driver, whatever) from a series of towers of increasing
>height with suspension bridges strung between the
>towers.  If the power goes down, your structure does not
>fall out of the sky.
>
>Using towers also allows for incremental construction.

Again, is this within the capability of today's materials?  Any references?

BTW, Glad to know you are still around, I hadn't seen any postings for 
a while.

>34 40 N latitude 86 40 W longitude +280 ft altitude, Earth

And all this time I though you were working out of Seattle.  I should
read signatures more often.  So much for getting a tour when I go home...:-)

				   John
-- 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

John Gregor                                       johng%ecrcvax.UUCP@pyramid.COM

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #260
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU;  7 Jul 88 06:21:08 EDT
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA02740; Thu, 7 Jul 88 03:22:12 PDT
	id AA02740; Thu, 7 Jul 88 03:22:12 PDT
Date: Thu, 7 Jul 88 03:22:12 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8807071022.AA02740@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #261

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 261

Today's Topics:
	A coherent, efficient and well directed space program
			     Space Cities
	     Re: Ruskies find Heaven to the left of Pluto
		 Re: The launch loop author replies:
		      Re: Bureaucracy vs.  space
			  Re: women in space
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Reply-To: pnet01!jim@trout.nosc.mil
Date: Mon, 30 May 88 19:31:05 PDT
From: jim@pnet01.cts.com (Jim Bowery)
To: crash!space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: A coherent, efficient and well directed space program


Dale Skran (not Amon) writes:

> This is the core of Mr. Bowery's thinking. Instead of subsidizing the
> aerospace corporations, the NASA budget will be doled out to countless
> professors and grad students, who by some miracle of organization, will
> generate a coherent, efficient, well directed space program.
> 
> Translation: stop spending money in such a way that it benefits
> engineers who work for large corporations. Instead, spend money in such
> a way that it benefits my friends who do research at universities and
> small companies.

The miracle of organization is the same miracle of organization that
serves ANY market:  Some businesses figure out there is a lot of money
to be made providing goods and services by looking for where the money
is.  This is called "market research." (One of those capitalist
 running-dog lackie concepts.)  Then they get funding by developing a 
business plan and going out for investors (there's those capitalist
swine again, trying to make a PROFIT) who look at the plan and the
market under a scanning tunneling microscope to make sure it makes
sense (of course, they couldn't possibly do as good a job as the
 extraordinarily insightful, intelligent, creative, critical and
 thoughtful project managers in NASA who come up with systems like
 Shuttle and Space Station and will have a job tomorrow no matter 
 how badly they screw up with your money).  This money from investors is 
then spent by the poor deprived ENGINEERS who I am so selfishly victimizing 
by not letting them work on cost+ government contracts conceived and managed
by NASA bureaucrats.  (By the way, I am an engineer and I know a lot
more engineers paid by government contract than I do scientists in
universities and small companies.)

The really Draconian and Evil thing about this Heresy is that if the market 
researchers, project planners, investors and engineers get together to do 
something of intrinsic beauty and value like design, develop and operate a 
manned vehicle to deliver satellites to orbit and then blow one up because 
they were just a little, uh, "careless" about things -- they'll go BANKRUPT!
OUT OF BUSINESS!  And worst of all... THEY MIGHT HAVE TO BECOME PRODUCTIVE 
MEMBERS OF OUR SOCIETY!!!  Dale really should tell Gorby on me -- oh wait...
Gorby is turning into a capitalist swine too...  Is there no hope for
the Revolution?

> Said organizations are working very hard to support private launch
> operations. A current target is making sure that the DOT gets enough
> dollars to process all their applications for private launch services.
> 
> If Mr. Bowery was looking for constructive ways to help
> NSS/Spacecause/Spacepac achieve the goal of a strong private launch
> industry, he would find a lot to do, and a lot of people who agreed with
> him. Unfortunately, he has chosen to devote his energies to a series of
> wild and unsubstantiated attacks on various individuals in leadership
> positions.

First, I'd like to thank Dale for continuing to bring up this issue
so I can continue to bring damning facts about these organizations
to the attention of the public.

It's interesting that my attempts to influence these organizations
previously failed to achieve any effect, but when I started treating
these folks like the "bad children" they were, they all of a sudden
start behaving themselves!  Good for them!  Let's see more PRO-space
legislative action now that they've gotten the picture.  For example,
get SpaceCause to stop avoiding support for CDSF -- oh I forgot... Sandra 
Adamson would be the person responsible for that and she works on Space 
Station.  I will resume cooperation with the Legislative Committee, SpacePAC 
and SpaceCause the day all Directors of these organizations are free of
aerospace industry funding.

Oh well.  I guess I'll have slap some of these bad children around
some more until they REALLY get the picture.  Isn't it horrible the way 
we can write congressmen and get RESULTS in this INCOHERENT, INEFFICIENT
and UNDIRECTED Democracy of ours?  It's about time we put a bunch of
NASA managers in charge of the whole thing to make it coherent,
efficient and well directed like the Shuttle program!  ;-)

>>> Replace the leadership of these bodies AND act on your OWN to support
>
> Translation: elect Mr. Bowery to the NSS board

I decided to go ahead and see what I could do to bring out this issue
prior to the International Space Development Conference in Denver
knowing full well that it would be political suicide.  I will not be
elected to the board of directors of NSS and doubt there would have
been much of a chance anyway given the way the nominating committee
was set up by SpacePAC's founder, Mark Hopkins.  Since there wasn't
much of a chance, I decided to become a guided missile locked onto
Mark's organizations to see if I could make a difference.  Apparently
I did, which is more effect than most people have who are elected to 
the Board.  Maybe if Mark Hopkins' nominating committee wasn't
a self-perpetuating political tool in support of Mark's political
action organizations, people like me would choose to work WITHIN the
Society instead of having to involve the authorities to clean up
the mess he's making of NSS and of our space program.

PS:  Yes, I know that CDSF isn't as "commercial" as it used to be
but it is a LOT more "commercial" than Space Station, and it makes
a LOT more sense.  So either start lobbying against Space Station
or start lobbying FOR CDSF, if it isn't already too late.

Yes I've heard the excuses about how lobbying for CDSF might
jeopardize the Space Settlement Act and I don't buy it for a second.
The stories given by Scott Pace and Sandra Adamson about this issue
during the candidate's forum at the IDSDC didn't mesh and the whole thing is 
on VIDEOTAPE.  Rid the Legislative Committee of everyone working on Space 
Station, send out another, unbiased, questionaire to NSS membership about what

they want to see happen in space, rewrite the NSS policy statement that was 
originally written by Space Station contract employees, and they might be able

to start to rebuild their credibility.  As of now, this conflict is bringing 
out and emphasizing facts that are progressively destroying the credibility 
of the political action organizations which is as it should be until they 
are cleaned up.  

The rumors that NSS's lawyer is considering a lawsuit against me is only 
adding evidence to my case.  It isn't going to intimidate me.  If anyone 
can substantiate this rumor, or the rumor that NSS's lawyer is also a lawyer 
for NASA, please contact me with the information.

PPS:  To those who think I should be "nicer" about all this -- consider
the fact that an average person's approximate actuarial value to society 
is $1,000,000 and that NASA spends the equivalent of about 10,000 
idealistic and enthusiastic human lives every year even as they bring us 
closer to the day that we may loose our chance to grow beyond this pressure 
cooker, thus threatening most of the life on Earth.  There maybe situations 
in which it is good to be very relativistic and tolerant of unethical 
behavior and human waste -- this isn't one of them.

PPPS:  I just picked up the dictionary and it fell open to page 666
       "knowledgeability * kremlinology".  Must be shere coincidence -- 
       just like oracle 36 when Challenger blew.

Webster's nineth new collegiate dictionary gives the following definition:

conflict of interest (1951): a conflict between the private interests
and the official responsibilities of a person in a position of trust
(as a government or corporate official)

UUCP: {cbosgd, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!pnet01!jim
ARPA: crash!pnet01!jim@nosc.mil
INET: jim@pnet01.cts.com

------------------------------

Date: 30 May 88 16:16:04 GMT
From: uflorida!novavax!maddoxt@umd5.umd.edu  (Thomas Maddox)
Subject: Space Cities


          Space Cities--Problems, Proposals, Questions

     The following material represents a somewhat formal version of some
informal queries that I posed to the net a brief while ago, concerning
the design of a fictive but real space city.  
	(My ideal is, in Marianne Moore's words , "Imaginary gardens
with real toads.")

(1) General design characteristics:

     So far as I know, the accepted general designs fall into
rotating torus, sphere, or cylinder, all providing spin-induced
forces approximating gravity.  
     I am currently using the "Stanford torus" model, as outlined
in T. A. Heppenheimer's _Colonies in Space_.  (Slightly over a
mile in diameter, with a 1 rpm spin rate, central hub 400 feet in
diameter, six spokes 50 feet wide going to an outer rim.)  
     (One somewhat curious elaboration from the Heppenheimer book
I plan to use:  the city will occupy a "2:1 resonant orbit" that
is 200,000 miles from Earth at farthest point, 100,000 miles at
closest.  In terms of narrative possibility, it provides openings
and in general seems less boring than the usual "L5" colony"  Any
ideas on this?)
     Given what I know, this seems at once roomy (10,000 people, sight 
lines of 1/2 mile) and conservative, i.e., basically, a current-
technology extrapolation of early visions of space cities.  

     Questions:  
     Has anyone suggested (a) *absolutely necessary*
modifications of this design (because of, e.g., newly-discovered
constraints) or (b) nice variations on it?  
     Has anyone proposed an arguably superior design?  

[I am most definitely inviting *your own* comment and conjecture.] 

(2) Staying alive:

     Currently I am assuming that building materials will come
from the Moon, that food and oxygen will be supplied by
agriculture.  Anyone know of interesting research that's been
done within the past few years on such topics?  
     
	In particular, I'm interested in details about the total
ecology--which types of plants and animals can one expect to
flourish together in the space city?  What are the constraints? 
(Currently I'm thinking bright, tropical vegetation, the city as
New Eden, lush and beautiful.  Any reason not to do so?  Anything
concrete to add?)

(3) Bright ideas:

     Of any sort.  What vistas can you see opening up in a space
city, what unique possibilities that one cannot expect life on
Earth to provide?
     Art, entertainment, politics, sex, drugs, rock and roll. 
You name it.  All entries welcome.

(4) A particular problem:

     I want to have my city dwellers snag a metal-rich asteroid. 
I'm almost totally unclear on a few essentials.  How big can it
reasonably be?  (I want it to have enough size to sustain tunnels
in which a few a characters are going to have Amazing Adventures;
I want it to be transportable.)  Where is a good place for them
to get it?  ("Asteroid Belt" meaning exactly what in this
context?)  The idea is that some semi-expert robotic prospecting
machines have located it, stuck some kind of rockets on it
(probably fusion powered, using asteroid material, anything wrong
with that?), and brought it back to the space city, which is
orbiting as above.  
     In summary, my big questions:  *How big can the thing be,
where will they find it, what will its exact composition be, and
how long will it take them to get it home?*

(5) General considerations:

     While I am very interested in having a clean, sound design,
I do not feel constrained by current theory/technology at too
detailed a level.  I.e., if I or anyone else comes up with a
lovely idea that reaches a little beyond the limits of the
currently acceptable, that's fine, if the idea generates good
narrative.
     Also, for those of you (which may be all of you) unfamiliar
with my fiction, a few observations:  my sf is new school (no
Heinleinian digressions on the nature of the good life, high-tech 
(in the cyberpunk mode, I reckon), high-style (for better or 
worse, eh?).  If you read (or have read) "Snake Eyes" (anthologized in
_Mirrorshades_) or "The Robot and the One You Love" in the March,
'88 _Omni_, these are representative pieces.  

     So, finally, let me thank you in advance for your stated
willingness to help.  I'll certainly thank you individually,
summarizing what I've learned, and probably will post a summary
of results, unless you all have gone home for the summer or the
millenium and don't respond.

------------------------------

Date: 31 May 88 20:27:08 GMT
From: nsc!ken@decwrl.dec.com  (Ken Trant)
Subject: Re: Ruskies find Heaven to the left of Pluto

in article <12797@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU>, khayo@sonia.math.ucla.edu (Eric Behr) says:
% Yeah, yeah, we want more, we are all bored to death with those silly,
% uninformative, beside-the-point, endless summaries that Henry Spencer
% somehow finds time to pound into his keyboard ...............
%                                                        Eric

 Maybe your bored, But who cares?, keep it up Henry!.


-- 
PATH= Second star to the right,          {...Ken Trant...}
      and straight on till morning 
"Official Sponsor, US Olympic Team" {...Merrill Lynch Realty...}
                               415-651-3131    *:-)    408-721-8158

------------------------------

Date: 31 May 88 18:37:35 GMT
From: s.cc.purdue.edu!ain@h.cc.purdue.edu  (Patrick White)
Subject: Re: The launch loop author replies:

In article <550@ecrcvax.UUCP> johng@ecrcvax.UUCP (John Gregor) writes:
>In article <2553@vice.TEK.COM> keithl@vice.TEK.COM (Keith Lofstrom) writes:
>>it is hard to make a valid criticism of the launch
>>loop without reading the technical paper.  

   Two questions if you please...

   1) since I picked up this discussion in the middle, where/how can I get a
      copy of this paper?
   
   2) how big would this thing have to be to put a 1 lb payload into orbit..
      or even sub-orbital?  like, could someone build a model one in their
      backyard or something?

   Thanks muchly.


-- Pat White
ARPA/UUCP: j.cc.purdue.edu!ain  BITNET: PATWHITE@PURCCVM  PHONE: (317) 743-8421
U.S.  Mail:  320 Brown St. apt. 406,    West Lafayette, IN 47906

------------------------------

Date: 31 May 88 22:38:26 GMT
From: thumper!karn@faline.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: Bureaucracy vs.  space

> >   PHIL KARN: Henry is right about the max G loads on the shuttle;
> >   they're about 3G.  This *is* gentler than many expendables.

> Agreed, but Henry's original posting was comparing shuttles with cargo
> planes, not with expendables.  

Comparing the Space Shuttle with a cargo airplane is utterly pointless
since they provide a completely different service. The Space Cadets seem
to make careers of "proving" things by analogy, relevant or otherwise.

By similar logic, one could compare a dialup telephone modem with a null
modem and conclude that there must be something grossly wrong with the
management of all the major modem companies because their products are
so much bigger, slower and more expensive.

In case you haven't figured it out yet, there is a world of difference
between building airplanes and building space launchers. The fact that
we went from Orville and Wilbur to the 747 and affordable air transport
in a single human lifespan is not "proof" that the same rate of progress
in space transportation could occur "if only the Government would get
out of the way". Not only is the reasoning false, but it undervalues the
considerable contributions that governments have made to both
technologies, for whatever reasons.

Phil

------------------------------

Date: 31 May 88 15:54:58 GMT
From: steinmetz!sungoddess!oconnor@itsgw.rpi.edu  (Dennis M. O'Connor)
Subject: Re: women in space

An article by clopez@ORION.CF.UCI.EDU ("Carlos A. lopez") says:
] [...] individuals with slow-twitch muscle fibers might be better suited to 
] extended voyages than those with a fast-twitch physiology, regardless of 
] sex.  They use oxygen better, and tend to have less muscle mass.
] 
]    (Quick biology lesson: slow-twitch muscle fibers contract slower, but
] can do so longer because they use oxygen better.  Fast-twitch fibers
] contract faster, and more powerfully, but tire quickly. [...])

  Remedial biology lesson : you are confusing (fast|slow)-twitch
  with (high|low) oxidative. It is entirely possible ( usually
  through interval training ) to develop fast-twitch high-oxidative
  muscles which, unlike normal fast-twitch muscles, do not 
  produce the high levels of lactic acid associated with fatigue.
  Prime example of fast-twitch high-oxidative athletes :
  mile runners, standardbreds.
--
 Dennis O'Connor   oconnor%sungod@steinmetz.UUCP  ARPA: OCONNORDM@ge-crd.arpa
    "The object of socialization is to teach wolves that they are sheep."

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #261
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU;  8 Jul 88 06:26:07 EDT
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA05144; Fri, 8 Jul 88 03:22:53 PDT
	id AA05144; Fri, 8 Jul 88 03:22:53 PDT
Date: Fri, 8 Jul 88 03:22:53 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8807081022.AA05144@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #262

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 262

Today's Topics:
	     Re: Ruskies find Heaven to the left of Pluto
 passive vs. active support (was Re: Some more launch loop stuff...)
			   Re: Space suits
			   Re: Space suits
		 Re: The launch loop author replies:
	     Re: Ruskies find Heaven to the left of Pluto
			   Re: Space Suits
		     Re: that Canadian guy again
		       Recycling Pershing-II's
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 31 May 88 23:53:13 GMT
From: bobmon@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu  (RAMontante)
Subject: Re: Ruskies find Heaven to the left of Pluto

ken@nsc.nsc.com (Ken Trant) writes:

,khayo@sonia.math.ucla.edu (Eric Behr) says:
,% Yeah, yeah, we want more, we are all bored to death with those silly,
,% uninformative, beside-the-point, endless summaries that Henry Spencer
,% somehow finds time to pound into his keyboard ...............
,%                                                        Eric

Was I out-of-step again by assuming that this was sarcastic and
tongue-in-cheek?
,
, Maybe your bored, But who cares?, keep it up Henry!.
        ^^^^
What about my bored? :-)

Yes, Henry, please keep up the summaries, the synopses, even the opinions.
Otherwise...
	HELP ME!!!
	I'm a poor college student, just finished my M.S., workin' on
	Piling it Higher and Deeper, etc., and *I DON'T HAVE ENOUGH MONEY
	FOR MY OWN AW&ST SUBSCRIPTION!!  So won't you please help?  Send...
(You get th' idea.)

------------------------------

Date: 31 May 88 21:30:22 GMT
From: silver!chiaravi@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu  (Lucius Chiaraviglio)
Subject: passive vs. active support (was Re: Some more launch loop stuff...)

In article <551@ecrcvax.UUCP> johng@ecrcvax.UUCP (John Gregor) writes:
>Active systems fail.  That's a fact of life.  Airplanes use a much
>more active support system than trains.  They also fail in many more
>and spectacular ways.  We use them, however, because they are more
>cost effective.  The shuttle and NASP aren't exactly the most passive
>systems around either.

	Actually, trains are more cost-effective than planes when all other
things are equal.  One reason that planes are used more than trains today in
the U. S. is that all other things are NOT equal -- the government supports
the infrastructure needed for air travel MUCH MORE than it supports the rail
infrastructure -- otherwise we would most likely still have an extensive and
decent-quality rail network and only limited air travel -- something like what
one sees in European countries.  In fact, if we are to cope with upcoming
energy shortages, pollution problems, safety problems, and other problems, we
are going to have to move in that direction, but that's a subject for a whole
different newsgroup.  The other reason people use planes instead of trains is
that many people are willing to pay more to go faster.

	Now, for getting into space, it doesn't look like passive structures
are going to cut it -- the cost of a passive structure is going to rise at
least with the fourth power of its height, all other things being equal (which
they aren't), because merely increasing all linear dimensions gives you a
structure that is proportionately weaker in comparison to its weight.  I don't
know how actively-supported self-propelled vehicle cost scales up with how
high it has to go but I'm pretty sure it isn't as bad as the fourth power of
the height.

>>You can support an accelerator (linear motor, mass
>>driver, whatever) from a series of towers of increasing
>>height with suspension bridges strung between the
>>towers.  If the power goes down, your structure does not
>>fall out of the sky.
>>
>>Using towers also allows for incremental construction.
>
>Again, is this within the capability of today's materials?  Any references?

	I see no reason why the support structures for a linear accelerator
wouldn't be within the capability of today's materials -- particularly if you
use mountains as part of your support structure.  This kind of hybrid
approach, where passive support is used part of the way (in the part before
the cost gets scaled to the point of unfavorability), followed by ballistic
and/or powered flight, is something that should be considered.  However, I
don't have a clue as to whether that or self-powered hyperspeed air-breathing
vehicles (like the National Aerospace Plane but without the myriad foulups
that the NASA and the rest of the government are sure to put into it) would be
more cost-effective.  Perhaps the best approach would be the following kind of
hybrid:  low-end linear accelerator gets air-breathing vehicle up to the speed
at which scramjets become reasonably efficient, then air-breathing vehicle
uses its scramjets to get out of the atmosphere at suborbital speed (it has
been said that scramjets start to have trouble at speeds over Mach 20, so Mach
20 is suggested); finally, rocket-powered vehicle piggybacked on air-breathing
vehicle gets into orbit while air-breathing vehicle re-enters (since it's not
quite up to orbital speed) and lands for turnaround.

	Oh well -- if I can think of any way to get to the stars by train,
I'll for sure let you know. . . .

	-- Lucius Chiaraviglio
	   chiaravi@silver.bacs.indiana.edu
	   lucius@tardis.harvard.edu	(in case the first one doesn't work)
	Maybe your next spaceflight should be on a train.
	STARTRAK

------------------------------

Date: 30 May 88 13:55:59 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!its63b!bob@uunet.uu.net  (ERCF08 Bob Gray)
Subject: Re: Space suits

In article <1988May28.214926.2063@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>However, note that neither existing manned spacecraft nor existing spacesuits
>are contamination-free; far from it.  I doubt that the space activity suit
>would be spectacularly worse.

Even if the activity suit is outgassing all sorts of
contaminants, the solution would be as simple as puting on a
thin sealed plastic isolation suit like on earth. It doesn't
need to hold any pressure, just channel escaping gas away.
	Bob.

------------------------------

Date: 30 May 88 14:51:52 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!its63b!bob@uunet.uu.net  (ERCF08 Bob Gray)
Subject: Re: Space suits

In article <1988May22.011409.16510@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>
>...NASA
>displays no interest in pursuing the scheme further, even though it funded
>the original work and nobody has found any real flaws.  If one were being
>cynical, one might suspect an overly-cozy relationship between NASA and its
>current space-suit suppliers; it wouldn't be the first time.

And in article: <426@unisv.UUCP> vanpelt@unisv.UUCP (Mike Van Pelt) writes:
>Sounds bogus to me.  ....
>....  Probably (1) NIH  and (2) not expensive enough.

One idea which occured to me is that, how can I put this,
the the skin of the female body is much easier to support
and pressurise than that of the male.

A large patch of strategically placed sticky tape, or
its high-tech equivalent, would be enough to prevent
escape of gas and liquids from the lower body openings, and
to protect the more delicate tissues there.

Support to pressurise the skin of male body would be more
difficult to devise, and would be extremely uncomfortable to wear.

The advantage would then be in employing female astronauts
for all EVA work.

Or am I overestimating the amount of support the more
delicate skin tissues need?

And also, has any thought been given to using this suit
design for the lightweight suits needed on Mars if and when
expeditions go there?
	Bob.

------------------------------

Date: 1 Jun 88 01:22:39 GMT
From: dietz@cu-arpa.cs.cornell.edu  (Paul F. Dietz)
Subject: Re: The launch loop author replies:

In article <2553@vice.TEK.COM> keithl@vice.TEK.COM (Keith Lofstrom) writes:
>2)  Loop technology is useful for other things, and this provides a growth
>path for the technology.  Underground power storage and transmission may be
>possible (this depends on real world small-bore rock tunneling costs, an
>unknown).
...
>6)  "Okay, smarty pants, if it's so simple, why aren't you building one?"
>Well, first, I'm lazy.  I wrote the "Analog" article to drum up interest.
>I mailed out around 200 copies of the paper, and wrote hundreds of personal
>letters.  I was hoping someone would steal the ball and run with it. Nuh-uh.

What about those fellows at Argonne?  Directly inspired by Keith's
launch loop proposal -- they even cite the Analog article -- they noticed
magnetically confined flywheels have excellent scaling properties
(energy stored per unit system mass scales linearly with radius).  They
have published several papers on their concepts (see, for example,
"Magnetically Confined Kinetic-Energy Storage Ring Using Attractive
Levitation", J. R. Hull et. al., IEEE Trans. on Energy Conversion,
Vol. EC-2, No. 4, Dec. 1987, pp. 586-591).  They have a neat scheme for
making attractive levitation passively stable using the strong
focusing principle -- a spinoff of particle accelerator research
-- that might be useful in the 180 degree bending sections of
a launch loop.

> "Simple" towers built around 2Km/sec ribbons can poke above
> the atmosphere, and are useful for scientific observations...

I still like the idea of levitating a superconducting cable using
j x B forces, B the geomagnetic field, possibly augmented with
ground cables running in the opposite direction.  It's passively
stable, although it does fall if the circuit breaks.  You need
pretty fierce current densities for this to work, though.

	Paul F. Dietz
	dietz@gvax.cs.cornell.edu

------------------------------

Date: 1 Jun 88 03:30:39 GMT
From: sonia!khayo@cs.ucla.edu  (Eric Behr)
Subject: Re: Ruskies find Heaven to the left of Pluto

In article <9271@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> bobmon@iuvax.UUCP (RAMontante) writes:
 >ken@nsc.nsc.com (Ken Trant) writes:
 >,khayo@sonia.math.ucla.edu (Yours sincerely) says:
 >,% Yeah, yeah, we want more, we are all bored to death with those silly,
 >,% uninformative, beside-the-point, endless summaries that Henry Spencer
 >(etc.)
 >Was I out-of-step again by assuming that this was sarcastic and
 >tongue-in-cheek?
No, you weren't - but did you have to say this? I was beginning to have
a real ball...
                                                       Eric

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 31 May 88 10:41 EDT
From: ELIOT%cs.umass.edu@relay.cs.net
Subject: Re: Space Suits

    The best concept I have seen for a rigid space suit has already
    been built in prototype form - for the movie 2001.   The problem
    of staying still without using gross amounts of fuel would remain,
    but I would try to address that in the basic design of a space
    station.  The first thing to build should be a tiny monorail
    track (a single aluminum I beam).  Two more attached parallel
    tracks would give the beam structural stability and serve
    as permanent mounting beams for modules.  (Solar wings, gas/fuel
    tanks, antenae etc.)  There would be a single construction/repair
    site and an automated system for moving packages between attachment
    points and the construction site.  Since movement and attachment
    is along rails it falls within the capacity of current robot
    technology.  (Everything is rigid so the motions can be
    precisely described/programmed ahead of time.)  Furthermore,
    the whole structure can be extended by making the rails longer.

------------------------------

Date: 31 May 88 17:00:25 GMT
From: pacbell!att!alberta!mnetor!utzoo!henry@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: that Canadian guy again

> I bet he's a Space Alien -- does anybody know if his socks match?

You lose -- it's summer (well, effectively so, in Toronto at least) and I've
switched to sandals, so it's been weeks since I last wore socks!
-- 
"For perfect safety... sit on a fence|  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
and watch the birds." --Wilbur Wright| {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Subject: Recycling Pershing-II's
Date: Wed, 01 Jun 88 09:49:17 -0400
From: Fred Baube <fbaube@note.nsf.gov>


[Moderator - Please feel free to abridge this]

Today's (Wed 1 June) Washington Post describes how they will not
go to a complete waste.  Article by R. Jeffrey Smith, WP Staff
Writer, excerpted without permission.

There is a photo captioned, "A technician practices sawing up a
US ground-launched cruise missile that has been drained of jet
engine fuel."

Further:
"Each side will attempt to reclaim a portion of its hefty
investment in the weapons by reusing missile components and
associated equipment that are excluded from the INF constraints.
The Soviets, for example, will modify nearly 1000 missile-
launching vehicles under US inspection and use them to transport
timber or large pipes, at an estimated savings equivalent to $73
million.

[The Soviets will also reclaim precious metals] from missile
guidance systems, and extract plutonium from warheads for use in
civilian reactors.

Arms negotiator Alexei Obukhov claimed that 'electronic instru-
mentation' from the missiles would be used in 'radio engineering
or television'.  These efforts will not be subject to US
monitoring.

The US Army will retain several hundred truck cabs .. plus
associated radios, generators and tool kits.  76 cruise missile
launch control centers, worth $6 million each, will be modified
for re-use in unspecified Air Force programs.

Another $114 million worth of cruise missile motors and guidance
sytems will be given to the Navy for installation in nuclear-
tipped SLCM's .. Studies are underway on re-using the nuclear
warheads in new US ALCM's and SLCM's that fall just outside the
INF constraints.

Although the theaty is widely said to be the first to eliminate
an entire category of nuclear missiles, it allows each side to
retain 15 missiles and launchers, to be irreversibly modified for
harmless public display as a memorial to one of the most novel
arms treaties ever achieved."

Another story, also by the same writer, describes the atmosphere
at the Hercules, Inc. plant west of Salt Lake City, where Soviet
inspectors will be stationed for the next 13 years.

"'Russians are coming, Russians are coming' screamed a recent
headline in the company magazine ..

Company officials are concerned that the Soviets .. will purloin
company secrets .. and that the Pentagon will think twice about
placing new orders at a plant where the Soviets can inspect much
of what comes and goes thru the main gate.

Their fears have been assuaged only partly by written orders from
[Carlucci and others] barring such discrimination, and by an NSA
pledge to make the company's internal communications network
resistant to electronic eavesdropping."

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #262
*******************

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Date: Fri, 8 Jul 88 20:17:27 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8807090317.AA06347@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #263

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 263

Today's Topics:
		    space news from April 25 AW&ST
		     Mobile Foot Restraint device
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 1 Jun 88 02:05:38 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from April 25 AW&ST

[Aviation Week & Space Technology subscription address is PO Box 1505,
Neptune NJ 07754 USA.  Rates depend on whether you are an "unqualified" or
"qualified" subscriber, which basically means whether you look at the ads
for cruise missiles out of curiosity, or out of genuine commercial or
military interest.  Best write for a "qualification card" and try to get
the cheap rate.  US rates are $55 qualified, $70 unqualified at present.
It's weekly, it's thicker than Time or Newsweek, and most of it has nothing
to do with space, so consider whether the price is worth it to you. -- HS]

NASA expects to pick name for space station by June, and has asked its
staff and contractors for ideas.  Rules are:  no acronyms, no names of
living persons, and nothing that is ambiguous or offensive when translated
into the languages of the international partners.

ESA approves astronaut training plan for Hermes and Columbus; HQ will be
in Germany with facilities in several other countries.

Reagan urges Congress to adopt the $11.5G NASA FY89 budget uncut.  The
odds are not good.

Recently revealed:  as part of a routine Minuteman test last fall, SDI
confirmed that minor damage to a missile warhead would prove fatal on
reentry.  A dummy warhead, damaged in a secret way to a secret extent,
self-destructed on reentry.  SDI is crowing about this as a demonstration
that direct hits are not necessary.  [I dunno.  Seems to me that the hard
part is being *sure* that you have inflicted damage; direct hits at those
velocities are unmistakeable.]

USAF to proceed with technology work on antisatellite weapons to replace
the cancelled F-15-launched system.  Leftover funds from the F-15 system
are being used to start a new kinetic-kill system, and lasers are also
being thought about.  One system that is dead is the idea of putting the
F-15 homer on top of a Pershing 2, since the Pershing 2s are to be scrapped.
Something similar might still be done, though.

USAF is re-evaluating the problems of the US inability to do rapid-
reaction launches of military satellites.  Gen. Bernard Randolph (USAF
Systems Command) says existing launch vehicles were not conceived with
rapid response as a goal, although improvements are possible.  He claims
ALS will be designed from the ground up for this.  [My, my, ALS sure is
turning into all things to all people, isn't it?]  [More to the point,
this stuff about existing systems not being conceived for quick response
is utter nonsense.  The Atlas and Titan were ICBMs, for God's sake!  There
were Titans sitting in silos until a year or two ago.  Delta is a Thor
derivative, and there was a time when Thors were theoretically ready to
go on 15 minutes' notice.  Most of the launchers are not quite the same
as the old missile versions, but there is no inherent reason why they
should take four orders of magnitude longer to launch from the word "go".
The problems are with the management, not the hardware, as witness
what the Soviets can do with ex-ICBMs of similar vintage.  ALS will be
no better unless the management improves.]

QM-6 SRB test seems to have been a success.  The boot ring survived.
Things seem to have gone fairly well despite deliberate seal defects.
Further details when the motor is disassembled.

NASA reveals that mission 51J had a boot ring fail, probably very late
in the mission since the boot was intact and there was little bearing
damage.

There is still some puzzlement about the source of the recent insulation
debonds.  NASA is putting a test segment in a vertical position for a
while to see if slumping of the propellant is a factor.  There were some
minor debonds in QM-6, but they were not in vulnerable areas.  The next
test, in July, may deliberately expose some debonds to a hot gas leak
to see what happens.

NASA is considering various possibilities for a space-station crew rescue
vehicle.  One possibility is simply to buy another shuttle orbiter after
the Challenger replacement is built.  A variant on this is the idea of
launching a shuttle unmanned, to get a rescue mission up without risking
further lives.  The shuttle office (which is now in charge of the rescue
vehicle) will report its recommendations to Fletcher in June.  [The shift
of responsibility to the shuttle office is logical in one sense, but in
another it may, um, *limit* serious consideration of non-shuttle ideas.]

In testimony to Congress, Fletcher is holding out for the full $11.5G
FY89 budget, on the grounds that it is all necessary and there is no more
room for cuts.  Congress is not happy, especially since some recent NASA
projects -- notably the Transfer Orbit Stage -- have experienced some
truly massive cost overruns.  Mars Observer doesn't look like it will stay
within budget either.  One hopeful sign is that there is some sentiment
in Congress for either funding the space station 100% or killing it outright.
[Nice to see Fletcher showing some backbone, but this may be the wrong time
for it...]

India signs for two more Ariane launches, in 1990 and 1991.

ESA is considering trying to reactivate Giotto for a flyby of comet Grigg-
Skjellerup in 1992.  Post-Halley analysis shows some damage; in particular,
the pivoting external baffle that kept stray light out of the camera is
gone, probably lost to dust erosion.  Study of the power output of the
solar cells indicates that the baffle is no longer casting a shadow on
them.  The loss of data at closest approach is now thought to have been
due to a combination of slowing of Giotto's spin rate by dust impacts
on the camera baffle and nutation from one or more large impacts.  Both
affected antenna pointing until the on-board systems got things under
control again.  The camera is thought to be still functional.  ESA must
now decide whether to fund reactivation of Giotto, currently in a quiet-
cruise mode, early in 1990 for instrument checkout.  If this is done and
things are okay, ESA would then have to decide on funding the possible
Grigg-Skjellerup encounter.

Japan is considering retargeting Sakigake and Suisei [its Halley probes]
for future comet encounters.  Orbit corrections were made last year to
bring them back near Earth for gravity-boost maneuvers; they will also
return useful data from the Earth's magnetotail during these maneuvers.
Close encounters with Honda-Mrkos-Pajdusakova (Sakigake, 1996) and
Giacobini-Zinner (Suisei, 1998) are among the possible targets.

USAF is pushing NASA for action on its problems with safety boundaries
for shuttle launches, which the USAF thinks are too narrow, and with the
rule that allows mission control to ignore range-safety rules so long as
they declare that the orbiter is under positive control.  One idea is
to establish a backup safety line, beyond which crew survival is thought
unlikely and destruct systems would be activated.  The USAF safety people
say that NASA cannot have it both ways:  either the safety boundaries
must be widened -- awkward because various viewing sites are just outside
them now -- or destruct criteria must be loosened for better control.

Leeds University scientists who pioneered the analysis of signals from
the Soviet Glonass navsats are developing an experimental navsat receiver
that can use both Glonass and Navstar.

Letter from Don Vogel of Vermont, applauding Stofan's "the shuttle should
have begun flying again 18 months ago", and adding:  "It's been over two
years now and re-inventing the shuttle still goes on.  It was a very
successful space vehicle until Jan 28 1986.  It did not need re-inventing."
-- 
"For perfect safety... sit on a fence|  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
and watch the birds." --Wilbur Wright| {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date:     Wed, 1 Jun 88 10:04 EDT
From: GODDEN%gmr.com@relay.cs.net
Subject:  Mobile Foot Restraint device


  >SPACE Digest V8 #240
  >Date: 20 May 88 16:08:18 GMT
  >From: mcvax!ukc!its63b!bob@uunet.uu.net  (ERCF08 Bob Gray)
  >Subject: Re: Space suits
  >
  >Legs are not needed except for hooking your feet into some convenient
  >perch. 

In my office I have a poster available from Flagstaff Engineering that shows
Bruce McCandless II on flight 41-B of the Challenger "trying out" a new
device called the Mobile Foot Restraint.  It's a disk attached to the 
shuttle and has two straps into which the astronaut slips his/her feet 
to avoid flying off into deep space and/or landing on Cleveland.  In any
case, written on this disk it is possible to make out the upside-down
words "For Space Use Only".  If you think about that for a minute, it
becomes VERY amusing.

-Kurt Godden
 godden@gmr.com

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #263
*******************

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SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 264

Today's Topics:
			  Undeliverable mail
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SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 240

Today's Topics:
               Re: Space suits
               Re: Space suits
               Re: Space suits
               Re: Space suits
               Re: Space suits
          What to do with the external shuttle tanks
        Re: What to do with the external shuttle tanks
        Re: What to do with the external shuttle tanks
         Re: Converting Ephemeris Time to GMT
         Re: Converting Ephemeris Time to GMT
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 21 May 88 15:25:35 GMT
From: nyser!cmx!anand@itsgw.rpi.edu  (Rangachari Anand)
Subject: Re: Space suits

In article <1783@cos.com> smith@cos.UUCP (Steve Smith) writes:
>Many years ago, I saw an idea for a "spacesuit" that solved this
>problem elegantly.  It uses the fact that human skin is a very good
>gastight membrane.  It simply consists of a mechanical support layer
>that doesn't let the user swell up in vacuum.  Think of a *very* stiff
>body stocking.  A helmet finishes it off.  There are some obvious
>problems -- getting in and out would not be trivial, and there are
>parts of the human anatomy that would be difficult to handle (armpits,
>for example).

 Protection from vaccuum is not the only function of a space suit
 Thermal insulation and radiation insulation are also important.  I
 recently read in Spaceflight that even with the current space suits,
 EVA times have to be restricted to not more than a few hours so as to
 minimize exposure to radiation.

                                          R. Anand
                                         anand@amax.npac.syr.edu

------------------------------

Date: 20 May 88 16:08:18 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!its63b!bob@uunet.uu.net  (ERCF08 Bob Gray)
Subject: Re: Space suits

Legs are not needed except for hooking your feet into some convenient
perch. Most of the actual moving about is done either by using your
hands or using a maneuvering unit of some sort. In a suit for serious
construction work in space, e.g. on a large space colony, there would
have to be a maneuvering unit attached to the suit.

On the basis of keeping the system as simple and as cheap as possible,
do away with the legs and torso and replace then with a simple cylinder.
Some sort of anchor would also be needed to hold the suit in place while
the occupant is working.

If the cylinder is wide enough, the occupant could withdraw their arms
from the sleeves to adjust instruments, feed, or just to scratch.

To improve the suit arms and gloves, make the occupant wear a long pair
of skin support gloves, put an air seal at the top of the wearer's arm
above the bicep, and pump most of the air out. The gloves can then be
designed to hold much less pressure, and be correspondingly more
flexible.  Make sure that the gloves are well thermaly insulated,
'though, things might get very hot in sunlight and very cold in shadow.

Suits of this basic design used to be used 150 years ago for underwater
salvage operations, before the invention of the diving suit.
    Bob.

------------------------------

Path: ucbvax!pasteur!ames!lll-tis!lll-winken!uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry
From: utzoo!henry@ucbvax.berkeley.edu (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Space suits
Keywords: non-anthropomorphic
Date: 22 May 88 01:14:09 GMT
Lines: 9
Apparently-To: space-incoming@angband.s1.gov

>   Hard suits...best of both worlds..

Well, better of both worlds.  The clear winner for the hassle-free
spacesuit is the "space activity suit" concept, in which the body of the
suit is just extra-stretchy fabric to supply pressurization, with the
skin in vacuum.  The idea has been tested in vacuum chambers; it works.
Unfortunately, NASA displays no interest in pursuing the scheme further,
even though it funded the original work and nobody has found any real
flaws.  If one were being cynical, one might suspect an overly-cozy
relationship between NASA and its current space-suit suppliers; it
wouldn't be the first time.

------------------------------

Date: 24 May 88 02:58:39 GMT
From: spar!snjsn1!trojan!chuckc@decwrl.dec.com  (Charles Crapuchettes)
Subject: Re: Space suits

In article <1988May22.011409.16510@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
 writes:
>>   Hard suits...best of both worlds..
>
>Well, better of both worlds.  The clear winner for the hassle-free spacesuit
>is the "space activity suit" concept, in which the body of the suit is just
>extra-stretchy fabric to supply pressurization, with the skin in vacuum.
> . . .

In article <580158832.amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU> Dale.Amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU writes:
>Small particles released with the liquids will suffer the same fate as
>Delta rocket paint flecks: fly around Earth for a few years and then
>either reenter or make craters in spacecraft windshields.

How long would an astronaut have to be EVA to have a 50% chance of being
injured by a chunk of crud (either artificial or man-made)?  Do harder
suits provide protection, or is the energy too high?

Anyone with hard facts?

InterNet:  chuckc%sentry@spar.slb.com  or  crapuchettes%mother@spar.slb.com

------------------------------

Date: 24 May 88 04:33:44 GMT
From: ubvax!unisv!vanpelt@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Mike Van Pelt)
Subject: Re: Space suits

In article <1783@cos.com> smith@cos.UUCP (Steve Smith) writes:
>Many years ago, I saw an idea for a "spacesuit" that solved this
>problem elegantly.  It uses the fact that human skin is a very good
>gastight membrane.  It simply consists of a mechanical support layer
>...  Suposedly, a large aerospace company (Avco-Everett?) built a model
>suit that was comfortable, inexpensive, and *far* more efficient than
>NASA's suits.  NASA rejected the idea with an excuse that translated
>"not invented here".
>
>Does anybody have any further information?

I heard a talk on space suit design a few years ago, and I asked about
this suit.  The speaker (don't remember his name, but he was involved in
the Apollo suit design) said that for satellite work, you'll be doing a
whole lot of outgassing, which is very bad for contaminating delicate
parts.

Sounds bogus to me.  They don't put satellites in a vaccum canister for
launch.  Probably (1) NIH and (2) not expensive enough.

That suit is supposedly very good for thermal control, too.  Given the
mechanical support, your skin does just as good a job of temperature
control as on earth.  Better, actually, as a little sweat provides a lot
more cooling in vacuum.

------------------------------

Date: 6 May 88 22:47:59 GMT
From: cadnetix.COM!beres@uunet.uu.net
Subject: What to do with the external shuttle tanks


    * All details from Boulder Daily Camera, 5/6/88; information
      used and quoted without permission *

    FACTS:

    In todays Boulder Daily Camera (5/6) there is an article about a
Boulder company that stands to benefit by a new amendment passed by the
space sub-committee (Congress).  The company is ETCO (External Tanks
Corp.) of Boulder.  ETCO was created by UCAR (Univ. Corp. for
Atmospheric Research, also of Boulder) to study and design ways of using
the ET in orbit.  ETCO is/was founded as a co-op between gov't and the
private sector; uses of the tanks are to be investor financed (yea!).
Final bit of factual info: the bill to authorize NASA to make use of the
ET was introduced by Rep. David Skaggs D-Colo.

    ME:

    Funny that a Boulder company could stand to benefit from this
bill, huh?  In any event, the bill is a good idea, no matter who is the
*financial* winner.  I know that uses of the ET has come up before in
this group, but it might be a good time to discuss it again - since it
just really might happen.  To start the ball rolling, here are a few
(well, 5) questions I have:

    1.  Does anyone in the know (Greg Woods at NCAR, others) know if
        the previous net discussion, amongst others I presume,
        influenced our Congress-critters/NASA to make use of the ET?
        Did it help?
    2.  The Camera article mentioned 20 to 30 experiments have been
        proposed to UCAR.  Care to give us any details, anyone?
    3.  Timeframe, if Congress/NASA is timely about adoption of the
        plan?
    4.  Does anyone have a summary of previous net proposals?
    5.  What about integration with the space station/ISF plans?

    Speaking for myself only...if anyone else has a better summary
of the amendment, speak up!

            -Tim

------------------------------

Date: 9 May 88 20:24:05 GMT
From: attcan!lsuc!spectrix!tmsoft!utgpu!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry
 Spencer)
Subject: Re: What to do with the external shuttle tanks

>  1.  Does anyone in the know (Greg Woods at NCAR, others) know if the
>      previous net discussion, amongst others I presume, influenced
>      our Congress-critters/NASA to make use of the ET?  Did it help?

Unlikely.  The most significant influence was probably that the Reagan
space policy specifically called for NASA to provide ETs to private
companies wanting them, and this is uncontroversial enough to pass
Congress easily.

>  3.  Timeframe, if Congress/NASA is timely about adoption of the plan?

NASA is supposed to release a detailed policy document on it soon.  See
my latest AW&ST summary for some related news.  The main issue is that
any company wanting an ET in orbit has got to demonstrate to everyone's
satisfaction that the tank will not make an uncontrolled reentry.  This
is a non-trivial problem since the tanks are big and light, would end up
in quite a low orbit, and would naturally tend to orient themselves
broadside- on to air drag.

>    5.  What about integration with the space station/ISF plans?

If NASA were sensible, it would have provided for using an ET as
expansion space for the station.  It didn't.  And I'd say Space
Industries has enough problems with plain old ISF just now.

NASA is to spaceflight as            |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
the Post Office is to mail.          | {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 17 May 88 01:25:41 GMT
From: al@eos.arc.nasa.gov  (Al Globus)
Subject: Re: What to do with the external shuttle tanks

My favorite use for external tanks: sports arena.

Note that the revenue from a major sporting event (Olympics, SuperBowl)
can be in the $100 millions range.

Put an aft cargo compartment on the tank so that modification work that
cannot be done on the ground can be done in a shirt sleeve environment.

First launch sets up the facility and presurizes the oxygen tank.

Next launch a Shuttle and a Soyuz simulataneously to dock with the
facility (this may be tricky).  The shuttle carries a pilot and
commander, a video technician, two American and two Soviet atheletes.
The Soyuz carries a Soviet pilot, one American and one Soviet athelete.

Take four days to train and aclimate.  Then have three or four games,
one per day with three on three teams, Americans vs Soviets.  I
guarantee VERY large audiences for at least the first game.

With proper marketing you just might be able to make some money.  In any
case, the initial potential income vastly exceeds any other space
venture.  You should take in hundreds of millions in the first week of
operation.

The scientist and engineers have had the orbital sandbox to themselves
for too long.  It's time for others to get in the action.

------------------------------

Date: 9 May 88 18:26:55 GMT
From: cfa!mink@husc6.harvard.edu  (Doug Mink)
Subject: Re: Converting Ephemeris Time to GMT

In article <217@krafla.rhi.hi.is>, kjartan@rhi.hi.is (Kjartan R. Gudmundsson)
writes:
> I am working on a program which will give me on what days the moon is
> full.  I have a formula which gives the answer in Julian Ephemeris
> Days, and now I need a formula to convert these in to GMT.  A example
> with the formula shows that New Moon in February 1977 was on JD =
> 2443192.6525 or 1977 February 18 at 3 Hours 39.6 min (ET).

> If someone could give me this formula I would be thankful.

I run into this problem all the time doing occultation predictions.
Until recently, I've been working over a period of time during which
ET-UT could be closely approximated by a linear fit (it is an empirical
number whcih can only be accurately computed for the past).  I had
occasion to look at data over a period from the late 1940's to the
present, and no polynomial fit would work, so I built in a table of
ET-UT over a the period from which observations are most likely to be
used.  The fit back past the 1940's is based on the real ET-UT which I
didn't want to tabulate; ET-UT fluctuates strangely before 1930.  The
fit into the future fits the extrapolated data for the next two years
and should work for longer.  I use it through 1999 in my work.

Here is a program I wrote:

c*** March 24, 1988
c*** By Doug Mink

c--- Calculate ET - UT given seconds after 1/1/1950

    Subroutine JPDT (TSEC0, DT)

    Real*8 TSEC0
c            Date in format (yyyy.mmdd)
c            or if >3000.d0, seconds after 1/1/1950 0:00 et

    Real*8 DT
c            ET - UT in seconds

    Real*8 TSEC,YEAR,YDIFF,DIFF
    Integer*4 IYR

c  Table containing ET - UT in seconds from the Astronomical Ephemeris

    Real*4 DTTAB(40)
    Save DTTAB
    Data DTTAB/28.71,29.15,29.57,29.97,30.36,30.72,31.07,31.35,31.68,32.18,
     1           32.68,33.15,33.59,34.00,34.47,35.03,35.73,36.54,37.43,38.29,
     2           39.20,40.18,41.17,42.23,43.37,44.49,45.48,49.46,47.52,48.53,
     3           49.59,50.54,51.38,52.17,52.96,53.79,54.34,54.90,55.40,56.00/

    TSEC = TSEC0

c  Convert date to seconds after 1950.0101

    If (TSEC .lt. 3.d3) Then
       Call VCON (TSEC0,0.d0,TSEC)
       Endif

c  Convert to years since 1950 (divide by 365.25d0*8.64d4)

    YEAR = TSEC / 31557600.d0
    IYR = Idint (YEAR) + 2

c  Extrapolate into past using fit based on data from 1930 to 1950

    If (IYR .lt. 1) Then
        DT = 29.157184d0 + 0.589892348d0 * DYEAR + 7.701803d-3 * DYEAR*DYEAR
     1           - 4.7890824d-4 * DYEAR*DYEAR*DYEAR

c  Interpolate from table from the Astronomical Ephemeris (1987) (1949-1988)

    Elseif (IYR .lt. 40) Then
        DIFF = Dble (DTTAB(IYR+1) - DTTAB(IYR))
        YDIFF = YEAR - Dble (IYR-2)
        DT = Dble (DTTAB(IYR)) + (YDIFF * DIFF)

c  Extrapolate into future using fit based on data from 1975 to 1988

    Else
        DT = 28.76304734d0 + 0.719777265d0 * (YEAR)
    Endif

    Return
    End

------------------------------

Date: 10 May 88 05:52:00 GMT
From: kenny@m.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Re: Converting Ephemeris Time to GMT

While Dr. Mink's posting is quite accurate, as far as it goes, let me
just fill in some data for longer periods.

Actual observed differences in the two clocks over the last three
centuries are (all times in minutes):

1710 -0.2  1770 0.1   1870 0.0     1903 0.0   1940 0.4   1971 0.7
1730 -0.1  1800 0.1   1880 -0.1  1912 0.2   1950 0.5   1977 0.8
1750 0       1840 0.0   1895 -0.1  1927 0.4   1965 0.6 [Meeus]

For longer periods (centuries), Meeus suggests the approximation:

diff = 0.4992 * T**2 + 1.2053 * T + 0.41

where diff is the difference between the two clocks, in minutes, and T
is the time since 1900.0, in centuries.

Another useful and simple approximation is

diff = 0.015 * Y + 0.91,

where Y is the time since 1985, in years, and diff is again in minutes;
this approximation appears in the programs distributed by Allan Paeth.
This last one is within a few seconds for periods 1950-present.

Kevin

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #240
*******************

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #264
*******************

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Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA07904; Sat, 9 Jul 88 20:22:50 PDT
	id AA07904; Sat, 9 Jul 88 20:22:50 PDT
Date: Sat, 9 Jul 88 20:22:50 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8807100322.AA07904@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #265

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 265

Today's Topics:
		  Re: Some more launch loop stuff...
		  Re: Some more launch loop stuff...
		      Re: Bureaucracy vs.  space
		      Mir elements, epoch 25 May
		    Re: Mir elements, epoch 25 May
		       Re: Space Station Names
			   Re: Space Suits
		       RE: SPACE Digest V8 #240
		    Re: Naming the space station.
			  Re: Nuclear bombs
		   Tours of NASA Ames during Usenix
			     Space Digest
			skin tight space suits
		  Re: Some more launch loop stuff...
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 1 Jun 88 02:49:17 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!looking!brad@uunet.uu.net  (Brad Templeton)
Subject: Re: Some more launch loop stuff...


What ever happened to the good old fashioned 500 mile linear acellerator?

At 3.5g for 3 minutes 20 seconds you hit orbital velocity.
You have to correct to circular with a reaction rocket later of course,
and you have to also get back the velocity you lose to air.

But the point is we could build such a thing.  500 miles isn't that
long, with mass production techniques.  If it costs $20 million per
mile to build, that's only $10 billion -- lots less than the
space scuttle program.  Share it with the Russians, Japanese, Canadians
and ESA even if it costs $100 million per mile.  Float it at sea and
have it shoot up the Rockies or the Andes.  Stretch it over the
desert.  Use it as a supercollider when it isn't busy launching.

The launch loop would fail in a bad way.  Geostationary towers can't
stand because they would be hit by satellites.  I think it's this
or super fast scramjets, folks.
-- 
Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. - Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473

------------------------------

Date: 1 Jun 88 16:13:05 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Some more launch loop stuff...

> ... Also, the segments wouldn't wind up in Earth orbit.
> They would go into solar orbit.  Nothing like having a few thousand
> one kilo chunks of iron flying about in an earth intersecting solar
> orbit. :-(

Not to worry, there are millions of one-kilo-sized nickel-iron meteorites
out there already.

The only reason space junk is a concern in Earth orbit is that near-Earth
space, especially the most interesting regions, isn't very big.  We can't
totally disregard the issue elsewhere, but given the natural background
level already present, it will be a while before it's a real concern.
-- 
"For perfect safety... sit on a fence|  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
and watch the birds." --Wilbur Wright| {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 1 Jun 88 16:31:04 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Bureaucracy vs.  space

> Agreed, but Henry's original posting was comparing shuttles with cargo
> planes, not with expendables.  

True, but it doesn't affect my point, which is that the cargo environment
for the shuttle is not severe enough to explain the massive difference
in paperwork.

> ... it is perfectly
> reasonable for those regulations to be stricter than for expendables,
> given that the shuttle is manned, reusable, and more delicate than an
> expendable.  

Sure.  But several orders of magnitude?  The Hercules is also manned and
reusable, if a bit more durable.  By the way, I think you're overestimating
the robustness of expendables; no space-launch system is made any heavier
than it absolutely needs to be.  If anything, the shuttle has to be more
robust than expendables.

> As for being manned, it doesn't matter how much risk the astronauts are
> willing to take for the glory of NASA.  Every manager or engineer on
> the ground still is morally required to worry about their safety ---
> much, much more than what he would be expected to worry in the case of 
> an unmanned vehicle.  

The same comment applies to airlines.  They seem to find it possible to fly
cargo and people at reasonable costs with reasonable paperwork... but then,
they have incentive.  They have to be useful, or they go broke.

> As for reusability, in an expendable launch the only party who really
> needs to worry about payload safety is the payload owner, since he is
> the only one who stands to lose in case of an accident...

Ho ho.  Sorry, wrong.  The launcher supplier has to worry about the effects
of a failure on future business.  This is *not* a trivial issue, especially
with production volumes as low as they are today.  (That is, he can't just
say "well, we had a failure, but with 357 successes in the last three years,
we can quite safely say that it was a fluke and our booster is still amply
reliable".  The airliner builders have a bit of an advantage here.)  At the
very least, the launch outfit has to have iron-clad proof that the failure
was the satellite's fault, and that's not easy to get.  The Soviets might
have commercial Proton business by now if they hadn't had those failures.
With volume so low and costs so high, it doesn't take many failures for
customers to decide that your launcher is jinxed.  Expendable builders get
to worry a lot about payload safety.  However, unlike NASA, they do have
to be useful, so they have some incentive to keep things under control.
-- 
"For perfect safety... sit on a fence|  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
and watch the birds." --Wilbur Wright| {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 1 Jun 88 20:07:00 GMT
From: kenny@m.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Mir elements, epoch 25 May


Satellite: Mir        
Catalog id 16609
Element set 212
Epoch: 88144.82886303
Inclination:  51.6140 degrees
RA of node: 192.4097 degrees
Eccentricity:  0.0022899
Argument of perigee:   5.3494 degrees
Mean anomaly: 355.2223 degrees
Mean motion: 15.75455582 revs/day
Mean motion acceleration: 0.00019094 * 2 revs/day/day
Epoch Revolution: 12999

Semimajor axis:    6721.43 km
Apogee height*:     358.66 km
Perigee height*:     327.88 km


		Source: NASA Goddard via T.S.Kelso's `Celestial RCP/M'

* Apogee and perigee altitudes are referred to the mean radius of the
  Earth (6378.15 km), and not to the local radius of the geoid.  They
  are only approximate, and should not be used for orbit prediction.

------------------------------

Date: 1 Jun 88 20:16:00 GMT
From: kenny@m.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Re: Mir elements, epoch 25 May


Sorry about the delay on this posting; I was in Denver for the
National Space Society convention.

During the convention, I observed Mir visually twice, on Saturday and
Sunday evenings.  Since it arrived exactly when predicted (+/- a few
seconds, perhaps) I surmise that as of Sunday night, 10:20pm MDT, the
Soviets had not yet reboosted and dumped Progress 36.  One may expect
that they will in short order, as they plan to launch a visiting Soyuz
this week and will need to clear the rear docking port of Kvant to
accomodate it (The side ports cannot be used until the first Star
module with a remote manipulator system is on-orbit).

Kevin Kenny			UUCP: {ihnp4,pur-ee,convex}!uiucdcs!kenny
Department of Computer Science	ARPA: kenny@M.CS.UIUC.EDU
University of Illinois
1304 W. Springfield Ave.
Urbana, Illinois, 61801		Voice: (217) 333-6680

------------------------------

Date: 24 May 88 04:12:15 GMT
From: nfsun!ditka!formtek!darth!pitt!cisunx!bgarwood@uunet.uu.net  (Robert Garwood)
Subject: Re: Space Station Names

In article <8552@ames.arc.nasa.gov> mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov.UUCP (Mike Smithwick) writes:
>And now the question you've all been staying up late for: what the
>heck are they going to name the Space Station??

How about just painting it white with the following in
large black letters :

"Space Station"


Why pay more for a brand name when generic will do?


Bob Garwood
"I don't have a .signature file."

------------------------------

Date: 22 May 88 22:37:36 GMT
From: kr0u+@andrew.cmu.edu  (Kevin William Ryan)
Subject: Re: Space Suits


   Someone mentioned the 'skin suit' style space suit, and asked for some
references.  Enjoy them courtesy of J.E. Pournelle, in Vol. 2, No. 3 of the now
defunct _Destinies_.

   NASA Report CR-1892, Development of a Space Activity Suit, by James Annis
and Paul Webb.  Ask your congresscritter, and he should send you one - that's
how I got my copy (since misplaced in one of my moves...).

   The suit is basically a multilayer (seven in this version) tight leotard.
Pressure maintained is ~170 torr around the torso, tapering to ~100-120 torr
at the extremities.  Multiple layers are preferable for ease of construction
(one layer is not required to support all that pressure), ease of tailoring,
and of course redundancy.  Pressure integrity is kept around the head by a
bladder extending over the torso, providing constant volume while inhaling.
Cooling is provided by sweat (quite efficient cooling, what with instant
evaporation).  Loss of several pints expected in average EVA.  Heating was
planned by electrical resistance heaters in on oversuit - said oversuit also
to provide radiation and thermal protection.
   Dexterity in the test suits was far far superior to the existing semi-hard
suits.  (Interesting parts included 'rounders' where the human body had
concavities and flats, such as the backs of the hands, in order to allow the
suit to exert pressure.)  Estimated cost for the seven layer suit, including
silk underlayers for ease of donning was $2000 1974 dollars, compared to the
rather extreme cost of period and present suits.  Present shuttle suit costs
~$200K.
   Difficulties included _individual_ tailoring, including a need for a new
suit if the owner changed weight by more than a few pounds, and the task of
putting on seven layers of _tight_ leotards.  Note also the low pressure in the
suit, 170 torr compared to the present shuttle pressure of 760 torr, which may
require compression - decompression cycles.  Tailoring and donning problems
were expected to be reduced with more experience, plus some work on user-
friendly zipper pull handles.
   The overall design was thus a multilayer leotard, oxygen tank, battery and
radio backpack, covered by a heavy silvered coverall with sweat vents.  Very
light, cheap, and providing (compared to any other design) incredible freedom
of movement.  Also a large safety margin - a tear would simple cause pain,
swelling, and edema (sp?  Swelling of the skin due to vapor pressure of under-
lying fluids.).  Not instantly fatal decompression and loss of suit enviornment
unless the helmet or torso bladder are ruptured.

  An excellent design.  NASA never picked up on it for reasons completely
unknown to me.  Perhaps somebody was instinctively repelled by the thought of
expensive astronauts floating around in expensive skivvies?...

                                                    kwr

   "Jest so ya know..."

------------------------------

Date:     Thu, 02 Jun 88 00:04:24 -0900
Reply-To: <FXSDD%ALASKA.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Sender: <FXSDD%ALASKA.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
From: Scott Dennis, Computer Support   <FXSDD%ALASKA.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Subject:  RE: SPACE Digest V8 #240

Well, then she was probably pretty lucky!  Darn cars don't even see motocycles..
  Well, I'm hittin' the hay.  I'll see you in the morning at about 10, then!

------------------------------

Date: 26 May 88 17:39:43 GMT
From: hall!pai!erc@umn-cs.arpa  (Eric Johnson)
Subject: Re: Naming the space station.

In article <12487@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU>, cc1@CS.UCLA.EDU writes:
> How about "Fred"?
> 
> 			--Net.Rabbit

Count mine as another vote for

Space Station Fred


-- 
Eric F. Johnson          | Phone +1 612-894-0313             | Are we
Prime Automation,Inc     | UUCP: ihnp4!umn-cs!hall!pai!erc   | having
12201 Wood Lake Drive    | UUCP: sun!tundra!pai!erc          | fun
Burnsville, MN 55337 USA | BIX:  erc                         | yet?

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 2 Jun 1988 14:40-EDT 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: Nuclear bombs

I'd also suggest those interested dig through back issues of Life,
around 1959-61 for a picture of a hole in the ground in a Carolina farm
field after it was accidentally dropped from a B-52 or B-57. Triggers
made a good size crater and caused some local cleanup problems, but the
last time I drove through the Carolina's they were quite well
populated...

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 2 Jun 88 14:40:33 pdt
From: Eugene N. Miya <eugene@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov>
Subject: Tours of NASA Ames during Usenix

I go on vacation and my mailbox, etc. fills.  gezz....

Several of you have written to tell me you would like tours of the
Ames Research Center while you are visiting SF during Usenix.
Contrary to popular belief, my job isn't to read mail and news,
I am supposed to be doing development and research.

I wish I could really help a lot of you, but it's too short a notice
for me to do anything with a large group of you.  It's not clear to me
that I will be going to Usenix for more than an a day (there's just not
that much on the program to interest me).  I've also been asked to
convey a NASA Internal Unix User Group meeting, so this puts severe
time contraints on me.  If you guys had suggested this 6 months ago...
Actually, Ames is pretty boring stuff, no mission controls, no high
performance aircraft (well, a couple of Harriers, F-104s and T-38s).
Tours are only given during daylight (working hours) on strict
time schedules.  FOREIGN NATIONALS TAKE 1 week to 1 month to clear
in advance since this is a Government reservation, this includes
English speaking nations (sorry Bob and others).  So I have to turn
you guys down in a blanket way, there's just too many of you on too short
a notice.  Now if you win a Field's or Nobel Prize, and you have time to
stop by to give a talk, I'm sure they can make exceptions for you.
Next conference, have the local arrangements communittee reach by 6 months
in advance.  Contact the Public Information Office (get the phone
as a exercise for the reader [remember this one?]) if you still want to try,
we are 40 minutes South of SF on 101 (terrible drive during rush hour)
it's the Moffett Field exit (the first street exit after Stierlin
[Silicon Graphics and E&S and Pyramid, and Bridge?] and Rengdorff [
SUN Microsystems].
Another gross generalization from

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@aurora.arc.nasa.gov
  resident cynic at the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:
  "Mailers?! HA!", "If my mail does not reach you, please accept my apology."
  {uunet,hplabs,ncar,ihnp4,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."

------------------------------

Date:     Thu, 2 Jun 88 14:37 AST
From: <FNGAF%ALASKA.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Subject:  Space Digest

Please send me Space Digest Volume 8, Issue 230. Thank you.      gf

------------------------------

Date: 2 Jun 88 14:48:17 GMT
From: mtunx!whuts!sw@rutgers.edu  (WARMINK)
Subject: skin tight space suits

All this discussion about the skin-tight pressure suits reminds me of the
suits worn (?) by the adventurous space men & women on the covers of
those old science fiction magazines...
-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Please continue the petty bickering,  |  Stuart Warmink, APT UK Ltd.
 it is most intriguing"    Cmdr. Data  |  <ihnp4>!whuts!sw, Whippany NJ USA
-----------> My opinions are not necessarily those of APT UK Ltd. <-----------

------------------------------

Date: 2 Jun 88 14:58:16 GMT
From: mtunx!whuts!sw@rutgers.edu  (WARMINK)
Subject: Re: Some more launch loop stuff...

In article <1703@looking.UUCP>, brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) writes:
> 
> What ever happened to the good old fashioned 500 mile linear acellerator?
> At 3.5g for 3 minutes 20 seconds you hit orbital velocity.
> You have to correct to circular with a reaction rocket later of course,
> and you have to also get back the velocity you lose to air.

Don't forget about air resistance - quite substantial at orbital velocity
and near sea level, not to mention the frictional heating effects!
-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Please continue the petty bickering,  |  Stuart Warmink, APT UK Ltd.
 it is most intriguing"    Cmdr. Data  |  <ihnp4>!whuts!sw, Whippany NJ USA
-----------> My opinions are not necessarily those of APT UK Ltd. <-----------

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #265
*******************

Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 10 Jul 88 06:39:14 EDT
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA08522; Sun, 10 Jul 88 03:23:07 PDT
	id AA08522; Sun, 10 Jul 88 03:23:07 PDT
Date: Sun, 10 Jul 88 03:23:07 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8807101023.AA08522@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #266

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 266

Today's Topics:
		     Re: Recycling Pershing-II's
			  space station name
		      Re: Shooting the Moon....
			     Space Digest
		      Re: satellite oceanography
			    Getting Nuked
			     Mir docking
			  Book Review wanted
			  Re: Getting Nuked
			 RE: Nuclear Fantasma
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 2 Jun 88 22:15:04 GMT
From: aplcen!aplcomm!stdc.jhuapl.edu!jwm@mimsy.umd.edu  (Jim Meritt)
Subject: Re: Recycling Pershing-II's

In article <8806010951.aa16990@note.nsf.gov> fbaube@NOTE.NSF.GOV (Fred Baube) writes:
}[The Soviets will also reclaim precious metals] from missile
}guidance systems, and extract plutonium from warheads for use in
}civilian reactors.


I find this hard to believe.....


Disclaimer: Individuals have opinions, organizations have policy.
            Therefore, these opinions are mine and not any organizations!
Q.E.D.
jwm@aplvax.jhuapl.edu 128.244.65.5  (James W. Meritt)

------------------------------

Date: 2 Jun 88 17:44:29 GMT
From: pacbell!att!alberta!ubc-cs!fornax!zeke@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Zeke Hoskin)
Subject: space station name

Inasmuch as one of the constraints on space
station name is "Not subject to ambiguous
puns in any relevant language", there is no
chance that "High 'n' Lyin'" could be used.
(pun courtesy Spider Robinson)
-- 
What makes one step a giant leap|Zeke Hoskin/SFU VLSI group,Burnaby,BC,Canada
Is all the steps before         | ...!ubc-cs!sfu_fornax!zeke

------------------------------

Date:         Fri, 3 Jun 1988 16:45:46 CDT
From: "Jonathan C. Sadow" <GEOS21%UHUPVM1.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Subject:      Re: Shooting the Moon....

killer!tness7!tness1!sugar!peter@eddie.mit.edu  (Peter da Silva) writes:

>In article <5181@cup.portal.com>, Daniel_C_Anderson@cup.portal.com.UUCP writes:
>> Nuking Mars would be a crudity akin to spray-painting directions to
>> your party in 100-ft letters on the Grand Canyon. A cosmic act of
>> inconsideration by a F-T-Universe species. It'd make us look bad.
>
>Why? What good is Mars? It doesn't even have an ecosystem. There's a lot
>to be said for just busting the thing wide open and making a bunch of
>useful asteroids. Venus, too... in fact you could make a better case for
>Venus.
>
>But there's really no hurry. There are plenty of asteroids out there
>yet.  Let Mars lie fallow for a while. Hell, we haven't even gotten a
>decent start on the moon.

We've had even less of a start on Mars, and I see no reason to explode
thermonuclear warheads or the planet itself before we can take a good
look at it.  After all, it's the only Mars we'll ever have....  Seriously,
our knowledge of planetary regoliths is extremely limited at this time,
and we should keep Mars (or any other extraterrestrial body) as 'pristine'
as possible for as long as possible.  Flattening out a landing site via
the described method may be quick, but it's quick and dirty, too.  Slow
and steady wins the race (something I have to keep telling myself every
time I hear of another launch of a planetary mission being delayed...).

-J. Sadow
GEOS21@UHUPVM1.BITNET

------------------------------

Date: 3 Jun 88 18:29:04 GMT
From: ecsvax!gas@mcnc.org  (Guerry A. Semones)
Subject: Space Digest


Pardon my ignorance, but I've noticed mention of 'subscriptions' to
Space Digest here.  If this is an E-mail implentation of sending out
copies of the Space Digest, I'd like to know how to get signed up.
     Please, no flames if I dropped this message in the wrong place....

-- 
 Guerry A. Semones                 BITNET: drogo@tucc.BITNET
 Information Services              USENET: gas@ecsvax.UUCP
 Duke University                   My views are despairingly mine only.
 Talent Identification Program     "We ain't gifted, we just work here."

------------------------------

Date: 4 Jun 88 05:23:28 GMT
From: pioneer!eugene@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Eugene N. Miya)
Subject: Re: satellite oceanography

This machine (apl) is not accessible to me for some reason.  This is
otherwise should be mail since it is not of general net interest.

Sure there's lots of people, most not ARPAnet accessible.
I was just visiting a friend and climbing partner, Dudley Chelton
at OSU [author of the book CLIMB on Colorado climbing, PhD Oceanography
Boulder (always funny so far from the sea)].  He's part of the TOPEX group
seeking climbing partners in Corvalis BTW.  He's on SPAN at least.
There's Len Bryan at JPL and his crew and numerous RSAG people.  Ray Smith
at UCSB.

There's tons of references:

%A J. P. Ford
%A R. G. Blom
%A M. L. Bryan
%A M. I. Daily
%A T. H. Dixon
%A C. Elachi
%A E. C. Xenos
%T Seasat Views North America, the Caribbean, and Western Europe with Imaging
Radar
%R TR 80-67
%I JPL, Caltech
%C Pasadena, CA
%D Nov. 1980

Xerographic copying of this report isn't recommended, detail will be lost.
Consequently it will be harder to find, my stack of six has dwindled
to one just sitting at my Ames office.

This TR reads:
	"It is expected that the material will be of interest to a wide
	audience, including university students who wish to explore the
	potential value of this new remote sensing tool.  In turn, this
	should foster analysis of the remaining 99% of Seasat's SAR
	land images."
What this means is "we only have so much money to process (auto-correlate)
raw image data, send money."

Added note to the comment of the person who noted my sarcastic comment:
NO, these types of radar systems are vastly different.  Go learn about radar.

There are numerous other technical reports which I do not recommend
requesting that the net bug researchers unless they are grad students (or profs)
interested in projects (like this fellow?).  It's really expensive to
make copies of these

%Q JPL
%T Seasat Gulf of Alaska Workshop [I,II] Report
%R TR 622-107
%C Pasadena, CA
%D January 1980

There are other useful instruments like the altimeter (or "How
I know orbits are bumpy (not smooth) things."):

%Q JPL
%T Accuracy Assessent of the Seasat Orbit and Height Measurement
%R IASOM TR 79-5
%I Institute for Advanced Study in Orbital Mechanics, U Texas
%C Austin, TX
%D Oct. 1979

Finally when you get raw data, you get reports like:

%Q JPL
%T Seasat-A Sensor Data Record Tape Specification Interface Control
Document and Telemetry Dictionary
%R TR 622-57, Rev. A
%I JPL, Caltech
%C Pasadena, CA
%D May 1979

"Can't I just tar the data?"  "No, silly, what makes you think this
is a 9 track tape?  It isn't."

Blue sky:

%A Gregg Vane
%T Opportunities on Earth-Orbiting Missions through 1990 and Beyond
%R TR
%I JPL, Caltech
%C Pasadena, CA
%D March 1980
%X This TR is now obsolete with the introduction of R. Reagan who cancelled
most of these missions.

I have tons more, but it gives you the flavor what a space mission is about.
There are far too many notes for me to read on the net.  I will start
hitting the 'c' command on news more often.  If I miss you posting,
query what ever, sorry, but tough beans.  News is unreliable as it is.
Just think who will miss this.

I don't know all the reasons why Jim is trying to defend his not revealing
sources.  I guess others are asking him for sources, too.  Good for YOU guys!
I asked him for sources early on, he said no, and I left it at that.
Note: at the time I had a direct audience with the Inspector General of
NASA and can drop a very heavy hammer at the word GO.  I will still
leave it at that.  If the man doesn't want to give specifics for fear of
reprisal, then he does not have to tell us.  I have more important
work to do.

Let me come to Eric's defense about his comment about Henry whom posts more
that which should be mail. Right on, sort of, but Henry
does make a few good comments on occasion.  I just hit 'n' otherwise.

I honestly wish a few of you guys would use a library.
This guy (remember oceanography? like Alice) had a legit question.

If you want a copy of the above reports, and think you really deserve one,
before you mail to JPL (don't bother mailing me), what significance
is the year 1964 to space radar oceanography, what happened?  If you can answer
this pass GO, and collect $200.

Another gross generalization from

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@aurora.arc.nasa.gov
  resident cynic at the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:
  "Mailers?! HA!", "If my mail does not reach you, please accept my apology."
  {uunet,hplabs,ncar,ihnp4,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 4 Jun 88 10:49:28 EDT
From: dietz@gvax.cs.cornell.edu (Paul F. Dietz)
Subject: Getting Nuked

All this talk about nuking Mars to make a landing pad is entertaining,
although not terribly practical.  I wonder, though, if nature might
not have done it already. If you go back 4.6 billion years to the
beginning of the solar system you find natural uranium would be about
30% U-235.  I wonder what effect this highly enriched stuff would have
had on the early solar system.  Could heat from chain reactions have
caused some asteroids to differentiate?  What effect would large
amounts of radioactivity have had on the prebiotic Earth?  Could
natural nuclear explosions have occured in the early solar system?

I suppose one could try to answer these questions by looking at
isotope ratios on various planets.  Noble gases like xenon might be
useful.

Tangentially: does xenon freeze at the lunar poles?  If so, would
there be a terrestrial market for lunar xenon?

	Paul F. Dietz
	dietz@gvax.cs.cornell.edu

------------------------------

Date: 4 Jun 88 20:40:40 GMT
From: snowdog@athena.mit.edu  (Richard the Nerd)
Subject: Mir docking


Hi everyone!  As many of you know by now, there will be a launch of a
visiting crew of cosmonauts to Mir on June 7th.  I sent the following
to the people on my Mir predictions mailing list, and I thought some
of you that are not on it would find it interesting, so I'll just post
it here.

-------

Well, I've done some calculations regarding the launch of the Soyuz on
June 7th.  These are based on previous launches - it turns out the
Russians follow a fairly tight routine in launching Soyuz craft and
therefore these calculations should be pretty accurate.

Obviously, the launch is very dependent on orbital geometry.  I used
Mir's current elements to figure out when the launch will be.  I came
up with 14:02 UTC on June 7th.  If the docking manouevres proceed like
those of the past launches, the Soyuz will dock with Mir on its 33rd
revolution, or about 2.1 days after the launch.  You will therefore be
able to see the spacecraft flying in formation if there is a night
pass for your location on June 7th or 8th.  Soyuz will always be
behind Mir.  It should also be about 1-2 magnitudes fainter.  The
separation between the two (in minutes) can be derived approximately
from the formula:

                    delta T = 46 - 0.93 * t

Where t is time _in hours_ since 14:02 UTC on June 7th.  (Obviously
the formula does not apply past t=50h since by that time the craft are
docked.)  Now, this is a VERY rough equation, so don't flame me if
it's a few minutes off.  It all depends on what the Russians decide to
do anyway.

Note that for passes on the evening of the 7th, Mir will be around 30
min ahead of the Soyuz and therefore the Soyuz will likely not show up
on the same path at all.  This is because even though the two ships
are in almost identical orbits, YOU are rotating with the Earth which
shifts the whole picture.  A little intuition will tell you which way
you should look.  I would say, however, that you will probably not
succeed in seeing the Soyuz on the 7th just by 'winging it'.  If you
are SERIOUSLY interested in observing this, drop off a note and I'll
prepare a special prediction for you assuming I don't get too many
requests.  On the 8th, however, Mir will only be ~10 minutes ahead of
the Soyuz and the two should follow almost the same path.  Try to see
it then.  By the 9th, Mir and Soyuz will have docked if everything
goes according to plan, and for us observers the fun will be over
until a week later when they undock and land the Soyuz.  More on that
later.

Good luck to all of you!  I would appreciate any observations and/or
measurements you make of this event.  Have fun!

-Rich

------------------------------

Date: 3 Jun 88 08:37:23 GMT
From: sdcrdcf!csun!polyslo!jsalter@hplabs.hp.com  (The Ag Major)
Subject: Book Review wanted

Has anyone read Stephen Hawking's new book?  I just saw it in our campus
store (at a price a bit above my current available funds) and I am wondering
about it's contents.  Specifically if it is written for the layman, the
intelligent layman, or the intellectual.

With the recent passing on of Feynmann(sp?), people such as Hawkings & Weinstein
seem to be the future hope for mathematical physics, and astro-physics, and 
I'd like to learn as much from them and about them as is possible.

Thanks.

-- 
James A. Salter  --  Yes, math majors can use UNIX(tm), too...
jsalter@polyslo.calpoly.edu             |  sin x / n = 6   (Cancel the n's!)
...{csustan,csun,sdsu}!polyslo!jsalter  |    Cal Poly Math Professor :-)

------------------------------

Date: 5 Jun 88 07:46:38 GMT
From: thumper!karn@faline.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: Getting Nuked

Naturally formed uranium reactors *have* occurred on the earth.
Several were discovered in West Africa by the patterns of U-235
depletion in the uranium ore.  There was an article in Scientific
American on the subject.

Phil

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 5 Jun 88 12:25 EDT
From: ELIOT%cs.umass.edu@relay.cs.net
Subject: RE: Nuclear Fantasma

    Consider this.  Using a bomb (of any type) to clear a landing site
    might create a landing site, but destroys a large amount of scientific
    data in the process.  (Every feature and rock on the surface of
    Mars can be considered scientific data).  It is difficult to think
    of any useful experiments that can be done in such an artifically
    manipulated environment.
    
    On the other hand finding a way to avoid obstacles seems feasible
    and would be itself a technological contribution.  Finding a way
    to generate 1m resolution images of Mars (and doing so) would actually
    be a valuable scientific investigation, in addition to supporting
    a landing.
    
    In summary, a brute force approach might land a space craft.  A
    more elegant approach could both land it, and generate considerable
    side benefits, without destroying anything.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #266
*******************

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Date: Sun, 10 Jul 88 20:22:30 PDT
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Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #267

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 267

Today's Topics:
		    space news from April 11 AW&ST
			Crisis in NASA funding
	      Crew problems on Bulgarian/Soviet mission?
			 Re: Nuclear Fantasma
			 Re: Nuclear Fantasma
			Re: Book Review wanted
		       Re: SPACE Digest V8 #244
			Re: Book Review wanted
		     Re: Recycling Pershing-II's
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Mon, 6 Jun 88 11:43:04 EDT
From: loeb@BOURBAKI.MIT.EDU
To: marsh@mitre-bedford.arpa
Cc: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: space news from April 11 AW&ST

Because explosive-powered ejection seats of pretty dangerous
in the event of NO emergency. They can cause their own
emergancy. 

For the first few flight of the shuttle, they included such
seats for the 2 pilots (the only passengers). They were
removed when the shuttle was deemed a little safer, and when
they started having more than just the 2 pilots. Not much
fun if the pilots eject and leave the passengers to enjoy
the remainder of the flight.

	danny

------------------------------

Reply-To: pnet01!jim@trout.nosc.mil
Date: Mon, 6 Jun 88 10:15:02 PDT
From: jim@pnet01.cts.com (Jim Bowery)
To: crash!space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: Crisis in NASA funding

I just want to thank Don Doughty for posting the names and addresses
of key congressional leaders to contact about NASA funding in this
time of funding crisis.  They have my advice to squeeze NASA as hard
as they can as long as NASA remains intransigent toward its proper role
in American society.  I encourage others on the network to contact their
congressmen and let them know of this rare opportunity to give NASA some
incentive to reform.

UUCP: {cbosgd, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!pnet01!jim
ARPA: crash!pnet01!jim@nosc.mil
INET: jim@pnet01.cts.com

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 6 Jun 88 18:01:11 EDT
From: Glenn Chapman <glenn@ll-vlsi.arpa>
Subject: Crew problems on Bulgarian/Soviet mission?

     An interesting development has occurred in the Soviet/Bulgarian space
mission planed for tomorrow (June 7th).  The Russians have stated that the
final crew choice would occur tonight (June 6th)!  Previously they had
stated that the prime crew would consists of Victor Savinyhk (commander with 
75 days on Soyuz T4/Salyut 6 and 168 days on Soyuz T13/Salyut 7 in June '85 
- the Salyut rescue mission),  Anatoly Stoyanov (rookie cosmonaut: Flight 
engineer) and Alexander Alexandrov (Bulgarian - backup on Soyuz 33 - Apr. '79).
The backup crew was stated as Vladimir Lyakhov, Anatoloy Solovyev (rookie)
and Krasimir Stoyanov (Bulgarian rookie).  Now it looks like there may be
problems with the prime crew and they will decide who will fly the night before
the mission.  They have not stated the crew name during the past month, while
the actual primary and backup teams were presented to the press back in 
December.  Another interesting point here, it has been stated that the Bulgarian
will probably do a space walk, the first by a non USA/USSR space traveler.
Finally it turns out that the Austrian mission for 1992 is not a guest 
cosmonaut, but rather the first paying passenger for the Soviets.  The bill is
for $13 million, rather cheap by western standards since it includes the 
training as well as the flight.
     Mean while the House and Senate committees are meeting this week to cut
about $500 million out of the space station budget.  At this rate Russian
space liners will be taking passengers to Soviet hotels in orbit before the 
NASA station is built.  Does not any one in Congress listen?

                                                    Glenn Chapman
                                                    MIT Lincoln Lab

------------------------------

Date: 6 Jun 88 19:46:37 GMT
From: paulf@shasta.stanford.edu  (Paul A. Flaherty)
Subject: Re: Nuclear Fantasma

In article <8806060632.AA06382@angband.s1.gov> ELIOT@cs.umass.EDU writes:
>
>    Consider this.  Using a bomb (of any type) to clear a landing site
>    might create a landing site, but destroys a large amount of scientific
>    data in the process.  (Every feature and rock on the surface of
>    Mars can be considered scientific data).  It is difficult to think
>    of any useful experiments that can be done in such an artifically
>    manipulated environment.

Enter the rovers.  Since by definition, nice flat areas are uninteresting,
we want to get away from the landing site anyway. The real question that
the sci folks had to answer was "can we get far enough away to do real
science", and the answer for the blast size was "yes".  The real problem
(arrghhh, n+1 times I've had to post this) is that a small blast really won't
pulverize the boulders that we'd have problems with.

>    On the other hand finding a way to avoid obstacles seems feasible
>    and would be itself a technological contribution.  Finding a way
>    to generate 1m resolution images of Mars (and doing so) would actually
>    be a valuable scientific investigation, in addition to supporting
>    a landing.

Um, we already have 1m resolution in three colors, and with some perspective
info.  Problem is, 1m is still a pretty big boulder; if you want to make
you lander survive 1m boulders, you can, but the weight penalty is hideous.
We've currently settled on a multipad doppler radar system.

>    In summary, a brute force approach might land a space craft.  A
>    more elegant approach could both land it, and generate considerable
>    side benefits, without destroying anything.

Turns out that the blast would provide us with tons of info on atmospherics
and seismics, especially after the penetrators land.

Like I said before, at this point, it's doubtful that we can get a blast that
will eliminate large boulders.  As long as that's the case, the political
realities of the situation doom the proposal.


As an aside, I note that one of the Summit items was "the peaceful use of
nuclear explosions in space".


-- 
-=Paul Flaherty, N9FZX	     | One Internet to rule them all,    -- Tome
Computer Systems Laboratory  | One Internet to find them;            of 
Stanford University          | One Internet to bring them all,    Internet
->paulf@shasta.Stanford.EDU  | And in the Ether bind them.         Hacking

------------------------------

Date: 6 Jun 88 20:24:28 GMT
From: beckenba@csvax.caltech.edu  (Joe Beckenbach)
Subject: Re: Nuclear Fantasma

Hello folks!

Sorry to be late with this information:
	The latest numbers floating around at the Mars Observer Camera
project are 250 sq. meter minimum per pixel using the wide angle optics,
and 1.4 sq. meter per pixel using the narrow angle optics. Depending on
the number of observations of a possible landing site, and the response of
the optics to two features very close together, a site should be able to be
evaluated for rock greater than 4 meters across [3 raw pixels], and possibly
(through enhancement and multiple-view processing) down to 1.5m [one raw pixel].
I'm just barely starting on the MOC team, so please don't take this as 
gospel truth. As soon as I learn more about the optics, especially the
resolution (from the test procedures to be designed and written), I'll try
to summarize.

	Now all we need is an orbit to draw the Observer closer.:-) I think that
these figures are for an orbit 450 km from the Martian surface-- I'll check
the whiteboard again in my (shared) office next week.

-- 

Joe Beckenbach	beckenba@csvax.caltech.edu	Caltech 1-58, Pasadena CA 91125
Ground Support Environment, programmer		"This is space? Neat."
Mars Observer Camera Project		Caltech Planetary Sciences Division

------------------------------

Date: 6 Jun 88 21:45:58 GMT
From: grits!ddavey@bellcore.com  (Doug Davey)
Subject: Re: Book Review wanted

In article <3057@polyslo.UUCP> jsalter@polyslo.UUCP (The Ag Major) writes:
> Has anyone read Stephen Hawking's new book?  I just saw it in our campus
> store (at a price a bit above my current available funds) and I am wondering
> about it's contents.  Specifically if it is written for the layman, the
> intelligent layman, or the intellectual.

I'm currently reading the book (i.e. Hawking's "A Brief History of Time").
It's quite readable by the intelligent layperson, but will not bore an
intellectual.  E=MC^2 is the only equation in the book.   I highly recommend
the book to anyone interested in Hawking or his work.

Doug Davey, Bellcore, bcr!ddavey
#include <stddisclaimer.h>

------------------------------

Sender: "chaz_heritage.WGC1RX"@xerox.com
Date: 6 Jun 88 05:44:51 PDT (Monday)
Subject: Re: SPACE Digest V8 #244
From: "chaz_heritage.WGC1RX"@xerox.com

In his 11 May 88 07:06:07 GMT Carl Paukstis writes:

>I believe that the "official" C-word is "Cocoa", although everybody I've
heard (US only) uses "Charlie".

You hear "Sugar" occasionally; "Foxtrot" is generally shortened to "Fox".<

The NATO phonetic alphabet, standardised both in the US and elsewhere, is:

Alfa
Bravo
Charlie
Delta
Echo
Foxtrot
Golf
Hotel
India
Juliet
Kilo
Lima
Mike
November
Oscar
Papa
Quebec
Romeo
Sierra
Tango
Uniform
Victor
Whiskey
X-ray
Yankee
Zulu

No modifications of these words are normally considered acceptable in
conventional radio practice (though this doesn't stop people from modifying
them). In UK licenced amateur practice any phonetics may be used provided that
they are not 'of a facetious or objectionable nature' - though the NATO set has
become standard among all but the 'Old Timers'.

Regards,

Chaz
G6UVO

------------------------------

Date: 7 Jun 88 00:52:28 GMT
From: pioneer!eugene@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Eugene N. Miya)
Subject: Re: Book Review wanted

Query: who read Hawking book?
Response 1: liked it

I've not read it, but it came up two weeks ago in a conversation with
a windsurfing partner (Bill Burke) who is writing the review for Physics
Today: he didn't like it, you can read his review shortly.  This means
I will have to pick it up.....  What's this doing in sci.space?
Needless to say Bill has his own cosmology book.

Another gross generalization from

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@aurora.arc.nasa.gov
  resident cynic at the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:
  "Mailers?! HA!", "If my mail does not reach you, please accept my apology."
  {uunet,hplabs,ncar,ihnp4,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."

------------------------------

Date: 3 Jun 88 15:41:16 GMT
From: oodis01!uplherc!esunix!bpendlet@tis.llnl.gov  (Bob Pendleton)
Subject: Re: Recycling Pershing-II's

From article <8806010951.aa16990@note.nsf.gov>, by fbaube@NOTE.NSF.GOV (Fred Baube):

> Another story, also by the same writer, describes the atmosphere
> at the Hercules, Inc. plant west of Salt Lake City, where Soviet
> inspectors will be stationed for the next 13 years.
> 
> "'Russians are coming, Russians are coming' screamed a recent
> headline in the company magazine ..

I don't work for Herc, but my wife and a lot of friends of mine
work there. I saw the issue of the company magazine with this head
line and it describes the way the whole valley feels. Because of the
large number of defense contractors, military bases, and other high
tech and/or classified activities going on around here, SLC has been
an area that Soviet citizens have been barred from visiting.

Hercules is not the only company worried that the presence of the KGB
in SLC will have a chilling effect on their ability to get and keep
contracts. Hercules is just the only one that has to allow the KGB on
plant.

All Hercules employees are undergoing INF treaty training. Being
taught how to recognize an approach by a spy, where not to talk about
work while eating lunch, that sort of thing. One of the things they 
mentioned was that one of the brain damaged Senators from the Pretty,
Great State of Utah, gave a list of all the companies doing classified
work in a thirthy mile radius of the Hercules inspection office to the
local papers, who published it. Thus saving the KGB 1 to 2 years of
effort. If he wasn't a Senator, he'd be doing time.

The combination of the KGB and the local zoining commision might be
enough to get Hercules to pack up and leave Utah, taking 4 thousand
jobs with them. The local zoining commision allowed people to build 
houses across the street from a company that manufactures a few
million pounds of explosives a year, the county built a grade school
in the over pressure (read blast) zone of a large nitroglycerin plant.
All in viloation of a sixty year old agreement between Hercules and
the county. Now the county has refused permission to build the plant 
needed by Hercules to fullfil its Delta 2 and Titan 4 solid motor
contracts. The zoning commission says the new facilies are not needed.
These aren't government cost+ contracts. Hercules has no reason to
build facilities it doesn't need for the contracts.

Would you buy a house across the street from a 10 foot barbed wire
fence  with "Danger Explosives" signs ever 30 feet or so posted on it?
Having done so would you feel you had the right to force that company
out of business because it might be a danger to you?

So what part of Texas is McGregor in anyway? 

> Company officials are concerned that the Soviets .. will purloin
> company secrets .. and that the Pentagon will think twice about
> placing new orders at a plant where the Soviets can inspect much
> of what comes and goes thru the main gate.

They are going to have to build special roads on the Hercules plant to
allow Soviet inspectors to drive around and visually inspect all parts
of the plant that were used to build PII. That is an awful lot of road
and most of the plant.

> Their fears have been assuaged only partly by written orders from
> [Carlucci and others] barring such discrimination, and by an NSA
> pledge to make the company's internal communications network
> resistant to electronic eavesdropping."

Ah, so thats what the funny truck with all the antennas was! I picked
up my wife at work the other day and there was this  truck with
about a hundred antennas sticking out of it about a hundred yards from
the building she works in. I guessed it was NSA, I knew the KGB were
still barred from the area. I really would like to know how they are
going to make the microwave links between plants eavesdrop proof,
or on second thought, maybe I don't want to know that at all.

		Bob P.-- 
Bob Pendleton @ Evans & Sutherland
UUCP Address:  {decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4,allegra}!decwrl!esunix!bpendlet
Alternate:     {ihnp4,seismo}!utah-cs!utah-gr!uplherc!esunix!bpendlet
        I am solely responsible for what I say.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #267
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Date: Mon, 11 Jul 88 03:26:15 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
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To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #268

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 268

Today's Topics:
	      Coming to the National Air & Space Museum
	      Soyuz TM-5 mission to USSR's Mir set to go
		   comments/reply for SPACE_DIGEST
		   comments/reply for SPACE_DIGEST
		       Re: SPACE Digest V8 #244
			What's going on here?
		    NSS, Spacepac, and Spacecause
		   USSR's Soyuz TM-5 mission begins
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 1 Jun 88 15:25:59 GMT
From: ulysses!mhuxo!mhuxt!mhuxi!mhuxh!mhuxu!att!chinet!mcdchg!clyde!wayback!atux01!jlc@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (J. Collymore)
Subject: Coming to the National Air & Space Museum

I am cross-posting this netnews article from comp.sys.mac.  I think that some of
you in these newsgroups may also be interested in this.

					Jim Collymore
===============================================================================

-----------------------------------------------------------
Students Give Museum Visitors A Chance To Launch Rockets
 
Washington, DC. May 3, 1988. Millions of visitors to the Smithsonian's National
Air and Space Museum soon will be able to test their own abilities to design
and launch rockets into space.  They'll do it with the help of a computer
program created by three college students.
 
The program is the winning entry in the "Race for Space Software Chase," a
nationwide software writing contest sponsored by the Smithsonian and
Apple Computer, Inc. of Cupertino, Calif.
 
Undergraduate and graduate students at leading universities across the country
were challenged to write computer programs that would let museum visitors
actually experience some of the ways computers are used in aviation and space
flight.  The best entry was promised a place in a new air and space museum
gallery that will showcase the vital role that computers play in aerospace
technology.  The gallery, called "Beyond the Limits" will open in May 1989.
 
Three students from the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif.,
captured the grand prize with a program on rocket design.  The winning software
was designed by Pierce T. Wetter III, a junior electrical engineering major
from Simi Valley, Calif.; Mike Meckler, a sophomore physics major from
Columbus, Ohio; and Glenn C. Smith, a junior physics major from South Pasadena,
Calif.
 
The software will allow museum visitors to see how changing variables such as
thrust, weight and fuel type affect a rocket's ability to overcome gravity and
leave the earth's atmosphere.   Once a visitor arrives at a workable design,
the program "launches" the rocket, calculates the maximum altitude it will
reach and compares these results with attempts by other visitors.
 
"The museum as a teaching institution hopes to stimulate thought -- on both a
scientific and a popular level -- about the challenges and excitement of
aerospace technology," said Martin O. Harwit, director of the National Air and
Space Museum.  "We are happyto exhibit the work of the grand prize winning
students in our new computer gallery and to expand our role of educating the
public."
 
"Creating highly interactive, graphically sophisticated software is no small
accomplishment--one that would have been unheard of for students just a few
years ago.  Today's computing tools give students both the means and the
motivation to solve real-world problems," Dave Barram, Apple's vice president
of corporate affairs, said today in announcing the winners at a news conference
at the museum.
 
The grand prize includes a summer internship at the museum for one member of
the Cal Tech team and 10 Macintosh II computers, donated by Apple to the
university.
 
In addition to Cal Tech, four other schools earned honors in the contest: the
University of California at Davis for a program that simulates effects of a
wind tunnel;Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois for software that
demonstrates how air crews use computers during reconnaissance flights.
Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif. and the University of Notre Dame in
South Bend, Indiana, which each submitted programs that simulate the results of
aircraft design decisions.  Each university was awarded two Macintosh II
computers.
 
All entries were required to be two-minute, interactive demonstrations that
show how computers are used in aerospace engineering.  The entries were judged
in four categories; content, creativity, ease of use, and use of computer
science methodology.
 
The competition was judged by distinguished names in the aerospace and computer
industries:  Burt Rutan, designer of the aircraft Voyager, which in 1986 flew
around the world non-stop without refueling; Paul MacCready, creator of the
Gossamer Condor and other human- and solar-powered aircraft; Alan Kay,
scientist and Apple Fellow whose ideas and innovation in programming languages
were critical to the development of personal computers, including Apple's
Macintosh; Robert E. Holzman, manager of computer graphics lab at Jet
Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., which is well-known for its computer
animation of the flights of Voyager II and other unmanned flights into deep
space; and Paul Ceruzzi, associate curator in the Space Science and Exploration
Department.
 
About nine million people visit the museum each year to view 23 exhibition
galleries displaying some of the most significant aircraft and spacecraft ever
assembled in one place.  The museum's new gallery will demonstrate the role
computers play in aerospace technology--including design, testing,
manufacturing and production, simulation and training, navigation and ground
control, on-board control and air and space operations.
 
Apple, the Apple logo and Macintosh are regisitered trademarks of Apple
Computer, Inc.
 
Press Releases
Headlines & Guide

   __________________________________________________________________________
    Ken Eddings                 CSNET: eddings@andy.bgsu.edu
    Department of Philosophy  ARPANET: eddings%andy.bgsu.edu@csnet-relay
    Bowling Green State Univ.   ALink: UG0182 attn: Ken Eddings
    Bowling Green OH 43403      GEnie: K.EDDINGS
   __________________________________________________________________________ 
	   "The prudent mariner never relies solely on any single aid
	    to navigation."                 -=Old Mariner's Proverb=-
   __________________________________________________________________________

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 7 Jun 88 09:47:02 EDT
From: Glenn Chapman <glenn@ll-vlsi.arpa>
Subject: Soyuz TM-5 mission to USSR's Mir set to go

     The Soviets are set to go ahead with the launch today of the Russian/
Bulgarian mission (Soyuz TM-5) to the Mir/Kvant complex.  According to their
news announcements the vehicle has been checked out and the lift off will take
place in the evening, Moscow time, (about noon hour today Eastern Daylight 
Time).  One interesting point is they gave some costs for the typical mission
this year.  Roughly the booster (A2 class) is about $5 million per launch,
while the capsule costs $8 million.  The booster cost is consistent with their
charge of $10 million for a launch on the A class vehicles for your satellite
- just contact Space Commerce Corp. in the USA for the arrangements.  By the
way talking to a Space Commerce officer I learned that the USSR really 
is offering room for paying passengers to Mir (they have done this already for
the Austrians).  Also they are now modifying some of their communications
satellites to meet the standard Hughes type specifications.  If they cannot
sell their boosters for launching Western satellites then they will try and 
sell both the satellites and the boosters.  It will be interesting to see
what they are supplying in terms of guarantees for lifetimes or replacements.
From the point of view of most countries they do not care whether they by from
Western or Soviet suppliers.  All that matters is price, delivery time and the
service they get from the satellite.  US manufacturers beware, you may stop
them from selling here but there is a whole world out there that wants
satellites of their own.  This country must meet their prices or fail in the
space business.
     Well at least the shuttle is going through a count down test today, that
is some progress.

                                              Glenn Chapman
                                              MIT Lincoln Lab

------------------------------

Date:     Tue, 7 Jun 88 15:37 EST
From: <ACS045%GMUVAX.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Subject:  comments/reply for SPACE_DIGEST

From SPACE_DIGEST Vol8 No.253:
Date: 23 May 88 02:38:06 GMT
From: portal!cup.portal.com!CaptainDave@uunet.uu.net
Subject: Re: cooling by radiation

>So, just what are Lithium batteries, and why would they be prohibited on
>a space flight, when I am allowed to take one in my watch and mingle
>around thousands of people in public places? Are they radioactive?  What
>about a leak?

I'm no battery expert, but I have a feeling that for powering a satellite there
might be a size or weight issue at stake here(I've always thought they[watch
batteries] were heavier than they looked), and since the space-faring variety
 are much bigger that their timepiece
counterparts, maybe they just weigh too much.  Also, isn't there a warning on th
e
back of just about any battery to ``avoid extreme heat or fire''??--If the bay
is pointed sunward, or the shuttle is on re-entry, I'd say that that might
just be heat enough.

                                Flames, comments,etceterizations to
                                Steve Okay (ACS045@GMUVAX.BITNET)


"A Joke??--No, a sales campaign!"

------------------------------

Date:     Tue, 7 Jun 88 15:37 EST
From: <ACS045%GMUVAX.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Subject:  comments/reply for SPACE_DIGEST

From SPACE_DIGEST Vol8 No.253:
Date: 23 May 88 02:38:06 GMT
From: portal!cup.portal.com!CaptainDave@uunet.uu.net
Subject: Re: cooling by radiation

>So, just what are Lithium batteries, and why would they be prohibited on
>a space flight, when I am allowed to take one in my watch and mingle
>around thousands of people in public places? Are they radioactive?  What
>about a leak?

I'm no battery expert, but I have a feeling that for powering a satellite there
might be a size or weight issue at stake here(I've always thought they[watch
batteries] were heavier than they looked), and since the space-faring variety
 are much bigger that their timepiece
counterparts, maybe they just weigh too much.  Also, isn't there a warning on th
e
back of just about any battery to ``avoid extreme heat or fire''??--If the bay
is pointed sunward, or the shuttle is on re-entry, I'd say that that might
just be heat enough.

                                Flames, comments,etceterizations to
                                Steve Okay (ACS045@GMUVAX.BITNET)


"A Joke??--No, a sales campaign!"

------------------------------

Date:         Tue, 07 Jun 88 08:25:32 EDT
From: Bruce Humphrey <BRUCE%TEMPLEVM.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Subject:      Re: SPACE Digest V8 #244

Having read Space Digest for a couple months now, I have a question
for the more technologically literate in the group (please humor
an old liberal arts grad):
How accurate is the book 'Deep Black', about american photorecon
history and capabilities?
I was generally impressed by its completeness (excepting any mention
of special imaging/sensing capabilities), but as a historian I have
some suspicions of anything written by non-experts--particularly
self-taught jouurnalistic 'experts'.  There is a certain "gosh-wow"
attitude by the writer concerning the analytical side, rather than
anything worthwhile about the training/accuracy of image analysts.
Also, while he makes some deductive speculations about the state
of photorecon, they do not always reflect the more expert opinions
I've seen on the net.

If you have anything specific for me:
Bruce Humphrey
Bruce@TEMPLEVM

------------------------------

Return-Path: FHD%TAMCBA.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU
Date:         Tue, 7 Jun 1988 21:55 CDT
From: H. Alan Montgomery <FHD%TAMCBA.bitnet@jade.berkeley.edu>
Subject:      What's going on here?

Somewhere along here I have lost track of what we are trying to do. I
thought maybe if I displayed my train of logic someone could show me
where the flaw in my thinking is.

First off, I am a task oriented person who is not very socially adept.
To me when a problem comes up you marshal your forces, get the best
people available to attack the problem and then go until the problem
is either solved or has become acceptablely uncomfortable. The best
people in any field normally come with alot of unwanted baggage and are
generally not people you would hang out with for fun. You work with the
best whether you like them or not, because they get results.

I have noticed in this list and in the SIG on CompuServe and in
the various space publications that there is alot of hopelessness out
there. The dream of easy access to space in our lifetime seems to be
drifting slowly but surely out of our reach. The response to this
goal denial is a search for a scapegoat, someone to take the blame for
the unacceptable possibility that no one alive right now, today will
will get to space in person before they die. To me as a social misfit
the concept of a scapegoat seems silly, not only a waste of time, but
making the possibility of goal acheivement even more remote.

In the Seventies, a great many mistakes were made by the NASA, space
activists, and other involved individuals. We cannot change those
mistakes. We cannot do anything to make those mistakes go away by
attacking the people who made them. Do you think that the people who made
the mistakes are feeling great about the mistakes? Do you think the
administrators at NASA is saying, "Wow, we sure did make a good choice in
making the Shuttle the only access to space"? Come on, get real! We live
in an imperfect world, a good choice now sometimes becomes a disasterous
choice later.

Right now the majority of America's corporations are owned by
institutions (mutual funds, pension plans, insurance companies, etc.) who
are risk averse. The money which could come from large corporations is
just not there. Looking for Boeing or GM or Rockwell to move into space
without government support is just wishful thinking. Any manager in
today's economic environment who suggested a program which did not pay
off in six months is looking to be unemployed.

It may turn out that NASA was in league with the tooth fairy to
deny us access to space on purpose. I doubt it though. I would believe
in stupidity, short sightedness, and just plain ignorance before I
would believe malice.

So what does all this mean. To me it means that the bickering and witch
hunting have got to stop. It means that we have got to start looking to
lower the capital risk to getting to space. It means that we cannot
depend on THEM (whoever they are) to get us to space. Something has to
done to make each step into space profitable. Not twenty years in the
future, but six months in the future. It means that we need to keep NASA
plugging ahead, so that at least some door is open, some option
available.

As long as space has a greater than six month payoff, no non-astronaut
is going to visit there. If you truely want to go to space, stop bitching
about the people who are working toward the same goal you are, no matter
how flawed you think they are, because they at least agree with you in
principle. Somehow or another the space movement has gotten sidetracked
into looking at the causes of our failures and stopped searching
for answers to our problems. NASA and the big companies will not search
for solutions. If you go to bed at night screaming "I WANT TO GO!!!!",
then you best start looking for ways to lower the payoff time for a space
venture. Does that mean that we need a cost to orbit of $2/pound? No, it
means that an investor can get a positive rate of return within six
months. The rate of return does not even have to be above 5%. So the
bottom line here is that we need many small moneymakers which add up to
a big project, not one big project which just MIGHT be a big moneymaker.
You best also stop feeling hopeless and helpless, because both
of those emotions cause you to do stupid, self-destructive things.

------------------------------

Date:     Wed, 8 Jun 88 07:45 EDT
From: RON PICARD <PICARD%gmr.com@relay.cs.net>
Subject:  NSS, Spacepac, and Spacecause

Can anyone tell me the different roles Spacepac and Spacecause
play and their relationship, if any, to NSS?  

Ron Picard

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 8 Jun 88 11:51:14 EDT
From: Glenn Chapman <glenn@ll-vlsi.arpa>
Subject: USSR's Soyuz TM-5 mission begins

    The USSR' s Soyuz TM-5 mission successfully began yesterday at 18:03 (Moscow
Daylight Time - 11:03 EDT).  The crew is listed as Anatoly Yakovlevich Solovyov
(rookie cosmonaut age 40: commander), Viktor Petrovich Savinykh
(flight engineer age 48: with 75 days on Soyuz T4/Salyut 6 and 168 days on 
Soyuz T13/Salyut 7 in June '85 - the Salyut rescue mission) and 
Alexander Alexandrov (Bulgarian age 36: backup on Soyuz 33 - Apr. '79) (note: 
there were some errors in my prelaunch posting about the crew, thanks to 
Jonathan Mcdowell at Harvard for pointing them out).  The launch was televised 
"live" on Soviet and Bulgarian TV (and I think CNN got the same feed but was not
able to watch them then).  The crew will dock with the Mir/Kvant complex on 
June 9th, and stay for 8 days on the station.  Mission experiments will include
space physics, remote sensing, biology and medicine, though few details have
been given.
    One funny point.  This was not even a high profile mission on Soviet
shortwave broadcasts.  Usually a takeoff is the number 1 or 2 event.  This time
it was 3rd on their broadcasts.
    One point to note is that most news reports, NBC, CBS, the NY times etc
called this the first Soviet manned mission of this year, and did not mention
that they were visiting a crew already on board the Mir station (CNN did it
correctly).  This makes it seem like the Russians are doing little in manned
flights, when the opposite is true.  I guess they feel if they just hide their
heads in the sand the Soviet missions will just go away.  

                                                    Glenn Chapman
                                                    MIT Lincoln Lab

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #268
*******************
Received: from ANGBAND.S1.GOV by H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU; 11 Jul 88 23:24:07 EDT
Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA11573; Mon, 11 Jul 88 20:23:18 PDT
	id AA11573; Mon, 11 Jul 88 20:23:18 PDT
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 88 20:23:18 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8807120323.AA11573@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #269

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 269

Today's Topics:
	    The U.S. Virtual (or Imaginary) Space Program
		       Launch Sequence Details
			   Re: Cometesimals
		      Re: Bureaucracy vs.  space
				MOOSE
		      Re: Bureaucracy vs.  space
		      Re: Bureaucracy vs.  space
		      Re: Mars Underground News
		     Re: Recycling Pershing-II's
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date:  7 Jun 88 21:23 PDT
From: William Daul / McAir / McDonnell-Douglas Corp  <WBD.MDC@office-8.arpa>
Subject: The U.S. Virtual (or Imaginary) Space Program

message

It struct me as being a bit humorous the SPACE news today.  The primary story 
was the launch of the 3 Soviet cosmonauts (1 actually Bulgarian) and the 
secondary story was the successful imaginary (CBS did use that word to describe
the simulation) launch of the shuttle.  It got my imagination going...

   The US is so far ahead of the soviets in the imaginary space program.  They 
   can't even dream how far ahead.  

   The imaginary launch even had a imaginary problem causing a imaginary early 
   return.  Imagine that!

   Our virtual space program is on the verge of great accomplishments.  Perhaps
   we could have a virtual manned mission to Mars.  The program would cost so 
   much less.  Virtual dollars are almost unlimited if we DO need to spend 
   anything on it.  The program would only be limited by the imagination.

I am a bit jealous of the Soviet program...that is why I make light of ours 
here.  I do hope we find the path to return to space.  --Bi((

------------------------------

Date:     Wed,  8 Jun 88  08:10:09 MDT
From: ZSYJKAA%WYOCDC1.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu
          (Jim Kirkpatrick 307 766-5303)
Subject:  Launch Sequence Details

Where might I find detailed launch-sequence specifications for, say, the
Space Shuttle?  I'm interested (just curiosity) in details such as have
recently shown up on the amateur radio list: (paraphrasing from memory)
"At H0 minus .38 seconds propellant valves are opened" and "at H0 plus
63 seconds the pad hold-down clamps are blown open."  I have long thought
a fascinating short movie (15-30 minutes) could be made that chronicles
the launch sequence with detailed verbal explanations accompanied by
appropriate photography and computer-generated animation.  Such a movie
would probably begin long before launch (begin with fueling and arming
perhaps), and as it gets closer to actual launch, where things get real
busy real quick, the time scale would obviously have to shift.

I have no doubt many technical people would find this a fascinating
insight.  I also have few doubts it would never get done.  So, is there
at least a publicly-accessible document/article that details a real
sequence?

------------------------------

Date:     Wed, 8 Jun 88 20:38:15 CDT
From: kistler%Iowa.Iowa@romeo.caltech.edu (Allen C. Kistler)
Subject:  Re: Cometesimals

For those interested in the small comet theory of Lou Frank, John Sigwarth,
and John Craven (all here at the University of Iowa), these are the references
(not in bibliographic form, but good enough) which some of you have requested.
All of these are in _Geophysical_Research_Letters_, a monthly publication of
the American Geophysical Union covering research in space science, atmospheric
studies, geology, hydrology, and oceanography.  AGU is a non-profit
organization, equal-opportunity employer, and all those other good things.
Someday I'll be a member.  {I've got some text of my own afterwards.}

Original papers are in the April 1986 GRL
-----------------------------------------
[1] On the Influx of Small Comets in the Earth's Upper Atmosphere:
    I.  Observations
[2] On the Influx of Small Comets in the Earth's Upper Atmosphere:
    II. Interpretation

Replies to Comments (NOTE: Titles listed below are my own designation.  Usually
                     published titles run like "Reply to <whomever>.")
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1]  June 1986  Atmospheric transport of extraterrestrial water; and effects of
                                                 cometesimals on Venus and Mars
[2]  June 1986  Dusty mantles of the cometesimals

[3]  Sept 1986  Cometesimal signatures for in situ ionospheric measurements

[4]  Sept 1986  Thermal stability of cometesimals in the inner solar system

[5]  Oct  1986  Statistical possibility of instrumentation fluke

[6]  Nov  1986  Estimation of maximum lunar seismic event amplitude

[7]  Dec  1986  Crustal deposition rate of extraterrestrial iridium; and
                                    comparison of cometesimals to larger comets
[8]  Feb  1987  Calculation of optical detection rate

[9]  May  1987  More statistical consideration of instrumentation flukes

[10] July 1987  Recapitulation of extraterrestrial iridium deposition

## And now for a different tactic... ##########################################

>From: mtunx!whuts!sw@rutgers.edu  (WARMINK)
>
> .... It is generally accepted that water once flowed
>on Mars, but cycles of thawing and freezing? I would immagine that such cycles
>would have a drastic impact upon the Martian surface, which does not fit in
>with the large number of craters observed. I would be interested to find out
>where the evidence for multiply thawing/freezing cycles comes from.  Does
>water vapour have the same greenhouse effect as CO2? Why water vapour anyway?
>The Martian atmosphere contains a significant percentage of CO2....

There are not freezing/thawing cycles.  Water arrives at Mars via the
cometesimals.  The same thing happens at Mars that happens at Earth: the
atmosphere heats the snowballs until they are clouds of vapor.  However the
Martian atmosphere cannot support the water, so most of it freezes on the
surface.  What does remain in the atmosphere generates a greenhouse effect.
Water DOES have the same effect as CO2.  The planet heats up; the atmosphere
can support more water; the heating rate increases, etc., until the ice melts,
rivers flow, and Mars has Spring, such as it is.  But Mars is a smaller planet.
With all this heat, it essentially blows its stack.  The water escapes out into
space, including the liquid water which is now evaporating.  There is no longer
enough greenhouse effect to keep the planet warm.  Mars cools down, waterless.
The CO2 stays because it's heavy by comparison.  But there are still the
cometesimals bringing water in from the Oort disk....
  There are maybe THAWING cycles, if you want to call them that.  "Periodic
Spring" is a more common designation.  It's an idea that's been kicked around
previously, but nobody ever figured out a way that it could happen.  The
cometesimal theory hardly turns on this point, however.  If you would like the
authors' own words, read Reply [1] above.

>From: mcvax!ukc!its63b!bob@uunet.uu.net  (ERCF08 Bob Gray)
>
>In article <1002@aicchi.UUCP> dbb@aicchi.UUCP (Burch) writes:
>>... Could this explain (neatly) the occasional reports that
>>lunar observers have made of clouds of water vapor?  I recall that these
>>have been from near the terminator, logical if a snowball hit during the
>>night, and was being vaporized by the sun....
>
>.... A comet or small comet or snowball is in orbit round the sun.  If the
>moon gets in the way, the snowball would hit the lunar surface at a velocity
>measured in kilometers per second. (or miles per second if you are observing
>from the Space Station :->)
>
>Any snowball would be ionised by the impact, which would
>also make a large hole in the surface....

>From: Peter Scott <PJS@grouch.jpl.nasa.gov>
> 
>Well, hold on a moment.  Using the authors' figures of 12m diameter and
>0.1 g/cm**3 density, such a snowball travelling at 6 km/sec impacts with
>1.5 *10**12 joules, a yield of about a quarter of a kiloton....  If
>someone can explain how such an impact could not leave a crater at least
>10m in diameter, I'd like to hear from them.  By my calculations, at
>most one-fifth of the energy would be used in vaporizing the snowball.
 
>From: oliveb!3comvax!michaelm@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Michael McNeil)
> 
>I also believed that the lack of lunar craters constantly being created
>was a flaw in this idea, but then one newspaper report I read implied
>that what was happening was that tidal forces would break up the very
>fragile snowballs well before they got near the Earth or the Moon.  If
>the matter were sufficiently dispersed by the time it arrived at the
>Moon, creation of a crater could be avoided....

Tidal forces help break up the cometesimals as they approach the Earth, but
are insufficient to break them up as they approach the moon.  They hit the moon
with about a kiloton of TNT equivalent energy.  It is an important point that
the cometesimals are water instead of rock.  They are vaporized within about
5 msec (read "instantly").  The shock of impact compression heats them to more
than just sea-level boiling.  The deepest depression would only be about
20 cm deep.  I wouldn't call that a crater, but if you want to... okay.  For
the authors' own words, see Reply [6] above.

------------------+------------------------------------------------------------
Allen Kistler     | kistler%iowa.iowa@Iago.Caltech.edu Internet <-use sparingly
University of Iowa| kistler::iowa                      SPAN     <-NASA pays
------------------+------------------------------------------------------------
Disclaimer: Any mangling of the above concepts is my own mistake, otherwise
               it's not MY fault if it's true!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: 6 Jun 88 22:52:25 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Bureaucracy vs.  space

> Comparing the Space Shuttle with a cargo airplane is utterly pointless
> since they provide a completely different service.

Strange, I had always thought they were rather similar except for different
operating regions.  Certainly NASA has said so in the past.  Can you
elaborate on how, say, delivering a satellite into low orbit is *completely*
different from delivering a load of instruments to Antarctica?

> In case you haven't figured it out yet, there is a world of difference
> between building airplanes and building space launchers.

Of course there's a real difference, the same way there's a difference
between building trucks and building airplanes.  Oddly enough, I do not
find this to be sufficient explanation for the sad state of spaceflight
at the moment.  Especially since the Long March is built by a refrigerator
company and works just fine as a space launcher.

> The fact that
> we went from Orville and Wilbur to the 747 and affordable air transport
> in a single human lifespan is not "proof" that the same rate of progress
> in space transportation could occur "if only the Government would get
> out of the way"...

No... but it suggests what might, perhaps, be possible if the government
stopped trying to run the show and concentrating on *helping*, the way it
did for aviation.  If agreeing with people like Max Hunter and Del Tischler
that progress could be much quicker makes me a Space Cadet, so be it.

(For those who don't recognize the names:  Hunter took the Thor missile
[today's Delta launcher is a somewhat souped-up Thor] from initial design
to initial deliveries in something like two years.  His entire staff was
smaller than the current government *launch crew* for a Delta.  Tischler
wrote the specs for the F-1 [definitely the US's most successful big rocket
engine] in 24 hours, had them reviewed in a couple of weeks, and had full-
scale development underway within three months.)
-- 
"For perfect safety... sit on a fence|  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
and watch the birds." --Wilbur Wright| {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 8 Jun 88 01:16:19 GMT
From: ecsvax!dgary@mcnc.org  (D Gary Grady)
Subject: MOOSE

Anyone remember the Man Out Of Space Easiest (MOOSE) project?  As I
recall, this was a 60s effort to develop a reentry vehicle usable by
individuals.  It comprised a spacesuit, something to generate a foam
heatshield (inflated in the fashion of a life vest), a retro pack, and a
parachute.  Seems to me it would be useful for certain space shuttle
emergencies.
-- 
D Gary Grady
(919) 286-4296
USENET:  {seismo,decvax,ihnp4,akgua,etc.}!mcnc!ecsvax!dgary
BITNET:  dgary@ecsvax.bitnet

------------------------------

Date: 7 Jun 88 16:31:46 GMT
From: mnetor!spectrix!tmsoft!utgpu!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Bureaucracy vs.  space

[If you think you've seen this before, it's because the first version
contained a *serious* typo that I didn't notice until just now.  I've
sent out a cancellation for it.]

> Comparing the Space Shuttle with a cargo airplane is utterly pointless
> since they provide a completely different service.

Strange, I had always thought they were rather similar except for different
operating regions.  Certainly NASA has said so in the past.  Can you
elaborate on how, say, delivering a satellite into low orbit is *completely*
different from delivering a load of instruments to Antarctica?

> In case you haven't figured it out yet, there is a world of difference
> between building airplanes and building space launchers.

Of course there's a real difference, the same way there's a difference
between building trucks and building airplanes.  Oddly enough, I do not
find this to be sufficient explanation for the sad state of spaceflight
at the moment.  Especially since the Long March is built by a refrigerator
company and works just fine as a space launcher.

> The fact that
> we went from Orville and Wilbur to the 747 and affordable air transport
> in a single human lifespan is not "proof" that the same rate of progress
> in space transportation could occur "if only the Government would get
> out of the way"...

No... but it suggests what might, perhaps, be possible if the government
stopped trying to run the show and concentrated on *helping*, the way it
did for aviation.  If agreeing with people like Max Hunter and Del Tischler
that progress could be much quicker makes me a Space Cadet, so be it.

(For those who don't recognize the names:  Hunter took the Thor missile
[today's Delta launcher is a somewhat souped-up Thor] from initial design
to initial deliveries in something like two years.  His entire staff was
smaller than the current government *launch crew* for a Delta.  Tischler
wrote the specs for the F-1 [definitely the US's most successful big rocket
engine] in 24 hours, had them reviewed in a couple of weeks, and had full-
scale development underway within three months.)
-- 
"For perfect safety... sit on a fence|  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
and watch the birds." --Wilbur Wright| {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 8 Jun 88 15:36:47 GMT
From: mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Mike Smithwick)
Subject: Re: Bureaucracy vs.  space

In article <1988Jun7.163146.14733@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
... delete ...... delete ...... delete ...... delete ...... delete ...     
>. . .since the Long March is built by a refrigerator
>company and works just fine as a space launcher.
>

And remember, the Space Shuttle was built by a company that also 
makes power tools! :->

>(For those who don't recognize the names:  Hunter took the Thor missile
>[today's Delta launcher is a somewhat souped-up Thor] from initial design
>to initial deliveries in something like two years.  His entire staff was
>smaller than the current government *launch crew* for a Delta.  Tischler
>wrote the specs for the F-1 [definitely the US's most successful big rocket
>engine] in 24 hours, had them reviewed in a couple of weeks, and had full-
>scale development underway within three months.)
>-- 

Some time ago I remember reading an article in SpaceFlight I think, about
a sounding-rocket project carried out in Austrailia. (I read this a year
ago, and I forget most of the details) The rockets were very successful,
reaching altitudes of several hundreds of miles I believe. The entire
team consisted of not much more than a dozen engineers. An American 
army type toured the facility and couldn't believe what they did
with so few people, considering that the army had over a hundred working
on a similar project. The secret? None of the engineers would think twice
about picking up a broom, and sweeping up if necessary. That is, the
phrase "but it's not my job!" was not in their vocabulary.

(Henry may want to fill in the details, otherwise I could look them up)

Randumb observations by. . .


-- 
			   *** mike (starship janitor) smithwick ***
"Being a dwarf does have it's shortcomings"
[disclaimer : nope, I don't work for NASA, I take full blame for my ideas]

------------------------------

Date: Thu,  9 Jun 88 10:15:18 PST
From: Peter Scott <PJS@grouch.jpl.nasa.gov>
Subject: Re: Mars Underground News
X-Vms-Mail-To: EXOS%"space@angband.s1.gov"

Maybe I'm confusing this with another Mars Underground News, but I seem
to recall paying $10 (to the Planetary Society, I believe), for the
privilege of receiving this newsletter (of which I only remember seeing
one).  Is this newsletter in Space Digest the same thing?  If so, I
don't begrudge the society the money - I'd contribute anyway - but it
doesn't seem right to publish something for free that people have paid for.

------------------------------

Date: 7 Jun 88 18:27:53 GMT
From: thumper!karn@faline.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: Recycling Pershing-II's

> > Another story, also by the same writer, describes the atmosphere
> > at the Hercules, Inc. plant west of Salt Lake City, where Soviet
> > inspectors will be stationed for the next 13 years.

Don't forget that the treaty gives the US similar rights to inspect
Soviet manufacturing facilities. Any agreement that gives equal
inspection rights to both countries is likely to work in our favor,
since the Soviets are normally so much more secretive than we are.

I would like nothing better than a treaty so comprehensive and providing
for so much intrusive on-site verification that military contractors
doing classified work are actually forced out of business, assuming of
course that the same happens to their Soviet counterparts.  Stop
thinking about "saving jobs" and start thinking about the effect that
the products of those jobs are having on the world.  Good old financial
greed and narrow self-interest (on both sides) has driven the arms race
as much as any genuine Soviet threat.

Phil

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #269
*******************

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Date: Tue, 12 Jul 88 03:27:22 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8807121027.AA12350@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #270

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 270

Today's Topics:
		 Re: comments/reply for SPACE_DIGEST
     Lithium Batteries (was Re: comments/reply for SPACE_DIGEST)
		      Re: satellite oceanography
		      Re: What's going on here?
		      Re: satellite oceanography
		       First start of ARIANE 4
			Re: Book Review wanted
		Re: A New Holiday? (awkward question)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 8 Jun 88 15:13:12 GMT
From: thumper!karn@faline.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: comments/reply for SPACE_DIGEST

> >So, just what are Lithium batteries, and why would they be prohibited on
> >a space flight, when I am allowed to take one in my watch and mingle
> >around thousands of people in public places? Are they radioactive?  What
> >about a leak?
> 
> I'm no battery expert, but I have a feeling that for powering a satellite there
> might be a size or weight issue at stake here...

Yes, there is a size/weight issue, but it strongly favors lithium
batteries. That's why everybody wants to use them. The cell voltage is
about 3 volts (twice that of most primary batteries) and they put out
considerably more watt-hours/kilogram. This is inherent in lithium's
high electronegativity (i.e., it likes to release electrons) and its
small atomic number (which means you waste relatively little mass
carrying protons and neutrons, in contrast to other battery anodes like
zinc, cadmium and especially lead.)  Lithium batteries also have an
unusually long shelf life, which would be especially useful given the
long delays and slips a typical Shuttle payload encounters.

The reason NASA bans them from the shuttle is because they have been
known to explode when shorted.  They can usually tolerate a short
lasting a few seconds (typically 5), which is how they can be
wave-soldered to PC boards.  No, they are not radioactive.

Phil

------------------------------

Date: 9 Jun 88 21:15:59 GMT
From: silver!chiaravi@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu  (Lucius Chiaraviglio)
Subject: Lithium Batteries (was Re: comments/reply for SPACE_DIGEST)

In article <1139@thumper.bellcore.com> karn@thumper.bellcore.com (Phil R.
Karn) writes:
>Yes, there is a size/weight issue, but it strongly favors lithium
>batteries. That's why everybody wants to use them. The cell voltage is
>about 3 volts (twice that of most primary batteries) and they put out
>considerably more watt-hours/kilogram. This is inherent in lithium's
>high electronegativity (i.e., it likes to release electrons) [. . .]
      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

	You are correct in stating that lithium likes to release electrons,
but the term you want for this is "electropositivity" (it likes to acquire a
positive charge -- electronegativity refers to a tendency to acquire a
negative charge, and this occurs by *attracting* electrons, usually away from
other atoms).

>The reason NASA bans them from the shuttle is because they have been
>known to explode when shorted.  [. . .]

	Wouldn't it make more sense for NASA to just require that the lithium
batteries be kept inside a housing that will contain explosion fragments, and
that they not be kept in areas in which a breathable atmosphere must be
maintained?  Seems that if a battery exploded in the payload bay but the
fragments were contained within the housing of the thing holding the battery,
it shouldn't be able to do any harm.  Also, it seems to me that if any battery
was shorted for long enough it would explode or do something else nasty.  I
once made the mistake of carrying a battery in the same pocket with a bunch of
change and keys, and it shorted on this stuff.  Even though this battery was
only a battery to power a smoke detector and was nearly dead, it got quite
hot. . .

	-- Lucius Chiaraviglio
	   chiaravi@silver.bacs.indiana.edu
	   lucius@tardis.harvard.edu	(in case the first one doesn't work)
	"Gunpowder hasn't been invented yet."
	"It hasn't?!?!?"
		. . .
	********!!!!!!!!!!BBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!********
	"Well, I could be wrong, you know. . . ."

------------------------------

Date: 7 Jun 88 18:51:04 GMT
From: aplcen!aplcomm!news@mimsy.umd.edu  (news)
Subject: Re: satellite oceanography

}
}Added note to the comment of the person who noted my sarcastic comment:
}NO, these types of radar systems are vastly different.  Go learn about radar.
From: jwm@stdc.jhuapl.edu (Jim Meritt)
Path: stdc.jhuapl.edu!jwm

Allow me to clarify:  I am specifically interested with the altimeter radar
and ITS applications toward dynamic oceanography.

}There are numerous other technical reports which I do not recommend
}requesting that the net bug researchers unless they are grad students (or profs)
}interested in projects (like this fellow?).  It's really expensive to
}make copies of these

Yep.  Quit being a grad student a number of years ago.
Maybe again later....

}There are other useful instruments like the altimeter (or "How
}I know orbits are bumpy (not smooth) things."):

And other nice things to do with it!

}I have tons more, but it gives you the flavor what a space mission is about.

I have an idea as of the taste.  The geosat is run from here.

}I don't know all the reasons why Jim is trying to defend his not revealing
}sources.  I guess others are asking him for sources, too.  Good for YOU guys!
}I asked him for sources early on, he said no, and I left it at that.

What the hell are you talking about?  I have gotten nothing from anyone.
This is the first thing I have seen.  At the beginning of this message you
say :

}This machine (apl) is not accessible to me for some reason.  This is
}otherwise should be mail since it is not of general net interest.

Since you say you cannot get to me, I have the deep impression that
you are lying, for reasons unknown.  If someone wants sources,
Jack Calman is the head of a team evaluting real-time geosat altimeter
data applied to dynamic oceanography.  Larry Manzi & I are doing the
software & processing.  Harvard is incorporating the data into their
Ocean Model.  The US Navy is using it. Give us a call at APL.  If this is
an indication of JPL, you would be wasting you time to call there.
(301) 953-5000.  My extension is 4580.

}Note: at the time I had a direct audience with the Inspector General of
}NASA and can drop a very heavy hammer at the word GO.  I will still
}leave it at that.  If the man doesn't want to give specifics for fear of
}reprisal, then he does not have to tell us.  I have more important
}work to do.

Golly gee.  I'm really scared.  Woopie shit.
Feel better?

}I honestly wish a few of you guys would use a library.
}This guy (remember oceanography? like Alice) had a legit question.

Huh?

}If you want a copy of the above reports, and think you really deserve one,
}before you mail to JPL (don't bother mailing me), what significance
}is the year 1964 to space radar oceanography, what happened?  If you can answer
}this pass GO, and collect $200.

What makes you think:
1. I give a shit?
2. I really care what you think?

}Another gross generalization from
"Gross" is an excellent choice of terms.

}
}--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@aurora.arc.nasa.gov
What the HELL are you talking about?????


Disclaimer: Individuals have opinions, organizations have policy.
            Therefore, these opinions are mine and not any organizations!
Q.E.D.
jwm@aplvax.jhuapl.edu 128.244.65.5  (James W. Meritt)

------------------------------

Date: 9 Jun 88 05:52:21 GMT
From: pioneer!eugene@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Eugene N. Miya)
Subject: Re: What's going on here?

Okay, I'll be straight for once.

In article <8806080443.AA29904@jade.berkeley.edu> FHD@TAMCBA.BITNET (H. Alan Montgomery) writes:
>Somewhere along here I have lost track of what we are trying to do. I
>thought maybe if I displayed my train of logic someone could show me
>where the flaw in my thinking is.

Don't worry, we don't know where we are going either ;-).

>First off, I am a task oriented person who is not very socially adept.

This is also a problem is NASA (the task oriented criticism): great for
one shot missions, not great for long-term research.  It's an
engineering approach, not a research approach.  NASA is also socially inept.
 ;-)

>I have noticed in this list and in the SIG on CompuServe and in
>the various space publications that there is alot of hopelessness out
>there. The dream of easy access to space in our lifetime seems to be
>drifting slowly but surely out of our reach. The response to this

CompuServe is not representative.
The hopelessness is largely found in computer jockeys who don't do much.
People in the aeronautics community can't be held back for instance.
To a degree you should ignore what the net says (take with a grain of salt,
including me [resident cynic]).

Note what is part of the problem can be thought about by considering the
volumes of energy it takes to orbit a human and his(her) supplies.  It's
like an expedition, to get a team high, you need intermediate camps
or caches, to place these takes more supplies (quadratic, not linear).
The types of energy we are talking (launching rockets) are usually
not placed in the hands of individuals (instanteous).  We are talking
lots of power.

>Right now the majority of America's corporations are owned by
>institutions (mutual funds, pension plans, insurance companies, etc.) who
>are risk averse. The money which could come from large corporations is
>just not there. Looking for Boeing or GM or Rockwell to move into space
>without government support is just wishful thinking. Any manager in
>today's economic environment who suggested a program which did not pay
>off in six months is looking to be unemployed.

The thing you need to realize is that these corporations are people.
People don't want to risk their money.  My father (died in Feb.)
couldn't see any reason for going into space.  Fortunately, this
generation is dying off.  There are world governments who only see
economic future in space, our's isn't quite one, this will chance,
you only have to be patient (computers, too fast response time).
The end users of satellite data: oceanographers, geologists, physicists,
etc. all understand it some times takes decades to build ships,
telescopes, accelerators, so shuttles aren't any different for them.

>deny us access to space on purpose. I doubt it though. I would believe
>in stupidity, short sightedness, and just plain ignorance before I
>would believe malice.

Ah! Good a realist! 8-)

>So what does all this mean. To me it means that the bickering and witch
>hunting have got to stop. It means that we have got to start looking to

Oh, very good!

>lower the capital risk to getting to space. It means that we cannot
>depend on THEM (whoever they are) to get us to space. Something has to
>done to make each step into space profitable. Not twenty years in the

Well, I can't vouch for profitability, yet.  6 months is too short
We have to start thinking of long term research goals, otherwise the
Japanese and others will pass us.  This is part of our (US == United
States) problem.

>future, but six months in the future. It means that we need to keep NASA
>plugging ahead, so that at least some door is open, some option
>available.
>
>As long as space has a greater than six month payoff, no non-astronaut
>is going to visit there. If you truely want to go to space, stop bitching
>about the people who are working toward the same goal you are, no matter
>how flawed you think they are, because they at least agree with you in
>principle.

Ditto above.

When I say, "Jump!"  Do you say "How high?"  It's a funny progressive
thing.  We need a lot of little launches.  Hans Mark has admitted space
was a "calculated gamble."  You probably would not have invest in the
Hudson Bay Company or Jamestown, but this is not a criticsm, the world
takes all kinds.  You were unlucky, I caught your note, next time I
will use the comand to "catch up reading news" and ignore more articles.

Another gross generalization from

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@aurora.arc.nasa.gov
  just a mail man, . . . sent by post masters, . . . to deliver a bill.
  resident cynic at the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:
  "Mailers?! HA!", "If my mail does not reach you, please accept my apology."
  {uunet,hplabs,ncar,ihnp4,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."

Another dated refer BTW:

%A Atul Jain
%T Broad Perspectives in Radar for Ocean Measurements
%R TR 78-4
%I JPL, CIT
%C Pasadena, CA
%D Feb. 1978
%X Very old, note pre-Seasat.

------------------------------

Date: 10 Jun 88 00:13:21 GMT
From: pioneer!eugene@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Eugene N. Miya)
Subject: Re: satellite oceanography

Oh, James, so sorry!

I was summarizing 3 articles in that note after returning from vacation.
The "Jim" is Jim Bowery in San Diego who has been flaming of
recent, not you.  Wish mail would work.  I said mail is better in this
case.  My apologies.

Another gross generalization from

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@aurora.arc.nasa.gov
  resident cynic at the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:
  "Mailers?! HA!", "If my mail does not reach you, please accept my apology."
  {uunet,hplabs,ncar,ihnp4,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."

------------------------------

Date: 9 Jun 88 13:02:07 GMT
From: mcvax!esatst!neil@uunet.uu.net  (Neil Dixon)
Subject: First start of ARIANE 4

The first launch of ESA'a ARIANE 4 is now scheduled for 15 June. The launch
windows are:

	11:13 - 12:09 GMT
	13:32 - 14:46 GMT

For this first flight three payloads are carried:  ESA's meteorological
satellite METEOSAT P2, the radio amateur satellite AMSAT 111C, and the US
built satellite Pan American Satellite 1 (PAS 1).

The ARIANE 4 family will consist of 6 different types of launchers with
payload capacity ranging from 1.9 tons to 4.2 tons.
-- 
Neil Dixon <neil@yc.estec.nl> UUCP:...!mcvax!esatst!neil, BITNET: NDIXON@ESTEC
Thermal Control & Life Support Division (YC) 
European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC),
Noordwijk, The Netherlands.

------------------------------

Date: 8 Jun 88 22:21:15 GMT
From: pacbell!att!mtunx!mtune!petsd!cjh@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Chris Henrich)
Subject: Re: Book Review wanted

In article <3057@polyslo.UUCP> jsalter@polyslo.UUCP (The Ag Major) writes:
>Has anyone read Stephen Hawking's new book?  I just saw it in our campus
>store (at a price a bit above my current available funds) and I am wondering
>about it's contents.  Specifically if it is written for the layman, the
>intelligent layman, or the intellectual.

Jeremy Bernstein reviews it in this week's New Yorker.  His review is
favorable - the book is written for the intelligent layman, and is
interesting to the specialist as well.  

Regards,
Chris
Full-Name:  Christopher J. Henrich

UUCP:       ...!rutgers!petsd!cjh            Phone:      (201) 758-7288
US Mail:    MS 322; Concurrent Computer Corporation;
            106 Apple St; Tinton Falls, NJ 07724
Concurrent Computer Corporation is a Perkin-Elmer company.

------------------------------

Date: 9 Jun 88 01:45:28 GMT
From: phoenix!amlovell@princeton.edu  (Anthony M Lovell)
Subject: Re: A New Holiday? (awkward question)

In article <3606@okstate.UUCP>, richard@a.cs.okstate.edu (Richard Brown) writes:
> postponed until the crew had rested, &c.  The "...giant leap for
> mankind" occurred after midnight.  I remember vividly that this

Actually, Armstrong botched his line (as he'd prepared it).
He MEANT to say
	"That's one small step for a man..
	One giant leap for a midget or small child!"


-- 
amlovell@phoenix.princeton.edu     ...since 1963.

disclaimer:
These are MY opinions.  You only WISH they were yours.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #270
*******************

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Date: Wed, 13 Jul 88 01:07:57 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8807130807.AA13496@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #271

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 271

Today's Topics:
			   Re: Shuttle sim
		      Naming the space station.
		       Re: Martian water, life
		      Re: Bureaucracy vs.  space
		    Re: Naming the space station.
		    Soyuz TM-5 flight docks to Mir
		    Re: Space Station naming rules
			   Re: Cometesimals
	     From Space to the Farm: Chicago presentation
			 No new Mir elements
   Re: Lithium Batteries (was Re: comments/reply for SPACE_DIGEST)
	 Hawaiian spaceport? (Was: Re: SPACE Digest V8 #221)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 9 Jun 88 17:11:35 GMT
From: mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Mike Smithwick)
Subject: Re: Shuttle sim

[line.eater food]

My normal sources of information failed me, and I was caught with my dish
down for the tuesday Shuttle sim. Did anyone with a TVRO system get
it on videotape, I'd love to get a copy.

*** mike ***

-- 
			   *** mike (starship janitor) smithwick ***
"Being a dwarf does have it's shortcomings"
[disclaimer : nope, I don't work for NASA, I take full blame for my ideas]

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 10 Jun 88 11:11:08 EDT
From: loeb@BOURBAKI.MIT.EDU
To: portal!cup.portal.com!Daniel_C_Anderson@uunet.uu.net
Cc: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: Naming the space station.

Well to be totally nonsexist you should just say 
Rob Heinlein. And to be grammatical you should
say "Everyone who cares at all about space probably 
cut their ...."

	Danny

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 10 Jun 1988 12:44-EDT 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: Martian water, life

Many researchers feel that liquid water may exist deep in the martian
regolith. The buildup of pressure in aquifers has been suggested as one
possible source of out rush flood features on Mars.

It has also been suggested the massive landslides on the sides of
Valles Marineris might be caused by undercutting as water is (was) lost
the base. The bottoms of the various chasma are deep enough to cut
strata which could contain liquid water. The chasma walls would expose
such fluid such that it would freeze and sublime, thus weakening the
bottom of the cliff and causing collapse.

The areas covered by some of the slides are so large that entrained ice
and water are thought to have been needed to 'fluidize' the material.

If such free water does indeed exist, then one could hypothesize life
deep in the regolith.

I recommend "Geology of the Terrestrial Planets" to anyone interested
in pursuing this furthur. It is somewhat date and needs supplemented
with recent research findings on Mars, but is nonetheless quite good.

------------------------------

Date: 10 Jun 88 12:39:06 GMT
From: nsc!taux01!amos@decwrl.dec.com  (Amos Shapir)
Subject: Re: Bureaucracy vs.  space

For anyone trying to fathom the role of bureaucracy in any organization,
C. N. Parkinson's book "Parkinson's Law" is a must (and funny, too!)
-- 
	Amos Shapir			(My other cpu is a NS32532)
National Semiconductor (Israel)
6 Maskit st. P.O.B. 3007, Herzlia 46104, Israel  Tel. +972 52 522261
amos%taux01@nsc.com  34 48 E / 32 10 N

------------------------------

Date: 10 Jun 88 16:44:59 GMT
From: agate!soup.ssl.berkeley.edu!gckaplan@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (George Kaplan)
Subject: Re: Naming the space station.

Several people around here have been mispronouncing Mir to rhyme with
'myrrh'.  Maybe we should call our station 'Frankincense' :-)

(Actually, Mir sounds more like 'mere')

- George Kaplan			gckaplan@ssl.berkeley.edu
				gckaplan@sag2.ssl.berkeley.edu
				..!ucbvax!ucbssl!sag2!gckaplan

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 10 Jun 88 16:03:03 EDT
From: Glenn Chapman <glenn@ll-vlsi.arpa>
Subject: Soyuz TM-5 flight docks to Mir

    The Soviet's Soyuz TM-5 craft successfully docked with the Mir/Kvant space
station complex at 20:00 hours Moscow Daylight time (12:00 noon EDT) today
(June 9th).  This was a slight delay from the initially announced docking time 
of 19:00 hours.  This of Anatoly Solovyov, Viktor Savinykh and 
Alexander Alexandrov have now joined the long duration Mir crew of 
Vladimir Titov and Musahi Manarov.  The visitors have a scheduled 47 experiments
to accomplish and will stay on board Mir for about 8 day.  Note that the 
station cosmonauts have now been in orbit for 171 days, more than twice the 
time of the longest Skylab mission.  They are still expected to stay aloft for 
a full year.
    One correction, lift off time was stated in my June 7th message as 11:03 EDT
but it should actually be 10:03 EDT.
    Mean while the Soyuz TM-6 is entering its final checkout at the Baikonour
cosmodrome.  This will go up in August and will carry an Afghan guest cosmonaut.
    I heard an interesting story concerning the Cosmos 1889 biosatellite that 
the soviets launched last September.  As you may recall one of the monkeys in
it worked its hand loose from the restraining straps so that the Russians had 
to bring the satellite home several days early.  That resulted in the vehicle 
landing 2000 Km off course. The Soviet officials phoned up the mayor of the 
nearest town and told him to send people to get the capsule into a safe warm 
place, but not to open it.  He sent the Soviet eskimos off on snow mobiles.  
When they found the lander they built an igloo around it, and a fire within 
the igloo.  When the real recovery team arrived the monkeys were conformably 
warm, instead of frozen to death as would have happened otherwise.  Nice
mixture of old craft and high tech in that story.  (The Russians told this
to the people at Payload Systems during their discussions about doing
work on the Mir space station).
     The flight schedule for the end of the year looks very strong for the
Russians.  Let us work to get the shuttle flying so that we do not fall
further behind.

                                                    Glenn Chapman
                                                    MIT Lincoln Lab

------------------------------

Date: 10 Jun 88 13:12:26 GMT
From: killer!tness7!tness1!sugar!peter@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Peter da Silva)
Subject: Re: Space Station naming rules

In article <10109@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>, marchant@sag4.ssl.berkeley.edu writes:
[ that NASA is seeking space-station names ]
> Names under consideration include Earth Star, Freedom,
> Independance, Jupiter, Minerva, Olympia, Pilgrim, and Starlight.

Truly awful names.

How about "Peace"? Only half-smiley.

"Destiny", as in "Manifest Destiny" might be appropriate :->.

How about "Proxmire"? Get the old bastard on the right side.

Or given its likely success, "Roanoake".
-- 
-- Peter da Silva      `-_-'      ...!hoptoad!academ!uhnix1!sugar!peter
-- "Have you hugged your U wolf today?" ...!bellcore!tness1!sugar!peter
-- Disclaimer: These may be the official opinions of Hackercorp.

------------------------------

Date: 10 Jun 88 21:12:14 GMT
From: dietz@cu-arpa.cs.cornell.edu  (Paul F. Dietz)
Subject: Re: Cometesimals

Frank et. al.'s cometesimal theory, if correct, has some interesting
implications for space colonization.  The good news is that water
might be very abundant at the lunar poles.  Cometesimals hitting the
moon would deliver an enormous amount of water over geologic time,
so even if one molecule in a million is trapped, there would still be
a lot there.

The bad news is that large space structures would be at risk.
Frank et. al. estimate a density of about 3e-12 cometesimals per
cubic kilometer.  Travelling at 20 km/sec, the flux of comets
near the earth would be something like 6e-11 per square kilometer
per second.  A ten square kilometer powersat would be hit once
every fifty years, on average.  Each impact would deliver several
kilotons of energy.  We might expect smaller cometesimals, which
would not show up as UV shadows, to be even more common.

	Paul F. Dietz
	dietz@gvax.cs.cornell.edu

------------------------------

Date:     Fri, 10 Jun 88 20:15 CDT
From: Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey <HIGGINS%FNAL.BITNET@cornellc.ccs.cornell.edu>
Subject:  From Space to the Farm: Chicago presentation
Original_To:  SPACE

                        Chicago Space Frontier Society
                                   presents

                        ISTARS: FROM SPACE TO THE FARM

                           Professor John Cesarone
                      University of Illinois at Chicago

                         ADMISSION FREE TO THE PUBLIC



         Illinois farmers may soon use personal computers and satellite
         imaging to make their jobs easier, if a proposal by a group of
         Illinois engineers succeeds.  Dr. John Cesarone will explain
         ISTARS (Illinois System for Tracking Agricultural Resource Status)
         in a free presentation  at 7:00 PM on Monday, June 20, at the
         Chicago Academy of Sciences, 2001 North Clark Street in Chicago,
         just west of the Lincoln Park Zoo.

         Dr. Cesarone, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at
         the University of Illinois at Chicago, will explain how ISTARS
         would collect information from earth-resources observation
         satellites and from computer databases and make it available to
         farmers and other users. Such data as images of fields, early
         warning of crop disease, improved damage assessment, and detailed
         weather forecasts should make for better farm planning and higher
         productivity. The ISTARS proposal has been submitted to the new
         Illinois Space Institute.

         #############################################################

         The Chicago Space Frontier  Society, sponsor of this event,
         is dedicated  to the  opening  of  the  space  frontier.
         CSFS is the local chapter of the National Space Society.
         Among  its activities are monthly  meetings at the Chicago
         Academy of Sciences which   always  feature presentations  on
         some  aspect  of  space development.  Meetings  are held on
         the third Monday of  each  month at  7:00  PM.  For more
         information call Bill Higgins at (312)293-1050 or Larry
         Ahearn at (312)373-0349, or send mail to HIGGINS@FNALC.BITNET.

         Coming July 18: Highlights of the 7th Space Development Conference.

         Spaceweek Celebration Saturday, July 23, 1 PM at the Adler Planetarium.

------------------------------

Date: 10 Jun 88 05:38:00 GMT
From: kenny@m.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: No new Mir elements


I know that several of you are waiting breathlessly for a new set of elements
for Mir, but Goddard hasn't come out with one since Soyuz TM-5 went up.

Following are the elements for Progress 36 as of 5 June; I don't have the
word on when it was undocked from the Mir complex; these elements, which
indicate a reboost, may be usable for Mir.  I make no guarantees!

Progress 36
1 19117U          88156.88193794 0.00015998           12287-3 0   261
2 19117  51.6138 130.3633 0004000  18.9284 341.1013 15.72231650  3615
Satellite: Progress 36
Catalog id 19117
Element set  26
Epoch: 88156.88193794
Inclination:  51.6138 degrees
RA of node: 130.3633 degrees
Eccentricity:  0.0004000
Argument of perigee:  18.9284 degrees
Mean anomaly: 341.1013 degrees
Mean motion: 15.72231650 revs/day
Mean motion acceleration: 0.00015998 * 2 revs/day/day
Epoch Revolution:   361

Semimajor axis:    6730.62 km
Apogee height*:     355.15 km
Perigee height*:     349.76 km


		Source: NASA Goddard via T.S.Kelso's `Celestial RCP/M'

* Apogee and perigee altitudes are referred to the mean radius of the
  Earth (6378.15 km), and not to the local radius of the geoid.  They
  are only approximate, and should not be used for orbit prediction.

------------------------------

Date: 10 Jun 88 22:43:13 GMT
From: actnyc!prh@uunet.uu.net  (Paul R. Haas)
Subject: Re: Lithium Batteries (was Re: comments/reply for SPACE_DIGEST)

In article <1884@silver.bacs.indiana.edu> chiaravi@silver.UUCP (Lucius Chiaraviglio) writes:
>
>>The reason NASA bans them from the shuttle is because they have been
>>known to explode when shorted.  [. . .]
>
>	Wouldn't it make more sense for NASA to just require that the lithium
>batteries be kept inside a housing that will contain explosion fragments, and
>that they not be kept in areas in which a breathable atmosphere must be
>maintained?  Seems that if a battery exploded in the payload bay but the
>fragments were contained within the housing of the thing holding the battery,
>it shouldn't be able to do any harm.

The energy density is comparable to dynamite.  The housing may end up
weighing more than the battery.  I have also heard of lithium batteries
"outgassing" ie. spewing out the nasty electrolyte.  Lithium batteries
are usually made of lithium and something from the other side of the
periodic chart, iodine, bromine, chlorine, etc...

Now you can tell me what is wrong with my scheme:  Build a fuse in
series with each cell in the battery and/or put in enough resistance to
avoid explosion.  I would think a lithium battery with a resistor is
still more efficient than other explosion resistant batteries.  This
should work to prevent a battery from exploding due to external shorts,
(touching keys in the astronaut's pocket, etc...).  I have no idea
how to cope with internal shorts, like astronauts pounding nails through
batteries. :-)
----------------------------------------------
Paul Haas
uunet!actnyc!prh

------------------------------

Date:     Sat, 11 Jun 88 01:35:52 PDT
From: super@csa5.lbl.gov (Michael Helm)
Reply-To: M_Helm@csa5.lbl.gov
Subject:  Hawaiian spaceport? (Was: Re: SPACE Digest V8 #221)

Elias Israel wrote:
>First, the location for the proposed spaceport in Hawaii is in Palima
>Point on the big island (Hawaii) not anywhere near Maui. Yes, I have
>been to Haleakala and it's one of the most beautiful sights anywhere.
>Palima Point is not on or near Mauna Kea or Mauna Loa, the two ACTIVE
>volcanoes of the big island. From the sketches that I have seen, the
>proposed site is (guess what) on the beach, on the south of the island,
>I think.

EVERYTHING on the south of the island is near Mauna Loa & the Kilauea
region, the two currently-considered active volcanoes on Hawaii.
In fact, one could probably make the case that the south end of the
island more or less IS Mauna Loa.  I'm not sure exactly where the
site is, I never really gave this idea much credence, and Hawaiian names
can be easily confused one for another in some cases, but Palima Point
is just a few miles southwest of Hawaii Volcanoes Nat'l Park, near
a rather nice black sand beach (Punaluu), & definitely located in the back of
beyond in Hawaiian terms.  I think the coastal area is pretty flat around
there, so perhaps that's the place. It's only 20-30 miles from Kilauea,
which is near where the current eruptions are taking place, & only 20-30
miles from the summit of Mauna Loa, ALL DOWN HILL.  And if you think that's
a joke, all you need do is drive anywhere around the south end of the island,
& read in your guidebook or posted sign or hear from the locals about this
lava flow that came down in '59, in '63, &c &c.

Another point to consider: the south end of the island is REALLY WINDY.
I don't recall Punuluu being as bad as South Point (your car gets a
free sandblasting there), but someone ought to consider this and see if
it's a problem.

>Also, the benefits of a site in Hawaii are hefty! For the state of
>Hawaii, the flow the technology to the state can only mean more money
>for the state coffers. Naturally, Governor Waihee is a supporter of the
>Palima Point proposal. For the possible users of the launch facility,
>it sure is hard to beat a launch site with water in every direction
                                                      ^^^^
                                                    Only 3; 4000 meter
                                                  mountains in one direction!
>that's only 12 degress off the equator and in a friendly country to
>boot!

I'll look into this some more.... My sister, who lives in Hawaii, 
told me that the idea was brot up & passed around without talking too much
to the farmers who live in the area.  This place is, like I said, the
back of beyond: no tv, radio, etc; no plutocrats like other parts of 
Hawaii, &c; the locals had NO IDEA this was going down.  When the news
finally reached them (!!) they started finding out about things like
an 11-mile security zone around the spaceport...where their farms are...
and got a trifle upset.  That's 2nd hand, I'll try to dig up newspaper
clippings if there's any interest (that's *try*).  

I'm not sure of what's expected to be built at this site, either, or
what services will be offered.  Point Pulima is maybe 50-75 miles from
Hilo & Kona, the two big population areas on Hawaii (& by big, we're
talking a few 10000s).  The road is not great, & the stretch from Hilo
to Punuluu runs thru the national park, part of it right by Kilauea
(VERY active in recent times).  The island airports looked pretty
small to me, too.  If something on the order of KSC is going to built
there I have a lot of trouble imagining how it's going to work.  Go
there & see for yourself! (you'll get a good vacation out of it, in
any case).


>
>I say do it. The age of commercial space development is coming. If you
>thought the GOVERNMENT did some nifty things in space, just wait until
>the businessmen who *know what they're doing* take a crack at it.

Let's look a little more before we leap.  Maybe there are better, or
at least more reliable, sites for something like this.  Do we really
want to invest $Tax$ in a site that MIGHT, I admit only MIGHT,
suddenly be repaved by an eruption from unpredictable Mauna Loa?  It
might even be worthwhile to look at some other sites on other Hawaiian
islands, altho this might be politically more difficult.

Michael Helm (M_Helm@lbl.gov)
LBL
Disclaimer: My thoughts only.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #271
*******************

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Date: Thu, 14 Jul 88 01:07:04 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8807140807.AA14597@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #272

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 272

Today's Topics:
   Re: Lithium Batteries (was Re: comments/reply for SPACE_DIGEST)
		 Significant accomplishments in space
       Re: Hawaiian spaceport? (Was: Re: SPACE Digest V8 #221)
			 Christine McAuliffe
		       Re: Christine McAuliffe
		       Re: Christine McAuliffe
			     Mir elements
		 Re: comments/reply for SPACE_DIGEST
		       Space Shuttle Black Box
Addendum to "Significant Accomplishments in Space Sciences" survey ...
		     Mir passes for San Francisco
			   Re: Cometesimals
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 11 Jun 88 06:12:59 GMT
From: silver!chiaravi@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu  (Lucius Chiaraviglio)
Subject: Re: Lithium Batteries (was Re: comments/reply for SPACE_DIGEST)

In article <1884@silver.bacs.indiana.edu> chiaravi@silver.UUCP
(Lucius Chiaraviglio) writes:
>In article <1139@thumper.bellcore.com> karn@thumper.bellcore.com (Phil R.
>Karn) writes:
[About the tendency of lithium batteries to explode]
>>The reason NASA bans them from the shuttle is because they have been
>>known to explode when shorted.  [. . .]
>
>	Wouldn't it make more sense for NASA to just require that the lithium
>batteries be kept inside a housing that will contain explosion fragments, and
>that they not be kept in areas in which a breathable atmosphere must be
>maintained?  [. . .]

	Somebody mailed me a message indicating that the weight of the extra
housing would make it not worth it to send lithium batteries up.  I did not
intend to indicate putting an extra housing on, although now I see that my
message actually reads this way.  What I should have said was that any housing
that is already there should be made so as to contain explosion fragments, and
the lithium battery placed between other parts of the package so that they
absorb the greater part of the energy of any explosion so that the housing
does not have to be made unduly heavier.  Also, the batteries should be
designed with fracture points and/or safety gaskets so that they would burst
earlier and with less vigor upon overheating.

	-- Lucius Chiaraviglio
	   chiaravi@silver.bacs.indiana.edu
	   lucius@tardis.harvard.edu	(in case the first one doesn't work)
	"Gunpowder hasn't been invented yet."
	"It hasn't?!?!?"
		. . .
	********!!!!!!!!!!BBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!********
	"Well, I could be wrong, you know. . . ."

------------------------------

Date:     Mon, 13 Jun 88 17:08 EST
From: <RJOHNSON%CEBAFVAX.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Subject:  Significant accomplishments in space


     For reasons which are too detailed to go into here, I would like to
conduct a survey on the net regarding what each of you feels are/will be
the most significant achievements relating to mankind's efforts to
explore and develop space. I am interested not only in those
accomplishments directly related to space, but any development in any
discipline which has contibuted to these efforts. Responses should
however, be restricted to a time period beginning around 1900 A.D. and
extending as far into the future as you like. Projections for the future
should be based on some logical extrapolation of current technology or
theory (no science fiction please) and if highly speculative, the
development path from current science should be described. Last of all,
(naturally) responses should be E-mailed to me personally rather than
put on the net. After I have received and analyzed the responses, it is
my intent to put the results of the survey (i.e. the accomplishments
that are generally felt by the majority to be the most significant) on
the net. Maybe we'll even get one of two good topics of serious concern
to space out of it, rather than some of the political and linguistic
drivel (Flame expected) like "manned vs.  femmed" or what "CBS should be
doing" that seems to have permeated the net in the last couple of
months. Your responses will be greatly appreciated.

                                                        Rick R. Johnson
                                                        RJOHNSON@CEBAF1

------------------------------

Date: 13 Jun 88 04:01:46 GMT
From: phri!dasys1!tbetz@nyu.edu  (Tom Betz)
Subject: Re: Hawaiian spaceport? (Was: Re: SPACE Digest V8 #221)


I agree it would be unwise to build a launch base on Hawaii proper.  But
the general area is conducive to launch sites, so other alternatives should
be investigated.  Has anyone looked into the feasability of artificially-
constructed "islands", perhaps just over the horizon to the south of the 
Hawaiian Islands?  There must be suitable volcanic reefs there that are
normally submerged... it would be a nontrivial task to install the necessary
facilities, but it would be the least intrusive approach when it comes to 
affecting the tourist trade, and much of the facility (that which does not
require absolute stability) could be constructed to float on the sea, much 
as oil drilling platforms do.  The energy contributed to the launch process
would be considerable... would it be enough to justify the expense?  It seems
that it might... and what are the relative pros and cons of sea ditching versus
land ditching as regards safety to crew and others?  Strikes me that Hawaii as 
a launch location would provide the Shuttle ample opportunity for both.

 


-- 
Tom Betz                        {allegra,philabs,cmcl2}!phri\
ZCNY                               {bellcore,cmcl2}!cucard!dasys1!tbetz
Yonkers, NY, USA 10701-2509                    {sun}!hoptoad/ 
"Opinions? What opinions? These are >facts<!!"

------------------------------

Date: 12 Jun 88 17:09:36 GMT
From: paul.rutgers.edu!styx.rutgers.edu!masticol@rutgers.edu  (Steve Masticola)
Subject: Christine McAuliffe


Does anyone know of a good biography of Christine McAuliffe? I also
remember seeing a video biography of her shortly after the Challenger
explosion; I could use this too if it's available.

Thanks for your help!
- Steve Masticola (masticol@paul.rutgers.edu)

------------------------------

Date: 13 Jun 88 16:04:38 GMT
From: mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Mike Smithwick)
Subject: Re: Christine McAuliffe

In article <Jun.12.13.09.35.1988.1547@styx.rutgers.edu> masticol@styx.rutgers.edu (Steve Masticola) writes:
>
>Does anyone know of a good biography of Christine McAuliffe? I also
>remember seeing a video biography of her shortly after the Challenger
>explosion; I could use this too if it's available.
>
>Thanks for your help!
>- Steve Masticola (masticol@paul.rutgers.edu)

I would recommend "I Touch the Future" (I think that's the title, since I
don't have the book with me). It's a good, direct writeup by a reporter 
from Christa's home town. He had the closest contact of anyone during the
selection process and her training.



mike

-- 
			   *** mike (starship janitor) smithwick ***
"Being a dwarf does have it's shortcomings"
[disclaimer : nope, I don't work for NASA, I take full blame for my ideas]

------------------------------

Date: 13 Jun 88 00:04:46 GMT
From: m2c!jjmhome!lmann@husc6.harvard.edu  (Laurie Mann)
Subject: Re: Christine McAuliffe

In article <Jun.12.13.09.35.1988.1547@styx.rutgers.edu>, masticol@styx.rutgers.edu (Steve Masticola) writes:
> 
> Does anyone know of a good biography of Christine McAuliffe?

Her full name was:  Sharon Christa Corrigan McAuliffe.

At least one has been written in the last two years.  Read any news/personality
magazine from mid-1985 through early 1986 and you're bound to find quite
a bit about her.

\* This is the way the future is...
Hacking net address: {harvard,ulowell}!m2c!jjmhome!lmann ** lmann@jjmhome.UUCP 
Working net address: harvard!anvil!es!Laurie_Mann		(Stratus Computer)
uS(n)ail: Laurie Mann, Stratus, M22PUB, 55 Fairbanks Blvd, Marlboro, MA  01752

------------------------------

Date: 12 Jun 88 05:16:00 GMT
From: kenny@m.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Mir elements


	The elements I posted for Mir (they were labeled, `Progress
36') a couple of days ago are still usable for visual observation.  I
observed Mir overfly Champaign, IL at 22:34 CDT (03:34 UTC) tonight.
It was not more than about ten seconds away from predicted time; I
would say that it was more likely a few seconds early than late.

	I noticed that it was about half a magnitude brighter than
usual (perhaps not as bright as Arcturus, but comparable to Vega).
The additional reflecting surfaces provided by the solar panels of the
second Soyuz are, apparently, quite noticeable.

	Clear skies for the rest of the overflights this week!

	Ad astra,
		Kevin

------------------------------

Date: 11 Jun 88 16:45:16 GMT
From: aplcen!aplcomm!stdc.jhuapl.edu!jwm@mimsy.umd.edu  (Jim Meritt)
Subject: Re: comments/reply for SPACE_DIGEST

In article <1139@thumper.bellcore.com> karn@thumper.bellcore.com (Phil R. Karn) writes:
}> >So, just what are Lithium batteries, and why would they be prohibited on
}> >a space flight, when I am allowed to take one in my watch and mingle
}> >around thousands of people in public places? Are they radioactive?  What
}> >about a leak?
}
}The reason NASA bans them from the shuttle is because they have been
}known to explode when shorted.  They can usually tolerate a short
}lasting a few seconds (typically 5), which is how they can be
}wave-soldered to PC boards.  No, they are not radioactive.


They don't like getting wet much, either.  Is this a consideration for
something launched over an ocean that spends most of its time
(when it is not in a warehouse)
above water?


Disclaimer: Individuals have opinions, organizations have policy.
            Therefore, these opinions are mine and not any organizations!
Q.E.D.
jwm@aplvax.jhuapl.edu 128.244.65.5  (James W. Meritt)

------------------------------

Date: 13 Jun 88 19:44:40 GMT
From: ganelon.usc.edu!robiner@oberon.usc.edu  (Steve)
Subject: Space Shuttle Black Box

I posted this request a few months back, but alas, no responses.
Perhaps someone new is listening:

I heard that a court case last year ordered NASA to release the 
cockpit black box tape from Challenger.  This was around June or
so of last year.  There was a reported 2-3 minutes of tape *AFTER*
the explosion.

Anyone know any details on this.  The case was brought to court by
the New York Times, but I haven't seen anything in there about it.

=Steve=

------------------------------

Date:     Tue, 14 Jun 88 12:28 EST
From: <RJOHNSON%CEBAFVAX.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Subject:  Addendum to "Significant Accomplishments in Space Sciences" survey ...

     I just realized after my first couple of responses to my "Significant
Achievements In Space" survey, that I was perhaps not absolutely clear in my
request for responses. What I am interested in in addition to the mention of
the accomplishments themselves, are the dates that you think they were/will
be completed. For those of you that have already responded, I would appreciate
a follow up on your responses containing this information. Also, although the
accomplishments in the future are of prime importance, please include info
on the past accomplishments, since part of my interest is to see how familiar
everyone is with these past accomplishments, and which ones you all feel have
been the most important. Sorry about the vagueness, and thanks once again.

                                                          Rick R. Johnson
                                                          RJOHNSON@6414

------------------------------

Date: 14 Jun 88 07:21:32 GMT
From: snowdog@athena.mit.edu  (Richard the Nerd)
Subject: Mir passes for San Francisco


Hi!

These are predictions for the passes of the Soviet space station Mir
over San Francisco.  Since the Soyuz TM-5 is now docked to Mir, the
complex is now about 0.5 magnitudes brighter than usual!  These passes
should indeed be spectacular.

According to Mr. K. Kenny who has been very helpful in keeping me up
to date (he gets all the good weather!), Mir is 7 seconds early
compared to the element set upon which this prediction was based.

If you would like to receive predictions like this, calculated for
your own location, send me email.  For smooth operation, it would help
if you could find your exact coordinates and time zone.

-Rich


   Prediction for:  San Francisco CA              
   Lat:  37.800000  Lonw:  122.400000  Ht:    0.   Zone:   8.00000  DST:  1.0
   Satellite: Mir                     16609   Age:   10.3 days   Unc:    46 sec
   Local Date: 1988  6 14

     TIME      MAG  ILL   AZ  EL   R.A.   DEC   RANGE  VANG
   --------  -----  ---  ---  --  -----  -----  -----  ----
   21:46:30    3.0   18  344  29  06:21   74.4    669  0.48
   21:46:50    2.3   26  355  35  06:03   85.5    584  0.63
   21:47:00    2.0   31    2  37  19:28   87.7    550  0.70
   21:47:10    1.7   37   11  40  18:47   80.4    524  0.77
   21:47:20    1.4   44   22  42  18:42   72.4    507  0.82
   21:47:30    1.2   51   33  43  18:40   64.0    500  0.85
   21:47:40    1.1   58   45  42  18:40   55.5    504  0.84
   21:47:50    1.1   65   56  41  18:40   47.4    517  0.79
   21:48:00    1.0   71   65  39  18:41   39.7    539  0.73
   21:48:10    1.1   76   73  36  18:41   32.8    570  0.66
   21:48:20    1.2   80   80  33  18:42   26.6    608  0.58
   21:48:30    1.3   83   85  30  18:43   21.1    651  0.51
   21:48:40    1.4   86   90  27  18:44   16.4    700  0.45




   Prediction for:  San Francisco CA              
   Lat:  37.800000  Lonw:  122.400000  Ht:    0.   Zone:   8.00000  DST:  1.0
   Satellite: Mir                     16609   Age:   11.3 days   Unc:    56 sec
   Local Date: 1988  6 15

     TIME      MAG  ILL   AZ  EL   R.A.   DEC   RANGE  VANG
   --------  -----  ---  ---  --  -----  -----  -----  ----
   22:12:20    3.1   21  280  25  09:42   23.4    743  0.40
   22:12:40    2.5   27  272  30  10:19   20.0    644  0.52
   22:12:50    2.2   32  266  33  10:40   17.6    602  0.60
   22:13:00    1.9   37  260  36  11:04   14.7    565  0.67
   22:13:10    1.6   43  251  39  11:29   11.3    536  0.75
   22:13:20    1.3   50  242  41  11:56    7.3    515  0.81
   22:13:30    1.1   57  231  42  12:24    2.9    504  0.84
   22:13:40    1.0   64  219  43  12:53   -1.8    503  0.84
   22:13:50    0.9   71  208  42  13:21   -6.3    512  0.82
   22:14:00    0.9   77  198  40  13:47  -10.6    531  0.76
   22:14:10    1.0   82  189  37  14:12  -14.5    559  0.69
   22:14:20    1.1   86  182  34  14:36  -17.9    594  0.61




   Prediction for:  San Francisco CA              
   Lat:  37.800000  Lonw:  122.400000  Ht:    0.   Zone:   8.00000  DST:  1.0
   Satellite: Mir                     16609   Age:   13.3 days   Unc:    77 sec
   Local Date: 1988  6 17

     TIME      MAG  ILL   AZ  EL   R.A.   DEC   RANGE  VANG
   --------  -----  ---  ---  --  -----  -----  -----  ----
   21:29:20    3.1   18  271  26  09:30   16.8    723  0.46
   21:29:40    2.5   26  260  30  10:08   11.9    641  0.58
   21:29:50    2.2   31  254  33  10:29    8.7    609  0.64
   21:30:00    1.9   36  246  35  10:52    5.2    584  0.70
   21:30:10    1.7   42  237  36  11:17    1.3    567  0.74
   21:30:20    1.5   49  228  37  11:42   -2.9    559  0.76
   21:30:30    1.4   55  218  37  12:07   -7.1    560  0.76
   21:30:40    1.3   62  209  36  12:32  -11.2    571  0.73
   21:30:50    1.3   67  201  34  12:57  -15.1    590  0.69
   21:31:00    1.3   72  193  32  13:20  -18.6    617  0.63
   21:31:10    1.4   77  187  30  13:42  -21.6    651  0.57
   21:31:20    1.4   80  181  28  14:02  -24.2    690  0.51
   21:31:30    1.5   83  177  25  14:21  -26.5    735  0.45


Enjoy!

------------------------------

Date: 13 Jun 88 19:01:07 GMT
From: dietz@cu-arpa.cs.cornell.edu  (Paul F. Dietz)
Subject: Re: Cometesimals

In article <18206@cornell.UUCP> dietz@loki (Paul F. Dietz) writes:

> Frank et. al. estimate a density of about 3e-12 cometesimals per
> cubic kilometer.  Travelling at 20 km/sec, the flux of comets
> near the earth would be something like 6e-11 per square kilometer
> per second.  A ten square kilometer powersat would be hit once
> every fifty years, on average.

Correction:  3e-11 per km^3, and 10 km/sec, not 20.  So the powersat
is hit once every ten years, on average, if the cometesimals exist.

	Paul F. Dietz
	dietz@gvax.cs.cornell.edu

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #272
*******************

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Date: Thu, 14 Jul 88 19:06:50 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8807150206.AA15661@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #273

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 273

Today's Topics:
		       News on Shuttle oxidizer
			   Re: Mir elements
       Re: Hawaiian spaceport? (Was: Re: SPACE Digest V8 #221)
				 data
			   Re: Cometesimals
		      Ariane 4 successfully flys
    Soyuz TM-5 update, future missions & new info about Soyuz T-14
		       recent gender discussion
		    Pandora's case is still open.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 14 Jun 88 16:32:01 PST
From: Peter Scott <PJS@grouch.jpl.nasa.gov>
Subject: News on Shuttle oxidizer
X-Vms-Mail-To: EXOS%"space@angband.s1.gov"

>From the JPL UNIVERSE, June 10:

"Shuttle's oxidizer supply assured despite explosion"

The explosion of the Pacific Engineering and Production Co. plant at
Henderson, Nev., May 4, destroyed one of the two facilities capable of
producing ammonium perchlorate, the oxidizer used in all solid-propellant
rocket motors.

The only other manufacturer of ammonium perchlorate is Kerr-McGee Corp.
NASA said there is sufficient ammonium perchlorate on hand for the first
four shuttle missions beginning with STS 26, now scheduled for late August.

The oxidizer for the fifth mission (Magellan) is nearly ready at Kerr-McGee.

NASA has indicated that two key JPL projects, Magellan and Galileo, have a
high priority.

JPL director Lew Allen has been in consultation with NASA Headquarters about
the status of the problem.

The Kerr-McGee plant at Henderson was closed following the explosion on the
recommendation of a six-member safety panel.

The firm was scheduled to resume production this week and has said it could
produce up to 40 million pounds per year of the chemical.

That is still less than the combined pre-explosion production capacity of
Kerr-McGee and Pacific Engineering of 62 million pounds per year.

The production amount of 40 million pounds per year is still less than is
needed by all users, including NASA, Department of Defense, and commercial.

There will be an allocation process developed among the DoD, NASA and the
commercial users.

It takes 1.7 million pounds of the oxidizer to launch one shuttle.

The U.S. Air Force and NASA are considering alternatives for construction
of a new plant for the production of ammonium perchlorate.  Such a facility
may take as much as two years to build and begin full production.

---------------------------------------------

I want you to know it took a heroic effort to avoid snide editorial comments
during the above...


Peter Scott (pjs%grouch@jpl-mil.jpl.nasa.gov)

------------------------------

Date: 14 Jun 88 03:31:00 GMT
From: kenny@m.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Re: Mir elements


I recommend against using Goddard's latest set of Mir elements (epoch
date 88158.85227235) -- they give a poorer fit than the set that they
gave for Progress 36 late last week.

Using the P36 elements, I observed Mir tonight over Champaign, IL; it
appeared roughly seven seconds early, for those that are into tweaking
the B* term.

NOTE: P36 has been de-orbited; these elements date from a point at
  which it was still docked to the Mir/Kvant complex.

For those that missed them the first time, the P36 element set I used
was:

Satellite: Progress 36
Catalog id 19117
Element set  26
Epoch: 88156.88193794
Inclination:  51.6138 degrees
RA of node: 130.3633 degrees
Eccentricity:  0.0004000
Argument of perigee:  18.9284 degrees
Mean anomaly: 341.1013 degrees
Mean motion: 15.72231650 revs/day
Mean motion acceleration: 0.00015998 * 2 revs/day/day
Epoch Revolution:   361

Semimajor axis:    6730.62 km
Apogee height*:     355.15 km
Perigee height*:     349.76 km


		Source: NASA Goddard via T.S.Kelso's `Celestial RCP/M'

* Apogee and perigee altitudes are referred to the mean equatorial
  radius of the Earth (6378.15 km), and not to the local radius of the
  geoid.  They are only approximate, and should not be used for orbit
  prediction.

------------------------------

Date: 13 Jun 88 18:54:54 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Hawaiian spaceport? (Was: Re: SPACE Digest V8 #221)

> Let's look a little more before we leap.  Maybe there are better, or
> at least more reliable, sites for something like this...

Yeah, Cape York!  The biggest thing wrong with Hawaii is that it's in the
wrong country.  The ideal site for a commercial launch facility would have
(a) sane liability laws, (b) sane technology-transfer rules, and (c) no
existing government-run space program to lobby and intrigue against
commercial competition.  The US flunks all three criteria.  (If you think
I'm kidding about (c), note that most of the Reagan administration's moves
to encourage free-enterprise spaceflight have been met with grumbling from
the USAF and screams of outrage from NASA.  If Bush loses the election,
the next few years may be rough for commercial spaceflight.  [Things may
not be great even if he wins -- they haven't been great under Reagan -- but
the odds are better.])
-- 
"For perfect safety... sit on a fence|  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
and watch the birds." --Wilbur Wright| {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 15 Jun 88 02:23:47 GMT
From: uop!todd@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu  (uop!todd)
Subject: data

How available is data from say, JPL to do some research with?

Would they require you have lots of number crunching capability at
your disposal?

For instance, if imaging data from a voyager, or IR data from IR 
satellite  (IRIS or IRAS? I forgot) available?

And what about MAGSAT?

Thanks for any help you can provide.


          How do you prepare for Atmospheric Microphysics,
Astronomical Technique, and Topics in Partial Differential Equations?

       Have a Thomases' English Muffin!      (yeah right)   ;-)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
+ uop!todd@uunet.uu.net                                               + 
+                 cogent!uop!todd@lll-winken.arpa                     + 
+                                 {backbone}!ucbvax!ucdavis!uop!todd  + 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: 15 Jun 88 00:23:33 GMT
From: palmer@tybalt.caltech.edu  (David Palmer)
Subject: Re: Cometesimals

In article <18262@cornell.UUCP> dietz@loki (Paul F. Dietz) writes:
>In article <18206@cornell.UUCP> dietz@loki (Paul F. Dietz) writes:
>
>> Frank et. al. estimate a density of about 3e-12 cometesimals per
>> cubic kilometer.  Travelling at 20 km/sec, the flux of comets
>> near the earth would be something like 6e-11 per square kilometer
>> per second.  A ten square kilometer powersat would be hit once
>> every fifty years, on average.
>
>Correction:  3e-11 per km^3, and 10 km/sec, not 20.  So the powersat
>is hit once every ten years, on average, if the cometesimals exist.
>
>	Paul F. Dietz
>	dietz@gvax.cs.cornell.edu

Comet strikes need not be fatal if the powersat is designed reasonably.
A 10 meter snowball would merely make a 10 meter hole in whatever it hit,
plus whatever damage the fragments do, if the structure is sufficiently
flimsy.  There is no reason to make the structure rigid enough that the
comet delivers the bulk of its energy to the rest of the structure.
		David Palmer
		palmer@tybalt.caltech.edu
		...rutgers!cit-vax!tybalt.caltech.edu!palmer
	"In retrospect, no one should have been surprised by the discovery
	 that Harvard Business School was being supported by a consortium
	 of large Japanese companies."  -- 1993, The Year In Review

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 15 Jun 88 10:00:25 EDT
From: Glenn Chapman <glenn@ll-vlsi.arpa>
Subject: Ariane 4 successfully flys

    The European Space Agency successfully launched their new Ariane 4
rocket today (June 15) from the French Guiane launch site.  The Ariane 4 is 
designed to lift a range of cargoes depending on the types of strapon first 
stages.  This goes from 2 solids up to 4 solids, and 2 liquids to 4 liquids 
(plus one intermediate combination of solid/liquid).  This is an important 
flight as the Ariane 4 is expected to be the main ESA booster for the next 8 
years or so.  50 boosters of this class are currently on order.  Maximum
lift to geo transfer orbit is about 4.2 Tonnes.
    Until the Titan 4 or Shuttle flies this gives the ESA the same (or more) 
heavy lift capacity as the USA has.  Unless changes are made this country is
definitely moving into third place in space.

                                                     Glenn Chapman
                                                     MIT Lincoln Lab

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 15 Jun 88 14:01:45 EDT
From: Glenn Chapman <glenn@ll-vlsi.arpa>
Subject: Soyuz TM-5 update, future missions & new info about Soyuz T-14

   The Soyuz TM-5 flight is now at its mid point.  The crew of Anatoly Solovyov,
Viktor Savinykh and Alexander Alexandrov, along with the long duration Mir crew
of Vladimir Titov and Musahi Manarov held a telanews conference on June 13th 
with reporters on the ground.  The current mission will leave the station on
June 17th, probably using the Soyuz TM-4 capsule (which was launched on Dec. 21,
1987) and leaving the fresh TM-5.  The Russians prefer to keep Soyuz's to less
than 7 months in orbit time connected to their space stations.  By the way this
current flight was moved up to June 7th from its original scheduled start of
June 21 to avoid the full moon.  The Bulgarian cosmonaut is doing some 
observations with the Kvant astrophyics instruments which would conflict with
the higher light level from the moon at the end of June (the moon was dark
on June 14th).
    Some more information is available about the upcoming missions.  The
August flight will have Col. Mohammad Dauran or Capt. Abdol Ahad as the 
cosmonaut from Afghanistan.  This mission was originally scheduled for next
year but moved up due to the current withdrawal of Soviet troops from that 
country.  The November French flight will see Alexander Volkov as the mission
commander (Soyuz T-14, 64 day mission in Sept 17, '85 to Salyut 7) with 
Jean-Loup Cretein as the guest (the flight engineer has not been named as of 
yet).  
    An interview with Volkov was recently published in the June Spaceflight 
issue where he reveals that on the T-14 mission the flight was originally to 
last until Mar 16, '86, long after Mir was launched (Feb 20, '86).  Soyuz T-14
you may recall did a semi crew switchoff with Dzhanibekov from Soyuz T-13
coming down with Georgi Grechko (T-14 crew) while Viktor Savinykh (who is the
flight engineer on the current Soyuz TM-5 mission) stayed on board.  
Savinykh was part of the original crew of Volkov and Valdimir Vasyutin 
meant for a Salyut 7 mission in the summer of '85 when the station problems
required that a repair crew (Soyuz T-13) be sent up.  Note that the Soyuz T-15
crew flew on Mar. 13, '86 to Mir.  This suggests that original intention was
for the Soyuz T-14 crew to occupy Sayut 7 and not come down until the T-15
crew had docked with the new Mir station.  This was prevented due to the
illness of Vasyutin, which forced them to come down on Nov 23.  That suggests
two interesting things were in the Soviet plans at that time, though neither
was achieved.  First they probably planed permanent manned habitation to
begin with Salyut 7 in June '85 and for Mir to be manned continuously from
its initial occupation (the Soyuz T-15 mission to Mir appeared to end suddenly,
probably due to the delays in the Kvant expansion module's launching).  Secondly
if Savinykh had completed the original planed mission he would have been up
there for 284 days, exceeding the 237 day flight of the Soyuz T-10b crew
from '84.  This would explain the long delay until last year in breaking
that previous record of time in orbit.  Thus if their problems had not occurred
on Soyuz T-14 we might now be looking at 3 years of permanent Soviet space
manned presence, rather than 1.3 years, and more time in orbit records.
    Obviously the Russians have not had things go according to their plans over
the past few years.  Yet they have continued to build up a huge lead in manned
experience in space.  Here we have NASA closing down the whole manned activity
for about 2.5 years with a problem on the shuttle.  That is not the way to
show "leadership" in the space field.

                                                    Glenn Chapman
                                                    MIT Lincoln Lab

------------------------------

Date:         Wed, 15 Jun 88 10:33:14 CDT
From: "k.c. powell" <ACS1R%UHUPVM1.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Subject:      recent gender discussion

I have seen some of the recent network discussion of gender, etc. in sci-
fi and fantasy.  I would like to respond to a few things.  The first was
the suggestion that Heinlein's proposition that men somehow bear children
bespoke some feminism on his part.  I would ask you to read Frankenstein
if you want to see the process of creation in the hands of men.  One can
argue that the desire to reproduce is the ultimate autoerotic, misogynist
fantasy.  Remove women from the process altogether.  I grant that this is
a radical interpretation and one with which I do not agree but it shows
that there truly are several sides to any story.
My second comment is to Henry Spencer who dismisses, in a fashion typical
of those who have nothing to gain by a change and possibly some ego to lose,
 the need to address the sexism inherent in language.  Henry, there is no
more immediate, profound or basic concern than the structure of communication
especially when it's structure has a built-in repression.
     I only ask that men like yourself read a few things in which the generic
she is used and see if indeed it does not require a bit of double identifica-
tion.  This is the gripe, and I believe a legitimate one.  The use of "he"
to refer to both men and women is confusing to the subconscious. The female
must say oh, okay that means me too but her subconscious knows it is not.
Beyond the issue of double identification, the generic "he" tells little girls
and big that all doctors, lawyers, candlestick makers, astronauts, etc. are
male.  We grow up reading that all representatives of humanity are male.  It
is a subtle innuendo that perhaps we do not quite qualify as humans.  Anyway,
Mr. Spencer, I only ask that you reconsider your cavalier view of language and
its role in our lives, evolution, aspirations, and fundamental relation one to
another.  Sincerely,
K.C. Powell

------------------------------

Reply-To: mordor!rutgers!trout.nosc.mil!pnet01!jim
Date: Mon, 13 Jun 88 22:22:53 PDT
From: mordor!rutgers!pnet01.cts.com!jim (Jim Bowery)
To: crash!space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: Pandora's case is still open.

Dale Amon writes:

> Several individuals have been slandered who are not present to defend
> themselves. 

Dale, you falsely accuse me of slander (although you mean libel) which is
a crime and are, therefore, engaging in libel.  Either substantiate or 
retract your accusation against me.  Do so in a timely manner.

I can claim that members of the National Space Society's Legislative 
Committee are engaging in unethical conduct all I want.  Even Edwin 
Meese states that while unethical conduct is not a crime, people should 
still not engage in it.  If someone in Meese's position can make such 
statements, certainly I can, and I should not be libeled for doing so.

Dale flatters himself by association with Scott Pace et al.  He isn't
in the same league as the members of the Legislative Committee who are 
paid to work in government funded aerospace.  These "citizen space
activists" claiming to be the political representatives of thousands of 
naive space enthusiasts are far more unethical than Dale.  Dale is just a 
nice guy who wants to get along with everyone by going with the flow.  
Too bad the flow happens to be so destructive to Dale's goals.
 
> Since our organizational watch word is "I WANT TO GO!!!!!" I would
> suggest that most of our more energetic members will eventually work
> professionally in some facit of space. 
>                         ... I want to go, and I work with other people
> who also want to go. Anyone who doesn't had better get out of my way.

Where does it say in any NSS document "I WANT TO GO!!!!!!", Dale?  
The world does have priorities other than letting you and your
friends go to space regardless of what gets in your way.  Your adolescent
urges will not receive the funding you seek.  Why not face reality?  Work 
for real advance in space instead of making unsuccessful attempts at 
propping up NASA's suppression of public science and private development.  
Sure you will lose a few friends but you don't have to be friends with 
people who are getting in the way of your only real hope of going to space.  

> I will also note that "aerospace" money does not dominate the
> organization. Such monies are received through the AIAC (Aerospace
> Industries Association Council), but are used only for special
> projects, NOT for operating expenses. 

According to the financial report presented at the space development
conference, AIAC funding is used for OPERATING EXPENSES.  Perhaps Dale 
contradicts the facts here because the NSS Board of Directors was denied 
access to NSS financial statements that were, instead, given to the AIAC.  
Both of these facts prove Dale's claim that the AIAC is "at a safe arms 
length" to be ridiculous on the face of it.

> I will also state (having been one of the people who voluntarily worked for
> severals days to encode last fall's survey) that a vast majority of the
> membership places strong support of the space station in the context of
> going for a lunar base and then to Mars. The policy stands of the
> organization follow this.  I'm personally in favor of Space
> Industries/WESPACE, External Tank Company, etc INSTEAD of the station.
> But so long as I am a representative of a membership that
> feels otherwise, I will bow to their wishes while occasionally pointing
> out the alternatives and working to insure they are noticed.

Dale defends the existence of aerospace leaders in positions of trust
and authority in NSS.  Yet these leaders, by Dale's own statement, have 
not led the membership to a rational view of space activities, choosing 
instead to promote large government development projects which pay their
salaries.  The membership of NSS wants valuable things to happen in space.
They have been duped, with the help of the NSS leadership, into thinking 
that Space Station and other bogus projects are the only way this will 
happen.  It is hardly surprising that, in such an environment, the NSS 
membership would answer a biased survey in a way that follows the 
leadership's greed.

> I will also note the copy of the Space Cause voters guide in front of
> me has Dukakis as the first entry and gives him nearly a full page. 

In the previous voters guide, which had been circulated for months,
Scott Pace rather transparently tried to get away with saying that
Dukakis had no space policy even though it had been announced in
advance of other policies published in the same guide.  This changed
only after I caught him in the act and confronted him on this net (just
as he supported a rather uncontroversial commercial space measure
after I confronted him on the net about his failure to act decisively
in favor of commercial space).  I wonder which part of Dukakis's policy 
Scott disagreed with?  Was it the termination of NASP?  Termination of the 
current space station program?  The way Scott changes his story at 
his convenience, we'll certainly never know.

UUCP: {cbosgd, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!pnet01!jim
ARPA: crash!pnet01!jim@nosc.mil
INET: jim@pnet01.cts.com

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #273
*******************

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Date: Fri, 15 Jul 88 01:06:42 PDT
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To: Space@angband.s1.gov
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Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #274

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 274

Today's Topics:
		       Re: Christine McAuliffe
	    Re: Coming to the National Air & Space Museum
		     Re: Recycling Pershing-II's
	       NASA news - Small explorers, Pioneer 10
			   Mir EVA planned
			       Pegasus
		     Re: Launch Sequence Details
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 14 Jun 88 19:37:52 GMT
From: portal!cup.portal.com!David_Zonker_Harris@uunet.uu.net
Subject: Re: Christine McAuliffe


   Try "I touched the Future"...written by a reporter assigned to cover
the "Teacher in Space" angle of the mission.  He bacame friends of the
family and really put together a great book/biography!

                        Enjoy it when you find it!
      David K Z Harris  (aka KB6FVA, aka Zonker)

------------------------------

Date: 13 Jun 88 11:40:47 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!its63b!bob@uunet.uu.net  (ERCF08 Bob Gray)
Subject: Re: Coming to the National Air & Space Museum

In article <684@atux01.UUCP> jlc@atux01.UUCP (J. Collymore) writes:
>I am cross-posting this netnews article from comp.sys.mac.

>-----------------------------------------------------------
>Students Give Museum Visitors A Chance To Launch Rockets
[...]
>The software will allow museum visitors to see how changing variables such as
>thrust, weight and fuel type affect a rocket's ability to overcome gravity and
>leave the earth's atmosphere.   Once a visitor arrives at a workable design,
>the program "launches" the rocket, calculates the maximum altitude it will
>reach and compares these results with attempts by other visitors.

Exactly this type of system has been running in the
Spaceflight gallery in the Science Museum in London for
the last two and a half years.

You are asked to select number of stages; thrust and fuel
type for each stage; and the payload weight.

The computer then launches the rocket, and draws the trajectory
it would follow.

For ease of calculation the Earth is assumed to be flat, but
some designs still make it into orbit. :->
	Bob.

------------------------------

Date: 13 Jun 88 14:50:39 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!its63b!bob@uunet.uu.net  (ERCF08 Bob Gray)
Subject: Re: Recycling Pershing-II's

In article <855@esunix.UUCP> bpendlet@esunix.UUCP (Bob Pendleton) writes:
>From article <8806010951.aa16990@note.nsf.gov>, by fbaube@NOTE.NSF.GOV (Fred Baube):
>All Hercules employees are undergoing INF treaty training. Being
>taught how to recognize an approach by a spy, where not to talk about
>work while eating lunch, that sort of thing. One of the things they 

But suppose the spies have also been on the course, they
would then know not to keep refering to people as "comrade".
They would be drinking coke instead of vodka, their party
armbands would have been left at home, and they would have
been carefully trained not to quote the sayings Lennin or Marx.

Of course, if the soviets were really clever, they could
always get a sleeping agent elected as a Senator.
Information could then be passed as slips of the tongue.

>mentioned was that one of the brain damaged Senators from the Pretty,
>Great State of Utah, gave a list of all the companies doing classified
>work in a thirthy mile radius of the Hercules inspection office to the
>local papers, who published it. Thus saving the KGB 1 to 2 years of
>effort. If he wasn't a Senator, he'd be doing time.

See what I mean...


Large numbers of :-> s should be added to the above where
appropriate.

Most of the Soviet spies who have been discovered are notable
only in just how unlikely they were to have been spies.

I don't see that the presence of a few carefully monitored
Soviet personnel is going to be much of an extra security risk.
	Bob.

------------------------------

Date: 16 Jun 88 09:05:39 GMT
From: sonia!khayo@cs.ucla.edu  (Eric Behr)
Subject: NASA news - Small explorers, Pioneer 10

==================================================================

NASA ANNOUNCES CONFERENCE FOR SMALL-CLASS EXPLORERS

June 14, 1988

RELEASE: 88-79


     NASA will conduct a conference to discuss space science
research opportunities in the Explorer Program at NASA's Goddard
Space Flight Center (GSFC), Greenbelt, Md., June 21, 1988.

     The Explorer Program is a long-standing NASA program for
launching small and moderate-sized space science mission
payloads.  Dozens of Explorers have been launched, including the
Solar Mesospheric Explorer, the Infrared Astronomical Satellite,
the Dynamics Explorer, the Active Magnetospheric Particle Tracer
Experiment and the International Ultraviolet Explorer, which has
produced scientific data for more than 1,400 articles in
scientific journals.

     The new Small-class Explorer Program, to be managed by
GSFC's Special Payloads Division, will conduct scientific
research in the space science disciplines: astrophysics; space
physics; and upper atmosphere science.

     The Small-class Explorer Program will consist only of the
smaller missions characterized by the scope and capability of
investigations conducted on spacecraft launched by Scout-class
launch vehicles.

     Because one purpose of the Small-class Explorer Program is
to provide a rapid execution of scientific investigations, the
proposed missions should take no more than 3 years from
initiation to launch.  NASA will launch up to two missions per
year allocating an average of $30 million in developmental costs
for each mission.

     The development phase of the initial mission is planned to
commence in the second half of fiscal year (FY) 1989, with
tentative plans to launch in early FY 1992.

     The selected investigators will have exclusive use of the
scientific data from the mission for a period of 12 months after
receipt of the data.  After this period, guest observer programs
and data analysis and interpretation will be supported through
other programs.

==================================================================

PIONEER 10 CONTINUES SOLAR SYSTEM EXPLORATION AND DISCOVERIES

June 13, 1988



      Pioneer 10, the first spacecraft to leave the solar system,
is the most distant human-made object in existence.  The Pioneer  explorer
continues to make discoveries about the Sun's influence  in the local
interstellar medium, called the heliosphere, and to  seek the boundary between
this and the true interstellar gas.   Pioneer 10 continues its search for
gravity waves and a possible  10th solar system planet.

     Today, Pioneer 10 has spent 5 years beyond the orbit of the  outermost
solar system planet Pluto, some 4 billion, 175 million  miles from the Sun.
Radio signals, moving with the speed of  light at 186,000 miles per second, now
take 12 hours and 26  minutes to travel from Earth to the explorer spacecraft
and back.

     Launched in 1972, Pioneer 10 was the first spacecraft to  cross the
Asteroid Belt, fly by Jupiter and return pictures,  chart Jupiter's intense
radiation belts, measure the mass of its  four planet-sized moons, locate the
giant planet's magnetic field  and discover that Jupiter is predominantly a
liquid planet.

     Its primary mission, originally scheduled for 21 months, was  accomplished
by December 1973.  At that point, scientists  reprogrammed Pioneer for an
indefinite mission to explore the  outer solar system and beyond.

     Perhaps the most important finding about the outer solar  system concerns
the extent and characteristics of the  heliosphere.  Pioneer 10 continues to
measure the "solar wind,"  the million-mile-per-hour flow of charged atomic
particles  boiling off the sun's surface, forming the sun's tenuous
atmosphere.

     Scientists had predicted in 1956 the modulation (alteration)  of galactic
cosmic rays out past the orbit of Jupiter, indicating  a heliosphere presence
out that far.  The probe is now almost  nine times that distance and has not
yet reached the boundary of  the solar heliosphere.  And, the sun's direct
influence continues  to be strong.  A number of scientists believe that this
boundary  may be as far away as 9.3 billion miles.

     Several scientists, including Dr. James Van Allen, one of  Pioneer's
principal investigators and discoverer of the Earth's  radiation belts, and Dr.
Darrell Judge, University of Southern  California, also a Pioneer investigator,
suggest that the  heliosphere varies in size with solar activity and is nearly
spherical in shape.  Because of this, they think Pioneer 10 may  break through
the boundary of the solar atmosphere and pass into  interstellar space in the
next 1 to 3 years.  There the  spacecraft could directly measure the
interstellar gas, which so  far has not been possible.

     Pioneer 10 has found that the sun strongly influences the  heliosphere
characteristics as far away as 4 billion miles.   Scientists are finding major
variations keyed to its cycle, such  as outward traveling shocks that
accelerate charged particles.

     The sun changes a great deal during this cycle.  The number  of sunspots
-- the enormous and violent magnetic storms on the  solar surface -- varies
radically, as does the shape of the sun's  magnetic field and movements in the
hot gases surrounding the  corona, the outer portion of the sun.  The coronal
material has  sparse areas called "coronal holes" located around the sun's two
magnetic poles.  When the sun approaches its most active phase,  solar maximum,
these coronal holes creep toward the solar equator  by extending "tongues" 10
or 20 degrees wide in longitude.   During the solar minimum, the holes retreat
back to the poles.

     Pioneer 10 and other closer-in spacecraft are measuring the  "high speed
streams" in the solar wind whose source is the  movement of the coronal holes.
Pioneer 10 found that other  changes are triggered by movements of a vast
electromagnetic  structure called the current sheet, which bisects the sun's
field.  Particles slow down as this sheet "flaps" toward them.

     Pioneer also has made new findings on cosmic rays entering  our portion of
the Milky Way.  Cosmic rays are high velocity sub- atomic particles from our
galaxy.  Normally, the number of these  particles inside the heliosphere varies
with the solar cycle, and  large amounts of low energy cosmic rays were found
to flow in  from the galaxy during the recent low point of activity on the
sun.  This may suggest that Pioneer is approaching the  heliosphere boundary
where the solar influence stops.

     The possible existence of a 10th planet at the outer fringes  of the solar
system may be determined by measuring minute changes  in Pioneer 10's flight
path.  In 1978, astronomers have suggested  the presence of a new planetary
body since Pluto was found to be  too small to explain past irregularities in
the orbits of planets  Uranus and Neptune.

     Pioneer 10 and its twin, Pioneer 11, are excellent  indicators of the
gravitational pull of celestial objects.   Because the spacecraft are spin
stabilized, they generate almost  no forces of their own that would affect
their straight-line  flight path.  Thus, large, nearby masses, exerting
gravitational  forces, should easily be observed by changes in Pioneer 10's
flight trajectory.

     Thus far, NASA scientist John Anderson has found no evidence  of any
uncharted planetary bodies.  Despite this lack of  evidence, Anderson and
others strongly believe that the huge  volume of past measurements, made by
many eminent observers,  showing irregularities in the orbits of Uranus and
Neptune are  too widespread and consistent to be discarded.

     They suggest that whatever perturbed the outer planets  between 1800 and
1900 has now "gone away."  It could well be an  object whose orbit is tilted at
a high angle to the plane of the  solar system.  These gravitational anomalies
are no longer  observed because the object is currently too far away or too
high  above the planets to affect either Pioneer or the outer  planets.
Anderson and other researchers have suggested places to  look for this
planet-sized body, and a number of groups are  searching these regions of
space.

     Tracking the Pioneer 10 also provides scientists with an  opportunity to
detect "gravity waves," predicted by Einstein's  General Theory of Relativity.
In theory, infrequent and  enormously powerful cataclysmic events, such as
collisions  between entire galaxies or two massive black holes, would  "rattle"
the entire universe, producing gravity waves.  A number  of university research
groups around the world have been using  elaborate equipment to search for
gravity waves for well over a  decade.  None so far has been found.

     Gravity waves may be especially easy to detect in the  extremely long
wavelengths (one to four billion miles) that both  Pioneers are in position to
measure, but neither Pioneer has yet  found such waves.  Gravity waves would
dwarf the longest radio  waves, the largest waves commonly measured on Earth,
which span  only hundreds or thousands of feet.

     Recent improvements in the NASA ground stations are expected  to allow
communications with Pioneer 10 to continue until the  range approaches 6
billion miles, more than twice the prelaunch  estimates.

     Project manager Richard O. Fimmel expects that NASA will be  able to track
Pioneer 10 until the craft's power source limits  communications toward the end
of the 1990's.

     Scientists believe that both Pioneers 10 and 11 will travel  among the
stars virtually forever because the vacuum of  interstellar space is so empty.
Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 have  long since passed the region of greatest
potential danger, which  occurred at the Jupiter and Saturn encounters.

     Both Pioneers 10 and 11 carry an easily-interpreted graphic  message in
the event an intelligent life form may capture either  spacecraft on its
journey.  Engraved on a gold-anodized aluminum  plaque, the message features a
drawing of a man and a woman, a  diagram of our solar system and a map
depicting our solar system  with reference to galactic "lighthouses," known as
pulsars.

==================================================================
                                                       Eric

------------------------------

Date: 16 Jun 88 13:33:15 GMT
From: cfa!cfa250!kaa@husc6.harvard.edu  (Keith Arnaud x57400)
Subject: Mir EVA planned

A colleague in England tells me that an EVA is planned for the end
of the month to repair the Utrecht/Birmingham X-ray telescope on
Kvant. The replacement detector was sent up on a Progress a few weeks
ago and the rest of the parts for the operation went up in the
luggage of the cosmonauts on the recent Soyuz.

                     Happy Bloomsday,
                                 Keith

-- 
Keith Arnaud              |  uucp : noao!cfa!cfa200!kaa
Center for Astrophysics   |bitnet : kaa@cfa2  
60 Garden Street          |  arpa : kaa@cfa200.harvard.edu
Cambridge  MA 02138       |  span : 6676::kaa

------------------------------

Date: 16 Jun 88 20:50:57 GMT
From: hplabsb!dsmith@hplabs.hp.com  (David Smith)
Subject: Pegasus

Since no one else has, I thought I'd point out the article on p.10 of
US News & World Report for June 13.  It said that Orbital Sciences Corp.
and Hercules Aerospace announced a plan to develop Pegasus, a 50-foot
stub-winged rocket.  Air launched from a B-52 or converted airliner at
40,000 ft., it would put an 850-pound payload into a 250 mile high orbit.
Expected to fly in mid-1989, at $6 million per launch.

Some years ago, the Air Force tested air launch of a Minuteman from a
C-5.  Anyone know how that went (like, how did the C-5 respond to the
c.g. change as the rocket rolled out the back)? *

			David Smith
			HP Labs
			dsmith@hplabs.hp.com

* To forestall flamage, I suppose I must add that this is not intended
as a criticism of Pegasus, which could be launched like an X-15.
-- 

			David Smith
			HP Labs
			dsmith@hplabs.hp.com

------------------------------

Date: 16 Jun 88 22:54:31 GMT
From: aplcen!rkolker@mimsy.umd.edu  (5915)
Subject: Re: Launch Sequence Details

A pretty good sequence is in the report of the Challenger Commission
(I think in the first volume...don't have it handy).

Another useful document would be an ascent checklist from any
flight...If you ask Houston real nice, they'll probably give
you one.

++rich

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #274
*******************

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Date: Fri, 15 Jul 88 19:06:50 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
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To: Space@angband.s1.gov
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Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #275

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 275

Today's Topics:
			     Re: Pegasus
       Re: Hawaiian spaceport? (Was: Re: SPACE Digest V8 #221)
		     Re: Space Shuttle Black Box
			   Re: Mir elements
			  Fusion Power Info
			     Re: Pegasus
	   advance space news from June 6 AW&ST -- Pegasus!
		   NASA news - Tony England; Senate
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 16 Jun 88 23:02:05 GMT
From: hplabsb!dsmith@hplabs.hp.com  (David Smith)
Subject: Re: Pegasus

In article <4772@hplabsb.UUCP>, dsmith@hplabsb.UUCP (David Smith) writes:
> Since no one else has, I thought I'd point out the article on p.10 of
> US News & World Report for June 13.  It said that Orbital Sciences Corp.
> and Hercules Aerospace announced a plan to develop Pegasus, a 50-foot

Wouldn't you know it, posting this was the library's cue to finally put
out the June 6 AW&ST, which has Pegasus on the cover.  Let that be the
primary reference, I guess.  So now it's doubly surprising to me that,
with all the oddball, exotic, and trivial stuff that gets discussed in
this forum, Pegasus hasn't stirred more comment.

			David Smith
			HP Labs
			dsmith@hplabs.hp.com
-- 

			David Smith
			HP Labs
			dsmith@hplabs.hp.com

------------------------------

Date: 16 Jun 88 19:32:22 GMT
From: attcan!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Hawaiian spaceport? (Was: Re: SPACE Digest V8 #221)

> ... and what are the relative pros and cons of sea ditching versus
> land ditching as regards safety to crew and others? ...

As for others, you are less likely to hit something when you come down
in the sea because people don't build houses there very often.  As for
the crew, it makes no real difference because the orbiter is too fragile
to survive a ditching.
-- 
Man is the best computer we can      |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
put aboard a spacecraft. --Von Braun | {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 16 Jun 88 19:38:15 GMT
From: attcan!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Space Shuttle Black Box

> I heard that a court case last year ordered NASA to release the 
> cockpit black box tape from Challenger.  This was around June or
> so of last year.  There was a reported 2-3 minutes of tape *AFTER*
> the explosion.
> 
> Anyone know any details on this...

The only incident like this that I know of was a successful attempt to
make NASA release the tape from an on-board voice recorder.  This was
*not* a "black box" in the usual sense of an armored flight recorder --
the shuttle does not carry one of those.  As I recall, the only thing
that was on the tape beyond what was heard over the radio was someone
saying "uh-oh" at about the time the shit hit the fan.  Nothing was
recorded after the breakup of the orbiter.  (I don't remember why, but
the obvious reason would be loss of power.)  There were some earlier
odds and ends on it that didn't go out on the radio, but nothing with
any relevance to the accident.
-- 
Man is the best computer we can      |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
put aboard a spacecraft. --Von Braun | {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 17 Jun 88 03:17:00 GMT
From: kenny@m.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Re: Mir elements


Goddard *still* hasn't come out with a reliable set of Mir elements.
What *are* they doing since Soyuz TM-5 went up?

Fortunately, the old Progress 36 ones are still usable.  I observed
Mir visually this evening; it appeared roughly twenty seconds behind a
prediction using the SGP theory.

Unfortunately, I won't be able to confirm the elements visually any
more during the mission; that was the last overflight of my location
on this precessional cycle.

Clear skies to those of you who have overflights yet to observe, and
good luck on seeing the Soyuz separation (I didn't see any other
objects during this overflight, but could have missed the Soyuz; there
was still a lot of twilight).

------------------------------

Date:     Fri, 17 Jun 88 14:40:06 CDT
From: Will Martin -- AMXAL-RI <wmartin@almsa-1.arpa>
Subject:  Fusion Power Info

There used to be an Internet "Energy" mailing list to which I could have
directed this query, but it isn't listed in the List-of-Lists any more, so
I suppose it is gone. Therefore, I ask this of Space, hoping that some of
the readership there will be familiar with this subject:

I just finished reading a book called THE MAN-MADE SUN, by T. A. Heppenheimer,
dated 1984, which is a survey of the research into generating fusion power.
Unfortunately, since it had to cut off in late '83, it left many then-current
developments hanging, and I would like to find something to read that would
bring me up-to-date on the subject, in general pop-science terms.

Can anyone recommend any recent books, or magazine articles, that would
provide a general discussion of where things are now in fusion research?
I would particularily like to know what happened to Bussard and Inesco
with regard to Riggatrons; that seemed an interesting and promising area.

By the way, I found Heppenheimer's book interesting and it seemed to be a
good introduction to the field. Unfortunately, it shifted its emphasis
in the latter portion away from the technical developments to devote
inordinate amounts of space to the details of the funding process and
the personality clashes between people at DOE and OMB; while this is
important in fact, because it determined how much money there was to put
into the technical research, it wasn't what I wanted to read about. I
would have preferred that those details be put into footnotes, or
compressed into a paragraph or two, instead of having chapters devoted
to them. 

To tie this to Space, there is a bit of discussion of research into
fusion-powered spacedrives. At the time of writing, it seems there was a
still-classified paper in the Livermore archives that worked out quite a
lot of the problems and presented a feasable design for such a craft.

The book is currently being remaindered; I saw it in the latest Strand
catalog, and then found it at the library. Due to its faults, I would
recommend you read a library copy first rather than buy one.

Regards,
Will Martin
wmartin@ALMSA-1.ARPA   (on USENET try "...!uunet!almsa-1.arpa!wmartin")

------------------------------

Date: 17 Jun 88 20:13:23 GMT
From: att!ihlpa!animal@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (D. Starr)
Subject: Re: Pegasus

In article <4774@hplabsb.UUCP>, dsmith@hplabsb.UUCP (David Smith) writes:

						...Orbital Sciences Corp.
and Hercules Aerospace announced a plan to develop Pegasus, a 50-foot
stub-winged rocket.  Air launched from a B-52 or converted airliner at
40,000 ft., it would put an 850-pound payload into a 250 mile high orbit.
Expected to fly in mid-1989, at $6 million per launch...

 				...it's doubly surprising to me that,
with all the oddball, exotic, and trivial stuff that gets discussed in
this forum, Pegasus hasn't stirred more comment.

<end of quotes>

What's the surprise?  At $6 million to launch 850 lbs (over $7000/lb), the
per-pound cost of Pegasus will be:

	23.5 times that of Energia ($300/lb),
	 9.4 times that of Proton (750/lb),
	 2.2 times that of Delta (3275/lb),
	 1.4 times that of Titan 4 (5100/bl), and (indignity of indignities)
	 4% higher than the Shuttle (6800/lb).


That ain't too exciting.

[Note on sources:  Cost/lb to orbit estimates are from the infamous Newsweek
article, which has been accused of *over* estimating the costs of launching
on Shuttle and Titan.  I did not compare with the Soviet "A" booster, which
can be yours for a mere $13 million (according to a recent article on this
network), because I don't know the exact payload capacity--but if it's 
even equivalent to the Delta (~5 tons), Pegasus is a good 5 times more costly.
Anybody out there want to compare to Ariane or Long March?]

------------------------------

Date: 17 Jun 88 05:31:32 GMT
From: attcan!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: advance space news from June 6 AW&ST -- Pegasus!

[As you have probably noticed, I am behind on AW&ST summaries.  I will
try and catch up a bit before I leave for Usenix.  However, this one
won't wait.  The June 6 issue just arrived, and the lead story is the
best news in years.  So here's a special out-of-sequence report.]

New launcher:  Pegasus, a winged three-stage design that will be air-
launched from a B-52.  It's a joint effort of Orbital Sciences and
Hercules, with Rutan building the wing.  Payload is 600lb into low
polar orbit, 900 into low equatorial orbit.

Now the GOOD news...  Pegasus is 100% private, although the first customer
is DARPA.  Total funding is $40-45M, about a third of it already spent.
It has been underway about one year, they are already bending metal on
the first one, and it flies NEXT YEAR!  There is already a lineup of
customers.  Cost to orbit will be half or less that of similar-sized
payloads on existing launchers.

[At **LAST**, a launcher being built by sensible people!  Note the modest
size, the rapid schedule -- two years from startup to launch -- and the
miniscule budget.  Not to mention the lack of any attempt to force the
taxpayers to fund it.  This is how commercial launchers OUGHT to be done;
thank all the gods that somebody had the guts to try doing it right!]

DARPA is in the final stages of becoming the first customer, with a
contract expected to be signed next week.  The nature of the payload has
not been released, but it is thought to be a small experimental comsat.
Launch is set for July 1989.  DARPA is buying launch services only, no
funding for development is involved.

Second launch will probably be another DoD payload from "a different
agency" [betcha it's SDI] in Oct 1989.  A NASA science payload is a
candidate for number three in Dec 1989.

OSC and Hercules are splitting the development cost 50-50 and will split
profits the same way.  Funding is entirely from internal resources and no
outside capital is involved.  Contractors have been picked, staff has
been hired, parts are being built.

Pegasus uses three new-design Hercules solid motors.  Use of existing
motors was considered, but new motors looked like a better bet.  Cases
are graphite composite, as is the wing, being developed by Burt Rutan.
The thing is 49 feet long with a wing span of 22 feet, total weight
40klbs.  These numbers are almost identical to those of the X-15, and
the X-15's old B-52 will be the initial carrier aircraft.  Gordon
Fullerton, NASA research pilot and former astronaut (two shuttle missions)
will command the B-52 for the first launch.  Pegasus will pay NASA for
the use of the aircraft for commercial launches.  Up to 15 launches
might be made from the NASA B-52, after which transition to a commercial
heavy transport is expected.  The aircraft has been picked but its
identity is proprietary as yet.

[Now why would they keep the identity of the aircraft secret?  I mean,
the 747 is the obvious choice.  Unless... you don't suppose they're
going to use an Airbus A340?!?  Congress will be livid.]

Drop will be at 40,000 ft.  The first stage will light and fly a shallow
wing-borne trajectory to Mach 8.7 at 208,000 ft.  The wing is on the
first stage, so the second and third stages fly more conventional
upper-stage trajectories into orbit.

The first launch will be into polar orbit, starting offshore from
Vandenberg.  Using air launch, of course, launch site and direction are
pretty much arbitrary.  It also means that Pegasus does not have to
fight for access to launch facilities.  [And they don't have to deal
with the government, or mortgage their mothers to pay for insurance
against launch-site damage.]

Pegasus develoment is considered 50% complete; OSC+Hercules will hold
a major engineering review this week.  Late this month they will start
using Ames's supercomputers for aerodynamic simulation -- Pegasus will
not be wind-tunnel tested.  They are already working with Ames people.
[Eugene?  You involved in this?]

OSC+Hercules expect to price a Pegasus launch at under $10M.  They
forecast 10-12 per year and believe that it can support itself with
half that.  Breakeven will be reached after 16-18 launches, and with
luck this will be two or three years after the first flight.  Lots
of people are interested, and a relatively diverse mix of customers
is likely.  This should give a fairly stable customer base.

Pegasus's payload shroud is relatively large for the payload mass, 72in
long by 46in wide, permitting a wide range of payload designs.  Pegasus
is being built for minimum prelaunch handling; eventually it is hoped
that only 6-7 technicians will be needed for final assembly and launch.
This will help costs a *lot*.  Minimal ground hardware will be needed;
no cranes.

Also of interest, especially to Ames, is hypersonic flight testing at
high altitudes and Mach numbers.  The early Pegasus flights will carry
quite a bit of Ames instrumentation to gather data relevant to the
Aerospace Plane.  1500 lbs could be carried on a dedicated suborbital
flight.

Air launch turns out to give a 10-15% reduction in the necessary delta-V.
The forward speed of the aircraft helps a bit.  Launching at 40,000 ft
helps much more:  it reduces drag, reduces stress on the structure,
reduces aerodynamic heating, reduces pressure loss in the exhaust,
and permits a higher expansion ratio in the first-stage nozzle.  The
horizontal launch and the wing permit flying a much flatter and more
efficient trajectory, and also greatly reduce the angle of attack
needed for an air launch (a wingless air-launched rocket would have
to make a sharp turn upward).  The excellent supersonic wing (L:D 4:1)
gives better performance than a similar weight of rocket fuel.  (The
wing will actually start to char just before first-stage burnout, but
it doesn't matter since Pegasus is not reusable.)  The net result is
twice the payload mass fraction of a ground-launched booster.

[Like I said, this is the best news in years.  I hope OSC and Hercules
make a bundle from this:  they deserve it.]

[Hmmm...  900 pounds, 42 inches.  Kind of tight, and the upper-stage
accelerations look uncomfortably high, but I bet you could man-rate it
if you really tried.]
-- 
Man is the best computer we can      |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
put aboard a spacecraft. --Von Braun | {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 19 Jun 88 07:52:39 GMT
From: sonia!khayo@cs.ucla.edu  (Eric Behr)
Subject: NASA news - Tony England; Senate

=====================================================================

ASTRONAUT ENGLAND TO LEAVE NASA

June 15, 1988

RELEASE: 88-80


     NASA astronaut Anthony England, Ph.D., will leave NASA in
October 1988 to accept a position with the University of Michigan
as professor of electrical engineering.  England will head the
university's space remote sensing research for the Electrical
Engineering and Computer Sciences Department at Ann Arbor.

     England was selected as an astronaut in August 1967.  He
served as support crewman for Apollo missions 13 and 16 before
taking a position as research geophysicist for the U.S.
Geological Survey in 1974.

     In 1979, he returned to the Johnson Space Center and was
subsequently assigned to Shuttle mission STS-51F (Spacelab-2) as
a mission specialist.  During that flight, which featured
experiments in astronomy, solar physics, life sciences, and
atmospheric research, England was responsible for operating the
Spacelab Instrument Pointing System.  England logged 188 hours in
space on that mission.

=====================================================================

NOTE TO EDITORS: NASA RESPONSE TO SENATE APPROPRIATION COMMITTEE MARK-UP

June 16, 1988


     The following comment was made today by NASA Administrator
Dr. James C. Fletcher in response to the Senate Sub-Committee on
HUD/Independent Agencies Committee on Appropriations mark-up of
the NASA FY 1989 budget request:

     "It's not unexpected but it's near disaster for the space
program, particularly the Space Station.  We hope our friends on
the Hill will reconsider."

=====================================================================

                                                       Eric

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #275
*******************

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Date: Sat, 16 Jul 88 01:06:58 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8807160806.AA16938@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #276

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 276

Today's Topics:
		       Re: SPACE Digest V8 #255
			     Space Digest
	 Re: advance space news from June 6 AW&ST -- Pegasus!
		     Re: News on Shuttle oxidizer
       Re: Hawaiian spaceport? (Was: Re: SPACE Digest V8 #221)
			     Re: Pegasus
	 Re: advance space news from June 6 AW&ST -- Pegasus!
	 Re: advance space news from June 6 AW&ST -- Pegasus!
		    Dukakis vs private spaceflight
			   Re: Cometesimals
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date:         Fri, 17 Jun 88 11:48:21 EDT
From: Dess-DEMON-a <R2CDN%AKRONVM.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Subject:      Re: SPACE Digest V8 #255

Introducing! A new line of unisex skintight space suits, for men, women & those
that are undecided.

     Hey, question:  What contraception does a martian use? And would
their antennae stick up/out?  For that matter, with all that skintight
fasion going around in space, what contraception would space people use?


Q:  Does anyone REALLY believe that earthings will be able to survive in
    space stations in various locations? Just a thought... (Do you think
    we'll have an orbital station around Uranus?  Who'd want to live there?
    It's SO COLD!)

>From Dess & Jimbo (like Rambo, his wife Bimbo, & his dog Spot-bo)
                   Sung to "THE JETSONS"
Acknowledge-To: <R2CDN@AKRONVM>

------------------------------

Date:     Fri, 17 Jun 88 21:24 AST
From: <FNGAF%ALASKA.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Subject:  Space Digest

Please send me Volume 8, Issues 230, 241 and 247. No one who has access
to bitnet here in Fairbanks seems to have any of these issues. Are you able
to tell what happened to them please? Thanx in advance for any information
you are able to offer      gf

------------------------------

Date: 18 Jun 88 13:35:27 GMT
From: phri!roy@nyu.edu  (Roy Smith)
Subject: Re: advance space news from June 6 AW&ST -- Pegasus!

henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
> Pegasus, a winged three-stage design that will be air-launched from a B-52.
> [...] Payload is 600lb into low polar orbit, 900 into low equatorial orbit.

	For the benefit of us interested-but-ignorant observers, can you give
me some idea of how useful a 600-900 pound (still no metric!) payload is?
What does a typical commsat weigh, for example?  Or a typical package of
scientific instrumentation?  Or (God forbid), a typical military payload
(warhead, spysat, whatever).  Is there even such a thing as "typical"?

	Would such a delivery system be useful for making small emergency
shipments to a permanent space station ("Houston, we, uh, seem to have loaded
our camera wrong and wasted all our film; think you could Pegasus up another
few rolls before this comet goes out of range?").  Sounds like putting one of
these up might be a lot faster than waiting for the next scheduled shuttle.
-- 
Roy Smith, System Administrator
Public Health Research Institute
455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016
{allegra,philabs,cmcl2,rutgers}!phri!roy -or- phri!roy@uunet.uu.net

------------------------------

Date: 17 Jun 88 14:43:40 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!its63b!bob@uunet.uu.net  (ERCF08 Bob Gray)
Subject: Re: News on Shuttle oxidizer

In article <880614163201.0000023D481@grouch.JPL.NASA.GOV> PJS@grouch.jpl.nasa.GOV (Peter Scott) writes:
>From the JPL UNIVERSE, June 10:
[...]
>The production amount of 40 million pounds per year is still less than is
>needed by all users, including NASA, Department of Defense, and commercial.
>
>There will be an allocation process developed among the DoD, NASA and the
>commercial users.

This may seem a very strange suggestion to some people, but why
don't they buy the chemical on the international market? I am
sure there must be other chemical plants capable of supplying
what is needed until the new US production capacity is built.
	Bob.

------------------------------

Date: 17 Jun 88 14:34:10 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!its63b!bob@uunet.uu.net  (ERCF08 Bob Gray)
Subject: Re: Hawaiian spaceport? (Was: Re: SPACE Digest V8 #221)

In article <1988Jun13.185454.705@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>Yeah, Cape York!  The biggest thing wrong with Hawaii is that it's in the
>wrong country.

For the latest on the Cape York spaceport, look at "New Scientist"
dated 12 May. pages 36 and 37.

There are two rival groups of companies investigating seting
up a spaceport on the cape york penninsula.

The Cape York Space Agency is a group of 64 companies
appointed by the Queensland Government to oversee the project.

The Australian Space Group is carrying out it's own study.

Two sites are being considered.the west coast site at Weipa
already has harbour facilities and makes polar orbits
easier. A site on the east coast makes equatorial orbits
easier, launches directly over the Pacific, and has the
added tourist attraction of the Great barrier Reef.

The Soviet space authority, Glavkosmos, is said to want
to install a Proton launcher on the site to get round
restrictions on exporting American technology to the
Soviet Union, if the USA can be persuaded that Australia
is neutral ground.

Does anyone in Australia have any more information? There
was a posting from there last year about the project but
nothing since then.
	Bob.

------------------------------

Date: 18 Jun 88 17:30:20 GMT
From: dietz@cu-arpa.cs.cornell.edu  (Paul F. Dietz)
Subject: Re: Pegasus

In article <8240@ihlpa.ATT.COM> animal@ihlpa.ATT.COM (D. Starr) writes:
>>In article <4774@hplabsb.UUCP>, dsmith@hplabsb.UUCP (David Smith) writes:
>> 				...it's doubly surprising to me that,
>>with all the oddball, exotic, and trivial stuff that gets discussed in
>>this forum, Pegasus hasn't stirred more comment.
>
>What's the surprise?  At $6 million to launch 850 lbs (over $7000/lb), the
>per-pound cost of Pegasus will be: ... That ain't too exciting.

The advantage of the Pegasus is presumably the much lower amount
of red tape needed to launch something, and the faster turn around
time.  The delay and hassle of launching a 600 pound payload on
the shuttle is considerable, even though it doesn't show up
in the raw dollars/pound to orbit figures.

I also suspect Pegasus will have a steeper learning curve than its
larger competitors, since it is relatively simple and per unit cost
is lower.

Cynically, a market is guaranteed because the thing is air
launched.  That means it would still be useful in a war after
fixed launcher sites have been destroyed.  By the way: how much
does a nuclear reentry vehicle weigh?

	Paul F. Dietz
	dietz@gvax.cs.cornell.edu

------------------------------

Date: 18 Jun 88 17:53:31 GMT
From: b.gp.cs.cmu.edu!ralf@pt.cs.cmu.edu  (Ralf Brown)
Subject: Re: advance space news from June 6 AW&ST -- Pegasus!

In article <3361@phri.UUCP> roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) writes:
}[regarding Pegasus launch:]  Sounds like putting one of
}these up might be a lot faster than waiting for the next scheduled shuttle.

You bet it would be faster than a shuttle launch!  With proper procedures, it
should be possible to emergency-launch one within an hour of the word "GO".
If you can't get one up within 24 hours, there's something wrong with your
procedures (this assumes, of course, that you have one on hand, as well as
its payload).

The shuttle's rollout from the VAB to the pad alone takes several hours, not 
to mention the army of techs to check it out, over, inside, out, etc.

-- 
{harvard,uunet,ucbvax}!b.gp.cs.cmu.edu!ralf -=-=- AT&T: (412)268-3053 (school) 
ARPA: RALF@B.GP.CS.CMU.EDU |"Tolerance means excusing the mistakes others make.
FIDO: Ralf Brown at 129/31 | Tact means not noticing them." --Arthur Schnitzler
BITnet: RALF%B.GP.CS.CMU.EDU@CMUCCVMA -=-=- DISCLAIMER? I claimed something?

------------------------------

Date: 19 Jun 88 08:26:56 GMT
From: agate!web%garnet.berkeley.edu@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Subject: Re: advance space news from June 6 AW&ST -- Pegasus!

In article <1988Jun17.053132.5314@utzoo.uucp>, henry@utzoo (Henry Spencer) writes:
>	  The June 6 issue just arrived, and the lead story is the
>best news in years.  So here's a special out-of-sequence report.]
>
>New launcher:  Pegasus, a winged three-stage design that will be air-
>launched from a B-52.  It's a joint effort of Orbital Sciences and
>Hercules, with Rutan building the wing.  Payload is 600lb into low
>polar orbit, 900 into low equatorial orbit.
>
>Now the GOOD news...  Pegasus is 100% private, although the first customer
>is DARPA.  Total funding is $40-45M, about a third of it already spent.
>It has been underway about one year, they are already bending metal on
>the first one, and it flies NEXT YEAR!  There is already a lineup of
>customers.  Cost to orbit will be half or less that of similar-sized
>payloads on existing launchers.
>

Private development is not new-- Space Services Inc. of Houston has
designed, built and *flown* the Conestoga using private funds.  And they
are offering their launchers to DARPA on a strictly commercial basis.
Furthermore, it is an exaggerated claim that the $10M launch price (or
is it expected launch price) of the Pegasus is half that of the
competition.

If DARPA commits to buying launches on a vehicle which is still in the
development stage, how is that significantly different from them paying
for development?  What happens when there are cost overruns and
production delays?  The article also raises questions about possible
hidden subsidies: How much are OSC and Hercules paying for use of the
NASA B52?  How much are they paying for computing at Ames?

There are certainly advantages to a B52-launched vehicle, and Henry
mentioned several.  But there are still large obstacles to be overcome.
Hercules and OSC claim that they will develop, build and certify not
one, not two, but three new motors with $45M, and in one year.  I hope
so!  How is Hercules doing on its more luxuriously funded motor
development programs?

One of the more important aspects of this article is the tense.  The
Pegasus will cost less than $10M per launch.  The Pegasus will fly next
summer, even though none of the three motors has yet been built.  The
Pegasus will only cost $45M to develop.  The Pegasus will succeed
because the project needs only five to six missions annually to remain
viable.  

Hercules and OSC have far to go before this project amounts to much more
than the inflated claims of a marketing campaign.  I sincerely hope they
succeed, and wish them luck.
-- 
--

------------------------------

Date: 19 Jun 88 02:30:10 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Dukakis vs private spaceflight

(This started out as a reply to private mail, which is why you haven't
seen the quoted passage...  But the path I tried to use failed, and
it occurred to me that it might be of more general interest anyway.)

> [Dukakis supports industry]  ... My expectation would be that
> private space industries would do as well under Dukakis as Bush. 
> Have you heard or read something specific that contradicts this, or
> is it just a general impression?

I have nothing particularly specific to go on, no.  I haven't been
following Dukakis's position in particular, since I don't get to vote
in US elections. :-)  The problem is that there are strong consituencies
within the government -- NASA and the USAF -- that prefer government
control rather than free enterprise.  They've been doing their level
best to obstruct private spaceflight, with limited success of late since
the Reagan administration has a firm ideological commitment to private
industry.  I'm not so much worried that Dukakis would be anti-private-
spaceflight -- it would be a difficult position to justify -- as that
he won't be sufficiently pro-private-spaceflight to back the fledgling
space industries when they come to a showdown against the big, powerful,
entrenched bureaucracies.  The anti-private-spaceflight tendency is
already there within the government; Dukakis needs to make an active
effort to counter it, and I'm not sure he will.
-- 
Man is the best computer we can      |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
put aboard a spacecraft. --Von Braun | {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 20 Jun 88 06:10:35 GMT
From: jumbo!stolfi@decwrl.dec.com  (Jorge Stolfi)
Subject: Re: Cometesimals


>   PAUL DIETZ: Cometesimals hitting the moon would deliver an enormous
>   amount of water over geologic time, so even if one molecule in
>   a million is trapped, there would still be a lot there.  

The latest issue of _Science_ (10 Jun 88, p.1403) has an article on
Louis Frank's cometesimals.  It seems the theory now gained two
independent (if rather dubious) supporting pieces of evidence.  

Piece #1 is that the dark spots that are attributed to the cometesimals
have been found also in ultraviolet images of the Earth taken by a
Swedish satellite (they had to call it "Viking", just to confuse
everybody --- why couldn't they call it "Haggar" or "Bergman" or
"Volvo"?).  Apparently each spot covers only half a dozen pixels or so,
and some investigators who have analyzed the images claim the spots are
mere artifacts of the imaging system.  

Piece #2 is the possible detection of cometesimals by C.  Yates from
JPL, using a CCD camera on the Space Watch Telescope at Kitt Peak.
He cleverly pointed the telescope at a random spot in the sky and swept
it in a random direction at a random speed, thus precisely matching the
random motion of the hypothetical cometesimals in their random orbits.
(For a more precise but less amusing description of the technique, go
read the _Science_ article yourself).  The result was a handful of 18th
magnitude tracks (1 or 2 pixels wide, up to 20 pixels long).
These tracks are said to closely match the predicted appearance and
motion of cometesimals 3 to 4 meters in diameter halfway between the
Earth and the Moon.  The article says that Yates was able to eliminate
other obvious explanations, such as meteors, fireflies, cosmic rays,
and rocket debris.  However, the images haven't been checked by other
astronomers yet (although three of them are reproduced in the article).  
   
                             -xox-

Apparently, one of the most troublesome aspects of the theory is the
assumption that cometesimals are largely made of water ice.
Halley's water starts to evaporate at Jupiter's distance, producing a
visible coma; yet the cometesimals in the Earth's neighborhood cannot
do that, or we would see them.  Also, the dryness of Venus is hard to
explain given the huge amount of water that would be brought in by the
cometesimals, which would be enough to fill all the Earth's oceans over
geologic time.  

My question is, what is the evidence that the cometesimals contain any
water at all?  Here from my armchair it would seem that any soot-black
cometesimal only 12 meters across in the Earth neighborhood should have
been baked dry by now.  Its surface should be hot enough to fry an egg
even if averaged by rotation, right?  Is it possible that a few meters
of "comet dust" can insulate an icy core long enough for it to reach
the Earth intact?  ("Long enough" may be a couple of years if the
cometesimals are new arrivals from outer space, or saganillions of
years if they have always been in our neighborhood.) Besides, is it
known how opaque "comet dust" is to longwave infrared radiation?
(Graphite is rather transparent, isn't it?) also, what is the current
official guess for the thickness of Halley's dry dust cover?  

I believe that one reason for assuming that cometesimals are mostly
water is that they must disintegrate before they reach the lower
atmosphere (otherwise we would see them as meteors).  This rules out
rocks and pebbles as common constituents of the cometesimals.
Does it also rule out cometesimals entirely made of dry and
fluffy "comet dust"?  Note that this dust need not be silicates; it may
be carbon soot or a more exotic (organic?) substance.  (Halley's dust
includes a high proportion of "organic" compounds, and anyway Frank's
cometesimals may or may not be Halley's relatives).  

Finally, could the dark spots in the UV pictures be produced by
vaporized "comet dust" of suitable composition, instead of H2O?
In that case, would we still need 100 tons of dust to make one spot?  

  National Enquirer mind wants to know,
                                             +-----------------+
    Jorge Stolfi                             |     DANGER      |
    DEC Systems Research Center              |  FALLING STARS  |
    stolfi@src.dec.com, ...!decwrl!stolfi    | NEXT 5e11 MILES |
                                             +-----------------+

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
DISCLAIMER: Don't look at me that way --- I didn't put them up there.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #276
*******************

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Date: Sat, 16 Jul 88 19:06:46 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
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Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #277

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 277

Today's Topics:
		 Re: NASA news - Mars mission project
			  Man-rated Pegasus
	 Re: advance space news from June 6 AW&ST -- Pegasus!
			     Mir elements
		  Re: Fusion Power spacecraft drive
		     Re: News on Shuttle oxidizer
		    Re:  -- Pegasus launch vehicle
		 SIGNIFICANT ACCOMPLISHMENTS IN SPACE
		ADDENDUM TO SIGNIFICANT ACCOMPLIHMENTS
	ADDENDUM TO SIGNIFICANT ACCOMPLISHMENTS SURVEY REQUEST
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 20 Jun 88 14:00:34 GMT
From: killer!tness7!tness1!sugar!peter@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Peter da Silva)
Subject: Re: NASA news - Mars mission project

In article ... khayo@sonia.math.ucla.edu (Eric Behr) writes:
> The scenarios identify:

>    *  recreation/scientific activities

>      The Mars Mission course demonstrates NASA's continued
> commitment to improving the level of science literacy in the
> nation's schools...

It also demonstrates NASA's priorities for scientific activities.

Nuff said.
-- 
-- `-_-' Peter (have you hugged your wolf today?) da Silva.
--   U   Mail to ...!uunet!sugar!peter, flames to /dev/null.
-- "A foolish consistancy is the hobgoblin of little minds".

------------------------------

Date: 20 Jun 88 17:05:58 GMT
From: cae780!ubvax!unisv!vanpelt@hplabs.hp.com  (Mike Van Pelt)
Subject: Man-rated Pegasus

In article <1988Jun17.053132.5314@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>[Hmmm...  900 pounds, 42 inches.  Kind of tight, and the upper-stage
>accelerations look uncomfortably high, but I bet you could man-rate it
>if you really tried.]

For those who want to get into space in the worst way --

That would be (almost!) the worst way.  (Especially if I
tried to cram my bulk into the thing -- those accelerations
standing up??)

Well, it's a little better than the Celestis method.  :-)
-- 
"When you strip all the  technospeak away,  they're claiming that it can't be
 done because it  hasn't been done yet,  and therefore, we ought not even try
 doing it, because it can't be done.  That's Luddite Logic if I ever heard it."
-- Tom Clancy on SDI.               Mike Van Pelt  vanpelt%unisv@ubvax.ub.com

------------------------------

Date: 20 Jun 88 05:55:12 GMT
From: attcan!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: advance space news from June 6 AW&ST -- Pegasus!

> ...some idea of how useful a 600-900 pound (still no metric!) payload is?

It's not big enough for most recent payloads, which have tended heavily
toward the pile-everything-into-one-huge-lump school of design.  However,
many people feel that this tendency has gone much too far, and that there
would be many benefits from going back to small single-mission satellites
for a lot of jobs.  600-900 lbs is lots for *one* scientific experiment
plus support equipment, and is enough to be useful for things like
communications and espionage if you are willing to design the equipment
to fit.  Personally, I suspect you could make money on even smaller
payloads if you offered cheap, frequent, short-notice, low-hassle launches.

> 	Would such a delivery system be useful for making small emergency
> shipments to a permanent space station...

Yes, assuming a solution to the unmanned-rendezvous-and-docking issue.
(The OMV now under development might suffice.)
-- 
Man is the best computer we can      |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
put aboard a spacecraft. --Von Braun | {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 20 Jun 88 20:03:00 GMT
From: kenny@m.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Mir elements


The following are Mir elements, epoch date 16 June 1988.

Mir has likely been maneuvered with the return of the visiting crew,
so these elements are not to be taken as gospel.  Moreover, I suspect
that there was a maneuver of some sort taking place over the period of
the observations, as the B* and mean motion acceleration for Mir
itself seem a trifle high, while those of the other objects are
negative.  A regression line for the mean motions of the four objects at
the epoch times yields a comparable figure, though.

Mir        
1 16609U          88168.13128141 0.00167019           11837-2 0  2587
2 16609  51.6173  72.7048 0004233  65.4999 294.7332 15.72897577133666
Kvant      
1 17845U          88167.87723404 -.00007076          -48913-4 0  4524
2 17845  51.6182  74.0065 0004510  71.9423 288.8139 15.72840560 69897
Soyuz TM-4 
1 18699U          88167.94080028 -.00007087          -48913-4 0  1785
2 18699  51.6195  73.6766 0004606  59.3092 301.6177 15.72875297 28009
Soyuz TM-5 
1 19204U          88167.75013351 -.00007058          -48913-4 0   183
2 19204  51.6146  74.6578 0004027  51.1780 309.4049 15.72776079  1295

Satellite: Mir        
Catalog id 16609
Element set 258
Epoch: 88168.13128141
Inclination:  51.6173 degrees
RA of node:  72.7048 degrees
Eccentricity:  0.0004233
Argument of perigee:  65.4999 degrees
Mean anomaly: 294.7332 degrees
Mean motion: 15.72897577 revs/day
Mean motion acceleration: 0.00167019 * 2 revs/day/day
Epoch Revolution: 13366

Semimajor axis:    6728.72 km
Apogee height*:     353.40 km
Perigee height*:     347.71 km

Satellite: Kvant      
Catalog id 17845
Element set 452
Epoch: 88167.87723404
Inclination:  51.6182 degrees
RA of node:  74.0065 degrees
Eccentricity:  0.0004510
Argument of perigee:  71.9423 degrees
Mean anomaly: 288.8139 degrees
Mean motion: 15.72840560 revs/day
Mean motion acceleration: -0.00007076 * 2 revs/day/day
Epoch Revolution:  6989

Semimajor axis:    6728.88 km
Apogee height*:     353.75 km
Perigee height*:     347.68 km

Satellite: Soyuz TM-4 
Catalog id 18699
Element set 178
Epoch: 88167.94080028
Inclination:  51.6195 degrees
RA of node:  73.6766 degrees
Eccentricity:  0.0004606
Argument of perigee:  59.3092 degrees
Mean anomaly: 301.6177 degrees
Mean motion: 15.72875297 revs/day
Mean motion acceleration: -0.00007087 * 2 revs/day/day
Epoch Revolution:  2800

Semimajor axis:    6728.78 km
Apogee height*:     353.72 km
Perigee height*:     347.52 km

Satellite: Soyuz TM-5 
Catalog id 19204
Element set  18
Epoch: 88167.75013351
Inclination:  51.6146 degrees
RA of node:  74.6578 degrees
Eccentricity:  0.0004027
Argument of perigee:  51.1780 degrees
Mean anomaly: 309.4049 degrees
Mean motion: 15.72776079 revs/day
Mean motion acceleration: -0.00007058 * 2 revs/day/day
Epoch Revolution:   129

Semimajor axis:    6729.06 km
Apogee height*:     353.61 km
Perigee height*:     348.19 km


		Source: NASA Goddard via T.S.Kelso's `Celestial RCP/M'

* Apogee and perigee altitudes are referred to the mean radius of the
  Earth (6378.15 km), and not to the local radius of the geoid.  They
  are only approximate, and should not be used for orbit prediction.

------------------------------

Date: 21 Jun 88 04:30:58 GMT
From: ubvax!unisv!vanpelt@lll-winken.llnl.gov  (Mike Van Pelt)
Subject: Re: Fusion Power spacecraft drive

In article <8806172004.AA00415@angband.s1.gov> wmartin@ALMSA-1.ARPA (Will Martin -- AMXAL-RI) writes:
>To tie this to Space, there is a bit of discussion of research into
>fusion-powered spacedrives. At the time of writing, it seems there was a
>still-classified paper in the Livermore archives that worked out quite a
>lot of the problems and presented a feasable design for such a craft.

If you're thinking about the paper I'm thinking about, it isn't
classified.  The author just doesn't want copies spread about until
it is published.  He gave a presentation on it at the monthly meeting
of the National Space Society.  In some respects it builds on the Daedalus
design, but this isn't just a concept, this is a detailed design.

One of the more interesting features is that the ship is shaped like
a hollow cone, and flys blunt end first.  The entire structure of the
ship, especially including living spaces, is built in the neutron shadow
of the shielding for the magnetic nozzle coils.  Neat idea.
-- 
Mike Van Pelt                              vanpelt%unisv@ubvax.ub.com 
The electronic networks,  of course, have always been the terrorist's
most reliable ally, for they have never failed to bend over backwards
to give him what he craves: extravagant publicity.  --  Petr Beckmann

------------------------------

Date: 21 Jun 88 06:18:06 GMT
From: ssc-vax!eder@beaver.cs.washington.edu  (Dani Eder)
Subject: Re: News on Shuttle oxidizer

In article <1476@its63b.ed.ac.uk>, bob@its63b.ed.ac.uk (ERCF08 Bob Gray) writes:
> This may seem a very strange suggestion to some people, but why
> don't they buy the chemical on the international market? I am
> sure there must be other chemical plants capable of supplying
> what is needed until the new US production capacity is built.
> 	Bob.


The grains of ammonium perchlorate must be of a specific size and
shape to give the appropriate burn rate when used in solid
motor.  The entire design of the motor depends on the burn rate
(affects pressures, thrust levels, etc.).  Probably alternate
suppliers can't provide the right grain types, or, alternately,
they can, but the paperwork to CERTIFY that they meet the government
specifications would probably take longer than rebuilding
the burnt down factory.  Another reason the government would
give for not using foreign suppliers is the dependance that would
create for military programs (the Trident and MX missiles, and
military satellites launched on the Titan, Delta, and Shuttle
all require solid motors with ammonium perchlorate).


Dani Eder / Boeing / Space Station Program / uw-beaver!ssc-vax!eder
(205)461-2606(w) (205)461-7801(h) 1075 Dockside Drive #905 Huntsville, 
AL 35824  34 40 N latitude 86 40 W longitude +280 ft altitude, Earth
-- 
Dani Eder / Boeing / Space Station Program / uw-beaver!ssc-vax!eder
(205)461-2606(w) (205)461-7801(h) 1075 Dockside Drive #905 Huntsville, 
AL 35824  34 40 N latitude 86 40 W longitude +280 ft altitude, Earth

------------------------------

Date: 21 Jun 88 06:06:25 GMT
From: ssc-vax!eder@beaver.cs.washington.edu  (Dani Eder)
Subject: Re:  -- Pegasus launch vehicle

In article <3361@phri.UUCP>, roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) writes:
> 
> 	For the benefit of us interested-but-ignorant observers, can you give
> me some idea of how useful a 600-900 pound (still no metric!) payload is?
> 	Would such a delivery system be useful for making small emergency
> shipments to a permanent space station ("Houston, we, uh, seem to have loaded
> our camera wrong and wasted all our film; think you could Pegasus up another
> few rolls before this comet goes out of range?").  Sounds like putting one of
> these up might be a lot faster than waiting for the next scheduled shuttle.
> -- 

Funny you should ask.  One trade study going on right now at Boeing's
space station effort is looking into ELV's for station resupply.
(We have the Logistics Elements part of the job, among others)

The current station design quantizes most of the interior hardware
into 'double racks', which are large enough to hold two 19 inch
standard rack-mountable pieces of equipment side by side.  Hence
the double rack is 42" wide.  It is about 74-80 in high and 30-40 in
deep.  The rack estimated weights run from about 400 pounds to 1800
pounds, with a mean ofa little over 1000 pounds.  The racks are
all designed be removed as units.  It would be really convenient
to have a one-rack capacity launch vehicle (about 2000 lb), but
even 900 lb will come in very handy:

"Houston, we just lost the number 4 air revitalizer, could you send
up a spare, NOW!!??" (no smiley face)

With a solid rocket, presumably you could treat it like a big
missile, and not have to spend more than a few hours prepping it
for launch.  Then the airplane can cruise to get under the
Station's orbital path as soon as possible, making a <12 hour
response time possible.  Compare to the 90 day wait if a problem
crops up the day after an Orbiter goes home.


Dani Eder / Boeing / Space Station Program / uw-beaver!ssc-vax!eder
(205)461-2606(w) (205)461-7801(h) 1075 Dockside Drive #905 Huntsville, 
AL 35824  34 40 N latitude 86 40 W longitude +280 ft altitude, Earth

-- 
Dani Eder / Boeing / Space Station Program / uw-beaver!ssc-vax!eder
(205)461-2606(w) (205)461-7801(h) 1075 Dockside Drive #905 Huntsville, 
AL 35824  34 40 N latitude 86 40 W longitude +280 ft altitude, Earth

------------------------------

Date:     Tue, 21 Jun 88 15:26 EST
From: <RJOHNSON%CEBAFVAX.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Subject:  SIGNIFICANT ACCOMPLISHMENTS IN SPACE


     For reasons which are to detailed to go into here, I would like to conduct
a survey on the net regarding what each of you feels are/will be the most
significant achievements relating to mankind's efforts to explore and develop
space. I am interested not only in those accomplishments directly related to
space, but any development in any discipline which has contibuted to these
efforts. Responses should however, be restricted to a time period beginning
around 1900 A.D. and extending as far into the future as you like. Projections
for the future should be based on some logical extrapolation of current
technology or theory (no science fiction please) and if highly speculative,
the development path from current science should be described. Last of all,
(naturally) responses should be E-mailed to me personally rather than put on the
net. After I have received and analyzed the responses, it is my intent to
put the results of the survey (i.e. the accomplishments that are generally felt
by the majority to be the most significant) on the net. Maybe we'll even get
one of two good topics of serious concern to space out of it, rather than
some of the political and linguistic drivel (Flame expected) like "manned vs.
femmed" or what "CBS should be doing" that seems to have permeated the
net in the last couple of months. Your responses will be greatly appreciated.

                                                        Rick R. Johnson
                                                        RJOHNSON@CEBAF1

------------------------------

Date:     Tue, 21 Jun 88 15:28 EST
From: <RJOHNSON%CEBAFVAX.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Subject:  ADDENDUM TO SIGNIFICANT ACCOMPLIHMENTS

     I just realized after my first couple of responses to my "Significant
Achievements In Space" survey, that I was perhaps not absolutely clear in my
request for responses. What I am interested in in addition to the mention of
the accomplishments themselves, are the dates that you think they were/will
be completed. For those of you that have already responded, I would appreciate
a follow up on your responses containing this information. Also, although the
accomplishments in the future are of prime importance, please include info
on the past accomplishments, since part of my interest is to see how familiar
everyone is with these past accomplishments, and which ones you all feel have
been the most important. Sorry about the vagueness, and thanks once again.

                                                          Rick R. Johnson
                                                          RJOHNSON@6414

------------------------------

Date:     Tue, 21 Jun 88 15:29 EST
From: <RJOHNSON%CEBAFVAX.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Subject:  ADDENDUM TO SIGNIFICANT ACCOMPLISHMENTS SURVEY REQUEST

     I just realized after my first couple of responses to my "Significant
Achievements In Space" survey, that I was perhaps not absolutely clear in my
request for responses. What I am interested in in addition to the mention of
the accomplishments themselves, are the dates that you think they were/will
be completed. For those of you that have already responded, I would appreciate
a follow up on your responses containing this information. Also, although the
accomplishments in the future are of prime importance, please include info
on the past accomplishments, since part of my interest is to see how familiar
everyone is with these past accomplishments, and which ones you all feel have
been the most important. Sorry about the vagueness, and thanks once again.

                                                          Rick R. Johnson
                                                          RJOHNSON@6414

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #277
*******************

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Date: Sun, 17 Jul 88 01:06:45 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8807170806.AA17686@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #278

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 278

Today's Topics:
		    Soviet Soyuz TM-5 mission ends
		       Soyuz TM-5 mission ends
	 Re: advance space news from June 6 AW&ST -- Pegasus!
			       Pegasus
	 Re: advance space news from June 6 AW&ST -- Pegasus!
			   Discovery Launch
		Long Term Effects of Weightlessness...
		    Re:  -- Pegasus launch vehicle
	 Re: advance space news from June 6 AW&ST -- Pegasus!
		    Re: Henry's von Braun comment
		     Re: Cometesimals at Tunguska
	   Chapter Directory and Notes from Denver Meetings
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Mon, 20 Jun 88 16:55:09 EDT
From: Glenn Chapman <glenn@ll-vlsi.arpa>
Subject: Soviet Soyuz TM-5 mission ends


   The Soviet Soyuz TM-5 flight ended on June 17th, after a 9 day 18 hour
mission (my own unofficial estimate of the mission duration), 8 days
of which were spent on the Mir/Kvant space station complex.  The crew of 
Anatoly Solovyov, Viktor Savinykh and Alexander Alexandrov (the Bulgarian guest
cosmonaut) have proved to be in excellent condition since the landing. This 
was the longest guest cosmonaut mission to date.
    Left on board were the long duration Mir crew of Vladimir Titov and 
Musahi Manarov which on June 21 will have spent one half a year in orbit.  That
is the mid point of their mission.
    Sorry about the delay in this report, but our VAX is having problems.
    One interesting point here is that even this short term mission was longer
than all but one shuttle flight (STS-9 in Nov. '83, 10 days, 7 hours).   It is
worry some when even the Russian's short duration guest missions are longer than
almost all of our own flights.  This must change if the US is to have any
significant presence in space.

                                                    Glenn Chapman
                                                    MIT Lincoln Lab

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 22 Jun 88 14:31:08 EDT
From: Glenn Chapman <glenn@ll-vlsi.arpa>
Subject: Soyuz TM-5 mission ends


   The Soviet Soyuz TM-5 flight ended on June 17th, after a 9 day 18 hour
mission (my own unofficial estimate of the mission duration), 8 days
of which were spent on the Mir/Kvant space station complex.  The crew of 
Anatoly Solovyov, Viktor Savinykh and Alexander Alexandrov (the Bulgarian guest
cosmonaut) have proved to be in excellent condition since the landing. This 
was the longest guest cosmonaut mission to date.
    Left on board were the long duration Mir crew of Vladimir Titov and 
Musahi Manarov which on June 21 will have spent one half a year in orbit.  That
is the mid point of their mission.
    Sorry about the delay in this report, but our VAX is having problems.
    One interesting point here is that even this short term mission was longer
than all but one shuttle flight (STS-9 in Nov. '83, 10 days, 7 hours).   It is
worry some when even the Russian's short duration guest missions are longer than
almost all of our own flights.  This must change if the US is to have any
significant presence in space.

                                                    Glenn Chapman
                                                    MIT Lincoln Lab

------------------------------

Date: 21 Jun 88 21:01:41 GMT
From: thumper!karn@faline.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: advance space news from June 6 AW&ST -- Pegasus!

> Man is the best computer we can put aboard a spacecraft. --Von Braun

Last week's successful Ariane-4 launch put AMSAT Phase 3-C and two other
satellites into the following orbit:

perigee 221 km (nominal: 220 km)
apogee 36,359 km (nominal: 36,294 km)
inclination 10.01 deg (nominal: 10 deg)

I'd like to see some fighter jock/astronaut do as well by flying a
launch manually.  Perhaps you should limit the scope of this statement
somewhat.

Von Braun, of all people, should have known better. But he was not
exactly known as one who always placed high ethical standards above
doing and saying whatever was required to get funding from whomever he
happened to be working for at the time.

Phil

------------------------------

Date: 20 Jun 88 15:57:31 GMT
From: oodis01!uplherc!esunix!bpendlet@tis.llnl.gov  (Bob Pendleton)
Subject: Pegasus



> In article <4772@hplabsb.UUCP>, dsmith@hplabsb.UUCP (David Smith) writes:
> > Since no one else has, I thought I'd point out the article on p.10 of
> > US News & World Report for June 13.  It said that Orbital Sciences Corp.
> > and Hercules Aerospace announced a plan to develop Pegasus, a 50-foot
> 
> Wouldn't you know it, posting this was the library's cue to finally put
> out the June 6 AW&ST, which has Pegasus on the cover.  Let that be the
> primary reference, I guess.  So now it's doubly surprising to me that,
> with all the oddball, exotic, and trivial stuff that gets discussed in
> this forum, Pegasus hasn't stirred more comment.
> 
> 			David Smith
> 			HP Labs
> 			dsmith@hplabs.hp.com

I've been waiting for Henry to post the AW&ST summary for June 6. I've
been wondering how the doom and gloom, U.S. business has no foresight,
people will respond to it.

To toss in a few facts from sources at Hercules, a launch contract for
the first pegasus has been signed. Launch costs are closer to $10 million.
$6 million would be a good guess at the build cost. Development costs
are expected to be $40-$45 million, with pay back in 16 to 18 launches.
Which works out to about $2.5 million in profit per launch!

Total development time is planned at 18 months. There will be NO filght
tests before first commercial launch (talk about trusting your cfd code).
Pegasus can be used as a carrier for hypersonic flight experiments that
do not reach orbit. The claim is that the combination of a winged vehicle
and launching from 40,000 feet at mach 0.8 gives 10% to 14% improvement
in performance over a ground launched vehicle.

Pegasus will be able to put ~600 pounds into a polar orbit and ~900 pounds
into an equatorial orbit. Because it is launched from a long range aircraft
pegasus can be launched in any direction.

Note that all, 100%, every dime, of the development costs are being covered
by private capital. It is a joint venture of OSC, an energetic 
entrepreneurial company, and Hercules Aerospace, an established, respected,
highly experienced rocket propulsion company. I hope to see more of this
kind of deal as companies face the fact that big old companies are too set
in their ways and young energetic companies don't have the resources or
the expertice needed for real innovation.

			Bob P.
-- 
Bob Pendleton @ Evans & Sutherland
UUCP Address:  {decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4,allegra}!decwrl!esunix!bpendlet
Alternate:     {ihnp4,seismo}!utah-cs!utah-gr!uplherc!esunix!bpendlet
        I am solely responsible for what I say.

------------------------------

Date: 21 Jun 88 16:59:53 GMT
From: devvax!smythsun!david@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov  (David Smyth)
Subject: Re: advance space news from June 6 AW&ST -- Pegasus!

In article <1988Jun20.055512.21817@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>> ...some idea of how useful a 600-900 pound (still no metric!) payload is?
>
>It's not big enough for most recent payloads, which have tended heavily
>toward the pile-everything-into-one-huge-lump school of design.  However,
>many people feel that this tendency has gone much too far, and that there
>would be many benefits from going back to small single-mission satellites
>for a lot of jobs.  

Unfortunately, we need to get funding for space exploration.  Such
funding generally comes from Congress.  Seasoned NASA people have
found that it is about as hard to get $10million as $10billion.
Therefore, it is far more likely that future missions will use
yet more complex spacecraft, even though everybody knows about
K.I.S.S.

>600-900 lbs is lots for *one* scientific experiment
>plus support equipment, and is enough to be useful for things like
>communications and espionage if you are willing to design the equipment
>to fit.  Personally, I suspect you could make money on even smaller
>payloads if you offered cheap, frequent, short-notice, low-hassle launches.

If the business of space-borne experiments ever becomes a profit-oriented
industry, I would agree with you.  However, nobody seems to look at it
in that way, at least in this country.  Here, in our "free market
economy" we have the major companies enslaved to the stock market,
and the stock market is at best interested in the instantaneous
second derivative of profits or income, but usually totally random.

------------------------------

Date: 22 Jun 88 17:49:00 GMT
From: UCSFVM.BITNET!DR9021@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Subject: Discovery Launch

Date:    22 June 88, 10:48:01 PDT
From:    Donna Reynolds                                 DR9021   at UCSFVM
To:      SCI-SPACE at VAX.BERKELEY.EDU
Subject: Discovery Launch

I will be covering the Discovery launch for a Bay Area
publication.  Are there any WOMEN on the net who will be
traveling to Canaveral for the launch and who would like to
discuss sharing accommodations?  I hope to keep costs down on
this assignment, and it seems the price of everything on the
Cape doubles (at least) around launch time.

I plan to stay in Titusville and probably will arrive 3-5
days before the launch.  I've already made tentative
reservations.

If interested, please contact me via e-mail at:

     dr9021@ucsfvm.ucsf.edu

                               Donna Reynolds

------------------------------

Date: 22 Jun 88 16:14:30 GMT
From: rochester!ur-tut!sunybcs!campbl@bbn.com  (Scott S. Campbell)
Subject: Long Term Effects of Weightlessness...

In article <8806202055.AA09825@ll-vlsi.arpa> glenn@LL-VLSI.ARPA (Glenn Chapman) writes:
>...
>Anatoly Solovyov, Viktor Savinykh and Alexander Alexandrov (the Bulgarian guest
>cosmonaut) have proved to be in excellent condition since the landing. This 
>was the longest guest cosmonaut mission to date.
>...
>    Left on board were the long duration Mir crew of Vladimir Titov and 
>Musahi Manarov which on June 21 will have spent one half a year in orbit.  
>is the mid point of their mission.

I'm generally (i.e., non-techinically) curious about the affects of 
weightlessness on the human body over long periods of time.  Now that the
Soviet Union has put several people into zero-G for extended periods of time,
has there been any mention of the ability of these cosmonauts to re-adapt to 
the pull of Earth's gravity?  How did the recovery time relate to the amount
of time spent in the space station?  What thereapy was necessary to re-adjust?

Just curious,

Scott

-
Scott S. Campbell
campbl@cs.buffalo.edu 		
campbl@sunybcs.BITNET

------------------------------

Date: 23 Jun 88 04:17:47 GMT
From: aplcen!aplcomm!stdc.jhuapl.edu!jwm@mimsy.umd.edu  (Jim Meritt)
Subject: Re:  -- Pegasus launch vehicle

In article <2022@ssc-vax.UUCP> eder@ssc-vax.UUCP (Dani Eder) writes:
}"Houston, we just lost the number 4 air revitalizer, could you send
}up a spare, NOW!!??" (no smiley face)


How about toilet paper!!!!!!

}
}With a solid rocket, presumably you could treat it like a big
}missile, and not have to spend more than a few hours prepping it
}for launch.  


Why would not the time spent waiting for the window be longer than "prepping"
if for launch?  If it is like a missle, would not the launch vechicle
ALWAYS be ready for launch?  Unless, of course, you meant time spent
prepping the payload.


Disclaimer: Individuals have opinions, organizations have policy.
            Therefore, these opinions are mine and not any organizations!
Q.E.D.
jwm@aplvax.jhuapl.edu 128.244.65.5  (James W. Meritt)

------------------------------

Date: 22 Jun 88 14:46:08 GMT
From: pacbell!cogent!uop!todd@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Dr. Nethack is back)
Subject: Re: advance space news from June 6 AW&ST -- Pegasus!

In article <1176@thumper.bellcore.com>, karn@thumper.bellcore.com (Phil R. Karn) writes:
> > Man is the best computer we can put aboard a spacecraft. --Von Braun
> 
> Last week's successful Ariane-4 launch put AMSAT Phase 3-C and two other
> satellites into the following orbit:
> 
> perigee 221 km (nominal: 220 km)
> apogee 36,359 km (nominal: 36,294 km)
> inclination 10.01 deg (nominal: 10 deg)
> 
> I'd like to see some fighter jock/astronaut do as well by flying a
> launch manually.  Perhaps you should limit the scope of this statement
> somewhat.

Computer operations can, at times be more efficient, perhaps his claim
was more philosophic.. when a computer breaks, or malfunctions, or
(at times) performs its task, it still is not capable of the intuitive
things a human is.

And there is the kicker.  Has nothing to do with jockness. And everything
to do with improvisation.. Computers *helped* bring back Apollo 13,
as a tool to devise various probabilties, etc.  But Men brought her
home, both ground crew, and otherwise.

Now are you going to say, she should have never flown?  That would be
as absurd as saying you can tell me whenever a jet should never take
to the skies.

You can't predict everything...at least a human is flexible enough to
*try* different things.

Voyager's computers had to be re-tweaked from the ground due to damage,
could it do that itself?

(Maybe we are finally getting close enough in technology for self corrections
but there is still the cause and effect of needing a human in the chain
somewhere.. if only to look at the images!)

------------------------------

Date: 23 Jun 88 01:30:18 GMT
From: pioneer!eugene@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Eugene N. Miya)
Subject: Re: Henry's von Braun comment

I side with Phil on this one.  I also note Todd's response.  The
fundamental problem with computing at the moment is that computers
aren't really reliable.  We build redundany into them: sure I recommended
buying a 3B20D and a Tandem at one point, and JPL had the STAR, but
the point is: why can't our electronics do without parity (shades of
Seymour), SECDED, etc.?  This is retorical comp.arch can use a good
fault tolerance discussion, and if you are only on the ARPAnet without
Usenet access, sorry you can't discuss computer architecture, tough
cookies, someone should gateway that group.  If you plan to discuss this
topic, move it to arch, not space unless you are talking specifically
about spaceborne systems.

I don't quite know what Todd meant about Voyager computer problems,
they added data compression for Uranus and beyond.  There were a few
other things.  Oh, I did meet Henry last evening at Usenix, briefly,
associated a net address with a face.

--eugene

------------------------------

Date: 21 Jun 88 07:18:16 GMT
From: portal!cup.portal.com!Paul_L_Schauble@uunet.uu.net
Subject: Re: Cometesimals at Tunguska

The recent discussion on cometesimals has me wondering if this could explain
another puzzle. In 1908, a large explosion flatened a section of the Tunguska
region in Siberia. As far as I know, there has never been a satisfactory
explaination for this event. (Pointers to more data are !very! welcome.)

The sticking point is that the damage pattern matches that of a nuclear air
burst. Trees are broken down in a pattern radiating away from ground zero,
but with no significant crater or extra damage at ground zero itself. This
couldn't happen with a normal meteor, because anything large enough to have
caused the blast would have survived to ground impact.

I wonder if the fluffy snowball wouldn't do it. I'm thinking that a large,
low density, fast moving object could couple all of its kinetic energy to
the atmosphere. This would leave a shock wave traveling on the same path as
the object, which might leave the right damage pattern.

Well, how far out in left field am I?

    Paul

------------------------------

Date: 23 Jun 88 07:58:31 GMT
From: agate!web%garnet.berkeley.edu@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (William Baxter)
Subject: Chapter Directory and Notes from Denver Meetings

If you would like a copy of any of the following documents, please email
your request to me.  

1. NSS Chapter Directory: contains general information about chapters,
   including meeting times and places, officers, projects, 

2. Notes from the "Chapter Meetings" at the ISDC: the meetings at which
   the "Transition Committee" was established to create a "Chapter
   Assembly" within the NSS.


I will make some announcement when there is a significant update to the
Chapter Directory, e.g. when I finish the newsletter section listing
info about chapter publications.

William Baxter

ARPA: web@{garnet,brahms,math}.Berkeley.EDU   
UUCP: {sun,dual,decwrl,decvax,hplabs,...}!ucbvax!{garnet,brahms,math}!web

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #278
*******************

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Date: Sun, 17 Jul 88 19:06:29 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8807180206.AA18246@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #279

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 279

Today's Topics:
		      Space Shuttle Differences
		       Re: SPACE Digest V8 #255
		    Re: Henry's von Braun comment
	 Re: advance space news from June 6 AW&ST -- Pegasus!
			 Niven's _Ringworld_
	      Re: Long Term Effects of Weightlessness...
	 Re: advance space news from June 6 AW&ST -- Pegasus!
		       More on Data Compression
		       Re: spacecraft computers
			     Re: Pegasus
		     Re: Cometesimals at Tunguska
		     Re: Cometesimals at Tunguska
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 23 Jun 88 05:22:20 GMT
From: aplcen!jhunix!ins_ackg@mimsy.umd.edu  (Choon Kiat Goh)
Subject: Space Shuttle Differences


 Are all the operational shuttles the same, ie. in terms of lifting
capability, weight, etc. ? Or are there functional differences?

--- Ian ---

------------------------------

Date: 23 Jun 88 19:49:26 GMT
From: nsc!nessus@decwrl.dec.com  (Kchula-Rrit)
Subject: Re: SPACE Digest V8 #255

In article <8806200320.AA02811@angband.s1.gov> R2CDN@AKRONVM.BITNET
(Dess-DEMON-a) writes:

 > ...

 >Q:  Does anyone REALLY believe that earthings will be able to survive in
 >    space stations in various locations? Just a thought... (Do you think
 >    we'll have an orbital station around Uranus?  Who'd want to live there?
 >    It's SO COLD!)
	      ^^^^

	Sure, I'll go!  It'll be just like home!  I'm from Minnesota...

					K-R

-- 
						Kchula-Rrit

"In challenging a kzin, a sream of rage is sufficient.
 You scream and you leap."

------------------------------

Date: 23 Jun 88 19:53:26 GMT
From: devvax!jplpro!leem@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov  (Lee Mellinger)
Subject: Re: Henry's von Braun comment

In article <10722@ames.arc.nasa.gov> eugene@pioneer.UUCP (Eugene N. Miya) writes:
|
|I don't quite know what Todd meant about Voyager computer problems,
|they added data compression for Uranus and beyond.  There were a few
|other things.  Oh, I did meet Henry last evening at Usenix, briefly,
|associated a net address with a face.
|
|--eugene

Hi Gene, you might remember me from about 1978-79 in regards to a
Modcomp Pascal project I was peripherally involved with in the DSN.  

Voyager, which one I don't remember (must be age, the first thing to
go you know), had some serious control problems shortly after launch.
One of the things the project did to clear the problems was a complete
CCDS reload (which the project had promised they would never do).  
I remember this quite vividly, as the commanding, 8 plus
hours of it, was done by the then brand new and buggy Mark III command
system at DSS 12.  We were all holding our collective breath.

The Voyager computers have been completely reprogrammed more than
twice since launch, on one occasion to make the attitude control fuel
usage *much* more efficient, and twice to refine the image handling
and compression techniques.

Lee

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
|Lee F. Mellinger                         Jet Propulsion Laboratory - NASA|
|4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA 91109 818/393-0516  FTS 977-0516      |
|-------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|UUCP: {ames!cit-vax,psivax}!elroy!jpl-devvax!jplpro!leem                 |
|ARPA: jplpro!leem!@cit-vax.ARPA -or- leem@jplpro.JPL.NASA.GOV            |
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

------------------------------

Date: 22 Jun 88 17:45:46 GMT
From: hpda!hpcuhb!hpsel1!campbelr@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Bob Campbell)
Subject: Re: advance space news from June 6 AW&ST -- Pegasus!

>> Man is the best computer we can put aboard a spacecraft. --Von Braun

> . . .
> 
> I'd like to see some fighter jock/astronaut do as well by flying a
> launch manually.  Perhaps you should limit the scope of this statement
> somewhat.
> 
> Phil
----------

Were all of the computers used onboard the spacecraft?  

I agree that Von Brauns statement may need some context help, but we
could quickly disolve into a disscussion of what is a computer.

Bob Campbell                Some times I wish that I could stop you from 
campbelr@hpda.hp.com        talking, when I hear the silly things you say.
Hewlett Packard                                    - Elvis Costello

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 24 Jun 88 04:03:15 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" <KFL@ai.ai.mit.edu>
Subject: Niven's _Ringworld_
To: C445585%UMCVMB.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu
Cc: KFL@ai.ai.mit.edu, space@angband.s1.gov, sf-lovers@rutgers.edu,
        Physics@unix.sri.com

There are no major problems with the concept of a ringworld.  Obviously
it would be an extremely difficult engineering feat.  There are several
minor problems, most of which Niven addresses in his sequel _The
Rignworld Engineers_.

Personally, I think it would be more likely that people will colonize
asteroids, and when we run out that we will demolish useless planets to
make more asteroids.  Ultimately, this strategy can support a much
higher population than a ringworld.  It's also much more immune to
common-mode failures such as the superconductor eating bacterium in
_Ringworld_ and the far greater danger in _The Ringworld Engineers_.

								...Keith

------------------------------

Date: 23 Jun 88 22:58:53 GMT
From: ihnp4!ihlpm!njd@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (DiMasi)
Subject: Re: Long Term Effects of Weightlessness...

Scott S. Campbell writes:
> 
> .....
> 
> I'm generally (i.e., non-techinically) curious about the affects of 
> weightlessness on the human body over long periods of time.  Now that the
> Soviet Union has put several people into zero-G for extended periods of time,
> has there been any mention of the ability of these cosmonauts to re-adapt to 
> the pull of Earth's gravity?  How did the recovery time relate to the amount
> of time spent in the space station?  What thereapy was necessary to re-adjust?

I don't recall the details, but I remember reading (about 2 years or so ago?)
that cosmonauts who had flown on more than one long-duration mission re-adapted
to 1G more quickly on their second (third if any) missions.  It seems that
the human body "learns" to re-adapt.  As I remember, only re-adaptation to
1G in terms of ability to move around easily, pick up objects, etc. was
discussed in the article I read.  I don't recall anything about recovery of
muscle mass, bone mass, etc.

Nick DiMasi
Uni'q Digital Technologies (Fox Valley Software subsidiary;
   ^          working as a contractor at AT&T Bell Labs in Naperville, IL)
(  | this is an accent mark, supposed to replace the dot over the 'i')

------------------------------

Date: 24 Jun 88 01:14:36 GMT
From: necntc!adelie!infinet!rhorn@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Rob Horn)
Subject: Re: advance space news from June 6 AW&ST -- Pegasus!

In article <3361@phri.UUCP> roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) writes:
>henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>> Pegasus, a winged three-stage design that will be air-launched from a B-52.
>> [...] Payload is 600lb into low polar orbit, 900 into low equatorial orbit.
>
>What does a typical commsat weigh, for example?
Depends on the type.  Geosynch tend to be heavier.  2000kg and up.
One major consideration is power supply and another is fuel for
station keeping.  BUT, low earth orbit fit easily in this.  The latest
AMSAT (Up and WORKING !!!! yeah) weights 140 kg.  This kind of
satellite supports packet radio techniques.  DARPA has funded paper
studies of a ``cloud'' of these as an alternative to geosynch.

>  Or a typical package of
>scientific instrumentation?
I've gotten data from a 10kg satellite.  But there is no typical.
>  Or (God forbid), a typical military payload
>(warhead, spysat, whatever).
Spysats are HUGE, partly because optics are huge and partly because
they want maneuvering capability (fuel+motor) and partly for long
life.  But a lot of this is the result of the present difficulty in
making a decision to launch on a day's notice.  (Optics being the exception.)

-- 
				Rob  Horn
	UUCP:	...harvard!adelie!infinet!rhorn
		...ulowell!infinet!rhorn, ..decvax!infinet!rhorn
	Snail:	Infinet,  40 High St., North Andover, MA

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 24 Jun 88 14:05:48 PDT
From: Eugene Miya <eugene@eos.arc.nasa.gov>
To: jaw@eos.arc.nasa.gov, space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: More on Data Compression

Just when you thought it was safe to go back and read Aviation Leak and
Space Technocracy, the latest issue of Computing Surveys has an article
on DATA COMPRESSION.  It's not a bad article by two authors from Irvine,
it lacks a few words (I think the section on Errors could say a bit more,
but it is a Survey).

%V 19
%N 3
%D Sept. 1987

I decided to give the above refer with keywords (The list is more than I want
to type).
%P 261-296


--eugene

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 24 Jun 88 16:24:37 EDT
From: dietz@gvax.cs.cornell.edu (Paul F. Dietz)

Interested parties might want to read this article:

  "Electromagnetic Launch: Highway to the Stars", IEEE Trans. on
  Magnetics, Vol. 24, No. 2, March 1988, pages 703-710.

It is highly readable, if somewhat hyperbolic, and makes some
interesting claims.  To summarize...

Use of space has been blocked by the stagnation of launch cost
using chemical rockets.  Historically, further progress depends on
the introduction of new technology. Electromagnetic launchers promise
much higher payload ratios.  Recent progress in e.m. launcher and
associated technology has been rapid.

The article describes one particularly attractive concept, called
the solenoid quench gun.  The launcher is a superconducting solenoid
with a field of 20-30 Tesla.  The projectile coil, also
superconducting, is accelerated up the solenoid, quenching
solenoid segments as its goes (so the coil remains at the "end"
of the solenoid).  If the quenched coils are shunted through a
s.c. circuit the efficiency can approach 100%.

The most interesting things about the launcher are its inherent
simplicity and small size.  The article claims that a 3 ton projectile
(1 ton of which is payload destined for geosynchronous orbit) could
be launched by a gun with a mass in the *tens* of tons.

E.m. launchers would seem to be well suited to materials processing,
since only a modest kick motor is needed to raise the projectile into
a long elliptical orbit (and, similarly, to deorbit it).

	Paul F. Dietz
	dietz@gvax.cs.cornell.edu

------------------------------

Date: 24 Jun 88 20:31:32 GMT
From: pioneer!eugene@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Eugene N. Miya)
Subject: Re: spacecraft computers

In addition to the well cited CACM articles, I recall the IEEE has advertised
some books on spacecraft computer systems.  I seem to recall them
because I think they were advertised with some books on communication
systems by Pierce and Posner.  Serious readers can determine this (costs
were in excess of $75, I'll check Posner next time I swing past my old
Branch's library).  Computers onboard tend to be small, small scale
things.  I think Lee would agree with this. 8-)  I think most of the
companies who would seriously buy these books will not be on the net
(like Hughes or Huge).  I also note there is increasing interest in GaAs.

Another gross generalization from

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@aurora.arc.nasa.gov
  resident cynic at the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:
  "Mailers?! HA!", "If my mail does not reach you, please accept my apology."
  {uunet,hplabs,ncar,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."

------------------------------

Date: 22 Jun 88 15:27:35 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!dciem!nrcaer!cognos!geovision!alastair@uunet.uu.net  (Alastair Mayer)
Subject: Re: Pegasus


Don't have the reference handy to give the exact figures, but Pacific
American's  Liberty I launcher has equivalent payloads to Pegasus to
orbit at around $2 to $4million.  Payload weight may even be higher.
Either way the per/lb cost is substantially less than Pegasus.
  And yes, Pacific American has a customer for Liberty I, they're
currently bending metal on it.  (I heard they're 'rolling out' first
engine and propellant tanks this week or next).
  Liberty is conservative design: pressure-fed LOX/kerosene first stage,
N2O4-hydrazine second stage.  That's one of the keys to low cost.

-- 
 Alastair JW Mayer     BIX: al
                      UUCP: ...!utzoo!dciem!nrcaer!cognos!geovision!alastair

"Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it."

------------------------------

Date: 24 Jun 88 15:18:49 GMT
From: hplabsb!dsmith@hplabs.hp.com  (David Smith)
Subject: Re: Cometesimals at Tunguska

In article <6719@cup.portal.com>, Paul_L_Schauble@cup.portal.com writes:
>            In 1908, a large explosion flatened a section of the Tunguska
> region in Siberia. As far as I know, there has never been a satisfactory
> explaination for this event.
> 
> The sticking point is that the damage pattern matches that of a nuclear air
> burst. Trees are broken down in a pattern radiating away from ground zero,
> but with no significant crater or extra damage at ground zero itself. This
> couldn't happen with a normal meteor, because anything large enough to have
> caused the blast would have survived to ground impact.
> 
> I wonder if the fluffy snowball wouldn't do it. I'm thinking that a large,
> low density, fast moving object could couple all of its kinetic energy to
> the atmosphere. This would leave a shock wave traveling on the same path as
> the object, which might leave the right damage pattern.

Around six years ago, Science News ran an article on explosions of
meteors, largely based on photographic patrols in Czechoslovakia.
The conclusion was that fast-moving stony meteors, undergoing great 
stress in the atmosphere, can suddenly shatter into many small pieces.
The greatly increased surface area causes extremely rapid "burn-up" of
the fragments in an explosion.  The researchers believed this to be the
best explanation of the Tunguska event.
-- 

			David Smith
			HP Labs
			dsmith@hplabs.hp.com

------------------------------

Date: 25 Jun 88 21:18:25 GMT
From: puff!astrix@speedy.cs.wisc.edu  (Lou Goodman)
Subject: Re: Cometesimals at Tunguska


when speaking of "old" sources for Tunguska, I seem to remember
one of the films in the ACClarke "mysterious somthing-or-other"
in which he examined it. One of the experiments made was to do
an air blast over simulated trees. The zone of "ground zero" under
the simulated blast was relatively unaffected by the blast while
outside of that zone the "trees" were flattened.

He also pointed out that it was not until the 20's that anyone
even got to the site and that it is a morass of fens and bogs,
very people unfriendly. I've always enjoyed the "spaceship
(read ufo) gone critical". By now most evidence (if any does
or did indeed exist) may be gone/incorporated into the current
matrix.


astrix (Lou R. Goodman), UW Madison

-------------------------------------------------------------------
|| He who knows, who really knows, and knows that he knows...... ||
|| knows just how much he doesn't know......                     ||
-------------------------------------------------------------------
|| "Sticks and stones can break my bones, but flames... oy weh!" ||
-------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #279
*******************

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Date: Mon, 18 Jul 88 01:05:55 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8807180805.AA18388@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #280

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 280

Today's Topics:
			The  ASTRA Connection
		       Re: spacecraft computers
   Postcard from Lewis: Having a wonderful time, wish you were here
	      Re: Long Term Effects of Weightlessness...
 Re: Postcard from Lewis: Having a wonderful time, wish you were here
			Space cities--replies
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 26 Jun 88 04:45:30 GMT
From: agate!web%garnet.berkeley.edu@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (William Baxter)
Subject: The  ASTRA Connection

Is anybody who reads this group connected with ASTRA?  Or is there
someone from Glasgow who wouldn't mind passing the occasional message?
Thanks. 

William Baxter

ARPA: web@{garnet,brahms,math}.Berkeley.EDU   
UUCP: {sun,dual,decwrl,decvax,hplabs,...}!ucbvax!{garnet,brahms,math}!web

------------------------------

Date: 26 Jun 88 05:19:34 GMT
From: beckenba@csvax.caltech.edu  (Joe Beckenbach)
Subject: Re: spacecraft computers


	Onboard computer systems have to be small; the more room they take,
the less room for the instruments. Aside: the information I am presenting 
is approxiamate, since I remember images and orders of magnitude much better
than the numbers.

	The Mars Observer Camera (MOC) is very data-intensive and therefore is
"computer-heavy". George Pauls, our mechanics and electrical engineer, is
doing his damnest to fit everything onto both sides of two flat circular
electronics boards about the area of a car window. He's probably just barely
going to be able to shoe-horn it all in, God willing, without trying to sneak
in another board. I'm guessing really off-the-cuff that about half of it deals
directly with keeping the camera aimed and synchronized with the surface it's
imaging, and the other half is analyzing and compressing the data for storage
and/or return.

	Now friends, no NASA instrument has yet tried flying parts that we
need. I raised an eyebrow when I was told that no-one has tried flying a gate
array before, and was annoyed to hear that the highest size memory chip flown
before was 16K bytes. Of course, now that I think about it, I'm not too surprised:
MOC is doing some pretty intense data-grabbing. Still, the only way to get the
memory needed is to go to megabit RAMs, which means radiation-testing &etc.

	Oh, here's a neat image: stick your arms straight out in front of you.
Imagine you're holding one end of a short barrel to your chest. The barrel is
about as long as your arms, and about as wide as your torso. Slap a pair of 
binoculars as long as the barrel on top of that. The barrel is the narrow-angle
camera [the telescope]; the left binocular lens is the red-sensitive wide-angle
fisheye (140 degree) camera, and the right binocular lens is the blue-sensitive
wide-angle fish-eye camera. The electronics board is pressed against your chest,
exactly where the camera will have the rest of the orbiter. Now look through the
binoculars at Mars.
	Well, at least that image keeps -me- excited.

-- 
Joe Beckenbach	beckenba@csvax.caltech.edu	Caltech 1-58, Pasadena CA 91125
Mars Observer Camera Project			Caltech Planetary Sciences Division
Ground Support Engineering, programmer		"This is space? Neat."

------------------------------

Date:         Sun, 26 Jun 88 16:50:55 EDT
From: PH418000%BROWNVM.BITNET@mitvma.mit.edu
Subject:      Postcard from Lewis: Having a wonderful time, wish you were here

FROM: GEOFFREY A. LANDIS,
        FORMERLY: BROWN UNIVERSITY
        CURRENTLY: NASA LEWIS RESEARCH CENTER, 302-1
                   CLEVELAND, OH 44135

Hi, everybody--
    Just back at Brown temporarily and using a friend's computer account
to catch up on things, so DON'T reply to me at this account--I won't be
here and I'm not hooked up to the net at work (which saves me a few
hours everyday--it's hard to believe what a time waste computers are.)
It's interesting to view NASA from the inside--or, at least as close to
inside as a two-year postdoc gets--
     There seems to be intermittant episodes of NASA bashing that occur
on the net.  You have to keep in mind that most of NASA consists of
dedicated people who working hard.  Decisions on what direction to go
are made by a very few top management--i.e., politicians.
    An encouraging thing that I've found is that people here really are
interested in the good stuff.  There's a lot of interest in establishing a
lunar base, manufacturing oxygen, etc; and comparitively little interest in
going to Mars--although Phobos seems interesting.
     There's also an interesting proposal to use a tether concept to deorbit
the space shuttle from the space-station, simultaneously reboosting the station
everytime you drop a shuttle off.  This seems like a great idea, and I hope
it gets implemented, although the space station looks like it's going to be
another bare-bones minimum budget thing with all the emphasis on keeping the
up-front cost low, regardless of operational cost.  Sigh.
     But that's the province of the politicians and beaurocrats.
    It's also hard to believe just how conservative the actual spacecraft
manufacturers are.  Nobody wants to fly anything that hasn't already been
demonstrated in space already.  This is very frustrating to those people who
want to advance the technology--but nobody wants to risk a few million dollars
on something new that might work a tiny bit better if there's any chance at
all that something unforseen might go wrong.
     I've been having a good time.  Basically the people at Lewis are very
nice and easy to work with.  I've been working on my main project, which is
investigating higher-efficiency solar cells, but also looking at other things,
ranging from investigating the effect of array orientation on the space-station
orbit, to a study of the feasability of making solar cells on the moon, and
even looking into space suit design.
     I've also been getting involved with a new informal group called
"VISION-21" which is looking into the possibilities of new ideas.  They
may have a conference sometime next year.
   Speaking of which, I assume that everybody has now had a chance to see
Brian O'Leary's new book, advocating a joint US-Soviet trip to Phobos, with
a short (few hour) sortie to the Martian surface, in 1999. It's an interesting
plan, including propellant processing from materials mined from the Martian
moons to establish an infrastructure that uses extraterrestrial materials--
although I could very easily see the Phobos propellant processing part of the
mission somehow getting pushed off into the (nebulous) future in the shadow
of a perceived goal of "landing a man on Mars before the end of the Millenium."

    Well, good to type at you all again for a while.  Gotta sign off now--
                           --Geoff

------------------------------

Date: 24 Jun 88 18:29:57 GMT
From: trwrb!aero!venera.isi.edu!rod@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Rodney Doyle Van Meter III)
Subject: Re: Long Term Effects of Weightlessness...


Re: long-term 0G effects.

I know exercise is considered a must for keeping the muscle tone from 
deteriorating too much. I believe there's some evidence that calcium
loss from bones stops after a certain point, which is encouraging when 
considering long-term missions.

	--Rod

P.S. Ask the Soviets.

------------------------------

Date: 27 Jun 88 00:23:50 GMT
From: b.gp.cs.cmu.edu!ralf@pt.cs.cmu.edu  (Ralf Brown)
Subject: Re: Postcard from Lewis: Having a wonderful time, wish you were here

In article <8806262055.AA10047@angband.s1.gov> PH418000@BROWNVM.BITNET writes:
}     There's also an interesting proposal to use a tether concept to deorbit
}the space shuttle from the space-station, simultaneously reboosting the station
}everytime you drop a shuttle off.  

This isn't all that new an idea.  See the SF novel "Descent of A????" (it's
been at least five years since I read it), which gives a nice account of
using just this concept to deorbit a shuttle (though the other end was its
payload, rather than the space station).  Written ca. 1980.
-- 
{harvard,uunet,ucbvax}!b.gp.cs.cmu.edu!ralf -=-=- AT&T: (412)268-3053 (school) 
ARPA: RALF@B.GP.CS.CMU.EDU |"Tolerance means excusing the mistakes others make.
FIDO: Ralf Brown at 129/31 | Tact means not noticing them." --Arthur Schnitzler
BITnet: RALF%B.GP.CS.CMU.EDU@CMUCCVMA -=-=- DISCLAIMER? I claimed something?

------------------------------

Date: 27 Jun 88 01:24:01 GMT
From: uflorida!novavax!maddoxt@umd5.umd.edu  (Thomas Maddox)
Subject: Space cities--replies



     A short while ago, I posted a list of queries about the
design and functioning of space cities.  As I explained in that
posting, I am currently working on a novel in which a
space city figures prominently.  

     So, as promised, here are excerpts from the replies I got.  

J. Storrs Hall ("JoSH," moderator of the sci.nanotech newsgroup)
says, with regard to the overall design:

     I would expect as much variation in space cities as ground
     cities--lots of room for style, random variation,
     "historical reasons", etc.  Not to mention differences in
     overall functionality.

Concerning the ecology of the city:

     Genetic engineering will almost certainly be able to create
     systems of artificial life that are specifically designed to
     be the "opposite half" of a human-bearing ecology.  

     [A]ll the plants are designed for the job.  I would expect
     the plants to be the bio-engineered terminal nodes of the
     climate control system.  All wired into the "nerve net" of
     the city.  They act as sensors and controllers for humidity
     and gas content of the air.  They, and the lights and the
     doors and a zillion other things are the "fingers" of an
     intelligent environment.  I suspect the intelligent
     environment is not only a fancy extra, but will be
     considered a necessity for safety reasons.

And the economic infrastructure:

     An early occupation of the space city will probably be the
     manufacture of antimatter, and genetic engineering, and
     other pursuits that involve tiny, dangerous things,
     presumably carried out in nearby, detached, facilities.

And the politics:

     Take a population of smart, intellectually aggressive people
     in close (confined) social contact, all dependent on the
     same integrated system for their lives, and you have a sure
     recipe for the hairiest, fieriest, politics in human
     history.  

     One of my central questions concerned an asteroid that my
city dwellers would discover, snag, and transport to the space
city.  JoSH says, 

     To my surprise, when I worked out the math, this will
     actually work.  Solar orbital velocities in this area are
     about 30 km/sec, and for a 100-meter asteroid massing 1e11
     kg, that represents 3e14 watts of kinetic energy. Assume we
     can build a 10 gigawatt fusion plant (modern fission plants
     are 1 gigawatt) it can supply that amount of energy in a
     year.  Build more plants (or assume more powerful ones) and
     time shrinks.  You still need transit time after the thrust,
     of course.  
     The thing could be up to a mile (multiply above numbers by
     200).  They could find it anywhere inside Jupiter's orbit,
     depending on the time constraints of the plot.  There are
     occasional asteroids that cross Earth's orbit, though most
     are found between Mars and Jupiter.  You would not be too
     far off base to assume the composition was any fairly small
     distortion of earth's.  Silicates, boron, nickel, iron. 
     Spice it with rare earths to fit the plot.

Marc Ringuette says, 

     The spokes are very useful things - probably exercise gyms
     and recreational facilities at anywhere from null to full
     gravity, as well as science research, hospital recovery
     facilities . . . 

     I presume there'd be a fair bunch of non-rotating zero-g
     docking, communications, maintenance, and research modules.

     So what are some idea-generating features of the
     environment?
      - variable gravity available
      - vacuum available
      - linear organization of the city (a skinny loop)
      - closed society.  towns of 10,000 barely have a swimming  
        pool!
      - high tech population - jobs are space, mining, science,  
        astronomy

John Turner, from L5 Computing, Edmonds, Washington, writes:

     1) Be sure to portray the window shielding right.  I don't
     remember whether Heppenheimer's book mentioned the chevron
     shields.  They are cribs of some dense material faced with
     mirrors, supported on metal legs above the torus windows. 
     Sunlight follows a crooked path through the mirror maze this
     creates, with the hard radiation absorbing harmlessly into
     the rock, metal, etc. that fills the cribs.  Try to find a
     diagram if you don't have one already; without the chevron
     shields a Stanford torus is a joke.

     2) Don't make your metal asteroid much larger than five
     hundred meters across, about one-half billion tonnes mass. 
     The motors for moving such a beast would rate around 100,000
     tonnes thrust for a fairly speedy trip, less if a few
     microgravities is all you'll need.  Many plans for mining
     such small objects include a sort of bag surrounding the
     body, to catch flying shards during blasting or excavation.

     [. . .]

     5)  Spin gravity isn't the same as the real thing.  The
     coriolis effect in even a large structure like a Stanford
     torus could be *felt* as a weak vertigo if you rocked your
     head, twisted it side to side.  Gossip has it that you could
     find the spinward direction from anywhere in a Stanford
     torus by nodding your head a few times.

     6)  Space eats your brains out.  Even inside the stationary
     "bicycle tire" shield and window shielding of a Stanford
     torus, enough radiation gets through to make personal
     dosimeters a good idea.  Traveling through the unshielded
     spokes would cause blue splotches to dance before your eyes;
     they are called phosgenes and are a visible (to you)
     manifestation of dying brain cells.  Too many dead brain
     cells and you'll be a vegetable, fed blue liquid down a
     tube.
     Space settlers would be almost obsessive about tracking
     their radiation histories, and would forbid their children
     access to poorly shielded areas.

Douglas F. DeJulio, from Carnegie-Mellon, suggests, 

     How 'bout several concentric toruses (torusi?) of different
     sizes, with different rotational speeds?  The closer to the
     center, the faster the spin.
     That way it covers more area (because you have people live
     at more than one radius) and you have similar gravity in
     each ring.  Travel from ring to ring would be interesting. 
     Travel *within* a ring could be done by hopping to another
     ring, waiting, and hopping back in a new place.

And Jack Campin, from Glasgow University, asks:

     OK, what about radiation shielding? I don't recall any of
     the advocates of space colonies having an answer to the
     infrequent (every few decades) but REALLY lethal blasts of
     solar wind that are detectable in the tree-ring record by
     the C14 they generate (see last week's New Scientist). You
     could maybe have enough lead boxes for the humans, but for
     the whole ecosystem?

(The answer I have:  the rotating ring of the torus [and the
central hub] would be protected by a shield of crushed lunar
rock; light would be reflected into the ring through a system of
mirrors and shields, the chevron shields alluded to by John Turner
above.  Travel through the spokes would simply be prohibited
during radiation storms.  Anyone got a comment or refutation on
this topic?  It's obviously of overwhelming practical
importance.)

Dani Eder, who works for Boeing on the Space Station program,
writes:

     You are trying to retrieve a stony-iron type [of asteroid] 
     (because of the variety of materials found within).  You 
     start with a solar concentrator and heat up some metal found 
     in the asteroid then roll it out in thin sheets.  Us this as a 
     bigger solar concentrator to melt more metal, etc. bootstrapping.
     The sheets are attached to 'masts' made of extruded bar
     stock of the same metal.  Use refractory oxides from the
     'stony' part to make the dies through which the bars are
     extruded.
     This assemblage becomes a solar sail , so that the asteroid
     sails ITSELF to earth orbit.  

Rick Crownover, from Duke University, promises more and writes
concerning the city's orbit:

     A quick note on the design: oblate and prolate ellipses are
     ok also, and if you look in the letters section of IASFM's
     June issue, there is discussion of a counterbalanced
     "pendulum" which might suit your needs quite well -- even
     has a useful place to park the asteroid.

J. Eric Thompson writes from "Flatline" (I'll tell Gibson about
it, if J. Eric will tell me what it is) in Houston, concerning the
city's biological functioning:

     Soybeans.  Lots and lots of soybeans.  You can make lots of
     stuff from soybeans.  :-).  Seriously, though, everything
     from food to clothes, and that's just from non-genetically
     engineered plants.  No telling what you could do with a
     mutant strain or three...

And concerning social life:

     A closed environment of 10,000 people can be really nasty.
     (Says he who lived in a small town of 10,000 people for a
     few years).  
     Without a changing population (immigrants and uh . . .
     outer-grants?) stable family lines may develop. Also, the
     "everybody knows everybody else" starts to develop.  
     Minorities.  Especially blacks, hispanics and homosexuals. 
     They seem to get left out of most future-novels . . .
     Especially blacks and homosexuals.  There're a thousand
     orientals it seems, and a hispanic every now and then, but
     they're mostly minor characters.  There seem to be no blacks
     in science fiction.  Well, in Gor... :-)
     I take that back.  My SO just read a book where the central
     character was a black female.  I can't remember the author's
     name, though . . .

(Wouldn't be Octavia Butler, would it?)

     Homosexuals.  Mistreated more than females....  Oh well. 
     It'd be nice to see a future community where a wide spread
     of people are represented. . . .

Beverly Erlebacher writes from Toronto:

     the most land-efficient agriculture is found in southern
     china and other parts of southeast asia. under very good
     climatic conditions and meticulous hand cultivation, an acre
     can support about 5 people with enough calories for
     reasonable health. . . . a closed ecology with cheap power
     and labour might optimise for maximal nutritional value
     produced per square or cubic footage per unit time.

     under such a system, green vegetables would be cheap and
     plentiful, most carbohydrates would come from root crops
     like potatoes and tropical yams rather than from grains, and
     tree fruits would be incredible luxuries.  small amounts of
     meat, eggs and milk could be produced by rabbits, chickens
     and goats or cattle consuming garbage and agriculture waste.
     
     on the other hand, fish would be much more available. as
     part of the water recycling system, there are large tanks of
     algae cultures feeding fish such as tilapia and possibly
     some invertebrates.  nutrients for the hydroponics come from
     the same system.

     in your book, you might consider some of the lush tropical
     vegetation being food plants like fruit trees and squash,
     bean, melon and grape vines.  

     on another topic, that of air, you might want to read the
     may issue of scientific american which had an article on
     indoor air pollution.  up here in the north, in order to
     save heat, new buildings are often tightly sealed and air is
     recirculated.  these buildings are really awful to live and
     work in.  the air has a bad character to it, and people
     often get headaches or a sort of general dopey feeling after
     a few hours. colds are much more common. unions have been
     trying to get things changed for their workers on these
     issues. 

     i could do some hand waving about 'wild' animals and birds
     in your space city, but for now, i think i would just
     recommend you avoid importing rats, mice, pigeons, sparrows,
     starlings, rabbits and red deer. on the other hand, these
     critters are pretty well guaranteed to succeed. :-)
     
Finally, Graeme Williams writes from somewhere I won't mention:

     I have one observation on what sort of society might develop
     in a space city, assuming that it is driven by technology
     and doesn't end up re-creating small-town Kansas.

     Fashion is possible (only?) when trivial changes in form are
     possible with negligible changes in function.  Observing my
     colleagues . . . we have that in spades.  

     This sort of change interacts with our organizational
     culture, which seems basically tribal.  We are of course
     organized in a hierarchy, but as you might expect this has
     the most impact at the level of sections (up to about 10
     people) and departments (up to about 50, although above
     about 35 it doesn't really seem stable).

     This posting having grown quite large, I'll abandon it
(though I may return to the topic later with comments and further
queries) by saying thank you to all who took the considerable
trouble of thinking about and replying to my questions.  All the
replies were intelligent and well-informed, many gave gratifying
detail.  I have benefitted enormously from reading them, and you
may consider me in your debt.  
     If I have slighted anyone, or improperly identified anyone
or his or her affiliation, my apologies:  I simply wanted to give
proper credit.
     By the way, I'm still happy to receive responses.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #280
*******************

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Date: Mon, 18 Jul 88 19:06:06 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8807190206.AA19403@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #281

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 281

Today's Topics:
		"Space Exploration Cost Understanding"
				Signup
			     signup space
			   Re: solar flares
	 Re: advance space news from June 6 AW&ST -- Pegasus!
 Re: Postcard from Lewis: Having a wonderful time, wish you were here
			     Re: Pegasus
			  Salyut 7 elements
			     Re: Pegasus
	 Re: advance space news from June 6 AW&ST -- Pegasus!
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Mon, 27 Jun 88 11:05:43 PDT
From: Eugene N. Miya <eugene@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov>
Subject: "Space Exploration Cost Understanding"

It was recently noted that trash isn't personal property anymore.
Friday, during our afternoon bull session (Hamming's Alternate Musings,
we call them "officially," inspired by Dick from his Los Alamos days),
I stumbled on a set of view graphs entitled "Space Exploration Cost
Understanding."  Most are dull, but there are a few gems you might be
interested.

The presenter is from JSC (houston), associated with the Mars/Lunar
Exploration office, interesting view graph is on the section entitled
"Constraints on the Spaced Program" with 3 subsections:
Budget Considerations, High Cost of Programs, and Public Perception.

The first mentions the Deficit, Non-Discretionary Items Growing,
Military Space, NASA Pressures: Challenger Accident Recovery,
Space Station, and loss of "business" reimburseable launches.

High Cost of Programs was what caught my eye:
In small print at the bottom, (NOTE ALL COSTS in FY88$)  [This is why
economics is not a science, but a joke, not deserving a Nobel Prize.
We have all heard dollar figures associated per given year like $24
Billion for the manned lunar programs, but when normalizing, we get a
different comparison.] Anyway on with the VG:
NASA Manned Programs (Expensive)
Apollo was Over $88 Billion [Usualyy cited as $24 B 1960s $$]
Shuttle is $75 to date
Station "May Cost" over $18 Billion
Recent Unmanned Programs also Relatively Expensive
Viking $3 B [Usually cited as $1B 1975 Dollars]
Space Telescope $2.2 B (so far)
TDRSS is $1.9 B to date
Public Perception slide:
Public Confidence is at an all time low
Less than 20% of the General public thinks NASA funding should be
increased
Most people think NASA is much more expensive than it really is
Few people recognize benefits
"Crisis of Confidence" that led to the Apollo program is unlikely to be
repeated

In a different section under Cost and Scheduling Trends
NASA is Realizing Diseconomies of Scale
Constant value budget for 15 years
Total Budget is 1/3 of peak Apollo era
Spacecraft budgets at 1/4 of Apllo era
NASA Cultural Norms set during Apollo [I agree]
Man power at 50%
All Apollo era Installions still exist


I skip the Gantt charts, and the other gobblety-gook.  I thought the
numbers would be of interest to you guys, I think they are a few
oxymorons in the slides like "tailored cookbook," this presentation
would have been interesting to sit in on and throw stones, but like
I said, the numbers are a bit informative.

Is this "Insider information?" 8-0 8-)

Another gross generalization from

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@aurora.arc.nasa.gov
  resident cynic at the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:
  "Mailers?! HA!", "If my mail does not reach you, please accept my apology."
  {uunet,hplabs,ncar,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 27 Jun 88 15:32:38 EST
From: MD0FAERG%MIAMIU.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu
Comment: CROSSNET mail via SMTP@INTERBIT
Subject: Signup

Date: 27 June 88, 15:32:17 EST
From: Mike DeLaet                                    MD0FAERG at MIAMIU
To:   SPACE at MC.LCS.MIT

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 27 Jun 88 15:33:42 EST
From: MD0FAERG%MIAMIU.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu
Comment: CROSSNET mail via SMTP@INTERBIT
Subject: signup space

Date: 27 June 88, 15:33:05 EST
From: Mike DeLaet                                    MD0FAERG at MIAMIU
To:   SPACE at MC.LCS.MIT

signup space

------------------------------

Date: 27 Jun 88 23:40:36 GMT
From: watson@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (John S. Watson)
Subject: Re: solar flares


In article <3204@entire.UUCP> elt@entire.UUCP (Edward L. Taychert) writes:
>I read in the paper this morning that a giant solor flare has errupted
>(The details of `giant' are missing.) Magnetic storm due to hit earth monday...

In article <1162@csccat.UUCP> clb@loci.uucp (CLBrunow) writes:
> Aren't these things (flare) dangerous to astronauts/cosmonauts?
> Somewhere I thought I heard/read something about it but the
> memory is vague. If so, I'm wondering how the crew of Mir will
> deal with the threat.

In the book SPACE by James Mitchner, the fictitious Apollo 17 astronauts
are zapped by a solar flare.  (Two die, one barely makes it back to earth).

I've never heard whether or not Mitchner was making this up, 
or if it could have really happened to the astronauts/cosmonauts.
Is there a doctor in the news group? 

P.S. Just had an earthquake today (a real E-ticket!), any correlations? :-)

-- 
John "Elementary" Watson, IBM heir in hiding  ARPA: watson@ames.arc.nasa.gov
NASA Ames Research Center                     UUCP:  ...!ames!watson
Any opinions expressed herein are solely the responsibility of the
author and do not represent the opinions of NASA or the U.S. Government

------------------------------

Date: 27 Jun 88 22:44:08 GMT
From: concertina!fiddler@sun.com  (Steve Hix)
Subject: Re: advance space news from June 6 AW&ST -- Pegasus!


 [ Description of Pegasus, and accompanying comments, deleted. ]

Best news I've heard in years.

Hope the responsible parties get filthy rich for doing it.  It's
no more than they deserve.

------------------------------

Date: 27 Jun 88 23:15:56 GMT
From: concertina!fiddler@sun.com  (Steve Hix)
Subject: Re: Postcard from Lewis: Having a wonderful time, wish you were here

In article <2064@pt.cs.cmu.edu>, ralf@b.gp.cs.cmu.edu (Ralf Brown) writes:
> In article <8806262055.AA10047@angband.s1.gov> PH418000@BROWNVM.BITNET writes:
> }     There's also an interesting proposal to use a tether concept to deorbit
> }the space shuttle from the space-station, simultaneously reboosting the station
> }everytime you drop a shuttle off.  
> 
> This isn't all that new an idea.  See the SF novel "Descent of A????" (it's

"Descent of Anansi" by Larry Niven.

------------------------------

Date: 27 Jun 88 23:14:11 GMT
From: concertina!fiddler@sun.com  (Steve Hix)
Subject: Re: Pegasus

In article <8240@ihlpa.ATT.COM>, animal@ihlpa.ATT.COM (D. Starr) writes:
> 
> What's the surprise?  At $6 million to launch 850 lbs (over $7000/lb), the
> per-pound cost of Pegasus will be:
> 
> 	23.5 times that of Energia ($300/lb),
> 	 9.4 times that of Proton (750/lb),
> 	 2.2 times that of Delta (3275/lb),
> 	 1.4 times that of Titan 4 (5100/bl), and (indignity of indignities)
> 	 4% higher than the Shuttle (6800/lb).
> 
> 
> That ain't too exciting.

Another way to look at it:  I can ship a small package to Oakland (my
watch crystal is cracked and I really ought to ship it to the service
center there).  I can haul it up there in the (fairly small) tankbag
on my BMW motorcycle.  Or I can ship it UPS.  The UPS shipping would
be cheaper (even if you figure my time as worth nothing...), but if
there aren't any other packages going UPS, I might have to wait a long
time for a scheduled run.  And paying for trucking the watch up all on
it's lonesome will be pricey.

The cost/gram of using the 'bike is pretty high, but the total actual
cost of the UPS truck is greater, and might be less convenient.  (Here,
of course, is where the analogy falls apart.  *Thud*)
 
> [Note on sources:  Cost/lb to orbit estimates are from the infamous Newsweek
> article, which has been accused of *over* estimating the costs of launching
> on Shuttle and Titan.  I did not compare with the Soviet "A" booster, which
> can be yours for a mere $13 million (according to a recent article on this
> network), because I don't know the exact payload capacity--but if it's 
> even equivalent to the Delta (~5 tons), Pegasus is a good 5 times more costly.
> Anybody out there want to compare to Ariane or Long March?]

Different payloads, customers, schedules, etc. call for different launch
systems.  There is no "best" system (yet, anyway), just as there is no
"best" car, camera, bicycle, ...

If OMC/Hercules can come up with the product, I'd say that's just great.
There are probably more customers for $6M (or $10M) launches than there
are for $13M or $25M or whatever, especially when you don't really want
to wait for ten years to get your baby off the ground.

	seh

------------------------------

Date: 27 Jun 88 18:31:00 GMT
From: kenny@m.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Salyut 7 elements


I haven't posted Mir elements this week because:

	(1) Once again, there's now new set from NORAD.
	(2) There isn't a set of overflights coming up for continental
US viewers for a while yet.

On the other hand, the first week of July has an incredibly large
collection of overflights of Salyut 7 over most of the US.  If you've
never seen a spacecraft overflight before, Salyut 7 is a good one to
start with.  It's big and bright, and it's not terribly active, so it
appears quite regularly as predicted.

For those that want to try their hand at it, the elements are:

Salyut 7   
1 13138U          88167.81914382 0.00004331           14566-3 0  1247
2 13138  51.6136 296.3330 0001209 119.2446 240.8590 15.32899308351875
Satellite: Salyut 7   
Catalog id 13138
Element set 124
Epoch: 88167.81914382
Inclination:  51.6136 degrees
RA of node: 296.3330 degrees
Eccentricity:  0.0001209
Argument of perigee: 119.2446 degrees
Mean anomaly: 240.8590 degrees
Mean motion: 15.32899308 revs/day
Mean motion acceleration: 0.00004331 * 2 revs/day/day
Epoch Revolution: 35187

Semimajor axis:    6845.26 km
Apogee height*:     467.93 km
Perigee height*:     466.27 km


		Source: NASA Goddard via T.S.Kelso's `Celestial RCP/M'

* Apogee and perigee altitudes are referred to the mean equatorial
  radius of the Earth (6378.15 km), and not to the local radius of the
  geoid.  They are only approximate, and should not be used for orbit
  prediction.

------------------------------

Date: 27 Jun 88 21:45:35 GMT
From: thumper!karn@faline.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: Pegasus

Am I the only one who is amazed that anyone would give any credibility
at all to the launch costs projected by the manufacturer of a radically
new launcher that hasn't even been built yet, much less tested and made
operational?

Or hasn't anyone learned from the Shuttle experience?

Phil

------------------------------

Date: 27 Jun 88 21:34:03 GMT
From: thumper!karn@faline.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: advance space news from June 6 AW&ST -- Pegasus!

> station keeping.  BUT, low earth orbit fit easily in this.  The latest
> AMSAT (Up and WORKING !!!! yeah) weights 140 kg.  This kind of
> satellite supports packet radio techniques.  DARPA has funded paper
> studies of a ``cloud'' of these as an alternative to geosynch.

The Oscar-13 (aka Phase 3-C) spacecraft that was just launched is
designed to work in a Molniya orbit. The payloads are VHF/UHF "bent
pipe" repeaters. Except for the frequency bands and the unusual orbit,
it's not too much different in principle from your standard
geostationary comsat.  There is a packet radio experiment on board, but
it is just an add-on to one of the bent pipes.

Oscar-13 carries a kick motor intended to get it into an approximation
of the Molniya orbit from a geostationary transfer orbit. The total
launch mass was 142.6 kg. 57.8 kg of this was fuel (Aerozine-50 + N2O4),
and a good chunk of the rest is fuel and pressurant (helium) tankage,
valves, pipes, rocket motor, etc. We would not have needed a propulsion
system at all if there had been a launch available to us that went
directly into Molniya orbit, but when you hitchhike, you have to be
prepared to do some walking...

Packet radio satellites designed to operate at low altitude can be
considerably smaller and lighter than Oscar-13 since they do not require
high gain antennas, active attitude control or a propulsion system.
Follow the "Pacsat" project now being developed within AMSAT if you want
to see how far this can go.

Phil

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #281
*******************

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Date: Tue, 19 Jul 88 01:05:53 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
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To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #282

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 282

Today's Topics:
		 Sample Salyut 7 overflight predicti
			 space station bucks
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 27 Jun 88 18:32:00 GMT
From: kenny@m.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Sample Salyut 7 overflight predicti


	Following Rich Brezina's lead, I've decided to post the
predictions for the San Francisco Bay area, since (at least according
to him) there are a lot of people there who are interested in these
things.

	This is the biggest cluster of overflights I've ever seen; the
reason is that we are close to the summer solstice, and hence the Sun
is nearly as far north of the Equator as it gets; moreover, the plane
of the spacecraft's orbit is nearly face on to the Sun's rays, so the
spacecraft isn't going into eclipse for much of the orbit; almost any
nighttime overflight is therefore visible.

	Salyut 7 is also `parked' in a fairly high orbit, which helps
visibility as it is outside the Earth's shadow cone more of the time.


	I've arbitrarily suppressed overflights occurring after
midnight.

Clear skies!

Explanation of ephemerides:

Time	is the local time, on a 24-hour clock.
Azim	is the azimuth, or direction in which the spacecraft appears.
	Azimuth is expressed in degrees; 0 is North, 90 is East, and
	so on.
Elev	is the elevation, or how high up in the sky the spacecraft
	appears.  Elevation is measured in degrees above the horizon.
RA	is the Right Ascension of the spacecraft.  Right ascension is
	measured as an hour angle.
Decl	is the Declination of the spacecraft.  Declination is measured
	in degrees away from the celestial equator; South is negative.
Dist	is the distance from the observing site to the spacecraft, in
	a straight line, measured in kilometers.
SunEl	is the elevation of the Sun at the time of the overflight.  It
	is measured in degrees below the horizon.  Some twilight can
	be observed with the Sun as low as 15 degrees below the
	horizon, but bright objects such as Mir can be seen readily
	with the Sun as high as 10 degrees below the horizon.
Vis	is a `visibility factor.'  A figure of less than 1 indicates
	that the spacecraft is at least partially eclipsed.  This
	factor is actually the distance from the spacecraft to the
	center of the Earth's shadow cone, measured in Earth radii.
LatN	is the latitude of the spacecraft.  It is measured in degrees
	from the Equator; negative figures are South.
LongW	is the longitude of the spacecraft.  It is measured in degrees
	from Greenwich; negative figures are East of Greenwich.
Alt	is the altitude of the spacecraft, measured in kilometers
	above mean sea level; the reference geoid is from the 1961
	Explanatory Supplement to the Astronomical Ephemeris.


Salyut 7        NORAD catalog # 13138             
Overflight of San Francisco, CA on revolution #35424
Closest approach at Thu Jun 30 23:40:47 1988

--Time--  Azim Elev   RA   Decl Dist SunEl  Vis  LatN  LongW   Alt
------------------------------------------------------------------
23:43:01  56.4 21.6 23:18 +39.2 1059 -25.5 0.98  43.0  113.1 461.7
23:43:31  55.1 16.5 23:44 +37.4 1251 -25.6 0.99  44.0  111.1 461.6
23:44:01  54.2 12.5 00:03 +35.7 1449 -25.6 0.99  45.0  108.9 461.4
23:44:31  53.6  9.2 00:18 +34.1 1649 -25.6 1.00  45.9  106.7 461.3
23:45:01  53.1  6.5 00:30 +32.7 1852 -25.7 1.00  46.8  104.4 461.2
23:45:31  52.8  4.1 00:40 +31.4 2055 -25.7 1.01  47.7  102.0 461.1
23:46:01  52.5  1.9 00:48 +30.1 2260 -25.8 1.01  48.5   99.6 460.9
23:46:31  52.3  0.0 00:56 +28.9 2464 -25.8 1.02  49.2   97.1 460.8

Salyut 7        NORAD catalog # 13138             
Overflight of San Francisco, CA on revolution #35439
Closest approach at Fri Jul  1 23:08:28 1988

--Time--  Azim Elev   RA   Decl Dist SunEl  Vis  LatN  LongW   Alt
------------------------------------------------------------------
23:10:01  69.4 30.0 21:44 +33.2  846 -22.6 0.98  40.7  114.9 462.1
23:10:31  64.4 22.9 22:25 +33.6 1019 -22.7 0.99  41.8  113.0 461.9
23:11:01  61.2 17.6 22:54 +33.2 1204 -22.7 0.99  42.9  111.0 461.7
23:11:31  59.0 13.4 23:17 +32.5 1397 -22.8 0.99  43.9  109.0 461.6
23:12:01  57.5 10.1 23:34 +31.7 1594 -22.8 1.00  44.9  106.8 461.4
23:12:31  56.3  7.2 23:49 +30.8 1795 -22.9 1.00  45.9  104.6 461.3
23:13:01  55.4  4.7 00:01 +29.8 1996 -22.9 1.00  46.8  102.3 461.2
23:13:31  54.7  2.6 00:11 +28.9 2199 -23.0 1.01  47.6  100.0 461.1
23:14:01  54.1  0.6 00:20 +28.0 2403 -23.0 1.01  48.4   97.5 460.9

Salyut 7        NORAD catalog # 13138             
Overflight of San Francisco, CA on revolution #35454
Closest approach at Sat Jul  2 22:36:09 1988

--Time--  Azim Elev   RA   Decl Dist SunEl  Vis  LatN  LongW   Alt
------------------------------------------------------------------
22:30:31 215.5  0.1 12:49 -40.0 2464 -18.2 0.99  20.5  135.2 465.0
22:31:01 214.5  2.0 13:00 -39.0 2262 -18.2 0.99  22.0  134.0 464.8
22:31:31 213.4  4.1 13:11 -37.9 2061 -18.3 0.99  23.4  132.7 464.6
22:32:01 212.1  6.5 13:23 -36.6 1861 -18.4 0.99  24.9  131.5 464.4
22:32:31 210.4  9.1 13:38 -35.2 1664 -18.4 0.99  26.3  130.1 464.1
22:33:01 208.1 12.2 13:55 -33.5 1470 -18.5 0.99  27.7  128.8 463.9
22:33:31 205.1 15.9 14:15 -31.3 1281 -18.5 0.99  29.1  127.4 463.7
22:34:01 201.0 20.5 14:40 -28.5 1100 -18.6 0.99  30.5  126.0 463.5
22:34:31 194.8 26.2 15:12 -24.6  933 -18.7 0.99  31.8  124.5 463.3
22:35:01 185.0 33.2 15:53 -18.9  787 -18.7 0.99  33.2  123.0 463.1
22:35:31 168.8 40.9 16:46 -10.7  677 -18.8 0.99  34.5  121.4 462.9
22:36:01 143.7 46.1 17:49 +00.0  623 -18.9 0.99  35.8  119.8 462.8
22:36:31 115.2 44.4 18:57 +10.9  639 -18.9 0.99  37.0  118.1 462.6
22:37:01  94.1 37.5 20:00 +19.2  720 -19.0 0.99  38.2  116.4 462.4
22:37:31  81.2 29.9 20:53 +24.2  848 -19.0 0.99  39.4  114.6 462.2
22:38:01  73.3 23.4 21:34 +26.9 1005 -19.1 1.00  40.6  112.8 462.1
22:38:31  68.1 18.3 22:06 +28.2 1179 -19.2 1.00  41.7  110.9 461.9
22:39:01  64.5 14.1 22:31 +28.6 1363 -19.2 1.00  42.8  108.9 461.7
22:39:31  61.9 10.7 22:51 +28.6 1555 -19.3 1.00  43.8  106.8 461.6
22:40:01  60.0  7.8 23:07 +28.3 1750 -19.3 1.00  44.8  104.7 461.4
22:40:31  58.5  5.3 23:21 +27.9 1949 -19.4 1.01  45.8  102.5 461.3
22:41:01  57.3  3.1 23:33 +27.4 2149 -19.5 1.01  46.7  100.2 461.2
22:41:31  56.3  1.1 23:43 +26.8 2351 -19.5 1.01  47.5   97.8 461.1

Salyut 7        NORAD catalog # 13138             
Overflight of San Francisco, CA on revolution #35469
Closest approach at Sun Jul  3 22:03:50 1988

--Time--  Azim Elev   RA   Decl Dist SunEl  Vis  LatN  LongW   Alt
------------------------------------------------------------------
21:58:31 210.0  1.0 12:48 -42.3 2367 -13.9 1.02  20.4  133.0 465.0
21:59:01 208.7  3.0 13:00 -41.4 2168 -14.0 1.02  21.9  131.8 464.7
21:59:31 207.0  5.1 13:14 -40.3 1971 -14.1 1.02  23.3  130.5 464.5
22:00:01 204.9  7.5 13:29 -39.1 1777 -14.2 1.02  24.8  129.2 464.3
22:00:31 202.3 10.3 13:48 -37.6 1587 -14.2 1.02  26.2  127.9 464.1
22:01:01 198.9 13.5 14:09 -35.8 1402 -14.3 1.01  27.6  126.6 463.9
22:01:31 194.4 17.2 14:35 -33.4 1226 -14.4 1.01  29.0  125.2 463.7
22:02:01 188.1 21.6 15:07 -30.1 1063 -14.4 1.01  30.4  123.8 463.5
22:02:31 179.1 26.7 15:46 -25.5  920 -14.5 1.01  31.7  122.3 463.3
22:03:01 166.0 32.0 16:33 -19.0  808 -14.6 1.01  33.1  120.8 463.1
22:03:31 147.8 36.1 17:27 -10.4  741 -14.6 1.01  34.4  119.2 462.9
22:04:01 126.5 36.7 18:24 -00.6  732 -14.7 1.01  35.7  117.6 462.7
22:04:31 107.0 33.4 19:19 +08.3  783 -14.8 1.01  36.9  115.9 462.6
22:05:01  92.5 28.2 20:08 +15.1  883 -14.9 1.01  38.2  114.2 462.4
22:05:31  82.4 22.9 20:48 +19.6 1019 -14.9 1.01  39.4  112.4 462.2
22:06:01  75.5 18.3 21:20 +22.4 1177 -15.0 1.01  40.5  110.6 462.0
22:06:31  70.5 14.4 21:46 +24.0 1350 -15.1 1.01  41.6  108.7 461.9
22:07:01  66.9 11.1 22:08 +25.0 1532 -15.1 1.01  42.7  106.7 461.7
22:07:31  64.1  8.2 22:26 +25.4 1721 -15.2 1.01  43.8  104.6 461.6
22:08:01  61.9  5.7 22:41 +25.6 1914 -15.3 1.01  44.8  102.5 461.4
22:08:31  60.2  3.5 22:54 +25.5 2110 -15.3 1.01  45.7  100.3 461.3
22:09:01  58.7  1.5 23:05 +25.2 2309 -15.4 1.02  46.6   98.0 461.2

Salyut 7        NORAD catalog # 13138             
Overflight of San Francisco, CA on revolution #35484
Closest approach at Mon Jul  4 21:31:31 1988

--Time--  Azim Elev   RA   Decl Dist SunEl  Vis  LatN  LongW   Alt
------------------------------------------------------------------
21:26:01 205.8  0.0 12:36 -45.4 2479  -9.2 1.05  18.8  132.0 465.1
21:26:31 204.2  1.8 12:50 -44.5 2283  -9.2 1.04  20.3  130.8 464.9
21:27:01 202.3  3.8 13:04 -43.5 2090  -9.3 1.04  21.8  129.5 464.7
21:27:31 200.0  6.0 13:21 -42.4 1900  -9.4 1.04  23.3  128.3 464.5
21:28:01 197.1  8.4 13:40 -41.1 1714  -9.5 1.04  24.7  127.0 464.3
21:28:31 193.5 11.1 14:03 -39.5 1534  -9.6 1.04  26.1  125.7 464.1
21:29:01 188.9 14.2 14:29 -37.3 1363  -9.6 1.04  27.6  124.3 463.9
21:29:31 182.8 17.7 15:00 -34.5 1205  -9.7 1.03  28.9  122.9 463.7
21:30:01 174.6 21.5 15:37 -30.5 1065  -9.8 1.03  30.3  121.5 463.5
21:30:31 163.6 25.4 16:19 -25.0  953  -9.9 1.03  31.7  120.0 463.3
21:31:01 149.5 28.5 17:06 -17.8  878  -9.9 1.03  33.0  118.5 463.1
21:31:31 132.9 29.8 17:55 -09.4  851 -10.0 1.03  34.3  117.0 462.9
21:32:01 116.3 28.5 18:43 -00.9  877 -10.1 1.03  35.6  115.4 462.7
21:32:31 102.1 25.4 19:27 +06.5  950 -10.2 1.03  36.9  113.7 462.5
21:33:01  91.1 21.6 20:05 +12.2 1062 -10.2 1.03  38.1  112.0 462.4
21:33:31  82.9 17.7 20:37 +16.3 1201 -10.3 1.03  39.3  110.2 462.2
21:34:01  76.7 14.2 21:03 +19.0 1358 -10.4 1.03  40.5  108.4 462.0
21:34:31  72.1 11.1 21:26 +20.9 1529 -10.5 1.03  41.6  106.5 461.9
21:35:01  68.5  8.4 21:45 +22.1 1709 -10.5 1.03  42.7  104.5 461.7
21:35:31  65.6  5.9 22:01 +22.8 1895 -10.6 1.02  43.7  102.4 461.6
21:36:01  63.3  3.8 22:15 +23.2 2085 -10.7 1.02  44.7  100.3 461.4
21:36:31  61.4  1.8 22:28 +23.4 2278 -10.8 1.02  45.7   98.1 461.3

Salyut 7        NORAD catalog # 13138             
Overflight of San Francisco, CA on revolution #35485
Closest approach at Mon Jul  4 23:09:20 1988

--Time--  Azim Elev   RA   Decl Dist SunEl  Vis  LatN  LongW   Alt
------------------------------------------------------------------
23:04:01 253.7  0.9 11:31 -12.2 2373 -22.2 1.03  30.7  145.0 463.4
23:04:31 255.4  2.8 11:33 -09.7 2178 -22.2 1.03  32.0  143.5 463.2
23:05:01 257.5  4.9 11:35 -06.8 1986 -22.3 1.03  33.4  142.0 463.0
23:05:31 260.0  7.2 11:36 -03.4 1797 -22.3 1.03  34.7  140.4 462.9
23:06:01 263.2  9.8 11:37 +00.7 1613 -22.4 1.03  35.9  138.8 462.7
23:06:31 267.1 12.8 11:38 +05.5 1436 -22.4 1.03  37.2  137.1 462.5
23:07:01 272.3 16.1 11:37 +11.6 1268 -22.5 1.03  38.4  135.4 462.3
23:07:31 279.1 20.0 11:35 +19.1 1114 -22.5 1.03  39.6  133.6 462.1
23:08:01 288.5 24.2 11:30 +28.7  981 -22.6 1.03  40.8  131.7 462.0
23:08:31 301.1 28.3 11:21 +40.5  880 -22.6 1.03  41.9  129.8 461.8
23:09:01 317.2 31.2 11:02 +54.5  820 -22.7 1.03  43.0  127.8 461.7
23:09:31 335.4 31.6 10:15 +68.9  813 -22.7 1.03  44.0  125.7 461.5
23:10:01 352.3 29.3 07:30 +79.3  859 -22.8 1.03  45.0  123.6 461.4
23:10:31   5.9 25.3 03:20 +76.6  950 -22.8 1.03  45.9  121.4 461.2
23:11:01  16.0 21.1 01:58 +68.3 1075 -22.9 1.03  46.8  119.1 461.1
23:11:31  23.5 17.1 01:30 +60.8 1224 -22.9 1.03  47.7  116.7 461.0
23:12:01  29.0 13.6 01:17 +54.6 1388 -23.0 1.03  48.4  114.3 460.9
23:12:31  33.3 10.5 01:11 +49.6 1563 -23.0 1.03  49.2  111.7 460.8
23:13:01  36.6  7.8 01:08 +45.4 1746 -23.1 1.03  49.8  109.2 460.7
23:13:31  39.3  5.5 01:06 +41.8 1933 -23.1 1.03  50.4  106.5 460.6
23:14:01  41.5  3.3 01:05 +38.8 2124 -23.2 1.03  50.9  103.8 460.5
23:14:31  43.4  1.4 01:06 +36.1 2318 -23.2 1.03  51.4  101.0 460.5

Salyut 7        NORAD catalog # 13138             
Overflight of San Francisco, CA on revolution #35500
Closest approach at Tue Jul  5 22:36:55 1988

--Time--  Azim Elev   RA   Decl Dist SunEl  Vis  LatN  LongW   Alt
------------------------------------------------------------------
22:31:31 249.2  0.8 11:14 -15.8 2383 -18.5 1.05  29.3  144.1 463.6
22:32:01 250.6  2.8 11:17 -13.4 2186 -18.5 1.05  30.6  142.7 463.4
22:32:31 252.4  4.9 11:19 -10.7 1990 -18.6 1.05  32.0  141.2 463.2
22:33:01 254.5  7.2 11:22 -07.6 1796 -18.7 1.05  33.3  139.7 463.0
22:33:31 257.1  9.9 11:24 -03.9 1606 -18.7 1.05  34.6  138.1 462.8
22:34:01 260.5 13.0 11:26 +00.6 1421 -18.8 1.05  35.9  136.5 462.6
22:34:31 264.9 16.7 11:27 +06.2 1245 -18.8 1.04  37.2  134.8 462.5
22:35:01 271.0 21.0 11:28 +13.4 1080 -18.9 1.04  38.4  133.1 462.3
22:35:31 279.6 26.1 11:27 +22.8  933 -19.0 1.04  39.6  131.3 462.1
22:36:01 292.1 31.5 11:25 +35.0  816 -19.0 1.04  40.7  129.5 461.9
22:36:31 309.6 36.0 11:17 +50.2  741 -19.1 1.04  41.8  127.5 461.8
22:37:01 331.1 37.3 10:55 +67.2  721 -19.1 1.04  42.9  125.5 461.6
22:37:31 351.5 34.5 08:54 +82.4  762 -19.2 1.04  44.0  123.5 461.5
22:38:01   7.1 29.4 01:56 +79.8  855 -19.3 1.04  45.0  121.3 461.4
22:38:31  18.0 24.0 00:53 +69.4  985 -19.3 1.04  45.9  119.1 461.2
22:39:01  25.5 19.3 00:37 +61.1 1139 -19.4 1.03  46.8  116.8 461.1
22:39:31  30.9 15.2 00:32 +54.6 1308 -19.5 1.03  47.6  114.5 461.0
22:40:01  34.9 11.8 00:30 +49.4 1488 -19.5 1.03  48.4  112.0 460.9
22:40:31  38.0  8.8 00:29 +45.2 1675 -19.6 1.03  49.1  109.5 460.8
22:41:01  40.4  6.3 00:30 +41.7 1866 -19.6 1.03  49.8  106.9 460.7
22:41:31  42.4  4.0 00:31 +38.7 2060 -19.7 1.03  50.4  104.3 460.6
22:42:01  44.0  2.0 00:33 +36.1 2256 -19.8 1.03  50.9  101.5 460.5
22:42:31  45.4  0.1 00:34 +33.8 2454 -19.8 1.03  51.4   98.8 460.5

Salyut 7        NORAD catalog # 13138             
Overflight of San Francisco, CA on revolution #35515
Closest approach at Wed Jul  6 22:04:30 1988

--Time--  Azim Elev   RA   Decl Dist SunEl  Vis  LatN  LongW   Alt
------------------------------------------------------------------
21:59:01 244.6  0.7 10:57 -19.3 2399 -14.2 1.07  27.9  143.2 463.8
21:59:31 245.8  2.6 11:01 -17.2 2198 -14.2 1.07  29.3  141.9 463.6
22:00:01 247.1  4.8 11:04 -14.8 1999 -14.3 1.06  30.6  140.4 463.4
22:00:31 248.8  7.2 11:08 -11.9 1802 -14.4 1.06  32.0  138.9 463.2
22:01:01 250.9  9.9 11:11 -08.6 1607 -14.5 1.06  33.3  137.4 463.0
22:01:31 253.6 13.1 11:15 -04.5 1416 -14.5 1.06  34.6  135.9 462.8
22:02:01 257.1 17.0 11:18 +00.6 1231 -14.6 1.06  35.9  134.2 462.6
22:02:31 262.1 21.7 11:22 +07.3 1056 -14.7 1.06  37.1  132.6 462.4
22:03:01 269.5 27.6 11:25 +16.1  897 -14.7 1.06  38.4  130.8 462.3
22:03:31 281.0 34.6 11:29 +28.2  762 -14.8 1.05  39.6  129.0 462.1
22:04:01 299.4 41.5 11:34 +44.2  669 -14.9 1.05  40.7  127.2 461.9
22:04:31 325.4 44.7 11:40 +63.3  635 -15.0 1.05  41.8  125.2 461.8
22:05:01 351.4 41.4 12:02 +82.4  669 -15.0 1.05  42.9  123.3 461.6
22:05:31   9.7 34.5 23:16 +81.5  763 -15.1 1.05  43.9  121.2 461.5
22:06:01  21.2 27.5 23:33 +69.5  897 -15.2 1.05  44.9  119.1 461.3
22:06:31  28.6 21.6 23:39 +60.6 1057 -15.2 1.05  45.9  116.8 461.2
22:07:01  33.5 16.9 23:43 +53.9 1232 -15.3 1.04  46.8  114.6 461.1
22:07:31  37.1 13.0 23:46 +48.8 1416 -15.4 1.04  47.6  112.2 461.0
22:08:01  39.8  9.8 23:50 +44.7 1607 -15.4 1.04  48.4  109.8 460.9
22:08:31  41.9  7.1 23:53 +41.3 1801 -15.5 1.04  49.1  107.2 460.8
22:09:01  43.6  4.7 23:56 +38.4 1999 -15.6 1.04  49.8  104.7 460.7
22:09:31  45.0  2.6 23:58 +35.9 2197 -15.6 1.04  50.4  102.0 460.6
22:10:01  46.1  0.6 00:01 +33.7 2397 -15.7 1.04  50.9   99.3 460.5

Salyut 7        NORAD catalog # 13138             
Overflight of San Francisco, CA on revolution #35530
Closest approach at Thu Jul  7 21:32:06 1988

--Time--  Azim Elev   RA   Decl Dist SunEl  Vis  LatN  LongW   Alt
------------------------------------------------------------------
21:26:31 240.0  0.5 10:41 -22.9 2420  -9.4 1.07  26.5  142.3 463.9
21:27:01 240.9  2.4 10:45 -21.0 2218  -9.5 1.07  27.9  140.9 463.7
21:27:31 241.9  4.6 10:50 -18.8 2016  -9.6 1.07  29.3  139.5 463.5
21:28:01 243.1  7.0 10:54 -16.3 1815  -9.6 1.07  30.6  138.1 463.3
21:28:31 244.6  9.8 10:59 -13.3 1616  -9.7 1.07  32.0  136.6 463.1
21:29:01 246.5 13.1 11:04 -09.7 1421  -9.8 1.07  33.3  135.1 462.9
21:29:31 249.1 17.1 11:10 -05.2 1230  -9.9 1.07  34.6  133.5 462.7
21:30:01 252.7 22.1 11:16 +00.7 1046  -9.9 1.07  35.9  131.9 462.6
21:30:31 258.3 28.6 11:24 +08.8  874 -10.0 1.07  37.1  130.2 462.4
21:31:01 267.7 37.1 11:34 +20.1  724 -10.1 1.07  38.4  128.5 462.2
21:31:31 285.0 47.2 11:50 +36.1  611 -10.2 1.06  39.6  126.7 462.0
21:32:01 316.7 54.2 12:21 +56.5  559 -10.3 1.06  40.7  124.9 461.9
21:32:31 352.7 50.6 14:09 +76.2  584 -10.3 1.06  41.8  122.9 461.7
21:33:01  14.7 40.7 20:13 +78.3  678 -10.4 1.06  42.9  120.9 461.6
21:33:31  26.3 31.4 22:03 +67.5  817 -10.5 1.06  43.9  118.9 461.4
21:34:01  32.9 24.2 22:35 +58.9  981 -10.6 1.06  44.9  116.7 461.3
21:34:31  37.1 18.7 22:50 +52.5 1161 -10.6 1.06  45.9  114.5 461.2
21:35:01  40.1 14.3 23:00 +47.5 1350 -10.7 1.05  46.8  112.2 461.0
21:35:31  42.2 10.8 23:08 +43.6 1544 -10.8 1.05  47.6  109.9 460.9
21:36:01  43.9  7.9 23:14 +40.4 1741 -10.9 1.05  48.4  107.4 460.8
21:36:31  45.2  5.4 23:19 +37.7 1941 -10.9 1.05  49.1  104.9 460.7
21:37:01  46.3  3.1 23:23 +35.4 2142 -11.0 1.05  49.8  102.3 460.6
21:37:31  47.2  1.1 23:27 +33.3 2344 -11.1 1.05  50.4   99.7 460.6

------------------------------

Date: 28 Jun 88 06:37:45 GMT
From: mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Mike Smithwick)
Subject: space station bucks

[]

Well, since no one has mentioned it so far, I guess I'll do the honors.

As unlikely as it sounds, there may be some hope for the senatecritters
after all, or at least some.

In the San Jose Mercury last Wedsnesday was the following report (back
on page 128 or something). . .

"A Senate panel has cleared the way for an $800 million appropriation
for the planned U.S. space station, up from a $200 million package 
approved last week that officials said was so small it would derail the
project.

The Senate appropriations defense subcommittee voted Tuesday to shift
$600 million from unspent defense funds to the NASA budget. The money
is intended for the space station, said Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, D-Texas, who
helped arrange the transfer."


I think an optimistic, but cautious "yippee" is called for, (and perhaps
a thank-you note to Sen. Bentsen).


-- 
			   *** mike (starship janitor) smithwick ***
"Being a dwarf does have it's shortcomings"
[disclaimer : nope, I don't work for NASA, I take full blame for my ideas]

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #282
*******************

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Date: Tue, 19 Jul 88 19:06:44 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
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To: Space@angband.s1.gov
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Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #283

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 283

Today's Topics:
			Space-support contest
		     space news from May 2 AW&ST
		     space news from May 9 AW&ST
	Soviet crew about to do EVA for X-ray telescope repair
			     Re: Pegasus
 Re: Postcard from Lewis: Having a wonderful time, wish you were here
			      NASA news
	       Re: Sample Salyut 7 overflight predicti
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date:     Thu, 14 Jul 88 11:01:55 CDT
From: Will Martin -- AMXAL-RI <wmartin@almsa-1.arpa>
Subject:  Space-support contest

The new (July/Aug) issue of NASA Tech Briefs just came in today's mail
and it has an announcement of a contest SPACE readers might want to
participate in:

Deadline: August 31, 1988

Rules: Write a letter to the politician of your choice, outlining your
reasons for asking him or her to support NASA and the civil space
program. Then send a copy of the letter, with your phone number, to the
attention of Bill Schnirring at the following address:

NASA Tech Briefs
Letter Writing Contest
41 East 42nd St., Suite 921
New York, NY  10017

(Note: the accompanying text states the letters will be judged by their
editorial board, and the winning letters will be published in their
October issue. All letter writers will have their names listed in their
"Honor Roll", published in that same issue. They plan to send copies of
*each* letter submitted to *every* Congressman.)

Prizes: First prize is a tuition-free stay at the US Space Camp, choice
of the 3-day adult camp at Huntsville or sending a child to a week-long
camp in either Huntsville or Florida. Second prize is a complete set of
NTB:BASE, a PC-compatible database of NASA technology. Five runners-up
will each receive one NTB:BASE category. All entrants will get a
certificate of recognition.

In case you want to look this up, the info is on pages 14 & 15 of the
July/August '88 issue of NASA Tech Briefs.

Regards, Will Martin

PS -- To those whose view of "supporting the civil space program" does
NOT include supporting NASA, but instead pushing private space
development, I suppose you could still enter by carefully wording your
letter to avoid mentioning NASA. I doubt they'll choose such letters to
win, though! Their interest is NASA-oriented, after all... WM

------------------------------

Date: 18 Jul 88 05:23:36 GMT
From: attcan!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from May 2 AW&ST

Well, I'm back from vacation and past my immediate software troubles,
so here we go again.  The next few summaries are going to be rather
terse, in the interest of catching up.

Editorial urging NASA to avoid unrealistic attempts at scheduling the
next shuttle launch as early as possible, and in particular suggesting
a need for reasonable contingency margins to cover the unexpected.
"In practice, virtually every task has taken more time than scheduled."

April 8 SRB test revealed crack in aft SRB skirt weld and a bolt failure
at 1.32 times expected launch loads.  The official margin is 1.4; it has
been suggested that this is overly conservative, since launch loads are
now well understood.

Japan successfully tests prototype SRB for the H-2 launcher.

Ford Aerospace is hitting technical problems on instrumentation for the
next-generation Clarke-orbit metsats, causing cost overruns.  Delays are
considered unacceptable because the existing GOES satellites have limited
lifetimes and time is short.

SDI planning classified multi-experiment package for Delta launch in
August;  it will replace the Relay Mirror Experiment originally planned,
which has hit technical problems.

USAF will fully mothball the Vandenberg shuttle pad next year.  Keeping
it in standby is too expensive when the USAF no longer expects to use it.
It will not be converted for Titan 4; a new facility will be built for
that.  Specialized shuttle equipment will go to KSC.

US Army wants a heavylift launcher to provide assured access to space,
says it "must be cheap and built by workers in a foundry, not technicians
in a clean room".

USAF still wants space-based radar, but has a problem affording it.

NASA runs full-scale shuttle landing rehearsal at Edwards.

Ariane launch with Intelsat 5 slips one week for inspection of the 
third-stage engine; loose pieces of insulation have been found in another
such engine, probably from the engine test stand.

Scout launches two Navy navsats from Vandenberg April 25.

April 20 SRB test goes okay, boot ring survives.  It now appears that one
boot ring failed near the end of the SRB burn on mission 51J.  The nature
of the problem appears to be that vent holes connecting the motor cavity
to the inside of the flexible boot tend to plug up as burnout approaches,
and as pressure falls inside the motor the trapped high pressure inside
the boot puts extra stress on the rings.  Nozzle vectoring makes this worse.
Instrument readings suggest that the boot ring failure in December occurred
after burnout, during post-burnout vectoring done to calibrate actuator
forces.  The April test did slightly less vigorous vectoring during the
burn (to the software limit, rather than the hardware limit), and did
not do post-burnout vectoring (so that the boot ring could be inspected
in its burnout state).

There is disagreement about whether SDI's planned Boost Surveillance
Tracking Satellite and Zenith Star space laser experiments comply with
the ABM treaty.

SAC suspects Soviets are developing major military space systems not
known to intelligence analysts; Soviet launch capacities appear to exceed
known requirements by a considerable margin.
-- 
Anyone who buys Wisconsin cheese is|  Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
a traitor to mankind.  --Pournelle |uunet!mnetor!utzoo! henry @zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 18 Jul 88 05:44:31 GMT
From: attcan!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from May 9 AW&ST

Aviation Week & Space Technology subscription address is PO Box 1505,
Neptune NJ 07754 USA.  Rates depend on whether you are an "unqualified" or
"qualified" subscriber, which basically means whether you look at the ads
for cruise missiles out of curiosity, or out of genuine commercial or
military interest.  Best write for a "qualification card" and try to get
the cheap rate.  US rates are $55 qualified, $70 unqualified at present.
It's weekly, it's thicker than Time or Newsweek, and most of it has nothing
to do with space, so consider whether the price is worth it to you. -- HS

Intelsat seeks bids from Japan, China, Europe, and US to launch Intelsat 7
series, asking for both "standard" and "premium" bids; the latter would
include schedule guarantees and requirements for refund or reflight in
the event of launch failure.

Fletcher says NASA budget crisis may lead to unilateral cancellation of
international agreements on space station.

Loss of the Pacific Engineering oxidizer plant near Las Vegas will not
cause any near-term problems because existing stocks are substantial.
Possible impact (direct damage and safety changes) to the Kerr-McGee
plant nearby is still being sorted out; it's now the only one left...
Long-term impact is less clear:  total production capacity exceeded
requirements, because both firms expanded considerably back when NASA
was talking about weekly shuttle launches, but there may still be a
net shortfall.

To the stupefied surprise of absolutely nobody, the USAF MLV-2 contract
went to General Dynamics for its Atlas-Centaur:  11 launchers to carry
DSCS-3 military comsats and a Navstar technology experiment, with an
option on 20 more.  Long-time readers will recall that I've been claiming
all along that MLV-2 was a transparent excuse for government subsidy of
Atlas-Centaur.  However, it's not nearly as bad as I thought; read on.
GD will have to stretch A-C a bit to meet the specs; the alternative was
a paper proposal from McDonnell Douglas and Martin Marietta.  The really
noteworthy and encouraging thing is that the USAF is buying launch
services, not raw hardware, with a fixed-price guaranteed-reflight contract
instead of government inspection of everything.  The result is a fairly
low price, $40M per flight.

Full postmortem on the April SRB test shows mixed results.  The seals
mostly worked.  One of the deliberate defects did not seal as expected,
but the later seals stopped the gas and there was no leak.

Office of Technology Assessment which works for Congress harshly
criticizes SDI for various things, notably software issues and problems
with survivability.  A particularly serious survivability problem is
direct-ascent non-orbital nuclear antisatellite weapons.  OTA also
says that space-based threats to SDI systems have not been given enough
attention, and that there are implicit assumptions that the US will
control certain sectors of space.

Milstar advanced military comsat hits large cost overruns and slips two
years, due to technical problems.  One particular problem is that the
full cost of a Titan-Centaur with a Milstar on top is now $1G.

Launch of first converted-ICBM Titan 2 launcher slips to July due to
minor electronics problems.
-- 
Anyone who buys Wisconsin cheese is|  Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
a traitor to mankind.  --Pournelle |uunet!mnetor!utzoo! henry @zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 28 Jun 88 10:30:57 EDT
From: Glenn Chapman <glenn@ll-vlsi.arpa>
Subject: Soviet crew about to do EVA for X-ray telescope repair

    The Soviet's long duration Mir crew of Vladimir Titov and Musahi Manarov 
(now up for 190 days, more than half a year) is preparing to make a space walk
to repair the British/Dutch X-ray telescope on the Kvant astrophysical module.
A 40 kilogram (88 pound) electronic portion of the system will be replaced in
an Extra Vehicle Activity scheduled for Thursday June 30.  The equipment for
this EVA was brought up on the last Progress (36) and the Soyuz TM-5 mission.
Currently the Titov and Manarov have checked out the space suits and only need
to pass the medical checkout the night before the mission for the go ahead.
One point here - again the cosmonauts on board are repairing space station
elements, but unlike such work here they do not have the luxury of doing
a test run in a water simulation tank.   When you are on board the station
for that long problems will arise that must be handled by the crew without
ground preparation.  Yes the ground cosomonauts can try things out in the
simulator and tell them what works best, but in the end success depends on the
general orbital skills of the people on the station.
    The Russians are getting very used to solving problems that way.  Not only
have they done it several times on Salyut 7 and now Mir but they are even using
it commercially. For example the Payload Systems people were talking to the 
Glavcosmos people (who market their space systems) about training the cosmonauts
for the materials processing experiments they are paying for to be done on Mir.
The Soviets suggested that they should train a team in use of the equipments and
materials which in turn would train the cosmonauts that use it.  Payload's 
people said no, they would rather train the cosmonauts directly.  Glavcosmos's
man answered "but what if they have been on the station for months when you 
are ready to begin." The Payload people gave that as an example of the change 
in thinking they underwent when going from short duration shuttle experiments 
to longer ones on a station.
    One other point, as expected the Soyuz TM-5 capsule was left up at Mir
during the last mission, and Bulgarian crew came down in the Soyuz TM-4 that
Titov and Manarov went up in.  That gives them a fresh capsule, good for
another 6 months.
     Well at least the shuttle is finally moving towards the launch pad.  Now
it must fly again if this country is to catch up. 

                                                    Glenn Chapman
                                                    MIT Lincoln Lab

------------------------------

Date: 28 Jun 88 18:21:01 GMT
From: concertina!fiddler@sun.com  (Steve Hix)
Subject: Re: Pegasus

In article <1191@thumper.bellcore.com>, karn@thumper.bellcore.com (Phil R. Karn) writes:
> Am I the only one who is amazed that anyone would give any credibility
> at all to the launch costs projected by the manufacturer of a radically
> new launcher that hasn't even been built yet, much less tested and made
> operational?
> 
> Or hasn't anyone learned from the Shuttle experience?

Well, this doesn't look to be anything near as bad as the Shuttle.

 1.  Not man-rated.
 2.  Not pushing the technology of engines like the SSMEs.
 3.  Not pushing the limits of size.
 4.  Not trying to be all things to all customers.

What it looks like is (essentially) a solid-fuel, multi-stage,
small launcher with wings.  Maybe a Scout rigged for airdrop?
(Not identical, but you get the idea.)

The teams that designed the Thor and Redstone weren't doing
anything much less complex (probably more), had less back-
ground to draw on, and still worked out the projects in about
the same time frame and without going grossly over budget.

This one looks doable.  (Maybe even on schedule and at cost. :} )

	seh

p.s.  There are things to be said for KISS.

------------------------------

Date: 29 Jun 88 08:00:06 GMT
From: jplpub1!jbrown@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov  (Jordan Brown)
Subject: Re: Postcard from Lewis: Having a wonderful time, wish you were here

In article <58147@sun.uucp> fiddler%concertina@Sun.COM (Steve Hix) writes:
>In article <2064@pt.cs.cmu.edu>, ralf@b.gp.cs.cmu.edu (Ralf Brown) writes:
>> [de-orbit shuttle with cable]
>> This isn't all that new an idea.  See the SF novel "Descent of A????" (it's
>
>"Descent of Anansi" by Larry Niven.

Correction:  Larry Niven & Steve Barnes.

------------------------------

Date: 29 Jun 88 07:05:07 GMT
From: sonia!khayo@cs.ucla.edu  (Eric Behr)
Subject: NASA news

Today is my last active day on the net. I'm off to
a new location/job etc., where access will be uncertain.
I won't be posting the NASA stuff any more; another
'volunteer' has to be found, if there's still interest.

Thank you all for making life more interesting.

---------------------------------------------------
GEnie mail: EJ.BEHR (checked occasionally)
Compu$erve: 76545,2646 (even less often)
                                                       Eric

------------------------------

Date: 28 Jun 88 14:55:30 GMT
From: att!whuts!mhuxh!mhuxu!davec@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Dave Caswell)
Subject: Re: Sample Salyut 7 overflight predicti

I'd just like to ask you folks that are posting overflight predictions
to post the elements that you used.  This would be very valuable to my
efforts to generate a tracking program of my own.

Thanks,
	DAveC

-- 
    --->Dave Caswell
	{allegra|ihnp4|...}!mhuxu!davec
	davec@mhuxu.att.com

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #283
*******************

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Date: Wed, 20 Jul 88 01:07:18 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8807200807.AA20760@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #284

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 284

Today's Topics:
			  NASA news - Seasat
		    Re: electromagnetic launchers
		       RE: dialing for dollars
				 sub
			     Re: Pegasus
			Re: NASA news - Seasat
		    Pegasus & Hercules open house
			 Are you still there?
			      No contact
	  Soviet Mir cosmonauts; solar flares and EVA update
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 29 Jun 88 06:47:21 GMT
From: sonia!khayo@cs.ucla.edu  (Eric Behr)
Subject: NASA news - Seasat

Downloaded from NASA SpaceLink BBS, Huntsville, Ala. (205) 895 0028
====================================================================

6/23/88:  NASA SATELLITE TECHNOLOGY AIDS FUTURE SPACE RESEARCH MISSIONS

June 23, 1988

RELEASE:  88-84


     NASA's Seasat satellite, launched 10 years ago this week,
ushered in a new era of space research focusing on unsolved
questions of the world's oceans and weather.

     Launched on June 26, 1978, on an Atlas-Agena rocket from
Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., Seasat carried a payload of
five scientific instruments unlike any package on previous
remote-sensing satellites.

     Seasat tested a payload of advanced sensing instruments and
during its 3-1/2-month mission collected oceanographic
information comparable to a century's worth of observations from
a fleet of ships.

     Among the experimental instruments Seasat pioneered were a
synthetic aperture radar, which provided highly detailed images
of ocean and land surfaces; a radar scatterometer to measure
near-surface wind speed and direction; a radar altimeter to
measure the height of the ocean surface and waves; and a scanning
multi-channel microwave radiometer to measure surface
temperature, wind speeds and sea ice cover. The satellite also
carried a passive visual and infrared radiometer to provide
supporting data for the other four experiments.

     Seasat demonstrated how space sensors could be used in
oceanography -- becoming a baseline for a new generation of
international missions planned that could provide answers to some
of the world's most baffling and threatening weather phenomena.

     Examples include an unusual water warming in the eastern
Pacific Ocean in 1982 and 1983.  Called El Nino, this phenomena
caused billions of dollars in damage and considerable loss of
life.  Scientists also are investigating an increase of carbon
dioxide in the atmosphere, which could have severe consequences
on plants and animal life.  Missions derived from Seasat are
expected to help scientists understand both phenomena.

     These new generation of oceanographic missions are expected
to provide important, cost-saving aids for such industries as
fishing, shipping and offshore oil production; the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; and the U.S. Navy.

     TOPEX/Poseidon and the NASA Scatterometer (NSCAT) are two
oceanographic missions scheduled.

     TOPEX/Poseidon, a joint satellite mission with the French
space agency (CNES), is scheduled for a late 1991 launch on an
Ariane rocket. It will map the circulation of the world's oceans
using a radar altimeter.

     NSCAT is a second-generation instrument being developed to
measure wind speed and direction over the oceans' surfaces. A
proposal to fly NSCAT as part of the payload on Japan's planned
Advanced Earth Observation Satellite is currently under
review.

     Both TOPEX/Poseidon and NSCAT are intended to support
oceanographic studies during the 1990s under the World Ocean
Circulation Experiment and the Tropical Oceans Global Atmospheres
Experiment. These programs, sponsored by the World Climate
Research Program and scheduled to continue operations for a
decade, involve studies at and below the ocean surface in all
parts of the world's seas.

     Other international projects scheduled include the European
Space Agency's first remote-sensing satellite, Earth Resources
Satellite 1 due for launch in 1990; Japan's Earth Resources
Satellite 1 scheduled for a 1992 launch; and Radarsat, a proposed
1994 mission that would be a cooperative venture between Canada
and the United States.

     Seasat's technology has not been limited to satellite
oceanography.

     The Shuttle Imaging Radar (SIR), a series of synthetic
aperture radar experiments flown on the Shuttle was a direct
follow-on of Seasat's synthetic aperture radar.  This marked the
first time NASA had flown that advanced radar instrument in
space.

     The first and second experiments in the series, SIR-A, which
flew on a shuttle mission in 1981, and SIR-B, a shuttle payload
in 1984, offered scientists several unexpected discoveries. SIR-A
pierced cloud-covered rain forests of Guatemala to reveal
previously unknown agricultural canals dug by the ancient Maya.
SIR-B penetrated the sands of Egypt to produce a picture of a
riverbed buried for many centuries.

     NASA's Jet Proplusion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, Calif. is
currently working on SIR-C slated for a 1991 shuttle mission.  It
will be combined with a German/Italian X-band radar.  Also
planned is an advanced radar system that will be flown on an
Earth Observing System platform as part of NASA's Space Station
program in the late 1990s.

     A radar similar to the first flown on Seasat is scheduled on
NASA's Magellan mission to Venus in April 1989. Magellan will use
a synthetic aperture radar to pierce Venus' dense cloud cover to
provide the most complete, highest-resolution images of the
planet's surface ever made.

     Another planetary mission benefiting from Seasat is the Mars
Observer, scheduled for launch in 1992. That spacecraft will
orbit the red planet to conduct extensive studies of the Martian
surface with instruments including an altimeter derived from
Seasat.

     Seasat was funded by NASA's Office of Space Science and
Applications, Washington, D.C.  Gene Giberson was JPL Seasat
project manager; James A. Dunne was project scientist. S.W.
McCandless, Jr. was Seasat program manager at NASA Headquarters,
Washington, D.C.

     An international symposium celebrating Seasat's launch
anniversary will be hosted in London next Tuesday through
Thursday (June 28-30) by the British National Space Centre. Gene
Giberson, JPL's project manager for Seasat, and Peter Woiceshyn,
a JPL scientist who has worked on Seasat continuously since its
inception, will be featured speakers.

====================================================================
                                                       Eric

------------------------------

Date: 29 Jun 88 10:46:01 GMT
From: dietz@cu-arpa.cs.cornell.edu  (Paul F. Dietz)
Subject: Re: electromagnetic launchers

In article <8806242024.AA22232@gvax.cs.cornell.edu> dietz@GVAX.CS.CORNELL.EDU (Paul F. Dietz) writes:
>The article claims that a 3 ton projectile
>(1 ton of which is payload destined for geosynchronous orbit) could
>be launched by a gun with a mass in the *tens* of tons.

Correction: the article actually said the sabot/projectile combination
would have a mass in the tens of tons, and in the 1-ton payload case
would have a mass of three tons.  It should have been obvious to me that
the launcher itself must be much more massive than this -- acceleration
is limited by the magnetic pressure (< 4 kbar) divided by the ballistic
coefficient of the sabot/projectile combination.  The launcher would
have to be a good fraction of a kilometer long, with accelerations in
the thousands of gees.  Moreover, the launcher structure would have
to contain the magnetic pressure, so it couldn't be light.  Silly of me.

	Paul F. Dietz
	dietz@gvax.cs.cornell.edu

------------------------------

Date:     Tue, 28 Jun 88  13:43:13 EDT
From: =3545*** <pcp2g@cdc.acc.virginia.edu>
Subject:  RE: dialing for dollars

I find it somehow ironic that, while arguing about IQ tests, the author 
misspelled "intelligence".  Of course, I had to look up the correct 
spelling of "misspelled" first...

-- Phil Plait// Univ. of Virginia Astronomy Dept// PCP2G@Virginia

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 29 Jun 88 16:10:02 EDT
From: pswecker@med.unc.edu (Peter St.Wecker)
Subject: sub

------------------------------

Date: 29 Jun 88 18:50:12 GMT
From: al@eos.arc.nasa.gov  (Al Globus)
Subject: Re: Pegasus

>From article <1191@thumper.bellcore.com>, by karn@thumper.bellcore.com (Phil R. Karn):
> Am I the only one who is amazed that anyone would give any credibility
> at all to the launch costs projected by the manufacturer of a radically
> new launcher that hasn't even been built yet, much less tested and made
> operational?

There is one big difference, Pegasus is small.  Also, it has many
characteristics in common with the X15.

------------------------------

Date: 29 Jun 88 19:45:35 GMT
From: sgi!daisy!wooding@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Mike Wooding)
Subject: Re: NASA news - Seasat

In article <13979@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU>, khayo@sonia.math.ucla.edu (Eric Behr) writes:
< Downloaded from NASA SpaceLink BBS, Huntsville, Ala. (205) 895 0028
< ====================================================================
 ...
<      NASA's Seasat satellite, launched 10 years ago this week,
< ushered in a new era of space research focusing on unsolved
< questions of the world's oceans and weather.
 ...
<      Among the experimental instruments Seasat pioneered were a
< synthetic aperture radar, which provided highly detailed images
< of ocean and land surfaces; a radar scatterometer to measure
< near-surface wind speed and direction; a radar altimeter to
< measure the height of the ocean surface and waves; and a scanning
< multi-channel microwave radiometer to measure surface
< temperature, wind speeds and sea ice cover. The satellite also
< carried a passive visual and infrared radiometer to provide
< supporting data for the other four experiments.
 ...
 
 How does the radar altimeter decouple its "height" above ocean
 surface from the "height" of the ocean's surface? What scales
 are involved (+-10 meters)? A reference point?

< ====================================================================
<                                                        Eric

 m wooding

------------------------------

Date: 28 Jun 88 20:12:48 GMT
From: oodis01!uplherc!esunix!bpendlet@tis.llnl.gov  (Bob Pendleton)
Subject: Pegasus & Hercules open house


Last Saturday, June 25, Hercules Aerospace held an open house to celebrate 
the 75th anniversary of the Bacchus Works, their plant near Magna
Utah.

In the main lobby they have a 1/4 scale model of Pegasus. I
stood around it for a while just listening to people talking about
it. Everyone who came in immediately went over to the display,
dragging their guests with them and explaining in very excited tones
what Pegasus is and what it means to the company. Everyone seemed
very excited about Pegasus. People who were not working on the project
were bragging about working for a company that had the guts to get
into this business.

I've been told that they have a firm contract for a launch on Pegasus.
I've also been told that I got the price wrong. It will be ~$6 million
on a fixed price contract.

I've read some nasty comments on the net about possible hidden
subsidies. Could be. But I don't think so. The B52 is being paid for
at a price set by whoever owns the thing. If a government agency can
get a price break by buying the B52 time themselves and just buying
the booster from OSC/Hercules, why not? My understanding is that
launch contracts are fixed price, no fly/no pay deals. If it costs
more than $40 - 45 million, OSC/Hercules eats the cost. If it doesn't
fly by next summer, they lose business. If OSC/Hercules uses
government supplied computation resources, they pay what anyone else
pays. If the government doesn't charge enough to recover costs, well
that is the governments business, but it is the same price that any
other private company would have to pay.

Hercules can give good estimates of how long it will take and how
much it will cost to develop a new set of motors because they have
been in the business of building rocket motors for at least 30 years.
Telstar had a Hercules kick motor. So they've been in the commercial
space propulsion business for 25 years. Compare Hercules' experience
with other commercial space propulsion companies. Hercules pioneered
filament wound solid rocket motors based on glass, Kevlar, and
graphite (Magnamite?) fibers. Not to mention integrated manufacturing
technology based on the net metal mandril and the wound elastomeric
insulator. Someone mentioned the Liberty booster, how much experience
do they have building boosters? Deke Slaytons' conestoga, last I read,
is a collection of Thiokol castor motors. The same solid rocket motors
used on Delta, notice that Hercules is making the uprated replacements
for those motors on Delta II. 

Since deciding to go heavily into the commercial space market Hercules
has invested over $125 million in new facilities. Hercules has won
the Delta II, Titan 4, and Pegasus contracts, and is pursuing the ASRM
contract. As far as I can tell from the outside, they've bet the
company on commercial space. It looks like the bet is paying off.

Talking to some of the engineers on the Pegasus project, I've been told
that not having to put up with all the DOD paper work, and not having
to put up with DOD inspectors has shaved YEARS off of the time
required to do the Pegasus project. Years translates into millions of
dollars. 

			Bob Pendleton



-- 
Bob Pendleton @ Evans & Sutherland
UUCP Address:  {decvax,ucbvax,allegra}!decwrl!esunix!bpendlet
Alternate:     utah-cs!utah-gr!uplherc!esunix!bpendlet
        I am solely responsible for what I say.

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 30 Jun 88 10:50:16 CDT
From: sedspace@doc.cc.utexas.edu (Steve Abrams)
Posted-Date: Thu, 30 Jun 88 10:50:16 CDT
Subject: Are you still there?


Ted,

	I was just wondering if I had been inadvertantly dropped from the
Space Digest mailing list.  The last issue I received was Issue #259.  Can
you try re-sending those issues since then?

				Thanks,

				Steve

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 30 Jun 88 10:54:47 CDT
From: enos@doc.cc.utexas.edu (Edward Kenny)
Posted-Date: Thu, 30 Jun 88 10:54:47 CDT
Subject: No contact


Ted,

	I, too, (in addition to sedspace@doc.cc.utexas.edu) haven't received
Space Digest recently.  Any problems?

			Ted Kenny

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 30 Jun 88 16:51:28 EDT
From: Glenn Chapman <glenn@ll-vlsi.arpa>
Subject: Soviet Mir cosmonauts; solar flares and EVA update

A rather interesting point concerning Mir was made by Bill Higgins of Fermi Lab
in a mail message to me.  He said:

> I encountered a brief headline about a "magnetic storm"  that's supposed
> to hit this planet this week and stopped to wonder-- what do the Mir & Salyut
> cosmonauts do when there's a solar flare?   Obviously they don't pack up
> and go home.  Is there a storm cellar arrangement aboard Mir?  Can you explain
> the details?

    He raises a good point about the solar flare.  There is no storm shelter on the Mir station.  However they are located in low earth orbit, below the 
Van Allen belts.  This means that the earth's magnetic field protects them from
the proton particles of the flare.  The X-rays from that event I think are 
rather soft so the station itself has enough mass that the cosmonauts are safe.
Never the less they are located at an orbit >70 degrees inclination.  That
starts putting them near to where stuff leaks through at the magnetic poles, 
especially as flare tends to distort the magnetic field lines (note that the
North magnetic pole is located well within northern Canada - about 78 degrees 
latitude).  I would suspect that would give them substantially higher 
radiation levels than normal.  It is interesting that they went ahead with 
the space walk under these conditions.  
    Speaking of the EVA, Titov and Manarov on board Mir went out this morning 
(June 30th) for 5 hours to try and fix the British/Dutch X-ray telescope on the
Kvant module.  The current information I have is either the repair did not work,
or was not finished.  They plan another EVA in a few days.  I will post more 
when I get more information.
    Does anyone out there know what NASA does during similar flares for high 
inclination shuttle orbits?   Hopefully this to will become an issue that
we are in space enough to consider.

                                                   Glenn Chapman
                                                   MIT Lincoln Lab

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #284
*******************

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Date: Wed, 20 Jul 88 19:06:06 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8807210206.AA22004@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #285

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 285

Today's Topics:
		      Re: Space cities--replies
			Re: NASA news - Seasat
			    Re:  NASA news
			     OZONE cont.
			      New Ideas
			   OZONE depletion
 NASA Deep Space Network to support Soviet Phobos mission (Forwarded)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 29 Jun 88 16:58:00 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!dcl-cs!nott-cs!pyr1.cs.ucl.ac.uk!william@uunet.uu.net
Subject: Re: Space cities--replies


Very interesting.  Only one quibble ...

In reply to John Turner's contribution, is it true that spin gravity 
is not similar to real gravity?  This city would have to be some
miles in diameter (I assume - I didn't get the original posting)
so I would have thought the variation in the effective gravity would be
minute over small movements.  

As (I think!) the effective gravity is proportional to the distance
from the centre, a 10cm head-nod on a 5km radius ring would cause
a force variation of 2e-5.  Could a human detect this change?
Of course, if you had a small radius and used a long cylinder then 
you would definitely get some effect.

			... Bill

************************************************************************
Bill Witts, CS Dept.     *
UCL, London, Errrp       *       Don't believe everything you hear,
william@uk.ac.ucl.cs(UK) *       or anything you say.
william@cs.ucl.ac.uk(US) ***********************************************

------------------------------

Date: 1 Jul 88 00:31:39 GMT
From: aplcen!aplcomm!stdc.jhuapl.edu!jwm@mimsy.umd.edu  (Jim Meritt)
Subject: Re: NASA news - Seasat

In article <1313@daisy.UUCP> wooding@daisy.UUCP (Mike Wooding) writes:
}In article <13979@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU>, khayo@sonia.math.ucla.edu (Eric Behr) writes:
}< Downloaded from NASA SpaceLink BBS, Huntsville, Ala. (205) 895 0028
}< a radar altimeter to
}< measure the height of the ocean surface and waves; 
} 
} How does the radar altimeter decouple its "height" above ocean
} surface from the "height" of the ocean's surface? What scales
} are involved (+-10 meters)? A reference point?


There is an altimeter on the geosat that is a follow-up to the seasat
one.  I do the real-time processing of the data - you not only get
"height above ocean", but significant wave height, winds, and a measure
of roughness off the altimeter.  (probably more, but that is all I lift).
This can be used to get current "edges", fronts, eddy locations, and all
kinds of neat stuff.  I asked about satellite oceanography earlier, but
didn't hear about anyone else using altimeter data for oceanography.

Anyone else?

(geosat is run from here at APL, the only ground station)

oh yes - changes in ocean height varies greatly with where on the ocean
you get 'em.  Biggest off japan.....


Disclaimer: Individuals have opinions, organizations have policy.
            Therefore, these opinions are mine and not any organizations!
Q.E.D.
jwm@aplvax.jhuapl.edu 128.244.65.5  (James W. Meritt)

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 1 Jul 88 13:14:31 PDT
From: Eugene N. Miya <eugene@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov>
To: yee@ames.arc.nasa.gov
Subject: Re:  NASA news
Cc: space@angband.s1.gov

A tie?

You wore a tie today?

------------------------------

Date: 2 Jul 88 14:08:00 GMT
From: mailrus!uflorida!novavax!ankh!Laurie_Forti@csd1.milw.wisc.edu  (Laurie Forti)
Subject: OZONE cont.


      Internationally, NRDC is urging the State Department to make
ratification and reassessment of the Montreal agreement a top priority
in dealings with our European allies and Japan, who with the U.S.
account for the bulk of world production of CFC's.  NRDC is also
pressing for passage of legislation now pending before Congress which
would phase out CFC's over 6-8 years and take away the producers'
windfall profits."
.
.
      The Natural Resources Defense Council is a not-for-profit member
supported organization dedicated to protecting America's natural
resources and to improve the quality of the human environment through
scientific research, legal action, and citizen education.  Memberships
are $10 per year.  NRDC, POBox 37269, Washington, DC 20013.
.
.
      (Why is the ozone layer so important??  Stress on the plant
biomass by increased UV only adds to the attack on same by pollution,
chemical agricultural systems, global deforestation, and
desertification.  Thousands of plant (and animal) species have already
been destroyed by human activity, and there very well may be a
threshold level of stress beyond which major areas of plant material 
are
destroyed leading to loss of atmospheric oxygen and collapse of
agricultural and other ecosystems.  Read this as global famine and
major depopulation of the planet.  Let's hear it for technology, folks
.... Laurie)
--  
 FidoNet : 369/6     the Eye of Osiris   -   305-973-1947  -     OPUS/UFGATE
 UUCP    : ...!{gatech!uflorida!novavax, hoptoad, umbio, attmail}!ankh

------------------------------

Date: 3 Jul 88 17:09:26 GMT
From: fluke!ssc-vax!eder@beaver.cs.washington.edu  (Dani Eder)
Subject: New Ideas

In article <2064@pt.cs.cmu.edu>, ralf@b.gp.cs.cmu.edu (Ralf Brown) writes:
 In article <8806262055.AA10047@angband.s1.gov> PH418000@BROWNVM.BITNET writes:
  There's also an interesting proposal to use a tether concept to deorbit
  the space shuttle from the space-station, simultaneously reboosting 
  the station every time you drop a shuttle off.  
 
 This isn't all that new an idea.  See the SF novel "Descent of A????" (it's
 been at least five years since I read it), which gives a nice account of
 using just this concept to deorbit a shuttle (though the other end was its
 payload, rather than the space station).  Written ca. 1980.
 -- 

There has been observed by myself and others a 'signal delay' of about five
years within NASA for new ideas.  Hypotheses to explain this delay range
from the 'Not Invented Here' syndrome, to there not being a significant
'office of new ideas'.  At the same time, the past few years has
had an explosion of new ideas in space development.  In the propulsion
area alone, my friends and I have catalogued over fifty ways to get to
and around in space (see the book "Mirror Matter" by Forward and Davis
for a list).  Only a few (chemical rocket, airbreathing, ion) are receiving
non-trivial attention.

Expect a revolution in the 'Paradigm' for space development over the
next few years, as all the new ideas, not just the propulsion ones,
but the extraterrestrial materials and energy, closed life support,
seriously smart computers and robots, teleoperation, etc. get folded
into the mix, and interact.  For refernce the current paradigm:

Space Shuttle launches Space Station
Space Station is a staging base for chemical Orbit Transfer Vehicle
Lunar Surface Station is Set up from Space Station using OTV
All this occurs over now-2010 time period. 
Over next ten years (2010-2020) a few (3) manned mars missions
are mounted from space station using large chemical rockets and
aerobraking for arrival.



-- 
Dani Eder / Boeing / Space Station Program / uw-beaver!ssc-vax!eder
(205)461-2606(w) (205)461-7801(h) 1075 Dockside Drive #905 Huntsville, 
AL 35824  34 40 N latitude 86 40 W longitude +100m altitude, Earth

------------------------------

Date: 2 Jul 88 14:04:00 GMT
From: mailrus!uflorida!novavax!ankh!Laurie_Forti@csd1.milw.wisc.edu  (Laurie Forti)
Subject: OZONE depletion

This article excerpted from the NRDC Newsline Vol. 6, No.2, May/Jun 
1988 
. 
"Ozone Depletion Worsens, NRDC Leads drive for Total CFC Phase-out" 
. 
      Stratospheric ozone depletion is dramatically worse than we 
thought, according to a new report just issued by an international 
panel of more than one hundred scientists.  The report prepared under 
the auspices of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration 
(NASA), documents an unexpectedly rapid thinning of the stratospheric 
ozone shied all over the globe, with chlorofluorocarbons (CFC's) the 
likely cause.  The alarming findings add new urgency to NRDC's drive 
for a total phase-out of CFC's and other ozone-depleting chemicals. 
      According to the scientists report, even after natural factors 
are accounted for, satellite and ground-based monitors show ozone 
losses since 1969 as high as 3% over the heavily populated regions of 
North America and Europe and 5% over parts of the southern hemisphere.  
What's more, depletion is occurring at 2 to 3 times the rate predicted 
by computer models scientists have previously relied on. 
      "We are facing a global emergency," NRDC senior attorney David
Doniger testified before the Senate Environment and Public Works
Committee on March 30.  Doniger called for immediate steps to
strengthen the international agreement reached last September in
Montreal -- which the Senate ratified by a vote of 83-0 just one day
before the new scientific report was issued -- as well as
Environmental Protection Agency regulations proposed last December
under a court-ordered deadline won by NRDC.  "The Montreal accord and
the proposed EPA rules will cut CFC's (production) by less than 50%
over 10 years.  The world has _already_ suffered more ozone depletion
than EPA predicted would occur under that level of cuts _by the year
2050_.  Safeguarding the ozone layer requires a rapid and total CFC
phase-out, not just a 10 year halfway measure."
      The findings of global ozone losses follow on the heels of
proof, gathered by NASA last year, that CFC's are the cause of the
massive Antarctic ozone "hole" that opens each year when spring returns
to the southern hemisphere.  Ozone levels over Antarctica plummeted by
more than _50%_ last September and October.
      Ozone depletion will allow more ultraviolet (UV) radiation to
penetrate to the Earth's surface, causing tens of thousands of extra
skin cancers, cataracts, and immunological diseases in the U.S.
(alone) over the coming decades.  More UV also damages crops and
other vegetation and endangers the marine food web.  Even the Earth's
climate may be changed.
      The new scientific report prompted a surprise announcement from
du Pont, the world's largest CFC producer, which had led the industry
_opposition_ to controls on these chemicals for more than a _decade_. 
Du Pont stated a "goal" of totally phasing out its CFC production and
called for immediately reassessing the Montreal agreement once it
takes effect next year.  "While du Pont's new position is welcome, its
conversion is far from complete," said NRDC's Doniger.  "Du Pont has
set _no schedule_ for its own actions, and it still opposes any move
to phase-out U.S. production and use prior to reaching a new
international agreement.  In addition, du Pont and other CFC producers
stand to make billions of dolFrom space-request@angband.s1.gov  Tue Jul  5 08:55:20 1988
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Date: 3 Jul 88 05:01:00 GMT
From: a.cs.uiuc.edu!m.cs.uiuc.edu!kenny@ee.ecn.purdue.edu
Subject: Soviet space station elements
Message-Id: <21900023@m.cs.uiuc.edu>
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Salyut 7   
1 13138U          88179.68414465 0.00010405           33290-3 0  1404
2 13138  51.6128 239.0138 0001070 150.7375 209.3187 15.32968712353693
Mir        
1 16609U          88179.75592934 0.00050649           35750-3 0  2763
2 16609  51.6160  13.0567 0003430 100.9284 259.3027 15.73519445135493
Satellite: Salyut 7   
Catalog id 13138
Element set 140
Epoch: 88179.68414465
Inclination:  51.6128 degrees
RA of node: 239.0138 degrees
Eccentricity:  0.0001070
Argument of perigee: 150.7375 degrees
Mean anomaly: 209.3187 degrees
Mean motion: 15.32968712 revs/day
Mean motion acceleration: 0.00010405 * 2 revs/day/day
Epoch Revolution: 35369

Semimajor axis:    6845.05 km
Apogee height*:     467.63 km
Perigee height*:     466.16 km


		Source: NASA Goddard via T.S.Kelso's `Celestial RCP/M'

* Apogee and perigee altitudes are referred to the mean radius of the
  Earth (6378.15 km), and not to the local radius of the geoid.  They
  are only approximate, and should not be used for orbit prediction.
Satellite: Mir        
Catalog id 16609
Element set 276
Epoch: 88179.75592934
Inclination:  51.6160 degrees
RA of node:  13.0567 degrees
Eccentricity:  0.0003430
Argument of perigee: 100.9284 degrees
Mean anomaly: 259.3027 degrees
Mean motion: 15.73519445 revs/day
Mean motion acceleration: 0.00050649 * 2 revs/day/day
Epoch Revolution: 13549

Semimajor axis:    6726.94 km
Apogee height*:     351.09 km
Perigee height*:     346.47 km


		Source: NASA Goddard via T.S.Kelso's `Celestial RCP/M'

* Apogee and perigee altitudes are referred to the mean radius of the
  Earth (6378.15 km), and not to the local radius of the geoid.  They
  are only approximate, and should not be used for orbit prediction.

------------------------------

Date: 3 Jul 88 15:59:07 GMT
From: yee@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: NASA Deep Space Network to support Soviet Phobos mission (Forwarded)

Charles Redmond
Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
                                                     July 1, 1988

Jeff Vincent
Headquarters, Washington, D.C.

Jim Wilson
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif,


RELEASE:  88-87

NASA DEEP SPACE NETWORK TO SUPPORT SOVIET PHOBOS MISSION

     When the USSR's Phobos 1 spacecraft lifts off for Mars on 
Thursday, July 7, it will be headed not only for a landing on the 
tiny Martian moon Phobos but also for a radio rendezvous with 
NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN).

     Phobos 1 and Phobos 2, scheduled for launch a week later, 
each carry 100-pound landers designed to analyze the 17-mile-
long, potato-shaped moon, and the DSN's role in the mission is to 
provide essential tracking data to permit their landing on 
Phobos.  The DSN then will shift to enabling a key scientific 
goal of the mission, to track Phobos very precisely.  The DSN's 
230-foot dish antennas in California, Spain and Australia, as 
well as a Soviet radio telescope in the Crimea will be used.  The 
landings, and the special DSN tracking, are expected to begin in 
April 1989.

     Scientists are interested in the orbit of Phobos because it 
appears to be decaying.  They believe tidal forces, the unequal 
attraction of gravity between different parts of two bodies, are 
making the moon spiral very slowly toward Mars and eventual 
destruction.  Optical tracking is barely accurate enough to 
detect this phenomenon.  Only active radio tracking, with a 
spacecraft on the site, can measure the orbit's decay rate.  

     The Deep Space Network, developed and operated by NASA's Jet 
Propulsion Laboratory over the past 3 decades, has built up 
unique expertise in determining the distance, within yards, and 
the velocity of spacecraft billions of miles from Earth.  
	- more -






	- 2 -


     During the passage of Comet Halley in 1986, JPL and Soviet 
scientists cooperated to pin down the location of the comet's 
nucleus for the European spacecraft Giotto by precisely locating 
the Soviet Vegas spacecraft while they were photographing the 
nucleus, then reckoning from known camera locations and angles to 
find the target for Giotto's later flyby.

     This time, U.S. scientists will use a radio-astronomy 
technique called very long baseline interferometry (VLBI), which 
employs widely-spaced, paired ground antennas, as well as doppler 
and range tracking to pinpoint the position and motions of the 
moon Phobos. 

     The Deep Space Network will receive telemetry, including 
images and other scientific measurements, from the two landers, 
but its principal responsibility will be the ranging and VLBI 
measurements.  These will be complicated by the moon's rapid 
rotation once every 7 hours, 37 minutes and the fact that the 
lander antenna will be fixed, rather than tracking the Earth.  
Scientists expect to be able to track lander and moon for only 
about 17 minutes out of each rotation period, without the DSN's 
worldwide facilities, this would be still further reduced.  
Lander telemetry, like that from the Phobos orbiters, also will 
be collected by Soviet receiving stations.  

     Between October 1988 and year's end, Phobos project and DSN 
scientists will check the VLBI technique under space flight 
conditions.  Hardware was checked at the Goldstone tracking site 
in April.  

     Then, after the Phobos spacecraft go into Mars orbit in late 
January, precise tracking by the DSN will help first Phobos 1 and 
then Phobos 2 edge down very close to the moon's orbit so that 
the manifold scientific operations can begin.  

     The Phobos mission involves more than three dozen 
experiments, with scientists representing nations of Eastern and 
Western Europe as well as the United States and the U.S.S.R.  Two 
orbiters and two landers, consisting of a long-lived scientific 
package and a 100-pound hopper which measures surface properties 
at several positions 20 to 40 yards apart, carry the instruments.

	- end -

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #285
*******************

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Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #286

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 286

Today's Topics:
			    time travel???
			 Mail test for BITNET
			 Mir and solar flares
		       News test #2 for BITNET
			   Ramscoop engine
			     Re: Pegasus
		     Condensed CANOPUS - May 1988
			Re: NASA news - Seasat
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 3 Jul 88 01:28:55 GMT
From: mind!shari@princeton.edu  (Shari Landes)
Subject: time travel???

(From my 12-yr old son, Harlan)

Is it possible that if you travel faster than the speed of light in space,
and come back to earth, you would be able to see yourself in the past?

I think it is possible because when you approach the speed of light, time slows
down, and if you travel the speed of light, time stops.
But, if you return to earth, after traveling in space faster than the speed 
of light, would you be able to see yourself before you left?


-- Harlan 


-- 
Shari Landes					609-452-4663
Princeton Univ. Green Hall                      shari@mind.princeton.EDU
Princeton NJ 08544              "Don't look back..."

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 5 Jul 88 11:39:13 PDT
From: Eugene N. Miya <eugene@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov>
Subject: Mail test for BITNET

Okay Argonne, ACK me if you get this.  This was sent using ARPAnet gateway.

--eugene

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 5 Jul 88 15:41:24 EDT
From: Glenn Chapman <glenn@ll-vlsi.arpa>
Subject: Mir and solar flares

A rather interesting point concerning Mir was made by Bill Higgins of Fermi Lab
in a mail message to me.  He said:

> I encountered a brief headline about a "magnetic storm"  that's supposed
> to hit this planet this week and stopped to wonder-- what do the Mir & Salyut
> cosmonauts do when there's a solar flare?   Obviously they don't pack up
> and go home.  Is there a storm cellar arrangement aboard Mir?  Can you explain
> the details?

    He raises a good point about the solar flare.  There is no storm shelter on the Mir station.  However they are located in low earth orbit, below the 
Van Allen belts.  This means that the earth's magnetic field protects them from
the proton particles of the flare.  The X-rays from that event I think are 
rather soft so the station itself has enough mass that the cosmonauts are safe.
Never the less they are located at an orbit >70 degrees inclination.  That
starts putting them near to where stuff leaks through at the magnetic poles, 
especially as flare tends to distort the magnetic field lines (note that the
North magnetic pole is located well within northern Canada - about 78 degrees 
latitude).  I would suspect that would give them substantially higher 
radiation levels than normal.  It is interesting that they went ahead with 
the space walk under these conditions.  
    Speaking of the EVA, Titov and Manarov on board Mir went out this morning 
(June 30th) for 5 hours to try and fix the British/Dutch X-ray telescope on the
Kvant module.  The current information I have is either the repair did not work,
or was not finished.  They plan another EVA in a few days.  I will post more 
when I get more information.
    Does anyone out there know what NASA does during similar flares for high 
inclination shuttle orbits?   Hopefully this to will become an issue that
we are in space enough to consider.

                                                   Glenn Chapman
                                                   MIT Lincoln Lab

------------------------------

Date: 5 Jul 88 18:40:52 GMT
From: pioneer.arc.nasa.gov!eugene@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Eugene N. Miya)
Subject: News test #2 for BITNET

Okay Argonne ACK this.  Check the dates in the headers if you can.
This was posted to the Usenet side.

--eugene (Ted please let these thru)

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 05 Jul 88 12:19:36 CDT
From: C445585%UMCVMB.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu
Subject: Ramscoop engine

   I've read in various places (Carl Sagan's COSMOS, among others) that a
ramscoop engine is possible.  For those of you who don't know what a ramscoop
is, it's essentially a big loose-hydrogen-nuclei collector that sweeps a pretty
big area clean of stray hydrogen nuclei, gathers them together into a real hot,
tightly packed stream, and fuses them.  The idea of this kind of engine is that
you can keep up a constant rate of acceleration/deceleration, without running
out of fuel.
   I've got a couple questions, for anyone out there that has the time and inte
rest to answer...
   1.)  How do you reverse the thrust in one?  It looks like you'd just alter
the scoop field so that the fusion would be blasting more forward than backward
, but I have a hard time visualizing a stable ship design for this.
   2.)  What do you do about micrometeorites, and, for that matter, big meteors
 in your path?
   3.)  How much energy does it take to maintain the field, and can you safely
keep getting that from the fusion reaction?  Especially since the ramscoops are
supposed to be for fairly long trips (100's of years!), how do you keep a power
system running that collects lots of energy from the reactor working for 100`s
of years, without any direct maintainance?  (Definitely no HUMAN maintainance!)
   4.)  What do you do when you're decelerating, and you fall below ramscoop
velocity?
   5.)  Does the density of stray hydrogen nuclei vary as much as it seems like
it would between different areas of space?  Is the density vastly thinner
far away from stars?  Is the density around the core different than the density
in the outer arms of the galaxy?  (Obviously, this might make a ramscoop's
bottom velocity lower in dense areas...)

   Well, thanks for whatever you can give me...

   John Kelsey == Fiver == C445585@UMCVMB.BITNET

------------------------------

Date: 1 Jul 88 20:20:17 GMT
From: uplherc!esunix!bpendlet@gr.utah.edu  (Bob Pendleton)
Subject: Re: Pegasus

>From article <1191@thumper.bellcore.com>, by karn@thumper.bellcore.com (Phil R. Karn):
> Am I the only one who is amazed that anyone would give any credibility
> at all to the launch costs projected by the manufacturer of a radically
> new launcher that hasn't even been built yet, much less tested and made
> operational?

What is so radical about Pegasus? Air launch? We've been air launching
rockets for 40 years. Remember the X-1? The motors? Carbon filament
wound cases and solid propellant, not significantly different that MX
3rd stage. A wing? Come on. Hypersonic flight? Space Shuttle and other
vehicles have been doing it for years. Guidance system? Off the shelf.

Pegasus could have been built years ago if anyone had thought of it
or had reason to try.

> Or hasn't anyone learned from the Shuttle experience?

Yes they have. Pegasus is a conservative design, built by private
corporations with the goal of making money. Very different from the
Shuttle. 

Now I hope they don't make a liar of me.

			Bob P.

-- 
Bob Pendleton @ Evans & Sutherland
UUCP Address:  {decvax,ucbvax,allegra}!decwrl!esunix!bpendlet
Alternate:     utah-cs!utah-gr!uplherc!esunix!bpendlet
        I am solely responsible for what I say.

------------------------------

Date: 5 Jul 88 19:36:30 GMT
From: cfa!cfa250!willner@husc6.harvard.edu  (Steve Willner P-316 x57123)
Subject: Condensed CANOPUS - May 1988

Here's the condensed CANOPUS for May 1988.  There are 9 articles.
Eight are given in condensed form and one by title only.  Comments in
{braces} are from me and are signed {--SW} when they represent
personal opinions.  The unabridged version went to the mailing list
weeks ago.  Sorry this is so late, but things have been pretty hectic
around here the last month.

CANOPUS is published by the American Institute of Aeronautics and
Astronautics.  Send correspondence about its contents to the executive 
editor, William W. L. Taylor (taylor%trwatd.span@star.stanford.edu; 
e-mail to canopus@cfa.uucp will probably be forwarded).  Send
correspondence about business matters to Mr. John Newbauer, AIAA,
1633 Broadway, NY, NY 10019.  Although AIAA has copyrighted CANOPUS
and registered its name, you are encouraged to distribute CANOPUS
widely, either electronically or as printout copies.  If you do,
however, please send a brief message to Taylor estimating how many
others receive copies.  CANOPUS is partially supported by the
National Space Science Data Center.

SPACE SHUTTLE STILL LOOKING AT AUGUST LAUNCH - can880506.txt - 5/10/88
{Title only; shuttle news widely reported elsewhere.}

SMALL EXPLORER A.O. RELEASED - can880508.txt - 5/16/88

NASA has released its Announcement of Opportunity for the "Small-
Class Explorer Mission" series.  Perhaps because the program is
intended to develop small payloads in quick order, the 50-plus-page
A.O. is quite detailed and restrictive about what can and cannot be
done. This broad A.O. is to lead to launches of one or two "Scout-
class" Explorers year as budget allows over the next few years.  It
is open to astrophysics, space physics, and upper atmosphere
disciplines, and to proposers in industry, academia, government, and
foreign agencies.

The research will be "of modest programmatic scope which can be
launched within about three years of selection. The program intends
to provide a continuing opportunity for quickly implemented flights
of small free-flyers to conduct focused investigations which
complement major missions, prove new scientific concepts, or make
significant contributions to space science in other ways. It is the
goal of the program to obtain a flight frequency of at least one
flight per year. The scope of the missions is expected to be such
that a single principal investigator will have responsibility for an
individual investigation."  {Instigation of this program is a real
accomplishment for Lennard Fisk, Associate Administrator for Space
Science, who seems genuinely interested in flying missions and not
just running a bureaucracy.  Now let's hope he can keep the budget at
a level adequate to actually fly and not just build payloads.  --SW}

The new Scout-class category is defined as a spacecraft and
instrument payload costing about $30 million and capable of being
launched on a Scout expendable launch vehicle (ELV).  Payload mass
can vary depending of the orbit to be reached, but generally will be
between 100 and 250 kg.  Data will be relayed through ground stations
and not through the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System because
of the cost of using the latter.  {So much for cost savings promised
for TDRSS. --SW}

SOVIET-AMERICAN COOPERATION IMPROVES - can880501.txt - 5/5/88

Cooperation between the Soviet and American space programs took a
major step forward this month with the meeting of two working groups
formed last year by an agreement between the two nations.  No
immediate plans were made for sharing hardware or placing one
nation's instruments aboard other's spacecraft -- that will not come
until the mid-1990s, the participants indicated -- but joint
campaigns are anticipated for existing and currently planned
spacecraft.  A key example would be stereo X-ray imaging of the solar
corona using instruments aboard the American Solar Maximum Mission
satellite and aboard the Soviet's Phobos Mars spacecraft that will be
launched next year.

Cooperation never halted completely, {i.e. after invasion of
Afghanistan} with life scientists still sharing data at the working
level, and one small U.S. instrument package being flown aboard the
Soviets' VEGA probes that flew past Venus and Halley's comet.

AO FOR ATTACHED PAYLOADS ON SPACE STATION DUE SOON - CAN880503.TXT -
5/8/888

The Announcement of Opportunity for payloads attached to the manned
Space Station should be issued by the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration by the end of the month if the remainder of the
preparation moves smoothly.  Not included in the AO will be payloads
for free-flyers (covered in large part by the Earth Observing System
AO early this year), or "quick is beautiful" payloads.  {As of July
5, I haven't seen the AO, but I may not be on that mailing list.--SW}

Two more major AO's are planned for space station -- materials
sciences in 1989 and life sciences in 1990. These will focus to a
large degree on using multi-purpose facilities that NASA will
provide.

AROUND THE WORLD IN A BALLOON - can880505.txt - 5/9/88

NASA is soliciting instruments to fly aboard six long-duration
balloon flights (LDBF) during the 1991 solar maximum period according
to a research announcement (NRA-88-OSAA-04) released May 6.  The
program is intended for instruments which cannot observe adequately
from the ground or during short-duration balloon or rocket flights,
and "which are expected to advance our understanding of the solar
energetic phenomena in a way that will not otherwise be possible
until the subsequent solar maximum in the year 2002."

Experimental LBDF flights to date have lasted 12 to 22 days going
around the globe, and 6 to 12 days going from Australia to South
America. Payloads can be up to 1,400 kg at altitudes to 40 km. Up to
8 to 12 hours of observations a day are possible.

SHUTTLE-C COULD HELP SPACE STATION - can880507.txt - 5/10/88

An unmanned cargo version of the Space Shuttle could cut several
months from the assembly time for Space Station by carrying more than
double the payload of the manned Shuttle, according to its study
manager.

Shuttle-C looks much the current Space Shuttle but for wings and
vertical stabilizer which are lacking, and windows on the forward
fuselage. It would use the same boosters and tank, and would carry
its cargo in a strongback sitting above an engine module identical to
the Shuttle's boattail section.

"CODE E" ADVISORY COMMITTEES TO MERGE - can880504.txt - 5/8/88

NASA's three science advisory committees will merge into a single
body with three branches this summer. {Committtees are:}
   o Life Science Advisory Committee,
   o Space and Earth Sciences Advisory Committee,
   o Space Applications Committee,

NASA DIRECTORY - can880502.txt - 5/8/88

NASA's main number is 202-453-1000. {Long list deleted; if enough
demand, I'll post the list separately.}

ASTRONAUT SELECTION GOES TO TWO-YEAR CYCLE - can880509.txt - 5/16/88

NASA will reopen the astronaut selection process starting July 1,
1989, for a "class" to be selected in January 1990, and will continue
selections every two years. This will ease the demands on NASA
resources for selection and training while maintaining flight crew
levels. NASA has selected astronauts in 1978, '80, '84, '85 and '87.
Applications may be obtained from:

     Astronaut Selection Office -- Code AHX
     Johnson Space Center
     Houston, TX 77058
-- 
Steve Willner            Phone 617-495-7123         Bitnet:   willner@cfa
60 Garden St.            FTS:      830-7123           UUCP:   willner@cfa
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA                 Internet: willner@cfa.harvard.edu

------------------------------

Date: 5 Jul 88 20:00:44 GMT
From: devvax!jplpro!leem@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov  (Lee Mellinger)
Subject: Re: NASA news - Seasat

In article <21900022@m.cs.uiuc.edu> kenny@m.cs.uiuc.edu writes:
|
|/* Written  2:45 pm  Jun 29, 1988 by wooding@daisy.UUCP in m.cs.uiuc.edu:sci.space */
|
|An aside on SeaSat 1 -- The satellite failed some time before the end
|of its expected service life.  A persistent rumor states that it was
|intentionally disabled, possibly by aiming sensors at the Sun; the
|purported explanation was that it was able to detect the wakes of
|ballistic-missile submarines.
|
|Kevin Kenny			   UUCP: {ihnp4,pur-ee,convex}!uiucdcs!kenny

The investigation into the failure of Seasat assigned the probable
cause to a short across the slip rings that transfer the power
generated by the solar cells to the power buss where the solar panels
rotate.  They attributed this to the poor design of the slip rings
that had the various voltages (48 rings) alternating plus and minus,
creating the maximun potential to catastrophic electical short.  It
was shown  that there was a galling problem (in the ring bearings I
believe) that created metal slivers.  These slivers more than likely
shorted the main power buss at the rings. The telemetery showed large
voltage and current excursions in the milliseconds prior to loss of
signal from the spacecraft.

I too have heard unconfirmed rumors of the possibility that SSBM wakes
could be seen in the radar imaging data.  I was clear on the images
that I saw that surface wakes were very visible.

The spacecraft lasted only 90 days in a planned life of one year.  I
have had people tell me that they were not unhappy that the spacecraft
had shut down because of the enourmous quantity of data that was
pouring in.

Lee
.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
|Lee F. Mellinger                         Jet Propulsion Laboratory - NASA|
|4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA 91109 818/393-0516  FTS 977-0516      |
|-------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|UUCP: {ames!cit-vax,psivax}!elroy!jpl-devvax!jplpro!leem                 |
|ARPA: jplpro!leem!@cit-vax.ARPA -or- leem@jplpro.JPL.NASA.GOV            |
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #286
*******************

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Date: Thu, 21 Jul 88 19:06:14 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8807220206.AA23204@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #287

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 287

Today's Topics:
			   Re: OZONE cont.
			 Re: Ramscoop engine
			Interstellar Ramscoops
 NASA calls Hubble Space Telescope ground test a success (Forwarded)
			  Re: Rocket engine
			    Re: New Ideas
			 Re: Ramscoop engine
   re:Radiation in Near-Earth Space (was re: Mir and Solar Flares)
			  Re: Rocket engine
			  Re: Rocket engine
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 6 Jul 88 00:33:22 GMT
From: tektronix!tekcae!vice!keithl@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Keith Lofstrom)
Subject: Re: OZONE cont.

I'm sure to get flamed for this:

---------------------
Abstract:  Science, February 12, 1988, vol. 239, pp. 762-4.

Biologically Effective Ultraviolet Radiation:
Surface Measurements in the United States, 1974 to 1985
J. Scotto et. al.

"Recent reports of stratospheric ozone depletion have prompted concerns about
the levels of solar ultraviolet radiation that reach the earth's surface. 
Since 1974 a network of ground monitoring stations in the United States has
tracked measurements of biologically effective ultraviolet radiation (UVB,
290 to 330 nanometers).  The fact that no increases of UVB have been detected
at ground levels from 1974 to 1985 suggests that meteorological, climatic, 
and environmental factors in the troposphere may play a greater role in
attenuating UVB radiation than was previously suspected."
---------------------

The data in the paper actually show a 0.7% DECREASE per year.  Perhaps, 
before we panic and replace clorinated fluorocarbons with something that
could be MORE dangerous, we should calm down and look at ALL the data. 

Meanwhile, remember to put the cover back on the board cleaning tank.

-- 
Keith Lofstrom   ...!tektronix!vice!keithl   keithl@vice.TEK.COM
MS 59-316, Tektronix, PO 500, Beaverton OR 97077  (503)-627-4052

------------------------------

Date: 6 Jul 88 11:13:51 GMT
From: dietz@cu-arpa.cs.cornell.edu  (Paul F. Dietz)
Subject: Re: Ramscoop engine

In article <8807052350.AA00286@angband.s1.gov> C445585@UMCVMB.BITNET writes:
>
>   I've read in various places (Carl Sagan's COSMOS, among others) that a
>ramscoop engine is possible.

Wonderful source.  He's wrong, as far as I know.  There are numerous
apparently insurmountable problems with the concept.  The most obvious
is that fusing ordinary hydrogen is damn near impossible (luckily,
otherwise all stars would burn out quickly). The losses in collecting
and fusing the hydrogen would also likely overcome any thrust produced.
The magnetic fields required are too high.  And so on.

Perhaps a better idea is a variant of an idea by Hans Alfven.  I call
it a "bootstrap rocket".  It uses the interstellar medium as a momentum
sink, not a fuel source.  Basically, the relative motion of the spacecraft
and the ISM is used to drive a generator (type unspecified).  This
exerts a drag force on the spacecraft.  The energy from the generator
is used to power some kind of rocket (using an onboard supply of
reaction mass).  If the exhaust velocity of the rocket is low enough
and the mass flow rate high enough, thrust will exceed drag, and the
spacecraft accelerates. (Exercise: why does this not violate conservation
of energy?)

The ISM, at least in the vicinity of he sun, is pretty sparse, although
some evidence suggests it is substantially ionized, perhaps by a
nearby (100 pc) supernova explosion in the last 10^5 to 10^6 years.
Let's hope the Pioneer and Voyager spacecraft encounter the
heliopause before they expire.

	Paul F. Dietz
	dietz@gvax.cs.cornell.edu

------------------------------

Date: 6 Jul 88 23:25:38 GMT
From: aramis.rutgers.edu!klaatu.rutgers.edu!josh@rutgers.edu  (J Storrs Hall)
Subject: Interstellar Ramscoops


Recent messages to this group indicate that the ramscoop
idea as originally posed may be unworkable because of the 
difficulty/worthlessness of fusion in the collected hydrogen.

Now suppose we carry a small tank of antimatter and use it as an
energy source, merely using the interstellar medium as reaction
mass?  Are the magnetic fields required still too strong?  
We don't have to squeeze nearly so hard, and if the i.m.
*is* ionized already...

--JoSH

------------------------------

Date: 7 Jul 88 01:23:36 GMT
From: yee@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: NASA calls Hubble Space Telescope ground test a success (Forwarded)

Charles Redmond
Headquarters, Washington, D.C.                       July 6, 1988

Michael Braukus
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.


RELEASE: 88-91

NASA CALLS HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE GROUND TEST A SUCCESS


     The most comprehensive ground test ever conducted with 
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (HST) has been called a success by 
NASA despite the challenge of an unplanned anomaly which provided 
an unexpected bonus.
 
     The fourth in a series of ground system tests (GST-4) began 
Monday, June 20, 1988 at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center 
(GSFC), Greenbelt, Md.  It was scheduled to end early Sunday, 
June 26.  This "full-up test" was designed to simulate almost a 
week of space flight operations and involved direct communication 
with the HST located in a clean room at the Lockheed Missiles and 
Space Company, Sunnyvale, Calif.  
 
     "Overall, the test was very successful," said Ron Felice, 
GSFC's deputy project manager of flight operations for HST.  "Up 
until the anomaly, the test had exceeded our expectations in 
terms of science instrument operations, spacecraft operations and 
control room personnel."
 
     The problem developed without warning on Thursday at 5 p.m., 
when the HST's science computer and the instruments were placed 
in a safe mode by the on-board computer system.  The system, 
which is in a pre-planned state, sensed unsafe conditions and 
activated itself for safe mode.  The spacecraft's remaining sub-
systems continued to operate according to the GST-4 time line.

     "Normally that would have been the end of the test," said 
Felice. "Instead, we convened systems and instrument specialists 
and on a real-time basis developed processes to trouble-shoot the 
problem.  Sixteen hours later, we established plans to work 
around the problem and recover safely into the GST-4 time line."

     Felice reported that although NASA technicians are still 
studying the problem, a timing incompatibility between the 
science instruments and their computer appears to have caused the 
problem.  If this proves correct, the problem can be avoided in 
the future by software adjustments.
 
     On Friday at approximately 12:15 p.m., the problem appeared 
again as expected.  "Once again the on-board science computer and 
the instruments went into a safe mode.  This time, because our 
technical people were exhausted from working 30-hours straight, 
we decided not to work the problem and to terminate the science 
portion of the test.  The other elements of GST-4, which did not 
involve the science computer and its instruments, continued until 
late Friday evening when the test was ended."
 
     "Actually the HST's problem was an unexpected bonus for us," 
Felice explained.  "It proved that we have established a team 
that is able to resolve problems involving an extremely complex 
and sophisticated spacecraft."
 
     The HST is scheduled to be carried into space on board the 
Space Shuttle Discovery in 1989.  When placed in orbit, the HST 
will allow astronomers to see farther into the Universe with 
greater clarity than ever before.

     The six scientific instruments the HST will carry are: wide 
field and planetary camera, faint object spectrograph, high speed 
photometer, high resolution spectrograph, faint object camera and 
fine-guidance astrometer.  The faint object camera was provided 
by the European Space Agency.

     The HST is managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, 
Huntsville, Ala.  The GSFC manages the HST's operations and 
observations.  It also manages the Space Telescope Science 
Institute, Baltimore, Md.  Additionally, GSFC manages five of 
HST's six instruments.  HST is a cooperative project with the 
European Space Agency.

------------------------------

Date: 7 Jul 88 03:10:25 GMT
From: thumper!karn@faline.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: Rocket engine

> Designing and constructing rocket engines is largely an art.

I'm not a rocket designer, but I think I can agree with this. When the
second Ariane (L-02) went into the ocean back in 1980, taking AMSAT
Phase 3-A with it, I followed the AW&ST articles that described ESA's
failure analysis and design correction process.

For those of you who don't remember, this launch failed because of
severe combustion instabilities in one of the four hypergolic first
stage Viking engines. The first oscillation occurred barely off the pad;
on the tape you can see a bright flash in the plume before the rocket
even cleared the tower. Later oscillations resulted in the destruction
of the engine. The instabilities were in the 2-3 KHz region.

According to AW&ST, the problem was corrected by enlarging the holes in
the engine fuel/oxidizer injectors and conducting hundreds of test
firings.  I could be wrong, but I got the *very* strong impression that
the process was one of "diddle with it until it works".

Before castigating the "rocket scientists" for their computational
backwardness, however, consider what it would take to model a large
rocket engine like Ariane's Viking on a computer. Pressures in the order
of 50-60 atmospheres. Hypersonic hot gas flows, with extreme variations
in temperature and pressure over very short distances and times. Mass
flows on the order of tons/second.  I don't know how much computational
modeling of rocket engines is going on now, but it has got to be one of
the most demanding CAD jobs around.

Phil

------------------------------

Date: 5 Jul 88 15:39:30 GMT
From: att!whuts!homxb!homxc!pixel@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (J.CONANT)
Subject: Re: New Ideas

In article <2062@ssc-vax.UUCP>, eder@ssc-vax.UUCP (Dani Eder) writes:
[in reference to deorbiting the shuttle with tethers]
> There has been observed by myself and others a 'signal delay' of about five
> years within NASA for new ideas.

	Actually, the Niven & Barnes novel an earlier poster referred to
didn't originate the idea. An ESA scientist - G.Colombo, I believe -
developed the tether concept in lots of neat ways long before their book.
NASA was considering a joint missions with the Italian space agency to
lower an instrument package into the upper atmosphere on a tether,
though the concept seem to have langusihed.

	Jon Leech
	AT&T Pixel Machines
	__@/

------------------------------

Date: 6 Jul 88 17:22:00 GMT
From: a.cs.uiuc.edu!p.cs.uiuc.edu!carey@ee.ecn.purdue.edu
Subject: Re: Ramscoop engine


The ramscoop engine idea is used in larry Niven's books.  I don't know if
he "invented" it.

It is also used in S. Lem's new book "Fiasco."  

The advantage (especially plot-device-wise), is that with constant 
acceleration, no need for fuel-storage, fusion-propulsion of some kind,
you could eventually build up speeds close to the speed of light,
and thus travel long distances in a short period of time (by the reference
of the ship) because of the relativistic effects of near-light speed.

The questions you ask are rarely bothered with in any stories I have
read that have used this.

One more question I can think of off the top of my head -- what happens
to heat dissipation as time slows down?  As the fusion reactor approaches
light-speed, would its heat dissipation also slow down, thus causing
a meltdown?

------------------------------

Date: 6 Jul 88 22:52:17 GMT
From: att!mtuxo!tee@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (54317-T.EBERSOLE)
Subject: re:Radiation in Near-Earth Space (was re: Mir and Solar Flares)

In article <8807051941.AA00877@ll-vlsi.arpa~, glenn@LL-VLSI.ARPA (Glenn Chapman) writes:
~A rather interesting point concerning Mir was made by Bill Higgins of Fermi 
~Lab in a mail message to me. He said:
~>I encountered a brief headline about a "magnetic storm" that's supposed
~>to hit this planet this week and stopped to wonder-- what do the Mir & Salyut
~>cosmonauts do when there's a solar flare?  Obviously they don't pack up
~>and go home. Is there a storm cellar arrangement aboard Mir?  Can you explain
~>the details?
~
~...I would suspect that would give them substantially higher
~radiation levels than normal. It is interesting that they went ahead with
~the space walk under these conditions. 
~

Sorry I have no answers, but to continue the questions, what levels of
radiation have current *-nauts been exposed to? Any data on what has
happened to older astro-cosmo-nauts, which could be attributed to
radiation exposure? Or is LEO fairly benign to the humans who have been
there? Any data on the radiation levels Apollo crews were exposed to?

-- 
Tim Ebersole ...!{allegra,ulysses,ihnp4,mtune,...}!mtuxo!tee

------------------------------

Date: 7 Jul 88 10:16:32 GMT
From: jplpub1!jbrown@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov  (Jordan Brown)
Subject: Re: Rocket engine

In article <1207@thumper.bellcore.com> karn@thumper.bellcore.com (Phil R. Karn) writes:
>... consider what it would take to model a large rocket engine like
>Ariane's Viking on a computer. Pressures in the order of 50-60
>atmospheres. Hypersonic hot gas flows, with extreme variations in
>temperature and pressure over very short distances and times. Mass flows
>on the order of tons/second.

Los Alamos simulates nuclear explosions using their Crays; I suspect that
the pressures and speeds are somewhat larger than in rocket engines.

(they like to make color 16mm films of the explosion in various axes -
temperature, pressure, etc.)

------------------------------

Date: Thu,  7 Jul 88 14:06:48 -0400 (EDT)
From: Ted Anderson <ota+@andrew.cmu.edu>
X-Andrew-Message-Size: 1026+0
Subject: Re: Rocket engine
Date: 6 Jul 88 20:51:19 GMT

Designing and constructing rocket engines is largely an art.  There is
some empirical study involved, but if your think the Shuttle or SV
engines were fully simulated by computer, you are a decade too early.
There have only recently been programs to simulate engine circulation
and these programs are not yet for release outside the US.

Engines are by and large a hack job.  I think you might be able to write
Rocketdyne Division of Rockwell Intl. and get some litearture.  You will
also obviously check the aeronautics section of your library thoroughly.
Sorry, I can't help you much more than that.  We have not yet begun to
make a perfect engine.

Another gross generalization from

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@aurora.arc.nasa.gov
  resident cynic at the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:
  "Mailers?! HA!", "If my mail does not reach you, please accept my apology."
  {uunet,hplabs,ncar,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #287
*******************

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Date: Fri, 22 Jul 88 01:05:59 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8807220805.AA23360@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #288

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 288

Today's Topics:
			Re: NASA news - Seasat
		Re: A New Holiday? (awkward question)
			 Re: Ramscoop engine
			   LPS info request
			   Re: OZONE cont.
	     Comment about science was Re: Rocket engine
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Thu,  7 Jul 88 14:04:19 -0400 (EDT)
From: Ted Anderson <ota+@andrew.cmu.edu>
X-Andrew-Message-Size: 8462+0
Subject: Re: NASA news - Seasat
Date: 6 Jul 88 19:08:03 GMT

A U-2 just took off, must be 1100.  BTW I saw the Nova on Spy Machines.
Thanks for the previous offers.  I go on vacation again and some fool at
NASA HQ has to send a press release out on a skeleton in a closet [well
not that bad].  Let me see if I can address all these notes in
a single article [the last time was grossly misinterpreted].  What's
this doing in space.shuttle?

In article <1003@aplcomm.UUCP> jwm@aplvax.UUCP (Jim Meritt) writes:
>In article <1313@daisy.UUCP> wooding@daisy.UUCP (Mike Wooding) writes:
>} How does the radar altimeter decouple its "height" above ocean
>} surface from the "height" of the ocean's surface? What scales
>} are involved (+-10 meters)? A reference point?
>
>There is an altimeter on the geosat that is a follow-up to the seasat
>one.  I do the real-time processing of the data - you not only get
>"height above ocean", but significant wave height, winds, and a measure
>of roughness off the altimeter.  (probably more, but that is all I lift).
>This can be used to get current "edges", fronts, eddy locations, and all
>kinds of neat stuff.  I asked about satellite oceanography earlier, but
>didn't hear about anyone else using altimeter data for oceanography.

This is basically correct.  Let me sort out some things.  We have
questions of scale and decoupling.  Now, I didn't work on the Altimeter,
(I worked on the SAR) but I had it as a grad school project and talked
to most of the people since they were across the street.

The Altimeter sent out a 1 ns chirp [square wave].  This gave an inherent
resolution of 30 cm (one of GMH's nanoseconds).  This made lots of
assumptions:
1) the spacecraft was oriented perfectly vertically, the reality was at
800 KM a slight difference in angle is critical.  The pulse (chirp) hits
the earth in a spherical manner and it radiates it's point of contact.
Now the footprint was designed to be 1 KM (if this seems gross,
please make an other altimeter suggestion [exer. for reader: why can't
use you a laser: answer: won't penetrate clouds].  Anyway, you send out
this perfectly spherical chirp (pulse of 1 ns thinkness against a
topography of unknown surface roughness, and you get a signal back which
is distorted by troughs and peaks of various wave types or land forms.
(Like plane cross-sections).  Yes, you can get undersea features like
canyons and seamounts, but all the instrument does is solve D=cT.

The decoupling isn't done using ground stations in realtime, much too
expensive and the real-time compute and relativistic effect is murder.
Basically I have would have to summarize this book on Accuracy
Assessment of Orbit and Height Measurement for Seasat.  There are models
for satellite orbit which take gravitational anomalies in account, these
are plugged into the T data and the sea height and state are "solved."
Remember this is all done in nano seconds precision.


Also written:
>The position of the satellite can be determined in three-space (X, Y
>and Z co-ordinates, with no reference to the radius of the Earth), by
>the use of radar data from several observers.  Studies of the motion

This was done infrequently as verification.  I have the list of tracking
station, but it was not radar, only radio.

>derived mathematically from the parameters of the reference geoid,
>which was derived from studies of satellite motion in three-space, not
>satellite altitude.  The expected mean sea level can then be compared
>with the actual sea level observed by the radar altimeter, to
>determine the variations caused by tides, waves, and meteorologic
>phenomena.
>
>An aside on SeaSat 1 -- The satellite failed some time before the end
>of its expected service life.  A persistent rumor states that it was
>intentionally disabled, possibly by aiming sensors at the Sun; the
>purported explanation was that it was able to detect the wakes of
>ballistic-missile submarines.
>
>Kevin Kenny                       UUCP: {ihnp4,pur-ee,convex}!uiucdcs!kenny

Also:
>status. I've met one of the engineers in charge of building and
>testing Seasat, and he is still bitter about what happened. It was
>paul cooper

I will be curious, who?

Lee @ JPL wrote:
>The investigation into the failure of Seasat assigned the probable
>cause to a short across the slip rings that transfer the power
>generated by the solar cells to the power buss where the solar panels
>rotate.  They attributed this to the poor design of the slip rings
>that had the various voltages (48 rings) alternating plus and minus,
>creating the maximun potential to catastrophic electical short.  It
>was shown  that there was a galling problem (in the ring bearings I
>believe) that created metal slivers.  These slivers more than likely
>shorted the main power buss at the rings. The telemetery showed large
>voltage and current excursions in the milliseconds prior to loss of
>signal from the spacecraft.
>
>I too have heard unconfirmed rumors of the possibility that SSBM wakes
>could be seen in the radar imaging data.  I was clear on the images
>that I saw that surface wakes were very visible.
>
>The spacecraft lasted only 90 days in a planned life of one year.  I
>have had people tell me that they were not unhappy that the spacecraft
>had shut down because of the enourmous quantity of data that was
>pouring in.

We called Seasat-A then -1 after launch (B's and C's were planned as
exercises).  The "slip ring" on the Agena bus was the cited case of
failure by the Congressional Investigative Service.  LMSC [Lockheed
Sunnyvale] had the burden slapped on them.  They had "gotten too lax in
the quality control on Agena boosters.  You have to understand this
satellite was slapped together with parts of an existing booster, not
designed from scratch.  JPL's scientists were too lax in overseeing
LMSC Corp.  So said Congress.  So how would you lose $90M of the
People's money?

Regarding FMB subs: shortly before I came on board the project, the
Navy Department came by and the SAR group had discussions about
resolution, visibility, etc.  They didn't want this thing flying at all.
Fortunately, other parts of the Navy like the Numerical Weather Central
people did want it.  Compromises were made.  This is the SAR now, not
the altimeter.  [Oh, SAR== Synthetic Aperature Radar, aka Side-looking
Radar, SLAR].  These fears were partially unfounded because the digital
processing time for one image was 2 weeks.  Partially because it could
show where they had been rather than where they were.

Optically processed images came out in about a week.

Anyway, the project is over, reports are made, a few images were made,
SIR [Shuttle Imaging Radar] is off the ground [having a few problems].
Most of the data sits unused.  Time for other projects (in this case
Magellan).

Some reflections, the other day someone stopped me at PARC and noticed
an old and faded Project sticker and expressed the conspiracy theory
yet again [tired of this].  Launching money into orbit is a sticky
thing.  One senior engineer (who will go unnamed) was hoping the Atlas
was blow up on the pad at VAFB because there were no indication his
antenna would unfold in 0-G.  I know others who felt the same way about
the kludges they had installed and got flight certified.  It's like
saying, "Your next school project will make or break your future."
No second chances.

Anyway, we launched at 6:01 PDT. Into the fog, gone in 3 seconds.
We went to Solvang for dinner (about 30 miles from where I went to
college).  Quite a birthday present, three of us (Vickie, myself, and
Dave Drake [now at DEC]) -1,0,+2 days).

BTW: Dave and I tried getting an early v6 Unix system running on a
PDP-11/34 [without MMU].  We learned of Joe Ossanna's satellite tracker
[azel] which was not distributed, too bad, we were the space program.
Years later, I got "track" from Phil Karn [thanks Phil].  And I
occasionally run track with seasat-1 and watch the numbers tick by.
It reminds me a bit of the old film Robinson Crusoe on Mars knowing
something up there is orbiting because of thing you did.

Another gross generalization from

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@aurora.arc.nasa.gov
  resident cynic at the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:
  "Mailers?! HA!", "If my mail does not reach you, please accept my apology."
  {uunet,hplabs,ncar,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."

Lee, if you want track, I don't think Phil would object.

------------------------------

Date:         Thu, 07 Jul 88 13:05:16 CDT
From: Jonathan C. Sadow <GEOS21%UHUPVM1.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Subject:      Re: A New Holiday? (awkward question)

cfa!cfa250!mcdowell@husc6.harvard.edu  (Jonathan McDowell) writes:

>From article <3606@okstate.UUCP>, by richard@a.cs.okstate.edu (Richard Brown):
>> Is my memory playing tricks on me?  I had always thought the actual
>> _landing_ took place on 19 July (Oklahoma time).  The EVA was
>> postponed until the crew had rested, &c.  The "...giant leap for
>> mankind" occurred after midnight.
>
>Yes, your memory is a day out - the landing was on 20 July at 2017:45 UT
>which is 20 July at 1517:45 Oklahoma time (I think?); the EVA was something
>like 0200-0300 UT on 21 July, or late evening 20 July US time.

For the sake of future reference, the official time at which Neil Armstrong
first stepped on the lunar surface is 02:56:20 UT on 21 July 1969, and the
EVA lasted 2 hours and 31 minutes.

Jonathan Sadow
GEOS21@UHUPVM1.BITNET

------------------------------

Date: 7 Jul 88 16:40:25 GMT
From: ecsvax!dgary@mcnc.org  (D Gary Grady)
Subject: Re: Ramscoop engine

In article <74700090@p.cs.uiuc.edu> carey@p.cs.uiuc.edu writes:
>
>The ramscoop engine idea is used in larry Niven's books.  I don't know if
>he "invented" it.

I believe the "interstellar ramjet" was first proposed in the 60s by
Bussard.  Someone has walked off with my reference, however.  The first
place I read about it was in an article by Ben Bova about 1965.

>The advantage (especially plot-device-wise), is that with constant 
>acceleration, no need for fuel-storage, fusion-propulsion of some kind,
>you could eventually build up speeds close to the speed of light,
>and thus travel long distances in a short period of time (by the reference
>of the ship) because of the relativistic effects of near-light speed.

Assuming constant one-G acceleration to the halfway point and one-G
deceleration to the destination, it turns out that one could reach the
Andromeda Galaxy in something like 25 years of ship time.  Of course,
the trip would be one-way, since things back home would have changed a
mite by the time you returned...

Criticisms of the concept based on current technology are a little silly
-- rather like a 17th-Century physicist pointing out the problems of
sending a probe to Neptune.  We can hypothesize that hundreds of years
hence we'll be able to fuse protium, to create magnetic scoop fields
as big as North America, and to blast any asteroids in our way.  On the
other hand, I have to admit that I wonder how the passengers would
survive the incident radiation, all blue-shifted into very nasty X-rays.
Maybe shielding made of degenerate matter?  Who knows!

There's a Poul Anderson novel published both as _Tau Zero_ and _To
Outlive Eternity_ (I think) about passengers on a runaway Bussard ramjet
that just keeps accelerating.  Presumably they wind up at the restaurant
at the end of the universe.
-- 
D Gary Grady
(919) 286-4296
USENET:  {seismo,decvax,ihnp4,akgua,etc.}!mcnc!ecsvax!dgary
BITNET:  dgary@ecsvax.bitnet

------------------------------

Date: 4 Jul 88 22:14:00 GMT
From: silver!sl144003@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu
Subject: LPS info request


Hello everyone. I was wondering if anyone out in netland knows anything about,
or can direct to me to information regarding the Shuttle Launch Process 
System, GOAL (I believe it stands for Ground Operations Aerospace Language) or
the current state of contract affairs regarding the Launch Process System.

Please send email - if there is enough feedback I will summarize the responses
and post, since this information might be of interest to other 
sci.space and .shuttle followers.

Thanks in advance,

-John Copella

sl144003@silver.bacs.indiana.edu
ihnp4!inuxc!iuvax!silver!sl144003

------------------------------

Date: 7 Jul 88 17:38:32 GMT
From: ubvax!unisv!vanpelt@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Mike Van Pelt)
Subject: Re: OZONE cont.

In article <2655@vice.TEK.COM> keithl@vice.UUCP (Keith Lofstrom) writes:
>I'm sure to get flamed for this:

 No doubt.  By your flagrant doubting of Conventional Wisdom, you are
 obviously guilty of ThoughtCrime.

>Biologically Effective Ultraviolet Radiation:
>Surface Measurements in the United States, 1974 to 1985
>J. Scotto et. al.

 [fascinating paper, the very first words I've yet seen on what ought
  to be the real issue -- how much UV is actually reaching the ground?]

>The data in the paper actually show a 0.7% DECREASE [in UV-B] per year.
>Perhaps, before we panic and replace clorinated fluorocarbons with something
>that could be MORE dangerous, we should calm down and look at ALL the data. 

Now that's a fascinating statistic.  It's always seemed to me that if
somehow you were to get rid of the ozone in the upper atmosphere, you'd
just get ozone production at a lower altitude.  After all, short-wave UV
does a pretty good job creating ozone from ordinary oxygen.

I'm glad that someone has FINALLY measured the actual ground-level UV,
instead of just assuming that upper atmospheric ozone is the only
thing attenuating UV.
-- 
"Dreams of flight are universal among space-faring  | Mike Van Pelt
 races, and may form much of the motivation for     | Unisys, Silicon Valley
 becoming space-faring."   --  T'chaih Hrinach      | vanpelt@unisv.UUCP

------------------------------

Date: 7 Jul 88 22:07:10 GMT
From: pioneer.arc.nasa.gov!eugene@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Eugene N. Miya)
Subject: Comment about science was Re: Rocket engine

In article <1207@thumper.bellcore.com> karn@thumper.bellcore.com (Phil R. Karn) writes:
I wrote:
>> Designing and constructing rocket engines is largely an art.
>
>I'm not a rocket designer, but I think I can agree with this. 
>
> . . .
>Before castigating the "rocket scientists" for their computational
>backwardness, however, consider what it would take to model a large
>rocket engine like Ariane's Viking on a computer. Pressures in the order
>of 50-60 atmospheres. Hypersonic hot gas flows, with extreme variations
>in temperature and pressure over very short distances and times. Mass
>flows on the order of tons/second.  I don't know how much computational
>modeling of rocket engines is going on now, but it has got to be one of
>the most demanding CAD jobs around.

There is a somewhat alarming thing about some computer people (I think
Phil knows this, he's not one, but I want the net to understand this):
There is a whole lot of this universe which we don't understand.  Some
people view the world as a place where we knows lots, in fact, some go
so far to say, that all that needs inventing has been invented.  That's
none of you right?

One of my favorite quotes (it's in the Unix fortunes someplace goes
"there's a disturbing trend that there is a lot  more unknown stuff
out there than previosuly thought" or something like that, I buchered
this.  Anyway, that's why I'm into science.  That's what distinguished
science from engineering: engineering seeks to find answrs, but science
seeks to understand the questions, and there are a lot of questions.

The problem is you only here various people's ANSWERs here.  Some one
types a note (me included) and some people go off and take things as teh
word of God.  It's like the early laser printing systems (or Xeroxes),
wow! if they went to the trouble of typesetting the stuff it must be
correct!

The truth is, we only have opinions.  We don't understand very much
about our world, and we haven't been on it very long.

From: jbrown@jplpub1.jpl.nasa.gov (Jordan Brown)
>Los Alamos simulates nuclear explosions using their Crays; I suspect that
>the pressures and speeds are somewhat larger than in rocket engines.
>(they like to make color 16mm films of the explosion in various axes -
>temperature, pressure, etc.)

Well, that's very interesting!  I will have to tell my officemate
George!  Maybe the guys at Livermore (Livenomore) can use that method,
too.  Well, I'm being facietous.

Well, see, we are in the business of building models (I keep telling
myself this).  Models get replaced with better models and the cycle
should have some transference.  The key is to model the right thing,
maybe something isn't right about a model, maybe we don't understand ho
ozone is formed (we don't).

Some years ago, I was escorting a VIP around JPL.  We stopped by the
computer graphics lab, and Blinn gave one of his early flyby demos.
As we were walking away, this VIP said, "Great!  We can simulate this
all on a computer!  We don't have to fly to these outer planets! So
expensive, this is much cheaper!"

No: most airplanes don't have electronic computers in them.  I had to
tell this to a noted computer scientist.

Our problem is differentiating reality from what we think we know and
what we would like to exist.  Science has this great way of
pontificating (like networks), but we forgot what distinguishes science
from philosophy and mathematics is testing, verification, rebuilding,
etc.

Anyways, I have pontificated myself too much as late, I should get back
to my ETA-10.

Another gross generalization from

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@aurora.arc.nasa.gov
  resident cynic at the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:
  "Mailers?! HA!", "If my mail does not reach you, please accept my apology."
  {uunet,hplabs,ncar,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #288
*******************

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Date: Fri, 22 Jul 88 19:06:06 PDT
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Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #289

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 289

Today's Topics:
		  Salyut 7 overflights in SpaceWeek
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 10 Jul 88 05:39:00 GMT
From: a.cs.uiuc.edu!m.cs.uiuc.edu!kenny@ee.ecn.purdue.edu
Subject: Salyut 7 overflights in SpaceWeek


City and state           Azim Elev  RA    Decl Range   Date and time
Akron, OH              	 33.7 71.0 18:49 +55.7   485 Tue Jul 19 23:08:06 EDT
Akron, OH              	 32.2 59.1 19:34 +63.0   530 Wed Jul 20 22:35:42 EDT
Akron, OH              	 30.5 49.8 20:27 +67.1   589 Thu Jul 21 22:03:17 EDT
Akron, OH              	224.0 32.7 14:54  -5.8   793 Sat Jul 23 22:36:13 EDT
Akron, OH              	222.5 40.0 14:45  -0.1   686 Sun Jul 24 22:03:51 EDT
Albany, NY             	 25.1 41.6 23:05 +71.4   666 Sun Jul 17 22:36:00 EDT
Albany, NY             	 23.2 36.8 23:38 +71.3   726 Mon Jul 18 22:03:35 EDT
Albany, NY             	 21.4 33.1 23:59 +70.7   785 Tue Jul 19 21:31:09 EDT
Albany, NY             	217.7 58.7 16:21 +16.1   533 Wed Jul 20 22:36:44 EDT
Albany, NY             	216.1 71.4 16:21 +26.9   485 Thu Jul 21 22:04:22 EDT
Albany, NY             	214.7 85.4 16:28 +38.8   462 Fri Jul 22 21:31:58 EDT
Albuquerque, NM        	223.4 81.8 16:47 +29.0   465 Sat Jul 23 22:11:00 MDT
Albuquerque, NM        	 41.6 79.3 17:23 +42.7   468 Sun Jul 24 21:38:36 MDT
Allentown, PA          	 34.7 88.7 17:35 +41.6   461 Wed Jul 20 22:36:48 EDT
Allentown, PA          	 34.8 73.8 18:04 +53.0   478 Thu Jul 21 22:04:24 EDT
Allentown, PA          	 33.2 61.2 18:47 +61.2   521 Fri Jul 22 21:31:59 EDT
Altoona, PA            	 34.4 69.2 18:43 +56.1   490 Wed Jul 20 22:36:19 EDT
Altoona, PA            	 32.8 57.4 19:31 +63.0   539 Thu Jul 21 22:03:55 EDT
Altoona, PA            	224.5 32.7 14:37  -6.1   794 Sun Jul 24 22:04:25 EDT
Amarillo, TX           	 35.3 32.5 23:00 +60.7   794 Wed Jul 20 23:11:06 CDT
Amarillo, TX           	224.9 61.6 15:44 +13.4   519 Sun Jul 24 22:39:21 CDT
Ann Arbor, MI          	 33.2 85.6 18:08 +45.9   462 Mon Jul 18 23:39:56 EDT
Ann Arbor, MI          	 32.0 72.2 18:33 +56.3   482 Tue Jul 19 23:07:33 EDT
Ann Arbor, MI          	 30.3 60.9 19:12 +64.0   521 Wed Jul 20 22:35:08 EDT
Ann Arbor, MI          	222.6 34.2 14:52  -4.1   768 Sat Jul 23 22:35:40 EDT
Ann Arbor, MI          	221.0 41.6 14:43  +1.7   667 Sun Jul 24 22:03:17 EDT
Arlington, VA          	 35.6 59.7 19:46 +59.5   528 Wed Jul 20 22:36:48 EDT
Arlington, VA          	 33.9 49.1 20:39 +63.8   595 Thu Jul 21 22:04:23 EDT
Arlington, VA          	 32.2 41.1 21:25 +65.3   672 Fri Jul 22 21:31:57 EDT
Arlington, VA          	225.3 35.3 14:46  -4.8   751 Sun Jul 24 22:04:55 EDT
Asheville, NC          	223.4 74.5 16:29 +23.8   477 Sat Jul 23 22:37:05 EDT
Asheville, NC          	 40.8 86.8 16:57 +38.0   462 Sun Jul 24 22:04:41 EDT
Ashland, KY            	 33.3 43.1 22:05 +64.5   650 Tue Jul 19 23:08:18 EDT
Ashland, KY            	 31.6 36.4 22:41 +64.9   733 Wed Jul 20 22:35:53 EDT
Ashland, KY            	 29.9 31.2 23:03 +64.6   819 Thu Jul 21 22:03:26 EDT
Ashland, KY            	223.3 50.5 15:30  +6.8   585 Sat Jul 23 22:36:32 EDT
Ashland, KY            	221.7 63.8 15:34 +17.5   510 Sun Jul 24 22:04:08 EDT
Atlanta, GA            	 42.2 71.2 18:21 +46.4   486 Sat Jul 23 22:37:07 EDT
Atlanta, GA            	 40.9 55.7 19:16 +54.4   550 Sun Jul 24 22:04:42 EDT
Atlantic City, NJ      	 37.1 81.2 18:06 +46.2   466 Wed Jul 20 22:37:11 EDT
Atlantic City, NJ      	 35.6 66.5 18:46 +56.3   500 Thu Jul 21 22:04:46 EDT
Atlantic City, NJ      	 34.1 54.6 19:38 +62.6   556 Fri Jul 22 21:32:21 EDT
Augusta, GA            	 42.3 69.3 18:11 +47.2   492 Sun Jul 24 22:05:10 EDT
Augusta, ME            	 27.9 70.0 18:59 +60.8   488 Sun Jul 17 22:36:30 EDT
Augusta, ME            	 26.1 60.5 19:32 +67.5   523 Mon Jul 18 22:04:06 EDT
Augusta, ME            	 24.4 52.9 20:18 +71.8   566 Tue Jul 19 21:31:42 EDT
Augusta, ME            	220.6 33.6 15:43  -3.8   778 Wed Jul 20 22:37:04 EDT
Augusta, ME            	219.0 40.2 15:31  +1.5   683 Thu Jul 21 22:04:42 EDT
Augusta, ME            	217.3 48.3 15:21  +8.3   601 Fri Jul 22 21:32:20 EDT
Bakersfield, CA        	 38.3 48.3 20:52 +59.1   602 Thu Jul 21 22:13:43 PDT
Bakersfield, CA        	 36.7 39.3 21:35 +60.8   695 Fri Jul 22 21:41:17 PDT
Bakersfield, CA        	 35.1 32.6 22:02 +60.9   795 Sat Jul 23 21:08:50 PDT
Baltimore, MD          	 35.7 66.6 19:05 +56.2   499 Wed Jul 20 22:36:49 EDT
Baltimore, MD          	 34.3 54.7 19:57 +62.4   556 Thu Jul 21 22:04:24 EDT
Baltimore, MD          	 32.6 45.5 20:48 +65.3   626 Fri Jul 22 21:31:59 EDT
Baltimore, MD          	225.7 32.1 14:40  -7.0   805 Sun Jul 24 22:04:54 EDT
Bangor, ME             	 28.4 80.7 18:15 +52.7   466 Sun Jul 17 22:36:37 EDT
Bangor, ME             	 26.8 70.0 18:33 +61.5   488 Mon Jul 18 22:04:13 EDT
Bangor, ME             	 25.1 60.9 19:03 +68.1   521 Tue Jul 19 21:31:49 EDT
Bangor, ME             	219.7 34.9 15:23  -2.6   757 Thu Jul 21 22:04:46 EDT
Bangor, ME             	218.0 41.6 15:12  +2.9   666 Fri Jul 22 21:32:24 EDT
Battle Creek, MI       	 32.5 77.5 18:32 +52.4   471 Mon Jul 18 23:39:42 EDT
Battle Creek, MI       	 31.0 65.3 19:05 +61.2   503 Tue Jul 19 23:07:18 EDT
Battle Creek, MI       	 29.4 55.4 19:52 +67.0   551 Wed Jul 20 22:34:53 EDT
Battle Creek, MI       	223.2 31.7 15:08  -6.1   812 Fri Jul 22 23:07:49 EDT
Battle Creek, MI       	221.6 38.4 14:57  -0.9   706 Sat Jul 23 22:35:27 EDT
Bay City, MI           	 16.7 30.9 01:16 +71.7   824 Sun Jul 17 22:34:01 EDT
Bay City, MI           	214.3 79.2 17:23 +34.4   468 Mon Jul 18 23:39:43 EDT
Bay City, MI           	 31.0 87.4 17:32 +45.8   461 Tue Jul 19 23:07:20 EDT
Bay City, MI           	 30.1 74.9 17:50 +56.0   476 Wed Jul 20 22:34:56 EDT
Bay City, MI           	222.5 29.6 14:43  -7.1   853 Sat Jul 23 22:35:24 EDT
Bellingham, WA         	205.9 65.8 17:00 +26.3   501 Sat Jul 16 23:15:15 PDT
Bellingham, WA         	204.0 74.3 16:47 +34.1   477 Sun Jul 17 22:42:53 PDT
Berkeley, CA           	 35.8 52.2 20:18 +61.3   572 Thu Jul 21 22:12:44 PDT
Berkeley, CA           	 34.2 43.0 21:07 +63.7   651 Fri Jul 22 21:40:18 PDT
Bethlehem, PA          	 31.2 89.6 17:33 +41.0   461 Wed Jul 20 22:36:49 EDT
Bethlehem, PA          	 34.8 74.6 18:01 +52.5   477 Thu Jul 21 22:04:25 EDT
Bethlehem, PA          	 33.2 61.8 18:43 +60.9   518 Fri Jul 22 21:32:00 EDT
Billings, MT           	 16.0 42.9 23:13 +78.2   650 Sun Jul 17 22:07:34 MDT
Billings, MT           	213.1 59.3 16:40 +18.6   528 Mon Jul 18 23:13:08 MDT
Billings, MT           	211.4 70.0 16:33 +28.0   487 Tue Jul 19 22:40:46 MDT
Billings, MT           	209.6 81.4 16:29 +38.2   464 Wed Jul 20 22:08:23 MDT
Binghamton, NY         	 23.4 34.1 00:20 +70.0   768 Sun Jul 17 22:35:40 EDT
Binghamton, NY         	 21.5 30.6 00:35 +69.3   830 Mon Jul 18 22:03:14 EDT
Binghamton, NY         	216.3 76.6 16:52 +30.9   473 Wed Jul 20 22:36:29 EDT
Binghamton, NY         	 32.8 88.9 17:04 +43.1   461 Thu Jul 21 22:04:06 EDT
Binghamton, NY         	 32.7 75.0 17:27 +54.0   476 Fri Jul 22 21:31:41 EDT
Birmingham, AL         	 40.9 53.4 19:49 +55.0   565 Sat Jul 23 21:36:45 CDT
Birmingham, AL         	 39.4 42.4 20:38 +58.0   658 Sun Jul 24 21:04:19 CDT
Bismarck, ND           	 22.1 71.5 18:12 +63.2   483 Sun Jul 17 23:08:51 CDT
Bismarck, ND           	217.1 34.6 15:52  -2.0   759 Tue Jul 19 23:41:48 CDT
Bismarck, ND           	215.4 40.7 15:38  +3.0   677 Wed Jul 20 23:09:27 CDT
Bismarck, ND           	213.7 47.8 15:26  +9.1   605 Thu Jul 21 22:37:05 CDT
Bloomington, IL        	 30.1 43.6 22:20 +67.5   645 Mon Jul 18 22:39:18 CDT
Bloomington, IL        	 28.4 37.5 22:57 +67.8   717 Tue Jul 19 22:06:52 CDT
Bloomington, IL        	 26.6 32.7 23:21 +67.4   791 Wed Jul 20 21:34:26 CDT
Bloomington, IL        	220.7 56.5 15:49 +12.9   545 Fri Jul 22 22:07:34 CDT
Bloomington, IL        	219.0 70.1 15:53 +24.1   488 Sat Jul 23 21:35:11 CDT
Boise, ID              	 28.9 67.7 19:15 +61.5   494 Sun Jul 17 23:44:33 MDT
Boise, ID              	 27.3 58.1 19:55 +67.8   534 Mon Jul 18 23:12:09 MDT
Boise, ID              	 25.5 50.5 20:45 +71.4   583 Tue Jul 19 22:39:44 MDT
Boise, ID              	219.9 39.9 15:31  +0.9   686 Thu Jul 21 23:12:45 MDT
Boise, ID              	218.2 48.2 15:22  +7.8   601 Fri Jul 22 22:40:22 MDT
Boston, MA             	 27.2 46.4 22:12 +70.2   617 Sun Jul 17 22:36:32 EDT
Boston, MA             	 25.4 40.5 22:56 +70.9   678 Mon Jul 18 22:04:07 EDT
Boston, MA             	 23.6 35.9 23:27 +70.7   740 Tue Jul 19 21:31:41 EDT
Boston, MA             	219.7 48.5 16:08  +7.3   600 Wed Jul 20 22:37:13 EDT
Boston, MA             	218.0 59.4 16:04 +16.4   530 Thu Jul 21 22:04:50 EDT
Boston, MA             	216.4 72.3 16:05 +27.5   482 Fri Jul 22 21:32:27 EDT
Bowling Green, KY      	348.5 90.0 16:59 +37.0   461 Sat Jul 23 21:36:12 CDT
Bowling Green, KY      	 39.2 72.8 17:37 +49.3   481 Sun Jul 24 21:03:47 CDT
Brattleboro, VT        	 26.0 46.0 22:16 +71.3   621 Sun Jul 17 22:36:12 EDT
Brattleboro, VT        	 24.2 40.4 23:00 +71.8   680 Mon Jul 18 22:03:47 EDT
Brattleboro, VT        	 22.3 36.0 23:30 +71.5   738 Tue Jul 19 21:31:21 EDT
Brattleboro, VT        	218.7 51.4 16:10 +10.1   578 Wed Jul 20 22:36:54 EDT
Brattleboro, VT        	216.9 62.7 16:06 +19.6   514 Thu Jul 21 22:04:31 EDT
Brattleboro, VT        	215.3 75.8 16:08 +30.8   474 Fri Jul 22 21:32:08 EDT
Bridgeport, CT         	 25.6 34.2 00:11 +68.6   767 Sun Jul 17 22:36:17 EDT
Bridgeport, CT         	 23.8 30.3 00:27 +68.0   836 Mon Jul 18 22:03:51 EDT
Bridgeport, CT         	218.2 69.7 16:46 +24.4   489 Wed Jul 20 22:37:05 EDT
Bridgeport, CT         	216.5 84.7 16:56 +36.8   463 Thu Jul 21 22:04:41 EDT
Bridgeport, CT         	 34.7 80.3 17:17 +48.9   467 Fri Jul 22 21:32:17 EDT
Brockton, MA           	 27.3 44.5 22:32 +70.1   635 Sun Jul 17 22:36:34 EDT
Brockton, MA           	 25.4 38.9 23:12 +70.5   699 Mon Jul 18 22:04:09 EDT
Brockton, MA           	 23.6 34.5 23:39 +70.0   762 Tue Jul 19 21:31:43 EDT
Brockton, MA           	218.0 61.7 16:09 +18.2   519 Thu Jul 21 22:04:53 EDT
Brockton, MA           	216.5 75.2 16:12 +29.7   476 Fri Jul 22 21:32:30 EDT
Buffalo, NY            	 20.9 33.5 00:35 +71.2   777 Sun Jul 17 22:35:02 EDT
Buffalo, NY            	 19.0 30.5 00:47 +70.4   832 Mon Jul 18 22:02:36 EDT
Buffalo, NY            	215.8 71.7 16:58 +27.4   483 Tue Jul 19 23:08:16 EDT
Buffalo, NY            	215.5 85.6 17:03 +39.2   462 Wed Jul 20 22:35:53 EDT
Buffalo, NY            	 32.1 80.7 17:19 +50.5   466 Thu Jul 21 22:03:29 EDT
Burlington, VT         	 25.4 58.2 20:06 +69.3   535 Sun Jul 17 22:35:53 EDT
Burlington, VT         	 23.5 51.1 20:54 +73.0   579 Mon Jul 18 22:03:29 EDT
Burlington, VT         	218.2 43.0 15:52  +3.8   652 Wed Jul 20 22:36:31 EDT
Burlington, VT         	216.5 51.6 15:43 +11.1   576 Thu Jul 21 22:04:09 EDT
Butte, MT              	211.8 64.6 17:03 +23.4   504 Sun Jul 17 23:44:50 MDT
Butte, MT              	210.1 75.6 16:57 +33.2   473 Mon Jul 18 23:12:27 MDT
Butte, MT              	208.9 87.0 16:55 +43.3   459 Tue Jul 19 22:40:04 MDT
Cambridge, MA          	 27.2 46.4 22:13 +70.3   618 Sun Jul 17 22:36:31 EDT
Cambridge, MA          	 25.4 40.5 22:56 +71.0   679 Mon Jul 18 22:04:06 EDT
Cambridge, MA          	 23.5 35.8 23:27 +70.7   741 Tue Jul 19 21:31:40 EDT
Cambridge, MA          	219.7 48.6 16:08  +7.5   599 Wed Jul 20 22:37:12 EDT
Cambridge, MA          	218.0 59.5 16:05 +16.6   529 Thu Jul 21 22:04:50 EDT
Cambridge, MA          	216.4 72.5 16:06 +27.7   482 Fri Jul 22 21:32:26 EDT
Camden, NJ             	 36.5 83.3 17:55 +45.2   464 Wed Jul 20 22:36:58 EDT
Camden, NJ             	 35.1 68.7 18:31 +55.7   492 Thu Jul 21 22:04:34 EDT
Camden, NJ             	 33.6 56.7 19:21 +62.5   544 Fri Jul 22 21:32:09 EDT
Canton, OH             	 33.8 68.6 19:03 +56.9   492 Tue Jul 19 23:08:10 EDT
Canton, OH             	 32.3 57.1 19:50 +63.7   541 Wed Jul 20 22:35:46 EDT
Canton, OH             	 30.6 48.0 20:43 +67.1   603 Thu Jul 21 22:03:21 EDT
Canton, OH             	224.1 33.4 14:56  -5.4   781 Sat Jul 23 22:36:17 EDT
Canton, OH             	222.6 41.0 14:48  +0.5   674 Sun Jul 24 22:03:55 EDT
Carson City, NV        	 37.2 79.2 17:53 +47.4   467 Thu Jul 21 22:12:57 PDT
Carson City, NV        	 35.7 64.7 18:35 +57.1   505 Fri Jul 22 21:40:32 PDT
Cedar Rapids, IA       	 29.7 53.9 21:03 +67.0   560 Sun Jul 17 23:11:01 CDT
Cedar Rapids, IA       	 28.0 46.2 21:55 +69.6   619 Mon Jul 18 22:38:37 CDT
Cedar Rapids, IA       	 26.2 40.2 22:38 +70.3   683 Tue Jul 19 22:06:11 CDT
Cedar Rapids, IA       	220.4 47.2 15:48  +6.1   611 Thu Jul 21 22:39:16 CDT
Cedar Rapids, IA       	218.7 58.0 15:44 +15.1   536 Fri Jul 22 22:06:54 CDT
Cedar Rapids, IA       	217.1 71.0 15:46 +26.1   485 Sat Jul 23 21:34:30 CDT
Central Islip, NY      	 25.7 32.2 00:26 +67.8   801 Sun Jul 17 22:36:20 EDT
Central Islip, NY      	218.3 73.9 16:56 +27.6   479 Wed Jul 20 22:37:08 EDT
Central Islip, NY      	219.6 89.4 17:10 +40.3   461 Thu Jul 21 22:04:45 EDT
Central Islip, NY      	 34.7 75.7 17:36 +51.9   475 Fri Jul 22 21:32:21 EDT
Champaign, IL          	 30.7 43.4 22:22 +67.0   647 Mon Jul 18 22:39:29 CDT
Champaign, IL          	 29.0 37.2 22:59 +67.3   721 Tue Jul 19 22:07:03 CDT
Champaign, IL          	 27.2 32.4 23:22 +66.9   798 Wed Jul 20 21:34:37 CDT
Champaign, IL          	221.2 55.5 15:49 +11.8   551 Fri Jul 22 22:07:45 CDT
Champaign, IL          	219.5 69.1 15:53 +23.0   491 Sat Jul 23 21:35:22 CDT
Charleston, SC         	 43.5 78.3 17:40 +40.8   471 Sun Jul 24 22:05:38 EDT
Charleston, WV         	 34.1 45.8 21:44 +63.9   623 Tue Jul 19 23:08:30 EDT
Charleston, WV         	 32.4 38.4 22:25 +64.8   706 Wed Jul 20 22:36:05 EDT
Charleston, WV         	 30.7 32.7 22:51 +64.6   792 Thu Jul 21 22:03:38 EDT
Charleston, WV         	224.0 46.5 15:24  +3.5   618 Sat Jul 23 22:36:43 EDT
Charleston, WV         	222.5 58.7 15:25 +13.3   534 Sun Jul 24 22:04:19 EDT
Charlotte, NC          	223.2 83.2 16:32 +30.2   465 Sun Jul 24 22:05:01 EDT
Chattanooga, TN        	 41.5 77.5 17:50 +43.9   472 Sat Jul 23 22:36:44 EDT
Chattanooga, TN        	 40.1 61.2 18:41 +53.6   521 Sun Jul 24 22:04:19 EDT
Cheyenne, WY           	 34.1 74.6 18:33 +53.1   475 Tue Jul 19 22:42:03 MDT
Cheyenne, WY           	 32.5 62.1 19:14 +61.5   514 Wed Jul 20 22:09:39 MDT
Cheyenne, WY           	 30.9 52.1 20:06 +66.4   570 Thu Jul 21 21:37:14 MDT
Cheyenne, WY           	224.4 31.0 14:51  -7.1   823 Sat Jul 23 22:10:09 MDT
Cheyenne, WY           	222.9 37.8 14:41  -1.9   712 Sun Jul 24 21:37:47 MDT
Chicago, IL            	 31.0 60.1 20:00 +63.7   526 Mon Jul 18 22:39:20 CDT
Chicago, IL            	 29.3 51.0 20:51 +68.0   580 Tue Jul 19 22:06:56 CDT
Chicago, IL            	 27.5 43.8 21:41 +69.8   642 Wed Jul 20 21:34:30 CDT
Chicago, IL            	221.5 41.2 15:22  +1.1   672 Fri Jul 22 22:07:32 CDT
Chicago, IL            	220.0 50.5 15:15  +8.7   584 Sat Jul 23 21:35:09 CDT
Cincinnatti, OH        	 31.9 41.2 22:22 +65.7   671 Tue Jul 19 23:07:53 EDT
Cincinnatti, OH        	 30.2 35.1 22:53 +65.7   752 Wed Jul 20 22:35:27 EDT
Cincinnatti, OH        	 28.4 30.4 23:12 +65.2   835 Thu Jul 21 22:03:00 EDT
Cincinnatti, OH        	223.6 44.5 15:37  +2.4   637 Fri Jul 22 23:08:31 EDT
Cincinnatti, OH        	222.1 55.8 15:36 +11.5   549 Sat Jul 23 22:36:08 EDT
Cincinnatti, OH        	220.5 70.0 15:42 +23.0   489 Sun Jul 24 22:03:44 EDT
Cleveland, OH          	 33.5 74.6 18:31 +53.6   477 Tue Jul 19 23:08:01 EDT
Cleveland, OH          	 31.9 62.4 19:11 +61.9   515 Wed Jul 20 22:35:36 EDT
Cleveland, OH          	 30.3 52.5 20:02 +66.8   569 Thu Jul 21 22:03:11 EDT
Cleveland, OH          	223.9 31.7 14:52  -6.4   812 Sat Jul 23 22:36:07 EDT
Cleveland, OH          	222.4 38.6 14:42  -1.1   704 Sun Jul 24 22:03:44 EDT
Colorado Springs, CO   	 34.5 51.9 20:55 +62.8   572 Tue Jul 19 22:42:25 MDT
Colorado Springs, CO   	 32.8 43.2 21:45 +65.0   647 Wed Jul 20 22:10:00 MDT
Colorado Springs, CO   	 31.1 36.6 22:21 +65.4   728 Thu Jul 21 21:37:33 MDT
Colorado Springs, CO   	224.4 40.9 15:12  -0.6   674 Sat Jul 23 22:10:35 MDT
Colorado Springs, CO   	222.9 51.3 15:09  +7.6   577 Sun Jul 24 21:38:12 MDT
Columbia, MO           	 29.5 32.5 00:11 +65.3   796 Sun Jul 17 23:11:19 CDT
Columbia, MO           	220.0 77.6 16:55 +29.1   471 Thu Jul 21 22:39:42 CDT
Columbia, MO           	 37.9 85.7 17:17 +42.3   462 Fri Jul 22 22:07:18 CDT
Columbia, MO           	 36.6 70.1 17:54 +53.5   488 Sat Jul 23 21:34:53 CDT
Columbia, SC           	 42.7 82.0 17:21 +39.7   466 Sun Jul 24 22:05:13 EDT
Columbus, GA           	 42.1 55.7 19:40 +52.8   551 Sat Jul 23 22:37:15 EDT
Columbus, GA           	 40.7 43.9 20:30 +56.5   644 Sun Jul 24 22:04:50 EDT
Columbus, OH           	 32.9 52.7 20:46 +64.3   568 Tue Jul 19 23:08:01 EDT
Columbus, OH           	 31.2 44.3 21:36 +66.6   638 Wed Jul 20 22:35:36 EDT
Columbus, OH           	 29.5 37.8 22:15 +67.1   713 Thu Jul 21 22:03:10 EDT
Columbus, OH           	223.1 42.9 15:12  +1.6   653 Sat Jul 23 22:36:12 EDT
Columbus, OH           	221.6 53.5 15:09 +10.1   564 Sun Jul 24 22:03:49 EDT
Concord, NH            	 26.8 51.8 21:14 +70.1   574 Sun Jul 17 22:36:20 EDT
Concord, NH            	 25.0 45.2 22:05 +72.1   628 Mon Jul 18 22:03:55 EDT
Concord, NH            	 23.1 40.0 22:48 +72.5   684 Tue Jul 19 21:31:30 EDT
Concord, NH            	219.4 44.8 16:00  +4.8   633 Wed Jul 20 22:36:59 EDT
Concord, NH            	217.6 54.5 15:53 +12.8   557 Thu Jul 21 22:04:37 EDT
Concord, NH            	216.0 66.1 15:50 +22.8   501 Fri Jul 22 21:32:14 EDT
Davenport, IA          	 30.6 54.2 21:04 +66.2   558 Sun Jul 17 23:11:17 CDT
Davenport, IA          	 28.8 46.2 21:56 +68.8   620 Mon Jul 18 22:38:52 CDT
Davenport, IA          	 27.1 39.9 22:38 +69.5   686 Tue Jul 19 22:06:27 CDT
Davenport, IA          	 25.2 35.0 23:08 +69.2   753 Wed Jul 20 21:34:01 CDT
Davenport, IA          	221.1 45.6 15:48  +4.5   626 Thu Jul 21 22:39:31 CDT
Davenport, IA          	219.5 56.2 15:44 +13.3   547 Fri Jul 22 22:07:08 CDT
Davenport, IA          	217.8 69.2 15:45 +24.1   491 Sat Jul 23 21:34:45 CDT
Dayton, OH             	 32.1 46.6 21:36 +65.8   616 Tue Jul 19 23:07:50 EDT
Dayton, OH             	 30.3 39.5 22:18 +66.8   691 Wed Jul 20 22:35:25 EDT
Dayton, OH             	 28.6 34.0 22:47 +66.6   769 Thu Jul 21 22:02:58 EDT
Dayton, OH             	223.8 39.7 15:27  -1.0   690 Fri Jul 22 23:08:26 EDT
Dayton, OH             	222.3 49.4 15:23  +6.6   593 Sat Jul 23 22:36:03 EDT
Dayton, OH             	220.6 61.8 15:24 +16.7   518 Sun Jul 24 22:03:40 EDT
Daytona Beach, FL      	 43.4 42.9 20:40 +52.8   655 Sun Jul 24 22:06:07 EDT
Decatur, IL            	 30.2 39.7 22:55 +66.9   689 Mon Jul 18 22:39:23 CDT
Decatur, IL            	 28.5 34.2 23:23 +66.7   766 Tue Jul 19 22:06:58 CDT
Decatur, IL            	 26.7 29.9 23:40 +66.1   844 Wed Jul 20 21:34:31 CDT
Decatur, IL            	220.6 61.7 16:01 +16.7   519 Fri Jul 22 22:07:41 CDT
Decatur, IL            	219.1 76.6 16:09 +29.0   473 Sat Jul 23 21:35:18 CDT
Denver, CO             	 34.3 59.1 20:01 +61.0   529 Tue Jul 19 22:42:14 MDT
Denver, CO             	 32.6 49.1 20:55 +65.1   593 Wed Jul 20 22:09:50 MDT
Denver, CO             	 30.9 41.4 21:41 +66.6   666 Thu Jul 21 21:37:24 MDT
Denver, CO             	224.3 37.1 15:03  -3.1   723 Sat Jul 23 22:10:23 MDT
Denver, CO             	222.8 46.0 14:57  +3.9   620 Sun Jul 24 21:38:00 MDT
Des Moines, IA         	 28.3 44.5 22:31 +69.2   635 Sun Jul 17 23:10:44 CDT
Des Moines, IA         	 26.5 38.6 23:11 +69.6   702 Mon Jul 18 22:38:18 CDT
Des Moines, IA         	 24.6 34.0 23:37 +69.2   769 Tue Jul 19 22:05:52 CDT
Des Moines, IA         	218.9 59.4 16:07 +16.0   529 Thu Jul 21 22:39:02 CDT
Des Moines, IA         	217.4 72.9 16:10 +27.4   481 Fri Jul 22 22:06:39 CDT
Detroit, MI            	 32.5 76.6 18:16 +53.1   473 Tue Jul 19 23:07:40 EDT
Detroit, MI            	 30.8 64.6 18:50 +61.7   506 Wed Jul 20 22:35:15 EDT
Detroit, MI            	 29.2 54.8 19:38 +67.3   554 Thu Jul 21 22:02:50 EDT
Detroit, MI            	223.0 32.1 14:50  -5.7   804 Sat Jul 23 22:35:45 EDT
Detroit, MI            	221.5 38.9 14:39  -0.4   699 Sun Jul 24 22:03:23 EDT
Dodge City, KS         	 36.3 54.6 20:23 +60.2   556 Wed Jul 20 23:11:00 CDT
Dodge City, KS         	 34.7 44.8 21:14 +63.2   633 Thu Jul 21 22:38:35 CDT
Dodge City, KS         	 33.0 37.4 21:52 +64.0   718 Fri Jul 22 22:06:09 CDT
Dodge City, KS         	225.9 36.8 14:50  -4.2   729 Sun Jul 24 22:39:08 CDT
Dubuque, IA            	 30.4 63.2 19:53 +62.8   512 Sun Jul 17 23:11:07 CDT
Dubuque, IA            	 28.7 53.8 20:41 +68.0   561 Mon Jul 18 22:38:43 CDT
Dubuque, IA            	 26.9 46.4 21:33 +70.5   617 Tue Jul 19 22:06:18 CDT
Dubuque, IA            	221.0 40.3 15:37  +0.7   682 Thu Jul 21 22:39:20 CDT
Dubuque, IA            	219.4 49.2 15:29  +8.0   595 Fri Jul 22 22:06:57 CDT
Dubuque, IA            	217.7 60.2 15:26 +17.2   526 Sat Jul 23 21:34:34 CDT
Duluth, MN             	209.3 71.7 17:06 +30.2   483 Sun Jul 17 23:10:18 CDT
Duluth, MN             	207.6 82.2 16:59 +39.8   464 Mon Jul 18 22:37:56 CDT
Duluth, MN             	 24.7 87.3 16:56 +49.2   461 Tue Jul 19 22:05:32 CDT
Duluth, MN             	218.4 30.9 14:53  -5.0   826 Fri Jul 22 22:06:01 CDT
Durham, NC             	 34.6 33.8 22:55 +61.7   774 Wed Jul 20 22:36:56 EDT
Durham, NC             	224.3 61.2 15:41 +13.7   522 Sun Jul 24 22:05:11 EDT
Eau Claire, WI         	 28.7 86.5 17:59 +47.8   461 Sun Jul 17 23:10:40 CDT
Eau Claire, WI         	 27.7 75.1 18:12 +57.4   475 Mon Jul 18 22:38:17 CDT
Eau Claire, WI         	 25.9 65.2 18:36 +65.2   503 Tue Jul 19 22:05:53 CDT
Eau Claire, WI         	220.4 32.0 15:19  -4.8   804 Thu Jul 21 22:38:48 CDT
Eau Claire, WI         	218.8 38.2 15:07  +0.1   709 Fri Jul 22 22:06:26 CDT
El Paso, TX            	 42.2 50.6 19:50 +53.8   584 Sun Jul 24 21:39:14 MDT
Elizabeth, NJ          	 24.9 30.0 00:44 +67.2   843 Sun Jul 17 22:36:09 EDT
Elizabeth, NJ          	217.5 82.1 17:13 +34.3   465 Wed Jul 20 22:37:00 EDT
Elizabeth, NJ          	 35.5 82.4 17:34 +46.7   465 Thu Jul 21 22:04:36 EDT
Elizabeth, NJ          	 34.1 68.3 18:08 +56.9   493 Fri Jul 22 21:32:11 EDT
Enid, OK               	 36.3 43.9 21:22 +61.5   642 Thu Jul 21 22:39:11 CDT
Enid, OK               	 34.7 36.3 21:58 +62.2   734 Fri Jul 22 22:06:45 CDT
Enid, OK               	227.2 35.0 14:52  -6.2   757 Sun Jul 24 22:39:43 CDT
Erie, PA               	216.1 88.0 17:34 +40.5   461 Tue Jul 19 23:08:11 EDT
Erie, PA               	 33.0 77.9 17:54 +51.9   470 Wed Jul 20 22:35:48 EDT
Erie, PA               	 31.3 65.5 18:28 +60.8   503 Thu Jul 21 22:03:23 EDT
Erie, PA               	223.5 31.2 14:30  -6.5   820 Sun Jul 24 22:03:52 EDT
Eugene, OR             	 25.5 54.5 20:59 +70.5   556 Sat Jul 16 23:15:42 PDT
Eugene, OR             	 23.7 47.9 21:50 +73.2   604 Sun Jul 17 22:43:18 PDT
Eugene, OR             	 21.8 42.6 22:38 +74.1   654 Mon Jul 18 22:10:53 PDT
Eugene, OR             	218.3 45.1 16:13  +5.4   630 Tue Jul 19 23:16:22 PDT
Eugene, OR             	216.5 54.4 16:05 +13.3   557 Wed Jul 20 22:44:00 PDT
Eugene, OR             	214.9 65.6 16:00 +22.9   503 Thu Jul 21 22:11:37 PDT
Eureka, CA             	 24.9 30.7 00:56 +67.5   829 Sat Jul 16 23:15:53 PDT
Eureka, CA             	 35.4 84.4 17:43 +45.2   463 Wed Jul 20 22:44:21 PDT
Eureka, CA             	 34.1 70.2 18:15 +55.8   488 Thu Jul 21 22:11:57 PDT
Eureka, CA             	 32.4 58.4 19:01 +63.1   534 Fri Jul 22 21:39:32 PDT
Evansville, IN         	 31.4 33.2 23:42 +64.1   784 Mon Jul 18 22:39:54 CDT
Evansville, IN         	221.6 70.6 16:27 +22.6   487 Fri Jul 22 22:08:14 CDT
Evansville, IN         	220.7 87.6 16:46 +36.2   462 Sat Jul 23 21:35:50 CDT
Evansville, IN         	 38.3 75.5 17:20 +48.7   475 Sun Jul 24 21:03:26 CDT
Fall River, MA         	 27.2 41.6 23:02 +69.8   667 Sun Jul 17 22:36:36 EDT
Fall River, MA         	 25.4 36.4 23:35 +69.7   733 Mon Jul 18 22:04:10 EDT
Fall River, MA         	 23.5 32.3 23:55 +69.1   798 Tue Jul 19 21:31:44 EDT
Fall River, MA         	218.0 66.1 16:18 +21.7   501 Thu Jul 21 22:04:56 EDT
Fall River, MA         	216.4 80.4 16:25 +33.7   467 Fri Jul 22 21:32:32 EDT
Fargo, ND              	 23.7 88.3 17:31 +48.4   460 Sun Jul 17 23:09:31 CDT
Fargo, ND              	 23.3 78.7 17:31 +57.0   468 Mon Jul 18 22:37:08 CDT
Fargo, ND              	218.3 30.6 15:30  -5.1   831 Wed Jul 20 23:10:01 CDT
Fargo, ND              	216.7 35.9 15:15  -1.0   741 Thu Jul 21 22:37:40 CDT
Flagstaff, AZ          	 39.9 61.3 18:58 +53.7   519 Sat Jul 23 21:10:09 MST
Flagstaff, AZ          	 38.6 48.8 19:52 +58.7   596 Sun Jul 24 20:37:43 MST
Flint, MI              	214.4 85.1 17:40 +38.9   462 Mon Jul 18 23:39:50 EDT
Flint, MI              	 31.8 81.2 17:54 +50.2   466 Tue Jul 19 23:07:27 EDT
Flint, MI              	 30.3 69.0 18:21 +59.7   491 Wed Jul 20 22:35:03 EDT
Flint, MI              	222.6 31.2 14:46  -6.1   821 Sat Jul 23 22:35:32 EDT
Fort Smith, AR         	 37.2 42.0 21:17 +60.5   663 Fri Jul 22 22:07:32 CDT
Fort Smith, AR         	 35.6 34.6 21:50 +61.0   761 Sat Jul 23 21:35:05 CDT
Fort Wayne, IN         	 32.9 63.8 19:44 +60.3   509 Mon Jul 18 22:39:53 EST
Fort Wayne, IN         	 31.2 53.4 20:34 +65.7   563 Tue Jul 19 22:07:29 EST
Fort Wayne, IN         	 29.5 45.4 21:26 +68.2   627 Wed Jul 20 21:35:04 EST
Fort Wayne, IN         	223.2 36.7 15:18  -2.8   730 Fri Jul 22 22:08:03 EST
Fort Wayne, IN         	221.7 45.1 15:11  +3.9   631 Sat Jul 23 21:35:41 EST
Fort Wayne, IN         	220.1 55.8 15:08 +12.7   549 Sun Jul 24 21:03:17 EST
Fresno, CA             	 37.6 55.0 20:04 +58.7   554 Thu Jul 21 22:13:21 PDT
Fresno, CA             	 36.0 44.7 20:55 +61.8   634 Fri Jul 22 21:40:55 PDT
Fresno, CA             	 34.4 37.0 21:33 +62.6   725 Sat Jul 23 21:08:29 PDT
Gadsden, AL            	 41.2 62.3 18:59 +51.8   517 Sat Jul 23 21:36:48 CDT
Gadsden, AL            	 39.9 49.1 19:54 +57.1   596 Sun Jul 24 21:04:22 CDT
Gainesville, FL        	 42.6 39.6 20:58 +53.9   693 Sun Jul 24 22:05:48 EDT
Gallup, NM             	 41.4 85.9 17:18 +38.6   461 Sat Jul 23 22:10:35 MDT
Gallup, NM             	 40.3 68.3 18:03 +50.3   492 Sun Jul 24 21:38:10 MDT
Gary, IN               	 31.3 58.8 20:11 +64.0   532 Mon Jul 18 22:39:26 CDT
Gary, IN               	 29.5 49.8 21:03 +68.0   589 Tue Jul 19 22:07:01 CDT
Gary, IN               	 27.8 42.8 21:51 +69.5   653 Wed Jul 20 21:34:36 CDT
Gary, IN               	221.7 41.6 15:23  +1.3   667 Fri Jul 22 22:07:37 CDT
Gary, IN               	220.2 51.1 15:17  +9.1   580 Sat Jul 23 21:35:15 CDT
Grand Junction, CO     	 31.7 40.3 22:28 +65.7   680 Tue Jul 19 22:41:43 MDT
Grand Junction, CO     	 30.0 34.4 22:58 +65.6   762 Wed Jul 20 22:09:17 MDT
Grand Junction, CO     	 28.2 29.8 23:15 +65.1   844 Thu Jul 21 21:36:50 MDT
Grand Junction, CO     	223.5 45.5 15:37  +3.2   625 Fri Jul 22 22:42:21 MDT
Grand Junction, CO     	222.0 57.2 15:37 +12.5   540 Sat Jul 23 22:09:58 MDT
Grand Junction, CO     	220.3 71.8 15:44 +24.4   483 Sun Jul 24 21:37:34 MDT
Grand Rapids, MI       	 32.0 82.6 18:09 +49.1   464 Mon Jul 18 23:39:31 EDT
Grand Rapids, MI       	 30.5 70.1 18:35 +58.8   487 Tue Jul 19 23:07:07 EDT
Grand Rapids, MI       	 28.8 59.7 19:14 +65.8   527 Wed Jul 20 22:34:43 EDT
Grand Rapids, MI       	222.8 30.5 15:05  -6.7   834 Fri Jul 22 23:07:37 EDT
Grand Rapids, MI       	221.3 36.8 14:53  -1.8   728 Sat Jul 23 22:35:15 EDT
Great Falls, MT        	212.7 46.9 16:37  +8.6   612 Sun Jul 17 23:44:48 MDT
Great Falls, MT        	210.9 54.7 16:24 +15.4   554 Mon Jul 18 23:12:27 MDT
Great Falls, MT        	209.1 63.5 16:13 +23.4   509 Tue Jul 19 22:40:05 MDT
Green Bay, WI          	212.5 78.4 17:34 +34.5   469 Sun Jul 17 23:11:17 CDT
Green Bay, WI          	 28.0 88.9 17:38 +45.5   460 Mon Jul 18 22:38:54 CDT
Green Bay, WI          	 28.6 77.0 17:51 +55.5   472 Tue Jul 19 22:06:31 CDT
Green Bay, WI          	 26.9 66.5 18:14 +63.7   499 Wed Jul 20 21:34:07 CDT
Green Bay, WI          	221.3 30.4 15:00  -6.1   835 Fri Jul 22 22:07:00 CDT
Green Bay, WI          	219.6 36.3 14:47  -1.6   735 Sat Jul 23 21:34:38 CDT
Greensboro, NC         	 33.9 31.9 23:08 +61.7   806 Wed Jul 20 22:36:46 EDT
Greensboro, NC         	223.6 66.6 15:51 +18.0   500 Sun Jul 24 22:05:02 EDT
Greenville, SC         	223.6 81.0 16:48 +28.1   467 Sat Jul 23 22:37:15 EDT
Greenville, SC         	 41.8 80.0 17:23 +42.0   468 Sun Jul 24 22:04:50 EDT
Hamilton, OH           	 31.8 42.9 22:07 +65.9   652 Tue Jul 19 23:07:49 EDT
Hamilton, OH           	 30.1 36.6 22:43 +66.2   731 Wed Jul 20 22:35:24 EDT
Hamilton, OH           	 28.3 31.6 23:05 +65.8   811 Thu Jul 21 22:02:57 EDT
Hamilton, OH           	223.6 43.0 15:33  +1.4   652 Fri Jul 22 23:08:27 EDT
Hamilton, OH           	222.1 53.8 15:31 +10.0   562 Sat Jul 23 22:36:04 EDT
Hamilton, OH           	220.4 67.4 15:36 +21.1   497 Sun Jul 24 22:03:40 EDT
Harrisburg, PA         	 35.4 75.5 18:19 +51.4   475 Wed Jul 20 22:36:37 EDT
Harrisburg, PA         	 33.8 62.3 19:02 +60.1   516 Thu Jul 21 22:04:13 EDT
Harrisburg, PA         	 32.3 51.8 19:54 +65.1   574 Fri Jul 22 21:31:47 EDT
Hartford, CT           	 26.0 38.4 23:34 +69.9   705 Sun Jul 17 22:36:18 EDT
Hartford, CT           	 24.2 34.0 23:59 +69.5   770 Mon Jul 18 22:03:53 EDT
Hartford, CT           	 22.3 30.4 00:14 +68.8   835 Tue Jul 19 21:31:26 EDT
Hartford, CT           	218.5 61.0 16:29 +17.5   522 Wed Jul 20 22:37:03 EDT
Hartford, CT           	217.0 74.6 16:32 +28.9   477 Thu Jul 21 22:04:40 EDT
Hartford, CT           	220.2 89.4 16:43 +41.3   461 Fri Jul 22 21:32:17 EDT
Helena, MT             	212.1 56.8 16:51 +16.8   541 Sun Jul 17 23:44:49 MDT
Helena, MT             	210.4 66.6 16:42 +25.5   497 Mon Jul 18 23:12:27 MDT
Helena, MT             	208.6 77.2 16:35 +35.1   470 Tue Jul 19 22:40:05 MDT
Holyoke, MA            	 26.0 41.3 23:06 +70.7   669 Sun Jul 17 22:36:16 EDT
Holyoke, MA            	 24.2 36.4 23:38 +70.5   732 Mon Jul 18 22:03:51 EDT
Holyoke, MA            	 22.3 32.6 23:59 +69.9   794 Tue Jul 19 21:31:24 EDT
Holyoke, MA            	218.6 56.8 16:20 +14.2   543 Wed Jul 20 22:37:00 EDT
Holyoke, MA            	217.0 69.4 16:20 +24.9   490 Thu Jul 21 22:04:37 EDT
Holyoke, MA            	215.5 83.6 16:27 +36.9   464 Fri Jul 22 21:32:13 EDT
Huntington, WV         	 33.5 43.4 22:03 +64.4   647 Tue Jul 19 23:08:21 EDT
Huntington, WV         	 31.8 36.6 22:39 +64.9   730 Wed Jul 20 22:35:55 EDT
Huntington, WV         	 30.0 31.4 23:01 +64.5   816 Thu Jul 21 22:03:29 EDT
Huntington, WV         	223.5 49.9 15:29  +6.3   589 Sat Jul 23 22:36:34 EDT
Huntington, WV         	221.8 63.1 15:33 +16.8   513 Sun Jul 24 22:04:11 EDT
Huntsville, AL         	 40.7 65.1 18:42 +51.2   505 Sat Jul 23 21:36:34 CDT
Huntsville, AL         	 39.4 51.5 19:38 +57.3   578 Sun Jul 24 21:04:09 CDT
Indianapolis, IN       	 32.3 47.9 21:44 +65.5   605 Mon Jul 18 22:39:54 EST
Indianapolis, IN       	 30.6 40.5 22:28 +66.7   679 Tue Jul 19 22:07:29 EST
Indianapolis, IN       	 28.8 34.8 22:59 +66.6   757 Wed Jul 20 21:35:03 EST
Indianapolis, IN       	222.5 47.7 15:39  +5.3   607 Fri Jul 22 22:08:08 EST
Indianapolis, IN       	221.0 59.6 15:39 +15.0   528 Sat Jul 23 21:35:45 EST
Indianapolis, IN       	219.4 74.2 15:46 +27.0   478 Sun Jul 24 21:03:21 EST
Iowa City, IA          	 29.9 51.8 21:23 +67.4   574 Sun Jul 17 23:11:05 CDT
Iowa City, IA          	 28.1 44.4 22:13 +69.4   637 Mon Jul 18 22:38:41 CDT
Iowa City, IA          	 26.3 38.6 22:53 +69.7   703 Tue Jul 19 22:06:15 CDT
Iowa City, IA          	220.5 48.7 15:51  +7.2   598 Thu Jul 21 22:39:21 CDT
Iowa City, IA          	218.8 60.0 15:49 +16.5   526 Fri Jul 22 22:06:58 CDT
Iowa City, IA          	217.2 73.5 15:52 +28.0   479 Sat Jul 23 21:34:34 CDT
Jackson, MI            	 33.0 81.1 18:21 +49.5   466 Mon Jul 18 23:39:50 EDT
Jackson, MI            	 31.5 68.3 18:50 +59.1   493 Tue Jul 19 23:07:26 EDT
Jackson, MI            	 30.0 57.7 19:35 +65.6   537 Wed Jul 20 22:35:02 EDT
Jackson, MI            	223.7 30.0 15:06  -7.3   844 Fri Jul 22 23:07:56 EDT
Jackson, MI            	222.1 36.3 14:55  -2.5   735 Sat Jul 23 22:35:34 EDT
Jackson, MS            	 38.8 32.9 21:57 +57.5   791 Sat Jul 23 21:36:22 CDT
Jacksonville, FL       	 42.9 46.3 20:19 +53.3   620 Sun Jul 24 22:05:48 EDT
Jersey City, NJ        	 25.0 30.5 00:40 +67.4   832 Sun Jul 17 22:36:10 EDT
Jersey City, NJ        	217.8 80.3 17:09 +32.8   467 Wed Jul 20 22:37:01 EDT
Jersey City, NJ        	 35.6 84.2 17:28 +45.4   463 Thu Jul 21 22:04:37 EDT
Jersey City, NJ        	 34.2 69.9 18:00 +55.9   489 Fri Jul 22 21:32:12 EDT
Johnstown, PA          	 34.0 64.4 19:09 +58.9   507 Wed Jul 20 22:36:16 EDT
Johnstown, PA          	 32.5 53.5 20:00 +64.5   563 Thu Jul 21 22:03:51 EDT
Johnstown, PA          	224.2 34.9 14:41  -4.4   756 Sun Jul 24 22:04:22 EDT
Joplin, MO             	 38.4 66.4 19:01 +53.4   500 Thu Jul 21 22:39:39 CDT
Joplin, MO             	 37.0 53.5 19:55 +59.7   563 Fri Jul 22 22:07:14 CDT
Joplin, MO             	 35.4 43.7 20:45 +62.5   644 Sat Jul 23 21:34:48 CDT
Kalamazoo, MI          	 32.3 74.9 18:41 +54.4   476 Mon Jul 18 23:39:38 EDT
Kalamazoo, MI          	 30.7 63.1 19:18 +62.6   512 Tue Jul 19 23:07:14 EDT
Kalamazoo, MI          	 29.1 53.6 20:07 +67.7   562 Wed Jul 20 22:34:49 EDT
Kalamazoo, MI          	222.9 32.9 15:10  -5.2   791 Fri Jul 22 23:07:45 EDT
Kalamazoo, MI          	221.3 39.9 14:59  +0.3   687 Sat Jul 23 22:35:23 EDT
Kansas City, KS        	 37.4 87.6 17:29 +41.0   461 Thu Jul 21 22:39:17 CDT
Kansas City, KS        	 36.6 71.9 18:03 +52.5   483 Fri Jul 22 22:06:53 CDT
Kansas City, KS        	 35.0 58.8 18:52 +60.3   532 Sat Jul 23 21:34:28 CDT
Kansas City, MO        	 37.1 88.2 17:27 +40.6   461 Thu Jul 21 22:39:18 CDT
Kansas City, MO        	 36.6 72.4 18:01 +52.2   482 Fri Jul 22 22:06:53 CDT
Kansas City, MO        	 35.0 59.2 18:49 +60.2   530 Sat Jul 23 21:34:28 CDT
Kenosha, WI            	 30.7 66.7 19:14 +60.7   498 Mon Jul 18 22:39:12 CDT
Kenosha, WI            	 29.1 56.6 19:59 +66.8   543 Tue Jul 19 22:06:48 CDT
Kenosha, WI            	 27.3 48.7 20:51 +70.1   598 Wed Jul 20 21:34:23 CDT
Kenosha, WI            	222.9 31.5 15:26  -6.1   815 Thu Jul 21 22:39:44 CDT
Kenosha, WI            	221.4 38.1 15:15  -1.0   710 Fri Jul 22 22:07:22 CDT
Kenosha, WI            	219.8 46.4 15:06  +5.7   618 Sat Jul 23 21:35:00 CDT
Knoxville, TN          	222.6 81.5 16:43 +29.5   466 Sat Jul 23 22:36:48 EDT
Knoxville, TN          	 40.8 80.1 17:16 +43.1   468 Sun Jul 24 22:04:23 EDT
Lafayette, IN          	 31.7 50.2 21:23 +65.9   586 Mon Jul 18 22:39:41 EST
Lafayette, IN          	 30.0 42.6 22:11 +67.6   656 Tue Jul 19 22:07:16 EST
Lafayette, IN          	 28.2 36.7 22:46 +67.7   729 Wed Jul 20 21:34:50 EST
Lafayette, IN          	222.0 46.8 15:35  +4.9   615 Fri Jul 22 22:07:54 EST
Lafayette, IN          	220.5 58.2 15:33 +14.2   536 Sat Jul 23 21:35:31 EST
Lancaster, PA          	 35.8 76.6 18:17 +50.3   473 Wed Jul 20 22:36:45 EDT
Lancaster, PA          	 34.3 63.1 18:59 +59.3   512 Thu Jul 21 22:04:21 EDT
Lancaster, PA          	 32.7 52.3 19:52 +64.5   571 Fri Jul 22 21:31:55 EDT
Lansing, MI            	 32.4 86.2 18:02 +45.9   461 Mon Jul 18 23:39:44 EDT
Lansing, MI            	 31.4 73.1 18:25 +56.2   480 Tue Jul 19 23:07:21 EDT
Lansing, MI            	 29.7 62.0 19:01 +64.0   517 Wed Jul 20 22:34:56 EDT
Lansing, MI            	222.0 34.6 14:51  -3.7   762 Sat Jul 23 22:35:28 EDT
Las Vegas, NV          	 39.1 63.1 19:02 +54.1   512 Fri Jul 22 21:41:49 PDT
Las Vegas, NV          	 37.7 50.6 19:57 +59.5   584 Sat Jul 23 21:09:24 PDT
Lawrence, MA           	 27.1 48.8 21:47 +70.3   597 Sun Jul 17 22:36:28 EDT
Lawrence, MA           	 25.3 42.6 22:35 +71.5   655 Mon Jul 18 22:04:03 EDT
Lawrence, MA           	 23.4 37.7 23:11 +71.5   715 Tue Jul 19 21:31:37 EDT
Lawrence, MA           	219.6 46.6 16:04  +6.0   617 Wed Jul 20 22:37:08 EDT
Lawrence, MA           	217.9 56.9 15:59 +14.6   543 Thu Jul 21 22:04:46 EDT
Lawrence, MA           	216.3 69.3 15:58 +25.1   491 Fri Jul 22 21:32:22 EDT
Lexington, KY          	 32.0 35.3 23:07 +64.3   749 Tue Jul 19 23:08:02 EDT
Lexington, KY          	 30.3 30.3 23:27 +63.9   837 Wed Jul 20 22:35:36 EDT
Lexington, KY          	222.0 64.7 15:57 +17.9   506 Sat Jul 23 22:36:19 EDT
Lexington, KY          	220.6 81.1 16:11 +31.1   466 Sun Jul 24 22:03:55 EDT
Lima, OH               	 32.0 54.8 20:26 +64.6   555 Tue Jul 19 23:07:43 EDT
Lima, OH               	 30.3 46.2 21:18 +67.5   619 Wed Jul 20 22:35:17 EDT
Lima, OH               	 28.5 39.6 22:01 +68.3   689 Thu Jul 21 22:02:52 EDT
Lima, OH               	223.9 34.9 15:17  -4.3   757 Fri Jul 22 23:08:16 EDT
Lima, OH               	222.3 42.9 15:09  +2.0   653 Sat Jul 23 22:35:54 EDT
Lima, OH               	220.8 53.1 15:05 +10.3   566 Sun Jul 24 22:03:30 EDT
Lincoln, NE            	 25.9 32.9 00:19 +67.9   788 Sun Jul 17 23:10:15 CDT
Lincoln, NE            	218.5 71.5 16:50 +25.6   484 Wed Jul 20 23:11:03 CDT
Lincoln, NE            	217.8 86.8 17:02 +38.2   461 Thu Jul 21 22:38:40 CDT
Lincoln, NE            	 35.0 78.1 17:26 +50.1   470 Fri Jul 22 22:06:16 CDT
Little Rock, AR        	 38.7 46.6 20:47 +58.7   617 Fri Jul 22 22:08:01 CDT
Little Rock, AR        	 37.2 37.9 21:27 +60.1   714 Sat Jul 23 21:35:35 CDT
Long Beach, CA         	 37.5 34.0 22:09 +59.1   772 Fri Jul 22 21:41:42 PDT
Lorain, OH             	 33.2 71.5 18:44 +55.8   484 Tue Jul 19 23:07:56 EDT
Lorain, OH             	 31.6 59.8 19:27 +63.3   527 Wed Jul 20 22:35:32 EDT
Lorain, OH             	 30.0 50.5 20:19 +67.5   583 Thu Jul 21 22:03:07 EDT
Lorain, OH             	223.6 33.1 14:54  -5.3   787 Sat Jul 23 22:36:03 EDT
Lorain, OH             	222.1 40.4 14:44  +0.3   681 Sun Jul 24 22:03:40 EDT
Los Angeles, CA        	 37.4 35.1 22:02 +59.4   754 Fri Jul 22 21:41:38 PDT
Louisville, KY         	 31.0 33.3 23:23 +64.5   781 Tue Jul 19 23:07:46 EDT
Louisville, KY         	222.8 56.6 16:00 +11.5   545 Fri Jul 22 23:08:28 EDT
Louisville, KY         	221.2 71.4 16:08 +23.5   485 Sat Jul 23 22:36:05 EDT
Louisville, KY         	220.4 88.3 16:27 +37.0   461 Sun Jul 24 22:03:41 EDT
Lowell, MA             	 27.0 47.8 21:57 +70.4   605 Sun Jul 17 22:36:27 EDT
Lowell, MA             	 25.2 41.8 22:43 +71.4   664 Mon Jul 18 22:04:02 EDT
Lowell, MA             	 23.3 37.0 23:17 +71.3   724 Tue Jul 19 21:31:36 EDT
Lowell, MA             	219.5 47.7 16:06  +6.8   607 Wed Jul 20 22:37:07 EDT
Lowell, MA             	217.8 58.2 16:01 +15.6   536 Thu Jul 21 22:04:45 EDT
Lowell, MA             	216.2 70.8 16:01 +26.4   486 Fri Jul 22 21:32:22 EDT
Lubbock, TX            	224.9 76.7 16:24 +23.7   473 Sun Jul 24 22:39:39 CDT
Macon, GA              	 41.5 53.0 19:35 +54.3   567 Sun Jul 24 22:05:00 EDT
Madison, WI            	 31.1 76.1 18:48 +54.4   473 Sun Jul 17 23:11:16 CDT
Madison, WI            	 29.5 64.7 19:20 +62.8   506 Mon Jul 18 22:38:52 CDT
Madison, WI            	 27.9 55.3 20:05 +68.3   551 Tue Jul 19 22:06:28 CDT
Madison, WI            	 26.1 47.9 20:57 +71.2   604 Wed Jul 20 21:34:03 CDT
Madison, WI            	221.9 33.7 15:27  -4.2   776 Thu Jul 21 22:39:25 CDT
Madison, WI            	220.3 40.7 15:16  +1.3   677 Fri Jul 22 22:07:03 CDT
Madison, WI            	218.7 49.4 15:08  +8.5   592 Sat Jul 23 21:34:41 CDT
Manchester, NH         	 26.8 50.3 21:31 +70.3   585 Sun Jul 17 22:36:23 EDT
Manchester, NH         	 25.0 43.9 22:21 +71.9   642 Mon Jul 18 22:03:58 EDT
Manchester, NH         	 23.2 38.8 23:00 +72.1   699 Tue Jul 19 21:31:32 EDT
Manchester, NH         	219.4 45.9 16:02  +5.5   623 Wed Jul 20 22:37:02 EDT
Manchester, NH         	217.7 55.9 15:56 +13.9   548 Thu Jul 21 22:04:40 EDT
Manchester, NH         	216.1 67.9 15:54 +24.2   495 Fri Jul 22 21:32:17 EDT
Memphis, TN            	 40.1 61.4 19:18 +53.6   520 Fri Jul 22 22:08:20 CDT
Memphis, TN            	 38.6 48.9 20:12 +58.6   597 Sat Jul 23 21:35:55 CDT
Memphis, TN            	 37.1 39.7 20:55 +60.4   690 Sun Jul 24 21:03:28 CDT
Meriden, CT            	 25.9 36.8 23:48 +69.4   727 Sun Jul 17 22:36:19 EDT
Meriden, CT            	 24.1 32.6 00:10 +68.9   794 Mon Jul 18 22:03:53 EDT
Meriden, CT            	218.5 63.8 16:34 +19.7   510 Wed Jul 20 22:37:05 EDT
Meriden, CT            	216.9 77.9 16:40 +31.6   471 Thu Jul 21 22:04:42 EDT
Meriden, CT            	 34.6 87.1 16:54 +43.9   461 Fri Jul 22 21:32:18 EDT
Milwaukee, WI          	 30.5 71.3 18:48 +58.0   484 Mon Jul 18 22:39:08 CDT
Milwaukee, WI          	 28.9 60.7 19:25 +65.3   522 Tue Jul 19 22:06:44 CDT
Milwaukee, WI          	 27.2 52.1 20:15 +69.7   571 Wed Jul 20 21:34:19 CDT
Milwaukee, WI          	222.9 30.1 15:23  -7.0   843 Thu Jul 21 22:39:38 CDT
Milwaukee, WI          	221.3 36.2 15:11  -2.3   737 Fri Jul 22 22:07:17 CDT
Milwaukee, WI          	219.7 43.9 15:01  +3.9   643 Sat Jul 23 21:34:54 CDT
Minneapolis, MN        	 28.0 79.8 18:14 +53.7   467 Sun Jul 17 23:10:21 CDT
Minneapolis, MN        	 26.3 69.4 18:32 +62.2   489 Mon Jul 18 22:37:57 CDT
Minneapolis, MN        	 24.6 60.6 19:02 +68.7   523 Tue Jul 19 22:05:33 CDT
Minneapolis, MN        	220.8 30.1 15:36  -6.2   841 Wed Jul 20 23:10:52 CDT
Minneapolis, MN        	219.2 35.8 15:22  -1.8   743 Thu Jul 21 22:38:31 CDT
Minneapolis, MN        	217.6 42.7 15:11  +3.8   655 Fri Jul 22 22:06:09 CDT
Minot, ND              	 19.7 88.7 17:11 +49.5   460 Sun Jul 17 23:08:37 CDT
Minot, ND              	216.7 29.7 15:43  -5.4   848 Tue Jul 19 23:41:30 CDT
Minot, ND              	215.0 34.4 15:28  -1.6   762 Wed Jul 20 23:09:09 CDT
Mobile, AL             	 40.4 32.5 21:58 +55.7   798 Sat Jul 23 21:37:03 CDT
Moline, IL             	 30.6 54.3 21:03 +66.1   558 Sun Jul 17 23:11:17 CDT
Moline, IL             	 28.9 46.3 21:55 +68.8   619 Mon Jul 18 22:38:53 CDT
Moline, IL             	 27.1 40.0 22:38 +69.5   685 Tue Jul 19 22:06:27 CDT
Moline, IL             	 25.3 35.1 23:07 +69.2   752 Wed Jul 20 21:34:01 CDT
Moline, IL             	221.2 45.4 15:48  +4.4   627 Thu Jul 21 22:39:32 CDT
Moline, IL             	219.6 56.0 15:44 +13.1   548 Fri Jul 22 22:07:09 CDT
Moline, IL             	217.9 68.9 15:45 +23.9   492 Sat Jul 23 21:34:46 CDT
Montgomery, AL         	 41.3 47.9 20:24 +55.4   606 Sat Jul 23 21:37:03 CDT
Montgomery, AL         	 39.8 38.2 21:05 +57.2   710 Sun Jul 24 21:04:37 CDT
Montpelier, VT         	 25.9 58.2 20:09 +68.9   535 Sun Jul 17 22:36:02 EDT
Montpelier, VT         	 24.0 51.0 20:57 +72.6   580 Mon Jul 18 22:03:37 EDT
Montpelier, VT         	218.6 42.1 15:52  +3.0   661 Wed Jul 20 22:36:39 EDT
Montpelier, VT         	217.0 50.7 15:43 +10.2   583 Thu Jul 21 22:04:17 EDT
Montpelier, VT         	215.2 61.0 15:37 +19.1   521 Fri Jul 22 21:31:54 EDT
Muncie, IN             	 32.8 54.3 20:51 +64.0   557 Mon Jul 18 22:39:58 EST
Muncie, IN             	 31.1 45.6 21:43 +66.7   625 Tue Jul 19 22:07:34 EST
Muncie, IN             	 29.4 38.9 22:24 +67.4   698 Wed Jul 20 21:35:08 EST
Muncie, IN             	 27.6 33.8 22:51 +67.1   774 Thu Jul 21 21:02:42 EST
Muncie, IN             	223.0 41.9 15:29  +0.9   663 Fri Jul 22 22:08:10 EST
Muncie, IN             	221.5 52.1 15:25  +9.1   573 Sat Jul 23 21:35:48 EST
Muncie, IN             	219.8 65.0 15:27 +19.7   505 Sun Jul 24 21:03:24 EST
Nashville, TN          	 40.5 78.1 17:41 +44.7   471 Sat Jul 23 21:36:17 CDT
Nashville, TN          	 39.0 62.3 18:30 +54.5   517 Sun Jul 24 21:03:52 CDT
New Bedford, MA        	 27.4 41.7 23:00 +69.6   665 Sun Jul 17 22:36:39 EDT
New Bedford, MA        	 25.6 36.5 23:33 +69.6   731 Mon Jul 18 22:04:13 EDT
New Bedford, MA        	 23.7 32.4 23:54 +69.0   798 Tue Jul 19 21:31:47 EDT
New Bedford, MA        	218.1 65.4 16:18 +21.1   504 Thu Jul 21 22:04:59 EDT
New Bedford, MA        	216.6 79.7 16:24 +33.1   468 Fri Jul 22 21:32:35 EDT
New Britain, CT        	 25.9 37.6 23:41 +69.7   716 Sun Jul 17 22:36:18 EDT
New Britain, CT        	 24.1 33.3 00:05 +69.2   782 Mon Jul 18 22:03:52 EDT
New Britain, CT        	 22.2 29.8 00:18 +68.5   846 Tue Jul 19 21:31:26 EDT
New Britain, CT        	218.5 62.5 16:32 +18.6   515 Wed Jul 20 22:37:03 EDT
New Britain, CT        	216.9 76.4 16:36 +30.3   473 Thu Jul 21 22:04:40 EDT
New Britain, CT        	 33.8 88.8 16:49 +42.7   461 Fri Jul 22 21:32:17 EDT
New Haven, CT          	 25.8 35.3 00:01 +69.0   749 Sun Jul 17 22:36:19 EDT
New Haven, CT          	 24.0 31.3 00:20 +68.3   817 Mon Jul 18 22:03:53 EDT
New Haven, CT          	218.4 66.8 16:41 +22.0   499 Wed Jul 20 22:37:06 EDT
New Haven, CT          	216.9 81.4 16:48 +34.3   466 Thu Jul 21 22:04:43 EDT
New Haven, CT          	 34.8 83.5 17:06 +46.5   464 Fri Jul 22 21:32:18 EDT
New York, NY           	 25.0 30.7 00:39 +67.5   828 Sun Jul 17 22:36:11 EDT
New York, NY           	217.8 79.6 17:07 +32.3   468 Wed Jul 20 22:37:01 EDT
New York, NY           	 35.6 84.9 17:26 +44.8   463 Thu Jul 21 22:04:37 EDT
New York, NY           	 34.2 70.6 17:57 +55.5   487 Fri Jul 22 21:32:13 EDT
Newark, NJ             	 24.9 30.4 00:41 +67.4   835 Sun Jul 17 22:36:09 EDT
Newark, NJ             	217.3 81.0 17:10 +33.3   467 Wed Jul 20 22:36:59 EDT
Newark, NJ             	 35.5 83.6 17:30 +45.9   464 Thu Jul 21 22:04:36 EDT
Newark, NJ             	 34.1 69.4 18:03 +56.3   490 Fri Jul 22 21:32:11 EDT
Niagara Falls, NY      	 20.8 34.4 00:29 +71.7   763 Sun Jul 17 22:34:58 EDT
Niagara Falls, NY      	 18.9 31.3 00:43 +71.0   817 Mon Jul 18 22:02:32 EDT
Niagara Falls, NY      	215.6 70.5 16:54 +26.5   487 Tue Jul 19 23:08:12 EDT
Niagara Falls, NY      	214.6 84.1 16:59 +38.1   463 Wed Jul 20 22:35:49 EDT
Niagara Falls, NY      	 31.9 82.3 17:13 +49.5   464 Thu Jul 21 22:03:25 EDT
Norfolk, VA            	 34.7 39.0 21:59 +62.7   699 Thu Jul 21 22:04:50 EDT
Norfolk, VA            	 33.0 32.7 22:26 +62.7   792 Fri Jul 22 21:32:24 EDT
Norfolk, VA            	225.9 41.5 15:02  -1.1   669 Sun Jul 24 22:05:26 EDT
Oakland, CA            	 35.8 51.7 20:22 +61.4   576 Thu Jul 21 22:12:45 PDT
Oakland, CA            	 34.2 42.6 21:10 +63.6   656 Fri Jul 22 21:40:19 PDT
Ogden, UT              	 30.7 52.1 21:02 +66.5   571 Mon Jul 18 23:13:13 MDT
Ogden, UT              	 29.0 44.4 21:53 +68.6   635 Tue Jul 19 22:40:48 MDT
Ogden, UT              	 27.2 38.4 22:32 +69.0   704 Wed Jul 20 22:08:22 MDT
Ogden, UT              	221.2 46.9 15:31  +5.4   613 Fri Jul 22 22:41:26 MDT
Ogden, UT              	219.6 57.9 15:28 +14.5   536 Sat Jul 23 22:09:03 MDT
Oklahoma City, OK      	 36.7 39.7 21:52 +60.8   689 Thu Jul 21 22:39:24 CDT
Oklahoma City, OK      	 35.1 33.0 22:20 +61.0   788 Fri Jul 22 22:06:58 CDT
Oklahoma City, OK      	227.4 37.5 14:59  -4.8   720 Sun Jul 24 22:39:57 CDT
Omaha, NE              	 26.5 36.7 23:46 +69.0   728 Sun Jul 17 23:10:21 CDT
Omaha, NE              	 24.7 32.4 00:08 +68.5   796 Mon Jul 18 22:37:55 CDT
Omaha, NE              	219.0 62.4 16:33 +18.3   515 Wed Jul 20 23:11:06 CDT
Omaha, NE              	217.4 76.5 16:38 +30.1   473 Thu Jul 21 22:38:43 CDT
Omaha, NE              	 34.7 88.3 16:52 +42.6   461 Fri Jul 22 22:06:19 CDT
Orlando, FL            	 43.3 37.9 21:08 +53.0   714 Sun Jul 24 22:06:11 EDT
Paducah, KY            	220.7 86.4 17:08 +34.4   462 Fri Jul 22 22:08:16 CDT
Paducah, KY            	 39.3 76.1 17:42 +47.2   474 Sat Jul 23 21:35:51 CDT
Paducah, KY            	 37.9 61.0 18:31 +56.4   522 Sun Jul 24 21:03:26 CDT
Pasadena, CA           	 37.4 35.8 21:58 +59.5   743 Fri Jul 22 21:41:39 PDT
Pasadena, CA           	 35.9 29.7 22:18 +59.4   850 Sat Jul 23 21:09:12 PDT
Paterson, NJ           	 24.9 31.2 00:36 +67.8   819 Sun Jul 17 22:36:08 EDT
Paterson, NJ           	217.7 78.9 17:05 +31.8   469 Wed Jul 20 22:36:58 EDT
Paterson, NJ           	 35.3 85.7 17:22 +44.4   462 Thu Jul 21 22:04:34 EDT
Paterson, NJ           	 34.1 71.4 17:52 +55.1   484 Fri Jul 22 21:32:10 EDT
Pensacola, FL          	 40.9 33.9 21:50 +55.4   775 Sat Jul 23 21:37:14 CDT
Peoria, IL             	 29.7 43.3 22:23 +67.9   648 Mon Jul 18 22:39:09 CDT
Peoria, IL             	 27.9 37.3 23:00 +68.2   720 Tue Jul 19 22:06:44 CDT
Peoria, IL             	 26.1 32.7 23:23 +67.7   792 Wed Jul 20 21:34:18 CDT
Peoria, IL             	221.8 46.7 15:53  +5.0   616 Thu Jul 21 22:39:49 CDT
Peoria, IL             	220.1 58.0 15:51 +14.2   537 Fri Jul 22 22:07:26 CDT
Peoria, IL             	218.6 71.7 15:55 +25.7   484 Sat Jul 23 21:35:03 CDT
Philadelphia, PA       	 36.5 83.1 17:56 +45.3   464 Wed Jul 20 22:36:57 EDT
Philadelphia, PA       	 35.1 68.5 18:32 +55.8   493 Thu Jul 21 22:04:33 EDT
Philadelphia, PA       	 33.6 56.5 19:22 +62.6   545 Fri Jul 22 21:32:08 EDT
Phoenix, AZ            	 40.0 45.9 20:34 +57.2   624 Sat Jul 23 21:10:23 MST
Phoenix, AZ            	 38.5 37.0 21:12 +58.6   726 Sun Jul 24 20:37:57 MST
Pierre, SD             	 22.7 47.7 21:53 +73.9   605 Sun Jul 17 23:09:11 CDT
Pierre, SD             	 20.9 42.7 22:41 +74.8   653 Mon Jul 18 22:36:46 CDT
Pierre, SD             	217.5 47.1 16:15  +7.2   611 Tue Jul 19 23:42:16 CDT
Pierre, SD             	215.7 56.6 16:07 +15.4   543 Wed Jul 20 23:09:54 CDT
Pierre, SD             	214.0 67.9 16:03 +25.2   494 Thu Jul 21 22:37:31 CDT
Pittsburgh, PA         	 34.8 73.1 18:45 +53.4   480 Tue Jul 19 23:08:27 EDT
Pittsburgh, PA         	 33.4 60.5 19:30 +61.4   523 Wed Jul 20 22:36:03 EDT
Pittsburgh, PA         	 31.7 50.6 20:22 +65.9   583 Thu Jul 21 22:03:38 EDT
Pittsburgh, PA         	225.0 30.8 14:54  -7.5   829 Sat Jul 23 22:36:33 EDT
Pittsburgh, PA         	223.5 37.7 14:44  -2.2   716 Sun Jul 24 22:04:11 EDT
Pittsfield, MA         	 25.5 41.4 23:06 +71.1   668 Sun Jul 17 22:36:07 EDT
Pittsfield, MA         	 23.6 36.6 23:39 +70.9   730 Mon Jul 18 22:03:42 EDT
Pittsfield, MA         	 21.8 32.8 24:00 +70.3   790 Tue Jul 19 21:31:16 EDT
Pittsfield, MA         	218.1 57.9 16:21 +15.3   537 Wed Jul 20 22:36:51 EDT
Pittsfield, MA         	216.5 70.6 16:21 +26.1   486 Thu Jul 21 22:04:28 EDT
Pittsfield, MA         	215.0 84.8 16:28 +38.1   462 Fri Jul 22 21:32:05 EDT
Pocatello, ID          	 31.7 77.7 18:43 +52.9   469 Sun Jul 17 23:45:18 MDT
Pocatello, ID          	 30.1 65.9 19:14 +61.7   500 Mon Jul 18 23:12:54 MDT
Pocatello, ID          	 28.5 56.1 19:59 +67.5   545 Tue Jul 19 22:40:30 MDT
Pocatello, ID          	 26.7 48.4 20:51 +70.7   598 Wed Jul 20 22:08:04 MDT
Pocatello, ID          	222.4 32.4 15:25  -5.3   796 Thu Jul 21 23:13:26 MDT
Pocatello, ID          	220.9 39.2 15:14  +0.0   694 Fri Jul 22 22:41:04 MDT
Pocatello, ID          	219.3 47.6 15:06  +6.9   606 Sat Jul 23 22:08:42 MDT
Portland, ME           	 27.7 60.7 19:58 +66.3   522 Sun Jul 17 22:36:30 EDT
Portland, ME           	 25.9 52.6 20:45 +70.7   569 Mon Jul 18 22:04:06 EDT
Portland, ME           	 24.1 46.1 21:37 +72.8   620 Tue Jul 19 21:31:41 EDT
Portland, ME           	220.3 38.0 15:50  -0.6   712 Wed Jul 20 22:37:06 EDT
Portland, ME           	218.6 45.8 15:40  +5.8   624 Thu Jul 21 22:04:44 EDT
Portland, ME           	216.9 55.4 15:33 +13.9   551 Fri Jul 22 21:32:22 EDT
Portland, OR           	 25.5 71.9 18:50 +61.0   483 Sat Jul 16 23:15:36 PDT
Portland, OR           	 23.7 63.1 19:13 +67.9   511 Sun Jul 17 22:43:13 PDT
Portland, OR           	 21.9 55.9 19:49 +72.8   547 Mon Jul 18 22:10:48 PDT
Portland, OR           	218.5 35.8 15:57  -1.6   743 Tue Jul 19 23:16:11 PDT
Portland, OR           	216.9 42.5 15:45  +3.9   657 Wed Jul 20 22:43:50 PDT
Portland, OR           	215.2 50.5 15:34 +10.8   584 Thu Jul 21 22:11:28 PDT
Portsmouth, NH         	 27.4 53.3 21:02 +69.3   564 Sun Jul 17 22:36:30 EDT
Portsmouth, NH         	 25.6 46.3 21:54 +71.6   618 Mon Jul 18 22:04:05 EDT
Portsmouth, NH         	 23.7 40.8 22:38 +72.3   675 Tue Jul 19 21:31:39 EDT
Portsmouth, NH         	219.9 42.8 15:58  +3.0   654 Wed Jul 20 22:37:08 EDT
Portsmouth, NH         	218.3 52.0 15:50 +10.6   574 Thu Jul 21 22:04:46 EDT
Portsmouth, NH         	216.6 63.2 15:47 +20.2   512 Fri Jul 22 21:32:23 EDT
Portsmouth, VA         	 34.7 38.8 22:00 +62.7   701 Thu Jul 21 22:04:50 EDT
Portsmouth, VA         	 33.0 32.6 22:27 +62.7   794 Fri Jul 22 21:32:24 EDT
Portsmouth, VA         	225.9 41.7 15:03  -1.0   667 Sun Jul 24 22:05:26 EDT
Providence, RI         	 27.0 41.7 23:00 +70.0   665 Sun Jul 17 22:36:32 EDT
Providence, RI         	 25.2 36.6 23:34 +69.9   730 Mon Jul 18 22:04:07 EDT
Providence, RI         	 23.3 32.5 23:55 +69.3   795 Tue Jul 19 21:31:40 EDT
Providence, RI         	219.4 54.0 16:18 +11.6   560 Wed Jul 20 22:37:15 EDT
Providence, RI         	217.8 66.4 16:18 +22.0   500 Thu Jul 21 22:04:52 EDT
Providence, RI         	216.3 80.6 16:24 +34.0   467 Fri Jul 22 21:32:29 EDT
Provo, UT              	 31.0 45.5 22:02 +66.8   624 Mon Jul 18 23:13:24 MDT
Provo, UT              	 29.3 38.9 22:43 +67.5   698 Tue Jul 19 22:40:59 MDT
Provo, UT              	 27.5 33.7 23:10 +67.2   773 Wed Jul 20 22:08:33 MDT
Provo, UT              	221.4 52.3 15:43  +9.2   570 Fri Jul 22 22:41:40 MDT
Provo, UT              	219.8 65.1 15:45 +19.8   503 Sat Jul 23 22:09:16 MDT
Pueblo, CO             	 33.0 40.4 22:07 +64.5   679 Wed Jul 20 22:10:07 MDT
Pueblo, CO             	 31.3 34.2 22:37 +64.6   765 Thu Jul 21 21:37:41 MDT
Pueblo, CO             	224.5 43.0 15:17  +0.8   651 Sat Jul 23 22:10:43 MDT
Pueblo, CO             	223.1 54.3 15:17  +9.7   557 Sun Jul 24 21:38:20 MDT
Racine, WI             	 30.7 68.4 19:04 +59.7   493 Mon Jul 18 22:39:12 CDT
Racine, WI             	 29.1 58.1 19:47 +66.2   535 Tue Jul 19 22:06:47 CDT
Racine, WI             	 27.3 49.9 20:38 +69.9   588 Wed Jul 20 21:34:22 CDT
Racine, WI             	223.0 30.9 15:25  -6.5   826 Thu Jul 21 22:39:43 CDT
Racine, WI             	221.4 37.3 15:13  -1.5   721 Fri Jul 22 22:07:21 CDT
Racine, WI             	219.8 45.3 15:05  +4.9   628 Sat Jul 23 21:34:59 CDT
Raleigh, NC            	 34.8 33.5 22:56 +61.4   780 Wed Jul 20 22:37:01 EDT
Raleigh, NC            	224.5 61.3 15:42 +13.6   521 Sun Jul 24 22:05:16 EDT
Rapid City, SD         	 20.4 39.6 23:38 +74.2   688 Sun Jul 17 22:08:41 MDT
Rapid City, SD         	 18.5 36.0 00:06 +73.7   737 Mon Jul 18 21:36:15 MDT
Rapid City, SD         	215.3 61.9 16:35 +19.8   516 Tue Jul 19 22:41:52 MDT
Rapid City, SD         	213.7 74.1 16:33 +30.4   477 Wed Jul 20 22:09:29 MDT
Rapid City, SD         	213.2 87.2 16:36 +41.7   460 Thu Jul 21 21:37:05 MDT
Reading, PA            	 35.9 82.5 17:55 +46.2   465 Wed Jul 20 22:36:46 EDT
Reading, PA            	 34.5 68.2 18:30 +56.5   494 Thu Jul 21 22:04:22 EDT
Reading, PA            	 32.9 56.5 19:19 +63.3   545 Fri Jul 22 21:31:57 EDT
Reno, NV               	 28.4 32.4 00:32 +66.0   795 Sat Jul 16 23:16:52 PDT
Reno, NV               	 37.0 83.0 17:38 +44.9   463 Thu Jul 21 22:12:53 PDT
Reno, NV               	 35.6 68.2 18:16 +55.5   493 Fri Jul 22 21:40:28 PDT
Richmond, VA           	 35.5 47.4 21:15 +62.3   610 Wed Jul 20 22:36:57 EDT
Richmond, VA           	 33.8 39.3 21:57 +63.6   694 Thu Jul 21 22:04:32 EDT
Richmond, VA           	 32.1 33.2 22:25 +63.6   784 Fri Jul 22 21:32:05 EDT
Richmond, VA           	225.2 42.8 15:02  +0.2   655 Sun Jul 24 22:05:07 EDT
Roanoke, VA            	 33.7 37.3 22:32 +63.3   721 Wed Jul 20 22:36:33 EDT
Roanoke, VA            	 32.0 31.5 22:55 +63.1   813 Thu Jul 21 22:04:06 EDT
Roanoke, VA            	225.0 45.1 15:26  +1.9   631 Sat Jul 23 22:37:10 EDT
Roanoke, VA            	223.6 57.4 15:28 +11.5   541 Sun Jul 24 22:04:47 EDT
Rochester, MN          	 28.7 71.8 18:53 +59.0   483 Sun Jul 17 23:10:37 CDT
Rochester, MN          	 27.0 61.8 19:25 +66.2   517 Mon Jul 18 22:38:13 CDT
Rochester, MN          	 25.4 53.7 20:11 +70.9   561 Tue Jul 19 22:05:48 CDT
Rochester, MN          	221.4 31.9 15:41  -5.2   808 Wed Jul 20 23:11:09 CDT
Rochester, MN          	219.8 38.2 15:29  -0.3   709 Thu Jul 21 22:38:48 CDT
Rochester, MN          	218.1 45.9 15:18  +6.1   622 Fri Jul 22 22:06:25 CDT
Rochester, NY          	 21.9 37.1 24:00 +72.2   723 Sun Jul 17 22:35:14 EDT
Rochester, NY          	 20.1 33.5 00:21 +71.6   778 Mon Jul 18 22:02:48 EDT
Rochester, NY          	216.6 61.9 16:41 +19.1   518 Tue Jul 19 23:08:25 EDT
Rochester, NY          	215.0 74.7 16:42 +30.1   476 Wed Jul 20 22:36:03 EDT
Rochester, NY          	217.0 88.4 16:48 +41.9   461 Thu Jul 21 22:03:39 EDT
Rockford, IL           	 31.4 68.3 19:28 +59.2   493 Sun Jul 17 23:11:26 CDT
Rockford, IL           	 29.9 57.7 20:12 +65.7   537 Mon Jul 18 22:39:02 CDT
Rockford, IL           	 28.1 49.3 21:04 +69.3   593 Tue Jul 19 22:06:37 CDT
Rockford, IL           	 26.3 42.7 21:53 +70.7   653 Wed Jul 20 21:34:12 CDT
Rockford, IL           	222.1 36.4 15:33  -2.5   734 Thu Jul 21 22:39:36 CDT
Rockford, IL           	220.5 44.3 15:24  +3.9   638 Fri Jul 22 22:07:14 CDT
Rockford, IL           	218.9 54.3 15:18 +12.1   558 Sat Jul 23 21:34:51 CDT
Sacramento, CA         	 36.1 62.3 19:11 +57.7   516 Thu Jul 21 22:12:45 PDT
Sacramento, CA         	 34.7 51.0 20:05 +62.8   580 Fri Jul 22 21:40:20 PDT
Saginaw, MI            	 16.7 30.0 01:22 +71.1   841 Sun Jul 17 22:34:01 EDT
Saginaw, MI            	214.0 81.5 17:29 +36.2   465 Mon Jul 18 23:39:44 EDT
Saginaw, MI            	 31.4 85.0 17:39 +47.6   462 Tue Jul 19 23:07:21 EDT
Saginaw, MI            	 30.1 72.6 18:00 +57.5   481 Wed Jul 20 22:34:57 EDT
Saginaw, MI            	222.5 30.3 14:44  -6.7   839 Sat Jul 23 22:35:26 EDT
Saint Cloud, MN        	 27.1 83.0 17:59 +51.7   463 Sun Jul 17 23:10:07 CDT
Saint Cloud, MN        	 25.6 72.6 18:10 +60.5   480 Mon Jul 18 22:37:44 CDT
Saint Cloud, MN        	 23.8 63.8 18:32 +67.5   509 Tue Jul 19 22:05:20 CDT
Saint Cloud, MN        	220.2 30.0 15:34  -6.1   844 Wed Jul 20 23:10:38 CDT
Saint Cloud, MN        	218.6 35.5 15:20  -1.8   747 Thu Jul 21 22:38:16 CDT
Saint Cloud, MN        	216.9 42.1 15:07  +3.6   661 Fri Jul 22 22:05:55 CDT
Saint Joseph, MO       	 27.5 31.4 00:25 +66.2   816 Sun Jul 17 23:10:44 CDT
Saint Joseph, MO       	218.9 86.3 17:09 +36.9   462 Thu Jul 21 22:39:09 CDT
Saint Joseph, MO       	 36.3 77.8 17:36 +49.1   471 Fri Jul 22 22:06:44 CDT
Saint Louis, MO        	 29.4 30.7 00:04 +64.7   829 Mon Jul 18 22:39:19 CDT
Saint Louis, MO        	220.0 82.6 16:49 +32.8   465 Fri Jul 22 22:07:42 CDT
Saint Louis, MO        	 38.0 80.6 17:16 +45.8   467 Sat Jul 23 21:35:18 CDT
Saint Paul, MN         	 28.1 80.3 18:13 +53.3   466 Sun Jul 17 23:10:23 CDT
Saint Paul, MN         	 26.5 69.7 18:31 +61.9   488 Mon Jul 18 22:37:59 CDT
Saint Paul, MN         	 24.7 60.8 19:00 +68.5   521 Tue Jul 19 22:05:35 CDT
Saint Paul, MN         	220.9 29.9 15:36  -6.4   846 Wed Jul 20 23:10:53 CDT
Saint Paul, MN         	219.3 35.5 15:22  -2.0   747 Thu Jul 21 22:38:32 CDT
Saint Paul, MN         	217.7 42.3 15:10  +3.5   659 Fri Jul 22 22:06:10 CDT
Saint Petersburg, FL   	 42.6 30.5 21:49 +52.9   836 Sun Jul 24 22:06:06 EDT
Salem, OR              	 25.5 63.7 19:38 +66.4   509 Sat Jul 16 23:15:37 PDT
Salem, OR              	 23.6 55.9 20:16 +71.5   547 Sun Jul 17 22:43:13 PDT
Salem, OR              	 21.8 49.7 21:05 +74.6   590 Mon Jul 18 22:10:48 PDT
Salem, OR              	218.3 39.7 16:03  +1.4   689 Tue Jul 19 23:16:14 PDT
Salem, OR              	216.6 47.5 15:52  +7.8   609 Wed Jul 20 22:43:52 PDT
Salem, OR              	214.8 56.8 15:44 +15.8   543 Thu Jul 21 22:11:30 PDT
Salina, KS             	 36.1 65.1 18:56 +56.5   504 Thu Jul 21 22:38:50 CDT
Salina, KS             	 34.7 53.3 19:49 +62.3   564 Fri Jul 22 22:06:25 CDT
Salt Lake City, UT     	 30.8 48.6 21:34 +66.9   597 Mon Jul 18 23:13:17 MDT
Salt Lake City, UT     	 29.1 41.4 22:20 +68.2   666 Tue Jul 19 22:40:52 MDT
Salt Lake City, UT     	 27.3 35.9 22:53 +68.1   738 Wed Jul 20 22:08:26 MDT
Salt Lake City, UT     	221.3 49.6 15:36  +7.4   590 Fri Jul 22 22:41:32 MDT
Salt Lake City, UT     	219.6 61.6 15:36 +17.3   518 Sat Jul 23 22:09:09 MDT
San Bernardino, CA     	 38.0 38.3 21:41 +59.3   707 Fri Jul 22 21:41:48 PDT
San Bernardino, CA     	 36.4 31.6 22:06 +59.4   813 Sat Jul 23 21:09:21 PDT
San Diego, CA          	 38.3 32.3 22:18 +57.9   801 Fri Jul 22 21:42:04 PDT
San Francisco, CA      	 35.7 50.8 20:28 +61.7   582 Thu Jul 21 22:12:43 PDT
San Francisco, CA      	 34.1 42.0 21:15 +63.7   663 Fri Jul 22 21:40:17 PDT
San Jose, CA           	 36.1 49.8 20:37 +61.4   590 Thu Jul 21 22:12:53 PDT
San Jose, CA           	 34.5 41.0 21:23 +63.2   674 Fri Jul 22 21:40:27 PDT
Santa Barbara, CA      	 37.9 39.7 21:51 +59.5   690 Thu Jul 21 22:13:45 PDT
Santa Barbara, CA      	 36.3 32.7 22:19 +59.8   794 Fri Jul 22 21:41:19 PDT
Santa Cruz, CA         	 36.1 46.6 21:00 +61.7   617 Thu Jul 21 22:12:55 PDT
Santa Cruz, CA         	 34.4 38.5 21:41 +62.9   705 Fri Jul 22 21:40:29 PDT
Santa Fe, NM           	223.7 70.0 16:17 +20.3   487 Sat Jul 23 22:11:00 MDT
Santa Fe, NM           	223.0 88.4 16:42 +34.5   460 Sun Jul 24 21:38:36 MDT
Savannah, GA           	 42.9 62.7 18:47 +49.2   515 Sun Jul 24 22:05:34 EDT
Schenectady, NY        	 24.9 42.2 22:58 +71.7   659 Sun Jul 17 22:35:57 EDT
Schenectady, NY        	 23.1 37.5 23:33 +71.6   718 Mon Jul 18 22:03:32 EDT
Schenectady, NY        	 21.2 33.6 23:55 +71.1   775 Tue Jul 19 21:31:06 EDT
Schenectady, NY        	217.6 58.2 16:19 +15.7   536 Wed Jul 20 22:36:41 EDT
Schenectady, NY        	216.0 70.7 16:19 +26.4   486 Thu Jul 21 22:04:18 EDT
Schenectady, NY        	214.5 84.5 16:24 +38.2   463 Fri Jul 22 21:31:55 EDT
Scranton, PA           	 23.6 31.1 00:41 +68.4   820 Sun Jul 17 22:35:47 EDT
Scranton, PA           	216.7 83.0 17:10 +35.7   464 Wed Jul 20 22:36:38 EDT
Scranton, PA           	 34.5 82.1 17:29 +47.8   465 Thu Jul 21 22:04:14 EDT
Scranton, PA           	 33.0 68.5 18:01 +57.8   492 Fri Jul 22 21:31:50 EDT
Seattle, WA            	206.1 79.3 17:23 +37.9   468 Sat Jul 16 23:15:25 PDT
Seattle, WA            	206.8 89.0 17:16 +46.7   460 Sun Jul 17 22:43:02 PDT
Seattle, WA            	217.1 31.3 15:26  -4.4   819 Wed Jul 20 22:43:32 PDT
Seattle, WA            	215.4 36.4 15:11  -0.2   733 Thu Jul 21 22:11:11 PDT
Sheboygan, WI          	213.4 86.1 17:54 +40.5   461 Sun Jul 17 23:11:27 CDT
Sheboygan, WI          	 30.5 80.9 18:06 +51.4   466 Mon Jul 18 22:39:04 CDT
Sheboygan, WI          	 28.9 69.3 18:30 +60.5   490 Tue Jul 19 22:06:40 CDT
Sheboygan, WI          	 27.2 59.5 19:07 +67.2   528 Wed Jul 20 21:34:15 CDT
Sheboygan, WI          	221.5 32.6 15:05  -4.8   794 Fri Jul 22 22:07:11 CDT
Sheboygan, WI          	219.9 39.2 14:53  +0.4   695 Sat Jul 23 21:34:49 CDT
Sheridan, WY           	 17.3 38.3 00:07 +75.6   704 Sun Jul 17 22:07:56 MDT
Sheridan, WY           	214.3 61.8 16:49 +20.1   516 Mon Jul 18 23:13:32 MDT
Sheridan, WY           	212.6 73.5 16:45 +30.4   478 Tue Jul 19 22:41:09 MDT
Sheridan, WY           	211.2 85.9 16:46 +41.3   460 Wed Jul 20 22:08:46 MDT
Shreveport, LA         	 38.0 30.4 22:31 +57.7   837 Fri Jul 22 22:08:08 CDT
Sioux City, IA         	 26.0 43.4 22:43 +71.0   646 Sun Jul 17 23:10:06 CDT
Sioux City, IA         	 24.2 38.2 23:21 +71.1   707 Mon Jul 18 22:37:41 CDT
Sioux City, IA         	 22.3 34.1 23:46 +70.6   768 Tue Jul 19 22:05:15 CDT
Sioux City, IA         	218.6 54.2 16:14 +12.1   559 Wed Jul 20 23:10:49 CDT
Sioux City, IA         	217.0 66.2 16:12 +22.3   500 Thu Jul 21 22:38:26 CDT
Sioux City, IA         	215.4 79.9 16:17 +34.0   467 Fri Jul 22 22:06:03 CDT
Sioux Falls, SD        	 25.7 50.6 21:24 +71.3   582 Sun Jul 17 23:09:55 CDT
Sioux Falls, SD        	 23.9 44.4 22:14 +72.9   635 Mon Jul 18 22:37:31 CDT
Sioux Falls, SD        	 22.0 39.6 22:55 +73.1   689 Tue Jul 19 22:05:05 CDT
Sioux Falls, SD        	218.4 47.7 16:01  +7.4   606 Wed Jul 20 23:10:36 CDT
Sioux Falls, SD        	216.7 57.9 15:55 +15.9   537 Thu Jul 21 22:38:13 CDT
Sioux Falls, SD        	215.0 69.9 15:52 +26.3   488 Fri Jul 22 22:05:50 CDT
Somerville, MA         	 27.2 46.5 22:11 +70.3   616 Sun Jul 17 22:36:31 EDT
Somerville, MA         	 25.4 40.6 22:55 +71.0   677 Mon Jul 18 22:04:06 EDT
Somerville, MA         	 23.5 36.0 23:26 +70.7   739 Tue Jul 19 21:31:40 EDT
Somerville, MA         	219.7 48.5 16:08  +7.3   601 Wed Jul 20 22:37:12 EDT
Somerville, MA         	218.0 59.3 16:04 +16.4   530 Thu Jul 21 22:04:49 EDT
Somerville, MA         	216.4 72.3 16:05 +27.5   482 Fri Jul 22 21:32:26 EDT
South Bend, IN         	 32.1 64.5 19:35 +60.7   506 Mon Jul 18 22:39:36 CDT
South Bend, IN         	 30.4 54.4 20:23 +66.3   557 Tue Jul 19 22:07:12 CDT
South Bend, IN         	 28.6 46.4 21:15 +69.0   617 Wed Jul 20 21:34:47 CDT
South Bend, IN         	222.5 37.5 15:17  -1.9   719 Fri Jul 22 22:07:46 CDT
South Bend, IN         	220.9 45.9 15:10  +4.8   623 Sat Jul 23 21:35:24 CDT
Spartanburg, SC        	223.8 76.2 16:36 +24.5   475 Sat Jul 23 22:37:18 EDT
Spartanburg, SC        	 42.0 84.8 17:07 +38.7   463 Sun Jul 24 22:04:54 EDT
Spokane, WA            	209.8 58.7 17:04 +19.1   532 Sat Jul 16 23:16:12 PDT
Spokane, WA            	207.9 67.8 16:53 +27.3   494 Sun Jul 17 22:43:50 PDT
Spokane, WA            	206.3 77.4 16:43 +36.2   470 Mon Jul 18 22:11:28 PDT
Springfield, IL        	 29.7 37.6 23:13 +66.8   716 Mon Jul 18 22:39:16 CDT
Springfield, IL        	 27.9 32.6 23:37 +66.5   794 Tue Jul 19 22:06:50 CDT
Springfield, IL        	220.1 66.4 16:09 +20.6   500 Fri Jul 22 22:07:35 CDT
Springfield, IL        	218.7 81.9 16:21 +33.3   465 Sat Jul 23 21:35:11 CDT
Springfield, MA        	 26.0 40.7 23:12 +70.5   676 Sun Jul 17 22:36:17 EDT
Springfield, MA        	 24.2 35.9 23:43 +70.3   740 Mon Jul 18 22:03:51 EDT
Springfield, MA        	 22.3 32.1 00:02 +69.6   803 Tue Jul 19 21:31:25 EDT
Springfield, MA        	218.6 57.6 16:22 +14.8   539 Wed Jul 20 22:37:01 EDT
Springfield, MA        	217.0 70.4 16:23 +25.6   487 Thu Jul 21 22:04:38 EDT
Springfield, MA        	215.5 84.7 16:30 +37.8   463 Fri Jul 22 21:32:14 EDT
Springfield, MO        	 39.1 75.9 18:20 +47.5   475 Thu Jul 21 22:39:50 CDT
Springfield, MO        	 37.7 60.9 19:09 +56.6   522 Fri Jul 22 22:07:25 CDT
Springfield, MO        	 36.2 49.4 20:03 +61.3   593 Sat Jul 23 21:35:00 CDT
Springfield, OH        	 32.3 49.2 21:13 +65.4   594 Tue Jul 19 23:07:53 EDT
Springfield, OH        	 30.6 41.6 22:00 +66.9   666 Wed Jul 20 22:35:27 EDT
Springfield, OH        	 28.8 35.7 22:33 +66.9   743 Thu Jul 21 22:03:01 EDT
Springfield, OH        	224.1 37.5 15:24  -2.6   718 Fri Jul 22 23:08:28 EDT
Springfield, OH        	222.6 46.5 15:18  +4.4   617 Sat Jul 23 22:36:05 EDT
Springfield, OH        	221.0 58.1 15:17 +13.8   536 Sun Jul 24 22:03:42 EDT
Stamford, CT           	 25.4 32.9 00:22 +68.2   789 Sun Jul 17 22:36:14 EDT
Stamford, CT           	218.0 73.3 16:53 +27.3   480 Wed Jul 20 22:37:02 EDT
Stamford, CT           	217.6 88.5 17:06 +39.9   461 Thu Jul 21 22:04:39 EDT
Stamford, CT           	 34.5 76.7 17:31 +51.5   473 Fri Jul 22 21:32:15 EDT
Steubenville, OH       	 34.4 68.2 19:08 +56.6   494 Tue Jul 19 23:08:22 EDT
Steubenville, OH       	 32.9 56.5 19:57 +63.3   545 Wed Jul 20 22:35:58 EDT
Steubenville, OH       	 31.2 47.4 20:50 +66.6   609 Thu Jul 21 22:03:32 EDT
Steubenville, OH       	224.6 32.9 14:57  -5.9   789 Sat Jul 23 22:36:29 EDT
Steubenville, OH       	223.1 40.5 14:48  -0.1   680 Sun Jul 24 22:04:07 EDT
Stockton, CA           	 36.5 57.7 19:42 +59.2   539 Thu Jul 21 22:12:53 PDT
Stockton, CA           	 34.9 47.2 20:35 +63.0   611 Fri Jul 22 21:40:28 PDT
Superior, WI           	209.3 72.4 17:07 +30.8   481 Sun Jul 17 23:10:19 CDT
Superior, WI           	207.6 83.0 17:01 +40.5   463 Mon Jul 18 22:37:56 CDT
Superior, WI           	 24.9 86.5 16:59 +49.9   461 Tue Jul 19 22:05:33 CDT
Superior, WI           	218.4 31.1 14:53  -4.8   822 Fri Jul 22 22:06:02 CDT
Syracuse, NY           	 23.1 39.1 23:36 +72.2   696 Sun Jul 17 22:35:31 EDT
Syracuse, NY           	 21.2 35.0 00:02 +71.7   753 Mon Jul 18 22:03:05 EDT
Syracuse, NY           	216.0 67.6 16:31 +24.0   496 Wed Jul 20 22:36:18 EDT
Syracuse, NY           	214.5 81.1 16:35 +35.5   466 Thu Jul 21 22:03:54 EDT
Tacoma, WA             	206.4 84.5 17:34 +42.2   462 Sat Jul 16 23:15:26 PDT
Tacoma, WA             	 23.3 85.7 17:29 +51.2   461 Sun Jul 17 22:43:04 PDT
Tacoma, WA             	 21.9 76.8 17:28 +59.2   472 Mon Jul 18 22:10:40 PDT
Tacoma, WA             	217.0 33.0 15:29  -3.2   788 Wed Jul 20 22:43:35 PDT
Tacoma, WA             	215.3 38.5 15:15  +1.4   704 Thu Jul 21 22:11:14 PDT
Tallahassee, FL        	 41.3 36.0 21:18 +55.2   741 Sun Jul 24 22:05:19 EDT
Tampa, FL              	 42.7 31.7 21:42 +53.0   813 Sun Jul 24 22:06:06 EDT
Terre Haute, IN        	 31.4 41.7 22:36 +66.2   665 Mon Jul 18 22:39:43 EST
Terre Haute, IN        	 29.7 35.7 23:09 +66.3   744 Tue Jul 19 22:07:18 EST
Terre Haute, IN        	 27.9 31.0 23:29 +65.8   824 Wed Jul 20 21:34:51 EST
Terre Haute, IN        	221.7 56.1 15:54 +11.9   548 Fri Jul 22 22:08:00 EST
Terre Haute, IN        	220.1 70.2 15:59 +23.5   488 Sat Jul 23 21:35:36 EST
Texarkana, TX          	 37.7 33.3 22:14 +58.7   783 Fri Jul 22 22:07:56 CDT
Toledo, OH             	 32.2 66.3 19:06 +59.6   500 Tue Jul 19 23:07:40 EDT
Toledo, OH             	 30.7 55.7 19:54 +65.7   549 Wed Jul 20 22:35:16 EDT
Toledo, OH             	 28.9 47.4 20:46 +68.7   608 Thu Jul 21 22:02:50 EDT
Toledo, OH             	224.2 29.9 15:08  -7.6   846 Fri Jul 22 23:08:10 EDT
Toledo, OH             	222.7 36.3 14:57  -2.8   735 Sat Jul 23 22:35:49 EDT
Toledo, OH             	221.2 44.5 14:49  +3.7   637 Sun Jul 24 22:03:26 EDT
Topeka, KS             	 37.4 79.7 17:54 +46.9   468 Thu Jul 21 22:39:08 CDT
Topeka, KS             	 35.9 65.1 18:36 +56.8   505 Fri Jul 22 22:06:43 CDT
Toronto, ON            	 20.5 37.0 00:07 +73.1   724 Sun Jul 17 22:34:51 EDT
Toronto, ON            	 18.6 33.7 00:27 +72.5   774 Mon Jul 18 22:02:26 EDT
Toronto, ON            	215.4 66.3 16:44 +23.3   500 Tue Jul 19 23:08:04 EDT
Toronto, ON            	213.8 79.2 16:46 +34.5   468 Wed Jul 20 22:35:41 EDT
Toronto, ON            	 31.2 87.4 16:54 +45.9   461 Thu Jul 21 22:03:17 EDT
Trenton, NJ            	 34.8 88.9 17:37 +41.1   461 Wed Jul 20 22:36:59 EDT
Trenton, NJ            	 35.3 73.8 18:07 +52.6   479 Thu Jul 21 22:04:35 EDT
Trenton, NJ            	 33.7 60.9 18:52 +60.8   522 Fri Jul 22 21:32:10 EDT
Troy, NY               	 25.1 42.3 22:57 +71.5   659 Sun Jul 17 22:36:00 EDT
Troy, NY               	 23.3 37.4 23:32 +71.5   718 Mon Jul 18 22:03:35 EDT
Troy, NY               	 21.4 33.6 23:55 +70.9   777 Tue Jul 19 21:31:09 EDT
Troy, NY               	217.8 57.7 16:19 +15.2   538 Wed Jul 20 22:36:44 EDT
Troy, NY               	216.2 70.1 16:18 +25.9   488 Thu Jul 21 22:04:21 EDT
Troy, NY               	214.7 84.0 16:24 +37.7   463 Fri Jul 22 21:31:58 EDT
Tucson, AZ             	 40.8 43.1 20:52 +56.3   650 Sat Jul 23 21:10:48 MST
Tucson, AZ             	 39.3 34.7 21:26 +57.3   760 Sun Jul 24 20:38:21 MST
Tulsa, OK              	 37.7 50.1 20:39 +59.6   587 Thu Jul 21 22:39:33 CDT
Tulsa, OK              	 36.1 40.9 21:25 +61.6   675 Fri Jul 22 22:07:08 CDT
Tulsa, OK              	 34.4 34.0 21:55 +61.9   770 Sat Jul 23 21:34:41 CDT
Tulsa, OK              	228.3 29.9 14:44  -9.9   847 Sun Jul 24 22:40:03 CDT
Urbana, IL             	 30.8 43.5 22:21 +67.0   646 Mon Jul 18 22:39:29 CDT
Urbana, IL             	 29.0 37.3 22:58 +67.3   720 Tue Jul 19 22:07:04 CDT
Urbana, IL             	 27.2 32.4 23:21 +66.9   797 Wed Jul 20 21:34:37 CDT
Urbana, IL             	221.2 55.3 15:49 +11.6   552 Fri Jul 22 22:07:45 CDT
Urbana, IL             	219.5 68.8 15:53 +22.8   492 Sat Jul 23 21:35:22 CDT
Utica, NY              	 23.9 41.3 23:10 +72.3   669 Sun Jul 17 22:35:41 EDT
Utica, NY              	 22.0 36.8 23:43 +72.1   726 Mon Jul 18 22:03:16 EDT
Utica, NY              	216.7 62.1 16:23 +19.3   517 Wed Jul 20 22:36:26 EDT
Utica, NY              	215.1 74.9 16:24 +30.3   476 Thu Jul 21 22:04:03 EDT
Walla Walla, WA        	209.4 80.8 17:41 +37.9   466 Sat Jul 16 23:16:16 PDT
Walla Walla, WA        	 25.8 88.0 17:41 +47.8   460 Sun Jul 17 22:43:53 PDT
Walla Walla, WA        	 25.2 77.6 17:46 +57.0   470 Mon Jul 18 22:11:30 PDT
Walla Walla, WA        	218.3 34.0 15:15  -2.8   770 Thu Jul 21 22:12:02 PDT
Washington, DC         	 35.6 60.5 19:41 +59.1   524 Wed Jul 20 22:36:49 EDT
Washington, DC         	 34.0 49.8 20:34 +63.6   590 Thu Jul 21 22:04:24 EDT
Washington, DC         	 32.3 41.6 21:21 +65.3   667 Fri Jul 22 21:31:58 EDT
Washington, DC         	225.4 34.8 14:45  -5.1   759 Sun Jul 24 22:04:55 EDT
Waterbury, CT          	 25.7 36.4 23:53 +69.4   732 Sun Jul 17 22:36:16 EDT
Waterbury, CT          	 23.9 32.3 00:13 +68.9   799 Mon Jul 18 22:03:50 EDT
Waterbury, CT          	218.3 65.1 16:36 +20.7   505 Wed Jul 20 22:37:02 EDT
Waterbury, CT          	216.8 79.3 16:42 +32.7   469 Thu Jul 21 22:04:39 EDT
Waterbury, CT          	 34.6 85.7 16:58 +45.0   462 Fri Jul 22 21:32:15 EDT
Waterloo, IA           	 29.2 56.1 20:41 +66.9   546 Sun Jul 17 23:10:50 CDT
Waterloo, IA           	 27.4 48.2 21:33 +70.0   601 Mon Jul 18 22:38:26 CDT
Waterloo, IA           	 25.6 42.0 22:20 +71.1   661 Tue Jul 19 22:06:00 CDT
Waterloo, IA           	219.9 46.5 15:45  +5.8   617 Thu Jul 21 22:39:05 CDT
Waterloo, IA           	218.2 56.9 15:40 +14.4   542 Fri Jul 22 22:06:42 CDT
Wheeling, WV           	 34.4 64.5 19:29 +58.5   507 Tue Jul 19 23:08:24 EDT
Wheeling, WV           	 32.9 53.4 20:21 +64.1   563 Wed Jul 20 22:35:59 EDT
Wheeling, WV           	 31.2 44.9 21:12 +66.7   632 Thu Jul 21 22:03:34 EDT
Wheeling, WV           	224.5 34.4 15:00  -4.9   765 Sat Jul 23 22:36:31 EDT
Wheeling, WV           	223.1 42.5 14:52  +1.3   657 Sun Jul 24 22:04:09 EDT
White Plains, NY       	 25.2 32.4 00:26 +68.1   797 Sun Jul 17 22:36:11 EDT
White Plains, NY       	217.9 74.9 16:56 +28.6   476 Wed Jul 20 22:37:00 EDT
White Plains, NY       	 26.5 89.8 17:10 +41.2   461 Thu Jul 21 22:04:37 EDT
White Plains, NY       	 34.3 75.1 17:37 +52.6   476 Fri Jul 22 21:32:13 EDT
Wichita Falls, TX      	 36.2 29.8 22:56 +59.1   848 Thu Jul 21 22:39:29 CDT
Wichita, KS            	 36.6 55.9 19:56 +59.6   548 Thu Jul 21 22:39:04 CDT
Wichita, KS            	 35.0 45.7 20:48 +62.9   624 Fri Jul 22 22:06:39 CDT
Wilkes-Barre, PA       	 23.5 30.0 00:49 +68.0   842 Sun Jul 17 22:35:46 EDT
Wilkes-Barre, PA       	216.9 86.5 17:19 +38.4   462 Wed Jul 20 22:36:38 EDT
Wilkes-Barre, PA       	 34.4 78.7 17:41 +50.2   469 Thu Jul 21 22:04:14 EDT
Wilkes-Barre, PA       	 32.8 65.6 18:17 +59.5   502 Fri Jul 22 21:31:49 EDT
Wilmington, DE         	 36.3 78.2 18:14 +48.8   470 Wed Jul 20 22:36:56 EDT
Wilmington, DE         	 34.8 64.2 18:55 +58.2   508 Thu Jul 21 22:04:31 EDT
Wilmington, DE         	 33.3 53.0 19:48 +63.8   566 Fri Jul 22 21:32:06 EDT
Wilmington, NC         	224.8 70.0 16:07 +19.2   490 Sun Jul 24 22:05:40 EDT
Winston-Salem, NC      	 33.6 31.0 23:14 +61.7   824 Wed Jul 20 22:36:40 EDT
Winston-Salem, NC      	223.3 69.7 15:57 +20.4   490 Sun Jul 24 22:04:57 EDT
Worcester, MA          	 26.6 43.7 22:41 +70.5   644 Sun Jul 17 22:36:24 EDT
Worcester, MA          	 24.8 38.3 23:19 +70.7   706 Mon Jul 18 22:03:59 EDT
Worcester, MA          	 23.0 34.1 23:44 +70.3   768 Tue Jul 19 21:31:33 EDT
Worcester, MA          	219.2 52.5 16:14 +10.6   570 Wed Jul 20 22:37:07 EDT
Worcester, MA          	217.5 64.3 16:12 +20.6   508 Thu Jul 21 22:04:44 EDT
Worcester, MA          	215.9 78.0 16:16 +32.2   470 Fri Jul 22 21:32:21 EDT
Yakima, WA             	207.9 84.3 17:41 +41.5   462 Sat Jul 16 23:15:50 PDT
Yakima, WA             	 24.9 85.2 17:39 +50.9   461 Sun Jul 17 22:43:27 PDT
Yakima, WA             	 23.5 75.6 17:43 +59.4   474 Mon Jul 18 22:11:04 PDT
Yakima, WA             	218.4 31.4 15:30  -4.6   815 Wed Jul 20 22:43:58 PDT
Yakima, WA             	216.7 36.9 15:16  -0.2   726 Thu Jul 21 22:11:37 PDT
Yonkers, NY            	 25.1 31.7 00:32 +67.9   810 Sun Jul 17 22:36:11 EDT
Yonkers, NY            	217.8 76.9 17:01 +30.2   473 Wed Jul 20 22:37:00 EDT
Yonkers, NY            	 35.1 87.7 17:16 +42.8   461 Thu Jul 21 22:04:37 EDT
Yonkers, NY            	 34.3 73.1 17:45 +53.9   480 Fri Jul 22 21:32:12 EDT
York, PA               	 35.6 73.1 18:31 +52.8   480 Wed Jul 20 22:36:42 EDT
York, PA               	 34.0 60.2 19:17 +60.8   525 Thu Jul 21 22:04:17 EDT
York, PA               	 32.4 50.0 20:10 +65.2   588 Fri Jul 22 21:31:52 EDT
York, PA               	225.6 30.1 14:35  -8.2   843 Sun Jul 24 22:04:46 EDT
Youngstown, OH         	 34.3 76.2 18:29 +51.9   473 Tue Jul 19 23:08:15 EDT
Youngstown, OH         	 32.7 63.4 19:08 +60.7   511 Wed Jul 20 22:35:51 EDT
Youngstown, OH         	 31.1 53.1 19:59 +65.9   565 Thu Jul 21 22:03:26 EDT
Youngstown, OH         	224.6 30.4 14:51  -7.5   837 Sat Jul 23 22:36:20 EDT
Youngstown, OH         	223.1 37.0 14:41  -2.5   725 Sun Jul 24 22:03:58 EDT
Yuma, AZ               	 38.4 32.9 21:56 +57.9   790 Sat Jul 23 21:10:04 MST
Zanesville, OH         	 33.6 56.8 20:16 +62.4   543 Tue Jul 19 23:08:12 EDT
Zanesville, OH         	 31.9 47.4 21:09 +65.9   608 Wed Jul 20 22:35:47 EDT
Zanesville, OH         	 30.2 40.2 21:53 +67.0   682 Thu Jul 21 22:03:21 EDT
Zanesville, OH         	223.7 39.3 15:07  -1.3   695 Sat Jul 23 22:36:21 EDT
Zanesville, OH         	222.2 48.8 15:02  +6.3   598 Sun Jul 24 22:03:58 EDT

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #289
*******************

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Date: Sat, 23 Jul 88 01:05:55 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
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To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #290

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 290

Today's Topics:
		       Upcoming Mir overflights
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 18 Jul 88 19:01:00 GMT
From: a.cs.uiuc.edu!m.cs.uiuc.edu!kenny@ee.ecn.purdue.edu
Subject: Upcoming Mir overflights


	Upcoming overflights of Mir
	---------------------------

The following table gives, for the continental US (and a couple of
Canadian locations) a list of the best opportunities to view Mir
during the next cluster of overflights (late July - early August).
For each overflight, the time given is that of the closest approach of
the spacecraft to the location; the `Range' column gives the distance
to the spacecraft, in kilometers.

The `Azim' and `Elev' columns give the location of the object in the
sky at the time of closest approach; `Azim' is in degrees, with North
being 0, East 90, South 180, and West 270.  `Elev' is in degrees above
the horizon.  `RA' and `Decl' give the right ascension and declination
for those who are more comfortable with celestial co-ordinates.

This cluster of overflights occurs on ascending orbits; therefore in
all cases the spacecraft is rising in the SW and setting in the NE.
EXCEPTION: For a few sites near the Canadian border, there are passes
visible during the first week of August in which the spacecraft rises
nearly due west, passes low in the North, and sets nearly due east.
These passes have azimuths close to 0 or 360 at time of closest
approach, (i.e., the spacecraft passes to the North), rather than
close to 135 or 315 (SE or NW, respectively).

City and state           Azim Elev  RA    Decl Range   Date and time
============================================================================
Abilene, TX            	319.3 35.7 12:25 +56.3   554 Tue Jul 26 22:35:30 CDT
Abilene, TX            	319.2 36.1 11:47 +56.3   548 Thu Jul 28 21:46:49 CDT
Akron, OH              	324.5 83.9 17:05 +46.0   339 Wed Jul 27 22:28:02 EDT
Akron, OH              	333.0 28.9 10:31 +64.9   647 Thu Jul 28 22:51:19 EDT
Akron, OH              	332.9 29.2 09:53 +65.0   641 Sat Jul 30 22:02:25 EDT
Albany, NY             	330.2 53.2 14:33 +67.6   415 Wed Jul 27 22:29:33 EDT
Albany, NY             	330.1 53.9 13:58 +67.4   411 Fri Jul 29 21:40:45 EDT
Albuquerque, NM        	135.2 54.9 18:25  +7.9   407 Tue Jul 26 21:34:51 MDT
Albuquerque, NM        	322.6 32.7 11:41 +59.0   589 Wed Jul 27 21:58:06 MDT
Albuquerque, NM        	322.5 33.2 11:04 +59.1   582 Fri Jul 29 21:09:18 MDT
Allentown, PA          	328.8 40.8 12:34 +66.4   500 Wed Jul 27 22:28:58 EDT
Allentown, PA          	140.4 56.1 18:08 +12.4   402 Thu Jul 28 21:17:03 EDT
Allentown, PA          	328.7 41.3 11:58 +66.4   495 Fri Jul 29 21:40:11 EDT
Altoona, PA            	326.6 53.3 14:23 +64.2   414 Wed Jul 27 22:28:28 EDT
Altoona, PA            	326.5 54.1 13:48 +63.9   410 Fri Jul 29 21:39:40 EDT
Amarillo, TX           	318.2 77.9 16:24 +43.7   345 Tue Jul 26 22:35:38 CDT
Amarillo, TX           	318.2 79.1 15:48 +43.0   343 Thu Jul 28 21:46:57 CDT
Ann Arbor, MI          	142.8 60.0 18:30 +16.7   386 Wed Jul 27 22:27:52 EDT
Ann Arbor, MI          	331.4 43.0 12:31 +69.0   480 Thu Jul 28 22:51:04 EDT
Ann Arbor, MI          	331.2 43.5 11:56 +69.0   475 Sat Jul 30 22:02:10 EDT
Arlington, VA          	327.4 34.2 11:44 +63.5   571 Wed Jul 27 22:28:27 EDT
Arlington, VA          	327.3 34.6 11:06 +63.6   565 Fri Jul 29 21:39:39 EDT
Asheville, NC          	135.7 56.9 18:25  +9.7   399 Tue Jul 26 22:03:45 EDT
Asheville, NC          	323.2 32.6 11:41 +59.6   591 Wed Jul 27 22:27:00 EDT
Asheville, NC          	323.1 33.1 11:04 +59.6   585 Fri Jul 29 21:38:13 EDT
Ashland, KY            	135.7 34.7 19:15  -6.1   566 Tue Jul 26 22:04:16 EDT
Ashland, KY            	323.4 56.2 14:34 +60.1   401 Wed Jul 27 22:27:27 EDT
Ashland, KY            	323.3 57.2 14:00 +59.7   397 Fri Jul 29 21:38:39 EDT
Atlanta, GA            	134.5 60.5 18:09 +11.3   386 Tue Jul 26 22:03:07 EDT
Atlanta, GA            	321.8 29.2 11:23 +57.3   643 Wed Jul 27 22:26:23 EDT
Atlanta, GA            	321.7 29.6 10:45 +57.3   636 Fri Jul 29 21:37:35 EDT
Atlantic City, NJ      	329.4 29.7 11:09 +63.2   634 Wed Jul 27 22:28:59 EDT
Atlantic City, NJ      	140.9 81.2 17:13 +32.3   341 Thu Jul 28 21:17:00 EDT
Atlantic City, NJ      	329.3 30.0 10:30 +63.3   629 Fri Jul 29 21:40:12 EDT
Augusta, GA            	104.1 90.0 16:56 +33.5   339 Tue Jul 26 22:03:27 EDT
Augusta, ME            	333.4 54.6 14:57 +70.1   408 Wed Jul 27 22:30:26 EDT
Augusta, ME            	144.5 51.0 18:34 +10.1   427 Thu Jul 28 21:18:31 EDT
Augusta, ME            	333.3 55.2 14:22 +69.8   405 Fri Jul 29 21:41:38 EDT
Austin, TX             	133.2 84.2 16:35 +26.2   341 Wed Jul 27 21:23:33 CDT
Bakersfield, CA        	322.1 37.2 12:31 +59.6   536 Tue Jul 26 22:08:01 PDT
Bakersfield, CA        	134.7 46.6 18:21  +1.5   456 Wed Jul 27 20:56:10 PDT
Bakersfield, CA        	322.0 37.7 11:54 +59.6   531 Thu Jul 28 21:19:20 PDT
Baltimore, MD          	327.8 35.3 11:51 +64.2   557 Wed Jul 27 22:28:36 EDT
Baltimore, MD          	327.7 35.7 11:14 +64.3   552 Fri Jul 29 21:39:48 EDT
Bangor, ME             	334.2 56.3 15:18 +70.2   400 Wed Jul 27 22:30:39 EDT
Bangor, ME             	145.3 51.1 18:37 +10.5   426 Thu Jul 28 21:18:45 EDT
Bangor, ME             	334.1 56.9 14:43 +69.9   397 Fri Jul 29 21:41:52 EDT
Bangor, ME             	343.4 29.0 09:07 +69.4   644 Sat Jul 30 22:05:05 EDT
Bangor, ME             	343.3 29.2 08:28 +69.5   640 Mon Aug  1 21:15:58 EDT
Baton Rouge, LA        	130.8 37.6 18:46  -7.9   535 Tue Jul 26 21:01:27 CDT
Baton Rouge, LA        	317.2 38.0 12:19 +54.1   529 Wed Jul 27 21:24:39 CDT
Battle Creek, MI       	141.8 50.6 18:44  +8.7   429 Wed Jul 27 22:27:39 EDT
Battle Creek, MI       	330.3 49.0 13:31 +68.3   438 Thu Jul 28 22:50:50 EDT
Battle Creek, MI       	330.2 49.7 12:57 +68.2   433 Sat Jul 30 22:01:56 EDT
Bay City, MI           	142.7 45.5 18:57  +5.1   462 Wed Jul 27 22:28:03 EDT
Bay City, MI           	331.3 57.8 14:58 +67.3   394 Thu Jul 28 22:51:13 EDT
Bay City, MI           	331.2 58.6 14:24 +66.8   390 Sat Jul 30 22:02:19 EDT
Beaumont, TX           	315.5 53.9 13:51 +50.2   414 Wed Jul 27 21:24:06 CDT
Bellingham, WA         	148.7 34.7 19:28  -2.0   563 Wed Jul 27 22:32:41 PDT
Bellingham, WA         	157.8 79.6 18:34 +39.0   341 Thu Jul 28 22:55:46 PDT
Bellingham, WA         	347.3 58.3 16:28 +77.9   391 Fri Jul 29 23:18:56 PDT
Bellingham, WA         	157.6 78.8 17:55 +38.3   342 Sat Jul 30 22:06:51 PDT
Bellingham, WA         	357.1 45.1 09:07 +85.8   462 Sat Jul 30 23:42:07 PDT
Bellingham, WA         	347.2 58.7 15:51 +77.6   389 Sun Jul 31 22:29:54 PDT
Bellingham, WA         	356.9 45.2 08:34 +85.8   461 Mon Aug  1 22:52:58 PDT
Bellingham, WA         	  6.7 47.8 01:31 +85.4   443 Tue Aug  2 23:16:00 PDT
Bellingham, WA         	356.6 45.3 08:05 +85.8   460 Wed Aug  3 22:03:36 PDT
Berkeley, CA           	320.7 88.6 17:15 +38.9   338 Tue Jul 26 22:07:54 PDT
Berkeley, CA           	325.6 89.8 16:38 +38.0   338 Thu Jul 28 21:19:12 PDT
Bethlehem, PA          	328.8 40.6 12:32 +66.5   501 Wed Jul 27 22:29:00 EDT
Bethlehem, PA          	140.4 56.6 18:08 +12.8   400 Thu Jul 28 21:17:04 EDT
Bethlehem, PA          	328.7 41.1 11:56 +66.5   497 Fri Jul 29 21:40:12 EDT
Billings, MT           	339.6 44.4 12:53 +75.6   467 Wed Jul 27 23:34:34 MDT
Billings, MT           	150.3 78.2 18:05 +35.3   342 Thu Jul 28 22:22:36 MDT
Billings, MT           	339.5 44.8 12:18 +75.6   464 Fri Jul 29 22:45:46 MDT
Billings, MT           	339.4 45.3 11:44 +75.6   460 Sun Jul 31 21:56:45 MDT
Biloxi, MS             	132.0 53.8 18:11  +3.9   415 Tue Jul 26 21:01:47 CDT
Binghamton, NY         	328.5 58.0 15:08 +64.7   393 Wed Jul 27 22:29:06 EDT
Binghamton, NY         	328.4 58.8 14:34 +64.3   390 Fri Jul 29 21:40:19 EDT
Birmingham, AL         	133.2 44.1 18:42  -1.5   475 Tue Jul 26 21:02:43 CDT
Birmingham, AL         	320.2 36.7 12:11 +57.5   542 Wed Jul 27 21:25:55 CDT
Bismarck, ND           	147.5 44.6 19:12  +5.8   467 Wed Jul 27 23:00:50 CDT
Bismarck, ND           	336.5 73.0 17:12 +61.7   350 Thu Jul 28 23:23:58 CDT
Bismarck, ND           	346.0 38.9 10:26 +77.1   514 Fri Jul 29 23:47:12 CDT
Bismarck, ND           	336.4 73.8 16:35 +61.0   348 Sat Jul 30 22:35:04 CDT
Bismarck, ND           	355.8 29.8 07:53 +72.6   630 Sun Jul 31 00:10:28 CDT
Bismarck, ND           	345.8 39.2 09:50 +77.2   511 Sun Jul 31 22:58:11 CDT
Bismarck, ND           	355.6 29.8 07:14 +72.7   628 Mon Aug  1 23:21:20 CDT
Bismarck, ND           	  5.4 30.2 05:45 +72.9   621 Tue Aug  2 23:44:27 CDT
Bismarck, ND           	355.3 29.9 06:36 +72.7   627 Wed Aug  3 22:31:58 CDT
Bismarck, ND           	  5.1 30.1 05:07 +72.8   623 Thu Aug  4 22:54:59 CDT
Bloomington, IL        	139.1 45.9 18:43  +3.8   459 Wed Jul 27 21:26:46 CDT
Bloomington, IL        	327.3 48.0 13:18 +65.6   444 Thu Jul 28 21:49:56 CDT
Boise, ID              	333.3 46.7 13:27 +71.1   452 Wed Jul 27 23:33:01 MDT
Boise, ID              	144.5 58.8 18:18 +16.6   389 Thu Jul 28 22:21:04 MDT
Boise, ID              	333.2 47.2 12:52 +71.0   448 Fri Jul 29 22:44:13 MDT
Boston, MA             	332.2 39.8 12:19 +69.0   508 Wed Jul 27 22:29:58 EDT
Boston, MA             	143.5 66.3 18:01 +22.2   366 Thu Jul 28 21:18:01 EDT
Boston, MA             	332.1 40.2 11:43 +69.1   504 Fri Jul 29 21:41:11 EDT
Bowling Green, KY      	320.7 66.9 15:28 +52.7   365 Wed Jul 27 21:26:34 CDT
Brattleboro, VT        	331.1 50.0 14:03 +69.0   432 Wed Jul 27 22:29:46 EDT
Brattleboro, VT        	142.5 50.7 18:27  +9.1   429 Thu Jul 28 21:17:52 EDT
Brattleboro, VT        	331.0 50.6 13:28 +68.9   428 Fri Jul 29 21:40:59 EDT
Bridgeport, CT         	330.5 37.5 12:02 +67.0   532 Wed Jul 27 22:29:27 EDT
Bridgeport, CT         	142.0 65.9 17:55 +21.0   368 Thu Jul 28 21:17:30 EDT
Bridgeport, CT         	330.4 37.9 11:26 +67.1   527 Fri Jul 29 21:40:39 EDT
Brockton, MA           	332.3 37.6 11:59 +68.3   530 Wed Jul 27 22:29:56 EDT
Brockton, MA           	143.5 70.4 17:53 +25.5   357 Thu Jul 28 21:17:59 EDT
Brockton, MA           	332.2 38.0 11:22 +68.4   526 Fri Jul 29 21:41:09 EDT
Brownsville, TX        	313.3 44.6 12:53 +48.2   471 Wed Jul 27 21:22:45 CDT
Buffalo, NY            	145.9 88.9 17:40 +42.0   337 Wed Jul 27 22:28:44 EDT
Buffalo, NY            	335.2 33.8 10:57 +68.6   574 Thu Jul 28 22:52:00 EDT
Buffalo, NY            	145.9 87.8 17:03 +41.0   337 Fri Jul 29 21:39:57 EDT
Buffalo, NY            	335.1 34.1 10:19 +68.7   569 Sat Jul 30 22:03:05 EDT
Burlington, VT         	330.7 75.9 17:11 +56.2   347 Wed Jul 27 22:29:52 EDT
Burlington, VT         	339.9 33.1 10:31 +70.7   583 Thu Jul 28 22:53:10 EDT
Burlington, VT         	330.7 76.8 16:34 +55.5   345 Fri Jul 29 21:41:05 EDT
Burlington, VT         	339.8 33.4 09:53 +70.8   579 Sat Jul 30 22:04:16 EDT
Butte, MT              	336.4 60.9 16:11 +69.7   380 Wed Jul 27 23:33:54 MDT
Butte, MT              	147.3 51.4 18:41 +11.4   422 Thu Jul 28 22:22:00 MDT
Butte, MT              	345.9 32.9 09:54 +73.0   582 Thu Jul 28 23:57:13 MDT
Butte, MT              	336.3 61.5 15:35 +69.3   378 Fri Jul 29 22:45:06 MDT
Butte, MT              	345.7 33.1 09:15 +73.1   579 Sat Jul 30 23:08:18 MDT
Butte, MT              	345.6 33.4 08:37 +73.2   575 Mon Aug  1 22:19:10 MDT
Cambridge, MA          	332.2 40.1 12:22 +69.1   506 Wed Jul 27 22:29:58 EDT
Cambridge, MA          	143.5 65.8 18:02 +21.8   368 Thu Jul 28 21:18:01 EDT
Cambridge, MA          	332.1 40.5 11:45 +69.1   502 Fri Jul 29 21:41:10 EDT
Camden, NJ             	329.0 34.9 11:46 +65.0   561 Wed Jul 27 22:28:57 EDT
Camden, NJ             	140.6 66.7 17:47 +20.8   366 Thu Jul 28 21:16:59 EDT
Camden, NJ             	328.9 35.3 11:08 +65.0   556 Fri Jul 29 21:40:09 EDT
Canton, OH             	324.5 78.2 16:44 +50.0   344 Wed Jul 27 22:28:01 EDT
Carson City, NV        	322.0 84.1 17:10 +43.7   338 Tue Jul 26 22:08:31 PDT
Carson City, NV        	322.0 85.2 16:33 +42.9   337 Thu Jul 28 21:19:49 PDT
Cedar Rapids, IA       	334.3 30.6 10:57 +66.5   619 Wed Jul 27 23:01:43 CDT
Cedar Rapids, IA       	325.6 86.3 16:59 +45.0   338 Thu Jul 28 21:49:42 CDT
Cedar Rapids, IA       	334.2 30.9 10:19 +66.6   615 Fri Jul 29 22:12:55 CDT
Cedar Rapids, IA       	334.0 31.2 09:41 +66.7   608 Sun Jul 31 21:23:54 CDT
Central Islip, NY      	330.5 34.8 11:41 +66.1   562 Wed Jul 27 22:29:24 EDT
Central Islip, NY      	141.9 71.2 17:43 +25.2   355 Thu Jul 28 21:17:26 EDT
Central Islip, NY      	330.4 35.2 11:04 +66.1   557 Fri Jul 29 21:40:36 EDT
Champaign, IL          	139.6 53.8 18:29 +10.1   413 Wed Jul 27 21:26:49 CDT
Champaign, IL          	327.8 41.5 12:20 +65.7   493 Thu Jul 28 21:50:00 CDT
Charleston, SC         	317.2 59.7 14:51 +51.1   389 Tue Jul 26 22:03:39 EDT
Charleston, SC         	317.1 60.6 14:16 +50.7   385 Thu Jul 28 21:14:58 EDT
Charleston, WV         	136.3 39.9 19:06  -2.1   509 Tue Jul 26 22:04:23 EDT
Charleston, WV         	324.1 48.8 13:40 +62.3   440 Wed Jul 27 22:27:35 EDT
Charleston, WV         	324.0 49.6 13:06 +62.1   435 Fri Jul 29 21:38:48 EDT
Charlotte, NC          	136.7 77.6 17:38 +25.8   346 Tue Jul 26 22:03:57 EDT
Chattanooga, TN        	134.0 42.5 18:50  -1.8   487 Tue Jul 26 22:03:14 EDT
Chattanooga, TN        	321.3 40.1 12:33 +59.2   507 Wed Jul 27 22:26:26 EDT
Chattanooga, TN        	321.2 40.7 11:57 +59.1   501 Fri Jul 29 21:37:39 EDT
Cheyenne, WY           	324.4 85.4 17:09 +44.8   336 Wed Jul 27 21:59:22 MDT
Cheyenne, WY           	332.9 29.2 10:32 +65.0   639 Thu Jul 28 22:22:38 MDT
Cheyenne, WY           	332.8 29.5 09:54 +65.1   633 Sat Jul 30 21:33:43 MDT
Chicago, IL            	140.1 41.8 18:55  +1.1   491 Wed Jul 27 21:27:12 CDT
Chicago, IL            	328.4 56.2 14:32 +65.1   401 Thu Jul 28 21:50:21 CDT
Cincinnatti, OH        	322.2 79.7 16:36 +46.9   343 Wed Jul 27 22:27:14 EDT
Cleveland, OH          	143.9 87.8 17:32 +39.7   337 Wed Jul 27 22:28:04 EDT
Cleveland, OH          	332.9 31.5 10:49 +66.2   605 Thu Jul 28 22:51:20 EDT
Cleveland, OH          	332.8 31.9 10:11 +66.3   600 Sat Jul 30 22:02:26 EDT
Colorado Springs, CO   	136.4 36.9 19:11  -4.2   537 Tue Jul 26 21:35:49 MDT
Colorado Springs, CO   	324.2 53.5 14:15 +61.6   412 Wed Jul 27 21:59:00 MDT
Colorado Springs, CO   	324.1 54.3 13:41 +61.3   408 Fri Jul 29 21:10:13 MDT
Columbia, MO           	136.9 40.1 18:47  -1.7   507 Wed Jul 27 21:26:00 CDT
Columbia, MO           	324.8 50.0 13:30 +62.8   432 Thu Jul 28 21:49:08 CDT
Columbia, SC           	316.9 87.0 16:49 +36.2   339 Tue Jul 26 22:03:42 EDT
Columbus, GA           	134.1 69.4 17:44 +17.2   361 Tue Jul 26 22:02:47 EDT
Columbus, OH           	323.3 79.3 16:41 +48.2   343 Wed Jul 27 22:27:37 EDT
Concord, NH            	331.9 49.4 13:59 +69.8   435 Wed Jul 27 22:29:59 EDT
Concord, NH            	143.2 52.8 18:26 +11.1   417 Thu Jul 28 21:18:04 EDT
Concord, NH            	331.8 50.0 13:24 +69.6   432 Fri Jul 29 21:41:12 EDT
Corpus Christi, TX     	313.5 60.5 14:16 +44.9   387 Wed Jul 27 21:23:08 CDT
Dallas, TX             	134.0 63.2 17:39 +12.7   377 Wed Jul 27 21:24:11 CDT
Davenport, IA          	138.1 32.3 19:07  -6.7   596 Wed Jul 27 21:26:43 CDT
Davenport, IA          	326.2 70.6 15:57 +56.3   356 Thu Jul 28 21:49:49 CDT
Dayton, OH             	322.6 87.0 17:05 +42.1   338 Wed Jul 27 22:27:24 EDT
Daytona Beach, FL      	316.2 37.4 12:37 +52.9   536 Tue Jul 26 22:02:49 EDT
Daytona Beach, FL      	316.2 38.0 11:59 +52.8   529 Thu Jul 28 21:14:09 EDT
Decatur, IL            	139.1 51.9 18:31  +8.4   422 Wed Jul 27 21:26:40 CDT
Decatur, IL            	327.3 42.1 12:26 +65.3   488 Thu Jul 28 21:49:51 CDT
Denver, CO             	136.3 31.5 19:22  -8.1   607 Tue Jul 26 21:35:58 MDT
Denver, CO             	324.1 65.9 15:39 +57.0   366 Wed Jul 27 21:59:07 MDT
Des Moines, IA         	332.7 32.6 11:17 +66.6   590 Wed Jul 27 23:01:19 CDT
Des Moines, IA         	143.9 83.2 17:23 +36.0   339 Thu Jul 28 21:49:20 CDT
Des Moines, IA         	332.6 32.9 10:39 +66.7   585 Fri Jul 29 22:12:32 CDT
Detroit, MI            	143.3 64.3 18:24 +20.5   372 Wed Jul 27 22:27:59 EDT
Detroit, MI            	331.9 41.0 12:10 +69.1   497 Thu Jul 28 22:51:12 EDT
Detroit, MI            	331.8 41.5 11:35 +69.1   492 Sat Jul 30 22:02:18 EDT
Dodge City, KS         	139.3 83.3 17:37 +32.5   340 Tue Jul 26 22:36:22 CDT
Dodge City, KS         	139.2 82.1 17:00 +31.6   340 Thu Jul 28 21:47:41 CDT
Dubuque, IA            	335.1 31.7 11:01 +67.5   603 Wed Jul 27 23:01:57 CDT
Dubuque, IA            	326.4 86.8 17:05 +45.2   337 Thu Jul 28 21:49:57 CDT
Dubuque, IA            	335.0 31.9 10:23 +67.6   599 Fri Jul 29 22:13:09 CDT
Dubuque, IA            	334.8 32.3 09:46 +67.7   593 Sun Jul 31 21:24:08 CDT
Duluth, MN             	334.2 88.4 18:14 +48.2   336 Wed Jul 27 23:02:12 CDT
Duluth, MN             	343.6 43.6 12:08 +78.0   474 Thu Jul 28 23:25:27 CDT
Duluth, MN             	334.7 89.3 17:35 +47.4   336 Fri Jul 29 22:13:24 CDT
Duluth, MN             	353.3 30.8 08:33 +73.2   614 Fri Jul 29 23:48:46 CDT
Duluth, MN             	343.4 43.9 11:33 +78.1   471 Sat Jul 30 22:36:33 CDT
Duluth, MN             	353.2 30.9 07:54 +73.2   613 Sun Jul 31 22:59:44 CDT
Duluth, MN             	343.2 44.4 11:01 +78.0   467 Mon Aug  1 21:47:25 CDT
Duluth, MN             	  3.0 29.3 06:23 +72.3   638 Mon Aug  1 23:22:55 CDT
Duluth, MN             	353.0 31.0 07:16 +73.3   611 Tue Aug  2 22:10:29 CDT
Duluth, MN             	  2.8 29.2 05:45 +72.3   638 Wed Aug  3 22:33:34 CDT
Duluth, MN             	 12.5 36.4 03:39 +76.1   540 Thu Aug  4 22:56:33 CDT
Durham, NC             	137.6 87.3 17:18 +34.0   339 Tue Jul 26 22:04:23 EDT
Durham, NC             	137.6 86.1 16:40 +33.1   339 Thu Jul 28 21:15:43 EDT
Eau Claire, WI         	334.6 54.2 14:56 +71.2   409 Wed Jul 27 23:02:04 CDT
Eau Claire, WI         	145.6 53.6 18:32 +12.7   412 Thu Jul 28 21:50:09 CDT
Eau Claire, WI         	334.5 54.8 14:22 +70.9   406 Fri Jul 29 22:13:17 CDT
El Paso, TX            	315.3 81.0 16:16 +37.9   342 Tue Jul 26 21:34:16 MDT
Elizabeth, NJ          	329.7 37.0 12:00 +66.2   537 Wed Jul 27 22:29:12 EDT
Elizabeth, NJ          	141.2 64.6 17:54 +19.6   371 Thu Jul 28 21:17:15 EDT
Elizabeth, NJ          	329.6 37.4 11:23 +66.3   532 Fri Jul 29 21:40:25 EDT
Enid, OK               	320.8 57.7 14:54 +56.6   395 Tue Jul 26 22:36:29 CDT
Enid, OK               	320.8 58.6 14:19 +56.2   392 Thu Jul 28 21:47:48 CDT
Erie, PA               	325.8 88.5 17:27 +43.3   337 Wed Jul 27 22:28:25 EDT
Erie, PA               	334.2 31.7 10:45 +67.0   603 Thu Jul 28 22:51:42 EDT
Erie, PA               	334.1 32.0 10:07 +67.1   598 Sat Jul 30 22:02:47 EDT
Eugene, OR             	148.0 86.7 17:53 +41.2   337 Wed Jul 27 22:31:56 PDT
Eugene, OR             	337.1 37.0 11:14 +71.3   536 Thu Jul 28 22:55:11 PDT
Eugene, OR             	147.8 85.6 17:15 +40.3   337 Fri Jul 29 21:43:08 PDT
Eugene, OR             	336.9 37.3 10:37 +71.4   532 Sat Jul 30 22:06:16 PDT
Eureka, CA             	138.9 42.0 19:09  +0.7   490 Tue Jul 26 22:08:06 PDT
Eureka, CA             	327.1 52.8 14:17 +64.8   417 Wed Jul 27 22:31:18 PDT
Eureka, CA             	327.0 53.5 13:43 +64.5   413 Fri Jul 29 21:42:30 PDT
Evansville, IN         	139.5 87.9 17:07 +36.4   338 Wed Jul 27 21:26:33 CDT
Fall River, MA         	332.1 35.3 11:40 +67.4   556 Wed Jul 27 22:29:52 EDT
Fall River, MA         	143.4 74.9 17:42 +29.1   349 Thu Jul 28 21:17:54 EDT
Fall River, MA         	332.0 35.6 11:03 +67.4   552 Fri Jul 29 21:41:05 EDT
Fargo, ND              	150.5 62.4 18:55 +21.8   377 Wed Jul 27 23:01:28 CDT
Fargo, ND              	339.7 57.2 15:34 +73.9   396 Thu Jul 28 23:24:39 CDT
Fargo, ND              	150.4 61.7 18:16 +21.1   379 Fri Jul 29 22:12:40 CDT
Fargo, ND              	349.3 34.7 09:22 +75.5   561 Fri Jul 29 23:47:55 CDT
Fargo, ND              	339.6 57.7 15:00 +73.6   393 Sat Jul 30 22:35:45 CDT
Fargo, ND              	359.2 29.5 07:30 +72.6   635 Sun Jul 31 00:11:12 CDT
Fargo, ND              	349.2 34.9 08:44 +75.5   558 Sun Jul 31 22:58:54 CDT
Fargo, ND              	359.0 29.5 06:50 +72.6   634 Mon Aug  1 23:22:04 CDT
Fargo, ND              	348.9 35.1 08:07 +75.6   555 Tue Aug  2 22:09:39 CDT
Fargo, ND              	  8.9 32.9 05:10 +74.5   583 Tue Aug  2 23:45:11 CDT
Fargo, ND              	358.7 29.5 06:12 +72.6   634 Wed Aug  3 22:32:42 CDT
Fargo, ND              	  8.5 32.7 04:34 +74.4   586 Thu Aug  4 22:55:42 CDT
Flagstaff, AZ          	319.3 61.2 14:47 +53.5   381 Wed Jul 27 20:57:16 MST
Flint, MI              	142.9 52.1 18:46 +10.4   421 Wed Jul 27 22:27:59 EDT
Flint, MI              	331.5 49.9 13:42 +69.3   432 Thu Jul 28 22:51:10 EDT
Flint, MI              	331.3 50.6 13:08 +69.1   428 Sat Jul 30 22:02:16 EDT
Fort Smith, AR         	135.5 56.5 18:04  +9.3   401 Wed Jul 27 21:25:02 CDT
Fort Smith, AR         	323.0 32.6 11:21 +59.3   592 Thu Jul 28 21:48:13 CDT
Fort Wayne, IN         	141.8 65.1 18:15 +20.3   370 Wed Jul 27 21:27:27 EST
Fort Wayne, IN         	330.2 37.9 11:46 +66.9   527 Thu Jul 28 21:50:40 EST
Fort Wayne, IN         	330.1 38.4 11:10 +67.0   521 Sat Jul 30 21:01:46 EST
Fort Worth, TX         	133.7 58.6 17:48  +9.1   393 Wed Jul 27 21:24:05 CDT
Fresno, CA             	321.7 52.3 14:19 +59.1   421 Tue Jul 26 22:08:07 PDT
Fresno, CA             	321.7 53.0 13:44 +58.8   417 Thu Jul 28 21:19:25 PDT
Gadsden, AL            	133.6 45.5 18:41  -0.1   464 Tue Jul 26 21:02:55 CDT
Gadsden, AL            	320.7 36.4 12:09 +58.1   545 Wed Jul 27 21:26:09 CDT
Gadsden, AL            	320.7 36.9 11:32 +58.1   539 Fri Jul 29 20:37:21 CDT
Gainesville, FL        	315.6 48.3 13:40 +51.4   445 Tue Jul 26 22:02:41 EDT
Gainesville, FL        	315.5 49.1 13:04 +51.2   440 Thu Jul 28 21:14:01 EDT
Gallup, NM             	133.9 38.1 18:58  -4.9   525 Tue Jul 26 21:34:37 MDT
Gallup, NM             	321.2 44.7 13:04 +59.3   466 Wed Jul 27 21:57:49 MDT
Galveston, TX          	315.0 52.2 13:39 +49.9   423 Wed Jul 27 21:23:50 CDT
Gary, IN               	140.3 45.4 18:49  +3.9   463 Wed Jul 27 21:27:12 CDT
Gary, IN               	328.6 51.5 13:52 +66.5   423 Thu Jul 28 21:50:22 CDT
Grand Junction, CO     	321.8 87.0 16:58 +41.4   337 Wed Jul 27 21:58:26 MDT
Grand Rapids, MI       	141.5 42.5 18:58  +2.2   485 Wed Jul 27 22:27:41 EDT
Grand Rapids, MI       	329.9 59.0 15:02 +65.5   389 Thu Jul 28 22:50:50 EDT
Great Falls, MT        	337.4 79.1 18:03 +57.4   341 Wed Jul 27 23:34:16 MDT
Great Falls, MT        	148.3 42.4 18:57  +4.2   484 Thu Jul 28 22:22:23 MDT
Great Falls, MT        	347.0 43.5 11:45 +80.0   474 Thu Jul 28 23:57:32 MDT
Great Falls, MT        	337.4 79.8 17:24 +56.7   340 Fri Jul 29 22:45:28 MDT
Great Falls, MT        	346.8 43.7 11:09 +80.1   472 Sat Jul 30 23:08:37 MDT
Great Falls, MT        	356.6 33.9 07:34 +76.2   569 Sun Jul 31 23:31:48 MDT
Great Falls, MT        	346.6 44.0 10:36 +80.1   469 Mon Aug  1 22:19:29 MDT
Great Falls, MT        	  6.5 35.5 05:37 +77.1   549 Mon Aug  1 23:54:57 MDT
Great Falls, MT        	356.4 34.0 06:56 +76.2   568 Tue Aug  2 22:42:33 MDT
Great Falls, MT        	  6.2 35.3 05:00 +77.0   551 Wed Aug  3 23:05:35 MDT
Green Bay, WI          	337.4 39.9 12:04 +72.7   507 Wed Jul 27 23:02:38 CDT
Green Bay, WI          	148.2 80.3 17:52 +36.1   341 Thu Jul 28 21:50:39 CDT
Green Bay, WI          	337.2 40.2 11:28 +72.7   503 Fri Jul 29 22:13:51 CDT
Green Bay, WI          	337.1 40.7 10:53 +72.8   499 Sun Jul 31 21:24:50 CDT
Greensboro, NC         	137.4 76.9 17:44 +26.1   347 Tue Jul 26 22:04:16 EDT
Greenville, SC         	135.7 66.7 18:01 +17.0   367 Tue Jul 26 22:03:38 EDT
Gulfport, MS           	131.9 52.2 18:14  +2.7   423 Tue Jul 26 21:01:45 CDT
Hamilton, OH           	322.3 84.8 16:55 +43.4   339 Wed Jul 27 22:27:16 EDT
Harrisburg, PA         	327.7 43.5 12:59 +65.9   477 Wed Jul 27 22:28:41 EDT
Harrisburg, PA         	327.6 44.0 12:23 +65.8   472 Fri Jul 29 21:39:54 EDT
Hartford, CT           	331.0 40.3 12:27 +68.2   503 Wed Jul 27 22:29:37 EDT
Hartford, CT           	142.3 62.1 18:05 +18.2   379 Thu Jul 28 21:17:40 EDT
Hartford, CT           	330.9 40.8 11:51 +68.2   499 Fri Jul 29 21:40:49 EDT
Helena, MT             	336.8 67.4 17:03 +66.0   361 Wed Jul 27 23:34:03 MDT
Helena, MT             	147.7 47.7 18:47  +8.5   444 Thu Jul 28 22:22:09 MDT
Helena, MT             	346.3 36.5 10:19 +75.7   539 Thu Jul 28 23:57:21 MDT
Helena, MT             	336.7 68.0 16:26 +65.5   360 Fri Jul 29 22:45:15 MDT
Helena, MT             	346.2 36.7 09:41 +75.8   536 Sat Jul 30 23:08:26 MDT
Helena, MT             	346.0 37.0 09:04 +75.9   532 Mon Aug  1 22:19:18 MDT
Helena, MT             	  5.9 29.1 06:04 +71.9   639 Mon Aug  1 23:54:50 MDT
Helena, MT             	  5.6 29.0 05:25 +71.8   640 Wed Aug  3 23:05:28 MDT
Holyoke, MA            	331.0 43.8 13:00 +68.9   474 Wed Jul 27 22:29:41 EDT
Holyoke, MA            	142.4 57.3 18:15 +14.4   397 Thu Jul 28 21:17:45 EDT
Holyoke, MA            	330.9 44.3 12:25 +68.8   470 Fri Jul 29 21:40:54 EDT
Houston, TX            	314.8 61.7 14:29 +46.6   382 Wed Jul 27 21:23:50 CDT
Huntington, WV         	135.8 35.8 19:13  -5.3   552 Tue Jul 26 22:04:17 EDT
Huntington, WV         	323.5 54.3 14:21 +60.7   410 Wed Jul 27 22:27:28 EDT
Huntington, WV         	323.5 55.2 13:47 +60.4   406 Fri Jul 29 21:38:41 EDT
Huntsville, AL         	133.3 37.5 18:58  -5.7   534 Tue Jul 26 21:02:59 CDT
Huntsville, AL         	320.4 44.2 13:02 +58.4   472 Wed Jul 27 21:26:10 CDT
Indianapolis, IN       	141.0 74.6 17:50 +27.3   349 Wed Jul 27 21:27:05 EST
Indianapolis, IN       	329.3 32.4 11:06 +64.3   594 Thu Jul 28 21:50:19 EST
Indianapolis, IN       	329.2 32.8 10:28 +64.4   587 Sat Jul 30 21:01:25 EST
Iowa City, IA          	325.6 80.2 16:37 +49.5   342 Thu Jul 28 21:49:41 CDT
Iowa City, IA          	334.2 28.9 10:06 +65.6   646 Fri Jul 29 22:12:54 CDT
Iowa City, IA          	334.1 29.3 09:28 +65.7   639 Sun Jul 31 21:23:53 CDT
Jackson, MI            	142.3 56.1 18:36 +13.3   402 Wed Jul 27 22:27:46 EDT
Jackson, MI            	330.9 45.1 12:52 +68.8   464 Thu Jul 28 22:50:57 EDT
Jackson, MI            	330.7 45.7 12:18 +68.8   459 Sat Jul 30 22:02:03 EDT
Jackson, MS            	131.3 33.2 19:00 -10.0   587 Tue Jul 26 21:01:58 CDT
Jackson, MS            	318.0 45.5 13:07 +55.2   463 Wed Jul 27 21:25:09 CDT
Jacksonville, FL       	316.0 49.4 13:47 +52.0   439 Tue Jul 26 22:02:55 EDT
Jacksonville, FL       	315.9 50.1 13:11 +51.7   434 Thu Jul 28 21:14:15 EDT
Jersey City, NJ        	329.8 37.0 12:00 +66.3   537 Wed Jul 27 22:29:14 EDT
Jersey City, NJ        	141.3 64.9 17:54 +19.9   370 Thu Jul 28 21:17:17 EDT
Jersey City, NJ        	329.7 37.4 11:23 +66.4   532 Fri Jul 29 21:40:27 EDT
Johnstown, PA          	138.1 39.6 19:13  -1.4   511 Tue Jul 26 22:05:09 EDT
Johnstown, PA          	326.2 54.1 14:28 +63.6   410 Wed Jul 27 22:28:21 EDT
Johnstown, PA          	326.1 54.9 13:54 +63.3   406 Fri Jul 29 21:39:34 EDT
Joplin, MO             	135.5 41.6 18:38  -1.4   493 Wed Jul 27 21:25:20 CDT
Joplin, MO             	323.1 44.4 12:44 +61.4   470 Thu Jul 28 21:48:29 CDT
Kalamazoo, MI          	141.5 48.6 18:47  +7.0   441 Wed Jul 27 22:27:35 EDT
Kalamazoo, MI          	330.0 50.6 13:46 +67.9   429 Thu Jul 28 22:50:45 EDT
Kalamazoo, MI          	329.8 51.3 13:12 +67.7   424 Sat Jul 30 22:01:51 EDT
Kansas City, KS        	323.2 67.6 15:24 +55.1   363 Thu Jul 28 21:48:47 CDT
Kansas City, MO        	323.2 67.4 15:23 +55.2   364 Thu Jul 28 21:48:47 CDT
Kenosha, WI            	140.0 36.1 19:05  -3.2   547 Wed Jul 27 21:27:18 CDT
Kenosha, WI            	328.3 67.1 15:50 +60.2   364 Thu Jul 28 21:50:25 CDT
Knoxville, TN          	134.9 44.1 18:50  -0.1   474 Tue Jul 26 22:03:36 EDT
Knoxville, TN          	322.3 40.2 12:34 +60.3   505 Wed Jul 27 22:26:49 EDT
Knoxville, TN          	322.2 40.8 11:58 +60.2   499 Fri Jul 29 21:38:02 EDT
Lafayette, IN          	140.5 60.0 18:21 +15.5   387 Wed Jul 27 21:27:04 EST
Lafayette, IN          	328.8 38.9 11:57 +66.1   517 Thu Jul 28 21:50:17 EST
Lafayette, IN          	328.7 39.5 11:21 +66.1   511 Sat Jul 30 21:01:23 EST
Lancaster, PA          	328.1 39.5 12:24 +65.6   512 Wed Jul 27 22:28:45 EDT
Lancaster, PA          	328.0 39.9 11:47 +65.6   507 Fri Jul 29 21:39:58 EDT
Lansing, MI            	142.2 50.1 18:47  +8.5   432 Wed Jul 27 22:27:49 EDT
Lansing, MI            	330.8 50.6 13:48 +68.6   428 Thu Jul 28 22:50:59 EDT
Lansing, MI            	330.7 51.4 13:15 +68.4   424 Sat Jul 30 22:02:05 EDT
Laredo, TX             	312.5 81.1 15:37 +33.3   343 Wed Jul 27 21:22:44 CDT
Las Vegas, NV          	137.0 69.8 17:39 +20.5   358 Wed Jul 27 20:56:54 PDT
Las Vegas, NV          	324.8 29.0 10:54 +59.6   646 Thu Jul 28 21:20:08 PDT
Lawrence, MA           	332.2 43.1 12:52 +69.7   479 Wed Jul 27 22:30:00 EDT
Lawrence, MA           	143.5 61.0 18:12 +17.8   383 Thu Jul 28 21:18:03 EDT
Lawrence, MA           	332.1 43.6 12:16 +69.7   475 Fri Jul 29 21:41:12 EDT
Lexington, KY          	134.6 29.9 19:21  -9.9   634 Tue Jul 26 22:03:55 EDT
Lexington, KY          	322.1 64.6 15:22 +55.4   372 Wed Jul 27 22:27:04 EDT
Lima, OH               	142.4 78.5 17:48 +31.3   344 Wed Jul 27 22:27:34 EDT
Lima, OH               	331.0 32.8 11:04 +65.6   588 Thu Jul 28 22:50:49 EDT
Lima, OH               	330.8 33.2 10:27 +65.6   582 Sat Jul 30 22:01:54 EDT
Lincoln, NE            	330.3 35.8 11:48 +66.3   550 Wed Jul 27 23:00:41 CDT
Lincoln, NE            	141.7 68.4 17:47 +22.9   361 Thu Jul 28 21:48:43 CDT
Lincoln, NE            	330.2 36.2 11:11 +66.3   545 Fri Jul 29 22:11:53 CDT
Little Rock, AR        	136.5 85.9 16:53 +31.7   339 Wed Jul 27 21:25:15 CDT
Long Beach, CA         	135.1 69.9 17:27 +18.7   359 Wed Jul 27 20:56:00 PDT
Lorain, OH             	143.8 84.1 17:41 +36.6   339 Wed Jul 27 22:27:59 EDT
Lorain, OH             	332.5 32.5 10:57 +66.4   592 Thu Jul 28 22:51:15 EDT
Lorain, OH             	332.4 32.8 10:19 +66.5   586 Sat Jul 30 22:02:20 EDT
Los Angeles, CA        	135.1 65.9 17:37 +15.8   369 Wed Jul 27 20:56:02 PDT
Louisville, KY         	321.3 78.5 16:26 +46.8   344 Wed Jul 27 22:26:54 EDT
Lowell, MA             	332.1 43.1 12:52 +69.6   480 Wed Jul 27 22:29:57 EDT
Lowell, MA             	143.3 60.7 18:12 +17.6   383 Thu Jul 28 21:18:01 EDT
Lowell, MA             	332.0 43.5 12:16 +69.6   476 Fri Jul 29 21:41:10 EDT
Lubbock, TX            	318.1 57.5 14:41 +53.1   396 Tue Jul 26 22:35:21 CDT
Lubbock, TX            	318.0 58.4 14:06 +52.7   392 Thu Jul 28 21:46:40 CDT
Macon, GA              	134.9 79.7 17:21 +25.3   344 Tue Jul 26 22:03:04 EDT
Madison, WI            	336.2 32.5 11:03 +68.5   591 Wed Jul 27 23:02:15 CDT
Madison, WI            	327.3 86.0 17:08 +46.4   337 Thu Jul 28 21:50:14 CDT
Madison, WI            	336.0 32.8 10:25 +68.6   587 Fri Jul 29 22:13:27 CDT
Madison, WI            	335.9 33.2 09:48 +68.7   581 Sun Jul 31 21:24:26 CDT
Manchester, NH         	332.0 46.9 13:32 +69.9   451 Wed Jul 27 22:29:59 EDT
Manchester, NH         	143.3 55.7 18:21 +13.4   404 Thu Jul 28 21:18:03 EDT
Manchester, NH         	331.9 47.4 12:57 +69.8   448 Fri Jul 29 21:41:11 EDT
Marshall, TX           	315.9 86.9 16:20 +34.8   339 Wed Jul 27 21:24:30 CDT
Memphis, TN            	318.3 75.8 15:56 +45.0   348 Wed Jul 27 21:25:40 CDT
Meriden, CT            	330.8 38.9 12:14 +67.7   517 Wed Jul 27 22:29:34 EDT
Meriden, CT            	142.3 64.3 18:00 +19.9   372 Thu Jul 28 21:17:37 EDT
Meriden, CT            	330.8 39.3 11:37 +67.7   513 Fri Jul 29 21:40:46 EDT
Milwaukee, WI          	139.9 33.4 19:10  -5.3   581 Wed Jul 27 21:27:22 CDT
Milwaukee, WI          	337.3 29.6 10:39 +67.5   635 Wed Jul 27 23:02:31 CDT
Milwaukee, WI          	328.3 74.3 16:28 +55.6   349 Thu Jul 28 21:50:28 CDT
Milwaukee, WI          	337.2 29.8 10:00 +67.5   630 Fri Jul 29 22:13:43 CDT
Milwaukee, WI          	337.1 30.1 09:22 +67.6   625 Sun Jul 31 21:24:42 CDT
Minneapolis, MN        	333.2 64.9 16:25 +65.2   369 Wed Jul 27 23:01:48 CDT
Minneapolis, MN        	144.4 43.5 18:45  +4.0   476 Thu Jul 28 21:49:55 CDT
Minneapolis, MN        	342.5 31.4 10:05 +70.8   606 Thu Jul 28 23:25:07 CDT
Minneapolis, MN        	333.1 65.7 15:48 +64.7   367 Fri Jul 29 22:13:00 CDT
Minneapolis, MN        	342.4 31.6 09:26 +70.9   602 Sat Jul 30 22:36:12 CDT
Minneapolis, MN        	342.2 31.9 08:49 +71.0   597 Mon Aug  1 21:47:04 CDT
Minot, ND              	147.1 32.7 19:29  -3.9   588 Wed Jul 27 23:00:58 CDT
Minot, ND              	156.1 78.7 18:30 +37.8   342 Thu Jul 28 23:24:03 CDT
Minot, ND              	345.6 55.4 15:32 +78.6   402 Fri Jul 29 23:47:13 CDT
Minot, ND              	156.0 77.8 17:51 +36.9   343 Sat Jul 30 22:35:08 CDT
Minot, ND              	355.3 40.7 08:43 +81.8   497 Sun Jul 31 00:10:25 CDT
Minot, ND              	345.4 55.9 14:57 +78.3   400 Sun Jul 31 22:58:11 CDT
Minot, ND              	355.2 40.8 08:07 +81.8   496 Mon Aug  1 23:21:16 CDT
Minot, ND              	  5.0 40.9 04:57 +81.8   495 Tue Aug  2 23:44:20 CDT
Minot, ND              	354.8 40.9 07:32 +81.8   494 Wed Aug  3 22:31:55 CDT
Minot, ND              	  4.6 40.7 04:24 +81.8   496 Thu Aug  4 22:54:52 CDT
Mobile, AL             	132.4 58.5 18:01  +7.6   394 Tue Jul 26 21:01:59 CDT
Moline, IL             	138.1 32.6 19:06  -6.5   592 Wed Jul 27 21:26:43 CDT
Moline, IL             	326.3 69.9 15:54 +56.8   358 Thu Jul 28 21:49:49 CDT
Montgomery, AL         	133.4 57.5 18:10  +8.1   398 Tue Jul 26 21:02:34 CDT
Montgomery, AL         	320.3 29.3 10:46 +56.0   642 Fri Jul 29 20:37:02 CDT
Montpelier, VT         	331.2 68.4 16:36 +61.6   361 Wed Jul 27 22:29:57 EDT
Montpelier, VT         	340.4 30.7 10:12 +69.5   616 Thu Jul 28 22:53:16 EDT
Montpelier, VT         	331.1 69.2 16:00 +61.0   358 Fri Jul 29 21:41:10 EDT
Montpelier, VT         	340.3 31.0 09:34 +69.6   612 Sat Jul 30 22:04:21 EDT
Montpelier, VT         	340.0 31.3 08:57 +69.7   607 Mon Aug  1 21:15:14 EDT
Muncie, IN             	141.5 75.4 17:51 +28.2   348 Wed Jul 27 21:27:16 EST
Muncie, IN             	329.9 32.8 11:07 +64.9   587 Thu Jul 28 21:50:31 EST
Muncie, IN             	329.8 33.2 10:30 +65.0   581 Sat Jul 30 21:01:36 EST
Nashville, TN          	133.2 29.9 19:16 -10.7   635 Tue Jul 26 21:03:13 CDT
Nashville, TN          	320.4 59.4 14:43 +55.6   389 Wed Jul 27 21:26:23 CDT
Natchez, MS            	130.7 31.3 19:02 -11.7   614 Tue Jul 26 21:01:39 CDT
Natchez, MS            	317.2 47.2 13:16 +54.0   452 Wed Jul 27 21:24:49 CDT
New Bedford, MA        	332.3 34.3 11:32 +67.1   569 Wed Jul 27 22:29:54 EDT
New Bedford, MA        	143.5 77.8 17:36 +31.5   345 Thu Jul 28 21:17:55 EDT
New Bedford, MA        	332.2 34.6 10:54 +67.1   564 Fri Jul 29 21:41:07 EDT
New Britain, CT        	330.9 39.9 12:23 +68.0   508 Wed Jul 27 22:29:35 EDT
New Britain, CT        	142.3 62.6 18:03 +18.6   377 Thu Jul 28 21:17:38 EDT
New Britain, CT        	330.8 40.3 11:46 +68.0   503 Fri Jul 29 21:40:48 EDT
New Haven, CT          	330.7 37.6 12:03 +67.2   531 Wed Jul 27 22:29:31 EDT
New Haven, CT          	142.1 66.3 17:55 +21.4   367 Thu Jul 28 21:17:33 EDT
New Haven, CT          	330.6 38.0 11:26 +67.3   526 Fri Jul 29 21:40:43 EDT
New Orleans, LA        	131.3 47.9 18:22  -0.7   448 Tue Jul 26 21:01:31 CDT
New Orleans, LA        	317.8 30.6 11:36 +53.8   623 Wed Jul 27 21:24:45 CDT
New York, NY           	329.9 36.9 11:59 +66.3   538 Wed Jul 27 22:29:15 EDT
New York, NY           	141.4 65.2 17:54 +20.2   370 Thu Jul 28 21:17:18 EDT
New York, NY           	329.8 37.3 11:22 +66.4   533 Fri Jul 29 21:40:28 EDT
Newark, NJ             	329.7 37.4 12:03 +66.4   533 Wed Jul 27 22:29:13 EDT
Newark, NJ             	141.3 64.0 17:56 +19.1   373 Thu Jul 28 21:17:16 EDT
Newark, NJ             	329.6 37.8 11:26 +66.4   528 Fri Jul 29 21:40:26 EDT
Niagara Falls, NY      	146.2 83.9 17:54 +38.0   339 Wed Jul 27 22:28:44 EDT
Niagara Falls, NY      	335.1 35.6 11:12 +69.4   552 Thu Jul 28 22:51:59 EDT
Niagara Falls, NY      	146.0 82.8 17:15 +37.0   339 Fri Jul 29 21:39:57 EDT
Niagara Falls, NY      	335.0 36.0 10:35 +69.5   547 Sat Jul 30 22:03:05 EDT
Norfolk, VA            	319.8 78.1 16:36 +45.5   345 Tue Jul 26 22:04:57 EDT
Norfolk, VA            	319.8 79.2 15:59 +44.7   344 Thu Jul 28 21:16:17 EDT
Oakland, CA            	320.4 87.5 17:11 +39.7   338 Tue Jul 26 22:07:53 PDT
Oakland, CA            	320.9 88.7 16:34 +38.8   338 Thu Jul 28 21:19:12 PDT
Ogden, UT              	139.3 41.3 18:52  +0.4   494 Wed Jul 27 21:58:16 MDT
Ogden, UT              	327.5 54.6 14:14 +64.8   407 Thu Jul 28 22:21:24 MDT
Oklahoma City, OK      	321.0 46.3 13:36 +59.0   457 Tue Jul 26 22:36:23 CDT
Oklahoma City, OK      	320.9 46.9 13:00 +58.8   453 Thu Jul 28 21:47:42 CDT
Omaha, NE              	330.9 36.6 11:53 +67.0   541 Wed Jul 27 23:00:52 CDT
Omaha, NE              	142.3 68.5 17:50 +23.3   361 Thu Jul 28 21:48:55 CDT
Omaha, NE              	330.8 37.0 11:16 +67.1   536 Fri Jul 29 22:12:05 CDT
Orlando, FL            	316.0 35.4 12:25 +52.3   559 Tue Jul 26 22:02:38 EDT
Orlando, FL            	315.9 35.9 11:47 +52.3   553 Thu Jul 28 21:13:58 EDT
Paducah, KY            	319.8 87.4 16:48 +39.0   338 Wed Jul 27 21:26:16 CDT
Pasadena, CA           	135.1 65.8 17:38 +15.7   369 Wed Jul 27 20:56:04 PDT
Paterson, NJ           	329.8 38.7 12:14 +66.8   519 Wed Jul 27 22:29:14 EDT
Paterson, NJ           	141.3 61.8 18:01 +17.3   380 Thu Jul 28 21:17:18 EDT
Paterson, NJ           	329.7 39.1 11:38 +66.8   515 Fri Jul 29 21:40:27 EDT
Pensacola, FL          	132.8 70.1 17:33 +16.1   360 Tue Jul 26 21:02:03 CDT
Peoria, IL             	138.7 41.2 18:51  +0.1   497 Wed Jul 27 21:26:43 CDT
Peoria, IL             	326.9 53.3 14:03 +64.4   414 Thu Jul 28 21:49:51 CDT
Philadelphia, PA       	328.9 35.0 11:47 +65.0   560 Wed Jul 27 22:28:56 EDT
Philadelphia, PA       	140.5 66.3 17:47 +20.5   367 Thu Jul 28 21:16:59 EDT
Philadelphia, PA       	328.8 35.4 11:09 +65.1   554 Fri Jul 29 21:40:09 EDT
Phoenix, AZ            	132.0 33.7 19:01  -9.2   580 Tue Jul 26 20:33:44 MST
Phoenix, AZ            	318.9 46.8 13:16 +56.3   454 Wed Jul 27 20:56:54 MST
Pierre, SD             	147.7 77.8 18:14 +33.8   344 Wed Jul 27 23:00:33 CDT
Pierre, SD             	336.7 40.7 11:54 +72.5   499 Thu Jul 28 23:23:48 CDT
Pierre, SD             	147.6 76.8 17:36 +32.9   345 Fri Jul 29 22:11:46 CDT
Pierre, SD             	336.6 41.1 11:19 +72.5   495 Sat Jul 30 22:34:53 CDT
Pittsburgh, PA         	137.4 34.2 19:22  -5.6   571 Tue Jul 26 22:05:01 EDT
Pittsburgh, PA         	325.4 63.0 15:30 +59.6   376 Wed Jul 27 22:28:11 EDT
Pittsburgh, PA         	325.3 64.0 14:55 +59.1   372 Fri Jul 29 21:39:24 EDT
Pittsfield, MA         	330.6 48.7 13:49 +68.6   440 Wed Jul 27 22:29:36 EDT
Pittsfield, MA         	142.0 50.8 18:25  +8.9   428 Thu Jul 28 21:17:41 EDT
Pittsfield, MA         	330.5 49.3 13:14 +68.5   436 Fri Jul 29 21:40:49 EDT
Pocatello, ID          	139.0 30.0 19:13  -8.0   628 Wed Jul 27 21:58:28 MDT
Pocatello, ID          	336.3 30.9 10:50 +67.7   613 Wed Jul 27 23:33:35 MDT
Pocatello, ID          	327.3 81.2 16:51 +50.0   339 Thu Jul 28 22:21:34 MDT
Pocatello, ID          	336.2 31.1 10:11 +67.7   609 Fri Jul 29 22:44:47 MDT
Pocatello, ID          	336.0 31.5 09:34 +67.9   603 Sun Jul 31 21:55:45 MDT
Port Arthur, TX        	315.5 50.6 13:32 +51.0   431 Wed Jul 27 21:24:05 CDT
Portland, ME           	333.0 49.1 13:56 +70.7   437 Wed Jul 27 22:30:16 EDT
Portland, ME           	144.1 55.4 18:25 +13.6   405 Thu Jul 28 21:18:21 EDT
Portland, ME           	332.9 49.6 13:21 +70.6   434 Fri Jul 29 21:41:29 EDT
Portland, OR           	148.4 66.3 18:39 +24.4   366 Wed Jul 27 22:32:12 PDT
Portland, OR           	337.5 49.3 13:42 +74.4   435 Thu Jul 28 22:55:25 PDT
Portland, OR           	337.4 49.9 13:09 +74.2   432 Sat Jul 30 22:06:30 PDT
Portland, OR           	346.6 28.9 07:46 +70.3   644 Tue Aug  2 21:40:25 PDT
Portsmouth, NH         	332.5 45.1 13:12 +70.3   464 Wed Jul 27 22:30:07 EDT
Portsmouth, NH         	143.8 59.1 18:17 +16.5   389 Thu Jul 28 21:18:11 EDT
Portsmouth, NH         	332.4 45.6 12:37 +70.2   460 Fri Jul 29 21:41:19 EDT
Portsmouth, VA         	319.8 78.0 16:35 +45.5   345 Tue Jul 26 22:04:57 EDT
Portsmouth, VA         	319.8 79.0 15:59 +44.8   344 Thu Jul 28 21:16:17 EDT
Providence, RI         	331.9 36.9 11:54 +67.8   538 Wed Jul 27 22:29:50 EDT
Providence, RI         	143.2 71.0 17:50 +25.9   356 Thu Jul 28 21:17:53 EDT
Providence, RI         	331.8 37.2 11:17 +67.9   534 Fri Jul 29 21:41:03 EDT
Provo, UT              	139.5 51.3 18:33  +8.1   424 Wed Jul 27 21:58:08 MDT
Provo, UT              	327.7 43.2 12:33 +65.8   477 Thu Jul 28 22:21:19 MDT
Pueblo, CO             	136.5 41.6 19:01  -0.9   492 Tue Jul 26 21:35:45 MDT
Pueblo, CO             	324.3 46.7 13:22 +62.6   452 Wed Jul 27 21:58:57 MDT
Pueblo, CO             	324.2 47.4 12:47 +62.5   447 Fri Jul 29 21:10:09 MDT
Racine, WI             	140.0 35.5 19:07  -3.7   555 Wed Jul 27 21:27:20 CDT
Racine, WI             	328.3 68.7 16:00 +59.2   360 Thu Jul 28 21:50:27 CDT
Raleigh, NC            	318.4 86.5 16:58 +38.4   339 Tue Jul 26 22:04:23 EDT
Raleigh, NC            	318.6 87.7 16:21 +37.5   338 Thu Jul 28 21:15:43 EDT
Rapid City, SD         	145.6 62.1 18:37 +19.8   378 Wed Jul 27 22:00:04 MDT
Rapid City, SD         	334.4 46.7 13:07 +71.9   451 Thu Jul 28 22:23:16 MDT
Rapid City, SD         	334.3 47.2 12:34 +71.8   447 Sat Jul 30 21:34:21 MDT
Reading, PA            	328.4 40.4 12:31 +66.0   504 Wed Jul 27 22:28:51 EDT
Reading, PA            	328.3 40.8 11:55 +66.0   499 Fri Jul 29 21:40:04 EDT
Reno, NV               	137.8 89.8 17:30 +39.4   336 Tue Jul 26 22:08:34 PDT
Reno, NV               	141.0 88.7 16:53 +38.5   336 Thu Jul 28 21:19:52 PDT
Richmond, VA           	138.9 80.1 17:45 +29.8   343 Tue Jul 26 22:04:53 EDT
Richmond, VA           	138.9 78.9 17:07 +28.9   344 Thu Jul 28 21:16:13 EDT
Roanoke, VA            	137.4 60.3 18:25 +13.6   386 Tue Jul 26 22:04:27 EDT
Roanoke, VA            	325.2 33.5 11:44 +61.5   579 Wed Jul 27 22:27:43 EDT
Roanoke, VA            	325.1 33.9 11:06 +61.6   573 Fri Jul 29 21:38:55 EDT
Rochester, MN          	333.8 49.0 13:55 +71.4   437 Wed Jul 27 23:01:49 CDT
Rochester, MN          	144.9 57.2 18:23 +15.4   397 Thu Jul 28 21:49:53 CDT
Rochester, MN          	333.7 49.5 13:21 +71.3   434 Fri Jul 29 22:13:01 CDT
Rochester, NY          	327.4 85.7 17:29 +46.8   338 Wed Jul 27 22:28:58 EDT
Rochester, NY          	336.2 32.9 10:46 +68.8   586 Thu Jul 28 22:52:15 EDT
Rochester, NY          	327.5 86.8 16:51 +45.9   337 Fri Jul 29 21:40:11 EDT
Rochester, NY          	336.1 33.2 10:08 +68.9   581 Sat Jul 30 22:03:21 EDT
Rockford, IL           	139.1 33.5 19:08  -5.5   580 Wed Jul 27 21:27:03 CDT
Rockford, IL           	327.3 70.9 16:06 +57.1   355 Thu Jul 28 21:50:10 CDT
Sacramento, CA         	140.2 88.2 17:28 +37.2   338 Tue Jul 26 22:08:08 PDT
Sacramento, CA         	140.2 87.0 16:51 +36.3   338 Thu Jul 28 21:19:27 PDT
Saginaw, MI            	142.7 46.8 18:55  +6.1   453 Wed Jul 27 22:28:01 EDT
Saginaw, MI            	331.3 55.9 14:40 +67.9   402 Thu Jul 28 22:51:11 EDT
Saginaw, MI            	331.2 56.7 14:07 +67.5   398 Sat Jul 30 22:02:17 EDT
Saint Cloud, MN        	332.5 79.7 17:36 +54.5   342 Wed Jul 27 23:01:43 CDT
Saint Cloud, MN        	341.8 36.9 10:52 +73.9   536 Thu Jul 28 23:25:00 CDT
Saint Cloud, MN        	332.5 80.5 16:59 +53.8   340 Fri Jul 29 22:12:55 CDT
Saint Cloud, MN        	341.7 37.2 10:15 +73.9   533 Sat Jul 30 22:36:05 CDT
Saint Cloud, MN        	341.4 37.6 09:40 +74.0   528 Mon Aug  1 21:46:57 CDT
Saint Joseph, MO       	323.1 78.9 16:17 +48.2   343 Thu Jul 28 21:48:51 CDT
Saint Louis, MO        	138.3 55.6 18:19 +10.7   405 Wed Jul 27 21:26:15 CDT
Saint Louis, MO        	326.2 37.7 11:52 +63.6   529 Thu Jul 28 21:49:27 CDT
Saint Paul, MN         	333.3 63.7 16:16 +66.0   373 Wed Jul 27 23:01:49 CDT
Saint Paul, MN         	144.5 44.4 18:44  +4.8   469 Thu Jul 28 21:49:56 CDT
Saint Paul, MN         	342.7 31.0 10:02 +70.6   611 Thu Jul 28 23:25:08 CDT
Saint Paul, MN         	333.2 64.4 15:40 +65.5   371 Fri Jul 29 22:13:01 CDT
Saint Paul, MN         	342.5 31.2 09:23 +70.7   608 Sat Jul 30 22:36:13 CDT
Saint Paul, MN         	342.3 31.5 08:45 +70.8   603 Mon Aug  1 21:47:06 CDT
Saint Petersburg, FL   	315.2 37.2 12:35 +51.4   539 Tue Jul 26 22:02:17 EDT
Saint Petersburg, FL   	315.1 37.7 11:57 +51.4   533 Thu Jul 28 21:13:37 EDT
Salem, OR              	148.1 72.6 18:26 +29.7   352 Wed Jul 27 22:32:04 PDT
Salem, OR              	337.2 44.4 12:36 +73.8   469 Thu Jul 28 22:55:18 PDT
Salem, OR              	337.0 44.9 12:02 +73.8   465 Sat Jul 30 22:06:23 PDT
Salina, KS             	139.0 89.5 16:47 +38.5   337 Thu Jul 28 21:48:15 CDT
Salt Lake City, UT     	139.4 45.3 18:44  +3.4   462 Wed Jul 27 21:58:12 MDT
Salt Lake City, UT     	327.5 49.1 13:26 +65.8   436 Thu Jul 28 22:21:21 MDT
San Angelo, TX         	318.7 33.1 12:09 +55.3   586 Tue Jul 26 22:35:12 CDT
San Angelo, TX         	318.7 33.5 11:31 +55.3   580 Thu Jul 28 21:46:31 CDT
San Antonio, TX        	132.6 86.3 16:25 +26.9   340 Wed Jul 27 21:23:16 CDT
San Bernardino, CA     	135.6 75.0 17:16 +22.9   349 Wed Jul 27 20:56:12 PDT
San Diego, CA          	315.9 84.0 16:10 +36.9   340 Wed Jul 27 20:55:58 PDT
San Francisco, CA      	320.6 88.7 17:14 +38.8   338 Tue Jul 26 22:07:51 PDT
San Francisco, CA      	325.8 89.8 16:37 +37.9   338 Thu Jul 28 21:19:10 PDT
San Jose, CA           	320.4 76.9 16:32 +46.9   347 Tue Jul 26 22:07:52 PDT
San Jose, CA           	320.4 78.0 15:56 +46.1   345 Thu Jul 28 21:19:11 PDT
Santa Barbara, CA      	321.6 34.1 12:11 +58.4   573 Tue Jul 26 22:07:45 PDT
Santa Barbara, CA      	134.3 49.8 18:12  +3.5   436 Wed Jul 27 20:55:53 PDT
Santa Barbara, CA      	321.5 34.5 11:34 +58.5   568 Thu Jul 28 21:19:03 PDT
Santa Cruz, CA         	320.3 72.9 16:13 +49.1   353 Tue Jul 26 22:07:47 PDT
Santa Cruz, CA         	320.2 74.0 15:37 +48.4   351 Thu Jul 28 21:19:06 PDT
Santa Fe, NM           	135.6 54.6 18:28  +8.0   408 Tue Jul 26 21:35:05 MDT
Santa Fe, NM           	323.1 33.5 11:46 +59.7   576 Wed Jul 27 21:58:19 MDT
Santa Fe, NM           	323.0 34.0 11:09 +59.8   570 Fri Jul 29 21:09:31 MDT
Sarasota, FL           	315.2 34.3 12:19 +51.2   573 Tue Jul 26 22:02:13 EDT
Sarasota, FL           	315.2 34.8 11:41 +51.2   566 Thu Jul 28 21:13:33 EDT
Savannah, GA           	316.5 62.2 15:01 +49.1   380 Tue Jul 26 22:03:20 EDT
Savannah, GA           	316.4 63.2 14:26 +48.6   377 Thu Jul 28 21:14:40 EDT
Schenectady, NY        	330.1 56.0 14:58 +66.8   402 Wed Jul 27 22:29:32 EDT
Schenectady, NY        	330.0 56.7 14:23 +66.4   398 Fri Jul 29 21:40:45 EDT
Scranton, PA           	328.7 48.9 13:48 +66.9   439 Wed Jul 27 22:29:03 EDT
Scranton, PA           	328.6 49.5 13:13 +66.7   435 Fri Jul 29 21:40:16 EDT
Seattle, WA            	148.8 43.8 19:16  +5.5   474 Wed Jul 27 22:32:33 PDT
Seattle, WA            	337.9 78.6 17:43 +57.9   343 Thu Jul 28 22:55:41 PDT
Seattle, WA            	347.4 43.9 11:30 +80.5   471 Fri Jul 29 23:18:53 PDT
Seattle, WA            	337.8 79.5 17:04 +57.2   341 Sat Jul 30 22:06:46 PDT
Seattle, WA            	357.2 34.7 07:50 +76.9   561 Sat Jul 30 23:42:08 PDT
Seattle, WA            	347.2 44.2 10:56 +80.5   469 Sun Jul 31 22:29:52 PDT
Seattle, WA            	357.0 34.7 07:12 +76.9   560 Mon Aug  1 22:52:59 PDT
Seattle, WA            	  6.8 36.8 05:05 +78.1   536 Tue Aug  2 23:16:04 PDT
Seattle, WA            	356.7 34.8 06:34 +77.0   559 Wed Aug  3 22:03:37 PDT
Sheboygan, WI          	140.1 30.4 19:16  -7.4   625 Wed Jul 27 21:27:31 CDT
Sheboygan, WI          	337.5 33.6 11:05 +69.8   577 Wed Jul 27 23:02:37 CDT
Sheboygan, WI          	328.5 84.6 17:11 +48.3   338 Thu Jul 28 21:50:36 CDT
Sheboygan, WI          	337.4 33.8 10:27 +69.9   573 Fri Jul 29 22:13:49 CDT
Sheboygan, WI          	337.3 34.2 09:50 +70.0   568 Sun Jul 31 21:24:48 CDT
Sheridan, WY           	142.9 37.1 19:11  -1.5   535 Wed Jul 27 21:59:36 MDT
Sheridan, WY           	331.6 74.5 16:48 +57.8   347 Thu Jul 28 22:22:43 MDT
Sheridan, WY           	340.7 33.4 10:07 +71.3   576 Fri Jul 29 22:45:57 MDT
Sheridan, WY           	340.6 33.7 09:30 +71.4   572 Sun Jul 31 21:56:56 MDT
Shreveport, LA         	315.9 79.0 15:54 +40.0   345 Wed Jul 27 21:24:36 CDT
Sioux City, IA         	330.6 48.9 13:50 +68.7   438 Wed Jul 27 23:00:57 CDT
Sioux City, IA         	142.0 50.7 18:24  +8.9   428 Thu Jul 28 21:49:02 CDT
Sioux City, IA         	330.5 49.5 13:15 +68.5   434 Fri Jul 29 22:12:09 CDT
Sioux Falls, SD        	330.4 63.3 15:57 +64.0   374 Wed Jul 27 23:01:02 CDT
Sioux Falls, SD        	330.4 64.1 15:22 +63.5   371 Fri Jul 29 22:12:14 CDT
Somerville, MA         	332.2 40.2 12:23 +69.1   505 Wed Jul 27 22:29:58 EDT
Somerville, MA         	143.5 65.6 18:03 +21.6   368 Thu Jul 28 21:18:01 EDT
Somerville, MA         	332.1 40.6 11:47 +69.1   500 Fri Jul 29 21:41:11 EDT
South Bend, IN         	141.0 50.7 18:41  +8.4   429 Wed Jul 27 21:27:23 CDT
South Bend, IN         	329.4 47.2 13:12 +67.6   449 Thu Jul 28 21:50:34 CDT
South Bend, IN         	329.3 47.9 12:38 +67.5   444 Sat Jul 30 21:01:40 CDT
Spartanburg, SC        	136.0 70.0 17:54 +19.7   359 Tue Jul 26 22:03:43 EDT
Spokane, WA            	152.6 64.8 18:58 +24.4   369 Wed Jul 27 22:33:19 PDT
Spokane, WA            	341.9 59.6 16:15 +74.1   386 Thu Jul 28 22:56:30 PDT
Spokane, WA            	152.5 64.0 18:18 +23.8   371 Fri Jul 29 21:44:31 PDT
Spokane, WA            	351.6 38.6 09:31 +79.1   517 Fri Jul 29 23:19:46 PDT
Spokane, WA            	341.8 60.1 15:39 +73.7   383 Sat Jul 30 22:07:35 PDT
Spokane, WA            	351.4 38.7 08:54 +79.1   515 Sun Jul 31 22:30:44 PDT
Spokane, WA            	  1.2 34.7 06:30 +77.0   560 Mon Aug  1 22:53:52 PDT
Spokane, WA            	351.1 38.9 08:19 +79.2   513 Tue Aug  2 21:41:29 PDT
Spokane, WA            	  0.9 34.6 05:53 +77.0   560 Wed Aug  3 22:04:30 PDT
Springfield, IL        	138.7 48.0 18:37  +5.2   445 Wed Jul 27 21:26:33 CDT
Springfield, IL        	326.7 44.7 12:48 +65.1   467 Thu Jul 28 21:49:43 CDT
Springfield, MA        	331.0 42.9 12:51 +68.7   482 Wed Jul 27 22:29:40 EDT
Springfield, MA        	142.4 58.6 18:12 +15.4   391 Thu Jul 28 21:17:44 EDT
Springfield, MA        	330.9 43.3 12:15 +68.7   477 Fri Jul 29 21:40:53 EDT
Springfield, MO        	136.3 47.7 18:27  +3.5   447 Wed Jul 27 21:25:32 CDT
Springfield, MO        	323.9 39.8 12:10 +61.8   509 Thu Jul 28 21:48:42 CDT
Springfield, OH        	322.9 86.0 17:03 +43.0   338 Wed Jul 27 22:27:29 EDT
Stamford, CT           	330.2 37.6 12:04 +66.9   530 Wed Jul 27 22:29:22 EDT
Stamford, CT           	141.7 64.8 17:56 +20.1   371 Thu Jul 28 21:17:25 EDT
Stamford, CT           	330.1 38.1 11:28 +66.9   525 Fri Jul 29 21:40:35 EDT
Steubenville, OH       	137.0 32.6 19:24  -6.9   592 Tue Jul 26 22:04:54 EDT
Steubenville, OH       	325.0 65.7 15:44 +57.9   368 Wed Jul 27 22:28:04 EDT
Steubenville, OH       	324.9 66.7 15:09 +57.3   365 Fri Jul 29 21:39:17 EDT
Stockton, CA           	320.9 80.3 16:48 +45.2   343 Tue Jul 26 22:08:04 PDT
Stockton, CA           	320.8 81.4 16:12 +44.4   341 Thu Jul 28 21:19:23 PDT
Superior, WI           	334.2 87.3 18:11 +49.1   337 Wed Jul 27 23:02:11 CDT
Superior, WI           	145.2 35.1 19:01  -2.4   558 Thu Jul 28 21:50:21 CDT
Superior, WI           	343.6 43.0 11:58 +77.8   479 Thu Jul 28 23:25:27 CDT
Superior, WI           	334.3 88.1 17:32 +48.4   336 Fri Jul 29 22:13:24 CDT
Superior, WI           	353.3 30.4 08:32 +72.9   620 Fri Jul 29 23:48:46 CDT
Superior, WI           	343.4 43.3 11:23 +77.8   476 Sat Jul 30 22:36:32 CDT
Superior, WI           	353.2 30.5 07:53 +72.9   619 Sun Jul 31 22:59:44 CDT
Superior, WI           	343.2 43.8 10:51 +77.8   472 Mon Aug  1 21:47:25 CDT
Superior, WI           	  3.0 28.9 06:24 +72.0   644 Mon Aug  1 23:22:55 CDT
Superior, WI           	353.0 30.6 07:14 +73.0   616 Tue Aug  2 22:10:29 CDT
Superior, WI           	  2.8 28.8 05:45 +72.0   644 Wed Aug  3 22:33:34 CDT
Superior, WI           	 12.6 35.9 03:42 +75.7   545 Thu Aug  4 22:56:33 CDT
Syracuse, NY           	328.4 73.0 16:44 +56.6   351 Wed Jul 27 22:29:12 EDT
Syracuse, NY           	337.4 29.6 10:18 +67.5   635 Thu Jul 28 22:52:30 EDT
Syracuse, NY           	328.3 74.0 16:08 +55.9   349 Fri Jul 29 21:40:25 EDT
Syracuse, NY           	337.3 29.8 09:40 +67.5   631 Sat Jul 30 22:03:36 EDT
Tacoma, WA             	148.7 46.7 19:11  +7.9   453 Wed Jul 27 22:32:29 PDT
Tacoma, WA             	337.8 72.9 17:18 +62.5   351 Thu Jul 28 22:55:38 PDT
Tacoma, WA             	347.3 40.6 10:36 +78.7   499 Fri Jul 29 23:18:51 PDT
Tacoma, WA             	337.7 73.6 16:41 +61.8   349 Sat Jul 30 22:06:43 PDT
Tacoma, WA             	357.1 32.2 07:46 +74.8   594 Sat Jul 30 23:42:06 PDT
Tacoma, WA             	347.1 40.9 10:00 +78.8   496 Sun Jul 31 22:29:49 PDT
Tacoma, WA             	356.9 32.2 07:07 +74.8   593 Mon Aug  1 22:52:57 PDT
Tacoma, WA             	  6.8 34.0 05:21 +75.8   569 Tue Aug  2 23:16:03 PDT
Tacoma, WA             	356.6 32.3 06:30 +74.8   592 Wed Aug  3 22:03:35 PDT
Tallahassee, FL        	314.6 75.1 15:50 +40.2   350 Tue Jul 26 22:02:31 EDT
Tampa, FL              	315.3 37.3 12:35 +51.6   538 Tue Jul 26 22:02:21 EDT
Tampa, FL              	315.3 37.8 11:58 +51.5   532 Thu Jul 28 21:13:40 EDT
Terre Haute, IN        	140.1 67.8 18:01 +21.4   363 Wed Jul 27 21:26:50 EST
Terre Haute, IN        	328.4 34.1 11:20 +64.2   571 Thu Jul 28 21:50:03 EST
Terre Haute, IN        	328.3 34.5 10:43 +64.3   565 Sat Jul 30 21:01:09 EST
Texarkana, TX          	135.4 84.7 16:50 +29.6   340 Wed Jul 27 21:24:43 CDT
Toledo, OH             	142.9 69.8 18:11 +24.7   358 Wed Jul 27 22:27:48 EDT
Toledo, OH             	331.5 37.3 11:38 +67.7   533 Thu Jul 28 22:51:02 EDT
Toledo, OH             	331.3 37.8 11:01 +67.7   528 Sat Jul 30 22:02:07 EDT
Topeka, KS             	322.5 75.5 15:59 +49.8   348 Thu Jul 28 21:48:36 CDT
Toronto, ON            	146.0 72.5 18:19 +28.6   352 Wed Jul 27 22:28:46 EDT
Toronto, ON            	334.9 40.8 12:02 +71.2   498 Thu Jul 28 22:51:59 EDT
Toronto, ON            	334.7 41.3 11:27 +71.3   494 Sat Jul 30 22:03:05 EDT
Trenton, NJ            	329.2 35.7 11:51 +65.4   552 Wed Jul 27 22:29:03 EDT
Trenton, NJ            	140.8 65.9 17:49 +20.4   368 Thu Jul 28 21:17:05 EDT
Trenton, NJ            	329.1 36.1 11:14 +65.5   547 Fri Jul 29 21:40:15 EDT
Troy, NY               	330.3 53.8 14:38 +67.5   412 Wed Jul 27 22:29:34 EDT
Troy, NY               	330.2 54.5 14:04 +67.3   408 Fri Jul 29 21:40:47 EDT
Tucson, AZ             	132.6 47.4 18:29  +0.3   451 Tue Jul 26 20:33:39 MST
Tucson, AZ             	319.5 33.1 11:48 +56.1   586 Wed Jul 27 20:56:53 MST
Tulsa, OK              	322.1 43.7 13:19 +60.2   476 Tue Jul 26 22:36:45 CDT
Tulsa, OK              	134.6 40.0 18:37  -3.2   509 Wed Jul 27 21:24:56 CDT
Tulsa, OK              	322.0 44.3 12:43 +60.1   471 Thu Jul 28 21:48:04 CDT
Urbana, IL             	139.6 54.2 18:29 +10.4   411 Wed Jul 27 21:26:49 CDT
Urbana, IL             	327.8 41.3 12:19 +65.7   495 Thu Jul 28 21:50:01 CDT
Utica, NY              	329.1 67.6 16:18 +60.5   363 Wed Jul 27 22:29:21 EDT
Utica, NY              	329.0 68.4 15:43 +59.9   360 Fri Jul 29 21:40:34 EDT
Waco, TX               	133.7 74.5 17:07 +20.3   351 Wed Jul 27 21:23:53 CDT
Walla Walla, WA        	151.8 85.5 18:16 +42.0   337 Wed Jul 27 22:32:58 PDT
Walla Walla, WA        	341.1 43.1 12:09 +76.2   478 Thu Jul 28 22:56:13 PDT
Walla Walla, WA        	151.6 84.5 17:37 +41.2   337 Fri Jul 29 21:44:10 PDT
Walla Walla, WA        	340.9 43.5 11:35 +76.3   474 Sat Jul 30 22:07:18 PDT
Washington, DC         	327.5 34.0 11:43 +63.5   573 Wed Jul 27 22:28:28 EDT
Washington, DC         	327.4 34.4 11:05 +63.6   567 Fri Jul 29 21:39:41 EDT
Waterbury, CT          	330.7 39.8 12:23 +67.8   508 Wed Jul 27 22:29:31 EDT
Waterbury, CT          	142.1 62.2 18:03 +18.1   379 Thu Jul 28 21:17:35 EDT
Waterbury, CT          	330.6 40.3 11:46 +67.8   504 Fri Jul 29 21:40:44 EDT
Waterloo, IA           	333.8 35.4 11:34 +68.5   554 Wed Jul 27 23:01:39 CDT
Waterloo, IA           	144.9 79.5 17:37 +33.7   342 Thu Jul 28 21:49:40 CDT
Waterloo, IA           	333.7 35.7 10:57 +68.6   550 Fri Jul 29 22:12:52 CDT
Wheeling, WV           	137.0 33.8 19:21  -6.2   577 Tue Jul 26 22:04:50 EDT
Wheeling, WV           	324.9 62.6 15:24 +59.3   377 Wed Jul 27 22:28:00 EDT
Wheeling, WV           	324.8 63.5 14:49 +58.8   374 Fri Jul 29 21:39:13 EDT
White Plains, NY       	330.1 38.2 12:10 +66.9   524 Wed Jul 27 22:29:20 EDT
White Plains, NY       	141.6 63.4 17:58 +18.8   375 Thu Jul 28 21:17:23 EDT
White Plains, NY       	330.0 38.6 11:33 +66.9   519 Fri Jul 29 21:40:32 EDT
Wichita Falls, TX      	320.2 39.3 12:48 +57.9   515 Tue Jul 26 22:35:58 CDT
Wichita Falls, TX      	320.1 39.8 12:11 +57.8   509 Thu Jul 28 21:47:17 CDT
Wichita, KS            	321.3 69.7 16:05 +52.0   359 Tue Jul 26 22:36:47 CDT
Wichita, KS            	321.2 70.7 15:29 +51.4   356 Thu Jul 28 21:48:06 CDT
Wilkes-Barre, PA       	328.5 48.2 13:42 +66.7   443 Wed Jul 27 22:28:59 EDT
Wilkes-Barre, PA       	328.4 48.8 13:07 +66.6   439 Fri Jul 29 21:40:12 EDT
Wilmington, DE         	328.6 34.9 11:47 +64.7   561 Wed Jul 27 22:28:50 EDT
Wilmington, DE         	140.3 65.8 17:47 +19.9   368 Thu Jul 28 21:16:53 EDT
Wilmington, DE         	328.5 35.3 11:09 +64.8   556 Fri Jul 29 21:40:03 EDT
Wilmington, NC         	318.5 59.3 14:55 +53.2   390 Tue Jul 26 22:04:14 EDT
Wilmington, NC         	318.5 60.2 14:19 +52.7   387 Thu Jul 28 21:15:33 EDT
Winston-Salem, NC      	137.1 72.0 17:56 +22.2   355 Tue Jul 26 22:04:12 EDT
Worcester, MA          	331.7 41.4 12:36 +69.0   493 Wed Jul 27 22:29:50 EDT
Worcester, MA          	143.0 62.1 18:07 +18.6   379 Thu Jul 28 21:17:53 EDT
Worcester, MA          	331.6 41.9 12:00 +69.0   489 Fri Jul 29 21:41:02 EDT
Yakima, WA             	150.1 63.5 18:51 +22.6   374 Wed Jul 27 22:32:42 PDT
Yakima, WA             	339.3 55.2 15:07 +74.5   404 Thu Jul 28 22:55:53 PDT
Yakima, WA             	150.0 62.7 18:11 +21.9   376 Fri Jul 29 21:43:54 PDT
Yakima, WA             	348.9 33.3 09:15 +74.2   579 Fri Jul 29 23:19:10 PDT
Yakima, WA             	339.2 55.8 14:33 +74.1   401 Sat Jul 30 22:06:58 PDT
Yakima, WA             	348.7 33.4 08:36 +74.3   577 Sun Jul 31 22:30:08 PDT
Yakima, WA             	348.5 33.6 07:59 +74.4   573 Tue Aug  2 21:40:53 PDT
Yakima, WA             	  8.4 30.8 05:21 +72.9   613 Tue Aug  2 23:16:26 PDT
Yonkers, NY            	330.0 37.9 12:07 +66.7   527 Wed Jul 27 22:29:17 EDT
Yonkers, NY            	141.5 63.6 17:57 +18.9   374 Thu Jul 28 21:17:21 EDT
Yonkers, NY            	329.9 38.3 11:31 +66.8   523 Fri Jul 29 21:40:30 EDT
York, PA               	327.8 40.4 12:32 +65.5   503 Wed Jul 27 22:28:40 EDT
York, PA               	327.7 40.9 11:56 +65.5   498 Fri Jul 29 21:39:53 EDT
Youngstown, OH         	137.0 29.1 19:31  -9.3   645 Tue Jul 26 22:05:02 EDT
Youngstown, OH         	325.0 76.8 16:41 +51.3   346 Wed Jul 27 22:28:11 EDT
Youngstown, OH         	325.0 78.0 16:05 +50.5   344 Fri Jul 29 21:39:23 EDT
Yuma, AZ               	317.3 58.2 14:21 +51.7   394 Wed Jul 27 20:56:21 MST
Zanesville, OH         	136.1 29.9 19:26  -9.1   633 Tue Jul 26 22:04:37 EDT
Zanesville, OH         	324.0 70.5 16:05 +54.3   357 Wed Jul 27 22:27:47 EDT

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #290
*******************

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Date: Sat, 23 Jul 88 19:06:28 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8807240206.AA25121@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #291

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 291

Today's Topics:
			Space station elements
			  Re: Rocket engine
		       Re: Mir and solar flares
			Re: Re: Rocket engine
			   Re: Space Cities
			 Re: Ramscoop engine
			   Re: Space Cities
	 Soviet launch 1st Phobos mission & Spacewalk update
		       RE: SPACE Digest V8 #261
	   Re: Comment about science was Re: Rocket engine
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 18 Jul 88 18:25:00 GMT
From: a.cs.uiuc.edu!m.cs.uiuc.edu!kenny@ee.ecn.purdue.edu
Subject: Space station elements


Two-line elements for Salyut 7   
1 13138U          88195.72059195 0.00003607           12264-3 0  1563
2 13138  51.6097 161.5347 0000460 189.9869 170.1893 15.33053410356157

Object: Salyut 7   
NORAD catalog number: 13138
Element set: 156
Epoch revolution: 35615
Epoch time: 88195.72059195 (Wed Jul 13 17:17:39 UTC)
Inclination: 51.6097 degrees
RA of node: 161.5347 degrees
Eccentricity: 0.0000460
Argument of periapsis: 189.9869 degrees
Mean anomaly: 170.1893 degrees
Mean motion: 15.33053410 revs / day
Mean motion acceleration: 0.00003607 * 2 revs / day**2
B* drag term: 1.2264e-04

Derived figures:
Semimajor axis: 6844.55 km.
Perifocal radius: 6844.23 km.
Apogee height: 466.72 km.
Perigee height: 466.09 km.
Mean longitude at the epoch: 2.8224 degrees.
Magnitudes of short-period perturbations of the second harmonic:
	Radius vector magnitude: +/-0.99 km.
	True anomaly: +/-0.0114 degrees.
	RA of node: +/-0.0251 degrees.
	Inclination: +/-0.0197 degrees.
Secular perturbations of the second harmonic:
	Argument of perigee: 3.6123 degrees/day
	RA of node: -4.8331 degrees/day
	Mean anomaly: included in published mean motion.
Long-period perturbation of the third harmonic: X=-1.613e-03, Y=-8.564e-04

Two-line elements for Mir        
1 16609U          88195.75450030 0.00029876           20257-3 0  3069
2 16609  51.6163 290.8517 0002993 137.6327 222.4454 15.74713290138015

Object: Mir        
NORAD catalog number: 16609
Element set: 306
Epoch revolution: 13801
Epoch time: 88195.75450030 (Wed Jul 13 18:06:28 UTC)
Inclination: 51.6163 degrees
RA of node: 290.8517 degrees
Eccentricity: 0.0002993
Argument of periapsis: 137.6327 degrees
Mean anomaly: 222.4454 degrees
Mean motion: 15.74713290 revs / day
Mean motion acceleration: 0.00029876 * 2 revs / day**2
B* drag term: 2.0257e-04

Derived figures:
Semimajor axis: 6723.29 km.
Perifocal radius: 6721.27 km.
Apogee height: 347.153 km.
Perigee height: 343.128 km.
Mean longitude at the epoch: 5.0777 degrees.
Magnitudes of short-period perturbations of the second harmonic:
	Radius vector magnitude: +/-1.01 km.
	True anomaly: +/-0.0119 degrees.
	RA of node: +/-0.0260 degrees.
	Inclination: +/-0.0204 degrees.
Secular perturbations of the second harmonic:
	Argument of perigee: 3.8432 degrees/day
	RA of node: -5.1444 degrees/day
	Mean anomaly: included in published mean motion.
Long-period perturbation of the third harmonic: X=-1.642e-03, Y=-8.719e-04


Source: NASA Goddard via TS Kelso's `Celestial RCP/M'

NOTE: Apogee and perigee heights are referred to a mean equatorial radius
      of 6378.145 km, and not to the local radius of the geoid.
      All derived quantities are calculated using the NORAD SGP model of
      Hilton and Kuhlman.

------------------------------

Date: 7 Jul 88 23:48:39 GMT
From: thumper!karn@faline.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: Rocket engine

> Los Alamos simulates nuclear explosions using their Crays; I suspect that
> the pressures and speeds are somewhat larger than in rocket engines.

Good point. But I would say that rockets are a bit more controlled, and
require tighter performance tolerances, than your average thermonuclear
device. The components also have to operate a bit longer...

It's probably safe to say that bomb design, like rocket design, is more
art than science. Otherwise the comprehensive test-ban treaty wouldn't
be such a big issue. The whole point of a test ban is to inhibit the
development of new weapons. If computer simulation were all that is
needed, I'd think we'd find the hawks on the American side strongly
supporting a ban because of our considerable computational advantage
over the Soviets. But it's the hawks on our side that oppose it most
vigorously.

Phil

------------------------------

Date: 6 Jul 88 13:50:44 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!etive!bob@uunet.uu.net  (B Gray)
Subject: Re: Mir and solar flares

In article <8807051941.AA00877@ll-vlsi.arpa> glenn@LL-VLSI.ARPA (Glenn Chapman) writes:
>    Speaking of the EVA, Titov and Manarov on board Mir went out this morning 
>(June 30th) for 5 hours to try and fix the British/Dutch X-ray telescope on the
>Kvant module.  The current information I have is either the repair did not work,
>or was not finished.  They plan another EVA in a few days.

Their screwdriver broke when they were trying to lever off a
fixing ring. The tip of the screwdriver was left stuck behind
the ring. The telescope was never designed to be worked on
in orbit by people in spacesuits.

They are to decide whether it will be possible to fix the
problem on a later EVA.
	Bob.

------------------------------

Date: 7 Jul 88 21:23:27 GMT
From: hpda!hpcuhb!hpsel1!campbelr@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Bob Campbell)
Subject: Re: Re: Rocket engine

> Los Alamos simulates nuclear explosions using their Crays; I suspect that
> the pressures and speeds are somewhat larger than in rocket engines.
----------

But then a nuclear device does not have to maintain an equilibrium state.
It also has fewer parts.  I would have expand that both rocket engines and
motors are not as understood as the general public might think.


Bob Campbell                Some times I wish that I could stop you from 
campbelr@hpda.hp.com        talking, when I hear the silly things you say.
Hewlett Packard                                    - Elvis Costello

------------------------------

Date: Fri,  8 Jul 88 06:03:15 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" <KFL@ai.ai.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: Space Cities
To: uflorida!novavax!maddoxt@umd5.umd.edu
Cc: KFL@ai.ai.mit.edu, Space@angband.s1.gov, sf-lovers@rutgers.edu

> From: uflorida!novavax!maddoxt@umd5.umd.edu  (Thomas Maddox)

> So far as I know, the accepted general designs fall into
> rotating torus, sphere, or cylinder, all providing spin-induced
> forces approximating gravity.

People might come to prefer weightlessness.

> I am currently using the "Stanford torus" model, as outlined
> in T. A. Heppenheimer's _Colonies in Space_.  (Slightly over a
> mile in diameter, with a 1 rpm spin rate, central hub 400 feet
> in diameter, six spokes 50 feet wide going to an outer rim.)

Too fast!  That will give you about 3 Gs.

> the city will occupy a "2:1 resonant orbit" that is 200,000 miles
> from Earth at farthest point, 100,000 miles at closest.

You'd better have good radiation shielding.

> What vistas can you see opening up in a space city, what unique
> possibilities that one cannot expect life on Earth to provide?

Freedom from earth governments.  Immunity to earth's diseases (if
colonists and imports are tested for them).  Much higher population
than earth (if you have enough space cities) which allows vast
economies of scale, vast diversity of cultures and mores, and a
"Newton" or a "Mozart" born every day instead of every few centuries.
Physical decentralization, providing immunity from disease, war, and
ecological collapse (whether natural or manmade).  Self-contained
environments suitable for eventual multi-generation travel to the
stars (why leave home if you can take it with you?) leading to
eventual colonization of the galaxy and the universe and/or contact
with aliens if there are any, and leading to probable survival of
mankind or our descendants until the end of time (if any).

> I want to have my city dwellers snag a metal-rich asteroid.
> I'm almost totally unclear on a few essentials.  How big can it
> reasonably be?  (I want it to have enough size to sustain tunnels
> in which a few a characters are going to have Amazing Adventures;
> I want it to be transportable.)

Why not have the people go to the asteroids, instead of vice versa?
Have your adventures in the asteroid belt.  Still plenty of light,
much more available mass, much less dangerous radiation, and much
easier to hide from enemies.  100k miles from earth is a little too
close - you might get raided by earth governments or targeted in
earth's wars.  And who can blame earth governments for getting nervous
when a huge asteroid is aimed almost straight at earth?  A big impact
could really rearrange the continents a bit.

> my sf is new school (no Heinleinian digressions on the nature of the
> good life, high-tech (in the cyberpunk mode, I reckon), ...

I hope it isn't ultra-cynical and gutter-bound like Gibson's.  I prefer
optimism and light, as in Heinlein, Busby, Bear, Hogan, Varley, and
Vernor Vinge.
								...Keith

------------------------------

Date: 7 Jul 88 11:41:35 GMT
From: b.gp.cs.cmu.edu!Ralf.Brown%B.GP.CS.CMU.EDU@pt.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: Ramscoop engine

In article <74700090@p.cs.uiuc.edu>, carey@p.cs.uiuc.edu writes:
}One more question I can think of off the top of my head -- what happens
}to heat dissipation as time slows down?  As the fusion reactor approaches
}light-speed, would its heat dissipation also slow down, thus causing
}a meltdown?

No, it wouldn't melt down because the heat generation would also be slowed 
down.  From the frame of reference of the reactor, neither the fusion nor heat 
dissipation have slowed down, since they are moving together with the reactor.

------------------------------

Date: Fri,  8 Jul 88 06:06:06 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" <KFL@ai.ai.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: Space Cities
To: uflorida!novavax!maddoxt@umd5.umd.edu
Cc: KFL@ai.ai.mit.edu, Space@angband.s1.gov, sf-lovers@rutgers.edu

> From: uflorida!novavax!maddoxt@umd5.umd.edu  (Thomas Maddox)

> So far as I know, the accepted general designs fall into
> rotating torus, sphere, or cylinder, all providing spin-induced
> forces approximating gravity.

People might come to prefer weightlessness.

> the city will occupy a "2:1 resonant orbit" that is 200,000 miles
> from Earth at farthest point, 100,000 miles at closest.

You'd better have good radiation shielding.

> What vistas can you see opening up in a space city, what unique
> possibilities that one cannot expect life on Earth to provide?

Freedom from earth governments.  Immunity to earth's diseases (if
colonists and imports are tested for them).  Much higher population
than earth (if you have enough space cities) which allows vast
economies of scale, vast diversity of cultures and mores, and a
"Newton" or a "Mozart" born every day instead of every few centuries.
Physical decentralization, providing immunity from disease, war, and
ecological collapse (whether natural or manmade).  Self-contained
environments suitable for eventual multi-generation travel to the
stars (why leave home if you can take it with you?) leading to
eventual colonization of the galaxy and the universe and/or contact
with aliens if there are any, and leading to probable survival of
mankind or our descendants until the end of time (if any).

> I want to have my city dwellers snag a metal-rich asteroid.
> I'm almost totally unclear on a few essentials.  How big can it
> reasonably be?  (I want it to have enough size to sustain tunnels
> in which a few a characters are going to have Amazing Adventures;
> I want it to be transportable.)

Why not have the people go to the asteroids, instead of vice versa?
Have your adventures in the asteroid belt.  Still plenty of light,
much more available mass, much less dangerous radiation, and much
easier to hide from enemies.  100k miles from earth is a little too
close - you might get raided by earth governments or targeted in
earth's wars.  And who can blame earth governments for getting nervous
when a huge asteroid is aimed almost straight at earth?  A big impact
could really rearrange the continents a bit.

> my sf is new school (no Heinleinian digressions on the nature of the
> good life, high-tech (in the cyberpunk mode, I reckon), ...

I hope it isn't ultra-cynical and gutter-bound like Gibson's.  I prefer
optimism and light, as in Heinlein, Busby, Bear, Hogan, Varley, and
Vernor Vinge.
								...Keith

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 8 Jul 88 15:28:16 EDT
From: Glenn Chapman <glenn@ll-vlsi.arpa>
Subject: Soviet launch 1st Phobos mission & Spacewalk update

     The Soviet Union successfully launched the first of the Phobos/Mars
probes from the Baikonur cosmodrome today (July 7th).  The exact launch
time was not given but the it was listed on the 5:00 pm EDT news of
Radio Moscow.  The launch was shown live on Soviet TV and taped versions
were seen on several of the nightly news broadcasts here.  All that is said
so far is that the orbital insertion was correct.  There is no statement of
when the on orbit burn to shape the interplanetary orbit to Mars will occur
(probably sometime July 8th).  These pictures of the Proton launch vehicle
were excellent even if it was a night launch (they retained a spot light
on the vehicle for a considerable distance).
     There have been several excellent descriptions of this probe recently,
and I am working on a summary of those for posting in a few days.  For
those that are interested I suggest you get the current issues of Sky and
Telescope, plus Spaceflight (the British Interplanetary Society magazine), 
and the March 3rd issue of New Scientist.
     The Russians were holding a news conference just prior to this launch
where they laid out more plans for future Mars missions.  They are now 
talking of manned flights in 2010 to 2017, about a decade after their
previous discussions of a late 1990's manned mission to Mars orbit.
     More information has come out about the Mir station space walk held
on June 30th.  Titov and Manarov tried to repair the British/Dutch
X-ray telescope during a 5 hour space walk, but ran into problems when
some of the tools they were using broke in the "cold of outer space".  This 
suggests that they employed their standard tools from inside for park of this
work (ie. not EVA rated).  They are preparing for another space walk,
though no date is set.
     At the Soviet Party Congress last week there were two people who attacked 
their space program.  As here the two lines of arguments were that it is 
(a) expensive and the money could best be spent helping the people or (b) it 
is a big science project which eliminates smaller, more worthwhile science 
programs.  In spite of that it appears that the space program still has the
support of the leadership there.  However now those doubts are being expressed
publicly, so maybe this is what will finally slow them down.  On the
other hand it may drive the Russians towards faster implementation of space
processing on an industrial scale.  That would return materials both to their
economy and provide high tech, high value exports.  Unfortunately for the
time being there is little chance that such space processing will be done
by this country on an industrial scale.  We should work towards changing that.

                                                   Glenn Chapman
                                                   MIT Lincoln Lab

------------------------------

Date:     Fri, 08 Jul 88 17:27:26 -0900
Reply-To: <FSWFL%ALASKA.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Sender: <FSWFL%ALASKA.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
From: WARRIOR                          <FSWFL%ALASKA.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Subject:  RE: SPACE Digest V8 #261

w; zkOJd

5t

------------------------------

Date: 8 Jul 88 18:03:01 GMT
From: hpda!hpcuhb!hpsel1!campbelr@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Bob Campbell)
Subject: Re: Comment about science was Re: Rocket engine

If you are looking for a book that covers theory down to the operation
of a metal lathe, I think you will be looking for a while.  If you want
a book that covers the math and thoery, you could try and find a copy of
_Rocket Propulsion Elements_.

The title page lists the following information.

Sutton, George Paul
	Rocket propulsion elements.

	"A Wiley-Interscience publication."
	Includes bibliographical references and index.
	1.  Rocket engines.  I.  Ross, Donald M., 1916-
joint author.   II. Title.

TL728.S8  1976     629.134'354  75-29197
ISBN 0-471-83836-5

Hopefully a librarian or bookseller will know what that means, and yes
it was (is???) being used to teach AAE 439 at Purdue although it was
first published in 1949 and last updated in 1976.

Bob Campbell                Some times I wish that I could stop you from 
campbelr@hpda.hp.com        talking, when I hear the silly things you say.
Hewlett Packard                                    - Elvis Costello

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #291
*******************

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Date: Sun, 24 Jul 88 01:06:17 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8807240806.AA25259@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #292

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 292

Today's Topics:
			   Re: OZONE cont.
			 Re: Ramscoop engine
			 Re: Ramscoop engine
		      Re: Space cities--replies
	     Moon landing (used to be RE: New Holiday ?)
			Hubble Space Telescope
			 Re: Ramscoop engine
    Resolution regarding unethical National Space Society election
			 Re: Ramscoop engine
		Re: Elements for Soviet space stations
		  Elements for Soviet space stations
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 8 Jul 88 17:35:23 GMT
From: vrdxhq!daitc!csed-1!zweig@umd5.umd.edu  (Jonathan Zweig)
Subject: Re: OZONE cont.

Wanna know a place where ozone isn't a problem? SoCal! Just try to get a
suntan in Pasadena and you'll find out what I mean. It can't be done --
the smog is a terrific absorber of UV with all those nitrogren compounds
and ozone in it.

So it seems to me that the polution destroying the UV protection in the
upper atmosphere is providing even better UV attenuation in the lower
atmosphere. Plus, if you die young because of the smog or crime in the
big city, you won't live long enough to suffer from the skin cancer you
might get on your trips to the country.

(WINK!)

Johnny Zweig

------------------------------

Date: 8 Jul 88 23:17:39 GMT
From: phri!dasys1!tneff@nyu.edu  (Tom Neff)
Subject: Re: Ramscoop engine

Whenever ramscoops come up, somebody always mentions that you could get
to the Andromeda Galaxy in 25 years, ship time.  This has always struck
me as nonsense.  Where are you supposed to find the fuel between the two
galaxies to continue that 1G acceleration?
-- 
Tom Neff			UUCP: ...!cmcl2!phri!dasys1!tneff
	"None of your toys	CIS: 76556,2536	       MCI: TNEFF
	 will function..."	GEnie: TOMNEFF	       BIX: t.neff (no kidding)

------------------------------

Date: 8 Jul 88 13:24:07 GMT
From: mcvax!kunivv1!hobbit!ge@uunet.uu.net  (Ge' Weijers)
Subject: Re: Ramscoop engine

In article <74700090@p.cs.uiuc.edu>, carey@p.cs.uiuc.edu writes:
> One more question I can think of off the top of my head -- what happens
> to heat dissipation as time slows down?  As the fusion reactor approaches
> light-speed, would its heat dissipation also slow down, thus causing
> a meltdown?

Fusion would be slower too. Time is only observed to slow down in the spacecraft
by a 'stationary' observer. In the spacecraft nothing is noticed. 
-- 
Ge' Weijers, Informatics dept., Nijmegen University, the Netherlands
UUCP: {uunet!,}mcvax!kunivv1!hobbit!ge

------------------------------

Date: 8 Jul 88 10:18:00 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!dcl-cs!nott-cs!pyr1.cs.ucl.ac.uk!william@uunet.uu.net
Subject: Re: Space cities--replies


Very interesting.  Only one quibble ...

In reply to John Turner's contribution, is it true that spin gravity 
is not similar to real gravity?  This city would have to be some
miles in diameter (I assume - I didn't get the original posting)
so I would have thought the variation in the effective gravity would be
minute over small movements.  

As (I think!) the effective gravity is proportional to the distance
from the centre, a 10cm head-nod on a 5km radius ring would cause
a force variation of 2e-5.  Could a human detect this change?
Of course, if you had a small radius and used a long cylinder then 
you would definitely get some effect.

			... Bill

************************************************************************
Bill Witts, CS Dept.     *
UCL, London, Errrp       *       Don't believe everything you hear,
william@uk.ac.ucl.cs(UK) *       or anything you say.
william@cs.ucl.ac.uk(US) ***********************************************

------------------------------

Date: 9 Jul 88 07:35:41 GMT
From: aplcen!jhunix!ins_ackg@mimsy.umd.edu  (Choon Kiat Goh)
Subject: Moon landing (used to be RE: New Holiday ?)

In article <8807071447.AA04166@angband.s1.gov> GEOS21@UHUPVM1.BITNET (Jonathan C. Sadow) writes:
>
>For the sake of future reference, the official time at which Neil Armstrong
>first stepped on the lunar surface is 02:56:20 UT on 21 July 1969, and the
>EVA lasted 2 hours and 31 minutes.
>

 Just a fast query...whose chronometer were they using? I suppose Neil
had the final say in the matter because he was there. Mission Control
would have a slightly off time because of the delay between Earth and
the Moon in radio communications. Is it true that Michael Collins
didn't hear Neil's moon address?

   --- Ian ---
(ins_ackg@jhunix)

------------------------------

Date: 9 Jul 88 07:22:11 GMT
From: aplcen!jhunix!ins_ackg@mimsy.umd.edu  (Choon Kiat Goh)
Subject: Hubble Space Telescope


   On Nova, there was a show on spy machines and their development
and so forth. One thing they said was that the next generation of
spy satellites will be like the Hubble Space Telescope (their graphics
showed a stunning look-alike) except that it'd be pointed downwards
instead of up. How feasible would it be for the current HST to be
turned around and pointed downward, just for a quick scan to test
out the optics? Is the HST the next step in reconnaisance technology?
Is it possible for the HST in its existing form to be used as a 
"spy" satellite?

   --- Ian ---
(ins_ackg@jhunix) <== no mention of ironic situations please!

------------------------------

Date: 8 Jul 88 18:36:05 GMT
From: trwrb!aero!venera.isi.edu!rod@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Rodney Doyle Van Meter III)
Subject: Re: Ramscoop engine

In article <5362@ecsvax.uncecs.edu> dgary@ecsvax.UUCP (D Gary Grady) writes:
>In article <74700090@p.cs.uiuc.edu> carey@p.cs.uiuc.edu writes:
>>
>>The ramscoop engine idea is used in larry Niven's books.  I don't know if
>>he "invented" it.
>
>I believe the "interstellar ramjet" was first proposed in the 60s by
>Bussard.  Someone has walked off with my reference, however.  The first
>place I read about it was in an article by Ben Bova about 1965.
>
If I'm not mistaken, Niven even referred to it as a "Bussard ramjet".

>There's a Poul Anderson novel published both as _Tau Zero_ and _To
>Outlive Eternity_ (I think) about passengers on a runaway Bussard ramjet
>that just keeps accelerating.  Presumably they wind up at the restaurant
>at the end of the universe.

Good book!
		--Rod

------------------------------

Reply-To: mordor!rutgers!trout.nosc.mil!pnet01!jim
Date: Sat, 9 Jul 88 10:52:34 PDT
From: mordor!rutgers!pnet01.cts.com!jim (Jim Bowery)
To: crash!space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: Resolution regarding unethical National Space Society election

Please obtain access to a copy of the National Space Society's
ballot for the board of directors election and look for two
things:

1) An endorsement of some of the candidates by the Nominations
Committee which is placed in a position of prominence outside 
the space reserved for other such endorsements for each 
candidate.

2) The lack of "NO" vote boxes.

The bylaws of the Naitonal Space Society allow for the publication 
of endorsements of candidates and these endorsements could even 
include one made by the Nominations Committee itself.  There is
a place reserved for each candidate in the ballot mailing for
statements of such endorsements and these statements are limited
to 400 words.  It is not appropriate for endorsements to appear
outside of these statements -- and it is particularly unethical
for the Nominations Committee to use its position of trust and
authority to place its own endorsements.  

Also, the bylaws provide for negative votes as well as positive
votes.  There is no preference given to positive votes over
negative votes in the bylaws.  Given the exceptionally 
controversial situation during this election it is particularly 
important that negative voting be placed on an equal par with 
positive voting.  It is not appropriate that negative voting be 
treated exceptionally on this, or any, year's ballot.

If you find that the Nominations Committee has acted inappropriately 
in this situation, please consider mailing the following resolution 
in to National Space Society headquarters.

======================================================================



WHEREAS Mark Chartrand, the co-chairman of the Nominations Committee
of the National Space Society, has expressed his opposition to
the National Space Society bylaw that gives members of the society 
the right to vote in the election of directors; and 

WHEREAS Mark Chartrand has expressed his preference for the old
National Space Society governance system (a system underwhich the 
directors had the sole power to elect directors); and

WHEREAS Mark Chartrand has participated in the formulation and
implementation of a plan to use corporate funds to advance the
candidacy of some candidates to the Society's board of directors,
to the disadvantage of other candidates; and

WHEREAS the Nominations Committee authorized the implementation
of the aforementioned plan; now, therefore, be it


RESOLVED that _________________ does hereby find and declare:
1) That Mark Chartrand, because he is opposed to the democratic
election of National Space Society directors, should not be and 
should not have been put in charge of the democratic election of 
directors; and 
2) That the use of corporate funds to advance the candidacy of
some candidates to the society's board of directors, to the
disadvantage of other candidates, consititutes an undemocratic
and unethical use of coroprate funds.

RESOLVED further that _________________ does hereby condemn 
Mark Chartrand for having participated in the formulation and 
implementation of an antidemocratic and unethical plan to use 
corporate funds to advance the candidacy of some candidates to 
the Society's board of directors, to the disadvantage of other 
candidates.

RESOLVED further that _________________ does hereby call on the 
Nominations Committee to accept its responsibility to disapprove 
of undemocratic and unethical plans in the future.

RESOLVED further that _________________ does hereby recommend
that the bylaws of the National Space Society be ammended to expressly 
prohibit the use of corporate funds to selectively advance the 
candidacy of some candidates to the Society's board of directors.



UUCP: {cbosgd, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!pnet01!jim
ARPA: crash!pnet01!jim@nosc.mil
INET: jim@pnet01.cts.com

------------------------------

Date: 10 Jul 88 01:12:34 GMT
From: killer!tness7!tness1!nuchat!sugar!peter@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Peter da Silva)
Subject: Re: Ramscoop engine

In article <5407@dasys1.UUCP>, tneff@dasys1.UUCP (Tom Neff) writes:
> Whenever ramscoops come up, somebody always mentions that you could get
> to the Andromeda Galaxy in 25 years, ship time.  This has always struck
> me as nonsense.  Where are you supposed to find the fuel between the two
> galaxies to continue that 1G acceleration?

Overdesign?

Let X be the ratio of the density of the Intersteller medium to that of the
Intergalactic medium (multiplied by fudge factors).

Design the thing so that it can generate up to X gees in the ISM, and 1 gee
in the IGM. Then run it at (100/X)% in the ISM, and crank it up as you
leave the galaxy...

Remember that your efficiency goes up as you speed up (more swept volume
per unit time), so a system that can generate 1 gee at 1% of light will be
able to generate lots more gees at 90% of light, so you're going to have to
throttle down as you get up to speed in the galaxy anyway.

So, what's the value of X?
-- 
-- `-_-' Peter (have you hugged your wolf today?) da Silva.
--   U   Mail to ...!uunet!sugar!peter, flames to /dev/null.
-- "Running DOS on a '386 is like driving an Indy car to the Stop-N-Go"

------------------------------

Date: 9 Jul 88 22:18:00 GMT
From: a.cs.uiuc.edu!m.cs.uiuc.edu!kenny@ee.ecn.purdue.edu
Subject: Re: Elements for Soviet space stations


Those who are planning Spaceweek activities should note that there are
very fine passes of Salyut 7 over most of the continental US during
that period, and the Spaceweek people may want to publicize the fact.
I hope to have a table of apparitions over US cities shortly (one line
per apparition), and will post it once I have it together.

------------------------------

Date: 9 Jul 88 22:16:00 GMT
From: a.cs.uiuc.edu!m.cs.uiuc.edu!kenny@ee.ecn.purdue.edu
Subject: Elements for Soviet space stations


Two-line elements for Salyut 7   
1 13138U          88187.83286141 0.00002889           10066-3 0  1489
2 13138  51.6105 199.6452 0000799 174.7263 185.3648 15.33011317354942

Object: Salyut 7   
NORAD catalog number: 13138
Element set: 148
Epoch revolution: 35494
Epoch time: 88187.83286141 (Tue Jul  5 19:59:19 UTC)
Inclination: 51.6105 degrees
RA of node: 199.6452 degrees
Eccentricity: 0.0000799
Argument of periapsis: 174.7263 degrees
Mean anomaly: 185.3648 degrees
Mean motion: 15.33011317 revs / day
Mean motion acceleration: 0.00002889 * 2 revs / day**2
B* drag term: 1.0066e-04

Derived figures:
Semimajor axis: 6844.68 km.
Perifocal radius: 6844.13 km.
Apogee height: 467.077 km.
Perigee height: 465.983 km.
Mean longitude at the epoch: 3.4861 degrees.
Magnitudes of short-period perturbations of the second harmonic:
	Radius vector magnitude: +/-0.99 km.
	True anomaly: +/-0.0114 degrees.
	RA of node: +/-0.0251 degrees.
	Inclination: +/-0.0197 degrees.
Secular perturbations of the second harmonic:
	Argument of perigee: 3.6118 degrees/day
	RA of node: -4.8327 degrees/day
	Mean anomaly: included in published mean motion.
Long-period perturbation of the third harmonic: X=-1.613e-03, Y=-8.564e-04

Two-line elements for Mir        
1 16609U          88187.82011286 0.00025402           17818-3 0  2939
2 16609  51.6163 331.6369 0003340 114.9553 245.1661 15.74022174136766

Object: Mir        
NORAD catalog number: 16609
Element set: 293
Epoch revolution: 13676
Epoch time: 88187.82011286 (Tue Jul  5 19:40:57 UTC)
Inclination: 51.6163 degrees
RA of node: 331.6369 degrees
Eccentricity: 0.0003340
Argument of periapsis: 114.9553 degrees
Mean anomaly: 245.1661 degrees
Mean motion: 15.74022174 revs / day
Mean motion acceleration: 0.00025402 * 2 revs / day**2
B* drag term: 1.7818e-04

Derived figures:
Semimajor axis: 6725.25 km.
Perifocal radius: 6723.01 km.
Apogee height: 349.355 km.
Perigee height: 344.862 km.
Mean longitude at the epoch: 5.7903 degrees.
Magnitudes of short-period perturbations of the second harmonic:
	Radius vector magnitude: +/-1.01 km.
	True anomaly: +/-0.0118 degrees.
	RA of node: +/-0.0260 degrees.
	Inclination: +/-0.0204 degrees.
Secular perturbations of the second harmonic:
	Argument of perigee: 3.8392 degrees/day
	RA of node: -5.1391 degrees/day
	Mean anomaly: included in published mean motion.
Long-period perturbation of the third harmonic: X=-1.641e-03, Y=-8.717e-04


Source: NASA Goddard via TS Kelso's `Celestial RCP/M'

NOTE: Apogee and perigee heights are referred to a mean equatorial radius
      of 6378.145 km, and not to the local radius of the geoid.
      All derived quantities are calculated using the NORAD SGP model of
      Hilton and Kuhlman.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #292
*******************

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Date: Sun, 24 Jul 88 19:04:53 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8807250204.AA00398@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #293

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 293

Today's Topics:
	      Ron Paul's Libertarian Party Space Policy
		    Re: Space Shuttle Differences
	 Re: advance space news from June 6 AW&ST -- Pegasus!
			  Re: Rocket engine
			   Von Braun quote
	 Re: advance space news from June 6 AW&ST -- Pegasus!
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Reply-To: mordor!rutgers!trout.nosc.mil!pnet01!jim
Date: Sat, 9 Jul 88 12:55:47 PDT
From: mordor!rutgers!pnet01.cts.com!jim (Jim Bowery)
To: crash!space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: Ron Paul's Libertarian Party Space Policy

Dale Amon presented me with a copy of Ron Paul's space policy and I felt
it appropriate to post on the net, especially since Dale claims to have
contributed to this policy and is available for discussion of it on
the network.  Here it is:

======================================================================

Ron Paul's Space Policy
Libertarian Party Presidential Candidate

Time after time NASA has developed capabilities at great expense then
discarded them:  a space station larger than the Soviet MIR, a heavy
lift vehicle competitive with the new Soviet Energia, a nuclear engine 
twice as efficient as the space shuttle main engine, and a well-tested
Earth-Moon transport system.

The fate of the Saturn V heavy lift launch vehicle is one of the saddest
examples of this folly.  Production was intentionally halted and
portions of its tooling were "lost."  This bridge burning ensured 
support for the next aerospace welfare program:  the space shuttle.
Now we have a grounded government shuttle that can lift only a third
as much as the Saturn V for the same cost per pound.  That's progress,
government style.

Even worse, this failed state monopoly is now wrecking businesses to
avoid well-deserved embarrassment.  American companies desparately
need to get their satellites into space.  But they have been blocked from
using the cheapest, most reliable launcher in the world which 
unfortunately happens to be the Soviet Proton.

NASA has cost our nation a full twenty years in space development,
twenty years that has seen the Soviet union surpass us to such an
extent that may well be irreparable.  It is inconceivable that
a private firm could have committed such follies and survived.  NASA
deserves no better.

Our only hope now lies in the power of free individuals risking their
own resources for their own dreams.  We must recognize the government-
led space program is dead and the corpse must be buried as soon as
possible.  Any defense functions should be put under the military, and
the rest of NASA should be sold to private operators.  The receipts would
be applied to the national debt.  Then, all government roadblocks to
commercial development of space must be removed.

It is not the business of the Defense Department of a free society to
veto business decisions of remote sensing or launch companies.  The
interests of liberty would be well served by a bevy of mediasats
that put any future Iran-Contra affair under the full glare of live
television coverage.  Maybe, besides the competition, that's what our
government is afraid of.

There's really only one proper role for the military in space or on 
Earth:  the protection of America.  Otherwise, the new frontier of
Space should opened to all.  Space pioneers will generate knowlege and
wealth that will improve the lot of all people on earth.  We should not
let government get in their way.

SPACE -- INTERNATIONAL POLICY

Our government is not only short-sighted in its negotiations on
space issues, it's downright antiAmerican.  Sometimes it's hard to
decide whose principles the State Department is defending.  They
certainly aren't those of the Founding Fathers.

About the only anti-property treaty this country hasn't ratified
is the odious "Moon Treaty" written by our own Satate Department.
If not for an alert group of citizens (L5 Society), the United
States would have ratified this treaty under President Carter and
embraced control of all of the rest of creation by a World Government.
Under "the common heritage of mankind" space would be the heritage
of no one.  The vast wealth of resources and energy in our solar 
system would remain untapped instead of being explored by entrepreneurs 
who would improve the condition of all humanity.  It's time this sick
treaty is repudiated once and for all.

We must also demand a revision or understanding to the 1967 Outer
Space Treaty so individual property rights are recognized.  If
there are no implementing protocols for property rights within a
specified time limit we should withdraw from the treaty entirely.
In any case, we should immediately open a land office and accept
claims of Americans to specific pieces of land, subject to occupancy
within fifteen years.

Back in the late 1950's a project called Orion seriously considered using 
small nuclear explosions to power a spacecraft.  The lifting capacity
would have been vast, measured in thousands of tons instead of
the miniscule abilities of today's mightiest rockets.  This brute-
force approach was simple enough to be considered feasible 30 years ago.
Unfortunately, the idea was shelved by the 1963 Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

If we truly wish to see the opening of the space frontier, we must
not prevent businesses from working on futuristic ideas like fusion drives
or matter-antimatter engines.  Such technologies will one day open the 
solar system to commerce the way the clipper ship opened the oceans
in the 19th century.

A time may also come when industrial nuclear explosives are needed in
deep space for extraction of the vast wealth of resources inside
comets and asteroids.  Modification of the 1963 Test Ban Treaty and 
other understandings to clearly allow such non-military use of nuclear
technology is in the best interest of all space-faring peoples.

But perhaps most basic of all, we should question why governments of the
20th century Earth assume they have the right to make laws for unknown
environments, at distances of millions of miles and a time decades or
centuries in the future.  If the arm of government can reach that far,
freedom on Earth is precarious at best.
 
======================================================================

End of policy statement by Ron Paul.

======================================================================

I've heard only one justification from Dale for his vocal and impassioned
arguments for full NASA funding under its business-as-usual approach of
"wrecking businesses to avoid well-deserved embarrassment" in the words
of Dale's own candidate.  This explanation is that he is speaking as an
official of the National Space Society and is, thus, under an obligation
to argue and promote the official views of the Society as determined by
the Legislative Committee.  Others, such as Henry Spencer, have offered
their uninvited justification for Dale's actions in terms of political
pragmatism of some kind, although Dale has yet to offer these justifications
himself.

Given the fact that Dale is under no obligation to speak on behalf of
the National Space Society, that the policy which he claims to have 
contributed to is clearly an impassioned plea to put an end to NASA's
anticompetitive and wasteful practices, that Dale signs his own name
to his impassioned pleas for full NASA funding and that he has yet to
offer any believable political strategy in which identifying full NASA
funding with the most viable political strategy for opening the space
frontier is more than a thinly veiled attempt to mask his own hypocrisy,
I call on Dale to now present such a justification or offer the honest
truth about why he is talking out of both sides of his mouth.

UUCP: {cbosgd, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!pnet01!jim
ARPA: crash!pnet01!jim@nosc.mil
INET: jim@pnet01.cts.com

------------------------------

Date: 10 Jul 88 01:08:41 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Space Shuttle Differences

>  Are all the operational shuttles the same, ie. in terms of lifting
> capability, weight, etc. ? Or are there functional differences?

There are no major functional differences, but the later orbiters are
lighter and hence can carry heavier payloads.
-- 
Anyone who buys Wisconsin cheese is  |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
a traitor to mankind.  --Pournelle   | {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 9 Jul 88 23:41:43 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: advance space news from June 6 AW&ST -- Pegasus!

> Private development is not new-- Space Services Inc. of Houston has
> designed, built and *flown* the Conestoga using private funds...

No they haven't.  They built and flew what amounted to a big sounding
rocket.  The various Conestoga satellite-launchers are still paper
designs.  And do remember that that one launch was something like five
years ago.

> And they
> are offering their launchers to DARPA on a strictly commercial basis.

Precisely what OSC+Hercules are doing with Pegasus, I believe.

> If DARPA commits to buying launches on a vehicle which is still in the
> development stage, how is that significantly different from them paying
> for development?

Having the government as a customer is very different from having it
as a partner.  Unless I am much mistaken, DARPA will pay only for launches,
not for promises.  That's a BIG difference.

> What happens when there are cost overruns and production delays?

Presumably, existing contracts would have to be renegotiated (unless there
were provisions for such already present), leading to possible loss of
business.  Same as what happens when Boeing hits delays or overruns on
a new airliner.

> The article also raises questions about possible
> hidden subsidies: How much are OSC and Hercules paying for use of the
> NASA B52?  How much are they paying for computing at Ames?

This I don't know.  I would speculate that the B-52 is being provided on
a basis of "until we have our own carrier aircraft, the customer has to
supply it".  Ames is presumably involved in this for its own reasons, and
may consider free computing time justified.  Remember that NASA *is*
charged with advancing aerospace technology for use by private industry.

> Hercules and OSC claim that they will develop, build and certify not
> one, not two, but three new motors with $45M, and in one year...

I confess that the motor development sounded a bit ambitious to me too.
However, the standard rule of thumb is that doing things privately and
accepting some risk is an order of magnitude cheaper than having the job
done by the government.  $450M for government development of three small
solid motors, by an experienced company, doesn't sound too bad.  Likewise
a time of two years (not one -- this project is already well underway,
remember) doesn't sound too bad for motors that don't involve new technology.
They should represent a fairly routine engineering job.

That, actually, deserves some expansion.  Although I wish OSC+Hercules
success, and gobs of money, their most important contribution will be
their first successful launch.  If they go broke despite technical
success, that will still establish the crucial point:  getting into orbit
is routine engineering now, and does not require a billion dollars, ten
years, thousands of people, or government funding.  If they can pull it
off technically, and I suspect they can, that will be an enormous
contribution to convincing investors that private spaceflight is realistic.
There are two problems with investors:  convincing them that you can do it,
and convincing them that you can make a profit on it.  The first problem is
the hard one, especially since NASA is all too eager to assure the investors
that billions of dollars and thousands of engineers are absolutely necessary.
Proving that assertion a lie is very important; so far it hasn't been done.
The problem with Space Services is that they've taken so long to deliver;
the problems with Amroc and Pacific are that they insist on developing
new technology, and that they too are showing signs of having trouble
delivering soon (I for one consider it a bad sign when the design of the
vehicle changes repeatedly, over a period of years, before anything actually
flies).  If Pegasus works, it will demonstrate that a short development
program using existing technology is sufficient.  That would make a vast
difference to getting funding for private-spaceflight projects.

> One of the more important aspects of this article is the tense...
> Hercules and OSC have far to go before this project amounts to much more
> than the inflated claims of a marketing campaign...

One of the more important aspects of this article is the timing:  after the
project is well underway, not before it gets started.  I doubt very much
that an official announcement could possibly have been postponed any longer,
actually.  Given the way the aerospace industry usually ballyhoos its
back-of-the-envelope design sketches, OSC and Hercules have actually shown
remarkable restraint.
-- 
Anyone who buys Wisconsin cheese is  |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
a traitor to mankind.  --Pournelle   | {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 10 Jul 88 01:12:31 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Rocket engine

> ... I could be wrong, but I got the *very* strong impression that
> the process was one of "diddle with it until it works".

Well, one can sometimes get hints from knowing how similar problems were
solved in the past, but I believe that's basically correct.  Even the
definition of "works" is rather ad-hoc; testing includes things like
exploding small bombs inside the engine to try to stimulate any instabilities
that might be lurking.
-- 
Anyone who buys Wisconsin cheese is  |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
a traitor to mankind.  --Pournelle   | {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 10 Jul 88 00:36:11 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Von Braun quote

> > Man is the best computer we can put aboard a spacecraft. --Von Braun
> 
> Last week's successful Ariane-4 launch put AMSAT Phase 3-C and two other
> satellites into [a very precise] orbit...  I'd like to see some fighter
> jock/astronaut do as well by flying a launch manually...

"The Lord has delivered him into my hands."  -Huxley

Yup, the computer did a fine and very precise job.  Now, Phil, cast your
mind back a little ways, to the Ariane launch of AO-10 (I think it was).
Much the same computer, running much the same software, controlling much
the same booster, put AO-10 into a nice precise orbit.  After which the
same computer, mindlessly following orders, proceeded with a venting
procedure that caused the third stage to catch up with and collide with
AO-10, damaging it seriously and causing a lot of headaches for you and
the rest of the Amsat crew.  The greenest student pilot could have
prevented that, if he'd been there.  You, of all people, should not be
lauding the unmanned nature of Ariane as an unmixed blessing.

I think we all agree that machines are generally superior for boring
jobs that have to be done exactly right, especially when there are tight
response-time requirements.  Even Von Braun, after all, built computer-
controlled launchers.  And I think we would all agree that humans
are generally superior for adapting orders to situations and coping with
the unforeseen.  Both the Solar Max repair and the Palapa/Westar retrieval
succeeded (despite one or two false steps along the way) even though the
original carefully-built equipment simply didn't work.  

The debate centers on the extent to which unexpected situations and
unforeseen problems can be removed by advance planning.  NASA, Arianespace,
etc. have been insisting for a long time that nothing is left to chance and
everything is foreseen.  They have consistently been proven wrong.  Sometimes
the equipment can be convinced to cope, and this is trumpeted as further
proof that humans are unnecessary in space.  Sometimes the equipment just
isn't up to handling a new situation, and this is written off as Just One
Of Those Failures One Has To Expect -- even if it wouldn't have been a
failure with a human on hand.  Do I detect a small inconsistency here?

Automatic equipment is the appropriate response to a well-understood,
simple, repetitive job like relaying communications, taking pictures, or
guiding a launcher.  Humans are the appropriate response to complex,
variable, unforeseen, one-of-a-kind situations like equipment failures,
unexpected changes in environment, and exploration of planetary surfaces.
To pick a close-to-home example, the success of satellite repair/retrieval
procedures has been inversely proportional to the reliance placed on
automatic equipment rather than humans -- compare the equipment-intensive
Solar Max repair, a near-disaster, with the human-intensive Leasat repair,
which worked so well that it was boring.

> Perhaps you should limit the scope of this statement somewhat.

If we're being pedantic, note that Von Braun did:  he said "spacecraft",
not "launcher", so Ariane isn't relevant.
-- 
Anyone who buys Wisconsin cheese is  |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
a traitor to mankind.  --Pournelle   | {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 10 Jul 88 12:24:25 GMT
From: jfc@athena.mit.edu  (John F Carr)
Subject: Re: advance space news from June 6 AW&ST -- Pegasus!

In article <1988Jul9.234143.15997@utzoo.uucp> 
henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:

>Remember that NASA *is*
>charged with advancing aerospace technology for use by private industry.

Has anyone told them this?  While I've seen evidence of an interest in
airplanes, they don't seem to have done much to help with launchers.
Or are they helping while the rest of the government works against them?

   John Carr             "When they turn the pages of history,
   jfc@Athena.mit.edu     When these days have passed long ago,
                          Will they read of us with sadness
                          For the seeds that we let grow?"  --Neil Peart

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #293
*******************

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Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #294

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 294

Today's Topics:
	    Re: Ron Paul's Libertarian Party Space Policy
       Re: Soviet launch 1st Phobos mission & Spacewalk update
Soviet space commitment (was: Soviet launch 1st Phobos mission & Spacewalk update)
       Re: Soviet launch 1st Phobos mission & Spacewalk update
			 Re: Von Braun quote
				   
       Re: Soviet launch 1st Phobos mission & Spacewalk update
			 Re: Ramscoop engine
		      Re: Hubble Space Telescope
		 Re: Pegasus and other space projects
	      Unethical National Space Society election
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 10 Jul 88 13:36:47 GMT
From: l.cc.purdue.edu!cik@k.cc.purdue.edu  (Herman Rubin)
Subject: Re: Ron Paul's Libertarian Party Space Policy

In article <8807091956.AA22362@crash.cts.com>, jim@pnet01.cts.COM (Jim Bowery) writes:

		[Long quote of the libertarian space policy.]

Let me say that I support the libertarian space policy and I will probably
vote libertarian.  However, I do not expect the country to even adopt very
many libertarian policies in the near future (alas).  Does that mean that I
should not support those policies which I think will have good ends, and
possibly even make libertarian societies possible in the future?

Jim complains that because Dale Amon is a libertarian, he cannot reasonably
support any NASA space activities.  I believe that Szilard's prognostications
about the bad effect of the present type of government support of researcn
in general have already occurred, and that steps should be taken to reverse
the process.  However, merely cutting the federal research funding will not,
by itself, do anything good for the problem.  For a good researcher, who
appreciates the problem, to refuse to accept government funds will also not
help the problem.

Libertarians believe that those who wish to fund exploration of space should
be allowed to do so, and that, except for military purposes, the government
should get out.  Thus a libertarian will support the elimination of NASAs
activities in space exploration together with the government removing its
controls on private space activities.  However, this does not prevent the
support of NASA if the government still exercises control.
-- 
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907
Phone: (317)494-6054
hrubin@l.cc.purdue.edu (Internet, bitnet, UUCP)

------------------------------

Date: 10 Jul 88 18:04:36 GMT
From: dietz@cu-arpa.cs.cornell.edu  (Paul F. Dietz)
Subject: Re: Soviet launch 1st Phobos mission & Spacewalk update

In article <8807081928.AA23848@ll-vlsi.arpa> glenn@LL-VLSI.ARPA (Glenn Chapman) writes:
>On the
>other hand it may drive the Russians towards faster implementation of space
>processing on an industrial scale.  That would return materials both to their
>economy and provide high tech, high value exports. 

I find this utterly unbelievable.  It's clear NASA doesn't have a single
product that could be made profitably in the space station, and little
reason to expect any such product exists.  Why should the Soviets, with
their awful record at developing and marketing high tech products, expect
success?

It seems incredible to me that, faced with the evidence of what
bureaucracy did to the US space program, people can still think the
Soviet space program is some paragon of good planning.  I don't
see what they're getting that's worth the investment.  And, Glenn's
exhorations notwithstanding, I don't see why the US should follow
their lead.

	Paul F. Dietz
	dietz@gvax.cs.cornell.edu

------------------------------

Date: 10 Jul 88 18:24:55 GMT
From: att!lzaz!lznv!psc@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Paul S. R. Chisholm)
Subject: Soviet space commitment (was: Soviet launch 1st Phobos mission & Spacewalk update)

< "Would you buy a used operating system from these guys?" >

In article <8807081928.AA23848@ll-vlsi.arpa>, glenn@LL-VLSI.ARPA (Glenn Chapman)
writes a whole lot of useful information about the Phobos probes.
Thanks!  But another comment got me to thinking.

>    At the Soviet Party Congress last week there were two people who attacked 
> their space program.  As here the two lines of arguments were that it is 
> (a) expensive and the money could best be spent helping the people or (b) it 
> is a big science project which eliminates smaller, more worthwhile science 
> programs.  In spite of that it appears that the space program still has the
> support of the leadership there.  However now those doubts are being expressed
> publicly, so maybe this is what will finally slow them down.

Color me skeptical about the "spontaneous" outbursts at the Party
Congress.  They might be staged opportunities for the Powers Who Be to
chastise opponents, and to repeat the USSR's commitment to space
exploration and development.

>Glenn Chapman, MIT Lincoln Lab

-Paul S. R. Chisholm, {ihnp4,cbosgd,allegra,rutgers}!mtune!lznv!psc
AT&T Mail !psrchisholm, Internet psc@lznv.att.com
I'm not speaking for my employer, I'm just speaking my mind.

------------------------------

Date: 10 Jul 88 19:14:08 GMT
From: thomson@cs.utah.edu  (Rich Thomson)
Subject: Re: Soviet launch 1st Phobos mission & Spacewalk update

In article 19086@cornell.UUCP, dietz@gvax.cs.cornell.edu (Paul F. Dietz) writes:
:In article <8807081928.AA23848@ll-vlsi.arpa> glenn@LL-VLSI.ARPA
    (Glenn Chapman) writes:
:>On the
:>other hand it may drive the Russians towards faster implementation of space
:>processing on an industrial scale.  That would return materials both to their
:>economy and provide high tech, high value exports. 
:
:I find this utterly unbelievable.  It's clear NASA doesn't have a single
:product that could be made profitably in the space station, and little
:reason to expect any such product exists.  Why should the Soviets, with
:their awful record at developing and marketing high tech products, expect
:success?

I thought the soviets were using the space station to make very high quality
silicon wafers and chips.  Is this incorrect?  I remember some talk a while
back about chips/wafers that were made on the space station.

Compared to the US, the soviets are far behind in the capabilities of producing
high quality (low amounts of impurities) wafers and corresponding chips.  I
would think that very pure silicon crystals could be grown in the zero-g
environment of space.  Comments?

						-- Rich
-- 
Rich Thomson, Oasis Technologies, 3190 MEB, U of U, Salt Lake City, Utah  84112
(801) 355-5146  thomson@cs.utah.edu  {bellcore,ut-sally}!utah-cs!thomson
		    Alcohol: the drug of availability

------------------------------

Date: 10 Jul 88 20:04:29 GMT
From: Portia!Jessica!paulf@labrea.stanford.edu  (Paul Flaherty)
Subject: Re: Von Braun quote

In article <1988Jul10.003611.16575@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>-- 
>Anyone who buys Wisconsin cheese is  |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
>a traitor to mankind.  --Pournelle   | {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry
	^
	|
	\------	A curious comment, since the dairy industry supported the
		Republican candidate in the last election...




-=Paul Flaherty, N9FZX	     | One Internet to rule them all,    -- Tome
Computer Systems Laboratory  | One Internet to find them;            of 
Stanford University          | One Internet to bring them all,    Internet
->paulf@shasta.Stanford.EDU  | And in the Ether bind them.         Hacking

------------------------------

Date: 07/10/88 20:10:00 EST
From: #JFDOBB%WMMVS.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu
Subject: 

I was wondering if anybody knows why there are never any replies from
any of the machines at larc.nasa.gov, it seems like there are at
least a few frome ames, but none from langley, are there just no
langley people who read this or do they have nothing to say.

------------------------------

Date: 11 Jul 88 00:22:54 GMT
From: dietz@cu-arpa.cs.cornell.edu  (Paul F. Dietz)
Subject: Re: Soviet launch 1st Phobos mission & Spacewalk update

In article <5593@utah-cs.UUCP> thomson@cs.utah.edu.UUCP (Rich Thomson) writes:

>I thought the soviets were using the space station to make very high quality
>silicon wafers and chips.  Is this incorrect?  I remember some talk a while
>back about chips/wafers that were made on the space station.
>
>Compared to the US, the soviets are far behind in the capabilities of producing
>high quality (low amounts of impurities) wafers and corresponding chips.  I
>would think that very pure silicon crystals could be grown in the zero-g
>environment of space.  Comments?

It would pretty silly for the Soviets to grow silicon crystals in space.
The cost would be very high.   It would less technically risky just to
steal (or buy on the black market) and copy crystal growing machines.

It would be doubly absurd to make chips or wafers on a space station,
since microgravity is worthless after the crystal is grown, and the cost
of operating any manufacturing facility in orbit is enormous.

Paul F. Dietz
dietz@gvax.cs.cornell.edu

------------------------------

Date: 10 Jul 88 18:26:24 GMT
From: fluke!ssc-vax!eder@beaver.cs.washington.edu  (Dani Eder)
Subject: Re: Ramscoop engine

In article <2284@sugar.UUCP>, peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) writes:
> 
> Remember that your efficiency goes up as you speed up (more swept volume
> per unit time), so a system that can generate 1 gee at 1% of light will be
> able to generate lots more gees at 90% of light, so you're going to have to
> throttle down as you get up to speed in the galaxy anyway.
> 

I beg to differ.  A ramscoop engine suffers from the same ram drag
as any other ramjet type engine.  This apparent force is caused by
temporarily bringing the interstellar matter up to your speed so
you hold on to it long enough to fuse it.  It then expands out the
back at it's characteristic exhaust velocity, which is about 0.04c.

This then is the upper speed limit for an interstellar 'ramjet'.
If you attempt an interstellar 'scramjet' where the interstellar
matter is compressed mostly sideways, and not accelerated axially
up to your speed, then you ship has to be long enough for the
fusion reaction to complete before the ship has gone by.  With
'conventional' fusion reactor designs, the burn times are measured
in many seconds (like 100) , which makes for very long ships.

If you had a laser fusion 'supercompressor' you could probably
get the burn time down,but no one I know of has even 'back of the
enveloped' that concept (magnetic scoop feeding laser inertial
confinement).

-- 
Dani Eder / Boeing / Space Station Program / uw-beaver!ssc-vax!eder
(205)461-2606(w) (205)461-7801(h) 1075 Dockside Drive #905 Huntsville, 
AL 35824  34 40 N latitude 86 40 W longitude +100m altitude, Earth

------------------------------

Date: 10 Jul 88 18:04:57 GMT
From: fluke!ssc-vax!eder@beaver.cs.washington.edu  (Dani Eder)
Subject: Re: Hubble Space Telescope

In article <6651@jhunix.HCF.JHU.EDU>, ins_ackg@jhunix.HCF.JHU.EDU (Choon Kiat Goh) writes:
> 
>    On Nova, there was a show on spy machines and their development
> and so forth. One thing they said was that the next generation of
> spy satellites will be like the Hubble Space Telescope (their graphics
> showed a stunning look-alike) except that it'd be pointed downwards
> instead of up. How feasible would it be for the current HST to be
> turned around and pointed downward, just for a quick scan to test
> out the optics? Is the HST the next step in reconnaisance technology?
> Is it possible for the HST in its existing form to be used as a 
> "spy" satellite?
> 
>    --- Ian ---
> (ins_ackg@jhunix) <== no mention of ironic situations please!

No, you've got it backwards, the HST is derived from the previous generation
of satellites.  As I was told by a co-worker who worked on the Space
Telescope structure "It seemed like they had done all this before",
referring to Lockheed (spacecraft systems on HST) and Perkin-Elmer
(optics on ditto).  Note: Boeing made the carbon-epoxy structure
that holds the optics under subcontract to Perkin-Elmer.

As for the feasibility of pointing it downwards, in short "No way, Jose!".
The science instruments are sensitive enough to be damaged by looking
at a bright planet (Venus, Jupiter), much less a brighter object.

There is a parallel story about a spy satellite being damaged by looking
at a natural gas flare in Saudia Arabia.

When you design for looking at 26th magniude objects, one 10^14 times
as bright is liable to hurt (ouch!)



-- 
Dani Eder / Boeing / Space Station Program / uw-beaver!ssc-vax!eder
(205)461-2606(w) (205)461-7801(h) 1075 Dockside Drive #905 Huntsville, 
AL 35824  34 40 N latitude 86 40 W longitude +100m altitude, Earth

------------------------------

Date: 10 Jul 88 18:59:49 GMT
From: fluke!ssc-vax!eder@beaver.cs.washington.edu  (Dani Eder)
Subject: Re: Pegasus and other space projects

In article <1988Jul9.234143.15997@utzoo.uucp>, henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
> 
> > What happens when there are cost overruns and production delays?
> 
> Presumably, existing contracts would have to be renegotiated (unless there
> were provisions for such already present), leading to possible loss of
> business.  Same as what happens when Boeing hits delays or overruns on
> a new airliner.

Just because we delivered a few airplanes a few days late this year
is no reason to pick on Boeing.  Usually, for us, delivery dates are
sacred, and are met at all costs.  There have been some problems this
year because the high rate of airplane production worldwide is 
straining the supplier chain.  We just make damn sure before we commit
to a customer that the date is reasonable (a few days out of 2-3 years
from order to delivery is not that bad, really)... As far as development
or manufacturing costs, if they overrun, Boeing eats the loss.  The
price on the contract is what we deliver the airplane for.  Please
check out you facts in the future before using my employer as a
bad example.

> However, the standard rule of thumb is that doing things privately and
> accepting some risk is an order of magnitude cheaper than having the job
> done by the government.  $450M for government development of three small
> solid motors, by an experienced company, doesn't sound too bad.  Likewise
> a time of two years (not one -- this project is already well underway,
> remember) doesn't sound too bad for motors that don't involve new technology.
> They should represent a fairly routine engineering job.
> 

I agree.  We (Space Research Associates, the small space company I own
20% of) have been working on a similar design, the main difference
being using existing solids.  Our cost estimate through first flight
is about $15 million.  Given that solids typically cost about ten times
first unit cost for set up of a production line, the 45 million number
for Pegasus seems quite reasonable.  Solids are not so much 'designed
and developed' as 'built to order'.  The filament wound case/carbon
nozzle technology is well in hand for Hercules after all the governemnt
motors they have built.  Our design stays with existing solids because
its hard enough trying to raise $15 million in venture money as a
startup.  OSC/Hercules have more money to play with, and can afford
better performance motor designs.

If OSC/Hercules are as smart as they seem to have been so far
then I will go out on a limb and predict that they will be buying
a used 707 cargo plane to convert to their first stage.  Compare
sizes and Costs:

Airplane		Cost with Modifications		Takeoff Wt (lb)

new 747-400		$145 million			890,000
old 707-320C		$8-20 million			333,600

So you get a smaller max weight, who cares.  The 707 can lift up to
twice the initial Pegasus launch weight.  When that gets too small,
they will be able to afford a 747 for even bigger launches.

-- 
Dani Eder / Boeing / Space Station Program / uw-beaver!ssc-vax!eder
(205)461-2606(w) (205)461-7801(h) 1075 Dockside Drive #905 Huntsville, 
AL 35824  34 40 N latitude 86 40 W longitude +100m altitude, Earth

------------------------------

Date: 11 Jul 88 02:58:03 GMT
From: ubvax!unisv!vanpelt@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Mike Van Pelt)
Subject: Unethical National Space Society election

I just got a letter about the ballot for the upcoming NSS Board Elections.
It looks like the Nominating Committee has yet another slimy trick up
its collective sleeve -- In direct violation of agreements that seemed
to have been reached at the Denver conference, the ballots are going to
go out with a cover letter recommending a "straight ticket" vote for the
candidates placed on the ballot by the Nominating Committee, there is no
indication of which candidates were placed on the ballot by petition, and
there is no mention of the fact that you can, indeed, vote AGAINST a
candidate by marking NO on the line in front of the candidate's name.

It is my intention to mark a big, red   NO!  in front of every name
which came from the Nominating Committee.  I will make exceptions for
candidates that I have some good reason to vote in favor of, but
for Nominating Committee candidates, the presumption is of guilt
as far as I'm concerned.

The time is running out for wrenching control of this organization from
the bureaucratic thumb-twiddling empire builders, and if we don't do it
this board election, it will probably never happen.  We were unable to have
a board meeting at the Denver convention, because a quorum of board members
did not condescend to put in an apperance!!  I very strongly recommend looking
at the list of which board members attended, and if they weren't there but
they're on the ballot, vote  NO!  unless there are VERY good extenuating
circumstances.  (I'm aware that in several cases, there were.)

I had let my NSS membership lapse, and renewed it for the Denver conference.
I'm hoping that wasn't a mistake.

Sorry about the angry, cynical tone of this.  I'm very sincerely PO'd.
--
"... Local prohibitions cannot block advances in military  | Mike Van Pelt
and commercial technology.... democratic movements for     | Unisys,
local restraint can only restrain the world's democracies, | Silicon Valley
not the world as a whole.   --   K. Eric Drexler           | vanpelt@unisv.UUCP

-- 
"... Local prohibitions cannot block advances in military  | Mike Van Pelt
and commercial technology.... democratic movements for     | Unisys,
local restraint can only restrain the world's democracies, | Silicon Valley
not the world as a whole.   --   K. Eric Drexler           | vanpelt@unisv.UUCP

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #294
*******************

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Date: Mon, 25 Jul 88 19:06:31 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8807260206.AA01664@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #295

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 295

Today's Topics:
			Re: NASA news - Seasat
       Re: Soviet launch 1st Phobos mission & Spacewalk update
		      Electromagnetic Launchers
			  Mars Face (again)
	 Re: advance space news from June 6 AW&ST -- Pegasus!
		      NASA support for industry
			 Re: Von Braun quote
		       Naming the Space Station
	     Re: postings from LARC (was none BITNET eh?)
			   Re: Space Suits
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 5 Jul 88 16:55:23 GMT
From: aplcen!aplcomm!stdc.jhuapl.edu!jwm@mimsy.umd.edu  (Jim Meritt)
Subject: Re: NASA news - Seasat

In article <21900022@m.cs.uiuc.edu> kenny@m.cs.uiuc.edu writes:
}An arbitrary `mean sea level' can be defined in terms of an
}equipotential surface, that is, a surface chosen so that any two
}points on the surface have the same gravitational potential.  To a
}fairly good approximation, the surface so described is nearly
}spherical, flattened slightly at the poles and heavier in the southern
}hemisphere.  The surface so described is the `reference geoid.'


You can also get some interesting bottom contour data from the geoid
structure.


Disclaimer: Individuals have opinions, organizations have policy.
            Therefore, these opinions are mine and not any organizations!
Q.E.D.
jwm@aplvax.jhuapl.edu 128.244.65.5  (James W. Meritt)

------------------------------

Date: 11 Jul 88 15:58:02 GMT
From: ubvax!unisv!vanpelt@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Mike Van Pelt)
Subject: Re: Soviet launch 1st Phobos mission & Spacewalk update

In article <5593@utah-cs.UUCP> thomson@cs.utah.edu.UUCP (Rich Thomson) writes:
>I thought the soviets were using the space station to make very high quality
>silicon wafers and chips.  Is this incorrect?

I don't know about silicon, but the third solar panel that was installed
on MIR contains some germanium arsenide solar cells made from GeAs
crystals that were grown on MIR.
-- 
"When you strip all the  technospeak away,  they're claiming that it can't be
 done because it  hasn't been done yet,  and therefore, we ought not even try
 doing it, because it can't be done.  That's Luddite Logic if I ever heard it."
-- Tom Clancy on SDI.               Mike Van Pelt    vanpelt@unisv.UUCP

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 11 Jul 88 13:35:09 EDT
From: dietz@gvax.cs.cornell.edu (Paul F. Dietz)
To: dietz@gvax.cs.cornell.edu, space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: Electromagnetic Launchers

I was thinking some more about the perennial problem of cheaply lifting
mass into orbit; specifically, using electromagnetic launchers.  Under
the assumption that we can launch high ballistic coefficient vehicles
out of the atmosphere at around escape velocity, what orbits should the
vehicles be launched into?  How much change in velocity would onboard
rockets have to supply? 

The purpose of the system would be to launch acceleration insensitive
materials into space.  This could be very useful in supporting
(for example) manned Mars exploration.  Rocket fuel, water and radiation
shielding make up a significant fraction of the Mars vehicle's mass.

The vehicles could not just be unguided projectiles, like bags of
lunar material launched using a mass driver, since vehicles are
placed onto elliptical orbits with perigee beneath the Earth's surface.
Onboard rockets must lift the perigee above the atmosphere and guide
the vehicle to a space station.

Where to put the space station?  LEO is one idea, but LEO is hard to get
to.  Simply firing the vehicle to an orbit with an apogee several hundred
km up doesn't work, since the delta-V needed to circularize the orbit would
be huge.  One might reduce the delta-V by depressing the trajectory, but
atmospheric heating kills you .  A more complicated procedure is called for:

   1. Launch vehicles into a highly eccentric orbit with apogee
      well beyond GEO.  The orbit must pass through the plane of
      the LEO space station's orbit at a point distant from the earth.
   2. When the vehicle intersects the station's orbital plane,
      use the engine to put the vehicle into that plane with perigee
      in the upper fringes of the atmosphere.
   3. Lower the apogee using aerobraking, perhaps over many orbits
      to avoid overheating.  This should reuse the heat shield
      used during the vehicle's initial ascent.
   4. Aerobraking should be managed so that the vehicle ends up
      near the space station in a phase matching orbit.  Rendezvous.

Assuming the requirement in step 1 can be met, the kick motor need
only supply a delta-V of less than 1 km/sec, and perhaps only
a few hundred m/sec.   Step 1 can be satisfied if the station is in
near equatorial orbit and the launcher's latitude is not too high, or if
the station is in polar orbit and the launcher fires payloads to orbits
with apogees above the north pole.

It seems wasteful to dissipate so much energy in aerobraking.  Better to
put the station itself in higher orbit.  A particularly attractive target
is highly eccentric earth orbit (HEEO).  There's a problem, however:
the payloads end up in orbits with major axes pointing in different
directions, depending on the time of launch.  To avoid this, launch the
vehicles into polar HEEO.  Kind of a strange orbit, but it might avoid
the worst of the radiation belts.  Perhaps Alaska would be a good place
for the launcher.

HEEO is ideal for the launch and recovery of interplanetary spacecraft.
It is nearly out of Earth's gravity well, but allows spacecraft to change
their velocities near the Earth, where the use of a rocket is most
efficient.  For example, a delta-V of only about 1.5 km/sec at perigee
in the proper HEEO will take you to Mars.

	Paul F. Dietz
	dietz@gvax.cs.cornell.edu

------------------------------

Date:    Mon, 11 Jul 88 16:10 CDT
From: Kerry Stevenson <kerry%UOFMCC.BITNET@cornellc.ccs.cornell.edu>
Subject: Mars Face (again)

I hate to bring this stuff up again, but ....

This morning, while chowing down some breakfast, I listened to an interview
taking place on "Canada AM" (the True North's version of Good Morning America)
with a spokesman from an organization known as the "Mars Project". The spokesman
explained that he represented an "unofficial group of scientists", which has
apparently been doing work on the data gathered by the Viking missions back
in 1976.  Their thinking is that NASA has not given enough thought to some
of the more unusual data, in particular the "face on mars".  The spokesman
explained that they had obtained the original transmission data from Viking and
had applied more up to date image enhancement software, thus giving a more
detailed look at this feature.

Several photos were shown during the interview. The first showed a wide angle
view of the "face" area, with the face in the upper right corner and a
suspicous bunch of hills in the lower left.  The spokesman suggested that
these "structures" (which were much larger than the face) were also
of great interest because of their tremendous symmetry.  (note- I didn't
think they were that symmetrical, but one could imagine large pyramids if
you closed one eye and had a few of your favorite brews first)  The next
two pictures were closeups of the face itself, and seemed quite a bit more
detailed than the previously available photos.  The photo showed a right
eye, nose, cheek, a faint hairline and a sort of built-up ring around the
whole mess.  The other "facial-closeup" was taken at a different sun angle,
some 35 degrees different than the other closeup.  It showed remarkably
similar features to the low angle photo, supposedly demonstrating that
there is actually a structure with these features, and that it is not
entirely due to lighting effects.

The final shot was the most interesting of the bunch.  It showed a 3-D
computer analysis of the face, based on the two views previously shown.
There were 16 views of the structure, and they were quite amazing.
It really looks like someone carved a face out of a hill. I thought that
the nose was interesting, since it did not "stick out", and was rather
flat against the rest of the face - exactly what one might expect if
you had carved out a face. The whole structure appeared to be close
to a square in shape, with rounded corners - again, very symmetrical.
Of course, some of the left side of the face was in darkness in both
shots and could not be shown in the 3-D views.

The spokesman explained that they had sent a representative (a Dr.
Brian O'Leary?) to Moscow last week to see if they could convince the
Soviets to have the Phobos probe take some pictures of the region
containing the face.  He expressed some doubt that the Soviets would
be able to accomodate them, as interplanetary schedules are usually
difficult to change with a week's notice.  However, he then said that
they would definitely be able to get a closer look at the face with
the american Mars Observer, which he said would be launched in 1992.
It's my understanding that the Mars Observer may be delayed until
sometime after that.

Contrary to what one may see in a newspaper from a grocery checkout
line, this guy seemed to be for real.  He didn't draw any conclusions
about this, other than that "these photos are extremely provocative,
and should be investigated further."

Can someone explain what the "Mars Project" is?  What other projects
are they working on?  Are they as real as they seem?  I also thought
that the Mars Face was a bunch of hooey, however, when you see these
new enhanced pictures you may want to reconsider your opinion.  I
don't believe that it is really a face, but I now think that
I'd at least like to see a couple of hi-res pictures of this
"structure" taken by new spacecraft.

                                           Kerry.

------------------------------

Date: 11 Jul 88 21:36:46 GMT
From: pioneer.arc.nasa.gov!eugene@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Eugene N. Miya)
Subject: Re: advance space news from June 6 AW&ST -- Pegasus!

In article <1988Jul9.234143.15997@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>> hidden subsidies: How much are OSC and Hercules paying for use of the
>> NASA B52?  How much are they paying for computing at Ames?
>
>This I don't know.  I would speculate that the B-52 is being provided on
>a basis of "until we have our own carrier aircraft, the customer has to
>supply it".  Ames is presumably involved in this for its own reasons, and
>may consider free computing time justified.

Actually, I brought this up, off the cuff.  There is some confusion
here.  This project isn't doing any computing at Ames.  There is a name
collision here, and this is the source of some confusion.
The B52 is also ours (down at Dryden), but I don't know how
reimbursement is done for this.  You were just lucky on this one.

Another gross generalization from

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@aurora.arc.nasa.gov
  resident cynic at the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:
  "Mailers?! HA!", "If my mail does not reach you, please accept my apology."
  {uunet,hplabs,ncar,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."

------------------------------

Date: 11 Jul 88 04:07:40 GMT
From: attcan!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: NASA support for industry

> >Remember that NASA *is*
> >charged with advancing aerospace technology for use by private industry.
> 
> Has anyone told them this?  While I've seen evidence of an interest in
> airplanes, they don't seem to have done much to help with launchers.
> Or are they helping while the rest of the government works against them?

No, unfortunately.  NASA *is* officially supposed to help industry, in much
the same way that its predecessor NACA did.  (NACA's enormous contributions
to aviation are the single best argument *against* abolishing -- as opposed
to reorganizing -- NASA.  Yes, Virginia, governments can be helpful.)  The
aeronautics people at NASA have not forgotten this.  Unfortunately the space
people mostly have.  Note that the NASA people helping with Pegasus are
basically the aeronautics people.
-- 
Anyone who buys Wisconsin cheese is|  Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
a traitor to mankind.  --Pournelle |uunet!mnetor!utzoo! henry @zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 11 Jul 88 19:05:17 GMT
From: concertina!fiddler@sun.com  (Steve Hix)
Subject: Re: Von Braun quote

In article <3071@Portia.Stanford.EDU>, paulf@Jessica.stanford.edu (Paul Flaherty) writes:
> In article <1988Jul10.003611.16575@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
> >-- 
> >Anyone who buys Wisconsin cheese is  |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
> >a traitor to mankind.  --Pournelle   | {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry
> 	^
> 	|
> 	\------	A curious comment, since the dairy industry supported the
> 		Republican candidate in the last election...

This will make moe sense when you consider who is/was for a long time
the senior senator from Wisconsin...

------------------------------

Subject: Naming the Space Station
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 88 18:47:15 -0400
From: Fred Baube <fbaube@note.nsf.gov>


Another vote for "Space Station Fred" !

------------------------------

Date: 11 Jul 88 22:05:30 GMT
From: pioneer.arc.nasa.gov!eugene@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Eugene N. Miya)
Subject: Re: postings from LARC (was none BITNET eh?)

I expect Mike Fischbein might answer this. He's from LARC.
Let me suppliment what he can tell you.

There are people at Langley who read the news (sci.space or space-digest
depending on your interface).  You probbaly will see an occasional
posting from JPL, Ames, etc.  Several years ago, when I was with the
Research Branch, I was given a charter to spend time reading net news
(up to 10% time).  So I had "official word" and I forwarded things
like when the Challenger blew up, etc.  Now, I sort of read for "fun."
You know, like the NSA guys. Why? Several reasons: we wanted to hire
some good people (network savvy, would you hire a computer person who's
never heard of the ARPAnet, Usenet, or BITNET? there's lots out there),
we frequently have needs for device drivers, etc.

There are several reasons for answers to your questions.  First, NASA is
not very well connected as far as networks go.  The guys who are doing
some of these are located in my old building.  I did some of this when I
was working at JPL (got their first LHDH as an example).  You were
probably searching a host table.  You may see a few GSFC hosts as well.
Getting from one machine to another is not a guarantee, additionally,
lots of machines are intentionally kept isolated.

There are other cultural factors which keeps lots of NASA in the dark:
lots of machines aren't networking stock: know of a TCP/IP for a Varian
620/f now Unisys V73 or V76s?).  NASA has hundreds of these as well as
Modcomp IVs, etc.  NASA as a civilian spinoff of the military also has
some paranoia about computers and computer networks.  Recent
computer/plane combination disasters, breakins, etc. don't help this.
There's lots of managers who have great fear of this stuff.  Who has the
computers?  Not the Public Information Office people, usually
researchers.  Did you think they have time for all the drivel on this
net?

If you are insulted by the term drivel, tough cookies, more than one
person has pointed this out.  I usually hit either the "n"ext or "r"eply
rather than follow up.  I can't answer every question, and I just skip
notes now after I get back from vacation.  You guys need a moderator, to
some extent, but it shouldn't be a NASA person.  Ted's also swamped.
Anyways, good researchers will tend to have their own lines of
communication.  There is some HEPnet and SPAN gatewaying, but recent
events are going to hurt a lot of this.  These guys are trying to do
work, but if they have to answer every question which gets fielded to
them about ozone layers, LA the Movie, etc. then you have just killed
a goose.  Anyway, my IRIS is down for the moment, so I can say this.

"Hope you can adjust," as Joan Baez once said.

Another gross generalization from

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@aurora.arc.nasa.gov
  resident cynic at the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:
  "Mailers?! HA!", "If my mail does not reach you, please accept my apology."
  {uunet,hplabs,ncar,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 11 Jul 88 18:14:09 CDT
From: bruce@diamond.tamu.edu (Bruce D. Wright)
Subject: Re: Space Suits

The important issue here may be that it takes about 3 psi (160 mm Hg) oxygen 
partial pressure to maintain about 100 mm Hg oxygen partial pressure in the
alveoli of the lungs.  Below this partial pressure the blood does not saturate
with oxygen while passing through the lungs.  Trying to hold 3 psi pressure
in your lungs reletive to the pressure outside of your body would probably 
cause an embolism to occur, not to mention that breathing extreme possitive
pressures like this would be REALLY exhausting.

Also, breathing pure oxygen at such low total pressure causes atelectasis to
occur.  This is alveoli collapse caused by the oxygen in the alveoli being
absorbed into the blood.  The carbon dioxide remaining in the alveoli doesn't
have enough pressure to withstand the blood pressure outside of the alveoli,
thus, they collapse.  Coughing can reinflate them, but this seems like a really
stressing environment, not to mention the constant worry about the vacuum
causing boils to raise in your skin in all those hard to cover places and the 
hassle (and health risks) of necessary decompression for every EVA.  Adding
good old inert nitrogen will alleviate these health risks, although it adds its
own problems.

There is always a measure of trade-offs in any engineering design.  Loss of
mobility is a drag, but maybe the health risks are worse in a 'skin suit'.  If 
it was me up there, I would want a full pressure suit that was engineered for
whatever mobility was possible, then make up the difference with good tools.


Bruce Wright
Agricultural Engineering
Texas A&M University

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #295
*******************

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Date: Tue, 26 Jul 88 01:05:47 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
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To: Space@angband.s1.gov
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Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #296

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 296

Today's Topics:
			 Re: Ramscoop engine
     US/USSR delegations to meet on space cooperation (Forwarded)
		    Re: Electromagnetic Launchers
			 Re: Von Braun quote
			  Re: Rocket engine
		      Re: Hubble Space Telescope
	 Re: advance space news from June 6 AW&ST -- Pegasus!
		    Re: Electromagnetic Launchers
		      Re: Hubble Space Telescope
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 11 Jul 88 12:30:09 GMT
From: aplcen!aplcomm!warper.jhuapl.edu!trn@mimsy.umd.edu  (Tony Nardo)
Subject: Re: Ramscoop engine

In article <5407@dasys1.UUCP> tneff@dasys1.UUCP (Tom Neff) writes:
>Whenever ramscoops come up, somebody always mentions that you could get
>to the Andromeda Galaxy in 25 years, ship time.  This has always struck
>me as nonsense.  Where are you supposed to find the fuel between the two
>galaxies to continue that 1G acceleration?

If you kick your speed up to that close to 'C' while you're in the galaxy,
then you don't need to continue accelerating once you leave.  By the time
the interstellar hydrogen runs too thin to use, you should be out of the
galaxy's gravity well.

I have a different concern.  With relativistic effects, will the reaction
time of your navigation computer slow down?  How you avoid collisions with
unanticipated objects (gee, we never *did* chart that rather dim protosun
now, did we?...) at such speeds, if so?

==============================================================================
ARPA:   trn@warper@aplvax.jhuapl.edu	   \  one of these should work,
        aplcen!isl!trn@aplvax.jhuapl.edu    }    but you may have to route
        nardo%str.decnet@capsrv.jhuapl.edu /     thru ucbvax.berkeley.edu
UUCP:	aplvax!trn@warper
USnail: c/o Johns Hopkins University/APL, Room 7-53
	Johns Hopkins Road
	Laurel, Md. 20707

"You can't win, you can't break even, you can't even quit the game."
==============================================================================

------------------------------

Date: 12 Jul 88 00:13:02 GMT
From: yee@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: US/USSR delegations to meet on space cooperation (Forwarded)

Debra J. Rahn
Headquarters, Washington, D.C.                     July 11, 1988

RELEASE: 88-95

US/USSR DELEGATIONS TO MEET ON SPACE COOPERATION


     A U.S. delegation headed by Samuel Keller, deputy associate 
administrator for space science and applications, will meet with 
Soviet counterparts in Moscow, July 14 and l5, to discuss 
implementation of the enhanced US/USSR space cooperation agreed 
to at the US/USSR Summit.

     Discussions will focus on planning for the exchange of 
flight opportunities to fly scientific instruments on each 
other's spacecraft and how to coordinate exchanging results of 
independent national studies of future unmanned solar system 
exploration missions.

     The two sides are expected to present preliminary 
information on the types of scientific instruments for which 
cooperative flights might be of interest and summary lists of 
solar system exploration mission studies underway.  They will 
discuss guidelines for selection of experiments for flight 
opportunities identified by either side, respecting normal 
selection practices and administrative procedures for contacts 
with their respective scientific communities.  Finally, they plan 
to outline formats and mechanisms for reporting results of 
unmanned solar system mission studies.

------------------------------

Date: 11 Jul 88 22:17:02 GMT
From: cat.cmu.edu!dep@pt.cs.cmu.edu  (David Pugh)
Subject: Re: Electromagnetic Launchers

In article <8807111735.AA06532@gvax.cs.cornell.edu> dietz@GVAX.CS.CORNELL.EDU (Paul F. Dietz) writes:
>...
>The vehicles could not just be unguided projectiles, like bags of
>lunar material launched using a mass driver, since vehicles are
>placed onto elliptical orbits with perigee beneath the Earth's surface.
>...

Why? If the package managed to _hit_ the station at apogee (and sticks),
it wouldn't need any rockets at all. Of course, the station would have
to be rather sturdy....

Seriously, this might not be such a bad delivery method for raw materials.
Just have an armored, high-Isp "catcher" which catches several bundles and
reboosts itself to the station. By making the catcher unmanned and launching
the packages such that their apogee is << the station's altitude, it should
be safe and cheap.
-- 
"Good ol' JT."  "On the QT, I hear it was	David Pugh
EDB..." "Gee! Just like DB and the PCB's..."	....!seismo!cmucspt!cat!dep
"Yep, DOA." "And the FDA said it was OK?"
"Well the EPA put out an SOS ASAP." "Poor SOB." "RIP."

------------------------------

Date: 12 Jul 88 08:08:39 GMT
From: thumper!karn@faline.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: Von Braun quote

Henry, I'm impressed. You *have* been reading up on us, haven't you!

But since you like to quote anecdotes, let's pick the Solar Max rescue
mission. Remember how George ("Pinky") Nelson grabbed one of the solar
arrays in an attempt to stop the satellite from spinning? Not only did
he not stop the spin, but he precessed it so much that the solar arrays
were shadowed and the spacecraft was nearly lost when the batteries
almost ran down.  And I won't even mention the strong likelihood that
the rescue mission cost more than a simple replacement would have.

I've never understood why it's so necessary to put humans into space in
order to benefit from their ability to react to unforseen circumstances.
In many situations, it makes far more sense to keep such people on the
ground instead of sending them along with the payload, especially since
the state of the communications art has gotten so good. Keeping your
human "crew" on the ground has many advantages. The payload is
enormously simpler, because it doesn't have to provide man-rated life
support and a means to return the crew. Your human "crew" can be much
bigger, and you can easily change them after launch. They need not be
prime physical specimens; they can be chosen solely for their technical
skills and perhaps even their understanding of the basic physics of
rotating bodies (unlike Pinky Nelson).

Your arguments represent a convincing case for versatile remote control,
not for manned spaceflight. In the case of Oscar-10, those of us on the
ground had plenty of opportunity to exercise our ability to react to
unforseen circumstances. With the help of a versatile on-board computer
that can be completely reprogrammed from the ground,  we were able to
save the mission.

Phil

------------------------------

Date: 11 Jul 88 08:37:50 GMT
From: mcvax!enea!kth!draken!d85-per@uunet.uu.net  (Per Hammarlund)
Subject: Re: Rocket engine

In article <1209@thumper.bellcore.com> karn@thumper.bellcore.com (Phil R. Karn) writes:
>It's probably safe to say that bomb design, like rocket design, is more
>art than science. Otherwise the comprehensive test-ban treaty wouldn't
>be such a big issue. The whole point of a test ban is to inhibit the
>development of new weapons. If computer simulation were all that is
>needed, I'd think we'd find the hawks on the American side strongly
>supporting a ban because of our considerable computational advantage
>over the Soviets. But it's the hawks on our side that oppose it most
>vigorously.

Does anybody have a ratio between "testing of new weapons" and "just
checking the old stuff"?

I don't think that the whole point of a test-ban treaty is to inhibit
the development of new weapons, though it IS one aspect! Another point
is that a test-ban would add insecurity about whether the hardware you
have in stock actually works, and that this would make "traditional
warfare" more desirable or at least more reliable.


I gather the hawks you mention are politicians!?

I think every engineer likes to make a prototype of his/hers work and
then test it, no matter how sure he/she is that it will work!?! (If
you are constructing something like the space shuttle you will at
least make prototypes of the subsystems and then test them.) Even if
computers is all it takes to construct a bomb you would still like to
test it, if nothing else to see how it performs.

When the x-ray laser was developed, read "Aviation - or Defense leek",
the theory was "right" and it had most likely been heavily simulated
but it was tested anyhow.


Even if computer simulations come close to reality, reality is reality
is.. 

	/Per Hammarlund

------------------------------

Date: 11 Jul 88 23:03:27 GMT
From: sco!allanh@uunet.uu.net  (Allan J. Heim)
Subject: Re: Hubble Space Telescope

It's true, turning the HST downwards would fry the instruments
aboard it.  But the KH-12 (the reconnaissance satellite based
on the HST) doesn't use the same instruments.  The optics and
overall structure are similar to the Hubble instrument, but
the equipment aboard is designed for a reconnaissance role.

al

------------------------------

Date: 12 Jul 88 10:55:31 GMT
From: agate!web%garnet.berkeley.edu@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (William Baxter)
Subject: Re: advance space news from June 6 AW&ST -- Pegasus!

>>William Baxter

>Henry Spencer

>Having the government as a customer is very different from having it
>as a partner.  Unless I am much mistaken, DARPA will pay only for launches,
>not for promises.  That's a BIG difference.

There is a lot of room for wonder when the contract is signed so far in
advance of full development.  It seems that DARPA is going for two in
the bush when, after two and a half years without a shuttle launche,
they purchase a launch from a company that promises a cheap launch on an
undeveloped booster rather than buying them from another company which
uses proven equipment.  Someone remarked that the Conestogas use motors
that the Delta uses.  This argues in their favor, not against them.

I have heard that Hercules is having problems with cost overruns and
production delays on their other motor development projects.  If true,
this would raise more serious questions about the wisdom of DARPA in
signing on at this stage.  Please correct me if you know otherwise.

>		     I would speculate that the B-52 is being provided on
>a basis of "until we have our own carrier aircraft, the customer has to
>supply it".  

And a company with a ground launched vehicle should be able to launch
from Cape Canaveral for free so long as the government is the customer?
This rather artificially alters the price of the launch.

>The problem with Space Services is that they've taken so long to deliver;

I beg to differ.  The problem with Space Services is that they got into
the game a bit too early, and ran into ridiculous government resistance
to development of private launch services.  Their chances for success
increased dramatically with the explosion of Challenger.  But in the two
and one half years since then, how many launches has the government
purchased from the private sector?  And how many companies are going to
risk their satellite on a private vehicle that the government does not
trust enough to use?

>the problems with Amroc and Pacific are that they insist on developing
>new technology, and that they too are showing signs of having trouble
>delivering soon (I for one consider it a bad sign when the design of the
>vehicle changes repeatedly, over a period of years, before anything actually
>flies).  

The fact that a vehicle design changes repeatedly "before anything
actually flies" is not a problem--that is simply development.  Amroc is
conducted so many tests that they may well understand the motor they
have *before* they use it in a launch. In contrast, the Pegasus will be
flown without verification launch or booster calibration (AW&ST June
27).

>> What happens when there are cost overruns and production delays?

>Presumably, existing contracts would have to be renegotiated (unless there
>were provisions for such already present), leading to possible loss of
>business.

If they end up with long delays or lose the contract after a couple of
years they will hurt the whole industry, by degrading further the
reputation of launch companies for investment, and in delay of
contracts for other companies. 

OSC and Hercules are risking a lot on Pegasus, and they will probably
deserve whatever they get.  I too am glad to see someone attempting this
approach to building as launch vehicle.  But it is not *the* correct
way.

William Baxter

ARPA: web@{garnet,brahms,math}.Berkeley.EDU   
UUCP: {sun,dual,decwrl,decvax,hplabs,...}!ucbvax!{garnet,brahms,math}!web

------------------------------

Date: 12 Jul 88 14:13:42 GMT
From: dietz@cu-arpa.cs.cornell.edu  (Paul F. Dietz)
Subject: Re: Electromagnetic Launchers

In article <2243@pt.cs.cmu.edu> dep@cat.cmu.edu (David Pugh) writes:
>>The vehicles could not just be unguided projectiles, like bags of
>>lunar material launched using a mass driver, since vehicles are
>>placed onto elliptical orbits with perigee beneath the Earth's surface.
>
>Why? If the package managed to _hit_ the station at apogee (and sticks),
>it wouldn't need any rockets at all. Of course, the station would have
>to be rather sturdy....

The catcher would have to be pretty massive.  The requirement that
the catcher be at the package's apogee would restrict the orbits the
system could launch to.  GEO would work, but I don't see how to launch
to HEEO.

Their is a guidance problem.  In O'Neill's scheme, the lunar soil
packets are very carefully tweaked after launch, so the velocity
error is something like 1 meter per *hour*.  There is no way you can
achieve that kind of accuracy firing through the atmosphere.  Also,
in the orbits I mentioned, apogee position is a sensitive function
of the initial velocity.

I was imagining each vehicle would have maneuvering rockets for
course corrections as well as to raise the apogee.  Given that
complexity, it would be a shame to smash the carrier after each use.

On the other hand, there's no reason why the vehicle would have to get
smashed.  It could carefully release its payload, say, ten minutes
before hitting the station, and gently move aside.  I would then reenter,
having never gone into orbit.

	Paul F. Dietz
	dietz@gvax.cs.cornell.edu

------------------------------

Date: 12 Jul 88 15:33:57 GMT
From: ncar!noao!stsci!berry@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Jim Berry)
Subject: Re: Hubble Space Telescope

>From article <334@scolex>, by allanh@sco.COM (Allan J. Heim):
> It's true, turning the HST downwards would fry the instruments
> aboard it.  But the KH-12 (the reconnaissance satellite based
> on the HST) doesn't use the same instruments.  The optics and
> overall structure are similar to the Hubble instrument, but
> the equipment aboard is designed for a reconnaissance role.
> 
> al

No, pointing HST 'downwards' will not fry the instruments.  At least
one of the instruments, the Wide Field/Planetary Camera, requires that
the telescope be pointed at the sunlit Earth in order to approximate
a flat field (several 'smears' are taken at different angles resulting
in a uniform gray field).  In addition, since HST will be in a low-Earth
orbit, it will not be unusual for a target to be 'eclipsed' by the 
Earth.  Rather than slewing around so as not to point 'down', the
telescope will typically maintain its attitude.

On the other hand, it is quite possible to damage some of the instruments
by leaving their detectors active while slewing through a bright Earth,
but simply pointing HST at the Earth won't necessarily do it.

There is a bit of folklore around here that tells how the first HST objective
mirror 'got lost', and another had to be made.  Cute story, regardless
whether it's true or not.

======================================================================
Jim Berry                         | UUCP:{arizona,decvax,hao}!noao!stsci!berry
Space Telescope Science Institute | ARPA:   berry@stsci.edu
Baltimore, Md. 21218              | SPAM:   SCIVAX::BERRY, KEPLER::BERRY

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #296
*******************

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Date: Tue, 26 Jul 88 19:05:20 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8807270205.AA02861@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #297

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 297

Today's Topics:
		      Are these postings useful?
		  1988 SEDS International Conference
		     space news from May 16 AW&ST
		     space news from May 23 AW&ST
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 15 Jul 88 20:41:00 GMT
From: a.cs.uiuc.edu!m.cs.uiuc.edu!kenny@ee.ecn.purdue.edu
Subject: Are these postings useful?


I'm curious whether anyone is actually using my postings about orbital
elements and the like.  More to the point, my recent posting of
upcoming overflights has raised some eyebrows -- there is a question
as to whether such a posting is worth the net bandwidth it consumes.

I'd like to take an informal poll.  Do you think that the posting of
elements is:

	- useful
	- useful to others, but I have another source for them
	- useful to others but I don't know how to use them
	- useless because it's duplicated in rec.ham-radio
	- useless altogether?

Do you think that the posting of a timetable for upcoming overflights
is
	- useful and should be continued
	- useful but should be stopped because it's too much data
	- useless?

Please reply by email only; no need to clutter the newsgroup with
responses.

Kevin Kenny			   UUCP: {uunet,pur-ee,convex}!uiucdcs!kenny
Illini Space Development Society   ARPA Internet or CSNet: kenny@CS.UIUC.EDU
P.O. Box 2255			   BITNET: kenny@UIUCDCS.BITNET
Station A
Champaign, Illinois, 61820	   Voice: (217) 333-6680

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 16 Jul 88 18:01:58 CDT
From: sedspace@doc.cc.utexas.edu (Steve Abrams)
Posted-Date: Sat, 16 Jul 88 18:01:58 CDT
Subject: 1988 SEDS International Conference
Cc: PEREZ%uhcl.csnet@relay.cs.net

		* * * * * A N N O U N C E M E N T * * * * *

		"S P A C E   F O R   A L L   N A T I O N S"

		The 1988 International Conference of the
 	Students for the Exploration and Development of Space
				   
				will be held
		August 25-28th in Houston, Texas
	
				     at the 
	Nassau Bay Hilton across from Johnson Space Center

	
	SEDS, the Students for the Exploration and Development of Space, is an 
international organization founded in 1980 on the campuses of M.I.T. and 
Princeton by students for those highly-motivated students expressing an 
interest in space and space issues.  The primary emphasis is space 
*education* as education is the key to exploration and development.  There 
are now nearly 40 chapters in the U.S. and Canada and there is every 
indication of continued growth in the national and international arena.

	SEDS members come from a diverse educational background 
encompassing high school and college students in diverse major fields.  They 
write papers for publication in SEDS' Space Topics in Education Program 
(STEP).  They increase public awareness of space and space-related issue on 
a local level.  They design Get-Away-Specials (in the expectation of a 
revitalization of that program) and carry out their own research.  They 
compete in design projects, like Space Calendar's current Jupiter Mission 
Design Contest.  They comprise some of the most highly motivated  students 
in the country.

	 The theme of the conference is centered around International Space 
Year 1992 and, while emphasizing student involvement in space, it will also 
be attended by professionals in the space industry from the Houston-Clear 
Lake area.  Concurrent with the conference will be a Space Career Expo with 
personnel representatives from area aerospace employers.  Social events will 
include a Texas Barbecue with members of the Astronaut Corps and the 
Arthur C. Clarke Award Banquet.  The Arthur C. Clarke Award is given 
annually to one person whose efforts in space education merits recognition.  
Students will make presentations on a wide variety of topics including the 
following topics (titles are subject to change -- topics aren't):

	"Solar Sails:  The Concept That Wouldn't Die"

	"The Commercial Remote Sensing Market:  Current Assessment, 
		Baseline Forecast and Baseline Alternatives"  

	"Laser  Atmospheric Wind Sounder, An Earth Observing System"

	"SEDS-University of New Mexico Satellite Tracking Station"

	"Processes Governing the  Profitability of Protein Crystal Growth
		    in a Micro-Gravity Environment"

	"The Effects of Microgravity on Fertilization and Early Genetic
			      Development"

	"Human Factors in Space:  Models from Terrestrial Experience"

Presentations will be made by students from high schools to doctoral 
candidates.

	Tours planned will include:
		SpaceLab Training Facilities
		Weightless Environment Training Facility
		JSC's Space Museum
		Mission Control (this should be exciting as they'll 
			probably be running simulations in 
			preparation for the Sept. 4th Discovery 
			launch)
		Space Station MockUp
		1-g Shuttle Trainers (outside)
		JSC's Rocket Park

	In addition, two panel discussions are planned ('?' means that
the participant has expressed interest, but is unable to commit to
date):

		"Orbital Political Science" with Nathan Goldman, James 	
			Oberg, Bonnie Dunbar (?), and Art Dula (?)

		"Future of Commercial Space Activities" with Dr. David 	
			Webb, Dr. Peter O. Bishop, Dr. Joseph Allen (?), 		
			Larry Griffin (?), David Hannah (?)

In addition to the student presentations, there will be several workshops 
and discussion groups during the conference.  Currently planned topics 
include:  Space Biomedicine, Space Technology, Future Concepts in Space, 
Human Factors in Space, and Space Science.

	If you are interested in finding out more about SEDS, starting a new 
chapter, getting in touch with an existing chapter, helping an existing 
chapter, or participating in the 1988 conference, please contact us by one of 
the means below:

Steve Abrams, Member			Carlos Perez, Co-Chairman
SEDS National Executive Board		SEDS 1988 Internat'l Conference
2721 Hemphill Park			c/o University of Houston -
Apt. C						Clear Lake
Austin, TX  78705				2700 Bay Area Blvd., Box 198
(512)480-0895				Houston, TX  77058
       OR						OR
c/o Graduate Office			c/o Nassau Bay Hilton
Dept. of Physics				NASA Road 1
University of Texas at Austin		Houston, TX
Austin, TX  78705				(713)333-9300

ARPANET:
    sedspace@doc.cc.utexas.edu    &      PEREZ%uhcl.csnet@RELAY.CS.NET

CompuServe:  [70376,1025]

SEDS is affiliated with the National Space Society, Society of Satellite 
Professionals, Space Studies Institute, and the Young Astronaut Council.

------------------------------

Date: 19 Jul 88 03:47:41 GMT
From: att!chinet!mcdchg!clyde!watmath!utgpu!utzoo!henry@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from May 16 AW&ST

Heads up -- another Soviet nuclear radarsat is in trouble overhead.
Cosmos 1900, launched Dec 12, apparently has had some sort of major
failure.  It has performed neither its boost maneuver (to put its
reactor section into long-lived high orbit) nor its backup separation
maneuver (to separate the reactor core so that, unprotected, it will
burn up on reentry).  An uncontrolled reentry with radioactive debris
reaching the ground is possible.

DoT Secretary Burnley says DoC was wrong to allow Payload Systems Inc.
to fly a scientific experiment on Mir, on the grounds that such
international ventures hurt the US launch industry.  And you thought
the US was a free country.  Ho ho.

Oxidizer shortage looms...  Planned production of ammonium perchlorate
this year was 50Mlb.  The capacity of the surviving Kerr-McGee plant
is nominally 36Mlbs/yr, and it can probably be boosted to 40 fairly
quickly, but a year down the road -- when existing stockpiles empty
out -- the gap will be felt.  Most solid fuels are circa 70% AP by
weight; the shuttle uses 1.7Mlbs per mission.  In addition to the gap
between requirements and supply, not all solid motors are cleared to
use Kerr-McGee AP, since there are minor differences between it and
the product of the defunct Pacific Engineering plant.  It will probably
take two years or more to rebuild the PE plant, probably at a more
remote site.  (Kerr-McGee is already running into local opposition to
resuming production at its plant.)  Expanding the Kerr-McGee plant
wouldn't be quick either.  Cause of the explosion is not clear; one
possibility is that a natural-gas leak started a fire.  AP by itself
is not particularly explosive, and this is the first major AP accident
on record.

Federal grand jury subpoenas records from Ford Aerospace and Hughes in
an investigation of kickbacks within Intelsat.

NASA shortens pre-STS-26 flight readiness firing from 22 to 9 seconds
to avoid repeated high loads on the aft skirts of the SRBs.  Dates
already obsolete now hoped for are July 17 for the FRF and Aug 29
for launch.  Small schedule slips continue; repair of minor insulation
debonds, misthreaded leak-test ports, and installation of large numbers
of test sensors are slowing SRB stacking, although the left SRB is done.

Congressional Budget Office predicts severe budget problems for NASA in
1990s due to increasing interdependence of NASA programs.  If the
deficit requires holding NASA's budget at the current $9G level, this
will demand either postponement of the space station well into the 21st
century or a "complete restructuring" amounting to gutting the manned
space program.  CBO warns that the US space program is becoming an
"all-or-nothing proposition" because large-scale projects like the
shuttle and the space station are crucial to so many other plans.
Postponing the space station could have the same sort of ripple effect
on space science and applications as the Challenger accident.  The
interdependence carries potential for lower overall costs, but it also
increases cost and schedule risks for individual missions.

Now here comes a REAL weirdie...  SDIO tried unsuccessfully for two
months to get Administration blessing for a manned US/Soviet space
demonstration in August involving astronauts, cosmonauts, Mir, an SDI
satellite, and astronaut maneuvering backpacks.  A Soviet booster would
have carried US hardware to Mir, possibly including US astronauts, to
retrieve a package from an SDI satellite and return it to Mir.  NASA
vetoed the idea as an unnecessary distraction from the shuttle's problems,
and many people saw it as a political stunt rather than a useful mission.
Some practical problems too:  the US MMU won't fit through Mir's hatches.
The only reason the idea got as far as it did was that it came direct from
Abrahamson.  "The concept's got a wooden stake driven through its heart
now, but you never know what's going to come out of SDI during the next
full moon", says one unnamed official.  I swear I did not make this up.

Europe urges US to soften its objections to launching NATO comsats on
Ariane, an idea the US has vowed to block.  The *official* US reason,
as readers may recall, is that such NATO-infrastructure contracts are
supposed to be restricted to full NATO members.  France, the largest
partner in Ariane, isn't a full member any more.

House Appropriations subcommittee approves $10.7G appropriation bill
for NASA, a cut of $0.8G, mostly *not* from the space station.
-- 
Anyone who buys Wisconsin cheese is|  Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
a traitor to mankind.  --Pournelle |uunet!mnetor!utzoo! henry @zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 20 Jul 88 05:29:30 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from May 23 AW&ST

SDI's Delta Star space signature-observation experiment delayed to next
year; budget problems.

TDRS-C, STS-26's payload, arrives at KSC.

10th anniversary of launch of the Pioneer Venus orbiter, which is still
returning data.  It has about 2 kg of fuel left, enough for another
four years or so.

House caps FY89 space-nuclear-power funding at FY88 level, instead of the
55% increase requested.  A major reason is that SDI is the biggest
potential customer, yet the programs get no military funding.

Soviets gear up for intensive space activity:  launch of the Phobos probes
in July, a Soviet/Bulgarian mission to Mir in June, possible launch of
the Soviet shuttle in August (with continuing confusion over whether the
first launch will be manned), an imminent Mir EVA to repair the failed
British/Dutch X-ray telescope on Kvant, and the usual steady stream of
satellite launches.  Soviet manned space experience, in man-hours, is
now triple that of the US.  Titov and Manarov are unloading Progress 36.

NASA finishing major overhaul of shuttle launch-decision process, most
notably making one person responsible for each milestone decision.
Bob Crippen, now deputy director of shuttle operations, makes the final
decision.  He says that if there is a foulup "it will be my fault".
[Maybe the Philips review accomplished something after all -- this is
uncharacteristic of NASA.]

Community political pressure shuts down the Kerr-McGee oxidizer plant
pending completion of an independent study of plant safety.  This plant
is adjacent to parts of Henderson, Nevada; the Pacific Engineering plant
that blew up was two miles away and the explosions still caused extensive
damage in Henderson.  The shutdown will slightly increase the serious
shortfall in ammonium perchlorate production that will be felt in a year
or so.  Cause of the PE blast is still unclear; PE says it started with
a leaking gas main, while the gas company claims its main was broken by
the explosion.  PE plans to rebuild in a remote area; K-M plans to stay
where it is if the safety review results are positive.

Ariane launches Intelsat 5 successfully on May 17, after a brief delay
due to lightning warnings.  Arianespace is gearing up for intensive
activity; its backlog is 43 payloads with total order value circa $2.4G.
7-8 new payloads are expected this year.  First flight of Ariane 4 is
next on the agenda.  [It went fine.]

SDIO partially accepts review panel's recommendation to shift attention
away from weapons and towards sensors, communications, and processing.
Panel says these are the toughest parts, and will be needed regardless.
Panel recommends early deployment of new-generation missile warning and
tracking satellites plus 100 long-range ground-based interceptors to
provide a thin defense for most of the US; all this could be done within
the ABM treaty.  Space-based interceptors would be added later, with
lasers still later.  However, more funding for surveillance and tracking
will mean less for something else; the probable victims are the Army's
neutral particle beam program and the Zenith Star space laser test.
Observers suggest that one factor in all this is growing doubt about
SDI's future under a new President.

Inmarsat orders another Delta launch (it already has one contracted).
This is the sixth commercial Delta sale.

Short-duration SRB-seal test appears to have shown that SRBs will
function normally with defects in all but one seal in a joint.

USAF Titan 34D launch from Canaveral is imminent; payload is officially
unidentified.  There are four 34Ds in inventory, all for use in the
near future; the only payload that has been officially identified is
a pair of DSCS military comsats to be launched from Canaveral in 89.

First Delta 2 to fly from the Cape in October.

USAF has 23 Titan 4s on order, with another 25 expected through 1995,
when launch rate will be 8/yr; an increase to 10/yr is expected then.
This does not include NASA use of Titan 4, or conceivable commercial
use.  USAF expects that both Canaveral and Vandenberg will eventually
need two launch sites for Titan 4.

There are 8 Scouts in inventory.  The Navy will use 4 for Transit navsats.
The other 4 were earmarked for Asat tests, and the USAF now wants to
sell them (possibly to other government agencies).  The USAF would also
like to sell up to 6 Atlas Es (inventory of 9, 2 reserved for NOAA and
one for the USAF).

Finally, there are 55 Titan 2 ex-ICBMs in inventory.  14 are being
refurbished as launchers, with first flight probably July.  The others
are available if demand materializes.

NASA asks industry to fund parts of the testing planned with the Advanced
Communications Technology Satellite.  After years of defending it against
Administration opposition, Congress has turned hostile because of large
cost overruns.  ACTS is slated for shuttle launch in May 1992.
-- 
Anyone who buys Wisconsin cheese is|  Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
a traitor to mankind.  --Pournelle |uunet!mnetor!utzoo! henry @zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #297
*******************
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Date: Wed, 27 Jul 88 01:06:19 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8807270806.AA03049@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #298

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 298

Today's Topics:
			    Re: Solar Max
			 Re: Von Braun quote
	   humans vs. remote control (was Von Braun quote)
			 SPACE Digest V8 #269
			 Re: Ramscoop engine
		    Re: Electromagnetic Launchers
	    Re: Unethical National Space Society election
		       Re: Mir and solar flares
			    Re: New Ideas
			 Re: Von Braun quote
			  Re: Getting Nuked
			  Re: Rocket engine
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 12 Jul 88 16:32:48 GMT
From: mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Mike Smithwick)
Subject: Re: Solar Max

In article <1219@thumper.bellcore.com> karn@thumper.bellcore.com (Phil R. Karn) writes:
>Remember how George ("Pinky") Nelson grabbed one of the solar
>arrays in an attempt to stop the satellite from spinning? 

A interesting further note on this event. I know a woman at Lockheed who
was the chief Rockwell saftey officer on this mission. She produced the
procedures for the crew, and set at a console during the EVA. One of the
rules in BIG BLACK LETTERS was "DON'T GRAB THE ^&&%$& SOLAR PANELS WITH
YOUR HANDS!!!". The arrays had sharp edges on them and could have easily
sliced open a glove. So she passed on the the CapCom, "Don't let him touch
the panels!!". The Crippen comes on the air i think saying "Pinky, why don't
you grab the panels". Needless to say whe was weirded out by the whole thing.

Oh, by the way. The solar max mission was a demonstration flight among other
things. If we didn't have a real satillite to repair, surely a dummy would
have been flown to practice with. And wrt Phil's comment about the mission
costing more than a replacment satillite. I believe that the SMM cost around
$150 million. A replacement would likely cost more due to inflation and take
years to get on line, not to mention a dedicated shuttle mission just to
launch it. So with the experience gained, the time saved, I think it was
worth it. (not to mention the neato TV that was returned).


-- 
			   *** mike (starship janitor) smithwick ***
"Due to the Writer's Guild of Amierica strike, this signature is
 temporarily cancelled".
[disclaimer : nope, I don't work for NASA, I take full blame for my ideas]

------------------------------

Date: 12 Jul 88 17:09:19 GMT
From: killer!robertl@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Robert Lord)
Subject: Re: Von Braun quote

In article <1219@thumper.bellcore.com>, karn@thumper.bellcore.com (Phil R. Karn) writes:
> 
> I've never understood why it's so necessary to put humans into space in
> order to benefit from their ability to react to unforseen circumstances.
> In many situations, it makes far more sense to keep such people on the
> ground instead of sending them along with the payload, especially since
> the state of the communications art has gotten so good. Keeping your

The state of communications has not gotten so good as to defy phyics, now
has it?  The non-manned approach works fine when in earth orbit, but what
happens when you get up there to around the moon?  By the time the person
on the ground has reacted to a problem, six seconds will have passed in 
transmission time!  In a critical situation, this could mean the destruction 
of the craft.

Also, the computers these days are not nearly advanced to do the sort of 
problem manegement that you describe.  Show me an unmanned launch vehical
which can do as much as the shuttle can!  The most advanced computer in 
the world is that 10 pound ball of grey matter resting on your neck...

            Just a few thoughts,
                            Robert

------------------------------

Date: 12 Jul 88 18:15:06 GMT
From: thorin!lhotse!symon@mcnc.org  (James Symon)
Subject: humans vs. remote control (was Von Braun quote)

In article <1219@thumper.bellcore.com>, karn@thumper.bellcore.com (Phil R. Karn) writes:
> 
> Your arguments represent a convincing case for versatile remote control,
> not for manned spaceflight. 

The reason for putting humans in space now is to do research on humans
in space. Forget any other arguments. This one settles it once and for
all. Part of that research involves letting them do things that might
better be handled by remote control. 

Why do research on humans in space? Humans WILL spread out from the
earth. If you don't believe this then you are right, the issue of
telepresence vs. human bodies is debatable. If, however, you grant
that we will not ALL stay forever on the face of the earth, your only
reasonable argument is to say that the current human guinea-
pigs-in-space should not be allowed to mess with things they might
damage.

But then we will need to provide them with dummy jobs to do as part of
the research because when we do spread out from earth we will be doing
some jobs ourselves rather than having everything done for us from
back home. Of course, as humans, the current research animals will
know that the tasks are dummies so the research results will be
questionable.  Therefore we need to let them do at least SOME
important stuff regardless of whether good remote control might do it
better.

In the case of other planets, telepresence does not provide real time
control. Then your only argument is that you can build
semi-independent robots that will perform better than humans. Not yet
I bet. 

No, this is not circular. I mean that we will spread out from the
earth for reasons other than doing research on humans in space or
taking care of jobs that might better be handled by remote control. 


				Jim Symon
				Rt 4 Box 443
				Chapel Hill, NC 27516
at school:

Jim Symon
Chapel Hill, NC  27599-3175
					"Better get Helms on the 
UUCP:  uunet!mcnc!unc!symon		 scrambler, we got incoming
UUCP: decvax!mcnc!unc!symon     	 treaties all over the screen"
Internet:symon@cs.unc.edu				- MacNelly

***Don't use "r" or my header line address***

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 12 Jul 88 22:09 CDT
From: Christopher Maeda <maeda@mcc.com>
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #269

   Our virtual space program is on the verge of great accomplishments.  Perhaps
   we could have a virtual manned mission to Mars.  The program would cost so 
   much less.  Virtual dollars are almost unlimited if we DO need to spend 
   anything on it.  The program would only be limited by the imagination.

Our virtual space program has a severe thrashing problem. :-)

------------------------------

Date: 12 Jul 88 17:59:20 GMT
From: killer!tness7!tness1!sugar!peter@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Peter da Silva)
Subject: Re: Ramscoop engine

In article <2075@ssc-vax.UUCP>, eder@ssc-vax.UUCP (Dani Eder) writes:
> I beg to differ.  A ramscoop engine suffers from the same ram drag
> as any other ramjet type engine.  This apparent force is caused by
> temporarily bringing the interstellar matter up to your speed so
> you hold on to it long enough to fuse it.  It then expands out the
> back at it's characteristic exhaust velocity, which is about 0.04c.

Niven brought this objection up, and handwaved his way out of it by
havng the "ramjet" fuel a laser. The ship was accelerated by light
pressure from this super laser. Is this even theoretically possible
(assuming some magic 100% efficient laser)?
-- 
-- `-_-' Peter (have you hugged your wolf today?) da Silva.
--   U   Mail to ...!uunet!sugar!peter, flames to alt.dev.null.
-- "Running OS/2 on a '386 is like pulling your camper with an Indy car"

------------------------------

Date: 12 Jul 88 15:49:56 GMT
From: att!oucsace!mstuard@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Mike Stuard)
Subject: Re: Electromagnetic Launchers


     I am a student trying to get smarter so this might not be a good question
What about linear electric motors?  It seems that the magnetic launchers that
are being talked about here are high impulse, short duration.  Could a linear
electric motor be used?  I am talking about the Magnetic Levitation Train
technology.  If a magnetic track was long enough the extended period of
acceleration would reduce the G-forces enough for more sensitive equipment
that is needed in orbit.  This idea is much better than the Launch Loop (which
is a mechanical version of this idea).  Are the magnetic launchers being talked
about here long duration or short duration?  Maybe superconductors could be used to supply power across the magnetic track. This would reduce (eliminate?) the
loss of power due to electrical resistance. It would be applicable since little
to no flexibility is needed.  Well that is my $0.nn.


-- 
 Deviant  disclaimer: OOP! ACK! DON'T PANIC, It's not that important anyhow.
                  /-> mstuard @ ace.cs.oucs.edu 
 Michael J. Stuard--> cs614   @ ouaccvmb.BITNET 
                  \-> 73100,3646 @ Compuserve(checked every blue moon or two)

------------------------------

Date: 12 Jul 88 19:27:29 GMT
From: thumper!karn@faline.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: Unethical National Space Society election

Am I the only one who is getting increasingly weary of NSS airing its
dirty laundry on the net?

Phil

------------------------------

Date: 13 Jul 88 01:37:37 GMT
From: al@eos.arc.nasa.gov  (Al Globus)
Subject: Re: Mir and solar flares

>From article <8807051941.AA00877@ll-vlsi.arpa>, by glenn@LL-VLSI.ARPA (Glenn Chapman):
> 
>> what do the Mir & Salyut
>> cosmonauts do when there's a solar flare?
>     Does anyone out there know what NASA does during similar flares for high 
> inclination shuttle orbits?

There have been no high inclination shuttle flights, and in all probablility
there will never be any.  The Air Force has mothballed the Vandenberg
launch site (Kennedy cannot launch into polar orbit).  It would take
many years to resurrect and I doubt it will ever be done.

------------------------------

Date: 12 Jul 88 23:28:08 GMT
From: b.gp.cs.cmu.edu!ralf@pt.cs.cmu.edu  (Ralf Brown)
Subject: Re: New Ideas

In article <506@etive.ed.ac.uk> bob@etive.ed.ac.uk (B Gray) writes:
}TSS-1 will deploy a satellite at the end of a 20km conducting
}wire with an insulating coating, upwards from the shuttle.
}This is to demonstrate current flow and observe the resulting
}interactions with the Earth's magnetic field.

Wasn't there a proposal that this could be used as a low-thrust orbit
reboost?  The current would flow through the wire, generating a magnetic
field which interacts with the earth's, and then back via ions in the 
incomplete vacuum of LEO.
-- 
{harvard,uunet,ucbvax}!b.gp.cs.cmu.edu!ralf -=-=- AT&T: (412)268-3053 (school) 
ARPA: RALF@B.GP.CS.CMU.EDU |"Tolerance means excusing the mistakes others make.
FIDO: Ralf Brown at 129/31 | Tact means not noticing them." --Arthur Schnitzler
BITnet: RALF%B.GP.CS.CMU.EDU@CMUCCVMA -=-=- DISCLAIMER? I claimed something?

------------------------------

Date: 12 Jul 88 20:23:37 GMT
From: thumper!karn@faline.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: Von Braun quote

> The state of communications has not gotten so good as to defy phyics, now
> has it?  The non-manned approach works fine when in earth orbit, but what
> happens when you get up there to around the moon?  By the time the person
> on the ground has reacted to a problem, six seconds will have passed in 
> transmission time!  In a critical situation, this could mean the destruction 
> of the craft.

Good point. But how many applications really require six second response
time? Voyager seems to have been highly successful without humans on
board, despite round trip times measured in hours.  There may well be
"deep space" applications which require short human response times and
therefore humans in space, but this is a tiny fraction.

> Also, the computers these days are not nearly advanced to do the sort of 
> problem manegement that you describe.  Show me an unmanned launch vehical
> which can do as much as the shuttle can!

Let's try comparing the "versatile" shuttle against those old, outdated,
unmanned launchers.

1. Unmanned launchers such as Delta, Ariane and Atlas-Centaur routinely
put payloads into geostationary transfer orbit. With the Transtage,
Titan can put them directly into their final geostationary orbit. But
shuttle sticks you with this silly 296km circular orbit, and you need
ANOTHER kick motor (in addition to the one you've already got for
circularizing orbit at geostationary altitude) to pick up where the
shuttle leaves off.

2. You can get Atlas, Delta and Ariane launches into polar, sun-
synchronous orbit. But shuttle is restricted to low inclination orbits
because the Vandenburg launch complex has been essentially abandoned.

3. In unmanned launches, the customer calls the shots. But when the
shuttle was carrying commercial payloads, there was considerable
friction between the payload people and the shuttle people. The reason?
Trying to do too many different things on a single flight with an
extremely expensive vehicle that NASA is counting on getting back.  If
the customer of an unmanned launch wants to fly a "risky" payload (i.e.,
one that could cause the destruction of the launcher or the failure of
the mission should the payload fail in certain ways) why shouldn't he?
After all, it's his money, and there aren't any astronaut lives at
stake. (Of course, this wouldn't include external risks, e.g., people or
facilities on the ground.) But not on the shuttle. As I've repeatedly
commented before: if you want to get depressed, go read the GAS payload
safety manual. And my copy was printed long BEFORE Challenger.

>  The most advanced computer in 
> the world is that 10 pound ball of grey matter resting on your neck...

This is meaningless hyperbole. What does "advanced" mean? The ability to
solve differential equations in real time? The ability to withstand
thousands of rads of radiation? The ability to monitor hundreds of
voltages, currents and pressures 24 hours per day, for years at a time,
without making any mistakes?  (By the way, *you* may be from Talos IV,
but my brain weight is probably about 3 pounds, the average for Homo
Sapiens).

Most people know that there are some things computers do much better
than humans, and there are other things that humans do much better than
computers. An intelligently designed system will apply each resource
where it is best suited. There is certainly room for discussion and
disagreement as to exactly how to do this in any project. But in the
realm of space travel, emotional romanticism has gotten the upper hand
over rational design as in almost no other area of technology. The
result? Expensive turkeys like the Shuttle that have sucked away almost
all money from other, far more cost-effective projects and have nearly
wrecked our space program in the process.

Phil

------------------------------

Date:         Wed, 13 Jul 88 01:54:49 CDT
From: Jonathan C. Sadow <GEOS21%UHUPVM1.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Subject:      Re: Getting Nuked

    In response to Paul Dietz's (dietz@gvax.cs.cornell.edu) queries
about the role of radioactive isotopes in early solar-system formation,
the available evidence shows that their contribution was minimal.  The
main problem has to do with planetesimal size.  Most asteriods (and
meteorites) formed on bodies probably <500 km in diameter, most very
much smaller.  On such small bodies the surface-area-to-volume ratio
becomes quite large, meaning that the heat generated by radioactive
decay can radiate much more easily into the surrounding space, making
the process rather inefficient.  From what is known about the abundance
of isotope parent and daughter abundances in meteorites, there doesn't
appear to have been anywhere near enough long-lived radioactive isotopes
to overcome this loss of heat into space to cause the differentiation
seen in meteorites in the time observed (about 100 Ma).  More likely
heat sources for the planetesimals are short-lived radioactive isotopes,
like the much more abundant Al-26 (half-life of about 720,000 years); or
the solar wind.

    As for xenon on the Moon, off the top of my head I don't think it's
cold enough there to freeze xenon, even at the poles, and there isn't
much there anyway.  Most of what does exist on the Moon comes from the
solar wind, not from radioisotopes.

Jonathan Sadow
GEOS21@UHUPVM1.BITNET

------------------------------

Date: 11 Jul 88 19:30:08 GMT
From: ulysses!gamma!pyuxp!nvuxj!nvuxr!deej@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (David Lewis)
Subject: Re: Rocket engine

In article <7345@elroy.Jpl.Nasa.Gov>, jbrown@jplpub1.jpl.nasa.gov (Jordan Brown) writes:
> In article <1207@thumper.bellcore.com> karn@thumper.bellcore.com (Phil R. Karn) writes:
> >... consider what it would take to model a large rocket engine like
> >Ariane's Viking on a computer. Pressures in the order of 50-60
> >atmospheres. Hypersonic hot gas flows, with extreme variations in
> >temperature and pressure over very short distances and times. Mass flows
> >on the order of tons/second.
> 
> Los Alamos simulates nuclear explosions using their Crays; I suspect that
> the pressures and speeds are somewhat larger than in rocket engines.

Yes, but a rocket motor fires for a somewhat longer time than a nuclear
explosion lasts.  I suspect this would make the modeling job somewhat
more difficult.

* Disclaimer:  I am not an expert on large-scale system modeling,
supercomputers, rocket motors, or nuclear fission.  Dammit, Jim, I'm an
EE, not a doctor...



-- 
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
David G Lewis			"This Tango Atlantico isn't over yet."
Bellcore						  201-758-4099
Navesink Research and Engineering Center       ...!bellcore!nvuxr!deej

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #298
*******************

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Date: Wed, 27 Jul 88 19:05:30 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8807280205.AA04072@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #299

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 299

Today's Topics:
       Re: Soviet launch 1st Phobos mission & Spacewalk update
		      Tethered Satellite System
			   Voyager success
			      NASA News
			      NASA News
		    Re: Tethered Satellite System
       Re: Soviet launch 1st Phobos mission & Spacewalk update
		       Re: Skintight spacesuit
		    Re: Electromagnetic Launchers
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 12 Jul 88 08:35:53 GMT
From: xanth!kent@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Kent Paul Dolan)
Subject: Re: Soviet launch 1st Phobos mission & Spacewalk update

In article <19086@cornell.UUCP> dietz@gvax.cs.cornell.edu (Paul F. Dietz) writes:
>In article <8807081928.AA23848@ll-vlsi.arpa> glenn@LL-VLSI.ARPA (Glenn Chapman) writes:
>>On the
>>other hand it may drive the Russians towards faster implementation of space
>>processing on an industrial scale.  That would return materials both to their
>>economy and provide high tech, high value exports. 
>
>I find this utterly unbelievable.  It's clear NASA doesn't have a single
>product that could be made profitably in the space station, and little
>reason to expect any such product exists.  Why should the Soviets, with
>their awful record at developing and marketing high tech products, expect
>success?
>
>It seems incredible to me that, faced with the evidence of what
>bureaucracy did to the US space program, people can still think the
>Soviet space program is some paragon of good planning.  I don't
>see what they're getting that's worth the investment.  And, Glenn's
>exhorations notwithstanding, I don't see why the US should follow
>their lead.
>
>	Paul F. Dietz
>	dietz@gvax.cs.cornell.edu


The error in this thinking seems to be in the phrase "high tech"; I'd
be quite happy with steel billets and industrial chemical feedstocks.
The greatest existing, easy to see how to exploit, space stuff is the
abundant raw materials within reasonable energy costs of earth orbit.

Kent, the man from xanth.

------------------------------

Date: 13 Jul 88 09:50:59 GMT
From: agate!garnet!weemba@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Obnoxious Math Grad Student)
Subject: Tethered Satellite System

In article <506@etive.ed.ac.uk>, bob@etive (B Gray) writes:
>TSS-1 is manifested for launch on Discovery as STS-46
>on January 17th 1991.

A popular science article on tethered satellites and the US-Italian
project can be found in the 4/87 S&T.

ucbvax!garnet!weemba	Matthew P Wiener/Brahms Gang/Berkeley CA 94720

------------------------------

Date: 13 Jul 88 09:45:29 GMT
From: agate!garnet!weemba@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Obnoxious Math Grad Student)
Subject: Voyager success

In article <1222@thumper.bellcore.com>, karn@thumper (Phil R. Karn) writes:
>Good point. But how many applications really require six second response
>time? Voyager seems to have been highly successful without humans on
>board, despite round trip times measured in hours.

Yes, it has been highly successful.  But not without some extreme diffi-
culties.  [The following is based on the 10/86 S&T account.]

The first major nasty for Voyager 2 was the radio receiver short-circuited
eight months after launch.  The backup proved incapable of changing fre-
quencies.  All this time mission control has had to estimate, within 100
Hz, the effective receiving frequency (the instrument is very sensitive
to temperature).  This is not easy, and a misguess as V2 nears Neptune
could prevent any essential last-minute corrections from taking place.

The second major nasty for V2 was the gearing that controlled the optical
istruments went berserk and then jammed to a halt shortly after reaching
the far side of Saturn.  Numerous photo-opportunies were lost.  The prob-
lem took several years for JPL to diagnose.  It was rather fortunate that
simply heating and cooling got the gears unjammed.  For once, the long time
scales proved a boon.

The third major nasty for V2 was related to the reprogramming of the error
correcting code from a wasteful Golay code to a bit-spartan Reed-Solomon
code.  Six days before U-day the JPL monitor pictures began to go blooey.
Two days were wasted trying to find the problem in JPL software, before
it was generally realized that it was V2.  A bit-by-bit check showed that
a single 0 had flipped to 1, and it couldn't flip back.  A JPL hacker
figured out--overnight--how to program around this.

There were other problems, and only a combination of good luck and ex-
cellent talent has made V2 a success.  I've got my fingers crossed for
Neptune.

ucbvax!garnet!weemba	Matthew P Wiener/Brahms Gang/Berkeley CA 94720

------------------------------

Date: 8 Jul 88 00:44:31 GMT
From: nbires!isis!scicom!embudo!markf@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (markf)
Subject: NASA News


NASA News - Solid Propulsion Integrity Program Contractor Selected

NASA announced ... that it will negotiate a contract with the Hercules
Aerospace Co., Magna, Utah, to improve the nozzles of solid fueled
rocket motors.

The work is part of the agency's Solid Propulsion Integrity Program.
The objective of the program is to increase the success rate of solid
fueled rocket motors by improving basic engineering in such areas as
material characteristics, design analysis, fabrication and assembly
processes and production evaluation and verification.

The value of the contract is expected to be approximately $12.5 million,
according to NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.,
which announced the selection. 

The program originated from joint NASA-Department of Defense-industry
studies which identified critical shortfalls in the U.S. engineering
technology base for solid-fueled rocket motors. Proposals for a Solid
Propulsion Integrity Program bondline work package are being evaluated
for award later this summer. This represents NASA's contribution to the
tripartite effort. 

NASA engineers managing the program expect to improve confidence in solid
rocket motor launch systems by establishing urgently needed engineering
tools, techniques and data bases specifically applicable to the current
civil and military family of solid-fueled rocket motors.
======================================================================
NASA News Release 88-82 June 21, 1988
By James Cast Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
and Bob Lessels Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala
Reprinted with permission for electronic distribution

------------------------------

Date: 8 Jul 88 00:41:57 GMT
From: nbires!isis!scicom!embudo!markf@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (markf)
Subject: NASA News


NASA News - Space Station Negotiations with Partners Successfully Completed

Negotiations among the United States, Canada, Europe and Japan on the
framework for the international cooperation in the Space Station program
have been completed.

Completion of talks among the negotiators marks the end of more than 2
years of complex negotiations on the design, development, operation and
utilization of the permanently manned civil Space Station. Spanning 
decades, the Space Station will be the largest international scientific and
technological venture ever undertaken.

Cooperation in the Space Station program is the result of President Ronald
Reagan's January 1984 invitation to friends and allies of the United States
to join in the development of the versatile facility and to share in the
benefits of its use. Subsequently, the President has addressed Space Station
cooperation at four intervening economic summits and at numerous bilateral
meetings with the partners' heads of government.

The Congress has also endorsed Space Station cooperation. The NASA 
Authorization Act of 1988 directs NASA to "promote international
cooperation in the Space Station program by undertaking the development,
construction, and operation of the Space Station in conjunction with...
the Governments of Europe, Japan and Canada.

The international Space Station complex includes a manned base which will
be operated by an international crew beginning in the mid 1990's. It
also includes elements separate from the manned base. The entire complex
with its diverse capabilities, will be the focal point for free world 
space operations into the next century. As an orbiting research laboratory,
the Station will increase scientific knowledge, stimulate the development
of new technology and enable commercial research. Looking to the future,
the Space Station also is required as teh stepping stone for the eventual
expansion of human presence into the solar system, for example, a manned
mission to Mars.

The elements comprising the Station will be provided by the United States
and its partners. The U.S. will provide the overall Space Station framework,
operating subsystems including life support and 75 kilowatts of power,
laboratory and habitat modules and an unmanned free-flying platform
that will be placed in polar orbit for Earth observation.

Canada will provide a Mobile Servicing System which will be used in
conjunction with the assembly, maintenance and servicing of Space
Station elements. Japan will provide the Japanese Experiment Module,
which is a permanently attached pressurized laboratory module, including
an exposed facility and an experiment logistics module. The European
Space Agency will provide a pressurized laboratory module which is
permanently attached to the manned base; an unmanned free-flying polar
platform to work together with the U.S. polar platform; and a man-tended
free flyer to be serviced at the manned base.

NASA has been cooperating since 1985 with its Canadian, European and
Japanese partners in the definition of preliminary design phase of
the project. Such cooperation has resulted in program-level agreement
on the above hardware. The U.S. anticipates spending approximately
$16.0 billion (FY '89 dollars) to develop Space Station hardware.

The total foreign commitment to the Space Station is in excess of $7.0
billion. The European hardware development program will amount to 
approximately $4.2 billion; the Japanese, $2.0 billion; and the
Canadian, $1.0 billion. Furthermore, the partners will cover more
than 25 percent of the Space Station's expected annual operating
costs throughout the 20-30 year life of the program.

The document on which negotiations have been completed are a multilateral
intergovernmental agreement (IGA) and three bilateral memoranda of
understanding (MOUs). The IGA contains the broad principles and the
government-level commitments for the cooperative Space Station
program. The three separate MOU's which are between NASA and its
counterparts, provide the technical and programmatic details for the
implementation of the program. Although substantive agreement among
the partners had been reached earlier, today's announcement reflects
the significant stage of achieving agreement among the negotiators on
the actual texts of the IGA and the MOUs.

Negotiations from all four partners have submitted the IGA and MOU
texts to their respective governments for consideration in 
accordance with their internal procedures. Signature of the agreements
is expected later this summer.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
NASA News Release 88-74 June 8, 1988
By Mark Hess Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Reprinted with permission for electronic distribution

------------------------------

Date: 13 Jul 88 14:23:55 GMT
From: dietz@cu-arpa.cs.cornell.edu  (Paul F. Dietz)
Subject: Re: Tethered Satellite System

In article <12027@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> weemba@garnet.berkeley.edu (Obnoxious Math Grad Student) writes:
>In article <506@etive.ed.ac.uk>, bob@etive (B Gray) writes:
>>TSS-1 is manifested for launch on Discovery as STS-46
>>on January 17th 1991.
>
>A popular science article on tethered satellites and the US-Italian
>project can be found in the 4/87 S&T.

See also Rivista del Nuovo Cimento vol 10, no. 3, 1987 (I hope I spelled
that right).  This issue is a survey of the TSS project and the physics
involved, including the use of tethers for propulsion and energy generation.

	Paul F. Dietz
	dietz@gvax.cs.cornell.edu

------------------------------

Date: 13 Jul 88 14:13:39 GMT
From: dietz@cu-arpa.cs.cornell.edu  (Paul F. Dietz)
Subject: Re: Soviet launch 1st Phobos mission & Spacewalk update

In article <5831@xanth.cs.odu.edu> kent@cs.odu.edu (Kent Paul Dolan) writes:
>
>The error in this thinking seems to be in the phrase "high tech"; I'd
>be quite happy with steel billets and industrial chemical feedstocks.
>The greatest existing, easy to see how to exploit, space stuff is the
>abundant raw materials within reasonable energy costs of earth orbit.

Glenn was refering, I believe, to microgravity manufacturing in LEO.
No ET sources of materials involved.  Given the rate at which the
Soviet program is moving, I don't think exploitation of ET resources is
around the corner.

The country I'd worry about most in space is Japan.  They'll have
their own heavy booster in six years or so.  They will no doubt target
the most lucrative space market: information handling satellites.
Which we will have frittered away due to inane export restrictions,
concentration on microgravity PR stunts, and the continuing dependence
on inadequate launchers.

	Paul F. Dietz
	dietz@gvax.cs.cornell.edu

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 13 Jul 1988 13:49-EDT 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: Skintight spacesuit

If the suit is holed or ripped, the result is not going to be fatal as
it would be in a hard suit. You will not lose breathing air unless you
smash your face plate or damage your tanks. Nasty 'burns' on exposed
areas seem much more preferable to me than turning purple.

I don't think I micro strike is necessarily fatal either. The smaller
particles vaporized on contact and would probably only cause nasty
surface wounds. Larger particles would be like being getting shot by a
gun: possibly fatal, but even Reagan survived getting hit. Lets compare
the results with a hard suit. In most cases a simple adhesive patch
should cover the damage until the victim can get back inside. The patch
probably needs to be placed within minutes, and probably will hold for
many minutes, if not hours or days if such were necessary.

	1) The escaping gases fling you into a random tumble while you
	   have seconds to do something.

	2) You loose skin pressure AND breathing air simultaneously.

	3) The decompression may be explosive rather than
	   rapid. Explosive decompression can cause internal organs
	   to self destruct.

	4) Assuming survival of the first instants, you will have only
	   seconds to patch it while spinning wildly.

	5) It may be difficult to apply an external patch capable of
	   of holding 15 PSI presssure (a hard suit). I suspect even
	   the shuttle suit (4 PSI O2?) might be difficult to patch
	   effectively under emergency conditions.

	6) The survivor will probably have sustained considerable
	   physical damage not directly related to the actual cause
	   of suit failure.

Skintights have other safety advantages.  They could be worn at all
times on space vehicles/stations. An onboard depress accident due to
micrometeor strike or system fault would be far less likely to be fatal
if all you had to do is grab a helmet and seal it down. Even children
could be trained to respond to such an alert. This is a necessary
safety consideration because I hope we have intentions of raising
families off planet. Otherwise what is the purpose of it all?

Since the suits 'breathe' they should be reasonably comfortable in a
controlled environment.  Additionally, they could be designed in very
colorful and personal patterns such that even in vacuum individuals
could identify each other by their personallized color patterns.

:-) I suspect wearing such suits all the time will lead to a strong
desire to keep in good shape. Everyone will show see exactly what shape
your tummy is in. But then, I there is no reason why 'normal' earthworm
garments could not be worn over top of the suit. Imagine running into a
longhaired techy servicing your external electronics dressed in
bluejeans and t-shirt...

One thing can be said for the hard suit. They are a double use
technology: space suit and coffin.

------------------------------

Date: 13 Jul 88 05:33:41 GMT
From: pyramid!pyrnj!dasys1!tneff@decwrl.dec.com  (Tom Neff)
Subject: Re: Electromagnetic Launchers

In article <8807111735.AA06532@gvax.cs.cornell.edu> dietz@GVAX.CS.CORNELL.EDU (Paul F. Dietz) writes:
>I was thinking some more about the perennial problem of cheaply lifting
>mass into orbit; specifically, using electromagnetic launchers.  ...

>The vehicles could not just be unguided projectiles, like bags of
>lunar material launched using a mass driver, since vehicles are
>placed onto elliptical orbits with perigee beneath the Earth's surface.
>Onboard rockets must lift the perigee above the atmosphere and guide
>the vehicle to a space station.

No, you are forgetting the concept of the "catcher."  I see you have
been thinking hard about this subject, but not reading up on the prior
literature.  I'm sorry I don't have references at hand (I'm at a
friend's place for a bit), but basically you put a catchment net of
some kind into a parking orbit, and target the launched mass at the
net.  Each capture adds momentum to the orbiting net assembly of
course, which must be compensated for eventually; but not right away.
(You can rail launch reaction mass for a subsequent retrofire after
every N captures, for instance.)


-- 
Tom Neff			UUCP: ...!cmcl2!phri!dasys1!tneff
	"None of your toys	CIS: 76556,2536	       MCI: TNEFF
	 will function..."	GEnie: TOMNEFF	       BIX: t.neff (no kidding)

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #299
*******************

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Date: Thu, 28 Jul 88 01:05:24 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
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To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #300

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 300

Today's Topics:
			   Re: Space Suits
		    Re: Electromagnetic Launchers
			  the Space Program
			 Re: Von Braun quote
			 Re: Von Braun quote
	      RE: Lithium cells for use on Space Shuttle
			    Spy Satellites
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 13 Jul 88 17:40:34 GMT
From: cfa!cfa250!willner@husc6.harvard.edu  (Steve Willner P-316 x57123)
Subject: Re: Space Suits

>From article <8807112314.AA12967@diamond.tamu.edu>, by
bruce@DIAMOND.TAMU.EDU (Bruce D. Wright): 
>   Trying to hold 3 psi pressure in your lungs reletive to the
> pressure outside of your body would probably cause an embolism to
> occur, not to mention that breathing extreme possitive pressures
> like this would be REALLY exhausting.

>From personal experience, I can say that pressure breathing at even a
fraction of a psi is extremely uncomfortable and tiring.  This is NOT
a viable option for normal EVA, and a whole psi is probably not even
an option for emergencies.

> Also, breathing pure oxygen at such low total pressure causes
> atelectasis to occur.  This is alveoli collapse caused by the
> oxygen in the alveoli being absorbed into the blood.

Breathing pure oxygen in a pressure chamber at pressure altitude of
40,000 feet (less than 3.5 psi) is acceptably comfortable at least up
to a half hour or so.  (I have not tried it longer than that.)  The
biggest discomfort is wearing the oxygen mask itself.  (The second
biggest is expansion of trapped gases in the digestive tract, but
this is an effect of the pressure decrease from atmospheric, not of
the low pressure itself.)  Does atelectasis require more time to
develop, or does it just not affect most people?
-- 
Steve Willner            Phone 617-495-7123         Bitnet:   willner@cfa
60 Garden St.            FTS:      830-7123           UUCP:   willner@cfa
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA                 Internet: willner@cfa.harvard.edu

------------------------------

Date: 13 Jul 88 16:23:20 GMT
From: ns!logajan@umn-cs.arpa  (John Logajan x3118)
Subject: Re: Electromagnetic Launchers

In article <217@oucsace.cs.OHIOU.EDU>, mstuard@oucsace.cs.OHIOU.EDU (Mike Stuard) writes:
> If a magnetic track was long enough the extended period of
> acceleration would reduce the G-forces enough for more sensitive equipment

Here is a rule of thumb for launcher lengths:

To reach escape velocity you need to accelerate at:

1g for 4000 miles.
2g for 2000 miles.
4g for 1000 miles.
8g for 500 miles
16g for 250 miles.
32g for 125 miles.
etc .............

- John M. Logajan @ Network Systems; 7600 Boone Ave; Brooklyn Park, MN 55428 -
- {...rutgers!umn-cs, ...amdahl!bungia, ...uunet!rosevax!bungia} !ns!logajan -

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 13 Jul 88 16:57:55 MDT
From: dbirnbau%nmsu.csnet@relay.cs.net
Subject: the Space Program


This being my inaugeral message on the SPACE digest, I decided to attack two
points of concern to me, one very important, the other not so.

I recently returned from Washington, DC, where I spent six weeks working for a
senator.  Naturally, I was working in the space/technology pod, where I was
intent on doing everything in my power to sway any of my senator's votes that
had anything to do with space.  There were, however, a few major problems.

Nobody gives a damn.

To be more precise, in the six weeks I was there, the office received only ONE
PIECE OF MAIL asking the the space program be fully funded.  ONE PIECE!!! 
Compare this with well over 450 in just a couple of weeks concerning the INF
treaty, or the dozens that came in with great regularity concerning waste and
fraud in our defence department (prior to the FBI investigation, that is!).  A
senator will not listen to just one piece of mail; he can't afford to.  If 
everyone out there who is serious about the space program were to send two 
letters to each of their senators, and a letter to each of their represen-
tatives, we might see some more discussion among the senators about money for
the space program.

The space program is difficult for a senator to justify politically.  Tangible
benefits are difficult to clarify, and "manifest destiny" just don't cut a 10.8
billion dollar budget, no matter what.  When I went to Washington, I was very
gung-ho about the space program, especially the MANNED space program, but now
I'm not so sure.  The money for the space program has to come from somewhere,
be it Vet's benefits, defense, social programs or wherever.  Unless those who
support the space program are able to instill their own long-range vision upon
those who are responsible for dividing the money, we are going to be trapped 
on this planet for a long time.

Right now the space program is more of a political tool then a scientific one.
Very important decisions are being made by managers and administrators instead
of scientists.  These trends must change, or the people who understand space
so well will dig their own graves...on earth.

You will notice that I have not mentioned NASA once in this digression.  I hes-
itate to discuss NASA's predicament because the issue is so clouded that I find
myself unable to divine what course we should take.  NASA's mission is to
explore and take advantage of the resources space offers us.  Is manned space
flight, a very significant portion of the NASA budget, important enough to 
consume the money it does?

These are important questions that every one of us on this net should be asking
ourselves.  Talk is talk, and talk is cheap.  I find the discussion of launch
loops and skintight spacesuits fascinating, but I was forced to experience the
real world for a few weeks, and I regret it.


Space is indeed the place, and it is the responsibility of those who understand
that to see that it happens, be it for my generation or my children's.  Less 
then 400 human beings (as I recall) have escaped this planet's atmosphere...

.and I want to join the list :).

And now, to switch from the somber, depressive note, will the moderator of this
list please explain to me what damn order these messages come in!!?  I get the
digest, and I often fail to get all the messages in a series.  For example, I
never saw the original message about the launch loop.  What's the deal?





David Birnbaum                           VTIS001@NMSUVM1.BITNET
Programmer, Small Systems                dbirnbau@nmsu.edu
New Mexico State University         <--  they pay my bills, but they don't
Las Cruces, New Mexico  USA              write my opinions....

------------------------------

Date: 14 Jul 88 06:10:53 GMT
From: beckenba@csvax.caltech.edu  (Joe Beckenbach)
Subject: Re: Von Braun quote

>> [ whoever is @killer; sorry I lost your attribution ]

In article <1222@thumper.bellcore.com> karn@thumper.bellcore.com (Phil R. Karn) writes:
>Good point. But how many applications really require six second response
>time? Voyager seems to have been highly successful without humans on
>board, despite round trip times measured in hours.  There may well be
>"deep space" applications which require short human response times and
>therefore humans in space, but this is a tiny fraction.

	Most of the craft sent out so far are designed to have limited human
interaction, more on the order of "policy & managerial" rather than the detailed
work. To make this more concrete, for the interplanetary craft, there is no
way to put a human pilot into the loop, therefore the only interaction humans
have are the navigational work on the ground, done weeks(?) in advance.
The detailed work which would require human (tele)presence is left to the
specialized instrument hardware and software.

>> Also, the computers these days are not nearly advanced to do the sort of 
>> problem manegement that you describe.  Show me an unmanned launch vehical
>> which can do as much as the shuttle can!

	Minor match-lighting: what shuttle? (Blow out spark. :-)

>>  The most advanced computer in 
>> the world is that 10 pound ball of grey matter resting on your neck...

	Ten-pound heads are great computers.... but for what purpose in particular?
It is the lousiest for some applications (like calculating interplanetary orbits)
and the best for others (like writing doggerel-- no computer poetry program
can get as bad as some human poetry! :-)

>Most people know that there are some things computers do much better
>than humans, and there are other things that humans do much better than
>computers. An intelligently designed system will apply each resource
>where it is best suited. There is certainly room for discussion and
>disagreement as to exactly how to do this in any project.
>Phil

	What he said.
		Joe Beckenbach

-- 
beckenba@csvax.caltech.edu		| Mars Observer Camera Project
Live fast. Die young.			| Caltech Planetary Sciences Division
Convince people you're a tiny Mars-bound graphite-epoxy blob from Pasadena.

------------------------------

Date: 14 Jul 88 06:12:36 GMT
From: ucsdhub!jack!sdeggo!dave@ucsd.edu  (David L. Smith)
Subject: Re: Von Braun quote

In article <1222@thumper.bellcore.com>, karn@thumper.bellcore.com (Phil R. Karn) writes:
> > The state of communications has not gotten so good as to defy phyics, now
> > has it?  The non-manned approach works fine when in earth orbit, but what
> > happens when you get up there to around the moon?  By the time the person
> > on the ground has reacted to a problem, six seconds will have passed in 
> > transmission time!  In a critical situation, this could mean the destruction 
> > of the craft.
> 
> Good point. But how many applications really require six second response
> time? Voyager seems to have been highly successful without humans on
> board, despite round trip times measured in hours.  There may well be
> "deep space" applications which require short human response times and
> therefore humans in space, but this is a tiny fraction.

Voyager is a wonderful tool, but it's not a very useful tool in general.
It has a camera, a spectograph, and some other instruments.  It does not
have the ability to land on a moon of Jupiter and pick up a sample, or
to mine an asteroid.  If something comes up for which it does not have the
tools to deal with it does not have the ability to fabricate something
from the materials at hand.

> Most people know that there are some things computers do much better
> than humans, and there are other things that humans do much better than
> computers. An intelligently designed system will apply each resource
> where it is best suited. There is certainly room for discussion and
> disagreement as to exactly how to do this in any project. But in the
> realm of space travel, emotional romanticism has gotten the upper hand
> over rational design as in almost no other area of technology. The
> result? Expensive turkeys like the Shuttle that have sucked away almost
> all money from other, far more cost-effective projects and have nearly
> wrecked our space program in the process.

What is our space program?  To go out and take snapshots?  Hell NO!  The
reason we have a space program is to get mankind living, working and
exploiting the resources in space.  "Emotional romanticism" is a basic
part of human make-up.  Why do we fly to Paris when we could watch it
on videotape? Why do we climb mountains when we could send a camera on 
a balloon?  The arguments about the cost-effectiveness of unmanned probes 
only make sense when the only purpose of the space program is to feed data 
to a bunch of researchers sitting on their duffs.  If we're not going out 
there, why should we _care_ about what's on Jupiter, the makeup of the
Oort cloud or whether there's planets around Barnard's Star?  If 
the only reason we have a space program is to satisfy the curiousity of 
a bunch of scientists whose work will probably be of little value to the 
rest of the race if we stay at home here on Earth, they can bloody well pay 
for the program out of their own pockets!

-- 
David L. Smith
{sdcsvax!jack,ihnp4!jack, hp-sdd!crash, pyramid, uport}!sdeggo!dave
sdeggo!dave@amos.ling.edu 
Sinners can repent but stupid is forever.

------------------------------

Date:     Thu, 14 Jul 88 13:19 EDT
From: <DOE%BUASTA.BITNET@mitvma.mit.edu>
Subject:  RE: Lithium cells for use on Space Shuttle

>>>The reason NASA bans them from the Shuttle is because they have been
>>>known to explode when shorted. [...]

   Well, they can explode, or as we preferred to say, "rapidly out-gas",
but to my knowledge as an eight year design engineer at NASA JSC, they are
still approved for use.

   Most credit for demonstrating the explosive power of Lithium cells to
NASA must be given to an ILC technician who placed a bare Lithium D cell
assembly on steel lab shelf overnight and returned the next morning to find
a 1/2 inch crater in its place.  This incident was well publicized within
JSC as we were, at the time, trying to qualify an 8 cell Lithium battery
for use in the Shuttle crew module. After a two year qualifying process
we finally flew 25 packs on STS-5 for use with the Wireless Communication
System.  We were required to design and install a small PC board in each
battery with 1/4 amp load fuses and reverse protection diodes for each cell.
Although our milled aluminum housing was not explosion proof it was designed
to contain most of the solid electrolyte that could leak out under deep
discharge.
   At the end of my term with Lockheed/EMSCO at NASA Johnson Space Center
last August Lithium batteries were still approved for use in the Shuttle.
Both the Spacesuit headlight assembly and EMU television assembly use Lithium
Bromide complex (LI-BCX) cells from Electrochem Industries. The battery
lab at JSC has over 6 years experience at devising evil ways to treat the
cells and have blown up quite a few.  The main thrust for new crew module
applications seems to a Zinc-Air battery that has comparable energy density.
Unfortunately this cell requires Oxygen for electron transport and cannot
be used in Payload/EVA applications. The search goes on...................

>Now you can tell me what is wrong with my scheme: build a fuse in series
>with each cell.....This should work to prevent a battery from exploding
>due to external shorts.

    Recessed-pin battery connectors are the simple answer to external shorts
that we used in the 8 cell Lithium pack previously mentioned.  The real
problem is reverse charging.  If one string of a two string parallel configured
Lithium battery pack has diminished capacity it can be reverse charged
by the stronger string. This condition sounds contrived but is fairly common
after a days use.  We were required to use germainium diodes to protect
each individual cell from voltage reversal. Each diode was individually
screened for forward turn-on voltage and the inspectors were meticulous
about slowing down our production schedule. The approval and design process
was a two year struggle of negotiation with NASA QA.  I would hope to see
some future use for these high energy density cells to recoup our research
work and all of our tax money.

------------------------------

Date: 14 Jul 88 19:33:06 GMT
From: snowdog@athena.mit.edu  (Richard the Nerd)
Subject: Spy Satellites



Hello space enthusiasts,

There has been some talk on the net lately about spy satellites.  It
might be of interest to you that our amateur satellite group (based in
Toronto) has tracked down a few of these.  NASA is not too cooperative
in this respect since they keep the orbits of these things classified,
so we find them on our own.  Presently, the best object we are
tracking is one of the two KH-11's (Big Birds).  These are huge and
low, and hence bright to see; about 0th magnitude on a good pass.
Since I have software which can distribute satellite predictions
automatically (I do this for about 130 people for MIR), I figured that
any of you who are interested in seeing KH-11 can also get on that
list.  If interested, please email your location (name of town,
latitude and longitude to at least 2 decimal places, elevation above
sea level, time zone, and whether daylight savings time is in effect
in your area).  You can also request any other satellites you would
like to see.  I will put you on the list and send you predictions
weekly.  Better hurry for KH-11, though:  The observing window ends
by August and the next one isn't till next April!

-Rich Brezina
 (Kevin Renner, really ;-)

 snowdog@athena.mit.edu   (works from most nets)

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #300
*******************

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To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #301

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 301

Today's Topics:
			 Re: Von Braun quote
		      Re: Hubble Space Telescope
			 Re: Von Braun quote
			 Re: Von Braun quote
		      Re: Orbital Launch Methods
		   crescent moon: first visibility
		      Re:  What's going on here?
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 14 Jul 88 21:14:21 GMT
From: pioneer.arc.nasa.gov!eugene@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Eugene N. Miya)
Subject: Re: Von Braun quote

We are getting away from shuttle news, so I removed it from newsgroups.

Anyway, I should come to Phil's defense and also make a note for someone
else.

First, Rick Johnson was wondering if everybody read his note about
soliciting future and past accomplishments on space (what would be a
good and worthly goal or were past goals).  Rick is on BITNET and
it appears were are forwarding problems.

Now, Phil and others have made some good points.  I think a lot of
people know my personal is toward unmanned (un-person'ed) space
research.  One thing which distinguishes my views from many on the net
is where I place myself on this continuum of discussion.  Most net
correspondents really want to got out there, to experience Zero-G.
I wouldn't mind, but it seems terribly tame.  I would go into space
if I felt I were the best person for the job.  I wear glasses now (1st
year), and I would rather sacrifice my spot for a sighted person.
A lighter person for a heavier person in order to say take more
instruments, and so forth.  There's a lot of competitiveness, but I
would rather We get the best data.

I think that's part of Phil's point.  Machines are good for somethings
not others.  My reply to Rick in order of significance was 1) make
contact with an ET civilization [justification: such an event would
dwarf any space mission and fully change the nature of our
civilization], 2) unmanned missions have given us more "Science" than
any of the manned missions, and 3 last, but not least, the manned
missions.  We are talking an order of magnitude cost here.

Emotional aspects: there are admittedly exciting aspects to this.
We should not let our emotions get the best of us, let's we get into
political races again (and I don't mean electoral).
Regarding who should pay for it, we all should.  If I could set up two
societies in the US one which takes responsibility for its scientific
endeavors and the other which doesn't, let the latter not have weather
into, etc.  They will survive, it's kind of a riduclous comparison,
we do this now, the institutions are called Universities.  Just
remember the long-term benefit comes from the science, and not the
emotion.  Remember, this is just an opinion, right?  Not policy.

Remember the line in ET:
	"Why doesn't he just 'beam up?'"
	"This is reality stupid!"
Especially made funny since it's said in a movie.

Another gross generalization from

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@aurora.arc.nasa.gov
  resident cynic at the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:
  "Mailers?! HA!", "If my mail does not reach you, please accept my apology."
  {uunet,hplabs,ncar,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."

------------------------------

Date: 14 Jul 88 20:45:08 GMT
From: aplcen!aplcomm!stdc.jhuapl.edu!jwm@mimsy.umd.edu  (Jim Meritt)
Subject: Re: Hubble Space Telescope

In article <2074@ssc-vax.UUCP> eder@ssc-vax.UUCP (Dani Eder) writes:
}As for the feasibility of pointing it downwards, in short "No way, Jose!".
}The science instruments are sensitive enough to be damaged by looking
}at a bright planet (Venus, Jupiter), much less a brighter object.
}
}There is a parallel story about a spy satellite being damaged by looking
}at a natural gas flare in Saudia Arabia.
}
}When you design for looking at 26th magniude objects, one 10^14 times
}as bright is liable to hurt (ouch!)


Or more (sort of) to the topic & painfully demonstrated, remember that moon
landing where they cleverely (& accidently) aimed the tv camera at the sun,
effectively eleminating coverage?


Disclaimer: Individuals have opinions, organizations have policy.
            Therefore, these opinions are mine and not any organizations!
Q.E.D.
jwm@aplvax.jhuapl.edu 128.244.65.5  (James W. Meritt)

------------------------------

Date: 15 Jul 88 00:30:06 GMT
From: aplcen!aplcomm!stdc.jhuapl.edu!jwm@mimsy.umd.edu  (Jim Meritt)
Subject: Re: Von Braun quote


One should be careful while griping about those pitiful deep space probes:
"They can't do much.  Think what a MAN could do there!"





After a LONG trip with no air, no food, little power,  die.
Instead of a little camera and radio you would have the fastest ice cube
in the solar system.

Big deal.  Let's see if we could manage even a poor little probe now before
cutting the past.  Say, something more than 1 Clarke orbit up....


Disclaimer: Individuals have opinions, organizations have policy.
            Therefore, these opinions are mine and not any organizations!
Q.E.D.
jwm@aplvax.jhuapl.edu 128.244.65.5  (James W. Meritt)

------------------------------

Date: 15 Jul 88 00:26:00 GMT
From: aplcen!aplcomm!stdc.jhuapl.edu!jwm@mimsy.umd.edu  (Jim Meritt)
Subject: Re: Von Braun quote

In article <7276@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu> beckenba@cit-vax.UUCP (Joe Beckenbach) writes:
}
}>>  The most advanced computer in 
}>> the world is that 10 pound ball of grey matter resting on your neck...
}
}	Ten-pound heads are great computers.... but for what purpose in particular?
}It is the lousiest for some applications (like calculating interplanetary orbits)
}and the best for others (like writing doggerel-- no computer poetry program
}can get as bad as some human poetry! :-)

Unfortunately, that 10 lb computer requires absurd support - it just will
not go very long on a solar panel & a thermal radiator...

Maybe with a redesign of the support mechanism.......



Disclaimer: Individuals have opinions, organizations have policy.
            Therefore, these opinions are mine and not any organizations!
Q.E.D.
jwm@aplvax.jhuapl.edu 128.244.65.5  (James W. Meritt)

------------------------------

Date: 14 Jul 88 18:56:10 GMT
From: ns!logajan@umn-cs.arpa  (John Logajan x3118)
Subject: Re: Orbital Launch Methods

In article <6153@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU>, jfc@athena.mit.edu (John F Carr) writes:
> In article <56700006@hcx3> gwp@hcx3.SSD.HARRIS.COM writes:
> >a pair of solid boosters on it [a YF-11].  Then you
> >take the thing up as high as it will go under normal power, tilt its
> >nose up and fire the boosters.
> it would be going nearly 1 km/sec
> The mass ratio needed
> is still about 6 or 7 (depends on fuel).  This means close to 300000 kg 
> of fuel (about 200 m^3, or a 4 m^2 cross section if the booster(s) could
> be made 50 m long). 

Yeah, the problem is not one of altitude, the problem is speed.  Orbital speed
is about 17000 mph (near earth).  While your jet is maybe going 2000 mph tops.
So you've only got 10 percent of the speed needed. Getting the other 90 percent
is the problem.  As Mr. Carr points out you would need "large" boosters.

It is a whole lot easier to get something to a very high altitude than it is to
get it to that altitude with orbital velocity.

I've never worked out the math, but I always wondered if one might be able to
get into orbit more cheaply by first going straight up and then going
horizontal at an altitude where the orbital speed would be much lower.
(I forget, does the moon go 2000mph or 4000mph?)

- John M. Logajan @ Network Systems; 7600 Boone Ave; Brooklyn Park, MN 55428 -
- {...rutgers!umn-cs, ...amdahl!bungia, ...uunet!rosevax!bungia} !ns!logajan -

------------------------------

Date: 14 Jul 88 16:32:55 GMT
From: cunixc!dcl@columbia.edu  (Don Lanini)
Subject: crescent moon: first visibility

[This is being posted for a local user, please do not reply to dcl]


We are conducting research/survey on the recorded first sighting of 
the "CRESCENT MOON, FIRST VISIBILITY" in the evenings. We would very
much like to hear from you and will also keep you posted on the answers.
Photographs/Slides are most welcome.

Please respond either by email or by letter.
Please also pass on the request to your friends who are interested
in astronomy and to your local amateur astronomy associations.

Indicate: Place, Date, Time of sighting (naked eye/binocular/telescope);
		       (and, if possible, Temperature, Pressure, 
		       Relative Humidity, Cloud/Haze, and Your Age)

Email to:  mnd@cunixc.cc.columbia.edu (Mohib.N.Durrani)

Mail:      Dr.Mohib.N.Durrani
	   Islamic Amateur Astronomers Association
	   (Research Division)
	   601 West 113 Street, Suite 11-K
	   Columbia University
	   NEW YORK, N.Y. 10025
	   United States of America

--
inet:	mnd@cunixc.cc.columbia.edu
bitnet:	mnd@cunixc.cc.columbia.edu
usenet:	...{rutgers,seismo,topaz}!columbia!cunixc!mnd
-- 

Don Lanini
User Services

------------------------------

Reply-To: mordor!rutgers!trout.nosc.mil!pnet01!jim
Date: Wed, 13 Jul 88 21:27:20 PDT
From: mordor!rutgers!pnet01.cts.com!jim (Jim Bowery)
To: crash!space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: Re:  What's going on here?


H. Alan Montgomery writes:

> Somewhere along here I have lost track of what we are trying to do. I
> thought maybe if I displayed my train of logic someone could show me
> where the flaw in my thinking is.

I don't mean to be snide, but I didn't find a train of logic displayed
in your message.

> In the Seventies, a great many mistakes were made by the NASA, space
> activists, and other involved individuals. We cannot change those
> mistakes. We cannot do anything to make those mistakes go away by
> attacking the people who made them. 

Plenty can be accomplished by holding authorities accountable for
their actions.  Plenty can be destroyed by NOT holding authorities
accountable for their actions.  We seem to be bent on the latter
rather than the former if the RESULTS of all this "scapegoating"
are examined rather than getting mushy-brained about the situation.

>                                   Do you think that the people who made
> the mistakes are feeling great about the mistakes? Do you think the
> administrators at NASA is saying, "Wow, we sure did make a good choice in
> making the Shuttle the only access to space"? Come on, get real! We live
> in an imperfect world, a good choice now sometimes becomes a disasterous
> choice later.

Excuse me, but I don't give a r*t's a** about how these people are
"feeling" since they blew off about $100 billion, 15 years and demoralized
the American pioneering spirit through their "imperfection".  They can
feel good, bad or indifferent about it and it makes absolutely no
difference to me or to anyone concerned with promoting a rational space
program.  They posessed a position of authority and privilege and are
thus to be held accountable for their actions regardless of their motives.
I might not call for them all to be immediately drawn and quartered 
(although a rational argument could be made for such).  I'll simply call for
them to be replaced and to be forever barred from holding positions of
trust and authority in government-funded aerospace again.

> It may turn out that NASA was in league with the tooth fairy to
> deny us access to space on purpose. I doubt it though. I would believe
> in stupidity, short sightedness, and just plain ignorance before I
> would believe malice.

NASA was, and is, "in league" with government aerospace contractors
to continue business as usual:  Do everything possible to get very 
large programs started which require exponentially increasing budgets
if they are to be successful and which inevitably fail to reach the
requested budget levels and can thus have an excuse to stretch out 
ad nauseum without producing real results all the while bemoaning
our inability to make Congress see the light.  This isn't malice, it
is simply "good business" given the way government contracting happens.

> So what does all this mean. To me it means that the bickering and witch
> hunting have got to stop. 

Everyone pull together with NASA and its contractors who are making a 
lot of money while driving our space program into the bridge abuttment.

>                      It means that we have got to start looking to
> lower the capital risk to getting to space. 

Agreed, and you do that by increasing knowlege through research to
the point that profitable applications become aparent to private 
entities.

>                                             It means that we cannot
> depend on THEM (whoever they are) to get us to space. 

Oh?  What are YOU doing to get us to space these days besides injecting
pink-noise into the net and hoping it will cause a viable mutant idea to
arise in someone's brain?  

>                                                  Something has to
> done to make each step into space profitable. Not twenty years in the
> future, but six months in the future. It means that we need to keep NASA
> plugging ahead, so that at least some door is open, some option
> available.

Right, and we do that by spreading NASA's cashflow out to thousands of
researchers who are dying to try experiments that will give us the knowlege
companies need to start profitable businesses -- and we let those researchers
buy launch services and use of space facilities on the open market thus
making an IMMEDIATE market for space related businesses.  This, as opposed
to giving 90% of NASA's cashflow to a few contractors for huge projects 
that serve no one well.

> 
>                      If you truely want to go to space, stop bitching
> about the people who are working toward the same goal you are, no matter
> how flawed you think they are, because they at least agree with you in
> principle. 

NASA management and the aerospace corporations that are involved in
this bureaucratic nightmare have no principles so how could they
agree with us in principle?  The goals they are working for have
little or nothing to do with the goal of establishing a space-faring
civilization -- they are simply doing what corrupt bureaucracies and
businesses do when the people are not vigilant.  You want us to stop
being vigilant.  We want you to wake up.

>     Somehow or another the space movement has gotten sidetracked
> into looking at the causes of our failures and stopped searching
> for answers to our problems. 

If you truly want to go to space, start engaging in rational thought
processes instead of limbic writhings.  The "space movement", if it really
is looking at the causes of our failures, is taking the first necessary
step tword searching for answers to our problems.  You, on the other hand,
are attempting to avoid facing reality simply because it is painful to you.
Worse yet, you are calling on others to exhibit your shallowness of character
so that you can be spared some cognitive dissonance.


> You best also stop feeling hopeless and helpless, because both
> of those emotions cause you to do stupid, self-destructive things.

I don't feel hopeless at all.  In fact, it looks likely that NASA and
the contractors will soon fail to continue business as usual and the
whole house of cards will fall down, making way for a productive
space program which is focused on appropriate research AND/OR private
space enterprise, which is currently being strangled by aerospace
business-as-usual.

UUCP: {cbosgd, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!pnet01!jim
ARPA: crash!pnet01!jim@nosc.mil
INET: jim@pnet01.cts.com

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #301
*******************

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Date: Fri, 29 Jul 88 01:05:39 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8807290805.AA05276@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #302

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 302

Today's Topics:
			  Re: Rocket engine
			 Re: Von Braun quote
			  Re: Spy Satellites
			 Re: Nuclear Fantasma
			  Re: Spy Satellites
		      Re: Orbital Launch Methods
	      Re: Lithium cells for use on Space Shuttle
		       Recent Gender Discussion
		      Re: Orbital Launch Methods
		    Re: Electromagnetic Launchers
			     Microgravity
		       recent gender discussion
			KH-11 Orbital Elements
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 14 Jul 88 15:45:10 GMT
From: vrdxhq!daitc!csed-1!zweig@umd5.umd.edu  (Jonathan Zweig)
Subject: Re: Rocket engine

Simulating a nuclear EXPLOSION is totally different than simulating a
nuclear BOMB. In the former case you have hot gases, plasma, drag, and
typically at least one axis of symmetry -- in the latter you need
millimeter (or micron) resolution in space, complex systems of wires and
IC's and stuff (Yes! The radio emission from transmissions from the
power leads into your detonator MIGHT MATTER!) to model, probably femto-
second resolution in time, and what your interested in is moving at
relativistic velocities.

I'll eat this VT240 if anybody -- even the big boys at LANL -- is
simulating nuclear bombs going off with intent to circumvent testing. If
you are interested in blast-effects and stuff like that, you can do a
reasonable simulation, but it's fifty orders of magnitude simpler than
taking some CAD information about a bomb and simulating to see if it'll
go off and calculate megatonnage and whatnot.

If any University on the planet has the horsepower to simulate a real
live rocket engine in 3-D taking into account drag, the viscosity of the
propellants, turbulence-effects around all the manifolds and nozzle
effects at every pipe-junction -- the intent being to figure out if a
design works without prototyping it and burning up some test equipment,
then they are keeping very quiet, and I know some DoD and KGB foklks who
might like to have a heart-to-heart chat with them.

(Try simulating a network of 1024 80386-based PC's (a much simpler
problem) and then we'll discuss rocket engines.)

Here's a thought on rocket engine design: fuels rush in where angels
fear to tread.

-Johnny Zweig
(generic
	type NEWSGROUP is limited private;
package DISCLAIMER is
	with TEXT_IO.......;
end DISCLAIMER;)

------------------------------

Date: 14 Jul 88 00:02:22 GMT
From: unmvax!charon!geinah.unm.edu!ee2131ac@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (SEDS-UNM)
Subject: Re: Von Braun quote


Hmmmm.  I wonder if that Phil is really a computer...  Phil <-> Hal ???

Hmmmm.

(just kidding Phil)

------------------------------

Date: 15 Jul 88 12:56:26 GMT
From: linus!marsh@gatech.edu  (Ralph Marshall)
Subject: Re: Spy Satellites

In article <6201@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> snowdog@athena.mit.edu (Richard the Nerd) writes:
>
>
>Hello space enthusiasts,
>
>There has been some talk on the net lately about spy satellites.  It
>might be of interest to you that our amateur satellite group (based in
>Toronto) has tracked down a few of these.  NASA is not too cooperative
>in this respect since they keep the orbits of these things classified,
>so we find them on our own.  Presently, the best object we are
>-Rich Brezina
> (Kevin Renner, really ;-)
> snowdog@athena.mit.edu   (works from most nets)

	I don't know whether or not the orbits are really considered
classified, and I seriously doubt that the Russians don't know where
they are, but if in fact the orbits _ARE_ classified the fact that you
discovered them on your own still does not give you permission to
distribute the information.  It is still classified.

	Personally, I don't much care.  As I said, if you can find them
I'm sure The Other Side can too, so I doubt you're compromising national
security.  I'm merely commenting on the fact that guys from the NSA with
absolutely NO sense of humor might not view it with quite the same
liberal viewpoint, making your venture costly in terms of the harassment
you could get.

------------------------------

Date:     Fri, 15 Jul 88 15:45 O
From: <LEISTI%FINUH.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Subject:  Re: Nuclear Fantasma

Excuse me for interjecting again my probably outdated rad-lib-pacifist
(since peace is out, war must be in?) worldview into the digest, but I'll keep
it short this time.  It's just that reading the conversation about nuking
the surface of Mars to get rid of inconvenient boulders brings to my mind a
quote from the late Finnish writer and cartoonist Henrik Tikkanen, which I can't
resist quoting:

"Of course we have our problems, but can't they be destroyed,
like everything else?"

Disclaimer: These opinions don't reflect anything; they refract.

Teemu "M-14" Leisti                    U of Helsinki, Dept. of CS
leisti@finuh.bitnet                    Finland

------------------------------

Date: 15 Jul 88 14:18:51 GMT
From: agate!garnet!weemba@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Obnoxious Math Grad Student)
Subject: Re: Spy Satellites

In article <36178@linus.UUCP>, marsh@linus (Ralph Marshall) writes:
>	I don't know whether or not the orbits are really considered
>classified, and I seriously doubt that the Russians don't know where
>they are, but if in fact the orbits _ARE_ classified the fact that you
>discovered them on your own still does not give you permission to
>distribute the information.  It is still classified.

This reminds me of a letter sequence in SCIENCE this past February
or so.  Someone wrote in to complain nastily about some space museum
or other that had been mentioned.  It seems this museum was giving
out these maps/guides to satellites in space, and the complainer was
horrified when he noticed that several TOP SECRET satellites were on
the list.  The person responsible for the maps/guides replied that
when he tried to get satellite information from NASA--innocently
unaware of security problems--he was given some kind of hassle, so
he then wrote to the Soviets for the information, and used that as
his source.

Some of the details may be wrong, but you get the gist.

ucbvax!garnet!weemba	Matthew P Wiener/Brahms Gang/Berkeley CA 94720

------------------------------

Date: 15 Jul 88 13:28:18 GMT
From: dietz@cu-arpa.cs.cornell.edu  (Paul F. Dietz)
Subject: Re: Orbital Launch Methods

In article <455@ns.UUCP> logajan@ns.UUCP (John Logajan x3118) writes:
>
>I've never worked out the math, but I always wondered if one might be able to
>get into orbit more cheaply by first going straight up and then going
>horizontal at an altitude where the orbital speed would be much lower.
>(I forget, does the moon go 2000mph or 4000mph?)

As I mentioned when talking about electromagnetic launchers, this is
indeed the case, especially if you go into an eccentric rather
than a circular orbit.

Consider an eccentric orbit with perigee distance r1 from the
center of the earth, apogee distance r2.  If v1 and v2 are the
speeds of the spacecraft at perigee and apogee, respectively, then
v1 r1 = v2 r2, by conservation of angular momentum.  So, if r2 / r1 = 20
(say), then v2 < 600 meters per second (since v1 is less than escape
speed).

Depressing the trajectory 30 degrees from vertical increases the
distance through the atmosphere by 15%, but supplies about 1/2 the
needed angular momentum.  The kick at apogee in this case would
be 300 meters per second.

Paul F. Dietz
dietz@gvax.cs.cornell.edu

------------------------------

Date: 15 Jul 88 18:43:33 GMT
From: thumper!karn@faline.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: Lithium cells for use on Space Shuttle

> >>>The reason NASA bans them from the Shuttle is because they have been
> >>>known to explode when shorted. [...]
> 
>    Well, they can explode, or as we preferred to say, "rapidly out-gas",
> but to my knowledge as an eight year design engineer at NASA JSC, they are
> still approved for use.

Okay, the rule is probably applicable only to GAS payloads.

Phil

------------------------------

Date: 15 Jul 1988
From: DR9021%UCSFVM.UCSF.EDU@cunyvm.cuny.edu

Date:    Fri, 15 Jul 88       14:01:12 PDT
From:    Donna Reynolds <DR9021@UCSFVM.UCSF.EDU>
         (University of California, San Francisco)
To:       <SPACE@angband.s1.gov>
Subject: Recent Gender Discussion

I am not convinced that this newsgroup is the best possible venue
for a discussion of the pros and cons of "sexist" language.  As the
newsgroup name implies, most sci.space readers (women included) are
here to talk/read about space.  (No flames, please.  I am a woman.)

-DR

------------------------------

Date: 15 Jul 88 19:16:55 GMT
From: thumper!karn@faline.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: Orbital Launch Methods

> I've never worked out the math, but I always wondered if one might be able to
> get into orbit more cheaply by first going straight up and then going
> horizontal at an altitude where the orbital speed would be much lower.

This once occurred to me too, and a friend dubbed it the "tennis ball
serve" launch.

The answer is no. If it weren't for the earth's atmosphere, and if you
could accelerate fast enough, the most efficient launch trajectory into
orbit would be nearly horizontal. Think of a launch as a Hohmann
transfer and it should make sense. Here's another way to think of it:
any thrust component that is directed toward the center of the earth
instead of perpendicular to the vertical is spent merely overcoming
gravity.  Ideally you want all your thrust going into increasing your
tangential velocity.

Real launch trajectories are planned with a complex nonlinear
optimization process that takes into account aerodynamic loads, any
special tracking requirements, and the capabilities (restartability,
throttability) of the various stages. For example, you want to jettison
the fairing as quickly as possible to get rid of its substantial mass,
but you can't do this until the aerodynamic heating is less than some
amount (typically 1Kw/m^2). Doing this quickly requires a more lofted
trajectory, which is less efficient. Launchers typically follow a
preprogrammed flight path for the early part of the flight low in the
atmosphere, and then switch to closed-loop guidance when aerodynamic
forces are no longer a factor.

One aspect of Pegasus that hasn't gotten much comment here is that the
majority of the expected savings in launcher mass come not from the
initial altitude and velocity of the carrier aircraft but rather because
the thinner atmosphere at the launch altitude allows the use of a
flatter trajectory and a less rugged aerodynamical design.

Phil

------------------------------

Date: 14 Jul 88 15:48:17 GMT
From: mcvax!unido!ecrcvax!johng@uunet.uu.net  (John Gregor)
Subject: Re: Electromagnetic Launchers

In article <217@oucsace.cs.OHIOU.EDU> mstuard@oucsace.cs.OHIOU.EDU (Mike Stuard) writes: 

> Could a linear electric motor be used?  
> If a magnetic track was long enough the extended period of
> acceleration would reduce the G-forces enough for more sensitive equipment
> that is needed in orbit.  

You still have the problem of the atmosphere.  It will cause no end of
troubles with heating and drag.  

> This idea is much better than the Launch Loop (which is a mechanical
> version of this idea).

If you mean that there is a mechanical link between the payload and the
reaction mass (earth-loop system), you are wrong.  The payload hovers
above and is accelerated by the ribbon via eddy current repulsion.  The
somewhat unique architecture of the loop and the linear motor -> ribbon
-> payload indirection is a result of the need to get things out of the
atmosphere.  But each subsystem is magnetically coupled, not
mechanically.  The only mechanical link is that the linear induction
motors would be rather firmly attached to the planet.  Have you read
the paper?


-- 

John Gregor                                       johng%ecrcvax.UUCP@pyramid.COM

------------------------------

Date: 15 Jul 88 20:18:23 GMT
From: dietz@cu-arpa.cs.cornell.edu  (Paul F. Dietz)
Subject: Microgravity

I am a bit surprised space advocates have not used the following
argument (at least, I haven't seen it):

   Microgravity lets one grow larger protein crystals, so one
   can determine atomic positions using x-ray diffraction with
   better accuracy. (As has been pointed out to me, private
   firms are interested in this for drug design.)

   Knowledge of the precise structure of proteins is necessary
   when designing new proteins, even earth-grown ones.

   The ability to custom design enzymes is the first step to
   nanotechnology.

   Developing nanotechnology will require the ability to debug
   nanomachines, which means determining the position of atoms
   to high accuracy.

So:

   Microgravity will be useful and possibly essential to the
   development of nanotechnology.

Comments?

	Paul F. Dietz
	dietz@gvax.cs.cornell.edu
	"Our steak prepared to your likeness!"

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 15 Jul 88 19:29:36 EDT
From: Marvin Minsky <MINSKY@ai.ai.mit.edu>
Subject:  recent gender discussion
To: MINSKY@ai.ai.mit.edu, Space@angband.s1.gov
Cc: ACS1R%UHUPVM1.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu

In reply to "k.c. powell": When I was writing "The Society of Mind"
(Simon and Schuster, 1988) I became more and more conscious of the
unconscious gender implications, particularly since the opening
portrays a child building structures with building-blocks.  My own
identification was partly with my own infancy but also partly with
impressions of my first child who happened to be a girl and,
eventually, mathematician and engineer.  The use of "he" irritated me
enough, but I didn't do anything about it until I read (and heard
from) Robin Lakoff.  At first it seemed impossible to write sexually
neutral English but, after what I recollect as a really extensive
skill-acquisition experience, it became second nature.

If you want to see how it can be done, there are examples in virtually
every paragraph.  The trouble is, of course, that you can't see them -
I hope.  In Chapter 3 you'll find traces of some parts I found hard,
and they show a little when I talk about "the child's mind" - instead
of "his/her mind".  And once in a while I tried referring to the child
as "it" - just for fun.  A few parents then complained that I *didn't*
specify the child's sex, and this annoyed them, presumably because
they couldn't invoke a handy stereotype.

------------------------------

Date: 15 Jul 88 22:54:38 GMT
From: snowdog@athena.mit.edu  (Richard the Nerd)
Subject: KH-11 Orbital Elements


A few of you asked for the Keplerian elements for the KH-11 spy
satellite we have tracked down.  All right, here is our best set.  I
know, I know, this says the perigee is inside the atmosphere, but it
works fine for moderate latitudes.  Can't be perfect all the time!

Satellite: KH-11
Norad: 15423
Epoch: 88189.10268819
Ndot/2: 0
B*: 0
Inclination: 97
RA of Node: 250.4
Eccentricity: 0.038
Arg. of Perigee: 235
Mean Anomaly at Epoch: 125
Mean Motion: 15.765

The drag coefficients were intentionally left at zero since whoever 
controls this thing does a very good job of boosting it up (I dunno
where they get all that fuel.)

Last time I saw it (2 days ago) it was 6 minutes early compared to
the prediction.  Expect _big_ errors!  But it's really bright.

-Rich

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #302
*******************


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Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #303

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 303

Today's Topics:
		Phobos missions leave Earth's Gravity
	    Progress 37 docks to Soviet Mir space station
		     space news from May 30 AW&ST
		     space news from June 6 AW&ST
		     Announcing New Mailing List
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 22 Jul 88 13:14:01 EDT
From: Glenn Chapman <glenn@ll-vlsi.arpa>
Subject: Phobos missions leave Earth's Gravity


     The USSR has now announced that both the Phobos 1 probe (launched
July 7, and Phobos 2 (launched July 12) have now left "the earth's
gravity". By this they probably mean that the probes have all made their
burns out of earth orbit into a Hohmann orbit aimed at Mars (the lowest
energy orbit to get you from one planet to another).
     There were several interesting things about these Phobos probes.
First they allowed a number of foreign visitors to observe the launch
and to see the Phobos 2 Proton launcher while it was in the vehicle
assembly building.  Also extensive photos of the vehicle and the launch
were released, or taken by journalists.  Secondly at a conference held
in conjunction with the launch they laid out more of their future plans.
The 1992 Mars mission is now cancelled in favour of a much larger 1994
mission.  The 1994 will be launched either on a Proton or an Energiya -
there is a "competition" for the launcher currently.  Third manned Mars
missions are now not planed until 2014-2017 and will "require"
international cooperation.  Finally Academician Roald Sagdeev of the
USSR's IKI Space Research Institute will be retiring as its director
this year, because he feels that directors should only serve 10 year
terms (he has held the job for 15 years).  This is in line with the new
Soviet perestroika reforms of major scientific and industrial posts.
     Lastly the Phobos missions achieved another first, now in a
commercial area.  The Russians sold advertising space on the second
stage of the vehicle to Italy's Danieli and Austria's Voest-Alpine steel
firms.  Both companies sell a lot of steel to the Soviets and were happy
to purchase the space on such a major launch.  The irony of this is that
for years some people have been pushing the idea of selling adds on the
shuttle main tank and solids as a way for NASA to pay for the launch.
Who is the first to open this new commercial field of "billboards into
orbit"?  Why those who hate capitalism, the Russians!  Furthermore they
did it on a vehicle which, until 4 years ago, the Soviets kept so secret
that in 20 years only one partial photograph had been released of the
booster. We live in interesting times where the USSR is doing more to
commercialize space that the USA.  How about some efforts to change
that?

                                                    Glenn Chapman
                                                    MIT Lincoln Lab

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 22 Jul 88 17:26:37 EDT
From: Glenn Chapman <glenn@ll-vlsi.arpa>
Subject: Progress 37 docks to Soviet Mir space station

    The Soviet's successfully docked the Progress 37 tanker to the
Mir/Kvant complex July 22, bringing up the typical 2.3 Tonnes of cargo.
This makes the 13th cargo ship to Mir (more than the 12 each sent to the
previous stations of Salyut 6 & 7).  It is also the 20th vehicle to dock
to Mir (in addition to 6 Soyuz's and Kvant).  It will probably be the
last cargo craft before the Afghan/Soviet Soyuz TM-6 mission in late
August.
    The Soviet's long duration Mir crew of Vladimir Titov and Musahi
Manarov have been up now for more than 7 months of their one year
mission.  They are preparing to do another space walk to continue the
repair of the Dutch/British telescope on Kvant.  They are probably
getting new tools with the Progress to help in that EVA.
    The Russians space station work seems to be fully routine now
(repairs by crews that have not done that work on earth based simulators
is common).  Meanwhile they are talking about rolling the shuttle back
into the vehicle assembly building due to an OMS leak.  They may not
have high tech, but at least the Soviets are in space.  This country
does, and has a high tech hanger queen.  It is the efforts and results
that matter, not the technology used to do it.

                                                    Glenn Chapman
                                                    MIT Lincoln Lab

------------------------------

Date: 22 Jul 88 04:42:55 GMT
From: attcan!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from May 30 AW&ST

New DoC commercial-space assessment says DoD will need 119 shuttle-
equivalent launches and 10 launches/year of smaller expendables between
now and 2000.  Commercial and foreign customers will want 15-25 big
ones per year and 10 smaller per year.  NASA will want 48-60 large
expendables before 2000.  Strong growth in Navsat services like Geostar
is forecast.  Satellite imaging may be $1G/yr by 1997, most of it in
value-added image analysis.

Moscow summit expected to lead to agreement to launch space science
instruments on each other's missions.  Reagan expected to avoid
endorsing Gorbachev's joint-manned-Mars idea, since the US is still
trying to figure out what its priorities are.  Likely results of the
instrument exchange are a NASA ozone mapper on a Meteor metsat in 1990,
a Soviet radio-relay system on Mars Observer (relaying data from the
Soviet Mars balloon mission in 1994), a US-Danish X-ray telescope on a
Soviet satellite in the mid-1990s, and possibly more.  DoD, as usual, is
squawking about technology transfer.  Reagan will propose that the two
countries study cooperation in solar-system exploration.  He will
refrain from endorsing missions involving extensive hardware cooperation
(e.g. Apollo-Soyuz), major manned projects, or specific unmanned Mars
missions.  [Has it occurred to any of the brain-damaged bozos who put
together this wonderful list of non-promises that maybe the Soviets are
tired of studying the notion endlessly and would like to *do*
something?!?]

The ozone mapper tentatively earmarked for the Meteor flight, a spare
from Nimbus 7, has been quietly pulled out of storage and is now being
overhauled to make it flight-ready.

Soviets give ICAO technical details on their Glonass navsat system,
offering it for international civil-aviation use.  The Leeds University
people who have been studying Glonass for several years say the data
is accurate and comprehensive.

NASA and DoC award General Dynamics a $200M contract to launch the next
three US Clarke-orbit metsats, the first in 1990.  This is the first
actual final contract for commercial launch services from the US
government.

First Ariane 4 readied for launch.  Ariane 4 is actually a family of
launchers, sharing a stretched and beefed-up Ariane core and adding two
or four strap-ons, those being small solids, big liquids, or two of
each.  The first launch will be the AR44LP variant, with two of each
strap-on, to get the most mileage out of one test launch.  Arianespace
has made firm commitments to order 50 Ariane 4s, in hopes that volume
production will cut costs and simplify management.

Work begins on the ELA-3 launch complex at Kourou, for use with Ariane 5
in the mid-1990s.  Included are an adjacent vertical test stand for the
Ariane 5 SRBs, and a factory for solid-propellant manufacturing.

House, Senate, White House quarrel over how to limit liability for
commercial third-party launches.  House and Senate bills are broadly
similar, setting fixed limits on third-party damage and government
property damage (with limits lowered if coverage to the limits is not
available at reasonable cost), with the DoT assuming responsibility
beyond the limits.  By comparison, the Chinese and the Soviets assume
all responsibility, while Arianespace requires $70M of third-party
coverage and the French government covers the rest.  The space-insurance
business is in bad shape and agrees that limits are needed.  USAF, NASA,
and DoT do not like the idea; they think goverment indemnification is
overly drastic and the $100M gov't-property limit is too low (USAF
estimate is that a Titan failure could cause $300M damage).  The Reagan
alternative would cap liability instead of shifting it to the
government.  [Congress does not like the radical change to liability law
that this implies.]  The USAF also takes a dim view of the clause
compensating commercial satellite customers bumped from the shuttle,
saying that this is a "direct federal subsidy".  [Now I've heard
everything -- compensating the victims when you renege on your promises
is a "subsidy"?!?]  It's not yet clear whether Reagan dislikes the
House/Senate bill enough to veto it; minor adjustments have already been
made to try to keep him happy.

USAF is seriously beefing up security for space-launch sites, in
response to post-Challenger studies showing serious vulnerability to
man-portable weapons before and just after launch.  The USAF now deploys
AC-130 gunships with specialized sensors to both Vandenberg and the Cape
when launches are imminent, but AC-130s are in short supply and the
increasing launch rates dictate dedicated aircraft.  Each site could get
at least three specially- equipped helicopters, probably similar to a
recent demonstration model shown at Vandenberg by ERA Aviation (which
does things like Alaska-pipeline inspection).  The ERA demonstrator had
an imaging infrared system, a low- light TV system, night-vision goggles
for the crew, a full set of IFR [night/bad-weather] flight instruments,
a loudspeaker system, and a high-power searchlight with a retractable
infrared filter.

Anyone who buys Wisconsin cheese is|  Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
a traitor to mankind.  --Pournelle |uunet!mnetor!utzoo! henry @zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 24 Jul 88 21:59:00 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from June 6 AW&ST

[The cover story this month is Pegasus, which I reported on earlier.]

Japan declines to bid on launch services for Intelsat 7 series, citing
prior commitments for the H-2 launcher in 1992-3.

Congress attempts to trim the fat at NASA HQ a bit; HQ has had 28%
staff growth in the last five years.

DoC report on international commercial space says commercial projects
face major obstacles, notably inhospitable government policy and
actions.  It says there is definite potential for materials work and a
definite need for US facilities for it.  Report notes that the Soviets
are giving this priority, with over 1500 experiments done to date and
probably a total of 2500 by 1991; the US total is under 100 and this
won't increase significantly in the next few years.

US/Soviet space agreement mumbles about improving cooperation, the major
tangible signs being the expected flight of instruments on the other
side's satellites.  The US ozone mapper will fly on a Meteor metsat, and
the Soviet radio-relay system will fly on Mars Observer.  Soviet
experiments will probably fly on the SLS-1 Spacelab Life Sciences
mission, set to go up in early 1990, and probably also SLS-2 in mid-91.

Pictures of the Soviet launch facilities at Baikonur Cosmodrome, in the
wake of the US press visit.  The Soviets have *three* launch pads for
Energia already, over and above leftover pads from their old big-booster
project.  There is an isolated pad that was used for the first test
flight, and a complex that includes at least two more (one still being
built).  At least one old-big-booster pad may be converted for Energia
as well.  [Lest we forget, KSC had a grand total of two Saturn V pads,
with provision for a total of four.  (If you've ever wondered why
there's a seemingly- purposeless bend in the crawlerway to pad 39B,
that's where the route to the hypothetical pads 39C and 39D would have
branched off.)]

The space station is in deep trouble in Congress, with Proxmire in
particular gunning for it.  Some are interpreting Fletcher's threat to
cancel the space station if it's not adequately funded as a veiled hint
that that's where cuts should be made if needed.  So far the station has
survived, at the expense of major cuts to CSTI, Pathfinder, NASA
expendables, and the Commercially Developed Space Facility.  [Those are
lousy places for cuts.]

US and European commercial-launch people are pressuring governments to
outlaw use of Long March for satellites built in US or Europe.  One
reason for the sudden fuss is that Australia is ordering satellites for
in-orbit delivery and has indicated that it likes the idea of using Long
March.  The official reason for the pressure is the detrimental effects
on the free-world launch industry of government-subsidized competition.
[Isn't it wonderful when the interests of the free world happen to
coincide so neatly with getting rid of a low-cost competitor?]

NASA to run major launch simulation June 7, to exercise entire launch
team and all facilities.

Final preparations underway for the first Ariane 4 launch.  [Went fine.]

Large story on Magellan, slated to go up next spring, the first US
planetary mission in 11 years.  It will be the first interplanetary
launch from the shuttle.  Magellan is also the first of the Solar System
Exploration Committee's recommended projects; originally it was the
first of four projects, carefully timed to meet launch windows, to do a
lot of useful science at a modest and essentially constant funding level
of FY84$300M/yr.  The plan hasn't worked out very well so far.  Even
Magellan is still at risk, because it slips 25 months if it misses its
May launch window.  It is currently scheduled for STS-30 on April 28,
right at the beginning of the window, but STS-29 may trade places with
STS-30 if shuttle timing slips [as it has].  STS-29 is another TDRS,
which NASA would probably be happy to postpone to get Magellan off on
time.

Magellan is a dedicated radar satellite, with essentially no other
science, although this still involves several different experiments.
The primary mission is synthetic-aperture radar mapping of 90% of the
planet to less than 500m resolution.  (An extended mission will probably
get the leftover 10%; the omission is due to Venus and the Sun getting
in the way of data return, and viewing-angle problems at the South
Pole.)  There is also a wide-beam altimeter for absolute surface
elevation (the extended mission may include some stereo mapping work for
more precise elevations), a passive radiometer using only the radar's
receiver for information about surface temperature and emissivity, a
radar-occultation experiment to measure properties of the atmosphere,
and a gravity-mapping experiment using Earth-based radar interferometry
to measure Magellan's orbit very precisely.  The gravity-mapping work
will be done in the extended mission only, since it requires
transmission from the low part of the orbit, and in the primary mission
that period is dedicated to mapping.  The primary mission should take
about 8 months, and there should be enough propellant left for 3-4 years
of extended mission.

The rest of the SSEC's plan is in serious trouble.  The four get-things-
going-again missions were Magellan, Mars Observer, Comet Rendezvous
Asteroid Flyby (CRAF), and Cassini (Saturn orbiter, Titan probe).
"Celestial mechanics are now beginning to catch up with us.  When we
published the SSEC plan back in 1982, it looked like there were an awful
lot of opportunities to get off to comets and to Saturn and Titan.  But
six years later a lot of opportunities are behind us now, and in the
case of Saturn in particular, you really have to use a Jupiter flyby to
get there in a reasonable amount of time.  The last chance to do that is
going to be launches in 1996 and 1997, and if we don't get ahead and get
started now two things will happen -- one is that the Europeans [who
want to build the Titan probe] will probably go off somewhere else, and
the second thing is that Jupiter will go off and be in the wrong place."
NASA is trying to get Cassini and CRAF approved as a package in FY90.
They are also hoping to get a Titan 4 in 1991 as a planetary backup --
first as a May 1991 backup for Galileo's late 1989 launch, then (if
Galileo is off on schedule) as a backup for Ulysses's late-90 launch,
and then, if not needed for either backup role, as prime launcher for
CRAF.  NASA says that future deep-space missions definitely will not use
the shuttle, since shuttle safety politics and budget problems make
launch dates too uncertain.  NASA would like a bigger launcher than
Titan 4, though, and the shuttle will probably continue to be used for
inner-solar-system missions with more frequent launch windows.

NASA is also partly re-introducing the idea of backup spacecraft.  "We
had adopted too risky a policy given the number of failures that
suddenly started popping up and a greater sense of realism that started
pervading our thinking."  The current idea is to build and launch only
one, but to be prepared with spare parts to launch another one in the
next window.  [Still not as good as real backups, especially given
funding problems.  People make much of there having been two Vikings and
two Voyagers, for example, but they miss the fact that there were
actually *three* of each: two that *flew* and one spare.  Sigh; for both
Viking and Voyager there were plans afoot to *launch* the spare as well.
The third Voyager would have gone out on a Jupiter-Pluto (!) mission;
the third Viking lander would have been landed near the North polar cap,
where there is liquid water at times.  Think of it when you see them in
the Smithsonian.]

Soviet disclosure of the Glonass navsat signal format is considered a
major boost to international acceptance of navsats; it helps to overcome
concerns about being dependent on a satellite system run by the US
military.  The Soviets intend to have an operational system comparable
to Navstar by 1995, with a limited network up by 1990, about the same
time scale as Navstar.  Accuracies are also comparable.  A remaining
problem is that neither system provides for prompt detection and user
warning about failure or serious degradation of accuracy; this is felt
to be quite important for aviation use.  The Soviet Glonass documents
made no mention of a military mission for the satellites, but here too
Glonass is similar to Navstar, with a separate high-precision signal.

Pratt&Whitney is rebuilding its space-propulsion test facilities in
Florida, partly to support its NASA contract to develop an alternate
turbopump system for the SSME (although NASA might opt to stick with
improved versions of the current Rocketdyne hardware, in the end), and
partly to support more work on the RL-10 engine for the Centaur.  [The
RL-10 has also attracted attention for other projects, since it is cheap
and reliable (although small) compared to the SSME and is the only other
oxyhydrogen engine still in production in the US.]

Soviet Academy of Sciences and the Federation of American Scientists
jointly propose a ban on nuclear reactors in Earth orbit.  This would
hamper SDI and shut down the Soviet nuclear radarsats.  Nuclear power
for deep-space missions would be allowed, as would limited Earth-orbit
testing of reactors for such missions, and some types of isotope power
sources for civilian missions.  [I think the "for civilian missions"
part is a tactical error; if they're pushing this on the safety issue,
they should stay out of the political side.  If isotope packs are safe
for civilian missions, they're safe for military missions.]

Canada, France, US, and USSR, the founding countries of the
COSPAS/SARSAT search-and-rescue satellite system, reach agreement on
long-term support of the system.  COSPAS/SARSAT is credited with saving
over 1000 lives since 1982.

MSDOS is not dead, it just     |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
smells that way.               | uunet!mnetor!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 26 Jul 88 14:37:17 GMT
From: imagine!turing.cs.rpi.edu!weltyc@itsgw.rpi.edu  (Christopher A. Welty)
Subject: Announcing New Mailing List


	I would like to announce the availability of Space Activists
Digest.  This is a moderated mailing digest of news and information
for space activists.  The digest has been in place for a few months
now, I am announcing it now that it is stable.  I encourage anyone
who feels that space should be a government priority to join.  One of
the main goals of the digest is to report on government activity
related to space, including congressional hearings and votes.  To
join, send a message to space-activists-request@turing.cs.rpi.edu, or
to me.

Christopher Welty  ---  Asst. Director, RPI CS Labs
weltyc@cs.rpi.edu             ...!njin!nyser!weltyc

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #303
*******************
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Date: Sat, 30 Jul 88 01:05:25 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8807300805.AA06405@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #304

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 304

Today's Topics:
		     Annother British space first
			 Re: Ramscoop engine
			    Spy satellites
				flames
		 Space Station Alternatives Required
	    Re: Unethical National Space Society election
			 Re: Von Braun quote
			   Re: Space Suits
      Delta launch complex transferred to Air Force (Forwarded)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 26 Jul 88 16:57:46 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!etive!bob@uunet.uu.net  (B Gray)
Subject: Annother British space first

Continuing a long line of similar scientific firsts for
this and previous Governments, the British Government yesterday
announced they were ending funding for research on HOTOL.

This makes them the first Government to scrap all research on
spaceplane type launch vehicles, an area which other
countries are showing increasing interest in.

After having spent the magnificent sum of one and a half
million pounds supporting research by British Aerospace and
Rolls Royce, the Government decided that it was too costly,
and that there were no prospects of any immediate profits.

BAe and RR, it suggested, should find international partners
to help fund any further research. They now face the
prospect of trying to sell the idea to other countries which
have already been offended by the attitude expressed by the
Minister for science and technology at the ESA meeting at
the end of last year. (No manned spaceflight, no new
rockets, no more research, no more money: no profits).
The problem is further complicated by the research being
classified under the official secrets act. This present
Government is paranoid about breaches of the Official secrets
act. (They have already spent over 3 million pounds, by one
estimate, trying to stop publication of "Spycatcher").

Would you put money into an idea which the British
Government won't give ANY sort of backing to, and which you
can't find out anything about? Oh, sorry, not quite true.
They will back it to the extent that they say they would like
it to be developed by private companies.

Notice also, the announcement was made at the same time as a
major surprise re-organisation of the department responsible
for more than half of Government spending. This will help to
keep any debate to a minimum.

In its desire to re-introduce "Victorian Values" to Britain,
the Government first seems to be trying to bring back
Victorian Technology.
	Bob.

------------------------------

Date: 15 Jul 88 18:13:10 GMT
From: pyrnj!dasys1!tneff@rutgers.edu  (Tom Neff)
Subject: Re: Ramscoop engine

(Re: ramscooping at 1G clear to Andromeda in 25 years shiptime)

Several people have pointed out that you would accelerate most of the
way to "c" while you were still inside this galaxy... so that lots of
intergalactic gas for continued acceleration would be unnecessary.
There are two problems with this objection.

First, one of the "neat" aspects of the 1G acceleration was that you 
would get normal "gravity" on ship for the whole trip.  If you stop
accelerating at 1G past the galactic boundary, what do you do for
gravity?  You certainly lose the luxury of building a non-spin ship.

Second, 'most of the way to c' isn't good enough for time dilatation
purposes.  You need ALL of that 12-13 ship years' acceleration in order
to avpurposes.  You need ALL of that 12-13 ship years acceleration in
order to get there quickly.  If you try to coast between galaxies you
are going to be at it for a LONG time  from the ship's standpoint.

I did receive some encouraging numbers about intergalactic density
though, which I'll pass along in a summary next week.
-- 
Tom Neff			UUCP: ...!cmcl2!phri!dasys1!tneff
	"None of your toys	CIS: 76556,2536	       MCI: TNEFF
	 will function..."	GEnie: TOMNEFF	       BIX: t.neff (no kidding)

------------------------------

Date: 16 Jul 88 02:50:13 GMT
From: snowdog@athena.mit.edu  (Richard the Nerd)
Subject: Spy satellites

Ralph Marshall (marsh@linus.uucp) writes (a few articles back):

>      I don't know whether or not the orbits are really considered
>classified, and I seriously doubt that the Russians don't know where
>they are, but if in fact the orbits _ARE_ classified the fact that you
>discovered them on your own still does not give you permission to
>distribute the information.  It is still classified.

Oh, I am pretty sure the Soviets are following it.  It is a little
difficult not to notice a thing as bright as Sirius crossing the sky!
That's why I can't really understand why NORAD keeps them
classified...which at least to my best knowledge they do.

>I'm merely commenting on the fact that guys from the NSA with
>absolutely NO sense of humor might not view it with quite the same
>liberal viewpoint, making your venture costly in terms of the
>harassment you could get.

Well, thanks for the warning.  To tell you the truth, I had no idea
that such a relatively idle thing had the potential for causing so much
commotion.  I dunno...among amateur satellite observers the orbits
of most US spy satellites are pretty common knowledge, and no one
has bothered us yet...

-Rich

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 15 Jul 88 11:30:29 MDT
From: dbirnbau%nmsu.csnet@relay.cs.net
Subject: flames


Any comments that you wish a reply to will be have to sent directly to
me as well as to the newsgroup, as I don't see the digest until it is
almost a month out of date.  Oh, the magic of electronic mail as it
trickles through the networks....

This is in reference to the editorial placed several days ago.


David Birnbaum                           VTIS001@NMSUVM1.BITNET
Programmer, Small Systems                dbirnbau@nmsu.edu
New Mexico State University         <--  they pay my bills, but they don't
Las Cruces, New Mexico  USA              write my opinions....

------------------------------

Reply-To: mordor!rutgers!trout.nosc.mil!pnet01!jim
Date: Fri, 15 Jul 88 19:55:59 PDT
From: mordor!rutgers!pnet01.cts.com!jim (Jim Bowery)
To: crash!space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: Space Station Alternatives Required

In recent talks with a very pro-space congressman the local chapter
of the National Space Society has voiced its concern that if the
space station is cancelled there won't be any U. S. space facilities
available.  This congressman, who has supported full funding for
the space station every time it came up, is certain that, for political
reasons, the space station WILL BE CANCELLED.  He shares our concern.

We ask the help of all pro-space people in ensuring that there are
alternatives to the space station just in case.

Jim Bowery                  PHONE: 619/295-8868
PO Box 1981
La Jolla, CA 92038

UUCP: {cbosgd, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!pnet01!jim
ARPA: crash!pnet01!jim@nosc.mil
INET: jim@pnet01.cts.com

------------------------------

Date: 13 Jul 88 22:49:28 GMT
From: att!chinet!mcdchg!clyde!watmath!orchid!gmwalma@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Michael Walma)
Subject: Re: Unethical National Space Society election

In article <1221@thumper.bellcore.com> karn@thumper.bellcore.com (Phil R. Karn) writes:
>Am I the only one who is getting increasingly weary of NSS airing its
>dirty laundry on the net?
>
>Phil

No.

Michael Walma
gmwalma@orchid.waterloo.edu

------------------------------

Date: 16 Jul 88 08:00:06 GMT
From: voder!apple!winter@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Patty Winter)
Subject: Re: Von Braun quote

In article <3330@charon.unm.edu> ee2131ac@geinah.unm.edu.UUCP (SEDS-UNM) writes:
>
>Hmmmm.  I wonder if that Phil is really a computer...  Phil <-> Hal ???

I'll vouch for Phil. He is definitely human. Not a computer. Not even
an android. (I don't care *what* Tasha said about Data. Besides, that 
was hundreds of years from now; androids aren't nearly that good yet.)

Trust me.  :-)  :-)


Patty
-------  
		      Patty Winter N6BIS  [44.4.0.44]        
DOMAIN: winter@apple.com              UUCP: {decwrl,nsc,sun,dual}!apple!winter

------------------------------

Date: 13 Jul 88 21:21:33 GMT
From: att!chinet!mcdchg!clyde!watmath!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!db.toronto.edu!hogg@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (John Hogg)
Subject: Re: Space Suits

In article <8807112314.AA12967@diamond.tamu.edu> bruce@DIAMOND.TAMU.EDU (Bruce D. Wright) writes:
>The important issue here may be that it takes about 3 psi (160 mm Hg)
>oxygen partial pressure to maintain about 100 mm Hg oxygen partial
>pressure in the alveoli of the lungs.  Below this partial pressure the
>blood does not saturate with oxygen while passing through the lungs.
>Trying to hold 3 psi pressure in your lungs relative to the pressure
>outside of your body would probably cause an embolism to occur, not to
>mention that breathing extreme positive pressures like this would be
>REALLY exhausting.
>
>Also, breathing pure oxygen at such low total pressure causes
>atelectasis to occur.  This is alveoli collapse caused by the oxygen in
>the alveoli being absorbed into the blood.  The carbon dioxide
>remaining in the alveoli doesn't have enough pressure to withstand the
>blood pressure outside of the alveoli, thus, they collapse.  Coughing
>can reinflate them, but this seems like a really stressing environment,
>not to mention the constant worry about the vacuum causing boils to
>raise in your skin in all those hard to cover places and the hassle
>(and health risks) of necessary decompression for every EVA.  Adding
>good old inert nitrogen will alleviate these health risks, although it
>adds its own problems.

These are certainly problems that have to be addressed in an SAS design,
but they also crop up in traditional ``airtight bag'' designs.  Current
suits are run at about 4 psi, and the pressures for an SAS would be
similar.  Thus, the problems with atelectasis would be no greater than
at present.

With respect to embolisms, remember that there *is* a pressure vessel in
the system: it's the user's skin, backed up by the fabric.  Inside the
skin the pressure stays at a comfy .25 atm.

The SAS system doesn't involve positive pressure breathing.  The crudest
design involves the chest being squeezed by fabric in the same way as
the rest of the body.  This means that neither inhalation nor exhalation
intrinsically involve working against a pressure differential, although
various departures from the ideal mean that this won't be true in
practice.  The developed SASs had a ``breathing bag'' wrapped around the
chest within a non-elastic Nomex torso portion of the suit.  When the
user breathed in, the bag collapsed just as much as the chest expanded,
and the reverse occurred on exhalation.  Thus, no work had to be done
against the material.  (I oversimplify a bit, but not much.)

>There is always a measure of trade-offs in any engineering design.
Loss of >mobility is a drag, but maybe the health risks are worse in a
'skin suit'.  If >it was me up there, I would want a full pressure suit
that was engineered for >whatever mobility was possible, then make up
the difference with good tools.

If somebody told me, ``You have two weeks to build a suit which you will
then wear in vacuum'', I would go for a bag myself.  However, given a
bit more time and a small (five-figure) budget, I would give an SAS a
*very* close look.  Mind you, I wouldn't destroy the tooling for today's
garments while I was doing so...

John Hogg			   | hogg@csri.toronto.{edu,cdn}
Computer Systems Research Institute| uunet!csri.toronto.edu!hogg
University of Toronto		   | hogg%csri.toronto.edu@relay.cs.net (arpa)
				   | hogg@csri.utoronto (bitnet)

------------------------------

Date: 16 Jul 88 18:40:08 GMT
From: yee@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: Delta launch complex transferred to Air Force (Forwarded)

Jim Cast
Headquarters, Washington, D.C.                      July 15, 1988

George Diller
Kennedy Space Center, Fla.

Captain Marty Hauser
U.S. Air Force, Washington, D.C.

RELEASE:  88-99

DELTA LAUNCH COMPLEX TRANSFERRED TO AIR FORCE

     After 143 Florida launches of the Delta expendable launch 
vehicle, NASA has officially transferred custody of Launch 
Complex 17 and East Coast Delta launch operations to the U.S. Air 
Force.  

     Under an agreement signed by NASA Administrator Dr. James C. 
Fletcher and Air Force Secretary Edward C. Aldridge, Jr., formal 
handover of the two-pad complex, located at Cape Canaveral Air 
Force Station, Fla., was effective July 1.  Accountability of 
Delta production tooling and mission checkout equipment also was 
transferred under the agreement.

     The first successful NASA Delta launch from Complex 17 took 
place 28-years ago in August 1960.  Its payload, Echo-I, was a 
100-foot-diameter, reflective communications balloon which became 
a familiar orbital sight to a world-wide audience of nighttime 
sky watchers.  

     NASA's final Delta launch from Complex 17 occurred earlier 
this year, on February 8, when a Strategic Defense Initiative 
Organization payload was successfully placed into orbit. 

     Under Air Force stewardship, Complex 17 will continue to be 
used to launch Delta medium class vehicles.  The Air Force has 
procured 20 new Delta IIs for DOD payloads.  The first launch is 
scheduled for later this year. 

     In addition, at least eight commercial Delta IIs will be 
launched by McDonnell Douglas Astronautics Company, Huntington, 
Beach, Calif., from Complex 17 between 1989 and 1992.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #304
*******************

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Date: Sat, 30 Jul 88 19:05:19 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8807310205.AA06980@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #305

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 305

Today's Topics:
   Pioneer data reveals nature of the outer heliosphere (Forwarded)
			 Re: Ramscoop engine
		     Getting opinions to Dukakis
	      Subroutine for computing orbital position
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 16 Jul 88 18:41:12 GMT
From: yee@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: Pioneer data reveals nature of the outer heliosphere (Forwarded)

Charles Redmond
Headquarters, Washington, D.C.                     July 15, 1988

Peter W. Waller
Ames Research Center, Mountain View, Calif.


RELEASE:  88-100

PIONEER DATA REVEALS NATURE OF THE OUTER HELIOSPHERE


     As NASA's Pioneer 11 and Voyager 2 pass through the outer 
reaches of the solar system and NASA's Pioneer 10 speeds far 
beyond the planets, these distant spacecraft are measuring 
drastic changes in the flow patterns of the solar wind -- a 
million-mile-an-hour stream of charged particles which constantly 
boil off the Sun.

     NASA scientists have discovered a connection between the 
speed changes in the solar wind (near the spacecraft) and 
periodic changes in the Sun itself.  The Sun's constant 
variations are manifested in shifts of its magnetic field and 
movements in the hot gases of its corona.  Streams of faster wind 
particles tend to flow from thin areas, called corona holes, in 
the corona.  Solar wind changes also are triggered by movements 
of a vast electromagnetic structure, called the current sheet, 
which bisects the Sun's field.  Particles slow down as this sheet 
"flaps" toward them.

     Over the last 3 years, the Sun has been going through a 
phase called solar minimum -- a turning point in its 11-year 
cycle.  "No one knew what happened during solar minimum in the 
farthest reaches of the solar system and beyond until the 
Pioneers and Voyager sent back their measurements.  This is the 
first solar minimum for which we have been able to see what's 
going on in the solar wind out past Pluto," says NASA 
astrophysicist John Mihalov.

     The solar wind streams out from the Sun and envelops the 
entire solar system in charged particles, mostly electrons and 
protons.  No one knows exactly how far this five-particle-per 
cubic-centimeter flow of particles extends.  One recent guess is 
about 18 billion miles, or four times the distance of Neptune 
from the Sun.

     Before 1985, Pioneer 10 and Voyager 2, both positioned near 
the equatorial plane, measured periodic gusts in the solar wind 
called "high speed streams."  The particles would speed up and 
then slow down about once every 27 days.  In June 1985, the wind 
stream pattern stopped and the winds slowed down dramatically at 
Voyager 2's distance -- two billion miles from the Sun.  There 
was no slowing measured at Pioneer 11, about the same distance as 
Voyager 2, but 15 degrees higher in latitude.  Pioneer 11 
measured the usual pattern of high speed streams.  Eventually, 
the winds were flowing only about half as fast at Voyager 2 as 
they were at Pioneer 11.

     Three months later, in August, the solar wind slowed and the 
high speed streams also stopped at Pioneer 10, which is out twice 
the distance of the other two probes and in the equatorial 
region.  Mihalov believes this change is connected to the earlier 
wind speed decrease at Voyager 2.  The first slower particles, 
which were blowing past Voyager 2 in June, would have just 
reached Pioneer 10 by August.  Solar winds actually sped up at 
the higher altitude position of Pioneer 11.

     The Sun's slower particles, that first reached Voyager and 
Pioneer 10, were boiling off in March of 1985.  Mihalov and Aaron 
Barnes, Ames' senior scientist, proposed that changes in the Sun 
at this time, set off the changes in the far solar wind, which 
reached the vicinity of the distant probes months later.

     The changes in the Sun were part of a regular variation that 
it undergoes in 11-year cycles, or sunspot cycles.  This cycle 
affects the number of sunspots, the configuration of the magnetic 
field, and the distribution of the 2-million-degree gas making up 
the solar corona.

     The coronal holes are located around the Sun's North and 
South poles.  When the Sun approaches the part of its most active 
phase, called solar maximum, these coronal holes creep toward the 
equator by extending "tongues" 10 or 20 degrees in longitude.  In 
the last 3 years, the Sun has been near the opposite condition, 
called solar minimum, when the holes retreat back toward the 
direction of the poles.

     The wind blows out fastest from these lower density holes.  
Barnes explains that holes form in areas where strong winds have 
blown the coronal particles away.  As the holes retreat toward 
the poles, the high-speed streams migrate along with them.

     The Sun's magnetic field also influences the solar wind.  
The Sun's field, like the Earth's, has basically a North and 
South magnetic pole, but the Sun's more complex magnetic field 
deviates from this dipolar structure during parts of the solar 
cycle, becoming most complicated during solar maximum, when the 
two magnetic poles swap places.

     In the Earth's simpler magnetic field, field lines (the 
lines following the direction of force the Earth would exert on a 
magnetic object) wrap around the planet, connecting the North and 
South magnetic poles.  In the Sun's field, the solar wind 
stretches the Sun's field lines near the equator far out into 
space.  One region, corresponding loosely with one hemisphere, 
has more field lines pointing out from the Sun, and is called the 
positive sector, while the remaining region, with more field 
lines coming in, is called the negative sector.  These sectors 
are divided by an equator, so at the Sun's surface, a point 15 
degrees North of the equator would be above this equator in some 
areas and below it in others.

     Away from the Sun, the positive and negative sectors are 
bisected by an imaginary wavy curtain called the current sheet, 
which extends from this buckled equator.  (It is called the 
current sheet because laws of physics state that there must be an 
electric current at the boundary between opposite magnetic fields 
and, indeed, there is a net flow of positive charges outward and 
negative particles inward in this region.)  During the present 
solar cycle, the region above the current sheet is the negative 
sector and, below it, the positive sector.

     Back in early 1985, Pioneer 11 -- 15 degrees above the 
equatorial plane -- would sometimes be above and beneath the 
"current sheet" as the Sun rotated.  Normally, as the Sun 
approaches solar minimum and the coronal holes retreat toward the 
poles, the current sheet's ridges flatten out.  As the Sun 
approached solar minimum in 1985, Pioneer 11 was located above 
the current sheet, in the negative sector more of the time.  By 
mid-1985, Pioneer 11 was always in the negative sector, 
indicating that the current sheet had flattened out beneath it.

     The closer you go to the current sheet, the slower the solar 
wind.  As the current sheet "flapped" down toward the equator, 
even with Voyager 2 and Pioneer 10, the solar winds slowed in 
this region and sped up near the poles.  The equatorial winds 
slowed as far as Pioneer 10, showing that the Sun's magnetic 
field and the associated current sheet are exerting powerful 
control over the solar wind even at great distances.

     "The Sun, its corona and magnetic fields, and the solar wind 
are all part of one system," says Barnes.  And even well past 
Pluto, the solar winds are apparently still under the control of 
the rest of the system.

------------------------------

Date: 15 Jul 88 13:48:59 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!etive!bob@uunet.uu.net  (B Gray)
Subject: Re: Ramscoop engine

In article <2301@sugar.UUCP> peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) writes:
>Niven brought this objection up, and handwaved his way out of it by
>havng the "ramjet" fuel a laser. The ship was accelerated by light
>pressure from this super laser. Is this even theoretically possible
>(assuming some magic 100% efficient laser)?

The most recent incarnation of the ramscoop idea I have seen
was in Donald Moffitt's books "The Genesis Quest" and "Second Genesis".

He seems to realise this problem exists and has one of the
physicists in the story explain how it works.

I quote. from page 159 and 160 of "The Genesis Quest"

	"Under certain circumstances, it's possible to increase the
	energy of a photon by a factor of from one to ten bollion.
	And when you do, it takes on the properties of a hadron. It
	acts as though it has mass, like a proton, for instance."
...
	"It's done strictly through electromagnetic interactions
	that we know how to handle. In theory, at least."
...
	"What you do is swat pulsed laser photons with a high energy
	electrin beam and scatter them a hundred and eighty degrees,
	[....] They pick up the energy of the swat."
...
	"Then you focus the back scattered photons - hadronic
	photons now - in the electromagnetic throat of the drive,
	and since they have a temporary non-zero mass, your vehicle
	not only gets a healthy kick, but gets it at the speed of
	light."
...
	"[a] four wave conjugate mirror [....] collect[s] all those
	muscular photons thatr'e scattering in all directions and
	herd them into a tight beam."
...
	"Of course, these aren't real photons [....] They're virtual
	photons. They exist by courtesy of the uncertainty principle."
...
	"The hadronic photon has no right to be. It's supposed to
	hold hands with another photon, so that the momentum and
	energy can be balanced. But it doesn't. It lives it's brief
	and solitary life violating all the superstitions of quantum
	electrodynamics. The universe finds this a very
	unsatisfactory state of affairs. So [it] disappears before
	it can be detected. It materializes into a rho vector meson,
	which immediately decays into two pions [......] By that
	time out mythical photon's given it's mythical kick to the
	vehicle.

Now, anyone who has bothered to read this far is either
rolling around with laughter or thinking "I wonder if it
works".

Given the number of other mistakes Moffitt makes with
elementary physics I think it unlikely that the above
is anything more than handwaving rubbish with buzz words
thrown in. Would any real physicists like to comment.

I have crossposted this article to the sf-lovers newsgroup
with followups directed there. This stuff is getting too far
from reality to be posted in sci.space.
	Bob.

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 17 Jul 88 12:42:11 PST
From: Peter Scott <PJS@naif.jpl.nasa.gov>
Subject: Getting opinions to Dukakis
X-Vms-Mail-To: EXOS%"space-activisists@turing.cs.rpi.edu,space@angband.s1.gov"

A friend of mine tells me that Carol Rosin of the Institute for Security
and Cooperation in Outer Space meets regularly with Jesse Jackson and
has agreed to pass on all requests, opinions, etc, received in respect
of directions national space policy should take; and that Jackson has
Dukakis's ear.  This compares favorably with writing letters to Dukakis,
which he is unlikely to see personally (although opinions may be
tallied, I guess).  If you wish to write, the address is: 8 Logan
Circle, Washington, DC 20005, tel.  (202) 462-8886.

I am neither a member of ISCOS nor any political party and do not
represent them here; I am merely passing along a suggestion that had
some face-value merit for a certain segment of the population.

Peter Scott (pjs%grouch@jpl-mil.jpl.nasa.gov)

------------------------------

Date: 18 Jul 88 17:03:04 GMT
From: linus!munck@gatech.edu  (Robert Munck)
Subject: Subroutine for computing orbital position

-------------------------
I'd like to call on the combined expertise of the net for something I've
been unable to find;  it's entirely on a "hobby" basis, no connection
with anything commercial.

I want a simple, fast subroutine that will compute orbital motions.  The
ideal subroutine would be something like this:

Input parameters:
    position, velocity, mass of a free-falling body (whatever coordinate system
                                                     and units works best)

    array of positions and masses of relatively massive bodies (planets, sun)

    an elapsed time (small, minutes or less)

Output parameters:
    position and velocity of the free-falling body at the end of the
    elapsed time, accuracy at least 1% and .0001% is more than enough.

This can be in any programming language that I'd have a prayer of being
able to figure out -- APL, Ada, FORTRAN, even COBOL.  I want to re-code
it in the tightest machine code I can manage for the 80387 arithmetic
chip (in my Compaq 386) and use it to drive 2-D and 3-D graphic displays
of various things.  I would pre-compute the motions of the massive
bodies and use the subroutine to move one or several small things like
satellites.  My AB in Apple Math is twenty-one years old and rusty, but
I'm very good at squeezing microseconds out of a program.

Request II:  for the second generation program, I'd like to add to the
original a constraint on the motion of the free-falling body, say the
actual position and velocity of it at the end of the period, and get as
output the force or acceleration on the body.  This could be used to
fool around with things like orbiting tethers and Beanstalks.  Request
III is the inverse: add a force or acceleration to the original
subroutine.

Any help anyone can give, from an actual working program to references
to a book or two that might help me, will be appreciated.  Any software
I manage to get working will be freely available.

                         -- Bob Munck, MITRE Corporation
                            munck@mitre-bedford.arpa
                            ...!linus!munck.uucp
                            617-271-3671.bell

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #305
*******************

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Date: Sun, 31 Jul 88 01:05:26 PDT
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Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #306

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 306

Today's Topics:
		    Condensed CANOPUS - June 1988
			     Solar Sails
	 Re: advance space news from June 6 AW&ST -- Pegasus!
			   Re: Space Suits
	      International Geosphere-Biosphere Program
			   Re: Space Suits
			  Re: Spy Satellites
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 17 Jul 88 23:30:01 GMT
From: cfa!cfa250!willner@husc6.harvard.edu  (Steve Willner P-316 x57123)
Subject: Condensed CANOPUS - June 1988

Here is the unabridged CANOPUS for June 1988.  There are five
articles, one given by title only, three in condensed form, and one
short one in full.  Items in {braces} are from me and are signed
{--SW} when they represent personal opinion.  The unabridged CANOPUS
went to the mailing list last week; let me know if you expected a
copy and didn't get one.

CANOPUS is published by the American Institute of Aeronautics and
Astronautics.  Send correspondence about its contents to the executive 
editor, William W. L. Taylor (taylor%trwatd.span@star.stanford.edu; 
e-mail to canopus@cfa.uucp will probably be forwarded).  Send
correspondence about business matters to Mr. John Newbauer, AIAA,
1633 Broadway, NY, NY 10019.  Although AIAA has copyrighted CANOPUS
and registered its name, you are encouraged to distribute CANOPUS
widely, either electronically or as printout copies.  If you do,
however, please send a brief message to Taylor estimating how many
others receive copies.  CANOPUS is partially supported by the
National Space Science Data Center.

{one article by title only}
NASA RESEARCH ANNOUNCEMENTS RELEASED - can880605.txt - 6/27/88

SHUTTLE NEARLY READY FOR LAUNCH PAD ROLL-OUT;  BOOSTER QUALIFICATION
TEST HELD TUESDAY - can880603.txt - 6/15/88
{The main topic of this article has been widely reported; the
following paragraph was just an afterthought to the main article.}

In a related area, Morton-Thiokol has announced that it will not bid on
the development contract for the advanced solid rocket motor (ASRM)
that will replace the current SRM in the mid-1990s.  The ASRM will
increase Shuttle payloads by several thousand pounds and is being
justified in part as a means of reducing Space Station launches. NASA
is looking at producing it at government-owned facilities in the
southeast, among other areas.  Morton-Thikol cited a need to focus on
completing fixes to the current SRM as its reason for dropping out of
the competition.  

VOYAGER IMAGING NEPTUNE - can880604.txt - 6/27/88
{in full but short}

Voyager 2 now is returning images of Neptune and its moon, Triton, that
rival the best terrestrial photos of the eighth planet. On May 9
Voyager was 685 million km (425 million miles) from Neptune, and
produced an image with a resolution of about 7,857 miles per line pair
on the narrow-angle camera using clear and green filters.

The images, reconstructed with the aid of color cue from images taken
by terrestrial observatories, shows the planet with a bluish-green
caste because of its methane atmopshere, and Triton with a
reddish-yellow caste, probably due to methane-derived organic
compounds, according to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.  Neptune's image
was smeared by time expsoure, and Triton's brightness was enhanced
40-fold to make it visible on the photograph.

"QUICK IS BEAUTIFUL" REPORT SEEKS 5 PERCENT OF STATION RESOURCES -
can880602.txt - 6/7/88  {condensed}

Five percent of the Space Station's resources should be allocated for
"Quick is Beautiful" experiments that could be manifested in less
than three years and lead to larger, more complex experiments,
according to a study group chartered by NASA's associate
administrator for space station.  Appropriately the QIB report is
short -- fewer than 10 pages of text -- and does not recommend a
"Dear Colleague" letter be issued just yet.  That would leave too
many investigators waiting in line as has happened on Space Shuttle.

Their recommendation that standard interfaces be set early and rigidly
controlled arose from the concern that the planning and operations
process for Space Station as a whole not be significantly perturbed by
adding QIB experiments to the daily routine: "The quantity of
resources, complexity of interfaces, and level of management necessary
for QIB is not nearly as important as whether significant changes in
quantity, complexity, or level are required to accommodate QIB."

Getting the experiments to the Station is a problem that appeared
before the shuttle was grounded and can be expected to continue after
flights resume. The study group recommended that QIB payloads be
launched on a space available basis and stored on the Station to await
operation at a convenient time.

"CODE E" STRATEGIC PLAN RELEASED; "A PROGRAM IN TRANSITION"
can880601.txt - 6/5/88 {condensed but long}
{"Code E" is the Office of Space Science and Applications, OSSA}
{This article and the previous one indicate to me that OSSA is really
beginning to get its act together.  Let's hope the new Associate
Administrator, Lennard Fisk, can keep things moving.  --SW}

A measured, well-paced program for expanding U.S. science activities
in space has been outlined by the "Office of Space Science and
Applications 1988 Strategic Plan" recently released by NASA.  It
describes the nation's space science and applications program as "a
program in transition ... from the exhilirating pace of the 1960s"
through reduced missions in the 1970s, to the deliberately paced,
complex missions of the 1990s.

Significantly, the gray, 46-page booklet has no illustrations or
flashy layout. It is a well-paced document outlining the current
straits in which American space science finds itself {largely because
of launch vehicle problems, but also because of lack of resources
--SW}, and a measured approach to _retrieving_ {emphasis mine --SW}
and maintaining national leadership in space.

Given that budgets do not always materialize, Code E has established
rules for developing projects:

     Completion of ongoing programs come first, and new projects will
     not be pursued at their expense.

     Major missions will be sought when it makes sense, moderate
     missions when near-term and lifetime resources do not allow it.

     In all cases, small missions will be sought each year, preferably
     as complements to major and moderate missions.

     Space Station facilities will be developed by disciplne pace,
     balance, relevance, and maturity.

In line with the outline above, Code E is committing itself to
continuation of all programs now under way. In addition, Code E now
is seeking new start status for the Advanced X-ray Astrophysics
Facility (AXAF) and recently released an Announcement of Opportunity
for the Small Explorer program.

For Space Station a suite of six microgravity sciences facilities is
planned, along with life sciences facilities including a 1.8- meter
centrifuge. Both classes of facilities are to be tested in Spacelab
missions. An Announcement of Opportunity is to be released presently
for attached (external) payloads, one of which may be a Cosmic Dust
Collection Facility. The plan is to start with payloads that are "not
overly demanding on the [Station's] environment and pointing
capabilities," then to grow into more complex facilities.

Into the 1990's, Code E plans to seek a joint start on the Comet
Rendezvous/Asteroid Flyby and Cassini Saturn Orbiter/Probe missions. A
dual start will be sought since both missions can use the Mariner Mark
II spacecraft and would realize economies of scale. Cassini would be
attempted with the European Space Agency although the Strategy states
that missions normally will be started as U.S. flights with cooperation
being sought as they are developed.

Other major initiatives for the 1990's are the Earth Observing System
(for which the A.O. was released in January), the Space Infrared
Telescope Facility (the fourth member of the Great Observatories),
the Solar Probe (plunging to within 4-60 radii of the "surface"), the
High Resolution Solar Observatory (evolved from the scaled-down Solar
Optical Telescope), the Lunar Observer (built from Mars Observer
spares), and Gravity Probe-B (a "cornerstone" test of general
relativity). Although the Lunar Observer is listed after HRSO, it
will take higher priority, if necessary, in order to take advantage
of the Mars Observer production team.

Small missions will include a series of new Earth Probes, such as a
Tropical Rainfall Explorer, to complement EOS, and Lifesat, a series
of small, reusable spacecraft carrying life science experiments for
up to 40 days. This would be similar to the Soviet Union's Biovostok
program.

In the research base, the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared
Astronomy (SOFIA) will place a 3-meter IR telescope aboard a modified
Boeing 747 to fill the gap between IRAS and SIRTF, and the Earth
observing aircraft fleet will be updated.
-- 
Steve Willner            Phone 617-495-7123         Bitnet:   willner@cfa
60 Garden St.            FTS:      830-7123           UUCP:   willner@cfa
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA                 Internet: willner@cfa.harvard.edu

------------------------------

Date: 18 Jul 88 20:05:34 GMT
From: puff!eric@speedy.cs.wisc.edu  (Eric "TheBoo" Bazan)
Subject: Solar Sails


	The other day at the book store I was looking at an interesting paper-
back on solar sails. (It was a small paperback, but like most books on spec-
ialized subjects, it was quite expsenive - something like $25.00.) The book
went into detail on sail design/configurations, sail materials, navigation,
and possible accelerations. My question is this: just how does the sun 'push'
against the sail? Is it the solar wind of charged particles (protons and elec-
trons), or the the actual photonic flux, or both?
	If I recall, the solar constant above the Earths atmosphere is about
1.35 kW/m^2. (The best on the Earths surface is about 1 kW/m^2.) I can under-
stand how actual particles could exert a push against physical matter, but
not photonics energy. If so, how does photonic energy 'push' matter in a vac-
uum. I have a poor physics background, so this may be a stupid question, but 
I'm curious anyway.

			thanks,
				-Eric(eric@shorty.cs.wisc.edu)
				      eric@cs.wisc.edu

------------------------------

Date: 18 Jul 88 23:45:11 GMT
From: jtk@mordor.s1.gov  (Jordan Kare)
Subject: Re: advance space news from June 6 AW&ST -- Pegasus!

In article <1988Jul9.234143.15997@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>
>> The article also raises questions about possible
>> hidden subsidies: How much are OSC and Hercules paying for use of the
>> NASA B52?  How much are they paying for computing at Ames?
>
>This I don't know.  I would speculate that the B-52 is being provided
>on a basis of "until we have our own carrier aircraft, the customer has
>to supply it".  Ames is presumably involved in this for its own
>reasons, and may consider free computing time justified.  Remember that
>NASA *is* charged with advancing aerospace technology for use by
>private industry.

Hercules and OSC were at the AIAA/(various other acronyms) Joint
Propulsion Conference in Boston last week, and someone from OSC gave a
talk on Pegasus.  (He was an engineer, and fairly high in the team... I
have his card someplace...).  This question was raised, and as I recall,
he said NASA has a flat rental rate for the B-52 and its support
facilities of something like $30,000 per flight hour.  The existing drop
hardware will be used, so there is no cost to modify the plane.  I
believe they expect to use 8-10 hours of flight time before the first
drop.

Incidentally, the B-52 in question is one of 2 used to drop the X-15,
and made about 100 drops with it.  The plane has been flying since 1952
-- yet it only has about 2000 hours of flight time and is in like-new
condition.  Pegasus is almost exactly the same size, and very similar in
outline, to the X-15 (although it is slightly heavier) -- the speaker
noted that this was not intentional; they had just set out to build an
optimum vehicle that could be carried by the B-52, and even with all
their modern computers, etc. they came up with just about the same
results as the X-15 designers...

>> One of the more important aspects of this article is the tense...
>> Hercules and OSC have far to go before this project amounts to much
>> more than the inflated claims of a marketing campaign...
>
>One of the more important aspects of this article is the timing: after
>the project is well underway, not before it gets started.  I doubt very
>much that an official announcement could possibly have been postponed
>any longer, actually.  Given the way the aerospace industry usually
>ballyhoos its back-of-the-envelope design sketches, OSC and Hercules
>have actually shown remarkable restraint.

The talk at the Joint Propulsion Conference was an unscheduled addition
to the commercial launch vehicles program -- and the reason was that at
the time the schedule was made (last spring) OSC did not expect the
project to be public knowledge yet.  They have been playing their cards
_very_ close to their chest....

>Anyone who buys Wisconsin cheese is  |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
>a traitor to mankind.  --Pournelle   | {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

	Jordin Kare	jtk@mordor.uucp	jtk@mordor.s1.gov

------------------------------

Date: 19 Jul 88 00:30:32 GMT
From: voder!apple!ems@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Mike Smith)
Subject: Re: Space Suits

In article <957@cfa183.cfa250.harvard.edu> willner@cfa250.harvard.edu (Steve Willner P-316 x57123) writes:
>From article <8807112314.AA12967@diamond.tamu.edu>, by
>bruce@DIAMOND.TAMU.EDU (Bruce D. Wright): 
>>   Trying to hold 3 psi pressure in your lungs reletive to the
>> pressure outside of your body would probably cause an embolism to
>> occur, not to mention that breathing extreme possitive pressures
>> like this would be REALLY exhausting.
>
>From personal experience, I can say that pressure breathing at even a
>fraction of a psi is extremely uncomfortable and tiring.  This is NOT
>a viable option for normal EVA, and a whole psi is probably not even
>an option for emergencies.

An analog of the effect can be had by jumping into a swimming pool.  
Admitidly you have presure on the outside rather than the inside of
the lungs, but your muscles are about equally suited to pulling air in
so this can serve as a good 'reasonableness' test.  Take a tube 2 feet
long.  Try to breathe through it while your totally under water.  Just
try.  The bottom of your lungs (assuming you are standing on the pool
floor) are more than 2 feet down.  One tires quickly of the game...
One atmosphere is about 33 feet in water.  Three feet down is about
1.5 psi.  

E. Michael Smith  ...!sun!apple!ems

'If you can dream it, you can do it'  Walt Disney

This is the obligatory disclaimer of everything. (Including but
not limited to: typos, spelling, diction, logic, and nuclear war)

------------------------------

Date: 18 Jul 88 16:41:58 GMT
From: amdahl!bnrmtv!behm@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Gregory Behm)
Subject: International Geosphere-Biosphere Program

I am searching for information about the International
Geosphere-Biosphere Program, and hope that some of you on the net might
be of assistance.  Any information about the program, including (but not
limited to) planned or proposed research and participating
organizations, will be greatly appreciated.

E-mail or posted responses welcome.

			Thanks,

			  Gregory Behm

------------------------------

Date: 19 Jul 88 05:10:21 GMT
From: att!chinet!mcdchg!clyde!watmath!utgpu!utzoo!henry@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Space Suits

In article <8807112314.AA12967@diamond.tamu.edu> bruce@DIAMOND.TAMU.EDU (Bruce D. Wright) writes:
>Also, breathing pure oxygen at such low total pressure causes
>atelectasis to occur.  This is alveoli collapse caused by the oxygen in
>the alveoli being absorbed into the blood...  Adding good old inert
>nitrogen will alleviate these health risks...

Can you explain why the Apollo astronauts, breathing 3 psi of pure
oxygen for two weeks on lunar missions, had no problems?  Given that
base of experience, somehow I am not too worried about atelectasis.

More generally, I find it really strange that people have to be told, over
and over again, that the skin-tight-spacesuit idea HAS BEEN TRIED in
vacuum chambers and IT WORKS.  There seems to be an unlimited supply of
hypothetical problems that just don't exist in real life.
-- 
Anyone who buys Wisconsin cheese is|  Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
a traitor to mankind.  --Pournelle |uunet!mnetor!utzoo! henry @zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 19 Jul 88 05:16:31 GMT
From: att!chinet!mcdchg!clyde!watmath!utgpu!utzoo!henry@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Spy Satellites

In article <36178@linus.UUCP> marsh@linus.UUCP (Ralph Marshall) writes:
>... if in fact the orbits _ARE_ classified the fact that you
>discovered them on your own still does not give you permission to
>distribute the information.  It is still classified.

Sorry, wrong.  Only information about nuclear weapons is "born
classified" in this way, so that it is illegal to reveal it even if you
discover it independently.  (It is likely that "born classified" is
unconstitutional even for nuclear weapons, but so far the US government
has backed down rather than take the issue to the Supreme Court.)
Anything else is in the clear, provided you really did discover it
independently without use of classified materials AND you have not
signed a keep-your-mouth-shut agreement with the government (as a
result, say, of prior government employment in some sensitive area).

This doesn't mean, of course, that they can't harass you!

(Also, beware, I am not a lawyer -- consult a pro before doing anything rash.)
-- 
Anyone who buys Wisconsin cheese is|  Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
a traitor to mankind.  --Pournelle |uunet!mnetor!utzoo! henry @zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #306
*******************

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Date: Sun, 31 Jul 88 19:05:39 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8808010205.AA07689@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #307

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 307

Today's Topics:
			 Re: Ramscoop engine
		 Re: Pegasus and other space projects
			  Re: Spy Satellites
 Re: Postcard from Lewis: Having a wonderful time, wish you were here
		  Satellite Tracking Program Request
			  Re: Spy Satellites
			   Orbital Elements
       Okay, who asked for this N-body galaxy simulation stuff?
			  Re: Spy Satellites
		      Re: Orbital Launch Methods
		      Re: Orbital Launch Methods
			  Trapped, comrade?
	      International agreements on space station
		      Re: Orbital Launch Methods
			   Re: Solar Sails
			   Re: Solar Sails
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 19 Jul 88 04:55:07 GMT
From: att!chinet!mcdchg!clyde!watmath!utgpu!utzoo!henry@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Ramscoop engine

In article <2075@ssc-vax.UUCP> eder@ssc-vax.UUCP (Dani Eder) writes:
>I beg to differ.  A ramscoop engine suffers from the same ram drag
>as any other ramjet type engine.  This apparent force is caused by
>temporarily bringing the interstellar matter up to your speed so
>you hold on to it long enough to fuse it...
>This then is the upper speed limit for an interstellar 'ramjet'.

If you accelerate it electromagnetically (i.e. with a very high positive
voltage on the ship), you can reverse the process on the exhaust, which
to a first approximation eliminates the drag.  Every now and then
someone who hasn't actually *read* the technical papers about ramscoops
in places like JBIS rediscovers the "fundamental speed limit" of the
Bussard ramjet, and immediately concludes that all the people who talk
seriously about relativistic ramscoops are too stupid to have noticed
it.  Not so.

(Sorry, Dani, but this particular misconception annoys me.)

Agreed that there is a real problem with doing something with the
interstellar mass once you've got it; fusing ordinary hyrdogen is not
easy.  If you're willing to sacrifice the fuelless nature of the Bussard
ramjet, one way around the problem is to react the interstellar gas with
antimatter carried on board.  *That* reaction is fast!
-- 
Anyone who buys Wisconsin cheese is|  Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
a traitor to mankind.  --Pournelle |uunet!mnetor!utzoo! henry @zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 19 Jul 88 05:05:08 GMT
From: att!chinet!mcdchg!clyde!watmath!utgpu!utzoo!henry@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Pegasus and other space projects

In article <2076@ssc-vax.UUCP> eder@ssc-vax.UUCP (Dani Eder) writes:
>Just because we delivered a few airplanes a few days late this year
>is no reason to pick on Boeing...

My apologies, Dani -- didn't realize I'd hit a sore spot.  It was meant
as a generic analogy, without reference to specific current events and
without intent to criticize Boeing.  My apologies to you and your employer.
(Next time I'll cite McDonnell-Douglas... :-) :-))

>If OSC/Hercules are as smart as they seem to have been so far
>then I will go out on a limb and predict that they will be buying
>a used 707 cargo plane to convert to their first stage...

It's a plausible theory, but I don't understand why they're being so
secretive about it if so.

Actually, an even more outrageous thought came a few days ago.  One
irritation with most airliners is that their wings are set low on the
fuselage, limiting the size of loads that can be packed under the wing.
(Probably not enough to be a show-stopper, mind you.)  Big military
transports, on the other hand, generally have high wings to keep the
engines clear of ground debris.  The C-5 production line is closed.
You don't suppose they plan to lease an Antonov Ruslan?!?!?
-- 
Anyone who buys Wisconsin cheese is|  Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
a traitor to mankind.  --Pournelle |uunet!mnetor!utzoo! henry @zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 19 Jul 88 15:42:44 GMT
From: agate!garnet!weemba@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Obnoxious Math Grad Student)
Subject: Re: Spy Satellites

In article <1988Jul19.051631.25394@utzoo.uucp>, henry@utzoo (Henry Spencer) writes:
>Sorry, wrong.  Only information about nuclear weapons is "born classified"
>in this way, so that it is illegal to reveal it even if you discover it
>independently.

Cryptological information is born classified.  And probably some stuff
involving optics.

ucbvax!garnet!weemba	Matthew P Wiener/Brahms Gang/Berkeley CA 94720

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 19 Jul 88 10:50 PDT
From: Frank Mayhar <Frank-Mayhar%LADC@bco-multics.arpa>
Really-To: SPACE
Subject: Re: Postcard from Lewis: Having a wonderful time, wish you were here


concertina!fiddler@sun.com  (Steve Hix) writes:
>ralf@b.gp.cs.cmu.edu (Ralf Brown) writes:
>> PH418000@BROWNVM.BITNET writes:
>> }     There's also an interesting proposal to use a tether concept to deorbit
>> }the space shuttle from the space-station, simultaneously reboosting the station
>> }everytime you drop a shuttle off.
>>
>> This isn't all that new an idea.  See the SF novel "Descent of A????"
>
>"Descent of Anansi" by Larry Niven.

and Steven Barnes.  (Don't forget the co-author!)

Frank-Mayhar%ladc@BCO-MULTICS.ARPA

------------------------------

Date: 15 Jul 88 18:09:29 GMT
From: pru%psuvm.BITNET@jade.berkeley.edu.user@host.BITNET
Subject: Satellite Tracking Program Request

I was wondering if anyone has or knows where to obtain programs for tracking
satellites. I'm especially interested in any programs that not only give a
satellite's position, but also give some indication as to whether it will be
visible over a particular location on a particular date. Any other information
or references on satellite observing and tracking would be greatly
appreciated. Thanks!

Eric
-------
Eric Plesko                        207 Materials Research Lab
                                   Pennsylvania State University
                                   University Park, PA 16802
BITNET: pru@psuvm.bitnet
UUCP:   "akgua, allegra, ihnp4, cbosgd"!psuvax1!psuvm.bitnet!pru
ARPA:   pru%psuvm.bitnet@cunyvm.cuny.edu

------------------------------

Date: 19 Jul 88 18:08:14 GMT
From: thumper!karn@faline.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: Spy Satellites

> Cryptological information is born classified.

As far as I can tell, this is simply not true. Bobby Inman tried to make
it true back in the early 1980s, but the (completely justified) backlash
from the academic community sank the idea.  There is a "voluntary
review" procedure where researchers can run their papers by NSA before
publication, but no law mandates this. At least with respect to
cryptology, the First Amendment is still largely intact.

Read "The Puzzle Palace" for the gory details.

Phil

------------------------------

Date:         Tue, 19 Jul 88 12:04:55 PLT
From: Andrew Vaught <29284843%WSUVM1.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Subject:      Orbital Elements


I appreciate people posting the orbital elements of various (Soviet)
spacecraft. Unfortunately, I don't know enough orbital mechanics in order
to convert these to a time/position for my long./lat.  Could someone post
a good reference to how to do this, or tell me where a conversion program
(preferably source) is archived?

               Thanks,
                        Andy

                           <29284843@wsuvm1.bitnet.edu>

------------------------------

Date: 19 Jul 88 21:35:26 GMT
From: pioneer.arc.nasa.gov!eugene@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Eugene N. Miya)
Subject: Okay, who asked for this N-body galaxy simulation stuff?

Okay, some many weeks ago, some two people asked for galaxy simulation
papers.  I just mailed Christensen his copy.  Was it you David Smith at
H-P or some one else?  Just send mail.  It took this long because
what I'm sending you (from B. Smith) is going into a book chapter.
Sorry, no extra copies, I have this one only and I'm embarassed it took
this long to get it.

Another gross generalization from

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@aurora.arc.nasa.gov
  resident cynic at the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:
  "Mailers?! HA!", "If my mail does not reach you, please accept my apology."
  {uunet,hplabs,ncar,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."

------------------------------

Date: 20 Jul 88 00:32:02 GMT
From: agate!garnet!weemba@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Obnoxious Math Grad Student)
Subject: Re: Spy Satellites

In article <1242@thumper.bellcore.com>, karn@thumper (Phil R. Karn) writes:
>> Cryptological information is born classified.

>As far as I can tell, this is simply not true.

You're wrong.

>[volunteer review policy]

So?

>Read "The Puzzle Palace" for the gory details.

Hahaha.  Is this supposed to be a dumb joke?

ucbvax!garnet!weemba	Matthew P Wiener/Brahms Gang/Berkeley CA 94720

------------------------------

Date: 19 Jul 88 18:09:45 GMT
From: ns!logajan@umn-cs.arpa  (John Logajan x3118)
Subject: Re: Orbital Launch Methods



>In article <455@ns.UUCP> logajan@ns.UUCP (John Logajan x3118) writes:
>>I always wondered if one might be able to
>>get into orbit more cheaply by first going straight up and then going
>>horizontal at an altitude where the orbital speed would be much lower.

To which Paul F. Dietz says yes:
>this is
>indeed the case, especially if you go into an eccentric rather
>than a circular orbit.

And Phil Karn says no:
>The answer is no.
>the most efficient launch trajectory into
>orbit would be nearly horizontal.

To which I say, I guess I'll have to work out the math!  I do like Paul's
suggestion of eccentric rather than circular orbits.  I can intuitively see
the slight horizontal kick just being enough to miss the earths atmosphere
after a long fall.  The other intuitive factor is see is that the craft
gets to fall an additional 2000 miles  (diameter/2*50%) farther through
near earth gravity than it needed to climb at launch.  Or to put it another
way, it gets a 4000 mile high bonus.

- John M. Logajan @ Network Systems; 7600 Boone Ave; Brooklyn Park, MN 55428 -
- {...rutgers!umn-cs, ...amdahl!bungia, ...uunet!rosevax!bungia} !ns!logajan -

------------------------------

Date: 19 Jul 88 19:15:56 GMT
From: ns!logajan@umn-cs.arpa  (John Logajan x3118)
Subject: Re: Orbital Launch Methods



More on electro-magnetic launcher lengths:

I used two simple equations to get ball park figures for launcher lenghts.

1.) distance=1/2*acceleration*time*time          d=1/2att
2.) velocity=acceleration*time                   v=at  or t=v/a
combining 1 and 2 gives:
3.) distance=velocity*velocity/(2*acceleration)  d=vv/(2a)

1g = 32.2 fps/s    17700mph = 25960 fps (near earth orbital velocity)

25960*25960/64.4 = 10,464,621 feet  or  1982 miles, say 2000.

Thus it takes 2000 miles of one G acceleration to reach orbital velocity.
(4000 miles at one G to reach escape velocity, 25000 mph.)

Various launcher lengths and performance:
G's  miles  time
1g = 2000   14 minutes
2g = 1000    7
4g = 500     3.4
8g = 250     1.7
16 = 125    50 seconds
32 = 62     25
64 = 31     12
128 = 16     6
256 = 7      3
512 = 4      1.5
1024 = 2      .8
2048 = 1      .4
4096 = .5     .2
8192 = .25    .01

At 17700 mph it would take about 11 sec to go 50 miles through the atmosphere.

- John M. Logajan @ Network Systems; 7600 Boone Ave; Brooklyn Park, MN 55428 -
- {...rutgers!umn-cs, ...amdahl!bungia, ...uunet!rosevax!bungia} !ns!logajan -

------------------------------

Date: 20 Jul 88 01:41:59 GMT
From: amdahl!drivax!macleod@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (MacLeod)
Subject: Trapped, comrade?

In article <8807140415.AA14513@angband.s1.gov> dbirnbau@nmsu.CSNET writes:

:When I went to Washington, I was very
:gung-ho about the space program, especially the MANNED space program, but now
:I'm not so sure.  The money for the space program has to come from somewhere,
:be it Vet's benefits, defense, social programs or wherever.  Unless those who
:support the space program are able to instill their own long-range vision upon
:those who are responsible for dividing the money, we are going to be trapped 
:on this planet for a long time.

What means "we", tovarich?

------------------------------

Date:     Wed, 20 Jul 88 09:23 EDT
From: RON PICARD <PICARD%gmr.com@relay.cs.net>
Subject:  International agreements on space station

HS writes:
> Fletcher says NASA budget crisis may lead to unilateral cancellation
> of international agreements on space station.

Is Fletcher crying wolf or is this the next (final) step in
eliminating any credibility NASA may still have?  It should
at least make the Russians think twice about a cooperative
mission to Mars anytime soon.

Ron Picard  (PICARD@GMR.COM)

------------------------------

Date: 20 Jul 88 14:49:57 GMT
From: dietz@cu-arpa.cs.cornell.edu  (Paul F. Dietz)
Subject: Re: Orbital Launch Methods

In article <492@ns.UUCP> logajan@ns.UUCP (John Logajan x3118) writes:
>To which Paul F. Dietz says yes:
>>this is
>>indeed the case, especially if you go into an eccentric rather
>>than a circular orbit.
>
>And Phil Karn says no:
>>The answer is no.

The difference being that I was talking about electromagnetic launchers,
where drag is more important.  If the Earth had no atmosphere then you
would probably want a horizontal launcher.

Paul F. Dietz
dietz@gvax.cs.cornell.edu

------------------------------

Date: 20 Jul 88 23:31:44 GMT
From: ganelon.usc.edu!robiner@oberon.usc.edu  (Steve)
Subject: Re: Solar Sails

In article <1988Jul19.235426.15443@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>Easy.  Special relativity tells us that there is no such thing as mass or
>energy in isolation:  you always have both.  That means that energy, e.g.
>light, has mass.  And so it does, and hence it has momentum, and bouncing
>it off a reflective surface imparts momentum to said surface.  Light does

If the light bounces off the sail, how does it impart momentum.  What 
energy of the photon is now reduced?  I think the photons must be
ABSORBED by the sail for this to work.

=Steve=

------------------------------

Date: 19 Jul 88 23:54:26 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Solar Sails

>... My question is this: just how does the sun 'push'
>against the sail? Is it the solar wind of charged particles (protons and elec-
>trons), or the the actual photonic flux, or both?

It's mostly the light; as I recall it, the solar wind contributes very little.

>... I can under-
>stand how actual particles could exert a push against physical matter, but
>not photonics energy. If so, how does photonic energy 'push' matter in a vac-
>uum...

Easy.  Special relativity tells us that there is no such thing as mass or
energy in isolation:  you always have both.  That means that energy, e.g.
light, has mass.  And so it does, and hence it has momentum, and bouncing
it off a reflective surface imparts momentum to said surface.  Light does
not exert *much* pressure, but it does exert some.  A powerful laser can
levitate a small glass bead on light pressure alone.  Sunlight is rather
more spread out, so enormous areas are needed for good results, but the
thrust is there if you're willing to gather it.  My recollection is that
people who run orbiting satellites have to take it into consideration as
a minor source of orbit perturbations.
-- 
Anyone who buys Wisconsin cheese is|  Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
a traitor to mankind.  --Pournelle |uunet!mnetor!utzoo! henry @zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #307
*******************

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Date: Mon, 1 Aug 88 01:05:04 PDT
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To: Space@angband.s1.gov
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Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #308

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 308

Today's Topics:
Special communications system prepared for Neptune encounter (Forwarded)
	  RE: Re: International agreements on space station
			astronomy newsletters
		      Re: Orbital Launch Methods
			  Lithium Batteries
			   Re: Solar Sails
Proposals sought for space-based laser to study global winds (Forwarded)
		Trust Fund Proposed for Space Ventures
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 20 Jul 88 20:03:57 GMT
From: yee@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: Special communications system prepared for Neptune encounter (Forwarded)

Jeff Vincent
Headquarters, Washington, D.C.                      July 20, 1988

Paula Cleggett
Headquarters, Washington, D.C.

James H. Wilson 
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

Release:  88-102

SPECIAL COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEM PREPARED FOR NEPTUNE ENCOUNTER

     Scientists and engineers from NASA's Jet Propulsion 
Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, Calif., and the National Radio 
Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), Socorro, N.M., are working together 
in the high plains of central New Mexico to improve the ability 
to receive spacecraft signals from the vicinity of planet 
Neptune.  The researchers are currently testing a new deep-space 
communications system with NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft, which 
will fly past the eighth planet next year. 

     When Voyager 2 reaches Neptune in August 1989 to take close-
up pictures and thousands of other measurements, the spacecraft 
will be nearly three billion miles from home.  Its signal 
received on Earth will be extremely faint. 

     Adding the 27 radio telescopes of the NRAO's Very Large 
Array (VLA) to JPL's Deep Space Network (DSN), which communicates 
with interplanetary spacecraft, will more than double the ability 
to capture Voyager's signal.  The signal will be received eight 
hours per day for 40 days of the encounter -- the period that 
Voyager and Neptune will be above the horizon at the New Mexico 
desert site.  

     Under an agreement between NASA and the National Science 
Foundation, which sponsors NRAO, engineers are installing new 
receivers and microwave horns, tuned to Voyager's X-Band radio 
frequency, on all the 82-foot dish antennas at the VLA.  Special 
signal-processing and communication equipment has been added so 
that the VLA will be linked by satellite to the DSN's Deep Space 
Communications Complex at Goldstone, Calif. 

     The new X-Band receiver systems were designed and built 
cooperatively by JPL, VLA, and NRAO's Central Development 
Laboratory at Charlottesville, Va.  Like those of the DSN, the 
advanced receiver circuits are kept chilled with liquid helium to 
suppress internal electronic noise.  NASA also has provided an 
independent power generator for the array, which has suffered 
power failures from summer lightning storms.

     This month's system test is the first chance to preview 
Neptune operations with the whole worldwide communication system, 
including elements at the VLA.  The Voyager spacecraft, now 2.4 
billion miles from Earth, will transmit in its planetary 
encounter mode, at data rates up to 21,600 bits per second (the 
rate used for Voyager's encounter of Uranus in 1986).  Linked 
electronically, the two systems -- 23 VLA antennas that now have 
their X-Band receivers, and the 112-foot and 230-foot dishes at 
Goldstone -- will function as a single receiving system.   

     The VLA, located about 100 miles southwest of Albuquerque, 
has, since 1980, enabled radio astronomers to study distant 
stars, nebulae and galaxies by collecting and analyzing radio 
emissions from these objects.  

     The 27 mobile dishes are arrayed along a Y-shaped railroad 
track and can be rearranged for different observations.  William 
D. Brundage, VLA project engineer, is responsible for Voyager 
preparations at Socorro. 

     Voyager 2 was launched in August 1977, and has subsequently 
explored the planetary system of Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus. 

     The DSN has been developing and operating as a NASA system 
for nearly 30 years.  It has communicated with spacecraft and 
astronauts on the Moon; tracked and commanded Earth-orbiting, 
unmanned spacecraft, and those sent to explore comets and six of 
the nine planets; and to probe the outer reaches of the solar 
system.  

     Besides the Goldstone complex, the DSN includes stations in 
Spain and Australia, where Australia's Parkes Radio Telescope was 
linked with the DSN's antennas in 1986 to support Voyager 2's 
encounter of Uranus.  This link will be made again for next 
year's encounter.  JPL's Donald W. Brown is interagency arraying 
manager for the DSN, with overall responsibility for the Socorro 
link.

------------------------------

Date:     Thu, 21 Jul 88 05:14 EDT
From: RON PICARD <PICARD%gmr.com@relay.cs.net>
Subject:  RE: Re: International agreements on space station

> Why do so many people forget the first "A" in "NASA"?

Good question...I have to plead guilty.  Probably because the "S"
is the only thing that makes the popular press.  I'd be interested
to hear what some of the "A" work includes although it might not
be suitable for the space network.

Ron Picard  (PICARD@GMR.COM)

------------------------------

Date: 21 Jul 88 19:14:20 GMT
From: fsimmons@ub.d.umn.edu  (Frank Simmons)
Subject: astronomy newsletters


 I represent the Arrowhead Astronomical Society. I am interested in knowing
 if there are other club members reading this ; if you would be interested
 in exchanging newsletters; and if you have an electronic newsletter you
 would not mind sharing.




Frank Simmons                      BITNET: FSIMMONS@UMNDUL.BITNET
UMD Information Services           INTERNET : fsimmons@ub.d.umn.edu
Univ of Minn,Duluth                ATT   : (218) 726-8849/7587
10 University Drive                SYSTEM : VAX/VMS 4.7  JNET 3.0
Duluth MN 55812-2496

------------------------------

Date: 20 Jul 88 16:17:45 GMT
From: ns!logajan@umn-cs.arpa  (John Logajan x3118)
Subject: Re: Orbital Launch Methods

In article <492@ns.UUCP>, logajan@ns.UUCP (John Logajan x3118) writes:
> >>get into orbit more cheaply by first going straight up and then going
> >>horizontal at an altitude where the orbital speed would be much lower.

Okay, I put this scenario into a simulator and found that if I shoot a
projectile straight up at orbital velocity (from the surface of the earth)
it will reach an altitude of 4000 miles (just double its starting height
from the center of the earth -- hmmm coincidence?)

Orbital velocity at 4000 miles is quite significant, so I would say that
it is not cheaper to go straight up first and then fire horizontally.

Unless of course you have some form of launcher that is earth based, such
as an electro-magnetic launcher.  Then the economies of the launch system
might overcome the additional energy requirements needed for the "tennis
ball serve" launch.

- John M. Logajan @ Network Systems; 7600 Boone Ave; Brooklyn Park, MN 55428 -
- {...rutgers!umn-cs, ...amdahl!bungia, ...uunet!rosevax!bungia} !ns!logajan -

------------------------------

Date:     Thu, 21 Jul 88 09:22:27 EDT
From: Peter Allsop <allsop%watacs.uwaterloo.ca@relay.cs.net>
Subject:  Lithium Batteries

The BITNET summaries of Space Digest can be a bit behind, so
if this has already been said, sorry ...


In Digest 8 # 871 Paul Hass wrote:

> {stuff on explosive potential}  I have also heard of lithium batteries
>"outgassing" ie. spewing out the nasty electrolyte.  Lithium batteries
>are usually made of lithium and something from the other side of the
>periodic chart, iodine, bromine, chlorine, etc...

You heard correctly, Lithium batteries can excrete a real nasty
(read corrosive) liquid.  A few years ago the Canadian government made
it manditory for all civil aviation aircraft to carry an Emergency Locator
Transmitter (ELT) powered by a Lithium battery.  (Actually they required
it run for a minimum number of hours at low temperature, and it worked out
that a Lithium battery was the most feasible one to use).  Everybody complied
and things seemed great for about 6 months ... then the failure reports
starting coming in.  First came the reports of explosions, ELT's blowing
holes in the hulls of (fortunately) parked aircraft.  As I recall these
were attributed to overheating (solar), not shorts.  Then came the reports
of corrosion problems.  Several people had the batteries leak so badly that
they ate right through the housing of the ELT *and* the hull of the
aircraft (I saw one such case).  Not long after that came the NOTAM - pull
all ELT's with Lithium batteries from aircraft & inspect for damage.  When
we pulled ours I opened it up & literally poured the electronics out of
the case ... the components had been liquified!  The 1/8" aluminium case
of the ELT had been eaten almost all the way through in a few spots ...
far too close for comfort! NASA may be taking a rather conservative
approach in banning Lithium batteries, but their history is not encouraging.

             Peter Allsop <ALLSOP@WATACS.BITNET>       (old form)
                          <allsop@watacs.UWaterloo.ca> (new form)

Science is truth, don't be mislead by facts.

------------------------------

Date: 21 Jul 88 15:48:08 GMT
From: palmer@tybalt.caltech.edu  (David Palmer)
Subject: Re: Solar Sails

In article <10922@oberon.USC.EDU> robiner@ganelon.usc.edu (Steve) writes:
>In article <1988Jul19.235426.15443@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>>Easy.  Special relativity tells us that there is no such thing as mass or
>>energy in isolation:  you always have both.  That means that energy, e.g.
>>light, has mass.  And so it does, and hence it has momentum, and bouncing
>>it off a reflective surface imparts momentum to said surface.  Light does
>
>If the light bounces off the sail, how does it impart momentum.  What 
>energy of the photon is now reduced?  I think the photons must be
>ABSORBED by the sail for this to work.
>
>=Steve=

Momentum is a vector.   When a photon bounces vertically off a light-sail,
its momentum reverses itself, so the momentum it gives the light-sail
is twice its original momentum (in its original direction).

The energy given to the sail is taken away from the photon and appears
as a redshift.  N.B. the energy is equal to momentum transfer times
the velocity of the sail, so when the sail is stationary, there is
no energy transfer as well as no redshift.  (I know what I'm talking
about, so if you disagree, mail me first and I'll explain it.)

		David Palmer
		palmer@tybalt.caltech.edu
		...rutgers!cit-vax!tybalt.caltech.edu!palmer
			"Flowers -- Just say NO!!"
					- Mighty Mouse

------------------------------

Date: 21 Jul 88 02:41:22 GMT
From: yee@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: Proposals sought for space-based laser to study global winds (Forwarded)

Charles Redmond
Headquarters, Washington, D.C.                      July 21, 1988

Bob Lessels
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.


RELEASE:  88-103

PROPOSALS SOUGHT FOR SPACE-BASED LASER TO STUDY GLOBAL WINDS


     NASA's Marshall Space FLight Center, Huntsville, Ala., today 
issued a request for design proposals for a new, space-based 
remote sensing instrument to measurement wind characteristics, 
thereby permitting scientists to better understand and contribute 
to weather predictions on Earth. 

     The Laser Atmospheric Wind Sounder will be an advanced light 
detection and ranging (LIDAR) instrument.  Just as radar operates 
by bouncing radio waves off distant objects and sonar bounces 
sound waves off underwater objects, LIDAR bounces light waves, 
generated by a laser, off atmospheric particles.  Analysis of the 
reflected light will reveal the direction and speed of the winds 
and provide information on the amount of particulate matter, 
known as "aerosols", suspended in the atmosphere.

     The sounder will provide real-time global wind profiles for 
the lowest weather-producing layer of the Earth's atmosphere.  
Whether obtained globally using the polar-orbiting Earth 
Observing System platform or from the tropics and subtropics 
using the manned Space Station, the wind profiles will provide 
essential data to improve understanding of the global 
biogeochemical and hydrologic cycles and understanding of large 
scale atmospheric circulation and climate dynamics.  This new 
information also can be used by weather forecasters worldwide as 
an aid in improving their numerical predictions.

     According to Carmine E. De Sanctis, chief of the Space 
Science and Applications Group at the Marshall center, the 
sounder could be operational by 1996 as one phase of NASA's 
larger Earth Observing System initiative.  

     The sounder would enable meteorologists at the National 
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to develop more accurate 
5-day weather forecasts.  At present, severe weather warnings can 
be issued only for broad areas of the United States.

       A major problem is an inability to obtain global wind 
velocity measurements.  "Most atmospheric wind velocity data is 
obtained using sounding balloons," Dr. Vernon Keller, the 
sounder's assistant project manager, said.  "Unfortunately, most 
of these balloons are, of necessity, launched from land.  More 
than two-thirds of the Earth's surface, however, is water, thus 
there exist large areas of the globe -- particularly in the 
southern hemisphere -- which receive only minimal measurement 
coverage."  

     The sounder will allow worldwide coverage with special 
emphasis given to tropical and subtropical areas where, 
previously, measurements have been sparse to non-existent.

     According to Richard Beranek, the sounder's project manager, 
"It will enable forecasters to obtain wind velocity data from 
ground level up to an altitude exceeding 40,000 feet.  
Preliminary concepts involve using a proven carbon dioxide 
coherent laser, operated at an eye-safe infrared wavelength, to 
survey winds over Earth's entire surface at least once a day.  
Data would be provided to meteorologists worldwide to assist in 
developing weather projections to benefit all mankind."

     In addition to weather projections, researchers anticipate 
the data will assist in analyzing the impact natural occurences, 
such as volcanic eruptions, and human activity, such as the slash 
and burn land clearing now under way in many developing 
countries, are having on the global environment, Beranek said.

     Dr. Keller said the earliest work on the sounder began at 
the Marshall center in 1967 with various designs being tested on 
the ground.  In 1981, tests began using a laser atmospheric wind 
sounder-like system aboard an aircraft.  Results obtained during 
the last 21 years have left Marshall engineers feeling confident 
in proposing the space-based system.

     "We hope to see a design emerge which will be flexible 
enough to permit us to incorporate state-of-the-art advances in 
lasers, optics and other related systems as they emerge over the 
sounder's projected lifespan," De Sanctis said.  "The beneficial 
impact it will have on enhancing our understanding of the 
environment is certain to be very significant."

------------------------------

Date: 21 Jul 88 16:47:04 GMT
From: att!lzaz!lznv!psc@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Paul S. R. Chisholm)
Subject: Trust Fund Proposed for Space Ventures

< "Would you buy a used operating system from these guys?" >

from Design News, 7/4/88, p. 26:

"With tight federal budgets, how can the nation pay to meet growing
opportunities in space?  New Jersey's Rep. Robert A. Roe, chairman of
the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, proposes a trust
fund like the one that financed the interstate highway system.  He
thinks Americans would gladly buy bonds to support thrusts across space
frontiers.  Roe doubts that Uncle Sam alone could finance such costly
proposals as an inhabited base on the moon or a joint U.S.-Soviet
manned mission to Mars.  The National Aeronautics and Space
Administration has a tough enough fight getting funds for a manned
orbiting space facility. . . .  --Walter S. Wingo, Washington Editor"

[Typical of N.J. reps; "I'm in favor of the space program, if you can
build an interstate to orbit."]

-Paul S. R. Chisholm, {ihnp4,cbosgd,allegra,rutgers}!mtune!lznv!psc
AT&T Mail !psrchisholm, Internet psc@lznv.att.com
I'm not speaking for my employer, I'm just speaking my mind.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #308
*******************

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Date: Mon, 1 Aug 88 19:05:46 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8808020205.AA08893@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #309

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 309

Today's Topics:
			   Re: Solar Sails
			 Re: Ramscoop engine
			   Re: Solar Sails
	       Re: Space Station Alternatives Required
			 Re: Von Braun quote
			   Re: Solar Sails
			   Re: Solar Sails
Re: Special communications system prepared for Neptune encounter (Forwarded)
			   Re: Solar Sails
			  Shuttle-C details
			Re: Shuttle-C details
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 21 Jul 88 16:58:49 GMT
From: att!lzaz!lznv!psc@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Paul S. R. Chisholm)
Subject: Re: Solar Sails

< "Would you buy a used operating system from these guys?" >

In article <10922@oberon.USC.EDU>, robiner@ganelon.usc.edu (Steve) writes:
> If the light bounces off the sail, how does it impart momentum.  What 
> energy of the photon is now reduced?  I think the photons must be
> ABSORBED by the sail for this to work.

Imagine (if you will:-) a photon travelling from left to right.  It has
momentum of p kg-m/sec (x component; y and z components are zero).

It strikes the light sail and is momentarily absorbed.  An electron in
the light sail goes to a higher energy level, and the light sail's
momentum is increased by p (in the x direction).

A short while later, the photon is re-emitted in the direction from
which it came.  The excited electron settles down, the photon now has
momentum -p, and the light sail's momentum has increased by by 2p.

-Paul S. R. Chisholm, {ihnp4,cbosgd,allegra,rutgers}!mtune!lznv!psc
AT&T Mail !psrchisholm, Internet psc@lznv.att.com
I'm not speaking for my employer, I'm just speaking my mind.

------------------------------

Date: 21 Jul 88 14:05:42 GMT
From: aplcen!aplcomm!stdc.jhuapl.edu!jwm@mimsy.umd.edu  (Jim Meritt)
Subject: Re: Ramscoop engine

In article <1988Jul19.045507.25185@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
}Agreed that there is a real problem with doing something with the
}interstellar mass once you've got it; fusing ordinary hyrdogen is not
}easy.  If you're willing to sacrifice the fuelless nature of the Bussard
}ramjet, one way around the problem is to react the interstellar gas with
}antimatter carried on board.  *That* reaction is fast!


"How about quantum fluctuations?" he said, dodging the bricks. "I read a
read interesting article in JBIS a year or so ago...."

Comments on vaccum energy, anyone?


Disclaimer: Individuals have opinions, organizations have policy.
            Therefore, these opinions are mine and not any organizations!
Q.E.D.
jwm@aplvax.jhuapl.edu 128.244.65.5  (James W. Meritt)

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 21 Jul 88 23:59 EDT
From: "OK, IS THIS BETTER?" <HINSOND%UNCG.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu>

+ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Shari Landes (mind!shari@princeton.edu):

>Is it possible that if you travel faster than the speed of light in space,
>and come back to earth, you would be able to see yourself in the past?
>
>I think it is possible because when you approach the speed of light, time slows
>down, and if you travel the speed of light, time stops.
>But, if you return to earth, after traveling in space faster than the speed
>of light, would you be able to see yourself before you left?

This is a very intriguing question but I'm afraid the answer is disappointingly
simple:  If time travel were possible, wouldn't someone have told us by now?
Think about it..

q:)

----------------------------------------------------------
######################  Dave Hinson ######################
             T I M E  L O R D  A T  L A R G E
Disclaimer:  I make no excuses, I am totally irresponsible
----------------------------------------------------------

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: 21 Jul 88 15:39:02 GMT
From: sgi!daisy!wooding@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Mike Wooding)
Subject: Re: Solar Sails

In article <1988Jul19.235426.15443@utzoo.uucp>, henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
> >... My question is this: just how does the sun 'push'
> >against the sail? Is it the solar wind of charged particles (protons and elec-
> >trons), or the the actual photonic flux, or both?
> 
> It's mostly the light; as I recall it, the solar wind contributes very little.

 An earlier poster suggested tacking (sailing up wind - er is that
 up light?) might be possible. How's that work. Doesn't a sail boat
 depend on keel and aerodynamic effects on sail? Would "solar" wind
 be "channeled" to produce high and low pressure areas? 
> -- 
> Anyone who buys Wisconsin cheese is|  Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
> a traitor to mankind.  --Pournelle |uunet!mnetor!utzoo! henry @zoo.toronto.edu

 m wooding

------------------------------

Date: 22 Jul 88 01:49:52 GMT
From: al@eos.arc.nasa.gov  (Al Globus)
Subject: Re: Space Station Alternatives Required

>From article <8807160300.AA07099@crash.cts.com>, by jim@pnet01.cts.COM (Jim Bowery):
> This congressman, who has supported full funding for
> the space station every time it came up, is certain that, for political
> reasons, the space station WILL BE CANCELLED.  He shares our concern.
> 
> We ask the help of all pro-space people in ensuring that there are
> alternatives to the space station just in case.

My favorite alternatives are broken up into diciplines:

* Manned presence - extend shuttle stay time.  There are a number of
ways to do this.  I think you can get up to about a month.

* Microgravity - use the Industrial Space Facility.  Essentially a man tended
space station under development by private industry in (I think) Texas.
Most of the materials people are unhappy about astronauts moving about
and degrading the gravity environment anyway.

* Life Science - use Mir.  Life science research has little technology
transfer problem and the long lead times make dependence on the Soviet's
a minor issue.  If they cut us off we'd have plenty of time (and incentive!)
to get a facility together before any serious problems developed.

* Astronomy - dedicated facilities.  Launch with one of the bevy of
commercial launchers.  Space Station is lousy place to
put most astronomy instruments anyway.

* Earth viewing - same as astronomy.

* Orbital construction - design a new space station for this purpose only.
Since it is a single purpose facility it should be MUCH cheaper -
the integration problems will be much less (believe me, I know).

A big advantage of breaking the Space Station up into a lot of small
facilities is robustness.  Any single failure will not take out the
whole ball of wax.  Just think if we ever really built our $20 billion
station then had a major accident ala Challeger.  It would be the
end of the manned space program (and maybe NASA).  Putting all our
eggs into a single facility is a very bad idea.  And that's what
Space Station is, a single facility.

------------------------------

Date: 21 Jul 88 18:18:43 GMT
From: att!whuts!homxb!mtuxo!tee@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (54317-T.EBERSOLE)
Subject: Re: Von Braun quote

In article <1219@thumper.bellcore.com>, karn@thumper.bellcore.com (Phil R. Karn) writes:
> 
> I've never understood why it's so necessary to put humans into space in
> order to benefit from their ability to react to unforseen circumstances.
> In many situations, it makes far more sense to keep such people on the
> ground instead of sending them along with the payload, especially since
> the state of the communications art has gotten so good. 

But it would'nt be near as much fun!

-- 
Tim Ebersole ...!{allegra,ulysses,ihnp4,mtune,...}!mtuxo!tee

------------------------------

Date: 21 Jul 88 07:42:14 GMT
From: unisoft!gethen!abostick@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Alan Bostick)
Subject: Re: Solar Sails

In article <1748@puff.cs.wisc.edu> eric@puff.cs.wisc.edu (Eric "TheBoo" Bazan) writes:
>I can under-
>stand how actual particles could exert a push against physical matter, but
>not photonics energy. If so, how does photonic energy 'push' matter in a vac-
>uum. I have a poor physics background, so this may be a stupid question, but 
>I'm curious anyway.
>
>			thanks,
>				-Eric(eric@shorty.cs.wisc.edu)
>				      eric@cs.wisc.edu

Photons _are_ actual particles, that happen not to have rest mass.

The energy of a photon is related to its momentum by the formula

			E = c*p

E = energy, p= magnitude of momentum, and c = speed of light.  This
comes (take your pick) out of relativity, or out of classical
electromagnetic theory.

When light is reflected off a lightsail (or any mirror) it changes
direction of propagation, and hence its momentum changes.  When it is
normally incident (i.e. direction of propagation is perpendicular to the
reflecting surface) the momentum changes direction by 180 degrees; or,
if you will, the momentum changes sign.  The photon changes its momentum
in this case by 2*p, where p was the magnitude of its original momentum.
Since overall momentum must be conserved, that means that the reflecting
surface was given a kick of momentum of magnitude 2*p in the direction
that the photon was originally traveling.  Expressed in terms of the
photon's energy, the kick of momentum given to the reflector is 2*E/c.
Now, the Solar constant is a measure of power flux, the amount of energy
passing through a given area in a given time.  So a reflector will be
given a steady momentum push over that unit time equal to the total
energy reflected in that time.  That is to say, the _pressure_ on the
reflector due to the incident light which is reflected will be given by

		P = 2*S/c

where P is the pressure (force per unit area), S is the solar constant,
and c is the speed of light.  This means that, in the neighborhood of
the earth (above the atmosphere) the pressure exerted on a reflector is
about 4.0e-6 Nt/(m**2).  That is to say, it will take a reflecting
surface of rather more than 2 million square meters (or, roughly, a
circular mirror over one and a half kilometers in diameter) to be able
to accelerate a mass of one kilogram at a rate of one gravity, and that
kilogram has to include the weight of the reflecting surface!  Clearly
this is not the way to go if you are in a hurry; but if you are willing
to travel at a more leisurely pace, solar sails have promising
properties.

					Alan Bostick
					ucbvax!unisoft!gethen!abostick

------------------------------

Date: 20 Jul 88 04:45:39 GMT
From: unmvax!charon!geinah.unm.edu!ee2131ac@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (SEDS-UNM)
Subject: Re: Solar Sails


Members of the solar sails discussion might be interested in the work    
done by Steve Abrams at the Univ. of Texas at Austin.  He will be
presenting a paper on solar sails this August during the SEDS 1988
International Conference in Houston.

Steve can be reached at:  sedspace@doc.cc.utexas.edu

-Ollie

------------------------------

Date: 21 Jul 88 18:17:50 GMT
From: ulysses!thumper!karn@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: Special communications system prepared for Neptune encounter (Forwarded)

> ... Linked
> electronically, the two systems -- 23 VLA antennas that now have 
> their X-Band receivers, and the 112-foot and 230-foot dishes at 
> Goldstone -- will function as a single receiving system.   

I'm curious to know just what this means. Are the received signals from
the two sites being added coherently, as in VLBI?

Phil

------------------------------

Date: 21 Jul 88 18:40:30 GMT
From: ulysses!thumper!karn@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: Solar Sails

> [...] My recollection is that
> people who run orbiting satellites have to take it into consideration as
> a minor source of orbit perturbations.

The effect of solar radiation pressure on a satellite's orbit is usually
negligible. Of course, it can become significant for an unusually large
and light satellite like Echo, or a satellite with a solar sail.

The effect of solar radiation pressure on a satellite's ATTITUDE, on the
other hand, is major -- in most cases it is the single most significant
perturbing force. Voyager was able to save a considerable amount of
attitude control fuel early in its mission by slowly rolling around its
antenna boresight axis during the cruise phase. This had the effect of
averaging out the effect of the solar radiation torque on the
magnetometer boom, greatly reducing the angular momentum imparted to the
spacecraft that had to be removed with the attitude control thrusters. I
am hoping that we can use a similar trick with AMSAT Phase IV, since the
antennas present an assymetrical cross section to the sun.

On AMSAT-Oscar-7, each of the 145/432 MHz turnstile antenna elements
(made out of ordinary metal carpenter's rule from the local hardware
store!) was painted white on one side and black on the other.  The
radiation pressure of light on a reflecting surface is twice that of
light on an absorbing surface, so the resulting torque produced a nice
slow spin.  A permanent bar magnet along the spin axis kept the spin
axis in line with the earth's magnetic field, and the eddy current drag
of the earth's magnetic field cutting across the metallic spacecraft
kept the spin rate from ramping up too high. Note that the direction of
rotation is OPPOSITE that of the toy "radiometers" one can find in
science museum gift shops. They contain air and work by the reaction of
the heated air on the black surface; this force exceeds the imbalance in
photon pressure.

Phil

------------------------------

Date:     Fri, 22 Jul 88 10:49:14 CDT
From: Will Martin -- AMXAL-RI <wmartin@almsa-1.arpa>
Subject:  Shuttle-C details

>From the recently-Digested Canopus summaries:
> SHUTTLE-C COULD HELP SPACE STATION - can880507.txt - 5/10/88
> 
> Shuttle-C looks much the current Space Shuttle but for wings and
> vertical stabilizer which are lacking, and windows on the forward
> fuselage. It would use the same boosters and tank, and would carry
> its cargo in a strongback sitting above an engine module identical to
> the Shuttle's boattail section.

I think this was mentioned earlier, but I just cannot recall -- is this
shuttle variant recoverable or a one-time-use unit? Without the wings or
tail it certainly cannot fly back, even under remote control, but
perhaps it is designed for parachute recovery?

If it is one-time use, how can the engine module be identical to the
regular shuttle? I thought the only justification for the very expensive
SSMEs was that they would be re-used "n" times to make them economically
viable. Or is the thing supposed to stay in orbit for use as a tug or
something? 

If it is recovered by 'chute, is the basic structure (the "strongback"
mentioned above) stronger than the regular shuttle? There have been
numerous postings about the fact that the shuttle would break up if
ditched, so either sea- or land-based 'chute recovery would depend on
the structure being strong enough to withstand rough touchdowns.

Regards, Will Martin

------------------------------

Date: 24 Jul 88 21:38:31 GMT
From: cfa!cfa250!willner@husc6.harvard.edu  (Steve Willner P-316 x57123)
Subject: Re: Shuttle-C details

>From article <8807221618.AA24068@angband.s1.gov>, by
wmartin@ALMSA-1.ARPA (Will Martin -- AMXAL-RI): 
> I think this was mentioned earlier, but I just cannot recall -- is this
> shuttle variant recoverable or a one-time-use unit? 
> If it is one-time use, how can the engine module be identical to the
> regular shuttle? 

Here's some more information from CANOPUS that was omitted from the
condensation: 

With a two-engine module, Shuttle-C would be able to place 
100,000 pounds in the Space Station orbit (253 miles). A three-
engine module would raise that to 150,000 pounds. The manned 
Shuttle at present is rated for 43,000 pounds to that altitude.

For the Space Station scenario, an Orbital Maneuvering Vehicle 
(an unmanned, short-range space tug now in development) would be 
atop the payload. Its guidance system would be tied into the 
Shuttle-C maneuvering system and would direct it to the Space 
Station. After the payload was off-loaded, the OMV would send the 
empty Shuttle-C on a re-entry course and then return itself to 
the Station.

Eudy said that disposing of the boattail and its main engines 
was found to be more economical than recycling. The main engines 
would be drawn from the manned Shuttles after 10 missions rather 
than being overhauled. A 50 percent discount in engine costs 
could be realized by the increased production rate this would 
demand.  

Development cost would be up to $1.5 billion. Current definition 
studies are to run through 1989. If the project is approved as a 
"new start," the first launch could come as before 1994, early 
enough to support Space Station.
-- 
Steve Willner            Phone 617-495-7123         Bitnet:   willner@cfa
60 Garden St.            FTS:      830-7123           UUCP:   willner@cfa
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA                 Internet: willner@cfa.harvard.edu

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #309
*******************

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Date: Tue, 2 Aug 88 01:06:04 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8808020806.AA09040@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #310

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 310

Today's Topics:
			      Ramscoops
		      Re: tacking of Solar Sails
      What should a PRO-space political action organization do?
			 Re: Orbital Elements
			   Re: Solar Sails
			    Re: Ramscoops
	    Re: International agreements on space station
			   Re: Solar Sails
			  Re: Spy Satellites
			   Re: Solar Sails
			 Re: Von Braun quote
	      Re: Trust Fund Proposed for Space Ventures
			 Re: Von Braun quote
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 22 Jul 88 15:40:08 -0400 (EDT)
From: Ted Anderson <ota+@andrew.cmu.edu>
X-Andrew-Message-Size: 1387+0
Cc: GILL%QUCDNAST.BITNET@cornellc.ccs.cornell.edu
Subject: Ramscoops

   a.cs.uiuc.edu!p.cs.uiuc.edu!carey@ee.ecn.purdue.edu  writes:

>One more question I can think of off the top of my head -- what happens
>to heat dissipation as time slows down?  As the fusion reactor approaches
>light-speed, would its heat dissipation also slow down, thus causing
>a meltdown?

     My first reaction to the above was "AAAAAAAArrrrrrrrrgggggghhhh!!!!!!".
The person asking the question obviously knows very little about
relativity.  Time only "slows down" for the stationary observer
comparing his/her time measurements of something happening at high
velocity with those of the observer who is moving at that velocity.  In
the case of the ramscoop, the fusion/magnetic field generators are also
travelling at the high velocity, and thus experience no time dilation.
Thermodynamics are exactly normal.  However, an observer who sees the
ramscoop travelling at relativistic speeds will see a lot of red or blue
shifted thermal radiation profiles from the ramscoop.


-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Arnold Gill                              | If you don't complain to those who
|
Queen's University at Kingston           | implemented the problem, you have
|
gill @ qucdnast.bitnet                   | no right to complain at all !
|

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

------------------------------

Date: 22 Jul 88 17:05:32 GMT
From: pioneer.arc.nasa.gov!eugene@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Eugene N. Miya)
Subject: Re: tacking of Solar Sails


This, I think, is part of the beauty of experimental research.  There
are preliminary ideas about the use of sails, but we really have to test
them.  Face it, we don't know many of these questions with certainty,
now that's where part of the human in space fun will be!  It's amusing
to hear about sailing (real sailing) from landlubbers and on the other
hand the salts will probably have their intuition jolted.  We're just
learning this stuff.  "Jibe ho!"

Another gross generalization from

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@aurora.arc.nasa.gov
  resident cynic at the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:
  "Mailers?! HA!", "If my mail does not reach you, please accept my apology."
  {uunet,hplabs,ncar,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."
  I'll crew on your boat anytime.

------------------------------

Reply-To: mordor!rutgers!trout.nosc.mil!pnet01!jim
Date: Thu, 21 Jul 88 20:25:35 PDT
From: mordor!rutgers!pnet01.cts.com!jim (Jim Bowery)
To: crash!space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: What should a PRO-space political action organization do?

There are rumors that, due to difficulties with existing organizations,
a new political action organization is forming to promote PRO space
positions with the US government.  I'd be interested in hearing from
people who are dissatisfied with existing organizations claiming to
promote space.  What positions would YOU like to see a new organization
to promote?  Please send your responses to me via personal email.


Jim Bowery                   PHONE: 619/295-8868


UUCP: {cbosgd, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!pnet01!jim
ARPA: crash!pnet01!jim@nosc.mil
INET: jim@pnet01.cts.com

------------------------------

Date: 22 Jul 88 00:07:51 GMT
From: tektronix!sequent!mntgfx!mbutts@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Mike Butts)
Subject: Re: Orbital Elements

>From article <8807191911.AA20419@angband.s1.gov>, by 29284843@WSUVM1.BITNET (Andrew Vaught):
> 
> I appreciate people posting the orbital elements of various (Soviet)
> spacecraft. Unfortunately, I don't know enough orbital mechanics in order
> to convert these to a time/position for my long./lat.  Could someone post
> a good reference to how to do this, or tell me where a conversion program
> (preferably source) is archived?
> 
Several posted requests prompt posting a general reply:

Tracking programs for many personal computers are in a list available
from AMSAT (Radio Amateur Satellite Corp.), which is the non-profit
organization responsible for Amateur Radio comm-sats.  They conducted
the recent sparklingly successful OSCAR-13 launch via Arianne 4. (Yayyy!!!)

(OSCAR-13 is a public-access radio repeater in a Molniya-type 12-hour 
elliptical orbit which allows hams to conduct inter-continental voice 
contacts for hours at a time with relatively modest 10 watt VHF 
equipment.)

I don't know where generic source code is available, but someone else 
on the net probably does. (???)

You may also buy some of these programs from AMSAT.  Quik-Trak for
IBM PCs seems to be popular, and I'm happy with MacTrak for
Macintosh.  These programs will give you orbital tracks in real
time or in the future, with tabular or graphical map output, given
the Keplerian elements often posted on rec.ham-radio and sci.space.

Inquires about membership and ham-sats in general should be sent to 
AMSAT, P.O. Box 27, Washington, D.C.  20044.  Donations may be tax 
deductible.  You may call at 301-589-6062 for information
or to order satellite tracking software.

-- 
Mike Butts, Research Engineer         KC7IT           503-626-1302
Mentor Graphics Corp., 8500 SW Creekside Place, Beaverton OR 97005
...!{sequent,tessi,apollo}!mntgfx!mbutts OR  mbutts@pdx.MENTOR.COM
These are my opinions, & not necessarily those of Mentor Graphics.

------------------------------

Date: 22 Jul 88 19:05:41 GMT
From: aplcen!aplcomm!stdc.jhuapl.edu!jwm@mimsy.umd.edu  (Jim Meritt)
Subject: Re: Solar Sails

In article <1413@daisy.UUCP> wooding@daisy.UUCP (Mike Wooding) writes:
} An earlier poster suggested tacking (sailing up wind - er is that
} up light?) might be possible. How's that work. Doesn't a sail boat
} depend on keel and aerodynamic effects on sail? Would "solar" wind
} be "channeled" to produce high and low pressure areas? 


Gravity - use vector component of reflected light to speed or slow
orbital velocity, and so go insun & outsun.

Can't tack with solar flux, only photons...


Disclaimer: Individuals have opinions, organizations have policy.
            Therefore, these opinions are mine and not any organizations!
Q.E.D.
jwm@aplvax.jhuapl.edu 128.244.65.5  (James W. Meritt)

------------------------------

Date: 23 Jul 88 04:23:10 GMT
From: dietz@cu-arpa.cs.cornell.edu  (Paul F. Dietz)
Subject: Re: Ramscoops

>>One more question I can think of off the top of my head -- what happens
>>to heat dissipation as time slows down?  As the fusion reactor approaches
>>light-speed, would its heat dissipation also slow down, thus causing
>>a meltdown?
>
>     My first reaction to the above was "AAAAAAAArrrrrrrrrgggggghhhh!!!!!!".
>The person asking the question obviously knows very little about
>relativity.

My first reaction was similar.  But there's a good point.  The power
output of the fusion reactor must increase as the vehicle accelerates,
if thrust is to be constant.  This is true even in a newtonian universe.
If fractional losses are constant then waste heat will increase with
velocity.

	Paul F. Dietz
	dietz@gvax.cs.cornell.edu

------------------------------

Date: 22 Jul 88 05:06:07 GMT
From: attcan!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: International agreements on space station

In article <8807201411.AA21693@angband.s1.gov> PICARD@gmr.COM (RON PICARD) writes:
>Is Fletcher crying wolf or is this the next (final) step in
>eliminating any credibility NASA may still have?  It should
>at least make the Russians think twice about a cooperative
>mission to Mars anytime soon.

Fletcher has been crying awfully hard lately, but as I have said before,
I rate the station's chances as poor going on abysmal.  NASA has taken
a perfectly straightforward idea and gold-plated it beyond what the US
feels like paying.

Anyone who undertakes *any* cooperative space project with the US these
days and doesn't consider it a high-risk venture needs his head examined.
NASA's credibility in this area has been nearly zero for a long time.
-- 
Anyone who buys Wisconsin cheese is|  Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
a traitor to mankind.  --Pournelle |uunet!mnetor!utzoo! henry @zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 22 Jul 88 05:17:56 GMT
From: attcan!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Solar Sails

In article <10922@oberon.USC.EDU> robiner@ganelon.usc.edu (Steve) writes:
>If the light bounces off the sail, how does it impart momentum.  What 
>energy of the photon is now reduced?  I think the photons must be
>ABSORBED by the sail for this to work.

No.  Momentum, not energy.  Momentum is a vector quantity; the photon has
not lost energy, but it has changed direction.  It has gained momentum
in one direction, the sail has gained it in the other.  No conservation
laws are violated in providing thrust without losing energy (the chair
you are sitting on has to thrust upward against your behind to keep you
from falling to the floor, but it is not expending energy to do so).

If the sail is accelerating, as opposed to (say) hovering against the
Sun's gravity, then it is gaining kinetic energy as well and that energy
has to come from somewhere.  And it does:  as the sail accelerates, the
light reflected from it is Doppler-shifted to longer wavelengths by the
sail's motion, i.e. the light is losing energy.  Not much, but then the
sail isn't gaining much either, at typical solar-sail accelerations!
-- 
Anyone who buys Wisconsin cheese is|  Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
a traitor to mankind.  --Pournelle |uunet!mnetor!utzoo! henry @zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 21 Jul 88 16:48:47 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Spy Satellites

In article <12262@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> weemba@garnet.berkeley.edu (Obnoxious Math Grad Student) writes:
>Cryptological information is born classified.  And probably some stuff
>involving optics.

Please cite references for this.  I, too, thought this at one point, but
was corrected (over in sci.crypt, whose participants include some ex-pro
cryppies).  NSA would undoubtedly *like* "born classified" status for
crypto stuff, but they haven't managed to arrange it.

The much-heralded cases in recent years of heavy-handed DoD suppression
of papers at the last minute, etc., have either involved DoD funding which
had explicit strings attached, or were cases of bureaucratic intimidation
without legal basis.
-- 
Anyone who buys Wisconsin cheese is|  Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
a traitor to mankind.  --Pournelle |uunet!mnetor!utzoo! henry @zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 22 Jul 88 21:32:18 GMT
From: thumper!karn@faline.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: Solar Sails

We had a big discussion on this some time ago. The answer is that you
can't "tack" in the same way that a sailboat can, but you instead
exploit the laws of orbital mechanics to do interesting things.  You
have some limited control over the direction of the force on your sail
by changing the angle of the sail to the sun, since the net momentum
imparted by a solar photon is the vector sum of the incident and
reflected photon momenta.

The instantaneous force will always have a component pointing away from
the sun.  However, if you're in orbit around the sun, you can orient
your sail to create a velocity component that either adds to or
subtracts from your orbital velocity vector, so it's possible to either
raise or lower your orbit.  I suppose this could be called "tacking" in
a loose, metaphorical sense.

Phil

------------------------------

Date: 22 Jul 88 21:51:43 GMT
From: thumper!karn@faline.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: Von Braun quote

> > I've never understood why it's so necessary to put humans into space in
> > order to benefit from their ability to react to unforseen circumstances.

> But it would'nt be near as much fun!

*NOW* we're getting somewhere. I'd object far less to the human-in-space
camp if they were only up front and honest about their motivations. I
enjoy a shuttle launch as much as anyone (I was one of the few people
who saw Challenger blow up in real time on TV) but I don't fool myself
into believing that flying humans on a Shuttle is the best way to launch
a geostationary communications satellite.

There *are* a few legitimate applications for humans in orbit, such as
life sciences research, or even Christa McAuliffe's planned science
class demonstrations. I also appreciate the human adventure and the
sheer entertainment value more than you might think. BUT I am careful to
distinguish these latter aspects from practical issues like
cost-effectiveness.

Unfortunately, many people simply don't do this. The result is something
resembling a religious cult that spends much of its time reinforcing
each others' rationalizations for putting as many humans into space as
possible, whether or not it makes rational, economic sense.

Phil

------------------------------

Date: 22 Jul 88 13:01:53 GMT
From: b.gp.cs.cmu.edu!Ralf.Brown%B.GP.CS.CMU.EDU@pt.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: Trust Fund Proposed for Space Ventures

In article <1414@lznv.ATT.COM>, psc@lznv.ATT.COM (Paul S. R. Chisholm) writes:
}[Typical of N.J. reps; "I'm in favor of the space program, if you can
}build an interstate to orbit."]

Hmm, I wonder if the Launch Loop would apeal to him....

--
UUCP: {ucbvax,harvard}!cs.cmu.edu!ralf -=-=-=- Voice: (412) 268-3053 (school)
ARPA: ralf@cs.cmu.edu  BIT: ralf%cs.cmu.edu@CMUCCVMA  FIDO: Ralf Brown 1:129/31
Disclaimer? I     |Ducharm's Axiom:  If you view your problem closely enough
claimed something?|   you will recognize yourself as part of the problem.

------------------------------

Date: 22 Jul 88 21:14:30 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Von Braun quote

In article <1219@thumper.bellcore.com> karn@thumper.bellcore.com (Phil R. Karn) writes:
>Henry, I'm impressed. You *have* been reading up on us, haven't you!

No, actually, I was on the net and watching the Amsat news when it first
happened...

>But since you like to quote anecdotes, let's pick the Solar Max rescue
>mission. Remember how George ("Pinky") Nelson grabbed one of the solar
>arrays in an attempt to stop the satellite from spinning? ...

Phil, I didn't say humans were immune from stupidity.  Especially since
the instructions for that EVA specifically said "hands off the solar
arrays"!  Note that a similar, but slightly better thought-out, method
worked perfectly for the Leasat repair.

>... And I won't even mention the strong likelihood that
>the rescue mission cost more than a simple replacement would have.

Sure sounds to me like mentioning it... :-)  The economics of many of
these things are sensitive to what assumptions one makes about launch
costs.  One would hope that people saying "humans in space aren't worth
it" would preface it with "at current launch prices"... but they don't.
Do remember that the Solar Max rescue mission wasn't a dedicated shuttle
flight; the reason they had practically the entire payload bay empty was
the LDEF deployment.

>I've never understood why it's so necessary to put humans into space in
>order to benefit from their ability to react to unforseen circumstances.

It isn't necessary, it just helps a lot.  Teleoperation has some -- not
all, but some -- of the same limitations as automation.  Especially since
really general-purpose waldos are still in a very primitive state.

>[The human crew] need not be
>prime physical specimens; they can be chosen solely for their technical
>skills and perhaps even their understanding of the basic physics of
>rotating bodies (unlike Pinky Nelson).

This problem is already mostly licked, since the shuttle's acceleration
is deliberately held down to the point where any healthy adult could fly
on it.  This was a specific design goal, as I recall.  Don't confuse silly
NASA policies with fundamental hardware constraints.

>Your arguments represent a convincing case for versatile remote control,
>not for manned spaceflight...

I would agree, were it not that I know of no remote-control hardware that
I would call "versatile".  Remote control is great if the problems you
run into are along the lines that the designers anticipated.  The Voyager
team has done minor miracles with remote control... but considering how
badly Voyager 2 is limping, I suspect any of them would sacrifice one or
two semi-essential parts of his/her anatomy to get a repair technician
out to V2 for six hours.

>[AO-10] With the help of a versatile on-board computer
>that can be completely reprogrammed from the ground,  we were able to
>save the mission.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but as I recall the operative words were "save
the mission", as opposed to "carry out the mission as if nothing had
happened".  You did have to accept some penalties, did you not?
-- 
Anyone who buys Wisconsin cheese is|  Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
a traitor to mankind.  --Pournelle |uunet!mnetor!utzoo! henry @zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #310
*******************

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Date: Tue, 2 Aug 88 19:04:01 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8808030204.AA00300@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #311

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 311

Today's Topics:
			   Born classified
			 Re: Born classified
			   Re: Space Suits
			   Re: Solar Sails
		      Re: KH-11 Orbital Elements
			   FTL time travel
		       Solar flares and *nauts
		     Re: Libertarian space policy
		   Re: space news from June 6 AW&ST
			 Re: Born classified
			    Lofstrom Loop
			     Re: Pegasus
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 23 Jul 88 22:40:11 GMT
From: pasteur!agate!garnet!weemba@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Obnoxious Math Grad Student)
Subject: Born classified

Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer, just someone who thinks he knows what he's
talking about.  Maybe I don't.  Apply my advice at your own risk.

In article <1988Jul21.164847.15389@utzoo.uucp>, henry@utzoo (Henry Spencer) writes:
>In article <12262@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> weemba@garnet.berkeley.edu (Obnoxious Math Grad Student) writes:
>>Cryptological information is born classified.  And probably some stuff
>>involving optics.

>Please cite references for this.

The phrase "born classified" does not have a unique meaning, and so we've
been talking past each other as a result.  Much of that is my fault, since
I was very cryptic.

One must-read basic reference is:

US Congress, House of Representatives, THE GOVERNMENT'S CLASSIFICATION OF
PRIVATE IDEAS, 1981.  Library of Congress call number: J61.E9.96th.v.13.

This is truly interesting reading.  Almost a thousand pages of testimony.
If you have even the slightest interest in the subject--go to your library
and read this monster.  You'll be glad you did.

The most clear-cut example of born-classified cryptology is in patent sec-
recy orders.  *ANY* defense agency can request a secrecy order.  The patent
office must grant these.  They require annual review, except in times of
"national emergency".  (The Korean emergency lasted until Jimmy Carter.
I don't care to estimate how long the Nicaraguan emergency will last.)

>	     NSA would undoubtedly *like* "born classified" status for
>crypto stuff, but they haven't managed to arrange it.

You are now talking about--I assume this based on your previous article--
the notion of born-classified provided by the Atomic Energy Act of 1954.
This provides for criminal sanctions to someone releasing "Restricted"
nuclear ideas.  Cryptology does not have this.

There was talk in the late seventies about getting an AEA-like act, but
Inman did not push it.  Instead, he lobbied in academia for the voluntary
review system, and he got it.

Inman, in his testimony, said that the NSA cannot classify or restrain
post-publication.  Note the pregnant non-comment about pre-publication.
If I remember correctly, he wandered around this point cautiously.

To date, NSA has gotten researchers to change or delete a few clauses, plus
convinced one researcher to not publish a particular paper.  They've also
permitted patents after slightly changing some details.

>The much-heralded cases in recent years of heavy-handed DoD suppression
>of papers at the last minute, etc., have either involved DoD funding which
>had explicit strings attached, or were cases of bureaucratic intimidation
>without legal basis.

Let's see.  Your summary of these needs amplification.

There was the Meyer letter to IEEE about the applicability of ITAR to crypt-
ology.  NSA claimed he acted on his own.  They made no comment as to whether
his claims were correct or not.  The law as written is definitely less than
clear on this point, and at the time, no cases had been decided.  Since then
they have been, and so far they have been in NSA's favor.  Surely you're
familiar with the difficulties over crypt and non-USA Unix!

Then there was the stink over the secrecy order for a cryptodevice patent
request by Davida and Wells, and another by Nicolai.  NSA did withdraw the
secrecy order on the grounds that it was not needed after a proper review.
Not on the grounds that they had no legal basis.  They do.

And then there was the humorous attempt to invoke prior restraint on the
Israeli mathematician Shamir in a talk of his last year.  Note that this
was done by the Army, not NSA!  The grapevine has it that NSA pulled the
necessary strings to undo this idiocy.  At least, Shamir thanked NSA in
his talk.  The Army did have the legal basis for what they did--they were
just incredibly incompetent about it.

So, what does this have to do with the original example?  Someone has pro-
grams to generate KH-11 predictions.  He is offering to make these gener-
ally available.  Since there is no AEA-like clause covering this, what he
is doing is not yet *criminal*.  But if NSA gets a restraining order, our
programmer can proceed only by being in contempt of court.  Most likely,
though, NSA will ignore it.  (Unless, I suppose, he tries to patent it.)

ucbvax!garnet!weemba	Matthew P Wiener/Brahms Gang/Berkeley CA 94720

------------------------------

Date: 24 Jul 88 00:45:36 GMT
From: thumper!karn@faline.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: Born classified

It would seem that there's a very simple way to evade a patent secrecy
order. Since you establish your claim at the moment you file, you simply
*publish immediately after filing*. By the time the idiots down at the
Pentagon even become aware of your application, it'll be too late.

Phil

------------------------------

Date: 24 Jul 88 01:33:50 GMT
From: dietz@cu-arpa.cs.cornell.edu  (Paul F. Dietz)
Subject: Re: Space Suits

On the subject of the Space Activity Suit:

Look in The Case for Mars II, pages 469-488 (1984).  W. Mitchell Clapp
(MIT) describes some work on space suit gloves using the SAS idea.
These gloves would go on an otherwise conventional space suit, and
were designed to be compatible with NASA hardware.

The gloves are made from Spandex or natural rubber.  They exert 3.5 psi
on the hand and fingers.  Special techniques devoped elsewhere for burn
bandages were used to design gloves that exert even pressure.  The glove
material has holes 0.5 mm across that exposes the skin to vacuum.

The gloves were tested in a partial vacuum chamber (3.5 psi below
atmospheric pressure).  They permitted much more dexterity and tactile
feedback than conventional gloves.  Little or no edema was evident.

Clapp also suggests using a 4.1 psi skinsuit inside a conventional space
suit.  This would subject the body to 8 psi, so much less prebreathing
would be required at the beginning of EVA.

	Paul F. Dietz
	dietz@gvax.cs.cornell.edu

------------------------------

Date: 23 Jul 88 20:44:27 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Solar Sails

In article <1413@daisy.UUCP> wooding@daisy.UUCP (Mike Wooding) writes:
> An earlier poster suggested tacking (sailing up wind - er is that
> up light?) might be possible. How's that work. Doesn't a sail boat
> depend on keel and aerodynamic effects on sail? Would "solar" wind
> be "channeled" to produce high and low pressure areas? 

No, you can't get anything useful out of that.  Solar sails can tack,
sort of, using gravity as the "keel".  It's not nearly as easy as tacking
a sailboat.  My understanding is that the primary technique is to kill
some of your orbital velocity (by setting the sail at an angle) and then
take in sail (by setting the sail edge-on to the Sun) and wait to fall
inwards.  A slooooow process, especially in the outer solar system.
-- 
Anyone who buys Wisconsin cheese is|  Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
a traitor to mankind.  --Pournelle |uunet!mnetor!utzoo! henry @zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 22 Jul 88 21:52:01 GMT
From: nbires!isis!scicom!wats@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Bruce Watson)
Subject: Re: KH-11 Orbital Elements

In article <6233@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU>, snowdog@athena.mit.edu (Richard the Nerd) writes:
> 
> A few of you asked for the Keplerian elements for the KH-11 spy
> satellite we have tracked down.  All right, here is our best set.  I
 
> the prediction.  Expect _big_ errors!  But it's really bright.
> 


I used the elements in my own Basic prog for the C-64 and got
a time of 03:42 for a S to N pass of the sat for the Denver area.

I saw a first magnitude object at about the predicted elevation in the east
heading north at 03:53.  Keep up the good work.

------------------------------

Date: 23 Jul 88 21:01:52 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: FTL time travel

>Is it possible that if you travel faster than the speed of light in space,
>and come back to earth, you would be able to see yourself in the past?
>I think it is possible because when you approach the speed of light, time slows
>down, and if you travel the speed of light, time stops.

Well, maybe.  Special relativity does say that faster-than-light travel
would resemble time travel in some ways -- suitably chosen observers could
see effect happening before cause.  Whether this could result in returning
before you left is a harder question; my relativity is too rusty for me
to answer it.

The possibility of effect preceding cause is widely interpreted as showing
that FTL travel is impossible, since it makes utter hash out of physics.
There is a minority opinion that says we're going to have to revise physics
to live with a looser notion of cause-and-effect anyway, since general
relativity seems to provide ways of (theoretically) building real, live
time machines.  (The majority is hoping that when general relativity is
replaced by a quantum theory of gravity, these distressing possibilities
will go away.)
-- 
Anyone who buys Wisconsin cheese is|  Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
a traitor to mankind.  --Pournelle |uunet!mnetor!utzoo! henry @zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Resent-Message-Id: <AWuq5Iy00VseIAv1sw@andrew.cmu.edu>
Resent-Date: Mon, 25 Jul 88 12:27:00 -0400 (EDT)
Resent-From: Ted Anderson <ota+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Resent-To: space@angband.s1.gov
Return-Path: <eos@spacvax.rice.edu>
Date: 22 Jul 88 18:05:00 CDT
From: "Pat Reiff" <eos@spacvax.rice.edu>
Subject: Solar flares and *nauts
To: "ota" <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Cc: eos@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: "Pat Reiff" <eos@spacvax.rice.edu>

With regard to the continuing discussion of energetic flare particles and man 
in space:
In response to Watson (SD 281):
  
>I've never heard whether or not Mitchner was making this up.

No, indeed.  I was a graduate student at Rice University working on plasma data
from a particle detector placed on the moon by Apollo 14 when the great flare
of August 2, 1982 hit.  That 1B flare had a flux of >35meV protons that was so
great that it penetrated the sides of the detector with ease (the detector
having more shielding than the average spacecraft).  I can't find the final
version of the paper I wrote on it (it was published in some obscure
collection), but I found an abstract for an AGU talk that I gave on it.  In
that abstract I said that the flux was estimated to be 10**5 to 10**6
particles/(sq cm - sec - steradian) for protons with energies above about 20
MeV.  I probably refined those numbers in the final paper.  At the time, my
thesis advisor, David Reasoner (who is now at Marshall Space Flight Center)
calcuated what the REM (roentgen equivalent in man) dose would have been for
that flux of particles.  I don't recall the numbers, but it would have been
fatal for someone even in the LEM, but the command module people might have 
survived.  We kept that result out of our paper (since the Apollo program 
was still going on at that time), but the fluxes were there for anyone to 
see.  We did tell the folks at Mission Control about it, of course, but
there really wasn't anything anyone could do.  The scenario that Michener
wrote about was right on the mark.  The only saving grace is that those flares 
are pretty rare.  

As for MIR cosmonauts, the inclination is 51 degrees, not >70 as Chapman 
stated (SD 284).  This puts them up at a max magnetic latitude of 62 degrees.
The region of magnetically open field lines typically runs from about 70
degrees to the poles.  For a big storm, however, this boundary can easily go
equatorward of 60 degrees.  Therefore, any spacewalk in a solar proton storm
is really unnecessarily risky.  However, most of the time MIR is at a much 
lower latitude, shielded by more of the earth's magnetic field.  Plus, most
solar flares do not have as strong proton fluxes as the August 2 storm had.
I've asked my friends at NOAA in Boulder who send out flare warnings to 
give us some information on how the information is passed to NASA, and 
whether it also goes to the USSR (I think it does; they are part of the World
Data Center, but whether the information reaches Moscow in enough time
to reschedule EVA's is something I don't know).

Hope this is helpful.

>From the First Space Physics Department in the World:
     Patricia H. Reiff
     Department of Space Physics and Astronomy
     Rice University
     internet:  reiff%spacvax.rice.edu@rice.edu
     SPAN:      RICE::REIFF

------

------------------------------

Date:     Mon, 25 Jul 88 15:05 EDT
From: <WALL%BRANDEIS.BITNET@mitvma.mit.edu> (Matt)
Subject:  Re: Libertarian space policy

======> flame to follow

 Re: Moon Treaty, Private development of space resources, and Libertarians:

 Given the state of the terrestrial environment and the level of hostility
 about relatively worthless real estate (Falklands, etc.) under nationalist
 and private sector control, the attitude that international control of
 space resources is "sick" is misguided.  If you would like to see an
 analagous situation, look at Antarctica. The goal of international control
 for the benefit of humankind was corrupted by attaching property "rights"
 to any sort of presence, in fact, specifically to 'scientific' presence.
 True international control, ala law of the sea treaty, could allow for
 commercial development of space without either militarization or
 space pollution.  But private or national interests will never choose
 action with the good of the commonweal first.  And I think that if we look
 at the problems in space development over the last 20 years in the US,
 most if not all are related to party politics, the cold war, or military
 practices/priorities (and cf. pentagon procurement scandal are quite
 intimately related to private sector practices/motives.)
 Sure, the UN sucks as it is; but Ron Paul would rather hand over the
 ~universe to business. And as no people or nation can make any kind of
 indigenous claim to space, it is incumbent on Ron Paul to show how
 property isn't theft when it comes to space development.

 I can hardly wait to see the outer space equivalent of Love Canal and
 Manville asbestos.

 Please send numerous flames to the list.

 Matt

------------------------------

Date: 25 Jul 88 17:50:47 GMT
From: acu@h.cc.purdue.edu  (Floyd McWilliams)
Subject: Re: space news from June 6 AW&ST


	Re the planned Jupiter-Pluto flight by the Voyager spare:
How long would such a flight take?  Since Pluto is now closer to the
sun than Neptune, would it take much longer than the 12-year trip by
Voyager 2?  I can just imagine a 1989 Neptune-Pluto double encounter...
	Of course, Voyager 3 wouldn't get a boost from Saturn or Uranus,
which could make a difference - I just don't have the math background to
figure it out.

-- 
Floyd McWilliams	acu@h.cc.purdue.edu

------------------------------

Date: 25 Jul 88 18:23:28 GMT
From: pasteur!cad.Berkeley.EDU!moto@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (EDIF Committee)
Subject: Re: Born classified

In article <1259@thumper.bellcore.com>, karn@thumper.bellcore.com (Phil R. Karn) writes:
> By the time the idiots down at the
> Pentagon...

They may be dumb (I tend to agree!), but lets not forget that all this
secrecy DOES have some valid reasons for existing, even if the implementation
and application is stupid or counter-productive much of the time.

The biggest problem is so many stupid rules that the real need gets ignored 
or "worked around" along with the stupid ones! 

Mike Waters

------------------------------

Date: 25 Jul 88 04:50:58 GMT
From: portal!cup.portal.com!Brian_C_McBee@uunet.uu.net
Subject: Lofstrom Loop


I've read several science fiction stories recently in which the Lofstrom Loop
is mentioned, but they don't go into any great detail. Does anyone have any
references where I can read more about it?

Please use the following path and NOT brianop@salem1.UUCP!!!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
What the eye beholds           CI$: 72406.1363
And the heart covets           PLINK: Brianop
Let the hand boldly sieze!     UUCP: ...tektronix!tessi!agora!salem1!brianop
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Running AmigaUUCP on salem1.  Now if I could just postnews...

------------------------------

Sender: RPollard.ElSegundo@xerox.com
Date: 25 Jul 88 16:49:45 PDT (Monday)
Subject: Re: Pegasus
From: RPollard.ElSegundo@xerox.com
Cc: RPollard.ElSegundo@xerox.com

Recently I have seen messages about Pegasus on this dl.  When I tried to find
information about the Orbital Sciences or Hercules Aerospace Inc. I couldn't
find anything.

Can anyone provide me with additional information so that I might contact either
of these two organizations ?

Any info would be appreciated.
Thanks
Rich Pollard

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #311
*******************

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Date: Wed, 3 Aug 88 01:04:44 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8808030804.AA00455@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #312

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 312

Today's Topics:
		   Time skew -- does it hurt SETI?
			   Re: Solar Sails
			Re: Shuttle-C details
			Re: Shuttle-C details
		   Re: space news from June 6 AW&ST
		   Re: space news from May 30 AW&ST
       Doppler lidar, ESA publications(was: NASA news - Seasat)
			   We will bury you
		 Re: Time skew -- does it hurt SETI?
			   Re: Solar Sails
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 26 Jul 88 00:25:55 GMT
From: amanda!msodos@sun.com  (Martin Sodos)
Subject: Time skew -- does it hurt SETI?

I'd like to put forward an idea for public consideration/debate.
Forgive me if its already been addressed, but I have been exceedingly
curious about it for some time.  Consider the following: Carl Sagan
(sp?) in his cosmic calendar shows that all of recent recorded history
represents only the last few seconds before midnight, a mere
instantaneous flicker compared to the events that have preceeded it
during the cosmic 'year'. Consider further that science has in recent
years taken on an exponential learning curve. For example, electricity
was only 'discovered' (as in defined and put to useful purpose as
opposed to merely observed in nature) within the last few hundred
years, radio within the last hundred, relativity, nuclear power and
space travel within this century. The true nature of superconductivity,
perhaps yet to come.  Practical human spacetravel outside the boundarys
of even our own solar system still only an unrealized dream.

Now, consider that even if there exists a race somewhere relatively
closeby in the universe so that radio is a practical means of
communication, and if this race has developed in a very similar manner
to our own, if they are a mere 1% behind us on the cosmic calendar they
will not even yet have evolved on their planet. For example, if the age
of our Earth is 4 billion years, 1% of 4 billion is 40 million. longer
than man has existed on this planet(by most estimates). So, let's be
generous. Let's say there is some operative factor of parallel
evolution which would align the development of the two cultures (theirs
and ours) to within .0001%. Even to this, I dare say ridiculous, level
of parallelism, they are only within +/- 4000 years of us. If they are
behind us they are somewhat before the time of their equivalent of the
Greeks, and there is no hope of communication. If they are ahead of us,
they are probably so advanced as to be almost unrecognizable.  Bear in
mind what has happened scientifically in only the last 100 years.
However, for those who would argue this, I contend that the point is
moot by the very absurdity of the tolerance specified.

Ergo, I put forward for your consideration that even if life such as
ours is fairly common on the universe, that the time alignment problem
would make it extremely unlikely that we would/will ever encounter it.

And of course, that further assumes that the culture in question (the
one relatively aligned to ours), is also the one which is reasonably
nearby.

I contend that if you add the 'time skew' factor to those formulae
which portend to predict the probability of life like our own elsewhere
in the universe you get a liklihood near zero that we will ever
encounter it.

What say you all?


sun!amanda!msodos

------------------------------

Date: 23 Jul 88 09:22:38 GMT
From: unisoft!gethen!abostick@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Alan Bostick)
Subject: Re: Solar Sails

In article <10922@oberon.USC.EDU> robiner@ganelon.usc.edu (Steve) writes:
>If the light bounces off the sail, how does it impart momentum.  What 
>energy of the photon is now reduced?  I think the photons must be
>ABSORBED by the sail for this to work.

Well, you're wrong. 

Consider a mirror initially in free fall.  Let us work in the reference
frame where the mirror is at rest.  The mirror has a mass of m, and in
this frame it has a kinetic energy of zero.  A photon is traveling to
the right with momentum p and energy E = c*p, where c is the speed of
light.  The photon bounces off of the mirror and is reflected in
accordance with the laws of reflection.  Now it is traveling to the left
with momentum -p' and energy E' = c*p'.  The momentum of the photon has
changed, so in order for momentum to be conserved the momentum of the
mirror must change as well.  The mirror's momentum is now p" and its
kinetic energy is now E" = (p"**2)/(2*m).  The total final momentum must
equal the total initial momentum:  p" - p' = p; and the total final
energy must equal the total initial energy: E' + E" = E.  If we take our
energy equation and make the appropriate substitutions, we have:

	c*p' + (p"**2)/(2*m) = c*p

Now make the substitution p' = p" - p (a rearrangement of the momentum
equation), and solve for p".  We then have

	p" = m*c*((1 + (4*p)/(m*c))**0.5 - 1) .

When p << mc (and we are talking about a single photon here, so it
almost certainly does,) this is closely approximated by

	p" = 2*p - 0.5*((p/(m*c))**2) .

This is the momentum of the mirror after the reflection.  We substitute
this into our momentum equation to find that 

	p' = p - 0.5*((p/(m*c))**2) .

We see that the photon has a little less momentum, and hence a little
less energy than before.  This energy lost by the photon has gone into
kinetic energy of the now moving mirror.  Energy is conserved, momentum
is conserved, and the mirror is now moving, due to the kick of the
light.  No absorption is necessary.

Next time, think for a minute before shooting off your mouth.  This is
freshman physics.  This is freshman physics for liberal arts majors.

					Alan Bostick
					ucbvax!unisoft!gethen!abostick

------------------------------

Date: 25 Jul 88 10:55:28 GMT
From: b.gp.cs.cmu.edu!Ralf.Brown%B.GP.CS.CMU.EDU@pt.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: Shuttle-C details

In article <1012@cfa200.cfa250.harvard.edu>, willner@cfa250.harvard.edu (Steve Willner P-316 x57123) writes:
}[Shuttle-C] Development cost would be up to $1.5 billion. Current definition
}studies are to run through 1989. 

$1.5 billion to develop a launcher from mostly off-the-shelf parts!?!?!?!
Multi-year definition studies?!?!?!  Sounds like more gold-plating to me....
--
UUCP: {ucbvax,harvard}!cs.cmu.edu!ralf -=-=-=- Voice: (412) 268-3053 (school)
ARPA: ralf@cs.cmu.edu  BIT: ralf%cs.cmu.edu@CMUCCVMA  FIDO: Ralf Brown 1:129/31
Disclaimer? I     |Ducharm's Axiom:  If you view your problem closely enough
claimed something?|   you will recognize yourself as part of the problem.

------------------------------

Date: 26 Jul 88 13:34:44 GMT
From: dietz@cu-arpa.cs.cornell.edu  (Paul F. Dietz)
Subject: Re: Shuttle-C details

The interesting thing about the Shuttle-C, as proposed, is that you
can launch it only once for every 6.7 shuttle flights (for the two engine
version) or every 10 flights (for the 3 engine version).  So, after the
current stock of used engines is exhausted, shuttle-C will have the
capability of lifting maybe 1/3 the mass the shuttle fleet can.  Excuse
me if I don't cheer.

	Paul F. Dietz
	dietz@gvax.cs.cornell.edu

------------------------------

Date: 25 Jul 88 22:01:07 GMT
From: thumper!karn@faline.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: space news from June 6 AW&ST

> ... So far the station has survived, at the
> expense of major cuts to CSTI, Pathfinder, NASA expendables, and the
> Commercially Developed Space Facility.  [Those are lousy places for cuts.]

*Now* you see why the Space Station isn't such a good idea. If it
competed solely with, say, SDI for funding I'd be 110% for it. But it
instead competes, rightly or wrongly, mostly with other NASA projects,
and with the possible exception of the Shuttle they are all far more
cost-effective than the Space Station.

> Soviet Academy of Sciences and the Federation of American Scientists
> jointly propose a ban on nuclear reactors in Earth orbit.  This would
> hamper SDI and shut down the Soviet nuclear radarsats.

Agreed. We really need some enlightened self-interest on both sides. An
excellent start would be the following:

1. Ban the use of nuclear power sources in low earth orbit, "low" being
defined as anything with a lifetime less than a thousand years or so.
Deep space missions would be fine.

2. Ban any mission that involves the explosion of a warhead in orbit or
the deliberate collision of objects unless the expected lifetime of the
resulting fragments is less than a year.

These two provisions would have the following highly beneficial effects:

1. The seemingly regular series of Soviet nuclear-powered radarsats
re-entering the atmosphere would stop.

2. The increasing pollution of orbital space by ASAT and SDI tests would
stop.

3. Taken together, the two provisions would effectively prohibit many,
if not most, nuclear powered SDI tests.

We urgently needed the Limited Test Ban Treaty in 1963, and we urgently
need a treaty like this now.

Phil

------------------------------

Date: 25 Jul 88 22:50:12 GMT
From: sdcc6!calmasd!jnp@ucsd.edu  (John Pantone)
Subject: Re: space news from May 30 AW&ST

Henry Spencer writes:
   ...much valuable info deleted...
   Reagan will propose that the two countries study cooperation
   in solar-system exploration.  He will refrain from endorsing missions
   involving extensive hardware cooperation (e.g. Apollo-Soyuz), major
   manned projects, or specific unmanned Mars missions.  [Has it occurred
   to any of the brain-damaged bozos who put together this wonderful list
   of non-promises that maybe the Soviets are tired of studying the notion
   endlessly and would like to *do* something?!?]

Henry - I'm not really arguing about the "brain-damage" nor even the
"bozo" nor even the "non-promises".  I am, however, not too thrilled
to see an editorial comment which seems to imply that just because the
Soviets may (or may not) be getting tired of our "studies" that we
should fall through our a__holes trying to please them, or get
something done to satisfy or placate them.

These are the same people that in the Sputnik era (not that long ago
to me, anyway) promised (not threatened, mind you, *promised*) to bury
us.  A couple of "kind words" and a leader in decent tailoring (for a
change) hardly eradicates decades of threatening behavior.  I
personally think that cooperation is far more desirable than continued
competition - but not without a great deal of deliberation - and due
consideration.  If the Soviets have to stew in their juices a while -
so be it - tough luck. Gorbachev represents, PERHAPS, a new era -
we'll just have to wait and see.
-- 
These opinions are solely mine and in no way reflect those of my employer.  
John M. Pantone @ GE/Calma R&D, 9805 Scranton Rd., San Diego, CA 92121
...{ucbvax|decvax}!sdcsvax!calmasd!jnp   jnp@calmasd.GE.COM   GEnie: J.PANTONE

------------------------------

Date:     Tue, 26 Jul 88 14:00 CDT
From: Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey <HIGGINS%FNAL.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Subject:  Doppler lidar, ESA publications(was: NASA news - Seasat)
Original_To:  SPACE

All the discussion of Seasat, oceanography, and radar reminds me of an article
(going slightly off on a tangent) in the current *ESA Journal* (Volume 11
Number 4/volume 12 Number 1 [hey, that's what it says on the contents page.
Must be a Spectacular Double Issue or something.], pages 19-36: "Spaceborne
Doppler Wind Lidars," by G. Salvetti of ESTEC.

The object is to shine a laser down, observe scattered light off dust particles
and aerosols, and measure the Doppler shift.  Do this from two angles (two
spots in the satellite's orbit) for the same location on the surface, and you
have enough velocity information to get the two-dimensional wind pattern. Time
delay of the laser pulse gives you depth. This could be a great boon to the
weather guys, especially in the Southern Hemisphere where surface measurements
are sparse.

Problems:  Laser needs lots of power, but beam density is limited by eye-safety
requirements. Space-qualified lasers and detectors are needed. Data rates are
very high (you probably need on-board processing).  You have to take Doppler
shift due to spacecraft motion and Doppler broadening due to molecular motion
and wind shear out of a very feeble signal in order to get the numbers you
want.  Coherent detection of the signal would be nice and sensitive, but may be
too tricky to achieve in a flyable system.  Still under development-- but a
rather nice technique, don't you think?

I might as well reveal a secret I've been sitting on for quite a while: The
European Space Agency's magazines are FREE.  *ESA Journal* is for technical
papers, *ESA Bulletin* is more general-- if still pretty technical-- and
includes regular status reports on every ESA program, as well as articles. Both
are quarterly.  Write to:

ESA Publications Division
ESTEC
2200 AG Noordwijk
The Netherlands

And by all means, get your library to subscribe!!

The ESA Publications Division can also give you information on buying copies of
ESA's technical reports and books, which flow in great quantity from the
European space program.  And there are a couple of other free publications.


                         ______meson      Bill Higgins
                      _-~
        ____________-~______neutrino      Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
      -   -         ~-_
    /       \          ~----- proton      Bitnet: HIGGINS@FNALB.BITNET
    |       |
    \       /                             SPAN/Hepnet/Physnet: 43011::HIGGINS
      -   -
        ~

------------------------------

Date: 26 Jul 88 19:05:09 GMT
From: agate!garnet!weemba@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Obnoxious Math Grad Student)
Subject: We will bury you

>These are the same people that in the Sputnik era (not that long ago to
>me, anyway) promised (not threatened, mind you, *promised*) to bury us.

Like or dislike the Soviets as you think proper, but don't keep citing
this famous line incorrectly.  "We will bury you" is Russian idiom that
meant nothing more than the trivial assertion "we will live longer than
you".  "Bury" here has the sense of "be in attendance at your funeral",
and not the "go out of our way to put you six feet under" interpretation.

And in case you think the sentence is possibly ambiguous, it most certain-
ly wasn't so in context.  Funny how Krushchev's full speech with this line
is so rarely printed--it was just simple Marxism about how the capitalist
system is going to self-destruct, the socialist system is going to endure,
and all that rot.

ucbvax!garnet!weemba	Matthew P Wiener/Brahms Gang/Berkeley CA 94720

------------------------------

Date: 26 Jul 88 13:57:28 GMT
From: rochester!rocksanne!entire!elt@rutgers.edu  (Edward L. Taychert)
Subject: Re: Time skew -- does it hurt SETI?

My astrophysics text discusses extraterrestrial communications based
most likely on radio. Different probabilites of contact are plotted
against the population density of the universe on one axis and
the lifetime of a sufficiently advanced culture on the other.
Most depressing was the notion that we advance sufficiently to
call out, then kill ourselves off. The reply falls on a dead world :-(

Even optimistically, communications (a message and reply) are likely
to take tens of thousands of years. We may hear a beacon in the night,
or we may be heard on a distant world, but the odds of a dialog 
don't look good.
-- 

____________________________________________________________________________

Ed Taychert				Phone: USA (716) 381-7500
Entire Inc.				UUCP: rochester!rocksanne!entire!elt
445 E. Commercial Street
East Rochester, N.Y. 14445 
_____________________________________________________________________________

------------------------------

Date: 26 Jul 88 18:45:53 GMT
From: grasp.cis.upenn.edu!ulrich@super.upenn.edu  (Nathan Ulrich)
Subject: Re: Solar Sails

In article <1111@gethen.UUCP> abostick@gethen.UUCP (Alan Bostick) writes:
>In article <10922@oberon.USC.EDU> robiner@ganelon.usc.edu (Steve) writes:
>>If the light bounces off the sail, how does it impart momentum.  What 
>>energy of the photon is now reduced?  I think the photons must be
>>ABSORBED by the sail for this to work.
>
>Well, you're wrong. 
>
>Next time, think for a minute before shooting off your mouth.  This is
>freshman physics.  This is freshman physics for liberal arts majors.
>
I think your reply is rather pompous and insulting.  I did not read the
original posting, but it appeared to be asking a good question, which you
did not answer.  Why isn't absorption most efficient for a photon sail?

Relativistic physics has some interesting quirks; one of the them is the 
characterization of photons.  They are generally considered to have momentum
but not mass, and always travel at the speed of light (c).  It has been
experimentally determined that photons can exert pressure, and the momentum
of photons at various wavelengths has been measured.  However, the theory
of relativity does not allow for objects with mass to travel at the speed
of light, therefore photons are massless.

We do know that E = hn, where E is the energy of the photon, h is Planck's
constant, and n is the frequency of the photon.  In a collision with a mirror,
a photon will transfer some of its momentum and its energy to the mirror.
The new energy E' = hn' is less than the original energy E, therefore the
new frequency n' is less than the original frequency n.  The result?  Light
reflected from a mirror changes color.

If we want to build the most efficient sail possible, then we need to do two
things:  maximize the kinetic energy gain per photon collision, and maximize
the number of photons hitting the sail.  We can handle the second by making
the biggest sail possible.  The first is a little more interesting.  It would
seem intuitively that the best sail material would absorb all the photons
hitting it, because then all the energy of the photons would be transferred to
the sail.  Unfortunately, when the speed of a photon falls below the speed of
light--like when it is absorbed by the sail--it is no longer a photon, and its
energy is transferred to some other form:  electricity via photoelectric cells,
heat via black clothing, etc.  It turns out that the energy of a photon will
not be converted into the kinetic energy of the sail, but into one of these
other forms.  The way to gain kinetic energy from photons is to reflect them
as efficiently as possible--the energy transfer results in an increase in the
kinetic energy of the sail, rather than to heating it up.

In practice, you need a very big, very light, very reflective sail.

Nathan Ulrich
ulrich@grasp.cis.upenn.edu

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #312
*******************

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Date: Wed, 3 Aug 88 19:04:31 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8808040204.AA01429@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #313

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 313

Today's Topics:
		Re: ET phone home? (SETI)   RESPONSES
			      Re: (none)
		     Re: Libertarian space policy
		     Re: Libertarian space policy
		     Re: Libertarian space policy
	      Re: Trust Fund Proposed for Space Ventures
	       Solar max; also soviets and solar flares
		      Space Station Name chosen
			 Re: Born classified
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 26 Jul 88 20:51:58 GMT
From: aplcen!aplcomm!stdc.jhuapl.edu!jwm@mimsy.umd.edu  (Jim Meritt)
Subject: Re: ET phone home? (SETI)   RESPONSES

In article <14705@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU> wales@CS.UCLA.EDU (Rich Wales) writes:
}In article <1001@cfa255.cfa250.harvard.edu>
}elwood@cfa250.harvard.edu (Elwood) writes:
}
}	I was wondering if it is true, as I heard, that only the
}	carrier wave from TV signals is able to reach beyond the
}	atmosphere -- i.e., no aliens out there are examining TV
}	pictures from Earth.
}
}I believe this is more or less correct.


I believe that the "less" is more accurate than the "more".

For instance - communications satellites.  The uplink is not all that
powerful (a "bad guy" overpowered one with a breadboard setup) and it
obviously reaches above the atmosphere.  As for ordinary tv, maybe a
sci.space individual could cast some light...


Disclaimer: Individuals have opinions, organizations have policy.
            Therefore, these opinions are mine and not any organizations!
Q.E.D.
jwm@aplvax.jhuapl.edu 128.244.65.5  (James W. Meritt)

------------------------------

Date: 26 Jul 88 18:51:59 GMT
From: att!alberta!auvax!ralphh@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Ralph Hand)
Subject: Re: (none)

In article <8807220420.AA23265@angband.s1.gov>, HINSOND@UNCG.BITNET ("OK, IS THIS BETTER?") writes:
> + ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Shari Landes (mind!shari@princeton.edu):
> 
>
** old article deleted **

 >of light, would you be able to see yourself before you left?
> 
> This is a very intriguing question but I'm afraid the answer is disappointingly
> simple:  If time travel were possible, wouldn't someone have told us by now?
> Think about it..
> 
> q:)

I realize that you were not really serious, but no someone would not have
told us by now.  Would not doing so alter their own history thereby 
putting their own existance into doubt.  There is a potential for a paradox 
here.  The people of the future would have to decide not to let us know if
they desired to continue to exist themselves.

Other than that it is a nice theory.


Ralph

------------------------------

Date: 26 Jul 88 15:56:46 GMT
From: n3dmc!gronk!johnl@uunet.uu.net  (John Limpert)
Subject: Re: Libertarian space policy

In article <8807251911.AA01355@angband.s1.gov> WALL@BRANDEIS.BITNET (Matt) writes:
> If you would like to see an analagous situation, look at Antarctica. 
> The goal of international control for the benefit of humankind was
> corrupted by attaching property "rights" to any sort of presence, in
> fact, specifically to 'scientific' presence. 

The only reason the 'corrupted' situation in Antarctica exists is
because it is a compromise between the two extremes.  A treaty has
to consider the views and interests of all concerned parties.
"International control for the benefit of Mankind" may be a nice
idea to some people, but in its idealogically pure form, it isn't
a practical basis for a treaty.  The reason for the acceptance of
the current treaty was the perceived uselessness of Anarctica.
If someone discovers valuable mineral deposits, the current treaty
may not last very long.

------------------------------

Date: 26 Jul 88 14:53:40 GMT
From: l.cc.purdue.edu!cik@k.cc.purdue.edu  (Herman Rubin)
Subject: Re: Libertarian space policy

In article <8807251911.AA01355@angband.s1.gov>, WALL@BRANDEIS.BITNET (Matt) writes:
> ======> flame to follow
> 
>  Re: Moon Treaty, Private development of space resources, and Libertarians:
>  . . .

So you want an international body to decide what is good for us?  I will
admit that I do not know what is good for us--I have a few ideas.  But one
thing which is not good for us is to have us decide what is good for us.
We do not know, and we will never know, so we must have people with initiative
try things out.

Of the administrators and bureaucrats I have known, industrial, academic, and
governmental, many seem to have their intelligence severely reduced by the mere
installment in the administrative position.  I refer to those who operate "by
the book", to those who feel that they were put in the position as a reward 
and can use that position to obstruct, and those who feel that they know what
is best.  That latter category, which seems to be those to whom Matt would 
entrust space, is especially bad.

The best earth governments can do in regard to space is to try to suppress
monopolies.  How many governments are doing it in their own countries?  I
do not think that suppressing monopolies is particularly important in 
Monaco or San Marino, but Luxembourg is already getting there.  Try to
get a reasonable education in the US with the present establishment in
power.

And you would turn things over to something like the UN?  More than 80% of
the countries have no idea of individual freedom or individual initiative.
>From your posting, I would have to conclude that you do not believe in
individual freedom or initiative when it comes to space.

Even the countries which claim to have individual freedoms are reducing their
extent.  The nations of the world, including the US, have largely interfered
with attempts to gain freedom for oppressed "right-wingers" and have supported
socialists.

The right to space should belong to those with the courage, drive, ability,
resources, and luch to got out there and live there.  A secondary right
should go to those who can use the above to exploit it.  Now many, if not
most, people do not believe that these efforts are worthwhile.  They need
not support these efforts, and can only expect to receive the spinoffs from
those who do.

If you look at the damage from Love Canal and Johns Manville, you will find it
pales in comparison to the damage done by the statists.  If you expect an
industrial organization, private individual, or government to be responsible
for every totally unexpected consequence of their actions, you are saying that
we can do nothing.  You complain about pollution and environmental damage by
industry; what about that due to overpopulation?  And most governments are
actively encouraging overpopulation, and the ones that are attempting to 
control it are doing so by totalitarian or stupid means.

To expect even one of our present governments to do anything to establishing
free people in space is wishful thinking.  To expect an international organiza-
tion, composed of nations which would eliminate freedom of the press (seriously
proposed by the "third world" nations) to allow it is fatuous.
-- 
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907
Phone: (317)494-6054
hrubin@l.cc.purdue.edu (Internet, bitnet, UUCP)

------------------------------

Date: 26 Jul 88 15:07:17 GMT
From: att!chinet!mcdchg!clyde!watmath!utgpu!utzoo!henry@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Libertarian space policy

In article <8807251911.AA01355@angband.s1.gov> WALL@BRANDEIS.BITNET (Matt) writes:
> ... the attitude that international control of
> space resources is "sick" is misguided...
> True international control, ala law of the sea treaty, could allow for
> commercial development of space without either militarization or
> space pollution...

[beginSarcasm]  As shown by the many successful ocean-mining projects? [endS]

"International control" in practice means Third World control, and that means
mama-knows-best socialism in its worst form.

> But private or national interests will never choose
> action with the good of the commonweal first...

Nor will Third World governments (or Second or First World governments, for
that matter).  Nations are just collections of private interests.  Inter-
national bodies are just collections of nations.  The word "international"
does not magically bestow goodness and light.

> I can hardly wait to see the outer space equivalent of Love Canal...

Don't forget that Hooker, the dirty commercial owners of Love Canal, didn't
want to sell it to the local government, on the grounds that it was unsafe.
When coerced into selling, by the benevolent government which had everyone's
best interests at heart, they insisted that the bill of sale warn of the
toxic chemicals present.  Said benevolent government proceeded to ignore
the warnings and opened the area for development.
-- 
MSDOS is not dead, it just     |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
smells that way.               | uunet!mnetor!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 27 Jul 88 14:31:59 GMT
From: ecsvax!dgary@mcnc.org  (D Gary Grady)
Subject: Re: Trust Fund Proposed for Space Ventures

In article <22e73cc1@ralf> Ralf.Brown@B.GP.CS.CMU.EDU writes:
>In article <1414@lznv.ATT.COM>, psc@lznv.ATT.COM (Paul S. R. Chisholm) writes:
>}[Typical of N.J. reps; "I'm in favor of the space program, if you can
>}build an interstate to orbit."]
>
>Hmm, I wonder if the Launch Loop would apeal to him....
>

Only if you put toll booths every few kilometers.  :-)
-- 
D Gary Grady
(919) 286-4296
USENET:  {seismo,decvax,ihnp4,akgua,etc.}!mcnc!ecsvax!dgary
BITNET:  dgary@ecsvax.bitnet

------------------------------

Resent-Message-Id: <4WvXWay00Vsm86skph@andrew.cmu.edu>
Resent-Date: Wed, 27 Jul 88 16:10:14 -0400 (EDT)
Resent-From: Ted Anderson <ota+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Resent-To: space@angband.s1.gov
Return-Path: <eos@spacvax.rice.edu>
Date: 27 Jul 88 13:25:00 CDT
From: "Pat Reiff" <eos@spacvax.rice.edu>
Subject: Solar max; also soviets and solar flares
To: "ota" <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Cc: eos@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: "Pat Reiff" <eos@spacvax.rice.edu>

In SD 292, Mike Smithwick <mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov> says:
>Oh, by the way. The solar max mission was a demonstration flight among other
>things. If we didn't have a real satillite to repair, surely a dummy would
>have been flown to practice with. 

Wrong.  I was on the Committee for Solar-Terrestrial Research, a National
Academy of Sciences committee overseeing (guess what) the U.S. Solar-
Terrestrial Research progam, and we had long discussions on whether to 
repair solar max.  The argument went that it was important, unreplaceable 
science, and it was cost effective (see below).  The fact that it
demonstrated the capability of repair was (at least to our committee) of
secondary importance. (Incidentally, Solar Max was one of the first 
spacecraft to see Supernova 1987A!)

>And wrt Phil's comment about the mission
>costing more than a replacment satillite. I believe that the SMM cost around
>$150 million. A replacement would likely cost more due to inflation and take
>years to get on line, not to mention a dedicated shuttle mission just to
>launch it. So with the experience gained, the time saved, I think it was
>worth it. (not to mention the neato TV that was returned).

We agree....The cost to repair that we heard was about $50 million.


On another topic, (whether the U.S. warns the USSR of solar proton events), 
I received the following reply from my friends at the World Data Center
(edited slightly):
.......................
First, we don't put out alerts or messages on SPAN (at least 
yet).  We do have a bulletin board you can call - 303-497-5000.
It updates once/day and includes the daily forecasts and reports 
of activity and parameters.  It is slanted toward ham radio 
operators.  We also broadcast a simple message over WWV (5, 10, 
15, 20 MHz) at 18 min past each hour.  It is updated every 3 
hours.  The same message is put on a tape recorder for dial-up.
The number is (303) 497-3235.  If you get really interested,
there is a satellite broadcast deal you can buy into.  We 
basically rebroadcast a lot of our data (including GOES x-rays and 
protons at 1-min resolution and also the geosync mag field data)
over a commercial link.  You can pick it up and save it or just
plug it into a PC and have it ring bells if we broadcast an alert.   
Finally, just call the SESC when you want information - 303-497-3171.  We
are in business 24 hr/day (although the operators may get busy if
conditions are active). 
     Now - the proton event.  We had one on 30 June but it was puny.  There
was an M9/2B flare 30/0906 UT and the event began 30/1055 UT.  It maxed at
1135 UT at 21 protons per cm2 etc. and ended at 30/1825.  (Our threshold is
10 at greater than 10 MeV energies measured on GOES).  We always call NASA
when we get an event, and if a shuttle mission is in progress then we call
them 3 times/day anyway (and more under event conditions).  Many of your
questions regarding doses and historical events can be answered by the SRAG
(Solar Radiation Analysis Group) at JSC.   We also send a 'courtesy
message' to Moscow when we get proton events.  There is no official
requirement to do so, but we routinely exchange messages daily anyway as
part of the IUWDS network. 

     Here is a recent reference on doses at DMSP altitudes - 
Gussenhoven et al., IEEE Trans. on Nucl. Sci., Vol NS-34, no. 3, 
pg 676, June 1987.  Sample - the accumulated dose behind .5 
gm/cm2 of aluminum between Apr 77 and Apr 78 was about 3 krad. 
DMSP is at 840 km, and the SAA is ordinarily the big contributor.
They also say that a 3-day mission at high inclination during
moderately large solar particle events could lead to a dose 
deposition of 30 rad or more behind minimal s/c skin (enough
to damage the ocular nerve). 
     The October 1987 issue of Aerospace America had an article 
on the radiation hazards in space by people mostly from the Naval
Research Lab.

     I hope this covers most of your questions. 

..............................
P.S.  I did find the data books on the August 1972 flares, if anyone wants
esoteric data (it's World Data Center A Report UAG-28)....P.R.
------
>From the First Space Physics Department (celebrating its 25th anniversary):   
                                                    :
     Patricia H. Reiff                              :  Not only are my 
     Department of Space Physics and Astronomy      :  opinions solely my
     Rice University, Houston, TX 77251-1892        :  own, I reserve the
     internet:  reiff%spacvax.rice.edu@rice.edu     :  right to change my
     SPAN:      RICE::REIFF                         :  mind occasionally!
                                                    :
------
------

------------------------------

Date: 27 Jul 88 18:15:19 GMT
From: cfa!cfa250!mcdowell@husc6.harvard.edu  (Jonathan McDowell)
Subject: Space Station Name chosen

>From Aviation Week, July 25, p 34:

President Reagan last week named the NASA/International 
space station "Freedom". The name was selected from 
more than 700 suggestions sent to NASA by its employees,
contractors, international partners and the public. It 
was nominated by Adam Gruen, who works in NASA's space
station history office.

-----------------------------------------------------
They have a space station history office already??

The same issue has an article about Dukakis' 
opposition to the station in its present form.




- Jonathan McDowell

------------------------------

Date: 27 Jul 88 18:55:46 GMT
From: pioneer.arc.nasa.gov!eugene@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Eugene N. Miya)
Subject: Re: Born classified

Please move this discussion out of space into one of the legal
newsgroups.  It is diverging.  Why ask space nuts who know nothing
about law? 8-)  {I won't take this one to our space lawyers.}
And if you read this on BITNET or the ARPA Internet and don't have a
Usenet system, go get a Unix system and read on one of those.

Another gross generalization from

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@aurora.arc.nasa.gov
  resident cynic at the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:
  "Mailers?! HA!", "If my mail does not reach you, please accept my apology."
  {uunet,hplabs,ncar,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #313
*******************

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Date: Thu, 4 Aug 88 01:04:28 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
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To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #314

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 314

Today's Topics:
		     Telescopes on Space Station
		Re: Video Release: Disney's CINDERELLA
		 Re: Time skew -- does it hurt SETI?
			 I have 3 questions.
		       Reminders for Old Farts
			 Heading to SIGGRAPH
			      Space Race
			   The Mars Project
			 Re: FTL time travel
       C-64 basic program to compute satellite topocentric data
		     Time Travel (was Re: (none))
		    query about 'escape velocity'
    Automated vs. personned spacecraft -- a reasonable compromise
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 27 Jul 88 19:39:34 GMT
From: al@eos.arc.nasa.gov  (Al Globus)
Subject: Telescopes on Space Station

>In article <1131@eos.UUCP> you write:
>>
>>* Astronomy - dedicated facilities.  Launch with one of the bevy of
>>commercial launchers.  Space Station is lousy place to
>>put most astronomy instruments anyway.
>>
       >Au contraire!  An APT (Automatic Photoelectric Telescope)
>(and other members of their ilk) would be _excellent_ on the space station.
>They're cheap, and would be easy to install/implement.

If APT's are suseptible to contamination they are in trouble on Station.
Each attitude control burn, each reboost, and rondevous with shuttle or OMV 
will put a small amount of rocket exaust on anything not covered, such as
telescope mirrors.  I believe there is no known way to clean glass in orbit.
Of course you could have cover for these events if they are not too frequent,
and you seldom forget to close it (don't laugh - these things happen all
the time). 

For extended, accurate viewing you will also need a system to eliminate
station vibration caused by crew and animal movement, docking, arm use,
etc.

To get on station you have to fly in shuttle and space is limited (the
actual problem seems to be center of gravity contraints).  Getting on
shuttle is a beaurocratic nightmare.  Expect only moderate improvement
(if any) for station.

Finally, there aren't very many external ports in the current design
so there will be substantial contention for space.  I.e., you'll need
fairly high priority to get a port and this biases use towards
expensive instruments that have institutional clout.

None of these problems are fatal, but they degrade the environment for
any viewing instrument.  If these problems are less serious than
those of developing and launching a separate satellite maybe station
would be a good place for APT's and I stand corrected.

------------------------------

Date: 28 Jul 88 03:24:18 GMT
From: att!lzaz!lznv!psc@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Paul S. R. Chisholm)
Subject: Re: Video Release: Disney's CINDERELLA

In article <5026@gryphon.CTS.COM>, hrlaser@gryphon.CTS.COM (Harv Laser) writes:
> Now what *I* would really like to get my hands on would be videotapes
> of some of Disney's WWII military training films, and from the early
> 50's the "Man Into Space" film! 
>
> Harv Laser, {ihnp4!scgvaxd!cadovax, rutgers!marque}!gryphon!pnet02!hrlaser
> hrlaser@pnet02.cts.com

I got it off of the Disney Channel a while ago.  Like most space
speculation, it's enough to make you sick; the *first* manned space
shot would have twelve crew members?  It'd be nice if, more than thirty
years later, we could put twelve people into space at once.  (It'd be
nice if *we* could put *anyone* into space.  C'mon, Discovery!)

Anyway, it's okay.

-Paul S. R. Chisholm, {ihnp4,cbosgd,allegra,rutgers}!mtune!lznv!psc
AT&T Mail !psrchisholm, Internet psc@lznv.att.com
I'm not speaking for my employer, I'm just speaking my mind.

------------------------------

Date: 27 Jul 88 13:18:34 GMT
From: vrdxhq!daitc!csed-1!zweig@umd5.umd.edu  (Jonathan Zweig)
Subject: Re: Time skew -- does it hurt SETI?

The chapter "Encyclopedia Galactica" in Carl Sagan's COSMOS discusses the
equation estimating the statistical likelihood that fellow sentients could
be in a position to communicate with us, and takes "time skew" into
account.

There are something like a hundred billion stars in the galaxy, and it is
not inconceivable that well-behaved beings could survive without destroying
themselves for very long periods (many millions of years), opening up the
window on the time skew pretty wide.

I hope you aren't saying we should give up on SETI because it seems
unlikely we will succeed. The north pole would be explored even today if
people had an attitude like that.

Johnny Zweig

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 28 Jul 88  12:12:03 EDT
From: nutto%UMASS.BITNET@mitvma.mit.edu
      (Andy Steinberg)
Subject: I have 3 questions.

(1) I heard that somebody recently did an experiment where 2 prisms were
placed next to each other with a gap of 1 nanometer between them, and the
gap was filled with oil. A second pair of prisms was arranged but with no
oil in the gap. When laser beams were shot through both pairs it was as if
the laser never passed through the oil. My understanding was that is something
like this was built on a larger scale it would be a stargate?

(2) In my astromony class the professor mentioned that a new theory other than
the Big Bang was supposed to explain the origin of the universe. All he said
was "warped spacetime spits out or screams out energy". Could someone please
clarify this?

(3) What is the proper posting address for the Physics digest?

USnail: Andy Steinberg          BITNet: nutto@UMass
        PO Box 170                      nutto@Mars.UCC.UMass.EDU
        Hadley, MA 01035-0170   Internet: nutto%UMass.BITNet@cunyvm.cuny.edu
Phone: (413) 546-4908                     nutto%UMass.BITNet@mitvma.mit.edu

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 28 Jul 88 09:19:12 PDT
From: Eugene N. Miya <eugene@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov>
Subject: Reminders for Old Farts

Hints for old users (subtle reminders) You'll know these.

Minimize cross references, [Do you REALLY NEED to?]
Edit "Subject:" lines especially if you are taking a tangent.
Send mail instead, avoid posting follow ups. [100 mail messages mean
more than 1 follow-up.]
Read all available articles before posting a follow-up. [Check all references.]
Cut down attributed articles.  Summarize!
Put a return address in the body (signature) of your message (mail or
article), state institution, etc. don't assume mail works.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 27 Jul 88 20:44:21 PDT
From: Eugene N. Miya <eugene@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov>
Subject: Heading to SIGGRAPH

The other day, my host, pioneer had a pretty severe crash.  It comes
back and I have to scan 80 articles plus answer mail.  Next week I
have to attend SIGGRAPH in Atlanta [my reasons are on the back
pages of the Computer Graphics quarterly.  Anyways,  I won't have time
to scan articles or queries posted from Saturday on, so I'm
just going to mark all articles I receive next week as "read."
I also plan to move my work off this machine to ones which are
closer to my new MPs.  I should also install the "Frequently
asked questions scripts into crontab.

Another gross generalization from

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@aurora.arc.nasa.gov
  resident cynic at the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:
  "Mailers?! HA!", "If my mail does not reach you, please accept my apology."
  {uunet,hplabs,ncar,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."

p.s. if you want "an official answer" to something, wait until
Aug. 7.  [I also plan to skip out a week for Hawaii in Sept.
as well as for a Conference]  [Special P.S. for Loren C.: I have
something you have been patiently waiting for....]

------------------------------

Date: 28 Jul 88 20:52:00 GMT
From: UCSFVM.BITNET!DR9021@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Subject: Space Race

Date: 28 July 88, 13:43:13 PDT
From: Donna Reynolds                                 DR9021   at UCSFVM
To:   SCI-SPACE at VAX.BERKELEY.EDU
Subject: Space Race

In a book entitled (something like) _Space Shuttle:  From X-15 to
Orbiter_, the author states that some folks believe the
Soviets initiated the race to the moon solely to draw
attention and funds from the X-15/X-20 program, which they
greatly feared.  Is this just idle speculation, or is there
some factual basis for this theory?

If this subject has been previously covered, please disregard.

Donna Reynolds
University of California, San Francisco
dr9021@ucsfvm.ucsf.edu

------------------------------

Date: 28 Jul 88 20:58:00 GMT
From: UCSFVM.BITNET!DR9021@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Subject: The Mars Project

Date: 28 July 88, 13:52:51 PDT
From: Donna Reynolds                                 DR9021   at UCSFVM
To:   SCI-SPACE at VAX.BERKELEY.EDU
Subject:  The Mars Project

Who or what is the Mars Project, and is the organization generally
considered to be respectable?

If this subject has been previously covered, please disregard.

Donna Reynolds
University of California, San Francisco
dr9021@ucsfvm.ucsf.edu

------------------------------

Date: 27 Jul 88 15:31:22 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!etive!bob@uunet.uu.net  (B Gray)
Subject: Re: FTL time travel

In article <1988Jul23.210152.21185@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>The possibility of effect preceding cause is widely interpreted as showing
>that FTL travel is impossible, since it makes utter hash out of physics.

Quantum electrodynamics REQUIRES that photons travel both
faster and slower than c. The same effect is required for
electrons. An electron moving faster than light moves
backwards in time and is observed as positron.

Of course, these are virtual particles. The moment you try to
observe them you will find they have a very high probability
of behaving exactly as you would expect.

It is in the same class of effects as when your car gets out
of it's garage by means of quantum tunneling.

The scaling up and manipulation of these infinitesimal
probabilities and their practical application is left as an
excercise for the reader. :->
	Bob.

------------------------------

Date: 28 Jul 88 00:00:29 GMT
From: nbires!isis!scicom!wats@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Bruce Watson)
Subject: C-64 basic program to compute satellite topocentric data


For those of you who inquired, the C-64 basic program (also a version
for the IBM PC) is available free on the BBS COMM-POST 24 hrs at
(303) 534-4646.  Elements needed for input to the prog are available
in the rec.ham-radio newsgroup of this net.

------------------------------

Date: 28 Jul 88 11:24:17 GMT
From: mcvax!philmds!prle!prles2!nvpna1!mcardle@uunet.uu.net  (Owen McArdle)
Subject: Time Travel (was Re: (none))



In article <680@auvax.UUCP> ralphh@auvax.UUCP (Ralph Hand) writes:
--In article <8807220420.AA23265@angband.s1.gov>, ... writes
--> simple:  If time travel were possible, wouldn't someone have told us by now?
--> Think about it..
--
--I realize that you were not really serious, but no someone would not have
--told us by now.  Would not doing so alter their own history thereby 
--putting their own existance into doubt.  There is a potential for a paradox 
--here.  The people of the future would have to decide not to let us know if
--they desired to continue to exist themselves.

 The way I've always tried to figure this little one out is that *if*
someone has already visited us from the future, whatever they've done
has already had its' effect. I comfort myself with the reasoning that
even if they wanted to, and tried really hard to, do something WHICH THEY
KNOW IN THEIR OWN TIME NEVER HAPPENED, then they can't. Some combination
of circumstances must have prevented them. If you can disprove this,
DON'T TELL ME, I'll not sleep a wink for weeks!

 Such a line of reasoning can lead you to believe that, on setting out
for some such trip, unless a ship bearing a remarkable resemblance to
your own arrives in the distbn. area before you leave, you didn't get
back before you left. Now if there did... well you need only build ONE 
of any ship, and using this perpetual generation technique spawn off as
many as you need with time travel :-). With every ship built being a
one-off, just think of the profit margin you'd want if you were building
it.

 Physics? Who needs Physics, these are feelings.  Now I know why there was 
only one 'Heart of Gold'...








---
Owen P.McArdle         || NET  : mcardle@nvpna1.prl.philips.nl
Philips Research Labs. || PHONE: +31-40-742824

------------------------------

Date:     Fri, 29 Jul 88 11:21 EDT
From: GODDEN%gmr.com@relay.cs.net
Subject:  query about 'escape velocity'

I want to ask a question that most of you will regard as supremely dumb.
Well, I'm going to ask anyway because I'm curious.  It is simply this.
I am aware of the so-called 'escape velocity' for earth being approx
17K mph.  Why is this so?  I DO understand orbital velocity, but escape
velocity?  Why can't you leave earth at 1 mph even?  As long as you have
thrust to just slightly overcome gravity, it seems (to me) that you ought
to be able to leave.  When I throw a ball upward, at least for a while
it moves away from earth at a slow speed.  By providing low thrust, why
can't you just continue at some slow speed all the way to the moon?
What am I missing?  (Please, no condescending snide remarks.  I admitted
this would be a dumb question at the outset.)
-Kurt Godden

------------------------------

Date:     Fri, 29 Jul 88 10:59:54 CDT
From: Will Martin -- AMXAL-RI <wmartin@almsa-1.arpa>
Subject:  Automated vs. personned spacecraft -- a reasonable compromise

Several postings which appeared in recent Space Digests (probably came
around a couple weeks ago on USENET) mentioned the controversy over 
automated vs. crewed space exploration, and such factors as the vast
amount of support required for a living crew, which reduces the scientific
payload. Another mentioned that, though he personally would like to go
into space, he would give up his position, if he had one, to someone
with better vision and who was lighter, to achieve better results for
all humanity in return.

There is an obvious middle ground. This is not my original idea -- it has
been standard in SF for decades. You send a human brain, interfaced to the
mechanisms, and do not waste space and mass on all the gorp required to
support a full human body. Up until recently, that was just "pie in the
sky" wishful thinking, but, as researchers progress more and more on
viable interfaces for prosthetic devices and sensors, it becomes a
reasonable way to get human thinking ability integrated on a real-time
basis with automated deep-space probes. Carrying only the oxygen,
fluids, and nutrients to support the few pounds of brain tissue, and,
ideally, equipped with nanotechnology repair units to fix up radiation
damage and wearing-out biological elements, a human brain with a
spaceship body could not only explore the solar system and Oort cloud,
but reach the stars. The lifetime of this synergy could be centuries,
since all the non-neurological toxin-producing parts of the body would
be gone, and longer-lived and replaceable mechanical parts would provide
the support functions.

This is a perfect opportunity for those of us with non-astronaut
physiques. I, myself, would love such a change, to shed this wretched
physical body and become a spaceship! (I'd probably volunteer to do it
for even a lesser goal, like becoming a deep-diving submersible or 
a geologic exploration mechanical mole!) So you don't have 20/20 vision?
Doesn't matter -- your eyes will be replaced with multispectral scanners
and imagers interfaced into your visual cortex, far keener and more
enlightening than human eyes could ever be. You afraid of losing the
pleasures of the flesh, such as food and sex? Nonsense -- the interfaces
can attach to any of the brain centers and you can experience delicious
flavors by sampling atmospheres or get an orgasmic response from any
stimulus you care to switch to that set of receptors. 

The fighter pilots and jocks can keep their fine figures -- I'll choose
a mechanical support system which can be continuously improved with
technological upgrades over the decades. Hmmm... if those of us who
get into this line of work write our contracts right, we'll probably end
up owning the planet in a couple centuries, with compound interest on
the back pay piling up while we're off to the stars...

Regards, Will Martin

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #314
*******************

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Date: Fri, 5 Aug 88 01:04:39 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8808050804.AA02646@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #315

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 315

Today's Topics:
		   Re: space news from June 6 AW&ST
		   Re: space news from May 30 AW&ST
		 Re: Time skew -- does it hurt SETI?
			  Re: space studies
		  Re: query about 'escape velocity'
 Balloon campaign will seek evidence of antimatter galaxy (Forwarded)
			      Space Junk
			   The Face on Mars
			    Lithium cells
			    Digital Images
		  Re: query about 'escape velocity'
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 28 Jul 88 19:25:46 GMT
From: att!chinet!mcdchg!clyde!watmath!utgpu!utzoo!henry@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: space news from June 6 AW&ST

In article <3821@h.cc.purdue.edu> acu@h.cc.purdue.edu.UUCP (Floyd McWilliams) writes:
>	Re the planned Jupiter-Pluto flight by the Voyager spare:
>How long would such a flight take?  Since Pluto is now closer to the
>sun than Neptune, would it take much longer than the 12-year trip by
>Voyager 2?  ...

I don't remember the numbers, and there may even have been a Saturn
encounter in the middle, but yeah, it was a fairly rapid trip.  Maybe
even faster than Voyager 2, because Uranus is actually not on a direct
course for Neptune.
-- 
MSDOS is not dead, it just     |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
smells that way.               | uunet!mnetor!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 28 Jul 88 19:30:26 GMT
From: att!chinet!mcdchg!clyde!watmath!utgpu!utzoo!henry@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: space news from May 30 AW&ST

In article <2876@calmasd.GE.COM> jnp@calmasd.GE.COM (John Pantone) writes:
>...I am, however, not too thrilled
>to see an editorial comment which seems to imply that just because the
>Soviets may (or may not) be getting tired of our "studies" that we
>should fall through our a__holes trying to please them, or get
>something done to satisfy or placate them.

Not "just" because the Soviets are getting tired of it.  Because everybody
who wants to see action in space, including prospective international
partners (not limited to the USSR), is getting sick of the US's inability
to actually accomplish anything.  The US space program currently specializes
in studying missions rather than doing them.  And when a possible partner
actually proposes *doing* something, what answer do they get from the US
government?  "Great idea, let's study it for a few more years."  Feh.
-- 
MSDOS is not dead, it just     |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
smells that way.               | uunet!mnetor!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 28 Jul 88 21:04:55 GMT
From: att!chinet!mcdchg!clyde!watmath!utgpu!utzoo!henry@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Time skew -- does it hurt SETI?

In article <61351@sun.uucp> msodos%amanda@Sun.COM (Martin Sodos) writes:
>... If they are
>behind us they are somewhat before the time of their equivalent of the
>Greeks, and there is no hope of communication. If they are ahead of us,
>they are probably so advanced as to be almost unrecognizable...

This hurts CETI but not SETI (at least not to such an extent).  One would
tentatively expect that a race would be observable for quite a while even
after they advanced to the point where they weren't interested in talking
to us.  Unless our current grasp of physics is grossly inadequate, the
electromagnetic spectrum is unlikely to be replaced by anything better
as a species advances.

The single most plausible reason for seeing no signs of extraterrestrial
intelligence is that a species which advances not far beyond our own
changes so radically that it loses interest in communication, space
exploration, etc., at least in the forms we recognize.  There is no way
to test this hypothesis, unfortunately, since it essentially claims that
extrapolation from our current knowledge is invalid.
-- 
MSDOS is not dead, it just     |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
smells that way.               | uunet!mnetor!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 29 Jul 88 17:27:03 GMT
From: eugene@eos.arc.nasa.gov  (Eugene Miya)
Subject: Re: space studies

This is not for space.shuttle, this is more for sci.space.
In article <1988Jul28.193026.10042@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>"Great idea, let's study it for a few more years."

No, you have it all wrong! s/study/computer simulate/  # ;-)

Another gross generalization from

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@aurora.arc.nasa.gov
  resident cynic at the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:
  "Mailers?! HA!", "If my mail does not reach you, please accept my apology."
  {uunet,hplabs,ncar,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."

------------------------------

Date: 29 Jul 88 18:28:39 GMT
From: cfa!cfa250!mcdowell@husc6.harvard.edu  (Jonathan McDowell)
Subject: Re: query about 'escape velocity'

>From article <8807291603.AA05986@angband.s1.gov>, by GODDEN@gmr.COM:
[... question about escape velocity..]

No, your question is perfectly sensible and your argument is correct. 
There is absolutely nothing to stop you going all the way to the Moon
(or Pluto, for that matter) at a nice steady 55 mph (:-) if you have a
nice steady thrust source.  This takes an AWFUL lot of fuel though, and
if your engine stops you find yourself on an orbit you didnt want to be
on.  You've given yourself a lot of potential energy and no kinetic
energy, so if you start freely falling you are at the apogee of your
orbit and will soon change all that PE into huge amounts of KE heading
back towards the Earth very fast..[ "Ground...  yes, ground...  I wonder
if it'll be friendly?"] You might also have a problem landing on the
Moon once you got there; its radial velocity is small, but its orbital
velocity is large..  you sure won't be going at 55 mph relative to it. 
Ever tried to step off a moving train?

 'Escape velocity' is just the velocity needed to leave the Earth
WITHOUT any further thrust; that is, if you freely fall with this
velocity (in a direction away from the Earth!) you are on a parabolic
orbit that will not return you to the Earth. 

When solar sailing and other continuous thrust propulsion methods become
common, we may hear a lot less talk about escape velocity, but the
relative velocities of departure and destination points will still be
important. 

Jonathan McDowell

------------------------------

Date: 29 Jul 88 19:07:23 GMT
From: yee@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: Balloon campaign will seek evidence of antimatter galaxy (Forwarded)

Paula Cleggett
Headquarters, Washington, D.C.                     July 29, 1988

Patricia M. Simms
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

RELEASE:  88-106

BALLOON CAMPAIGN WILL SEEK EVIDENCE OF ANTIMATTER GALAXY


     NASA will launch three huge balloons in Canada next month to 
search for cosmic rays, including those that could provide 
evidence of galaxies made of antimatter.

     Antimatter consists of particles with electrical charges 
opposite those of "common" matter, which constitutes Earth's 
material.  When antimatter and matter collide there is a mutual 
and complete annihilation, releasing energy far greater in 
proportion then energy released by nuclear fission or fusion.

     Whether antimatter could ever be created in sufficient 
supply and harnessed to provide useful energy is a challenging 
question.

     The flights will begin Aug. 2, in a month-long campaign that 
is part of the NASA Balloon Program managed by the Goddard Space 
Flight Center's Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, Va.

     Balloons that will lift three cosmic ray experiments to 
approximately 120,000 feet will be launched from Prince Albert 
Saskatchewan Airport, approximately 300 miles north of the 
U.S./Canadian border.

     Scientific balloons are utilized to carry large research 
payloads with scientific instruments to make measurements at 
altitudes above 99 percent of the Earth's atmosphere.  They are 
made of a thin polyethylene material and are more than 350 feet 
in diameter at full inflation.  These balloons provide unique 
experiment platforms for measurements at altitudes in the upper 
stratosphere.

     Personnel from WFF and the National Scientific Balloon 
Facility, Palestine, Texas, will provide the launching and 
operational flight support at the primary operations site in 
Prince Albert.  Personnel from WFF also will provide downrange 
telemetry tracking support at Edmonton, Alberta.

     Principal investigators for this campaign are Dr. Steve 
Ahlen, Boston University; Dr. W. Robert Binns, Washington 
University; and Dr. Steve Schindler, California Institute of 
Technology.

     Ahlen's extragalactic antimatter experiment is a 4,500-pound 
payload that will search for heavy anti-nuclei (anti-silicon to 
anti-iron), and will be flown on a 28.4 million cubic foot 
balloon.  The observed anti-nuclei are expected to provide 
evidence for the existence of galaxies made completely of 
antimatter.  Scientist believe this discovery could prove to be 
extremely useful for understanding the annihilation process 
between matter and antimatter in the creation of galaxies.

     Binns' payload, called the scintillating optic fiber 
experiment is a 1,200-pound cosmic ray isotope experiment that 
will utilize newly-developed range and trajectory-defining 
detectors based on scintillating fiber optics.  It also will be 
carried aloft by a 28.4 million-cubic-foot balloon.

     Schindler's 2,700-pound payload, to be carried on a 23.3 
million-cubic-foot balloon, is the high energy isotope 
spectrometer telescope.  This experiment employs a combination of 
scintillators and counters to form a cosmic ray isotope 
spectrometer capable of measuring the isotopic composition of 
cosmic rays from helium to nickle.

     The mission is part of the overall NASA Balloon Program, 
managed at Wallops.  The program provides 40-45 balloon flights a 
year from locations around the world.

------------------------------

Subject: Space Junk
Date: Fri, 29 Jul 88 17:06:33 -0400
From: Fred Baube <fbaube@note.nsf.gov>


An article in EE Times (July 25, page 21) declares that "Space
Junk Threatens Future Missions", according to NASA.  Spacecraft
are now more likely to be struck by orbital debris than by
micrometeorites.  In LEO, 1-to-10 cm objects cause the most
concern; NASA plans to release by the end of the year a radar 
to detect such objects.

The Novenber 1986 Ariane breakup "instantly created 500 large
pieces of debris and instantly increased the total number of
objects orbiting the Earth by about 7%".

"The average time between collisions that might be damaging to an
orbiter at 300 km is 71 years, based on 1988 debris density ..
but if current trends continue, the time period drops to 26 years
for the density projected for 2000 and to 8 years for the
projected 2010 density."

And now for the kicker ..

"Carried to its logical conclusion, space debris in LEO's could
grow to the point where they are self-regenerative [and] the rate
of debris generation .. will exceed the rate of debris generation
by natural sinks."

/f

------------------------------

Subject: The Face on Mars
Date: Fri, 29 Jul 88 17:15:26 -0400
From: Fred Baube <fbaube@note.nsf.gov>


World Weekly News cover story, August 9:

"Face On Mars Beams Warning to Earth" (with cover photo)

Story on page 5, with another photo captioned,

"Mile-long monument, center of photo, houses the Martian tele-
vision transmitter that has been sending the Earth stark images
of a long-dead civilization. Scientists who have seen the night-
marish pictures beamed from the gigantic face say they were
made by a race battling a deadly plague."

Named are "Swiss astronomer Ludin Pasche" and "Dr Lars-Tvar
Carlsson, the noted Swedish astronomer".

"It shows thousands and thousands of wretched souls dying in the
streets .. The suggestion is that the planet had been stricken
with a deadly plague."

More seriously, isn't there more to it than just the "face" ?
Aren't there some interesting geometrical relationships among
other objects in the area ?

#include <disclaimer.h>

------------------------------

Sender: "chaz_heritage.WGC1RX"@xerox.com
Date: 29 Jul 88 08:25:54 PDT (Friday)
Subject: Lithium cells
From: "chaz_heritage.WGC1RX"@xerox.com

Some reported explosions of lithium cells are due not to short-circuiting but to
application of AC.

Several reports of lithium cell explosions have appeared in 'Electronics and
Wireless World', a UK professional electronics magazine not given to
sensationalism. In all cases the lithium cells were part of a power supply
system which operated normally from mains AC, but relied on the lithium cells
for backup when mains power was disconnected. Failure of sufficient components
to allow mains AC (at 240V/50Hz in UK) to be applied to the cells caused them
not merely to outgas but to explode with great violence. In one case a rack of
expensive apparatus was seriously damaged; in another a laboratory suffered
structural damage assessed by its reporter as being similar to that which might
be caused by a small hand-grenade.

Since in the astronautics application no high-voltage AC will be present in the
circuit, there appears to be no risk of such violent explosions. Assessment of
the outgas hazard is clearly in the hands of experts.

Regards,

Chaz

------------------------------

Date: 29 Jul 88 18:50:33 GMT
From: rochester!ur-tut!giaccone@rutgers.edu  (Tony Giaccone)
Subject: Digital Images


Hi folks,

I'm hoping someone out there can help me out. I'd like to get some of the raw
digital images sent back by either Viking, or Voyager, or both. Does anyone
know if this stuff is availible to the general public and if there's a cost
associated with it. The best news would be that someone out there has copies
of some of these images that I could ftp to my local machine. However, I'll
take them anyway I can get them (within reason, paper tape is probably not 
acceptable :-).


                                       Thanks,

                                        Tony Giaccone

					tonyg@cvs.rochester.edu
					cornell!rochester!ur-tut!giaccone

------------------------------

Date: 29 Jul 88 19:44:52 GMT
From: cfa!wyatt@husc6.harvard.edu  (Bill Wyatt)
Subject: Re: query about 'escape velocity'

In article <1020@cfa237.cfa250.harvard.edu>, mcdowell@cfa250.harvard.edu (Jonathan McDowell) writes:
> From article <8807291603.AA05986@angband.s1.gov>, by GODDEN@gmr.COM:
> > [... question about escape velocity..]
> 
> No, your question is perfectly sensible and your argument is correct. 
> There is absolutely nothing to stop you going all the way to the Moon
> (or Pluto, for that matter) at a nice steady 55 mph (:-) if you have a
> nice steady thrust source.  This takes an AWFUL lot of fuel
> [...]
>       so if you start freely falling you are at the apogee of your
> orbit and will soon change all that PE into huge amounts of KE heading
> back towards the Earth very fast.
[...]> 
>  'Escape velocity' is just the velocity needed to leave the Earth
> WITHOUT any further thrust; that is, if you freely fall with this
> velocity (in a direction away from the Earth!) you are on a parabolic
> orbit that will not return you to the Earth. 
[...]

The above is correct except I think you have to emphasize that the
escape velocity varies with the square root of the distance from the
Earth's (or other gravity well's) center. Thus, if you have sufficient
thrust to move away from the Earth at 55 mph, I calculate that
somewhere in the vicinity of Jupiter's orbit you'll be at the escape
velocity of Earth. After that point, even stopping the thrust will not
let you fall back to Earth (assuming no perturbations, etc.), although
you'd presumeably orbit or fall into the Sun!

A better way to think of this is that you are in a potential well,
with the Earth at the bottom, and you need to expend some amount of
energy to move up the sides of the well. The total amount of 
energy needed to get out of the well (i.e. reach infintely up the
sides of the well) is constant, but the increment from a given 
height decreases as you move outward.

Bill    UUCP:  {husc6,ihnp4,cmcl2,mit-eddie}!harvard!cfa!wyatt
Wyatt   ARPA:  wyatt@cfa.harvard.edu
         (or)  wyatt%cfa@harvard.harvard.edu
      BITNET:  wyatt@cfa2
        SPAN:  cfairt::wyatt 
-- 

Bill    UUCP:  {husc6,ihnp4,cmcl2,mit-eddie}!harvard!cfa!wyatt
Wyatt   ARPA:  wyatt@cfa.harvard.edu
         (or)  wyatt%cfa@harvard.harvard.edu
      BITNET:  wyatt@cfa2
        SPAN:  cfairt::wyatt

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #315
*******************

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Date: Sat, 6 Aug 88 01:04:06 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8808060804.AA00580@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #316

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 316

Today's Topics:
		      NASA Prediction Bulletins
			Where did the BBS go?
			Celestial BBS Missing
			     Mir elements
		     Satellite Tracking Software
		   SDI: More Spinoffs Than Apollo?
		 Re: Time skew -- does it hurt SETI?
		  Re: query about 'escape velocity'
		   Re: space news from June 6 AW&ST
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 30 Jul 88 20:01:13 GMT
From: cs.utexas.edu!ut-emx!tskelso@husc6.harvard.edu  (TS Kelso)
Subject: NASA Prediction Bulletins


For those of you who are interested in satellite tracking, the most current
orbital elements from the NASA Prediction Bulletins are carried on the
Celestial RCP/M, (512) 892-4180, and are updated several times weekly.  As a
service to the amateur satellite community, the most current of these elements
are uploaded weekly to rec.ham-radio.  The Celestial RCP/M may be accessed 24
hours/day at 300, 1200, or 2400 baud using 8 data bits, 1 stop bit, no parity.

Note:  There will be a temporary suspension of the posting of these elements
       while I relocate from Austin, Texas to Dayton, Ohio.  Normal postings
       should resume in a couple of weeks.

--
TS Kelso, PhD                       ARPA: tskelso@emx.cc.utexas.edu
The Center for Space Research
The University of Texas at Austin   UUCP: {ihnp4,allegra}!ut-emx!tskelso

------------------------------

Date: 1 Aug 88 10:15:34 MST
From: SHAVER@epg1-hua.arpa

>From Shaver's Screen
Subject: Where did the BBS go?

I no longer am getting answers to the BBS in Austin which had the NASA predicte
d element sets for satellites.  I have not received their new address.  Does an
yone have any suggestions?  Please reply to this address, I am not currently on
 the net.

"
                                          John

------------------------------

Date:    Mon, 01 Aug 88 22:06 CDT
From: Kerry Stevenson <kerry%ccm.UManitoba.CA@cornellc.ccs.cornell.edu>
Subject: Celestial BBS Missing

Tried today to connect to T.S. Kelso's Celestial BBS.  However, after
dialing the number, (512) 892-4180, I got a recorded message announcing
that the "number you have dialed is no longer in service." I heard
a rumor some time ago that this BBS was moving to somewhere else. Does
anyone know where it has been relocated?  What is the new number?
Is there a new number? Have we lost our only dependable source of
orbital elements?  I haven't attempted a connection there for some
months now, so I'm not surpised that I got caught in the middle of
a change.

                                                Kerry

------------------------------

Date: 3 Aug 88 19:23:00 GMT
From: a.cs.uiuc.edu!m.cs.uiuc.edu!kenny@uxc.cso.uiuc.edu
Subject: Mir elements


Two-line elements for Mir        
1 16609U          88210.22249169 0.00023018           20000-3 0    00
2 16609  51.6145 216.4331 0004446 167.8573 192.3121 15.74728513140290

NOTE: The source I'm using right now doesn't give B*; the figure above
is a guess at the value.

Object: Mir        
NORAD catalog number: 16609
Element set: 0
Epoch revolution: 14029
Epoch time: 88210.22249169 (Thu Jul 28 05:20:23 UTC)
Inclination: 51.6145 degrees
RA of node: 216.4331 degrees
Eccentricity: 0.0004446
Argument of periapsis: 167.8573 degrees
Mean anomaly: 192.3121 degrees
Mean motion: 15.74728513 revs / day
Mean motion acceleration: 0.00023018 * 2 revs / day**2
B* drag term: 2.0000e-04

Derived figures:
Semimajor axis: 6723.24 km.
Perifocal radius: 6720.25 km.
Apogee height: 348.086 km.
Perigee height: 342.108 km.
Mean longitude at the epoch: 3.7804 degrees.
Magnitudes of short-period perturbations of the second harmonic:
	Radius vector magnitude: +/-1.01 km.
	True anomaly: +/-0.0119 degrees.
	RA of node: +/-0.0260 degrees.
	Inclination: +/-0.0204 degrees.
Secular perturbations of the second harmonic:
	Argument of perigee: 3.8439 degrees/day
	RA of node: -5.1447 degrees/day
	Mean anomaly: included in published mean motion.
Long-period perturbation of the third harmonic: X=-1.642e-03, Y=-8.719e-04


Source: NASA Goddard via National Space Society Mir-Watch Hotline
				+1 202 543 4487 voice.

NOTE: Apogee and perigee heights are referred to a mean equatorial radius
      of 6378.145 km, and not to the local radius of the geoid.
      All derived quantities are calculated using the NORAD SGP model of
      Hilton and Kuhlman.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 2 Aug 88 09:31:18 EDT
From: Gavin_Eadie@um.cc.umich.edu
Subject: Satellite Tracking Software

I found a nice program for the Mac on Compuserve or Genie (I forget
which since I look at both regularly). It has many nice features and
what follows is from the write-up:
----
 
MacSat Version 1.0 March 1, 1988
 
Copyright (C) 1988 BEK Developers, All Rights Reserved
 
Permission granted for noncommercial use. The program may be copied
freely, provided no money is paid. For a copy of the latest version
and manual, send $10 to:
 
        MacSat
        BEK Developers
        1732 74th Circle NE
        St. Petersburg, FL 33702
 
Documentation
 
MacSat is a satellite tracking program. It can store data for up to
200 satellites and 100 stations. Data for the stations and
satellites are contained in a file called 'MacSat Data'. Default
data are contained in a file called 'MacSat Defaults'. Both files
must reside in the same directory as MacSat. Some knowlege of
satellite orbits is desired to make good use of this program.
 
The program requires version 3.2 or latter of the System. MacSat can
run on any Macintosh computer, provided it has 128K ROMs or greater.
MacSat2 has been optomized to run on a Macintosh II, but will crash
on all others.
 
Features:
 
   Store satellite data for up to 200 satellites.
 
   Store station data for up to 100 stations.
 
   Plot satellite ground tracks on a world map (MAP).
 
   View current position of selected satellites on a world map in
   real-time (RTMAP).
 
   Display look angles for satellites that are illuminated when the
   ground site is in darkness (LOOK).
 
   Display look angles for satellites at all times of the day
   (TRACK).
 
   Display Right Ascension and Declination for objects (LOOK and
   TRACK).
 
   Maintains a self contained data base on available ground
   stations, satellites, and program defaults.
 
   Capable of flushing the data base.
 
   Elements in either SSPEC or SATELE formats can be loaded
   (SATDAT.ED, STNDAT.SD, SATELE.### files).
 
   Can write out SATDAT.ED and STNDAT.SD data and Station and
   Element listings.
 
   Display the latitude and longitude position of objects
   (POSITION).
 
   Display orbital plane crossings at a particular site (LAUNCH).
 
   Display equator crossings (EQUATOR).
 
The following dialog boxes are used in the various programs to enter
data.
 
Parameter Dialog - This dialog is used to enter pass information to
the various programs. Start and stop times for a pass may be entered
in either month/day/year hours:minutes or year/day of year. Other
items that may be entered, depending on the program, are step size,
minimum elevation (satellite must be above this before data will be
output), horizon elevation, maximum range (satellite must be within
this distance before data will be output), and time zone. In some
Options, the settings dialog may be selectable.
 
Settings Dialog - This dialog is used to configure a particular
option run. For the Map option, displaying tick marks can be enabled
and how often the tick mark occurs can be selected. The size of the
station circle and whether to beep when complete can also be
selected. For the other options, pass headers can be selected to be
output always, only when a pass is actually found, or never (a pass
header is satellite information pertaining to the current pass).
Beep when complete can also be enabled.
 
Station/Satellite Select Dialog - This dialog is used to select
desired stations/satellites to use in the program. Selections are
saved in 'MacSat Data'. Multiple stations may be selected in LOOK
and TRACK programs. To select more than one object, use the shift
key and mouse to select a continuous block or the command key and
mouse to select non-continuous items. In some Options, the filter
dialog may be selectable.
 
Filter Dialog - This dialog is used to select filter parameters for
displays in the Station/Satellite Select Dialog. The filter can be
set up to display all stations or satellites or those loaded since
(New) or before (Old) the program was started. Stations can be
filtered based on their Latitude and Longitude. Satellites can be
filtered based on their Inclination, Mean Motion, Epoch,
Eccentricity, and International Designator.

------------------------------

Date: 3 Aug 88 14:48:10 GMT
From: ihnp4!ihuxz!rats@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (D Woo)
Subject: SDI: More Spinoffs Than Apollo?

[There was a 330 line message here from Defense Electronics (May 88)
that I punted.  It is available to anyone who can't get a copy of the
magazine and want to read it.  Drop me a note at ota+@andrew.cmu.edu.
	Ted Anderson]

------------------------------

Date: 29 Jul 88 19:56:35 GMT
From: jtk@mordor.s1.gov  (Jordan Kare)
Subject: Re: Time skew -- does it hurt SETI?

In article <1988Jul28.210455.11515@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>
>...One would
>tentatively expect that a race would be observable for quite a while even
>after they advanced to the point where they weren't interested in talking
>to us.  Unless our current grasp of physics is grossly inadequate, the
>electromagnetic spectrum is unlikely to be replaced by anything better
>as a species advances.

Back when I was a grad student at UC Berkeley, one of the physics
professors came up with what he thought was a mechanism for
strong coupling to gravity waves -- a QM/gravity interaction.
As far as I know, he turned out to be wrong, as I have not heard
anything about the idea for some time.  However, for a few weeks
there, it looked as though one might be able to make useful
gravity wave transmitters and receivers out of macroscopic QM
wave function systems -- say,  toruses (tori?) full of superfluid
helium.  This prompted at least one comment that now we finally
understood why SETI hadn't found anything:  everybody Out There
was sending nice, clear signals -- but in gravity waves!

On a more conventional note, even folks who still use the EM spectrum
might well advance to the point where they saw no reason to waste
energy (not to mention spectrum space) by spewing power 
out in all directions.  High power TV stations
are already giving way to cable systems, and many radar systems are
being replaced with passive detectors.  Lasers and fiber optics 
enhance this process.  While I doubt the Earth will be completely
radio-quiet any time soon (barring catastrophe), we may already have
passed our noisiest phase.

>
>The single most plausible reason for seeing no signs of extraterrestrial
>intelligence is that a species which advances not far beyond our own
>changes so radically that it loses interest in communication, space
>exploration, etc., at least in the forms we recognize.  

You mean, like the current Administration? :-)

		Jordin (Still Searching for Terrestrial Intelligence) Kare
		jtk@mordor.uucp	jtk@mordor.s1.gov

------------------------------

Date: 29 Jul 88 21:01:19 GMT
From: firth@sei.cmu.edu  (Robert Firth)
Subject: Re: query about 'escape velocity'

In article <8807291603.AA05986@angband.s1.gov> GODDEN@gmr.COM writes:
> ...  I DO understand orbital velocity, but escape
>velocity?  Why can't you leave earth at 1 mph even?  As long as you have
>thrust to just slightly overcome gravity, it seems (to me) that you ought
>to be able to leave.

Gee, we all ask basic questions from time to time; one of the things
these groups is for is to let people learn things.  So...

'escape velocity' is, roughly, how fast you'd have to throw a ball
so it would never come back.  Ignoring air resistance and all that
stuff, of course.  It is therefore the initial velocity a
"ballistic" body must have at the surface of a uniform spherical
mass if the body is to recede from the mass for ever.  The key
word is "ballistic" - as you say, you can go anywhere at any speed
with continuous thrust.

Since Newton's laws are time-symmetric, escape velocity is also
the speed with which a body would hit the Earth if it fell from
an infinite distance, again ignoring all other effects.

Note, therefore, that the projectile fired by Verne's gun had to
be travelling with at least escape velocity when it left the muzzle,
with our intrepid voyagers squashed to a pulp inside it.  A rocket,
however, need never reach escape velocity as long as it doesn't
mind burning fuel.  Our rockets actually do reach escape velocity
because it is more efficient to burn the necessary fuel close to
the earth (that way you haven't used energy to lift lots of fuel
way up into space).

Hope that helps.

------------------------------

Date: 28 Jul 88 23:45:07 GMT
From: aplcen!aplcomm!stdc.jhuapl.edu!jwm@mimsy.umd.edu  (Jim Meritt)
Subject: Re: space news from June 6 AW&ST

In article <1264@thumper.bellcore.com> karn@thumper.bellcore.com (Phil R. Karn) writes:
}Agreed. We really need some enlightened self-interest on both sides. An
}excellent start would be the following:
}
}1. Ban the use of nuclear power sources in low earth orbit, "low" being
}defined as anything with a lifetime less than a thousand years or so.
}Deep space missions would be fine.
}
}These two provisions would have the following highly beneficial effects:
}
}1. The seemingly regular series of Soviet nuclear-powered radarsats
}re-entering the atmosphere would stop.
}2. The increasing pollution of orbital space by ASAT and SDI tests would
}stop.
}3. Taken together, the two provisions would effectively prohibit many,
}if not most, nuclear powered SDI tests.
}
}We urgently needed the Limited Test Ban Treaty in 1963, and we urgently
}need a treaty like this now.


Not to mention the radar reconnaisance satellites that are used. (rorsat,
remember?)

What space pollution?  We haven't gotten anything (significant) into orbit
in a LONG time!  That stuff is up, shoot, fall.

What nuclear powered SDI tests? I must have missed something.  The only
nuclear-powered space weapon I have heard of is a pop-up, and its use is
forbidden under existing treaties.  What are you talking about?

SOMEBODY definitely needs enlightenment around here, all right.
maybe me?


Disclaimer: Individuals have opinions, organizations have policy.
            Therefore, these opinions are mine and not any organizations!
Q.E.D.
jwm@aplvax.jhuapl.edu 128.244.65.5  (James W. Meritt)

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #316
*******************

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Date: Sun, 7 Aug 88 01:04:12 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8808070804.AA01242@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #317

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 317

Today's Topics:
     Re: Doppler lidar, ESA publications(was: NASA news - Seasat)
			    Re: Space Race
	    Re: International Geosphere-Biosphere Program
		  The philosophy of orbital modeling
  Re: Automated vs. personned spacecraft -- a reasonable compromise
		  Re: query about 'escape velocity'
			       E stamp
		     Re: Libertarian space policy
		   Re: Time Travel (was Re: (none))
			   Re: Time travel
		 Re: Time skew -- does it hurt SETI?
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 29 Jul 88 15:32:15 GMT
From: aplcen!aplcomm!stdc.jhuapl.edu!jwm@mimsy.umd.edu  (Jim Meritt)
Subject: Re: Doppler lidar, ESA publications(was: NASA news - Seasat)

In article <8807261925.AA02646@angband.s1.gov> HIGGINS@FNAL.BITNET (Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey) writes:
}The object is to shine a laser down, observe scattered light off dust particles
}and aerosols, and measure the Doppler shift.  Do this from two angles (two
}spots in the satellite's orbit) for the same location on the surface, and you
}have enough velocity information to get the two-dimensional wind pattern. Time
}delay of the laser pulse gives you depth. This could be a great boon to the
}weather guys, especially in the Southern Hemisphere where surface measurements
}are sparse.


You can get surface wind measurements from the altimeter of the geosat
satellite during ocean transits.  Thus, surface measurements in the
Southern Hemisphere (mostly water) are not quite as sparse as one might
be lead to believe....

(I know you can because I do.  JHU APL is the site of the geosat
ground station)



Disclaimer: Individuals have opinions, organizations have policy.
            Therefore, these opinions are mine and not any organizations!
Q.E.D.
jwm@aplvax.jhuapl.edu 128.244.65.5  (James W. Meritt)

------------------------------

Date: 29 Jul 88 17:46:58 GMT
From: ns!logajan@umn-cs.arpa  (John Logajan x3118)
Subject: Re: Space Race

Donna Reynolds (DR9021 at UCSFVM) writes:
> some folks believe the
> Soviets initiated the race to the moon solely to draw
> attention and funds from the X-15/X-20 program,

I have no information on this, but it seems to me that this is in the same
vein as a lot of other suggestions that we are but pawns in the schemes of
our enemies.  If our space program was/is founded upon stupidity, then we
should lay the blame at the feet of those responsible for the program.
Saying, "the devil made us do it!" isn't an honest assessment of reality,
I suggest.
 
- John M. Logajan @ Network Systems; 7600 Boone Ave; Brooklyn Park, MN 55428 -
- {...rutgers!dayton, ...amdahl!ems, ...uunet!rosevax!mmm} !viper!ns!logajan -

------------------------------

Date: 30 Jul 88 02:37:35 GMT
From: sunybcs!dmark@rutgers.edu  (David Mark)
Subject: Re: International Geosphere-Biosphere Program

In article <3640@bnrmtv.UUCP> behm@bnrmtv.UUCP (Gregory Behm) writes:
>I am searching for information about the International Geosphere-Biosphere
>Program, and hope that some of you on the net might be of assistance.  Any
>information about the program, including (but not limited to) planned or
>proposed research and participating organizations, will be greatly appreciated.
>

The International Geographical Union recently sponsored a "Global Database
Planning Project" meeting.  That meeting was by no means restricted to IGBP,
but did pay considerable attention to IGBP's data-handling needs.  Two IGU
representatives will attend an IGBP meeting in Moscow in August to present
findings.  Here are electronic mail addresses for organizers of the 
IGU-GDPP meeting, which I should add was held at Tylney Hall, England,
May 9-13, 1988:

Meeting Chair:          Dr. Roger Tomlinson, Ottawa, Canada;  
                        CAG@UOTTAWA.BITNET

Scientific coordinator: Dr. Michael F. Goodchild, UC Santa Barbara;
                        good@topdog.ucsb.edu  or GOOD@SBITP.BITNET

Meeting coordinator:    Dr. David Rhind, Birkbeck College, University of London
                        Rhind@ge.bbk.ac.uk

Hope this is of some interest.  I have a program of the meeting.  Proceedings
will be published.
_______________________________________________________________________________

David M. Mark, Professor of Geography, SUNY at Buffalo
dmark@joey.cs.buffalo.edu
dmark@sunybcs.BITNET

------------------------------

Date: 29 Jul 88 20:57:41 GMT
From: ns!logajan@umn-cs.arpa  (John Logajan x3118)
Subject: The philosophy of orbital modeling


I was just pondering the philosophy of orbital modeling.  Any real
orbiting object knows nothing of orbits, or ellipses or the rules
of orbits, but rather responds only to its own instantaneous velocity,
mass, and gravitation force.

But humans, upon observing orbits, noticed first the elliptical nature
of orbits.  And so was born a system by which indirect effects of
gravitation and momentum could be used to predict orbital behavior.

This "elliptical" model, of course, gets very complicated for more than
one main body.  But its value lies in that calculations for the most
part avoid the problem of cumulative error.  And that is why, in the
main, it is used for earthly satellites.

Powered flight, on the other hand, does not fit so easily into the 
elliptical model.  With its constant vector changes, the only model that
can closely approximate this vehicle behavior is the dv/dt model.

- John M. Logajan @ Network Systems; 7600 Boone Ave; Brooklyn Park, MN 55428 -
- {...rutgers!dayton, ...amdahl!ems, ...uunet!rosevax!mmm} !viper!ns!logajan -

------------------------------

Date: 30 Jul 88 03:38:43 GMT
From: silver!chiaravi@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu  (Lucius Chiaraviglio)
Subject: Re: Automated vs. personned spacecraft -- a reasonable compromise

In article <8807291618.AA06003@angband.s1.gov> wmartin@ALMSA-1.ARPA (Will
Martin -- AMXAL-RI) writes:
>There is an obvious middle ground. This is not my original idea -- it has
>been standard in SF for decades. You send a human brain, interfaced to the
>mechanisms, and do not waste space and mass on all the gorp required to
>support a full human body.

	If you don't waste space and mass on all the gorp required to support
a human body, you have to waste space and mass on all the gorp required to
simulate a human body so that the brain will stay alive, and this is something
that we can't do at all today and which is likely at least decades away.

>                           Up until recently, that was just "pie in the
>sky" wishful thinking, but, as researchers progress more and more on
>viable interfaces for prosthetic devices and sensors, it becomes a
>reasonable way to get human thinking ability integrated on a real-time
>basis with automated deep-space probes.

	No way -- at least not today.  We can't even build an artificial heart
(which would be needed to support the brain, not to mention all the other
artificial things needed) that keeps a person alive for any great length of
time. . .

>                                        Carrying only the oxygen,
>fluids, and nutrients to support the few pounds of brain tissue, and,
>ideally, equipped with nanotechnology repair units to fix up radiation
>damage and wearing-out biological elements, a human brain with a
>spaceship body could not only explore the solar system and Oort cloud,
>but reach the stars.

	. . .and nanotechnology of the quality needed for what you propose is
well beyond the horizon, given that microtechnology other than computer chips
is only now starting to be developed in labs.

>                     The lifetime of this synergy could be centuries,
>since all the non-neurological toxin-producing parts of the body would
>be gone, and longer-lived and replaceable mechanical parts would provide
>the support functions.

	Has it ever occurred to you that maybe our neurons age partly due to
causes of their own, and not due to faults of the human body?  Of course, as
the human body ages, it does become a markedly poorer environment for the
nervous system, but machines break down too, and we self-repairing machines
are quite a long way off.

>This is a perfect opportunity for those of us with non-astronaut
>physiques. I, myself, would love such a change, to shed this wretched
>physical body and become a spaceship! (I'd probably volunteer to do it
>for even a lesser goal, like becoming a deep-diving submersible or 
>a geologic exploration mechanical mole!) So you don't have 20/20 vision?
>Doesn't matter -- your eyes will be replaced with multispectral scanners
>and imagers interfaced into your visual cortex, far keener and more
>enlightening than human eyes could ever be. [. . .]

	All fine and dandy -- let me know when you find a rig of this kind
that works at all.

>The fighter pilots and jocks can keep their fine figures -- I'll choose
>a mechanical support system which can be continuously improved with
>technological upgrades over the decades. Hmmm... if those of us who
>get into this line of work write our contracts right, we'll probably end
>up owning the planet in a couple centuries, with compound interest on
>the back pay piling up while we're off to the stars...

	The way our economic systems work, once you get into this kind of
deal, IBM or Humana or NASA or the Soviet Government or a Japanese trading
house or something will own you.  My body is lousy, but at least I own it (so
far. . .) and it does work passably, which is something that no assemblage of
prostheses has been able to do or will be able to do until at least well into
the next century (even if our civilization continues to advance, which is
quite a bit in doubt).

	-- Lucius Chiaraviglio
	   chiaravi@silver.bacs.indiana.edu
	   lucius@tardis.harvard.edu	(in case the first one doesn't work)
	"Fluke. . .Fluuuuke. . .  Let go -- and hang on.
	And if you can't be good -- at least be careful."

------------------------------

Date: 30 Jul 88 06:38:33 GMT
From: polya!crew@labrea.stanford.edu  (Roger Crew)
Subject: Re: query about 'escape velocity'

In article <1020@cfa237.cfa250.harvard.edu> mcdowell@cfa250.harvard.edu (Jonathan McDowell) writes:
> From article <8807291603.AA05986@angband.s1.gov>, by GODDEN@gmr.COM:
> [... question about escape velocity..]
> 
>  'Escape velocity' is just the velocity needed to leave the Earth
> WITHOUT any further thrust; that is, if you freely fall with this
> velocity (in a direction away from the Earth!) 

Actually, it doesn't matter what direction you're pointed in,
so long as there's nothing directly in your path that is going 
to slow you down (like an atmosphere or a swarm of rocks).  

Once you've got sufficient kinetic energy, that's it...

> you are on a parabolic orbit that will not return you to the Earth. 

Orbital mechanics can be a bit strange sometimes (Arthur C. Clarke
had a number of good short stories along these lines...).

--
Roger Crew					``Beam Wesley into the sun!''
Usenet:    {arpa gateways, decwrl, uunet, rutgers}!polya.stanford.edu!crew
Internet:  crew@polya.Stanford.EDU

------------------------------

Date: 30 Jul 88 09:24:08 GMT
From: hanauma!joe@labrea.stanford.edu  (Joe Dellinger)
Subject: E stamp


	Anybody looked closely at the new U.S. "E" stamp?

	Notice anything funny about it?
	(Hint: where's the terminator, and which direction does it run?)

	Perhaps we really DO need to spend more time studying
	before launching anything!
\    /\    /\    /\/\/\/\/\/\/\.-.-.-.-.......___________
 \  /  \  /  \  /Dept of Geophysics, Stanford University \/\/\.-.-....___
  \/    \/    \/Joe Dellinger joe@hanauma.stanford.edu decvax!hanauma!joe\/\.-._

------------------------------

Date: 29 Jul 88 13:50:05 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!etive!bob@uunet.uu.net  (Bob Gray)
Subject: Re: Libertarian space policy

In article <355@gronk.UUCP> johnl@gronk.UUCP (John Limpert) writes:
>.......  The reason for the acceptance of
>the current treaty was the perceived uselessness of Anarctica.
>If someone discovers valuable mineral deposits, the current treaty
>may not last very long.

The treaty isn't goint to last very much longer anyway. It
comes up for renewal in 1994(?). The Falklands conflict was
at least partly caused by the reports of large mineral
deposits in the area, and further to the south, all of which
will be up for grabs when the treaty runs out. Some of the
countries nearest Antartica reckon they should have first claim
on terratory there.
	Bob.

------------------------------

Date: 30 Jul 88 17:55:46 GMT
From: vsi1!unisv!vanpelt@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Mike Van Pelt)
Subject: Re: Time Travel (was Re: (none))

In article <107@prles2.UUCP> mcardle@nvpna1.prl.philips.nl (Owen McArdle) writes:
>I comfort myself with the reasoning that
>even if they wanted to, and tried really hard to, do something WHICH THEY
>KNOW IN THEIR OWN TIME NEVER HAPPENED, then they can't. Some combination
>of circumstances must have prevented them.

There's a very good story by Larry Niven (who else?) which
deals with exactly this approach to the paradox problem.  The
title is something outrageously long and 'Thesis-title' sounding,
like "On Rotating Cylinders and the Possibility of Global Causality
Violation".  Two civilizations are at war, and one of them discovers
a huge neutronium cylinder left in space by some previous,
now-extinct civilization.  They figure out it was indended to be
a time machine, and was almost completed ... I won't spoil it by
telling any more.
-- 
Mike Van Pelt                          Here lies a Technophobe,
Unisys, Silicon Valley                 No whimper, no blast.
vanpelt@unisv.UUCP                     His life's goal accomplished,
                                       Zero risk at last.

------------------------------

Date: 30 Jul 88 19:52:32 GMT
From: kr0u+@andrew.cmu.edu  (Kevin William Ryan)
Subject: Re: Time travel


   Somebody (I believe Larry Niven) once said that the only possible future
was a future without time travel.  If time travel were invented at some point,
busybodies would change the past, changing their own present.  The only stable
end to this would be a future where there was no possibility of time travel -
where perhaps the inventors would never be born or something.  Simpel, eh?

   "Now look what a mess you've gotten us into!"

                                                    kwr

   "Jest so ya know..."

------------------------------

Date: 29 Jul 88 17:39:55 GMT
From: amdahl!pacbell!hoptoad!dasys1!tneff@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Tom Neff)
Subject: Re: Time skew -- does it hurt SETI?

In article <61351@sun.uucp> msodos%amanda@Sun.COM (Martin Sodos) discusses
the 'time skew' factor and how it affects SETI.  He notes the slim piece
of Sagan's "Calendar" occupied by human civilization, and also the rapid
evolution of technology within this little slice of time, and concludes
it's unlikely we'll be able to contact other intelligent life even if it
exists.  I disagree with almost all of this.

First let's define the goal.  ET contact of interest to us would include,
in increasing order of desirability (but all fantastic!), any of (1)
simple DETECTION of an ET civilization, regardless of whether or not they
were technologically advanced; (2) RECEPTION of an ET signal, regardless
of whether or not answering was practicable; or (3) two-way CONVERSATION.
(If we received a signal we would probably try and answer it, but we would
have no way of knowing whether it would be received unless the distances
involved were very short.  To prove conversation, we would have to receive
a signal which recognizably referred to something we had previously sent.)

Let's also assume that by "signal" we mean some kind of radiation, be it
EM, neutrino, graviton or what have you.  If something radically different
pops up, SETI will presumably add it in but not abandon the old spectra.

Now, in the lifetime of each planet there will be an epoch of some
length (perhaps zero) wherein technological intelligence is present and
capable of leaving an EM trace of some kind.  (Assuming the inhabitants
sustain a continuous interest in SETI soon after developing the
capability, there will be a sub-epoch wherein part of the planet's EM
trace is purposefully augmented and/or organized to encourage
detection.)  Since stars grow and die within the universe's lifetime,
each such epoch is finite.  Thus each intelligence bearing planet emits
a spherical signal "shell" of finite thickness, expanding at lightspeed
through the universe.  The outer edge of each "shell" contains early
radio experiments, then brightness increases (and the spectrum widens)
farther into the shell, with ??? near the inner (terminal) edge.

What we don't know is how many EM bubbles are out there "now" (this is
the "magic number" of SETI), nor how thick they are (Sagan is no help
on this at all -- how can he know?  We just started our bubble), nor
how many intersecting bubbles our system might presently lie in.  This
latter number is equal to how many civilations we COULD detect given
the right equipment and techniques.

I cannot accept, however, that all such bubbles must be vanishingly
thin, or that only one (ours) exists.  I hope and suppose that there
are quite a few, and that many of them are thick.  They may be rather
tenuous though.

-- 
Tom Neff			UUCP: ...!cmcl2!phri!dasys1!tneff
	"None of your toys	CIS: 76556,2536	       MCI: TNEFF
	 will function..."	GEnie: TOMNEFF	       BIX: t.neff (no kidding)

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #317
*******************

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Date: Mon, 8 Aug 88 01:04:01 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8808080804.AA01923@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #318

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 318

Today's Topics:
		    Re: Are these postings useful?
Contractor selected for solid-fueled rocket motor bondline study (Forwarded)
		 Re: Time skew -- does it hurt SETI?
		    Re: Are these postings useful?
		  Re: query about 'escape velocity'
		  Re: query about 'escape velocity'
			   Re: Solar Sails
		     Re: Libertarian space policy
			     Re: E stamp
		    Re: Are these postings useful?
			  orbital mechanics
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 30 Jul 88 17:41:29 GMT
From: pyrnj!dasys1!tneff@rutgers.edu  (Tom Neff)
Subject: Re: Are these postings useful?

In article <19880728032142.7.MAEDA@PELE.ACA.MCC.COM> maeda@MCC.COM (Christopher Maeda) writes:
>You are sucking up a lot of bandwidth.  Perhaps you could make them
>available by FTP and just send a message about how to get it.

Disagree!  It's not a lot of bandwidth -- check the arbitron and uunet charts.
And the s/n ratio is BEAUTIFUL -- all hard info.  I love it.  The only thing
I could sincerely do without is "catching up" on 2+ month old
AvWeek issues.
-- 
Tom Neff			UUCP: ...!cmcl2!phri!dasys1!tneff
	"None of your toys	CIS: 76556,2536	       MCI: TNEFF
	 will function..."	GEnie: TOMNEFF	       BIX: t.neff (no kidding)

------------------------------

Date: 31 Jul 88 02:21:58 GMT
From: yee@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: Contractor selected for solid-fueled rocket motor bondline study (Forwarded)

James Cast
Headquarters, Washington, D.C.                      July 29, 1988

Bob Lessels
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.


RELEASE: 88-107

CONTRACTOR SELECTED FOR SOLID-FUELED ROCKET MOTOR BONDLINE STUDY


     NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala., has 
selected Science Applications International Corp., San Diego, 
Calif., for final negotiations leading to the award of a contract 
to perform a study aimed at developing an engineering technology 
base to improve the bondlines of solid-fueled rocket motors.

     The value of the contract, including options, is expected to 
be approximately $21 million and will run for 2 years, with three 
1-year options to extend.

     Bondline integrity is critical to the successful operation 
of solid-fueled rocket motors.  Bondlines are the regions where 
the solid fuel is bonded to the motor's liner or insulation, 
which, in turn, is bonded to the motor case walls.  These bonds 
prevent the hot combustion gases inside the motor from reaching 
the motor case wall, where the gases could burn through the wall 
and cause failure of the motor.

     The work is part of the agency's Solid Propulsion Integrity 
Program.  The objective of the program is to increase the success 
rate of solid-fueled rocket motors by improving basic engineering 
capability in such areas as material characteristics, design 
analysis, fabrication and assembly processes and production 
evaluation and verification.

     The program originated from joint NASA-Department of 
Defense-industry studies which identified critical shortfalls in 
the U.S. engineering technology for solid-fueled rocket motors.

     In June, Hercules Aerospace Co., Magna, Utah, was selected 
as the contractor for the Solid Propulsion Integrity Program 
nozzle work packages.  The two work packages represent NASA's 
contribution to the tripartite effort.

     NASA engineers managing the program expect to improve 
confidence in solid rocket motor launch systems by establishing 
urgently needed engineering tools, techniques and data bases 
specifically applicable to the current civil and military family 
of solid-fueled rocket motors.

------------------------------

Date: 31 Jul 88 03:00:30 GMT
From: mike@arizona.edu  (Mike Coffin)
Subject: Re: Time skew -- does it hurt SETI?

A point that hasn't been made: even if electromagnetic radiation is
the last word in communication, why spray most of the power into empty
space?  I would think that advanced civilizations would probably use
modulated lasers or some other point-to-point method of communicating.
Not only would this save power, but it doesn't pollute the
electromagnetic spectrum.  That would make detection on earth a pretty
low probability event --- we would have to me almost exactly in the
right place at the right time to detect anything at all, and if we
*did* it would probably be a brief, unrepeated message.
-- 

Mike Coffin				mike@arizona.edu
Univ. of Ariz. Dept. of Comp. Sci.	{allegra,cmcl2,ihnp4}!arizona!mike
Tucson, AZ  85721			(602)621-4252

------------------------------

Date: 31 Jul 88 06:40:31 GMT
From: jplpub1!jbrown@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov  (Jordan Brown)
Subject: Re: Are these postings useful?

In article <5813@dasys1.UUCP> tneff@dasys1.UUCP (Tom Neff) writes:
>The only thing I could sincerely do without is "catching up" on 2+
>month old AvWeek issues.

Take heart, Henry - I think your AvWeek digests are one of the greatest
things since the airplane... they're one of the few ways I keep in touch
with what's happening in aviation & space technology & politics.

------------------------------

Date: 31 Jul 88 15:29:41 GMT
From: cfa!cfa250!mcdowell@husc6.harvard.edu  (Jonathan McDowell)
Subject: Re: query about 'escape velocity'


>From article <3451@polya.Stanford.EDU>, by crew@polya.Stanford.EDU (Roger Crew):
 In article <1020@cfa237.cfa250.harvard.edu} mcdowell@cfa250.harvard.edu ..                          
 > velocity (in a direction away from the Earth!)
 Actually, it doesn't matter what direction you're pointed in,
 so long as there's nothing directly in your path that is going
 to slow you down (like an atmosphere or a swarm of rocks).
.     
yes, I meant in any direction that does not intersect the Earth's
surface. In arguments between the Earth and a spacecraft, the Earth
tends to win, it has more momentum you know :-). Sorry, I should
ave been more precise in my choice of phrase.
       
       Jonathan

------------------------------

Date: 31 Jul 88 15:18:01 GMT
From: cfa!cfa250!mcdowell@husc6.harvard.edu  (Jonathan McDowell)
Subject: Re: query about 'escape velocity'

>From article <1068@cfa.cfa.harvard.EDU>, by wyatt@cfa.harvard.EDU (Bill Wyatt):
> The above is correct except I think you have to emphasize that the
> escape velocity varies with the square root of the distance from the
> Earth's (or other gravity well's) center. Thus, if you have sufficient
> thrust to move away from the Earth at 55 mph, I calculate that
> somewhere in the vicinity of Jupiter's orbit you'll be at the escape
> velocity of Earth. After that point, even stopping the thrust will not
> let you fall back to Earth (assuming no perturbations, etc.), although
> you'd presumeably orbit or fall into the Sun!

Thanks for the clarification, Bill.  You're quite right, at 9 AU ( about
the orbit of Saturn) 55 mph is indeed escape velocity from Earth.  But
what happens if the thrust stops at that point? You're not travelling at
55 mph relative to the Sun..  

Either: the problem implies one travels in a straight line with constant
velocity relative to an inertial frame instantaneously fixed in the
center of the Earth at the moment of takeoff (remember that at 55 mph
the Earth has made 1700 revolutions of the Sun by the time you get to
the point in question!) In this case one is no longer travelling at 55
mph relative to the Earth, but relative to where the Earth was. 

Or: You keep a constant 55 mph velocity relative to the center of the
Earth at all times.  This is very tricky as the Earth is accelerating
around the Sun.  In either case, you do not have the local orbital
velocity relative to the Sun, you have the Earth's Keplerian orbital
velocity. 

Since the escape velocity at a given point is root 2 times the orbital
velocity, and both decrease with the root of the distance from the
central mass, you just have to double your distance from the central
mass while keeping the same velocity to achieve escape; so you have
escape velocity relative to the Sun by the time you get to 2 AU. 
You're headed out into the Great Unknown.

Of course, the point you make is that we shouldn't be trying to keep our
velocity low anyway, since that's not what costs..it's only relative. 
The trick is to keep your energy requirements low, since that's what you
pay for. 

Jonathan McDowell.

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 31 Jul 88 14:09:31 CDT
From: sedspace@doc.cc.utexas.edu (Steve Abrams)
Posted-Date: Sun, 31 Jul 88 14:09:31 CDT
Subject: Re: Solar Sails


In V8 #306, Eric "TheBoo" Bazan (eric@shorty.cs.wisc.edu) writes:

>My question is this: just how does the sun 'push' against the sail? Is it the
>solar wind of charged particles (protons and electrons), or the actual
>photonic flux, or both?

	Since the wave and particle paradigms for electromagnetic radiation are
equivalent, you can certainly think of "material" photons bouncing off a sail
film and, thereby, transferring momentum to the sail.  However, I assume you
want to view it from the wave perspective.

	With the propagation of electromagnetic radiation (light energy) there
is a flow of energy.  However, you've probably also heard that mass and energy
are equivalent (E=mc^2).  Therefore, you have a mass-equivalent entity traveling
with a velocity...the product of mass and velocity is linear momentum.  More mathematically, the "momentum density", g, is equal to a constant (the product of
the permeability and permittivity of free space) times the "Poynting vector" 
(since we're in a vacuum).  The Poynting vector is simply a vector defining the
energy flow of the light (EM radiation).  The value for this Poynting vector
is just the solar constant you mention, 1.353 kW/m^2.

	The physical process is (loosely) that the photon is "absorbed" by an
atom in the sail film.  The energy is used to raise an electron's energy level.
That electron then spontaneously decays thereby emitting another photon *with
the same energy* as the original photon but in the opposite direction.  In each
process of absorption and re-emission, momentum is transferred in the same 
direction to the sail film.  The energy of the photon doesn't change (a scalar
quantity) and the magnitude of the velocity of the photon doesn't change *BUT*
the direction changes.  By Newton's Third Law (Action/Reaction), momentum is
transferred to the sail from the photon.

	I realize that this won't satisfy purists, but it should be sufficient
for someone with a poor physics background.

	Incidentally, the book Eric is probably referring to is _Starsailing_
by Louis Friedman.  It is an excellent introductory, survey-type book on
the subject.  Does anyone know if a more technical, mathematically-oriented
sequel is in the works?


					Ad Astra,

					Steve Abrams


 \                                                                       /
--"You have twenty seconds to put down your slide rule...19...18...17..."--
 /                                                                       \
                                                     --  RoboDweeb

2721 Hemphill Park, Apt. C	ARPANET:  sedspace@doc.cc.utexas.edu
Austin, TX  78705		CompuServe:  [70376,1025]
(512)480-0895			
				OR
     c/o Students for the Exploration and Development of Space
   P.O. Box 7338, 358 Texas Union, University of Texas at Austin
              Austin, TX  78713-7883  (512)471-7097

------------------------------

Date: 31 Jul 88 06:01:40 GMT
From: tektronix!percival!bucket!leonard@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Libertarian space policy

In article <355@gronk.UUCP> johnl@gronk.UUCP (John Limpert) writes:
<In article <8807251911.AA01355@angband.s1.gov> WALL@BRANDEIS.BITNET (Matt) writes:
<> If you would like to see an analagous situation, look at Antarctica. 
<> The goal of international control for the benefit of humankind was
<> corrupted by attaching property "rights" to any sort of presence, in
<> fact, specifically to 'scientific' presence. 
<
<The only reason the 'corrupted' situation in Antarctica exists is
<because it is a compromise between the two extremes.  A treaty has
<to consider the views and interests of all concerned parties.
<"International control for the benefit of Mankind" may be a nice
<idea to some people, but in its idealogically pure form, it isn't
<a practical basis for a treaty.  The reason for the acceptance of
<the current treaty was the perceived uselessness of Anarctica.
<If someone discovers valuable mineral deposits, the current treaty
<may not last very long.

Try *since* valuable mineral deposits *have been* discovered, the
current treaty *isn't* going to last much longer. Coal has been
discovered, and it looks like there may be oil as well. (In case 
you didn't know, the *real* reason that Britain and Argentina
went to war over the Falklands was that it looks like there may
be a major oilfield in the South Atlantic and the Falklands are the
nearest land. Own the Falklands and you own the oil..)

Note that Argentina has *already* started claiming *soveriegnty
over it's portion of Antartica. And there are lots of people making
noises about the need to re-negotiate the treaty...
-- 
Leonard Erickson		...!tektronix!reed!percival!bucket!leonard
CIS: [70465,203]
"I used to be a hacker. Now I'm a 'microcomputer specialist'.
You know... I'd rather be a hacker."

------------------------------

Date: 31 Jul 88 23:02:12 GMT
From: bobmon@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu  (RAMontante)
Subject: Re: E stamp

joe@hanauma.stanford.edu (Joe Dellinger) writes:
+	Anybody looked closely at the new U.S. "E" stamp?
+
+	Notice anything funny about it?
+	(Hint: where's the terminator, and which direction does it run?)
+
+	Perhaps we really DO need to spend more time studying
+	before launching anything!

Yeah -- like which star will go supernova to produce this effect?  And
will we have time to get observer satellites up?  :-)

Maybe Henry Spencer's "Post Office" quote has more depth than we all thought!
-- 
	bob,mon				(bobmon@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu)
"`This must be deep' means `I can recognize all these words individually,
but dam' if I can make any sense out of the order in which they currently
appear....'"	- Gil Scott Herron

------------------------------

Date: 1 Aug 88 04:56:39 GMT
From: att!lzaz!lznv!psc@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Paul S. R. Chisholm)
Subject: Re: Are these postings useful?

< "Would you buy a used operating system from these guys?" >

In article <5813@dasys1.UUCP>, tneff@dasys1.UUCP (Tom Neff) defends the
orbital elements summaries:
> Disagree!  It's not a lot of bandwidth -- check the arbitron and uunet charts.
> And the s/n ratio is BEAUTIFUL -- all hard info.  I love it.  The only thing
> I could sincerely do without is "catching up" on 2+ month old AvWeek issues.

Disagree!  Not only are Henry's summaries from Aviation Week and Space
Technology useful to us non-subscribers, they stir up some informative
debate.  (And some real time wasters, but *no* posting is so pure that
it can't be followed up by trash [PLEASE don't prove my point!!!])

> Tom Neff, UUCP: ...!cmcl2!phri!dasys1!tneff, CIS: 76556,2536, MCI: TNEFF
> GEnie: TOMNEFF, BIX: t.neff (no kidding)

-Paul S. R. Chisholm, {ihnp4,cbosgd,allegra,rutgers}!mtune!lznv!psc
AT&T Mail !psrchisholm, Internet psc@lznv.att.com
I'm not speaking for my employer, I'm just speaking my mind.

------------------------------

Date: Mon 1 Aug 1988 10:32:11 EST
From: Harold Mueller <mueller@nrl-radar.arpa>
Subject: orbital mechanics
To: munck@mitre-bedford.arpa
Cc: space@angband.s1.gov

I can recommend a couple of good books.

Bate, R. R., D. D. Mueller, and J. E. White, "Fundamentals of
Astrodynamics", Dover, 1971 is a good general overview.  They go into
computing position/velocity vector at a future time from a known
position/velocity vector at some past time.  It's available in paperback.

Escobal, "Methods of Orbit Determination", 1965, 1985 Krieger
Publishing Company, Inc., Krieger Drive, Malabar Florida 32950, ISBN
0-88275-319-3, $39.50 in April, has a couple of great
appendices.  Appendix I has transformation matrices between all the
commonly used (and not commonly used) coordinate systems.  This means
you can, say, solve your motion problem in the plane of the orbit
(pretty easy) and then transform it into the azimuth/elevation/range of
an earth-based observer's POV, or into 3-d rectangular for off-world
display.  

Appendix II is titled "A complete algorithm for two-body motion in
space".  I haven't tried the stuff in it, but the rest of the book is
good so I assume this is as well.  It's a skeletal flow chart with
equations (not even refined to pseudocode yet), and handles the cases
for circular/elliptic, parabolic, and hyperbolic orbits (all require
different equations).

You are attacking a non-trivial problem.

Harold Mueller <mueller@nrl-radar.arpa>
Bendix Field Engineering Corporation
c/o Code 5360
Naval Research Laboratory
4555 Overlook Avenue, SW
Washington, DC 20375
(202) 767-3240/3356     AUTOVON 297-3240/3356

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #318
*******************

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Date: Tue, 9 Aug 88 01:04:44 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8808090804.AA03087@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #319

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 319

Today's Topics:
			 Re: The Face on Mars
			  New oxidizer plant
		      Re: Skintight Space Suits
		     Re: Libertarian space policy
			    Re: What's New
			   Re: Solar Sails
		    Re: Are these postings useful?
		 Re: Time skew -- does it hurt SETI?
		Re: Space Station Name chosen -- Fred
  Re: Automated vs. personned spacecraft -- a reasonable compromise
			   Re: Solar Sails
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 1 Aug 88 15:27:13 GMT
From: cfa!cfa250!willner@husc6.harvard.edu  (Steve Willner P-316 x57123)
Subject: Re: The Face on Mars

>From article <8807291715.aa11350@note.note.nsf.gov>, by
fbaube@NOTE.NSF.GOV (Fred Baube): 
> World Weekly News cover story, August 9:
> "Face On Mars Beams Warning to Earth" (with cover photo)
> 
> Named are "Swiss astronomer Ludin Pasche" and "Dr Lars-Tvar
> Carlsson, the noted Swedish astronomer".

Neither of these names is listed in the International Astronomical
Union membership directory dated February 1983 (the latest edition).
-- 
Steve Willner            Phone 617-495-7123         Bitnet:   willner@cfa
60 Garden St.            FTS:      830-7123           UUCP:   willner@cfa
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA                 Internet: willner@cfa.harvard.edu

------------------------------

Date:     Mon, 1 Aug 88 12:23:52 CDT
From: Will Martin -- AMXAL-RI <wmartin@almsa-1.arpa>
Subject:  New oxidizer plant

THe following is from the Washington Post, 28 July 88, p.6:

ROCKET FUEL PLANT WILL RELOCATE

UPI - Salt Lake City, July 27 -- A Nevada chemical company whose rocket fuel
plant was destroyed by an explosion May 4 will rebuild in southern Utah,
officials announced today, saying that the move offers the best chance
of speedy completion.

Pacific Engineering and Production Co., or PEPCON, selected a site about
15 miles west of Cedar City over two Nevada sites considered for the $23
million plant, according to Fred Gibson, PEPCON chief executive officer,
and general counsel Keith Rooker.

"Selection of the Iron County site results from pressing national
requirements for ammonium perchlorate," Rooker said in a joint news
conference with Gov. Norm Bangerter at the state capitol.

The Henderson, NV, plant was one of only two in the nation manufacturing
ammonium perchlorate, which is crucial in all solid-fuel-propelled
missiles and rockets, including space shuttle boosters.
***End of Article***

Comment --I suppose the distinction between "fuel" and "oxidizer" is too
much to ask of the newspapers & wire services... WM

------------------------------

Date: Mon,  1 Aug 88 13:04:17 PST
From: Peter Scott <PJS@grouch.jpl.nasa.gov>
Subject: Re: Skintight Space Suits
X-Vms-Mail-To: EXOS%"space@angband.s1.gov"
>From:  att!chinet!mcdchg!clyde!watmath!utgpu!utzoo!henry@ucbvax.berkeley.edu 

>(Henry Spencer)

>More generally, I find it really strange that people have to be told, over
>and over again, that the skin-tight-spacesuit idea HAS BEEN TRIED in
>vacuum chambers and IT WORKS.  There seems to be an unlimited supply of
>hypothetical problems that just don't exist in real life.

I'm very interested in reading about actual data where it exists, rather
than speculation.  Where can I find papers on these vacuum chamber
experiments?

Peter Scott (pjs%grouch@jpl-mil.jpl.nasa.gov)

------------------------------

Date: 1 Aug 88 16:10:17 GMT
From: ecsvax!dgary@mcnc.org  (D Gary Grady)
Subject: Re: Libertarian space policy

In article <978@bucket.UUCP> leonard@bucket.UUCP (Leonard Erickson) writes:
>. . . (In case 
>you didn't know, the *real* reason that Britain and Argentina
>went to war over the Falklands was that it looks like there may
>be a major oilfield in the South Atlantic and the Falklands are the
>nearest land. Own the Falklands and you own the oil..)

Wrong newsgroup for this, but for the record such conspiracy theories
rarely hold water on close examination.  It's possible that the
cojectured presence of an oil field was a consideration, but anyone
familiar with the politics and history is unlikely to buy it as the
main or "real" reason for the war.  It's most likely that Argentina's
military government invaded thinking the UK would not respond and
hoping to bolster domestic support and get the public's mind off the
lousy domestic situation with respect to human rights and the economy.
Argentina has claimed the Falklands/Malvinas for decades, of course,
long before anyone knew of the possibility of oil there.  Britain's
response was motivated by a mixture of pride and principle, as far as I
can tell, even if you disagree with the principle in question.
Initially, by the way, the Argentine government's move proved
successful; there was a virtual orgy of patriotism in the wake of the
invasion.  After defeat, of course, things went rather to the other
extreme, the rascals were thrown out, and many of them were put on
trial.
-- 
D Gary Grady
(919) 286-4296
USENET:  {seismo,decvax,ihnp4,akgua,etc.}!mcnc!ecsvax!dgary
BITNET:  dgary@ecsvax.bitnet

------------------------------

Date:     Mon, 1 Aug 88 19:21:58 CDT
From: kistler%Iowa.Iowa@romeo.caltech.edu (Allen C. Kistler)
Subject:  Re: What's New

>From: b.gp.cs.cmu.edu!ralf@pt.cs.cmu.edu  (Ralf Brown)
> 
>In article <506@etive.ed.ac.uk> bob@etive.ed.ac.uk (B Gray) writes:
>}TSS-1 will deploy a satellite at the end of a 20km conducting
>}wire with an insulating coating, upwards from the shuttle....
> 
>Wasn't there a proposal that this could be used as a low-thrust orbit
>reboost?  The current would flow through the wire, generating a magnetic
>field which interacts with the earth's, and then back via ions in the 
>incomplete vacuum of LEO.

In _Journal_of_Geophysical_Research_, vol. 70, p.p. 3131-3145, (1 July 1965)
there is an article which addresses this, so the idea has been around for a
while.  Basically the idea is that as a conducting satellite moves across the
magnetic field, the motionally induced electric field produces a current
through it.  This current drives the production of Alfven waves, a special
kind of plasma wave for the non-EE, non-physicist folks out there.  The energy
for the wave comes from the motion of the satellite, so this represents a form
of drag on the satellite.  The neat thing is that if you apply a big enough
voltage of your own across the satellite to MAKE the current go the OTHER way,
then you get a little bit of boost out of it, rather than drag.  This will
never be more than 50% efficient since you'll still be sending some of the
energy away as plasma waves.  I don't know of any satellites that have ever
actually used this method propulsion, so it may not be an especially practical
method.  Anyone else?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
   Disclaimer:  UI isn't responsible for ANYBODY

Allen Kistler   kistler%iowasp.physics@umaxc.weeg.uiowa.edu  Internet
                iowasp::kistler                              SPAN
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: 1 Aug 88 21:38:08 GMT
From: grasp.cis.upenn.edu!ulrich@super.upenn.edu  (Nathan Ulrich)
Subject: Re: Solar Sails

In article <8807311909.AA21830@doc.cc.utexas.edu> sedspace@DOC.CC.UTEXAS.EDU (Steve Abrams) writes:
>	The physical process is (loosely) that the photon is "absorbed" by an
>atom in the sail film.  The energy is used to raise an electron's energy level.
>That electron then spontaneously decays thereby emitting another photon *with
>the same energy* as the original photon but in the opposite direction.  In each
>process of absorption and re-emission, momentum is transferred in the same 
>direction to the sail film.  The energy of the photon doesn't change (a scalar
>quantity) and the magnitude of the velocity of the photon doesn't change *BUT*
>the direction changes.  By Newton's Third Law (Action/Reaction), momentum is
>transferred to the sail from the photon.
>
>	I realize that this won't satisfy purists, but it should be sufficient
>for someone with a poor physics background.

I don't know if I am a purist, but it won't satisfy me.  

One indisputable law of the universe, "You can't get something for nothing."
Your explanation above will result in an increase in the total mass-energy
of your system.  

The vector sum of the momentum of two spaceships moving at 10000 m/s in 
opposite directions is zero.  This doesn't mean the energy is the same as
two spaceships with "zero" velocity.


Nathan Ulrich
ulrich@grasp.cis.upenn.edu

------------------------------

Date: 1 Aug 88 16:00:40 GMT
From: phri!cooper!dasys1!tneff@nyu.edu  (Tom Neff)
Subject: Re: Are these postings useful?

In article <7836@elroy.Jpl.Nasa.Gov> jbrown@jplpub1.UUCP (Jordan Brown) writes:
>In article <5813@dasys1.UUCP> tneff@dasys1.UUCP (Tom Neff) writes:
>>The only thing I could sincerely do without is "catching up" on 2+
>>month old AvWeek issues.
>
>Take heart, Henry - I think your AvWeek digests are one of the greatest
>things since the airplane... they're one of the few ways I keep in touch
>with what's happening in aviation & space technology & politics.

I did NOT mean to imply that Henry's work was unappreciated!  I like the
Avweek summaries too.  But if he is behind, it would be worth it to
skip forward a few so the digests are more timely.  That's all I meant.






-- 
Tom Neff			UUCP: ...!cmcl2!phri!dasys1!tneff
	"None of your toys	CIS: 76556,2536	       MCI: TNEFF
	 will function..."	GEnie: TOMNEFF	       BIX: t.neff (no kidding)

------------------------------

Date: 1 Aug 88 15:47:55 GMT
From: phri!cooper!dasys1!tneff@nyu.edu  (Tom Neff)
Subject: Re: Time skew -- does it hurt SETI?

In article <6489@megaron.arizona.edu> mike@arizona.edu (Mike Coffin) writes:
>A point that hasn't been made: even if electromagnetic radiation is
>the last word in communication, why spray most of the power into empty
>space?  I would think that advanced civilizations would probably use
>modulated lasers or some other point-to-point method of communicating.
>Not only would this save power, but it doesn't pollute the
>electromagnetic spectrum.  That would make detection on earth a pretty
>low probability event --- we would have to me almost exactly in the
>right place at the right time to detect anything at all, and if we
>*did* it would probably be a brief, unrepeated message.

(1) You're talking about interplanetary communication channels dedicated
to a civilization's own parochial purposes, not a beacon designed for
detection by other civilizations.  If we suppose that an advanced
civilization would want to be seen, and have the resources to do it,
I can think of nothing better than a big radio "lighthouse" broadcasting
on you-know-what frequency, and presumably not interfering at all with the
more sophisticated bands it uses for its own work.

(2) If we did happen to catch one -- not impossible if many systems
existed using this method, each linked to many other systems -- why would
it be a "brief, repeated" message?  I would imagine it would be a continuous
Niagara of information, like tapping into SpaceLAN.

A bigger problem is what to do if everyone is just beaming at what THEY
think are the likely near systems, rather than "spraying" as you put it
so that the distant long-shots can pick it up.
-- 
Tom Neff			UUCP: ...!cmcl2!phri!dasys1!tneff
	"None of your toys	CIS: 76556,2536	       MCI: TNEFF
	 will function..."	GEnie: TOMNEFF	       BIX: t.neff (no kidding)

------------------------------

Date: 31 Jul 88 18:02:23 GMT
From: mcvax!unido!ecrcvax!johng@uunet.uu.net  (John Gregor)
Subject: Re: Space Station Name chosen -- Fred

>President Reagan last week named the NASA/International 
>space station "Freedom".
                ^^^ ^

Well, it's the closest thing to a compromise that I've ever seen from
the U.S. Gov. ;-)
-- 

John Gregor                                       johng%ecrcvax.UUCP@pyramid.COM

------------------------------

Date: 1 Aug 88 18:57:11 GMT
From: ihnp4!ihlpl!knudsen@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Knudsen)
Subject: Re: Automated vs. personned spacecraft -- a reasonable compromise

In article <8807291618.AA06003@angband.s1.gov>, wmartin@ALMSA-1.ARPA (Will Martin -- AMXAL-RI) writes:
> There is an obvious middle ground. This is not my original idea -- it has
> been standard in SF for decades. You send a human brain, interfaced to the
> mechanisms, and do not waste space and mass on all the gorp required to
> support a full human body. Up until recently, that was just "pie in the
> sky" wishful thinking, but, as researchers progress more and more on
> viable interfaces for prosthetic devices and sensors, it becomes a
> reasonable way to get human thinking ability integrated on a real-time
> basis with automated deep-space probes. Carrying only the oxygen,
> fluids, and nutrients to support the few pounds of brain tissue, and,
> ideally, equipped with nanotechnology repair units to fix up radiation
> damage and wearing-out biological elements, a human brain with a
> spaceship body could not only explore the solar system and Oort cloud,
> but reach the stars. The lifetime of this synergy could be centuries,
> since all the non-neurological toxin-producing parts of the body would
> be gone, and longer-lived and replaceable mechanical parts would provide
> the support functions.
> 
> Regards, Will Martin

First let me say that I had fantasized stories based on doing this
for people whose bodies were dying untimely deaths -- put their
mind/soul into a spacecraft.  The ultimate sports car, an extension
of its driver.  I like the concept, but it has lots of
flaws--
(1) People, especially governments, will never buy it in our lifetime
(too gruesome).  The required advances (?) in ethics will take
generations.

(2) For foreseeable future, the equipment needed to synthesize and
purify and pump the life-support chemicals (ie, blood and O2 etc.)
is likely to be both bulkier and less reliable than a human body.
[You could streamline ahuman body by amputating the arms and legs,
if your volunteer was already a quadraplegic].
Seriously, we could probably do a lot more research into high-efficiency
foodstuffs that eliminate the need for elimination or
recycle efficiently.  That is, use your proposed biochemical
technology to synthesize foods in space for conventional people.

(3) While many vital organs do fail on people prematurely
(hearts, eyes, cancer), the brain has life limits too.
Most elderly people are unable to learn new memories.
Brain cells DO NOT divide and reproduce -- when they're gone,
they're gone.  So much for your centuries of lifespan.

(4) Until we get warp drive or hyperspace, space travel is
going to be pretty damn DULL 99.9% of the time, just waiting
to get to the next thing worth seeing.  Human brains do not
like being deprived of new sensations for years and then
suddenly being expected to deal with a planetary rendezvous.
Granted, suspended animation (a la 2001) may be cheaper for
just a brain than for a whole person.

(5) Boredom, loneliness, uncertainty -- ever hear of this
software bug called insanity?  Don't put any weapons or too much
plutonium fule on the first few ships...

(6) What would be the legal rights of a person-ship?
OK, they can build a newer vessel and move your brain into it.
But what happens when the new crop of younger brains trained
in newer methods starts taking over the plum exploratory missions,
and you get relegated to dull but dangerous milk-runs where the
beaurocrats secretly hope you'll buy the farm?
A gold mine here for SF authors -- have they worked it yet?
(Really, I'd like titles and authors for my own enjoyment.)
A very early Frank Herbert (Destination: Void) novel hooked
up three brains to a deep-space ship, but they all died
from sensory overload, which personally I doubt.

(7) My body has to be pretty bad before I'll consider giving it up.
I mean racked with pain or totally useless.
I wonder if the human psyche could really stay sane once divorced
from its original body, even if the new one seemed to offer
valid replacements of all functions and pleasures.

I'll be looking (hoping?) for some refutations of the above.

------------------------------

Date: 2 Aug 88 03:51:46 GMT
From: agate!saturn!ucscb.UCSC.EDU!spcecdt@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Space Cadet)
Subject: Re: Solar Sails

In article <5711@super.upenn.edu> ulrich@grasp.cis.upenn.edu.UUCP (Nathan Ulrich) writes:
+In article <8807311909.AA21830@doc.cc.utexas.edu> sedspace@DOC.CC.UTEXAS.EDU (Steve Abrams) writes:
+>The energy of the photon doesn't change (a scalar
+>quantity) and the magnitude of the velocity of the photon doesn't change *BUT*
+>the direction changes.  By Newton's Third Law (Action/Reaction), momentum is
+>transferred to the sail from the photon.
+
+I don't know if I am a purist, but it won't satisfy me.  
+
+One indisputable law of the universe, "You can't get something for nothing."
+Your explanation above will result in an increase in the total mass-energy
+of your system.  

Surely the frequency of the photon as reflected from the sail will be 
lower than the original photon (thus it will have lower energy)?
It sounds to me like there would be a double Doppler effect (once upon
absorbtion, and once upen emmision).
--
> John H. DuBois III # spcecdt@ucscb.ucsc.EDU  ...!ucbvax!ucscc!ucscb!spcecdt <

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #319
*******************

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Date: Wed, 10 Aug 88 01:04:39 PDT
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To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #320

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 320

Today's Topics:
			   Re: Solar Sails
		     Re: Libertarian space policy
			     Solar flares
			 20-year anniversary
			      Satellites
			  Re: Lithium cells
		Re: Space Station Name chosen -- Fred
			     Re: E stamp
			   RE:  Solar Sails
		     Re: Libertarian space policy
		       Re: 20-year anniversary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 2 Aug 88 09:47:50 GMT
From: polya!crew@labrea.stanford.edu  (Roger Crew)
Subject: Re: Solar Sails

In <8807311909.AA21830@doc.cc.utexas.edu> sedspace (Steve Abrams) writes:
> In V8 #306, Eric "TheBoo" Bazan (eric@shorty.cs.wisc.edu) writes:
>> My question is this: just how does the sun 'push' against the sail?
>> Is it the solar wind of charged particles (protons and electrons),
>> or the actual photonic flux, or both?
> 
> 	Since the wave and particle paradigms for electromagnetic radiation are
> equivalent, you can certainly think of "material" photons bouncing off a sail
> film and, thereby, transferring momentum to the sail.  However, I assume you
> want to view it from the wave perspective.
> 
>  [...stuff about photons ...]

Look, if you want to view it from the wave perspective, 
you're supposed to forget you ever heard the word ``photon.''

An electromagnetic wave in a vacuum consists of an electric field and
a magnetic field oscillating perpendicularly to one another, both
perpendicular to the direction of motion.  So consider what happens if
you have a single charged particle sitting off in the middle of
nowhere when an EM wave hits it:

Let's just put a positron (+ charge so that we don't get too messed up by
sign changes) in the middle of your terminal screen and have the wave
be moving into the screen.  Just to keep things simple let's have the wave
be polarized so that the electric field (E) is oscillating up and
down.

By itself, the electric field causes the positron to vibrate up and
down.  As with any simple harmonic oscillator the force will be 180
degrees out of phase with the displacement; the positron reaches its
lowest point just when the electric field is at its strongest pointing
upward (thus pushing the particle back up...) and vice versa.  Note
that the velocity of the particle is 90 degrees ahead of the dislacement.

No problem so far, but now we've also got a magnetic field (B) as well
which will be oscillating left to right.  Recall that the magnetic
field is generated by the changing electric field (Maxwell's version of
Ampere's Law) [B ~ dE/dt]
   --- and vice versa (Faraday's Law  E ~ -dB/dt), after all, this is
       how we get an electromagnetic wave in the first place ---

and will thus be 90 degrees ahead of the electric field.  After lots
of exercises with your right thumb and index finger, you'll get that
whenever the positron is moving upwards (electric field changing
downwards), the magnetic field points to the right, and whenever the
positron is moving downwards, the magnetic field is to the left.

Thus, at all times, the magnetic force on the particle q(v x B) is
pointed into the screen.  If the particle were an electron, the
magnetic force would be reversed, but we also have that it would be
vibrating in the opposite direction --- still ends up being pushed
into the screen.

To first order, this is what's happening.  

But it's not the whole story.  Whenever a charged particle
accelerates, it radiates a wave of its own.  Part of this wave heads
into the screen, cancelling out a part of the original wave headed in
that direction.  The other part heads out of the screen back towards
your face.  
Thus, energy has been taken out of the original wave; some of it goes
to the particle, the rest gets reflected back.  If you consider the
waves to have momentum inversely proportional to the wavelength,
it turns out that momentum is conserved as well.

Note that this is a completely classical explanation; at no point have
we drawn on anything from quantum mechanics.  

--
Roger Crew					``Beam Wesley into the sun!''
Usenet:    {arpa gateways, decwrl, uunet, rutgers}!polya.stanford.edu!crew
Internet:  crew@polya.Stanford.EDU

------------------------------

Date: 2 Aug 88 04:51:39 GMT
From: clyde!watmath!utgpu!utzoo!henry@bellcore.com  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Libertarian space policy

In article <978@bucket.UUCP> leonard@bucket.UUCP (Leonard Erickson) writes:
>Note that Argentina has *already* started claiming *soveriegnty
>over it's portion of Antartica...

Claims of sovereignty over parts of Antarctica are nothing new; I don't
believe it has *ever* been the case that *all* interested parties were
willing to renounce them completely.  Just because the superpowers have
renounced them does not mean everybody has.  (In fact, this is the sort
of assumption that really irritates citizens of non-superpower nations.)
However, the big powers *have* played a key role in keeping those claims
in the realm of unimportant legal fiction.  When the US and the USSR
ignore your claims and violate them regularly, nobody else is likely
to take them seriously either.
-- 
MSDOS is not dead, it just     |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
smells that way.               | uunet!mnetor!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: Wed,  3 Aug 88 02:17:17 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" <KFL@ai.ai.mit.edu>
Subject: Solar flares
To: eos%spacvax.rice.edu@rice.edu
Cc: KFL@ai.ai.mit.edu, Space@angband.s1.gov

> From: "Pat Reiff" <eos@spacvax.rice.edu>

> ... the great flare of August 2, 1982 ... the Apollo program was
> still going on at that time ...

Are you sure you don't mean 1972?
								...Keith

------------------------------

Date: 3 Aug 88 01:10:02 GMT
From: tektronix!teklds!mrloog!dant@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Dan Tilque;1893;92-101;)
Subject: 20-year anniversary

Next year will be the 20th anniversary of Apollo 11 and I'm sure that
everyone would like to celebrate it.  It never hurts to be prepared in
advance, so lets start to kick ideas around.

My idea is that they launch Discovery on or before July 20, 1989, even 
if its faucets do leak.  Any others?


---
Dan Tilque	--	dant@twaddl.LA.TEK.COM

------------------------------

Date: 2 Aug 88 22:45:37 GMT
From: unccvax!nrk@mcnc.org  (Nitin R Kulkarni)
Subject: Satellites

Hello, fellow-netters.

I am a newcomer to this group. Can anybody in net-world give me the
following information :

	1. How many satellites has the US and the USSR launched into
	   deep space ?
	2. Their probable location in our solar system as of today. 
	3. The dates when they were launched. 

Thanks in advance.

Nitin.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
UUCP : nrk@unccvax.UUCP
ARPA : nrk%unccvax@mcnc.org

******    Is it clean in other dimensions ?   ******

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

------------------------------

Date: 3 Aug 88 02:14:51 GMT
From: killer!tness7!tness1!nuchat!splut!jay@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Jay "you ignorant splut!" Maynard)
Subject: Re: Lithium cells

In article <880729-124705-5997@Xerox> "chaz_heritage.WGC1RX"@XEROX.COM writes:
>Some reported explosions of lithium cells are due not to short-circuiting but to
>application of AC.
>[...]
>Since in the astronautics application no high-voltage AC will be present in the
>circuit, there appears to be no risk of such violent explosions. Assessment of
>the outgas hazard is clearly in the hands of experts.

Uhm...not quite.
Main power on the space station is specified as 220 VAC at 20 kHz.

This, of course, makes power supplies efficient (since, in essence,
they're giving you the front half of a switching power supply), but can
indeed generate AC across a lithium battery in the manner described.

-- 
Jay Maynard, EMT-P, K5ZC...>splut!< | Never ascribe to malice that which can
uucp:       uunet!nuchat!           | adequately be explained by stupidity.
   hoptoad!academ!uhnix1!splut!jay  +----------------------------------------
{killer,bellcore}!tness1!           | Birthright Party '88: let's get spaced!

------------------------------

Date: 2 Aug 88 08:33:11 GMT
From: mcvax!enea!liuida!yngla@uunet.uu.net  (Yngve Larsson)
Subject: Re: Space Station Name chosen -- Fred

In article <605@ecrcvax.UUCP> johng@ecrcvax.UUCP (John Gregor) writes:
>>space station "Freedom".
>                ^^^ ^
Well, coincindence of coincidences; The strange fact is that "Fred" is the
Swedish word for "Peace". How nice of you to (sort of) honor Mir in this 
way.. :-)
>
>John Gregor                                       johng%ecrcvax.UUCP@pyramid.COM


-- 
Yngve Larsson                               UUCP: ...mcvax!enea!liuida!yla
Dept of CIS                                       Internet: yla@ida.liu.se
Linkoping University, Sweden                          Phone: +46-13-281949

------------------------------

Date: 1 Aug 88 19:15:32 GMT
From: trwrb!aero!venera.isi.edu!rogers@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Craig Milo Rogers; FAST)
Subject: Re: E stamp


	Since the center of illumination lies over Siberia, and the
orange bands in the background might have the correct elevation for
orbital platforms, perhaps the E stamp depicts SDI deployment.  What a
subtle method to subliminally influence the US voting public!  This,
too, would explain why the stamp is limited to "domestic" use;
wouldn't want too many Soviets or Europeans getting the wrong ideas
through repeated exposure to these stamps.

					Craig Milo Rogers

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 3 Aug 88 12:20:22 CDT
From: sedspace@doc.cc.utexas.edu (Steve Abrams)
Posted-Date: Wed, 3 Aug 88 12:20:22 CDT
Subject: RE:  Solar Sails


	In V8 #312, Alan Bostick replies to a simple question (FLAME 
ON)  in his ubiquitously obnoxious and condescending manner 
intended, not so much to answer the question or enlighten the 
questioner, as to impress us with his virtuosity in physics.  However, 
as a former professor of mine used to say, "If you can't answer a 
physics question in words, *without resorting to formulae*, then you 
don't understand the topic well enough. (FLAME OFF)

	Now, the original poster asked and Alan responded:

>In article <10922@oberon.USC.EDU> robiner@ganelon.usc.edu (Steve) writes:
>>If the light bounces off the sail, how does it impart momentum.  What 
>>energy of the photon is now reduced?  I think the photons must be
>>ABSORBED by the sail for this to work.
>
>Well, you're wrong. 

	However, Alan (in his response) implicitly agreed that the 
momentum trasnfer *does* occur when the photon *is* absorbed by 
the sail film...

>The photon bounces off of the mirror and is reflected in
>accordance with the laws of reflection.

	Well, Alan, you kinda' glossed over the mechanism of 
momentum transfer by the "in accordance with the laws of 
reflection" phrase.  Let's look at exactly what happens when the 
photon is "reflected."  In an "ideal" reflective surface, the incident 
photon is *temporarily* absorbed by the electrons (at some 
equilibrium energy level dictated by thermal effects and its "nearest 
neighbor" electrons) in the surface of the sail (look up "classical skin 
depth" and "anomalous skin effects").  An electron absorbing a 
photon increases its energy level.  The photon's momentum is 
transmitted, via interaction with the electron's potential "barrier," to 
the metallic lattice of atoms of the sail film.  In addition, the electron 
with the higher energy level is unstable and perturbations induced 
by the "re-bound" of the potential barrier cause it to decay to its 
original energy level thereby emitting a photon with the original 
energy *but* in a direction of "least opposition" (i.e. back towards the 
surface and not further into the film; this new photon's polarization 
is also reversed from the original's) thereby imparting more 
momentum because of the change in direction; of course, in a *real* 
reflective surface, the electron decays to a higher energy level and 
the re-emitted photon has less energy than the original.  

	Occasionally, some "higher energy" electrons are more stable in 
their new configuration and survive the "re-bound."  These photons 
are the ones we call "absorbed."  Also, since skin depths for most 
metals are for the same order of magnitude as the thicknesses of sail 
films and thin films are close (within a couple of orders of 
magnitude) in thickness to the wavelengths of the radiation incident, 
some photons make it all the way through and are "transmitted."

	BOTTOM LINE:  For the ideal sail films you were discussing, 
*all* incident photons *are* absorbed, transmit a "unit" of 
momentum, and are re-emitted (transmitting another "unit" of 
momentum).

	FLAME RE-IGNITED:   See, Alan, it can be explained without the 
tedium of working through ASCII equations and in a manner that 
conveys the *physics* of the topic and not just the math.  So,

>Next time, think for a minute before shooting off your mouth...

	FLAME RE-DOUSED


	I've been wondering if anyone has looked into the possibility of 
using thin, conducting polymer films rather than metallic films for 
sail films.  I know that polymers were once used for backing for a 
metallic film and dropped to improve the thrust to mass ratio.  Can 
thin films be polymerized to appropriate thicknesses?  If so, the 
doping to make them electrically conducting (and reflective) can be 
done rather easily.  The electrical conduction mechanisms are 
different in these polymers from metals so, presumably, are the 
reflections mechanisms.  With metals, you must consider specular, 
diffuse, and back reflectances.  Anyone know if all of these apply to 
the reflection mechanism of conducting polymers?  Are there any 
different ones?


					Ad Astra,

					Steve Abrams

 \                                                                       /
--"You have twenty seconds to put down your slide rule...19...18...17..."--
 /                                                                       \
                                                     --  RoboDweeb

2721 Hemphill Park, Apt. C	ARPANET:  sedspace@doc.cc.utexas.edu
Austin, TX  78705		CompuServe:  [70376,1025]
(512)480-0895			
				OR
     c/o Students for the Exploration and Development of Space
   P.O. Box 7338, 358 Texas Union, University of Texas at Austin
              Austin, TX  78713-7883  (512)471-7097

------------------------------

Sender: "James J. Lippard" <Lippard@his-phoenix-multics.arpa>
Date:  Wed, 3 Aug 88 10:49 MST
From: "James J. Lippard" <Lippard@bco-multics.arpa>
Subject:  Re: Libertarian space policy
Reply-To: Lippard@bco-multics.arpa
To: WALL%BRANDEIS.BITNET@mitvma.mit.edu
Cc: Space@angband.s1.gov

>Date:     Mon, 25 Jul 88 15:05 EDT
>From: <WALL%BRANDEIS.BITNET@mitvma.mit.edu> (Matt)

> I can hardly wait to see the outer space equivalent of Love Canal and
> Manville asbestos.

Ah yes, Love Canal--where the government used its power of eminent domain
to take a Hooker Chemical dump site and build a school on it despite
Hooker's warnings against it.

Jim Lippard
Lippard at BCO-MULTICS.ARPA

------------------------------

Date: 3 Aug 88 21:58:52 GMT
From: jec@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu  (James E. Conley)
Subject: Re: 20-year anniversary

In article <2087@silver.bacs.indiana.edu> konath@silver.UUCP (kannan) writes:
>In article <3763@teklds.TEK.COM> dant@mrloog.LA.TEK.COM (Dan Tilque) writes:
><Next year will be the 20th anniversary of Apollo 11 and I'm sure that
><everyone would like to celebrate it.  It never hurts to be prepared in
><advance, so lets start to kick ideas around.
>
><My idea is that they launch Discovery on or before July 20, 1989, even 
><if its faucets do leak.  Any others?

I would hope that NASA would cancel the launch if there we any unreasonable
possibility of failure.  Last thing we need to be remindered is how twenty
years ago we would put men on the moon, and now all we can do is scatter
them over the Atlantic Ocean.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #320
*******************

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Date: Thu, 11 Aug 88 01:04:37 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8808110804.AA05342@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #321

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 321

Today's Topics:
		       Re: 20-year anniversary
		Re: Automated vs. personned spacecraft
		    Cheap way out of the galaxy!?
			    Re: Satellites
		Re: Space Station Name chosen -- Fred
	  Space Station power supply (was Re: Lithium cells)
		 Re: Automated vs. personned spacecr
		       Space Shuttle fuel leaks
		Re: Automated vs. personned spacecraft
		   Large Amateur Telescope project
		Re: Automated vs. personned spacecraft
		       Re: 20-year anniversary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 3 Aug 88 21:39:06 GMT
From: silver!konath@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu  (kannan)
Subject: Re: 20-year anniversary

In article <3763@teklds.TEK.COM> dant@mrloog.LA.TEK.COM (Dan Tilque) writes:
<Next year will be the 20th anniversary of Apollo 11 and I'm sure that
<everyone would like to celebrate it.  It never hurts to be prepared in
<advance, so lets start to kick ideas around.

<My idea is that they launch Discovery on or before July 20, 1989, even 
<if its faucets do leak.  Any others?

Anniversary or no anniverrsary, launch Discovery only when Crippen
is absolutely sure that there is nothing wrong and the Challenger
tragedy should not as far as it is humanly possible be repeated. If
there were no human lives at stake, go ahead and launch it but since
it is a manned mission all precautions have to be taken.


>Dan Tilque	--	dant@twaddl.LA.TEK.COM

Kannan
konath@silver.bacs.indiana.edu

------------------------------

Date: 3 Aug 88 20:46:00 GMT
From: linus!necntc!primerd!hobbiton!choinski@husc6.harvard.edu
Subject: Re: Automated vs. personned spacecraft


[Lines, lines everywhere and not a bit to eat...]

On ships with human brains for pilots...
>A gold mine here for SF authors -- have they worked it yet?
>(Really, I'd like titles and authors for my own enjoyment.)

Try _The Ship who Sang_ by Anne McCaffery.  Very nice book dealing with
the subject.

===============================================================================
Burton Choinski                                             Prime Computer Inc.
   At: choinski@env.prime.com                            Framingham, Ma.  01701

------------------------------

Date: 4 Aug 88 00:13:32 GMT
From: lim@csvax.caltech.edu  (Tat Lim)
Subject: Cheap way out of the galaxy!?

Seen in Aviation Week & Space Technology, 7/25/88, page 51:

	"During one-sixth of a polar orbit, a satellite is exposed to
	 intergalactic space."

--
Kian-Tat Lim
ktl@wagvax.caltech.edu, ktl@citchem.BITNET, GEnie: K.LIM1

------------------------------

Date: 3 Aug 88 20:39:51 GMT
From: concertina!fiddler@sun.com  (Steve Hix)
Subject: Re: Satellites

In article <1059@unccvax.UUCP>, nrk@unccvax.UUCP (Nitin R Kulkarni) writes:
> 
> 	1. How many satellites has the US and the USSR launched into
> 	   deep space ?
> 	2. Their probable location in our solar system as of today. 
> 	3. The dates when they were launched. 

Do you count solar orbit as deep space?  If that's OK, then:
All the following are solar orbiting, unless otherwise noted.
The box scores are as follows:

	USSR	19
	US	16
	Japan    2
        ESA      1
	__________
		38

The data I've got only goes through 1987, but the '88
efforts are recent history.  The full list follows...


Pioneer 4	3/3/59	 US	solar orbit
Pioneer 5	3/11/60  US	  "     "
Venera 1	2/12/61	 USSR
Ranger 3	1/26/62  US	(missed moon...)
Ranger 5	10/18/62 US	(missed moon...)
Mars 1		11/1/62  USSR	(lost earth lock 65.9M miles)
Mariner 3	11/5/64  US
Mariner 4	11/28/64 US
Zond 2		11/30/64 USSR	(Mars probe)
Luna 6		6/8/65	 USSR	(Lunar soft lander missed moon)
Venera 2	11/12/65 USSR	(passed Venus, no data)
Pioneer 6	12/16/65 US	(still returning good data)
Pioneer 7	8/16/66  US	(still active)
Pioneer 8	12/13/67 US	(still active)
Mars 4		7/21/73  USSR	(missed Mars orbit)
Mars 5		7/25/73  USSR	(orbiting Mars)
Mars 6		8/5/73   USSR	(Mars lander failed)
Mars 7		7/21/73  USSR	(Mars lander failed)
Venera 9	6/8/75	 USSR	(orbiting Venus)
Venera 10	6/14/75	 USSR	(orbiting Venus)
Viking 1	8/2075	 US	(orbiting Mars {except lander})
Viking 2	10/9/75  US	(   ditto  )
Helios 2	1/15/76  US
Voyager 2	8/20/77  US	(solar system escape, en route Neptune)
Voyager 1	9/5/77   US	(likely solar system escapee)
Pioneer 12	5/20/78  US	(orbiter portion orbiting Venus)
Pioneer 13	8/8/78   US	(5 payloads hit Venus, rest solar)
Venera 11	9/9/78	 USSR	(all but lander in solar orbit)
Venera 12	9/14/78	 USSR   (   ditto )
Venera 13	10/30/81 USSR	(   ditto )
Venera 14	11/4/81  USSR   (   ditto )
Venera 15	6/2/83	 USSR   (   ditto )
Venera 16       6/7/83   USSR	(   and again )
Vega 1		12/15/84 USSR   (Venus/Halley mission)
Vega 2		12/21/84 USSR	(       "	     )
Sakigake	1/7/85	 Japan  ( Halley mission)
Giotto		2/7/85	 ESA	(       "       )
Suisei		9/18/85  Japan  (       "       )

------------------------------

Date: 3 Aug 88 17:55:34 GMT
From: ruffwork@cs.orst.edu  (Ritchey Ruff)
Subject: Re: Space Station Name chosen -- Fred

In article <852@prefix.liu.se> yngla@prefix.liu.se (Yngve Larsson) writes:
>In article <605@ecrcvax.UUCP> johng@ecrcvax.UUCP (John Gregor) writes:
>>>space station "Freedom".
>>                ^^^ ^
>Well, coincindence of coincidences; The strange fact is that "Fred" is the
>Swedish word for "Peace". How nice of you to (sort of) honor Mir in this 
>way.. :-)

And I thought the space station was named after someone named "Fred Om"
and it was just that Ronnie couldn't spell...

yea, yea...space station "Fred Om", or "Fred" for short...

--ritchey ruff	ruffwork@cs.orst.edu -or- ...!tektronix!orstcs!ruffwork
ps-John G, say hi to john S...

------------------------------

Date: 4 Aug 88 04:36:23 GMT
From: silver!chiaravi@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu  (Lucius Chiaraviglio)
Subject: Space Station power supply (was Re: Lithium cells)

In article <629@splut.UUCP> jay@splut.UUCP (Jay "you ignorant splut!" Maynard)
writes:
>Main power on the space station is specified as 220 VAC at 20 kHz.
>
>This, of course, makes power supplies efficient (since, in essence,
>they're giving you the front half of a switching power supply), [. . .]

	Isn't this going to cause considerable inefficiency of power
transmission due to radiative losses, which go up with increasing frequency (I
don't remember the exact relation, but it's linear or worse)?

	Also, this is going to make it impossible to operate induction motors
(unless you want them to go VERY fast) without using electronic conversion of
the power to get the frequency down.

	(I said something about this before, but I think my posting got
hosed.)

	-- Lucius Chiaraviglio
	   chiaravi@silver.bacs.indiana.edu
	   lucius@tardis.harvard.edu	(in case the first one doesn't work)

------------------------------

Date: 3 Aug 88 13:31:00 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!dcl-cs!nott-cs!pyr1.cs.ucl.ac.uk!william@uunet.uu.net
Subject: Re: Automated vs. personned spacecr


In article <8807291618.AA06003@angband.s1.gov> wmartin@ALMSA-1.ARPA (Will
Martin -- AMXAL-RI) writes:

>Hmmm... if those of us who
>get into this line of work write our contracts right, we'll probably end
>up owning the planet in a couple centuries, with compound interest on
>the back pay piling up while we're off to the stars...

Yep, the theory is fine - all you need is the technology.  I suspect this is
built on the "I've done all the difficult creative work, now you guys can
go and work on the details" management process.

However, I would be vastly surprised if a free-floating brain has any
legal rights like this.  Can a single human organ own a contract?  After
all, you wouldn't want to go in for your body amputation and then find
that the people running the program could wriggle out of their commitments.
You wouldn't even be able to storm into their offices, unless you're 
considering developing the future of law enforcement.

			... Bill

************************************************************************
Bill Witts, CS Dept.     *
UCL, London, Errrp       *       Don't believe everything you hear,
william@uk.ac.ucl.cs(UK) *       or anything you say.
william@cs.ucl.ac.uk(US) ***********************************************

------------------------------

Date: Thu 4 Aug 1988 13:27:56 EST
From: Harold Mueller <mueller@nrl-radar.arpa>
Subject: Space Shuttle fuel leaks

How do you find a leak in a hydrogen line?  Hydraulic fluid would be
easy to spot oozing out, but liquid hydrogen would vaporize.  I don't
suppose it would be such a great idea to traverse the line with a lit
match.

Harold Mueller <mueller@nrl-radar.arpa>
Bendix Field Engineering Corporation
c/o Code 5360
Naval Research Laboratory
4555 Overlook Avenue, SW
Washington, DC 20375
(202) 767-3240/3356     AUTOVON 297-3240/3356

------------------------------

Date: 4 Aug 88 12:15:50 GMT
From: thorin!lhotse!symon@mcnc.org  (James Symon)
Subject: Re: Automated vs. personned spacecraft

In article <45900001@hobbiton>, choinski@hobbiton.prime.com writes:
> On ships with human brains for pilots...
> >A gold mine here for SF authors -- have they worked it yet?
> >(Really, I'd like titles and authors for my own enjoyment.)
> 
> Try _The Ship who Sang_ by Anne McCaffery.  Very nice book dealing with
> the subject.
> 

Somebody had cat brains for pilots, quicker reflexes. (Actually,
working in tandem with human pilots, as I remember)

Jim

------------------------------

Date: 4 Aug 88 00:16:40 GMT
From: hpda!hpcuhb!hpscdc!jackz@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Jack Zeiders)
Subject: Large Amateur Telescope project




   	  		Large Amateur Telescope 


	A group of Northern California amateur astronomers are getting
together to put a bid on a large piece of glass 70"dia. x 8" thk. 
	We are basically the same group that built the 30" telescope
at the Fremont Peak Observatory. Now the opportunity has presented
itself to build a larger instrument, a 70".

	A 70" f4 or so Newtonian with a cass and Coude' focus. An altaz
fork is planned with computer control. Battleship technology is the
watchword for tube and fork design.

	The group is forming now and if you have strong interest in
contributing, let us know what you can help with. 	

	Right now we are looking for people willing to contribute cash
to finance the glass. We have about eight to ten who want to see this
scope become reality enough to contribute $1k each. We are looking for
other crazies who want to join us.  Most of us can't really afford to,
but we want this badly enough to put our money up.  We are not a rip-off
and this is not a scam.  We don't want cash in advance.  We are looking
for real people who can be relied on to help make a dream reality.

	We need about $25-30k to put a serious offer in for the glass.
Glass this size is not easy to come by, and this opportunity is too good 
to pass up. 

	The idea is that if we can get the glass, we can make the machines
and the mirror.  Once that is under way we can start on the tube and
mounting.  When the scope is well under way we will start looking for a 
site and designing a building.  When you have something real to show 
people will take your dream seriously.

	As the project matures we will need more crazies who may not have
monetary resources, but expertise in other areas.  But the people must be
active contributers not drones. I apologize if this offends anyone but 
this is the way it must be.

	For further info contact:

	Kevin Medlock (415) 784-0391

	or me Jack Zeiders !hplabs!hpscdc!jackz
	                    (408) 281-0220 evenings to 10PM or leave msg.

	There are 13 of us as of 8-2-88


Standard disclaimers apply, If you have no interest or are offended please
disreguard this message.

------------------------------

Date: 4 Aug 88 13:57:07 GMT
From: aplcen!aplcomm!stdc.jhuapl.edu!jwm@mimsy.umd.edu  (Jim Meritt)
Subject: Re: Automated vs. personned spacecraft


All this disgusting, hard-to-support, short-lived ORGANICS!  YECH!

Lets move the MIND to the space craft, not the brain.

You are welcome, A. C. Clarke.

AI guys, go to it.  Not just an "intelligence", but MINE!

(maybe with a few callable subroutines.....)


Disclaimer: Individuals have opinions, organizations have policy.
            Therefore, these opinions are mine and not any organizations!
Q.E.D.
jwm@aplvax.jhuapl.edu 128.244.65.5  (James W. Meritt)

------------------------------

Date: 5 Aug 88 00:23:31 GMT
From: tektronix!teklds!mrloog!dant@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Dan Tilque;1893;92-101;)
Subject: Re: 20-year anniversary

In article <11289@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> jec@iuvax.UUCP (James E. Conley) writes:
>>In article <3763@teklds.TEK.COM> dant@mrloog.LA.TEK.COM (Dan Tilque) writes:
>><Next year will be the 20th anniversary of Apollo 11 and I'm sure that
>><everyone would like to celebrate it.  It never hurts to be prepared in
>><advance, so lets start to kick ideas around.
>>
>><My idea is that they launch Discovery on or before July 20, 1989, even 
>><if its faucets do leak.  Any others?
>
>I would hope that NASA would cancel the launch if there we any unreasonable
                                                                ^^^^^^^^^^^^
>possibility of failure.  Last thing we need to be remindered is how twenty
>years ago we would put men on the moon, and now all we can do is scatter
>them over the Atlantic Ocean.

Perhaps you mean "reasonable".  But then since you seem to agree with
the current NASA administration, perhaps you do mean "unreasonable".
This is not a flame just at you, there were several others who expressed
similar sentiments.

My purpose in posting the original article was two-fold.  One was that
it's now a good time to start thinking about a 20-year celebration.  I
think it's unfortunate that we don't have some major new project ready
to go (or already underway) at that time.  (How many of you would have
predicted the current state of the U.S. space effort 20 years ago?)

My other purpose was to indicate that at the rate the Discovery testing
is going, they won't launch before the end of the century.  Every day I
open the newspaper and read about a new leak setting the launch back
another week or so.  It seems like NASA is trying for a Perfect launch;
something which anyone with common sense will tell you is virtually 
impossible.  After all, there's always the "unreasonable" possibility of
it being hit by a meteor on its way up.

Anyway, many of the delays are caused by things which would not have
caused delays in pre-Challenger launches.  I'm not saying that they
should ignore every one of them, but their hyper-cautiousness is
becoming ridiculous.


---
Dan Tilque	--	dant@twaddl.LA.TEK.COM

P.S. It occurred to me after I wrote this that maybe there's an SDI test
scheduled next July.  Then we could claim that the test is our
celebration.  I can't think of anything more reflective of our current
space effort than to blow up a satellite.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #321
*******************

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Date: Fri, 12 Aug 88 01:04:42 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8808120804.AA06375@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #322

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 322

Today's Topics:
			   Re: Space Cities
			    Re: Satellites
			    Re: Satellites
		     Re: Libertarian space policy
		Re: Space Station Name chosen -- Fred
	     Orbital Data and Observation Relay Satellite
			     Re: E stamp
			    Re: What's New
  Re: Automated vs. personned spacecraft -- a reasonable compromise
			    Re: Satellites
			   Re: Solar Sails
			    Re: Satellites
			    Re: Satellites
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Thu,  4 Aug 88 21:46:04 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" <KFL@ai.ai.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: Space Cities
To: Peter.J..Forsling%IOWA.PHYSICS.UIOWA.EDU@uunet.uu.net
Cc: KFL@ai.ai.mit.edu, Space@angband.s1.gov

> From: Peter.J..Forsling@IOWA.PHYSICS.UIOWA.EDU

Why don't you get an address that the rest of the world has heard of
and can reply to?

>> People might come to prefer weightlessness.

> Sure. Who needs all that calcium, anyway. And surely nobody cares
> about being able to taste their food.

Ask the Russians.  Doesn't seem to bother them.

>> Too fast!   That will give you about 3 Gs.

Rats.  I thought I had killed that one and re-sent it without that
line.  I was calculating in feet and thinking in meters.  Did two
copies show up?

>> You'd better have good radiation shielding.

> Do you really think you're such a genius that nobody else thought of
> that? If you had bothered to read any of the three references ...

There is no need to be rude.  I did not know whether the person asking
the question knew of this, so I thought I should mention it.

> I hope that in the future, you will bother to read some references
> and check your calculations before you waste the time of those on
> the net who know better, and mislead those who don't.

I hope in the future you will be more polite.  That one line was the
only error in my posting, and had I known it had gone out, I would
have asked Ted Anderson to pull it.
								...Keith

------------------------------

Date: 5 Aug 88 00:52:56 GMT
From: tektronix!teklds!mrloog!dant@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Dan Tilque;1893;92-101;)
Subject: Re: Satellites

In article <62689@sun.uucp> fiddler%concertina@Sun.COM (Steve Hix) writes:
>The full list follows...

Most deleted
>
>Pioneer 8	12/13/67 US	(still active)

You forgot Mariners 9 and 10 which were launched somewhere in between
these two, if memory serves me correctly (reference works at home).
Mariner 9 is still orbiting Mars but ran out of attitude fuel.  Mariner 10
is still orbiting the Sun at roughly Mercury's orbit.

>Mars 4		7/21/73  USSR	(missed Mars orbit)


---
Dan Tilque	--	dant@twaddl.LA.TEK.COM

------------------------------

Date: 5 Aug 88 01:17:12 GMT
From: tektronix!teklds!mrloog!dant@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Dan Tilque;1893;92-101;)
Subject: Re: Satellites

In article <3772@teklds.TEK.COM> dant@mrloog.LA.TEK.COM (Dan Tilque) writes:
>In article <62689@sun.uucp> fiddler%concertina@Sun.COM (Steve Hix) writes:
>>The full list follows...
>
>
>You forgot Mariners 9 and 10 ...
>Mariner 9 is still orbiting Mars but ran out of attitude fuel.  Mariner 10
>is still orbiting the Sun at roughly Mercury's orbit.

After posting the above, I went back and reread the list.  It seems it was
also missing Pioneers 10 and 11.  They are currently on their way out of
the Solar System and should reach the heliopause any year now.  Still
active, as far as I know.

How can any list of space probes be complete without the above four.
Each of them achieved a very important first in the history of space
exploration.  The discoveries made by each of them are too numerous to
mention.

	Mariner 9	First orbit of another planet

	Mariner 10	First flyby of Mercury (only probe to flyby
			Mercury, which it did 3 times.)

	Pioneer 10	First flyby of Jupiter, first to achieve solar
			escape velocity.

	Pioneer 11	First flyby of Saturn


---
Dan Tilque	--	dant@twaddl.LA.TEK.COM

------------------------------

Date: 4 Aug 88 16:18:27 GMT
From: uop!todd@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu  ( Todd/Dr. Nethack )
Subject: Re: Libertarian space policy

In article <5499@ecsvax.uncecs.edu>, dgary@ecsvax.uncecs.edu (D Gary Grady) writes:

> In article <978@bucket.UUCP> leonard@bucket.UUCP (Leonard Erickson) writes:

> >(In case you didn't know, the *real* reason that Britain and Argentina
> >went to war over the Falklands was that it looks like there may
> >be a major oilfield in the South Atlantic and the Falklands are the
> >nearest land. Own the Falklands and you own the oil..)

> Wrong newsgroup for this, but for the record such conspiracy theories
> rarely hold water on close examination. 

Actually, if you look at the geology of the area, there is a high degree of
probability that there is a large oil mass there.

If you think money is not reason enough for war, you must be from another 
planet.

------------------------------

Date: 4 Aug 88 19:59:54 GMT
From: uop!todd@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu  ( Todd/Dr. Nethack )
Subject: Re: Space Station Name chosen -- Fred

In article <5887@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU>, ruffwork@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU (Ritchey Ruff) writes:
> In article <852@prefix.liu.se> yngla@prefix.liu.se (Yngve Larsson) writes:
> >In article <605@ecrcvax.UUCP> johng@ecrcvax.UUCP (John Gregor) writes:
> >>>space station "Freedom".
> >>                ^^^ ^
> yea, yea...space station "Fred Om", or "Fred" for short...

I hate to break it to you.. but they were toying with all sorts of names
before fred.. they were going to try "Barney"  but fred was chosen instead.

The "Fred-Om" was from a suggestion by Eddie "Superfrog" Caplan.

------------------------------

Date: 4 Aug 88 21:25:13 GMT
From: uop!todd@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu  ( Todd/Dr. Nethack )
Subject: Orbital Data and Observation Relay Satellite

Not to be absurd.. (the title was to be abit funny, but this is a valid
concern ..  I hope)

In watching the re-run of NOVA's "Death of a Star".. it occured to me that
a network of satellites capable of swapping telemetry and digitized phone
and visual communications would be a good thing to have towards better
connectivity with remote sites.

They could be accessed from earth stations using small dishes (comparitively).

I am sure someone is working on something like this.. someplace..

But I could not help feeling abit primitive that the discovery of the super-
nova, could not be relayed in a more rapid way.

I thought of things I could have done.. amatuer radio, or an AMSAT hookup..

why not a joint .edu or .arpa project to fund a group of connects that can
swap pictures, images, telephone, etc..

That belongs to the .edu community at large?

I don't think they should be "public access".. but in a sense, it would
be nice if a flash net could be established to facilitate info throughput
from the more remote regions..

--just an idea!

---
ARPA   cogent!uop!todd@lll-winken.arpa      Or something like that
BITNET ucdavis!uop!todd@ucbvax.BITNET          anyway... 
UUCP   ucbvax!ucdavis!uop!todd                
UUNET  uop!todd@uunet.uu.net         ..this account soon to be gone...

------------------------------

Date: 4 Aug 88 22:16:50 GMT
From: ncspm!jay@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu  (Jay C. Smith)
Subject: Re: E stamp


The "E" stamp was done by Robert McCall, a noted space artist who has
designed almost every space stamp since the Moon Landing one from 1969.
BTW, that one showed the Earth just above the horizon in the background,
when it actually wasn't in that position.  He knew that, and he probably
realizes that the "E" stamp shows Earth inaccurately.  It's called
artistic license.

Robert McCall is also well-known for his pre-production paintings for
"2001:  A Space Odyssey" and the giant space mural in the Smithsonian's
National Air and Space Museum.

Oh, yes, and the "E" stamp is "domestic use only" because non-denominated
stamps aren't valid for international postage (excepting special waivers
Canada routinely grants).

-- 
"The duality of man.  The Jungian thing, sir."
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Jay C. Smith                      uucp:     ...!mcnc!ncsuvx!ncspm!jay
Domain: jay@ncspm.ncsu.edu        internet: jay%ncspm@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu

------------------------------

Date: 3 Aug 88 14:54:38 GMT
From: att!chinet!mcdchg!clyde!watmath!utgpu!utzoo!henry@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: What's New

In article <880801192112.20e0154a@Iowa> kistler%Iowa.Iowa@ROMEO.CALTECH.EDU (Allen C. Kistler) writes:
>... the idea has been around for a while...

Yes, and some of the recent work on tethers has increased interest in it.
One cute idea that's been suggested is based on the reversibility of the
technique:  use the tether for propulsion while you are in sunlight, and
for power while you're in Earth's shadow.  This combines orbit maintenance
(assuming adequate power in sunlight) with energy storage.
-- 
MSDOS is not dead, it just     |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
smells that way.               | uunet!mnetor!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 3 Aug 88 14:44:03 GMT
From: att!chinet!mcdchg!clyde!watmath!utgpu!utzoo!henry@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Automated vs. personned spacecraft -- a reasonable compromise

In article <6060@ihlpl.ATT.COM> knudsen@ihlpl.ATT.COM (Knudsen) writes:
>(3) While many vital organs do fail on people prematurely
>(hearts, eyes, cancer), the brain has life limits too. ...
>Brain cells DO NOT divide and reproduce -- when they're gone,
>they're gone...

Actually, recent research has shown that brain neurons *do* divide and
reproduce in some species of birds.  It's not clear yet whether it happens
in mammals.  In other words, this particular dogma is being re-examined
of late, and there may be some surprises.  If the things can reproduce
in adults, it's not inconceivable that there might be some way to encourage
them to do so when necessary.
-- 
MSDOS is not dead, it just     |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
smells that way.               | uunet!mnetor!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 4 Aug 88 01:24:00 GMT
From: unmvax!charon!geinah.unm.edu!ee2131ac@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (SEDS-UNM)
Subject: Re: Satellites


Here's the address to use when requesting the Satellite Situation Report:

NASA
Office of Public Affairs
Code 502
Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, MD  20771



-Ollie

------------------------------

Date: 3 Aug 88 21:54:59 GMT
From: attcan!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!mcdchg!ddsw1!igloo!bhv@uunet.uu.net  (Bronis Vidugiris)
Subject: Re: Solar Sails


I think doppler shift (which was ingored for simplicity in the referenced
posting, but mentioned in other postings on this topic), would keep the
energy of the universe constant.  Picking an inertial frame stationary
relative to the sun, as soon as the sail starts to move the light 
that is emitted will be red shifted, lowering it's energy.  A sail that
is held stationary will not cause red shift, but, of course, will not have
any work performed on it either.  A decelerating sail will cause blue 
shift, but then it is in fact loosing energy.

------------------------------

Date: 3 Aug 88 20:38:55 GMT
From: unmvax!charon!geinah.unm.edu!ee2131ac@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (SEDS-UNM)
Subject: Re: Satellites


The NASA Satellite Situation Report is handy for looking up
the current status of almost every sat ever launched from all
countries.  This free listing may be obtained from the
Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD.  Sorry, no
address handy at the moment.

------------------------------

Date: 4 Aug 88 13:58:38 GMT
From: b.gp.cs.cmu.edu!Ralf.Brown%B.GP.CS.CMU.EDU@pt.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: Satellites

In article <62689@sun.uucp>, fiddler%concertina@Sun.COM (Steve Hix) writes:
}Pioneer 6       12/16/65 US     (still returning good data)
}Pioneer 7       8/16/66  US     (still active)
}Pioneer 8       12/13/67 US     (still active)

Talk about outliving their expected lifetimes!  I didn't know anything older
than Pioneer 10 was still active out there.  BTW, Pioneers 10 and 11 were
missing from the list.

--
UUCP: {ucbvax,harvard}!cs.cmu.edu!ralf -=-=-=- Voice: (412) 268-3053 (school)
ARPA: ralf@cs.cmu.edu  BIT: ralf%cs.cmu.edu@CMUCCVMA  FIDO: Ralf Brown 1:129/31
Disclaimer? I     |Ducharm's Axiom:  If you view your problem closely enough
claimed something?|   you will recognize yourself as part of the problem.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #322
*******************

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Date: Sat, 13 Aug 88 01:04:50 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8808130804.AA07626@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #323

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 323

Today's Topics:
Rocket Triggered Lightning Research Program enters sixth summer (Forwarded)
			   Spacesploitation
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 5 Aug 88 14:11:58 GMT
From: yee@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: Rocket Triggered Lightning Research Program enters sixth summer (Forwarded)


        George H. Diller                                   August 1, 1988
        Kennedy Space Center

        Release No. 55-88



        ROCKET TRIGGERED LIGHTNING RESEARCH PROGRAM ENTERS SIXTH SUMMER


             KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. -  The   NASA-sponsored    Rocket
        Triggered  Lightning  Program (RTLP) has entered its sixth summer
        season at the Kennedy Space Center.   Triggered lightning  launch
        activity  has  resumed  from  the  pads  on  the shore of Merritt
        Island's Mosquisto Lagoon,  approximately 8 miles  north  of  the
        Vehicle Assembly Building.

             A  space  age,  high-tech version of Ben Franklin's key on a
        kite string,  the program entails launching three-foot-tall solid
        fueled  rockets into a thunderstorm to an altitude of 3,000 feet,
        trailing a wire to ground.   Data are collected by lightning  in-
        vestigators at the launch control site and at near-by field loca-
        tions.   There is capability to launch up to a dozen rockets from
        each pad in a  single  thunderstorm,  depending  on  the  storm's
        lightning potential.

             The principal investigators began installing instrumentation
        at  KSC  on  July 15 for the summer program,  which lasts through
        August.   Approximately 40 investigators are participating in the
        program this year from  15  institutions  including  the  federal
        government,  the private sector, leading universities, and inter-
        national organizations.

             The lightning research program grew out of NASA's desire  to
        improve lightning protection systems for KSC facilities and space
        launch  vehicles.    This  objective continues with an additional
        goal of improving lightning forecasting.   Because the nature  of
        this research has a broad range of applications,  and because the
        the result of a lightning strike is everyone's problem,  NASA has
        encouraged others to participate.

             Eventual  civil applications of the Rocket Triggered Lightn-
        ing Program may include earlier and more precise lightning  warn-
        ings,  lightning  avoidance  by aircraft,  and the development of
        lightning protection systems that would  preclude  power  outages
        and loss of communications.

             A  new  element  has  been  added  for  the 1988 season.   A
        tethered balloon  1500 feet in the air has suspended from  it  an
        instrumented  lightning strike object at an altitude of 500 feet.
        The ultimate goal is to develop a set of data that will delineate
        the characterics of  the  lightning  strike  potential  in  three
        environments; over land, over water, and in the air.

             This  year NASA continues to collect data for evaluating the
        effectiveness of lightning protection systems used for facilities
        at the Kennedy Space Center, and to increase understanding of the
        lightning initiation process.   This will improve early detection
        of thunderstorm development and lightning strikes.   It will also
        enhance the  quality  and  reliability  of  launch  criteria  for
        lightning   avoidance  by  understanding  how  rockets  or  other
        aerospace vehicles can trigger lightning.

             In addition, a data base continues to be established to bet-
        ter understand the climatology of the Cape Canaveral area so that
        more precise weather forecasts can be developed.

             Along with NASA, the leading institutions participating this
        year are NOAA,  the U.S.  Air Force Geophysical  Laboratory,  the
        Naval Research Laboratory,  Boeing Aircraft,  Dayton Granger Cor-
        poration,  the Electric Power Research Institute,  Florida  Power
        Corportion, the University of Florida, the University of Arizona,
        the  State  University  of  New  York  at  Albany,  Embry  Riddle
        Aeronutical University,  the University of Mississippi,  the  New
        Mexico Institute of Mining Technology,  and the University of San
        Juan in Puerto Rico.

             Also, three government-sponsored research groups from France
        are  again  participating  which  include  CENG  (Centre   Etudes
        Nucleaires  de  Grenoble),  ONERA (Office National d'Etudes et de
        Recherches Aerospatiales),  and CNET  (Centre  National  d'Etudes
        Telecommunications).   The French have had an ongoing involvement
        in the KSC program and along with the United States pioneered the
        first rocket triggered lightning research.

             The participants collaborating in the  program  change  from
        year  to year because the objective of each organization differs,
        predicated on distinct areas of direct application.

             The field mill system at KSC,  used  to  detect  and  locate
        lightning,  is  providing data as part of most experiments in the
        program this summer.  As in the past,  field mills are being used
        to  study  the  electric  field  environment  in situations where
        lightning is being triggered.   This will provide a more complete
        picture  of weather conditions conducive to triggering lightning,
        and will provide data which can assist in  developing  guidelines
        that can extend to larger launch vehicles.

             For a second year,  in addition to the traditional land pad,
        a raft-like launching pad is being used.  The 12-by-12 foot plat-
        form used to launch rockets from about 100 feet offshore, is con-
        nected with the launch control and  instrumentation  facility  by
        pneumatics  and fiber-optic instrumentation.   A lightning strike
        with a more "pure"  electrical  signature  is  generated  from  a
        launch  over  water.    This  is  more  characteristic of natural
        lightning since it is not subject to electrical  current  distor-
        tions from the ground or pad-associated ground support equipment.

             The  tethered  balloon  included  in  this  year's  research
        resembles a blimp,  is 85 feet long,  25 feet  in  diameter,  and
        holds 20,000 cubic feet of helium.  Suspended from the balloon is
        the  instrumented lightning strike object.   This cylinder is ap-
        proximately  8 feet long,  2 feet in diameter,  and weighs  about
        60 pounds.

             Also  suspended  from  the  balloon  is an airborne electric
        field mill.   This is being provided by the University of Missis-
        sippi,  with research assistance from the New Mexico Institute of
        Mining Technology.

             The objectives using the balloon  are  being  closely  coor-
        dinated  with  the French research team.   Four lightning science
        objectives are under study.

        1.)  Determine the  pre-attachment  of  electric  fields  to  the
        suspended  lightning strike object which would initiate a lightn-
        ing strike.   Eventually,  by  detecting  and  understanding  the
        process  by  which  a cloud develops a charge,  it is anticipated
        that forecasters can be provided with advance notice as to  where
        and when lightning will occur.

        2.)   Attempt to document with photography and other data collec-
        tion methods the lightning initiation process of an  upward-going
        positively   charged  "streamer"  and  downward-going  negatively
        charged  "step leader" from a free-flying object,  believed  gen-
        erated  by  high electric fields.   This process exists in nature
        between ground and cloud.

        3.)  Improve understanding of how far lightning will travel  from
        its  point of origin to a distant object during a strike,  called
        the "lightning striking distance."  In addition it will hopefully
        be learned why lightning also chooses to strike  some  particular
        secondary object instead of some other.

        4.)  Study the relationship between a ground-based field mill and
        an  airborne  field mill which is above the area of space charge,
        or interference created from the ground environment.    This  can
        ultimately improve the accuracy of launch criteria.

             NOAA  is  flying  a  pair of P-3 Orion weather reconnaisance
        aircraft with standard meteorological observation instruments and
        an airbourne field mill to compare data with a similarly  instru-
        mented pod and a field mill which are suspended from the balloon.
        The  intent is to correlate the data from each set of instruments
        and assess reliability.

             It is possible that lightning may  not  strike  the  instru-
        mented canister suspended from the balloon.   If this is found to
        be true,  then the rockets will be attached to the  canister  for
        launch.

             Using  the  tethered  balloon  probably comes the closest to
        recreating Ben Franklin's original experiment  using  "high-tech"
        methods.  Hopefully it will lead to discoveries as significant as
        Franklin's original studies.

             The  private  sector participants each have an objective for
        the summer program with a specific application in mind  and  have
        provided  lightning  strike objects which are mounted on the land
        launching pad.

             Boeing Aircraft has installed a fiberglass  radome  and  as-
        sociated  radar  dish  taken  from  the nose of a jet aircraft to
        study the effectiveness of metal lightning  diverter  strips  at-
        tached to the radome.   This essentially creates  an airborne at-
        tach point on which  to  focus  a  lightning  strike  which  then
        provides a preferred path through the skin of the aircraft.

             Boeing,  together  with the Dayton Granger Corporation which
        manufactures the diverter strips,  will  attempt  to  learn  what
        type,  how many, and where these metal strips should be placed on
        the radome to  establish  effective  protection.    However,  the
        desire is to use as few as possible so that the efficiency of the
        radar antenna beneath it is not impaired.

             Again  this year,  the Electric Power Research Institute and
        Florida  Power  Corporation  are  testing  the  effectiveness  of
        lightning current recorders.  These recorders measure the lightn-
        ing  current  wave form with its associated effect throughout the
        power distribution system.

             Based on data obtained during last summer's program, changes
        have already been  implemented  into  recorders  associated  with
        FPC's power grid.   This measures more accurately what happens to
        the power line system when lightning occurs.

             In addition,  the effectiveness of  protective  devices  for
        Florida Power will be assessed under actual conditions on a dedi-
        cated,  normally  powered  line subject to the lightning environ-
        ment.

             The ongoing participation of three major university institu-
        tions in the program will enable them to move closer to their re-
        search objectives,  expanding upon the knowledge gained  in  pre-
        vious years.

             The  State  University  of New York at Albany is taking high
        speed video and film photography of lightning flashes.  From this
        imagery  they  will  study  the  lightning  stroke  process,  the
        velocity of the stroke,  and the stroke's fractal geometry.  This
        data will be of benefit to other lightning researchers.

             The University of Arizona has three  objectives  during  the
        1988 summer season.   They are studying the optical properties of
        lightning with the specific objective of improving satellite air-
        borne sensors which are being  developed  by  the  NASA  Marshall
        Space  Flight  Center  for  installation on future weather satel-
        lites.

             The optical equipment can distinguish  where  the  lightning
        strikes,  and by photographic analysis quantify the type and mag-
        nitude of the strike.  Approximately 1,000,000 watts of light per
        meter of lightning channel has been  measured  with  an  internal
        temperature of 60,000 degrees.  This optical system also provides
        accurate  data  on which to judge the accuracy and reliability of
        other lightning instrumentation.  Further, this could assist NASA
        in the  field  of  planetary  meteorology  in  understanding  the
        lightning process on other planets.

             The  Univeristy  of  Arizona is also measuring and analyzing
        the production of ozone  from lightning.   It is postulated  that
        ozone  generation  by lightning may replenish the Earth's natural
        supply, possibly being depleted by aerosols.

             Again this year University of Arizona researchers are taping
        the sound of thunder at various distances from the  rocket  trig-
        gered  lightning  launch  site,  hoping  to  learn how thunder is
        produced,  and how the sound characteristics  of  thunder  change
        with distance from the lightning.

             The  University  of Florida is continuing to develop sensors
        which remotely sense the electrical  atmospheric  environment  to
        detect  the early lightning initiation processes.   This will im-
        prove the ability to measure  and  forecast  a  three-dimensional
        electrical  environment up to 25 miles distant from Kennedy Space
        Center.   Antennas for this system are under installation at KSC.
        Associated instruments will be installed later in the season.

             The  goal  is to gather information which may help determine
        the pre-initiation process of lightning before  it  actually  oc-
        curs.  From  this  may come a more cost-effective way to forecast
        thunderstorm development and the lightning  initiation  process--
        parameters that can be included in KSC's launch commit criteria.

             Another  aspect of the  University of Arizona research has a
        similar objective but takes an alternative approach, using a sen-
        sor buried in the earth.   This sensor detects a  ground  current
        which  is correlated with the measured negative potential between
        ground and cloud.  The purpose is to locate the generating source
        of currents in the cloud that are associated with specific  cloud
        development.

             Potentially,  either  system could provide advance notice of
        the occurance of lightning.   Also,  aircraft may be able to  use
        such instrumentation to map and avoid charged clouds.

             The Advanced Program Development Office of NASA Headquarters
        and  NASA-KSC  are  supporting  the  Rocket  Triggered  Lightning
        Program by attempting to transfer  technology  generated  by  the
        program  to  private  industry,  other federal agencies,  univer-
        sities,  and the general public.   In addition NASA is  promoting
        the attributes of the Cape Canaveral area for lightning research,
        hoping to demonstrate the feasibility of establishing a permanent
        atmospheric science research laboratory at the Kennedy Space Cen-
        ter, attracting other private sector participants.

------------------------------

Cc: anarchy-list%sob.cwi.nl%mcvax.uunet.uu.net@note.nsf.gov
Subject: Spacesploitation
Date: Fri, 05 Aug 88 15:53:38 -0400
From: Fred Baube <fbaube@note.nsf.gov>


Regarding the discussion and comparison of the ocean seabed,
Antarctica, and outer space as "common heritages of mankind", 
and whether this is a deterrent to exploitation, entrepeneurial 
or otherwise ..

There's not really anything fundamentally wrong or evil about the
economic development/exploitation regime established by the Law
of the Sea Treaty ("UNCLOS 3").  And because the legal statuses
of the Antarctic and outer space are much less well-defined,
similar criticism about either is premature.

UNCLOS 3 does not tell private interests they are forbidden to
exploit the seabed. It's mainly the legalistic aspects of UNCLOS
3 as a treaty instrument that have kept the US from ratifying it;
among other things, it seems to leave signatories vulnerable to
an open-ended amendment process.  This hasn't stopped the US from
taking advantage of transit rights codified by the treaty, but it
*has* inhibited private parties from leaping into the legal limbo
of seabed development. It's not a big problem for the US and the
OECD, because placer deposits and crusts that fall within the US
EEZ are turning out to be much better economic bets than seabed
nodules, and the Soviet Union and South Africa have not (yet)
moved to exploit OECD import vulnerability in manganese, cobalt,
or any other metal found in marine deposits. Check OTA reports
for details.

Roughly speaking, an entity (such as a US company) wishing to
develop a seabed tract is to give its survey results, and a list
of pairs of tracts, to the "International Seabed Authority"
(ISA), which gets its choice of the better of each pair of
tracts, and use on its tract (the ISA's) of the same technology
available to the company on its (the company's) tract.   The
notion is REJECTED that a monopoly on economical technology shall
imply a monopoly on exploitation of the "common heritage".  How
*else* can the ISA be expected to exploit a plot and develop a
distributable surplus value ?  The US objects to the treaty's
tech transfer provisions, but they are objections to the specific
implementation set forth in the treaty, and not to the principle
involved.

UNCLOS 3's seabed provisions are not absolute prohibitions on
development or developers, they're novel (and as yet untried)
mechanisms to try to ensure that everyone (in the UN) gets a
piece of the pie.  A company is not denied the fruits of its
developmental abilities, it is denied absolute property rights.
Property rights and developmental rights are a creature of gov-
ernment, and there's no government in the seabed, or Antarctica,
or space, just the UN.  Unilateral assertion of US interests
outside of a treaty framework would invite, even *mandate*,
corresponding acts by other nations, ensuring a mess.  

Presumably, if Capitalist Company "A" can profitably develop a
tract, then so can Multi-National "ISA", if it has access to
comparable technology, and a modicum of managerial competence.
This should then preclude unilateral exploitation.

An ISA-type model was not the only way seabed development could
have been accommodated, but the US went along with it at the
time.  (There's a belief in some parts that the US traded the
seabed provisions for the codification of transit rights, never
intending to ratify the treaty, thus getting what it wanted in
the short-term at the cost of establishing an undesireable
precedent for the "common heritage's exploitation.)

Regarding alternatives to an ISA-type regime, royalty schemes and
the like have their own problems.  For the Antarctic, an ISA-like
scheme is only one of several possible institutional models that
could be implemented.  Environmental considerations seem to be
paramount, and there's the nasty matter of conflicting claims
(cf. the Falklands), so progress is very slow.  The recent
minerals agreement on the Antarctic reinforced the current scheme
wherein non-Treaty-signatories are excluded, but that is about
all it settled, I believe.

There *are* other institutional models under consideration that
implement certain flavors of ownership wherein signatory nations
have incentives both to encourage exploitation and to preserve
the environment.  Virtually *none* of these models provide for
the recognition of existing national claims, despite Chilean
mothers giving birth down there and other imaginative claims-
advancement methods.

If Outer Space is asserted to be the "common heritage of man-
kind", that is not in principle excluding its exploitation, or
locking out entrepeneurs.  It's asserting a principle that
although private initiative may be [is] a motivational force for
development, perhaps the heavens are not best left solely to the
technological "Haves", i.e. the likes of Union Carbide and
Occidental Petroleum.  It also leaves an opening for *multi-
lateral* regulation of environmental issues, so that we don't end
up with something like Heinlein wrote about in "The Man Who Sold
the Moon", where rockets lay carbon trails on the lunar surface
to create a giant soft drink logo.  Or nuclear contamination of
Mars.

Horatio Alger is a story for kids, not a useful model for
extending "progress" into space.  Armchair libertarian entre-
peneurs should not be concerned that they will not be able to
exploit exploit exploit. What they *should* be concerned about
is that on the high seas, flagless ships are strictly verboten,
and any country can board a flagless ship.  If you want to set up
your own operation at L1 or L2 or the Asteroid Belt, you'll be
able to build it, but if current customary practice holds, you'll
have to submit to some nation's jurisdiction.  The US is the
enemy here; we've been vigorously enforcing the UNCLOS 3 provi-
sion that a ship under Slobovian registry must have a "genuine
link" to Slobovia, clamping down on "flags of convenience". Fur-
ther, at least in the case of the Sarah (Radio New York Inter-
national), we boarded the ship, and later lied about asking the
permission of the flag state (I have this from an authoritative
source).  Not a pretty precedent.

If you think that "common heritage of mankind" is some sort 
of romantic tripe, or Third-World blathering, or One-World
Commie-nism, so be it.

#include <disclaimer.h>

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #323
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Date: Sun, 14 Aug 88 01:04:25 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8808140804.AA00472@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #324

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 324

Today's Topics:
	       Date of Afghan mission to Mir announced
			 Economic Conversion
			 Re: Spacesploitation
			    Re: Satellites
		     Re: Space Shuttle fuel leaks
		      Re: Skintight Space Suits
			    Re: Satellites
	Re: Space Station power supply (was Re: Lithium cells)
		   Re: Disagree? I'll cut you off!
	    Re: "NukeWinter" garbage (was Re: Aegis, SDI)
			 Re: Spacesploitation
		    SDI and space station partners
		       Re: Economic Conversion
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 5 Aug 88 17:02:24 EDT
From: Glenn Chapman <glenn@ll-vlsi.arpa>
Subject: Date of Afghan mission to Mir announced

     The Soviets have announced Aug. 29th as the launch date for the Soyuz TM-6
mission to Mir.  This mission will bring up an Afghan guest cosmonaut,
either Col. Mohammad Dauran or Capt. Abdol Ahad.  Unfortunately, the Russians
have retreated a bit from announcing the crew in advance.  For a while
they would give out the full flight crew list well in advance.  Now they
will list the names of people training for the flight, and the probable make
up of the prime and backup crew.  The mission date will be announced 
well in advance, but not the crew makeup stating that will be selected
shortly before they fly.  For those keeping count the in orbit crew of
Vladimir Titov and Musahi Manarov have now been up for 228 days, nearly 2/3
of their full year mission.
     The Russians have also talked again about future Mars missions.  There
will not be a 1992 flight, but the 1994 mission will contain a rover vehicle
(no details as to size).  The 2000 AD mission will return samples to earth
from Mars.  2010 is the earliest they are now talking about manned missions.
     With their on orbit experience the USSR will be in a position to send
humans to Mars by that date.  It is clear that unless this country's program
changes there is little chance that it will be able to do so also.

                                                           Yours truly
                                                           Glenn Chapman

------------------------------

Reply-To: mordor!rutgers!pnet01.cts.com!jim
Date: Sun, 31 Jul 88 16:48:18 PDT
From: mordor!rutgers!pnet01.cts.com!jim (Jim Bowery)
To: ucsd!nosc!crash!space
Subject: Economic Conversion

Those calling for international cooperation in space have had the
crucial insight that science has always been an international activity
of tremendous value in its own right.  They understand the need to
get away from letting NASA hold our space activities hostage to
the permanent war economy.  

We must:

* Expand our scientific activities in space so that we can have broad 
international cooperation in space.

* Ensure that all NASA civil servants and contractors working
on large development projects participate in economic conversion
so they can truely contribute to our economy. 

Like the economic conversion of the military development industry,
the economic conversion of the civilian aerospace development
industry to the support of open scientific research will promote
a higher standard of living and greater international harmony.


UUCP: {cbosgd, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!pnet01!jim
ARPA: crash!pnet01!jim@nosc.mil
INET: jim@pnet01.cts.com

------------------------------

Date: 6 Aug 88 01:02:24 GMT
From: aramis.rutgers.edu!klaatu.rutgers.edu!josh@rutgers.edu  (J Storrs Hall)
Subject: Re: Spacesploitation

>If you think that "common heritage of mankind" is some sort 
>of romantic tripe, or Third-World blathering, or One-World
>Commie-nism, so be it.

It is all three.  However, more importantly, it is (an attempt at)
an exercise in power for its own sake, and is merely another of the
endless string of conceits by which the governments of the world 
justify the impoverishment of their people.

--JoSH

------------------------------

Date: 5 Aug 88 19:16:47 GMT
From: hp-pcd!hpcvlx!bturner@hplabs.hp.com  (Bill Turner)
Subject: Re: Satellites

> [Text of satellite list deleted]

Isn't it a bit depressing that a deep scientific mission hasn't
been launched by the US since 78?

--Bill Turner

------------------------------

Date: 5 Aug 88 18:46:44 GMT
From: attcan!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Space Shuttle fuel leaks

In article <8808041733.AA17257@nrl-radar.ARPA> mueller@NRL-RADAR.ARPA (Harold Mueller) writes:
>How do you find a leak in a hydrogen line?  Hydraulic fluid would be
>easy to spot oozing out, but liquid hydrogen would vaporize...

I think they use portable mass spectrometers to spot hydrogen in the air;
they also has the advantage of being sensitive to very small traces.
-- 
MSDOS is not dead, it just     |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
smells that way.               | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 5 Aug 88 19:42:03 GMT
From: attcan!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Skintight Space Suits

In article <880801130417.0000204E092@grouch.JPL.NASA.GOV> PJS@grouch.jpl.nasa.GOV (Peter Scott) writes:
>I'm very interested in reading about actual data where it exists, rather
>than speculation.  Where can I find papers on these vacuum chamber
>experiments?

The major source is NASA CR-1892, Development of a Space Activity Suit, by
James Annis and Paul Webb.  Be warned that it's out of print.
-- 
MSDOS is not dead, it just     |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
smells that way.               | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 5 Aug 88 18:42:30 GMT
From: attcan!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Satellites

In article <62689@sun.uucp> fiddler%concertina@Sun.COM (Steve Hix) writes:
>Pioneer 6	12/16/65 US	(still returning good data)
>Pioneer 7	8/16/66  US	(still active)
>Pioneer 8	12/13/67 US	(still active)

You missed Pioneer 9, which is also still active.  And I think one of the
earlier ones -- Pioneer 8? -- is out of contact and presumed dead, as of
quite recently.  Also, at least one of these Pioneers is returning data
only intermittently, because its spin axis is off enough that its semi-
directional antennas (which see a plane perpendicular to the axis) are
not aligned with Earth most of the time.

You also missed Pioneers 10 and 11, heading out of the solar system.
-- 
MSDOS is not dead, it just     |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
smells that way.               | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 5 Aug 88 18:45:42 GMT
From: attcan!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Space Station power supply (was Re: Lithium cells)

In article <2090@silver.bacs.indiana.edu> chiaravi@silver.UUCP (Lucius Chiaraviglio) writes:
>>Main power on the space station is specified as 220 VAC at 20 kHz.
>
>	Isn't this going to cause considerable inefficiency of power
>transmission due to radiative losses...

Actually, what it is mostly going to cause is expenditure of vast sums of
money to develop all-new power hardware to save a few kilograms, when the
money would be much better spend on launching those few extra kilos of
standard aviation (400 Hz) power hardware.  The 20 kHz power is technically
a cute idea, but in terms of getting a space station into orbit and making
it useful, it's totally unnecessary and really dumb.
-- 
MSDOS is not dead, it just     |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
smells that way.               | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 5 Aug 88 18:22:23 GMT
From: attcan!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Disagree? I'll cut you off!

In article <6540@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> jfc@athena.mit.edu (John F Carr) writes:
>weemba@garnet.berkeley.edu (Obnoxious Math Grad Student) writes:
>>For your further information, Henry Spencer is probably one of the most
>>respected posters on USENET, and most certainly in sci.space.  If Henry
>>Spencer tells you to get some topic off this newsgroup--in this case, SDI,
>>which has its own newsgroup--then YOU GET THIS TOPIC OFF THIS NEWSGROUP.
>
>And who elected him dictator?  Or you his enforcer?  This network does not
>need to answer to any one person, even you.  I will listen to what Henry
>Spencer says, and will likely follow any reasonable suggestions.  I will
>certainly not do either for you...

The thought of good old Obnoxious supporting me truly makes the mind reel;
at least it made mine reel.  While I may sometimes sound like the dictator
of sci.space, especially when the reappearance of the SDI debate makes me
grouchy, I have never claimed any particular authority over the group.
And I do my own enforcing... :-)

I'm unaware of any newsgroup specifically for SDI, although misc.headlines
[I almost wrote talk.headlines... :-)] comes to mind.

>... SDI IS RELEVANT TO SPACE.

No; certain aspects of SDI are relevant to space.  I wouldn't get grouchy
about it if the sci.space discussion confined itself to those aspects (and
preferably to new issues rather than endless shouting matches, which really
accomplish nothing...).
-- 
MSDOS is not dead, it just     |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
smells that way.               | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 5 Aug 88 18:34:31 GMT
From: attcan!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: "NukeWinter" garbage (was Re: Aegis, SDI)

In article <2358@epimass.EPI.COM> jbuck@epimass.EPI.COM (Joe Buck) writes:
>>I was really hoping I had heard the last of the NukeWinter (NW) fabrication.
>>It just goes to show how much damage a politician can do when people think he
>>is a scientist and trust him.
>
>Dr. Sagan has unquestionable scientific credentials in astronomy and
>planetary science.  On the other hand, I've never heard of you.  Like
>other human beings, he also has political views.  And what do you mean
>by "damage"?  ...

In my opinion, there is some reason to wonder whether the TTAPS study was
quite as objective as one would prefer for ground-breaking science.  And
the way it was publicized was, to put it bluntly, political propaganda
rather than careful popularization of science.  This probably did do some
harm to objective investigation of the issue, not to mention science's
reputation as a whole.

But overall, a fabrication it was not.  It was certainly a crude first cut
at analysis, using very simplistic models.  And it did make some assumptions
which qualified as dubious even at the time and just don't hold up to
careful investigation (for example, wildland fires were assumed to make
a contribution equal to urban fires, which was demonstrated to be nonsense
by a detailed study).  However, the overall conclusion stands:  a major
nuclear war could have serious effects on the climate.  Even if one ignores
the howling-blizzard scare stories, there is good reason to believe that it
might produce enough world-wide cooling to cause massive crop failure.
-- 
MSDOS is not dead, it just     |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
smells that way.               | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 6 Aug 88 19:10:21 GMT
From: polya!cayuga!andy@labrea.stanford.edu  (Andy Freeman)
Subject: Re: Spacesploitation

In article <8808051554.aa05436@note.note.nsf.gov> fbaube@NOTE.NSF.GOV
(Fred Baube) writes:
>so that we don't end up with something like Heinlein wrote about in
>"The Man Who Sold the Moon", where rockets lay carbon trails on the
>lunar surface to create a giant soft drink logo.

A Coca-Cola logo on the moon bothers me a lot less than no human
presence on the moon.  I don't care whether someone makes a buck (or
trillion) as long as space is opened to us IN MY LIFETIME.  Govts
aren't going to do it.

>Or nuclear contamination of Mars.

Governments are the worst polluters on Earth because they aren't
liable.  That's not going to change in space.

>Presumably, if Capitalist Company "A" can profitably develop a
>tract, then so can Multi-National "ISA", if it has access to
>comparable technology, and a modicum of managerial competence.
>This should then preclude unilateral exploitation.

Ah, but the terms say that "A" has to pay for the surveys, interpret
them, and pay for the mining technology development.  It will have to
recover these costs from the mining profits on inferior locations.
The ISA doesn't have to pay these costs and I'll bet it will end up
being tax-exempt.  I can get better terms from the Mafia; no wonder
the countries with substantial ore deposits love this treaty.  If the
Pacific is "our common heritage" so is the African continent.

-andy
UUCP:  {arpa gateways, decwrl, uunet, rutgers}!polya.stanford.edu!andy
ARPA:  andy@polya.stanford.edu
(415) 329-1718/723-3088 home/cubicle

------------------------------

Date: 6 Aug 88 13:52:40 GMT
From: thorin!lhotse!symon@mcnc.org  (James Symon)
Subject: SDI and space station partners

>In article <1988Jul29.024014.15610@utzoo.uucp>, henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>>In article <3657@thorin.cs.unc.edu> symon@lhotse.cs.unc.edu (James Symon) writes:
> . . .
>>Why? Where else does a discussion of the legitimate uses of space
>>belong? ...
>
>*WHAT* discussion of the legitimate uses of space?  . . .
>But the SDI debates always spend most of their time and energy arguing
>about TOTALLY NON-SPACE ISSUES like whether the software can be made to
>work and whether deployment would be destabilizing and whether the Soviets
>could defeat it easily and so on and so on ad nauseam.
> . . .
>I repeat:  get it off sci.space, please.  Or at least restrict the sci.space
>discussion *entirely* to space-related issues.
>--         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Now that I can agree with. I enjoyed the discussions about particle
beams in space and how far they might reach into the atmosphere, also
the ones about fast acceleration boosters that might allow separation
of warheads before leaving the atmosphere. Those are certainly space
science related. Of course, one might argue that destabilization might
lead to no one getting to space ever, but that's reaching and I agree
it doesn't belong.

"Space-related issues" has, in the past, included the politics of
funding of space exploration. I would like to hear from this group
whether they have seen indications that insistence on the part of our
government that the space station not be off limits to the military IS
seriously jeopardizing our getting international cooperation. Now that
we are a little further down the road, my impressions are that initial
hysteria and propaganda has died down and the SS partners are still on
board.

				Jim Symon
				Rt 4 Box 443
				Chapel Hill, NC 27516
at school:

Jim Symon
Chapel Hill, NC  27599-3175
					"Better get Helms on the 
UUCP:  uunet!mcnc!unc!symon		 scrambler, we got incoming
UUCP: decvax!mcnc!unc!symon     	 treaties all over the screen"
Internet:symon@cs.unc.edu				- MacNelly

***Don't use "r" or my header line address***

------------------------------

Date: 7 Aug 88 00:29:40 GMT
From: jfc@athena.mit.edu  (John F Carr)
Subject: Re: Economic Conversion

In article <8807312356.AA03328@crash.cts.com> mordor!rutgers!pnet01.cts.com!jim@angband.s1.gov writes:
>They understand the need to
>get away from letting NASA hold our space activities hostage to
>the permanent war economy.  

I wrote a paper a few years ago on holding space "hostage" (not in those
words).  My thesis: the US space program has been a political tool, and
has been crippled by its use as such.  I could see NASA where it is now
without the military, but if it were not for the rushes to score quick
political victories we could have done much better (initial prohibition
of orbital flight; later rush to get man in space/in orbit/to Moon;
termination of Apollo when it had served its political purpose;...).
The military has contributed to the space program (you decide for better
or worse), but politics has done far more.  The military is at least
capable of long term planning.

   John Carr             "When they turn the pages of history,
   jfc@Athena.mit.edu     When these days have passed long ago,
                          Will they read of us with sadness
                          For the seeds that we let grow?"  --Neil Peart

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #324
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Date: Mon, 15 Aug 88 01:04:11 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8808150804.AA01135@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #325

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 325

Today's Topics:
		      95% vs. 99.9% reliability
			    Re: Satellites
		     Re: Skintight suit reference
		      Earth Orbit material limit
	    Re: centralizing science (was NASA ASRM sites)
		    Re: 95% vs. 99.9% reliability
		 Re: Time skew -- does it hurt SETI?
		   Re: Disagree? I'll cut you off!
	Re: Space Station power supply (was Re: Lithium cells)
		    Re: 95% vs. 99.9% reliability
		       Re: 20-year anniversary
		    Re: 95% vs. 99.9% reliability
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 5 Aug 88 22:00:47 GMT
From: amdahl!drivax!macleod@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (MacLeod)
Subject: 95% vs. 99.9% reliability

In article <2087@silver.bacs.indiana.edu> konath@silver.UUCP (kannan) writes:
:In article <3763@teklds.TEK.COM: dant@mrloog.LA.TEK.COM (Dan Tilque) writes:

::<My idea is that they launch Discovery on or before July 20, 1989, even 
::<if its faucets do leak.  Any others?

:Anniversary or no anniversary, launch Discovery only when Crippen
:is absolutely sure that there is nothing wrong and the Challenger
:tragedy should not as far as it is humanly possible be repeated. If
:there were no human lives at stake, go ahead and launch it but since
:it is a manned mission all precautions have to be taken.

I disagree, strongly.  There should have been an investigation of the
Challenger disaster, and when they found that the O rings failed below
a certain temperature, they should have continued launching >above that
temperature<, while working on a better engineering solution. 

There are many, many qualified scientists and pilots willing to risk their
lives in spaceflight.  The engineering effort necessary to move from a 
95% safety record to a 99.9% safety record has stunted the US space
program, focussed its energy in introverted paranoia instead of a healthy
adult acceptance of risk, and mave have given the Soviets an unbeatable
lead in space travel.  To me, the latter also implies the potential for
Soviet domination of the entire Earth. 

Michael Sloan MacLeod   (amdahl!drivax!macleod)

------------------------------

Date: 7 Aug 88 16:38:15 GMT
From: osu-20.ircc.ohio-state.edu!reader-c@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu  (Charles Reader)
Subject: Re: Satellites


	More depressing, at least to me, is the fact that we have deep-space
probes sitting in warehouses gathering dust while we wait for the space shuttle
to fly again.

						Chuck Reader

------------------------------

Date: Sun,  7 Aug 88 20:04:53 -0400 (EDT)
From: Kevin William Ryan <kr0u+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: Skintight suit reference

   I posted this once before, but in brief:

   NASA Report CR-1892, "Development of a Space Activity Suit", by James
Annis and Paul Webb.

   This contains a good history of pressure suits and describes the building
and testing of a couple of 'skinsuits.'  Photos include a couple of (to me)
disconcerting pictures of a man in long underwear and a bubble helmet in
vac chambers.
   Ask your nearby congresscritter to send it to you - that's how I got mine.
I also included a letter asking why the SAS hadn't been followed up on, instead
of the expensive full-pressure suits.  He never did answer that question...
   The preceeding reference comes courtesy of J. E. Pournelle, from the
Summer 1980 (Vol. 2, No. 3) _Destinies_, now a defunct publication.  Pity...

                                                    kwr

   "Jest so ya know..."

------------------------------

Date: 6 Aug 88 21:09:20 GMT
From: netsys!nucleus!hacker@lll-winken.llnl.gov  (Thomas Hacker)
Subject: Earth Orbit material limit


   In the news recently, I noticed a small article pertaining to the
limiting of certain projects that would put objects into geosynchinous
orbit.  One of the projects was a piece of art created by a French
sculpter that would reflect light onto the planet's surface and appear
as a bright object to the viewers below.  The article proceeded to
mention that many astronomers were against this because they feared that
the sky would become too "washed out" with light, thus decreasing the
visibilty in the night sky already filled with "light pollution". 

   Has anyone heard of what there was behind this and what the outcome 
will be?

------------------------------

Date: 8 Aug 88 00:26:54 GMT
From: eugene@eos.arc.nasa.gov  (Eugene Miya)
Subject: Re: centralizing science (was NASA ASRM sites)

Well, I survived the humidity of Atlanta, and a fellow from GSFC held
a "Space Program BOF" which one could easily see the disillusion of
some potential "colonists."  [Tomorrow was too far away for them.]
I return home to see a few a few pieces
of mail saying "lighten up."  Well, I guess a few took my note too
seriously (If Tim's note is the one).  This is a contrast to an embarassing
amount of "fan mail" which I receive.  Anyways, I guess I'm just
reacting to a wide variety of stimuli and some of it's spilling into
sci.space.  Forgive me.

In article <3434@cadnetix.COM> beres@cadnetix.COM (Tim Beres) writes:
>In article <12474@ames.arc.nasa.gov> eugene@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov.UUCP (Eugene N. Miya) writes:

>
>>In article <3417@cadnetix.COM> beres@cadnetix.COM  (ME)
>>> [paraphrasing myself...] Sure seems like a lot of NASA centers, all with
>>> big projects.
>
>>Anyway, we have this growth problem.
>
>To clarify: I am not upset at growth in programs, per se, but at possible
>savings that could accrue from centralizing administrative, facilities and
>support functions.  As for applications and research, congress seems unable
>to comprehend any of the justifications or the technology anyway; they just
>see jobs/prestige/votes stemming from various facilities (NASA and otherwise).

To elaborate: there is increasing centralization going on at this moment.
This is not unique to NASA, or the US.  Consider the centralization of
much of technology in Japanese to one new city.  They also fund government
research thru 2 major ministries.  ESSA has a different problem, and
the SU a further one.

The future of science and technology in the USA is a tricky one.  You have
probably heard of proposals for a cabinet-level Dept. of Science
and Technology.  There are pluses and minuses to this proposal and who
ever the new Prez is will have lots of his hands.  You are talking
about yanking DARPA from DOD, merging DOE/NASA and parts of DOC, DOT,
EPA, etc.  This is certainly a worthy topic for discussion. Again,
pluses and minuses, and there is lame-duck lethergy in Washington at
the moment.

>>Speaking about centralization, perhaps we need more centralized
>>rather than decentralized computer facilities.  Yeah that's the ticket!
>>Ok, you guys, back to your punch cards.  None of this workstation stuff,
>>If 1 person on a SUN is good, then 15 is 15x better.  Right?!
>Get real, Eugene.  See comment below.

Actually in my sarcasm, the SUN example is true to the extreme.  The
example came from one of my colleagues at Dryden.  A dozen of us were
unable to convince this fellow the importance of single user workstations
(I'm posting from an IRIS 4D thru to a VAX; glad I'm not at Dryden).

>>newly emerging concept of NSF "Centers without Walls."
>
>Now we're talking.  How about research and developement occuring in this
>manner; build up and use university and corporate R&D centers - with a few
>computing hubs.  Consolidate engineering and technology applications into
>a few NASA centers.  I just wonder why it is necessary to launch from the
>cape (used to live in Fla, too - so I do know the effects of greasing the
>local economy with jobs/projects.  Rep. Nelson was 1 district over from me.
>What he did for KSC and the local economy was good - but is it good for the
>nation's space program?),  monitor/communicate from JSC, Marshall's in the
>loop and who knows who else takes part in each Shuttle mission.  Why not
>merge some of these facilities into larger facilities, with combined support
>and resources.  The nature of the jobs they do won't change, they'll just
>be under one roof.  
>
>Thinking about this...no way congress will do it (assuming this *is* a good
>idea - I'm open to persuasion).

Well, several factors enter into selection of Centers.  I think
economic (where is land cheap?) was a major one at the start of the 1960s.
Now, it's where will the jobs be centered?  FL was important because
of launch directions and minimal energy to orbit (Cuba is carefully
factored out of directions, and we have a launch over water policy
to protect public lands (read buildings).  If I really had my
way, I would want to live in Santa Barbara and watch launches from
home (if not working).  Better yet, let's launch from near
the Silicon Valley [well, I guess you guys are making me silly again]
we will have to ease "over water" restrictions.  It will at least expose
space program to more modern electronics as suggested necessary by
Henry.  We now have to pick up and move not only Centers, but families,
contractors (100,000s) and their families.  In time, these Centers will
be like airports or toxic waste dumps (people want them, but not
in "my backyard.").

I don't know what the long-term solution
will be.  We have two major computing facilities at Ames (meiosis) and
we justified our existence by similar interdisciplinary splits
at other supercomputing facilities (most notable LCC and NMFECC
at Livermore).  Now we see a re-collection (collapse) of separate
administrations happening all over.  This does not please users
but it does make the bureaucracts happier.  Anways, I'm getting long winded
again.  Let me finish by saying that our society is one the verge of
some major changes.  The Soviet Union isn't alone.  The problems
come from within and without the US.  Some redundency will exist
(and will need to exist), and how we are going to pay for getting into
space (with all of our other problems): you got me, but merging a few
NASA Centers isn't going to help.  Eyes on Duke.

Another gross generalization from

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@aurora.arc.nasa.gov
  resident cynic at the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:
  "Mailers?! HA!", "If my mail does not reach you, please accept my apology."
  {uunet,hplabs,ncar,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."

------------------------------

Date: 8 Aug 88 00:37:34 GMT
From: eugene@eos.arc.nasa.gov  (Eugene Miya)
Subject: Re: 95% vs. 99.9% reliability

Interesting discussion.  Extreme full-speed ahead discussion tend to get
ignored in NASA (especially when dealing with lives, especially
when some are the scientific creme of America).  Also note
the McNeil-Lehrer discussion with Bruce Murray and Fletcher.

If the problem were one simply of temperature (Yeager also put this argument
forward, and launching above them temp), it would make the problem easier.
It is not.  There are other long-term problems, suffice it to say.

The problem, as Feynman pointed out, is how do you quanitify this?
I can easily say 99.9 or 95 percent based on some metric, but which.
Anyway, the point is partly moot, we are here now, we are dealing with lots
of unknowns (I don't work in manned space, and we don't launch based
on popular democracy).  [A good reference on pressure BTW is "Normal
Risks" which I am currently rereading].

Another gross generalization from

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@aurora.arc.nasa.gov
  resident cynic at the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:
  "Mailers?! HA!", "If my mail does not reach you, please accept my apology."
  {uunet,hplabs,ncar,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."

You can send money to NASA or you can send it to the Richard Feynman
Memorial Fund for Cancer Research [UCLA], P.O. Box 70021, Pasadena, CA 91107
or both.

------------------------------

Date: 8 Aug 88 05:35:42 GMT
From: cs.utexas.edu!ut-emx!tmca@rutgers.edu  (The Anarch)
Subject: Re: Time skew -- does it hurt SETI?

In article <61351@sun.uucp> msodos%amanda@Sun.COM (Martin Sodos) writes:
>
>Ergo, I put forward for your consideration that even if life such as
>ours is fairly common on the universe, that the time alignment problem
>would make it extremely unlikely that we would/will ever encounter it.

For an entertaining discussion of such "time windows" read Stanislaw Lem's
latest "Fiasco". Probably one of his best, though not of the light-hearted
Pirx the Pilot or Cyberiad kind. The "skew" becomes a narrow time window
bordered on one side by the necessary technological advancement and on the other
by self-annihilation or evolution to a society unninterested in contact with
such lowly creatures as ourselves.

Tim.

	Clean as a Q-Tip
	Quiet as Nylon.

------------------------------

Date: 5 Aug 88 19:18:35 GMT
From: hpda!hpcuhb!hp-sde!hpfcdc!hpfclm!myers@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Bob Myers)
Subject: Re: Disagree? I'll cut you off!

>And who elected him dictator?  Or you his enforcer?  This network does not
>need to answer to any one person, even you.  

*Especially* not him.

Bob M.

------------------------------

Date: 5 Aug 88 19:12:12 GMT
From: hpda!hpcuhb!hp-sde!hpfcdc!hpfclm!myers@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Bob Myers)
Subject: Re: Space Station power supply (was Re: Lithium cells)


>Main power on the space station is specified as 220 VAC at 20 kHz.


AC?  Why AC?

Bob M.

hplabs!hpfcla!myers

------------------------------

Date: 8 Aug 88 14:00:46 GMT
From: kerog@eneevax.umd.edu  (Keith Rogers)
Subject: Re: 95% vs. 99.9% reliability

In article <3659@drivax.UUCP> macleod@drivax.UUCP (MacLeod) writes:
>I disagree, strongly.  There should have been an investigation of the
>Challenger disaster, and when they found that the O rings failed below
>a certain temperature, they should have continued launching >above that
>temperature<, while working on a better engineering solution. 


	I couldn't agree more.  This has been my attitude ever since the
Challenger disaster.  I just don't see why they have to spend more than 
two years without a single flight, missing many important launch windows
for various projects, just to have an all temperature space shuttle,
when they could have just flown it on a warm day in almost perfect safety.

	Sure the O ring thing had to be fixed, but did it have to kill
the entire U.S. space program in the meantime?

Keith Rogers

------------------------------

Date: 8 Aug 88 15:38:29 GMT
From: sunybcs!campbl@rutgers.edu  (Scott S. Campbell)
Subject: Re: 20-year anniversary

In article <3763@teklds.TEK.COM> dant@mrloog.LA.TEK.COM (Dan Tilque) writes:
>Next year will be the 20th anniversary of Apollo 11 and I'm sure that
>everyone would like to celebrate it.  It never hurts to be prepared in
>advance, so lets start to kick ideas around.
>
>---
>Dan Tilque	--	dant@twaddl.LA.TEK.COM

How about a commemorative(sp) stamp issue??  


-
Scott S. Campbell
campbl@cs.buffalo.edu 		
campbl@sunybcs.BITNET

------------------------------

Date: 8 Aug 88 15:28:24 GMT
From: dietz@cu-arpa.cs.cornell.edu  (Paul F. Dietz)
Subject: Re: 95% vs. 99.9% reliability

In article <1704@eneevax.UUCP> kerog@eneevax.umd.edu.UUCP (Keith Rogers)
writes:
> I just don't see why they have to spend more than 
>two years without a single flight, missing many important launch windows
>for various projects, just to have an all temperature space shuttle,
>when they could have just flown it on a warm day in almost perfect safety.

It has been stated many times before, but let's do it again.  The Rogers
commission did NOT say that the shuttle would be safe to launch in warm
weather.  They said that so many things were wrong with the joint design
that it was impossible to determine what actually caused the leak.  Cold
was a contributing factor, but O ring damage has occured on launches in
hot weather, too.

Paul F. Dietz
dietz@gvax.cs.cornell.edu

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #325
*******************

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Date: Tue, 16 Aug 88 01:04:50 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
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To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #326

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 326

Today's Topics:
			     Mir elements
		    space news from June 13 AW&ST
		    space news from June 20 AW&ST
		    space news from June 27 AW&ST
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 13 Aug 88 01:49:00 GMT
From: a.cs.uiuc.edu!m.cs.uiuc.edu!kenny@uxc.cso.uiuc.edu
Subject: Mir elements


Indeed, they have reboosted Mir.  Here are the latest elements:

Two-line elements for Mir        
1 16609U          88221.77631193 0.00026093           30000-3 0    00
2 16609  51.6180 157.0634 0018933 270.3884  89.4579 15.71082378142110

Object: Mir        
NORAD catalog number: 16609
Element set: 0
Epoch revolution: 14211
Epoch time: 88221.77631193 (Mon Aug  8 18:37:53 UTC)
Inclination: 51.6180 degrees
RA of node: 157.0634 degrees
Eccentricity: 0.0018933
Argument of periapsis: 270.3884 degrees
Mean anomaly: 89.4579 degrees
Mean motion: 15.71082378 revs / day
Mean motion acceleration: 0.00026093 * 2 revs / day**2
B* drag term: 3.0000e-04

Derived figures:
Semimajor axis: 6733.64 km.
Perifocal radius: 6720.89 km.
Apogee height: 368.245 km.
Perigee height: 342.747 km.
Mean longitude at the epoch: 2.7386 degrees.
Magnitudes of short-period perturbations of the second harmonic:
	Radius vector magnitude: +/-1.00 km.
	True anomaly: +/-0.0118 degrees.
	RA of node: +/-0.0259 degrees.
	Inclination: +/-0.0203 degrees.
Secular perturbations of the second harmonic:
	Argument of perigee: 3.8220 degrees/day
	RA of node: -5.1166 degrees/day
	Mean anomaly: included in published mean motion.
Long-period perturbation of the third harmonic: X=-1.639e-03, Y=-8.706e-04


Source: NASA Goddard via NSS Mir Watch Hotline

NOTE: Apogee and perigee heights are referred to a mean equatorial radius
      of 6378.145 km, and not to the local radius of the geoid.
      All derived quantities are calculated using the NORAD SGP model of
      Hilton and Kuhlman.

------------------------------

Date: 9 Aug 88 03:21:40 GMT
From: attcan!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from June 13 AW&ST

DoD and NASA approve plan to restore ammonium perchlorate production:
Pacific Engineering will build a new plant to replace the ruined one,
while Kerr-McGee will re-open its plant, expand it, and also build a
new plant.  Supply will meet demand by 1990, but things may get a bit
sticky until then.

Bad news time:  Mars Observer may slip another two years (to 1994 launch)
due to cost overruns and NASA's budget problems.

SDI looking at cancelling the Space-Based Interceptor project as too
expensive.  SDI's priorities are also shifting, toward sensors and a
treaty-compliant ground-based interceptor system, partly to make the
Soviets happier about strategic arms reduction.

Morton Thiokol drops out of the bidding for the advanced SRB, officially
to concentrate its efforts on the current SRBs.  NASA denies that M-T
dropped out because it had no chance of winning after Challenger.

Ariane 4 first flight delayed by minor electronics problems.  [Went fine.]

Shuttle rollout imminent.  [As you might expect, I'm cutting some of this
pretty short because it's old news.]

Trouble in the offing:  the oxidizer shortage is likely to wreak havoc
with the 1989-90 shuttle manifest.  A further problem is that orbiter
Columbia's updating has slipped farther and farther onto the back burner,
and it may be late 89 before it's flyable again.

First launch of the new version of Delta slips a month or so due to parts
shortages.  First launch now expected late Oct or early Nov.

Soyuz TM-5 launched to Mir June 7, carrying two Soviet and a Bulgarian
researcher.  [Flight International reports that after currently-agreed
foreign participation in Soyuz launches is completed, all further "guest
cosmonauts" will fly on a fare-paying basis -- no more freebies.]

Detailed space station negotiations with all three international partners
reported complete, agreements to be signed over the summer.

"Aerospace Forum" piece by Lowell Wood, urging "brilliant pebbles" approach
to missile interception.  The basic notion is simple:  since about 20 grams
at 10 kps will kill an ICBM, and there appear to be no fundamental barriers
to shrinking "smart rock" technology to this size, it should be possible to
orbit "brilliant pebble" interceptors in very large numbers at manageable
cost.  Many SDI problems get simpler if interceptors are available in near-
unlimited numbers.  But he's got a touching faith in our ability to solve
certain software problems, the ability of DoD and its contractors to cut
manufacturing costs the same way personal-computer manufacturers have, and
the extent to which all this technology will be so routine that it can be
given to the Soviets without any technology-transfer problems!

Letter from Robert Stefan:  "With the way many of our government programs
have been run lately, NASA might as well name the space station Icarus.
Naa, that's too optimistic -- Icarus at least got off the ground."

[And from the 28 May Flight International...]  Several European companies,
including British Aerospace, are investigating building a small low-orbit
launcher, LittLeo, capable of putting a few hundred kilos into low polar
orbit from the sounding-rocket base at Ando/ya [well, how would *you* type
a slashed o on an ASCII keyboard?] in Norway.  This would be an entirely
commercial venture, with minor help (but no money) from ESA and a policy
of using off-the-shelf hardware.  It could fly in 1992; development cost
is estimated at "tens of millions [of pounds]".  [Note, yet another bunch
who don't believe that you need a decade and a billion dollars to put
something into orbit.]
-- 
Intel CPUs are not defective,  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
they just act that way.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 10 Aug 88 04:51:22 GMT
From: attcan!utgpu!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from June 20 AW&ST

US Navy is thinking about an antisatellite system that could be launched
from missile subs or surface ships.  Shared development with the USAF is
tempting but the Navy would prefer a system it has full control over in
wartime.

Pioneer 10 celebrates its fifth anniversary technically outside the solar
system, still returning data.  Someone asked TRW whether there was a
warranty on Pioneer 10; the reply was "TRW's position has been that if
you bring it back, we'll fix it."

First Ariane 4 launched June 15, a complete success.  Third-stage shutdown
was about ten seconds earlier than planned, so something performed better
than expected, perhaps the new liquid-fuel strap-ons.  Arianespace has five
more launches planned this year and nine next year; the earliest open
payload slots are late 1990.  Ariane 4 will normally carry two satellites,
but Arianespace is looking seriously at triple payloads to try to open up
more payload slots.  There were three aboard this time, but a couple were a
bit small by normal Ariane standards.  The payloads were ESA's Meteosat P2
Clarke-orbit weather satellite, Pan American Satellite's PAS1 -- the first
privately-owned satellite to compete with Intelsat for international
business -- and the latest Amsat.

Later this year, ESA will begin feeling out possible customers for low-
cost launch opportunities on the two test flights of Ariane 5.  Fees
will be modest in compensation for the risks of early flights.  European
satellites will have priority.  This is pretty much the same deal as for
the Ariane 4 launch, in which fees basically just covered payload
integration and were divided up by satellite weight:  Meteosat P2 paid
$2.4M, PAS1 paid about twice that, and Amsat was exempt on the grounds
that it will not be used for operational or commercial purposes.  Two
possible Ariane 5 payloads have already been identified:  a possible
second-generation Meteosat built from spares from the production series,
and the Cluster multi-satellite solar/terrestrial science mission.

Rocketdyne test-fires a small rocket engine with a thrust-to-weight ratio
of 1200:1 (20:1 is more typical for small engines).  The major application
is as a terminal-guidance thruster for a missile interceptor.  Of note is
the use of graphite and carbon-carbon composites in hot areas, eliminating
the need for ablative or active cooling.

Doesn't look good for the space station.  Congressional proposals basically
put the program in caretaker status until the next president decides what
to do about it.  Neither Bush nor Dukakis [as of June 20] has taken an
official position on the station.

MIT team aboard NASA's Kuiper Airborne Observatory make first direct
observation of an atmosphere on Pluto, by stellar occultation.  Team
leader, James Elliot, used the same technique in 1977 to discover the
rings of Uranus.

First SRB firing on the new dynamic-loads test stand; looks good at
first glance.

Aussat picks Hughes to build the next Aussats, with launcher selection
imminent.

Navy navsat launched by Scout from Vandenberg June 15.

Intelsat tentatively picks Ford Aerospace to build the Intelsat 7s,
subject to detailed negotiations.  If negotiations fail, second choice
is Matra.  [This is a very interesting way of announcing who won.  Why
in the world is this still tentative, with a backup choice announced?
Note a significant fact:  the backup contractor is European.  Smells
to me like Intelsat wants to launch on Proton, or just possibly Long
March, and the US firm gets the contract *if* the US government okays
this choice of launcher!]

International Civil Aviation Organization predicts major role for
satellites in aircraft navigation, tracking, and communications.  ICAO
has declined to recommend a specific navsat system, but has defined
specs for suitable systems.  Of note is that they ruled out "dependent"
systems like Geostar in which the position is calculated on the ground
and transmitted up, on the grounds that the complex communications make
this too fragile, while approving heartily of the idea of aircraft
beyond radar coverage (e.g. over oceans) automatically radioing back
their positions periodically for air-traffic control.  [I smell aviation
politics here...]  They have also called for tests of satellite
communications with aircraft in the polar regions, where Clarke-orbit
satellites are near or even below the horizon.
-- 
Intel CPUs are not defective,  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
they just act that way.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 11 Aug 88 04:42:42 GMT
From: att!chinet!mcdchg!clyde!watmath!utgpu!utzoo!henry@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from June 27 AW&ST

Cover picture:  the Ariane 4 launch.

Hercules decides to test its upgraded Titan 4 SRB in a nozzle-down position
to duplicate standard flight assembly procedures and loads; nozzle-up is
used for current Titan SRBs.

Senate subcommittee proposes transferring $600M from DoD research budget
to the space station.  Reagan is not pleased.

The Commercially Developed Space Facility is not going to get approval
from Congress, by the looks of it, without more detailed market studies.

Decision to start Shuttle-C unmanned heavylift launcher slips to FY1990.
NASA is considering flying Shuttle-C with some of the old pre-Challenger
SRBs that are still in storage.

Senate subcommittee moves to make SDI put up $200M to support ALS work,
with about half going to NASA for ALS propulsion technology.

Mir cosmonauts plan EVA to repair British/Dutch X-ray telescope hardware
that has failed.  Complications because it was not designed for on-orbit
servicing.  [The EVA had to be terminated when a tool broke; another
attempt will be made.]

Hughes quotes $360-520M for the first two new-generation Aussats; the
lower quote assumes launch on Long March.

Europe will press US for an agreement on "competitive guidelines" for
commercial expendables [translation, for an agreement to try to keep
Long March and Proton out of the Western market].

(Flight International, 2 July, reports that the Chinese are not pleased
about this.  They say technology exports are a transparent pretext, and
lower Chinese prices are due to lower labor costs.  They also say that
China is not a serious threat to other launch industries due to limited
capacity, with fewer than a dozen launches a year available to outside
customers.  The Chinese have just signed their first firm commercial
launch deal, to launch AsiaSat 1 (the former Westar 6, retrieved by the
shuttle in 1985) as Asia's first regional comsat, with a Hong Kong /
British consortium.)

Analysis of first Ariane 4 mission looks good; the payload orbits were
right on the nose and the telemetry looks clean.  Meteosat P2 and
PAS-1 have fired apogee motors and are drifting towards their final
positions in Clarke orbit.  Amsat 3C maneuvers are imminent [its final
orbit is very different].

Britain's last chance to get in on Ariane 5 is fast approaching; it
is unlikely that British companies can be involved otherwise, since
ESA policies portion out work based on national contributions.

Arianespace registers a modest after-tax profit for FY1987.

Pioneer 10, five years out of the solar system and sixteen years after
launch, is still doing well at 45 AU (six light-hours) out.  Both it
and Pioneer 11 are far beyond original lifetimes and performance.
Excluding launch, the two spacecraft cost a total of about $100M.
P10 has about 10 years of useful life still ahead as its isotope
generators decay.  It could continue to act as a radio beacon for some
while after the last instruments are shut down, this being significant
because gravity-wave and tenth-planet-detection experiments just need
precision tracking.

More on Pegasus.  The design emphasizes simplicity over ultra-high
reliability, with single, unredundant systems.  (The destruct system
is necessarily an exception, the only one.)  The solid rocket motors
use off-the-shelf technology, and the propellant is chosen to be a
relatively non-explosive formula requiring minimal handling precautions.
The similarity in size to the X-15 is not a coincidence, since Pegasus
is sized for similar carrier aircraft and somewhat similar early mission
profiles.  The bulk of the aerodynamic design has been proved by existing
vehicles, the major exception being wing/body shockwave interaction,
which is being studied using supercomputer simulation.  Cork insulation
will be attached to the composite wing in two areas where the shockwaves
cause localized heating.  Pegasus will be assembled horizontally in
the field by six men over about two weeks, in a special trailer.  The
carrier aircraft will also carry an equipment pallet for pre-launch
control, with a single operator.  The actual launch is triggered by
the pilot of the carrier aircraft, after the Pegasus operator enables
his launch control "pickle".  There will be no dedicated test launch;
the first launch will be heavily instrumented but will carry a payload.
Time and expense will also be saved by not using altitude-chamber
firings to calibrate the motors; this means the orbits achieved by the
first few launches will be fairly imprecise, although this will improve
as flight experience supplies calibration data.

There is continued talk of a "four-engined commercial transport" as the
long-term carrier aircraft, with OSC and Hercules still coy about which
one they've picked.  [I still think it's the Airbus A340.]

Pegasus is halfway through development, scheduled to be 28 months.
First flight expected July 1989, given a customer (probably ARPA) and
a firm contract.  All development so far is being funded by Hercules
and OSC, who have spent about one-third of their $40M budget to date.
A small amount of outside revenue will probably be available late this
year, from customer deposits.  OSC may possibly seek some commercial
financing before completion.  The companies are hoping for a wide mix
of customers to avoid dependence on any single budget.  Both consider
Pegasus a reasonably low-risk project.

Pegasus was originally OSC's idea.  Hercules was interested in the
small-payload market, was sound financially, and (according to OSC)
is the cheapest source of small solid motors.  Hercules has invested
heavily in automated production machinery in recent years, the
result being greatly lowered costs.

Letter from Peter Thomas comments that ALS tentatively might be ready
for operational use in 1998, 25 years after the last Saturn V launch.
By comparison, the first Saturn V was launched 22 years after World
War 2 and 10 years after Sputnik... and it was bigger than ALS will be.
-- 
Intel CPUs are not defective,  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
they just act that way.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #326
*******************

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Date: Wed, 17 Aug 88 01:05:28 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8808170805.AA03283@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #327

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 327

Today's Topics:
	       Most distant galaxy detected (Forwarded)
		    Re: 95% vs. 99.9% reliability
			    Re: Satellites
			    August shower.
		      Electromagnetic Launchers
		    Re: 95% vs. 99.9% reliability
			    Re: Satellites
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 8 Aug 88 15:27:37 GMT
From: yee@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: Most distant galaxy detected (Forwarded)

Charles Redmond
Headquarters, Washington, D.C.                   August 8, l988

Ray Villard
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.


RELEASE:  88-111
 
MOST DISTANT GALAXY DETECTED

     Astronomers at NASA's Space Telescope Science Institute, 
Baltimore, Md., and the University of California at Berkeley have 
uncovered the most distant galaxy yet seen.

     Called 4C41.17, the newly-discovered galaxy is located at an 
estimated distance of 15 billion light years -- more than 90 
percent of the distance to the visible limits of the universe.

     The discovery was made by Ken Chambers, a graduate student 
at Johns Hopkins University; George Miley, professor of astronomy 
on leave from Leiden University, Netherlands, and stationed by 
the European Space Agency (ESA) at the Space Telescope Science 
Institute; and Will van Breugel of the University of California 
at Berkeley. 

     Extremely distant galaxies are of great interest to 
astronomers because radiation from these galaxies takes billions 
of years to reach the Earth.  The distance established for 
4C41.17 means that what is being seen happened only a few billion 
years after the Big Bang, which marked the beginning of the 
universe.

     Such remote galaxies can be used to study the early stages 
of the universe.  According to current cosmological theories, the 
physical conditions of the early universe were very different 
from those encountered today.  Hence, remote galaxies like 
4C41.17 may help forge a better understanding of how galaxies 
have evolved since the time of the Big Bang.

     Galaxy 4C41.17 also is intriguing because it has a 
fundamentally different appearance from nearby galaxies.  It and 
other high red-shift galaxies have unique, enigmatic properties, 
say the researchers.  They certainly are not "normal" galaxies.

     Galaxy 4C41.17 is one of several extremely distant galaxies 
discovered by Chambers, Miley and van Breugel during the past few 
months using their newly-developed search strategy.  Their 
strategy makes use of the fact that galaxies such as 4C41.17 
produce intense radio emissions, millions of times more powerful 
than those of our own Milky Way galaxy.  The unique radio 
spectrum of these objects can be used to select the most powerful 
and most distant of them.

     The researchers find that such galaxies have a distinctive 
radio spectrum which peaks and then drops off at a much faster 
rate than found in nearby radio galaxies.  This "ultra-steep" 
spectrum indicates that the galaxies are intrinsically quite 
luminous, though they appear very faint because of their 
tremendous distances from Earth.

     Galaxy 4C41.17 was first identified in a survey of 51 
distant radio galaxies conducted by the researchers.  Next, 
detailed radio observations of 4C41.17 were made at various 
frequencies using the Very Large Array Radio Telescope Facility 
near Socorro, N.M.

     Those observations were then followed by an optical search 
with the 2.1 meter telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory.  
A long-exposure image revealed 4C41.17's optical component which 
has the characteristic appearance of a galaxy because the 
component characteristic is elongated rather than star-like.

     Once the galaxy was identified optically, the researchers 
established its huge distance by taking an optical spectrum which 
uncovered emission lines in carbon and hydrogen produced by the 
elements within the galaxy.
     The observations reveal that these lines are greatly shifted 
along the spectrum, or reddened, more than those of any galaxy 
previously observed.  This red-shift phenomena is attributed to 
the fact that the universe is expanding, thus these galaxies are 
moving away from the Earth.  Because the universe is expanding at 
a uniform rate, the more distant a galaxy, the greater its red 
shift.  This phenomenon can be used by astronomers as a measure 
of distance.

     Chambers, Miley and van Breugel also discovered that 
distant, high red-shift galaxies have mysterious properties.  
Unlike nearby "normal" galaxies, say the researchers, the visible 
light in distant radio galaxies appears to be stretched out along 
the direction of their radio emissions.

     Although this effect is not yet fully understood, it 
indicates a very close relationship between the starlight 
presumed to be producing the optical radiation and the powerful 
radio emissions.  The radio emissions may be produced by twin 
jets of extremely fast particles which are spewed out from a 
massive black hole rotating at the core of the galaxy.

     The most likely reason the visible images of galaxies like 
4C41.17 are stretched along the directions of their radio 
emissions is that the high velocity jets of particles, which 
produce the radio radiation, also compress gas and dust along 
their paths, triggering new star formations.  The new stars then 
preferentially would be born along the jets' paths, creating the 
elongated optical appearance seen in 4C41.17.

     During the last few years, several attempts have been made 
to draw conclusions about the evolution of the universe by 
assuming that distant radio galaxies have similarities with 
nearby galaxies.  The unexpected discovery of the strange 
elongated appearance, associated with extremely distant radio 
galaxies, forces astronomers to rethink some of their previous 
deductions.

     Galaxy 4C41.17 also provides an important clue in 
determining when galaxies were formed, a question that has 
intrigued astrophysicists.  The researchers say that their 
discovery establishes conclusively that, in contrast to some 
theories, galaxies were forming only a few billion years after 
the Big Bang.

     This research was supported by NASA, ESA, the National 
Science Foundation, the Hopkins Ultraviolet Telescope project, 
and the Space Telescope Science Institute.

     The Space Telescope Science Institute is operated for NASA 
under a contract with the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, 
Md., by the Association of Universities for Research in 
Astronomy, Inc. (AURA).  AURA is located on the Johns Hopkins 
University campus in Baltimore.

------------------------------

Date: 8 Aug 88 16:02:23 GMT
From: mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Mike Smithwick)
Subject: Re: 95% vs. 99.9% reliability

In article <1704@eneevax.UUCP> kerog@eneevax.umd.edu.UUCP (Keith Rogers) writes:
>
>I just don't see why they have to spend more than 
>two years without a single flight, missing many important launch windows
>for various projects, just to have an all temperature space shuttle,
>when they could have just flown it on a warm day in almost perfect safety.
>
>Keith Rogers

Right after the event, NASA did announce that they intended to go ahead
with Crippin's Vandenburg launch in June of '86 since the SRBs were of
a different design and so couldn't suffer the same failure. Plus, the 
warmer West coast weather would also ease problems. But we all know
what happened to those plans, don't we. . .

Remember though, that the Accident Review Board came up with a list
of "Criticality 1" problems which were fixable during the downtime. So,
I imagine that they simply decided that it wouldn't be wise to risk another
failure from another problem which could be repaired.



-- 
			   *** mike (starship janitor) smithwick ***
"Due to the Writer's Guild of Amierica strike, this signature is
 temporarily cancelled".
[disclaimer : nope, I don't work for NASA, I take full blame for my ideas]

------------------------------

Date: 8 Aug 88 19:07:52 GMT
From: concertina!fiddler@sun.com  (Steve Hix)
Subject: Re: Satellites

In article <1988Aug5.184230.18530@utzoo.uucp>, henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
> In article <62689@sun.uucp> fiddler%concertina@Sun.COM (Steve Hix) writes:
> >Pioneer 6	12/16/65 US	(still returning good data)
> >Pioneer 7	8/16/66  US	(still active)
> >Pioneer 8	12/13/67 US	(still active)
> 
> You missed Pioneer 9, which is also still active.  

Oops!  (See below)

> And I think one of the
> earlier ones -- Pioneer 8? -- is out of contact and presumed dead, as of
> quite recently.

My list, unfortunately, doesn't cover events after December 29, '87.

> You also missed Pioneers 10 and 11, heading out of the solar system.

Also two Mariners, as pointed out in another message.

Thanks for the corrections (from various sources) to the list I
originally sent out.  The errors, btw, are my fault:  The list I
was getting the info from has all the correct entries.

This is what comes of trying to scan through 2,979 launches during 
lunch. :}

------------------------------

Date:     Mon, 08 Aug 88 14:04:30 -0900
Reply-To: <FNRJH%ALASKA.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Sender: <FNRJH%ALASKA.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
From: Robert Jesse Hale III            <FNRJH%ALASKA.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu>

   I have been appointed representive of ISECCo for Space digest.  If you have
any questions, comments or suggestions please send them to me not to the
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choose to use space digest to contact me.  At times the net looses an issue
or two,  please be persistant.     Robert J. Hale III

I am not an elected member, only a representive of a "people" space intrest
group.




                         SPACE:  Do you want to go?

     The  International Space Exploration & Colonization Co.  (ISECCo) is  an
organization  dedicated to the greatest effort mankind has  ever  undertaken:
extra-terrestrial  emigration.  Join us on the forefront of science and  help
us explore and ultimately settle the cosmos.

     ISECCo is developing space technology with the aim of reducing the  cost
of  getting  to, and surviving in, space.  We are  building  an  ecologically
sealed  unit  capable  of  supporting 2 people.  This  biosphere  will  be  a
prototype  for  self-contained  lunar  and  interplanetary  colonies.   Other
projects  include research and development of launch systems,  both  material
and human.

     The  ecologically sealed unit, or biosphere, has already  been  designed
and  construction  will begin in 1989.  Aerospace plane  concepts  are  being
studied  and  once an acceptable design has been selected, a  working  scaled
prototype will be built for air-launch.  Sub-orbital flight will test  design
parameters  and demonstrate concept viability.  Mass drivers are  also  being
considered  for use to launch material from terrestrial and  lunar  surfaces.
Research  in robotics, remote sensing, video communication,  and  space-based
power  stations is expected to begin early in the next decade.    Methods  of
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includes space manufacturing, satellite service and repair, space hotels, and
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     Generous  donations from our members are our current source  of  income.
Future  funding  will be supplemented through venture  capital,  grants,  and
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     Space  colonies  are  feasible  with  today's  technology.    Tomorrow's
technology  will  make  them economically viable.  Help us  turn  today  into
tomorrow and come with us on the ultimate journey: Come with us to the stars!

     For more information send your address to:
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------------------------------

Date:         Mon, 08 Aug 88 19:37:20 CST
From: "SKott L. Underwood" <UCPL040%UNLVM.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Subject:      August shower.

I have heard that there is an upcoming meteor shower
visible sometime in August here in the U.S.  If any-
body has any info on this event, please respond  via
SPACE or e-mail.
                     --- SKott (UCPL040 at UNLVM)

P.S. I will be in the Rockies  later this month  and
     would  like to know the dates and areas of  the
     sky to be observing.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 8 Aug 88 21:36:22 EDT
From: dietz@gvax.cs.cornell.edu (Paul F. Dietz)
Subject: Electromagnetic Launchers

I was thinking a little more about that scheme I described for
launching from Earth-based electromagnetic launchers.  A major
problem with the scheme was that a fixed launcher sends payloads
into different orbits depending on the time of launch.  This
complicates rendezvous with a LEO space station, for example.

But you can change orbital parameters without rockets, by exploiting
the nonsphericity of the Earth.  The plane of orbits can precess
(nodal regression) and the major axis of eccentric orbits can be made
to rotate (apsidal rotation).

Here's an updated scheme for launching mass to a space station in LEO:

  (1) An EML shoots a payload into a highly eccentric orbit with the
     same inclination as the station's orbit.  A small burn at apogee
     raises the perigee into the upper atmosphere.

  (2) Aerobraking lowers the apogee to several thousand miles.
     A small burn at apogee raises the perigee above the atmosphere.

  (3) The difference in nodal regression rates between the orbit
    of the space station and the payload matches the planes of the
    orbits.  This might take several weeks.

  (4) When the planes are matched, the payload aerobrakes further
   and enters a low phase matching orbit.  Rendezvous.

This should remove restrictions on the orbit of LEO space stations
that could be supplied by this scheme.

	Paul F. Dietz
	dietz@gvax.cs.cornell.edu

------------------------------

Date: 8 Aug 88 21:46:48 GMT
From: a!jkw@lanl.gov  (Jay Wooten)
Subject: Re: 95% vs. 99.9% reliability

In article <1704@eneevax.UUCP>, kerog@eneevax.UUCP (Keith Rogers) writes:
> 	Sure the O ring thing had to be fixed, but did it have to kill
> the entire U.S. space program in the meantime?

You can bet the Soviets would have hardly missed a beat in sending up
another one (something they've proved several times in the past).

Isn't it interesting that the space "program" of the (once) pioneering
leader has become so hamstrung by politics and public/media pressure not
to fail, while the otherwise world leader in repressive bureaucracy plods
ahead unflinchingly to world leadership in space.

       ~ Round the decay of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare ~
       ~ The lone and level sands stretch far away................. ~
	   Jay Wooten  Los Alamos National Lab  ARPA: jkw@lanl.gov

------------------------------

Date: 9 Aug 88 02:38:48 GMT
From: eugene@eos.arc.nasa.gov  (Eugene Miya)
Subject: Re: Satellites

In article <3500001@hpcvlx.HP.COM> bturner@hpcvlx.HP.COM (Bill Turner) writes:
>> [Text of satellite list deleted]
>
>Isn't it a bit depressing that a deep scientific mission hasn't
>been launched by the US since 78?
>
>--Bill Turner

Your are telling me? 8-)  It's extremely depressing! 8-(
But, you the American public wanted "men" in space.  [Just stating
the facts (all those cards and letters).]
You see what is depressing is knowing the (or thinking about
the original proposed dates for Missions, largely killed,
by Ronnie and friends [Ed Meese who came to Caltech one fateful
date in 1981]).  You see I think of Galileo as a 1982 launch (when
my friends were doing ODs [orbit determinations], you
might think of it as 1989 or what ever.  Frank at JPL thinks of it
as a 1978 launch, and he proposed the Mission!  [Think how depressed
he would be [he isn't]].  Even worse are the single Solar/Polar mission
(rather than tandem), and the total lack of a comet rendezvous.
There were other missions cancelled as well.

Another gross generalization from

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@aurora.arc.nasa.gov
  resident cynic at the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:
  "Mailers?! HA!", "If my mail does not reach you, please accept my apology."
  {uunet,hplabs,ncar,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."
Gee, lots of SDI postings: remember Star Wars is a trademark of Lucasfilm, Ltd.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #327
*******************

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Date: Wed, 17 Aug 88 19:05:08 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8808180205.AA04259@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #328

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 328

Today's Topics:
		    Re: 95% vs. 99.9% reliability
				 SETI
			   Re:  Solar Sails
	Re: Space Station power supply (was Re: Lithium cells)
			      lightning
			   Re: SETI (& STI)
			   fixing Oscar-10
		    Re: 95% vs. 99.9% reliability
			    Re: Satellites
	Re: Space Station power supply (was Re: Lithium cells)
		    Re: 95% vs. 99.9% reliability
		    Re: 95% vs. 99.9% reliability
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 8 Aug 88 20:42:31 GMT
From: adelie!infinet!rhorn@xn.ll.mit.edu  (Rob Horn)
Subject: Re: 95% vs. 99.9% reliability

In article <1231@eos.UUCP> eugene@eos.UUCP (Eugene Miya) writes:
>The problem, as Feynman pointed out, is how do you quanitify this?
>I can easily say 99.9 or 95 percent based on some metric, but which.

Well, the current launch-to-correct-orbit reliability for Delta-class
expendibles is 95%.  A fairly generous metric, and one that I sure
wouldn't want to ride in.

-- 
				Rob  Horn
	UUCP:	...harvard!adelie!infinet!rhorn
		...ulowell!infinet!rhorn, ..decvax!infinet!rhorn
	Snail:	Infinet,  40 High St., North Andover, MA

------------------------------

Resent-Message-Id: <4Wzl6Vy00VseI-eFI7@andrew.cmu.edu>
Resent-Date: Tue,  9 Aug 88 10:52:17 -0400 (EDT)
Resent-From: Ted Anderson <ota+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Resent-To: space@angband.s1.gov
Return-Path: <Ingemar.Hulthage@isl1.ri.cmu.edu>
Date: Tue, 9 Aug 1988 09:59-EDT 
From: Ingemar.Hulthage@cs.cmu.edu
To: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Subject: SETI

I don't think one can assume that advanced civilizations do broadcast
signals with the purpose to make themselves known, for the following
reason. 

Suppose there exist some incredibly vicious species somewhere out
there, a race that routinely seeks out intelligent civilizations and
exploit them rutlessly. Now, if that is so, any civilization that
broadcasts its existence would soon be found and silenced, but even if
it is wrong it is still irresponsible to take the risk of broadcasting
unless the horror scenario can be ruled out with 100% certainty and
that may be hard or impossible.

I therefore think that its more likely that some advanced civilizations
deem regular wide angle transmission safe and useful for some purposes,
as we do on earth. Hence, I don't think there is much hope of SETI
being successful until a capacity to detect regular transmissions is
developed.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 9 Aug 88 10:23:41 CDT
From: sedspace@doc.cc.utexas.edu (Steve Abrams)
Posted-Date: Tue, 9 Aug 88 10:23:41 CDT
Subject: Re:  Solar Sails
Cc: spd7924%tamvenus.bitnet@cunyvm.cuny.edu


In SPACE Digest V8 #319, Nathan Ulrich (ulrich@grasp.cis.upenn.edu) 
and John DuBois (spcecdt@ucscb.ucsc.EDU) respond to my reply to 
someone (*with a poor physics background*) on the mechanism by 
which radiation pressure can transfer momentum to a light sail.

Nathan Ulrich:

>I don't know if I am a purist, but it won't satisfy me.  
>
>One indisputable law of the universe, "You can't get something for nothing."
>Your explanation above will result in an increase in the total mass-energy
>of your system.  

	You're a purist.  Although I didn't make it clear, I was 
describing a "perfectly" reflecting sail (R=1.0) in an attempt to get the 
idea across without burdening the original questioner with a lot of 
homologous information.  You are absolutely correct.

John DuBois:

>Surely the frequency of the photon as reflected from the sail will be 
>lower than the original photon (thus it will have lower energy)?

	In a *real* (R<1.0) sail, this is true.  Again, I was responding 
pedagogically, trying to present the explanation without rigor, but 
with clarity.  In a subsequent posting, I am much more clear in my 
presentation.

>It sounds to me like there would be a double Doppler effect (once 
>upon absorbtion, and once upon emmision).

	Doppler effect?  The Doppler effect arises from motion (in the 
frame of the observer) of a "source" with respect to an observer.  
While I agree that a solar sail moving away from the Sun will "see" 
red-shifted photons (and, hence, gets slightly less - for 
interplanetary sails - push, as the "peak" of the solar irradiance 
curve is red-shifted from around 490 nm), it doesn't depend upon 
their absorption and re-emission.  It wouldn't be a double effect as, 
when the photon is re-emitted, the sail would be both "source" and 
"observer."  Since the sail has no velocity relative to itself and the 
sail will never interact with that photon again, there is no Doppler 
effect with respect to emission.

	This belongs in sci.physics...

							Steve Abrams

"The reality we describe with physics is derived from the reality we 
observe with our senses which doesn't necessarily relate to the 
reality that is..."

2721 Hemphill Park, Apt. C	ARPANET:  sedspace@doc.cc.utexas.edu
Austin, TX  78705		CompuServe:  [70376,1025]
(512)480-0895			
				OR
     c/o Students for the Exploration and Development of Space
   P.O. Box 7338, 358 Texas Union, University of Texas at Austin
              Austin, TX  78713-7883  (512)471-7097

------------------------------

Date: 9 Aug 88 11:32:11 GMT
From: bungia!meccts!viper!dave@umn-cs.arpa  (David Messer)
Subject: Re: Space Station power supply (was Re: Lithium cells)

In article <1110001@hpfclm.HP.COM> myers@hpfclm.HP.COM (Bob Myers) writes:
 >
 >>Main power on the space station is specified as 220 VAC at 20 kHz.
 >
 >AC?  Why AC?
 >
 >Bob M.

AC is easy to convert to whatever voltage you want by means of
a transformer.  DC is obtained with a simple rectifier.  A
high frequency is used because the transformer needed is
smaller and higher frequencies are easier to filter out when
DC is needed.
-- 
If you can't convince |   David Messer - (dave@Lynx.MN.Org)
them, confuse them.   |   Lynx Data Systems
   -- Harry S Truman  | 
                      |   amdahl   --!bungia!viper!dave
                      |   hpda    /

Copyright 1988 David Messer -- All Rights Reserved
This work may be freely copied.  Any restrictions on
redistribution of this work are prohibited.

------------------------------

Date: 9 Aug 88 16:55:47 GMT
From: ubc-cs!fornax!zeke@beaver.cs.washington.edu  (Zeke Hoskin)
Subject: lightning

The NASA lightning research is interesting and
potentially (pun accidental) useful, but incomplete
as it is framed. It isn't enough to predict lightning
or lighning-harden spaceships on the pad. What we
need is a way to USE the stuff.  Getting the power
onto the grid would be nice...but consider that one
of the problems with electromagnetic launch is:
where can we get that much energy in a short burst?
The hell with huge capacitors and slowly growing
currents in superconducting coils!
  The Ultimate El Cheapo Spaceship: a shielded
compartment, a big strong nozzle full of ice, and
a ground wire. Lightning strikes, ice vaporizes, up
she goes...somewhere over the rainbow....:-{)>  
-- 
What makes one step a giant leap|Zeke Hoskin/SFU VLSI group,Burnaby,BC,Canada
Is all the steps before         | ...!ubc-cs!sfu_fornax!zeke

------------------------------

Date: 9 Aug 88 22:31:20 GMT
From: spdcc!eli@husc6.harvard.edu  (Steve Elias)
Subject: Re: SETI (& STI)

In article <587138396.iaeh@ISL1.RI.CMU.EDU> Ingemar.Hulthage@CS.CMU.EDU writes:
>Suppose there exist some incredibly vicious species somewhere out
>there, a race that routinely seeks out intelligent civilizations and
>exploit them ruthlessly.

	suppose that species is man.  

	perhaps such a vicious species would destroy itself
	long before it evolved far enough to destroy species 
	away from its home system.

	a species which survived its
	own nuclear self destruct phase would have evolved past
	any vicious tendencies long before the reach into deep space.

	(or so they say).

------------------------------

Date: 9 Aug 88 22:14:33 GMT
From: thumper!karn@faline.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: fixing Oscar-10

Henry's comments about AMSAT Oscar-10 and its problems (caused by a
post-separation collision with the Ariane third stage) came just before
I left for Europe for two weeks, and I didn't get a chance to respond.
At the risk of re-opening the manned-vs-unmanned argument, here goes:

Yes, of *course* it would have been very nice had somebody been up there
to fix our satellite, even if all he could do was to bend the 2 meter
antenna element back into place. But you evade a fundamental and crucial
question:
			AT WHAT COST?

All told, our mission cost us only a few hundred thousand US dollars.
That kind of money might be enough to buy a toilet seat on the Shuttle.
But I doubt even AMSAT (with a proven track record for low-cost space
engineering) could send up a fixit person for the same amount and get
him back safely.

The simple and sad facts of life that the "I wanna go!" crowd has got to
learn sooner or later are these: 1) With both present and forseeable
technology, manned missions are inherently orders of magnitude more
expensive than unmanned missions, and 2) There are VERY few situations
(either practical applications or scientific research) where specific
mission goals can be met more cost-effectively with humans on board. If
it's *entertainment* you're after, then you should at least be honest
about your motivations.

The cheapest way BY FAR to "fix" a malfunctioning satellite, especially
a small one, is almost always to launch a replacement. That's exactly
what we did this year. Not only did we get a perfectly healthy satellite
in orbit, but one with twice as many communications transponders and
twice as much onboard computer memory because we were able to take
advantage of newer technology.

Phil

------------------------------

Date: 9 Aug 88 23:54:43 GMT
From: mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Mike Smithwick)
Subject: Re: 95% vs. 99.9% reliability

[]
In article <1181@infinet.UUCP> rhorn@infinet.UUCP (Rob Horn) writes:
>Well, the current launch-to-correct-orbit reliability for Delta-class
>expendibles is 95%.  A fairly generous metric, and one that I sure
>wouldn't want to ride in.
>
>-- 
>				Rob  Horn

Remember, that the majority of the failures in a given rocket program are 
concentrated in the first few flights until the engineers can get all
of the bugs worked out. So the success-rates of a vehicle should not 
include the first dozen missions or so.

I'm sure that Henry has the figures right at his fingertips, but I believe
that we've launced over 180 of them Delta thingies, and only lost a couple 
in the last 160 or so.

*** mike ***
-- 
			   *** mike (starship janitor) smithwick ***
"Due to the Writer's Guild of Amierica strike, this signature is
 temporarily cancelled".
[disclaimer : nope, I don't work for NASA, I take full blame for my ideas]

------------------------------

Date: 9 Aug 88 17:25:35 GMT
From: tektronix!teklds!mrloog!dant@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Dan Tilque;1893;92-101;)
Subject: Re: Satellites

Steve Hix writes:
>
>> You also missed Pioneers 10 and 11, heading out of the solar system.
>
>Also two Mariners, as pointed out in another message.

Actually, you missed 4 Mariners.  Besides Mariners 9 and 10, You also
missed Mariners 6 and 7.  These were two Mars flybys in 67 (I think).
In case anyone is interested, Mariner 8 was also launched as a
companion to Mariner 9, but some problem caused it to end up on the
bottom of the Atlantic.  They had to do some quick fixing to Mariner 9
to avoid the same problem with it.

>
>This is what comes of trying to scan through 2,979 launches during 
>lunch. :}

Perhaps you should first look at the list in the Information Please
almanac which has only those launches which have gone beyond Earth
orbit.  It doesn't give the current status so you would have to refer
to your other list for that.


---
Dan Tilque	--	dant@twaddl.LA.TEK.COM

------------------------------

Date: 9 Aug 88 18:09:25 GMT
From: attcan!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Space Station power supply (was Re: Lithium cells)

In article <1110001@hpfclm.HP.COM> myers@hpfclm.HP.COM (Bob Myers) writes:
>AC?  Why AC?

Same reason we use AC here:  transformers.  The big problem with DC power
is that there is no simple equivalent of the transformer, meaning that
any equipment that needs a different voltage has to work hard to get it.
If you want to provide service to a wide variety of gear with a wide
variety of needs, AC is the clear choice.
-- 
Intel CPUs are not defective,  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
they just act that way.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 9 Aug 88 20:55:20 GMT
From: attcan!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: 95% vs. 99.9% reliability

In article <646@a.lanl.gov> jkw@a.lanl.gov (Jay Wooten) writes:
>You can bet the Soviets would have hardly missed a beat in sending up
>another one (something they've proved several times in the past).

As somebody wrote in Aviation Week a few months afterward (roughly, from
memory):  "If the same thing had happened to the Soviets, they would have
swept the debris off the launch pad, hoisted the next launcher onto the
pad, and started the countdown.  Anyone who objected would have been told
where to go, or sent there."
-- 
Intel CPUs are not defective,  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
they just act that way.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 9 Aug 88 20:53:36 GMT
From: attcan!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: 95% vs. 99.9% reliability

In article <20043@cornell.UUCP> dietz@gvax.cs.cornell.edu (Paul F. Dietz) writes:
>... The Rogers
>commission did NOT say that the shuttle would be safe to launch in warm
>weather.  They said that so many things were wrong with the joint design
>that it was impossible to determine what actually caused the leak...

True, as far as it goes.  From the data they supplied, though, it is
reasonable to infer that the combination of warmer temperatures and going
back to the old low-pressure leak-test procedure would greatly reduce the
risks.  Neither cold nor high-pressure leak tests had a perfect correlation
with joint problems, but both correlations were quite strong and the
combined correlation was even stronger.

Since there is no such thing as perfect safety, reduction of risk is all
one can realistically discuss.  Many people thought that a handful of
simple precautions, including those mentioned above, should reduce risk
enough to permit urgent missions to be flown by volunteer crews.  Sigh,
NASA didn't agree...
-- 
Intel CPUs are not defective,  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
they just act that way.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #328
*******************

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Date: Thu, 18 Aug 88 01:04:36 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8808180804.AA04388@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #329

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 329

Today's Topics:
			   Re:  Solar Sails
	     SETI (was Re: Time dilation affecting SETI)
		       The Challenger Disaster
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 10 Aug 88 05:51:01 GMT
From: agate!saturn!ucscb.UCSC.EDU!spcecdt@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Space Cadet)
Subject: Re:  Solar Sails

In article <8808091523.AA18626@doc.cc.utexas.edu> sedspace@DOC.CC.UTEXAS.EDU (Steve Abrams) writes:
~	Doppler effect?  The Doppler effect arises from motion (in the 
~frame of the observer) of a "source" with respect to an observer.  
~While I agree that a solar sail moving away from the Sun will "see" 
~red-shifted photons (and, hence, gets slightly less - for 
~interplanetary sails - push, as the "peak" of the solar irradiance 
~curve is red-shifted from around 490 nm), it doesn't depend upon 
~their absorption and re-emission.  It wouldn't be a double effect as, 
~when the photon is re-emitted, the sail would be both "source" and 
~"observer."  Since the sail has no velocity relative to itself and the 
~sail will never interact with that photon again, there is no Doppler 
~effect with respect to emission.

	 I meant a double doppler effect as observed from the original source
of the light (the sun, a laser launcher, etc.)
	 I referred to the Doppler effect to explain why you would not be getting
"something for nothing": while the kinetic energy of the sail (and ship) will be
increased, the frequency of a reflected photon will be lower, as will its
energy.  Thus, energy has simply been tranferred from the photon the sail.
If one is looking for a non-rigorous explanation, I think this is the simplest
way to put it.  Note that as the velocity of the ship increases, the redshift
of the reflected photons increases; that is, more of their energy is
transferred to the sail.
--
> Hello, lift.   # We're going to space if we have to walk. -Jerry Pournelle  <
< -Marvin the PA # The meek will inherit the earth.  WE will go to the stars! >
> John H. DuBois III # spcecdt@ucscb.ucsc.EDU  ...!ucbvax!ucscc!ucscb!spcecdt <

------------------------------

Date: 9 Aug 88 16:33:41 GMT
From: attcan!lsuc!ncrcan!hcr!edwin@uunet.uu.net  (Edwin Hoogerbeets)
Subject: SETI (was Re: Time dilation affecting SETI)


Let's imagine for a moment that we want to send out a strong message in
the Hydrogen band to other intelligent life in the galaxy. Which way
would we send it?

I think it would be obvious to send it in the direction of the center of
the galaxy to reach the most prospective planets(?) where life would
exist. 

Now think of *our* galactic location. We're on the edge of the galaxy.
Maybe we're just missing out on all the fun because we're on the
sidelines? Everyone is sending their message the other way! By the time
the messages from the other side of the galaxy get to us, they are too
weak to detect.

This assumes, of course, that a message is directional. You could
probably get stronger reception if the message doesn't spread thin as
in the shell example earlier, so it might be that everyone else is
sending directional messages to each other. Think of the infamous
transmitter aboard the Discovery in the book/movie 2001. AC Clarke made
that one directional, as it used less precious energy that way.

Another possible reason we might not be receiving came to me while
reading sci.crypt. Maybe everyone is sending RSA across the universe and
we don't know what's going on? (again :^) You might argue that we are
receiving statistically provable random noise. Does anyone have a proof
that all encrypted messages that can be statistically distinguished 
from noise? If not, then this might also affect SETI.

Unrelated topic:

Has the person who is conducting the poll of significant space related
events finished said poll? I am interested in seeing the results ;-)

Comments anyone?

------ --------- = -------------------------------------------
Edwin (Deepthot)                      Waterloo co-op student, HCR Corporation
Hoogerbeets		                   2A computer science and psychology
uunet!utai!utcsri!hcr!edwin                                  Me Tarzan, Unix.
                  edwin@hcr         //           Freudian slips? This message
or:                                //               contains no Freudian sex.
...!hcr!MsgPort!edwin          \\ //   Amiga        Glider pilots are experts
A B2000 running UUPC            \X/  Enthusiast             at keeping it up!

------------------------------

Date: 9 Aug 88 17:53:27 GMT
From: att!ihlpb!ihnp4!ihuxz!rats@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (D Woo)
Subject: The Challenger Disaster


-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The following article appeared in the May 1988 *Defense Science*.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

			The Challenger Disaster
			 by Dr. Yale Jay Lubkin
			
What we don't know can create problems, but even greater problems can arise
from what we think we know, but which is inaccurate.

The Rogers Commission investigating the Challenger incident seems to
have set out to create a body of facts that are not true. This is my
conclusion after reading Richard Feynman's dying declaration in the 
February 1988 *Physics Today*. (Feynman died almost simultaneously
with the PT publication.)

The Commission was an almost typical Washington commission. Its head
was William Rogers, just about the consummate example of a Washington
insider. (Casper Weinberger, retiring as Secretary of Defense, has joined
Roger's law firm several rungs down the ladder from Rogers. Perhaps only
Clark Clifford can come close to Rogers in the class of political
lawyers.

Who made up the Commission? In the words of Senator Hollings, "So
who have ya got, there, on your commission? Ya got a couple of astronauts,
a Nobel prizewinner, a general, some businessman and a couple of
lawyers. What you really need is gumshoes, who will be right down
there at Kennedy, eating lunch with the very guys who do work on the
Shuttle."

Rogers actually had a gumshoe, whom he could not suppress. Feynman reports
that Rogers did his best to keep the Commission from finding any disturbing
facts, tried to sit on Feynman, and then tried to freeze him out. It
didn't work. Feynman had a bone and he wouldn't let go. Feynman eventually
issued his own report, differing substantially with the preconceived
notions of the Commission. And probably killed any chances for future
independent thinkers to appear on Presidential Commissions.

I feel sure that Mr. Rogers would have been much more comfortable with
Henry Hudson, of the Meese Pornography Commission, who replied to criticism
that that commission had reached unscientific conclusions: "If we relied
exclusively on scientific data for every one of our findings, I'm afraid
all of our work would be inconclusive."

Or with OSHA, who, right after Challenger, gave NASA a citation for having
the best government workplace safety record.

There seems to be much to hide. Feynman lights up a lot of bureaucratic
garbage at NASA. CYA is running rampant.

Questions: The Challenger incident leads one to ask many questions. Since
one can draw any conclusion from a false premise, the first question
is "Just what happened?" This is hardly trivial, but the experiences
of Feynman and AbuTaha lead to a second question: "Why are the authorities
trying so hard to prevent the answer to the first question?" The third
question is "Why did it happen." The answer to the forth question is
self-evident. "If NASA is fixing the wrong problem, what happens
next time?"

Let me introduce Feynman and AbuTaha. Richard Feynman was a Nobel Laureate
in Physics. More importantly, he was a great physicist with an informal
manner and a driving curiosity. Alone of the members of the Rogers
Commissions, he had the intelligence and the drive to find out answers,
was beholden to none and was afraid of none. He viewed his job as only
finding out the truth.

Read his dissenting report and read his article in *Physics Today*. Read
between the lines as to the purpose of the Rogers Commission, and remember
what William Rogers is. (Also read the extensive article by Trudy Bell
and Karl Esch in the *IEEE Spectrum* of February 1987.)

Ali AbuTaha is a space engineer, with ten years' experience at Comsat,
plus another few there as a consultant. He has been a space consultant
for some time. He read the Challenger Commission report simply for self-
education, but his curiosity was excited because when he found a large
number of "specific disparities, errors and mistakes." And a few outright
lies. He dug into it at his own expense, and spent two years of time
and thousands of dollars. He got a second, third and forth
mortgage. He hunted up reports and videos tapes from non-NASA observers
and processed them, and formed a theory. He transmitted this to NASA.
They first dismissed him as a kook for daring to question official dogma,
then tried to destroy his reputation by ad hominem attacks, then appro-
piated some of his findings and passed them off as their own.

You can understand some of what happened by reference to Figure 1, from
Feynman's article. The figure shows the joint between 12-foot diameter
sections of the booster. The upper section has a lip that fits into a
clevis in the lower section. The leak of hot gases quite clearly came
from that section of the joint between the bottom and middle sections
of the booster which was next to the main rocket. (The O-rings are
on the inside.) NASA and the Rogers Commission say that the O-rings lost
resiliency because of the cold and allowed a 20 mil leak, starting
0.67 seconds into the flight, mysteriously closing at 3.52 seconds, then
disastrously re-opening at 58.8 seconds.

Feynman says that this isn't true. Morton Thiokol goofed on the design,
and knew it. The internal pressure of the rocket was supposed to squash
the O-ring into a good seal. Problem was that the joint was much stronger
than the rocket wall (it was three times as thick), so instead of the
joint deforming, the wall deformed, lifting the O-ring away from the
joint, and allowing the leak. So Feynman's theory calls for a continuous
leak.

The Thiokol engineers knew the joint was no good, and tried a bunch of
fixes. They went to Parker Seal Company, who made the O-rings, for
advice. Parker said that O-rings weren't supposed to be used that way,
and no advice was given.

One makeshift that Thiokol used was to shim the outer portion of the
joint, as shown in Figure 1. Unfortunately, the outer lip is much lighter
than the middle, so instead of squashing the O-ring, the shim just
bent the outer lip outwards.

Ali AbuTaha has the most convincing theory. The lower section of the
booster had been used in a previous flight. There is a strut connecting
the booster to the external tank, and this strut is located just below
the joint. There are tremendous forces on this strut, on the order
of a miillion pounds, and the strut pulls on the side of the booster.
The forces of the previous flight bent the the bottom section out of
round, by 0.512 inches according to measurements (apparently by Lockheed
personel) at the Kennedy Space Center.

This meant that the midsection would not fit into the lower section. The
midsection was apparently round. As far as AbuTaha can tell, the Lockheed
people used a hydraulic press and adjusting nuts mounted in the middle
section the middle section together to distort the shape so that it matched
the out-of-round section. This seems to have caused a crack at the edge
of the middle section, which then leaked continuously during the
flight. Flames are clearly visible on the enhanced videos during most of
the flight. AbuTaha provided 39 enhanced photos of the leak, flame,
etc. to NASA on August 12, 1987.

Instructions were to limit the hydraulic pressure to 1250 lb, which was
done, but there were no instructions as to how much pressure should be
exerted by the adjusting nuts. Nobody ever measured.

The leak caused a side thrust, diverting the Challenger from the proper
course. The Challenger control systme put a correction in the loop, to
cancel the side thrust. This caused the whole system to hunt, as can
be seen from the time sequence of position shown in Figure 2. The 
Challenger oscillated. Each oscillation put tremendous stress on the
strut, on the order of millions of pounds. The oscillations are clear
from the shape of the exhaust plumes.

The strut and the control system oscillation flexed the booster wall
in and out, each time causing the release of hot gas. Eventually,
the continued violent flexing caused the entire strut support structure
to break off, letting the flame hit the Challenger directly, killing
some of the crew and causing the explosion. (Some of the crew were
apparently alive at moment of impact.)

It was not the leak that killed the astronauts. It was the attempt to
correct the sidethrust, which sent the Challenger into violent 
oscillations. If the Challenger had been permitted to go off course,
without attempting the major correction, the side of the booster would
not have broken out, the booster would have burnt out eith the Challenger
still intact, and the crew could have ejected, off course but alive.

AbuTaha has thousands of pages of documentation and many photographs
and video tapes to prove his contentions. We have room to show only one
photograph, taken from a video made at New Smyrna Beach by Harold
Sehnert of Ohio. The photograph, Figure 3, is fifty or sixty seconds
into the flight. Note that the intermittent nature of the puffs is clearly
visible. Many stills can be seen in the March 1987 issue of the British
magazine *Spaceflight News*.

Note that one similar shot was used by the Commission in its report,
but it has been cropped to exclude the puffs. The twin plumes were present-
ed as coming from the two boosters, rather than from the boosters and
the leak, as is obvious from the film. One universed in the subtleties
of Washingtonspeak might call this a deliberate lie.

The NASA Reaction. In bureaucratese, the NASA reaction was pure CYA. A
Supreme Court justice said it was not only necessary to do justice, it
also was necessary to give the appearence of doing justice. NASA does
not seem to be doing either.

For example, Malcom McConnell, in his book *Challenger*, (Doubleday,
1987) just about accuses two NASA bigwigs of severe conflicts of
interests. He accuses Dr. James Fletcher, periodic NASA Administrator,
of being a member of the Mormon Mafia who threw the booster contract
to Utah-based Thiokol, despite their inferior product and lack of
experience. He also blasts Dale Myers, who alternated between being
Deputy Administrator of NASA and a high Rockwell executive, for pushing
the Challenger award to Rockwell in still-secret proceedings.

Now McConnell exhibits a left-wing, anti-Republican bias, but he does
raise valid questions and does appear to have been stonewalled by the
NASA legal eagles. He notes that Aerojet was able to make one-piece
boosters, and thus avoid an entire set of problems due to Thiokol's need
to use multiple segmented rockets. He notes that the McDonnell-Douglas
orbiter proposal included and abort motor which would have seperated
the orbitier from the stack, allowing it to glide back to the landing
site in event of booster failure.

But AbuTaha was not engaged in politics. He was engaged in engineering.
And NASA trashed him, then stole his ideas.

In July 1986, for example, AbuTaha reported his finding that Challenger
was operating with negative safety margins for loads at lift off, backed
it up with analyses and sent the data to NASA. His findings were rejected
with comments like, "It is unnecessary to pursue the thoughts contained
in this report," (John Thomas, Oct. 30, 1986), and, "The loads and stresses
measured prior to and during launch match those predicted within nominal
tolerance," (Richard Truly, Nov 12, 1986).

In a memo to Fletcher on January 15, 1987, the National Research Council
was talking about negative safety margins. But in March 1987, AbuTaha
was still receiving comments from NASA of "not plausible" and "NASA finds
no new evidence in any of your analyses that could change the original
sequence of events or the cause of the accident," (James Rose, 13 March
1987) while NASA was presenting AbuTaha's findings as their own.

It is also not especially clear how cold weather could have caused four
O-rings to be damaged on Launch 51-B, including almost complete burn-
through of the primary O-ring on the left booster nozzle joint. The
launch temperature for that lauch was a balmy 75 F.

It is not especially clear how the NASA and Thiokol executives attained 
their perspectives on the mission. Feynman questioned many people about
their estimate of probability of mission failure. Working engineers
typically estimated about one in a hundred. Executives estimated about
one in a hundred thousand; i.e. one failure could be expected in a
sequence of one lauch a day for three hundred years. Do executives get
a daily fix? Feynman stressed that NASA officials had been living in
a world of unreality.

The Commission reported incredible paperwork sloppiness (P220). They
found that half the paperwork was flawed, including 96% of Work 
Authorisation Documents. Why? The Commission stated categorically, "The
system ... is an impediment to good work and good records." Has anything
changed?

It was not only the paperwork that was sloppy. The Viton O-rings were
specified for use between -30 F and +500 F, but NASA never seems to have
tested them.

It is not clear that any of the people responsible for all of this sloppy
work, poor management, political sleeze and unreality have paid for
it. Certainly not Fletcher or Myers or Young. Certainly not NASA or
Thiokol, who received millions more as a result of the Challenger
incident. (I do not call it an accident. It was a disaster waiting to
happen.) The people who were punished were Roger Boisjoly and Allan
McDonald, who tried to prevent the disaster.

It is clear that another investigation, run by engineers, not lawyers,
might be in order, maybe even a book with a lot of photographic evidence
left out of the Commission report.

The final words of Feynman's report are important: "For a successful
technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for
nature cannot be fooled."

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #329
*******************

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Date: Fri, 19 Aug 88 01:05:17 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8808190805.AA05395@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #330

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 330

Today's Topics:
		     Re: Skintight suit reference
			    Re: Satellites
			   Series E stamps
			 Re: skintight suits
			    Re: Satellites
	      Exploitation/Exploration of Seabed, Space
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 8 Aug 88 05:32:06 GMT
From: umigw!umbio!pglask@handies.ucar.edu  (Peter Glaskowsky)
Subject: Re: Skintight suit reference

in article <UWzD0Zy00UhYQM7E8N@andrew.cmu.edu>, kr0u+@ANDREW.CMU.EDU (Kevin William Ryan) says:
> 
>    I posted this once before, but in brief:
> 
>    NASA Report CR-1892, "Development of a Space Activity Suit", by James
> Annis and Paul Webb.
> [...] 
>    Ask your nearby congresscritter to send it to you - that's how I got mine.

Any indication how they handled the tender parts? If the suit is porous, I'd
expect that areas too complex for actual skin contact would probably have to be
covered with something air-tight (plastic briefs, socks, ?) in order to protect
them from exposure to vacuum. That doesn't sound too comfortable.

>    The preceeding reference comes courtesy of J. E. Pournelle, from the
> Summer 1980 (Vol. 2, No. 3) _Destinies_, now a defunct publication.  Pity...

"Far Frontiers" followed "Destinies" into defunctitude, but "New Destinies",
which came along within the past year, seems to be doing well.

.                  png   | Sysop, the John Galt Line TBBS. 305-235-1645.
                         | pglask%umbio.miami.edu@umigw.miami.edu

------------------------------

Date: 10 Aug 88 13:15:37 GMT
From: cfa!cfa250!mcdowell@husc6.harvard.edu  (Jonathan McDowell)
Subject: Re: Satellites

>From article <62689@sun.uucp>, by fiddler%concertina@Sun.COM (Steve Hix):
[ satellite list amended to add other ones I can remember...]

AMS "Luna"  	1/2/59   USSR Solar orbit, missed moon, called Luna-1 now.
: Pioneer 4	3/3/59	 US	solar orbit
: Pioneer 5	3/11/60  US	  "     "
: Venera 1	2/12/61	 USSR
: Ranger 3	1/26/62  US	(missed moon...)
: Ranger 5	10/18/62 US	(missed moon...)
Mariner 2      	Late 62, US, flew past Venus
: Mars 1	11/1/62  USSR	(lost earth lock 65.9M miles)
Luna-4	 	4/63     USSR   (missed moon, perturbed into solar orbit)
Zond-1     	Early 64,USSR failed Venus probe
: Mariner 3	11/5/64  US (Mars flyby failed)
: Mariner 4	11/28/64 US (mars flyby)
: Zond 2	11/30/64 USSR	(Mars probe)
: Luna 6	6/8/65	 USSR	(Lunar soft lander missed moon)
Zond-3    	7/65 	 USSR lunar flyby/deep space system test,solar orb.
: Venera 2	11/12/65 USSR	(passed Venus, no data)
Venera-3  	11/65  USSR (hit Venus, no data)
: Pioneer 6	12/16/65 US	(still returning good data)
: Pioneer 7	8/16/66  US	(still active)
Mariner 5    	7?/67, US, Venus flyby
Venera-4  	?/67    USSR, Venus atmosphere probe
: Pioneer 8	12/13/67 US	 (died 1983?)
Pioneer 9     	?/68   US  (Solar orbit, flare monitoring)
Venera-5,  	1/69, USSR, Venus atmosphere probe
Venera-6,  	1/69, USSR, Venus atmosphere probe
Mariner 6    	2/69, US, Mars flyby
Mariner 7    	3/69, US, Mars flyby
Venera-7, 	8/70, USSR, Venus landing, survived 23 min
Mars-2 		5/71 USSR Mars orbit, lander hit surface
Mars-3 		5/71 USSR Mars orbit, lander survived 20 sec?
Mariner 9    	5/30/71, US, Mars orbital mapper (M-8 at bottom of Atlantic)
Pioneer 10   	3/72, US, Jupiter flyby, en route the heliopause
Venera-8     	?/72, USSR, Venus landing
Pioneer-Saturn  4?/73 US. Jupiter/Saturn, en route the stars....
(formerly Pioneer 11) 
: Mars 4	7/21/73  USSR	(missed Mars orbit)
: Mars 5	7/25/73  USSR	(orbiting Mars)
Mars 6		8/5/73   USSR	(Mars lander crashed, bus in solar orbit)
: Mars 7	7/21/73  USSR	(Mars lander failed)
Helios 1    	12/74  FRG/US Solar approach to 0.3 AU
: Venera 9	6/8/75	 USSR	(orbiting Venus)
: Venera 10	6/14/75	 USSR	(orbiting Venus)
Viking Orbiter1 8/20/75	 US	(orbiting Mars )
Mutch Memorial Station   8/20/75 US (Chryse Planitia, Mars)
(was Viking Lander 1 ,renamed)
: Viking Orbiter 2       10/9/75  US	(   Mars orbit)
Viking Lander 2          10/9/75 US Utopia Planitia, Mars
: Helios 2	1/15/76  US
[No, FRG(=West Germany)/US... solar approach to 0.29 AU)
: Voyager 2	8/20/77  US	(solar system escape, en route Neptune)
: Voyager 1	9/5/77   US	(likely solar system escapee) 
[Likely? What's going to stop it.. the famous Great Galactic Ghoul?]
Pioneer Venus Orbiter	 5/20/78  US	(orbiting Venus, still active)
Pioneer Venus Mulitprobe 8/8/78   US	
"(5 payloads hit Venus, rest solar)" No, bus hit Venus too, burnt up.
: Venera 11	9/9/78	 USSR	(all but lander in solar orbit)
: Venera 12	9/14/78	 USSR   (   ditto )
International Cometary Explorer 11/78 US; Was ISEE 3 in Earth-Sun L1
		 halo orbit; renamed 12/83 after lunar flyby,
		Comet Giacobini-Zinner flyby 9/85, now in solar orbit
: Venera 13	10/30/81 USSR	(   ditto )
: Venera 14	11/4/81  USSR   (   ditto )
Venera 15	6/2/83	 USSR   Venus orbiter, radar mapper
Venera 16       6/7/83   USSR	Venus orbiter, radar mapper
: Vega 1	12/15/84 USSR   (Venus/Halley mission)
: Vega 2	12/21/84 USSR	(       "	     )
: Sakigake	1/7/85	 Japan  ( Halley mission)
: Giotto	2/7/85	 ESA	(       "       )
: Suisei	9/18/85  Japan  (       "       )
Fobos-1 	7/88 USSR  en route Mars/Phobos
Fobos-2 	7/88 USSR en route Mars/Phobos


Sundry Saturn final stages from the Apollo program, and also the
spaceship Snoopy (Apollo 10 LM ascent stage) were discarded after use
into solar orbit.  Other very distant Earth-orbiting satellites have
likely been gravitationally perturbed by the Moon and Sun into solar
orbit; such satellites are too distant to be tracked after their
transmitters fail.



- Jonathan McDowell

------------------------------

Subject: Series E stamps
Date: Wed, 10 Aug 88 13:07:46 EDT
From: Sheri L Smith <ltsmith@mitre.arpa>

_ALL_ series E stamps (and there have been many) are printed with no
price on them (i.e. 25 or $1.00 etc.) and for that reason (according to my
local postal agent) are limited to domestic usage only...not even APO or FPO.
They are used during the interim periods when postal rates increase, and there
are insufficient stocks of the new stamps available.  Non-denominational 
stamps are printed up well in advance, and they merely assign a price to them
at the time they are made available to the public in lieu of the "new" stamps
of higher prices.  (I suppose they could also be used in the event of a postal
rate DECREASE, but view it unlikely...)

Sheri

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 10 Aug 88 18:42:09 EDT
From: John Roberts <roberts@cmr.icst.nbs.gov>
Subject: Re: skintight suits



It seems to me that while there has been much discussion of the concept
of the skintight spacesuit, several items of information have been left out
that could be very important to the ultimate usefulness of the design.

* Kevin Ryan summarizes an article by Jerry Pournelle, based on NASA Report
  CR-1892, describing tests of the suit. It is stated that the pressure is
  maintained at 170mm Hg for the central part of the body (matching the
  pressure of the breathing air), dropping to 100-120mm at the extremities,
  the difference being maintained by a gasket. This could be interpreted to
  mean that gas is normally present between the extremities and the fabric
  of the suit at this pressure, but I interpret it to mean that this is the
  pressure exerted by the fabric against the skin, with vacuum outside the
  skin. There is a considerable difference between the implications of
  these two interpretations. The fabric can support the skin overall, but
  not on a microscopic basis. At the microscopic level, the skin, rather than
  being a continuous sheet of dead tissue, is full of pores, and the pores
  contain important living, wet cells exposed to the outside pressure. At
  body temperature, the partial pressure of water is ~50mm, meaning that if
  the ambient pressure falls below this point, rapid boiling of water at and
  for a short distance below the surface will begin. It seems highly unlikely
  that these living cells could be directly exposed to vacuum without a
  considerable number being killed.

* Henry Spencer states that the suit has been tested and it works. The 
  problem lies in the interpretation of the word "works". The loosest 
  interpretation is that "the test subject, exposed to these conditions
  for an unspecified period of time, did not split open and gush blood,
  and survived the experiment without any observed permanent damage".
  I would like to know about the results of long-term exposure, which I
  suspect would at least cause the skin to become dry and brittle, and
  might kill the hair follicles, oil and sweat glands. It would be very
  inconvenient to use the suit six hours a day for three weeks and then
  have your skin fall off.

* Paul Deitz describes gloves designed with holes to expose the skin to 
  vacuum. However, the gloves were tested only in a *partial* vacuum,
  which for the reasons stated above I do not feel to be a valid test
  of performance in absolute vacuum. The overall structural integrity
  and pressure differential effects may be the same, but the small-scale
  effects of water loss and damage from boiling and evaporative cooling
  will be different. Was the skintight suit tested in full or partial
  vacuum?

* Dale Amon speculates that the inhabitants of a space station might want
  to wear skintight suits all the time as a safety precaution. However,
  when the suit is worn with ambient atmospheric pressure, the ambient
  pressure and the elastic pressure of the suit are *added*. Assuming
  something can be done to alleviate breathing difficulties, the problem
  remains that the the pressure exerted on the extremities is comparable
  to the systolic blood pressure. Since this is the technique used in a
  blood pressure test to cut off the flow of blood to a limb entirely,
  I consider it very likely that the suit worn indoors would significantly
  interfere with the normal functioning of the circulatory system. This
  might or might not be a problem for a person "suiting up" to go outside,
  but I doubt that it would be a good idea for these suits to be worn all
  the time indoors. (What is the "tightness" of the Soviet indoor suits?)

If any of these arguments are invalid, I would particularly apreciate a 
reply from someone who has had access to the original documents. (Note:
I may have misunderstood the description of the skintight suit, or the
description may have been overgeneralized.)

                                         John Roberts
                                         roberts@cmr.icst.nbs.gov

------------------------------

Date: 10 Aug 88 19:44:01 GMT
From: concertina!fiddler@sun.com  (Steve Hix)
Subject: Re: Satellites

In article <1049@cfa237.cfa250.harvard.edu>, mcdowell@cfa250.harvard.edu (Jonathan McDowell) writes:
> From article <62689@sun.uucp>, by fiddler%concertina@Sun.COM (Steve Hix):
> [ satellite list amended to add other ones I can remember...]
> 
> : Voyager 1	9/5/77   US	(likely solar system escapee) 
> [Likely? What's going to stop it.. the famous Great Galactic Ghoul?]

Maybe it'll run into a rock?   Something similar happened to at
least one deepspace probe a while ago.

------------------------------

Date: 10 Aug 88 18:54:37 GMT
From: amdahl!drivax!macleod@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (MacLeod)
Subject: Exploitation/Exploration of Seabed, Space

fbaube@NOTE.NSF.GOV (Fred Baube) writes:

:There's not really anything fundamentally wrong or evil about the
:economic development/exploitation regime established by the Law
:of the Sea Treaty ("UNCLOS 3").  And because the legal statuses
:of the Antarctic and outer space are much less well-defined,
:similar criticism about either is premature.

Presumably rational men can disagree about this.  I think it sets
a poisonous precedent.

:UNCLOS 3 does not tell private interests they are forbidden to
:exploit the seabed. It's mainly the legalistic aspects of UNCLOS
:3 as a treaty instrument that have kept the US from ratifying it;
:among other things, it seems to leave signatories vulnerable to
:an open-ended amendment process.  This hasn't stopped the US from
:taking advantage of transit rights codified by the treaty, but it
:*has* inhibited private parties from leaping into the legal limbo
:of seabed development. It's not a big problem for the US and the
:OECD, because placer deposits and crusts that fall within the US
:EEZ are turning out to be much better economic bets than seabed
:nodules, and the Soviet Union and South Africa have not (yet)
:moved to exploit OECD import vulnerability in manganese, cobalt,
:or any other metal found in marine deposits. Check OTA reports
:for details.

I don't doubt that the US government is pursuing some kind of
cynical, expedient course of action.

:Roughly speaking, an entity (such as a US company) wishing to
:develop a seabed tract is to give its survey results, and a list
:of pairs of tracts, to the "International Seabed Authority"
:(ISA), which gets its choice of the better of each pair of
:tracts, and use on its tract (the ISA's) of the same technology
:available to the company on its (the company's) tract.   The
:notion is REJECTED that a monopoly on economical technology shall
:imply a monopoly on exploitation of the "common heritage".  How
:*else* can the ISA be expected to exploit a plot and develop a
:distributable surplus value ?  

Why must those who develope the technology share it with others?
How else indeed?  Like any other "mixed economy" proposition, the 
developed countries gain nothing from the situation, except a 
fragile guarantee that the third-world savages won't club them
to death for mining the sea. 

:The US objects to the treaty's
:tech transfer provisions, but they are objections to the specific
:implementation set forth in the treaty, and not to the principle
:involved.

To the USA's shame, if true.

:UNCLOS 3's seabed provisions are not absolute prohibitions on
:development or developers, they're novel (and as yet untried)
:mechanisms 

Try "protection racket".

:to try to ensure that everyone (in the UN) gets a
:piece of the pie.  A company is not denied the fruits of its
:developmental abilities, it is denied absolute property rights.

You can say that again.

:Property rights and developmental rights are a creature of gov-
:ernment, and there's no government in the seabed, or Antarctica,
:or space, just the UN.

I disagree strongly that property rights are governmental creations.

:Unilateral assertion of US interests
:outside of a treaty framework would invite, even *mandate*,
:corresponding acts by other nations, ensuring a mess.  
:
:Presumably, if Capitalist Company "A" can profitably develop a
:tract, then so can Multi-National "ISA", if it has access to
:comparable technology, and a modicum of managerial competence.
:This should then preclude unilateral exploitation.

Is "unilateral exploitation" an evil to be countered in and of itself?

:If Outer Space is asserted to be the "common heritage of man-
:kind", that is not in principle excluding its exploitation, or
:locking out entrepeneurs.  It's asserting a principle that
:although private initiative may be [is] a motivational force for
:development, perhaps the heavens are not best left solely to the
:technological "Haves", i.e. the likes of Union Carbide and
:Occidental Petroleum.  

It does make them subservient to States or a World MegaState, both
of which are objectionable.

:It also leaves an opening for *multi-
:lateral* regulation of environmental issues, so that we don't end
:up with something like Heinlein wrote about in "The Man Who Sold
:the Moon", where rockets lay carbon trails on the lunar surface
:to create a giant soft drink logo.  Or nuclear contamination of
:Mars.

Yes, we're much more likely to end up with a Sierra-club like
approach which spends large sums to >prevent< anybody from using
resources.  This placates the perceptions of a small group of
elitists.

:Horatio Alger is a story for kids, not a useful model for
:extending "progress" into space.  Armchair libertarian entre-
:peneurs should not be concerned that they will not be able to
:exploit exploit exploit. 

Your contempt for the free market was quite clear without this
particular dig.  Apparently the matter is settled in your own mind.

:What they *should* be concerned about
:is that on the high seas, flagless ships are strictly verboten,
:and any country can board a flagless ship.  If you want to set up
:your own operation at L1 or L2 or the Asteroid Belt, you'll be
:able to build it, but if current customary practice holds, you'll
:have to submit to some nation's jurisdiction.  The US is the
:enemy here; we've been vigorously enforcing the UNCLOS 3 provi-
:sion that a ship under Slobovian registry must have a "genuine
:link" to Slobovia, clamping down on "flags of convenience". Fur-
:ther, at least in the case of the Sarah (Radio New York Inter-
:national), we boarded the ship, and later lied about asking the
:permission of the flag state (I have this from an authoritative
:source).  Not a pretty precedent.

You're god-dammed right I'm concerned about it, and it's part of
the same disease. 

In the killing fields of Southeast Asia, the streets of Lebanon,
the mountains of Armenia, and (until recently) the Fertile
Crescent, the armies of the States clash and war and send their
children to die for a scrap of colored cloth.  They rob and
torture their own "citizens" and if the proles complain they are
called immoral for not sacrificing all to the State.  There are
countries for Jews and Palestinians and even black racists, but
there is no home for anarchists.  There is not one postage-stamp
sized piece of land anywhere not claimed by a government or by
some hypothetized UN mandate forbidding >any ownership at all<.

I have blasted and flamed a lot of posters in talk.politics.misc
about political events in the here and now.  But that is nothing 
compared to my feelings about the socialization of space.  The
battle for freedom is over on Earth, in my opinion; posters like
the one here have become entrenched in the moral high ground, and
everywhere socialist premises are so embalmed into political
thought that they are never questioned but are as accepted as the
laws of thermodynamics.

>IF< space exploration and commercial exploitation do reach a 
certain technological level - FTL travel being a good example -
then the frontiers should be wide enough to make repression and
tyranny difficult.  I'm worried about the fragility of the current
scene and the near future.

:If you think that "common heritage of mankind" is some sort 
:of romantic tripe, or Third-World blathering, or One-World
:Commie-nism, so be it.

More like something out of _Atlas Shrugged_, if you ask me.

Michael Sloan MacLeod   (amdahl!drivax!macleod)

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #330
*******************

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Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #331

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 331

Today's Topics:
	 Adam Smith's Money World: The Privatization of Space
	     AW&ST Recommends Scrapping the Space Station
		     space news from July 4 AW&ST
		    space news from July 11 AW&ST
		    space news from July 18 AW&ST
		    space news from July 25 AW&ST
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 11 Aug 88 14:00:49 GMT
From: att!mtuxo!tee@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (54317-T.EBERSOLE)
Subject: Adam Smith's Money World: The Privatization of Space

A local PBS station (WNET - Channel 13 out of Newark, NJ) carried
this Adam Smith show on Monday, 8/8/88. I taped it but haven't had
time to review it yet. I thought I would post this to let others have
a chance to watch any rebroadcast your local PBS stations may have. If
anything interesting was said, I'll post a summary of the show, unless
someone else does that first.

-- 
Tim Ebersole ...!{allegra,ulysses,ihnp4,mtune,...}!mtuxo!tee

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 11 Aug 88 23:21:56 EDT
From: dietz@gvax.cs.cornell.edu (Paul F. Dietz)
Subject: AW&ST Recommends Scrapping the Space Station

The editorial in the 8/8 issue of Aviation Week is titled "Space Station
Realities".  The one sentence summary:

"The current space station program is headed for serious trouble and should
be killed or heavily modified."

The editorial explains the problems with the program.  Nearly five years
after inception, it is still a management exercise.  User support is
inadequate, the most vigorous supporters being NASA management and
contractors.  Costs are too high.  Congress will not fund $3-4 billion
annual budgets.  The shuttle is inadequate to assemble the station.
  
The suggested alternative is a smaller scale, incremental approach.
Shuttle-C is used to launch a manned core.  Built from Spacelab or
ISF modules, this would take 2 - 3 launches.  Science would be
moved to co-orbiting man-tended platforms, which would be grouped
by discipline and brought on line gradually.  Microgravity research
would be done on privately funded platforms.  The manned core would
be in space by 1995.

This is similar to what Henry Spencer was recommending months ago.
I like it a lot more than the current space station design.  I really
like the development of a heavy lift vehicle, even (especially?) an
evolutionary step like Shuttle-C.

Paul F. Dietz
dietz@gvax.cs.cornell.edu

------------------------------

Date: 15 Aug 88 02:10:47 GMT
From: attcan!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from July 4 AW&ST

Editorial complimenting NASA on Pioneer 10, and observing that P10 shows
that the aerospace industry once could build reliable, sophisticated
systems which performed well at low cost.

NASA delays decision on a space station crew rescue vehicle to late summer.

Space Science Board of National Academy of Sciences calls for giving science,
especially unmanned science, higher priority in NASA.

Disassembly of SRB short-duration test rig shows joints behave well even
with multiple deliberate flaws.

Shuttle launch date continues to slip, as repeated small problems bump up
against the lack of contingency time in schedules.  Rollout set for 0001
on July 4.  Rollouts are done in the early morning because that is when
KSC's volatile weather is least likely to produce lightning -- the pad
and the VAB both have heavy lightning protection, but since the shuttle
(unlike the Saturns) has no tower riding with it on the launch platform,
it is vulnerable while in transit.

NASA is looking at using pre-Challenger SRBs on unmanned shuttle missions,
given the impending oxidizer shortage and the substantial stockpile of old
SRB segments.

DoT issues combined launch manifest for US commercial expendables over the
next few years.  Most customers are governments and international
organizations; there are *no* US commercial customers for US commercial
launches at this time.  DoT Sec. Burnley says he thinks the oxidizer
shortage will not delay commercial schedules, and that the desire for
diversity of US launchers makes commercial launches a national-security
issue.  List of the customers, 18 payloads.

NASA Lewis is proposing Coldsat, an experimental satellite to test
storage and transfer of cryogenic propellants in orbit, as part of the
Pathfinder technology effort.

Final preparations at Baikonur for the Phobos launches.  [Successful.]

The oxidizer shortage is looking bad.  The Hubble telescope may be delayed.
The 10 shuttle payloads scheduled for this year and next year cannot
possibly all fly; a shortfall of three missions is likely.  Magellan and
Galileo will be protected.  At risk of schedule slip are the Hubble
telescope, the Astro ultraviolet astronomy mission, the fourth TDRS,
and the LDEF retrieval.  Postponing Hubble would be very unpopular, and
there is some sentiment that if it slips, TDRS should slip too since
the telescope is its biggest customer.  LDEF retrieval cannot be allowed
to slip too far, but there is some slack.  The astronomers would like to
see Astro up in time for supernova observations, but most everyone agrees
that Hubble is higher priority.  Discussion of various options.  [The
one I'd put a small bet on is modest slips in LDEF and one of the DoD
missions, and a long slip in Astro; NASA doesn't want the fuss that
would result from postponing Hubble.]

Morton Thiokol and NASA agree to guarantee loans for rebuilding
Pacific Engineering's oxidizer plant.

SDI will launch two long-duration missions early next year, the Relay
Mirror Experiment to demonstrate using a space mirror to relay laser
beams, and the Laser Atmospheric Compensation Experiment to test
techniques to compensate ground-based lasers for atmospheric distortion.

Letter from Larry Evans observing that Pegasus has some resemblance to
an early-60s proposal to use a B-52 and an X-15 to carry a small rocket
that could put small payloads, say 100 lbs, into low orbit.  Total
program cost was estimated at $850k, and of course the B-52 and X-15
were fully reusable.
-- 
Intel CPUs are not defective,  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
they just act that way.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 16 Aug 88 04:04:06 GMT
From: clyde!watmath!water!utgpu!utzoo!henry@bellcore.com  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from July 11 AW&ST

Editorial lauding Discovery rollout, while cautioning that recent experience
proves that NASA cannot possibly keep three or four orbiters on the go with
current manpower levels.

Japan will slip launch of CS-3B comsat at least a month and possibly several,
until an antenna-control problem that crippled CS-3A shortly after launch
(Feb) is understood and fixed.

NASA is studying an internal proposal to launch Columbia unmanned next year
using old SRBs.  It would carry one of the DoD satellites scheduled for an
early mission.  Some modifications would probably be needed, notably a
braking chute to assist landing.  JSC is opposed to the idea because of
the orbiter modifications; Marshall is in favor.  The problem is that NASA
has about 13 pre-Challenger SRBs left, containing about 11 million pounds
of oxidizer that cannot be recovered, and the oxidizer shortage is looking
worse and worse.  There are several schemes for minor mods to the old SRBs
to increase reliability.  Unmanned shuttle flights have been considered
before, and generally rejected due to risks and lack of need.  The proposal
is just an idea as yet.  An alternative would be to buy more expendables
and shift payloads to them, since they use less ammonium perchlorate, but
NASA does not have the money for that.

Phobos 1 launched from Baikonur on Proton July 7.  [Phobos 2 likewise, on
the 12th.]  Mars arrival early next year.

SDI has dropped financial support for space-based radar, due to budget
problems.  USAF is expected to continue it, though.

Senate Democrat staff study finds that early deployment of SDI is hopeless
because the launch capacity is not there.  Earliest full operational date
for ALS is about the year 2000.  There is also a great deal of skepticism
about whether ALS can really achieve its goal of a factor of 10 reduction
in launch costs, and some doubt about whether it is really wise to pack
many small payloads together into one launch.

[I've skipped a lot of stuff about the July 4 shuttle rollout which is old
news now.  This was otherwise a light issue for space news.]
-- 
Intel CPUs are not defective,  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
they just act that way.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 17 Aug 88 02:38:29 GMT
From: att!chinet!mcdchg!clyde!watmath!water!utgpu!utzoo!henry@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from July 18 AW&ST

Cover photo is the Phobos 1 launch at Baikonur... photo taken by Aviation
Week photographer as part of the Western press contingent watching the
launch.

Editorial commenting that IKI (the Soviet Space Research Center in Moscow)
is becoming a common meeting place for planetary scientists.

Roald Sagdeev, IKI director, says Proton and Energia [!] will compete for
the launch of the 1994 Mars probes.  [I don't need to say "Soviet Mars
probes", do I now?]

Japanese space contractors plan to form a new company to coordinate bulk
orders for parts for the H-2 launcher.

Orbital debris problem gets worse:  NASA quotes odds of 1 in 30 for a
minor collision on any random shuttle mission.

Space station funding situation continues to look ominous.

Lengthy coverage of the Western press visit to Baikonur, highlighted by
the Phobos 1 launch on July 7.  They saw the Proton integration hall,
with Phobos 2 on top of its Proton ready for rollout.  Markings on the
Proton included names and logos of Danieli and Voest-Alpine, two European
(Italy and Austria respectively) steel-factory-equipment companies which
had paid to be "sponsors" of the Proton.  Both have been supplying steel
factories and related equipment to the Soviets for quite a while and
thought it was a "nice gesture"; "we didn't pay an astronomical price".
Neither company has any particular connection with aerospace.

AW&ST was struck by how nonchalant the Baikonur staff were about the whole
thing; it was just routine for them.  AW&ST was particularly surprised that
there were no cables or pipes running from the fairing covering Phobos 2 to
support equipment, that there was no effort to keep visitors away from the
vehicle, and that the doors were open and a table of refreshments was
set up nearby.  Ivan Ermolin Petrovich (deputy director of Proton
integration), after some delay in figuring out what they were confused
about, said:  "Of course the spacecraft normally is hooked up to ground
support equipment and we maintain a constant temperature under the
fairing.  But to give you a better look at the whole launcher, we
decided to switch off the systems and pull out the plugs."

Sagdeev is resigning as head of IKI later this year; he has been in charge
there for 15 years.  He has not said exactly why he is resigning, but he
is known to feel (and to have formally recommended) that 15 years is too
long for one man to lead the institute, and that in future two five-year
terms should be the maximum.

Spectators at the Phobos 1 launch included a USAF delegation headed by
Aldridge (Sec of the AF).

The Soviets have fixed 1994 as launch year for their next big Mars effort.
1992 was felt not to allow enough time for planning and hardware design.
Proposals have been made for using Energia in 1994 and thenceforth.  This
would permit a heavy payload including a large rover in 1994, a sample
return mission in 2000-2005, and a manned mission in 2005-2010.  Using
Proton would require less ambitious missions, of course.  One idea is to
use Proton-compatible mission modules that could be launched several at
a time by Energia if the switch does get made.  The Soviets see 1994 as
a tight schedule for a rover mission, and want to see experiment ideas
from international partners at once and to start making decisions about
them by year-end.

[The contrast between this and the world's other soi-disant "space programs"
is just getting worse and worse.  Better start learning Russian.  :-(  ]

Final full-scale SRB test slips a month after Morton Thiokol employee
damages a field joint during leak testing.  The motor is being partly
dismantled to assess the damage, which resulted when a 1000-psi leak-test
pressure line was connected to a port meant for only 100 psi.  Aug 20
is now the earliest date for the test; it must precede STS-26 by ten days
or so to permit detailed analysis, but that's not looking like a big
schedule problem unless the test slips further.

India's ASLV launcher goes into the drink on its second launch (the first
was also a failure).  ASLV is the older SLV (which successfully launched
three small satellites) plus strap-ons.  India was hoping to have a rather
bigger launcher, the PSLV, in service by the mid-90s, and ASLV's main job
is to be a development vehicle for PSLV.  PSLV's schedule will slip.

USAF is working on a "phasar" concept to use multiple telescopes in
precise alignment to get the effect of bigger apertures.  There is
interest in both receiving light (for better spysats) and transmitting
it (for guess what).

The USAF optics lab is also working on mirror coatings that are tough
enough that the mirrors could be cleaned by just blasting contaminants
off with a small laser.  They think it is not practical to put really
big telescopes into orbit without getting them dirty, so one has to be
able to clean them afterward.

[Finally, from Flight International 16 July]

The once-elite USAF manned spaceflight engineer corps, which was going
to be the Air Force's space crew for military shuttle flights, has been
effectively disbanded.  NASA has consistently opposed having USAF crewmen
taking crucial roles in shuttle activities, especially EVAs.  With the
USAF's reduced interest in the shuttle, NASA is winning this one.
-- 
Intel CPUs are not defective,  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
they just act that way.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 18 Aug 88 02:39:58 GMT
From: clyde!watmath!water!utgpu!utzoo!henry@bellcore.com  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from July 25 AW&ST

Rep. Gerald Solomon introduces House bill to bar US companies from
entering into commercial ventures using Mir or Soviet launchers.

NASA asks companies interested in using shuttle external tanks to say
so before September, including details of plans and financial qualifications.
Parking tanks in orbit for future use has been specifically rejected.

Congress orders major shift in SDI priorities by cutting funding for the
Space-Based Interceptor 75% and boosting funds for ground-based systems.

Fit hits shan before flight readiness firing:  small nitrogen tetroxide
leak in Discovery's left OMS pod.  NASA decides to postpone worrying about
it, since the problem is under control, until after the FRF.  It will not
affect the FRF.  A decision will be made after the FRF to (a) fly the
mission without fixing the leak, (b) do minor surgery on the OMS pod to
do a repair, or (c) roll the shuttle back to the VAB, unstack it, and
either repair the pod or replace it with a pod from Atlantis.  Flying
the mission without a fix should be possible but is politically very
unlikely; the leak is fairly harmless, but it is just possible that
nitric acid, formed when the nitrogen tetroxide reacts with water (e.g.
humid air), might perhaps drip down and damage the nylon threads that hold
insulation blankets in position within the pod.  On-pad surgery is
tricky, because the innards of the OMS pod are basically inaccessible
on the pad and technicians would have to cut a couple of holes in the
pod's tiles and structure.  Rollback is the conservative thing to do,
but that would slip the launch to early October at the earliest.  The
problem is that the leaking seal is buried in a mass of plumbing and
components, and the OMS pod cannot be removed on the pad because the
pad service masts are in the way.

China prepares for Aug 5 Long March launch with a West German piggyback
payload, a protein crystal-growth experiment.  German technicians
installed the hardware in the Chinese capsule in June, and German
representatives will watch the launch.  A second German payload is
booked for next year.

Spacehab completes joint marketing agreement with 3M, and is starting
to bend metal on its first flight hardware.

Dukakis speaks on space.  The verdict is mixed.  He is against SDI, the
Aerospace Plane, and Asat projects.  He is in favor of *a* space station
but has major reservations about *NASA's* space station, saying that 
there are cheaper alternatives that could be operating much sooner.
[It's hard to argue with that!]  He would negotiate an Asat ban with
the Soviets, which would cover lasers and electronic interference too.
Another agreement would establish "keep out" zones near military
spacecraft to reduce the danger of attack on satellites.  He would
limit military manned spaceflight.  He has a low opinion of NASA's
management [it's hard to argue with *that* either!] and thinks better
people can be, and should be, found.  He wants a space policy that
will improve US competitiveness and encourage commercial spaceflight
and provide stability for space science.  He supports resumption of
shuttle flight, building the Challenger replacement, and diversification
of the launch fleet (possibly including new expendables).  Finally,
he gives the predictable nod towards international cooperation.

Ariane carries Insat 1C (Indian comsat) and Eutelsat ECS-5 (European
comsat) into orbit from Kourou July 21.

Reagan names space station "Freedom".  [Whee.]

More on the press visit to Baikonur.  Energia and its payload -- the Soviet
shuttle -- will be launched "when we're ready".  The first shuttle mission
will be unmanned.  Neither Energia nor the shuttle was visible, although
the launch pads were.  AW&ST was quite surprised that the Soviets let them
photograph anything they wanted.  Assembly of Proton is very simple:  the
first-stage core is installed in a stand and is rotated to allow the engine
fairings to be installed one at a time.  The stage is tested and then the
upper stages are added.  This is all done horizontally, with erection to
launch position done at the pad.  The assembly hall is not a clean-room
facility, although the Soviets say that one reason this is not needed is
that the major assemblies are shipped in as sealed units.  The press also
visited the Soyuz integration hall, where Progress 37 was awaiting final
assembly; this wasn't a clean room either.

Soviet marketing efforts shift to microgravity services, since they're not
having much luck selling Proton launches.  They hope to sign two or three
more payloads for recoverable capsules or Mir by the end of the year.  CNES,
the French space agency, has booked a 30 kg payload on a recoverable capsule
early next year.  Microgravity involves fewer technology-transfer worries
than major satellites, and there is less competition.  The Soviets are
pushing their Cyclone launcher for this work; of particular note is that
its payload can be installed as little as 5 hours before launch.  Cyclone's
erection and launch are highly automated, with very simple ground procedures,
and the Soviets say it would be feasible to install a Cyclone launcher "in
other locations to meet customer requirements".

Austria is negotiating with Glavcosmos to fly an Austrian cosmonaut to Mir.

Final preparations have started for French cosmonaut Jean-Loup Chretien's
November flight to Mir, which will last about a month.

Geostar has started space operations with 500 mobile user units.  Geostar
will break even this year and be in the black next year, if all goes as
planned.  Geostar has ordered a third dedicated satellite.  Incorporation
of its European counterpart, Locstar, is imminent.  Geostar is talking to
China about putting Geostar-type payloads on Chinese comsats, although
technology transfer will be an issue here.  Geostar currently has only one
payload in orbit, piggyback on GStar 2, and will not be able to use
satellite triangulation until GStar 3, with another piggyback Geostar
payload, goes up in September.  At the moment, Geostar ground units use
Loran receivers for position determination and use the Geostar hardware
only to radio back the results.  Loran is good to about 1 km, whereas
Geostar triangulation will be good to about 50m.  Geostar has stopped
work on its third piggyback package, meant for GStar 4, in favor of
getting its own dedicated satellites into orbit; they are scheduled for
shuttle launches in 1992.  (Geostar was exempted from the ban on
commercial shuttle payloads because of federal interest in the system
[a flimsy excuse if I ever heard one...])  Current Geostar cash customers
are mostly trucking companies, with aviation and maritime users (including
the Coast Guard) still evaluating it.

Geostar subsidiary applies to FCC for permission to launch a digital land
mobile comsat system in the early 1990s.  Opposition is expected from the
existing consortium that has an FCC-granted monopoly on voice land-mobile
comsat operations.  Geostar says the monopoly was because of limited
bandwidth, but the ITU has opened international maritime spectrum allocations
for sharing with land-mobile services, *on condition* that only digital
technology be used, and this new allocation is what Geostar wants to use.
It is not clear when the FCC will start formal proceedings on all this.
-- 
Intel CPUs are not defective,  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
they just act that way.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #331
*******************

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Date: Sun, 21 Aug 88 01:05:31 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8808210805.AA07176@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #332

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 332

Today's Topics:
		    Re: 95% vs. 99.9% reliability
		      exotic propulsion methods
	   Re: SETI (was Re: Time dilation affecting SETI)
		     death of Anatoly Lewtschenko
			       Re: SETI
		       Re: SPACE Digest V8 #320
		    Re: 95% vs. 99.9% reliability
		    Re: 95% vs. 99.9% reliability
		    Re: 95% vs. 99.9% reliability
	     Re: Most distant galaxy detected (Forwarded)
	      Re: Re: ET phone home? (SETI)   RESPONSES
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 10 Aug 88 20:58:31 GMT
From: jpl-devvax!lwall@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov  (Larry Wall)
Subject: Re: 95% vs. 99.9% reliability

In article <1988Aug9.205520.5911@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
: In article <646@a.lanl.gov> jkw@a.lanl.gov (Jay Wooten) writes:
: >You can bet the Soviets would have hardly missed a beat in sending up
: >another one (something they've proved several times in the past).
: 
: As somebody wrote in Aviation Week a few months afterward (roughly, from
: memory):  "If the same thing had happened to the Soviets, they would have
: swept the debris off the launch pad, hoisted the next launcher onto the
: pad, and started the countdown.  Anyone who objected would have been told
: where to go, or sent there."

You guys are comparing Apples and Orchids.

The Soviets aren't hazarding a gigabuck each time they launch.

I think they must study different economics textbooks than we do.    :-)

Larry Wall
lwall@jpl-devvax.jpl.nasa.gov

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 10 Aug 88 20:37:01 EDT
From: John Roberts <roberts@cmr.icst.nbs.gov>
Subject: exotic propulsion methods



>From: kistler%Iowa.Iowa@romeo.caltech.edu (Allen C. Kistler)

>>From: b.gp.cs.cmu.edu!ralf@pt.cs.cmu.edu  (Ralf Brown)
>>In article <506@etive.ed.ac.uk> bob@etive.ed.ac.uk (B Gray) writes:
>>}TSS-1 will deploy a satellite at the end of a 20km conducting
>>}wire with an insulating coating, upwards from the shuttle....

>In _Journal_of_Geophysical_Research_, vol. 70, p.p. 3131-3145, (1 July 1965)
>...
>The neat thing is that if you apply a big enough
>voltage of your own across the satellite to MAKE the current go the OTHER way,
>then you get a little bit of boost out of it, rather than drag.  This will
>never be more than 50% efficient since you'll still be sending some of the
>energy away as plasma waves.  I don't know of any satellites that have ever
>actually used this method propulsion, so it may not be an especially practical
>method.  Anyone else?

If it works as described, the <50% efficiency is no problem, and it could be
a useful method. In low Earth orbit, energy is available in large quantities
via solar cells, but reaction mass is hard to come by. It sounds as though
none of the mass of the craft is used (unless the wire is evaporating).

                                  John Roberts
                                  roberts@cmr.icst.nbs.gov

------------------------------

Date: 10 Aug 88 22:14:29 GMT
From: thumper!karn@faline.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: SETI (was Re: Time dilation affecting SETI)

> Does anyone have a proof
> that all encrypted messages that can be statistically distinguished 
> from noise?

The reverse is instead true. Randomness is an important concept in
cryptography. It is easy to show that "apparent" randomness (to the
eavesdropper) is an essential feature of any good cipher system.

A few "random" comments on SETI:

The important issue with regards to frequency selection for SETI, which
hasn't really been discussed here fully yet, is the dependence of the
background noise level on frequency. The combined effects of galactic
synchrotron radiation, absorption by the interstellar medium, quantum
effects and the like are such that the optimum frequency window for
interstellar communication within our galaxy is between 1 and 10
gigahertz. Any other intelligent civilizations within our galaxy
studying the same problem would almost certainly come to the same
conclusions.

There is nothing particularly magic about the "water hole" band used for
the initial SETI experiments. It was picked more or less whimsically,
probably with intent to fire up people's imaginations, but also because
it was as good a place as any to start. A *true* SETI search would cover
far more spectrum than the water hole, but unfortunately large parts of
it are already in use by humans.

The conventional wisdom in SETI has long been to search for coherent
signals, like carriers.  Yes, civilizations could be using more complex
signals (e.g., spread spectrum) but even for simple signals, the search
space (direction, bandwidth, frequency, signal level) is enormous. This
point merits emphasis: SETI has only just begun, and all of the searches
to date have only barely scratched the surface of the search space, even
if only simple coherent signals are considered. I think we should rule
out the simple cases before spending much effort on the more complex
possibilities.

The comment about TV transmitters being the most conspicuous evidence of
life on earth is true. But this applies only to detecting a TV signal,
not demodulating it. Much of the power in a TV transmission is in the
narrowband carrier, and this is far easier to detect than the sidebands
that are spread out over several megahertz.

Also making the earth extremely "bright" at radio frequencies are the
various deep space tracking radars. These are probably not as effective
as TV transmitters because they aren't as numerous, don't operate full
time and are inherently broadband (they don't put most of their energy
into a single, coherent, narrowband carrier).

Phil

------------------------------

Date: 10 Aug 88 08:38:49 GMT
From: mcvax!unido!ecrcvax!bruno@uunet.uu.net  (Bruno Poterie)
Subject: death of Anatoly Lewtschenko

The soviet cosmonaut Anatoly Lewtschenko died last Saturday, 
of a "big desease" (no more precision). He came back from Mir
on 29th of December 87, together with Romanenko (326 days stay)
and Alexandrow, few days also after starting his planned stay.

It is not sure that this is to relate directly to weightless,
or to the starting chock, or if this could have arrived after
i.e. a routine fly on a jet. The list of space victims is getting
longer by one, but let's hope that studying the reasons will
help shorten it for the future.

------------------------------

Date: 10 Aug 88 19:12:18 GMT
From: vrdxhq!daitc!csed-1!zweig@umd5.umd.edu  (Jonathan Zweig)
Subject: Re: SETI

Isn't it pretty ridiculous to envision a species that is (a) nasty enough
to want to exploit other civilizations, (b) has the capability for
interstellar travel and the weaponry to actually get away with it and (c)
can't sniff out intelligent life forms unless they are broadcasting?

Come off it! If we want to shield our planet from obeservation, fine -- I
think there is just about enough conducting material in the solar system to
build a pretty nice faraday cage around the earth -- oops! We have to put
it in place without using radio communications so the BGM (Big Green Men)
don't come and zap us.

Sheesh. I thought a pretty sensible assumption with SETI is that it simply
isn't feasible for *any* of the parties involved to travel (else they would
be here now, etc. etc.) and that's why we use gigawatt radio beacons. I'll
take my chances -- who knows, maybe if we make enough noise the Galactic
Police would come to investigate at the same time as the Space Pirates come
to get us. ;-)

Johnny Z

------------------------------

Sender: "chaz_heritage.WGC1RX"@xerox.com
Date: 11 Aug 88 02:34:39 PDT (Thursday)
Subject: Re: SPACE Digest V8 #320
From: "chaz_heritage.WGC1RX"@xerox.com

In his 3 Aug 88 02:14:51 GMT Jay Maynard writes:

>Main power on the space station is specified as 220 VAC at 20 kHz.

This, of course, makes power supplies efficient (since, in essence,
they're giving you the front half of a switching power supply), but can
indeed generate AC across a lithium battery in the manner described.<

I stand corrected. 

The explosions were held to be due to blocking diode failures. Perhaps those in
charge of such things will ensure that circuitry rated for the Space Station is
designed to preclude any possibility of diode failure causing application of
high-frequency AC to lithium cells.

Then again, perhaps they won't.

Regards,

Chaz

------------------------------

Date: 11 Aug 88 13:33:25 GMT
From: jumbo!stolfi@decwrl.dec.com  (Jorge Stolfi)
Subject: Re: 95% vs. 99.9% reliability

Keith Rogers wrote:
>   
>   Sure the O ring thing had to be fixed, but did it have to kill
>   the entire U.S.  space program in the meantime?  

Jay Wooten wrote:
>   
>   You can bet the Soviets would have hardly missed a beat in
>   sending up another one (something they've proved several times
>   in the past).  

When, precisely?

In April 67, while the Moon race was heating up, Soyuz 1 crashed and
the the Russians lost their first cosmonaut (Komarov).  A full eighteen
months elapsed before their next manned launch.  This delay was only
three months less than the US delay after the Apollo fire.  

There was another long hiatus in Russian manned launches after three
cosmonauts died in the reentry of Soyuz 11 (June 1971).  

Those gaps may have been due to other causes, but the point is that
there is no obvious evidence that the Russians are or were less
bothered than the US by fatal accidents in their manned space program.  

Besides, a 2.5 year gap in the US manned space program is nothing
compared to the 10 year hole in the unmanned planetary exploration
program...

                Jorge Stolfi @ DEC Systems Research Center
                stolfi@src.dec.com, ...!decwrl!stolfi

    
    The hazards involved were greatly increased by the notorious
    nonchalance of American cannoneers; during the civil war, they had
    actually loaded their guns with cigars in their mouths.  
        --Verne, _From the Earth to the Moon_ (1865)

DISCLAIMER: The above opinions are not the sort of stuff my employer,
my teachers, my friends, or my mother would like to be associated with.

------------------------------

Date: 11 Aug 88 02:00:38 GMT
From: bsu-cs!davodd@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu  (Brad Majors)
Subject: Re: 95% vs. 99.9% reliability

In article <1704@eneevax.UUCP>, kerog@eneevax.UUCP 
> >a certain temperature, they should have continued launching >above that
> >temperature<, while working on a better engineering solution. 
> 
> 
> 	I couldn't agree more.  This has been my attitude ever since the
> Challenger disaster.  I just don't see
                        ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

FLAME ON *******

Impatience caused the Challenger to explode.

FLAME OFF***********


The Improved O rings are just one of many features that were changed 
on the shuttle. Don't you keep up on your readings?  Many faulty parts
were found in the investigation sparked by the challenger tragety.

------------------------------

Date: 11 Aug 88 17:48:29 GMT
From: eugene@eos.arc.nasa.gov  (Eugene Miya)
Subject: Re: 95% vs. 99.9% reliability

In article <1988Aug9.205520.5911@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>In article <646@a.lanl.gov> jkw@a.lanl.gov (Jay Wooten) writes:
>>You can bet the Soviets would have hardly missed a beat in sending up
>>another one (something they've proved several times in the past).
>
>As somebody wrote in Aviation Week a few months afterward (roughly, from
>memory):  "If the same thing had happened to the Soviets, they would have
>swept the debris off the launch pad, hoisted the next launcher onto the
>pad, and started the countdown.  Anyone who objected would have been told
>where to go, or sent there."

I don't think the Soviets are as callous as one might make them out to be 
in this series of notes.  Otherwise I think we would have seen more boosters
come out faster.  I think they would have spent some time trying to figure
out what "caused" the problem.  Our problem was that we had a series of
civilian and military losses (Delta [formerly Thors] and Titan]).  They
are back launching both of these now.  We are just a bit more hung up
on the sanctity of life than the Soviets, the Japanese, the Chinese, etc., etc.

Another gross generalization from

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@aurora.arc.nasa.gov
  resident cynic at the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:
  "Mailers?! HA!", "If my mail does not reach you, please accept my apology."
  {uunet,hplabs,ncar,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."

------------------------------

Date: 10 Aug 88 18:45:15 GMT
From: hp-pcd!hplsla!deanp@hplabs.hp.com  ( Dean Payne)
Subject: Re: Most distant galaxy detected (Forwarded)

>MOST DISTANT GALAXY DETECTED

>     Called 4C41.17, the newly-discovered galaxy is located at an 
>estimated distance of 15 billion light years -- more than 90 
>percent of the distance to the visible limits of the universe.

>     Once the galaxy was identified optically, the researchers 
>established its huge distance by taking an optical spectrum which 
>uncovered emission lines in carbon and hydrogen produced by the 
>elements within the galaxy.
>     The observations reveal that these lines are greatly shifted 
>along the spectrum, or reddened, more than those of any galaxy 
>previously observed.

Like many press releases, this article gives the disputable estimated
distance without giving the real meaningful data -- the observed red
shift value.

Some local papers often condense these releases, leaving out most of the
news and just printing part of the background information.  I wish I had
saved a classic from a few years back.  The banner said something about
'Astronomers announce major new discovery', followed by several
sentences of background.  There was no mention about what discovery had
been announced.

So, what is the measured red shift of this galaxy?  It will probably be
out-dated by the time S&T can publish it.

Dean Payne

------------------------------

Date: 9 Aug 88 18:01:33 GMT
From: hpda!hpcuhb!hp-sde!hpfcdc!hpfclm!myers@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Bob Myers)
Subject: Re: Re: ET phone home? (SETI)   RESPONSES

>}	I was wondering if it is true, as I heard, that only the
>}	carrier wave from TV signals is able to reach beyond the
>}	atmosphere -- i.e., no aliens out there are examining TV
>}	pictures from Earth.
>}
>}I believe this is more or less correct.


>I believe that the "less" is more accurate than the "more".


Agreed.  To put it in slightly oversimplified form, the higher the frequency
of the signal, the less the signal is refracted (not, as some believe,
reflected) by the various layers of Earth's ionosphere.  VHF TV, and to a
greater extent UHF TV, are certainly at sufficiently high frequencies so that
there's an excellent chance of the signal making it through to space.

A very good example is the OSCAR series of amateur radio satellites; these
are routinely used by hams running no more than 100W ERP (effective radiated
power), at roughly the 145 MHz range - smack in the middle of the VHF TV
bands. (Channels 2-6 are below this band; 7-13 are above.)

By the by, I don't know how it would be possible that the carrier of a signal
would be able to reach "beyond the atmosphere", but the information carried
on that signal (the modulation of the carrier) would not.  Certainly it is
possible that the entire signal can be weakened to the point where it is
just detectable that the signal is there, but it's rather a neat trick to
somehow strip the modulation off and leave a nice healthy carrier behind.


Bob Myers  KC0EW                         |  Opinions expressed here are not
                                         |  those of my employer or any other
{the known universe}!hplabs!hpfcla!myers |  sentient life-form on this planet.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #332
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Date: Mon, 22 Aug 88 01:05:42 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8808220805.AA00534@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #333

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 333

Today's Topics:
			       Re: SDI
	   Re: SETI (was Re: Time dilation affecting SETI)
		     Re: The Challenger Disaster
		    Motor speeds in space station
			   Re: SETI (& STI)
		     Shuttle test-firing feature
			       I'm back
			 Re: Series E stamps
		Re: Space Station Name chosen -- Fred
		    Re: 95% vs. 99.9% reliability
		Re: ET phone home? (SETI)   RESPONSES
		    Re: 95% vs. 99.9% reliability
		     Re: HOTOL funding cancelled
		   Re: death of Anatoly Lewtschenko
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 11 Aug 88 18:17:21 GMT
From: eugene@eos.arc.nasa.gov  (Eugene Miya)
Subject: Re: SDI

In Henry Spencer's defense....[wait a minute, I'm defending Henry?
hazard the thought]...and as the anti-SDI person who suggested the
net.sdi group (should now be talk.politics.sdi).  There are
two problems with posting SDI "news." 1) rehashing the same old
unclear arguments, and 2) the net propagation delay (Re: What time
is it?) where 20 people come back with the same answer.  This is
why Mark Horton made the most frequently ask questions postings
and what's I'm trying to slowly formulate to cut down some space stuff.
I will offer to add an SDI question into the most frequently asked space
questions if someone will offer to compose the questions and statements
raised.  That way, you can see the same old questions (nicely edited
I hope) on a frequent regular basis, then when you get into an SDI argument
you can say "Number 57b!"  Okay?

I'm serious, send me a good summary of the issues and I will compose something.
[Yes you can have a few political comments, a few.]

Another gross generalization from

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@aurora.arc.nasa.gov
  resident cynic at the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:
  "Mailers?! HA!", "If my mail does not reach you, please accept my apology."
  {uunet,hplabs,ncar,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."

[But DON'T send them to space@angband.s1.gov send them to
eugene@aurora.arc.nasa.gov. -Ed]

------------------------------

Date: 11 Aug 88 16:10:56 GMT
From: aplcen!aplcomm!stdc.jhuapl.edu!jwm@mimsy.umd.edu  (Jim Meritt)
Subject: Re: SETI (was Re: Time dilation affecting SETI)


Want to kill 2 birds with 1 stone?  Dump all the weapons-grade plutonium
into the sun!

1.  Weapons-grade plutonium is not that great thing to have on earth.
2.  The spectral lines of a blatant transuranic in a Go star would be a
    sure indicator to anyone looking that there is intelligent, space-
    capable (don't I wish) peaceful (got rid of the plutonium, right?)
    life form around that star.

Question:  How much would it take to make an impression?


Disclaimer: Individuals have opinions, organizations have policy.
            Therefore, these opinions are mine and not any organizations!
Q.E.D.
jwm@aplvax.jhuapl.edu 128.244.65.5  (James W. Meritt)

------------------------------

Date: 11 Aug 88 16:02:03 GMT
From: geb@cadre.dsl.pittsburgh.edu  (Gordon E. Banks)
Subject: Re: The Challenger Disaster

Thanks for a fantastic posting.  I hope this will make people
more skeptical of special commissions.  It's too bad Feynman
wasn't on the Warren commission.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 12 Aug 88 07:17:53 CDT
From: steve@ncsc.arpa (Mahan)
To: chiaravi@silver.bacs.indiana.edu
Subject: Motor speeds in space station
Cc: space@angband.s1.gov

Lucius,

      The base speed of an induction (or synchronous) motor is determined by
the following equation:

				120 Frequency
        Rotational speed =	-------
				Poles

An induction motor must have a few percent deducted from the base speed to
determine the operating speed.

Using the above relationship I just worked out representative examples.
For a 20 kHz frequency a two pole motor would rotate at 1.2 million RPM.  By
making the number of poles large the speed may be reduced.  For a 6000 RPM
motor you would need 400 poles.  This is still not good.  It is likely that
another technology such as brushless DC or synduction motors will be used.
Please note that these types are electronically controlled and therefore not
affected by input power frequencies.  Also, in smaller sizes brushless DC
motors are smaller, lighter, and more efficient than equivalent induction or
standard DC types.  In most cases they will outperform standard synchronous
type motors as well.

steve@ncsc.ARPA
Stephen Mahan
Naval Coastal Systems Center
Panama City, FL  32407

------------------------------

Date: 10 Aug 88 17:59:59 GMT
From: att!chinet!mcdchg!clyde!watmath!utgpu!utzoo!henry@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: SETI (& STI)

In article <1628@spdcc.COM> eli@spdcc.COM (Steve Elias) writes:
>	a species which survived its
>	own nuclear self destruct phase would have evolved past
>	any vicious tendencies long before the reach into deep space.
>
>	(or so they say).

Or so they say.  This is an unproven hypothesis, not a well-established fact.
-- 
Intel CPUs are not defective,  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
they just act that way.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date:     Fri, 12 Aug 88 15:23:14 CDT
From: Will Martin -- AMXAL-RI <wmartin@almsa-1.arpa>
Subject:  Shuttle test-firing feature

On the news films of the first abortive test of the SSME firing, it appeared
that there was a spray of sparks across the area under the nozzles that
started a few seconds prior to scheduled ignition. I believe I have read
that those are something designed to ignite stray fumes. Is that right,
or is that what actually ignites the rocket when the fuel and oxidizer
begins to flow? 

Just what sort of device is generating those sparks? Is it some sort of
firework-like thing, or what? Is it something that is ignited and burns
until it runs out, or something that can be turned on and off and on again?

Regards,
Will Martin
wmartin@ALMSA-1.ARPA   (on USENET try "...!uunet!almsa-1.arpa!wmartin")

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 11 Aug 1988 20:46-EDT 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: I'm back

Just got caught up after spending two weeks experimenting with pints of
Guiness in Galway...

Gary Hudsen seems to be moving very quickly and very quietly. Space
Calendar had a picture of his first stage being moved on a crane on
it's way to Vandenburg for testing. He's got bent metal now folks!

And incidentally, I do admit to having authored the Ron Paul space
policy position papers. I worked with campaign HQ staff to make it as
close to Dr. Paul's own language and philosophy as possible.

------------------------------

Date: 11 Aug 88 14:41:00 GMT
From: ncspm!jay@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu  (Jay C. Smith)
Subject: Re: Series E stamps

In article <8808101708.AA05670@mitre.arpa> ltsmith@MITRE.ARPA (Sheri L Smith) 
writes:
>(I suppose they could also be used in the event of a postal
>rate DECREASE, but view it unlikely...)

Actually, the first US non-denominated stamps (the "A" ones) were used 
when the USPS didn't get the rate increase that was asked for -- something
that had never happened before.  The anticipated 16c rate (and all the
stamps printed up and ready to go for that) was disapproved, and 15c was
approved instead (without a sufficient stock of stamps ready).  So the
first use was due to a reduced increase.

I know this now has nothing to do with sci.space, so I feel compelled to
add that the first US stamp prepared in secret was the 1962 Mercury program
stamp, which was scheduled to be released at the time of John Glenn's
flight.  Its design and release date were not made public because of the 
possibility of delays in the launch and that the Atlas booster might just 
blow up on the pad, turning the stamp into a memorial of sorts.


-- 
"The duality of man.  The Jungian thing, sir."
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Jay C. Smith                      uucp:     ...!mcnc!ncsuvx!ncspm!jay
Domain: jay@ncspm.ncsu.edu        internet: jay%ncspm@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu

------------------------------

Date: 11 Aug 88 22:28:25 GMT
From: phri!dasys1!tneff@nyu.edu  (Tom Neff)
Subject: Re: Space Station Name chosen -- Fred

Actually the name was chosen this way.  As a last ditch measure to
stave off cancelling the Station, DOD and NASA arrived at a compromise,
fitting both SDI and science applications in a single combined
facility.  The resulting platform was to be named the Manned Orbital
Defense Emplacement / Earth Research Facility, or MODE/ERF.  All
parties agreed, and a press conference was scheduled for Reagan to
announce the name.  Unfortunately, when they fed Ron's Teleprompter
somebody slipped the sheet in *backwards*.
-- 
Tom Neff			UUCP: ...!cmcl2!phri!dasys1!tneff
	"None of your toys	CIS: 76556,2536	       MCI: TNEFF
	 will function..."	GEnie: TOMNEFF	       BIX: t.neff (no kidding)

------------------------------

Date: 10 Aug 88 18:00:53 GMT
From: att!chinet!mcdchg!clyde!watmath!utgpu!utzoo!henry@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: 95% vs. 99.9% reliability

In article <13101@ames.arc.nasa.gov> mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov.UUCP (Mike Smithwick) writes:
>I'm sure that Henry has the figures right at his fingertips...

You underestimate the reach of my fingertips. :-)
-- 
Intel CPUs are not defective,  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
they just act that way.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 12 Aug 88 15:03:52 GMT
From: thumper!karn@faline.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: ET phone home? (SETI)   RESPONSES

There has been enough interest in further info re SETI that I thought
I'd point everyone at a book I've found to be a pretty good introduction
to the topic. It's "The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence", NASA
SP-419. It has been republished by Dover, ISBN 0-486-23890-3. The report
came out in 1977, so it's now a bit dated (no mention of the new monster
FFT systems that are being developed at JPL and elsewhere) but it covers
the basic considerations quite well.

Re propagation of carriers vs information, some basic communication
theory explains this. The amount of white background noise that a
receiver "sees" from natural sources is directly proportional to the
receiver's bandwidth. More specifically, the noise power is kTB, where k
is Boltzmann's constant (1.380622e-23 J/K), T is the equivalent noise
temperature of the source in Kelvin (i.e., the local preamp's noise,
plus the sky "behind" the target) and B is the receiver bandwidth in
hertz.  To be detectable, a signal has to be sufficiently more powerful
in the receiver's bandwidth than the noise.  TV transmissions typically
spread their energy out over 6 Mhz or so, but the spreading is highly
nonuniform. Much of the energy is concentrated in the video carrier, and
this can be detected in a very narrow bandwidth receiver. The video
sidebands, however, is where the actual information is, and receiving
these requires a much wider receiver -- one that lets in much more
background noise.  So it's much easier to simply detect the presence of
a weak video signal's carrier than it is to get a good picture.

As an interesting exercise for the reader, using the thermal radiation
formulas available in any physics textbook, compute the apparent
"temperature" of the earth at the frequency of 789.24 Mhz, which is the
video carrier frequency of WMPB-TV in Baltimore, MD, on UHF channel 67.
(I used to run that transmitter as a summer job during college). That
transmitter has an effective radiated power of about 600 kilowatts.
Assume that the receiver is in the main lobe of the antenna, i.e., that
it sees the transmitter on the edge of the visible earth.  By "apparent
temperature", I mean the temperature the earth would have to be heated
to for its natural blackbody radiation to radiate enough power at 789.24
Mhz in some narrow bandwith (say 100 Hz) to equal the power put there by
WMPB's transmitter.

The result should shed some light on just how visible we are making
ourselves at the UHF and microwave frequencies. Consider also that there
are even more powerful transmitters, e.g., 5 megawatts EIRP from WAPB-TV
on channel 22 in Annapolis, MD, which was the most powerful UHF TV
transmitter in the US at the time it was commissioned in the middle
1970s.

Phil

------------------------------

Date: 11 Aug 88 05:42:20 GMT
From: portal!cup.portal.com!Paul_L_Schauble@uunet.uu.net
Subject: Re: 95% vs. 99.9% reliability

One comment, Henry, about flying the shuttle with the old boosters: The real
risks isn't the loss of the crew, it's the loss of the vehicle. To replace the
crew, all NASA needs to do is announce the vacancy and stand back.

As I understand it, replacing the vehicle will exhaust the complete stock of
structural spare parts. In other words, the total number of flights including
the rebuild vehicle will not be much greater than operating with three
vehicles and using the spares as intended.

And what is that limit? The NASA plan allowed for an airframe fatigue life
of 100 flights. I understand that they won't make it, and that an optimistic
estimate is more like 75 to 80. I don't have the message archived, but I
recall Dani Eder commenting on a Boeing study predicting a loss of vehicle
accident rate of one in 50 (from possibly defective memory) flights. At this
rate, there is only a 20% chance that the vehicle will reach it's fatigue life.

So the present shuttle system is limited to somewhere around 200 to 300
flights TOTAL before it needs total rebuilding.

Can we build more vehicles? I understand the answer is NO. The tooling and
construction facilities either no longer exist or have been converted ot
other uses. Except for the existing spares, building a new shuttle would
require an effort comparable to building the first one. Much like building
a Saturn 5.

The above is my understanding gleaned from too little data. I solicit informed
comments. I'm hoping someone can tell me that things are really this bad.

   Paul

------------------------------

Date: 12 Aug 88 19:28:57 GMT
From: att!ihnp4!ihlpl!knudsen@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Knudsen)
Subject: Re: HOTOL funding cancelled

In article <4643@whuts.UUCP>, sw@whuts.UUCP (WARMINK) writes:
> I was rather surprised at the lack of comments (or maybe I shouldn't have been)
> when it was announced that the British government had decided to stop funding
> the HOTOL program. Apparently British Aerospace and Rolls Royce are expected
> to fund to development themselves.

Well I had one thought when I heard of the cancellation, which you
have reminded me to post.  Namely, will the private companies
be free to share the techonology and deal with the US?

If I remember right, we were very interested a few years ago in
the British HOTOL (Reagan's "space plane", not heard of lately)
and approached the British Govt about sharing the development.
We were rebuffed, the Brits saying tht the technology was too
advanced to share with anyone (secret, proprietary, ya know).

Now will the private UK companies be interested in a US deal?
If so, would Maggie & her friends/enemies let them?
I know the US and UK Navies cooperate on a lot of war technology;
why shouldn't this be a marriage made in heaven?
(Yes, I'm *assuming* that US govt and/or private enterprise
are interested and have the money.)

------------------------------

Date: 11 Aug 88 15:32:38 GMT
From: sdcc6!calmasd!wlp@ucsd.edu  (Walter L. Peterson, Jr.)
Subject: Re: death of Anatoly Lewtschenko

In article <612@ecrcvax.UUCP>, bruno@ecrcvax.UUCP (Bruno Poterie) writes:
> The soviet cosmonaut Anatoly Lewtschenko died last Saturday, 
> of a "big desease" (no more precision).
> [rest of msg deleted]

According to a report which I heard on the radio last night, he died
of a brain tumor (this was on CBS-radio news on KSDO, San Diego at 
approx 1630 PDT 8/10/88).

Since Lewtschenko had reportedly been scheduled to command the first
manned Soviet shuttle mission, that would raise some interesting questions.
Did the Soviet space medicine people know of his condition? If they
did were they keeping it quite and going on with business-as-usual, or
did they actually expect him to fly ? (that would seem an incredibly
strange idea!). On the other hand did the Soviet doctors not know of
his condition, which would raise some interesting questions about the
state of Soviet medicine in general and their space medicine program
in particular.

-- 
Walt Peterson   GE-Calma San Diego R&D
"The opinions expressed here are my own and do not necessarily reflect those
GE, GE-Calma nor anyone else.
...{ucbvax|decvax}!sdcsvax!calmasd!wlp        wlp@calmasd.GE.COM

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #333
*******************

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Date: Tue, 23 Aug 88 01:05:47 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8808230805.AA01806@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #334

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 334

Today's Topics:
		     space news from Aug 1 AW&ST
	       Where's that summary? (was Re: SETI ...)
		    Re: 95% vs. 99.9% reliability
		    Re: 95% vs. 99.9% reliability
			       Re: SETI
	Re: Space Station power supply (was Re: Lithium cells)
		    Re: 95% vs. 99.9% reliability
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 19 Aug 88 02:19:33 GMT
From: clyde!watmath!water!utgpu!utzoo!henry@bellcore.com  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Aug 1 AW&ST

Cover photo is Magellan in final test.

Congress gives large boost to Navy's laser comsat project, developing
technology for communication with submerged submarines.

Japan's CS-3B comsat is now slated for launch Sept 14, to replace CS-3A,
which had an antenna failure after launch.

Rocketdyne is successfully test-firing a small high-pressure rocket engine
for a USAF contract, aimed at orbital transfer vehicles.

Britain dumps Hotol.  British government will no longer fund development
work.  The government will promote attempts to find international support,
but most everyone agrees this is a silly idea, especially since some of
the technology is secret.  British Aerospace and Rolls-Royce surprised.

NASA is [finally] giving serious attention to using non-US expendables
to launch supplies to the space station.  The US is also looking at what
can be done with US expendables, including the notion of developing an
unmanned freighter resembling Progress.  3-4 expendable launches per year
for station logistics look likely, on top of the cargo carried by shuttle
crew-rotation visits.  It is not clear whether expendable-launched freight
loads would be towed to the station by the OMV -- which would require
basing it there rather than on the ground -- or would rendezvous and dock
by themselves a la Progress.  Also being re-examined is the issue of
garbage disposal, since fewer shuttle visits means less opportunity to
send waste (and useful payloads, for that matter) down to the surface.
Having the OMV de-orbit garbage, or small reentry vehicles for priority
cargo, is being looked at.

NASA narrows station crew-escape options to ground-based standby shuttle
or new small manned spacecraft based at the station; there is a notion
that both might be needed.  The idea of leaving an orbiter at the station
full time has been dropped as impractical.

Shuttle flight readiness firing slips slightly due to minor technical
problems.

NASA plans to ask for $2.1G for the space station next year, and boost
that to $2.9G in FY91.

[Micro-editorial:  This is ridiculous.  NASA can forget that.  It is
becoming increasingly clear that NASA's gold-plated space station does
not have the political support it needs to survive.  I've been saying
this for quite a while, but I admit I didn't expect it to come to a head
quite so quickly.  NASA is having to fight hard to get $900M this year;
no way is Congress ever going to give them three times that two years
from now.]

NATO selects Delta to launch its first next-generation comsat; the attempt
to get Ariane considered for this one has failed.  The Europeans intend to
keep trying, while the US remains adamantly opposed.  (For those with short
memories, the *official* US reason is that such contracts are supposed to
stay within full NATO members, and France isn't one.)

The Mir cosmonauts will do a second EVA to repair the British/Dutch X-ray
detector.  It will probably happen early this fall, after new tools are
developed and a Soviet/Afghan Soyuz visit is completed (late August?).

US State Dept has been formally asked to approve export licenses to ship
US-built comsats to China for launch on Long March.  Asiasat (a British/
Chinese consortium) wants to launch the former Westar 6 on Long March,
Hughes wants to use Long March for the two new Aussats, and Intelsat is
also formally interested.  These are the first formal "go all the way"
requests.  State will decide by late September, but the matter is subject
to interagency review, which has a habit of causing major delays.  China,
unlike the USSR, is not on the "forget it" list for restricted technology;
case-by-case review is the procedure for China.  DoT and others are unhappy
about China's prices being much lower than US expendables, and oppose the
applications as harmful to long-term US interests.  Others see it as a
free-trade issue and oppose clumsy protectionism:  "perhaps the Chinese
have discovered a cheap approach to space, and the US companies are
simply victims of their gold-plated approach".

Pacific Engineering picks site for its new oxidizer plant, with hopes for
limited production by "next February".  [The wording sounds like Feb 89,
which would surprise me a bit -- maybe they mean Feb 90?]

NASA picks TVA's Yellow Creek site in Mississippi as the tentative site
for a government-owned advanced-SRB plant.  Bidders for the new-SRB
contract must propose operations using the government-owned site, but
may also propose a privately-financed site as an alternative.

Japan picks one of Hughes's spinners as its next weather satellite, GMS-5,
for launch in 1993.

Major National Academy of Sciences assessment of space-science goals says
that lots more money should be spent on science missions [surprise, surprise]
and that few (but some) of the missions have any real use for the station.
US leadership is not just threatened but gone:  "...the Soviet Union is now
the leader in space science."  Apart from the predictable, the report calls
for:

- Much better coordination within the US government for satellite operations,
	with fewer artificial boundaries between "research" and "operational"
	use.  "...interagency cooperation is essential to the advancement of
	the Earth sciences, yet such cooperation in the area of satellites
	has not fared well at the Office of Management and Budget."

- Under planetary exploration, a high-priority effort for specialized space-
	based telescopes for detection of planets around other stars.
	[While I agree that this is a good idea, classing it under "planetary
	exploration" is silly; it's astronomy.]

- The obvious set of unmanned planetary missions.

- A Pluto flyby.

- Renewal of the search for life on Mars.

- A space-based imaging interferometer for much higher resolution than the
	Hubble telescope.

- Consideration of manned lunar and Mars operations as inherent evolutionary
	steps in planetary exploration.

- High priority for the Large Deployable Reflector, a 20-30 meter reflecting
	telescope assembled in orbit.

- A solar polar orbiter.

- Starprobe, a flyby of the Sun at 2.7Mkm.

- Interstellar Probe, using electric propulsion and a Jupiter flyby to leave
	the solar system at 80 kps.  If launched in 2000, this would overtake
	the Pioneers and Voyagers by 2005.

- A dedicated space-based life sciences lab.

- A major technology effort, starting now, to prepare for these missions.

- An ongoing program of smaller flight projects to keep small-scale space
	science alive.

- Treating launch systems, space platforms, etc. as "tools to support
	well-defined objectives" rather than ends in themselves.  [I have
	mixed feelings about this.  On one hand, it's the sensible thing
	to do.  On the other hand, one then starts to hear:  "Your project
	relies on this space platform that isn't approved yet, so we can't
	possibly fund you.  ...  Your space platform has no committed
	customers, so we can't possibly fund it."  NASA's uncritical
	devotion to the station and the shuttle is not (solely) the result
	of preoccupation with engineering over science.]

More mumbling about US-Soviet cooperation in space, especially Mars.

Latest unhappiness:  NASA is probably going to delete the Visual and
Infrared Mapping Spectrometer from Mars Observer, and replace the radar
altimeter with a less sophisticated one.  The space scientists claim
NASA is gutting the mission; NASA counters that the instruments are over
budget, and the choice is between reducing the scope of the mission or
delaying it further (something the scientists are very much against).
[NASA is being politically naive here:  what they ought to do is punt the
decision to the scientists, which would probably have the same result but
without the uproar being directed at NASA.]

More pictures of Soviet hardware at Baikonur.

IKI [the Soviet space-research institute] has asked for the use of NASA's
large vacuum chamber at JSC, to compile a larger database of known spectra
for the laser spectrometer aboard the Phobos probes.  IKI's own small
vacuum chamber has limited what they can do.

SDI's Space-Based Interceptor will continue as a program, but its flight
experiment will be deferred indefinitely since Congress is refusing to
fund SBI at the necessary levels.

[Whew!  I am finally caught up -- the Aug 8 issue only arrived today, and
I haven't finished reading it yet.]
-- 
Intel CPUs are not defective,  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
they just act that way.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 13 Aug 88 00:06:18 GMT
From: heurikon!lampman@speedy.cs.wisc.edu  (Ray Lampman)
Subject: Where's that summary? (was Re: SETI ...)

In article <3730@hcr.UUCP> edwin@hcr.UUCP (Edwin Hoogerbeets) writes:
| Has the person who is conducting the poll of significant space related
| events finished said poll? I am interested in seeing the results ;-)
| Comments anyone?
________________________________________________________________________

I'm looking forward to those results also ... and am especially interested
in the net community's forecast of future significant space events and when
they will occur. Would anyone care to post their forcast for discussion?
A forecast that includes prerequisite events, matterals, and technologies,
would start an interesting discussion. For example ...

What are the prerequisites for human colonization for a nearby solar system?
Forget for a moment that we can not do this at present, and think about why
not. What must come first? Changes in governments? Economies? Technology?
Do we need any basic scientific advances? How about long range sensors?
-- 
I am seriously considering a career on  | Ray Lampman (608) 276-3431
the beach. I'll need a microwave modem, | Madison Wisconsin USA Earth
solar power supply, and a little shade. | {husc6,rutgers}!uwvax!heurikon!lampman

------------------------------

Date: 12 Aug 88 14:08:08 GMT
From: kerog@eneevax.umd.edu  (Keith Rogers)
Subject: Re: 95% vs. 99.9% reliability

In article <8042@cup.portal.com> Paul_L_Schauble@cup.portal.com writes:
>Can we build more vehicles? I understand the answer is NO. The tooling and
>construction facilities either no longer exist or have been converted ot
>other uses. Except for the existing spares, building a new shuttle would
>require an effort comparable to building the first one. Much like building
>a Saturn 5.

	Do you mean to tell me that NASA made *no* provisions whatsoever for
building more shuttles?  None at all?  This whole program has been a dead
end with no hopes of going anywhere but down the tubes?  Please tell me
it isn't so. This will crush my last naive hopes that NASA isn't just a bunch
of hopeless incompetants.  At least tell me what their justification is.

Keith Rogers

------------------------------

Date: 12 Aug 88 21:27:27 GMT
From: kerog@eneevax.umd.edu  (Keith Rogers)
Subject: Re: 95% vs. 99.9% reliability

In article <1731@eneevax.UUCP> kerog@eneevax.umd.edu.UUCP (that's me) writes:
>This will crush my last naive hopes that NASA isn't just a bunch
>of hopeless incompetants. 
>
	I apologize and retract this.  My dissatisfaction is not with NASA
but with the way it is managed and the way the government runs it.  Again, I
admit that my reaction was unwarranted.

Keith Rogers

gain a British space program bites the
dust before it has even started.

[I wonder, if this were a US program, how much follow-up would there have 
 been on the net?!]

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If all the statisticians were laid end to    |  Stuart Warmink, APT UK Ltd.
end across the Atlantic, 99% would drown :-) |  <att>!whuts!sw Whippany NJ USA
-----------> My opinions are not necessarily those of APT UK Ltd. <-----------

------------------------------

Date: 11 Aug 88 15:11:46 GMT
From: psivax!quad1!ttidca!jackson@uunet.uu.net  (Dick Jackson)
Subject: Re: SETI

In article <3730@hcr.UUCP> edwin@hcr.UUCP (Edwin Hoogerbeets) writes:
>
>Another possible reason we might not be receiving came to me while
>reading sci.crypt. Maybe everyone is sending RSA across the universe and
>we don't know what's going on? (again :^)

I don't know what "RSA" is but this para triggered an idea. Maybe its
obvious to THEIR radio designers that the messages should be sent using
spread spectrum with a code given by some naturally occuring, fundamental
number. This number could not be a physical constant or transcendental
number because of the choice of significant figures. Maybe there are some
long but rational numbers generated by number theory?

(For those who may not be familiar with spread spectrum, it is a radio
technique which trades off power for bandwidth; signals can be buried in
the noise level and recovered by correlating the signal using the code
by which it was generated - Please no flames for this cheap and cheerful
description.)

Dick Jackson

------------------------------

Date: 12 Aug 88 02:26:54 GMT
From: tness7!tness1!splut!jay@bellcore.com  (Jay "you ignorant splut!" Maynard)
Subject: Re: Space Station power supply (was Re: Lithium cells)

In article <2090@silver.bacs.indiana.edu> chiaravi@silver.UUCP (Lucius Chiaraviglio) writes:
>In article <629@splut.UUCP>, I wrote:
>>Main power on the space station is specified as 220 VAC at 20 kHz.
>	Isn't this going to cause considerable inefficiency of power
>transmission due to radiative losses, which go up with increasing frequency (I
>don't remember the exact relation, but it's linear or worse)?

According to my source, the losses are low enough to be of minor problem.
Me? I'm not a power engineer (if it ain't 1 or 0, it's broke!).

>	Also, this is going to make it impossible to operate induction motors
>(unless you want them to go VERY fast) without using electronic conversion of
>the power to get the frequency down.

Or DC motors, from a power supply. My source hasn't seen a single motor
specified on the station, though.

-- 
Jay Maynard, EMT-P, K5ZC...>splut!< | Never ascribe to malice that which can
uucp:       uunet!nuchat!           | adequately be explained by stupidity.
   hoptoad!academ!uhnix1!splut!jay  +----------------------------------------
{killer,bellcore}!tness1!           | Birthright Party '88: let's get spaced!

------------------------------

Date: 13 Aug 88 04:30:27 GMT
From: eugene@eos.arc.nasa.gov  (Eugene Miya)
Subject: Re: 95% vs. 99.9% reliability

In article <1731@eneevax.UUCP> kerog@eneevax.umd.edu.UUCP (Keith Rogers) writes:
>	Do you mean to tell me that NASA mad *no* provisions whatsoever for
>building more shuttles?  None at all?  This whole program has been a dead
>end with no hopes of going anywhere but down the tubes?  Please tell me
>it isn't so. This will crush my last naive hopes that NASA isn't just a bunch
>of hopeless incompetants.  At least tell me what their justification is.

I cannot totally justify the thinking of many of those who made decisions
in the early 1970s [remember back then, that's when this thing was
put together, but maybe a few of you were young [I was in college]].
Anyway, on one hand you can argue: YES, no provisions, on another hand
you can argue the X-3* <That's the Kleene operator IS the next provision
so the answer would then be NO.
It's largely based on the idea that you sort of assume the thing is
coming down the pipe.  You don't see many ENIACs or Univac Is do you?
I think many of the higher ups over judged public interest in space
and assumed scaled up budgets, etc.  I don't think it's seen as a dead end
by the men (they are all men) largely like the development of aircraft
for military purposes (no end in sight).  It's a form of planned
obsolescence.

Now, I don't justify it [as Hans Mark noted, they felt they HAD to place
all eggs into one basket].  It's the problem of simultaneous development
and use "Hey I'm trying to use this thing!" "Hey, I'm trying to develop
this thing, hands off..."  Other keywords: Orient express.  Anyways
an interesting problem.  HOW long will the airframes last?  Will they be as
good as DC-3s?  (Possibly not).  I will tell you a lot of
working is being done on hypersonics right now, but I wonder where we
would be if we had not had the rush Mercury program and had instead
gone with Crossfield's X-15B program->X-20 Dynasoar, etc. with more
men in the loop (i.e., a more low key space thing).  Would the
Soviets have beaten us? Etc.  Anyways, we took the path more travelled.

Another gross generalization from

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@aurora.arc.nasa.gov
  resident cynic at the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:
  "Mailers?! HA!", "If my mail does not reach you, please accept my apology."
  {uunet,hplabs,ncar,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #334
*******************

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Date: Wed, 24 Aug 88 01:06:15 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8808240806.AA02774@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #335

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 335

Today's Topics:
		    Re: 95% vs. 99.9% reliability
		Re: Automated vs. personned spacecraft
		    Re: 95% vs. 99.9% reliability
			       Re: SETI
		The galaxy at the edge of the universe
			   Re: SETI (& STI)
		      Space Station Info Needed
		   Re: death of Anatoly Lewtschenko
			   Spacesploitation
	   Re: SETI (was Re: Time dilation affecting SETI)
			 Re: skintight suits
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 13 Aug 88 03:29:42 GMT
From: ecsvax!cjl@mcnc.org  (Charles Lord)
Subject: Re: 95% vs. 99.9% reliability



No, Keith - that does not make them incompetent.  (boy, I wish I
could spell tonight!)  
The Space Program has always been a progressing system of better systems
designed to not only perform a function but also provide a platform for
new technologies in the future.  Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Shuttle: each
was ordered in a set quantity with the understanding that there would be
a newer, better vehicle coming.

The problem is that the cutbacks (massive) following the moon landings
began to spell doom for this system.  The second generation shuttle was
on the drawing board for a long time (and still is - the USAF is the  
only entity that has a real budget for their version of the "orient
express"), and didn't follow suit because the American public through
their representatives in DC decided the massive spending was better
funneled elsewhere.  The delays, politics, and infighting when coupled
with the explosion have all but guaranteed no relief to that situation.
Turnover at NASA as well as the contractors has made it a nightmare for
those responsible for getting them airborne.  That supposively was the
reason for the FRF glitches/delays.  Too many ground personnel had never
actually prepped a shuttle for launch...

The real point of my rambling is that the shuttle in its antiquity is
not to be expanded - it was meant to be (and SHOULD be) superceeded.
-- 
Charles Lord           ..!decvax!mcnc!ecsvax!cjl    Usenet
Cary, NC               cjl@ecsvax.uncecs.edu        Bitnet
#include <std.disclamers>
#include <cutsey.quote>

------------------------------

Date: 11 Aug 88 16:15:10 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!cam-cl!scc@uunet.uu.net  (Stephen Crawley)
Subject: Re: Automated vs. personned spacecraft

[My apologies to those who think that SF does not belong in sci.space ...]

In article <3696@thorin.cs.unc.edu> symon@lhotse.cs.unc.edu (James Symon) writes:
>Somebody had cat brains for pilots, quicker reflexes. (Actually,
>working in tandem with human pilots, as I remember)

I expect you are recalling "The Game of Rat and Dragon" by Cordwainer
Smith.  It is currently in print in a collection of CS's short stories
entitled "The Rediscovery of Man".  Classic SF this: worth every penny.

-- Steve

------------------------------

Date: 12 Aug 88 13:49:57 GMT
From: mailrus!uflorida!novavax!proxftl!greg@rutgers.edu  (Gregory N. Hullender)
Subject: Re: 95% vs. 99.9% reliability

In article <1988Aug9.205520.5911@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>"If the same thing had happened to the Soviets, they would have
>swept the debris off the launch pad, hoisted the next launcher onto the
>pad, and started the countdown.  Anyone who objected would have been told
>where to go, or sent there."

I imagine they would also have sent various officials from Morton Thiokol
and Nasa off to the Gualag, if not had them shot.

As I recall, a fair amount of the pressure for putting safety first came
from the astronauts themselves; considering just how shoddy Nasa had gotten,
I can understand their point of view.  Read "Challenger: A Major Malfunction"
for a more detailed description.

Fortunately, we don't live in the Soviet Union; however, considering your
callous disregard for human life and warm regard for the power of a police
state to stifle dissent, perhaps you should consider relocating.
-- 
		Greg Hullender  uflorida!novavax!proxftl!greg
		3511 NE 22nd Ave / Fort Lauderdale, FL 33308

	    My opinions are not necessarily those of my employer.

------------------------------

Date: 12 Aug 88 16:58:36 GMT
From: ndsuvax!nekinsel@uunet.uu.net  (Peter Kinsella)
Subject: Re: SETI



In article <587138396.iaeh@ISL1.RI.CMU.EDU> you write:
>I don't think one can assume that advanced civilizations do broadcast
>signals with the purpose to make themselves known, for the following
>reason.
>
>Suppose there exist some incredibly vicious species somewhere out
>there, a race that routinely seeks out intelligent civilizations and
>exploit them rutlessly. 

     Aren't we making a few rather large assumptions. If we assume that
life exists elswhere in the universe.
  
     1.  That the warring society can travel to conquer the broadcasting
         world before that society developes sufficent technology to defend
         itself.   (faster then the speed of light ?)
     2.  That it can travel in such numbers as to conquer a whole planet.
     3.  If it had the technology to transfer enough people to take over
         the planet of a lesser thechnology what would it gain ? 
         (welfare recipients? )

------------------------------

Date: 12 Aug 88 22:03:58 GMT
From: aplcen!jhunix!ins_aaaa@mimsy.umd.edu  (Deen Ilyas)
Subject: The galaxy at the edge of the universe

A couple of days ago astronomers in Baltimore (I'm not sure, but I think it 
must be the Space Telescope Institute) discovered the most distant galaxy
ever seen.  There are a couple of problems that arise from this discovery.  
For example, it has been thought that the age of the universe is around 
fourteen billion years old.  Yet the distance measured to the newly discovered
galaxy exceeds that number.  Was the composition of the galaxy mostly 
hydrogen-helium or was the composition of the galaxy heavy elements?  How can
we reconcile this discovery with the big bang theory?

Does anyone on the net knows the answer to these questions?  I would 
appreciate it very much if anyone could supply the information and 
contribute to the discussion.

Thanks in advance.

Deen Ilyas

------------------------------

Date: 12 Aug 88 20:46:37 GMT
From: trwrb!aero!mac@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Robert McGwier)
Subject: Re: SETI (& STI)

In article <1988Aug10.175959.21238@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>In article <1628@spdcc.COM> eli@spdcc.COM (Steve Elias) writes:
>>	a species which survived its
>>	own nuclear self destruct phase would have evolved past
>>	any vicious tendencies long before the reach into deep space.
>>
>>	(or so they say).
>
>Or so they say.  This is an unproven hypothesis, not a well-established fact.

I agree with Henry.  I would think that the inevitable environmental
pollution of a technological species would be a much bigger danger and
that takes a great deal of energy to clean up after the damage is done.

On another topic:

About a year ago, after I did something for JPL they did something for me.
They took me to Goldstone let me ride the big dish and talk to the folks
on the SETI team.  This was including Mike Klein (SETI leader at JPL),
Ed Olson, Larry Rauch, and Ed Posner whose office runs the deep space
network.  One thing was clear from our discussions.  At that time,
they were doing a hell of a lot of work on figuring out what was the best
strategy for DETECTING a signal (targeted super sensitive search
or all-sky not so sensitive search).  For them to be able to do a
targeted transmitted signal, they have to use resources available to them.
This would imply that they have to use the antennas used by the folks at
Ames and JPL and all of these are high gain and very directional.  Which
direction would you have them point in?  If they knew this, we would not
be discussing SETI since the SEARCH would be over ;-).  What frequencies
would you have them use?  The quiet frequency zones for radio astronomy?
Or those guaranteed by international treaty to be for the use of other
services?  I think you get the idea.  Transmitting doesn't seem to be
a part of the plan.  I'm a signal processing theoretician and don't
represent them or claim any special knowledge of what has gone since that
meeting.  My last impression was that this was a listen only project.

On 145 Mhz, we do transmit and receive on those bands from our AMSAT
OSCAR's and Soviet RS's.  They are not all that transparent however.
Dispersion is a problem and other funnies happen to signals on these
bands.  As you go even higher, water in the atmosphere begins to become
very absorbent, etc.  The world above 145 is not a panacea for pointing
at space.

Bob McGwier
N4HY

------------------------------

Date: 11 Aug 88 22:53:56 GMT
From: cs.utexas.edu!sm.unisys.com!csun!polyslo!jsalter@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu  (The Math Hacker)
Subject: Space Station Info Needed

Can anyone point me to any information about the viable alternatives
to the manned Space Station.  Specifically, the use of robotics instead
of permanently-manned modules; the effects on micro-gravity experiments
by the introduction of people moving about; the use of the heavy-lift
shuttle (Shuttle-C, I think) for building as opposed to the regular
shuttle; and anything else.

It's easy to come up with reasons for the station, especially when I'm
already for it.  What about arguments against it?

(The pro-earth people should know by now that space exploration is not
only important, but imperative.  I really need better counter-arguments
than "we should spend money on earth-bound needs instead")

Thanks for any help.
-- 
James A. Salter  --  Yes, math majors can use UNIX(tm), too...
jsalter@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU	   | sin(x)/n = 6   (Cancel the n's!)
...!ucbvax!voder!polyslo!jsalter   | 	"Type h for help." -- rn

------------------------------

Date: 12 Aug 88 14:57:52 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!etive!bob@uunet.uu.net  (Bob Gray)
Subject: Re: death of Anatoly Lewtschenko

In article <612@ecrcvax.UUCP> bruno@ecrcvax.UUCP (Bruno Poterie) writes:
>The soviet cosmonaut Anatoly Lewtschenko died last Saturday, 
>of a "big desease" (no more precision).

The report I heard said it was a brain tumor.

Note also that he was the Soviet's main test pilot for
their shuttle, so the first launch may be further delayed
if they do intend to fly it manned.
	Bob.

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 13 Aug 1988 14:58-EDT 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Spacesploitation

Much that you say about the way the statists deal with free people is
true. I fear very much that the only way we will be able to defend our
property rights on the moon or anywhere else is to be prepared to shoot
back when the UN version of a 'coast guard' tries to enforce these
assinine treaties.

I did not sign and would not have signed these treaties. I am not bound
by them. PERIOD. I give them NO allegience whatsoever. My only long
term allegiance is to libertarian principles, not to any government,
whether it be the one which currently CLAIMS it has jurisdiction over
me, or that of A UN agency in the future that makes such claims on my
person or property off earth. I submit to the tyranny of neither, now
or then.

Anything I do that assists a government at this time is either out of
the wisdom of not marching unarmed into a machine gun, or of helping statists
to go as close to the direction I desire as possible. 

I am myself not the type to ever take up arms, but should the UN or
other agency ever attempt to enforce their 'rights' over space, I hope
the residents in that distant decade blow their imperial asses all the
way back to Earth.  The only thing that will be unfortunate (on that
far future date) is that those asses will belong to innocent 18 and 19
year olds who have been fed statist propaganda from childhood. Those
responsible, as is always the case, will sit back in their easy chairs
while others do the dying. That is the way of all statists, whether
they are commie-statists or capitalist-statists or fascist-statists.
When it comes to expending lives for 'the glory of the state', for 'state
interests', there is absolutely no difference between a Reagan, a
Gorbachev, a Botha, or an Ortega.

People will be free. They will protect their property rights one way or
another. With blood, if necessary. Space is too big for any government
or agency to control. Can't we EVER learn that imperialism doesn't
work?

And when you get down to it, that is ALL that treaties like the moon
treaty really are: a means of enforcing an Earth based imperialism of
the solar system.

------------------------------

Date: 13 Aug 88 19:14:24 GMT
From: sugar!peter@uunet.uu.net  (Peter da Silva)
Subject: Re: SETI (was Re: Time dilation affecting SETI)

In article <1628@aplcomm.jhuapl.edu>, jwm@stdc.jhuapl.edu (Jim Meritt) writes:
> Want to kill 2 birds with 1 stone?  Dump all the weapons-grade plutonium
> into the sun!

> 1.  Weapons-grade plutonium is not that great thing to have on earth.

Weapons-grade plutonium is a valuable substance. It can be used to
generate electrical power. The idea of wasting it in this manner is
abhorrent. Better to burn the Mona Lisa.
-- 
		Peter da Silva  `-_-'  peter@sugar.uu.net
		 Have you hugged  U  your wolf today?

------------------------------

Date: 12 Aug 88 15:57:38 GMT
From: attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!db.toronto.edu!hogg@uunet.uu.net  (John Hogg)
Subject: Re: skintight suits

In article <8808102242.AA08336@cmr.icst.nbs.gov> roberts@CMR.ICST.NBS.GOV (John Roberts) writes:
>It seems to me that while there has been much discussion of the concept
>of the skintight spacesuit, several items of information have been left out
>that could be very important to the ultimate usefulness of the design.
>
>* Kevin Ryan summarizes an article by Jerry Pournelle, based on NASA Report
>  CR-1892, describing tests of the suit. It is stated that the pressure is
>  maintained at 170mm Hg for the central part of the body (matching the
>  pressure of the breathing air), dropping to 100-120mm at the extremities,
>  the difference being maintained by a gasket.
>  [Confusion about meaning of this.]
The ``gasket'' is presumably the neck seal.  A description of the
breathing-bag arrangement around the torso has been given in an earlier
posting; send mail for details.  Apart from that, pressurization is
controlled by the number, type and tension of fabric layers at any point on
the body.  The fabric supports the skin; the skin is in fact the pressure
vessel.
>  The fabric can support the skin overall, but
>  not on a microscopic basis. At the microscopic level, the skin, rather than
>  being a continuous sheet of dead tissue, is full of pores, and the pores
>  contain important living, wet cells exposed to the outside pressure. At
>  body temperature, the partial pressure of water is ~50mm, meaning that if
>  the ambient pressure falls below this point, rapid boiling of water at and
>  for a short distance below the surface will begin. It seems highly unlikely
>  that these living cells could be directly exposed to vacuum without a
>  considerable number being killed.
At the beginning of the Contractor's Report, the authors review studies on
skin outgassing at low pressures.  The conclusion was that the rates are too
low to pose a problem.  Skin is tougher than most people give it credit
for, and no signs of boiling skin were noted on the test subjects.  This is
because the cell walls *are* strong enough to maintain adequate pressures
over the distances involved.  If this seems surprising, remember high
school biology and osmosis in root cell walls.

>* Henry Spencer states that the suit has been tested and it works. The 
>  problem lies in the interpretation of the word "works". The loosest 
>  interpretation is that "the test subject, exposed to these conditions
>  for an unspecified period of time, did not split open and gush blood,
>  and survived the experiment without any observed permanent damage".
>  I would like to know about the results of long-term exposure, which I
>  suspect would at least cause the skin to become dry and brittle, and
>  might kill the hair follicles, oil and sweat glands. It would be very
>  inconvenient to use the suit six hours a day for three weeks and then
>  have your skin fall off.
You could be right about the long-term effects of SAS usage.  Of course,
there may be totally unforeseen problems with any suit, SAS or
conventional, run at low pressures over long periods.  The fact of the
matter is that we have precious little experience of any sort.  EVAs have
been of extremely limited duration.

Medical experts (which I am assuredly not) don't seem to be too worried
about the possibilities that you describe.  Given the many desert peoples
that survive harsh, drying conditions with skins wrinkled but intact, and
the ability of root cells to hold pressure, this doesn't sound
unreasonable.  There's only one way to find out, though: design it, build
it and use it.  Preferably under actual conditions.  And don't throw away
existing designs while you're at it.
>
>* Paul Deitz describes gloves designed with holes to expose the skin to 
>  vacuum. However, the gloves were tested only in a *partial* vacuum,
>  which for the reasons stated above I do not feel to be a valid test
>  of performance in absolute vacuum. The overall structural integrity
>  and pressure differential effects may be the same, but the small-scale
>  effects of water loss and damage from boiling and evaporative cooling
>  will be different. Was the skintight suit tested in full or partial
>  vacuum?
Good point.  The later glove tests showed very little that the original
work hadn't covered.  However, Webb and Annis tested their series of suits
in both partial and (to the extent possible at zero altitude) hard vacuum.
As Henry said, they work.


There have been a number of objections to the SAS raised in this newsgroup.
Interestingly enough, doubters don't seem to be worried about the problems
to which the original researchers had no answer.  The suit must be
precisely fitted, and given that humans stretch in microgravity, that's not
acceptable.  A multilayer suit takes a long time to don in gravity, let
alone free-fall, and single-layer suits require too much force to put on
without special aids, which haven't been designed.  And the problems of
blood pooling still weren't totally overcome in the last prototype,
although that may be more a matter of implementation than design.

No, the idea is not without flaws, but we don't know of any show-stoppers.
-- 
John Hogg			   | hogg@csri.toronto.{edu,cdn}
Computer Systems Research Institute| uunet!csri.toronto.edu!hogg
University of Toronto		   | hogg%csri.toronto.edu@relay.cs.net (arpa)
				   | hogg@csri.utoronto (bitnet)

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #335
*******************

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Date: Wed, 24 Aug 88 19:06:14 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8808250206.AA04052@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #336

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 336

Today's Topics:
			       Re: SETI
			 Re: fixing Oscar-10
	Re: Space Station power supply (was Re: Lithium cells)
	   Re: SETI (was Re: Time dilation affecting SETI)
			 Re: skintight suits
			      Aerospike
		    Re: 95% vs. 99.9% reliability
			    Re: Aerospike
			     Ozone layers
	       Re: Destinies lives again - was Skinsuit
	   Re: Orbital Data and Observation Relay Satellite
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 12 Aug 88 18:43:08 GMT
From: attcan!utgpu!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: SETI

In article <443@csed-1.IDA.ORG> zweig@csed-1.IDA.ORG (Jonathan Zweig) writes:
>Isn't it pretty ridiculous to envision a species that is (a) nasty enough
>to want to exploit other civilizations, (b) has the capability for
>interstellar travel and the weaponry to actually get away with it and (c)
>can't sniff out intelligent life forms unless they are broadcasting?

No, not really.  As far as the capabilities go, we might be able to do it
in another century or so, even assuming no breakthroughs.

>Sheesh. I thought a pretty sensible assumption with SETI is that it simply
>isn't feasible for *any* of the parties involved to travel (else they would
>be here now, etc. etc.) and that's why we use gigawatt radio beacons...

The trouble is that the assumption is untenable, unless there is some deep
problem that we can't see.  Interstellar travel simply isn't that hard, if
you're willing to accept high costs and long transit times.  There are a
dozen different propulsion systems that we could probably build within a
century which would work.  "Interstellar travel is not feasible" used to be
the standard answer to "why aren't they here now?", but not even the most
fervent SETI advocates can keep a straight face when saying that now.
The fact is, we *don't know* why they aren't here now, and it's a major
puzzle.
-- 
Intel CPUs are not defective,  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
they just act that way.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 12 Aug 88 21:11:04 GMT
From: attcan!utgpu!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: fixing Oscar-10

In article <1282@thumper.bellcore.com> karn@thumper.bellcore.com (Phil R. Karn) writes:
>... 1) With both present and forseeable
>technology, manned missions are inherently orders of magnitude more
>expensive than unmanned missions...

Present, maybe, although I think you should check Soviet prices before
assuming that the Shuttle represents the current state of the art for
cheap manned missions!  Foreseeable, nonsense, unless by "foreseeable"
you mean "what NASA can foresee".

There is no *inherent* reason why launching a repairman to a satellite
should cost significantly more than launching a 3000-lb satellite into
the relevant orbit.  (The Mercury capsule, built with late-50s technology,
weighed 3000 lbs loaded; I think one can safely assume that more modern
hardware would cut the weight enough to add the maneuvering and EVA
capability that Mercury lacked.)

Of course, if one is really smart and doesn't need a particular orbit,
one can avoid having to launch the repairman by making the satellite
co-orbit with Mir...

> 2) There are VERY few situations
>(either practical applications or scientific research) where specific
>mission goals can be met more cost-effectively with humans on board...

If you define "mission goals" to be those selected for funding today,
when human presence is very expensive (except for the Soviets), this is 
vacuously true.
-- 
Intel CPUs are not defective,  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
they just act that way.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 14 Aug 88 09:06:41 GMT
From: larson@unix.sri.com  (Alan Larson)
Subject: Re: Space Station power supply (was Re: Lithium cells)

In article <643@splut.UUCP> jay@splut.UUCP writes:

>In article <2090@silver.bacs.indiana.edu> chiaravi@silver.UUCP writes:

>>	Also, this is going to make it impossible to operate induction motors
>>(unless you want them to go VERY fast) without using electronic conversion of
>>the power to get the frequency down.
>
>Or DC motors, from a power supply. My source hasn't seen a single motor
>specified on the station, though.

Hmmm.  Something sounds strange here.  What about the fans that move
air around the cabin.  (I hear that these are rather necessary due to
the lack of convection.  Breathing fresh air is considered nice.)

Speaking of fans, there may be fans (and pumps) in the restroom facilities.


my opinion:
The best reason for 220 VAC at 20 KHz is that it provides the contractors
with the opportunity to engineer custom parts at great profit.  It seems
unlikely that the savings in size by 20 KHz power are worth the trouble.

DC could be used without great difficulty in many places.  DC to DC
converters are common in small modules.  Using DC would help eliminate
the need to filter continuing background hum of the power system from
the electronics and experiments.

Common AC frequencies (60 Hz, 400 Hz) could be used with more easily
available equipment.  Filtering and processing these frequencies is not
much of a problem, since the technology of building power supplies
operating with normal forms of power is well developed.

If a large assembly or rack needs a special type of power, it makes more
sense to provide that power in local busses.  This could provide the
savings that 20 KHz power would be expected to provide.

20 KHz power would, it seems, be at higher risk to coupling from the
power lines by both magnetic and capacitative couplikng means.  This
would mean that the supply lines would need extra protection to keep
them away from the data lines.  Failure to do that would contaminate
the non-power lines with the same AC 'hum' that was filtered out by
the power supplies.

	Alan

------------------------------

Date: 14 Aug 88 03:13:17 GMT
From: tektronix!percival!bucket!leonard@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: SETI (was Re: Time dilation affecting SETI)

In article <3730@hcr.UUCP> edwin@hcr.UUCP (Edwin Hoogerbeets) writes:
<Let's imagine for a moment that we want to send out a strong message in
<the Hydrogen band to other intelligent life in the galaxy. Which way
<would we send it?
<
<I think it would be obvious to send it in the direction of the center of
<the galaxy to reach the most prospective planets(?) where life would
<exist. 
<
<Now think of *our* galactic location. We're on the edge of the galaxy.
<Maybe we're just missing out on all the fun because we're on the
<sidelines? Everyone is sending their message the other way! By the time
<the messages from the other side of the galaxy get to us, they are too
<weak to detect.

This is the worst possible direction to send a signal! The galactic core is
primarily first generation stars. This means that there isn't anything except
hydrogen and helium to make the planets out of. It is rather difficult to
evolve life under these conditions.

Second generation stars aren't much better, they won't have any elements
with higher atomic numbers than iron, and they'll have damn little of
anything that heavy! Life as we know it is impossible on these planets
as too much of life relies on metals that would be unavailable.

Even if life *did* evolve on the planets of a second generation star,
they couldn't develop technology. No metals. No gold or copper nuggets,
no ores that can be smelted with charcoal. No magnetic minerals. So the
would never have an inkling of electricity or magnetism. So no radio.

Assume by some miracle, a second generation star had life-bearing planets,
and due to several nearby supernovae had an sun-like elemental abundance.
Fine, that means that the civilization on this planet would be 1-2 Billion
(1x10 to th 9th = billion here) older than ours. Somehow I doubt that 
we'd have anything to say to each other. The gulf would be too great.

Finally, we have third generation stars such as the sun. The solar system
is thought to have a typical elemental abundance for a third generation
star system.  But the sun is one of the older third generation stars in
this part of the galaxy... it may be a long way to the neaerest civilization
of a similar or greater age.

Yes, *we* may be the most advanced civilization for a thousand or so
light years.... sobering thought...

-- 
Leonard Erickson		...!tektronix!reed!percival!bucket!leonard
CIS: [70465,203]
"I used to be a hacker. Now I'm a 'microcomputer specialist'.
You know... I'd rather be a hacker."

------------------------------

Date: 13 Aug 88 21:27:07 GMT
From: att!chinet!mcdchg!clyde!watmath!utgpu!utzoo!henry@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: skintight suits

To add some comments to John Hogg's discussion...

In article <8808102242.AA08336@cmr.icst.nbs.gov> roberts@CMR.ICST.NBS.GOV (John Roberts) writes:
>  ... The fabric can support the skin overall, but
>  not on a microscopic basis. At the microscopic level, the skin, rather than
>  being a continuous sheet of dead tissue, is full of pores, and the pores
>  contain important living, wet cells exposed to the outside pressure. At
>  body temperature, the partial pressure of water is ~50mm, meaning that if
>  the ambient pressure falls below this point, rapid boiling of water at and
>  for a short distance below the surface will begin. It seems highly unlikely
>  that these living cells could be directly exposed to vacuum without a
>  considerable number being killed.

If boiling starts, the cell will swell, pressurizing itself against the
surrounding cells (which, overall, are confined by the suit pressure).
Rupture is unlikely; cells are tougher than you'd think.

>  I would like to know about the results of long-term exposure, which I
>  suspect would at least cause the skin to become dry and brittle, and
>  might kill the hair follicles, oil and sweat glands...

Humans survive for decades in deserts, where the partial pressure of water
approaches zero for months at a time.  For that matter, the partial pressure
of water in the atmosphere is usually lower than in the body even in non-
deserts.  The outer layers of the skin *are* dead, dry, and brittle in
normal human beings; dead skin cells flake off your body constantly, and
are a major component of the dust you vacuum up when you clean house.
The human skin is not in equilibrium with its environment even at one
atmosphere of pressure; rather, it is a steady-state system maintained
by constant effort by the body.  It appears that with mechanical support,
it should work about equally well in vacuum.
-- 
Intel CPUs are not defective,  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
they just act that way.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 15 Aug 88 01:09:00 GMT
From: aramis.rutgers.edu!klaatu.rutgers.edu!josh@rutgers.edu  (J Storrs Hall)
Subject: Aerospike


What is an aerospike?  What is meant by its being (or not being)
"plugged"?  

What is the specific impulse of hydrazine?

--JoSH

------------------------------

Date: 14 Aug 88 02:53:41 GMT
From: clyde!watmath!utgpu!utzoo!henry@bellcore.com  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: 95% vs. 99.9% reliability

In article <8042@cup.portal.com> Paul_L_Schauble@cup.portal.com writes:
>One comment, Henry, about flying the shuttle with the old boosters: The real
>risks isn't the loss of the crew, it's the loss of the vehicle...

Agreed.  However, we aren't *quite* at the point where replacement is
impossible; almost but not quite.  Challenger was lost just in time.

>As I understand it, replacing the vehicle will exhaust the complete stock of
>structural spare parts. In other words, the total number of flights including
>the rebuild vehicle will not be much greater than operating with three
>vehicles and using the spares as intended...

As I recall, there is a new set of structural spares in the works, so the
situation isn't quite that bad.  However, I detect no signs that anyone has
really paid attention to NRC's comment that ongoing orbiter production is
an absolute requirement for a viable fleet.  (Their reasoning, briefly, was
that the fleet is so small in comparison to the significant chances of
losing another orbiter that it is impossible to make long-range plans based
on using the shuttle unless replacement orbiters continue to be available.)
-- 
Intel CPUs are not defective,  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
they just act that way.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 15 Aug 88 03:56:30 GMT
From: rochester!kodak!ornitz@cu-arpa.cs.cornell.edu  (barry ornitz)
Subject: Re: Aerospike

In article <Aug.14.21.08.58.1988.850@klaatu.rutgers.edu> 
josh@klaatu.rutgers.edu (J Storrs Hall) writes:
>What is an aerospike?  What is meant by its being (or not being)
>"plugged"?  
Heck if I know!
>What is the specific impulse of hydrazine?
This maybe I know!  It depends on the oxidizer - see table below:

Oxidizer   Oxy/Fuel Ratio    Chamber Temp, deg. F   Specific Impulse, sec.
O2               0.75              5370                   279
H2O2             1.70              4690                   265
N2O4             1.1               4950                   262
F2               2.0               7740                   318
RFNA (NO2-15%)   1.3               4980                   260
Red Fuming Nitric Acid

All of the above is for a 500 PSI chamber pressure.  
Kit, Boris and Douglas Evered, "Rocket Propellant Handbook," Macmillan Co.,
New York, 1960.
                                                   Barry

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 15 Aug 88 10:16:30 PST
From: Peter Scott <PJS@grouch.jpl.nasa.gov>
Subject: Ozone layers
X-Vms-Mail-To: EXOS%"space@angband.s1.gov"

Can someone please explain why ozone produced as a component of smog is
apparently not a factor in regenerating the ozone layer that everyone's
so worried about?  I know ozone is poisonous; is it just the case that
smog-ozone is trapped under the inversion layer?  How?

Peter Scott (pjs%grouch@jpl-mil.jpl.nasa.gov)

------------------------------

Date: 15 Aug 88 16:08:58 EDT
From: Hans.Moravec@rover.ri.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: Destinies lives again - was Skinsuit
To: BBoard.Maintainer@PT.CS.CMU.EDU

Re:

> Date: Sun,  7 Aug 88 20:04:53 -0400 (EDT)
> From: Kevin William Ryan <kr0u+@andrew.cmu.edu>
> Subject: Re: Skintight suit reference
   ...
>    The preceeding reference comes courtesy of J. E. Pournelle, from the
> Summer 1980 (Vol. 2, No. 3) _Destinies_, now a defunct publication.  Pity...

"Destinies" died in 1983 or so, but "New Destinies" started publishing
quarterly in 1987.  Same editor, Jim Baen, now under his own imprimatur:
Baen Books. Available as before in the paperback SF section of your
bookstore, rather than the magazine rack.
						-Hans Moravec

------------------------------

Resent-Message-Id: <8X1ogWy00VseM0ml9C@andrew.cmu.edu>
Resent-Date: Mon, 15 Aug 88 16:35:46 -0400 (EDT)
Resent-From: Ted Anderson <ota+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Resent-To: space@angband.s1.gov
Return-Path: <ota+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Date:     Mon, 15 Aug 88 12:34 EST
From: <GILL%QUCDNAST.BITNET@cornellc.ccs.cornell.edu>
Subject:  Re: Orbital Data and Observation Relay Satellite


Todd (uop!todd@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu) writes

>In watching the re-run of NOVA's "Death of a Star".. it occured to me that
>a network of satellites capable of swapping telemetry and digitized phone
>and visual communications would be a good thing to have towards better
>connectivity with remote sites.
>
>They could be accessed from earth stations using small dishes (comparitively).
>
>I am sure someone is working on something like this.. someplace..

     It is, in northern Canada.  I'm not exactly sure who is involved,
but it is sure to include Telecom Canada, Bell Canada, and Bell Northern
Research.  The idea is to use one of the Anik satellites and small
dishes (that can be mounted onto vans if needed) to provide telephone
communications, etc. for remote communities in the Northwest and Yukon
Territories.  From there it is just a small step to doing what Todd has
suggested.

     Of course, since this is being done in Canada, no one in the US or
the rest of the world has any inclination of what is going on! :-)

     Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if the Soviets are working on a
similar system, since they have the same communication/terrain/remote
population difficulties as Canada.

                                         -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Arnold Gill                             | If you don't complain to those who  |
Queen's University at Kingston          | implemented the problem, you have   |
gill @ qucdnast.bitnet                  | no right to complain at all !       |
                                         -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #336
*******************

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Date: Thu, 25 Aug 88 01:05:23 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8808250805.AA04261@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #337

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 337

Today's Topics:
			   Re: SETI (& STI)
			   Re: Ozone layers
		     Re: HOTOL funding cancelled
			    Re: Aerospike
		     'prestigious' space programs
			       Feedback
			    Space Bloopers
		 Re: SDI, Asats, and access to orbit
		       Not in the line of duty
		Re: SETI: Why don't we hear anything?
		  Re: space news from Juen 27 AW&ST
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 15 Aug 88 17:44:20 GMT
From: spacely!eto@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov  (Edward Olsen)
Subject: Re: SETI (& STI)

The NASA SETI program will only be a SEARCH.  It will be listen only.  No
Transmissions are not part of the program.  The search space presently
envisioned is (1) High Sensitivity Target Search of the nearly 800 solar
type stars within 25 pc and (2) Low Sensitivity, Broad Band All Sky Survey.
The Target Search will be carried out with a frequency resolution of about 1 Hz
between 1 GHz and 3 GHz.  Integration times will be 100 -> 1000 seconds using
Arecibo and other large antennae (i.e. 70m DSN net, OSU, etc).  Instantaneous
bandpass will be 10 MHz to 40 MHz and polarization dual circular.  Sensitivity
achieved will be approximately 10**-26 watts/m**2.
The Sky Survey will be carried out with a frequency resolution of 10 Hz to
30 Hz between 1 GHz and 10 GHz (and higher frequency spot bands).  Integration
times will be 1/3 -> 3 seconds using the DSN 34m net and possibly the NRAO
300 ft.  Instantaneous bandpass will be 300 MHz and polarization dual circular.
Sensitivity achieved will be approximately 10**-23 watts/m**2.
The big problem is radio frequency interference --- keeping our signal detectorsfrom saturating with reports of all the local intelligent signals.

			      Edward Olsen



/*******************************************************************
 * Edward Olsen                    ARPA: eto@spacely.jpl.nasa.gov  *
 * Mail Stop: 169-506              UUCP: ...!cit-vax!spacely!eto   *
 * Jet Propulsion Laboratory       SPAN: jplrag::olsen             *
 * 4800 Oak Grove Drive                                            *
 * Pasadena, CA 91109                                              *
 *                                                                 *
 * Phone: FTS: 792-7604      Commercial: (818) 354-7604            *
 *******************************************************************/

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 15 Aug 88 18:50:57 PDT
From: Eugene Miya <eugene@eos.arc.nasa.gov>
Subject: Re: Ozone layers

18:45 PDT start out bound.
Peter Scott asks about Ozone, unfortunately, Bob Watson, one of the best
men to ask this question isn't at JPL anymore, but there's lots of
other people you can ask.

Basically, inversion layers don't completely have much to do with it.
1st: we don't really understand the production (your word was regeneration)
mechanism.  Anything anyone tells you is a theory. 2nd: we don't
completely understand the transport mechanism.  It was only recently
discovered that CFCs could convect so quickly, because the O3 doesn't
(don't forget it's heavy).  So generation is largely "in place."
The "in place mechanisms are largely molecular and atomic oxygen up high
combining.  Some argued lightning was a production mechanism,
largely too low in altitude, largely discounted.  One person asked
about working on scrubbers for CFCs up high, the problem here is the sheer
size of the upper atmosphere.  Prevention is a better treatment, but 
who knows, we may have passed points of no-return, maybe not.

--eugene
18:54 PDT

------------------------------

Date: 15 Aug 88 19:58:41 GMT
From: concertina!fiddler@sun.com  (Steve Hix)
Subject: Re: HOTOL funding cancelled

In article <6233@ihlpl.ATT.COM>, knudsen@ihlpl.ATT.COM (Knudsen) writes:
> 
> If I remember right, we were very interested a few years ago in
> the British HOTOL (Reagan's "space plane", not heard of lately)

Two different aircraft (air?).  Similar missions, though.

> and approached the British Govt about sharing the development.
> We were rebuffed, the Brits saying tht the technology was too
> advanced to share with anyone (secret, proprietary, ya know).

Apparently Rolls Royce had solved some problems bugging US
engine designers up to that point.  Maybe it'll get out now.

------------------------------

Date: 15 Aug 88 14:14:49 GMT
From: att!whuts!sw@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (WARMINK)
Subject: Re: Aerospike

In article <Aug.14.21.08.58.1988.850@klaatu.rutgers.edu>, josh@klaatu.rutgers.edu (J Storrs Hall) writes:

> What is an aerospike?  What is meant by its being (or not being)
> "plugged"?  
An aerospike is a sharp extension of a (usually) blunt nose cone. The idea is that by
starting the shockwave ahead of the main nose cone, as far as the airflow is concerned,
the nose cone has the same shape as the shockwave rather than its real, blunt, shape.
This will reduce the supersonic drag quite considerably. I believe this is used on
some of the submarine lauched ICBMs, like Trident, which are rather blunt-nosed so
as to pack as much volume as possible into the limited space available.

I'm not sure what 'plugged' refers to, I would hazard a guess at 'stored (i.e. 
retracted) position' or maybe it is a reference to the small cone at the end of the
spike (the angle at the vertex (?) of the cone is the same as the angle of the
shockwave at the velocity for which the spike is optimized).

> 
> What is the specific impulse of hydrazine?
Already been answered by another mailing.

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If all the statisticians were laid end to    |  Stuart Warmink, APT UK Ltd.
end across the Atlantic, 99% would drown :-) |  <att>!whuts!sw Whippany NJ USA
-----------> My opinions are not necessarily those of APT UK Ltd. <-----------

------------------------------

Date: 16 Aug 88 01:04:03 GMT
From: spdcc!eli@husc6.harvard.edu  (Steve Elias)
Subject: 'prestigious' space programs

In article <907@altger.UUCP> Macros@altger.UUCP (Macros) writes:
>In another article, ?? writes:

>>program, the ESA's space program, Japan, China, India, Brazil, and

>Controlling these countries might not even be too bad an idea. They should do
>more in fighting poverty, starvation and their population
>explosion, than diving into some prstigious space programs.

	why does this argument apply to other countries
	if it does not apply to the US & Soviets ?  

(leaving followups here, for lack of a better 'space' for them).

------------------------------

Date: 15 Aug 88 12:48:11 GMT
From: nyser!cmx!anand@itsgw.rpi.edu  (Rangachari Anand)
Subject: Feedback


  Did anyone on the net catch an interesting call-in talk show on Public
  radio called "Feedback" last night? Last night's program was devoted 
  entirely to space. There were several people on hand from NASA and 
  from the Commerce department to answer questions about the US space 
  program.

  Many of the callers appeared to be quite enthusiastic about the space
  program in general but more than one caller seemed to be very worried 
  about the increasing role of the military in the space program. In 
  response to this, the person from NASA said that the space station was 
  to be devoted entirely to civilian activities.[This seemed to contradict
  reports published in Aviation week]. The other popular question was on 
  whether the spinoffs from the space program justified the investment.
  NASA has apparently calculated that $8 is returned for every $ spent.
  
  I myself was able to get in a question on the topic of expendable
  launch vehicles. I tried to point out the virtues of a simple and
  cheap launcher. As an example, I mentioned that the reliable Proton rocket
  was essentialy unchanged from the 1960's. I also mentioned the Pegasus
  rocket being developed by Hercules/OSC in this regard.

  The person from NASA replied that the Russians were in the process of
  building a space shuttle and in his words "... were desperately trying
  catch up with us" !. His view was that the shuttle is all that is needed
  for now.

  In marked contrast, the person from the Commerce department was in 
  complete agreement with me. He was very enthusiastic about the 
  Pegasus project and said that they were trying to give all the 
  encouragement they could. He went so far as to say that had the
  Saturn Vs not been scrapped, they would have probably been cheaper
  than the shuttle.

  I can tell you that I was more reassured by the Commerce department than
  NASA !

                                                         R. Anand

  Internet: anand@amax.npac.syr.edu
  Bitnet: ranand@sunrise

------------------------------

Date: 16 Aug 88 01:24:19 GMT
From: markh@csd4.milw.wisc.edu  (Mark William Hopkins)
Subject: Space Bloopers

In article <1049@cfa237.cfa250.harvard.edu> mcdowell@cfa250.harvard.edu (Jonathan McDowell) writes:
>From article <62689@sun.uucp>, by fiddler%concertina@Sun.COM (Steve Hix):
...
When space travel DOES become common, we're going to have to keep on a constant
lookout for the remains of all the "missed shots"; because in space, what goes
around, comes around ...
...
>
>AMS "Luna"  	Solar orbit, missed moon, called Luna-1 now.
>Ranger 3	missed moon...

What did they call IT after it missed the moon?

>Ranger 5	missed moon...
>Mariner 2      flew past Venus
>Luna-4	 	missed moon, perturbed into solar orbit
>Zond-1     	failed Venus probe
>Mariner 3	Mars flyby failed
>Luna 6 	Lunar soft lander missed moon
>Venera 2	passed Venus, no data
>Venera-3  	HIT Venus, no data

BULLSEYE!

(20 years is enough time to look back and laugh.)

------------------------------

Date: 15 Aug 88 19:57:18 GMT
From: tektronix!tekcae!vice!keithl@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Keith Lofstrom)
Subject: Re: SDI, Asats, and access to orbit

bobmon@iuvax writes:
> Years ago, somebody British proposed (in Punch?  New Scientist?
> Lancet?) a nice, cheap anti-ICBM solution to be used preemptively in
> times of tension:  Just throw a few tons of gravel into LEO.  

This sort of thing comes up about once a year.  Time for some math, kiddies:

Assume, by some miracle, we are able to orbit all these tons of gravel in
a thin shell at 120 Km altitude (Radius = 6.5e6 meters).  Assume a third stage
moving at 4000 meters per second and still boosting, 5 meters long and 2
meters in diameter.  Assume a 10 gram pellet moving at orbital velocity
(8000 m/s) will destroy it and its warheads.

The booster will spend (5 m)/(4000 m/s) or 1.25 msec traversing the shell.
It will collide with any pellets in a patch  2 meters x 1.25 msec x 8000 m/s
in area, or 20 square meters (crude description; see a good book on statistical
mechanics for a better description yielding the same result).

If N pellets are randomly distributed, they will have a density of N/(4*pi*R^2)
per square meter, and the probability of finding one or more pellets in a given
area is   Probability =  1 - exp( - Area * density )  [see the book again].


This can be boiled down to the following equation:

                     V missile   4 pi (Orbit Radius)^2
Number of pellets =  --------- * --------------------- * -ln( 1 - Probability )
                     V orbit         Area Missile

for a 25% intercept rate (typical SDI number) about 8e12 pellets will be
needed; about 80 million tons.  More than "a few tons".  For a 99.9%
intercept rate (as claimed by many Anti-SDI folk) about 2 billion tons
will be needed.

----
Smart interceptors (which can cover vastly more territory) are a whole
different kettle of fish.  If the booster has been visible for 60 seconds,
and the interceptor can change velocity by 2000 meters/second in that time,
it can intercept boosters over a "patch" of around 1e10 square meters.
A 25% intercept rate would require 15,000 interceptors.   
----

Please don't construe this message as being pro-SDI.  Most bureaucrats and
their political allies live in cities.  The only way to eliminate this
infestation may be for them to fry each other, as they seem hell-bent to do.
If it wasn't for all the innocent people in cities it might even be a good
idea :-).  Hopefully, I just caused apoplexy for a few of the deserving :-).


I DO want to show that space is a BIG place;  the Earth is not too small,
either.  Village-scale thinking doesn't work any more.  You have to 
do some math until the new scale of things gets imbedded in the culture;
"common sense" isn't calibrated in this regime.


-- 
Keith Lofstrom   ...!tektronix!vice!keithl   keithl@vice.TEK.COM
MS 59-316, Tektronix, PO 500, Beaverton OR 97077  (503)-627-4052

------------------------------

Date: 16 Aug 88 01:46:13 GMT
From: stsci!berman@noao.edu  (Mike Berman)
Subject: Not in the line of duty

Ten of our astronauts' deaths have been widely publicized - namely the
three aboard Apollo 1 and the seven aboard the Challenger. I'm curious
as to who is no longer with us as the result of a more "normal" demise?
Are all of the crews of the successful Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and
shuttle missions still alive?
-- 
                      Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD 21218
       Mike           ARPA:   berman@stsci.edu      BITNET:   berman@stsci
      Berman          UUCP:   {arizona,decvax,hao}!noao!stsci!berman
                      SPAN:   {SCIVAX,KEPLER}::BERMAN

------------------------------

Date: 16 Aug 88 01:41:15 GMT
From: vsi1!unisv!vanpelt@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Mike Van Pelt)
Subject: Re: SETI: Why don't we hear anything?

In article <1112@ndsuvax.UUCP> nekinsel@ndsuvax.UUCP (Peter Kinsella) writes:
>     Aren't we making a few rather large assumptions. If we assume that
>life exists elswhere in the universe.
   
>     1.  That the warring society can travel to conquer the broadcasting
>         world before that society developes sufficent technology to defend
>         itself.   (faster then the speed of light ?)
>     2.  That it can travel in such numbers as to conquer a whole planet.
>     3.  If it had the technology to transfer enough people to take over
>         the planet of a lesser thechnology what would it gain ? 
>         (welfare recipients? )     

Who knows?  Now, I don't really believe this, but suppose the 
warlike society wasn't interested in conquest, just in extermination?
There's lots of talk about making self-replicating explorers to
go through all the galaxy collecting data and eventually returning it
to Earth -- Suppose a sufficiently xenophobic civilization decided
to use the technique for eliminated threats/rivals?  You can postulate
that they get along fine with each other, but are horrified at the
idea of "others", so the "destroy themselves before they advance that
far" argument wouldn't hold.  Presumably it wouldn't be all that
difficult for an advanced civilization to build probes that would be
more than a match for any civilization that had only a few years
before mastered the use of radio, on which the probes would home in.

I like to think of this as preposterously unlikely.  (After all,
we've been broadcasting like mad for decades, and haven't been
blasted yet.)  But then again, there's all those Biilyons and
Biilyons * of stars out there, for all those Biilyons and Biilyons *
of years ... and it only has to happen once for us all to be in 
deep yoghurt.
--
* "Biilyons and Biilyons" is a trademark of Carl Sagan Enterprises, Inc.
-- 
Mike Van Pelt                       When the fog came in on little cat feet
Unisys, Silicon Valley              last night, it left these little muddy
vanpelt@unisv.UUCP                  paw prints on the hood of my car.

------------------------------

Date: 15 Aug 88 22:48:43 GMT
From: phri!dasys1!tbetz@nyu.edu  (Tom Betz)
Subject: Re: space news from Juen 27 AW&ST

In article <1988Aug11.044242.285@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>  The Chinese have just signed their first firm commercial
>launch deal, to launch AsiaSat 1 (the former Westar 6, retrieved by the
>shuttle in 1985) as Asia's first regional comsat, with a Hong Kong /
>British consortium.)

I think the most significant bit of news this month is contained in the 
sentence above...


China has the honor and privilege of launching the first remarketed used 
communications satellite in the history of space technology!


Let us hope there will be many more such launches to follow.

-- 
  "Through practice, I have become one of the      |Tom Betz 
      better liars in the English language.        |ZCNY, Yonkers, NY 10701-2509
I wouldn't say it if I didn't know it wasn't true" |UUCP: tbetz@dasys1.UUCP or
           - Emmanuel Transmission -               | ...!cmcl2!phri!dasys1!tbetz

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #337
*******************

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Date: Sat, 27 Aug 88 01:04:59 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8808270804.AA01660@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
Reply-To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #338

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 338

Today's Topics:
	    First meeting of Greater Detroit Space Society
   International NSS mebers get together at New Orleans SF Worldcon
	     Advanced Space Systems with beer at Worldcon
			   space editorial
			  Change of Address
			   orbital elements
		     space news from Aug 8 AW&ST
			      red-shift
		Re: SETI: Why don't we hear anything?
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date:     Tue, 23 Aug 88 08:36 EDT
From: RON PICARD <PICARD%gmr.com@relay.cs.net>
Subject:  First meeting of Greater Detroit Space Society


                              News Release

The Greater Detroit Space Society, a local chapter of the National Space
Society, takes great pride in announcing an open meeting on Saturday,
September 10th at 1:00 p.m. at the Southfield Public Library.  We will have a
guest speaker from the NASA Lewis Research Center in Ohio.  He will be
speaking on the Space Shuttle, the proposed Space Station, and spinoffs from
the Space Program.  There will be a question and answer period following the
presentation, along with refreshments.  This meeting is open to anyone
interested in Space.  There will be a $1.00 charge at the door to help defray
the cost of the room and the speaker.  This dollar will be subtracted from
the cost of dues for anyone wishing to join the Society.  Greater Detroit
Space Society dues are: $5.00 for students and senior citizens; $10.00 for
adults; and $15.00 for families.  We are a non-profit educational
organization whose goals are to promote the exploration and development of
Space.  The Southfield Public Library is located in the Southfield Civic
Center at Evergreen and Civic Center Drive (10 1/2 Mile Road).  Because
seating is limited, we recommend that people wishing to attend, reserve their
seats by calling 554-3759.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 23 Aug 88 13:31:03 EDT
From: Glenn Chapman <glenn@ll-vlsi.arpa>
Subject: International NSS mebers get together at New Orleans SF Worldcon

     To help promote chapters outside the United States the post of 
International Chapters Coordinator is being re-created with myself, Glenn
Chapman, accepting that position.  Together with my spouse, Ann Carlsen, we
are a truly international team, we currently work in the USA, but I am
Canadian, while she was born in Norway, lived in England as a child, and is
now a naturalized Canadian.  We usually attend the annual world science
fiction convention.  In addition I always listen to several international
short wave broadcasts each evening.  Our address is 

     7 Parker Rd.,
     Bedford, MA 01730 USA
     Phone 617-275-8729

     my ARPA net address is glenn@ll-vlsi.arpa

We hope to hear from all those interested in international chapters.

     We especially wish communications from any international members which
will be attending the SF Worldcon in New Orleans from Sept 1-7.  Ann and I
are planning an informal get together/party for international members on
Friday Sept 2, tentatively at 9:00 pm, in our room at the Marriott.  We
invite those members to come visit us there.  I really want to hear exactly
what you wish the NSS to do for international people.  We expect also to have
Elisa Wynn (Chapters coordinator) and Aleta Jackson (NSS Chapters
Administrator) coming by later in the evening to the party so you can get a
chance to talk over issues directly with them.

     We both feel strongly if the human race is to expand into the universe it
will need the help of many people living in many lands.  Thus we will work
towards making the NSS an effective means for chapters in all nations to both
keep their members informed about what is going on in space exploration and
help educate both their citizens and their government officials about the
advantages of creating space faring civilizations.  Remember no one country's
name is mentioned in the name of the society, just the generic term national.
Also no earth border's extend into the cosmos.  Space is for all mankind.

     Again please contact me if you have any issues concerning the 
international members of the National Space Society.

                                             Glenn Chapman
                                             MIT Lincoln Lab
                                             glenn@ll-vlsi.arpa

------------------------------

Date:     Wed, 24 Aug 88 21:39 CDT
From: Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey <HIGGINS%FNAL.BITNET@cornellc.ccs.cornell.edu>
Subject:  Advanced Space Systems with beer at Worldcon
Original_To:  SPACE

    Members of the British Interplanetary Society will present an

                   ADVANCED SPACE SYSTEMS SEMINAR
                        and Technical Gabfest

                      Friday, 2 September 1988
               at the World Science Fiction Convention
                     New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
Exact time (nineish?) and location to be announced at the Convention

If you attend this informal gathering, be prepared for intensive
tech-talk.  It is a successor to a "advanced propulsion seminar"  Dani
Eder held in his room at the Austin NASFiC last year.  If we have half
that much fun this year the effort will be worth it.

Two improvements this year: Snacks and a sponsoring organization. I'll
do a grocery run, purchasing a modest supply of beer, soda, and
munchies with Higgins cash. I shall trust in the generous nature of
BISers, space techies, and science fiction fen to donate a little at
the party.  Sponsorship by the British Interplanetary Society isn't
official, but I've discovered that quite a few members show up at
Worldcon, and it's high time North American members started to
socialize together.   The BIS is one of the world's oldest spaceflight
societies (1933) as well as one of the most forward-looking (Moonship
design published 1939, Daedalus starship design 1978).

                          Keynote Speaker:
                     Dani Eder, Boeing Aerospace
           "Is the Time Right for Private Space Programs?"

Look for announcements of the party, er, seminar time and room number
around the Mariott and Sheraton.  I'd appreciate hearing from you over
the net if you think you might come-- it'd give me some idea how much
food to buy.   See you in New Orleans!

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 17 Aug 88 09:43:27 MDT
From: dbirnbau%nmsu.csnet@relay.cs.net
Subject: space editorial


I just caught up in my reading pile to Science magazine, July 22, 1988
issue.  Everyone ought take a look at the editorial on Space Science on
page 397.

| David Birnbaum, programmer/consultant      |  dbirnbau@nmsu.edu           |

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 18 Aug 88 06:52:45 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Subject: Change of Address

The Internet portion of the Space Digest will be changing homes.  Although
the time frame for this transition is not yet clear, I have set up the
new distribution list and people should begin trying to get used to them.
The new address for submissions is 'space@andrew.cmu.edu' and the address
for request is 'space-request@andrew.cmu.edu'.  The old addresses (at
angband.s1.gov and mc.lcs.mit.edu) will continue to work for now.
	Ted Anderson

------------------------------

Date: 19 Aug 88 13:10:22 GMT
From: bbn.com!grossman@bbn.com  (Martin Grossman)
Subject: orbital elements

I'm looking for a third source of orbital elements (the 3 line format).

Both first choice (rec.ham-radio) and second choice (DR TS KELSO's BBS)
have been unavailable for a few weeks.

I going on a cruise and would like to make printouts for various nights
and lat/long locations (aprox will have to do).

1) Does anyone know of a good third source?
2) Does anyone know of a good source of lat/longs for following area's
	Miami beach
	San Juan
	St Thomas


Please email or post to either group.

PS Leaving on 9/2/88

grossman@bbn.com

------------------------------

Date: 22 Aug 88 01:45:20 GMT
From: att!chinet!mcdchg!clyde!watmath!water!utgpu!utzoo!henry@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Aug 8 AW&ST

Space-station editorial saying some of the things I said a few months ago.
The current space station is headed for a crash.  "...in the nearly five
years since receiving [Reagan's] mandate, NASA has been running a management
exercise instead of a station program."  The station is already very costly
and won't be operational until 1995-6... and only the naivest optimist
would expect it to come in on budget or on time.  Worse, there is little
support for it outside its own bureaucracy and contractors; even potential
customers are lukewarm because of the delay, cost, and uncertainty.  The
budgets that NASA estimates will be required [never mind the ones that
will *actually* be required] are beyond anything Congress would ever approve,
in the current financial climate.  Finally, the current station is totally
dependent on the shuttle, a weak reed if there ever was one.  "The US and
its partner nations need a space station, but realities require a more
evolutionary, cost-effective, lower-risk facility which can be orbited
earlier and which depends less on the shuttle for assembly."  AW&ST says
the thing to do now is a rapid redefinition to provide a more sensible
plan in time for FY91 budgeting.  "NASA should be ordered to place a
manned core facility into orbit by 1995 and pursue that goal with the
same vigor it applied to the Apollo lunar landing program."  Shuttle-C
development should start immediately.  The manned core should be launched
by Shuttle-C and should be based on Spacelab modules and ISF technology.
Extensive, although not continuous, manned operation could be had without
the cost of a rescue vehicle if Rockwell's idea for docking a shuttle to
the station for 60 days at a time were adopted.  The rest of the facility
should use free-flying platforms, designed for manned servicing but unmanned
operation.  This would separate incompatible customers and allow gradual
deployment, as well as providing opportunities for commercial involvement.
The OMV should be expanded into a taxi/tug suitable for going between the
core station and the platforms.

[On the whole, I go along with this.  The current station is simply too
expensive and too far in the future to survive.  NASA has been having great
trouble keeping the program alive even today.  As funding requirements rise
and problems appear, there's no way it can survive.  NASA is, I think, right
to say that a lot of the skeptics would eventually become supporters once
they see how useful the station can be -- but that's not going to happen
until the thing is at least partly operational!  And unless major changes
are made, that's not going to happen.  What's needed is an evolutionary
approach with smaller up-front costs and shorter up-front delays.  My own
gut reaction, actually, is that even Shuttle-C shouldn't be necessary for
that.  Forget the gold-plating.  It should be possible to fit a Spacelab
long module, fitted out as living quarters, and the necessary power and
life support into one shuttle payload.  This is with *no* scientific
payload, mind you.  It goes up and stays up, with the shuttle orbiter
attached to it just in case, for a month or two.  If something goes badly
wrong, the whole thing just comes back down.  If things are going okay,
a second shuttle goes up to meet it, carrying the OMV and another Spacelab
long module, containing the beginnings of the "working" facilities.  The two
modules are docked.  The first orbiter goes down; the second one stays
there for the moment.  We still have no major scientific payload aboard;
these two launches are pure infrastructure.  A third shuttle takes up
an ISF as a co-orbiting platform, and on-orbit servicing can then be
checked out and science work can start.  At this point, we *have* a minimal
space station in orbit.  Getting all this done within limited stay times
will take some careful planning and possibly a deliberate "surge" effort
by the shuttle people, but it shouldn't be impossibly hard.  After that,
evolution can proceed.  Get the Europeans to build a rescue vehicle --
they're interested in returnable capsules anyway -- and the Japanese to
build a proper logistics module combined with a reboost system.  Then
one shuttle flight can take those two up and start permanent manned
operations.  It shouldn't take tens of billions, it shouldn't take dozens
of shuttle launches, and dammit, it shouldn't take until 1995 to do!  Not
if a real Apollo-style effort is made, with adequate support from Congress
(not a trivial assumption, that...).  What we eventually get probably won't
be as simple, cheap, or prompt as this... but it definitely won't be NASA's
current gold-plated rabbit hutch.]

ESA may save some hardware from the ELA-1 launch complex (to be decommissioned
because it is old and can't handle Ariane 4) for use on ELA-3, the coming
Ariane 5 complex.  [Actually, if I were ESA I would be worried about putting
all my eggs in one basket named ELA-2.  All it takes is one big launch
accident and Ariane is grounded for quite a while, for lack of a launch pad.]

House and Senate subcommittees agree to cut NASA FY89 budget request by
$810M, including $67M out of the space station's $967M.  However, a large
chunk of the station money is embargoed until the next president can make
some decisions about the program.  Other NASA projects, notably AXAF, got
bigger cuts.

NASA and USAF still at odds over KSC range safety, including how many people
should be allowed to watch and from where.

Bush commits to deployment of SDI, development of a space station, and
development of a heavylift launcher.  Specifics lacking, of course...

US Navy follows Aussat's lead in picking Hughes's new 3-axis-stabilized
comsat as its next generation.  Navy deal is for one satellite and options
on nine more, plus expendable launches for some of them.

Flight readiness firing delayed due to sluggish operation of a bleed valve;
the Aug 4 FRF attempt was scrubbed at T-7, less than a second before SSME
ignition, when the valve closed too slowly.

NASA decides to do an on-pad repair on the RCS leak.  A hole will be cut in
the aft end of the cargo bay to provide access to the trouble area.

The hydrogen leak discovered during the wet-countdown demonstration is
somewhere in the pad umbilical; attempts to cure it by replacing suspect
parts have not worked so far.  Hydrogen concentration is being monitored
and it is hoped that it won't get high enough to interfere with the FRF.

Big article on X-30 technology efforts.  The X-30 will be about the size
of a 727, by current estimates, with empty weight comparable to that of
an F-15.  The decision to build and test three X-30s (one for ground test,
the other two for flight) will be made in 1990.  [Assuming it survives;
I believe Dukakis is opposed to it.]

Big article on the elaborate nondestructive-testing procedures the USAF is
using on Titan SRBs to avoid a repetition of the early-1986 fireworks.

NAS/NRC report criticizes NASA's weather forecasting at KSC, saying that
weather hazards are "poorly observed and predicted".  There isn't even a
definition of what information is needed for shuttle launches.  For example,
no attempt has been made to set a limit on the size of raindrops in clouds
(which could be a hazard to shuttle tiles), much less to measure it or
incorporate the information in launch decisions.  Other important parameters
are similarly neglected.  Weather observation at emergency landing sites
is crude to nonexistent.  Recommendations are:  quantification of weather
hazards and incorporation of the results into launch criteria; better
instrumentation for measuring conditions, with an attempt to measure the
important parameters directly rather than inferring them indirectly from
things that are easier to measure; clear support and adequate budgeting
for NASA's weather office; and a forecasting-research center at KSC to
promote improvement of the technology.
-- 
Intel CPUs are not defective,  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
they just act that way.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 15 Aug 88 21:43:28 GMT
From: haven!uflorida!novavax!ankh!Marc.Dantonio@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Marc Dantonio)
Subject: red-shift

Dean
Why would the red-shift value be outdated? It would not be changing?
What did you mean?
Marc



--  
 FidoNet  : 369/6     the Eye of Osiris   -   305-973-1947  -     OPUS/UFGATE
 UUCP     : ...!{gatech!uflorida!novavax, hoptoad, umbio}!ankh!Marc.Dantonio
 internet : Marc.Dantonio@ankh.FIDONET.ORG

------------------------------

Date: 16 Aug 88 06:10:54 GMT
From: ndsuvax!nekinsel@uunet.uu.net  (Peter Kinsella)
Subject: Re: SETI: Why don't we hear anything?

In article <561@unisv.UUCP>, vanpelt@unisv.UUCP (Mike Van Pelt) writes:

> There's lots of talk about making self-replicating explorers to
> go through all the galaxy collecting data and eventually returning it
> to Earth -- Suppose a sufficiently xenophobic civilization decided
> to use the technique for eliminated threats/rivals?  You can postulate
> that they get along fine with each other, but are horrified at the
> idea of "others".
 
> Presumably it wouldn't be all that
> difficult for an advanced civilization to build probes that would be
> more than a match for any civilization that had only a few years
> before mastered the use of radio, on which the probes would home in.

     Why would would the get along fine with each other but be afraid of a
a little puny underdeveloped planet. If we assume that the galaxy is as
expansive as most people claim. And if we assume that the Race is  
suffiently developed to send probes to wipe out other planets, wouldn't
they also be advanced enough to harvest resources from uninhabited worlds.
Wouldn't the later also be more economically efficent, especially if the
world be taken over detonates atomic weapons in its self defense.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #338
*******************

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Date: Sun, 28 Aug 88 01:04:56 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
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To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
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Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #339

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 339

Today's Topics:
		     Re: Not in the line of duty
	Re: Space Station power supply (was Re: Lithium cells)
			    whither Mike?
		     Re: Not in the line of duty
		    Re: Earth Orbit material limit
		astute pebbles; also: planets / space
			  Re: Space Bloopers
	Re: Space Station power supply (was Re: Lithium cells)
			    Space Station
		Re: SETI: Why don't we hear anything?
			    Re: Aerospike
			Kettering Boys School
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 16 Aug 88 13:51:44 GMT
From: cfa!cfa250!mcdowell@husc6.harvard.edu  (Jonathan McDowell)
Subject: Re: Not in the line of duty

>From article <390@obi-wan>, by berman@stsci.EDU (Mike Berman):
> Ten of our astronauts' deaths have been widely publicized - namely the
> three aboard Apollo 1 and the seven aboard the Challenger. I'm curious
> as to who is no longer with us as the result of a more "normal" demise?
> Are all of the crews of the successful Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and
> shuttle missions still alive?


Jack Swigert (Apollo 13), died Dec 1982 of cancer
Donn Eisele (Apollo 7), died Dec 1987 of cardiac arrest

X-15 pilot Jack McKay (flew above 80 km), died Apr 75 of complications
from injuries in 1962 X-15 crash
X-15 pilot Mike Adams, died in crash of X-15-3, Nov 1967, 81 km apogee  
X-15 pilot Joe Walker, flew above 100 km, died in F-104/XB-70 collision at Edwards, 1966.


Astronaut trainees have also died while in training...Ted Freeman
(1964), Elliot See and Charlie Bassett (1966), Robert Lawrence (1967),
Stephen Thorne (1986) in plane crashes, Ed Givens (1967) in a car crash;
and two former military astronaut trainees (Russell Rogers, 1967; James
Taylor, 1970) died in plane crashes after their programs were cancelled.

As far as I know, Swigert and Eisele are the only US astronauts or
astronaut trainees to have died 'natural' deaths, while the USSR has
lost Belyayev, Varlamov, Sorokin, Nelyubov, Lefchenko and possibly 
others; as well as Komarov, Dobrovol'skiy, Volkov and Patsaev in 
spaceflight, and Bondarenko and Gagarin in training.
 

Sorry for such a morbid article!
  
   
   - Jonathan McDowell

------------------------------

Date: 15 Aug 88 15:44:57 GMT
From: rochester!ritcv!ritcsh!ultb!awpsys@louie.udel.edu  (Andrew W. Potter)
Subject: Re: Space Station power supply (was Re: Lithium cells)

In article <1110001@hpfclm.HP.COM> myers@hpfclm.HP.COM (Bob Myers) writes:
>
>>Main power on the space station is specified as 220 VAC at 20 kHz.
>
20 Khz???? I sure hope they never bring any dogs up there! 


-- 
Andrew W. Potter                         Email: awpsys@ritvax.BITNET
Systems Programmer                              awp8101@ritcv.UUCP
Information Systems and Computing
Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester NY, 14623 (716) 475-6994

------------------------------

Date: 16 Aug 88 15:55:00 GMT
From: mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Mike Smithwick)
Subject: whither Mike?

[]
Well guys, it looks like all of your letters to Dukakis (sp?) has worked.
While visiting JSC yesterday Mike D. told of his changed heart regarding
the Space Station and the space program in general. He clearly supports
the space station, and talked of the "disarray" in the space program due
to bearuacracy (sp? again) and mis-management. He wants to set up Bentsen
as chairman of the National Aeronautics and Space Council or some such
thing. (Remember, Bentsen is a very strong support of NASA).

With this turn of events, and the strong pro-space plank in the Republican's
platform, things would appear to be looking up.


-- 
			   *** mike (starship janitor) smithwick ***
"You can fool some of the people all of the time, or all of the people
 some of the time, but you can't fool Mom".
[disclaimer : nope, I don't work for NASA, I take full blame for my ideas]

------------------------------

Date: 16 Aug 88 15:19:12 GMT
From: mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Mike Smithwick)
Subject: Re: Not in the line of duty

[]
In article <390@obi-wan> berman@stsci.EDU (Mike Berman) writes:
>Ten of our astronauts' deaths have been widely publicized - namely the
>three aboard Apollo 1 and the seven aboard the Challenger. I'm curious
>as to who is no longer with us as the result of a more "normal" demise?
>Are all of the crews of the successful Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and
>shuttle missions still alive?
>-- 

The only experianced astronauts to have died from "normal" situations are
Jack Swigert the CMP from Apollo 13. He died a couple years back due to
cancer I believe, while he was running for congress. (He died before
the election, and he still won!) And just about 2 months ago, Donn Eisele 
the CMP of Apollo 7 died while in Japan. (I forget what of). 

Of course there have been a number of other rookie astros who
died or were killed. Elliot See and Charles Bassett were killed when the
plane they were flying crashed into the hanger that contained their
Gemini spacecraft. The were the prime crew for Gemini 10 I think. ( I don't have
my books here at work so I can't verify that). And the original Apollo 12
LMP, Theodore "CC" Freeman was killed in an car accident. 
Al Bean took his place. 

More recently, a couple of years ago a Shuttle rookie astronaut (forgot
his name) was killed in a plane accident.

-- 
			   *** mike (starship janitor) smithwick ***
"You can fool some of the people all of the time, or all of the people
 some of the time, but you can't fool Mom".
[disclaimer : nope, I don't work for NASA, I take full blame for my ideas]

------------------------------

Resent-Message-Id: <8X26dmy00Vse41h0Z4@andrew.cmu.edu>
Resent-Date: Tue, 16 Aug 88 13:01:38 -0400 (EDT)
Resent-From: Ted Anderson <ota+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Resent-To: space@angband.s1.gov
Return-Path: <ota+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Date:     Tue, 16 Aug 88 12:39 EST
From: <GILL%QUCDNAST.BITNET@cornellc.ccs.cornell.edu>
Subject:  Re: Earth Orbit material limit

Thomas Hacker writes:

>   In the news recently, I noticed a small article pertaining to the
>limiting of certain projects that would put objects into geosynchinous
>orbit.  One of the projects was a piece of art created by a French
>sculpter that would reflect light onto the planet's surface and appear
>as a bright object to the viewers below.  The article proceeded to
>mention that many astronomers were against this because they feared that
>the sky would become too "washed out" with light, thus decreasing the
>visibilty in the night sky already filled with "light pollution".
>
>   Has anyone heard of what there was behind this and what the outcome
>will be?

     Where have you been for the last two years?  :-)

     The French part of the story was an attempt by some French artist
to put 100m diameter, highly reflecting balloons into orbit, ringed
around the entire Earth, as part of the 100th anniversary celebrations
of the Eiffel Tower.  That amount of light would have disrupted
astronomical observations around the world for years, as well as filled
space with more junk.  The idea was proposed several years ago, and
abandoned sometime last year, because of the outcry (and expense
probably).

     It was a really stupid idea, and hopefully no other concerns,
especially commercial ones, will try such trash.  If not, we may be
subjected to a giant "Golden Arches" covering the face of the moon!  And
that is a scary thought.

                                         -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Arnold Gill                             | If you don't complain to those who  |
Queen's University at Kingston          | implemented the problem, you have   |
gill @ qucdnast.bitnet                  | no right to complain at all !       |
                                         -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

------------------------------

Date: 16 Aug 88 19:27:29 GMT
From: spdcc!eli@husc6.harvard.edu  (Steve Elias)
Subject: astute pebbles; also: planets / space

In <2753@vice.ICO.TEK.COM> keithl@vice.ICO.TEK.COM (Keith Lofstrom) writes:

	... a nice treatment of the 'smart pebbles' idea ...  and...

>I DO want to show that space is a BIG place;  the Earth is not too small,
>either.  Village-scale thinking doesn't work any more. 

	"Space is small.  The planets are big."

	this quote has stuck with me for many years.  
	i think it belongs to Heinlein.  
	i hope it makes someone out there smile...

------------------------------

Date: 16 Aug 88 19:35:52 GMT
From: concertina!fiddler@sun.com  (Steve Hix)
Subject: Re: Space Bloopers

In article <6510@uwmcsd1.UUCP>, markh@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Mark William Hopkins) writes:
>>From article <62689@sun.uucp>, by fiddler%concertina@Sun.COM (Steve Hix):
>>
>>Ranger 3	missed moon...
> 
> What did they call IT after it missed the moon?

Ranger 3 (at least when "Ranger what?" didn't work) :}

------------------------------

Date: 16 Aug 88 21:03:21 GMT
From: phri!cooper!dasys1!tbetz@nyu.edu  (Tom Betz)
Subject: Re: Space Station power supply (was Re: Lithium cells)

In article <20633@sri-unix.SRI.COM> larson@unix.sri.com (Alan Larson) writes:
>my opinion:
>The best reason for 220 VAC at 20 KHz is that it provides the contractors
>with the opportunity to engineer custom parts at great profit.  It seems
>unlikely that the savings in size by 20 KHz power are worth the trouble.
 
The reason NASA offered for using 20KHz AC is that just about any desired
frequency can be obtained by using filters, obviating the need for much 
heavier transformers.

This was at a NASA forum on the Space Station at EAA/Oshkosh last year.

Anyone at NASA care to comment?

-- 
  "Through practice, I have become one of the      |Tom Betz 
      better liars in the English language.        |ZCNY, Yonkers, NY 10701-2509
I wouldn't say it if I didn't know it wasn't true" |UUCP: tbetz@dasys1.UUCP or
           - Emmanuel Transmission -               | ...!cmcl2!phri!dasys1!tbetz

------------------------------

Date: 16 Aug 88 07:56:02 GMT
From: cs.utexas.edu!sm.unisys.com!csun!polyslo!jsalter@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu  (The Math Hacker)
Subject: Space Station

Could someone e-mail me a copy of the full set of modules for the
space station, and their respective functions.  I seem to have lost mine in
some shuffle somewhere...

Thanks.
-- 
James A. Salter  --  Yes, math majors can use UNIX(tm), too...
jsalter@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU	   | sin(x)/n = 6   (Cancel the n's!)
...!ucbvax!voder!polyslo!jsalter   | 	"Type h for help." -- rn

------------------------------

Date: 17 Aug 88 04:20:54 GMT
From: silver!chiaravi@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu  (Lucius Chiaraviglio)
Subject: Re: SETI: Why don't we hear anything?

In article <1123@ndsuvax.UUCP> nekinsel@ndsuvax.UUCP (Peter Kinsella) writes:
|In article <561@unisv.UUCP>, vanpelt@unisv.UUCP (Mike Van Pelt) writes:
|> There's lots of talk about making self-replicating explorers to
|> go through all the galaxy collecting data and eventually returning it
|> to Earth -- Suppose a sufficiently xenophobic civilization decided
|> to use the technique for eliminated threats/rivals?  You can postulate
|> that they get along fine with each other, but are horrified at the
|> idea of "others".
	[. . .]

|     Why would would the get along fine with each other but be afraid of a
|a little puny underdeveloped planet. If we assume that the galaxy is as
|expansive as most people claim. And if we assume that the Race is  
|suffiently developed [. . .]

	These assumptions make sense from the rational point of view, but the
assumption that any technologically-advanced civilization (or any that might
be capable of star-faring by any other means, for that matter, although I have
a little trouble thinking of "other means" right off hand) will also be
rational is a dangerous assumption.  This is particularly the case considering
the very forboding human example. . .

	-- Lucius Chiaraviglio
	   chiaravi@silver.bacs.indiana.edu
	   lucius@tardis.harvard.edu	(in case the first one doesn't work)

------------------------------

Date: 16 Aug 88 15:54:03 GMT
From: attcan!utgpu!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Aerospike

In article <4655@whuts.UUCP> sw@whuts.UUCP (WARMINK) writes:
>> What is an aerospike?  What is meant by its being (or not being)
>> "plugged"?  
>An aerospike is a sharp extension of a (usually) blunt nose cone...

Actually, if I have my history right, this is a relatively recent use of
the term.  The older use is for a variant of the "plug nozzle" engine
(which is where the "plugged" business may come from).  The normal rocket
nozzle is a sort of bell shape wrapped around the exhaust.  It is possible
to turn it inside out, and have a tapering spike in the middle with the
exhaust around it.  It turns out that this works just fine even if there
is nothing around the exhaust but air, and in fact it has an advantage:
it has automatic "altitude compensation".

A normal rocket nozzle for use at varying altitudes is invariably a
compromise.  You get to choose what pressure the exhaust will be at when
it leaves the nozzle.  If it's higher than the local atmospheric pressure,
you are wasting energy that could be used for thrust.  If it's lower than
local pressure, the exhaust can break away from the nozzle surface before
reaching the end, with various ungood results.  You can cheat on this a
bit -- the SSME exhaust pressure is less than 1 atmosphere -- but not too
much.  The trouble is that rocket engines have to function at varying
altitudes, the worst case being something like the SSME which goes from
one full atmosphere at launch to hard vacuum just before cutoff.  There
are schemes for variable-geometry nozzles, so far not very practical.  The
plug nozzle's exhaust stream sticks close to the spike at high outside
pressure and expands widely at low pressure, effectively varying the shape
of the nozzle automatically.

One obvious problem is that that spike sticking down is a problem to cool
and a nuisance to have around on the pad.  But it turns out that you can
get almost the same results if you chop off the spike fairly short and
inject some low-velocity gas -- e.g. pump-turbine exhaust -- into the gap.
This is the "aerospike nozzle", which is the form of the plug nozzle that
would actually be used in a modern design.  It works pretty well.

There are disadvantages too, mind you.  For example, at high outside
pressure with the exhaust close to the spike, air has to make a fairly
abrupt turn around the base of the rocket to follow the surface of the
exhaust jet, and that adds drag.  On the whole the plug nozzle can still
be a considerable net win, and it's somewhat surprising that it's never
been used in a major application.  Scuttlebutt has it that the shuttle
would have had a plug nozzle, and been the better for it, were it not
that one company controlled all the patents and the spectre of single-
source procurement reared its ugly political head.
-- 
Intel CPUs are not defective,  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
they just act that way.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 14 Aug 88 17:21:19 GMT
From: unmvax!charon!ariel.unm.edu!seds@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (SPACE EXPLORATION)
Subject: Kettering Boys School



Hello.  Does anyone have some information on Geoffrey Perry and activities
at the Kettering Boys School in England?  This is the group that listens to
satellite radio transmissions and uses them to find newly launched Soviet
sats.  (see National Geographic, September 1983, pg. 327)

I would like to hear from anyone who knows about this.  Anyone have an
address for this school or news about their latest activities?

Ollie Eisman - N6LTJ

SSTS Project






_______________________  seds@ariel.unm.edu  ____________________________
SEDS-UNM : Students for the Exploration and Development of Space           
Box 92 Student Union, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM  87106
(505) 898-1974

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #339
*******************

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To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
Reply-To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #340

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 340

Today's Topics:
			     Planetariums
			    Re: Aerospike
		     Re: E-Stamps and cat brains
		 Re: ET phone home? (SETI)   RESPONS
		Re: SETI: Why don't we hear anything?
		Re: SETI: Why don't we hear anything?
		     Re: HOTOL funding cancelled
		Re: Space Station Name chosen -- Fred
		    Re: 95% vs. 99.9% reliability
			       Re: Seti
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 16 Aug 88 14:55:41 GMT
From: bbking!rmarks@burdvax.prc.unisys.com  (Richard Marks)
Subject: Planetariums

Over the past year my little daughter and I have gone to two planetariums.
We went to the one in Philadelphia at the Franklin Institute and the
one in New York at the Hayden Planetarium.  Both have the Zeiss
Projectors and put on rather impressive shows.  I wonder what experiences
others have had with the various planetariums.

The show at the Franklin Institute was called "Death of the Dinosaurs" and
explored evolution and development of pre-historic life.  It discussed the
various cosmic (comets, interstellar gas, etc) events that may have lead
to the sudden disappearence of the dinosaurs.  There were several neat special
effects, including a simulation of the BIG BANG.  The show was not the
traditional "the night sky" planetarium show.  The cost was reasonable
and parking and access was good.

The show at the Hayden was in two parts.  I forget the first part, but the
second part was about the Hubble Space Telescope.  It was interesting but
was a bit of a PR (we can do nothing wrong) pitch.  The special effects
were OK, but not up to the Franklin's level.  THe Hayden has some interesting
space exhibits outside of the dome.  (The Franklin has many exhibits, but none
related to the planetarium.)  Being New York, the cost was high and parking
was hard.

Richard Marks
rmarks@KSP.unisys.COM

------------------------------

Date: 16 Aug 88 18:18:01 GMT
From: telesoft!roger@ucsd.edu  (Roger Arnold @prodigal)
Subject: Re: Aerospike

In article <4655@whuts.UUCP>, sw@whuts.UUCP (WARMINK) writes:
> josh@klaatu.rutgers.edu (J Storrs Hall) writes:
> 
> > What is an aerospike?  What is meant by its being (or not being)
> > "plugged"?  
> An aerospike is a sharp extension of a (usually) blunt nose cone.
> [..]

That's a likely sounding definition, but I don't think it's the one
that josh was inquiring about.  I've heard Gary Hudson talk about an 
"aerospike" as a configuration of rocket engines, in which a large 
number of (relatively) small engine nozzles are arranged in a circle 
around the periphery of a blunt disk.  The idea, as I understand it, 
is that the configuration exhibits the aerodynamic behavior of a long 
tapering tail, thereby reducing atmospheric drag.  Must confess I
don't have a good sense of the physics behind such behavior, but
presume there's something to it.  I know it was the configuration
proposed by Boeing for one of their HLLV designs in the SPS studies
they did in the 70's.  That design was a VTVL, SSTO design.  (Aren't
acronyms a riot; nothing like 'em to separate the cognoscenti from 
the hoi polloi, and, BTW, announce which camp YOU're in).  Looked 
kind of like a giant Apollo capsule.  Where's Dani?

A "plugged" aerospike is one with a conical structure (the "plug") in 
place of the blunt disk inside the ring of engines.  The exhaust gases
expand against the structure, providing additional thrust.  A plugged
aerospike effectively has a variable expansion ratio, a function of 
ambient atmospheric pressure.  It's an efficient design for booster
stages; the problem is cooling the plug.

- Roger Arnold				..ucsd!telesoft!roger

------------------------------

Date:    Wed, 17 Aug 88 08:09:25 PDT
From: hairston%23666%utadnx%utspan.span@vlsi.jpl.nasa.gov
Subject: Re: E-Stamps and cat brains
X-St-Vmsmail-To: JPLLSI::"space@angband.s1.gov"

    Adding to the debate on the "E" stamp, actually McCall's drawing of
the terminator isn't that far off from being correct (or at least as best
you can tell from that tiny picture).  We've played around with a globe
here with the north pole tilted 23 degrees towards a single light source
(which is the geometry you would get on the summer solstice) and the 
terminator does fall so that South America is in darkness while most
of North America is still in light (looks like it would be around 8pm
Eastern Daylight Time).  Still McCall's picture looks like the Earth
is tilted another 10 degrees or so, but that doesn't change the overall
effect of the picture that much.  As for the background colors, that's
definately artistic license, flat black space just isn't that interesting
visually.  If you remember the Shuttle stamps back in 1981, those were
done by McCall and also had the blue, orange, and yellow backgrounds.
(McCall isn't the only artist to "take license" with space.
Those of you who have seen the 1978 NASA book on "Space Settlements"
may have noticed that most of the artwork there showed space to look
like a field of deep purple cotton puffs.  It wasn't accurate, but
it did look nice.)  Additional trivia note: McCall did the space
mural at Johnson Space Center Vistor Center as well as the one at
the Air and Space Musuem.
	In the discussion of wiring the brain up to hardware for
space travel, James Symon (V8 #321) mentioned a scifi story where  
cat brains were used in conjuction with human brains to fly starships. 
He's refering to the short story "The Game of Rat and Dragon" by 
Cordwainer Smith.  The story was first published in 1955, so this idea 
has been bounced around (in scifi, at least) for a while.  In his novel 
"Norstrilia", Smith comes up with an interesting variation on these ideas.
Since the cost of interstellar travel is based on weight and enormously 
expensive, he imaged a future where a traveller has his or her head
removed and put into a freeze-dried hibernation.  The rest of the body
is dehydraded and perserved.  The greatly "lightened" person is then 
shipped off to its destination.  Once there the body is reconstituted,
the head is reattached, and the person revived.  I think I'll stick to 
taking the bus, thank you.

Marc Hairston--Center for Space Sciences--University of Texas at Dallas
SPAN adress  UTSPAN::UTADNX::UTD750::HAIRSTON

The opinions are my own. When I find out what the official UT system
opinion on interstellar body shipments is, I'll let you know.

------------------------------

Date: 16 Aug 88 11:31:00 GMT
From: cca!mirror!datacube!chris@husc6.harvard.edu
Subject: Re: ET phone home? (SETI)   RESPONS


>The fact is, we *don't know* why they aren't here now, and it's a major
puzzle.
-- 
Intel CPUs are not defective,  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
they just act that way.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu


      Actually, the puzzle isn't quite that complex; we as a race have
proven ourselves to be capable of the most pernicious acts directed against
ourselves for some fairly modest differences of opinion. Religious 
and racial intolerance are still at the top of the list of "causes" that we
are willing to kill each other for. As an open question to all of you in
Netland, how do you think we as a race would react to somebody as wildly
different as an Extraterrestrial form of life? I feel that if their tech-
nology allows for inter-stellar or even intergalactic travel, it must 
certainly allow for some form of remote surveying or monitoring of our planet
and it's people. And given our fairly unimpressive track record, their 
elusive behavior could be due to a desire not to contact us. After all,
how we treat ourselves is a mirror of how we would treat others. This all
may sound a little trite, but surely not too far off the mark.

Chris Munschy
Datacube

/* End of text from datacube:sci.space */

------------------------------

Date: 17 Aug 88 16:59:53 GMT
From: cfa!cfa250!willner@husc6.harvard.edu  (Steve Willner P-316 x57123)
Subject: Re: SETI: Why don't we hear anything?

>From article <561@unisv.UUCP>, by vanpelt@unisv.UUCP (Mike Van Pelt):
> Presumably it wouldn't be all that difficult for an advanced
> civilization to build probes that would be more than a match for
> any civilization that had only a few years before mastered the use
> of radio, on which the probes would home in.
> 
> I like to think of this as preposterously unlikely.  

If it is possible for an advanced civilization to build and deploy
self-reproducing, interstellar probes, probes could be continuously
resident in each solar system.  If the civilization constructing the
probes were irrationally hostile to other life forms, the probes
could be programmed to detect life and sterilize any planets long
before radio could be developed.  Obviously this has not happened, so
at least one of the assumptions is wrong (or else we are just
incredibly lucky that all the probes in our solar system have
malfunctioned).
-- 
Steve Willner            Phone 617-495-7123         Bitnet:   willner@cfa
60 Garden St.            FTS:      830-7123           UUCP:   willner@cfa
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA                 Internet: willner@cfa.harvard.edu

------------------------------

Date: 17 Aug 88 23:53:42 GMT
From: vsi1!unisv!vanpelt@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Mike Van Pelt)
Subject: Re: SETI: Why don't we hear anything?

In article <1123@ndsuvax.UUCP> nekinsel@ndsuvax.UUCP (Peter Kinsella) writes:
>In article <561@unisv.UUCP>, vanpelt@unisv.UUCP (Mike Van Pelt) writes:
>> [description of the "berserker hypothesis"

Understand, my arguments here are of a "devil's advocate" nature.
I do not think that this is the answer to the silence problem.
(Maybe I'm being overly optimistic...)
 
>Why would would they get along fine with each other but be afraid of a
>a little puny underdeveloped planet.

Perhaps they can get along fine with each other because 'each other'
aren't *ALIENS*, thus don't trigger the xenophobia.  Perhaps the
planet is inhabited by the sole surviving group of centuries of
genocidal wars, so on that planet there are no 'others' to be
xenophobic about.

Remember, if we're talking about self-replicating robots doing the
dirty work, the original xenophobes aren't afraid of us; they probably
don't even know about us even if they aren't extinct.  Their robots,
multiplying and filling the galaxy, seek out and destroy civilizations
all on their own.

>If we assume that the galaxy is as expansive as most people claim.

This supports the Berserker Hypothesis.  If the galaxy (or universe
if we allow for intergalactic travel) is so big, it almost doesn't
matter how fantastically improbable the Berserker Hypothesis is.  It
only has to happen ONCE in fifteen billion years of the history of
the entire galaxy/universe.  If anyone, anywhere, anytime, built
self-replicating robots programmed to seek out and destroy all life
(Saberhagen's version) or even all technological civilizations
(Benford's version), they could fill the galaxy in on the order of
a million or two years.  That what makes it so scary.

>And if we assume that the Race is  
>suffiently developed to send probes to wipe out other planets, wouldn't
>they also be advanced enough to harvest resources from uninhabited worlds.
>Wouldn't the later also be more economically efficent, especially if the
>world be taken over detonates atomic weapons in its self defense.  

This all assumes that they are rational, that their rationality includes
a need and desire to harvest resources from uninhabited worlds, economic
efficiency, etc.  Remember, in the Berserker Hypothesis, they don't
care beans about extraplanetary resources -- they just want to stamp
out those awful, ugly, obscene, disgusting *alien* *horrors*.  (That's
us, if we attract their attention.)

And it also assumes that nuclear weapons are the Ultimate Weapon.
Talk to some of the nanotechnology people, and you'll see that nukes
are just peashooters compared to Gray Goo -- just a pinch will consume
an entire planet right down to the magma in short order.  (I'm not
entirely convinced about nanotechnology, either, but the topic sure is
interesting.)

(*GAD* but this message is depressing.  I sure hope it isn't true.)
-- 
"Dreams of flight are universal among space-faring races.| Mike Van Pelt
 Indeed, such dreams may form much of the motivation for | Unisys Silicon Valley
 becoming space-faring."   --  T'chaih Hrinach           | vanpelt@unisv.UUCP

------------------------------

Date: 16 Aug 88 16:41:20 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!etive!bob@uunet.uu.net  (Bob Gray)
Subject: Re: HOTOL funding cancelled

In article <4643@whuts.UUCP> sw@whuts.UUCP (WARMINK) writes:
>I was rather surprised at the lack of comments (or maybe I shouldn't have been)
>when it was announced that the British government had decided to stop funding
>the HOTOL program. Apparently British Aerospace and Rolls Royce are expected
>to fund to development themselves.

I posted an article on the subject last week.

There have been a couple of developments since then.
Rolls Royce are said to be reluctant to continue development
withour Government backing. They hold all the patents on the
airbreathing engine.

Second, a group of financial backers are said to have raised
120 million pounds to continue development over the next
two years. The backers do not include BAe or RR.

Now, if British private enterprise can manage to compete
with the Government funded projects elsewhere in the world
there might be some hope for the future yet.

The old pattern is repeating itself yet again.
	Bob.

------------------------------

Date: 16 Aug 88 16:44:58 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!etive!bob@uunet.uu.net  (Bob Gray)
Subject: Re: Space Station Name chosen -- Fred

In article <1635@uop.edu> todd@uop.edu ( Todd/Dr. Nethack ) writes:
>> yea, yea...space station "Fred Om", or "Fred" for short...

>The "Fred-Om" was from a suggestion by Eddie "Superfrog" Caplan.

Is there any truth in the rumor that he is to develop the
next generation of US launch vehicles for servicing the
space station?




:-> :-> :->

Ducks quickly to avoid the bricks.
	Bob.

------------------------------

Date: 16 Aug 88 16:48:03 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!etive!bob@uunet.uu.net  (Bob Gray)
Subject: Re: 95% vs. 99.9% reliability

In article <1988Aug9.205520.5911@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>As somebody wrote in Aviation Week a few months afterward (roughly, from
>memory):  "If the same thing had happened to the Soviets, they would have
>swept the debris off the launch pad, hoisted the next launcher onto the
>pad, and started the countdown.

Much more importantly, they don't scrap the old launch system
until the new one is working reliably, and can do all that
the old one could.
	Bob.

------------------------------

Date: 18 Aug 88 03:59:18 GMT
From: dietz@cu-arpa.cs.cornell.edu  (Paul F. Dietz)
Subject: Re: Seti

In article <75@forsight.Jpl.Nasa.Gov> roston@robotics.jpl.nasa.gov (Gerry Roston) writes:
>Working with some assumptions:
>1) Intelligent life forms elsewhere have life spans that are similar in
> magnitude to ours (say 50-500 years)

This is debatable, especially for mature technological civilizations.  Things
like nanotechnology, genetic engineering, the ability to load/backup the
state of a nervous system could all affect this estimate.

A spacefaring society, even one restricted to a single stellar system,
could have many trillions of members (but technology may make the concept
of an individual obsolete), and each member could have a productivity orders
of magnitude greater than 20th century Americans.  I would be very careful
when proclaiming limits on what technological advances such a society might
accomplish given millions of years.

>2) Advanced civilizations are energy bound (I know, fusion might solve
> that, but...)

Solar (stellar?) energy is more than adequate, although I suppose one
could call that fusion.  One trillionth of the output of the sun for
four years equals the kinetic energy of a 100,000 tonne spacecraft
travelling at 0.1 c.  This is a trivially small fraction of the available
energy.  Using this energy is an engineering exercise -- one with many
solutions, I'm sure.

>3) Advanced societies have limited budgets and would expect a return on
> investment

The cost of building a starship, for a sufficiently advanced society,
will be a very small fraction of the total available wealth.  Small projects
don't necessarily have to have a ROI in the usual sense.  What's the ROI
of charitable contributions, for instance?

Also, for a mission that returns information, the value of the information
is proportional to the number of consumers of the information.  There
could be very many such consumers.  A 10 trillion population civilization
that was 1% scientists would have 100 billion scientists -- and NSS/L5,
if scaled proportionally from a 250M to a 10T population, would have
some 800 million members!

>1) Financially feasible; if they are so advanced, what would the hope to get
> from us?
>   If it is raw materials, wouldn't they be better off getting them from a
> planet not inhabited by intelligent life forms?

Arguments that aliens wouldn't visit this solar system that depend on some
property of the human race miss the point:  why didn't the aliens colonize
the solar system hundreds of millions of years ago?  Why haven't they
colonized nearby star systems?  Where are all the Dyson spheres?  The
disassembled stars?  The Kardashev type-III civilizations?

>2) Politically practical; what would be the point of an interstellar
> (commerce, trade agreement, cultural exchange, etc. ), if it takes tens
> to hundreds of years for messages to get from on civilization to the other.
>
>3) Easily understandable from an individual perspective; what individual would
>   leave behind FOREVER, everything he/she/it knows about on the very remote
>   possibility of discovering another intelligent species?  And would this
>   being possess the necessary skills to communicate, etc.

Why should communicating with other intelligent be the only reason for
going to another stellar system?  This seems odd coming from a person
working at an organization that devotes great effort to understanding
and visiting the apparently sterile bodies of our own solar system.

Also, it is not obvious to me that colonizing another stellar system
requires sending anyone.  One might imagine, for example, a very
sophisticated machine that, on arrival, manufactures an incubator from
local materials and grows colonists.

To summarize, it seems to me that the pro-SETI, anti-interstellar travel
viewpoint suffers from excessive timidity in projecting the capabilities
of alien civilizations.  Assessments based on comparisons to current
technology or current rates of energy use are worthless, considering our
technological immaturity and what a tiny fraction of the available energy
and material resources we currently use.

Paul F. Dietz
dietz@cs.rochester.edu

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #340
*******************

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Date: Mon, 29 Aug 88 19:05:45 PDT
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To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
Reply-To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #341

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 341

Today's Topics:
		Re: SETI: Why don't we hear anything?
		   Brian Eno's _Apollo_ soundtrack
		       Space Station funding...
			   Re: Ozone layers
			       Re: Seti
			       Re: SETI
			    Re: red-shift
			   Re: Ozone layers
				 SETI
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 17 Aug 88 17:07:36 GMT
From: attcan!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: SETI: Why don't we hear anything?

In article <561@unisv.UUCP> vanpelt@unisv.UUCP (Mike Van Pelt) writes:
>There's lots of talk about making self-replicating explorers to
>go through all the galaxy collecting data and eventually returning it
>to Earth -- Suppose a sufficiently xenophobic civilization decided
>to use the technique for eliminated threats/rivals? ...
> ... and it only has to happen once for us all to be in 
>deep yoghurt.

This, the "berserker" theory (after Saberhagen's fictional self-replicating
nasties), is actually one of the more unsettlingly plausible theories about
the Great Silence.  It's not a very sensible thing to do, and one would
not consider it very likely *for a single civilization*... but as Mike
says, it only has to happen *once* to keep the whole damn galaxy silent
and lifeless for billions of years.
-- 
Intel CPUs are not defective,  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
they just act that way.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 18 Aug 88 08:26:09 GMT
From: pixar!pixar.uucp!brighton@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Bill Carson)
Subject: Brian Eno's _Apollo_ soundtrack

Having just read the liner notes of Brian Eno's 1983 album, _Apollo_,  it 
mentions that most of this music was composed for a movie/documentary of
the Apollo space missions.  Directed by Al Reinert,  it is supposed to have
been compiled from the some 6 million feet of film shot by NASA during this
fantastic and mystical period of space exploration.

My question is,  does this film exist as a released production?
And if so,  who could I contact to obtain more information about it?  
I truely hope that the project was not scrapped!

Thank you for any pointers you can provide.

-- 
Bill Carson ...!{ucbvax,sun}!pixar!brighton

------------------------------

Date: 17 Aug 88 23:00:54 GMT
From: tk@cvl.umd.edu  (Tharakesh Siddalingaiah)
Subject: Space Station funding...


I haven't seen this mentioned so...

The Washington Post reported (last week sometime) that Congress approved
~$10.5B budget for NASA. The space station project is to receive ~$900M with
~$350M in Oct. and the remainder within ~6 months unless the President decides
otherwise. Also $200M is to be cut from the shuttle funding, but there is some
provision to have money transfered from defense.

-tk
-- 
 Tharakesh Siddalingaiah ---
      University of Maryland Computer Vision Lab,      (301) 454-5858
      ARPA:tk@cvl.umd.edu  UUCP:{seismo,allegra,brl-bmd}!mimsy!cvl!tk

------------------------------

Date: 17 Aug 88 17:43:31 GMT
From: rochester!ritcv!ritcsh!ultb!awpsys@cu-arpa.cs.cornell.edu  (Andrew W. Potter)
Subject: Re: Ozone layers

In article <880815101630.000009021E1@grouch.JPL.NASA.GOV> PJS@GROUCH.JPL.NASA.GOV (Peter Scott) writes:
>Can someone please explain why ozone produced as a component of smog is
>apparently not a factor in regenerating the ozone layer that everyone's
>so worried about?  I know ozone is poisonous; is it just the case that
>smog-ozone is trapped under the inversion layer?  How?
>
Ozone is a volatile compound. It readily breaks down into O2. This is why
so little of ozone at the lower atmosphere makes it up to the upper atmosphere

Ozone is formed in the upper atmosphere by the action of Solar Uv light
on oxygen.

Chlorinated Flouro-carbon (CFC) is a very non-reactive  gas (making it
popular gas for lots of commercial uses.)  This stability allows free
CFCs to eventually make their way to the upper atmosphere where it
it DOES break down under the bombardment of solar UV.  One of the constitutents
of CFCs (Florine) then becomes the catalyst in a chemical reaction which
dramaticly increases the rate of natural breakdown of ozone.

Solution:

Put all of our ozone poluting devices on towers at 110,000 feet. :-)

	- Andy
 


-- 
Andrew W. Potter                         Email: awpsys@ritvax.BITNET
Systems Programmer                              awp8101@ritcv.UUCP
Information Systems and Computing
Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester NY, 14623 (716) 475-6994

------------------------------

Date: 18 Aug 88 15:35:40 GMT
From: aplcen!aplcomm!warper.jhuapl.edu!trn@mimsy.umd.edu  (Tony Nardo)
Subject: Re: Seti

In article <75@forsight.Jpl.Nasa.Gov> roston@robotics.jpl.nasa.gov (Gerry Roston) writes:
>To throw in my two cents:
>
>Working with some assumptions:
>[credible assumptions deleted]
>
>Then:
>To answer the question, why haven't we been visited, the simple answer is that - 
>it is not:
>1) Financially feasible;...
>2) Politically practicle;...
>3) Easily understandable from an individual perspective;...
>
>Any takers?


You're reasons are all fine from the human viewpoint.  But isn't there the
possibility that an alien viewpoint could be so skewed from ours that they
*would* have a reason to come here.

A somewhat facetious example:  suppose there is a species Out There which
   1) has a fairly developed technological civilization,
   2) believes that their deity (or deities) commune by radio, and
   3) actively encourages investigations into the Nature of their God.

Now let's say said species picks up a stray broadcast or three from Earth.
They can't understand it, but they do recognize that a certain star seems
to be putting out an abundance of (potentially) intelligible radio signals.
In this case, I can see that species finding political reasons for wanting
to travel here, and individuals willing to make the journey.

Of course, when they get here and see that Earth is not their idea of
Heaven they'll be awfully disappointed... :-)


Or, on a more grim note, let's say that there's a species which
   1) has a fairly developed technological civilization,
   2) has developed very effective weapons that only pollute the
      environment for a few years,
   3) is getting a bit overcrowded,
   4) is exceedingly ethnocentric, believing themselves to be the "roughest,
      toughest, most adaptable being that Nature ever produced," (and
      the *only* intelligent species worthy of survival), and
   5) believes that life can only be sustained under the conditions
      which they currently live.

This species picks up some radio waves.  "Hmmm.  There must be life on that
planet.  *We* could live on that world.  All we have to do is remove the
current infestation.  Let's send some probes to see how bad it is..."


Seriously, who knows how another intelligent species will think?

==============================================================================
ARPA:   @aplvax.jhuapl.edu:trn@warper	   \
        nardo%str.decnet@capsrv.jhuapl.edu  }  one of these should work
UUCP:	{backbone!}aplvax!warper!trn	   /
USnail: c/o Johns Hopkins University/APL, Room 7-53
	Johns Hopkins Road
	Laurel, Md. 20707

"...But he knew that was ethnocentric thinking.  A kzin would think, 'Now I
can claim the universe, as is my right.'"
			some story or other by Larry Niven, badly quoted
==============================================================================

------------------------------

Date:     Thu, 18 Aug 88 12:26 EST
From: <GILL%QUCDNAST.BITNET@cornellc.ccs.cornell.edu>
Subject:  Re: SETI


Ingemar.Hulthage@cs.cmu.edu writes

>I don't think one can assume that advanced civilizations do broadcast
>signals with the purpose to make themselves known, for the following
>reason.
>
>Suppose there exist some incredibly vicious species somewhere out
>there, a race that routinely seeks out intelligent civilizations and
>exploit them rutlessly. Now, if that is so, any civilization that
>broadcasts its existence would soon be found and silenced, but even if
>it is wrong it is still irresponsible to take the risk of broadcasting
>unless the horror scenario can be ruled out with 100% certainty and
>that may be hard or impossible.
>
>I therefore think that its more likely that some advanced civilizations
>deem regular wide angle transmission safe and useful for some purposes,
>as we do on earth. Hence, I don't think there is much hope of SETI
>being successful until a capacity to detect regular transmissions is
>developed.

     I give this one a big, "Huh?".  While I can agree with the last
statement, I find that the fears attempted to be invoked in the second
paragraph to be excessive.

     Any alien civilisation that has the capablility of "silencing"
another, through violent means one would assume, would have the
capability of receiving, identifying, and located the source of broad
band, omni-directional transmission such as our TV, radio, military
radars, etc.  If he is suggesting that we be 100% safe from such a
scenario, he must also be suggesting that all non-cable, non-satellite,
narrow-beam transmissions be stopped immediately.  Especially since the
power capacity and number of such stations is one the rise.  However,
according to the above scenario, even that is not enough.  We may have
already signed our "death warrant" with the transmissions of the last
40 years.

     Maybe I'm an optimist, but I don't believe that such vicious
civilizations exist, or even if they did, that they could actually
traverse space to come here and "silence" us.  The energy requirements
are just too great.  Besides, mankind has already made one long-distance
transmission of the SETI variety, even if it was over 10 years, just
repeated once, and sent not to the centre of the Galaxy, but to a
globular cluster (M15, if I remember correctly).

     And finally, if such an alien civilisation does come visiting,
maybe they won't find anything left but insects and weeds anyway, the
way that we are going.  (Oh yes, forgot about the Big Mac containers!)

                                         -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Arnold Gill                             | If you don't complain to those who  |
Queen's University at Kingston          | implemented the problem, you have   |
gill @ qucdnast.bitnet                  | no right to complain at all !       |
                                         -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

------------------------------

Date: 17 Aug 88 18:09:54 GMT
From: hp-pcd!hplsla!deanp@hplabs.hp.com  ( Dean Payne)
Subject: Re: red-shift

>From: Marc.Dantonio@ankh.FIDONET.ORG (Marc Dantonio)

>Dean
>Why would the red-shift value be outdated? It would not be changing?
>What did you mean?

By 'out-dated', I meant that by the time the new S&T arrives in the
mail, it is likely that there will be a new story in a local newspaper
stating "Astronomers Today Announced the Discovery of the Most Distant
Known Galaxy/Quasar/Whatever".  This galaxy/quasar/whatever will likely
be 15 billion lightyears distant.  There will probably be no reference
to the previous most distant object, or how much of an increase the new
discovery represents.  There will be a small chance that the story will
include a picture of the Sombrero galaxy or some other relatively nearby
object, with the caption claiming that it is the newly discovered
object.

Meanwhile, I will spend a couple more months wondering whether the
discovery is a major jump or just a small increment.  If someone would
publish the red shift, I could look back at the similar discoveries of
that class of objects over the past year and compare for myself.

Dean Payne

------------------------------

Date: 18 Aug 88 15:40:08 GMT
From: cs.utexas.edu!milano!banzai-inst!wex@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu  (Alan Wexelblat)
Subject: Re: Ozone layers

In article <34@ultb.UUCP>, awpsys@ultb.UUCP (Andrew W. Potter) writes:
> In article <880815101630.000009021E1@grouch.JPL.NASA.GOV> PJS@GROUCH.JPL.NASA.GOV (Peter Scott) writes:
> >Can someone please explain why ozone produced as a component of smog is
> >apparently not a factor in regenerating the ozone layer that everyone's
> >so worried about?
>
> Ozone is a volatile compound. It readily breaks down into O2. This is why
> so little of ozone at the lower atmosphere makes it up to the upper atmosphere

O3 is also 'heavier than air.'  That is, it tends to sink rather than rise.
I'd be surprised to find that any ground-produced ozone made it up into the
stratosphere.

-- 
--Alan Wexelblat      ARPA: WEX@MCC.COM
                      UUCP: {rutgers, uunet, &c}!cs.utexas.edu!milano!wex

"I am not a stranger.  Just a friend you haven't met yet."

------------------------------

Posted-Date: Thu, 18 Aug 88 16:00:28 PST
From: "Craig E. Ward" <cew@venera.isi.edu>
Subject: SETI
Date: Thu, 18 Aug 88 16:00:28 PST
Sender: cew@venera.isi.edu


[Below is an article I wrote for the OASIS chapter newsletter, the OASIS
Odyssey.  I know this a bit late, the meeting took place last September,
but somebody out there my find it interesting.  I have some more that
will follow.  If there's enough interest, I will post such articles in a
more timely manner.

OASIS is the chapter of the National Space Society serving Los Angeles and
Orange Counties in California. - CEW]

                    The Search for Fellow Travelers
                      

By Craig E. Ward
  

     For the September general meeting, OASIS hosted a presentation by
Dr. Thomas McDonough, a lecturer in engineering at Cal Tech, on the
Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI).  Dr. McDonough is the
coordinater of the SETI project for the Planetary Society.

     The doctor began the presentation by reminding the audience that,
for a time, we had a United States Senator who had walked on the moon,
then asked how that would have sounded to people's ears fifty years ago.
So much science fiction.  But it's true.  Just as moon walking senators
would have sounded like science fiction in 1927, the notion of
extraterrestrial intelligence is the stuff of today's science fiction
and fantasy, but it may also be true.

     We cannot assume that we even know all of the life forms on Earth,
let alone the universe.  Just recently, tube-like worms were discovered
living around hot water vents on the ocean floor.  Life in an area once
thought lifeless.

     Dr. McDonough went on to describe the possibilities for life on 
the planets of our solar system.
  
     Mars is a big MAYBE.  The positive results from the Viking landers
are now thought to be from strange, inorganic chemical reactions.
However, Dr. McDonough pointed out that the landers had to land in a
safe place instead of an interesting place, sort of like landing in the
Gobi Desert.  Russian probes that tried to land in more promising areas
crashed.  What is needed is a roving probe that can land in a safe area
and travel to the interesting ones.
  
     Jupiter cannot be left out.  At some altitudes, the atmosphere 
is much the same as Earth's.
  
     Some of the planetary moons also offer possibilities.  Titan 
and Triton are known to contain organic compounds and Europa is 
believed to have liquid water under its icy crust.
  
     However, what is most intriguing to Dr. McDonough is the recent
discovery of organic compounds in inter-stellar space.  The building
blocks of life could be spread all over the universe.

     Having established the possibilities of life out there, Dr.
McDonough began to talk about how we might communicate with them.

     Due to the great distances involved, any communication with
extraterrestrials would be very one-sided.  The exchange of pleasantries
could take 100,000 years.  Even with that, we have sent several messages
into the deep space.  Pioneers 10 and 11 and Voyagers 1 and 2 all
contain messages for some inter-stellar traveler to find.  The radio
telescope at Arecibo has been used to send a similar message to the
stars.

     The emphasis in SETI, however, is in listening for tell-tale
signals of intelligent life.
  
     When enough interest developed in the project, NASA went to
Congress with a plan; however, a certain senator, whom Dr. McDonough
represented with a slide of Darth Vader, pushed through a measure
forbidding NASA to spend any money on the project.  While the
moonwalking senator led the fight to restore NASA funding (a bit of
irony there), the Planetary Society received a proposal for a cheap but
effective method for conducting a search.  The Society funded the
project and the Arecibo antenna was used to listen to a variety of
frequencies.

     After the allotted time at Arecibo was over, the researcher found
out about an old navy antenna located near Harvard University that was
being decommissioned.  He was able to transfer his operation to this
antenna and has been searching ever since.

     Plans are currently underway that will bring NASA back into the
picture.  The NASA program will add significantly to the capabilities of
the project.

     Dr. McDonough ended the formal part of the talk by reviewing some
of the aliens that science fiction has created for us.  Most have been
monsters of one sort or another who like to carry off beautiful women
(gee -- what's wrong with that?).  Reality is more likely to be like our
friend Mr. Spock (although he looks too human).  Any species which
survives long enough to develop interstellar space travel will likely
have controlled its more violent urges, something Humanity has not yet
done.
 
Copyright 1987 Organization for the Advancement of Space
Industrialization and Settlement (OASIS)

Used by permission

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #341
*******************

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Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #342

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 342

Today's Topics:
		       American Rocket Company
		 Re: Brian Eno's _Apollo_ soundtrack
	   Re: SETI (was Re: Time dilation affecting SETI)
		Re: SETI: Why don't we hear anything?
		      Re: Kettering Boys School
			       Re: Seti
		    Re: Space Station power supply
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Posted-Date: Thu, 18 Aug 88 16:14:00 PST
From: "Craig E. Ward" <cew@venera.isi.edu>
Subject: American Rocket Company
Date: Thu, 18 Aug 88 16:14:00 PST
Sender: cew@venera.isi.edu


[Below is the article I wrote for the OASIS Odyssey summarizing a
lecture meeting last November.  Soon after this talk, AMROC lost its
financial backers and had to lay off almost all of its workers.  Earlier
this year, AMROC found new backers and they are back in business, though
they have yet to launch anything.  (OASIS may get invited!)  The July 88
issue of Discover mentions AMROC in the article "The Launch Gap."  Has a
picture of AMROC founder and NSS board member George Koopman. - CEW]

               A Slingshot Heard Round the World

By Craig E. Ward

     The  force  of  Friday the 13th was felt by  OASIS  when  the 
scheduled speaker for the November general meeting,  James Bennett, 
was  unable  to attend due to out-of-town  business  commitments; 
however,  his  place was more than adequately filled my  James  R. 
French.

     Mr.  French  is  Vice  President  of  Engineering  and  Chief 
Engineer  for  American  Rocket  Company,  AMROC.  His  background 
includes a BSME from MIT (1958);  nineteen years with JPL  working 
on the Mariner,  Viking and Voyager programs;  four years with TRW 
working on the Lunar Module Descent engine and advanced propulsion 
experiments;  and five years with Rocketdyne working on  H-1,  F-1 
and  J-2  engines  for  the Saturn  Launch  Vehicles.   He  is  an 
Associate  Fellow of AIAA and a Fellow of the BIS.   He is also  a 
Civil Air Patrol Search Pilot.

     AMROC  is one of several small,  startup companies trying  to 
fill  the  current gap in the nation's  launch  capabilities  with 
privately financed launch services.

     The  company  was founded in 1985 by  George  Koopman,  James 
Bennett and Bevin McKinney.  Originally, the company was located in 
Menlo Park but was moved to Camarillo,  California to be closer to 
the launch site at Vandenberg Air Force Base and to take advantage 
of a more varied technical workforce.

     This has been a year of major growth for the company,  at the 
beginning of 1987 it had only 15 employees, now that number is 84.  
One of the young company's biggest problems has been molding  this 
group of people into a team.  They feel they have succeeded.

     The  key word in AMROC's approach to launches  is  "service".  
Unlike the way todays launches are run,  AMROC will not be selling 
the actual rocket but the service of putting a certain payload  at 
a  certain location at a certain time.   Payment for  the  service 
will be after it has been successful, not before.  (The concept of 
payment  after-the-fact  has  proven  to  be  very  popular   with 
potential launch customers.)

     The shift from selling rockets to selling services is AMROC's 
method  of reducing the amount of paperwork associated  with  most 
rocket  manufacture.    Current  government  procurement  policies 
require  that  each  component conform to  a  particular  agency's 
standards  and  that there be miles of papertrails  to  prove  it.  
Instead  of  going  this route,  AMROC goes  out  to  the  various 
suppliers with a set of requirements and then buys the best priced 
component that meets or exceeds those requirements.

     AMROC is basing its first series of vehicle on clusters of  a 
hybrid rocket engine.   A hybrid engine uses a mixture of a  solid 
fuel and liquid oxygen.   The fuel is a rubber-like substance that 
is  so stable it can easily be handled in standard  light-industry 
facilities.  (The Camarillo Fire Marshal considers AMROC's factory 
to be less of a fire hazard than a neighboring packaging plant.)

     Under  a  1984 National Security Decision  Directive  by  the 
Reagan  administration,   AMROC  has  been  able  to  use  certain 
government facilities.   The directive allows government  agencies 
to  lease  unused  facilities to  private  companies.   AMROC  has 
refurbished  an engine testing facility at the  Rocket  Propulsion 
Laboratory on Edwards Air Force Base and an old Thor launch pad at 
Vandenberg.

     In  December of 1986,  a successful half-thrust test  of  the 
engine design was conducted.   (The video tape shown by Mr. French 
showed   the  test  sequence  being  controlled  with   an   Apple 
Macintosh.) Plans are currently in the works for a full power test 
in  mid-November.    This  test  is  behind  schedule  because  of 
production problems and the planed February 1988 launch of AMROC's 
first rocket has been postponed at least three months.

     The first planned orbital vehicle is dubbed "The  Slingshot".  
The  configuration consists of three engines clustered as a  first 
stage,  a single hybrid engine as the second and a Star 48  rocket 
motor as the third stage.   (The Star 48 is the motor seen at  the 
bottom  of satellites spin-launched from the shuttle.)   Depending 
on  where  the customer wants it,  this  configuration  can  orbit 
between 400 and 700 pounds.

     While  AMROC has secured the use of a launch site,  the  site 
has several problems.  The only clear track goes west.  The tracks 
for polar orbits would take any rocket over important sections  of 
Vandenberg (like the runways).   One promising new site does exist 
at the southern end of the base;  however,  AMROC has  encountered 
the standard problem that any new building on the base encounters.  
Vandenberg  is located on the ancient home of the Chumash  Indians 
and  any  and  all construction on the base  must  be  okayed  and 
supervised  by the Chumash Shaman.   AMROC hopes to overcome  this 
obstacle and build a new launch complex there.

     Some  more serious obstacles have been encountered with  mid-
level bureaucrats within the Air Force,  NASA and other government 
agencies.   Most  of  this  is due  to  inertia;  AMROC  is  doing 
something  differently and this pushes these people out  of  their 
normal  day-to-day  routines.   Sofar,  nothing  catastrophic  has 
happened.   This  may be because the top-level people at NASA  and 
the Air Force think AMROC's approach has great merit.

     Another  source of support from within the  government  comes 
from the people with small,  scientific payloads to launch.   Even 
before the grounding of the shuttle fleet,  these spacecraft  were 
receiving  such  a  low priority that they could  not  get  launch 
space.  It is worse now.

     All  things  considered,  the  future of  AMROC  and  private 
enterprise in space looks very good.   None of the problems  sofar 
seem  insurmountable.   (Although no one,  including this  writer, 
thought  to  ask about the liability insurance problem.)   In  the 
future,  we may find the nation's space activities better balanced 
between private industry and government.

Copyright 1988 Organization for the Advancement of Space
Industrialization and Settlement (OASIS)

Used by permission.

------------------------------

Date: 18 Aug 88 23:18:15 GMT
From: thakur@eddie.mit.edu  (Manavendra K. Thakur)
Subject: Re: Brian Eno's _Apollo_ soundtrack

In article <2291@pixar.UUCP> brighton@pixar.uucp (Bill Carson) writes:
> Having just read the liner notes of Brian Eno's 1983 album, _Apollo_,  it 
> mentions that most of this music was composed for a movie/documentary of
> the Apollo space missions.  Directed by Al Reinert,  it is supposed to have
> been compiled from the some 6 million feet of film shot by NASA during this
> fantastic and mystical period of space exploration.

This is a fascinating album, and I love listening to it.  My favorite
piece is the track called "Deep Blue Day" (track nine on the CD).
It's a brilliant piece of music that eptiomizes what film music is all
about.  The higher frequencies have beautiful and ethereal synthesizer
sounds on it that are "spacey" without being sappy or evoking the
negative connotations of "new age" music.  That's a welcome
acomplishment.  But what's absolutely amazing is that the lower
frequencies are dominated by a twangy guitar and a slow, walking bass
that impart a country/western music feel to the piece -- which is the
last thing one would expect to hear in a film about the Apollo moon
missions.

But it works, and it works splendidly.  The point of the piece --
which can be discerned entirely from the music itself and the title of
the film -- is that humankind is now as suited to outer space as it is
used to sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch and watching the
world go by.  The purpose of the film is to convey the awe, mystery,
beauty, and most of all the new familiarity of human presence in
space.  And this piece of music is central to that goal.  It succeeds
wonderfully.

> My question is,  does this film exist as a released production?
> And if so,  who could I contact to obtain more information about it?  
> I truely hope that the project was not scrapped!

Unfortunately, though, Eno's artistry was for naught.  Al Reinert
never finished the film.  I looked into finding a copy of the film
when I gave a talk on film music last January at MIT.  A person at
EG & G Records said Reinert either ran out of money or interest (or
perhaps both), and the film was never completed.  Eno had already
written enough music for an album, so the record label decided to
release the soundtrack anyway.  It's a shame that the project was
scrapped.  But the music exists, and stands on it own merits as well
as a poor -- but welcome -- substitute for the film.

There is at least one other film where a track from "Apollo" was
indeed used.  It is a 1985 film called STATIC, directed by Mark
Romanek and starring Keith Gordon.  The music in that film was
generally well suited to the film, and in particular, the Eno piece
used near the end of the film is perfect.  It's the "Weightless" track
(track 10 on the CD).  If you're at all curious as to how this track
was used in a offbeat film about an eccentric young inventor who
claims to have made a TV set that can tune into heaven, see this film.
(I posted a brief review of STATIC to rec.arts.movies last December,
and I have more info about the film and its distributor at home.
Write me if you want to know more.)

Getting back to Eno, he is one of the few popular musicians who can
truly claim to be an artist.  His ambient series continues to advance
the techniques and theories of musique concrete, and his 1975 album
"Discrete Music" is particularly interesting in that regard.  And of
course, in the rock genre, he's produced some interesting stuff too.
He has also put out two albums called "Music for Films" (Vol. 1 and
2), which are precisely that: prerecorded bits of music suitable for
insertion in a film.  I don't know of any other music composed by Eno
for a film, per se.

There can be no doubt, though, that the tracks on "Apollo" are worthy
of being called great film music and great music.

				Manavendra K. Thakur
				{rutgers,decvax!genrad,uunet}!mit-eddie!thakur
				thakur@eddie.mit.edu
				thakur@athena.mit.edu

------------------------------

Date: 18 Aug 88 08:29:33 GMT
From: tektronix!percival!bucket!leonard@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: SETI (was Re: Time dilation affecting SETI)

In article <2470@sugar.uu.net> peter@sugar.uu.net (Peter da Silva) writes:
<In article <1628@aplcomm.jhuapl.edu>, jwm@stdc.jhuapl.edu (Jim Meritt) writes:
<> Want to kill 2 birds with 1 stone?  Dump all the weapons-grade plutonium
<> into the sun!
<
<> 1.  Weapons-grade plutonium is not that great thing to have on earth.
<
<Weapons-grade plutonium is a valuable substance. It can be used to
<generate electrical power. The idea of wasting it in this manner is
<abhorrent. Better to burn the Mona Lisa.

Also, as I have just remembered, putting *anything* into a sun intercept
orbit requires simply *incredible* amounts of energy. A quick check shows
that we would require almost a delta v of almost 30 km/s!!! (how did I get
that figure? Easy, Earth's orbital velocity is roughly 30 km/s. You have
to kill that to hit the Sun...)

Anybody care to figure what the cheapest *routinely usable* sun intercept
path is? Gravity assists from Jupiter would be nice, but make the flight
times rather long... the longer it is out there, the more chance of a
guidance failure, and then you have that plutonium flying who knows where.

Also, considering the delta-V requirements, they payload canister would
have to be *real* rugged to withstand a launch pad explosion.      

In short, forget it...
-- 
Leonard Erickson		...!tektronix!reed!percival!bucket!leonard
CIS: [70465,203]
"I used to be a hacker. Now I'm a 'microcomputer specialist'.
You know... I'd rather be a hacker."

------------------------------

Date: 18 Aug 88 04:27:52 GMT
From: att!chinet!mcdchg!clyde!watmath!looking!brad@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Brad Templeton)
Subject: Re: SETI: Why don't we hear anything?

Well there are quite a few options, each with interesting implications:

a) There just aren't any advanced races out there, because
	1) They all blow themselves up
	2) Earth is a fluke

b) There's something inherently wrong with the V.N. machine idea:
	1) Too much error creeps in from duplication to duplication
	2) There aren't enough planets close enough together to get
		the resources.
c) There are races but they just don't want to make V.N. machines.
	(this is like A-2)

d) Berserkers wiped out the galaxy, but for some reason they didn't
	leave anybody waiting in this system.
	(or somebody built exploratory V.N.s that don't hang around for
	some reason.  Pretty dumb.)

e) Something has been left in this system, but a catastrophe here schmucked it.

f) Something has been left in this system (Monolith) and it has sent the
			signal back home.
	1) The signal left recently, and we have a few hundred years to wait.
	2) The signal left, but the home race is long extinct.
	3) They know about us, but they don't want us to know about them.
	   (yet)

Of all these, F3 seems quite possible.  After all, how often have we come
up with "non-interference" rules in our own science fiction?  And we're
supposed to be the belligerent race, I keep hearing.  Other probable
cases are A2 and the other "F" cases.
-- 
Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd.  --  Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473

------------------------------

Date: 18 Aug 88 18:29:36 GMT
From: attcan!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Kettering Boys School

In article <3525@charon.unm.edu> seds@ariel.unm.edu.UUCP (SPACE EXPLORATION) writes:
>Hello.  Does anyone have some information on Geoffrey Perry and activities
>at the Kettering Boys School in England?  This is the group that listens to
>satellite radio transmissions and uses them to find newly launched Soviet
>sats...

The Kettering Group still exists, but is no longer affiliated with the
school, I believe.
-- 
Intel CPUs are not defective,  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
they just act that way.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 18 Aug 88 19:13:55 GMT
From: ndsuvax!nekinsel@uunet.uu.net  (Peter Kinsella)
Subject: Re: Seti

In article <1685@aplcomm.jhuapl.edu>, trn@warper.jhuapl.edu (Tony Nardo) writes:
> 
> Or, on a more grim note, let's say that there's a species which
>    1) has a fairly developed technological civilization,
>    2) has developed very effective weapons that only pollute the
>       environment for a few years,
>    3) is getting a bit overcrowded,
>    4) is exceedingly ethnocentric, believing themselves to be the "roughest,
>       toughest, most adaptable being that Nature ever produced," (and
>       the *only* intelligent species worthy of survival), and
  
 
          What prevents a race from using its own ineffcient weapons that will
     mess up a world for a couple hundred years ? Moreover, if they are 
     bright enough to engineer these weapons, why not show just how bright
     they are and overhaul a planet.  Finally if they are that ruthless as
     a race to exterminate other life forms, why don't they turn on themselves
     in an overcrowded condition.

------------------------------

Date:     Thu, 18 Aug 88 22:16:36 EDT
From: Peter Allsop <allsop%watacs.uwaterloo.ca@relay.cs.net>
Subject:  Re: Space Station power supply

 >>Main power on the space station is specified as 220 VAC at 20 kHz.
 >>AC?  Why AC?
 >
 >AC is easy to convert to whatever voltage you want by means of
 >a transformer.  DC is obtained with a simple rectifier.  A
 >high frequency is used because the transformer needed is
 >smaller and higher frequencies are easier to filter out when
 >DC is needed.
 >

 In addition AC is safer. High tension DC creates two problems:

      1) Unidirectional magnetic fields.
      2) The "grab-hold" effect if a person touches a bare wire.

The first property results in such annoyances as permanently magnetized
tools, walls, watchs, etc.  It can even pick-up goodly sized objects
and toss them around.

The second property results from the fact that you can force a muscle
to contract by applying an external DC voltage.  This means that if
you accidently touch a live conductor your hand (arm, whatever) will tend
"grab" the cable ... and you can't let go!  To make matters worse anybody
that grabs you to pull you away may well end up stuck to you.  Have you
ever touched a 115V AC line and felt a "pulsing" effect?  The pulses are
when the power crosses zero, and if they weren't there you couldn't have
let go!  This is a fairly well known danger in certain Chemical and
and Metallurgical industries.

  Before anyone rushes to point out the dangers of AC I admit they
exist, but I haven't met a high-tension electrician yet who hasn't
preferred working with AC over DC.

                       Peter Allsop

Real Programmers don't comment their code.
    If it was hard to write, it should be hard to understand.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #342
*******************

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Date: Wed, 31 Aug 88 01:06:52 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8808310806.AA05446@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
Reply-To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #343

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 343

Today's Topics:
	       Re: How does NASA detect a Hydrogen leak
			 Skinsuits for Space
			  Sentient Behavior
		Re: SETI: Why don't we hear anything?
	       Re: Space Station power supply (was Re:
	     RE: skintight suits (worn in space station)
		      Re: Skintight space suits
			       Re: SETI
			       WESPACE
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date:     Thu, 18 Aug 88 23:21:47 EDT
From: Peter Allsop <allsop%watacs.uwaterloo.ca@relay.cs.net>
Subject:  Re: How does NASA detect a Hydrogen leak

There are several methods available for finding Hydrogen leaks all of
which depend on "sniffing" the air for gasseous H2.  While I'm not
sure which method NASA uses the most likely is Thermal Conductivity...
they draw a constant velocity gas stream past a heated wire (or film)
and measure the current required to maintain the wire (film) at a set
temperature.  This is a commonly used method for detecting various gasses
(actually, changes in local gas composition) in refineries and
occupational health surveys, hand held units being available. Alternate
methods include fuel cells, Gas Chromatographs, Pt-MOSFETs, and Mass
Spectrometers.  The first 3 of these are available as hand held units,
although the MOSFET stuff is pretty new technology and Platinum
is an ignition source for Hydrogen.

One contributor suggested that NASA uses portable Mass Spectrometers.
While this is possible I think TC is more likely due to cost and weight.
The problem is that a MS requires a *very* good vacuum to work, and down
here on Earth that means pumps.  I have seen some quite nice MS's which
wouldn't fill a briefcase *if* you exclude the vacuum pumps, but add the
pumps and you have a (heavy) pullman bag.  In addition most systems opt
for turbo pumps, which run at very high rev's and hence don't like to be
moved around while running (as in gyroscopes don't like to be moved).

That reminds me of something a friend once pointed out.  The reason that
movement causes head crashes on disk drives is not because you make
the heads flap around, it's because moving a spinning disk causes it
to precess!

                           Peter Allsop

The determined Real Programmer can write FORTRAN programs
     in any language.

------------------------------

Date: 19 Aug 88 05:28:04 GMT
From: beckenba@csvax.caltech.edu  (Joe Beckenbach)
Subject: Skinsuits for Space


	I can put on a pair of tights in about two minutes. I have
lived in a single change of clothing for eight days on the trail.
I can spray-paint an irregular surface satisfactorily.

	1 + 1 + 1 = 4 [synergy!]
	Put on the special underwear, then pull on the supporting tights.
Pull on the turtle-neck, gasketed, long-sleeve leotard. Pull on the 
supporting gloves. Spray on the layer to seal up the whole ensemble.
Add the college T-shirt and gi pants, life support pack, helmet, and
tool belt with lifeline, and step out the lock.

	Any good spray-on films suitable for space skinsuit use?
Also, good solvents, preferably two-part to avoid accidental dissolution
of the suit? If it were transparent, perhaps the last thing to do before
stepping out the airlock for an extended shift would be to take a quick
swim.

	Any fellow brainstormers game? [Including polymer chemists!]
-- 
Joe Beckenbach	beckenba@csvax.caltech.edu	Caltech 1-58, Pasadena CA 91125
Mars Observer Camera Project			Caltech Planetary Sciences Division
Ground Support Equipment Programmer	And God said, let there be a life.... :-)

------------------------------

Date: 19 Aug 88 05:12:23 GMT
From: beckenba@csvax.caltech.edu  (Joe Beckenbach)
Subject: Sentient Behavior

>>The fact is, we *don't know* why they aren't here now, and it's a major
>>puzzle.
>[Chris Munschy:]
>      Actually, the puzzle isn't quite that complex; we as a race have
>proven ourselves to be capable of the most pernicious acts directed against
>ourselves for some fairly modest differences of opinion. Religious 
>and racial intolerance are still at the top of the list of "causes" that we
>are willing to kill each other for. As an open question to all of you in
>Netland, how do you think we as a race would react to somebody as wildly
>different as an Extraterrestrial form of life? I feel that if their tech-
>nology allows for inter-stellar or even intergalactic travel, it must 
>certainly allow for some form of remote surveying or monitoring of our planet
>and it's people. And given our fairly unimpressive track record, their 
>elusive behavior could be due to a desire not to contact us. After all,
>how we treat ourselves is a mirror of how we would treat others. This all
>may sound a little trite, but surely not too far off the mark.

	And assuming that any other species which is sapient is driven by
the same or similar motivations, such as self-preservation, self-interest,
and diversity of opinion, I would not blame then one bit for standing off.
I personally have no inclination yet to go rushing to the Iran-Iraq border
to help oversee the truce efforts, but then I [think I] have the wisdom to
know that I haven't seen enough of the world to do this without acquitting
myself passably.
	The global perspective is VERY hard to develop; few people have
the requisite skills and aptitudes to bring themselves about their own
positions for a considerable amount of time, and THINK / use WISDOM.
This seems to be the result of many factors, most of which I could mention
individually and getting royally flamed for. And since competence in the
thinking / wisdom / decision process cannot be guaranteed, I believe that
Homo sapiens and other space-able species will manage to muddle by,
very much like we have managed to do so far here on Terra: history and
wisdom are either examined and ignored, shit happens, and more history
results. Civilizations breathe, live, and occasionally die. Life continues.

	Lest I be accused of preaching to the converted, let me pre-emt it:
this is the one forum of the few I have had extensive experience on which
I see concern above the normal "me first" myopia. I guess that's because
I don't take any of the talk.* newsgroups. :-) :-)
-- 
Joe Beckenbach	beckenba@csvax.caltech.edu	Caltech 1-58, Pasadena CA 91125
Mars Observer Camera Project			Caltech Planetary Sciences Division
Ground Support Equipment Programmer	And God said, let there be a life.... :-)

------------------------------

Date: 19 Aug 88 06:34:40 GMT
From: oliveb!tymix!antares!pnelson@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (phil nelson)
Subject: Re: SETI: Why don't we hear anything?

In article <568@unisv.UUCP> vanpelt@unisv.UUCP (Mike Van Pelt) writes:
>In article <1123@ndsuvax.UUCP> nekinsel@ndsuvax.UUCP (Peter Kinsella) writes:
>>In article <561@unisv.UUCP>, vanpelt@unisv.UUCP (Mike Van Pelt) writes:
>>> [description of the "berserker hypothesis"
>
>Understand, my arguments here are of a "devil's advocate" nature.
>I do not think that this is the answer to the silence problem.
>(Maybe I'm being overly optimistic...)
> 
..stuff deleted

>>If we assume that the galaxy is as expansive as most people claim.
>
>This supports the Berserker Hypothesis.  If the galaxy (or universe
>if we allow for intergalactic travel) is so big, it almost doesn't
>matter how fantastically improbable the Berserker Hypothesis is.  It
>only has to happen ONCE in fifteen billion years of the history of
>the entire galaxy/universe.  If anyone, anywhere, anytime, built
>self-replicating robots programmed to seek out and destroy all life
>(Saberhagen's version) or even all technological civilizations
>(Benford's version), they could fill the galaxy in on the order of
>a million or two years.  That what makes it so scary.
>
...more stuff deleted

I hope you will pardon me any errors of etiquette, this is my first
posting to this group, though I have been reading with interest for some time.

 I think that the problem of creating these "self-replicating robots" may
be more difficult than we imagine, perhaps too difficult even for our
hypothetical "advanced" xenophobes.

 These "robots", to be effective in their mission, might require so many of
the characteristics of living creatures that the problem of creating them is
essentially the problem of creating life. That, in my opinion, is a very
difficult problem.

 But, maybe it is possible, in that case;

 Among other lifelike qualities this race of robots might require is the
ability to adapt to new conditions. Assuming for a moment that these robots
can be (and are) created, isn't it likely that they would either evolve into
something more benevolent or (perhaps more likely) devolve into something
much less terrible?

hopefully,
-- 
{ames|pyramid}oliveb!tymix!antares!pnelson  | Contains one or more of the
OnTyme: QSATS.P/Nelson  POTS: (408)922-7508 | following: Pleas for help, Free
Disclaimer: Not officially representing     | advice, Opinion, Misc. rambling.
McDonnell Douglas Corporation policy.       |    * Use at your own risk *

------------------------------

Date: 18 Aug 88 15:02:00 GMT
From: a.cs.uiuc.edu!m.cs.uiuc.edu!irwin@uxc.cso.uiuc.edu
Subject: Re: Space Station power supply (was Re:


>my opinion:
>The best reason for 220 VAC at 20 KHz is that it provides the contractors
>with the opportunity to engineer custom parts at great profit.  It seems
>unlikely that the savings in size by 20 KHz power are worth the trouble.
 
The above is untrue. Parts for 20KHZ power supplies are hardly custom
parts. Chopping supplies at the above approximate frequency are about the
only kind used any more, in the computer world. With the higher frequency,
physical size is reduced and you can put in a lunch bucket what would
require a bushel basket at 60HZ.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 19 Aug 88 10:17:17 CDT
From: linnig@skvax1.csc.ti.com
To: 2space@tilde.csc.ti.com, linnig@tilde.csc.ti.com
Subject: RE: skintight suits (worn in space station)

> * Dale Amon speculates that the inhabitants of a space station might want
>   to wear skintight suits all the time as a safety precaution. However,
>   when the suit is worn with ambient atmospheric pressure, the ambient
>   pressure and the elastic pressure of the suit are *added*. Assuming
>   something can be done to alleviate breathing difficulties, the problem
>   remains that the the pressure exerted on the extremities is comparable
>   to the systolic blood pressure. Since this is the technique used in a
>   blood pressure test to cut off the flow of blood to a limb entirely,
>   I consider it very likely that the suit worn indoors would significantly
>   interfere with the normal functioning of the circulatory system. This
>   might or might not be a problem for a person "suiting up" to go outside,
>   but I doubt that it would be a good idea for these suits to be worn all
>   the time indoors. (What is the "tightness" of the Soviet indoor suits?)

Wait a minute, if the effect is additive the wearer is subjected to
two atmospheres.  Isn't this the same horrible pressure that a
earthbound diver would experience under 33 feet of water?

Doesn't sound too deadly to me.. if it is not concentrated over
one spot (like a blood pressure cuff does).

	Mike Linnig,
	Texas Instruments

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 19 Aug 88 09:28:55 PST
From: Peter Scott <PJS@grouch.jpl.nasa.gov>
Subject: Re: Skintight space suits
X-Vms-Mail-To: EXOS%"space@angband.s1.gov"

>John Roberts <roberts@cmr.icst.nbs.gov>:

>* Kevin Ryan summarizes an article by Jerry Pournelle, based on NASA Report
>  CR-1892, describing tests of the suit. It is stated that the pressure is
>  maintained at 170mm Hg for the central part of the body (matching the
>  pressure of the breathing air), dropping to 100-120mm at the extremities,
>  the difference being maintained by a gasket. This could be interpreted to
>  mean that gas is normally present between the extremities and the fabric
>  of the suit at this pressure, but I interpret it to mean that this is the
>  pressure exerted by the fabric against the skin, with vacuum outside the
>  skin. There is a considerable difference between the implications of
>  these two interpretations. The fabric can support the skin overall, but
>  not on a microscopic basis. At the microscopic level, the skin, rather than
>  being a continuous sheet of dead tissue, is full of pores, and the pores
>  contain important living, wet cells exposed to the outside pressure. At
>  body temperature, the partial pressure of water is ~50mm, meaning that if
>  the ambient pressure falls below this point, rapid boiling of water at and
>  for a short distance below the surface will begin. It seems highly unlikely
>  that these living cells could be directly exposed to vacuum without a
>  considerable number being killed.

I was the original poster asking for references, so when I got the information
I went and looked at the article on microfiche.  I don't recall all of the
details necessary to answer your questions, so suggest you read the article
for yourself.  I do remember that they found that a spandex-derivative fabric
with mesh holes of 0.5mm**2 was what they used, in several layers.  Sweat
evaporation was considered an asset since the suit did not need a cooling
system as a result of this.

>* Henry Spencer states that the suit has been tested and it works. The 
>  problem lies in the interpretation of the word "works". The loosest 
>  interpretation is that "the test subject, exposed to these conditions
>  for an unspecified period of time, did not split open and gush blood,
>  and survived the experiment without any observed permanent damage".
>  I would like to know about the results of long-term exposure, which I
>  suspect would at least cause the skin to become dry and brittle, and
>  might kill the hair follicles, oil and sweat glands. It would be very
>  inconvenient to use the suit six hours a day for three weeks and then
>  have your skin fall off.

As far as I recall, the tests were for at least twenty minutes at an equivalent
altitude of 80,000 feet (that's pretty thin), and the subjects showed no
ill-effects whatsoever.  The authors concluded that there were no
fundamental design issues to be resolved, that the only remaining problems
were, in their words, purely mechanical.  I now agree with the original
posting, i.e., why isn't this thing being developed further?

Peter Scott (pjs%grouch@jpl-mil.jpl.nasa.gov)

------------------------------

Date: 19 Aug 88 17:10:48 GMT
From: cfa!cfa250!willner@husc6.harvard.edu  (Steve Willner P-316 x57123)
Subject: Re: SETI

In a good article <8808190000.AA15832@venera.isi.edu> reporting on a
SETI lecture, cew@VENERA.ISI.EDU ("Craig E. Ward") writes:
>
>      Jupiter cannot be left out.  At some altitudes, the atmosphere 
> is much the same as Earth's.

In temperature and pressure yes, but the composition is radically
different.  Jupiter's atmosphere is "reducing", consisting mostly of
hydrogen, water, methane, and ammonia.  Earth's atmosphere is
"oxidizing", as we all know.  

Being reducing doesn't mean Jupiter's atmosphere cannot contain life;
on the contrary, it may be better for life than Earth's because the
poison gas oxygen is not present.  Most Terrestrial life forms are
adapted to oxygen, of course, but divers and others who breathe high
pressure "air" must take care that the oxygen content is not too
high.  (Don't worry, it's not a problem for recreational SCUBA
divers.  The problem starts around depths of 300 feet or so.
Nitrogen poisoning also becomes a problem at about the same depth.)

>      After the allotted time at Arecibo was over, the researcher found
> out about an old navy antenna located near Harvard University that was
> being decommissioned.  He was able to transfer his operation to this
> antenna and has been searching ever since.

The researcher is Paul Horowitz, and the antenna belongs to the
Harvard College Observatory.  It was built with privately donated
money from the Agassiz family.  The connection with the Navy is that
they were the last funding source for operation of the antenna, for
solar observations.  That funding ended, and HCO had planned to
decommission the antenna, when the grant from the Planetary Society
came through.

>      Plans are currently underway that will bring NASA back into the
> picture.  The NASA program will add significantly to the capabilities of
> the project.

The NASA program is far larger.  It will use several antennas, all
with better receivers, but the biggest gain will come from searching
many more frequencies at once.  Even the NASA search, as currently
proposed, will not come close to covering the entire "search space".

> Any species which survives long enough to develop interstellar
> space travel will likely have controlled its more violent urges,
> something Humanity has not yet done.

Obviously we have no experimental evidence concerning advanced
civilizations.  Probably all that should be said is that any species
that lives a long time will have controlled any violent urges that
threaten _its own_ survival.  (Otherwise, it's unlikely to live a
long time, "long time" meaning a significant fraction of the 10^10
year age of the Galaxy.)
-- 
Steve Willner            Phone 617-495-7123         Bitnet:   willner@cfa
60 Garden St.            FTS:      830-7123           UUCP:   willner@cfa
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA                 Internet: willner@cfa.harvard.edu

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 19 Aug 1988 15:17-EDT 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: WESPACE

I've been informed that WESPACE is going into suspended animation. They
are laying off about 30 engineers and will retain only about 5
managers. If the finance situation changes with respect to the ISF,
they will attempt a restart. I presume they are hoping to do it
entirely with private capital now that government assurances seem
unlikely. If it works, they will be better off in the long run.

I have not heard what Max Faget is up to at this time. Perhaps Steve
Abrams or someone else down in Houston can tell us.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #343
*******************

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Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #344

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 344

Today's Topics:
		    Re: Space Station power supply
		   Life on Jupiter (was: Re: SETI)
		Re: SETI: Why don't we hear anything?
			       RE: SETI
		    Condensed CANOPUS - July 1988
		Re: SETI: Why don't we hear anything?
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 19 Aug 88 16:55:10 GMT
From: Portia!Jessica!paulf@labrea.stanford.edu  (Paul Flaherty)
Subject: Re: Space Station power supply

Not too many moons ago, I was hacking pdp-11 code for a biomedical research
lab, which was looking into the question of electrical tissue damage.
They had some interesting experiments, and conclusions; for example, that
60 Hz was probably the most lethal frequency possible.  "As I recall",
ventricular fibriliation is the most common cause of death; this probably
does not occur at 20 KHz (although burns probably would).

20 KHz also means smaller (less massive) transformers...


-=Paul Flaherty, N9FZX      | "There is no distinctly American criminal class
->paulf@shasta.Stanford.EDU | except Congress." -- Mark Twain

------------------------------

Date: 19 Aug 88 18:41:57 GMT
From: rochester!dietz@bbn.com  (Paul Dietz)
Subject: Life on Jupiter (was: Re: SETI)

willner@cfa250.harvard.edu (Steve Willner) writes:

>>      Jupiter cannot be left out.  At some altitudes, the atmosphere 
>> is much the same as Earth's.
>
>In temperature and pressure yes, but the composition is radically
>different.  Jupiter's atmosphere is "reducing", consisting mostly of
>hydrogen, water, methane, and ammonia.  Earth's atmosphere is
>"oxidizing", as we all know.  
>
>Being reducing doesn't mean Jupiter's atmosphere cannot contain life;
>on the contrary, it may be better for life than Earth's because the
>poison gas oxygen is not present.

At high pressure and temperature, hydrogen reacts exothermically
with organic compounds to form methane, ammonia and water.  Vertical
circulation in Jupiter's atmosphere carries any given parcel downward
to great depth every few days or so.  It is unlikely that life could
have originated or could survive there.

Paul F. Dietz
dietz@cs.cornell.edu

------------------------------

Date: 19 Aug 88 18:59:54 GMT
From: vsi1!unisv!vanpelt@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Mike Van Pelt)
Subject: Re: SETI: Why don't we hear anything?

In article <1948@looking.UUCP> brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) writes:
>Well there are quite a few options, each with interesting implications:
  (several options deleted)
>b) There's something inherently wrong with the V.N. machine idea:

That's what I think: Self-replicating machines are too difficult
or perhaps even not possible.  (To point at an animal as a
counterexample is to beg the question.  Maybe the reductionist
worldview is wrong...)  Many of the AI people take it as
Revealed Truth that there's nothing to intelligence that can't
be done with a little hardware and some software.  I'm not
convinced.  The more you look at it, the problem of making a
machine that can do even what a cockroach does is not as easy as
it may appear at first glance.  (Which is one of the brick walls
I think the nanotechnology folks are going to run into.)
-- 
Mike Van Pelt                          Here lies a Technophobe,
Unisys, Silicon Valley                    No whimper, no blast.
vanpelt@unisv.UUCP                     His life's goal accomplished,
                                          Zero risk at last.

------------------------------

Date: 19 Aug 88 18:10:00 GMT
From: apollo!nelson_p@beaver.cs.washington.edu  (Peter Nelson)
Subject: RE: SETI


>> Presumably it wouldn't be all that difficult for an advanced
>> civilization to build probes that would be more than a match for
>> any civilization that had only a few years before mastered the use
>> of radio, on which the probes would home in.
>
>If it is possible for an advanced civilization to build and deploy
>self-reproducing, interstellar probes, probes could be continuously
>resident in each solar system.  If the civilization constructing the
>probes were irrationally hostile to other life forms, the probes
>could be programmed to detect life and sterilize any planets long
>before radio could be developed.  Obviously this has not happened, so
>at least one of the assumptions is wrong (or else we are just
>incredibly lucky that all the probes in our solar system have
>malfunctioned).

   Wrong.  We're it, or them, I mean.  WE are the self-reproducing 
   probes programmed to sterilize all life before the true intelligent
   life can arise on this planet.  And it's working!

                                            --Peter Nelson

------------------------------

Date: 19 Aug 88 22:29:58 GMT
From: cfa!cfa250!willner@husc6.harvard.edu  (Steve Willner P-316 x57123)
Subject: Condensed CANOPUS - July 1988


Here is the unabridged CANOPUS for July 1987.  There are three
articles.  All are highly condensed, and the first is frequently
rephrased.  Material in {braces} is from me and is signed {--SW} when
it represents an expression of opinion.

CANOPUS is published by the American Institute of Aeronautics and
Astronautics.  Send correspondence about its contents to the executive 
editor, William W. L. Taylor (taylor%trwatd.span@star.stanford.edu; 
e-mail to canopus@cfa.uucp will probably be forwarded).  Send
correspondence about business matters to Mr. John Newbauer, AIAA,
1633 Broadway, NY, NY 10019.  Although AIAA has copyrighted CANOPUS
and registered its name, you are encouraged to distribute CANOPUS
widely, either electronically or as printout copies.  If you do,
however, please send a brief message to Taylor estimating how many
others receive copies.  CANOPUS is partially supported by the
National Space Science Data Center.

SPACE SCIENCE IN THE 21st CENTURY, N.R.C. Report Issued - can880701.txt
- 7/6/88

[Report to NASA from National Research Council on scientific goals in
space.  Requested by NASA in 1984.  The report is a comprehensive
wish list rather than a setting of priorities.  Setting priorities
may not be possible until some current missions are completed.]

In his cover letter, National Academy of Sciences Chairman Frank
Press, calls attention to two severe problems that must be faced.  
1) Challenger accident has deprived us of access to space, and 
2) available funding and talent are insufficient.

Here are the categories and some of the missions suggested.

PLANETARY AND LUNAR EXPLORATION

For the terrestrial planets: landers, rovers and sample return missions

For the outer planets: atmospheric probes  

For primitive bodies (comets and asteroids): rendezvous and
   sample-return missions 

Search for planets around other stars (Even planets as small as
   Uranus and Neptune should be detectable.)

"A Mars-focused program is recommended in parallel with the general
program" and not as a substitute.  Venus, Earth and Mars present a
great potential payoff in comparative planetology.
 
SOLAR SYSTEM PLASMA PHYSICS

An ultraviolet and X-ray telescope to give 1-100 km resolution images
   of the Sun's surface. (The planned High Resolution Solar
   Observatory will have 70-km resolution, but the UV capability has
   been cancelled.)

Plasma observations as part of outer planet missions

Remote sensing of magnetospheric plasmas in the Earth-moon system

Active experimentation {I think this means missions like particle
   releases in the Earth's ionosphere.--SW}

Solar Probe (sometimes called Star Probe), a mission to fly within
   1.9 million km of the visible surface of the Sun {This is about 
   1.4 solar diameters.} 

An Interstellar probe (also called TAU, for Thousand Astronomical
   Units) would enter the interstellar medium 10 years after launch.

ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS

   o Imaging interferometry, comprising large arrays of
     telescopes for optical and radio VLBI observations,

   o Large-area and high-throughput telescopes, including a 20-
     to 30-m large deployable sub-mm reflector, an 8- to 16-m optical
     telescope, a large 20 to 20,000 keV X-ray telescope, and a large
     0.1-10 meV Compton telescope, and

   o Astro-Mag, a massive cosmic ray analyzer using a
     superconducting magnet spectrometer.

FUNDAMENTAL PHYSICS AND CHEMISTRY
(relativistic gravitation and microgravity sciences)

   o Laser hetereodyne interferometer to attempt detection of
     gravitational waves below 10 Hz,

   o Microwave ranging to a Mercury orbiter to measure the time
     rate of change in gravitational coupling,

   o A Precision Optical Interferometer in Space to measure
     the second order effect of the Sun on electromagnetic radiation.

   o A hydrogen maser clock aboard Solar probe or Star Probe to
     measure the gravitational red shift to second order.

   o A free-flying spacecraft to test the weak principle of
     equivalence to one part in 1,000 more than a planned Shuttle
     experiment, and

   o A large-area X-ray detector (possibly from the astrophysics
     category) for microseceond timing to allow detection of X- ray
     pulsars.

HUMAN PRESENCE IN SPACE

The SSB study found no category of space science depends on manned
space flight other than space medicine. Rather than falling into the
man-vs-machine argument that has divided the space community for
decades, the study team wrote that, "At present, we lack enough
information to judge where the balance between manned and unmanned
missions should lie."

PRECONDITIONS AND INFRASTRUCTURE

To train the next generation of scientists, the SSB said that
Explorers, Spartans, Observers, and suborbital programs "must be
allowed to flourish." Projects that take one to three years are
needed to match the training of graduate and post-doctoral students.

FRED SCARF, NOTED SPACE SCIENTIST, DIES AT 57 - CAN990702.txt - 7/19/88

Frederick L. Scarf, a chief scientist for research and technology at
TRW, died Sunday, in Moscow.  Dr. Scarf, 57, was part of an
international delegation attending the launch of two Russian probes
designed to investigate one of the moons of Mars, Phobos.  He was a
co-investigator of an instrument aboard each of the spacecraft.

RESTORING COMMITMENT TO OUR FUTURE IN SPACE - CAN880703.TXT - 7/26/88

A Joint Statement by American Astronomical Society, American
Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and Institute of
Electrical and Electronics Engineers {highly condensed}:

We believe NASA's program is neither sufficiently understood nor
adequately supported.  It is our responsibility to call to the
nation's attention the great value of NASA's historic contributions
to education, science, exploration, and leadership.  We urgently
recommend restoring national commitment to purposeful civilian space
programs and policies.

>From both the manned and unmanned space programs, we and the world
community have received manifold benefits that range from the
practical to the intellectually sublime.  Observing the earth from
space has put within our grasp the ability to understand and
stabilize this--the only known--environment of life.  We can now
study the earth's interior, global atmosphere, oceans, and landmasses
as whole entities.

In our time, heavenly bodies have moved into the realm of human
experience.  These discoveries stimulate a deeper understanding of
the earth itself.  New classes of objects and phenomena have been
discovered by past telescopes in space.  In the future, space
astronomy can open for study new wavelength ranges and new volumes of
the universe.

NASA's scientific achievements are echoed in space applications such
as satellite communications... and remote sensing from space, which
has revolutionized weather forecasting and the assessment of our
planet's resources.  Life sciences research ...

The future of these beneficial space activities is at risk.  The
problem is that budgetary growth is required through the remainder of
the century to exploit the technology and infrastructure created by
NASA.  That is the conclusion of the May 1988 report by the
Congressional Budget Office entitled "The NASA Program in the 1990s
and Beyond."

We urge the leadership of the United States to reverse this nation's
current retreat from exploration and development in space by
providing adequate resources to NASA.  We have serious business in
space.  Other nations recognize the benefits of civilian space
activities, and they are creating their own opportunities.  If the
United States can be a reliable partner, we might travel with them --
but we cannot stay home.
 
The space frontier is no less significant to our future than our
terrestrial boundaries: through each will come the new knowledge,
fresh challenges, economic strength, and the critical resources that
will spur us on and secure our place in the competitive future.  We
call for a restored commitment to space.
-- 
Steve Willner            Phone 617-495-7123         Bitnet:   willner@cfa
60 Garden St.            FTS:      830-7123           UUCP:   willner@cfa
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA                 Internet: willner@cfa.harvard.edu

------------------------------

Date: 18 Aug 88 14:45:41 GMT
From: uplherc!esunix!bpendlet@gr.utah.edu  (Bob Pendleton)
Subject: Re: SETI: Why don't we hear anything?

>From article <1123@ndsuvax.UUCP>, by nekinsel@ndsuvax.UUCP (Peter Kinsella):
> In article <561@unisv.UUCP>, vanpelt@unisv.UUCP (Mike Van Pelt) writes:
> 
>> Presumably it wouldn't be all that
>> difficult for an advanced civilization to build probes that would be
>> more than a match for any civilization that had only a few years
>> before mastered the use of radio, on which the probes would home in.
> 
>      Why would would the get along fine with each other but be afraid of a
> a little puny underdeveloped planet. If we assume that the galaxy is as
> expansive as most people claim. And if we assume that the Race is  
> suffiently developed to send probes to wipe out other planets, wouldn't
                                         ^^^^^^^^
> they also be advanced enough to harvest resources from uninhabited worlds.
> Wouldn't the later also be more economically efficent, especially if the
> world be taken over detonates atomic weapons in its self defense.  
           ^^^^^^^^^^

wipe out != taken over.

In fact, they might want us to use our own nuclear weapons. It might
help them wipe us out.

Flame ON!

Did you ever hear about phobias? Individual humans can develop
irrational fears that can drive them to extreme behavior. Did you ever
hear of WWI, WWII, Vietnam, Afganistan, or Iraq, and Iran? Human
cultures can also exihbit irrational behavior.

And then you ask why members of another species, the result of
independant evolution in a different environment would not act like we
HOPE human beings might act some day?

Humanity is an example of a species with high technology and
irrational behavior. If the wrong mass insanity sets in, WE could be
the ones launching the sterilizer probes!

Flame OFF!

Look, my neighbor spent about 3 days with a bubble level and bags of
sand making sure that his front lawn was absolutely level. Every month
or so he goes out and checks to make sure it is still level. His side
and back yards are weed covered dirt. He is considered to be sane. But,
his behavior makes no sense to me at all.

Beyond a few basics, like maybe reproduction, what can we really claim
to know about what an alien intelligence might do?

			Bob P.
-- 
Bob Pendleton @ Evans & Sutherland
UUCP Address:  {decvax,ucbvax,allegra}!decwrl!esunix!bpendlet
Alternate:     utah-cs!esunix!bpendlet
        I am solely responsible for what I say.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #344
*******************

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Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #345

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 345

Today's Topics:
		  Re: space news from July 11 AW&ST
   Self-reproducing probes (was: SETI: Why don't we hear anything?)
			 Satellite brightness
		 Re: ET phone home? (SETI)   RESPONS
			       Re: Seti
		    Re: 95% vs. 99.9% reliability
			       Re: Seti
		   Re: space news from Aug 1 AW&ST
			      nutrition
			   Re: Ozone layers
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 18 Aug 88 15:57:21 GMT
From: uplherc!esunix!bpendlet@gr.utah.edu  (Bob Pendleton)
Subject: Re: space news from July 11 AW&ST

>From article <1988Aug16.040406.5434@utzoo.uucp>, by henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer):
> ... Earliest full operational date
> for ALS is about the year 2000.  There is also a great deal of skepticism
> about whether ALS can really achieve its goal of a factor of 10 reduction
> in launch costs, and some doubt about whether it is really wise to pack
> many small payloads together into one launch.

A recent issue of Aerospace America had an article on ALS. It seems
that one of the main problems they are having is convincing engineers
that COST not performance is the major design factor. (A problem I'm
all too aware of.) Sexy technical solutions are not always the most
cost effective solutions. 

A lot of people don't think that ALS can meet its cost goals. Just as
a reality check I put together this table. The numbers are all from
memory so acurracy is doubtful. It is based on the space shuttle.
Assuming a max payload weight of 43K lbs., an orbitor weight 150k
lbs., and an external tank weight of 75K lbs. I wanted to compute
costs of a pound in orbit counting just the payload weight, the
orbitor plus the payload, 193K lbs., and the orbitor plus the payload
plus the ET, 268L lbs., as delivered weight in orbit. I used three
different costs for a shuttle launch. They are all close to figures
I've heard, but I'm not sure anyone really knows what a shuttle launch
costs. So I've used $100M, $200M, and $300M.

	$100M	$200M	$300M
P	 2325	 4651	 6976
P+O	  518	 1036	 1554
P+O+ET	  373	  746	 1119

Nothing about the shuttle was designed to be cheap. It was designed to
be reusable, and designed to have the very highest perfomance. It
looks like an expendable vehicle based on shuttle technology should
be able to put a payload of something less than P+O, say 150K lbs.
into orbit for a cost less than $2000/lb assuming $300M per launch.
(shades of Shuttle-C!) 

It seems to me that a reduction in launch preparation cost, without a
reduction in vehicle cost, might be able to get you under $1000
dollars per pound. If you through in enough mights and maybes you can
convince yourself that $300 a lb. is achievable. 

For a further reality check look at the Soviet proton and energia
boosters. 

I'm starting to believe that the main reason ALS will
have trouble reaching its design goals is the "performance is
everything", "high tech or nothing" mind set of the companies doing
the work. 

			Bob P.
-- 
Bob Pendleton @ Evans & Sutherland
UUCP Address:  {decvax,ucbvax,allegra}!decwrl!esunix!bpendlet
Alternate:     utah-cs!esunix!bpendlet
        I am solely responsible for what I say.

------------------------------

Date: 19 Aug 88 18:04:57 GMT
From: tektronix!orca!tekecs!blast!kendalla@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Kendall Auel)
Subject: Self-reproducing probes (was: SETI: Why don't we hear anything?)

In article <1063@cfa183.cfa250.harvard.edu> Steve Willner writes:
>If it is possible for an advanced civilization to build and deploy
>self-reproducing, interstellar probes, probes could be continuously
>resident in each solar system.  If the civilization constructing the
>probes were irrationally hostile to other life forms, the probes
>could be programmed to detect life and sterilize any planets long
>before radio could be developed.

I'm curious what a self-reproducing interstellar probe would be
like.  We tend to think of Voyager and the like, but genetic
engineering may change our definition of "machine".  Maybe WE
are the self-reproducing probe :-).  There is a sci-fi story called
"The Seed", where a scientist discovers the true origin of life.
It was planted on Earth by a highly advanced civilization that
prizes smooth, shiny planets.  The alien race knew that eventually
the seed would grow to build H-bombs that melt the planet's crust.
I can't remember who wrote it, but I found it very entertaining.

Kendall Auel			   ^ ^
				  /O O\
Tektronix, Inc.			  | V |
Information Display Group	/  """  \
Graphics Workstations Division	/ """"" \
(kendalla@blast.GWD.TEK.COM)	 /|\ /|\

------------------------------

Date: 19 Aug 88 18:32:04 GMT
From: nbires!isis!scicom!wats@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Bruce Watson)
Subject: Satellite brightness


Here is a short list of the brightest artificial earth satellites:

 Mag  Satellite
 ---  ---------
-2.5  Space Shuttle
-2.0*` KH-11
-2.0  Cosmos 1870
-0.5* MIR/Kvant/Soyuz TM/Progress complex
 0.0  Cosmos 1900 (to decay soon)
+1.0* Salyut 7/Cosmos 1686
+1.0  Cosmos 1834
+1.0  Cosmos 1890
+1.0  Cosmos 398 (highly elliptical orbit)
+1.0  LDEF
+1.5  Cosmos 56
+1.5  Cosmos 206

*=Confirmed by my observation.  Others are estimates.

Comments?  Additions or Corrections?

------------------------------

Date: 19 Aug 88 21:00:36 GMT
From: attcan!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: ET phone home? (SETI)   RESPONS

In article <96500002@datacube> chris@datacube.UUCP writes:
>... given our fairly unimpressive track record, their 
>elusive behavior could be due to a desire not to contact us...

The problem with this is that it assumes that the galaxy is culturally
homogeneous, so this argument applies to all intelligent species.  It
is not hard to construct any number of plausible arguments about why
one species would not contact us.  It is much harder to make those lines
of argument apply to *all* species in a galaxy that ought -- by what we
know -- to be teeming with them.  One would expect a certain amount of
variation in the behavior of intelligent species.

There are also moderately good biological arguments indicating that if
Earth is in quarantine, it has been in that state for several billion
years.  Not only must the galaxy be culturally homogeneous, it must have
been so for rather a long time.

This *could* be the explanation of the Great Silence, but it requires
rather a lot of assumptions.
-- 
Intel CPUs are not defective,  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
they just act that way.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 19 Aug 88 21:28:07 GMT
From: attcan!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Seti

In article <20315@cornell.UUCP> dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul F. Dietz) writes:
>A spacefaring society, even one restricted to a single stellar system,
>could have many trillions of members (but technology may make the concept
>of an individual obsolete), and each member could have a productivity orders
>of magnitude greater than 20th century Americans.  I would be very careful
>when proclaiming limits on what technological advances such a society might
>accomplish given millions of years.

I second this comment.  Consider:  There are people alive today who remember
a time when radio did not exist, man could not fly, and the total electrical
generating capacity of the world was measured in megawatts.  Today...  We
get live TV from Halley's Comet.  There is never a time, day or night, when
FEWER than a hundred thousand people are airborne.  And one gigawatt is a
single power plant, and not a really big one at that.

Our own world, and our own society, has changed beyond recognition in a
single human lifetime.  Never mind the millions of years; extrapolating our
capabilities a measly *thousand* years is quite impossible.
-- 
Intel CPUs are not defective,  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
they just act that way.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 19 Aug 88 18:24:01 GMT
From: attcan!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: 95% vs. 99.9% reliability

In article <579@proxftl.UUCP> greg@proxftl.UUCP (Gregory N. Hullender) writes:
>I imagine they would also have sent various officials from Morton Thiokol
>and Nasa off to the Gualag, if not had them shot.

Sounds like a fine idea to me.  A good many of them deserved it.

>As I recall, a fair amount of the pressure for putting safety first came
>from the astronauts themselves...

True... but it's also true that there would have been no shortage of
volunteers to fly high-priority missions before definitive fixes were made.
Bear in mind that you've seen a biased sample:  the safety-first astronauts
like Sally Ride were the ones who got the publicity.

>Fortunately, we don't live in the Soviet Union; however, considering your
>callous disregard for human life and warm regard for the power of a police
>state to stifle dissent, perhaps you should consider relocating.

Tsk, tsk, let us avoid name-calling.  I don't consider it "callous disregard
for human life" to suggest that it is sometimes appropriate to let volunteers
take risks in a good cause.  (Especially since, given the chance, I'd be at
the head of the line.)  Nor do I think it to be "warm regard for the power of
a police state to stifle dissent" to suggest that current US politics give
too much weight to dissent -- any dissent -- and to endless debates about
contentious issues, and not enough to making decisions in a timely way and
getting the job done.  2.5 years after the Apollo fire, Armstrong and Aldrin
walked on the Moon.  Today, 2.5 years after Challenger, we're still waiting.
-- 
Intel CPUs are not defective,  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
they just act that way.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 19 Aug 88 21:20:31 GMT
From: attcan!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Seti

In article <75@forsight.Jpl.Nasa.Gov> roston@robotics.jpl.nasa.gov (Gerry Roston) writes:
>1) Intelligent life forms elsewhere have life spans that are similar in magnitude
>   to ours (say 50-500 years)

A poor assumption; our own lifespan is likely to increase dramatically within
the next century or so.

>2) Advanced civilizations are energy bound (I know, fusion might solve that, but...)

Have you looked at a graph of the energy available to mankind over the last
century?  It's difficult for people today to realize just *tiny* mankind's
resources were a mere half-century ago.  There is no obvious reason for the
trend to change, either; certainly there are no technological barriers
visible in the near future.  Capturing a small but significant fraction of
the total energy output of the Sun would be enormously expensive (by 1988
standards) but appears to present no fundamental difficulties.

>3) Advanced societies have limited budgets and would expect a return on investment

Again, check out the pattern in our immediate past.  Emigrating to North
America -- just the passage and the necessary startup supplies -- took
every cent the Plymouth Rock colonists had, and drove them so deep into
debt that it was 20 years before they were in the black again.  The Mormons
merely had to spend their entire life savings to emigrate to Salt Lake City.
I went to Australia for Christmas last year; it was expensive enough to
be annoying.  See the trend?  The maximum-probability projection is that
future human societies will be enormously wealthier than our own.

>4) Einstein's theory of general relativity is true

Actually, if you're thinking of the speed-of-light limit, you want special
relativity, not general relativity.

>... the simple answer is that - 
>it is not:
>1) Financially feasible; if they are so advanced, what would the hope to get from us?

What's the financial return on climbing Mount Everest?  Or on operating
Fermilab?  The simple answer to your question is "knowledge".

>2) Politically practicle; what would be the point of an interstellar (commerce,
>   trade agreement, cultural exchange, etc. ), if it takes tens to hundreds of 
>   years for messages to get from on civilization to the other.

In earlier times on Earth, it wasn't uncommon for trade to take place along
routes where travel from one end to the other (a trip made by goods and money
but seldom by people) would take years.

>3) Easily understandable from an individual perspective; what individual would
>   leave behind FOREVER, everything he/she/it knows about on the very remote
>   possibility of discovering another intelligent species? ...

If one can assume robot precursors that would establish where intelligent
life is to be found, then the uncertainty largely vanishes.  As for who
would leave everything he/she/it knows behind forever, essentially everyone
who settled North America did just that.  And as Forward has pointed out,
the opportunity to spend the rest of your life studying a new solar system
is one that would attract an ample supply of volunteers among scientists.
-- 
Intel CPUs are not defective,  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
they just act that way.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 20 Aug 88 07:17:11 GMT
From: beckenba@csvax.caltech.edu  (Joe Beckenbach)
Subject: Re: space news from Aug 1 AW&ST


	VIMS is off the Mars Observer. The radar altimeter will be replaced
by a laser altimeter, leaving a bit more room on the nadir panel. High on
the Mars Observer Camera wish list is extra area for all the fun memory 
chips needed for the on-board processing, the megabit chips [MOC requires
12 Mbytes] and the radiation-hard microprocessors, and all the other
electronics for instrument high performance. MOC wants to fly several
previously unflown [and, until now, untested] ICs; this should open
up the sophistication of instrumentation onboard future craft.

	Quick expansion on the instrument shuffle: the intent to include
a Russian receiver on the Mars Observer in support of an intended 1994
Russian mission with a French balloon experiment, forced the decision
to not delay launch until 1994. Besides, NASA HQ thought it wiser to
cut back on one instrument than to throw several instruments into a two-year
funding hold. [I believe the balloon is French: the faxed information
came in from Nice under the auspices of one of the French space research
groups.]

	Other brief notes: the engineering model of the Camera housing
went quite well, despite higher resonance amplitudes than expected.
The graphite-epoxy structure looks good in the photos I've seen; a show
last weekend [forget which one] had it on display. Fabrication of the
electronics and focal plane linear-array charge-coupled devices [CCDs]
are part of the next few months' efforts towards the production of the
engineering model. And even a cleanroom on campus by Thanksgiving for
putting the engineering model together [and flight model as well, if I
remember the schedules rightly].

	If the other teams are going along the way this team is, the
Mars Observer should be a solid piece of engineering ready in plenty of
time for the scheduled launch. Too bad I won't be in on this after
the start of September....
-- 
Joe Beckenbach	beckenba@csvax.caltech.edu	Caltech 1-58, Pasadena CA 91125
Mars Observer Camera Project			Caltech Planetary Sciences Division
Ground Support Equipment Programmer [until 6 Sept, but can contact them much later]

------------------------------

Date: 20 Aug 88 13:04:40 GMT
From: portal!cup.portal.com!Lee_-_Wells@uunet.uu.net
Subject: nutrition

maybe i'm just fishing for a job here but....

Is there a nutritionist at NASA that does stats on all the space jocks?
I mean here these people are on the cutting edge of science, and when
it comes to monitering what they eat, I hear nothing.

I mean Scientific American has had some VERY interesting articles on
what happens to the brain with intake of protein vs. carbos...

There are serveral articles on MEDLINE about nutrients and immune system
simulation...they don't want a cold while they are up there...it would
seem to me.

Have there EVERY been any studies made on nutrition vs. performance at
NASA? [I checked with their library and found very little]
I have hear about the bed rest deal for potential astronauts, any of
them take any extra vitamin c?

just wondering

lee wells

------------------------------

Date: 20 Aug 88 15:50:51 GMT
From: tektronix!tekcae!vice!keithl@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Keith Lofstrom)
Subject: Re: Ozone layers

Chlorine and Flourine are reputed to act as a catalyst in the O3 -> O2
reaction.  One of my sources suggests that, as a catalyst, it also 
facilitates the other reaction.  The result:  at night, ozone decreases
"more than normal", and during the day, ozone INCREASES "more than normal".

Thus, the amount of daytime UV decreases (this is borne out by measured data)
and the amount of nighttime UV increases.  But since twice nothing is
still nothing, who cares?

Important question - the "ozone hole" in Antarctica increase was measured
DURING THE WINTER, when there is no sunlight near the pole.  Has the 
same decrease been measured during the SUMMER?  Do the instruments even
work in sunlight?

Keith
-- 
Keith Lofstrom   ...!tektronix!vice!keithl   keithl@vice.TEK.COM
MS 59-316, Tektronix, PO 500, Beaverton OR 97077  (503)-627-4052

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #345
*******************

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To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
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Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #346

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 346

Today's Topics:
		   energy usage and thermal runaway
	 Space telescopes (Was: space news from July 4 AW&ST)
		 Re: energy usage and thermal runaway
			       Re: SETI
			       Re: Seti
		   Re: access to space; how to deny
		 Re: energy usage and thermal runaway
		      NASA Prediction Bulletins
	      112th Scout rocket launch set (Forwarded)
		 Re: energy usage and thermal runaway
			   Re: Ozone layers
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 20 Aug 88 19:46:57 GMT
From: spdcc!eli@bloom-beacon.mit.edu  (Steve Elias)
Subject: energy usage and thermal runaway

In <1988Aug19.212031.24023@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:

>Have you looked at a graph of the energy available to mankind over the last
>century?  It's difficult for people today to realize just *tiny* mankind's
>resources were a mere half-century ago.  There is no obvious reason for the
>trend to change, either; certainly there are no technological barriers
>visible in the near future.  Capturing a small but significant fraction of
>the total energy output of the Sun would be enormously expensive (by 1988
>standards) but appears to present no fundamental difficulties.

	One difficulty may be the inability to use all our available
	energy as we like, without somehow re-rediating some energy back
	into space.  (Or perhaps making a tad of matter out of some of 
	our plentiful energy).
	
	Using all this energy, whether it turns out to be solar or not,
	could be as much of a worry as is the production of greenhouse
	gases is today.

	The greenhouse effect is theoretically a feedback cycle which
	is sensitive to either excess heat or excess CO2 and methane.
	so we had best be spacefaring folk if we're to have good reason
	to use thousands of times the energy we require now...

------------------------------

Date: 18 Aug 88 16:34:18 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!etive!bob@uunet.uu.net  (Bob Gray)
Subject: Space telescopes (Was: space news from July 4 AW&ST)

In article <1988Aug15.021047.12532@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>....  At risk of schedule slip are the Hubble
>telescope, the Astro ultraviolet astronomy mission,....

The hubble space telescope is still on the ground long after it
was supposed to be flying.

Meanwhile, the soviets are talking about building an
observatory in space 1.5 million Kilometers away at a stable
point in Earth orbit diametrically opposite the sun.

It would consist of a radio telescope with a 400 metre dish,
over quarter of a mile, and a 10 metre optical telescope.
These telescopes are the largest launchable on their Energia
heavy launcher.

The whole observatory would be assembled in orbit by
cosmanauts or robots.

Total cost estimated at 1 billion roubles. (about 1 billion
pounds sterling).

See the latest issue of "New Scientist" page 25 for the full
story.

OK, it is just talk at the moment, but would anyone bet that
this, or something like it, won't be flying before the end
of the century? (that originally said before the HST but
that is too pessimistic. Isn't it?)
	Bob.

------------------------------

Date: 21 Aug 88 04:40:58 GMT
From: apple!well!pokey@bloom-beacon.mit.edu  (Jef Poskanzer)
Subject: Re: energy usage and thermal runaway

Amazing.  He still doesn't get it.  The stubborness of this fellow's
ignorance is World Class.

In case anyone missed the flame-fest in April, I saved 133,745 bytes of
it, in which Steve's thermal balance fears are dispelled over and over
and over and over and he just keeps right on flaming.  Really interesting
reading, if you're into psychopathology.
---
Jef

             Jef Poskanzer   jef@rtsg.ee.lbl.gov   ...well!pokey
            "i may have bullshitted my flux claim" -- Steve Elias

------------------------------

Date: 20 Aug 88 22:13:37 GMT
From: att!chinet!mcdchg!clyde!watmath!water!utgpu!utzoo!henry@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: SETI

In article <8808181628.AA05092@angband.s1.gov> GILL@QUCDNAST.BITNET writes:
>     Maybe I'm an optimist, but I don't believe that such vicious
>civilizations exist...

I don't believe that they exist.  On the other hand I don't believe that
they don't exist, either.  There is no evidence to justify either belief.

> or even if they did, that they could actually
>traverse space to come here and "silence" us.  The energy requirements
>are just too great...

An 1888 electrical engineer would have said the same thing about the energy
requirements of any large 1988 city.
-- 
Intel CPUs are not defective,  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
they just act that way.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 20 Aug 88 22:45:38 GMT
From: att!chinet!mcdchg!clyde!watmath!water!utgpu!utzoo!henry@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Seti

In article <1140@ndsuvax.UUCP> nekinsel@ndsuvax.UUCP (Peter Kinsella) writes:
>          What prevents a race from using its own ineffcient weapons that will
>     mess up a world for a couple hundred years ?

Intelligence?

>Moreover, if they are 
>     bright enough to engineer these weapons, why not show just how bright
>     they are and overhaul a planet.

Compare the amount of effort invested in weaponry here with the amount
invested in planetary overhaul here and you will have at least one reason.

> Finally if they are that ruthless as
>     a race to exterminate other life forms, why don't they turn on themselves
>     in an overcrowded condition.  

Racial prejudice is an obvious possibility.  There is nothing remarkable
or unbelievable about a race respecting its own members while considering
other races to be useless animals cluttering up prime real estate.  Humans
have been doing this for a long time.

Note also that the two are not mutually exclusive.  The Western Europeans
managed to largely depopulate Australia and the Americas, without even
particularly intending to (most of the time...), despite going at it
hammer-and-tongs back in Europe meanwhile.  In fact, one can make a case
for the long history of organized warfare in Europe being an important cause
of the Europeans' devastating military superiority over the native Americans.
Survival of the fittest...
-- 
Intel CPUs are not defective,  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
they just act that way.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 20 Aug 88 22:34:12 GMT
From: att!chinet!mcdchg!clyde!watmath!water!utgpu!utzoo!henry@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: access to space; how to deny

In article <2039@pompeii.cs.swarthmore.edu> schwartz@swatsun.UUCP () writes:
>... Is a full scale SDI system (exact definition
>of that left unspecified) required to deny country X access to space?

No.  Launch sites are predictable, as are trajectories.  Times are somewhat
predictable.  Launches come one at a time and ascent is rather slower than
a modern ICBM.

>... What if the cubans (say) stood by
>with some MiG's off the coast of florida and fired air to air missiles
>at the shuttle as it lifted off.  Think they could shoot it down?

Definitely... assuming that the USAF didn't do something about the matter.
The airspace around the Cape is well watched at launch time.

>What if they used surface to air missiles launched from cuba?

Might be possible.  I think the range is rather long and the time available
is rather short (assuming one does not know the exact launch time in advance),
but a long-range SAM might be able to do it.

This would, of course, be tantamount to declaring war...

>Would the danger be enough to say that they had denied the US access to
>space?  I don't know much about the capabilities of the relevent
>weapons.  Maybe someone who does could fill us in.

Assuming that you could get close enough for the particular weapon to be
useful, yes, it would be a real concern.  The USAF is concerned enough about
Stinger-class shoulder-launched SAMs that they are tightening security at
both the Cape and Vandenberg.  A launcher in its first minute or so of
flight is an excellent target:  big, fragile, conspicuous on radar, emitting
huge quantities of infrared, flying a very predictable path from a known
starting point.  It's accelerating quickly and continuously, and after the
first minute or two it will be high enough and moving fast enough to be a
very difficult target, but early on it's a sitting duck if you can get to
the right place at the right time (and are prepared for the consequences).

The problem of getting within range and surviving there is bad enough to
make space-based interceptors rather more attractive, but there's nothing
impossible about shooting down a launcher with more mundane weapons.
-- 
Intel CPUs are not defective,  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
they just act that way.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

[I'm leaving this message in the Digest w/ extreme trepidation, but as usual
 Henry sounds so damn reasonable... -Ed]

------------------------------

Date: 21 Aug 88 14:31:55 GMT
From: spdcc!eli@bloom-beacon.mit.edu  (Steve Elias)
Subject: Re: energy usage and thermal runaway

In article <6871@well.UUCP> Jef Poskanzer <jef@rtsg.ee.lbl.gov> writes:
>Amazing.  He still doesn't get it.  The stubborness of this fellow's
>ignorance is World Class.

	hopefully some cogent replies to my posting will be
	provoked, rather than those like those of Jef "Ed" Hominem.

>In case anyone missed the flame-fest in April, I saved 133,745 bytes of
>it, in which Steve's thermal balance fears are dispelled over and over
>and over and over and he just keeps right on flaming.

	who is keeping right on flaming, here ?

	the gist of the argument months ago was that we could start
	running into thermal runaway when we started importing or
	using thousands of time the power we use now.  Henry made a
	comment about plentiful energy...  so here we go again.

	if i recall correctly, the bottom line was that thermal troubles
	could begin at thousands of times current energy usage, rather
	than the tens of times i originally claimed...

>             Jef Poskanzer   jef@rtsg.ee.lbl.gov   ...well!pokey
>            "i may have bullshitted my flux claim" -- Steve Elias

	oh well.  we're not all perfect, like some folks think they are.

------------------------------

Date: 21 Aug 88 16:50:49 GMT
From: cs.utexas.edu!ut-emx!tskelso@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu  (TS Kelso)
Subject: NASA Prediction Bulletins


For those of you who are interested in satellite tracking, the most current
orbital elements from the NASA Prediction Bulletins are carried on the
Celestial RCP/M, (513) 427-0674, and are updated several times weekly.  As a
service to the amateur satellite community, the most current of these elements
are uploaded weekly to rec.ham-radio.  The Celestial RCP/M may be accessed 24
hours/day at 300, 1200, or 2400 baud using 8 data bits, 1 stop bit, no parity.

Note:  The number above is the new number in Fairborn, Ohio.  Unfortunately,
       the system is down temporarily due to equipment failure.  - TS

--
TS Kelso, PhD                       ARPA: tskelso@emx.cc.utexas.edu
The Center for Space Research
The University of Texas at Austin   UUCP: {ihnp4,allegra}!ut-emx!tskelso

------------------------------

Date: 21 Aug 88 18:58:50 GMT
From: yee@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: 112th Scout rocket launch set (Forwarded)

James Cast
Headquarters, Washington, D.C.                    August 19, 1988

Jean Drummond Clough
Langley Research Center, Hampton, Va.


RELEASE:  88-116

112TH SCOUT ROCKET LAUNCH SET

     NASA will launch two U.S. Navy navigational satellites 
aboard a Scout rocket August 24 from Vandenberg Air Force Base, 
Calif.  The 24-minute launch window for the SOOS-4 (Stacked 
Oscars On Scout) mission opens at 11:59 p.m. PDT.  The two Oscar 
satellites, each weighing 141 pounds, will be placed into a 600-
nautical-mile circular polar orbit.  The Oscars are part of the 
Navy's all-weather, global navigation system.

     The Navy Navigation Satellite System has served the military 
and more than 60,000 civilian users for more than 2 decades by 
providing position information within one-tenth of a nautical 
mile anywhere in the world.  Over the years, the spacecraft have 
been adapted for diverse uses such as commercial shipping, 
charting of offshore oil and mineral deposits and land survey 
programs.

     The SOOS-4 mission will mark the fourth and final Scout 
launch for 1988.  Successful missions this year were:  Scout San 
Marco D/L, launched from the San Marco range platform in the 
Indian Ocean on March 25; SOOS-3, launched April 25 from 
Vandenberg; and the Navy NOVA-II, launched from Vandenberg on 
June 15.

     The Scout program is managed by NASA's Langley Research 
Center, Hampton, Va.  The four-stage, solid-propellant rockets 
are built by the Missiles Division of LTV Missiles and 
Electronics Group, Dallas, Texas.

------------------------------

Date: 21 Aug 88 02:06:43 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: energy usage and thermal runaway

In article <1705@spdcc.COM> eli@spdcc.COM (Steve Elias) writes:
>>... Capturing a small but significant fraction of
>>the total energy output of the Sun would be enormously expensive (by 1988
>>standards) but appears to present no fundamental difficulties.
>
>	One difficulty may be the inability to use all our available
>	energy as we like, without somehow re-rediating some energy back
>	into space...

Capturing more than a miniscule fraction of the Sun's output requires
going off Earth anyway, since Earth doesn't intercept very much of it.
There is no reason to bring the energy down to Earth unless there is some
specific use for it here.  For powering starships, we would be using it
for making antimatter or powering big lasers or something on that order,
all of which is better done in space.
-- 
Intel CPUs are not defective,  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
they just act that way.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 21 Aug 88 05:41:54 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Ozone layers

In article <2774@vice.ICO.TEK.COM> keithl@vice.ICO.TEK.COM (Keith Lofstrom) writes:
>Chlorine and Flourine are reputed to act as a catalyst in the O3 -> O2
>reaction.  One of my sources suggests that, as a catalyst, it also 
>facilitates the other reaction...

I'm afraid this is chemically naive.  Ozone is not normally formed (in any
significant amount) by the reverse of the ozone-destruction reactions.
Purely chemical reactions strongly favor destruction of ozone, since it is
an unstable high-energy state of oxygen.  Chlorine, flourine, etc. do *not*
catalyze the photochemical reaction that forms essentially all of the
atmospheric ozone in the first place.

In other words, your source is both right and wrong.  Yes, the catalyst
is greasing the Chemical Railway's wheels for both directions, but those
wheels are on a steep incline and the net result is faster downward motion.
The oxygen gets to the top (turning it into ozone) via the Photochemical
Railway, which is an entirely different line.  The Sun doesn't turn the
mountain into a valley (which would indeed make the Chemical Railway run
in reverse); the Sun's role is that it powers the Photochemical Railway.
Greasing the Chemical Railway's wheels makes things worse, day *and* night.

(The railway analogy here actually is pretty close to the truth of chemical
energy diagrams.)
-- 
Intel CPUs are not defective,  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
they just act that way.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #346
*******************

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Date: Sat, 3 Sep 88 01:06:09 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8809030806.AA08817@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
Reply-To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #347

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 347

Today's Topics:
       Soyuz TM-6 mission launched to Soviet Mir space station
		Soyuz TM-6 mission - more information
	   Los Angeles Area Space Talk, 10 Sep 88, 7:30 PM
		Re: SETI: Why don't we hear anything?
		  Re: space news from July 11 AW&ST
		  RE: Space Exploitation/Exploration
		  Re: space news from July 11 AW&ST
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Mon, 29 Aug 88 17:12:10 EDT
From: Glenn Chapman <glenn@ll-vlsi.arpa>
Subject: Soyuz TM-6 mission launched to Soviet Mir space station

     The USSR launched the Soyuz TM-6 "Afghan" mission to the Mir space station 
between 8:23-8:25 am Moscow Daylight Time (0:23-25 EDT) today (Aug 29).  On 
board were Col. Vladimir Lyahkov, mission commander (age 47; Soviet Air Force;
2 previous flights: Soyuz 32 in Feb '79 for 175 on Salyut 6 and Soyuz T9 in 
June '83 for 149 days on Salyut 7), Dr. Penkov? (Age 36; first flight - sorry
the radio was noisy so that is the best guess at his name), and 
Capt. Abdol Ahad (Afghanistan Air Force guest cosmonaut).  The Mission will
dock with Mir on Aug. 31, and be returning to earth on Sept. 6.  The purpose
is to observe Afghan territory for the Afghans (the joke running around
is that he to observe the Soviet troop withdrawal).
     On the Mir/Kvant complex they will be joining Vladimir Titov and 
Musahi Manarov who have now been up for more than 9 months (253 days).  This
already makes them the 2nd longest duration space crew, exceeding the 
Soyuz T-10B crew 237 mission on board Salyut 7 in Oct. 1984 (set by 
Leonid Kizim, Validimir Soloyev and Oleg Atkov).  The are closing in on the
326 day record set by Yuri Romanenko last December.  By comparison the maximum
space time of any active US astronauts is held by John Young with 
34 days experience and Paul Weitz (Skylab 2 & STS-9) with 33 
days (all higher time ones have left the program).  The longest US time ever 
was the 84 days of the Skylab 4 three man crew in Nov. '73. Indeed Manarov and
Titov have individually accumulated more time than the combined
total Skylab 4 crew.  Note: the beginning of August marked the 10th anniversary
of the date when Soviet cosmonauts exceeded the US in manned space experience.
     There are several interesting things about this mission.  First the
actual crew makeup was not announced in advance.  Indeed the Afghan who flew,
Capt. Ahad,  was second in line several months ago behind Col. Mohammad Dauran. 
Does this mean this Soyuz TM-6 group was the backup crew?  Next they did not
broadcast the flight live on short wave, though the announcement was made about
2 minutes after takeoff.  CNN showed the flight about 10 minutes later.  Most
recent flights have gone out live - suffering from lack of audience? Also has 
been statements to the effect that the doctor will not be coming down on Sept 6,
but will stay up to check over Manarov and Titov.  But when will he come down?
The guest cosmonaut - French mission is set for Nov. 21 (date just announced).
They will come down about Dec 23, with Manarov and Titov plus 
Jean-Loup Chretien (the probable Frenchman).    That leaves no room for the
doctor, who would have to come down about two months later, at the next
landing window in late February (ie. a 5 month mission minimum). 
     Two other points.  First they have said now several times on short wave
that a new Energia is on the pad (without the shuttle).  Launch date is not
given, nor is the cargo.  Secondly, there is the tale that singer John Denver
is about to purchase a mission to Mir for himself for $10 million (with the
first live TV special by a "star" from space?).  That is the current going
rate for a manned flight to their station.
     The Soviet space program is clearly into the operational space station
phase.  Their crews carry out the business of a permanently manned outpost
in orbit without much fanfare.  Here we get lovely paintings of what tomorrows
space station will look like.  Yet only now is Congress giving the funds to
do some of this work (the $900 million for this year).  Still there are those
calling for us to study yet again what to build.  While others act we debate.
      
     
                                                    Glenn Chapman
                                                    MIT Lincoln Lab

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 30 Aug 88 14:08:56 EDT
From: Glenn Chapman <glenn@ll-vlsi.arpa>
Subject: Soyuz TM-6 mission - more information

   Some additional information about the Soyuz TM-6 mission that was launched
on Aug. 29th.  The Physician is named Dr. Valery Polyakov (Age 47) while
some reports (the New York Times) are giving the Afghan cosmonaut's full name
as Capt. Abdol Ahad Mohmand (Age 29).  The statements of when the doctor will
come down are confusing.  The NYT report said Dr. Polyakov will return on 
Dec. 21 with Valadimir Titov and Musa Manarov (the long duration space crew).
However, that would leave the French spaceman, Jean-Loup Chretien, on board.
Hence, 5 current possibilities are: Polyakov stays at least until a Feb. '89
mission (none has been announced) or later; Chretien stays longer than 1 month
(rather unlikely);  one of Titov or Manarov stay longer (also unlikely) or
they play some tricks with Soyuzs' (bring down two capsules at once, while
sending up a replacement etc.); or finally Polyakov comes down on Sept 6th
(unlikely as they have already stated he will not).   With these partial crew
changes and combinations of short and long duration people following these
Russian flights is starting to get rather difficult.
     This may be my last posting for this mission - I am heading off to 
New Orleans until after the mission ends.  I will fill people in after that.

                                                Glenn Chapman
                                                MIT Lincoln Lab

------------------------------

Posted-Date: Wed, 31 Aug 88 16:31:44 PDT
To: BBoard@venera.isi.edu, Space@angband.s1.gov
Subject: Los Angeles Area Space Talk, 10 Sep 88, 7:30 PM
Date: Wed, 31 Aug 88 16:31:44 PDT
From: rogers@venera.isi.edu

		     Galileo:  Passage to Jupiter

	Mr. Robert B. Gounley will talk about the upcoming Galileo
mission to Jupiter.  He will present a "travelogue" of its extended
journey through the inner solar system and Jovian space, including
mission objectives, spacecraft design and anticipated scientific
return.  He'll also give a short history of the delays the project has
faced, and the efforts taken to overcome them.

	Mr. Gounley is a member of the technical staff in Spacecraft
Systems Engineering at JPL.  He has worked extensively with the
design, testing and flight operations of Galileo, as well as system
engineering issues affecting the science instruments.  Mr. Gounley has
been a member of the National Space Society (formerly the L5 society)
since 1977.

	This lecture is one of many activities sponsored by the
Organization for the Advancement of Space Industrialization and
Settlement (OASIS), the Los Angeles and Orange County chapter of the
National Space Society.  The organization is a non-profit educational
group which promotes space development.

	The public is invited; there is no admission charge.  For more
information about this lecture or other OASIS activities call the
OASIS Message Machine at (213) 374-1381 or send email to Craig Milo
Rogers (DoD Internet address <Rogers@ISI.Edu>).

	When:	Saturday, September 10, 1988
	Where:	Von Karman Auditorium
		Jet Propulsion Laboratory
		Pasadena, CA

	Directions:
	Get to the Foothill Fwy (I-210) travelling towards Pasadena.
Get off on Berkshire Pl., near the Pasadena/La Canada Flintridge
border.  Go east 1 block to Oak Grove Drive.  Turn left and drive
north, less than a mile, to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory main gate.
Free parking is available in the lot to the left of the gate.

------------------------------

Date: 21 Aug 88 09:18:23 GMT
From: att!chinet!mcdchg!clyde!watmath!watdcsu!smann@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Shannon Mann - I.S.er)
Subject: Re: SETI: Why don't we hear anything?

In article <561@unisv.UUCP> vanpelt@unisv.UUCP (Mike Van Pelt) writes:
- large chunk left out to conserve bandwidth - 
>                                                    (After all,
>we've been broadcasting like mad for decades, and haven't been
>blasted yet.)  But then again, there's all those Biilyons and
>Biilyons * of stars out there, for all those Biilyons and Biilyons *
>of years ... and it only has to happen once for us all to be in 
>deep yoghurt.
>--
>* "Biilyons and Biilyons" is a trademark of Carl Sagan Enterprises, Inc.
>-- 
>Mike Van Pelt                       When the fog came in on little cat feet
>Unisys, Silicon Valley              last night, it left these little muddy
>vanpelt@unisv.UUCP                  paw prints on the hood of my car.

To be serious for just one minute, I don't believe that we will be likely to 
have visitors from some other star in the near future.  Our radio envelope
has been travelling out from our solar system for less than 100 years.  This 
means that only stars within that *radiosphere* will have had any notification
of our presence.  This sphere encompasses very few stars when compared to the 
billions in the rest of the galaxy.  Chances are that there are no advanced
lifeforms in that sphere capable of galactic space travel.  (Or we would have 
had some contact by now :-)  Furthermore, as the radiosphere expands, the 
transmissions become more and more weak, disrupted by background noise, etc.  
Although the calculation is beyond me, I believe that, after a certain distance,
the signals would be so weak as to become part of the background noise.
All of these factors indicate that we have little to worry about, at least
for the time being.

As for the *probe* question, I think Fred Saberhagen has said it best in his
series of stories about *berserkers* (self-replicating, life-destroying,        
intelligent war machines), and, in a better light, Clarke's 2001/2010/2061.
Being a science fiction reader, and not yet a writer, I will leave full
treatment to the above authors.  I will say that, there is a much greater
chance of stumbling upon a probe than the real beings.  Machines can search
without stopping for things like having children, growing old, eating, etc.

All the above is, of course, a gross generalization, but I believe, a safe 
one.  Please no flames.  I have a naive enthusiasm for this topic that I would
like to keep.  Any comments, please E-mail. 

        -=-
-=- Shannon Mann -=- smann@watdcsu.UWaterloo.ca
        -=-

------------------------------

Date: 22 Aug 88 00:31:17 GMT
From: att!chinet!mcdchg!clyde!watmath!water!utgpu!utzoo!henry@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: space news from July 11 AW&ST

In article <952@esunix.UUCP> bpendlet@esunix.UUCP (Bob Pendleton) writes:
>I'm starting to believe that the main reason ALS will
>have trouble reaching its design goals is the "performance is
>everything", "high tech or nothing" mind set of the companies doing
>the work. 

Don't forget the performance-is-everything, high-tech-or-nothing mindset
of the *customer*.  ALS is already supposed to be (a) the spur for the
development of new expendable-launcher technology, (b) a rapid-reaction
launcher for military crises, (c) a hardened launcher for use in a hostile
wartime environment, and (d) a cheap launcher.  If a serious effort were
made to meet *one* of these objectives, I have no doubt it could be done...
-- 
Intel CPUs are not defective,  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
they just act that way.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 22 Aug 88 11:02:20 CDT
From: pyron@lvvax1.csc.ti.com (My desk is an example of the Second Law of Thermodynamics)
Subject: RE: Space Exploitation/Exploration


 **********WARNING: NEW KID ON THE BLOCK WITH A CHIP ON HIS SHOULDER********
 Forearmed is forewarned (play football?)
 
 Space is not some natural resource which can or should be controlled by an
 governmental or extra-governmental entity.  Instead, it is a resource much
 like the "New World", claimable by whomever wanted to (obviously this was
 the governments), but exploited by those with the brains, bucks and balls to
 go out and do something. 
 
 Any private organization which decides that there is good reason for them to
 be in space should have no prohibition to doing so.  Correction, the
 restrictions should be on what they do to Earth while getting there. 
 
 Of course, this all gets to my reason for being.  One of the best candidates
 for space industrialiation is the power utilities.  I've disliked (hate is a
 nasty word) TU Electric for years, but if they said they were going to put
 the plants in space, I'd walk to DC to testify on their behalf! 
 
 Why?  Mankind needs room, we need to get off each other's shoulders. The
 sooner we spread out in this system (and beyond, but that happens MUCH
 later) the sooner we, as a race, can start believing that we might survive
 our own stupidity.  There's plenty of room out there for Palestine or
 Armenia or even White South Africa.  And something for the misfits in our
 society who would have been trappers and explorers and miners in a previous
 era.  About the only group that wouldn't fit in would be our hypothetical
 anarchists, since anarchy and a hard vacuum don't seem well suited for each
 other. 
 
 Basically, though, none of this will happen if some Mickey Mouse (sorry
 Walt) third world country claims co-soveriegnty by virtue of some "natural
 right to share".  On the other hand, if I'm up there (and I plan to be),
 then any one who disputes me is welcome to come up with me.  By the time
 this Third Worlder gets there, they will have so much invested in it that
 they will (I hope) want to preserve the new status quo by taking the same
 stance. 
 
 Afterall, space is an awful damn big place.  Ain't no reason to fight over
 it. 
 
 Love and kisses
 
 Dillon Pyron
 
 My employer knows not whereof I speak, therefore and accept all criticizms
 and adulation on my own.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 22 Aug 88 12:12:49 PST
From: Peter Scott <PJS@grouch.jpl.nasa.gov>
Subject: Re: space news from July 11 AW&ST
X-Vms-Mail-To: EXOS%"space@angband.s1.gov"

>clyde!watmath!water!utgpu!utzoo!henry@bellcore.com  (Henry Spencer) quotes:

>NASA is studying an internal proposal to launch Columbia unmanned next year
>using old SRBs. [...]  The problem is that NASA
>has about 13 pre-Challenger SRBs left, containing about 11 million pounds
>of oxidizer that cannot be recovered, and the oxidizer shortage is looking
>worse and worse.

I seem to remember that one of the problems with ICBMs (also solid-fuelled)
is that they have a finite and relatively short `shelf' life due to the
propellant perishing, such that when old missiles are fired, this is by far the
most likely reason for their failure.  These SRBs are at least 2 years old,
isn't this problem likely to be a consideration?  Unmanned or not, we can't
exactly afford to lose the Columbia...

Peter Scott (pjs%grouch@jpl-mil.jpl.nasa.gov)

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #347
*******************

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Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #348

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 348

Today's Topics:
		      Congresscrittercommittees
				 SETI
		  Evolution and "vicious tendencies)
	       Feasibility of interstellar colonization
	       Why *THEY* might want to eat our lunch.
		    Re: Space Shuttle spare parts
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Mon, 22 Aug 88 12:15:52 PST
From: Peter Scott <PJS@grouch.jpl.nasa.gov>
Subject: Congresscrittercommittees
X-Vms-Mail-To: EXOS%"space@angband.s1.gov,space-activists@turing.cs.rpi.edu"

>From NASA Activities, July/August 1988, comes a list of NASA-related
congressional committees:

U.S. SENATE:

COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS:
John C. Stennis (D-MS), Chairman
Mark. O. Hartfield (R-OR), Ranking Minority

SUBCOMMITTEE ON HUD-INDEPENDENT AGENCIES:
Democrats:
William Proxmire (WI), Chairman
John C. Stennis (MS)
Patrick J. Leahy (VT)
J. Bennett Johnston (LA)
Frank R. Lautenberg (NJ)
Barbara A. Mikulski (MD)

Republicans:
Jake Garn (UT), Ranking Minority
Alfonse M. D'Amato (NY)
Pete V. Domenici (NM)
Charles E. Grassley (IA)
Don Nickles (OK)

COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, SCIENCE AND TRANSPORTATION:
Democrats:
Ernest F. Hollings (SC), Chairman
Daniel K. Inouye (HI)
Wendell H. Ford (KY)
Donald W. Riegle (MI)
J. James Exon (NE)
Albert Gore, Jr. (TN)
John D. Rockefeller, IV (WV)
Lloyd D. Bentsen (TX)
John D. Kerry (MA)
John B. Breaux (LA)
Brock Adams (WA)

Republicans:
John C. Danforth (MO), Ranking Minority
Bob Packwood (OR)
Nancy Landon Kassebaum (KS)
Larry Pressler (SD)
Ted Stevens (AK)
Bob Kasten (WI)
Paul S. Trible, Jr. (VA)       [Could be a soft touch for furry E.T.s...]
Pete Wilson (CA)
John R. McCain (AZ)

SUBCOMITTEE ON SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND SPACE:
Democrats:
Donald W. Riegle (MI), Chairman
Albert Gore, Jr. (TN)
John D. Rockefeller, IV (WV)
Lloyd D. Bentsen (TX)
John D. Kerry (MA)
Brock Adams (WA)

Republicans:
Larry Pressler (SD), Ranking Minority
Nancy Landon Kassebaum (KS)
Paul S. Trible, Jr. (VA)
Pete Wilson (CA)


U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE AND TECHNOLOGY:
Democrats:
Robert A. Roe (NJ), Chairman
George E. Brown, Jr. (CA)
James H. Scheuer (NY)
Marilyn Lloyd (TN)
Doug Walgren (PA)
Dan Glickman (KS)
Harold L. Volkmer (MO)
Bill Nelson (FL)
Ralph M. Hall (TX)
Dave McCurdy (OK)
Norman Y. Mineta (CA)
Buddy MacKay (FL)
Tim Valentine (NC)
Robert G. Torricelli (NJ)
Rick Boucher (VA)
Terry L. Bruce (IL)
Richard H. Stallings (ID)
James A. Traficant, Jr. (OH)
Jim Chapman (TX)
Lee H. Hamilton (IN)
Henry J, Nowak (NY)
Tom McMillen (MD)
David E. Price (NC)
David Nagle (IA)
Jimmy Hayes (LA)
David E. Skaggs (CO)
Paul E. Kanjorski (PA)
George J. Hochbrueckner (NY)

Republicans:
Manuel Lujan, Jr. (NM), Ranking Minority
Robert S. Walker (PA)
F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr. (WI)
Claudine Schneider (RI)
Sherwood L. Boehlert (NY)
Tom Lewis (FL)
Don Ritter (PA)
Sid Morrison (WA)
Ron Packard (CA)
Robert C. Smith (NH)
Paul B. Henry (MI)
Harris W. Fawell (IL)
D. French Slaughter, Jr. (VA)
Lamar Smith (TX)
Ernest L. Konnyu (CA)
Jack Buechner (MO)
Constance A. Morella (MD)
Christopher Shays (CT)

SUBCOMMITTEE ON SPACE SCIENCE AND APPLICATIONS:
Democrats:
Bill Nelson (FL), Chairman
George E. Brown, Jr. (CA)
Harold L. Volkmer (MO)
Norman Y. Mineta (CA)
Robert G. Torricelli (NJ)
James A. Traficant, Jr. (OH)
Jim Chapman (TX)
Carl C. Perkins (KY)
Tom McMillen (MD)
David R. Nagle (LA)
James H. Scheuer (NY)
Ralph M. Hall (TX)
David E. Skaggs (CO)

Republicans:
Robert S. Walker (PA), Ranking Minority
Ron Packard (CA)
Robert C. Smith (NH)
D. French Slaughter, Jr. (VA)
Ernest L. Konnyu (CA)
Jack Buechner (MO)
Joel Hefley (CO)
Constance A. Morella (MD)
Tom Lewis (FL)

SUBCOMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION, AVIATION AND MATERIALS:
Democrats:
Dave McCurdy (OK), Chairman
Dan Glickman (KS)
Bill Nelson (FL)
Tom McMillen (MD)
Jimmy Hayes (LA)

Republicans:
Tom Lewis (FL), Ranking Minority
Robert S. Walker (PA)
F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr. (WI)

SUBCOMMITTEE ON INVESTIGATIONS AND OVERSIGHT:
Democrats:
Robert A. Roe (NJ), Chairman
Harold L. Volkmer (MO)
David E. Price (NC)
George E. Brown, Jr. (CA)
James A. Traficant, Jr. (OH)
(Vacancy)

Republicans:
Don Ritter (PA), Ranking Minority
F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr. (WI)
Ron Packard (CA)
Ernest K. Konnyu (CA)

SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC COOPERATION:
Democrats:
Ralph M. Hall (TX), Chairman
Marilyn Lloyd (TN)
Buddy MacKay (FL)
Robert G. Torricelli (NJ)
James H. Scheuer (NY)
Richard H. Stallings (ID)

Republicans:
F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr. (WI), Ranking Minority
Sherwood L. Boehlert (NY)
Ron Packard (CA)
Harris W. Fawell (IL)

COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS:
James L. Whitten (D-MS), Chairman
Silvio O Conte (R-MA), Ranking Minority

SUBCOMMITTEE ON HUD-INDEPENDENT AGENCIES:
Democrats:
Edward P. Boland (MA), Chairman
Bob Traxler (MI)
Louis Stokes (OH)
Lindy Boggs (LA)
Alan B. Mollohan (WV)
Martin Olav Sabo (MN)

Republicans:
Bill Green (NY), Ranking Minority
Lawrence Coughlin (PA)
Jerry Lewis (CA)



Peter Scott (pjs%grouch@jpl-mil.jpl.nasa.gov)

------------------------------

Date:    Mon, 22 Aug 88 13:24:57 PDT
From: hairston%23666%utadnx%utspan.span@vlsi.jpl.nasa.gov
Subject: SETI
X-St-Vmsmail-To: JPLLSI::"space@angband.s1.gov"

    Edwin Hoogerbeets suggested (V8 #329) sending message towards the center
of the galaxy in order to reach the most prospective planets.  The problem
here is that there probably aren't many planets in the center of the galaxy.
Think of our galaxy as a disk of stars with a big bulge in the middle (a
golf ball stuck in the middle of a pancake gives you an idea of the relative
sizes) with the solar system about two-thirds of the way out to the edge.
Most of the stars in the central bulge are first-generation stars born in
the early stages of galactic formation when only the hydrogen and helium 
from the big bang were around, so there were no heavier elements to make
planets (at least terrestrial-like planets).  The stars out in the disk
are the second-, third-, etc. generation stars that formed out of the
processed material from the supernovae of earlier stars, so they did have
the heavier elements necessary to form planets and carbon/hydrogen/oxygen/
nitrogen (CHON is the jargon term) based life.  So sending a signal in
a narrow beam to the center of the galaxy won't intercept any possible
civilizations unless the beam happens to cross a civilization in the disk
that's on a direct line between here and the center.  A better idea would
be to broadcast only along the plane of the Milky Way, thus the signal would
pass through most of the star systems in the disk.  Early SETI searches were 
planning to do an "all sky" survey, but I would imagine that later ones 
might concentrate on the region along the plane of the galaxy.  If there was 
a power restraint on the project and you wanted an even more restrictive 
direction, then the best bet would be to start with broadcasting in both 
directions along our arm of the galaxy.  That would get the highest densisty 
of stars (and possible planets) within a certain distance (say around 5000-
10,000 light years) in our "local" region.   

Marc Hairston (also an Amiga (reg. TM) enthusiast)
Center for Space Sciences--University of Texas at Dallas
SPAN adress  UTSPAN::UTADNX::UTD750::HAIRSTON

Any resemblance between my opinions and those of my employers (living or
dead) is purely coincidental.

------------------------------

Date: 22 Aug 88 04:23:02 GMT
From: amdahl!drivax!macleod@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (MacLeod)
Subject: Evolution and "vicious tendencies)

>>In article <1628@spdcc.COM> eli@spdcc.COM (Steve Elias) writes:
>>>	a species which survived its
>>>	own nuclear self destruct phase would have evolved past
>>>	any vicious tendencies long before the reach into deep space.

Well, just to be contrary...I'd say that there probably is a positive 
correlation between danger-to-other-species and evolution.  Some naturalists
claim that we're eliminating hundreds of species of life from tropical
rain forests as we mow them down.  We don't consult with them first, anymore
than the Neanderthals did with Mammoths, Smilodons, and the other runners-up
in the Great Pleistocene War Games.  

I'd guess that from a communications point of view the first step is making
contactees aware that we are worth talking to before they raze the whole
planet for its resources.  As far as radio emissions go - bees buzz, but
do we bother to listen?  I'd assume that any spacefaring race has technology
that end-runs the limitations of the Newtonian universe, making radio 
communication at most an interplanetary medium.  

Michael Sloan MacLeod  (amdahl!drivax!macleod)

------------------------------

Date: 22 Aug 88 04:43:19 GMT
From: amdahl!drivax!macleod@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (MacLeod)
Subject: Feasibility of interstellar colonization

In article <255@heurikon.UUCP> lampman@heurikon.UUCP (Ray Lampman) writes:

>What are the prerequisites for human colonization for a nearby solar system?
>Forget for a moment that we can not do this at present, and think about why
>not. What must come first? Changes in governments? Economies? Technology?
>Do we need any basic scientific advances? How about long range sensors?

>From a purely technological viewpoint, I think we are either at or near
an adequate understanding of human biology in interplanetary conditions.
This may or may not be enough; we still are not certain what happens to
humans in more normal surroundings.  As far as materials technology goes,
I think we could build a multigeneration ship.  I doubt that we understand the
principles of ecological systems well enough to support a 250-year voyage;
such trips would require taking all kinds of refining and other industrial
tooling, and might be impossible.  And the longer the ship was en route, 
the greater the possibility of the whole culture going off its rails, ala
Heinlein's "Universe".  I also doubt that current chemical propulsion
schemes would suffice, but I'll leave that to the experts.

------------------------------

Date: 22 Aug 88 05:09:26 GMT
From: amdahl!drivax!macleod@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (MacLeod)
Subject: Why *THEY* might want to eat our lunch.

The last I heard (in lay articles) there were several theories that best
seemed to fit observed facts about the genesis of the Moon and Earth planetary
pair.  One of these called for a collision between the Earth and another
body, carving out the Moon as a result.   This also explained the abundance
of heavy elements near the top of the Earth's crust.  In Sunday supplement
fashion, one article brayed: "The Gold In Your Ring is From Another Planet!"

If this is so, and such metal dispositions are rare in the universe (perhaps
most planets turn out to be Jupiter-size gas giants), then any kind of mining
survey is going to be of interest to those looking for accessible heavy
elements.  In (forgive me) L. Ron Hubbard's otherwise trashy _Battlefield
Earth_, remote drones intercepted a human probe several hundred years after 
leaving the solar system, deduced that the Earth had significant quantities
of tungsten (which was in demand for some reason), and moved in the mining
machines. 

Given the unlikelihood of cheap transmutation of elements, even spacefaring
races will probably continue to be interested in rare elements.  If Earth's
crust is abnormally rich in these, we may be in for interesting times ahead.

Michael Sloan MacLeod   (amdahl!drivax!macleod)

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 22 Aug 88 18:06:25 EDT
From: John Roberts <roberts@cmr.icst.nbs.gov>
Subject: Re: Space Shuttle spare parts


I read somewhere that one of the things that came out in the investigation
after the Challenger explosion was that NASA, in an effort to stay more
within budget limitations, had been forced to carry on with *fewer* of
certain parts than required to supply four shuttles, and that as a result,
when a shuttle landed, a surprisingly high percentage of its components were
stripped out and installed in the next shuttle to be flown. Assuming this to be
true, it meant there was no chance of launching a shuttle to rescue the crew
of a disabled shuttle in orbit, no matter how rapid the refurbishing
process became. It also meant that the explosion of the Challenger destroyed
these vital components, and no shuttle could possibly be launched until they
had been replaced. Given these circumstances, it would make sense to wait 
at least until the remaining shuttles were fully stocked and a full set of
spares available, or, possibly, to strip one of the three remaining shuttles
to provide a stock of parts for the other two. Recovery from the accident
would provide justification for spending money and time to improve systems
the designers had not been been pleased with before.

Note that there may be spares of some components and at the same time
an inadequate supply of others.

<Standard disclaimers.>
                                            John Roberts
                                            roberts@cmr.icst.nbs.gov

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #348
*******************

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Date: Mon, 5 Sep 88 01:04:59 PDT
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To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
Reply-To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #349

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 349

Today's Topics:
			       RE: SETI
		Re: SETI: Why don't we hear anything?
		 Re: Brian Eno's _Apollo_ soundtrack
		 Inverse SETI (Was:  ET phone home?)
	       Re: Inverse SETI (Was:  ET phone home?)
	       Re: How does NASA detect a Hydrogen leak
		Re: SETI: Why don't we hear anything?
	       Re: Inverse SETI (Was:  ET phone home?)
			 Re: Life on Jupiter
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 22 Aug 88 17:22:00 GMT
From: apollo!nelson_p@eddie.mit.edu  (Peter Nelson)
Subject: RE: SETI


 Shannon Mann posts:
>Being a science fiction reader, and not yet a writer, I will leave full
>treatment to the above authors.  I will say that, there is a much greater
>chance of stumbling upon a probe than the real beings.  Machines can search
>without stopping for things like having children, growing old, eating, etc.
  
 Well, I agree.  I would love to see us take a long-range view of
 things and launch some true deep-space probes even if it may be
 centuries before we get anything back from them.  
 
 Several questions:
 
  One risk is we may put a lot of work and money into making a probe
  which may be passed on it's way to Alpha Centauri or Tau Ceti 50 years
  later by a faster probe.   Has anyone done any realistic calculations
  of what the fastest spacecraft we could build with something like
  existing technology?   How much is that figure likely to change a 
  few decades down the road?  
 
  At 1,000,000 miles an hour (i.e., pretty damn fast by today's standards)
  it would take about 2900 years for a probe to get to Alpha Centauri.
  The electronics and other systems are not likely to last anywhere near
  that long.  With a lot of rendundancy and careful design and choice of
  material we *might* be able to make a probe last a hundred years.  So
  to get to Alpha Centauri in that time would require going at 4% of the 
  speed of light (not counting acceleration/deceleration time).
 
  How powerful a radio signal would the spacecraft have to send to be
  receivable with today's technology?  Would it be wise to use a much
  weaker signal and assume our descendents will have better receivers?

                                         --Peter Nelson

------------------------------

Date: 23 Aug 88 00:22:04 GMT
From: jpl-devvax!lwall@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov  (Larry Wall)
Subject: Re: SETI: Why don't we hear anything?

I have no difficulty (logically, not morally) with the assumption that
advanced races will always prevent primitive races from developing.
All this would prove is that we are the first, by some kind of modified
anthropic principle.  In a universe in which we weren't first, we simply
wouldn't exist.  Somebody had to be first here, so it might as well be us.

Culturally we are quite environmentally conscious at the moment, but I think
this may be because we aren't in any kind of frontier expansion at the
moment.  Morals and ethics seem to get looser at the frontier, if you
believe all the Westerns.  Even where people are trying to do the right
thing, mere economic growth tends to usurp ecological niches into which
future sentient beings could fit.  If you travel 50 light years to colonize
another planet, are you going to turn around and go back because there
are some sad-eyed lemurs there when you arrive?  I think not.

This is not to say that we wouldn't "uplift" the sad lemurs or dolphins or
whoever.  But they'd be a part of our expansion, not someone else's.

I don't think you can calculate the probability of our being first.  It
depends too much on what kind of an expansion rate we can attain.  We don't
even know enough to calculate the probability of life itself, really.
We just know it can happen at least once out of n tries, where n is the
number of universes that were "tried".

Larry Wall
lwall@jpl-devvax.jpl.nasa.gov

------------------------------

Date: 23 Aug 88 00:38:25 GMT
From: mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Mike Smithwick)
Subject: Re: Brian Eno's _Apollo_ soundtrack

In article <2291@pixar.UUCP> brighton@pixar.uucp (Bill Carson) writes:
>Having just read the liner notes of Brian Eno's 1983 album, _Apollo_,  it 
>mentions that most of this music was composed for a movie/documentary of
>the Apollo space missions.  Directed by Al Reinert,  it is supposed to have
>been compiled from the some 6 million feet of film shot by NASA during this
>fantastic and mystical period of space exploration.
>
>My question is,  does this film exist as a released production?
>And if so,  who could I contact to obtain more information about it?  
>-- 
>Bill Carson ...!{ucbvax,sun}!pixar!brighton

Could you be talking about the film "The Space Movie"? It was done several
years ago, and ended up a real hodge-podge of clips mostly dealing with 
Apollo, but including some Skylab. It looks like very little thought
went into what scenes were chosen, or their ordering. (Except for the
Apollo 11 launch sequence which is magnificant!!) 

It has a lonnnnnggg, droning, rhythmic soundtrack, interesting at spots, 
and very repetitive at others. Virtually no talking at all, just music
and a little air-to-ground. I don't remember if it was Eno who wrote the
music, I was told it was supposed to have been the same guy who did 
The Exorcist soundtrack (was that Eno?). 

It's interesting viewing, I would recommend trying to get a tape of it
for a space-party or some such thing. (I got a copy off of an LA 
cable system.)


-- 
			   *** mike (starship janitor) smithwick ***
"You can fool some of the people all of the time, or all of the people
 some of the time, but you can't fool Mom".
[disclaimer : nope, I don't work for NASA, I take full blame for my ideas]

------------------------------

Date: 22 Aug 88 13:27:00 CDT
From: "Pat Reiff" <eos@spacvax.rice.edu>
Subject: Inverse SETI (Was:  ET phone home?)
To: "space" <space@angband.s1.gov>
Cc: eos
Reply-To: "Pat Reiff" <eos@spacvax.rice.edu>

With regards to the observation of earthlings from just the carrier
of the TV transmission:

  I read an interesting article in *Science* (I believe) several years ago,
and the author pointed out several interesting things that could be
inferred by a nearby (~20 Lightyears) observer, listening only to our TV
carriers: 
1.  They could tell the earth's rotation speed, since the carriers are 
beamed parallel to the local horizon, giving a daily modulation of the 
signal.  
2.  Since this "day" would be the synodic day relative to the observer, it
would basically be our sidereal day (24 hours less 4 minutes). Since many
TV transmitters are turned off at night (solar day), the observer could
tell the "beat frequency" between the solar day and the sideral day, and
thus tell how long our year is.  
3.  Knowing our year, and with a guess of our sun's mass (easy since at  
that distance they can see its color and from the HR diagram estimate its 
mass), they can tell how far we are from the sun and thus our mean 
temperature, etc.
4.  From the daily modulation of the signal, they could tell the 
concentration of population centers on the continents, and perhaps infer 
the existence of oceans or uninhabited regions.

My apologies to the writer for forgetting his name - it was a good piece.

  
------
>From the First Space Physics Department (celebrating its 25th anniversary):   
                                                    :
     Patricia H. Reiff                              :  Not only are my 
     Department of Space Physics and Astronomy      :  opinions solely my
     Rice University, Houston, TX 77251-1892        :  own, I reserve the
     internet:  reiff%spacvax.rice.edu@rice.edu     :  right to change my
     SPAN:      RICE::REIFF                         :  mind occasionally!
     telemail:  [preiff/edunet] mail/usa            :
------
------

------------------------------

Date: 23 Aug 88 04:31:11 GMT
From: agate!soup.ssl.berkeley.edu!gckaplan@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (George Kaplan)
Subject: Re: Inverse SETI (Was:  ET phone home?)

In article <8808230315.AA01644@angband.s1.gov> "Pat Reiff" <eos@spacvax.rice.edu> writes:
    [on what nearby ET observers could infer from our TV signals]
>1.  They could tell the earth's rotation speed, since the carriers are 
>beamed parallel to the local horizon, giving a daily modulation of the 
>signal.  
>2.  Since this "day" would be the synodic day relative to the observer, it
>would basically be our sidereal day (24 hours less 4 minutes). Since many
>TV transmitters are turned off at night (solar day), the observer could
>tell the "beat frequency" between the solar day and the sideral day, and
>thus tell how long our year is.  

Wouldn't it be simpler just to use the Doppler shift due to the Earth's
orbital velocity to determine the length of our year?  (Assuming there
is enough structure to the Earth's radio spectrum to determine a
Doppler shift).  

It seems to me that using the measured "beat frequency" requires a
major assumption about the cause of the second frequency (ie.
broadcasters shutting down at night).  If the extraterrestrial
observers' TV stations customarily transmit continuously, for example,
this may not be an obvious conclusion.

>     Patricia H. Reiff                              :  Not only are my 
>     Department of Space Physics and Astronomy      :  opinions solely my
>     Rice University, Houston, TX 77251-1892        :  own, I reserve the
>     internet:  reiff%spacvax.rice.edu@rice.edu     :  right to change my
>     SPAN:      RICE::REIFF                         :  mind occasionally!
>     telemail:  [preiff/edunet] mail/usa            :

---------------------------------------------------------------
Standard disclaimers apply
---------------------------------------------------------------
	George C. Kaplan
	Space Sciences Lab
	University of California
	Berkeley  CA,  94720

	gkaplan@sag4.ssl.berkeley.edu

------------------------------

Date: 22 Aug 88 18:18:16 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: How does NASA detect a Hydrogen leak

In article <8808190326.AA12350@watdcsu> allsop@watacs.uwaterloo.ca (Peter Allsop) writes:
>... the most likely is Thermal Conductivity...
>One contributor suggested that NASA uses portable Mass Spectrometers.
>While this is possible I think TC is more likely...

I think AW&ST has explicitly mentioned portable mass spectrometers as
NASA's hydrogen-hunting technology, but I could be wrong (I don't save my
back issues, so I can't easily check).  My understanding is that TC isn't
sensitive enough to trace amounts to be really good for leak-hunting, but
it's not a technology I keep up with, so my information may be obsolete.
-- 
Intel CPUs are not defective,  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
they just act that way.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 22 Aug 88 18:35:00 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: SETI: Why don't we hear anything?

In article <127@antares.UUCP> pnelson@antares.UUCP (phil nelson) writes:
> I think that the problem of creating these "self-replicating robots" may
>be more difficult than we imagine, perhaps too difficult even for our
>hypothetical "advanced" xenophobes.

If so, the difficulties must be in an area we can't foresee today.  People
have looked at building self-replicating robots.  The conclusion has been
that we can't do it today, but it doesn't look that far off.  There don't
seem to be any fundamental barriers.  Given that we haven't done it yet,
it's always possible to speculate that there is some bogeyman lurking
hidden somewhere, but I for one am reluctant to accept this without some
more specific suggestion of where the obstacle lies.

> Among other lifelike qualities this race of robots might require is the
>ability to adapt to new conditions. Assuming for a moment that these robots
>can be (and are) created, isn't it likely that they would either evolve into
>something more benevolent or (perhaps more likely) devolve into something
>much less terrible?

Well, it's not clear why they would require the ability to evolve -- their
job is pretty well-defined and their environment is not a particularly
variable one.  The ability to evolve might be useful, especially in the
long term, but it would not seem essential.

And assuming that evolution is provided for, why would they evolve in the
direction of benevolence?  It seems to me that evolution the other way
is much more likely:  unless one postulates a mutation so radical that
it converts the machines into friends, it is in the machines' interests
to be the most efficient enemies possible, to prevent the development of
a race capable of destroying them.

In the long run, "time and chance happen to us all", but for a well-crafted
self-replicating machine, "the long run" might be a very long time indeed.
-- 
Intel CPUs are not defective,  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
they just act that way.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 23 Aug 88 08:12:29 GMT
From: haque@UMN-CS.ARPA  (Samudra E. Haque)
Subject: Re: Inverse SETI (Was:  ET phone home?)

regarding aliens receiving our television carrier signals
and inferring all sorts of nasty opinions about us.

It was mentioned that the aliens (Big Green WoMen?) could 
receive TV carriers at a distance of 100 LY. 
 
They would have to have tremendously good recievers for that feat.

Also, once they received such a "carrier" signal from the
electromagnetic spectrum, what would they do with it? They coudn't 
possibly know the modulation parameters (i.e., bandwidth, modulation
techniques <am, fm, fsk, pcm, etc. etc.> or even chrominance and
luminance coding mechanisms <pal, secam, ntsc> in that TV signal once
they get it - if at all they do.

What I'm trying to get it that  SETI don't stand a chance of getting
ANY useful information from our radio/tv carriers - unless they take
some really good guesses. Maybe they'd just think that we're some
random noise generating solar system with systematic characteristics.

********************************************************************************
**Who knows, all the pulsar and quasar radio signals that we pick up all
**over the place may actually be the equivalent TV stations of the
**galaxy. 
********************************************************************************
All you'd have to do is to design a power source that could
modulate the orbital parameters of a large body - say the size of a M
or N class sun. Couple of chained fusion reactors could do it.


-- 
Samudra E. Haque
Computer Science Laboratories, Computer Science Department
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455.
(1)-(612)-625-0876 || haque@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu || haque@umn-cs.UUCP

------------------------------

Date: 23 Aug 88 10:42:34 GMT
From: jumbo!stolfi@decwrl.dec.com  (Jorge Stolfi)
Subject: Re: Life on Jupiter

>   [Someone:] Jupiter cannot be left out [from the list of planets
>   that may harbor life].  At some altitudes, the atmosphere is
>   much the same as Earth's.  

>   [Paul F.  Dietz:] Vertical circulation in Jupiter's atmosphere
>   carries any given parcel downward to great depth [hence high
>   temperatures and pressures] every few days or so.  It is
>   unlikely that life could have originated or could survive
>   there.  

I would not bet on it either, but...

Imagine a small particle floating in Jupiter's atmosphere,
on the ascending side of a convection cell, at an altitude where
liquid Water condenses out.  Imagine that the particle consists of
a Cheese core surrounded by a Glue solution. (Please substitute your
favorite substances for Water, Cheese, and Glue, and your favorite
gas giant for Jupiter.)

If the particle is too light, it will be lifted to cooler altitudes,
where it will gain more Water by condensation and become heavier.
Conversely, if the particle is too heavy, it will sink, get hotter,
lose some Water by evaporation, and become lighter.
Conceivably, this mechanism might lead to equilibrium: a particle whose
dry weight falls in some relatively broad range will be able to hover
indefinitely at a more or less constant altitude.  

Of course, this assumes the circulation pattern is reasonably stable.
Modest changes in the speed of rising air can  be compensated for
by the same mechanism: a stronger/weaker updraft will only shift the
equilibrium point to higher/lower altitudes.  Lateral drift may be
a problem, but if the equilibrium altitude lies somewhat below the
center of the convection cell, I believe that the horizontal component
of the air flow will tend to push the particle towards the center
of the rising column.

Particles that are VERY big or VERY small will eventually fall or be
carried down to the very hot levels where the Cheese and Glue are
vaporized.  Presumably, as these vapors are carried up by the
convecting atmosphere they will condense again into particles of random
sizes, which will go through the same cycle.  So, even if particles of
the right size to stay up are rare to begin with, they will be
naturally selected for, and with time their numbers may grow by many
orders of magnitude.  The result would be a relatively stable cloud of
relatively uniform particles, hanging somewhere along the lower part of
every rising air column.  

I may be wrong, but I belive this is the same mechanism that creates
the sharply defined, flat-bottomed cumulus clouds here on Earth.
In our turbulent atmosphere, the convection cells change constantly,
and therefore our cumulus clouds have lifetimes measured in hours.
In contrast, Jupiter's large-scale convection patterns last for hundreds
of years (Thousands?  Millions?  Billions?).  Unless the convection
cells are too turbulent on a small scale, it may be possible for a
sizable population of Wet Sticky Cheese particles to survive
indefinitely as cumulus-like clouds in the rising zones.  

Assuming such such particles exist, they may survive long enough for
life to have spontaneously evolved on them.  Natural selection would
favor particles whose composition provides better altitude feedback, so
certain "weird" droplets that _a priori_ would seem highly improbable
may actually become quite common.  Furthermore, any particle able to
"reproduce" --- i.e., able to somehow promote the formation of similar
particles --- would eventually dominate its cloud.  

Even if the Wet Sticky Cheese particles survive only for a few thousand
years, we shouldn't rule out the possibility of life evolving on them.
We still haven't got the foggiest idea of how long it took to go from
Earth's primordial soup to something that could pass for life; and
even if we did, there is no reason to believe that the answer would
be in any way relevant to Jupiter's chemistry and physics.

Even is such particles do not last long enough to support the 
evolution of life, they may still provide a suitable habitat
for organisms that evolved elsewhere.  For example,
microscopic lifeforms evolved on Europa could have been lifted by
meteorite impacts,  rained onto Jupiter, and found themselves a new home in
Jupiter's Cheese clouds.

I would not bet more than a nickel on this theory; I am presenting it
mostly as an example of the kind of things that are easy to overlook in
this subject.  My point is that Life may have more aces up its sleeve
than we can imagine, and we shouldn't be too quick to dismiss planets
as "too hostile" for life or evolution.

In my opinion, the tropical region of the Moon is the only solid place
off the Earth where there is persuasive scientific evidence for the
lack of life.  Everywhere else the question is still wide open.  

                Jorge Stolfi @ DEC Systems Research Center
                stolfi@src.dec.com, ...!decwrl!stolfi

PS. 
>   [Paul:] At high pressure and temperature, hydrogen reacts
>   exothermically with organic compounds to form methane, ammonia
>   and water.  

Shouldn't this be "ENDOthermically"? (Just asking)

DISCLAIMER: The above opinions are not the sort of stuff my employer,
my teachers, my friends, or my mother would like to be associated with.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #349
*******************

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Date: Mon, 5 Sep 88 19:04:53 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8809060204.AA01144@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
Reply-To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #350

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 350

Today's Topics:
		     Initials for the Uninitiated
			Orbital Mech Algorithm
		       Interstellar Mining (?)
		   RE space expoitation/exploration
TRW selected to develop Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility (Forwarded)
	     Re: Why *THEY* might want to eat our lunch.
		  Re: space news from July 11 AW&ST
		Re: SETI: Why don't we hear anything?
		 RE:  space exploitation/exploration
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 23 Aug 88 07:53:06 GMT
From: amdahl!nsc!taux01!taux02!amos@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Amos Shapir)
Subject: Initials for the Uninitiated

Would it  be too  much to  ask of posters  in this  group not  to assume
everybody understands the  initials they use? I guess  most readers know
what NASA or SDI mean, and in this  group it's pretty safe to use ESA or
USAF, but I'm sure many readers are bewildered by AXAF, FRF, AW&ST, NRC,
OMV,  SRB, RCS  or SSME,  to quote  just a  few used  in the  referenced
article.

No, don't rush to post or mail  me explanations of these, I have already
taken the trouble to look them up;  all I ask is that future posters use
the  full  text of  the  initials,  at least  the  first  time they  are
mentioned.
-- 
	Amos Shapir				amos@nsc.com
National Semiconductor (Israel)
6 Maskit st. P.O.B. 3007, Herzlia 46104, Israel  Tel. +972 52 522261
34 48 E / 32 10 N			(My other cpu is a NS32532)

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 23 Aug 88 10:09:23 PDT
From: greer%23666%utadnx%utspan.span@vlsi.jpl.nasa.gov
Subject: Orbital Mech Algorithm
X-St-Vmsmail-To: JPLLSI::"SPACE@angband.s1.gov"


Re: Orbital Mechanics questions asked by Munck, answered by Mueller
 
>I'd like to call on the combined expertise of the net for something I've
>been unable to find;  it's entirely on a "hobby" basis, no connection
>with anything commercial.
> 
>I want a simple, fast subroutine that will compute orbital motions...

>>You are attacking a non-trivial problem.
 

The triviality of a mathematical task depends on the accuracy desired and the
compute power available. 

	A general orbital mech algorithm can be very simple, e.g.:

		Do
		  a = -G*M*r/|r|**3
	          v = v0 + a*dt
		  r = r0 + v*dt + 0.5*a*dt**2
		Loop

	Where r, v, and a are vectors, G is the gravitational constant, and M
is the mass of the body being orbited.  This algorithm may not do well to
figure when MIR will next be overhead, but it's good enough to give a feel for
orbital mechanics.  More stuff can be added to the acceleration: 

	a = -G*M1*r1/|r1|**3 - G*M2*r2/|r2|**3 - ...
            + thrust + any_other_acceleration

	The accuracy, for *spherically symmetrical* bodies, depends on the ratio
v*dt:rM, since the algorithm assumes the acceleration is constant over the
period dt.  In a highly eccentric orbit, for example, the inaccuracy will be
greater near the periapsid than near the apoapsid.  Interestingly, this effect
is completely conservative over the period of an orbit, since the errors on one
one half of the orbit negate the errors on the other half.  The orbit keeps its
shape but precesses at a rate dependent on the ratio v*dt:r_periapsid. 
	Oops! I guess that means it isn't *completely* conservative if there is
precession, but the semi-major axis stays the same, even if the line of apsides
moves around.
	The algorithm is plenty fast enough to do an engaging and enlightening
simulation on the Mac, i.e., Orbital Mech (TM), even without the use of the
floating point unit of the Mac II.  I wrote Orbital Mech to run on any Mac, and
had to assume no FPU would be available.  I think you could do a pretty hot
orbital simulator with an 80386 and FPU.

"I feel like somebody strapped a		|       Dale M. Greer
 couple of jet engines on my back		| Center for Space Sciences,
 and we're ready to take off!"			|       UT at Dallas
                 -- Pat Robertson

------------------------------

Date: 23 Aug 88 17:04:25 GMT
From: cfa!cfa250!willner@husc6.harvard.edu  (Steve Willner P-316 x57123)
Subject: Interstellar Mining (?)

>From article <3695@drivax.UUCP>, by macleod@drivax.UUCP (MacLeod):
> Given the unlikelihood of cheap transmutation of elements, even spacefaring
> races will probably continue to be interested in rare elements.  If Earth's
> crust is abnormally rich in these, we may be in for interesting times ahead.

Transmutation of elements typically takes about 0.1% of the rest mass
energy.  This amount of energy corresponds to a speed of about 3% of
light or about a 100 year trip to alpha Cen.  (Note: Piddly factors
of 2 and such are ignored.  The calculation implicitly assumes that
the mass of the interstellar vessel is mostly payload.)  The
energetics thus suggest that interstellar travel and element
transmutation are about equally difficult.

Speculating on the economics of advanced societies is a dubious
proposition, but it seems to me that transmutation would be
economically more attractive because of the shorter payback period
and thus the lower cost of capital equipment.  In fact, I would turn
the argument around and say that any interstellar-travelling society
is likely to use element transmutation routinely.

-- 
Steve Willner            Phone 617-495-7123         Bitnet:   willner@cfa
60 Garden St.            FTS:      830-7123           UUCP:   willner@cfa
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA                 Internet: willner@cfa.harvard.edu

------------------------------

Date: 23 Aug 88 15:18:00 GMT
From: apollo!nelson_p@eddie.mit.edu  (Peter Nelson)
Subject: RE space expoitation/exploration


> **********WARNING: NEW KID ON THE BLOCK WITH A CHIP ON HIS SHOULDER********
 
> Space is not some natural resource which can or should be controlled by an
> governmental or extra-governmental entity.  Instead, it is a resource much
 [ ... ] 
 
> Why?  Mankind needs room, we need to get off each other's shoulders. The
> sooner we spread out in this system (and beyond, but that happens MUCH
> later) the sooner we, as a race, can start believing that we might survive
> our own stupidity.  There's plenty of room out there for Palestine or
> Armenia or even White South Africa.  And something for the misfits in our
> society who would have been trappers and explorers and miners in a previous
> era.

  Sure if you don't mind living in lo-grav, crowded quarters and never
  going to the beach.  I don't know what you mean by 'room' but unless
  you like living in a pressure suit you're going to be living 'indoors'
  all the time.  Sounds cramped to me.  Besides you miss the entire point 
  of what the Palestinians, white South Africans, et al, want.
        
  Currently the world's population is growing at about 75 million
  people a year.  Even if we could slow our population growth to 50
  million a year, we'd have to ship a million people a week into space
  just to break even.  It's not like shipping colonists to the New World.
  The shelter, food, and life-support systems for them would have to be
  waiting when they arrived.

> Basically, though, none of this will happen if some Mickey Mouse (sorry
> Walt) third world country claims co-soveriegnty by virtue of some "natural
> right to share".  On the other hand, if I'm up there (and I plan to be),
> then any one who disputes me is welcome to come up with me.

  What do you mean by 'plan' to be?  My wife and I plan to take a
  vacation soon in Australia.  I've charted out my route, made
  airline arrangements, computed costs, determined how long I can stay, etc.
  What does your 'plan' consist of?   What have you *actually done* to
  further your plan?  

  One of the (many) reasons why our space program is going nowhere fast
  is that we have too many romantic dreamers who spend their time reading
  Omni and watching reruns of Star Trek and too few pragmatists.  Do you
  have any idea what it costs to even put a *handful* of people into 
  space for a few days and keep them there safely?  Do you have any concept
  of what would be required to create even a *small* self-sustaining colony
  of even a few hundred people?  Lots and lots of money and an enormous
  technological, industrial and academic base.  Do you really think they're 
  going to waste those resources and training putting 'misfits' up there?

                                              --Peter Nelson
 
> Dillon Pyron

------------------------------

Date: 23 Aug 88 22:16:05 GMT
From: yee@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: TRW selected to develop Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility (Forwarded)

Charles Redmond                                August 22, 1988
Headquarters, Washington, D.C.                 4:00 p.m. EDT

Bob Lessels
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.


RELEASE:  88-118

TRW SELECTED TO DEVELOP ADVANCED X-RAY ASTROPHYSICS FACILITY


     NASA announced today that TRW, Inc., has been selected for 
final negotiations leading to the award of contracts for extended 
definition and development of the space-based Advanced X-ray 
Astrophysics Facility (AXAF).

     The development contract will include a mirror development 
phase and a priced-option for spacecraft development and 
completion of the observatory.  Exercise of the option by NASA 
will require congressional approval and will be based upon the 
successful fabrication of the largest of six mirror pairs to the 
required resolution.  The principal place of performance will be 
the TRW plant, Redondo Beach, Calif., and that of the major 
subcontractor, Kodak Federal Systems Division, Rochester, New 
York.  The proposed cost of the contracts is approximately $508 
million.

     The facility will be the third in NASA's series of space-
based great observatories, following the Hubble Space Telescope 
and the Gamma Ray Observatory, into orbit in the mid-1990's. 
These observatories, as well as the Space Infrared Telescope 
Facility, which is to follow the X-ray observatory, will permit 
simultaneous, complementary observations of astrophysical 
phenomena over different wavelengths of the spectrum.

     The objective of this project is to develop a high-quality, 
X-ray telescope to be used by the international scientific 
community in conjunction with NASA for an operational period of 
15 years. 

     The observatory will be designed for on-orbit maintenance in 
order to extend its life and to upgrade its scientific 
capability.  The X-ray telescope will be used to gather data to 
expand our knowledge of quasars, black holes and the geometry and 
mass of the universe.

     The Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala., has 
management responsibility for the telescope and will manage the 
contract.  The AXAF program is under the direction of NASA's 
Office of Space Science and Applications, Washington, D.C.

     Also proposing was Lockheed Missiles and Space, Co., 
Sunnyvale, Calif.

------------------------------

Date: 23 Aug 88 22:38:24 GMT
From: tektronix!teklds!mrloog!dant@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Dan Tilque;1893;92-101;)
Subject: Re: Why *THEY* might want to eat our lunch.

Michael MacLeod writes:
>The last I heard (in lay articles) there were several theories that best
>seemed to fit observed facts about the genesis of the Moon and Earth planetary
>pair.  One of these called for a collision between the Earth and another
>body, carving out the Moon as a result.   This also explained the abundance
>of heavy elements near the top of the Earth's crust.  In Sunday supplement
>fashion, one article brayed: "The Gold In Your Ring is From Another Planet!"

The gold in your ring probably owes more to hydrologic and biologic action
than it does to a collision 4 billion years ago.

>If this is so, and such metal dispositions are rare in the universe (perhaps
>most planets turn out to be Jupiter-size gas giants), then any kind of mining
>survey is going to be of interest to those looking for accessible heavy
>elements.  

1) There are 5 terrestrial (rocky) type planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth,
Moon and Mars) in our solar system.  Relative to the gaseous and icy
planets in the outer solar system, these all have a high percentage of
metals (probably including heavy ones) in their crusts.  There are also
thousands of asteroids for which the same is also true.

2) The rocky nature of the inner solar system bodies is not an
accident.  It's probably safe to assume that many (if not most) single
stars and some double star systems have many rocky bodies in their
inner planetary system.

3) While veins of heavy metals are not likely on the other terrestrial
planets (no biological or hydrologic action), it's still possible to mine
them if you're given sufficient energy.

4) Iron and stoney-iron asteroids have many of their metals differentiated
out (probably at least as well as many veins of ores).

>Given the unlikelihood of cheap transmutation of elements, even spacefaring
>races will probably continue to be interested in rare elements.  If Earth's
>crust is abnormally rich in these, we may be in for interesting times ahead.

Seems to me that it would take a lot more energy to travel several
light-years than to take an asteroid apart for its materials.


---
Dan Tilque	--	dant@twaddl.LA.TEK.COM

------------------------------

Date: 23 Aug 88 16:39:04 GMT
From: attcan!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: space news from July 11 AW&ST

In article <880822121249.000001030E1@grouch.JPL.NASA.GOV> PJS@grouch.jpl.nasa.GOV (Peter Scott) writes:
>I seem to remember that one of the problems with ICBMs (also solid-fuelled)
>is that they have a finite and relatively short `shelf' life due to the
>propellant...  These SRBs are at least 2 years old,
>isn't this problem likely to be a consideration?  Unmanned or not, we can't
>exactly afford to lose the Columbia...

Yes, solid fuels do have a limited shelf life; this is one reason why the
USAF can justify a steady stream of Minuteman test launches from Vandenberg,
since the missiles won't last forever anyway.  But two years isn't enough
to make anyone really worry much.

And yes, rationally speaking, the unmanned nature of the proposed flights
is almost irrelevant, since the orbiters are a lot harder to replace than
the crews.
-- 
Intel CPUs are not defective,  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
they just act that way.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 22 Aug 88 20:38:11 GMT
From: ndsuvax!nekinsel@uunet.uu.net  (Peter Kinsella)
Subject: Re: SETI: Why don't we hear anything?

In article <4989@watdcsu.waterloo.edu>, smann@watdcsu.waterloo.edu (Shannon Mann - I.S.er) writes:
> In article <561@unisv.UUCP> vanpelt@unisv.UUCP (Mike Van Pelt) writes:
> - large chunk left out to conserve bandwidth -
> Furthermore, as the radiosphere expands, the
> transmissions become more and more weak, disrupted by background noise, etc.
> Although the calculation is beyond me, I believe that, after a certain distance,
> the signals would be so weak as to become part of the background noise.
   
     I don't suppose background noise could actually be transmissions
 from various developed cultures ?   any comments ?

------------------------------

Date: 24 Aug 88 14:43:00 GMT
From: apollo!nelson_p@eddie.mit.edu  (Peter Nelson)
Subject: RE:  space exploitation/exploration


 In the mailbag today another dreamer writes...

>By room, those of us who believe in space and would invest in space mean room
>for mankind to thrive with independent societies.  This is becoming impossible
>on earth, with the spread of the welfare state, etc.  We do not want these
>statists to do anything more than get out of the way so man can live in space
>as free people.
 
 I might point out that the society today with with the most advanced space 
 program is also the the most 'statist' society on Earth: the USSR.

 Talk is cheap (except maybe on Usenet).  Results are what count.  The 
 U.S. has not had a space program to speak of for over 2 1/2 years and
 it isn't clear how much of one we're going to have in the future.  Yet
 I haven't seen private industry clamoring to provide an alternative.

>The greatest immorality of all is to impose ones morality on others.

  You don't say? . I thought it was torturing babies but let's not
  quibble over details...

>   We need independent societies in space; you would impose your
> standards, while I say only that if you do not wish to support me,
> do not hinder me.

  Where have I offered to impose my standards???   All I said to the 
  other guy, and I'll say it to you too, is:  What have you *actually 
  done* to further this dream of yours of going into space to start a 
  new society?  You're talking about a project that would absolutely
  dwarf any previous engineering or technical achievement in cost and
  scale!  If you want something like that to happen in your lifetime you
  had better be working real hard on it now.
 
  BTW, I'm actually very fond of dreamers and eccentrics, as I am sometimes
  one myself ;-)   America has a rich tradition of utopianism and there is
  an excellent book on the subject by Dover Press called 'Heavens on Earth'
  (by Mark Hollowell, I believe).  But one thing to remember is that there
  have been hundreds (if not thousands) of utopian communities started 
  with grand visions of how their particular philosophy would transform
  life and attract millions of followers.   Most of them fizzled within
  a year or so and even those that lasted for many years ultimately 
  either died out or adopted mainstream values and lifestyles.  This 
  notion that 'if only we could create a society of like-minded individuals
  we could all be free/happy/whatever has NEVER panned out.  And by the
  way, to my Libertarian friends: Historically, the most successful of
  the utopian experiments have, by far, been those which adopted 
  communist (NOTE THE SMALL 'c'!!) principles rather that individualist
  ones.  
                                       --Peter Nelson

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #350
*******************

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Date: Tue, 6 Sep 88 01:05:29 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8809060805.AA01269@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
Reply-To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #351

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 351

Today's Topics:
		       status of Mars Observer
	       Re: How does NASA detect a Hydrogen leak
	     Transmutation (was: Interstellar Mining (?)
		       Re: Satellite brightness
		    Re: 95% vs. 99.9% reliability
		   Re: Initials for the Uninitiated
	       Re: Inverse SETI (Was:  ET phone home?)
	       A request: forwarded NASA press releases
		    Fuel Cells--How do they work?
		    Re: 95% vs. 99.9% reliability
		      Re: Orbital Mech Algorithm
		    International Space University
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 24 Aug 88 12:39:00 CDT
From: "ASUIPF::MC" <mc%asuipf.decnet@spacvax.rice.edu>
Subject: status of Mars Observer
To: "space" <space@angband.s1.gov>
Reply-To: "ASUIPF::MC" <mc%asuipf.decnet@spacvax.rice.edu>

Henry Spencer talks about the deletion of VIMS and the descope of the
altimeter from the Mars Observer mission:

> [NASA is being politically naive here:  what they ought to do is punt the
> decision to the scientists, which would probably have the same result but
> without the uproar being directed at NASA.]

Henry, you have a touching faith in the ability of the scientific community
to make non-political decisions.  However, as it turns out in this case,
the community was consulted, and these two instruments were the ones
recommended for deletion or descope.  Some of us with instruments
having less political support from the big guns in the community were
pleasantly surprised by this.

As of today as far as I know, VIMS is off completely though people are
looking at few-channel descopes of it, and the radar altimeter is being
replaced with a laser altimeter.  All the other instruments are still
OK, and the launch is still scheduled for 1992.  (Now that I think about
it I don't remember if part of the radio science experiment was taken
off or not.)  AvWeek has been doing a really terrible job of covering
the mission.

By the way, it's funny how nobody on the net seems to *know* anything
about Mars Observer: too busy whining about how the Soviets are doing
everything on Mars these days :-(

	Mike Caplinger, ASU/Caltech Mars Observer Camera Project
	mc@moc.jpl.nasa.gov
------

------------------------------

Date: 24 Aug 88 06:27:21 GMT
From: portal!cup.portal.com!Paul_L_Schauble@uunet.uu.net
Subject: Re: How does NASA detect a Hydrogen leak

I don't know about hydrogen, but for a scale, your typical air conditioning
repairman has a hand-held leak detector for freon leaks. These will reliably
detect a leak of one ounce freon per 10 (ten) years. These are cheap enough
to be a regular took kit item.

  --PLS

------------------------------

Date: 24 Aug 88 18:30:53 GMT
From: att!ihlpl!knudsen@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Knudsen)
Subject: Transmutation (was: Interstellar Mining (?)

In article <1073@cfa183.cfa250.harvard.edu>, willner@cfa250.harvard.edu (Steve Willner P-316 x57123) writes:
> Transmutation of elements typically takes about 0.1% of the rest mass
> energy.  This amount of energy corresponds to a speed of about 3% of
> light or about a 100 year trip to alpha Cen.  (Note: Piddly factors

> Speculating on the economics of advanced societies is a dubious
> proposition, but it seems to me that transmutation would be
> economically more attractive because of the shorter payback period
> and thus the lower cost of capital equipment.  In fact, I would turn

Unless I'm missing something, we should be able to transmute
small quantities of elements with current technology.
The FermiLab accelerator pushes protons to very near c,
enough to make them much "heavier."
Accelerating nuclei of heavier elements is more difficult,
since the neutrons makes the charge/mass ratio go down,
so you need stronger magnets or larger circular paths to
store the particles in while accelerating them a bit at a time
(they want to build a 10-mile diameter ring here in Illinois,
and they're already using superconducting magnets!).

However, that's just numbers.  A society with enough energy,
superconducting magnets, and payoff money for the farmers
could push any of the lighter elements to .03c whenever they wanted
to.  The trouble is that you don't manufacture very much matter at a
time this way, so you have to have lots of patience as well as
electricity.

I once read that the Atomic Energy Commission built a huge
machine to make Pu out of U by bombarding it with protons,
using simple electrostatic acceleration.  I no doubt have
the above all wrong, but the thing was run for several years.

Of course a spacefaring civilization making tungsten by
Casey-Jonesing a couple starships full of carbon would make
a heck of a good movie...

------------------------------

Date: 20 Aug 88 07:20:17 GMT
From: eugene@eos.arc.nasa.gov  (Eugene Miya)
Subject: Re: Satellite brightness

>Comments?
These seem a bit high.  I don't know how you are measuring these
magnitudes nor when.  Sirius, the brightest star in the sky isn't even
-2 in magnitude.  I hope you are not naked-eye balling them, a less than
reliable method.

Another gross generalization from

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@aurora.arc.nasa.gov
  resident cynic at the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:
  "Mailers?! HA!", "If my mail does not reach you, please accept my apology."
  {uunet,hplabs,ncar,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."

------------------------------

Date: 22 Aug 88 17:30:09 GMT
From: eugene@eos.arc.nasa.gov  (Eugene Miya)
Subject: Re: 95% vs. 99.9% reliability

In article <1988Aug19.182401.20602@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>In article <579@proxftl.UUCP> greg@proxftl.UUCP (Gregory N. Hullender) writes:
>>I imagine they would also have sent various officials from Morton Thiokol
>>and Nasa off to the Gualag, if not had them shot.
>
>Sounds like a fine idea to me.  A good many of them deserved it.

Yaw vol, mein herr, vhere do you vant us to line up?  Das thou plan to
pull the trigger, thein self?

>there would have been no shortage of
>volunteers to fly high-priority missions before definitive fixes were made.
>Bear in mind that you've seen a biased sample:  the safety-first astronauts
>like Sally Ride were the ones who got the publicity.

Well, we can see there's not schedule pressure in this newsgroup.
No one has brought up loss of a second craft if the first problem had not
be isolated.  I'm surprised to the contribution to greater loss of
"investment."  Also what ever happened to making making space safe
for every one [i.e., eventually doing away with astronaut requirements]
which everyone was interested for such a time?

Just a progression......

>>Fortunately, we don't live in the Soviet Union; 

Oh!  Am I on the wrong side of the Pacific?

Anyways, let's get back on track shall we?

Another gross generalization from

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@aurora.arc.nasa.gov
  resident cynic at the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:
  "Mailers?! HA!", "If my mail does not reach you, please accept my apology."
  {uunet,hplabs,ncar,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."

------------------------------

Date: 23 Aug 88 19:20:20 GMT
From: eugene@eos.arc.nasa.gov  (Eugene Miya)
Subject: Re: Initials for the Uninitiated

If there is enough interested, I will contact Ted Flinn (the Associate
Director of the Geodynamics program who used to read sci.space) for his
list of NASA acronyms (some in humor), and will place these on a
machine which should be FTP'able and I can try a crontab daemon as well.
If I get 5 AYs, I will do this.

Another gross generalization from

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@aurora.arc.nasa.gov
  resident cynic at the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:
  "Mailers?! HA!", "If my mail does not reach you, please accept my apology."
  {uunet,hplabs,ncar,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."

------------------------------

Date: 24 Aug 88 16:43:17 GMT
From: attcan!utgpu!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Inverse SETI (Was:  ET phone home?)

In article <6878@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu> haque@umn-cs.UUCP (Samudra E. Haque) writes:
>Also, once they received such a "carrier" signal from the
>electromagnetic spectrum, what would they do with it? They coudn't 
>possibly know the modulation parameters (i.e., bandwidth, modulation
>techniques <am, fm, fsk, pcm, etc. etc.> or even chrominance and
>luminance coding mechanisms <pal, secam, ntsc> in that TV signal once
>they get it - if at all they do.

Assuming they can get the full signal (i.e. modulation, not just carrier),
the basic RF modulation shouldn't be hard to sort out.  That will get them
a video signal.  The sync pulses will be pretty obvious; if they have any
notion of video signalling at all, that will give them the basic line
structure of the signal.  Some of the distinctive stuff in the vertical
interval will give them the line count per frame.  If they use interlace --
they might not -- it won't be hard to figure that out either.  And given
the basic structure, it should not be difficult to get a *monochrome*
image out of it, although they might have trouble deciding black/white
polarity.  Sound and color are a different story:  they'll probably
realize that there is extra information there, but without some idea of
what it is or how it's encoded, sorting it out could be quite difficult.

In general, there are only so many ways to modulate things, and one can
study the signal rather than having to guess.  The tricky parts come when
the information is modulated or encoded in complex ways -- e.g. color --
*and* the information itself isn't very predictable.  (Color is a bad case
because our color-TV systems are very much tied to the color-perception
systems of our bodies.  An alien race might, for example, need more than
three primary colors to perceive a full-color image.)
-- 
Intel CPUs are not defective,  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
they just act that way.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 25 Aug 88 01:37:46 GMT
From: eugene@eos.arc.nasa.gov  (Eugene Miya)
Subject: A request: forwarded NASA press releases

In article <4863@hplabsb.UUCP> dsmith@hplabsb.UUCP (David Smith) writes:
>Peter E. Yee writes:

Peter isn't writing these.  He's only forwarding them.  The real
authors (men [like Hugh Harris] and women you occasionally hear on
the TV or radio) have their names noted in the upper left hand corner.
Cite them.  Contact them.  Don't blame Peter.  He's just trying to do
you a favor.  Please edit accordingly.

Another gross generalization from

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@aurora.arc.nasa.gov
  resident cynic at the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:
  "Mailers?! HA!", "If my mail does not reach you, please accept my apology."
  {uunet,hplabs,ncar,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."

------------------------------

Date: 23 Aug 88 06:02:59 GMT
From: stolaf!pierce@UMN-CS.ARPA  (henry m. pierce)
Subject: Fuel Cells--How do they work?


	What I know: fuel cells have been used to power manned space
craft.  They produce electricity to run the space craft's electrical
systems.  They work by reacting hydrogen and oxygen.

	What I want to know: To they produce an electic charge through
acid-base reaction of hydrogen and oxygen--or is heat water produced from
such a reaction used to run some sort of turbine? What voltage/amprage
are they able to produce? Are the analogus to a battery?

		thanks, 

			Allways to have one more life than cats.

------------------------------

Date: 25 Aug 88 07:32:51 GMT
From: agate!stew.ssl.berkeley.edu!link@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Richard Link)
Subject: Re: 95% vs. 99.9% reliability

>Well, we can see there's not schedule pressure in this newsgroup.

Yo! Careful with that axe, Eugene!

I live and die according to NASA schedules. We can get our experiments
delivered on time. You wanna know how many launch dates have slipped?

Dr. Richard Link
Earth and Planetary Atmospheres Group
Space Sciences Laboratoy
University of California, Berkeley
link@ssl.berkeley.edu

------------------------------

Date: 24 Aug 88 18:14:29 GMT
From: att!ihlpl!knudsen@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Knudsen)
Subject: Re: Orbital Mech Algorithm

In article <880823100923.550@VLSI.JPL.NASA.GOV>, greer%23666%utadnx%utspan.span@VLSI.JPL.NASA.GOV writes:
> 		Do
> 		  a = -G*M*r/|r|**3
> 	          v = v0 + a*dt
> 		  r = r0 + v*dt + 0.5*a*dt**2
> 		Loop
> 
> 	Where r, v, and a are vectors, G is the gravitational constant, and M
> is the mass of the body being orbited.  This algorithm may not do well to
> figure when MIR will next be overhead, but it's good enough to give a feel for
> orbital mechanics.  More stuff can be added to the acceleration: 
> 
> 	a = -G*M1*r1/|r1|**3 - G*M2*r2/|r2|**3 - ...
>             + thrust + any_other_acceleration

Hmmm, nice to see the extra 0.5*a*dt^2 term added to r.
This makes the integration by paralleograms instead of rectangles,
and more accurate.  I forgot to try that way back when.
To explain it, factor out the above equation to get
	r = r0 + (v + 0.5*a*dt) * dt
	  = r0 + (average velocity this epoch) * time duration

> 	The algorithm is plenty fast enough to do an engaging and enlightening
> simulation on the Mac, i.e., Orbital Mech (TM), even without the use of the
> floating point unit of the Mac II.  I wrote Orbital Mech to run on any Mac, and
> had to assume no FPU would be available.  I think you could do a pretty hot
> orbital simulator with an 80386 and FPU.

Some years ago I did the above on a Color Computer 1 in Basic09
(a sort of Pascal).  It ran amazingly fast even with the
grahics plotting.  I intended to add multiple bodies to it
(as the original poster mentions).  A nice feature of these
basic simulations is that multiple-body problems are obvious
extensions of the procedure, whereas analytical solutions
(usually giving elliptical orbits) can't even handle a 3rd body.

Anyway, everybody should try something like the above once,
if only to prove to wives, parents, etc. that graphics on
home computers are good for something besides games and pie charts.

PS: I recall working out some cute algebraic tricks to reduce
redundant computations for multiple bodies; maybe I got around
the damned square root needed to compute |r| in Cartesian.

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 25 Aug 88 10:12 EDT
From: Matt <WALL%BRANDEIS.BITNET@mitvma.mit.edu>
Subject: International Space University

[Boston Globe, August 21, 1988]
           A space college launches its grades
Stars from 20 nations end 8 weeks at MIT studying the final frontier

By Alexander Reid
Globe Staff
   CAMBRIDGE - For nine weeks this summer, more than 100 young
visionaries from 20 counries cloistered themselves in the labyrinth of
classrooms and laboratories at the Massachusetts lnstitute of Technology
to research and discuss mankind's prospects in space.

   They are all in their 30s and 2Os and are considered the best and the
brightest in space research and exploration. And they are all, in the
words of Maria Antonietta Perlno, a nuclear engineer from Italy,
``exhilarated by the future in space.''

   In a short, ebullient ceremony yesterday morning, this group -
participants in the first academic Session of the International Space
University - marked the end of their time together in a graduation
ceremony at MIT.

   They talked of their experiments, of their late-night debates over
the virtues of Marxism and capitalism, of the frequent parties - but
mainly, they praised the spirit of international cooperation that was
nurtured by the nine-week session.

   Peter H. Dimandis, 27, director and a cofounder of ISU, called it
``the university's hidden agenda.''  ``Besides the research, the
technology and the ideas, we think we've begun to create a close network
of future world leaders in space exploration and development.  Space
travel should not be a one-nation endeavor. The intensity of the bonds
and the friendships we've seen here will eventually take us - mankind -
Into space.''

   Dimandis and Todd B. Hawley, 27, began the university at MlT last
year after raising more than $1.3 million through donations from
government, foundations and corporate sponsors.

   The 104 students were drawn from 350 applicants. They are considered
leaders in their fields of expertise, such areas as rocket propulsion,
political science and space architecture.

   The intent, explained Dimandis, himself pursuing a medical degree at
Harvard and a doctorate in aerospace engineering at MlT, is to ``create
a cross-disciplinary approach. The engineers and scientists should see
space travel from a political and legal standpoint and vice versa.
Anyone with a vision of space exploration should not be ignorant in any
of these areas.''

   The session was no picnic. Students, most financed by scholarships,
attended 240 hours of classes over the nine-week period.  Lectures were
given by experts from several of the most inifluential organizations in
the world space establishment.

  ``I'm here because I was impressed with the gall of an upstart group
of people to do something like this,'' said Daniel Norton, one of ISU's
30 faculty members and a specialist in space engineering at the Houston
Area Research Center. ''I was called by Peter last October and didn't
know him from Adam, but he seemed to represent a bunch of bright young
people with imaginative ideas, so I signed on. Their vision sold me on
this.''

   Perino, 28, was chosen by her fellow classmates to deliver one of
seven addresses during yesterday's ceremony.

  ''The only sad thing about this is this ceremony,' she said. ''It's
over. We enjoyed it so much. I have never seen such a high concentration
of the best information on space in one place at one time. I don't
profit by this. Neither does my country. The whole world profits.''

   Next year's session will be held in West Germany or France. By 1992,
said Dimandis, he hopes ISU will stand as an independent, fulltime
university.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #351
*******************

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Date: Wed, 7 Sep 88 01:07:09 PDT
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To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
Reply-To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #352

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 352

Today's Topics:
			      plutonium
		  RE: space exploitation/exploration
		       Aerospikes/plug nozzles
		       Space Station Future???
			  Re: Why no aliens
		      moon buggy as robot rover
				SKYLAB
				 yay!
			  Re: Transmutation
			    Re: Aegis, SDI
		  Re: space exploitation/exploration
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date:     Thu, 25 Aug 88  13:09:44 EDT
From: =3545*** <pcp2g@cdc.acc.virginia.edu>
Subject:  plutonium 

Someone wrote in suggesting that we dump plutonium into the sun and kill 
two birds with one stone: getting dangerously radioactive stuff off of the Earth 
and also once the plutonium was in the sun it would be ionized and therefore
be detected by an alien race (if they are equipped with a damn good s[ppectro- 
meter).

I see two problems: one is that you'd have to decelarate your load of Pt by
the orbital speed of the Earth to have it drop into the sun, and that speed 
is 18.5 miles per second, which is as far as I know a damn sight faster than
we can go right now. The second problem is that to be seen as an emission 
line from several light years away you'd have to dump a lot (A LOT!!) of 
the stuff into the sun. I haven't actually done the calculation (line 
intensities are difficult to get) but I would think you're talking about
billions if not trillions of tons of plutonium.

If someone out there can do this calculation, I'd love to see it. I don't 
trust my numbers all that well.  But I'm pretty sure we don't have enough plut
onium on the planet to be seen. 
\ 
{Phil Plait/pcp2g@cdc.virginia.acc.edu/UVa Astronomy Dept.}

------------------------------

Date: 25 Aug 88 15:11:00 GMT
From: apollo!nelson_p@eddie.mit.edu  (Peter Nelson)
Subject: RE: space exploitation/exploration


  from the mailbag today:

>   The libertarians are perfectly willing to put in their money if the government
> would let them.

   ...This in reference to my statements about building a colony in space.

 1.  What makes you think there are enough Libertarians in the whole 
     country to come up with the kind of money it would take to put up
     a space-colony?  If there were a million Libertarians in the country
     and they *all* agreed that this was a worthwhile venture and they 
     *all* agreed to put up a thousand dollars a year, this would only
     come to a paltry billion dollars, hardly adequate for the scale of
     the task. 
 
     You need to interest serious investors and this requires a business 
     plan and I don't see any serius motion in that direction.


 2.  How is the government stopping you?  Because they have a lock on the
     launch facilities?   It will be YEARS before you will need any launch
     facilities!!  If you want to have a self-sustaining colony in space
     there is an enormous amount of technology and science to be developed
     first.  How about experimenting with closed ecosystems?  I only know
     one major project about to startup for this and it only involves life-
     support for 8 people.   The government isn't stopping the Libertarians
     from doing this research on a larger scale.  It's not stopping them from
     developing the technology for hollowing out asteroids.  It's not stopping
     them from breeding special varieties of plants adapted for growth in 
     space-colony conditions.  It's not stopping you from doing the engineering
     designs for the system.

     Talk, as I said before, is cheap.  So are excuses. 

                                               --Peter Nelson

------------------------------

Date:     25-AUG-1988 14:32:27 GMT
From: F026%CPC865.UEA.AC.UK@cunyvm.cuny.edu
Subject:  Aerospikes/plug nozzles

>
> What is an aerospike?  What is meant by its being (or not being)
> "plugged"?
>

 The business end of a conventional rocket engine is a bell shaped nozzle. This
has some disadvantages, among which are the fact that (for best efficiency) it
should be narrow in dense atmosphere and wide in vacuum, and you can't
re-enter with it pointing forward because it won't be there when you've landed.
 Some company (can't remember which) started experimenting with ways round
this, and came up with the idea of turning the nozzle inside out, so you have
a thing shaped [ ABS(COS(X)), X=0,PI ] (ha! that solves the problem of no
graphics!) with a ring of fuel injectors round it. In atmosphere, the air
acts as the 'other side' of the pseudo-nozzle, making it narrow. In vacuum,
it's infinitely large.
 You still can't re-enter with this thing, but if you cut most of the spike off
to leave a thing shaped like [ MAX(.5,ABS(COS(X))), X=0,PI ] and then blow
a small jet of gas down through some holes in the flat bit, which is now
called a "plug", you can create a spike, hence "aerospike". If the plug is
made of suitably solid material, or covered with replaceable ablator, you can
use it as a heat-shield when you re-enter. It's also lighter than a spike.
 If you keep a small reserve of fuel on board, you can re-ignite your engine
and slow the craft down enough to soft-land without a parachute (a la LEM
descent stage). Because the engine is efficient you now have a small, 100%
re-usable VTOL spacecraft.
 That company made some research models in 1966, and declared the whole thing
viable. A man called Gary Hudson designed an aerospike-driven craft called
PHOENIX (presumably cos it lands in flames, then can be refueled and take off
from its own ashes) for which he needed $300M development. Nobody took it
on, so he set up the Pacific American Corporation, and started building
conventional engines to raise the money for PHOENIX. You may have heard of the
LIBERTY booster, which has just got a demonstration contract from the SDIO.
They're already bending metal for it, so hopefully it won't be too many years
before PHOENIX rises.
 For a better description of aerospikes, read Bono & Gatland's "Frontiers of
Space".

* Mike Salmon,                    Phone +44 603 56161 x2875      Time GMT+1   *
* Climatic Research Unit,         JANET m.salmon@uea.cpc865       BIX msalmon *
* University of East Anglia,     BITNET f026@cpc865.uea.ac.uk                 *
* Norwich, Norfolk,                ARPA f026%cpc865.uea.ac.uk@cunyvm.cuny.edu *
* United Kingdom              Elsewhere f026%cpc865.uea@ukacrl.bitnet         *
*  -  -  -  -  "How far can you comfortably spit a mail gateway?" -  -  -  -  *

------------------------------

Date:    Thu, 25 Aug 88 13:26:24 PDT
From: palmer%hbvb.span@vlsi.jpl.nasa.gov (Gary Palmer)
Subject: Space Station Future???
X-St-Vmsmail-To: SPACE,PALMER      


I am considering applying for work at one of the contractors working
on the space station.  My specialty is Human Factors in computer
software design.  I have recognized a lack of information while trying
to determine how current politics and the elections will effect the
future of this project. 

What I have found so far is the both Bush and Duke claim they will
keep the program at some level, but they don't say where cuts will
occur. One source tells me that they will eliminate the idea of it
being a constantly manned station.  This would increase the need for
powerful (I hate saying intelligent) computer control, which increases
the need for a highly functional interface etc... 

If anyone out there has heard, or knows, anything about the future of
the space station please let me know.  If this is the wrong forum, I
appologize and need to be directed to the correct one.  I will be most
happy to summarize and post the results. 

PLEASE send responses to me directly, do not burden the net. 

Thankyou,
Gary Palmer
Science Applications International Corp.
(213) 781-8644
SPAN:     hbva::palmer
INTERNET: palmer%hbva.span@vlsi.jpl.nasa.gov

Any necessary disclaimers apply!

------------------------------

Date:     MON AUG 29, 1988 10.30.15 EST
From: "Richard Mauren -  RAM9" <RAM9%LEHIGH.BITNET@vma.cc.cmu.edu>
Subject:  Re: Why no aliens
To: "Richard Mauren" <Space+@andrew.cmu.edu>

     The reason for us not having had extraterrestial contact may be
simply that it is too dangerous.  Assuming that there is no feasible
reliable shield against nuclear devices(even if it got most of them the
radioactivity would be fierce) no "intelligent" intelligent life would
risk it.  Say beyond all hope--etc, there is life on mars.  They would
be stupid to contact us because it would be so easy for us to
annihilate the planet with nukes.

------------------------------

Date: 	29-AUG-1988 11:51:20.85
From: LUCAS@sage.psy.cmu.edu
Subject: 	moon buggy as robot rover
Reply-To: LUCAS@MESCAL.PSY.CMU.EDU
Vaxnotes_Export: 	MESCAL  

I have a question concerning what seems to have been a missed opportunity in
the Apollo program.  The "moon buggy" lunar rover vehicle used on the last
few Apollo flights was, as I recall, used to take those nice videos of the
lunar module liftoffs.  Further, the camera was controlled from the ground
(I remember discussions of the fact that, when tracking the rising LM, the
earth-bound operator had to anticipate the camera motion to account for the
propogation delay).  These facts seem to imply that (a) there was a direct
video downlink from the rover to earth and (b) there was at least some kind
of data uplink for the camera controls.  Given this, it would seem that it
would have been a small matter to also permit ground control of the rover
itself.  This would have permitted the abandoned rover to be sent out on a
one-way camera safari over the hills and far away.

Why wasn't this done?  I can think of several possible reasons:
1) Nobody thought of it (hard to believe).
2) There wouldn't have been enough battery power left to get very far (but
   surely they must have planned a healthy reserve when the buggy was
   occupied).
3) There might have been difficulties tracking the earth with the dish on
   the back of the buggy (How was this handled during the normal use of the
   vehicle?).
4) Insufficient time/funds (I seem to remember that the whole rover vehicle
   project was something of an afterthought).

Anybody know the facts?

				-pete lucas (lucas@psy.cmu.edu)

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 29 Aug 88 14:50 N
From: "Rob A. Vingerhoeds / Ghent State University" <ROB%BGERUG51.BITNET@vma.cc.cmu.edu>
Subject: SKYLAB

On 16 Aug 88 Bob Gray wrote:
> Subject: Re: 95% vs. 99.9% reliability
> In article <1988Aug9.205520.5911@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
> writes:
> >As somebody wrote in Aviation Week a few months afterward (roughly, from
> >memory):  "If the same thing had happened to the Soviets, they would have
> >swept the debris off the launch pad, hoisted the next launcher onto the
> >pad, and started the countdown.
>
> Much more importantly, they don't scrap the old launch system
> until the new one is working reliably, and can do all that
> the old one could.
> Bob.

Yes, had NASA kept on using the Apollo, then not only would they be able to
use them now, while the Shuttle is out of service (by the way, is a firm
new launch date available yet?), but also would they have been able to save
Skylab in the late 1970's. Then they could have started from Skylab to
build the new Space Station.

Rob

------------------------------

Date: 25 Aug 88 17:45:41 GMT
From: aplcen!aplcomm!stdc.jhuapl.edu!jwm@mimsy.umd.edu  (Jim Meritt)
Subject: yay!


We finally got something up there!

2 TRANSIT (navy navigation satellites) just made it up from Vandenberg AFB
to 600 mile orbits!!


Disclaimer: Individuals have opinions, organizations have policy.
            Therefore, these opinions are mine and not any organizations!
Q.E.D.
jwm@aplvax.jhuapl.edu 128.244.65.5  (James W. Meritt)

------------------------------

Date: 25 Aug 88 19:03:00 GMT
From: aplcen!aplcomm!stdc.jhuapl.edu!jwm@mimsy.umd.edu  (Jim Meritt)
Subject: Re: Transmutation

In article <6413@ihlpl.ATT.COM> knudsen@ihlpl.ATT.COM (Knudsen) writes:
}In article <1073@cfa183.cfa250.harvard.edu>, willner@cfa250.harvard.edu (Steve Willner P-316 x57123) writes:
}
}> Speculating on the economics of advanced societies is a dubious
}> proposition, but it seems to me that transmutation would be
}> economically more attractive because of the shorter payback period
}> and thus the lower cost of capital equipment.  In fact, I would turn
}
}Unless I'm missing something, we should be able to transmute
}small quantities of elements with current technology.

Guess what - current technology allows large-scale transmutation!
There is no such thing as "natural" plutonium.  

Well, maybe a pound or two, but not enough to go out and mine.
ALL of the stuff in our bombs and such is the result of transmutation.



Disclaimer: Individuals have opinions, organizations have policy.
            Therefore, these opinions are mine and not any organizations!
Q.E.D.
jwm@aplvax.jhuapl.edu 128.244.65.5  (James W. Meritt)

------------------------------

Date: 25 Aug 88 07:55:42 GMT
From: tektronix!reed!douglas@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU  (P Douglas Reeder)
Subject: Re: Aegis, SDI

I think the groups most likely to smuggle an atomic weapon into the US
are countries along the lines of Lybia and Iran, or terrorists backed by them.  
Who sent tthe bomb might be hard to prove.

-- 
Doug Reeder                           USENET: ...!tektronix!reed!douglas
10 Cyclopedia Square             from BITNET: douglas@reed.UUCP
Terminus City                     from  ARPA: tektronix!reed!douglas@berkley
Terminus,The Foundation               Box 502 Reed College,Portland,OR 97202

------------------------------

Date: 25 Aug 88 22:30:09 GMT
From: l.cc.purdue.edu!cik@k.cc.purdue.edu  (Herman Rubin)
Subject: Re: space exploitation/exploration

In article <3e123d31.ae47@apollo.COM>, nelson_p@apollo.COM (Peter Nelson) writes:
> 
>   from the mailbag today:
> 
> >   The libertarians are perfectly willing to put in their money if the government
> > would let them.
> 
>    ...This in reference to my statements about building a colony in space.
> 
>  1.  What makes you think there are enough Libertarians in the whole 
>      country to come up with the kind of money it would take to put up
>      a space-colony?  If there were a million Libertarians in the country
>      and they *all* agreed that this was a worthwhile venture and they 
>      *all* agreed to put up a thousand dollars a year, this would only
>      come to a paltry billion dollars, hardly adequate for the scale of
>      the task. 

A lot of people would support the space program besides Libertarians.  Many
people believe in space in the near future.  Possibly there are 50 million
Americans who believe in space, and how many in the rest of the world.  I 
would not be surprised to get 20 million putting up 5-10 thousand a year,
hardly chicken feed.

>      You need to interest serious investors and this requires a business 
>      plan and I don't see any serius motion in that direction.

I believe it will be possible to interest investors.

>  2.  How is the government stopping you?  Because they have a lock on the
>      launch facilities?   It will be YEARS before you will need any launch
>      facilities!!  If you want to have a self-sustaining colony in space
>      there is an enormous amount of technology and science to be developed
>      first.  How about experimenting with closed ecosystems?  I only know
>      one major project about to startup for this and it only involves life-
>      support for 8 people.   The government isn't stopping the Libertarians
>      from doing this research on a larger scale.  It's not stopping them from
>      developing the technology for hollowing out asteroids.  It's not stopping
>      them from breeding special varieties of plants adapted for growth in 
>      space-colony conditions.  It's not stopping you from doing the engineering
>      designs for the system.

The non-theoretical work must be done in space.  It is much harder to build
a closed ecosystem on earth with all of the external pollutants and inter-
ferences, including gravity, than in space.  How can one possibly develop
the technology for hollowing out asteroids when you are operating under one
g and the waste disposal problem is totally different?  I suspect that 0 g
construction techniques will look nothing like what can be done on earth.

How can one breed plants which will thrive in space-colony situations on earth?
No one knows the effects of weightlessness on plants for any lenght of time.
Only materials research is possible on earth, and not too much of that.

So we have to get out in space to do the development.  The problem is not that
the government controls all of the existing launch facilities.  The problem is
that _the government restricts the launching by Americans_.  The best the
government can do for man in space is to desocialize the American space effort
by removing its restrictions, and in addition to declare space to be free of
usurpation by earth governments and to prepare to back its citizens.

If the government does this, the investment will come.  If it sits on private
space development which the bureaucrats find objectionable, right now there is
no place to make the investments.
-- 
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907
Phone: (317)494-6054
hrubin@l.cc.purdue.edu (Internet, bitnet, UUCP)

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #352
*******************

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Date: Wed, 7 Sep 88 19:06:39 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8809080206.AA03658@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
Reply-To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #353

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 353

Today's Topics:
	    NASA radio programs for September (Forwarded)
		   Re: Initials for the Uninitiated
		Re: Automated vs. personned spacecraft
		      new list (aviation-theory)
			   Re: Where's Dani
			    Re: plutonium
			       Re: Seti
			     NASA Select
		     New mailing list: space-tech
		    Re: 95% vs. 99.9% reliability
			   Re:  Solar Sails
	       The sun as a trashcan (was : Plutonium)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 26 Aug 88 02:00:40 GMT
From: yee@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: NASA radio programs for September (Forwarded)

FROM:  Debbie Rivera 

The September radio programs, the "Space Story & Frontiers" will 
be aired on NASA Select, Mon. Aug. 29th from 1-1:30 p.m. 
Eastern.  This month's shows feature:  

Analyzing the Greenhouse Effect
Ichitiaque Rasool, Hdqts.

The Biosphere II Project
Carl Hodges, Univ. of Arizona

The NASA Arctic Boundary Layer Experiment
Robert Harris, LaRC

STS-26 The Space Shuttle Returns
Astronauts Rick Hauck and Mike Lounge

------------------------------

Date: 25 Aug 88 17:17:46 GMT
From: attcan!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Initials for the Uninitiated

In article <95@taux02.UUCP> amos@taux02.UUCP (Amos Shapir) writes:
>Would it  be too  much to  ask of posters  in this  group not  to assume
>everybody understands the  initials they use? ...
>... all I ask is that future posters use
>the  full  text of  the  initials,  at least  the  first  time they  are
>mentioned.

The first time I mentioned those various sets of initials was (for most
of them, anyway) several years ago, at which time I did supply the full
expansion. :-)

I try to include the expansions occasionally.  But I'm afraid that if
you want to read the AW&ST summaries, you're going to have to get used to
it.  The things are rather a chore to type up; using a terse, telegraphic
style with relatively-infrequent longer explanations shortens the task
noticeably.  Given that this is an unpaid volunteer effort, the style
is not going to change.
-- 
Intel CPUs are not defective,  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
they just act that way.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 26 Aug 88 03:37:54 GMT
From: tektronix!reed!douglas@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU  (P Douglas Reeder)
Subject: Re: Automated vs. personned spacecraft

Another work of fiction on the subject is the short story "Becalmed in Hell"
by Larry Niven, my favorite author.
     There is a short story followup to "The Ship Who Sang" in Anne
McCaffrey's collection "Get Off The Unicorn".  McCaffrey is my other favorite
author.


-- 
Doug Reeder                           USENET: ...!tektronix!reed!douglas
10 Cyclopedia Square             from BITNET: douglas@reed.UUCP
Terminus City                     from  ARPA: tektronix!reed!douglas@berkley
Terminus,The Foundation               Box 502 Reed College,Portland,OR 97202

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 26 Aug 88 08:37:07 -0400 (EDT)
From: Ted Anderson <ota+@andrew.cmu.edu>
X-Andrew-Message-Size: 2279+0
Subject: new list (aviation-theory)
Cc: ROB@BGERUG51.BITNET

New Special Interest Group


Aviation-Theory
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Originated from the AVIATION list, a new list has been created a short time
ago. The new list, called AVIATION-THEORY, is meant to be for scientific
discussions on Aeronautical and Space Technology Engineering topics.

Space Technology and Aeronautical Engineering have always been closely
related. I would like to point out that the new list is, despite the name
AVIATION-THEORY, is meant for both aeronautical and space technology
engineering topics, so that is AEROSPACE ENGINEERING.

Apart from discussions between subscribers also calls for papers,
announcements for seminars, etc. can be sent to the list, because it should
become a real scientific list, similar to the AI-list, the Connectionists
list etc.

Topics open for discussion are:

Calls for papers         Aerodynamics            Aircraft Structures
Anouncements seminars    Flight Mechanics        Aircraft Materials
Books to be published    Stability and Control   Thermal Control
Re-entry aerodynamics    Propulsion              and others.

At the moment we are looking for someone to start a USENET bulletin board
for this new list. But, because we have not found someone to guide the
USENET side, all messages coming from USENET should be sent to the special
adress mentioned below.

People who want to subscribe the new list, can send a message to Chris
Maeda (address below).

For any questions, remarks, etc. please mail me.

Rob A. Vingerhoeds

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Moderator: Rob A. Vingerhoeds,
           Ghent State University, Automatic Control Laboratory
           ROB@BGERUG51.BITNET

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To be added to/deleted from/corrections made to list, send message to:

           AVIATION-THEORY-REQUEST@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
           Chris Maeda, MIT

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
All messages should be sent to:

           AVIATION-THEORY@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU    (from BITNET / INTERNET)
           AVIATION-THEORY-IN@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU (from USENET)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

------------------------------

Date: 26 Aug 88 17:10:55 GMT
From: fluke!ssc-vax!eder@beaver.cs.washington.edu  (Dani Eder)
Subject: Re: Where's Dani

In article <285@telesoft.UUCP>, roger@telesoft.UUCP (Roger Arnold @prodigal) writes:
> the hoi polloi, and, BTW, announce which camp YOU're in).  Looked 
> kind of like a giant Apollo capsule.  Where's Dani?
> 
> - Roger Arnold				..ucsd!telesoft!roger

I finally got a net connection back.  The Space Station program at Boeing outgrew the building I was in.  We now occupy a brand {_new building called the
"Trade Zone Center", which we call the Twilight Zone for numerous reasons.
(when I say "we" I refer to the group I work in, the Program is now spread
over three locations in the Marshall Space Flight Center area.)

I'll be at the Worldcon in New Orleans over Labor Day weekend.  I look
forward to seeing some of you sci.space folks there.

D. 
-- 
Dani Eder / Boeing / Space Station Program / uw-beaver!ssc-vax!eder
(205)461-2606(w) (205)461-7801(h) 1075 Dockside Drive #905 Huntsville, 
AL 35824  34 40 N latitude 86 40 W longitude +100m altitude, Earth

------------------------------

Date: 26 Aug 88 15:36:29 GMT
From: iscuva!jimk@uunet.uu.net  (Jim Kendall)
Subject: Re: plutonium

In article <880825130944.0000072C.ABAY.AA@Virginia> pcp2g@CDC.ACC.VIRGINIA.EDU (=3545***) writes:
>Someone wrote in suggesting that we dump plutonium into the sun and kill 
>two birds with one stone:[]

>I see two problems: 

I'll add a third; the likelyhood of a mishap during launch.

Imagine a rocket full of Pt exploding over Florida............

Cheers!

-- 
Jim Kendall                 Send all prank mail        My boss is in full
jimk@iscuva.ISCS.COM        to: /dev/null              agreement with all
uunet!iscuva!jimk                                      of my opinions....

------------------------------

Date: 25 Aug 88 11:09:52 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!reading!cf-cm!cybaswan!iiit-sh@uunet.uu.net  (Steve Hosgood)
Subject: Re: Seti

I've been reading the discussions about SETI, the silence we seem to be 
receiving, etc. It seems, however, that we're up against some pretty stiff
problems dealing with ETs, partly technological and partly due to the fact
that we may not be able to comprehend an ET's message if we *did* receive
such a thing.

Wouldn't it be sensible to spend some effort looking nearer to home? The seas
contain several species of (presumed) intelligent life, yet I don't know of
any sucess at communicating with them short of training dolphins to poke
messages into computers on giant keyboards! This can hardly be regarded as
communicating with the creatures can it?

I would suggest that we have little chance at dealing with ETs until we can
talk to the other intelligent life on *this* planet. Comments, anyone?

------------------------------

Date: 26 Aug 88 19:51:54 GMT
From: att!mtuxo!mtgzy!rlf@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU  (r.l.fletcher)
Subject: NASA Select

I have seen repeated references to NASA Select, can someone
please explain what it is and how do I get it?

					Thanks,
					Ron Fletcher
					AT&T Bell Laboratories
					Middletown NJ

------------------------------

Date: 27 Aug 88 03:51:02 GMT
From: DAISY.LEARNING.CS.CMU.EDU!mnr@pt.cs.cmu.edu  (Marc Ringuette)
Subject: New mailing list: space-tech

=============

"Space-tech" will be a small technical mailing list.  We will discuss new
concepts for space development.  We are interested in taking ambitious new
ideas, bouncing them around the net, and working out the details.

Topics will include solar sails, orbiting tethers, lunar manufacturing,
robotics, and anything that would benefit from some technical brainstorming.
We won't shy away from ideas that seem too difficult to implement right
now, as long as we can have a basis for working out whether or not they
can really work.  We will not discuss politics at all.

We welcome everyone to the group, with one provision: you should be
willing to sit down with a paper and pencil and try to work out some
details.  We don't mean to discourage asking questions, but this isn't
intended as a "chat off the top of your head" list.

We will also provide a digested list for those who prefer less mail
volume and a more organized discussion.

To join the list, send your name and net address to:

     space-tech-request@cs.cmu.edu

We'd also appreciate hearing about your background and interests.
Please specify whether you want the normal list or the digested list.

=================

The organizers:

Marc Ringuette (mnr@cs.cmu.edu)
   I am a CS PhD student at Carnegie-Mellon in Pittsburgh.  I am currently
   participating in the CMU Mars Rover project, doing software for a walking
   rover prototype.  My interests include AI, robotics, amateur physics,
   orbiting tethers, and small business applications of research.

Steve Abrams (sedspace@doc.cc.utexas.edu)
   I am a Physics PhD student at the University of Texas at Austin.  I am
   currently a member of the National Executive Board of the Students for
   the Exploration and Devlopment of Space (SEDS).  My interests include
   solar sails, electro-dynamic tethers for power generation, space 
   education, mission design, and gravitational radiation observatories.


=================
-- 
Marc Ringuette
CMU Computer Science

------------------------------

Date: 26 Aug 88 18:07:43 GMT
From: att!alberta!mnetor!utzoo!henry@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: 95% vs. 99.9% reliability

In article <1366@eos.UUCP> eugene@eos.UUCP (Eugene Miya) writes:
>Yaw vol, mein herr, vhere do you vant us to line up?  Das thou plan to
>pull the trigger, thein self?

Line up in vront of der nozzle of der next SRB tezt.  I schall push der
button myzelf iff nezezzary.  If du canst not liff honorably, putting der
interests ovf your profession and your country -- not to mention a zertain
zeven aztronauts -- ahead of zose of your company und your career, at leazt
you can die honorably vhen your venality und cowvardice cauze disaster!

>No one has brought up loss of a second craft if the first problem had not
>be isolated...

If one evaluates the loss of another orbiter as absolutely unacceptable,
then one must ground the entire fleet permanently.

>... Also what ever happened to making making space safe
>for every one [i.e., eventually doing away with astronaut requirements]
>which everyone was interested for such a time?

I'd be willing to settle for making space only mildly dangerous for everyone.
You don't need to meet astronaut requirements to be able to look at the risk
and say "yes, this is worth taking".

>Oh!  Am I on the wrong side of the Pacific?

Well, the way the US space program is going lately, it's starting to look
like all of us in North America are on the wrong side of some ocean or other...
-- 
Intel CPUs are not defective,  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
they just act that way.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 27 Aug 88 08:55:14 GMT
From: tektronix!reed!douglas@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU  (P Douglas Reeder)
Subject: Re:  Solar Sails

One way to consider the redshift problem is to perform the following
thought experiment:
    Stand in front of a mirror.  Move the mirror forward and back.
The image of you (the photons bouncing off your surface) appears twice
as far away as mirror.  When you move the mirror away at velocity v,
your image move away at an apparant velocity of 2v, at slow velocities.
Now move the mirror away at a relativistic speed (I TOLD you it was a
thought expertiment!)  Your image move away from you at a higher
relativistic speed.  Since it it moving at relativists speed, it appears
redshifted.  Replace yourself with the sun and the mirror with a solar
sail.

-- 
Doug Reeder                           USENET: ...!tektronix!reed!douglas
10 Cyclopedia Square             from BITNET: douglas@reed.UUCP
Terminus City                     from  ARPA: tektronix!reed!douglas@berkley
Terminus,The Foundation               Box 502 Reed College,Portland,OR 97202

------------------------------

Date: 27 Aug 88 14:04:33 GMT
From: mcvax!unido!tub!tmpmbx!netmbx!alderaan@uunet.uu.net  (Thomas Cervera)
Subject: The sun as a trashcan (was : Plutonium)

This is a reply to a posting someone left here some hours before (lost
the origional message, sorry)

He said, he heard from one of his friends (dunno exactly), that it would
be better to dump all the dangerous Plutonium into the sun to 'catch two
birds with only one stone'. On one hand, his friend said, you would get
rid of all the Pt on Earth in a clean way, on the other hand, you could
send out some signs of live (Pt isn't normal in the Sun's spectrum, I guess)
because of emissions caused by ionisized Pt. 

He replied, that it wouldn't be possible to leave terrestial orbit (if I
understood right), because spacecrafts would be too slow to do the job,
and all the Pt wouldn't be enough to send recognizable signals.

In my eyes the idea to dump Plutonium into the sun could become reality.
If we can send spacecrafts to the inner planets of our solar system,
I think, it must be possible to let something like that crash into the
sun, or not ?
But if it's possible, why don't we send all our dangerous (radioactive)
garbage to the sun ? Here in Germany, they don't know where to go with
it.
At this time, U.S.A. and USSR destroy their expensive short range missles
'cause they are (thankgod !) no longer needed to respond the 'threat from
the other side'.
Why don't they modify them to be able to leave the earth's gravity
field ? The payload could be Pt or other dangerous stuff ...

Sending recognizable signals to other civilizations with those few tons
of Plutonium we have on Earth isn't possible, I think. 
You won't find enough Pt in the whole solar system. And if you would dump so
much of this stuff into the sun that there would be a possible success, 
this should affect the Sun's physics in a negative way, I guess.

--

alderaan
OP RKOpdp (RSTS/E)
FB Mathematik/Informatik
RKO Berlin

Dieffenbachstrasze 60-61
1000 Berlin 61

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #353
*******************

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Date: Thu, 8 Sep 88 01:06:15 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8809080806.AA03790@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
Reply-To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #354

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 354

Today's Topics:
	     Re: The sun as a trashcan (was : Plutonium)
	     Re: The sun as a trashcan (was : Plutonium)
			       Re: Seti
			       Re: Seti
			       Re: Seti
			       Re: Seti
		   Re: access to space; how to deny
			    Re: plutonium
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 28 Aug 88 14:44:44 GMT
From: cat.cmu.edu!dep@pt.cs.cmu.edu  (David Pugh)
Subject: Re: The sun as a trashcan (was : Plutonium)

In article <1255@netmbx.UUCP> alderaan@netmbx.UUCP (Thomas Cervera) writes:
>....
>In my eyes the idea to dump Plutonium into the sun could become reality.
>If we can send spacecrafts to the inner planets of our solar system,
>I think, it must be possible to let something like that crash into the
>sun, or not ?
>But if it's possible, why don't we send all our dangerous (radioactive)
>garbage to the sun ? Here in Germany, they don't know where to go with
>it.
>At this time, U.S.A. and USSR destroy their expensive short range missles
>'cause they are (thankgod !) no longer needed to respond the 'threat from
>the other side'.
>Why don't they modify them to be able to leave the earth's gravity
>field ? The payload could be Pt or other dangerous stuff ...
>....

Unfortunately, it is much harder to drop something into the sun than
is it have it orbit Mercury or Venus. Someone mentioned that the
required delta-V was about 18 kilometers per second. Even ignoring
this problem, though, there are other problems with dumping nuclear
waste into space. The IRBM's (Pershing II's & SS-20's) simply don't
have enough power to reach a nice stable orbit. You also have a problem
in that you have to consider the possibility of a booster failing.

The easiest way to get rid of nuclear waste would probably be to
use hard land it on the moon. Would it be possible to build a
railgun/mass-driver/etc. which could launch small (1kg) payloads
to crash land on the moon?
-- 

						David Pugh
						....!seismo!cmucspt!cat!dep

------------------------------

Date: 29 Aug 88 01:05:09 GMT
From: jgk@speech2.cs.cmu.edu  (Joe Keane)
Subject: Re: The sun as a trashcan (was : Plutonium)

In article <2818@pt.cs.cmu.edu> dep@cat.cmu.edu (David Pugh) writes:
>Unfortunately, it is much harder to drop something into the sun than
>is it have it orbit Mercury or Venus.  Someone mentioned that the
>required delta-V was about 18 kilometers per second.

I don't have the necessary data handy, but it should be possible to
send something to the sun by shooting it near Mercury (or maybe
Venus).  You might have to do some boosting near the planet, but this
is much more efficient than trying to do a drop (like in _Aliens_).

>The easiest way to get rid of nuclear waste would probably be to
>use hard land it on the moon. Would it be possible to build a
>railgun/mass-driver/etc. which could launch small (1kg) payloads
>to crash land on the moon?

Please don't do this!

--Joe

------------------------------

Date: 29 Aug 88 00:28:14 GMT
From: silver!chiaravi@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu  (Lucius Chiaraviglio)
Subject: Re: Seti

In article <430@gt-ford.gtisqr.UUCP> kevin@gtisqr.UUCP (Kevin Bagley) writes:
>In article <1685@aplcomm.jhuapl.edu>, trn@warper.jhuapl.edu (Tony Nardo)
>writes:
>> Or, on a more grim note, let's say that there's a species which
>       [Highly abbreviated]
>>    1) fairly developed civilization,
>>    2) developed very effective weapons
>>    3) bit overcrowded,
>>    4) believing themselves to be the "roughest, toughest
>	[stuff deleted]
>
>I do **not** believe this garbage, but lets say there is a civilization
>out there with the above type of mentality, (I personally think that
>type of mentality is far more obnoxious than our own and that our
>civilization is teetering on the brink of self destruction.)

	Why do you think it is more obnoxious than our own?  We seem to meet
all four qualifications to degrees ranging from fairly (#1, #3, and #4) to
excellently (#2).

>                                                             why
>couldn't this super tough highly teched civilization did exist, they
>may be capable of doing severe damage simply through communcation.
>i.e.
>   1) They could communicate to us a cure for cancer that was
>      actually a very subtle poison that was airborn and did
>      not take affect for n years.

	Fred Hoyle (and maybe a co-author, I don't remember) had the same idea
in _A is for Andromeda_ and another book, in which aliens in the Andromeda
galaxy send instructions on how to build a self-aware computer with a mission
to convert Earth to be like the aliens' planet or destroy it if the
inhabitants (us) see through the plot and quit cooperating.  While the
scientific premises in this particular dilogy are less than sound, it is
impossible to prove that the same sort of thing could not be accomplished by
better-thought-out methods of the same general idea.

> [. . .]
>   3) Mass hypnotism followed by mass suicide.
>
>   4) Help me here folks. How else do you cause genocide by remote control?

	An elaboration of #3 is as follows:  send over a religion or a
political ideology which will spread to everyone on the planet and which
preaches lethal intolerance of anyone not converted, and then optionally does
a Jim Jones job on a massive scale, or sets up something like that portrayed
in George Orwells _Nineteen Eighty-Four_.  To ensure that it takes hold, tempt
the original recipients (most likely to be scientists, the government, and the
military) with means to great power (insights into how to build superweapons,
etc.) which can be used most effectively if they participate in the religious
and/or ideological program.

>I find this no more bizarre than the concept of this type of
>civilization and a hell of a lot cheaper than sending their
>starfleet.

	You could be right.  The problem with this kind of approach is that
(unless the perpetrators travel considerably from their home to broadcast the
message, thus negating at least some of the savings), they give away their
location.  And if the plot doesn't work, they run the risk that their intended
victims might be sufficiently enraged or feel a sense of duty sufficient to
cause them to take the trouble to come over physically and do their very best
to blow the perpetrators out of existence -- and if they have their act
together, they will do everything to keep their own home planet secret, so
that the perpetrators will not know who is taking revenge on them if they
tried this in more than one direction.  If responses are expected, they
wouldn't be too hard to fake.

	-- Lucius Chiaraviglio
	   chiaravi@silver.bacs.indiana.edu
	   lucius@tardis.harvard.edu	(in case the first one doesn't work)
	Villainy knows no bounds. . . .

------------------------------

Date: 26 Aug 88 16:22:41 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!etive!hwcs!adrian@uunet.uu.net  (Adrian Hurt)
Subject: Re: Seti

In article <1988Aug19.212031.24023@utzoo.uucp>, henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
> A poor assumption; our own lifespan is likely to increase dramatically within
> the next century or so.

During a series of TV programmes last Christmas, it was demonstrated that life
expectancy has been levelling off. I can't remember exactly why; something to
do with the cells making up the body. I think it may have been that they can
only be replaced a certain number of times, but I' not sure there. Anyway, the
conclusion was that lifespan would probably not exceed 100 by much. Diseases
can be beaten, but old age is much more difficult.
 
> >3) Advanced societies have limited budgets and would expect a return on investment
>
> Again, check out the pattern in our immediate past.  Emigrating to North
> America -- just the passage and the necessary startup supplies -- took
> every cent the Plymouth Rock colonists had, and drove them so deep into
> debt that it was 20 years before they were in the black again.

But did anyone launch a multi-year enquiry when a ship was lost? People were
much more willing to risk their lives then.

Having challenged this optimism about the human species, I should also say that
these examples do not necessarily indicate what an alien culture might see in
space exploration and/or colonisation. Science fiction provides such options as
exterminating life, assisting fledgeling races, escape from a doomed world, and
more.

Finally, to try to open a few minds, who says we haven't been visited? Would
you believe anyone who said we have? Would you believe anyone who claimed to
have seen or met the visitors? In other words, how do you react to people who
believe in UFO's? Simply saying "They're nuts" or "They were fooled by
something" isn't open-minded. As Henry said somewhere else, I don't believe and
I don't disbelieve. Can anyone conclusively prove whether we have been visited
or not?

-- 
 "Keyboard? How quaint!" - M. Scott

 Adrian Hurt			     |	JANET:  adrian@uk.ac.hw.cs
 UUCP: ..!ukc!cs.hw.ac.uk!adrian     |  ARPA:   adrian@cs.hw.ac.uk

------------------------------

Date: 28 Aug 88 00:00:49 GMT
From: attcan!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Seti

In article <1944@brahma.cs.hw.ac.uk> adrian@cs.hw.ac.uk (Adrian Hurt) writes:
>> A poor assumption; our own lifespan is likely to increase dramatically within
>> the next century or so.
>
>During a series of TV programmes last Christmas, it was demonstrated that life
>expectancy has been levelling off...

Our *natural* life expectancy is unlikely to increase much further.  That
wasn't what I was talking about.

>Diseases can be beaten, but old age is much more difficult.

Agreed.  On the other hand, there is a lot more motive for tackling it.
Old age is 100% fatal and happens to everyone; AIDS is insignificant by
comparison.

Understand, I don't expect major improvements in lifespan tomorrow, or
next year, or even next decade.  But we are starting to understand the
detailed biochemical functioning of a few very small portions of our
physiology.  It is fairly safe to predict massive progress in this within
a few decades.  The biggest problem with old age is simply that we don't
understand the details of why it happens.  That will change.

>> Again, check out the pattern in our immediate past.  Emigrating to North
>> America -- just the passage and the necessary startup supplies -- took
>> every cent the Plymouth Rock colonists had, and drove them so deep into
>> debt that it was 20 years before they were in the black again.
>
>But did anyone launch a multi-year enquiry when a ship was lost? People were
>much more willing to risk their lives then.

Nonsense.  You're looking at a pathological phenomenon in a persistently-
underfunded branch of the US government, not a general trend.  If access
to space were adequate to permit an attempt at, say, a lunar colony to
be made *without* having to beg approval from government bureaucrats and
a Congress full of fat lawyers, there would be half a dozen of them already,
risks notwithstanding.  There is no shortage of people willing to risk their
lives for what they see as a worthwhile cause; the problem is that
spaceflight is currently too expensive for such people to fund it from
their own resources.

>... who says we haven't been visited? Would
>you believe anyone who said we have? Would you believe anyone who claimed to
>have seen or met the visitors? In other words, how do you react to people who
>believe in UFO's? Simply saying "They're nuts" or "They were fooled by
>something" isn't open-minded. As Henry said somewhere else, I don't believe and
>I don't disbelieve. Can anyone conclusively prove whether we have been visited
>or not?

"It is good to have an open mind, but not one that is open at both ends."
It is not possible to state definitely whether we have been visited or not.
However, the weight of the evidence is against it.  Clearly, if we *are*
being visited, the visitors are being very furtive and cryptic about it.
This is quite peculiar behavior by our standards (and we have no others to
judge it against).  It is possible to imagine explanations for it, but they
are sufficiently strained that good evidence would be needed to justify
them.  None is on hand.  For all the reports of UFO landings, contacts, 
etc., *NOT ONE* unquestionably extraterrestrial artifact or hitherto-
unknown-but-verifiable fact has come out of them.  There have been
sightings of phenomena that are arguably difficult to explain, but
there are plenty of natural phenomena that are still poorly understood;
it is not necessary to invoke extraterrestrial spaceships as the reason
for our inability to explain such sightings.  There are people who claim
to have seen or been contacted by extraterrestrials, but people have been
known to lie or be mistaken before; it is not necessary to take such
claims at face value to explain them.  The most prosaic -- and hence, most
probably correct -- theory is that we are not being visited, and have not
been in the past.
-- 
Intel CPUs are not defective,  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
they just act that way.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 26 Aug 88 23:18:49 GMT
From: tikal!sigma!uw-nsr!uw-warp!gtisqr!kevin@beaver.cs.washington.edu  (Kevin Bagley)
Subject: Re: Seti

In article <1685@aplcomm.jhuapl.edu>, trn@warper.jhuapl.edu (Tony Nardo) writes:
> Or, on a more grim note, let's say that there's a species which
       [Highly abbreviated]
>    1) fairly developed civilization,
>    2) developed very effective weapons
>    3) bit overcrowded,
>    4) believing themselves to be the "roughest, toughest
	[stuff deleted]

I do **not** believe this garbage, but lets say there is a civilization
out there with the above type of mentality, (I personally think that
type of mentality is far more obnoxious than our own and that our
civilization is teetering on the brink of self destruction.) why
couldn't this super tough highly teched civilization did exist, they
may be capable of doing severe damage simply through communcation.
i.e.
   1) They could communicate to us a cure for cancer that was
      actually a very subtle poison that was airborn and did
      not take affect for n years.

   2) Tell us of a new and safe energy source that is actually
      a quark bomb. (Kills / destroys buildings etc. but does
      not destroy atmosphere or produce radiation.)

   3) Mass hypnotism followed by mass suicide.

   4) Help me here folks. How else do you cause genocide by remote control?

I find this no more bizarre than the concept of this type of
civilization and a hell of a lot cheaper than sending their
starfleet.

------------------------------

Date: 28 Aug 88 19:26:51 GMT
From: dasys1!tneff@uunet.uu.net  (Tom Neff)
Subject: Re: access to space; how to deny

All this chatter about how to take out a shuttle is going to have ears
waggling at NSA, folks.  Watch your backs!

That said, I second Jim Meritt's concern - was just about to say the
same thing.  You don't need to wait for boost phase.  Once cryos are
aboard, STS is a huge bomb.  It wouldn't take much to do the job right
there on the pad.

Nor do you really need such direct technicolor methods to "deny" the US
access to space.  There are a zillion failure points in the whole
system.  How many people wondered where the ammonium perchlorate came
from until last month?  Do we have another crawler handy?  How's the
guard on the OPF or VAB during off-mission cycles?  Are things pretty
stable politically in, say, Dakar?

As we know from nail-biting current experience, a stray puff of H2 or
an out-of-round clamp can set the schedule back days or weeks.  You have
just got to believe that if some sinister Unseen Presence ever gave the
order, we could be set back half a year or more.  Maybe a critical
half year depending on what's going on.

Nor would there likely be any conveniently incriminating Cuban SAM tailfin
lying around afterwards.  More likely you'd have yet another "terrorist
incident" with no one to go to war against.

-- 
Tom Neff			UUCP: ...!cmcl2!phri!dasys1!tneff
	"None of your toys	CIS: 76556,2536	       MCI: TNEFF
	 will function..."	GEnie: TOMNEFF	       BIX: t.neff (no kidding)

------------------------------

Date: 27 Aug 88 01:00:27 GMT
From: amdahl!ems!nis!meccts!meccsd!mvs@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Michael V. Stein)
Subject: Re: plutonium

In article <880825130944.0000072C.ABAY.AA@Virginia> pcp2g@CDC.ACC.VIRGINIA.EDU (=3545***) writes:
>Someone wrote in suggesting that we dump plutonium into the sun and kill 
>two birds with one stone: getting dangerously radioactive stuff off of the Earth 
>and also once the plutonium was in the sun it would be ionized and therefore
>be detected by an alien race (if they are equipped with a damn good s[ppectro- 
>meter).

Plutonium is far too valuable of an energy source to go throw it away.  
Even if we could, which as Mr. Plait later explains is probabally 
impossible, it would be one of the most stupid ideas ever implemented
by anyone on this planet - or probably any other planet for that
matter.

-- 
Michael V. Stein - Minnesota Educational Computing Corp. - Technical Services
{bungia,cbosgd,uiucdcs,umn-cs}!meccts!mvs  or  mvs@mecc.MN.ORG

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #354
*******************

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Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #355

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 355

Today's Topics:
	     Re: The sun as a trashcan (was : Plutonium)
			   Re: Time travel
	   Re: Transmutation (was: Interstellar Mining (?)
		  Re: space news from July 11 AW&ST
		    Re: 95% vs. 99.9% reliability
		       Re: Berserker hypothesis
		      Nanotechnology and roaches
			  "Violent urges..."
			  Re: Why no aliens
			      Plutonium
			    Re: plutonium
	     Re: Why *THEY* might want to eat our lunch.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 29 Aug 88 01:06:18 GMT
From: bobmon@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu  (RAMontante)
Subject: Re: The sun as a trashcan (was : Plutonium)

Actually, I don't think we HAVE to get the dangerous stuff all the way to
the sun.  An orbital radius of maybe .7 AU  (just inside Venus) should be
plenty far enough away.  Of course any orbital decay would be gratefully
accepted.

Still prohibitively expensive to launch the stuff on chemical rockets,
I suspect; and I'd hate to be the Range Safety Officer if a launch
went awry....

How about an electromagnetic launch and a fission motor to boost to "final
orbit"?  Let the waste be its own propellant.  Southern Indiana and the
Love Canal in Albany, New York could contribute some toxic payload, as
well.
-- 
--    bob,mon			(bobmon@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu)
--    "Aristotle was not Belgian..."	- Wanda

------------------------------

Date: 28 Aug 88 04:59:35 GMT
From: portal!cup.portal.com!Dave_Ninjajr_Flory@uunet.uu.net
Subject: Re: Time travel


     I dont think FTL time travel, if possible, will be anything like I
have seen described so far. If an object goes the speed of light time does
not stop for the universe, only for the object going the speed of light will
time stop. So the only thing that going faster than light will do is make you
younger. The universe around you will be the same old place and still in the
same time. The only way to really go back would be to make the COMPLETE
UNIVERSE go faster than light. (Now that would be something!) Otherwise the
affect will only be on the object that is going FTL. Understand? It cant
happen that way.


The Party Pooper

------------------------------

Date: 26 Aug 88 16:44:53 GMT
From: att!alberta!mnetor!utzoo!henry@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Transmutation (was: Interstellar Mining (?)

In article <6413@ihlpl.ATT.COM> knudsen@ihlpl.ATT.COM (Knudsen) writes:
>Unless I'm missing something, we should be able to transmute
>small quantities of elements with current technology.

Remember that essentially all plutonium on Earth is made by transmutation.
There's rather a lot of it about, too.  (It is admittedly an unusually
favorable case, since neutron bombardment of uranium suffices.)  Many of
the isotopes used in tracer work are also made by transmutation.

>I once read that the Atomic Energy Commission built a huge
>machine to make Pu out of U by bombarding it with protons,
>using simple electrostatic acceleration...

I'm not aware of that gadget, although it might have existed.  There was,
at one point, a proposal to build a large and specialized accelerator for
making tritium; perhaps you saw a garbled report of that.

Another possibility is that this was a garbled report of the Oak Ridge
mass spectrometers, which were built to do uranium isotope separation
(which they did quite successfully, but not as well as gaseous diffusion)
but have been used since for gram-quantity isotope separation of other
elements for research.
-- 
Intel CPUs are not defective,  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
they just act that way.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 28 Aug 88 18:15:27 GMT
From: dasys1!tneff@uunet.uu.net  (Tom Neff)
Subject: Re: space news from July 11 AW&ST

In article <1988Aug16.040406.5434@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>NASA is studying an internal proposal to launch Columbia unmanned next year
>using old SRBs.  It would carry one of the DoD satellites scheduled for an
>early mission.  Some modifications would probably be needed, notably a
>braking chute to assist landing.  JSC is opposed to the idea because of
>the orbiter modifications; Marshall is in favor.  The problem is that NASA
>has about 13 pre-Challenger SRBs left, containing about 11 million pounds
>of oxidizer that cannot be recovered, and the oxidizer shortage is looking
>worse and worse.  There are several schemes for minor mods to the old SRBs
>to increase reliability.  Unmanned shuttle flights have been considered
>before, and generally rejected due to risks and lack of need.  The proposal
>is just an idea as yet.  An alternative would be to buy more expendables
>and shift payloads to them, since they use less ammonium perchlorate, but
>NASA does not have the money for that.

Excuse me, but are we really supposed to believe that omitting the
flight crew makes using the old SRBs an acceptable risk?  Challenger is
every bit as "dead" as its crew, and we cannot afford to lose another
orbiter under any circumstances, whether or not astronauts are killed
in flight along with it.  (Anyway, rocket accidents can kill people on
the ground too.)

As I recall, one of the options NASA originally studied was modifying the
existing SRB fleet.  This was rejected in favor of the redesign for cost
and peace-of-mind reasons, BEFORE the perchlorate plant exploded.  Why not
just admit that the explosion changes the picture, and that SRB modification
is now attractive?  Toss in every safety mod we can think of and then
use them for manned missions, perhaps only in warm weather.

Trying to fly Columbia unmanned means tinkering dangerously with a vanishing
resource, namely orbiters.  Dammit Jim, that thing NEEDS a pilot!  :-)
-- 
Tom Neff			UUCP: ...!cmcl2!phri!dasys1!tneff
	"None of your toys	CIS: 76556,2536	       MCI: TNEFF
	 will function..."	GEnie: TOMNEFF	       BIX: t.neff (no kidding)

------------------------------

Date: 26 Aug 88 09:22:08 GMT
From: agate!sag4.ssl.berkeley.edu!link@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU  (Richard Link)
Subject: Re: 95% vs. 99.9% reliability

>
>Well, we can see there's not schedule pressure in this newsgroup.
 
I didn't get any responses from my first posting, so I'm going to try
again. I worked at the Max Planck Institut fur Aeronomy on the design
of particle detectors for the Giotto (Comet Halley) and Galileo
(Jupiter Orbiter) spacecraft. 

Giotto (a European Space Agency project) has returned some spectacular
images of comets. Galileo has not been launched yet. I worked on these
projects in 1980.

Well, I can see there's not any pressure from NASA personnel in this
newsgroup.

Come on, Eugene, do you only readnews or do you NASA types also
contribute to the space program? 

Dr. Richard Link
Earth and Planetary Atmospheres Group
Space Sciences Laboratory,
University of California, Berkeley
link@ssl.berkeley.edu

------------------------------

Date: 29 Aug 88 15:21:17 EDT
From: Hans.Moravec@rover.ri.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: Berserker hypothesis
To: BBoard.Maintainer@a.cs.cmu.edu

	
commenting on
> Date: 17 Aug 88 23:53:42 GMT
> From: vsi1!unisv!vanpelt@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Mike Van Pelt)
> Subject: Re: SETI: Why don't we hear anything?

	The bug in the Berserker hypothesis for the interstellar silence, in
which roving interstellar machines stamp out any budding technological
civilizations, is that the Berserkers themselves will the be a technological
civilization inhabiting the galaxy, and their actions should be visible in
the sky.

	Now maybe the Berserkers were originally programmed to be very quiet
between executions, and carefully designed to prevent mutations in their
goals.  But they would be present in such large numbers across the galaxy
that sooner or later a near fatal run-in with a comet, or radiation from a
stellar flare would modify the program in one in such a way as to remove its
inhibitions against change.  That event would seed a Darwinian evolution
of self-reproducing Berserker-derived machines that would acquire the
survival-oriented goals of normal life.  You can't fool Mother Nature
forever.

				-- Hans Moravec

------------------------------

Date: 29 Aug 88 07:06:42 GMT
From: amdahl!drivax!macleod@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (MacLeod)
Subject: Nanotechnology and roaches

In article <572@unisv.UUCP> vanpelt@unisv.UUCP (Mike Van Pelt) writes:

:...The more you look at it, the problem of making a
:machine that can do even what a cockroach does is not as easy as
:it may appear at first glance.  (Which is one of the brick walls
:I think the nanotechnology folks are going to run into.)

This may just be a loose analogy, but I have to add that cockroaches are
generalized creatures; even if the reductionists were correct, a description
of their state machinery would probably come out to some nearly-infinite
model that approached a complete mapping of all chemical reactions.

The kinds of machines proposed by Drexler, as I read _Engines of Creation_,
are >specialized< devices that are produced to address specific problems, 
like the machine that goes into cut out the Tay-Sachs gene in the ovaries.
Later there will be a *more* generalized  "doctrobe" that repairs a host
of problems, but the problem is one of linear extensions to a program, not
generalizing the behavior of something high up on the evolutionary scale.

If problems in nanotechnology arise anywhere, I suspect it will be in 
implementation of ironclad error-correction algorithms.  I have not 
kept up with developments in either subbranch of CS theory, but I 
believe that Error Correction is doing far better than Artificial 
Intelligence. 

Michael Sloan MacLeod   (amdahl!drivax!macleod)

------------------------------

Date: 29 Aug 88 07:31:37 GMT
From: amdahl!drivax!macleod@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (MacLeod)
Subject: "Violent urges..."

In article <8808190000.AA15832@venera.isi.edu> cew@VENERA.ISI.EDU 
("Craig E. Ward") quotes:

:     Due to the great distances involved, any communication with
:extraterrestrials would be very one-sided.  The exchange of pleasantries
:could take 100,000 years.  Even with that, we have sent several messages
:into the deep space.  Pioneers 10 and 11 and Voyagers 1 and 2 all
:contain messages for some inter-stellar traveler to find.  

Using EM waves for interstellar communications is about as feasible as 
putting messages in a bottle and tossing them in the sea.  Better minds than
mine suggest that if interstellar communications traffic takes place with
any regularity it must use some mechanism not bound by the speed of light.

: Any species which
:survives long enough to develop interstellar space travel will likely
:have controlled its more violent urges, something Humanity has not yet
:done.

I'll bet this canard has been advanced at every juncture in human history.
"We can't sail the Great Sea - men would fight and kill each other
before we reached shore!"  "The Germans could never develop jet planes - 
they're too evil!" 

We may not have "advanced" enough to please this foolish scientist, but
somehow we made it this far.  True, the game is not over, but I'm betting on
spacefaring races as being pretty heterogenous groups.  

Back here on Earth we seem wedded to two archetypes: Peaceful Space
Babies (ET, Close Encounters, etc.) or Nietzche's Nightmare (Alien and 
many other movies).  Surely the truth will be somewhere in between.

Michael Sloan MacLeod  (amdahl!drivax!macleod)

------------------------------

Date: 29 Aug 88 16:40:37 GMT
From: cat.cmu.edu!dep@pt.cs.cmu.edu  (David Pugh)
Subject: Re: Why no aliens

In article <Added.0X6Kjdy00Ui306kk9I@andrew.cmu.edu> RAM9@LEHIGH.BITNET ("Richard Mauren -  RAM9") writes:
>     The reason for us not having had extraterrestial contact may be
>simply that it is too dangerous. ... They would
>be stupid to contact us because it would be so easy for us to
>annihilate the planet with nukes.

If ETI's are avoiding contact because they are afraid we might nuke them,
then they are probably afraid enough to nuke just to be on safe the safe
side (after all, we might find them even if they don't contact us).

You may be half right, though -- it may be the case that any race "advanced"
enough to make contact over interstellar distances always ends up destroying 
itself (either with nukes or something worse). Suppose, for example, that it
is possible to build a weapon that would kill everyone on the planet. Now
make it easy enough to build that any country/company/terrorists can build it.
Any bets on how long we would survive? Don't laugh -- something like this
may happen in the next 20 years (probably a biological weapon, but who
knows).
-- 

						David Pugh
						....!seismo!cmucspt!cat!dep

------------------------------

Date:     Mon, 29 Aug 88  15:47:22 EDT
From: =3545*** <pcp2g@cdc.acc.virginia.edu>
Subject:  Plutonium

Well, it looks like I have to flame my own flame. I made several errors 
in my last mailing.
1) Plutonium is Pu, not Pt. Someone already e-mailed a correction to me.
   I'm an astronomer, not a chemist, dammit!
2) Replace "emission line" with "absorption line". Cold matter against
   a hot background absorbs radiation.
3) I was wrong about having to decelerate the package by 18.5 miles/sec
   to collide it with the Sun. Using Jupiter or the moon or even the
   Earth itself for a gravity assist (slingshot) would do the trick. It 
   would still be difficult, but not impossible. 
4) There are two problems I overlooked--one is that  what happens if
   the rocket carrying the Pu blows up twenty miles up? Scratch one eco- 
   sphere, that's what. A payload like that is too risky to launch. The 
   other problem was pointed out to me by a friend: To create an absorption 
   line, the absorber must be in the upper atmosphere of the sun, where the
   solar gas is tenuous enough to see through. A payload would tend to sink
   out of sight. Perhaps blowing up the payload might keep it in the upper
   atmosphere temporarily , but convection would eventually suck it down.
   And there still is the problem that you need a shitload of Plutonium 
   to be visible even from the Earth, let alone from another star. 

   So, I have fanned my own flame. Next time I'll open my brain before I 

open my mouth. 
PS- There may be another copy of this (a first draft, actually) that may
get sent. The tin box I use to get Digest on tends to massively screw up 
e- 
e-mail, as that last line shows (the editor is about ten years old on
this machine). 

{Philip Plait/PCP2G@cdc.Virginia.acc.edu/UVa Dept of Astronomy} 
[If you laid all statisticians end to end, they would all point in 
 diferent directions]

------------------------------

Date: 29 Aug 88 16:54:40 GMT
From: concertina!fiddler@sun.com  (Steve Hix)
Subject: Re: plutonium

In article <1909@iscuva.ISCS.COM>, jimk@iscuva.ISCS.COM (Jim Kendall) writes:
> 
> I'll add a third; the likelyhood of a mishap during launch.
> 
> Imagine a rocket full of Pt exploding over Florida............

Tell me when!!  I'll be there!!  (Unless you meant Pu, which is lots
less useful in the bank than platinum.)

------------------------------

Date: 29 Aug 88 17:53:23 GMT
From: att!ihlpf!lukas@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (00704a-Lukas)
Subject: Re: Why *THEY* might want to eat our lunch.

In article <3695@drivax.UUCP> macleod@drivax.UUCP (MacLeod) writes:
>Given the unlikelihood of cheap transmutation of elements, even spacefaring
>races will probably continue to be interested in rare elements.  If Earth's

I think that cheap transmutation of elements is actually MORE likely then
routine interstellar mining of metals. The first problem is more-or-less
well understood from a physics standpoint, and is held up by mere
engineering difficulties :^). The latter is much less well understood.
-- 

	John Lukas
	ihnp4!ihlpf!lukas
	312-510-6290

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #355
*******************

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Date: Sat, 10 Sep 88 01:06:27 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
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To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
Reply-To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #356

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 356

Today's Topics:
			     Mir elements
		     Cosmonauts trapped in orbit
			      Cosmonauts
		  Is a PHOBOS Mars probe in trouble?
			Another Titan failure?
	     Re: The sun as a trashcan (was : Plutonium)
			   Re: NASA Select
	     Re: The sun as a trashcan (was : Plutonium)
			       Re: Seti
	       Re: Inverse SETI (Was:  ET phone home?)
		   Re: access to space; how to deny
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 5 Sep 88 22:02:00 GMT
From: a.cs.uiuc.edu!m.cs.uiuc.edu!kenny@uxc.cso.uiuc.edu
Subject: Mir elements


These are from before Soyuz TM-6 hard-docked, so take them with a
grain of salt...

Two-line elements for Mir        
1 16609U          88242.75924734 0.00028130           22000-3 0    00
2 16609  51.6187  49.6431 0019216 349.7518  10.2758 15.72217965    00

Object: Mir        
NORAD catalog number: 16609
Element set: Unavailable
Epoch revolution: Unavailable
Epoch time: 88242.75924734 (Mon Aug 29 18:13:18 UTC)
Inclination: 51.6187 degrees
RA of node: 49.6431 degrees
Eccentricity: 0.0019216
Argument of periapsis: 349.7518 degrees
Mean anomaly: 10.2758 degrees
Mean motion: 15.72217965 revs / day
Mean motion acceleration: 0.00028130 * 2 revs / day**2
B* drag term: Unavailable

Derived figures:
Semimajor axis: 6730.4 km.
Perifocal radius: 6717.46 km.
Apogee height: 365.186 km.
Perigee height: 339.32 km.
Mean longitude at the epoch: 0.8669 degrees.
Magnitudes of short-period perturbations of the second harmonic:
	Radius vector magnitude: +/-1.01 km.
	True anomaly: +/-0.0118 degrees.
	RA of node: +/-0.0259 degrees.
	Inclination: +/-0.0203 degrees.
Secular perturbations of the second harmonic:
	Argument of perigee: 3.8282 degrees/day
	RA of node: -5.1252 degrees/day
	Mean anomaly: included in published mean motion.
Long-period perturbation of the third harmonic: X=-1.640e-03, Y=-8.710e-04

Source: NASA Goddard via NSS Mir Watch Hotline

NOTE: Apogee and perigee heights are referred to a mean equatorial radius
      of 6378.145 km, and not to the local radius of the geoid.
      All derived quantities are calculated using the NORAD SGP model of
      Hilton and Kuhlman.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 6 Sep 1988 18:27-EDT 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Cosmonauts trapped in orbit

I have just heard that the two Russian cosmonauts have had a computer
failure after undocking from MIR. They are too far away to return and
cannot fire their retros. They have two days of food/air. I have no
furthur info, and this is second hand. Anyone who can give me more
info, please do so.

I HOPE they can get a rescue off in 2 days, or come up with a
workaround. I hardly expect anybody at the NASA has the balls to try to
put Discovery up in 2 days, even to save lives.

I wish them luck. They need it.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 7 Sep 1988 14:31-EDT 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Cosmonauts

As most of you probably know by now, the Cosmonauts are down. James
Oberg was on Nightline and discussed the problems. Apparently the USSR
uses some sort of limb sensor. They were attempting a night de-orbit
and their software got confused and refused to work. They eventually
solved the problem. I'm sure Glen will have a DETAILED report for us
real soon!

------------------------------

Date: 8 Sep 88 14:11:40 GMT
From: mtwain.dec.com!klaes@decwrl.dec.com  (CUP/ML, MLO5-2/G1 8A, 223-3283)
Subject: Is a PHOBOS Mars probe in trouble?


    	According to the September 7 BOSTON GLOBE newspaper from anonymous
    U.S. sources, one of the two PHOBOS probes to Mars (it was not
    specified which one) is allegedly having problems which are hampering
    communications with Soviet Mission Control.  There were no further
    details in the article.  Can someone post more on this situation as 
    things develop?
    
    	I sincerely hope this is just a rumor, and that it is quickly
    fixed if it is not.  The Soviets have not had much luck with their
    unmanned Mars probes.  At least the Soviets still have the good sense
    (and the budget) to launch two probes per planetary mission in case
    one probe has problems instead of just one probe per mission as seems 
    to be the case with NASA these days in their misguided attempts to 
    "save" money. 
    
    	Larry

------------------------------

Date: 4 Sep 88 14:59:27 GMT
From: nyser!cmx!anand@itsgw.rpi.edu  (Rangachari Anand)
Subject: Another Titan failure?


  I just heard on radio news (mutual) that the Vortex spy satellite launched
from Vandenberg on a Titan 4 has failed to reach the correct orbit. 
Apparently the third stage failed. Does anyone have more details?

  I am sure the Military must be getting pretty desperate by now. I remember
that a Titan carrying a KH11 exploded right after Challenger. I also
remember a TV news broadcast where they mentioned that only one KH11 is
left in orbit.

                                                           R. Anand
  Internet: anand@amax.npac.syr.edu
  Bitnet: ranand@sunrise

------------------------------

Date: 29 Aug 88 16:25:33 GMT
From: bungia!datapg!viper!dave@umn-cs.arpa  (David Messer)
Subject: Re: The sun as a trashcan (was : Plutonium)

In article <2821@pt.cs.cmu.edu> jgk@speech2.cs.cmu.edu (Joe Keane) writes:
 >In article <2818@pt.cs.cmu.edu> dep@cat.cmu.edu (David Pugh) writes:
 >>Unfortunately, it is much harder to drop something into the sun than
 >>is it have it orbit Mercury or Venus.  Someone mentioned that the
 >>required delta-V was about 18 kilometers per second.
 >
 >I don't have the necessary data handy, but it should be possible to
 >send something to the sun by shooting it near Mercury (or maybe
 >Venus).  You might have to do some boosting near the planet, but this
 >is much more efficient than trying to do a drop (like in _Aliens_).

Actually, the easiest way (the minimal delta-v orbit) is to do
a flyby past Jupiter (you can get some boost from Mars on the
way if you really want the minimum).  Jupiter has enough mass
to totally cancel the payloads heliocentric momentum and let
it fall right in.  Of course, if you are going to go all the
way to Jupiter, why not let it drop right into the planet?
-- 
If you can't convince |   David Messer - (dave@Lynx.MN.Org)
them, confuse them.   |   Lynx Data Systems
   -- Harry S Truman  | 
                      |   amdahl   --!bungia!viper!dave
                      |   hpda    /

Copyright 1988 David Messer -- All Rights Reserved
This work may be freely copied.  Any restrictions on
redistribution of this work are prohibited.

------------------------------

Date: 29 Aug 88 14:33:10 GMT
From: pitstop!sundc!hadron!klr@sun.com  (Kurt L. Reisler)
Subject: Re: NASA Select

In article <4135@mtgzy.att.com> rlf@mtgzy.att.com (r.l.fletcher) writes:
>I have seen repeated references to NASA Select, can someone
>please explain what it is and how do I get it?

Well, NASA Select is a service that is (can) be provided to lcoal cable
companies.  If you are currently a cable TV subscriber and are not sure
if you get NASA Select, you might try calling your cable company.  In
the DC area (DC, Northern Virginia and Maryland), NASA Select is carried
on channel 40 by Media General Cable.  Usuallt it just shows a blue and
black screen, with the logo "NASA SELECT" and the date and time.
However, when there is activity, such as the recent FRF and SRB test
firings, and missions, the coverage is LIVE and via more camera angles
then the networks show you.  In fact, it seems that the networks get
most (not all) of their camera angles from NASA Select.

Kurt

------------------------------

Date: 29 Aug 88 02:58:06 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: The sun as a trashcan (was : Plutonium)

In article <1255@netmbx.UUCP> alderaan@netmbx.UUCP (Thomas Cervera) writes:
>If we can send spacecrafts to the inner planets of our solar system,
>I think, it must be possible to let something like that crash into the
>sun, or not ?

Getting to the Sun is harder than getting to the inner planets.  The
problem is velocity, not distance.  It is necessary to nearly cancel
Earth's orbital velocity to put a payload into an orbit that intersects
the Sun.  This is beyond the capabilities of current Western rockets
for any useful payload.  Energia might be able to put perhaps 100 kg
into the Sun, with suitable upper stages.  [This is a very rough guess
based on some recollections of Saturn V performance examples.]  So it
is marginally possible but ruinously expensive.

>But if it's possible, why don't we send all our dangerous (radioactive)
>garbage to the sun ? ...

It's too expensive and the quantities are beyond current launch systems.
Current launch systems also are not reliable enough for such dangerous
cargo.

Actually, if one must get the stuff off Earth, a better approach might
be to crash it into some selected crater on the Moon.  This would be
a good deal cheaper and easier, and would permit recovery if the stuff
later turned out to be useful.

>At this time, U.S.A. and USSR destroy their expensive short range missles
>Why don't they modify them to be able to leave the earth's gravity
>field ? The payload could be Pt or other dangerous stuff ...

[Two nits:  these are medium-range missiles, not short-range ones, and
the chemical symbol for plutonium is Pu, not Pt.]

The payloads would be very limited, since these are not large missiles.
In addition, the current treaty does not permit this use, and requires
destruction of the missiles quite soon.  In theory the treaty could be
amended, but nobody wants to mess with what is (correctly) seen as a
major triumph of arms control.

The idea of using missiles as space launchers will be considerably more
interesting if agreement is reached on major reductions in ICBM forces.
-- 
Intel CPUs are not defective,  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
they just act that way.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 29 Aug 88 18:18:20 GMT
From: att!ihlpl!knudsen@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Knudsen)
Subject: Re: Seti

In article <430@gt-ford.gtisqr.UUCP>, kevin@gtisqr.UUCP (Kevin Bagley) writes:
>    1) They could communicate to us a cure for cancer that was
>       actually a very subtle poison that was airborn and did
>       not take affect for n years.
> 
>    2) Tell us of a new and safe energy source that is actually
>       a quark bomb. (Kills / destroys buildings etc. but does
>       not destroy atmosphere or produce radiation.)
> 
>    3) Mass hypnotism followed by mass suicide.
> 
>    4) Help me here folks. How else do you cause genocide by remote control?

Carl Sagan's not-too-bad SF novel _Contact_ alludes to this problem.
The signals we receive give detailed instructions to build a complex
machine whose construction lies within our capabilities
but whose operation we cannot fathom.

Some opposition groups raised the fear that this machine, once
built and turned on, might blow up/sterilize/poison/jam all TV
channels with "Love Boat" reruns  or otherwise destroy human
civilization.  Just as home computer users who download programs
from bull boards have toworry about Trojan Horses and viruses.

I think that in this novel's case, these fears were very
justifiable.  The machine was benign but did play a dirty old
trick (no spoilers here).

BTW, a perfectly well-intentioned set of technological messages
could end up killing us -- we could screw it up and/or leave
out some "assumed/taken for granted" safety feature.
If all our lawyers died we couldn't even sue 'em.

I'd also be very careful about anything instructions of a biological
nature (like cancer cure) -- how much can "they" know about
our body chemistry?  Half the folks over on rec.pets are trying to
convince the other half that chocolate can kill a dog.

------------------------------

Date: 29 Aug 88 20:07:15 GMT
From: larson@unix.sri.com  (Alan Larson)
Subject: Re: Inverse SETI (Was:  ET phone home?)

In article <6878@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu> haque@umn-cs.UUCP (Samudra E. Haque) writes:

>It was mentioned that the aliens (Big Green WoMen?) could 
>receive TV carriers at a distance of 100 LY. 
> 
>They would have to have tremendously good recievers for that feat.
>
>Also, once they received such a "carrier" signal from the
>electromagnetic spectrum, what would they do with it? They coudn't 
>possibly know the modulation parameters (i.e., bandwidth, modulation
>techniques <am, fm, fsk, pcm, etc. etc.> or even chrominance and
>luminance coding mechanisms <pal, secam, ntsc> in that TV signal once
>they get it - if at all they do.

When the author said they would receive the carriers, he no doubt
realized that the carriers contain far more concentrated energy than
is availiable in the modulation.
While they may be able to detect the carriers, it is unlikely that they
could receive the modulation.  Those parts of the signal are quite a bit
weaker.  (Most of the 'power' is in the carrier.)

A quick calculation indicates that a TV station would need about 10E9 watts
effective power before it would have a chance of being seen on the moon
with a normal antenna.  A 100 foot dish would probably be required for a
normal quality picture.

At 93E6 miles, the dish would have to be about 1000 feet in diameter just
to 'sort of' see the picture.

These assumptions have been based on a 10 BILLION watt TV station on channel
14.  There are not many TV stations that come close to 10^10 watts Effective
Radiated Power.


>What I'm trying to get it that  SETI don't stand a chance of getting
>ANY useful information from our radio/tv carriers

What I am pointing out is that the carriers are all they might have.
The modulation will have faded into the noise.


By the way -- to the person who suggested using the doppler on the
carriers to determine things about us -- it may be possible, but it
may be that the carrier frequency stability is not that good over
the long term.


	Alan

------------------------------

Date: 29 Aug 88 17:26:58 GMT
From: attcan!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: access to space; how to deny

In article <6138@dasys1.UUCP> tneff@dasys1.UUCP (Tom Neff) writes:
>...  Do we have another crawler handy? 

There are two of them, as I recall.

>How's the
>guard on the OPF or VAB during off-mission cycles? 

Fairly tight, and getting tighter.  Not perfect, there are too many people
in and out, but getting in there isn't trivial.

Actually, I think the major remaining single-point failure mode in the
system is the VAB itself.  This wouldn't be a significant issue, were it
not that the shuttle design requires live SRBs within the VAB.  (NASA
used to have an ironclad no-fuel-in-the-VAB rule.)  An accidental ignition
could really make a mess of the place.
-- 
Intel CPUs are not defective,  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
they just act that way.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #356
*******************

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Date: Sun, 11 Sep 88 01:06:04 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
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To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
Reply-To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #357

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 357

Today's Topics:
		  Re: space news from July 11 AW&ST
	     Re: The sun as a trashcan (was : Plutonium)
	Re: SOlar System trashcans (Was:The Sun as a trashcan)
 Were the Russians right about 007?   [New stuff on KAL 007 from CBC]
	Re: SOlar System trashcans (Was:The Sun as a trashcan)
		       Re: SPACE Digest V8 #340
			       Re: Seti
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 29 Aug 88 17:21:04 GMT
From: attcan!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: space news from July 11 AW&ST

In article <6137@dasys1.UUCP> tneff@dasys1.UUCP (Tom Neff) writes:
>Excuse me, but are we really supposed to believe that omitting the
>flight crew makes using the old SRBs an acceptable risk?

Rationally, you have a point.  Congress is not rational.  Losing hardware
is troublesome, but it would not be anything like the political disaster
that more dead astronauts would be.

>Challenger is
>every bit as "dead" as its crew, and we cannot afford to lose another
>orbiter under any circumstances...

Then we'll have to ground the shuttle permanently.  There is no way to
fly it without risking loss of another orbiter.  The NRC report on
shuttle frequency put it even more strongly:  if the shuttle continues
flying, another orbiter *WILL* be lost eventually.
-- 
Intel CPUs are not defective,  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
they just act that way.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 30 Aug 88 00:54:23 GMT
From: attcan!utgpu!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: The sun as a trashcan (was : Plutonium)

In article <2821@pt.cs.cmu.edu> jgk@speech2.cs.cmu.edu (Joe Keane) writes:
>I don't have the necessary data handy, but it should be possible to
>send something to the sun by shooting it near Mercury (or maybe
>Venus).  You might have to do some boosting near the planet, but this
>is much more efficient than trying to do a drop (like in _Aliens_).

Actually it has to be Venus, because our current boosters can't reach
Mercury directly.  (Mariner 10 got to Mercury via Venus.)  I suspect it
doesn't help enough.  The best way to get really close to the Sun, in
fact, is a Jupiter flyby (!).  Remember, velocity is what counts, and
Jupiter's gravitational field is so hefty that it does a much better job
on velocity changes than Venus would.

The problem with any such scheme, though, is that suddenly our trashcans
can't be just inert lumps of metal.  Now they need precision navigation
equipment, plus power, plus communications, plus a propulsion system for
course corrections.  New failure modes also appear:  what happens if you
lose guidance on a trashcan before Jupiter flyby?

>>The easiest way to get rid of nuclear waste would probably be to
>>use hard land it on the moon...
>
>Please don't do this!

Why not?  Assuming you have enough control to put them down within, say,
50 km of a specific aiming point, of course.
-- 
Intel CPUs are not defective,  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
they just act that way.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 29 Aug 88 15:44:31 GMT
From: rebel!didsgn!till@gatech.edu  (didsgn)
Subject: Re: SOlar System trashcans (Was:The Sun as a trashcan)

In article <2821@pt.cs.cmu.edu>, jgk@speech2.cs.cmu.edu (Joe Keane) writes:
] >The easiest way to get rid of nuclear waste would probably be to
] >use hard land it on the moon. Would it be possible to build a
] >railgun/mass-driver/etc. which could launch small (1kg) payloads
] >to crash land on the moon?
] 
] Please don't do this!

Seriously, the idea doesn't seem that stupid.
Is your objection one of principle, or do you have specific reasons?
(I am not flaming- honestly! Just would like to know your opinion...)

------------------------------

Date: 29 Aug 88 14:46:12 GMT
From: attcan!lsuc!maccs!gordan@uunet.uu.net  (gordan)
Subject: Were the Russians right about 007?   [New stuff on KAL 007 from CBC]

[followups directed to the politics groups only]


In article <8808281629.AA12686@columbia.edu> in misc.headlines,
       dare@EEVLSI.EE.COLUMBIA.EDU (Gary Dare) writes:
-I was listening to CBC's "Sunday Morning" on my shortwave this
-morning and they had an incredible documentary on new evidence
-of KAL 007 being purposefully sent into Soviet airspace.  Among
-the points that have surfaced over the past five years:
-
- [numerous points omitted]


"In the early hours of September 1, 1983, a Soviet fighter plane shot down
Korean Airlines flight 007 as it flew without authorization over the
Soviet Union's airspace.  The Boeing 747 plunged into the Sea of Japan,
killing all 269 passengers and crew."


It is now exactly five years since KAL 007.

An interesting and somewhat disturbing book on the subject is:  SHOOTDOWN,
Flight 007 and the American Connection, by R. W. Johnson (ISBN 0-670-81209-9).
Briefly, the author proposes the unthinkable: that KAL 007 was in fact on a
passive surveillance mission.

According to this premise, the aircraft itself would have carried no
surveillance equipment; rather, it would merely have overflown Soviet
territory as a passive probe in order to trigger the Soviet radar network and
air defense system into action.  Regardless of whether it was intentional or
not, electronic monitoring of Soviet defense installations during KAL 007's
overflight apparently did indeed yield a gold mine of intelligence
information.

Although it is difficult to accept the author's final conclusion, this is not
a typical "conspiracy theory" book.  The exposition is lucid and the arguments
are cogent and to the point; it does not have the outward appearance of merely
jumping to conclusions.  On the whole, it seems to have been carefully written
and argued, and at the very least, it brings up a number of interesting
points:


o The seemingly inexplicable behavior of William Clark, who resigned as
National Security Adviser just six weeks after KAL 007.  In the weeks after
the shootdown, he had failed to attend Cabinet meetings and "did not attend
the special Presidential briefing of leading Congressmen and Senators on the
007 affair -- which even far junior Cabinet members attended." [p. 222]
The implication seems to be that these were the actions of a man with a guilty
conscience.


o Japanese military radar tapes from the Wakkanai installation clearly show
KAL 007 made mysterious changes in course and altitude in the last few minutes
of its flight.  While out of civilian radar range, KAL 007 radioed ground
control and announced a climb to 35 000 ft, but actually dove to 29 000 ft and
then rose again to 32 000 ft; furthermore, it made a change of course that
actually took it deeper into Soviet territory over Sakhalin.  [pp.  24--27]

This information from the radar tapes was read into the records of the
Japanese Diet (parliament) in May 1985.  Nevertheless, the New York Times,
among others, failed to print it.  [p.  221]

Meanwhile, the key USAF radar tapes of 007's flight were destroyed, according
to US Justice Dept. attorney Jan K. von Flatern, after being kept for just
fifteen days and then routinely recycled (i.e. wiped).  [p. 289]


o The routine civilian tapes of 007 talking to its ground controllers at
Anchorage and Narita were not released until September 13, a lengthy and
inexplicable delay.  By contrast, the top-secret transcripts of the Soviet
fighter pilot's conversation with his ground control were produced with a
great flourish at the UN on September 6.

There is in fact some question as to whether the civilian tapes are genuine in
their entirety.  In particular the final words spoken by KAL 007's crew are
rather odd.  A full 38 seconds after the plane was hit, 007 called Tokyo, but
gave only the standard call signal rather than a Mayday distress signal, with
no mention of an attack.  After waiting for an acknowledgement from Tokyo, the
final, fragmentary "rapid decompression" message was sent out.  [p.  27]

Thus Flight 007 was still on the air a full 56 seconds after it was hit,
which, given the tremendous damage found to have been inflicted on both bodies
and wreckage recovered later, seems remarkable.  This is in contrast to both
the Air India flight of June 1985 (destroyed by an on-board bomb) and the
recent Iranian Airlines incident, in which there were no radio transmissions
at all after the explosion.

Finally, the author makes a fairly strong case that intelligence recordings of
Soviet ground-to-air conversations were also made (not just air-to-ground),
but that these have not been released and their existence has never been
admitted to (except for one instance in which Japanese Cabinet Secretary
Masaharu Gotoda inadvertently confirmed their existence in a press
conference).  Curiously, the American press apparently never followed up this
story.  [pp.  169--171]


o "Under US law, because 007 was an American-built plane, with American
passengers aboard, leaving from an American airport, there had legally to be
an investigation into the disaster by the US National Transportation Safety
Board (NTSB).  The NTSB did indeed open just such an investigation but was
summarily (and illegally) ordered by the State Department to halt it and turn
over all its documentation on the disaster.  This was the last ever heard of
these documents, or of the legally necessary inquiry in the US." [p. 227]


o The ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) report on the affair
devoted only eight lines of a 113-page report to the question of whether KAL
007 might have been on a surveillance mission [p.  231], and concluded that
navigation error may have been responsible.  However, the ICAO Air Navigation
Commission (a specialist technical body) delivered its own report in February
1984, which "rejected the accident scenarios postulated by the first report".
Although it did not establish the exact cause of the aircraft's `diversion
from its flight plan track',  "the ANC's report did not make comfortable
reading and it received remarkably little press coverage." [pp.  235--236]


o There is a chapter on the search effort for the black box.  The author
discusses US deep-sea retrieval technology, including recoveries of lost US
and Soviet submarines [pp.  198--199].  A comparison is made with the Air
India crash, for which the black box was recovered with relative ease.  The
possibility is left open that KAL 007's black box may in fact have been found
(and suppressed).


o In 1978, KAL flight 902 strayed over Soviet territory at Murmansk.  The
pilot, Kim Chang Kyu, ignored Soviet fighters until they fired at his plane
(with some loss of life) and forced it down at a Soviet airfield.  All
passengers and crew were soon released, and there were no lasting
international repercussions.  [pp.  249--250] Several Soviet military
officials, however, were reportedly purged or even shot as a result of the
incident.

There certainly seems to be no lack of a precedent for KAL aircraft straying
into Soviet territory and ignoring attempts to force them to land until fired
upon.


o Two flights took off from Anchorage in roughly the same time slot -- KAL 007
and KAL 015 (with Sen. Jesse Helms aboard the latter).  Oddly enough, KAL 007
almost immediately ceased direct communication with Anchorage ground control,
and despite several direct requests to the contrary, simply relayed messages
through KAL 015.  Also, from times of arrival at various waypoints over the
Pacific, there appear to have been some anomalies in the flight speeds of both
007 and 015.

The pilot of KAL 015, Captain Y. M. Park, did not testify in the lawsuit
brought by relatives of American victims; apparently, he has never answered
questions about the incident. [pp. 291--293]



Probably the most ironic passage in the book reads, in part,

"There is, in a word, some reason to believe that risky schemes could get
hatched in a milieu like this..."

Here [p.  257] and elsewhere [p.  271], the author argues, essentially, in
favor of the notion that covert operations could have been planned and
executed by a small group of people and kept secret from the American public
and even from Cabinet officials like Secretary of State George Shultz.
Ironic, because when the book was written a few years ago, this was mere
speculation; after the Iran-Contra affair came to light, it is known to be
documented fact.


If KAL 007's overflight of Soviet territory was indeed a deliberate
passive surveillance probe, the worst-case scenario envisaged by the
planners would probably have simply been a forced landing on Soviet
territory, much like what happened after the Murmansk incident in 1978,
with no lasting effect on international relations.  However, the pilot,
who had a reputation as a "human computer" for being meticulous and
painstaking, may have decided at the end not to take the fall and the
blame for what would inevitably be explained as an incredibly careless
navigational error.  At the end, he was just minutes from international
airspace, and may have been tempted to take a chance (in any case, the
Japanese military radar tapes leave little doubt that some sort of
evasive action was attempted at the end of the flight).


Naturally, the Soviet reaction to the incident did not incline anyone to
believe them.  Incredible as it seems in today's era of glasnost, it took them
several days to even admit they had shot down a civilian airliner.  They told
a number of blatant lies and withheld information, which did much to turn
world opinion against them even further than the original incident.

Furthermore, the Soviet Union has for most of its existence been an evil
empire in the literal sense, a terrorist state (no smileys).  Any Soviet
statement about a spy mission naturally sounds like a lame, belated, and
incredibly cold-blooded excuse to avoid responsibility for an atrocity.

And yet, there are still questions.  Yes, anyone who says "the US is just as
bad as the Soviet Union" is a fool; yes, the American people would never
tolerate placing innocent lives at risk (even if the worst-case scenario had
merely been a forced landing).  But the American people would never have
tolerated selling arms to the Ayatollah, either... _if_ they had known about
it at the time.

Can we really be sure that the shadow foreign policy pursued by a small,
self-appointed group was limited to just Iran-Contra, or did William Casey and
Co. have their fingers in filthier pies?  Will we ever know?
-- 
                 Gordan Palameta
            uunet!ai.toronto.edu!utgpu!maccs!gordan

------------------------------

Date: 30 Aug 88 10:06:27 GMT
From: agate!stew.ssl.berkeley.edu!link@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Richard Link)
Subject: Re: SOlar System trashcans (Was:The Sun as a trashcan)

In article <387@didsgn.UUCP> till@didsgn.UUCP (didsgn) writes:
>In article <2821@pt.cs.cmu.edu>, jgk@speech2.cs.cmu.edu (Joe Keane) writes:
>] >The easiest way to get rid of nuclear waste would probably be to
>] >use hard land it on the moon. 
>
>Seriously, the idea doesn't seem that stupid.

The idea is SILLY! since:
(1) it would cost WAY! too much
(2) nobody in their right mind would allow hazardous! launches of
    very hazardous waste. Doesn't anyone out there remember the
    Challenger? It is much less costly and much less dangerous to
    bury the stuff in the arctic.

...Dr. Richard Link
Space Sciences Laboratory
University of California, Berkeley
link@ssl.berkeley.edu

------------------------------

Date:         Mon, 29 Aug 88 11:22:31 EDT
From: Richard Layton <RICH%TIFTON.BITNET@vma.cc.cmu.edu>
Subject:      Re: SPACE Digest V8 #340

If a highly developed intelligent life recognizes that we exist, and is
able to monitor our airways, then what more would it have to gain by
making its presence known to us?  --i.e. What do we have to offer, that
it would not already be aware of?

Wouldn't it be much smarter to sit back and watch us develop a little
longer to see in which directions we move.

For any technology we may have developed that it had not, it would be
able to view at its own discretion.  For I am sure it would have better
viewing (both audio and optical).  Indeed, it would have seen how we
developed that technology.

*====================================*================================*
*   Richard Layton                   *   Bitnet:  Rich@Tifton         *
*   Computer Systems Programmer      *   "To know about computer      *
*   Coastal Plain Experiment Station *   intelligence and like it is  *
*   Tifton, Ga  31794                *   to be doomed ..."            *
*   912-386-3385                     *   (P. H. Winston)              *
*====================================*================================*

------------------------------

Date: 29 Aug 88 18:51:14 GMT
From: eagle!icdoc!tgould!iwm@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Ian Moor)
Subject: Re: Seti


There may only be a small time interval during which a civilization radiates
RF at an easily detectable frequency. How long before we all have cable tv
over fibre optic links ? Or maybe satellites which direct all their output
at the planet. Should we be looking for something else like Infra-red
from power plants?

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #357
*******************

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To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
Reply-To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #358

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 358

Today's Topics:
			      Pioneer 10
	     Re: The sun as a trashcan (was : Plutonium)
			    Re: Plutonium
		    space exploration/exploitation
			       Re: Seti
	       Re: Inverse SETI (Was:  ET phone home?)
		Re: SETI: Why don't we hear anything?
Re: Were the Russians right about 007?   [New stuff on KAL 007 from CBC]
		  Re: space exploration/exploitation
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 29 Aug 88 16:41:57 GMT
From: math.ucla.edu!hgw@locus.ucla.edu
Subject: Pioneer 10

Greetings,

I've always wondered about this so I'm finally asking.  Is Pioneer 10 still
sending information back to earth?  Not just information on its well being but
space data.  I'm sure it's too dark to take pictures (not much to take pictures
at either).  But are there other data gathering devices working and sending back
information?  Is there anybody here on earth analysing these data?  Can these
data be distributed to people like you and me and crunched by our own computers?
If Pioneer passed by an alien spacecraft will we ever know about it?

 Thanks. 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Harold Wong         (213) 825-9040 
UCLA-Mathnet; 3915F MSA; 405 Hilgard Ave.; Los Angeles, CA 90024-1555
ARPA: hgw@math.ucla.edu          BITNET: hgw%math.ucla.edu@INTERBIT

------------------------------

Date: 30 Aug 88 13:52:08 GMT
From: jgk@speech2.cs.cmu.edu  (Joe Keane)
Subject: Re: The sun as a trashcan (was : Plutonium)

In article <1988Aug30.005423.20005@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>The best way to get really close to the Sun, in
>fact, is a Jupiter flyby (!).

Right.  A random asteroid might be even better (do any go backwards?).
Let's write _How to get to the sun in 170 (km/sec)^2_.

>>>The easiest way to get rid of nuclear waste would probably be to
>>>use hard land it on the moon...
>>
>>Please don't do this!
>
>Why not?  Assuming you have enough control to put them down within, say,
>50 km of a specific aiming point, of course.

Someone will curse the fools who sprayed plutonium on her land.

--Joe
--

------------------------------

Date: 30 Aug 88 14:24:59 GMT
From: jgk@speech2.cs.cmu.edu  (Joe Keane)
Subject: Re: Plutonium

In article <880829154722.000008A8.ABBF.AA@Virginia> pcp2g@CDC.ACC.VIRGINIA.EDU (=3545***) writes:
>4) There are two problems I overlooked--one is that  what happens if
>   the rocket carrying the Pu blows up twenty miles up? Scratch one eco- 
>   sphere, that's what. A payload like that is too risky to launch.

Launches won't always use explosives.  Maybe an ice cube, or a launch
loop, or a skyhook.  Of course you embed the plutonium in ceramic and
concrete.  If something fails, find the pieces and re-launch them.

--Joe
--

------------------------------

Date: 30 Aug 88 13:53:00 GMT
From: apollo!nelson_p@eddie.mit.edu  (Peter Nelson)
Subject: space exploration/exploitation

>  The problem is
>that _the government restricts the launching by Americans_.  The best the

  What are the precise nature of these restrictions?
 
  Why can't the promoters of these ventures take the launch
  part of the operation offshore, like to some Caribbean Island?
  Many of those islands would be thrilled to have the revenue
  and added influx of tourists, reporters, technicians, etc.
  The R&D and other facilities of this space corporation could
  still be in the 'states.  
 
  And BTW, don't try the argument that the governemnt restrictions
  consist of unfair competition because they are tax-supported and
  therefore aren't competing on a level-playing-field.  There *is*
  no competition for the space-colony/asteroid-mining/solar-power-
  in-space/..etc ventures these wannabe space capitalists propose.
  You're not competing with the government in those ventures; they
  have no plans to do those things.
 
  The bottom line remains that this notion of free-enterprise
  in space is just a pipe-dream with a lot of conveeenient
  excuses by it's proponents.    


                                     --Peter Nelson

------------------------------

Date: 30 Aug 88 15:48:33 GMT
From: mailrus!uflorida!beach.cis.ufl.edu!jco@nrl-cmf.arpa  (Dumpmaster John)
Subject: Re: Seti

In article <IWM.88Aug29195204@asun3.ic.ac.uk> iwm@asun3.ic.ac.uk (Ian Moor) writes:
>There may only be a small time interval during which a civilization radiates
>RF at an easily detectable frequency. How long before we all have cable tv
>over fibre optic links ? Or maybe satellites which direct all their output
>at the planet. Should we be looking for something else like Infra-red
>from power plants?

I don't think you have to worry about RF comming to an end in very soon.
There are many things that you can use Radio for that you can't use
Fiber Optics for.  (like in your car, but then in any advance form of
transportation you will have a tape deck or CD player :-)  And while
having satellites broadcast down on the planet might be what big
stations will do.  Little ones (WRAG here in town) will still broadcast
out (unless someone wants to donate a Transponder to them.) 

(The rest comes from my 1000 level astronomy course.)
As for IR you have to be off planet to pick it up.  Because the H2O in
the air absorbs most of the incoming IR radiation.  And until we get a
space program again we can't talk about off planet things.  :-(

later
jco
--
"And the sun is eclipsed by the moon" -- Pink Floyd
In Real Life:		UUCP: ...ihnp4!codas!uflorida!beach.cis.ufl.edu!jco
John C. Orthoefer	Internet: jco@beach.cis.ufl.edu
University of Florida	Floyd Mailing List: eclipse-request@beach.cis.ufl.edu

------------------------------

Date: 30 Aug 88 14:23:44 GMT
From: nsc!taux01!taux02!amos@decwrl.dec.com  (Amos Shapir)
Subject: Re: Inverse SETI (Was:  ET phone home?)

About receiving radio signals from earth on near stars - doesn't the
Sun's radiation at these frequencies completely drown anything generated
on earth?
-- 
	Amos Shapir				amos@nsc.com
National Semiconductor (Israel)
6 Maskit st. P.O.B. 3007, Herzlia 46104, Israel  Tel. +972 52 522261
34 48 E / 32 10 N			(My other cpu is a NS32532)

------------------------------

Date: 28 Aug 88 21:05:15 GMT
From: oliveb!tymix!antares!pnelson@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (phil nelson)
Subject: Re: SETI: Why don't we hear anything?

In article <1988Aug22.183500.6536@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>In article <127@antares.UUCP> pnelson@antares.UUCP (phil nelson) writes:
>> I think that the problem of creating these "self-replicating robots" may
>>be more difficult than we imagine, perhaps too difficult even for our
>>hypothetical "advanced" xenophobes.
>
>If so, the difficulties must be in an area we can't foresee today.  People
>have looked at building self-replicating robots.  The conclusion has been
>that we can't do it today, but it doesn't look that far off.  There don't
>seem to be any fundamental barriers.  Given that we haven't done it yet,
>it's always possible to speculate that there is some bogeyman lurking
>hidden somewhere, but I for one am reluctant to accept this without some
>more specific suggestion of where the obstacle lies.
>

Creating machines that can replicate themselves within a simple environment
will not be difficult, creating machines that can survive and reproduce in
the real world is another matter. I would be very interested to hear who
has concluded that it "doesn't look that far off", I hear practically no
speculation in this area.

I prefer not to be too specific about the obstacles, but consider that there
are no examples of self-maintaining machines in our entire technology, and
no evidence (beyond talk) of a trend in that direction. Consider the problem
of re-making the Shuttle so that it operated without Human intervention. It
will have to find it's own fuels, mine it's own metals, plastics, glass, etc.,
refine them all, manufacture each one of it's replacement parts, replace
them as needed _and know when the parts need replacement_ etc. etc...

The difficulty of the above should be obvious after some consideration. I
submit that the only working example of the self-replicating machine (life)
is poorly understood and is apparently constructed in fundamentally different
way than the machines we know how to build, therefore, we can not predict
when (or if) our technology will be able to build such machines.

>> Among other lifelike qualities this race of robots might require is the
>>ability to adapt to new conditions. Assuming for a moment that these robots
>>can be (and are) created, isn't it likely that they would either evolve into
>>something more benevolent or (perhaps more likely) devolve into something
>>much less terrible?
>
>Well, it's not clear why they would require the ability to evolve -- their
>job is pretty well-defined and their environment is not a particularly
>variable one.  The ability to evolve might be useful, especially in the
>long term, but it would not seem essential.

I used the wrong word, I really meant _mutate_, not evolve. It is not a
question of whether the machine would "require the ability", rather, how
well will it maintain it's functionality and _purpose_ after being damaged
and having repaired itself for the Nth time, and how faithfully will it
replicate it's functionality and purpose in each of it's offspring?

I cannot agree that the environment is not particularly variable, the
environment was defined in the hypothesis as the universe, which, since it
includes everything that is, has to be about as variable as you can get.

>And assuming that evolution is provided for, why would they evolve in the
>direction of benevolence?  It seems to me that evolution the other way
>is much more likely:  unless one postulates a mutation so radical that
>it converts the machines into friends, it is in the machines' interests
>to be the most efficient enemies possible, to prevent the development of
>a race capable of destroying them.
>

Well, the most obvious change that might occur (apart from simply losing
interest in the original purpose) is that a machine designed to destroy
might begin to destroy other such machines. If the machines had something
like intelligence (probably required in order to have any chance of achieving
the purpose) they might easily organize into warring camps, each group could
become so absorbed dealing with the immediate threat (each other) that they
would be delayed indefinitely from pursuing the original purpose.

>In the long run, "time and chance happen to us all", but for a well-crafted
>self-replicating machine, "the long run" might be a very long time indeed.

I agree, given that the machines can be built, that they might be very
dangerous for a long time, but I define 'long' by our standards, maybe 100K
years. not even enough time to kill a Galaxy, let alone the whole universe.

Having said all the above, I would like to point out that our luck might be
bad, the hypothetical nasty race might live (or have lived) only tens or
hundreds of light years from us, and we might be making a very serious (as
in our last) mistake by broadcasting to the universe. I am all for listening,
we should do more of it, though we will need to be very careful if we ever
receive anything, as has been pointed out here recently. I am not kidding
about the broadcasting, I wish it would stop.

>-- 
>Intel CPUs are not defective,  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
>they just act that way.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu


-- 
{ames|pyramid}oliveb!tymix!antares!pnelson  | Contains: Potentially hazardous
OnTyme: QSATS.P/Nelson  POTS: (408)922-7508 | questions, Potentially hazardous
Disclaimer: Not officially representing     | opinions, Potentially hazardous
McDonnell Douglas Corporation policy.       | comments, Virtual Carcinogens

------------------------------

Date: 30 Aug 88 15:35:53 GMT
From: hplabsb!dsmith@hplabs.hp.com  (David Smith)
Subject: Re: Were the Russians right about 007?   [New stuff on KAL 007 from CBC]

In article <1397@maccs.McMaster.CA>, gordan@maccs.McMaster.CA (gordan) writes:
> [followups directed to the politics groups only]

Right.  Post to irrelevant groups to get maximum exposure for the
conspiracy theory, then limit replies.  I won't debate your 007
information(?), as I have no independent checks on it, but given
the mistakes in the description of the 1978 incident, I have to doubt.

> o In 1978, KAL flight 902 strayed over Soviet territory at Murmansk.  The
> pilot, Kim Chang Kyu, ignored Soviet fighters until they fired at his plane
> (with some loss of life) and forced it down at a Soviet airfield.

Published reports had it that the fighter pilots indicated "follow me", then
lead-footed it toward the base so that the 707 could not keep up.  They
came back and fired a missile into the wing root, the plane went down out
of control, and the fighters went home, saying the target was destroyed.
The 707 pilot managed to regain control at low altitude, and flew around
for quite some time before finding a frozen lake to put down on.

> If KAL 007's overflight of Soviet territory was indeed a deliberate
> passive surveillance probe, the worst-case scenario envisaged by the
> planners would probably have simply been a forced landing on Soviet
> territory, much like what happened after the Murmansk incident in 1978,
> with no lasting effect on international relations.

Humph.  They would have known that the Soviet pilots had intended to
destroy the airliner, and thought they had succeeded.

-- 

			David Smith
			HP Labs
			dsmith@hplabs.hp.com

------------------------------

Date: 30 Aug 88 17:48:55 GMT
From: kevin@csvax.caltech.edu  (Kevin Van Horn)
Subject: Re: space exploration/exploitation

In article <3e2b1c47.ae47@apollo.COM> nelson_p@apollo.COM (Peter Nelson)
writes: 
>  Why can't the promoters of these ventures take the launch
>  part of the operation offshore, like to some Caribbean Island?

Sorry, but the Commercial Space Launch Act specifies that all United States
Citizens, *anywhere*, are subject to its provisions.  And one of the most
fiendish parts of this Act is the authority it gives the Secretary of
Transportation to deny permission to launch if a launch is deemed not to be in
the best interests of "national security" or "national policy".  Such a wide
authority to deny permission to launch contributes to an atmosphere of
uncertainty and scares potential investors away from commercial space ventures.

>  And BTW, don't try the argument that the governemnt restrictions
>  consist of unfair competition because they are tax-supported and
>  therefore aren't competing on a level-playing-field.  There *is*
>  no competition for the space-colony/asteroid-mining/solar-power-
>  in-space/..etc ventures these wannabe space capitalists propose.

But before anyone can think about doing those things, we need cheap, reliable
space transportation.  And governmental obstacles to entrepeneurs attempting
to provide such cheap transportation include the provisions of the Commercial
Space Launch Act, demands by the State Department that a *munitions export
license* must be obtained before one can launch a rocket, problems with the
FCC (once they refused to allow Gary Hudson a self-destruct frequency needed
for range safety, and they have tripped up SSI by refusing to allow a would-be
customer any frequencies for their satellites), etc.

>  The bottom line remains that this notion of free-enterprise
>  in space is just a pipe-dream with a lot of conveeenient
>  excuses by it's proponents.    

Tell that to American Rocket Company, the Hercules-Orbital Sciences
Corporation partnership, and Pacific American Launch Systems.  All three are
pushing on to provide new launchers in spite of governmental obstacles.  AMROC
has a hybrid vehicle (solid fuel + liquid oxidizer) called the Industrial
Launch Vehicle, has built and tested several engines, and (last I heard) is
planning their first suborbital flight for later this year.  Hercules and
Orbital Sciences Corporation are building Pegasus, a solid-fuel rocket dropped
from an airplane; as of May (when they first announced Pegasus) they were
half-way through its two-year development and had spent a third of the funds
they had allotted for it.  Pacific American Launch Systems is building the
Liberty IA, a liquid-fuel rocket designed to be as simple as possible, and
will be providing complete launch services (using a portable launch pad that
can be put up in two days); they have built the first stage and are in the 
process of testing it.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #358
*******************

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From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
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To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
Reply-To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #359

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 359

Today's Topics:
		   Re: Skintight space suits (long)
	     Re: The sun as a trashcan (was : Plutonium)
		    Re: moon buggy as robot rover
		       eyewitnesses to history
			Re: Using up old SRBs
			       Re: SETI
		  Re: space news from July 11 AW&ST
			  Re: Why no aliens
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 30 Aug 88 16:05 EDT
From: KEVIN@a.cfr.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: Skintight space suits (long)

   I tried to post this directy to the arpanet space bboard, but it 
appears that the mailer screwed it up.  Hence the repost...

   There appear to be some points of confusion about the 'skintight space
suit'.  I hope this clears some of these up...

   First, I got my information from NASA CR-1892, _The Development Of A Space
Activity Suit_, by Annis and Webb.  I was pointed to this by a J. E. Pournelle
article; I got the real thing from my congresscritter, as well as a few 
extras (including a NASA book of predictions from 1980 to 2000, hopelessly
outdated now).  I have since lost the document in one of my many apartment 
moves (sorry to those who wanted to borrow the thing), but I have an excellent 
memory (Who? Huh? What's my name? :-), and studied the thing rather carefully.

   The 'gasket' referred to in several postings may be leading to some 
mistaken impressions.  This is a seal around the neck of the wearer, which
separates the air-filled portion of the suit (helmet and a 'chest-bag') from 
the nasty cold vacuum.  Note that the only skin kept in atmosphere is the head
and neck.  In short: the suit is a multilayer elastic garment.  It is there
to assist the skin (the real container) by keeping it from stretching.  The
skin provides the vacuum barrier - it is exposed through the pores of the suit.
The elastic provides ~100 torr to the extremities, ~170 torr to the torso.
As the torso of the average human changes volume when breathing, there is a 
'chest-bag' attached via a rather large channel to the helmet.  This fits down
and around the torso, so that when the wearer breaths in the chest-bag deflates
by the same amount, maintaining volume.  Thus the wearer need not fight the
suit to inhale.  Note that the space between the bag and the torso is vacuum.
I recall one comment in the report about how the wearer experienced quite a
chill for a second when the chamber pressure went below the partial pressure
of water - the sweat under the bag boiling off!

   The suit was tested in vacuum - the best that chambers can maintain at zero
altitude, well below partial pressure of water.  These tests extended for 
hours, including full mobility tests to compare the SAS to the current hard
suits.  No skin problems were noted.  Some swellings were observed, due to
imperfect fit of the suit.  Note that the skin is a high quality fine grade
leather - it's tougher than one might think.  In other words, the blarsted 
thing _works_!  And the wearer didn't explode...

   As to wearing the suit under ambient conditions inside - the chest bladder
would of course deflate without the helmet, but I don't think that would 
relieve all the pressure on the torso.  The people who noted the difficulty of
breathing with a pressure differential are quite correct.  Also, I suspect 
that an extra 100 torr on the extremities would be bad.  ("Just a sec, Houston,
my arms and legs just fell asleep...")  Perhaps if they were unzipped?  


   The suit did have problems: tailoring had to be _exact_, and people do 
change shape over time.  More work was needed on 'rounders' that filled out
areas that were too concave to receive pressure from the elastic, such as the
flats of hands and feet, armpits, and them places where the sun don't shine.
The ones they worked up functioned, but could have been better.  Putting on
seven layers of _tight_ suit was a b***h, and required assistance.  A single
layer suit would be that much worse.  Annis and Webb suggested work in zipper
pulls, donning aids, and creative tailoring for this.  Perhaps the addition of
pressure tubes akin to those on G-suits so that the elastic didn't do all the
work?
   Note that none of these are showstoppers.  Development problems, yes, but
not too bad in my opinion.  Also note that the authors estimated the suit cost
if in production at 2000 1974 dollars, quite a bit cheaper than the 200K 1980
dollars shuttle suit.  
   Hope this clears up some of these questions.  If you want more information,
I suggest you see if you can get hold of a copy of the (not in print) report.

                                               kwr
					    kr0u@andrew.cmu.edu

  "Jest so ya know..."

------------------------------

Date: 30 Aug 88 20:28:06 GMT
From: polya!crew@labrea.stanford.edu  (Roger Crew)
Subject: Re: The sun as a trashcan (was : Plutonium)

In article <1988Aug30.005423.20005@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
> In article <2821@pt.cs.cmu.edu> jgk@speech2.cs.cmu.edu (Joe Keane) writes:
> >>The easiest way to get rid of nuclear waste would probably be to
> >>use hard land it on the moon...
> >
> >Please don't do this!
> 
> Why not?  Assuming you have enough control to put them down within, say,
> 50 km of a specific aiming point, of course.

But if the stuff gets too concentrated, it's going to start emitting
mysterious waves of magnetic energy (... without heat, mind you), and
then it's going to explode and the moon will be thrown out of its
orbit to go wandering about the galaxy.

This would be a really bad thing to have happen (for a number of reasons).

:-)

--
Roger Crew
Usenet:    {arpa gateways, decwrl, uunet, rutgers}!polya.stanford.edu!crew
Internet:  crew@polya.Stanford.EDU

------------------------------

Date: 30 Aug 88 21:25:02 GMT
From: mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Mike Smithwick)
Subject: Re: moon buggy as robot rover

In article <8808291551.AA03755@angband.s1.gov> LUCAS@MESCAL.PSY.CMU.EDU writes:
>I have a question concerning what seems to have been a missed opportunity in
>the Apollo program. 

[deleted stuff about remote capabilites]

>These facts seem to imply that (a) there was a direct
>video downlink from the rover to earth and (b) there was at least some kind
>of data uplink for the camera controls.

Yup, sure was.

>Given this, it would seem that it
>would have been a small matter to also permit ground control of the rover
>itself.  This would have permitted the abandoned rover to be sent out on a
>one-way camera safari over the hills and far away.
>
>Why wasn't this done?  I can think of several possible reasons:
>1) Nobody thought of it (hard to believe).

You're right. There was, at one time, pretty serious thought given to
making this a fully remote controlled vehicle.

>2) There wouldn't have been enough battery power left to get very far (but
>   surely they must have planned a healthy reserve when the buggy was
>   occupied).

The batteries lasted only a few days after LM liftoff. The flight rules
stated that the crew was not to travel further than they could walk in case
of a major rover failure, so super-powerful batteries were not a prime
concern.

>3) There might have been difficulties tracking the earth with the dish on
>   the back of the buggy (How was this handled during the normal use of the
>   vehicle?).

The dish was hand pointed by one of the astros after each traverse. This is
one reason why we never saw any video while the Rover was in motion, as the
antenna would quickly bounce away from it's earth orientation. (Actually,
the crew on Apollo 15 once left the TV on when they started up, the camera
in it's stowed position was looking straight down at the ground. But none
of the networks broadcast that. I only saw it on a screen behind Uncle
Walter as he was babbling about something else. Curiously, it isn't on the
10 hours or so of videotape I have of the Apollo 15 downlink) 

>4) Insufficient time/funds (I seem to remember that the whole rover vehicle
>   project was something of an afterthought).
>
>Anybody know the facts?
>

I'm not really sure whether these are the true facts, but what I heard
was that the additional weight of the automatic electronics, pointing 
devices, higher power transmitter, and solar-cells was just too much
to ask for.

I do have a book from the 1967 Summer Conference on Lunar Exploration
which gives the geoligists wish list for Apollo. One scenerio has
a later Apollo carrying a fully remote controlled rover landing in the
crater Alphonsus. After that mission, the rover would be directed on 
about a several hundred mile trek, collecting samples, taking photos, 
to a later manned landing site. In the back of the book we even get a 
map of the proposed rover route out of the crater.

Sigh. If only. . .

On to another barely similar subject, here's a bit of Apollo trivia. 
Here's a list of landing sites for Apollo, before flights 18-20 were
axed:

	       Apollo 13 - March 1970, Fra Mauro
	       Apollo 14 - July  1970, Crater Censorinus
			   (on the southern boarder of Tranquility)

               Apollo 15 - Nov 1970, Taurus Littrow 
			   (Apollo 17's landing area)
           
	       Apollo 16 - April 1971, Northern hills of Tycho [!!!!]
			   (at the Surveyor VII landing site)

               Apollo 17 - Sept 1971, Marius Hills
			   (in the middle of the Ocean of Storms)

               Apollo 18 - Feb. 1972, Schroter's Valley 
			   (a big rille near Aristarchus)
               
	       Apollo 19 - July 1972, Hyginus Rille/Linear Rille
	       
	       Apollo 20 - December 1972, the floor of Copernicus
			   (that's right! Copernicus! The most
			    spectacular crater on the moon!)

double sigh!
-- 
			   *** mike (starship janitor) smithwick ***
"You can fool some of the people all of the time, or all of the people
 some of the time, but you can't fool Mom".
[disclaimer : nope, I don't work for NASA, I take full blame for my ideas]

------------------------------

Date: 30 Aug 88 22:04:02 GMT
From: mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Mike Smithwick)
Subject: eyewitnesses to history

[]

I thought I'd start something not so serious here. . .

How many of you guys out there in net.land have ever attended a
launch? I have had the priviledge of going back to Florida
for the Apollo 11, 15 and 17 launches.

I have yet to go back for a shuttle launch, since they're so often
postponed, but I hope to sometime in the near future. I did have the
good fortune to be at the VIP site for the STS-1 landing (standing
right in front of Dr. Keith Glennan the first NASA administrator),
and later at the ceremonies welcoming the astronauts home. (I'll never forget
the moment with Govenor Jerry Brown awarded Crippen and Young the 
"Order of California". I heard that it was some medal he had picked up
at a trophy shop a couple of days earlier.)

The daytime Apollo launches were visible for a few seconds after the
second stage ignition. But Apollo 17 launch at nite, was clearly visible
thru the S-IV-B ignition, until it went below the horizon.


On a similar note, did anyone observe the Apollos outbound to the moon?
I saw the Apollo 14 S-IV-B LOX dump without a telescope. It hit 
about first magnitude, and looked like a small comet for about 1/2 hour.
Afterwards we were able to follow it for hours thru the night with a 
16" reflector. Sun glinted off the LM panels, and the 4 LM adapter panels 
were flashing once every couple of seconds, as they were
tumbling.



-- 
			   *** mike (starship janitor) smithwick ***
"You can fool some of the people all of the time, or all of the people
 some of the time, but you can't fool Mom".
[disclaimer : nope, I don't work for NASA, I take full blame for my ideas]

------------------------------

Date: 30 Aug 88 20:08:57 GMT
From: fluke!ssc-vax!eder@beaver.cs.washington.edu  (Dani Eder)
Subject: Re: Using up old SRBs

Another way to use up the SRBs is to use them as boosters one
at a time.  Simply strap a second stage on top of one solid
motor.  You will have to add an adapter over the current motor
nose.  If the motor leaks a little, you don't care, because there
is nothing next to the motor to be bothered.  No bending loads
either, since there are no SSMEs thrusting at an angle.


-- 
Dani Eder / Boeing / Space Station Program / uw-beaver!ssc-vax!eder
(205)464-4150(w) (205)461-7801(h) 1075 Dockside Drive #905 Huntsville, 
AL 35824  34 40 N latitude 86 40 W longitude +100m altitude, Earth

------------------------------

Date: 30 Aug 88 18:41:38 GMT
From: fluke!ssc-vax!eder@beaver.cs.washington.edu  (Dani Eder)
Subject: Re: SETI

In article <3e039c4b.ae47@apollo.COM>, nelson_p@apollo.COM (Peter Nelson) writes:
> 
>   One risk is we may put a lot of work and money into making a probe
>   which may be passed on it's way to Alpha Centauri or Tau Ceti 50 years
>   later by a faster probe.   Has anyone done any realistic calculations
>   of what the fastest spacecraft we could build with something like
>   existing technology?   How much is that figure likely to change a 
>   few decades down the road?  

One way to get a feel for the problem is to consider interstellar travel
as an energy problem.  The kinetic energy of a probe goes up as the
square of its velocity (neglecting relativistic effects).  The total
energy used by mankind has increased at roughly 7% (give or take a few
percent) per year in this part of the century.  If we assume that
a fixed fraction of annual energy use by mankind is allocated to
powering space probes, then the final velocity of the probe goes up
by 3.5% per year.

Thus, if a probe takes 30 years to get to it's destination, we could
wait a year and launch a faster probe that takes 28.985 years to arrive
and thus beat the earlier probe by five days.  So, until your trip time
is under 30 years, you might as well wait to launch.  This gets even
shorter if you assume that as technology progresses, you can get more
functionality from a given weight of probe.  In other words, the later
probe is a better probe and it arrives faster too.

The result for Alpha Centauri, at 4.3 light years, is it pys to wait
until we have 0.15c velocities.

A for the fastest ship we could build with existing technology, full
fissioning of a kilogram of uranium releases 2.7E13 joules.  Assume
25% of this ends up used effectively for propulsion.  The caracteristic
velocity resulting from this is 3.6E6 meters/second.  If the initial
ship consists of 50% uranium and 50% everything else, then the
final velocity will be 2.5E6 meters/second (0.0085c).


-- 
Dani Eder / Boeing / Space Station Program / uw-beaver!ssc-vax!eder
(205)464-4150(w) (205)461-7801(h) 1075 Dockside Drive #905 Huntsville, 
AL 35824  34 40 N latitude 86 40 W longitude +100m altitude, Earth

------------------------------

Date: 31 Aug 88 02:03:04 GMT
From: mailrus!eecae!nancy!usenet@nrl-cmf.arpa  (Usenet file owner)
Subject: Re: space news from July 11 AW&ST

In article <1988Aug29.172104.10823@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:

>Then we'll have to ground the shuttle permanently.  There is no way to
>fly it without risking loss of another orbiter.  The NRC report on
>shuttle frequency put it even more strongly:  if the shuttle continues
>flying, another orbiter *WILL* be lost eventually.

Unfortunately, in the wake of the Challenger explosion, no one has done
the necessary *political* work to get the message out to the US public
and Congress that spaceflight entails risks, and there are reasons for
taking these risks.  Instead, we've been fed a steady diet of "Safety 
first!" messages, and the public has been led to believe that there 
will be no more shuttle accidents.  What I fear this means is the next
shuttle accident will be the *last* US manned spaceflight, at least for 
several decades.

--Ken Josenhans
    UUCP:...{uunet,rutgers}!umix!itivax!msudoc!krj  (maybe...) 
    BITNET:  13020KRJ@MSU   Internet: krj@frith.egr.msu.edu

------------------------------

Date: 30 Aug 88 16:08:01 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Why no aliens

In article <2826@pt.cs.cmu.edu> dep@cat.cmu.edu (David Pugh) writes:
>You may be half right, though -- it may be the case that any race "advanced"
>enough to make contact over interstellar distances always ends up destroying 
>itself (either with nukes or something worse). Suppose, for example, that it
>is possible to build a weapon that would kill everyone on the planet...

Could be done now, probably, if one of the superpowers wanted to spend enough
money and effort on it.

>... something like this may happen in the next 20 years ...

Don't forget that if things had happened differently, we might already have
a small lunar colony.  Based on our own experience, it would seem that a
species acquires space travel and planetary-sterilization capability at
about the same time, so it's anybody's guess which would become a major
factor in species survival first.  This isn't very satisfactory as a
*universal* explanation for the lack of visitors.
-- 
Intel CPUs are not defective,  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
they just act that way.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #359
*******************

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Date: Tue, 13 Sep 88 01:06:07 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8809130806.AA08666@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
Reply-To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #360

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 360

Today's Topics:
		   Are we ready for terraforming???
			    Re: Pioneer 10
		    Re: Space Station power supply
			Naming the new Shuttle
			  SETI and Prudence
	     Re: The sun as a trashcan (was : Plutonium)
		 Re: Are we ready for terraforming???
		    spce exploration/exploitation
		    space exploration/exploitation
	     Re: The sun as a trashcan (was : Plutonium)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 30 Aug 88 22:53:17 GMT
From: vsi1!daver!mfgfoc!mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Mike Thompson)
Subject: Are we ready for terraforming???


Subject: Are we ready to terraform???
Newsgroups: sci.space
Keywords: terraforming earth mad scientist

In todays San Jose Mercury News (Monday August 10th) in the Science and
Medicine section there is an interesting article about extordinary
measures some scientist are proposing to repair the Earth's ailing
environment.  Among the proposals mentioned to reverse the depletion of
ozone and excess amounts of Carbon Dioxide:

1.  Mount giant infra-red lasers on mountain tops and zap the CFC's
(chlorofluorocarbons) while they are still in the lower atmosphere.
I guess if that doesn't work then can point the lasers at the factories
causing the CFC's. ( many :-} )

2.  Use rockets and balloons to dump massive amounts of ozone in the 
upper atmosphere to replace what is being lost.

3.  Dump millions of tons (35M to be exact) of Sulfer Dioxide into the
upper atmosphere a year so that it would increase the Earths reflectivity
and thus cool us down.  Say good-bye blue sky, hello acid rain.

4.  Covering the ocean with white styrafoam chips and our roofs with mirrors
to reflect more radiation back to space.  Better check with the dolphins
and whales first though.

5.  Errecting huge, but very thin, orbiting satellites shaped like huge 
umbrellas to reflect up to 2% of the suns light away from the earth before
it ever reaches the atmosphere.  I wonder if property values in the shadows
of these umbrellas will go up or down.

6.  Brief mention of re-planting new forrest to replace the ones we have
already destroyed and increase pressure on the major polluters to curtail
their evil ways.  I do have to admit that these ideas are to crazy and
radical for even me to accept. :-}

What I am wondering is that if each of these solutions are considered
technically feasible (albeit dangerous), can we not apply these 
techniques to terraforming Venus or Mars.  I think the cost of transportation
would be only a minor expense when one considers the magnitude of such
proposals.  I would rather practice with these planets than the Earth,
although the Marsians and Venusians may disagree.  

On the serious side though, I believe that it is incredibly sad that mankinds
first attempts at terraforming will be on the Earth just to keep it
habitable.  I feel that we will have to eventually implement some type of
global scheme to clean up the earth and the longer we wait, the more
drastic it will be.

Just thought I would post the above ideas to let everyone know that there
are many people out there thinking of ideas to make your tomarrow a
little brighter.  (or dimmer if you live under a space umbrella)

Mike Thompson

Disclaimer:  The article mentions that these proposals are not meant to 
spark concrete plans, but to inspire thought.  I only worry that a 
politician may think that styrafoam chips spread across our oceans and
dumping Sulfer Dioxide into our atmosphere may sound like good ideas.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael P. Thompson                      FOCUS Semiconductor Systems, Inc.
net: (sun!daver!mfgfoc!engfoc!mike)      570 Maude Court
att: (408) 738-0600 ext 370              Sunnyvale, CA  94086 USA
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: 30 Aug 88 23:50:50 GMT
From: clyde!watmath!utgpu!utzoo!henry@bellcore.com  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Pioneer 10

In article <46@sunset.MATH.UCLA.EDU> hgw@MATH.UCLA.EDU () writes:
>I've always wondered about this so I'm finally asking.  Is Pioneer 10 still
>sending information back to earth?  Not just information on its well being but
>space data...

Yes, it's still returning data from some of its particles-and-fields
instruments.  There is considerable interest, in particular, in finding
out where the boundary between the Sun's atmosphere (aka the solar wind)
and the interstellar medium is.  It was originally thought that there
was a good chance that P10 would have passed it by now; nope.

>I'm sure it's too dark to take pictures (not much to take pictures
>at either).

Pioneer 10 didn't have a particularly spiffy camera anyway.

>... Can these data
> be distributed to people like you and me and crunched by our own computers?

You could probably get it, if you knew where to ask and were willing to pay
duplication costs.  (Actually, some of it may be covered by the usual sort
of "prime investigator gets one year's use of the data before it goes
public" rules, but it's all public domain eventually.)  Most of it will be
singularly boring.

>If Pioneer passed by an alien spacecraft will we ever know about it?

Hmm, someone more familiar with P10's instruments than I would have to
answer that one.  I suspect the answer is "maybe" -- it depends on whether
the alien spacecraft's propulsion systems, etc., show up on any of the
instruments.  They weren't designed for alien-spacecraft detection...
-- 
Intel CPUs are not defective,  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
they just act that way.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 31 Aug 88 01:07:46 GMT
From: island!robert@uunet.uu.net  (Robert Leyland)
Subject: Re: Space Station power supply

In article <8808190216.AA11489@watdcsu> allsop@watacs.uwaterloo.ca (Peter Allsop) writes:
>
> ...
> In addition AC is safer. High tension DC creates two problems:
>
>      1) Unidirectional magnetic fields.
>      2) The "grab-hold" effect if a person touches a bare wire.
>
>The second property results from the fact that you can force a muscle
>to contract by applying an external DC voltage.  This means that if
>you accidently touch a live conductor your hand (arm, whatever) will tend
>"grab" the cable ... and you can't let go!  To make matters worse anybody
>that grabs you to pull you away may well end up stuck to you.  Have you
>ever touched a 115V AC line and felt a "pulsing" effect?  The pulses are
>when the power crosses zero, and if they weren't there you couldn't have
>let go!  ....

While I agree with Peter's assertions about the benefits of AC over DC. The
"grab hold" effect is *NOT* one of them. AC is more dangerous here, as those
"pulsations" happen to fast for your nerves to react, and you can't let go!

With DC you at least have the possibility of "peeling" off your hand without
the muscles continually being re-stimulated and gripping tighter.

Naturally this is not something that one *wants* to experience....

PS. the grab hold effect is why you should always approach something that may
be carrying an electric current with the back of your hand, so that if the
charge is present your muscles will contract pulling your hand AWAY from the
conductor.

Robert Leyland

[Professional Stunt Performers - Do Not Attempt This At Home]

------------------------------

Resent-Message-Id: <UX6zZHy00VseA7Y0pX@andrew.cmu.edu>
Resent-Date: Wed, 31 Aug 88 09:04:19 -0400 (EDT)
Resent-From: Ted Anderson <ota+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Resent-To: Space <space+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Return-Path: <dddurda@pine.circa.ufl.edu>
Date: 30 Aug 88 15:15:00 EDT
From: "DURDA" <dddurda@pine.circa.ufl.edu>
Subject: Naming the new Shuttle
To: "ota" <ota@angband.s1.gov>


	I realize that this is highly unoriginal but I want to get people
thinking about it - PLEASE, the new shuttle orbiter *must* be named Phoenix!
There are two reasons that this may not come about. First, as I understand it,
NASA has given the name selection process over to the nation's school children.
(Nothing wrong with this at all! I just hope someone would plant the seed of
the idea in their minds.) Second, (and this is the main problem), shuttle
orbiters must be named after maritime research vessels. My question, then, is
'Were there or are there any maritime research vessels named Phoenix?' I don't
think we need to ask HAL why this would be a good name!

				Dan Durda  <DDDURDA@UFPINE>

------------------------------

Subject: SETI and Prudence
Date: Wed, 31 Aug 88 10:06:26 -0400
From: "F.Baube" <fbaube@note.nsf.gov>


Perhaps ridiculous, but ..
It wouldn't have taken much for Hitler to still be firmly
entrenched in Europe; my basis for believing this belongs in
alt.history, not here, but What If .. it were *his* type leading
our species into space.  Maybe his brand of mass insanity would
expire before the advent interstellar travel, maybe not, but ..
I for one would not want to be found out by a space-faring
"civilization" led by Hitler's ilk.

#include <disclaimer.h>

------------------------------

Date: 30 Aug 88 20:42:43 GMT
From: mcvax!unido!tub!tmpmbx!netmbx!alderaan@uunet.uu.net  (Thomas Cervera)
Subject: Re: The sun as a trashcan (was : Plutonium)

In article <2818@pt.cs.cmu.edu>, dep@cat.cmu.edu (David Pugh) writes:
> ...
> 
> The easiest way to get rid of nuclear waste would probably be to
> use hard land it on the moon. Would it be possible to build a
> railgun/mass-driver/etc. which could launch small (1kg) payloads
> to crash land on the moon?

I think the moon isn't the right place to drop Pu garbage to.
Look, I hope that sometimes men will be able to live on extraterrestrial
places. Moon could be a first step on this way, because it's the nearest
'planet' to us.

But, what about two other suggestions :

1) We could send Pu garbage *out* of our solar system.
2) We could use the Space Shuttle to get spacecrafts payloaded with Pu to
orbit and then out of our solar system.

The problem I see is the danger if an accident occurs during launch.
The costs of dumping radioactive stuff into space, I think, wouldn't be
higher than keeping it here on earth under expensive security measures,
because time is money, as you know.

--

alderaan
OP RKOpdp (RSTS/E)
FB Mathematik/Informatik
RKO Berlin

Dieffenbachstrasze 60-61
1000 Berlin 61

------------------------------

Date: 31 Aug 88 18:14:40 GMT
From: jlg@lanl.gov  (Jim Giles)
Subject: Re: Are we ready for terraforming???

>From article <404@mfgfoc.UUCP>, by mike@mfgfoc.UUCP (Mike Thompson):
> 
> 3.  Dump millions of tons (35M to be exact) of Sulfer Dioxide into the
> upper atmosphere a year so that it would increase the Earths reflectivity
> and thus cool us down.  Say good-bye blue sky, hello acid rain.

Millions of tons is not far off the present volcanic loading of the
atmosphere with sulpher dioxide.  Well over 90% of the global 
atmospheric loading of sulpher dioxide is volcanic.  This makes you
wonder why acid rain is such a recent problem (and it is).  Could it
be that _other_ pollutants are mainly responsible? 

J. Giles

------------------------------

Date: 30 Aug 88 19:39:00 GMT
From: apollo!nelson_p@eddie.mit.edu  (Peter Nelson)
Subject: spce exploration/exploitation


 In response to my suggestion that a private company could
 be formed and even launch offshore if necessary, I got email
 from one individual (whose anonymity I wiil protect)-- 

>It is against the law to launch. It's against USA law for you 
>(a USA citizen) to launch *anywhere*.

>Launch offshore, and get arrested when you return.

>(The ostensible reason is that the space treaty provides that the
>USA is liable for damages that its spacecraft create, where "its
>spacecraft" include launches by its citizens.)

  Perhaps the poster could cite specific legislation.  

  The D.O.T. has an office of Space Commercialization which
  licenses companies who want to do this sort of thing.  I talked
  to people on both the House and Senate committees on science
  & technology and none of them claimed to be aware of any unreasonable 
  restrictions. 

  Of course, building a spacecraft can be very risky, both from a
  business standpoint and from the standpoint of anyone who happens to be 
  on the ground where it falls out of the sky.  So one can understand
  why the government may prefer to license such things.  I can also
  understand why a Libertarian, especially, might resent such government
  paperwork but a lot of other industries are buried under paperwork
  and manage to turn a profit.  Granted it's a pain in the ass!         

  I also might remind the readership that profits are only a secondary
  issue here.  Several people (who have yet to followup) were waxing
  poetic about the 'freedom' that space offered and how they 'planned'
  to be there someday.  I assumed they'd be willing to PAY money
  for this privelege.   

  Unless there are some other pertinent facts, which you may care to
  bring to the fore, then by your definition running an airline or
  a hospital is also against the law.  On the other hand, if you can
  demonstrate that the DOT's office is really a clever ruse to keep
  Libertarians and others of their ilk out of space and that companies
  making good-faith efforts to comply with the licensing rules are still
  being denied then please present more details.  

                                                  --Peter Nelson

------------------------------

Date: 30 Aug 88 20:17:00 GMT
From: apollo!nelson_p@eddie.mit.edu  (Peter Nelson)
Subject: space exploration/exploitation


 A followup to my previous posting:
> In response to my suggestion that a private company could
> be formed and even launch offshore if necessary, I got email
> from one individual (whose anonymity I wiil protect)-- 
>
>>It is against the law to launch. It's against USA law for you 
>>(a USA citizen) to launch *anywhere*.

>>Launch offshore, and get arrested when you return.

>>(The ostensible reason is that the space treaty provides that the
>>USA is liable for damages that its spacecraft create, where "its
>>spacecraft" include launches by its citizens.)
>
>  Perhaps the poster could cite specific legislation.  
>
>  The D.O.T. has an office of Space Commercialization which
>  licenses companies who want to do this sort of thing.  I talked
>  to people on both the House and Senate committees on science
>  & technology and none of them claimed to be aware of any unreasonable 
>  restrictions. 
> [...]

 I talked to the D.O.T. and they said that they've issued 
 2 licenses so far, one to Conatec and one to McDonnell
 Douglas.  She also said that they have quite a long list
 of other applicants.  I sure hope they don't send 
 McDonnell-Douglas to jail for this; they're a customer
 of ours (Apollo).

                                         --Peter Nelson

------------------------------

Date: 31 Aug 88 18:25:48 GMT
From: cat.cmu.edu!dep@pt.cs.cmu.edu  (David Pugh)
Subject: Re: The sun as a trashcan (was : Plutonium)

In article <1280@netmbx.UUCP> alderaan@netmbx.UUCP (Thomas Cervera) writes:
>In article <2818@pt.cs.cmu.edu>, dep@cat.cmu.edu (David Pugh) writes:
>> The easiest way to get rid of nuclear waste would probably be to
>> use hard land it on the moon.
>I think the moon isn't the right place to drop Pu garbage to.
>Look, I hope that sometimes men will be able to live on extraterrestrial
>places. Moon could be a first step on this way, because it's the nearest
>'planet' to us.

I hope so too, but that doesn't mean we can't get target practice in now.
There's no (well, virtually no) atmosphere/ground water to carry the Pu
from the impact site. So, provided the impact area is "small," colonies
won't be affected. Remember, the Moon is a big place.

In fact, the colonists might find the Pu useful -- scrape it up and
use it as a power source during the 2-week nights (or, for that matter,
scrape it up, turn it into bombs to attack the greedy Terrestrial
imperialists -- maybe using the Moon as a dump isn't such a good idea
after all).
-- 

						David Pugh
						....!seismo!cmucspt!cat!dep

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #360
*******************

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Date: Wed, 14 Sep 88 01:08:36 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
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To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
Reply-To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #361

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 361

Today's Topics:
		 Re: Are we ready for terraforming???
	     Re: The sun as a trashcan (was : Plutonium)
		   Re: access to space; how to deny
			    Re: plutonium
		 Re: SDI, Asats, and access to orbit
			       Re: SETI
		       Re: Berserker hypothesis
			     NASA Select
     Unmanned w/old SRBs (was Re: space news from July 11 AW&ST)
		  Overpopulation is not our problem
			       Re: SDI
		 Re: Are we ready for terraforming???
		      Re: Orbital Mech Algorithm
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 31 Aug 88 22:50:05 GMT
From: watson@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (John S. Watson)
Subject: Re: Are we ready for terraforming???


People should stop trying to cure the symptoms and realize
what the problem is:

(In my best Sam Kenasen (sp?) voice )

THERE'S TO MANY PEOPLE!  
OVERPOPULATION IS THE PROBLEM!
HAVE FEWER BABIES! 

Actually, I don't think all our current environmental problems are caused
by overpopulation ... just a big hunk.

------------------------------

Date: 30 Aug 88 14:37:46 GMT
From: uplherc!esunix!bpendlet@gr.utah.edu  (Bob Pendleton)
Subject: Re: The sun as a trashcan (was : Plutonium)

Dumping nuclear waste in space is one of the repeating topics in this
news group. It turns out that hard landing the stuff on the moon is
the most cost effective way of getting rid of the stuff in space.

The real question is why would anyone want to spend the money and take
the risks involved in launching the stuff? I can almost see why fear
of high level nuclear waste would make people want it off the planet,
but spending billions of dollars to throw away a multibillion dollar
resource like the worlds plutonium supply seems simply insane.

If we do decide to dump the stuff in space (and what ever ocean we
launch over), I hope we are smart enough to dump it on the moon or in
orbits that don't go too near the sun. At least then we can retrieve
it after we realize what we've done.

			Bob P.

P.S.

The US government has paid for many studies of the "proper" way to
dispose of high level nuclear waste. The same technique has been
proposed many times. Simply put, bury it deep in large blocks of
basalt, where large is roughly the size of your average mountain. Back
filled with ceramics and crushed basalt the decay heat of the waste
should fuse the surrounding material into an extremely hard nodule.

To the best of my knowledge this has not been tested. Nor has it ever
been seriously considered as a waste disposal technique by the federal
government, it seems it costs too much. I'll bet it costs less than
launching the waste into space.
-- 
Bob Pendleton @ Evans & Sutherland
UUCP Address:  {decvax,ucbvax,allegra}!decwrl!esunix!bpendlet
Alternate:     utah-cs!esunix!bpendlet
        I am solely responsible for what I say.

------------------------------

Date: 31 Aug 88 04:15:00 GMT
From: a.cs.uiuc.edu!m.cs.uiuc.edu!kenny@uxc.cso.uiuc.edu
Subject: Re: access to space; how to deny


/* Written 12:26 pm  Aug 29, 1988 by henry@utzoo.uucp in m.cs.uiuc.edu:sci.space */
Actually, I think the major remaining single-point failure mode in the
system is the VAB itself.
/* End of text from m.cs.uiuc.edu:sci.space */

Uh, isn't NASA 905 also a single point of failure?  Seems that the STS
is pretty useless without the carrier aircraft to herd it around the
country -- and the mods to a stock 747 are non-trivial.

------------------------------

Date: 31 Aug 88 18:00:00 GMT
From: necntc!primerd!bree!tomc@ames.arc.nasa.gov
Subject: Re: plutonium


OK - I've imagined it. Is it possible to build explosion proof containers?
There is certainly technology to keep flight recorders intact through a 
plane crash. Would more of the same work for a rocket explosion?

Was anything that survived the Challenger explosion meant to?

------------------------------

Date: 31 Aug 88 06:41:14 GMT
From: tektronix!percival!bucket!leonard@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: SDI, Asats, and access to orbit

In article <687@etive.ed.ac.uk> bob@etive.ed.ac.uk (Bob Gray) writes:
<To me there is only one defense system which could possibly
<work. Get colonies of people as widely spread over the
<whole solar system as possible so that it is physically
<impossible for any one colony or group of colonies to 
<threaten or attack all the others at the same time.

Step back a century or three, change "solar system" to world, and you
have an "inarguably true" statement, but one that is patently false
*now*. By the time we have major colonies spread across the solar
system, we will be quite capable of threatening each other even at 
those distances.

Running away is *never* a long-term solution.
-- 
Leonard Erickson		...!tektronix!reed!percival!bucket!leonard
CIS: [70465,203]
"I used to be a hacker. Now I'm a 'microcomputer specialist'.
You know... I'd rather be a hacker."

------------------------------

Date: 31 Aug 88 06:47:07 GMT
From: tektronix!percival!bucket!leonard@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: SETI

In article <1988Aug20.221337.9171@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
<In article <8808181628.AA05092@angband.s1.gov> GILL@QUCDNAST.BITNET writes:
<>     Maybe I'm an optimist, but I don't believe that such vicious
<>civilizations exist...
<
<I don't believe that they exist.  On the other hand I don't believe that
<they don't exist, either.  There is no evidence to justify either belief.
<
<> or even if they did, that they could actually
<>traverse space to come here and "silence" us.  The energy requirements
<>are just too great...
<
<An 1888 electrical engineer would have said the same thing about the energy
<requirements of any large 1988 city.

Henry, any guesses as to how big a probe we could send to say, Alpha Centauri,
if we didn't care about the cost (in the same sense that the Soviets don't
care about their defense spending). By we, I mean the goverments of Earth.

Say an Oriion powered probe using the existsing nuclear arsenals?
-- 
Leonard Erickson		...!tektronix!reed!percival!bucket!leonard
CIS: [70465,203]
"I used to be a hacker. Now I'm a 'microcomputer specialist'.
You know... I'd rather be a hacker."

------------------------------

Date: 31 Aug 88 12:26:39 GMT
From: aplcen!aplcomm!warper.jhuapl.edu!trn@mimsy.umd.edu  (Tony Nardo)
Subject: Re: Berserker hypothesis

In article <8808291927.AA04059@angband.s1.gov> Hans.Moravec@ROVER.RI.CMU.EDU writes:
>	Now maybe the Berserkers were originally programmed to be very quiet
>between executions, and carefully designed to prevent mutations in their
>goals.  But they would be present in such large numbers across the galaxy
>that sooner or later a near fatal run-in with a comet, or radiation from a
>stellar flare would modify the program in one in such a way as to remove its
>inhibitions against change.  That event would seed a Darwinian evolution
>of self-reproducing Berserker-derived machines that would acquire the
>survival-oriented goals of normal life.  You can't fool Mother Nature
>forever.

Not necessarily.  Expose a silicon chip to radiation and you have a useless
chip.  Expose vacuum tubes to radiation (let's keep an open mind here :-)
and your vacuum tubes remain in the same state.  Expose an optically-based
circuit to radiation and - hmm, anyone out there got an optical circuit to
try this on?

Software/hardware doesn't mutate.  Fail, yes.  Mutate, no.

As far as a near fatal run-in with a comet, why would that cause change?
Fear?  Instinct for self-preservation?

Of course, if the "berserkers" are organically-based computers then I'd
concede your point - but then, they'd just be another life form (a vicious
one, but still a life form) and wouldn't really fit the berserker role.

==============================================================================
ARPA:   @aplvax.jhuapl.edu:trn@warper	   \
        nardo%str.decnet@capsrv.jhuapl.edu  }  one of these should work
UUCP:	{backbone!}aplvax!warper!trn	   /
USnail: c/o Johns Hopkins University/APL, Room 7-53, Johns Hopkins Road
	Laurel, Md. 20707

50% of my opinions are claimed by various federal, state and local governments.
The other 50% are mine to dispense with as I see fit.
==============================================================================

------------------------------

Date: 16 Aug 88 16:19:20 GMT
From: wylbb%cunyvm.BITNET@jade.berkeley.edu  (Michael Linn)
Subject: NASA Select

I've heard a lot of mention about "NASA Select", which is presumably
some sort of cable TV channel.

How can one get access to it?
Is it available nationwide or only in certain regions?
Is there a fee to subscribe to it?

Would someone please fill me in on the details?

                                                  Thanks.

------------------------------

Date: 31 Aug 88 21:43:56 GMT
From: dasys1!tneff@uunet.uu.net  (Tom Neff)
Subject: Unmanned w/old SRBs (was Re: space news from July 11 AW&ST)

In article <1988Aug29.172104.10823@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>In article <6137@dasys1.UUCP> tneff@dasys1.UUCP (Tom Neff) writes:
>>Excuse me, but are we really supposed to believe that omitting the
>>flight crew makes using the old SRBs an acceptable risk?
>
>Rationally, you have a point.  Congress is not rational.  Losing hardware
>is troublesome, but it would not be anything like the political disaster
>that more dead astronauts would be.

OK, but remember something else I said in the >> article: you don't
have to be sitting in the crew module to die in a Shuttle accident.
Wouldn't NATO airshows still have gotten the kibosh if all 3 pilots had
ejected safely at Ramstein?

>>Challenger is
>>every bit as "dead" as its crew, and we cannot afford to lose another
>>orbiter under any circumstances...
>
>Then we'll have to ground the shuttle permanently.  There is no way to
>fly it without risking loss of another orbiter.  The NRC report on
>shuttle frequency put it even more strongly:  if the shuttle continues
>flying, another orbiter *WILL* be lost eventually.

Yes, but the NRC doesn't really have any better basis for making a
statement like that, than NASA does for implying we won't lose one.
Sure, if we used the fleet for 30+ years and expanded it to 10
orbiters, losses would be inevitable.  They would also be easier to
take.  What we cannot afford to do is ace one of the remaining three
right now.  Playing games with unmanned flights for the sake of getting
some use out of the flawed-design SRBs strikes me as unwise.  (As your
AW&ST synopsis noted, I'm hardly alone.)  It would certainly tie up
Columbia for more months of retrofit downtime, for one thing.  And
it would introduce another untried component into the system.

If we must use the old SRBs, I say let's strap them onto an ELV core
and get some iron up there.  Our precious orbiter fleet, AND the people
who make them go, deserve only the safest hardware available.
-- 
Tom Neff			UUCP: ...!cmcl2!phri!dasys1!tneff
	"None of your toys	CIS: 76556,2536	       MCI: TNEFF
	 will function..."	GEnie: TOMNEFF	       BIX: t.neff (no kidding)

------------------------------

Date: 1 Sep 88 01:34:21 GMT
From: sm.unisys.com!csun!polyslo!jsalter@oberon.usc.edu  (The Math Hacker)
Subject: Overpopulation is not our problem

In <14147@ames.arc.nasa.gov> csustan!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!watson proclaims:
>THERE'S TOO MANY PEOPLE!  
>OVERPOPULATION IS THE PROBLEM!
>HAVE FEWER BABIES! 
>Actually, I don't think all our current environmental problems are caused
>by overpopulation ... just a big hunk.

You're talking to the wrong people.  The U.S. is NOT currently overpopulated.
It just seems that way because of overcrowded cities.  Also, the big reason
for a lot of our environmental problems is that we've become a very urban
nation, and crowd ourselves into places like Seattle, Los Angeles, New York,
Dallas, etc., subjecting ourselves to problems that go with them.

In fact, we may have a problem with the size of our gene pool.  There is a
fine line about when a population's gene pool is large enough and diverse
enough to continue advancing genetically.  With not enough babies being born,
we're treading that fine line now, but since we allow so much immigration
thats not a great problem, yet.  Mexico on the other hand...

This is off the top of my head from books I've read.  Please correct me if
some of it is wrong.

Also, in a space-related note, does anyone have the revised shuttle manifest.
If it has already been posted I must have missed it.  Could someone send me a
copy?

-- 
James A. Salter  --  Yes, math majors can use UNIX(tm), too...
jsalter@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU	   | sin(x)/n = 6   (Cancel the n's!)
...!ucbvax!voder!polyslo!jsalter   | 	"Type h for help." -- rn

------------------------------

Date: 31 Aug 88 16:05:40 GMT
From: att!ihnp4!twitch!hoqax!lmg@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (LARRY GEARY)
Subject: Re: SDI

In article <1259@mit-caf.MIT.EDU> hamilton@mit-caf.UUCP (David P. Hamilton) writes:
>In article <549@unisv.UUCP> vanpelt@unisv.UUCP (Mike Van Pelt) writes:
>>In article <6618@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> David P. Hamilton writes:
>>>Another argument (sorry, I'm not being as brief as I'd promised) has
>>>undoubtedly been raised before, although I haven't heard a plausible
>>>response to it.  Any SDI system worth its salt will be capable of
>>>controlling access to orbit at the whim of its owners.  Do SDI
>>>advocates really want to place this power in the hands of a single
>>>government, even our own?

You don't need an SDI to control access to orbit. The Iranians could deny
the U.S. access to space by placing one of their speedboats with sailors
with shoulder launched missiles off Cocoa Beach. In fact, anyone else with
the desire to do this could probably pull it off, even an individual. Isn't
the Ariane launch site near the ocean? How about Vandenberg AF base? Only
the Soviets have a reasonably secure, inland launch site.

-- 
 Larry Geary                                              | Bush     49 |
 att!hoqax!lmg        Think globally ... Post locally     | Dukakis  47 |
 lmg@hoqax.att.com                                        | Public    0 |

------------------------------

Date: 1 Sep 88 06:05:45 GMT
From: thumper!karn@faline.bellcore.com  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: Are we ready for terraforming???

Sulfur dioxide is only one cause of acid rain. The other is nitric acid,
formed from nitrogen oxides and water. Nitrogen oxides are byproducts of
almost any high temperature combustion in air, even when "clean" fuels
like hydrogen are burned.  They are also formed naturally by lightning,
although I suspect this is a relatively minor amount.

Phil

------------------------------

Date: 1 Sep 88 05:54:25 GMT
From: tektronix!reed!douglas@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (P Douglas Reeder)
Subject: Re: Orbital Mech Algorithm


  I, too wrote an orbital simulation using the simple equasions. 
The spacecraft was accelerated by the sun and as many planets as you wanted
to add, so no adjustment was needed to go into orbit around planets.
You could fly around from planet to planet and find out how long it took
you. Especially fun is flying around the Earth moon system, because of the
wierd orbits you can do.  It's lots of fun to write such a program.

-- 
Doug Reeder                           USENET: ...!tektronix!reed!douglas
10 Cyclopedia Square             from BITNET: douglas@reed.UUCP
Terminus City                     from  ARPA: tektronix!reed!douglas@berkley
Terminus,The Foundation               Box 502 Reed College,Portland,OR 97202

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #361
*******************

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Date: Wed, 14 Sep 88 19:07:24 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
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To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
Reply-To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #362

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 362

Today's Topics:
		       Re: Berserker hypothesis
		       Re: Berserker hypothesis
		 Re: Are we ready for terraforming???
		Re: SETI: Why don't we hear anything?
	Re: Solar System trashcans (Was:The Sun as a trashcan)
			       Re: SDI
		  Re: space exploration/exploitation
		 Re: SETI: Why don't we hear anythin
	       Re: The sun as a trashcan (was : Pluton
		      Re: The sun as a trashcan
		 Re: Inverse SETI (Was:  ET phone ho
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 1 Sep 88 07:30:31 GMT
From: silver!chiaravi@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu  (Lucius Chiaraviglio)
Subject: Re: Berserker hypothesis

In article <1789@aplcomm.jhuapl.edu> trn@aplvax.UUCP (Tony Nardo) writes:
>In article <8808291927.AA04059@angband.s1.gov> Hans.Moravec@ROVER.RI.CMU.EDU
>writes:
>>	Now maybe the Berserkers were originally programmed to be very quiet
>>between executions, and carefully designed to prevent mutations in their
>>goals.  But they would be present in such large numbers across the galaxy
>>that sooner or later a near fatal run-in with a comet, or radiation from a
>>stellar flare would modify the program in one in such a way as to remove its
>>inhibitions against change.  That event would seed a Darwinian evolution
>>of self-reproducing Berserker-derived machines that would acquire the
>>survival-oriented goals of normal life.  You can't fool Mother Nature
>>forever.
>
>Not necessarily.  Expose a silicon chip to radiation and you have a useless
>chip.

	Not necessarily.  Expose a silicon chip to a very small amount of
radiation, or a GaAs chip to a slightly larger amount of radiation, etc., and
you have a chip with with one or more altered bits.  Now, it is true that
evolution-inhibiting measures can be designed -- these range from simple
error-correction to directives to destroy mutant units, and could for all
practical purposes (at least as far as we are concerned) prevent evolution;
however, no simple physical law will prevent evolution of berserkers (or
anything else that is alive).

>       Expose vacuum tubes to radiation (let's keep an open mind here :-)
>and your vacuum tubes remain in the same state.  [. . .]

	Not necessarily.  Ever hear of (or better yet, hear) a Geiger counter?
Even though vacuum tubes for radiation-hardened electronics would be designed
to have no gas in them for easy ionization by any piddling radiation, a strong
cosmic ray might be able to knock enough ions out of the solid material to
create ionized vapor sufficient for a transient arc to the cathode.  Of
course, radiation shielding will reduce or prevent this problem for vacuum
tubes, silicon, GaAs, DNA, and whatever else might be useful for specifying
berserker genome/programs.

>Software/hardware doesn't mutate.  Fail, yes.  Mutate, no.

	Actually, I have personally witnessed hardware and software mutation
(only 1/2 :-) ).  As noted above, no simple physical laws prevent mutation.
However, measures can be taken to slow mutation rates even to the point of --
for all practical purposes -- eliminating it.  In other words, you can fool
nature forever -- but you had better be real good at it.

>As far as a near fatal run-in with a comet, why would that cause change?
>Fear?  Instinct for self-preservation?

	Possibly knock out all but one of a set of redundant and mutually-
correcting memory units (-: as well as causing maintainance problems :-).
Designing a berserker to destruct if wounded this badly (as well as if data
concerning prime directive becomes too corrupted to regenerate with certainty)
rather than risk mutation will alleviate this problem.

>Of course, if the "berserkers" are organically-based computers then I'd
>concede your point - but then, they'd just be another life form (a vicious
>one, but still a life form) and wouldn't really fit the berserker role.

	Why must berserkers be necessarily non-living?  Saberhagan's
berserkers, which are completely inhibited with respect to primary goal (the
destruction of all life, but themselves and other "goodlives" last), but which
evolve in a controlled manner otherwise (with respect to sophistication of
form and means of going about their goal), count as a sort of life, even
though they are inorganic, but nevertheless they constitute the original
definition of berserker in the sense used in the postings in this newsgroup.
As a corollary to this, if humans acquired a religion and/or political
ideology directing them to spread as much as possible and exterminate all life
not required for their own support (and also exterminate all humans not
conforming to this religion/ideology), they would count as berserkers, even
though they are not machines.

	-- Lucius Chiaraviglio
	   chiaravi@silver.bacs.indiana.edu
	   lucius@tardis.harvard.edu	(in case the first one doesn't work)
	Villainy knows no bounds. . . .

------------------------------

Date: 1 Sep 88 08:23:37 GMT
From: agate!stew.ssl.berkeley.edu!link@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Richard Link)
Subject: Re: Berserker hypothesis

In article <2196@silver.bacs.indiana.edu> chiaravi@silver.UUCP (Lucius Chiaraviglio) writes:
>In article <1789@aplcomm.jhuapl.edu> trn@aplvax.UUCP (Tony Nardo) writes:
>>In article <8808291927.AA04059@angband.s1.gov> Hans.Moravec@ROVER.RI.CMU.EDU
>>writes:
>>>	Now maybe the Berserkers were originally programmed to be very quiet

Forget this inane discussion. According to all known laws of physics,
Berserkers will be discovered.

If you have an alternative explanation, submit your response to
Physical Review Letters.

Dr. Richard Link
Space Sciences Laboratory
University of California
Berkeley, California, 94720

------------------------------

Date: 1 Sep 88 06:53:35 GMT
From: tektronix!reed!douglas@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (P Douglas Reeder)
Subject: Re: Are we ready for terraforming???


The greenhouse effect warms the earth up.  Particulate matter, from burning
coal, etc. cuts down on sunlight.  It has been suggested that we may
need to balance these effects against one another.

-- 
Doug Reeder                           USENET: ...!tektronix!reed!douglas
10 Cyclopedia Square             from BITNET: douglas@reed.UUCP
Terminus City                     from  ARPA: tektronix!reed!douglas@berkley
Terminus,The Foundation               Box 502 Reed College,Portland,OR 97202

------------------------------

Date: 31 Aug 88 18:08:09 GMT
From: clyde!watmath!utgpu!utzoo!henry@flash.bellcore.com  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: SETI: Why don't we hear anything?

In article <141@antares.UUCP> pnelson@antares.UUCP (Phil Nelson) writes:
>Creating machines that can replicate themselves within a simple environment
>will not be difficult, creating machines that can survive and reproduce in
>the real world is another matter. I would be very interested to hear who
>has concluded that it "doesn't look that far off", I hear practically no
>speculation in this area.

There was a NASA study on the whole issue of self-replicating machines a
couple of years ago; unfortunately I do not have references handy.  If you
look at things like the automated-factory work, the manufacturing proper
is nearly a solved problem.

>I prefer not to be too specific about the obstacles, but consider that there
>are no examples of self-maintaining machines in our entire technology...

As I said, we aren't quite there yet.  Incidentally, "self-maintaining"
and "self-replicating" aren't quite the same thing.  Reproduce vigorously
enough and the maintenance doesn't need to be too effective.

>I cannot agree that the environment is not particularly variable, the
>environment was defined in the hypothesis as the universe, which, since it
>includes everything that is, has to be about as variable as you can get.

Planets are highly variable.  Space is not.  Space itself is a very boring
place that hasn't changed a lot in billions of years and probably won't
change a lot for the foreseeable future.

>Well, the most obvious change that might occur (apart from simply losing
>interest in the original purpose) is that a machine designed to destroy
>might begin to destroy other such machines.

Depends on whether it's a general-purpose destruction system or simply
a planet-sterilizer.  On the whole, though, the argument is reasonable.

>If the machines had something
>like intelligence (probably required in order to have any chance of achieving
>the purpose) they might easily organize into warring camps, each group could
>become so absorbed dealing with the immediate threat (each other) that they
>would be delayed indefinitely from pursuing the original purpose.

Not if they're reasonably intelligent.  The most surprising alliances can
occur against a common threat.  (Ask any policeman what it's like to try
to break up a family quarrel.  If you want another example, consider that
the Western democracies spent much of WW2 allied with the biggest mass
murderer in human history.  [Stalin -- Hitler was only number two.])
Remember also that with self-replication, it's no big deal to pursue two
objectives simultaneously.  The nations of Western Europe managed to
colonize the Americas despite putting a much higher priority on killing
each other; once a colony got started it didn't need much support.
-- 
Intel CPUs are not defective,  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
they just act that way.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 31 Aug 88 18:56:25 GMT
From: clyde!watmath!utgpu!utzoo!sq!msb@bellcore.com  (Mark Brader)
Subject: Re: Solar System trashcans (Was:The Sun as a trashcan)


> (2) nobody in their right mind would allow hazardous! launches of
>     very hazardous waste. Doesn't anyone out there remember the
>     Challenger? It is much less costly and much less dangerous to
>     bury the stuff in the arctic.

Exactly whose territory in the arctic did you have in mind -- Canada,
the USSR, the USA, or Greenland/Denmark?

Seems to me that, hazardous wastes of whatever kind should stay within
the country of origin except by specific agreement to the contrary.
You have perhaps heard of the ship from Italy which has so far tried
three countries to unload its hazardous waste cargo?

With regard to nuclear waste specifically, I think it was Arthur C. Clarke
who pointed out that future generations might regard destruction of this
material (by any use of space) as one more instance of a valuable energy
resource being wasted...

Please do not follow this article up in sci.space unless you keep the
topic relevant to space.

Mark Brader, SoftQuad Inc., Toronto, utzoo!sq!msb, msb@sq.com
	We can design a system that's proof against accident and stupidity;
	but we CAN'T design one that's proof against deliberate malice.
	-- a spaceship designer in Arthur C. Clarke's "2001: A Space Odyssey"

------------------------------

Date: 1 Sep 88 10:53:57 GMT
From: lim@csvax.caltech.edu  (Kian-Tat Lim)
Subject: Re: SDI

Something that has been bugging me throughout this "denying access to space
via Stinger" discussion.  How much is the warhead of a shoulder-fired weapon
going to disturb an SSME/Ariane/whatever, considering that the hottest target
is the exhaust plume?  With all that energy spewing out, it would seem to me
that the extra "bump" from a 50-pound explosive (to be generous) would be
negligible.

--
Kian-Tat Lim (ktl@wagvax.caltech.edu, KTL @ CITCHEM.BITNET, GEnie: K.LIM1)

------------------------------

Date: 31 Aug 88 22:10:15 GMT
From: sdcc6!calmasd!jnp@ucsd.edu  (John Pantone)
Subject: Re: space exploration/exploitation


(Peter Nelson) writes:
>  Why can't the promoters of these ventures take the launch
>  part of the operation offshore, like to some Caribbean Island?
>  Many of those islands would be thrilled to have the revenue ...

They could - especially if the Island isn't too fond of the U.S.A (and
doesn't care when pressure is put on them to kick the guy back out).

They may even do it - when and if there is any demonstratable profit
in it - probably after the Europeans and Japaneese have begun to make
Francs and Yen launching satellites, etc.

Now my question:  What will NASA and the U.S. Govt. say/do when a
prominent space scientist LEAVES THE US AND GOES TO THE SOVIET UNION
BECAUSE THAT'S WHERE THE ACTION IS? Does anyone really think that this
is not inevitable - given the deplorable state of the US space
non-program? 

-- 
These opinions are solely mine and in no way reflect those of my employer.  
John M. Pantone @ GE/Calma R&D, 9805 Scranton Rd., San Diego, CA 92121
...{ucbvax|decvax}!sdcsvax!calmasd!jnp   jnp@calmasd.GE.COM   GEnie: J.PANTONE

------------------------------

Date: 31 Aug 88 17:47:00 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!dcl-cs!nott-cs!pyr1.cs.ucl.ac.uk!william@uunet.uu.net
Subject: Re: SETI: Why don't we hear anythin


>To be serious for just one minute, I don't believe that we will be likely to 
>have visitors from some other star in the near future.  Our radio envelope
>has been travelling out from our solar system for less than 100 years.  This 
>means that only stars within that *radiosphere* will have had any notification
>of our presence.  This sphere encompasses very few stars when compared to the 
>billions in the rest of the galaxy.  Chances are that there are no advanced
>lifeforms in that sphere capable of galactic space travel. 

Worse than that.  Powerful wide-band transmissions have been going on
for less than that time, and this race will (may) have to spend half
that time getting to us.  At 100 l.y., we won't hear from them for another
100 years. Unless they know better ...

			... Bill

************************************************************************
Bill Witts, CS Dept.     *    Nel Mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
UCL, London, Errrp       *    mi ritrovai per una selva oscura
william@uk.ac.ucl.cs(UK) *    che la diritta via era smarrita.
william@cs.ucl.ac.uk(US) ***********************************************

------------------------------

Date: 31 Aug 88 18:43:00 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!dcl-cs!nott-cs!pyr1.cs.ucl.ac.uk!william@uunet.uu.net
Subject: Re: The sun as a trashcan (was : Pluton


Listen you fools, if you REALLY want to get rid of all this nasty
radioactive junk, you can sell it to any one of thousands of hungry
buyers who would just *love* to have some decent fissionable material
to play volleyball with.  

On a more serious note, (not difficult), wouldn't it be easier
to send the stuff away from the sun and detonate it when it 
entered interstellar space?  This assumes that you are prepared to
put the stuff into space in the first place, but it sounds better 
than using mega-boosters just to sun-dive it.

			... Bill

************************************************************************
Bill Witts, CS Dept.     *    Nel Mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
UCL, London, Errrp       *    mi ritrovai per una selva oscura
william@uk.ac.ucl.cs(UK) *    che la diritta via era smarrita.
william@cs.ucl.ac.uk(US) ***********************************************

------------------------------

Date: 31 Aug 88 19:41:32 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!newcastle.ac.uk!kelpie!pgc@uunet.uu.net  (P. G. Cutting)
Subject: Re: The sun as a trashcan



Judgeing by the comments raised by this subject a large
number of people seem to be scared s**tless by what is
simply an element. And are willing to consider hair-brain
ideas like chucking the worlds Plutonium in the Sun.
This seems to me , to be completely irational.

Peter_Cutting@uk.ac.newcastle

------------------------------

Date: 31 Aug 88 18:16:00 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!dcl-cs!nott-cs!pyr1.cs.ucl.ac.uk!william@uunet.uu.net
Subject: Re: Inverse SETI (Was:  ET phone ho


>Understand, I don't expect major improvements in lifespan tomorrow, or
>next year, or even next decade.  But we are starting to understand the
>detailed biochemical functioning of a few very small portions of our
>physiology.  It is fairly safe to predict massive progress in this within
>a few decades.  The biggest problem with old age is simply that we don't
>understand the details of why it happens.  That will change.

This is a matter that I always find deeply disturbing.  Suppose that 
old age could be cured, and *there is no proof that it can't*, and that
it is suddenly all solved in, say 50 years time.  Then I could be one of
the last people ever to have to die of it.  People 10 years younger than
me will last for ever, and I just missed the boat.  Wow.

>>But did anyone launch a multi-year enquiry when a ship was lost? People were
>>much more willing to risk their lives then.
>
>Nonsense.  You're looking at a pathological phenomenon in a persistently-
>underfunded branch of the US government, not a general trend.  If access
>to space were adequate to permit an attempt at, say, a lunar colony to
>be made *without* having to beg approval from government bureaucrats and
>a Congress full of fat lawyers, there would be half a dozen of them already,
>risks notwithstanding.  There is no shortage of people willing to risk their
>lives for what they see as a worthwhile cause; the problem is that
>spaceflight is currently too expensive for such people to fund it from
>their own resources.

Airflight is a better example.  Enquiries are launched if a flight
fails, but they only last any time if it is believed that something really
serious is at fault.  People risk their lives doing all sorts of things,
*and know the risk*. I would imagine most of us know someone who has died
on the roads, yet I know few people who are actually prepared to avoid
driving on account of it.

			... Bill

************************************************************************
Bill Witts, CS Dept.     *    Nel Mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
UCL, London, Errrp       *    mi ritrovai per una selva oscura
william@uk.ac.ucl.cs(UK) *    che la diritta via era smarrita.
william@cs.ucl.ac.uk(US) ***********************************************

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #362
*******************

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Date: Thu, 15 Sep 88 01:07:00 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8809150807.AA11092@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
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Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #363

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 363

Today's Topics:
		      energy production on Earth
		  Re: space news from July 11 AW&ST
		   Re: access to space; how to deny
			   more TV viewing
		  Re: space news from July 11 AW&ST
			      STS-26 sim
			     More on SETI
		      Re: Skintight space suits
		  Re: space exploration/exploitation
		  Re: space exploration/exploitation
		 Re: Are we ready for terraforming???
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 1 Sep 88 14:37:07 GMT
From: spdcc!eli@bloom-beacon.mit.edu  (Steve Elias)
Subject: energy production on Earth

followups default to sci.misc.

Dani Eder mentioned that the total energy production on Earth has
gone up by 7% per year for the last 50 years or so.

do folks out there think that this rate of increase will continue?
if it does, we'll be producing 30 times as much energy as today 
in 50 years.  and 900 times as much energy in 100 years.

clearly, something will have to give.  what are your thoughts
on this?  is there a point where we will have to worry about
pure thermal effects from energy production/usage?  (assuming
we manage to get greenhouse gas production under control first).

keep in mind that the greenhouse effect is theoretically a feedback
cycle -- it might be started by either massive heat production or
by greenhouse gas production.  (i'm using the term 'production' loosely.)

will the energy growth rate decrease??  will we have a significant
portion of our energy production and use in space by 100 years from
now??  stay tuned for more news -- next century, i suppose.

------------------------------

Date: 1 Sep 88 13:47:58 GMT
From: uflorida!novavax!proxftl!greg@gatech.edu  (Gregory N. Hullender)
Subject: Re: space news from July 11 AW&ST

In article <688@nancy.UUCP> krj@frith.UUCP (Ken Josenhans) writes:
>What I fear this means is the next
>shuttle accident will be the *last* US manned spaceflight, at least for 
>several decades.

Well, my first reaction to that is "why wait?  Cancel it now."  As I've
mentioned before, it makes me sick when I think how much interplanetary data
we might have had if we'd been able to launch anything since Voyager, as
contrasted to what scientific data we've got from the shuttle, which is
exactly zero.
-- 
		Greg Hullender  uflorida!novavax!proxftl!greg
		3511 NE 22nd Ave / Fort Lauderdale, FL 33308

	    My opinions are not necessarily those of my employer.

------------------------------

Date: 1 Sep 88 16:37:19 GMT
From: mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Mike Smithwick)
Subject: Re: access to space; how to deny

In article <21900036@m.cs.uiuc.edu> kenny@m.cs.uiuc.edu writes:
>
>Uh, isn't NASA 905 also a single point of failure?  Seems that the STS
>is pretty useless without the carrier aircraft to herd it around the
>country -- and the mods to a stock 747 are non-trivial.

That's why NASA has just contracted with BOEING for another SCA
(Shutle Carrier Aircraft).






-- 
			   *** mike (starship janitor) smithwick ***
"You can fool some of the people all of the time, or all of the people
 some of the time, but you can't fool Mom".
[disclaimer : nope, I don't work for NASA, I take full blame for my ideas]

------------------------------

Date: 1 Sep 88 16:59:42 GMT
From: mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Mike Smithwick)
Subject: more TV viewing

[]

Those of you with TVRO systems, circle Sept. 8 on your calenders.
In the morning, (probably around 7:00 am Eastern), there will be a
countdown demonstration test and on pad abort for the STS-26 crew. 
They've been broadcast in the past, so expect video from this one.
NASA Select TV is on Satcom F2, xpndr 13.

Also on Sept. 8 is the next Arianne launch. Expect a launch a month for
the next year. This may be seen on Spacenet 1, most likley at about
7:00 PM eastern (video should start about an hour earlier). They are
broadcast in NTSC video.

On September 24 at about 3:00 AM Pacific is an Atlas-NOAA launch from
Vandenburg which should be carried on Select.

Happy viewing.

-- 
			   *** mike (starship janitor) smithwick ***
"You can fool some of the people all of the time, or all of the people
 some of the time, but you can't fool Mom".
[disclaimer : nope, I don't work for NASA, I take full blame for my ideas]

------------------------------

Date: 1 Sep 88 16:47:49 GMT
From: mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Mike Smithwick)
Subject: Re: space news from July 11 AW&ST

In article <688@proxftl.UUCP> greg@proxftl.UUCP (Gregory N. Hullender) writes:
>
> it makes me sick when I think how much interplanetary data
>we might have had if we'd been able to launch anything since Voyager, as
>contrasted to what scientific data we've got from the shuttle, which is
>exactly zero.
>--

A curious definition of "zero" to be sure. Obviously the researchers from
3 successful Spacelab missions might disagree. John Scully Power, the 
oceanographer on board STS-41D would likewise disagree, simply by the
fact that he saw structures and currents in the ocean that no one had 
ever noticed before. If the data return is "zero" why would 3M continue
to waste money on their CFES experiments flight after flight. While 
it remains a trade secret exactly what they're working on, one rumor
has it that it may help cure 40% of all arthritis in the country once
it is put into production. Hardly a zero in my book.

Oh, say, what about that Solar Maximum Satillite?
now since that is repaired, and returning data on what might be the
greatest sun-spot peak ever, would you classify that as "zero"?
Will the Hubble Space Telescope (made for the shuttle and astronaut
servicing) return "zero" data??

>		Greg Hullender  uflorida!novavax!proxftl!greg
>		3511 NE 22nd Ave / Fort Lauderdale, FL 33308
>

Go back to your dictionary.

-- 
			   *** mike (starship janitor) smithwick ***
"You can fool some of the people all of the time, or all of the people
 some of the time, but you can't fool Mom".
[disclaimer : nope, I don't work for NASA, I take full blame for my ideas]

------------------------------

Date: 1 Sep 88 16:34:49 GMT
From: mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Mike Smithwick)
Subject: STS-26 sim

[]

The guys at JSC Public Affairs felt that it was unncessary to
broadcast the sim on NASA select. It was called a "monkey wrench" simulation,
since the guys in the back room were to throw every conceivable malfunction
at the crew and see it they could fix it. This included the left engine
going out during launch, a TDRSS deployment failure requiring an
emergency EVA to correct, along with a bunch of other goodies.

What I am wondering is if it might have been broadcast locally in the 
Houston area on cable, and if so, is there anyone on The Net, who might
have been able to videotape it? I always wanted to see one of these guys
and would love to be able to get a tape of it.

Next time I'll call up JSC and complain!! Yeah, that's the ticket. ..
(a friend of mine slept through an early morning satellite deployment once,
called them up and had it replayed just for him).


P.S. Actually,  a couple of small pieces were broadcast, the launch and
a news conferences yesterday. The launch video was some previous
Discovery mission, and was about 7 seconds behind the real sim. So the
PAO was just announcing liftoff, and the engines hadn't even ignited.


-- 
			   *** mike (starship janitor) smithwick ***
"You can fool some of the people all of the time, or all of the people
 some of the time, but you can't fool Mom".
[disclaimer : nope, I don't work for NASA, I take full blame for my ideas]

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 01 Sep 88 10:21:52 CDT
From: "John Kelsey" <C445585%UMCVMB.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Subject: More on SETI

   Some possible answers to the "where are they?" paradox:

  1.) Singularity: (See Vernor Vinge's _Marooned In Realtime_!) Essentially,
   the theory here is that when a race reaches a certain point in its develop-
   ment, it becomes impossible for that race to be understood by critters like
   us.  They might have no interest whatsoever in exploring stars, or they
   might like to explore, but may be able to do it from their home planet.
   Think of the Martians in RAH's _Stranger in a Strange Land_, would they have
   been interested in contacting us at all?

  2.) What if the evolution of intelligence is a LOT rarer than we've thought?
   Suppose, for example, that the development of a central nervous system does
   not immediately pay off, but requires some further development.  It may even
   be a hinderance in evolutionary terms, since it provides a vulnerable target
   for attack.  Suppose the organism that went through the stage when central
   nervous system-equiped creatures are less likely to survive in some place of
   relative safety, or during a time when there was little to harm it?  Any
   biologists out there want to trash this therory?

  3.) What if life forms that develop are REAL different, like Niven's Outsider
   race?  They might not be even vaguely interested in us.  Or they might be
   here now, waiting for us to become intelligent enough to discover them.  Is
   a beehive intelligent?  Could one become self-aware, in some strange way?
   Would we realize it, if the beehive didn't want us to?  (Could a beehive
   "want?")

  4.)  What if the things that develop have no particular curiosity, or are
   as a race cowards (Niven's Puppeteers)?  They might know of us, but not
   wish to get involved, because "Ghod knows what those crazy ape-things might
   try!"?

  5.)  Suppose that, in order for a race of egocentric, fast-breeding creatures
   like us to get off world before our resourses die out, that race must learn
   somehow to control the unbounded expansion of its population?  And suppose
   that the society that develops is one in which the idea of having more than
   one or two children is as revolting to them as canabalism is to us?  Then,
   this race would never expand out and colonize the galaxy, but would simply
   re-engineer their star, and maybe move on when their star began to die out.

   Well, tell me what you think...

  -- John Kelsey
     C445585@UMCVMB.BITNET

------------------------------

Date: 1 Sep 88 15:27:29 GMT
From: kr0u+@andrew.cmu.edu  (Kevin William Ryan)
Subject: Re: Skintight space suits


   I understand that my last posting (which attempted to answer some questions
about the Space Activity Suit) got garbled in transmission to sci.space.  I
have reposted the text to Space Digest - if this is not sufficient to reach
those interested, please send me email and I will try to post it directly to
you.

                                                    kwr

   "Jest so ya know..."                       kr0u@andrew.cmu.edu
                                              kr0u%andrew@cmccvb.bitnet

------------------------------

Date: 1 Sep 88 19:29:00 GMT
From: kevin@csvax.caltech.edu  (Kevin Van Horn)
Subject: Re: space exploration/exploitation

In article <3e2c73f2.ae47@apollo.COM> nelson_p@apollo.COM (Peter Nelson)
writes: 
> I talked to the D.O.T. and they said that they've issued 
> 2 licenses [to launch rockets] so far, one to Conatec and one to McDonnell
> Douglas.  She also said that they have quite a long list
> of other applicants.

The fact that they have "quite a long list of applicants" but have only issued
2 licenses so far sounds to me like obstructionism.  Dragging your feet in
issuing licenses is a good way to destroy promising startups, which can't
afford to sit around cooling their heels while they wait for permission to
launch.

B.T.W., it's a sad commentary on the state of liberty in this country
that, even with absolutely no evidence that your operation will harm or
endanger anyone else, you can be fined and thrown in jail for providing a
desperately-needed service -- the launching of satellites -- without Uncle
Sam's prior permission.

Kevin S. Van Horn

------------------------------

Date: 1 Sep 88 20:30:41 GMT
From: eugene@eos.arc.nasa.gov  (Eugene Miya)
Subject: Re: space exploration/exploitation

In article <48@calmasd.GE.COM> jnp@calmasd.GE.COM (John Pantone) writes:
>Now my question:  What will NASA and the U.S. Govt. say/do when a
>prominent space scientist LEAVES THE US AND GOES TO THE SOVIET UNION
>BECAUSE THAT'S WHERE THE ACTION IS? Does anyone really think that this
>is not inevitable - given the deplorable state of the US space
>non-program? 

Okay, you want an answer?  NOTHING.

First, we are civilian, but we have lots of ex-military, this is
quite a screen.  You here it when people defect either way, sure.

Second, there are ex-ESA people in NASA and ex-NASA people in ESA.
We can't really coerce anyone except for the standard Oaths taken
for all Government employment.

It's not clear what you mean by prominent space scientist.  The USA
could care less if it were a planetary scientist, but a rocket designer,
sure.  You have to make the distinction between space as an application
doing research to get into space versus during research in space.
"Space science" usually means the latter (like planetary science).
The US has never really had a strong space science program compared
to the more visible "manned" programs (order of magnitude).

Launching rockets and putting people are only part of the technology
(and politics).

Third, I think everyone here is largely aware of those other aspect of
Soviet society which the West looks down on. (Again part of the ex-military
would shun this).

Now, economic competitiveness aside, there is JSA.  The language barriers
are immense as well as the cultural barriers, but this is a society
with money burning in their pockets, and an interest in technology
and (growing interest in space).

What DO YOU want us to say?  When in danger, when in doubt, run in circles,
scream and shout.  Maybe we need a test case?  Are you looking for
a new test case like Sputnick?  [Ya, but our Germans are better than
their Germans...]  Believe me when I saw that people have thought about
this topic and its not on anyone's minds.  Just because we can't lift
people at ANY instant.  Just wait until we have an in orbit disaster.
(Or the Soviets for that matter)

Another gross generalization from

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@aurora.arc.nasa.gov
  resident cynic at the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:
  "Mailers?! HA!", "If my mail does not reach you, please accept my apology."
  {uunet,hplabs,ncar,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."

------------------------------

Date: 1 Sep 88 23:09:51 GMT
From: dartvax!eleazar.dartmouth.edu!dalex@bu-cs.bu.edu  (Dave Alexander)
Subject: Re: Are we ready for terraforming???

In article <3065@lanl.gov> jlg@lanl.gov (Jim Giles) writes:

> Well over 90% of the global atmospheric loading of sulpher dioxide
> is volcanic.  This makes you wonder why acid rain is such a recent
> problem (and it is).  Could it be that _other_ pollutants are mainly
> responsible? 

What about nitrates?  I learned some interesting things on a visit
this past spring to the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest.  One is
that, since the 1970's, the amount of acidity that seems to be caused
by sulfates has diminished.  What has taken up the slack has been an
increased contribution of nitric acid from nitrates.  The reason for
this is that it people are burning less coal, but driving cars more,
at least in the northeast.

                           -- Buffalo Bill

--
Why are there people like Frank?
Why is there so much trouble in the world?

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #363
*******************

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Date: Fri, 16 Sep 88 01:05:42 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8809160805.AA00541@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
Reply-To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #364

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 364

Today's Topics:
		     space news from Aug 15 AW&ST
		    Re: NASA Prediction Bulletins
		   NASA Prediction Bulletin Format
	Re: SOlar System trashcans (Was:The Sun as a trashcan)
		 Re: SDI, Asats, and access to orbit
			 Re: Life on Jupiter
	     Re: The sun as a trashcan (was : Plutonium)
			       Phoenix
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 12 Sep 88 03:24:59 GMT
From: attcan!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Aug 15 AW&ST

ESA engineers are investigating a LOX-arm retraction problem that almost
aborted the July 21 Ariane launch:  the third-stage LOX arm stopped
partway through its retraction sequence, but moved clear just in time
for the launch to continue.

SDIO fails to meet its Aug 1 target for revised recommendations on the
Space Based Interceptor.  A major DoD review of SBI is imminent, and
with SDIO not having got its own act together, SBI's supporters are
not optimistic.

Flight readiness firing of the shuttle, Aug 10, goes okay.  Remaining
milestones before a late-Sept launch are one more SRB test, complete
data review of the FRF, SSME post-FRF checkout, and successful repair
of the RCS nitrogen-tetroxide leak.  The FRF slipped a week after a
valve problem aborted the Aug 4 attempt, but the valve replacement was
completed ahead of schedule.  (It now looks like the problem may have
been sensor error.)  The only real problem noticed during the FRF
countdown was a bit of nitrogen in a fuel line; this may be a minor
leak or a measurement error.  Analysis of SRB aft-skirt loads will
continue for several days.  Infrared and mass-spectrometer hydrogen-
leak detector results look clean.

The next job [completed successfully] will be sealing the RCS leak.
This will be done by cutting through the aft wall of the cargo bay and
the forward wall of the OMS pod, clamping a clamshell fitting around
the leaking joint, and filling it with sealant under pressure.  The
wall cutouts will be closed by bolting aluminum plates over them; the
plates will be removable in case this needs to be done again, and will
in fact be stronger (although heavier) than the areas of wall removed.

Chinese controllers prepare to command reentry of Chinese satellite
carrying a secondary West German materials payload.

Inmarsat to issue RFP for new-generation Inmarsat series using multiple
spot beams for marine navigation and communication.

Soviet cosmonaut Anatoly Levchenko dies Aug 6 of a brain tumor.  He flew
on the Soyuz TM-4 mission to Mir last December, and may have been meant
to be commander for the first manned mission of the Soviet shuttle.

Spacehab and NASA sign deal giving Spacehab six partial shuttle flights,
starting 1991, with payment deferred until after each flight.

SDIO begins work on "Super", a survivable solar array hardened against
the Van Allen belts, lasers, particle beams, and nuclear explosions.
It will be flight-tested in 1993, maybe from the shuttle, and the test might
carry piggyback experiments that could benefit from having 5-10kW of
power available.  Super is not yet slated for any particular uses, but
the Boost Surveillance Tracking Satellite is an obvious candidate.

Also underway is a less ambitious project called Scopa, started by the
USAF and now getting some SDI funding too.  The idea here is to put small
concentrators over the individual cells of a solar array, with the
concentrators designed so that light coming in at an angle will not reach
the cells themselves.  This shields the cells against laser attack from
any direction except precisely head on.  A 500W Scopa panel will fly in
FY1990.

SDI studies methods of retrieving malfunctioning nuclear reactors from
orbit.  One possibility is using a modified OMV to tow a failing reactor
satellite to higher orbit.  The study will probably recommend modifications
to SDI's space-reactor project, SP-100, such as standard grappling fittings.
SDI says a joint effort in space-reactor rescue with the USSR would be
sensible, although no formal approach has yet been made.  Cosmos 1900,
the ailing Soviet nuclear radarsat, is due to reenter early in Sept.

Shuttle-C unmanned heavylift shuttle derivative is gaining support as an
interim heavylift booster, specifically for space-station assembly.  The
interest is especially strong since ALS no longer includes the goal of a
near-term "interim ALS" heavylift booster.  Phase 2 study contracts for
Shuttle-C were awarded recently.  It could be ready in 1993-4, using SRBs,
tank, and engine section identical to the shuttle, but with the rest of
the orbiter replaced by a cylindrical payload shroud.  Payload to low
orbit could be 178 klbs.  Five shuttle-C launches could replace thirteen
shuttle launches (out of twenty) in station assembly.  (There is a 
problem in that the station people must plan on using shuttle launches
unless/until Shuttle-C is officially funded for development.)  Initial
Shuttle-C SRBs would probably be drawn from the stock of pre-Challenger
SRBs still in storage but no longer considered safe for manned flight.
No attempt would be made to recover Shuttle-C's SSMEs; they would be
SSMEs that are near the end of their rated lives as shuttle engines.
NASA is no longer hoping for more than about 10 flights per SSME, and
this will create a substantial pool of "retired" engines by the early
1990s.  SSME recovery for Shuttle-C is considered too complex and costly.
Various payload masses could be accommodated by using either two or three
SSMEs, running them at either 100% or 104% of rated thrust, and by using
either ordinary shuttle SRBs or the new ASRMs which will be available in
the 90s.  A three-SSME, 104%, ASRM Shuttle-C could launch 190 klbs into
low orbit from the Cape.  Development costs including first flight are
estimated at $1.9G, although NASA thinks that number (derived from general
cost models rather than detailed analysis) is too high, given that the
only major work needed is the payload shroud and the return to production
of orbiter aft thrust structures.  A generally-favorable OTA report said
that $800M should be adequate; NASA is studying the issue.  The OTA
study said that Shuttle-C is not cost-effective if flight rate rises
above 2-3 flights per year, given its high incremental costs ($235M
per launch), but it could be quite cost effective at those rates as a
way of offloading the shuttle.

Inmarsat awards $8M contract to China Satellite Launch and Tracking
Control General to provide tracking/telemetry/command services for the
Pacific-area Inmarsat 2 satellites, starting in 1990.  A dedicated
tracking station near Beijing will be used.
-- 
NASA is into artificial        |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
stupidity.  - Jerry Pournelle  | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 11 Sep 88 20:37:00 GMT
From: a.cs.uiuc.edu!m.cs.uiuc.edu!kenny@uxc.cso.uiuc.edu
Subject: Re: NASA Prediction Bulletins


	Inasmuch as Dr. Kelso is now posting orbital elements
regularly to sci.space instead of rec.ham-radio, I shall no longer be
posting the elemnts for Mir and Salyut 7 separately, as it represents
a duplication of effort.

	I urge the moderator of Space Digest to give the same
consideration to Dr. Kelso's postings of the full prediction bulletins
as he gave to my postings of the space station elements; since they
are timely data, allowing them to spend several weeks on the queue
would be A Bad Thing.

	During periods when Mir is known to be maneuvering, I may
continue to make mid-week postings of its elements so that predictions
may be updated.  I shall attempt to give this higher priority during
times that Mir is expected to make visible overfights at mid-northern
latitudes.

	Many thanks to Dr. Kelso for an invaluable service to the net
community.

Kevin Kenny			   UUCP: {uunet,pur-ee,convex}!uiucdcs!kenny
Illini Space Development Society   ARPA Internet or CSNet: kenny@CS.UIUC.EDU
P.O. Box 2255, Station A
Champaign, Illinois, 61820	   Voice: (217) 333-6680

------------------------------

Date: 10 Sep 88 18:03:44 GMT
From: ens@blackbird.afit.af.mil  (Operational Sciences)
Subject: NASA Prediction Bulletin Format


As a service to the amateur satellite community, the following description
of the NASA Prediction Bulletin's two-line orbital element set format is
uploaded to rec.ham-radio on a monthly basis.

==============================================================================

Data for each satellite consists of three lines in the following format:
 
AAAAAAAAAAA
1 NNNNNU NNNNNAAA NNNNN.NNNNNNNN +.NNNNNNNN +NNNNN-N +NNNNN-N N NNNNN
2 NNNNN NNN.NNNN NNN.NNNN NNNNNNN NNN.NNNN NNN.NNNN NN.NNNNNNNNNNNNNN
 
Line 1 is a eleven-character name.

Lines 2 and 3 are the standard Two-Line Orbital Element Set Format identical 
to that used by NASA and NORAD.  The format description is:

Line 2
Column     Description
 01-01     Line Number of Element Data
 03-07     Satellite Number
 10-11     International Designator (Last two digits of launch year)
 12-14     International Designator (Launch number of the year)
 15-17     International Designator (Piece of launch)
 19-20     Epoch Year (Last two digits of year)
 21-32     Epoch (Julian Day and fractional portion of the day)
 34-43     First Time Derivative of the Mean Motion
        or Ballistic Coefficient (Depending of ephemeris type)
 45-52     Second Time Derivative of Mean Motion (Blank if N/A)
 54-61     BSTAR drag term if GP4 general perturbation theory was used.
           Otherwise, radiation pressure coefficient.
 63-63     Ephemeris type
 65-68     Element number
 69-69     Check Sum (Modulo 10)
           (Letters, blanks, periods = 0; minus sign = 1)

Line 3
Column     Description
 01-01     Line Number of Element Data
 03-07     Satellite Number
 09-16     Inclination [Degrees]
 18-25     Right Ascension of the Ascending Node [Degrees]
 27-33     Eccentricity (decimal point assumed)
 35-42     Argument of Perigee [Degrees]
 44-51     Mean Anomaly [Degrees]
 53-63     Mean Motion [Revs per day]
 64-68     Revolution number at epoch [Revs]
 69-69     Check Sum (Modulo 10)

All other columns are blank or fixed.

Example:
 
NOAA 6   
1 11416U          86 50.28438588 0.00000140           67960-4 0  5293
2 11416  98.5105  69.3305 0012788  63.2828 296.9658 14.24899292346978
 
Note that the International Designator fields are usually blank, as issued in 
the NASA Prediction Bulletins.

Dr TS Kelso                           Asst Professor of Space Operations
tkelso@icc.afit.af.mil                Air Force Institute of Technology

------------------------------

Date: 1 Sep 88 00:37:51 GMT
From: tektronix!percival!gary@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Gary Wells)
Subject: Re: SOlar System trashcans (Was:The Sun as a trashcan)

In article <387@didsgn.UUCP> till@didsgn.UUCP (didsgn) writes:
>In article <2821@pt.cs.cmu.edu>, jgk@speech2.cs.cmu.edu (Joe Keane) writes:
>] >The easiest way to get rid of nuclear waste would probably be to
>] >use hard land it on the moon. Would it be possible to build a
>] 
>] Please don't do this!
>
>Seriously, the idea doesn't seem that stupid.
>Is your objection one of principle, or do you have specific reasons?
>(I am not flaming- honestly! Just would like to know your opinion...)
 
 Yes, it _does_ seem that stupid!  We will be colonizing the moon _long_ before
 we are attempt to colonize on other bodies, especially the Sun.  Assuming that
 all the technical problems could be solved (detailed previously) the Sol would
 be a good place for all kinds of wastes, especially nuclear, becuase that is 
 the natural enviroment there.  But until we have thuorghly explored the surface of the moon, and decided whether there are places that we absolutley don't want to use for anything else (can we meet either of those requirements on Earth,
 yet?), then I don't want ANY kind of trash splattered all over the surface.

 It _might_ be a nice gesture for us to throw all our unwanted items onto the 
 surface of the Moon, which by all accounts will need all the help in the realm of raw materials it can get.  But practically speaking, if we have the spare
 cash to to pay the "astronomical" (sort of a pun, huh?) entrance fee to the
 Lunar Landfill, I think I'd rather have those raw materials recycled right 
 here.

 _Do_ try to engage your brain, before posting! (That is a mild flame, but you
 deserved it.  Sorry)


-- 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Still working on _natural_ intelligence.

gary@percival   (...!tektronix!percival!gary)

------------------------------

Date: 2 Sep 88 00:37:55 GMT
From: aramis.rutgers.edu!klaatu.rutgers.edu!josh@rutgers.edu  (J Storrs Hall)
Subject: Re: SDI, Asats, and access to orbit

leonard@bucket writes:
    In article <687@etive.ed.ac.uk> bob@etive.ed.ac.uk (Bob Gray) writes:
    <To me there is only one defense system which could possibly
    <work. Get colonies of people as widely spread over the
    <whole solar system as possible so that it is physically
    <impossible for any one colony or group of colonies to 
    <threaten or attack all the others at the same time.

    Step back a century or three, change "solar system" to world, and you
    have an "inarguably true" statement, but one that is patently false
    *now*. By the time we have major colonies spread across the solar
    system, we will be quite capable of threatening each other even at 
    those distances.

    Running away is *never* a long-term solution.

It seems a bit unfair to compare 1700's colonization technology
(worldwide settlements) to 2000's military technology (worldwide
destruction).  Indeed, it seems more reasonable to assume that travel
technology will maintain a balance against war technology in the long
run, as it has been true in general throughout history outside of a
few special cases.  

The special cases have to do with major natural boundaries holding
up the transport technology long enough for the destructive to catch
up.  Another factor can be an imbalance in the development caused by
political suppression of the transport technology and/or early
development of the military.

All of those factors contribute to the current problem.  Nuclear 
technology, which could have given us the solar system with Nerva
and/or Orion -like vehicles, is instead "born secret" and serves 
only as a sword of Damocles.  I believe that if nuclear technology
had been commercially rather than governmentally developed, the 
positions would be reversed, and the historical balance would still
be in place.  But then without big governments and their bombs,
there wouldn't be any problem anyway, so that's pretty obvious. 

--JoSH

------------------------------

Date: 31 Aug 88 17:52:16 GMT
From: mcvax!unido!ecrcvax!johng@uunet.uu.net  (John Gregor)
Subject: Re: Life on Jupiter

> [Someone:] Jupiter cannot be left out [from the list of planets
> that may harbor life].  At some altitudes, the atmosphere is
> much the same as Earth's.  

Does somebody have a hypothetical gradient of pressure, temperature, and
composition vs. altitude of the Jovian atmosphere?  I'd be interested.

Thanks
-- 

John Gregor                                       johng%ecrcvax.UUCP@pyramid.COM

------------------------------

Date: 1 Sep 88 22:05:02 GMT
From: phri!dasys1!tneff@nyu.edu  (Tom Neff)
Subject: Re: The sun as a trashcan (was : Plutonium)

Rather than dropping waste INTO the sun, how about hanging a big lightsail
on it and letting it ride on out?  Conversely, could a properly used
lightsail provide the deceleration needed for a sun drop?
-- 
Tom Neff			UUCP: ...!cmcl2!phri!dasys1!tneff
	"None of your toys	CIS: 76556,2536	       MCI: TNEFF
	 will function..."	GEnie: TOMNEFF	       BIX: t.neff (no kidding)

------------------------------

Date: 2 Sep 88 01:47:25 GMT
From: aramis.rutgers.edu!klaatu.rutgers.edu!josh@rutgers.edu  (J Storrs Hall)
Subject: Phoenix

>	I realize that this is highly unoriginal but I want to get people
>thinking about it - PLEASE, the new shuttle orbiter *must* be named Phoenix!

There is already a spacecraft (design) named Phoenix, a single-stage
to-orbit by Gary Hudson of Pacific American Launch Systems.  It was
first published in IEEE EASCON in 1985.

The Phoenix is a VTOL single stage vehicle, which means it expects 
to land on its tail with rockets blazing.  It looks not unlike an
overgrown Gemini capsule, transports 10 to 30 k lbs to orbit at
$10 to $40 per pound, and uses an "aerospike" engine (see recent 
discussion in this forum).

Hudson has this to say about reusable vehicles:

"Launch vehicles have evolved from the technology of artillery
rockets, and unfortunately have carried the "ammunition" philosophy to
regrettable extremes.  Most designers of launchers have never worked
in the other half of the aerospace business, building civil and
military aircraft, and have thus not been exposed to the side of the
business that emphasizes reuse and reliability.  Modern vehicle
designers like to think that they have a good "track record" when they
complete 97% of their assigned missions.  The other 3% of the time,
missions are a complete failure.  Such a record in civil aviation
would not get a vehicle FAA certification, much less acceptance by the
marketplace. 

"It is no argument to say that launch vehicles are more complex
devices than, for example, an F-15 or 767.  Clearly they are not.  In
addition, the argument that we sometimes have to go to great lengths
for safety's sake with manned rockets is a poor excuse.  While rockets
are spoken of as "man-rated", transport airplanes are "man, woman, and
child-rated".  We would not think of testing a new aircraft unmanned,
but it is standard procedure in the rocket business.

"Understanding the philosophical gulf between the "ammunition" theory
of boosters and the "aircraft" way of conducting business is vital to
accepting the logic of Phoenix development, test, and operation..."

--JoSH

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #364
*******************

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Date: Sat, 17 Sep 88 01:06:42 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
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To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
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Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #365

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 365

Today's Topics:
		      NASA Prediction Bulletins
		   Frequently asked SPACE questions
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 11 Sep 88 01:47:38 GMT
From: ens@blackbird.afit.af.mil  (Operational Sciences)
Subject: NASA Prediction Bulletins


The most current orbital elements from the NASA Prediction Bulletins are
carried on the Celestial RCP/M, (513) 427-0674, and are updated several times
weekly.  As a service to the amateur satellite community, the most current of
these elements are uploaded weekly to sci.space.  This week's elements are
provided below.  The Celestial RCP/M may be accessed 24 hours/day at 300,
1200, or 2400 baud using 8 data bits, 1 stop bit, no parity.

Note:  The number above is the new number in Fairborn, Ohio.

Note:  These bulletins were previously posted to rec.ham-radio but I no longer 
       have access to that newsgroup at my new location.  Please pass the word 
       to rec.ham-radio concerning the location of these postings.

- Current NASA Prediction Bulletins #375 -
GOES 2     
1 10061U          88248.55871669 -.00000007           10000-3 0  1415
2 10061   6.4406  71.8313 0005386 149.2752 210.7619  1.00263827  2518
GPS-0001   
1 10684U          88245.76799810 0.00000013                   0  9490
2 10684  63.4658 109.7712 0101164 197.8453 161.9413  2.00564024 62747
GPS-0002   
1 10893U          88239.23920919 -.00000029                   0  9097
2 10893  64.5663 350.7723 0142972  30.6653 330.1737  2.00564414 75437
GOES 3     
1 10953U          88228.66805303 0.00000086           10000-3 0  5260
2 10953   5.0557  74.5535 0002616 160.6000 200.3414  1.00280276 38572
SeaSat 1   
1 10967U          88244.35512614 0.00000349           16930-3 0   141
2 10967 108.0079  51.1656 0002138 268.6915  91.4071 14.33854985532535
GPS-0003   
1 11054U          88240.55558513 -.00000029                   0  9383
2 11054  64.1464 347.2868 0051834 119.9821 240.5545  2.00570050 72472
GPS-0004   
1 11141U          88247.13942807 0.00000013                   0   310
2 11141  63.4560 109.6285 0055233 325.5595  34.1637  2.00559714 71305
NOAA 6     
1 11416U          88251.03823468 0.00000233           11484-3 0  7526
2 11416  98.4969 250.6548 0010879 217.9991 142.0440 14.25191367477566
Solar Max  
1 11703U          88249.88148714 0.00014432           45209-3 0  6829
2 11703  28.5002  88.9539 0003448  84.6160 275.4832 15.31531608475973
GPS-0006   
1 11783U          88245.10428240 -.00000029                   0  7996
2 11783  63.9758 346.8814 0134629  64.3030 297.1187  2.00562257 61208
GOES 4     
1 11964U          88245.38571501 -.00000239           10000-3 0    98
2 11964   4.7579  76.2714 0001751 109.7384 250.7295  1.00271361 44973
GOES 5     
1 12472U          88247.46965142 -.00000248           10000-3 0  6234
2 12472   1.7605  86.9661 0002287  38.0516 322.6027  1.00263579 25737
UOSAT 1    
1 12888U          88249.25190348 0.00014285           42597-3 0  2879
2 12888  97.6155 284.6321 0002864 121.5758 238.5923 15.34764576385014
RS-08      
1 12998U          88248.40785558 0.00000012           10000-3 0  5375
2 12998  82.9566  31.6319 0018594 243.3246 116.5886 12.02965844294945
RS-05      
1 12999U          88249.35875503 0.00000012           10000-3 0  5247
2 12999  82.9709  25.8971 0011539 179.2179 180.9046 12.05071616295579
RS-07      
1 13001U          88249.34792947 0.00000013           10000-3 0  4038
2 13001  82.9606  16.3653 0023201  88.1594 272.2243 12.08707428296463
Meteor 2-08
1 13113U          88245.60005115 0.00000076           63463-4 0  5998
2 13113  82.5386 288.0994 0015973 147.1294 213.0868 13.83869004325321
Salyut 7   
1 13138U          88250.73197755 0.00003988           13266-3 0  2220
2 13138  51.6124 255.6668 0001913  87.0239 273.0475 15.33491325364599
Meteor 2-09
1 13718U          88246.34377952 0.00000068           32742-4 0  7025
2 13718  81.2450 203.0640 0057637  96.9656 263.8086 14.12990820294909
GOES 6     
1 14050U          88243.43219514 0.00000116                   0  8203
2 14050   0.5267  83.9697 0003910 113.5667 162.2174  1.00268796  3696
OSCAR 10   
1 14129U          88239.30510271 -.00000138           10000-3 0  3525
2 14129  27.1492 307.6972 6027104 331.5568   6.0030  2.05882335 11141
GPS-0008   
1 14189U          88246.69426127 0.00000013                   0  5468
2 14189  63.0797 108.3717 0128379 212.8617 146.4132  2.00554961 37677
Meteor 2-10
1 14452U          88236.05663704 0.00000159           66423-4 0  6473
2 14452  81.1621 232.2087 0094056 234.8858 124.3494 14.21829784250171
LandSat 5  
1 14780U          88246.04793825 0.00000540           12998-3 0  5194
2 14780  98.2117 307.1577 0004215  67.5339 292.6299 14.57115054239607
UOSAT 2    
1 14781U          88247.25632110 0.00000612           12999-3 0  3423
2 14781  98.0478 308.0125 0013502 138.6116 221.6102 14.62398684240590
LDEF       
1 14898U          88246.06259631 0.00009264           24713-3 0  6155
2 14898  28.5050  20.2556 0001523 242.6440 117.4005 15.36288726246924
GPS-0009   
1 15039U          88246.74840852 0.00000012                   0  5733
2 15039  62.8080 107.7318 0014627 304.9586  54.9644  2.00565189 30951
Meteor 2-11
1 15099U          88245.40619560 0.00000029           20526-4 0  8978
2 15099  82.5275 235.9998 0013074 335.5419  24.5119 13.83540845210180
GPS-0010   
1 15271U          88246.64385993 -.00000029           10000-2 0  5250
2 15271  63.4457 346.7318 0094746 314.8452  44.4108  2.00557989 28068
Cosmos 1602
1 15331U          88248.77321983 0.00001287           19190-3 0  9106
2 15331  82.5354 241.5060 0023581 294.9703  64.9112 14.73970056212159
NOAA 9     
1 15427U          88246.04830122 0.00000178           11867-3 0  2744
2 15427  99.1080 221.9406 0016493  42.8626 317.3828 14.11629880191792
Meteor 2-12
1 15516U          88248.32303024 0.00000084           70453-4 0   204
2 15516  82.5369 172.1018 0015219 194.9274 165.1440 13.83974945181517
Cosmos 1686
1 16095U          88250.99265608 0.00013214           41263-3 0   157
2 16095  51.6109 254.4134 0001655  82.8670 277.2331 15.33498228166302
GPS-0011   
1 16129U          88247.80237217 0.00000013                   0  2689
2 16129  63.6099 108.0987 0113943 149.6294 211.1149  2.00568300 21290
Meteor 3-01
1 16191U          88236.60355629 0.00000043           10000-3 0  7742
2 16191  82.5481  86.1721 0020066 325.5455  34.4374 13.16933060136351
Meteor 2-13
1 16408U          88249.50807412 0.00000069           57167-4 0  4255
2 16408  82.5328  86.0609 0017389  23.4089 336.7855 13.84061098136177
PRC 18     
1 16526U          88235.79404625 -.00000289                   0  3085
2 16526   0.0232 262.9523 0001192 300.5890 156.4502  1.00263964  9379
Mir        
1 16609U          88250.76688379 0.00083851           59887-3 0  3920
2 16609  51.6207   8.5973 0020002  21.6647 338.4855 15.72772110146670
SPOT 1     
1 16613U          88250.76376181 -.00000609          -27775-3 0  1639
2 16613  98.7319 323.4188 0000614 141.9869 218.1478 14.20024526 44470
Meteor 2-14
1 16735U          88236.70113307 0.00000087           73456-4 0  2526
2 16735  82.5386 122.9197 0015263 121.9311 238.3320 13.83793438113311
Cosmos 1766
1 16881U          88250.18121203 0.00000567           84646-4 0  3527
2 16881  82.5257 300.1335 0022399 306.1774  53.7368 14.73825765113446
EGP        
1 16908U          88236.71616084 -.00000039          -17789-6 0  1010
2 16908  50.0074 132.5539 0011097 308.4771  51.5067 12.44371843 92370
FO-12      
1 16909U          88249.63229916 -.00000025           10000-3 0  1111
2 16909  50.0165  93.0176 0010729 340.2300  19.8116 12.44395793 93972
NOAA 10    
1 16969U          88236.61251323 0.00000187           92153-4 0  1565
2 16969  98.6755 266.3377 0014675  36.0783 324.1382 14.22614074100361
Meteor 2-15
1 17290U          88248.37584500 0.00000052           41927-4 0  1862
2 17290  82.4700  22.9971 0012617 348.9118  11.1772 13.83601332 84093
GOES 7     
1 17561U          88244.89999990 -.00000223           10000-3 0  1430
2 17561   0.0723 257.6470 0007402 291.5910  40.9660  1.00274314  2688
Kvant      
1 17845U          88250.89392788 0.00037779           27439-3 0  5280
2 17845  51.6196   7.9516 0018657  19.5687 340.3843 15.72756839 82969
Cosmos 1834
1 17847U          88250.70543949 0.00030023  33101-5  14011-3 0  7530
2 17847  65.0322 338.8735 0106757 293.6535  65.2601 15.75574708 80347
RS-10/11   
1 18129U          88251.06039941 0.00000046           44259-4 0  4988
2 18129  82.9227  87.2885 0012971 114.3028 245.9496 13.71903348 60576
Cosmos 1870
1 18225U          88250.67441540 0.00125406  90977-5  15842-3 0  6335
2 18225  71.9073  96.9776 0005258 177.4923 182.6440 16.07383180 65827
Meteor 2-16
1 18312U          88249.01516629 -.00000206          -19290-3 0  1373
2 18312  82.5756  85.5223 0011169 261.8197  98.1823 13.83355141 53088
Meteor 2-17
1 18820U          88236.91688678 0.00000087           72808-4 0   522
2 18820  82.5463 156.7693 0018029  27.7119 332.4997 13.84035719 28562
AO-13      
1 19216U          88243.21393379 -.00000107           10000-3 0   185
2 19216  57.5718 241.3717 6562933 189.7644 145.2660  2.09702313  1622
1988 060A  
1 19320U          88237.27233602 0.00023333           28175-3 0   202
2 19320  65.8349 313.9214 0035101 314.5673  44.5213 15.59956336  6360
1988 060B  
1 19321U          88224.09665968 0.00029473           33367-3 0   382
2 19321  65.8379 357.3659 0040310 319.3918  40.3856 15.61284900  4316
1988 062A  
1 19324U          88232.06942062 0.00000012           59698-5 0   165
2 19324  82.9506 279.0665 0033389 196.9270 163.0774 13.74906671  4282
1988 062B  
1 19325U          88235.89428706 0.00000006                   0   388
2 19325  82.9482 276.1859 0030244 173.2275 186.9296 13.76100183  4817
1988 063A  
1 19330U          88237.81451544 -.00000228           10000-3 0   117
2 19330   0.1524 249.6747 0005190 150.5761 319.9145  1.00269604   166
1988 063B  
1 19331U          88238.02981081 0.00000134           10000-3 0    87
2 19331   0.0499 242.0565 0003014 269.6917 208.4554  1.00273505   105
1988 063C  
1 19332U          88233.35171945 0.00000110           10000-3 0   151
2 19332   7.3620  88.9581 7279433 202.0001  98.8893  2.25711161   659
Meteor 3-2 
1 19336U          88248.76952014 0.00000391           10000-2 0   239
2 19336  82.5479  17.5490 0016515 171.9707 188.1326 13.16839230  5342
1988 064B  
1 19337U          88232.42914487 0.00000068           15895-3 0   169
2 19337  82.5451  29.1003 0014623 217.4628 142.5440 13.17016256  3185
1988 065A  
1 19338U          88237.75217522 0.00004978           20581-3 0   338
2 19338  65.8417  12.0359 0031720 330.9483  28.9914 15.24638558  4161
1988 065B  
1 19339U          88234.51131458 0.00005387           21033-3 0   229
2 19339  65.8436  22.0368 0036745 345.2928  14.7139 15.26293504  3665
1988 066A  
1 19344U          88244.86016608 -.00000082           10000-3 0   212
2 19344   1.4535 276.4654 0002512 315.9599  43.4861  1.00272948   308
1988 066D  
1 19347U          88235.92952046 -.00000125           10000-3 0   103
2 19347   1.4795 275.0481 0025959 316.0749  43.7936  0.98656931    64
1988 067B  
1 19369U          88232.25151577 0.37525208  43611-4  19200-3 0   508
2 19369  63.0017 318.3312 0007155 229.3769 130.6759 16.55237317  2232
1988 069A  
1 19377U          88250.15590178 0.00000496          -82288-3 0   267
2 19377  62.8979 100.5620 7382124 288.5571   9.2965  2.00614467   491
1988 069B  
1 19378U          88250.76179577 0.00840855  11298-4  11380-2 0   496
2 19378  62.8372   9.8709 0157305 122.5449 239.1413 15.86467255  3969
1988 069C  
1 19379U          88250.72993749 0.00834389  38135-4  10155-2 0   503
2 19379  62.8357  10.2200 0176950 117.5205 244.3759 15.84028554  3959
1988 069D  
1 19380U          88249.60511897 0.00000392           10000-3 0    54
2 19380  62.8224 100.8198 7455652 288.5150   8.9146  1.95681194   481
1988 070A  
1 19384U          88250.97211244 0.00587231  34226-4  32698-3 0   526
2 19384  64.7614 116.0803 0126384 110.0224 251.8098 16.03355193  3459
1988 070B  
1 19385U          88234.48412421 0.15755018  37646-4  46522-3 0   172
2 19385  64.7694 177.2040 0037929  70.6694 289.9520 16.40145636   806
1988 071A  
1 19397U          88241.61923650 -.00000104           10000-3 0   174
2 19397   1.4980 280.7772 0009262 288.0349  70.5076  1.00282389   119
1988 071B  
1 19398U          88234.14037509 0.25339526  61865-4  15063-3 0   123
2 19398  51.6124 261.8610 0003894 251.4721 108.7625 16.54040265   384
1988 071C  
1 19399U          88232.43249464 0.42660829  60459-4  16546-2 0    57
2 19399  51.6047 271.5281 0005915 139.2186 221.0726 16.43704915   103
1988 071D  
1 19400U          88236.58519663 -.00000295           10000-3 0   186
2 19400   1.4806 277.5016 0021157  19.7081 340.6227  1.00559668   559
1988 072A  
1 19412U          88250.82357647 0.00094386           99648-4 0   240
2 19412  70.0000 111.5953 0038599  51.3755 309.1576 16.08184433  2327
1988 073A  
1 19414U          88250.85306534 0.00090427  28078-5  14448-3 0   331
2 19414  82.3203 150.5869 0015438 256.2014 103.7731 16.03345037  2314
1988 074A  
1 19419U          88245.13596039 0.00000004                   0    79
2 19419  89.9682 140.3980 0096961 149.3905 201.0175 13.40085041   917
1988 074B  
1 19420U          88246.18245507 0.00000004                   0    23
2 19420  89.9695 140.3939 0098054 146.1428 214.6029 13.40252364  1055
1988 074C  
1 19421U          88249.76384369 0.00000003                   0    75
2 19421  89.9691 140.3832 0096054 135.6113 225.2891 13.40506899  1539
1988 075A  
1 19443U          88244.15821852 0.00296580  53357-4  28340-3 0   122
2 19443  51.6160  42.4845 0019127 226.6333 133.3772 16.10806537   333
1988 076A  
1 19445U          88250.58859721 0.00000074           18792-1 0    91
2 19445  62.9393 141.0662 7368941 318.1993   4.6875  2.00712562   150
1988 076B  
1 19446U          88250.74326979 0.00575433  99235-5  10364-2 0   216
2 19446  62.8493 115.7965 0229427 121.1480 241.2418 15.68144894  1121
1988 076C  
1 19447U          88250.73689541 0.01447059  37478-4  94862-3 0   177
2 19447  62.8558 115.7165 0251325 122.6871 239.8846 15.75245881  1133
1988 076D  
1 19448U          88244.13418685 0.00000167           10000-3 0    20
2 19448  62.9146 142.0637 7343273 318.1465   4.8146  2.04038063    27
1988 079A  
1 19462U          88250.93155472 -.00050600  11685-4 -44369-4 0    35
2 19462  72.8777 101.5465 0140755  87.6007 274.7054 15.95025324   100
1988 079B  
1 19463U          88250.99378891 0.01194915  11249-4  99111-3 0    42
2 19463  72.8791 101.4242 0131699  85.2547 279.3034 15.97868467   114
1988 080A  
1 19467U          88251.18767716 -.00000018                   0    49
2 19467  99.1293 219.5016 0016396  40.5417 319.6977 14.00339723    51
1988 080B  
1 19468U          88251.25893983 -.00000018                   0    22
2 19468  99.1124 219.5740 0010521 338.5131  21.5761 14.00769866    62

Dr TS Kelso                           Asst Professor of Space Operations
tkelso@icc.afit.af.mil                Air Force Institute of Technology

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 9 Sep 88 04:00:14 PDT
From: Eugene Miya <eugene@amelia.nas.nasa.gov>
Subject: Frequently asked SPACE questions

This is a list of frequently asked questions on SPACE (which goes back
before 1980).  It is in development.  Good summaries will be accepted
in place of the answers given here.  The point of these is to circulate
existing information, and avoid rehashing old answers.  Better to
build on top than start again.  Nothing more depressing than rehashing
for the 100th time.

Initially, this message will be automatically posted once per month
and hopefully, we can cut it back to quarterly.  In time questions and
good answers will be added (and maybe removed, nah).

1) Can't they use those Shuttle tanks as an orbiting resource rather than
let them crash into the sea?

Yes, this question was thought about and answered in the mid-late 70s.
The problem is there is no sense in keeping an unguided object in space
until you need it.  There actually is a company devoted to developing them as
a resource (Denver/Boulder area).  These tanks are regarded as the Territory
of the US so are treated like land area.

2) Fermi's paradox: [Why they have not heard us yet]

Too open ended. ;-)

3) What can be done for Shuttle Crew escape systems:
Good open ended question.  Why there isn't one now:
Cost (weight, complexity, dollars, explosive devices in crew area).
Escape capsules have had a less than good history.  The B-1 caspule
was unstable after 350 MPH.  It's a trade off.  There is also a history
of "ride the bird home."

4) Where can I learn about space computers: shuttle, programming,
core memories?

%J Communications of the ACM
%V 27
%N 9
%D September 1984
%K Special issue on space [shuttle] computers

5) What about SETI computation articles?

%A D. K. Cullers
%A Ivan R. Linscott
%A Bernard M. Oliver
%T Signal Processing in SETI
%J Communications of the ACM
%V 28
%N 11
%D November 1984
%P 1151-1163
%K CR Categories and Subject Descriptors: D.4.1 [Operating Systems]:
Process Management - concurrency; I.5.4 [Pattern Recognition]:
Applications - signal processing; J.2 [Phsyical Sciences and Engineering]:
astronomy
General Terms: Design
Additional Key Words and Phrases: digital Fourier transforms,
finite impulse-response filters, interstellar communications,
Search for Extra-terrestrial Intelligence, signal detection,
spectrum analysis

6) SDI questions: these frequently appear all the time.  They do not
appear to be resolveable but the usual network shouting.  The issues are:

7) What about blasting waste into space?  Another frequently
asked question (expensive solution looking for a problem).
Have you considered recycling?

n-1) How do I get a job in space?
There are two different concerns here. 1) If seasonal like summer, you
must start looking between the months of January-March, this means
preparation in December.  Reminders are posted at that time with addresses,
etc.  2) Permanent, a list of contracting aerospace companies was
assembled by Ken Jenks (now successfully working at Rockwell, but without a
net address [see! space uses modern technology]).  Send mail request such
to one of the network personalities (Dale, Henry, Phil, etc., myself) we
will try to update the list yearly.  P.S. It helps to learn Russian and
Japanese.

n) Where do I find information about space?
Try you local public library first.  The net is not a good place for this.
It's a better place for open ended discussions.  Next trying writing
real letters to the Public Relations or Public Information Offices
of NASA, ESA, JSA, USAF, DOD, and their various contractors.  They
can inundate you.  Also try
the telephone (check a phone directory can all offices at various places
[addresses posted occasionally]).  We will also try to have designed net
`experts' on where to get more information.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #365
*******************

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Date: Sun, 18 Sep 88 01:07:05 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
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Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #366

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 366

Today's Topics:
       Soviet Mars probe PHOBOS 1 communications lost enroute.
     Re: Soviet Mars probe PHOBOS 1 communications lost enroute.
     Re: Soviet Mars probe PHOBOS 1 communications lost enroute.
		Information about Soviet Space program
			     Starsailing
			    Excellent book
		  Books on the Soviet space program.
	   Books and magazines on the Soviet space program.
	 Re: Books and magazines on the Soviet space program.
				   
			    Re: plutonium
	     Re: The sun as a trashcan (was : Plutonium)
		 Re: Are we ready for terraforming???
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 9 Sep 88 18:20:45 GMT
From: mtwain.dec.com!klaes@decwrl.dec.com  (CUP/ML, MLO5-2/G1 8A, 223-3283)
Subject: Soviet Mars probe PHOBOS 1 communications lost enroute.


        The Soviet news agency TASS today announced that communications 
    with the Mars probe PHOBOS 1 have been lost due to human error.  
    The wrong code was sent up to PHOBOS 1, and it appears there is no 
    possibility of getting signals back from the probe.  This is sadly 
    reminiscent of the code error sent to the VIKING 1 lander in 1982 
    which accidentally shut it down permanently.
    
        A communication session with PHOBOS 1 on September 2 failed when
    the spacecraft was 17 million kilometers from Earth.  PHOBOS 2
    is functioning smoothly and it is currently 19 million kilometers 
    from Earth along a trajectory closed to the predicted one.

        If anyone has more information on this unfortunate incident 
    and what extra tasks PHOBOS 2 will now have to perform as a result,
    please post it here.  Thank you.
    
        Larry

------------------------------

Date: 10 Sep 88 21:34:14 GMT
From: oliveb!intelca!mipos3!martin@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Martin Harriman ~)
Subject: Re: Soviet Mars probe PHOBOS 1 communications lost enroute.

(This is probably only of interest if you don't have a newspaper, since
I get all my incredibly technical understanding of this from that obscure
source.)

The major Phobos problem is said to be that the spacecraft pointing was
screwed up, so it has lost some or all of its power (and thus will soon
be dead as a doornail, just like Jacob Marley).

This is distinct from the "commit messy internal suicide" option available
in most probes.  The probes I've heard about (through that source of
all great technical knowledge, the newspaper) have a fair amount of
internal redundancy, and can be reconfigured on signals from the ground
(or on the absence of signals:  see Voyager 2 and the radio from hell).
Of course, this means that ground control can also go *oops, I didna really
mean that* and cause the probe to turn into high speed modern
interplanetary sculpture.  Oh, well--but, on the balance, the stories I've
seen would indicate that the reconfigurability is a Very Good Thing, and
that we've gained much more (for instance:  better data compression and
transmission) than we've lost.

(This seems painfully obvious and basic, but I thought it might be worth
posting, since some apparently haven't figured it out.)

  --Martin
    martin@bashful.intel.com

------------------------------

Date: 14 Sep 88 20:24:08 GMT
From: ftp!seven@bloom-beacon.mit.edu  (Benjamin Levy)
Subject: Re: Soviet Mars probe PHOBOS 1 communications lost enroute.

In article <3557@s.cc.purdue.edu>, ain@s.cc.purdue.edu (Patrick White) writes:
> In article <MARTIN.88Sep10143810@bashful.intel.com> martin@bashful.intel.com (Martin Harriman ~) writes:
>> The major Phobos problem is said to be that the spacecraft pointing was
>> screwed up, so it has lost some or all of its power (and thus will soon
>> be dead as a doornail, just like Jacob Marley).
> 
>    This seems like a stupid question, but why not just tell it to point the
> right way.. and if they can't because it can't hear them, then can they 
> "bounce" a signal off another satellite/probe in the general vicinity?
> -- Pat White

    There was an article in the Boston Globe which described the
problem.  Apparently someone accidently told the probe to turn its
antenna away from Earth, which prevents us from talking to it.  When
it turned away from the Earth, it also moved its solar panels so they
no longer face the sun.  Also it was using a particular star for
navigating, which it lost sight of when it turned way from the Earth.
In other words everything that could go wrong, without actually
damaging the probe, did go wrong.

    The probe is currently spinning randomly with its batteries slowly
fading.  So the only thing that will save the probe is if it
accidently turns its antenna towards the Earth, while someone is
transmitting the appropriate commands to fix the situation.
-- 
   ---Ben Levy    FTP Software Inc.    <seven@ftp.com>
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Member of the International Amoeba Society: 
                            "United We Stand, Divided We Multiply"

------------------------------

Date: 12 Sep 88 18:07:43 GMT
From: linus!marsh@husc6.harvard.edu  (Ralph Marshall)
Subject: Information about Soviet Space program


	I have a request for the net.space.historians.  I am
starting a historical research project covering the history
of the Soviet Union's space exploration.  I am hoping to end up with
an audio-visual presentation that would be interesting for
high-school and college age students as well as adults who
are unfamiliar with foreign space efforts.  I am posting this
because I am looking for any pointers to sources of material,
especially places where I can get good still photographs, film
clips, and audio tapes (I am willing to invest a few bucks in
this, but not thousands).  Any advice is welcome.  I have
written to the Soviet Embassy asking their public relations
people to send me stuff, but I'm sort of stuck for where
to look next.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ralph Marshall (marsh@mitre-bedford.arpa, or ...att!linus!marsh)

Disclaimer:  Often wrong but never in doubt...  All of these opinions
are mine, so don't gripe to my employer if you don't like them.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: 10 Sep 88 08:52:54 GMT
From: mcvax!enea!erix!howard@uunet.uu.net  (Howard Gayle)
Subject: Starsailing

>From the Books Received section of Science, 8 July 1988, p. 236:
Starsailing.  Solar Sails and Interstellar Travel.
Louis Friedman, Wiley, New York, 1988, 146 pp., paper $9.95.

Howard Gayle
TN/ETX/TX/UMG
Ericsson Telecom AB
S-126 25 Stockholm
Sweden
howard@ericsson.se
{mcvax, uunet}!enea!ericsson.se!howard
Phone: +46 8 719 5565
FAX  : +46 8 719 9598
Telex: 14910 ERIC S

------------------------------

Date: 12 Sep 88 05:18:52 GMT
From: aterry@TEKNOWLEDGE-VAXC.ARPA  (Stack Overflow)
Subject: Excellent book

There is an excellent book I have not seen mentioned in this group:
  Interstellar Migration and the Human Experience
  edited by Ben R. Finney and Eric M. Jones
  Univ. of California Press, 1985
I bought it about a year ago so it may still be in print.

This is a collection of papers derived from a conference.  The papers have
been cleaned up, some new material published elsewhere has been added, and in
some cases rebuttals and comments added.  The book is an interdisciplinary
look at what going to the stars might mean, accessable to the Scientific
American type reader.  There are some technical papers in the front to set the
stage: e.g., what resources are there, what are the problems of interstellar
travel?  There is a section on demography and economics.  Well, what about
this genetic drift bugaboo, what IS a minimum colony size?  (Smaller than you
would think.)  How would one plan the first few generations' economy and
provide for their needs considering massive resupply will be impractical?
Deciding what to pack is a non-trivial problem for a generation ship.  There
are sections discussing other societies (such as the Polynesians) who have
culturally adapted to massive migration.  There is even a section on what
migration might mean to the future evolution of our species.  Going to the
stars is not just a matter of engineering, it will be a profound cultural
enterprise.  Reading this book gives some idea of the issues involved, and in
doing so makes it all that much more real.  I recommend this book highly.
						Allan

------------------------------

Date: 14 Sep 88 16:29:31 GMT
From: mtwain.dec.com!klaes@decwrl.dec.com  (CUP/ML, MLO5-2/G1 8A, 223-3283)
Subject: Books on the Soviet space program.


        Per Ralph Marshall's request for sources of information on the 
    Soviet space program, here are some books which come to mind, and 
    which I also own.  I am writing on them from memory, since they are 
    at home and I have no access to them at the moment.  I believe they 
    are still available to order through any good bookstore: 

        THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF SPACE TECHNOLOGY, one volume, first printed 
    in 1980.  It is an excellent source of material, photographs, and 
    diagrams of every major space effort up to the present (the book is 
    periodically updated).  It contains quite a bit on the Soviet 
    programs, including new material never before published outside of 
    classified documents.
 
        RED STAR IN ORBIT by James Oberg, 1981.  Oberg is an expert 
    on the Soviet space program, and he provides a number of disclosures 
    on Soviet space flights which have been hidden for years to the 
    West.  There is also an excellent bibliography which will lead 
    you to numerous other works on Soviet space flights.  An updated 
    version of sorts on several space incidents can be found in Oberg's 
    1988 book, UNCOVERING SOVIET DISASTERS.  These two books do expose the 
    myths about a "secret" manned program in which ten cosmonauts 
    supposedly died in space accidents before Yuri Gagarin's flight in 
    VOSTOK 1 in 1961; in reality, there were eight or nine deaths of 
    cosmonauts in training accidents on the ground which were only recently 
    reported due to the reforms of glastnost.

        SPACE LOG, A Jane's Information Book, 1987.  This book details 
    thirty years of unmanned planetary probes, with excellent technical 
    information and diagrams of the Soviet probes, many of which have had 
    little disclosure before.  A companion book, PLANETARY ENCOUNTERS, 
    covers much of the same territory.

        A HISTORY OF ROCKETRY AND SPACE TRAVEL by Werhner Von Braun, 
    1985.  This book has been updated three times since its first printing 
    in 1966, the latest written by another author since Von Braun's death 
    in 1977 (I have the 1969 version, thus my inability to mention the 
    new author).  Like the Space Encyclopedia first mentioned, it 
    gives you an all-around view of the Soviet program in relation to the 
    other international space programs.

        These books are accessible to the age and education group you 
    desire, and will hopefully lead you to even more sources.  If I think 
    of or find any more, I will post them in this newsgroup.  Good luck, 
    and thanks for bringing space education to the general public!  We need 
    more of it to make people aware just how important space exploration 
    is to our future.

        Larry

------------------------------

Date: 14 Sep 88 16:55:50 GMT
From: mtwain.dec.com!klaes@decwrl.dec.com  (CUP/ML, MLO5-2/G1 8A, 223-3283)
Subject: Books and magazines on the Soviet space program.


        In regards to my list of books on the Soviet space program, I 
    would like to make one correction and addition:  The Jane's book on 
    planetary probes which I referred to as SPACE LOG is actually entitled 
    SOLAR SYSTEM LOG.  There is also a 1985 Jane's book on manned space 
    flights entitled MANNED SPACE LOG, which gives the technical details 
    on Soviet and American manned space flights.

        While I do not know of any periodicals which deal specifically 
    with the Soviet space program (Are there any?), I can refer you to 
    three magazines which do carry technical information on current 
    developments in this area:  AVIATION WEEK AND SPACE TECHNOLOGY, FINAL 
    FRONTIER, and SKY AND TELESCOPE, all of which should be available at 
    any good library.

        Larry

------------------------------

Date: 14 Sep 88 22:00:39 GMT
From: cfa!cfa250!mcdowell@husc6.harvard.edu  (Jonathan McDowell)
Subject: Re: Books and magazines on the Soviet space program.

>From article <8809141655.AA11300@decwrl.dec.com>, by klaes@mtwain.dec.com (CUP/ML, MLO5-2/G1 8A, 223-3283):
(List of books on Sov space)

For more detailed info, try Nicholas Johnson's "Soviet Space Programs
1980-85", an AAAS Science and Technology series publication at about
$50, or Marcia Smith's 'Soviet Space Programs 1976-80', a US
Congressional Research Service document available from US Govt Printing
Office in DC.  The latter is probably the 'primary' reference (short of
reading Pravda and analysing NORAD's orbital elements) and an updated
version is being published.  Phillip Clark in London is writing a
definitive book on the Soviet program which hopefully will emerge soon. 
The Journal of the British Interplanetary Society and Spaceflight News,
both British publications, carry regular articles; there is also a
privately published 'fanzine' called Zenit, also from England, which
deals exclusively with current news in the Soviet program. 

Jonathan McDowell

------------------------------

Resent-Message-Id: <EX=aity00Vse03gEQ0@andrew.cmu.edu>
Resent-Date: Wed, 14 Sep 88 08:53:13 -0400 (EDT)
Resent-From: Ted Anderson <ota+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Resent-To: Space <space+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Return-Path: <@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU:U15305@UICVM.BITNET>
Date: 6 September 1988 11:50:12 CDT
From: U15305@uicvm   (Tom Kirke 996-4961)
To: <OTA@angband.s1.gov>
Subject: 

Peter Nelson in V8 #350 mentioned a book "Heavens on Earth".
The complete listing for this book is:

          Holloway, Mark 1917-
          Heavens on Earth: Utopian Communities in America 1680-1880
          New York  Dover Pub (1966) <2nd ed rev>
          HX653 .H66 1966

Tom Kirke

------------------------------

Date: 1 Sep 88 22:45:02 GMT
From: tikal!sigma!uw-nsr!uw-warp!gtisqr!rick@beaver.cs.washington.edu  (Rick Groeneveld)
Subject: Re: plutonium

In article <951@meccsd.MECC.MN.ORG>, mvs@meccsd.MECC.MN.ORG (Michael V. Stein) writes:
> Plutonium is far too valuable of an energy source to go throw it away.
> Even if we could, which as Mr. Plait later explains is probabally
> impossible, it would be one of the most stupid ideas ever implemented
> by anyone on this planet - or probably any other planet for that
> matter.

	When considering the current use of plutonium, it
	doesn't sound so stupid after all. :->

					H. Groeneveld

------------------------------

Date: 2 Sep 88 01:46:21 GMT
From: bungia!meccts!meccsd!mvs@UMN-CS.ARPA  (Michael V. Stein)
Subject: Re: The sun as a trashcan (was : Plutonium)

In article <962@esunix.UUCP> bpendlet@esunix.UUCP (Bob Pendleton) writes:
>...If we do decide to dump the stuff in space (and what ever ocean we
>launch over), I hope we are smart enough to dump it on the moon or in
>orbits that don't go too near the sun. At least then we can retrieve
>it after we realize what we've done.

RIGHT!!  

>The US government has paid for many studies of the "proper" way to
>dispose of high level nuclear waste. The same technique has been
>proposed many times. Simply put, bury it deep in large blocks of
>basalt, where large is roughly the size of your average mountain. 

You have the scale a bit high.  The high level wastes for a 1000
Megawatt nuclear plant operating for one year will occupy no more 
than 2 cubic meters.  (A volume that will fit nicely under a kitchen
table.)  In comparison a 1000 megawatt coal plant produces about 10
tons of waste - per _minute_.

>Back
>filled with ceramics and crushed basalt the decay heat of the waste
>should fuse the surrounding material into an extremely hard nodule.
>
>To the best of my knowledge this has not been tested. Nor has it ever
>been seriously considered as a waste disposal technique by the federal
>government, it seems it costs too much. 

Nuclear waste disposal will be paid by a tax that is applied to all
electricty generated from nuclear power plants.  The reason that it
hasn't happened already is simply that there is no urgent need for a
repository right now.  

>I'll bet it costs less than
>launching the waste into space.

You are damn right it will cost less.  It will also be several billion times
safer.

-- 
Michael V. Stein - Minnesota Educational Computing Corp. - Technical Services
{bungia,uiucdcs,umn-cs}!meccts!mvs  or  mvs@mecc.MN.ORG

------------------------------

Date: 1 Sep 88 17:30:41 GMT
From: hp-pcd!hpcvlx!bturner@hplabs.hp.com  (Bill Turner)
Subject: Re: Are we ready for terraforming???

> On the serious side though, I believe that it is incredibly sad that mankinds
> first attempts at terraforming will be on the Earth just to keep it
> habitable.  I feel that we will have to eventually implement some type of
> global scheme to clean up the earth and the longer we wait, the more
> drastic it will be.

If you wish to look at it this way, we HAVE been terraforming Earth for quite
a while now.  Whether for good or not, you must admit that the environment has
been effected substantially by our activities.  And what is terraforming, other
than changing the environment?

--Bill Turner

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #366
*******************

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Date: Mon, 19 Sep 88 01:08:27 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8809190808.AA03235@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
Reply-To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #367

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 367

Today's Topics:
			  Two space policies
		Re: SETI:  Why don't we hear anything?
	      Announcing the Plutonium Waste Trust Fund.
		      Re: Naming the new Shuttle
		Re: Overpopulation is not our problem
		      Solar System as a Trashcan
		  Re: space news from July 11 AW&ST
		  Re: space news from July 11 AW&ST
			  Re: Why no aliens
			 Re: more TV viewing
		      Re: Orbital Mech Algorithm
		  Re: space news from July 11 AW&ST
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Reply-To: mordor!rutgers!pnet01.cts.com!jim
Date: Tue, 23 Aug 88 10:29:57 PDT
From: mordor!rutgers!pnet01.cts.com!jim (Jim Bowery)
To: ucsd!nosc!crash!space
Subject: Two space policies

Since Dale Amon is intimately familiar with both the Ron Paul (Libertarian
presidential candidate) and the National Space Society space policies, 
I'm sure many of us would appreciate it if Dale would compare and
contrast these two, vastly different, space policies in terms of their
relative merits.

UUCP: {cbosgd, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!pnet01!jim
ARPA: crash!pnet01!jim@nosc.mil
INET: jim@pnet01.cts.com

------------------------------

Reply-To: mordor!rutgers!pnet01.cts.com!jim
Date: Sat, 27 Aug 88 11:14:52 PDT
From: mordor!rutgers!pnet01.cts.com!jim (Jim Bowery)
To: ucsd!nosc!crash!space
Subject: Re: SETI:  Why don't we hear anything?

I think the answer is obvious -- there is a galactic betting pool
on how long it will take humanity to go belly-up.  Anyone caught
communicating with Earth in any way automatically loses their wager.

UUCP: {cbosgd, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!pnet01!jim
ARPA: crash!pnet01!jim@nosc.mil
INET: jim@pnet01.cts.com

------------------------------

Date: 2 Sep 88 08:33:40 GMT
From: apple!well!pokey@bloom-beacon.mit.edu  (Jef Poskanzer)
Subject: Announcing the Plutonium Waste Trust Fund.

All you folks who want to launch the world's supply of Plutonium are
hereby invited to put your money where your (extremely active) mouths
are.  In the tradition of such conservation groups as the Nature
Conservancy and the Trust for Public Lands, I am starting a trust fund
whose purpose is to waste all our Plutonium.  We will purchase it at
the market price and launch it into interstellar space.  Current
estimates are that the launch cost will be around $20 billion and the
purchase cost will be around $100 billion.  Purchases will start as
soon as we have received enough donations to launch the first load.
The suggested donation is equal to your monthly electricity bill, in
return for which you get an attractive pin identifying you as a
Plutonium Waster.  Send your checks to:

    Plutonium Waste Trust Fund
    c/o John J. Poskanzer
    1212 Kains
    Berkeley, CA 94706

Don't delay!  The longer we wait, the more Plutonium there is!
---
Jef

             Jef Poskanzer   jef@rtsg.ee.lbl.gov   ...well!pokey
          If ignorance is bliss, why aren't there more happy people?

------------------------------

Date: 1 Sep 88 21:23:14 GMT
From: tektronix!percival!gary@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Gary Wells)
Subject: Re: Naming the new Shuttle

In article <8808301935.AA05210@angband.s1.gov> dddurda@PINE.CIRCA.UFL.EDU ("DURDA") writes:
>thinking about it - PLEASE, the new shuttle orbiter *must* be named Phoenix!

That's a good name, and appropreate, but...

Don't you think it is time we realized that the Shuttle program is a zombie 
(ie: something basically dead, but still animated)?

Let's go for a whole new program, which shall be seen to rise from the ashes
of Challeanger and the shuttle program.  We'll call _that_ Phoenix!

-- 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Still working on _natural_ intelligence.

gary@percival   (...!tektronix!percival!gary)

------------------------------

Date: 1 Sep 88 17:54:40 GMT
From: sdcc6!calmasd!jnp@ucsd.edu  (John Pantone)
Subject: Re: Overpopulation is not our problem


(The Math Hacker) writes:
>> csustan!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!watson proclaims:
>>THERE'S TOO MANY PEOPLE!  
>>OVERPOPULATION IS THE PROBLEM!
>>HAVE FEWER BABIES! 
>>Actually, I don't think all our current environmental problems are caused
>>by overpopulation ... just a big hunk.
>You're talking to the wrong people.  The U.S. is NOT currently overpopulated.
>It just seems that way because of overcrowded cities.  

You bet - the U.S. has a population distribution problem, not an
overpopulation problem. Ever driven from Iowa through South Dakota,
Montana, Idaho south through Nevada and or Utah into Arizona and much
of California? You could count the people on the fingers of one hand. 

The gene pool stuff you mention, though, is probably off - we have
plenty of people to keep our genetics going well - especially since we
tend to move around so much, marry outside of our "group" so often
nowadays, and allow so much immigration (legal and illegal).

-- 
These opinions are solely mine and in no way reflect those of my employer.  
John M. Pantone @ GE/Calma R&D, 9805 Scranton Rd., San Diego, CA 92121
...{ucbvax|decvax}!sdcsvax!calmasd!jnp   jnp@calmasd.GE.COM   GEnie: J.PANTONE

------------------------------

Date: 2 Sep 88 08:14:33 GMT
From: rebel!didsgn!till@gatech.edu  (didsgn)
Subject: Solar System as a Trashcan


IN RESPONSE TO MY INQUIRY STEVE WAS KIND ENOUGH TO REPLY. I POST HIS EMAIL
LETTER HERE, BECAUSE I THOUGHT IT WAS COGENT AND TO THE POINT.

From: Steve Hosgood <rebel!gatech!cs.utexas.edu!uunet.UU.NET!mcvax!pyr.swan.ac.uk!iiit-sh>
Date: Thu, 1 Sep 88 18:10:33-0000
Message-Id: <25199.8809011710@pyr.swan.ac.uk>
To: utexas.edu!uunet.UU.NET!didsgn!till@cs
Subject: Re: SOlar System trashcans (Was:The Sun as a trashcan)
Newsgroups: sci.space
In-Reply-To: <387@didsgn.UUCP>
References: <1255@netmbx.UUCP> <2818@pt.cs.cmu.edu> <2821@pt.cs.cmu.edu>
Organization: Institute for Industrial Information Technology
Status: R

Well, I'd oppose the idea of chucking radioactive stuff onto the moon for
2 reasons.

1) The launchers aren't reliable enough.
2) In the future, someone's bound to want to use the moon's real-estate for
	something useful (like living space). Your grandchildren and mine
	are really going to respect you for using it as a radioactive dump!
	They're going to have to clean it all up.

Once apon a time, Bikini Atoll looked like a good place to test H-bombs. Now,
30 years later, people are having to clean the mess up. Anthrax was tested on
a remote Scottish island in WW2, the place is still a total no-go area - you
aren't even allowed to overfly it within several nautical miles. What about
Love Canal? I'm sure the list goes on for ever....

Jupiter or the sun, maybe, the moon - I say no!
Please post a summary if many others cast their votes too.

-----------------------------------------------+------------------------------
Steve Hosgood BSc,                             | Phone (+44) 792 295213
Image Processing and Systems Engineer,         | Fax (+44) 792 295532
Institute for Industrial Information Techology,| Telex 48149
Innovation Centre, University of Wales, +------+ JANET: iiit-sh@uk.ac.swan.pyr
Swansea SA2 8PP                         | UUCP: ..!ukc!cybaswan.UUCP!iiit-sh
----------------------------------------+-------------------------------------
            My views are not necessarily those of my employers!


P.S. by Till:
I agree with Steve's opinion, but would like to add that even Jupiter is
not necessarily an acceptable target for disposal. 
If we absolutely need a planet to dump then, given orbital mechanics and
energy expenditure etc maybe Mercury seems more appropriate.

------------------------------

Date: 2 Sep 88 15:17:06 GMT
From: rochester!dietz@rutgers.edu  (Paul Dietz)
Subject: Re: space news from July 11 AW&ST

In article <1988Sep1.140800.1353@cs.rochester.edu> dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) writes:
>  The compound they were originally playing with,
>erythropoietin, is now being made by genetically engineered microbes
>and should be on the market in a few years.

I realized after writing this that some may have the misimpression
that the work with CFES somehow led to a ground-based approach.
It didn't -- the isolation and cloning of the gene for EPO was in
no way helped by microgravity research, and was done by other
companies (Amgen and Genetics Institute, I think).

	Paul F. Dietz
	dietz@cs.rochester.edu

	Space is where to go,
	'cause NASA tells me so.

------------------------------

Date: 2 Sep 88 12:46:46 GMT
From: haven!uflorida!novavax!proxftl!greg@purdue.edu  (Gregory N. Hullender)
Subject: Re: space news from July 11 AW&ST

1) What exactly did these "successful" spaceleb missions discover?  I
   think they were just more "space junkets."

2) No one had to be up in space to see ocean currents; satellite pictures
   would have done as well.

3) What, exactly, is 3M launching on?  Can't be the shuttle right now,
   and it can't be too important if they've tabled it for almost 3 years.

4) My understanding of the Solar Max mission was that it cost a lot more
   than it would have to simply launch a new one.

5) Hubble has so far returned zero data.  There is nothing about a space
   telescope that intrinsically requires human servicing.

Even though some of the items you mention have some merit, the shuttle has
been at best irrelevant to them, at worst (and this is the usual case)
inimical.

I was being generous in giving it a zero.
-- 
		Greg Hullender  uflorida!novavax!proxftl!greg
		3511 NE 22nd Ave / Fort Lauderdale, FL 33308

	    My opinions are not necessarily those of my employer.

------------------------------

Date: 1 Sep 88 12:18:00 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!dcl-cs!nott-cs!pyr1.cs.ucl.ac.uk!william@uunet.uu.net
Subject: Re: Why no aliens



>simply that it is too dangerous. ... They would
>be stupid to contact us because it would be so easy for us to
>annihilate the planet with nukes.

I think we are overestimating ourselves a little here.  It would take
us lots of years to get together an overwhelming nuclear attack force
that we could get to Mars.  We would have to find out what "annihilate"
means - if all their buildings were hardened and underground, and the
Martians routinely wore radiation proof clothing and were built like
brick s***houses, then we would have to send a hell of a lot of explosive.
Enough, say, to plough up the top mile or so of the whole planet?
I don't think we can put together that sort of firepower, and we are
never going to get that much into space on a shuttle.  

Right now we have great difficulty getting *anything* to Mars.  We
would need huge launchers to get this sort of force into inter-
planetary space.

I do not believe that mankind is a worthy space fighter yet, and our
delivery mechanisms are so slow and unguidable that our opponents
would have no trouble picking them off even if their technology was
no more advanced than ours.

Maybe in 50 years time??

			... Bill

************************************************************************
Bill Witts, CS Dept.     *    Nel Mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
UCL, London, Errrp       *    mi ritrovai per una selva oscura
william@uk.ac.ucl.cs(UK) *    che la diritta via era smarrita.
william@cs.ucl.ac.uk(US) ***********************************************

------------------------------

Date: 2 Sep 88 15:58:45 GMT
From: mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Mike Smithwick)
Subject: Re: more TV viewing

In article <14185@ames.arc.nasa.gov> mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov.UUCP (Mike Smithwick) writes:
>[]
>
>Those of you with TVRO systems, circle Sept. 8 on your calenders.
>In the morning, (probably around 7:00 am Eastern), there will be a
                                  ^^^^
Just got the sched, it'll be a 10:00 AM eastern, 7:00 Pacific.

>countdown demonstration test and on pad abort for the STS-26 crew. 
>They've been broadcast in the past, so expect video from this one.
>NASA Select TV is on Satcom F2, xpndr 13.


(you
 know
 what
 this 
 is 
 for)


-- 
			   *** mike (starship janitor) smithwick ***
"You can fool some of the people all of the time, or all of the people
 some of the time, but you can't fool Mom".
[disclaimer : nope, I don't work for NASA, I take full blame for my ideas]

------------------------------

Date: 2 Sep 88 14:31:31 GMT
From: att!ihlpa!lew@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Lew Mammel, Jr.)
Subject: Re: Orbital Mech Algorithm


There was some mention of using the 1/2*a*t^2 term to gain increased accuracy
in a simple F=ma calculation. This correction is of order delta_t^2 so that it
becomes less and less helpful as the step size is decreased. There is a correction
of order delta_t, which I learned from professor Robert Folk of Lehigh University
when I was a teaching assistant there. This correction is of the calculation of the
applied force at each step. Instead of evaluating F(x) at x=x_n for the nth interval,
use x=x_n+v*delta_t/2 . This gives a value for F more nearly equal to its average
value over the interval.

An easy way to evaluate relative accuracy is to calcuate a closed eliptical
orbit for a one-body central field problem and check for closure. You'll find
that the "midpoint force term evaluation" method gives greatly increased
accuracy.

Lew Mammel, Jr.

------------------------------

Date: 2 Sep 88 16:18:44 GMT
From: mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Mike Smithwick)
Subject: Re: space news from July 11 AW&ST

In article <691@proxftl.UUCP> greg@proxftl.UUCP (Gregory N. Hullender) writes:
>
>2) No one had to be up in space to see ocean currents; satellite pictures
>   would have done as well.

We've had oceanographic studies via unmanned satillites, but whether you
like it or not, the human eye is vastly more sensitive to some things
than any of the cameras ever launched. John Scully-Power was simply able
to witness very fine structures never detected in the years and years
of earth resource satillite studies.

>3) What, exactly, is 3M launching on?  Can't be the shuttle right now,
>   and it can't be too important if they've tabled it for almost 3 years.

It's called the Shuttle. The first CFES (Continuous Flow Electrophoresis
System) flight was on STS-3, and it has flown on 7 or 8 missions since 
then.

>4) My understanding of the Solar Max mission was that it cost a lot more
>   than it would have to simply launch a new one.

NASA didn't happen to have a warehouse full of spare Solar Max satillites,
to launch as needed. They would've had to construct
a whole new one practically from scratch, at a cost of at least $150 million.
Now double that to include the launch costs, and you end up with about
$300 million or more in total costs. Not to mention a minimum of 5 years
in construction. Alot of extra time and money when all that was needed
to be done was to replace a burned out fuse.

>5) Hubble has so far returned zero data.  

So has Galileo and Magellen.

>   There is nothing about a space
>   telescope that intrinsically requires human servicing.

Can you say "repair"? If we're going to put up a $billion dollar plus,
instrument in space, we damn well better be able to fix the thing
if struck by a micro-meteroid, or suffers a system failure. Not to mention
refueling it, cleaning the mirror, etc. Also, periodically, scientific packages
will be swapped out for new ones.

>Even though some of the items you mention have some merit, the shuttle has
>been at best irrelevant to them, at worst (and this is the usual case)
>inimical.

Read the above.

>I was being generous in giving it a zero.
             ^^^^^^^^
Nah, too easy. . .

>		Greg Hullender  uflorida!novavax!proxftl!greg
>		3511 NE 22nd Ave / Fort Lauderdale, FL 33308
>
>	    My opinions are not necessarily those of my employer.


-- 
			   *** mike (starship janitor) smithwick ***
"You can fool some of the people all of the time, or all of the people
 some of the time, but you can't fool Mom".
[disclaimer : nope, I don't work for NASA, I take full blame for my ideas]

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #367
*******************

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Date: Mon, 19 Sep 88 19:06:57 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8809200206.AA04238@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
Reply-To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #368

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 368

Today's Topics:
		  Re: space exploration/exploitation
		       Re: Berserker hypothesis
		 Re: Are we ready for terraforming???
		    space exploration/exploitation
		     Re: eyewitnesses to history
	     Re: The sun as a trashcan (was : Plutonium)
			       Re: Seti
			  Re: Why no aliens
		      Re: Orbital Mech Algorithm
		      Re: Naming the new Shuttle
	     Survey results, and 'Why aren't they here?"
		 Re: Inverse SETI (Was:  ET phone ho
			  Re: Why no aliens
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 2 Sep 88 18:28:56 GMT
From: jgk@speech2.cs.cmu.edu  (Joe Keane)
Subject: Re: space exploration/exploitation

In article <48@calmasd.GE.COM> jnp@calmasd.GE.COM (John Pantone) writes:
>What will NASA and the U.S. Govt. say/do when a
>prominent space scientist LEAVES THE US AND GOES TO THE SOVIET UNION
>BECAUSE THAT'S WHERE THE ACTION IS?

Maybe this belongs on talk.rumors, but i heard John Denver will pay
the USSR $10M to go up into space.  Can anyone confirm or deny this?

--Joe
--

------------------------------

Date: 2 Sep 88 18:07:26 GMT
From: att!ihlpl!knudsen@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Knudsen)
Subject: Re: Berserker hypothesis

In article <2196@silver.bacs.indiana.edu>, chiaravi@silver.bacs.indiana.edu (Lucius Chiaraviglio) writes:

> As a corollary to this, if humans acquired a religion and/or political
> ideology directing them to spread as much as possible and exterminate all life
> not required for their own support (and also exterminate all humans not
> conforming to this religion/ideology), they would count as berserkers, even
> though they are not machines.

IF what?  The ancient Hebrews, European CHristians, their New World
descendants (Esp. Brazil), farmers, whalers -- all sorts of human races
fit this definition perfectly.  The US probably has a copyright
on it.  No smileys.

Maybe we should be glad that the benign Russians have taken over
space exploration (OK, a smiley on this one).
Unfortunately, benign races don't bother going across the ocean, let
alone into space, Vulcans notwithstanding.

------------------------------

Date: 2 Sep 88 18:14:51 GMT
From: att!ihlpl!knudsen@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Knudsen)
Subject: Re: Are we ready for terraforming???

In article <10183@reed.UUCP>, douglas@reed.UUCP (P Douglas Reeder) writes:

> The greenhouse effect warms the earth up.  Particulate matter, from burning
> coal, etc. cuts down on sunlight.  It has been suggested that we may
> need to balance these effects against one another.

This reminded me to post my own theory on Nuclear Winter.
After a year or so of freezing weather caused by
all the particulates, the particles would settle out of the
atmosphere.  Then the excess of CO2 from all the burning cities,
exacerbated by the lack of growing plants during the cold and
cloudy "winter," would take over, and we'd go from the deep freeze
into the oven.  This overheating would continue until Earth
recovered her pre-war balance, if ever.

BTW, about volcanic contributions -- after Krakatoa blew up around
1880 (several 100 megatons' worth I believe), the dust in
the air caused cooler temperatures than normal worldwide for two
years.  Sunsets were blood-red from the dust in the atmosphere.
I don't recall hearing of any similar effects after World War II,
during which all major cities of Germany and Japan were converted
into soot and CO2.

------------------------------

Date: 2 Sep 88 14:14:00 GMT
From: apollo!nelson_p@eddie.mit.edu  (Peter Nelson)
Subject: space exploration/exploitation


  Kevin Van Horn posts


>>  The bottom line remains that this notion of free-enterprise
>>  in space is just a pipe-dream with a lot of conveeenient
>>  excuses by it's proponents.    
>
>Tell that to American Rocket Company, the Hercules-Orbital Sciences
>Corporation partnership, and Pacific American Launch Systems.  All three are
>pushing on to provide new launchers in spite of governmental obstacles.  AMROC
> [ ... ]
         

  We weren't talking about those kinds of ventures.  I expect them to
  succeed.  You've drifted from the original subject.

  Originally, several Libertarians or other idealists posted or 
  emailed messages to the effect that they 'had plans' to move
  to commercially self-sustaining politically independent space
  colonies and we'd all better get out their way and let them through.  

  I intimated that this was all pie-in-the-sky and that if they really
  expected to see it happen in their lifetimes they had better be 
  working Real Hard on it now and what we they doing, etc.  

  I got back messages saying, to the effect, 'Oh, well, we *would*
  be working on it 'cept for the government might try to stop us, etc.
  So as I expected, it's just a lot of talk and daydreams.

  I fully expect the aerospace companies, in cooperation with companies
  that can benefit from being in space (comm. satellites, pharmecutical
  companies, etc?) to be up there in some form in the next 10 - 15 years
  or so, though perhaps not with actual people on board.   And, of course, 
  the companies may be Japanese rather than American...

                                              --Peter Nelson

------------------------------

Date: 1 Sep 88 15:32:52 GMT
From: uplherc!esunix!bpendlet@gr.utah.edu  (Bob Pendleton)
Subject: Re: eyewitnesses to history

>From article <14094@ames.arc.nasa.gov>, by mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Mike Smithwick):
> []
> 
> I thought I'd start something not so serious here. . .
> 
> How many of you guys out there in net.land have ever attended a
> launch? I have had the priviledge of going back to Florida
> for the Apollo 11, 15 and 17 launches.

My wife was given VIP passes to a February '84 launch of Challenger.
The one carrying the Brighton High student experiments. So of course
we went, even though she was 8 months pregnant at the time.

During the tour of KSC I was struck by how small all the boosters
seemed, compared to the image I'd had in my mind. Even a Saturn V is
small compared to an ocean going ship. Tiny, compared to the old
airships.

We watched the launch from the VIP viewing stand, about as close as
you can get. The LAUNCH! WOW! You feel the SSMEs in your ears and your
guts, but the SRBs shake the world! The Challenger didn't lift off,
folks she DANCED into the sky. Looked like she was going home, and
damned glad to be on the way.

It's silly, but writing this has brought tears to my eyes.

		Bob P.

"We Pray for one last landing,
 On the globe that gave us birth.
 Let us rest our eyes on the fleecy skys
 And the cool green hils of earth."

       R. A. Heinlein, from "The Green Hills of Earth"

Quoted from memory, so it might not be quite right.
-- 
Bob Pendleton @ Evans & Sutherland
UUCP Address:  {decvax,ucbvax,allegra}!decwrl!esunix!bpendlet
Alternate:     utah-cs!esunix!bpendlet
        I am solely responsible for what I say.

------------------------------

Date: 2 Sep 88 16:54:59 GMT
From: tektronix!tekig5!robina@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Robin Adams)
Subject: Re: The sun as a trashcan (was : Plutonium)


> The easiest way to get rid of nuclear waste would be to hard land it on
> the moon. Would it be possible to build a railgun/mass driver/etc. ....

A much better way to get rid of nuclear waste (from 1988) would be to
encapsulate it (however big and expensive the container) - and keep it
right here on earth.

I'm quite sure that this stuff will one day be worth much more than it's
weight in gold. --Consider even the possibility that future minds might
be able to design small vessels which release the heat but zero radiation,
and that an ordinary house with a central heating system incorporating
this container could go at least one entire winter without paying for gas,
oil, etc.

Hopefully a design which, having used it's energy as heat radiation, would
become harmless. Perhaps the vessel remaining useful (building block?)
without emptying it's contents.

------------------------------

Date: 2 Sep 88 14:31:32 GMT
From: aplcen!aplcomm!stdc.jhuapl.edu!jwm@mimsy.umd.edu  (Jim Meritt)
Subject: Re: Seti

In article <430@gt-ford.gtisqr.UUCP> kevin@gtisqr.UUCP (Kevin Bagley) writes:
}   4) Help me here folks. How else do you cause genocide by remote control?


Oh, appear as one religious diety, then as another conflicting one.

Sit back and watch the words, then blood, flow.

Works real well, I would guess, based upon observations across time.

------------------------------

Date: 2 Sep 88 23:19:24 GMT
From: ndcheg!uceng!dmocsny@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu  (daniel mocsny)
Subject: Re: Why no aliens

In article <44600015@pyr1.cs.ucl.ac.uk>, william@pyr1.cs.ucl.ac.uk writes:
> 
> I think we are overestimating ourselves a little here.  It would take
> us lots of years to get together an overwhelming nuclear attack force
> that we could get to Mars.  We would have to find out what "annihilate"
> means - if all their buildings were hardened and underground, and the
> Martians routinely wore radiation proof clothing and were built like
> brick s***houses, then we would have to send a hell of a lot of explosive.
> Enough, say, to plough up the top mile or so of the whole planet?
> I don't think we can put together that sort of firepower, and we are
> never going to get that much into space on a shuttle.  

If you want my advice on how to attack Mars (or even if you don't want
my advice) we could probably find a fairly hefty Mars-grazing
asteroid. Instead of nuking the Martian surface, we send those nukes
to the asteroid and give it the ever-so-slight shove necessary to
send it careening into the Martian surface on the next lap. You would
get a lot more bang-per-buck that way for your trouble, especially if
you had a convenient asteroid requiring only a small delta-v. Since
Earth has a few like this, Mars must have more, being much closer to
the asteroid belt.

If the Martians were well dug-in, they could probably ride out the
asteroid attack. However, I bet it would get their attention. Would any
sci.spacers like to work out the details? Or has this gone around
earlier, under the guise of asteroid mining?

Dan Mocsny, u. of cincinnati

I've got nothing against Martians, really...

------------------------------

Date: 3 Sep 88 01:47:47 GMT
From: thorin!unc!leech@mcnc.org  (Jonathan Leech)
Subject: Re: Orbital Mech Algorithm

In article <9250@ihlpa.ATT.COM> lew@ihlpa.ATT.COM (Lew Mammel, Jr.) writes:
>You'll find that the "midpoint force term evaluation" method gives
>greatly increased accuracy.

    Also try Runge-Kutta. There are huge numbers of good techniques
to be found in any decent numerical analysis book. Followups
to sci.math.num-analysis, please.

------------------------------

Date: 2 Sep 88 15:31:03 GMT
From: pyramid!pyrnj!dasys1!tneff@decwrl.dec.com  (Tom Neff)
Subject: Re: Naming the new Shuttle

In article <8808301935.AA05210@angband.s1.gov> dddurda@PINE.CIRCA.UFL.EDU ("DURDA") writes:
> ... PLEASE, the new shuttle orbiter *must* be named Phoenix!

Or else what?!  Gimme a break!

>There are two reasons that this may not come about. First, as I understand it,
>NASA has given the name selection process over to the nation's school children.
>(Nothing wrong with this at all! I just hope someone would plant the seed of
>the idea in their minds.) 

Damn these citizen participation things anyway.  It can be SO tough making 
sure they come up with the right answer!

> ... I don't think we need to ask HAL why this would be a good name!

The mythological Phoenix was a fantastic bird, THE ONLY ONE OF ITS
KIND, which was reborn from the ashes of its funeral pyre, AGAIN AND
AGAIN AND AGAIN.  Is this what you want for the Shuttle program?  That
the fleet never increase, while the ones we have are locked in an
endless cycle of fiery death and rebuilding?  If so, you and HAL picked
the perfect name.

Me, I go for Beagle or Nautilus, or whatever the kids think is best.
-- 
Tom Neff			UUCP: ...!cmcl2!phri!dasys1!tneff
	"None of your toys	CIS: 76556,2536	       MCI: TNEFF
	 will function..."	GEnie: TOMNEFF	       BIX: t.neff (no kidding)

------------------------------

Date:     Sat, 3 Sep 88 14:00 EST
From: <RJOHNSON%CEBAFVAX.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Subject:  Survey results, and 'Why aren't they here?"

    Since a few of you were kind enough to respond to my survey question
on Significant Accomplishments in Space, I thought it only fair to let you
know what my results and responses were. In essence, almost zero! I got a
grand total of 5 responses to my survey, which I don't consider a large
enough statistical sample to demonstrate any kind of majority opinion. Of the
5 responses, however, the one common response was that we, as a race,
should devote our space efforts to providing extraterretrial habitats for human
beings so as to preclude our total annihilation.

     As a personal comment on my survey, I think it's pretty sad that of the
estimated 7000 readers of the digest, that only five took the time and
effort to respond. I will qualify this, by stating that maybe I was asking
too much (assuming that spending 1/20 of the time most of you spend reading the
digest to actually contribute to it is too much), but certainly I could have
expected more than 5 responses. Perhaps, however, this is indicative of why
our space program is in the sad shape it is currently in. What I mean is, if
nobody is ever interested in helping out someone who asks them directly for
something, then how much farther away would these same people be from
actually doing something to enhance the progress of a more nebulous entity such
as the space program?

     For those of you who did respond however, Thank You! Maybe sometime, I'll
try it again and see if the response is any better.

     ON OTHER SUBJECTS, I think there is one aspect of the SETI discussion on
'Why aren't they here?" that has been overlooked. Maybe they aren't here because
they ended up taking the same path towards space that it looks like we will,
which is none. Just because a civilization develops the necessary technology
for space travel, doesn't mean that it has any interest in accomplishing space
travel. We falsely assume that because there are some of us that are interested
in space travel, that any technological civilzation would have similar interests

------------------------------

Date: 2 Sep 88 10:08:00 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!etive!hwcs!adrian@uunet.uu.net  (Adrian Hurt)
Subject: Re: Inverse SETI (Was:  ET phone ho

> Airflight is a better example.  Enquiries are launched if a flight
> fails, but they only last any time if it is believed that something really
> serious is at fault.  People risk their lives doing all sorts of things,
> *and know the risk*. I would imagine most of us know someone who has died
> on the roads, yet I know few people who are actually prepared to avoid
> driving on account of it.

Air flight is indeed a good example. Where would it be if present day standards
were applied in the early days of aviation? If, for example, the governments
decided that only they could sponsor air travel? If, the first time an aircraft
crashed, killing people, all aircraft were then grounded for a year or two? Air
accidents are tolerated today because air transport has been around for so long
that people are used to the risks. The same goes for cars. It's taking risks to
develop new things that isn't allowed.

-- 
 "Keyboard? How quaint!" - M. Scott

 Adrian Hurt			     |	JANET:  adrian@uk.ac.hw.cs
 UUCP: ..!ukc!cs.hw.ac.uk!adrian     |  ARPA:   adrian@cs.hw.ac.uk

------------------------------

Date: 2 Sep 88 14:22:00 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!dcl-cs!nott-cs!pyr1.cs.ucl.ac.uk!william@uunet.uu.net
Subject: Re: Why no aliens


>>itself (either with nukes or something worse). Suppose, for example, that it
>>is possible to build a weapon that would kill everyone on the planet...
>
>Could be done now, probably, if one of the superpowers wanted to spend enough
>money and effort on it.
>
>>... something like this may happen in the next 20 years ...

Very questionable with respect to the aliens, though.  We would have to
catch one to find out what can kill it - it may have a lead enriched armour
shell which not only shields it from radiation, but collects radiodust
and uses it to feed a sweat layer underneath to supply warmth.  Dammit, Jim,
these creatures *eat* radioactive fuel!  And if they live deep underground,
then we still have to plough the surface.  The only other possibilities
to nuclear attack are chemical and biological.  Their habitat could make 
this questionable, and we would have to study them a *lot*. 

			... Bill

************************************************************************
Bill Witts, CS Dept.     *    Nel Mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
UCL, London, Errrp       *    mi ritrovai per una selva oscura
william@uk.ac.ucl.cs(UK) *    che la diritta via era smarrita.
william@cs.ucl.ac.uk(US) ***********************************************

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #368
*******************

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From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
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Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #369

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 369

Today's Topics:
		 Re: Are we ready for terraforming???
		       Re: Berserker hypothesis
    Uses for man-in-space (was Re: space news from July 11 AW&ST)
		      Re: Naming the new Shuttle
			 more useless trivia
	    Devolution (Was discussion on overpopulation)
	  Re: Devolution (Was discussion on overpopulation)
			  Re: Why no aliens
	   Re: Survey results, and 'Why aren't they here?"
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 2 Sep 88 14:36:00 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!dcl-cs!nott-cs!pyr1.cs.ucl.ac.uk!william@uunet.uu.net
Subject: Re: Are we ready for terraforming???


>habitable.  I feel that we will have to eventually implement some type of
>global scheme to clean up the earth and the longer we wait, the more
>drastic it will be.

But the longer we wait, the more technically feasible will be the 
solutions.  We don't want to put up the space umbrellas before we
sweep up the space-crap which would blow them to bits!  

Which is expanding the most, technological competance or environmental
damage?  Obviously they are not independent - our technology is causing
most of this pollution.  But if pollution can be kept to a minimum,
then one day we should be able to deal with it without doing more
harm than good. Hopefully before it is too late.  

Remember, before we go dumping ozone into the upper atmosphere, let's
just make DAMN SURE that the Antarctic hole isn't a feature of winter-time
polar weather.

				... Bill

************************************************************************
Bill Witts, CS Dept.     *    Nel Mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
UCL, London, Errrp       *    mi ritrovai per una selva oscura
william@uk.ac.ucl.cs(UK) *    che la diritta via era smarrita.
william@cs.ucl.ac.uk(US) ***********************************************

------------------------------

Date: 3 Sep 88 16:09:21 GMT
From: silver!chiaravi@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu  (Lucius Chiaraviglio)
Subject: Re: Berserker hypothesis

In article <6534@ihlpl.ATT.COM> knudsen@ihlpl.ATT.COM (Knudsen) writes:
>In article <2196@silver.bacs.indiana.edu>, chiaravi@silver.bacs.indiana.edu
>(Lucius Chiaraviglio) writes:
>> As a corollary to this, if humans acquired a religion and/or political
>> ideology directing them to spread as much as possible and exterminate all
>> life
>> not required for their own support (and also exterminate all humans not
>> conforming to this religion/ideology), they would count as berserkers, even
>> though they are not machines.
>
>IF what?  The ancient Hebrews, European CHristians, their New World
>descendants (Esp. Brazil), farmers, whalers -- all sorts of human races
>fit this definition perfectly.  The US probably has a copyright
>on it.  No smileys.

	You're entirely right about this -- the reason I said "if" was an
attempt to put across the point (what it takes to be a berserker) without
adding in the additional load of asking readers to see at the same time that
humans are already examples of living berserkers (which might cause people who
disagree with this to miss the point).  I should have pointed this out later
in the message.  In fact, it's enough to be cause for serious questioning of
whether humans are too evil to deserve access to space -- I'm for going into
space, but we had better get our ethical act cleaned up or the rest of the
universe could be in real trouble.

>Unfortunately, benign races don't bother going across the ocean, let
>alone into space, Vulcans notwithstanding.

	How do you know?  We haven't found any "benign races" to test your
theory on.  The victims of colonization have on the whole been just as malign
as their conquerors (although not always in exactly the same way, but
recognizably close -- that's human nature for you), but at the time they were
conquered they lacked the means to do what was being done to them, at least to
the same extent.  Also, what would keep a benign species from going across an
ocean or into space, except possibly for nasty species that might get in the
way at too early a stage?

	-- Lucius Chiaraviglio
	   chiaravi@silver.bacs.indiana.edu
	   lucius@tardis.harvard.edu	(in case the first one doesn't work)
	Seen on a terminal screen at Harvard:
	Vote Nixon in 1988
	when you are tired of voting for the lesser of two evils

------------------------------

Date: 4 Sep 88 01:43:12 GMT
From: mailrus!uflorida!novavax!proxftl!greg@nrl-cmf.arpa  (Gregory N. Hullender)
Subject: Uses for man-in-space (was Re: space news from July 11 AW&ST)

In article <14240@ames.arc.nasa.gov> mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov.UUCP (Mike Smithwick) writes:
Let's see if we can make this a bit more constructive.  Instead of arguing
over whether the shuttle has been of any use whatsoever (obviously it has
done more than simply provide space-junkets for people like Jake Garn -- I
admit my earlier comment was hyperbole) I'd like to see a discussion of what
areas man-in-space might be useful in.

In cases where the shuttle is simply helping launch something else, I hope
we all agree that it's worse than using expendables.  Does everyone agree
that it costs more?

Construction is the obvious area where people are necessary, but the only
construction job in space I've heard anything about is the space station,
and that just postpones the question.

Repair has also been mentioned, but how often does something go wrong that
CAN be fixed?  Is it really worth the trouble?  (A more complex question
than it seems; if we could depend on some repair service, could we design
and launch superior systems?)

Does this necessarily include anything that needs to be brought back from
space?  The Soviets brought moon samples back with unmanned vehicles, but I
wonder how reliable (and expensive) it would be.
-- 
		Greg Hullender  uflorida!novavax!proxftl!greg
		3511 NE 22nd Ave / Fort Lauderdale, FL 33308

	    My opinions are not necessarily those of my employer.

------------------------------

Date: 3 Sep 88 15:43:27 GMT
From: att!whuts!homxb!homxc!maw@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (M.WEINSTEIN)
Subject: Re: Naming the new Shuttle

> - PLEASE, the new shuttle orbiter *must* be named Phoenix!

Why???  I believe that NASA's name selection criteria makes much better sense.
Let's not get too cute here.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
                                    |     Michael A. Weinstein
  More *original* thought from----> |    (att!homxc.att.com!maw)
                                    |     AT&T-BL: Holmdel, NJ
                                    |        (201)949-7856
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

------------------------------

Date: 4 Sep 88 03:39:14 GMT
From: mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Mike Smithwick)
Subject: more useless trivia


[]

Just dug up a couple on interesting notes here.

First, a while back we were discussing the way the Skylab crews
numbered their missions on the patches, Skylab I, II, II, 
and the "official" flight designators of SL 1 (for the unmanned 
portion of the OWS), SL 2,3,4 for the manned missions.

I just got a videotape of the network coverage of the Conrad launch.
Pete refers to his mission as "Skylab 2" and so do the newsdudes.


Trivia note #2:

During the CBS coverage of the Apollo 15 splashdown, uncle Walter reported
about a nearby Soviet "fishing trawler". After the crew was safely on board
the Carrier, the trawler supposedly signalled the Carrier something to the 
affect : "Could we assist you by boarding the capsule?".



-- 
			   *** mike (starship janitor) smithwick ***
"You can fool some of the people all of the time, or all of the people
 some of the time, but you can't fool Mom".
[disclaimer : nope, I don't work for NASA, I take full blame for my ideas]

------------------------------

Date: 2 Sep 88 15:06:49 GMT
From: ulysses!gamma!pyuxp!mruxb!hall@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Michael R Hall)
Subject: Devolution (Was discussion on overpopulation)

In <3515@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU> jsalter@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU states

>In fact, we may have a problem with the size of our gene pool.  There is a
>fine line about when a population's gene pool is large enough and diverse
>enough to continue advancing genetically.  With not enough babies being born,
>we're treading that fine line now, but since we allow so much immigration
>thats not a great problem, yet.  Mexico on the other hand...

>This is off the top of my head from books I've read.  Please correct me if
>some of it is wrong.

If you stop and think for a moment, you will conclude that we are NOT
advancing genetically; rather we are devolving (we are not men, we are
DEVO). Seriously. Consider the factors that favor "selection" in the
modern world.  Poor people have more children than financially well-to-do
people, by a long shot.  A gross generalization is that poor people,
on average, are not as intelligent as well-to-do people.  The key
word is "average"; some poor people are geniuses, some rich people
are retarded, but often smart poor people can escape poverty,
while stupid rich people lose their wealth to
taxes/trickery/gambling/whatever. Evolution requires only a small amount 
of leverage to work its magic. Don't tell me that it takes millenia.
With the proper environmental conditions, a few generations are all
it takes for the effects to become visible.(They had ten kids who
each had ten kids who each had ten kids...)

Modern medicine and science also plays a role in the devolution of
Man.  My own fiance would not have survived without civilization,
because she is practically blind without glasses or contacts.  We
are becoming more and more blind.  My asthmatic friend would have
died without modern medicine.  We are becoming more and more
sickly.

Note that I am NOT suggesting that we necessarily do anything about
this, so hold your flames.

What does this have to do with space?

Well, I would propose it as yet another solution to the Fermi
paradox; no alien race has been able to maintain its genetic
integrity long enough to dominate a large portion of the galaxy. An
obvious possible flaw in this argument is that cloning or genetic
engineering could slow/stop/reverse devolution, but perhaps this is
very hard or impossible for other types of life. After all, we can't
even really do it yet, and we may devolve completely (back to apes or
on something new?) before we find a "cure".

Michael Hall
mruxb!hall@bellcore.com or bellcore!mruxb!hall or something like that

------------------------------

Date: 4 Sep 88 07:43:58 GMT
From: agate!garnet!weemba@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Obnoxious Math Grad Student)
Subject: Re: Devolution (Was discussion on overpopulation)

In article <679@mruxb.UUCP>, hall@mruxb (Michael R Hall) writes:
>               Poor people have more children than financially
>well-to-do people, by a long shot.  A gross generalization is that poor
>people, on average, are not as intelligent as well-to-do people.

Yup.  Gross is the word.  It sounds like complete utter bullshit,
having zero basis in anything other than random mental farting.

>							   The key
>word is "average";

No, the key word was "gross".

>                   some poor people are geniuses, some rich people are
>retarded, but often smart poor people can escape poverty, while stupid
>rich people lose their wealth to taxes/trickery/gambling/whatever.

Is this supposed to "cover your ass" intellectually here?  It doesn't
do a very good job.

Do you have any solid facts to justify your "gross" assertions?

ucbvax!garnet!weemba	Matthew P Wiener/Brahms Gang/Berkeley CA 94720

------------------------------

Date: 4 Sep 88 02:57:53 GMT
From: tektronix!percival!bucket!leonard@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Why no aliens

In article <1988Aug30.160801.3074@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
<In article <2826@pt.cs.cmu.edu> dep@cat.cmu.edu (David Pugh) writes:
<>You may be half right, though -- it may be the case that any race "advanced"
<>enough to make contact over interstellar distances always ends up destroying 
<>itself (either with nukes or something worse). Suppose, for example, that it
<>is possible to build a weapon that would kill everyone on the planet...
<
<Could be done now, probably, if one of the superpowers wanted to spend enough
<money and effort on it.

I seem to recall that in the 60's some thinktank group studied the feasability
of building a "planet-wrecker" type device (ala E. E. Smith). They decide that
was not only possible, but as weapon system, fairly cheap...

I think they may have been considering a *fusion* device in the gigaton range?
Punch a hole thru the crust in a "good" spot (say under a shallow seabed?)
and the results would be on a par with a major asteriodal impact. In short,
good-bye life...
-- 
Leonard Erickson		...!tektronix!reed!percival!bucket!leonard
CIS: [70465,203]
"I used to be a hacker. Now I'm a 'microcomputer specialist'.
You know... I'd rather be a hacker."

------------------------------

Date: 4 Sep 88 23:13:50 GMT
From: silver!chiaravi@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu  (Lucius Chiaraviglio)
Subject: Re: Survey results, and 'Why aren't they here?"

In article <8809031816.AA09275@angband.s1.gov> RJOHNSON@CEBAFVAX.BITNET writes:
>    Since a few of you were kind enough to respond to my survey question
>on Significant Accomplishments in Space, I thought it only fair to let you
>know what my results and responses were. In essence, almost zero! [. . .]
>
>     As a personal comment on my survey, I think it's pretty sad that of the
>estimated 7000 readers of the digest, that only five took the time and
>effort to respond. [. . .]

	Before you get all worked up, consider that maybe your survey didn't
get very far on the net.  Many times I have posted messages, only to find that
they never got beyond the machine on which I posted the messages.  A reposting
might be in order, considering that most of us don't know how to respond to
messages that we haven't received.

	I will briefly give my answer (only approximate -- I'm really not very
good at answering surveys I haven't received) in advance.  First of all, we
had better get off this heap and into space, because if we don't, it is likely
that one day we are going to find that we are off this heap but not in space.
Alternatively, it could happen that the entire world all falls into a
situation like that in George Orwell's _Nineteen Eighty-Four_, at which point
it will be too late to move into space (because if anyone goes into space the
government(s) will go with them).  But whether natural or human threats are
the worse, continuing to live only on Earth is just plain dangerous.

	Another thing to consider about moving into space is that further
development of our civilization will become increasingly difficult until the
trouble of getting into space is less than the trouble and hazards of trying
to do everything on Earth.  It could be argued with considerable sense that
this is already starting to happen, but even if we are not at the point yet we
should start going into space for the sake of planning ahead for when we do
get to that point.  Remember -- if you absolutely have to do something, and
you haven't prepared for it, the consequences are likely to be more
devastating than the loss of time and resources due to excessive and premature
preparation.  I do not think that space will be economically viable or contain
great habitats for quite a long time, but eventually we are going to have to
make it that way, and if we haven't been preparing for practical use of space
beyond communications satellites beforehand, we aren't going to be able to do
it when we need it.

	Finally, but most importantly, we need to go into space to gain
knowledge and do our part in making as much of the universe as possible a
better place -- these are what make life worthwhile.  As a species, we haven't
been very good at the latter, but we aren't going to be able to do it at all
in areas where we can't reach.

>     ON OTHER SUBJECTS, I think there is one aspect of the SETI discussion on
>'Why aren't they here?" that has been overlooked. Maybe they aren't here
>because
>they ended up taking the same path towards space that it looks like we will,
>which is none. [. . .]

	But nothing forces all intelligent species to take the same path as
us.  Just because our species has a propensity to produce Proxmiroids doesn't
mean that another species with a different evolutionary (not to mention
cultural) history will.  And even some subsets of humans seem to be overcoming
this difficulty.  But if you want to be in on it, you had better be ready to
start learning Russian. . . .

	-- Lucius Chiaraviglio
	   chiaravi@silver.bacs.indiana.edu
	   lucius@tardis.harvard.edu	(in case the first one doesn't work)
	"You never want to try anything.  You're always afraid to take a risk.
Why'd you ever join Starfleet.  Why didn't you stay in Tennessee and raise
pigs.?"
	"I'm 'fraida pigs."

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #369
*******************

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Date: Wed, 21 Sep 88 01:07:28 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8809210807.AA05576@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
Reply-To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #370

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 370

Today's Topics:
	  Re: Devolution (Was discussion on overpopulation)
	  Re: Devolution (Was discussion on overpopulation)
	  Re: Devolution (Was discussion on overpopulation)
		 Re: Are we ready for terraforming???
		Re: Overpopulation is not our problem
		 Re: Are we ready for terraforming???
	  Re: Devolution (Was discussion on overpopulation)
		 Watching Shuttle Land at Edwards AFB
		     Space Digest - Re:Berserkers
		       Re: Berserker hypothesis
			  Re: Why no aliens
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 4 Sep 88 19:24:54 GMT
From: uccba!uceng!dmocsny@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu  (daniel mocsny)
Subject: Re: Devolution (Was discussion on overpopulation)

In article <679@mruxb.UUCP>, hall@mruxb.UUCP (Michael R Hall) writes:
> If you stop and think for a moment, you will conclude that we are NOT
> advancing genetically; rather we are devolving 

[ further citations about higher birthrates among poor, medically-
assisted survival of individuals with heritable defects ]

For some valuable historical perspective on this topic, step into
any sizable library and look up ``eugenics'' in the card catalog.
With luck, you will find a generous collection of titles from the
period 1900-1920. You will be amazed at some of this stuff. Back then
people were not afraid to come out and say what they were thinking.
After WWII and the Nazi atrocities we swung to the other extreme,
where the individual became entirely a product of his/her environment,
and massive social spending (rather than selective breeding) became
the acceptable curative.

The intelligentsia in the eugenics movement around the turn of the
century was alarmed at the high birthrates among the poor and
uneducated (an odd attribute of industrial societies -- in ancient
times the strongest and smartest men would multiply wives for
themselves and sire numerous offspring). Well, here we are 80 years
later. Is the average IQ higher or lower now than it was then? I have
read that Japan enjoys an average IQ five points higher than ours.
Average IQ may not be significant, however; the important indicator
of success is probably the number of people _significantly_ above
average, as these are the source of much creativity and inventiveness.

I personally doubt that devolution can be a significant feature in the
destruction of civilizations, since the timeframe for assuming control
of biological development is so short. In another hundred years, surely
our knowledge of genetics and our information- and nanotechnologies will
be so powerful that we will no longer be at the mercy of random
experiments in procreation. That just isn't long enough for us to
breed ourselves into sickly idiots, even if we tried. Keep in mind that
our population is enormously higher now than it was in the good ol' days,
when men were men, etc. Even though I can get along OK now with myopia
that would have killed me in a hunter-gatherer society, I'll bet the
absolute number of prime physical specimens (if not the proportion) is
as high as it ever was. People are fairly tough and resourceful, too.
After all, most primitive societies have serious health problems,
especially in the tropics.

For an interesting alarmist look at devolution, read _The Marching Morons_.
It's an SF short story that takes these fears to their logical extreme.
I can't recall the author just now, but I hope his view of the future
is wrong.

Dan Mocsny

------------------------------

Date: 5 Sep 88 04:57:57 GMT
From: thorin!ra!leech@mcnc.org  (Jonathan Leech)
Subject: Re: Devolution (Was discussion on overpopulation)

In article <679@mruxb.UUCP> hall@mruxb.UUCP (Michael R Hall) writes:
>If you stop and think for a moment, you will conclude that we are NOT
>advancing genetically; rather we are devolving (we are not men, we are
>DEVO).
>... we may devolve completely (back to apes or
>on something new?) before we find a "cure".

    'Evolution' and 'advancing genetically' are by no means the same
thing. Good eyesight etc. is no longer being selected for; that
doesn't mean we're 'inferior' to our ancestors who may have had better
eyesight, any more than whites are inferior to blacks because they
don't have as high melanin content in their skin.

    Followups to sci.bio.
--
    Jon Leech (leech@cs.unc.edu)    __@/
    ``My goal is simple. It is complete understanding of the universe,
      why it is as it is and why it exists at all.''
	- Stephen Hawking

------------------------------

Date: 5 Sep 88 10:04:05 GMT
From: agate!garnet!weemba@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Obnoxious Math Grad Student)
Subject: Re: Devolution (Was discussion on overpopulation)

In article <195@uceng.UC.EDU>, dmocsny@uceng (daniel mocsny) writes:
>								I have
>read that Japan enjoys an average IQ five points higher than ours.

You (and thousands of others on Usenet) have now read that the two
averages would be made equal were you to emigrate to Japan.

>For an interesting alarmist look at devolution, read _The Marching
>Morons_.  I can't recall the author just now, [...]

Cyril Kornbluth

ucbvax!garnet!weemba	Matthew P Wiener/Brahms Gang/Berkeley CA 94720

------------------------------

Date: 4 Sep 88 19:42:53 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!newcastle.ac.uk!kelpie!pgc@uunet.uu.net  (P. G. Cutting)
Subject: Re: Are we ready for terraforming???

In article <44600017@pyr1.cs.ucl.ac.uk> william@pyr1.cs.ucl.ac.uk writes:
>Which is expanding the most, technological competance or environmental
>damage?  Obviously they are not independent - our technology is causing
>most of this pollution.  But if pollution can be kept to a minimum,
>then one day we should be able to deal with it without doing more
>harm than good. Hopefully before it is too late.  
>				... Bill

So , 'is it too late?' we ask ourselves. There are a large number of
extinct wildlife who ,if they could talk, might say yes.

Also, will we ever know that its too late before it IS TOO LATE.
Id rather start now.

ARPA	: Peter_Cutting%newcastle.ac.uk@cs.ucl.ac.uk
JANET	: Peter_Cutting@uk.ac.newcastle
UUCP	: PGC@cheviot.UUCP

------------------------------

Date: 4 Sep 88 19:51:40 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!newcastle.ac.uk!kelpie!pgc@uunet.uu.net  (P. G. Cutting)
Subject: Re: Overpopulation is not our problem

>You bet - the U.S. has a population distribution problem, not an
>overpopulation problem. Ever driven from Iowa through South Dakota,
>Montana, Idaho south through Nevada and or Utah into Arizona and much
>of California? You could count the people on the fingers of one hand. 

What about all the resources that 200,000,000 people require.  This years
harvest failure should indicate that something is wrong. Why push things
to the limit. If we lived 'within ourselves' it would not be necessary
to squeeze the last drop out of a diminishing world.

ARPA	: Peter_Cutting%newcastle.ac.uk@cs.ucl.ac.uk
JANET	: Peter_Cutting@uk.ac.newcastle
UUCP	: PGC@cheviot.UUCP

------------------------------

Date: 4 Sep 88 19:34:42 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!newcastle.ac.uk!kelpie!pgc@uunet.uu.net  (P. G. Cutting)
Subject: Re: Are we ready for terraforming???

In article <101270001@hpcvlx.HP.COM> bturner@hpcvlx.HP.COM (Bill Turner) writes:
>> On the serious side though, I believe that it is incredibly sad that mankinds
>> first attempts at terraforming will be on the Earth just to keep it
>> habitable.  I feel that we will have to eventually implement some type of
>> global scheme to clean up the earth and the longer we wait, the more
>> drastic it will be.
>
>If you wish to look at it this way, we HAVE been terraforming Earth for quite
>a while now.  Whether for good or not, you must admit that the environment has
>been effected substantially by our activities.  And what is terraforming, other
>than changing the environment?
>
>--Bill Turner

I think that there is a big difference between what humanity has done to
the environment and terraforming. The first is  typically, initially the 
unforeseen result of some other primary activity. Ignorance and/or sheer 
bloody mindedness are the usual culprits.

The second ,assuming we achieve it , is the changing of the environment
by desire , hopefully with full knowledge of all the consequences.


ARPA	: Peter_Cutting%newcastle.ac.uk@cs.ucl.ac.uk
JANET	: Peter_Cutting@uk.ac.newcastle
UUCP	: PGC@cheviot.UUCP

------------------------------

Date: 5 Sep 88 17:04:35 GMT
From: umigw!umbio!amossb@handies.ucar.edu  (A. Mossberg)
Subject: Re: Devolution (Was discussion on overpopulation)

In <195@uceng.UC.EDU>, <dmocsny@uceng.UC.EDU> wrote:
>The intelligentsia in the eugenics movement around the turn of the
>century was alarmed at the high birthrates among the poor and
>uneducated (an odd attribute of industrial societies -- in ancient
>times the strongest and smartest men would multiply wives for
>themselves and sire numerous offspring). Well, here we are 80 years
>later. Is the average IQ higher or lower now than it was then? I have
>read that Japan enjoys an average IQ five points higher than ours.
>Average IQ may not be significant, however; the important indicator
>of success is probably the number of people _significantly_ above
>average, as these are the source of much creativity and inventiveness.

Well, it is the number above average you'd be looking at.  You'd look at
the median score (where the majority of people fall).  Assuming, of
course, you believe in IQ scores, which are inaccurate measurements of
intelligence, and are unfair to large segments of the population (poor,
disadvantaged with regard to educational opportunities, those new or
outside of the cultural environment in which the test is devised, etc)

>For an interesting alarmist look at devolution, read _The Marching Morons_.
>It's an SF short story that takes these fears to their logical extreme.
>I can't recall the author just now, but I hope his view of the future
>is wrong.

I don't have it handy, (actually it's packed away), but I think it was a
story by Harry Harrison.


aem



-- 
a.e.mossberg    -    aem@mthvax.miami.edu    -    aem@mthvax.span (3.91)
Speak in French when you can't think of the English for a thing.
						      - Lewis Carroll

------------------------------

Date: 6 Sep 88 00:01:08 GMT
From: apple!dan@rutgers.edu  (Dan Allen)
Subject: Watching Shuttle Land at Edwards AFB

Does anyone know the scoop on being able to go on base at Edwards AFB
for the Shuttle landing in October or whenever it is going to land?  I
went to a landing in 1982 there but did not make any of the details.  I
have heard a rumor that the public is not allowed on base any more for
landings.  Any truth to this rumor?

Dan Allen
Apple Computer
dan@apple.COM

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 5 Sep 88 15:40:56 EDT
From: saunders%QUCIS.BITNET@vma.cc.cmu.edu
Subject: Space Digest - Re:Berserkers

Concerning the 'Berserker' debate - there is a very good David Brin short
story, entitled 'Lungfish' (in the _River of Time_ short story collection)
that makes the point that 1)these probes are a form of life, and will evolve
and 2)if this is going on for awhile, wierdness has occured - the probes could
very well have extremely complex 'moitivations'.  Brin lists many types of
probes - Berserkers, Disamsemblers (take apart everthing for resources....),
Seeders, Protectors, etc.  The basic premise is that some species, somewhere,
built probes to go kill the other probes (if only to keep from being bothered),
and this introduced an element of competition into the whole thing, hence
evolution.
   The explanation this produces for the Great Silence is that using radio is
DANGEROUS; there is no way to tell if the Berserkers, Cleaners, or Protectors
(or the Missionaries!!) will get there first - so, whoever gets there first,
artifical radio sources have a short lifetime.  If the average broadcast time
of a race is ~250 years, it does bad things to the chances of us hearing
anything.

50 years is a very short time; there could be a (or several) frenzied debate(s)
on what to do about the race that sends such strange signals going on now.
The relief agency ship (or the battle fleet, or the traders, or the two
competing fleets from 1 or more races...) could be about to launch, at
turnover, decelerating...  There is an sf writer (Varley) who has a ficton
which postulates that humanity was kicked off earth by a bunch of gas giant
dwellers (who showed up to colonize Jupiter) for abusing the whales and
dolphins.  This sounds silly, but there have been cultures that took
percautions when going out at night to ward off the demons - we can't tell,
we can only speculate.  Speculating is fun, but we are making a great deal of
stew from a virtual oyster.

As far as alien motivations go, we will have to wait and see. "Space is deep" is
the sum total of our knowledge right now. It will take a long time to fix that,
too - a century or so to get a good start.


Graydon Saunders [saunders@qucis.bitnet] || My boss has his own opinions - this
                                            bunch are my own fault.

------------------------------

Date: 5 Sep 88 10:12:13 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!etive!hwcs!adrian@uunet.uu.net  (Adrian Hurt)
Subject: Re: Berserker hypothesis

In article <2216@silver.bacs.indiana.edu>, chiaravi@silver.bacs.indiana.edu (Lucius Chiaraviglio) writes:
> 
> >Unfortunately, benign races don't bother going across the ocean, let
> >alone into space, Vulcans notwithstanding.
> 
> 	How do you know?  We haven't found any "benign races" to test your
> theory on.  The victims of colonization have on the whole been just as malign
> as their conquerors

How far do whales travel? O.K., that's under, not across the ocean :-)
What about Arctic Terns, which migrate from the Arctic to the Antarctic? And
other birds perform lesser feats of endurance during their migrations. I
wouldn't class any of these as malign.

-- 
 "Keyboard? How quaint!" - M. Scott

 Adrian Hurt			     |	JANET:  adrian@uk.ac.hw.cs
 UUCP: ..!ukc!cs.hw.ac.uk!adrian     |  ARPA:   adrian@cs.hw.ac.uk

------------------------------

Date: 5 Sep 88 10:01:39 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!etive!hwcs!adrian@uunet.uu.net  (Adrian Hurt)
Subject: Re: Why no aliens

In article <191@uceng.UC.EDU>, dmocsny@uceng.UC.EDU (daniel mocsny) writes:

> If you want my advice on how to attack Mars (or even if you don't want
> my advice) we could probably find a fairly hefty Mars-grazing
> asteroid. Instead of nuking the Martian surface, we send those nukes
> to the asteroid and give it the ever-so-slight shove necessary to
> send it careening into the Martian surface on the next lap.

This will probably show what I know about the mechanics of space flight (zilch)
but anyway...

Take some sort of propulsion and control/guidance system. And enough fuel to
drive it for, say, a month continuously. Put this lot onto a small asteroid,
and move them to a suitable distance. Now switch it on, and let it accelerate
continuously towards the target planet. Now, for example, let's say we have
10 m s-2 acceleration, plus corrections for guidance control.
One month = 31 days = 31*24*60*60 = 2678400 seconds.
Final velocity = 26784000 m s-1. Which is just under 1 percent of lightspeed.

Could this be done? What would happen to the target planet when something hit
it that hard?

-- 
 "Keyboard? How quaint!" - M. Scott

 Adrian Hurt			     |	JANET:  adrian@uk.ac.hw.cs
 UUCP: ..!ukc!cs.hw.ac.uk!adrian     |  ARPA:   adrian@cs.hw.ac.uk

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #370
*******************

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Date: Wed, 21 Sep 88 19:07:50 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8809220207.AA06868@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
Reply-To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #371

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 371

Today's Topics:
			     Cosmos 1900?
			     Cosmos 1900
			   Re: Cosmos 1900?
			   Re: Cosmos 1900
		      Shuttle names--old and new
			  Space probe speed
		       Re: SPACE Digest V8 #350
		      Re:  SPACE Digest V8 #351
			  Re: Why no aliens
		  RE: Space Exploitation/Exploration
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 15 Sep 88 14:56:22 GMT
From: mcvax!enea!kth!draken!chalmers!tekn01.chalmers.se!f86_lerner@uunet.uu.net  (Mikael Lerner)
Subject: Cosmos 1900?


	Sometimes there have been 'horror'-stories in the Swedish news-
	papers about the Soviet Cosmos 1900-satellite, with which the
	Russians have lost radio contact, which means that they can't
	separate the nuclear reactor that powered the satellite. It has
	been said that it would reenter in August or in September, but
	I haven't heard anything about it for several weeks. Anyone on
	the net who has actual information? 

	
						Mikael Lerner

	And another question ... how to get on the mailing list for
	Space Digest?

------------------------------

Date: 17 Sep 88 05:50:43 GMT
From: snowdog@athena.mit.edu  (Richard the Nerd)
Subject: Cosmos 1900


Our group of satellite observers (based in Toronto) has been attempting
to track Cosmos 1900.  It is indeed decaying fast now and should decay
on the order of days from now.  I'll give more information as it becomes
available; in the meanwhile, here is a recent element set:


Norad # 18665
Epoch  88257.87186801
n dot over 2  .00244519
n dot^2 over 6  .35493E-04
B star        .83369E-04
Bultin #   471
inclination  64.9552
RA of A node  262.4211
eccentricity  .0015167
arg. of peri  282.9835
mean anom   76.9422
mean motion  16.250448637
rev #    4449


Rich

"Cruising under your radar
 Watching from the satellites
 Take a page from the red book
 And keep them in your sights"

------------------------------

Date: 17 Sep 88 21:52:03 GMT
From: attcan!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Cosmos 1900?

In article <170@tekn01.chalmers.se> f86_lerner@tekn01.chalmers.se (Mikael Lerner) writes:
>	Sometimes there have been 'horror'-stories in the Swedish news-
>	papers about the Soviet Cosmos 1900-satellite, with which the
>	Russians have lost radio contact, which means that they can't
>	separate the nuclear reactor that powered the satellite. It has
>	been said that it would reenter in August or in September...

Reentry is now predicted for late September.  Emergency organizations are
being alerted to the potential problems.  (For example, I recently saw a
news story -- in Flight International, I think -- discussing the alert
that has gone out to British police.)
-- 
NASA is into artificial        |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
stupidity.  - Jerry Pournelle  | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 20 Sep 88 01:49:21 GMT
From: snowdog@athena.mit.edu  (Richard the Nerd)
Subject: Re: Cosmos 1900


Cosmos 1900 reentry is now predicted for October 7th 1988.

Rich

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 6 Sep 88 08:38:54 PDT
From: hairston%23666%utadnx%utspan.span@vlsi.jpl.nasa.gov
Subject: Shuttle names--old and new
X-St-Vmsmail-To: JPLLSI::"space@angband.s1.gov"

A while back there was a discussion about where NASA got the names for
the Shuttle orbiters.  Here's the straight dope direct from NASA itself.
As you know, the next orbiter is going to be named by a contest in the
nation's schools.  My wife teaches second grade and just received the 
entry packet for her class from NASA.   The following is taken from that
packet:

"Each team must propose one name for Space Shuttle Orbital Vehicle (OV)
105.  The name must be the name of a sea vessel used in research and
exploration.

"NASA's first orbiters were named after such sea vessels.  The sea-going
'Columbia' entered and explored the mouth of the Columbia River in 1792.
'HMS Challenger' made the first prolonged oceanic exploration cruise;
the data gathered about the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans on that voyage
became the basis for the study of oceanography.  Various ships have borne
the name 'Discovery': one of Henry Hudson's in his search for a northwest
passage in 1610 and 1611, a second in Captain Cook's voyages of the 1770's,
and Commander Robert Scott's steam bark which made the first scientific
survey of Antarctica.  The ketch 'Atlantis' logged half a million miles 
between 1930 and 1966 as the first American-operated vessel designed
specifically for ocean research.

"The space missions carried out by the 'Columbia', 'Challenger', 'Discovery',
and 'Atlantis' also have contributed significantly to world research and
exploration, making them worthy of sharing the names of their historic
predecessors.

"The name for OV 105 should be a name suitable for an American spacecraft
and should capture the spirit of America's mission in space.  In honor
of the 51-L crew, the name 'Challenger' has been retired and cannot be 
used for OV 105."


Hmmmm......they didn't mention the "Enterprise".  Now I have a question.
Back in college in the mid-70's I either read or had someone at JSC tell
me that the shuttle names did double duty: they had to represent both
a historic research ship AND the name of a famous spacecraft from science
fiction.  Anyone out there know anything about this?  I can get three of
them ("Enterprise" from "Star Trek"; "Columbia" was the name of Jules 
Verne's spaceship in "From the Earth to the Moon", which was why it was
also chosen for the command module of Apollo 11; and "Discovery" which was
the Jupiter-bound spacecraft in "2001").  Supposedly either "Challenger"
or "Atlantis" was the name of Tom Swift's rocket, but I've never been
able to track that down for sure.  Any sci-fi fans out there have any
suggestions or leads?

Also, anyone who wants to get contest information, it's open to any school,
public or private, grades K through 12th.  For an entry packet write to:
	NASA Orbiter-Naming Program
	Council of Chief State School Officers
	400 North Capitol Street, NW, Suite 379
	Washington, DC 20001
Deadline for entries is December 31, 1988.

Marc Hairston--Center for Space Sciences--Univ of Texas at Dallas
SPAN address   UTSPAN::UTADNX::UTD750::HAIRSTON

"Any opinions expressed above are my own, as are any typos."

------------------------------

Date: Tue,  6 Sep 88 09:38:25 PST
From: Peter Scott <PJS@grouch.jpl.nasa.gov>
Subject: Space probe speed
X-Vms-Mail-To: EXOS%"space@andrew.cmu.edu"

> apollo!nelson_p@eddie.mit.edu  (Peter Nelson) writes:
> At 1,000,000 miles an hour (i.e., pretty damn fast by today's standards)
> it would take about 2900 years for a probe to get to Alpha Centauri.
> The electronics and other systems are not likely to last anywhere near
> that long.  With a lot of rendundancy and careful design and choice of
> material we *might* be able to make a probe last a hundred years.  So
> to get to Alpha Centauri in that time would require going at 4% of the 
> speed of light (not counting acceleration/deceleration time).

The British Interplanetary Society published a report of a highly-detailed
study called _Project Daedalus_ several years ago, still excellent reading.
They concluded that an unmanned, undecelerated flyby of Barnard's Star
(12 l.y.) would be technologically and economically feasible in short
order given reasonable extrapolations.  The mission time was 50 years,
with a peak velocity of 12% of the speed of light.  I'd recommend reading
this report.

Peter Scott (pjs%grouch@jpl-mil.jpl.nasa.gov)

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 6 Sep 1988 11:17-EDT 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: SPACE Digest V8 #350

As just about anybody would guess, I side with Dillon Pyron over Peter
Nelson. Mr Nelson may be right about the dreamers who only watch star
trek re-runs. But those aren't the only people out there.

As far as I'm concerned there is only one real space program around.
That is the one being run by people like Gary Hudsen, Deke Slayton, Max
Faget, George Koopman...

Because if they succeed, people like me get to go.

The only thing I get out of the government space program is the honor
of paying taxes.

And if these people succeed, it won't be all that long before the
treaties simply get relegated to the dustbin where they belong.

Space is very very expensive. IF you do it the NASA/AEROSPACE way.

It just might be affordable if realistic hard headed businessmen (WITH
a dream, not a B-school toilet tissue) do it.

Most effort by statist space programs is aimed at creating facilities
which will keep people totally dependent. All their pictures, all their
efforts are aimed at generating this as the 'weltenschaung' of spcae
exploration.

I suggest that it is a falsehood that is becoming truth only because no
one is putting resources into alternatives. Yet.

Let us place ourselves 150 years in the future on the lunar surface.
Our trusty prospector is peddling across the lunar maria in his four
wheeled prospectors bike.(1)  He is wearing a skin tight suit (2) and
is protected from the sun by a parasol. Food and Oxygen is purchased
from small farm(2.5) homesteads sheltered in craters and powered by small
cold fusion generators (3). The cheap CFG will be the equivalent of the
modern plow in sofar as opening the lunar land to farming. All
electronics is self repairing to a great extent. If not nanotechnology,
then something at least as good as far as reliability. All electronics
are grown on the homestead by 'blueprints' ordered and delivered
electronically out of the 2150 online Sears Catalog.

Some very scarce materials are purchased, some of which may be imports.
The monetary standard may well be defined in terms of scarce volatiles.

Water will be totally recycled. Solid wastes will be used as fertilizer
and will be of value. They will probably not have the same standards
and taboos about human waste that are prevelant in US urban nonculture.

NOTHING will be thrown away.

Neighbors will help each other out, as they always do on the frontier.
Violence will actually be at a minimum, as it was in truth on the REAL
american frontier, and most dispute resolution and land titling will be
handled by private agencies.(4)

Independent settlers are isolated and quite capable of defending
themselves. The dug in nature of their shelters makes them difficult to
find by sensors and makes them as impervious to a near miss by a nuke
as to a solar flare. With the energy at their disposal with the CFG's
and the robotic help, they are quite capable of defending their land.
Even a major military ground force would break it's back after taking
on a few thousand of them, one at a time.


I certainly don't expect that I have accurately describe the
technology of 2150. Although the details of HOW things might be done
may be totally wrong, I'm sure that if people try to find the
solutions, there WILL be ways of doing all the things I have described.

Anyone who wants to discuss this topic and prove that prospectors and
independent farmers can't exist on the moon and tries to prove it by
describing 1980 technology limitations will be ignored. If you can't
see the effects of 100 years more of a ride on the technological
exponential, you aren't worth my wasting time talking to. (If you have
trouble, please try placing yourself in the year 1888 or 1838 and
describing how the number of passengers per year in flight is a
substantial fraction of the total population of the Earth in 1988.
Using your 1888 or 1838 reference, describe the technology, economy and
infrastructure that will support this.

1: Scientific American, Dec 1983, "Human Powered Vehicles"
2: Discussion on this net
2.5: I don't have the reference handy, but plants can grow in lunar
     soil, given water and some added microfauna. They do need
     protection from direct illumination, according to a comment from a
     biologist heard during the 2nd Lunar Base Symposium, so the
     shelters will need to hardened just like the people's shelter.
     Keep in mind that many plains farmers lived in dugout sod houses
     at least initially. So a bunch of neighbors get together and plow dirt
     over your new domes. A doming-bee?
3: I think this is Paul's area?
4: Journal of Libertarian Studies, "An Experiment in
   Anarcho-Capitalism: The NOT So Wild, Wild West"

------------------------------

Date:     Tue Sep  6 12:44:53 1988
From: "Philip C. Plait" <pcp2g@bessel.acc.virginia.edu>
Reply-To: pcp2g@bessel.acc.virginia.edu
Subject:  Re:  SPACE Digest V8 #351

This may seem a bit naive, but....

Does anyone out there have an idea of when the Discovery is going to 
launch? I **know** NASA hasn't set a firm date, but I don't even have an 
idea better than late September. I have a friend down in Florida who 
has a NASA downlink, but of course they're not talking. 

The reason I need to know is that I'd like to fly down there and get a look
first hand at one of these things lifting off... and the airline wants my
me to make reservations a few days in advance.

HELPPPPPP!!!
Excuse me. If anyone knows, please bitnet me soon. Thanx!

{Phil Plait/pcp2g@bessel.virginia.acc.edu/UVa Dept of astronomy}

------------------------------

Date: 6 Sep 88 14:16:50 GMT
From: att!alberta!auvax!ralphh@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Ralph Hand)
Subject: Re: Why no aliens

In article <44600016@pyr1.cs.ucl.ac.uk>, william@pyr1.cs.ucl.ac.uk writes:
> 
> Very questionable with respect to the aliens, though.  We would have to
> catch one to find out what can kill it - ...
> 
> 			... Bill

Why bother trying to kill it.  We just land, one of our diseases goes
rampant through their population presto we have control of our first 
new world.  (Sort of like the Spanish in South America, or any of the 
hundreds of other civilzations wiped out in that period).

Then if that didn't work we could study them!!!

Ralph

Any and all opinions are my own.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 6 Sep 88 15:46:19 CDT
From: pyron@lvvax1.csc.ti.com (It's not how fast the car can go, it's how fast you can go)
Subject: RE: Space Exploitation/Exploration

> Sure if you don't mind living in lo-grav, crowded quarters and never
> going to the beach.  I don't know what you mean by 'room' but unless
> you like living in a pressure suit you're going to be living 'indoors'
> all the time.  Sounds cramped to me.  Besides you miss the entire point 
> of what the Palestinians, white South Africans, et al, want.
  
  Mayhaps that is crowded, but a stucture similar to O'Neil's work is sound
  and do-able with some macrotechnology.  Besides, very few beaches of late
  are worth (or safe) going to.

  Maybe I don't really know what the various displaced peoples the world
  want.  Since I'm 1/8 American Indian, please tell me!

> Currently the world's population is growing at about 75 million
> people a year.  Even if we could slow our population growth to 50
> million a year, we'd have to ship a million people a week into space
> just to break even.  It's not like shipping colonists to the New World.
> The shelter, food, and life-support systems for them would have to be
> waiting when they arrived.


  And what are you doing about this.  The whole operation would perforce
  be a bootstrap, similar in many ways to Jamestown (start small and fast).

> One of the (many) reasons why our space program is going nowhere fast
> is that we have too many romantic dreamers who spend their time reading
> Omni and watching reruns of Star Trek and too few pragmatists.  Do you
> have any idea what it costs to even put a *handful* of people into 
> space for a few days and keep them there safely?  Do you have any concept
> of what would be required to create even a *small* self-sustaining colony
> of even a few hundred people?  Lots and lots of money and an enormous
> technological, industrial and academic base.  Do you really think they're 
> going to waste those resources and training putting 'misfits' up there?
>
>                                             --Peter Nelson
 
  Yes, I know what it costs.  I also know how much a HARM missle costs, and
  I'd rather spend the money putting people into space.  In both your
  commentaries, I have not seen one response which actually addresses any
  of the issues presented.  The reason we are stuck is because nay-sayers
  like you are afraid we can't do it, so let's not.  My plans involve pushing
  my employer into space in one form or fashion, as a first step.  Do you
  have any idea what it will cost not to put nations in space?

Dillon Pyron

My lips speak what my heart knows to be true.  The thoughts and feelings
are mine alone.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #371
*******************

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Date: Thu, 22 Sep 88 01:07:16 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8809220807.AA07094@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
Reply-To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #372

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 372

Today's Topics:
		Wealth of mature spacefaring societies
	   Grim outlook for shuttle launches, manned flight
			  Re: Why no aliens
		 Re: RE space expoitation/exploration
		 Re: Are we ready for terraforming???
		 Re: Are we ready for terraforming???
	  Re: Devolution (Was discussion on overpopulation)
			    Chix in Space
	      Re: Wealth of mature spacefaring societies
	      "It's because of all those satellites..."
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 2 Sep 88 21:37:27 GMT
From: oliveb!amdahl!drivax!macleod@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (MacLeod)
Subject: Wealth of mature spacefaring societies

In article <1988Aug19.212807.24175@utzoo.uucp: henry@utzoo.uucp 
(Henry Spencer) writes:

:In article <20315@cornell.UUCP: dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul F. Dietz) writes:

::A spacefaring society, even one restricted to a single stellar system,
::could have many trillions of members (but technology may make the concept
::of an individual obsolete), and each member could have a productivity orders
::of magnitude greater than 20th century Americans.  I would be very careful
::when proclaiming limits on what technological advances such a society might
::accomplish given millions of years.

:I second this comment.  Consider:  There are people alive today who remember
:a time when radio did not exist, man could not fly, and the total electrical
:generating capacity of the world was measured in megawatts.  Today...  We
:get live TV from Halley's Comet.  There is never a time, day or night, when
:FEWER than a hundred thousand people are airborne.  And one gigawatt is a
:single power plant, and not a really big one at that.

:Our own world, and our own society, has changed beyond recognition in a
:single human lifetime.  Never mind the millions of years; extrapolating our 
:capabilities a measly *thousand* years is quite impossible.

Let me add my endorsement.  Two thousand years ago (and much more recently
in some cultures) the Roman soldier's daily pay brought him the price of
a quart or two of wheat.  Today I make enough daily to buy a small home
computer.  This is what wealth is all about.  In less than 100 years
we have gone from no automobiles to a point where virtually anybody can
own one.  The infrastructural support for spacecraft will be steeper,
but not more than an order of magnitude, and there are no mysteries to be
solved.  

In one of my stories there is a race that has had a basically 
libertarian spacefaring civilization for about 800 years.  They are organized
into clans, large extended families, and are so rich that clans typically
own hundreds of planets.  The technological base is such that an average-
sized spaceship - with hyperdrive capability - costs the equivalent of about
15 minutes of labor.  It's important to realize, my friends, that there is 
*no limit* on how good things can get!  The range of wealth to poverty 
between the most wealthy and the !Kung bushmen is neglible compared to the
wealth just over the horizon.

If we can get there.  Lift up thy head, Earthman.

Michael Sloan MacLeod  (amdahl!drivax!macleod)

------------------------------

Date: 2 Sep 88 20:59:22 GMT
From: oliveb!amdahl!drivax!macleod@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (MacLeod)
Subject: Grim outlook for shuttle launches, manned flight

In article <688@nancy.UUCP> krj@frith.UUCP (Ken Josenhans) writes:

:In article <1988Aug29.172104.10823@utzoo.uucp: henry@utzoo.uucp 
:(Henry Spencer) writes:

::Then we'll have to ground the shuttle permanently.  There is no way to
::fly it without risking loss of another orbiter.  The NRC report on
::shuttle frequency put it even more strongly:  if the shuttle continues
::flying, another orbiter *WILL* be lost eventually.

:Unfortunately, in the wake of the Challenger explosion, no one has done
:the necessary *political* work to get the message out to the US public
:and Congress that spaceflight entails risks, and there are reasons for
:taking these risks.  Instead, we've been fed a steady diet of "Safety 
:first!" messages, and the public has been led to believe that there 
:will be no more shuttle accidents.  What I fear this means is the next
:shuttle accident will be the *last* US manned spaceflight, at least for 
:several decades.

There are limits to everything, and my opinion, much as I dislike it,
is that the political attitudes, values, and attention span of the US 
public simply will not support the sort of manned space program we need
to be a presence in space.  I remember how galvanized the country was
in the early sixties; now US space exploits are trated as if they were
one more Olympic event, one in which the USSR is getting all the gold medals.

There's an old phrase, "shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations",
which is a commentary about how a family can fail to pass on the qualities
that enabled generations one and two to wear suits and ties.  I think something
like this is true of cultures as well.  A mature culture like the USA 
becomes jaded and cynical, incapable of strong feelings about anything,
and certainly incapable of the exertions its forefathers made.  

This is why I am continually ranting about anarchism and libertarianism
and the need for frontiers.  It's almost a circular notion, but I believe
that the *unprecedented* lack of an Earth-based frontier society has 
left the more or less statistically constant percentage of dreamers, 
Lazarus Long - types, anarchists, adventurers, and so on to ferment and 
seethe in their parent cultures, causing friction and division.  Worse,
when such people are dispersed in a democracy like the USA, they will 
be checked by the inertia of the masses.  To be really effective, there
must be a (basically) lawless frontier society to repair to.

The poster above fears that the next shuttle disaster will halt the 
US manned space program for many years.  I think that it will probably 
end it permanently, unless you count guest rides on Soviet craft.

Michael Sloan MacLeod   (amdahl!drivax!macleod)

------------------------------

Date: 6 Sep 88 19:15:32 GMT
From: silver!chiaravi@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu  (Lucius Chiaraviglio)
Subject: Re: Why no aliens

In article <714@auvax.UUCP> ralphh@auvax.UUCP (Ralph Hand) writes:
[About how to kill an alien]
>Why bother trying to kill it.  We just land, one of our diseases goes
>rampant through their population presto we have control of our first 
>new world.  [. . .]

	It is just as likely, on the average, that one of their diseases could
go rampant among our population.  Of course, what is a disease is even more
likely to be different for two species of different origin than for two groups
of humans:  something that is completely harmless to us/them could find
them/us to be an excellent growth medium, and also be wierd enough for
their/our immune systems to have a hard time with.  This is, of course,
assuming that organisms of one origin are able to grow upon material
composing/synthesized by organisms of the other origin, which might not be
possible if the biochemistries were too divergent, although keep in mind that
mutants on either side capable of living in environments provided by the other
side could be selected for by continued exposure even for fairly divergent
environments.  (The list of things that terrestrial microrganisms can
metabolize is quite long, and even things as specialized as mammalian cells
are capable of a few things as profound as oxidation or other metabolism of
aromatic compounds and conversion of D-valine to L-some-other-amino-acid --
have to be able to in order to live in a world containing plants and bacteria
and industries which make such nasty chemicals.)

	-- Lucius Chiaraviglio
	   chiaravi@silver.bacs.indiana.edu
	   lucius@tardis.harvard.edu	(in case the first one doesn't work)
	Better active today than radioactive tomorrow. . .
	. . .but better radioactive today than inactive tomorrow.
	:-)

------------------------------

Date: 3 Sep 88 01:33:38 GMT
From: oliveb!amdahl!drivax!macleod@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (MacLeod)
Subject: Re: RE space expoitation/exploration

In article <3e08340e.ae47@apollo.COM> nelson_p@apollo.COM (Peter Nelson) writes:

>  One of the (many) reasons why our space program is going nowhere fast
>  is that we have too many romantic dreamers who spend their time reading
>  Omni and watching reruns of Star Trek and too few pragmatists.  Do you
>  have any idea what it costs to even put a *handful* of people into 
>  space for a few days and keep them there safely?  Do you have any concept
>  of what would be required to create even a *small* self-sustaining colony
>  of even a few hundred people?  Lots and lots of money and an enormous
>  technological, industrial and academic base.  Do you really think they're  
>  going to waste those resources and training putting 'misfits' up there?

Dead wrong, of course.  The program needs people who will not be deterred
by >anything<; there will always be "good" "reasons" to flop back into
the tide pool rather than breath that nasty oxygen.

The problem, to paraphrase Ayn Rand, is not those who dream, but those
who can >only< dream.

In talk.politics.misc Mr. Nelson recently recommended that the US surrender
to the USSR if the latter >threatened< to start an atomic war.   This 
illustrates exactly what I am talking about when I ramble on about freedom
versus security and about the character of pioneers versus couch potatoes.

Michael Sloan MacLeod   (amdahl!drivax!macleod)

------------------------------

Date: 7 Sep 88 00:19:27 GMT
From: jlg@lanl.gov  (Jim Giles)
Subject: Re: Are we ready for terraforming???

>From article <3257@lanl.gov>, by jlg@lanl.gov (Jim Giles):
> [...]
> latitudes, decreasing the albedo of the planet as a whole.
             ^^^^^^^^^^
I meant 'increasing' of course.

J. Giles

------------------------------

Date: 7 Sep 88 00:14:30 GMT
From: jlg@lanl.gov  (Jim Giles)
Subject: Re: Are we ready for terraforming???

>From article <6535@ihlpl.ATT.COM>, by knudsen@ihlpl.ATT.COM (Knudsen):
> In article <10183@reed.UUCP>, douglas@reed.UUCP (P Douglas Reeder) writes:
> This reminded me to post my own theory on Nuclear Winter.
> After a year or so of freezing weather caused by
> all the particulates, the particles would settle out of the
> atmosphere.  Then the excess of CO2 from all the burning cities,
> exacerbated by the lack of growing plants during the cold and
> cloudy "winter," would take over, and we'd go from the deep freeze
> into the oven.  This overheating would continue until Earth
> recovered her pre-war balance, if ever.

Not only that, part of the particulate matter (soot) would settle
out on the permanent snow fields near the poles.  The resulting 
reduction in albedo of the snow would cause increased warming.  The
offset to these effects would be the fact that during the nuclear 
winter interval, the permanent snow fields would have expanded to lower
latitudes, decreasing the albedo of the planet as a whole.  

Actually, no long term post nuclear winter scenario is more likely
than any other.  No one knows what would happen.

J. Giles

------------------------------

Date: 6 Sep 88 15:29:40 GMT
From: steinmetz!nuke!oconnor@itsgw.rpi.edu  (Dennis M. O'Connor)
Subject: Re: Devolution (Was discussion on overpopulation)

An article by hall@mruxb.UUCP (Michael R Hall) says:
] In <3515@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU> jsalter@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU states
] >In fact, we may have a problem with the size of our gene pool.  There is a
] >fine line about when a population's gene pool is large enough and diverse
] >enough to continue advancing genetically.

  250,000,000 is a plenty large gene pool. 100,000,000 is as well.
  Even 1,000,000 is. You don't have to worry until you get down
  to a few thousand or tens of thousands of individuals. Cheetahs
  apparently were at some recent time down to a few hundred closely-
  related individuals.

] If you stop and think for a moment, you will conclude that we are NOT
] advancing genetically; rather we are devolving ...

  [... rest of article deleted, since it is founded in a totally
   ( by definition ) fallacious assumption ...]

] Michael Hall

  Here's a news flash for armchair biologists : nothing EVER "devolves".
  Period. There is no such thing as "devolution". It's impossible.

  A population tries to adapt to it's environment : that's evolution.
  Sometimes the adaptation doesn't go the way YOU think it should.
  Maybe in the current environmnt, being poor is a survival advantage.
  Maybe, as was Hamlet's case, being too smart is a handicap.
  If the "marching morons" will indeed take over the world, then
  they are obviously more "fit" ( better adapted ), are they not ?

  People who use the BS term "devolve" are usually committing the
  phalacy of judging adaptations. There's only one measure of
  an adaptations success : survival.

  And if the human race dies out, so what ? So did the dinosaurs.
  The universe doesn't revolve around us humans, you know. Besides,
  the human race won't die out till after I and everyone I know
  are dead ( by definition ), so it hardly matters to me, does it ?  :-)

  But keep it out of sci.space, eh ?
--
 Dennis O'Connor   oconnor%sungod@steinmetz.UUCP  ARPA: OCONNORDM@ge-crd.arpa
    "Never confuse USENET with something that matters, like PIZZA."

------------------------------

Date: 6 Sep 88 10:39:32 GMT
From: mcvax!enea!erix!howard@uunet.uu.net  (Howard Gayle)
Subject: Chix in Space

>From the 10 June 1988 issue of Science, p. 1411:

   Has the franchising of space begun?
   When the space shuttle Discovery lifts off next January, it
will carry aboard 32 fertilized chicken eggs in a special
incubator as part of an experiment to see if embryos can
develop normally in space.  The experiment is funded by a
$50,000 grant from Kentucky Fried Chicken---the fast-food
corporation's first research effort.
   The project---part of NASA's Shuttle Student Involvement
Program---is the brainchild of 22-year-old John Vellinger, a
junior mechanical engineering major at Purdue University.
Vellinger developed the experiment as a junior in high school,
and NASA first scheduled it for the ill-fated flight of
Challenger in January 1986
   The eggs will rest in a heated and humidity-controlled
cradling carrier inside a locker aboard the space shuttle.  The
cradle is designed to reduce the effects of g forces and
vibration during lift-off.  After return, the egg[s] will be
compared with a control batch on Earth at the Kennedy Space
Center in Florida.  Vellinger will mother hen the Earth-bound
eggs by turning them five times a day, simulating the movement
of a chicken incubating her eggs.  Some of the eggs from both
batches will be hatched and the offspring observed through
their life cycle.
   On Earth, gravity pulls the heavier yolk to the bottom of
the egg.  Vellinger thinks that under weightlessness the yolk
will hang suspended in the middle of the egg, resulting in more
efficient embryonic development and a better chicken.  And,
presumably, in better fried chicken and chicken nuggets.
   It may also offer clues as to how human embryos may one day
develop in space.
   Colonel Sanders would be proud.

Howard Gayle
TN/ETX/TX/UMG
Ericsson Telecom AB
S-126 25 Stockholm
Sweden
howard@ericsson.se
{mcvax, uunet}!enea!ericsson.se!howard
Phone: +46 8 719 5565
FAX  : +46 8 719 9598
Telex: 14910 ERIC S

------------------------------

Date: 7 Sep 88 02:20:48 GMT
From: thorin!tlab1!leech@mcnc.org  (Jonathan Leech)
Subject: Re: Wealth of mature spacefaring societies

In article <3735@drivax.UUCP> macleod@drivax.UUCP (MacLeod) writes:
>It's important to realize, my friends, that there is
>*no limit* on how good things can get!  The range of wealth to poverty
>between the most wealthy and the !Kung bushmen is neglible compared to the
>wealth just over the horizon.

    The speed of light places a limit on how much mass and energy are
available to us. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if, as automation & AI
develop, human labor becomes worth practically nothing. There could be
exceptions - truly great thinkers, artists, etc. - but the average
person might well have no skills worth *anything*. Immense surpluses
such as may be produced in future societies might exacerbate the
range of wealth to poverty to a far greater degree than Donald Trump
vs. a Kung! bushman.

    People may argue that just the solar system provides enough for
everyone to be wealthy. Maybe so, but I suspect that as in most other
cases, human population will rapidly grow to the point that most
people are just barely surviving, rather than keeping it down to a
level where everyone has more than enough. I don't think that
fertility rates in the developed world are a very good predictor as
yet. Maybe with a few centuries more data.

    Don't take this as my being a neo-Luddite. I'm eagerly looking
forward to the future. It's just that I expect it to be every bit as
screwed up as things have been for the last few millenia, as well as
to be many of the wonderful things the optimists expect.
--
    Jon Leech (leech@cs.unc.edu)    __@/
    ``After all, the best part of a holiday is perhaps not so much to be
      resting yourself as to see all the other fellows busy working.''
	- Kenneth Grahame, _The Wind in the Willows_

------------------------------

Date: 7 Sep 88 06:51:29 GMT
From: mangler@csvax.caltech.edu  (Don Speck)
Subject: "It's because of all those satellites..."

This last weekend my Mom mentioned to me that the weather where
she lives is unusual this summer (it is here too), and she posited
that global weather is messed up "because of all those satellites".

Although I hastened to explain that it's caused by pollution,
I wonder how prevalent this misperception is among U.S. voters?

Do you suppose that one could get that idea by seeing the conspicuous
smoke and fire of solid rockets?

Don Speck   speck@vlsi.caltech.edu  {amdahl,ames}!cit-vax!speck

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #372
*******************

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To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
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Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #373

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 373

Today's Topics:
	    Re: "It's because of all those satellites..."
		   Re: access to space; how to deny
		 Re: Are we ready for terraforming???
		      Re: Another Titan failure?
	  Re: Devolution (Was discussion on overpopulation)
		 Re: Are we ready for terraforming???
	     Re: The sun as a trashcan (was : Plutonium)
		  Re: space exploration/exploitation
		    Re: Shuttle names--old and new
		 STS-26 and Manifest Releases Posted
		  RE space exploitation/exploration
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 7 Sep 88 15:19:23 GMT
From: agate!soup.ssl.berkeley.edu!gckaplan@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (George Kaplan)
Subject: Re: "It's because of all those satellites..."

In article <7844@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu> mangler@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu (Don Speck) writes:
>This last weekend my Mom mentioned to me that the weather where
>she lives is unusual this summer (it is here too), and she posited
>that global weather is messed up "because of all those satellites".
>
>Although I hastened to explain that it's caused by pollution,
>I wonder how prevalent this misperception is among U.S. voters?
>
>Do you suppose that one could get that idea by seeing the conspicuous
>smoke and fire of solid rockets?
>
>Don Speck   speck@vlsi.caltech.edu  {amdahl,ames}!cit-vax!speck

How about the satellite weather images that can be seen every day on
television news?  

I think there has always been some confusion between predicting the 
weather and causing it.  Certainly that's a common theme in casual
conversation.  Some local TV weather forecasters even use this theme
themselves, taking "credit" for good weather and apologizing for
storms.

It's a simple extension of the cause-and-effect of weather reporting
to blame the "satellites" for the odd global weather those satellites
report.

- George C. Kaplan		gkaplan@sag4.ssl.berkeley.edu
				..!ucbvax!sag4.ssl!gkaplan

------------------------------

Date: 7 Sep 88 18:21:22 GMT
From: jpl-devvax!lwall@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov  (Larry Wall)
Subject: Re: access to space; how to deny

In article <8809070005.AA02422@angband.s1.gov> BEB@UNO.BITNET (Bruce Bettis) writes:
: att!chinet!mcdchg!clyde!watmath!water!utgpu!utzoo!henry@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
: (Henry Spencer) writes:
: > ...but there's nothing
: >impossible about shooting down a launcher with more mundane weapons.
: 
: Like, say, a sneaky Marielito (to keep the threat Cuban :-) with a slingshot
: and a bag of rocks? (How mundane can you get?) No doubt a few well-placed
: shots would at the least scrub a mission. Particularly this "first" Shuttle
: launch...

How deep a hole would you have to drill in the side of an SRB to create
a situation virtually indistinguishable from what happened to Challenger?

How long would it take?

Do those who assemble SRBs have security clearances?

How well guarded are those SRBs?  Would a drill hole be detected?

What about the SRB nozzles?  Would a hole in one of those lose the mission?
How much disparity in thrust can the stack put up with?

Can the hold-down bolts keep the thing from taking off if one SRB fires and
the other doesn't?  Are there any wires to clip that would have this effect,
and go undetected?

What would be the effect of a well-timed model airplane with a zip gun putting
a tracer bullet into the ET as it was lifting off?

Just bein' unusually paranoid, as usual.

Larry Wall
lwall@jpl-devvax.jpl.nasa.gov

------------------------------

Date: 7 Sep 88 18:24:37 GMT
From: concertina!fiddler@sun.com  (Steve Hix)
Subject: Re: Are we ready for terraforming???

In article <44600019@pyr1.cs.ucl.ac.uk>, william@pyr1.cs.ucl.ac.uk writes:
> 
> >I don't recall hearing of any similar effects after World War II,
> >during which all major cities of Germany and Japan were converted
> >into soot and CO2.
> 
> The major difference between a nuclear blast or eruption and a 
> conventional bomb attack is that the latter is a slow gradual effect
> using low power weapons.  Nothing is thrown very far.  Any dust that
> is formed is not kicked into the upper atmosphere with the old bombs.

It's not the size of the bomb that's the important factor, but the
size of the resulting fire:  the firestorms of Dresden and Tokyo were
quite comparable to the expected results from nuking any major city
in the present.  A typical attack began with some high-explosive
loads to scatter debris, break gas and water mains, and hinder fire
fighting later, followed by incendiary loads to start fires over a
large area.

During the Tokyo attacks, there was substantial turbulence (and
fairly large objects) reported at and above 35,000 feet.  The
bombers attacking the city came in at low level (around 8,000 feet),
but there were aircraft following the raid for photography and
post-raid evaluation that came over at much higher altitudes.

------------------------------

Date: 7 Sep 88 17:38:54 GMT
From: vsi1!daver!mfgfoc!mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Mike Thompson)
Subject: Re: Another Titan failure?

>From article <607@cmx.npac.syr.edu>, by anand@cmx.npac.syr.edu (Rangachari Anand):
> 
>   I just heard on radio news (mutual) that the Vortex spy satellite launched
> from Vandenberg on a Titan 4 has failed to reach the correct orbit. 
> Apparently the third stage failed. Does anyone have more details?
> 
>   I am sure the Military must be getting pretty desperate by now. I remember
> that a Titan carrying a KH11 exploded right after Challenger. I also
> remember a TV news broadcast where they mentioned that only one KH11 is
> left in orbit.
> 
>                                                            R. Anand
>   Internet: anand@amax.npac.syr.edu
>   Bitnet: ranand@sunrise

	When I heard that the satellite failed to reach orbit I thought that
	it was another NASA/Air Force Blunder, but then I got to thinking, what
	better way to throw the Ruskies off than by anouncing that the top
	secret spy satellite failed to reach proper orbit.  After all, an
	announcement of another failed booster would be believable enough.
	I would be willing to bet that the Ruskies are watching (tracking) the
	satellite very carefully no matter which orbit it goes into.  Perhaps 
	if the satellite had really failed, it would not be announced to the public
	so that the Soviets would think that we had a satellite up their.

	Perhaps I have read to many spy novels and who really know what our
	government is up to.  Could the Titan that exploded after Challenger
	have been a smokescreen too.  Naa, to far fetched..

	Mike Thompson

	P.S. My opinions are in no way a reflection of the opinions of my 
	employer.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael P. Thompson                      FOCUS Semiconductor Systems, Inc.
net: (sun!daver!mfgfoc!engfoc!mike)      570 Maude Court
att: (408) 738-0600 ext 370              Sunnyvale, CA  94086 USA
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: 6 Sep 88 18:01:03 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!etive!hwcs!zen!frank@uunet.uu.net  (Frank Wales)
Subject: Re: Devolution (Was discussion on overpopulation)

In article <454@umbio.MIAMI.EDU> aem@Mthvax.Miami.Edu (a.e.mossberg) writes:
>In <195@uceng.UC.EDU>, <dmocsny@uceng.UC.EDU> wrote:
>>For an interesting alarmist look at devolution, read _The Marching Morons_.
>>I can't recall the author just now,
>
>I don't have it handy, but I think it was a story by Harry Harrison.

"The Marching Morons" was actually written by C.M. Kornbluth; the last
time I saw it published was in an early 'Omni' issue, maybe V1N2.


Memorable Frank.

------------------------------

Date: 5 Sep 88 17:58:00 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!dcl-cs!nott-cs!pyr1.cs.ucl.ac.uk!william@uunet.uu.net
Subject: Re: Are we ready for terraforming???


>I don't recall hearing of any similar effects after World War II,
>during which all major cities of Germany and Japan were converted
>into soot and CO2.

Were they though?  Many cities had their centres turned to rubble,
but I think the amount of burning was fairly limited - perhaps not
generating as much burnt product as a few ordinary power stations.
(I don't know this though - anybody know?)

The major difference between a nuclear blast or eruption and a 
conventional bomb attack is that the latter is a slow gradual effect
using low power weapons.  Nothing is thrown very far.  Any dust that
is formed is not kicked into the upper atmosphere with the old bombs.

			... Bill

************************************************************************
Bill Witts, CS Dept.     *    Nel Mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
UCL, London, Errrp       *    mi ritrovai per una selva oscura
william@uk.ac.ucl.cs(UK) *    che la diritta via era smarrita.
william@cs.ucl.ac.uk(US) ***********************************************

------------------------------

Date: 7 Sep 88 21:05:42 GMT
From: elbereth.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!klaatu.rutgers.edu!josh@rutgers.edu  (J Storrs Hall)
Subject: Re: The sun as a trashcan (was : Plutonium)


    > 1) We could send Pu garbage *out* of our solar system.
    > 2) We could use the Space Shuttle to get spacecrafts payloaded with Pu to
    > orbit and then out of our solar system.

	    This as a terrible idea! Equivalent to throwing your
	    household garbage into the street or dumping toxic
	    waste into the oceans.

Does absolutely nobody on this newsgroup have any sense of proportion
at all?  Lets consider near interstellar space, say within 4 LY,
having a volume of 2e50 cubic meters.  If we had an all-nuclear
economy we would produce 1e6 m^3 of HL waste every century.  Now the
volume of the oceans is something on the order of 1e17 m^3.  Thus 
to equal the injection of a century of nuclear waste into near
interstellar space we are talking about dumping 0.5e-27 cubic meters
of waste into the oceans, which is to say half a cubic nanometer, or
the size of single molecule of sugar.

--JoSH

------------------------------

Date: 7 Sep 88 02:29:29 GMT
From: portal!cup.portal.com!Schizoid@uunet.uu.net
Subject: Re: space exploration/exploitation

>I heard that John Denver will be paying $10M to the Russians to go into
>space...can anyone confirm this? [paraphrased]

TIME Magazine reported this story in one of their last three issues.
The major obstacle Denver is said to face is learning Russian; he will
also have to pass a NASA [sic] physical and go through the USSR training
program.

{Fred_Apple_Bonhotal, schizoid}@cup.portal.com

------------------------------

Date: 7 Sep 88 18:07:30 GMT
From: att!ihlpl!knudsen@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Knudsen)
Subject: Re: Shuttle names--old and new

Hmmm, can anyone else verify the statement that Shuttle names
must also be of SF space ships?

If so, how about "Cygnus" from _The Black Hole_ movie.
"Cygnus" means "swan."  The shuttle sure is an ugly duckling
when it takes off -- such an ungainly contraption, even as it dances
into the sky (thanks for that phrase!).

But it's graceful as a swan after it shucks those boosters and
tank.

Now if someone can find an exploratory sea-ship Cygnus...

BTW, did the spaceships have names in _Destination Moon_
(a Libertarian's favorite) or _Conquest of Space_?

Anyone for Pinta, Nina, or Santa Maria?

Let's generate lists of both types of vessels and see what
the intersection looks like.

------------------------------

Date: 7 Sep 88 23:28:41 GMT
From: yee@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: STS-26 and Manifest Releases Posted

I have posted the STS-26 press release (in 4 parts) to sci.space.shuttle.
Tomorrow I will post the NASA Manifest (in 4 parts as well) to
sci.space.shuttle.

						-Peter Yee
						yee@ames.arc.nasa.gov
						ames!yee

------------------------------

Date: 7 Sep 88 18:24:00 GMT
From: apollo!nelson_p@eddie.mit.edu  (Peter Nelson)
Subject: RE space exploitation/exploration

MacLeod posts:

>>  One of the (many) reasons why our space program is going nowhere fast
>>  is that we have too many romantic dreamers who spend their time reading
>>  Omni and watching reruns of Star Trek and too few pragmatists.  Do you
> [ ... ]
>>  technological, industrial and academic base.  Do you really think they're  
>>  going to waste those resources and training putting 'misfits' up there?

>Dead wrong, of course.  The program needs people who will not be deterred
>by >anything<; there will always be "good" "reasons" to flop back into
>the tide pool rather than breath that nasty oxygen.
                                                                 
  I'm sure they'll have no trouble finding skilled, brave people who
  are not misfits.  Are you saying that our astronauts were misfits and
  dreamers?   Look at the original posting.

>The problem, to paraphrase Ayn Rand, is not those who dream, but those
>who can >only< dream.

  No kidding.  

>In talk.politics.misc Mr. Nelson recently recommended that the US surrender
>to the USSR if the latter >threatened< to start an atomic war.   This 
>illustrates exactly what I am talking about when I ramble on about freedom
>versus security and about the character of pioneers versus couch potatoes.

  I'm not sure why this is relevant but I appreciate the compliment of 
  being called a pioneer.  There are very few people who would be 
  willing to say what I said.  It takes a real romantic, a dreamer, 
  an iconoclast to not go along with the other lemmings on this one. 
  I assume that's what Mr. MacLeod means by pioneer. 

  Considering that, at least in my part of the country, a nuclear war
  means certain death, I prefer the *freedom* of being alive.  Death
  is the ultimate oppression. 

                                              --Peter Nelson

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #373
*******************

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To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
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Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #374

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 374

Today's Topics:
		wealth of mature spacefaring societies
		    space exploration/exploitation
		 Re: Space Disposal of Nuclear Wastes
	      Re: wealth of mature spacefaring societies
		Please keep postings relevant to space
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 7 Sep 88 18:02:00 GMT
From: apollo!nelson_p@eddie.mit.edu  (Peter Nelson)
Subject: wealth of mature spacefaring societies


 'Da Plane, da plane, boss...'

 'It's a spaceship, Tatoo, but yes, you're right.  Today's guest here on
  Fantasy Newsgroup is Mr. Macleod who posts...

>Let me add my endorsement.  Two thousand years ago (and much more recently
>in some cultures) the Roman soldier's daily pay brought him the price of
>a quart or two of wheat.  Today I make enough daily to buy a small home
>computer.  This is what wealth is all about.  In less than 100 years
>we have gone from no automobiles to a point where virtually anybody can
>own one.
 
 First of all, you don't know that Roman soldier : rich American is a
 reasonable comparison.  Neither is particularly representative of the
 species at his time in history.  To make another silly comparison--
 Today only the rich can own a horse, a hundred years ago horse ownership
 was common.   

 Anyway most people CANNOT own a car.  Your ethnocentrism is showing.

 More to the point, extrapolations can be tricky.  It's true that the 
 average American is richer than he was a hundred years ago but he is 
 *poorer* than he was in the 60's.  Nowadays, two incomes are required
 to maintain a standard of living that one could maintain at that time.
 Which way is the curve heading these days?  

 If you had extrapolated from the time when dinosaurs first appeared on
 earth to when Brontosaurus existed you might have concluded that there
 would be lots of huge, powerful dinosaurs around today.  

 Another BIG difference is that our material standard of living is
 not mainainable in its current form.  We cannot continue to consume
 non-renewable resources or generate pollution and other waste at
 the current rate.  Automobiles are MAJOR pollution sources both
 in their use and their manufacture/maintenance/infrastructure
 requirements.  Also, remeber that the Roman soldier's generous
 payscale was a function of non-maintainable factors, too. (i.e., 
 the Roman Empire)  Of course, this may ALSO be a silly extrapolation.

 Another factor is that the 'wealth' or standard of living of most
 Americans is illusory.  I doubt you could afford to buy a home
 computer on a day's pay if that computer and all it's parts were
 made by people enjoying an American wage scale.  A lot of our 
 standard of living is based on other countries having much lower
 wages, fewer pollution standards, etc.  Roman senators were wealthy
 in the same way.

>In one of my stories there is a race that has had a basically 

 Are you a writer?  Where? 

>libertarian spacefaring civilization for about 800 years.  They are organized
>into clans, large extended families, and are so rich that clans typically
>own hundreds of planets.  The technological base is such that an average-
>sized spaceship - with hyperdrive capability - costs the equivalent of about
>15 minutes of labor.

 Ah yes, FTL travel.  Where would science fiction be without it?  If we're
 willing to postulate FTL travel why not alternative universes or time 
 travel as a future solution to our problems?   

>  It's important to realize, my friends, that there is *no limit* on
>   how good things can get!  

 ...Or how bad they can get.  Sure, maybe the world of the future will be bright 
 and clean with robots doing all the manufacturing and everyday is Saturday
 and the malls are open and our pockets are stuffed with money.  Or maybe it 
 will be a cyberpunk's worst nightmare with rain 'sour and acid, nearly the
 color of piss' (William Gibson), respirators required for a simple walk 
 down the street, and remote pain inducers implanted at birth by a high-tech
 tyranny to keep 20 billion people passive.  

 These are matters of religion (faith) and science fiction, not sci.space.
 While we fritter our time away in fantasy, other countries have real
 space programs with realistic goals and programs to accomplish them.  If
 anyone on this group ever does get into space it will probably be at the
 whim of the Russians or Japanese.   

                                                 --Peter Nelson

------------------------------

Date: 7 Sep 88 19:40:00 GMT
From: apollo!nelson_p@eddie.mit.edu  (Peter Nelson)
Subject: space exploration/exploitation


Dillon Pyron posts:

>  Yes, I know what it costs.
 
  Great, perhaps you could tell the rest of us.  I have no idea
  what it would cost to put up a permanent, self-sufficient
  colony in space (except that it would be plenty) - AND NOBODY
  ELSE DOES EITHER.  The engineering and design hasn't been done.
  Nobody has made a business plan.  

>  I also know how much a HARM missle costs, and I'd rather spend
>  the money putting people into space. 

  So would I.  On the other hand, the Russians seem to be able to
  do both.

>  In both your commentaries, I have not seen one response which
>  actually addresses any of the issues presented.

  What issues??  The only issue here is that this net has a lot
  of would-be space cadets who bought tickets on the PanAm moon
  shot a few years back and expect to cash them in.  This started
  when somebody informed us that he had 'plans' to go into space 
  and I asked what these 'plans' consisted of.  'Answer came there
  none.'  

>  The reason we are stuck is because nay-sayers like you are
>  afraid we can't do it, so let's not.
 
 God, I had no idea I had such powers of persuasion.  In that
 case, send me all your money.

 Don't blame others for your inaction.  Have you actually *tried* 
 to get something going?   Has anyone made a  good business
 plan?  Get to work on it!

 ...Oh, I see.  You would except for the government.  That D.O.T. 
 thing is just a sham to fool innocents like Conatec, MacDonnel
 Douglas, etc.   OK, then how much have you personally done
 to push more lenient legislation through Congress?   How many
 petitions have you picked up, how much PAC money have you
 raised?  
 
 These fearless space pioneers are afraid of nothing:  they 
 laugh at radiation, money is no object, the vaccum of space holds
 no terror for them, the distance, the time, the loneliness- big
 deal......the paperwork...AAIIIEEEE!!

>  My plans involve pushing my employer into space in one form
>  or fashion, as a first step. 

 Haven't we all wanted to do this at one time or another?
 
 Which version of the word 'plans' is this?  

>  Do you have any idea what it will cost not to put nations
>  in space?

  No.  Do you?  

  I hope we get a space program going here, either via NASA or
  private enterprise.  All I'm criticizing are the junior space
  cadets who won't have anything to do with any effort not
  directed at setting up a Libertarian space colony or who waste 
  time in such dreams while other nations work on real space
  programs.  
  
  You can tell where these people are coming from as Dale.Amon
  gets to the good stuff...

< Independent settlers are isolated and quite capable of defending
<themselves. The dug in nature of their shelters makes them difficult to
<find by sensors and makes them as impervious to a near miss by a nuke
<as to a solar flare. With the energy at their disposal with the CFG's
<and the robotic help, they are quite capable of defending their land.
<Even a major military ground force would break it's back after taking
<on a few thousand of them, one at a time.
 
  Battlestar Galactica, Space 1999, Buck Rogers, I don't know.
  But these little starship troopers really go for the shootem
  up part, don't they?  AND SPACEMAN SPIFF READIES HIS ESCAPE..

                                   --Peter (Spiff) Nelson
  
                                                         
  ZAP!  POW!!  AAIIEEE!  bap bap bap bap  'Quick, eager young
  space cadet, engage the Koenig Drive'   BOOM zzzZZZZ  'That was
  close ... Oh no!  They've got orgasmatronic rays....YOW!'

------------------------------

Date: 7 Sep 88 17:32:08 GMT
From: fluke!ssc-vax!eder@beaver.cs.washington.edu  (Dani Eder)
Subject: Re: Space Disposal of Nuclear Wastes

In article <968@meccsd.MECC.MN.ORG>, mvs@meccsd.MECC.MN.ORG (Michael V. Stein) writes:
Writing about burying nuclear wastes in hard rock formations rather than
sending it into space:
> 
> You are damn right it will cost less.  It will also be several billion times
> safer.
> 

Do you have a reference for those figures?  The "Space Disposal of Nuclear Wastes"
studies done by Battelle in the early 1980s found the cost to be twice as high
for space disposal vs underground burial, with a marginal improvement in
expected deaths due to radiation exposure (on the order of 1 death rather
than 2 deaths) over the life of the storage (>1 million years).

The space disposal alternative was made safe by encasing the waste in
an armored sphere (9 inches of stainless steel) covered with Shuttle type
tiles, so even in a worst case launch vehicle accident, the waste is
contained.

The Boeing subcontract study manager, Rich Reinart, claimed he would
be happy to have a 'waste ball' buried in his driveway to keep the snow
off (they give off about 2 kW in heat).

-- 
Dani Eder / Boeing / Space Station Program / uw-beaver!ssc-vax!eder
(205)464-4150(w) (205)461-7801(h) 1075 Dockside Drive #905 Huntsville, 
AL 35824  34 40 N latitude 86 40 W longitude +100m altitude, Earth

------------------------------

Date: 8 Sep 88 04:18:46 GMT
From: aramis.rutgers.edu!klaatu.rutgers.edu!josh@rutgers.edu  (J Storrs Hall)
Subject: Re: wealth of mature spacefaring societies


    >Let me add my endorsement.  Two thousand years ago (and much more recently
    >in some cultures) the Roman soldier's daily pay brought him the price of
    >a quart or two of wheat. ...

     First of all, you don't know that Roman soldier : rich American is a
     reasonable comparison.  Neither is particularly representative of the
     species at his time in history.
Roman soldier : *average* American is a reasonable comparison, i.e. 
middle level member of the dominant imperial power of the age.

     Today only the rich can own a horse, a hundred years ago horse ownership
     was common. 

A distortion, since it is easier to own a horse now (in terms of % of 
average income); most people merely don't because they don't need to.
A horse was a major investment in the days of yore; stealing one was a
capital crime.
  
     Anyway most people CANNOT own a car.  Your ethnocentrism is showing.

This is because their political leaders find it expedient to keep them
in poverty, and has nothing to do with the argument, which is about
possible curves of technological development.  It was always a given
that political idiocy could prevent a species from developing star 
travel.

     More to the point, extrapolations can be tricky.  It's true that the 
     average American is richer than he was a hundred years ago but he is 
     *poorer* than he was in the 60's. 

 Same comment.

     Another BIG difference is that our material standard of living is
     not mainainable in its current form.  We cannot continue to consume
     non-renewable resources or generate pollution and other waste at
     the current rate.  Automobiles are MAJOR pollution sources both
     in their use and their manufacture/maintenance/infrastructure
     requirements.  Also, remeber that the Roman soldier's generous
     payscale was a function of non-maintainable factors, too. (i.e., 
     the Roman Empire)  Of course, this may ALSO be a silly extrapolation.

It certainly is.  After all, we are on the very brink of running out 
of whale oil (a *renewable* resource) and the streets of New York are
knee deep in horseshit.  If we do run out of resources, it will simply
be because the technophobes have managed to prevent the natural cycle
of substitution by advancing technologies.

     Another factor is that the 'wealth' or standard of living of most
     Americans is illusory.  I doubt you could afford to buy a home
     computer on a day's pay if that computer and all it's parts were
     made by people enjoying an American wage scale. ...

Wrong.  When you subtract the 43% the government steals from the 
American, the Japanese makes more.  And his products work reliably.
However, this is only another example of the political idiocy we saw
before.

America may well be headed for a big decline.  Right now the
exponential growth curve of technology is just about balanced by the
exponential decline of sociosclerosis.  Technophobia is only one
symptom of this.  Mr. Nelson's horror of pollution has nothing to do
with the potentiality of technological advance.  If we have hospital 
wastes on our beaches, remember that both the hospitals and the
beaches are the luxuries of the middle class.

The advancing technology argument for star travel does not require
that we must necessarily overcome our collective stupidity and avail
ourselves of the nearly limitless opportunities and riches just before
our noses.  It only requires that it not be necessary that we fail.

Then, somewhere in a big big universe, some race of more worthy
creatures will succeed, and ride the power curve to the stars.  If
that leaves some backward-looking technophobes sitting in their own
excrement because it's natural that way, then maybe there is some
justice after all.

    >  It's important to realize, my friends, that there is *no limit* on
    >   how good things can get!  

     ...Or how bad they can get.  Sure, maybe the world of the future will be bright 
     and clean with robots doing all the manufacturing and everyday is Saturday
     and the malls are open and our pockets are stuffed with money.  Or maybe it 
     will be a cyberpunk's worst nightmare with rain 'sour and acid, nearly the
     color of piss' (William Gibson), respirators required for a simple walk 
     down the street, and remote pain inducers implanted at birth by a high-tech
     tyranny to keep 20 billion people passive.  

"States have needed people as workers because human labor has been the
necessary foundation of power.  What is more, genocide has been
expensive and troublesome to organize and execute.  Yet, in this
century totalitarian states have slaughtered their citizens by the
millions.  Advanced technology will make workers unnecessary and
genocide easy.  History suggests that totalitarian states may then
eliminate people wholesale.  There is some consolation in this.  It
seems likely that a state willing and able to enslave us biologically
would instead simply kill us." (Eric Drexler)  Gibson is a romantic.

     These are matters of religion (faith) and science fiction, not sci.space.
     While we fritter our time away in fantasy, other countries have real
     space programs with realistic goals and programs to accomplish them.  If
     anyone on this group ever does get into space it will probably be at the
     whim of the Russians or Japanese.   

Don't be so sure.  World politics can change completely and rapidly;
space travel if not done by a bureaucracy is reasonably cheap with
current technology, easily within the capability of most sovereign
nations and any Fortune 500 company; you may live longer than you
think.

--JoSH

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 8 Sep 88 10:13:01 PDT
From: Eugene Miya <eugene@amelia.nas.nasa.gov>
Subject: Please keep postings relevant to space

Come on guys!  Let's move nuclear waste discussions to sci.physics,
exploitation and economic discussions to the politics newsgroups,
and keep the cross posting to a minimum. I am beginning to think
we should break this newsgroup into other separate groups (except
for those who reads this as a digest on the Internet side).
I would almost lay a $10 bet that the net could not keep silent
for 1 week (almost).

--eugene miya
Thu Sep  8 10:12:26 PDT 1988

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #374
*******************

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Date: Sun, 25 Sep 88 01:08:18 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
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To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
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Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #375

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 375

Today's Topics:
NASA and McDonnell Douglas sign commercial launch agreement (Forwarded)
     NASA/AIAA to conduct space technology conference (Forwarded)
	    Re: "It's because of all those satellites..."
National student finalists present space station proposals to NASA (Forwarded)
		      Re: "What's New"  09/02/88
		       Reminders for Old Farts
		       Re: Berserker hypothesis
	      Re: wealth of mature spacefaring societies
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 8 Sep 88 16:56:07 GMT
From: yee@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: NASA and McDonnell Douglas sign commercial launch agreement (Forwarded)

Jim Ball
Headquarters, Washington, D.C.                  September 7, 1988


RELEASE:  88-124

NASA AND McDONNELL DOUGLAS SIGN COMMERCIAL LAUNCH AGREEMENT


     NASA and the McDonnell Douglas Astronautics Company, St. 
Louis, announced today the signing of an agreement providing for 
the firm's use of facilities at the Kennedy Space Center, Fla., 
and technical support from the Goddard Spaceflight Center, 
Greenbelt, Md., in support of commercial launches.

     Advancing the government's objectives to encourage and 
assist the growth of a robust U.S. commercial launch industry, 
the umbrella agreement enables McDonnell Douglas to gain access 
to NASA-managed launch support facilities when the firm begins 
conducting commercial launches of the Delta rocket.

     The Delta program was initiated by NASA in 1959 and the 
first launch took place in 1960.  Since then, the Delta rocket, 
manufactured by McDonnell Douglas under contract to NASA, has 
been a reliable workhorse of the space program.

     McDonnell Douglas expects to begin commercial launches of 
the Delta in 1989.

------------------------------

Date: 9 Sep 88 00:04:34 GMT
From: yee@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: NASA/AIAA to conduct space technology conference (Forwarded)

Mary Sandy
Headquarters, Washington, D.C.                  September 8, 1988


EDITORS NOTE:  NASA/AIAA TO CONDUCT SPACE TECHNOLOGY CONFERENCE


     NASA's space technology program will be the focus of a joint 
American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics/NASA 
conference, September 12-13 at the Capital Hilton, Washington, 
D.C.

     The conference, "Technology for Future NASA Missions," will 
examine key space program activities in the Office of Aeronautics 
and Space Technology (OAST), including the Space Research and 
Technology Base program, the Civil Space Technology Initiative 
and Project Pathfinder.

     First-day proceedings will be devoted to overviews of these 
programs and discussions by a panel of potential users of new 
space technology.  The second day will involve more detailed 
reviews of the technical efforts and discussions of how 
universities and industry can become more involved in these 
programs.

     Speakers include Dr. William F. Ballhaus, Jr., acting 
associate administrator for OAST and president, AIAA; Norman R. 
Augustine, chairman and chief executive officer, Martin Marietta 
Corp.; and Paul J. Coleman, Jr., president, University Space 
Research Association.  Nearly all NASA centers will have 
participants in the program.

------------------------------

Date: 8 Sep 88 19:12:24 GMT
From: rochester!rocksanne!entire!elt@cu-arpa.cs.cornell.edu  (Edward L. Taychert)
Subject: Re: "It's because of all those satellites..."


I remember back in the Apollo days that it always seem to rain
when NASA was going to launch. Everyone in Tidewater Va came to
know that moonshots caused rain!
-- 

____________________________________________________________________________

Ed Taychert				Phone: USA (716) 381-7500
Entire Inc.				UUCP: rochester!rocksanne!entire!elt
445 E. Commercial Street
East Rochester, N.Y. 14445 
_____________________________________________________________________________

------------------------------

Date: 9 Sep 88 00:06:47 GMT
From: yee@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: National student finalists present space station proposals to NASA (Forwarded)

Terri Sindelar                                  
Headquarters, Washington, D.C.                  September 2, 1988

Shelagh Lane
National Science Teachers Assoc., Wash., D.C.


RELEASE:  88-122

NATIONAL STUDENT FINALISTS PRESENT SPACE STATION PROPOSALS TO NASA


     Seven high school students will present proposals for space 
station experiments as national finalists of the 8th Annual Space 
Science Student Involvement Program (SSIP).  The program, 
cosponsored by NASA and the National Science Teachers Association 
(NSTA), gives high school students the opportunity to propose 
experiments which theoretically could be conducted in space.  The 
students will be competing for scholarships and other awards.

     In addition to these seven students, three national student 
winners in separate competitions including the student newspaper 
competition and the national aerospace internship competition, will 
he honored during the NASA/NSTA National Space Science Symposium, 
Washington, D.C., Sept. 17-21.  The key events follow.

     On Monday, Sept. 19, the seven student finalists will present 
their experiment proposals to a panel of scientists and educators 
at the Capitol Holiday Inn, Columbia South Room, 550 C. St., S.W.  
Also attending will be 10 students from each Washington-area magnet 
school.

     The students and teacher/advisors will attend a Monday evening 
reception at the National Air and Space Museum.  Guest speakers 
will include Capt. John A. McBride, NASA astronaut and assistant 
administrator for congressional relations; Kenneth S. Pedersen, 
NASA deputy associate administrator for external relations; Bill G. 
Alridge, executive director of NSTA; Dr. Helenmarie Hofman, 
director of SSIP at NSTA; and Dr. Martin O. Harwit, director of the 
National Air and Space Museum.  Members of Congress are invited.

     On Tuesday, Sept. 20, the students will tour the Capitol and 
meet their congressmen. 

     The students will attend the awards ceremony Tuesday evening 
where NSTA will announce the top national scholarship recipients.  
Featured speakers will be Dr. Lemoine Motz, president of NSTA; Dr. 
Robert W. Brown, director of educational affairs at NASA; and Dr. 
Joseph P. Allen, a former astronaut.

     Selected from over 900 proposals, the following are the 
proposals of the seven national student finalists, one student 
newspaper competition winner and two national aerospace internship 
competition winners:

                 SPACE STATION PROPOSAL FINALISTS:
     Kevin M. Chalmers, Mechanicsville, Va.  Topic:  "The Effect of 
Microgravity on Vital Lung Capacity of Human Respiratory System."
     John C. Marschhausen, Glastonbury, Conn.  Topic:  "Detrimental 
Loss of Calcium Due to Microgravity."
     Elexis Benzco, Uniontown, Ohio.  Topic:  "With the Use of 
Natural Bioluminescent Chemicals, Calcium and ATP Levels Can Be 
Related to Muscle Atrophy in a Microgravity Environment."
     P. Martin Johnson, Baton Rouge, La.  Topic:  "Frogs in Space: 
The Growing and Muscular Training of Rana Pipens in a Weightless 
Environment."
     Alison M. Cheney, Overland Park, Kan.  Topic:  "Application of 
Electrical Stimulation of Skeletal Muscle to the Problem of Disuse 
Atrophy in a Microgravity Environment."
     Kartik A. Parekh, Los Angeles, Calif.  Topic:  "Effect of 
Space Environment on the Proliferation of Resting, Activated and 
Malignant T-(213) Lymphocytes.
     Michael P. McCart, Anchorage, Alaska.  Topic:  "Increased 
Growth Rate of Penicillin Notatum in Microgravity."

             NATIONAL STUDENT NEWSPAPER AWARD WINNER:
     DeAnne M. Nevins, Lambert, Mont.  Article:  "Hey Student!  
It's Your Chance To Get SPACY!"

           NATIONAL AEROSPACE INTERNSHIP AWARD WINNERS:
     Eliah D. Novin, Sherman Oaks, Calif.  Topic:  "Control Surface 
Testing on a Forward Sweep Prototype Aircraft."
     Kenneth L. Riley, Akron, Ohio.  Topic:  "Measurement of 
Tensile Strength on Pure Water."

     The SSIP competition objective is to stimulate interest in 
science and technology by directly involving students in a space 
research program.  When space flight resumes with Space Shuttle 
mission 26, two student experiments will fly aboard Discovery.  To 
date, 15 student experiments have flown aboard the Shuttle.

------------------------------

Date: 9 Sep 88 00:40:37 GMT
From: gryphon!swalton@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov  (Steven Walton)
Subject: Re: "What's New"  09/02/88


In the referenced article, the question is raised, "Why does it matter
that the Hubble Space Telescope is delayed?  Won't the universe wait
a bit?"

Well, yes, but consider:
(1) It is certain that parts of HST have a finite life, and are aging
    while it sits on the ground;  time on earth subtracts from
    useful life in orbit.
(2) The closer launch gets to the next solar maximum in 1991, the
    higher the likelihood that HST will have a very premature re-entry
    unless a second shuttle flight is used to boost it up.
(3) It has been six years since the last launch of a US astronomy
    spacecraft--hardly a record which inspires bright young people
    to get involved with space or astronomy.

The HST delay is a symptom, really.  I think the US, via its elected
representatives in Washington, DC, has decided to cede leadership in
space to Japan and Western Europe and the USSR.  I predict a major drain
of American space scientists to these other places within 5 years; yes,
even to the USSR if perestroika and glasnost hold up. 

-- 
Stephen Walton, hanging out until my USENET feed at work is back up.
swalton@solar.stanford.edu

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 9 Sep 88 04:00:11 PDT
From: Eugene Miya <eugene@amelia.nas.nasa.gov>
Subject: Reminders for Old Farts

Hints for old users (subtle reminders) You'll know these.

Minimize cross references, [Do you REALLY NEED to?]
Edit "Subject:" lines especially if you are taking a tangent.
Send mail instead, avoid posting follow ups. [100 mail messages mean more than 1
follow-up.]
Read all available articles before posting a follow-up. [Check all references.]
Cut down attributed articles.  Summarize!
Put a return address in the body (signature) of your message (mail or
article), state institution, etc. don't assume mail works.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 9 Sep 88 07:31:11 EDT
From: Chuck Musciano <chuck@trantor.harris-atd.com>
Subject: Re: Berserker hypothesis

     After reading about Berserkers for many digests now, I can't believe that
someone hasn't come up with the best hypothesis: we are the Berserkers, early
in our life cycle, just getting ready to go out and start destroying things.
Why, we haven't even reached another planet yet, and people are already giving
thought to dropping nuclear devices to form landing pads.  Seems like our
Berserker intuition is coming along nicely.

Chuck Musciano
Advanced Technology Department
Harris Corporation
(407) 727-6131
ARPA: chuck@trantor.harris-atd.com

------------------------------

Date: 8 Sep 88 15:28:05 GMT
From: eachus@MITRE-BEDFORD.ARPA  (Robert Eachus)
Subject: Re: wealth of mature spacefaring societies

In article <3e5436c7.ae47@apollo.COM> nelson_p@apollo.COM (Peter Nelson) writes:
> First of all, you don't know that Roman soldier : rich American is a
> reasonable comparison.  Neither is particularly representative of the
> species at his time in history.  To make another silly comparison--
> Today only the rich can own a horse, a hundred years ago horse ownership
> was common.   

     Silly is right.  A hundred years ago, even in America, you had to
be rich to own a horse for personal transportation,  and many farmers,
even in America, did not own plow horses.  If you live  in a city with
paved streets, a bicycle is a much more useful form of transport, then
and now. Care to check  bicycle ownership figures?   Also, at least in
the town where  I live, horse ownership  is still common.   Of  couse,
Hollis, N.H. is not a poor town, but I would say that the  town riding
rink gets more use that the town tennis courts.

> Anyway most people CANNOT own a car.  Your ethnocentrism is showing.

     Hmmm.  Since a large percentage of the  population (especially in
the third world) is underage you may be right.   However, if you meant
to say  that a majority  families in the world cannot  afford to buy a
car today, you would be wrong.

> More to the point, extrapolations can be tricky.  It's true that the 
> average American is richer than he was a hundred years ago but he is 
> *poorer* than he was in the 60's.  Nowadays, two incomes are required
> to maintain a standard of living that one could maintain at that time.
> Which way is the curve heading these days?  

     The  "average" American  is richer  today   than he was  in   the
sixties.  In the forties, fifties and  early sixties the growth in the
American standard of living was very rapid, then came  LBJ's "guns and
butter" economics, and the oil shocks of the early seventies resulting
in a decade of slow  growth.  In  the late  seventies the standard  of
living  of the "average"   American  actually did  decrease.  You  may
remember that Reagan made this a campaign issue.

     However,   the last   six years have   been a period of sustained
economic growth similar to the fifties, and our  hypothetical "average
American" is somewhat better off than he was in  1976, and much better
off than he was in 1966.

     There  are   several  disturbing  demographic   trends,   and the
Democrats are trying to make political hay with them, but these do not
affect the overall upward trend.  The poor were hurt much worse during
the Carter years and by the 1982 recession.  This made the gap between
rich  and  poor  greater, and  it  is  not  closing.   (Neither is  it
widening, the rising tide really is raising all boats equally. Its the
falling tides which hurt the poor.)  The other disturbing fact is that
for the last twenty years, the middle middle class has been shrinking.
Most of this shrinking has  been due to  people moving  up from to the
upper middle class (good), but it also means that the  mobility of the
lower  middle class has been  decreasing (bad).  This   is primarily a
problem with the educational system, but it needs to be fixed.

> If you had extrapolated from the time when dinosaurs first appeared on
> earth to when Brontosaurus existed you might have concluded that there
> would be lots of huge, powerful dinosaurs around today.  

     Not if your  extrapolation  correctly included  the   effects  of
meteor strikes.  It doen't  take much effort to   figure out  that  if
humans don't learn to  manage their environment (which  includes large
rocks in solar orbit), they won't be around for long.

> Another BIG difference is that our material standard of living is
> not mainainable in its current form.  We cannot continue to consume
> non-renewable resources or generate pollution and other waste at
> the current rate.  Automobiles are MAJOR pollution sources both
> in their use and their manufacture/maintenance/infrastructure
> requirements.  Also, remeber that the Roman soldier's generous
> payscale was a function of non-maintainable factors, too. (i.e., 
> the Roman Empire)  Of course, this may ALSO be a silly extrapolation.

     It is  a wrong  extrapolation.   One  thing  that economists keep
track of is the amount of energy required to produce a constant dollar
amount of goods.  This figure has been decreasing for the last fifteen
years (and for the last fifty).

> Another factor is that the 'wealth' or standard of living of most
> Americans is illusory.  I doubt you could afford to buy a home
> computer on a day's pay if that computer and all it's parts were
> made by people enjoying an American wage scale.  A lot of our 
> standard of living is based on other countries having much lower
> wages, fewer pollution standards, etc.  Roman senators were wealthy
> in the same way.

     This cant has  got to go.    There  are many  computers out there
built in America with American parts which are competitive in the home
computer  market.  The main  competition is not  from the third world,
but from countries with equal  or higher living  standards.  In  1960,
the United  States had the  highest  living standard  in the world, by
1980 we were, I  think, fourteenth.  Since then  we've pulled ahead of
several European countries, but South  Korea and Taiwan are gaining on
us.

> ...Or how bad they can get.  Sure, maybe the world of the future
> will be bright and clean with robots doing all the manufacturing and
> everyday is Saturday and the malls are open and our pockets are
> stuffed with money.  Or maybe it will be a cyberpunk's worst
> nightmare with rain 'sour and acid, nearly the color of piss'
> (William Gibson), respirators required for a simple walk down the
> street, and remote pain inducers implanted at birth by a high-tech
> tyranny to keep 20 billion people passive.

     First,  the problems of  the future will be ones  which  we don't
know about yet.  Mankind has a very good  record for finding solutions
to known  problems.  However, often  these   solutions often cause new
problems.  For example, most of  the problems of  the  health industry
today are due to finding new and  better  ways to  cure patients or to
keep them alive, not by medical failures.

     Second, the  long  term trend  has  been to   keep improving  the
overall quality of life.   The "good old  days" only look good because
you were  younger then.  The  1988 "standard" of living includes  home
computers, VCR's, pocket calculators, cordless telephones, and a whole
host of medications  which simply  were not available  at any price in
1963.  (Well, not quite.  I did have a computer  in the basement then,
but that's another story.)

> These are matters of religion (faith) and science fiction, not sci.space.
> While we fritter our time away in fantasy, other countries have real
> space programs with realistic goals and programs to accomplish them.  If
> anyone on this group ever does get into space it will probably be at the
> whim of the Russians or Japanese.   

     Or of   D. D.  Harriman.  Seriously,  even   if  relatively cheap
spaceflight is possible, creating the infrastructure will take lots of
money.  A number of companies in the U. S. are working on building the
necessary industrial base,  but once that  is available,  building the
first Lunar  Hilton is still going to  require megabucks.  Most people
have heard the adage that "when it's steamboat time, people will build
steamboats", but many don't realize that there are a  lot of ideas out
there whose time has yet to arrive.

     The  lunar population  may be  zero on  January  1,  2001, but to
predict  the lunar population as less  than 10 million  on  January 1,
2100 would be lunacy.  Governments can help "steamboat time" to arrive
sooner, they did with steamboats  in the eighteenth century, railroads
in the nineteenth century, and air travel in the  1930's.  I only hope
when  we look  back fifty years from   now we conclude that government
space  programs  helped the   commercial  space industry   (and  space
colonization)  to  get  off  the  ground  earlier than they would have
otherwise.

>                                                 --Peter Nelson

					Robert I. Eachus

with STANDARD_DISCLAIMER;
use  STANDARD_DISCLAIMER;
function MESSAGE (TEXT: in CLEVER_IDEAS) return BETTER_IDEAS is...

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #375
*******************

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Date: Mon, 26 Sep 88 01:08:36 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8809260808.AA10960@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
Reply-To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #376

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 376

Today's Topics:
		     Re: Transmutation of Metals
			     Re: Phoenix
			   Re: Time Travel
	     Re: The sun as a trashcan (was : Plutonium)
			  Re: Why no aliens
			       Re: SDI
   Re: Unmanned w/old SRBs (was Re: space news from July 11 AW&ST)
		    Re: Shuttle names--old and new
			       Re: SETI
			       Re: SDI
	    Re: "It's because of all those satellites..."
		   Self-replicating/mutating robots
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Resent-Message-Id: <0X9xYry00Vse07D4FD@andrew.cmu.edu>
Resent-Date: Fri,  9 Sep 88 09:14:31 -0400 (EDT)
Resent-From: Ted Anderson <ota+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Resent-To: Space <space+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Return-Path: <SAC.DYESGPF@e.isi.edu>
Date: 8 Sep 1988 18:40-CDT
Sender: SAC.DYESGPF@e.isi.edu
Subject: Re: Transmutation of Metals
From: SAC.DYESGPF@e.isi.edu
To: ota@angband.s1.gov

> I once read that the Atomic Energy Commission built a huge
> machine to make Pu out of U by bombarding it with protons,
> using simple electrostatic acceleration.  I no doubt have
> the above all wrong, but the thing was run for several years.

I am not sure if this is what you are referring to, but Pu 238
was first created by bombarding U 238 with deuteron in a 60 inch
cyclotron at Berkeley in 1940.  The research team involved was
Glenn T. Seaborg, Edwin M. Mcmillan, Joseph W. Kennedy, and
Arthur C. Wahl.

The isotope Pu 239 (which is in greater demand) is made with
U 238 (plentiful and very stable - nonfissile) and U 235 (much
less abundant and fissile) in a breeder reactor.

Although energy is required to run a cyclotron, the breeder
reactor generates a great deal of heat which can be used to
generate power.  Of course, Pu 238 produces a fair amount of
heat because of the high rate of alpha decay (half life of 86
years).  Put a chunk of this inside a thermocouple pile and you
have a device which can be used for powering electronics in
remote areas such as deep space.


Al Holecek
<SAC.DYESGPF@E.ISI.EDU>

------------------------------

Date: 7 Sep 88 19:03:00 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!dcl-cs!nott-cs!pyr1.cs.ucl.ac.uk!william@uunet.uu.net
Subject: Re: Phoenix


>Hudson has this to say about reusable vehicles:
> ....
>"It is no argument to say that launch vehicles are more complex
>devices than, for example, an F-15 or 767.  Clearly they are not. 
> ..."

Is this true?  It doesn't appear clear to me, I'm afraid!  There was
a major discussion a little while back that seemed to conclude that
rocket nozzle technology is a trial-and-error black art.  How much of
the rest of the job is so unpredictable?  And what parts of aircraft
are similarly designed purely on an "it worked last time" basis?

			... Bill

************************************************************************
Bill Witts, CS Dept.     *    Nel Mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
UCL, London, Errrp       *    mi ritrovai per una selva oscura
william@cs.ucl.ac.uk     *    che la diritta via era smarrita.
************************************************************************

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 9 Sep 1988 11:58-EDT 
From: Dale.Amon@h.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: Time Travel

I believe Dave Flory is incorrect.

One must examine the path of a vehicle on a Space-Time diagram. As you
approach the speed of light, your path in space time becomes more and
more a 'time-like' path instead of a 'space-like' path.

The often mentioned time travel in the vicinity of a massive rotating
cylinder is caused by the effect of space-like paths being pulled
around the cylinder until they become time-like paths. Thus following
one of the causes travel in time.

Presumably, if one went faster than light in normal space by tunneling
through the forbidden value of c, then one would be traveling very
time-like paths.

------------------------------

Date: 7 Sep 88 21:14:08 GMT
From: linus!philabs!micomvax!ncc!alberta!mnetor!utzoo!henry@husc6.harvard.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: The sun as a trashcan (was : Plutonium)

In article <2830@pt.cs.cmu.edu> jgk@speech2.cs.cmu.edu (Joe Keane) writes:
>Someone will curse the fools who sprayed plutonium on her land.

Only if some bright government forces the Lunar Plutonium Disposal Company
to sell the contaminated land.  (This is what happened at Love Canal.)
Remember, I assumed reasonable accuracy in aiming.  Nobody in his right
mind will try to homestead a waste dump.
-- 
Intel CPUs are not defective,  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
they just act that way.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 7 Sep 88 21:42:02 GMT
From: linus!philabs!micomvax!ncc!alberta!mnetor!utzoo!henry@husc6.harvard.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Why no aliens

In article <1950@brahma.cs.hw.ac.uk> adrian@cs.hw.ac.uk (Adrian Hurt) writes:
>Take some sort of propulsion and control/guidance system. And enough fuel to
>drive it for, say, a month continuously...
>Could this be done?

Compute how much fuel it would take to accelerate an asteroid at one gee
for a month.  Not practical at present.
-- 
Intel CPUs are not defective,  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
they just act that way.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 7 Sep 88 21:18:49 GMT
From: linus!philabs!micomvax!ncc!alberta!mnetor!utzoo!henry@husc6.harvard.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: SDI

In article <1774@hoqax.UUCP> lmg@hoqax.UUCP (45323-LARRY GEARY) writes:
>You don't need an SDI to control access to orbit. The Iranians could deny
>the U.S. access to space by placing one of their speedboats with sailors
>with shoulder launched missiles off Cocoa Beach. In fact, anyone else with
>the desire to do this could probably pull it off, even an individual. Isn't
>the Ariane launch site near the ocean? How about Vandenberg AF base? Only
>the Soviets have a reasonably secure, inland launch site.

All the Western launch sites are coastal sites, for range-safety reasons.
The Soviets didn't have the choice.

However, any Iranian speedboats showing up off Cocoa Beach would be in
deep trouble very quickly.  Start with AC-130 gunships (which are present
at the Cape and Vandenberg for all launches) and work up from there.
The issue of launch-site security is not being ignored just because some
of the surroundings happen to be water.
-- 
Intel CPUs are not defective,  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
they just act that way.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 7 Sep 88 21:27:36 GMT
From: linus!philabs!micomvax!ncc!alberta!mnetor!utzoo!henry@husc6.harvard.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Unmanned w/old SRBs (was Re: space news from July 11 AW&ST)

In article <6185@dasys1.UUCP> tneff@dasys1.UUCP (Tom Neff) writes:
>>... The NRC report on
>>shuttle frequency put it even more strongly:  if the shuttle continues
>>flying, another orbiter *WILL* be lost eventually.
>
>Yes, but the NRC doesn't really have any better basis for making a
>statement like that, than NASA does for implying we won't lose one.

Sorry, wrong.  NRC justified its predictions in detail.  Remember Murphy:
betting that things will fail is a whole lot safer than betting that
everything will work perfectly.  Check out the safety record of segmented
solid boosters.  Then look at the crash rate for advanced military aircraft.
Remember that losing an orbiter does not require another Challenger
disaster; possibly the most likely way to lose an orbiter is a landing
accident, which might well leave crew and payload intact but damage the
orbiter badly enough to make it unflyable.  This happens all the time to
aircraft.  There have been one or two narrow escapes in the shuttle
program already, in fact, due to the orbiter's somewhat marginal landing
gear.

>Sure, if we used the fleet for 30+ years and expanded it to 10
>orbiters, losses would be inevitable.  They would also be easier to
>take.  What we cannot afford to do is ace one of the remaining three
>right now...

Then, as I said, we must send them to the Smithsonian at once.  No matter
how careful you are, you cannot fly them without taking risks.  If we keep
on flying them, even just our present little fleet, losses are inevitable.
-- 
Intel CPUs are not defective,  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
they just act that way.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 7 Sep 88 21:46:26 GMT
From: linus!philabs!micomvax!ncc!alberta!mnetor!utzoo!henry@husc6.harvard.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Shuttle names--old and new

In article <880906083854.146@VLSI.JPL.NASA.GOV> hairston%23666%utadnx%utspan.span@VLSI.JPL.NASA.GOV writes:
> ..."Columbia" was the name of Jules 
>Verne's spaceship in "From the Earth to the Moon", which was why it was
>also chosen for the command module of Apollo 11...

No.  Verne's projectile was unnamed, as I recall, and the cannon was the
Columbiad (note final D).  The near-miss on Verne was noted for Apollo 11,
but it was a secondary issue.

>... Supposedly either "Challenger"
>or "Atlantis" was the name of Tom Swift's rocket, but I've never been
>able to track that down for sure...

The original Tom Swift I don't know about, but then I'm not sure he had
a rocket ship.  Tom Swift Jr's 1950s rocket ship was the Star Spear, if
I'm not mistaken (it's been a long time since I read TSJ#3...).
-- 
Intel CPUs are not defective,  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
they just act that way.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 7 Sep 88 22:01:33 GMT
From: linus!philabs!micomvax!ncc!alberta!mnetor!utzoo!henry@husc6.harvard.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: SETI

In article <1034@bucket.UUCP> leonard@bucket.UUCP (Leonard Erickson) writes:
>Henry, any guesses as to how big a probe we could send to say, Alpha Centauri,
>if we didn't care about the cost (in the same sense that the Soviets don't
>care about their defense spending). By we, I mean the goverments of Earth.
>
>Say an Oriion powered probe using the existsing nuclear arsenals?

If we were to tackle this seriously, what we probably want to do is to
dust off the proposal that Robert Forward et al ("et al" being a number
of people from places like JPL and Los Alamos, as I recall) made to SDIO:
get antimatter propulsion going.  First phase does the detail engineering
of handling and such.  Second phase builds a specialized accelerator that
makes enough antimatter in a year to test-fire an engine.  Third phase
builds a complex about the size of the Hanford works that makes enough
antimatter to give us the solar system.  I think it was five years per
phase, with no breakthroughs needed.  Probably faster if you hurry.
Another Hanford-sized works should suffice, I'd guess, to get a few tons
up to a few percent of the speed of light every year or two.

Incidentally, SDIO thought the idea would probably work but decided that
it was a bit too long-term to suit them.
-- 
Intel CPUs are not defective,  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
they just act that way.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 7 Sep 88 21:39:55 GMT
From: linus!philabs!micomvax!ncc!alberta!mnetor!utzoo!henry@husc6.harvard.edu  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: SDI

In article <7757@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu> lim@cit-vax.UUCP (Kian-Tat Lim) writes:
>Something that has been bugging me throughout this "denying access to space
>via Stinger" discussion.  How much is the warhead of a shoulder-fired weapon
>going to disturb an SSME/Ariane/whatever, considering that the hottest target
>is the exhaust plume?  With all that energy spewing out, it would seem to me
>that the extra "bump" from a 50-pound explosive (to be generous) would be
>negligible.

Don't overlook the possibility of trouble caused by disturbances in the
exhaust plume; 50 pounds of explosive is one nasty big explosion.  The
shoulder-launched weapons don't pack that much explosive, but it's still
nothing you want to be standing near when it goes off.  Then too, newer
warheads are not pure blast weapons, since that is a fairly inefficient
way to do things.  They are fragmentation designs that will throw solid
lumps at high velocities quite a distance.

Do not assume that heat-seeking weapons will home on the exhaust plume.
The brightest targets are the nozzles, actually.  The plume is hotter
but doesn't radiate nearly as efficiently.  (At least, this is the case
for aircraft; I think it will read over to rockets.)  The older infrared
missiles homed on the jet exhaust nozzles.  The newer ones are sensitive
enough to home on a jet plume, since the nozzles can't be seen from the
front, but I think they'll still go for the nozzles if/when they come in
sight.

Finally, nowadays it's common for the missile to have a bias built into
it so that it tries to hit slightly *ahead* of the big bright spot.
-- 
Intel CPUs are not defective,  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
they just act that way.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 9 Sep 88 05:36:29 GMT
From: att!ihnp4!poseidon!psrc@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Paul S. R. Chisholm)
Subject: Re: "It's because of all those satellites..."

< "*NO* toon can resist the old shave-and-a-haircut bit!" >

In article <7844@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu>, mangler@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu (Don Speck) writes:
> This last weekend my Mom mentioned to me that the weather where
> she lives is unusual this summer (it is here too), and she posited
> that global weather is messed up "because of all those satellites".
>Don Speck   speck@vlsi.caltech.edu  {amdahl,ames}!cit-vax!speck

I remember a bus driver telling me, in all seriousness, that the weather
had gone to pot because of "all the junk they left up there on the
Moon".

Paul S. R. Chisholm, psrc@poseidon.att.com (formerly psc@lznv.att.com)
AT&T Bell Laboratories, att!poseidon!psrc, AT&T Mail !psrchisholm
I'm not speaking for the company, I'm just speaking my mind.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 9 Sep 88 17:49:08 EDT
From: John Roberts <roberts@cmr.icst.nbs.gov>
Subject: Self-replicating/mutating robots


>From: oliveb!tymix!antares!pnelson@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (phil nelson)
>Subject: Re: SETI: Why don't we hear anything?

> I think that the problem of creating these "self-replicating robots" may
>be more difficult than we imagine, perhaps too difficult even for our
>hypothetical "advanced" xenophobes.
See Henry Spencer's comments on the difficulty of predicting future advances in
technology. Much of the difficulty of making self-replicating robots lies in
the definition of "self-replicating". A moving, working robot that can generate
a working copy of itself from raw materials would be very difficult to create.
A robot that can assemble a large factory which produces robots and factory
parts would probably be much simpler. James Hogan describes such a system in
"The Code of the Life-maker". In the story, a large spaceship would scout
out an uninhabited world, then a team of robots would set up factories which
would produce more robots, more factories, spaceships, and manufactured goods
to return to the parent civilization. This may be a more likely scenario than
the Berserkers. We may eventually get around to exploring planets of other
star systems, only to find them covered with robots and "keep out" signs.

> Among other lifelike qualities this race of robots might require is the
>ability to adapt to new conditions. Assuming for a moment that these robots
>can be (and are) created, isn't it likely that they would either evolve into
>something more benevolent or (perhaps more likely) devolve into something
>much less terrible?
It depends mostly on how they were designed, which in turn depends on the
motives, skills, and experience of the designers. In the Berserker stories
and the Star Trek episode with the giant ice cream cone, the robots had
been designed to attack a specific enemy, but had then generalized the
instructions to cover all life/planets. In Hogan's novel, the factory
instructions were scrambled by a burst of radiation, causing the system
to mutate. Any reasonable effort to put error detection/correction
capability into the design should make such events *extremely* unlikely.

In any event, I think the sensible thing to do is to listen for a while
before trying to transmit anything.

                              John Roberts
                              roberts@cmr.icst.nbs.gov

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #376
*******************

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Date: Mon, 26 Sep 88 19:08:15 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8809270208.AA11914@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
Reply-To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #377

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 377

Today's Topics:
		     Followup on skintight suits
			 SETI and sea mammals
			  Mutated Berserkers
		      Re: "What's New"  09/02/88
			  Re: Why no aliens
		    Re: Shuttle names--old and new
			  Re: Chix in Space
 Alien civilizations, improved grey goo, and biotech civilizations...
	    Why nanotechnology is unlikely to be fruitful.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 9 Sep 88 17:52:49 EDT
From: John Roberts <roberts@cmr.icst.nbs.gov>
Subject: Followup on skintight suits


>> * Dale Amon speculates that the inhabitants of a space station might want
>>   to wear skintight suits all the time as a safety precaution. However,
>>   when the suit is worn with ambient atmospheric pressure, the ambient
>>   pressure and the elastic pressure of the suit are *added*. Assuming
>>   something can be done to alleviate breathing difficulties, the problem
>>   remains that the the pressure exerted on the extremities is comparable
>>   to the systolic blood pressure. Since this is the technique used in a
>>   blood pressure test to cut off the flow of blood to a limb entirely,
>>   I consider it very likely that the suit worn indoors would significantly
>>   interfere with the normal functioning of the circulatory system. This
>>   might or might not be a problem for a person "suiting up" to go outside,
>>   but I doubt that it would be a good idea for these suits to be worn all
>>   the time indoors. (What is the "tightness" of the Soviet indoor suits?)

>Wait a minute, if the effect is additive the wearer is subjected to
>two atmospheres.  Isn't this the same horrible pressure that a
>earthbound diver would experience under 33 feet of water?

>Doesn't sound too deadly to me.. if it is not concentrated over
>one spot (like a blood pressure cuff does).

>	Mike Linnig,
>	Texas Instruments

No, the analogy is not valid. For a better analogy, dive to 33 feet and
try to inhale through a garden hose run to the surface. Even better, place
a gasket around your neck, so your body is at two atmospheres pressure,
while your head is at only one atmosphere. A scuba diver underwater is
breathing air at about the same pressure as the surrounding water, and the
pressures inside and outside his body are matched. 

The situation you describe would be utterly deadly. At a rough 
estimate, the uncompensated pressure on the human trunk would be over 
10000 pounds, making breathing impossible. However, if you would
reread the posting, it was stated that the pressure on the
trunk would be about 1/5 atmosphere, with somewhat lower pressure on the 
arms and legs. This reduces the problem somewhat. Nevertheless, one posting
on the list has stated that breathing with even a one psi differential
is not really practical. I presume the breathing problem has been solved,
otherwise the suits would not have been usable. My question pertained to
the arms and legs, which in an earthlike atmosphere would be subjected to
860-880mm absolute pressure, with only 760mm compensated by internal
pressure. The overall effect would be a strong tendency for the blood to
stay out of those parts of the body subject to external pressure, and
collect in the parts not subject to external pressure (i.e. the head).

Because of the lag in the mailing list, I will submit two plausible guesses
as to why the test subjects did not suffer from this effect:

 1) Having put on the suits, they quickly got into the vacuum chamber, or
    they quickly put on helmets and breathed air/O2 at 170mm above ambient.

 2) The fabric of the suits would not contract beyond a certain point, so
    the pressure with an external atmosphere was not as great as would be
    thought. After entering the vacuum chamber, the arms and legs would
    naturally swell as they filled with blood from the higher-pressure
    area of the trunk, until the suit had been stretched enough to exert
    the desired pressure.

Further testing and development of the suit seems like a good idea. I just
thought the first 100-200 messages on the subject were somewhat redundant
and failed to cover several potentially important points.

I repeat the following relevant question:
   It has been stated on the net that the Cosmonauts wear elastic clothing,
   possibly to control the distribution of fluids in the body and for other
   reasons. Does anyone have an estimate of the degree of tightness of
   such clothing, expressed in the equivalent of atmospheric pressure?

                                        John Roberts
                                        roberts@cmr.icst.nbs.gov

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 9 Sep 88 18:38:23 EDT
From: John Roberts <roberts@cmr.icst.nbs.gov>
Subject: SETI and sea mammals

>From: mcvax!ukc!reading!cf-cm!cybaswan!iiit-sh@uunet.uu.net  (Steve Hosgood)

>Wouldn't it be sensible to spend some effort looking nearer to home? The seas
>contain several species of (presumed) intelligent life, yet I don't know of
>any sucess at communicating with them short of training dolphins to poke
>messages into computers on giant keyboards! This can hardly be regarded as
>communicating with the creatures can it?

>I would suggest that we have little chance at dealing with ETs until we can
>talk to the other intelligent life on *this* planet. Comments, anyone?

Some marine mammals have large brains, communicate at a high data rate, and
have been trained to perform simple tasks. There is considerable speculation 
that they may be very intelligent. However:

 - A large brain does not necessarily imply great intelligence. Marine mammals
   are also sometimes observed doing stupid things.

 - Though the transmission rate may be high, I am not aware of any study 
   showing a high rate of transfer of *useful information*. (1000 evenly-
   spaced clicks does not count as 1000 bits of information.) I have heard
   that many species use the same small set of patterns over and over,
   while other species use patterns that change over the course of time.
   Some species may be intelligent while others are not, with size not
   necessarily an identifying factor.

 - Intelligence does not imply the sort of intelligence useful for
   interaction with humans. In general, humans are able to visualize and
   reason abstractly, skilled in communication and eager to communicate,
   naturally curious, willing to work hard for abstract rewards, able
   to think logically (when absolutely necessary :-), technologically
   oriented, etc. Marine mammals fall short in at least some of these
   categories.

The SETI people are looking for aliens who are sufficiently like us for
useful interaction. It is not clear that this will ever be the case with
the marine mammals. If there are dolphin-like animals on other worlds,
there may be no reason for humans to be interested in them as intelligences.

[Does anyone have any information on studies attempting to analyze the
information content of sounds made by sea mammals?]

                                             John Roberts
                                             roberts@cmr.icst.nbs.gov

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 9 Sep 88 19:30:31 EDT
From: John Roberts <roberts@cmr.icst.nbs.gov>
Subject: Mutated Berserkers

>From: Hans.Moravec@rover.ri.cmu.edu

> ...the Berserkers themselves will the be a technological
>civilization inhabiting the galaxy, and their actions should be visible in
>the sky.

>	Now maybe the Berserkers were originally programmed to be very quiet
>between executions, and carefully designed to prevent mutations in their
>goals.  But they would be present in such large numbers across the galaxy
>that sooner or later a near fatal run-in with a comet, or radiation from a
>stellar flare would modify the program in one in such a way as to remove its
>inhibitions against change.  That event would seed a Darwinian evolution
>of self-reproducing Berserker-derived machines that would acquire the
>survival-oriented goals of normal life.  You can't fool Mother Nature
>forever.

But the universe is not thought to be infinitely large nor infinitely old
(at least by current theory). If you have a universe of only 100 billion
galaxies of 100 billion stars each, with the universe less than 25
billion years old, and the system has been carefully designed so that the
chances that a random change will result in a viable mutation are less than
one in 10**1000, then it is still highly unlikely that the event will have
taken place. Catching a Berserker and reprogramming it would change the odds,
but that does not count as a random change. This is practical from a software
point of view. Proper hardware design might be more difficult.

For further discussion on intelligent machines and highly unlikely events,
including machines (and dragons) that spontaneously come into existence
through the workings of random chance, read "The Cyberiad" by Stanislaw Lem.

                                       John Roberts
                                       roberts@cmr.icst.nbs.gov

------------------------------

Date: 9 Sep 88 12:56:38 GMT
From: bill@astro.as.utexas.edu  (William H. Jefferys)
Subject: Re: "What's New"  09/02/88

In article <6357@gryphon.CTS.COM> swalton@gryphon.CTS.COM (Steven Walton) writes:
~
~In the referenced article, the question is raised, "Why does it matter
~that the Hubble Space Telescope is delayed?  Won't the universe wait
~a bit?"
~
~Well, yes, but consider:
~(2) The closer launch gets to the next solar maximum in 1991, the
~    higher the likelihood that HST will have a very premature re-entry
~    unless a second shuttle flight is used to boost it up.

Well, not quite. The earlier it is launched, the more likely that a
reboost would be required. HST's orbit would begin to decay immediately
upon launch, and the later it is launched, the higher it will be at
solar maximum, hence the lower the drag. (I have been present at
presentations where this problem was discussed by the HST project).

>From the point of view of reboost, therefore, the new schedule is
more favorable.

Bill Jefferys

-- 
Glend.	I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
Hot.	Why, so can I, or so can any man; But will they come when you
	do call for them?    --  Henry IV Pt. I, III, i, 53

------------------------------

Date: 9 Sep 88 20:20:06 GMT
From: aramis.rutgers.edu!klaatu.rutgers.edu!josh@rutgers.edu  (J Storrs Hall)
Subject: Re: Why no aliens


    In article <1950@brahma.cs.hw.ac.uk> adrian@cs.hw.ac.uk (Adrian Hurt) writes:
    >Take some sort of propulsion and control/guidance system. And enough fuel to
    >drive it for, say, a month continuously...
    >Could this be done?

    Compute how much fuel it would take to accelerate an asteroid at one gee
    for a month.  Not practical at present.
    -- 
    ...     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology

Hmmm.  For a small asteroid a (really raw) envelope-back calculation 
says you'd need about half a million metric tons of antimatter (if
you're using equal M-AM reaction, less AM if more matter for reaction 
mass).  At a million dollars a microgram, this comes to
$500,000,000,000,000,000, a small fraction of what we spend on 
welfare :^) ...

--JoSH

------------------------------

Date: 9 Sep 88 07:34:20 GMT
From: portal!cup.portal.com!Daniel_C_Anderson@uunet.uu.net
Subject: Re: Shuttle names--old and new

9/6/88 08:38        hairston%23666%utadnx%utspan.span@VLSI.JPL.NASA.GOV:
>"Each team must propose one name for Space Shuttle Orbital Vehicle (OV)
>105. The name must be the name of a sea vessel used in research and
>exploration.
> [...]
>"The name for OV 105 should be a name suitable for an American spacecraft
>and should capture the spirit of America's mission in space.

I don't suppose they'd consider "The Golden Hind" . . .

------------------------------

Date: 8 Sep 88 10:30:00 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!dcl-cs!nott-cs!pyr1.cs.ucl.ac.uk!william@uunet.uu.net
Subject: Re: Chix in Space


>   It may also offer clues as to how human embryos may one day
>develop in space.

Forgive me if I am wrong, (it's a while since I studied the theory!!),
but are there portions of the human reproductive system that require 
some sense of orientation prior to fertilisation?  Something to do with
sperm navigation. (Say, the nano-technologists could really have a
field-day on this one - sperm-launched beacons and egg-detectors!)

>   Colonel Sanders would be proud.

I can just imagine the phone call that arranged the $50000 funding - 
" ... listen, I have this theory ....".  I can't help feeling that
Kentucky F.C. could have spent that sort of money in a more 
profitable way, like trying to clean up some of their smaller restaurants.
Last time I had some KFC, I had to throw it up cos of someone I found
sharing my meal.  Bad memories.

				... Bill

************************************************************************
Bill Witts, CS Dept.     *    Nel Mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
UCL, London, Errrp       *    mi ritrovai per una selva oscura
william@cs.ucl.ac.uk     *    che la diritta via era smarrita.
************************************************************************

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 10 Sep 88 16:36:02 CDT
From: "John Kelsey" <C445585%UMCVMB.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Subject:  Alien civilizations, improved grey goo, and biotech civilizations...

   About the self-replicating robots someone mentioned before:  Suppose the
robot finds a civilized planet...now, there are 3 options as to what happens...

1.) The robot is more than a match for the civilization, it trashes the planet.

2.) The robot is evenly matched with the planet--it is defeated, but the planet
    is left with only a few survivors.

3.) The civilized planet is of a superior technology than the robots' makers--
    the planet's defences sweep the robot under the rug.

   Now, if #2 happens, the first major engineering feat done by the survivors
is going to be a planetary defence system that includes x-ray laser projectors
the size of the moon, and antiparticle accelerators.  After rebuilding, the
civilization may well send out probes of its own, looking either to kill all
remaining robots, to destroy the creators of the robots, or both.
   After #3, there's a good chance the planet will go after the makers of the
robot, if possible.
   Because of this, I think it'd be seen as a bad idea to launch the robots,
even if you DO hate aliens.  Also, who's to say there haven't been a number of
waves of these robots and robot-chasers already.  God knows, there's been
enough time.

   Also, I came up with a variation on the idea of "Grey Goo" (Nanomachines
whose sole purpose is to use available energy and matter to self-replicate.)
What if, once the goo reaches the center of the planet/asteroid/whatever it's
on, it stores up energy for a couple weeks, then liberates it all in an explo-
sion, blasting globs of grey goo EVERYWHERE.  Nifty, huh?

   Finally, has anybody really thought of the likelihood of a technical
civilization forming?  Not only are there the numerous disasters that can
end a society's advancement (Nuclear, biochemical, or even prolonged conven-
tional war, biotech accident, a fall into tyranny, a plague of some sort (Read
_Galapagos_ by Kurt Vonnegutt), a fall into unreason and superstition, etc.),
but why must a technological society form interested in radio waves or space
travel?  I can imagine, for example, a society whose biotechnology is VERY
advanced, but whose space technology is uninteresting.  They might grow their
own homes, and their clothes, and there might be very simple and effective
birth control, etc., and they would never FEEL population pressure...

   What do you all think?

   -- John Kelsey (C445585@UMCVMB.BITNET)

------------------------------

Reply-To: mordor!rutgers!pnet01.cts.com!jim
Date: Fri, 9 Sep 88 13:11:11 PDT
From: mordor!rutgers!pnet01.cts.com!jim (Jim Bowery)
To: hplabs!hpcea!hp-sdd!crash!space
Subject: Why nanotechnology is unlikely to be fruitful.

The phase space of possible formations exponentiates with the number of
components.  For the sake of this discussion, lets say these components
are individual atoms of all the reasonably stable elements of the periodic
table.  Nanomachines have astronomically fewer components than do their
macroscopic counterparts.  This is true even when one takes into account
the much greater efficiency with which nanomachines use their components.
(I'm including all "statistical" machines including VLSI circuits and
 mechanisms fabricated using related technology and restricting the
 definition of nanomachines to those mechanisms that use the actual chemical
 bonds individually.)

The likely fruitfulness of a phase space is related to its richness and
the degree to which it has been previously explored.  

In the nono-regime, the phase space is exponentially smaller and it has
been very efficiently explored by evolutionary processes (generations on
the order of fractions of seconds to days).  In the macro-regime the phase
space is exponentially larger and it has been very inefficiently explored
by evolutionary processes (generations on the order of years to centuries
with far fewer "organisms" from which to draw mutations).  Note that 
I do NOT restrict evolutionary process to biological evolution.  I include
also cultural and technological evolution.

Basically, I'm saying that the number of undiscovered viable novel forms
in the macro-regime is astronomically greater than the number of undiscovered
viable novel forms in the nano-regime because the macro-regime is both
astronomically larger in size and has been explored to a
far lesser extent than the nano-regime.

UUCP: {cbosgd, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!pnet01!jim
ARPA: crash!pnet01!jim@nosc.mil
INET: jim@pnet01.cts.com

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #377
*******************

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To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
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Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #378

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 378

Today's Topics:
      Navigating Hazardous Payloads (was: The sun as a trashcan)
			      plutonium
		      Re:  SPACE Digest V8 #357
		       Re: SETI and sea mammals
	      Re: Wealth of mature spacefaring societies
		   Re: space news from Aug 15 AW&ST
		       shooting down a shuttle
     Re: Soviet Mars probe PHOBOS 1 communications lost enroute.
		   Re: access to space; how to deny
	      Re: wealth of mature spacefaring societies
	      Re: wealth of mature spacefaring societies
Re: China launches first weather satellite; ESA launches US satellites.
Re: China launches first weather satellite; ESA launches US satellites.
   Re: Unmanned w/old SRBs (was Re: space news from July 11 AW&ST)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: Navigating Hazardous Payloads (was: The sun as a trashcan)
Date: Mon, 12 Sep 88 11:46:11 -0400
From: "F.Baube" <fbaube@note.nsf.gov>


Henry Spencer:
> The problem with any such scheme, though, is that suddenly our
> trashcans can't be just inert lumps of metal.  Now they need
> precision navigation equipment, plus power, plus communications,
> plus a propulsion system for course corrections.  New failure
> modes also appear:  what happens if you lose guidance on a
> trashcan before Jupiter flyby?

Isn't this the basis for objections to the plutonium power
sources ?  Isn't one of them to be used on a mission that uses
the Earth for a slingshot effect ?  Okay, the canister can
withstand a launch disaster (so they say), but would it survive
re-entry ?

#include <disclaimer.h>

------------------------------

Date:         Mon, 12 Sep 88 18:23:54 EDT
From: Kenneth Ng <KEN%ORION.CCCC.NJIT.EDU@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Subject:      plutonium
To: Kenneth Ng <KEN@orion.cccc.njit.edu>, Space Digest <SPACE@angband.s1.gov>


>Date:     Mon, 29 Aug 88  15:47:22 EDT
>From: =3545*** <pcp2g@cdc.acc.virginia.edu>
>Subject:  Plutonium
>
>Well, it looks like I have to flame my own flame. I made several errors
>in my last mailing.
>4) There are two problems I overlooked--one is that  what happens if
>   the rocket carrying the Pu blows up twenty miles up? Scratch one eco-
>   sphere, that's what. A payload like that is too risky to launch. The
>   other problem was pointed out to me by a friend: To create an absorption
>   line, the absorber must be in the upper atmosphere of the sun, where the
>   solar gas is tenuous enough to see through. A payload would tend to sink
>   out of sight. Perhaps blowing up the payload might keep it in the upper
>   atmosphere temporarily , but convection would eventually suck it down.
>   And there still is the problem that you need a shitload of Plutonium
>   to be visible even from the Earth, let alone from another star.
>
>   So, I have fanned my own flame. Next time I'll open my brain before I

Its been several years, but I recall reading an article that claimed
that the various atomic atmospheric tests have blown several tons
of plutonium into the atmosphere already.  I forgot the source but
I recall the author was Ralph Lapp.  Also plutonium has been known
to occur in nature, read "A Natural Fission Reactor" by George A
Cowan, Scientific American July 1976, page 36ff.
--
Kenneth Ng: ken@orion.bitnet, ken@orion.cccc.njit.edu,
ken@eies.cccc.njit.edu

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 13 Sep 88 08:19:36 EDT
From: rachiele@NADC.ARPA (J. Rachiele)
Subject: Re:  SPACE Digest V8 #357

>>...
>>Seriously, the idea doesn't seem that stupid.

>The idea is SILLY! since:
>(1) it would cost WAY! too much
>(2) nobody in their right mind would allow hazardous! launches of
>    very hazardous waste. Doesn't anyone out there remember the
>    Challenger? It is much less costly and much less dangerous to
>    bury the stuff in the arctic.

In what, the ice?
You are right, of course, it would be too costly.  The real answer is to
move all heavy industry into space, before we all drown in our own poisons.

>...Dr. Richard Link
>Space Sciences Laboratory
>University of California, Berkeley
>link@ssl.berkeley.edu

       Jim Rachiele
       rachiele@nadc.arpa

------------------------------

Date: 12 Sep 88 18:18:03 GMT
From: aplcen!aplcomm!stdc.jhuapl.edu!jwm@mimsy.umd.edu  (Jim Meritt)
Subject: Re: SETI and sea mammals

In article <8809092238.AA19957@cmr.icst.nbs.gov> roberts@cmr.icst.nbs.GOV (John Roberts) writes:
} - A large brain does not necessarily imply great intelligence. Marine mammals
}   are also sometimes observed doing stupid things.

Have you been watching the news recently?  Non-marine mammals (primates) are
also sometimes observed doing stupid things....


Disclaimer: Individuals have opinions, organizations have policy.
            Therefore, these opinions are mine and not any organizations!
Q.E.D.
jwm@aplvax.jhuapl.edu 128.244.65.5  (James W. Meritt)

------------------------------

Date: 9 Sep 88 20:49:19 GMT
From: attcan!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Wealth of mature spacefaring societies

In article <4067@thorin.cs.unc.edu> leech@tlab1.UUCP (Jonathan Leech) writes:
>    People may argue that just the solar system provides enough for
>everyone to be wealthy. Maybe so, but I suspect that as in most other
>cases, human population will rapidly grow to the point that most
>people are just barely surviving, rather than keeping it down to a
>level where everyone has more than enough. I don't think that
>fertility rates in the developed world are a very good predictor as
>yet. Maybe with a few centuries more data.

Admittedly we could do with a few centuries more to extrapolate from, but
the reasons behind the decline in the developed-world birthrate are not
at all mysterious, so we're not restricted to trying to analyze it as a
"black box".  Children are much more expensive than they used to be (due
to compulsory-education laws that keep them dependent longer) and much
less economically useful than they used to be (due to child labor laws
and the decline of cottage industry).  So, given the availability of
effective birth control, there is great incentive to have fewer kids.
There are other factors that influence the matter as well, but economics
is very hard to argue with in the long run.

One would expect a minor reversal of this trend if settlement of space
follows the model of the settlement of North America -- homesteading by
individuals rather than by large groups (it ought to be possible in at
least the more favorable places) -- but that should be quite temporary.
-- 
NASA is into artificial        |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
stupidity.  - Jerry Pournelle  | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 13 Sep 88 16:47:57 GMT
From: fluke!mce@beaver.cs.washington.edu  (Brian McElhinney)
Subject: Re: space news from Aug 15 AW&ST

henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
> No attempt would be made to recover Shuttle-C's SSMEs; they would be
> SSMEs that are near the end of their rated lives as shuttle engines.
> NASA is no longer hoping for more than about 10 flights per SSME, and
> this will create a substantial pool of "retired" engines by the early
> 1990s.

So SSMEs do not last forever.  :-)  Some questions:
	1) How much does a single SSME cost?  They can't be cheap!
	2) What was the intended number of flights per SSME?
	3) Does NASA's latest budget include the costs of a new SSME
	   every ten flights?



Brian McElhinney
mce@tc.fluke.com

------------------------------

Date: 9 Sep 88 17:56:28 GMT
From: attcan!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: shooting down a shuttle

In article <1988Sep7.213955.6185@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>The brightest targets are the nozzles, actually.  The plume is hotter
>but doesn't radiate nearly as efficiently.  (At least, this is the case
>for aircraft; I think it will read over to rockets.)  ...

Paul Dietz has reminded me that the shuttle SRB plumes are optically rather
different from jet (or most liquid-rocket) plumes, partly because there are
a lot of aluminum oxide particles in there.  So it is not clear what a
heat-seeker fired at a shuttle would home on.  It might depend on details
of the seeker system.
-- 
NASA is into artificial        |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
stupidity.  - Jerry Pournelle  | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 12 Sep 88 19:27:35 GMT
From: jpl-devvax!beowulf!david@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov  (David Smyth)
Subject: Re: Soviet Mars probe PHOBOS 1 communications lost enroute.

klaes@mtwain.dec.com writes:
>
>        The Soviet news agency TASS today announced that communications 
>    with the Mars probe PHOBOS 1 have been lost due to human error.  
>    The wrong code was sent up to PHOBOS 1, and it appears there is no 
>    possibility of getting signals back from the probe.  This is sadly 
>    reminiscent of the code error sent to the VIKING 1 lander in 1982 
>    which accidentally shut it down permanently.

One big difference: we already had all the data anybody was really
interested in from VIKING 1, and so the staff was down to very low
levels, no new tools to assist checking uplinked programs, no huge
budget for detailed simulation, etc.

Note that is why we want to send a rover next time: when we see everything
we can see from one place, move on to another...

------------------------------

Date: 10 Sep 88 22:10:52 GMT
From: uccba!uceng!dmocsny@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu  (daniel mocsny)
Subject: Re: access to space; how to deny

In article <1988Sep9.205521.16885@utzoo.uucp>, henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
> In article <2803@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> lwall@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV (Larry Wall) writes:
> >What would be the effect of a well-timed 
model airplane with a zip gun putting
> >a tracer bullet into the ET as it was lifting off?
> 
> It would have to be a pretty stealthy design to get that close without being
> spotted.  That aside, it might get messy; the ET walls are thin.

I read an interesting article about the Israeli military and their RPV's.
Little more than model airplanes with TV cameras and telemetry gear, they
can loiter for hours a mile above combat zones and send live TV coverage
to commanders in the rear. The RPV's weigh about 100 pounds, have quiet
engines and very low radar signature. From the ground they are nearly
invisible, unless you know exactly where to look. Apparently field
commanders in the invasion of Lebanon were able to observe their
artillery hits on TV and advise their batteries where to aim. Opposing 
troops had no idea they were in plain sight. They were expecting big,
noisy reconnaissance jets that their SAMs can get a lock on.

A small balsa wood model plane could easily escape detection, especially
if nobody was expecting it and a few birds were flying around as decoys.
Somebody might hear the engine when it came down, but it could always
glide in. A bigger problem would be to get the operator close enough
to see what was happening. However, the Israelis have shown the way
around this.

This is getting scary.

Does NASA fly AWACS planes with look-down radar around launch sites, and
monitor RF telemetry bands?

Dan Mocsny
Internet: dmocsny@uc.uceng.edu

------------------------------

Date: 12 Sep 88 19:50:11 GMT
From: jpl-devvax!beowulf!david@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov  (David Smyth)
Subject: Re: wealth of mature spacefaring societies

In article <39612@linus.UUCP> eachus@mitre-bedford.arpa (Robert I. Eachus) writes:
>In article <3e5436c7.ae47@apollo.COM> nelson_p@apollo.COM (Peter Nelson) writes:
>     The  "average" American  is richer  today   than he was  in   the
>sixties.  In the forties, fifties and  early sixties the growth in the
>American standard of living was very rapid, then came  LBJ's "guns and
>butter" economics, and the oil shocks of the early seventies resulting
>in a decade of slow  growth.  In  the late  seventies the standard  of
>living  of the "average"   American  actually did  decrease.  You  may
>remember that Reagan made this a campaign issue.
>
>     However,   the last   six years have   been a period of sustained
>economic growth similar to the fifties, and our  hypothetical "average
>American" is somewhat better off than he was in  1976, and much better
>off than he was in 1966.

Oh no.  Yet another american who believes what he reads rather than
what he sees.  Reminds me of the general populous in "1984".

My dad was an engineer, just like me.  I am higher up in the percentile
ranks of wage earners than he was at my age.  When he was 32 years old,
working as an engineer, making relatively less money than I am,
he owned two custom 3000+ square foot houses in ritzy areas of So.Cal.,
7 boats, 4 airplanes, we as a family of 7 took many, many vacations
each year all over the USA, Mexico, Canada, and even the occasional trip
to Europe.  No, nothing was inheireted.  I don't own all that stuff,
and simply do not have the option to buy it.  Houses used to cost about
1-2x your yearly income.  Now they cost about 4x, and with the higher
interest, the total cost is much, much higer.  Same with cars, planes,
boats, furnishings, ...

Sorry, but the actual standard of living in the USA has plumetted
over the last 20 years.  I don't care what government provided
data you can spout which suggests otherwise.

------------------------------

Date: 13 Sep 88 15:31:39 GMT
From: amdahl!bungia!datapg!viper!dave@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (David Messer)
Subject: Re: wealth of mature spacefaring societies

Obviously, you are in the wrong field.  If you were a builder
of homes, cars, planes, boats or furnishings, you'd be rich.
:-)
-- 
If you can't convince |   David Messer - (dave@Lynx.MN.Org)
them, confuse them.   |   Lynx Data Systems
   -- Harry S Truman  | 
                      |   amdahl   --!bungia!viper!dave
                      |   hpda    /

Copyright 1988 David Messer -- All Rights Reserved
This work may be freely copied.  Any restrictions on
redistribution of this work are prohibited.

------------------------------

Date: 12 Sep 88 23:15:20 GMT
From: cfa!cfa250!mcdowell@husc6.harvard.edu  (Jonathan McDowell)
Subject: Re: China launches first weather satellite; ESA launches US satellites.

>From article <8809121606.AA27030@decwrl.dec.com>, by klaes@mtwain.dec.com (CUP/ML, MLO5-2/G1 8A, 223-3283):
>         "China launches weather satellite"
>     	Beijing - China yesterday [September 7] launched its first
>     experimental weather satellite, THE WIND AND CLOUD NO. 1, the official
>     Xinhua news agency said.  The satellite was launched by a LONG MARCH
>     4 rocket from a space [center] in Taiyuan, north-central China,

Note that this is the first sun-synchronous launch by China (900 km, 99.1 deg),
the first flight of the Chang Zheng (Long March) 4 booster, and the first
flight from the Taiyuan Space Center (the other sites in China are Jiuquan
for polar orbit recon flights and Xichang for geostationary missions).
I believe the satellite is the one referred to earlier by the Chinese as
Fengyun I (anyone know enough Chinese to confirm this means Wind and Cloud?)

The US satellites on Ariane were Gstar 3 and SBS 5. SBS 4,5, and 6 are owned
by IBM; SBS 1 and 2 were sold to Comsat Corp, I believe; anyone who can
tell me who owns SBS 3 right now gets the sci.space pundit's medal, first class.


- Jonathan McDowell.

------------------------------

Date: 13 Sep 88 17:17:56 GMT
From: joe@athena.mit.edu  (Joseph C Wang)
Subject: Re: China launches first weather satellite; ESA launches US satellites.

In article <1083@cfa237.cfa250.harvard.edu> mcdowell@cfa250.harvard.edu (Jonathan McDowell) writes:
>I believe the satellite is the one referred to earlier by the Chinese as
>Fengyun I (anyone know enough Chinese to confirm this means Wind and Cloud?)

Yes, it does.
--------------------------------
Joseph Wang (joe@athena.mit.edu) 
450 Memorial Drive C-111
Cambridge, MA 02139

------------------------------

Date: 12 Sep 88 13:01:46 GMT
From: mailrus!uflorida!novavax!proxftl!greg@NRL-CMF.ARPA  (Gregory N. Hullender)
Subject: Re: Unmanned w/old SRBs (was Re: space news from July 11 AW&ST)

In article <1988Sep7.212736.6080@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
[responding to a poster's concern about shuttle safety]
>Then, as I said, we must send them to the Smithsonian at once.  No matter
>how careful you are, you cannot fly them without taking risks.  If we keep
>on flying them, even just our present little fleet, losses are inevitable.

There is no question that there are risks.  Nasa certainly doesn't claim
that there are none.  The concern is over what risk is acceptable.  A great
number of serious shuttle defects were addressed over the last two and a
half years.  Also, the policy of launch! launch! launch! (damn the
torpedoes! never mind that O-ring!) has finally been laid to rest --
unfortunately together with the Challanger and the remains of its crew.
-- 
		Greg Hullender  uflorida!novavax!proxftl!greg
		3511 NE 22nd Ave / Fort Lauderdale, FL 33308

	    My opinions are not necessarily those of my employer.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #378
*******************

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To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
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Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #379

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 379

Today's Topics:
     Re: Soviet Mars probe PHOBOS 1 communications lost enroute.
     Re: Soviet Mars probe PHOBOS 1 communications lost enroute.
	       Re: Watching Shuttle Land at Edwards AFB
			    Israeli spysat
		     Israel joins the space club
		     space news from Aug 29 AW&ST
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 10 Sep 88 03:22:48 GMT
From: att!cbnews!wbt@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (William B. Thacker)
Subject: Re: Soviet Mars probe PHOBOS 1 communications lost enroute.

Sender: 
cbnews.ATT.COM (William B. Thacker)
Followup-To: 
Distribution: 
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Columbus
Keywords: 

mtwain.dec.com (CUP/ML, MLO5-2/G1 8A, 223-3283) writes:
>
>        The Soviet news agency TASS today announced that communications 
>    with the Mars probe PHOBOS 1 have been lost due to human error.  
>    The wrong code was sent up to PHOBOS 1, and it appears there is no 
>    possibility of getting signals back from the probe.  This is sadly 
>    reminiscent of the code error sent to the VIKING 1 lander in 1982 
>    which accidentally shut it down permanently.
>    

Why is this "feature" present in unmanned probes ?  I guess I can
understand why you might want to shut the thing down permanently, if
for no other reason than you're tired of listening, or you don't want
someone to eavesdrop or take control of the bird. But why wouldn't the
thing  1) have a fail-safe (Are You Sure ? (y/n)) or 2) stay "live" on
batteries for a few hours in case it was a mistake ?




------------------------------ valuable coupon -------------------------------
Bill Thacker						cbosgd!cbema!wbt
	"C" combines the power of assembly language with the
	 flexibility of assembly language.
Disclaimer: Farg 'em if they can't take a joke !
------------------------------- clip and save --------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: 14 Sep 88 07:09:19 GMT
From: mcvax!enea!tut!santra!kolvi!kwi@uunet.uu.net  (Kaj Wiik)
Subject: Re: Soviet Mars probe PHOBOS 1 communications lost enroute.

Original_From:  VTTINS::LEPPELMR



 
 
 
      Phobos I news     
      G.W. Leppelmeier  12.9.88 
 
      At the last session of the meeting of the International
      Science Committee of the Spectrum-X-Gamma project,
      Friday, 9.9.88, Prof. R. Sagdeev gave a presentation of
      "all we know at present about what has happened to
      Phobos I".  These are my notes from that presentation. 
 
      A few weeks ago it was decided to move the control of
      Phobos I from the Crimean Space Center to a Center near
      Moscow.  Among other things, this involved using a new
      computer with a different keyboard.  Traps were
      installed in the new operating system to catch
      characteristic operator errors, including one wherein an
      operator now had to insert a particular character at the
      end of a command.  If he failed to do so, a reminder
      would come on the screen asking him if he had forgotten
      to do so, and the computer would not continue unless
      the character were included, OR the operator
      specifically overode the computer. 
 
      On 29.8.88 a very long message was being prepared for
      transmission to Phobos I.  At one point, near the end of
      the message, the operator failed to add the character,
      the computer stopped, but failed to display the question
      on the screen.  The operator thought it was a computer
      error and overode the stop.  The absence of the
      particular character changed the bit pattern of the
      following instruction, into a bit pattern, not on the
      list of accepted commands, but which did call an area of
      the onboard ROM which had a list of possible commands,
      used in development and left there for possible future
      use.  Unfortunately, the particular pattern created in
      this error translated into turning off the attitude
      control thrusters. 
 
      Two days later the Control Center sent a message to
      Phobos I and received no answer.  It is now believed
      that as the spacecraft slowly changed orientation it
      lost power, because the solar panels no longer faced the
      sun, and everything turned off.  The serious concern is
      that many items [from private conversations I gather
      both in spacecraft support and instruments] need
      electrical power to avoid becoming too cold, and will
      be permanently damaged if they get too cold. 
 
      Sagdeev listed the following points as links in the
      chain: 
           - error on operator's part 
           - computer failure 
           - operator decision to circumvent computer 
           - absence of cross checks 
           - actual command sent able to enter ROM 
           - The OB computer must be programmed to prevent
      suicide.  [I beleive RS said the OBCPU was 8-bit.  You
      can't do much checking with such a small cpu on such a
      large spacecraft.] 
 
      This is the first failure of a Soviet deep space spacecraft
      since 1972.
 
 
Added 14.9:  This is what I wrote when I returned from Moscow. 
 Looking at my notes, I realise that the move of control center 
 may have taken place on 29.8 and the transmission error later.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 21 Sep 88 09:27:49 PST
From: Peter Scott <PJS@grouch.jpl.nasa.gov>
Subject: Re: Watching Shuttle Land at Edwards AFB
X-Vms-Mail-To: EXOS%"space@andrew.cmu.edu"

>apple!dan@rutgers.edu  (Dan Allen) writes:

>Does anyone know the scoop on being able to go on base at Edwards AFB
>for the Shuttle landing in October or whenever it is going to land?  I
>went to a landing in 1982 there but did not make any of the details.  I
>have heard a rumor that the public is not allowed on base any more for
>landings.  Any truth to this rumor?

If this message makes it to you before the shuttle lands, you could try
calling the Edwards Public Information Office at (805) 277-3510. 

Peter Scott (pjs%grouch@jpl-mil.jpl.nasa.gov)

------------------------------

Date: 20 Sep 88 13:17:48 GMT
From: mcvax!enea!erix!howard@uunet.uu.net  (Howard Gayle)
Subject: Israeli spysat

>From articles in the 19 and 20 September 1988 issues of Dagens Nyheter...

Israel has launched an experimental satellite that is a step
toward an advanced spysat to be launched within 2 years.  The
decision to build a spysat was made several years ago, when the
Israeli government realized that the US was not going to share
imagery.  The launcher is to be a Jericho II medium-range
missile.  The main motivation is that Irak and Syria have
acquired medium-range missiles.  The Israelis want advanced
warning if these missiles are deployed, to give time for air
strikes.

Howard Gayle
TN/ETX/TX/UMG
Ericsson Telecom AB
S-126 25 Stockholm
Sweden
howard@ericsson.se
{mcvax, uunet}!enea!ericsson.se!howard
Phone: +46 8 719 5565
FAX  : +46 8 719 9598
Telex: 14910 ERIC S

------------------------------

Date: 19 Sep 88 16:04:47 GMT
From: palmer@tybalt.caltech.edu  (David Palmer)
Subject: Israel joins the space club

Israel launched a satellite today on their own booster, according to a report
on NPR.  In the LA Times (in an article written pre-launch), the Israeli
government was quoted as saying, in response to reports that it was a spysat,
that "We never said it was a spy satellite, what makes you think
it's a spy satellite?"  (quoted very roughly from memory).

But at least we have a good chance of beating Andora back into space.

		David Palmer
		palmer@tybalt.caltech.edu
		...rutgers!cit-vax!tybalt.caltech.edu!palmer
			"Flowers -- Just say NO!!"
					- Mighty Mouse

------------------------------

Date: 20 Sep 88 03:19:39 GMT
From: clyde!watmath!utgpu!utzoo!henry@bellcore.com  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Aug 29 AW&ST

Arianespace completes technical negotiations with major contractors for
a block order of 50 Ariane 4s, being done in hopes of driving costs down.

Mitsubishi Electric to supply Japan's ETS-6 experimental satellite with
a xenon-ion thruster, to replace conventional hydrazine station-keeping
thrusters and increase the satellite's life.

NASA braces itself to point the finger at Sept 29 for STS-26 launch.

Revised shuttle manifest expected to show two fewer missions in 1989.

Interest in small, lightweight satellites, and vehicles to launch them,
grows.  Potential uses are mostly classified, but major ones include
scouting for Soviet mobile missiles, and tactical intelligence.  John
Pike of the Federation of American Scientists, after studying US spysat
work, believes that DARPA's Lightsat project is primarily meant to
provide a cheap replacement for the KH-12 for tactical intelligence.
He says that US satellite-intelligence users split into three camps --
tactical commanders in the field, strategic planners, and arms-control
verifiers -- with three different sets of requirements -- tactical
real-time imaging of central Europe, quick imaging of the Soviet Union to
find mobile strategic missiles, and ultra-high-resolution imaging of the
Soviet Union in peacetime for missile counting -- and the three groups
are going three separate ways in replacing the KH-12.  The KH-12 was
meant to serve all three groups, but this would create irreconcilable
differences in priorities in a time of crisis.  The final nail in the
KH-12's coffin was the shuttle problems.  So the CIA and friends are
pushing for a big new satellite for arms control, the USAF wants a
different big-satellite system for targeting Soviet mobile missiles
for the B-2, and the tactical users are pushing Lightsat.

In addition to DARPA's Lightsat, which is currently fighting to keep its
budget, both the USN and the USAF recently started small-satellite projects.
DARPA has awarded a contract to Defense Systems Inc to build a small
constellation of experimental comsats; one or more of them will go up
on the first Pegasus launch.  DARPA has paid OSC+Hercules $6.3M for
the first Pegasus launch, and has an option on another at the same price.
These are firm fixed prices; "we're buying the services, not developing
the vehicle", they say.  DARPA *is* funding development of a small
conventional launcher, with a major contract award due in Sept.  DARPA
says that it is not going to be a bulk customer for small launches on
either launcher, since its job is to demonstrate technology for use by
other military agencies.

Discovery is pretty much ready to go.  The shaft-travel problem in one
of the pumps is now known to have been a false alarm (measurement error).
The fix for the nitrogen-tetroxide leak is in place and is being pressure
tested (succesfully, so far).  The trace hydrogen leak in the orbiter/ET
umbilical cavity is still a bit of a mystery, but it may have been there
from the beginning -- this is the first time the cavity has been instrumented
during an engine firing.  The leading theory is that the seals in an
auxiliary hydrogen line leak momentarily when they are suddenly chilled
by the start of hydrogen flow.

Amsat, the US amateur-radio satellite group, will deploy a US-built small
satellite from Mir late next year.  The satellite's job will be medical
communications in remote areas; the ground side of it is a joint project
of Soviet scientists and a Harvard group.  The satellite will weigh less
than 10 kg, and will go up on a Soyuz or Progress launch for deployment
during an EVA.  This is basically a demonstration mission; if more are
built, they will go up in more orthodox ways on expendable boosters.
The Soviets have agreed to do the deployment at no charge; approval for
the project has come from very high levels.  The satellite will need US
export clearance, but it is hoped that this will not be a major problem.
The US government is lukewarm about the whole thing because the Harvard
group is on the wrong side of the political fence.

NASA picks TRW to build AXAF (the Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility,
the Hubble telescope's X-ray counterpart).  NASA is trying to learn from
its mistakes on Hubble, which had no single prime contractor (leading to
coordination problems) and some extremely tight technical requirements,
the result being a huge budget overrun.  The AXAF approach is to build
the high-risk parts first, before getting the bulk of the program rolling.
AXAF is meant for shuttle launch.  Charles Pellerin (NASA astrophysics
boss) says he prefers the shuttle over expendables:  he has no tight
launch windows, he wants the most reliable launcher possible, and he
values on-orbit servicing.

Morton Thiokol settles out of court with Jane Smith, widow of Challenger's
pilot.

Reagan signs appropriations bill giving NASA $10.7G for FY89, $800M less
than requested.  The space station is well funded, but much of its funding
is on hold until the next president okays it.

Two Navy navsats launched from Vandenberg by Scout Aug 24.

Big story on the Phobos missions and their landers:  a fixed-base lander
on each Phobos, and the "hopper" on Phobos 2.  [Just as well it's on P2,
since P1 is out of touch and believed defunct due to a command error that
switched off its attitude-control system.]  The lander missions are rather
high-risk, because Phobos is rather irregular and its surface is not well
known.  For example, if the fixed lander is partly in shadow this will
cut its life short, since it has little power to spare and there wasn't
time to develop software for "smart" power management.

Soviets study use of a satellite to deploy balloons into the middle of
typhoons and hurricanes.  [In itself unimportant, but it points out once
again that the Soviets have what we lack:  routine access to space.  They
can use space-based systems whenever it's convenient, not just when it's
absolutely necessary.]

Soviets studying Western suggestion to use Energia to put a multipurpose
satellite network into Mars orbit for navigation and communications relay
for landers, rovers, etc.  Unfavorable comparisons made between Soviet
willingness to listen to such notions and NASA's we-know-what's-best
attitude.  The Soviets had proposed a choice between heavyweight landers
etc using Energia and medium-weight ones using Proton.  The Westerners
suggested staying with medium landers but using Energia's heavylift
capability for a satellite network.  The network's support services
could make it possible for Japan or ESA (or even -- horrors! -- the US)
to mount effective Mars missions using their smaller launchers.
-- 
NASA is into artificial        |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
stupidity.  - Jerry Pournelle  | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #379
*******************

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	id AA13189; Wed, 28 Sep 88 01:08:35 PDT
Date: Wed, 28 Sep 88 01:08:35 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota@angband.s1.gov>
Message-Id: <8809280808.AA13189@angband.s1.gov>
To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
Reply-To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #380

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 380

Today's Topics:
		      NASA Prediction Bulletins
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 17 Sep 88 22:51:09 GMT
From: tkelso@blackbird.afit.af.mil  (Thomas S. Kelso)
Subject: NASA Prediction Bulletins


The most current orbital elements from the NASA Prediction Bulletins are
carried on the Celestial RCP/M, (513) 427-0674, and are updated several times
weekly.  As a service to the amateur satellite community, the most current of
these elements are uploaded weekly to sci.space.  This week's elements are
provided below.  The Celestial RCP/M may be accessed 24 hours/day at 300,
1200, or 2400 baud using 8 data bits, 1 stop bit, no parity.

- Current NASA Prediction Bulletins #379 -
LAGEOS     
1 08820U          88257.39742307 0.00000003           10000-2 0  5602
2 08820 109.8219 135.3202 0044484  14.9438 345.2713  6.38663870 32950
GOES 2     
1 10061U          88254.54271214 -.00000008                   0  1440
2 10061   6.4610  71.5705 0010614 152.4402 207.8714  1.00268181  2572
GPS-0001   
1 10684U          88257.23559917 0.00000013                   0  9509
2 10684  63.4921 109.4605 0100873 196.9068 162.8222  2.00564015 62979
GPS-0002   
1 10893U          88253.19996951 -.00000029                   0  9154
2 10893  64.5701 350.3393 0142967  30.4869 330.3624  2.00563619 75714
SeaSat 1   
1 10967U          88256.98262614 0.00000389           18328-3 0   186
2 10967 108.0093  77.1339 0002373 261.7901  98.2959 14.33869243534341
GPS-0003   
1 11054U          88252.52153717 -.00000029                   0  9414
2 11054  64.1386 346.9149 0051726 120.2168 240.3316  2.00570175 72711
GPS-0004   
1 11141U          88253.12271087 0.00000013                   0   333
2 11141  63.4608 109.4415 0055000 325.6680  34.0776  2.00559521 71421
NOAA 6     
1 11416U          88253.42523444 0.00000383           17908-3 0  7547
2 11416  98.4975 252.9735 0011530 207.0321 153.0259 14.25195038477905
Solar Max  
1 11703U          88254.76848220 0.00013349           41610-3 0  6852
2 11703  28.5015  55.5230 0002757 153.1808 206.8934 15.31654847476724
GPS-0006   
1 11783U          88253.08188441 -.00000029                   0  8012
2 11783  63.9530 346.5349 0131986  65.7523 295.6526  2.00559714 61362
GOES 4     
1 11964U          88253.36408955 -.00000240           10000-3 0   112
2 11964   4.7788  76.3926 0002260 116.5290 243.8365  1.00268789 45050
GOES 5     
1 12472U          88250.45841753 -.00000247           10000-3 0  6260
2 12472   1.8191  84.6376 0000434  60.1839 301.5924  1.00261849 25765
UOSAT 1    
1 12888U          88255.05425879 0.00013940           41364-3 0  2917
2 12888  97.6104 290.6043 0003619  97.4550 262.6951 15.34926629385902
RS-08      
1 12998U          88252.39988972 0.00000012           10000-3 0  5384
2 12998  82.9562  29.4713 0018731 235.1604 124.7686 12.02964747295428
RS-05      
1 12999U          88249.35875503 0.00000012           10000-3 0  5247
2 12999  82.9709  25.8971 0011539 179.2179 180.9046 12.05071616295579
RS-07      
1 13001U          88253.73486041 0.00000013           10000-3 0  4064
2 13001  82.9599  13.9642 0023199  78.9660 281.4005 12.08707237296996
Meteor 2-08
1 13113U          88245.60005115 0.00000076           63463-4 0  5998
2 13113  82.5386 288.0994 0015973 147.1294 213.0868 13.83869004325321
Salyut 7   
1 13138U          88256.72733364 0.00007951           25246-3 0  2301
2 13138  51.6107 226.6756 0001914  99.4279 260.7955 15.33567894365512
Meteor 2-09
1 13718U          88253.84976961 0.00000179           91527-4 0  7066
2 13718  81.2449 195.7247 0057717  76.0236 284.7351 14.12995589295960
GOES 6     
1 14050U          88251.41110068 0.00000119                   0  8218
2 14050   0.5670  85.4282 0002029 118.9359 155.2077  1.00261883  3771
OSCAR 10   
1 14129U          88248.53312992 0.00000044           10000-3 0  3536
2 14129  27.1605 306.2255 6029797 333.9978   5.4273  2.05877131 11338
GPS-0008   
1 14189U          88248.19010706 0.00000013                   0  5478
2 14189  63.0793 108.3240 0128407 212.8759 146.3973  2.00554857 37703
Meteor 2-10
1 14452U          88254.35334652 0.00000232           97898-4 0  6510
2 14452  81.1630 213.8814 0095127 181.7836 178.3014 14.21837163252775
LandSat 5  
1 14780U          88257.58439071 0.00000350           82637-4 0  5248
2 14780  98.2119 318.5285 0003803  42.2336 317.9166 14.57119953241283
UOSAT 2    
1 14781U          88254.64582844 0.00000701           14755-3 0  3445
2 14781  98.0464 315.2101 0014152 116.7745 243.4903 14.62411511241672
LDEF       
1 14898U          88254.50685944 0.00010414           27684-3 0  6208
2 14898  28.5061 322.0671 0001296 336.7659  23.2849 15.36476290248221
GPS-0009   
1 15039U          88253.23007992 0.00000012                   0  5757
2 15039  62.8155 107.5278 0014656 304.4462  55.5175  2.00565782 31087
Meteor 2-11
1 15099U          88245.40619560 0.00000029           20526-4 0  8978
2 15099  82.5275 235.9998 0013074 335.5419  24.5119 13.83540845210180
GPS-0010   
1 15271U          88246.64385993 -.00000029           10000-2 0  5250
2 15271  63.4457 346.7318 0094746 314.8452  44.4108  2.00557989 28068
Cosmos 1602
1 15331U          88251.96382635 0.00001333           19867-3 0  9116
2 15331  82.5354 238.5677 0023459 284.2032  75.6559 14.73978710212621
NOAA 9     
1 15427U          88252.35653146 0.00000197           12906-3 0  2751
2 15427  99.1086 228.3446 0016294  26.6411 333.5601 14.11633635192685
Meteor 2-12
1 15516U          88253.74526112 0.00000135           11174-3 0   213
2 15516  82.5376 167.7938 0015293 177.9925 182.1274 13.83976913182266
Cosmos 1686
1 16095U          88256.85764643 0.00004943           16132-3 0   214
2 16095  51.6105 226.0381 0002627 149.5685 210.5939 15.33572149167203
GPS-0011   
1 16129U          88247.80237217 0.00000013                   0  2689
2 16129  63.6099 108.0987 0113943 149.6294 211.1149  2.00568300 21290
Meteor 3-01
1 16191U          88253.92561963 0.00000044           10000-3 0  7758
2 16191  82.5440  73.9142 0019245 280.7606  79.1367 13.16933799138634
Meteor 2-13
1 16408U          88255.00224349 0.00000054           43520-4 0  4273
2 16408  82.5316  81.6879 0016869   9.2928 350.8543 13.84061480136930
PRC 18     
1 16526U          88235.79404625 -.00000289                   0  3085
2 16526   0.0232 262.9523 0001192 300.5890 156.4502  1.00263964  9379
Mir        
1 16609U          88256.73881113 0.00042705           30461-3 0  4004
2 16609  51.6191 337.9677 0019629  44.3719 315.9206 15.73095882147617
SPOT 1     
1 16613U          88258.02123120 -.00003226          -15084-2 0  1715
2 16613  98.7331 330.5805 0000921 138.9043 221.2366 14.20046353 45508
Meteor 2-14
1 16735U          88254.05451867 0.00000071           58550-4 0  2532
2 16735  82.5370 109.1290 0015369  80.4814 279.8082 13.83795857115717
Cosmos 1766
1 16881U          88257.51353863 0.00001239           18545-3 0  3587
2 16881  82.5215 293.3717 0022087 280.1019  79.7799 14.73836565114520
EGP        
1 16908U          88250.77151163 -.00000039          -51405-5 0  1027
2 16908  50.0107  89.3454 0010905 344.1991  15.8502 12.44372177 94123
FO-12      
1 16909U          88249.63229916 -.00000025           10000-3 0  1111
2 16909  50.0165  93.0176 0010729 340.2300  19.8116 12.44395793 93972
NOAA 10    
1 16969U          88250.89003277 0.00000228           11885-3 0  1584
2 16969  98.6745 280.3913 0014066 356.5166   3.5911 14.22621822102391
Meteor 2-15
1 17290U          88253.72720186 0.00000082           68766-4 0  1873
2 17290  82.4699  18.7081 0012515 333.7789  26.2731 13.83602595 84834
GOES 7     
1 17561U          88255.23210992 -.00000223           10000-3 0  1483
2 17561   0.0589 301.0856 0008280 238.6618 180.2581  1.00270730  2792
Kvant      
1 17845U          88256.73876639 0.00046358           32981-3 0  5350
2 17845  51.6182 337.9579 0020452  40.7829 319.2438 15.73095178 83889
Cosmos 1834
1 17847U          88257.87598223 0.00336453  40291-4  14104-2 0  7658
2 17847  65.0332 313.7460 0101638 290.9482  67.7479 15.77574325 81471
RS-10/11   
1 18129U          88255.87393877 0.00000109           10889-3 0  5041
2 18129  82.9219  83.7308 0013074 101.7828 258.4854 13.71904147 61230
Cosmos 1870
1 18225U          88257.82753031 0.00222614  25771-4  24779-3 0  6427
2 18225  71.9066  77.6579 0003755 182.4329 177.5492 16.09353876 66970
Meteor 2-16
1 18312U          88255.01842775 -.00000206          -19290-3 0  1408
2 18312  82.5502  80.7164 0010804 258.6749 101.3228 13.83356691 53919
Meteor 2-17
1 18820U          88254.12260445 0.00000125           10287-3 0   540
2 18820  82.5467 143.1091 0017074 339.7969  20.2515 13.84040022 30942
AO-13      
1 19216U          88243.21393379 -.00000107           10000-3 0   185
2 19216  57.5718 241.3717 6562933 189.7644 145.2660  2.09702313  1622
1988 060A  
1 19320U          88237.27233602 0.00023333           28175-3 0   202
2 19320  65.8349 313.9214 0035101 314.5673  44.5213 15.59956336  6360
1988 062A  
1 19324U          88232.06942062 0.00000012           59698-5 0   165
2 19324  82.9506 279.0665 0033389 196.9270 163.0774 13.74906671  4282
1988 062B  
1 19325U          88235.89428706 0.00000006                   0   388
2 19325  82.9482 276.1859 0030244 173.2275 186.9296 13.76100183  4817
1988 063A  
1 19330U          88237.81451544 -.00000228           10000-3 0   117
2 19330   0.1524 249.6747 0005190 150.5761 319.9145  1.00269604   166
1988 063B  
1 19331U          88249.99595107 0.00000102           10000-3 0    91
2 19331   0.0969 227.7701 0038739 343.7231 146.3235  1.00172693   229
1988 063C  
1 19332U          88233.35171945 0.00000110           10000-3 0   151
2 19332   7.3620  88.9581 7279433 202.0001  98.8893  2.25711161   659
Meteor 3-2 
1 19336U          88253.70821362 0.00000391           10000-2 0   263
2 19336  82.5442  14.0479 0016534 158.6340 201.5405 13.16840565  5999
1988 064B  
1 19337U          88232.42914487 0.00000068           15895-3 0   169
2 19337  82.5451  29.1003 0014623 217.4628 142.5440 13.17016256  3185
1988 065A  
1 19338U          88237.75217522 0.00004978           20581-3 0   338
2 19338  65.8417  12.0359 0031720 330.9483  28.9914 15.24638558  4161
1988 065B  
1 19339U          88234.51131458 0.00005387           21033-3 0   229
2 19339  65.8436  22.0368 0036745 345.2928  14.7139 15.26293504  3665
1988 066A  
1 19344U          88244.86016608 -.00000082           10000-3 0   212
2 19344   1.4535 276.4654 0002512 315.9599  43.4861  1.00272948   308
1988 066D  
1 19347U          88235.92952046 -.00000125           10000-3 0   103
2 19347   1.4795 275.0481 0025959 316.0749  43.7936  0.98656931    64
1988 067B  
1 19369U          88232.25151577 0.37525208  43611-4  19200-3 0   508
2 19369  63.0017 318.3312 0007155 229.3769 130.6759 16.55237317  2232
1988 069A  
1 19377U          88256.63577900 0.00000499          -79437-3 0   304
2 19377  62.9229  99.5600 7383006 288.5706   9.2974  2.00620347   624
1988 069B  
1 19378U          88257.97735730 0.01191531  39632-4  96710-3 0   613
2 19378  62.8310 341.8037 0108241 121.1473 239.9331 16.02211571  5114
1988 069C  
1 19379U          88257.95869901 0.01180804  38821-4  92937-3 0   640
2 19379  62.8326 342.2211 0131312 116.8272 244.5054 15.98341000  5102
1988 069D  
1 19380U          88254.71537643 0.00000256           10000-3 0    70
2 19380  62.8301 100.0379 7456841 288.5385   8.9141  1.95687075   581
1988 070A  
1 19384U          88257.87966467 0.00781594  35244-4  29483-3 0   668
2 19384  64.7582  90.4959 0105912 107.3526 253.9957 16.11375427  4569
1988 070B  
1 19385U          88234.48412421 0.15755018  37646-4  46522-3 0   172
2 19385  64.7694 177.2040 0037929  70.6694 289.9520 16.40145636   806
1988 071A  
1 19397U          88255.57019345 -.00000107           10000-3 0   220
2 19397   1.3999 276.9814 0008030 282.4937  76.3911  1.00280224   258
1988 071B  
1 19398U          88234.14037509 0.25339526  61865-4  15063-3 0   123
2 19398  51.6124 261.8610 0003894 251.4721 108.7625 16.54040265   384
1988 071C  
1 19399U          88232.43249464 0.42660829  60459-4  16546-2 0    57
2 19399  51.6047 271.5281 0005915 139.2186 221.0726 16.43704915   103
1988 071D  
1 19400U          88236.58517795 -.00000294           10000-3 0   190
2 19400   1.4976 278.1588 0021074  18.5646 341.1098  1.00558104   556
1988 073A  
1 19414U          88258.07525423 0.00010424           71601-4 0   493
2 19414  82.3235 142.5556 0011401 266.6694  93.3578 15.74424875  3452
1988 074A  
1 19419U          88251.25917033 -.00000025          -50139-4 0    90
2 19419  89.9666 140.3805 0098432 132.1445 228.8652 13.40251470  1749
1988 074B  
1 19420U          88251.25671129 0.00000180           30890-3 0    41
2 19420  89.9663 140.3803 0096400 131.8123 229.1842 13.40508306  1735
1988 074C  
1 19421U          88251.18610464 0.00000066           10779-3 0    91
2 19421  89.9665 140.3814 0097200 132.6397 228.3530 13.40085721  1726
1988 075A  
1 19443U          88257.94577378 0.00038470           27439-3 0   227
2 19443  51.6227 331.7810 0019159  44.5785 315.6179 15.73159242  2493
1988 076A  
1 19445U          88254.57452534 -.00000432           98636-2 0   124
2 19445  62.9450 140.4733 7366743 318.2078   4.7493  2.00705895   236
1988 076B  
1 19446U          88257.98959609 0.00736926  11388-4  10634-2 0   343
2 19446  62.8456  88.4499 0192821 122.0761 240.1157 15.78591299  2267
1988 076C  
1 19447U          88257.91181626 0.03452435  39793-4  97814-3 0   331
2 19447  62.8467  88.0166 0141165 122.7541 238.9529 16.06949043  2270
1988 076D  
1 19448U          88255.89441192 0.00000264          -68260-3 0    80
2 19448  62.8839 140.2997 7336977 318.1921   4.8355  2.04079950   262
1988 079A  
1 19462U          88257.84504422 0.00152626  32413-5  10785-3 0   200
2 19462  72.8745  83.8945 0027491  27.7566 335.0847 16.15131354  1214
1988 079B  
1 19463U          88257.95867088 0.04223746  12522-4  85311-3 0   248
2 19463  72.8656  83.5717 0057724  65.3835 295.8948 16.26134610  1236
Fengyun    
1 19467U          88255.68905902 0.00002808           19192-2 0   132
2 19467  99.1292 223.9970 0016174  30.3729 329.8347 14.00334620   689
1988 080B  
1 19468U          88253.54463928 -.00000018                   0    62
2 19468  99.1108 221.8563 0010268 331.8206  28.2070 14.00764680   381
1988 081A  
1 19483U          88257.23222390 -.00000045           10000-3 0    48
2 19483   1.5194 150.5146 2988116 176.6129 185.6868  1.46472511    32
1988 081B  
1 19484U          88257.41773261 0.00000003           10000-3 0    40
2 19484   0.1028 298.0339 0059282  40.4535  19.9662  1.01170553    28
1988 081C  
1 19485U          88255.02019853 0.00010831           58935-2 0    44
2 19485   6.8066 146.6199 7334331 179.4068 183.5948  2.19857764    63
1988 083A  
1 19486U          88257.94573655 0.00066611           46914-3 0   124
2 19486  51.6182 331.7782 0020413  49.5003 310.5050 15.73177731   630
1988 082A  
1 19488U          88257.79895397 0.00048851           80058-4 0   167
2 19488  82.3287 170.1706 0011538 291.3532  68.5822 16.02893066   706
1988 083B  
1 19491U          88256.24247701 0.54632256  62038-4  24681-3 0   115
2 19491  51.6141 339.9869 0003922 359.1783   1.2940 16.55959320   374
-- 
Dr TS Kelso                           Asst Professor of Space Operations
tkelso@icc.afit.af.mil                Air Force Institute of Technology

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #380
*******************

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Date: Thu, Sep 29 88 09:13:26 EDT
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #381

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 381

Today's Topics:
	       Former astronaut Schmitt in Chicago area
		     space news from Aug 22 AW&ST
 China launches first weather satellite; ESA launches US satellites.
		NASA Release marking 30th Anniversary
		 Update on Radio Programs (Forwarded)
	       Space station history article available
		      Grad programs in avionics?
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date:     Mon, 26 Sep 88 20:45 CDT
From: Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey <HIGGINS%FNAL.BITNET@cornellc.ccs.cornell.edu>
Subject:  Former astronaut Schmitt in Chicago area
Original_To:  SPACE

 I just received the following announcement:
 ====================================================================

              The Harper College Department of Physical Sciences
              cordially invites you to attend a dinner to honor
                           Dr. Harrison H. Schmitt
                                  at Sage's
                            in the Radisson Hotel
                            74 West Algonquin Road
                         Arlington Heights, Illinois
                         on Thursday, October 6, 1988
                                 at 6:30 P.M.
                          Donation $50.00 per person

       In recognition of Dr. Schmitt's achievements in space exploration
       and the geological sciences, a dinner has been planned in
       celebration of the naming of the Meteorite Research Group at
       William Rainey Harper College in his honor: the Harrison H.
       Schmitt Meteorite Research Group. The proceeds of this dinner
       will assist in construction of an observatory at the Harper
       College campus. For more information, please contact Paul Sipiera
       at 397-3000, extension 2726 or 2375.

       Make checks payable to "Astronaut Dinner, Harper College."
       Tickets will be held at the door.
========================================================================

Harrison "Jack" Schmitt is, of course, the only scientist ever to
walk on the Moon.  He landed on the Apollo 17 mission (the last lunar
visit) in 1972.  Later he went on to serve as a Senator from New
Mexico.  He's still active in space-policy circles.

The story is that Harper College, already a center for meteorite
research, wants to build an observatory and space center.  This dinner
will kick off their fundraising campaign.  It's a good cause; I'll be
there.  If you're in the Chicago area, and you've got the afternoon of
October 6 free, Dr. Schmitt will also be speaking at 1 PM in room J-143
at Harper College in Palatine. It's a free question-and-answer session
about America's future in space.

                         ______meson      Bill Higgins
                      _-~
        ____________-~______neutrino      Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
      -   -         ~-_
    /       \          ~----- proton      Bitnet: HIGGINS@FNALB.BITNET
    |       |
    \       /                             SPAN/Hepnet/Physnet: 43011::HIGGINS
      -   -
        ~

------------------------------

Date: 19 Sep 88 03:36:49 GMT
From: attcan!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Aug 22 AW&ST

[Aviation Week & Space Technology subscription address is PO Box 1505,
Neptune NJ 07754 USA.  Rates depend on whether you are an "unqualified" or
"qualified" subscriber, which basically means whether you look at the ads
for cruise missiles out of curiosity, or out of genuine commercial or
military interest.  Best write for a "qualification card" and try to get
the cheap rate.  US rate is $58 qualified, higher for unqualified.
It's weekly, it's thicker than Time or Newsweek, and most of it has nothing
to do with space, so consider whether the price is worth it to you.]

Australia completes develoment and test of its Endeavor UV astronomy
package, which fits in two Getaway Special cans; it is now awaiting a
shuttle launch slot.

First Delta 2 launch slips to early next year due to a variety of minor
technical problems.  [Another possible issue is that it's rumored that
the USAF people at the Cape are not too happy about the northeast launch
heading needed to reach the high-inclination Navstar orbit -- it crosses
populated areas (Europe) too soon for the range-safety folks' liking.]

John Denver, the singer, who has been interested in a shuttle ride for a
long time, has asked the Soviets about buying a Soyuz trip to Mir.  They
quoted him a price of $10M, and said that he had to get permission from
the US government.  The State Dept. has officially said that it has "no
position" on the matter:  "We very carefully did not endorse his going,
but at the same time we can't prevent US citizens from going to exotic
places."  [It is reported that the Soviets have raised the price to $12M.
Maybe they've listened to some of his music. :-)]

Big story on early work on the international "Mission To Earth" project,
now a major focus of the 1992 International Space Year.  Initial efforts
will focus on the greenhouse effect, deforestation, and standardizing
data formats so that countries can use each other's data.  There is
broad political support for it, and various major environmental problems
of late have strengthened the case.

USAF selects Boeing, General Dynamics, and the Martin Marietta / McDonnell
Douglas team as the finalists in the Advanced Launch System effort.  All
three will do detailed design work in the next two years.  There is no
longer a requirement for a near-term interim ALS; the late 1990s is now
the target date.  Boeing's earlier concept -- they will not say whether
this is their current best idea -- looked somewhat like a shuttle minus
the SRBs, with the winged part being a flyback booster and the "external
tank" part being the core that would go on to orbit.  General Dynamics
is looking at a concept with two side-by-side stages, both firing at
liftoff but only one (with fewer engines) going all the way to orbit
with a payload on top; the "first" stage engines would be recovered and
reused a few times before final use on a "second" stage.  MM/MD has three
ideas, all using a common core stage:  #1 uses solid strap-ons in various
numbers, #2 uses liquid strap-ons with the same engine type as the core,
#3 uses either one or two flyback boosters.

Arianespace signs six very small satellites for piggyback launch on the
Ariane 4 that carries Spot 2 up, using a new small-payload platform to
fit in the lower part of the payload fairing.  Max total mass is 200 kg,
max individual mass is 40 kg.  The six are amateur-radio satellites,
two from U of Surrey and four from Amsat.  Target launch date is June 1989,
but it could be as early as January if Spot Image invokes a clause in
its contract that could be used to give Spot 2 special priority.

Rocketdyne engineers are assessing a possible problem with excessive shaft
travel in a LOX pump on one of Discovery's main engines.  It is within spec
but surprisingly large for the brief FRF test.  [I believe this is now
thought to have been measurement error.]  With the exception of the possible
small hydrogen leak, suspected to be due to microscopic changes in the
shapes of seals at cryogenic temperatures, no other significant problems
surfaced after the FRF.

Space is, surprisingly, becoming a bit of a political issue in the US
election, perhaps because the resumption of shuttle flights will occur
not long before the election, and there is heavy space involvement in
several key election states.  Dukakis and Bentsen visit NASA centers.
Dukakis comes out more strongly in favor of "a permanently manned space
station" than before.  Republican Party platform calls for a manned Mars
mission and resumption of lunar exploration (eventually).

NASA's inspector general begins investigation into last year's award of
$360k to establish an industry association for commercial space firms.
This is a large lump by normal NASA educational/nonprofit grant standards,
and ex-NASA people are involved.  A lot of questions are being asked.

Final pre-launch SRB test was run Aug 18, successful at first glance.

West German commercial crystal-growth experiment, flown as a secondary
payload on a Chinese satellite, is recovered and returned to Germany.
Initial results look good.

Several articles on recent SDI technology work.

NASA studying yet another possible shuttle hazard:  noctilucent clouds,
high-altitude ice-crystal clouds which are not uncommon at high latitudes
in summer.  The problem is what happens if a reentering shuttle goes
through one:  they occur at altitudes where the shuttle is still at
near-orbital velocities.  Simulations suggest that the shuttle might
"skip" on the cloud layer, producing large navigational errors and
attitude changes, and it is possible that the crystals might erode the
shuttle tiles.  Three studies are underway:  one aimed at understanding
the clouds better (not a lot is known about them, and one major unknown
is whether the ice crystals are big enough to get through the shuttle's
shock wave without vaporizing), one studying the effects of substantial
tile erosion during reentry, and one looking at the operational impact
of using only low-latitude reentry tracks.  The latter would be a nuisance
because for high-inclination missions, reentry windows for low-latitude
tracks generally occur in the middle of the crews' sleep period.  Another
issue is that nobody is *certain* that noctilucent clouds don't occur at
low latitudes or in winter.  That aside, the clouds are not an issue for
STS-26, which will be in a low-inclination orbit.

It looks like automated production technology will be a major issue in
the Advanced Solid Rocket Motor competition, if NASA's proposed specs
for quality and reliability are to be met while staying within cost and
performance targets.  [This sounds ominously like NASA is pushing a bit
too hard.]  The definitive ASRM RFP, expected mid-July, has not come out
as of mid-August; Congressional funding battles are believed to be the
reason.

Morton Thiokol has officially withdrawn from ASRM, but NASA still classes
them as a potential bidder.  There is speculation that MT may try to use
lobbying and its Congressional allies to kill ASRM, by proposing a less
ambitious souped-up version of the current SRB at lower cost.

ASRM will be [sigh] a segmented design, due to the development risks
involved in casting million-pound quantities of propellant in one go.
[Yet another case of NASA telling the contractors how to do their jobs,
instead of setting performance specs and watching how well the jobs
are done.  And a silly one, too:  one-piece big motors have been built
and fired successfully.  (Under NASA contract, yet.)]  The casing will
be lighter and the propellant more powerful than the current SRB, with
a "saddle" in the thrust profile to eliminate the need to throttle
back the main engines during the period of maximum aerodynamic pressure.
(NASA engineers would like to see the main engines messed with as little
as possible early in flight, when safe aborts in the event of major engine
trouble are tricky.)  Better production controls will reduce variation in
performance between boosters.  The proposed government-owned site, at
Yellow Creek, Miss., has caused some concern because it is in a remote
area that will be unattractive to workers; at least one of the bidders
is proposing an alternate site as a hedge against practical or political
problems with Yellow Creek.  (In particular, Congress is lukewarm about
the idea of making the plant government-owned.)

Israel Aircraft Industries reserves 1993 Ariane launch slot for the
first of two Amos domestic comsats to be built in Israel.  The go-ahead
for Amos is awaiting a decision from the Israeli government:  funding
and management are commercial but the Communications Ministry is a
crucial customer.
-- 
NASA is into artificial        |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
stupidity.  - Jerry Pournelle  | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 12 Sep 88 16:06:11 GMT
From: mtwain.dec.com!klaes@decwrl.dec.com  (CUP/ML, MLO5-2/G1 8A, 223-3283)
Subject: China launches first weather satellite; ESA launches US satellites.


    	The following is from the Thursday, September 8, 1988 edition
    of THE BOSTON GLOBE:
                                  
        "China launches weather satellite"
    
    	Beijing - China yesterday [September 7] launched its first
    experimental weather satellite, THE WIND AND CLOUD NO. 1, the official
    Xinhua news agency said.  The satellite was launched by a LONG MARCH
    4 rocket from a space [center] in Taiyuan, north-central China,
    Xinhua said.  It will transmit information on clouds, Earth's surface,
    marine water color, vegetation growth, ocean surface temperatures,
    and ice and snow to satellite ground stations worldwide, the news
    agency said (AP).
                                               
    	The following is from the Friday, September 9, 1988 edition
    of THE BOSTON GLOBE:
    
    	"Europeans launch two US satellites"
    
    	Kourou, French Guiana - An ARIANE rocket blasted into space
    yesterday [September 8], lifting into orbit two American satellites
    destined to upgrade telephone and television service in the United
    States.  Liftoff took place without a hitch from the European Space
    Agency's [ESA] launch site on the edge of the Guianian jungle, on
    the northeastern coast of South America.  The satellites belong to
    GTE-Spacenet and Satellite Transponder Leasing Corporation, a division
    of IBM (AP).

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Sep 88 09:17:23 -0400 (EDT)
From: Ted Anderson <ota+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: NASA Release marking 30th Anniversary

Peter Yee at NASA Ames has posted a NASA Release marking the October 1st
anniversary of NASA.  This is release 88-129 by Mary Sandy.  It reviews
NASA's history and current goals.  It runs about 650 lines so instead
of including it in the digest I'll make it available to anyone who requests
it.  Send a note to me or space-request@andrew.cmu.edu and I'll forward you
a copy.
	Ted Anderson

------------------------------

Date: 22 Sep 88 21:22:04 GMT
From: yee@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: Update on Radio Programs (Forwarded)

1.)  THIS IS AN UPDATE.
The October radio programs, the "Space Story & Frontiers" will be 
aired on NASA Select, Mon. Sep. 26th at 1:30 p.m. Eastern.  There 
may be more changes.  

This month's shows feature:  

AN ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL

Four Weekly Programs, 4 min., 30 sec. each and Frontiers: four 90 
second verisions of the Space Story.

#1292  Flying High for Thirty Years
(Feat.  Duncan McIver, Hdqts.)
USE:  09/26/88 THRU 10/02/88

#1293  An Inside Look on 30 Years of Manned Space Flight
(Feat.  Alan Aldrich, Hdqts.)
USE:  10/03/88 THRU 10/09/88

#1294  30 Years of Space Science and Applications
(Feat.  Samuel Keller, Hdqts.)
USE:  10/10/88 THRU 10/16/88

#1295  Planning the Next 30 Years
(Feat.  Alan Ladwig, Hdqts.)
USE:  10/17/88 THRU 10/23/88

2.) Broadcast News Service

This service provides the news media with astronaut actualities 
up to 10 days prior to a shuttle mission, and is available Monday 
through Friday from 8:00 am to 12:00 pm.  The correct phone 
number for the Broadcast News Service is (XXX) YYY-ZZZZ.  The 
press kit for STS-26 has the incorrect number on page 3.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Sep 88 08:45:28 -0400 (EDT)
From: Ted Anderson <ota+@andrew.cmu.edu>
X-Andrew-Message-Size: 454+0
Subject: Space station history article available
Cc: RASKIN@max.acs.washington.edu,
        Space-Request <space-request+@andrew.cmu.edu>

I have received a message from RASKIN@MAX.ACS.WASHINGTON.EDU which includes the
text of an article published in Technology Review on the History of the Space
Station.  The article was written by Phillip D. Hattis and appeared in the July
1988 issue, pp. 28-40.  The text runs about 36Kbytes so I won't include it in
the digest but anyone who wants a copy should drop me (or
space-request@andrew.cmu.edu) a line and I'll forward it to them.
        Ted Anderson

------------------------------

Date: 24 Sep 88 19:16:25 GMT
From: nunki.usc.edu!castor.usc.edu!smagnani@oberon.usc.edu  (Steven Magnani)
Subject: Grad programs in avionics?


Hello!

I have a friend who will soon be completing her BS in electrical
engineering. She is interested in doing graduate work in 
electronic systems for space vehicles; I believe this is called
avionics. However, the programs she's looked at so far seem to
be for M.E.'s or Aero/Astro people -- they require lots of study of
aerodynamics, fluid dynamics, and the like.

Are there any schools that have graduate programs in avionics for
electrical engineers? i.e. the control theory and issues involved,
without getting too deeply into Aero/Astro or ME considerations? Is it
reasonable to expect that there is such a program? Or are space systems
so complicated that one must be well versed in the physical design of
space vehicles before one can work on the electrical design?

Thanks in advance!

   Steve

[Note: followups go to sci.electronics -- change this if appropriate!]
 Steven J. Magnani               "I claim this network for MARS! 
                                  Earthling, return my space modulator!"
 
 With a domain server:  smagnani@castor.USC.EDU

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #381
*******************


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Reply-To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
From: space-request+@andrew.cmu.edu
To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
Date: Thu, Sep 29 88 11:05:18 EDT
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #382

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 382

Today's Topics:
		  A new approach to space Digesting
			   Re: Cosmos 1900?
			   Re: Cosmos 1900?
			   Re: Cosmos 1900?
			   Re: Cosmos 1900?
			   Re: Cosmos 1900?
		   US Elint--useless orbit.  Info?
  Dinosaur extinction compared to others (was: are we terraforming?)
		 Re: Are we ready for terraforming???
		       Orbit tracking software?
		   The Cretaceous extinction event
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Thu, 29 Sep 88 10:27:44 -0400 (EDT)
From: Ted Anderson <ota+@andrew.cmu.edu>
X-Andrew-Message-Size: 3382+0
Content-Type: X-BE2; 12
If-Type-Unsupported: alter
Subject: A new approach to space Digesting

This note is primarily of interest to readers of the Space Digest.  For those 
who don't know, that is a periodic compilation of messages sent to a list of 
recipients throughout the internet.  All the messages in the Digest also 
appear on the Usenet bulletin board sci.space, but it is designed so that 
people without access to Usenet can receive those messages by direct mail.

The Space Digest has gotten out of hand.  The message queue has reached 
three-quarters of a megabyte even though digests have been going out ten times 
a week.  Between 6AM and 4PM yesterday 57 Kilobytes of new mail arrived: two 
or three digests worth.  Many people are surely getting tired of scanning all 
this traffic to find messages of interest.  For the last few months I've been 
managing the mailing list, bicoastally: part of the process happens on a 
computer in California and part uses the facilities where I am physically 
located in Pennsylvania.  This changed last night so everything is now running 
on the Andrew system here at CMU.  But the inevitable interruptions caused by 
this transition are only going to make the backlog worse.

Starting very soon, I'm going to divide the digest into two parts.  One of 
these parts is going to be completely upward compatible with the current 
digest.  It will be mailed out often enough to keep the backlog at about a 
week and hopefully will be a bit more timely as a consequence.

The second part, which I'm going to tentatively call a magazine, is intended 
to be more moderated.  It will be more like a newspaper than a letters to the 
editor column.  There will be much less of the followup and discussion that 
characterize the Digest.  At the moment this is all vaporware, but I have a 
plan.

The plan calls for a collection of topical editors to gather material from 
their own sources or by selecting messages from the unedited network traffic. 
 They will submit their material to one of two addresses depending on whether 
it is "new" or culled from the network.  The magazine will be assembled from 
these submissions and mailed out to a list of subscribers.  In addition, the 
"new" material will be forwarded to the digests so that the magazine will 
contain a proper subset of the material in the digest.

I imagine the editors' domains to be divided by subject matter so that they 
can work more or less independently without worrying about duplication.  I 
expect editors to be people with access to information about a topic or 
special interest or expertise in a topic.  There are people who already submit 
material to the digest who fit this description, but there are hopefully 
others as well.  Several topics that come to mind are SETI, NASA, the Soviet 
program, commercial activities, the Station and Shuttle, Mars, the Moon, and 
certainly others.  The list of working topics will depend on the editors 
themselves.

I am looking volunteers to be editors.  If you are interested in this 
experimental effort send me a note giving me some idea of your interests, any 
special expertise you have, what kind of network access you have, and anything 
else you think might be relevant.

In addition if you'd like your subscription to be moved from the digest to the 
magazine or just want to be added to the magazine let me know.  Keep in mind, 
however, that until I get some editors the magazine will be very thin.

	Ad astra per aspera,
	Ted Anderson

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 22 Sep 88 11:22:34 PST
From: Peter Scott <PJS@grouch.jpl.nasa.gov>
Subject: Re: Cosmos 1900?
X-Vms-Mail-To: EXOS%"space@andrew.cmu.edu"

>mcvax!enea!kth!draken!chalmers!tekn01.chalmers.se!f86_lerner@uunet.uu.net 
>   (Mikael Lerner) writes:

>	Sometimes there have been 'horror'-stories in the Swedish news-
>	papers about the Soviet Cosmos 1900-satellite, with which the
>	Russians have lost radio contact, which means that they can't
>	separate the nuclear reactor that powered the satellite.

Not manually, but there is an automatic system designed to separate
the nuclear reactor when it detects a temperature rise (caused by
atmospheric heating), which is still intact.  They expect that this will
be triggered around 120km and separation will take place at 100km.  
Separation increases the chance of the reactor burning up, although I
for one can't see the benefit of having radioactive dust scattered
through the stratosphere or maybe even troposphere compared with having it
all land within a relatively small area.

Peter Scott (pjs%grouch@jpl-mil.jpl.nasa.gov)

------------------------------

Date: 23 Sep 88 15:43:36 GMT
From: att!cbnews!wbt@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (William B. Thacker)
Subject: Re: Cosmos 1900?

In article <880922112234.0000011B091@grouch.JPL.NASA.GOV> PJS@GROUCH.JPL.NASA.GOV (Peter Scott) writes:
>Separation increases the chance of the reactor burning up, although I
>for one can't see the benefit of having radioactive dust scattered
>through the stratosphere or maybe even troposphere compared with having it
>all land within a relatively small area.

I would suppose that, if the reactor burns up, the radioactive dust is
scattered so widely as to be indistinguishable from background. If,
however, it lands in a small area, it could pose a health hazard (suppose,
for example, it lands in a town reservoir).

Plus, landing in one chunk, it could hit someone in the head, which could
also present a bit of a health hazard... 8-)



------------------------------ valuable coupon -------------------------------
Bill Thacker						cbosgd!cbema!wbt
	"C" combines the power of assembly language with the
	 flexibility of assembly language.
Disclaimer: Farg 'em if they can't take a joke !
------------------------------- clip and save --------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: 23 Sep 88 17:03:28 GMT
From: attcan!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Cosmos 1900?

In article <880922112234.0000011B091@grouch.JPL.NASA.GOV> PJS@GROUCH.JPL.NASA.GOV (Peter Scott) writes:
>I for one can't see the benefit of having radioactive dust scattered
>through the stratosphere or maybe even troposphere compared with having it
>all land within a relatively small area.

We've coped with radioactive dust in the stratosphere in the past, since
the US and the USSR put up quite a lot of it in the 50s, and the Chinese
and the French are still doing so on a smaller scale.  There isn't enough
in one of those little satellite reactors to be a dire problem that way.
Having it come down in one small area is great if the area happens to be
in the Sahara, but not so great if it's in Manhattan.
-- 
NASA is into artificial        |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
stupidity.  - Jerry Pournelle  | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Mon, 26 Sep 88 14:31:34 EDT
Date: 26 Sep 88 16:01:46 GMT
From: beta!mwj@lanl.gov  (William Johnson)
Subject: Re: Cosmos 1900?

In article <880922112234.0000011B091@grouch.JPL.NASA.GOV>, PJS@GROUCH.JPL.NASA.GOV (Peter Scott) writes:

[Re: the "feature" of Cosmos 1900 that (they hope ...) will cause its
core to re-enter separately and burn up in the upper atmosphere]

> Separation increases the chance of the reactor burning up, although I
> for one can't see the benefit of having radioactive dust scattered
> through the stratosphere or maybe even troposphere compared with having it
> all land within a relatively small area.

The advantage is this: much (in the first few hours after re-entry, an
extremely large fraction) of the radioactivity associated with the core
consists of fission products.  These characteristically have short half
lives, of the order of hours or days, although there are a few that do
last longer.  If the core burns up in the upper atmosphere, the
short-lived isotopes decay away before they make it to the ground (it
takes quite a while for stuff to cross the tropopause) and therefore
pose no hazard at all.  If a chunk of core made it to the surface in one
piece, there would be some potential for exposing the public to
radiation from the short-lived isotopes in the chunk before they
decayed.

Your concern would be well founded if the core didn't disperse until it
had penetrated the tropopause (i.e., made it to the troposphere),
because stuff in the troposphere gets washed out much more quickly than
stuff in the upper layers of the atmosphere.  However, if the core is
going to burn up at all, it is most likely to do so farther up.

Incidentally, this seems like a good time to plug for creation of a
group like sci.meteorology or sci.weather.  I can speak with
considerable expertise on the physics issues (like what isotopes a
reactor core contains), but it might be interesting for someone more
knowledgeable on meteorology to provide figures on washout times of
material entrained in the stratosphere and/or troposphere.  Anybody
that's listening got those?

"One thing they don't tell you about doing	| Bill Johnson
experimental physics is that sometimes you	| Los Alamos Nat'l Laboratory
must work under adverse conditions ... like	| Los Alamos, NM, USA, Earth
a state of sheer terror." (W. K. Hartmann)	| (mwj@lanl.gov)

------------------------------

Date: 26 Sep 88 22:29:29 GMT
From: beta!mwj@lanl.gov  (William Johnson)
Subject: Re: Cosmos 1900?

In article <21730@beta.lanl.gov>, I (Bill Johnson @ somewhere) wrote:
[Re: the "feature" of Cosmos 1900 that (they hope ...) will cause its
core to re-enter separately and burn up in the upper atmosphere, and someone's
question of why one would want this to happen]
> 
> The advantage is this: much (in the first few hours after re-entry, an
                                                            ^^^^^^^^
	(Excuse me; I should have said "reactor shutdown".)

> extremely large fraction) of the radioactivity associated with the core
> consists of fission products.  These characteristically have short half
> lives, of the order of hours or days, although there are a few that do
> last longer.  If the core burns up in the upper atmosphere, the
> short-lived isotopes decay away before they make it to the ground (it
> takes quite a while for stuff to cross the tropopause) and therefore
> pose no hazard at all. [...]

Paul Dietz correctly pointed out via e-mail [did you get my reply, Paul?] that
the advantage here would be largest only if the reactor was operating all the
way up until re-entry.  However, even if it was shut down some days or weeks
ago, the same principles apply; things can stay entrained in the upper
atmosphere for months if not years, and one year of entrainment is worth
a factor of FIFTY in radioactivity reaching the surface.  Inquiring minds might
look at a paper in the journal _Health Physics_ (Tracy et al., H. Phys. v. 47,
p.225, 1984) that talks comprehensibly about the health impact from Cosmos 954,
another Russian reactor satellite that came down ten years ago.

-- 
"One thing they don't tell you about doing	| Bill Johnson
experimental physics is that sometimes you	| Los Alamos Nat'l Laboratory
must work under adverse conditions ... like	| Los Alamos, NM, USA, Earth
a state of sheer terror." (W. K. Hartmann)	| (mwj@lanl.gov)

------------------------------

Date: 6 Sep 88 19:55:42 GMT
From: pikes!udenva!isis!scicom!wats@boulder.colorado.edu  (Bruce Watson)
Subject: US Elint--useless orbit.  Info?


On 1988 Sep 2 in the EDT am, an early warning elint was launched from
the Cape on a Titan 34D toward a geosynchronous orbit.  The final burn
to circularize at 22,300 miles failed.  The resulting orbit of approx 100
by 22,300 miles renders the mission useless.  

If I had the time of launch and the current inclination I could come up 
with approximate elemeents and times and angles for observation.

Any info?

------------------------------

Date: 13 Sep 88 22:15:49 GMT
From: jlg@lanl.gov  (Jim Giles)
Subject: Dinosaur extinction compared to others (was: are we terraforming?)

>From article <4468@brspyr1.BRS.Com>, by miket@brspyr1.BRS.Com (Mike Trout):
> [...]
> Why did so many non-dinosaur reptiles survive?  Snakes, turtles, lizards, 
> crocodilians, and such appear to have suffered no such losses at the time.  
> And it doesn't have anything to do with size, either.  Although most of the 
> "big" dinosaurs get all the attention, most dinosaurs actually were not all 
> that large--many were no larger than modern-day lizards, and their average size 
> seems to be little different from today's crocodilians.  Yet not one single 
> dinosaur, regardless of size, survived whatever it was.  It's difficult to 
> come up with a plausible scenario in which all dinosaurs die and most lizards 
> live, even though biologically they are extremely similar.  A baffling 
> mystery, to say the least.

Too much attention is paid to dinosurs.  The iridium even marks a significant
mass extinction event.  Over half the families of marine mollusks, flowering
plants, echinoderms, etc. were killed off (for half the _families_ to 
disappear, more than 90% of the species must be killed off).

The question is not: why did the dinosaurs die off?  The question is: how
did all these others survive.  Actually, they probably didn't.  Mammals
are probably all derived from only one or two dinosaur contemporaries.
The same goes for birds.  Each family of living reptiles and amphibians
probably owes its existance to only one or two survivor species.  In fact,
the asteroid theory is quite adequate to explain all the extinctions - 
the robustness of life is necessary to explain the survivors.

J. Giles

------------------------------

Date: 12 Sep 88 22:09:26 GMT
From: brspyr1!miket@itsgw.rpi.edu  (Mike Trout)
Subject: Re: Are we ready for terraforming???

> > >(Jim Giles) writes:

> > Well, it does appear that a single asteroid hitting Australia wiped
> > out the dinosaurs. 

It's my understanding that this theory is highly questionable at best.  While 
there is substantial circumstantial evidence to support it (layers of iridium, 
apperance of chronological time-scale catastrophe, mathematical climatological 
models, etc.), there is one major problem...

Why did so many non-dinosaur reptiles survive?  Snakes, turtles, lizards, 
crocodilians, and such appear to have suffered no such losses at the time.  
And it doesn't have anything to do with size, either.  Although most of the 
"big" dinosaurs get all the attention, most dinosaurs actually were not all 
that large--many were no larger than modern-day lizards, and their average size 
seems to be little different from today's crocodilians.  Yet not one single 
dinosaur, regardless of size, survived whatever it was.  It's difficult to 
come up with a plausible scenario in which all dinosaurs die and most lizards 
live, even though biologically they are extremely similar.  A baffling 
mystery, to say the least.

------------------------------

Date: 13 Sep 88 18:04:41 GMT
From: att!mtuxo!mtuxj!tek1@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Thomas E. Kenny)
Subject: Orbit tracking software?

What software is used for tracking the man-made satilites? Does the
software run on MSDOS or UNIX? Does anybody have source? Are graphics
displays of the orbit included? Any information would be appreciated,
thanks in advance!

------------------------------

Date: 13 Sep 88 06:42:50 GMT
From: cca!g-rh@husc6.harvard.edu  (Richard Harter)
Subject: The Cretaceous extinction event

In article <4468@brspyr1.BRS.Com> miket@brspyr1.BRS.Com (Mike Trout) writes:
>> > >(Jim Giles) writes:

>> > Well, it does appear that a single asteroid hitting Australia wiped
>> > out the dinosaurs. 

	Location not known, several candidates.


>It's my understanding that this theory is highly questionable at best.  While 
>there is substantial circumstantial evidence to support it (layers of iridium, 
>apperance of chronological time-scale catastrophe, mathematical climatological 
>models, etc.), there is one major problem...

	Debatable, and hotly debated, but not highly questionable.  The 
competing theories are (a) multiple cometary strikes over an extended period
of time (Oort cloud perturbation), (b) extended vulcanism, and (c) ecological
collapse due to changes in geography.  Theory (a) is an alternate catastrophe
theory, theory (c) postulates a much longer time frame for the extinction,
and (b) is somewhat of a hybrid as far as time is concerned.

>Why did so many non-dinosaur reptiles survive?  Snakes, turtles, lizards, 
>crocodilians, and such appear to have suffered no such losses at the time.  
>And it doesn't have anything to do with size, either.  Although most of the 
>"big" dinosaurs get all the attention, most dinosaurs actually were not all 
>that large-many were no larger than modern-day lizards, and their average size 
>seems to be little different from today's crocodilians.  Yet not one single 
>dinosaur, regardless of size, survived whatever it was.  It's difficult to 
>come up with a plausible scenario in which all dinosaurs die and most lizards 
>live, even though biologically they are extremely similar.  A baffling 
>mystery, to say the least.

	Not all that difficult.  One note -- the minimum size for dinosaurs
(adult) was about the size of a large chicken.  It is a matter of debate 
whether dinosaurs were "warm blooded" in the sense of having a fully regulated
body temperature; however this is no real doubt that they had much higher
metabolisms (and corresponding continuing high food requirements) than
reptiles. As such they were much more sensitive than reptiles to a
catastrophic ecological collapse with a wide destruction of the food chain.
The Cretaceous extinction was very broad -- it hit all the large animals
(including the large reptiles), large numbers of sea life forms, and a 
fair bit of the plant kingdom.  




-- 

In the fields of Hell where the grass grows high
Are the graves of dreams allowed to die.
	Richard Harter, SMDS  Inc.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #382
*******************
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Reply-To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
From: space-request+@andrew.cmu.edu
To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu
Date: Thu, Sep 29 88 16:38:12 EDT
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #383

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 383

Today's Topics:
			  Re: Why no aliens
		 Re: Are we ready for terraforming???
		   New Rockets? No Hurry, OTA Says
	       Re: Watching Shuttle Land at Edwards AFB
			       Re: SDI
		   Re: access to space; how to deny
		    Re: Shuttle names--old and new
   Re: Unmanned w/old SRBs (was Re: space news from July 11 AW&ST)
			     Re: Phoenix
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 12 Sep 88 04:38:49 GMT
From: ndsuvax!nekinsel@uunet.uu.net  (Peter Kinsella)
Subject: Re: Why no aliens

In article <714@auvax.UUCP>, ralphh@auvax.UUCP (Ralph Hand) writes:
> Why bother trying to kill it.  We just land, one of our diseases goes
> rampant through their population presto we have control of our first
> new world.  (Sort of like the Spanish in South America, or any of the
> hundreds of other civilzations wiped out in that period).

     In order for one of our diseases to harm an alien, our bioligical
structures would have to be very very similiar.  For example, humans
are hardly, if at all, affected by a disease that affects fish. This is
true for a multitude of diseases that exist in our own world. The odds
of one of our diseases harming an alien race must be extremly high. 
  
     Pete Kinsella

------------------------------

Date: 14 Sep 88 00:22:32 GMT
From: jlg@lanl.gov  (Jim Giles)
Subject: Re: Are we ready for terraforming???

>From article <5447@sdcrdcf.sm.unisys.com.UUCP>, by markb@sm.unisys.com.UUCP (Mark Biggar):
> In article <4468@brspyr1.BRS.Com> miket@brspyr1.BRS.Com (Mike Trout) writes:
>>> > >(Jim Giles) writes:
>>> > Well, it does appear that a single asteroid hitting Australia wiped
>>> > out the dinosaurs. 

Besides, I didn't write that!  In fact, I've now forgotten who did.

J. Giles
Los Alamos

------------------------------

Date: 12 Sep 88 07:10:40 GMT
From: mcvax!enea!erix!howard@uunet.uu.net  (Howard Gayle)
Subject: New Rockets? No Hurry, OTA Says

>From Science, 5 August 1988, pp 647-8:

Unless the United States wants to send people to Mars or deploy
a space defense system, it can get by with incremental
improvements in space transportation, according to a rocket
buyer's guide.

A note of sobriety has crept into discussions of the US space
program, and it has come from a surprising source---Capitol
Hill.  On paper, at least, Congress seems to recognize that the
new austerity in government means there is no room for false
starts.  Decisions made in the next 2 years will set a course
for space policy for the rest of the century.

The latest sign of realism can be found in a report from the
Office of Technology Assesment (OTA), billed as a "buyer's
guide" to launchers, released on 27 July ("Launch Options for
the Future: A Buyer's Guide").  It was commissioned by the
House subcommittee on space applications, chaired by Rep. Bill
Nelson (D-FL)...

[P]lans to deploy a space-based strategic defense or to send
humans to Mars, would sharply increase transportation needs.
These are over and above the 19 shuttle flights required for
assembly of the space station, due to be in orbit by 1997.
Thus, estimates of demand range from a low-growth requirement
of 600,000 pounds launched to low earth orbit each year to
4 million pounds per year...

Three things became clear immediately, says study director
Richard DalBello.  First, the current fleet cannot begin to cope
with the demands of a trip to Mars or a major military
deployment.  Perhaps with a rapid investment in new
transportation systems, the US could mount a Mars mission or
SDI---but not both.

Second, if there is no rapid increase in the pace of launching
(that is, no SDI or Mars trip), the economic issues are of
minor importance.  An entirely new rocket fleet would not be
much cheaper than what exists now.  This is because the
development costs are about equal to the savings that would be
gained in transportation...

Third, if it seems important to break with the past and
increase the launch rate, it will be necessary to invest in new
technology.  OTA did not single any out as especially promising.

The most striking conclusion, therefore, is a conundrum.  There
will be no economic payoff from new delivery systems such as
the Air Force's "Advanced Launch System" unless the government
at the same time decides to put the system to full use.  And
putting it to full use means buying a big package to be
delivered, such as a Mars trip or SDI.

Even under the most favorable circumstances, the savings of a
new system may be illusory, for the money "saved" in making
each flight cheaper will be "lost" on buying an increased
number of flights.  It will also be lost on buying the payload...

Another conclusion...is that the present fleet is fairly well
suited for the agenda that NASA has laid out for itself.  Even
without major improvements existing rockets should be able to
lift 860,000 pounds into orbit per year, compared to 400,000
pounds on average between 1980 and 1985..."[B]y improving
existing vehicles and ground facilities and buying more launch
vehicles, the US could easily increase its launch capabilities
to 1.4 million pounds...per year."   This "enhanced" low-growth
approach would more than double the 1985 capacity, and produce
enough to "support a space program with slow growth for many
years."  It could be done by slightly increasing the capacity
of some ELVs, improving the shuttle's booster rockets, testing
and possibly developing liquid boosters, using a lighter
shuttle fuel tank, making ground operations more efficient,
building another Titan launch pad, and using more automated
production and processing facilities.

The entire "life cycle" cost of this approach would be $110 to
$120 billion between now and 2010.  For about the same price,
but with greater risk, according to OTA, Congress could invest
in one of several "transition vehicles."  Included in this
category are an unpiloted cargo version of the shuttle called
shuttle-C, a greatly improved Titan rocket, or an entirely new
system based on an interim version of the Air Forces Advanced
Launch System.

If Congress decides to go ahead with construction of the space
station next year, it might be worth buying shuttle-C just for
that purpose.  Its capacity is twice that of the shuttle, and
it could reduce station assembly flights by 7, cutting costs by
$1.7 billion.  According to NASA, that savings would more than
pay for shuttle-C.  But, OTA notes, NASA may well have
underestimated...

An incisive report by the Congressional Budget Office in May
points out that transportation and other "infrastructure" costs
already swallow the lion's share of the civilian space budget
("The NASA Program in the 1990s and Beyond").  Playing out
NASA's existing programs will require large expenditures
through the end of the century.  According to this estimate,
NASA's total budget must grow from $9 billion in 1988 to $16.4
billion in 2000 (constant dollars) just to cover the
committments already made.  NASA had a terrible struggle
climbing the first step in this long staircase this year,
moving its budget up from $9 billion to $10 billion.  It seems
unlikely therefore that there will be room for any radical new
departure in space transportation, unless something already on
the books is dropped.
---Eliot Marshall

[Flames to Richard DalBello at OTA.]

Howard Gayle
TN/ETX/TX/UMG
Ericsson Telecom AB
S-126 25 Stockholm
Sweden
howard@ericsson.se
{mcvax, uunet}!enea!ericsson.se!howard
Phone: +46 8 719 5565
FAX  : +46 8 719 9598
Telex: 14910 ERIC S

------------------------------

Date: 9 Sep 88 18:05:19 GMT
From: aero!venera.isi.edu!cew@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov  (Craig E. Ward)
Subject: Re: Watching Shuttle Land at Edwards AFB

In article <16644@apple.Apple.COM> dan@apple.com.UUCP (Dan Allen) writes:
>Does anyone know the scoop on being able to go on base at Edwards AFB
>for the Shuttle landing in October or whenever it is going to land?  I
>went to a landing in 1982 there but did not make any of the details.  I
>have heard a rumor that the public is not allowed on base any more for
>landings.  Any truth to this rumor?
>
>Dan Allen
>Apple Computer
>dan@apple.COM

The California chapters of the National Space Society (NSS), cooperating
through the California Space Development Council (CSDC) are planing to
attend the landing at Edwards.  In Northern California contact Tim Kyger
of the San Francisco Chapter evenings at (415)221-2684 (This number is
published in the Spacefaring Gazette without an area code; I am assuming
it is 415.)  For Central and Southern California contact me by email.  I
am with OASIS, the Los Angeles and Orange Counties chapter of NSS.

(We have a coordinator for this but I don't want to publish his number
without asking him first.  Kyger's number was published already so I
assume it's okay to distribute it here.)

		Craig

-- 
====================================================================
ARPA: 	cew@venera.isi.edu
PHONE:	(213)822-1511 ext. 111
USPS:	USC Information Sciences Institute
	4676 Admiralty Way, Suite 1100
	Marina del Rey, CA 90292
Slogan:	"nemo me impune lacessit"
====================================================================

------------------------------

Date: 10 Sep 88 05:52:41 GMT
From: amdahl!ems!viper!dave@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (David Messer)
Subject: Re: SDI

In article <1988Sep7.213955.6185@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
 >In article <7757@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu> lim@cit-vax.UUCP (Kian-Tat Lim) writes:
 >>Something that has been bugging me throughout this "denying access to space
 >>via Stinger" discussion.  How much is the warhead of a shoulder-fired weapon
 >>going to disturb an SSME/Ariane/whatever, considering that the hottest target
 >>is the exhaust plume?  With all that energy spewing out, it would seem to me
 >>that the extra "bump" from a 50-pound explosive (to be generous) would be
 >>negligible.
 >
 >shoulder-launched weapons don't pack that much explosive, but it's still
 >nothing you want to be standing near when it goes off.

The Stinger has about a 7 lb warhead.

The main reason that shoulder launced weapons aren't a real
worry is that they have only about a three-mile range (and
probably a maximum altitude of 5000 ft or so, although I don't
have the figures handy).  To hit the shuttle, you would have
to be quite close -- in the area that is checked repeatedly
for intruders.

A much more likely scenario is someone machine-gunning the
thing a couple of days before launch.
-- 
If you can't convince |   David Messer - (dave@Lynx.MN.Org)
them, confuse them.   |   Lynx Data Systems
   -- Harry S Truman  | 
                      |   amdahl   --!bungia!viper!dave
                      |   hpda    /

Copyright 1988 David Messer -- All Rights Reserved
This work may be freely copied.  Any restrictions on
redistribution of this work are prohibited.

------------------------------

Date: 9 Sep 88 20:55:21 GMT
From: attcan!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: access to space; how to deny

In article <2803@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> lwall@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV (Larry Wall) writes:
>How much disparity in thrust can the stack put up with?

I think it's something like 2-3%.  There has to be some compensation for it
because the solids are not throttlable and there is no way to guarantee
that their thrusts will be precisely equal.  (Some precautions are taken
to minimize imbalances, such as using segments from the same batch to
build both SRBs for each mission.)  In particular, some imbalance at burnout
is to be expected.

>Can the hold-down bolts keep the thing from taking off if one SRB fires and
>the other doesn't?

The hold-downs are blown simultaneously with SRB ignition, so this isn't
possible.

>What would be the effect of a well-timed model airplane with a zip gun putting
>a tracer bullet into the ET as it was lifting off?

It would have to be a pretty stealthy design to get that close without being
spotted.  That aside, it might get messy; the ET walls are thin.
-- 
NASA is into artificial        |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
stupidity.  - Jerry Pournelle  | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 10 Sep 88 02:57:21 GMT
From: jato!jbrown@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov  (Jordan Brown)
Subject: Re: Shuttle names--old and new

In article <> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>In article <> hairston%23666%utadnx%utspan.span@VLSI.JPL.NASA.GOV writes:
>>... Supposedly either "Challenger" or "Atlantis" was the name of
>>Tom Swift's rocket, but I've never been able to track that down for sure...
>
> Tom Swift Jr's 1950s rocket ship was the Star Spear...

You are correct.  The Star Spear was his rocket.  The moon ship (from Tom
Swift in the Race to the Moon - #12) was named Challenger, and had a
repelatron drive.  It was in general a much better ship.

Important stuff, eh?  Must be some reason I collect it...

------------------------------

Date: 10 Sep 88 15:04:14 GMT
From: phri!dasys1!tneff@nyu.edu  (Tom Neff)
Subject: Re: Unmanned w/old SRBs (was Re: space news from July 11 AW&ST)

In article <1988Sep7.212736.6080@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
> ... possibly the most likely way to lose an orbiter is a landing
>accident, which might well leave crew and payload intact but damage the
>orbiter badly enough to make it unflyable.  

Thank you for pointing this out, I really wasn't taking nonfatal
"totallings" into account but it's nice to think about ANY kind of
shuttle accident (if we are indeed fated to have them) where the crew
is OK.

>Then, as I said, we must send them to the Smithsonian at once.  No matter
>how careful you are, you cannot fly them without taking risks.  If we keep
>on flying them, even just our present little fleet, losses are inevitable.

The point you are missing is that your proposed "remedy" is equal in
severity to the worst consequences of leaving things unremedied.  In
other words, if an accident is SOMEDAY inevitable and if such an
accident would put the remaining orbiters in the Smithsonian for you
anyway, then why jump the gun and do the future accident's work for it
immediately, without getting some orbital missions in there first.
Just doesn't make sense.  (Flight 25's disaster was horrendous, but even
it could not erase the manifest for the previous 24 flights!)

You are proposing a dichotomy: go back to the old pre-1986 practices or
shut everything down immediately.  I am saying there is a middle ground:
proceed, but more conservatively.  Strapping those old SRBs onto our tiny
remaining fleet, even unmanned, is just asking for trouble.  (Tough to
remember but that's what got this conversation started. :-) )  We both
agree trouble is inevitable eventually, but I insist we can and should
increase the odds in our favor whenever we have a chance.
-- 
Tom Neff			UUCP: ...!cmcl2!phri!dasys1!tneff
	"None of your toys	CIS: 76556,2536	       MCI: TNEFF
	 will function..."	GEnie: TOMNEFF	       BIX: t.neff (no kidding)

------------------------------

Date: 10 Sep 88 23:27:38 GMT
From: attcan!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Phoenix

In article <44600020@pyr1.cs.ucl.ac.uk> william@pyr1.cs.ucl.ac.uk writes:
>>"It is no argument to say that launch vehicles are more complex
>>devices than, for example, an F-15 or 767.  Clearly they are not. 
>
>Is this true?  It doesn't appear clear to me, I'm afraid! ...
> [comments about the empirical nature of engine design]

Hudson is talking about sheer mechanical complexity, not difficulty of
design.  Look at one of the see-through drawings of an aircraft that
journals like Flight International routinely publish; the complexity is
mind-boggling, especially for high-performance military aircraft.
Just the number of *moving* parts is enormous.
-- 
NASA is into artificial        |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
stupidity.  - Jerry Pournelle  | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #383
*******************

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Reply-To: space+@andrew.cmu.edu
From: space-request+@andrew.cmu.edu
To: space+@andrew.cmu.edu
Date: Fri, Sep 30 88 15:21:49 EDT
Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #384

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 384

Today's Topics:
			  Re: Chix in Space
		    Dinosaur killer impact sites?
		   Re: Possible Disaster Scenarios
			  Re: Chix in Space
		   Re: Possible Disaster Scenarios
		   Re: Possible Disaster Scenarios
Re: NASA and McDonnell Douglas sign commercial launch agreement (Forwarded)
Re: Alien civilizations, improved grey goo, and biotech civilizations...
		 Re: Are we ready for terraforming???
		       Re: SETI and sea mammals
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 10 Sep 88 23:41:04 GMT
From: attcan!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Chix in Space

In article <44600021@pyr1.cs.ucl.ac.uk> william@pyr1.cs.ucl.ac.uk writes:
>Forgive me if I am wrong, (it's a while since I studied the theory!!),
>but are there portions of the human reproductive system that require 
>some sense of orientation prior to fertilisation?  Something to do with
>sperm navigation....

I would think that it has been empirically verified :-) that human
fertilization can take place in both vertical and horizontal orientations.
More generally, if you contemplate the square-cube law it becomes clear
that the smaller things get, the less significant gravity is.  Elephants
cannot jump or run (although they can *walk* faster than you can run).
Humans can.  Cats have been known to fall a hundred feet or more unharmed.
Mice, especially baby mice, quite happily walk on a ceiling if there's
something like a screen that they can get their toes and claws into.
(I've seen them do it.)  Small insects barely care which way is up.
I'd be very surprised if sperm could even *sense* gravity -- on their
scale, it is insignificant compared to intermolecular forces.

Now, embryo development, that's a different issue.  What free-fall babies
would look like is most unclear.
-- 
NASA is into artificial        |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
stupidity.  - Jerry Pournelle  | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 11 Sep 88 08:25:06 GMT
From: agate!gsmith%garnet.berkeley.edu@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Gene W. Smith)
Subject: Dinosaur killer impact sites?

In article <3391@lanl.gov>, jlg@lanl (Jim Giles) writes:
>From article <446@optilink.UUCP>, by cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer):

>>> Well, it does appear that a single asteroid hitting Australia wiped
>>> out the dinosaurs.

>Australia is one of the best preserved old continental land masses in
>the world.  An impact of the size suggested by Louis Alvarez et. al.
>only 65 million years ago would have left a noticable mark.

  I read recently in the San Jose Mercury News that a large
crater in Iowa indicated an asteroidal body hit Iowa about 65
million years ago.
--
ucbvax!garnet!gsmith    Gene Ward Smith/Garnet Gang/Berkeley CA 94720
"Some people, like Chuq and Matt Wiener, naturally arouse suspicion by
behaving in an obnoxious fashion." -- Timothy Maroney, aka Mr. Mellow

------------------------------

Date: 10 Sep 88 23:55:09 GMT
From: attcan!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Possible Disaster Scenarios

In article <73@cybaswan.UUCP> iiit-sh@cybaswan.UUCP (Steve Hosgood) writes:
>2) What happens if one of the SRBs doesn't light up? I assume the launch
>	sequencer doesn't blow the bolts, kills the liquid fuelled engines
>	and attempts to hold the stack on the ground until the one SRB goes
>	out? ...

No, the bolts blow at the same instant as SRB ignition -- there is no delay
to see if the SRBs have ignited properly.  (I made this mistake once.)
Seriously asymmetric SRB performance, with the worst case being ignition
failure in one of them, is an unsurvivable accident.

>3) What happens if the liquid fuelled engines flame out just after lift-off?
>	This is probably the least dangerous problem, the 2 SRBs I believe
>	provide about 5.8 Million Pounds force between them, and the 3 liquids
>	supply "only" about another million between them. The shuttle may not
>	get into orbit, but at least it should have a chance of attaining
>	about 15-20 miles altitude, which ought to be fairly safe...

I don't remember for sure, but I think the end result of a failure like
this is more-or-less normal flight up to SRB jettison, followed by immediate
ET jettison, followed by either an emergency landing or ditching in the ocean.
This assumes that there are no major control problems at SRB burnout, given
that the liquid engines can't be used to compensate for asymmetric burnout.

>[Soviets] I wonder why they jettison the docking
>module before tring to fire the retro rockets to commence re-entry? Surely
>there would be time enough afterwards? ...

Probably they don't want the docking module wandering around uncontrolled
nearby during reentry.  Also, the less mass is on board at retrofire time,
the smaller and lighter the retros can be.
-- 
NASA is into artificial        |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
stupidity.  - Jerry Pournelle  | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

------------------------------

Date: 11 Sep 88 05:44:02 GMT
From: silver!chiaravi@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu  (Lucius Chiaraviglio)
Subject: Re: Chix in Space

[About a tongue-in-cheek suggestion for a shuttle experiment funded by
Kentucky Fried Chicken, to study chicken development in space -- actually not
a bad idea, but I doubt Kentucky Fried Chicken would fund it.]

In article <44600021@pyr1.cs.ucl.ac.uk> william@pyr1.cs.ucl.ac.uk writes:
[Last part of the suggestion is >>]
>>   It may also offer clues as to how human embryos may one day
>>develop in space.
>
>Forgive me if I am wrong, (it's a while since I studied the theory!!),
>but are there portions of the human reproductive system that require 
>some sense of orientation prior to fertilisation?  Something to do with
>sperm navigation. [. . .]

	I very much doubt it.  Remember that mammalian females change position
many times between copulation and fertilization, which would really mess up
gravity-dependant sperm.  Also, mammalian eggs do not have the gravity-
sensitive cytoplasmic determinants that amphibian eggs have (or, initially,
any cytoplasmic determinants at all, it seems -- the cells formed by the first
3 divisions seem to be for all practical purposes entirely identical, and can
be rearranged freely without messing up the subsequent embryo).  Note that if
mammalian eggs and embryonic development were gravity-dependant, it would be
very hard to get them to develop properly, again due to the changing position
of mammalian females (yes, vivapary does have its disadvantages).  However,
bird eggs (as well as reptile eggs) are even larger and yolkier than amphibian
eggs, and while it is predicted that the absence of gravity will not disturb
amphibian eggs (or reptile or bird eggs) -- that is, it takes gravity in the
wrong direction and at the right time to mess up development -- the required
data is not yet available.  Experiments to test the development of amphibian
and fish (similar kind of eggs and development) embryos in space are being
designed in the Department of Biology at Indiana University.

	It is my understanding that rats were taken up on one of the Skylab
flights (unless I am getting mixed up and it is the Russians that did this)
and allowed to mate and produce offspring.  The offspring developed completely
normally, and did not even suffer the bone calcium loss that their parents
were experiencing.  Unfortunately, I don't have the reference for this.
Anyone else know of this?

	-- Lucius Chiaraviglio
	   chiaravi@silver.bacs.indiana.edu
	   lucius@tardis.harvard.edu	(in case the first one doesn't work)
	"NO DYING ALLOWED." -- The Maytag coin-operated washing machine
		instruction poster.
	"This would be nice!" -- graffitti seen on the Maytag coin-operated
		washing machine instruction poster in the Daniels laundry
		room in Currier House at Harvard University.

------------------------------

Date: 11 Sep 88 14:59:40 GMT
From: paul.rutgers.edu!masticol@rutgers.edu  (Steve Masticola)
Subject: Re: Possible Disaster Scenarios

Henry Spencer := >, Steve Hosgood := >>

> >[Soviets] I wonder why they jettison the docking
> >module before tring to fire the retro rockets to commence re-entry? Surely
> >there would be time enough afterwards? ...
> Probably they don't want the docking module wandering around uncontrolled
> nearby during reentry.  Also, the less mass is on board at retrofire time,
> the smaller and lighter the retros can be.

A third good reason is that if they've started re-entry and something
goes wrong with jettisoning the docking module, they'd have very
little time to fix the problem. Even if everything went right, they'd
still cost themselves time when they had very little to spare.
Jettisoning the docking module simplifies things all around.

I'd hope they don't throw it so far away that they can't get back to
it if something goes wrong with re-entry...

- Steve (masticol@paul.rutgers.edu)

------------------------------

Date: 11 Sep 88 21:12:24 GMT
From: cfa!cfa250!mcdowell@husc6.harvard.edu  (Jonathan McDowell)
Subject: Re: Possible Disaster Scenarios

>From article <73@cybaswan.UUCP>, by iiit-sh@cybaswan.UUCP (Steve Hosgood):
> BTW, I was glad to see the Soviets managed to sort out their problem in
> returning those Cosmonauts from Mir. I wonder why they jettison the docking
> module before tring to fire the retro rockets to commence re-entry? Surely
> there would be time enough afterwards? (Followups on this last point to
> sci.space please).

Yes, they used to do this (Soyuz-1 to Soyuz-40), jettisoning it at the
same time as the equipment-aggregate module (the thing with the engine
in) a few minutes after retrofire, but starting with the Soyuz T series
in 1980 they have jettisoned the orbital module prior to reentry.  Why?
Well, every kilogram of mass in the orbital module that you accelerate
to reentry speed is one kilo less in the descent module that you bring
home.  There's no point in using your deorbit burn to bring down any
more junk than you need...  this is just the old staging principle used
at launch time.  But I wonder if theyre beginning to regret that saved
mass; it would be nice to have extra resources if you get stuck like
that. 


- Jonathan McDowell

------------------------------

Date: 11 Sep 88 21:18:49 GMT
From: vsi1!daver!mfgfoc!mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Mike Thompson)
Subject: Re: NASA and McDonnell Douglas sign commercial launch agreement (Forwarded)

>From article <14551@ames.arc.nasa.gov>, by yee@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Peter E. Yee):
> Jim Ball
> Headquarters, Washington, D.C.                  September 7, 1988
> RELEASE:  88-124
> NASA AND McDONNELL DOUGLAS SIGN COMMERCIAL LAUNCH AGREEMENT
> 
>      NASA and the McDonnell Douglas Astronautics Company, St. 
> Louis, announced today the signing of an agreement providing for 
> the firm's use of facilities at the Kennedy Space Center, Fla., 
> and technical support from the Goddard Spaceflight Center, 
> Greenbelt, Md., in support of commercial launches.
> 
All right, lets here it for free enterprise in space.  I am beginning to think
that the only way to preserve (or restore) the U.S. at the forefront of
space technology is to make sure that our industry can make a profit in space.
This agreement is something that is 20 years late in coming.  I wish the 
best of luck to McDonnell Douglas and their pioneering efforts in the
commercializing of the high frontier.  

Hopefully the government will now encourage other companies which are 
high on talent and vision, but low on cash, to provide competition for
McDonnell Douglas.  

I hope that the state of our (the country as a whole) space program is
somewhat analagous to where commercial aviation was in the 1920's and
30's where the military benifits of aviation were apparent and the government
encouraged private enterprise into development of aviation through 
air mail.  

Now if Boeing and Rockwell can get on the ball slowly evolve from 
defense oriented industry to a space oriented industry.

Mike Thompson

Disclaimer:  These are just my thoughts and in no way reflect the opinion
of my company whatever it may be.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael P. Thompson                      FOCUS Semiconductor Systems, Inc.
net: (sun!daver!mfgfoc!engfoc!mike)      570 Maude Court
att: (408) 738-0600 ext 370              Sunnyvale, CA  94086 USA
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: 12 Sep 88 01:12:15 GMT
From: Portia!doom@labrea.stanford.edu  (Joseph Brenner)
Subject: Re: Alien civilizations, improved grey goo, and biotech civilizations...

C445585@UMCVMB.BITNET ("John Kelsey") writes with essentially three
 topics: 
 I   A planet surviving a beserker attack would begin destroying beserkers. 
 II  Beserkers may take the form of "Grey Goo"
 III Technical civilizations may be unlikey, may destroy themselves, 
     may be uninterested in radio, may be uninterested in expansion etc.

Part I seems like a good point to keep in mind, part II is a reasonable 
observation, but part III falls into what seems to be a perpetual trap 
for people new to the Fermi Paradox.  An explanation for the 
*complete absence* of observed extra-terrestrial, industrial species 
has to cover an enourmous number of stars, and must be true for 
*almost every* potential species.  Notions like "Maybe they tend 
to destroy themselves somehow" just cuts the numbers by another 
factor of 100 or 1000 or so, and still doesn't reduce the expected
result to zero.  (I'll try and get references for this reasoning, 
if you insist.  I picked up most of this from a David Brin editorial 
in Analog, several years ago.  Brin comes across as an intelligent
guy when he's not writing fiction.)  

Part I does make a good point: there are presumably competing
effects that could be suppressing the beserkers.  The trouble is
that the reason we started talking about beserkers in the first
place is as an explanation for the absence of observed aleins.
If there are no beserkers we ought to be seeing non-beserkers.
The explanation that Gregory Benford goes for in his novels 
(ACROSS THE SEA OF SUNS etc.) is that the beserker's *have* wiped
out almost everyone, but that long ago the watchdogs in our system
were destroyed and have not yet been replaced.  This works as
a hypothetical explanation of the Fermi paradox, because it postulates 
a *local* occurence, making *us* a special case, rather than trying
to postulate some weird effect that causes *all* intelligent races to 
self-destruct.  (Benford comes across as an intelligent guy even when 
he is writing fiction.) 

(BTW, There's an extension to John Kessel's reasoning that I might propose: 
A planet that's been attacked by beserkers might come to the 
conclusion that the best defense against future attacks is to 
release their own version of beserkers...)  

-- Joe B. 

(J.JBRENNER@MACBETH.STANFORD.EDU  Materials Science Dept/Stanford, CA 94306)

------------------------------

Date: 13 Sep 88 20:53:05 GMT
From: cs.utexas.edu!sm.unisys.com!markb@husc6.harvard.edu  (Mark Biggar)
Subject: Re: Are we ready for terraforming???

In article <4468@brspyr1.BRS.Com> miket@brspyr1.BRS.Com (Mike Trout) writes:
>> > >(Jim Giles) writes:
>> > Well, it does appear that a single asteroid hitting Australia wiped
>> > out the dinosaurs. 
<Why did so many non-dinosaur reptiles survive?  Snakes, turtles, lizards,
<crocodilians, and such appear to have suffered no such losses at the time.
<And it doesn't have anything to do with size, either.  Although most of the
<"big" dinosaurs get all the attention, most dinosaurs actually were not all
<that large--many were no larger than modern-day lizards, and their average size
<seems to be little different from today's crocodilians.  Yet not one single
<dinosaur, regardless of size, survived whatever it was.  It's difficult to
<come up with a plausible scenario in which all dinosaurs die and most lizards
<live, even though biologically they are extremely similar.  A baffling
<mystery, to say the least.

But, the current theories say that lots of dinosaurs DID survive.  Their
desendents are still around in great varity, filling many ecological
nitches.  Their called BIRDS.  Fossil evidence has been found to show that
many small dinosaurs may have been covered in feathers.

Mark Biggar
{allegra,burdvax,cbosgd,hplabs,ihnp4,akgua,sdcsvax}!sdcrdcf!markb
markb@rdcf.sm.unisys.com

------------------------------

Date: 12 Sep 88 23:07:45 GMT
From: att!ihlpl!knudsen@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Knudsen)
Subject: Re: SETI and sea mammals

One theory I've read debunks the notion of intelligent
porpoises by stating that the porpoise's large brain functions
mostly to form mental images of sonar data from received sounds.
Also much of their communications may be attempts to re-project
these images to other dolphins.

In short, much of their brain size may be specialized for this
one task (most of the processing power on a modern submarine
is also for sound imaging!), so not that much is
left for "intelligence."

BTW, whales and porpoises still curiously swim toward,
or at least fail to avoid, human ships.
If whales have memory and communication and haven't learned
to avoid ships by now, they're dumber than most land mammals.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #384
*******************
