This note is being sent to all new people on the SPACE mailing list. It is being distributed through SAIL once a day in rough digest format. Mail to SPACE@MIT-MC will collect in a file at SAIL and be sent out at about 4:00 AM PST. The topics to be covered will not be constrained but are expected to include things like space colonization, solar power satellites and the like. A log of mail sent to this list is being kept in the file SPACE.LOG[SPA,OTA] at SAIL. You can type or FTP this file with out an account. Any comments, complains, or requests pertaining to this list should be directed to me, Ted Anderson (OTA@SAIL) 22-Nov-80 0009 OTA First message To: "@SPACE.DIS[1,OTA]" at SU-AI This is the first message on the SPACE mailing list. If you have a questions, complaints, requests or whatever direct them to me (OTA@SAIL). Judging from the messages directed to mostly to ENERGY this list is like to deal with space colonization and exploration. Though the topics will hardly be constrained. Due to various problems with using ITS as a hub for this mailing list I am going to try to coordinate it from SAIL. Please continue to send contributions to this list to SPACE@MC from there it will be collected in a file at SAIL for once per day distribution at about 5AM PST. Hopefully this scheme will minimize the load for all concerned and the batch nature of the list will not cramp the discussion much. Ted Anderson (OTA@SAIL) 22-Nov-80 0500 OTA To: "@SPACE.DIS[1,OTA]" at SU-AI 22-Nov-80 0030 OTA at MIT-MC (Owen T. Anderson) space mailing list Date: 22 NOV 1980 0330-EST From: OTA at MIT-MC (Owen T. Anderson) Subject: space mailing list To: SPACE at MIT-MC Date: 21 Nov 1980 2218-EST From: KING at RUTGERS Subject: space mailing list To: ota at MIT-MC cc: king at RUTGERS Please include me in the SPACE mailing list. I even have a "half-baked" idea to introduce myself with. Many people must have heard of the "space leotard" concept, where a person dons a tight-fitting porous elastic suit with a helmet for EVA work. I submit the following: A normal blood pressure is about 110 mmHg, and probably less in zero-G. A partial Oxygen pressure of about 150 mmHg is normal, and people could do quite well on about 100. If I put a helmet full of pure oxygen at 100 mm over my head, attached to a girdle around my chest and abdomen and (for a man) genitals, my arms and legs would probably be reasonably comfortable with fluid pressures of 220 mm or so. The engineering problem of supporting every concavity disappears. One objection to both this and a space leotard system is that each sweat gland would grow a salt crystal. Would this really make trouble, or would the crystals grow to a certain small size and then be kicked out by the vapor? Also, does a "turned off" sweat gland close tightly enough to give the body control over its cooling? 23-Nov-80 0500 OTA To: "@SPACE.DIS[1,OTA]" at SU-AI 22-Nov-80 1514 TAW at SU-AI Space Leotards Date: 22 Nov 1980 1457-PST From: TAW at SU-AI Subject: Space Leotards To: space at MIT-MC As you are probably aware, Jerry Pournelle has written quite a bit about the leotard-type spacesuit. Not too long ago, I had the opportunity to mention the concept to a guy who is doing some spacesuit related research for NASA Ames. Surprisingly (to me at least) he had never even heard of the idea. One point that this fellow brought out is the problem of the neck seal. Since the suit is supposed to be porous, to allow the sweat glands to regulate temperature, how can the air pocket of the helmet area be bonded to the tight-fitting suit and its occupant with an adequate pressure seal? This problem has probably been solved, since I am aware (via Dr. Pournelle) of some (limited) testing of a prototype suit some years ago. I would be interested in learning of that solution, if it indeed exists. As for the salt crystals, wouldn't any motion of the suit wearer tend to dislodge and break off such crystals?? Except perhaps on some places (near the lower back area???) that would not move much no matter what the occupant did. However, this presents another problem. Salt crystals wedged between skin and suit cannot be very comfortable. -- Tom Wadlow !22-Nov-80 1540 TAW at SU-AI When Sagan talks, do people listen??? Date: 22 Nov 1980 1538-PST From: TAW at SU-AI Subject: When Sagan talks, do people listen??? To: space at MIT-MC Nation In Danger of Losing Its Edge In Space, Sagan Says PHOENIX, Ariz. (AP) - The United States is in danger of losing its edge and its expertise in the exploration of space, astronomy professor Carl Sagan said Friday. Sagan, who wrote, produced and narrates the current popular science series ''Cosmos'' on public television, said the United States ''has been nosediving'' for several years because of cutbacks in projects and funding while the space exploration efforts of other nations have been rising. Yet such planetary exploration efforts as Voyager I's flight past Saturn, with the answers it is providing in long-asked questions while at the same time posing new riddles, is both beneficial and relatively inexpensive, said Sagan, who teaches at Cornell University. Addressing the final luncheon of the Associated Press Managing Editors Association's annual convention, Sagan said the Voyager project costs one cent per world for every inhabitant of Earth - and has found 20 to 30 new worlds. One of the worlds that have come under the gaze of Voyager I, Saturn's moon Titan, has an atmosphere from which it appears that large, complex organic or carbon-based molecules have been raining for billions of years, Sagan said. For this and other reasons, it may be that activity on Titan is much like the steps which led to life on Earth, which makes Titan a ''target of greatest significance for future exploration,'' Sagan said. -------------------------- !22-Nov-80 2301 Ted Anderson What do the Russians want with Venus? Date: 22 Nov 1980 2300-PST From: Ted Anderson Subject: What do the Russians want with Venus? To: space at MIT-MC Consider this: n043 1248 22 Nov 80 BC-VENUS By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD c. 1980 N.Y. Times News Service NEW YORK - The Soviet Union is planning four missions in the next five years to land robot spacecraft on Venus and is using new American radar maps of the cloud-enveloped planet to select the landing sites, according to an American planetary scientist. ... For the time being, the Soviet Union seems to have abandoned exploration of any planets other than Venus. There have been no Soviet flights to the Moon since Luna 24, which returned a lunar soil sample in 1976, and no flights to Mars since 1974, when Mars 7 failed in a landing attempt. In fact, no Soviet mission to Mars has succeeded. No Soviet missions have ever been launched to Mercury or the outer giants, Jupiter and Saturn. (the rest of the story available upon request) So are the Russians thinking of terraforming venus perhaps? Does any one know what the current thought on such a project are? How hard would it be? How much mass would have to be imported? How long would it take? 24-Nov-80 0501 OTA To: "@SPACE.DIS[1,OTA]" at SU-AI 23-Nov-80 2224 POURNE at MIT-MC (Jerry E. Pournelle) brtass brassieres Date: 24 NOV 1980 0124-EST From: POURNE at MIT-MC (Jerry E. Pournelle) Subject: brtass brassieres To: SPACE at MIT-MC, OTA at SU-AI The REPORT which tells all is from Paul Webb, Webb Associates Yellow Springs OHIO. Exact reference is given I believe in my article on the subject. The neck seal works. The Space Activity Suit has not, of course, been tested in zero gee. It has been recommended to the new space team. JEP !24-Nov-80 0353 Hank.Walker@CMUA (Sent by DUFFEY) NASA budget From: Hank.Walker@CMUA (Sent by DUFFEY) Date: 11/24/80 06:54:03 Subject: NASA budget Hank.Walker@CMUA (Sent by DUFFEY) 11/24/80 06:54:03 Re: NASA budget To: Space at MIT-MC Date: 20 November 1980 2034-EST On the CBS Evening News today, Jack Kemp (R-Buffalo) was featured on a report on how to hack the budget. He said that probably not much could be done next year, but growth could be held down in the future by limiting budget growth of various things, one of which was NASA. This was not because of any dislike of space, but simply because it is one of the "controllables", unlike welfare, etc, that take an act of Congress to adjust spending. Since he is close to Reagan, this view may be shared by others. 25-Nov-80 0500 OTA To: "@SPACE.DIS[1,OTA]" at SU-AI SPACE Digest !24-Nov-80 0532 DREIFU at WHARTON (Henry Dreifus) From the AP, Re: NASA Space Shutle. Date: 24 Nov 1980 (Monday) 0832-EDT From: DREIFU at WHARTON (Henry Dreifus) Subject: From the AP, Re: NASA Space Shutle. To: space at MIT-MC 3 Space Shuttle,390 Shuttle Rollout Again Delayed CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - The 300-yard move of the Space Shuttle Columbia from its hangar to the building where it will be hoisted into a vertical position was delayed so crews could fit the craft with a protective skin of tile, officials said. The shuttle was to have been moved to the nearby Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center early Sunday, but officials of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration sqid the move would take place no earlier than late today. The shuttle, however, is expected to be launched as planned by March 1981. ''We're almost there,'' shuttle program spokesmen John Yardley told reporters Sunday. ''Since we scheduled the Columbia move in July, I think everyone has done a fantastic job and I'm not ashamed at all. There was a lot more work than we planned.'' The project is three years behind schedule and has had a $4 billion cost overrun. One of the biggest headaches in the entire Columbia program has been the installation and testing of 31,000 lightweight silica tiles which will protect it and its crew from the scorching temperatures of re-entry into the atmosphere. Intensive testing of the thermal protection system has been the key factor in repeated launch delays and cost overruns. The original cost estimate of $5.1 billion has soared to more than $8.8 billion, according to NASA officials. Yardley, assistant administrator for Space Transportation Systems Acquisition at NASA headquarters, said the last tile was fitted into place Sunday morning and the last of the gap-filler was being applied Sunday evening. The filler goes in the tiny expansion joints between each of the thousands of pieces of thermal tile, each of which has been individually contoured to fit the shuttle's skin. When the move is finally made, the ungainly, delta-wing aerospace craft will take a slow, 300-yard journey behind a tow tractor to the assembly building. There, its cautious handlers will attach a cradle-like sling around its tubby white-and-gray belly and hoist it into a vertical position. They will retract its landing gear, pull it high overhead and gently lower it into High Bay No. 3 for attachment to its huge external fuel tank and twin rocket boosters. After several weeks of various tests in the VAB, Columbia is to move to the launch pad shortly after Christmas and will undergo a brief flight-readiness test firing on February 7. !24-Nov-80 1107 J. Noel Chiappa Write in campaign... Date: 24 Nov 1980 1406-EST From: J. Noel Chiappa Subject: Write in campaign... To: space at MIT-MC cc: JNC at MIT-XX Well, it sounds like it's time to get a write-in campaign organized to Congress as well as the Executive to cut some of those "uncuttable" programs and spend money one something USEFUL for a change. "Uncuttable" - my foot. All that means is that they don't have the b***s to cut it because of the flak. MMaybe they ought to find out that the get flak for not cutting them. I don't object to helping people, but when they are eating seed grain to do it I do. Noel ------- !24-Nov-80 1157 Jim McGrath Voyager news stories Date: 24 Nov 1980 0853-PST From: Jim McGrath Subject: Voyager news stories To: space at MIT-MC For those of you who did not know, a file containing ALL the New York Times and AP news wire stories about the Voyager mission is publicly available at SAIL. The file is VOYGER.NS[T,JPM]. You can FTP this file from SAIL without an account. Jim 25-Nov-80 1700 OTA SPACE Digest To: "@SPACE.DIS[1,OTA]" at SU-AI Administrivia: Hopefully from know on these messages will contain a subject field. Also an alias name for the mailing list now exists: SPACE-ENTHUSIASTS@MC. I know its longer but its use is recomended. SPACE@MC will continue to exist but there have been some ambiguity problems with the shorter name and it may go away. !25-Nov-80 1129 TAW at SU-AI Shuttle landings (real and fictional) Date: 25 Nov 1980 1125-PST From: TAW at SU-AI Subject: Shuttle landings (real and fictional) To: SPACE at MIT-MC, SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI If I am not mistaken, the Columbia will be landing at Edwards AFB (near L.A.) after her initial launch (supposedly on Mar 14) and 3 day mission. Does anyone know if there is some place near Edwards with a reasonable view of the landing field, where normal human non-military, non-press types are allowed?? Since it is unlikely that I will get to KSC for the launch, I would at least like to see the landing, if possible. Anybody else want to go??? Regarding Shuttle landings, there is what appears to be an excellent story in the current issue of ANALOG magazine, called 'Shuttle Down'. (I say 'appears to be' because it is the first part of four, so be warned.) It concerns a post-launch engine malfunction and emergency landing of the Atlantis. I recommend it. -- Tom COMMENT  VALID 00001 PAGES C REC PAGE DESCRIPTION C00001 00001 C00002 ENDMK C; 27-Nov-80 0501 OTA SPACE Digest To: "@SPACE.DIS[SPA,OTA]" at SU-AI ---------------------------------------- Date: 26 Nov 1980 0515-PST From: Ted Anderson Subject: old space mail archive To: space at MIT-MC I am keeping a log of all mail to the SPACE mailing list in the file: SPACE.LOG[SPA,OTA] on SAIL. You can type or FTP this file from SAIL without and account (as you probably know by now). Hopefully this mailing of the digest will finally be in a reasonably polished form. Please excuse my experimenting in the several previous editions. ---------------------------------------- From: DUFFEY@MIT-AI Date: 11/26/80 08:22:41 Subject: Where to obtain copies of the Voyager newswire stories DUFFEY@MIT-AI 11/26/80 08:22:41 Re: Where to obtain copies of the Voyager newswire stories To: Space-enthusiasts at MIT-MC CC: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Recently Jim gave a pointer to a SU-AI file containing copies of all the AP/NYT wire stories on the Voyager mission. I would like to remind everyone that the file is quite large (approx. 0.25 Mbyte). For your convenience and to avoid problems with many people copying the material onto their systems, SF-LOVERS has made the material available from files at each of the sites listed below. Due to the large volume of material, RUTGERS has chosen to make it available from a BBOARD rather than simply from a file. A copy of this material will remain available from the SF-LOVERS permanent archives. Thanks also go to Richard Brodie, Richard Lamson, Doug Philips, and Jon Solomon for their work to maintain the material on their systems. Site Filename MIT-AI AI:DUFFEY;SFLVRS VOYGER CMUA TEMP:VOYAGE.UPD[A210DP0Z] MIT-Multics >udd>SysMaint>Lamson>sf-lovers>voyager-news.text PARC-MAXC [Maxc]Voyager.TXT SU-AI VOYGER.NS[T,JPM] [Note, you can TYPE or FTP the file from SAIL without an account.] Rutgers At Rutgers the Voyager material will be available from the VOYAGER BBOARD. This BBOARD is being updated automatically twice daily. Rutgers people interested in keeping abreast of the Voyager I results should execute BBOARD VOYAGER in their customary way (ie. in your LOGIN.CMD, BBoard.CMD, manually, etc.) ---------------------------------------- Date: 26 Nov 1980 1616-EST From: HANS.MORAVEC at CMU-10A Subject: Audiophilia To: space-enthusiasts at MIT-MC Last week the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette carried an article about a local doctor who (as a sideline) is able to identify piece and orchestra by simply looking at the grooves of classical records for a few seconds. The Voyagers carry gold records with sounds and sights of earth, and a stylus and cartridge to play it. But what do make of the observation from the high resolution pictures of Saturn's rings, with their thousands of grooves, that the ring system has all the features of a 45rpm singles disc? And why are the Saturnians using an obsolete format? Radio doesn't take that long to get there. ---------------------------------------- Date: 27 NOV 1980 0305-EST From: VAD at MIT-MC (Al Walker) Subject: Fones and things To: SPACE at MIT-MC I suppose I should say welcome to the club. But first, your inquir entry is a bit blatant about screwing the fern system and makes you sound like some kind of nut, not a person with a technical interest in communication stuff. I suggest you change that. what kinds of hackery are you into? like, introduce yourself to us! 28-Nov-80 0501 OTA SPACE Digest To: "@SPACE.DIS[SPA,OTA]" at SU-AI ---------------------------------------- Date: 27 Nov 1980 1213-PST From: Rod Brooks Subject: Three man Soyuz. To: space-enthusiasts at MIT-MC a089 0847 27 Nov 80 BC-Soviet Space,40 URGENT MOSCOW (AP) - The Soviet Union sent three cosmonauts into space Thursday aboard a Soyuz T-3 spacecraft, Radio Moscow announced. The radio broadcast said all systems were functioning normally aboard the craft. - - - - - - a091 0915 27 Nov 80 BC-Soviet Space, 1st add, a089,130 URGENT MOSCOW: the craft The cosmonauts were identified as Oleg Makarov, 47, the flight engineer making his fourth space flight; Leonid Kizim, a 39-year-old former air force pilot who is the commander of the ship, and Gennady Strekalov, 40, a research engineer. It is the first space mission for Kizim and Strekalov, but the sixth manned spacecraft launched by the Soviets this year. The broadcast said the crew is to continue testing a new spaceship of the Soyuz T series. It made no mention of the length of the flight, nor provide any details about the liftoff. According to the radio report, the spaceship has computer equipment designed to help pilot the craft. It said the previous two tests of similar spaceships were successful. - - - - - - a202 0932 27 Nov 80 BC-Soviet Space, 2nd add, a091,90 MOSCOW: were successful Only last month, Soviet cosmonauts Valery Ryumin and Leonid Popov completed the longest space flight in history, 185 days. They spent virtually the entire flight aboard the orbiting Soviet space station, Salyut 6. There was no word from the official Moscow media if the three new cosmonauts would link with the space station, which has been in orbit more than three years. Makarov, a veteran of the Soviet space program, made his first flight, which lasted only two days, in 1973. He joined the space program in 1966. * * * * * * ---------------------------------------- Date: 28 NOV 1980 0052-EST From: POURNE at MIT-MC (Jerry E. Pournelle) Subject: Please, can't we just drop the subject? To: SPACE-ENTHUSIASTS at MIT-MC LATEE@MIT-AI 11/27/80 23:23:05 in response to: "have we any good suggestions for using high technology to DO GOOD? almost everyone in these labs belives that they are using high technology to DO GOOD? The question is what is meant by good? To whom is the technology to benefit? how is it beneficial? at what costs? what tradeoffs? The work in medical research, Logo and the handicapped, and robotics could all be argued to be GOOD uses of technology. However, many unskilled laborers would argue the opposing view. With our economic set-up, we are constantly forced to choose between causes and uses of funds. There has never been a clean line. The best one can do is to build and support your own views and be tolerant of others. There is no right and wrong, there are only differences. If you could specify what type of suggestions you are looking for, you may find responses more supportive. ------------------------------------- I think under the circumstances, let's forget the whole thing. Sorry I bothered you. For those few who don't know, "black hole" is an astronomical term for an object of some gravity; it has no racial connotations as far as I know. The Russians, to be sure, do not use the term because in Russian the literal translation of "black hole" is an obscenity which means about what you thnk it does, and so their official term is "frozen star"; but since the rest of the world uses Black Hole (I even have a book out with that title, BLACK HOLES, edited by J E Pournelle, Fawcett, 1979) even the Russians are coming around, prudes though they are. Given the kinds of responses I am getting to my suggestion, I regret making it; and fo God's sake, no one was coerced into replying. I have learned a lot... JEP 29-Nov-80 0500 OTA SPACE Digest To: "@SPACE.DIS[SPA,OTA]" at SU-AI ---------------------------------------- Date: 29 NOV 1980 0133-EST From: VAD at MIT-MC (Al Walker) To: SPACE at MIT-MC Apologies for the recent load of stuff that has reached you all by mistake, through confusion about names. The mail intended for FERNS went to some user called SPACE at AI, and wound up going to you also. Oh well.. this shouldn't happen again, if it does let me know. In the meantime could I join your list? What's it really about? Sounds interesting.. Thanx, Hobbit 30-Nov-80 0500 OTA SPACE Digest To: "@SPACE.DIS[SPA,OTA]" at SU-AI 01-Dec-80 0500 OTA SPACE Digest To: "@SPACE.DIS[SPA,OTA]" at SU-AI 02-Dec-80 0500 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 02 Dec 1980 0423-PST From: Ted Anderson Subject: Administrivia To: space at MIT-MC The reason that people have been getting empty digests is that no one has been sending any mail. Hopefully I have arranged for it to not send anything if there is no mail at all. The digest format problem should be cleared up by this edition as well. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 03-Dec-80 0500 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 2 Dec 1980 1738-EST From: HANS.MORAVEC at CMU-10A Subject: OTRAG back To: space-enthusiasts at MIT-MC excerpts from Dec 1, 1980 Avaiation Week and Space Technology p 18 - 20 OTRAG LOCATES ROCKET TESTING ON LIBYAN SITE BRUSSELS - Privately financed low-cost rocket launch vehicle program under development by West Germany's Orbital Transport und Raketen Aktiengesellschaft (Otrag) has set up a launch and test site in Libya where it has alraedy conducted three launches this year and has a fourth rocket launch test scheduled before January 1981. Otrag officials in Munich told AWST that the new launch facilities were set up seven months ago about 600 m1. south of Tripoli in the Sahara Desert after Libya's leader Col. Muammar Gaddafi agreed to permit the privately run company to conduct rocket firings on Libyan territory for no charge. ... article talks about the political problems that drove Otrag out of Zaire in 1979 ... The test site is 1-3 km^2 with thousands of sq km of empty desert all around. The Otrag program has to date in Libya lifted a payload of 512 kg. in a single stage suborbital rocket launch. Successful launches this year at the Libyan site included three firings with a duration of 8 minutes for one launch. The fourth flight is scheduled to reach an altitude of 250-300 km with a similar downrange distance as the other flights. The fourth launcher will be 15 m in length, 12 m for fuel tanks, a 1 m payload and 2 m long engines. The launcher will be powered by four clustered throttleable kerosene/nitric acid engines producing 6,600 lb. of thrust each, with engines engines seperately throttleable in response to signals from an inertial platform in the upper stage. ...lots more background ... ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 04-Dec-80 0500 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 4 DEC 1980 0143-EST From: SGR at MIT-MC (Stephen G. Rowley) Subject: Looong message about cost to sync orbit. To: SPACE at MIT-MC This message is kind of long. It also contains some math. (if you passed freshman mechanics, it should be no problem...) Basically, it calculates the energy costs of going to synchronous orbit. The other day some one gave me some figures on the cost of boosting one pound to LEO by various means (I have no idea about their accuracy): Saturn booster: ~$2000/lb Shuttle ~$200 /lb HLLV ~$20 /lb This got me to thinking: what is the absolute CHEAPEST ticket I could buy to see the building of SPS #47? That is to say, does fundamental physics impose any limits to the cost of getting to synchronous earth orbit? The only limit I was able to come up with was the cost of the energy used in transportation. So let's figure out the energy difference and compare it with the cost of a kilowatt-hour of electricity: Consider a spherical planet of radius R, mass M, rotational period w. Add a particle of mass m at a distance from the center r, rotating with period w. It has 2 kinds of energy: rotational and potential. The rotational energy is given by 1 2 Erot = -- I w I = moment of inertia of particle 2 2 = m r for a reasonable sized ship. Thus 1 2 2 Erot = -- m r w [1] 2 The gravitational potential energy is given by G M m Egrav = - ------- r Since I never can remember the value of G, replace it by recalling the weight at the surface of a planet is due to gravity: G M m 2 m g = ------- ==> G M = g R 2 R Thus 2 g R m Egrav = - --------- [2] r So the total energy per unit mass is 2 E 1 2 2 g R --- = --- w r - ----- [3] m 2 r Now the fun starts: 1.) At the surface of the earth, r = R, so E 1 2 --- = R ( --- w R - g) [4] m 2 2.) At synchronous orbit, gravity provides the centripetal force, so 2 2 2 G M m g R m 3 g R m w r = ------- = -------- ==> r = --- 2 2 2 r r w Thus the energy per unit mass is E 1 / 2 4 2 \ 1/3 1 / 2 2 \ 1/3 --- = - --- | g R w | = - --- R | g w R | [5] m 2 \ / 2 \ / Thus we need only know the planet's radius, surface gravity, and rotational period. Both [4] and [5] yield negative numbers since the particle is bound. Now some numbers. For the earth, 2 6 g = 9.8 m/sec R = 6400 km = 6.4 x 10 m 2 pi 1 day -5 w = ----- ------------ = 7.28 x 10 /sec day 86,400 sec Thus 2 -2 2 w R = 3.39 x 10 m/sec << g (otherwise the planet falls apart!) So the difference is E | E | 6 d = ---| - ---| = 61.7 x 10 joules/kg m | m | |r=R |r=sync But one kilowatt-hour is 3.6 megajoules, so d = 17.2 kw-hr/kg. Electricity here in Boston costs around 7 cents per kilowatt-hour, so this is equivalent to $1.20/kg. Allowing ~150 kg for me and my suitcases, this comes to $180. I can't even fly home to Indiana for that... You can look at this 2 ways: 1.) The pessimist: our technology is crude and primitive. or 2.) The optimist: there's lots of room for research. -$teve ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 06-Dec-80 0126 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 5 DEC 1980 0427-EST From: POURNE at MIT-MC (Jerry E. Pournelle) Subject: Looong message about cost to sync orbit. To: SGR at MIT-MC, SPACE-ENTHUSIASTS at MIT-MC If you use Lunar materials it gets even cheaper. And if you use space-generated energy... ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 07-Dec-80 0501 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 6 Dec 1980 1147-EST From: KING at RUTGERS Subject: SPS automatic aiming To: energy at MIT-MC, space at MIT-MC I've been doing some thinking about SPS automatic aiming and mutliple targeting. GLOSSARY: power beam - a beam from a satellite to the ground that contains enough power to be useful pilot beam - a beam aimed at a satellite from the ground with the expectation that the satellite will return a power beam pilot source - a source of a pilot beam reference beam - any beam whose purpose is to synchronize anything with its phase. A system may contain many power beams and pilot beams but only a small fixed number of reference beams. reference source - obvious power reflector - a surface which receives pilot beams and on which each point returns a much stronger version of the incident pilot beam, with the intention that the combined wavefront formed by all of these amplified signal returns will be a set of power beams A corner power reflector type of satellite will not direct a power beam onto each pilot source. A wavefront that diverges when it goes into a corner reflector is still divergent when it comes out. A properly curved power reflector will form a clear image of pilot beams at a proper distance and close to the optical axis of the reflector, but I don't think any area bigger than New Jersey could be served by a single satellite. Aside from off-axis abberation, don't forget that the Earth curves away from the point beneath the satellite. Northern N. J. is 500KM further from an SPS than Southern N. J. REM's idea to have each point of his power reflector negate the phase of the pilot beam(s) at each point will work, but it has a couple of problems: 1) the surface must be "optically" flat to 1/4 wavelength or better. This is over an area of hundreds or thousands of square KM, even for the extended destination version. Don't forget that space isn't quite perfect 0G (lunar & solar tides, centrifugal force (the satellite rotates), solar wind, an occasional grain of sand) 2) The reference must be synchronous over the extent of the satellite. I don't know enough relativity to know whether this is possible even in principle. 3) The power beam will hit where the pilot beam WAS .2 sec ago. (Before you note that the Michelson-Moreley experiment indicates that the Earth-Satellite's common motion cannot be detected, note that that only refers to LINEAR motion, not the common ROTATION.) The Earth rotates about the satellite at about 1 KM/sec, so the aim will be about 200 meters "off". Acceptable for a stationary receiver array - not for a plane or a car. My solution is a power hologram. Steps: 1) build a reference source at any convenient point on the Earth's surface, aimed at the SPS. 2) build any pilot beams you want 3) at each point of the power reflector, send out radiation, in phase with the REFERENCE SOURCE, if & only if the sum of the pilot beams received at that point is more in phase with than out of phase with the reference beam. Holograms seem to work even when the film is developed for full contrast (no gray), and whether negatives or positives are used. It even seems to reproduce gray tones. 4) If we build a second reference, to be used in step 3, which is located where the first reference WILL BE .2 seconds later, we even perform "leading" on the targets. 5) All beams, of course, have to be harmonics of the power beam frequency. I propose the second, third and fifth harmonics for reference, secondary and pilot beams: not necessarily in that order. Every other, third and fifth cycle should be missing from the various beams. Someone better informed in microwave technology can probably come up with something better. Although my approach would waste half of the points of the power reflector at any time, I suspect that each pof the elements would be cheaper than one of REM's phase negating elements. By the way, the idea of a terrorist setting up a pilot beam is not reasonable. At proposed power beam densities, having a power beam aimed at you for a long time would not meet Federal standards and probably has risks, but if a terrorise says "do this or I will aim a power beam at New York for as long as it takes you to find my clandestine pilot source" your response would be: (yawn) so what? ------- ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 08-Dec-80 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 7 DEC 1980 1000-EST From: OTA at MIT-MC (Owen T. Anderson) Subject: SPS aiming To: ENERGY at MIT-MC Date: 6 Dec 1980 2028-EST From: HANS.MORAVEC at CMU-10A . . . The velocity of a synchronous SPS with respect to the equator is 2.4 km/sec. In the 1/4 second round trip the relative distance is 600 meters. At different latitudes the shift is different; there is none at the poles. Actually the shift is different for different LONGITUDES as well. Right under the satellite the relative motion is 2.4 km/s parallel to the ground. About 5000 km west, the satellite relative velocity vector is slightly greater in magnitude, but points directly towards the center of the earth! A priori leading doesn't work except for very localized areas. As I understand the definition of a geo-synchronous satellite it is a satellite that is situated so that it has no motion with respect to the equator (if it is in an equatorial orbit. What are you people talking about here? ------------------------------ Date: 7 DEC 1980 1214-EST From: REM at MIT-MC (Robert Elton Maas) Subject: SPS aiming To: OTA at MIT-MC CC: SPACE at MIT-MC In the rotating frame of reference there is no relative motion, but that isn't a newtonian frame so you can't use commonsense laws of physics. In a newtonian frame that is momentarily fixed with respect to either the sattelite or the ground, there is a relative motion (velocity) of the other. This causes the transit-of-signal phenomen where beaming a signal up and letting it return via what seems at the reflector to be the same path turns out to strike a place different from where it originally was beamed up. I think HPM was wrong about velocity being zero at the poles. In fact the relative velocity is greatest at the poles because instead of the instantaneous relative velocity being the difference between the rotation speed of the Earth and the orbital speed of the satellite, you have just the orbital speed of the satellite minus zero. Also the Earth is 4000 miles further away so the signal takes longer, making the signal land even further away. Note that I haven't taken into account general relativity due to gravitation of the Earth and instantaneous rate of rotation of the spacecraft. My analysis is just based on Newtonian mechanics from the frame of the satellite, or equivalently special relativity when viewed from the ground (the satellite is foreshortened and time-skewed causing it not to be a true corner reflector, but that analysis is too messy so I prefer to use the satellite frame). ------------------------------ Date: 08 Dec 1980 0347-PST From: Ted Anderson Subject: Administrivia To: space at MIT-MC This digest and those following it will be mailed out a 4AM pacific time so as to further reduce day time or near daytime load on east coast systems. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 11-Dec-80 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 09 Dec 1980 1548-PST From: Tom Wadlow Subject: Spaceship watching To: sf-lovers at MIT-MC, human-nets at MIT-MC, space-enthusiasts at MIT-MC CC: minsky at MIT-AI, pourne at MIT-MC, OTA at SU-AI Getting into Edwards AFB for the Space Shuttle Landing The Public Affairs Office at Edwards will be mailing out "Shuttle passes" that allow the bearer to enter the gate with ONE vehicle. That vehicle may contain any number of people. Passes may be obtained by writing a letter to: NASA Dryden Flight Research Center Public Affairs Office P.O. Box 273 Edwards, CA 93523 If you are planning to charter a bus, you should tell them how many buses will be in your party and the total number of people in your letter. They will get the appropriate pass(es) for you and provide you with a Person to Contact when you arrive. Pass distribution will begin in February, and passes will be sent out in the order that requests are received. Approximately 30,000 passes are available (30,000 x 4 people per car is a LOT of people!!!) and as of Dec 9 there were only 200 requests. They don't care as to corporate or academic affiliation for the most part. My partially reliable sources tell me that it will be HOT on the tarmac so plan accordingly. Better information will follow as I get it. -- Tom ------------------------------ Date: 10 DEC 1980 0052-EST From: SGR at MIT-MC (Stephen G. Rowley) Subject: analysis of SPS aiming "problem" To: ENERGY at MIT-MC CC: POURNE at MIT-MC, SPACE at MIT-MC There has been some confusion lately about remarks (due to HPM, I think...) that a geosynchronous satellite moves with respect to the equator, introducing an aiming problem, etc. Perhaps this message will be of help. The problem basically comes down to the fact that both the satellite and the rectenna are rotating, i.e., in a noninertial frame. The microwave photons, however, could not care less about this-- they will propagate in a straight line. Thus, the target "moves out from under the beam". More specifically: Let Ve = velocity of the surface of the earth at the equator Vs = velocity of the satellite in synchronous orbit. then Ve = w Re and Vs = w Rs where w is the angular frequency of the earth, Re is the radius of the earth, & Rs is the radius of synchronous orbit. Since these two velocities are in the same direction, there is a velocity difference of dV = w ( Rs - Re ) 2 Pi = ------------- * (42,340 km - 6400 km) 86,400 sec = 2.614 km/sec The time it takes the microwave photons to propagate down to the rectenna is given by dT = ( Rs - R )/c = (42,340km - 6400km)/ 300,000 km/sec = 0.1188 sec During that time delay, the velocity difference between the satellite and the surface builds up a distance of dS = Dv dT = 2.614 km/sec 0.1188 sec = 313 meters. These are, I believe, the numbers Hans quoted. Is this a "show-stopper?" No more than a flying duck is to duck-hunting: you simply have to lead your target a little, that's all. We're all too used to thinking of the velocity of light as infinite, so that when effects like this show up over distances of orbital size, they are a bit startling... Happy orbiting, $tev ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 17-Dec-80 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 16 Dec 1980 1810-PST From: Alan R. Katz Subject: Reagan and Space Policy To: space-enthusiasts at MIT-MC cc: katz at USC-ISIF, others: ; I just recieved the a letter from the L5 Society, part of which I reproduce below: Alan ------------------ To everyone who wants an expanded Space Program: A massive letter-writing campaing is now underway to influence the space policy of the Reagan Administration. Since Reagan's space policy is being formed now, now is the time to give your input. We are asking each and every person who desires an expanded American Space program to write a letter to President-elect Reagan by March, 1981. Besides stating your general interest in a renewed space effort, we ask that your letter specifically support the following two programs: 1. A permanently inhabited space station 2. Solar Power Satellites. Your letter should not exceed one page in length and may be as short as three senetences. Send your letter to: before Jan. 20 After Jan. 20 Office of the President-elect The White House 1726 M Street, NW 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Washington, DC 20270 Washington, DC 20500 This letter writing campaign was initiated by L-5 Society Board of Directors member and famed author, Dr. Jerry Pournelle. It is now being supported by a large coalition of space interest groups and publications (including the letter-writing network that successfully got the Space Shuttle re-named Enterprise). ....(there is more , but the important info is above--Alan) Signed: Mark Hopkins Chairman, L-5 Society Legislative Action Committee David Brandt-Erichsen National Coordinator, L-5 Phone Tree ------- ------------------------------ Date: 16 Dec 1980 1807-PST From: Alan R. Katz Subject: See the first Space Shuttle Launch To: space-enthusiasts at MIT-MC cc: katz at USC-ISIF, bboard at USC-ISIB, others: ; If you are interested in seeing the first space shuttle launch and live in California: The Rockwell Management Association, Space Chapter, is pleased to announce that arrangements are being concluded for a tour to view the first launch of the Space shuttle currently scheduled for the March 10 to march 31 period. Itinerary: Day 1 Depart Los angeles international Airport via regularly scheduled airlines for flight to Orlando Day 2 Welcome cocktail party from 5 pm to 6 pm. Briefing on launch details. Day 3 Launch at Kennedy Space Center, Gala celebration this evening Days 4-6 Free days, can go to Disney World. Also is a tour of the space center. This tour includes: Round trip Airfare 5 nights hotel accomadations in Orlando All transfers to and from the airport and Kennedy Space Center by deluxe motor coaches Cocktail party and gala celebration party Ticket book for Disney World Tour of Kennedy Space Center. Total cost per person (double occupancy in hotel ) will be between $500 and $700 (my sources tell me $650). If you are interested in reserving a place on this tour, send a $5 NON-REFUNDABLE deposit along with your name, business and home addresses and telephone numbers to: Launch Tour Reservations c/o R. E. Wroble Rockwell International Mail Code AA94 12214 Lakewood Blvd. Downey, Ca. 90241 Make checks payable to NMA Rockwell, California Chapter. For more information, contact R. E. (Dick) Wroble at (213)922-4635. The above information is abstracted (not word for word) from a flyer circulating at Rockwell. Apparently you do not have to work for Rockwell to be on the tour, but they expect many more people will want to go than they have room for (so if your interested, respond FAST). The $5 initial deposit will be applied to your fare, but is not refundable under any circumstances (such as the launch being postponed 2 years). If the launch gets postponed after the tour leaves for Florida, everyone is out of luck, NO REFUNDS (of course). When they determine the total cost they will ask for $100 deposites (should be sometime in Jan or early Feb). BEWARE: If you go on this trip, you will see the launch, but CANNOT see the landing since you will not get back in time. The reason for this is that if the launch gets postponed a few days, you will still be able to see it (if its more than a few days, your out of luck). Please do NOT send questions to me, I don't know any more about this than what I have already said. I do not work at Rockwell, I just know people who do. Alan ------- ------------------------------ Date: 16 Dec 1980 1804-PST From: Alan R. Katz Subject: Space Shuttle Pre-Launch Schedule To: space-enthusiasts at MIT-MC cc: katz at USC-ISIF The following appeared in Rockwell's publication "Countdown" dated Dec. 10, 1980 Columbia STS-1 Pre-Launch Milestones: Start Shuttle interface test Dec. 3-21 Start preparations for rollout and ordance installation Dec. 21 Transfer(rollout) of mated Shuttle from VAB to Launch Complex 39A Dec. 26 Rotating Service Structure positioned around Columbia Dec. 29 Payload Bay access test Jan. 4 Emergency Egress Test Jan. 5 Mobile Launch Platform water flow test Jan. 7 Main Propulsion System auto load and detank Jan. 11 Hazardous fluid servicing Jan. 17 STS-1 Mission Simulation (54.5 hours) Johnson Space Center Jan 20-22 Readiness Review approval for Flight Readiness Firing Jan 30 Start series of countdown demonstration test for flight readiness firing Jan 31 Start Mission Verification test Feb. 6 Flight Readiness Firing (20 seconds firing of all three main engines) Feb. 7 Launch Verification Tests Feb. 24-27 Start STS-1 Pre-launch countdown March 9 STS-1 Launch March 14 If all of the above take place sucessfully as scheduled, the launch will be on March 14. ( if you are interested in seeing the launch and live in California, see next message). Alan ------- ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 23-Dec-80 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 22 Dec 1980 1316-PST From: Ted Anderson Subject: Pioneer-venus To: space at MIT-MC I went to a talk this morning about the Pioneer-venus mission. I have heard surprisingly little about it in the general media except for the Radar mapping thing they completed recently. Appearently the impetus for this talk is the soon to be released, special edition, 800+ page, Journal of the Geophysical review. Unfortunately I don't remember the name of the journal so the above title is an almost certainly wrong. Question: Does anyone know what the real name of the journal is and how to get hold of that one issue. I would be interested in a copy if the price was "reasonable". ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 08-Jan-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Administrivia: Due the the SAIL file system crash just before christmas and my vacation at about the same time the space mailing list has not been working since about Dec 23. Anything sent to the digest since about the 23rd may have been lost though there isn't evidence of much activity. Apologies if you have recieved any of this before. ------------------------------ Date: 22 Dec 1980 1316-PST From: Ted Anderson Subject: Pioneer-venus To: space at MIT-MC I went to a talk this morning about the Pioneer-venus mission. I have heard surprisingly little about it in the general media except for the Radar mapping thing they completed recently. Appearently the impetus for this talk is the soon to be released, special edition, 800+ page, Journal of the Geophysical review. Unfortunately I don't remember the name of the journal so the above title is an almost certainly wrong. Question: Does anyone know what the real name of the journal is and how to get hold of that one issue. I would be interested in a copy if the price was "reasonable". ------------------------------ Date: 24 December 1980 03:00 est From: Schauble.Multics at MIT-Multics Subject: Long term projects???? To: space at MIT-AI, energy at MIT-AI The following is an excerpt from the Scientist of the Year Lecture given by Jacob Rabinow at the National Bureau of Standards. It may offer an insight into some of the problems associated with large projects. = = = = = = = = = ... And talking about vulgarities brings me to another subject that I was going to touch upon today but only for a short time. That is the fact that most of the management of our largest commercial and industrial empires is not, technically speaking, quite vulgar. We have people who are bookkeepers, accountants, or "bean counters" running tremendous empires, and because they can only understand money, they take a short-term view. I used to think that they take the view expressed by the words: "What will be the bottom line next year?" I was told by several people that this is a little optimistic. They like to know the profit picture every three months, by quarterly reports. If the quarterly reports show that you are not making money they fire you, and if you are making money, they promote you. In either case, you will not be there a couple of years from now, so why bother to plan for the future? - - - - - - End of quoted text - - - - - - One of the theoretical advangates of capitalism is diversity. If eighteen different people set out to solve the same problem, they will very likely pick eighteen different methods. The ones that pick workable methods will get rich and the other will go broke, thus the good methods survive and get propagated. Just like evolution. Currently, just about every major business in the country is run by managers trained in a particular set of methods. These are the managements techniques as taught by the Harvard Business School and Stanford. Because of the prestige of these two schools, almost every other business school teaches very similar things. Because managers hire other managers, there is a string prejudice towards hiring people trained in these familiar techniques. So, we have every major business run by basically the same methods. If this set of methods is defective, and I believe that it is, it could damage EVERY business in the country. Furthermore, since the methods taught include the methods for evaluating the success of the methods, and since everyone is using the same methods, you can't discover the failure either by internal techniques or by comparison with other businesses in the country. I suspect that most of us lack the business administration training necessary to fully appreciate the following story. I know I do. Suppose that Earth is contacted by Aliens. They make us a very interesting offer. They will give us unlimited energy sources, space travel, full access to their technology and that of all of the civilizations in the Galaxy. This will end material and energy shortages, remove all medical problems, and in general free us from all material wants. There is only one catch: At the end of 1000 years, every then living member of the human race will be painlessly rendered sterile. Our scientists examine samples of their records and devices, and use the Alien's communication systems to check out their references with other civilizations. The conclusion is that the Aliens are quite capable of doing exactly what they say, and in all known past dealings that anyone has had with this race, their word has been good. Question: Should we accept their offer? Justify you answer using a standard cost-benefit analysis. I have put this question to several business types. I have yet to find anyone who would accept the offer, nor have I found anyone who could tell me why not. If the analysis techniques taught to most managers would cause them to accept this offer, what does this say about other decisions made using the same tools? And consider that the tools are the same in almost all businesses. ------------------------------ Date: 7 January 1981 0438-EST (Wednesday) From: Hans Moravec at CMU-10A (R110HM60) To: space-enthusiasts at MIT-MC Subject: self sustaining micro ecologies CC: Hans Moravec at CMU-10A From the Games section of the January 1981 Omni, p117: ... Another runner-up prize went to Glenn Jenkins, of Kent, Washington, who asked for a self-contained and self-sustaining environment of living things, plant and animal, that would last long enough to prove that a life cycle had developed. We learned later that this goal has already been reached. Roger James Malyk, a teacher at the Centennial Regional High School, in Greenfield Park, Quebec, wrote to say that his school has FOUR such ecosystems that are air- and watertight and totally self-supporting. The oldest is eight years old. "They contain abundant plant life and a variety of insect species," Malyk writes. "Sunlight is the only form of direct energy input, and the plants and animals reproduce themselves and have balanced themselves in terms of population size and food supply." We have decided to let Jenkins keep his $25. ... ------------------------------ Date: 7 January 1981 2026-EST (Wednesday) From: Hans Moravec at CMU-10A (R110HM60) To: space-enthusiasts at MIT-MC Subject: lots of science for sterilization in 1000 years I'd jump at the offer. With all that science there would be a billion alternatives to keep the race (probably in non-biological form by then) going. Heck, we have them now. This is a special case of the general rule that planning for the real long term at the expense of the immediate future is usually a ridiculous idea in circumstances that evolve unprdictably. Your model of the future is certainly wrong, and any plans you make are certainly inappropriate, and no better than random choices. If the plans cause you to lose in the short run, and gain nothing in the long run, you lose. Would it have been better if the users of whale oil for home lighting in the 19th century had conserved it for us, their descendents, 100 years in the future and incidentally deprived us of the scientific developments which were undoubtedly accelerated by the availability of late night light? Quarterly accounting is obably too frequent, five year plans may be ok, inflexible twenty year plans are a menace. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 09-Jan-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 9 Jan 1981 0248-EST From: HEDRICK at RUTGERS Subject: your story To: schauble.multics at MIT-MULTICS, space-enthusiasts at MIT-MC As a former professor of management science, I do have the business administration training to fully appreciate the story. The usual way of computing costs (and benefits) is to take an integral over time of the cost and/or benefit, multiplied by an exponentially decaying weighting factor. The exponential weight results in a finite value for this integral even when it is done to positive infinity. Thus 1000 years of benefits can outweigh costs occuring from 1000+ to infinity. The classical way to handle that particular calculation would be to take the benefits over the first 1000 years and compare it with the costs of having humanity end thereafter. This would be an opportunity cost, i.e. a set of benefits that might have happened but would not because no one would be there. Whether the net effect would be positive or negative would of course depend upon the relative values you assigned to the benefits and costs. The reason that the story makes a good joke is because one knows that with any reasonable coefficient for the exponential, the weight applied to the period from 1000+ to infinity would be so small that the weighted benefits would swamp the weighted costs enormously. But one feels intuitively that this is the wrong result. The message from Hans Moravec gave an excellent summary of why that particular mode of cost/benefit analysis is used. Basically, the future is so uncertain that we want to discount it in our planning. Some people use arbitrary time horizons such as 5 years in planning, but an exponentially decaying weight seems somehow more elegant (and for financial issues has the advantage that it meshes with the way interest and discounting works). However everyone who teaches these things realizes that all methods of this sort have their limits. I can tell you from experience that our students often do not gain as good an appreciation for the exact nature of the limits (despite what we may try to do in class). However they typically have a reasonable intuition, and in fact in this case the people the author talked to did seem to realize that their usual methods did not apply. I do not think you would have gotten a very different answer had you asked a bunch of engineers whether they would apply their usual techniques in some absurd situation. They would know that it was absurd, but I would not be surprised if they couldn't tell you (at least not immediately) exactly what assumptions of their methods were being violated. I claim that the basic problem with this is that a case has been constructed where exponentially decaying weights may not be appropriate. They are used for two different reasons, depending upon the type of item being analyzed: - for money, on short and medium time horizons, exponential weights are appropriate because by using banks, loans, bonds, stocks, and investments, we can really interchange N dollars now with N * exp (aT) dollars at time T. But this assumes the continued existence of the financial system. So for example if you were contemplating a decision that would cause the collapse of the western world, you might well not use the normal techniques of analysis. I suspect there may be techniques for dealing with this sort of case, but I don't know what they are, and I suspect your usual Harvard MBA doesn't either. - for other things, one uses decaying weights to approximate the fact that we simply aren't interested in taking into account consequences beyond a certain time period. I will not repeat the excellent justifications for this given by my colleague from CMU. However mathematics is simply a tool to help you do what you want. If you don't want to ignore the future, don't use that particular tool. I claim that the example here is one where you would not want your weights to decay to almost nothing by time 1000. Usually you say to yourself, "Well, I really have little idea what things are going to be like 1000 years from now, but no doubt folks will muddle through somehow. The impact of my decision will probably have decayed to under the noise level by then, and I really can't tell what it would be anyway." But it is clear that in this particular case, you can tell what the impact is going to be 1000 years from now and your decision will not have decayed to the noise level. Of course you also have to decide whether you care what happens to people 1000 years from now. If not, you may allow the exponential to take its course. (Or if you buy Moravec's argument that even in this case you can't tell what the consequences are going to be in 1000 years.) So I argue that there is ample reason to think that conventional cost-benefit analysis would not lead anyone to wrong conclusions for this case, if the person realizes that there are limits to them assumptions on which it is based. There is an additional issue lying behind here that some people might think is relevant. One hears many flames that cost-benefit analysis can't handle non-monetary items. I also wish that I had a better way to handle non-monetary items. But I think reducing them to dollars is probably about the best we can do, if we want to try to do any analysis at all. Most decisions for which this sort of analysis is done involve comparing costs and benefits of many different kinds. It is not just apples and oranges, but apples, oranges, peanuts, Kiwi fruit, etc. You might argue that some sort of intuitive process should be used that considers all of the consequences as discrete things, rather than reducing them to dollars. But when there are thousands of consequences, I think it is clear that the mind simply can't think of them at the same time. At this point I don't see what you can do other than reduce them to some common framework. This is where utility theory comes in. It shows that it does make sense to think of all costs and benefits as being gains and losses of a single quantity, "utility". Dollars are as good a unit as any in which to measure it. These mathematical models also provide some intriguing ways to measure the utility associated with various things (e.g. there are ways to measure implicitly the value a person places on his life, e.g. by seeing how much extra pay people need to get them to take dangerous jobs). Now anyone who knows the mathematics knows how tenuous the assumptions are on which it is based. On the other hand, they seem to have a certain plausbility, and I don't know of any better way to compare apples and oranges. As long as decisions of this sort have to be made, I think it is instructive at least to look at that sort of analysis. If nothing else, they make people realize what tradeoffs they are making. The American people clearly do not want to have infinitely expensive cars to gain epsilon in safety. They really do want safety and money to be traded off, and it is well to force people to come to grips with how that tradeoff is to be made. A friend of mine worked for some time applying utility theory to medical decisions in life-threatening situations. It is clear that the net effect of his work was to take seriously what the patient thought was important, and to get him involved in setting priorities. The alternative is to accept the naive view that human life is infinitely important, and that everything else should be sacrificed to keep a body breathing. Indeed the usual alternative to cost-benefit analysis seems to be to pick some single aspect of the situation, and allow it to dominate everything else. (What else could you do? - you can't really deal with them all.) ------- ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 10-Jan-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 9 Jan 1981 (Friday) 0947-EDT From: DREIFU at WHARTON-10 (Henry Dreifus) Subject: Space-Shuttle To: space at MIT-MC Begin forwarded messages Date: 9 Jan 1981 (Friday) 0943-EDT From: PATTI (Tony Patti) Subject: Quote from Time Magazine, 12-Jan-80 p. 10 u may enjoy: To: @HOT.MAI[4000,42]: The Space Shuttle "is controlled by more than 600,000 lines of exquisitely precise program code." [End forwarded messages] ------------------------------ Date: 09 Jan 1981 1145-PST From: Tom Wadlow Subject: Public support for space To: space-enthusiasts at MIT-MC 8 Jan 81 By FRANCIS X. CLINES c. 1981 N.Y. Times News Service WASHINGTON - The nation's space program Wednesday received $60,000 in donations from 10,000 individuals concerned that the Viking robot is still working busily on Mars but that space scientists have been too financially pressed to listen to it. ''Why on earth do we want to give money to the government?'' came the rhetorical question from Stan Kent, a 25-year-old space scientist who helped to organize the Viking charity when he realized that the space program was ebbing in public interest and political priority. ''Our message is hands off the space program if you want to cut the budget,'' he replied, as he handed the $60,000 check to government officials and promised at least $40,000 more to continue scientists' four-year-old Viking watch. The money was accepted at the National Air and Space Museum in a small, quiet ceremony that seemed poignant for some of the veterans from the space program's heyday a decade ago. Although the amount of money was relatively small, the officials appreciated Kent's resolve to see a revival of space exploration. ''The Apollo generation is coming of age,'' said Kent. He was thanked by Dr. Robert A. Frosch, the administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, who must decide what to do with the Viking robot, which could opirate through the end of this century, even if its messages are no longer full of surprises. The space agency already has shut down some non-stop moon probes because it could not afford to pay attention to their signals, and a similar fate threatens the Mars robot. Wednesday's donation will provide at least two additional months of study and analytical reports on data from the Viking 1 lander, which was the first spacecraft to undertake detailed scientific studies on the surface of another planet. Even though its soil scooper is no longer used, the robot has been automatically sending photographic and other information to Eartx every 37 days since it landed July 20, 1976. ''We really don't expect some big discovery,'' said George E. Cranston, executive secretary of the American Astronautical Society, a professional group that helped to organize the fund. ''But if you think about it, you have something almost alive up there - on Mars - and it keeps handing out signals. It kind of appeals to the imagination.'' The ceremony was next to a full-size model of the Viking, an insectlike craft, six feet high and 10 feet wide on its struts, displayed under the suspended Spirit of St. Louis monoplane. After gazing at the craft as if it were a modern sculpture, the assemblage tended to gather at a wheeled cart with coffee urns, stacked cups and donuts that seemed an earthly parody of the Viking. Outside in the snow, tourists pressed against the museum's large windowed wall, trying to figure out the transaction. After the space program's more spectacular events, people have occasionally sent a few dollars to show their support, government officials said. But Wednesday's touch of charity was unusual in this city where money is normally extracted by taxation. The gift was described by Noel Hinners, the museum director and a veteran of the space program, as ''a true historic event.'' nyt-01-08-81 1652est *************** ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 12-Jan-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 11 JAN 1981 1712-EST From: REM at MIT-MC (Robert Elton Maas) Subject: [OTTO at WHARTON-10 (George Otto): Thought for the Day!] To: Geoff at DARCOM-KA CC: ENERGY at MIT-MC, SPACE at MIT-MC Re the claim that SPS would allow big companies to "own the sun", thus anybody for SPS is taking energy at all costs including giving a big company a monopoly on the sun. (Pre-summary, that claim is absurd.) I hope we don't allow mining claims on solar energy without first the claiming company establishing a reasonable stakeout. Like in the early days of this country when you had to stake a claim on a particular place, not just on "all the land West of the Mississippi River", if a company establishes a station fixed in space it should be able to claim rights to incident radiation, recovering for damages if somebody puts a newer satellite between the sun and the existing station thus blocking off solar radiation from the existing station or the immediate vicinity which has been rightfully claimed for expansion. If the company tries to stake too large a claim it should be challanged, like perhaps 20 years of expansion from a given staked-out site should be reasonable, thus if a company wants 5 different claims it would have to put up 5 different satellites and would thus get a reasonable amount of guaranteed sunlight around each of those 5 satellites, but the claim would become void if after 20 years that company hadn't actually gobbled down a reasonable percentage of all sunlight falling in each of the claimed areas. Perhaps some reasonable size of claim could be defined, like 5 miles in all directions from the stakeout station. If a company wants bigger claims, it would need to post multiple stations spaced about 10 miles apart filling the area staked out (area, not volume, since we're claiming the cone extending from the sun through the area and out into space), or post a station closer to the sun (which is more difficult due to both heating of sun and orbital mechanics). Using such a policy, it would be impossible during the next 40 years for all of mankind to stake out a total of .000001 of the total sun's output, not to mention one company getting a monopoly like anything near .500000 of sun's output. The mad dash to grab significant fractions of sun's output would come a century from now when lots of life is out there forming a Dyson sphere. ------------------------------ Date: 11 Jan 1981 17:16 PST From: Hamilton.ES at PARC-MAXC Subject: The Planetary Society (and other space advocacy groups) I recently received the first issue of the Planetary Society newletter. I don't have it in front of me, but basically it's a very slickly-produced glossy magazine of about 16 pp., which I would guess will come out every couple of months. The level of writing seems to be for the scientifically-aware layman. I believe OMNI will shortly be publishing a list with addresses of all the major space-advocacy groups. In brief: Planetary Society: aimed at increasing popular support for planetary exploration. Principal people are Carl Sagan and Bruce Murray. L5 Society: primary thrust is space colonization, as inspired by Gerard K. O'Neill, with space industrialization as a more immediate focus. Publishes "L5 News", a small, semi-technical magazine, every month or two. National Space Institute: founded by Werner von Braun, now headed by Hugh Downs. Intended to be a popular space-advocacy group with the broadest possible base. Originally they had a very juvenile, "gee-whiz" newletter, but they are finally coming around to the point of doing a very professional job of lobbying and tracking Congress. Space Studies Institute: Gerry O'Neill's organization. No slick newsletters, just a four-page activity summary once or twice a year. Members' money goes directly toward the support of his mass driver and related work. British Interplanetary Society: the oldest and most scientifically respected organization devoted exclusively to space. Their magazine "Spaceflight" provides the most complete, widely- available archive of satellite launches and background on space programs of all nations. A particularly good source for analysis of the Soviet space program. JBIS is a scientific journal they publish. Their recent Project Daedalus produced a fascinating, detailed engineering design for an interstellar space probe. American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA): The princial American professional society for aerospace engineers. While not strictly a space advocacy group like the above, they have published some fascinating engineering studies in their monthly magazine, "Aeronautics and Astronautics". I've been involved with both the Chicago Society for Space Settlement (independent, but works closely with SSI), and the Organization for the Advancement of Space Industrialization and Settlement (OASIS - LA L5), and have been deeply impressed by the commitment and the professionalism of the people involved. L5, in particular, has many local chapters, involved in such things as public education and small-scale engineering studies. A committee from OASIS recently completed an engineering study on using Space Shuttle external tanks as units of a space station, using available innovative technologies such as space- filling foam. --Bruce ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 14-Jan-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 14 Jan 1981 0047-PST From: Alan R. Katz Subject: External tank habitat study To: space-enthusiasts at MIT-MC cc: katz at USC-ISIF Correction: The study to design a space habitat using the shuttle external tank was not done by OASIS but by a group called Space Systems Development Group (SSDG). (though all of the SSDG members are OASIS members and the ideas was first presented at an OASIS meeting). The basic idea is to use the external tanks, and prefab "inflatable" interiers made of a foam that expands when hit with microwaves, to create living space for about 200 people. The cost of such a habitat would be about the same as current designs to produce a 6 man habitat not using the external tanks. The concept is very interesting and SSDG has published their study which includes some very good artwork (many of them are architects so they know how to draw). If you would like a copy of the study, you can get one by sending $10.00 to: S.S.D.G 136 So. Virgil Ave. #310 Los Angeles, Ca. 90004 Ask for the ET Habitability Study. Its well worth the price. Alan ------- ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 15-Jan-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 14 Jan 1981 1457-PST From: Ted Anderson Subject: Now that you mention the shuttle, several related questions come to mind. To: space-enthusiasts at MIT-MC 1) Has NASA seen the light WRT taking the shuttle tanks all the way to LEO instead of throwing them away 5% (or whatever) short of orbit? 2) Has anyone heard who slated for head of NASA in the Reagan administration? 3) Will the first flight have any means of checking the tile shield for integrity once in orbit but before reentry? 4) If the answer to the previous question is yes, consider the following horrible situation: Shuttle launches without too much trouble but after arriving in orbit they discover that a whole patch of tiles was ripped away and there is virtually no chance of the shuttle surviving reentry. As I understand it they are not bringing along a tile repair kit on the first (several?) mission. What do they do? They have at least 3 days to stew about it, then what? Does anyone know what the plans for this sort of a scenario are? 5) Related to the above question, are they bringing along on the first mission a space suit? It seems that this would be invaluable for in orbit repair. The tile problem is just the most publicized of the possible external problems. 6) Will the astronauts be able to enter the payload bay on the first mission? Is it pressurized? I would appreciate answers to these questions if anyone has them. Thanks, Ted Anderson ------------------------------ Date: 15 JAN 1981 0353-EST From: POURNE at MIT-MC (Jerry E. Pournelle) Subject: [OTTO at WHARTON-10 (George Otto): Thought for the Day!] To: REM at MIT-MC, SPACE at MIT-MC Dyson spheres in 100 years? Phil Morrison told Carl Sagan and Bruce Murray at the "Saturn and the Mind of Man" sumposium that "the protons will decay first" before we build Dyson spheres. I suspect that 100 years is a bit optimistic, but closer to truth than Morrison. Unless, of course, the Black Box people have their way; after all, Sagan and Murray used the "Saturn Symposum" as a forum to badmouth the Apollo program... ------------------------------ Date: 15 JAN 1981 0357-EST From: POURNE at MIT-MC (Jerry E. Pournelle) Subject: The Planetary Society (and other space advocacy groups) To: SPACE at MIT-MC, Hamilton.ES at PARC-MAXC List of space organizations was well done, but unfortunately left out: American Astronautical Society (AAS) which stands somewhere between L-5 and AIAA in "far-outedness". Although I am a member, In confess I don't recall whether AAS insists on all grades of members having professional qualifications (there are at least three grades). JEP ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 16-Jan-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 15 Jan 1981 1356-PST From: Alan R. Katz Subject: answers toOTA To: space at MIT-MC cc: katz at USC-ISIF 1. NASA does not now have any plans to put the tanks in orbit, but maybe we can convince them otherwise. 2. I heard that Hans Mark (previous head of Ames research center and Sec. of the Air Force) was to be head of NASA (rumor only) 3. They will not be checking the tiles, which is why they are not bringing a repair kit. If some come off, we will find out about it when then try to land. The rational is that EVA to check the tiles introduces more risk than its worth. Alan ------- ------------------------------ Date: 15 January 1981 22:10-EST From: Daniel L. Weinreb Subject: SPACE Digest To: SPACE at MIT-MC About the space shuttle, the story I get is that they are definitely taking space suits some time, as there are planned EVAs. With slightly less certainty on the part of my source, the general plan is to always have space suits for the crew, but that when there are a lot of passengers there will not be room, so for each passenger (presumably with spares) there will be a cute little device which is basically a balloon that you get inside (you have to scrunch). I don't know about the other questions. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 18-Jan-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: MARG@MIT-AI Date: 01/17/81 16:06:09 Subject: Emergency Spacesuits MARG@MIT-AI 01/17/81 16:06:09 Re: Emergency Spacesuits To: SPACE at MIT-MC Indeed, DLW is right about the little balloons. At least, when I took at tour of Johnson Space center last March, they had pictures of 39" zippered balls that the passengers were to be put in and transportd across (space) to the rescue vehicle. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 19-Jan-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 18 Jan 1981 1133-PST From: Ted Anderson To: space at MIT-MC Subject: 3 stage version of Interim Upper Stage scrubbed n028 1033 18 Jan 81 BC-ROCKET By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD c. 1981 N.Y. Times News Service NEW YORK - The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has notified Congress that because of excess costs and technical problems it plans to discontinue development of a new rocket system for launching planetary spacecraft from aboard the space shuttle, replacing it with a modified version of the proven Centaur rocket. Dr. Robert A. Frosch, the space agency administrator, said that the decision would mean another delay, from 1984 to 1985, in the launching schedule for the Galileo mission to orbit Jupiter and deploy an instrumented probe into the Jovian atmosphere. Under the new schedule, the spacecraft would not reach Jupiter until late 1987. Dr. Frosch said that the schedule change would add extra costs, as yet undetermined, to the Galileo project. Officials at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., which manages the project, said the increase could be as much as $75 million above Galileo's current cost estimates of $650 million. This would be in addition to the costs of converting the Centaur rockets for operation from the shuttle. Centaurs have been used since the mid-1960s as an upper stage in rockets launched from the Earth, particularly those carrying large communications satellites into a high orbit of the Earth and sending Viking spacecraft to Mars and Voyagers to the outer planets. But launching Centaurs from the cargo bay of the shuttle will to be a technological challenge because the rocket's liquid hydrogen propellant must be maintained at super-cold temperatures. The Centaurs are produced by the General Dynamics Corporation under the direction of NASA's Lewis Research Center in Cleveland. Because the re-usable shuttle is limited to flight in low Earth orbit, spacecraft to be launched from its cargo bay and sent to higher altitudes or to other planets must receive an added boost from an attached rocket. The shuttle itself is running about three years behind schedule; its first orbital test flight is now expected to get under way in late March or April. The rocket system being discontinued is a three-stage solid-fueled booster called the Interim Upper Stage, which was under development for the space agency by the Boeing Co. The action does not affect the two-stage version of the same system, which is being built for the Air Force to use in launching its communications and surveillance satellites from the shuttle. But Air Force officials, concerned about delays in the two-stage version as well, have indicated that they may be forced to extend the production of Titan 3 rockets as backups in case either the space shuttle or the Interim Upper Stage vehicles encounter further delays. The NASA decision and its effect on Galileo and possibly other projects was seen as confirming the worst fears of those who had criticized the agency for its failure to allow for backup rocket systems to be kept in production while awaiting the shuttle. Dr. Bruce C. Murray, director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said that this was ''a sharp break from the practice of the l960s and 1970s.'' The reason for ''our present dilemma,'' Dr. Murray added, is that the Titan-Centaur rockets were not kept in production until it was certain that the space shuttle and its accompanying interim rocket systems were ready for operation. nyt-01-18-81 1330est *************** ------------------------------ Date: 18 Jan 1981 2355-PST From: Jim McGrath Subject: Voyager pictures To: sf-lovers at MIT-AI CC: space at MIT-MC The following is from MSK at SAIL. I thought it would be of interest to you all. - jpm New from the Astronomical Society of the Pacific PHOTOGRAPHS FROM THE VOYAGER/SATURN ENCOUNTER In keeping with its goal to provide its members and the public with authoritative information concerning new developments in astronomy, the A.S.P. is pleased to announce the availability of sets of prints and slides of Saturn, its rings, and its satellites, selected from the images returned by the Voyager spacecraft. These photographs have been chosen for both their visual impact and scientific importance. Detailed captions and information about the mission accompanies each set. Prints are 8 X 10 PHOTOGRAPHIC prints (four in color, one in black-and-white in each set) carefully produced from originals provided by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratories. Slides are standard 35mm format, carefully reproduced to bring out the subtle details captured by Voyager's cameras. PRINTS Saturn System Collage -- full color dramatic 8 X 10 montage of the Saturn system, assembled from the best Voyager images of the planet and 5 of its satellites. $2.65 each. Print Set I -- Saturn and Its Rings. $10.60 per set. 1. Color. A full view of Saturn and its ring system from 18 million km as Voyager approached. 2. Color. Sweeping close-up of the ring system against the limb of the planet. 3. Color. Saturn casts a dramatic shadow on its rings in a view from the departing spacecraft. 4. Color. False color enhancement of the ring system as seen from underneath. 5. B&W. Detailed close-up of the ring system, showing more than 90 individual ringlets. Print Set II -- Saturn and Its Satellites. $10.60 per set. 6. Color. Saturn, its rings, the ring shadows, Tethys, and Dione as seen from 13 million km. 7. Color. Dione, crossing the clouds of Saturn, shows its two different hemispheres. 8. Color. Close-up of Dione showing impact craters and fault line. 9. Color. A false-color close-up of the various layers in the atmosphere of Titan. 10. B&W. Close view of Mimas, showing its huge impact crater. SLIDE SET Slide Set -- Saturn, Rings, and Satellites. $13.78 per set. 1.-10. The ten images from above. 11. Color. False-color image of Saturn and its rings, designed to bring out details in the bands of the planet's upper atmosphere. 12. Color. Close-up of Saturn's cloud deck. 13. Color. False-color enhancement of Saturn's northern hemisphere, showing belts and weather systems. 14. Color. Color-enhanced view of the rings from beneath. 15. B&W. Close-up of the "braided" F ring. 16. B&W. A sequence of photos showing the spokes in the B ring. 17. B&W. Mosaic of surface of Rhea. 18. B&W. Saturn-facing side of Tethys with its large valley. 19. B&W(?). Iapetus with its two very different faces. 20. B&W(?). S 11, one of the newly-discovered co-orbiting satellites, and the shadow cast on it by a previously unknown ring. Please note that, except for the collage of the Saturn system, neither prints nor slides are available singly -- they MUST BE PURCHASED IN SETS. Prices above include 6% tax, but do not include a $1.50 Handling and Postage charge on each order. -------------------------------------------------------------------- I intend to send in an order on Jan 30. If you want to make up a pool order (to split the handling and postage charge) mail to CSD.MSK@SU-SCORE. If enough people want individual photos, it might also be possible to split a set. I assume that slides number 19 and 20 are B&W, since the flyer didn't specify. Note: I'll need the money from you before the order is sent, so that I won't be broke for the 4-6 week delivery time. The handling and postage charge will be split proportionately after all orders are in (i.e. the bigger your order, the greater the percentage of the shipping charge that you'll pay). Checks may be sent to me through ID mail (to Michael Kenniston, Computer Science Dept, Margaret Jacks Hall 420), or you can put them in the "K" mailbox on the second floor of Jacks, or drop them off at Jacks 420 in person. If you prefer to send in your own order for any reason, stop by my office and you can Xerox my order form. (Call first to make sure somebody's there: 497-2513.) ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 21-Jan-81 0400 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 21 JAN 1981 0437-EST From: OTA at MIT-MC (Owen T. Anderson) To: SPACE at MIT-MC Date: 20 January 1981 03:24 est From: Schauble.Multics at MIT-Multics Subject: Clipping Service - Solar power satellite-power conversion To: energy at MIT-AI, space at MIT-AI The November 20 issue of Electronic Data News (EDN) contains an article on a new version of klystron tube the performs a direct conversion from light to microwaves. The article is too long and too technical to transcribe, so I will summarize. The "photoklystron" is being developed by Dr John Freeman and his research team at Rice University in Houston Texas. The device is derived from a reflex klystron by substituting a photocathode for the normal thermonic cathode. This removes the need for a cathode heater, leaving only bias power (a few microwatts) required. Their present experimental model works in the range of 5 to 240 MHz with a conversion efficiency of about 1%. They forsee operation at higher frequencies and with conversion efficiencies up to about 6%. For comparison, high-quality solar cells driving high-efficiency microwave tubes can achieve efficiencies of 9 to 12%. However, the photoklystron's simplicity, small size, high reliability, and potentially very low cost may outweigh the lower efficiency The device was specifically designed for use in the Solar Power Satellite project sponsored by NASA and the Dept of Energy. The NASA Lewis Research Center has funded a large part of the design, with ITT fabricating test units. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 23-Jan-81 0421 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 23 Jan 1981 0054-PST From: Ted Anderson To: space at MIT-MC a004 2146 22 Jan 81 AM-Rocket Accident, 1st Ld - Writethru, a620,240 Eds: Subs 1st graf to change rammed to hit, subs 2nd graf to CORRECT that whole rocket cost $17 million and subs 6th graf to CORRECT that door didn't fall. Rocket Knocked Into Tower During Assembly Accident CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - A launch tower door hit a Delta rocket being prepared for launch Thursday, knocking the rocket from its upright position, officials said. No one was hurt. National Aeronautics and Space Administration spokesmen said the damage was ''considerable,'' but had not been assessed. Delta rockets cost $17 million in 1977. The rocket, owned by McDonnell Douglas Corp., was being prepared for a March 12 launching of a weather satellite. The accident at 10:25 a.m. EST had no connection with the space shuttle, the first reusable U.S. spacecraft, which is scheduled for its maiden launch March 17 from another pad here. ''Officials don't know how much damage has been done, and nobody knows whether the launch will have to be delayed,'' said NASA spokesman Hugh Harris. The rocket's first stage and inter-stage had been set up on the launch pad earlier this week, and the first of nine solid fuel boosters used for the launch were placed in a sling inside the mobile launch pad tower, officials said. As the tower moved into position to install the booster, a large door struck the Delta, officials said. The moving tower pushed the Delta several feet from its upright position and pulled free two of the three bolts that hold the rocket to the launch pad, they said. The Delta tilted back into the tower and was left leaning into it, they said. ap-ny-01-23 0046EST *************** ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 28-Jan-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 27 Jan 1981 1437-PST From: Tom Wadlow Subject: Shuttle Budget To: space-enthusiasts at MIT-MC Quote from Aviation Week & Space Technology - Jan 26, 1981 "White House Office of Management and Budget Director David Stockman declared himself a supporter of the space shuttle program last week, a switch from March, 1980, when 56 members of the House calling themselves the Coalition for Fiscal Responsibility recommended a $301-million cut in the shuttle. The coalition was headed by then Rep. Stockman and Rep Phil Gramm (D.-Tex). Stockman told the National Press Club there would be ``no major reductions'' because the shuttle program is an ``important investment'' and a ``boost to the economy''. However, Stockman added, he will have his budget cutting scissors out for ``deferrals, waste and low-priority programs'' in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration." End quote. My sources tell me that Stockman has been somewhat of a freind to the space program for a while now, but feels that there is not much support from the public. If anybody wants to write him to convey their feelings to him, his address is: David Stockman Director of the Office of Management and Budget Old Executive Office Building 17th and Pennsylvania Streets, NW Washington, DC 20503 ------------------------------ Date: 27 Jan 1981 1438-PST From: Tom Wadlow Subject: Puzzling item on Shuttle checklist To: space-enthusiasts at MIT-MC In reading through the Jan 26 issue of Aviation Week and Space Technology we came across a pre-launch checklist for the Shuttle. The list include the typical sorts of things that you would expect (Flight readiness engine firing, Thermal protection system inspection, Shuttle systems test, etc.) but the last item on the list is (and I quote): "Installation of ordnance." Does anyone have an idea as to what this may be? ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 29-Jan-81 0400 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Administrivia: It occurs to me that many of the people who have been with this list from the beginning are unaware of the existence or whereabouts of the archives. The file SPACE.LOG[SPA,OTA] @ SU-AI contains all the messages sent to the mailing list. The file can b FTP from Sail without an accout, but if you have any trouble send me a message (OTA@SAIL). At some as yet undetermined point in the future I will move some of the older messages to an archival location off the net. This is to avoid excessive disk storage load on SAIL which has chronic problems along these lines (doesn't everyone?). Anyway if you discover that the message you are looking for doesn't seem to be in the log send me a message and I will retrieve the older log files for you. At the moment all the files are still available on SAIL. ------------------------------ Date: 28 Jan 1981 1157-EST From: J. Noel Chiappa Subject: Ordnance To: space at MIT-MC cc: JNC at MIT-XX This probably refers to the explosive charges that will separate the tanks, etc. I doubt that weapons in spac will be on that flight, or so simple! Noel ------- ------------------------------ Date: 28 Jan 1981 13:49 PST From: Hamilton.ES at PARC-MAXC Subject: Re: Puzzling item on Shuttle checklist To: Space-enthusiasts@MC cc: TAW at SU-AI, Hamilton.ES The ordnance is the small explosive charges used in any rocket for stage separation. Presumably this applies to both the solids and the external tank on the Shuttle. --Bruce ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 30-Jan-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 30 January 1981 02:55-EST From: Jerry E. Pournelle Subject: Puzzling item on Shuttle checklist To: TAW at SU-AI cc: SPACE-ENTHUSIASTS at MIT-MC Obviously it is a reminder that all the myriad weapons: Schmeissers, Tommy guns, nerve gas, leprosy bombs, and the like--be seen to be aboard. After all what's space flight without your nukes? ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 31-Jan-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 30 Jan 1981 1553-PST From: Alan R. Katz Subject: Shuttle status phone number To: space-enthusiasts at MIT-MC cc: katz at USC-ISIF For up to date info on the shuttle, dial: (213)922-INFO Alan ------- ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 02-Feb-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 01 Feb 1981 2139-PST From: Jim McGrath Subject: Columbia safety To: space at MIT-MC n528 0128 24 Jan 81 BC-SPACE-01-24 By William Hines (c) 1981 Chicago Sun-Times (Field News Service) WASHINGTON-The astronauts who will fly the first space shuttle mission to Earth orbit and back say they are confident of the safety of their still-untested rocket ship Columbia. ''There is a higher safety factor in (Columbia) than in any airliner,'' John W. Young, a four-mission space veteran and moon walker who will command the 2 1/2-day flight, told a press conference Friday after a full-scale simulation was completed at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. ''We obviously think it's safe or we wouldn't be doing it,'' said co-pilot Robert L. Crippen, who never has flown in space. Columbia, a DC-9-size craft boosted by powerful liquid- and solid-fuel rockets, is scheduled to lift off from the old Apollo moonport at the Kennedy Space Center on Florida's east coast at 6:23 a.m. Chicago time March 17. It is scheduled to glide into a ''dead-stick''1 landing on Edwards Dry Lake in the Mojave Desert north of Los Angeles at 12:54 p.m. March 19. Unlike all other first flights in the 22-year-old National Aeronautics and Space Administration astronaut program, this one was not preceded by full-scale unmanned flight tests. ''It would cost $250 million to $500 million to go unmanned and would slip the program (back) half a year or so,'' Young said when he was asked about the desirability of conducting unmanned preliminary missions. The space shuttle program, conceived in 1971 as a cost-saving method to replace one-time-only launching vehicles with reusable ones, already is more than 2 1/2 years behind schedule and billions of dollars over original cost estimates. Young and Crippen professed no anxiety over the question of thermal protection on the way back to Earth from orbit. A tremendous amount of frictional heat is generated in any object entering the atmosphere at cosmic velocities-a ''shooting star'' is a familiar example-and protection of the vehicle and its crew has been a priority item in the shuttle program. It has also been one of the toughest problems for space engineers to handle, and is largely responsible for delay in reaching flight readiness. A complex layer of several thousand heat-resistant tiles, hand-bonded to crucial surfaces, is the ship's first line of heat defense. Young disclosed that while an emergency tile repair kit is being developed for use in event of heat-shield problems discovered prior to re-entry, the kit will not be ready for use on the first flight. There will be no scientific objectives on the first mission, which is officially designated STS-12 (for Space Transportation System, the generic name for shuttle-based launching vehicles of the next 20 years). ''This is a test flight,'' Crippen explained, ''to make sure we can get up on orbit properly and fly entry (as) we had planned. If we can get up and down-even if we have to do it in one day-that would satisfy 95 percent of the objectives of the flight.'' Given a successful STS-1, NASA plans to fly a second test mission in August. By about 1985, both the civilian space agency and the Defense Department will be using shuttles exclusively for the launching of payloads into Earth orbit and deeper space. ''Routine access to space is really important for the development of science and technology,'' Young remarked. ''This vehicle is about 10 years ahead of what any other country in the world is able to do right now. It will enable us to do in the next five years what it would take 20 years to do otherwise.'' Asked whether the new era in manned space flight will recapture the excitement of the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions of the 1960s and early '70s, Crippen replied: ''We are trying to make going into space routine, and making things routine is contrary to generating excitement.'' END nyt-01-24-81 0427est *************** ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 03-Feb-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 02 Feb 1981 1350-PST From: Tom Wadlow Subject: Shuttle delays To: space-enthusiasts at MIT-MC a231 1320 02 Feb 81 AM-Shuttle Delay,460 Manned Space Shuttle Suffers Another Setback By HOWARD BENEDICT Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - The oft-delayed first flight of the manned space shuttle suffered another setback Monday when the space agency announced it is postponing the liftoff another three weeks because of a fuel tank problem. The launch, which had been set for March 17, now will be attempted no earlier than the week of April 5, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration announced. The delay could be even longer if the exact problem is not pinpointed and corrected soon, the agency said. The flight of the revolutionary spaceship is more than two years behind schedule, primarily because of problems encountered developing the main engines and the thermal protection system, both of which required technology breakthroughs. The latest trouble cropped up last week during a fueling test at Cape Canaveral, Fla., where the first shuttle, the Columbia, is on a launch pad being readied for liftoff. NASA reported that when the huge external fuel tank on the vehicle was emptied, technicians discovered that two areas of outside insulation had become loose. The 154-foot-tall external tank holds more than half a million gallons of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen which fuel the shuttle's three main engines. The insulation, a spray-on chemical foam, is intended to maintain fuel temperature and to protect the skin surface from heat during liftoff. NASA said the areas that became ''debonded'' measured about 7 feet by 8 feet and 4 feet by 4 feet. Officials said they are not certain what caused the problem and they had no choice but to delay the launch while they conducted an investigation. NASA also announced it had postponed from Feb. 13 to Feb. 16 a flight readiness firing of Columbia's engines. That 20-second firing on the launch pad will conclude a complete countdown rehearsal that will test all elements of the shuttle system under launch conditions. The agency said the tank insulation problem will not affect that test, that it is being delayed for minor technical reasons. Just 10 days ago, the two astronauts who will fly the first mission, John Young and Bob Crin, told a news conference they were looking forward to a launch on St. Patrick's Day. They said that because of the numerous postponements, they are the best-trained astronaut crew ever. The flight is scheduled for 54 hours in orbit. ''It's a test flight to check all the systems,'' Crippen said. ''We mainly want to get it up and get it back down.'' NASA and the space agency are planning to operate a fleet of four space shuttles. Each will land back on Earth like an airplane and each will be capable of 100 or more round trips into space. They will be used for a variety of scientific, commercial and military missions. ap-ny-02-02 1620EST *************** ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 04-Feb-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 3 February 1981 23:29 est From: Tavares.Multics at MIT-Multics Subject: mailing list To: space-enthusiasts at MIT-MC I edit the national magazine for spacemodelers. Would someone who knows how please add me to this mailing list? (If SPACE is a discrete mailing list, please include me on it also.) ------------------------------ Date: 4 FEB 1981 0554-EST From: POURNE at MIT-MC (Jerry E. Pournelle) Subject: AAS--L5 INVITATIONAL CONFERENCE ON PLANNING FUTURE IN SPACE To: SPACE-ENTHUSIASTS at MIT-MC, POURNELLE at MIT-MC Over the weekend of 30 January at home of Larry Niven was held conference sponsored by AAAS--L5 Society. Attendence good, two astronauts, several high aerospace company officials, some top writers, and several program managers. Major conference paper is in preparation and not at present available. However, the conference also produced a statement on the FY 82 budget. Noting that the Carter proposed budget leaves Reagan Administration few optoins, several programs were requiested as insurance to keep open options until Reagan can develop a comprehensive policy on space. I'd have included the paper in this mailing, but I don't know how to drag in a file from outside rmail. JEP ------------------------------ Date: 4 FEB 1981 0557-EST From: POURNE at MIT-MC (Jerry E. Pournelle) Subject: oops To: SPACE-ENTHUSIASTS at MIT-MC That conference paper is mc:pourne;spaced > Sorry about that... ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 05-Feb-81 0402 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 5 FEB 1981 0336-EST From: POURNE at MIT-MC (Jerry E. Pournelle) Subject: well maybe you do it this way... To: SPACE-ENTHUSIASTS at MIT-MC .M10 H11 S1 F0 G60 L74 .C |THE JOINT AMERICAN ASTRONAUTICAL SOCIETY--L5 SOCIETY .C |CONFERENCE ON PLANNING AMERICA'S FUTURE IN SPACE. .C |STATEMENT ON PROPOSED FY 82 NASA BUDGET .c |SPACE: THE CRUCIAL FRONTIER 1. The |rediscovery of progress| is a reasonable and feasible national goal for the United States in the 1980's. Progress is possible. We do not have to accept limits to growth; but we do need specific strategies for progress. Growth requires investment and continuous expansion of the resource base. The United States has a world mission. We influence by example; we are the showplace of freedom; and in the present era we must also be the sword and shield of liberty. To fulfill this role we must do more than survive. We must remain militarily, economically, and ideologically strong. We need visible goals: a reason for the nation to exist. If we have no dreams and goals, we have no nation. Insuring progress for ourselves and the world is a reasonable and feasible goal for America. Space activities can be a significant part of our rediscovery of progress. 2. The vast majority of resources accessible to mankind are NOT here on Earth. The solar system abounds with minerals and energy. Other nations are even now claiming those resources and developing capabilities for using them. If the United States does not compete, we will have effectively abdicated economic leadership to those who do. There is more at stake than that. Space has very great military potential. Although no one is certain that strategically decisive weapons can be deployed in space, no reasonable person can be certain that they can |not| be. Space based beam weapons may develop into reliable missile defenses. At the very least, the United States |must| retain the option to compete in space. Space also has symbolic importance, if for no other reason than the United States made the "Moon race" critical to our national prestige. To abandon space after announcing its crucial importance hands the Soviets an unearned but enormously important ideological victory. It is obvious from their space activities that the Soviets realize this. We must, therefore, retain the option to move effectively and quickly into space. Retaining that option is not simple. No one can be sure what capabilities will be needed. Our adversaries have more experience in the space environment than we do. Since we cannot know which space capabilities may prove to be decisive, we cannot design robots or artificial intelligence systems in advance. The only truly versatile space system is man; and the only way to insure a capability to do a wide variety of tasks in space--including construction of the military systems that may be needed in future--is to make entry to and operations in the space environment routine. We must continue both manned and unmanned exploration of space. Our survival may depend on it. AAS--L5 Statement on FY 82 Budget Page Two 3. The "Revoluton of Rising Expectations" concides with the "era of limits" to aggravate international instabilities. Most of the world will remain poor in the remaining years of this century--and this in a "global village". The wretched of the Earth are very much aware that everyone doesn't live their way. World economic growth is not merely desirable on ethical grounds; it is very much in the U.S. national interest. Rapid economic growth is not easy. It requires investment. It also requires technological growth, and expanded resources. We cannot abandon technology; indeed, we must rapidly expand our entire technological and industrial base. 4. All the above factors combine to make space an important option. To preserve and increase capabilities for military activities in space we must expand our space activities. If we are to extend our technological base, we must actively seek renewed interest in the hard disciplines of science and engineering. The economic growth of the U.S. and the world will be enhanced by exploitation of the space environment. Ignoring space abandons the major resource base of the next century. 5. Retaining space options is time dependent. The lead time for space activities is long. Decisions made NOW in 1981 have consequences stretching far into the future. Decisive programs must be underaken NOW or many capabilities will be lost; and once lost, they cannot be regained without costly and wasteful crash programs. Much that we should accomplish before 1988 cannot be done without immediate changes in our national space policies. 6. The space question is crucial: if we do not preserve space options, we are betting national survival in order to save a miniscule fraction of the national budget. This is neither reasonable nor prudent. 7. It is also possible to make space pay for itself--indeed, to use space to feed a new period of rapid economic growth. The opportunities are there. The resources and energy are there. It is now obvious that some nations will gain great wealth from space. The only controversy is over the time scale. 8. If humanity survives at all--which we fully expect--then there is no doubt that civilizations in the centuries to come will spread across the entire solar system. As Arthur Clarke has said, except for a fleeting instant in the beginning of history, the word 'ship' will mean space ship. This generation can take mankind and freedom into the solar system. Much can be lost by delay; still more can be gained by beginning now. |The nation and statesmen who give mankind the planets will be remembered forever. AAS--L5 Statement on FY 82 Budget Page Three .C |PRESERVING SPACE OPTIONS. The United States needs, but does not have, a comprehensive strategy for exploiting space. We must have a unified plan which abandons the artificial division of space into "military" and "civilian" programs. Such a plan cannot be devised in a few days. Space plans are by nature technologically complex, and require considerable study. However, it is clear that certain capabilities ought to be preserved, so that strategists will retain a full menu of options. These options must include the capability to: Move quickly to a permanent manned presence in space. Develop economic returns from the space investment. The FY 1982 NASA Budget prepared by the previous Administration forecloses significant options which should be preserved. We therefore recommend that the following items be added to the FY 82 budget as insurance. Note that we do NOT recommend that all of these systems be constructed; but we do think it vital that they remain possible. While the costs of these systems is not low, it is small compared to many other elements of the national budget; and the options retained thereby may be vital to the preservation of the United States in future times. FY 82 recommendatons 1. LEO BASE ONE (Space Industrial Park) FY 82 Funds required: $5 million TOTAL SYSTEM COST: $4 billion System Operational Capability: 1988 Preliminary plans already exist for LEO Base under the concept of the Space Operations Center; a general-purpose permanently manned space station capable of supporting privately-financed space industrial activities. It may be thought of as a "space industrial park". LEO Base One could be the most important new start of this decade. It will place the U.S. permanently in space, demonstrating unequivocally that we have not abandoned the high frontier to the Soviet Union. Moreover, this operations facility provides opportunities for the creative energies of private enterprise to be brought to this crucial area. It has been the historic role of goverment to build roads to new frontiers and protect the early settlers. This space facility meets that need. LEO Base One also provides a splendid opportunity for international cooperation. Its modular design would allow not merely experiments, but industrial research and development, in cooperation with allies and friends. The total cost of the LEO Base, ready for operations, is approximately $4 billion in 1981 dollars. The space station has a significant possibility of bringing a very high return on investment. We might get filthy rich from it. LEO Base One could be made operational before 1988 if intelligent management and procurement procedures are employed. AAS--L5 Statement on FY 82 Budget Page Four We have studied the possibilities of having significant hardware components of LEO Base One in orbit by Fall of 1984. We conclude that while this is possible, it is a high-risk venture, and requires an immediate crash program to be given highest national priority. It does not cost a great deal more in total costs to go for the 1984-85 target date, but it does require more money invested much earlier in the program. 2. Halley Comet Flyby (Scientific/ National Prestige) FY 82 $20 Million TOTAL COST: $600 Million The Halley mission is the only competition with the Soviets that is fixed in advance. We will look good if we try it. We will show that we have not abandoned space to others. Halley's Comet will be visible in the solar system in 1986-87. Unlike the Kahoutek "Christmas Comet", Halley's has been known for centuries, and has never disappointed us yet. It is likely to be spectacular. There is very little that the United States can do in 1986-87 that will be impressive in comparison with the known Soviet space capabilities and intentions. Therefore, it is reasonable to exploit the few advantages we have--and the capability for spectacular pictures from within the gasseous coma of Halley's Comet is nearly certain. The mission could fail, but that is highly unlikely. The Halley Comet mission requires an immediate funding of $20 million. If that is not put in the FY 82 budget, the opportunity is lost for this generation. 3. Space Solar Power Systems FY 82 $30 Million TOTAL SYSTEM COST Up to $200 Billion Systems Operational Capability 1990-2000 Although the most spectacular use of Space Solar Power Systems is to provide electricity for Earth, they will also be vital for exploitation of space resources. There is no question that Space Solar Power Systems will _work._ Many expensive studies have proved that. The controversy is over the economics of using them as a means of providing significant electric power to Earth. (One currently considered design would have each satellite generate as much electricity as does Grand Coulee Dam.) There are sufficient uncertainties as to preclude making Space Solar Power Systems a national goal at this time. HOWEVER: the option to build Space Solar Power Systems should be preserved and the economic feasibility of the concept investigated. A reasonable funding level for this kind of space power system for FY 82 would be $30 million. Most of that would go to technology studies; the resulting technology will be useful for other space programs, including development of long-term capabilities for exploitation of lunar resources. Therefore, the money spent in the Space Solar Power Systems program is largely a recoverable investment. As an aside, most investments in technology have more than paid for themselves. Knowledge is indivisible, and is useful no matter under which program it is developed. AAS--L5 Statement on FY 82 Budget Page Five The Space Solar Power Systems option adds another means of national survival. Our present energy policies are unlikely to provide the energy resources for rapid industrial growth until the year 2000. The Space Solar Power Systems option is cheap insurance against failure of more conventional energy supplies--and all the money for Space Solar Power Systems is spent in the US, developing US technological capabilities. 4. ASTEROID OR LUNAR POLAR INVESTIGATION Industrial Exploitation with strong Scientific Value FY 82 $50 Million TOTAL SYSTEM COST Under $300 Million Mission Completion: Before Fall 1984 Note that this is the only new start that could begin and go to completion before 1985. APOLLO gave us valuable knowledge about 20% of the lunar surface. This knowledge can be rapidly and economically extended to the entire lunar surface by means of an unmanned satellite in a polar orbit around the Moon. A large number of well-conducted scientific and engineering studies have defined the mission, which employs off-the-shelf spacecraft. The lunar polar mission can discover an even greater range of useful resources than were found by Apollo. It may confirm the existence of vast quantities of water ice, which theory predicts must exist in the eternally cold polar regions. Instrumentation for the lunar polar mission would be applicable to exploration of asteroids, other moons, possible near-Earth space debris, and planets with tenuous atmospheres. Asteroids are a potential source for a variety of industrial raw materials. Investigation of asteroids will expand the potential material resource base for the United States and all of humanity. This mission is important for eventual exploitation of space resources, and also commands great support within the scientific community. Either or both of these missions: asteroid or lunar polar--could be accomplished in 1984 (if we begin now). Much of the equipment--satellite and launch vehicle--required for either mission is common to both. Thus, provided that we commit now to doing one of the missions, we have a few months in which to decide which one actually to accomplish. .c |CONCLUSION The above recommendations preserve significant options at relatively low cost. This will allow more liesurely study and the development of a comprehensive national space policy. Failure to preserve these options dictates a number of limits on our space program in advance of development of an integrated space policy and plan. A comprehensive strategy for using space as a means to pursue vital national interests is urgently needed. It should not be crippled in advance through pretended savings. ------------------------------ Date: Feb 5, 1981 To: SPACE@MC From: OTA@SAIL Subject: OMB cuts again, this time: NASA n525 0133 05 Feb 81 BC-NASA-02-05 By William Hines (c) 1981 Chicago Sun-Times (Field News Service) WASHINGTON - The Reagan administration is tentatively proposing a slash of more than 9 per cent in the budget of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Such a cut would bring the U.S. interplanetary exploration program to a virtual halt for the rest of this decade. The cuts were included in a wide-ranging ''hit list'' prepared by the Office of Management of Budget and obtained this week by the Chicago Sun-Times. Disclosure of the proposals took NASA's top management by surprise. If OMB Director David Stockman prevails, NASA will lose $629 million of the $6.726 billion budget that President Carter submitted to Congress shortly before he left office last month. No element of the space program - including even the hitherto sacrosanct Space Shuttle manned rocketship - would be shielded from the OMB axe. The new proposals call for deleting the option to build a fifth Shuttle craft to augment the four now authorized as the mainstays of both civilian and military space activities beginning about 1985. Also doomed under the OMB formula would be a project called Galileo, designed to continue scientific investigations of Jupiter and its ring and moon systems that began with the Pioneer and Voyager missions of the 1970s. The cuts also would ''defer'' - for the 1982 fiscal year, at least - an advanced program for the mapping of cloud-shrouded Venus, whose surface features were first disclosed in crude detail by a Pioneer spacecraft last May. The de-emphasis on interplanetary exploration, if approved, would virtually eliminate the famed Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., as a significant center of space research after the middle of this decade. It also would yield supremacy in this field of space science to other countries now beginning to take a lively interest in deep space. Decisions not to go to Jupiter again and to delay the Venus mission almost certainly would dash whatever hopes U.S. scientists had for a close-up look at the famous Halley's Comet, which is due to make a rare flight through the inner solar system in 1986. Japanese, European and Soviet space scientists are working on spacecraft designed to fly by Halley's, which is seen about once every 75 years. Without a go-ahead this year, American scientists are doomed to stand on the sidelines as the celebrated comet dashes past. In addition to a $40 million saving in the 1982 budget by deferring the Venus Orbiting Imaging Radar (VOIR) project and $108 million by canceling the Galileo-Jupiter mission, OMB proposes to save $155 million by cutting off the fifth Shuttle and $52 million by deferring work on an Earth-orbiting spacecraft designed to study some of the universe's most mysterious objects. This ''Gamma Ray Observatory'' would zero in on stars and other remote objects that emit not just light, but also invisible radiation akin to X-rays. Some of these gamma-ray emitters, scientists believe, may be dying stars just on the verge of collapsing into themselves and becoming ''black holes.'' Two projects with more practical applications to everyday life on Earth also are targeted in the OMB hit list. One is a set of scientific experiments intended for research on the upper atmosphere, and the other is an aerodynamic simulator that would be expected to help in the design of advanced airplanes. The upper atmosphere research package is in the Carter version of the 1982 budget for $20 million, and the simulator for $16 million. Deferring of the Venus radar mission had definite political overtones, as did its inclusion in the Carter budget. VOIR - an acronym that in French means ''to see'' - had long been proposed as a logical next step in the exploration of the nearest and most Earthlike of all our planetary neighbors. Because of its dense, perpetual cloud cover, Venus' surface can never be observed by ordinary telescopes or TV spacecraft. VOIR would carry advanced side-looking radar equipment to map in fine detail the surface of Venus, which is now known to contain huge mountains, continents, valleys and other Earthlike features. Carter kept NASA's VOIR proposal on the back burner until Nov. 1, the weekend before the election, and then announced it under circumstances that were widely interpreted as a vote-getting bid to the aerospace community. Probably the biggest surprise in the OMB hit list was the cancellation of Galileo, which has had wide scientific support and represents another step in a field of space exploration where the United States has been unchallenged up to now. The schedule for Galileo was launching in 1985 and arrival at Jupiter in 1987. It would have consisted of two spacecraft, simultaneously launched. One would be an orbiter that would circle Jupiter, studying the planet, its rings and moons over a period of years. The other would be a probe designed to fly into Jupiter's dense atmosphere, giving insights into the nature of the giant planet that could not be obtained in any other way. The harsh cuts proposed by Stockman were at sharp variance with the kind words he had for the space program in speech to the National Press Club here the day after the Reagan administration took over. While specifying that ''we will be looking for some waste'' in NASA, the OMB director said he did not ''foresee any major changes or major reductions in the space budget.'' He added: ''I think (the space effort is) a very constructive and important investment for the country to make, not only because of its technological spin-off, but simply because of the boost that (it) gives to our economy and our aspirations and imaginations as a society as a whole in general.'' END nyt-02-05-81 0433est *************** ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 06-Feb-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 5 FEB 1981 0930-EST From: REM at MIT-MC (Robert Elton Maas) Subject: OMB cuts again, this time: NASA To: OTA at SU-AI CC: SPACE at MIT-MC Bletch! Well, I guess it's time for all us science-loving people, and there are many of us, to band together and either make Congress reinstate these budget items or else pool our funds and purchase NASA and JCL and keep all scientific findings to ourselves until those others realize their folly and purchase the findings from us. I'd be glad to pay NASA&JCL for my share of the pictures of Ganymede and Io and Dione and Saturn etc. (if enough share costs that my share isn't more than I can afford) and would be glad to do the same for future missions such as Galileo and Asteroid-sampler. Yeah, I know, purchasing a government agency isn't quite like purchasing a corporation, but something might be arranged somehow. ------------------------------ Date: 6 FEB 1981 0602-EST From: POURNE at MIT-MC (Jerry E. Pournelle) Subject: maximum effort To: SPACE-ENTHUSIASTS at MIT-MC They're now testing the trial baloon:threaten to cut our liver out, to see if we have any constituency. It's an old ploy, and if we have no constituents, they will in fact hack away. The Star Trek outfits are doing something. Soms sf people are (if anyone wants to forward this to SF lovers, feel free) The space budget is threatened. Psace is like defense, we say: to be increaed, not cut. It's INVESTMENT in mnkind's future. If you believe that send letter to Hon. David Stockman, OMB EOP Wash DC 20503 and say so. You might also urge that he read the AAS/L5 paper he has (the one we circulated here). President Ronald Reagan The White House Wash DC 20500 "Dear Mr. President..." It's aa standard test. If nobody squeals they will cut out orbiters and asll the rest of the programs. On the other hand we could show them space has a constitency. Or does it? ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 10-Feb-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 08 Feb 1981 2142-PST From: Jim McGrath Subject: saving nasa To: space at MIT-MC I have forwarded material from SPACE to the undergraduate computer facility bboard (along with Stockman's address). I have urged them to write, but inertia will claim many attempts. However, I am now writing an opinions column for our student newspaper, The Stanford Daily. This will get wide exposure (about 20,000 readers), although the population is not homogenous in support of the space program. I am in the process of digging up information on NASA for that column. It is easy to find out how the budget figures for the last decade, but I do not have firm figures on the financial benefits of the space program. Do you have a figure for return per dollar? (where return should be computed both conservatively - weather and communications satellites, etc... - and liberally - spin offs, etc...) Or a pointer (or set thereof) to published papers that deal with this issue? Jim ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 11-Feb-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 11 FEB 1981 0342-EST From: POURNE at MIT-MC (Jerry E. Pournelle) Subject: NASA payoff To: JNC at MIT-MC, ENERGY at MIT-MC, SPACE at MIT-MC Precisely : I can't quarrel with your statement at all. And not long ago, Larry and I rode from Boston to NYC on a French-buiolt aircraft flown by Eastern Airlines... Date: 10 FEB 1981 2109-EST From: JNC at MIT-MC (J. Noel Chiappa) One thing a lot of people have skirted the edge of, but never gotten to exactly, is how much good NASA has done for us economically. People are always saying "Oh, the technology pays for itslef several times over",, but consider this: the heavy industry that brought this country to industrial power is now no longer competitive in many cases. Cars are a case in point. Light manufacturing (e.g. clothes, shoes) is also far gone. The ONLY thing left that is REALLy keeping us afloat economically is advanced technology, which was spurred (almost entirely) by space and defence. The consumer electronics followed where the others led. Thus, you might say that were it not for the space program, we'd be broke today; not ten ot twenty years down the road, NOW! Noel ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 12-Feb-81 0402 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 11 Feb 1981 (Wednesday) 1541-EDT From: DREIFU at WHARTON-10 (Henry Dreifus) To: space at MIT-AI My views on the continuation of the Space program in the United States. Henry Dreifus, University of Pennsylvania Many years of devoted research and development of our ultimate resource, namely the universe is just begining to reach our grasp. Further basic research, and continued support will blossom in to some of the most significant new ideas collected and utilized by the human race. As the breadth of the research increases, so must the effort to utilize and understand this scientific knowledge. Granted much of the space-showcase is for glitters and pride, a more educationally fundamental goal should be on the minds of the top decision makers of the world. Exploration and research of new secrets of the universe hold the key to the human-race's future. The commercial aspects of space-industry however should not be overlooked. Funding should be continued, and unification of the long-term goals should be undertaken. Below is an approximate percentage of research funding for each area; Basic research (X-ray astronomy, planetology) 40% Technological research (new-fuels, computers, 0-g kitchen sinks) 40%. Earth benefactored research (balloons, communications eqpt, landsat) 20% Some of the effort in supporting any given 'good' cause naturally endangers another equally good cause. Care must be exercised in attempting to decide what should stay and what should be cut. The underlying theme however should be: If I make this decision, I want the human-race to benefit from its result. Personal gain, and greed, all to common in politics [disappointingly] should be placed aside. Henry Dreifus 4060 Irving Street #2. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104 ------------------------------ Date: 11 Feb 1981 1805-PST From: MERRITT at USC-ISIB Subject: Letter To: space at MIT-MC Personal opinions on the United States Space program Ian H. Merritt, University of Southern California Information Sciences Institute The United States of America has a great investment in the technology for space exploration. This technology has been responsible for so much of what we take for granted in our daily lives today. This letter is being written by the use of electronic hardware, much of which evolved from technology developed for the first space missions. The integrated circuit is an example of this. If not for this microscopic device, our computers would not be anything like what they are today. Look at the USSR, for example. It is true that the program can bring positive publicity, but that it is not what its primary function has been. The program should get MORE funding; not less. To decrease the support of our exploration of the universe around us would be irresponsible to the human race. Who knows what is out there, as yet un-discovered. What are we going to do in the years to come when this small rock we inhabit prooves too small for all of us. If we can't all live together here, where will we go if there has been no space program. Population growth is not slowing down. Consumption of fuels is not slowing down. People are not. Society is not. Where will we be left. It is also true that the United States, as with any other country/society, is far more productive when there is something to be proud of. What, I ask you, What do we have to be proud of today? Can we be proud that we finally got the hostages out of captivity after over a year? We shouldn't have even gotten into that mess. No, we can not be proud of that. Can we be proud of the fact that the Japanese Automobile has nearly replaced the American car? The Japanese can be very proud of this; we can't. It takes more than brute force to revive a society. Any society. Especially one as large as our own. We are still the best damn country in the world, but we are working hard to destroy whatever's left. Though the goals are long-term, our industry NEEDS this program. Imagine mining the moon. The products found there could be used to build stations in space and on the moon. Such stations could be used in the manufacture of goods which require extremely stable environments. Crystals grow more perfectly in zero gravity. Imagine what we could do with our computer industry. Communications relay stations, not unlike large-scale satellites could evolve. I can't even begin to conceive of all the possibilities. Now take a look at where we will be without this technology. Look closely. Sure, we might have some short-term recovery, but then where? What are we going to do then? If we dropped the program, we would be so far behind so as to totally distort the technological evolution, making it extremely difficult, at best, to continue. All aspects of the problem must obviously be considered before making any major decision. This is no exception. I am talking about the future of the human race. Ian H. Merritt 456 S. Bedford drive Beverly Hills, California 90212 ------- ------------------------------ Date: 11 FEB 1981 2136-EST From: HPM at MIT-MC (Hans P. Moravec) To: SPACE at MIT-MC, ENERGY at MIT-MC The address as Jerry indicated a few days ago is simply: President Ronald Reagan, The White House, Washington, D.C. 20500 [Also, David Stockman Director, Office of Management and Budget Old Executive Office Building 17th and Pennsylvania, NW Washington, DC 20503 -ota] ------------------------------ Date: 12 FEB 1981 0343-EST From: POURNE at MIT-MC (Jerry E. Pournelle) Subject: SPS technical feasibility To: SPACE at MIT-MC Office of Technology Assessment (arm of Congress created originally by Ted Kennedy) has done study of Solar Power Satellites. Their report is that they are feasible. One sentence in report is a conclusion that fesibility and practicality of SPS for power gneeration in next century is comparable to that of magnetic fusion systems. Economics may be another matter, although this report seems to find economics no worse than fusion. Fusion gets about $400 million a year, of which at least $300 million is magnetic confinement. SPS gets essentially nothing. Most groups supporting SPS are asking for $30 million, about 10% of magnetic confinement fusion. Even $10 million would help. SPS is thought by many of us to be an optin that we simply cannot ignore; and teh technology studies leading toward SPS are of general utility for all space programs. Do not forget: whether or not you ever beam power down to earth you will need power IN SPACE for indusrial programs there. ------------------------------ Date: 12 February 1981 04:03-EST From: Jerry E. Pournelle Subject: Re: Re: NASA payoff To: MERRITT at USC-ISIB cc: POURNE at MIT-MC, JNC at MIT-MC, ENERGY at MIT-MC, SPACE at MIT-MC, Janofsky.Tipi at RADC-MULTICS Whatever the proprieties or improprieties, I assure you YOU ARE NOT ALONE. I think in the next few weeks we will convince the authorities that space has a constituency; a rational and sensible constituency, unusual in that many of its adherents have absolutely no direct financial stake in it at all. (Most don't work for aerospace, have specialities that would get them jobs if the whole space program folded, etc.) Even if we --(we = human race in my view) lose the FY 82 battle, by preparing the ground we may win a much more important war: a new charter for NASA and a rational space program. Incidentally, the Citizen's Advisory Group on Space Policy is already semi-official in that its reports are now invited, and will also very likely be submitted as testimy to the Space Committee. ad astra... ------------------------------ Date: 12 February 1981 04:12-EST From: Jerry E. Pournelle Subject: Re: NASA payoff To: Janofsky.Tipi at RADC-MULTICS cc: POURNE at MIT-MC, JNC at MIT-MC, ENERGY at MIT-MC, SPACE at MIT-MC, MERRITT at USC-ISIB For your information, the House Space Committee is: Chairman Congressman Ronnie Flippo, Democrat of Alabama Cannon Office Building, Washington DC 20515 202-225-4801 Congressman Bill Nelson (d) Florida (Cape Kennedy) Cannon 20515 Congressman George Brown, Jr. (D) California Rayburn 20515 202-225-6161 Congresswoman Marilyn Lloyd Bouquard (D) Tennessee (Oak Ridge) Rayburn 20515 202-225-3271 (Ms. Bouquard is new to the committe but not to congress) Congressman Ralph Hall (D) Texas (rural area) Longworth Offiec Building 20515 202-225-6673 (Newly elected congressman) Congressman Harold C. Hollenbeck (Ranking Republican) New Jersey Longworth 1526 202-225-5061 Congressman Raymond McGrath (R) New York - Long Island Cannon 506 20515 202-225-5516 Congressman Bill Lowry (R) Calif. San Diego Longworth 1331 20515 202-225-3201 For obvious reasons these people tend to be very friendly to space programs. They are also one of the best sources of information, especially if you happen to live in their district. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 13-Feb-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 12 Feb 1981 1912-PST From: Alan R. Katz Subject: Grassroots space movement To: space-enthusiasts at MIT-MC, energy at MIT-MC cc: katz at USC-ISIF It has become apparent in the last few days that a number of people on these list (perhaps most) are interested in showing those in charge that there is a viable space constituency out here. Another thing you can do to help promote space is to become active in your local pro-space organization. There are a number of them around. I am most familiar with OASIS, the so cal L5 chapter. We have monthly meetings, monthly potluck dinners and parties, and a variety of other activities. OASIS currently has about 250 members. We publish a pretty good quality magazine, the OASIS news. If you are in the So. Cal. area and are interested in space, come to one of our meetings and meet others with the same interest. The next meeting is scheduled for Feb. 28 at Rockwell International in Downey, where we will hear a talk on the Space Shuttle and get to see the full scale mockup. Our meetings are usually held on the 4th Sat of the month, starting at 7:00. If you would like to find out more about OASIS, sndmsg to me or call us at 374-1381. If you are in the San Francisco Bay area, there is a local chapter of the L5 society there also (not quite as big as OASIS). They have meetings and potluck dinners monthly also. For more info about them, contact Ross Millikan at (415)482-0532. There are also active groups in Mass., Texas, Washington, and Chicago but I am less familiar with them. Then of course there is the L5 society, the national organization which is well worth joining. There is rapidly becoming a space "grassroots" movement with many social activities as well as educational programs and political type things. If you are interested, become active. Alan ------- ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 14-Feb-81 0402 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 13 Feb 1981 10:57 PST From: Reed.ES at PARC-MAXC Subject: Asteroids To: Space@MIT-AI The following appeared in a recent news digest: "Civilization Could Be Ended by Asteroid Barrage "WASHINGTON - Warning that errant asteroids could one day destroy civilization on Earth - just as they may have wiped out dinosaurs - a group of scientists says man should be planning to use rockets and hydrogen bombs to deflect them back into space." Any one know more about this? I was under the impression that asteroids large enough to be dangerous to earthlings were fairly rare. I have not heard evidence before that asteroids wiped out the dinosaurs, although it seems as likely as any of the other theories I have heard. -- Larry -- ------------------------------ Date: 13 Feb 1981 19:35 PST From: OTA Here is the story that the news digest was extracted from. It answers most of the questions. On a related topic: I have heard recently that there is new suspicion of a tenth planet. The news story I heard said that perturbations had been detected in Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. There was some speculation in recent SciAm that had the article about Galelio's observations that suggested that there was still another planet, but this seems newer than that. Anyone know more about this? Ted a013 2221 12 Feb 81 PM-Worlds in Collision, Bjt,520 Scientists: Plan Now to Stop Asteroids from Striking Earth By HOWARD BENEDICT Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - Warning that errant asteroids could one day destroy civilization on Earth - just as they may have wiped out dinosaurs - a group of scientists says man should be planning to use rockets and hydrogen bombs to deflect them back into space. There are about 800 asteroids in deep space that could destroy most of life on our planet, and perhaps hundreds of thousands of smaller ones that could demolish a single city or region, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Advisory Council said in a recent report. The only way to avoid an impending collision would be to detect the possibility far in advance and intercept the approaching body with a hydrogen bomb, the council said. Such a project could eventually cost billions of dollars, but the council proposed a modest beginning: a few million NASA dollars to start Project Spacewatch. The project would dedicate one large telescope to detect all asteroids and meteors larger than 30 to 60 feet in diameter whose paths cross the Earth's orbit and track them for years in case they wander onto a collision course. The observation could later be expanded to detect smaller objects with a network of telescopes, radar and satellites. To change a collision course, the council said, a spacecraft carrying a hydrogen bomb would attach itself to the object in space and be exploded by a radio signal from the ground. The group, assembled by NASA to explore future space projects, noted there is growing acceptance by scientists of a theory that the world's dinosaur population was erased 65 million years ago when an asteroid, perhaps six miles in diameter, struck the Earth. The theory, proposed three years ago by Nobel Prize-winning physicist Luis Alvarez, is that the collision threw so much dust and debris into the atmosphere that it blocked out the sun for years, destroying plant life and plant-eating animals like dinosaurs. ''In the 130 million years the dinosaurs roamed the Earth, they failed to develop the technology to avoid their own extinction,'' the council said. ''Homo sapiens has developed an adequate technology. He can avert any further extinction by asteroid impact. We think he should.'' So what is NASA doing with this recommendation? Very little, at present, according to Dr. Devan French, the agency's discipline scientist for planetary materials. ''In the current financial climate, it's difficult to propose a new program such as this if you can't justify a clear need for it,'' he said. French would like to see a low-level effort started, such as investing $3 million to $4 million in a telescope especially for asteroid and meteor observation. Much attention was focused on this potential problem in 1967 when the asteroid Icarus passed within 4 million miles of Earth - close by astronomical standards. That mile-wide collection of rock and ice comes close to our planet every 19 years, and astronomers speculate that the gradually changing gravitational pull of the Earth and other planets could someday put it on a collision path with Earth. ap-ny-02-13 0122EST *************** ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 15-Feb-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 14 February 1981 09:31-EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Asteroids To: Reed.ES at PARC-MAXC cc: Space at MIT-AI There's a lot of evidence that an asteroid or comet hit the Earth, vaporizing in the air and spreading dust in the air for years after, causing a temporary climatic change that was too much for dinosaurs to cope with. I don't have the details memorized, nor the article here with me, and I forget whether it was in Science or some other magazine. As to whether such an event can happen again, during the next 50 years quite unlikely, during the next billion years, perhaps. I suspect we could survive if it happened today, although a lot of life out in the wild might die out. Does anybody remember where this theory&evidence was reported? ------------------------------ Date: 14 Feb 1981 1050-EST From: KING at RUTGERS Subject: history of "asteroid strikes Earth" scenario To: space at MIT-MC cc: king at RUTGERS This is a historical note concerning the possibility of a large asteroid hitting the earth and the possibility of deflecting it with a fusion bomb: MIT has an undergraduate course, entitled "Space Systems Laboratory" or something to that effect. Every year about a dozen students are given a scenario or a project, and they solve as many engineering problems as they can forsee (on paper of course - space systems are still a bit expensive for an undergraduate course). Either three or four years ago the scenario was that a large asteroid was aimed at the earth and the mission was to prevent impact. Their report was that the most practical method was fusion bombs. If the NASA group was founded three years ago, I believe that the MIT report was first. When Niven and Pournelle wrote "Lucifer's Hammer" (in which a comet hit the Earth) they used a comet (I presume) because one can't protect Earth from a comet with fusion bombs. A precise trajectory cannot be determined for a comet because comets give off gases, disturbing their orbits in (as yet) unpredictable ways. Earthlings would therefore not even know whether a given comet was going to hit the Earth, let alone in which direction to deflect it to cause a near-miss. In addition, the comet that played the title role in Lucifer's Hammer contained many large chunks of matter, and the orbit of one chunk would be affected by attempts to deal with another in a most disturbing manner. After I read the book, I heard that the movie, "Meteor", was coming soon. I immediately knew from the title that Earth would be saved in the end. I remember reading somewhere (I think in Technology Review, MIT's alumni magazine, but don't quote me on this) that the MIT course inspired the movie. To my knowledge, this is the first time a college course was made into a mass-circulation movie. ------- ------------------------------ Date: 14 Feb 1981 21:18 Subject: Finally some good press. From: OTA@SAIL This is a long, but quite interesting, News Service story on the NASA Budget cuts. Please let me know if you object to this kind of really long message on the digest and in the future I will just send the file name and people can read it if they want. BC-SPACE-2takes-02-15 By William Hines (c) 1981 Chicago Sun-Times (Field News Service) WASHINGTON-Evidence is emerging that some of the cuts in Budget Director David A. Stockman's celebrated ''black book'' were made with a broadax instead of a scalpel, and by executioners rather than surgeons. A case in point is a space mission called Galileo, which is on Stockman's ''hit list'' for cancellation, at a fiscal 1982 saving of $108 million. Already, $250 million has been spent on Galileo, out of a projected total of $650 million to $700 million. Galileo's defenders say the proposal is false economy that will cost more in the long run than it will save now. ''To abandon the investment that has been made in Galileo over the last several years ... doesn't make any sense to me, even as a taxpayer,'' Harvard astronomer Alistair G.W. Cameron said last week. Cameron is head of the National Academy of Sciences' Space Science Board, which in 1975 recommended the project that eventually became Galileo. The board, composed of non-government scientists and working at the government's request, defined detailed study of the planet Jupiter, its moons and its environment as a ''primary objective'' of planetary exploration in the 1980s. Assuming that Stockman's death sentence is not carried out, Galileo's hardware will be carried to Earth orbit by a space shuttle rocket plane and then launched toward Jupiter. The interplanetary phase of the launch will be with a modified version Centaur upper-stage rocket that has been a mainstay of U.S. deep-space exploration for 15 years. Once en route to Jupiter, Galileo will coast for 2 1/2 years across half a billion miles of space. Then, near the target, the spacecraft will split in two, one part penetrating the dense, turbulent atmosphere of the planet and the other going into orbit around it. The probe will survive for only about an hour while sinking into the murky Jovian atmosphere, but it is expected to send back answers to many outstanding mysteries about the largest planet known to scientists-a body so big it has been called a ''failed star.'' The orbiter is designed to function for 20 months, and could last much longer. It will study Jupiter's turbulent cloud cover and major moons, and will measure the energetic particles and electromagnetic fields around the planet. Present plans call for Galileo to be lifted to orbit on the 35th shuttle flight, in the spring of 1985. Shuttle's first flight, originally scheduled for 1978, is now set for early April. Delays and design changes caused by problems with the shuttle-based space transportation system-and not through any fault of Galileo-have added three years to the Jupiter mission's schedule and about $200 million to its cost. These factors stand out about Galileo: - It is no marginal NASA boondoggle, but rather a high-priority project recommended by outside scientists. Among all its currently authorized space-science projects, NASA ranks Galileo No. 2. - It is not a high-risk venture, but one using technologies and flight techniques developed years ago for other planetary projects. Atmospheric probes have penetrated the dense atmosphere of Venus; four missions have been flown to Jupiter and beyond without a hitch, and the orbiting of spacecraft around distant worlds has been done repeatedly in missions to the moon, Venus and Mars. Only the space shuttle itself is untried. - If Galileo is canceled, NASA's planetary exploration program will virtually halt, and efforts to revive it later will be expensive. ''To mount a Galileo-like investigation at some time in the future,'' the Space Science Board's Cameron said, ''we would pretty much have to start over. You'd probably have to do most of the preparatory work all over again.'' Without Galileo, there is nothing left to keep the United States' unrivaled planetary science team together. All that is left of a once-active program today is Voyager 2. This spacecraft will provide only three brief spikes of activity-each about a week long-in the next eight years: at Saturn in August, Uranus in 1986 and Neptune in 1989. With this as background, the Galileo affair puts the Stockman school of budgeteering-financial management in a vacuum-into a dubious light. Stockman's Office of Management and Budget is doing its best to maintain this vacuum; late last week, NASA still had not received official word about planned cuts. The agency is in the painful position of trying to react to Stockman's moves after reading about them in newspapers. Lacking official memoranda, NASA has no formal way to say, ''Hey, we can cut our budget, but let's do it this way.'' The OMB formula may make for spectacular one-upmanship, but contributes nothing to the orderly shuffling of priorities in an administration dedicated to shrinking itself efficiently. Last week, a White House memo informed NASA and other agencies that they will receive the bad news officially after the holiday weekend, and will be expected to make their responses by the end of the week, in order to get the final Reagan-version budget to the printer and back before its March 10 delivery date to Congress. But next weekend may be too late. President Reagan is expected to tip his hand about most of his budgetary decisions in an economic address on Wednesday. After that, as a practical matter, the new budget will be set in concrete. There is no indication that Stockman sought any advice outside his own office before swinging the ax at NASA; in fact, all evidence is to the contrary. Stockman's own position on space can best be described as a straddle. In November, just after the election, Stockman submitted a memo to Reagan about healing a sick economy-a memo that may have had much to do with his appointment to OMB. Stockman listed agencies or activities that were, in his view, mostly ''ineffective or of low priority'' and ''could be cut by at least one-third.'' NASA was among them, along with such old-time Republican targets as Comprehensive Employment and Training Act funds, urban development grants and the Peace Corps. Sen. Harrison H. Schmitt (R-N.M.), the former moonwalking astronaut who succeeded Sen. Adlai E. Stevenson III (D-Ill.) as chairman of the Senate science subcommittee, scolded Stockman for lumping NASA's projects into a ''low priority'' category along with CETA and such. Classifying NASA in this way, Schmitt said in a letter dated Dec. 22, ''hurts the credibility of your other excellent proposals.'' Nothing more was heard from Stockman about space until Jan. 21, when, speaking to the National Press Club on the first full day of the Reagan administration, he said: ''I don't foresee any major changes or major reductions in the space budget. I think that's a very constructive and very important investment for the country to make, not only because of its technological spinoff, but simply because of the boost that it gives our economy and our aspirations and imaginations as a society....'' When the black book became public early in February it hit NASA with a 9 percent reduction from former President Jimmy Carter's figures for fiscal 1982. But more than that, it targeted individual programs for death or deferment, with heavy emphasis on the planetary side. By this time, NASA and the scientific community were wondering when the real David A. Stockman would stand up. Although Reagan had little to say about space in his presidential campaign and nothing in his inaugural address, it was widely assumed that he would back projects that enabled the United States to show the flag impressively, non-threateningly and at relatively low cost. From Neil Armstrong's landing on the moon to Voyager 1's flight past Saturn, space spectaculars have been among the few U.S. exploits in the last dozen years to get international approval and, as Stockman said to the Press Club, give a boost to our national self-esteem. Unmanned space missions pay public-opinion dividends far out of proportion to their cost. The grand total for unmanned deep-space flights to date is one-tenth that for manned flight. Forty-two missions of discovery and exploration involving five planets and about 18 moons cost $3.2 billion. Thirty-one manned shots cost roughly $31 billion. News early this month of the recommendation to cancel Galileo caught everyone by surprise. Neither NASA headquarters nor its interplanetary agent, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, nor the outside scientific community had any influence on, or warning of, the decisions from Stockman's office. A Congressional Budget Office study done last year on possible ways to trim federal spending was available to Stockman, but apparently had no effect on what he proposed to Reagan. Not even the transition team that was sent to NASA after the election had any input to the black book. To make matters worse, the new president had no sources of advice about space and science independent of OMB. This is largely Reagan's own doing; he has not yet named a NASA administrator or White House science adviser. As a result, nobody has been available to speak for NASA or for science. George M. Low, president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., and head of the Reagan transition team, said in a telephone interview last week that his team made no recommendations about cuts in NASA's budget. Low, a former No. 2 man at NASA under Presidents Richard M. Nixon and Gerald R. Ford, said he believed it would have been inappropriate for the team to recommend specific program changes. Revising the budget, he explained, is a complicated procedure that is properly the job of the new agency head (who, of course, has not been named). The strategy for a balanced space program, Low said, ''has to be determined by NASA.'' The man closest to the NASA portion of Stockman's hit list is Harold Glaser, until last year a division chief in the space agency's Office of Space Science. Faced with reassignment to other duties as a result of an internal shakeup, Glaser took early Civil Service retirement and left NASA Nov. 1. The conditions of Glaser's departure-in effect, his firing-have been described as less than cordial. Glaser is now working in the engineering and science branch of OMB, which handles space agency funding. Phone calls to Glaser's office last week, aimed at discussing his role and OMB's hit list rationale, went unreturned. END nyt-02-14-81 2307est *************** ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 16-Feb-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 15 Feb 1981 Subject: errors From: OTA@SU-AI Errata: In the news story I sent out yesterday there was a missing line of text due to my klutziness with the editor. Here is the section of the story as it should have appeared. Last week, a White House memo informed NASA and other agencies that they will receive the bad news officially after the holiday weekend, and will be expected to make their responses by the end of the week, in order to get the final Reagan-version budget to the printer and back before its March 10 delivery date to Congress. But next weekend may be too late. President Reagan is expected to tip his hand about most of his budgetary decisions in an economic address on Wednesday. After that, as a practical matter, the new budget will be set in concrete. ------------------------------ Date: 15 February 1981 02:48-EST From: Daniel L. Weinreb Subject: NASA funding priorities. To: SPACE at MIT-MC I see that the article does not even estimate any probabilities that such an asteriod strike might happen. I have been told (just hours ago, as it happens, I think by Dr. John Doty, speaking as part of a panel at Boskone) that this has been worked out and the probabilities are extremely low, for very extreme values of extremely. This project hardly seems like something to deflect limited NASA funding into unless the chances are pretty noticable. Of course, it is hard to place a value on destruction of all life on the planet, but even so you can't go spending millions of dollars on every conceivable infinitesmally-likely possibilty. I am mainly worried about damage to the credibility of the space program in general. ------------------------------ Date: 15 February 1981 03:42-EST From: Jerry E. Pournelle Subject: Asteroids To: Reed.ES at PARC-MAXC cc: Space at MIT-AI 1. Luis Alverez has a lot of solid evidence that Lucifer's Hammer wiped out the dinosaurs. 2. Large asteroids able to hit the Earth are rare. Big rocks hittig Earth are inevitable, but the probability that it will happen in any given century or millenium is quite low. On the other hand, it's something worth preventing if you ca. The consequences tend to be severe. At the risk of being accused of plugging my own works, Lucifer'S Hammer is a pretty good treatement of the highly probable consequences of a very improbable event. ------------------------------ Date: 15 Feb 1981 0228-PST From: Jim McGrath Subject: Members of the Senate committees on space To: energy at MIT-MC CC: space at MIT-MC An earlier message to SPACE (or maybe ENERGY) gave the current members of the House space subcommittee. I was wondering who their counterparts are in the Senate. Unfortunately, since the republicans have taken control of the senate all my facts and figures relating to PAST committees in that body are very inaccurate now. Does anyone have current information? Jim ------------------------------ Date: 15 Feb 1981 0230-PST From: Jim McGrath Subject: Local space organizations To: space at MIT-MC CC: energy at MIT-MC I am interested in finding out the people to contact for any and all Bay Area space organizations. Assume I know about L5 and SSDI (both reported in the OMNI article). Are there any other organizations (either Bay area or national) I am missing? Jim ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 17-Feb-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 15 Feb 1981 2148-PST From: Alan R. Katz Subject: See the Space Shuttle mockup To: space at MIT-MC, sf-lovers at MIT-MC cc: katz at USC-ISIF OASIS presents: SEE THE SPACE SHUTTLE MOCKUP The next meeting of OASIS will take place at Rockwell International in Downey and will feature Anita Gale of Rockwell speaking on the Shuttle. After the talk, there will be a tour of the full scale Shuttle mockup there. Details: Saturday, Feb. 28 at 7:00 p.m. at Rockwell International, DEI room (enter plant at gate 53 from Stewart and Gray Rd. or Bellflower Blvd (in Downey)) This program is free and open to the public. ------- ------------------------------ Date: 15 Feb 1981 2143-PST From: Alan R. Katz Subject: writing to president, etc To: space at MIT-MC, energy at MIT-MC cc: katz at USC-ISIF When you write to the president or congressmen, make your letters short and to the point. When the staff read them, all they will do is to check off on a list "another one for space." Long and elegant dissertations on why space is good will have the same effect as a two sentence letter saying "I think space is good, dont cut NASA's budget." Alan ------- ------------------------------ Date: 16 FEB 1981 0235-EST From: REM at MIT-MC (Robert Elton Maas) Subject: Possible bad news To: SPACE at MIT-MC, ENERGY at MIT-MC Reagan's budget committee (I don't know who exactly spoke) says if Congress doesn't accept the whole thing en masse then it'll be nitpicked to death an there won't be any significnt budget cut. Thus we have to get the NASA cuts recanted NOW before it's too late, because as soon as they have decided what they want to cut, they'll use that argument to prevent ANY amendments. ------------------------------ Date: 16 February 1981 02:46-EST From: Jerry E. Pournelle Subject: Possible bad news To: REM at MIT-MC cc: SPACE at MIT-MC, ENERGY at MIT-MC The maximum effort last week was designed around precisely the point REM makes: you must win before the cuts are formally announced, because afterwared OMB will hold the line not with the sword only, but with the battleax. Given that cuts are inevitable, then the space community has a decision. Do we try to direct the cuts? Do we use this as an opportunity to get a new charter for NASA? My view is that space is too important to be left to government. Thus we want to move toward making profits in spsace as soon as possible, thus moving us into space whether government pays or not. This measn government has its historic role of building roads to the new frontier and protecting/aiding the early settlers. This means if you buy the above that technologies are more important than missions; that a manned industrial facility in Low Earth Orbit is first priority, to be done by 1988 (inside the presidential cycle) if possible; and that a manned Moon base to use lunar resources before 1995-2000 is second priority. It means that SPS technology is vital, because even if we never beams down a watt to Earth from space, we will need power in space for industries there. It means a "space industrial park" with facilities for private investment and industrial modules to be attached. But that means also that if the budget is to be cut, and technologies and optons preserved, then---then some missins will have to go. Missions which exploit technology but don't develop it. It puts lunar polar (search for polar ice) ahead of Halley or Gailieo, and it measn VOIR just has to wait until we're in space. Of course if we go SPS for Earth power (not likely with a sane fission reactor policy, but will SANE let us be sane?) then we either step up the Moon mines and build it from lunar materials, or we build a big fleet of recoverable heavy lift vehicles (HLV). If we go HLV, then the moon base and science and everything else is done n third shifts and weekends, and we can go anywhere we want, damned cheap. If we go the other way, then I fear we wait to see Jupiter closse up again about 1995. Or later. ------------------------------ Date: 16 FEB 1981 0256-EST From: REM at MIT-MC (Robert Elton Maas) Subject: Possible bad news To: POURNE at MIT-MC CC: SPACE at MIT-MC, ENERGY at MIT-MC I agree with most of what you say. One thing, you have to be careful about terminology regarding SPS. To most people who know that SPS is an abbreviation for Space Power Station, it implies microwave beaming down to Earth. Those who have wider visions realize there are other ways to deliver power to Earth, like my ideas for making steel foam out of asteroid material and enclosing Hydrogen and Oxygen in it. You have to say explicitly if you don't at all intend to imply sending energy to Earth, but rather just using it in space for manufacturing, otherwise you'll be misunderstood; people will think you mean that SPS beaming to Earth is more important than manned space manufacturing station. So when writing letters to gov't, be sure to say Space Power Station to be used for space manufacturing rather than beaming to Earth, is the top priority or whatever you say. ------------------------------ Date: 16 February 1981 02:59-EST From: Jerry E. Pournelle Subject: history of "asteroid strikes Earth" scenario To: KING at RUTGERS cc: SPACE at MIT-MC My suspicion is that the course and the movie and Hammer were all inspired by the same source, namely an article in Astounding Science Fiction some years ago; I think Asimov also had a few words, but in our case, the Astounding article certainly caused us to include a meteor attack against Earth in the outline of FIST OF SHIVA. FIST, incidentally, was to be a realistic alien invasion novel. Publishers reading outline sent telegram: Ignore Aliens. Concentrate on Asteroid. We used a comet because (1) as you surmised, you can't protect yourself from a comet or indeed know it will hit, and (2) you get to see it coming a long time. Also, (3) it's easier to fudge on the size of the comet and the damage it does; with asteroids it's all too easy to calculate, and the damage from a large one is, uh, extensive... ------------------------------ Date: 16 February 1981 03:13-EST From: Jerry E. Pournelle Subject: Possible bad news To: REM at MIT-MC cc: POURNE at MIT-MC, SPACE at MIT-MC, ENERGY at MIT-MC Re: SPS, the AAS/L-5 Advisory Council does NOT recommend a go-ahed with SPS, since there is no way to determine its economic cost effectiveness in competition with other power systems. However, the SPS TECHNOLOGY is very important; it provides insurance against other problems (fall of the Sauidi Royal House, greter than estimated costs of railroads and environmental cleanup from coal, political unacceptability of fission, technical problems in fusion). It also provides capabilities for lots of power IN SPACE, and it's failrly clear that it will be needed. Criswell formrly of Lunar and Planetary Institute has a scheme for power systems on the Moon; with, eventually, power to be delivered to Earth from the Moon. He wants to go the Moon first way; NASA's JSC tends to like the Heavy Lift Vehicle method. L-5 likes SPS because it puts us in space with income coming down; but until we have a better handle on costs for SPS and the other energy options it would't be wise to invet TOO much in SPS now. Just develop the needed technologies. ------------------------------ Date: 16 Feb 1981 (Monday) 0941-EDT From: DREIFU at WHARTON-10 (Henry Dreifus) Subject: Re: Budgeting etx. To: space at MIT-MC, Energy at MIT-MC My view of government is -- They should make many of the cuts, but once they have done so, do NOT undo a single thing. UNDO's the base of the Carter system was the death of the Democratic Party last November. I do think that NASA should take some cut, but not quite what Mr. Stockman et al have in mind. /Hank ------------------------------ Date: 16 Feb 1981 0923-PST Sender: GEOFF at SRI-CSL Subject: Re: Possible bad news From: the tty of Geoffrey S. Goodfellow Reply-To: Geoff at SRI-CSL To: POURNE at MIT-MC Cc: REM at MIT-MC, SPACE at MIT-MC, ENERGY at MIT-MC Message-ID: <[SRI-CSL]16-Feb-81 09:23:42.GEOFF> In-Reply-To: Your message of 16 FEB 1981 0313-EST Re: Schemes for power systems on the Moon; which, will eventually deliver power to the Earth. What's the deal on the "layout" of the Moon "Countrywise", i.e. how much do we think we deserve claim/rights to vs. how much of the moon do the Soviets deserve claim/rights to? Other countries?? First come, first served? If so, how much deserved, etc.? ------------------------------ Date: 16 Feb 1981 1053-PST From: Tom Wadlow Subject: Directed Budget Cuts To: space at MIT-MC From what I have seen, the Stockman proposal for NASA budget cuts was directed at several programs specifically (i.e. no fifth orbiter, no Galileo, no VOIR, etc). These proposed cuts did not come from NASA but rather from Stockman's office. Does anyone know if other agencies facing budget reductions were told SPECIFICALLY what would be cut, or was it more of the "I don't care how you do it but you've got to chop out X million/billion" variety? ------------------------------ Date: 16 Feb 1981 1416-PST From: MERRITT at USC-ISIB Subject: Re: Possible bad news To: Geoff at SRI-CSL, POURNE at MIT-MC cc: REM at MIT-MC, SPACE at MIT-MC, ENERGY at MIT-MC In-Reply-To: Your message of 16-Feb-81 0923-PST As far as I know (and I would have to agree with) there is no scheme for dividing up the moon between interested parties. It should be shared by all the people up there and perhaps governed separately, by a UN type mix of all those who might be involved. Perhaps the moon should be like another country, providing trade with any and all others. <>IHM<> Ps: I could have a LONG drawn out discussion (dissertation) on the merits of creating the separate environment, however I think that my point is conveyed. ------- ------------------------------ Date: 16 Feb 1981 1602-PST From: Tom Wadlow Subject: Interesting quote from the Speaker of the House To: space at MIT-MC The following excerpt is from a Boston Globe article about House Speaker Thomas P. O'Neill. The rest of the article dealt with Speaker O'Neill's impressions of the incoming Reagan administration. I felt that this excerpt would prove interesting to the SPACE readership, but the bulk of the article would not. Copies of the entire Globe article will be mailed upon request to TAW@SU-AI. " NEW ENGLAND UNDER REAGAN - I would hope and trust that we wouldn't fare under Reagan like we did under (President Richard M.) Nixon. I don't think the animosity is there, like to close a Navy yard (Charlestown) when it shouldn't have been closed and to close a NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration in Cambridge) when it shouldn't have been closed because the president of the United States - Nixon at the time - truly hated the Kennedys, and he did it for spite. I don't think the animosity is there. I don't think this fellow is that type of man at all. " ------------------------------ Date: 17 FEB 1981 0214-EST From: FONER at MIT-AI (Leonard N. Foner) Subject: Re: Possible bad news To: MERRITT at USC-ISIB CC: Space at MIT-MC, Energy at MIT-MC Much as I hate to mention this... there WAS a possible method of dividing up space, according to the UN, and that was its famous "Moon Treaty" that wasn't. The problems that choked almost everyone was that the supposedly fair and honest divison of the moon with all the third world nations and so forth would mean that there was no profit at all in going to the moon. It was economic disaster to even attempt to make a profit off the moon, since you'd have to give everyone a piece of the pie if they asked for it. Does anyone have either more detail on the actual treaty as it was rejected, or a method to divvy up the moon without this problem? ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 18-Feb-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 17 February 1981 02:24-EST From: Jerry E. Pournelle Subject: Re: Possible bad news To: FONER at MIT-AI cc: SPACE at MIT-MC, ENERGY at MIT-MC, MERRITT at USC-ISIB Text of the Moon Treaty was published by L-5 Society. Join Now. ------------------------------ Date: 17 February 1981 02:38-EST From: Jerry E. Pournelle cc: SPACE at MIT-MC I sometimes wonder: how many L-5 enthusiasts do we have on this mailing list, and would any like to help organize a bit of help for L-5 communications? ------------------------------ Date: 17 FEB 1981 0258-EST From: LEECH at MIT-MC (Jonathan P. Leech) To: SPACE at MIT-MC Recently a fellow Caltech student mentioned a JPL project called ANTARES, apparently some sort of asteroid rendevous mission. He seemed to feel that it is an official project. Does anyone know if it really exists? (Of course, even if it did exist, it probably won't soon. SIGH.) Jon Leech ------------------------------ Date: 17 FEB 1981 0948-EST From: STEVEH at MIT-MC (Stephen C. Hill) Subject: ADVOCACY LETTERS To: SPACE at MIT-MC CC: STEVEH at MIT-MC I work for Congress (in toto, not a specific member), and while I agree that "only a check-mark" is counted, if you have good, cogent points that can be used in debate, by all means include them. Don't ramble, or get strident, but don't be afraid to state yur case either. Steve ------------------------------ Date: 18 FEB 1981 0008-EST From: ES at MIT-MC (Gene Salamin) To: SPACE at MIT-MC I conjecture that all this effort to "educate" the Reagan administration about the benefits of space are totally futile. The purpose of the NASA budget cut has nothing to do with saving money, since the entire budget is peanuts anyway. Some years age I worked for the C. S. Draper Laboratory. They designed the guidance system for the Apollo spacecraft. When the Apollo project ended, many engineers who had devoted their lives to specializing in some detailed aspect of space technology found themselves laid off. Now we're going through the process again. Sooner or later, no talented person will want to touch space with a ten foot pole. This, I suggest, is the real purpose of the NASA budget cut. The letter writing campaign to save the NASA budget will only have to be repeated every two years, when we have a new congress, and again with greater effort when we have a new president. The real hope for space lies with private enterprise. If we can axe the total federal budget sufficiently, especially the totally worthless welfare system, then perhaps there would be enough private capital to finance space development. Perhaps our efforts should be directed toward the creator of wealth in this country -- the industrialists, rather than the despoilers of wealth -- the government. A possible solution to the problem can be found in "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 19-Feb-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 18 Feb 1981 1158-PST From: Stuart McLure Cracraft Subject: L-5 address To: space at MIT-MC Could someone please send their address to this list? ------- [ L-5 Society 1620 North Park Avenue Tucson, AZ 85719 -ota] ------------------------------ Date: 19 February 1981 02:42-EST From: Jerry E. Pournelle To: ES at MIT-MC cc: SPACE at MIT-MC 1. The letter campaign by L-5 got the NASA budget cuts down from $700 million as orignally put in black book to $250 million as mentioned in President speech; and Congress will restore part of that. (2) So if you care to continue to despair, well, evolution has a way of deail;ing with those who despiar. Me, I'm ecstatic, and also partly pickled on good brandy. ------------------------------ Date: 19 FEB 1981 0300-EST From: KED at MIT-MC (Keith Dow) To: SPACE at MIT-MC Could you put me on the list please? ------------------------------ Date: 19 FEB 1981 0313-EST From: POURNE at MIT-MC (Jerry E. Pournelle) Subject: reagan speech To: SPACE at MIT-MC Note that in speech Reagan said space is important, and cutsd were only $250 million. Black book threat was $700 million. L-5 leadership and all those marvellous supporters out there can feel pretty good about getting the cut reduced to something we can live with. Now if we redirect to make technologies primary we can go ahead... It could be a wonderful decade. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 20-Feb-81 1942 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 19 Feb 1981 0904-PST From: Tom Wadlow Subject: How much is your opinion worth? To: space at MIT-MC According to my pocket calculator, if Reagan dropped the NASA cut from 629 million to 250 million (he said a quarter of a MILLION on TV. I watched the speech twice for verification) that means that SOMETHING caused him to NOT cut 379 million. If the cause was letters to the President from L-5 and Star Trek and other just plain concerned people, then (assuming an optimistic 20,000 letters) each letter for space was worth $18,950. Of course, this is only playing with numbers and not really valid across the whole spectrum of political response to public pressure. But it does give you an answer to use the next time someone tells you that the government doesn't listen, and that their opinion isn't worth anything. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 21-Feb-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 20 FEB 1981 0827-EST From: REM at MIT-MC (Robert Elton Maas) To: SPACE at MIT-MC Engine test on shuttle this morning, 7 EST, 4 PST (plus a few minutes I forget), live on ABC "Good Morning America" (I don't know if us west coast people will get 3-hr delay or what). A NASA person responsible for insulating tiles was on J.Carson tonite and will be on again this coming night (friday) to finish what he couldn't finish tonite (thursday). J.Carson is a SPACE ENTHUSIAST at heart. ------------------------------ Date: 21 February 1981 03:13-EST From: Jerry E. Pournelle Subject: How much is your opinion worth? To: TAW at SU-AI cc: SPACE at MIT-MC The actual number of letters was smaller than 20,000. We are now getting a bit over 100 / day with the number increasing. Keep it up; we need now to get a New Start authorized for the Low Earth Orbit (LEO) Base. Congress will put it in; we have to see that the White House is willing to allow it. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 22-Feb-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 21 Feb 1981 1512-PST From: Ted Anderson Subject: In case you hadn't heard To: space at MIT-MC a030 0126 21 Feb 81 PM-Shuttle,420 Jubilation After Test Dampened By Strike By HOWARD BENEDICT Associated Press Writer CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - A surpgise strike by key aerospace workers has quenched some of the official jubilation over the successful test-firing of the space shuttle Columbia's mammoth engines. Although officials have a plan for bringing in outside employees to fill the critical jobs, Kennedy Space Center director Richard Smith said the striking machinists perform vital support work and a prolonged walkout could mean postponement of the launch, planned for April 7. The three engines of the reusable spacecraft fired perfectly for 20 seconds Friday morning, spewing flame and steam over the launch area and sending a thunder clap rolling across the cape. Officials of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said they were confident that finally, after two years of delays, Columbia was ready to take astronauts into orbit. ''The operation of the engines was fantastic,'' launch director George Page said. ''From an engineering standpoint, it was totally perfect,'' said J.R. Thompson, engine project manager. But immediately after the test, 881 members of a machinists' union walked off their jobs on the shuttle launch pad. The walkout initially jeopardized some operations such as purging Columbia's fuel tanks, but managers filled in for the strikers. The workers, members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, are embroiled in a contract dispute with Boeing Services International. The union has been working without a contract since the old pact expired Jan. 23. Richard Deem, the federal mediator handling the negotiations, said there has been little progress in bringing the two sides together, with money matters the main issue. The two sides are to meet again Monday. Smith said Boeing has a strike plan that includes bringing in outside management personnel to handle critical jobs. ''It will be several days before we see just how effective that plan is,'' Smith tol reporters. Among the observers of the test-firing were John Young and Robert Crippen, the astronauts who are to fly Columbia on her 54-hour maiden voyage. Also observing were about 20 other astronauts - all of whom have aspirations to fly as the fleet of reusable shuttles grows in the next threee years to four, and perhaps five. The space ships will be used for a variety of civilian, scientific and military missions. ap-ny-02-21 0428EST *************** ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 23-Feb-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 22 FEB 1981 0834-EST From: REM at MIT-MC (Robert Elton Maas) Subject: In case you hadn't heard To: OTA at SU-AI CC: SPACE at MIT-MC Well, at least those striking machinists had the decency to wait until right after the test firing, where they'd have minimal destructive effect on the project but maximal media exposure. That's an encouraging aspect. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 24-Feb-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 23 Feb 1981 1117-PST From: Robert Maas Subject: Military use of space to prevent nuclear exchange To: SPACE at MIT-MC NEWS BULLETIN -- Heard this morning on KCBS. Somebody might want to retrieve the AP/NYT story. -- Researchers at Lawrence Livermore Lab have successfully tested (at one of the underground nuclear test ranges) a high-power X-ray laser that is powerful enough that if deployed in space it could destroy an ICBM with a single blast instead of having to train its beam on a single spot on the missile and gradually warm that portion of the missile until it melted, as the prior (chemical) lasers had to do. This means we could possibly ward off a nuclear exchange by destroying all ICBMs that come at us. This means the point that military use of space might someday become fesible has already reached us and in a beneficial (defensive, anti-nuclear-war) way instead of in a destructive (offensive, pro-nuclear-way), and we are more likely to continue getting funds for the shuttle and LEO (Low Earth Orbit docking facility and "Space Operations Center") than before this major revelation. The future in space is today at Honeywell xxx whoops Lawrence Livermore. ------------------------------ Date: 23 FEB 1981 1859-EST From: REM at MIT-MC (Robert Elton Maas) Subject: Update on high-power X-ray laser for knocking out ICBMs To: SPACE at MIT-MC Just heard on radio more info, specifically that one of these lasers capable of knocking out one ICBM in a single shot is small enough to be sent up "on a single space shuttle flight". The more of them you have up, the more missiles you can shoot down. Sounds like there'll be an infinite supply of these laser-weapons wanting to get a ride into space, thus guaranteeing that the shuttle will make money (not that this in doubt since all early flights are already booked solid literally, like solid pack tuna I imagine, but now there's added insurance that there's a market for building more and more orbiter vehicles once the first four demonstrate that the technology works). [The source of this story was appearently an article in this weeks Aviation Week and Space Technology, Feb 23, page 25. It makes rather interesting reading you might try looking it up. -ota] ------------------------------ Date: 24 Feb 1981 0312-PST From: Jim McGrath Subject: Series on the Shuttle To: space at MIT-MC A seies of articles on the shuttle has been made available through the news service. Below is the first of three articles. This article was munged somehow, so in some sections it is incomplete. n038 1158 23 Feb 81 BC-SHUTTLE-NASA 4takes (Newhouse 001) First of three articles suggested for use beginning Sunday By PATRICK YOUNG Newhouse News Service WASHINGTON - The United States is looking ahead to a time when astronauts roar into Earth orbit almost routinely. But that all depends on the space shuttle - a craft 12 years in the making, two years late, 27 percent over budget, untested in space, and plagued by problems. Columbia, the first shuttle intended for inhospitable space, awaits its maiden voyage from Launch Complex 39-A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Its crew - astronauts John Young and Robert Crippen - also await the flight, now scheduled no earlier than April 7. They repeatedly express the view that Columbia will carry them without serious mishap through their 54 1/2-hour mission. ''We obviously think it's safe or we wouldn't be doing it,'' Young says. It is not a view shared universally. During its development, the shuttle has suffered well-publicized problems with its main engines and the ''tiles'' that protect it from the intense heat of re-entry. Despite Columbia's successful engine test on Feb. 20, some still wonder whether these troubles have been completely corrected. The shuttle, by any standard, is a craft bolnd BC-SHUTTLE-NASA 1stadd (Newhouse 002) Young - WASHINGTOGVThe last three American astronauts in space rendezvoused in earth-orbit with two Soviet cosmonauts in 1975. Since then, the Russians have sent aloft more than three dozen humans. Cosmonauts have logged more than twice the 22,493 hours American astronauts have spent in space, and two Russians hold the record for the most time on a single flight - 185 days. Internationally ''they have made points by taking up a Czech, a Pole, an East German, a Bulgarian, a Hungarian, a Vietnamese and a Cuban,'' says Charles Sheldon II, a specialist on Soviet space activity at the Library of Congress. Later this year, a Mongolian and Romanian are to orbit in Russian craft, and a Frenchman will fly next year. The Russians reportedly are working on their own reuseable spaceship. Former Defense Secretary Harold Brown told Congress last year the craft appears similar to Dyna-Soar, a project this country dropped in the mid-1960s. The Russians have proved little help in making their plans known. ''They deliberately seem to say contradictory things, so it is anyone's guess,'' Sheldon says. At a time when detente between the United States and the Soviet Union is damaged if not dying, there appears to be a mild rebirth in the idea of a ''space race'' between the two superpowers. ''I feel a bit embarrassed nationally by how the Soviets have outrun us, given our resources,'' says a university scientist long active in the space program. If the United States is to re-establish its preeminence in manned-space operations, the shuttle is vital. The nation has no other way to launch astronauts, and it would take a decade to develop a new manned craft. NASA and the Pentagon know it, and realize the impact a major failure during Columbia's first flight might have. ''Depending on the circumstances, it could be a severe blow to national pride and prestige,'' says Philip E. Culbertson, Lovelace's assistant for Space Transportation Systems. ''On the other hand, we have got to recognize that the first flight of any space vehicle has got hazards and unknowns not present when you fly it more regularly. It seems to me the nation must be intellectually prepared for a setback. It is a very difficult mission to fly, with a very complex machine.'' The shuttle concept evolved from a ''what next?'' study that began in September 1969, two months after the first manned landing on the moon. Such missions as a manned)ested, should be a reuseable spacecraft. NASA spent two years on cost, engineering and design studies. The project won President Nixon's approval in 1972. Under pressure from the White House to keep costs low, the space agency estimated the shuttle's development costs at $5.1 billion in 1971 dollars. The program's projected cost through the first four shuttle flights is now $9.6 billion in 1981 dollars, equal to $6.5 billion in 1971 dollars - a cost overrun after inflation of 27 percent. During most of the 1970s and even now, much of NASA's financial resources went to the shuttle, leaving other space programs wanting. ''Science and applications suffered a great deal by the fact the shuttle was the central focus of the space program; that is a matter of firm fact,'' says James Van Allen of the University of Iowa, discoverer of the earth-girdling radiation belts that bear his name. Among the projects postponed or delayed because of the shuttle's costs: Galileo, an orbiter and atmospheric probe to Jupiter; a twin-craft look at the sun's two poles called the International Solar Polar Mission, and the Venus Orbiting Imaging Radar, a craft to study the surface of earth's closest planetary neighbor. A proposed mission to look at Halley's Comet was never approved. Scientists hope NASA will find more money for them once the shuttle is operational. The shuttle consists of three basic units: the airplane-like orbiter, which can carry up to seven people; two solid-fuel booster rockets, and an external tank that provides more than 526,000 gallons of liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen to fuel the orbiter's three main rocket engines. At launch, both the booster rockets and the shuttle engines fire. The booster rockets burn for two minutes, dropping off at about 32 miles altitude. They are designed to fall into the ocean, be retrieved by special ships and refurbished, and be used again. About 8 1/2 minutes into the flight, the main shuttle engines stop. The external tank drops off and burns up in the atmosphere. The shuttle crew can orbit earth as high as 600 miles. Once its mission is finished, the orbiter drops into the atmosphere and glides to a landing. ''It's a totally different flying machine,'' says Young, the veteran of four space flights who describes his re-entries in Gemini and Apollo craft as ''kind of like flying a brick.'' Columbia's first flight is to end at Edwards Air Force Base in California, with a back-up site at the White Sands Missile Test Range in New Mexico. Later flights will land at Kennedy Space Center and Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Once refurbished, the orbiter is designed to fly again. In all, each shuttle orbiter is supposed to make some 100 flights. Columbia is temporarily equipped with ejection seats. But these can be used only at certain times during launch, and even then survival chances are uncertain. The seats will be removed after the craft's first few flights. The shuttle doesn't land like an airplane. It is a computer-controlled glider and has no engine for flying around if the crew overshoots the runway. NASA has three additional orbiters on order, and hopes for a fifth. Each craft is named after a famous sailing ship. Challenger is set for delivery in April 1982, followed by Discovery and Atlantis. Shuttle proponents have long argued that it made no sense to throw away a rocket every time a satellite or manned craft was launched. ''Our space program to date has been the equivalent of loading a ship in Norfolk, sailing to South Hampton, England, off-loading the cargo and sinking the ship,'' says Mark Chartrand of the National Space Institute, a nonprofit space-advocacy group. The reuseable shuttle is essentially a truck to haul things into space. It can launch satellites or carry experiments in its boxcar-size cargo bay. It can also pick up satellites to repair or upreturn them to earth. This latter capability is particularly important for the giant, sophisticated, long-life satellites planned in the future. ''I can't conceive of building something like Mount Palomar (Observatory) and saying iu0 will abandon it,'' Culbertson says. Originally, NASA argued that a reuseable craft could operate far cheaper than expendable rockets. But it now appears doubtful the shuttle will prove much less expensive per flight. Any large savings must await a second generation of shuttles in the 1990s. The shuttle's development problems have been expensive. The two most serious were the orbiter's main engines and its heat-shield tiles. Yet experts say these problems were nothing extraordinary in such a complex undertaking. One notes the United States has had problems developing its launch vehicles back to the 1950s. ''When you develop something, that means you really don't know how to do it. So you make mistakes along the way,'' says Eugene Covert of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who chaired a National Academy of Sciences study of the shuttle's engine problems. Covert cites one example to illustrate the technological sophistication involved. Each main engine has an oxygen-fuel pump that generates 29,413 horsepower, yet is small enough to fit into a trash can. ''That's pretty impressive when you consider that engines in automobiles only put out a couple of hundred horsepower,'' Covert says. NASA says the embarrassing engine fires and failures are now history. ''We have never had the kind of engine malfunction that would have destroyed the vehicle,'' Culbertson says. ''We are satisfied we have identified and corrected all the problems in the mainn,re) The engine problems were somewhat anticipated. The tile troubles were not. ''Basically, we underestimated the real difficulty and it took us some time to really work our way out of that problem,'' Lovelace says. In the past, the bottoms of spacecraft have been covered with materials that wore away under the 2,700-degree Fahrenheit temperatures of re-entry and carried heat away with them. This kept spacecraft from burning up. The shuttle relies on its tiles for heat protection - 30,922 on the underside of each orbiter. The tiles are actually lightweight, fragile bricks fashioned of silica and fibers. While metal-melting hot on the outside, they keep the orbiter's aluminum skin at 350 degrees. The tiles themselves caused no real problem. It was the way they were originally bonded to the shuttle. Once the problem was recognized after stress analyses and wind tunnel tests, costly and hopefully successful corrective measures were taken. ''I would say there is one chance in 1,000 that we will lose a tile or more than one,'' Culbertson says. ''Beyond that, I would say that if we lose any, there is only one chance in 10 that the loss will manifest itself as a serious problem.'' Throughout NASA and the aerospace community there exists confidence that the shuttle will succeed. For some, the confidence is newly found. ''I would say the whole thing has a high probability of success, and I am one of the original doubters,'' Grey says. ''They have done a helluva good job of catching up during the last year.'' (NEXT: SHUTTLE AND SCIENCE.) SG END YOUNG nyt-02-23-81 1519est *************** ------------------------------ Date: 24 Feb 1981 0313-PST From: Jim McGrath Subject: nasa budget cuts To: space at MIT-MC a250 1648 19 Feb 81 AM-Space Shuttle,350 By HOWARD BENEDICT Associated Press Writer ... NASA space shuttle officials, meanwhile, expressed pleasure that Reagan had strongly supported the project in his budget message to Congress. While the president proposed slicing some scientific space projects, he said money to develop a fleet of four shuttles, with option on a fifth, would be maintained to meet civilian and critical defense needs. There had been some concern in the space agency that Reagan would delay building the fourth shuttle and eliminate funds for the fifth. These five space ships will form the heart of the U.S. space program - civilian, scientific and military - for the remainder of this century. Each will land on earth like an airliner and be capable of 100 or more roundtrips into orbit. ap-ny-02-19-81 1948est *************** ------------------------------ Date: 24 Feb 1981 0317-PST From: Jim McGrath To: space at MIT-MC second on shuttle series n044 1313 23 Feb 81 (Newhouse 006) Second of three articles suggested for use beginning Sunday By PATRICK YOUNG Newhouse News Service WASHINGTON - It is not quite the stuff of ''Buck Rogers'' or ''Star Trek,'' but space buffs envision the 1980s as the beginning of a new era of space exploitation. They see a time of giant communications platforms and sophisticated satellites to explore the resources of Earth and the mysteries of the deep universe. They expect scientific experiments never tried before. They even foresee some industrial operations in orbit. But all this depends on the space shuttle, intended as the world's first reuseable spaceship. The craft, now scheduled to make its maiden voyage no earlier than April 7, is the key. ''What's at stake is quite literally our future in space,'' says Mark Chartrand of the National Space Institute, a nonprofit space-advocacy group. Consider the Space Telescope, a 43-foot, 12-ton instrument with a life expectancy of 20 to 25 years. When it finally orbits above the light-distorting haze and turbulence of Earth's atmosphere, perhaps in 1985, this 94-inch optical telescope will enable astronomers to see seven times farther into the heavens then they can today. The shuttle will carry the Space Telescope to its 300-mile-high station. Over the years, crews will visit the telescope to make needed repairs. And every five to seven years, they will load the instrument into the shuttle's boxcar-size cargo bay and return it to Earth for refurbishing. ''A program like the Space Telescope - a large, long-term observatory that would be serviceable throughout its lifetime - depends on the shuttle,'' says Jeffrey D. Rosendhal of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. ''Clearly when you make a fraction of a billion-dollar investment and plan to operate for 25 years, shuttle retrieval comes into play.'' There are four basic uses for the shuttle: - First, to orbit and service satellites. NASA launches not only its own craft but those of nonmilitary agencies, foreign governments and communications companies. The military also will use the shuttle to orbit its spies in the sky. NASA envisions a number of future giant satellites, including X-ray and gamma-ray counterparts of the Space Telescope. It also would like a space station, one more sophisticated than Russia's Salyut 6 now in orbit. ''We think one of these days the United States ought to have a permanent space station up, and this vehicle (the shuttle) will allow us to do it for one-tenth the cost,'' says astronaut John Young, commaner of the first shuttle flight. - Second, as a platform for scientific observations. In effect, the craft would be a manned orbiting laboratory to observe Earth, its atmosphere, its near-space environment, the sun and planets, and deep space. Biological, medical and material-processing studies also would be done. - Third, to conduct interactive experiments. For example, physicists want to inject energy into Earth's magnetic fields to learn what happens. ''We have never been able to do interactive experiments,'' says Charles Pellerin Jr., deputy director of NASA's spacelab flight division. ''Space experiments in the past have been passive, in that you observed something. With the shuttle, we will do things like shoot a particle beam into the (Van Allen) radiation belts.'' Such tests require devices weighing many tons. They will be possible with the shuttle because of its carrying capacity, expected to reach 65,000 pounds in several years. - Fourth, as a place to process materials. Certain products - vaccines, ballbearings, semiconductor crystals - might benefit from being made in the zero-gravity or extreme cold of space. ''Another potential aspect is the ability to mix light metals with heavy metals and in a gravity-free environment have them remain mixed as they cool to create new alloys,'' says George Baker of NASA's office of space transportation systems. In recent years, Russian cosmonauts have conducted a number of such experiments. ''They have made tremendous headway in the number of exotic alloy metals,'' says Charles Sheldon II, an expert on Soviet space activities at the Library of Congress. ''In industrialization, they have to be ahead.'' American companies aren't clammering to conduct such experiments. But NASA sees them coming around. ''Once someone does it and makes a buck on it, others will follow,'' Baker says. To spur interest among potential shuttle users, NASA has joined with the McDonnell Douglas Corp., an aerospace company, to test a drug-processing technique in space. The space agency is also offering the public the chance to use the shuttle - for research only. ''We don't allow people to fly coins or stamps,'' Baker says. But for $5),000 to9$10,0, any company, university, government agency or private citizen can fly a small shuttle experiment - no larger than five cubic feet and no heavier than 200 pounds - on a space-available basis. NASA calls these its ''Getaway Specials.'' So far, it has collected $500 down payments for each of more than 300 such experiments. ''We have a selfish motive,'' Baker says. ''We anticipate that in some of the potential industrial applications, the results will lead to the use of the shuttle on a larger scale.'' The first four shuttle flights are primarily designed to test the craft. But on its second voyage, planned for this fall, the shuttle will carry seven experiments - including a new radar to help map natural resources and an instrument to measure the carbon monoxide concentrations in the atmosphere. In 1983, the first spacelab is scheduled to fly in the shuttle's hold. This sophisticated laboratory is being built by the 10-nation European Space Agency at a cost of more than $850 million. The spacelab consists of a pressurized module, in which scientists can work in their shirt sleeves, and an unpressurized instrument pallet. The two can be flown together or separately. The pallet experiments can be controlled from the spacelab's manned section, the shuttle cabin or the ground. The spacelab will allow scientists to work in orbit without undergoing the extensive training required of astronauts. And NASA officials strongly argue that humans will play vital roles in space research and exploitation. Rosendhal cites the solar discoveries made during the three Skylab missions, when astronauts were able to recognize events on the sun and quickly train instruments on them. ''Man's presence will have a very practical benefit in exploiting space for the benefit of mankind,'' predicts Alan M. Lovelace, NASA's acting administrator. ''It is certainly the case we can do things that are well automated and work fantastically well. But man can do things. His judgment and his ability to exercise that judgment are going to be very important to our ability to exploit space.'' But the ability to work in space won't ultimately determine the growth of space industries. ''In the long run, it is going to come down to economics,'' says Eugene Covert of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. SG END YOUNG nyt-02-23-81 1618est *************** ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 25-Feb-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 24 February 1981 1801-EST (Tuesday) From: Hans Moravec at CMU-10A (R110HM60) To: energy at MIT-MC, space at MIT-MC Subject: Nuclear pumped X ray zapsat In the AWST article the satellite is small enough that "several" could be launched in a shuttle flight. Or they could be put into space in time of crisis on ICBM warheads. Each satellite has, in the artist's depiction 32 rods of a "high density material", with each rod being an individually steerable laser. When the small nuclear device in the body of the satellite detonates this porcipine satellite shoots 32 bursts in as many directions, each one on the order of 10^15 watts and 10^-9 seconds, enough to destroy targets by absorbed energy shockwave (and you can't reflect X rays very well). Of course, each satellite can be used only once. The rods look pretty thin in the picture, but presumably their aperture is large enough to give adequate collimation at 10^3 km range. The jubilation is because the concept was successfully demonstarted in an underground test within the last few months. I wish the people who read this list who were involved with this could tell us more. ------------------------------ Date: 25 February 1981 02:54-EST From: Jerry E. Pournelle Subject: Nuclear pumped X ray zapsat To: Hans Moravec at CMU-10A cc: ENERGY at MIT-MC, SPACE at MIT-MC Come on, Hans, you know that no one is really building zapsts, and no one is really interested in destabilizing the arms race by engaging in research on stuff like that. ------------------------------ Date: 25 February 1981 02:59-EST From: Jerry E. Pournelle Subject: Update on high-power X-ray laser for knocking out ICBMs To: REM at MIT-MC cc: "TO:" at MIT-MC, SPACE at MIT-MC In Strategy of Technology, Possony and I argued for the concept of "threat tube sterilization"; ie a means of directing the energy from a nuclear explosion along a corridor in space, thus neutralizing everything in taht corridor. We were not permitted to talk about means for accomplishing this in an unclassified book, and we were severely chastised by a number of "arms control theorists" for our "technically illogical fantasies." ------------------------------ Date: 25 February 1981 03:01-EST From: Jerry E. Pournelle Subject: Series on the Shuttle To: JPM at SU-AI cc: "TO:" at MIT-MC, SPACE at MIT-MC Holy catfish. I've known Patrick Young for years. He was medical writer on the National Observer before that folded. A good lad, but rally, "inhospitable space"? ------------------------------ Date: 25 Feb 1981 0252-PST From: Jim McGrath Subject: third story on the shuttle To: space at MIT-MC n036 1124 24 Feb 81 BC-SHUTTLE-MILITARY 2takes (Newhouse 001) Last of three articles suggested for use beginning Sunday By PATRICK YOUNG Newhouse News Service WASHINGTON - The Pentagon is counting on the space shuttle to orbit its satellites and ensure a continued U.S. military presence in space. But missing in much of the publicity surrounding the shuttle is this vital importance to national security, and the Defense Department's role in saving the project. Back in the early 1970s, NASA wooed and won military support for the shuttle. The Air Force committed itself to the reuseable craft as its sole vehicle to orbit satellites, including its ''spies-in-the-sky'' that watch the Soviet Union. Largely because the Pentagon wanted it, the problem-plagued and costly shuttle has survived 10 years of criticism and budget crises. Now the Pentagon faces a potential crisis of its own. It needs the shuttle soon, if its satellite launches are to remain on a tight schedule. But the shuttle has yet to be tested in space. Its first orbital flight is scheduled for no earlier than April 7. ''Our current plan is to phase out all boosters (rockets),'' says Brig. Gen. Ralph H. Jacobson, the Air Force's director of space systems at the Pentagon. ''We've made arrangments so that we're somewhat insensitive to short delays. If there is a major problem with the shuttle, we would have to make other arrangements to launch our satellites.'' Some satellites set for orbit beginning in 1983 are too large and heavy to be orbited by the Titan III, the Air Force's standard rocket. If the shuttle can't be used, costly and time-consuming modifications to the Titan III will be required. The shuttle is drawing the civilian and military space programs closer together than ever. And at times, Pentagon needs may dominate. By joint agreement, the Air Force can preempt any shuttle flight to fly a national defense mission, a power that some NASA officials worry could be misused. ''We are very sensitive to the fact this would affect other payloads,'' the Air Force's Jacobson says. ''We will only act to change schedules on national security grounds.'' So far, the Air Force and NASA have worked in surprisingly close harmony. Yet some fear persists in the space agency that a major shuttle failure could lead to the Air Force taking total control. The Air Force will use the shuttle essentially for the same tasks as NASA - orbiting satellites and conducting space experiments. But the purpose will be different. ''While peace may be our profession, being prepared for war is our business, and we must be prepared to protect our vital interests in space as well as those in land, sea and air,'' says Lt. Gen. J.F. O'Malley, Air Force deputy chief of staff for operations, plans and readiness. ''The potential for space to become a more hostile environment is increasing.'' Military satellites include communication, navigation, weather and spy craft. Satellites relay about two-thirds of the military's long-range communications. Intelligence satellites monitor foreign military activities and food production, and watch for specific flashes of light that signal the launch of a Soviet intercontinental ballistic missile or a nuclear blast in space. Satellites could be used to guide U.S. missiles to enemy targets. ''As we are denied more and more observation posts around the world in places like Iran and Ethiopia, we become even more reliant on space,'' O'Malley says. ''In fact, many would say that arms-control agreements owe their very existence to space systems. Without the capability to monitor treaty compliance with space systems, negotiations which attempt to limit strategic weapons would be considerably more difficult.'' The United States is a party to international agreements designed to ensure the peaceful uses of space. But these pacts would likely crumble in wartime. The Soviet Union is developing killer satellites to destroy or knock out sensors on orbiting craft. Russia reportedly tested a killer satellite successfully on Feb. 2. There is concern, as well, that the Soviets could orbit a crude laser weapon in as little as five years capable of crippling or destroying U.S. satellites with concentrated beams of high-energy light. Although the Air Force says it has no plans to arm the shuttle with a laser cannon and send it into space as a ''Star Wars'' gunship - as has been suggested - one of its early military flights will test a laser-aiming device. ''We're testing our ability to point for a lot of reasons, not just a laser weapon,'' Jacobson says. ''Laser communications - cross links from satellite to satellite - have the advantage that they can transmit much more information, compared to the frequencies we are using now.'' Although the shuttle is to play an essential role in national security, most of its costs come out of NASA's budget. This was part of the agreement that won Pentagon support for the project. NASA is paying for the shuttle's design, development, production and testing - a cost expected to total at least $9.6 billion. Operating the program will cost billions more. The Air Force is investing $2.9 billion. This is mostly to provide a shuttle facility at Vandenberg Air Force Base, 150 miles north of Los Angeles, and to develop a two-stage booster rocket called the Interial Upper Stage (IUS). The Air Force will pay NASA, at bargain rates, to use the shuttle. Flights will operate from Vandenberg - on missions that need to fly over the Earth's poles - and from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Polar-orbit satellites provide better coverage of the Soviet Union. But civilian and military shuttle flights will be made from both bases. Constructions crews are now at work on Launch Complex 6, the shuttle's home at Vandenberg. The base's 8,000-foot runway will be expanded to 15,000 feet for shuttle landings. Eventually, more than 20 missions a year will fly from Vandenberg. The Air Force also plans a $117 million Consolidated Space Operations Center, probably near Colorado Springs, Colo., to carry out two missions. First, it will plan and control military shuttle flights. Second, it will share the job of controlling military satellites with the current Air Force control center in Sunnyvale, Calif. By 1985, the Air Force expects to be operating 65 satellites. The solid-fuel IUS rocket - designed to boost satellites from the shuttle's low orbit to higher altitudes - is two years behind schedule and $221 million over its original cost estimate of $243 million. The Boeing Co., which is developing the IUS, wants the Air Force to pay another $76 million. So the Air Force, too, faces costly development problems in the shuttle program. But the big worry remains the success of the shuttle itself. Jacobson, for one, believes the United States should see the project through, whatever the problems. ''It's a marvelous technological achievement that is just as complex as going to the moon,'' he says. ''It puts the rest of the world on notice that the United States is a technological power.'' SG END YOUNG nyt-02-24-81 1442est ********** ------------------------------ Date: 25 Feb 1981 0254-PST From: Jim McGrath Subject: Space Law To: space at MIT-MC AM-Shuttle-Law, Bjt,530 Ole Miss Professor Keeps Eye On Space Law By DAVID SPEER Associated Press Writer JACKSON, Miss. (AP) - When the space shuttle rockets into space this spring, a University of Mississippi professor wants to make sure it doesn't run afoul of the law. Dr. Stephen Gorove of the Ole Miss law school is an expert on how domestic and international law applies to outer space. He has published two books on space law - the most recent being ''The Space Shuttle and the Law'' - and helps put out The Journal of Space Law, the only journal in the world devoted to the legal problems arising from trips beyond our world. ''Really, the launching of the space shuttle will probably be the most significant event that has taken place since the beginning of the Space Age,'' Gorove said. ''I think that the potentials are just enormous. ''It is going to open up my field - insurance, legal problems, criminal jurisdictions, civil liability. It's an enormous field which is opening up entirely new possibilities for government and industry.'' Gorove said the thorniest question of law, as it applies to the shuttle, is when and where the craft is considered a spaceship and where it might be considered an airplane. ''Space law should be applied to the shuttle,'' he said. ''In the current state of the technology, it is a spacecraft. If it is going to someday in the future fly as an aircraft flies, then we will have to take another look at it.'' The shuttle is powered into space with rockets, much like previous U.S. spacecraft. But the reusable transportation system, unlike previous U.S. manned venturers which splashed down into the ocean, will glide back to earth on stubby wings to make an unpowered landing on an airstrip at Edwards Air Force Base in California. The question of spacecraft or airplane is important because different laws apply to the two types of vehicles, he said. Space law is set down in four principal treaties, which set jurisdictional boundaries and liability limits and help officials deal with problems of liability in case of accidents and in insurance coverage, Gorove said. A fifth treaty - the moon treaty - is being considered by the United States. The shuttle's cargo bay will hold 65,000 pounds of scientific apparatus and much space on future flights already has been reserved for various projects. What would happen if part of the shuttle broke loose as it was gliding to Earth and fell through the roof of a house? ''NASA has discretionary authority to the tune of up to $25,000 to pay damages,'' Gorove said. He said the limit was raised from $5,000 when Skylab fell in July 1979. He said the only way for a U.S. citizen to receive higher damages would be to to file suit in federal court and prove specific negligence. ''I should stress that in all these cases specific negligence is hard to prove,'' Gorove said. ''Who can say whose specific negligence caused the failure?'' Although much of space law is taken up with civil responsibility, insurance and damage claims, the question of criminal jurisdiction also has been raised with manned space projects such as the space shuttle or future space colonies. ''What if someone commits some kind of crime in the space shuttle, in air space or in outer space?'' Gorove said. ''Who has the authority to try and to punish them?'' ap-ny-02-16 1324EST *************** ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 26-Feb-81 0402 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 25 FEB 1981 2031-EST From: KARAS at MIT-MC (Brian J. Karas) To: SPACE at MIT-MC Would you please include me in your mailing list? Thank you.... ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 27-Feb-81 0403 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 26 Feb 1981 0856-PST From: Wilkins at SRI-KL Subject: request To: space at MIT-MC Can I get on the space mailing list and perhaps get some back issues of the digest? Thanks, David Wilkins ------- ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 28-Feb-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 27 Feb 1981 0803-PST From: Jim McGrath Subject: NASA budget cuts - not again! To: energy at MIT-MC, space at MIT-MC a100 0744 27 Feb 81 PM-Budget Cuts,190 Stockman Reviews Virtually Every Agency WASHINGTON (AP) - Budget director David A. Stockman said today he is reviewing additional budget cuts in virtually every government agency in seeking further spending reductions. ''We have reviewed every agency from the Veterans Administration to NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) and there will be cuts across that entire spectrum,'' he said at a briefing for reporters. The administration had targeted $41.4 billion in program cuts until this week, when it discovered it would have to cut up to $6 billionn. Stockman would not identify specific new areas of cuts. He said the administration had ''unequivocably no'' plans to seek new tax-raising measures. Commerce Secretary Malcolm Baldrige said the administration already has proposed cutting his department's budget by 25 percent, and added that he believes an additional 7 percent to 8 percent reduction could be achieved. Baldrige said the administration also plans to reduce department personnel by 8 percent, or 2,600 employees, by the end of the 1982 fiscal year. These reductions would come through a combination of layoffs and attrition, he said. ap-ny-02-27 1048EST ********** ------------------------------ Date: 28 Feb 1981 0319-PST From: Jim McGrath Subject: Nuclear energy to be cut along with NASA To: space at MIT-MC, energy at MIT-MC a219 1232 27 Feb 81 AM-Economy, Bjt,580 Administration Vows to Cut Deeper as New Report Shows Economy Weakening By OWEN ULLMANN Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - The Reagan administration vowed Friday to cut deeper into ''the entire spectrum'' of federal spending as a new government report showed the economy still weakening from the strain of high inflation and interest rates. Budget Director David A. Stockman refused to divulge any of the new budget-trimming areas, but told reporters that few programs would be spared. ''We have reviewed every agency from the Veterans Administration to NASA,'' he declared. ..... Other new targets, it was learned, include the Veterans Administration, farm price support programs, the Job Corps and other employment training, and nuclear energy projects. ..... A spokesman for the Office of Management and Budget said Stockman expected to settle on the complete list of savings by this weekend. ap-ny-02-27 1536EST ********** ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 01-Mar-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 1 March 1981 04:13-EST From: Jerry E. Pournelle Subject: NASA budget cuts - not again! To: JPM at SU-AI cc: ENERGY at MIT-MC, SPACE at MIT-MC With a sensible policy and goals, we could live with even further cuts. Not enjoy them, mind you, but live with them. Howver, NASA, rather than developing a sense of priorities and hen working toward them, chooses to give itself multiple sclerosis. "Save everything, even if you don't do anything well as a result" is their philosophy. Perhaps, though, something can be done about it fro the Hill. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 07-Mar-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Administrivia: Several times recently requests to be added to this mailing list have gone to the general distribution. Normally I filter these out but on those days I was gone and didn't get to filter the stuff. In general, such requests should be directed to me (OTA@SAIL) or to SPACE- ENTHUSIASTS-REQUEST@MC (or SPACE-REQUEST@MC). Please remember to mention this to anyone you tell about the list. -ota ------------------------------ Date: 6 Mar 1981 2250-PST From: Alan R. Katz Subject: So you think our letters did some good... To: energy at MIT-MC, space at MIT-MC cc: katz at USC-ISIF Many letters were apparently sent to Reagan about the proposed NASA budget cuts. The following appeared on the front page of the Wall Street Journal today: SLOW MOTION: Reagan reports the White House has received 100,000 letters and telegrams since he unveiled his economic program on Feb. 18, but only 5,500 have been opened and read so far. Press Secretary Brady explains: "We've hired the Postal Service to do it." Alan ------- ------------------------------ Date: 7 March 1981 03:13-EST From: Jerry E. Pournelle Subject: So you think our letters did some good... To: KATZ at USC-ISIF cc: ENERGY at MIT-MC, SPACE at MIT-MC 1. They have tabulated 8,000 pro-space letters. These will be subpoenaed by the Space Committee when the time comes. 2. Many L-5 People who wrote to the White House have received answers to their letters. Moreover, two special assistants to the president are L-5 members and look out for, and call attention to, pro-space mail. 3. Congressmen Newt Gingrich and Tribble have sent circular letters to all Congresspeople which begin "Dear Colleague, Have you noticed a lot of mail in favor of NASA and the space program? We have..." 4. The Report of the Citizen's Advisory Council on National Space Policy (created by joint action of the L-5 Society and American Astronautical Society) is completed, and will be signed by at least 20 Republican Congresspeople before delivery to Stockman. 5. Therefore, don't give up; now IS THE TIME TO INCREASE THE MAIL AND COMMUNICATIONS. We are definitely having an effect. Jerry Grey, Administrator for Public Policy of AIAA, told Mark Hopkins that L-5 letters and mailgrams and telephone calls over the weekend following the Chicago Sun Times "Black Book" (deliberate) leak saved at least $150 million for the space program, possibly a lot more. 6. Ad astra... ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 10-Mar-81 0400 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 9 Mar 1981 2016-PST From: MERRITT at USC-ISIB Subject: Re: Space letters To: SPACE at MIT-MC Responding to my letter sent to several key people in government, I have received the following letter from Senator Alan Cranston (D) CA: --------------------------------- March 4, 1981 Mr. Ian H. Merritt 456 South Bedford Drive Beverly Hills, California 90212 Dear Mr. Merritt, Thank you for sharing your concerns with me regarding the space program. Through our space program, we have gained tremendous amounts of information about other planets and our universe. The recent Voyager mission demonstrates this in a spectacular fashion. Equally important, we have learned a great deal about our own planet. Many of the advances we have made in improving the quality of life here on earth are the result of this new-found knowledge. For instance, both civilian and military communications, including the telephone and television are dependent on satellites and will be even more so in the future. Non-aerospace fields such as agriculture, trans- portation, and medicine have made significant advances because of space technology. Currently, the space program is concentrating on several projects, like the space telescope, which have applications for Earth. Another program, the Space Shuttle, will provide routine access to space by establishing a basic transportation system. It will also reduce the costs of the space program because the shuttle will be reusable. The Voyager mission illustrates what fantastic accomplishments we can achieve in the area of space and how much more there is to learn. I have included for your information a statement that I made on the floor of the Senate regarding this marvelous feat. I have been and will continue to be a strong supporter of our space program. I believe this is an area in which the U.S. can and should maintain its leadership. Our space explorations have proven to be of great benefit to us, and they hold out the promise of even greater gains in the future for all mankind. I appreciated hearing from you. Sincerely, Alan Cranston Enclosure ------------------------------------- - C O N G R E S S I O N A L R E C O R D - PROCEEDINGS AND DEBATES OF THE 96th CONGRESS, SECOND SESSION Vol. 126 WASHINGTON, TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1980 No. 166 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- S E N A T E THE VOYAGER MISSION Mr. CRANSTON. Mr. President, during the week of november 12 we were privileged to be a part of one of the finest hours of American scientific and technical achievement. Our Voyager spacecraft, a jewel of engineering, produced worldwide headlines as it swept through the moon and ring system of the giant planet Saturn. And line the genie of Aladdin, it opened wonders beyond our wildest imagination. Shimmering globes of ice, cloud: covered oceans of hydrogen, swirling storms of high speed winds, and the majestic and mysterious rings, brought us adventure on a cosmic scale. These new vistas would have awed even the most intrepid of explorers: Columbus, Magellan, Byrd, Perry, and the rest. And through the marvel of American space technology, it was possible to share the Saturn experience across the Earth. The images returning from Saturn were beamed all over the world by communication satellites we now take for granted. People thronged to our National Air and Space Museum to become more a part of another American "first" in space. The pictures returned from Saturn have received international news coverage. The success of the Voyager mission is truely phenomenal and a feat of which we are all very proud. I offer my heartiest congratulations to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California. I am delighted that JPL has played such a major role in the Voyager mission. JPL is a research and development facility operated by the California Institute of Technology for NASA. The laboratory not only designed and constructed the Voyager spacecraft but managed its actual flight with its tracking and data processing facilities. JPL's work on the Voyager is hardly over, though: JPL's scientific team will now analyze the information the information gathered by Voyager. Results so far indicate that the mission has far exceeded its promise. The tremendous achievements of the Voyager mission call to mind our continuing commitment as a nation to new space exploration. We should not allow this commitment to lapse. The next exploration we have firmly planned is for the planet Jupiter through the Project Gallileo, which is scheduled for the late 1980s. Between completion of the Voyager mission and Project Gallileo, we should carefully consider other exciting, valuable steps we may take in the continuing drama of unwrapping the mysteries of the cosmos. One such opportunity is space-based observation of Halley's Comet, which will return in 1986 for its once-every-75-years visit. Halley's Comet has fascinated mankind throughout history. Josephus, the Jewish historian recorded the appearance of a comet, resembling a sword, that he said foretold the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. That comet thought to be Halley's Comet, which made a close approach to Earth in the spring of A.D. 66. Fascination with Halley's Comet has not diminished over the centuries. A number of nations plan missions to explore the comet in 1986. The United States should consider such a mission, perhaps making use of knowledge and equipment from the Voyager mission. A second opportunity exists in a potential mission to explore Venus, a planet so shrouded in clouds that it cannot be explored from orbit with cameras. It can, however, be "seen" by radar, and we have the technology to use radar to map the planet in detail as we did on Mars almost 10 years ago. Just as we explore new horizons on the outskirts of space, we are also moving rapidly into an era of using inner space as an extension of life on Earth. Satellites are an integral part of life as we all benefit from communications systems made possible by them. The Space Shuttle, which I have long supported, is being readied for its first operational mission and holds the promise for America's continuing leadership in sending satellites to space and in initiating and managing space-based research and experiments. Both new exploration of space and increasing use of that part of space already important to our daily lives are key facets of the national space program. I repeat my hearty congratulations to NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for their tremendous contribution to America's space effort. [] ------- ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 12-Mar-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 11 Mar 1981 20:15:36 EST (Wednesday) From: Edward D. Hunter Subject: The Shuttle To: space at mc Cc: edh at BBN-UNIX Can anyone tell me the current planned launch date for the shuttle? I heard from a friend that it has been pushed back yet again. Please reply directly to me since I am not on the space mailing list. Thanks. -edh ------------------------------ Date: 11 Mar 1981 2152-PST From: Ted Anderson To: space at MIT-MC a242 1520 09 Mar 81 AM-Space Shuttle,420 Astronauts Predict First Trip Could Be Short Laserphoro HT1 By HARRY F. ROSENTHAL Associated Press Writer SPACE CENTER, Houston (AP) - The astronauts who will fly the first space shuttle said Monday that failure of any major system could lead to an early end to the maiden flight of the Columbia next month. ''The way we designed the mission, now we will probably come home early,'' astronaut Robert Crippen said at a news conference. ''Just about anything can break and we'll decide to go ahead and terminate it.'' The launch of the reusable spacecraft tentatively is scheduled for April 7. The first flight is to last 54 1/2 hours with Crippen and Commander John Young at the controls. Young expressed some doubt that the scheduled landing site, the Mojave Desert lakebed at Edwards Air Force Base in California, will be dry enough for the Columbia's use. Recent rains have flooded large areas of the landing site. If the Edwards site is deemed unusable, the shuttle would land at White Sands, N.M. Work has begun at the Cape Canaveral launch site to remove, repair and replace 17 insulating panels that loosened from the shuttle's huge external fuel tank recently. The rebonding operation began Sunday and is expected to take about two weeks. After that, a definite launching date will be set. Space officials now are saying only that they're aiming for the week of April 5. ''If we get a couple of significant failures, we will come home on the first day, probably on the fifth revolution (of Earth),'' Crippen said. The full mission is 36 orbits long, but Young said just getting the shuttle into space and back will satisfy most of the flight's objectives. He called Columbia's flight ''a conservative mission.'' Young said the flight is planned so that the astronauts could come back to Earth and land at any time. In addition to landing sites at Edwards, White Sands and Cape Canaveral, there are contingency sites at Rota, Spain, Okinawa and Hickam Field in Hawaii. The news conference, held at the Johnson Space Center where the flight controllers will be during the mission, was the last for the astronauts before the shuttle's first test. Seven days before the flight, they will go into a medical quarantine to minimize their contact with other people. Crippen said failure of any of the 20 motors that drive the latches, which close the shuttle's huge cargo doors, would cause the flight to be ended early. Young said delays still can be expected in the maiden flight, which already is three years behind schedule. ap-ny-03-09 1827EST *************** ------------------------------ Date: 12 March 1981 01:29 est From: Schauble.Multics at MIT-Multics Subject: Clipping Service - Budget cuts To: energy at MIT-AI, space at MIT-AI From the February 21, 1981 issue of Science News Science News of the Week OMB finds "fat" in Research Portents of what's in store for federal research under President Ronald Regan emerged last week in a listing of budget cuts proposed by the Office of Management and Budget. This unofficial preview of OMB proposals appeared to be an administration move aimed at softening the impact of its budget paring--expected to involve proposed cuts in excess of $45 billion--by spacing out controversial details over a matter of weeks. And the numbers indicated there had been notably little attempt to excise only politically benign programs. Repeatedly the Regan administration has stated that it is not out to cut "meat and marrow" from the budget, just fat. In light of that, the proposed cuts offered early glimpses at how science policy is shaping up in the White House. Suggested cuts for three agencies--the National Science Foundation, NASA, and the Department of Energy--highlighted attitudes displayed more subtly elsewhere by OMB. NSF-- Earlier this year, NSF noted that "many strong and active university research groups are currently hobbled by obsolete or worn-out equipment and facilities." Upgrading these facilities, the agency said, would permit researchers "to be more productive and efficient and to undertake more advanced work, thus multiplying their return on investment of federal research project support funds." But OMB proposed cutting all "new starts" at NSF for fiscal year 1982. So the $75 million program to upgrade and modernize university research instruments and equipment found itself heading OMB's hit list. Another potential casualty on the list was the 25-meter millimeter-wave telescope. Designed to study frequencies that fall between the domains of traditional optical and radio telescopes, the facility could become "an essential tool for studying interstellar molecular clouds and star-forming regions at the heart of the galaxy," said NSF. OMB budget cutters found a $5 million program designed to provide greater research-initiation grants to women scientists and engineers inessential. A $3 million Minorities in Science program was also slated for major cuts. (It provides support for minority scientists and engineers beginning their research careers and offers special opportunities for improving the research environment at predominantly minority institutions.) Similarly, funds would be slashed for the $14.5 million small-business innovation program. Designed to ensure that research by small and technology-oriented businesses is used effectively, it provides incentives for transferring research developed by those firms into practical and innovative commercial applications. ============================================================ Summary of Potential reductions for NSF (figures in $millions) Fiscal 1981 Fiscal 1982 Carter Reagan % Carter Reagan % Proposal Proposal Change Proposal Proposal Change ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Science Education 81 65 -20 112 65 -42 Behavioral, Social & Economic Sciences 73 58 -21 84 40 -52 Scientific, Technical, & International 56 35 -32 80 38 -53 Cross Directorate 27 17 -37 98 0 -100 (Facility upgrades, Women in Science, Minorities, etc.) Astronomy Facilty 0 0 0 10 0 -100 Other programs 848 848 0 974 974 0 Total for NSF 1083 1021 -6 1358 1117 -18 ====================================================================== The next section of the article deal with cuts for NASA and DOE. Combined, these would be too long for the mailer to handle, so they will follow separately on separate days. ------------------------------ Date: 12 March 1981 01:29 est From: Schauble.Multics at MIT-Multics Subject: Question for Gene Salamin To: space at MIT-AI Sooner or later, no talented person will want to touch space with a ten foot pole. This, I suggest, is the real purpose of the NASA budget cut. I agree that that is the likely effect of the budget treatment that the space program has been getting in this country. In fact, I suspect that we have pretty well reached that point now. But, you seem to imply that this is a deliberate policy on the part of the government. Why do you think this is the case? Or am I misunderstanding you? ------------------------------ Date: 12 March 1981 01:54 est From: Schauble.Multics at MIT-Multics Subject: clipping Service -- Budget Cuts (NASA) To: space at MIT-AI, energy at MIT-AI A continuation of the February 21, 1981 Science News article on President Reagan's proposed budget cuts. This section deals with the cuts proposed for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. This is the second of three parts. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Even without OMB's proposed "retrenchment" of the space agency's budget, planetary scientists had long been concerned about the flagging state of the spacecraft programs that provide most of their data. Only one--the Galileo orbiter and probe of Jupiter--had even been in the works; President Jimmy Carter's support for the long sought-after Venus Orbiting Imaging Radar emerged only in his final, lame-duck budget, and a U.S. mission to comet Halley has seemed mired in the lobbying stage. "At least," said one researcher after the presidential election but before OMB's pronouncements, "we have nowhere to go but up. Or do we?" His question was well-founded. The initial OMB plan proposed to reduce the Carter version of NASA's FY 1982 budget by about 9.4 percent, with more than a third of the shrinkage coming from space science. This would amount to a 28.8 percent cut on science programs compared with 5.3 percent for the space shuttle and related activities (which account for nearly half of NASA's dollars) and 10.2 percent for aeronautics research. The Galileo Jupiter mission--on which about $275 million had already been programmed through FY 1981--would be canceled; the Venus radar project would be deferred, and no Halley's comet mission was mentioned at all except perhaps by the implication of an OMB statement that the "proposed reductions...consist primarily of deferral or deletion of new starts..." Also deferred would be the earth-orbiting Gamma Ray Observatory, which was the only "new start" in the science section of Carter's NASA budget for the previous year. (Primary changes in the space shuttle program would consist of a six-month delay in production of the fourth shuttle orbiter vehicle and deletion of funds for purchase of long-leadtime items for a fifth orbiter.) Rarely revealed in advance of an administration's budget, the OBM proposals--promptly dubbed a "hit list" and referred to by one scientist as "slamming the door on the whole solar system"--produced a tempest of reactions, from midnight phone calls among scientists-turned-activists to a fullscale rumor mill about what programs would and would not survive. One hgh-level NASA official commented on the unusual lack of information communicated by still-higher officials who were dealing directly with OMB as the Reagan budget was being hammered out. A NASA approach reportedly being tried prior to the budget's unveiling was to seek control over the actual cuts once OMB had established an amount. A rumored example of NASA's exercising of such an option was suggested to be that Jet Propulsion Laboratory (the agency's main planetary research center, which would be radically affected by a cutoff of planetary missions) might be "given $50 million and told to get something to Halley." Even with such "freedom," however, the mood of this week's budget countdown did not bode for smooth sailing at NASA over the next few months. Said one concerned planetary researcher, "I think it's going to be a battle that's going to be protracted into the summer and into the fall." ------------------------ ------------------------------ Date: 12 March 1981 01:56 est From: Schauble.Multics at MIT-Multics Subject: Clipping Service - Budget Cuts (DOE) To: space at MIT-AI, energy at MIT-AI A continuation of the February 21, 1981 Science News article on President Reagan's proposed budget cuts. This section deals with the cuts proposed for the Department of Energy. This is the third and last of three parts. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- President Ronald Reagan's let-the-marketplace-decide philosophy was nowhere better evident than in OMB's proposed cuts for the Department of Energy. Government support of energy technology development should continue only through the "proof of concept" stage, OMB said, with funding for further scale-up and development to be paid by industry as the technologies prove economic. For instance, solar research, development, and demonstration cuts of 22 percent for FY 1981 and 60 percent for FY 1982 "can be justified and sustained," OMB said, "by adopting a policy that federal support should be restricted to long-term R&D with the potential for high payoff." The budget agency also advised that until the Solar Enegy Research Institute's mission is better defined and an "appropriate" size staff agreed upon, construction of a permanent facility at SERI's Golden, Colorado, site should be deferred. The federal budget agency also proposed giving the ax to: - all fossil-fuel demonstration and development programs, - the entire magnetohydrodynamics program, - conservation projects "where commercial viability can be tested by the private sector alone," including energy from urban wastes, advanced automobile engines, industrial processes, and electric and hybrid vehicles, - hydropower demonstration programs. - most geothermal loan guarantees and hydrothermal demonstration projects, - plans for gasoline rationing (with termination to come as quickly as possible by providing only program-closing costs), - research on near-term technologies for storing energy, and - pilot-demonstration plants for five synthetic-fuels technologies. OMB recommends that the newly formed Synthetic Fuels Corp. pick up funding for these plants. OMB's proposals were not expected to prove a precise blueprint for the president's formal budget proposal. But they did suggest that the new administration sees plenty of fat in the nation's research budget and will be making every effort over the coming year to render it. ------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: 12 Mar 1981 0121-PST From: Jim McGrath To: space at MIT-MC n069 1527 11 Mar 81 BC-SUN (Newhouse 014) By PETER COBUN Newhouse News Service WASHINGTON - After committing the equivalent of an entire year's budget of the 11-nation European Space Agency to a joint venture with the United States to send a spacecraft to explore the sun's poles, European scientists are stunned and angered by the Reagan administration's plan to pull out of the project. The head of the ESA warned Wednesday that U.S. withdrawal ''cannot fail to have adverse consequences on future undertakings of this nature.'' In the last decade, European governments have spent $1.2 billion in cooperative space projects with the United States. ESA Director General Eric Quistgaard told a House space subcommittee Wednesday that the entire sun polar mission might be scrubbed if the United States cancels its participation. Quistgaard said, ''It cannot be taken for granted that the ESA science program committee will decide to maintain (the project) alone if the cancellation of the NASA spacecraft is upheld (by Congress).'' Rep. Ronnie Flippo, D-Ala., chairman of the space subcommittee, agreed with Quistgaard that the administation's recommendation that the U.S. quit the project ''would have a far-reaching, adverse impact on international cooperation.'' The International Solar Polar Mission involves two spacecraft - one developed by ESA and the other by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration - both of which would be launched toward the sun from the U.S. space shuttle. Their paths would take them over the poles of the sun, and telescopes aboard the craft would collect data on the polar regions to be transmitted back to Earth. But the Reagan budget, given to Congress Tuesday, recommends cancelling the U.S. spacecraft in the joint solar mission. Acting NASA Administrator Dr. Alan Lovelace, testifying before the House space panel Tuesday, had said that although the United States would withdraw from the project, the administration plan ''supports our commitment to the European Space Agency by providing for a 1986 launch opportunity for a cooperative mission using the ESA spacecraft.'' The ESA chose to embark on the joint sun polar mission rather than other, strictly-European projects, said Quistgaard, ''because of the value ESA attaches to trans-Atlantic cooperation.'' The U.S. portion of the program, he said, ''ran into a critical funding situation'' from the start, and the 1983 launch date was delayed two years. That delay, said Quistgaard, already has cost the Europeans $20 million. Then Congress, while reducing the 1981 budget, considered killing the project. At the last minute, however, the funding was appropriated. ''On that occasion,'' said Quistgaard, ''the member states (Europeans), through their embassies in Washington, acted to stress the importance Europe attached to this cooperative venture.'' Quistgaard called the Feb. 20 notification that the United States wanted to pull out of the project ''the latest and most serious blow.'' The Europeans already have committed $100 million to the mission - a sum equivalent to nearly the entire annual ESA budget for space sciences. BJ END COBUN nyt-03-11-81 1827est ********** ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 13-Mar-81 0402 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 12 MAR 1981 1007-EST From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: duplicated messages To: space at MIT-MC, energy at MIT-MC I would like to suggest that people be a bit more discriminating about what they send to both these lists. SPACE was established specifically to remove topics that were only marginally germane to ENERGY, and people who thought they would be interested in both were specifically invited to ask that their names be on both lists; despite this, it's my guess that the two have been running at more than 75% duplication of material in recent months. For people who, like myself, can display msgs at 2400 baud or more, this is at most a trivial annoyance; I'd like to hear what people with hard-copy terminals think. More important is the fact that the increased net traffic caused by this duplication makes us that much more visible and subject to proxmiring. It would also be interesting to see the results of cross-checking by the administrators of the two lists to quantify the degree of overlap between them---I suspect it's quite high. ------- ------------------------------ Date: 12 March 1981 13:16-EST From: Oded Anoaf Feingold Subject: duplicated messages To: HITCHCOCK at CCA-TENEX cc: ENERGY at MIT-MC, SPACE at MIT-MC Yes, the incidence of duplicated messages is very high. Also, a good deal of UTTERLY peripheral stuff having to do with the various personalities prominent on mailing lists is finding its way onto both mailers. I hereby echo Chip's request that some discrimination be shown. I also hereby query whether anyone has major objections to my boxing up energy mailings in one-a-day or two-a-day multiple vitamin packages. Notice that when one replies (as I have) to a specific person and CCs the lists, that person gets the reply immediately. Barring such objections, I will do so starting around Monday next (3/15/81). Regarding new words, Proxmiring? (As opposed to any other type of miring.) Yours, Oded ------------------------------ Date: 12 Mar 1981 1329-PST From: Tom Wadlow Subject: Real budget cut figure To: space at MIT-MC Does anybody know how big the proposed NASA cut is supposed to be? Ronnie said 250 million in his speech and presumably that has gone up somewhat since then. But Aviation Week seems to allude to a $604 million cut, which (so it is claimed) is $117 million more than the *previously proposed* $487 million cut. What happened to the original quarter-billion? I would like to think that our letters did some good but if AWST is to be believed, the Administration simply announced a small figure to get us off their backs and then quietly raised the cut to approximately its original size. ------------------------------ Date: 12 March 1981 16:02 cst From: VaughanW at HI-Multics (Bill Vaughan) Subject: duplicated messages Sender: VaughanW.REFLECS at HI-Multics To: energy at MIT-MC, space at MIT-MC cc: VaughanW at HI-Multics I'd like to echo Chip's feelings about duplicated messages and add a reason of my own. Not only do we have nothing but 300 baud at my shop - but ARPAnet access is impossible to come by unless you are on an authorized project. Therefore I am doing a few of my friends, who have no access, a favor in keeping copies of several mailing lists in my directory. When the files get too big I just have to purge them. When we see duplicate traffic I have to purge them quicker. And when the traffic is a clipping straight off the wire service, complete with all the garbage the wire service puts on for header and trailer, the problen's even worse. Have a heart! Storage isn't free. ------------------------------ Date: 12 Mar 1981 1357-PST From: Alan R. Katz Subject: Shuttle Launch date To: space at MIT-MC, edh at BBN-UNIX cc: katz at USC-ISIF I am planning to go see the launch on the Rockwell tour (that I sent a msg about last month). As of the end of last week, Rockwell and NASA are still saying "the week of April 6", probably April 7. It looks like this date is firm unless something drastic happens. Alan ------- ------------------------------ Date: 13 March 1981 03:35-EST From: Jerry E. Pournelle Subject: duplicated messages To: VaughanW at HI-MULTICS cc: ENERGY at MIT-MC, SPACE at MIT-MC If my view's worth anything (and as I recall they set up ENERGY and then SPACE beczuse of a couple of my flames) I'd vote to keep these lists as they are. The clipping service is VERY valuable to me; the text of the Sun Times leak was the first I'd seen of it (although we'd all HEARD ABOUT it) and we had undergrads running around the news stands trying to get a copy of the paper; to no avail. So duplicates can be a pain, but the clippings are very valuable indeed. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 14-Mar-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 13 Mar 1981 0858-PST From: MERRITT at USC-ISIB Subject: Re: duplicated messages To: POURNE at MIT-MC, VaughanW at HI-MULTICS cc: ENERGY at MIT-MC, SPACE at MIT-MC In-Reply-To: Your message of 13-Mar-81 0035-PST I agree that there is a bit of a pain with duplicated mail, however I, like most others (I hope), have a mail reader which makes duplications pretty obvious, and I need not ever read the second copy; just delete it. I also support the clipping service, and would like more information on where that is coming from. (I assume that nobody is typing that stuff in) <>IHM<> ------- ------------------------------ Date: 13 March 1981 11:54 cst From: VaughanW at HI-Multics (Bill Vaughan) Subject: Re: duplicated messages Sender: VaughanW.REFLECS at HI-Multics To: MERRITT at USC-ISIb, POURNE at MIT-MC cc: VaughanW at HI-Multics, ENERGY at MIT-MC, SPACE at MIT-MC ok, I stand corrected on the clipping service - but I wasn't objecting to the info content - just to the unnecessary headers/trailers & like junk. Now if it's just being sucked up from machine-readable copy somewhere and spewed onto the network by an automaton, I can understand that (though I think automata should usually be smarter than that) but if it's being transcribed by humans (and some, because of idiosyncratic spelling errors, clearly are - wire services may have typos but they almost >never< misspell) then the human transcriber should exercise some judgment. ------------------------------ Date: 14 March 1981 01:35-EST From: Oded Anoaf Feingold Subject: your note regarding energy mailer changes To: POURNE at MIT-MC cc: ENERGY at MIT-MC, SPACE at MIT-MC, VaughanW at HI-MULTICS Voting to keep the lists as they are is fine, but I wonder if you didn't miss the point. I'm not intending to remove clipping services or (almost) anything else. I'm simply bringing the mailer load down, introducing some measure of latency on the COPIES THAT THE MAILING LIST GETS (as opposed to the primary correspondent), and giving myself a chance to see that the messages that go out don't get us in big trouble. Oded ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 15-Mar-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 14 Mar 1981 1027-PST From: Ted Anderson To: space at MIT-MC Omni Article on space available The NewsService here at SAIL produced a 13 part story on space today. I have put the stories in the file OMNI.NS[SPA,OTA] @ SAIL which you can "type" or "ftp" without an account. Note that due to some lossage or other the middle part of the story on the Moon treaty is missing. I suspect that SAIL was down when this story was comming in and so was lost. Let me know if you have trouble getting the file to your site. The first couple of paragraphs are reproduced below. It is interesting to note that Omni is appearently opting for good space publicity rather than trying to restrict the distribution of the story. I guess we can thank Bova for that. -Ted Anderson n519 2358 13 Mar 81 BC-SPACE-03-14 EDITORS: As part of tonight's Sunday Special package, the Field News Service is moving five stories - SHUTTLE, INDUST, TICKET, MOON and TEST - dealing with the U.S. space program, in particular the space shuttle, from Omni magazine. James Michener interviews the shuttle pilots, Omni executive editor Ben Bova and NASA consultant G. Harry Stine examine the importance of the shuttle, prospects for travel and industry in space, and the ramifications of the Moon Treaty, which covers international space exploration and exploitation. The stories are copyrighted by Omni Publications, and must be properly credited, but are for use by all Field News Service clients - there is no extra charge for their use. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 18-Mar-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 17 Mar 1981 1902-PST From: Jim McGrath Subject: Amateur Astronomers To: space at MIT-MC n022 0854 14 Mar 81 BC-ASTRONOMY-REVIEW (The Week in Review) By MALCOLM W. BROWNE c. 1981 N.Y. Times News Service NEW YORK - Science has become so expensive and complex that it is now almost the exclusive domain of professional teams employed by big institutions subsidized by government grants. The place of the gifted amateur in the mainstream of science has dwindled to the vanishing point, while many professional societies warn of a growing alienation between scientists and the non-professional public. It was therefore with a special sense of pride that amateur astronomers last week observed Friday the 13th. On that date 200 years ago, Sir William Herschel, an organist and composer by profession but better remembered for his monumental achievements as an amateur astronomer, discovered the planet Uranus. Somehow, despite the advent of giant telescopes, satellite observatories and space probes, Sir William's passionate devotion to his hobby has survived in today's stargazers. Through them, amateur astronomy continues to make valuable contributions to human knowledge. ''None of us can hope to equal Herschel's achievements,'' remarked John Marshall, president of New York City's Amateur Astronomers Association. ''Using his homemade telescopes, he discovered the polar icecaps of Mars, mapped the heavens and founded the science of sidereal (stellar) astronomy. There may be no more discoveries in that class accessible to amateurs, but we serve astronomy by searching for things the big institutions don't have time for.'' These are chiefly comets, variable star oscillations and occultations. The sun's satellites include hundreds of comets whose highly elliptical orbits swing them far out in space for many years. Such eccentricities, and the possibility that many comets consist of primordial materials that existed when the solar system formed, make them interesting to scientists. Most comets are invisible to the naked eye. Most are ''found,'' at the rate of about three a year, by amateurs. Occultation of a star or other luminous celestial body occurs when some dark object - a planet or satellite - intervenes between the star and the observer, as in a solar eclipse. Timing occultations can provide valuable information - the diameters and orbital motions of the objects involved, for example. And occultations have helped substantiate scientific theories, including Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, which predicted that observers will see stars near the sun displaced from their true positions by measurable distances. During solar eclipses, the brighter stars are visible to the naked eye and many more can be photographed near the sun, permitting a test of the theory. Variable stars, whose brightness changes periodically, serve a number of important functions, giving science, for example, a ''standard candle'' for estimating distances to galaxies beyond our Milky Way. Detailed analyses of the light emitted by variable stars is usually the work of professionals. But amateurs can often alert the professional community to deploy the more sophisticated instruments. It's a rewarding pastime for the stargazer, but he or she must be prepared to spend hundreds, often thousands of dollars on equipment, learn the rudiments of celestial mechanics and master the technique of locating celestial objects. The amateur must prepare to forego prime time television and accept seasonal exposure to bitter cold or mosquitoes for long hours on clear nights. Among America's most recognized amateur comet hunters is John E. Bortle of Stormville, N.Y., a training officer with a local fire department. ''There are about 100,000 amateur astronomers in the United States,'' he said. ''But in all the world there are probably only about 500 sufficiently interested to follow serious observing programs. It doesn't take big telescopes to look for comets - a reflector with a six-inch aperture is generally adequate - but it takes a lot of time and luck.'' Amateur comet hunting has long been popular in Japan, said Bortle, and the Japanese amateur society, Hisho Hiroba, is still the most prestigious of its kind in the world. ''Minoru Honda alone, who began observing in the late 1930s, has discovered 12 comets, which is a world record,'' he said. Luck has not so far favored Bortle himself, who has sought comets for 10 years. ''And yet I know of a 14-year-old child who found one on the second night of observing,'' he said. When an amateur is sure of a new comet, he claims it in a telegram to the International Astronomical Union office at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Cambridge, Mass., and the process of professional validation begins. Variable star observations are reported to the American Association of Variable Star Observers in Cambridge, which forms a similar link between amateurs and professionals. Some serious amateurs, however, prefer making and experimenting with their own telescopes to rigorous observing programs. One weekend every summer, amateur telescope makers throughout the United States bring their homemade instruments to Stellafane - a conclave of enthusiasts held on a hilltop near Springfield, Vt. For several days and nights they share technical secrets, observe galaxies and planets and communicate their usually solitary passion for astronomy. Professionals often come, not to condescend but to learn of new techniques and technology. Very few amateurs, however, will turn professional. ''Money's part of the reason,'' Bortle said. ''With the curtailment of the space program and other economies, it's become increasingly difficult for a newly graduated astronomer to find a job.'' On this score also, Sir William was fortunate. He became a full-time astronomer only after marrying a rich widow. nyt-03-14-81 1154est *************** ------------------------------ Date: 17 Mar 1981 2036-PST From: Jim McGrath Subject: SBS To: space at MIT-MC n016 0858 08 Mar 81 BC-SPACEWORK (Art available on request) (Financial) Ernest Dickinson is a freelance writer based in Chappaqua, N.Y., who frequently writes on business subjects. By ERNEST DICKINSON c. 1981 N.Y. Times News Service MCLEAN, VA. - Robert C. Hall sits at the wheel of an enterprise that has been running on little more than faith. In the five years since it was established here, Satellite Business Systems hasn't recorded a penny of revenue, to say nothing of profits. Yet, three substantial investors - the International Business Machines Corp., the Aetna Life and Casualty Co. and the Comsat General Corp. - have committed $525 just to get the company started. Hall, the 48-year-old president and chief executive officer of SBS, and his three sponsors want to build a communications network in space, a ''super highway,'' he calls it, to carry electronic mail, computer data, television images and telephone conversations faster and with greater capacity than anything ever attempted outside the Pentagon. On March 19, Hall's venture will finally go into operation when it hooks up its first customer, the Boeing Co. A satellite that SBS launched last November will link Boeing computers in three different locations, giving executives and engineers instant access to information on all three. SBS, however, is not a failsafe venture. Other companies with respected names in electronic communication - like the American Telephone and Telegraph Co. and the RCA Corp. - are mapping super highways of their own. Furthermore, legal and other entanglements have eroded the long head start that might have assured SBS a sufficient edge to overwhelm its challengers. So the company can't afford any new setbacks. ''We have to grow the company quickly, get it into operation quickly and get a fast return on investment,'' Hall said. ''Yet, the difficulty is that the faster we grow, the bigger the up-front expense. We have to buy all those earth stations, for example. They can cost up to $400,000 each. We cannot grow so fast that the negative cash flow swamps us. It is a delicate balance.'' Such obstacles, and the fact that SBS is not expected to make a profit until 1983, have not discouraged the three venture partners; it is the future that concerns them. They expect the overall market for business communications services and equipment to reach almost $50 billion by 1984, and $100 billion by1990. Aside from transmitting data between computers, SBS will provide the means for sending written information between offices (so-called electronic mail) and for linking two or more points with television and voice signals, so that executives can hold meetings without having to travel. Such services will be accomplished with equipment that will carry more information faster than similar methods now in operation. The company's satellites are the first commercial ones to use Ku-band high frequency transmission, which limits interference from the many land-based micr5wave systems that now transmit data mostly on C-band. The satellite the company launched last November was one of three it had built by the Hughes Aircraft Co. for $20 million. The second will go up later this spring and the third in 1983. So far, 19 customers have signed for SBS service. After the Boeing network is established, ISA Communications Inc., an insurance company service concern, will use an SBS satellite network to distribute information to its clients. Third in line is IBM, which will link six earth stations by satellite to establish an all-voice network that eventually will expand to 30 locations. Other companies that have contracted for service include the General Motors Corp., the General Electric Co. and the Dow Chemical Co. Seated in his 11th floor office at company headquarters here outside Washington, D.C., Hall spoke enthusiastically about how industry can make use of the technology that SBS will offer. But he emphasized that he was trying to keep his company from moving too fast. ''The 19 customers we have now will fill up our plate for this year and a good part of next,'' he said. ''We are still marketing, though. First-place momentum is with us and we don't want to back away from it. But we have to execute well. We don't want to get too many systems in place until we know we can get all the bugs out. We have to add new features and functions without jeopardizing reliability.'' He said that an early concern was that the complementary devices needed to establish a ground-to-satellite system might be in short supply. Because SBS neither manufactures nor sells equipment, corporate officials had feared that SBS would develop into a super highway for data transmission but that equipment suppliers would fail to produce an ''automobile'' manufacturing capability. ''So we have seeded the development of prototype equipment to show what can be done,'' Hall said. ''As a result, an increasing number of firms are gearing up to produce advanced high-speed copiers, teleconferencing equipment and other matching pieces that our customers will be looking for.'' Hall took over the leadership of SBS in July 1979 after serving as executive vice president of the New York Stock Exchange for two years. He replaced Philip N. Whittaker, an IBM executive who had headed SBS on an interim basis. Since Hall joined SBS, the number of employees has doubled, to 1,000. IBM and Comsat each have an ownership interest of 41.3 percent, while Aetna owns 17.4 percent. Profits and losses will be shared on that basis, but the three companies share equally in managing the company. Although there are no plans to take the company public, such a move has not been ruled out. nyt-03-08-81 1158est *************** ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 19-Mar-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 19 Mar 1981 0342-PST From: Jim McGrath Subject: New NASA Administrator To: space at MIT-MC Does anyone know anything about the new NASA administrator? Are any real changes in store for NASA's operations? n528 0104 19 Mar 81 BC-SUMMARY-1stadd-03-19 DOMESTIC WASHINGTON (Cobun - Newhouse - NASA) - James M. Beggs, a defense industry executive, has been selected by President Reagan to be administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. His appointment is expected to be announced this week. (350) nyt-03-19-81 0403est ********** ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 20-Mar-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 19 Mar 1981 2124-PST From: Ted Anderson To: space at MIT-MC n089 1802 19 Mar 81 AM-SHUTTLE By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD c. 1981 N.Y. Times News Service NEW YORK - The space shuttle Columbia passed another crucial milestone in its preflight preparations Thursday, but the successful countdown rehearsal in Florida was marred two hours later by an accident that left one technician dead and two others injured, one critically. The technicians were exposed to the pure nitrogen atmosphere of the shuttle engine section. The nitrogen is used to drive out the oxygen present in normal air, lessening the chance of a fire or explosion in the engine area. Officials of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said the accident at the Kennedy Space Center on Cape Canaveral was not a result of any flaw in the shuttle and thus was not likely to have any effect on the timing of Columbia's first orbital test flight. The re-usable spacecraft, plagued with technical problems through much of its decadelong development, is expected to be launched on its planned 36-orbit mission next month, perhaps in the week of April 5. The astronauts, John W. Young and Capt. Robert L. Crippen of the Navy, participated in the countdown rehearsal, donning flight pressure suits and entering the shuttle cockpit to practice procedures that led up to a simulated liftoff at 7:25 a.m. Both the space agency and the Rockwell International Corporation, the shuttle's prime contractor, announced that teams of engineers had already begun investigations of the accident at launching pad 39-A. They said that the circumstances of the accident were unclear. It was not yet known, for example, whether someone had erred by failing to stop the nitrogen purge of the engines, a part of the countdown cise, or by failing to warn the workers to stay away - or possibly both. Mark Hess, a Kennedy Space Center spokesman, said details of the accident were ''sketchy,'' adding: ''We just don't know why the men were in that area while a nitrogen purge was going on.'' But Richard E. Barton, Rockwell's manager of public relations at Cape Canaveral, said he was near the launching pad about an hour after the countdown test had ended and heard a ''return to normal work'' announcement on the public address system. Soon after that, at about 9:30 a.m., according to accounts by spokesmen for the space agency, five workers employed by Rockwell ascended the service structure to the level of the three main engines in the shuttle's aft section. Unaware that it was filled with nitrogen, they apparently opened an access panel leading to the shuttle's interior, which is how workers get in to inspect or repair the engines. Before launching, and in this case during the prelaunching rehearsal, the engine compartment is filled with nitrogen, which drives out any oxygen or other gases that could cause a fire or explosion at ignition. When the workers stepped into the compartment, they would not have smelled anything peculiar or have had any other warning that they were entering a deadly area. All five men were reported to have passed out almost immediately, and soon afterward were evacuated from the compartment. John Bjornstad, a 50-year-old senior chemical technician, died aboard a helicopter that was carrying him to a hospital in nearby Titusville. The medical authorities explained that the nitrogen itself was not poisonous -it makes up nearly 80 percent of ordinary air - but such a massive exposure deprives a person of all oxygen. He dies of what is known as hypoxia, which is lack of oxygen. Another technician, Forrest Cole, was flown to Shands Teaching Hospital at the University of Florida in Gainesville, where he was reported to have been placed in intensive care. His condition was listed as critical. A third man, William Wolford, was hospitalized in Melbourne for observation. The nature or extent of his injury was not immediately known. The two other Rockwell technicians, Nicholas Mullon and J.tL. Harper, were treated at a hospital and then released. A sixth person, a Kennedy Space Center fireman, was also treated and released from a nearby hospital. He was identified as Don Largent, an employee of the Wackenhut Corporation, who had gone to the rescue of the stricken technicians. Bjornstad's death was the first launching-pad fatality at Cape Canaveral since the cockpit fire that killed three astronauts, Virgil I. Grissom, Roger B. Chaffee and Edward H. White 2d, in a test of the Apollo spacecraft on Jan. 27, 1967. That fire set back the Apollo moon project nearly 18 months. The space agency said that its investigation team would be headed by Charles D. Gay, director of expendable rockets at the Kennedy center. Rockwell's investigation will be directed by Charles Murphy, the company's director of operations at Cape Canaveral. As for the countdown test, George F. Page, the launching director, said at a news conference before the accident: ''Everything in general went very well with the countdown demonstration. I think everybody was pleased with today's run.'' Page said that it would not be possible to set a definite date for the Columbia's launching until the tank insulation had been repaired and retested, probably sometime next week. nyt-03-19-81 2102est *************** ------------------------------ Date: 19 Mar 1981 2124-PST From: Ted Anderson Subject: More on NASA administrator. To: space at MIT-MC The following is reproduced without permission from the Wall St Journal of March 19, 1981, back page. General Dynamics Aide Seen as NASA Nominee. WASHINGTON - President Reagan is expected to name James Beggs, an aerospace industry executiver to be the head of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Mr. Beggs, 55 years old, is executive vice president for aerospace and a director of General Dynamics Corp. He worked for MASA in 1968 and 1969 as an official in charge of advanced research and technology. Announcement of the appointment is expected soon. ... followed by two more paragraphs about head of the Export Import Bank. -ota ------------------------------ Date: 20 Mar 1981 0007-PST From: Stuart McLure Cracraft Subject: cape kennedy To: space at MIT-MC I'm curious as to why the name was changed back to canaveral. Does anyone know? ------- ------------------------------ Date: 20 March 1981 03:00 est From: Schauble.Multics at MIT-Multics Subject: Clipping Service - Astronomers find supernova To: Space at MIT-AI [I hope astronomy things are of interest here. If not, just say so.] From the February, 1981, issue of Industrial Research & Development ---------------------------------------- Astronomers in Chile have reported the discovery of a supernova--which took place more than 50 million years ago--in the nearby galaxy of Fornax A. The rare astronomical event is said to happen only once every 100 years in a typical star system. The exploding star was first observed on November 30th by Drs. Marina Wischnjewsky and Jose Maza of the Univ. of Chile and has since then grown four times as liminous. Dr. Anthony F.J. Moffat of the Univ. of Montreal confirmed the event to be a genuine supernova on December 10. A supernova occurs when the interior of the star collapses, triggering a giant thermonuclear explosion. Supernovae play a key role in the evolution of the universe as the last step in a cycle which changes hydrogen and helium into carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and heavier elements, which can then be incorporated into newly forming stars and planets. Light from the explosion is as great as the light emitted by the billions of stars that make up the parent galaxy. ------------------------------ Date: 20 March 1981 03:00 est From: Schauble.Multics at MIT-Multics Subject: Just out of curiosity... To: space at MIT-AI, energy at MIT-AI where do Solar Power Satellite things go? ------------------------------ From: LIZARD@MIT-AI Date: 03/20/81 05:12:47 LIZARD@MIT-AI 03/20/81 05:12:47 To: space at MIT-MC I heard rumor to the effect that there was a fatal accident during a shuttle launch simulation. II guess it will be in the newss by FRIDAY. Had some thing to do with nitrogen. -Lizard@AI ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 21-Mar-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 20 MAR 1981 0757-EST From: REM at MIT-MC (Robert Elton Maas) To: OTA at SU-AI CC: SPACE at MIT-MC Dammit, if they can put putrid odor into natural gas distributed in California, because Methane is odorless and deadly, why can't they do the same thing when they put pure nitrogen into the engine area of the shuttle? (Hey all you guys with NASA connections, how about passing my idea on to the powers that be so there won't be any more fatalities?) ------------------------------ Date: 20 Mar 1981 0915-PST From: Tom Wadlow Subject: Canaveral and SPS To: space at MIT-MC Cape Canaveral was restored to its original name because the locals there got upset that several hundred years of history were being ignored by renaming the area of land to commemorate a recent historical figure (JFK of course). They spent several years and a reasonably large amount in legal fees just to have the geographic feature restored to its original name. I think the idea was that, if somebody wanted to honor JFK, they should name something *new* after him. And of course they did. Which leaves us with the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral. Solar Power Satellites are placed in orbit (usually geosynchronous, but not always) with receptors on the ground, perhaps in the desert. -- Tom ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 22-Mar-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 21 Mar 1981 (Saturday) 1025-EDT From: DREIFU at WHARTON-10 (Henry Dreifus) Subject: ''Putting that terrible odor into the Nitrogen'' To: space at MIT-MC Because, it is a FLAMMABLE material. At initial purging there would still be a mixture of Oxygen (normal Air &v liquid oxygen (LOX)) and given the environment ... there could be a pretty nice explosion, killing lots more people (people crawling in the gantry, making it in the cockpit . . .) I would hate to see the thing topple over. As to the investigation, my basic (un informed) feeling is that someone screwed up on the signals. Perhaps an ALL SAFE klaxon was rung, but should not have, or the 'Nitro' operator was out smoking a joint, when the 'notification' came through to shut off the N2. Who knows. It was definitly HUMAN error that caused this mishap. I cannot believe that Rockwell nor N.A.S.A. would permit such 'procedures' without precautions. Lets wait, and see, and make more constructive comments, like: Bring dectectors along with oneself, when going through those areas, and see if there is a safe amount of AIR to breath or not . . . things like that. We cannot undo what was done, but we can PREVENT it from happening again. /Hank ------------------------------ Date: 21 Mar 1981 1615-EST From: KING at RUTGERS Subject: Inert atmosphere safety To: space at MIT-MC cc: king at RUTGERS It was suggested that an odorant be added to the inert gas used to purge the space shuttle's engine compartment (and presumably other similar places). This suggestion has a couple of deficiencies: 1) People vary widely in their sensitivity to odors. A concentration of odorant that would be smelled by everyone would be smelled by some people when there was only a trace of purge gas left (and the place would be quite safe). Note that no concentration of Methane can really be considered safe. 2) The odorants also tend to stick to surfaces. The insides of old gas meters smell no matter how much one tries to purge the meter with air. Note that nobody ever goes most places where Methane is normally used. I suggest instead that about 8% Carbon Dioxide be added to the inert gas. A person finding himself in a mixture of 92% Nitrogen, 8% Carbon Dioxide will immediately know that the air is not good. He will immediately be short of breath and will probably taste the Carbon Dioxide. If half of the purge mixture is swept away, the mixture will be 86% Nitrogen, 4% Carbon Dioxide, and 10% Oxygen. The person will probably notice something wrong with the air. If he doesn't notice the problem, this air mixture is more likely to support life than 10% Oxygen and 90% Nitrogen because the Carbon Dioxide would speed the victom's breathing. Remember that a person's respiration is mostly controlled by Carbon Dioxide concentrations, not Oxygen (otherwise inert atmospheres would not be insidious killers). ------- ------------------------------ Date: 21 MAR 1981 2119-EST From: REM at MIT-MC (Robert Elton Maas) Subject: Introducing smell into pure-nitrogen to save lives To: SPACE at MIT-MC Here are a couple refinements of my idea. (1) The odor introduced into pure nitrogen should (for now anyway) be the same odor that is put into natural gas. People are used to that smell, they recognize it as bad, they don't hang around sniffing curiously like they do with other odors ("Gee, smells like something burning, sort of like insulation on a wire, or maybe ..."), they either shut off the leak or they get the hell out of that area. Later after they get out of the danger area there's plenty of time to figure out just what the gas was (natural gas, pure nitrogen, etc.). (2) The amount of putrid odor introduced into nitrogen should be less than that introduced into natural gas, so that slight leaks of nitrogen into open air won't cause concern but as the concentration of nitrogen gets towards 50% anyone breathing it will flee the odor, getting out into better air. Just a slight amount of natural gas being breathed could mean that a few feet away there's enough to explode. Nitrogen isn't explosive and until it displaces a considerable amount of oxygen (maybe 50%?) it's not really dangerous to breathe. (3) That odor put into natural gas has been in use for many years so is probably safe. Rather than try to find a new odor, just use an old proven one. (Rebuttal to (1) and (3) acceptable. There might be good reasons not to use the same odor for both types of gas.) ------------------------------ Date: 22 March 1981 05:42 est From: Schauble.Multics at MIT-Multics Subject: Clipping Service -- Venus Exploration To: space at MIT-AI From the February, 1981, issue of Industrial Research & Development Pioneer data continue to provide insights into atmosphere of Venus ---------------------------------------- Two years and 800 orbits after it started to circle Venus, the Pioneer Venus orbiter continues to provide astronomers with new insights into the nature of our closest planetary neighbor. Surveying the most recent results from the intrepid unmanned spacecraft, scientists have gained more precise information about the planet's atmospheric circulation and have learned more details about the working of the greenhouse effect, which keeps the Venusian atmosphere in a perpetually ultra-tropical condition. By monitoring the movements of dark markings in the yellowish Venus clouds, scientists have calculated the speed of the winds that ring the planet. The breezes blow from east to west--the same direction as that of Venus's rotation--at the astonishing speed of 225 MPH (360 kph) at the equator taking just four days to circle the planet. Since Venus itself takes 243 days to rotate once on its axis, its equatorial winds blow 60 times as fast as the planet's speed. Translated into Earthly terms, that is equivalent to breezes flying around our stratosphere in just thirty minutes, or three times as fast as the most rapid earth-orbiting satellites. Venus's atmospheric circulation also differs markedly from Earth's. "One of the major surprises of the mission was that we found the bulk of the atmosphere stable," reported Alvin Seiff of NASA's Ames Research Center. "The atmosphere does not move; it does not mix." Indeed, the atmosphere beneath the clouds of Venus resembles nothing so much as the Los Angeles basin during a smog alert, when the air is almost completely still. Temperature of the planet's lower atmosphere stays remarkably steady. Temperatures at night fall scarcely at all, being within 1 or 2 C of daytime temperatures. Even the temperatures at high latitudes are within five degrees of those at the equator. The only real sign of movement in the lower atmosphere is a wave-like sloshing motion. Up in the Venusian clouds, the picture changes entirely. "The clouds are where the action is," declared Seiff. In this region, the orbiter's measurements show, temperatures vary bu up to 20C and pressure variations of 20 millibars are common. The pressure variations, similar in magnitude to those in Earth's atmosphere, actually drive the Venusian atmospheric circulation. Solar heat is captured by the uppermost clouds, which rapidly speed around the planet and also drift from the equator to the two poles, before being recycled back to equatorial regions at lower levels. The clouds themselves are divided into three distinct layers. The lowest and thickest lies between 30 and 31 mi (48 and 50 KM) above the firey Venusian surface. The next extends from 31 to 35 mi in altitude. And the uppermost reaches upward from 35 to 43 mi (56 to 69 km). In concert, the three cloud layers produce the greenhouse effect, whereby the Venusian atmosphere absorbs a maximum of solar heat and radiates away a minimum. According to James Pollack of the Ames Research Center, the latest Pioneer findings indicate that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere accounts for 70% of the effect, water vapor for 15%, and sulfur dioxide and particulate matter for the remaining 15%. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 23-Mar-81 0402 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 22 MAR 1981 0951-EST From: JNC at MIT-MC (J. Noel Chiappa) Subject: Additives aren't necessarily inflammable To: SPACE at MIT-MC CC: JNC at MIT-MC The additives are flammable organics, true, but the thing is that most people can small mercapatans (and other simililar compounds) in concentrations of small numbers of parts per million (no kidding - look it up in Guiness under smelliest substance). Our noses aren't what they were, but they ain't awful! That concentration is hardly likely to be flammable. As to false alarms, and what happens if you have a stuffy nose: nothing is ever perfect. This just seemed like a good scheme to make things a little safer. I'm sure NASA would rather be safe than sorry. However, I have often found that there are some sharp people there, and if I came up with an idea they had usually done so already and discarded it for a good reason I knew nothing of. Anybody know (or can ask) if they've tried this one on for size? Noel ------------------------------ From: MINSKY@MIT-AI Date: 03/22/81 10:33:01 MINSKY@MIT-AI 03/22/81 10:33:01 To: SPACE at MIT-AI The gas odorification doesn't make a flammable mixture, because the concentration of the smell agents -- mercaptans, etc., are incredibly small. The objections about its persistence may be sound. I'm curious to know if carbon dioxide would really warn one in time, since unconsciousness comes within a minute in an oxygen-free atmosphere -- much faster, it is my impression (from breathing helium once by mistake) than if one holds one's breath. ------------------------------ Date: 22 Mar 1981 0904-PST From: Jim McGrath Subject: Space Articles from SF-LOVERS To: space at MIT-MC [This is a reissue of the files I mentioned earlier. They have been distributed to various sites for SF-Lovers use. If you didn't take a look before it should be even easier to now. -ota] Date: 03/22/81 00:00:00 From: The Moderator Subject: A selection of articles from OMNI for FTPing As part of tonight's Sunday Special package, SF LOVERS is moving five stories dealing with the U.S. space program, in particular the space shuttle, from Omni magazine. James Michener interviews the shuttle pilots, Omni executive editor Ben Bova and NASA consultant G. Harry Stine examine the importance of the shuttle, prospects for travel and industry in space, and the ramifications of the Moon Treaty, which covers international space exploration and exploitation. Brief biographies of Michener, Bova and Stine are also provided. The stories are copyrighted by Omni Publications, and must be properly credited, but are for use by all SF-LOVERS recipients. Everyone interested in reading this material should obtain the file from the site which is most convenient for them. If you cannot do so, please send mail to SF-LOVERS-REQUEST and we will be happy to make sure that you get a copy. Please obtain your copies in the near future however, since the files will be deleted in one week. A copy of the material will also be available upon request from the SF LOVERS archives. Thanks go to Richard Brodie, Roger Duffey, Richard Lamson, Doug Philips, and Don Woods for providing space for the materials on their systems. Site Filename MIT-AI DUFFEY;SFLVRS NASANS CMUA TEMP:NASA.NWS[A210DP0Z] PARC-MAXC [Maxc2]SFLOVERS-NASA.TXT SU-AI NASA[T,DON] MIT-Multics >udd>PDO>Lamson>sf-lovers>nasa-news-stories.text [Note, you can TYPE or FTP the file from SAIL without an account.] ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 24-Mar-81 0400 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 23 March 1981 13:35 est From: Tavares.Multics at MIT-Multics Subject: odoriferous nitrogen To: space at MIT-MC A little research with my local Gas company engineers produced expressions of near horror. Neither tertiary butyl mercaptan (natural gas odor) nor ethyl mercaptan (propane odor) is suitable for this, according to them. First, mercaptans are flammable, and the whole point of a purge is to get rid of as much of that sort of stuff as you can. Second, they tend to cling for weeks after even a brief exposure in any concentration. (An unfortunate second-order effect of this is that if a technician does step into an unsafe area by mistake, the smell will remain on HIM, making other unsafe areas indetectable to HIM for weeks.) Third, they are hard to control. In his lab, for example, they keep mercaptans in triply-enclosed bottles with seals; and still, on days of low barometric pressure, it's "run into the lab and open the windows". Last, mercaptans are highly corrosive to things like copper and aluminum; in fact, most anything but stainless steel. So it looks as if although "smelling up" the nitrogen may be a winning idea, mercaptans aren't the way to go. The Gas Co. engineer suggested oxygen scanners (Scott-Davis makes some) or various other instruments available from mine supply houses. Of course, this means the workers have to carry instruments around on them, and it isn't nearly as "automatic". ------------------------------ Date: 23 Mar 1981 2202-PST From: Jim McGrath Subject: Space Industrialization To: space at MIT-MC n055 1322 20 Mar 81 BC-SHUTTLEENT ADV22 (FINANCIAL) (FOR RELEASE SUN. MAR. 22) c. 1981 N.Y. Times News Service NEW YORK - The first commercial apparatus to be flown on the shuttle, a system for experiments in materials processing, is expected to be carried into orbit next year, possibly as early as the third test flight of the Columbia. Built by the McDonnell Douglas Corp., through a joint-endeavor arrangement with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the apparatus performs a process, known as continuous-flow electrophoresis, for separating biological materials. On earth, molecules of various materials can be separated in the presence of an electrical field, but gravity tends to tangle the molecules and make electrophoretic separation difficult and sometimes impossible. In space, under near-zero gravity, the process becomes easier. In cooperation with the Ortho Pharmaceutical Corp., a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, McDonnell Douglas expects to produce ultrapure serums, vaccines and other pharaceutical products aboard the shace shuttle. The plan is to test the electrophoresis system, a 450-pound device, on at least six shuttle flights in the next few years and, if successful, build a 10,000-pound system to be hauled into orbit in the shuttle cargo bay and then deployed for long-term operations in the micro-gravity environment. The first experimental units will be stowed in the crew quarters. The potential of electrophoretic processing in space was tested during the Apollo-Soyuz mission in 1975. In an experiment designed by Abbott Laboratories, the rare and costly enzyme urokinase was separated from human kidney cell cultures at six times the efficiency achieved so far on earth. Urokinase, which dissolves blood clots, is so difficult to produce with conventional processes that a dose costs up to $1,500. According to a marketing analysis by Robert L. Hammel and Donald M. Waltz of TRW Inc., separation of the enzyme in space could cut the cost of a dose to $100 and thus stimulate its use in both research and treatment. In the United States alone, urokinase has the potential for preventing 50,000 blood-clot deaths a year. nyt-03-20-81 1622est *************** ------------------------------ Date: 23 Mar 1981 2217-PST From: Jim McGrath Subject: Hold on Shuttle To: space at MIT-MC a212 1100 23 Mar 81 AM-Space Shuttle,410 Tuesday Shuttle Test ''On Hold'' Pending Review Board Report Eds: Top expected after NASA announces late Monday whether test will proceed. CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - A special investigative board ordered changes in safety procedures Monday and postponed for 24 hours the test loading of supercold liquid fuels into the space shuttle Columbia's huge external tank. If investigators make further safety changes, the shuttle's maiden launch, now scheduled no earlier than April 8, could be delayed further, officials said. ''Right now it appears to be very shaky for April 8,'' said a source who asked not to be identified. ''It looks like we're moving toward the end of the week, like the 9th or the 10th.'' The loading test, which will check an insulation patch-up job on the aluminum skin of the 154-foot-tall tank, was shifted from Tuesday to early Wednesday, said spokesman Kris Kristofferson of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The delay will give the special panel time to print and distribute written safety procedures, which it revised as a result of a launch pad accident that killed one worker and critically injured another last Thursday, he said. The NASA board was reviewing all testing and countdown procedures to guard against a repeat of last week's fatal mishap. Launch pad technicians Monday were completing repairs on the large chunks of insulation torn loose from the tank in an earlier test. Wednesday's ''low-pressure loading'' of liquid oxygen and nitrogen propellants will put greater stress on the insulation than a normally pressurized loading. The procedure was to be repeated Friday using normal launch pressure. That second test had been scheduled for Thursday. Launch Director George F. Page called the fuel-loading tests ''a big hurdle'' to be overcome before the shuttle takes its maiden 54-hour flight. The 122-foot-long orbiter Columbia rides piggyback on the huge tank until it is just short of orbital velocity, at which point the tank is jettisoned. Much of the tank burns up in the atmosphere, and the remaining pieces fall into the sea. Officials hope to set a more specific launch date if the tank comes through the fuel-loading tests in good shape. But further trouble could push the launch back several weeks, officials said. In last week's fatal launch pad accident, technician John Bjornstad collapsed and died from lack of oxygen as he entered a compartment behind the orbiter's main engines that had not been purged of nitrogen. Forrest Cole, the injured technician, remained in serious condition at Shands Teaching Hospital in Gainesville, Fla. ------------------------------ Date: 24 March 1981 02:15-EST From: Jerry E. Pournelle Subject: ''Putting that terrible odor into the Nitrogen'' To: DREIFU at WHARTON-10 cc: SPACE at MIT-MC Maybe it would be better to carry a canary? ------------------------------ Date: 24 March 1981 02:20-EST From: Jerry E. Pournelle Subject: Inert atmosphere safety To: KING at RUTGERS cc: SPACE at MIT-MC Since half the atmosphere is below you at 18,000 feet, 10% oxygen at sea level is about the same partial pressure as that altitude: you can live in it but you won't be very active without a lot of adjustment. Holding your breath is obviously a better strategy than breathing when in inert atmosphere; but if you've ver been in an altitude chamber, you'll know that you do NOT notice anoxia coming on unless you've had a lot of training at recognizing the symptoms, and not always even then. In the old days at least we used to train pilots by making them take off their masks at 25,000 feet and try to write their names until they passed out. They were sure they were doiing all right, then when they woke up at seal level and looked at what they'd written they'd realize... ------------------------------ Date: 24 March 1981 02:23-EST From: Jerry E. Pournelle Subject: Clipping Service -- Venus Exploration To: Schauble.Multics at MIT-MULTICS cc: space at MIT-AI It's said that once each hundred years the gods roll back the smog over LA to see if it's still there. Then they roll it back again. With Venus do they wait for a thousand? ------------------------------ Date: 24 March 1981 03:04 est From: Schauble.Multics at MIT-Multics Subject: Clipping Service - Entries in the Space Race To: space at MIT-AI From the February, 1981, issue of Industrial Research & Development Sweden plans first satellite venture ........................................ Sweden will build her first space satellite, called Viking. It will cost a total of $25 million, and will be used for research into Earth's magnetosphere. Viking will have a total weight of 550-kg (1,210 lb) with a height of 0.5 m (1.5 ft) and a width of 1.9 m (6 ft). The unusual format was chosen so the satellite can be launched on board the European rocket Ariane in May 1984 together with the much larger satellite Spot. The Viking project--directed by the Swedish Space Corp.--forms part of a strategy designed to give Sweden an profitable national space industry capable of supplying Sweden's own requirements in the space technology field and of exporting certain space industry products. The Ministry of Industry states that Viking will cost half as much as other comparable satellites from other European countries. Viking is to be used to investigate various phenomena in Earth's magnetosphere, with particular reference to the aurora borealis, and will be the first satellite used to carry out extensive systematic measurements of that part of the magnetosphere where ionized particles are turned into energy by heat and acceleration. Viking's altitude will vary between 800 and 15,000 km (500 to 9,320 mi) and will pass over both poles six times a day. ........................................ End of quote I find it interesting that Sweden thinks that it can build a PROFIT MAKING industry out of space, while the country that had the undisputed leadership can't. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 25-Mar-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 24 Mar 1981 0720-PST From: Jim McGrath Subject: Popular Press article on the Shuttle To: space at MIT-MC a703 1803 21 Mar 81 BC-APN--Space Shuttle, adv 05-5 takes,520-2260 $adv 05 AGENCIES AND RADIO OUT Space Future Is Now For release Sun., April 5 From AP Newsfeatures APN PRINT SUBSCRIBERS HAVE BEEN MAILED FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS EDITOR'S NOTE - The age of space exploration seems to be over, but that's not an end, just a beginning. The United States is now ready to make use of what it's learned from space flights in the last 20 years and make space work for people. The vehicle of this newest frontier is the space shuttle, ready and roaring to go, finally. By HOWARD BENEDICT Associated Press Writer CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - Twenty years after man first broke his earthly bonds and soared away from his planet, America is entering a new era in space - riding on the stubby wings of the world's first true rocket ship. The space shuttle is here, a modern prairie schooner waiting to open up that frontier. A couple of decades from now, those science fiction dreamers who gave us Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers will be able to say, ''We told you so.'' The prospects and promises are grand. Space colonies, orbiting factories, flights to the planets. And on the dark side: dart-like warships flashing deadly laser beams across the heavens. Impossible? There were skeptics 20 years ago who said humans could not make it into space. And if they did, they could not survive. Those ideas were laid to rest April 12, 1961, when a Russian, Yuri Gagarin, rocketed into orbit and returned to Earth after one 108-minute circuit of the globe. Within a month, on May 5, an American, Alan B. Shepard Jr., vaulted more than 100 miles up on a 15-minute spin. The technology spawned by those flights got Americans to the moon and Soviets in space for six months at a time. Twenty of Shepard's one-ton Mercury capsules could fit inside the cargo bay of the shuttle. ''Talk about comparing apples and oranges,'' says Shepard, now a millionaire Houston businessman. ''There are tremendous advances, in equipment, technology and techniques. ''In Mercury we followed a ballistic course to an ocean landing and never used the capsule again,'' he says. ''The shuttle pilots can fly this ship to a landing on a runway and take it up again a few weeks later.'' He predicts the shuttle will become the DC-3 of the space age, referring to the aircraft that initiated the age of air passenger travel in the 1930s. With the shuttle, the United States is ready to switch from the exploration to the use of space, making space work for people on Earth. And restoring U.S. eminence in a domain it once ruled supeme. It's been nearly six years since American astronauts last went into space. In that period, they've watched on the sidelines while 41 Russian cosmonauts have flown into orbit and gathered all the space endurance records. More importantly, they have acquired a great deal of experience in how to operate in space for military purposes. If the United States is to meet the Soviet challenge out there and also exploit this unique environment to its maximum, space officials say two things are necessary. The shuttle must work, and the nation much set a national purpose to make full use of this space-faring cargo ship. We'll learn this month just how well the craft functions. The first shuttle, the Columbia, is poised like a giant white batmobile on a Cape Canaveral launch pad, awaiting the signal for its maiden journey. If the mission succeeds, there is speculation that President Reagan may set a national goal to develop a manned space station to serve later in this decade as an orbiting command post for civilian and military space projects. The Russians have said they will have such an orbiting outpost by 1985. Columbia will be commanded on its first trip by 50-year-old astronaut John Young. He's been there before, logging 533 hours on four previous journeys, including a walk on the moon. With him will be Navy Capt. Robert Crippen, 43, making his first space trip after training 15 years for that day. ''We're no longer flying a spacecraft; we're flying a spaceship,'' Young says. ''It's an incredible machine which will revolutionize the way America operates in space.'' Reuseability and maneuverability put it light years ahead of earlier space vehicles, he says. Columbia and the three or four other shuttles that follow each will be capable of 100 or more roundtrips into space. No longer will expensive booster rockets be dumped into the ocean and spacecraft relegated to museums after just one launching. Young and Crippen are to exercise Columbia for 54 hours - maybe a day longer if all goes well - before landing on a large dry lake bed at Edwards Air Force Base in California's Mojave Desert. Once the landing technique is mastered, after three or four flights, Columbia will land on a 15,000-foot concrete strip at Cape Canaveral. ''We're going to take a very conservative approach on this first flight,'' says Christopher C. Kraft Jr., director of the Johnson Space Center in Houston. ''A successful launch and a successful re-entry and landing represent 99.9 percent of the objectives on this mission. We will not hesitate to bring the vehicle down if we are the least bit doubtful about any kind of spaceship problem.'' ''We want to make sure everything is just right, because this is the first time men will be aboard a new space vehicle that's being launched for the first time,'' Young says. All earlier vehicles in the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo projects were tested first in unmanned flights. But the National Aeronautics and Space Administration says Columbia is too complex a vehicle to fly without pilots. For that reason, the flight may be the riskiest ever undertaken. But NASA officials say they are confident about all aspects of the test. It's a marvel that Columbia is ready to fly at all, considering its past financial and technical problems. Until the Defense Department put its full weight behind the project as essential to national defense 17 months ago, the shuttle received only lukewarm backing from three straight presidential administrations. President Carter finally loosened the purse strings after Air Force officials detailed the military potential of the vehicle. NASA had considerable difficulty achieving the technology needed to develop a reuseable spaceship. The chief problems were with the three main engines, the most sophisticated rocket powerplant ever built, and with 30,922 heat-resistant tiles attached to the aluminum shell to keep the shuttle from burning up on re-entry. The troubles have delayed Columbia's first flight more than two years and pushed the shuttle development pricetag to $8.9 billion, 23 percent above the cost projected a decade ago. A catastrophic failure would grievously damage the U.S. space effort, delaying ambitious plans for perhaps years. The second shuttle, the Challenger, won't be ready for at least 18 months, and it might have to be redesigned if a major defect is found in Columbia. Success will reopen up the nation's future in space. On the assumption of success, more than 70 future flights have been booked, about one-third for military missions - launching surveillance, communications and navigation satellites and testing anti-satellite and missile killer laser beams. American and foreign industries are lining up to buy space in the shuttle's 60-foot-long cargo bay, to carry up communications satellites and to conduct exotic experiments in the weightlessness of space in hopes of finding ways to produce new drugs, crystals and metal alloys. An alliance of 10 European nations is building a reuseable four-person space laboratory to be ferried up on a 1983 shuttle trip. For $35 million, a company can rent the cargo bay, which will hold 65,000 pounds of payload, for an orbital journey up to 30 days. Several firms can share the cost. Many firms, however, are reluctant to commit large sums of money to a shuttle research flight because the promise of return is long-term. Some feel the government should pay for such research - just as it did when NASA developed the early communications satellites. Still, the space agency and Air Force expect about 400 flights in the next decade and they are training a new breed of astronauts for the shuttle era. As many as seven persons can fly on each mission. Eighty-two astronauts are now training at the Johnson Space Center, and more will be recruited each year. About half are pilots, and the rest are classed as mission specialists - to handle payloads and to conduct experiments in medicine, astronomy, physics and metallurgy. Among them are eight women and the first husband-wife astronaut pair, William and Anna Fisher. Above Anna Fisher's desk is this sign: ''The best man for the job may be a woman.'' There are those who feel the shuttle fleet should be used for more than just hoisting satellites and serving as a small lab, that it should also serve as a freighter to haul up the building blocks for large orbiting structures. This, they contend, would help keep the United States No. 1 in space. Among them is Sen. Harrison Schmitt, R-N.M., a former astronaut who explored the moon on the final Apollo shot in 1972. He is chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Science, Technology and Space and thus in a key position to influence space policy. Schmitt has urged Reagan to establish a definite goal of a manned space station, with military operations a major consideration. He says the appropriate time for such a commitment would be soon after a successful first flight of the Columbia. ''We haven't had a national purpose in space since President Kennedy articulated the essence of the Apollo moon program in 1961,'' Schmitt says. ''The technology and momentum of that effort carried us into the 1970s, and then sort of petered out when President Nixon did not articulate a larger purpose for the developing space shuttle.'' The senator says his conversations with President Reaggan ''have been quite upbeat and encouraging, especially his interest in the defense capabilities of space. The president is tremendously concerned about the proliferation of missiles,'' Schmitt says. ''He is interested in the potential to reverse that - to develop a system to stop missiles soon after they are launched, rather than your ability to withstand the final attack. ''It's going to take time to marry the shuttle technology with the technology of new weapons, particularly, more than likely, laser weapons,'' he says. At a date not yet certain, the Air Force intends to use the shuttle to test laser beams as a possible interceptor of missiles. ''We haven't fully realized the military potential in space,'' Schmitt says. ''The Russians have a much clearer vision of the future in this regard than we do. ''Our problem is not technology; it is the will,'' he adds. ''We don't have a sustained will to use this vastly superior technology base that we have. The Soviets are doing everything they're doing with a vastly inferior technology. ''But they're doing it, and they're figuring out how to use that technology, improving it by increments, until...they'll catch up with us,'' he says. ''They're ahead of us in basic manned experience in space. What they're doing with it I don't know. But it doesn't make me sleep any more comfortably at night.'' Chris Kraft's name is is synonymous with the U.S. manned space effort. He was flight director on Shepard's pioneer leap and he has been a key figure on all 31 U.S. manned missions. As director of the Johnson Space Center, his shuttle interests lie in commerce, industry and science. ''We need a national purpose in space if we are to realize the potential of this vehicle,'' he says. ''There needs to be a consensus within NASA, within the aerospace industry and within the country on what that plan is. ''In my opinion it should involve three things: permanency of man in space, building the tools that are associated with large structures in space and the development of satellites to produce the large amounts of solar power needed to support these structures. ''All of these would lead to space operations centers and manned activity at geosynchronous altitudes,'' he says. A station placed at geosynchronous altitude, 22,300 miles above the equator, travels at a speed that matches the rotation of the Earth and thus hovers over one spot on the globe at all times. From that outpost, a satellite can ''see'' one third of the Earth, and three of them equally-spaced can cover our entire planet. ''The shuttle is going to give us a feeling that we can come and go as we please without a great deal of fanfare and preparation,'' he says. ''When that happens we can begin to take advantage of what can be done in space. It's not only a place to observe the Earth and the stars and the solar system, it's also a place where men and women can work, using the weightlessness of space to make materials and medicines impossible to form down here. ''Who would have thought 10 years ago that Europe and Japan would be making the inroads they have into the American auto industry?'' he asks. ''That's how fast things move. If you don't take advantage of the position you have at the time, you may very well lose the edge.'' Kraft was one of the few who 20 years ago said man could make it to the moon. What does he foresee 20 years from now - in the year 2001? ''I would see a spaceport like the Houston Ship Channel where advanced shuttle ships are unloading devices and materials and scientists, engineers and construction workers for space assignments and returning to Earth with rotating personnel, products manufactured in orbit and worn out satellites for repair,'' he says. He does not believe humans will establish orbiting space colonies just for the sake of living out there, but he does feel there will be colonies for those who work in the factories and observation posts. ''I can conceive,'' says space veteran Kraft, ''that humans might some day go to some other planet in some other solar system to start a whole new frontier.'' END ADV ap-ny-03-21 2156EST *************** ------------------------------ Date: 24 Mar 1981 0719-PST From: Jim McGrath Subject: Space Industrialization To: space at MIT-MC n040 1108 20 Mar 81 BC-SHUTTLE 2takes ADV22 (FOR RELEASE SUN. MAR. 22) (ART EN ROUTE TO PICTURE CLIENTS) By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD c. 1981 N.Y. Times News Service NEW YORK - With the first space shuttle due to go into orbit next month, the business executives upon whom its ultimate success depends will regard it with wonder. They'll wonder whether, as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has promised, there will really be anything in it for them. The revolutionary flying machine already offers some promise to a few industries: Aerospace companies, led by the Rockwell International Corp., the prime shuttle contractor, hope to supply shuttle hardware for the rest of the century. And the communications and data-transmission industry is depending on the reusable shuttles to launch its satellites more cheaply than the conventional rockets now being used. But in the view of NASA, the shuttle system holds far greater potential. It sees a day when dozens of shuttles will be commuting to and from earth carrying enormous payloads. Crews aboard the shuttles could build and maintain gigantic orbiting communications satellites, solar-power stations that would transmit electricity to earth, and highly automated factories where industry could use the unique environment of space to make things that cannot be made as well, if at all, on earth. The virtual absence of gravitational force in orbit - scientists speak of the microgravity environment, not zero-gravity - provides several advantages in processing metals, fluids, crystals or living cells. In microgravity conditions, particles do not fall up or down and there are no distorting convection currents. Based on theory and several experiments on earlier space flights, the crystals that are the raw material of the electronics industry could be made purer and more reliable in space. New alloys and new types of glass should be also possible, and, for the pharmaceutical industry, biological substances could be separated more cleanly and efficiently. By the mid-1980s, according to NASA, some special products sold on earth, probably pharmecuticals and crystals for microelectronics, will bear the made-in-space label. For the moment, however, business is cautious. No business, other than the communictions industry, is willing as yet to commit big money on ventures in space. The payback - if there is any - could be dozens of years away, and that is unappealing to companies whose horizons are often limited to two, three, or five years. ''It takes money and time to figure out what can be produced in space, what it will cost and if there is really a use for it,'' said James Rose, manager of space processing for the McDonnell Douglas Corp. Indeed, a recent study by the Boeing Co. concluded that increased commercialization of space will not come easily. ''It will be expensive to develop all the interlocking technologies and organizations that will be needed for full space commercialization,'' Gilbert W. Keyes and John T. Bosma, two Boeing marketing specialists, wrote in a report. ''The major obstacles to maturation of space industries are financial, organizational and political rather than technological.'' Decisions made in the next five years, Keyes and Bosman continued, will determine ''to a large extent'' the economic prospects for space during the rest of the century. They said that companies want to be assured that American space programs will have ''a more secure financial future and a more supportive political climate'' before they risk money developing equipment and experimental manufacturing processes for use in space. In fact, the future of the shuttle - whose first launching has been delayed for months by a series of technical problems - does appear clouded. Although the Reagan administration exempted the shuttle program from its proposed budget cuts - which will pare $600 million from NASA's overall budget - it has not as yet expressed a commitment to post-shuttle projects. Congressional and NASA leaders suspect that the administration is waiting to see how well the space shuttle Columbia performs in its upcoming 54-hour orbital flight. Still, proponents within the program remain enthusiastic. Joseph P. Loftus Jr., chief of technical planning at NASA's Johnson Space Center, believes that the advent of the shuttles could do for the economic development of space what the transcontinental railroad did for the American West. ''Whether transportation makes commerce or commerce makes transportation is a chicken-and-egg problem of economics,'' he said, indicating that he tended to side with the former proposition. He equated the first shuttle with the first train west out of St. Louis. At launching, the shuttle consists of three main components: a 122-foot-long delta-wing orbiter, built by Rockwell; a huge external fuel tank, built by the Martin Marietta Corp; and two solid-fuel rockets, built by the Thiokol Corp. and the United Space Boosters subsidiary of the United Technologies Corp. The fuel tank and the two rockets are attached only temporarily to the orbiter to provide additional boost and fuel during the first minutes of ascent. They will be jettisoned after the shuttle begins to pull free of the earth's gravity, and the orbiter will contine under its own power. Only the orbiter will be fully reusable, with astronauts piloting it back from space to a runway landing. After refurbishment and refueling, the ship is to be refitted with external fuel tank and rocket boosters and launched again and again, perhaps up to 100 times, with intervals of less than a month between flights. This reusability is the basis for various projections showing that the shuttles should eventually reduce the cost of space travel. Much of the orbiter's fuselage consists of a cargo bay, 60 feet long and 15 feet wide, capable of carrying up to 65,000 pounds of payload - either a single satellite or laboratory or several instruments - and delivering it into its orbiting parking place. The cost to a company for the rental olion, but it is expected that full rental by one company would be rare, and that several would rent space on a single flight. The orbiter's range is between altitudes of 115 and 500 miles; any satellite destined for higher altitudes, such as the 22,300-mile-high orbit favored for communications relay stations, must be boosted there by its own attached rocket, to be fired after the satellite is tossed overboard from the shuttle, either by simple springs or a huge mechanical arm operated by astronauts. In addition, astronauts are expected to maneuver the shuttles to repair and service satellites already in orbit and even bring back others for renovation. The first two shuttles are being developed and tested at a cost expected to run almost $10 billion. NASA has contracted with Rockwell to build two additional orbiters at a cost of at least $500 million each and hopes to get Congressional approval for a fifth. NASA reports that it already has commitments for customers to fill the first 50 to 60 shuttle flights, and if current projections for traffic later in the decade are approximately accurate, NASA said that it will need a sixth and possibly seventh orbiter in the fleet. The agency has sought help from Eastern Air Lines Inc. and the Federal Express Corp. on how to match flight capacity with user demand. NASA officials believe that some day, perhaps by the early 21st century, a shuttle service run by private companies may be feasible. A few years ago, Boeing investigated the possibility of buying one or more shuttles and establishing a kind of private-enterprise airline for space, but eventually backed off. ''Right now,'' Loftus of NASA said, ''we're still where we were when the Army Signal Corps flew the mail because no private venture could do it.'' Nearly one-third of the booked shuttle flights are reserved for the defense department, which will convert from using expendable rockets to the shuttle for launching its communications, navigation and surveillance satellites. Because of their national security role, these satellites will have priority over others. But the heaviest traffic into space will be in commercial communications satellites, as it has been for several years. A recent NASA report estimated that American and foreign communications payloads will account for 38 percent of NASA's launching demand in the 1980s. These will represent replacements for aging satellites and new, larger satellites to satisfy the expanding demand. Altogether, NASA estimates, new communications satellite procurement could surpass $1.5 billion in the 1980s, with most of the business likely to go to experienced satellite builders like the Hughes Aircraft Co., the RCA Corp. and TRW Inc. Japanese and Western European industries are moving in as strong competitors, and the European Space Agency's Ariane rocket, if it surmounts current development problems, is expected to compete with the shuttle in transporting communications satellites to orbit. Ariane is a conventional three-stage expendable rocket system. Besides the growth in telephone and television circuits, there is expected to be increasing demand by industry for secure voice, video, high-speed data and facsimile services, a field opened last December with the launching of SBS-1 by Satellite Business Systems, a joint venture of the International Business Machines Corp., the Comsat General Corp. and the Aetna Life and Casualty Co. Indeed, the geosynchronous, or ''stationary,'' orbit used by most communications satellites is becoming so crowded, according to a study for NASA by the Western Union Corporation, that by 1990 satellites will have to operate at different and higher frequencies to keep from interfering with each other. But the shuttle's cargo capacity should make it possible to deploy larger satellites with multibeam antennas, on-board switching systems and high-power transmitters that would provide more efficient use of available orbital slots. Hughes and TRW are completing a one-year study of communications satellite designs for the shuttle generation. Although telecommunications will likely dominate the space economy for many years to come, NASA and private industry are exploring some more futuristic endeavors that could turn a profit. They are particularly interested in learning how to build large structures in orbit to serve as the power stations and factories of the space economy. Boeing, the General Dynamics Corp., the Grumman Corp. and Rockwell have conducted a number of such studies for NASA. As a first step, NASA is reviewing concepts for power modules that would be deposited in orbit by the shuttles and left there as kind of electrical outlets. A single module might have 100-foot-long panels of solar cells for converting sunlight to electricity. A shuttle could plug in to such a module and draw power for six weeks of operations. Laboratories, satellites or small prototype materials-processing factories would also get their energy from the modules. Other concepts include assembling larger structures by clustering together prefabricated modules brought up by the shuttles in separate flights. These could be bases for scientists engaged in research, operators of low-gravity manufacturing plants and solar-power collectors and construction crews. Grumman, in particular, is experimenting with automated structural-beam builders that could be deployed out from such a station; they would extrude graphite-resin composite beams extending for hundreds or thousands of feet and forming the support structure for solar-power arrays, telecommunications platforms or ''industrial parks,'' where clusters of manufacturing operations would be joined in a single array for easier maintenance by shuttle crews. Eventually, NASA says, space ''tugs'' will be needed to haul people and goods from the shuttle-serviced stations in low earth orbit and the higher orbits. So far, however, there are no commitments for giant factories or solar-power stations in space. But some companies are beginning to heed NASA's sales pitch on the potential for materials-processing aboard the shuttle and in future orbiting laboratories. Armed with a study prepared by TRW Inc., NASA is playing up the advantages of space processing as the possible source of materials not obtainable at competitive costs on earth. In a micro-gravity environment, the study noted, it should be possible to process some materials without containers, which are a source of impurities. Glass manufacturers, if they go to space processing, might be able to make ultrapure products for applications in lasers and fiber optics. The TRW study estimated that such ultrapure material used in fiber optics communications cables could reduce the transmission losses to the point where a savings in other components of the system, such as repeaters, would equate to $59,000 for every kilogram of ultrapure glass used. In addition, the study said, the production of ultrapure crystals i1s r hy-. Primitive crystal-growth experiments were conducted on Skylab in the early 1970s and, NASA says, are likely to be among the first processing tests aboard the shuttle. If it was demonstrated that ribbons of semiconductor-grade silicon cyrstals could be produced in space, the TRW analysis said, this could represent a potential revenue of $440 million annually by 1990, even if the space-produced silicon captured a mere 10 percent of the market. When NASA brought such possibilities to the attention of industry six years ago, the reaction was almost universally skeptical. Richard L. Brown, manager of commercial applications at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., said that he was surprised to find ''the pioneering spirit in today's economic climate so blunted.'' While NASA spent up to $20 million annually to test orbital processing, Brown and other officials hit the road to try to convince companies to sign ''joint endeavor'' agreements with the space agency. Under such agreements, the company develops, builds and tests processing equipment of its choice and NASA promises free shuttle rides for the equipment during the research and development phase. The company retains all rights to the equipment and products. If the process proves commercially feasible, the shuttle would have a new paying customer and the nation would have a new business. Only one such agreement has been signed so far, by McDonnell Douglas, but two others are being negotiated. nyt-03-20-81 1617est *************** ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 26-Mar-81 0408 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 25 Mar 1981 1359-PST Sender: WMARTIN at OFFICE-3 Subject: Shuttle lifespan From: WMartin at Office-3 (Will Martin) To: space-enthusiasts at MIT-MC Message-ID: <[OFFICE-3]25-Mar-81 13:59:34.WMARTIN> Hi! Looking at all the recent shuttle publicity brings this question to mind: The shuttle's reusability is a prime feature. What portion or subsystem of the shuttle is the limiting factor on its lifespan? What parts does NASA expect will wear out or break first, and what will determine that a certain shuttle craft is too far gone and will be retired? (Aside from the obvious, like a crash.) I would assume that tiles will be constantly replaced as they show some signs of age/fatigue/erosion, and that this could keep up forever. Engines would normally be replaced after so many hours of use, just as on normal aircraft. Avionics (is there a different term for spacecraft? astronics?) and the other internal systems can be revamped and replaced bit by bit in the life of this ship. The airframe itself (another inappropriate term) would be the main factor, and parts of it could be replaced as metal fatigue or failures were detected. Is there some member of the structure which is the key, or keel, and, if it goes bad, that's it? Or is the shuttle expected to last forever (barring accidents) until it becomes uneconomic, and later, more efficient versions replace it? I have visions of an old shuttle being used as a diner somewhere on Luna, or some guy buying one surplus to use for an L5 ferry... (I suppose I am counting my chickens' grandchildren before the eggs are hatched, but speculation is fun.) Regards, Will Martin ------------------------------ Date: 25 MAR 1981 2131-EST From: DWO at MIT-MC (Douglas W. Oard) To: SPACE at MIT-MC PLEASE ADD ME TO YOUR MAILING LIST. THANKS, DOUG. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 27-Mar-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 26 March 1981 03:00 est From: Schauble.Multics at MIT-Multics Subject: Clipping Service - Ultra low frequency radio astronomy To: space at MIT-AI From the February, 1981, issue of Industrial Research & Development Peninsula antenna may aid scientists in communications with deep space. ........................................ A technique for turning sea water around a peninsula into a giant antenna may someday provide a way to communicate with deeply submerged submarines or bring new understanding to signals from space. The method has been tested in recent years on a small scale in the New England area by a team from Stanford Univ. that now hopes to scale it up to a much larger test using a peninsula the size of Cape Cod. The studies involve ultra low frequency (ULF) radio waves on the order of from 5 to 6 Hz on down to as little as 0.01 Hz. Generating or detecting these, notes Anthony Fraser-Smith, senior research associate at Stanford Electronics Laboratory, Stanford, CA, requires a huge antenna. Building a huge conventional antenna for the new tests would have been much too involved and costly. Thus, Fraser-Smith and his coworkers came up with the idea of the peninsula method. Since sea water conducts electricity quite well, it can become an antenna. The idea is to stick a wire across the neck of a peninsula and drive current into the water. "It tends to take the shirtest path it can, which happens to be along the shore of the peninsula. That sort of defines you loop. The peninsula drives the current apart and forms it into a roughly circular path." In the mid '70s, Fraser-Smith and Prof. Oswald G. Villard Jr. determined a small peninsula on the north shore of Chappaquiddick Island off Cape Cod, MA, called North Neck, would serve for small scale tests. Initially, they stretched 300 m of wire across the neck and attached two copper sheets 0.45 m sq to the ends under the water. A receiver was placed in the middle. Results were promising, so a somewhat more powerful test was set up a year later. In this case, wire made of aluminum was stretched across North Neck attached to two large galvanized pipe sections about 180 m apart. Four automobile starter relays connected to two 12V batteries were used to produce alternating current. In these studies, the team found that an airplane flying between 160 to 320 m above the island could detect signals from the antenna. Calculations indicated the peninsula method gave performance 49 times better than if a conventional antenna had been built around the shore of North Neck. The U.S. Navy, which along with the National Science Foundation helped fund the work, was interested in it for the same reason it supported the controversial Midwest ULF program. ULF waves provide a potential way for direct communication with submarines. (The Russians seem to be pursuing the approach with the same idea in mind. Recently studies were reported from Rybachy peninsula in the Artic, a relatively large antenna system whose magnetic field was measured as far as 750 km away.) "Actually, we are interested in these tests more for basic science findings than possible practical uses. We hope to gain an understanding of certain sounds that seem to come from the radiation belts. The ones we're interested in aren't what are called whistlers, but little warbling currents you only can hear if you record the signals on tape and speed them up to an audible rate. "There is a well developed theory for these pulsations, but it has never been tested," Fraser-Smith said. One method for doing it would be to build a power enough peninsula antenna to transmit ULF signals to the radiation belts on nights when the warbling noises are absent to see "if particles interact with our signals the way they're supposed to. Both for that and to provide data for Navy needs, a larger peninsula than Chappiquiddick is needed. Cape Cod might do nicely except that it is too densely populated. The method isn't seen as posing any major health hazards, but it could cause some electric shocks, particularly at the point the field is injected into the water. "So we're considering remote peninsulas with no other people around." Frasier-Smith said. "We have looked at places in Canada, Alaska, Antartica, and Greenland," he added. "We don't have equipment for the full scale experiment yet. The Soviet Union has been doing research with portable MHD (magnetohydrodynamic) generators which they can set up and turn out a huge current fairly easily. We don't have that kind of equipment, but on the other hand, their generator doesn't have the variable frequency characteristics we want. We plan to carry out our tests with well controlled frequencies and feel that will be a much better experiment," he said. ........................................ End of quoted text. I am curious: Could you construct such an antenna by stringing a wire across the Isthmus of Panama? And, if so, what frequency range would you be working in? Apparantly something the size of Cape Cod works in the range of 0.01 to 6 Hz. South America is nearly three orders of magnitude larger, so the frequencies should be that much lower. I wonder what's on the 10 microHertz band tonight?? ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 28-Mar-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 28 MAR 1981 0017-EST From: ES at MIT-MC (Gene Salamin) Subject: Continent sized antenna To: SPACE at MIT-MC A loop antenna is best for wavelengths about twice its size. If you used the whole earth as a loop, then the optimum frequency would be around 10 Hz. On the other hand, at these long wavelengths, a terrestrial receiver is in the near zone, so the transmission is really just transformer type coupling. ------------------------------ Date: 28 March 1981 03:00 est From: Schauble.Multics at MIT-Multics Subject: Clipping Service - Black Holes To: space at MIT-AI From the February, 1981, issue of Industrial Research & Development Theorists question the nature and existence of black holes ........................................ Just when astronomers have accepted the idea of black holes--the incredibly dense stellar cinders that perform the task of cosmic garbage collection--theorists are throwning doubts on the nature and even the existence of the bizarre objects. The fundamental idea of a black hole, first published in 1939 and resurrected about a decade ago, views a black hole as the dead remnant of a star more than three times as massive as our sun, that has collapsed under the force of its huge gravitational field to a size no more than that of, say, Manhattan Island. Gravitational pull of this object would be so intense, the theorists said, that not even light could escape from it. It would be inherently invisible, swallowing up every form of matter and radiation that approached it and giving off no trace of its existence. The only possible way of identifying a black hole, canny astronomers decided, was to seek characteristic radiation that stellar matter gives off as it is swept towards a black hole. X-ray astronomers have so far spotted a handful of objects that might just fill the description of a black hole, although none of the identifications are by any means certain. Then came Stephen Hawking, the British theorist who, by combining the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics, concluded that black holes can actually "leak". So intense is the field of energy just beyond a black hole, Hawking reasoned, that pairs of particles--one of matter, the other of anti-matter--could form spontaneously in the region. In some circumstances, one of the particles will fall into the black hole while the other escapes into the universe beyond--representing a loss of matter by the black hole. According to Hawking's calculations, matter would drip off the black hole at an increasing rate until a final explosion would rip the dead star apart. Recently, Frank Tipler of the Univ. of Texas at Austin has taken a fresh look at Hawking's calculations. Writing in Physical Review Letters, Tipler reports not only that the leaking process indeed occurs, but also that it happens so effectively that black holes might not survive for more than a few seconds. Tipler's interpretation of the leaking process is that stable black holes do not exist. The Texas theoretician readily acknowledges that his analysis may be wrong, particularly as it involves the murky boundary between quantum theory and relativity. Possibly, he suggests, black holes may not leak after all, owing to quantum effects more complex than currently realized. Or maybe some vital assumption about the energy field surrounding black holes may be in error. Certainly the report has given black hole buffs plenty to think about. Black holes, if they do exist, may be even more unusual than the theoreticians first thought. ------------------------------ Date: 28 March 1981 03:00 est From: Schauble.Multics at MIT-Multics Subject: Cape Canaveral To: space at MIT-MC The name was changed back becuase of the continued and extensive protests of the residents. They were not opposed to honoring Kennedy, but were very proud of the history of their city and its name. As I recall, Canaveral is the oldest continuously inhabited city in America, and the Canaveral Lighthouse has an equally venerable history. The name change, to my mind, made things the way they should have been in the first place. The FACILITY was named after Kennedy, and is now the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral. ------------------------------ Date: 28 March 1981 03:00 est From: Schauble.Multics at MIT-Multics Subject: Shuttle accident To: space at MIT-AI Does anyone know what the time of useful consciousness is for someone stepping into pure nitrogen? I seem to recall that for stepping into a vacuum it's about 30 seconds. Seems like it should be at least a minute for nitrogen. Of course, the problem is that anoxia is like drunkenness. You will never believe you have it unless you know what to look for. You will think everything is just fine. Most pilots have learned or been trained to recognize it, but I doubt that the ground workers have. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 29-Mar-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 28 Mar 1981 1420-CST From: Clive Dawson Subject: False alarm...! To: space at MIT-AI The following article appeared in The Daily Texan, (our campus newspaper here at the University of Texas at Austin) on Thursday, March 26: POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCHER DISCOVERS HIS BLACK HOLE THEORY INCORRECT A UT postdoctoral research associate in physics says he recently discovered his theory -- that black holes do not exist -- is incorrect. Frank Tipler first presented his theory in Physical Review Letters last September. His hypothesis, that potential black holes would evaporate before they could actually form, was actually a revision of a theory proposed in 1974 by Stephen Hawking of Cambridge University. Hawking argued black holes, like any other heated object, would eventually evaporate. But while Hawking estimated the time required for complete evaporation is 10**71 years, Tipler proposed the time required is actually closer to one second. Tipler says now an algebraic error in his calculations invalidates his theory. "I dropped a term in my calculations ... I think now Hawking is correct. My theory is virtually useless," he said. Tipler said he discovered his error March 13, the same day The Daily Texan printed a story about the theory. ------- ------------------------------ Date: 28 Mar 1981 1606-PST From: Ted Anderson Subject: NewsService goodies To: space at MIT-MC Two files are available on SAIL for ftp. The first (SPACE.NS[SPA,OTA]) has some interesting general background information. The second one (SHUTLE.NS) contains lots of info on the shuttle, including many details on how the actual flight will go. Parts of it are useful reference materials for watching the flight from your TV. They are roughly 350 lines each. Let me know if you need help getting these files to your site. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 30-Mar-81 0448 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 29 Mar 1981 1300-PST From: Tom Wadlow Subject: Rumormongering To: space at MIT-MC I recently came across several reasonably substantiated rumors that may be of interest to the SPACE readership: 1) (Very well substantiated) Stan Kent, president of the Viking Fund, will be having dinner at the White House on April 13. He was invited to discuss public support for the planetary exploration program specifically, and public support of the space program in general. 2) (Moderately substantiated) The Soviet Union is expected to make a big move in space, sometime in April. One theory is that two Salyut space stations will be coupled together to form the Yuri Gagarin Permanent Manned Space Facility. 3) (Also moderately substantiated) The White House has received more mail on space in the past few months than any other single issue, except veterans affairs. -- Tom ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 31-Mar-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 30 Mar 1981 1155-PST Sender: WMARTIN at OFFICE-3 Subject: Shuttle names From: WMartin at Office-3 (Will Martin) To: Space-enthusiasts at MIT-MC Message-ID: <[OFFICE-3]30-Mar-81 11:55:52.WMARTIN> I'm confused. (This is not unusual.) The news article on the shuttle (in the FTP file) names the four shuttles as: Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, and Atlantis. I thought I recalled that the Star Trek enthusiasts staged a campaign and had one of the shuttles named "Enterprise". Is this a totally false recollection? Or is there a fifth shuttle, so named? Is the Columbia (the one being launched) the same craft that did the test flights from atop the 747? Or was that the one named "Enterprise", and was it just an aerodynamic test bed, not to be actually launched into space? Please enlighten my murky memory. Will Martin ------------------------------ Date: 30 Mar 1981 1231-PST From: Alan R. Katz Subject: Shuttle and letters To: space at MIT-MC cc: katz at USC-ISIF Looks like the launch date is either April 9 or 10. The date will be officially selected Tue morning (mar 31). Remember, for up to date info, dial 922-INFO (area code 213). I had heard also that the second greatest amount of mail to Reagan is on space. Let's keep up the good work. Alan ------- ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 01-Apr-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 31 MAR 1981 1008-EST From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: shuttle names To: SPACE at MIT-MC cc: WMARTIN at OFFICE-3 Various other stories (including a surprisingly good one in the NEW YORKER) have said that "Enterprise", the first shuttle to be rolled out, was intended only for aerodynamic testing (i.e., being dropped from a 747). "Columbia" is the second shuttle to be mostly completed and will be the first actually to get above the atmosphere. ------- ------------------------------ Date: 31 March 1981 16:03-EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Shuttle names To: WMartin at OFFICE-3 cc: SPACE-ENTHUSIASTS at MIT-MC Enterprise flew flight tests, but won't go into space. Columbia will. (It will also come back in one piece I hope!) Enterprise was really a misnomer since the real Enterprise was a starship and space station, not a ground-to-space shuttle. Galileo would have been a more appropriate name for a shuttle named after after Startrek, but that name was already assigned to the Space-to-Jupiter-atmosphere one-time probe, alas. ------------------------------ Date: 31 March 1981 16:25 cst From: VaughanW at HI-Multics (Bill Vaughan) Subject: the shuttle ENTERPRISE Sender: VaughanW.REFLECS at HI-Multics To: space at MIT-MC ENTERPRISE was the aerodynamic test bed. It will never fly in space. I don't know what happened to it. I think the Trekkies got the shaft. ------------------------------ Date: 31 MAR 1981 2142-EST From: DWO at MIT-MC (Douglas W. Oard) To: SPACE at MIT-MC AS I RECALL, NASA DECIDED IT WOULD BE TOO COSTLY TO REFIT THE AERODYNAMIC TEST BED ENTERPRISE AS A FUNCTIONAL SHUTTLE, BELIEVING NEW CONSTRUCTION TO BE CHEAPER. THUS THE DEMISE OF THE ENTERPRISE. PERHAPS THE TREKKIES WERE A LITTLE TO QUICK. IT WILL LOOK GOOD IN A MUSEAM THOUGH! I MUST SAY, THE TROUBLE NASA HAS HAD WITH THE TILES SEEMS TO INDICATE THE CORRECTNESS OF THEIR DECISION. HOPEFULLY THEY WONT MAKE THE SAME MISTAKES THE FIFTH TIME! ------------------------------ From: FONER@MIT-AI Date: 03/31/81 23:42:16 Subject: Shuttle names FONER@MIT-AI 03/31/81 23:42:16 Re: Shuttle names To: Space at MIT-MC The shuttle called "Enterprise" was renamed from "Constitution" for historical reasons: the Constitution NCC class starship (i.e., identical to the Enterprise) was destroyed in battle. It was felt that this was perhaps not a good omen. The Enterprise space shuttle was used as an aerodynamic testbed, and was flown several times piggybacked on a large jet. However, it was never intended to make it into space. Instead, the Columbia was chosen to be the first shuttle into space. The Enterprise will remain earthbound forever, probably as a conversation piece but nothing else. To make it into space, the Enterprise would require extremely extensive retrofitting and redesign, since various things have been changed since it has flown. For instance, the method of making the tiles adhere has been changed. So has the control electronics, I think. In general, the Enterprise will not fly. So... that's why the first shuttle into space will be the Columbia. And I'm just wondering how many people will misspell that name. I may have myself. Oh, well... ------------------------------ Date: 1 April 1981 01:08 est From: Schauble.Multics at MIT-Multics Subject: Shuttle names To: space at MIT-AI The first shuttle built was indeed named the Enterprise. This is the one that was drop tested from the 747. It was never intended to be the first shuttle flown, as it was in fact just a test vehicle. The one now on the launch pad is the Columbia. The original intention was that the Enterprise was to be taken back and rebuilt to become the fifth orbiter. I now hear that, because of budget problems, it is being cannibalized for parts. ------------------------------ Date: 31 Mar 1981 2255-PST From: Alan R. Katz Subject: shuttle names To: space at MIT-MC cc: katz at USC-ISIF Yes indeed, the first shuttle test vehicle built was named Enterprise after the fans wrote in. However, that vehicle will never fly into space, it was the one that was drop tested off of the 747 a few years back. It was planned that it would be refurbished and flown into space, but when funding was cut to 4 orbiters, that was the one to go. Alan ------- ------------------------------ Date: 1 April 1981 02:52-EST From: Jerry E. Pournelle Subject: Shuttle names To: WMartin at OFFICE-3 cc: SPACE-ENTHUSIASTS at MIT-MC As revenge, Carter saw to it that the Enterprise is the shuttle that will never go to space. It's used as a mockup and wil not be fitted with space travel gear. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 03-Apr-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 3 APR 1981 0100-EST From: RWG at MIT-MC (Bill Gosper) To: SPACE at MIT-MC Can anyone give the launch window times on the 10th? How about gross takeoff weight and engine thrusts? ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 05-Apr-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 04 Apr 1981 0816-PST From: Jim McGrath Subject: Military uses of Space To: arms-d at MIT-MC, space at MIT-MC By RICHARD D. LYONS c. 1981 N.Y. Times News Service WASHINGTON - The blastoff of the space shuttle next month will be a benchmark in the history of warfare, in the view of Pentagon officers and military strategists. Leaving aside the considerable scientific and commercial aspects of shuttle flights, which are the ostensible reasons for the investment of some $8 billion in the reusable space vehicle, military planners say the launching will mark the start of manned military operations at altitudes that will start with the shuttle at 200 miles and go to virtually any height imaginable. Almost from the first planning and investment in the shuttle program a decade ago it was widely recognized on Capitol Hill that the major long-range benefits would be from military applications. This view has not gone unnoticed in Moscow, where Soviet leaders have vigorously protested the continuing development of the American space plane as a provocation, and have unsuccessfully sought to negotiate its halt. The Soviet Union was well aware that early in the process of designing the shuttle, its cargo bay was enlarged at the urging of the Air Force to accommodate military payloads. At a length of 122 feet and with a wing span of 78 feet, the shuttle is about the size of a DC-9 jetliner. With two pilots and as many as three technicians it could stay in space for a week or more. Interviews with people familiar with military space issues have also shown that there is a growing debate over whether space, an area where weapons of mass destruction are outlawed by United Nations treaty, should be opened to lesser weaponry. Some Americans fear an arms race in space, while others see the military use of the shuttle as a natural consequence of the superiority of this nation's space technology, although such superiority may prove temporary. ''The military use of the shuttle is going to be dominant, while civilian uses will be minor,'' said Dr. James Van Allen of the University of Iowa, an elder statesman of the American space exploration effort. ''NASA is going to be trampled to death by the Defense Department on shuttle use, so why not be honest about it and call it a military program?'' Another scientist who has expressed concern over the military implications of the shuttle is Dr. Eric Chaisson, an associate professor on the astrophysics faculty at Harvard University. ''Many of my colleagues and I believe that the mission of the shuttle is to launch military satellites,'' he said. Chaisson added that he had been discreetly told by his superiors to keep his opinions to himself ''because there is a lot of kowtowing to the fact that scientists with such views are on thin ice'' with those federal agencies that distribute money for research. Yet to the aerospace industry and other groups seeking a rapid strengthening of the American military, the shuttle is the realization of a dream of manned military vehicles extending back to the Advanced Reconnaissance Satellite program of the 1950s. Those favoring the operation of overtly military satellites with astronauts aboard suffered sharp setbacks when the Air Force X-20 Dyna-Soar program was canceled in 1963, and its follow-up program, the Manned Orbiting Laboratory, was killed six years later after the investment of $1.6 billion. The programs were eliminated partly for economic reasons and partly because they had been overtaken by the Gemini and Skylab programs. Therefore to such military thinkers as Lt. Gen. Daniel O. Graham, the retired director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, who is now co-chairman of the Alliance for Peace Through Strength, a civilian lobby group, the shuttle offers the opportunity to open vast areas for military exploitation. ''The shuttle gives us a strategic edge over the Soviet Union and their masses of missiles and submarines,'' Graham said. ''While the Russians would say 'ain't it awful,' I say 'hurray' and let's take advantage of our superiority.'' Groups such as the Federation of American Scientists, which have long opposed the development of the shuttle, originally for economic reasons and later for military reasons, as well as those groups akin to Graham's, acknowledge that a kind of cold war in space is emerging. There have been several examples of this development: -This month the Air Force announced that it would build in Colorado a $450 million Consolidated Space Operations Center from which all future military shuttle and satellite flights would be directed. -The Defense Department is seeking more than $500 million in the proposed budget for the fiscal year 1982 for its own shuttle research, development, testing and engineering. -A military duplicate of the shuttle base at the Kennedy Space Center is being constructed at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. It is expected to be operational in 1984. -The Air Force is quietly asking Congress for about $150 million for the continuation of twin programs to develop antisatellite weapons. ------------------------------ Date: 04 Apr 1981 0827-PST From: Jim McGrath Subject: Search for Planets To: space at MIT-MC, sf-lovers at MIT-AI By Albert Sehlstedt Jr. (c) 1981 The Baltimore Sun (Field News Service) GREENBELT, Md. - There are about 10 other suns near enough to the Earth's corner of the Milky Way that may have planets visible through the space telescope, according to an astronomer associated with the project. The fundamental question, of course, is: Are there people on those planets? The space telescope, to be launched into a 310-mile-high orbit of the Earth in 1985 by the manned space shuttle, ought to be able to detect such planets if any of them are relatively large, said James A. Westphal, professor of planetary science at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena. Finding other planets in the universe would be a key step in determining the answer to the age-old question of whether there is other life - similar to life on Earth - somewhere in the enormous expanse of the universe. Professor Westphal, the leader of a team of scientists making a planetary camera for the space telescope, was at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Goddard Space Flight Center here last week for a scientific meeting evaluating the current status of the flying scope. Goddard will send operational radio commands to the telescope in response to requests of astronomers viewing the skies from the Space Telescope Science Institute, to be built on the Homewood campus of the Johns Hopkins Unversity. Westphal said in an interview that there are two ways the telescope would be able to detect planets in other solar systems. The first way, which he called a ''marginal'' possibility, would be to see them directly through the instrument in the same manner that a backyard astronomer looks at Mars or Saturn. The other way would be to use the telescope to detect a perturbation - or wobble - in one of the suns under observation. This knowledge would indicate that the particular sun in the eye of the scope was feeling the gravitational pull of a nearby object, invisible though it might be from the environs of Earth. A planet would have to be quite large - the size of a Jupiter, perhaps - for it to be visible against the bright light emanating from the star it was orbiting, Professor Westphal explained. To put it another way, an astronomer somewhere else in this galazy might be able to spot Jupiter or Saturn in this solar system, but would not find Earth, which is not only much smaller than those two planets but closer to the sun's bright light. The Cal Tech astronomer said he was personally interested in focusing the telescope on a neighboring galaxy, designated M-87, which has a ''very, very large black hole - one of those things where everything is falling into it and disappearing.'' Looking through the space telescope, Professor Westphal said, he would hope to be able to say of M-87: ''Yes, it really does have that black hole in the middle.'' Black holes are former stars which, after collapsing into an extremely dense state, have an extraordinarily powerful gravitational field. The field is so strong that nothing - not even visible light or radio waves - can escape from it. Another object of interest for the space telescope, Professor Westphal said, would be Pluto, one of the outer planets of this solar system that can only be seen now as a point of light in the sky. The space telescope will be able to see the shape of Pluto that astronomers believe has a moon orbiting it. Other fascinating objects of discovery may be things in the universe that scientists would not even guess exist, Westphal said. Other astronomers share that opinion. ''There's a long history of that in astronomy,'' the Cal Tech scientist continued, citing the example of Galileo looking through his rudimentary scope in the Seventeenth Century and finding craters on the moon. ''This is almost as big a step as Galileo building his telescope,'' Professor Westphal said of the space telescope project. The space telescope, which will have a 95-inch mirror, is by no means the largest such instrument in the world (the one on Palomar Mountain in Southern California has a 200-inch mirror, for example) but it will operate with the incalculable advantage of being above the veil of the Earth's atmosphere. (There are several advantages to building telescopes with mirrors - called reflecting telescopes - one of them being that the instruments can be made much larger). With the reflecting space telescope, astronomers expect to behold much of the universe with a clarity never before possible. The telescope will have a 15-year life and crews aboard the space shuttle can fly up to repair the instrument if necessary. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 06-Apr-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 5 Apr 1981 1853-PST From: Stuart McLure Cracraft Subject: Shuttle: what \could/ go wrong To: space at MIT-MC BC-Shuttle-Risks, Adv 00,880 $Adv 00 For Release - Before - NASA Shuttle Mission The Maiden Voyage VII: Men, Not Chimps, Test the Shuttle By HOWARD BENEDICT AP Aerospace Writer CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - The space shuttle Columbia is the first spacecraft assigned to carry astronauts without first being tested on unmanned flights. Its two pilots say they are unconcerned. Astronauts John Young and Bob Crippen concede the maiden journey carries the potential for a disaster that could cost them their lives, but note Columbia is laced with safety features for emergencies from launch to landing. ''We obviously think the vehicle is safe; otherwise we wouldn't be flying it,'' said Young, the 50-year-old mission commander who has made four earlier space trips, two each in the Gemini and Apollo programs. The Mercury, Gemini and Apollo craft each were flown on at least two unmanned flights, and two chimpanzees, Ham and Enos, tried out Mercury before Alan Shepard and John Glenn went aloft. But the shuttle is too complex a vehicle to send up without pilots. ''There's probably a way to do it, but it would probably cost as much as $500 million and delay the program another year,'' Young told the Associated Press. ''And you might not get the vehicle back if there is a failure. ''Human beings provide it with a lot more flexibility,'' he said. If there is problem, Young said, he and Crippen should be able to locate, diagnose and correct it. ''NASA built a lot of redundancy into the major systems, so there is a backup for just about everything that could go wrong,'' Young tated. Still, the astronauts are prepared, in case of a system failure, to cut short the planned 54-hour mission. ''Just about anything can break and we'll decide to go ahead and terminate the flight,'' Crippen said. ''We've taken a very conservative approach - we're going to play it safe,'' said Flight Director Charles Lewis. ''It's like the first test flight of a new airplane. Why push it?'' Perhaps the most dangerous part of the mission is when Columbia's three main engines and its two solid-fuel booster rockets ignite on the launch pad. Earlier American spacecraft were equipped with an escape tower - a rocket attached to the nose - intended to pull the craft swiftly away from an exploding rocket during liftoff and parachute it to safety. But Columbia's 80-ton weight and its shape - like a stubby-winged jetliner - precluded an escape tower. Instead, the astronauts sit in parachute-equipped ejection seats similar to those used by fighter jet pilots. Some have expressed concern that the astronauts would be fatally burned as they were shot through the massive fireball created by half a million gallons of liquid hydrogen and oxygen fuel and the erupting solid-fuel rockets. Crippen said he wasn't worried. ''I guarantee if you pull that little handle, you will eject, and all the data shows there should be no problem with survivability,'' he said. If the four test flights are successful, NASA will consider the spacecraft to be as reliable as a jetliner and remove the seats altogether. To handle a problem - such as an engine failure - once Columbia is off the pad, NASA devised a number of ''abort modes'' for a fast emergency landing. If trouble occurs in the first 4 minutes and 23 seconds, the shuttle, having jettisoned its two boosters but still firing its main engines, would swing around and return to a 15,000-foot landing strip at Cape Canaveral. Shuttle craft eventually will land back at Canaveral, but for the first three or four flights, landing is planned for the wide-open lake bed at Edwards Air Force Base in California, allowing a large margin for error if runway landing goes awry. The most important in-orbit test comes early in the flight: The open and closing of two giant doors on Columbia's 60-foot-long cargo bay. Silvery panels just inside them are designed to radiate heat from the crew cabin and from electronic devices throughout the spaceship. If the doors don't open, the astronauts would quickly return to Earth, because they have only enough backup cooling to stay up for about nine hours. Ten pairs of motors drive the latches that close the doors. If any one motor fails, the shuttle would then return to Earth. That's because, if the second motor in the pair should later fail, the doors probably could not be closed and the ship might not be able to survive re-entry. Upon its re-entry to the atmosphere, Columbia enters a region of hypersonic speeds where no winged craft has ever flown before. It is not precisely known how well pilots can control the craft in this region from about 400,000 feet down, so Columbia's computers will command the critical re-entry, with Young taking over at 40,000 feet for the landing. Mission Control will monitor closely during this phase to see if any of the spaceship's 30,922 heat shield tiles have loosened or fallen off. If any tiles have detached from high heat areas, where 2,700-degree temperatures sear the spacecraft, critical systems could be burned, perhaps making a safe landing impossible. In such a case, if they are below 100,000 feet, the astronauts could eject. End Adv For Release - Before - NASA Shuttle Mission ap-ny-04-05 2140EST ********** ------- ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 07-Apr-81 0400 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 6 Apr 1981 2140-EST From: KING at RUTGERS Subject: catch a falling tile ... To: space at MIT-MC cc: king at RUTGERS Does anyone know how NASA expects to detect the fact that one or more tiles has fallen off the Shuttle if that happens? It recently occured to me that (at least as far as I know) a lot of the Shuttle was already built by the time anyone expected the tiles to be a problem area. 30K-odd detectors (one beneath each tile), PLUS ASSOCIATED WIRING, would seem to me to be expensive (relative term, I suppose) and HEAVY. ------- ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 08-Apr-81 0402 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 7 Apr 1981 2051-EST From: KING at RUTGERS Subject: misc. shuttle topics To: space at MIT-MC cc: king at RUTGERS I wonder about one thing. The Shuttle is pretty big. I wonder if it would be possible to carry a spare Gemini spacecraft in the cargo hold. If it looks like some tiles have come loose (a spacewalking astronaut can determine this) the astronauts kick the shuttle up into a slightly higher orbit (using fuel intended for retrofire) to make it stay around for a decade or so; then they crawl into their handy-dandy lifeboat and return to earth. Of course, the payload bay has to open... It has occured to me that if they embedded an octuple corner reflector in each tile (visualize the intersection of the triple plane X*Y*Z=0 with the sphere X^2+Y^2+Z^2<1) falling tiles could easily be seen on radar. The embedded reflector could be made of thin foil. Does anyone know whether the actual Columbia (as opposed to just the Enterprise) has been used for practice landings? Does anyone know whether it would actually be cheaper to build an additional Shuttle than to make the Enterprise spaceworthy? It has occured to me that a giant aluminum shell could come in handy in space. Are there any possibilities of taking the Shuttle's belly tank into low earth orbit (perhaps at the cost of reducing the main payload)? I understand that the tank weight about 39 tons, which is slightly more than the rated payload; perhaps version 2 of the Shuttle (slightly longer-burning solid fuel rockets?) will have enough oomph. Now let's speculate on how badly the space program is wedged if the Shuttle fails in a way that totally destroys it. It shouldn't matter too much, but I suspect it will, in fact, kill the program. By this reasoning they were right to have the first flight manned. Live pilots increase the chance of bringing the hardware back alive, at least a little bit. If the mission fails, I can see someone deciding that has only slightly less negative value than ( + ). It's actually a reasonable decision, made between consenting adults. The (relatively) slight extra pain of a manned flight going sour is more than balanced by the moderate reduction in the chance that this will happen. ------- ------------------------------ Date: 07 Apr 1981 2152-PST From: Ted Anderson Subject: Log file moved To: space at MIT-MC Due to the latest disk Purge on SAIL I have moved the SPACE-Enthusiasts log file off-line. If you need to examine this log file let me know and I can retrieve it for you. Space Digests starting with this one will begin accumulating on SAIL in the same old place. Only the ones prior to April 8th are off-line. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 09-Apr-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 08 Apr 1981 1005-PST From: Tom Wadlow Subject: Using the Shuttle External Tank To: space at MIT-MC The ET can be put into orbit at a sacrifice of between 10 and 30 percent of the payload capacity of the Shuttle. Apparently, NASA has re-contracted a new type of ET that is lighter than the original, and should therefore be easier and less costly to orbit. Several private companies have been formed as industrial consultants on ET usage, but as of now, NASA has no (public) plans to do anything but throw away the External Tank. Sigh. ------------------------------ Date: 8 APR 1981 1912-EST From: REM at MIT-MC (Robert Elton Maas) Subject: Fact is funnier than fiction To: SPACE at MIT-MC This afternoon while shopping I saw this young lady with a t-shirt that showed the space shuttle in launch position. While chatting about how worried we were about tiles falling off during rentry, she pointed out that the tiles on the shuttle on her shirt were falling (flaking) off too! She got the t-shirt 3 years ago at Kennedy Space Flight Center. Curious that the t-shirt had the same design problem as the real shuttle! Hope they've fixed the tiles as well as the astronauts think they have. (P.s. launch still scheduled between 6 and 7 am EST, 3 and 4 am PST the last I heard. I wonder which local stations will interrupt their normally scheduled programming (test patterns) to show it live here in PST zone?) ------------------------------ Date: 08 Apr 1981 1646-PST From: Tom Wadlow Subject: NASA Administrator To: space at MIT-MC A few weeks ago, the news services carried a story that James Beggs had been proposed as director of NASA and that Reagan was going to make that proposal official in ``about a week''. I have heard nothing of this since and just ran across a wire service story that said that NASA is still without an administrator. Does anyone know more about the Beggs appointment? Is Reagan waiting for the Shuttle to fly successfully/blow up before naming a director, perhaps?? ------------------------------ Date: 9 April 1981 05:32-EST From: Jerry E. Pournelle Subject: misc. shuttle topics To: KING at RUTGERS cc: SPACE at MIT-MC 1. Unfortunately, North American says that it would cost more to make the Enterprise spaceworthy than to buy a new orbiter; but they have no objections to renaming the fifth orbiter if anyone will buy it.. 2. Putting fuel tanks in orbit is not only possible, but part of the space plan for building the Operations Center; I've done a couple of articles on it. 3. I have just been told that they're running Shuttle first flight at 9.1 psi 28% Oxygen because-because-because they haven't improved full pressure suits in twenty years! The suits, I am told, hold only 4.1 psi and it's for damn sure that if you take a chap from 14.7 with 80% nitrogen and put him in pure oxygen at 4.1 psi you have a guaranteed case of the bends in less thatn 2 hours. But to quick fix it (having, I am told, discovered the problem last week, after only five years to think about it)--to quick fix that with lower cabin pressure is probably losing. Think of the cooling lossage at lower pressure; electrinics will fry. Maybe. They damned well could have built new suits; hell, I have been in suits at 10 pounds above ambient, and that was twenty years ago! They are paying $46 million for 43 suits; you'd thnk they could get good ones for that price. I bet large sums I can for $10 millon research design you with 12 pound suits that i can buy for under $250,000 each, and probably for under $25,000. Bat puckey. It's time for a Congressional investigation of the kind of idiocy that produces results like that. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 10-Apr-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: BAK@MIT-AI Date: 04/09/81 21:28:51 Subject: reusing external tanks BAK@MIT-AI 04/09/81 21:28:51 Re: reusing external tanks To: space at MIT-MC According to Gerard O'Neill who spoke at MIT a couple of weeks ago, the external tanks can be gotten into orbit with only a 3% reduction in payload capacity from the maximum. He said NASA has plans for using them as construction materials for the first orbital and lunar habitats. According to the NY Times, the external tank for tomorrows flight will not make it into orbit; this is very curious (given O'Neill's statement) considering that the payload bay will be empty for the first trip. ------------------------------ Date: 9 APR 1981 2248-EST From: POURNE at MIT-MC (Jerry E. Pournelle) Subject: hurrah-and maximum effort To: BBOARD at MIT-MC, (*MSG *ITS) at MIT-MC, BBOARD at SRI-KL To: BBOARD at SU-AI CC: SPACE-ENTHUSIASTS at MIT-MC, ENERGY at MIT-MC space enthusiasts are urged to send mailgrams or other communications expressing their views on desirability of permanent US manned presence in space (and for courtesy message: please Mr. President, get well soon and LEAD US INTO SPACE). 202 - 456-7116 or President Ronald Reagan, Office of Science and Technology, Executive Office Building, Washington DC 20500. L-5 Society Telephone tree and other space activists all joining effort for this weekend. ad astra... ------------------------------ Date: 09 Apr 1981 1944-PST From: Jim McGrath Subject: Space Law (or the lack thereof) To: space at MIT-MC, info-law at MIT-MC AP News Special By CHARLES J. HANLEY Associated Press Writer The development of the American space shuttle has left behind a world still wrangling over how to put international order into the largely lawless new frontier the revolutionary spacecraft will exploit. With the shuttle, man will soon be doing things in outer space that are simply not covered by the handful of international treaties that pertain to extraterrestrial activity. There is one key treaty that would move significantly toward an international ''space regime.'' It would declare the resources of the moon and planets to be a common heritage to be shared among all nations. But that treaty lacks the required number of signatory governments and has not gone into effect. Long before a ''moon treaty'' finally takes force, American lunar stations built with the aid of the shuttle may already be mining iron, titanium or aluminum on the surface of the moon. The commercialization of space is not the only development outstripping international law. The Pentagon's plans for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration shuttle have aroused new international concerns that space will become a superpower battleground. The Soviet Union has denounced the shuttle program as the opening shot of a space arms race. The Soviets themselves, however, are at work on space weapons, such as long-range laser ''guns'' and ''killer satellites'' that destroy other orbiters. The shuttle, which can carry Earth satellites into orbit, is expected to be used extensively for putting up military spy satellites. U.S. defense officials say it might also eventually help build giant manned space platforms that could serve as reconnaissance or command posts for earthly combat. On the commercial side, the American craft may quickly monopolize and expand the lucrative communications satellite business. It could help build solar-energy stations in orbit, and even space factories and mills, where minerals found on the moon or elsewhere could be worked into construction materials or other products in a highly efficient weightless environment. The new spacecraft could be a crucial step toward the mass colonization of space. ''The shuttle does open new areas in space, and we may need some specific new treaties,'' Marvin Robinson, secretary of the United Nations' Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, said in an interview. ''... Some in the Third World are concerned that things not move so fast that they get left out or get in too late.'' The ''frontier'' atmosphere of outer space was underlined last year when NASA issued a new rule giving space shuttle commanders the power of arrest and authority to use force if necessary in orbit. Agency officials said the future arrival of large numbers of civilians in space made the rule necessary. Four treaties now govern aspects of space travel. All were ratified by the United States and the Soviet Union. The oldest, dating to 1967, declares that no nation can claim sovereignty over parts of outer space and its celestial bodies, and prohibits the placement of ''weapons of mass destruction'' in space. A 1968 treaty requires astronauts to do all possible to assist other space travelers in distress, of whatever nationality. Under this agreement, the highly mobile shuttle might be called on someday to rescue Soviet cosmonauts. Another treaty, effective in 1973, makes the launching nation liable for damage caused by falling space objects. The fourth agreement, in force since 1976, requires launching nations to register their satellites with the U.N. secretary-general. The ''moon treaty'' was adopted by consensus in the U.N. General Assembly in December 1979 after negotiations in which the two space superpowers played a central role. But since then neither the United States nor the Soviet Union has ratified it, and it remains in legal limbo. The treaty would mandate that exploitation of the moon and planets be carried out ''for the benefit ... of all countries,'' would prohibit any state from claiming the natural resources of space for its own use, and would provide for establishment of an international body to manage moon mining and similar endeavors so that the riches will be ''equitably shared.'' In the United States, the opposition to the moon treaty is led by a group of staunch free-enterprisers called the L-5 Society - named after a weightless point, L-5, between the Earth and moon deemed to be ideal for a space station. The L-5ers, whose membership includes Sen. Barry Goldwater, R-Ariz., and science-fiction writer Robert Heinlein, believe in American-style free exploitation of resources. The functions of any international agency should be limited to registering claims, not confiscating profits, they say. Other unsettled issues are proliferating. Equatorial nations complain about the many satellites stationed permanently over their territory. Some nations insist they should have easy access to geophysical information about their lands gathered by others' satellites. Diplomats are debating regulations for the use of nuclear power in space, and may soon have tive material and other waste. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 11-Apr-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 11 April 1981 04:47-EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: reusing external tanks To: BAK at MIT-AI cc: SPACE at MIT-MC This current test flight will be empty not because they didn't have people wanting to buy the space, but because they don't want to make things any more complicated than they already are. PUtting the external tank into orbit would unnecessarily complicate this already-dangerous flight. If this goes without a hitch (except the delays before launch), I hope on next two test flights they may try a little more adventure like maybe the tanks in orbit. Does anybody know if they plan to put tanks in orbit on test flights 2 and 3 ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 12-Apr-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 11 Apr 1981 1047-EST From: KING at RUTGERS Subject: orbiting shuttle fuel tanks To: space at MIT-MC cc: king at RUTGERS I was thinking about this a little bit and I decided it would be a bad idea to orbit the shuttle tanks until we get the space transprot business down "pat". The 170-mile orbit is not a very stable one - the tank would fall in a few years if it doesn't get boosted to about 300 miles or so by a Payload Assist Module. (remember that the tank is big but has low density. Metal is expected to reach the earth from the shuttle launch as now planned, and a fall from orbit wouldn't be much different.) After the fracus from the infinitesimal danger caused by the Sklylab fall, NASA shouldn't expose themselves to the possible adverse publicity of a shuttle fuel tank fall until they have the demonstrated means to prevent it. Does anyone know if work is being done on a solar powered ion rocket payload assist module? (SPAM?) Small numbers of such devices can do enourmous work if you're not in a hurry, with none of this nonsense about importing heavy fuel all the way from the earth's surface. ------- ------------------------------ Date: 11 April 1981 12:39-EST From: Thomas L. Davenport Subject: Who made the computers in the Shuttle? To: SPACE at MIT-MC I was under the impression that the four main computers in the Shuttle were made and programmed by IBM and that, by design, the backup or arbitrator unit was made and programmed by someone else, probably Rockwell. However, some people have claimed that all five machines are IBM units, and that only the program of the fifth unit is different. What's the story? -Tom- ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 13-Apr-81 0400 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: FONER@MIT-AI Date: 04/12/81 12:06:59 Subject: Watching the Shuttle FONER@MIT-AI 04/12/81 12:06:59 Re: Watching the Shuttle To: Space at MIT-MC, Energy at MIT-MC It has occurred to me that the Shuttle should be a naked-eye object, especially if viewed at the right time of day. From some (literally!) back-of-the-envelope calculations, assuming that the Shuttle is 130 miles up and .1 miles long (around 500 feet), it should be 2.5 or 2.6 degrees of arc wide. The moon is about 25 or 26 degrees of arc, so the Shuttle should still be visible as a point if it's emitting light. Since it hangs inverted, and the cargo bay doors must be open for radiational cooling, the radiator panels are exposed. These are large, curved metal surfaces, and quite reflective. It seems to me that both sunlight and earthlight should reflect off them and be visible on the ground, especially since they are *curved* surfaces (and therefore will reflect over a wide region). I'm not sure if it can be seen in daylight, though. Does anyone have any orbital plots giving the Shuttle's approximate position around sunset or dawn in the next couple of days? Since it will be in sunlight, but nothing but the upper atmosphere on Earth will be, it should be a clearly visible rather bright point. I also have a 6" telescope; it should *definitely* be visible if I know where to look. Anybody have any info on this? If I spot it today sometime, or get any info, I'll send it out if anyone else wants to take a look. [By the way, forgive me in distributing this to both lists. What we need is a list called SPACE-AND-ENERGY to take care of the duplicates, I guess, since a large number of duplications exist. And please let's not discuss this issue more on either list, but rather in a small group!] ------------------------------ Date: 12 Apr 1981 2255-PST From: Jim McGrath Subject: Columbia makes a splash To: space at MIT-MC High and Mighty are Humbled by the Power of Columbia By PAT LEISNER Associated Press Writer CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., (AP) - As the countdown hit two minutes before launch, a hush fell over the stands. Jerry Brown got out his binoculars. Neil Armstrong scrambled to the top of the bleachers for a better look. Scores stood transfixed at water's edge, the closest they could get to Columbia, 3 1/2 miles away. Tears welled and chants of ''Go, Go, Go,'' boomed from the crowd of 4,000 VIPS as the ground shook, flames spewed and the spaceship thundered upright from earth in a billowing spiral of steam. ''Good liftoff, smooth flight, beautiful sight,'' said Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon. ''Fantastic, great,'' said Brown, the usually loquacious California governor who stood awed and groping for words. ''There's nothing like having your organs shake inside you from the force of those engines to bring about an awareness of what we're doing,'' said Russell Schweickart, a former Apollo 9 astronaut. Schweickart clutched a calculator he used to simulate countdown himself, then squinted into the blazing Florida sun and followed the shuttle's path for four minutes after it streaked from pad 39A. ''It's awful good after much too long a pause to see us going up again,'' he said. The mission, he said, is ''not to escape the Earth but to care for Earth. I wish them God speed.'' President Reagan, recovering at the White House from his bullet wound, watched the launching of the space shuttle on television Sunday and declared: ''It's a spectacular sight.'' Politicians, diplomats and businessmen put other things aside to return to the special viewing site at to watch astronauts John Young and Robert Crippen finally blast off on their 54 1/2-hour mission. Among them were Sen. Jennings Randolph, D-W.Va.; Rep. Don Fuqua, D-Fla.; former astronaut James McDivitt of Gemini 4 and Apollo 9, representatives of space agencies in India, Spain and Germany, corporate executives, families of space workers, and a pair of science-fiction movie producers from Hollywood. The special invitation crowd had dwindled by one-third since Friday's scrubbed launch, with movie stars, legislators and some of the better-known celebrities among the missing. ''A lot of them had other commitments and couldn't come back,'' said Arnold Richmond, chief of visitors services for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA chartered a plane to ferry congressmen, senators and foreign diplomats from Washington. Friday they used a wide-bodied jet that sat 260. Sunday it was a 727 with a 140-seat capacity. Steven Spielberg, producer of the space thriller, ''Close Encounters of the Third Kind,'' stayed in Florida to wait for the launch. ''It's the the best, big bang I've ever seen,'' he said, sporting a NASA baseball cap. ''I watched the thing take off. I watched the big fire come out of the bottom of it. I realize movies are imaginative and wonderful, but they are toys compared to this.'' ------------------------------ Date: 12 Apr 1981 2255-PST From: Jim McGrath Subject: Lost role for Mission Control To: space at MIT-MC Glory Days of Mission Control are Numbered By WILLIAM K. STEVENS c. 1981 N.Y. Times News Service HOUSTON - It is a tableau familiar to millions of television viewers, both today and in years past. Men in shirtsleeves, some with cigarettes in hand, some with Styrofoam coffee cups at the elbow, sit behind four ranks of control consoles, gazing at screens and switches and lights and buttons. Up front, the expansive master trajectory display board glows in contrasting black and turquoise. The viewers may have had one of their last glimpses of Mission Control as they have known it. If all goes as planned, both its role and its appearance are to be diminished in the years just ahead, as the sophisticated space shuttle makes it partly obsolete. For the maiden voyage of the shuttle Columbia, however, a bigger control team than ever, crew-cut veterans and bearded new breed alike, sat gazing calmly at the numbers on their consoles that told them that everything was proceeding well when the Columbia blasted off Sunday morning. They never looked at the live television pictures of the launching, just at the numbers before them. For nearly two decades of manned spaceflight, the drama of Americans venturing into the cosmos has seemed at times to focus with crackling intensity in that single room of a windowless building on the back streets of the Johnson Space Center. From there, just after Neil Armstrong announced from Tranquility Base in 1969 that ''the Eagle has landed,'' completing the first lunar touchdown, another voice conveyed the real tension of the moment: ''We copy you down, Eagle. You've got a bunch of guys about to turn blue.'' From there, during the ill-fated lunar flight of Apollo 13, round-the-clock crews of engineers became heroes in 1971 by nursing the crippled spaceship home and saving the lives of three astronauts. And it was there, on Friday, before the Columbia ever left its launching pad, that the players in those earlier dramas faced their first crisis of the shuttle era. When things are all right, the consoles glow with green lights. Yellow lights mean there is a problem. Red lights signify show-stopping trouble. At the first attempt to launch the Columbia on Friday, one flight controller said, the room suddenly looked like a Christmas tree. The Columbia's computers were refusing to talk to each other. And however softly, the old tension crept back into the room as the launching was postponed to allow experts to search for the solution that they eventually found. For all that drama, the glory days of Mission Control are numbered. The possibility of drama is not about to be eliminated. But the physical sweep, even majesty, of the control center itself is on the way out. If the space-shuttle program proceeds on course, Mission Control will be diminished. Many of its functions are to be gradually transferred to the shuttle, a craft whose complexity and technological sophistication are expected to make it more autonomous than any spacecraft before it. It is perhaps a step in the direction of the self-contained spaceships of science fiction. As that happens, Mission Control is to be radically redesigned, probably in the next two to three years, so as to become almost a high-toned airport, or spaceport, control tower, with a crew only one-fifth to one-third the size of the crews used in the glory years of Project Apollo. At the same time, because of the variety of missions that the shuttle is expected to undertake, Mission Control at the Johnson Space Center will share its functions from time to time with other space centers of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and with the military. For the flight of the Columbia, and for a few subsequent shuttle flights, Mission Control in Houston will be a more elaborate operation than ever. ''This is the largest control team we've ever fielded,'' said Eugene F. Kranz, the deputy director of flight operations at the space center and one of the major heroes of the Apollo 13 rescue. Twenty-four controllers, each monitoring or helping to operate a specific shuttle function, will be on duty around the clock for the flight of the Columbia and for later flights of several other shuttles. Twenty controllers were used for the Apollo flights. But, said Kranz, who is deeply involved in shaping the ground-control operation of the future, ''Once we've got 12 to 24 flights under our belt, and three or four of each type, we should be able to very gradually start powering down the operations in the control center.'' ''Many people,'' he said, ''think of it as revolutionary. I think of it as evolutionary.'' If the shuttle's worthiness in space is proved and it is put into frequent operation, Kranz said, enough functions will be transferred to the shuttle so that Mission Control can get along with just seven people for the relatively brief launching and re-entry of a flight and just four for the orbital phase. The four, for this phase of routine, workaday space operations, are the flight director; a flight planner, who schedules the crew's day; a payload officer, who keeps overall watch on the ship's payload, and a communications officer. Mission Control itself is to be altered physically to fit the new alignment. Three smaller control rooms are to be constructed, one of them a secure area assigned to military missions of the shuttle. By 1984, Kranz said, the alterations should be sufficient to allow two shuttle missions to be run simultaneously. The other flight controllers will not be wasted. They are to be on call in case of an emergency. They will also become part of a restructured system for planning and managing space flights. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 14-Apr-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 13 April 1981 10:34-EST From: Daniel L. Weinreb Subject: Shuttle To: SPACE at MIT-MC There aren't any plans to do anything with External Tanks except discard them for the next many missions. I am not sure yet when they plan to think about doing other things with them. Note that NASA is not likely to "get more ambitious" and decide to do ANYTHING unexpected in the next two, or even twenty, missions. At least the next forty (I can't remember the number) missions are all planned out, to some level of detail (although some just say "X pounds of commercial cargo"). As for the question about the computers: all five computers are a variant of the IBM/360, called the Four-Pi. They are all hardwarily identical, and they are hooked together in a symmetrical fashion in hardware. Four of them run sofware written by IBM. The fifth runs software written by someone else (we have heard suggestions that the somebody else is Rockwell, or Draper, or Intermetrics, probably more than one of those under some chain of subcontracting) completely, including the operating system. The idea is that the four primaries run the same software and are voted among in order to protect against hardware failure, and the backup is there to protect against software bugs in the primary. The press, in a press conference after the failed launch attempt, was given the impression that the problem was that two of the primaries were unable to communicate with the backup, and that this caused the program crash. A group of friends and I were at Kennedy covering the launch as reporters, and there was a great deal of confusion about exactly what happened. We got in touch with someone at Houston who, although he was from the P.R. department, had sufficient background in the computer system that he could answer some questions. It turns out, according to him, that actually there are four communications paths between all five of the computers, and that the number "two" refers to two of these paths and has nothing to do with any particular primary computers. The problem is that there are two clocks in the system, a clock that runs all of the five computers, and also a master clock (doubly-redundant) for the entire system. Both clocks are on the shuttle, not on the ground. When the first of the primaries starts up, it reads both clocks and computes the difference between them. The other primaries get this delta number from the first primary, when they power up. The backup, when it powers up (far later, at T-20 minutes) recomputes what it thinks this value ought to be and checks it against the primary computers' idea of what it is. This check revealed that there was a 40ms discrepancy, and so it crashed. The backup was right and the primaries were wrong. Our source said that they had no idea yet why the primaries were wrong. It should be stressed that we have not confirmed this information with anyone else, and the source was not a technical expert, and I didn't even speak to him myself, so you are getting this forth-hand. Those of you who have been reading the news will note that the story above is extremely different from the one in the papers, which says that two of the primary computers presented a certain datum 40ms before the backup was ready to receive it, and that was what caused the error. Indeed, we were given the latter story at the press conference. But, it doesn't completely make sense, and we spent a lot of time trying to figure out how only two of the primaries could be out-of-sync, and that those two primaries could still run in the four-primary configuration, which is supposed to run in lock-step. We came up with several elegant but moderately elaborate theories to fit the "facts" we got at the press conference, but our source in Houston told us things that were quite contradictory. We hope to get back to Houston and talk to real software people after the launch is over, when things are less hurried, and get the real story. P.S. The launch was utterly beautiful. Congratulations, everyone: we have a space program again! ------------------------------ Date: 13 April 1981 12:16 est From: York.Multics at MIT-Multics (William M. York) Subject: Shuttle fuel tank To: space at MIT-MC Well, in the current implementation, the tank already falls back to Earth and burns, scattering pieces, etc. I this respect, putting it in orbit would be delaying this event. On the other hand, the way things are now the re-entering pieces of the tank are targeted to land safely in the Indian Ocean, and we couldn't predict where they would land falling out of orbit. Take the even, take the odd. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 15-Apr-81 0400 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tuesday, 14 April 1981 14:50-EST From: Bat Masterson Subject: Shuttle Landing To: space at mit-ai cc: Lockman.Masterson at RUTGERS From The Jumping The Gun Department: Just having witnessed the first shuttle landing, when is the next?? David ------------------------------ Date: 14 April 1981 23:00 est From: Tavares.WFSO at MIT-Multics Subject: Shuttle Cargoes To: SPACE at MIT-MC Somebody mentioned a list of Shuttle cargoes, planned for the next 40 or so trips. Where can I latch onto this list? ------------------------------ Date: 14 April 1981 20:41-EST From: Thomas L. Davenport Subject: The tires used on the shuttle Columbia. To: AVIATION at MIT-MC, SPACE at MIT-MC Can anyone tell me who made them and if they are similar to any other aircraft tires? Thanks! -Tom- ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 16-Apr-81 0400 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 15 Apr 1981 1603-PST From: Ted Anderson Subject: Monopole notes To: space at MIT-MC This message will be the leader for the Wednesday SFL digest. Space and Energy are welcome to use it as a pointer to this material for thier people as well. Jim Administrivia - Notes on Magnetic Monopoles for FTPing Date: 04/14/81 00:00:00 From: The Moderator Subject: Notes on Magnetic Monopoles for FTPing In response to an earlier inquiry made in the pages of this digest, Hans Moravec has sent to SF-LOVERS some notes of his involving the physical properties of magnetic monopoles. Everyone interested in reading this material should obtain the file from the site which is most convenient for them. If you cannot do so, please send mail to SF-LOVERS-REQUEST and we will be happy to make sure that you get a copy. Please obtain your copies in the near future however, since the files will be deleted in one week. A copy of the material will also be available upon request from the SF LOVERS archives. Thanks go to Alyson Abramowitz, Richard Brodie, Roger Duffey, Richard Lamson, Doug Philips, Don Woods, and Paul Young for providing space for the materials on their systems. Site Filename MIT-AI DUFFEY;SFLVRS MONO CMUA TEMP:MONO.SFL[X440DP0Z] PARC-MAXC [Maxc]SFLOVERS-MONO.TXT SU-AI MONO.SFL[T,DON] MIT-Multics >udd>sm>rsl>sf-lovers>monopole.text. DEC 10&20 KL2137::FTN20:MONO.TXT DEC VAX KIRK::db1:[abramowit.sf]mono.txt [Note, you can TYPE or FTP the file from SAIL without an account.] ------------------------------ Date: 15 Apr 1981 2017-PST From: Jeff Broughton Subject: Shuttle tires To: space at MIT-MC One of the TV news reports stated that the shuttle tires were derived from those for the B-1 bomber. ------------------------------ Date: 16 Apr 1981 0250-CST From: Bob Amsler Subject: "And Where Were You When The Shuttle Landed" Phenomenon To: space at MIT-MC I believe it is called "flashbulb" memory, i.e. the remembrance of exactly where you were/what you were doing when some major event took place. I was at home watching TV. Afterward I came into work and walked into the departmental office, saying "Did you see it, the shuttle landing was magnificent!" ... to which I was greeted by the reply (from someone not wanting to be bested for news), "Oh, didn't YOU hear, it's taken off again". For 3 seconds I BELIEVED them. ------- ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 18-Apr-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 17 Apr 1981 2152-PST From: Alan R. Katz Subject: my exploits in florida To: space at MIT-AI, sf-lovers at MIT-AI cc: katz at USC-ISIF I just got back from a week of viewing the launch and landing of the Space Shuttle, boy was it neat. It happened I got in as press, and was on this tour at the Kennedy Space Center. I was walking down this hall with a group of about 100 people when I thought I heard "mumble mumble SF lovers mumble mumble." I could hardly believe my ears. Then I heard "mumble mumble arpanet node in ...". It turned out that DLW, DANNY, LSP, and MARG (@AI) were on the same bus!! I guess we are all over. I wonder if I could have gotten press acreditation to cover the launch as a representitve from SF-LOVERS??? Anyway, I wrote up my experiences for publication in the OASIS news, and maybe other places. If anyone is interested in reading it, it is here at ISIF in the file: story.shuttle. You can FTP it by logging in an anonymous. When the computer problem occured, we were all trying to figure out what had happen. Contrary to some previous msgs, all five computers ARE IBM and IBM wrote the code for the 4 primary ones. The code for the backup computer was written at Draper labs or somewhere. If there is a software bug in the IBM code, chances are it won't be in the backup computer. The problem was a timing problem which resulted in the backup computer not being able to talk with two of the primary ones. My roomate, who works at Rockwell simulating the software, said that they could have just re-IPLed the primary computers on Friday and launched, but they wanted to be sure what the problem first. Did any SF-lovers get together at the landing?? (It was a big place) Alan ------- ------------------------------ Date: 18 April 1981 03:00 est From: Schauble.Multics at MIT-Multics Subject: Clipping Service - Cannibalistic Galaxies To: space at MIT-AI From the February, 1981, issue of Industrial Research and Development Astonomers say 'maverick' stars are evidence of Milky Way Collision ........................................ Astronomers from the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra have uncovered evidence that the Milky Way collided with and swallowed up another galaxy about two billion years ago. The astronomers base their theory on the discovery of several hundred million very high velocity young stars on the outer edge of the galaxy. These stars have a different orbit, speed, and chemical composition compared to the predominantly slow-moving stars of the Milky Way, and their existence has been a mystery until now. The scientists, led by Dr. Alec Rodgers, of the Mount Stromlo Observatory, said the only explanation for the existence of these stars was that they were formed when the Milky Way collided with and "cannibalized," a smaller galaxy. The spectacular collision led to the formation of about 700 million "maverick" fast-moving stars and the disappearance of the smaller galaxy which the astronomers believe could have been a companion to the Milky Way's two satellite galaxies, the Clouds of Magellan. Rodgers became interested in these maverick stars about 10 years ago, but it is only recently with the aid of new equipment build by ANU engineers that the team has been able to study the outer regions of the Milky Way using the Observatory's 188cm (74 inch) telescope. The astronomers found that these maverick stars, which normally make up about 0.1% of the total number of stars in the galaxy, predominated in the outer regions. Rodgers said maverick stars were not only fast moving, but also rich in metals. Other stars in the galaxy were either old, fast-moving, and poor in metals or young. slow-moving, and rich in metals. He said if the group was right in their interpretation of the results, they had strongly improved the evidence for galactic cannibalism and added a new dimension to understanding of the Milky Way and its relationship to the Clouds of Magellan. He had developed the galactic collision theory earlier this year and since then he and his colleagues had been increasingly convinced of it. "It is a unifying hypothesis that affects many, many problems of interpreting stars in the Milky Way," Rodgers said. He added that the findings were presented without challenge to a colloquium of the California Instituts of Technology. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 19-Apr-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: MIKLEV@MIT-AI Date: 04/18/81 14:33:16 MIKLEV@MIT-AI 04/18/81 14:33:16 To: INFO-SPACE at MIT-AI Could I get on the list, please? ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 20-Apr-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 19 April 1981 23:00-EST From: Daniel L. Weinreb Subject: Space Shuttle To: SPACE at MIT-MC In answer to some recent questions: The second shuttle flight is scheduled for late August or September. NASA is a little touchy about giving out absolute times, since people so often get on their case when they are late about things. I don't blame them. Anyway, this misson, called STS-2, will also be flown by the Columbia orbiter (the Challenger will not be ready to fly that soon). It, as well as missions STS-3 and STS-4, is intended to be primarily a test of the shuttle system; STS-5 will be the first production cargo-carrying run, while in the first four flights most attention is being paid to monitoring how the shuttle behaves. Actually, I heard on the radio today that because the STS-1 mission went so completely swimmingly well, NASA may actually reduce the number of test flights from four to three! They will decide after STS-2 is complete. The landing gear assembly, and presumably that includes the tires, was manufactured by B.F. Goodrich. I don't know anything special about the tires, but I presume they are pretty much conventional airplane tires; there's no reason they shouldn't be, that I know of. As for that schedule of future flights, I'm eager to see that myself. I'm not sure where I saw it but I have an idea, which I will track down. If I find it, I'll let people know where it is. By the way, the Space Telescope is not going up until 1985. I can't wait! The press coverage of the Shuttle flight has all been quite positive. I have not seen any really harsh words directed towards NASA in any publication at all. I hope this boosts public acceptance of and interest in the space program. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 21-Apr-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 20 April 1981 18:54-EST From: Robert Elton Maas To: SPACE at MIT-MC Darn I wish the general public, especially people who write TV programs, especially those which are supposed to be educational, understood something about space and mechanics (laws of motion etc.). I was watching this Electric Company episode because they had a couple cute skits before, and then this skit started with theme from 2001 and this obelisk floating around and coming to rest in the frame of the camera. Then this astronaut on a tether comes floating towards it and makes rendesvous. Then he kicks it and says "OW". Then the obelisk starts breaking up. Now here's where the error occurs. It's zero-gee obviously, else the astronaut couldn't float towards it on a tether, with the tether floating all kinked-up all over the place ... but when the obelisk broke up all the pieces fell "down", towards the bottom of the camera frame. Bletch! (Shades of smoking rising in vacuum on moon and billowing clouds/smoke in vacuum in space, on space.) I can't wait for a film crew to go up on the shuttle and film some scenes for movies and tv programs. With actual zero-gee and vacuum enforcing space-reality, they won't be capable of making such stupid mistakes, and we'll see some decent special effects! Anyway I turned off the program right after that stupidness. I boycott anything that is obviously an insult to my intelligence. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 22-Apr-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 21 April 1981 11:38-EST From: Hans P. Moravec To: SPACE at MIT-MC Oh, Robert. How come you can look 20 levels deep when faced with a math problem, and refuse to look past the first level in any other situation? When I saw the monolith break up and fall down, I saw it as a clear attempt at humor through incongruity. After the 2001 lead in you expect the monolith to behave majestically. When it breaks up, that's surprising and thus funny. When it falls to the bottom of the screen, that's REALLY surprising, and even funnier. Why, I could hardly contain my giggles! If you insist on it making sense (which it clearly wasn't meant to do) you could say that your first interpretation of the scene, namely that it really was in zero gee, was wrong. Maybe what you witnessed was an attempt a zero-gee simulation by suspended wires that suddenly failed, to everyone's consternation, and your amusement. Of course, in cartoons the range of possibilities is much wider, this being one of the great features of the animated medium. To be consistent, you should turn off your TV whenever Wile E Coyote is compressed to a pancake by a truck, and lives to run again another day. Maybe you should sell your TV. (Um, I guess you're NOT a Monty Python fan ...) ------------------------------ From: DLW@MIT-AI Date: 04/21/81 12:18:09 Subject: STS-2 DLW@MIT-AI 04/21/81 12:18:09 Re: STS-2 To: space at MIT-MC OK, I found the info about what is coming up next. It says: The six experiments scheduled to fly on the second shuttle mission are the feature identitication and location experiment, Shuttle imaging radar, Shuttle multispectral infrared radiometer, ocean color experiment, measurement of atmospheric pollution from space, and optical survey of lightning. We saw some of this being integrated at KSC. The radar is impressive-looking; it is almost as long as the entire cargo bay. Another interesting thing we were told is that instead of just shipping down raw data as is the usual NASA practice, they are going to actually do non-trivial processing of the information from the radar and the radiometer on-board, and ship down this processed data, presumably saving large amounts of bandwidth. ------------------------------ Date: 21 April 1981 2301-EST (Tuesday) From: David.Smith at CMU-10A (C410DS30) To: space at mit-mc Subject: Shuttle tidbits Message-Id: <21Apr81 230155 DS30@CMU-10A> Since I just came aboard the space mailing list, please forgive my late comment on some old, dead topics. There was some talk about the space suits. The astronauts wore ordinary pressure suits of the type that SR-71 pilots wear. If an EVA had been necessary, they would have used the newly developed space suits, which were also carried onboard. As for the ability to carry the external tank into orbit, the OMS burns to achieve orbit amounted to less than 700 feet per second, if I recall the Aviation Week article correctly. Surely, the shuttle would have the wherewithal to accelerate the tank that little bit if it omitted lifting a 65000 pound payload to 100 miles and 17,500 mph. No need to go look up experts. And now for a question. In an April 6 Aviation Week article, it says that the first liquid engine ignites at T-3.46 sec., with the others following at 120 msec intervals. By T+0.24 sec, they reach 90% thrust. At T+3 sec, the solid boosters ignite, with liftoff coming "instantaneously." What happens at T+0 that is so significant that time is marked from it? - David Smith ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 23-Apr-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: DLW@MIT-AI Date: 04/22/81 12:58:35 Subject: Space Shuttle DLW@MIT-AI 04/22/81 12:58:35 Re: Space Shuttle To: SPACE at MIT-MC Regarding putting the External Tank into orbit: while the OMS rockets do seem to have enough raw energy to do this, raw energy is not the only consideration. How would the shuttle be affected by having that tank still attached to the orbiter after t+8 minutes? What would serve to maneuver the ET into exactly the desired orbit? After all, the ET is a pretty ungainly object, and there is nothing on it that makes it particular easy to maneuver. (In fact, there is special hardware to make it tumble during re-entry!) In all the Shuttle literature I have access to, including a 28-page blurb from the ET contractor (Martin Marietta), there is no mentin of any plans to do anything eith ETs other than toss them into the ocean. Has anyone heard anything more firm from NASA about plans for orbiting the ETs? And for how long would they stay in Low Earth Orbit without that orbit decaying? The thing has a lot of surface area. As for the countdown, here's what the "Shuttle Launch Countdown" blurb says: T-0M03.8S: Engine Ignition. All three engines start separated by 120 millisecond intervals. They throttle up to 90 percent thrust level in three seconds. When all three engines are at 90 percent thrust, the SRB ignition sequence starts. There is approximately 2.64 seconds between T-0 and SRB ignition to allow for the "twang" or forward movement of the Shuttle at Main Engnie Start. The engine start and thrust checks are made by the four primary flight computers. T+0M3S: SRB Ignition. At this time, the SRBs are ignited, the holddown bolts are blown and the T-Zero umbilical explosive bolts are blown under command of the four flight computers. This Mission Elapsed Time Resets to Zero. The Shuttle lifts off the pad and clear the tower approximately 6 seconds later. That is what it says, typoes and all. My guess is that they simply have to choose a time somewhere in this mess of events to designate as T-Zero, and maybe they just put it roughly in between the Main Engine and SRB Ignition points, for symmetry. ------------------------------ Date: 23 April 1981 04:13-EST From: Jerry E. Pournelle Subject: Shuttle tidbits To: David.Smith at CMU-10A cc: SPACE at MIT-MC The "newly developed space suits" seem to have a 4 psi rating; causing the aft bay power panels in Shuttle to be derated by about 50%, because you can't EVA at 4 psi from a 14.7 psi environment and not get **problems**. We had better suits than that under development in the 60's, but apparently that was abandoned along with the splendid team at Brooks AFB. *S*i*g*h* ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 24-Apr-81 0402 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 23 April 1981 1404-EST (Thursday) From: David.Smith at CMU-10A (C410DS30) To: space at mit-mc Subject: ET in orbit Message-Id: <23Apr81 140419 DS30@CMU-10A> I wasn't talking about using the OMS rockets to get the ET to orbit, but using the main engines on ET fuel. I don't know why that would be any more ungainly than it already is. Of course, maneuvering in orbit will be slower if the orbiter doesn't let go. The 500-mile limit of the shuttle should provide an orbit good for many years. (Question: Is the 500-mile limit due to the tiles?) Maybe Nasa and Martin Marietta haven't said anything about using the ET in orbit, but then, the S-IVB wasn't designed with Skylab in mind. Originally, Skylab was to be the second stage of a Saturn I-B, full of fuel, etc. The flooring grids were to be in place at launch, but the other equipment installed (or unfolded into place) in orbit. Then the moon flights were cut, and a Saturn V became available, so they used its lower two stages to launch a fully outfitted Skylab (still made out of an S-IVB, but without the propulsion system). If they intended to reset the clock to zero at liftoff, why didn't they reckon the minus count from liftoff? - David Smith ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 25-Apr-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 24 Apr 1981 0937-PST From: Tom Wadlow Subject: A new NASA chief, finally!!! To: space at MIT-MC a043 0331 24 Apr 81 PM-Washington Briefs,510 WASHINGTON (AP) - James Montgomery Beggs, a General Dynamics Corp. executive and undersecretary of transportion in the first Nixon administration, is President Reagan's choice to head the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The nominations of Beggs and Hans Mark, secretary of the Air Force since 1979, to be his deputy at NASA were announced Thursday by the White House. Beggs, 55, an executive vice president at General Dynamics, was associate administrator in NASA's Ofice of Advanced Research and Technology in 1968-69. Mark, 51, was director of NASA's Ames Research Center from 1969 to 1977. ------------------------------ Date: 24 Apr 1981 0938-PST From: Tom Wadlow Subject: External Tank usage To: space at MIT-MC To the best of my knowledge, NASA has never admitted to plans for using the ET for anything other than its design function. But a fairly cumbersome and critical maneuver is executed to get rid of the tank, (the Shuttle drops from (if memory serves) 75 to 63 nautical miles in altitude in order to lose the tank safely) whose elimination should make orbiting the tank somewhat easier. I have *never* seen a NASA contractor produce plans for using the ET, even in speculative artwork. Incidentally, at Equicon in LA, somebody (I think it was Rockwell) had some fairly detailed stuff on a Next-Generation Shuttle. The ship was a single stage, airport to LEO to airport craft that used ``modified SR-71'' engines. So at least somebody out there is thinking in the right direction. -- Tom ------------------------------ Date: 24 April 1981 15:46-EST From: Daniel L. Weinreb Subject: Shuttle To: SPACE at MIT-MC Yeah, well, I'm not saying it's impossible to get the ET in orbit. All I am saying is that just because the raw energy is there doesn't mean that it is necessarily possible without lots more work. But maybe it is. It depends on a lot of things. I doubt that the shuttle's altitude is limited by the tiles very much, since if it had the power to get into a higher orbit then is could presumably get back into the lower orbit and then land just the way it usually does. I always assumed that the problem is the raw energy. The SRB/SSME power, plus the OMS-1 and OMS-2 burns, are needed to get it into orbit at all, and more OMS burns are used to boost and adjust the orbit a bit. Going significantly higher probably requires noticably more energy, and I gather that the way things are done now, it isn't too useful to get much higher unless you are going all the way to geosynchronous orbit. I get this idea because of the way NASA people talk about things to be done in LEO (low earth orbit) without much regard for exactly how high they are. I don't know what the reason is for the weird resetting of the mission time. My best guess is that things that depend on the countdown time (the negative times) are pretty well separated from the thing that depend on the mission time (the positive times), and so those two don't really have much to do with each other and are actually separate clocks. So they just didn't agree on the convention for what T=0 is and it really doesn't make any difference. After all, the countdown-related stuff is mostly at KSC and the mission-related stuff is mostly at JSC, which doesn't prove anything but is a hint that the two are not closely related. This is just a guess, though. I have a question for everyone: who knows what the current state of planning and funding for the VOIR project is? I hear from some sources that it has been cut from the budget and will never happen, and from others that it is scheduled to be launched on a shuttle in 1988. Does anyone know the latest story? ------------------------------ Date: 24 April 1981 2036-est From: Jay Pattin Subject: shuttle schedule To: SPACE@MC Friday's Boston Globe has a tentative schedule for the next 3 shuttle launches as follows: 9/23/81, 12/31/81, 4/30/82. A possible date for the first "real" launch is 9/15/82. This article is reprinted from the Washington Post, so the dates should be taken with an even bigger grain of salt. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 26-Apr-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: KWH@MIT-AI Date: 04/25/81 15:16:31 KWH@MIT-AI 04/25/81 15:16:31 To: space at MIT-MC I think its cute how the third shuttle launch, according to the thing from the Washington Post, is scheduled to be on New Years Eve. It might definitely be worth it to go to Florida and KSC for the Christmas holidays... What is VOIR, anyway? It sounds vaugely familiar, but.... Is any methods for non-standard attaining of LEO being examined by NASA. For example, the magnet lab here has come up with a proposed EARTH-BASED magnetic catapult which would run (second estimate) around 500 million dollars- That's cheap for a magnetic road to the stars. Or how about Bob Forward's (I think he came up with it first- Pourne used it a lot after that though..) laser launching system? How does the power of the Livermore zap-sats compare to what you would need to launch cargoes by a laser system? Cheers, Ken Haase [I will interject a few comments here: VOIR stands for Venus Orbiting Imaging Radar, the word also means something reld in French. It is a project to get detailed maps of the venus surface by using high resolution radar imaging systems, similar I believe to the system used in the F-15. Anyway this project was severely cut and delayed in the OMB cuts. The Livermore zap-sats use a nuclear explosion as their energy source. Thus this is not useful for the laser system you mentioned. There is always Orion of course if you want to use nuclear explosions to drive space ships. -ota] ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 27-Apr-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 27 April 1981 05:24-EST From: Jerry E. Pournelle To: KWH at MIT-AI cc: SPACE at MIT-MC Al Kantrowitz first thought up the idea of laser launchers. A. N. Pirri and ??. Weiss at Avco Everett tried it out and flew models. I first used it in science fiction stories. ------------------------------ Date: 27 April 1981 05:37-EST From: Jerry E. Pournelle Subject: Shuttle To: dlw at MIT-AI cc: SPACE at MIT-MC Holy catfish. Harry Stine has TONS of data on using ET's in orbit to build things out of. The plans have been looked at by many. It takes a little extra delat v meaning a lower orbital altitude when done, but you CAN get aht tank in orbit. One SPS plan used ground up ET's for reaction mass with SEPS to go from LEO to GEO. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 28-Apr-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 27 APR 1981 1144-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: nomenclature To: space at MIT-MC From context, I guess that GEO is supposed to mean something like Geosynchronous Earth Orbit, which is tautologous; perhaps the term should be GSO or GsO? And is SEPS the ion rocket (as shown in Haldeman's latest, WORLDS)? P.S. "voir" is French for "to see" ------- ------------------------------ Date: 27 April 1981 13:18-EDT From: Daniel L. Weinreb Subject: Shuttle To: POURNE at MIT-MC cc: SPACE at MIT-MC That's interesting. Who is Harry Stine? Is there anything published or otherwise available that I can read about his plans? Do you know if there is any official NASA position about all this? ------------------------------ Date: 27 Apr 1981 1022-PDT From: ICL.REDFORD at SU-SCORE Subject: external tank To: space at MIT-MC cc: ICL.REDFORD at SU-SCORE What is the mass of the external tank, and how does that compare with the mass of the payload or the shuttle itself? ------- ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 29-Apr-81 0400 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 04/28/81 1332-EDT From: j.baldassini Sender: GNC at LL Subject: Leftover fuel in the shuttle's external tank To: space at mit-mc I don't think NASA would launch the shuttle without a fuel reserve in the external tank, thus when the e.t. is released, there is still some fuel left in it. If the shuttle were to carry the e.t. to LEO, with a corresponding reduction in payload, there may still be fuel remaining in the e.t. Would it not be possible for the e.t. to be modified to burn this fuel, and propel itself into a (more) stable orbit ? ------- ------------------------------ Date: 28 Apr 1981 1126-PDT From: Jim McGrath Subject: NASA PR lacking To: space at MIT-MC n014 0735 28 Apr 81 BC-SPACE (ScienceTimes) By MALCOLM W. BROWNE c. 1981 N.Y. Times News Service NEW YORK - What a great opportunity the space shuttle might have been for selling insights as well as junk food and gimcracks! They came to Cape Canaveral by the million this month, to watch the shuttle's maiden liftoff. They jammed the hotels and motels and campsites, they gorged on leathery hamburgers, they sunned themselves red. America came with its kids to see the big rocket go up. The shuttle show lasted only two minutes, but as it happens, central Florida offers lots of other diversions to fill out a vacation. For instance, there's nearby Disney World, where kids can pose with Mickey Mouse, and there's the Kennedy Space Center itself, where kids can pose with make-believe astronauts. As a matter of fact, many children may have left Florida believing that astronauts and Mickey Mouse came from the same mold - both calculated to excite fantasies and neither related to the real world. (One could imagine some peculiar geographic affinity between Disney and large government expeditions. American installations in Antarctica are built and serviced these days by Holmes and Narver of Anaheim, Calif. - home of Disneyland.) The visitors' center at Cape Canaveral looks like an annex of Disney World. Attractions include a rocket park, in which a dozen or so of NASA's earlier products tower like enigmatic obelisks over an enchanted kingdom. The visitor can walk along a gangplank once used by astronauts on their way to the moon, and look at a lunar landing module made by Grumman, the company whose buses have given New York City so much trouble. There are mockups and models and sound effects, and there are Disneyesque animated movies of space exploration. There are souvenir concessions peddling shuttle T-shirts, ashtrays, pens and toys mass produced in Taiwan for the occasion. There are crowd-pleasing demonstrations. A NASA lecturer enlivens one of them by heating a protective tile from the shuttle to incandescence, and then touching its edges without being burned. There's a bus tour, in which people get to photograph a dismantled Saturn rocket, the outside of the shuttle launch pad and the huge ''crawler'' that trundles spaceships around. Well contented, America's kids left after the big launch, smeared with ketchup stains and confident that they had learned all about their country's space program. It only remained to report on it to envious classmates back home. But alas, the whole show seemed to consist of sugar coating with little trace of hard substance. One would not expect to find textbooks about chemistry, physics or computer algorithms at the visitors' center at Cape Canaveral, much less souvenir editions of Newton's ''Principia.'' But after all, the shuttle was something more than a Disney spectacular, and perhaps deserved a higher order of public relations. It was a tangible synthesis of man's efforts since the dawn of history to understand the universe around him, not merely a two-minute interlude between Sea World and Disney World. The shuttle was no less an accomplishment for our age than was the Great Pyramid for Pharaoh Khufu's Egypt. The pyramids were built by legions of fellahin with strong backs, hauling immense stone blocks. By contrast, the shuttle took hundreds of thousands of intelligent and disciplined minds, struggling painfully over the years and centuries to overcome the millions of problems that arose along the way. Some recent ones: What are the mathematics of compromise between shapes suited to moving in air and those at home in space? How do you go about creating materials stronger and lighter than steel, strong even at 6,000 degrees? How do you make a robot pilot smarter and faster than the greatest imaginable human pilot? What subjects would you expect to have to study before tackling such problems? For all the glib and confusing jargon that pervades its briefings and press conferences, NASA neither raises nor answers such fundamental questions in its dealings with ordinary Americans. Our space agency tacitly seems to assume that there is little common ground between a priestly caste of scientific technology on one hand and an ineducable public on the other. Thus, NASA communicates with the people as it would to a not-very-bright fifth-grader. There's nothing wrong with Disney. Many a scientist acknowledges a debt to the late cartoonist for such productions as ''Fantasia,'' which conveyed artfully wrapped scientific messages to generations of children. But there's no getting around the fact that science is hard and getting harder. It will take more than childish delight in Mickey Mouse and the shuttle to move it forward. nyt-04-28-81 1025edt ********** ------------------------------ Date: 28 April 1981 12:14 edt From: Tavares.WFSO at MIT-Multics Subject: Re: SPACE Digest To: Ted Anderson In-Reply-To: Message of 28 April 1981 07:01 edt from Ted Anderson Harry Stine is G. Harry Stine, author and general space consultant (and, not incidentally, is recognized as the "father" of the spacemodeling hobby and of the organization whose magazine I represent). A recent book of his, titled "The Space Engineers" or something similar will give you an idea where his head is at. Interesting reading, I have been told. A speaker at the recent (this weekend) MIT Rocketry Convention addressed both the T+0 and ET questions. He said that sensors on the Shuttle determine when the liquid engines get up to 100% power and when the Shuttle itself has stopped "twanging", and pick the optimum moment to fire the solids, blow the launch bolts, and reset the elapsed clocks. The implication was that 100% firing was NOT one of those "timed and predicted to the millisecond" items that Shuttle launches seem to be so full of. In my opinion, good asynchronous feedback technology makes a lot more sense than critical timing predictions anyway, but then, I'm no aerospace technician. As for he ET, his statement was that NASA was of the opinion that it would be a lot more useful getting something up there that was made for the proper job (structural use, human habitation, or whatever) than trying to convert an ET to random uses. Perhaps there is something to that-- would YOU want to live in a burned-out engine casing?! ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 30-Apr-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 107 Today's Topics: Administrivia So who cares about California? nomenclature Shuttle ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 30 Apr 1981 0305-PDT From: Ted Anderson Subject: Administrivia To: space at MIT-MC Well I finally got around to hairing up the macros which format the SPACE Digests. The major new features are that the issue number will automatically be incremented for every digest sent out. I may periodically reset issue number and increment the volume number, but then again I may not. It also collects all the subject lines of the messages and puts them in the from similar to the style of Duffey's digest format. This means that the subject lines have some real significance. I am not making them up (they are, as always, automatically collected) so make them meaningful. ------------------------------ Date: 29 April 1981 1056-EDT (Wednesday) From: David.Smith at CMU-10A (C410DS30) To: space at mit-mc Subject: So who cares about California? Message-Id: <29Apr81 105606 DS30@CMU-10A> According to an article in Aviation Week (Apr. 27), Nasa has thought about trading a little payload for height. It involves hanging onto the ET a little longer, dropping it into the eastern Pacific. Parts of it might fall on California -- ah, well. To prevent this, they could add a system to blow the tank to bits as it hits the atmosphere. ------------------------------ Date: 30 April 1981 05:22-EST From: Jerry E. Pournelle Subject: nomenclature To: HITCHCOCK at CCA-TENEX cc: SPACE at MIT-MC we pay the words more when they have to mean what we want. LEO, HEO, and GEO are now fairly common jargon in the space business, and they are useful: Low Earth Orbit, High Earth Orbit, and Geosynchronous Earth Orbit. And fie if you find it redundant. ------------------------------ Date: 30 April 1981 05:23-EST From: Jerry E. Pournelle Subject: Shuttle To: DLW at MIT-AI cc: POURNE at MIT-MC, SPACE at MIT-MC G. Harry Stine, who writes the other half of The Alternate View column with me. See Stine, THE SPACE ENTERPRISE ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 01-May-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #108 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 108 Today's Topics: Another pair of married Astronauts ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 30 Apr 1981 0414-PDT From: Ted Anderson Subject: Another pair of married Astronauts To: space at MIT-MC n105 2037 29 Apr 81 BC-PEOPLE-IN-THE-NEWS UNDATED c. 1979 N.Y. Times News Service Although they could very well be the first husband and wife in outer space, Dr. Margaret Rhea Seddon and Lt. Cmdr. Robert Lee Gibson, both astronauts, will settle for a trip to Hawaii by conventional jet following their marriage May 30 in her home town of Murfreesboro, Tenn. Dr. Seddon, the first woman to gain the full rank of astronaut, was a resident in nutrition and surgery at City of Memphis Hospital in 1978 when she was among the first six women chosen for astronaut training. During the flight of the space shuttle Columbia she was at Cape Canaveral, Fla., aboard one of two standby helicopters. Dr. Seddon and Gibson have dated for two years since meeting at the Johnson Space Flight Center in Houston, where they are now stationed. The only previous astronaut couple, Drs. Anna and William Fisher, both physicians, were married before joining the space program. Since Gibson is a pilot and Dr. Seddon would serve as a ''mission specialist,'' the couple ''have as good a chance as any'' to fly together, Dr. Seddon told The Nashville Tennessean Wednesday. If so, she said, ''We'll be so busy up there we won't even have to time to say 'hello.'t'' ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 02-May-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #109 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 109 Today's Topics: nomenclature ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 01 MAY 1981 1138-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: nomenclature To: SPACE at MIT-MC In response to your message sent 30 April 1981 05:22-EST "we pay the words more when they have to mean what we want." Remember what happened to Humpty Dumpty. . . . ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 04-May-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #110 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 110 Today's Topics: Space shuttle Computer - W ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 4 May 1981 (Monday) 0105-EDT From: WESTFW at WHARTON-10 (William Westfield) Subject: Space shuttle Computer - W To: space-enthusiasts at MIT-MC "Both the software and the hardware for the shuttle is recognized as the most advanced ever used for aerospace purposes. Still, the hardware is, according to Edward Chevers, chief of Johnson Space Center's Data Systems Branch, 'an airborn version of the IBM360. The technology is at least 12 years old. At the moment the computers still function with core memory. We hve plans to go to solid state memory by the 15th launch, which will be in 1985 or 1986.' ...... Chevers mentioned that the updates to the hardware will only be enhancements. 'Bringing the system up to today's technology would take completely new software. That's a little too much." +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Hummph. I'm embarrassed again. What did they use for the moon flight, Eniacs ? ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 05-May-81 0400 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #111 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 111 Today's Topics: Apollo guidance computer ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 4 May 1981 1313-EDT (Monday) From: David.Smith at CMU-10A (C410DS30) To: space at mit-mc Subject: Apollo guidance computer Message-Id: <04May81 131305 DS30@CMU-10A> In Bell & Newell's book "Computer Structures: Readings and Examples" there is an article about the Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC), reprinted from IEEE Trans. EC-12, Dec. 1963. It doesn't unambiguously say that it is to be used in the moon flights, but does say, "The AGC is an onboard computer for one of the forthcoming manned space projects." It is rather refreshing in that it doesn't claim to be the best thing since sliced bread, and admits that some design decisions (such as a 15-bit word) were brought along from previous (incompatible) designs. Some of the specifics are as follows. Ram was core; rom was rope memory. Both cycled in 12 microseconds. Word length was 15 bits, except for accumulator, which had 16 bits. (This was for overflow indication.) Instruction format was 3 bits for opcode, 12 bits for address. When designing the predecessor computer, the MOD-3C, they had decided that 4000 words would be plenty, but now they realized that they really needed 10,000 words. So instead of making the computer into a 17-bit machine, they provided bank switching for addresses 6000-7777 (octal). "The possibility of using two bank registers is worthy of consideration, but it did not occur to us." Rather than an index register, they provided an index instruction which added its operand to the following instruction (for purposes of execution only). This addition could affect the following opcode as well. They even wired up the machine so that overflow from the index operation was treated as an opcode bit. This provided room for the instructions subtract, multiply, and divide. The Pdp-11 stole its memory-mapped I/O from the AGC. There were also a few active memory locations for shifting right and left. If I recall correctly, the PR about the shuttle's computers rated them as around 40 times the speed of the AGC, or 400,000 instructions/sec. So AGC must have been rather slow. On top of that, "Most of the programs relevant to navigation were written in a parenthesis-free pseudocode notation for economy of storage..." No wonder it was flashing OVERLOAD as Armstrong and Aldrin were looking for a place to set down! David Smith ------------------------------ Date: 04 May 1981 1255-PDT From: Jeff Broughton To: space at MIT-MC "Hummph. I'm embarrassed again. What did they use for the moon flight, Eniacs ?" Well, they did use an HP-65 for backup on the latter flights... ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 06-May-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #112 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 112 Today's Topics: Govenment Purchased Computers Shuttle Software Computers Gemini onboard computer ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 4 May 1981 11:41 edt From: Janofsky.Tipi at MIT-Multics (Bill Janofsky) Subject: Govenment Purchased Computers To: SPACE at MIT-MC cc: WESTFW at Wharton-10 Re: What did they use for the moon flight, Eniacs?? CERTAINLY NOT! The lowest bid was by Charles Babbage! Bill J. ------------------------------ Date: 4 May 1981 12:46 edt From: Tavares.WFSO at MIT-Multics Subject: Shuttle Software To: Ted Anderson In-Reply-To: Message of 4 May 1981 07:01 edt from Ted Anderson According to a speaker at the MIT Rocket Convention, the backup computer carries different software on purpose, on the premise that if a software bug exists which is bad enough to disable ALL the other identical computers, the last backup better not be running the same software. ------------------------------ From: DLW@MIT-AI Date: 05/05/81 12:17:15 Subject: Computers DLW@MIT-AI 05/05/81 12:17:15 Re: Computers To: space at MIT-MC Actually, for the Moon program they had the Apollo Guidance Computer, which I think is one of the classic early attempts at a computer built with multiple CPUs for reliability. Presumably all that happened with the shuttle is that they chose IBM as the contractor, and since IBM is totally locked into 360s, it isn't surprising that they used militarized 360s; what else? ------------------------------ Date: 5 May 1981 1225-EDT (Tuesday) From: David.Smith at CMU-10A (C410DS30) To: space at mit-mc Subject: Gemini onboard computer Message-Id: <05May81 122503 DS30@CMU-10A> If I recall flight and astronaut correctly, it was Stafford on Gemini 6 who used a 15 inch diameter circular slide rule to do orbital rendezvous calculations. Ground computers were primary, but he got the same answers in good enough time. [I guessed Stafford, because it stuck in my mind that it was the first rendezvous, but it also sticks in my mind that it was Aldrin, who flew later.] ------------------------------ Date: 05 May 1981 1211-PDT From: Tom Wadlow To: space at MIT-MC HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - Author James Michener promised Tuesday that his next book on America's space program would be good news to his publisher and readers who don't like too many pages. ''It will be a shorter book and it will not start four million years ago,'' he said with a smile at an awards ceremony in the Pennsylvania state Capitol. Michener's novel ''Centennial'' opened by tracing life in Colorado back before the dinosaurs. Michener did not disclose the title of his half-finished new novel, but he did describe it as ''not science fiction but the role of space in American society in the last 20 years. ''I'm on the advisory council that supervises NASA (the National Aeronautics and Space Administration) so I've been working in space diligently the last three years,'' he said. Michener, a Pennsylvania native who now lives in Pipersville, Pa., was in Harrisburg to accept the second annual Distinguished Pennsylvania Artist Award. ap-ny-05-05 1506EST *************** ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 07-May-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #113 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 113 Today's Topics: Japanese space shuttle ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 6 May 1981 2147-EDT (Wednesday) From: David.Smith at CMU-10A (C410DS30) To: space at mit-mc Subject: Japanese space shuttle Message-Id: <06May81 214740 DS30@CMU-10A> From Flight International, 2 May 1981: Japan's National Space Development Agency is planning a manned mini-Space Shuttle for the early 1990s, according to the London Times. The vehicle will be about 7.5m long and will weigh 10 tonnes, compared with 37m and 75 tonnes for the US Shuttle. The proposed reusable rocket would carry a crew of four, and an auxiliary engine would be used to confer better re-entry manoeuvrability. Much of the size reduction will be achieved by using miniaturised electronics and controls. Hmmmmm... How big are the Shuttle's computers, anyhoo? ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 08-May-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #114 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 114 Today's Topics: New Shuttle Design ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 07 May 1981 1214-PDT From: Rod Brooks and From: Tom Wadlow Subject: New Shuttle Design To: space at MIT-MC By STACY V. JONES c. 1981 N.Y. Times News Service WASHINGTON - Aerospace technologists at the Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., have devised a new launch system for orbiting vehicles that is described as much less costly than the space shuttle method. Patent 4,269,416, assigned to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, was granted this week to Liam R. Jackson, J.hm P. Weidner, William J. Small and James A. Martin. Two or more turbojet propelled booster vehicles are to be attached to a rocket-powered orbit craft. They take off horizontally under their combined power, and when they reach a practical height the boosters are released and guided by radio to a landing site. So far, only wind tunnel tests with models have been made. These are reported to have proved the system aerodynamically practical. According to the patent, the current space shuttle's launch costs are high, largely because of the need to replace the expendable propellant tanks and the recovery and refueling of the solid rocket motors. The new system is described as having potentially low initial and operating costs. The boosters, which are released by explosive bolts, are to be relatively small, and the total weight, including the orbit vehicle, is described as about half that of the present space shuttle. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 09-May-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #115 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 115 Today's Topics: a defense of the choice of computer for the space shuttle Flight International ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 8 May 1981 2040-EDT From: KING at RUTGERS Subject: a defense of the choice of computer for the space shuttle To: space at MIT-MC cc: king at RUTGERS I've been thinking about the various comments that have been made in this forum concerning the shuttles' computers ("C-O-R-E??? horrors!" and "only 400 K instructions per second???" (or whatever)). The decisions as made are defenseable. I will first discuss the use of core. Core is robust, non-volatile, comparitively immune to noise on its power or signal leads (as compared to semiconductor memory) and is relatively immune to radiation. Semiconductor memory's main advantages are lower power consumption, speed, size, and cost. It is extremely vulnerable to electrical noise and rather vulnerable to radiation. Its vulnerability to static electricity also makes service under field conditions considerably more difficult. I will discuss the semiconductor advantages first, and attempt to show that they don't outweigh the disadvantages for the shuttle. More about speed later. Cost is obviously not a factor. While I could see the power consumption as the determining factor in many space applications, the difference (I believe about 3-4 watts per 64K bytes, for a total of maybe a hundred watts) would be unlikely to be significant on the Shuttle, whose entire power consumption obviously dwarfs that of the core memory. The size factor is likewise minor. 128K bytes of core fits in the same space as 256K bytes of semiconductor memory, about 12"x12"x.7". Highly compact versions of both are probably comperably smaller. The main (as opposed to minor) advantages of semiconductor memory which have aqccounted for its widespread commercial use are speed and especially cost. I feel that the general robustness of core recommends it for use aboard the shuttle. Similarly, I see a lot of advantages to a slow computer, provided it can carry the thinking load comfortably and that software techniques that reduce reliability aren't made necessary by the need to shave cycles. Slower machines tend to be more gremlen-free, noise tolerant, and easier to service in the field (they don't have things like asynchronous logic or pipelining that make servicing by slowing down the clock infeasable). Merely because some subsystem is part of a high-technology enterprise doesn't mean that every component has to be the latest and greatest and sexiest. If the shuttle has doors between compartments, I would hope the designers would resist the temptation to use a fancy electronic latch rather than a doorknob (unless, of course, doorknobs are a problem in weightless environments). An example of a case where the latest-and-greatest syndrome made trouble, rather analogous to the case at hand, is the new M-1 tank Chrystler is building. They are having extreme trouble making their gas turbine engine perform "per spec". The gas turbine seems to have no tangible advantage over the Diesel tank engines, which have been in use for decades - I suspect it was just felt that the use of a Diesel on a high-tech tank would be embarassing, and Chrystler needed something to win the bid. I suppose there might be slight advantages to the turbine, but look what is actually happening! (There are funds in the tank project for retreating to the Diesel if necessary. This step is being considered.) This is in addition to the turbine's requirements for a more expensive, more highly refined fuel that would be in short supply under battle conditions. Use state of the art methods where necessary. Otherwise, use the best of what's available, even if it dates back to paleolithic times. I hope this submission will stimulate some discussion. ------- ------------------------------ Date: 9 May 1981 00:52-EDT From: Daniel L. Weinreb Subject: Flight International To: SPACE at MIT-MC Whatever "Flight International" is, they must have some pretty careless or stupid reporter if this reporter actually thinks that the size reduction will be achieved by using miniaturized electronics. That is pretty silly all right. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 10-May-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #116 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 116 Today's Topics: Shuttle Computer ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: KWH@MIT-AI Date: 05/09/81 11:28:06 Subject: Shuttle Computer KWH@MIT-AI 05/09/81 11:28:06 Re: Shuttle Computer To: KWH at MIT-AI, space at MIT-MC Perhaps core is a wiser choice for the shuttle- But from all I've heard NASA doesn't know that! They plan to replace it with semi-conductor memory by '84-'85. The trick is that they probably ordered the machine in '72-'74, and have had to see technology pass them on the exponential rise it's still on- And they couldn't catch up so as to save money- They couldn't afford it. NASA decided to climb the stairs to the stars, and just about when they were a quarter of the way there, the elevator reached the lobby- Wishing for ten digit space budgets, Ken Haase ------------------------------ Date: 09 May 1981 2027-PDT From: Ted Anderson To: space at MIT-MC n048 1315 09 May 81 BC-EUROSPACE By ROBERT REINHOLD c. 1981 N.Y. Times News Service WASHINGTON - It was a determined and angry Vittorio Manno who stepped into the chill Paris morning and headed for Orly airport on the Monday after President Reagan announced his budget revisions in February. He boarded the Concorde for New York, where he was met by two Americans - high officials of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration - in a private Air France lounge at Kennedy Airport. The message Dr. Manno brought from Paris, where he is deputy science director of the 11-nation European Space Agency, was filled with injured indignation: His agency had already spent $100 million fulfilling its commitment under the International Solar Polar Mission, a joint venture to fly twin spacecraft, one European, one American, over opposite poles of the sun the sun to make scientific observations. And now, as the Reagan administration trimmed its budget, the United States was abruptly and unilaterally planning to kill its satellite, Foreign governments, particularly close American allies like France, Germany and Japan, have reacted with dismay and anger over the Reagan administration's decision to cut back or terminate American participation in a variety of international scientific and technological programs. The cutbacks have produced such a stormy reaction that the administration has given signs of bending. Congress,too, may seek to restore at least some of the programs. Ironically, it has been the American government in the past that has pressed its allies, particularly Japan - to pay a greater share of the cost of basic research and has offered multilateral and bilateral cooperation with American scientists to encourage such research. Now that these countries are finally pouring substantial new funds into research, they are startled to see the United States march off in another direction. ''We prefer to cooperate with the United States for political reasons,'' said Jean-Pierre Fouquet, the space attache at the French Scientific Mission in Washington. ''We worked hard for this. Our only alternative is to say to the Soviet Union, 'Are you ready to cooperate with us?' '' Fouquet said that 90 percent of French-American cooperation in space would be lost if the solar mission, so designed that without the American spacecraft the scientific value of the European satellite will be greatly diminished, and a joint gamma-ray astronomy project were dropped, leaving dozens of French scientists in the lurch. What dismays the foreigners is not just the budget cuts - they expect priorities to shift with presidents - but the way they were imposed. ''We believe the American government is dealing with its economic problems correctly, but we had a memorandum of understanding,'' said Roland Hofmann, science counselor at the Swiss Embassy here, speaking of the solar mission. ''Can we breach memorandums from day to day? It was a little astonishing.'' Such has been the international uproar that the administration is moving behind the scenes to smooth ruffled feathers, possibly by restoring some of the jeopardized efforts. At the State Department, a special interagency committee to study the problems, both in diplomatic and scientific terms, is being formed by Under Secretary James L. Buckley. Moreover, Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig Jr. sent a sharply worded letter last month to David M. Stockman, director of the Office of Management and Budget, over the solar mission, as well as several other international scientific efforts. He acted after 11 European nations jointly delivered an unusually blunt ''aide-memoire'' declaring that a unilateral breach of the solar agreement ''might result in a loss of confidence in the U.S. as the major partner in international space activities.'' ''It is expected you treat partners a little differently than we have,'' said a well-placed State Department official, who attributed the situation to budget office people with no experience in international affairs. The Reagan administration forbade government departments from discussing pending budget cuts until they were publicly announced. The budget office has not yet responded to Haig's letter. But Edwin L. Dale Jr., its spokesman, said the office recognized it had inadvertently created a diplomatic problem in the budget rush. He added that its ''emerging position'' was that the administration would not supply more money to the various agencies involved, but that they were ''welcome'' to fulfill their international commitments if they could find the money from other parts of their programs. The United States maintains scores of scientific agreements with foreign governments for cooperation in nuclear physics, environmental protection, health and other matters. The value of some of these arrangements, which were devised more for diplomatic than scientific reasons, has often been questioned by American scientists. However, the agreements with the more technologically advanced countries have come to be valued by both American and foreign scientists as a means of reducing the soaring cost of scientific research by sharing expensive accelerators, spacecraft, telescopes and special laboratory equipment. Much of the collaboration would continue under the Reagan budget plan, and even those efforts in jeopardy may yet be restored by Congress. nyt-05-09-81 1612edt *************** n070 1635 09 May 81 BC-EUROSPACE Addatend NYT WASHINGTON: by Congress. In addition to the solar mission, some of the threatened projects are: -A $1.4 billion synthetic fuels collaboration project to have been shared among the United States, Japan and Germany. The Japanese, who had gone to extraordinary lengths to appropriate their $275 million share, are said to be particularly distressed. -American participation in the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, a ''research center'' set up at American behest a decade ago in Laxenburg, Austria, to bring Eastern and Western scholars together to study global energy, food, natural resources and other problem areas. The Reagan plan would cancel U.S. dues, which would be $3 million in 1982. ''The spectacle of the U.S. welshing on its commitment to this institute and leaving the Soviet Union in the delighted position of being able to discredit us for bad faith is appalling,'' said William D. Carey, executive officer of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. An administration official, however, said the institute's work was most useful to planned economies like that of the Soviet Union. -U.S. contributions to all international scientific organizations. The chief casualty would be the International Council of Scientific Unions, an umbrella group embracing 17 international scientific unions and the national academies of 65 countries. -Bilateral agreements between the National Science Foundation and 25 countries would have to be scaled down because the agency's international budget would be cut from $16.6 million to $10.6 million in 1982. Much of the loss would be absorbed by deep cuts in collaboration with Soviet scientists, imposed for political and not budgetary reasons. But according to Dr. Harvey A. Averch, the foundation's assistant director for scientific, technological and international affairs, the cuts would also compel substantial retrenchment in cooperation with Japan, France and other allies. For example, the Japanese program, under which the United States has supplied about $1 million a year for 50 or so projects in earthquake, biomedical, energy and other research, would have to be limited to about 35 projects. ''They see a reduction and they see an expression of U.S. policy,'' said Averch. ''Even the slightest expression of change brings serious questions.'' Probably nothing has caused as many questions as the solar mission. Under the original plan NASA would have launched the two satellites from the space shuttle and the two craft, simultaneously gathering solar data, would have performed 96 American and 83 European solar experiments at angles from which the star has never been observed. But NASA, facing severe cuts in its space science budget for years to come, told the European Space Agency it would still launch the European satellite but would have to cancel its own. The Europeans said this would make 70 percent of the experiments pointless. An extraordinary lobbying campaign followed. Eric Quistgaard, director general of the European Space Agency, flew to Washington and met with top officials at NASA, the State Department, the budget office and with key congressmen. Out of that came a signal that the American government would entertain a proposal to restore a less expensive version of the project. The Europeans' response was ingenious: They would sell NASA a duplicate of their own solar polar satellite for a fixed price of $40 million, a full $100 million less than the one NASA was going to buy from TRW, an American company. The Europeans would absorb any cost overrun beyond inflation; moreover, the plan required no additional funds in the 1982 fiscal year, with the launch now delayed until 1986. This plan, the Europeans said, would save 80 to 90 percent of the experiments. The European proposal is under review now by the Office of Management and Budget and is said to stand a good chance. In its haste to revise the Carter budget, the administration clearly underestimated the strength of foreign interest in scientific collaboration with the United States and appears to be having second thoughts. ''We had to come up with a budget very rapidly,'' said one science official. ''We'll do the best we can to pick up the pieces now.'' Another government science official said the allies' concern about science, not always manifest in the past, was ''very attractive.'' But many scientific leaders here fear the episode may have permanently undermined international faith in the United States as a reliable world science leader. nyt-05-09-81 1931edt *************** ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 11-May-81 0400 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #117 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 117 Today's Topics: Computers ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 11 May 1981 01:32-EDT From: Daniel L. Weinreb Subject: Computers To: SPACE at MIT-MC If you think space shuttle computers are strange, look at the computer in the phone company's ESS-1 electronic switching system. It is extremely weird and uses technologies that you have probably never heard of for memory. I do not remember the details; what I remember (from an MIT course I took four years ago) is that they work that way because they are concerned with reliability rather than accuracy. In a university computer, it is acceptable if the machine crashes for a few hours every day (people DO buy systems that have this property, and so it is considered acceptable, whether we like it or not), but it is unacceptable if it gets the wrong answer for multiplications very occasionally. With an ESS, it's OK if it connects you to the wrong phone occasionally (the user will just assume that he misdialed), but it MUST stay up very reliabily. The space shuttle is somewhere in between these goals, and so it has different requirements than your average lab computer. This should and does affect the choice of hardware. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 13-May-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #118 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 118 Today's Topics: At last, an astronaut who talks to the press!! View from the North - Canadians on Space ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 12 May 1981 0938-PDT From: Tom Wadlow Subject: At last, an astronaut who talks to the press!! To: space at MIT-MC LAS CRUCES, N.M. (AP) - Astronaut John Young says space shuttle flights will aid the fight against world hunger by helping scientists conduct aerial searches for arable land, minerals and oil deposits. ''I've heard people say, 'Why don't we spend the money for the space shuttle on fighting world hunger?''' Young said Monday. ''That's a real noble thing to say, but it's like a farmer when he eats his seed corn - he'll do well this winter, but when it comes time to plant again, he'll be in trouble.'' Young and Robert Crippen, who flew the shuttle Columbia on its maiden trip around the earth, were in New Mexico to visit workers at the White Sands Missile Range, whose Northrup Strip served as the main alternate landing site during the shuttle flight last month. The site wasn't used. Today the astronauts were to visit the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's White Sands test facility, Holloman Air Force Base in nearby Alamogordo and meet with employees who worked on the shuttle flight. Speaking in Las Cruces on Monday, Young said future Americans will be better able to appreciate the flight of Columbia. ''They'll appreciate it a lot more then than they do now,'' Young said. ------------------------------ Date: 12 May 1981 0942-PDT From: Tom Wadlow Subject: View from the North - Canadians on Space To: space at MIT-MC n554 0529 12 May 81 BC-SPACE-05-12 By Edmund Gress (c) 1981 Chicago Sun-Times (Field News Service) OTTAWA-Canada is taking the lead in shaping major policy on Outer Space in the United Nations. Ranking government diplomats, fresh from the recently concluded 20th session of the UN Legal Subcommittee on Outer Space in Geneva, are focusing on two controversial issues. One issue resulted from the disintegration of Cosmos 954, a Soviet military surveillance satellite, over hundreds of square miles of Canada's Northwest Territories three years ago. The Canadians have introduced a series of far-reaching draft principles designed to protect against a repetition of such disasters. The legislation was introduced in the Legal and the Scientific subcommittees. The second issue deals with Canada's contention that the world should have an accord governing reception of international television programming by direct broadcast satellite. The United States strongly opposes such an agreement. Key officials here say that Canada will push for such an agreement, with or without the United States, at the June sessison of the 53-nation Outer Space Comnmittee in New York. Canadian officials say that the current rules of international law don't protect UN member states against radiation hazards of satellites that could fall accidentally anywhere across the globe. In a recent statement, the government said that the ''states that do not benefit directly from the use of nuclear power sources in Outer Space should not bear the risk of radiation exposure created by their use.'' Canada is seeking to protect not only its own interests, but the welfare of the emerging Third World bloc. Because Third World countries could not afford satellites, Canada is convinced that the United States and the Soviet Union must bear full responsibility for future actions in Outer Space. The Canadian proposal regarding the deployment of nuclear power reactors in Outer Space embraces the following: -Each launching state, at least one month prior to the launching, should provide the United Nations with information relating to generic design, safety tests conducted, basic orbital parameters, and primary and backup devices systems and procedures. -Once the launching state can reasonably predict where a nuclear reactor will re-enter the earth's atmosphere, the United Nations should be given a timetable of the satellite's re-entry, along with an appraisal of the consequences of the re-entry and additional information on search and recovery of the nuclear power source. -Radiation exposure for inviduals and populations should not exceed the levels recommended by the International Commission on Radiological Protection. If the orbiting space object falls outside the territory of the country that launched it, there should be no radiation exposure to individuals or the environment. This principle was inspired by the significant radiation fallout of Cosmos 954. Scores of U.S. Air Force and Army personnel worked with members of the Canadian armed forces for several months to remove the radioactive debris. Canada and the Soviet Union recently signed an agreement whereby the Kremlin will pay Canada $3 million (Canadian) for the cleanup. -If it is not possible to prevent release of nuclear radiation under re-entry conditions, the satellite should be put on an orbit high enough to allow radioactive materials to decay before re-entering the earth's atmosphere. These and other projected concepts of the Canadian government on peaceful uses of Outer Space will be discussed at the June conclave of the UN Outer Space Committee and in ensuing sessions of both the Legal and Scientific Subcommittees. A quick accord is not expected but officials think a beginning has been made. The Canadian government also is determined to end the international squabbling on direct television broadcasting. This would allow citizens of any nation to use satellite ''dishes'' to pick up signals enabling them to view foreign television programs. This is now possible in parts of Canada. The Canadian government has shut down commercial enterprises pirating signals from communications satellites and re-transmitting them for profit. But ot has not fined or threatened to arrest individuals living in remote areas and capturing satellite signals for American TV in their homes. The sticking point is that the United States demands that any forthcoming consensus within the Outer Space Committee guarantee the free flow of information, and that no nation could arbitrarily deny its citizens the right to view foreign television programs. Moscow rejects this principle and the United States refuses to budge. Canadian official say the United States is ignoring the reality of technical requirements. The International Telecommunication Union rules permit any nation the right to spurn reception of television content of other countries. The Kremlin could simply refuse to make reception dishes available to Soviet consumers. In private discussions, Canadian officials say a decision should be made now and that it will side with the Third World nations on the issue when the Outer Space Committee convenes. Till now, all decisions in the committee have been sanctioned by consensus. But the tradition could be broken if the United States insists on the provision of free dissemination of all international television content. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 14-May-81 0400 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #119 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 119 Today's Topics: What happened to the NASA Budget? Digest or Direct Mail? Space bug bites construction firms News of the Flying Brickyard ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 13 May 1981 10:51 edt From: Janofsky.Tipi at MIT-Multics (Bill Janofsky) Subject: What happened to the NASA Budget? To: SPACE at MIT-MC The Tuesday issue of the Boston Globe carried an LA Times article about the NASA budget and its impact on the Shuttle schedule. The article indicates that NASA is taking a $600 million cut in its budget and that this will result in a cutback in Shuttle launches. Other possible problems may also reduce Shuttle launches. For example, the article mentions that turn-around time is more likely to be 6 weeks to 2 months rather than the predicted 3 weeks. My question is: WHAT HAPPENED? Have I missed something since Regan announced the $250 million cut in NASA funds? Did the Congressional budget resolution actually increase the White House's cutback or was this another of Stockman savings? Or are the facts in the article wrong? Bill J. ------------------------------ Date: 13 May 1981 11:01 edt From: Janofsky.Tipi at MIT-Multics (Bill Janofsky) Subject: Digest or Direct Mail? To: SPACE at MIT-MC Does anyone else feel that SPACE should return to direct mail rather than its current digest form? Bill J. ------------------------------ Date: 13 May 1981 1357-EDT (Wednesday) From: David.Smith at CMU-10A (C410DS30) To: space at mit-mc Subject: Space bug bites construction firms Message-Id: <13May81 135758 DS30@CMU-10A> From Engineering News Record, May 7, 1981: Buoyed by the spectacular success of the first space shuttle mission, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration is preparing for the next major milestone in space exploitation: building huge platforms-- both manned and unmanned--that will remain in space and be resupplied by a fleet of shuttles. Unless companies in the construction industry concede opportunities to aerospace firms, they will find a cosmic market for design, construction and program management services. Brown & Root, Inc., Houston, for one, is not about to concede. It has been contemplating the challenge since 1977. Donald G. Hervey, projects manager for marine engineering, envisions the company having its own equipment spread in the sky "just as we have our fleet of construction vehicles working in the ocean." He recalls that several years ago an aerospace executive remarked that his company "wanted to be the B&R of space construction." Hervey's reply: "We intend for Brown & Root to be the Brown & Root of space construction. We like the number one role we have. <<< Many paragraphs about construction & materials processing in space >>> A civil engineer who is more aggressive in the field is Thomas C. Taylor. He left Peter Kiewit Sons' Co., Omaha, two years ago to establish a Los Angeles-based consulting practice primarily concerned with "the conceptual end of aerospace construction in orbit." His small firm-- Taylor & Associates Inc.--has centered its interest on having the shuttle carry its huge liquid fuel tank into space for reuse, rather than discarding it to burn up in the atmosphere. His major client is Martin Marietta Aerospace, New Orleans. [Not too surprising.] Taylor observes: "The aerospace industry is unlike the construction industry in that it does not have long-range plans. There is no cost consciousness as there is in the construction business, working within budgets and trying to look for least expensive solutions to the problems. When I was working on Alaska's North Slope, the oil companies did not ask truck manufacturers to do the construction work just because they built the vehicles that hauled the material. Aerospace companies should not be doing all of the construction just because they built the orbiter that transports the materials." ------------------------------ Date: 13 May 1981 1326-PDT From: Tom Wadlow Subject: News of the Flying Brickyard To: space at MIT-MC SPACE CENTER, Houston (AP) - A space agency official says the protective tiles on the shuttle spacecraft Columbia received more than 400 ''nicks and dings'' during the April 12 launch. ''The tiles performed outstandingly well,'' Thomas L. Moser, chief of the Johnson Space Center structural design section, said Tuesday. The Columbia has more than 31,000 tiles glued to its skin to protect the craft from the heat of re-entry. Just one tile was lost, and Moser said that was probably caused because the 8-inch square tile was cut in nine parts to conform to the rounded surface to which it was bonded. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 15-May-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #120 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 120 Today's Topics: marks on the shuttle More Anchovies in Orbit [Tax on pizza or NASA-spinoffs?] Voting results so far ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 14 May 1981 09:08:36-EDT From: cjh at CCA-UNIX (Chip Hitchcock) To: space at mit-mc Subject: marks on the shuttle I have not been able to find any pre-launch photographs or any post-landing explanation for the irregular black circle on the left side of the shuttle nose just behind the squared-off section of black tiles running back from the front tip of the vehicle. Any remarks, guesses, ideas? ------------------------------ Date: 14 May 1981 18:44-EDT From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: More Anchovies in Orbit [Tax on pizza or NASA-spinoffs?] To: TAW at SU-AI cc: SPACE at MIT-MC That's a great idea! 1% retail surcharge on Teflon, integrated circuits, space food sticks (now renamed, sigh), Tang, etc. all funneled directly into NASA's budget. Sounds like it's reasonable, after all if they were a private company they'd have patent rights on everything and be getting much more than 1%. They're gov't sponsored, but 1% into space with full accounting sounds worth trying. ------------------------------ Date: 15 May 1981 0109-PDT From: Ted Anderson Subject: Voting results so far To: space at MIT-MC The current tallies I have recieved as of 1AM PDT are: 3 votes for retaining Digest format and 1 vote to direct mailing. This does not include Bill's vote which presumably makes the totals 3 to 2. More results as they come in. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 16-May-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #121 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 121 Today's Topics: STS-2 launch date set New Distribution Option ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 15 May 1981 1142-PDT From: Tom Wadlow Subject: STS-2 launch date set To: space at MIT-MC a099 0830 15 May 81 PM-Space Shuttle,140 WASHINGTON (AP) - Space agency officials reported today that the space shuttle Columbia came through its maiden flight in great shape and set Sept. 30 as the date for its second orbital trip. ''The orbiter really came back in beautiful condition,'' John Presnell, a shuttle project manager, told a news conference at Cape Canaveral, Fla., which was relayed to reporters here. Presnell said the launch date for the second flight was set following a complete inspection and assessment of damage incurred by Columbia on its 2 1/4-day flight, which ended April 14. Astronauts John Young and Robert Crippen piloted Columbia to a perfect landing on a desert runway at Edwards Air Force Base in California. The spaceship was returned to the Cape Canaveral launch site on April 28, riding piggy-back on a modified Boeing 747 jetliner. ap-ny-05-15 1128EDT *************** ------------------------------ Date: 16 May 1981 0012-PDT From: Ted Anderson Subject: New Distribution Option To: space at MIT-MC The voting is now running something like 10:1 in favor of the digest format. Some people were surprisingly vehement. Bill Janofsky suggested that some people could get the messages as they come in and everyone else would get the Digest like before. This is really easy to do so I have set it up so that Bill and anyone else who wants to get the messages directly can do so. Let me know if you want to be moved (or added if you really like to get lots of mail) to this other distribution list. Note that the people on this list will get a little more crap than normally "hits the wires". That is to say that requests to be added to the list etc. that I normally filter out will got to you anyway. This has not been a problem lately. Another thing that occurs to me is that it would be pretty easy to mail just the first few lines of the digest to another sublist of people. This would basically be the hearer (with volume number) and the table of contents. This way people who just want to keep in touch but don't have much time for the longer digests would normally not be bothered unless something particular caught their eye. I am not sure how useful this would be but let me know what your thoughts on this are. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 18-May-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #122 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 122 Today's Topics: [MORGENSTERN: Summer Position & Workshop] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 17 May 1981 1731-EDT From: DREIFUS at RUTGERS (Hank Dreifus) Subject: [MORGENSTERN: Summer Position & Workshop] To: space at MIT-MC Date: 11 May 1981 1850-EDT From: MORGENSTERN Subject: Summer Position & Workshop To: bboard A special summer workshop is being organized to assist NASA in assessing the role of advanced computer technology in the exploration and utilization of space. The study team will break into subgroups initially and then come together for the development of a final report. Duration: June 1 (or 8th) to August 14, 1981. Specific expertise is sought in information systems, artificial intelligence, and other areas of computer science, automation, large scale systems theory, and advanced aerospace concepts. Typical problems and topics to be addressed include: fully autonomous systems; the role of computer science in planning, monitoring, and controlling space operations; terrestrial and non-terrestrial information systems; relationships of humans to intelligent machines, etc. A location near the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay is planned as the study site. For more information, contact Matthew Morgenstern @Rutgers. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 20-May-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #123 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 123 Today's Topics: chemistry of the shuttle boosters ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 19 May 1981 1245-PDT From: Ted Anderson Subject: chemistry of the shuttle boosters To: space at MIT-MC CHEMICAL & ENGINEERING NEWS for 4/27/81 describes the assembly of the shuttle's solid-fuel boosters: "...Although such motors had never before been used to propel humans into space, the solid propellant they burn is no experimental concoction; it's been thoroughly tested in previous programs and proven highly reliable. "The propellant consist of the following: 16% powdered aluminum (fuel), about 70% ammonium perchlorate (oxidizer), about 0.17% iron oxide powder (catalyst), 12% polybutadiene-acrylic acid-acrylonitrile (PBAN) terpolymer (binder), and 2% liquid epoxy resin (curing agent). Each booster is loaded with more than a million lb. of this solid propellant. "The formula is prepared in 7000-lb batches at a remote complex near Brigham City, Utah, operated by Thiokol Corp.'s Wasatch division. There, workers clothed in protective garb use a giant mixing bowl that holds 600 gal. of the brew. In the first step, the aluminum power, PBAN polymer, and iron oxide powder are mixed in the bowl. Then the epoxy curing agent is added without mixing so as to delay the start of the curing reaction. The bowl containing this premix is then transported by trailer to another building, where the hazardous oxidizing agent (ammonium perchlorate) is blended in by remote control. "The mixing bowl is transported to another site where the propellant is poured into casting segments which eventually are assembled into the boosters. Each booster is built from four such propellant segments assembled in a reusable steel casing. At this stage, the propellant mixture resemble warm, creamy peanut butter---but its color is an unappetizing gray. It takes 20 hours to fill one casting segment. Afterward, the mixture is cured at 135 degrees F for four days. This step converts the "peanut butter" into a brick-colored material that looks and feels like a hard-rubber typewriter eraser." Take that, basement bombers! ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 21-May-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #124 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 124 Today's Topics: solid boosters Administration space policy forming - maybe. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 20 May 1981 at 1301-PDT From: Andrew Knutsen To: space at MC Subject: solid boosters Sender: knutsen at Sri-Unix What I wonder about sometimes is what the effect of all that aluminum gas is on the atmosphere is. Has an environmental impact report or some such ever been done on the STS? Wouldnt it be great if the environmentalists and anti-technologists got a handle on the shuttle? Horrors. Apparently (from a passing mention in a magazine talking about what all the engineers being drained out of Detroit are doing) development is being done on new, more efficient fuels too. Remember that aurora display, or noctilucent clouds or whatever, the night after the launch? What if it happens again (tho I doubt it... the winds blow the wrong way)? ------------------------------ Date: 20 May 1981 1508-PDT From: Ted Anderson From: Rod Brooks From: Tom Wadlow Subject: Administration space policy forming - maybe. To: space at MIT-MC a223 1330 20 May 81 AM-Astronauts-Congress, Bjt,520 Urge Congress to Explore 'Horizons We Can't Imagine' By HOWARD BENEDICT Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - Declaring ''the dream is alive,'' the just-decorated space shuttle astronauts stormed Capitol Hill on Wednesday to urge that the nation use its new rocketship to build a large orbiting station and ''to open horizons we can't imagine yet.'' America's newest space heroes, John Young and Bob Crippen, received an enthusiastic welcome as they prowled the halls of Congress, stopping by offices, eating lunch with senators and testifying before a committee which accorded them a standing ovation. Their arm-twisting came amid indications the Reagan administration has begun to consider a new space policy that could include the orbital station the astronauts seek. ''Building a manned station is the next logical step if this nation is to remain first in space,'' Crippen told the House Committee on Science and Technology. ''It is needed as an operations center for continued exploration and exploitation of space. ''The shuttle gives us this capability, not only to build a station but to open horizons we can't imagine yet,'' he said. ''But we've go to start now, because it takes 10 years to develop something like that.'' ''NASA has 22,000 fine minds that need to be stimulated,'' Young told the committee. ''I recommend that we put a space station up there and challenge those minds to develop the new technologies that will make that station work for people on Earth.'' Young and Crippen warmed up the committee and a standing-room-only crowd with a film showing highlights of their flawless flight last month aboard the first of the reflyable shuttles, the Columbia. ''The dream is alive,'' Young said as the film showed Columbia landing safely on a California desert. ''I can assure you that all the people in NASA are going to keep that dream alive. If they don't, I guarantee that Crip and I will be bothering them.'' The committee members stood and applauded. ''I don't remember anyone ever being treated this nicely by this committee,'' said the chairman, Rep. Don Fuqua, D-Fla. ''I can assure you, you can look forward to this committee's support,''said Rep. Hamilton Fish, Jr., R-N.Y. The reception was as enthusiastic at a luncheon attended by members of the Senate. Its host was Sen. Harrison Schmitt, R-N.M., a former astronaut and chairman of the space subcommittee. Schmitt has urged President Reagan to take advantage of the momentum generated by Columbia's flight to establish a new policy on space exploration. He believes the space station should be the next step, and said Reagan has indicated an interest in such as station as an operations center for military and scientific activities. ''The administration is starting to think about what that policy should be,'' the senator said. ''Just this week, some members of the administration met with our committee people to talk about it.'' Reagan has said he is a strong backer of the space shuttle program, and spoke glowingly of its potential Tuesday when he pinned medals on Young and Crippen at a White House ceremony. ''Their deeds,'' he said, ''reminded us that we as a free people can accomplish whatever we set out to do. Nothing binds our abilities except our expectations, and given that, the farthest star is within our reach.'' ap-ny-05-20 1623EDT *************** ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 22-May-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #125 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 125 Today's Topics: Aurora display after shuttle launch Confusion of Authorship ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 21 May 1981 1033-EDT (Thursday) From: David.Smith at CMU-10A (C410DS30) To: space at mit-mc Subject: Aurora display after shuttle launch Message-Id: <21May81 103356 DS30@CMU-10A> A day before the shuttle launch, a sounding rocket was launched from Wallops Island, VA, with a load of chemicals to spread around the ionosphere. The idea was to make the Earth's magnetic lines visible, for an experiment unrelated to the shuttle. Maybe that is what you saw. ------------------------------ Date: 22 May 1981 0211-PDT From: Ted Anderson Subject: Confusion of Authorship To: space at MIT-MC Due to a foul up on my part the message describing the construction of the solid fuel boosters looked as if it had come from me. It didn't, it came courtesy of Chip Hitchcock (cjh@cca-unix). Sorry for the confusion. -Ted Anderson ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 23-May-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #126 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 126 Today's Topics: Administration space policy forming - maybe. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 23 May 1981 02:46-EDT From: Jerry E. Pournelle Subject: Administration space policy forming - maybe. To: OTA at SU-AI cc: SPACE at MIT-MC I spent the week in Washington including at White HOuse, NASA Hq, and House Office buildings. The account of Crippin and Young's reception is a good one but a bit incomplete. What I don't know is what horrid offense I committed THIS time that causes BB messages about me; and I guess I have a simple remedy to that. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 24-May-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #127 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 127 Today's Topics: Budget for NASA ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 23 May 1981 22:32-EDT From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Budget for NASA To: SPACE at MIT-MC I'm usually wary of discussions about how much we've gained or lost with respect to an arbitrary starting point ("save 400 dollars on this dishwasher", "NASA budget slashed by 619 million dollars in next two years") without reference to the absolute starting or ending point ("this dishwasher now costs only $1500, reduced from the ridiculous $1900", "NASA budget was 12,256 million dollars and is now 11,637 million dollars for two years 1981,82"). So I called Paul McCloskey's office and had them send me a copy of the proposed NASA budget summary. I got it yesterday and am looking at it now (3 pages). Here's the overall monetary amounts, a comparison between what Carter planned for 1981 and 1982 and the changes Reagan, staunch supporter of space, has proposed. (BUDGET AUTHORITY IN MILLIONS OF DOLLARS) January budget (Carter) Change Amended budget (Reagan) <1981> <1982> <1981> <1982> <1981> <1982> Space Transp. 2,627 3,273 +52 -168 2,679 3,105 Space Science 562 727 -24 -173 538 584 Space/Teres App. 354 473 -22 -100 332 373 Aeronautics 276 324 -4 -59 272 265 Other(support...)1,715 1,895 -17 -104 1,698 1,791 Total NASA 5,534 6,722 -15 -604 5,519 6,118 In quick summary, not a lot is cut out of this year's program, but next year's is getting a LOT of trimming, but even so will be bigger than this year's budget. The overall question of course isn't how much was trimmed, rather are these new totals enough to finance everything that we think is urgent to do these two years? I'll compare these totals with what I get by adding up the proposals in the joint proposal that Pournelle worked on, but I'd like a more informed opinion on this question, from somebody who knows how much all the other stuff like satellite tracking will cost, so we'll be sure we can not only fund our favorite programs but have an operational NASA also. P.s. I found it absurd that half the time the shuttle was out of radio contact with NASA headquarters because it wasn't within sight of a ground station. When are we going to have a space-based communication system so we have 100% contact with satellites such as the shuttle?? Oh, if anybody finds a typographical error in my budget summary, please report the error (i.e. if you got the same hardcopy I got and see I've typed one of the numbers wrong). ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 26-May-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #128 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 128 Today's Topics: Salyut 6 to be vacated Shuttle communications: TDRS ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 25 May 1981 1154-PDT From: Rod Brooks Subject: Salyut 6 to be vacated To: space at MIT-MC a058 0436 25 May 81 MOSCOW (AP) - Cosmonauts Vladimir Kovalyonok and Viktor Savinykh will return to Earth Tuesday after 76 days aboard the orbiting Salyut 6 space station, the Soviet news agency Tass reported today. ''They have fully carried out their program for research and experiments aboard the scientific station Salyut 6 and will return to Earth tomorrow,'' Tass said. Kovalyonok and Savynykh rocketed into orbit on March 12 in a Soyus T-4 space capsule, and have hosted two visiting crews aboard the space lab. The latest visitors, Romanian cosmonaut Dumitru Prunariu and his Soviet mission commander Leonid Popov, returned to Earth last Friday after a week-long flight to the 3 1/2-year-old station. P.S. Anybody know how many missions that makes for Popov? ------------------------------ Date: 25-May-81 19:20:33 PDT (Monday) From: Hamilton.ES at PARC-MAXC Subject: Shuttle communications: TDRS To: Space @ MC Reply-To: Hamilton.ES cc: Robert Elton Maas , Hamilton.ES In fact there is a communications satellite program which will provide the sort of continuous shuttle communications that REM describes. I believe it's called Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS), and like so many things, it's behind schedule. My understanding is that it won't be operational for about two more years. --Bruce ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 27-May-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #129 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 129 Today's Topics: Salyut TDRSS Masses ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 26 May 1981 1030-PDT From: ICL.REDFORD at SU-SCORE Subject: Salyut To: space at MIT-MC cc: ICL.REDFORD at SU-SCORE Does anybody know what they're doing up in that space station? Are they taking pictures out the window? Doing materials processing? Playing poker? ------- ------------------------------ From: DLW@MIT-AI Date: 05/26/81 17:03:13 Subject: TDRSS DLW@MIT-AI 05/26/81 17:03:13 Re: TDRSS To: space at MIT-MC According to NASA's literature, the Tracking and Data Relay Sattelite System "will make its maiden flight aboard a Shuttle inthe early 1980's". I don't know what they've been saying recently about the schedule. There will be two sattelites, spaced approximately 130 degrees apart at longitude 171 degrees west (southwest of Hawaii) and longitude 41 degrees west (northeast corner of Brazil). The ground station will be in White Sands, New Mexico. Sattelites and ground stations will be owned by Western Union, with NASA leasing services for a 10-year period. There will be a third sattelite in orbit as a spare (half way between the other two), and a fourth spare on the ground. They will be the largest telecommunications sattelites ever deployed, massing 5000 lbs and measuring 56 feet. The shuttle takes them up to 200 KM (125 miles), and then an inertial upper stage developed by the Air Force takes them up to geostationary orbit. The system will be able to track up to 24 low-orbital spacecraft at once; total information rate is 300 megabits per second. TRW is the major contractor for the sattelite and Harris Electonic Systems Division for the antennas and ground station. Sattelite lifetime is 10 years. ------------------------------ From: DLW@MIT-AI Date: 05/26/81 17:12:11 Subject: Masses DLW@MIT-AI 05/26/81 17:12:11 Re: Masses To: space at MIT-MC In reply to ICL.REDFORD's question (sorry I took so long): The orbiter's mass is 68,000 KG. The Orbiter's payload capacity is 29,500 KG. The External Tank's mass, empty, is 35,425 KG. Themass of the propellant in the External Tank's is 719,122 KG. The mass of one Solid Rocket Booster is 87,550 KG; fuel for one SRB is 502,125 KG. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 28-May-81 0400 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #130 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 130 Today's Topics: Soviets retire Salyut-6 Continuing discoveries about Saturn Soviets suspend manned space flight ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 27 May 1981 0901-PDT From: Ted Anderson Subject: Soviets retire Salyut-6 To: space at MIT-MC a272 1726 26 May 81 AM-Cosmonauts,240 Mission Last In Series MOSCOW (AP) - Two Soviet cosmonauts returned to Earth on Tuesday after 75 days in space, and official reports indicated their flight was the last of a 44-month series of missions aboard the Salyut-6 space station. Cosmonauts Vladimir Kovalyonok and Viktor Savinykh, who boarded the space lab one day after their launch March 12, were in good condition after successfully completing their flight program, the Soviet news agency Tass said. They landed in Soviet Central Asia, 80 miles east of the city of Dzhezkazgan in their T-4 space capsule. Shortly after the landing, a Soviet announcement noted the ''successful completion of the program of prolonged flights by Soviet cosmonauts on board the orbital complex'' and of the current series of flights by cosmonauts from other communist countries. The announcement did not say what the next stage in the Soviet space program might be, but many specialists expect a new space laboratory to be launched soon. French and Indian cosmonauts are preparing to fly into space with Soviet cosmonauts in the future. Soyuz 6 was launched Sept. 29, 1977, and visited by 16 crews who manned it for 676 days, Tass said. There were 34 linkups with manned and unmanned craft over the three-year, eight-month period, and three space walks from the lab, Tass said. Cosmonauts from Czechoslovakia, Poland, East Germany, Bulgaria, Hungary, Vietnam, Cuba, Mongolia and Romania have flown on Soviet flights. ap-ny-05-26 2016EDT *************** ------------------------------ Date: 27 May 1981 0901-PDT From: Ted Anderson Subject: Continuing discoveries about Saturn To: space at MIT-MC n062 1524 26 May 81 BC-SATURN (Newhouse 012) By PATRICK YOUNG Newhouse News Service BALTIMORE - Saturn's rings are apparently the remains of ancient moons pulverized by comets some 4 billion years ago, and not, as long thought, dust from the solar system's birth that never formed moons around the planet. That is one of the new conclusions from the continuing analyses of data returned by the Voyager 1 spacecraft when it flew past Saturn last November. It is based in part on the cratering found on a number of Saturn's moons, which becomes greater the closer a moon is to the planet. This suggests that objects closer in suffered even more hits. Many planetary scientists believe the comets formed in the area of Jupiter and Saturn. Most were spun far out into the solar system, into a region called ''Oort's Cloud,'' by gravitational interactions with the two giant planets. Eugene Shoemaker of the U.S. Geological Survey said at an American Geophysical Union meeting that comets may have bombarded three or more moons orbiting close to Saturn, initating a complex series of events that produced the rings. Richard Terrile of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory said the great variation in the sizes of materials that make up the rings support the destruction theory. Before Voyager, he said, the rings were believed made of lumps ''snowball-size to desk-size.'' But Voyager has changed that view. ''We go all the way from dust to mountain-size objects hidden in the rings,'' Terrile said. Among other new findings reported during a press confernce at the meeting: - Liquid helium falls deep inside the planet's atmosphere. This ''rain'' releases energy as it falls, which apparently explains a mystery that has troubled scientists. ''Saturn didn't seem to fit our preconceived notions of how the solar system formed,'' said Andrew Ingersoll of the California Institute of Technology. ''There was too much heat stored there and coming out. These helium raindrops appear to explain the extra energy.'' - Saturn's moon Mimas may have been broken apart in a collision with some other object and then pulled back together again by gravity. - Lightning-like electrical discharges occur every 10 hours and 10 minutes in Saturn's ''B'' ring. They appear to result from the interaction of a tiny moonlet with an electrostatic field in the ring. - Complex molecules - including some types of hydrocarbons and some chemicals needed to make proteins - probably form on Titan, the largest of Saturn's moons. Titan's atmosphere is largely nitrogen with some methane, a mixture believed similar to that of Earth early in its history. ''On Titan the environment is favorable to building up complex molecules,'' said Darrell Strobel of the Naval Research Laboratory. But life itself is unlikely to have ever appeared, for Titan's temperature hovers around minus-294 degrees Fahrenheit. ''Many of us studying the solar system feel there is nothing significantly unusual about our solar system,'' Ingersoll said, a belief reinforced by the Saturn findings. ''The inference is that there could be lots of other solar systems out there.'' And that suggests the possiblity of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. SG END YOUNG nyt-05-26-81 1817edt *************** ------------------------------ Date: 27 May 1981 0937-PDT From: Ted Anderson From: Tom Wadlow Subject: Soviets suspend manned space flight To: space at MIT-MC a075 0603 27 May 81 PM-Soviet Space,130 Suspending Manned Shots MOSCOW (AP) - The Soviet Union has suspended manned shots while its experts decide on the next step in exploring space, scientists said today. ''In coming months, there will be no such flights. After we analyze everything, we will adopt a decision,'' said Alexei Yeliseyev, head of space mission control. ''We must now analyze all work done in the preceding five years, then determine what should be done,'' Yeliseyev added at a press conference on the last of nine missions in the Intercosmos series. He made it clear there were no immediate plans to replace the orbiting space station, Salyut-6, with a newer version of the space lab, Salyut-7. ''Salyut-6 will continue for a long time to be able to accept crews on board,'' Yeliseyev said. ''It has been switched to pilotless mode and will continue carrying out a number of scientific experiments.'' ap-ny-05-27 0859EDT *************** ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 29-May-81 0400 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #131 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 131 Today's Topics: TDRSS satellite cost problems New Branch of the Arms Services: Space Command? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 28 May 1981 1202-EDT (Thursday) From: David.Smith at CMU-10A (C410DS30) To: space at mit-mc Subject: TDRSS satellite cost problems Message-Id: <28May81 120227 DS30@CMU-10A> From Aviation Week & Space Technology, May 18, 1981: Tracking and data relay satellite system (TDRSS) will overrun projected costs by $500 million - $1 billion, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration should liquidate or substantially restructure the joint federal/commercial contractual arrangement that has resulted in this cost growth, according to an internal NASA report prepared by the agency's Inspector General's office. TDRSS operations are to be an integral part of space shuttle flight activities, providing space-based data relay for information gathered by the shuttle or unmanned free-flying spacecraft... ------------------------------ Date: 29 May 1981 0148-PDT From: Ted Anderson Subject: New Branch of the Arms Services: Space Command? To: space at MIT-MC In an article called "Beam Weapons Technology Expanding" by Clarence Robinson on page 40 of the May 25th Aviation Week I found this paragraph in a group of paragraphs explaining why "Recent events have combined to focus attention on space defense:" . . . Serious consideration within the Defense Dept. and Congress of establishment of a new branch of the armed services for space warfare, probably Space Command. The reasoning is that the Air Force and the Navy are seeking to avoid developing space weaponry for defense and that any effort in this area takes away from total obligational authority for other planned strategic weapon systems. There also is some concern over roles and missions between the Army and Air Force as to where the Army's ballistic missile defense mission stops and the USAF's traditional space defense mission begins. . . . The special report in that issue of Aviation Week is Beam weapon technology. They don't say anything about X-Ray beam weapons though. Space Cadets front and center, Ted ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 02-Jun-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #132 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 132 Today's Topics: Anti-technology & Shuttle. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 1 June 1981 19:06-EDT From: Stephen G. Rowley Subject: Anti-technology & Shuttle. To: SPACE at MIT-MC The following appeared in the letters column of Time magazine, May 11, 1981. Note that it does NOT represent my own opinion; in fact, it is quite the opposite. However, I thought it might interest you to see how the other side "thinks": "Granted, the Columbia is a yummy public relations cream puff. But I am not cheering. What good is space wizardry if our home planet becomes unfit for life-- animal, vegetable or human? "Most of us do not relish the idea of colonizing outer space. Indeed, we have no moral right to do so-- at least not until we clean up our act on this planet." -- Jean Allan, Boston I can se at least 5 "logical" (if the word applies) flaws here. One lollipop is hereby offered to anyone who can find 6. -steve ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 03-Jun-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #133 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 133 Today's Topics: shuttle cuts geosynch slots ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 2 Jun 1981 2035-PDT From: Stuart McLure Cracraft Subject: shuttle cuts To: space at MIT-MC !a278 1841 02 Jun 81 AM-Space Shuttle,310 Budget Cuts Force Shuttle Cuts By WARREN E. LEARY AP Science Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - The number of space shuttle flights scheduled for the next four years has been cut 30 percent for budgetary and technical reasons, the national space agency said Tuesday. The previously announced program of 48 flights through 1985 for the reuseable spaceship will be stretched out, with some missions canceled and others delayed. The early schedule called for four test flights, including the one completed this spring, and 44 operational missions during the period. Dr. Stanley Weiss, associate administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, said the new schedule calls for only 30 operational missions, which he termed ''a substantial decrease.'' Weiss said the rescheduling is necessary primarily for two reasons: tight budgets that keep the space agency from flying some of its science missions, and delays in constructing and delivery of a new, lightweight external fuel tank for the shuttle. NASA officials met last week with private contractors and government agencies who have scheduled payloads on the four planned shuttles and informed them of their revised flight times. Weiss said some users are disturbed by the delays, but most were understanding and ''pretty upbeat'' about the shuttle program. Users who have bought cargo space on the shuttle have been frustrated because of previous delays. Some have opted to contract for old, expendable rockets as a backup to launch their satellites in case the shuttle wasn't ready to fly when they were. The successful, near-perfect flight of the shuttle Columbia in April has restored confidence in the program and showed that the space glider would perform as expected, Weiss said. ''At the meeting, there was much less talk about expendable vehicles,'' Weiss told a news briefing. ''One concern has been dissipated - whether the vehicle (shuttle) will fly.'' Even so, he said, some users may decide to cancel their shuttle reservations and fly earlier on another rocket. ap-ny-06-02 2132EDT ********** ------- ------------------------------ Date: 2 Jun 1981 2038-PDT From: Stuart McLure Cracraft Subject: geosynch slots To: space at MIT-MC !a283 1917 02 Jun 81 AM-Space Real Estate,300 Strip of Space Called 'Hottest Real Estate On Earth' CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - A narrow corridor 22,300 miles up in the air is being billed by space officials as the ''hottest real estate on Earth.'' It's an area where satellites can ''hover'' in orbit above a fixed location on the globe. The demand for the parking space in the heavens is booming, and experts predict the traffic jam will get worse before the end of the decade. Of the 1,101 satellites now in orbit, 110 of them are in ''geosynchronous'' orbit - orbiting at a speed that keeps them at a fixed point above the equator. The rest travel at lower altitudes, circling the Earth up to 16 times per day. Only 10 satellites were in geosynchronous orbit in 1968, and the count is expected to rise to 300 in the next four years with the advent of the space shuttle program. During their first 40 missions, space shuttles will carry at least 11 geosynchronous satellites into orbit. Theoretically, an almost unlimited number of satellites could occupy the flyway without colliding. But because signals from communication satellites can jam each other, they must be spaced 1,500 miles apart to avoid interference. In the space above the Western Hemisphere, there are 21 prime spots for communication satellites. Twelve already have been taken by the United States and Canada, and the remainder probably will be filled by the end of the decade. The United States has eight of these slots, and the Federal Communications Commissions has authorized the use of six more locations by the mid-1980s. Still more satellites are awaiting approval by the FCC. Although Latin American countries haven't launched any satellites yet, they are staking out their shares of the corridor. Following the advice of the State Department, the FCC has decided to leave three spots open for Latin American countries. ap-ny-06-02 2208EDT ********** ------- ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 12-Jun-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #134 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 134 Today's Topics: Private enterprise in space Ooops...... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 11 Jun 1981 0941-PDT From: Tom Wadlow Subject: Private enterprise in space To: space at MIT-MC NASA Scoffs at Private Launch Plan By ANDREW M. WILLIAMS Associated Press Writer HOUSTON (AP) - NASA officials say spaceflight should remain a function of the government, and they scoff at plans by a group of Texas businessmen to launch satellites for profit. Space Services Inc., a new Houston-based company, says it can launch satellites for a fraction of NASA's price and hopes to become the first private U.S. business in the market by late 1982. ''Are they aware that I've got a staff of several thousand people working in a program that launched 10 flights last year?'' said Peter Eaton, NASA's program director for Delta Launch Vehicles. But Gary Hudson, whose GCH Inc. has spent the last six months building the first rocket for Space Services, said Eaton's problem is that he is part of the government bureaucracy. ''All bureaucrats require staffs of several thousand people,'' he said. ''The Thor rockets were launched (by the space agency in the late 1950s) by eight people from a transporter. Why does Eaton need 600 to 1,000 people now to do the same thing?'' David Small, space specialist for the State Department's legal office, said the government has not even decided yet whether it will approve the venture. ''I'm just not ready to make a formal judgment,'' Small said. Eaton asked, ''If they launch their rocket and it comes down in the middle of downtown wherever, who's going to pay the damages?'' Space Services President David Hannah said the company carries $25 million in flight insurance. ''The cutting edge of all this is whether the government will say, 'The government's got to do this kind of work,' '' he said. ''If it does, then I think we really have given ourselves over to a socialistic form of government.'' A sub-orbital test flight of the 53-foot-long rocket is set for next month, said Charles Chafer, Space Services Vice President, with a splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico. ''If this is successful I think we will have established our credibility,'' said Hannah. The rocket will be launched from Matagorda Island on the Texas coast. Hudson said Space Services would put a satellite such as those used in weather observation into a 100-mile-high orbit for about $2 million. He predicted a $5-million pricetag for sending communications satellites into geosynchronous orbit, in which the payload turns with the Earth and constantly remains about 23,000 miles above the same point, appearing stationary to people on the ground. NASA officials said it costs about $22 million for the lower orbit and $25 million for the higher one using Delta rockets carrying 2,400-pound payloads comparable to those forseen by Space Services. ------------------------------ Date: 11 Jun 1981 0942-PDT From: Tom Wadlow Subject: Ooops...... To: space at MIT-MC Space Officials Blame Paper Clip for Shuttle Problem SPACE CENTER, Houston (AP) - Space officials blame a paper clip for one of the minor problems encountered during the first flight of the space shuttle Columbia in April. Joseph E. Mechelay, mission evaluation manager, said Wednesday that an overlooked paper clip began floating around inside a power supply box, causing a short. When a circuit breaker failed to correct the problem, a switch was made to a backup supply. Mechelay said the paper clip was one of 52 minor anomalies during the 54 1/2-hour flight. He said all are so minor they would not affect the second launch now scheduled for Sept. 30. ''If we had to today, we could make up our minds on all of the tiny fixes and go fly,'' he said. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 13-Jun-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #135 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 135 Today's Topics: re: private enterprise in space ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 12 Jun 1981 1101-PDT From: ICL.REDFORD at SU-SCORE Subject: re: private enterprise in space To: space at MIT-MC cc: ICL.REDFORD at SU-SCORE Sounds like a scam to me. 1) A 53 foot rocket isn't very big 2) there's a big difference between a sub-orbital and an orbital flight. V2s were sub-orbital, but you couldn't launch satellites with them. 3) a 100 mile high orbit is pretty low. 4) what is GCH Inc. and what do they know about building rockets? 5) who will do the tracking, telemetry and control? Need stations around the world for that. 6) and last, a rocket crashing into a city could do a hell of a lot more than 25 million dollars damage. That's just a couple of people killed at present lawsuit rates. Overall it sounds to me like these people have been reading too much early Heinlein. Private enterprise probably will run the launch side of the space effort some day, but it won't be by a couple of Texan Wright brothers working in their back yard. That's what folks thought in the fifties, but now we're twenty four years into the space age. ------- ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 16-Jun-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #136 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 136 Today's Topics: Private enterprise in space Ariane ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 15 June 1981 1233-EDT (Monday) From: David.Smith at CMU-10A (C410DS30) To: space at mit-mc Subject: Private enterprise in space Message-Id: <15Jun81 123359 DS30@CMU-10A> What's with OTRAG (Orbital Transport und Raketen Aktiengesellschaft) these days? And what was their price supposed to be to orbit a payload? [There is an extensive article in this month's OMNI on OTRAG and their many problems (and they aren't all technical problems). --TAW] ------------------------------ Date: 15 Jun 1981 1624-PDT From: Tom Wadlow Subject: Ariane To: space at MIT-MC BC-ROCKET (ScienceTimes) By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD c. 1981 N.Y. Times News Service KOUROU, French Guiana - The Europeans who came here centuries ago in search of the fabled El Dorado only to find an unconquerable ''green hell'' have returned with a new dream of conquest, a dream they are pursuing vigorously in an incongruous setting on the Atlantic coast within sight of the infamous Devil's Island and downriver from jungle people barely out of the Stone Age. For this remote enclave of South America is the launching base from which Western Europeans, through an 11-nation collaborative venture, plan to establish an independent place for themselves in space. And this time they fully expect the vision to become reality, thus elevating Western Europe to the status of a space-launching power along with the United States and the Soviet Union as well as, to a lesser degree, China, Japan and India. The plan will be put to a critical test Friday when the European-built Ariane rocket, modified after a failure last year, is scheduled to blast off with two satellites bound for high orbit. Flight engineers at the Guiana Space Center successfully completed a countdown rehearsal Monday morning, and officials of the European space agency expressed confidence that the rocket and satellites were ready to fly. The real 29-hour countdown is set to begin early Thursday morning. This will be the third of four planned test flights of Ariane, but the first one to carry major satellites. They are the 1,550-pound Meteosat 2, a weather satellite for the European Space Agency, and a 1,475-pound experimental communications satellite built by India and called Apple. The first launching of an Ariane, in December 1979, was successful, though it bore only a dummy payload. The second Ariane disintegrated after liftoff in May, 1980. Subsequent modifications and retestings resulted in an eight-month delay in the project. Just as the future of the American space program seemed to ride on the success of the space shuttle Columbia last April, the Europeans feel pressure and some apprehension as they prepare for the next Ariane launching. ''This is more critical to us, psychologically, than a normal launch,'' Max Hauzeur, a Belgian who is the European Space Agency representative at Kourou, said in an interview. ''A failure would have impact on future schedules, and that could mean economic and political problems for Ariane.'' Though new for the Europeans, in concept and technology Ariane is anything but the last word in space vehicles. The 155-foot-high rocket is considered conventional (in contrast to the re-usable shuttle design). Each of its three stages, burning standard liquid fuels, fires and then is jettisoned to destruction. About 16 minutes after liftoff, only the payload survives, in orbit around the earth. The current Arianes have a guaranteed 3,740-pound payload lift capability. But Raymond M. Orye, head of the Ariane program office, said Sunday that plans have been approved for second-and third-generation Arianes, which would be upgraded in power to carry 4,400 pounds and 5,324 pounds, respectively. The space shuttle Columbia should eventually deliver 65,000 pounds in low earth orbit. The Europeans have won commitments from a number of commercial and foreign customers to launch their telecommunications satellites by Ariane. This was business that in the past would have presumably gone to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Orye said that Ariane is largely booked up till 1985. France is footing 63 percent of the bill for Ariane, which entitles it to a proportionate share of the industrial contracts for its construction. The prime contractor is the French company Aerospatiale. The other 10 members of the European agency are Belgium, Britain, Denmark, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and West Germany. More than French chauvinism led to the selection of French Guiana, a former colony but now a full-fledged department of France, as Ariane's launching site. The French had been forced in the 1960s to move their operations here from North Africa after Algeria became independent, but they eventually might have come here anyway, for Kourou lies only five and a half degrees north of the equator and faces a broad expanse of open ocean to the north and east. These attributes give Kourou advantages over Cape Canaveral in Florida, Vandenberg Air Force Base in California or any of the Soviet launching bases. Being close to the equator, for example, rockets taking off here can deliver 17 percent more payload into the high equatorial orbit favored for communications and many other satellites. Rockets from Cape Canaveral, at 28 degrees north latitude, must expend more energy getting up and then over to an equatorial orbit. Besides, the surface velocity of the rotating earth is greater near the equator and so imparts some extra free energy to a departing rocket, as a faster merry-go-round would to a person jumping off. Both of the satellites to be launched Friday will be aimed for the so-called geostationary orbit above the equator. At an altitude of 22,300 miles above the equator, a satellite travels as fast as the earth rotates and thus remains over a single point on earth at all times. With open water to the north, moreover, Kourou is ideal for launching vehicles into south-to-north orbits across the poles. Polar orbits are favored for satellites that need to cover all the earth repeatedly, as in the case of earth survey, navigation, military surveillance and some scientific and meteorological satellites. The Europeans plan their polar-orbit launching from here in July, 1982. It will be an astronomy satellite called Exosat. Still, with all the good reasons to have a launching base in a place otherwise bypassed by the space age, coming through the jungle to find a modern space center takes visitors by surprise. Kourou is 40 miles northwest of Cayenne, the capital, on wild savanna spreading in from the ocean a few miles until it hits a forbidding green wall of jungle growth. Robert Rennie, an engineer at Grumman Aerospace Corp. in Bethpage, N.Y., related his first impression of a visit here recently. ''You land at Cayenne, a real tropical backwater, and you drive past shacks, through the jungle and past a Foreign Legion outpost,'' he said. ''You may stop and dine on something crocodile and then, bang-oh, there you are in front of the clean room, and it's every bit as good as the facilities at Canaveral.'' To approach the space center the only other way - there is only one paved highway in French Guiana, from Cayenne through Kourou to St. Laurent on the Suriname border - can be even more startling. Coming from Suriname, to the northwest, one crosses the muddy Maroni River, where piranha lurk, in a motorized dugout canoe and hires a car or takes a taxi for a 125-mile ride on a rough paved road that seems to be losing its battle to co-exist with the jungle and almost certainly could lead only to ''Green Mansions.'' But, suddenly, the road emerges from the jungle, widens and passes within a few hundred yards of the Ariane launching pad, a sprinkling of antennas and spherical water and fuel tanks and a mound of grassy earth covering the underground launching control center. The rocket remains protected in a buff-and-red metal enclosure until 20 minutes before liftoff, when the metal structure is rolled away by rails. More modern buildings come into view, the offices and technical facilities, the power plant and the ''clean room'' where the satellites are checked out in a carefully controlled environment. Most of the town of Kourou, with a population of 7,000, is equally modern, having been built in the last few years by the French space agency for the 650 space center employees and their families. There are orderly rows of low white bungalows and small apartment buildings, all air-conditioned against the brutal humidity, and outside nearly every door, it seems, is a small white Renault with the letters CNES, for the French space agency, stenciled on the side. Two hotels and additional apartments, also owned by the space agency, are available for engineers on temporary assignments; some 300 are here now to service Ariane and its two satellites. Kourou was a sort of company town once before, back when the three offshore islands, including Devil's, were a legendary penal colony of no return. What is now the old part of Kourou served as a logistics base for the prison, and out at the mouth of the muddy Kourou River stands a stone tower once used by signalmen to communicate with the islands eight miles across the water. France closed the prison after World War II. The space center looks back to Europe for its logistic support. Some engineers envy the industrial and technical support so readily available adjacent to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. But John Aasted, an Englishman who is program manager for Meteosat, said that Guiana ''is not that remote, only nine hours by air from Paris with three flights a week.'' A Boeing 747 cargo plane was chartered in April to haul Meteosat here with all the necessary tools and check-out instruments. All the components of Ariane were first assembled and inspected at facilities near Paris. They were then dismantled and shipped by barge down the Seine to Le Havre and sent by ship to Cayenne. They arrived here at the end of April. With experience and some round-the-clock work, Hauzeur said, the time required to prepare an Ariane for launching here has been reduced from 53 to 33 working days. Bernard Schneider, project manager for the Ariane nose fairing, built by the Swiss company Contraves to protect the payloads during liftoff, studied at Stanford University and worked for an American aerospace company. He regarded the engineering operations at the Kennedy Space Center as ''more professional'' than at Kourou. ''Here, we're still learning, doing things more up to the last minute,'' Schneider said. ''We really need a success this week to give us the confidence we need for the things we plan to do in the future.'' ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 17-Jun-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #137 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 137 Today's Topics: Private enterprise in space SPACE Digest V1 #135 Private enterprise in space ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 17 June 1981 03:53-EDT From: Jerry E. Pournelle Subject: Private enterprise in space To: David.Smith at CMU-10A cc: SPACE at MIT-MC Business Week has also an article on GCH which is Gary Hudson and Anne Roebke, who make cheap rockets for free enterprise space stuff and apparently are doing pretty well at it... ------------------------------ Date: 17 June 1981 04:10-EDT From: Jerry E. Pournelle Subject: SPACE Digest V1 #135 To: OTA at SU-AI cc: SPACE at MIT-MC WRONG! Gary Hudson knows perhaps a few things beyond freshman level. Do you? ------------------------------ Date: 17 June 1981 04:15-EDT From: Jerry E. Pournelle Subject: Private enterprise in space To: TAW at SU-AI cc: SPACE at MIT-MC I can well believe that Peter Eaton has a staff of several thousand people who did a total of ten launces last year. I can believe that Mr. Eaton believes he ought to have a staff of several hundred thousand in order to do ONE launch... But then he believes the US cannot get to the Moon in ten years with present staff, too. Ah, well... ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 19-Jun-81 0400 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #138 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 138 Today's Topics: SPACE [sic] Digest V1 #135 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 18 June 1981 07:05-EDT From: Gail Zacharias Subject: SPACE [sic] Digest V1 #135 To: POURNE at MIT-MC cc: SPACE at MIT-MC From: Jerry E. Pournelle To: OTA at SU-AI cc: SPACE at MC WRONG! Gary Hudson knows perhaps a few things beyond freshman level. Do you? Let's get this mailing list out of the gutter. Immature ad hominem "arguments" have no place here. In the future, please try to confine such childish outbursts to inter-personal communication. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 20-Jun-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #139 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 139 Today's Topics: Ariane launch succeeds civvies vs military, Allan Bean SPACE [sic] Digest V1 #135 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 19 Jun 1981 1059-PDT From: Ted Anderson Subject: Ariane launch succeeds To: space at MIT-MC a104 0935 19 Jun 81 PM-Ariane,110 Rocket Successful On Third Test PARIS (AP) - The third test launching of the European Ariane rocket was completed successfully from the Kourou space center in French Guyana today, French scientists reported. The three-stage rocket, though basically on a test flight, put into orbit an Indian communications satellite and a European meterological satellite, according to signals received at Kourou. The satellites went into geostationary orbit 23,000 miles high as planned, according to signals received at the space base. The rocket, with which a consortium of European countries hopes to win one-third of the space satellite business over the next decade, is the third of four test missiles before it enters commercial service. ap-ny-06-19 1229EDT *************** ------------------------------ Date: 19 Jun 1981 at 1452-PDT From: Andrew Knutsen To: space at MC Subject: civvies vs military, Allan Bean Sender: knutsen at SRI-Unix !a024 0038 18 Jun 81 PM-Space Shuttle,460 Possible Conflicts Between Military, Civilian Use of Shuttle By HOWARD BENEDICT Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - Joint military and civilian use of the manned space shuttle could create launch priority conflicts, and the two men likely to head the space agency say they have asked the White House for help in resolving them. James M. Beggs and Hans Mark told a Senate committee Wednesday that they met last week with Richard V. Allen, President Reagan's national security adviser, ''to set up the mechanics for dealing with this problem.'' They provided no details. Reagan has nominated Beggs and Mark to be administrator and deputy administrator, respectively, of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. They testified at their confirmation hearings before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. Sen. Harrison Schmitt, R-N.M., a former astronaut who chaired the session, called them an ''excellent team'' and predicted that the committee would send their nominations to the full Senate. Beggs, 55, has been executive vice president of aerospace for General Dynamics in St. Louis since 1954. Mark, 52, a physicist, has been secretary of the Air Force since 1979. Both formerly served as NASA officials. The Air Force plans to use NASA's space shuttle for several military missions, most of them secret, and Mark as secretary has been involved in that planning. Schmitt noted that the civilian and military space programs, until now clearly separated, will be more integrated as both make use of the shuttles. He asked if this posed a problem. ''In the beginning, when we have only a small number of shuttles, I foresee there will be some troubles with respect to the adjudication of disputes on flight priorities,'' Mark replied, indicating that a military payload needed for national security might have to bump a scientific or commercial payload. Of the 67 operational shuttle flights booked into early 1987, the Air Force has contracted for 25 of them for Defense Department missions - such as deploying reconnaissance and other military satellites and for testing laser beams as killers of hostile satellites and missiles. Several nations have purchased space on shuttle flights, mainly for communications satellites, and a foreign policy issue might arise if one of those missions is delayed to make way for an Air Force payload. Mark said he hoped that eventually the nation will have a fleet of 10 shuttles to reduce the possibility of priority conflicts. Money already is provided for four shuttles, and funds for an optional fifth vehicle is in the proposed fiscal 1982 budget. The Air Force also is building its own shuttle launch facility at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., and a shuttle control center at Peterson Air Force Base, Colo., but these won't be ready until 1984. Until then, the military payloads will be launched from NASA's facility at Cape Canaveral, Fla. ap-ny-06-18 0327EDT ********** !a061 0442 18 Jun 81 PM-Astronaut Resigns,240 Bean Leaving Astronaut Corps; Will Paint Moonscapes Instead HOUSTON (AP) - Alan L. Bean says he's through walking on the moon and plans instead to devote himself to painting it. The 49-year-old Texan, the fourth man to walk on the lunar surface, announced Wednesday that he is retiring after 18 years in the astronaut corps. ''I am going to sit in front of my easel and become as fine a painter of moonscapes as I can,'' Bean said. The idea of becoming a career artist ''did not just pop into my head,'' said Bean, who began studying art while in the Navy in the 1950s. ''I've been doing more on weekends, going to museums and art shows. I decided if I was going to try and make a contribution, I had to start now.'' He said no other artist has had a first-hand view of space. ''I could paint in general before I went to the moon, and took some lessons from a couple of artists, but there is no one around who can teach you to paint moonscapes,'' he said. ''The atmospherics and the colors - mostly gray - are so different from what other artists have experienced.'' Bean was the lunar module pilot on Apollo 12, the second lunar landing mission, in November 1969. He also commanded the 1973 Skylab 3 mission. He has spent more time in space - 1,671 hours, 45 minutes on the two flights - than any other active U.S. astronaut. The resignation leaves John Young, the commander of the first space shuttle flight in April, as the only active astronaut who has walked on the moon. ap-ny-06-18 0731EDT ********** ------------------------------ Date: 20 June 1981 06:43-EDT From: Jerry E. Pournelle Subject: SPACE [sic] Digest V1 #135 To: GZ at MIT-MC cc: POURNE at MIT-MC, SPACE at MIT-MC 1. My reply was to an unsupported ad hominem argument of its own. A number of us have known Gary Hudson for a long time, and while he may be crazy, he's not stupid. 2. Your manners are exceeded only by your testiness. What in the devil do you EXPECT to have said to a message that invites such replies? The original message had very little content, and implied that Hudson knows nothing; a number of people in the space community know better than that from experience; lengthy replies take considerable time; and some of us have things to do with it. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 21-Jun-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #140 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 140 Today's Topics: recent pleasantries ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 20 Jun 1981 14:38:04-EDT From: cjh at CCA-UNIX (Chip Hitchcock) To: pourne at mit-mc Subject: recent pleasantries Cc: cjh at CCA-UNIX, gz at mit-mc, space at mit-mc I hesitate to say anything about this, since there's no reason to turn SPACE into an argument over personalities. But it has been pointed out elsewhere that electronic mail allows casual remarks a broader effect than would be expected from traditional communications, so I'll say some things that wouldn't be necessary had the original remarks been passed in a narrower forum. -- I recall a number of the preceding remarks in this debate, but nothing nearly as blunt or obnoxious as yours. -- The number of people in the SPACE mailing list who know Gary Hudson is limited, particularly since many of us don't claim to be members of the "space community". -- To say that a particular utterance "invites" public rude replies is to ignore the respondant's absolute choice in what degree of heat to reply with, as you have had demonstrated in the past. -- Many of us have things to do with our time, and accordingly elect not to address many topics (when raised in these digests) at all rather than address them with a misunderstandable superficiality; given the size of the audience, this is commendable. You can always address a person privately if you are offended by hir remarks. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 22-Jun-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #141 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 141 Today's Topics: Private space flight Several details on Ariane enough already! enough already! recent pleasantries ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 21 June 1981 1327-EDT (Sunday) From: Ramamoorthi.Bhaskar at CMU-10A To: space at mit-mc Subject: Private space flight CC: Ramamoorthi.Bhaskar at CMU-10A Message-Id: <21Jun81 132730 RB01@CMU-10A> Fools rush in where angels fear to tread! I am going to attempt to bring back the discussion to the very interesting question of space flights by smaller organizations than NASA. Regardless of the merits of any particular entrepreneur, the question is probably both important and urgent. I note the following: 1. Many prophets have predicted that the space age will really come of age when decentralized space activity becomes a reality. My favorite is Freeman Dyson, in an Appendix to the proceedings of the Second Conference on CETI (ed. Sagan, MIT Press, 1973) and in his more recent autobiography, Disturbing The Universe. There is some discussion about the merits of this idea when compared with the proposals of Gerard O'Neill. I remember the discussion as being chiefly economic. 2. The pressing problem I think is the social psychological health of the species. Not much is known about the "mentality" of humans that engage in large tasks that involve no communication with the society that spawns such endeavors but (perhaps) does not support them. 3. Legal questions may dominate the public discussion. In particular, questions of national identity and legal liability will have to be discussed and solved. There are two subquestions that some reader may be able to illuminate for me: a. What were the laws in Britain around 1500 that governed continental exploration? b. What is the current state of international law about stateless persons? I have conducted a short library search on existing space law and have been unable to find any good pointers. Can anybody help? RB ------------------------------ Date: 21 Jun 1981 1321-PDT From: Ted Anderson Subject: Several details on Ariane To: space at MIT-MC n046 1222 19 Jun 81 AM-ARIANE By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD c. 1981 N.Y. Times News Service KOUROU, French Guiana - Western Europe's Ariane rocket rose from its jungle launching pad here Friday, the reverberations rolling across the wild coastal savanna, and successfully boosted two satellites into orbit. The performance of the 155-foot-tall rocket was reported to be ''perfectly normal,'' following a failure the last time it was launched, and moved the 11-nation European Space Agency closer to realizaing its goal of an independent and active space-launching program. One more test flight is scheduled this November. ''This success is definite and absolute,'' Eric Quistgaard, director-general of the European Space Agency, declared as the cheering subsided in the control room at the Guiana Space Center. ''This proves to the world that Europe is in space for good.'' Officials of the Ariane project said that a preliminary analysis of the post-flight data confirmed that modifications made on the three-stage rocket had eliminated the excessive combustion vibrations that destroyed the last Ariane shortly after liftoff in May 1980. The first test flight, in December 1979, was successful. The two spacecraft deployed by Ariane - a European weather satellite and an experimental communications satellite built by India - were also reported to be functioning normally. They were delivered into temporary elliptical orbits ranging in altitude from 125 to 22,400 miles, almost exactly where they were aimed. Later, they are to be shifted, through the firing of small rockets, into their eventual positions about 22,000 miles above the equator. The final countdown, or chronologie, as the French launching crew calls it, was interrupted twice by technical problems, causing a delay of one hour and 13 minutes in the liftoff. First, at 59 seconds before the originally scheduled liftoff time, an illuminated display in the control room switched from green to red. Computers controlling the final six minutes of the countdown had detected extraordinary voltages in the third stage of the rocket and shut down operations. The problem was traced to a momentary power surge. After the countdown was recycled back to eight minutes prior to liftoff, several more displays suddenly turned red. One of the two radar tracking stations in the area reported a malfunction. The countdown was halted again. Flight controllers grew anxious because this is the rainy season and dark clouds were gathering. When it was decided to go ahead with only one of the radar stations in full operation, the countdown resumed. At 9:33 a.m. (8:33 a.m. New York time), the four engines of the first stage ignited in a burst of orange flame. The rocket did not move. As planned, it remained fixed to the launching pad three and a half seconds while the engines built up to full thrust. Then the steel restraints were released and Ariane rose slowly into the partly cloudy sky. At liftoff, the rocket and its payload weighed 460,000 pounds, 90 percent of which was propellants. Unlike the spaceshuttle Columbia, Ariane is not a reusable launching system. The first stage burned hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide for two and a half minutes before shutting down and being jettisoned into the Atlantic Ocean just off Kourou. The second stage, with a single engine burning the same propellants, fired for two minutes and 15 seconds before it, too, was jettisoned. The final thrust into orbit was furnished by the third stage, with a single engine burning the supercold liquid oxygen and hydrogen propellants. It burned nine and a half minutes. During this time, the rapidly climbing Ariane moved out of the range of the radar tracking stations at Kourou and a tracking camera based on an offshore island next to the infamous Devil's Island, the former penal colony. The next station to acquire and track Ariane was a Brazilian antenna at Natal. Finally, Ariane's control passed to Ascension Island, in the South Atlantic, where the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the Department of Defense operate an American tracking station. The Europeans have an arrangement to use the station for Ariane launchings. Tracking stations here, in Kenya and in Australia were monitoring Meteosat, the 1,550-pound European weather satellite. It will take about 30 days for the satellite to drift into position over the Equator at zero degrees longitude, the prime Greenwich meridian. Control is being maintained from the European Space Agency's Operations Center in Darmstadt, West Germany. Meteosat 2 will replace Meteosat 1, launched in 1977 but now only partly functional. The satellite will transmit images and other data of weather conditions over the Atlantic Ocean, Europe and much of Africa. Meteosat officials said that the satellite should be ready for regular operation by the end of this year. India's 1,475-pound satellite, Apple, is expected to begin handling telecommunications transmissions in 40 days from its eventual position over the Equator at 102-degrees east longitude. Apple, the first large satellite to be built by India, is being controlled from India's launching center at Shriharikota, in Madras. After the two satellites were deployed in orbit, along with a small engineering data module, the French National Center for Space Studies, which operates the launching base for the European Space Agency, announced: ''The mission was a total success.'' Development of Ariane began in 1973 and is expected to cost $900 million through the first four test flights. The 11 nations in the program, besides France, are Belgium, Britain, Denmark, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and West Germany. nyt-06-19-81 0323edt *************** ------------------------------ Date: 21 Jun 1981 1358-PDT From: ICL.REDFORD at SU-SCORE Subject: enough already! To: space at MIT-MC cc: ICL.REDFORD at SU-SCORE In one of his novels Greg Benford said that the passion in a debate was inversely proportional to the amount of information involved. Let's try to calm this argument down by finding out some things. Who is Gary Hudson, and what is GCH Inc? What kind of rockets is he building? Why specifically does he think that he can build and launch large rockets for far less than much larger and older institutions? ------- ------------------------------ Date: 21 Jun 1981 1358-PDT From: ICL.REDFORD at SU-SCORE Subject: enough already! To: space at MIT-MC cc: ICL.REDFORD at SU-SCORE In one of his novels Greg Benford said that the passion in a debate was inversely proportional to the amount of information involved. Let's try to calm this argument down by finding out some things. Who is Gary Hudson, and what is GCH Inc? What kind of rockets is he building? Why specifically does he think that he can build and launch large rockets for far less than much larger and older institutions? ------- ------------------------------ Date: 22 June 1981 04:01-EDT From: Jerry E. Pournelle Subject: recent pleasantries To: cjh at CCA-UNIX cc: POURNE at MIT-MC, GZ at MIT-MC, SPACE at MIT-MC 1. You have my apologies. 2.Gary Hudson remains someone worth listening to 3.please remove me from this mailing list ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 23-Jun-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #142 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 142 Today's Topics: info on Ariane ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 22 June 1981 10:57 edt From: York.Multics at MIT-Multics (William M. York) Subject: info on Ariane To: space at MIT-MC Does anyone have a source of information on the European Ariane project other than newswires? I would like to know a few things, such as how much does one Ariane launch cost (including the rocket itself)? How does this compare to a shuttle launch? How long does it take them to prepare a new rocket? How many are being built, and how quickly? Any info would be appreciated. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 24-Jun-81 0400 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #143 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 143 Today's Topics: First natural laser discovered Hope for Halley intercept ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 23 Jun 1981 1252-PDT From: Ted Anderson Subject: First natural laser discovered To: space at MIT-MC Scientists at the Goddard Space Flight Center and the University of Maryland have discovered in the cold upper atmosphere of Mars a natural infrared laser. This is the first known occurrence of a natural laser, they said, and represents ''a whole new class of phenomena in planetary atmospheres.'' In a report in the journal Science, the scientists said that the total power output of the Mars laser exceeds one million megawatts, equivalent to that generated by about 1,000 large hydroelectric power plants. The Mars laser is in principle identical to the carbon-dioxide lasers developed in the last two decades for a wide variety of commercial, scientific and military uses. The discovery was made during observations of Mars with an infrared spectrometer at the McMath Solar Telescope at Kitt Peak, Ariz. The research team was led by Dr. Michael J. Mumma of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Goddard center at Greenbelt, Md. The thin atmosphere of Mars consists almost entirely of carbon dioxide. According to Dr. Drake Deming, one of the Goddard researchers, the carbon dioxide in the upper atmosphere absorbs sunlight and in this process collisions of molecules amplify the energy levels until they reach a laser state. The word laser is an acronym for light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation. ------------------------------ Date: 23 Jun 1981 1714-PDT From: Tom Wadlow Subject: Hope for Halley intercept To: space at MIT-MC House Votes To Keep Space Shot Alive By TOM RAUM Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - The House voted Tuesday to cut money for the Space Shuttle but decided to keep alive the option of a mission that would intercept Halley's Comet with an unmanned space probe. To fail to keep a 1986 rendezvous in space with the comet would be false economy, backers of the mission said, as the House approved a $5-million installment toward the $30-million-plus space shot. The Reagan administration had declined to request funds for the project, despite enthusism for it within the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Critics claim the value of such an undertaking would not justify its cost. At the same time, the House cut $60 million from the Reagan's request for $2.19 billion for the Space Shuttle program. Both actions came as the House debated legislation authorizing $6.1 billion in NASA programs. The overall bill was approved by a 414-13 margin and sent to the Senate. The House decision to earmark $5 million for the Halley's Comet project preserves the option for NASA even though the administration did not request the project, backers said. Halley's Comet next approaches earth in 1986 on its 76-year trajectory around the sun. The proposed intercept spacecraft, which would be launched in 1985, would photograph the comet's icy core and take samples of the gases and particles that surround it and make up its long, wispy tail. ''If the United States does not undertake a Halley mission, we will be conspicuous by our absence,'' said a report on the legislation by the House Science and Technology Committee. The report noted that the European Space Agency, Japan and the Soviet Union - in partnership with France and Germany - all plan to investigate the comet. But, in floor debate, Rep. Harold C. Hollenbeck, R-N.J., the only member to speak against the comet project, told colleagues: ''While we would all like to see such a mission undertaken, the economic realities of the time dictate against it.'' ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 28-Jun-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #144 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 144 Today's Topics: need convincing about Halley's comet mission? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 27 Jun 1981 1606-PDT From: Ted Anderson Subject: need convincing about Halley's comet mission? To: space at MIT-MC Jerry Pournelle sent me a copy of his November ANALOG column, which is an argument about the importance of doing the Halley's comet mission. Since it is kinda long and since most people on this list probably don't need convincing on this point I am puting it in a file on SAIL in the usual place. The file is HALLEY.ALG[SPA,OTA] @ SAIL. You can type or FTP this file without an account. If you have trouble getting it from SAIL send me a note and I will mail it to you. It is about 200 lines long. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 04-Jul-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #145 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 145 Today's Topics: Against the SPS ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 03 Jul 1981 1040-PDT From: Tom Wadlow Subject: Against the SPS To: space at MIT-MC Study Advises Against Satellite-to-Earth Energy System By WARREN E. LEARY AP Science Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - The government should not try to develop a satellite-to-Earth energy system for at least a decade because it would cost too much, a National Academy of Sciences study says. The proposed system of giant solar satellites beaming power back to Earth would be so large and costly that it may not be feasible, says a report released Thursday by the academy's National Research Council. ''Developing and building an SPS (satellite power system) on the scale contemplated would be by far the largest, most costly, and most complex undertaking - civil or military - ever attempted,'' the study group said. The projected system would involve 60 satellites half the size of Manhattan Island and corresponding receiving grids on earth each measuring six miles by nine miles. Beams of microwave radiation would transmit solar energy captured by the satellites to Earth. The study said building the satellites alone would require spaceships with 13 times the cargo capacity of the present space shuttle. One of those ships carrying 400 tons of cargo would have to take off each day for 30 years just to supply building materials, it continued. The report said a cautiously favorable Energy Department study of the scheme last year greatly underestimated costs. That estimate of $1.3 trillion is ''two and a half times too low, even in the most optimistic view,'' the research council said. Because of high costs and extensive technical problems, the new study recommended against spending any research and development money on it in the next decade. Instead, it suggested that federal agencies monitor relevant technical developments during that time and report to Congress periodically on useful advances that might apply. The Energy Department and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration so far have spent about $19.5 million researching the concept, and proponents are asking for $30 million a year for further research. The research council group, which included experts from universities, government and industry, found no insurmountable technical problems with the concept. But it said satellites compared poorly on technical and economic grounds with other prospective energy sources, such as breeder nuclear reactors and advanced coal burning. The solar satellite concept was created by Dr. Peter Glaser, a vice president at Arthur D. Little, Inc., a Cambridge, Mass., consulting firm. Glaser said he had not seen the new study and would reserve comment on it. Fred Osborn, president of the Sunsat Energy Council, a group of corporations and individuals lobbying for Glaser's idea, said he felt that it was too soon to dismiss the satellite concept because of the cost, since future technical advances would reduce the cost. ''The costs are likely to plummet with new developments, but the cost of fuel will keep going up and up,'' he said. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 06-Jul-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #146 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 146 Today's Topics: Against the SPS ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 5 July 1981 20:44-EDT From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Against the SPS To: TAW at SU-AI cc: SPACE at MIT-MC Sending 400 tons per day for 30 years from the surface of the Earth to build SPS is absurd. It's a strawman! What happened to the plan for putting a mass-driver on the surface of the moon and using solar energy to power it to simply toss all the materials from the moon? We could send small pieces of equipment up to process the raw materials into various pure materials usable for building larger equipment. The larger equipment could then process 400 tons of moonrock a day for 30 years to actually construct the SPS. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 07-Jul-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #147 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 147 Today's Topics: Against the SPS The longest orbiting satellite? Beggs and Lovelace exchanging positions at Gen. Dyn. (almost). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 6 Jul 1981 10:45:33-EDT From: cjh at CCA-UNIX (Chip Hitchcock) To: space at mit-mc Subject: Against the SPS Cc: cjh at CCA-UNIX I was originally under the impression, from what was said by people like von Putkamer, that the mass of SPS was not going to be anywhere near that great. However, he was definitely talking about bringing everything from Earth; one of the slides showed a machine that would take rolls of thin sheet-metal (fabricated and packed on Earth) and form them into tubes which would be strong enough in [zero-]gravity. The assumption that SPS would depend on quantities of moon rock has been less than explicit in the more grandiose publicity of SPS enthusiasts; seeing as the mass driver itself would take quite a while to establish, I can see why. Furthermore, I can see severe difficulties with having smelting and forging facilities in [zero-]gravity at our present level of knowledge, and getting the necessary equipment to and established on the moon would present additional difficulties. In short, unless a far more active space program is taken as a given, SPS looks like a loser. Granted, I'd like to see such a program, but how likely is it? Even serious business interest in space is pointed more towards exotica than towards heavy industrial projects---not that such projects are impossible; they just represent a greater degree of dedication than it is curently reasonable to expect. It strikes me that space enthusiasts are missing a bet here: instead of attempting to influence the Legislative and Executive branches with letter-writing campaigns (always a chancy business, when polls are readily available to give a broader summary of public interests), we should be working to whip up national enthusiasm, just as Kennedy did when he promised a man on the moon by the end of the decade. That promise was a mistake in the longer view, reaching as it did for a single spectacular rather than building a solid foundation (consider how few SF writers before Project Mercury envisioned a straight jump for the moon in place of the establishment of a space station); avoiding that mistake while building public interest would be difficult but is far more likely to produce the desired results. ------------------------------ Date: 06 Jul 1981 2256-PDT From: Ted Anderson Subject: The longest orbiting satellite? To: space at MIT-MC n044 1148 06 Jul 81 BC-SCIENCE-WATCH (UNDATED) (ScienceTimes) c. 1981 N.Y. Times News Service . . . American and Italian space officials are discussing plans for a data-gathering capsule that would be towed by the space shuttle through the uppermost fringes of the atmosphere on a tether line as much as 60 miles long. The purpose would be to make observations in the region too high for balloons and too deep into the atmosphere for satellites. The shuttle would be high enough to remain in orbit but its tethered capsule could be only 80 miles above the earth's surface. This is the region where various wavelengths of sunlight knock electrons off atoms of the atmosphere, creating the electrified layers of what is known as the ionosphere. These layers, under circumstances that vary from day to night and under other influences, bend radio waves back to earth, making possible communications beyond the horizon. The chemistry of this region is also highly variable, but so far only fleeting observations have been possible from soaring rockets. The Italians would build the capsule. The United States would develop the apparatus to lower and hoist the capsule from within the shuttle cargo bay. Joint discussions on the proposal were held on June 17 and 18 at the Marshall Space Flight Center of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in Huntsville, Ala. nyt-07-06-81 1446edt *************** ------------------------------ Date: 06 Jul 1981 2258-PDT From: Ted Anderson Subject: Beggs and Lovelace exchanging positions at Gen. Dyn. (almost). To: space at MIT-MC a234 1259 02 Jul 81 AM-Washington Briefs,390 WASHINGTON (AP) - Alan M. Lovelace, acting administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, announced Thursday he is leaving NASA July 11 to join General Dynamics as vice president for science and engineering. Lovelace has been acting head of NASA since Jan. 20, when Robert Frosch, appointed during the Carter administration, resigned that post. Before that Lovelace was deputy administrator. He has been with the agency since 1974. NASA's new chief, James M. Beggs, until recently was executive vice president for aerospace for General Dynamics, which is based in St. Louis. The Senate confirmed his nomination last week and he is to start work July 7. President Reagan recently awarded Lovelace the Presidential Citizen's Medal for his role in the development of the space shuttle. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 08-Jul-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #148 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 148 Today's Topics: Jeffersonian Territorialism ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 07 Jul 1981 1659-PDT From: Ted Anderson Subject: Jeffersonian Territorialism To: space at MIT-MC I have heard that some L-5ers are pushing for a northwest ordinance like act by Congress relating to the settlement of space. Perhaps the old northwest ordinance is still in effect and could be made to apply? Anyway, a couple of questions come to mind. How would the bounds of a territory be defined? If it was a space colony like thing would the borderds extend just to the pressure wall, or include some space around it? How much, 3 miles? 10? 250? Also in the past territories have always become states eventually. How does this effect things? Does anyone know enough about space law or the northwest ordinance to comment? ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 09-Jul-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #149 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 149 Today's Topics: defending NASA ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 8 Jul 1981 2138-EDT From: KING at RUTGERS Subject: defending NASA To: space at MIT-MC cc: king at RUTGERS I have been observing the (rather heated at times) dialog to the effect that NASA is usind thousands of people to do the work of a few dozen. Before we ride NASA too hard, I submit that there is one important point to keep in mind: NASA embraces the man-in-space concept. Its competitors' systems do not even approach being "man-rated", making the systems simpler and making a lower level of countdown-time checking acceptable. It may be that the future in space belongs to the unmanned, but out experience with undersea exploitation teaches us that there is almost certain to be a need for a human presence, especially when fantastically expensive equipment (even more expensive when the cost of putting it in place is considered) doesn't perform properly. A lot of effort was expended trying to make objects like oil platforms automatic, but divers frequently have to gear up and research aimed at making people able to dive ever deeper continues to be important. Yes, NASA appears clumsy, but I don't want to concede space either to the Russians or to robots. ------- ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 10-Jul-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #150 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 150 Today's Topics: The Future of NASA Space Services Inc. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 9 July 1981 12:13-EDT From: Marvin Minsky To: space at MIT-MC, king at RUTGERS The problem of thousands of people at NASA has several components. The most serious problem, in my view, is that the entire agency is still so mission oriented that it can't support R&D about its basic problems, e.g., mission planning and operation. The lack of basic research facilities mens, in turn, that thee are no centers (except some slots in JPL) where experts concerned with such matters can work. NASA has acquired essentially no Ph. D's in computer science in a decade. The need for human presence could be replaced in most instances by human telepresence. If NASA were not mucked up with the war between men and robots, it would have done more research on highgrade teleoperators. There has been some piddling efforts at JPL and Marshall, but nothing to write a progress report about. Man belongs in space, to be sure, but there is no reason any more why each man should need thousands of others for backup. Or rather, there is -- because the proper research isn't being done. ------------------------------ Date: 09 Jul 1981 1007-PDT From: Tom Wadlow Subject: The Future of NASA To: space at MIT-MC I can't say that I share KINGs impressions of strong anti-NASA feelings here on the SPACE list, but I can comment on them. I am a little worried by the attitude of `NASA or nothing' demonstrated in KINGs letter. NASAs competency has been decreasing over the past decade as the young enthusiasts of the 60's space program found that they could get better jobs in private industry and there wasn't anything to do at NASA anyway. Those people were not replaced. Almost a year ago, I had a resonably extensive tour of NASA-Ames and found many programs staffed with *very* overworked middle-aged loyalists, trying to hire first-rate people at third-rate salaries. NASA has had ten years to develop a bureaucratic overhead, and has unfortunately succeeded. If NASA is to `regain its youth', it will need something to aim for and money to hire good people. It currently has neither. It is (perhaps) lucky that there exists a technological base that can allow the development of space systems by smaller, less bureaucratic, groups. Young companies always get by with less people because they *have* to. To say that NASA is our only hope of getting into space is a little naive. But it is our best hope, now, and, like a sick friend, needs our help and support. Not an acceptance of that sickness in the spirit of `taking the good with the bad'. ------------------------------ Date: 09 Jul 1981 1149-PDT From: Tom Wadlow Subject: Space Services Inc. To: space at MIT-MC Caption of a picture off the AP photo wire: COMPETITOR EMERGES The first U.S. space rocket booster built by private enterprise is lowered into a cradle at GCH Inc. in Sunnyvale, where it was built for Space Services Inc. of Houston. The rocket will be test-fired in Texas later this month. The firm hopes to compete with NASA, placing communications satellites into Earth orbit with the ``Percheron''. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 11-Jul-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #151 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 151 Today's Topics: Harris Poll on Space Shuttle NASA as a bureaucracy ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 09 Jul 1981 1510-PDT From: Tom Wadlow Subject: Harris Poll on Space Shuttle To: space at MIT-MC From the June 15 issue of Aviation Week, various excerpts ('cause I don't want to type it all in): A national survey conducted by the Louis Harris & Associates polling organization shows that 63% of those surveyed believe the U.S. should spend the several billion dollars necessary to develop full potential of the space shuttle over the next 10 years. ``This current support for spending on the space program is even more significant in view of the current overwhelming preference for cutting federal spending,'' the Harris survey said. `` In a sample of this size, one can say with 95% certainty that the results are within plus or minus three percentage points of what they would be if the entire adult [U.S.] population had been polled.'' . . . . ``Republicans want to spend more [on shuttle] by 71-26%, as do conservatives by 66-30%. The college educated public favor more spending on the shuttle program by 71-26%. Men support it by 76-21%. In contrast, Democrats want to increase spending by a much lower gap of 57-39%. Liberals favor the program by 57-41%. Women back it by a narrower 52-43%. Blacks oppose the shuttle program spending by a 53-45% margin.'' . . . . [The following is a table from the AWST article. The following question was asked of 1250 adults to provide the data for this table --TAW] ``It could cost the U.S. government several billion dollars to develop the full potential of the shuttle over the next 10 years. All in all, do you feel this space program is worth it?'' [All numbers are percentages -- TAW] Subgroup Yes No Not sure Men 76 21 3 College educated 71 26 3 Women 52 43 5 Blacks 45 53 4 Total 63 33 4 ------------------------------ From: MIKLEV@MIT-AI Date: 07/10/81 22:53:56 Subject: NASA as a bureaucracy MIKLEV@MIT-AI 07/10/81 22:53:56 Re: NASA as a bureaucracy To: space at MIT-MC CC: MIKLEV at MIT-AI It isn't riding NASA to point out that they have a heavy bureaucratic overhead. As a mature government bureaucracy, nothing else should be expected. They have two basic, unresolvable problems that Gary Hudson will never have: having 535 members of a board of directors (Congress), and having a standard bureaucratic "hidden agenda" of providing jobs and status. Recognize that and build around it, but don't ignore it or pretend that it will go away. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 12-Jul-81 1717 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #152 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 152 Today's Topics: Jeffersonian Territorialism ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 11 July 1981 23:05-EDT From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Jeffersonian Territorialism To: OTA at SU-AI cc: SPACE at MIT-MC I think trying to make a space colony, especially one as far away as L-5, into a state of the USA, would be a bad idea. There's no way we can force them to stay with us, and there's not much incentive. I suggest we just assume they'll become independent not only of us but of Earth, and try to maintain friendly trade relations with them. There's a lot of stuff we can sell them (we have more people, and can make many more types of things than a small colony could) in exchange for the bulk energy and special products they make (ball bearings, pure drugs). They will want the latest movies from Hollywood and the latest computer games and all sorts of other things, just like a city here imports all sorts of things from other cities near and far. (How many products that you consume or use were produced within a mile of your residence, even if both a farm and a city are within a mile of you?) ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 14-Jul-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #153 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 153 Today's Topics: Points of interest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 13 Jul 1981 1046-PDT From: Tom Wadlow Subject: Points of interest To: space at MIT-MC I spent most of Saturday (July 11) at a Space Week event in Berkeley. (For anybody that doesn't know, this week (July 11-20, actually) is ``Space Week''). The program consisted of a series of speakers on various space-related topics. The two most interesting things that I found out were: 1) The Airline Pilots Association (ALPA), a professional organization of airline pilots, believe that *within 5 years* there will be a large demand for commercial spacecraft pilots. In accordance with this, they are getting together with United Airlines and setting up a training program. There was much talk of acquiring spacecraft training simulators and expertise from NASA. Their proposed training center will be in Denver I believe. 2) There is quite a bit of Argon on Mars. This innocuous statement has led quite a few people to believe that Mars is the key to the Solar System. Why? Because Argon is supposed to make wonderful reaction mass for the proposed Solar Electric Propulsion System (SEPS). With a fuel factory on Mars, the entire Solar System is available, or so it is claimed. Thus a proposal for a Mars expedition using a Mercury-fueled SEPS attached to a Shuttle External Tank. Total cost should be somewhat cheaper than previous missions based partly on the fact that the spacecraft does not carry reaction mass for the return trip. The expedition would land and construct a permanent base and Argon mine. When enough fuel was mined, some of the crew would rotate home (after about 6 months on Mars) and a new crew would arrive from Earth. The obvious goal is a permanent Mars base and eventual fuel-based economy revolving around it. The attractive feature is that most of the expedition is based on current technology and uses bargain basement materials, such as the Shuttle ET. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 28-Jul-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #154 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 154 Today's Topics: News of Space Operations Center ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 27 Jul 1981 0942-PDT From: Tom Wadlow Subject: News of Space Operations Center To: space at MIT-MC NASA Official Says Space Development Worth Price By ANDREW M. WILLIAMS Associated Press Writer SPACE CENTER, Houston (AP) - Space isn't the cheapest place to build a service station, but scientists believe one orbiting 200 miles above Earth would be worth the investment. Such a ''filling station in space'' would contain tools for servicing satellites in need of minor repairs and fuel for refilling tanks of cruising space shuttles, said Clarke Covington, NASA's manager for program development. Covington said the space station, called the space operations center, has top priority on a list of new projects in space now that America has sent men to the moon and built a reusable spaceship, referring to the space shuttle Columbia. But with the mood in Washington favoring spending cuts, he said the agency will have to prove the station is a good investment. The latest estimates are that the station would cost almost $6 billion in 1982 dollars. As planned now, Covington said, the space station would contain living quarters - two four-person modules that would be supplied for 90-day periods. Covington said the operations station could serve as a ''toolshed'' where astronaut-mechanics could get equipment needed to repair faults on orbiting satellites. He said several $50 million satellites orbiting now are not operating because of minor flaws. The refueling point would save the cost of launches from Earth's gravity. And there will be room for companies to buy space to carry out zero-gravity experiments, Covington said in an interview. Because of the multitude of new experiments that could be carried out in zero-gravity, the country could develop a technological edge on the rest of the world that would take 100 years of working in normal gravity to make up, he said. ''There are some things you just can't do on the ground,'' Covington said. For instance, he said, scientists can make extremely pure medicine and make certain chemicals crystalize that would not do so within Earth's gravity. Despite the high price tag, Covington said he's optimistic the National Aeronautics and Space Administration can get a commitment - perhaps $25 million - for the project in the 1983 federal budget. He said top NASA officials support the project. If all moves smoothly, NASA could begin assembling the orbiter in 1989 and place it in space in 1990, he said. Covington said the agency would build the station in pieces ''in an effort to spread the cost'' and might first try to orbit a service module containing electrical systems and build on living quarters later. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 29-Jul-81 1619 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #156 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 156 Today's Topics: Halleys Comet mission gets support from the Big Guns. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 28 July 1981 18:43-EDT From: Owen T. Anderson Subject: Halleys Comet mission gets support from the Big Guns. To: SPACE at MIT-MC In this week's Newsweek (Aug 3rd) George Will, in his column on the back page, comes out strongly in favor of the Halley's comet mission. This is quite an interesting column, especially considering Will's connections in this administration, so you should go immediately out and beg, borrow or steal a copy and read it. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 30-Jul-81 0402 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #157 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 157 Today's Topics: Missing digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 29 Jul 1981 1646-PDT From: Ted Anderson Subject: Missing digest To: space at MIT-MC Although the version number of the last digest indicates that there was an issue #155 which no one got, don't believe it. I just got the numbering fouled up. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 01-Aug-81 0402 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #158 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 158 Today's Topics: Private enterprise in space ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 1 August 1981 02:31-EDT From: Jerry E. Pournelle Subject: Private enterprise in space To: TAW at SU-AI cc: SPACE at MIT-MC Hilarious development: it turns out the Delta program manager was not told by the interviewing reporter that the private enterprise program in question was Gary Hudson's. he is an old friend of Gary's. the reporters called and said someone was trying to launch a private vehicle that would take the place of the Delta. They did not say who. next day Gary had a long conversation with the chap... Date: 11 Jun 1981 0941-PDT From: Tom Wadlow NASA Scoffs at Private Launch Plan By ANDREW M. WILLIAMS Associated Press Writer HOUSTON (AP) - NASA officials say spaceflight should remain a function of the government, and they scoff at plans by a group of Texas businessmen to launch satellites for profit. Space Services Inc., a new Houston-based company, says it can launch satellites for a fraction of NASA's price and hopes to become the first private U.S. business in the market by late 1982. ''Are they aware that I've got a staff of several thousand people working in a program that launched 10 flights last year?'' said Peter Eaton, NASA's program director for Delta Launch Vehicles. But Gary Hudson, whose GCH Inc. has spent the last six months building the first rocket for Space Services, said Eaton's problem is that he is part of the government bureaucracy. ''All bureaucrats require staffs of several thousand people,'' he said. ''The Thor rockets were launched (by the space agency in the late 1950s) by eight people from a transporter. Why does Eaton need 600 to 1,000 people now to do the same thing?'' David Small, space specialist for the State Department's legal office, said the government has not even decided yet whether it will approve the venture. ''I'm just not ready to make a formal judgment,'' Small said. Eaton asked, ''If they launch their rocket and it comes down in the middle of downtown wherever, who's going to pay the damages?'' Space Services President David Hannah said the company carries $25 million in flight insurance. ''The cutting edge of all this is whether the government will say, 'The government's got to do this kind of work,' '' he said. ''If it does, then I think we really have given ourselves over to a socialistic form of government.'' A sub-orbital test flight of the 53-foot-long rocket is set for next month, said Charles Chafer, Space Services Vice President, with a splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico. ''If this is successful I think we will have established our credibility,'' said Hannah. The rocket will be launched from Matagorda Island on the Texas coast. Hudson said Space Services would put a satellite such as those used in weather observation into a 100-mile-high orbit for about $2 million. He predicted a $5-million pricetag for sending communications satellites into geosynchronous orbit, in which the payload turns with the Earth and constantly remains about 23,000 miles above the same point, appearing stationary to people on the ground. NASA officials said it costs about $22 million for the lower orbit and $25 million for the higher one using Delta rockets carrying 2,400-pound payloads comparable to those forseen by Space Services. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 02-Aug-81 0402 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #159 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 159 Today's Topics: Permission for use of space ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: MIKLEV@MIT-AI Date: 08/01/81 15:01:31 Subject: Permission for use of space MIKLEV@MIT-AI 08/01/81 15:01:31 Re: Permission for use of space To: space at MIT-MC CC: pourne at MIT-MC Can anybody say with some authority just what "permission" the State Dept. can grant/withhold with respect to private space oprations? I can't figure out what their authority is. Any Space Lawyers on the list? Mike ------------------------------ Date: 01 Aug 1981 1220-PDT From: Tom Wadlow To: space at MIT-MC BC-Space Services,230 Rocket Engine Test Postponed Again Eds: No PMs planned. MATAGORDA ISLAND, Texas (AP) - A kerosene fuel line leak just before ignition Friday forced Space Services Inc. officials to again cancel a five-second test of the engine in the privately owned 55-foot Percheron rocket. ''We got about as close to ignition as you can get,'' said technical director Eric Laursen after scientists discovered that the leak had saturated the rocket's starting cord. ''We don't have to correct the leak,'' said chief scientists Dr. David J. Ross. ''We simply have to protect the igniter.'' Ross said the small leak developed as the liquid oxygen-kerosene fuel lines were being pressurized before ignition. He said the rocket's electronic ignition system operated properly Friday, but that kerosene dampened the cord and kept it from igniting. Ross said the new problem will delay the rocket engine test until Tuesday. A combination of bad weather and mechanical problems has postponed the initial engine test for more than a week. Officials had hoped to fire the engine twice this week - one for five seconds and again for 25 seconds - while the rocket sat on its launching pad. The Percheron, billed as private industry's first attempt to compete with NASA, was scheduled to reach a sub-orbital altitude of 14,500 feet in a test launch Aug. 12 from this island about 50 miles off the Texas coast. ap-ny-08-01 0119EDT *************** ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 04-Aug-81 0402 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #160 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 160 Today's Topics: re: Percheron launch NASA troubles permission for use of space ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 3 Aug 1981 0902-PDT From: ICL.REDFORD at SU-SCORE Subject: re: Percheron launch To: space at MIT-MC Did I read that right? This rocket is going to attain an altitude of 14,500 feet? A sub-orbital flight indeed! ------- ------------------------------ Date: 3 Aug 1981 1536-PDT From: ICL.REDFORD at SU-SCORE Subject: NASA troubles To: space at MIT-MC cc: ICL.REDFORD at SU-SCORE Recently I've had a chance to see some of NASA's problems at first hand. I have just graduated with a master's degree in electrical engineering. My specialty is integrated circuit design. I applied to the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, thinking that the advantages of custom ICs in speed, power, weight etc. would really be of use to the space program. JPL is already doing some work in the area, so I thought that I would fit right in. There was no response for a month. Then after some prodding on my part the personnel guy called up the IC people and then called back to say that they weren't interested. After another month I got a call from the IC group. They had just gotten around to my resume and would like very much to have me come down and talk to them. The visit went very well; I liked them and they liked me. But the administrative people couldn't seem to do anything right. They couldn't pay for the plane or arrange a rental car or pay for the hotel room. I was nearly broke when I got there, but they could barely manage to get me enough money to get back to the airport. And, then with my plane due to take off in forty five minutes, no one could find my knapsack. Another two months passed with no word from them. I finally called them up (this time bypassing personnel) and found that they thought the other group was taking care of me. The guy promised to look into it personally. He checked with four or five different groups and found that the reason no one had got in touch with me was that no one had the money to support another engineer, even a recent college grad. Neither did he. JPL is looking at 5 to 10 percent cutbacks in most areas, and even deeper ones in fields like energy research. So even in the best of times NASA's bureaucracy would be a horrendous drag on them. Now, when times are lean, they can't even think about new research lines, no matter how promising. People are struggling just to protect the programs they have. There were few young people at JPL. They can't afford them. ------- ------------------------------ Date: 03 Aug 1981 1640-PDT From: Ted Anderson To: space at MIT-MC 03-Aug-81 1242 Tavares.WFSO at MIT-Multics permission for use of space Date: 3 August 1981 15:41 edt From: Tavares.WFSO at MIT-Multics Subject: permission for use of space To: Ted Anderson In-Reply-To: Message of 2 August 1981 07:02 edt from Ted Anderson You probably have to go through the State Department to get an export license. Don't laugh. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 05-Aug-81 0402 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #161 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 161 Today's Topics: Permission to enter space JPL NASA troubles ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 4 Aug 1981 10:18:56-EDT From: cjh at CCA-UNIX (Chip Hitchcock) To: space at mit-mc Subject: Permission to enter space Cc: joej at CCA-UNIX Seriously, there's an interesting problem here. Space is frequently supposed to be substantially internationalized (with the exception of such specific provisos as reservations (for comsat positions) covering most of the geosynchronous orbit). Obviously there aren't customs facilities in orbit yet, but the U.S. government (at least) has substantial penalties for leaving or aiding someone to leave the country without a passport. I'd like to see some people who actually know about national and international law take this up, if we have any such on the list. As a side note, I'll say that I find the attitude of this company with regard to earthbound liability appalling. Even D. D. Harriman took more precautions against catastrophic accidents than these people! ------------------------------ Date: 5 Aug 1981 0035-CDT From: Mabry Tyson Subject: JPL To: Space at MIT-MC In contrast to ICL.REDFORD@SU-SCORE's experience, I had no problems in a consulting/interview trip to JPL about a year and a half ago. The group I visited was small and interested in getting a PhD to head their small research group. Two of the three main people I talked to were under 35. There were no significant adminstrative problems in my trip (although there may have been small ones I have forgotten). One difference was that they contacted me rather than the other way around. ------- ------------------------------ Date: 5 August 1981 05:08-EDT From: Jerry E. Pournelle Subject: NASA troubles To: ICL.REDFORD at SU-SCORE cc: SPACE at MIT-MC JPL IS NOT NASA; and when one tries to generate some Department of Defense project support for JPL, Goldberger at Cal tech objects. Lately the management of JPL seems to have concluded that the Labs are God's Center for the Exploration of the Univers, Preserving Purity at Taxpayer Expense, rathern that an outfit originally founded to make JATO bottles for US Army Air Corps planes (and tsuck out in the arroyo so they wouldn't blow up Pasadena). I fear my sympathy for JPL was partly dissipated when I watched Bruce Murray trash the Apollo Program (in company with Carl Sagan) at the Beckman Auditorium during the Voyager Saturn encounter special "Saturn and the Mind of Man." ALthough the Labs have done great work, and if we had lots of money they could again, there is this attitude... Ah, well. As to the rest of NASA, much of it 'tis true; but there remain also some very dedicatred people trying to hang on to the shreds of US excellence... ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 06-Aug-81 0402 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #162 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 162 Today's Topics: more on JPL private 'rocket' blows up ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 5 Aug 1981 1651-PDT From: ICL.REDFORD at SU-SCORE Subject: more on JPL To: space at MIT-MC cc: ICL.REDFORD at SU-SCORE I'm glad to hear that others have had better experiences with JPL than I have, for I admire the work they do and hope they can keep it up. These are golden times for planetary science and JPL is in a large measure responsible. Even if space industrialization doesn't turn out to be economic, and space colonization becomes no more attractive than settling Antarctica, the knowledge gained from their probes will be a permanent benefit from the space program. ------- ------------------------------ Date: 5 Aug 1981 1811-PDT From: Stuart McLure Cracraft Subject: private 'rocket' blows up To: space at MIT-MC !a268 1652 05 Aug 81 AM-Rocket Explodes,140 Private Firm's Rocket Blows Up MATAGORDA ISLAND, Texas (AP) - A test rocket exploded on the launch pad Wednesday afternoon during a test on the missile owned by a company that hopes to be the first private firm to put a satellite into orbit, a company spokesman said. No one was injured in the blast about 5 p.m. CDT, Space Services Inc. spokesman Walt Pennino said. ''The main liquid oxygen valve did not open,'' said Pennino. ''At the moment they're putting out a small brushfire.'' If the engine tests had been successful, company officials said they hoped to launch a suborbital flight Aug. 12. The flight plan for the suborbital mission called for the rocket to climb to an altitude of 14,500 feet and then drop into the Gulf of Mexico about three miles from the launch site. David Hannah, president of the Houston-based company, said the first flight was meant to establish the company's credibility in the eyes of investors. ap-ny-08-05 1944EDT ********** ------- ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 07-Aug-81 0402 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #163 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 163 Today's Topics: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: INSANE@MIT-AI Date: 08/06/81 18:31:31 INSANE@MIT-AI 08/06/81 18:31:31 To: SPACE at MIT-AI CC: INSANE at MIT-AI Please add me to your mailing list. Thanks... ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 08-Aug-81 0402 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #164 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 164 Today's Topics: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 08 Aug 1981 0311-PDT From: Ted Anderson To: arms- at MIT-MC, space at MIT-MC n519 2353 07 Aug 81 BC-WAR-08-08 EDITORS: The following is from the London Telegraph and is for use only in the United States and Canada. By Maj. Gen. Edward Fursdon Daily Telegraph, London (Field News Service) LONDON - We should turn a strategic policy of ''Mutually Assured Destruction'' into one of ''Mutually Assured Survival'' though exploitation of the West's lead in space technology over the Soviet Union, an American general has said. The concept of a balance of terror was ''an immoral legacy'' to pass on to our children. This was the keynote of a speech by Lt. Gen. Daniel O'Graham at the first annual World Balance of Power conference held at Leeds Castle, Kent. O'Graham, former director of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, said that even with existing technology, provided the West had the guts to devote the necessary resources to it, a ballistic missile defense space system could be established within five years. The system could destroy Soviet missiles just after they were fired, when they were at their most vulnerable, and before deployment of their multiple warheads. Particularly with the space shuttle, the United States was 10 years ahead of the Soviet Union in space, and if we really exploited this, within five years the West could be 20 years ahead, he asserted. We need to play ''our long suit'' while we have one. ''Space is militarized now,'' he said, and had been ever since the first space shot. There were four areas of strategic importance today: military balance, the crisis of energy, the problems of the Third World, the the West's malaise of spirit. The general said although his system was not a cure-all, it would achieve more than merely retaining a military balance. It would be designed to beam energy to Earth in general and to the Third World in particular. It could also counter the malaise by providing a new frontier of challenge to the young. The conference was organized by the London-based Foreign Affairs Research Institute. Nine organizations specializing in strategic and foreign-policy issues - from the United States, France, West Germany, Indonesia, Japan, Pakistan and Britain - met at Leeds Castle to discuss ''a global strategy for the defense of world freedom.'' They discussed the need for such a strategy, the security of space and the sea lanes, safeguarding raw material supplies, and the need to fight a political war. END nyt-08-08-81 0253edt *************** ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 09-Aug-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #165 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 165 Today's Topics: Space-based ABM system (Gen O'Graham) SPACE Digest V1 #164 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 8 August 1981 21:31-EDT From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Space-based ABM system (Gen O'Graham) To: OTA at SU-AI cc: ARMS- at MIT-MC, SPACE at MIT-MC By the way, I got the info about this system in the mail a couple weeks ago, but didn't have time to read it until this morning. His article emphasizes security through strength, a famous military cliche. This news-story is rather different emphasizing Mutually Assured Survival instead. I'm not sure what to make of his motives, although I think MAS is a lot better than MAD and would like to see the world head away from MAD towards MAS as soon as possible. ------------------------------ Date: 9 August 1981 04:12-EDT From: Jerry E. Pournelle Subject: SPACE Digest V1 #164 To: OTA at SU-AI cc: SPACE at MIT-MC 1. It's Daniel O. Graham, not O'Graham. 2. Assured Survival was the strategic doctrine described in THE STRATEGY OF TECHNOLOGY back in 1969, which Possony and I, with the aid of a former student of Stefan's named Richard V. Allen, tried to get Nixon to adopt. That didn't work. 3. Dan Graham is a good man. He is unfortunately sometimes a bit TOO enthusiastic; not being a technical type, he can be sold unrealistic costs and schedules by enthusiasts; but his ideas are basically sound, and he's got the ear of the Senate. when I spoke to Danny last, he was headed that afternoon with Teller for the White House. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 12-Aug-81 0402 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #166 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 166 Today's Topics: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 11 Aug 1981 2010-PDT From: Ted Anderson To: arms-d at MIT-MC, space at MIT-MC a269 1802 11 Aug 81 AM-Soviet-Space,340 Russians seek U.N. Ban on Weapons in Space MOSCOW (AP) - The Soviet Union said Tuesday it will seek a United Nations ban on all weapons in outer space, including any that could be carried aloft by the U.S. space shuttle Columbia. A letter to U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim from Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko asked that the General Assembly consider the proposal at its 36th session this fall, the official news agency Tass said. Gromyko's letter said that although existing international agreements on the peaceful use of outer space forbid weapons of ''mass annihilation there they do not cover all weapons. As a result of this, the risk of militarization of outer space has been maintained and recently increased.'' ''The Soviet Union believes this cannot be tolerated. It is in favor of keeping outer space clean and free of any weapons for all time ...'' A Tass commentary on the letter said the treaty would outlaw all types of weapons in outer space, ''including also on manned spaceships of multiple use of the existing type and of the types that might appear in the future'' - a clear reference to the reuseable U.S. shuttle, which made its inaugural flight last April. The Soviets have repeatedly condemned the shuttle's military potential, fearing it could be used to capture Soviet space satellites or blast them out of orbit. Both the United States and the Soviet Union already use spy satellites, and each country is reported to be developing such weapons as high-power laser beams that could destroy each other's satellites. The United States, Soviet Union and some 70 other countries signed a 1967 pact outlawing the placing of weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear devices, in earth orbit or on ''celestial bodies.'' The 1979 Salt II strategic arms accord, which was not ratified by the U.S. Senate, barred the use of ''fractional orbital'' missiles, which could be fired into space and then shot back to earth over enemy territory. Three rounds of U.S.-Soviet talks on limiting so-called ''satellite-killer weapons'' were held in 1978 and 1979 without an agreement. ap-ny-08-11 2053EDT *************** ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 17-Aug-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #167 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 167 Today's Topics: Photos from Space Something to think about ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 16 Aug 1981 1347-PDT From: Ted Anderson Subject: Photos from Space To: space at MIT-MC n531 2247 15 Aug 81 BC-PHOTO-08-16 Weekly PHOTOGRAPHY column By John Alderson (c) 1981 Chicago Sun-Times (Field News Service) During a recent trip to New York, I had the grand pleasure of seeing ''The Photography of Space Exploration'' at New York University's Gray Gallery. It gathered images from Mercury to Saturn in a visual sampling of man's galactic efforts, including Voyager II (now outbound toward Uranus). Photographs from the space program have always been of the highest interest, giving us an emphatically new perspective on our lives and our own planet. We have watched this interplanetary drama unfold through our television sets and our print media, but rarely if ever before have images from space graced the cool walls of the gallery, to be contemplated outside the context of scientific investigation. Of course, photographs from space have always been stunning and transcended strict scientific documentation. The introduction to the NYU exhibit perceptively compares the photos to the first awesome views of the American West recorded by the pioneer landscape photographers of the 19th century. ''The Astronauts,'' writes exhibit curator Richard Maurer, ''have been accused of ineloquence for describing everything on their space trips as 'fantastic.' Actually, it's rather telling about the uniqueness of the experience that they could call up nothing with which to compare it. After all, how else do we describe a new thing but in terms of something we've already experienced? ''This is exactly our problem in looking at these photographs. We can compare features such as volcanos, mountains and canyons on Earth with their counterparts of the Earthlike planets, but even these familiar landforms seem to be differently constructed from one planet to the next. ''And in the never-never land of the outer solar system, comparisons by Earth standards become almost meaningless: Jupiter has a hurricane that could swallow several lesser planets; Titan has rivers of liquid methane; Io's rivers are molten sulfur, and so on. It takes a lot of imagination and a short course in planetary science to really begin to see what is in these pictures. ''Still, for me, the fact that we have them at all is one of the more astounding things about them. From the invention of photography in 1826 until about 20 years ago, every photograph that was made was an Earth picture, showing our Earthbound perspective on this world and all that we could glimpse beyond it. ''Then in October, 1959, a Soviet spacecraft rocketed behind the moon and photographed its unseen side. This was truly the first space picture, and just 10 years later men with cameras actually stepped out onto the moon and started photographing the scenery. Ten years and some after that, it's still a little hard to believe.'' Even as large a show as the NYU exhibit couldn't begin to reveal the total visual record of the space program, which has been carefully and voluminously documented by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. But this exhibit offers a balanced and tremendously interesting overview of our efforts in space so far. NASA offers color and black-and-white prints as well as transparencies and even negatives of some of the photos at the show. I received prompt and detailed responses, including complete listings of available photographs, from the following suppliers: - Holiday Fil 0:hittier, Calif. 90608: slide sets and films on various aspects of the space program. - Photographic Illustration Co., Box 6699, Burbank, Calif. 91519: Jet Propulsion Laboratory material, including Mariner, Viking and Voyager missions to Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. - Rapid Color Inc., 165 Second St., San Francisco, Calif. 94105: Apollo, Pioneer, Viking, Voyager, Columbia missions. - Space Photographs, Box 486, Bladensburg, Md. 20710: This firms seems to handle the majority of images listed in the ''NASA 1981 Photography Index,'' a 250-page gold mine of space documentation dating back to 1956. Copies of the ''Index'' may be requested from Audio Visual Branch, Public Information Division, Code LFD-10, NASA, 400 Maryland Ave. S.W., Washington, D.C. 20546. Prices vary among these suppliers and are generally far below what you would expect to pay from a custom lab. Slides can cost as little as 50 cents each in sets, black-and-white prints as little as 75 cents and 16-by-20 color prints can be purchased for under $20. Darkroom enthusiasts can even order 4-by-5-inch negatives to do their own printing. END nyt-08-16-81 0145edt *************** ------------------------------ Date: 16 August 1981 19:46-EDT From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Something to think about To: ARMS-D at MIT-MC, SPACE at MIT-MC Five years from now, when Voyager 2 reaches Uranus (assuming it makes it thru the F-ring of Saturn this month), will there be anybody alive on Earth to pick up the signals, or will we anihilate ourselves between now and then via an exchange of thermonuclear weapons? Five years is a long time to wait and wonder if we'll ever see Uranus close up. (P.s. it isn't actually going thru the F-ring, but it's going awful close, and might pick up some scattered pieces of ring material.) ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 19-Aug-81 0403 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #168 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 168 Today's Topics: Re: permission for use of space AP-NBC Poll on Space Program ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 18 Aug 1981 13:54 PDT From: Lynn.ES at PARC-MAXC Subject: Re: permission for use of space In-reply-to: Tavares's message of 3 August 1981 15:41 edt To: SPACE@MIT-MC cc: Lynn.es@PARC "You probably have to go through the State Department to get an export license. Don't laugh." Reminds me of a story someone from JPL told about the Venus probes and import/export laws. It was some time ago, so this may not be remembered exactly, but my recollection is that they applied for and received a refund of the import tax on the diamond windows used over some probe instruments upon proof that the imported diamonds had left the US for Venus. ------------------------------ Date: 18 Aug 1981 1446-PDT From: Ted Anderson Subject: AP-NBC Poll on Space Program To: space at MIT-MC a214 1050 18 Aug 81 AM-Poll-Space, Bjt,570 Polls Says Americans Support Space Program - For Someone Else By TIMOTHY HARPER Associated Press Writer NEW YORK (AP) - Most Americans strongly support the U.S. space program, but wouldn't want to travel in outer space themselves, the latest Associated Press-NBC News poll says. Sixty percent of the 1,601 adults polled by telephone Aug. 10-11 said they think the United States is spending not enough or about the right amount of money on the space program, and two-thirds said they think the space shuttle program is a good investment for the country. But 55 percent said they would not travel in outer space themselves even if they had the chance; 42 percent said they would travel in space if they had the chance, and 3 percent were not sure. The poll said 49 percent believe the emphasis of the U.S. space program should be on national defense, while 32 percent said scientific exploration, 10 percent said both and 9 percent said they were not sure. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has a budget of about $7 billion next year, including more than $2 billion for the space shuttle. Columbia, the first space shuttle, flew its first mission in April and drew the nation's cheers when it made the first successful fixed-wing ground landing from outer space. The next shuttle launch is set for Sept. 30. The Pentagon earlier this year said it eventually plans to have an permanent military force in orbit, and current plans call for a greatly increased role in military space projects. The AP-NBC News poll said Americans who would like to fly to outer space themselves are most likely to think the shuttle is a good investment and most likely to say more should be spent on the space program. Those who would travel in outer space themselves were more likely to say the primary emphasis of the space program should be on scientific exploration, while those who would not like to travel in space said national defense is more important. Men answering the poll said by a narrow margin that they would like to travel in space, but women were 2-1 in favor of staying closer to Mother Earth. Women were, however, more likely than men to prefer national defense to scientific exploration as the primary emphasis of the space program. Young adults also were much more likely to say they would take a spaceflight. The people most likely to pick national defense as the primary purpose of the space program and the people most likely to say they would travel in outer space included Democrats, liberals, those with higher incomes and those who had attended college. As with all sample surveys, the results of the AP-NBC News polls can vary from the opinions of all Americans because of chance variations in the sample. For a poll based on about 1,600 interviews, the results are subject to an error margin of 3 percentage points either way because of such chance variations. That is, if one could have talked this past week to all Americans with telephones, there is only one chance in 20 that the findings would vary from the results of polls such as this one by more than 3 percentage points. Of course, the results could differ from other polls for a number of additional reasons. Differences in the exact wording of questions, differences in when the interviews were conducted and different methods of interviewing could also cause variations. ap-ny-08-18 1342EDT *************** a215 1057 18 Aug 81 AM-Poll Facts,420 With PM-Poll-Space NEW YORK (AP) - Telephone interviews with 1,601 adults across the country Monday and Tuesday were the basis for the Associated Press-NBC News poll on the U.S. space program. Telephone numbers were selected for the survey in such a way as to give every household in the country with a telephone a roughly equal chance of being chosen. The sample was drawn in order to reflect accurately the makeup of the country by region and by city size. A procedure was used to give a proper balance of men and women in the survey. . . . Here are some of the questions and the results from the AP-NBC News poll: 1. Should the emphasis of the U.S. space program be primarily on national defense or on scientific exploration? National defense - 49 percent. Scientific exploration - 32 percent. Both - 10 percent. Not sure - 9 percent. 2. Do you think the United States is spending too much money on the space program, not enough money or about the right amount? Too much - 31 percent. Not enough - 22 percent. Right amount - 38 percent. Not sure - 9 percent. 3. If you had the chance in your lifetime to travel in outer space, would you do so or not? Yes - 42 percent. No - 55 percent. Not sure - 3 percent. 4. Do you think the space shuttle program is a good investment for this country, or don't you think so? Good investment - 66 percent. Not a good investment - 26 percent. Not sure - 8 percent. ap-ny-08-18 1349EDT ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 20-Aug-81 0403 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #169 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 169 Today's Topics: Re: permission for use of space ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 20 August 1981 03:22-EDT From: Jerry E. Pournelle Subject: Re: permission for use of space To: Lynn.ES at PARC-MAXC cc: SPACE at MIT-MC The story of refund of duty on diamonds and other imported objects which have since been permanently exported to Venus and other parts of the solar system is true. Of course one wonders what else could be done; on reflection perhaps it isn't so surprising. On the other hand, there is little explicit legislation which definse the role of private enterprise in space; perhaps we need a law which allows some governmetn safety inspection authority, but explicitly denies the government any jurisdiction over the "value" or "suitability" of space activities by private citizens. EXAMPLE: At the AAAS meeting in San Francisco, Niven and I were entertaining a lively group collected form the day's presentations (we always do that; our scientific cocktail parties are the main reason we go to AAAS meetings); we fell into a discussion of getaway specials; it occurred to us that space funerals might be a good idea. Cremate a corpse; freeze with minimum amounts of water; propel ut of spacecraft (probably could get about a dozen remains into a getaway special). Charge perhaps $10,000 per body. "Rest eternal grant them, O Lord, and let light perpetual shine upon them." Eternal rest we don't know about, but we can come pretty close to the light perpetual; I suppose the ashes would be driven by light pressure to the uttermost ends of the galaxy (well, there are of course places they can reach, given expanding universe; but if the universe is closed, even that's not a limit...) Alas, when we applied for a getaway special for that purpose we were told that was a frivolous and crass exploitation. Now I can't really object, given that getaway specials are subsidized, and except for studying the psychology of human necrophobia and eccentricity I can't see any scientific purpose; but we were then curious enough to ask when we might be able to rent some orbital velocity at full prices (after all, we might get a customer even ad huge prices; look at what was spent on the Taj Mahal...): and were told that wasn't suitable even at full price. That latter I resent. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 21-Aug-81 0402 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #170 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 170 Today's Topics: AP-NBC poll Shuttle news brief from Boston Globe ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 20 Aug 1981 0904-PDT From: Hans Moravec To: space at MIT-MC Space "burial" NASA's knee jerk conservativism is resentable, all right, but isn't launching of mortal remains just a perfect task for the free enterprisers? Truax could handle the west coast traffic, Hudson the southeast leaving the overseas business to Lutz (Otrag). And maybe the Europeans would sell Ariane space just to spite the unimaginative Yank bureaucrats. ------------------------------ Date: 20 Aug 1981 1117-PDT From: Alan R. Katz Subject: AP-NBC poll To: space at MIT-MC cc: katz at USC-ISIF The poll emphisizes the fact that 55% of the people in this country would not go into space, but that 42% would. Wow!!! Almost half the people WOULD go into space if they had the chance. Thats way above what I would have thought. We ought to finance the space program by selling tickets. Also, the question of scientific research vs. national defense is typical. Both are OK reasons to go into space, but the real reason is to expand the industrial base. (actually the real reason is because I want to go). Alan ------- ------------------------------ Date: 20 Aug 1981 2232-EDT From: Roger H. Goun Subject: Shuttle news brief from Boston Globe To: space at MIT-MC "WASHINGTON -- The second flight of the space shuttle Columbia will be delayed a few days beyond the planned Sept. 30 launch because of several minor technical problems, space agency officials reported yesterday. They said the movement of the spaceship from its hangar to launch pad 39A at Cape Canaveral, Fla., would take place Aug. 31 instead of Aug. 31 [sic; anybody know the true dates?]. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration said it is assessing the impact this will have on the liftoff date. (AP)" ------- ------------------------------ Date: 20 August 1981 23:37-EDT From: Keith Dow To: SPACE at MIT-MC An article tittled "The Coldest Neutron Star" appears in the June 15th issue of Physical Review D. In it, the lowest temperature possible for a neutron star is given as 100 degrees kelvin. It is pretty simple to read, and worth looking up. My favorite quote from it is "The prospects of observing such cold stars do not seem very bright...." ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 22-Aug-81 0402 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #171 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 171 Today's Topics: AP/NBC Space Poll remains to be seen (or unseen) first Earth space L-5 convention ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 21 Aug 1981 0936-PDT From: Tom Wadlow Subject: AP/NBC Space Poll To: space at MIT-MC A question that the poll *should* have asked, after this question: `` 2. Do you think the United States is spending too much money on the space program, not enough money or about the right amount? '' is: `` 2.5 How much money do you think the United States is spending on the space program? '' Most of the non-space types I have talked to, seem to believe that the US is spending (to paraphrase Dr. Sagan) ``Billions and billions of dollars'' on NASA. It would be interesting to correlate that 31 percent (people who thought we were spending too much on space) with figures indicating how much they think we *are* spending. (Mr. Wizard's Science Experiment #3: Ask your freinds questions 2 and 2.5 above to get an idea of what ``The Person in the Street'' knows about the space program.) -- Tom ------------------------------ Date: 21 August 1981 23:14-EDT From: Jerry E. Pournelle Subject: remains to be seen (or unseen) To: HPM at SU-AI cc: SPACE at MIT-MC Unfortunately the Hudson rocket philosophy is to sacrifice reliability for cheap; "better to splash two or three out of ten, if you pay only 10% of what NASA charges..." I don't know what kind of insurance I'd be able to get aginast the possibility of splashing Uncle Henry in the ocean rather than scattering him to the universe, but I expect I'd have to give the money back anyway... Of course I could argue that when the Sun goes red giant Uncle Henry will get scattered (if he hasn't been carted away by L-5 colonies fleeing the planet) ------------------------------ Date: 22 August 1981 03:00-EDT From: Jerry E. Pournelle Subject: first Earth space L-5 convention To: SPACE at MIT-MC The first convention of L-5 and other interest groups will be held in los Angeles at the Airport Hyatt April 2 through 5 1982. Convention will be about half "fans" and half professionals, professionals being defined as those recruited through announcements by AAS and AIAA and such. Guests of Honor: Robert A Heinlein and one other, the unannounced will be an astronaut. Mr. Heinlein warns that his health sometimes does not permit travel, but intends to be there. It is not a long or hazardous journey for him. In addition to professional papers (more on that and CALL FOR PAPERS below) there will be sessions on how to advance the space program. Cooperation of a number of officials and aerospace firms is assured, and Congressional assistants and aides will also be present. PAPERS to include "respectably far out" topics for discussion. Thgese can include both technical aspects of space industrialization and development ((one session will be on "What is the Optimum First US SPace Station"); free enterprise in space; topics for legislation including the Gingrich/Space Caucus HR 4286 (the so-called Northwest Ordinance of Space). All session topics not selected yet. Papers and ideas of sufficient interest and validity will be presented to the Citizen's Council on national Space Policy as agenda/discussion items; the Council reports to the White House and top levels at NASA. Ought to be an interesting convention. Professional membership including banquet tickets, meeting procedure summary, some papers, and tickets to a reception for the convention guests of honor are $70. Regular memberships (no banquet ticket or reception tickets, few to no papers) are $35 in advance, more at the door, somewhat less for L-5 and AAS members (see L-5 News)... Tickets L-5 Society 1060 E. Elm St. Tucson AZ 85719 L-5 is a registered 501-c3 educational non-profit organization; the convention is recognized as "public interest" at several USAF and NASA offices which are cooperating. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 23-Aug-81 0402 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #172 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 172 Today's Topics: spacing ashes AP-NBC poll ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 22 August 1981 09:09-EDT From: Oded Anoaf Feingold Subject: spacing ashes cc: SPACE at MIT-MC Gaa, what boredom. Can we PLEASE change the subject? Howzbout supercooled computer centers up there, power supplied free? Howzbout making dangerous products? Or gravity-labile ones? Howzbout retirement homes for people who can't hack the G-field here, like muscular dystrophy, MS, heart weakness victims? While we're at it, howzbout a hotel for kinky sex for folks who like to do it in free fall? Kee-reist, you've landed on one of my pet peeves (overly complex and expensive funerals) and beaten the subject to death. GrOWWr! Oded ------------------------------ Date: 22 August 1981 18:01-EDT From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: AP-NBC poll To: KATZ at USC-ISIF cc: SPACE at MIT-MC I suspect the 42% who said they'd go into space if given the chance really meant they'd go into space if it was free or very cheap. I might go myself if it cost only $100 and was incredibly safe ("over 4 million sold" without one fatality), but I don't see that feasible in the next 10 years so I'd probably answer "no" to the question if asked, or else "maybe" or "don't know". If many of the 42% feel like I do, but interpreted the question as I described above (free or cheap), then selling tickets wouldn't finance the space program. I'd like to see a poll that asks "after space travel is proven as safe as transcontinental airlines, would you take a trip into space, and how much would you be willing to pay for a 3-day weekend excursion into space?" The histogram of answers will tell if tickets can finance the program. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 24-Aug-81 0402 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #173 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 173 Today's Topics: burying OAF spacing ashes ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 23 Aug 1981 1039-PDT From: Hans Moravec Subject: burying OAF To: space at MIT-MC Sheesh what a grouch! But I know what you mean. I yawn whenever I think of the pyramids or the Taj Mahal too (and I don't even think of Grant's tomb). And I could never become an archeologist - digging up all those extravagant old burials really grates on my liberal sensitivities. They should have spent that money to support Aztec welfare bureaucrats instead of on fancy last rites. ------------------------------ Date: 24 August 1981 03:47-EDT From: Jerry E. Pournelle Subject: spacing ashes To: OAF at MIT-MC, SPACE at MIT-MC, JEP at MIT-MC Date: 22 August 1981 09:09-EDT From: Oded Anoaf Feingold Gaa, what boredom. Can we PLEASE change the subject? Howzbout supercooled computer centers up there, power supplied free? Howzbout making dangerous products? Or gravity-labile ones? Howzbout retirement homes for people who can't hack the G-field here, like muscular dystrophy, MS, heart weakness victims? While we're at it, howzbout a hotel for kinky sex for folks who like to do it in free fall? Kee-reist, you've landed on one of my pet peeves (overly complex and expensive funerals) and beaten the subject to death. GrOWWr! Oded my apologioes. I often think the thing for me to do is refuse to write unless I am paid. I know what that's worth. You convince me I should implement that decision. I had no desire to cause anyone pain. I thought my little excursion into logic and the bureaucracy was an amusing fable, more interesting because it was almost taken seriusly--that ios, some of us actually inquired whether we could do it, although whether or no we would have done so is another story. So we cause you pain and burning resentment. It's obvious. I understand my paying audiences. But the NET i don't understand at all, and what I ought to do is get the hell off here. I don't like upsetting peiple. I was just at the Sagan-Murray Planetary Society dinner and concert (John Williams and the Music of Space) part of Planetfest part of the Voyager encounter, and I thought I ought to give a description, but ye gods, I suppose somebody would resent that oo. Tzum Teufel mit ins!!! ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 25-Aug-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #174 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 174 Today's Topics: Voyager II television coverage Administrivia Writers and reactions (83 lines) Your last message to me: (194 lines) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 24 August 1981 21:04-EDT From: Thomas L. Davenport Subject: Voyager II television coverage To: SPACE at MIT-MC NASA and JPL are doing a series of hour-long "live" programs on Voyager II. It is quite well done and, best of all, it is on PBS so there are no commercials! In the Boston area it can be seen on WGBX (ch. 44) every night this week at 8pm. ------------------------------ Date: 24 Aug 1981 1603-PDT From: Ted Anderson Subject: Administrivia To: space at MIT-MC In the last few digests there has been an increasing quantity of increasingly personal mail having little or nothing to so with space-related topics that this list claims to address. Judging from the response from today's mail the increase is at least exponential. My editorial policy has always been: "as little as necessary". I have decided to include these messages in the Digest, since the writers have obviously put a good deal of effort into them. On the other hand I think this sub-discussion, which even viewed most favorably could only degenerate into a discussion of computer mailing lists, has gone far enough. I urge people to keep their submissions to the general bounds of space-related topics. The inter-personal communications that are generated as an inevitable by-product should, in general, be kept private. This is not to discourage interesting arguments from developing but there are limits. Caveat (anyone know the latin word for reader?): The remainder of this digest can be ignored without any loss of information pertaining to the topics normally covered by this list. ------------------------------ Date: 24 Aug 1981 1103-PDT Sender: WMARTIN at OFFICE-3 Subject: Writers and reactions (83 lines) From: WMartin at Office-3 (Will Martin) To: pourne at MIT-MC, jep at MIT-MC Cc: space at MIT-MC Message-ID: <[OFFICE-3]24-Aug-81 11:03:21.WMARTIN> The difference between "your paying audience" and the net is that here people can answer back, immediately and without difficulty or expense (that latter for those of us doing this at work or in school). Also, in commercial publishing, the true paying audience you are writing to please is the editors and publishers, not the readers. The readers can get their say in the marketplace, and in letters to the editor or at cons, maybe, but those are far in the future, limited in scope, and involve difficulty and expense. Don't you think people talk back to your stuff as written in books and magazines? Of course they do! You just can't hear them. After all, you aren't writing to please everyone, are you? You write 1) for groceries; 2) to be gratified in some manner; 3) as a means of promulgating a point of view you wish to be inculcated in the reader; 4) because some force (internal or external) motivates you to do so. Surely other reasons can be traced back to these general categories. However, except insofar as it is a minor gratification under category 2, you don't write with the aim of being "liked" by all possible readers, do you? If so, you wouldn't write the way you do; you would be writing entirely differetly about entirely different things. Actually, given any random group of readers of some reasonable size, say the readership of "SPACE", I doubt that it would be possible for any one written item to please each and every one of that group. So what? What difference does that make? If the item you wrote fulfilled the motivation provided by any one of those four categories, it was worth it in and of itself alone. If it had been written for a magazine, say, and Oded read it there, and had the same reaction, would you have cared? Of course not. The only difference here is that the end-user readers get immediate feedback to the authors. Authors, as a whole, are not used to this. Traditionally, there was quite a phalanx of intervening layers insulating authors from readers, plus there was quite a time lag between the writing and the reading. Here, response is direct and immediate. In SF, there probably has been more reader-to-author feedback, because of cons, but still there is a gulf, not often crossed, separating the respected pro and the sniveling fan, and the fan hesitated to criticize the pro, no matter what disparaging opinion he had of the pro's works. Here, on the net, everyone is just another address, and those of high visibility get more flak than others, regardless of their outside status. Personally, as a non-author, I think it's better for an author's other works to spend time exposed to such free and open criticism or disrespectful banter, no matter how much of such exhanges may be intrinsically worthless; it's better than isolation. Contrast your situation with Bob Heinlein, for example. He seems to be isolated into some sort of introspective cocoon which has changed his stuff from a delight to read to rather tedious long-winded prose badly in need of severe editing (which, I guess, his status as a "master" has made highly unlikely). (Of course, if he doesn't need the money, he can write as he pleases for his own gratification; if someone buys it, that's just gravy.) Well, I guess this has itself been rather long-winded; maybe I should just say, "Never mind the gripes -- let's hear about the planetary society shindig..." Will Martin PS If you didn't like the comment, why give it extra status by reiterating it in your response message? Is this some editing technique provided by a particular message system or editor, that we see it so often? For me to do it requires some extra steps and a bit of careful planning in generating a reply. For a lot of you, it seems the normal technique used in any reply. Is it your convention, those of you who do this, to not keep copies of your own messages, so that you provide the original back to the sender as a courtesy? It seems inefficient and wasteful of storage. I would think you would end up with rather involved nestings of messages which are hard to read. WM ------------------------------ Date: 24 August 1981 10:29-EDT From: Oded Anoaf Feingold Subject: Your last message to me: (194 lines) To: POURNE at MIT-MC cc: JEP at MIT-MC, SPACE at MIT-MC, OAF at MIT-MC, REM at MIT-MC Sir: Your last message to me deserves a reply. I'm in a good mood, so you'll get one that fits the message. [copyright Oded Anoaf Feingold, 1981] Your sarcastic replies are predictable and tiresome. Your pretentious reminders that you ought to write where you get paid for it are hypocritical, since I have seen dozens of such (directed personally to me) and here you stay, flaming on and on. Your habit of CCing the world when you thump your chest is crude. I am no longer willing to accept your stories about being unable to handle the complexities of 300-baud communication with MIT-MC. (Note that I am specifically CCing the same people you addressed, with two hand additions. So you should see three copies of this.) Your insistence on inserting the text being replied to when you answer is redundant. Or do you perhaps assume everyone is so lazy and forgetful that (s)he must be reminded? By whose limitations are you judging your readership? Below, a few quotes from your reply, along with some oafish rhetorical analysis: Two typos have been repaired, free of charge. "my apologies." Bullshit! You don't apologize or you wouldn't lay out the rest of the message. If you absolutely MUST contradict yourself, can't you wait a decent interval so people don't have their noses rubbed in it? "I often think the thing to do is refuse to write unless I get paid." Maybe so, but you sure don't live by your thoughts. You only voice them each time someone objects to something you say, for WHATEVER reason. "I know what that's worth." Questionable - you know what you'll get paid for it. (Maybe - I dunno what part of your work is contracted with known fees.) I try to consider other measures of value than what some publisher will pay me, since by that criterion the people who write lead articles for the National Enquirer write some of the worthiest literature on earth. Then again, you just MIGHT know what that's worth. "You convince me to implement that decision." Me? Convince anybody? Wow! Okay, I'll hold my breath and see what happens. "I had no desire to cause anyone pain." Interesting. And sweet. But what's it doing here? Did I complain of pain? Did anyone? "I thought ... was an amusing fable ...." Ya know, I thought so too - I got tired after the issue acquired a life of its own, and began to get bogged down in pettifogging details. I guess what I objected to was the transition (major truth coming) from an amusing fable to ** YET ANOTHER CAPPER CONTEST ** . (<-- period, see?) There! It comes out. I bitch about the use of limited- bandwidth publicly-supported communications channels for childish displays of ego. Furthermore, I do NOT apologize for bitching. Yet furthermore, I would object less if I thought you (in particular) had some perceived inadequacy for which you needed to compensate. But in theory, you're a big shot, one of those people doing just what he wants and getting paid too. You let us know you have all those secret ins with the insiders, the NASAites, the presidential advisers, the congressmen, the ..., which we mortals (who aint published) can't hope for. So why oh why do you of all people have to put your ego on the line and be so public so often with your puffery? Whence the lack of self-confidence? Why the burning need for continuous public admiration and approval??l "So we cause you pain and burning resentment." Pain? (This topic was covered above.) Burning resentment? Well, let's be specific. The space ashes discussion got me impatient, enough to write a nasty note, but burning resentment? Your patronizing, broadcast, hypocritical message, to which I am replying, would be a credible shot at giving me burning resentment, except I've met its source. By the way, by "burning resentment" may I assume you mean the distresses hemorrhoids are supposed to cause? (I plead lack of experience, and don't want to get confused on such an important point.) So I guess that sentence was wrong at both ends, hence an unwarranted assumption. Nope - no burning resentment here. Frankly, I'm enjoying this. And when I don't like what I see, I interfere long before it gets to the burning resentment stage, as I guess you've begun to notice. "It's obvious." What? "I understand my paying audiences." Really? "But the NET I don't understand at all, and what I ought to do is get the hell off here." You said it, baby, not I. But somehow I doubt you mean it. "I don't like upsetting people." What does one say to a line like that from a person like you? "... but ye gods," What does this mean? "... I suppose somebody would resent that too." Possible. Probable, even. Is there a deeper message here? "Tzum Teufel mit ins!!!" Lessee, isn't it "Zum" rather than "Tzum.?" I don't understand the last word. uns (?) - us? (to the devil with us. okay.) es (?) - it? ins?? (Common contraction for "in das." But "in das" is a prepositional particle - are you sending prepositional particles to the devil? What a concept!) If you're trying to impress us with your cosmopolitan education, maybe you should know the foreign phrases you toss. If you want to say to hell with it, why not say to hell with it? Your message, like many others you have sent, is a minor monument to public preening and general bad taste. I believe your original intent was to criticize, patronize and possibly humiliate me for criticizing you, but you lapsed back into threatening to pick up your marbles and run home to Mommy before I was thoroughly disposed of. That's an error. It doesn't make you loveable. I've seen you do it at a lecture where you were the guest of honor, and came within an inch of demanding my money back. But that's hard to do on the space digest. I presume you're awaiting a great outpouring of earnest requests that you stick around. Well, I personally have NO fear of your imminent departure: You don't seem to think that what you say requires even a token attempt at maintaining its believability and you enjoy crowing way too much. You ain't going away, so why not take it like a man? The preceding message was both long and insulting. I won't pretend I didn't enjoy it, but I'm not completely happy with distributing it over SPACE (ain't I punny today?). I feel your oft-repeated public whining when yelled at is an unfair debating technique, and wanted to lay out my bases for objecting to it. In so doing, I have surely crossed the line into uninvited analysis of your motivations and personality. Readers of this message are kindly requested to consider such analysis an environmental description of the techniques you use (and to which I object). They of course should also draw their own conclusions about the validity of said analysis, in the knowledge that it is personal, fragmentary and created in the context of an adversary relationship. (I claim no special psychological knowledge or training.) Furthermore, I'm glad you (and HPM, by the way) have let space funerals return to well-deserved oblivion and are snapping at me instead (which I enjoy.) Maybe someday we can get back to discussing things of some relevance to space development? If you want to see someone put me down with style, check out HPM's message. I don't happen to agree with his logic, but I was highly edified to read it. Yours, Oded Anoaf Feingold ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 26-Aug-81 0402 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #175 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 175 Today's Topics: Update on Halley mission possibilities ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 26 Aug 1981 0115-PDT From: Ted Anderson Subject: Update on Halley mission possibilities To: space at MIT-MC n521 0006 26 Aug 81 BC-HALLEY-08-26 By William Hines (c) 1981 Chicago Sun-Times (Field News Service) PASADENA, Calif.-The head of the U.S. space program left the door open Tuesday-ever so slightly-for an American entry in the Halley's Comet sweepstakes. But the United States will have to field something more than just a ''me-too'' effort to intercept and investigate the celebrated comet on its coming visit to the inner solar system, James M. Beggs said. Beggs, administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, told his first formal press conference since taking office June 1 that a decision on a Halley fly-by must be made in the next four months. ''The window closes at the end of the year,'' Beggs said. He said a plan espoused by scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory here is most attractive-''if it can be done''-and the Reagan administrion will ''look at (it) very hard.'' The JPL has proposed launching a one-ton, camera-equipped spacecraft in 1985 to make a quick flight past Halley's as it streaks outward in its closest approach to the sun. The spacecraft would carry a collector to capture wisps of gaseous material during a fly-by some 600 miles from the rock-and-ice nucleus of the comet in early March, 1986. This sample would be packaged in a capsule that would be rocketed back to Earth orbit for retrieval by a space shuttle in 1991. The whole package would cost about $300 million, JPL planners estimate. A hard sell was under way here as Beggs visited this mountainside laboratory overlooking Los Angles. He was joined briefly Tuesday afternoon by Edwin Meese III, counselor to the vacationing President Reagan. In response to a question about Reagan's interest in the space program, Meese said: ''The president has indicated that he is very much interested in space exploration and the Space Transportation System (space shuttle) ... but obviously within budget.'' Beggs, in response to questions about Halley's Comet, ruled out any mission that did not offer something unique. The Soviet Union, Japan and a European space consortium all have started building separate spacecraft for a Halley's visit. Interest in Halley's Comet is intense not only because it is one of the most storied features in the solar system, but also because a chance to see it close is literally a once-in-a-lifetime event. Halley's follows a long oval path extending into interstellar space that takes slightly more than 75 years to traverse. It last visited the inner solar system in 1910 and will not come back until 2061. The ''window closes'' on a U.S. Halley's effort at the end of this year-to use Beggs' phrase-because there will not be time enough to build, test and launch a spacecraft if the go-ahead is given later. END nyt-08-26-81 0309edt *************** ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 27-Aug-81 0402 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #176 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 176 Today's Topics: dilemma no, blast it.. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 27 August 1981 03:04-EDT From: Jerry E. Pournelle Subject: dilemma To: SPACE at MIT-MC 1. My normal procedure is to log on late at night, when I have finished work. At such times I expect I have considerable more emotional vulnerability than usual; sometimes i've been working on fairly heavy stuff with emotional wrenches in it (if you don't feel a little something for your characters, it's for sure the readers won't); other times, like today, I've been involved in something such as the Voyager Encounter (we've been out there all week). It isn't likely that I'll have any other time to play about with this; and precisely why I'm tempted to do so at all is a mystery to me, doubly so to my wife. Possibly it's a sense of gratitude for being given access to this kind of resource; possibly I regret leaving academic life more than I think I do. Whatever the motivation, it's not really very rational; considered rationally, I ought to stay with a game I know. 2. Apparently, even though I attempt to restrict what I say to an increasingly smaller number of lists, I can't say ANYTHING that won't trigger replies that are not merely uncivil; prompting me to reply in kind (especially if it's late enough). This escalates to ludicrous proportions. Now although I have trained myself not to read messages such as the final one (one cannot avoid the first page of them, but it's easy to avoid the rest)I don't seem to be able to avoid them sufficiently to escape the first round; and given my confusion on how to operate this mail system, copies often get places they shouldn't. 3. I epxect there are some people who actually think my remarks worth rading; but as it has been proved here, that';s not certain. Perhaps it is only editors who read my books and articles; and the readers hate them. That's a disturbing thought. Sifficiently so that if I believed it, it wwould be truly upsetting. I don't believe it; but I can't disprove it. 4. Thus: I seem to have little to gain, and much to lose, by continuing to inject anything into the SPACE discussions. I tried to tell a tale about the Getaway Special, and apparently the subject was terrifying to one of the readers, who simply could not tolerate the discussion. I attempted to make an announcement of a convention, and was told that was an improper message. In previous times I have met similar results, so much so that I actually removed myself from the SPACE list once, and have indeed removed myself from all the others so that I won't be tempted. This time, I thought, I will stay with facts and innocuous materials; with results you have seen. 5. The resulting emotional storms are embarrassing, and in some cases sufficiently painful as to preclude getting any more work done; assuring that I won't log on until all work is done, assuring that it will be even later... 6. All of which is a roundabout way of explaining why I simply don't dare get more involved. I'll write up my remarks abouot what happoened at the labs this week for an editor who will indeed act as if he wants them and will pretend that there are readers who will want to read them; thus continuing the delusions which I require in order to make a living. All of which is unfortunate, and to those of you who have taken the trouble to send me messages of reassurance and support, my thanks; but I really do see no way out of my quandary. OAF is probably right. My beer mutterings about leaving the discussion probably are hypocritical, in that I am fairly certain I hoped to be talked out of the decision; perhaps the rest of his message was to the point (making it even more imperative that I don't read it, given the way it started.) It can't be worth it to any of you. My apologies. ------------------------------ Date: 27 August 1981 03:35-EDT From: Jerry E. Pournelle Subject: no, blast it.. To: SPACE at MIT-MC On third or fourth thought, I will NOT allow Mr. Feingold's studious attempts to be unpleasant to cheat me out of the excitement of the evening. Howeve?r, Mr. Feingold is hereby enjoined from reading this. moreover, he should buy no more of my books. Booksellers across the nation will be forbidden to sell him any book written by me or any magazine with a contribution by me. We can agree: I'll read nothing of his, and he nothing of mine. And we can all be happier. If you saw ABC news, that brief flash showing me standing with Charles Kohlhase (mission planning chief) had the JPL monitor in the background. Up on stage at the time were Brad Smith and most of the other mission scientists, trying to talk without crying--at the time the scanning platform damage was unknown, and many of their best pictures were pre-recorded and hadn't been sent back to Earth yet, so they couldn't know what pictures they had got. And indeed the pre-recorded pictures were coming in on the screen, "live" in the sense that no one on Earth had ever seen those sights before, even as Brad Smith and Ed Stone sat up there being questioned by reporters. What Kohlhase and I noticed was that the bright ring observed inside the Enke Division was not on center; and we recalled that earlier pictures had shown it exactly centered. We speculated that this was a fairly dramatic demonstration that this ring within a gap within the rings is eccentric. It was also kinky and lumpy. So we had eccentric kinky Enke... Smith is of course an imaging astronomer, and head of the imaging team. He was not, therefore, thrilled when the mission planners scheduled a long PhotoPolarimetry (PPM) experiment just at closest approach to the rings, looking down through the rings at Delta Scorpio to see the star wink. The PPM is VERY sensitive, and thus they were able to achieve a "resolution" of something like 20 meters; while the best image they could get with the imaging cameras had resolutions in the km. range. The idea was to see just how much fine structure there is in the rings; it was, after all, gettiing absurd. The A, B, C, D, E , F, G "rings" had all proven to be broken into subrings, and those broken into smaller. The Cassini Division was not only not explicable by resonance with larger satellites, but contained five smaller rings within it, and each of those had smaller rings within them... And aslthough the F ring is herded by two sheepdog moonlets ("Moonlets and gaplets make braidlets in ringlets, Saturn's got thousands of favorite rings..." sang Karen Anderson) and for a while the moonlet theory was rife, there didn't seem to be any moonlets within the B C strucutres yet there were rings after ring after ring... Anyway, Brad Smith wasn't thrilled at the idea of losing pictures to a goddam photopolarimeter; but it was planned anyway, and for what seemed HOURS there were no photos coming in. Then they got the PPM data and took it up to analyse. Late last night, during occultation, Brad left the PPM lab. Inside they were crowing: at the finest limit of discrimination there seemed to be finer structure yet. It's not thousands of ringlets, it may be tens of thousands... As Smith left the PPM lab he was heard to mutter "It may have been worth the time after all..." JEP ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 29-Aug-81 0402 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #177 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 177 Today's Topics: 90000 space pictures availible Planetfest 81 and Voyager II Hot Voyager II Press Release ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 28 Aug 1981 1738-PDT From: Alan R. Katz Subject: 90000 space pictures availible To: space at MIT-MC, sf-lovers at MIT-AI, info-micro at MIT-AI cc: katz at USC-ISIF, bboard at USC-ISIB At the Planetary Society's Planetfest this past week, JPL had a really neat display. It seems that they are taking about 90,000 of the pictures taken by both Viking spacecraft (and orbiters) of Mars, and the Voyager pictures of Jupiter, its moons, Saturn, and its moons (and including "movie" sequences of images) and are putting all this on ONE videodisk, which will be availible to anyone for about $25 or so. The disk they had there had "only" about 42,000 images, including the blue movie of the circulation around the red spot (a video disk can hold 108,000 frames, and they are putting one image per frame). You can randomly access any frame. They are using an apple to control the videodisk player and to access information about each image from a PDP 11. Just imagine having access to all those pictures in your own home whenever you want!! I told them they ought to put Landsat pictures on another disk, so that you could essentially get pictures of anywhere on Earth for any 18-day period over the past 10 or 15 years. (They said that they didnt have anything to do with Landsat, but maybe I should suggest this to those that do). The facility doing this and their address and phone is: Planetary Image Facility Building 264, Room 115 Jet Propulsion Laboratory 4800 Oak Grove Drive Pasadena, CA 91103 Alan ------- ------- ------------------------------ Date: 28 Aug 1981 1806-PDT From: Alan R. Katz Subject: Planetfest 81 and Voyager II To: space at MIT-MC, sf-lovers at MIT-AI cc: katz at USC-ISIF I have just spent this past week at the Planetary Society's Planetfest and at JPL watching the results of the Voyager II flyby of Saturn. I thought I'd mention some of the things that have been happening. First of all Planetfest was an incredible success, with, I would say about 5-10 K people there. They had exhibits, art exhibits, movies, and talks by people like Bradbury, Roddenbury, Beggs (admin of NASA, his talk was sent out over AP, and reprinted in a previous SPACE digest), Murrey, Sagan, and others. They had a display where they are taking many of the Voyager and Viking pictures and putting them on a videodisk (see my earlier message). Also, they had a working remote controlled Mars rover. They had the photos coming in from Voyager II being displayed on monitors and also on a very large projection TV in a big auditorium. They even had a performance of one of the act's of Bradbury's Martian Chronicles. There were tables representing many of the space groups (Delta Vee, OASIS, BIS, etc) and many companies (Rockwell had talks and movies about the Shuttle including a really great new movie which is narrated by Crippen and Young and has no other music or narration on the first Shuttle flight). The high point of the Planetfest was a panel discussion on Tue. night. There was about 2500-3000 people there, far more than I've seen at similar panels. The panelists were: Ray Bradbury, Carl Sagan, Bruce Murray, Gene Roddenbury, and Ted Koppel of ABC's Nightline show. The panel started at 7:30, but without Sagan, who was at the Blue Room at JPL. Then, at 7:50, Ted Koppel got in a car to go to JPL's press area. The discussion went on until about 8:30 (which is 11:30 EDT) when Bradbury and Murray left to go to another room at Planetfest where ABC was set up. This left Roddenbury there to keep everyone entertained for a few minutes. At 8:30, Nightline comes on live, and we see it on the big projection TV. Ted Koppel is reporting from the press area at JPL, Sagen is in the Blue Room at JPL, Murrey and Bradbury are at Planetfest, and also in the show is the President's Science advisor and Sen. Proxmire. I hope many of you saw that show, it was fantastic. It basically addressed the question of where do we go from here and how come there isn't any money to continue planetary exploration. Also, of course was why there are three countries sending probes to Halley's comet, but we are not. Everyone gave a great show, and perhaps swayed some public support towards space. Proxmire was his usual self although he did emphisize that this program did not deserve a Golden Fleece award, its just that the planets will be there "for thousands of years" and that there is really "no hurry to explore them, we can do it in another generation." After the show was over, Koppel and Sagan get back in a car and come back to Planetfest (which was about 12 miles away) for the last half hour of the panel. The audience got quite rowdy at times, and were all extremely pro space, something I found really exciting. Also, the Planetary Society has about 80,000 members and expects about 100,000 by the end of the year, which makes it the fastest growing organization of any kind. I don't really want to say much about what is going on at JPL, because by the time you get this, the information will be out of date, and its on PBS and the news. Although the platform arm is still not working correctly, they think it is working well enough to resume taking pictures. They see no reason not to be able to carry out a Uranus mission in Jan, 1986. (One the buttons everyone is whereing says Goodbye Saturn, but when you turn it over, it becomes Hello Uranus; the Uranus is Saturn upside down.) Anyway, lots of neat pictures have been coming in. They will be going past Phoebe on Sep 4 which ought to be interesting since we have no good pictures of that moon and Voyager I didn't get any pictures of it. On to Uranus! Alan ------- ------------------------------ Date: 28 Aug 1981 2101-PDT From: Alan R. Katz Subject: Hot Voyager II Press Release To: sf-lovers at MIT-AI, space at MIT-MC cc: katz at USC-ISIF, bboard at USC-ISIB The following press release appeared at the JPL press room today: Alan FAULTRONIC PRESS RELEASE Faultronics Systems, of Pasadena, California is responsible for designing the failure of the Voyager 2 scan platform. Azimuthal rotation of the scan platform is inhibited to permit Voyager to produce high-resolution photographs of its primary target, empty space, without blemishes caused by ugly planets, satellites, rings, etc. This is of crucial importance for the Voyager mission because, as Senator William Proxmire stated recently, "Those planets will be there for a long long time." Like its sister spacecraft, Voyager 1, Voyager 2's scan platform is equipped with a custom designed gremlin, manufacured within strict tolerance limits and engineered to exceed the planned lifetime of the spacecraft. The gremlin presented a formidable challenge to Faultronics engineers in that, due to Voyager's unique operating environment, it had to be constructed to be highly resistant to fault detection. Faultronics also manufactures failure systems for medfly eradication and is a major contractor for the United States government. ------- ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 30-Aug-81 0402 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #178 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 178 Today's Topics: VOYAGER and friends ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 29 Aug 1981 0520-PDT From: Stuart McLure Cracraft To: space at MIT-MC cc: pourne at MIT-MC !n545 0355 29 Aug 81 BC-JPL-2takes-08-29 ADVANCE FOR SUNDAY By William Hines (c) 1981 Chicago Sun-Times (Field News Service) PASADENA, Calif. - As Voyager 2 heads away from Saturn and into a 53-month period of silence far out in the solar system, the question of the future - if any - of deep-space missions haunts the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. There seems to be no doubt the lab will have a piece of the action if America has a future in deep space. But ample grounds exist for wondering if there is any such future worth talking about. JPL had a leading role in the U.S. space program from the beginning. It was this laboratory (then under Army control) that put together the 31-pound Explorer 1, America's belated successful entry in the space race. A picture of rocket expert Wernher von Braun, JPL Director William H. Pickering and physicist James A. Van Allen, of Van Allen belt fame, is a classic memento of the early Space Age. The date was Feb. 1, 1958; the place, the National Academy of Sciences in Washington; the occasion, Explorer 1's successful completion of its first orbit of Earth. Since then, JPL has opened the solar system to human exploration. Its credits include fly-bys, orbiting flights and landings on six bodies in the solar system (Mercury, Venus, the Earth's moon, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn). Its futures book contains two more planetary visits - to Uranus and Neptune - by Voyager 2, which cruised past Saturn last week. But what is this $253 million engineering complex on a California hillside going to do for an encore? As much as a budget-conscious administration will allow it to do, certainly; nowhere near as much as technologists here would like to do if they could. Without a trace of false modesty, the present director, Bruce Murray, calls his lab the unrivaled center of ''world-class engineering,'' the pinnacle of U.S. technology. There is precious little on the lab's plate these days, and what is there has been trimmed and delayed by factors beyond the control of anyone here. Far more than anything else, the multibillion-dollar space shuttle is responsible for the low estate to which the interplanetary space effort has fallen. This is ironic, because the promise of the shuttle was low-cost rocket power that would make all kinds of space programs easy and cheap. It hasn't turned out that way. JPL-based projects have been delayed, cut back and even eliminated because the shuttle needed more money, or couldn't lift the promised weight into deep space, or both. As a result, a spacecraft that should have been launched toward Jupiter in January, 1982, to do prolonged exploration of that planet and its moon system, will not be launched until 1986, '87 or '88. What is left of this project, called Galileo, is less ambitious than was planned five years ago. A Venus-orbiting radar explorer has likewise been delayed for several years. And the U.S. half of an international program to explore the sun's polar regions has disappeared. Murray, in an interview last week, bluntly termed promises made for the shuttle ''a fake,'' and said whatever other case could be made for the big airplane-like spacecraft, ''it's a lousy way to launch interplanetary payloads.'' Pickering, Murray's predecessor as lab director, agrees the National Aeronautics and Space Administration made a mistake by forcing shuttle launchings on the managers of the interplanetary program. Like Murray, he prefers old-fashioned, non-reusable rockets. Director from 1954 to 1976 and now retired, Pickering supervised the early successes and failures through which JPL evolved into the world-class center it is today. Its triumphs in Pickering's time included eight unmanned moon landings; three Mars fly-bys; one orbital mission around Mars, and two fl ghts past Venus, one of which went on to visit Mercury not once but three times. Pickering also was in charge when the Viking Mars landers were built and launched, but had left by the time they landed. And, of course, he supervised the first four years of Voyager development that culminated in twin launchings in the summer of 1977. Clearly, Pickering is entitled to his opinion about launching spacecraft. His argument for using expendable rockets goes this way: ''I don't have to worry about launching from a moving platform in space; I have a good, solid launching site in Florida. ''Sure, I need a bigger booster rocket instead of just upper stages, but I have a feeling that as long as we're dealing with spacecraft of about the size we use now - in the neighborhood of 1 ton - our booster technology is in pretty good shape. ''Perhaps we'd be better off to continue to exploit that technology rather than go off in this new (shuttle) direction.'' (MORE) nyt-08-29-81 0657edt ********** !n546 0402 29 Aug 81 BC-JPL-1stadd-08-29 X X X NEW (SHUTTLE) DIRECTION.'' Pickering and Murray are confident the lab will survive in some form, but many of those who work here have qualms about just what form. Murray said publicly last week that as interplanetary space activity cools, JPL will take on increased work for the military. Under the military-oriented Reagan administration, this is the survival instinct at work. But does it not raise the possibility of military domination of a facility that has become great doing science largely for science's sake? Murray says no, and Pickering agrees. Both express confidence that JPL can control the force of military demands, and will be able to do only the things it really wishes to do. ''People at CalTech (which manages JPL for NASA for a fee of $6.6 million a year) are very concerned about that,'' Murray said in an interview. ''There's a valid issue abou JP BV S ALSO FOR BEING PART OF A PRIVATE UNIVERSITY IN PEACETIME. I'm not saying how I feel personally, but as an issue it needs to be addressed.'' The unquestioned and unparalleled excellence of the U.S. interplanetary space program stems from the initiative of scientists here; it is not something that someone else dreamed up and handed to JPL to execute. Whether such imaginative folk will be inclined to weather a half-decade or more of doldrums remains to be seen. The team that built and flew trail-blazing spacecraft for almost a quarter-century could not be easily re-assembled if its members drifted apart. The so-far triumphant flight of Voyager 2 through outer space is an outgrowth of a CalTech graduate student's discovery that a rare conjunction of outer planets in the 1970s would make it possible to explore the entire solar system beyond the asteroid belt using a single spacecraft. This developed into a program proposal called ''The Grand Tour,'' which had to be done about now or not at all until the middle of the 22nd century. Grand Tour didn't get off the ground, but a less ambitious Voyager version did. Launched in July and September, 1977, the twin Voyager spacecraft studied the mini-solar systems of Jupiter and Saturn in detail. Then Voyager 1 went north out of the solar system while Voyager 2 headed toward Uranus and Neptune. Pluto, the fifth target of the Grand Tour, will not be visited at any time in the near future. JPL planners have developed a ''wish list'' that envisions deep-space explorations as far in the future as 2004. To which Murray just laughs. ''It's very good to do planning, but a long-range plan doesn't exist. There is no U.S. future in space,'' he said. Lest that sound overly pessimistic, Murray explains that a future in space comes into being when politicians in Washington approve specific projects. And approvals these days are few and far between. It is a telling commentary on a once-vigorous space program that the next big newsmaker from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory will not occur for almost 4 1/2 years: the flight of Voyager 2 past the distant planet Uranus. END nyt-08-29-81 0704edt ********** ------- ------------------------------ Date: 30 August 1981 01:21-EDT From: Jerry E. Pournelle To: SPACE at MIT-MC COMSAT@MIT-MC 08/30/81 01:20:48 Error in input request file. Parsing error: EOF before attribute finished. Line stopped at is: Message not sent and not queued; text of bad file follows: ------- FROM-PROGRAM:RMAIL FROM-XUNAME:POURNE FROM-UNAME:POURNE AUTHOR:POURNE RCPT:(SPACE@MC) SUBJECT:VOYAGER and friends TEXT;-1 The planetary soceity concert with John Williams conducting was an enormous success, with most of the JPL mission staff present; the reception afterwards had Jerry Brown and entourage, several congresscritters, and even a county supervisor (it is a little known fact that an LA county supervisor is one of the most powerful officials in the world, answerable to damn few). Interest in space was apparrent. The NET is very flakey tonight and I keep getting glitches in what I send. More another time. Thanks for all the responses to earlier imbecilities. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 31-Aug-81 0402 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #179 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 179 Today's Topics: Planetfest 81 and Voyager II ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 30 August 1981 17:45-EDT From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Planetfest 81 and Voyager II To: KATZ at USC-ISIF cc: SPACE at MIT-MC, sf-lovers at MIT-AI I liked Carl Sagan's rebuttal to Proxmire's claim -- sure the planets will be around for billions of years, but we might not. We need to get out to space, get the overall perspective, and try hard to survive, before it's too late. (Note, that's not a quote or even a paraphrase, more like my interpretation of the gist of Sagan's statement.) ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 01-Sep-81 0402 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #180 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 180 Today's Topics: SPACE Digest V1 #178 [VOYAGER and friends] My Favortie Rings But what do we do for an Encore? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 31 August 1981 23:24-EDT From: Ian G. Macky Subject: SPACE Digest V1 #178 [VOYAGER and friends] To: SPACE at MIT-MC Do I believe my eyes...? Since then, JPL has opened the solar system to human exploration. Its credits include fly-bys, orbiting flights and landings on six bodies in the solar system (Mercury, Venus, the Earth's moon, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn). ^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^ ...just precisely HOW do you land on a gas giant? ------------------------------ Date: 30 Aug 1981 0000-PDT From: POURNE@MC To: space at MIT-MC The planetary soceity concert with John Williams conducting was an enormous success, with most of the JPL mission staff present; the reception afterwards had Jerry Brown and entourage, several congresscritters, and even a county supervisor (it is a little known fact that an LA county supervisor is one of the most powerful officials in the world, answerable to damn few). Interest in space was apparrent. The NET is very flakey tonight and I keep getting glitches in what I send. More another time. Thanks for all the responses to earlier imbecilities. ------------------------------ Date: 01 Sep 1981 0232-PDT From: Ted Anderson Subject: My Favortie Rings To: space at MIT-MC n097 1944 30 Aug 81 BC-ART-08-31 By William Hines (c) 1981 Chicago Sun-Times (Field News Service) PASADENA, Calif.-As Voyager 2 bade farewell to Saturn and set out through uncharted space toward Uranus, science gave way to art in the minds of some who have been following the spacecraft's progress. Ernest Franzgrote, a member of the systems technology and advanced projects group at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, drew a design that has become Voyager's unofficial logo. Looked at right side up, the logo reads ''Goodbye Saturn.'' Turned upside down, it reads ''Hello Uranus''-the planet that Voyager will pass in January, 1986, en route to Neptune in August, 1989. Meanwhile, M. Mitchell Waldrop, a reporter for Science magazine, turned songwriter and summarized the Voyager findings about Saturn's rings in lyrics to be sung to the tune of ''My Favorite Things'' (footnotes give a fuller explanation for those who have not followed the Voyager mission closely): Shepherds herd F-rings (1) with never a breather, Cassini's not empty and Encke's (2) not either, Spokes (3) race around borne on magnetic wings (4), Saturn's got some of my favorite rings! Where are the moonlets (5) and where are the braidlets? (60) Whatever happened to apsidal wavelets? (7) Jovian magnetotail (8), where is thy sting? Yes, Saturn's got some of my favorite rings! Funding cutbacks! Canceled missions! (9) Shuttle's (10) driving me mad! But then I remember my favorite rings, And then I don't feel so bad! 1) The faint F-rings, discovered in 1979, were found by Voyager 1 to be kept in place by the gravitational influence of two small moons that have been termed ''shepherding satellites.'' 2) The Cassini and Encke divisions in Saturn's ring system have been found not to be empty, as Earth-based observations suggested before Voyagers 1 and 2 got to Saturn and got a really close look. 3) Strange features in Saturn's bright B-ring that are radial instead of circular, and sweep around Saturn as the rings rotate, have been named ''spokes.'' 4) The spokes are believed to be created by magnetic influences on extremely fine dust particles in the rings. 5) The complex structure of Saturn's rings revealed by Voyager 1 was thought to be caused by gravitational action of small moons embedded in the rings, but Voyager 2 showed that these assumed moonlets do not exist. 6) Pictures from Voyager 1 indicated that the F-ring was ''braided'' in some fashion that scientists could not explain, but Voyager 2 showed that the braiding was a photographic illusion. 7) Before Voyager, theory suggested that the rings would be pulled into an elliptical shape by the gravity of distant moons, and that this would be noticeable as little disturbances in the rings at points called the apsides. This was not seen. 8) Voyager 2 discovered that the long, cometlike tail of planet Jupiter's powerful magnetic field extends over 400 million miles, well beyond the orbit of Saturn, at times engulfing that planet. But the ''Jovian mag-netotail'' seems to have no influence on Saturn, its rings or its moons. 9) Reagan administration economies have reduced funding for space and several projected missions have been canceled or delayed. 10) The space shuttle, which will make its second flight in October, is widely blamed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for causing the ''funding cutbacks (and) canceled missions.'' END nyt-08-30-81 2245edt *************** ------------------------------ Date: 01 Sep 1981 0233-PDT From: Ted Anderson Subject: But what do we do for an Encore? To: space at MIT-MC n096 1936 30 Aug 81 BC-STAR-08-31 By William Hines (c) 1981 Chicago Sun-Times (Field News Service) PASADENA, Calif. - Uranus in 1986 and Neptune in 1989 are the only heavenly bodies that Voyager 2 is likely to encounter for the next third of a million years or so. Charles E. Kohlhase, who plotted the trajectories of both Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory here, said Sunday that Voyager 2 will pass within 1.2 light years (7,200,000,000,000 million miles) of an obscure star called Ross 248 in the constellation Andromeda about 40,000 years after leaving the solar system. A more spectacular encounter would occur 328,000 years later when the spacecraft passes within 4,800,000,000,000 miles of Sirius, the brightest star in the heavens, he added. Kohlhase said that because Ross 248 emits periodic bursts of high-energy radiation and Sirius is part of a double-star system, neither is likely to support life. Voyager 1, which passed Saturn last November and headed northward out of the solar system, is more likely to encounter life, Kohlhase noted. Its next encounter, also in 40,000 years, will be with a star called AC793888 in the constellation Camelopardis, at a distane of 1.6 light years (9,600,000,000,000 miles). This star, Kohlhase said, is an ''aging'' object about one-third the size of our sun and is a ''good candidate'' for the distinction of possessing a life-supporting planet. END nyt-08-30-81 2238edt *************** ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 02-Sep-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #181 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 181 Today's Topics: Jupiter's magnetotail Clipping Service - A Night on A Bear Mountain ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 1 September 1981 1149-EDT (Tuesday) From: David.Smith at CMU-10A (C410DS30) To: space at mit-mc Subject: Jupiter's magnetotail Message-Id: <01Sep81 114902 DS30@CMU-10A> If the Saturnian system was not affected by the Jovian magnetotail, was that because it wasn't in the magnetotail, or because its own magnetic environment is too strong? ------------------------------ Date: 31 August 1981 19:53 edt From: Schauble.Multics at MIT-Multics Subject: Clipping Service - A Night on A Bear Mountain To: space at MIT-AI Warning -- The following message is long. Reading without adequate preparation may be hazardous to your mailer. [This item captures the atmosphere (?) of present observational astronomy so well, I think it deserves to be reproduced -- PLS] From the Friday, August 28, 1981, edition of the Phoenix Gazette, by Jon Franklin, Field News Service. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Drama After Dark Astronomers beg for a night at Kitt Peak "Its 156-inch mirror is so powerful that, if pointed toward New York City, it would allow astronomers to read the newsprint as it rolled off the presses in the New York Daily News building." -------------------- Kitt Peak, Arizona -- The mountain rises sharply out of the Sonora Desert and the road to the summit winds back and forth, back and forth, skirting the cliffs and crossing the passes. The air thins. The government van groans and rattles as the driver downshifts. The astronomers in the rear of the van are silent, preoccupied. Some have come halfway around the world for one or two precious nights on the mountain, and the thoughts that absorb them are not related to the stark beauty of the Arizona terrain. As the vehicle lurched around the hairpin turns, some of the scientists cradle odd-shaped instruments in their arms, protecting them from the vibrations of the van. Some of the instruments are squarish, with round protuberances, and others are roundish, with square protuberances. They have dials and small wires. Each instrument is identified with a stenciled name, like "Herman" or "Sally". Finally the van tops a high pass and, for the first time, the glittering white domes come into full view. The Mayall telescope, rising 20 stories above the granite summit, dominates the other, lesser domes that lie scattered along the mile-high ridge. The van loops around the Mayall telescope and follows the road back along the ridge, finally stopping in front of the administrative and dormitory complex. The astronomers disembark carefully, clutching their instruments. The look uneasily at the sky. It's clear ... but is it clear enough? Is that a quickening wind? Will it blow dust? Will this be a lucky night, or will they go home with nothing? Here at Kitt Peak National Observatory, the odds against atmospheric distortion are relatively high: 50-50. For the astronomers on the van, that's not good enough. On the other hand, their odds are better than at most other observatories, and astronomers are beggers, not choosers. They carry their instruments inside and lay them carefully on the beds. The instruments safe, they return for their bags. The astronomers applied for their few precious telescope hours by means of a complex request to the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy. That group farmed out the request to a committee of top scientists. For each successful request to use the big Mayall telescope, three others are rejected. After they unpack, the astronomers congregate for the walk to the mess hall, worrying to one another. The wind is definately coming up, and the weatherman says snow. Snow! Damn the weatherman, damn the snow, damn the atmosphere. A maintenance man tells the group that, after years on the mountain, he's quit believing in weathermen. His comment gives the scientists cause to hope. If the maintenance man is right, the odds are high that one of the scientists will discover something tonight ... probably by accident. The universe is so poorly explored, and the Kitt Peak telescopes are so powerful, that with the approval of the committee and a night of clear air, every astronomer is a discoverer. Kitt Peak's collection of telescopes and instruments may represent the most sophisticated optical astronomy installation anywhere in the world. Though a 50-50 chance of good seeing seems small, astronomers searched for years before settling on this specific peak, high in the clear air of southern Arizona. Observatory experts say the seeing here is as good, or better than, anywhere on Earth. The rub is that nowhere on Earth is the seeing good. Since the days of Galileo, it's been atmospheric conditions and not telescope size that has limited scientists' chances of understanding stars, nebula, galaxies, quasars, and the universe they compose. Galileo, the first man to point a telescope at the heavens, didn't have much trouble. But he was using a small, low-powered telescope, just big enough to reveal the craters of the moon and the moons of Jupiter. That was enough to get him excommunicated by the Catholic Church, but the real science would come later, with bigger and better telescopes, like the 156 inch Mayall reflector atop the Kitt Peak capstone. As the early astronomers build ever larger telescopes, they encountered two problems that never have been adequately solved. First, the faraway objects those telescopes were built to find were vastly dimmer than the moon and planets. Seen directly through the eyepiece, most of the universe is too dim to register on the human retina. As telescopes grew more powerful, the only way an astronomer could really see what his instrument was pointing at was to take a photograph using a long time exposure. The astronomer who wants to take a photograph of a dust nebula in the Milky Way, for instance, may need to spend the entire precious night for that one time exposure. And if the night is interrupted by a rainstorm, he will return home with nothing. Worse, telescopes capable of magnifying a quasar to a detectable size also magnify the air above the telescope. If the upper atmosphere is turbulent, it becomes a smear of light when viewed through a medium-sized telescope. If the stars are twinkling, a large telescope is useless. And the Mayall telescope is very large. Its 156 inch mirror is so powerful that, if pointed toward New York City, it would allow astronomers to read the newsprint as it rolled off the presses in the New York Daily News building. The telescope is so powerful that it can produce photographs of galaxies so far away that the light it captures began its trip before the sun was born. On the other hand, it is so sensitive that a brisk breeze, by distorting the air, can wipe that galaxy out of the sky and leave the astronomer with nothing but a smudge of light for a cold night's effort. Historically, the astronomers' quest for bigger telescopes has led to a more mundane search for ever better seeing conditions in increasingly high and remote areas. In the early 1950's, before beginning construction of a national observatory, experts studied the mountains of California, Colorado, and Arizona, looking for the calmest air and the clearest weather. California air they rejected quickly, and later they decided that Colorado, despite the ski resorts, wouldn't do. When the choice narrowed to two mountain ranges in Arizona, the astronomers mounted small, remotely controlled telescopes at each site so the quality of the seeing could be monitored. A white tower that contained one such battery of instruments is still visible on the north flank of Kitt Peak. Though this mountaintop was the best they found, it still wasn't good enough, and it still wasn't really 50-50. Astronomers developed sophisticated instruments to minimize the dancing of the images and to extract information from distorted light. Only in that fashion could they even the odds. As they drink their coffee and await the night, the astronomers worry aloud, but that is not the same thing as complaining. Optical astronomy is a lottery. They learned to accept that as graduate students. "It boils down to luck," muses one of the waiting scientists. "Sure you have good questions. But when it comes down to what you see, there's so little time, so little is known, the seeing is so unpredictable .. you can find anything. "If you get enough telescope time, you'll discover something important, and you know that, so you keep writing proposals and begging for time and when you get it your're embarrassingly greatful." Logically, the astronomers might sleep as the await the night, but most settle for catnaps as they check and recheck their instruments. The mountain maintenance men issue down-filled parkas and reassure the astronomers about the fallibility of meteorologists. Sunsets are spectacular in the Sonora Desert, and this evening is a classic, with smears of red, orange, purple, and brown dominating the western sky. But the beauty brings baleful stares from the astronomers. A pretty sunset means there is dust in the air, and damn the dust, and damn the air, and let it be pretty some other night. The sunset disappears as the sky turns to dark blue, then black. The instruments like Herman and Sally are attached to the telescopes now, and jacketed with liquid nitrogen to keep their delicate electronic innards static-free. Wisps of fog from the vaporizing collant drift through the observatories, mingling with the foggy breath of the astronomers. Now, finally, the big domes grind around on steel rails and the shutters clatter open. Hand-me-down jeeps and pickups that once served the Army now chug back and forth between the domes, moving without lights, slowly, their drivers leaning over the steering wheels for a surer view of the white centerline that will keep them clear of the cliff's edge. Inside the Mayall dome, dim amber bulbs outline the stairsteps and handholds. The clock motors whine softly as the delicately balanced telescope searches for a star. In a high, warm, computerized control room, the astronomer paces, and his sense of humor begins to erode. Fog has been reported in the valley. Damn the fog. The telescope operator gives computerized instructions to the big instrument and dome, avoiding conversaton with the touchy scientist. It's not the technician's fault. He's responsible for the telescope, not the weather. Kitt Peak hands the keys of the smaller telescopes over to the visiting astronomers, but the big Mayall is too complex to be trusted to outsiders. The Mayall is worth millions, and can't be replaced, and if the visiting astronomer needs to do something with his hands, he is free to bite his fingernails. Outside, on a narrow catwalk that runs around the Mayall dome 18 stories above the peak, an astronomer grips the frigid railing to steady himself against the wind. His eyes go up, to the clear, hard stars, and then down, to the valley below. There is fog, all right, and it's crawling up the passes. Inside, the clock ticks away the minutes, Universal Time, and a computer printer chatters in the background. The astronomer collapses into an ancient, high-backed chair, patched with silver duct tape. A television monitor shows the starfield in reverse, black dots on a white field. As the telescope moves in response to the operator's fingers on the keyboard, crosshairs settle on the star that the astronomer came to study. Is that the dome howling?? When the wind makes the dome howl it is observatory policy to shut down. No, that noise is something else, something routine from the innards of the dome, a hydraulic sound, nothing to worry about. Quit worrying, the operator says, calm down, cool it. The astronomer rocks in the chair and glares at the metal wall. How about the fog? Where's the damn fog?? The operator's fingers play across the computer keypad. The operator doesn't reply. The light from the star streams through the slit in the dome and down the open latticework that supports the lenses, mirror, and instruments. It bounces off the 156-inch main mirror and is reflected upwards, then downwards, then sideways, focusing finally into a small opening in the precious instrument the astronomer brought with him. In the innards of the computer, the magnetic data pack whirrs. The astronomer stares at the numbers flicking across the readout windows. Few astronomers use film any more. Instruments like Sally and Herman collect data instead, and the astronomer takes it home with him to analyze, and to find out if he discovered anything on purpose or by accident. It's a race now, with the fog. The fog climbs the passes and the numbers flicker. The astronomer is focused on the numbers, absorbed by them. He seems not to breathe. For the moment, the seeing is good, the stars are hard, and the numbers feed onto the precious tape and the precious seconds tick away their Universal Time and the telescope motors whir as the big mirror tracks the star. A private thought flickers through the astronomer's mind, and he grins. Outside, the fog climbs. The operator's telephone rings and he picks it up and listens. The fog has reached the base of the observatory. "OK," the operator says. He delays, for the moment, relaying the information to the astronomer. The numbers play across the monitors. The astronomer sits, transfixed. Occasionally, the operator touches the keyboard. The telephone rings again. the operator listens, and hangs up. "Fog," he says, and his fingers play across the board. The dome responds instantly, gears grinding as the shutter rattles across the big slit. The numbers stop flowing and the astronomer jumps up. Just a few more minutes?? Thirty seconds??? Inside each minuscule droplet of fog, there is a mote of dust. If the fog settles onto the mirror, the dust will remain when the water evaporates, and the mirror will have to be cleaned. It can only be cleaned once or twice before the telescope must be shut down, the mirror removed, and the surface retreated. A few more minutes, come on, just a moment more? "Over my dead body," says the operator. The astronomer stands, stares at the wall for a moment, and shrugs. It is a lottery, and he lost. Perhaps the numbers already collected will be enough, perhaps there will be something unexpected ... at least he won't return with nothing. He shrugs. The universe will be there next year. Maybe he can get more time. Damn the fog. All down the ridge the observatory domes close, protecting the mirrors from the night fog and the grit it contains. The astronomers sit and fidget. Damn the fog. Maybe it will lift. Several of the astronomers navigate the dark night roads toward the mess hall, to console themselves with mugs of cocoa and badly chipped bowls of chicken soup. The conversation piece is the universe. Are there planets around other stars? Is there a huge black hole in the center of the Milky Way? How do new suns form in the dust clouds, and how do old ones die? Are quasars really distant and old? Or are they close, and small, and violent? How did the universe begin, and how will it end? Will it keep expanding, until there is nothing but space? Or will the atoms that make up the observatory, the astronomers, the mountain, and the Earth, and the stars, and the galaxies come flying together with unthinkable force to generate another big bang? The universe is so large, and time is so long, and astronomers live so briefly and damn the fog. In the morning, by tradition, the big domes swing around to face the rising sun. The operators power down the computers and the scientists drain the liquid nitrogen out of their instruments. Droplets of the nitrogen skitter, boiling across the cold observatory floor. The van parks by the dormitory, and the astronomers wait for the passengers to disembark. Despite the fog, they tell each other, they salvaged something. A photograph, or a few million bits of data, or, sitting in front of a cup of coffee, an idea. Last night's observers watch, enviously, as tonight's observers climb out of the van. Then last night's observers get aboard and fasten their seat belts. The van moves forward into a U-turn, loops around the Mayall dome and grinds down the mountain in second gear. The astronomers travel in silence, ignoring the unearthly saguaro cactus and the gnarled mesquite. For a while, the Mayall dome is visible, as a speck of white atop the receding mountains. Finally, it disappears in the distance. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 03-Sep-81 0402 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #182 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 182 Today's Topics: article about Kitt Peak Re: SPACE Digest V1 #181 Kit Peak ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 2 Sep 1981 1020-PDT From: John Redford Subject: article about Kitt Peak To: space at MIT-MC cc: icl.redford at SU-SCORE No, the 156 inch Mayall telescope could not read the newprint as it came off the presses in New York. The minimum resolution of a telescope (in radians) is about l/D where D is the diameter of the telescope and l is the wavelength of the light that it's using. In order to read letters three millimeters high three thousand kilometers away the telescope mirror would have to be about 500 meters across (with visible light). ------- ------------------------------ Date: 2 Sep 1981 10:30 PDT From: Lynn.ES at PARC-MAXC Subject: Re: SPACE Digest V1 #181 In-reply-to: Schauble.Multics's message of 31 August 1981 19:53 edt To: SPACE@MIT-MC cc: Lynn.es Let's not get too carried away. The maximum resolution of a 156 inch mirror, ignoring atmospheric distortion, at the distance of New York from Arizona is about 1 1/2 feet. They must use very large print on the Daily News. I think exciting articles like this are great for promoting astronomical interest, but I wish they would be more accurate. When the public discovers glaring errors, they may lose interest. /Don ------------------------------ From: JMTURN@MIT-AI Date: 09/02/81 23:33:23 Subject: Kit Peak JMTURN@MIT-AI 09/02/81 23:33:23 Re: Kit Peak To: space at MIT-MC And you wondered why they're so hyped about the Space Telescope... James ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 05-Sep-81 0402 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #183 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 183 Today's Topics: Another one bites the dust..... Kitt Peak article Phoebe My Favortie Rings Speculations on F-ring brading ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 04 Sep 1981 1006-PDT From: Tom Wadlow Subject: Another one bites the dust..... To: space at MIT-MC One of the more prominent space advocacy groups, Delta Vee, is no more. Apparently, the entire Board of Directors resigned earlier this week. I don't know exactly why all this happened, but there are rumors that there has been some hanky-panky with the Viking and Halley Fund money on the part of the President and Executive officers. Delta Vee, as you may recall, was a non-profit corporation formed to oversee the Viking and Halley Fund. Sigh... Ad Astra..I guess, -- Tom ------------------------------ Date: 4 Sep 1981 1207-CDT From: Clyde Hoover Subject: Kitt Peak article To: space at MIT-MC The hyperbolae about the telescope resolution aside, it was an excellent article.. just the kind to spark public attention to the reality of scientific research and perhaps dispell the folds of legend and stereotyping around the astronomer. ------- ------------------------------ Date: 04 Sep 1981 1531-PDT From: Tom Wadlow To: space at MIT-MC a236 1437 04 Sep 81 AM-Voyager-Saturn, Bjt,550 Saturn's Most Distant Moon May Be Captured Comet By KATHY HORAK Associated Press Writer PASADENA, Calif. (AP) - Voyager 2, taking the first closeup photos of Saturn's most distant moon, provides fresh evidence that dark Phoebe may be a captured comet, scientists said Friday. The photos show the moon rotating backwards compared with the planet's other 16 moons, strengthening existing theories that Saturn's gravitational pull may have pulled a comet off course and into orbit, Jet Propulsion Laboratory spokesman Alan Wood said. The photos of Phoebe are the last that Voyager 2 will transmit to Earth until December 1985, when the one-ton craft takes the first close look at Uranus. But Wood said data already received from Saturn and several other of its moons will take scientists quite a while to figure out. At its closest encounter with Phoebe, at 10:51 p.m. EDT Friday, Voyager would be within 1.3 million miles of it before continuing on to Uranus and finally Neptune in 1989. The craft was 6.025 million miles beyond Saturn at 3 p.m. Friday, Wood said. The first photos of Phoebe - orbiting 8.047 million miles from the ringed planet - arrived here at 11:59 p.m. EDT Thursday; the last were to be transmitted at 12:13 a.m. Saturday. Wood said they were ''not the clearest images in the world'' and will require computer processing to reveal details of the 90-mile-diameter moon. Phoebe's small size and great distance foiled instantly clear images, Wood said. ''They can tell they're seeing features there. You would expect them to be impact layers of one kind or another, but we really don't know what the surface is like yet,'' he said. Voyager's rotating camera platform, which had jammed as the craft passed behind Saturn on Aug. 25, has been working smoothly since engineers freed it by high-torque swiveling, he said. The problem had threatened to cancel the Phoebe fly-by. But scientists plan a barrage of tests on the 266-pound platform beginning next Tuesday to ensure full operation above Uranus. Wood said it now appears a mechanical problem caused the platform to stick, rather than collisions with space debris. ''It seems similar to the problem with the platform on Voyager 1, which got stuck but eventually worked out with use,'' he said. ''Foreign matter seems to be stuck in the gear box - perhaps a piece of cloth.'' Engineers should be certain of the problem by Wednesday, he said. Phoebe's composition could help explain the two-tone color of another Saturn moon, Iapetus. ''One of the theories about the black color on the leading edge of Iapetus is that material could come from material blasted off Phoebe,'' Wood said. ''If it turns out that Phoebe is indeed the dark body it appears, that would be good source for debris.'' Voyager 2's sister ship, Voyager 1, did not photograph Phoebe when it passed Saturn three years ago because the moon's distance prompted scientists to concentrate on ''other priorities,'' Wood said. Voyager 2's cameras could photograph Phoebe once every 25 minutes, generating 300 photos during the 25-hour rendezvous. But Wood said they shared transmitting time with other instruments so the total number of images would be less than that. ''A light-measuring instrument that measures amount of light bouncing off Phoebe from the sun will tell us something about the nature of the surface, and temperature readings will also help. But right now it (Phoebe) looks very primitive,'' Wood said. ap-ny-09-04 1735EDT *************** ------------------------------ Date: 04 Sep 1981 1531-PDT From: Tom Wadlow Subject: Phoebe To: space at MIT-MC If Phoebe is really a captured comet, then a Saturn orbiter, or an expedition to Phoebe could learn quite a bit about comets without having to actually intercept or chase one. And Saturn is in the neighborhood as well. Sounds like a real win to me!! ------------------------------ Date: 4 September 1981 21:43-EDT From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: My Favortie Rings To: OTA at SU-AI cc: SPACE at MIT-MC The theory that ring(let)s are pulled into ellipses IS true. In the places of lesser ring material, where an individual ringlet can assume its optimal shape, its dynamic-equilibrium (stable orbit) location, without bumping into neighboring ringlets, we HAVE observed a few elliptical ringlets (in the Cassini division I seem to recall). We've even observed clumping of material, possibly into L-4 and L-5 regions (just guessing there). But elsewhere there's so much ring material that there are hundreds of intersecting (colliding) stable orbits, that can't co-exist; the only stable configuration in such regions is a bunch of circular orbits of uniform density, each individual ringlet not quite in its individually-optimum (lowest-energy) state, but the ensemble in the optimum overall state. [My personal theory.] I predict on Uranus where there is less total ring material, hence fewer collisions, thin ringlets will often be noncircular. ------------------------------ Date: 5 September 1981 04:10-EDT From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Speculations on F-ring brading To: SPACE at MIT-MC Attention (reply to a message from) OTA@SU-AI... I wish we could get funding for a Saturn orbiter. The Galileo will sort of include an orbiter as part of the grand plan, but for Saturn there's nothing that I know of planned for 10 years (i.e. the forseeable future), sigh. Remember when Bruce Dern went thru Saturn's rings (just like Voyager did, only morso) in Silent Running? Imagine an orbiter that matches orbit with the rings, maybe with slight inclination so it dips above and below the ring plane crossing with moderately small velocity relative to the ring itself. Wouldn't that be beautiful, seeing all those chunks of ice as it passed thru, and then looking at the ensemble of rings from above and below at other times? I think TV stations would be willing to buy some of it to use for sign-on/off. It'd be great backdrop for space movies. After a few months of this, gradually changing size of orbit (i.e. changing distance from Saturn) to get close looks at ALL the ringlets, it could then orbit and survey the various moons of Saturn. Radar terrain mapping of Titan would be nice too. -- Anybody have a guess how much this would cost? I sure wish we could fund it. Meanwhile, regarding the idea of collecting a sample of lunar-polar material, is this going to be unmanned, i.e. in JPL's ballpark, so we can not only get the important samples but also keep JPL alive so somebody will be around to receive and process the Voyager-2/Uranus data we'll be getting in a few years? ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 06-Sep-81 0402 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #184 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 184 Today's Topics: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 6 September 1981 05:46-EDT From: Robert Elton Maas To: SPACE at MIT-MC Our nation is going to spend at least $15 billion to build a bunch of cruse missiles. Does anybody have on hand an estimate of how much JPL would charge for measuring the water content of some lunar-polar dust and rocks? (Either measure in place, or return samples to Earth, whichever is the best way. I'm assuming unmanned trips of course.) ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 09-Sep-81 0403 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #185 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 185 Today's Topics: Mailing list The demise of Delta-Vee Saturn's ice moons ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 09/08/81 1259-EDT From: GNC at LL Subject: Mailing list To: space @ mit-mc Please add me to your mailing list. My net address is gnc at mit-ll. Thanks, Joe Baldassini ------- ------------------------------ From: BRUC@MIT-ML Date: 09/08/81 14:59:37 Subject: The demise of Delta-Vee BRUC@MIT-ML 09/08/81 14:59:37 Re: The demise of Delta-Vee To: SPACE at MIT-MC It is most discouraging to hear that Delta-Vee has disintegrated. If the cause turns out to be corruption, that's even worse. I sent them $15 to show my support for a Halley's Comet mission, and I'm really upset that it will be for nothing. I hope more definitive information about the handling of their funds comes through so that appropriate action can be taken. Bob Bruccoleri ------------------------------ Date: 8 Sep 1981 2041-EDT From: KING at RUTGERS Subject: Saturn's ice moons To: space at MIT-MC cc: king at RUTGERS A couple of questions occured to me recently: Why is it necessary to resort to collisions to explain cracks in Saturn's moons? If the moon started out liquid, and it froze from the outside in, wouldn't the expansion of the core break open the crust and make these cracks? I know the ice cubes in my freezer crack occasionally during the freezing process. If an ice moon, even only partially frozen, is hit hard enough by a meteorite to make a hole, the water from inside will NOT form a new surface. The surface will float on the core even if it looks like a piece of Swiss cheese. Everyone has seen this on terrestrial lakes. I'm looking foreward to reading replies. ------- ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 10-Sep-81 0402 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #186 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 186 Today's Topics: Ice moon cracks Saturn's moons Saturn's moons (part two) Urgent! Help save the Solar Electric Propulsion System Another one bites the dust..... SEPS Urgent! Help save the Solar Electric Propulsion System ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 9 September 1981 1050-EDT (Wednesday) From: David.Smith at CMU-10A (C410DS30) To: king at rutgers Subject: Ice moon cracks CC: space at mit-mc Message-Id: <09Sep81 105024 DS30@CMU-10A> During the "NASA News Network" coverage of the Voyager 2 flyby, an astronomer described a big crack in one of the ice moons (which one?) which covered a 270 degree arc. He ascribed it to cracking during freezing. ------------------------------ Date: 9 Sep 1981 11:34:26-EDT From: cjh at CCA-UNIX (Chip Hitchcock) To: king at rutgers Subject: Saturn's moons Cc: space at mit-mc It was my impression that none of the moons were made of solid ice (the \\rings// are supposed to be mostly ice, but they're much smaller pieces); it's more a matter of how much water vapor was available to agglomerate around a rocky core. ------------------------------ Date: 9 Sep 1981 11:38:26-EDT From: cjh at CCA-UNIX (Chip Hitchcock) To: king at rutgers Subject: Saturn's moons (part two) Cc: space at mit-mc There is one moon which they are suggesting is a captured comet, but that (as I recall) isn't one of the more spectacularly fissured ones (at that temperature (given that it was something like 8 million miles from Saturn) it probably wouldn't be pure water ice anyway; I'd expect a fair amount of ammonia and/or methane, plus whatever other trash goes into a comet). ------------------------------ Date: 10 September 1981 02:04-EDT From: Richard M. Stallman Subject: Urgent! Help save the Solar Electric Propulsion System To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI, SPACE at MIT-AI Before Friday afternoon (Washington time), call Western Union and ask to send a public opinion telegram to Edward P. Boland, Congressman from Massachusetts, telling him "Support $4million funding for the Solar Electric Propulsion System", or some paraphrase. SEPS will be required for many future space missions requiring lots of impulse but not necessarily quickly. This includes any deep space mission (Halley's Comet?), as well as transfering large payloads between earth orbits. The public opinion telegram costs about two dollars. You can send one even in the middle of the night, and charge it to your home phone. Don't mention that you are an engineer, or that you work with computers, or that you went to college, or any organization you are affiliated with. Politicians are looking for the opinions of the "average man", and discount anyone who they know is educated. Please post this on your own system and tell everyone else where you work. ------------------------------ Date: 10 September 1981 02:45-EDT From: Jerry E. Pournelle Subject: Another one bites the dust..... To: TAW at SU-AI cc: SPACE at MIT-MC I would be very interested in any information on precisely what happened with Delta Vee -- Viking and Halley Funds. This is not idle or morbid curiousity, since Mrs. hubbard has several important projects, one of which at least was to be managed by some of the Delta vee people. I'd not care to be more specific, but I do have a strong need to know. JEP ------------------------------ Date: 10 September 1981 03:25-EDT From: Jerry E. Pournelle Subject: SEPS To: ota at SU-AI cc: SPACE at MIT-MC SEPS was required for the Halley rendezvous mission, but it was not and is not needed for the Halley flyby. However, the Halley flyby needs a go-ahead NOW if it is to happen. JPL MUST begin building spacecraft soon, meaning that before end October they have to know that there is money in next year budget for Halley mission. There probably won't be. But SEPS is irrelevent to Halley mission. SEPS, on the other hand, may be more important in the long run than the Halley mission. It is valuable in its own right. ------------------------------ Date: 10 Sep 1981 0322-PDT From: Ted Anderson To: space at MIT-MC [Correction notice: RMS sent a message to both SPACE and SF-Lovers regarding SEPS. After he sent it an error in it was called to his attention and we agreed on the following for the corrected version to be sent out to SPACE. Thanks, Ted Anderson] Date: 10 September 1981 02:04-EDT From: Richard M. Stallman Subject: Urgent! Help save the Solar Electric Propulsion System To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI, SPACE at MIT-AI Before Friday afternoon (Washington time), call Western Union and ask to send a public opinion telegram to Edward P. Boland, Congressman from Massachusetts, telling him "Support $4million funding for the Solar Electric Propulsion System", or some paraphrase. SEPS will be required for many future space missions requiring lots of impulse but not necessarily quickly. This includes any deep space mission (Halley's Comet?), as well as transfering large payloads between earth orbits. The public opinion telegram costs about two dollars. You can send one even in the middle of the night, and charge it to your home phone. Don't mention that you are an engineer, or that you work with computers, or that you went to college, or any organization you are affiliated with. Politicians are looking for the opinions of the "average man", and discount anyone who they know is educated. Please post this on your own system and tell everyone else where you work. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 11-Sep-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #187 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 187 Today's Topics: Administrivia In response to Richard Stallman's 'plea for help' message. Saturn's moons ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 10 Sep 1981 1724-PDT From: Ted Anderson Subject: Administrivia To: space at MIT-MC My apologies for including the message from Richard Stallman twice. My automatic digesting tools got away from me. Ted Anderson ------------------------------ Date: 10 Sep 1981 (Thursday) 1029-EDT From: DREIFU at WHARTON-10 (Henry Dreifus) Subject: In response to Richard Stallman's 'plea for help' message. To: space at MIT-MC First I have serious objections to advertising and mass - communication of messages such as that in principle. I would be very disappointed if the network turned into a giant-soap box with form-letter writers on each node. I ask people to think before they post such a message. Such could become a bad trend. As to the space mission, there are 4 or 5 spacecraft already going to see the ship, and the only reason I can see the U S A going is for political visibility. I am not concerned over the 'loss' of information, since all the crucial information from the fly-by will be shared by the French and Japaneese. The scientific community should be the least concerned over that. Some alternate arguments which do interest me are 'where does that 40M go now' ? For other Space-related projects (shuttle, deep space instrumentation or something else) I would not mind missing this 'one'. Finally a comment: I have been in and around the United States capital for some time, and what will interest you is that officals *do* listen to the experts for informative objective commentary. In fact they prefer it over all the lobying that goes on down there. A person with some expertise in some area, willing and interested in telling one's congressman about the consequences of some legislation is much more useful. Hank ------------------------------ Date: 11 September 1981 03:05-EDT From: Jerry E. Pournelle Subject: Saturn's moons To: cjh at CCA-UNIX cc: SPACE at MIT-MC, king at RUTGERS The density of most Saturnian moons is about 1.1 to 1.2; since ice has a density of a bit less than one it's assumable that there are small rocky cores (or leots of imbedded rocks?). This is inner moons. Titan is different. At encounter, Poul and Karen Anderson wore T shirts reading: WHADDA YOU MEAN, IMPOSSIBLE? THIS IS SATURN!!! ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 12-Sep-81 0402 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #188 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 188 Today's Topics: Saturn's ice moons Re: Saturn's moons ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 11 September 1981 08:17-EDT From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Saturn's ice moons To: KING at RUTGERS cc: SPACE at MIT-MC Hmmm, if there isn't much gravity, just barely enough to hold the ice-moon together, and it's half-frozen when the meteor burrows its way into the moon making a deep penetration-cavern, maybe as the moon resumes its freezing, the pressure inward as the zone of frozen water pushes inward will force the remaining water outward, and instead of cracking the existing ice globally it will find the point of least resistance, the penetration-cavern, and simply flow out to the surface thru it? Gravity being low, it'll flow up to the top of the ice and make a new surface instead of insisting on floating the ice to the top. (I.e. if gravity keeping the water from coming out the hole is less than the cohesive strength of the existing ice, the cohesive strength holds and the water wins out over gravity.) ------------------------------ Date: 11 Sep 1981 09:53:24-EDT From: cjh at CCA-UNIX (Chip Hitchcock) To: POURNE at MIT-MC Subject: Re: Saturn's moons Cc: SPACE at MIT-MC, king at RUTGERS In response to your message of Fri Sep 11 03:05:48 1981: Exactly so. A little figuring suggests that the rocky core could represent 4-7% of the total \\volume//, which works out (for a spherical moon to make the model simple) to 34-41% of the radius. This indicates that a model based on a large blob of water solidifying from the outside in is unlikely to be correct; it seems more reasonable either that the rocky core developed first, then collected the more volatile water after the rock had cooled off, or (possibly) that the whole mass of minerals and water accreted inhomogeneously. I suspect that a largish sphere of liquid H2O freezing from the outside in would break up completely (not simply fissuring) long before it congealed, but I don't have enough figures handy on the density and strength of ice to be sure. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 13-Sep-81 0402 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #189 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 189 Today's Topics: Private Rocketry takes some heat ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 12 Sep 1981 2155-PDT From: Ted Anderson Subject: Private Rocketry takes some heat To: space at MIT-MC n078 1734 11 Sep 81 BC-MISSILES 2takes (EXCLUSIVE, 10 p.m. EDT Embargo) By JUDITH MILLER c. 1981 N.Y. Times News Service WASHINGTON - The Reagan administration has become concerned that rockets being developed commercially for ostensibly peaceful purposes could also be used to deliver nuclear or chemical warheads. The immediate focus of concern, according to administration officials, is a West German company, Orbital Transport-und Raketen-Aktiengesellschaft, or Otrag, which for two years has been testing a low-cost rocket in Libya that it says is intended to put weather or telecommunications satellites into orbit. American intelligence and space agency officials, however, assert that the rocket could be intended to have a military application. To address such issues, the informants said, an interagency task force has been formed to study the spread of missiles and related technology. It is composed of officials from intelligence agencies, the State and Defense Departments and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Besides Otrag, several other foreign and American companies are involved in the commercial development of rockets. Company representatives say their objective is to develop rockets that could lift into orbit satellites with telecommunications or other peaceful equipment more cheaply than NASA and thus contribute to the commercial use of space technology. But American officials are concerned about the possible use to which any privately made rockets might be put. ''What we have here,'' Joseph S. Nye Jr., a former State Department specialist, said of commercial rocket development, ''is a new security problem, a form of advanced nuclear proliferation, that the U.S. government has only begun to face.'' Some officials here maintain that just as previous administrations have pressed governments to act against the transfer of sensitive nuclear technology, the Reagan administration should begin calling for new international safeguards to limit the spread of components for possible delivery systems. Other officials say there may be little that can be done to limit the spread of either missiles or nuclear weapons other than trying to exert pressure through diplomatic channels. Otrag, for example, shifted its test operations to Libya from Zaire in 1979 after American, French and West German diplomatic pressure led to a cancellation of its contract there. Intelligence officials here said they had received reports providing what they described as new evidence that the company might be using its test operations to mask efforts to sell military technology to Libya, Pakistan, Iraq and other countries. Such statements were denied by Otrag's chairman of the board, Frank Wukasch, who said in a telephone interview from company headquarters at Munich, West Germany, that his concern was ''not making military rockets.'' But he added that ''we talk to everyone in the world about rocket technology with peaceful applications.'' Intelligence and arms control officials here said one disquieting feature of the Otrag operation in Libya was that much of it came under Libyan military officers connected with Libya's atomic energy program. According to some foreign and American intelligence analysts, the West German company has been recruiting hundreds of technicians recently to expand its launching site at Jarmah, in the Libyan Sahara. The company is also said to be building additional installations at Sebha in connection with what officials described as Libya's efforts to develop a domestic ability to build rocket parts and related technology. The analysts also asserted that Otrag had intensified efforts to buy or build a rocket guidance system, the export of which is under strict controls in the United States and West Germany. Both American space and intelligence alysts said their information was that the West German company had not had much success so far with its rocket. They said the company announced a partly successful launching on March 1 but that another test conducted on May 17 was a failure. Otrag is reported to be under severe pressure from the Libyan government to make more progress, and Col. Moammar Khadafy, the Libyan leader, is said to have warned that otherwise he might have to reconsider funding for the program. As a result, officials here said, the company has intensified its efforts to find additional foreign customers for its rocket and has begun discussing relocating its operations, possibly in the Philippines. This assertion, however, was dismissed by the company chairman as ''complete nonsense.'' American officials also reported that the United States, Egypt, Morocco and other governments had privately urged West Germany to restrict the company's operations. But a spokesman for the West German Embassy here said there was little his government could do to restrict Otrag because it is a private company. Its activities in Libya are said to be supported in large part from a subsidiary on the Mediterranean island of Sardinia. Otrag was established in the mid-1970s by Lutz T. Kayser, an aerospace engineer from Stuttgart, reportedly with $3 million in capital. Described in West Germany as a development company, Ortag is said to be backed by 1,400 private investors and an investment fund of about $69 million. Other private companies in the field of commercial rocket development include GCH Inc., of Sunnyvale, Calif., a company financed by a group of 20 investors, most of them Texans. It is attempting to place satellites weighing up to 3,000 pounds into orbits about 500 miles high by early 1983. Last month a rocket blew up on its launching pad during a test of what is known as the Percheron project, but company officials said it had resulted from a minor technical problem that would not seriously impede the project. Charles Chafer, a spokesman for Space Services Inc., for which GCH is developing the rocket, said the company built virtually all of its own equipment from components purchased in the United States. ''But we won't export any of this equipment or technology,'' Chafer added. ''Besides, our rocket would make a lousy missile. It takes so long to fuel that it could be blown up on the pad long before it was ever launched.'' In addition to Percheron, the European Space Agency's Ariane rocket, which is scheduled to launch a British satellite in November, is expected to offer stiff competition for NASA in putting satellites into orbit. Although developed by the agency formed by 11 European nations, Ariane is being marketed mainly by a French company in which the French government owns shares. Kenneth S. Pedersen, director of International Affairs for NASA, said there were few legal restrictions to prevent private companies from launching rockets and satellites. Among the ''very interesting and unresolved'' questions, he said, are; ''should space launches be a government or private effort, or both? What kind of government oversight mechanisms should be developed? Should NASA have a specific regulatory role?'' l nyt-09-11-81 2038edt *************** ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 14-Sep-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #190 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 190 Today's Topics: Re: SPACE Digest V1 #189 Dust not bitten after all? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 13 Sep 1981 0821-EDT From: G.RONNIE at MIT-EECS Subject: Re: SPACE Digest V1 #189 To: OTA at SU-AI, SPACE at MIT-MC In-Reply-To: Your message of 13-Sep-81 0752-EDT Speaking of Private rocketry and violent uses, there is also a problem, at least around here, with Model Rocketry (The engine-powered rockets for ages 12 and up that use gun-power-type propulsion). There are some kids around here that sit around during the day drawing up little plans for how to put a nuclear warhead into one of these things, and frankly it scares me a little (especially since some of these plans look surprisingly feasable). Beside the fact that these model rockets can be used for malicious purposes, they are really very good. Some of them have multi-stages and go as high as a couple of thousand feet, parachute and all! ~~ But you must be careful about how you use them. I built one two months ago (incidentally, that was my last time) and all systems looked go, but I had bought one of the really cheap little ones, just to see how that worked. After it was up about ten feet, it started spinning (and very rapidly I might add). Finally it ended up pointing face-down and shot down right towards me, missing me by inches and landing about an inch into the grass. That is when I decided that was all for model rocketry. ------- ------------------------------ Date: 14 September 1981 01:59-EDT From: Jerry E. Pournelle Subject: Dust not bitten after all? To: SPACE at MIT-MC I called Eric Burgess tonight to ask about the story that all the Directors of Delta Vee had quit. (Eric is a director.) "Not quite all," he said. "I haven't quit." According to Eric there have been some policy differences, particularly about expense accounts, and several of the directors have resigned, but Delta Vee is alive and well, and has his support. Eric Burgess is a well known science writer, former science editor of Christian Science Monitor, Fellow of Royal Astronomical Society, co-author of a book with Bruce Murray, and all-around good guy. He does not, he says, know much about Delta Vee activities, and has been a "silent director" rather than an active one, but he knows of no cause for alarm. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 16-Sep-81 0401 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #191 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 191 Today's Topics: Model Rocketry observatory Nuclear Model Rocketry In response to Henry Dreifus's response to Richard Stallman ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 14 Sep 1981 2256-EDT From: G.KJB at MIT-EECS Subject: Model Rocketry To: space at MIT-MC Hmm, that sounds similar to one of my experiences with model rocketry. ------- ------------------------------ Date: 15 Sep 1981 10:27:56-EDT From: cjh at CCA-UNIX (Chip Hitchcock) To: space at mit-mc Subject: observatory In an ironic footnote to the recent article on Kitt Peak, today's Boston GLOBE has an editorial suggesting that the Air Force should find a location further than the currently-planned 9 miles from KP for their new base (they claim it will be limited daytime operations only, and if you believe that I have this wonderful bridge that I've got to let go real cheap. . . .). ------------------------------ Date: 15 September 1981 18:46 edt From: Tavares.Multics at MIT-Multics Subject: Nuclear Model Rocketry To: "G.RONNIE@MIT-EECS" at MIT-MC, SPACE at MIT-MC cc: Tavares.Multics at MIT-Multics Ouch! You have gored my private ox. If your urchins can figure out how to make nuclear warheads weigh in at under a pound, then you have grave problems indeed. Model rockets are limited to 453 grams before they become answerable to the FAA. (Not that a power-mad urchin would care, but the terminology "model rocket" is well-controlled.) One could conceivably launch an overweight nuclear warhead with available engine combinations, provided he didn't mind being within about 100 yards of it when it went off. Urchins would do much better making their own steel-pipe rockets and mixing their own propellants. That way, they will take themselves out of action before they get the chance to take others out. I am disappointed to hear your first and only model rocket flight was a flop. Did you use a proper launcher, or just "set it on the grass and light it?" Send me your address and I will send you some introductory information which should help you get off the ground in no time. ------------------------------ Date: 15 Sep 1981 1839-PDT From: Alan R. Katz Subject: In response to Henry Dreifus's response to Richard Stallman To: space at MIT-MC cc: katz at USC-ISIF There is a very good reason for the US to do a Halley's mission. Even though other countries are sending probes, none of them will take very good pictures of the thing. The only one (I think) which is taking pictures is a spin stablized spacecraft and takes images like Pioneer 10 and 11 did. Since the encounter speed will be so high (since the comet is in a retrograde orbit), this will really not return anything worth looking at. Also, a US probe could return much more science than any of the others. Lets face it, we have the most advance space technology and a Voyager class halleys probe would be many orders of magnitude better than anything going there so far. Its absurd for the US not to have a Halley's mission (though it doesn't look as if its going to happen). Alan ------- ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 17-Sep-81 0402 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #192 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 192 Today's Topics: Model Rocketry Halley's Mission Nuclear Model Rocketry In response to Henry Dreifus's response to Richard Stallman ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 16 Sep 1981 0936-PDT Sender: BILLW at SRI-KL Subject: Model Rocketry From: BILLW at SRI-KL To: space at MC Message-ID: <[SRI-KL]16-Sep-81 09:36:54.BILLW> Tavares's response agrees with my own experiences with model rockets. Model rocket companies are quite proud if they can lift an egg to 1000 feet... and that was using a cluster of 3 or 4 engines. Anyone who can make an egg sized nuke is dangerous with or without model rockets to lift them. The only bad experience I have ever had with a comercial rocket kits was (I think) due to a bad engine, and all that happened was that my precious $6 + hours of work "Orbital Transport" landed on its nose, on the ground, getting somewhat crunched, BEFORE the parachute came out. (basically, there is supposed to be a delay between the time the propellent is exhausted, and the time the parachute comes out -- In this engine, the delay was WAY too long). If your kit built first model nosedived into the ground UNDER POWER, you must have done something wrong. Cheers Bill W ------------------------------ Date: 16 Sep 1981 1006-PDT From: Tom Wadlow Subject: Halley's Mission To: space at MIT-MC As I understand it, approval for a Halley's mission must be forth-coming by about the end of October or else we won't have time to get the bird ready. Perhaps it may be time for another letter campaign......? ------------------------------ Date: 17 September 1981 02:43-EDT From: Jerry E. Pournelle Subject: Nuclear Model Rocketry To: Tavares.Multics at MIT-MULTICS cc: SPACE at MIT-MC, G.RONNIE at MIT-EECS My son made his first model rocket some years ago and launched it from the campus at Campbell Hall. It rose spectacularly, deployed the parachute, and vanished in the general direction of the freeway. A week later it was returned to us by mail, having lodged itself in a large truck which took it to Northern california (our address was tucked inthe rocket.) The result was a large turnout of the student body to watch, and a dictum from the school authorities proscribing any more m,odel rocket launches from the campus. Ah well. ------------------------------ Date: 17 September 1981 02:53-EDT From: Jerry E. Pournelle Subject: In response to Henry Dreifus's response to Richard Stallman To: KATZ at USC-ISIF cc: SPACE at MIT-MC The US Halley encounter design has a shielded spacecraft which approaches by looking in a mirror (as Perseus approached the Medusa). Because our navigation is much more precise, we can be certain that we will see the LIGHTED side of the comet; the Soviet and European probes CANNOT guarantee this; they will also approach about ten times farther from the coma than ours could. The approach closing speeds are collossal, and thus require VERY precise platform stabilization to get decent resolution (you gotta track to a very high degree of precision since the relative speeds at closest approach are in the order of 100 km a second); again we can do this and the others can't. The argument against Halley is that it buys new science but little new capability; and if we have very scarce space resources to invest, is Halley the best investment? For the same price we could have a Lunar Polar resource survey probe to search for water ice at the lunar poles; or even an asteroid rendezvous as a resource survey. Not too long ago I had a conversation with Dave Stockman. I urged Halley. He said: "Is it really worth borrowing money at 20% and paying 20% interest for a goodly time to come? I don't have any money; I merely have authority to borrow some at high interest rates; and if we don't get the deficit down the interest rates will stay up there. Tell me why the Halley mission is worth borrowing to pay for; why we shouldn't do something similar later on when we have the economy in better shape." I have some answers to that, but the questions are reasonable; and if you reply "You're borrowing to pay out for salaries for a whole flock of HHS and D ed. employees who seem to be less than useful, so why not for space?" his reply is simple: "Get Congress to let me out of paying for those programs and I guarantee I'll slice them; get me enough slicing authority and I can even see investing more in the space program. I'm not against space, I'm just broke..." ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 18-Sep-81 1229 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #193 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 193 Today's Topics: Voyager 2 at Saturn ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 17 Sep 1981 1313-PDT From: Alan R. Katz Subject: Voyager 2 at Saturn To: bboard at USC-ISIB, space at MIT-MC, sf-lovers at MIT-AI cc: katz at USC-ISIF OASIS presents: Voyager 2 at Saturn Richard P. Rudd Voyager Deputy Project Manager Saturday, September 26, 1981, 7:00 pm California Musuem of Science and Industry Kinsey Auditorium On August 25, 1981, the Voyager 2 spacecraft passed by the planet Saturn at a distance of 63,000 miles. At our September 26 general meeting, Richard P. Rudd, deputy project manager for the Voyager mission at JPL, will discuss the results of the mission and its contribution to our understanding of the solar system. He will show the latest mission photos and explain the plans for Voyager 2's encounter with Uranus in 1986. Join us for another exciting meeting soon after a Voyager encounter similar to last November's presentation by David Morrison which drew nearly 500 people. ------- ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 19-Sep-81 0402 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #194 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 194 Today's Topics: Halley's Mission Model Rocketry your msgs (model rocketry and Stockman) Halley's -- nth reply Halley's Mission ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 17 September 1981 08:11-EDT From: Oded Anoaf Feingold Subject: Halley's Mission To: TAW at SU-AI cc: SPACE at MIT-MC Yeah, but don't coordinate the mailing through here. May I suggest that people who want to work on such a letter-writing campaign write their names and addresses into a file somewhere and then print each his/her own copy. Thereafter things can be done off the net. Thanxyou. Oded ------------------------------ From: INSANE@MIT-AI Date: 09/17/81 08:48:44 Subject: Model Rocketry INSANE@MIT-AI 09/17/81 08:48:44 Re: Model Rocketry To: SPACE at MIT-AI I, myself have been into model rocketry several years back, and I have built many rockets, the majority of them flew without any hitches. Sure, I had a few misfires and some spectacular nose-dives, but when I examined the remain, it was clear that I was the one who had fouled it up. All of the rocket designs that come out have been extensively tested to insure that the basic design is stable. On nuclear model rocketry, if someone can arm a model rocket, get a big enough engine cluster (I'd say about 10 of Centuri's 'F' or 'G' series engine, o multi-stage the thing, then I'D seriously doubt his sanity, for, at best, he might be able to get a distance of a mile or two out of it, and if I were he, I wouldn't like to get caught in the fallout. I have seen, however, people who would shoot foil covered rockets over military radar dishes, and launch a rocket engine with fins attached; an egg glued on as a "warhead" (very messy and hard to remove from the roof of a house). KEEP 'EM FLYIN'! --INSANE ------------------------------ Date: 17 Sep 1981 10:36:38-EDT From: cjh at CCA-UNIX (Chip Hitchcock) To: space at mit-mc Subject: your msgs (model rocketry and Stockman) Cc: pourne at mit-mc Sounds like your son's school was run by twits; mine didn't shut us down even after I built a Saturnian (from Estes plans---no kit then available) with a sufficiently warped concealed launching lug that it got about 5 feet up before falling over and blowing the chute on the ground. Stockman has a point---but right now he could use some more support cutting the military budget (which Reagan and Congress are going wild with) rather than the services budgets. ------------------------------ Date: 17 September 1981 19:08-EDT From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Halley's -- nth reply To: KATZ at USC-ISIF cc: SPACE at MIT-MC If Halley's comet is more important scientifically than any other comets, than it's a shame we're not going to make the best of it, returning USA high-quality Voyager-class images and other data. But I suspect it's just the most popular comet, not the most interesting scientifically. I wouldn't mind letting the three other probes get Pioneer-class images this decade and then we get Voyager-class images of some other comet. It might even be useful to get Pioneer-class stuff first so we know what to look for when we send the Voyager-class probe to another comet. Meanwhile when are we going to get off our duff and send ANYTHING to the Earth-crossing asteroids? (See L-5 for August for this proposal.) I'd rather see 3 probes to Halley and 1 to asteroids, than 4 to Halley and none to asteroids. ------------------------------ Date: 18 September 1981 04:21-EDT From: Jerry E. Pournelle Subject: Halley's Mission To: TAW at SU-AI cc: SPACE at MIT-MC ACCORDING to Brue Murray of JPL, it is sufficient that by mid November they KNOW that Halley Mission will be funded in the following year budget. Without that knowledge, they will have no choice but to disperse some of the teams and they will be unable to do the construction of the spacecraft. Whether the Halley mission is justified is debatable; certainly it would be if there were plenty of money, but what should be scrubbed to pay for Halley? Perhaps nothing need be, in which case we can all be for Halley mission. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 20-Sep-81 0402 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #195 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 195 Today's Topics: Interesting comets military space and budget cuts Halley's -- nth reply ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 19 September 1981 1321-EDT (Saturday) From: David.Smith at CMU-10A (C410DS30) To: rem at mit-mc Subject: Interesting comets CC: space at mit-mc Message-Id: <19Sep81 132126 DS30@CMU-10A> The most interesting comets are those with large orbital periods, since they have not lost so much of their material to close solar encounters. he problem with long-period comets is in knowing their orbital parameters long enough in advance to launch a probe. Do you know of any other good comets besides Halley's? ------------------------------ Date: 20 September 1981 02:21-EDT From: Jerry E. Pournelle Subject: military space and budget cuts To: cjh at CCA-UNIX cc: SPACE at MIT-MC, POURNE at MIT-MC The idea is to show how, by investing in space, the entire defense establishment can be made smaller and MORE effective in its primary job of insuring peace. This is what General D. Graham has been saying, and he now has a resolution of support from the Senate. The problem is two fold: first, a number of pro-space people are very anti-military. "We will carry no frontiers into space," many of us said back in the early 50's (before we could carry ANYTHING into space); and we've tried to stick with that noble ideal well past the point at which it's clear that frontiers and weapons are already there. (The Soviets tested a nuclear satellite killer in 1963...) Second, most of the pro-space people in the US Air Force were forced into early retirement, or were not promoted (and thus forced out) back in the days of the Schriever vs LeMay war; the result is that the Air Council is pretty well anti-space; even when Hans Mark was Secretary of the Air Force he wasn't able to get much changed in the Pentagonal funny farm. And, if those weren't bad enough, there are two more problems: most space military systems are highly classified, and thus most members of Congress, and nearly all the public, haven't heard of them. Yet: it's not all death rays and killer satellites. Adequate warning, reliable fail-safe warning, could go far toward stabilizing the balance of terror. For that matter, most space weapons are likely to aid the DEFENSIVE side of the equation rather than the offensive; it's hard to improve on large H-bombs for pure destructiveness. Thus an "arms race" in space could well prove to be a powerful influence for stability and peace. What must be done is to get a rational strategic plan that mixes "cheap" quick fixes to get us past the next few years along with a sane program of high-risk high technology systems that let us get back into what Possony and I called "the Decisive War" in our STRATEGY OF TECHNOLOGY some years ago. We can drive the technological war toward bloodlessness and get rich in the bargain, but somebody's got to show how to do it... JEP ------------------------------ Date: 20 September 1981 02:23-EDT From: Jerry E. Pournelle Subject: Halley's -- nth reply To: REM at MIT-MC cc: SPACE at MIT-MC, KATZ at USC-ISIF Halley's is the "youngest" comet we have a complete ephemeris on and thus have a chance of intercepting. Younger comets with more volatiles would be more nteresting scientifically, but almost impossible to catch since they are driven in part not be celestial mechanics but by "jet propulsion" as pockets of gas warm up and jet out... ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 23-Sep-81 0824 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #198 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 198 Today's Topics: military space and budget cuts Shuttle problems ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 197 Today's Topics: military space and budget cuts Ground track for 2nd Shuttle flight ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 196 Today's Topics: military space and budget cuts Halley's -- nth reply "Tree rings" on Titan? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 20 September 1981 02:21-EDT From: Jerry E. Pournelle Subject: military space and budget cuts To: cjh at CCA-UNIX cc: SPACE at MIT-MC, POURNE at MIT-MC The idea is to show how, by investing in space, the entire defense establishment can be made smaller and MORE effective in its primary job of insuring peace. This is what General D. Graham has been saying, and he now has a resolution of support from the Senate. The problem is two fold: first, a number of pro-space people are very anti-military. "We will carry no frontiers into space," many of us said back in the early 50's (before we could carry ANYTHING into space); and we've tried to stick with that noble ideal well past the point at which it's clear that frontiers and weapons are already there. (The Soviets tested a nuclear satellite killer in 1963...) Second, most of the pro-space people in the US Air Force were forced into early retirement, or were not promoted (and thus forced out) back in the days of the Schriever vs LeMay war; the result is that the Air Council is pretty well anti-space; even when Hans Mark was Secretary of the Air Force he wasn't able to get much changed in the Pentagonal funny farm. And, if those weren't bad enough, there are two more problems: most space military systems are highly classified, and thus most members of Congress, and nearly all the public, haven't heard of them. Yet: it's not all death rays and killer satellites. Adequate warning, reliable fail-safe warning, could go far toward stabilizing the balance of terror. For that matter, most space weapons are likely to aid the DEFENSIVE side of the equation rather than the offensive; it's hard to improve on large H-bombs for pure destructiveness. Thus an "arms race" in space could well prove to be a powerful influence for stability and peace. What must be done is to get a rational strategic plan that mixes "cheap" quick fixes to get us past the next few years along with a sane program of high-risk high technology systems that let us get back into what Possony and I called "the Decisive War" in our STRATEGY OF TECHNOLOGY some years ago. We can drive the technological war toward bloodlessness and get rich in the bargain, but somebody's got to show how to do it... JEP ------------------------------ Date: 20 September 1981 02:23-EDT From: Jerry E. Pournelle Subject: Halley's -- nth reply To: REM at MIT-MC cc: SPACE at MIT-MC, KATZ at USC-ISIF Halley's is the "youngest" comet we have a complete ephemeris on and thus have a chance of intercepting. Younger comets with more volatiles would be more interesting scientifically, but almost impossible to catch since they are driven in part not be celestial mechanics but by "jet propulsion" as pockets of gas warm up and jet out... ------------------------------ Date: 20 September 1981 15:37-EDT From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: "Tree rings" on Titan? To: SPACE at MIT-MC I came up with this idea this morning... Suppose it's true what some scientists have speculated about Titan having rains of organic debris that settle to the surface and build up layer after layer over the eons. Perhaps the temperature of Titan's surface varies with the season, and thus the density or some other characteristic of the deposits varies with season. Then maybe the deposits have alternating layers of differing material, like tree rings. Then we could drill into Titan's surface and collect a sample, study the rings, and get a sort of history of the longrange climate changes (if any) over the history of the moon. At the least we could determine how many Titan-years the stuff has been depositing and freezing. If there were any global (solar-system) changes, such as change in light output from the Sun or passing through a gallactic cloud, we could correlate these changes between Titan's rings and tree-rings on Earth (if the events were recent, of course, trees don't live a billion years; although some fossils on Earth might extend the chronology some). -- Any planetary scientists want to comment on my idea? ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* ------------------------------ Date: 21 Sep 1981 1151-PDT From: Barry Megdal Subject: Ground track for 2nd Shuttle flight To: space at MIT-MC Does anyone have (or know where I can get) information on the ground track for each of the orbits planned for the 2nd Space Shuttle mission? I'm interested in monitoring shuttle communications, and as it is in a low orbit, one needs to know approximately when it is overhead. Many people have reported success in monitoring the 1st Shuttle flight...I can look up the frequencies if anyone is interested. Barry Megdal (Barry@cit-20) ------- ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* ------------------------------ Date: 22 Sep 1981 1620-PDT From: Tom Wadlow Subject: Shuttle problems To: space at MIT-MC For anybody that hasn't heard, a fuel line problem of some sort spilled four gallons of nitrogen tetroxide fuel onto the hull of the Columbia. This apparently loosened about 250 tiles. Rockwell's space hotline claims that the launch will NOT take place on Oct. 9 as was scheduled but as of now, no new date has been set. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 24-Sep-81 0402 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #199 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 199 Today's Topics: Intelligent Life in the Galaxy ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Charles Lurio at MIT-SSL via markl at mit-ai@MIT-AI (Sent by MARKL@MIT-AI) 09/23/81 12:58:54 Date: 09/23/81 12:58:54 To: space at MIT-MC A major part of the second round budget cuts at NASA will be 'deferment' of Galileo. Effectively this means the project is cancelled now but may be revived no earlier than '85 budget cycle. launch date could be in '87 but is more likely for '89 (if at all). This news comes along the grapevine from NASA HQ. From the same source comes news which you may or may not already have heard. There may be slow-downs in shuttle technology initiative programs (e.g. use of composites in solid rocket boosters.) It also seems that NASA will devote more time to refurbishing the shuttle after each flight rather than waiting for major shuttle overhauls every dozen or so flights (as was originally plannned for Columbia.) NASA will then be able to ask for more funding before each shuttle mission, with the excuse that without it, the next mission won't fly. This last info comes via JSFC. ------------------------------ Date: 23 Sep 1981 1149-PDT From: DIETZ at USC-ECL Subject: Intelligent Life in the Galaxy To: space at MIT-MC There appears to be an interesting division developing in the SETI (Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence) crowd. The dogma that has grown up over the past 20 years is that there are 1E5 to 1E6 civilizations in the galaxy, most of which communicate with one another by radio (the "Galactic Club"). This estimate is based on the well known Drake equation which gives the number of civilizations, ASSUMING that intelligent life forms evolve independently in different star systems. This dogma is coming under severe attack by those who argue that interstellar travel is possible. The orthodox have assumed that very high speeds (>.5c) must be attained before an interstellar trip is feasible. With mobile space colonies this objection is invalidated. We already know how to design moderately fast colony ships (.01c) using nuclear pulse propulsion. Using our current nuclear stockpile (1E5 Megatons) we can send 1000 people to a nearby star. We also know how to design small, fast probes. The British Interplanetary Society conducted a study from 1973 to 1978 in which they designed an unmanned interstellar probe. The probe uses D-He3 fusion (which yields almost all its energy in the form of fast charged particles) ignited by electron beams. The probe masses 54,000 tons, 50,000 tons of which is fuel. Final velocity is .12-.13c, so the probe takes 50 years to go to Barnard's star. The biggest problem with the ship is that the He3 has to be mined from the atmosphere of a gas giant, which takes 50 years. The point of all this is that if there are 1E5 to 1E6 advanced civilizations at least a few should have decided to colonize the galaxy. The time to colonize the galaxy is relatively insensitive to how long it takes to travel between the stars and how long it takes to build up the target system. It comes out to about 10 million years (1 light year per century expansion rate). This is 1/1000 the age of the galaxy. So, where are they? Even if you don't want to colonize the galaxy with people, you can still colonize it with self reproducing machines. Although we don't know how to build these yet we probably will know within the next 100 years. So, instead of searching the whole galaxy for radio you can send out one probe and wait. If they are smart enough they can prepare planets for colonization, or seed dead planets with life. So, the dissenters argue that either there are either very few (<10) occupied systems in the galaxy, or there are many (1E10-1E11). In the second case detection should be easy, so we may know the answer soon. ------- ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 25-Sep-81 0402 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #200 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 200 Today's Topics: Intelligent life in the galaxy Re: Intelligent life in the galaxy ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 24 Sep 1981 1005-PDT Sender: BILLW at SRI-KL Subject: Intelligent life in the galaxy From: BILLW at SRI-KL To: space at MIT-MC Message-ID: <[SRI-KL]24-Sep-81 10:05:30.BILLW> In-Reply-To: Your message of 24 Sep 1981 0402-PDT Foo on you. All those numbers assume that intelligent life forms elsewhere in the galaxy have psychologies similar enough to our own such that: 1) They have an interest in delveloping technology 2) They have an interest in developing space technology 3) They are interested in colonizing the galaxy In my opinion, highly unlikely. Bill W ------------------------------ Date: 24 September 1981 13:32 edt From: Janofsky.Tipi at MIT-Multics (Bill Janofsky) Subject: Re: Intelligent life in the galaxy To: BILLW at SRI-KL cc: space at MIT-MC In-Reply-To: Message of 24 September 1981 13:05 edt from BILLW I'd like to add to BILLW's points a fourth: 4) They have not decided that we're too bloody immature, as a race, and quarantined this region of space to all traffic. This may be more likely than any other explanation of the absence of contact even though it sounds like science fiction. (And has been the theme of numerous stories there.) Bill J. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 26-Sep-81 0402 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #201 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 201 Today's Topics: Intelligent Life in the Galaxy Reasons advanced civilizations haven't contacted us Where is everybody? Shuttle damage updates ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 25 September 1981 12:13-EDT From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Intelligent Life in the Galaxy To: DIETZ at USC-ECL cc: SPACE at MIT-MC I fear the correct answer is that when intelligent life does evolve and take over the planet it lives on and develop technology, within a few centuries they discover thermonuclear weapons and have a big war that destroys their civilization and weakens their species so that they no longer dominate their planet and other (not so intelligent) species take over their planet. We may now be less than a decade away from that fatal disaster. Maybe less than a year. Maybe 20 minutes. The other theory is based on selected (biased) data. Why does the planet we happen to be on have the nicest atmosphere in the whole solar system? Why does the Universe seem to be just about the right size where it stays expanding for 18 billion years instead of being so massive it collapses in a half a million years? Why does the Universe have about the right amount of matter and energy, a surplus of matter over antimatter, nice stable atoms, etc.? Why do we seem to be the first civilization in our galaxy? BECAUSE we're alive here on this planet in this universe observing things! If the Universe didn't survive long enough to support life, we wouldn't be here asking these questions. So the fact we're here implies the universe is nice and there's nobody else out there in our own galaxy to conquer us. ------------------------------ Date: 25 Sep 1981 0927-PDT From: Bob Amsler Subject: Reasons advanced civilizations haven't contacted us To: space at MIT-MC To be ultimately pessimistic, how do we know that advanced civilizations are MORE stable than our own. Perhaps the mean life-time of a civilization is only a few thousand years and that they almost inevitably reach a crisis point and blow themselves up in a war of some type. That might drastically reduce the number of advanced civilizations with interstellar transport capability, and render the ones who have it and have managed to become stable VERY SHY of contacting intermediate civilizations that in all likelihood will disintergrate in a few hundred years in a radioactive cloud of dust. So... the vast majority of interstellar civilizations might only have achieved such status by avoiding contact with immediate civilizations who would prove a source of conflict. ------- ------------------------------ Date: 25 Sep 1981 1233-PDT From: Ted Anderson Subject: Where is everybody? To: space at MIT-MC Back during the post war period at Los Alamos Enrico Fermi asked, quite out of the blue, so out of the blue in fact that it was immediately obvious what he meant, "Where is everybody?" This is the right question. If you consider the time frames and the distances it should be immediately obvious that the galaxy should already be overrun by some earlier space going civilization. The alternatives are rather fundamental. One alternative that I have heard meantioned is that human, biological life is but the starting point for advanced civilized life. In a few years, we will develop Artificial Intelligence or some kind of human / computer symbiosis which is really where evolution is leading us. We, in or current form, are just a stepping stone, and probably the last or next to last of the biological kind. Thus the answer to the question is that they are out there watching, waiting for us to advance to the next stage. -Ted Anderson PS: It should be noted that the development of world (or at least civilization) destroying weapons occurs in tandem with the development of computers. This is not an accident. The universe is inherently stable as REM pointed out. It is not all that easy to build something as unstable as a hydrogen bomb. In fact, it takes some of the most sophisticated computers we can muster. This gives me hope that if both occur simultaneously (evolutionarily speaking) there is hope that it is common for a race to move on to the non-biological phase before losing the whole ball game on their planet of birth. ------------------------------ Date: 25 Sep 1981 1709-PDT From: Ted Anderson Subject: Shuttle damage updates To: space at MIT-MC a247 1508 25 Sep 81 AM-Space Shuttle,480 Launch to Take Place October or November By IKE FLORES Associated Press Writer CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - The space shuttle Columbia won't need to be removed from its launch pad so that damage from a fueling accident can be repaired, and its second mission will take place in late October or early November, space agency officials said Friday. A new launch date is to be announced in two weeks, following a detailed assessment of repairs to the reusable spacecraft's heat-protection tiles and to a steering system in its nose. Officials had worried that a mechanical breakdown which caused a corrosive propellant to spill down Columbia's forward section last Tuesday would require extensive repair work away from the launch site. That would have meant a delay of months. But they were relieved to discover only minor damage from leakage into the Reaction Control System, a series of thrusters used to help maneuver the space craft during orbit and atmospheric re-entry. However, officials said Friday it was possible that delays in the second mission could cause postponement of future flights. ''The whole thing probably will have an impact on the next (third) launch,'' said Hugh Harris, information officer at Kennedy Space Center. ''But there is a good possibility that the (repair) time can be made up later.'' Fifteen thermal blankets inside the Reaction Control System pod were soaked by the propellant, nitrogen tetroxide, and had to be removed. Some wiring and other items turned brownish from corrosive fluid, but were not seriously damaged. Damage to the orbiter's thermal-protection system was another story. At least 338 tiles either came unglued or had to be removed because the fluid corroded the adhesive that binds them to Columbia's aluminum skin. The tiles are being ''decontaminated'' by being washed and baked, officials say. They will then be water-proofed and glued back onto the orbiter. Bob Gordon of Rockwell International, which built Columbia and developed its heat-protection system, said rebonding of the tiles would begin early next week. ''We will have tile-repair crews working on three levels, with six to eight men working on each level,'' Gordon said. ''We will work three shifts, 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week.'' There was no estimate on how long the tile work would take. Rockwell technicians also were trying to determine whether it would be necessary to replace any of the small thrusters in the steering system. Meanwhile, engineers discovered the reason for the failure of a ''quick disconnect'' shut-off valve which caused the 2-3 gallon spill down down the right side of the nose area. Concentrations of iron nitrate had built up around the metal head of the section which connects to the servicing panel of the orbiter. Engineers theorized that the iron nitrate had been somehow formed in the fuel lines once the propellant had left its storage tank and had then concentrated at the valve connected to the servicing panel. They weren't sure what caused the iron nitrate to form within the fuel. Filters will be installed at the point where the fuel lines leave the storage tank and all shut-off valves will be cleaned before they are used again, Harris said. ap-ny-09-25 1804EDT *************** ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 28-Sep-81 0402 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #202 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 202 Today's Topics: Intelligence in the Galaxy Intelligent life ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 27 Sep 1981 1058-PDT From: DIETZ at USC-ECL Subject: Intelligence in the Galaxy To: space at MIT-MC The real point is NOT to claim that there are very few inhabited planets in the galaxy but rather to point out that the standard program of searching for extraterrestrial intelligence (build Cyclops) is unnecessary, because its usefulness is predicated on a very unlikely scenario. If the zoo hypothesis is true we should be able to detect activity in nearby stars (within 100 ly?) which shouldn't be too hard with current radio telescopes. ------- ------------------------------ Date: 27 Sep 1981 1605-CDT From: CMP.MKSMITH at UTEXAS-20 Subject: Intelligent life To: space at MIT-MC I was watching a nice series on PBS, "The Voyages of Charles Darwin". One of the recurring notions was that man is the pinnacle of evolution. We all assume this to be a strictly local phenomenon. But we do seem to share the idea that intelligence is the natural outcome of evolution in other environments on other planets. Right there, of course, is a gross assumption, that natural selection Darwinian style is going to be the mainspring driving the development of life on other planets. Perhaps Lamarck was right, only not here. (Though there is of course a footnote here, since Lamarckian ideas refuse to die. Edward Steele has proposed a mechanism by which the characteristics of successful mutant cells within an organism would be encoded in germ line cells by viruses. The data seem dubious, however. See Science, 17-July-81.) Of course natural selection or Lamarck produce similar results. The more basic question is whether intelligence is going to always be the winner in the fitness derby. Phillip K. Dick has touched on this one in a short story, I forget the title. "The Golden ... " something-or-other. The new man could perceive the developing set of futures and had great sex appeal, but was otherwise a moron. The mutation was a bit fancy because Dick was introducing it into a highly technological culture. But back when we were figuring out how to use tools perhaps there were other possible competing forms that by the luck of the draw did not show up. Perhaps in most other places they do. The argument against this is that eventually the environment will shift and intelligence is going to again get a shot, ultimately triumphing. We don't have nearly enough data to decide whether intelligence is necessarily an ultimate winner. Bill W covered the following nicely, but just to reiterate: All of these ideas that intelligence implies high technology implies bombs implies the inevitable destruction of a civilization are pretty hackneyed, another instance of our anthropomorphising the alien. You have to assume a diverse set of intelligences if you believe there to be very many of them. We have no evidence at all as to where we sit on the various bell curves of species tendencies. Perhaps this is further support for the notion of there being few. One last comment. Let's assume that the natural path for an intelligent species leads to a technologically augmented group intelligence. How would such a society spend its time? And assume they are out there. What makes us think they have "chosen" not to communicate with us because we are too immature or something? (I hate this "in loco parentis" premise, didn't like it the first time I read it 20 years ago.) When was the last time you "decided" not to talk to a rock? Ok, a cockroach. - Mike Smith ------- ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 29-Sep-81 0402 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #203 To: SPACE@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 203 Today's Topics: Expanding civilizations Proxmire's Revenge Anybody out there?? Intelligent life Intelligent life in the galaxy Intelligent life ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 28 Sep 1981 1016-PDT From: Tom Wadlow Subject: Expanding civilizations To: space at MIT-MC Perhaps the reason we have not yet encountered a space-faring civilization is that the civilizations that are interested in expansion and colonization are also likely to be the ones that are prone to fighting amongst themselves. Thus, the number of intelligent civilizations in the galaxy might be quite large, but encountering one (by means of our current plan for contact with extra-terrestrial culture: Stay at home and let them come to us) may be fairly improbable. Most of the civilizations we might meet easily have self-destructive tendencies. This is *not* to say that they (and we) are necessarily doomed by these tendencies. Just that it makes things a bit tougher. Incidentally, with regards to Project Cyclops: I came across a set of posters in Berkeley the other day by Don Dixon. One was a spectacular painting of Cyclops (with Earth eclipsing the Sun in the background). Another was a painting of what may have been the most significant event in human history: The asteroid impact that killed the dinosaurs (we think) and permitted mammal evolution to proceed in such a way as to produce the readers, writer, subject, and medium of this message. -- Tom ------------------------------ Date: 28 Sep 1981 1141-PDT From: DIETZ at USC-ECL Subject: Proxmire's Revenge To: space at MIT-MC I just heard something on the radio about a SETI project being mothballed (at Stanford, I think) due to budget cuts. Does anyone have details? ------------------------------ Date: 28 Sep 1981 1050-PDT From: Tom Wadlow Subject: Anybody out there?? To: space at MIT-MC Earth to Mars, Wednesday's the Deadline By HOWARD BENEDICT Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - If there are any outer space civilizations trying to contact Earthlings, they have until midnight Wednesday to get their message through. That's when the government disconnects the switchboard that has been listening for cosmic radio signals in an ambitious attempt to determine if intelligent beings exist out there. It is just one of scores of federal programs getting the ax under President Reagan's fiscal 1982 budget. Like many government projects, it has an acronym - SETI, for Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence. It is a 6-year-old effort to develop antennae and computer programs that could distinquish meaningful signals from the flood of microwaves that constantly flow toward Earth from stars, galaxies, quasars, pulsars and other deep-space sources. Under the plan, laid out by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, giant dish receivers have been scanning the universe for radio transmissions. The soon-to-be completed computer would separate routine background noise from signals which might possibly come from an intelligent source. ''The project officials are greatly disappointed because they have nearly completed the computer programs and were within six months of giving them a major test,'' said Charles Redmond, a spokesman for NASA's Office of Space Science. He said the machine being developed for the project will be wrapped in plastic and put on a shelf at Stanford University, where it is being built, and a SETI committee will write a report on what has been done to date. ''It means we will have to stop looking at our space shore for a message-in-a-bottle cast out by another civilization,'' Redmond said. ''Sadly, if you don't look for anything, you never find anything.'' Actually, SETI has been living on borrowed time for three years, ever since it won one of the government's least favorite distinctions, the ''Golden Fleece'' award made periodically by Sen. William Proxmire, D-Wis. Proxmire argued that the project was a waste of money because intelligent life might be extinct by the time Earth received and replied to a message, a roundtrip that could take millions of years. ''It's hard enough to find intelligent life in Washington, let alone outer space,'' he contended. Congress went along and cut SETI's budget in 1978. But NASA, displaying some budget wizardry of its own, quietly transferred SETI to its exobiology program and continued to fund the search. So far, $3.6 million has been spent on the project. Proxmire struck again last summer and won congressional approval of an amendment stopping the use of exobiology funds for SETI. A budget-conscious administration went along. Said Proxmire: ''There is not a scintilla of evidence that intelligent life exists beyond our solar system.'' To which Redmond replies: ''As late as 1491, there was not a scintilla of evidence that America existed.'' ap-ny-09-28 0235EDT *************** ------------------------------ Date: 29 September 1981 03:58-EDT From: Jerry E. Pournelle Subject: Intelligent life To: CMP.MKSMITH at UTEXAS-20 cc: SPACE at MIT-MC The argument that perhaps intelligence is counter-productive for long term survival goes this way: Mathematically it looks as if there ought to be a LOT of inhabited planets, and thus quite a few (hundreds, anyway) on which intelligence developed; and a reasonable number of those (tens anyway) are probably a LOT older than we. Given that interstellar travel is at all possible, then Fermi's question: where are they? Given that it is not (and we after all see ways that we could do it with sufficient motive), it is till the case that in a few years we are going to make it unambiguously clear that we are here, and do that over a fairly wide area (taking time for our Howdy Doody and Uncle Miltie shows to travel along at speed of light, but what the hell). But if we are making it unambiguously clear that we are here, and we assume any kind of technology by "them" then why haven't they made it clear they exist? (How could they avoid it? We didn't.) Thus, once again, where are they? Hypotheses fall into a number of categories including the EMPTY UNIVERSE ZOO Nursury We're property We're being exploited (see my JANISSARIES) etc. But one of them is that when you get to about where we are, you do yourself in, one way or another (not all involve h bombs; mass suicide from disilusionment because we see no purpose to it all and old man entropy just keeps rollin' so why bother is another). It isn't the only hypothesis. But it is a bit curious. WHERE **ARE** they? ------------------------------ Date: 29 September 1981 04:02-EDT From: Jerry E. Pournelle Subject: Intelligent life in the galaxy To: BILLW at SRI-KL cc: SPACE at MIT-MC Wouldn't you think that a few of "them" would be interested in species lifetimes measured in billions of years? Because if so, they have no choice but to be interested in technology, and space technology at that. Perhaps most won't be, and some may simply want to sit under their fig tree enjoying their vine, but is it reasonable that no species other than ours wants to live 50 billion years? ------------------------------ Date: 29 September 1981 06:31-EDT From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Intelligent life To: SPACE at MIT-MC I personally like the Darwinian theory and believe it to be universally true among reproducing competing lifeforms. It seems to obvious. It's really a non-theory. It simply says that there is no divine guidance, it's just that what survives to breed will breed and what doesn't survive to breed won't breed, so in the future only those lifeforms that are best at surviving will be around, then among those lifeforms if conditions get worse so some of them don't survive (or if recessive genes crop up), the crop will be further pruned so only the best of the best will remain. I see two main questions. First, is it possible for a mutation to create lifeforms better at surviving than their parents. If so, then Darwinian selection will eventually cause these new lifeforms to replace their parents, thus evolving new better lifeforms. I think we already have evidence that this happens in disease organisms and insects (evolving immunity to our medicines and insecticides that didn't exist before), and it's reasonable to assume it's universal. Second, is human-style intelligence better at surviving than other types of thinking or non-thinking? (We humans are very curious, even to the point of endangering ourselves to find out something "interesting", witness children playing with matches and drugs. We humans like to enhance our family at the expense of other people we don't know, both by over-breeding and by fighting racist wars.) I doubt very much if 100% of habitats are such that human-style intelligence survives better than other kinds. In fact it looks sort of like human-style intelligence is similar to dinosaur power in that it dominates the Earth for a while but dies out to be replaced by something "better", thus in the cosmic picture both humans and dinosaurs are temporary phenomena. Perhaps lifeforms like dinosaurs (big and powerful) and humans (curious and aggressively technological) come and go but some other lifeform always wins in the end, and the advanced parts of the Cosmos are populated mostly with these other more-permanent lifeforms that haven't yet evolved on Terra. Maybe our chance of getting out into space (really, not just short trips to the moon and Earth-orbiting space stations) is virtually zero, but if we beat the odds and make it out there we'll be a real surprise to those other more likely lifeforms. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 30-Sep-81 0403 OTA SPACE Digest V1 #204 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 1 : Issue 204 Today's Topics: Re: Intelligent life Wiping Out the Human Race As far as I can tell Intelligent life in D.C. and elsewhere. Intelligent Life The indifferent stars Elucidation of previous message. where are they all [Re: SPACE Digest V1 #203 ] Astrometry Research on life-support systems for futures space colonies Re: Intelligent life ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 29 Sep 1981 0746-CDT From: CMP.MKSMITH at UTEXAS-20 Subject: Re: Intelligent life To: POURNE at MIT-MC cc: SPACE at MIT-MC In-Reply-To: Your message of 29-Sep-81 0258-CDT The argument that there must be lots of loose information pinging around the galaxy if there are 1E6 civilizations isn't obvious. In an information rich society, like ours is becoming, the airwaves wil be superceded by cables and optics. I have read estimates of how long a civilization will use broadcast to communicate but I don't remember them. 100 yrs? 1000? This clamps the probability of lots of easily accesible galactic eavesdroping way down. 10 billion (~age of galaxy) / (1E6 X 100) = .1 . Not great odds since we are not going to be capable of picking up information from everywhere with equal facility. Of course the idea that we should be swamped by broadcasts assumes that "they" share our love of random information as epitomized by the tube. Maybe they entertain themselves in other ways, impossible as that is to conceive. Admittedly we have been making our presence known for a while, but we have no reason the think they would want to talk to us. They will be truly alien, not just physically. I can't help being leery of arguments that seem to presuppose that our motives will be theirs. ------------------------------ Date: 29 Sep 1981 0831-PDT From: DIETZ at USC-ECL Subject: Wiping Out the Human Race To: space at MIT-MC With all this talk of races wiping themselves out, what evidence do we have that it is even possible? A full scale nuclear war doesn't even come close to wiping out humanity. I find it hard to conceive of a disaster that could destroy humanity without also nearly sterilizing the globe. Intelligence implies incredible adaptibility - so we are in much better shape than the dinosaurs. Also, evolution is NOT driven by mutation. In higher organisms, it is driven by the diversity created during the recombination of genes in sexual reproduction. In bacteria, resistance to drugs is not caused by random mutation but rather by picking up a drug resistance gene from another bacterium or a plasmid (conjugation) or from a bacteriophage. Granted, the gene originally was produced by random mutations, but this doesn't have to happen more than once. ------------------------------ Date: 29 Sep 1981 (Tuesday) 1134-EDT From: DREIFU at WHARTON-10 (Henry Dreifus) Subject: As far as I can tell To: space at MIT-MC I would guess another intelligent race would want to have NO BUSINESS with our race. ------------------------------ Date: 29 Sep 1981 1045-CDT From: Clyde Hoover Subject: Intelligent life in D.C. and elsewhere. To: space at MIT-MC Proxmire is quite right about there being questions of whether intelligent life exists in Washington D.C. Proxmire himself raises the biggest doubts because he is so obviously lacking in any intelligence. Short-sightedness on the part of our politicians is what has put the human species on the road to probable suicide, and Sen. Proxmire is a prime example of this malaise ("The planets will be there for billions of years, so let's not bother with exploring them any time soon"). It strikes me that the true test of the survivablitiy of a species is if it can move beyond its' home world and overcome the ignorant idiots among them. Did anyone think that maybe THEY are waiting for US to visit? Consider a semi-non-anthromorphic scale of maturity -- would an interstellar community WANT to make its existance known to a world where the inhabitants spend much of their energies devising better ways to kill each other? (Out of self-protection as much as galactic Darwinism). If mankind ever amounts to much, it will be in spite of our pea-brained, short-sighted politicians like Proxmire. Where **ARE** they? Probably waiting at Proxmia Centauri to see whether to throw a coming-out party or send in the Vogon Constructor Fleet. ------------------------------ Date: 29 Sep 1981 1054-CDT From: Jon Webb Subject: Intelligent Life To: Space at MIT-MC cc: cs.webb at UTEXAS-20 I don't think we know enough to say much about the number of intelligent civilizations in the universe. The problem is that we have only one example of such a civilization, indeed only one example of a solar system capable of supporting any kind of life, so that all our reasoning has to be done in a vacuum. There may be 1, 10, 100, 1000, ... intelligent civilizations in this galaxy or this universe; we simply don't have enough data to say. If we found evidence of any of these numbers we'd simply fiddle around with our models to make them fit the data. Jon ------------------------------ Date: 29 Sep 1981 0946-PDT From: Bob Amsler Subject: The indifferent stars To: space at MIT-MC One hypothesis I haven't seen mentioned as to why we haven't been visited is that we may simply be so common a phenomena that it isn't worthwhile even cataloguing such life developments. Suppose life isn't just possible, or even just probably, but SUPERABUNDANT. Suppose advanced civilizations visit their nearby 100 solar systems and discover life forms in some stage of evolution in virtually every one. Suppose even interbreeding is possible, plus inter-infectivity from viruses, etc. ("What, another flu brought home from those interstellar probes!"). The thought is that after a certain amount of this an advanced civilization might not continue indefinitely exploring the whole universe, but settle down to do some serious bio-engineering of its own. It is always very tempting for us to regard ourselves as extra-special in the scheme of things. Earthnocentrism may be the rule among embryonic civilizations. ------------------------------ Date: 29 Sep 1981 1244-CDT From: Clyde Hoover Subject: Elucidation of previous message. To: space at MIT-MC Hmm... apparantly some folks missed the reference to the planet-demolishing race introduced in "The Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy". The point is that either man will be welcomed or destroyed, depending on behavior. ------------------------------ Date: 29 Sep 1981 1403-CDT From: Kim Korner Subject: where are they all To: space at MIT-MC Imagine homing in on reruns of "The Beverly Hillbillies" and other such drivel. Earth is probably infamous throughout the galaxy for the death of numerous exploratory crews (all suicided). Deathrays of dreck... -KMK ------------------------------ Date: 29 Sep 1981 1410-EDT From: PDL at MIT-DMS (P. David Lebling) To: OTA at SU-AI In-reply-to: Message of 29 Sep 81 at 0402 PDT by OTA@SU-AI Subject: [Re: SPACE Digest V1 #203 ] Message-id: <[MIT-DMS].211471> Another explanation for why "they" aren't out there is that they are, but they aren't broadcasting. More and more broadcasting on this planet is becoming "narrowcasting" via cables, optical fibers, and so on. As the argument goes, there is really only a narrow time window within which the Uncle Milties and Lucille Balls are broadcast to the universe. In our case it is likely to be considerably less than 100 years. Past that window, there would have to be a conscious decision to broadcast for the edification of lesser civilizations, because all internal traffic would be narrowcast. Dave ------------------------------ Date: 29 Sep 1981 1332-PDT From: DIETZ at USC-ECL Subject: Astrometry To: space at MIT-MC Some years ago some astronomers claimed that they had detected a large planet around Barnard's star by astrometric techniques (that is, by measuring the position of the star accurately to detect the motion caused by the planet). Their results are now generally attributed to errors in measurement. However, there have been some technological advances in astrometry that will make the detection of planets around nearby stars feasible. Viewed from 10 parsecs, the angular motion of the sun caused by the earth's motion is about 1 micro arc-second (1 uas). At the same distance jupiter causes a motion of about 500 uas. To get some idea how small these angles are, 1 uas is about the angle subtended by an atom held at arm's length. On the drawing boards right now are ground based astrometric telescopes that can achieve an accuracy of 1000 uas per night, or 100 uas per yearly normal point (average of one years observations). This would easily allow the detection of jupiter like planets within 30 ly. The space telescope was not designed for astrometry, but should be able to achieve 1000 uas. A space based astrometric telescope would be about 40m long (it would be telescoped to fit in the shuttle cargo bay). It would have an ultimate accuracy of about 1 uas. This would allow the detection of earth-like planets around nearby stars, and the detection of jupiter-like planets out to large distances (100's of lys). ------------------------------ Date: 29 Sep 1981 1914-PDT From: Hans Moravec Subject: Research on life-support systems for futures space colonies To: space at MIT-MC n018 0821 29 Sep 81 BC-SCIENCE-WATCH (UNDATED) c. 1981 N.Y. Times News Service In an experiment on possible life-support systems for future space colonies, a space agency scientist has established what appear to be totally self-sufficient communities of shrimp, algae and microbes capable of generating their own food, oxygen and water within the confines of sealed glass flasks. These laboratory communities have thrived now for more than 15 months. The animals and plants in these small ecosystems are the largest ever to have lived as much as a year in a closed environment, according to Joe Hanson, an ecologist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. The world for each of these communities is a one-liter glass flask that was hermetically sealed (by melting the neck of the flask closed) when the experiment began last year. Only light, from fluorescent lamps, and heat may enter or leave through the glass walls. Living in three cups of synthetic sea water inside each flask are as many as 16 small red tropical shrimp less than one inch long, assorted algae and many varieties of bacteria, viruses and microscopic animals. In these ecosystems, plants (algae) produce the oxygen and foods that feed the shrimp and other animal life, and the animals' wastes provide carbon dioxide and fertilizer consumed by the algae. Only energy, in the form of light, comes from outside the system. How these closed microecosystems, as they are called, could perhaps be applied to developing larger and more complex ecosystems to support human colonies in space will be explored at a National Aeronautics and Space Administration workshop to be held at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory next January. ------------------------------ Date: 30 September 1981 01:29-EDT From: Jerry E. Pournelle Subject: Re: Intelligent life To: CMP.MKSMITH at UTEXAS-20 cc: POURNE at MIT-MC, SPACE at MIT-MC You are undoubtedly correct, of course. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest *******************